Peter Ackroyd's
THE LAST
TESTAMENT OF
OSCAR
WILDE
Digital electronic transcription by John O’Loughlin
Transcription Copyright © 2023 Centretruths Digital Media
_________________
9 August 1900
Hôtel d'Alsace, Paris
This morning I visited once again the little church of
St Julien-le-Pauvre.
The curé there is a charming man who believes
me to labour under a great sorrow; once, he approached me on silent feet and
whispered as I knelt before the altar, 'Your prayers may be answered by God's
grace, monsieur.' I told him - I could
not whisper - that my prayers have always been answered: that is why I come to
this church each day in mourning. After
that, he left me in peace.
It is not
generally known that St Julien tired of his mission
somewhat early in life. He healed the
maimed and the sick, but they reviled him because they could not longer beg;
when he cast out devils, they simply entered the bodies of those who watched
the miracle; when he prophesied, he was accused of spreading disillusion among
the rich. So many times was he turned
away from the gates of great cities, so often did he ask for a sign from God
which god would not send, that he gave up his ministry in despair. 'I have been a healer and a prophet,' he
said. 'Now I will be a beggar.' But a strange thing occurred: those who had
scorned his miracles then worshipped his poverty. They pitied him and, in their pity, they made
him a saint. His miracles have been
forgotten absolutely. This is the saint
for me.
As I left
the little church this morning, three young Englishmen passed me. I have grown accustomed to such encounters,
and adopted my usual posture. I walk
very slowly and take care not to look in their direction: since I am for them
the painted image of sin, I always allow them the luxury of protracted
observation. When they had retreated to
a safe distance, one of them turned around and called back at me, 'Look! There
goes Mrs Wilde! Isn't she swell?' I walked on with flaming cheeks and, as soon
as they had turned the corner of the rue Danton, I
hastened back to my room here, my nerves quite ruined.. I still tremble as I write this. I am like Cassander
of the pantomime, who receives blows from the harlequin's wand and kicks from
the clown.
During the
terrible days of my trials, a letter was delivered to me: it contained only an
illustration of some prehistoric beast.
That was how the English thought of me.
Well, they tried to tame the monster.
They locked it up. I am surprised
that, on my release, the London County Council did not hire me, to be fired from a cannon or perform acrobatic tricks at the
The
simplest lessons are those which we are taught last. Like Semele who
longed to see God and was wrapped in fire which consumed her, so I longed for
fame and was destroyed by it. I thought,
in my days of purple and gold, that I could reveal myself to the world and
instead the world has revealed itself to me.
But although my persecutors have tormented me, and sent me into the
wilderness like a pariah dog, they have not broken my spirit - they could not
do that. Since I was driven in a closed
cab from the gates of Reading prison, I have been freed in ways that I could
not then have understood. I have no
past. My former triumphs are of no
importance. My work has been quite
forgotten: there is no point in instructing Romeike's
on my behalf, for there will be no cuttings.
Like the enchanter who lay helpless at the feet of Vivien, I am 'lost to
life and use, and name and fame'. It
fills me with a strange joy. And if, as
my friends say, I am Hindoo-like in my passivity it
is only because I have discovered the wonderful impersonality of life. I am an 'effect' merely: the meaning of my
life exists in the minds of others and no longer in my own.
So it is
that the English treat me as a criminal, while my friends continue to regard me
as martyr. I do not mind: in that
combination I have become the perfect representative of the artist. I have all the proper references. I am Solomon and Job, both the most fortunate
and the last fortunate of men. I have
known the emptiness of pleasure and the reality of sorrow. I have come to the complete life - brilliant
success and horrible failure, and I have attained the liberty of those who have
ceased to develop. I look like Mrs
Warren but without, alas, the profession.
I have in
the past been called worse things: imprecations have been taken from the pit of
Malebolge and hurled at me. It not longer matters what name I carry -
Sebastian Melmoth or C.3.3. have
been convenient for dramatic purposes, and both of them seem quite appropriate
when my own is a dead thing. When I was
a boy I took enormous delight in writing it down - Oscar Fingal
O'Flahertie Wills Wilde. The whole of Irish legend lies in that name,
and it seemed to bestow power and reality upon me. It was the first proof I ever received of the
persuasive powers of literature. But I
am tired of it now and, sometimes, I recoil from it in horror.
I picked up
the Mercure the other day, and it was there in
the middle of a paragraph of unbearable French.
I put down the newspaper as though it were in flame. I could not look at it. It was as if in that name, Oscar Wilde, there
was a void in which I might fall and lose myself. A madman sometimes stands on the corner of
the rue Jacob - opposite the café where I sit.
He cries out at the cabs as they pass by and spatter him with mud. No-one could know so well as I the agony and
bitterness that force him to speak in bewildered
words. But I have learned the simple
lesson: I am one of the damned who make no noise.
The whole
course of my former life was a kind of madness also, I see that now. I tried to turn my life into a work of
art. It was as if I had constructed a
basilica upon a martyr's tomb - but, unfortunately, there were to be no miracles. I did not realise that then, for the secret
of my success was that I believed absolutely in my own pre-eminence. When I gilded each day with precious words
and perfumed the hours with wine, the past and future seemed to be of no
account. I must connect them with simple
words: I owe that to myself. Now that I
have seen my life turn completely in its fiery circle, I must look upon my past
with different eyes. I have played so
many parts. I have lied to so many
people - but I have committed the unforgivable sin, I have lied to myself. Now I must try to break the habit of a
lifetime.
When
Maurice arrives with today's news of the boulevards, I shall inform him of my
new resolution. I shall have to impart
the news to him gently; if the dear boy comes in to find me at my desk, he will
die of shock. I have allowed him to believe
that my own interests are the ones which he shares. If he discovers that I have begun a journal,
he will write at once to Robbie Ross accusing me of seriousness and other
unnatural vices. Of course he does not
understand literature. He asked me once
who 'Mr Wells' might be. I told him he
was a laboratory assistant, and he went away much relieved.
Maurice is
a wonderful friend. I met him by absurd
chance. I happened to be in the bookshop
behind the opera-house when I saw him scrutinising the shelf devoted to modern
English literature. I knew from long
experience that a volume of my Intentions lay
there, and I waited impatiently to see if he would take it down. Alas, he opened something of an explicit
nature by George Moore.
I could restrain
myself no longer, and I approached him.
'Why,' I asked, 'are you interested in that particular author?'
Maurice was
quite unabashed. 'I live by the café
where he says he learned French, the Nouvelle Athénes.'
'Well, it
is a disgrace that such a place is allowed to remain open. I shall speak to the authorities about it
tomorrow.'
He laughed
and I knew at once that we were going to be great friends. He told me that his mother was French and his
father English, but that his father was dead.
It is true, I said, that English people tend to die with unerring
regularity. He was astonished by my
candour. Of course he did not know who I
was: his father had not mentioned my name to him, not even on his
death-bed. But I can forgive anything of
those who laugh, and I decided to educate Maurice myself. I introduced him to my friends and,
occasionally, I allow him to buy me dinner.
On these
summer afternoons we lie on my narrow bed and smoke cigarettes. He has heard from the wind and the flowers
that I was once a great writer, an artist of international reputation, but I do
not think he believes them. Sometimes in
an unguarded moment I will describe a fiery-coloured scene from Salomé
or repeat a more than usually apposite epigram.
Then he gives a curious side-long glance as if I were speaking of
someone whom he does not know.
'Why do you
not write now?' he asks me.
'I have
nothing whatever to say, Maurice, and in any event I have said it.'
In the
spring More Adey was with us. He had brought over a volume of my poems to
present to me. It had only just survived
the sea-crossing. I really did not want
it, and I raised my hands in horror.
'But,
Oscar, some of these are quite remarkable poems.' More always talks like a solicitor - except
when he is soliciting.
'Yes, More,
but what do they mean? What do they
mean?' He looked at me, and could not
think of an answer.
I can of
course begin this apologia with some confidence. De Quincey has done
it, Newman has done it - some people say that even St Augustine has done
it. Bernard Shaw does it continually, I
believe - it is his only contact with the drama. But I must discover a new form. I do not want to write in the style of Verlaine's confessions - his genius was to leave out
anything that might be of the slightest possible interest. But then he was an innocent - in the proper
sense of that word, he could do no harm.
He was a simple man forced to lead a complicated life. I am a complicated man enmired
in the simplicity of a dull one. There
are some artists who ask questions, and others who
provide answers. I will give the answer
and, in the next world, what impatiently for the question to be asked. Who was Oscar Wilde? All I need now is the overture to Tannhaüser.
Here comes Maurice: the heavy tread suggests important news.