reproaching me; why didn't I write? Why didn't I earn money? What was
the good of me? As if I could write under such conditions. No man,
Frank, has ever suffered worse shame and humiliation.
"At last there was a washing bill to be paid; Bosie was dunned for it,
and when I came in, he raged and whipped me with his tongue. It was
appalling; I had done everything for him, given him everything, lost
everything, and now I could only stand and see love turned to hate: the
strength of love's wine making the bitter more venomous. Then he left
me, Frank, and now there is no hope for me. I am lost, finished, a
derelict floating at the mercy of the stream, without plan or
purpose.... And the worst of it is, I know, if men have treated me
badly, I have treated myself worse; it is our sins against ourselves we
can never forgive.... Do you wonder that I snatch at any pleasure?"
He turned and looked at me all shaken; I saw the tears pouring down his
cheeks.
"I cannot talk any more, Frank," he said in a broken voice, "I must go."
I called a cab. My heart was so heavy within me, so sore, that I said
nothing to stop him. He lifted his hand to me in sign of farewell, and I
turned again to walk home alone, understanding, for the first time in my
life, the full significance of the marvellous line in which Shakespeare
summed up his impeachment of the world and his own justification: the
only justification of any of us mortals:
"A man more sinn'd against than sinning."
FOOTNOTES:
[22] This was the sum promised by the whole Queensberry family and by
Lord Alfred Douglas in particular to Oscar to defray the costs of that
first action for libel which they persuaded him to bring against Lord
Queensberry. Ross has since stated in court that it was never paid. The
history of the monies promised and supplied to Oscar at that time is so
extraordinary and so characteristic of the age that it might well
furnish a chapter to itself. Here it is enough just to say that those
who ought to have supplied him with money evaded the obligation, while
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