Chapter VI
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1. Two things are of interest here: first, one of the projects Durtal dismisses as requiring too much time is writing the life of St. Lydwine of Schiedam – a work Huysmans himself would go on to write and publish in 1901, and which would be translated into English in 1923 by Agnes Hastings; second, it is the cathedral itself which proves a distraction to Durtal here, as he gets taken up with reflection on the spires of the cathedral.
Chapter VI begins very typically for Huysmans, and for The Cathedral: in the middle of things. Durtal picks up thinking about something Madame Bavoil had asked him, and a very simple question: what will he write about next? What follows has become a pattern: the reader is presented with a long description of Durtal’s thoughts so that Durtal might dismiss everything he had been thinking about, and then Durtal gets distracted by something.1
At this point in the novel, Durtal’s thinking is diffuse, as the direction of his life joins that of the novel in confusion, from the perspective of the reader. Yet, like the other chapters to this point, there is a sentence which serves as an anchor, around which the chapter seems to revolve:
2. Page 120-1.
“It must constantly be repeated, every part of a church and every material object used in divine worship corresponds to some theological truth. In the scripture of architecture everything is a remembrance, everything is an echo and a reflection, and everything connects.”2
3. See here for a treatment of the progression of tours Plomb offers to Durtal.
As in Chapters IV and V before this, a meditation on symbolism is again the center of the chapter, and once again, it is through another character that we receive this interpretation. It is Abbé Plomb3 who is giving the long, broad discourse this time on the features of the interior of the cathedral . In the more coherent parts of the novel, especially at this point in the novel, the narrative is comprehensible precisely because Durtal is listening to another.
4. “Tout objet matériel servant au culte est la traduction d’une vérité théologique” (193, édition de Folio Classique).
What is striking about Plomb’s words is that the theory of symbol is much more vast, more far-reaching, than the poetic simile or metaphor alone. Instead, symbolism becomes a richer tableau for Huysmans, corresponding as it does to memory, to sound and sight, and to itself. The fact that architecture is permitted to have its own sacred text, along with the fact that “everything” elicits comparison, invites the reader to reflect on the nature of symbols. Here, the French text provides even more fertile ground for contemplation, with the use of the word meaning “translation”4. Scripture is primarily a term concerning writing, and architecture here is another language expressing something similar to that sacred text of Christianity, yet Plomb’s discourse calls to mind the relative strengths of the symbolic language of architecture to communicate and embody the thoughts and messages it is specialized to convey.
5. Page 121.
6. This calls to mind the Abbot Suger’s inscription above the doorway in the Basilique de Saint-Denis outside Paris, as transcribed by Titus Burkhardt in his Chartres and the Birth of the Cathedral: “Through sensible things, the heavy spirit is raised to the Truth; From the depths, it rises to the Light” (revised edition, 2010, page 47).
7. “Where could you find a grander setting or a more sublime shrine for Our Mother?” (page 123).
Once again, though, Huysmans interrupts himself, which is its own narrative echo from the preceding chapters. At the precise moment that Abbé Plomb is concluding his discourse, and indeed announces that “[he]’ll have pretty well explained to you both the general and the detailed meaning of the interior of a cathedral, and especially that of Chartres,”5 Durtal stops listening, and we the reader with him, while considering the aisle and its pillars . He is struck by the enormity of the cathedral at Chartres , and perhaps here the cathedral accomplishes its primary purpose6. However, Durtal’s distraction does not offer a divergence from the description that the Abbot is offering him; instead, his own musings complement those of the cleric. Indeed, they are more uneducated, less refined and regimented, than the discourse. Just as seamlessly as we lose the plot of Plomb’s tour, we pick it up again with his summation7; Durtal’s ‘absence’ has not been noted, it isn’t remarked upon, and it doesn’t spoil anything of the guided visit.
The characters have moved from the aisle to the nave, and the two intervening pages of discourse by Plomb are never replicated for the reader. What we are offered, then, are the twin reflections of the two characters, Durtal’s joining Plomb’s, once again reinforcing the multiplicity of interpretations and destabilizing the authority of the priest’s reading of the cathedral.
8. It is unclear whether this is intended to be the title of a work, or simply a subject Durtal needs to look closer into. In the French edition, it is not italicized as a title (see page 181 of that edition).
In the windows, the color blue is paramount for Durtal as he considers both the transepts and the Royal Porch windows in sum. With his focus on color, the reader returns immediately to the realization earlier in the chapter that Durtal needs to consult The Primitives: Orisons of Colour in their Work8 for his article on Fra Angelico. It is a subject Durtal needs instruction in, yet he tunes out the instruction he is receiving as it’s happening.
9. Page 126
The chapter concludes with a discussion of the merits of each the Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles. Plomb calls the former “the true architecture of the cloister,”9a curious appellation in a work about a Gothic cathedral, and in a work where the main character is considering the life of the cloister as an alternative to his own.
Distinct readings of the cathedral space and architectural style abound, revolving around the centrality of the symbol as the touchstone for communicating across centuries. Once again, the characters reach no final judgment, no conclusion on the project of reading the cathedral at Chartres, and the novel thus continues.