Even the stories which he wrote about this time show the worst side of his paganism: "When Jesus was minded to return to Nazareth, Nazareth was so changed that He no longer recognised His own city.

The Nazareth where he had lived was full of lamentations and tears; this city was filled with outbursts of laughter and song....
"Christ went out of the house and, behold, in the street he saw a woman whose face and raiment were painted and whose feet were shod with pearls, and behind her walked a man who wore a cloak of two colours, and whose eyes were bright with lust.

And Christ went up to the man and laid His hand on his shoulder, and said to him, 'Tell me, why art thou following this woman, and why dost thou look at her in such wise ?' The man turned round, recognised Him and said, 'I was blind; Thou didst heal me; what else should I do with my sight ?'" The same note is played on in two or three more incidents, but the one I have given is the best, and should have been allowed to stand alone.
It has been called blasphemous; it is not intentionally blasphemous; as I have said, Oscar always put himself quite naively in the place of any historical character.
The disdain of public opinion which Oscar now showed not only in his writings, but in his answers to criticism, quickly turned the public dislike into aggressive hatred.

In 1894 a book appeared, "The Green Carnation," which was a sort of photograph of Oscar as a talker and a caricature of his thought.

The gossipy story had a surprising success, altogether beyond its merits, which simply testified to the intense interest the suspicion of extraordinary viciousness has for common minds.