related the little misunderstanding in the Appendix. I had never felt
anything but the most cordial affection for Oscar and as soon as I went
to Paris and met him I explained what had seemed to him unkind. When I
asked him about his life since his release he told me simply that he had
quarrelled with Bosie Douglas.

I did not attribute much importance to this; but I could not help
noticing the extraordinary change that had taken place in him since he
had been in Naples. His health was almost as good as ever; in fact, the
prison discipline with its two years of hard living had done him so
much good that his health continued excellent almost to the end.

But his whole manner and attitude to life had again changed: he now
resembled the successful Oscar of the early nineties: I caught echoes,
too, in his speech of a harder, smaller nature; "that talk about
reformation, Frank, is all nonsense; no one ever really reforms or
changes. I am what I always was."

He was mistaken: he took up again the old pagan standpoint; but he was
not the same; he was reckless now, not thoughtless, and, as soon as one
probed a little beneath the surface, depressed almost to despairing. He
had learnt the meaning of suffering and pity, had sensed their value; he
had turned his back upon them all, it is true, but he could not return
to pagan carelessness, and the light-hearted enjoyment of pleasure. He
did his best and almost succeeded; but the effort was there. His creed
now was what it used to be about 1892: "Let us get what pleasure we may
in the fleeting days; for the night cometh, and the silence that can
never be broken."

The old doctrine of original sin, we now call reversion to type; the