No one could help laughing; the retort was irresistible. He should have said: "Au monde, madame, au monde," but the meaning was clear.
Sometimes this thought-quickness and happy dexterity had to be used in self-defence. Jean Lorrain was the wittiest talker I have ever heard in France, and a most brilliant journalist. His life was as abandoned as it could well be; in fact, he made a parade of strange vices. In the days of Oscar's supremacy he always pretended to be a friend and admirer. About this time Oscar wanted me to know Stephane Mallarmé. He took me to his rooms one afternoon when there was a reception. There were a great many people present. Mallarmé was standing at the other end of the room leaning against the chimney piece. Near the door was Lorrain, and we both went towards him, Oscar with outstretched hands:
For some reason or other, most probably out of tawdry vanity, Lorrain folded his arms theatrically and replied:
"I regret I cannot say as much: I can no longer be one of your friends, M. Wilde."
The insult was stupid, brutal; yet everyone was on tiptoe to see how Oscar would answer it.
"How true that is," he said quietly, as quickly as if he had expected the traitor-thrust, "how true and how sad! At a certain time in life all of us who have done anything like you and me, Lorrain, must realise that we no longer have any friends in this world; but only lovers." (Plus d'amis, seulement des amants.)
A smile of approval lighted up every face.
"Well said, well said," was the general exclamation. His humour was almost invariably generous, kind.
One day in a Paris studio the conversation turned on the character of Marat: one Frenchman would have it that he was a fiend, another saw in him the incarnation of the revolution, a third insisted that he was merely the gamin of the Paris streets grown up. Suddenly one turned to Oscar, who was sitting silent, and asked his opinion: he took the ball at once, gravely.
"_Ce malheureux! Il n'avait pas de veine--pour une fois qu'il a pris un bain_...." (Poor devil, he was unlucky! To come to such grief for once taking a bath.)
For a little while Oscar was interested in the Dreyfus case, and especially in the Commandant Esterhazy, who played such a prominent part in it with the infamous _bordereau_ which brought about the conviction of Dreyfus. Most Frenchmen now know that the _bordereau_ was a forgery and without any real value.