Mr. Bougran's retirement

"Approached in 1888 by George Moore, an intermediary tasked with supplying French writers to Harry Quitter, a literature enthusiast who had founded the English periodical The Universal Review, Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) sent a short story—La Retraite de Monsieur Bougran (Mr. Bougran's Retirement)—which was rejected by the English editor on the grounds that it was too "short" and of interest "only to those initiated into the bureaucratic life of Paris; it would have little meaning and attraction in England." He regretted that the text was not decadent enough, in the style of A Rebours. The review's Parisian correspondent, not responsible for the literary tastes of The Universal Review's owner, and unwilling to forgo an author like Huysmans who had published Là-Bas (1891) and En Route (1895), recontacted him, asking for another text about Odilon Redon. This did not materialize. La Retraite de Monsieur Bougran was not offered anywhere else and remained in a drawer. Huysmans knew what he was talking about: he had joined the Ministry of Interior and Cults as a sixth-class clerk in 1866. A model civil servant, he was a well-known writer who had, however, never allowed his literary activities to impinge on his professional duties. But his job at the ministry was like a cocoon for him, and his office a second home. After retiring to Ligugé in 1898, Huysmans agreed to receive a journalist from Gil Blas. In the November 21 issue of the same year, he declared his desire to withdraw from Parisian obligations: "You see, this time, it is indeed exile." A withdrawal that was not unfruitful, as he would still publish La Cathédrale. 1898: retirement then! The forgotten little short story, written nineteen years earlier, almost met its end when Huysmans, at the end of his life, asked a nurse to burn papers he deemed useless in front of him. The nurse, holding the manuscript of La Retraite de Monsieur Bougran, tore it but subtly slipped it under his chair to save it from the flames. This is at least what Lucien Descaves, Huysmans's literary executor, recounted in Le Journal on July 24, 1938. La Retraite de Monsieur Bougran was saved and only resurfaced in 1964 thanks to Jean-Jacques Pauvert, who published it."

ORIGINAL EDITION on editorial paper.