wonderfully cheap and good the living was?
"Only fancy," she went on, "you would not believe what that claret you
are drinking costs."
"Really?" questioned Oscar, with a polite smile.
"Of course I get it wholesale," she explained, "but it only costs me
sixpence a quart."
"Oh, my dear lady, I'm afraid you have been cheated," he exclaimed,
"ladies should never buy wine. I'm afraid you have been sadly
overcharged."
The humour may excuse the discourtesy, but Oscar was so uniformly polite
to everyone that the incident simply shows how ineffably he had been
bored.
This summer of 1897 was the decisive period and final turning-point in
Oscar Wilde's career. So long as the sunny weather lasted and friends
came to visit him from time to time Oscar was content to live in the
Chalet Bourgeat; but when the days began to draw in and the weather
became unsettled, the dreariness of a life passed in solitude, indoors,
and without a library became insupportable. He was being drawn in two
opposite directions. I did not know it at the time; indeed he only told
me about it months later when the matter had been decided irrevocably;
but this was the moment when his soul was at stake between good and
evil. The question was whether his wife would come to him again or
whether he would yield to the solicitations of Lord Alfred Douglas and
go to live with him.
Mr. Sherard has told in his book how he brought about the first
reconciliation between Oscar and his wife; and how immediately
afterwards he received a letter from Lord Alfred Douglas threatening to
shoot him like a dog, if, by any words of his, Wilde's friendship was
lost to him, Douglas.
Unluckily Mrs. Wilde's family were against her going back to her
husband; they begged her not to go; talked to her of her duty to her
children and herself, and the poor woman hesitated. Finally her advisers
decided for her, and Mrs. Wilde wrote this decision to Oscar's
solicitors shortly before his release: Oscar's probation was to last at
least a year. I do not know enough about Mrs. Wilde and her relations
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