Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (252 page)

‘Yes,’ said Teleny, ‘but on one condition.’

‘Name it.’

‘Why did you write Camille that note?’

‘What note?’ he asked, his face turning red.

‘Come — no gammon!’

‘How did you know I wrote it?’

‘Like Zadig, I saw the traces of the dog’s ears.’

‘Well, as you know it’s me, I’ll tell you frankly, it was because I was jealous.’

‘Of whom?’

‘Of you both. Yes, you may smile, but it’s true.’

Then turning towards me, ‘I’ve known you since we both were but little more than toddling babies, and I’ve never had that from you,’ — and he cracked his thumbnail on his upper teeth —

‘while he,’ pointing to Teleny, ‘comes, sees, and conquers. Anyhow, it’ll be for some future time. Meanwhile, I bear you no grudge; nor do you for that stupid threat of mine, I’m sure.’

‘You don’t know what miserable days and sleepless nights you made me pass.’

‘Did I? I’m sorry; forgive me. You know I’m mad — everyone says so,’ he exclaimed, grasping both our hands; ‘and now that we are friends you must come to my next symposium.’

‘When is it to be?’ asked Teleny.

‘On Tuesday week.’

Then turning to me, ‘I’ll introduce you to a lot of pleasant fellows who’ll be delighted to make your acquaintance, and many of whom have long been astonished that you are not one of us.’

The week passed quickly. Joy soon made me forget the dreadful anxiety caused by Briancourt’s card.

A few days before the night fixed for the feast,— ‘How shall we dress for the symposium?’ asked Teleny.

‘How? Is it to be a masquerade?’

‘We all have our little hobbies. Some men like soldiers, others sailors; some are fond of tightrope dancers, others of dandies. There are men who, though in love with their own sex, only care for them in women’s clothes. L’habit ne fait pas le moine is not always a truthful proverb, for you see that even in birds the males display their gayest plumage to captivate their mates.’

‘And what clothes should you like me to wear, for you are the only being I care to please?’ I said.

‘None.’

‘Oh! but— ‘

‘You’ll feel shy, to be seen naked?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, then, a tight-fitting cycling suit; it shows off the figure best’

‘Very well; and you?’

‘I’ll always dress exactly as you do.’

On the evening in question we drove to the painter’s studio, the outside of which was, if not quite dark, at least very dimly lighted. Teleny tapped three times, and after a little while Briancourt himself came to open.

Whatever faults the general’s son had, his manners were those of the French nobility, therefore perfect; his stately gait might even have graced the court of the grand Monarque; his politeness was unrivalled — in fact, he possessed all those ‘small, sweet courtesies of life,’ which, as Sterne says, ‘beget inclinations to love at first sight.’ He was about to usher us in, when Teleny stopped him.

‘Wait a moment,’ said he, ‘could not Camille have a peep at your harem first? You know he is but a neophyte in the Priapean creed. I am his first lover.’

‘Yes, I know,’ interrupted Briancourt, sighing, ‘and I cannot say sincerely, may you long be the last.’

‘And not being inured to the sight of such revelry he will be induced to run away like Joseph from Mrs. Potiphar.’

‘Very well, do you mind giving yourself the trouble to come this way?’

And with these words he led us through a dimly-lighted passage and up a winding staircase into a kind of balcony made out of old Arab moucharabie, brought to him by his father from Tunis or Algiers.

‘From here you can see everything without being seen, so ta-ta for a while, but not for long, as supper will soon be served.’

As I stepped in this kind of loggia and looked down into the room, I was, for a moment, if not dazzled, at least perfectly bewildered. It seemed as if from this everyday world of ours I had been transported into the magic realms of fairyland. A thousand lamps of varied form filled the room with a strong yet hazy light. There were wax tapers upheld by Japanese cranes, or glowing in massive bronze or silver candlesticks, the plunder of Spanish altars; star-shaped or octagonal lamps from Moorish mosques or Eastern synagogues; curiously-wrought iron cressets of tortured and fantastic designs; chandeliers of numerous, iridescent glasswork reflected in Dutch gilt, or Castel-Durante majolica sconces.

Though the room was very large, the walls were all covered with pictures of the most lascivious nature; for the general’s son, who was very rich, painted mostly for his own delight. Many were only half-finished sketches, for his ardent yet fickle imagination could not dwell long on the same subject, nor could his talent for invention be long satisfied with the sa me way of pa i nti ng.

In some of his imitations of the libidinous Pompeian encaustics he had tried to fathom the secrets of a bygone art. Some pictures were executed with the minute care and the corrosive paints of Leonardo da Vinci; while others looked more like Greuze’s pastels, or wrought in Watteau’s delicate hues. Some flesh tints had the golden haze of the Venetian school, while —

 
— Please finish this digression on Briancourt’s paintings, and tell me something of the more realistic scene.

 
— Well, on faded old damask couches, on huge pillows made out of priests’ stoles, worked by devout fingers in silver and in gold, on soft Persian and Syrian divans, on lion and panther rugs, on mattresses covered over with electric cats’ skins, men, young and good- looking, almost all naked, were lounging there by twos and threes, grouped in attitudes of the most consummate lewdness such as the imagination can never picture to itself, and such as are only seen in the brothels of men in lecherous Spain, or in those of the wanton East.

 
— It must indeed have been a rare sight, seen from the cage in which you were cooped; and I suppose your cocks were crowing so lustily that the naked fellows below must have been in great danger of receiving a shower of your holy water, for you must have brandled each other’s sprinklers rapturously up there.

 
— The frame was well worth the picture, for, as I was saying before, the studio was a museum of lewd art worthy of Sodom or of Babylon. Paintings, statues, bronzes, plaster casts — either masterpieces of Paphian art or of Priapean designs, emerged from amidst deep-tinted silks of velvety softness, amidst sparkling crystals, gem-like enamel, golden china or opaline majolica, varied with yataghans and Turkish sabers, with hilts and scabbards of gold and silver filigree mark, all studded with coral and turquoise, or other more sparkling precious stones.

From huge Chinese bowls rose costly ferns, dainty Indian palms, creeping plants and parasites, with wicked-looking flowers from American forests, and feathery grasses from the Nile in Sevres vases; while from above, ever and anon, a shower of full-blown red and pink roses came pouring down, mingling their intoxicating scent with that of the attar which ascended in white cloudlets from censers and silver chafing-dishes.

The perfume of that over-heated atmosphere, the sound of smothered sighs, the groans of pleasure, the smack of eager kisses expressing the never-satiated lust of youth, made my brain reel, while my blood was parched by the sight of those ever-changing lascivious attitudes, expressing the most maddening paroxysm of debauchery, which tried to soothe itself or to invent a more thrilling and intense sensuality, or sickening and fainting away under their excess of feeling, while milky sperm and ruby drops of blood dappled their naked thighs.

 
— It must have been a rapturous sight.

— “Vfes, but just then it seemed to me as if I were in some rank jungle, where everything that is beautiful brings about instant death; where gorgeous, venomous snakes cluster together and look like bunches of variegated flowers, where sweet blossoms are ever dropping wells of fiery poison.

Here, likewise, everything pleased the eye and galled the blood; here the silvery streaks on the dark-green satin, and there the argentine tracery on the smooth, prasinous leaves of the water-lilies, were only the slimy trail — here of man’s creative power, there of some loathsome reptile.

‘But look there,’ I said to Teleny; ‘there are also women.’

‘No,’ he replied, ‘women are never admitted to our revels.’

‘But look at that couple there. See that naked man with his hand under the skirts of the girl clasped against him.’

‘Both are men.’

‘What! also that one with the reddish-auburn hair and brilliant complexion? Why, is it not Viscount de Pontgrimaud’s mistress?’

‘Yes, the Venus d’llle, as she is generally called; and the Viscount is down in a corner, but the Venus d’llle is a man!’

I stared, astonished. What I had taken for a woman looked, indeed, like a beautiful bronze figure, as smooth and polished as a Japanese cast a cire perdue, with an enamelled Parisian cocotte’s head.

Whatever the sex of this strange being was, he or she had on a tight-fitting dress of a changing color — gold in the light, dark green in the shade — silk gloves and stockings of the same tint as the satin of the dress, fitting so tightly on the rounded arms and most beautifully-shaped legs that these limbs looked as even and as hard as those of a bronze statue.

‘And that other one there, with black ringlets, accrochecoeurs, in a dark blue velvet tea- gown, with bare arms and shoulders, is that lovely woman a man, too?’

‘Yes, he is an Italian and a Marquis, as you can see by the crest on his fan. He belongs, moreover, to one of the oldest families of Rome. But look there. Briancourt has been repeatedly making signs to us to go down. Let us go.’

‘No, no!’ said I, clinging to Teleny; ‘let us rather go away.’

Still, that sight had so heated my blood that, like Lot’s wife, I stood there, gloating upon it.

‘I’ll do whatever you like, but I think that if we go away now you’ll be sorry for it afterwards. Besides, what do you fear? Am I not with you? No one can part us. We shall remain all the evening together, for here it is not the same as in the usual balls, where men bring their wives in order that they may be clasped and hugged by the first comer who likes to waltz with them. Moreover, the sight of all those excesses will only give a zest to our own pleasure.’

‘Well, let us go,’ said I, rising; ‘but stop. That man in a pearly-grey Eastern robe must be the Syrian; he has lovely almond-shaped eyes.’

‘Yes, that is Achmet effendi.’

‘Whom is he talking with? Is it not Briancourt’s father?’

‘Yes, the general is sometimes a passive guest at his son’s little parties. Come, shall we go?’

‘One moment more. Do tell me who is that man with eyes on fire? He seems, indeed, lust incarnate, and is evidently past-master in lewdness. His face is familiar, and still I cannot remember where I have seen him.’

‘He is a young man who, having spent his fortune in the most unbridled debauchery without any damage to his constitution, has enlisted in the Spahis to see what new pleasures Algiers could afford him. That man is indeed a volcano. But here is Briancourt.’

‘Well,’ said he, ‘are you going to stay up here in the dark all the evening?’

‘Camille is abashed,’ said Teleny, smiling.

‘Then come in masked,’ said the painter, dragging us down, and giving us each a black velvet half-mask before ushering us in.

The announcement that supper was waiting in the next room had almost brought the revel to a standstill.

As we entered the studio, the sight of our dark suits and masks seemed to throw a dampness on everyone. We were, however, soon surrounded by a number of young men who came to welcome and to fondle us, some of whom were old acquaintances.

After a few questions Teleny was known, and his mask was at once snatched off; but no one for a long time could make out who I was. I, in the meanwhile, kept ogling the middle parts of the naked men around me, the thick and curly hair of which sometimes covered the stomach and the thighs. Nay, that unusual sight excited me in such a way that I could hardly forbear handling those tempting organs; and had it not been for the love I bore Teleny, I should have done something more than finger them.

One phallus, especially — that of the Viscount — caused my intense admiration. It was of such a size that had a Roman lady possessed it she would never have asked for an ass. In fact, every whore was frightened at it; and it was said that once, abroad, a woman had been ripped up by it, for he had thrust his tremendous instrument up into her womb, and slit the partition between the front and the back hole, so that the poor wretch had died in consequence of the wound received.

His lover, however, throve upon it, for he was not only artificially but also naturally of a most florid complexion. As this young man saw that I seemed to doubt what sex he belonged to, he pulled up the skirts he wore and showed me a dainty, pink-and-white penis, all surrounded by a mass of dark golden hair.

Just when everybody was begging me to take off my mask, and I was about to comply, Dr. Charles — usually called Charlemagne — who had been rubbinq himself aqainst me like an overheated cat, all at once clasped me in his arms and kissed me lustily.