"Non ragioniam di lor ma guarda e passa."
The whole scene had sickened me. Hatred masquerading as justice, striking vindictively and adding insult to injury. The vile picture had its fit setting outside. We had not left the court when the cheering broke out in the streets, and when we came outside there were troops of the lowest women of the town dancing together and kicking up their legs in hideous abandonment, while the surrounding crowd of policemen and spectators guffawed with delight. As I turned away from the exhibition, as obscene and soul-defiling as anything witnessed in the madness of the French revolution, I caught a glimpse of Wood and the Parkers getting into a cab, laughing and leering.
These were the venal creatures Oscar Wilde was punished for having corrupted!
FOOTNOTES
[1] [Transcriber's Note: Printer error. In the 1930 U.S. edition the word "in" is deleted.]
[2] As he has died since this was written, there is no longer any reason for concealing his name: R.Y. Tyrrell, for many years before his death Regius Professor of Greek in Trinity College, Dublin.
[3] Oscar was always fond of loosely quoting or paraphrasing in conversation the purple passages from contemporary writers. He said them exquisitely and sometimes his own embroidery was as good as the original. This discipleship, however, always suggested to me a lack of originality. In especial Matthew Arnold had an extraordinary influence upon him, almost as great indeed as Pater.
[4] "Stain," not "pain," in the original.
[5] His own words in "De Profundis."
[6] In her "Recollections" Miss Terry says that she was more impressed by the genius of Oscar Wilde and of Whistler than by that of any other men.