Fortunio by Theophile Gautier (1836)

This is Gautier as I have come to expect him to be - bejewelled, sensual, supernaturally tinctured, a little too light. This one is less supernatural, although one suspects it will become so for most of the novel. The set-piece of Gautier, the strangely-behaving creature in the midst of high Parisian society, is set up as usual, but in this one the author decides that we are not to know his secret until within sight of the end. And the secret is quite a lot more earthly than a practiced Gautierphile might be expecting. The gorgeous production of Fortunio's domicile in Paris and his exotic history in India are as hyper-coloured and delicately and yet savagely exotic as Gautier can be, as are the beautiful Parisian women who are mystified by his strange behaviour. Musidora is the heroine here, a cat-like houri caught up by the challenge of the first man who hasn't been captivated by her. The slightly amoral tone is not unusual, in its excitement over sex and death. What is unusual is an ending which suggests that the author didn't quite know what to do with this one - after a cooling, she kills herself, and he enters into a disquisition on the poor quality of European civilisation; end!