GLR November-December 2023

quickly. “The Sublime Escarpment ” takes place in Turin, Italy, and is the fictional portrayal of the relationship between the rich and famous Turin lawyer Teodato Zambelli and Papurello Rellino, a young criminal from a popular neighborhood, who sacrifices his life to save his beloved’s reputation. When Oscar Wilde was condemned to two years of hard labor in May of 1895, Eekhoud protested by publishing Court in the Boiler Room in a Belgian literary journal in September of that year. The novella is dedicated to “M. Oscar Wilde, the Pagan Poet and Martyr, tortured in the name of Protestant Jus tice and Virtue.” At its center is the field trial of an unnamed aristocrat imprisoned for his queerness. He defends himself by declaring he is the “cursed lover, born under the sign of Ura nia” and continues with an impassioned plea in defense of queer love: “Crime against nature, they would say! Against what na ture? Hasn’t my whole life been a crime against my own na ture?” The other prisoners accept him as he is and declare his love to be pure. At its publication, this brazen defense of Wilde was discussed in the Belgian and French press and widely praised. Escal-Vigor was first published in 1898 in the Parisian lit erary journal, Mercure de France , and in book form the fol lowing year. The novel follows the queer Count Henry de Kehlmark, who returns to the ancestral castle of Escal-Vigor on the conservative island of Smaragdis, where he falls in love with eighteen-year-old shepherd Guidon Govaertz. The sexual nature of their relationship is alluded to discretely, but Kehlmark makes impassioned statements in defense of queer love. On one occasion, he declares that Guidon is the “first and the only one to satisfy the first need of my being. If our flesh has done aught ill, the most complete moral fervor was our ac complice. Our feelings coincided with our desires.” When urged by his housekeeper to change his nature to avoid the wrath of the local populace, Kehlmark states that he wants to “remain myself, [and] not to change! To remain faithful unto

Figs. 3, 5, 6: Stad Antwerpen, collectie letterenhuis

Fig. 5. Georges Eekhoud in 1902.

a more provocative title: Voyous de velours (“Velvet Rascals”). In this novel, the main character, Laurent Paridael, professes his love for young working-class boys from the slums of Brussels who wear velvet trousers. The surviving parts of Eekhoud’s diary for 1902 show that the author shares this fetish for the vel vet pants worn at the time by working-class men. “ I had him yesterday. It was long since I had got him in his velvet [breeches]. We had a [splendid] sixty-nine ” (March 27, 1902). “ Friday last I had my velvetian. He had on his velvet breeches; we had a splendid sixty nine and enjoyed each other simulta neously ” (June 23, 1902). “ Yesterday we enjoyed each other al most at the same time. I did throw him in intense raptures of delight. How we kissed and licked each other” (September 13, 1902). “This evening we enjoyed each other thoroughly and did lay half an hour and almost naked in my room upstairs. He was delicious ” (October 16, 1902). “ Yesterday he was delicious, his [illegible] stood splendidly and we had our raptures almost at the same minute ” (June 12, 1904). Eekhoud’s reputation as a defender of same-sex love was firmly established after his acquittal in 1900 and he created a net

work of European queer intellectuals that in cluded Oscar Wilde, Magnus Hirschfeld, André Gide, Edward Carpenter, Rachilde, Jacob Israël de Haan, Eugen Wilhelm, Karl von Levetzow, Elisàr von Kupffer, and oth ers. Together, they discussed queer love in their works and helped each another to find editors and journals in which to publish. When Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen created Akademos in 1909—the first Francophone journal with an explicit primary focus on queer love—he solicited Eekhoud’s help to find contributors. In 1920, Eekhoud was nominated by King Albert I as one of the fourteen founding members of the Royal Academy of French Language and Literature of Belgium. In 1927, he was elevated to the rank of Commander in the Order of the Crown, one of Belgium’s highest honors. It seems that officialdom had forgiven him for being a defender of “abnormal” love. When he died on May 29th of that year, his funeral procession was led by none other than his faithful friend Sander Pierron (Figure 6).

the end to my true and legitimate nature! Had I to live again it is thus that I would love, even were I to suffer as much, or even more, than I have suffered.” In the final scene of the book, Guidon and Henry are put to death by a furious mob as they ex change one last passionate kiss. Notwithstanding Eekhoud’s careful de piction of queer love in this novel, he was ac cused of breaking the law related to the distribution of pornography and put on trial in October 1900. Hundreds of French and Belgian intellectuals signed a petition in his defense, including some of the best-known writers at the time: Émile Zola, André Gide, and Jean Lorrain. His acquittal was a moment of triumph in the press, and Escal-Vigor be came Eekhoud’s biggest commercial success, with six print runs between 1899 and 1901 (a total of twelve by 1930). The novel was trans lated into German (1903), English (1909), and Russian (1912) (Figure 5). In 1904, Eekhoud published L’Autre vue (“The Other View”), reprinted in 1926 under

Fig. 6. Georges Eekhoud in 1922.

TheG & LR

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