Bir Zamanlar eski bir kitapçıda bulup aldığım ve kitaplıkta biryere koyuverdiğim Oscar Wilde'ın De Profundis'i geçti elime geçen gün. Farkettim ki 1948 baskısı kitap(muhtemelen ilk baskı), Andre Gide'in Oscar Wilde ile anıları anlattığı "In Memoriam" dahil edilerek basılmış. Bir bölümüne ulaşabildiğim anılarda Wilde'ın Andre Gide'e anlattığı hikayeler ilgi çekici. Buyurunuz....
Bu arada Oscar Wilde fotoğrafı ararken farkettim ki ne kadar çok fotoğraf çektirmeyi severmiş kendileri! Oscar Wilde'ın iki oğlundan Cyrill Holland'ın biri savaşta öldüğü yazıyor kayıtlarda. Diğer oğlu Vyvian'ın soyundan gelenlerse Merlin Holland ve oğlu Lucian Holland. Merlin Holland büyükbüyükbabasının yolunda gitmiş olsa da Lucian bilgisayar okumuş. Şimdi Oscar Wilde anısına In Memoriam'dan bir bölüm:
THOSE WHO CAME INTO CONTACT WITH WILDE ONLY toward the end of his life have a poor notion, from the weakened and broken being whom the prison returned to us, of the prodigious being he was at first. It was in '91 that I met him for the first time.Wilde had at the time what Thackeray calls "the chief gift of great men": success. His gesture, his look triumphed. His success was so certain that it seemed that it preceded Wilde and that all he needed do was go forward to meet it. His books astonished, charmed. His plays were to be the talk of London. He was rich; he was tall; he was handsome; laden with good fortune and honors. Some compared him to an Asiatic Bacchus; others to some Roman emperor; others to Apollo himself and the fact is that he was radiant.
At Paris, no sooner did he arrive, than his name ran from mouth to mouth; a few absurd anecdotes were related about him: Wilde was still only the man who smoked gold-tipped cigarettes and who walked about in the streets with a sunflower in his hand. For, Wilde, clever at duping the makers of worldly celebrity, knew how to project, beyond his real character, an amusing phantom which he played most spiritedly.
I heard him spoken of at the home of Mallarmé: he was portrayed as a brilliant talker, and I wished to know him, though I had no hope of managing to do so. A happy chance, or rather a friend, to whom I had told my desire, served me. Wilde was invited to dinner. It was at the restaurant. There were four of us, but Wilde was the only one who talked.
Wilde did not converse: he narrated. Throughout almost the whole of the meal, he did not stop narrating. He narrated gently, slowly; his very voice was wonderful. He knew French admirably, but he pretended to hunt about a bit for the words which he wanted to keep waiting. He had almost no accent, or at least only such as it pleased him to retain and which might give the words a sometimes new and strange aspect. He was fond of pronouncing skepticisme for "scepticisme" . . . ,
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The tales which he kept telling us all through the evening were confused and not of his best; Wilde was uncertain of us and was testing us. Of his wisdom or
indeed of his folly, he uttered only what he believed his hearer would relish; he served each, according to his appetite, his taste; those who expected noth-
ing of him had nothing, or just a bit of light froth; and as his first concern was to amuse, many of those who thought they knew him knew only the jester in him.
When the meal was over, we left. As my two friends were walking together, Wilde took me aside:
"You listen with your eyes," he said to me rather abruptly. "That's why I'm going to tell you this story: When Narcissus died, the flowers of the field asked the river for some drops of water to weep for him. 'Oh!' answered the river, 'if all my drops of water were tears, I should not have enough to weep for Narcissus myself. I loved him!' 'Oh!' replied the flowers of the field, 'how could you not have loved Narcissus? He was beautiful.' 'Was he beautiful?' said the river. 'And who could know better than you? Each day, leaning over your bank, he beheld his beauty in your water . . .'"
Wilde paused for a moment . . .
"'If I loved him,' replied the river, "it was because, when he leaned over my water, I saw the reflection of my waters in his eyes.'" Then Wilde, swelling up with a strange burst of laughter, added, "That's called The Disciple."
We had arrived at his door and left him. He invited me to see him again. That year and the following year I saw him often and everywhere.
Before others, as I have said, Wilde wore a showy mask, designed to astonish, amuse, or, at times, exasperate. He never listened, and paid scant heed to ideas as soon as they were no longer his own. As soon as he ceased to shine all by himself, he effaced himself. After that, he was himself again only when one was once more alone with him.
But no sooner alone he would begin:
"What have you done since yesterday?"
And as my life at that time flowed along rather smoothly, the account that I might give of it offered no interest. I would docilely repeat trivial facts, noting, as I spoke, that Wilde's brow would darken.
"Is that really what you've done?"
"Yes," I would answer.
"And what you say is true!"
"Yes, quite true."
"But then why repeat it? You do see that it's not at all interesting. Understand that there are two worlds: the one that is without one's speaking about it; it's called the real world because there's no need to talk about it in order to see it. And the other is the world of art; that's the one which has to be talked about because it would not exist otherwise.
"There was once a man who was beloved in his village because he would tell stories. Every morning he left the village and in the evening when he returned, all the village workmen, after having drudged all day long, would gather about him and say, 'Come! Tell us! What did you see today?' He would tell: 'I saw a faun in the forest playing a flute, to whose music a troop of woodland creatures were dancing around.''Tell us more; what did you see?' said the men. 'When I came to the seashore, I saw three mermaids, at the edge of the waves, combing their green hair with a golden comb.' And the men loved him because he told them stories.
"One morning, as every morning, he left his village--but when he came to the seashore, lo! he beheld three mermaids combing their green hair with a golden comb. And as he continued his walk, he saw, as he came near the woods, a faun playing
the flute to a troop of woodland creatures. That evening, when he came back to his village and was asked, as on other evenings, 'Come! Tell us! What did you see?' he answered, 'I saw nothing.'"
Wilde paused for some moments, let the effect of the tale work its way in me, and then resumed, I don't like your lips; they're straight, like those of someone who has never lied. I want to teach you to lie, so that your lips may become beautiful and twisted like those of an antique mask.
"Do you know what makes the work of art and what makes the work of nature? Do you know what makes them different? For, after all, the flower of the narcissus is as beautiful as a work of art--and what distinguishes them can not be beauty. Do you
know what distinguishes them?--The work of art is always unique. Nature, which makes nothing durable, always repeats itself so that nothing which it makes may be lost. There are many narcissus flowers; that's why each one can live only a day.
And each time that nature invents a new form, she at once repeats it. A sea-monster in a sea knows that in another sea is another sea-monster, his like. When
God creates a Nero, a Borgia or a Napoleon in history, he puts another one elsewhere; this one is not known, it little matters; the important thing is that
one succeed; for God invents man, and man invents the work of art.
"Yes, I know . . . one day there was a great uneasiness on earth, as if nature were at last going to create something unique, something truly unique--and Christ was born on earth. Yes, I know . . . but listen:
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