Helier). His appearance was not in his favour; there was something oily and fat
about him that repelled me. Naturally being British-born and young I tried to
give my repugnance a moral foundation; fleshly indulgence and laziness, I said
to myself, were written all over him. The snatches of his monologues which I
caught from time to time seemed to me to consist chiefly of epigrams almost
mechanically constructed of proverbs and familiar sayings turned upside down.
Two of Balzac's characters, it will be remembered, practised this form of
humour. The desire to astonish and dazzle, the love of the uncommon for its own
sake, was so evident that I shrugged my shoulders and avoided him. One evening,
however, at Mrs. Jeune's, I got to know him better. At the very door Mrs. Jeune
came up to me:

"Have you ever met Mr. Oscar Wilde? You ought to know him: he is so
delightfully clever, so brilliant!"

I went with her and was formally introduced to him. He shook hands in a limp
way I disliked; his hands were flabby, greasy; his skin looked bilious and
dirty. He wore a great green scarab ring on one finger. He was over-dressed
rather than well-dressed; his clothes fitted him too tightly; he was too stout.
He had a trick which I noticed even then, which grew on him later, of pulling
his jowl with his right hand as he spoke, and his jowl was already fat and
pouchy. His appearance filled me with distaste. I lay stress on this physical
repulsion, because I think most people felt it, and in itself, it is a tribute
to the fascination of the man that he should have overcome the first impression
so completely and so quickly. I don't remember what we talked about, but I
noticed almost immediately that his grey eyes were finely expressive; in turn
vivacious, laughing, sympathetic; always beautiful. The carven mouth, too, with
its heavy, chiselled, purple-tinged lips, had a certain attraction and
significance in spite of a black front tooth which shocked one when he laughed.
He was over six feet in height and both broad and thick-set; he looked like a