LÀ-BAS

(DOWN THERE)

by
J.K. HUYSMANS

Translated
by
KEENE WALLACE


[Transcriber's note:
Original published 1891,
English translation privately published 1928.]




CHAPTER I


"You believe pretty thoroughly in these things, or you wouldn't abandon
the eternal triangle and the other stock subjects of the modern
novelists to write the story of Gilles de Rais," and after a silence Des
Hermies added, "I do not object to the latrine; hospital; and workshop
vocabulary of naturalism. For one thing, the subject matter requires
some such diction. Again, Zola, in _L'Assommoir_, has shown that a
heavy-handed artist can slap words together hit-or-miss and give an
effect of tremendous power. I do not really care how the naturalists