Nosophilia: A Nordau Heroine
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“Nosophilia: A Nordau Heroine” (1895) is a text by James Huneker published in M'lle New York, October 1895. The text lampoons Nordau's nosology of art.
Full text
Her face was full of accents. There were rhythmic lines upon the brow which spoke of finely ordered, harmoniously marshalled thoughts. Her eyes were small, and a glance at her ears showed the lobes undetached. Their shape proved without peradventure that she disliked ,even hated,music. There was nothing remarkable about the face but its accentual versatility. Odin noticed two harsh lines that furrowed either side of the nose. And the nose, slightly flattened, was curved beak-wise. The nose of a predaceous bird. She had a habit of inflating her nostrils, when animated, until her nose looked like that J. G. H. of a wooden rocking-horse. The figure and carriage betrayed a strong will and much courageousness. Then she had little movements, bird -like, as she preened her neck. She was not vain , but was passionately jealous. Odin married her and together they counted white nights. The morning of their marriage the woman put her hands on the man's shoulders : “ You mean this, Odin ? ” she said drily. “ It is much to me. ” And then she wound about him, but did not kiss him. He was affectionate and told her to comfort herself. She did not answer, but plunged her face into his neck. Long inhalations, passionate inhala tions she took , and he stood confused, trembling. She was so unlike other women he had known. As the weeks merged into months he noticed with alarm his wife's curious taste for odours. She filled their rooms with scent-bottles and spent the day arranging and fussing over them . He joked her about it ; but she looked sad, so he refrained. One day he found her reading a French story by Huysmans, “ A Rebours.” Odin could not speak French , but he felt jealous without exactly knowing the reason. She grew every night more tender. It seemed to Odin she was becoming strange. Always reserved, she would sit for anevening without uttering a sound, flacon in hand, inhaling some perfume. She saw but few , and startled her husband by telling him that she knew people merely by their odours. Once she said, " I smell your brother," and a momentlater he entered the house. Thatnight Odin dreamed of vampires; vampires that gazed at him with the inscrutable eyes of his wife. He became oppressed by her manner of embracing him . It stifled, it repelled him, and soon he feared bed -time. If she would not so eagerly , so strenuously, sniff at his neck ! It was unwomanly ; it was unnatural. Her passion for odours grew apace. She emulated Huysman's degenerate hero, Des Esseintes, in costly experiments. Her life went into her nostrils, and the breath of her nostrils was odours ; odours penetrating as iris, odours full of dumb music, inarticulate passion. She would roll by the hour over a rug saturated with tuberose, and Odin was reminded of a cat. He grew thin, and his wife feline. Her eyes half closed, her muzzle, instinct with tremulousness, seemed to search for new smells. Odin began to stay away of nights. He was not a drinking man, but he foresaw dissipation if the strain lasted much longer. Naturally healthy -minded, he abhorred the abnormal, and when a friend advised him to read Max Simon Nordau's “Degeneration,” he refused. Having a discussion about varying types of degeneration at his club, he bought the ponderous, tiresome tome. There was much that bored him , much that he did not look at, but one passage set him reading about Baudelaire and his passion for perfumes, and then the truth came upon him unawares. His wife was a degenerate. She had a morbid, a horrible love of odours. She wasa nosophile, a thing that divined the world about her by her scent, as does the dog. This intoxication , hideously subtile, was deadly, dulling, and supremely dangerous for her soul's welfare. Had he not read the Fathers of the Church ? Had not Saint Augustin, had not the Holy Ambrose warned women publicly from the pulpit against the corrupting evils of perfume ? Perfumes, the most villainous ally of Satan ! Oh, why had he been so blind ! If she married him for his own peculiar personal odour, wasit not possible that shemight discover a man whose scent would be more alluring? Odin grew madly jealous when he thought of his barber. Then he resolved to watch. But it was fruitless of result. His wife continued as passionately in love with his neck, his hair, and she gave no hint of change. The household was neglected , and bills from perfumers and chemists rolled in. Odin noticed that she grew cool when his hair was not heavily perfumed, and his vanity often got the better of his good taste. One day the mistress of a club friend died . No one was at the funeral but the bereaved manand Odin. The leavetaking from the body was most affecting. Odin's friend loved the dead woman and Odin himself was fond of her. He kissed her brow and threw a spray of tuberose on her breast before the coffin -lid was closed. That night he stayed late at the club anddrank deeply with his friend. It was two o'clock when he let himself into his hall, a little the better for wine, and then he went up-stairs as silently as his befogged feet would allow him. When he entered his room , it was lighted by two gas-jets and on the bed his wife sprawled in joyless pose. Odin undressed slowly, reluctantly. This loveless union was becoming a martyr dom. What if he escaped it, what if he boldly confessed to his wife the utter misery of their marriage! Ah ! he was brave this night. The funeral and the champagne had given him hysterical courage. In his underclothing he stepped to the bed and touched her head. She at once sat up, staring at him with strange eyes. Her glance was disheartening. The expression narcotized, and through Odin's mind there flashed the idea that she might be an eater of drugs. One look at her nose curving with pride and passion told him she was the victim of something infinitely more sensual, more hopelessly enslaving, than opium. “ Come to me, Odin , ” she moaned. “ I am mad for you, mad for your face, your sweet odour. ” The man was nauseated . The thing was too horrible to last longer. She noticed his gesture of repulsion, and with a bound like a leopard's she threw herself on him, and he toppled over on the bed. Winding her long, ape-like arms about his body, she pressed her nose upon his neck. “ Tuberosei Oh, devil, you have been with a woman ; I smell her; pig !" she screamed, and she bit into his jugular vein, tearing and rending the flesh like a wild beast, blinded with blood, ferocious and growling. They were both cold when the police broke into the house twenty-four hours later.
See also
- Nosophilia
- Dream of a Decadent (September , 1895)
