Cruel retournement de l’idylle Virginie et Paul de Villiers de l’Isle- Adam

“Virginie et Paul”, the ninth of the Contes cruels, targets the idyll, a genre which deploys the Edenic dream of true purity of feeling. The final note of the tale introduces a sense of pathos whilst manifesting the agonising struggles of a consciousness split between two voices: the voice of the mocker and the voice of the dreamer, anxious to re-enchant existence.