Chapter Two: Des mots de l'amour
"Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement."—Wilde
Oscar slipped into the back of his French class, ten minutes late and rather bedraggled. Madame Arnold had already begun the lecture, and didn't even look up as he entered. He put his bag down gingerly and got out his pen.
"Psst," came a voice from his left. Oscar turned.
"Can I borrow a pen?" Oscar found himself digging in his bag for an extra pen before he'd even registered the request. He was too distracted by the extraordinary creature seated beside him. Clear sky-blue eyes gazed out at him from a face that could have been found on a Roman statue. The aquiline nose, the arched brow, the perfect bow of the scarlet lips—and all this framed by hair of the purest spun gold—it was beyond comprehension.
"Here," he said, passing his pen over to the other boy.
"Thanks." The boy took it, his milk-white fingers brushing against Oscar's own. The Irish boy felt a tingle run up his spine.
"The name's Douglas," said the boy. "Alfred Douglas. You can call me Bosie, though, everyone does."
"Oscar," he said faintly. "Oscar Wilde."
"I know you," said the boy. "You're the new kid, aren't you? A transfer or something, aren't you?"
"Yes," said Oscar. "I, uh, I am. New. That is. From Ireland."
"I can tell," Bosie said, smiling radiantly. "I can hear it on you. You've a beautiful voice. Like birdsong."
"Thanks," Oscar said, rather awestruck that such a beautiful creature would descend to a level where he could compliment a lowly thing like him. "You're, um—"
"Monsieur Wilde, is there a problem?" asked Madame Arnold.
"No ma'am," he said, flushing.
"Then I suppose you wouldn't mind telling us what poem of Baudelaire's we're currently reading, would you?"
"Umm…" Oscar glanced down at his textbook, heat rising in his cheeks and spreading across his pale face like a single drop of wine in a pool of clear water.
"It's 'La mort des artistes,'" Madame Arnold said, taking pity on him. "In its entirety, please, Oscar. And don't let your mind wander again."
"Oui, madame," he murmured, taking a deep breath before starting. He had a good voice for French, he knew, having studied it with his mother from a very young age. He couldn't quite shake all of the Irish slant to his accent, but he had been told he had a voice that was just soft enough to appreciate the mellifluous qualities of the language.
"Combien faut-il de fois secouer mes grelots
Et baiser ton front bas, morne caricature?
Pour piquer dans le but, de mystique nature,
Combien, ô mon carquois, perdre de javelots?
Nous userons notre âme en de subtils complots,
Et nous démolirons mainte lourde armature,
Avant de contempler la grande Créature
Dont l'infernal désir nous remplit de sanglots!
Il en est qui jamais n'ont connu leur Idole,
Et ces sculpteurs damnés et marqués d'un affront,
Qui vont se martelant la poitrine et le front,
N'ont qu'un espoir, étrange et sombre Capitole!
C'est que la Mort, planant comme un soleil nouveau,
Fera s'épanouir les fleurs de leur cerveau!"
Oscar finished and shut the book slowly, feeling slightly drained. Reading Baudelaire always did that to him. The troubled Parisian's words always felt like they were intended just for him. Oscar felt that it was through art, and art only, that people could realize their perfection.
"Oscar," said Madame Arnold, "that was magnifique."
"Oh," Oscar said, "Merci beaucoup."
"That was… that was something else, mate," said Bosie, giving Oscar a wicked grin. "Where'd you learn to read poetry like that?"
"Well," said Oscar modestly, "A wise man once said, 'Poetry is what is lost in translation.' So I've learned to appreciate Baudelaire in the original French."
"Monsieur Wilde," Madame Arnold said. "Pay attention sil vous plait. And Monsieur Douglas, do not be a bad influence on Oscar."
"Sure thing, madame," said Bosie. He winked at Oscar, who smiled back before facing forward to pay attention to the lecture. A few minutes went by, and he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned in time to receive a folded-up paper from Bosie. He took it and unfolded it, narrow elegant fingers smoothing the paper.
"Want to come out for coffee with me and some mates?" it read. Bosie's script was loopy and elegant, the words spilling out across the page like flower petals caught in the currents of a clear mountain stream. They were so perfectly formed, so easily made, that Oscar felt almost profane in defacing the page with his scrawlings.
"I can't today," he wrote. "But tomorrow perhaps?" Bosie took the note from him, their fingers brushing, and Oscar shivered even though the room was preternaturally warm for a day in early September. The flaxen-haired youth took the note and unfolded it. A quick furrow of discontent dashed across his face like a raindrop trailing down a windowpane in a thunderstorm, only to be quickly replaced by the dawning sun that was his usual expression. He nodded at Oscar—a little sadly? Oscar wasn't sure.
"All right class, pack up your books," said Madame Arnold. "Au revoir." Oscar got to his feet with the rest of the class, cramming his book into his leather messenger bag and heading out into the hallway. Bosie waved to him and shot him a smile before heading off in the opposite direction. Oscar sighed softly. Why was high school so difficult?
Translation of the poem:
how often must I shake my bells, and deign
to kiss thy brow debased, full travesty?
to pierce the mark, whose goal is mystery,
how oft, my quiver, waste thy darts in vain?
we shall exhaust our soul and subtle brain
and burst the bars of many a tyranny,
ere we shall glimpse the vast divinity
for which we burn and sob and burn again!
some too their idol never knew, and now,
flouted and branded with the brand of hell,
go beating fists of wrath on breast and brow;
one hope they know, strange, darkling citadel!
— can Death's new sunlight, streaming o'er the tomb,
lure the dead flower of their brain to bloom?
—Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks, Flowers of Evil (New York: Ives Washburn, 1931)