Escal-Vigor
SynopsisPlot
Henry, whose nature was passionate and philosophy audacious, told himself, not without reason, that through his affinities, he would feel himself at home amid these beautifully barbarous surroundings, where natural instincts reigned.” Having lived freely around Europe, Henry Kehlmark returns to his family’s ancestral home, ready to settle down in the role of Dykgrave, or Count. Soon, however, his cosmopolitan ways draw the attention of the local villagers, who mistrust Henry and question his intentions. When the Count strikes up a romantic relationship with the burgomaster’s son, an impressionable youth, he risks violent reprisal as a homosexual living in proximity to a traditional, insular people. For once in his life, however, Henry feels like he can be himself, living truthfully and without fear, able to separate himself from the pressures that dogged so many of his loved ones, now deceased. When word of their relationship gets out, however, Henry discovers the limits of provincial hospitality.
Story
About this book
Georges Eekhoud's Escal-Vigor follows Count Henry of Kehlmark, a young aristocrat who returns to settle in the ancestral castle on a wild North Sea island. Henry has spent years moving freely across Europe, but now he takes up the title of Dykgrave and attempts to root himself in one place. The island's landscape is rough and isolated, and its people hold tightly to local customs.
Henry's cosmopolitan outlook sets him apart from the villagers almost immediately. When he begins a romantic relationship with Guidon Govaertz, the son of the local burgomaster, the tension between the Count and the community sharpens. Guidon is rejected by his own family, and for Henry the relationship represents a rare chance to live without concealment. The novel traces what happens as word of their bond spreads through a small, suspicious community with little tolerance for difference.
Published in Belgium in 1899, the book prompted an obscenity trial against Eekhoud, though he was supported by several prominent Belgian critics. The case made the novel one of the earliest works of European fiction to bring a same-sex relationship to the center of its plot and to face legal consequences for doing so.
