GLR November-December 2023

Eekhoud: he published La Nouvelle Carthage (1888, 1893)—translated into English as The New Carthage (1917)—which was widely praised as a masterpiece. In 1893, he was awarded Bel gium’s most prestigious literary award for this novel. We know very little about Eekhoud’s extramarital love life before 1892, but on Feb ruary 22nd of that year, he met Sander Pier ron, a twenty-year-old typographer’s assistant. The 270 letters sent by Eekhoud to Sander be tween 1892 and 1927 allow us to follow the evolution of their friendship. Eekhoud uses common pleasantries in his first letters to Sander, calling him “dear friend” or “dear Sander.” A few months later, the tone changes when he writes “dear little Sander” or “ mydarling ,” and in February 1894, “ My darling, my beloved .” Eekhoud uses English to express his love, no doubt so that his wife would not under stand (Figure 4). (Here and following: italics are used for pas sages that Eekhoud wrote in English.) The correspondence is filled with statements of undying love: “I have a never-ending affection for you, a love that will only end with my life ... Tell yourself that I’m all yours; that everything I can do for you will be done, that no one, you hear, loves you like I do” (April 12, 1893). Other excerpts clearly in dicate that this is not platonic love: “my beloved little Sander ... Yes, my dearest, I too love you more than anyone else in the world, and every day I find myself feeling more and more at tached to you. ... I kiss you with all my heart ... thousand kisses; our souls are full of love; Thousand kisses my loving and most beloved Sander ... thine for ever, thy only, Georges; My heart full of joy and of love, all spread and smelted in thee, my only love ” (September 1893 to May 1894). Although Eekhoud’s diary was heavily censored and even partially destroyed—by himself or his inheritors—fragments survive that also testify to the sexual nature of this relationship: “Excellent evening of excitement with Sander” (January 28,

squeeze his cheeks” while fixing his “velvety eyes in mine.” These infatuations would inspire his writ ings on queer love (Figure 3). At age eighteen, Eekhoud was unsure of his future path, and first decided on a military ca reer. He was admitted to the prestigious Royal Military School in December 1872, only to be summarily dismissed in June 1873. The official reason was an unsanctioned duel with his friend Camille Coquilhat. However, the exact circumstances remain murky and the relevant page in the official record has been ripped out. Eekhoud started working as a corrector for a local newspaper in Antwerp, to which he also contributed articles on various topics. With his grandmother’s fi nancial assistance, he published three volumes of po etry between 1877 and 1879, which passed wholly unnoticed in literary circles. During these formative years, he met the young generation of Belgian writers and established ties that would serve him well in the future. In 1881, Eekhoud moved to Brussels and started working as a journalist for the important daily newspaper, L’Étoile .He also contributed regularly to Belgian avant-garde literary journals. His first volume of short stories, Kermesses (“Country Fairs”), was published in 1884, to critical acclaim. The author’s queer desires appear in the suggestively erotic tone used by the narra tor to describe male characters in some of these stories. For ex ample, one character is an “eighteen-year-old brunette, slender, a little pale, shy and girlish,” while others are depicted as “solid square and muscled guys, with brown fuzzy hair.” In one story, a female character observes a soldier getting undressed, as the narrator describes the scene: he has “a head of frizzy chestnut hair shaped like a helmet ... a slightly aquiline nose ... a square chin and broad shoulders.” The reader becomes a complicit Peeping Tom when the soldier “unbuttons his tunic, takes off his belt; and shows his pectoral muscles in their full glory.” In 1887, in an effort to keep up bourgeois appearances, Eekhoud married his grandmother’s former housekeeper, Cornélie Van Camp (1847–1920), and a year later they adopted his wife’s orphaned niece and nephew. In the meantime, same sex attraction had become a more visible theme in his fiction. Nouvelles Kermesses [“New Country Fairs”], his second vol ume of short stories, was published in 1887. “Fit for Service” is the story of Frans Goor, a poor villager who’s selected for the army draft. The narrator describes the young man’s perfect naked body during the physical examination by the medical board. The doctors admire Goor’s pectoral muscles, probe his “intimate parts,” and declare him fit for duty. Garrisoned in Brussels, Frans is witness to strange activities at night in the dor mitories: he sees other soldiers’ in “strange postures” and hears “moans of love, the suppressed sighs, the empty kisses.” These same soldiers try to seduce him, but to no avail; Frans is in love with a girl from his village. This refusal to indulge in queer sex uality leads to his downfall. When Frans refuses his sergeant’s advances, the latter accuses him of theft and threatens to strip search him. Frans throws a jug at the sergeant’s head, wounds him, and is then sentenced to five years in the brig. Ashamed of his behavior, he takes his own life. The following years brought success after success for

Fig. 3. Georges Eekhoud in 1872.

TheG & LR Fig. 4. Eugène Laermans. Sander Pierron , 1896. KIK-IRPA Brussels.

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