Thou hast led me like an heathen sacrifice,
With music and with fatal pomp of flowers,
To my eternal ruin.
Webster’s The White Devil.
“Lady Windermere’s Fan” was a success in every sense of the word, and during its run London was at Oscar’s feet. There were always a few doors closed to him; but he could afford now to treat his critics with laughter, call them fogies and old-fashioned and explain that they had not a decalogue but a millelogue of sins forbidden and persons tabooed because it was easier to condemn2 than to understand.
I remember a lunch once when he talked most brilliantly and finished up by telling the story now published in his works as “A Florentine Tragedy.” He told it superbly, making it appear far more effective than in its written form. A well-known actor, piqued3 at being compelled to play listener, made himself ridiculous by half turning his back on the narrator. But after lunch Willie Grenfell (now Lord Desborough), a model English athlete gifted with peculiar4 intellectual fairness, came round to me:
“Oscar Wilde is most surprising, most charming, a wonderful talker.”
At the same moment Mr. K. H—— came over to us. He was a man who went everywhere and knew everyone. He had quiet, ingratiating manners, always spoke5 in a gentle smiling way and had a good word to say for everyone, especially for women; he was a bachelor, too, and wholly unattached. He surprised me by taking up Grenfell’s praise and breaking into a lyric6:
“The best talker who ever lived,” he said; “most extraordinary. I am so infinitely7 obliged to you for asking me to meet him — a new delight. He brings a supernal8 air into life. I am in truth indebted to you”— all this in an affected9 purring tone. I noticed for the first time that there was a touch of rouge10 on his face; Grenfell turned away from us rather abruptly11 I thought.
At this first roseate dawn of complete success and universal applause, new qualities came to view in Oscar. Praise gave him the fillip needed in order to make him surpass himself. His talk took on a sort of autumnal richness of colour, and assumed a new width of range; he now used pathos12 as well as humour and generally brought in a story or apologue to lend variety to the entertainment. His little weaknesses, too, began to show themselves and they grew rankly in the sunshine. He always wanted to do himself well, as the phrase goes, but now he began to eat and drink more freely than before. His vanity became defiant13. I noticed one day that he had signed himself, Oscar O’Flahertie Wilde, I think under some verses which he had contributed years before to his College magazine. I asked him jokingly what the O’Flahertie stood for. To my astonishment14 he answered me gravely:
“The O’Flaherties were kings in Ireland, and I have a right to the name; I am descended16 from them.”
I could not help it; I burst out laughing.
“What are you laughing at, Frank?” he asked with a touch of annoyance17.
“It seems humorous to me,” I explained, “that Oscar Wilde should want to be an O’Flahertie,” and as I spoke a picture of the greatest of the O’Flaherties, with bushy head and dirty rags, warming enormous hairy legs before a smoking peat-fire, flashed before me. I think something of the sort must have occurred to Oscar, too, for, in spite of his attempt to be grave, he could not help laughing.
“It’s unkind of you, Frank,” he said. “The Irish were civilised and Christians18 when the English kept themselves warm with tattooings.”
He could not help telling one in familiar talk of Clumber or some other great house where he had been visiting; he was intoxicated19 with his own popularity, a little surprised, perhaps, to find that he had won fame so easily and on the primrose20 path, but one could forgive him everything, for he talked more delightfully21 than ever.
It is almost inexplicable22, but nevertheless true that life tries all of us, tests every weak point to breaking, and sets off and exaggerates our powers. Burns saw this when he wrote:
“Wha does the utmost that he can
Will whyles do mair.”
And the obverse is true: whoever yields to a weakness habitually24, some day goes further than he ever intended, and comes to worse grief than he deserved. The old prayer: Lead us not into temptation, is perhaps a half-conscious recognition of this fact. But we moderns are inclined to walk heedlessly, no longer believing in pitfalls25 or in the danger of gratified desires. And Oscar Wilde was not only an unbeliever; but he had all the heedless confidence of the artist who has won world-wide popularity and has the halo of fame on his brow. With high heart and smiling eyes he went to his fate unsuspecting.
It was in the autumn of 1891 that he first met Lord Alfred Douglas. He was thirty-six and Lord Alfred Douglas a handsome, slim youth of twenty-one, with large blue eyes and golden-fair hair. His mother, the Dowager Lady Queensberry, preserves a photograph of him taken a few years before, when he was still at Winchester, a boy of sixteen with an expression which might well be called angelic.
When I met him, he was still girlishly pretty, with the beauty of youth, coloring and fair skin; though his features were merely ordinary. It was Lionel Johnson, the writer, a friend and intimate of Douglas at Winchester, who brought him to tea at Oscar’s house in Tite Street. Their mutual26 attraction had countless27 hooks. Oscar was drawn28 by the lad’s personal beauty, and enormously affected besides by Lord Alfred Douglas’ name and position: he was a snob29 as only an English artist can be a snob; he loved titular30 distinctions, and Douglas is one of the few great names in British history with the gilding31 of romance about it. No doubt Oscar talked better than his best because he was talking to Lord Alfred Douglas. To the last the mere1 name rolled on his tongue gave him extraordinary pleasure. Besides, the boy admired him, hung upon his lips with his soul in his eyes; showed, too, rare intelligence in his appreciation32, confessed that he himself wrote verses and loved letters passionately33. Could more be desired than perfection perfected?
And Alfred Douglas on his side was almost as powerfully attracted; he had inherited from his mother all her literary tastes — and more: he was already a master-poet with a singing faculty34 worthy35 to be compared with the greatest. What wonder if he took this magical talker, with the luminous36 eyes and charming voice, and a range and play of thought beyond his imagining, for a world’s miracle, one of the Immortals37. Before he had listened long, I have been told, the youth declared his admiration38 passionately. They were an extraordinary pair and were complementary in a hundred ways, not only in mind, but in character. Oscar had reached originality39 of thought and possessed40 the culture of scholarship, while Alfred Douglas had youth and rank and beauty, besides being as articulate as a woman with an unsurpassable gift of expression. Curiously41 enough, Oscar was as yielding and amiable42 in character as the boy was self-willed, reckless, obstinate43 and imperious.
Years later Oscar told me that from the first he dreaded45 Alfred Douglas’ aristocratic, insolent46 boldness:
“He frightened me, Frank, as much as he attracted me, and I held away from him. But he wouldn’t have it; he sought me out again and again and I couldn’t resist him. That is my only fault. That’s what ruined me. He increased my expenses so that I could not meet them; over and over again I tried to free myself from him; but he came back and I yielded — alas47!”
Though this is Oscar’s later gloss48 on what actually happened, it is fairly accurate. He was never able to realise how his meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas had changed the world to him and him to the world. The effect on the harder fibre of the boy was chiefly mental: to Alfred Douglas, Oscar was merely a quickening, inspiring, intellectual influence; but the boy’s effect on Oscar was of character and induced imitation. Lord Alfred Douglas’ boldness gave Oscar outrecuidance, an insolent arrogance49: artist-like he tried to outdo his model in aristocratic disdain50. Without knowing the cause the change in Oscar astonished me again and again, and in the course of this narrative51 I shall have to notice many instances of it.
One other effect the friendship had of far-reaching influence. Oscar always enjoyed good living; but for years he had had to earn his bread: he knew the value of money; he didn’t like to throw it away; he was accustomed to lunch or dine at a cheap Italian restaurant for a few shillings. But to Lord Alfred Douglas money was only a counter and the most luxurious52 living a necessity. As soon as Oscar Wilde began to entertain him, he was led to the dearest hotels and restaurants; his expenses became formidable and soon outran his large earnings53. For the first time since I had known him he borrowed heedlessly right and left, and had, therefore, to bring forth54 play after play with scant55 time for thought.
Lord Alfred Douglas has declared recently:
“I spent much more in entertaining Oscar Wilde than he did in entertaining me”; but this is preposterous56 self-deception. An earlier confession57 of his was much nearer the truth: “It was a sweet humiliation58 to me to let Oscar Wilde pay for everything and to ask him for money.”
There can be no doubt that Lord Alfred Douglas’ habitual23 extravagance kept Oscar Wilde hard up, and drove him to write without intermission.
There were other and worse results of the intimacy59 which need not be exposed here in so many words, though they must be indicated; for they derived60 of necessity from that increased self-assurance which has already been recorded. As Oscar devoted61 himself to Lord Alfred Douglas and went about with him continually, he came to know his friends and his familiars, and went less into society so-called. Again and again Lord Alfred Douglas flaunted62 acquaintance with youths of the lowest class; but no one knew him or paid much attention to him; Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, was already a famous personage whose every movement provoked comment. From this time on the rumours63 about Oscar took definite form and shaped themselves in specific accusations64: his enemies began triumphantly65 to predict his ruin and disgrace.
Everything is known in London society; like water on sand the truth spreads wider and wider as it gradually filters lower. The “smart set” in London has almost as keen a love of scandal as a cathedral town. About this time one heard of a dinner which Oscar Wilde had given at a restaurant in Soho, which was said to have degenerated66 into a sort of Roman orgy. I was told of a man who tried to get money by blackmailing67 him in his own house. I shrugged68 my shoulders at all these scandals, and asked the talebearers what had been said about Shakespeare to make him rave15 as he raved69 again and again against “back-wounding calumny”; and when they persisted in their malicious70 stories I could do nothing but show disbelief. Though I saw but little of Oscar during the first year or so of his intimacy with Lord Alfred Douglas, one scene from this time filled me with suspicion and an undefined dread44.
I was in a corner of the Café Royal one night downstairs, playing chess, and, while waiting for my opponent to move, I went out just to stretch my legs. When I returned I found Oscar throned in the very corner, between two youths. Even to my short-sighted eyes they appeared quite common: in fact they looked like grooms71. In spite of their vulgar appearance, however, one was nice looking in a fresh boyish way; the other seemed merely depraved. Oscar greeted me as usual, though he seemed slightly embarrassed. I resumed my seat, which was almost opposite him, and pretended to be absorbed in the game. To my astonishment he was talking as well as if he had had a picked audience; talking, if you please, about the Olympic games, telling how the youths wrestled72 and were scraped with strigul? and threw the discus and ran races and won the myrtle-wreath. His impassioned eloquence73 brought the sun-bathed pal74?stra before one with a magic of representment. Suddenly the younger of the boys asked:
“Did you sy they was niked?”
“Of course,” Oscar replied, “nude, clothed only in sunshine and beauty.”
“Oh, my,” giggled75 the lad in his unspeakable Cockney way. I could not stand it.
“I am in an impossible position,” I said to my opponent, who was the amateur chess player, Montagu Gattie. “Come along and let us have some dinner.” With a nod to Oscar I left the place. On the way out Gattie said to me:
“So that’s the famous Oscar Wilde.”
“Yes,” I replied, “that’s Oscar, but I never saw him in such company before.”
“Didn’t you?” remarked Gattie quietly; “he was well known at Oxford77. I was at the ‘Varsity with him. His reputation was always rather —‘high,’ shall we call it?”
I wanted to forget the scene and blot78 it out of my memory, and remember my friend as I knew him at his best. But that Cockney boy would not be banned; he leered there with rosy79 cheeks, hair plastered down in a love-lock on his forehead, and low cunning eyes. I felt uncomfortable. I would not think of it. I recalled the fact that in all our talks I had never heard Oscar use a gross word. His mind, I said to myself, is like Spenser’s, vowed80 away from coarseness and vulgarity: he’s the most perfect intellectual companion in the world. He may have wanted to talk to the boys just to see what effect his talk would have on them. His vanity is greedy enough to desire even such applause as theirs. . . . Of course, that was the explanation — vanity. My affection for him, tormented81 by doubt, had found at length a satisfactory solution. It was the artist in him, I said to myself, that wanted a model.
But why not boys of his own class? The answer suggested itself; boys of his own class could teach him nothing; his own boyhood would supply him with all the necessary information about well-bred youth. But if he wanted a gutter-snipe in one of his plays, he would have to find a gutter-lad and paint him from life. That was probably the truth, I concluded. So satisfied was I with my discovery that I developed it to Gattie; but he would not hear of it.
“Gattie has nothing of the artist in him,” I decided82, “and therefore cannot understand.” And I went on arguing, if Gattie were right, why two boys? It seemed evident to me that my reading of the riddle83 was the only plausible84 one. Besides it left my affection unaffected and free. Still, the giggle76, the plastered oily hair and the venal85 leering eyes came back to me again and again in spite of myself.
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1
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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5
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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supernal
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| adj.天堂的，天上的；崇高的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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rouge
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| n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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rave
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| vi.胡言乱语；热衷谈论；n.热情赞扬 | |
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16
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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23
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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titular
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| adj.名义上的，有名无实的；n.只有名义（或头衔）的人 | |
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gilding
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| n.贴金箔，镀金 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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33
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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immortals
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| 不朽的人物( immortal的名词复数 )； 永生不朽者 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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42
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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45
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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46
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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48
gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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49
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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50
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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51
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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52
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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53
earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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54
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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55
scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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56
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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58
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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59
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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60
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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61
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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62
flaunted
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| v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的过去式和过去分词 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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63
rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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65
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
blackmailing
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| 胁迫，尤指以透露他人不体面行为相威胁以勒索钱财( blackmail的现在分词 ) | |
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68
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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70
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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71
grooms
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| n.新郎( groom的名词复数 )；马夫v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的第三人称单数 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗 | |
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72
wrestled
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| v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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74
pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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75
giggled
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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76
giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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77
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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78
blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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79
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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80
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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81
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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82
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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83
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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84
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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85
venal
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| adj.唯利是图的，贪脏枉法的 | |
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