A DIALOGUE UP TO DATE.
(With some Remarks on the Importance of Talking an infinite deal of Nothing.)
SCENE—A Room, PERSONS—GILNEST and ERBERT.
[For further details, See Mr. OSCAR WILDE'S Article in The Nineteenth Century for July.]
Erbert (at the banjo). My dear GILLIE, what are you doing?
Gilnest (yawning). I was wondering when you were going to begin. We have been sitting here for an hour, and nothing has been said upon the important subject we proposed to discuss.
E. (tapping him lightly on the cheek). Tut, tut, my dear boy, you must not be petulant. And yet, when I come to study you more closely, your face looks charming when you make a moue. Let me see you do it again. Ah, yes. You look into my eyes with the divine sullenness that broods tragically upon the pale brow of the Antinous. And through your mind, though you know it not (how indeed should you?), march many mystical phantoms that are not of this base world. Pale HELEN steps out upon the battlements and turns to FLAUBERT her appealing glance, and CELLINI paces with Madame DE SEVIGNÉ through the eternal shadows of unrevealed realism. And BROWNING, and HOMER, and MEREDITH, and OSCAR WILDE are with them, the fleet-footed giants of perennial youth, like unto the white-limbed Hermes, whom Polyxena once saw, and straight she hied her away to the vine-clad banks of Ilyssus, where Mr. PATER stands contemplative, like some mad scarlet thing by DVORÁK, and together they march with the perfect significance of silence through realms that are cloud-capped with the bright darkness that shines from the poet's throne amid the stars.
[Stops, and lights a cigarette.
G. Oh, beautiful, beautiful! Now indeed I recognise my ERBERT's voice; and that is—yes, it must be—the scent of the cigarettes you lately imported. Grant me one, only one. (Takes one and lights it.) But what were you talking about?