Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man's Smile

by Gyles Brandreth

  ‘I have,’ I said.

  ‘You recall the great Auguste Dupin’s great maxim?’ I laughed. ‘Which one in particular?’

  ‘There is only one so far as I am concerned, Robert:

  “There is such a thing as being too profound.”‘ He raised his glass to me by way of a toast and then lowered it carefully to the table and contemplated its yellow-green contents with a furrowed brow. ‘Dupin is right, is he not?’

  He ran his finger around the glass’s rim. ‘And I’m a fool, trying to dig deep in shallow ground, looking for needles where there are no haystacks, seeing weasels and whales in shapeless clouds. “There is such a thing as being too profound.”‘

  I laughed once more. ‘There is such a thing as being a little drunk,’ I said.

  ‘And yet,’ he continued, ignoring me, ‘it makes no sense. We heard three men arguing. We heard a woman sobbing. But when the door was opened, all were wreathed in smiles!’

  ‘La Grange had a look of alarm in his eyes,’ I said. ‘At least, for a moment he did.’

  ‘Did he? Was it alarm or was it surprise? Perhaps he was simply startled to find us there.’

  ‘And there were traces of tears in Agnès’s eyes.’

  ‘But she was smiling — and her smile was tender, natural, unforced. She placed her hand on her father’s shoulder. She did not appear to be in the least bit distressed, did she?’

  ‘No,’ I acknowledged, draining my glass. ‘She did not. None of them seemed distressed.’

  ‘And yet, moments before, we heard their voices raised. We heard Agnès’s sobs. We heard Carlos Branco cry, ‘Mais en fin!’ — and then the door opened …’

  ‘And there they were, smiling out at us.’

  ‘Perhaps they knew that we were there,’ said Oscar, sitting up suddenly and pushing his glass away from him. ‘Perhaps it was a charade played out for our benefit?’

  ‘But why? Isn’t it much more likely that what La Grange told us was the truth? They were simply discussing the play, arguing a point, as actors do.’

  ‘Tearing a passion to tatters, to very rags … Indeed,’ murmured Oscar, subsiding, and reaching for his glass once more. ‘You are right, Robert. There is such a thing as being too profound.’

  Oscar’s glass was empty. He considered it briefly and then, with both hands, lowered it carefully from the table to the floor. He folded his arms in front of him and laid his head gently on them, closing his eyes. ‘Our liquid lunch is rounded with a sleep, Robert. We are such stuff as dreams are made on and are to have muffins for tea …

  Goodnight, sweet prince … The rest is silence.’

  8

  Something Rotten

  Oscar awoke before I did and he awoke refreshed. When I opened my eyes, my vision was bleary. When I lifted my head from the table, a sharp pain ran across my skull. It took a moment for me to realise that my friend was no longer seated in front of me. I heard him before I saw him. His voice was clear and resonant: he might have been addressing a public meeting.

  ‘The god of this century is wealth. Art, nature, beauty, intelligence—they are as nothing to us now. Wealth is what we worship. Wealth is the deity before whom we are ready to sacrifice all: all that we are, all that we might be.’

  I looked around the dimly lit café. The candles on the tables had been lit. At the table next to ours, two old soldiers were seated, smoking pipes and playing dominoes. Immediately behind them, standing at the bar, was Oscar — the Emperor Nero in a blue serge suit, with an amaryllis in his buttonhole. In one hand, he held a lighted cigarette; in the other, a glass of yellow wine. To his left stood Richard Marais, La Grange’s man of business — bald, plain and deaf. To his right stood Eddie Garstrang, the blue-eyed Colorado gambler with the tiny white teeth. Garstrang was smiling. Oscar was on song and the American was amused.

  Oscar saw me stirring. ‘Robert, awake! It is five o’clock, the hour when a Frenchman meets his mistress and an Englishman takes tea. The great La Grange has been true to his word: it seems that muffins await us in his dressing room. Monsieur Marais and Mr Garstrang have been sent to fetch us, though how they knew where to find us is beyond me.

  ‘I am deaf, not blind, Monsieur Wilde,’ murmured Marais, examining his pocket watch. ‘I have seen you making your way towards this establishment often enough.’

  ‘And you also see what I am saying, do you?’ asked Oscar, looking down at the ugly little man in amazement.

  ‘I do,’ he answered. ‘You articulate well. You have full lips and a mobile mouth.’

  ‘And you have a diction and vocabulary that belie your disability,’ Oscar replied.

  ‘I know,’ said Marais. ‘I have been with Edmond La Grange for more than twenty years. I have learnt to speak by watching a master.’

  I got to my feet and joined the group at the bar.

  ‘We have been talking about money, Robert: the lure of lucre, the glamour of gold — the price of Hamlet to be precise. My meeting with Monsieur La Grange had been to discuss the matter of my remuneration — the translator is worthy of his hire and all that — but the great La Grange prefers not to be troubled with financial considerations, apparently.’ He looked in turn at each of the small men standing at his side and smiled. ‘The question of my fee is to be settled with his hommes d’affaires.’

  ‘Edmond La Grange is an actor not an accountant, ‘said Eddie Garstrang.

  ‘An artist not a bookkeeper,’ echoed Richard Marais.

  ‘But Madame Bernhardt tells me,’ said Oscar, with a sly smile, ‘that no one in the theatrical profession is more concerned with money than Monsieur La Grange — with the possible exception of herself.’

  Garstrang laughed. Richard Marais looked steadily at Oscar and said, ‘It is a reputation he cultivates. He will be paid — in full, on time, in cash. He insists upon it. But the detail of paying others is a detail he leaves to others.’ Marais wiped two tiny bubbles of saliva from each corner of his mouth. ‘Have no fear, Monsieur Wilde. You will receive the fee that is your due. We can finalise the matter in my office at your convenience.’ He looked again at his pocket watch. ‘They will be taking the curtain-calls now. We had best be on our way.

  We followed Marais and La Grange out of the café and along the cobbled alley towards the side street that led up to the boulevard du Temple. Marais led the way. He had short legs and a tiny stride, but he made rapid progress, with his bald head pushed forward, like a hobgoblin forcing himself up a hill against the wind. Oscar called out to him: ‘Marais — not so fast!’ The little man pressed on.

  ‘He does not hear you, Oscar,’ said Eddie Garstrang. ‘He is deaf.’

  As we turned from the alley into the side street, we passed two large, empty milk-churns standing at the pavement’s edge. They were the size of small boys. Oscar paused, threw his cigarette into the gutter, and, suddenly, with considerable force, knocked the churns off the pavement into the roadway. They clanged loudly as he pushed them together and clanked and clattered as they rolled across the cobblestones. Still, Richard Marais pressed on.

  ‘He is deaf, Oscar. He cannot hear a thing.’

  Before the side street reached the boulevard du Temple, there was another alley, no wider than a handcart, leading off it towards the theatre’s stage door. Here, at the corner, Marais paused and looked back to see us coming up the street towards him. He waited for us, looking impatiently at his pocket watch once more. As we approached, he muttered to Oscar, ‘I felt the rumble of the milk churns as they hit the cobbles, Monsieur Wilde, but I chose not to dignify your little game by stopping in my tracks and turning back.’

  ‘I am embarrassed,’ said Oscar. His face was flushed. ‘I apologise.’

  We reached the stage door just as a small gaggle of giggling actresses was emerging. There were five of them: each as pretty as a picture when viewed from beyond the footlights; all but one of them looking, to my eye, somewhat cheap and tawdry in the harsh light of day. Their faces, caked in paint and powder, lack
ed finesse. The exception, of course, was Gabrielle de la Tourbillon, the tallest of them, the most elegant, the most beautiful, the most refined — and, yes, probably, the oldest of them, too. Just to see her smiling eyes set my heart racing.

  As the women pushed their way through the narrow doorway onto the street, they were laughing. ‘An Italian count is taking us for a drive in his barouche!’ one of them cried. ‘It’s a calèche not a barouche,’ called out another. ‘He’s so rich!’

  As they passed us by, Gabrielle held out her hand and touched my cheek. She touched Oscar’s and Garstrang’s, too. ‘I’m their chaperone!’ she explained, laughing as the young girls pulled her away. As they began to run together along the alleyway, she turned, breathlessly, and called out to Richard Marais, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll be back in plenty of time for tonight’s performance —however rich he is!’

  Inside the theatre, the backstage area was a blaze of light. In the wings, the jets of the gasoliers and gas lamps were all turned high and, at the four corners of the stage, stood four huge oil burners providing additional illumination. As actors and actresses, in hurriedly donned day clothes, made their way, pell-mell, towards the stage door, stagehands and carpenters — boys and men in blue overalls — busied themselves upon the stage: lifting, shifting, laying, nailing. Richard Marais led us through the throng.

  ‘It’s Vauxhall Gardens on carnival night,’ said Oscar.

  ‘No,’ said Marais, ‘it’s the La Grange bear-pit on matinée days. We have to dismantle Le Cid and build L’Avare in under an hour.’

  ‘What time is the evening performance?’ I asked.

  ‘Eight o’clock. But Monsieur requires silence on stage between six and seven — for his siesta.’

  Monsieur was waiting for us at his dressing-room door. His eyes were ranging about the stage, but we saw him before he noticed us. He was standing in his dressing gown, barefoot, legs apart, a towel thrown toga-like across his shoulder, one clenched hand planted on one hip, the other hand held high and bearing a timepiece dangling from a golden chain.

  He caught sight of us breaking through the mêlée. ‘Ah, Oscar!’ he called. ‘Earlier I forgot you. Now I thought that you had forgotten me.’ He laughed as we approached. ‘Come. Welcome. Bring your friend.’

  He pocketed his timepiece and embraced Oscar warmly. He slapped my back by way of greeting. His lined and weathered face was now wreathed in smiles. His mood and manner were very different from when we had encountered him last. Indeed, he looked more at ease, yet more magnificent, than I had ever seen him. He was not a tall man, but he had grandeur and a head that was so striking — Oscar called it ‘the head of Agamemnon’ . In the light of the blazing oil burner, his skin glistened and his eyes shone. He shimmered with vitality. He must have read my thoughts, because as he stepped aside to let us into his dressing room, he murmured to me, ‘C’est mon métier. It’s what I do. It’s what I am.’

  Marais and Garstrang joined us in the dressing room. La Grange’s mother was already there, in the far corner, by the door to the dresser’s bedroom, at an old-fashioned oak sideboard, fussing over a samovar and a tray laid out with bone-china cups and saucers. Her new poodle was chasing her tail at her feet. The unfortunate odour of dog permeated the room. As La Grange pointed us towards chairs and the chaise longue, the old lady turned and held out a large lump of sugar for her pet. The dog yapped wildly and jumped up to snap it from her mistress’s bony fingers. I noticed Oscar’s eyes widen with dismay. He pulled a yellow handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his nose.

  ‘Maman is preparing tea,’ said La Grange, seating himself on the swivel stool that stood before his dressing table and beaming at us through the dressing-table looking-glass. ‘Traquair has gone off in search of muffins. He went an age ago. I had to undress myself, God save the mark! I hope he’s not got lost.’

  ‘How is Traquair?’ asked Oscar, pocketing his handkerchief and reaching for his cigarettes.

  ‘Conscientious. A good dresser, if not what you English call “a good companion”.’

  ‘I am Irish,’ murmured Oscar, striking a light.

  ‘You get a well-pressed shirt with Master Traquair,’ La Grange continued without pause, ‘but precious few laughs. He’s a touch morose for my liking. There’s not a lot of “give” in the man, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘How’s his French progressing?’ asked Oscar, drawing on his cigarette.

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered La Grange, pulling the towel from around his neck. ‘He barely speaks.’

  ‘I have promised to teach him,’ said Oscar. ‘I have been remiss.’

  ‘I hope he knows the French for “muffin”,’ muttered Liselotte La Grange from her position at the sideboard.

  ‘I wrote out the order for him, Maman — in capital letters. Serve the tea, if you’d be so kind!’ He swivelled round on his stool to face us. ‘You can have it with lemon, à La russe, or with milk, à l’anglaise.’

  Eddie Garstrang got up to help Maman serve the tea. Oscar, I noticed, was sitting back on the chaise longue, holding out his cigarette in a languid hand and observing the great La Grange as though he were the latest acquisition at the Musée du Louvre.

  I smiled at our host. ‘Tell me, sir,’ I said, ‘how was this afternoon’s performance?’

  La Grange beamed at me. He sat forward on his stool and slapped the back of his fingers loudly against the palm of his hand. ‘Now that’s the kind of question that I’d like to hear from my dresser! Thank you for asking, my boy.’ He leant towards me and tapped me gently on the knee. With a crooked forefinger he beckoned me towards him. ‘Since you ask,’ he whispered conspiratorially, ‘I shall tell you.’ He paused and waited until our two heads were almost touching, then he confided: ‘Mon ami, it was nothing short of a triumph!’

  From the samovar, without turning into the room, Maman remarked, ‘The La Grange family has always been good to Pierre Corneille.’

  ‘And Pierre Corneille,’ answered La Grange, sitting back, ‘has always been good to us. We played to a full house this afternoon! Every seat sold: for Le Cid, on a Saturday afternoon — in February!’

  ‘Bravo, monsieur,’ said Richard Marais, nodding and stirring the sugar into his tea à La russe.

  ‘And tonight, we’ll be full once more. A thousand seats — all sold.’

  I asked: ‘It’s The Miser tonight, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, leaning forward to tap me on the knee once more. ‘That’s where we seem to score over the great Madame Bernhardt. We do comedy, too.’ The Princesse de Lamballe growled and lay down on the floor next to the sideboard. ‘The divine Sarah seems to come into her splendid own only when she murders or when she dies. Well, no one wants tragedy eight times a week. You need a little laughter now and again.’

  ‘Molière died on that chaise longue,’ said Maman, turning and looking at Oscar.

  Oscar filled the air with cigarette smoke. The Princesse de Lamballe whimpered and scratched the floorboards along the edge of the dresser’s bedroom door.

  ‘You know, Oscar,’ La Grange continued, ‘in America I played to business that was as good as Sarah’s. In some theatres, I did better than she did. She has the greater fame—’

  ‘But you have the family name,’ interrupted his mother. ‘You have two hundred years of the La Grange tradition.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he sighed, ‘the La Grange tradition …

  ‘And you are French and she is a Jewess.’

  ‘She is a great actress, Maman.’

  ‘The greatest,’ said Oscar, with finality. He put his teacup on the floor and reached in his pocket for his cigarettes. He looked steadily into La Grange’s eyes. He was more than thirty years the great actor’s junior and yet he treated him as an equal. ‘You’ve worked with Sarah, haven’t you? You like Sarah, don’t you?’

  La Grange smiled and accepted one of Oscar’s cigarettes. ‘Ignore Maman. She despises Sarah because she’s Jewish. She won’t speak with T
raquair because he’s a blackamoor. For forty years she’s been loath to share a stage with Carlos Branco because he’s Portuguese. ‘Suddenly, the great La Grange threw out his arms, tossed back his head and began to roar with laughter. ‘Maman, you are utterly absurd,’ he cried. He looked at Oscar. ‘Do I like Sarah? No, she irritates me. All the nonsense with her husband and her lovers and her ludicrous menagerie — it’s all too stupid. But do I love her? How could I not? As an artist she is incomparable. On stage she is unique.’

  ‘Agnès La Grange will be her equal in the fullness of time,’ croaked Maman from beside the samovar.

  La Grange ignored the old lady and continued to smile at Oscar. He swivelled gently on his stool, turning to open a small side-drawer in his dressing table. ‘Sarah gave me this,’ he said. Slowly, from out of the drawer, he pulled a large hand-gun. I saw Oscar flinch. ‘It’s a Colt revolver,’ said La Grange, looking at the weapon admiringly, ‘a six-shooter.’ He spun the gun at speed around his index finger. He laughed. With his thumb, he cocked the hammer. ‘And it’s loaded.’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Eddie Garstrang softly.

  La Grange held the gun in his right hand, resting the long grey barrel across his left wrist. He pointed the weapon towards Garstrang. The smoke from his cigarette filtered up and over the muzzle. ‘It’s called the Peacemaker. Sarah was given it by her American manager, Mr Jarrett — “the terrible Mr Jarrett” she calls him — and, before I set off on my American tour, she passed it on to me. She thought that it might come in handy.’

  ‘I have heard of Mr Jarrett,’ said Oscar.

  ‘And have you heard his great line?’ La Grange narrowed his eyes and spoke the line in English, with a broad American accent: “‘I have made my way in life by the aid of two weapons: honesty and a revolver.”‘ He laughed.

  ‘He killed a man, I believe,’ said Oscar.

  ‘Yes,’ said La Grange, lowering his hands and cradling the revolver in his lap. ‘In the way of business — on behalf of one his clients, the singer, Jenny Lind. He was her manager, too.’