The Cathedral - Softcover

Huysmans, Joris-Karl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1545040710 ISBN 13: 9781545040713

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017

Synopsis

At Chartres, as you turn out of the little market-place, which is swept in all weathers by the surly wind from the flats, a mild air as of a cellar, made heavy by a soft, almost smothered scent of oil, puffs in your face on entering the solemn gloom of the sheltering forest. Durtal knew it well, and the delightful moment when he could take breath, still half-stunned by the sudden change from a stinging north wind to a velvety airy caress. At five every morning he left his rooms, and to reach the covert of that strange forest he had to cross the square; the same figures were always to be seen at the turnings from the same streets; nuns with bowed heads, leaning forward, the borders of their caps blown back and flapping like wings, the wind whirling in their skirts, which they could hardly hold down; and shrunken women, in garments they hugged round them, struggling forward with bent shoulders lashed by the gusts. Never at that hour had he seen anybody walking boldly upright, without straining her neck and bowing her head; and these scattered women gathered by degrees into two long lines, one of them turning to the left, to vanish under a lighted porch opening to a lower level than the square; the other going straight on, to be swallowed up in the darkness by an invisible wall.

About this title

About the Author

J.K.Huysmans began writing as a naturalist in the style of Zola. .He changed from being an obscure author and art critic to one of the most famous authors of his day with the publication of A Rebours (Against Nature) in 1884. His novel about Satanism, La-Bas (1891)is the cult novel of the nineteenth century.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1545040710
• ISBN 13: 9781545040713
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 324