Oscar

by Sturgis, Matthew;

  In the absence of new work Wilde looked to his existing oeuvre. He continued to foster schemes for promoting his name in Italy. When one of the young poets in Rocco’s circle, the teenage Biagio Chiara, expressed a desire to translate The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde hastened to arrange for him to be sent a copy.6 He strove, too, to re-ignite interest in Salomé, sending the Italian text to Cesare Rossi, the actor-manager who had taken the Teatro dei Fiorentini for the autumn season. Rossi was ‘astounded’ by the script, but regretted there was in his company ‘no actress who could possibly touch the part’.7 Only Eleonora Duse would do. She arrived in Naples in early December, and Wilde attended every evening of her brief season.8 He considered her ‘a fascinating artist’, even if ‘nothing to Sarah [Bernhardt]’.9 Through friends he sent her a copy of the play, begging her to consider it.10 She was certainly intrigued, and might indeed have taken on the role if only ‘the bad reputation of the author’ did not, in her opinion, make it impossible. In this sadly conventional view she was supported by some of her fellow actors.11 Duse left Naples on 14 December, and with her went all immediate prospects for Salomé’s Italian production.12

  As the hopes of artistic advancement dwindled, Wilde sought consolation in the more immediate pleasures of self-pity. ‘My life cannot be patched up,’ he told Smithers. ‘There is a doom on it. Neither to myself, nor to others, am I any longer a joy. I am now simply an ordinary pauper of a rather low order: the fact that I am also a pathological problem in the eyes of German scientists is only interesting to German scientists: and even in their works I am tabulated, and come under the law of averages! Quantum mutates!’13 A sense of grievance against Douglas – not for deserting him (that had been inescapable) – but on account of his behaviour while he had been in Naples, began to grow as the days past, and the bitter incidents were recalled and rehashed. Everything seemed to have gone against him.

  In his desire to dramatize the moment and – as he put it – drain the chalice of his misery to the dregs, he even took himself one evening to the public gardens favoured by Neapolitan suicides. Sitting alone in the darkness, however, he became aware of the rustling and sighing of ‘misty cloud like things’ coming about him; the souls, he decided, of those who had killed themselves, and – rather than finding rest – were condemned to linger in the place for eternity. It was enough to make him dismiss the idea of suicide. Apart from everything else, the notion of spending the entire afterlife in Naples was more than he could bear: the cooking, as he remarked, was really too bad.14

  There were, of course, other reasons to choose life. ‘Vanity, that great impulse’ was still driving him ‘to think of a possible future of self-assertion’: he wanted to see The Ballad of Reading Gaol safely published. Inertia, too, stood against taking any decisive step. And there was also the prospect of £200 from Lady Queensberry. Vincent O’Sullivan, when he passed through Naples in mid-December, found Wilde living in daily expectation of the money. O’Sullivan suspected that there was a strong dramatizing element in his friend’s litany of complaint.15 He was more amused than alarmed when, dining together in a restaurant, Wilde became suddenly perturbed by a local ‘witch’ (quite possibly the one who had got rid of the rats) pausing to look in at them through the window; ‘Did you see that?’ Wilde asked. ‘Some great misfortune is going to happen to us.’16

  Nevertheless O’Sullivan was unhappily aware that something of Wilde’s essential elasticity of spirit had been lost. This was made clear to him on another evening, when they had been sitting late in a restaurant, and Wilde became uncharacteristically disturbed at a party of theatre-goers who, coming away from a first night, pointed him out. Although their action seemed prompted more by curiosity than malice, Wilde bolted from the restaurant in distress. ‘We went a little way in silence,’ O’Sullivan recalled. ‘Then one of those tragic beggars of Naples arose in a doorway where he had been crouching and held out his hand. Wilde gave him some money, and I heard him murmur in English: “You wretched man, why do you beg when pity is dead?”’17

  The first instalment of £100 from Lady Queensberry, when it did arrive (via More Adey), might not have been able to alter Wilde’s dejected mood, but it could offer the possibility of new distractions – of madder music and stronger wine. Robbie Ross certainly claimed that it was in Naples, and probably during this period, that Wilde started drinking with a new and steady determination.18 He may not have shown obvious signs of inebriation, but the edge of unhappiness was blunted. Sex, too, was a ready diversion; it was cheap to buy.

  A young acquaintance, Wilfrid Blaydes (a friend of the Berensons), found Wilde in a sorry state that December: ‘At present under the feeling that every man’s hand is against him, he is utterly demoralized and going as straight as he can to the devil. He is provided with money for the present (which he uses chiefly to that end).’19 Perhaps unaware that the funds came from Lady Queensberry, and entertained by Wilde’s tales of Heliogabalus, Blaydes suspected – without, it seems, foundation – that Wilde was ‘mak[ing] money writing obscenities for Smithers’.20 Although Wilde expressed a desire to ‘to pull himself round’, Blaydes feared that he was ‘mixed up with rascally people’ and would ‘find great difficulty’ in doing so.21 Moral support was needed. The Berensons were urged to write to Wilde, and to get other former friends to do likewise, since – Blaydes believed – Wilde would prove ‘very susceptible to personal influence’.22 It is not clear whether Berenson, or any other friends, did write. And it is far from certain that their letters would have reached him anyway.

  Rather than face a sad Christmas alone at Naples, Wilde took off on what Blaydes described as ‘a foolish trip to Taormina’ in Sicily.23 He went as the guest of an elderly and ‘very cultivated’ Russian, quite possibly one of his ‘rascally’ new associates.24 In Taormina Wilde lodged at the Hotel Victoria on Corso Umberto, and visited the gardens created by Florence Trevelyan, one of several exiles from British prudery living in the town (she had been obliged to leave England, and her post as lady-in-waiting, following rumours of an affair with the Prince of Wales).25 Wilde also came to know the young Russophile Albert Stopford, who had fled London in 1894 to avoid arrest on a charge of gross indecency.26 But the principal draw of the place seems to have been the studio of Count Wilhelm von Gloeden. The Count, a forty-one-year-old German long settled at Taormina, had established a reputation for his mock-classical photographs of Sicilian youths, posing (usually nude) as fauns and shepherd boys. Wilde acquired at least two of these arrestingly homoerotic images and, according to one source, even helped with arranging the poses of the ‘marvellous boys’.27

  Despite the congenial company – and sexual opportunities – in Sicily, Wilde returned to Naples early in the new year. He arrived to find that all his clothes, and some of his possessions, had been stolen by the servant who had been left in charge at the villa. This misfortune was then compounded by a bout of influenza. It was a sad start to 1898. Bruised by ill health, loneliness and ‘general ennui with a tragi-comedy of an existence’, he decided to leave the Villa Giudice (even though the rent was paid until the end of the month) and move back into town. He took lodgings at 31 via S. Lucia, close to fashionable heart of things.

  There was disappointing news about The Ballad of Reading Gaol from America, Miss Marbury reporting that ‘nobody here seems to feel any interest in the poem’. She had, nevertheless, managed to secure a modest offer of $100 (around £20) from the New York Journal. It was the best that could be managed.28 Against this setback there was the actual excitement of receiving from Smithers the first advance copy of the book. Wilde was ‘really charmed’ by its elegant appearance. The title page was, he declared, ‘a masterpiece – one of the best I have ever seen’.29 Smithers, too, was excited. Having initially ordered a first printing of just 400 copies, he had – perhaps at the prompting of Ross – then doubled the run. And in addition to these 800 copies (priced at 2s 6d) he also produced thirty special copies on Japanese vellum, priced at a guinea. Wild
e set about drawing up a list of those who should receive presentation copies: besides his various literary and artistic friends (Dowson, Beerbohm, Vincent O’Sullivan, Ada Leverson, etc.) it included both Major Nelson and Warder Groves.30

  The task, although congenial, must have pointed up his loneliness – his separation from the intellectual and social camaraderie that he so relished. Although he had taken up with a new and ‘beautiful love’, he had to admit to himself (and to Leonard Smithers) that he was growing ‘tired of Greek bronzes’.31 What he craved was company and conversation. In Naples he had to find it where he could. Among the various unsuspecting tourists upon whom he genially imposed himself were two English schoolmasters (one of them the father of Graham Greene): joining their café table, Wilde delighted them with his talk for more than an hour, before departing, leaving them to pay for his drink. As Greene senior would remark in later life, it was a indication of how lonely Wilde must have been, that he was ready to expend so much time and wit on a couple of holidaying schoolteachers.32

  It was clear that Wilde could not work, isolated and alone, in Naples. ‘My life has gone to great ruin here,’ he told Smithers, ‘and I have no brain now, or energy.’33 By early February he had resolved to go to Paris. It would, as Blaydes suggested, be a far ‘better’ place for him. He would be closer to his English friends, and there would be intellectual stimulation and companionship, and the chance of working. ‘I hope,’ Wilde declared, on the eve of departure, ‘to make an effort in Paris.’34

  -PART XI-

  The Teacher

  Of Wisdom

  1898–1900

  age 44–46

  Oscar Wilde in Rome, 1900.

  1

  The Parisian Temple

  of Pleasure

  ‘The only place on earth where you will find absolute toleration for all human frailties, with passionate admirations for all human virtues and capacities.’

  oscar wilde

  Wilde reached Paris towards the middle of February 1898, and installed himself in the modest Hôtel de Nice in the rue des Beaux-Arts on the Left Bank. The moment seemed propitious. His arrival coincided with the publication in London of The Ballad of Reading Gaol. The book proved an instant success. Smithers had presaged its appearance with a well-placed advertisement in the Athenaeum,1 and on Sunday 13 February – the official publication date – Reynolds’s Newspaper welcomed the volume with a long and appreciative notice, including lengthy quotations. Using their inside knowledge gleaned from negotiations over the serial rights, they were able to blow the supposed anonymity of ‘C.3.3’ at the outset. Heading their piece, ‘A New Poem by Oscar Wilde’, they suggested that the highly ‘dramatic’ poem ‘will be read with the greatest interest, not only for its artistic merits, but for the touches of self-revelation of a remarkable man; one who, whatever his offence, has borne the retribution with dignity and self-restraint’.2 Another paper, the Sunday Special, declared that ‘not since the first publication of “The Ancient Mariner” have the English public been proffered such a weird, enthralling and masterly ballad-narration’.3

  On the Monday morning business was brisk. One bookshop was reported as having sold fifty copies. Within days the whole print run was sold out, and a second edition of 1,000 copies was in preparation, to be ‘ready next week’. In its ‘strikingly vivid and realistic description of prison life’ the poem offered something arresting and new. It demanded engagement: the novelist Mrs Lynn Linton considered Wilde’s treatment of the subject ‘as perverted as ever… all excuse for crime, and pity for the criminal, but not for the victim’;4 while ‘Michael Field’, writing in their diary, saluted ‘the immortal outrageous Paradox’ at the heart of the poem – ‘We needs must kill the thing we love’; they thought ‘Oscar was sent into the world to generate this stimulating monster’.5

  If the book was not universally noticed, there were reviews in the Daily Chronicle and the Telegraph, as well as in lesser publications such as Echo and War Cry. Ross, back on good terms with Wilde, sent over a sheaf of cuttings.6 The Pall Mall Gazette hailed the book as ‘the most remarkable poem that has appeared this year’ – though, admittedly, it was only February. Arthur Symons provided a perceptive and generous critique in the Saturday Review, and W. E. Henley (perhaps stung by Symons’ comparing the ballad to Henley’s own recently published free-verse volume, In Hospital) contributed a less generous, and less perceptive, assessment in Outlook.7 For Wilde The Ballad of Reading Gaol marked a triumphant artistic return. Although slightly disappointed that the Daily Chronicle seemed to regard the poem as merely ‘a pamphlet on prison-reform’, he was both impressed and ‘greatly touched’ by Symons’ review.8 Henley he chose to ignore, telling Smithers ‘[he] is simply jealous. He made his scrofula into vers libre, and is furious because I have made a sonnet out of “skilly”.’9

  He enjoyed, too, the generous praise of friends, such as Rothenstein and Laurence Housman.10 He received ‘a charming letter’ from Cunninghame-Graham and another from Bernard Berenson (which gave him, so he said, ‘more pleasure [and] more pride than anything has done since the poem appeared’).11 From Ross he doubtless heard that Edmund Gosse admired the poem, and that Major Nelson judged parts to be ‘very fine’ indeed; and perhaps, too, he learnt that Constance had found it ‘exquisite’, and Burne-Jones ‘thinks it wonderful’.12 It was reported that Sir Edward Clarke had bought ‘a dozen copies’.13 Wilde, in his excitement, drew up almost daily lists of those who should receive complimentary copies – ‘people who have been kind to me and about me’.14

  The book’s momentum had to be maintained. And although Wilde joked that Smithers was so used to selling suppressed books that he was apt to suppress his own, in fact the publisher responded well to the challenge. At Wilde’s prompting he issued, at the beginning of March, a special ‘Author’s Edition’, with a cover decoration by Ricketts; each of the ninety-nine copies was numbered and signed, and the volume was priced at half a guinea. There were also three further printings of the ordinary edition, bringing the total number of copies, by the end of May, to 5,000. This was a singular achievement for a volume of poetry.15 The Ballad was easily the most successful of Wilde’s books.

  To enhance the topicality of the poem, Wilde, signing himself ‘The Author of The Ballad of Reading Gaol’, sent a long, passionately argued letter about the need for penal reform to the Daily Chronicle. It was published – on the eve of the second reading of the government’s Prison Bill. And, gratifyingly, The Ballad itself was also quoted by at least two MPs during the course of the debate.16 In the wake of these successes, Wilde and Smithers hatched excited plans for getting W. H. Smith to take a cheap ‘sixpenny’ edition, with Wilde suggesting that, as he wanted ‘the poem to reach the poorer classes’, it might be an idea to give away a cake of ‘Maypole soap’ with each copy: ‘I hear it dyes people the most lovely colours, and is also cleansing.’ The scheme, however, sadly came to nothing.17 Wilde was also disappointed in his hopes that a small book edition might be possible in the States.18

  Paris, though, was receptive. A poem, Wilde announced complacently, ‘gives one droit de cité’. He distributed copies among those who had defended him during his imprisonment: Henri Bauër, Octave Mirabeau and others.19 But the landscape of literary Paris had altered during the years of Wilde’s imprisonment. Goncourt and Verlaine were dead. Mallarmé was ailing; he had given up his mardis and would die that September. The young writers who had gathered so eagerly around Wilde at the beginning of the 1890s were not keen to renew the association. Although Paul Valéry might write enthusiastically about The Ballad to Pierre Louÿs (declaring that prison was clearly ‘excellent aux poètes’) there was no suggestion of a rapprochement with their former friend.20 Schwob and Retté also stood aloof. Henri de Régnier declined to engage, although when they passed in the street it was Wilde who turned away. De Régnier was left to note – disapprovingly – Wilde’s too-conspicuous yellow check suit and his ‘varnished’ shoes.21

  Oth
ers were more welcoming. Stuart Merrill sought him out. The Ballad was generously received by the progressive journals. There was ‘a capital notice’ in the Revue Blanche, along with an invitation from its editor, Félix Fénéon, to meet the paper’s staff. Wilde dined also with the editor of ‘that artistic revue’ L’Ermitage;22 while the young poet Henry Davray, who had sent Wilde both books and messages of sympathy on his release from prison, proposed writing a French prose translation. Wilde was charmed at the idea – offering his assistance, since, as he pointed out, Davray had not had the advantage of imprisonment, and was likely to be puzzled by some of the vocabulary. They collaborated on the project over the ensuing weeks. Initially Wilde hoped that Smithers might publish the work in a dual-language book edition from London, but in the event the translation appeared that May in the pages of the Mercure de France.23 Its publication further enhanced Wilde’s Parisian standing. Ross thought it ‘charming’, the French ‘so unlike the original that one has all the sensation of reading a new poem’.24 Later in the year the translation was re-issued in book form – under the Mercure de France imprint – with the English text in parallel.

  There were other marks of esteem: a recitation was arranged of some of Wilde’s ‘poems in prose’ (in French translation) as part of a literary matinee at the Odéon.25 Memories of the successful production of Salomé prompted interest in Wilde’s future dramatic projects. He attended at least one performance at the experimental Théâtre Libre as the guest of its director, and was invited to dine by Maeterlinck and his mistress, the opera singer Georgette Leblanc.26

  Despite these flattering attentions, Wilde could not but be conscious that the real interest of the French capital had shifted away from the concerns of art and literature. At the beginning of 1898 the city – and, indeed, the whole country – was riven by the unfolding drama of the Dreyfus ‘affaire’. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer serving with French military intelligence, had been convicted in December 1894 of spying for the Germans, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, the penal colony in French Guiana. But doubts had persisted about his guilt. And an army investigator scrutinizing the handwriting on the key piece of evidence – an intercepted inventory, or bordereau, passing on sensitive military information – became convinced (quite correctly) that it had been written not by Dreyfus at all, but by another disaffected French officer, Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. Although the military establishment was not inclined to accept (or share) these findings, the information was made public towards the end 1897, provoking a storm of controversy and protest. The guilt or innocence of Dreyfus might be the ostensible matter of dispute, but it also provided a focus for long-standing political and religious animosities. The anti-Dreyfusards, besides their respect for established institutions, were also fuelled by anti-Semitism. Their pro-Dreyfus opponents tended to be anti-clerical, anti-militarist intellectuals. Among those who weighed in on the Dreyfusard side was Emile Zola. When in January 1898 a closed military tribunal summarily exonerated Esterhazy of having written the bordereau, the novelist published a furious denunciation at this travesty of justice. His article – headlined ‘J’accuse’ – raised the temperature a few more degrees. It also landed Zola in court, charged with defamation of a public authority.