Degrees of martyrdom
John Grigg
OSCAR WILDE'S LAST CHANCE by Mark Hichens The Pentland Press, £18.50, pp. 204 The case of Oscar Wilde and the Dreyfus case are both familiar stories. Millions of words have been written about both and one could hardly believe that any- thing new could be said about either. But Mark Hichens's new book achieves the apparently impossible. His narrative is fresh even when going over old ground, and breaks new ground in describing Wilde's connection with the Dreyfus case.
Hichens, a retired schoolmaster, writes with clarity, pace, wisdom and wry humour. In barely 200 pages he tells two separate, but converging, stories. In his view, the 'last chance' for Wilde, after his release from prison, was to espouse the cause of Alfred Dreyfus, still in captivity on Devil's Island. Unfortunately he failed the test. When his old friend Carlos Blacker, a passionate Dreyfusard, tried to enlist his support, he showed little interest. Instead he hob- nobbed with the dreadful Esterhazy, true author of the bordereau on the evidence of which Dreyfus was accused and convicted. He made to Esterhazy the characteristic but chilling remark: The innocent always suffer. It is their métier. Besides we are all innocent until we are found out . . .The interesting thing is surely to be guilty and to wear as a halo the seduc- tion of sin.
Blacker brought Wilde information given him in the strictest confidence by the Ital- ian military attaché in Paris, Colonel Paniz- zardi, who had good reason to know that Dreyfus was innocent. Wilde did net respond when Blacker urged him to write about Dreyfus, but he did talk recklessly about what he had heard from Blacker, with the result that premature articles appeared which caused Blacker to be vili- fied in the anti-Dreyfusard press and to go, for a time, in fear of his life. Wilde's indif- ference to the fate of Dreyfus, combined with his betrayal of confidence, ended Blacker's long friendship with him• (Hichens has had access to Blacker's diary and letters, and to a memorandum he wrote about his role in the affair.) When Wilde refused to take up DreY- fus's cause, the poor man had already been more than two years on his remote island, longer than the term of imprisonment Wilde himself had served, and in condi- tions far more terrible. He had still as long again to languish in the most cruel solitary confinement before the campaign on his behalf, nobly sustained by his wife and brother — with vital assistance from Zola and a few others — succeeded to the extent of securing his release with a presidential `pardon'. But he had to wait another six years for complete vindication and reinstatement in the army. Even then he was only given the rank of major, one step up from the captain's rank he had formerly held, rather than the rank of colonel that he would have reached in the normal course. He was, however, awarded the Legion of Honour (fourth class). Among the French military only Colonel Picquart emerges with some credit. He became convinced that Dreyfus was innocent, but was unable to persuade his superiors to order a retrial. For a time he suffered for his honesty, being packed off to Tunisia and then put on trial himself for disclosing secret information. But his career was not permanently ruined. When Dreyfus was cleared he was made a gener- al, and soon afterwards war minister. And here is the sickest of ironies. At the war ministry he received Dreyfus's plea for pro- motion, but turned it down. Despite his devotion to justice in the abstract, Picquart had no sympathy for Dreyfus as a man. On the contrary, he was 'ungenerous, self- righteous and strongly anti-Semitic'. The whole Dreyfus affair makes it easy to understand why the Vichy regime collab- orated so eagerly with Nazi persecution of the Jews. And it is sadly fitting that a nephew and a granddaughter of Dreyfus were probably among the victims of Auschwitz.
Wilde was, of course, as brilliant as Dreyfus was dull. Yet for sheer endurance Dreyfus deserves the status of a hero, whereas the lustre of Wilde's talents should not blind us to the flaws in his character. Hichens is full of admiration for his work and also acknowledges his fitful generosity of spirit (not apparent, alas, in his attitude to Dreyfus), while deploring the way he was treated. But Hichens cannot see him, (as many do) as 'a holy and blessed martyr', regarding him instead as a victim of 'justice misplaced', rather than, like Dreyfus, an innocent man subjected to an extremity of injustice. The essence of Wilde is to be found, Hichens thinks, in his statement: 'In all art style is of more importance than sin- cerity.'
The book is worth reading not least for its footnotes. In one there is a marvellous put-down by Arthur Conan Doyle of Lord Queensberry, the father of Wilde's fatal friend, Lord Alfred Douglas. Queensberry had written to Doyle about some remark of his concerning the Roman Church, for which, Queensberry said, he ought to be horsewhipped. Doyle replied, 'I am relieved to get your letter. It is only your approval that could in any way annoy me.'
Previous page
