Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic.

For Zola, as for Huysmans, nature itself is uncanny because it is the domain of the feminine, a domain that is constitutionally defective, lacking, even pathological.

Dost thou
Not feel them slip,
How cold! how cold! the moon's
Thin wavering finger-tips, along
Thy throat?

Before the use of asteroids, the only significators of the feminine in traditional chart interpretation were the Moon and Venus.

I love the idea of the 'vignette,' which is associated with the decorative, illustrative, small, and thus with the feminine, and thus easily maligned. I mean, Emily Dickinson wrote vignettes, right?

Everyone is loony in some or other way. Rest who are not; belong to mental asylum.