À rebours (Against the Grain or Against Nature), Chapter V: Des Esseintes decorates his tortoise with jewels & plays the music of flavors; his memory of a painful toothache.
This tortoise was a fancy which had seized Des Esseintes some time before his departure from Paris. Examining an Oriental rug, one day, in reflected light, and following the silver gleams which fell on its web of plum violet and alladin yellow, it suddenly occurred to him how much it would be improved if he could place on it some object whose deep color might enhance the vividness of its tints.
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