Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years by Nicholas Frankel
Author:Nicholas Frankel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Literary Figures, Lgbt, History, Europe, Great Britain, Victorian Era (1837-1901), Literary Criticism, European, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2017-10-16T00:00:00+00:00
However, there are good reasons for questioning the veracity of Wilde’s account. Relations with Ross had been tense at best where Douglas was concerned. More to the point, having separated from Douglas in Naples, Wilde was in February trying to obtain the restitution of his allowance from Constance, and, as Wilde was fully aware, Ross was a party to these negotiations.64 Wilde’s “bald and brief” statement was thus likely meant for Constance’s eyes as much as Ross’s. But the most compelling reason for doubting the truth of Wilde’s statement is that upon Douglas’s arrival in Paris in April, Wilde quickly resumed his friendship with Douglas. They had met at least once by April 17, and thereafter they met and dined together frequently.65 “Bosie … has been very nice to me indeed,” Wilde was to tell Ross some weeks after Douglas’s arrival, “very hospitable and generous in paying for things” (CL 1067). Douglas seems to have quickly succumbed to Gilbert’s charm as well, because in late April Wilde told Ross that “Bosie is very angelic and quiet. It did him a great deal of good being trampled on by Maurice” (CL 1057). When Douglas was furnishing a new apartment in the Avenue Kléber around this time, Wilde chose the furniture (CL 1057, 1065). Shortly afterward, the two vacationed together, escaping the summer heat with Gilbert and the journalist Rowland Strong at Nogent Sur Marne, east of the city. Until Douglas’s departure from Paris in August 1898 (Douglas would spend two months with his mother, in Trouville and in Aix les Bains, before returning to England, in November, for the first time in over three years), Wilde saw a great deal of Douglas: they attended the Salon together in May, and in July Wilde made Frank Harris invite Douglas to dinner (the bill “was terrific” and “Bosie was childlike and sweet” [CL 1090]). Douglas says that Wilde used his apartment as if it were his own, invariably turning up at meal times, and that he “might just as well have lived [there] for [all] the use he made of his hotel except to sleep in.”66 Doubtless an anecdote Wilde related to the American journalist Clare de Pratz dates from around this time: one day Wilde got into the Montparnasse-Etoile tram to go to Douglas’s apartment on the Avenue Kléber. Suddenly realizing that he had forgotten his wallet (or more likely spent his last penny), he boldly asked his fellow passengers “Is there anybody who will kindly lend me thirty centimes?” Total silence ensued, whereupon he made the driver stop, got down, hailed a cab and, after settling himself comfortably, waved delightedly to the stunned tram passengers, knowing that Douglas’s porter would pay the cab driver.67
Biographer Rupert Croft-Cooke says that Wilde’s relationship with Douglas at this time was “on … light and easygoing terms,” and there is reason to believe that, while the two maintained a close interest in one another’s sex lives, the strictly sexual element in their love for each other had disappeared in the early years of their relationship.
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