YAEL SCHLICK

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On the Persistence of a Concept:Segalen's Rene Leys and the

Death(s) of Exoticism

le ne saurai done den de plus. le n'insiste pas; je me retire (p. 13)I'hesite, cependan< (p. 68) Je progresse (p. 83) I'apprends (p. 95)Je vois, je deroule, j'elale, je liens el je possede (p. 106)Je I'encerele, je le domine; j'equarris man ",il d sa forme; je le comprends (p. 107)Je ne puis accepler . . . je n 'acceple plus . .. je l'inlerroge (p. 193)Je doule (p. 214) Je me reprends: je m'explique (p. 215)Je n 'en crois plus (p. 224)"le ne saurai rien de plus . .. je me retire . .. If et ne velLt savoir rien de plus (p. 229)

I'ai relu ce monuscril ... Je m 'accuse. (pp. 237-238)'

One could say the quotations above aptly summarize the entire plot of VictorSegalen's Rene Leys, for these sentences reveal the core of the plot as well assome dominant formal qualities of this modernist text.' First, one notices thecentrality of the "I" of the narrator who is in the process of writing his journal.Second, the statements above represent the way the narrative is structured assuccessive moments in the narrator's attempt to attain his exotic object (namely,moments of despair, hope, elation and lastly disillusionment). Finally, thesequotations make apparent the lack of presence of the exotic object itself, whichis signalled so starkly above by the frequent absence of the direct object andby the final, self-reflexive object (for example, the reflexive pronoun "me" in"le m'explique", "le me reprends", "le m'accuse"). Rene Leys is in fact aconceptual, first-person narrative about an individual's epistemological quest foran exotic object. This quest ends with the narrator's doubt ("le doute"), his turnaway from acquiring further information about the exotic object ("et ne veuxsavoir rien de plus"), and his final turn inward towards his very own journal asthe only source of reliable knowledge ("J'ai relu ce manuscrit"). Rene Leys istherefore a novel about the failure of the quest for an exotic object, andultimately a paradoxical text-paradoxical because it appears to argue against thepossibility of exoticism as a concept when that concept is actually the author'smost important and treasured idea.

Indeed Segalen is one of the best-known champions of exoticism-"uneesthetique du Divers" as he called it--of the early twentieth century.' His firstnovel, Les Immemoriaux, showed his concern for the disappearance of diversity

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in telling of the destruction of the Maori culture by missionaries. Segalen thentravelled to China, learned Chinese, and spent the rest of his writing careerworking on his Essai sur I'exotisme and on works of prose and poetry inspiredby his stay in China and by his study of Chinese language and culture' Heconsidered himself an "exote": someone with a predilection for detecting andtaking pleasure in the exotic. Why then would he write a novel which seems toadmit that exoticism is a philosophical impossibility? Why would he suggest thatthe multiple strategies employed in the effort to attain the exotic are a failure, andthat the only result of such a quest is a return to the subject, who is, furthermore,a subject in a state of doubt? Is this novel a parody of a Loti-like quest for theexotic, or is it a detailed account of the pitfalls of a more contemporary form ofexoticism?'

But the problem that Rene Leys disagrees with Segalen's own celebrationof the exotic is complicated by a further problem: that of understanding thecontradictions of Segalen's work as a whole within the context of exoticistthinking during the early decades of the twentieth century. Many writers andcritics during this period were fascinated with exoticism. They wanted to rewritethe romantic exoticism of the nineteenth century, and to address exoticism'srelationship to the reality of a vast French colonial empire. Authors like Marius­Ary Leblond, Pierre Mille, Robert Randau, and critics like Louis Cario, CharlesRegismanset, and Roland Lebel wrote countless novels as well as works ofliterary history and criticism which centred on the problematics of a modernexoticism.' Distinguishing himself from these contemporary (imperialist)exoticists, Segalen makes clear in his essay on exoticism that the aesthetic purityof the exotic object is disturbed by its historicity. And yet Rene Leys is anhistorical novel. Why choose to elaborate on the exotic quest within an historicalframework? In what follows I will explore these contradictions by examining theplot structure of Rene Leys, by comparing Segalen's concept of exoticism to thoseof contemporary exoticists, and by discussing the place of historj in Segalen'swriting. I will also seek to delve into the problematic nature of exoticism itself,a concept which has persisted despite repeated assertions that it has no future.

Plot as Quest: Subject, Verb, Object

Rene Leys is the journal of a Frenchman living in Peking, a Frenchmanwho is fascinated with the Chinese dynasty and wants to know what is hiddenbehind the walls of the Forbidden City. He uses various strategies to gainknowledge about this mysterious interior but is eventually-for both historicaland epistemological reasons-forced to give up his quest.

r

Segalen's Rem~ Leys and the Death(sj of Exoticism 201

Object. The narrator's object consists of what is vaguely called "le Dedans"-theinterior of the Forbidden City in Peking-and "la magie enclose dans ces murs"(p. 13)-' But the exotic object is not simply synonymous with the architecturalspace of the Forbidden City since it also includes those royal personages whoinhabit it. Its specificity is, paradoxically, constituted by its invisibility, itssecretive nature. It is "le mystere" which fascinates him, as the narrator explainsto his Chinese tutor Rem~ Leys (p. 33). But the object is never further explained.It simply is, or rather, it simply is not, since the narrator also infonns us that hisquest is belated-by three years to be exact. These are the three years since thedeath of the former Chinese emperor who represents the truly exotic object. Whatthe Imperial Palace now encloses is a mere child, the child-emperor referred toas the Regent.

The narrator's sense of belatedness and of the impossibility of witnessingthe authentic exotic is not a new theme for Segalen, nor is the gesture to pursuethe quest despite such awareness. 8 In his first novel, Les Immt!moriaux, Segalenhad already taken great pains to describe the destruction of the exotic (here,traditional Maori community) at the hands of Western missionaries. Since his1907 text is dedicated "Aux Maori des temps oublies", it is evident that heacknowledged the disappearance of the exotic as a result of Western colonialismyet went on to write a narrative in which this disappearance was not yetcomplete. Similarly, in Rent! Leys, Segalen gestures at his belatedness but pursueshis quest nonetheless. His fascination with his exotic object remains operativebecause of a latent belief, a tenacious belief, in its persistence when itspersistence is precisely what is in question. In exploring the status of the object,then, Rent! Leys has already placed us in a position to see its basic problematics,a problematics worth exploring (even though the exotic object is absent) for tworeasons: Firstly, because the pursuit of the exotic in general seems to be definedin disproportionate terms to its existence. To say that Segalen merely "kills offwhat was already dead is to dismiss the concept of exoticism which perhapsshould be dead but is in fact very much alive. Secondly, for Rent! Leys inparticular, it will be important to follow the novel's own progression preciselyin order to see its own, reluctant demystification of the exotic as a process. .

Verb. The narrator deploys numerous strategies to know his object. Knowing andpossessing are synonymous in this text (hence my reference to his epistemologicalquest). Initially, there are several sources of knowledge at the narrator's disposal.There is Maitre Wang: his Chinese lessons slowly evolve, at the demand of hispupil, into accounts of Palace life.' Language instruction is also provided by ayoung Belgian polyglot named Rene Leys who provides the narrator with themost spectacular and minute details about life in the Imperial Palace. With Leys,the narrator is able to indulge more fully in his fascination with the "Dedans"

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because Leys reveals himself to be no less than a friend of the Regent, the loverof the Empress, and a member of the Palace's secret police. By recounting hisadventures to the narrator he allows him vicariously to penetrate the palace. Heeven "transports" him through his narratives to such an intimate place as the bedof the Empress, referred to as "le cceur du milieu du Dedans" (p. 150). IQ Thereis also the information the narrator acquires from Jarignoux, a French neighbourand bureaucrat in the Ministry of Communications who is a naturalized Chinesecitizen married to a Manchurian woman (a rather poor political choice of a mateconsidering the near end of the Manchurian dynasty in China). Early in thenarrative the narrator entertains hopes that this fellow Frenchman will introducehim to important Chinese friends and will thus allow him to enter into thePalace's social circles." However, on only one occasion does the narratorhimself have access to his object: when he is allowed into the Palace as part ofa French delegation.

The moment of the narrator's entry into the Imperial Palace is important,because for the first time he is able to see the object of his fascination withoutrecourse to intermediaries. This event is also important within the novel in thatit reduplicates the narrative-it is a classic mise en abyme-by representing theattempt to perceive the exotic object that is the stated theme of the novel as awhole. The event is thus symptomatic of the novel and yet has a special stamswithin it. As with the novel as a whole, this episode begins with misgiving anda sense of failure, and ends with disappointment resulting from the lack ofsufficient knowledge gained about the "Dedans". Yet unlike the novel, thisepisode reveals the narrator's confrontation with the physical, material objects heinvested with authenticity, and shows, paradoxically, his turning away from thatreality back to the world of knowledge mediated by others.

Strangely, from the very first moment the narrator sets foot within thePalace walls it is apparent that he is less interested in "being there" and morepreoccupied, already, with retracing his steps:

Ensuite, j 'essaie de reperer exactement mon chemin.... Comment m'yretrouver ensuite? Faut-il id, ou je suis conduit par la Diplomatie, me faut­il demander le chemin?

Comment, sur un plan. retrouYer roes traces? Et surtout, commentreperer ceci au l'on s'arrele, au l'on penetre ... _neeci" est une sorted'antIe civilise, mysterieux, cavemeux et absorbant comme la bouche apeine entr'ouverte du Dragon intelligent: un Palais chinois, surbaisse, uninterieur de bleus sambres et de vens, meuble seulement d'une estradebasse, -et qui serait vide, vide, it s'en inquieter, si les murs, laques derouge, les colonnes de bois Iaques de rouge, et surtout le pIafond lourdet fiche, caissonne, ouvrage, nieHe. minutieusement compartimeme et

Segalen's Rene Leys and the Death(s) of Exoticism 203

menuise, ne meublait ce vide et cette absence a I'egal d'un tresor royalattendant le souverain ... (p. 103, emphasis mine).12

Instead of taking pleasure in his ability, at last, to be within the interior, he isalready dwelling on what his knowledge will lack when he finds himself backhome. What the narrator is struggling to grasp, in other words, is not so muchhis object, as ways of knowing it with certainty, and points of reference outsidethat object that can help locate and fix it. For the exotic object seems always tobe that elusive something which is constantly displaced. If earlier in the narrativeit vacillated from being the Forbidden City to being the Regent or the "Dedans"more generally, now, in the Forbidden City, face-to-face with the Regent andfirmly within the walls of the "Dedans", the object recedes yet again in favourof ways of recovering it once it is lost.

Furthermore, once in the interior (supposedly in that place of fullrevelation and plenitude), this very object appears, alarmingly, to be absent. Theparagraph quoted above makes evident a lavish setting, a sumptuous interior,minutely decorated and furnished, but which is empty. When the Regent finallyappears, this space gains nothing, it seems, in fullness. Rather this becomes themoment for the narrator to lament the lost etiquette of bowing to the Emperor,to ruminate over the Regent's feeble presence ("gonfle d'une importance qui n'estpoint tout a fait la sienne ... ", p. 104). And just then, the Regent disappears.The visit is suddenly over. It is as if, once more, the narrator must confront theempty sign, the lavish exterior which houses only "ce vide et cette absence". Yetthis is precisely the admission that the narrator refuses to make, just as he refusedto admit the belatedness of his quest in the first pages of the novel.

What then is the actual (if not the desired) object of the narrator? It isperhaps not the "Dedans" at all, but rather any person or thing which reveals tothe narrator that the exotic object is knowable and reassures him of its presence.Just as Rene Leys himself becomes the object of the narrator's fascinationbecause he represents access to the exotic Palace, so the entry into the Palaceshows the displacement of the object from the interior to the exterior." For thisjournal entry about the narrator's experience of the Palace moves quickly into arepresentation of the Palace in the form of a map:

Voila donc mon entree personnelle au Palais.... Je voudrais tant mereconnaitre dans ce chemin parcouru! Et je deplie un plan a grande echellede la ville interdire, un plan europeen, compler en apparence, exact, aucentieme, colore, bourre de noms rranscrits, -un plan leve hativement etpuerilement par les troupes alliees, durantleur occupation pleine du Palaisen "dix-neuf cent" .... (p. 105)

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Whereas the narrator's actual presence in the Palace leads only to disorientation,the exactitude and clarity of the map--taken from a previous invasion of thePalace during the Boxer Rebellion--Qffers certainty: "Et sur mes yeux, entre mesdeux mains ecartees ... je vois, je deroule, j'etale, je tiens et je possede, pourun peu d'argent, la figuration plane de cette ville, de la capitale et de ce qu'elleenferme ... Pei-king" (p. 106). Though the map is only a ''figuration'' of the realspace, the immeasurable delight the narrator takes in "possessing" the Palacemarks this as the moment when he is closest to his goal: "le l'encercle, je ledomine; j'equarris mon reil a sa forme; je le comprends" (p. 107). Paradoxically,this is also precisely the moment when the object has faded into its mererepresentation.

Yet if the perception of the actual physical reality reverts to arepresentation of that perception in the form of a map (which itself represents aformer physical experience of the interior of the Forbidden City by the Allies in1900), the chain of displacements does not end here. After his initial elation atpossessing the "Dedans" with the aid of the map and at the unique coincidenceof the object with its representation, the narrator is once more derailed: "Mais,pratiquement, je ne sais m'y reconnaitre. Oil est la route la-dedans suivie? ... Oille Regent nous a-t-it re~us?" (pp. 107-108). Looking at the map, he realizes hedoes not know where he was, and, therefore, cannot successfully retrace hissteps. Again he lapses into a state of confusion. This time he decides to seekassurance and knowledge from Rene Leys.

I have spoken of this passage as a microcosm of the novel because whatfollows is precisely a structural repetition of the journal entry detailing thenarrator's penetration into the Palace: the narrator, now so dependent on ReneLeys as his informant, will in fact turn Rene Leys himself-just as he did themap--into his object. And like the disappointment of the map, which fails torepresent that possession because the narrator is not in possession of what themap represents, Rene Leys will turn out to be an unreliable informant. Thus anyvicarious possession enjoyed by the narrator through Rene Leys itself collapses.Because the narrator can no longer rely on Rene Leys's stories, the narrator'sown journal entries become the sole remaining sources of information. What thenarrator will then have to do is to reread and reinterpret his own journal in anattempt to gauge what he really knows.

Subject. In this way the narrative, which has been constituted as a fascinationwith an exotic otherness, ends by reverting to and collapsing back onto itself andonto the self: "Et je reviens", writes the narrator after Rene Leys's death, "et jeme retrouve face a face avec mon seul temoin valable: ce manuscrit" (p. 236).What the narrator discovers in this "intra-textual" moment" is "I 'irrecusablecertitude de ma propre culpabitite" (p. 237). The narrator suspects, although

Segalen's Rem: Leys and the Death(s) of Exoticism 205

doubt is still predominant, that he himself was the author of Rene Leys's actions;that in telling Leys of his own desire for knowledge he had also suggested to theyoung Belgian the course of action he should take: "Tout ce que j'ai dit, Hl'afait." Thus the narrator's fantasy finds its realization in Rene Leys's actions,although the fact that those actions originated with the narrator himself confirmsto him his own state of doubt as a result of having dictated his own exotic reality.This last interpretation of the manuscript by the narrator makes plain a chain ofevents that reveals himself to be the "author" of Rene Leys's adventures: forexample, the narrator telling Rene Leys about the existence of a secret police andRene Leys's claim that he belongs to that secret police only eight days later; thenarrator's discussion of poison as a means of death, and Leys's death frompoison only a few days afterwards. But there is still no certainty, no completecoherence in the narrator's mind: "Restent des moments inexplicables ... desaper9us , des eclats, des eclaircies des lueurs, des mots impossibles ainventer,des gestes impossibles a imiter " (p. 238). The materiality of some of ReneLeys's adventures cannot be attributed solely to the narrator's desire as conveyedto the young Belgian. What the narrator feebly concludes is that he, the narrator,was at the very least a friend of a friend of the Emperor, and that as a friend heis afraid to pronounce a final verdict as to the truth of Rene Leys's stories andso to risk killing Rene Leys a second time.

It would appear from this that the quest for the exotic object isinconclusive at best. Yet, despite the dubious status of the exotic object at boththe beginning and at the end of the novel, some change does take place in thespace of the text. Rereading the first line of his journal, "je ne saurai rien de plus... je me retire", the narrator adds the words "et ne veux savoir rien de plus",turning the initial sense of resignation about the knowability of the exotic objectto a new refusal to know, a closing-off of the quest and of the narrative at oneand the same time. The end of the novel finds the narrator in full possession ofnothing but his own doubt which he would like to leave unresolved:

-J'etais son ami, -devrais-je dire avec le meffie accent, le ffieme regretfidele, -sans plus chercher de quoi se composait exactement notre amitie... dans la crainte de le tuer, ou de la tuer une seconde fois ... ou -ceserait plus coupable encore, -d'etre mis brusquement en demeure iI.repondre moi-meme amon dome, et de prononcer entin: oui all non?

(p. 239)

These are the last words in the text and so the last gesture in the closing-off ofthe epistemological quest. That quest is closed off for good-because the narratorno longer wishes to know, but also, as I will show below, because the narratorknows. What he knows is that his answer would in fact lead to the final loss, not

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only of Rene Leys (or rather his memory) and his friendship, but of the exoticobject itself. The narrative chooses to end with this "oui ou non?" rather thandeliver its final negation. Wilfully, Rene Leys (like Segalen's essay on exoticism)shies away from concluding its trajectory because this conclusion is contrary toits own desire.

Segalen and Contemporary Exoticists

Like Rene Leys, Segalen's manuscript on exoticism remained unpublishedduring his lifetime. Begun in 1908, Essai sur l'exotisme was left incomplete whenits author died in 1919, but has since been published in fragment form. Despiteits incompleteness, this text successfully makes its basic points and manifestsseveral of Segalen's desires. His concept of exoticism in this work typifiesformulations of aestheticism more generally, and embroils itself in the samestruggles and paradoxes as aestheticism, which has been aptly characterized byTerry Eagleton as a tendency towards abstraction all the while attempting to makepossible a non-problematic or "non-alienated mode of cognition"." As in manytheories of the aesthetic, Segalen's intent in formulating his concept ofexoticism-which must be seen as a sub-category of aestheticism-is first andforemost to constitute his (exotic) object as something which is, which exists ina pure and untainted form as an object of aesthetic contemplation. This isapparent in Segalen's insistence that the word "exoticism" itself return to its"purete originel1e" so that it will connote nothing but the "sentiment que I'on ade la purete et de ]'intensite du Divers"." This attempt to constitute the exoticas a pure object is the most difficult task in Segalen's text, but not, as he wouldhave it, because the concept and the perception have somehow obscured theobject or tainted it.

Most often when Segalen is speaking of what the exotic is, he does so inthe form of repeated sentence fragments. Over and over, the text repeats phraseslike "La sensation d'exotisme: surprise. Son emoussement rapide" (p. 29) or"L'Exotisme universe!. Le pouvoir de Concevoir autre" (p. 33). By sheeraccumulation, these fragments seem initially to add up to a comprehension of themeaning of the exotic. But their repetition is of a desperate nature, conveyingmore than anything the difficulty or impossibility of arguing for the fullness ofexoticism as a concept. Rather, Segalen is caught in the common contradictionof wishing for the purely aesthetic nature of his object which demands that itremain "untouched", and the inevitability that any perception or rendering of thatobject involves precisely the kind of contamination Segalen condemns. This leadshim at one point even to the logical but untenable desire to celebrate theimpenetrability of the exotic, its "incomprehensibilite eternel1e" (p. 38). What he

Segalen's Rene Leys and the Death(s) of Exoticism 207

tries but fails to argue for, as the critic Andreas Michel has made clear, is aradical aesthetics which would resolve this paradox." Essai sur I 'exotisme isforceful in its argument for such a possibility but is ultimately incapable ofpresenting exoticism as a viable concept. Of this difficulty Segalen was surelyaware and it may be the reason why the book was never completed or publishedduring his lifetime.

Secondly, aside from the desire to constitute the exotic as a pure,aesthetic entity, Essai sur I'exotisme also desires to dissociate itself and todissociate its central and celebrated concept of exoticism from both past andpresent theoretical formulations about the exotic. This task comprises the largestportion of the text, the portion which discusses what exoticism is not." On theone hand, Segalen criticizes the exoticism of writers of the nineteenth century likeLoti (always the emblematic exoticist/fetishist of the fin de siec/e). Segalen caUspeople with this type of "mauvaise attitude exotique" (p. 60) "pseudo-Exotes" or"Ies Proxenetes de la Sensation du Divers" (p. 46). On the other hand, hedistinguishes himself from contemporary colonial authors like Pierre Mille,Rober! Randau; and Marius-Ary Leblond who saw themselves as rewritingnineteenth-century exoticism and celebrating the "rebirth" of the exotic as acomponent of the colonial enterprise. Segalen criticizes their writing on aestheticgrounds-"L'exotisme n'est vraiment pas affaire de romanciers exotiques", hewrites, "mais de grands artisles" (p. 58).

But clearly Segalen's aestheticization of the exotic makes problematic anyadmission of the historicity of the exotic in the first place. While he vaguelyperiodizes and refers to unsuccessful writing about the exotic, he refusessimultaneously any historical perspective on these writings as he refuses anyformulation of a necessary mediation between history and art. While his critiqueof his contemporaries is largely driven by criticism of the colonial nature of theirwork, colonialism is merely construed as one of the leading contaminants of thisaesthetic object, the exotic. Colonialism is one among several elements whichSegalen would like to "sweep away" in order to make room for and unveil thetruly exotic:

Deblaiement: le colon, le fonctionnaire colonial.Ne som rien moins que des Exotes! le premier surgit avec le desir du

commerce indigene le plus commercial. Pour lui, le Divers n'existe qu'entant qu'illui servira de moyen de groger. Quant a l'autre, la notion memed'une administration centralisee, de lois bonnes a tous et qu'il doirappliquer, lui fausse d'emblee tout jugemem, le rend sourd auxdysharmonies (ou harmonies du Divers). Aucun ne peut se targuer decontemplation esthetique.

Par cela meme. la litterature "coloniale" n'est pas notre fait.

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Or, paradoxalement, ceci nait a la lecture de "colonisateurs":enthousiastes, les Leblond. (L 'Oue<f)

(Us pronent, je crois, ce qu'ils appellent la politique d'association.)(p. 52)

Criticism of colonialism is made not on moral grounds, but with the notion ofopposing the intervention of any historical stain upon the aesthetic object. Therelationship of colonialism to exoticism (which authors like the Lebloncts saw asunproblematic) is criticized most specifically in this citation with reference to thefigures of the colonist and the colonial civil servant. The colonist's interest in anindigenous people, says Segalen, is a commercial one. But this commercial useand value of the exotic cannot be reconciled with any alternative, disinterestedinterest in it. As to the colonial civil servant, his object is to centralize hisadministration. His task is therefore to counter or to be insensitive to the exotic!diverse element with which he is constantly in contact. For him, the exotic is apotential "disharmony" which must be eliminated. Neither of these colonialfigures can appreciate the exotic aesthetically. Because of this, continues Segalen,colonial literature cannot have any relation to what is truly exotic.

Segalen makes the leap between colonial policies and colonial literatureby suggesting, at the very end of the paragraph cited (and in parentheses), thatwriters like the Leblonds support certain colonial policies. Thus, he suggests,they have a position with regard to colonialism. Ultimately these authors not onlylack the necessary aesthetic sensibility but, like the colonist and the colonialadministrator, they adversely affect the survival of the exotic by their promotionof such things as "de[s] lois bonnes a tous" and the policy of association-apolicy more liberal than the preceding policy of assimilation. Compatible with thecentralizing instinct of the colonial civil servant, colonial associationism ideallyentails the mutual transformation of colonizer and colonized with a view to amore cooperative fonn of colonial governance. As such it is seen by Segalen toefface the differences which constitute the exotic. Though he does not take intoaccount the morality of such policies as associationism because this is not anaesthetic criterion, he nevertheless attempts to erect the values ofappreciation andpreservation of the exotic. Thus he is forced, despite his desire, awkwardly totraverse his own divisions between aesthetics, on the one hand, and the effectsof history (Le. colonialism) on the other. Ultimately he is forced to abandonexplicit discussion of history's relation to the exotic altogether.

Exoticism and the Incursions of History

Though the Essai sur ['exotisme glosses over the historical context ofexoticism, the problem of history and its influence on the exotic is directly

Segalen's Rene Leys and the Death(s) of Exoticism 209

addressed in Rene Leys. Segalen chooses to situate his novel precisely at animportam turning-point in Chinese history-a period of transition from oneemperor to another (this was the cause of the narrator's sense of belatedness),which is also the time of transition from a dynastic to a republican form ofgovernment (this is the cause of the narrator's final disillusionment). Morespecifically, the novel is historically contextualized to include the rebellion ofNationalist forces led by Sun Yat-sen which will bring about the eventualabdication of the Regent. The disturbing name of Sun Yat-sen is hardlymentioned in the first half of the novel, though already there are rumours of arebellion. But gradually, this irksome historical development diverts the exoticquest and comes to occupy cemre stage, for the novel turns more and more topolitical developments underway in the southern provinces and to the officialresponse to the rebellion on the part of the Regent.

The narrator finally begins to doubt his informam Rene Leys when heturns to him in a desperate attempt to get information about the rebellion, becausethis time the narrator experiences with his own eyes the discrepancy betweenwhat is happening and what Rene Leys tells him. It is as if, with the entry ofhistorical events, the entire narrative were destined to collapse. The narratorbecomes convinced that Rene Leys is merely making up stories: "Ce qu'il dit nem'interesse plus. Le doute a porte ses fruits. Qu'il parle de ceci ou non. Qu'ildit ceci ou cela ... " (p. 223). This doubt has several consequences: it leads himto question his desire to penetrate the Forbidden City ("Pei-king n'est plusl'habitat de mes reves" ,he exclaims, p. 228). It leads also to Rene Leys'ssuicide, and finally to the end of the whole epistemological quest. This quest isshattered because everything that constituted knowledge about tbe exotic objectis now in doubt, and because that object itself has receded into history: with ReneLeys's death comes the birth of China as a Republic. What the narrator wishedto be a journal of his epistemological quest for the exotic object has turned,despite his wishes, imo an accoum of historical events leading to the end of thedynasty.

But how does the invasion of history imo the narrative rupture the exoticquest? How does it become the subject of the narrative despite the desire ofthe narrator? While there has been scant but periodic reference to historicalevents all along, this point in the novel is the first time that the exotic objectcannot be considered as isolated. Initially, it is coveted precisely because of itsimperviousness. But as this interior, walled and protected within the ForbiddenCity, is forced to confront and to react to the rebellion in another part of China,its isolation is broken. It is not only threatened by the rebellion politically, butinvaded by the Nationalist forces who have shattered the capacity of the ImperialPalace simply to be. The narrator can now only focus on a "Dedans" which ispreoccupied with the "dehors", and which is now striving to preserve itself as an

210 Yaiil Schlick

entity. Because of this new orientation, which signals simultaneously therecognition of historical forces and the admission that the existence of the exoticis contingent on the deployment of a politics, the "dedans" can no longer be theobject of fascination that it once was for the narrator. On 19 November 1911 thenarrator wakes up with the desire to know nothing more about it:

11 est peut":tre indiscret ou maladroit de se reveiller a cette heure ...historique pounant. Et d'etre soudaio tout aussi lucide que le "grand cie! secde I'hiver". Je me reveille de tres loin. Pour la premiere fois, ce jour n'estpas ce que j'attendais. Pei-king n'est plus I'habitat de mes reves. Et mamauvaise humeur envahissant et assiegeant le Palais meme, j'en arrive adouter de mon desir d'y avoir jamais desire entrer!

Comme apres une nuit trop ivre de mauvais champagne beige, j'ai labouche -et surtout les idees, -mauvaises. Je voudrais avoir tres mal alatete, un pretexte a ee nauseeux etat de mes idees . .. J'ecris ceci d'uneplume grinchue, et sans risquer une enquete politique, aujourd'hui, je merecouche une demiere fois dans I'aube de Pei-king. Ce soir ou demaio, jebouderai mes malles.

Et d'un geste machinal, relisant le premier feuillet du manuscrit, jesouligne ces mats: "le ne saurai rien de plus . .. je me rerire ... "

Et j'ajoule d'une tout autre "'riture:... et ne veux savoir rien de plus. (pp. 228-229)

This passage, which immediately follows the narrator's lament over theabdication of the last Emperor of China, is truly the moment of the end of thequest for knowledge (though it is not the end of the novel). Suddenly, and despitehimself, the narrator is both lucid and in a bad mood. His "mauvaise humeur"invades and besieges the Palace, but the desire to enter the Palace has dissipated.At this point, when the "Dedans" is practically a thing of the past, we learn thatit is no longer "l'habitat de mes reves". What the narrator regrets then isstrangely both some concrete place occupied by certain personages and the lossof a dream. He can no longer dream because he has woken up, regrettably, atthis historical moment. Moved now to deny his quest in its totality, he inscribeshis lack of a dream, his lack of desire to know, in his journal. If his earlier entryshowed doubt and disappointment at an earlier historicaljuncture-"le ne saurairien de plus . .. je me retire . .. "-the latter entry is complete in its rejectionboth of the desire to know and the existence of an object one dreams to know.This latter moment, I would argue, is really the final moment of insight in thenarrative: the exotic object is gone. It is history. And this history has awakenedthe narrator from a long dream. What follows-Rene Leys's death, the author'sreading of his manuscript in its entirety in his attempt to understand, and his

Segalen's Rene Leys and the Death(s) of Exoticism 211

resulting doubt about all that has taken place--shies away from the insightsrevealed in this moment of awakening.

In the last portion of the text the narrator chooses to deny his insight andto end on a note of doubt in order to resurrect the exotic object. This moment ofbad faith occurs only at the very end of the novel and constitutes a desperateattempt on the part of the narrative to regain the lost ground upon which itsexotic object rested. It represents a desire, as I have argued above, to end withdoubt rather than with the finality so clearly delineated in the long passage Iquoted. This doubt does cover over the fact that the exotic object is lost forever.But it can only stave off a final death by foregoing the final interpretive momentwhich would be an answer to the question posed at the end: "oui ou non?"

This desire to deny insight and to hold on to doubt, precisely because oneknows, is best represented in the narrative by the narrator's response to the bodyof Rene Leys himself. Believing himself to be the cause of Rene Leys's death byhaving raised (and therefore perhaps suggested) the idea of death by poison whenhe last saw him, the narrator nevertheless shies away from knowing the truthabout Leys's death. He explains: "Si je posais ce doute, les mectecins exigeraientl'autopsie. L'analyse intestinale ... la profanation de ce beau corps que je revetset recouvre ... le ne poserai point ce doute; je veux cependant, non pas enmectecin, mais en homme, je veux savoir aquoi la mort est due" (p. 233). Theautopsy, which would provide the information the narrator seeks, is rejectedbecause it would destroy the aesthetic object, "ce beau corps". The knowledgewhich this body contains within it is denied in favour of a body "que je revets etrecouvre": a body both covered over, and found again. Here the narrator plainlyadmits his desire not to know. But at the very same time he reconstitutes hisquest for knowledge, explaining that he does not want to know "en mectecin,mais en homme". What I make of this statement is a rather clumsy attempt toreconstitute the integrity of the narrator's epistemological quest, to resurrect itas still viable. And yet it is clear at the end of the text that just as the narratorpreferred doubt to what he considered the defilement of the beauty of ReneLeys's body, he prefers to conclude the entire body of his text-also named ReneLeys-with doubt rather than with knowledge. As in the concluding sections ofEssai sur I'exotisme, Segalen's fictional text shows a predilection for continuingto affirm his exotic object at the expense of his own insights. As he ponders theparadox of his perception of the exotic at the very moment of its disappearancein his essay on exoticism (this would no doubt be a very difficult puzzle to solvewithout the history of colonialism as one of its central pieces), he constructs anarrative about an exotic quest which ends up pondering ("oui ou non?") ratherthan drawing the conclusions it itself has arrived at.

In Segalen's work two different modes of defilement of the exotic objectare possible. The first is historicization in general: the aesthetic exotic object

212 fad Schlick

must be saved from history in general because this history threatens to revealboth exoticism's wane and to explain that wane as a function of Westerncolonialism. The second, more specific, way that the object can be defiled is bycontact with the history of colonialism in particular and with the influence of theWest. In Rene Leys the latter is seen as intruding upon and defiling the exoticForbidden City in the form of the revolutionary forces led by Sun Yat-sen, whomSegalen sees as inspired by Western-style democracies and as bringing about aWesternization of traditional Chinese society. The narrator himself clings to theexotic, dynastic form of government which he desperately hopes will bepreserved. Democratization at the hands of the Chinese revolutionaries signifies,for both the narrator of Rene Leys and the author of Essai sur I'exotisme, thediminution of class distinctions and the influx of Western influence. Both of thesewould cause differences between classes and between nations to wane. But thenarrator's stance is only possible because he chooses not to recognize that hisidea of exotic China is already the product of invasion and transformation, andthat he himself is situated in this history. For example, the very Manchu dynastythe narrator imbues with aesthetic authenticity is itself a "foreign" intruder. Itwould have been possible to conceive of the rebels led by Sun Yat-sen asrevolting against a foreign government and thus restoring Chinese rule ofChina." Nor does the narrator question his delight in the map of the ForbiddenCity, produced by the Allied forces during an invasion into this sacred space asa reaction to the Boxer Rebellion which attempted to rid China of foreigninfluences.

These aspects of Segalen's thought-seen in both Essai sur I 'exotisme andRene Leys-reveal the reactionary nature of his concept of exoticism whichdenounces Republicanism in order to preserve exoticism for the West. I wouldargue that Les Immemoriaux was not a criticism of colonialism as such, but alesson in the need to preserve the exotic as an aesthetic, ahistorical enclave. WhatSegalen's works reveal despite his desire, however, is that the exotic object cannot be aesthetically isolated.

The Politics of Exoticism and the Lessons of History

The concept of exoticism as generated by Segalen's contemporaries failedbecause it was restricted to a mundane, politically-motivated description ofcolonial life. But Segalen's tack was no more successful: he sought to define aneternal, aesthetic exotic untainted by history and unaffected by change. Thisproved to be an impossible task, as Segalen's own texts testify. The unfinishedessay on exoticism could not be completed for profound reasons. What was leftfor him was to affirm nostalgia and doubt with regard to the exotic-increasinglywhat he experienced to be the only possible attitude one could have toward the

-~

Segalen's Rene Leys and the Death(s) of Exoticism 213

exotic object. That object remains elusive in his works, and its epistemologicalevasiveness has to do both with the lack of definition and with historicaltransformation.

That elusive thing called exoticism emerges not so much as "an ideawithout a future" (Bongie) but as an idea which does not need a future to persist.This does not necessarily mean that it is an idea without value. For the notion ofa heterogeneous, precapitalist world which underwrites the concept of exoticismkeeps alive the desire for the virtues of traditional community. If the nostalgia forsuch a world is false, therefore, it may nevertheless have political meaning forthe present.'o But while this attitude is appealing, while one would like to beable to be nostalgic, nostalgia cannot provide comfort when it is apparent that thiscomfort is predicated simultaneously on a rejection of history (and of knowledge)and on a complicity with colonialism. While one may prefer to be the inheritorsof the likes of a Segalen (champion of a pure exoticism) rather than theinheritors of the likes of the Leblonds (upholders of an imperialist exoticism),exoticism must finally be rejected as a helpful countering force to an increasinglymodernizing world, for it diverts quests for knowledge, and functions throughdisplacement because it has no object. The definition of the exotic itself is of anentity which is always already elsewhere and must remain elsewhere in order to

persist. As such it does not address the reality of colonialism as it does notaddress the reality of modernization. It offers rather, through its permanentdisplacement, only an ideal which by definition must remain elsewhere.

Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario

Notes

I. ViClOr Segalen, Rene Leys, Paris, Gallimard. 1971.2. This research would not have been possible without the generous support of the Izaak Wallan

Killam Postdocloral Fellowship at Dalhousie University and the Mary Isabel SibleyFellowship granted by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

3. See his Essai sur l'exolisme. Paris. Fala Morgana, 1978, discussed below.4. Most prominent among these are Steles (1912) and Peintures (1916), the only two works

published during his lifetime apart from Les lmmemoriaux.5. See Henry Bouillier's discussion of irony in Rene Leys in his Victor Segalen, Paris, Mercure

de France, 1961, pp. 323-324; see also Yvonne Hsieh's argument that Segalen is consciouslyparodying Loti in his description of some exotic details in Rene Leys in her study VictorSegalen's Literary Encounter with China: Chinese Moulds, Western Thought, Toronto,University of Toronto Press. 1988, p. 160.

6. See for example Marius-Ary Leblond's Apres l'e:cotisme de Loti, le roman colonial, Paris,Rasmussen, 1926; Louis Cario and Charles Regismanset's L 'E:cotisme: La Litteraturecoloniale, Paris. Mercure de France, 1911; and Roben Randau's hOrigines de la litteraturecoloniale h

, Le Monde colonial illustre, n" 67, mars 1929, p. 82.

214 Yael Schlick

7. The ~Dedans" is the "Cite violene" found inside the Imperial Palace, which is in turn insidethe VilIe Tartare. This space is both described by the narrator (pp. 14, 27) and representedby a map at the beginning of the text. As we will see later, the two-dimensional representationof the exotic "Dedans" is used briefly as a means of knowing the object itself. The map,explains the narrator, was made during a short-lived invasion of the Imperial City. The exoticis. in fact, often described and designated as a complex interior, an architectural space (aswith the description of interiors in Gustave Flaubert's Salammbo) so that its attainment isfigured in the form of a penetration, an invasion.

8. For a discussion of Segalen's overwhelming sense of belatedness see Chris Bongie, ExoticMemories: Lirerature. Colonialism, and the Fin de Siecle, Stanford, Stanford UniversityPress, 1991, pp. 141-143.

9. See Rent Leys, pp. 36-38 and 83-84.10. Here and elsewhere in this text, access to foreign women, who reside, funhennore, in remote

interior spaces, implies access to the exotic.11. "le peux donc, en evitant ses avatars, participer (peut-etre) a sa recolte. 11 me fera des

relations. 1I me presentera ases neo-concitoyens, -ceux-ci ade hams fonctionnaires; adesconseilleurs du trone ... ades Princes du sang ... " (p. 26). The narrator has devised herea whole series of social introductions to increasingly select and increasingly important people,all of which make his quest seem not unlike that of an "arriviste". This displays even morestarkly the aristocratic nature of the narrator's object.

12. Since Rene Leys is replete with ellipses, the reader should note that unless otherwise indicatedthese ellipses are in the text.

13. See Jean Verrier's "Segalen lecteur de Segalen", Potitique, 27,1976, pp. 338-350, where hediscusses the way the narrator's interest in the Emperor leads to his interest in Rene Leys(p. 341). Also peninent here is Yvonne Hsieh's discussion of the prevalence of doubles inRene Leys. Specifically she discusses the way the narrator and Rene Leys double the non­fictional Victor Segalen and Maurice Roy, but also the way Rene Leys himself doubles forthe narrator. See Hsieh, op. cit., p. 169.

14. Verrier coins this as a useful term for examining Segalen's text because it is a text whichconstantly mirrors or cites itself, a text which has no ~hors-te:cte". See Verrier, op. cit.,p. 338.

15. Terry Eag1eton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic, London, Basil Blackwell, 1990, p. 2.16. Segalen, Essai sur l'e:cotisme, p. 68.17. Andreas Michel, "En Route to the Other: Victor Segalen's Essai sur l'e:cotisme and Equipee",

Romance Studies, 16, Summer 1990, pp. 21-30. Michel's article examines the philosophicalunderpinnings of Segalen's theory of exoticism.

18. See for example page 63. Many other such moments occur in the text.19. Hsieh, ap. cit., pp. 254-256.20. Bangie, op. cit., p. 20.