The Sphinx Without a Secret by Oscar Wilde

Books at bedtime by calming anxiety. The sphinx without a secret, by Oscar Wilde.

One afternoon, I was sitting outside the calf de la pay, watching the splendor and shabbiness of Perizian life. I'm wondering, over my vermouth, at the strange panorama of pride and poverty that was passing before me, when I heard someone call my name. I turned around and saw Lord Machensen. We had not met since we had been at college together nearly ten years before, so I was delighted to come across him again and we shook hands warmly. At Oxford, we had been great friends. I had liked him immensely. He was so handsome, so high-spirited and so honourable. We used to say of him that he would be the best of fellows if he did not always speak the truth, but I think we really admired him all the more for his frankness. I found him a good deal changed. He looked anxious and puzzled and seemed to be in doubt about something. I felt it could not be a more modern skepticism for Machensen was the stoutest of Tories and believed in the Pentateuch as family as he believed in the House of Pears, so I concluded that it was a woman and asked him if he was married yet. I don't understand women well enough he answered. My dear Gerald I said, "Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood. I cannot love where I cannot trust," he replied. "I believe you have a mystery in your life, Gerald, I exclaimed, tell me about it." "Let us go for a drive," he answered. "It is too crowded here." "No, not a yellow carriage, any other colour, there, that dark green one will do."

And in a few moments we were trotting down the boulevard in the direction of the Madeline. "Where shall we go to?" I said. "Oh, any way you like," he answered. "To the restaurant in the Boire, we will dine there and you shall tell me all about yourself." "I want to hear about you first," I said. "Tell me, what is your mystery?" He took from his pocket a little silver-class Morocco case and he handed it to me. I opened it. Inside there was the photo of a woman. She was tall and slight and strangely picturesque with her large baguettes and loose and hair. She looked like a clairvoyant and was wrapped in rich pearls. "What do you think of that face?" he said. "Is it truthful?"

I examined it carefully. It seemed to me the face of someone who had a secret, but whether that secret was good or evil, I could not say. Its beauty was a beauty molded out of many mysteries. The beauty in fact, which is psychological, not plastic and the faint smile that just played across the lips, was far too subtle to be really sweet. "Well, you cried impatiently. What do you say?" He is, "Did you conund her in sables?" I answered. "Let me know all about her." Not now, he said, "After dinner," and he began to talk of other things.

When the waiter brought us our coffee and cigarettes, I reminded Gerald of his promise. He rose from his seat, walked two or three times up and down the room and, sinking into the armchair, told me the following story. "One evening," he said. I was walking down Bonn Street about five o'clock. There was a terrific crush of carriages, and the traffic was almost stopped. Close to the pavement was standing a little yet bow, which for some reason or other attracted my attention. As I passed by, they looked out from it the face I showed you this afternoon. It fascinated me immediately. All that night I kept thinking of it, and all the next day. I wandered up and down that wretched row, peering into every carriage and waiting for the yellow bone, but I could not find my bell in corn, and at last I began to think she was merely a dream. About a week afterwards, I was dining with Madame Diracetel. Dinner was for eight o'clock, but at half past eight we were still waiting in the drawing room. Finally, the servant threw open the door and announced Lady Elroy. It was the woman I had been looking for. She came in very slowly, looking like a moonbeam in grey lace, and, to my intense delight, I was asked to take her into dinner. After we sat down, I remarked quite innocently. I think I caught sight of you in Bond Street some time ago, Lady Elroy. She grew very pale and said to me in a low voice, "Pray, do not talk so loud, you may be overheard." I felt miserable at having made such a bad beginning, and plunged recklessly into the subject of the French plays. She spoke very little, always in the same low musical voice, and seemed as if she was afraid of someone listening. I felt passionately, stupidly in love, and the indefinable atmosphere of mystery that surrounded her excited my most ardent curiosity. When she was going away, which she did very soon after dinner, I asked her if I might call and see her. She hesitated for a moment, glanced around to see if anyone was nearest, and then said yes, tomorrow at quarter to five. I begged Madame Durastel to tell me about her, but all I could learn was that she was a widow with a beautiful house in Park Lane, and as some scientific bore began a dissertation on widows as exemplifying the survival of the matrimonial fittest, I left and went home. The next day, I arrived at Park Lane, punctual to the moment, but was told by the butler that Lady Alroy had just gone out. I went down to the club quite unhappy and very much puzzled, and after long consideration wrote her a letter, asking if I might be allowed to try my chance some other afternoon. I had no answer for several days, but at last I got a little note saying that she would be home on Sunday at four, and with this extraordinary post-crip. Please do not write to hear me here again. I will explain when I see you. On Sunday, she received me, and was perfectly charming. When I was going away, she begged of me, if I ever had occasion to write to her again, to address my letter to Mrs. Knox, care of Wittaker's library Green Street. There were reasons, she said, why I cannot receive letters in my own house. All through the season, I saw a great deal of her, and the atmosphere of mystery never left her. Sometimes I thought that she was in the power of some man, but she looked so unapproachable that I could not believe it. It was really very difficult for me to come to any conclusion, because she was like one of those strange crystals that one sees in the museums, which are at one moment clear and at another clouded. At last, I determined to ask her to be my wife. I was sick and tired of the incessant secrecy that she imposed on all of my visits, and of the few letters I sent her. I wrote to her the library, to ask her if she could see me the following Monday at 6. She answered yes, and I was in the 7th Heaven of Delight. I was infatuated with her in spite of the mystery. I thought then, in consequence of it I see now. No, it was the woman herself I loved. The mystery troubled me, maddened me, what did chance put me in this track? You discovered it then, I cried. I fear so he answered, you can judge yourself. When Monday came around, I went to lunch with my uncle, and at about four o'clock found myself in the Marlboro Road. My uncle, you know, lives in Regent's Park. I wanted to get to Piggardilly, and took a shortcut through a lot of chubby little streets. Suddenly, I saw in front of me Lady Allroy, deeply veiled and walking very fast. I'm coming to the last house in the street. She went up the steps, took out a latch key and let herself in. Here is the mystery I said to myself, and I hurried on and examined the house. It seemed a sort of place for letting logins. On the doorstep lay her hand chief, which he had dropped. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. Then, I began to consider what I should do. I came to the conclusion that I had no right to spy on her, and I drove down to the club. At six, I called to see her. She was lying on a sofa in a tea gown of silver tissue, looped up by some strange mean stones, the one she always wore. She was looking quite lovely. "I'm so glad to see you," she said. "I've not been out all day." I stared at her in amazement, and pulling the handkerchief out of my pocket handed it to her. You dropped this, and come to the street this afternoon, Lady Allroy. I said very calmly.

She looked at me in terror, but made no attempt to take the handkerchief. "What were you doing there?" I asked. "What right have you to question me?" she answered. "The right of a man who loves you," I replied. "I came here to ask you to be my wife." She hid her face in her hands and burst into floods of tears.

"You must tell me," I continued. She stood up and looking me straight in the face, said. "Lord, much as in, there is nothing to tell you. You went to meet someone," I cried. "This is your mystery." She grew treadfully white and said, "I went to meet no one. Can't you tell me the truth?" I explained.

"I have told it," she replied. "I was mad, frantic. I don't know what I said, but I said terrible things to her. Finally, I rushed out to the house. She wrote me a letter the next day. I sent it back and opened and started for Norway with Anne Coville. After a month, I came back and the first thing I saw in the morning post was the death of Lady Allroy. She had caught a chill at the opera and had died in five days of congestion of the lungs.

I shut myself up and saw no one. I had loved her so much. I had loved her so badly. Good God.

Howl, I had loved that woman. "You went to the street, to the house in it," I said. "Yes," he answered. "One day, I went to come to the street. I could not help it. I was tortured with doubt. I knocked at the door and a respectable looking woman opened it to me. I asked it if she had any rooms to let. Well, sir," she replied. "The drawing rooms are supposed to be let, but have not seen the lady for three months and as rent is owing on them, you can have them." "Is this the lady?" I said, showing the photograph. "That's her," sure enough, she explained.

"And when is she coming back, sir?" "The lady is dead," I replied. "Oh, sir, I hope not," said the woman. She was my best lodger. He paid me three guineas a week merely to sit in my drawing rooms now and then. "She's met someone here," I said. "But the woman assured me it was not so. That she always came alone and saw no one." "What on earth did she do here?" I cried.

She simply sat in the drawing room, sir, reading books and sometimes had tea, the woman answered. I did not know what to say, so I gave her a sovereign and went away. Now, what do you think it all meant? You don't believe the woman was telling the truth. I do. Then why did lady outright go there?

My dear Gerald, I answered. Lady Allroy was simply a woman with a mania for mystery. She took these rooms with the pleasure of going there with her veil down and imagining she was a heroine. She had a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a spink without a secret. Do you really think so? I am sure of it, I replied.

He took out the Morocco case, opened it and looked at the photo. I wonder, he said at last.