Meanwhile, Douglas was making a last attempt to catch up on his studies. In March 1893, he was being tutored at Oxford by a young scholar named Campbell Dodgson. Perhaps realizing that the game was up, he sent a long telegram to Wilde, and packed himself and tutor off to Babbacombe Cliff. Dodgson did his best to continue the instruction and camouflage Douglas’s truancy, though he could appreciate Wilde’s view that Babbacombe was ‘combining the advantages of a public school with those of a lunatic asylum.’ Wilde set out the school rules:
BABBACOMBE SCHOOL
Headmaster—Mr Oscar Wilde
Second Master—Mr Campbell Dodgson
Boys—Lord Alfred Douglas
Rules.
Tea for masters and boys at 9.30 a.m.
Breakfast at 10.30
Work 11.30–12.30
At 12.30. Sherry and biscuits for headmasters and boys (the second master objects to this).
12.40–1.30. Work.
1.30. Lunch
2.30–4.30. Compulsory hide-and-seek for headmaster.
5. Tea for headmaster and second master, brandy and sodas (not to exceed seven) for boys.
6–7. Work.
7.30. Dinner, with compulsory champagne.
8.30–12. Ecarté, limited to five-guinea points.
12–1.30. Compulsory reading in bed. Any boy found disobeying this rule will be immediately woken up.
At the conclusion of the term the headmaster will be presented with a silver inkstand, the second master with a pencil-case, as a token of esteem, by the boys.
It was not in Douglas’s nature to stay calm for long, and after a few days he flared up. His vituperation in these moods was more than Wilde could bear, and when Douglas went off in a tantrum to Bristol the next morning, Wilde welcomed the idea that their friendship might be at an end. Dodgson, no less flustered, remarked that Douglas was known at Magdalen as someone who at times was not responsible for what he said or did. But by the time he reached Bristol, Douglas had thought better of his outburst and begged forgiveness. Wilde gave in, and Douglas returned to go back to London with him. On the way he asked Wilde to take rooms for them both at the Savoy, which Wilde did. (It was here that Louÿs saw the tearful Constance.) Douglas would never consent to go in by the side entrance of the hotel, but insisted on the front door so that everyone could see Oscar Wilde and his boy.16 ‘That was indeed a visit fatal to me,’ Wilde would eventually recognize.
Oxford Revisited
‘Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.’
‘But what world says that?’ asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. ‘It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms.’
In May of 1893, Wilde came, caped in glory, to Oxford, where he paid a long visit to Douglas. During Eights Week there was a sudden attack in a fly-by-night publication, the Ephemeral, edited by a young Oxford rugby player named Alfred Hamilton Grant (later an important government official in India) and an equally athletic friend, Arthur Cunliffe. Though they were friendly with Douglas, who had shown some prowess as a runner, they editorialized against his Spirit Lamp in their first issue, of 18 May, suggested in a squib about Wilde that ‘His face is his misfortune,’ and had a long article about a playwright called ‘Ossian Savage’: it began, with tabloid sensationalism, ‘Ossian Savage, a man of a coarse habit of body and of coarser habits of mind, was enjoying the cool summer morning in his own way in Piccadilly.’ Douglas rose to the bait, denouncing the phrase about Wilde’s mind and body; they weaseled out of the charge, made friends again, and kept up the game long enough to sell a lot of copies. After Eights Week, Douglas suggested that Grant should meet the victim of the attack, and Grant agreed.
A dinner party was arranged in Douglas’s rooms. Most of the guests were not of Grant’s athletic sort, being overdressed and effeminate. Wilde was gracious and made no allusion to the Ephemeral: ‘I hear that you are called Gragger,’ he said. ‘But this is dreadful. It must not go on. We must find a new name for you, something beautiful and worthy and Scotch.’ Grant disliked the way the young men and Wilde passed round gold-tipped cigarettes between the courses, and at the end of the meal he ostentatiously took out a cigar. Douglas leaned over to caution him that this might give offense to Wilde, who, however, said only, ‘How too terrible of you! But we shall call it a nutbrown cigarette—and you shall smoke it.’ Grant found all this too exclamatory, and was beginning to regret he had come when someone said, ‘Oscar, do tell us a story.’ ‘And what, my dear boy, am I to tell you a story about?’ A chorus of voices said, ‘Early Church.’ Wilde shot out his great cuffs and offered, as well as Grant could remember, this tale of Christian fidelity:
In the days when Christianity was making its first struggles in the great city of Rome, some of the idle rich began to be interested in this strange new creed, with its odd inhibitions and its reversal of all normal human impulses. Among those who saw the true beauty of the teaching was a young girl, a patrician of a great House, by name Lydia. Daily she went to the mean quarters where this earnest little community dwelt and met, and daily she became more and more drawn to their beliefs, until at last she accepted the Baptism of Christ and joined their ranks. All this time, however, she had an admirer, also, of course, a patrician, named Metellus, who loved her dearly. She told him from day to day of her spiritual leanings and of her communion with the Christians, and every day Metellus did all he could to dissuade her from what seemed to him social and religious shipwreck. He begged her to leave her mad quest and to marry him—but she refused and said she could never marry him unless he too became a Christian.
Goaded by his great love, Metellus consented to go with her to the Christians’ meetings and to hear what they had to say. Truth to tell, he was but little moved by their discourses, and the whole thing seemed to him very foolish and unnecessary. But the flame of his love burnt fiercely, and seeing no other way of winning his Lydia, he affected complete conversion, and he too became a Christian. For a little while they were happy, very happy; but before long the attention of a ruthless Emperor was drawn to the activities of the Christians. False and cruel charges were brought against them and the persecution began. Many were seized and hurled into prison, and amongst them Lydia and Metellus, whose offence was the greater in that they were of patrician rank. Then Lydia in the solitude of her cell began to regret what she had done.
‘Perhaps, after all,’ she said to herself, ‘the whole story of Christ is false and His teaching an error. The old gods were easy and comfortable. Why, oh why! have I been so foolish?’
And Metellus in his cell thought: ‘Well, I was afraid that no good would come of this. I knew from the first that it was all wild talk with no practical purpose, that could not lead to anything but trouble.’
And the day came when they were each told that unless they would publicly renounce the Christian faith with contumely, they would be thrown to the wild beasts in the Great Circus before the Roman people. Terror and anguish filled their hearts—but Lydia said to herself: ‘What have I done? I have brought myself and my dear, dear Metellus to this plight. If I now renounce Christ, he, who believes so fervently, will die despising me. That I could not bear.’
And Metellus said to himself: ‘What a grievous business is this! I care not one straw for Christ or His doctrine and never did. But if I now renounce Him, Lydia, whose belief is as a rock, and who believes that I too believe as she does, will think me a common coward and will die despising me. That I could not bear.’
And so when the appointed day came, in their turn Lydia and Metellus were thrown to the wild beasts in the Circus—and thus they both died for a Faith in which they did not believe.
There were almost nightly dinners given in Wilde’s honor by members of his coterie. It was like his old days in Oxford, but grander. One dinner was held on a Sunday night in a house in St Giles’, where the first floor opened out to a balcony. The night was sultry and after dinner several gues
ts, including Wilde, sat on the balcony. Some of the passing townsmen recognized Wilde, and one cried out, ‘Why, there’s Hoscar—let’s ’ave a speech, Hauthor, Hauthor, Hoscar, Hoscar.’ Disconcerted, Wilde went indoors. But Grant, who was again present, felt that more should be done, and summoned another athletic guest: ‘We must read the Riot Act, then constitute ourselves into the Military, and charge and disperse this unlawful assembly.’ The crowd did not stand up to them and left. Wilde welcomed his defenders with outstretched arms: ‘Hail! You are magnificent. You are giants, giants with souls!’ Grant proposed that as a reward Wilde should tell another story of the Early Church. After some reluctance, he began:
A little while ago I was browsing in the library of a country house. I happened to pick out a musty, calf-bound volume of ancient European history and, opening it at random, my eye caught the sentence, ‘In that year died Pope John the Twenty-Second a shameful death.’ This intrigued me. What was the manner of this shameful death? I tried to find illumination in that library, but without success. So I decided to discover the truth in the only way in which truth can with certainty be discovered—by evolving it from one’s inner consciousness. Suddenly in the silence of the night the naked truth was delivered to me. It was this.
The aged Pope, who had for long been little more than a living corpse, passed away. During his long sickness, intrigue had been busy and the College of Cardinals was torn by bitter faction. After days of hot dispute, the College at length decided to compromise by appointing a complete nonentity who should be neutral. They bethought them of the young priest of a little church lying a few miles away in the Campagna.… Summoned to the Vatican, this young man was, with all the strange attendant ceremonies, duly elected Pope under the name of John the Twenty-Second.
In those days the Pope lived no secluded life within the walls of the Vatican, but mixed freely in the society of Rome.… It was little wonder that before long Pope John, daily meeting the most beautiful women of the capital, should fall in love. The lady of his affections was the young wife of an elderly noble of a great house. First they loved with the love that dies—the love of the soul for the soul; and then they loved with the love that never dies—the love of the body for the body. But in Rome itself, their opportunities were few.
They resolved, therefore, to meet in some secluded spot far from the city. The lady’s husband owned a little villa with a beautiful orchard some miles out in the Campagna.… They agreed on a day and hour. Early on the day appointed Pope John arrayed himself in the gay fete-day dress of a Roman noble—and mounting his horse rode with exulting heart into the Campagna. When he had gone a few miles he suddenly saw in the distance the little church of which he had been such a little while ago the humble, unknown priest.
Drawn by an irresistible feeling, … he approached the little church and tethered his horse; and then a strange fancy took him, to don the priest’s vestments and to sit in the confessional as he had so often done before. The church was open and empty, so putting on the vestments, he sat down beside the grille. Of a sudden the door opened and a man hurried in, with face half-masked, evidently in much perturbation of mind.
‘Father,’ he said in a broken voice, ‘I have a question to ask of you. Is there any sin so great that Christ Himself could not absolve me from it?’
‘Nay, my son, there is no such sin. But what grievous sin have you committed that you ask me this?’
‘I have committed no sin,’ said the man, ‘but I am about to commit a sin so deadly that I do not think even Christ Himself could absolve me. I am about to kill the Vicar of Christ upon Earth, Pope John the Twenty-Second.’
‘Even from this sin could Christ absolve you,’ said Pope John.
The man rose and hurried from the church, and Pope John took off the priest’s vestments, mounted his horse and rode on towards the orchard where his love awaited him. There on the sunlit green turf in a clearing between the trees stood his lady. With a little cry she ran towards him and threw herself into his arms. As they stood in that first long embrace, suddenly a figure sprang from the twilight of the trees and drove a dagger hilt-high into the back of Pope John. With a groan he fell to the ground—a dying man. Then with a supreme effort he raised his hand and, looking at his assailant, said in the last words of the Absolution:
‘Quod ego possum et tu eges, absolve te.’ And so died Pope John the Twenty-Second a shameful death.17
Star-crossed ambition and star-crossed love conveyed Wilde’s anxiety about the realized ambition and fulfilled love he was experiencing. So a skeptic’s history of popes and saints gradually took form.
The Greats examinations took place in June 1893; Douglas did not show up for them. Magdalen College expressed its disfavor. Douglas rushed to remove his name from the college books, and wrote indignantly to the President that some day this would be the greatest disgrace for Magdalen. Wilde congratulated him on having followed Swinburne’s example by deciding to remain a permanent undergraduate.
The late spring and summer of 1893 were devoted to pleasure. Douglas had taken a fancy to a house at Goring-on-Thames, which Wilde called ‘a most unhealthy and delightful place.’ He persuaded Wilde to rent it and to engage a college scout of his named Grainger to work there. Wilde also had visits from his family, especially Cyril. Other visitors dropped in, one of them the young poet Theodore Wratislaw who had reviewed Gray’s Silverpoints so unfavorably; though they scarcely knew each other, he came at Wilde’s invitation at the end of August. Having stored his summer clothes, he appeared clad in a tail coat and a new straw hat, to the obvious irritation of Wilde, who was dressed all in white. After tea they went for a walk in the woods. At one point the path opened up for a short space, then wound its way around a blind corner to the right. Wilde suddenly stood still. ‘There!’ he exclaimed; ‘that is as far as I ever wish to see in life. Let me be satisfied with what I can see. I do not want to know what lies beyond the turning a few paces ahead.’ Uneasiness, rather than aesthetic contentment, was apparent.
They dined alone. Wratislaw had the nerve to suggest that Wilde’s dialogue was too elaborate, and that Pinero’s or Jones’s was better adapted to the stage. For answer, Wilde put some plays of his two rivals in Wratislaw’s hands and said, ‘Read these.’ Wratislaw was surprised to discover how commonplace their dialogue was, and told Wilde so the next morning. Wilde said nothing except that he had expected this response. At breakfast Cyril Wilde appeared, a beautiful child with golden curls. Afterwards Wilde took them sculling on the river. He was wearing a pale-blue shirt with a pale-pink silk tie, colors which the next day he would reverse. He used a white-lilac perfume. In the boat Wratislaw thoughtlessly made a slighting remark about home rule for Ireland, and little Cyril flashed with anger as he asked, ‘Are you not a Home Ruler?’ Wilde turned the debate aside by saying, ‘My own idea is that Ireland should rule England.’ Another subject was the most recent volume of Richard Le Gallienne, and particularly a poem called ‘The Decadent Poet to his Soul.’ Wilde wondered who in the world Le Gallienne might have had in mind, and was taken aback when Wratislaw said it must be Wilde himself. He recovered to say, ‘Well, it has always seemed to me that the finest feature of a fine nature is treachery.’ To a sensitive nature, he explained, the burden of gratitude must be overwhelming, so it was a sign of the fineness of the debtor’s character that he should find it necessary to betray his benefactor.18
As Wratislaw was leaving, another guest arrived, whom Wilde addressed as Harry (presumably this was Harry Marillier). In between these hospitable gestures Wilde wrote the first act of his new play, An Ideal Husband, in the house at Goring in early June. A Woman of No Importance had been all talk and no action in its first act, but An Ideal Husband advanced the plot much more rapidly. Then Douglas appeared with some Oxford friends. The moment the friends left, Douglas, in a fit of rage, denounced Wilde. It was a bright morning, and the two men were standing, as Wilde was to remember, on the level croquet ground with the lawn all round. When
Douglas paused, Wilde said to him as calmly as he could that they must part. ‘We are spoiling each other’s lives. You are absolutely ruining mine and evidently I am not making you really happy. An irrevocable parting, a complete separation is the one wise philosophic thing to do.’ Douglas stayed for luncheon, then went off, leaving with the butler one of those scorching letters that had become a recurrent event in their relationship. Yet again there was an about-face: in three days Douglas was begging Wilde in telegrams from London to let him return. Wilde could never resist penitence.19
Crisis and Flight
Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word too. The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.
The worst quarrel of a quarrelsome year was still to come. Wilde’s summer had been largely wasted, though he at least had projects. Douglas appeared to have none. Oxford was closed to him. Perhaps with the aim of giving him something to do, and also because he liked Douglas’s appreciation of Salome in the Spirit Lamp for May 1893, Wilde proposed that Douglas should translate the play for the English edition. Since Douglas had no book bearing his name, the prospect of sharing a title page with Wilde was eagerly accepted.
The commission was a mistake. Wilde had not reckoned with his beloved’s inadequate French. When Douglas proudly brought the translation to him at the end of August, Wilde found it unacceptable. For instance, ‘On ne doit regarder que dans les miroirs’ had been translated as, ‘One must not look at mirrors’ instead of ‘One should look only in mirrors.’ Furious at having his ignorance pointed out, Douglas quickly retorted that if there were faults, they were in the original rather than the translation. The usual violent letters to Wilde followed. He had begun to preen himself as an author, and Wilde’s shift from praise to blame was intolerable. Douglas said in one letter that he had ‘no intellectual obligation of any kind’ to Wilde; Wilde had not claimed such obligation, but it existed all the same, for Douglas, notwithstanding his failure to understand Wilde’s play, had framed his literary life on Wilde’s model, adopted his stances, his views, his patter. Wilde saw a chance, with this letter, to end ‘the fatal friendship that had sprung up between us,’ and to end it ‘without bitterness.’ He seems to have contemplated sending back Douglas’s manuscript to him and assuring him that no obligation existed.
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