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What happens in the short story "Claire Lenoir"
is strange.
Later adapted by its author, Villier de Isle-Adam,
into the novel Tribulat Bonhomet, the tale
features the eponymous positivist who
elects to visit his old friend Cesaire Lenoir
and his wife Claire.
During the voyage (for in decadent fiction
the plot often advances at the pace of transport
characteristic of the era of decadent fiction)
the positivist befriends a young lieutenant
who discloses (with the alacrity of revelation
characteristic of decadent fiction) that he,
the lieutenant, has recently pursued a romance
with a married woman whose description
matches that of the wife of the positivists friend,
Claire Lenoir.
After this interlude the lieutenant ventures
to his next post, somewhere in the South Seas,
while the positivist proceeds to the estate
of the Lenoirs.
Before he arrives at their home he pauses
to rest in a...