Against Nature

piece of neurotic craziness which will, I believe, be something new, but which will necessitate my immediate confinement in the Charenton mental asylum.

he tries to find a way of replacing the monotonous boredom of nature by means of artifice, he amuses himself with authors from the exquisite and penetrating Roman decadence

a letter to Stephane Mallarmé of 27 October 1882, in which he asks the poet for help in finding copies of his books, as he wants to refer to some of his poems:

I am in the process of hatching a pretty unusual story, the subject of which is as follows: the last scion of a noble line takes refuge – out of disgust at the Americanisation of life, out of contempt for the aristocracy of money that has invaded us – in complete solitude