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diff --git a/old/dgray10.txt b/old/dgray10.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 59d567a..0000000 --- a/old/dgray10.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9195 +0,0 @@ -*Project Gutenberg's The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde* - -*** Etexts From The Original Internet Information Providers *** - -Please take a look at the important information in this header. -We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an -electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* - -Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and -further information is included below. 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We can be reached at: - -Project Gutenberg Director of Communications (PGDIRCOM) - -Internet: pgdircom@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu -Bitnet: pgdircom@uiucvmd -CompuServe: >internet:pgdircom@.vmd.cso.uiuc.edu -Attmail: internet!vmd.cso.uiuc.edu!pgdircom - -Drafted by CHARLES B. KRAMER, Attorney -CompuServe: 72600,2026 - Internet: 72600.2026@compuserve.com - Tel: (212) 254-5093 -*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.07.02.92*END* - - - - -The Picture of Dorian Gray - -by - -Oscar Wilde - - -THE PREFACE - -The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal -the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another -manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. - -The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. -Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without -being charming. This is a fault. - -Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. -For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things -mean only beauty. - -There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. -Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. - -The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban -seeing his own face in a glass. - -The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of -Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man -forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality -of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. -No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true -can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical -sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. -No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. -Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. -Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. -From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art -of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's -craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. -Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. -Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. -It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. -Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work -is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, -the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man -for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. -The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one -admires it intensely. - - All art is quite useless. - - OSCAR WILDE - - -CHAPTER 1 - -The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when -the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, -there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, -or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. - -From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which -he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, -Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and -honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed -hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; -and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted -across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front -of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, -and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, -through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, -seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur -of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, -or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of -the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. -The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ. - -In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length -portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, -some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, -whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public -excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures. - -As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully -mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed -about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, -placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his -brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake. - -"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," -said Lord Henry languidly. "You must certainly send it next year -to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. -Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I -have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many -pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. -The Grosvenor is really the only place." - -"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head -back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. -"No, I won't send it anywhere." - -Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through -the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls -from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere? -My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you -painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. -As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. -It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse -than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. -A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, -and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of -any emotion." - -"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit it. -I have put too much of myself into it." - -Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. - -"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same." - -"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, -I didn't know you were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance -between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, -and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory -and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you-- -well, of course you have an intellectual expression and all that. -But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. -Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys -the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, -one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. -Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. -How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. -But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at -the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, -and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. -Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, -but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite -sure of that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be -always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always -here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. -Don't flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like -him." - -"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist. "Of course I am -not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry -to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the truth. -There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, -the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering -steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. -The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit -at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, -they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we -all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. -They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. -Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it -may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we shall all suffer for what the gods -have given us, suffer terribly." - -"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across -the studio towards Basil Hallward. - -"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you." - -"But why not?" - -"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell -their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. -I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing -that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. -The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. -When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. -If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, -I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance -into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish -about it?" - -"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil. -You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is -that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. -I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. -When we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go -down to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most -serious faces. My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact, than I am. -She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she -does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; -but she merely laughs at me." - -"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," -said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into -the garden. "I believe that you are really a very good husband, -but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. -You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, -and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply -a pose." - -"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know," -cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the garden -together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the -shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. -In the grass, white daisies were tremulous. - -After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. "I am afraid I -must be going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist -on your answering a question I put to you some time ago." - -"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. - -"You know quite well." - -"I do not, Harry." - -"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you -won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason." - -"I told you the real reason." - -"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much -of yourself in it. Now, that is childish." - -"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, -"every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, -not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. -It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, -on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit -this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my -own soul." - -Lord Henry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked. - -"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity -came over his face. - -"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, -glancing at him. - -"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter; -"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly -believe it." - -Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from -the grass and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understand it," -he replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, -"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is -quite incredible." - -The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilac-blooms, -with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. -A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a blue thread -a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze wings. -Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart beating, -and wondered what was coming. - -"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. -"Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know -we poor artists have to show ourselves in society from time -to time, just to remind the public that we are not savages. -With an evening coat and a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, -even a stock-broker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. -Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes, -talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academicians, -I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at me. -I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. -When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. -A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I -had come face to face with some one whose mere personality -was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would -absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself. -I did not want any external influence in my life. -You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. -I have always been my own master; had at least always been so, -till I met Dorian Gray. Then--but I don't know how to explain -it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge -of a terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that -fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. -I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience -that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no -credit to myself for trying to escape." - -"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. -Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all." - -"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either. -However, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, -for I used to be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door. -There, of course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not -going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. -You know her curiously shrill voice?" - -"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, -pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. - -"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, -and people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic -tiaras and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. -I had only met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. -I believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, -at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is -the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself -face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely -stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. -It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. -Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. -We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. -I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we -were destined to know each other." - -"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" -asked his companion. "I know she goes in for giving -a rapid precis of all her guests. I remember her bringing -me up to a truculent and red-faced old gentleman covered -all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, -in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible -to everybody in the room, the most astounding details. -I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. -But Lady Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer -treats his goods. She either explains them entirely away, -or tells one everything about them except what one wants -to know." - -"Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward listlessly. - -"My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded -in opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, -what did she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?" - -"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I -absolutely inseparable. Quite forget what he does--afraid he-- -doesn't do anything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it -the violin, dear Mr. Gray?' Neither of us could help laughing, -and we became friends at once." - -"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, -and it is far the best ending for one," said the young lord, -plucking another daisy. - -Hallward shook his head. "You don't understand what friendship is, Harry," -he murmured--"or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every one; -that is to say, you are indifferent to every one." - -"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back -and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of glossy -white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the summer sky. -"Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference between people. -I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for -their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. -A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not -got one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, -and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? -I think it is rather vain." - -"I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I -must be merely an acquaintance." - -"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance." - -"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?" - -"Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, -and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else." - -"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning. - -"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can't help detesting -my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us -can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. -I quite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against -what they call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel -that drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own -special property, and that if any one of us makes an ass of himself, -he is poaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got -into the divorce court, their indignation was quite magnificent. -And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat -live correctly." - -"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is more, -Harry, I feel sure you don't either." - -Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe -of his patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. -"How English you are Basil! That is the second time you -have made that observation. If one puts forward an idea -to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to do--he never -dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. -The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one -believes it oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing -whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. -Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere -the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, -as in that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, -his desires, or his prejudices. However, I don't propose -to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. -I like persons better than principles, and I like persons -with no principles better than anything else in the world. -Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you -see him?" - -"Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. -He is absolutely necessary to me." - -"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything -but your art." - -"He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely. -"I sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any -importance in the world's history. The first is the appearance -of a new medium for art, and the second is the appearance -of a new personality for art also. What the invention -of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous -was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will -some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, -draw from him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. -But he is much more to me than a model or a sitter. -I won't tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done -of him, or that his beauty is such that art cannot express it. -There is nothing that art cannot express, and I know that -the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good work, -is the best work of my life. But in some curious way--I wonder -will you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me -an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. -I see things differently, I think of them differently. -I can now recreate life in a way that was hidden from me before. -'A dream of form in days of thought'--who is it who says that? -I forget; but it is what Dorian Gray has been to me. -The merely visible presence of this lad--for he seems to me -little more than a lad, though he is really over twenty-- -his merely visible presence--ah! I wonder can you realize -all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me -the lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it -all the passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection -of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body-- -how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, -and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that -is void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! -You remember that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered -me such a huge price but which I would not part with? -It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why -is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat -beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, -and for the first time in my life I saw in the plain -woodland the wonder I had always looked for and always -missed." - -"Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray." - -Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden. -After some time he came back. "Harry," he said, "Dorian Gray -is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. -I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than -when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, -of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, -in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours. -That is all." - -"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?" asked Lord Henry. - -"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression -of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, -I have never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. -He shall never know anything about it. But the world might guess it, -and I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes. -My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much -of myself in the thing, Harry--too much of myself!" - -"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion -is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions." - -"I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create -beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. -We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form -of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. -Some day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world -shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray." - -"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. -It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, -is Dorian Gray very fond of you?" - -The painter considered for a few moments. "He likes me," -he answered after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of course I -flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying -things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. -As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk -of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly -thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. -Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away my whole soul to some -one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, -a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a -summer's day." - -"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry. -"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think of, -but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That accounts -for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. -In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, -and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping -our place. The thoroughly well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. -And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. -It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything -priced above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. -Some day you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little -out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something. You will -bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think that he has -behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you will be perfectly -cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for it will alter you. -What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance of art one might call it, -and the worst of having a romance of any kind is that it leaves one -so unromantic." - -"Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality -of Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. -You change too often." - -"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. -Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: -it is the faithless who know love's tragedies." And Lord -Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case and began -to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and satisfied air, -as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was -a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves -of the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across -the grass like swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! -And how delightful other people's emotions were!-- -much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. -One's own soul, and the passions of one's friends--those were -the fascinating things in life. He pictured to himself -with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed -by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his -aunt's, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, -and the whole conversation would have been about the feeding -of the poor and the necessity for model lodging-houses. Each -class would have preached the importance of those virtues, -for whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. -The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, -and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour. -It was charming to have escaped all that! As he thought of his aunt, -an idea seemed to strike him. He turned to Hallward and said, -"My dear fellow, I have just remembered." - -"Remembered what, Harry?" - -"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray." - -"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown. - -"Don't look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. -She told me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going -to help her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. -I am bound to state that she never told me he was good-looking. Women -have no appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not. -She said that he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature. -I at once pictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, -horribly freckled, and tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known it -was your friend." - -"I am very glad you didn't, Harry." - -"Why?" - -"I don't want you to meet him." - -"You don't want me to meet him?" - -"No." - -"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, -coming into the garden. - -"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing. - -The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight. -"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few moments." -The man bowed and went up the walk. - -Then he looked at Lord Henry. "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," -he said. "He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt -was quite right in what she said of him. Don't spoil him. -Don't try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. -The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. -Don't take away from me the one person who gives to my art -whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends -on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you." He spoke very slowly, -and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against -his will. - -"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward -by the arm, he almost led him into the house. - - - -CHAPTER 2 - -As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, -with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's -"Forest Scenes." "You must lend me these, Basil," he cried. -"I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming." - -"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian." - -"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait -of myself," answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool -in a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, -a faint blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. -"I beg your pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one -with you." - -"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. -I have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, -and now you have spoiled everything." - -"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," -said Lord Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand. -"My aunt has often spoken to me about you. You are one of -her favourites, and, I am afraid, one of her victims also." - -"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian -with a funny look of penitence. "I promised to go to a club in -Whitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. -We were to have played a duet together--three duets, I believe. -I don't know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened -to call." - -"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you. -And I don't think it really matters about your not being there. The audience -probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to the piano, -she makes quite enough noise for two people." - -"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," -answered Dorian, laughing. - -Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, -with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp -gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. -All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's passionate purity. -One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil -Hallward worshipped him. - -"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too charming." -And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened his cigarette-case. - -The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes ready. -He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last remark, he glanced -at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Harry, I want to finish this -picture to-day. Would you think it awfully rude of me if I asked you to -go away?" - -Lord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray. "Am I to go, Mr. Gray?" -he asked. - -"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky moods, -and I can't bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell me why I -should not go in for philanthropy." - -"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so -tedious a subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. -But I certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. -You don't really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you -liked your sitters to have some one to chat to." - -Hallward bit his lip. "If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. -Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself." - -Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. "You are very pressing, Basil, but I -am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the Orleans. -Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon Street. -I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when you are coming. -I should be sorry to miss you." - -"Basil," cried Dorian Gray, "if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go, too. -You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is horribly dull -standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. Ask him to stay. -I insist upon it." - -"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me," said Hallward, -gazing intently at his picture. "It is quite true, I never talk -when I am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully -tedious for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay." - -"But what about my man at the Orleans?" - -The painter laughed. "I don't think there will be any difficulty about that. -Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the platform, and don't -move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry says. -He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the single exception -of myself." - -Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek martyr, -and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather -taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a delightful contrast. -And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few moments he said to him, -"Have you really a very bad influence, Lord Henry? As bad as Basil says?" - -"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. -All influence is immoral--immoral from the scientific point -of view." - -"Why?" - -"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. -He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. -His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things -as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, -an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life -is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what -each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. -They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes -to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry -and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. -Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. -The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, -which is the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us. -And yet--" - -"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy," -said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look had come -into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. - -"And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, -and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so -characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, -"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully -and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to -every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world -would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all -the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal-- -to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. -But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. -The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the -self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. -Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind -and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, -for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then -but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. -The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. -Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things -it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous -laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said -that the great events of the world take place in the brain. -It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins -of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, -with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had -passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you -with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might -stain your cheek with shame--" - -"Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me. -I don't know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I -cannot find it. Don't speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me -try not to think." - -For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted -lips and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious -that entirely fresh influences were at work within him. -Yet they seemed to him to have come really from himself. -The few words that Basil's friend had said to him--words spoken -by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in them-- -had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, -but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to -curious pulses. - -Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. -But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather -another chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! -How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could -not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! -They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, -and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. -Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? - -Yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood. -He understood them now. Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him. -It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not -known it? - -With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise -psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely interested. -He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had produced, -and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen, -a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, -he wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience. -He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? -How fascinating the lad was! - -Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, -that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, -at any rate comes only from strength. He was unconscious of -the silence. - -"Basil, I am tired of standing," cried Dorian Gray suddenly. -"I must go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here." - -"My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, -I can't think of anything else. But you never sat better. -You were perfectly still. And I have caught the effect I wanted-- -the half-parted lips and the bright look in the eyes. -I don't know what Harry has been saying to you, but he has -certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. -I suppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn't believe -a word that he says." - -"He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is the reason -that I don't believe anything he has told me." - -"You know you believe it all," said Lord Henry, looking at him with -his dreamy languorous eyes. "I will go out to the garden with you. -It is horribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something iced -to drink, something with strawberries in it." - -"Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I -will tell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, -so I will join you later on. Don't keep Dorian too long. -I have never been in better form for painting than I am to-day. This -is going to be my masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands." - -Lord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his face in -the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their perfume as if it -had been wine. He came close to him and put his hand upon his shoulder. -"You are quite right to do that," he murmured. "Nothing can cure the soul -but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul." - -The lad started and drew back. He was bareheaded, and the leaves -had tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. -There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they -are suddenly awakened. His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, -and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left -them trembling. - -"Yes," continued Lord Henry, "that is one of the great secrets of life-- -to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. -You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you think you know, just as -you know less than you want to know." - -Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help -liking the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. -His romantic, olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him. -There was something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. -His cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm. -They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language -of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. -Why had it been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself? -He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them -had never altered him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life -who seemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery. And, yet, what was -there to be afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or a girl. It was absurd to -be frightened. - -"Let us go and sit in the shade," said Lord Henry. "Parker has -brought out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, -you will be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. -You really must not allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would -be unbecoming." - -"What can it matter?" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat -down on the seat at the end of the garden. - -"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray." - -"Why?" - -"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing -worth having." - -"I don't feel that, Lord Henry." - -"No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old -and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead -with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its -hideous fires, you will feel it, you will feel it terribly. -Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. Will it always -be so? . . . You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. Gray. -Don't frown. You have. And beauty is a form of genius-- -is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. -It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, -or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver -shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine -right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. -You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won't smile. -. . . People say sometimes that beauty is only superficial. -That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial -as thought is. To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. -It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. -The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. -. . . Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. -But what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only -a few years in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. -When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then you -will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, -or have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that -the memory of your past will make more bitter than defeats. -Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to something dreadful. -Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. -You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. -You will suffer horribly.... Ah! realize your youth -while you have it. Don't squander the gold of your days, -listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, -or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, -and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, -of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! -Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for -new sensations. Be afraid of nothing. . . . A new Hedonism-- -that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol. -With your personality there is nothing you could not do. -The world belongs to you for a season. . . . The moment I met -you I saw that you were quite unconscious of what you really are, -of what you really might be. There was so much in you that -charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. -I thought how tragic it would be if you were wasted. For there is -such a little time that your youth will last--such a little time. -The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom again. -The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. -In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year -after year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars. -But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us -at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. -We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory -of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the -exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. -Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but -youth!" - -Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray -of lilac fell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came -and buzzed round it for a moment. Then it began to scramble -all over the oval stellated globe of the tiny blossoms. -He watched it with that strange interest in trivial things -that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, -or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we -cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies -us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. -After a time the bee flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained -trumpet of a Tyrian convolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, -and then swayed gently to and fro. - -Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made staccato -signs for them to come in. They turned to each other and smiled. - -"I am waiting," he cried. "Do come in. The light is quite perfect, -and you can bring your drinks." - -They rose up and sauntered down the walk together. Two green-and-white -butterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner -of the garden a thrush began to sing. - -"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, -looking at him. - -"Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?" - -"Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. -Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make -it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference -between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a -little longer." - -As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's arm. -"In that case, let our friendship be a caprice," he murmured, flushing at his -own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and resumed his pose. - -Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him. -The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound -that broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped -back to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting beams -that streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden. -The heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything. - -After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, -looked for a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long -time at the picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes -and frowning. "It is quite finished," he cried at last, -and stooping down he wrote his name in long vermilion letters on -the left-hand corner of the canvas. - -Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly -a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well. - -"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly," he said. -"It is the finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over -and look at yourself." - -The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. - -"Is it really finished?" he murmured, stepping down from the platform. - -"Quite finished," said the painter. "And you have sat splendidly -to-day. I am awfully obliged to you." - -"That is entirely due to me," broke in Lord Henry. "Isn't it, -Mr. Gray?" - -Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his -picture and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, -and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came -into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. -He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward -was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. -The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. -He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed -to him to be merely the charming exaggeration of friendship. -He had listened to them, laughed at them, forgotten them. -They had not influenced his nature. Then had come Lord Henry -Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his terrible warning -of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and now, -as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full -reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would -be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim -and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. -The scarlet would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from -his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. -He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth. - -As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him -like a knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. -His eyes deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist -of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon -his heart. - -"Don't you like it?" cried Hallward at last, stung a little -by the lad's silence, not understanding what it meant. - -"Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry. "Who wouldn't like it? -It is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you -anything you like to ask for it. I must have it." - -"It is not my property, Harry." - -"Whose property is it?" - -"Dorian's, of course," answered the painter. - -"He is a very lucky fellow." - -"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon -his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, -and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. -It will never be older than this particular day of June. -. . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was -to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! -For that--for that--I would give everything! Yes, there is -nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul -for that!" - -"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil," cried Lord -Henry, laughing. "It would be rather hard lines on your work." - -"I should object very strongly, Harry," said Hallward. - -Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. "I believe you would, Basil. -You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you -than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say." - -The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like that. -What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed and his -cheeks burning. - -"Yes," he continued, "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your -silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? -Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one -loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. -Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. -Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I -shall kill myself." - -Hallward turned pale and caught his hand. "Dorian! Dorian!" he cried, -"don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I shall -never have such another. You are not jealous of material things, are you?-- -you who are finer than any of them!" - -"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. -I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. -Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes -takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it -were only the other way! If the picture could change, -and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? -It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!" The hot tears -welled into his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself -on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he -was praying. - -"This is your doing, Harry," said the painter bitterly. - -Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian Gray-- -that is all." - -"It is not." - -"If it is not, what have I to do with it?" - -"You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered. - -"I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer. - -"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, -but between you both you have made me hate the finest -piece of work I have ever done, and I will destroy it. -What is it but canvas and colour? I will not let it come across -our three lives and mar them." - -Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid face and -tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal painting-table -that was set beneath the high curtained window. What was he doing there? -His fingers were straying about among the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes, -seeking for something. Yes, it was for the long palette-knife, with its thin -blade of lithe steel. He had found it at last. He was going to rip up -the canvas. - -With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over -to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end -of the studio. "Don't, Basil, don't!" he cried. "It would be murder!" - -"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian," said the painter coldly -when he had recovered from his surprise. "I never thought you would." - -"Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself. -I feel that." - -"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, -and sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself." -And he walked across the room and rang the bell for tea. -"You will have tea, of course, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? -Or do you object to such simple pleasures?" - -"I adore simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. "They are -the last refuge of the complex. But I don't like scenes, -except on the stage. What absurd fellows you are, both of you! -I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. -It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, -but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after all-- -though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. -You had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn't -really want it, and I really do." - -"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!" -cried Dorian Gray; "and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy." - -"You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it existed." - -"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you -don't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young." - -"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry." - -"Ah! this morning! You have lived since then." - -There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a -laden tea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. -There was a rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted -Georgian urn. Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought -in by a page. Dorian Gray went over and poured out the tea. -The two men sauntered languidly to the table and examined what was -under the covers. - -"Let us go to the theatre to-night," said Lord Henry. -"There is sure to be something on, somewhere. I have promised -to dine at White's, but it is only with an old friend, -so I can send him a wire to say that I am ill, or that I am -prevented from coming in consequence of a subsequent engagement. -I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it would have all -the surprise of candour." - -"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes," muttered Hallward. -"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid." - -"Yes," answered Lord Henry dreamily, "the costume of the nineteenth -century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only -real colour-element left in modern life." - -"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry." - -"Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, -or the one in the picture?" - -"Before either." - -"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry," -said the lad. - -"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?" - -"I can't, really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do." - -"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray." - -"I should like that awfully." - -The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture. -"I shall stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly. - -"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, -strolling across to him. "Am I really like that?" - -"Yes; you are just like that." - -"How wonderful, Basil!" - -"At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter," -sighed Hallward. "That is something." - -"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry. -"Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. -It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to -be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: -that is all one can say." - -"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian," said Hallward. -"Stop and dine with me." - -"I can't, Basil." - -"Why?" - -"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him." - -"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises. -He always breaks his own. I beg you not to go." - -Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head. - -"I entreat you." - -The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching -them from the tea-table with an amused smile. - -"I must go, Basil," he answered. - -"Very well," said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his -cup on the tray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, -you had better lose no time. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. -Come and see me soon. Come to-morrow." - -"Certainly." - -"You won't forget?" - -"No, of course not," cried Dorian. - -"And ... Harry!" - -"Yes, Basil?" - -"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning." - -"I have forgotten it." - -"I trust you." - -"I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing. "Come, Mr. Gray, -my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place. Good-bye, Basil. -It has been a most interesting afternoon." - -As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a sofa, -and a look of pain came into his face. - - - -CHAPTER 3 - -At half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon -Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, -a genial if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside -world called selfish because it derived no particular benefit -from him, but who was considered generous by Society as he fed -the people who amused him. His father had been our ambassador -at Madrid when Isabella was young and Prim unthought of, -but had retired from the diplomatic service in a capricious -moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at Paris, -a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled -by reason of his birth, his indolence, the good English -of his dispatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure. -The son, who had been his father's secretary, had resigned along -with his chief, somewhat foolishly as was thought at the time, -and on succeeding some months later to the title, had set -himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art -of doing absolutely nothing. He had two large town houses, -but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, -and took most of his meals at his club. He paid some attention -to the management of his collieries in the Midland counties, -excusing himself for this taint of industry on the ground that -the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a gentleman -to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth. -In politics he was a Tory, except when the Tories were in office, -during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack -of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, -and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. -Only England could have produced him, and he always said -that the country was going to the dogs. His principles -were out of date, but there was a good deal to be said for -his prejudices. - -When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough -shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over The Times. -"Well, Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so early? -I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible -till five." - -"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get -something out of you." - -"Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. -"Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, -nowadays, imagine that money is everything." - -"Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; -"and when they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. -It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, -and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, -and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with -Dartmoor's tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. -What I want is information: not useful information, of course; -useless information." - -"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, -Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. -When I was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. -But I hear they let them in now by examination. What can -you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning -to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, -and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad -for him." - -"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," -said Lord Henry languidly. - -"Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy -white eyebrows. - -"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, -I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson. -His mother was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereaux. -I want you to tell me about his mother. What was she like? -Whom did she marry? You have known nearly everybody -in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much -interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just -met him." - -"Kelso's grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso's grandson! ... Of -course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. -She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux, and made -all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow-- -a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something -of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if it -happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few -months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. -They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, -to insult his son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him-- -and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. -The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club -for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, -and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. -The girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? -I had forgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, -he must be a good-looking chap." - -"He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry. - -"I hope he will fall into proper hands," continued the old man. -"He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso -did the right thing by him. His mother had money, too. -All the Selby property came to her, through her grandfather. -Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. -He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was -ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble -who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. -They made quite a story of it. I didn't dare show my face at Court -for a month. I hope he treated his grandson better than he did -the jarvies." - -"I don't know," answered Lord Henry. "I fancy that the boy will be well off. -He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so. And . . . his -mother was very beautiful?" - -"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw, Harry. -What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could understand. -She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was mad after her. -She was romantic, though. All the women of that family were. -The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful. -Carlington went on his knees to her. Told me so himself. She laughed at him, -and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after him. -And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is this humbug your -father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an American? Ain't English -girls good enough for him?" - -"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George." - -"I'll back English women against the world, Harry," said Lord Fermor, -striking the table with his fist. - -"The betting is on the Americans." - -"They don't last, I am told," muttered his uncle. - -"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase. -They take things flying. I don't think Dartmoor has a chance." - -"Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman. "Has she got any?" - -Lord Henry shook his head. "American girls are as clever at concealing -their parents, as English women are at concealing their past," he said, -rising to go. - -"They are pork-packers, I suppose?" - -"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told -that pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, -after politics." - -"Is she pretty?" - -"She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. -It is the secret of their charm." - -"Why can't these American women stay in their own country? -They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women." - -"It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively -anxious to get out of it," said Lord Henry. "Good-bye, Uncle George. -I shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer. Thanks for giving me -the information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my -new friends, and nothing about my old ones." - -"Where are you lunching, Harry?" - -"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. -He is her latest protege." - -"Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with -her charity appeals. I am sick of them. Why, the good woman thinks -that I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads." - -"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect. -Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their -distinguishing characteristic." - -The old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his servant. -Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street and turned his -steps in the direction of Berkeley Square. - -So that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage. -Crudely as it had been told to him, it had yet stirred him -by its suggestion of a strange, almost modern romance. -A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. -A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, -treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then -a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, -the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and -loveless man. Yes; it was an interesting background. -It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it were. Behind every -exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. -Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow. -. . . And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, -as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure -he had sat opposite to him at the club, the red candleshades -staining to a richer rose the wakening wonder of his face. -Talking to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. -He answered to every touch and thrill of the bow. . . . There -was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. -No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some -gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's -own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added -music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into -another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: -there was a real joy in that--perhaps the most satisfying -joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, -an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common -in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad, -whom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, -or could be fashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate. -Grace was his, and the white purity of boyhood, and beauty such -as old Greek marbles kept for us. There was nothing that one -could not do with him. He could be made a Titan or a toy. -What a pity it was that such beauty was destined to fade! -. . . And Basil? From a psychological point of view, -how interesting he was! The new manner in art, the fresh -mode of looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely -visible presence of one who was unconscious of it all; -the silent spirit that dwelt in dim woodland, and walked unseen -in open field, suddenly showing herself, Dryadlike and not afraid, -because in his soul who sought for her there had been wakened -that wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed; -the mere shapes and patterns of things becoming, as it were, -refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though -they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect -form whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was! -He remembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato, -that artist in thought, who had first analyzed it? -Was it not Buonarotti who had carved it in the coloured marbles -of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own century it was strange. -. . . Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, -the lad was to the painter who had fashioned the wonderful portrait. -He would seek to dominate him--had already, indeed, -half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. -There was something fascinating in this son of love and -death. - -Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had -passed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back. -When he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they -had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick -and passed into the dining-room. - -"Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him. - -He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat -next to her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed -to him shyly from the end of the table, a flush of pleasure -stealing into his cheek. Opposite was the Duchess of Harley, -a lady of admirable good-nature and good temper, much liked -by every one who knew her, and of those ample architectural -proportions that in women who are not duchesses are described -by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat, -on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, -who followed his leader in public life and in private life -followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking -with the Liberals, in accordance with a wise and well-known rule. -The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, -an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, -however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained -once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say -before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur, -one of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, -but so dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly -bound hymn-book. Fortunately for him she had on the other -side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged mediocrity, -as bald as a ministerial statement in the House of Commons, -with whom she was conversing in that intensely earnest manner -which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself, -that all really good people fall into, and from which none of them -ever quite escape. - -"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry," cried the duchess, -nodding pleasantly to him across the table. "Do you think he will really -marry this fascinating young person?" - -"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess." - -"How dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Agatha. "Really, some one should interfere." - -"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American -dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious. - -"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing Sir Thomas." - -"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" asked the duchess, -raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. - -"American novels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail. - -The duchess looked puzzled. - -"Don't mind him, my dear," whispered Lady Agatha. "He never means anything -that he says." - -"When America was discovered," said the Radical member-- -and he began to give some wearisome facts. Like all people -who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners. -The duchess sighed and exercised her privilege of interruption. -"I wish to goodness it never had been discovered at all!" -she exclaimed. "Really, our girls have no chance nowadays. It is -most unfair." - -"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered," -said Mr. Erskine; "I myself would say that it had merely -been detected." - -"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants," answered the -duchess vaguely. "I must confess that most of them are extremely pretty. -And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in Paris. -I wish I could afford to do the same." - -"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris," -chuckled Sir Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's -cast-off clothes. - -"Really! And where do bad Americans go to when they die?" -inquired the duchess. - -"They go to America," murmured Lord Henry. - -Sir Thomas frowned. "I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced against -that great country," he said to Lady Agatha. "I have travelled all over it -in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters, are extremely civil. -I assure you that it is an education to visit it." - -"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?" -asked Mr. Erskine plaintively. "I don't feel up to the journey." - -Sir Thomas waved his hand. "Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on -his shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about -them. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are -absolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing -characteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I -assure you there is no nonsense about the Americans." - -"How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry. "I can stand brute force, but brute -reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. -It is hitting below the intellect." - -"I do not understand you," said Sir Thomas, growing rather red. - -"I do, Lord Henry," murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile. - -"Paradoxes are all very well in their way... ." rejoined the baronet. - -"Was that a paradox?" asked Mr. Erskine. "I did not think so. -Perhaps it was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. -To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities -become acrobats, we can judge them." - -"Dear me!" said Lady Agatha, "how you men argue! I am sure I never can make -out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am quite vexed with you. -Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up the East End? -I assure you he would be quite invaluable. They would love his playing." - -"I want him to play to me," cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked -down the table and caught a bright answering glance. - -"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel," continued Lady Agatha. - -"I can sympathize with everything except suffering," -said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. "I cannot sympathize -with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. -There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy -with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, -the joy of life. The less said about life's sores, -the better." - -"Still, the East End is a very important problem," remarked Sir Thomas -with a grave shake of the head. - -"Quite so," answered the young lord. "It is the problem of slavery, -and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves." - -The politician looked at him keenly. "What change do you propose, then?" -he asked. - -Lord Henry laughed. "I don't desire to change anything in England -except the weather," he answered. "I am quite content with -philosophic contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has -gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would -suggest that we should appeal to science to put us straight. -The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, -and the advantage of science is that it is not emotional." - -"But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs. Vandeleur timidly. - -"Terribly grave," echoed Lady Agatha. - -Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. "Humanity takes itself too seriously. -It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, -history would have been different." - -"You are really very comforting," warbled the duchess. -"I have always felt rather guilty when I came to see your -dear aunt, for I take no interest at all in the East End. -For the future I shall be able to look her in the face without -a blush." - -"A blush is very becoming, Duchess," remarked Lord Henry. - -"Only when one is young," she answered. "When an old woman -like myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, -I wish you would tell me how to become young again." - -He thought for a moment. "Can you remember any great error -that you committed in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, -looking at her across the table. - -"A great many, I fear," she cried. - -"Then commit them over again," he said gravely. "To get back one's youth, -one has merely to repeat one's follies." - -"A delightful theory!" she exclaimed. "I must put it into practice." - -"A dangerous theory!" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips. -Lady Agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. -Mr. Erskine listened. - -"Yes," he continued, "that is one of the great secrets of life. -Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, -and discover when it is too late that the only things one never -regrets are one's mistakes." - -A laugh ran round the table. - -He played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into -the air and transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; -made it iridescent with fancy and winged it with paradox. -The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, -and philosophy herself became young, and catching the mad -music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wine-stained -robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the hills -of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. -Facts fled before her like frightened forest things. -Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, -till the seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves -of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat's black, -dripping, sloping sides. It was an extraordinary improvisation. -He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, -and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was -one whose temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give -his wit keenness and to lend colour to his imagination. -He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He charmed -his listeners out of themselves, and they followed -his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze -off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing -each other over his lips and wonder growing grave in his -darkening eyes. - -At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room in -the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was waiting. -She wrung her hands in mock despair. "How annoying!" she cried. "I must go. -I have to call for my husband at the club, to take him to some absurd meeting -at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be in the chair. If I am late he is -sure to be furious, and I couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. It is far -too fragile. A harsh word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. -Good-bye, Lord Henry, you are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. -I am sure I don't know what to say about your views. You must come and dine -with us some night. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday?" - -"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess," said Lord Henry with a bow. - -"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you," she cried; "so mind you come"; -and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the other ladies. - -When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, -and taking a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm. - -"You talk books away," he said; "why don't you write one?" - -"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. -I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely -as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary public -in England for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias. -Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty -of literature." - -"I fear you are right," answered Mr. Erskine. "I myself used -to have literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. -And now, my dear young friend, if you will allow me to call -you so, may I ask if you really meant all that you said to us -at lunch?" - -"I quite forget what I said," smiled Lord Henry. "Was it all very bad?" - -"Very bad indeed. In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, -and if anything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you -as being primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you -about life. The generation into which I was born was tedious. -Some day, when you are tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound -to me your philosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am -fortunate enough to possess." - -"I shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege. -It has a perfect host, and a perfect library." - -"You will complete it," answered the old gentleman with a courteous bow. -"And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt. I am due at -the Athenaeum. It is the hour when we sleep there." - -"All of you, Mr. Erskine?" - -"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English Academy -of Letters." - -Lord Henry laughed and rose. "I am going to the park," -he cried. - -As he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. -"Let me come with you," he murmured. - -"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him," -answered Lord Henry. - -"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you. -Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? -No one talks so wonderfully as you do." - -"Ah! I have talked quite enough for to-day," said Lord Henry, smiling. -"All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, -if you care to." - - - -CHAPTER 4 - -One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious -arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair. -It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled -wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling -of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk, -long-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette -by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for -Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies -that Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars -and parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small -leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a summer -day in London. - -Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, -his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. -So the lad was looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers -he turned over the pages of an elaborately illustrated edition -of Manon Lescaut that he had found in one of the book-cases. The -formal monotonous ticking of the Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him. -Once or twice he thought of going away. - -At last he heard a step outside, and the door opened. -"How late you are, Harry!" he murmured. - -"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray," answered a shrill voice. - -He glanced quickly round and rose to his feet. "I beg your pardon. -I thought--" - -"You thought it was my husband. It is only his wife. -You must let me introduce myself. I know you quite well -by your photographs. I think my husband has got seventeen -of them." - -"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?" - -"Well, eighteen, then. And I saw you with him the other -night at the opera." She laughed nervously as she spoke, -and watched him with her vague forget-me-not eyes. -She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if -they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. -She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion -was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. -She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. -Her name was Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going -to church. - -"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?" - -"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin. I like Wagner's music better than -anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without -other people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, -don't you think so, Mr. Gray?" - -The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, -and her fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell -paper-knife. - -Dorian smiled and shook his head: "I am afraid I don't think so, -Lady Henry. I never talk during music--at least, during good music. -If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation." - -"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? -I always hear Harry's views from his friends. It is the only -way I get to know of them. But you must not think I don't -like good music. I adore it, but I am afraid of it. -It makes me too romantic. I have simply worshipped pianists-- -two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don't know what it -is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. -They all are, ain't they? Even those that are born -in England become foreigners after a time, don't they? -It is so clever of them, and such a compliment to art. -Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it? You have never been -to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. -I can't afford orchids, but I share no expense in foreigners. -They make one's rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! -Harry, I came in to look for you, to ask you something-- -I forget what it was--and I found Mr. Gray here. -We have had such a pleasant chat about music. We have quite -the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. -But he has been most pleasant. I am so glad I've seen -him." - -"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed," said Lord Henry, elevating his dark, -crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused smile. -"So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of old brocade -in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it. Nowadays people know -the price of everything and the value of nothing." - -"I am afraid I must be going," exclaimed Lady Henry, -breaking an awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh. -"I have promised to drive with the duchess. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. -Good-bye, Harry. You are dining out, I suppose? So am I. Perhaps I -shall see you at Lady Thornbury's." - -"I dare say, my dear," said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her as, -looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the rain, -she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of frangipanni. -Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the sofa. - -"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian," he said -after a few puffs. - -"Why, Harry?" - -"Because they are so sentimental." - -"But I like sentimental people." - -"Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; -women, because they are curious: both are disappointed." - -"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love. -That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, -as I do everything that you say." - -"Who are you in love with?" asked Lord Henry after a pause. - -"With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing. - -Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "That is a rather commonplace debut." - -"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry." - -"Who is she?" - -"Her name is Sibyl Vane." - -"Never heard of her." - -"No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius." - -"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. -They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. -Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men -represent the triumph of mind over morals." - -"Harry, how can you?" - -"My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, -so I ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was. -I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, -the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. -If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely -to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. -They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. -Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. -Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over now. -As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, -she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five -women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into -decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you -known her?" - -"Ah! Harry, your views terrify me." - -"Never mind that. How long have you known her?" - -"About three weeks." - -"And where did you come across her?" - -"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it. -After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you. -You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. -For days after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins. -As I lounged in the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used -to look at every one who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, -what sort of lives they led. Some of them fascinated me. -Others filled me with terror. There was an exquisite poison in the air. -I had a passion for sensations. . . . Well, one evening about seven -o'clock, I determined to go out in search of some adventure. -I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, -its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, as you once phrased it, -must have something in store for me. I fancied a thousand things. -The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I remembered what you -had said to me on that wonderful evening when we first dined together, -about the search for beauty being the real secret of life. -I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered eastward, -soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black -grassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd -little theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. -A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld -in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. -He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre -of a soiled shirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, -and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility. -There was something about him, Harry, that amused me. -He was such a monster. You will laugh at me, I know, but I -really went in and paid a whole guinea for the stage-box. To -the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if I hadn't-- -my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest -romance of my life. I see you are laughing. It is horrid of -you!" - -"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. -But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. -You should say the first romance of your life. You will -always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. -A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. -That is the one use of the idle classes of a country. -Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. -This is merely the beginning." - -"Do you think my nature so shallow?" cried Dorian Gray angrily. - -"No; I think your nature so deep." - -"How do you mean?" - -"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really -the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, -I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. -Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life -of the intellect--simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! -I must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. -There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid -that others might pick them up. But I don't want to interrupt you. -Go on with your story." - -"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, -with a vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. -I looked out from behind the curtain and surveyed the house. -It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and cornucopias, like a -third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were fairly full, -but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and there was -hardly a person in what I suppose they called the dress-circle. -Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there was a -terrible consumption of nuts going on." - -"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama." - -"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder -what on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill. -What do you think the play was, Harry?" - -"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'. -Our fathers used to like that sort of piece, I believe. -The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever -was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, -as in politics, les grandperes ont toujours tort." - -"This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. -I must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare -done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, -in a sort of way. At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act. -There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young -Hebrew who sat at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, -but at last the drop-scene was drawn up and the play began. -Romeo was a stout elderly gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky -tragedy voice, and a figure like a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost -as bad. He was played by the low-comedian, who had introduced -gags of his own and was on most friendly terms with the pit. -They were both as grotesque as the scenery, and that looked as if it -had come out of a country-booth. But Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, -hardly seventeen years of age, with a little, flowerlike face, -a small Greek head with plaited coils of dark-brown hair, eyes that were -violet wells of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. -She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. -You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, -mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you, Harry, I could -hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came across me. -And her voice--I never heard such a voice. It was very low at first, -with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's ear. -Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a -distant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy -that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. -There were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. -You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of -Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget. When I close -my eyes, I hear them, and each of them says something different. -I don't know which to follow. Why should I not love her? -Harry, I do love her. She is everything to me in life. -Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, -and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom -of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. -I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, -disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. -She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, -and given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. -She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have -crushed her reedlike throat. I have seen her in every age and in -every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. -They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. -One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. -One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride -in the park in the morning and chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. -They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable manner. -They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is! -Harry! why didn't you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an -actress?" - -"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian." - -"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces." - -"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary -charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry. - -"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane." - -"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life -you will tell me everything you do." - -"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. -You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would come -and confess it to you. You would understand me." - -"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes, Dorian. -But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell me-- -reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are your actual relations -with Sibyl Vane?" - -Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. -"Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" - -"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian," -said Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. -"But why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong -to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by -deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. -That is what the world calls a romance. You know her, at any rate, -I suppose?" - -"Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, -the horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over -and offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. -I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead -for hundreds of years and that her body was lying in a marble -tomb in Verona. I think, from his blank look of amazement, -that he was under the impression that I had taken too much champagne, -or something." - -"I am not surprised." - -"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. -I told him I never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed -at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic critics -were in a conspiracy against him, and that they were every -one of them to be bought." - -"I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, -judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all expensive." - -"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," -laughed Dorian. "By this time, however, the lights were being -put out in the theatre, and I had to go. He wanted me to try -some cigars that he strongly recommended. I declined. -The next night, of course, I arrived at the place again. -When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that I -was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, -though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. -He told me once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies -were entirely due to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him. -He seemed to think it a distinction." - -"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction. -Most people become bankrupt through having invested too -heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over -poetry is an honour. But when did you first speak to Miss -Sibyl Vane?" - -"The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. -I could not help going round. I had thrown her some flowers, -and she had looked at me--at least I fancied that she had. -The old Jew was persistent. He seemed determined to take me behind, -so I consented. It was curious my not wanting to know her, -wasn't it?" - -"No; I don't think so." - -"My dear Harry, why?" - -"I will tell you some other time. Now I want to know about the girl." - -"Sibyl? Oh, she was so shy and so gentle. There is something of a -child about her. Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I -told her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite -unconscious of her power. I think we were both rather nervous. -The old Jew stood grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, -making elaborate speeches about us both, while we stood looking at -each other like children. He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' -so I had to assure Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. -She said quite simply to me, 'You look more like a prince. -I must call you Prince Charming.'" - -"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments." - -"You don't understand her, Harry. She regarded me merely as a person -in a play. She knows nothing of life. She lives with her mother, -a faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta -dressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen -better days." - -"I know that look. It depresses me," murmured Lord Henry, -examining his rings. - -"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest me." - -"You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean -about other people's tragedies." - -"Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me -where she came from? From her little head to her little feet, -she is absolutely and entirely divine. Every night of my life I -go to see her act, and every night she is more marvellous." - -"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now. -I thought you must have some curious romance on hand. You have; -but it is not quite what I expected." - -"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, -and I have been to the opera with you several times," said Dorian, -opening his blue eyes in wonder. - -"You always come dreadfully late." - -"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play," he cried, "even if it is -only for a single act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think -of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, -I am filled with awe." - -"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?" - -He shook his head. "To-night she is Imogen," he answered, -"and to-morrow night she will be Juliet." - -"When is she Sibyl Vane?" - -"Never." - -"I congratulate you." - -"How horrid you are! She is all the great heroines of the world in one. -She is more than an individual. You laugh, but I tell you she -has genius. I love her, and I must make her love me. You, who know -all the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! -I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world -to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion -to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. -My God, Harry, how I worship her!" He was walking up and down the room -as he spoke. Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks. He was -terribly excited. - -Lord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure. How different -he was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's studio! -His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of scarlet flame. -Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and desire had come to meet -it on the way. - -"And what do you propose to do?" said Lord Henry at last. - -"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. -I have not the slightest fear of the result. You are certain to -acknowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands. -She is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight months-- -from the present time. I shall have to pay him something, of course. -When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and bring -her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she has -made me." - -"That would be impossible, my dear boy." - -"Yes, she will. She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, -in her, but she has personality also; and you have often told me -that it is personalities, not principles, that move the age." - -"Well, what night shall we go?" - -"Let me see. To-day is Tuesday. Let us fix to-morrow. She plays -Juliet to-morrow." - -"All right. The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil." - -"Not eight, Harry, please. Half-past six. We must be there -before the curtain rises. You must see her in the first act, -where she meets Romeo." - -"Half-past six! What an hour! It will be like having a meat-tea, or reading -an English novel. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before seven. -Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to him?" - -"Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. -It is rather horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in -the most wonderful frame, specially designed by himself, and, -though I am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole -month younger than I am, I must admit that I delight in it. -Perhaps you had better write to him. I don't want to see him alone. -He says things that annoy me. He gives me good advice." - -Lord Henry smiled. "People are very fond of giving away what they -need most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity." - -"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit -of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered that." - -"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him -into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for -life but his prejudices, his principles, and his common sense. -The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful -are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, -and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. -A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of -all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. -The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. -The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets -makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that -he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare -not realize." - -"I wonder is that really so, Harry?" said Dorian Gray, -putting some perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, -gold-topped bottle that stood on the table. "It must be, -if you say it. And now I am off. Imogen is waiting for me. -Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye." - -As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began -to think. Certainly few people had ever interested him so much -as Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else -caused him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. -He was pleased by it. It made him a more interesting study. -He had been always enthralled by the methods of natural science, -but the ordinary subject-matter of that science had seemed to him -trivial and of no import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, -as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life--that appeared -to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there -was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched -life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could -not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous -fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid -with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons -so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. -There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them -if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great -reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! -To note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional -coloured life of the intellect--to observe where they met, -and where they separated, at what point they were in unison, -and at what point they were at discord--there was a delight in that! -What matter what the cost was? One could never pay too high a price for -any sensation. - -He was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into -his brown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, -musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul -had turned to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. -To a large extent the lad was his own creation. He had made -him premature. That was something. Ordinary people waited till -life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, -the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. -Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, -which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect. -But now and then a complex personality took the place and assumed -the office of art, was indeed, in its way, a real work of art, -life having its elaborate masterpieces, just as poetry has, or sculpture, -or painting. - -Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it -was yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, -but he was becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him. -With his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to -wonder at. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. -He was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, -whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense -of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses. - -Soul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were! There was -animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality. -The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could -say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? -How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! -And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools! -Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or was the body -really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of spirit -from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a -mystery also. - -He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute -a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. -As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. -Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to -their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, -had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, -had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed -us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. -It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it -really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, -and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, -and with joy. - -It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only -method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis -of the passions; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made -to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results. -His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon -of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much -to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences, -yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex passion. -What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood -had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, -changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote -from sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. -It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves -that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives -were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened -that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were -really experimenting on ourselves. - -While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door, -and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for dinner. -He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into -scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed -like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a faded rose. -He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and wondered how it was -all going to end. - -When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram -lying on the hall table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian Gray. -It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl Vane. - - - -CHAPTER 5 - -"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!" whispered the girl, burying her -face in the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, -with back turned to the shrill intrusive light, was sitting -in the one arm-chair that their dingy sitting-room contained. -"I am so happy!" she repeated, "and you must be happy, too!" - -Mrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her -daughter's head. "Happy!" she echoed, "I am only happy, Sibyl, when I -see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. -Mr. Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money." - -The girl looked up and pouted. "Money, Mother?" she cried, -"what does money matter? Love is more than money." - -"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to get -a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty pounds -is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate." - -"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me," -said the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window. - -"I don't know how we could manage without him," answered the elder -woman querulously. - -Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. "We don't want him -any more, Mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now." -Then she paused. A rose shook in her blood and shadowed -her cheeks. Quick breath parted the petals of her lips. -They trembled. Some southern wind of passion swept over her -and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. "I love him," -she said simply. - -"Foolish child! foolish child!" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer. -The waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to -the words. - -The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. -Her eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed -for a moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, -the mist of a dream had passed across them. - -Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, -hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose -author apes the name of common sense. She did not listen. -She was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, -was with her. She had called on memory to remake him. -She had sent her soul to search for him, and it had brought him back. -His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her eyelids were warm with -his breath. - -Then wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery. -This young man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of. -Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning. -The arrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, -and smiled. - -Suddenly she felt the need to speak. The wordy silence troubled her. -"Mother, Mother," she cried, "why does he love me so much? I know why I -love him. I love him because he is like what love himself should be. -But what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And yet--why, I -cannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble. -I feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love -Prince Charming?" - -The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed -her cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain. -Sybil rushed to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. -"Forgive me, Mother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. -But it only pains you because you loved him so much. Don't look so sad. -I am as happy to-day as you were twenty years ago. Ah! let me be happy -for ever!" - -"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. -Besides, what do you know of this young man? You don't -even know his name. The whole thing is most inconvenient, -and really, when James is going away to Australia, and I have -so much to think of, I must say that you should have shown -more consideration. However, as I said before, if he is rich -. . ." - -"Ah! Mother, Mother, let me be happy!" - -Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false -theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second -nature to a stage-player, clasped her in her arms. -At this moment, the door opened and a young lad with rough -brown hair came into the room. He was thick-set of figure, -and his hands and feet were large and somewhat clumsy in movement. -He was not so finely bred as his sister. One would hardly -have guessed the close relationship that existed between them. -Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile. -She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. -She felt sure that the tableau was interesting. - -"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think," -said the lad with a good-natured grumble. - -"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim," she cried. -"You are a dreadful old bear." And she ran across the room and -hugged him. - -James Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness. -"I want you to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. -I don't suppose I shall ever see this horrid London again. -I am sure I don't want to." - -"My son, don't say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up -a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. -She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. -It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation. - -"Why not, Mother? I mean it." - -"You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a position -of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in the Colonies-- -nothing that I would call society--so when you have made your fortune, -you must come back and assert yourself in London." - -"Society!" muttered the lad. "I don't want to know anything about that. -I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the stage. -I hate it." - -"Oh, Jim!" said Sibyl, laughing, "how unkind of you! -But are you really going for a walk with me? That will be nice! -I was afraid you were going to say good-bye to some of your friends-- -to Tom Hardy, who gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, -who makes fun of you for smoking it. It is very sweet of you -to let me have your last afternoon. Where shall we go? -Let us go to the park." - -"I am too shabby," he answered, frowning. "Only swell people go to the park." - -"Nonsense, Jim," she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat. - -He hesitated for a moment. "Very well," he said at last, -"but don't be too long dressing." She danced out of the door. -One could hear her singing as she ran upstairs. Her little feet -pattered overhead. - -He walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he turned -to the still figure in the chair. "Mother, are my things ready?" -he asked. - -"Quite ready, James," she answered, keeping her eyes on -her work. For some months past she had felt ill at ease -when she was alone with this rough stern son of hers. -Her shallow secret nature was troubled when their eyes met. -She used to wonder if he suspected anything. The silence, -for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her. -She began to complain. Women defend themselves by attacking, -just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. -"I hope you will be contented, James, with your sea-faring life," -she said. "You must remember that it is your own choice. -You might have entered a solicitor's office. Solicitors are -a very respectable class, and in the country often dine with -the best families." - -"I hate offices, and I hate clerks," he replied. "But you are quite right. -I have chosen my own life. All I say is, watch over Sibyl. Don't let her -come to any harm. Mother, you must watch over her." - -"James, you really talk very strangely. Of course I watch over Sibyl." - -"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind -to talk to her. Is that right? What about that?" - -"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James. In the profession -we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying attention. -I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That was when acting -was really understood. As for Sibyl, I do not know at present whether -her attachment is serious or not. But there is no doubt that the young -man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is always most polite to me. -Besides, he has the appearance of being rich, and the flowers he sends -are lovely." - -"You don't know his name, though," said the lad harshly. - -"No," answered his mother with a placid expression in her face. -"He has not yet revealed his real name. I think it is quite romantic -of him. He is probably a member of the aristocracy." - -James Vane bit his lip. "Watch over Sibyl, Mother," he cried, -"watch over her." - -"My son, you distress me very much. Sibyl is always under my special care. -Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why she should -not contract an alliance with him. I trust he is one of the aristocracy. -He has all the appearance of it, I must say. It might be a most brilliant -marriage for Sibyl. They would make a charming couple. His good looks are -really quite remarkable; everybody notices them." - -The lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane -with his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something -when the door opened and Sibyl ran in. - -"How serious you both are!" she cried. "What is the matter?" - -"Nothing," he answered. "I suppose one must be serious sometimes. -Good-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything -is packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble." - -"Good-bye, my son," she answered with a bow of strained stateliness. - -She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, -and there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid. - -"Kiss me, Mother," said the girl. Her flowerlike lips touched the withered -cheek and warmed its frost. - -"My child! my child!" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling -in search of an imaginary gallery. - -"Come, Sibyl," said her brother impatiently. He hated -his mother's affectations. - -They went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled -down the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wonder -at the sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, -was in the company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. -He was like a common gardener walking with a rose. - -Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive -glance of some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at, -which comes on geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace. -Sibyl, however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. -Her love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking -of Prince Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, -she did not talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which -Jim was going to sail, about the gold he was certain to find, -about the wonderful heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, -red-shirted bushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, -or a supercargo, or whatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor's -existence was dreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, -with the hoarse, hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind -blowing the masts down and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! -He was to leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye -to the captain, and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before -a week was over he was to come across a large nugget of pure gold, -the largest nugget that had ever been discovered, and bring it -down to the coast in a waggon guarded by six mounted policemen. -The bushrangers were to attack them three times, and be defeated -with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was not to go to the gold-fields -at all. They were horrid places, where men got intoxicated, -and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad language. He was -to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, -he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber -on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course, -she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would -get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. -Yes, there were delightful things in store for him. But he must -be very good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. -She was only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more -of life. He must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, -and to say his prayers each night before he went to sleep. -God was very good, and would watch over him. She would pray -for him, too, and in a few years he would come back quite rich and -happy. - -The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heart-sick -at leaving home. - -Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose. -Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense -of the danger of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was -making love to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman, -and he hated him for that, hated him through some curious -race-instinct for which he could not account, and which for that -reason was all the more dominant within him. He was conscious -also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature, -and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness. -Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they -judge them; sometimes they forgive them. - -His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, -something that he had brooded on for many months of silence. -A chance phrase that he had heard at the theatre, a whispered -sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at -the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. -He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop -across his face. His brows knit together into a wedgelike furrow, -and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip. - -"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl, -"and I am making the most delightful plans for your future. -Do say something." - -"What do you want me to say?" - -"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered, -smiling at him. - -He shrugged his shoulders. "You are more likely to forget me than I am -to forget you, Sibyl." - -She flushed. "What do you mean, Jim?" she asked. - -"You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me -about him? He means you no good." - -"Stop, Jim!" she exclaimed. "You must not say anything against him. -I love him." - -"Why, you don't even know his name," answered the lad. "Who is he? -I have a right to know." - -"He is called Prince Charming. Don't you like the name. -Oh! you silly boy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, -you would think him the most wonderful person in the world. -Some day you will meet him--when you come back from Australia. -You will like him so much. Everybody likes him, and I ... -love him. I wish you could come to the theatre to-night. He -is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet. Oh! how I -shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! -To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! -I am afraid I may frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them. -To be in love is to surpass one's self. Poor dreadful -Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius' to his loafers at the bar. -He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he will announce me -as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his only, -Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. -But I am poor beside him. Poor? What does that matter? -When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window. -Our proverbs want rewriting. They were made in winter, and it is -summer now; spring-time for me, I think, a very dance of blossoms -in blue skies." - -"He is a gentleman," said the lad sullenly. - -"A prince!" she cried musically. "What more do you want?" - -"He wants to enslave you." - -"I shudder at the thought of being free." - -"I want you to beware of him." - -"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him." - -"Sibyl, you are mad about him." - -She laughed and took his arm. "You dear old Jim, you talk as -if you were a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. -Then you will know what it is. Don't look so sulky. -Surely you should be glad to think that, though you are -going away, you leave me happier than I have ever been before. -Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and difficult. -But it will be different now. You are going to a new world, -and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down and see -the smart people go by." - -They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulip-beds -across the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white dust-- -tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air. -The brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous butterflies. - -She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. -He spoke slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other -as players at a game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could -not communicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth -was all the echo she could win. After some time she became silent. -Suddenly she caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, -and in an open carriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past. - -She started to her feet. "There he is!" she cried. - -"Who?" said Jim Vane. - -"Prince Charming," she answered, looking after the victoria. - -He jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm. "Show him to me. -Which is he? Point him out. I must see him!" he exclaimed; -but at that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, -and when it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of -the park. - -"He is gone," murmured Sibyl sadly. "I wish you had seen him." - -"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, -if he ever does you any wrong, I shall kill him." - -She looked at him in horror. He repeated his words. -They cut the air like a dagger. The people round began to gape. -A lady standing close to her tittered. - -"Come away, Jim; come away," she whispered. He followed her doggedly -as she passed through the crowd. He felt glad at what he had said. - -When they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round. -There was pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. -She shook her head at him. "You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; -a bad-tempered boy, that is all. How can you say such -horrible things? You don't know what you are talking about. -You are simply jealous and unkind. Ah! I wish you would -fall in love. Love makes people good, and what you said -was wicked." - -"I am sixteen," he answered, "and I know what I am about. -Mother is no help to you. She doesn't understand how to look -after you. I wish now that I was not going to Australia at all. -I have a great mind to chuck the whole thing up. I would, if my -articles hadn't been signed." - -"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes -of those silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in. -I am not going to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see -him is perfect happiness. We won't quarrel. I know you would never -harm any one I love, would you?" - -"Not as long as you love him, I suppose," was the sullen answer. - -"I shall love him for ever!" she cried. - -"And he?" - -"For ever, too!" - -"He had better." - -She shrank from him. Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm. -He was merely a boy. - -At the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close -to their shabby home in the Euston Road. It was after five o'clock, -and Sibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting. -Jim insisted that she should do so. He said that he would sooner -part with her when their mother was not present. She would be sure -to make a scene, and he detested scenes of every kind. - -In Sybil's own room they parted. There was jealousy in the lad's heart, -and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed to him, -had come between them. Yet, when her arms were flung round his neck, -and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed her with -real affection. There were tears in his eyes as he went downstairs. - -His mother was waiting for him below. She grumbled at his unpunctuality, -as he entered. He made no answer, but sat down to his meagre meal. -The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the stained cloth. -Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of street-cabs, -he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that was left -to him. - -After some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his hands. -He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told to him before, -if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother watched him. -Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered lace handkerchief -twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six, he got up and went -to the door. Then he turned back and looked at her. Their eyes met. -In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged him. - -"Mother, I have something to ask you," he said. Her eyes wandered -vaguely about the room. She made no answer. "Tell me the truth. -I have a right to know. Were you married to my father?" - -She heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment, -the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded, -had come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed, in some measure it -was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question called -for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led up to. -It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal. - -"No," she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life. - -"My father was a scoundrel then!" cried the lad, clenching his fists. - -She shook her head. "I knew he was not free. We loved each other -very much. If he had lived, he would have made provision for us. -Don't speak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman. -Indeed, he was highly connected." - -An oath broke from his lips. "I don't care for myself," -he exclaimed, "but don't let Sibyl. . . . It is a gentleman, -isn't it, who is in love with her, or says he is? -Highly connected, too, I suppose." - -For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. -Her head drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. -"Sibyl has a mother," she murmured; "I had none." - -The lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down, -he kissed her. "I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about -my father," he said, "but I could not help it. I must go now. -Good-bye. Don't forget that you will have only one child now -to look after, and believe me that if this man wrongs my sister, -I will find out who he is, track him down, and kill him like a dog. -I swear it." - -The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture -that accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem -more vivid to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. -She breathed more freely, and for the first time for many months -she really admired her son. She would have liked to have continued -the scene on the same emotional scale, but he cut her short. -Trunks had to be carried down and mufflers looked for. -The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out. There was the bargaining -with the cabman. The moment was lost in vulgar details. -It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that she waved the -tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son drove away. -She was conscious that a great opportunity had been wasted. -She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt her -life would be, now that she had only one child to look after. -She remembered the phrase. It had pleased her. Of the threat -she said nothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed. -She felt that they would all laugh at it some day. - - - -CHAPTER 6 - -"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?" said Lord Henry -that evening as Hallward was shown into a little private room -at the Bristol where dinner had been laid for three. - -"No, Harry," answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to -the bowing waiter. "What is it? Nothing about politics, I hope! -They don't interest me. There is hardly a single person in the House -of Commons worth painting, though many of them would be the better -for a little whitewashing." - -"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, -watching him as he spoke. - -Hallward started and then frowned. "Dorian engaged to be married!" -he cried. "Impossible!" - -"It is perfectly true." - -"To whom?" - -"To some little actress or other." - -"I can't believe it. Dorian is far too sensible." - -"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, -my dear Basil." - -"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry." - -"Except in America," rejoined Lord Henry languidly. "But I -didn't say he was married. I said he was engaged to be married. -There is a great difference. I have a distinct remembrance of -being married, but I have no recollection at all of being engaged. -I am inclined to think that I never was engaged." - -"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth. -It would be absurd for him to marry so much beneath him." - -"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil. He is -sure to do it, then. Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, -it is always from the noblest motives." - -"I hope the girl is good, Harry. I don't want to see Dorian tied to some -vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his intellect." - -"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful," murmured Lord Henry, -sipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. "Dorian says she -is beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind. -Your portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal -appearance of other people. It has had that excellent effect, -amongst others. We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget -his appointment." - -"Are you serious?" - -"Quite serious, Basil. I should be miserable if I thought I -should ever be more serious than I am at the present moment." - -"But do you approve of it, Harry?" asked the painter, -walking up and down the room and biting his lip. "You can't -approve of it, possibly. It is some silly infatuation." - -"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd -attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world -to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common -people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. -If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that -personality selects is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray -falls in love with a beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes -to marry her. Why not? If he wedded Messalina, he would be none -the less interesting. You know I am not a champion of marriage. -The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. -And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality. -Still, there are certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex. -They retain their egotism, and add to it many other egos. -They are forced to have more than one life. They become more -highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should fancy, -the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience -is of value, and whatever one may say against marriage, -it is certainly an experience. I hope that Dorian Gray will -make this girl his wife, passionately adore her for six months, -and then suddenly become fascinated by some one else. He would be a -wonderful study." - -"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't. If -Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than yourself. -You are much better than you pretend to be." - -Lord Henry laughed. "The reason we all like to think -so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. -The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are -generous because we credit our neighbour with the possession -of those virtues that are likely to be a benefit to us. -We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, -and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that -he may spare our pockets. I mean everything that I have said. -I have the greatest contempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, -no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested. -If you want to mar a nature, you have merely to reform it. -As for marriage, of course that would be silly, but there are other -and more interesting bonds between men and women. I will certainly -encourage them. They have the charm of being fashionable. -But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than -I can." - -"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!" -said the lad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined -wings and shaking each of his friends by the hand in turn. -"I have never been so happy. Of course, it is sudden-- -all really delightful things are. And yet it seems to me -to be the one thing I have been looking for all my life." -He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked -extraordinarily handsome. - -"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian," said Hallward, "but I -don't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement. -You let Harry know." - -"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner," broke in Lord Henry, -putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke. -"Come, let us sit down and try what the new chef here is like, and then you -will tell us how it all came about." - -"There is really not much to tell," cried Dorian as they took their -seats at the small round table. "What happened was simply this. -After I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some -dinner at that little Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you -introduced me to, and went down at eight o'clock to the theatre. -Sibyl was playing Rosalind. Of course, the scenery was dreadful -and the Orlando absurd. But Sibyl! You should have seen her! -When she came on in her boy's clothes, she was perfectly wonderful. -She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with cinnamon sleeves, -slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little green cap with a hawk's -feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak lined with dull red. -She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She had all the delicate -grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in your studio, Basil. -Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves round a pale rose. -As for her acting--well, you shall see her to-night. She is simply -a born artist. I sat in the dingy box absolutely enthralled. -I forgot that I was in London and in the nineteenth century. -I was away with my love in a forest that no man had ever seen. -After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke to her. -As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes a look -that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers. -We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that moment. -It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one perfect -point of rose-coloured joy. She trembled all over and shook -like a white narcissus. Then she flung herself on her knees -and kissed my hands. I feel that I should not tell you all this, -but I can't help it. Of course, our engagement is a dead secret. -She has not even told her own mother. I don't know what my guardians -will say. Lord Radley is sure to be furious. I don't care. -I shall be of age in less than a year, and then I can do what I like. -I have been right, Basil, haven't I, to take my love out of poetry -and to find my wife in Shakespeare's plays? Lips that Shakespeare -taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. -I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the -mouth." - -"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right," said Hallward slowly. - -"Have you seen her to-day?" asked Lord Henry. - -Dorian Gray shook his head. "I left her in the forest of Arden; -I shall find her in an orchard in Verona." - -Lord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner. -"At what particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian? -And what did she say in answer? Perhaps you forgot all about it." - -"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, -and I did not make any formal proposal. I told her that I -loved her, and she said she was not worthy to be my wife. -Not worthy! Why, the whole world is nothing to me compared -with her." - -"Women are wonderfully practical," murmured Lord Henry, -"much more practical than we are. In situations of that kind -we often forget to say anything about marriage, and they always -remind us." - -Hallward laid his hand upon his arm. "Don't, Harry. -You have annoyed Dorian. He is not like other men. -He would never bring misery upon any one. His nature is too fine -for that." - -Lord Henry looked across the table. "Dorian is never annoyed with me," -he answered. "I asked the question for the best reason possible, -for the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any question-- -simple curiosity. I have a theory that it is always the women who -propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. Except, of course, -in middle-class life. But then the middle classes are not modern." - -Dorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head. "You are quite -incorrigible, Harry; but I don't mind. It is impossible to be angry -with you. When you see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man -who could wrong her would be a beast, a beast without a heart. -I cannot understand how any one can wish to shame the thing -he loves. I love Sibyl Vane. I want to place her on a pedestal -of gold and to see the world worship the woman who is mine. -What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at it for that. -Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to take. -Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. -When I am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. -I become different from what you have known me to be. -I am changed, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vane's hand makes -me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, -delightful theories." - -"And those are ... ?" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad. - -"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, -your theories about pleasure. All your theories, in fact, Harry." - -"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about," -he answered in his slow melodious voice. "But I am afraid -I cannot claim my theory as my own. It belongs to Nature, -not to me. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. -When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, -we are not always happy." - -"Ah! but what do you mean by good?" cried Basil Hallward. - -"Yes," echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord -Henry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood -in the centre of the table, "what do you mean by good, Harry?" - -"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self," he replied, -touching the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers. -"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. -One's own life--that is the important thing. As for the lives -of one's neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, -one can flaunt one's moral views about them, but they are not -one's concern. Besides, individualism has really the higher aim. -Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age. -I consider that for any man of culture to accept the standard of his age is -a form of the grossest immorality." - -"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays -a terrible price for doing so?" suggested the painter. - -"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should -fancy that the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford -nothing but self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, -are the privilege of the rich." - -"One has to pay in other ways but money." - -"What sort of ways, Basil?" - -"Oh! I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in . . . well, -in the consciousness of degradation." - -Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, mediaeval art -is charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date. One can use -them in fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can -use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. -Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized -man ever knows what a pleasure is." - -"I know what pleasure is," cried Dorian Gray. "It is to adore some one." - -"That is certainly better than being adored," he answered, -toying with some fruits. "Being adored is a nuisance. -Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. -They worship us, and are always bothering us to do something -for them." - -"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to us," -murmured the lad gravely. "They create love in our natures. They have a -right to demand it back." - -"That is quite true, Dorian," cried Hallward. - -"Nothing is ever quite true," said Lord Henry. - -"This is," interrupted Dorian. "You must admit, Harry, that women -give to men the very gold of their lives." - -"Possibly," he sighed, "but they invariably want it back in such -very small change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty -Frenchman once put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces -and always prevent us from carrying them out." - -"Harry, you are dreadful! I don't know why I like you so much." - -"You will always like me, Dorian," he replied. "Will you have some coffee, -you fellows? Waiter, bring coffee, and fine-champagne, and some cigarettes. -No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some. Basil, I can't allow you to -smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A cigarette is the perfect type -of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. -What more can one want? Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. -I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit." - -"What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from -a fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table. -"Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will -have a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you -have never known." - -"I have known everything," said Lord Henry, with a tired -look in his eyes, "but I am always ready for a new emotion. -I am afraid, however, that, for me at any rate, there is -no such thing. Still, your wonderful girl may thrill me. -I love acting. It is so much more real than life. Let us go. -Dorian, you will come with me. I am so sorry, Basil, but there -is only room for two in the brougham. You must follow us in -a hansom." - -They got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing. -The painter was silent and preoccupied. There was a gloom over him. -He could not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him -to be better than many other things that might have happened. -After a few minutes, they all passed downstairs. He drove off by himself, -as had been arranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little -brougham in front of him. A strange sense of loss came over him. -He felt that Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had -been in the past. Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, -and the crowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes. -When the cab drew up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown -years older. - - - -CHAPTER 7 - -For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, -and the fat Jew manager who met them at the door was -beaming from ear to ear with an oily tremulous smile. -He escorted them to their box with a sort of pompous humility, -waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top of his voice. -Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever. He felt as if he had -come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. -Lord Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. -At least he declared he did, and insisted on shaking him -by the hand and assuring him that he was proud to meet a man -who had discovered a real genius and gone bankrupt over a poet. -Hallward amused himself with watching the faces in the pit. -The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight -flamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire. -The youths in the gallery had taken off their coats -and waistcoats and hung them over the side. They talked -to each other across the theatre and shared their oranges -with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women -were laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill -and discordant. The sound of the popping of corks came from -the bar. - -"What a place to find one's divinity in!" said Lord Henry. - -"Yes!" answered Dorian Gray. "It was here I found her, and she is divine -beyond all living things. When she acts, you will forget everything. -These common rough people, with their coarse faces and brutal gestures, -become quite different when she is on the stage. They sit silently -and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to do. -She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them, -and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self." - -"The same flesh and blood as one's self! Oh, I hope not!" -exclaimed Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery -through his opera-glass. - -"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter. -"I understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. -Any one you love must be marvellous, and any girl -who has the effect you describe must be fine and noble. -To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth doing. -If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, -if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives -have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their -selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not -their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of -the adoration of the world. This marriage is quite right. -I did not think so at first, but I admit it now. -The gods made Sibyl Vane for you. Without her you would have -been incomplete." - -"Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. -"I knew that you would understand me. Harry is so cynical, -he terrifies me. But here is the orchestra. It is -quite dreadful, but it only lasts for about five minutes. -Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl to whom I -am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything -that is good in me." - -A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of applause, -Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly lovely to look at-- -one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought, that he had ever seen. -There was something of the fawn in her shy grace and startled eyes. -A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, came to her -cheeks as she glanced at the crowded enthusiastic house. She stepped back -a few paces and her lips seemed to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet -and began to applaud. Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, -gazing at her. Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, -"Charming! charming!" - -The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's -dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band, -such as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. -Through the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane -moved like a creature from a finer world. Her body swayed, -while she danced, as a plant sways in the water. The curves of her -throat were the curves of a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made -of cool ivory. - -Yet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy -when her eyes rested on Romeo. The few words she had to speak-- - - Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, - Which mannerly devotion shows in this; - For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, - And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss-- - -with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a -thoroughly artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, -but from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false. -It was wrong in colour. It took away all the life from the verse. -It made the passion unreal. - -Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious. -Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to them -to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed. - -Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene -of the second act. They waited for that. If she failed there, -there was nothing in her. - -She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight. -That could not be denied. But the staginess of her acting -was unbearable, and grew worse as she went on. Her gestures -became absurdly artificial. She overemphasized everything -that she had to say. The beautiful passage-- - - Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, - Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek - For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night-- - -was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been -taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she -leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines-- - - Although I joy in thee, - I have no joy of this contract to-night: - It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; - Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be - Ere one can say, "It lightens." Sweet, good-night! - This bud of love by summer's ripening breath - May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet-- - -she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was -not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely -self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure. - -Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their -interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and to -whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the -dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was -the girl herself. - -When the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, -and Lord Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat. -"She is quite beautiful, Dorian," he said, "but she can't act. -Let us go." - -"I am going to see the play through," answered the lad, -in a hard bitter voice. "I am awfully sorry that I have made -you waste an evening, Harry. I apologize to you both." - -"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill," interrupted Hallward. -"We will come some other night." - -"I wish she were ill," he rejoined. "But she seems to me -to be simply callous and cold. She has entirely altered. -Last night she was a great artist. This evening she is merely a -commonplace mediocre actress." - -"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more -wonderful thing than art." - -"They are both simply forms of imitation," remarked Lord Henry. -"But do let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. -It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting. -Besides, I don't suppose you will want your wife to act, -so what does it matter if she plays Juliet like a wooden doll? -She is very lovely, and if she knows as little about life -as she does about acting, she will be a delightful experience. -There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating-- -people who know absolutely everything, and people who know -absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic! -The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion -that is unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. -We will smoke cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. -She is beautiful. What more can you want?" - -"Go away, Harry," cried the lad. "I want to be alone. Basil, you must go. -Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?" The hot tears came -to his eyes. His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, -he leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. - -"Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his voice, -and the two young men passed out together. - -A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose -on the third act. Dorian Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale, -and proud, and indifferent. The play dragged on, and seemed interminable. -Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots and laughing. -The whole thing was a fiasco. The last act was played to almost -empty benches. The curtain went down on a titter and some groans. - -As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into -the greenroom. The girl was standing there alone, with a look -of triumph on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. -There was a radiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over -some secret of their own. - -When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy -came over her. "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried. - -"Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement. "Horribly! -It was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was. -You have no idea what I suffered." - -The girl smiled. "Dorian," she answered, lingering over -his name with long-drawn music in her voice, as though it -were sweeter than honey to the red petals of her mouth. -"Dorian, you should have understood. But you understand now, -don't you?" - -"Understand what?" he asked, angrily. - -"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad. -Why I shall never act well again." - -He shrugged his shoulders. "You are ill, I suppose. -When you are ill you shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. -My friends were bored. I was bored." - -She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. -An ecstasy of happiness dominated her. - -"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one -reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought -that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. -The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. -I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed -to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing -but shadows, and I thought them real. You came--oh, my beautiful love!-- -and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. -To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, -the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. -To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, -and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, -that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, -were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me -something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. -You had made me understand what love really is. My love! My love! -Prince Charming! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. -You are more to me than all art can ever be. What have I to do with -the puppets of a play? When I came on to-night, I could not understand -how it was that everything had gone from me. I thought that I was going -to be wonderful. I found that I could do nothing. Suddenly it dawned -on my soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard -them hissing, and I smiled. What could they know of love such as ours? -Take me away, Dorian--take me away with you, where we can be quite alone. -I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, -but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, -you understand now what it signifies? Even if I could do it, it would -be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see -that." - -He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face. -"You have killed my love," he muttered. - -She looked at him in wonder and laughed. He made no answer. -She came across to him, and with her little fingers stroked -his hair. She knelt down and pressed his hands to her lips. -He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him. - -Then he leaped up and went to the door. "Yes," he cried, -"you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. -Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. -I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius -and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great -poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. -You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. -My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! -You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. -I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. -You don't know what you were to me, once. Why, once . . . Oh, -I can't bear to think of it! I wish I had never laid -eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romance of my life. -How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! -Without your art, you are nothing. I would have made -you famous, splendid, magnificent. The world would -have worshipped you, and you would have borne my name. -What are you now? A third-rate actress with a pretty -face." - -The girl grew white, and trembled. She clenched her hands together, -and her voice seemed to catch in her throat. "You are not serious, Dorian?" -she murmured. "You are acting." - -"Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well," he answered bitterly. - -She rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain -in her face, came across the room to him. She put her hand -upon his arm and looked into his eyes. He thrust her back. -"Don't touch me!" he cried. - -A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet -and lay there like a trampled flower. "Dorian, Dorian, -don't leave me!" she whispered. "I am so sorry I didn't act well. -I was thinking of you all the time. But I will try--indeed, I -will try. It came so suddenly across me, my love for you. -I think I should never have known it if you had not kissed me-- -if we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again, my love. -Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh! don't go away -from me. My brother . . . No; never mind. He didn't mean it. -He was in jest. . . . But you, oh! can't you forgive me for -to-night? I will work so hard and try to improve. Don't be cruel -to me, because I love you better than anything in the world. -After all, it is only once that I have not pleased you. -But you are quite right, Dorian. I should have shown -myself more of an artist. It was foolish of me, and yet I -couldn't help it. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me." -A fit of passionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on -the floor like a wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his -beautiful eyes, looked down at her, and his chiselled lips curled -in exquisite disdain. There is always something ridiculous -about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love. -Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. -Her tears and sobs annoyed him. - -"I am going," he said at last in his calm clear voice. -"I don't wish to be unkind, but I can't see you again. -You have disappointed me." - -She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. -Her little hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be -seeking for him. He turned on his heel and left the room. -In a few moments he was out of the theatre. - -Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly -lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses. -Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him. -Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves like -monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon door-steps, and -heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts. - -As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden. -The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself -into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly -down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of -the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain. -He followed into the market and watched the men unloading their waggons. -A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him, -wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat -them listlessly. They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness -of the moon had entered into them. A long line of boys carrying crates -of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, -threading their way through the huge, jade-green piles of vegetables. -Under the portico, with its grey, sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop -of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over. -Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in the piazza. -The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones, -shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the drivers were lying asleep -on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about -picking up seeds. - -After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home. -For a few moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round -at the silent square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows -and its staring blinds. The sky was pure opal now, -and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it. -From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke was rising. -It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air. - -In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, -that hung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall -of entrance, lights were still burning from three flickering jets: -thin blue petals of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. -He turned them out and, having thrown his hat and cape on the table, -passed through the library towards the door of his bedroom, -a large octagonal chamber on the ground floor that, in his new-born -feeling for luxury, he had just had decorated for himself and hung -with some curious Renaissance tapestries that had been discovered -stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal. As he was turning -the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait Basil -Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise. -Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. -After he had taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed -to hesitate. Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, -and examined it. In the dim arrested light that struggled -through the cream-coloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him -to be a little changed. The expression looked different. -One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. -It was certainly strange. - -He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. -The bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic -shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering. -But the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of -the portrait seemed to linger there, to be more intensified even. -The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round -the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after -he had done some dreadful thing. - -He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed -in ivory Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, -glanced hurriedly into its polished depths. No line like that -warped his red lips. What did it mean? - -He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it again. -There were no signs of any change when he looked into the actual painting, -and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not -a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent. - -He threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly there flashed -across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the day -the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly. -He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, -and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, -and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; -that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering -and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness -of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been fulfilled? -Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to think of them. -And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the touch of cruelty in -the mouth. - -Cruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his. -He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her -because he had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. -She had been shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling -of infinite regret came over him, as he thought of her lying -at his feet sobbing like a little child. He remembered with what -callousness he had watched her. Why had he been made like that? -Why had such a soul been given to him? But he had suffered also. -During the three terrible hours that the play had lasted, -he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of torture. -His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a moment, -if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better -suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. -They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, -it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes. -Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. -Why should he trouble about Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him -now. - -But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of his life, -and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach -him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again? - -No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. -The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. -Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck -that makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to -think so. - -Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel smile. -Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes met his own. -A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the painted image -of himself, came over him. It had altered already, and would alter more. -Its gold would wither into grey. Its red and white roses would die. -For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck its fairness. -But he would not sin. The picture, changed or unchanged, would be -to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation. -He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at any rate, -listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil Hallward's -garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things. -He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, marry her, try to love -her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She must have suffered -more than he had. Poor child! He had been selfish and cruel to her. -The fascination that she had exercised over him would return. -They would be happy together. His life with her would be beautiful and -pure. - -He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front -of the portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it. "How horrible!" -he murmured to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it. -When he stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. -The fresh morning air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. -He thought only of Sibyl. A faint echo of his love came back to him. -He repeated her name over and over again. The birds that were -singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers -about her. - - - -CHAPTER 8 - -It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept -several times on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, -and had wondered what made his young master sleep so late. -Finally his bell sounded, and Victor came in softly with a cup -of tea, and a pile of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres china, -and drew back the olive-satin curtains, with their shimmering -blue lining, that hung in front of the three tall windows. - -"Monsieur has well slept this morning," he said, smiling. - -"What o'clock is it, Victor?" asked Dorian Gray drowsily. - -"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur." - -How late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, -turned over his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had -been brought by hand that morning. He hesitated for a moment, -and then put it aside. The others he opened listlessly. -They contained the usual collection of cards, invitations to dinner, -tickets for private views, programmes of charity concerts, -and the like that are showered on fashionable young men every -morning during the season. There was a rather heavy bill -for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not -yet had the courage to send on to his guardians, who were -extremely old-fashioned people and did not realize that we live -in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities; -and there were several very courteously worded communications -from Jermyn Street money-lenders offering to advance any sum -of money at a moment's notice and at the most reasonable rates -of interest. - -After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate dressing-gown -of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the onyx-paved bathroom. -The cool water refreshed him after his long sleep. He seemed to have -forgotten all that he had gone through. A dim sense of having taken part -in some strange tragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the unreality -of a dream about it. - -As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat -down to a light French breakfast that had been laid out -for him on a small round table close to the open window. -It was an exquisite day. The warm air seemed laden with spices. -A bee flew in and buzzed round the blue-dragon bowl that, -filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before him. He felt -perfectly happy. - -Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front -of the portrait, and he started. - -"Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the table. -"I shut the window?" - -Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured. - -Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed? -Or had it been simply his own imagination that had made him -see a look of evil where there had been a look of joy? -Surely a painted canvas could not alter? The thing was absurd. -It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day. It would make -him smile. - -And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing! -First in the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, -he had seen the touch of cruelty round the warped lips. -He almost dreaded his valet leaving the room. He knew that -when he was alone he would have to examine the portrait. -He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes -had been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire -to tell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him, -he called him back. The man stood waiting for his orders. -Dorian looked at him for a moment. "I am not at home -to any one, Victor," he said with a sigh. The man bowed -and retired. - -Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung -himself down on a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing -the screen. The screen was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, -stamped and wrought with a rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. -He scanned it curiously, wondering if ever before it had concealed -the secret of a man's life. - -Should he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? -What was the use of knowing? If the thing was true, -it was terrible. If it was not true, why trouble about it? -But what if, by some fate or deadlier chance, eyes other than -his spied behind and saw the horrible change? What should he do -if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at his own picture? -Basil would be sure to do that. No; the thing had to be examined, -and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful state -of doubt. - -He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he looked -upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside and saw himself -face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait had altered. - -As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, -he found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling -of almost scientific interest. That such a change should have -taken place was incredible to him. And yet it was a fact. -Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms that -shaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas and the soul -that was within him? Could it be that what that soul thought, -they realized?--that what it dreamed, they made true? -Or was there some other, more terrible reason? He shuddered, -and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there, -gazing at the picture in sickened horror. - -One thing, however, he felt that it had done for him. -It had made him conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been -to Sibyl Vane. It was not too late to make reparation for that. -She could still be his wife. His unreal and selfish love -would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed -into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward -had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, -would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience -to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiates -for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep. -But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. -Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men brought upon -their souls. - -Three o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double chime, -but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the scarlet -threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his way through -the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering. -He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he went over -to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had loved, -imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He covered -page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. -There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no -one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, -that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the letter, he felt that -he had been forgiven. - -Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's -voice outside. "My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. -I can't bear your shutting yourself up like this." - -He made no answer at first, but remained quite still. -The knocking still continued and grew louder. Yes, it was -better to let Lord Henry in, and to explain to him the new -life he was going to lead, to quarrel with him if it became -necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was inevitable. -He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture, -and unlocked the door. - -"I am so sorry for it all, Dorian," said Lord Henry as he entered. -"But you must not think too much about it." - -"Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?" asked the lad. - -"Yes, of course," answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair -and slowly pulling off his yellow gloves. "It is dreadful, -from one point of view, but it was not your fault. Tell me, -did you go behind and see her, after the play was over?" - -"Yes." - -"I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her?" - -"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. -I am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know -myself better." - -"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I -would find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair -of yours." - -"I have got through all that," said Dorian, shaking his head and smiling. -"I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to begin with. -It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. -Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before me. I want to -be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous." - -"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you -on it. But how are you going to begin?" - -"By marrying Sibyl Vane." - -"Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking -at him in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--" - -"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful -about marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that -kind to me again. Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. -I am not going to break my word to her. She is to be my wife." - -"Your wife! Dorian! . . . Didn't you get my letter? -I wrote to you this morning, and sent the note down by my -own man." - -"Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. -I was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like. -You cut life to pieces with your epigrams." - -"You know nothing then?" - -"What do you mean?" - -Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray, -took both his hands in his own and held them tightly. "Dorian," he said, -"my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane -is dead." - -A cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet, -tearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp. "Dead! Sibyl dead! -It is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?" - -"It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely. "It is in -all the morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see -any one till I came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, -and you must not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man -fashionable in Paris. But in London people are so prejudiced. -Here, one should never make one's debut with a scandal. -One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age. -I suppose they don't know your name at the theatre? If they don't, -it is all right. Did any one see you going round to her room? -That is an important point." - -Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror. -Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an inquest? -What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't bear it! -But be quick. Tell me everything at once." - -"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it -must be put in that way to the public. It seems that as she -was leaving the theatre with her mother, about half-past -twelve or so, she said she had forgotten something upstairs. -They waited some time for her, but she did not come down again. -They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor of her -dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake, -some dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know what -it was, but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. -I should fancy it was prussic acid, as she seems to have -died instantaneously." - -"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!" cried the lad. - -"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself -mixed up in it. I see by The Standard that she was seventeen. -I should have thought she was almost younger than that. -She looked such a child, and seemed to know so little about acting. -Dorian, you mustn't let this thing get on your nerves. -You must come and dine with me, and afterwards we will look in at -the opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be there. -You can come to my sister's box. She has got some smart women -with her." - -"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself, -"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat -with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. -The birds sing just as happily in my garden. And to-night I am -to dine with you, and then go on to the opera, and sup somewhere, -I suppose, afterwards. How extraordinarily dramatic life is! -If I had read all this in a book, Harry, I think I would have -wept over it. Somehow, now that it has happened actually, -and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. -Here is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written -in my life. Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should -have been addressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, -those white silent people we call the dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, -or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I loved her once! -It seems years ago to me now. She was everything to me. -Then came that dreadful night--was it really only last night?-- -when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke. -She explained it all to me. It was terribly pathetic. -But I was not moved a bit. I thought her shallow. -Suddenly something happened that made me afraid. -I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible. -I said I would go back to her. I felt I had done wrong. -And now she is dead. My God! My God! Harry, what shall I do? -You don't know the danger I am in, and there is nothing -to keep me straight. She would have done that for me. -She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of -her." - -"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette -from his case and producing a gold-latten matchbox, -"the only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him -so completely that he loses all possible interest in life. -If you had married this girl, you would have been wretched. -Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can always -be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would -have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent -to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband, -she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart -bonnets that some other woman's husband has to pay for. -I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have -been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed-- -but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an -absolute failure." - -"I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the room -and looking horribly pale. "But I thought it was my duty. -It is not my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing -what was right. I remember your saying once that there is a fatality -about good resolutions--that they are always made too late. -Mine certainly were." - -"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere -with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. -Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, -some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain -charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. -They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have -no account." - -"Harry," cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, -"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? -I don't think I am heartless. Do you?" - -"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight -to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord -Henry with his sweet melancholy smile. - -The lad frowned. "I don't like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined, -"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. -I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has happened -does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a -wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty -of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I -have not been wounded." - -"It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who found -an exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, -"an extremely interesting question. I fancy that the true -explanation is this: It often happens that the real tragedies -of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt -us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, -their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. -They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us -an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. -Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements -of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, -the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. -Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, -but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. -We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle -enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that has -really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. -I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would -have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. -The people who have adored me--there have not been very many, -but there have been some--have always insisted on living on, -long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. -They have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, -they go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! -What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual -stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, -but one should never remember its details. Details are always -vulgar." - -"I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian. - -"There is no necessity," rejoined his companion. "Life has always -poppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. -I once wore nothing but violets all through one season, -as a form of artistic mourning for a romance that would not die. -Ultimately, however, it did die. I forget what killed it. -I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. -That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror -of eternity. Well--would you believe it?--a week ago, -at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner next -the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole -thing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future. -I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel. She dragged -it out again and assured me that I had spoiled her life. -I am bound to state that she ate an enormous dinner, so I did -not feel any anxiety. But what a lack of taste she showed! -The one charm of the past is that it is the past. -But women never know when the curtain has fallen. -They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the interest -of the play is entirely over, they propose to continue it. -If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would have -a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. -They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art. -You are more fortunate than I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not -one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl -Vane did for you. Ordinary women always console themselves. -Some of them do it by going in for sentimental colours. -Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, -or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. -It always means that they have a history. Others find -a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good qualities -of their husbands. They flaunt their conjugal felicity -in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins. -Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all the charm -of a flirtation, a woman once told me, and I can quite -understand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told -that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all. -Yes; there is really no end to the consolations that women find -in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most important -one." - -"What is that, Harry?" said the lad listlessly. - -"Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else's admirer when one -loses one's own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. -But really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the women -one meets! There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. -I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. -They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, -such as romance, passion, and love." - -"I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that." - -"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, -more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. -We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, -all the same. They love being dominated. I am sure you were splendid. -I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can fancy how -delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to me the day -before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful, -but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key -to everything." - -"What was that, Harry?" - -"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines -of romance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; -that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen." - -"She will never come to life again now," muttered the lad, -burying his face in his hands. - -"No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. -But you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room -simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, -as a wonderful scene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. -The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died. -To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted -through Shakespeare's plays and left them lovelier for its presence, -a reed through which Shakespeare's music sounded richer and more -full of joy. The moment she touched actual life, she marred it, -and it marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn for Ophelia, -if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. -Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. -But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they -are." - -There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. -Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from -the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things. - -After some time Dorian Gray looked up. "You have explained me -to myself, Harry," he murmured with something of a sigh of relief. -"I felt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, -and I could not express it to myself. How well you know me! -But we will not talk again of what has happened. It has been -a marvellous experience. That is all. I wonder if life has still -in store for me anything as marvellous." - -"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, -with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do." - -"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? -What then?" - -"Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, -you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, -they are brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. -We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that -thinks too much to be beautiful. We cannot spare you. -And now you had better dress and drive down to the club. -We are rather late, as it is." - -"I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired -to eat anything. What is the number of your sister's box?" - -"Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. -You will see her name on the door. But I am sorry you won't -come and dine." - -"I don't feel up to it," said Dorian listlessly. "But I am -awfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me. -You are certainly my best friend. No one has ever understood me -as you have." - -"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian," answered Lord Henry, -shaking him by the hand. "Good-bye. I shall see you before nine-thirty, -I hope. Remember, Patti is singing." - -As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, -and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew -the blinds down. He waited impatiently for him to go. -The man seemed to take an interminable time over everything. - -As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. -No; there was no further change in the picture. It had received -the news of Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself. -It was conscious of the events of life as they occurred. -The vicious cruelty that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, -no doubt, appeared at the very moment that the girl had drunk -the poison, whatever it was. Or was it indifferent to results? -Did it merely take cognizance of what passed within the soul? -He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the change taking place -before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it. - -Poor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked -death on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and taken -her with him. How had she played that dreadful last scene? -Had she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, -and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned -for everything by the sacrifice she had made of her life. -He would not think any more of what she had made him go through, -on that horrible night at the theatre. When he thought of her, -it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent on to the world's stage -to show the supreme reality of love. A wonderful tragic figure? -Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her childlike look, and winsome -fanciful ways, and shy tremulous grace. He brushed them away hastily and -looked again at the picture. - -He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. -Or had his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided -that for him--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. -Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, -wild joys and wilder sins--he was to have all these things. -The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: -that was all. - -A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration -that was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish -mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, -those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. -Morning after morning he had sat before the portrait wondering at -its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. -Was it to alter now with every mood to which he yielded? -Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be hidden -away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had -so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? -The pity of it! the pity of it! - -For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy -that existed between him and the picture might cease. -It had changed in answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer -it might remain unchanged. And yet, who, that knew anything -about life, would surrender the chance of remaining always young, -however fantastic that chance might be, or with what fateful consequences -it might be fraught? Besides, was it really under his control? -Had it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? -Might there not be some curious scientific reason for it all? -If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, -might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things? -Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external -to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, -atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity? -But the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt -by a prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, -it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely -into it? - -For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. -He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. -This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. -As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal -to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would -still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. -When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask -of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. -Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse -of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, -he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what -happened to the coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. -That was everything. - -He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture, -smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was -already waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord -Henry was leaning over his chair. - - -CHAPTER 9 - -As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown -into the room. - -"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian," he said gravely. -"I called last night, and they told me you were at the opera. -Of course, I knew that was impossible. But I wish you had left -word where you had really gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, -half afraid that one tragedy might be followed by another. -I think you might have telegraphed for me when you heard of it first. -I read of it quite by chance in a late edition of The Globe -that I picked up at the club. I came here at once and was -miserable at not finding you. I can't tell you how heart-broken -I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer. -But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl's mother? -For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave -the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it? -But I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could -not lighten. Poor woman! What a state she must be in! -And her only child, too! What did she say about it -all?" - -"My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some -pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian -glass and looking dreadfully bored. "I was at the opera. -You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, -for the first time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; -and Patti sang divinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects. -If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. -It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things. -I may mention that she was not the woman's only child. There is -a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not on the stage. -He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell me about yourself and what you -are painting." - -"You went to the opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly -and with a strained touch of pain in his voice. "You went to -the opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? -You can talk to me of other women being charming, and of Patti -singing divinely, before the girl you loved has even the quiet -of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there are horrors in store -for that little white body of hers!" - -"Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. -"You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. -What is past is past." - -"You call yesterday the past?" - -"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is -only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. -A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can -invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. -I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." - -"Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. -You look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, -used to come down to my studio to sit for his picture. -But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then. -You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. -Now, I don't know what has come over you. You talk as if you -had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry's influence. -I see that." - -The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for -a few moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden. -"I owe a great deal to Harry, Basil," he said at last, -"more than I owe to you. You only taught me to be vain." - -"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day." - -"I don't know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round. -"I don't know what you want. What do you want?" - -"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint," said the artist sadly. - -"Basil," said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand -on his shoulder, "you have come too late. Yesterday, when I -heard that Sibyl Vane had killed herself--" - -"Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?" -cried Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror. - -"My dear Basil! Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident? -Of course she killed herself." - -The elder man buried his face in his hands. "How fearful," -he muttered, and a shudder ran through him. - -"No," said Dorian Gray, "there is nothing fearful about it. -It is one of the great romantic tragedies of the age. -As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives. -They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious. -You know what I mean--middle-class virtue and all that kind of thing. -How different Sibyl was! She lived her finest tragedy. -She was always a heroine. The last night she played-- -the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known -the reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, -as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. -There is something of the martyr about her. Her death has all -the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. -But, as I was saying, you must not think I have not suffered. -If you had come in yesterday at a particular moment-- -about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to six-- -you would have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, -who brought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was -going through. I suffered immensely. Then it passed away. -I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can, except sentimentalists. -And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You come down here to console me. -That is charming of you. You find me consoled, and you are furious. -How like a sympathetic person! You remind me of a story -Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty -years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, -or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was. -Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment. -He had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of ennui, and became -a confirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, -if you really want to console me, teach me rather to forget what -has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic point of view. -Was it not Gautier who used to write about la consolation des arts? -I remember picking up a little vellum-covered book in your -studio one day and chancing on that delightful phrase. -Well, I am not like that young man you told me of when we -were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say -that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life. -I love beautiful things that one can touch and handle. -Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, -exquisite surroundings, luxury, pomp--there is much to be got -from all these. But the artistic temperament that they create, -or at any rate reveal, is still more to me. To become -the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to escape -the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking -to you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. -I was a schoolboy when you knew me. I am a man now. -I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. I am different, -but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must -always be my friend. Of course, I am very fond of Harry. -But I know that you are better than he is. You are not stronger-- -you are too much afraid of life--but you are better. And how -happy we used to be together! Don't leave me, Basil, and don't -quarrel with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be -said." - -The painter felt strangely moved. The lad was infinitely dear to him, -and his personality had been the great turning point in his art. -He could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, -his indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. -There was so much in him that was good, so much in him that -was noble. - -"Well, Dorian," he said at length, with a sad smile, "I -won't speak to you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. -I only trust your name won't be mentioned in connection with it. -The inquest is to take place this afternoon. Have they summoned you?" - -Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face -at the mention of the word "inquest." There was something so crude -and vulgar about everything of the kind. "They don't know my name," -he answered. - -"But surely she did?" - -"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned -to any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to learn -who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince Charming. -It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl, Basil. -I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a few kisses -and some broken pathetic words." - -"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. -But you must come and sit to me yourself again. I can't get on -without you." - -"I can never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!" -he exclaimed, starting back. - -The painter stared at him. "My dear boy, what nonsense!" -he cried. "Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? -Where is it? Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? -Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever done. -Do take the screen away, Dorian. It is simply disgraceful -of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room looked -different as I came in." - -"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don't imagine I let -him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimes-- -that is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong on -the portrait." - -"Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for it. -Let me see it." And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room. - -A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed -between the painter and the screen. "Basil," he said, -looking very pale, "you must not look at it. I don't wish -you to." - -"Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn't I look at it?" -exclaimed Hallward, laughing. - -"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will -never speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. -I don't offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. -But, remember, if you touch this screen, everything is over -between us." - -Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in -absolute amazement. He had never seen him like this before. -The lad was actually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, -and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of blue fire. -He was trembling all over. - -"Dorian!" - -"Don't speak!" - -"But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't want -me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over towards -the window. "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I shouldn't see my -own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris in the autumn. -I shall probably have to give it another coat of varnish before that, so I -must see it some day, and why not to-day?" - -"To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, -a strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be -shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? -That was impossible. Something--he did not know what--had to be done -at once. - -"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit -is going to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition -in the Rue de Seze, which will open the first week in October. -The portrait will only be away a month. I should think you could easily -spare it for that time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. -And if you keep it always behind a screen, you can't care much -about it." - -Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of -perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible danger. -"You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it," he cried. -"Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for being consistent -have just as many moods as others have. The only difference is that -your moods are rather meaningless. You can't have forgotten that you -assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would induce you -to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly the same thing." -He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into his eyes. He remembered -that Lord Henry had said to him once, half seriously and half in jest, -"If you want to have a strange quarter of an hour, get Basil to tell you -why he won't exhibit your picture. He told me why he wouldn't, and it -was a revelation to me." Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. -He would ask him and try. - -"Basil," he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight -in the face, "we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, -and I shall tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing -to exhibit my picture?" - -The painter shuddered in spite of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, -you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh -at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things. -If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content. -I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done -to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer -to me than any fame or reputation." - -"No, Basil, you must tell me," insisted Dorian Gray. -"I think I have a right to know." His feeling of terror -had passed away, and curiosity had taken its place. -He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's mystery. - -"Let us sit down, Dorian," said the painter, looking troubled. -"Let us sit down. And just answer me one question. -Have you noticed in the picture something curious?--something that -probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself -to you suddenly?" - -"Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling -hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes. - -"I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. -Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most -extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, -by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen -ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. -I worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. -I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I -was with you. When you were away from me, you were still present -in my art.... Of course, I never let you know anything about this. -It would have been impossible. You would not have understood it. -I hardly understood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection -face to face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes-- -too wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, -the peril of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them.... -Weeks and weeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you. -Then came a new development. I had drawn you as Paris in -dainty armour, and as Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished -boar-spear. Crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on -the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. -You had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen -in the water's silent silver the marvel of your own face. -And it had all been what art should be--unconscious, ideal, and remote. -One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determined to paint -a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, not in the costume -of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own time. -Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder -of your own personality, thus directly presented to me without -mist or veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, -every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. -I grew afraid that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, -that I had told too much, that I had put too much of myself into it. -Then it was that I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. -You were a little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it -meant to me. Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. -But I did not mind that. When the picture was finished, and I sat -alone with it, I felt that I was right.... Well, after a few days -the thing left my studio, and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable -fascination of its presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish -in imagining that I had seen anything in it, more than that you -were extremely good-looking and that I could paint. Even now I -cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion -one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. -Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell -us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me that art -conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him. -And so when I got this offer from Paris, I determined to make your -portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. It never occurred -to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. -The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, -for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be -worshipped." - -Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, -and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. -He was safe for the time. Yet he could not help feeling -infinite pity for the painter who had just made this strange -confession to him, and wondered if he himself would ever -be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry -had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. -He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. -Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a -strange idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had -in store? - -"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you -should have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?" - -"I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed -to me very curious." - -"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?" - -Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. -I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture." - -"You will some day, surely?" - -"Never." - -"Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. -You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced -my art. Whatever I have done that is good, I owe to you. -Ah! you don't know what it cost me to tell you all that I have -told you." - -"My dear Basil," said Dorian, "what have you told me? -Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. -That is not even a compliment." - -"It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. -Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. -Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words." - -"It was a very disappointing confession." - -"Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else -in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?" - -"No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? -But you mustn't talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I -are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so." - -"You have got Harry," said the painter sadly. - -"Oh, Harry!" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. "Harry spends -his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing -what is improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. -But still I don't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. -I would sooner go to you, Basil." - -"You will sit to me again?" - -"Impossible!" - -"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man -comes across two ideal things. Few come across one." - -"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. -There is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own. -I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant." - -"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid," murmured Hallward regretfully. -"And now good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture -once again. But that can't be helped. I quite understand what you feel -about it." - -As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! -How little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it -was that, instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, -he had succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from -his friend! How much that strange confession explained to him! -The painter's absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, -his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences-- -he understood them all now, and he felt sorry. There seemed -to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured -by romance. - -He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away -at all costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. -It had been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, -even for an hour, in a room to which any of his friends -had access. - - - -CHAPTER 10 - -When his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly -and wondered if he had thought of peering behind the screen. -The man was quite impassive and waited for his orders. Dorian lit -a cigarette and walked over to the glass and glanced into it. -He could see the reflection of Victor's face perfectly. -It was like a placid mask of servility. There was nothing -to be afraid of, there. Yet he thought it best to be on -his guard. - -Speaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he wanted -to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to send two of his -men round at once. It seemed to him that as the man left the room his eyes -wandered in the direction of the screen. Or was that merely his own fancy? - -After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread -mittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library. -He asked her for the key of the schoolroom. - -"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?" she exclaimed. "Why, it is full of dust. -I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it. It is not fit -for you to see, sir. It is not, indeed." - -"I don't want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key." - -"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it. Why, it hasn't -been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died." - -He winced at the mention of his grandfather. He had hateful memories of him. -"That does not matter," he answered. "I simply want to see the place-- -that is all. Give me the key." - -"And here is the key, sir," said the old lady, going over -the contents of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands. -"Here is the key. I'll have it off the bunch in a moment. -But you don't think of living up there, sir, and you so -comfortable here?" - -"No, no," he cried petulantly. "Thank you, Leaf. That will do." - -She lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail -of the household. He sighed and told her to manage things as she -thought best. She left the room, wreathed in smiles. - -As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round -the room. His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily -embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century -Venetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna. -Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in. It had perhaps -served often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that -had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death itself-- -something that would breed horrors and yet would never die. What the worm -was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. -They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace. They would defile -it and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. -It would be always alive. - -He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told -Basil the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away. -Basil would have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, -and the still more poisonous influences that came from his -own temperament. The love that he bore him--for it was really love-- -had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual. -It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born -of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was such -love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, -and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him. -But it was too late now. The past could always be annihilated. -Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future -was inevitable. There were passions in him that would find -their terrible outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their -evil real. - -He took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that -covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen. -Was the face on the canvas viler than before? It seemed to him -that it was unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified. -Gold hair, blue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there. -It was simply the expression that had altered. That was horrible -in its cruelty. Compared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, -how shallow Basil's reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!-- -how shallow, and of what little account! His own soul was looking -out at him from the canvas and calling him to judgement. A look -of pain came across him, and he flung the rich pall over the picture. -As he did so, a knock came to the door. He passed out as his -servant entered. - -"The persons are here, Monsieur." - -He felt that the man must be got rid of at once. He must -not be allowed to know where the picture was being taken to. -There was something sly about him, and he had thoughtful, -treacherous eyes. Sitting down at the writing-table he scribbled -a note to Lord Henry, asking him to send him round something -to read and reminding him that they were to meet at eight-fifteen -that evening. - -"Wait for an answer," he said, handing it to him, "and show the men in here." - -In two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard himself, -the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in with a -somewhat rough-looking young assistant. Mr. Hubbard was a florid, -red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was considerably tempered -by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the artists who dealt with him. -As a rule, he never left his shop. He waited for people to come to him. -But he always made an exception in favour of Dorian Gray. There was -something about Dorian that charmed everybody. It was a pleasure even to -see him. - -"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?" he said, rubbing his fat freckled hands. -"I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in person. I have -just got a beauty of a frame, sir. Picked it up at a sale. Old Florentine. -Came from Fonthill, I believe. Admirably suited for a religious subject, -Mr. Gray." - -"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, -Mr. Hubbard. I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame-- -though I don't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day -I only want a picture carried to the top of the house for me. -It is rather heavy, so I thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of -your men." - -"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray. I am delighted to be of any service to you. -Which is the work of art, sir?" - -"This," replied Dorian, moving the screen back. "Can you move it, -covering and all, just as it is? I don't want it to get scratched -going upstairs." - -"There will be no difficulty, sir," said the genial frame-maker, beginning, -with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from the long brass -chains by which it was suspended. "And, now, where shall we carry it to, -Mr. Gray?" - -"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me. -Or perhaps you had better go in front. I am afraid it is right at -the top of the house. We will go up by the front staircase, as it -is wider." - -He held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and began -the ascent. The elaborate character of the frame had made the picture -extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious protests -of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike of seeing a -gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it so as to help them. - -"Something of a load to carry, sir," gasped the little man when they -reached the top landing. And he wiped his shiny forehead. - -"I am afraid it is rather heavy," murmured Dorian as he unlocked the door -that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious secret of his -life and hide his soul from the eyes of men. - -He had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed, -since he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, -and then as a study when he grew somewhat older. It was a large, -well-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last -Lord Kelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange -likeness to his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always -hated and desired to keep at a distance. It appeared to Dorian -to have but little changed. There was the huge Italian cassone, -with its fantastically painted panels and its tarnished -gilt mouldings, in which he had so often hidden himself as a boy. -There the satinwood book-case filled with his dog-eared schoolbooks. -On the wall behind it was hanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry -where a faded king and queen were playing chess in a garden, -while a company of hawkers rode by, carrying hooded birds on their -gauntleted wrists. How well he remembered it all! Every moment -of his lonely childhood came back to him as he looked round. -He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish life, and it seemed horrible -to him that it was here the fatal portrait was to be hidden away. -How little he had thought, in those dead days, of all that was in store -for him! - -But there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as this. -He had the key, and no one else could enter it. Beneath its purple pall, -the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden, and unclean. -What did it matter? No one could see it. He himself would not see it. -Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his soul? He kept his youth-- -that was enough. And, besides, might not his nature grow finer, after all? -There was no reason that the future should be so full of shame. -Some love might come across his life, and purify him, and shield him -from those sins that seemed to be already stirring in spirit and in flesh-- -those curious unpictured sins whose very mystery lent them their subtlety and -their charm. Perhaps, some day, the cruel look would have passed away from -the scarlet sensitive mouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's -masterpiece. - -No; that was impossible. Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing -upon the canvas was growing old. It might escape the hideousness -of sin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it. -The cheeks would become hollow or flaccid. Yellow crow's feet -would creep round the fading eyes and make them horrible. -The hair would lose its brightness, the mouth would gape or droop, -would be foolish or gross, as the mouths of old men are. -There would be the wrinkled throat, the cold, blue-veined hands, -the twisted body, that he remembered in the grandfather who had been -so stern to him in his boyhood. The picture had to be concealed. -There was no help for it. - -"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please," he said, wearily, turning round. -"I am sorry I kept you so long. I was thinking of something else." - -"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray," answered the frame-maker, -who was still gasping for breath. "Where shall we put it, sir?" - -"Oh, anywhere. Here: this will do. I don't want to have it hung up. -Just lean it against the wall. Thanks." - -"Might one look at the work of art, sir?" - -Dorian started. "It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard," -he said, keeping his eye on the man. He felt ready to leap -upon him and fling him to the ground if he dared to lift -the gorgeous hanging that concealed the secret of his life. -"I shan't trouble you any more now. I am much obliged for your -kindness in coming round." - -"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray. Ever ready to do anything for you, sir." -And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant, who glanced -back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough uncomely face. -He had never seen any one so marvellous. - -When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked -the door and put the key in his pocket. He felt safe now. -No one would ever look upon the horrible thing. No eye but his -would ever see his shame. - -On reaching the library, he found that it was just after -five o'clock and that the tea had been already brought up. -On a little table of dark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, -a present from Lady Radley, his guardian's wife, a pretty -professional invalid who had spent the preceding winter in Cairo, -was lying a note from Lord Henry, and beside it was a book bound -in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn and the edges soiled. -A copy of the third edition of The St. James's Gazette had been -placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had returned. -He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were leaving -the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing. -He would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed -it already, while he had been laying the tea-things. The screen -had not been set back, and a blank space was visible on the wall. -Perhaps some night he might find him creeping upstairs and trying -to force the door of the room. It was a horrible thing to have -a spy in one's house. He had heard of rich men who had been -blackmailed all their lives by some servant who had read a letter, -or overheard a conversation, or picked up a card with an address, -or found beneath a pillow a withered flower or a shred of -crumpled lace. - -He sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's note. -It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper, and a book -that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at eight-fifteen. He -opened The St. James's languidly, and looked through it. A red pencil-mark on -the fifth page caught his eye. It drew attention to the following paragraph: - - -INQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell Tavern, -Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of Sibyl Vane, -a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre, Holborn. A verdict -of death by misadventure was returned. Considerable sympathy was expressed -for the mother of the deceased, who was greatly affected during the giving -of her own evidence, and that of Dr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem -examination of the deceased. - - -He frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across -the room and flung the pieces away. How ugly it all was! -And how horribly real ugliness made things! He felt a little -annoyed with Lord Henry for having sent him the report. -And it was certainly stupid of him to have marked it with red pencil. -Victor might have read it. The man knew more than enough English -for that. - -Perhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something. -And, yet, what did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do -with Sibyl Vane's death? There was nothing to fear. -Dorian Gray had not killed her. - -His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. -What was it, he wondered. He went towards the little, -pearl-coloured octagonal stand that had always looked to him -like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, -and taking up the volume, flung himself into an arm-chair and began -to turn over the leaves. After a few minutes he became absorbed. -It was the strangest book that he had ever read. It seemed to him -that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, -the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. -Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made -real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were -gradually revealed. - -It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being, indeed, -simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who spent his life -trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes -of thought that belonged to every century except his own, and to sum up, -as it were, in himself the various moods through which the world-spirit had -ever passed, loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men -have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise -men still call sin. The style in which it was written was that curious -jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, -of technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes -the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes. -There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in colour. -The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy. -One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies -of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. -It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense seemed to cling about its -pages and to trouble the brain. The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle -monotony of their music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements -elaborately repeated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from -chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him -unconscious of the falling day and creeping shadows. - -Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green -sky gleamed through the windows. He read on by its wan light -till he could read no more. Then, after his valet had reminded -him several times of the lateness of the hour, he got up, -and going into the next room, placed the book on the little -Florentine table that always stood at his bedside and began -to dress for dinner. - -It was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found -Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored. - -"I am so sorry, Harry," he cried, "but really it is entirely your fault. -That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the time -was going." - -"Yes, I thought you would like it," replied his host, rising from his chair. - -"I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. -There is a great difference." - -"Ah, you have discovered that?" murmured Lord Henry. -And they passed into the dining-room. - - - -CHAPTER 11 - -For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence -of this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say -that he never sought to free himself from it. He procured from -Paris no less than nine large-paper copies of the first edition, -and had them bound in different colours, so that they might suit -his various moods and the changing fancies of a nature over -which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost control. -The hero, the wonderful young Parisian in whom the romantic -and the scientific temperaments were so strangely blended, -became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. -And, indeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story -of his own life, written before he had lived it. - -In one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero. -He never knew--never, indeed, had any cause to know--that somewhat -grotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still -water which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, -and was occasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, -apparently, been so remarkable. It was with an almost cruel joy-- -and perhaps in nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, -cruelty has its place--that he used to read the latter part of the book, -with its really tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow -and despair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, -he had most dearly valued. - -For the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, -and many others besides him, seemed never to leave him. -Even those who had heard the most evil things against him-- -and from time to time strange rumours about his mode of life -crept through London and became the chatter of the clubs-- -could not believe anything to his dishonour when they saw him. -He had always the look of one who had kept himself unspotted -from the world. Men who talked grossly became silent when Dorian -Gray entered the room. There was something in the purity of his -face that rebuked them. His mere presence seemed to recall -to them the memory of the innocence that they had tarnished. -They wondered how one so charming and graceful as he was could -have escaped the stain of an age that was at once sordid -and sensual. - -Often, on returning home from one of those mysterious and -prolonged absences that gave rise to such strange conjecture -among those who were his friends, or thought that they were so, -he himself would creep upstairs to the locked room, open the door -with the key that never left him now, and stand, with a mirror, -in front of the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him, -looking now at the evil and aging face on the canvas, and now at -the fair young face that laughed back at him from the polished glass. -The very sharpness of the contrast used to quicken his sense -of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his own beauty, -more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul. -He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous -and terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling -forehead or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes -which were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. -He would place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands -of the picture, and smile. He mocked the misshapen body and the -failing limbs. - -There were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless -in his own delicately scented chamber, or in the sordid -room of the little ill-famed tavern near the docks which, -under an assumed name and in disguise, it was his habit -to frequent, he would think of the ruin he had brought upon -his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant because it -was purely selfish. But moments such as these were rare. -That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred -in him, as they sat together in the garden of their friend, -seemed to increase with gratification. The more he knew, -the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more -ravenous as he fed them. - -Yet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to society. -Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each Wednesday -evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the world -his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the day -to charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His little dinners, -in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were noted -as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited, -as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, -with its subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, -and embroidered cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver. -Indeed, there were many, especially among the very young men, who saw, -or fancied that they saw, in Dorian Gray the true realization -of a type of which they had often dreamed in Eton or Oxford days, -a type that was to combine something of the real culture of the scholar -with all the grace and distinction and perfect manner of a citizen -of the world. To them he seemed to be of the company of those whom -Dante describes as having sought to "make themselves perfect -by the worship of beauty." Like Gautier, he was one for whom "the -visible world existed." - -And, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, -of the arts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but -a preparation. Fashion, by which what is really fantastic -becomes for a moment universal, and dandyism, which, in its -own way, is an attempt to assert the absolute modernity -of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for him. -His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time -to time he affected, had their marked influence on the young -exquisites of the Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, -who copied him in everything that he did, and tried to reproduce -the accidental charm of his graceful, though to him only -half-serious, fopperies. - -For, while he was but too ready to accept the position that -was almost immediately offered to him on his coming of age, -and found, indeed, a subtle pleasure in the thought that he might -really become to the London of his own day what to imperial -Neronian Rome the author of the Satyricon once had been, -yet in his inmost heart he desired to be something more than a mere -arbiter elegantiarum, to be consulted on the wearing of a jewel, -or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a cane. -He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have -its reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find -in the spiritualizing of the senses its highest realization. - -The worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, -been decried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about -passions and sensations that seem stronger than themselves, -and that they are conscious of sharing with the less highly -organized forms of existence. But it appeared to Dorian Gray -that the true nature of the senses had never been understood, -and that they had remained savage and animal merely because -the world had sought to starve them into submission or to kill -them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements -of a new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was -to be the dominant characteristic. As he looked back upon man -moving through history, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. -So much had been surrendered! and to such little purpose! -There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms -of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear -and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible -than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, -they had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony, -driving out the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of -the desert and giving to the hermit the beasts of the field as -his companions. - -Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism -that was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely -puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. -It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was -never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice -of any mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be -experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter -as they might be. Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, -as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. -But it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life -that is itself but a moment. - -There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, -either after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost -enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, -when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible -than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks -in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, -this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose -minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie. Gradually white -fingers creep through the curtains, and they appear to tremble. -In black fantastic shapes, dumb shadows crawl into the corners -of the room and crouch there. Outside, there is the stirring -of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men going forth -to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down from -the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared -to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from -her purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, -and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, -and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. -The wan mirrors get back their mimic life. The flameless tapers -stand where we had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book -that we had been studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at -the ball, or the letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we -had read too often. Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal -shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known. -We have to resume it where we had left off, and there steals over us -a terrible sense of the necessity for the continuance of energy -in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, -it may be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world -that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, -a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colours, -and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past -would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, -in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance -even of joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure -their pain. - -It was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian -Gray to be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life; -and in his search for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, -and possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, -he would often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really -alien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, -and then, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his -intellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference -that is not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that, -indeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition -of it. - -It was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman -Catholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always -a great attraction for him. The daily sacrifice, more awful -really than all the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him -as much by its superb rejection of the evidence of the senses -as by the primitive simplicity of its elements and the eternal -pathos of the human tragedy that it sought to symbolize. He loved -to kneel down on the cold marble pavement and watch the priest, -in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly and with white hands moving -aside the veil of the tabernacle, or raising aloft the jewelled, -lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid wafer that at times, -one would fain think, is indeed the "panis caelestis," the bread -of angels, or, robed in the garments of the Passion of Christ, -breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his breast for his sins. -The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their lace and scarlet, -tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their subtle -fascination for him. As he passed out, he used to look with wonder -at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of one -of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn -grating the true story of their lives. - -But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual development -by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of mistaking, for a house -in which to live, an inn that is but suitable for the sojourn of a night, -or for a few hours of a night in which there are no stars and the moon is -in travail. Mysticism, with its marvellous power of making common things -strange to us, and the subtle antinomianism that always seems to accompany it, -moved him for a season; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic -doctrines of the Darwinismus movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure -in tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the brain, -or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of the absolute -dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions, morbid or healthy, -normal or diseased. Yet, as has been said of him before, no theory of life -seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself. He felt -keenly conscious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated -from action and experiment. He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, -have their spiritual mysteries to reveal. - -And so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their manufacture, -distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums from the East. -He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart -in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true relations, -wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, -and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke -the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, -and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often to elaborate -a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences -of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers; of aromatic balms -and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that sickens; of hovenia, -that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to be able to expel melancholy -from the soul. - -At another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long -latticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of olive-green -lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad gipsies tore wild -music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled Tunisians plucked -at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while grinning Negroes -beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching upon scarlet mats, -slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of reed or brass and charmed-- -or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and horrible horned adders. -The harsh intervals and shrill discords of barbaric music stirred -him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's beautiful sorrows, -and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell unheeded on his ear. -He collected together from all parts of the world the strangest instruments -that could be found, either in the tombs of dead nations or among the few -savage tribes that have survived contact with Western civilizations, -and loved to touch and try them. He had the mysterious juruparis of the Rio -Negro Indians, that women are not allowed to look at and that even youths -may not see till they have been subjected to fasting and scourging, -and the earthen jars of the Peruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, -and flutes of human bones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, -and the sonorous green jaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth -a note of singular sweetness. He had painted gourds filled with pebbles -that rattled when they were shaken; the long clarin of the Mexicans, -into which the performer does not blow, but through which he inhales -the air; the harsh ture of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by -the sentinels who sit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, -it is said, at a distance of three leagues; the teponaztli, that has -two vibrating tongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are -smeared with an elastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; -the yotl-bells of the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; -and a huge cylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, -like the one that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican -temple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a description. -The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated him, and he felt -a curious delight in the thought that art, like Nature, has her monsters, -things of bestial shape and with hideous voices. Yet, after some time, -he wearied of them, and would sit in his box at the opera, either alone -or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt pleasure to "Tannhauser" and seeing -in the prelude to that great work of art a presentation of the tragedy of -his own soul. - -On one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared -at a costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, -in a dress covered with five hundred and sixty pearls. -This taste enthralled him for years, and, indeed, may be said -never to have left him. He would often spend a whole day -settling and resettling in their cases the various stones that he -had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red -by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver, -the pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, -carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, -flame-red cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, -and amethysts with their alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. -He loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's -pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal. -He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and -richness of colour, and had a turquoise de la vieille roche that was -the envy of all the connoisseurs. - -He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. -In Alphonso's Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with -eyes of real jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, -the Conqueror of Emathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan -snakes "with collars of real emeralds growing on their backs." -There was a gem in the brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, -and "by the exhibition of golden letters and a scarlet robe" -the monster could be thrown into a magical sleep and slain. -According to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the diamond -rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India made him eloquent. -The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth provoked sleep, -and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The garnet cast -out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her colour. -The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus, -that discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids. -Leonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a newly -killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison. The bezoar, -that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm that could -cure the plague. In the nests of Arabian birds was the aspilates, -that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any danger -by fire. - -The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand, -as the ceremony of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John -the Priest were "made of sardius, with the horn of the horned -snake inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within." -Over the gable were "two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles," -so that the gold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night. -In Lodge's strange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated -that in the chamber of the queen one could behold "all the chaste -ladies of the world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair -mirrours of chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults." -Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured -pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been -enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, -and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss. -When the Huns lured the king into the great pit, he flung it away-- -Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever found again, -though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight of gold -pieces for it. The King of Malabar had shown to a certain Venetian -a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god that -he worshipped. - -When the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII -of France, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome, -and his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light. -Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and -twenty-one diamonds. Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand marks, -which was covered with balas rubies. Hall described Henry VIII, -on his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing "a -jacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other -rich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses." -The favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. -Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour studded -with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a -skull-cap parseme with pearls. Henry II wore jewelled gloves reaching -to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with twelve rubies and fifty-two -great orients. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke -of Burgundy of his race, was hung with pear-shaped pearls and studded -with sapphires. - -How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and decoration! -Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful. - -Then he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries -that performed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of -the northern nations of Europe. As he investigated the subject-- -and he always had an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely -absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up--he was almost -saddened by the reflection of the ruin that time brought on -beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any rate, had escaped that. -Summer followed summer, and the yellow jonquils bloomed and died -many times, and nights of horror repeated the story of their shame, -but he was unchanged. No winter marred his face or stained his -flowerlike bloom. How different it was with material things! -Where had they passed to? Where was the great crocus-coloured robe, -on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked -by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena? Where the huge -velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, -that Titan sail of purple on which was represented the starry sky, -and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by white, gilt-reined steeds? -He longed to see the curious table-napkins wrought for the Priest -of the Sun, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that -could be wanted for a feast; the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, -with its three hundred golden bees; the fantastic robes that excited -the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus and were figured with -"lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters--all, in fact, -that a painter can copy from nature"; and the coat that Charles -of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which were embroidered -the verses of a song beginning "Madame, je suis tout joyeux," -the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, -and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four pearls. -He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims for -the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with "thirteen -hundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned -with the king's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, -whose wings were similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, -the whole worked in gold." Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed -made for her of black velvet powdered with crescents and suns. -Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, -figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges -with broideries of pearls, and it stood in a room hung with rows -of the queen's devices in cut black velvet upon cloth of silver. -Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high -in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, -was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with verses -from the Koran. Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully chased, -and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. -It had been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the -standard of Mohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its -canopy. - -And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite -specimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, -getting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates -and stitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, -that from their transparency are known in the East as "woven air," -and "running water," and "evening dew"; strange figured cloths from Java; -elaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair blue -silks and wrought with fleurs-de-lis, birds and images; veils of lacis -worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish velvets; -Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese Foukousas, with their -green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds. - -He had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, -as indeed he had for everything connected with the service -of the Church. In the long cedar chests that lined the west -gallery of his house, he had stored away many rare and beautiful -specimens of what is really the raiment of the Bride of Christ, -who must wear purple and jewels and fine linen that she may -hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by the suffering -that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain. -He possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask, -figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set -in six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side -was the pine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys -were divided into panels representing scenes from the life -of the Virgin, and the coronation of the Virgin was figured -in coloured silks upon the hood. This was Italian work -of the fifteenth century. Another cope was of green velvet, -embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves, from -which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which -were picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals. -The morse bore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work. -The orphreys were woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, -and were starred with medallions of many saints and martyrs, -among whom was St. Sebastian. He had chasubles, also, -of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold brocade, -and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with -representations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, -and embroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; -dalmatics of white satin and pink silk damask, decorated with -tulips and dolphins and fleurs-de-lis; altar frontals -of crimson velvet and blue linen; and many corporals, -chalice-veils, and sudaria. In the mystic offices to which -such things were put, there was something that quickened -his imagination. - -For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely house, -were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he could escape, -for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be almost too -great to be borne. Upon the walls of the lonely locked room where he had -spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with his own hands the terrible -portrait whose changing features showed him the real degradation of his life, -and in front of it had draped the purple-and-gold pall as a curtain. -For weeks he would not go there, would forget the hideous painted thing, -and get back his light heart, his wonderful joyousness, his passionate -absorption in mere existence. Then, suddenly, some night he would creep -out of the house, go down to dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, -and stay there, day after day, until he was driven away. On his return -he would sit in front of the her times, with that pride of individualism -that is half the fascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure -at the misshapen shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been -his own. - -After a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, -and gave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, -as well as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they -had more than once spent the winter. He hated to be separated from -the picture that was such a part of his life, and was also afraid -that during his absence some one might gain access to the room, -in spite of the elaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon -the door. - -He was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing. -It was true that the portrait still preserved, under all -the foulness and ugliness of the face, its marked likeness -to himself; but what could they learn from that? He would laugh -at any one who tried to taunt him. He had not painted it. -What was it to him how vile and full of shame it looked? -Even if he told them, would they believe it? - -Yet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great house -in Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his -own rank who were his chief companions, and astounding the county -by the wanton luxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, -he would suddenly leave his guests and rush back to town to see -that the door had not been tampered with and that the picture was -still there. What if it should be stolen? The mere thought made -him cold with horror. Surely the world would know his secret then. -Perhaps the world already suspected it. - -For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him. -He was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth -and social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it -was said that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into -the smoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another -gentleman got up in a marked manner and went out. Curious stories -became current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year. -It was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors -in a low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted -with thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. -His extraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear -again in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass him -with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though they -were determined to discover his secret. - -Of such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, -took no notice, and in the opinion of most people his frank -debonair manner, his charming boyish smile, and the infinite -grace of that wonderful youth that seemed never to leave him, -were in themselves a sufficient answer to the calumnies, -for so they termed them, that were circulated about him. -It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been -most intimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him. -Women who had wildly adored him, and for his sake had braved -all social censure and set convention at defiance, were seen -to grow pallid with shame or horror if Dorian Gray entered -the room. - -Yet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many -his strange and dangerous charm. His great wealth was a certain -element of security. Society--civilized society, at least-- -is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those -who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that -manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, -the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession -of a good chef. And, after all, it is a very poor consolation -to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, -or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life. -Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees, -as Lord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, -and there is possibly a good deal to be said for his view. -For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same -as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. -It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as -its unreality, and should combine the insincere character -of a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays -delightful to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? -I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply -our personalities. - -Such, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion. He used to wonder -at the shallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man -as a thing simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence. -To him, man was a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, -a complex multiform creature that bore within itself strange -legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh was tainted -with the monstrous maladies of the dead. He loved to stroll -through the gaunt cold picture-gallery of his country house and look -at the various portraits of those whose blood flowed in his veins. -Here was Philip Herbert, described by Francis Osborne, -in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, -as one who was "caressed by the Court for his handsome face, -which kept him not long company." Was it young Herbert's -life that he sometimes led? Had some strange poisonous -germ crept from body to body till it had reached his own? -Was it some dim sense of that ruined grace that had made -him so suddenly, and almost without cause, give utterance, -in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had so changed -his life? Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled surcoat, -and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard, -with his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet. -What had this man's legacy been? Had the lover of Giovanna -of Naples bequeathed him some inheritance of sin and shame? -Were his own actions merely the dreams that the dead man -had not dared to realize? Here, from the fading canvas, -smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl stomacher, -and pink slashed sleeves. A flower was in her right hand, -and her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses. -On a table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple. -There were large green rosettes upon her little pointed shoes. -He knew her life, and the strange stories that were told about -her lovers. Had he something of her temperament in him? These oval, -heavy-lidded eyes seemed to look curiously at him. What of -George Willoughby, with his powdered hair and fantastic patches? -How evil he looked! The face was saturnine and swarthy, -and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with disdain. -Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that -were so overladen with rings. He had been a macaroni of the -eighteenth century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars. -What of the second Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince -Regent in his wildest days, and one of the witnesses at -the secret marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert? How proud and -handsome he was, with his chestnut curls and insolent pose! -What passions had he bequeathed? The world had looked upon -him as infamous. He had led the orgies at Carlton House. -The star of the Garter glittered upon his breast. Beside him hung -the portrait of his wife, a pallid, thin-lipped woman in black. -Her blood, also, stirred within him. How curious it all seemed! -And his mother with her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, -wine-dashed lips--he knew what he had got from her. -He had got from her his beauty, and his passion for the beauty -of others. She laughed at him in her loose Bacchante dress. -There were vine leaves in her hair. The purple spilled -from the cup she was holding. The carnations of the painting -had withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth -and brilliancy of colour. They seemed to follow him wherever he -went. - -Yet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race, -nearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly -with an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious. -There were times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole -of history was merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived -it in act and circumstance, but as his imagination had created -it for him, as it had been in his brain and in his passions. -He felt that he had known them all, those strange terrible figures -that had passed across the stage of the world and made sin so marvellous -and evil so full of subtlety. It seemed to him that in some mysterious -way their lives had been his own. - -The hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had -himself known this curious fancy. In the seventh chapter he tells how, -crowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, -as Tiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books -of Elephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and -the flute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, -had caroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped -in an ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, -had wandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, -looking round with haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger -that was to end his days, and sick with that ennui, that terrible -taedium vitae, that comes on those to whom life denies nothing; -and had peered through a clear emerald at the red shambles of the circus -and then, in a litter of pearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, -been carried through the Street of Pomegranates to a House of Gold -and heard men cry on Nero Caesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, -had painted his face with colours, and plied the distaff among the women, -and brought the Moon from Carthage and given her in mystic marriage -to the Sun. - -Over and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, -and the two chapters immediately following, in which, as in some -curious tapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured -the awful and beautiful forms of those whom vice and blood -and weariness had made monstrous or mad: Filippo, Duke of Milan, -who slew his wife and painted her lips with a scarlet poison -that her lover might suck death from the dead thing he fondled; -Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as Paul the Second, -who sought in his vanity to assume the title of Formosus, -and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, -was bought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, -who used hounds to chase living men and whose murdered -body was covered with roses by a harlot who had loved him; -the Borgia on his white horse, with Fratricide riding beside -him and his mantle stained with the blood of Perotto; -Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, -child and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by -his debauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion -of white and crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, -and gilded a boy that he might serve at the feast as Ganymede -or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose melancholy could be cured only by -the spectacle of death, and who had a passion for red blood, -as other men have for red wine--the son of the Fiend, -as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice -when gambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, -who in mockery took the name of Innocent and into whose torpid -veins the blood of three lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; -Sigismondo Malatesta, the lover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, -whose effigy was burned at Rome as the enemy of God and man, -who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and gave poison -to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a -shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; -Charles VI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a -leper had warned him of the insanity that was coming on him, -and who, when his brain had sickened and grown strange, -could only be soothed by Saracen cards painted with the images -of love and death and madness; and, in his trimmed jerkin -and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto Baglioni, -who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page, -and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying -in the yellow piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him -could not choose but weep, and Atalanta, who had cursed him, -blessed him. - -There was a horrible fascination in them all. He saw them -at night, and they troubled his imagination in the day. -The Renaissance knew of strange manners of poisoning-- -poisoning by a helmet and a lighted torch, by an embroidered glove -and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander and by an amber chain. -Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when -he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize -his conception of the beautiful. - - - -CHAPTER 12 - -It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth birthday, -as he often remembered afterwards. - -He was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he had -been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy. -At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, a man passed him in -the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of his grey ulster turned up. -He had a bag in his hand. Dorian recognized him. It was Basil Hallward. -A strange sense of fear, for which he could not account, came over him. -He made no sign of recognition and went on quickly in the direction of his -own house. - -But Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping -on the pavement and then hurrying after him. In a few moments, -his hand was on his arm. - -"Dorian! What an extraordinary piece of luck! I have been -waiting for you in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally -I took pity on your tired servant and told him to go to bed, -as he let me out. I am off to Paris by the midnight train, -and I particularly wanted to see you before I left. -I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me. -But I wasn't quite sure. Didn't you recognize me?" - -"In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor Square. -I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel at all certain -about it. I am sorry you are going away, as I have not seen you for ages. -But I suppose you will be back soon?" - -"No: I am going to be out of England for six months. -I intend to take a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have -finished a great picture I have in my head. However, it wasn't -about myself I wanted to talk. Here we are at your door. -Let me come in for a moment. I have something to say -to you." - -"I shall be charmed. But won't you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray -languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his latch-key. - -The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked -at his watch. "I have heaps of time," he answered. "The train -doesn't go till twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven. -In fact, I was on my way to the club to look for you, when I met you. -You see, I shan't have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my -heavy things. All I have with me is in this bag, and I can easily -get to Victoria in twenty minutes." - -Dorian looked at him and smiled. "What a way for a fashionable -painter to travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! Come in, -or the fog will get into the house. And mind you don't -talk about anything serious. Nothing is serious nowadays. -At least nothing should be." - -Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the library. -There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open hearth. The lamps -were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case stood, with some siphons of -soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on a little marqueterie table. - -"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me -everything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes. -He is a most hospitable creature. I like him much better than -the Frenchman you used to have. What has become of the Frenchman, -by the bye?" - -Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I believe he married Lady Radley's maid, -and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker. Anglomania is -very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly of the French, -doesn't it? But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad servant. -I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about. One often -imagines things that are quite absurd. He was really very devoted to me -and seemed quite sorry when he went away. Have another brandy-and-soda? Or -would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take hock-and-seltzer myself. -There is sure to be some in the next room." - -"Thanks, I won't have anything more," said the painter, -taking his cap and coat off and throwing them on the bag -that he had placed in the corner. "And now, my dear fellow, -I want to speak to you seriously. Don't frown like that. -You make it so much more difficult for me." - -"What is it all about?" cried Dorian in his petulant way, -flinging himself down on the sofa. "I hope it is not about myself. -I am tired of myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else." - -"It is about yourself," answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, -"and I must say it to you. I shall only keep you half an hour." - -Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette. "Half an hour!" he murmured. - -"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own sake -that I am speaking. I think it right that you should know that the most -dreadful things are being said against you in London." - -"I don't wish to know anything about them. I love scandals -about other people, but scandals about myself don't interest me. -They have not got the charm of novelty." - -"They must interest you, Dorian. Every gentleman is interested -in his good name. You don't want people to talk of you as -something vile and degraded. Of course, you have your position, -and your wealth, and all that kind of thing. But position -and wealth are not everything. Mind you, I don't believe these -rumours at all. At least, I can't believe them when I see you. -Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. -It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. -There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows -itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, -the moulding of his hands even. Somebody--I won't mention his name, -but you know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done. -I had never seen him before, and had never heard anything -about him at the time, though I have heard a good deal since. -He offered an extravagant price. I refused him. -There was something in the shape of his fingers that I hated. -I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied about him. -His life is dreadful. But you, Dorian, with your pure, -bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth-- -I can't believe anything against you. And yet I see you -very seldom, and you never come down to the studio now, -and when I am away from you, and I hear all these hideous things -that people are whispering about you, I don't know what to say. -Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves -the room of a club when you enter it? Why is it that so many -gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite -you to theirs? You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley. -I met him at dinner last week. Your name happened to come up -in conversation, in connection with the miniatures you have lent -to the exhibition at the Dudley. Staveley curled his lip and said -that you might have the most artistic tastes, but that you -were a man whom no pure-minded girl should be allowed to know, -and whom no chaste woman should sit in the same room with. -I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked him what -he meant. He told me. He told me right out before everybody. -It was horrible! Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? -There was that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide. -You were his great friend. There was Sir Henry Ashton, -who had to leave England with a tarnished name. You and -he were inseparable. What about Adrian Singleton and his -dreadful end? What about Lord Kent's only son and his career? -I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street. He seemed broken -with shame and sorrow. What about the young Duke of Perth? -What sort of life has he got now? What gentleman would associate with -him?" - -"Stop, Basil. You are talking about things of which you know nothing," -said Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt -in his voice. "You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it. -It is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows -anything about mine. With such blood as he has in his veins, how could -his record be clean? You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth. -Did I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery? -If Kent's silly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me? -If Adrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his keeper? -I know how people chatter in England. The middle classes air their moral -prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they -call the profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend -that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people -they slander. In this country, it is enough for a man to have -distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him. -And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, -lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land -of the hypocrite." - -"Dorian," cried Hallward, "that is not the question. -England is bad enough I know, and English society is all wrong. -That is the reason why I want you to be fine. You have not -been fine. One has a right to judge of a man by the effect -he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, -of goodness, of purity. You have filled them with a madness -for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. -You led them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you -can smile, as you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. -I know you and Harry are inseparable. Surely for that reason, -if for none other, you should not have made his sister's name -a by-word." - -"Take care, Basil. You go too far." - -"I must speak, and you must listen. You shall listen. -When you met Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever -touched her. Is there a single decent woman in London now -who would drive with her in the park? Why, even her children -are not allowed to live with her. Then there are other stories-- -stories that you have been seen creeping at dawn out of dreadful -houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in London. -Are they true? Can they be true? When I first heard them, -I laughed. I hear them now, and they make me shudder. -What about your country-house and the life that is -led there? Dorian, you don't know what is said about you. -I won't tell you that I don't want to preach to you. -I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned himself -into an amateur curate for the moment always began by saying that, -and then proceeded to break his word. I do want to preach to you. -I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect you. -I want you to have a clean name and a fair record. -I want you to get rid of the dreadful people you associate with. -Don't shrug your shoulders like that. Don't be so indifferent. -You have a wonderful influence. Let it be for good, not for evil. -They say that you corrupt every one with whom you become intimate, -and that it is quite sufficient for you to enter a house -for shame of some kind to follow after. I don't know whether -it is so or not. How should I know? But it is said of you. -I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt. -Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford. -He showed me a letter that his wife had written to him when she -was dying alone in her villa at Mentone. Your name was implicated -in the most terrible confession I ever read. I told him that it -was absurd--that I knew you thoroughly and that you were incapable -of anything of the kind. Know you? I wonder do I know you? -Before I could answer that, I should have to see your -soul." - -"To see my soul!" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa -and turning almost white from fear. - -"Yes," answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his voice, -"to see your soul. But only God can do that." - -A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. -"You shall see it yourself, to-night!" he cried, seizing a -lamp from the table. "Come: it is your own handiwork. -Why shouldn't you look at it? You can tell the world all about -it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody would believe you. -If they did believe you, they would like me all the better for it. -I know the age better than you do, though you will prate -about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered -enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it face -to face." - -There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered. -He stamped his foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner. -He felt a terrible joy at the thought that some one else -was to share his secret, and that the man who had painted -the portrait that was the origin of all his shame was to be -burdened for the rest of his life with the hideous memory of what -he had done. - -"Yes," he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly -into his stern eyes, "I shall show you my soul. You shall see -the thing that you fancy only God can see." - -Hallward started back. "This is blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried. -"You must not say things like that. They are horrible, and they -don't mean anything." - -"You think so?" He laughed again. - -"I know so. As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your good. -You know I have been always a stanch friend to you." - -"Don't touch me. Finish what you have to say." - -A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face. -He paused for a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. -After all, what right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? -If he had done a tithe of what was rumoured about him, -how much he must have suffered! Then he straightened himself up, -and walked over to the fire-place, and stood there, looking at -the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and their throbbing cores -of flame. - -"I am waiting, Basil," said the young man in a hard clear voice. - -He turned round. "What I have to say is this," he cried. "You must give -me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against you. -If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to end, -I shall believe you. Deny them, Dorian, deny them! Can't you see what I -am going through? My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, -and shameful." - -Dorian Gray smiled. There was a curl of contempt in his lips. -"Come upstairs, Basil," he said quietly. "I keep a diary of my life -from day to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written. -I shall show it to you if you come with me." - -"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed -my train. That makes no matter. I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me -to read anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question." - -"That shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. -You will not have to read long." - - - -CHAPTER 13 - -He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward following -close behind. They walked softly, as men do instinctively at night. -The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase. A rising wind -made some of the windows rattle. - -When they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down -on the floor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock. -"You insist on knowing, Basil?" he asked in a low voice. - -"Yes." - -"I am delighted," he answered, smiling. Then he added, -somewhat harshly, "You are the one man in the world who is -entitled to know everything about me. You have had more -to do with my life than you think"; and, taking up the lamp, -he opened the door and went in. A cold current of air passed them, -and the light shot up for a moment in a flame of murky orange. -He shuddered. "Shut the door behind you," he whispered, -as he placed the lamp on the table. - -Hallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression. -The room looked as if it had not been lived in for years. -A faded Flemish tapestry, a curtained picture, an old -Italian cassone, and an almost empty book-case--that was all -that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and a table. -As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was -standing on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place -was covered with dust and that the carpet was in holes. -A mouse ran scuffling behind the wainscoting. There was a damp odour -of mildew. - -"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? -Draw that curtain back, and you will see mine." - -The voice that spoke was cold and cruel. "You are mad, Dorian, or playing -a part," muttered Hallward, frowning. - -"You won't? Then I must do it myself," said the young man, -and he tore the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground. - -An exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw -in the dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. -There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust -and loathing. Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face -that he was looking at! The horror, whatever it was, had not yet -entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty. There was still some -gold in the thinning hair and some scarlet on the sensual mouth. -The sodden eyes had kept something of the loveliness of their blue, -the noble curves had not yet completely passed away from chiselled -nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it was Dorian himself. -But who had done it? He seemed to recognize his own brushwork, -and the frame was his own design. The idea was monstrous, yet he -felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle, and held it to the picture. -In the left-hand corner was his own name, traced in long letters of -bright vermilion. - -It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. -He had never done that. Still, it was his own picture. -He knew it, and he felt as if his blood had changed -in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His own picture! -What did it mean? Why had it altered? He turned and looked -at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man. His mouth twitched, -and his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate. -He passed his hand across his forehead. It was dank with -clammy sweat. - -The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him -with that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those -who are absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting. -There was neither real sorrow in it nor real joy. There was -simply the passion of the spectator, with perhaps a flicker -of triumph in his eyes. He had taken the flower out of his coat, -and was smelling it, or pretending to do so. - -"What does this mean?" cried Hallward, at last. His own voice sounded -shrill and curious in his ears. - -"Years ago, when I was a boy," said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower -in his hand, "you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain -of my good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, -who explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished -a portrait of me that revealed to me the wonder of beauty. -In a mad moment that, even now, I don't know whether I regret -or not, I made a wish, perhaps you would call it a prayer. -. . ." - -"I remember it! Oh, how well I remember it! No! the thing is impossible. -The room is damp. Mildew has got into the canvas. The paints I used had some -wretched mineral poison in them. I tell you the thing is impossible." - -"Ah, what is impossible?" murmured the young man, going over to the window -and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass. - -"You told me you had destroyed it." - -"I was wrong. It has destroyed me." - -"I don't believe it is my picture." - -"Can't you see your ideal in it?" said Dorian bitterly. - -"My ideal, as you call it. . ." - -"As you called it." - -"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such -an ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr." - -"It is the face of my soul." - -"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a devil." - -"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil," cried Dorian -with a wild gesture of despair. - -Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it. -"My God! If it is true," he exclaimed, "and this is -what you have done with your life, why, you must be worse -even than those who talk against you fancy you to be!" -He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it. -The surface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it. -It was from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror -had come. Through some strange quickening of inner life -the leprosies of sin were slowly eating the thing away. -The rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was not -so fearful. - -His hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor -and lay there sputtering. He placed his foot on it and put it out. -Then he flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by -the table and buried his face in his hands. - -"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson! What an awful lesson!" -There was no answer, but he could hear the young man -sobbing at the window. "Pray, Dorian, pray," he murmured. -"What is it that one was taught to say in one's boyhood? -'Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us our sins. -Wash away our iniquities.' Let us say that together. -The prayer of your pride has been answered. The prayer of your -repentance will be answered also. I worshipped you too much. -I am punished for it. You worshipped yourself too much. We are -both punished." - -Dorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed eyes. -"It is too late, Basil," he faltered. - -"It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we -cannot remember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere, -'Though your sins be as scarlet, yet I will make them as white -as snow'?" - -"Those words mean nothing to me now." - -"Hush! Don't say that. You have done enough evil in your life. -My God! Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?" - -Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable -feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though -it had been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, -whispered into his ear by those grinning lips. The mad -passions of a hunted animal stirred within him, and he loathed -the man who was seated at the table, more than in his whole -life he had ever loathed anything. He glanced wildly around. -Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest that -faced him. His eye fell on it. He knew what it was. -It was a knife that he had brought up, some days before, -to cut a piece of cord, and had forgotten to take away with him. -He moved slowly towards it, passing Hallward as he did so. -As soon as he got behind him, he seized it and turned round. -Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going to rise. -He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind -the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and stabbing again -and again. - -There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking -with blood. Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively, -waving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him twice more, -but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on the floor. -He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. Then he threw -the knife on the table, and listened. - -He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet. -He opened the door and went out on the landing. The house was -absolutely quiet. No one was about. For a few seconds he stood -bending over the balustrade and peering down into the black seething -well of darkness. Then he took out the key and returned to the room, -locking himself in as he did so. - -The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table -with bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. -Had it not been for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted -black pool that was slowly widening on the table, one would have said -that the man was simply asleep. - -How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and walking -over to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony. -The wind had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous -peacock's tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked -down and saw the policeman going his rounds and flashing the long -beam of his lantern on the doors of the silent houses. The crimson -spot of a prowling hansom gleamed at the corner and then vanished. -A woman in a fluttering shawl was creeping slowly by the railings, -staggering as she went. Now and then she stopped and peered back. -Once, she began to sing in a hoarse voice. The policeman strolled -over and said something to her. She stumbled away, laughing. -A bitter blast swept across the square. The gas-lamps flickered -and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their black iron -branches to and fro. He shivered and went back, closing the window -behind him. - -Having reached the door, he turned the key and opened it. -He did not even glance at the murdered man. He felt that -the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation. -The friend who had painted the fatal portrait to which -all his misery had been due had gone out of his life. -That was enough. - -Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of -Moorish workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques -of burnished steel, and studded with coarse turquoises. -Perhaps it might be missed by his servant, and questions would -be asked. He hesitated for a moment, then he turned back and took -it from the table. He could not help seeing the dead thing. -How still it was! How horribly white the long hands looked! -It was like a dreadful wax image. - -Having locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs. -The woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain. -He stopped several times and waited. No: everything was still. -It was merely the sound of his own footsteps. - -When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner. -They must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was -in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious disguises, -and put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards. Then he pulled -out his watch. It was twenty minutes to two. - -He sat down and began to think. Every year--every month, almost-- -men were strangled in England for what he had done. There had been -a madness of murder in the air. Some red star had come too close -to the earth. . . . And yet, what evidence was there against him? -Basil Hallward had left the house at eleven. No one had seen -him come in again. Most of the servants were at Selby Royal. -His valet had gone to bed.... Paris! Yes. It was to Paris that -Basil had gone, and by the midnight train, as he had intended. -With his curious reserved habits, it would be months before any -suspicions would be roused. Months! Everything could be destroyed long -before then. - -A sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur coat and hat -and went out into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow -heavy tread of the policeman on the pavement outside and -seeing the flash of the bull's-eye reflected in the window. -He waited and held his breath. - -After a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, -shutting the door very gently behind him. Then he began -ringing the bell. In about five minutes his valet appeared, -half-dressed and looking very drowsy. - -"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis," he said, stepping in; -"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?" - -"Ten minutes past two, sir," answered the man, looking at the clock -and blinking. - -"Ten minutes past two? How horribly late! You must wake me -at nine to-morrow. I have some work to do." - -"All right, sir." - -"Did any one call this evening?" - -"Mr. Hallward, sir. He stayed here till eleven, and then he went -away to catch his train." - -"Oh! I am sorry I didn't see him. Did he leave any message?" - -"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, -if he did not find you at the club." - -"That will do, Francis. Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow." - -"No, sir." - -The man shambled down the passage in his slippers. - -Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed -into the library. For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down -the room, biting his lip and thinking. Then he took down the Blue -Book from one of the shelves and began to turn over the leaves. -"Alan Campbell, 152, Hertford Street, Mayfair." Yes; that was the man -he wanted. - - - -CHAPTER 14 - -At nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of chocolate -on a tray and opened the shutters. Dorian was sleeping quite peacefully, -lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his cheek. He looked -like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study. - -The man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, -and as he opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, -as though he had been lost in some delightful dream. Yet he had -not dreamed at all. His night had been untroubled by any images -of pleasure or of pain. But youth smiles without any reason. -It is one of its chiefest charms. - -He turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his chocolate. -The mellow November sun came streaming into the room. The sky was bright, -and there was a genial warmth in the air. It was almost like a morning -in May. - -Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent, -blood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves -there with terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all -that he had suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling -of loathing for Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat -in the chair came back to him, and he grew cold with passion. -The dead man was still sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. -How horrible that was! Such hideous things were for the darkness, -not for the day. - -He felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken -or grow mad. There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory -than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more -than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, -greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses. -But this was not one of them. It was a thing to be driven out of the mind, -to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might strangle -one itself. - -When the half-hour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, -and then got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his -usual care, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie -and scarf-pin and changing his rings more than once. He spent a long -time also over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his -valet about some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made -for the servants at Selby, and going through his correspondence. -At some of the letters, he smiled. Three of them bored him. -One he read several times over and then tore up with a slight look -of annoyance in his face. "That awful thing, a woman's memory!" -as Lord Henry had once said. - -After he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his -lips slowly with a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, -and going over to the table, sat down and wrote two letters. -One he put in his pocket, the other he handed to the valet. - -"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell -is out of town, get his address." - -As soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon -a piece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, -and then human faces. Suddenly he remarked that every face that -he drew seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward. -He frowned, and getting up, went over to the book-case and took -out a volume at hazard. He was determined that he would not think -about what had happened until it became absolutely necessary that -he should do so. - -When he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at -the title-page of the book. It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, -Charpentier's Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. -The binding was of citron-green leather, with a design of gilt -trellis-work and dotted pomegranates. It had been given -to him by Adrian Singleton. As he turned over the pages, -his eye fell on the poem about the hand of Lacenaire, -the cold yellow hand "du supplice encore mal lavee," -with its downy red hairs and its "doigts de faune." He glanced -at his own white taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite -of himself, and passed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas -upon Venice: - - Sur une gamme chromatique, - Le sein de peries ruisselant, - La Venus de l'Adriatique - Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc. - - Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes - Suivant la phrase au pur contour, - S'enflent comme des gorges rondes - Que souleve un soupir d'amour. - - L'esquif aborde et me depose, - Jetant son amarre au pilier, - Devant une facade rose, - Sur le marbre d'un escalier. - - -How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be -floating down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, -seated in a black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. -The mere lines looked to him like those straight lines of -turquoise-blue that follow one as one pushes out to the Lido. -The sudden flashes of colour reminded him of the gleam of -the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the tall -honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, -through the dim, dust-stained arcades. Leaning back with -half-closed eyes, he kept saying over and over to himself: - - "Devant une facade rose, - Sur le marbre d'un escalier." - -The whole of Venice was in those two lines. He remembered the autumn -that he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred -him to mad delightful follies. There was romance in every place. -But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, -to the true romantic, background was everything, or almost everything. -Basil had been with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret. -Poor Basil! What a horrible way for a man to die! - -He sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget. -He read of the swallows that fly in and out of the little -cafe at Smyrna where the Hadjis sit counting their amber -beads and the turbaned merchants smoke their long tasselled -pipes and talk gravely to each other; he read of the Obelisk -in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of granite -in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot, -lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, -and white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with -small beryl eyes that crawl over the green steaming mud; -he began to brood over those verses which, drawing music -from kiss-stained marble, tell of that curious statue that -Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the "monstre charmant" -that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre. But after a time -the book fell from his hand. He grew nervous, and a horrible -fit of terror came over him. What if Alan Campbell should be -out of England? Days would elapse before he could come back. -Perhaps he might refuse to come. What could he do then? -Every moment was of vital importance. - -They had been great friends once, five years before-- -almost inseparable, indeed. Then the intimacy had come suddenly -to an end. When they met in society now, it was only Dorian -Gray who smiled: Alan Campbell never did. - -He was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real -appreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense -of the beauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely -from Dorian. His dominant intellectual passion was for science. -At Cambridge he had spent a great deal of his time working -in the laboratory, and had taken a good class in the Natural -Science Tripos of his year. Indeed, he was still devoted -to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his -own in which he used to shut himself up all day long, -greatly to the annoyance of his mother, who had set her -heart on his standing for Parliament and had a vague idea -that a chemist was a person who made up prescriptions. -He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and played -both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs. -In fact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian -Gray together--music and that indefinable attraction that -Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wished-- -and, indeed, exercised often without being conscious of it. -They had met at Lady Berkshire's the night that Rubinstein -played there, and after that used to be always seen together -at the opera and wherever good music was going on. -For eighteen months their intimacy lasted. Campbell was -always either at Selby Royal or in Grosvenor Square. -To him, as to many others, Dorian Gray was the type -of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in life. -Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one -ever knew. But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely -spoke when they met and that Campbell seemed always to go -away early from any party at which Dorian Gray was present. -He had changed, too--was strangely melancholy at times, appeared -almost to dislike hearing music, and would never himself play, -giving as his excuse, when he was called upon, that he was so -absorbed in science that he had no time left in which to practise. -And this was certainly true. Every day he seemed to become -more interested in biology, and his name appeared once or twice -in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain -curious experiments. - -This was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for. Every second -he kept glancing at the clock. As the minutes went by he became -horribly agitated. At last he got up and began to pace up -and down the room, looking like a beautiful caged thing. -He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold. - -The suspense became unbearable. Time seemed to him to be crawling -with feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards -the jagged edge of some black cleft of precipice. He knew what was -waiting for him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank -hands his burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain -of sight and driven the eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. -The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, -made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, -danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks. -Then, suddenly, time stopped for him. Yes: that blind, slow-breathing thing -crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being dead, raced nimbly on -in front, and dragged a hideous future from its grave, and showed it to him. -He stared at it. Its very horror made him stone. - -At last the door opened and his servant entered. He turned -glazed eyes upon him. - -"Mr. Campbell, sir," said the man. - -A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came -back to his cheeks. - -"Ask him to come in at once, Francis." He felt that he was himself again. -His mood of cowardice had passed away. - -The man bowed and retired. In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in, -looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his -coal-black hair and dark eyebrows. - -"Alan! This is kind of you. I thank you for coming." - -"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray. But you said -it was a matter of life and death." His voice was hard and cold. -He spoke with slow deliberation. There was a look of contempt -in the steady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian. -He kept his hands in the pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed -not to have noticed the gesture with which he had been greeted. - -"Yes: it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one person. -Sit down." - -Campbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him. -The two men's eyes met. In Dorian's there was infinite pity. -He knew that what he was going to do was dreadful. - -After a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, -very quietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face -of him he had sent for, "Alan, in a locked room at the top -of this house, a room to which nobody but myself has access, -a dead man is seated at a table. He has been dead ten hours now. -Don't stir, and don't look at me like that. Who the man is, -why he died, how he died, are matters that do not concern you. -What you have to do is this--" - -"Stop, Gray. I don't want to know anything further. -Whether what you have told me is true or not true doesn't -concern me. I entirely decline to be mixed up in your life. -Keep your horrible secrets to yourself. They don't interest me -any more." - -"Alan, they will have to interest you. This one will have to interest you. -I am awfully sorry for you, Alan. But I can't help myself. -You are the one man who is able to save me. I am forced to bring -you into the matter. I have no option. Alan, you are scientific. -You know about chemistry and things of that kind. You have made experiments. -What you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs-- -to destroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left. Nobody saw this -person come into the house. Indeed, at the present moment he is supposed -to be in Paris. He will not be missed for months. When he is missed, -there must be no trace of him found here. You, Alan, you must change him, -and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes that I may -scatter in the air." - -"You are mad, Dorian." - -"Ah! I was waiting for you to call me Dorian." - -"You are mad, I tell you--mad to imagine that I would raise -a finger to help you, mad to make this monstrous confession. -I will have nothing to do with this matter, whatever it is. -Do you think I am going to peril my reputation for you? What is it -to me what devil's work you are up to?" - -"It was suicide, Alan." - -"I am glad of that. But who drove him to it? You, I should fancy." - -"Do you still refuse to do this for me?" - -"Of course I refuse. I will have absolutely nothing to do with it. -I don't care what shame comes on you. You deserve it all. -I should not be sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced. -How dare you ask me, of all men in the world, to mix myself -up in this horror? I should have thought you knew more about -people's characters. Your friend Lord Henry Wotton can't have -taught you much about psychology, whatever else he has taught you. -Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you. You have -come to the wrong man. Go to some of your friends. Don't come -to me." - -"Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You don't know what he had made -me suffer. Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or -the marring of it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended it, -the result was the same." - -"Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to? -I shall not inform upon you. It is not my business. Besides, without -my stirring in the matter, you are certain to be arrested. -Nobody ever commits a crime without doing something stupid. -But I will have nothing to do with it." - -"You must have something to do with it. Wait, wait a moment; -listen to me. Only listen, Alan. All I ask of you is to perform -a certain scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and -dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don't affect you. -If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you -found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped -out in it for the blood to flow through, you would simply look -upon him as an admirable subject. You would not turn a hair. -You would not believe that you were doing anything wrong. -On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were benefiting -the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, -or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. -What I want you to do is merely what you have often done before. -Indeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than -what you are accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is -the only piece of evidence against me. If it is discovered, -I am lost; and it is sure to be discovered unless you -help me." - -"I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply -indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me." - -"Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. -Just before you came I almost fainted with terror. -You may know terror yourself some day. No! don't think of that. -Look at the matter purely from the scientific point of view. -You don't inquire where the dead things on which you -experiment come from. Don't inquire now. I have told you -too much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were -friends once, Alan." - -"Don't speak about those days, Dorian--they are dead." - -"The dead linger sometimes. The man upstairs will not go away. -He is sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. -Alan! Alan! If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined. -Why, they will hang me, Alan! Don't you understand? They will hang -me for what I have done." - -"There is no good in prolonging this scene. I absolutely refuse -to do anything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me." - -"You refuse?" - -"Yes." - -"I entreat you, Alan." - -"It is useless." - -The same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes. Then he stretched -out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. -He read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the table. -Having done this, he got up and went over to the window. - -Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, -and opened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell -back in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. -He felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some -empty hollow. - -After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and came -and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder. - -"I am so sorry for you, Alan," he murmured, "but you leave me -no alternative. I have a letter written already. Here it is. -You see the address. If you don't help me, I must send it. -If you don't help me, I will send it. You know what the result will be. -But you are going to help me. It is impossible for you to refuse now. -I tried to spare you. You will do me the justice to admit that. -You were stern, harsh, offensive. You treated me as no man has ever -dared to treat me--no living man, at any rate. I bore it all. -Now it is for me to dictate terms." - -Campbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him. - -"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan. You know what they are. -The thing is quite simple. Come, don't work yourself into this fever. -The thing has to be done. Face it, and do it." - -A groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over. -The ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be -dividing time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was -too terrible to be borne. He felt as if an iron ring was -being slowly tightened round his forehead, as if the disgrace -with which he was threatened had already come upon him. -The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead. -It was intolerable. It seemed to crush him. - -"Come, Alan, you must decide at once." - -"I cannot do it," he said, mechanically, as though words could alter things. - -"You must. You have no choice. Don't delay." - -He hesitated a moment. "Is there a fire in the room upstairs?" - -"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos." - -"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory." - -"No, Alan, you must not leave the house. Write out on a sheet -of notepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab -and bring the things back to you." - -Campbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope -to his assistant. Dorian took the note up and read it carefully. -Then he rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return -as soon as possible and to bring the things with him. - -As the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up -from the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with -a kind of ague. For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke. -A fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was -like the beat of a hammer. - -As the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian Gray, -saw that his eyes were filled with tears. There was something in the purity -and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him. "You are infamous, -absolutely infamous!" he muttered. - -"Hush, Alan. You have saved my life," said Dorian. - -"Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from -corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. -In doing what I am going to do--what you force me to do-- -it is not of your life that I am thinking." - -"Ah, Alan," murmured Dorian with a sigh, "I wish you had -a thousandth part of the pity for me that I have for you." -He turned away as he spoke and stood looking out at the garden. -Campbell made no answer. - -After about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant entered, -carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil of steel and -platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps. - -"Shall I leave the things here, sir?" he asked Campbell. - -"Yes," said Dorian. "And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another -errand for you. What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies -Selby with orchids?" - -"Harden, sir." - -"Yes--Harden. You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden personally, -and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered, and to have -as few white ones as possible. In fact, I don't want any white ones. -It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty place-- -otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it." - -"No trouble, sir. At what time shall I be back?" - -Dorian looked at Campbell. "How long will your experiment take, Alan?" -he said in a calm indifferent voice. The presence of a third person -in the room seemed to give him extraordinary courage. - -Campbell frowned and bit his lip. "It will take about five hours," -he answered. - -"It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven, Francis. -Or stay: just leave my things out for dressing. You can have the evening -to yourself. I am not dining at home, so I shall not want you." - -"Thank you, sir," said the man, leaving the room. - -"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost. How heavy this chest is! -I'll take it for you. You bring the other things." He spoke rapidly -and in an authoritative manner. Campbell felt dominated by him. -They left the room together. - -When they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned it -in the lock. Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his eyes. -He shuddered. "I don't think I can go in, Alan," he murmured. - -"It is nothing to me. I don't require you," said Campbell coldly. - -Dorian half opened the door. As he did so, he saw the face -of his portrait leering in the sunlight. On the floor in front -of it the torn curtain was lying. He remembered that the night -before he had forgotten, for the first time in his life, -to hide the fatal canvas, and was about to rush forward, -when he drew back with a shudder. - -What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, -on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? -How horrible it was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, -than the silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, -the thing whose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet -showed him that it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had -left it. - -He heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, -and with half-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, -determined that he would not look even once upon the dead man. -Then, stooping down and taking up the gold-and-purple hanging, -he flung it right over the picture. - -There he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes -fixed themselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him. -He heard Campbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, -and the other things that he had required for his dreadful work. -He began to wonder if he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, -what they had thought of each other. - -"Leave me now," said a stern voice behind him. - -He turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man -had been thrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing -into a glistening yellow face. As he was going downstairs, -he heard the key being turned in the lock. - -It was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library. -He was pale, but absolutely calm. "I have done what you asked -me to do," he muttered "And now, good-bye. Let us never see each -other again." - -"You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I cannot forget that," -said Dorian simply. - -As soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs. There was a horrible -smell of nitric acid in the room. But the thing that had been sitting -at the table was gone. - - - -CHAPTER 15 - -That evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large -button-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady -Narborough's drawing-room by bowing servants. His forehead was throbbing -with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his manner -as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as ever. -Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to play a part. -Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could have believed -that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any tragedy of our age. -Those finely shaped fingers could never have clutched a knife for sin, -nor those smiling lips have cried out on God and goodness. He himself -could not help wondering at the calm of his demeanour, and for a moment -felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life. - -It was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, -who was a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe -as the remains of really remarkable ugliness. She had proved -an excellent wife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having -buried her husband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she -had herself designed, and married off her daughters to some rich, -rather elderly men, she devoted herself now to the pleasures -of French fiction, French cookery, and French esprit when she could -get it. - -Dorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him -that she was extremely glad she had not met him in early life. -"I know, my dear, I should have fallen madly in love with you," -she used to say, "and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake. -It is most fortunate that you were not thought of at the time. -As it was, our bonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were -so occupied in trying to raise the wind, that I never had even a -flirtation with anybody. However, that was all Narborough's fault. -He was dreadfully short-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking -in a husband who never sees anything." - -Her guests this evening were rather tedious. The fact was, -as she explained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, -one of her married daughters had come up quite suddenly to stay -with her, and, to make matters worse, had actually brought her -husband with her. "I think it is most unkind of her, my dear," -she whispered. "Of course I go and stay with them every summer -after I come from Homburg, but then an old woman like me must -have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake them up. -You don't know what an existence they lead down there. -It is pure unadulterated country life. They get up early, -because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, -because they have so little to think about. There has not been -a scandal in the neighbourhood since the time of Queen Elizabeth, -and consequently they all fall asleep after dinner. -You shan't sit next either of them. You shall sit by me and -amuse me." - -Dorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round -the room. Yes: it was certainly a tedious party. -Two of the people he had never seen before, and the others -consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those middle-aged -mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies, -but are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, -an overdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, -who was always trying to get herself compromised, but was -so peculiarly plain that to her great disappointment no -one would ever believe anything against her; Mrs. Erlynne, -a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and Venetian-red hair; -Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy dull girl, -with one of those characteristic British faces that, once seen, -are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked, -white-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, -was under the impression that inordinate joviality can atone for -an entire lack of ideas. - -He was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, -looking at the great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy -curves on the mauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed: "How horrid -of Henry Wotton to be so late! I sent round to him this morning -on chance and he promised faithfully not to disappoint me." - -It was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door opened -and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some insincere apology, -he ceased to feel bored. - -But at dinner he could not eat anything. Plate after plate went -away untasted. Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she -called "an insult to poor Adolphe, who invented the menu -specially for you," and now and then Lord Henry looked across -at him, wondering at his silence and abstracted manner. -From time to time the butler filled his glass with champagne. -He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase. - -"Dorian," said Lord Henry at last, as the chaud-froid was being handed round, -"what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of sorts." - -"I believe he is in love," cried Lady Narborough, "and that he is -afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous. He is quite right. -I certainly should." - -"Dear Lady Narborough," murmured Dorian, smiling, "I have not been in love -for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town." - -"How you men can fall in love with that woman!" exclaimed the old lady. -"I really cannot understand it." - -"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl, -Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry. "She is the one link between us -and your short frocks." - -"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry. -But I remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, -and how decolletee she was then." - -"She is still decolletee," he answered, taking an olive in his long fingers; -"and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an edition de luxe -of a bad French novel. She is really wonderful, and full of surprises. -Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. When her third husband -died, her hair turned quite gold from grief." - -"How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian. - -"It is a most romantic explanation," laughed the hostess. -"But her third husband, Lord Henry! You don't mean to say Ferrol -is the fourth?" - -"Certainly, Lady Narborough." - -"I don't believe a word of it." - -"Well, ask Mr. Gray. He is one of her most intimate friends." - -"Is it true, Mr. Gray?" - -"She assures me so, Lady Narborough," said Dorian. "I asked her whether, -like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at -her girdle. She told me she didn't, because none of them had had any -hearts at all." - -"Four husbands! Upon my word that is trop de zele." - -"Trop d'audace, I tell her," said Dorian. - -"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? -I don't know him." - -"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes," -said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. - -Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. "Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised -that the world says that you are extremely wicked." - -"But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. -"It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent terms." - -"Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady, -shaking her head. - -Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly monstrous," -he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying things against one -behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true." - -"Isn't he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. - -"I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, -if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, -I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion." - -"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry. -"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is -because she detested her first husband. When a man marries again, -it is because he adored his first wife. Women try their luck; -men risk theirs." - -"Narborough wasn't perfect," cried the old lady. - -"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," -was the rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. -If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, -even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again -after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is -quite true." - -"Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for -your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be married. -You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, that that -would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, -and all the bachelors like married men." - -"Fin de siecle," murmured Lord Henry. - -"Fin du globe," answered his hostess. - -"I wish it were fin du globe," said Dorian with a sigh. -"Life is a great disappointment." - -"Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, -"don't tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that -one knows that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, -and I sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good-- -you look so good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don't you -think that Mr. Gray should get married?" - -"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry with a bow. - -"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. -I shall go through Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list -of all the eligible young ladies." - -"With their ages, Lady Narborough?" asked Dorian. - -"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done -in a hurry. I want it to be what The Morning Post calls a suitable alliance, -and I want you both to be happy." - -"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord Henry. -"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her." - -"Ah! what a cynic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair -and nodding to Lady Ruxton. "You must come and dine with me soon again. -You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir Andrew prescribes -for me. You must tell me what people you would like to meet, though. I want -it to be a delightful gathering." - -"I like men who have a future and women who have a past," he answered. -"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?" - -"I fear so," she said, laughing, as she stood up. "A thousand pardons, -my dear Lady Ruxton," she added, "I didn't see you hadn't finished -your cigarette." - -"Never mind, Lady Narborough. I smoke a great deal too much. -I am going to limit myself, for the future." - -"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton," said Lord Henry. "Moderation is a fatal thing. -Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast." - -Lady Ruxton glanced at him curiously. "You must come and explain that to me -some afternoon, Lord Henry. It sounds a fascinating theory," she murmured, -as she swept out of the room. - -"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal," -cried Lady Narborough from the door. "If you do, we are sure to -squabble upstairs." - -The men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly -from the foot of the table and came up to the top. -Dorian Gray changed his seat and went and sat by Lord Henry. -Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about the situation -in the House of Commons. He guffawed at his adversaries. -The word doctrinaire--word full of terror to the British mind-- -reappeared from time to time between his explosions. -An alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory. -He hoisted the Union Jack on the pinnacles of thought. -The inherited stupidity of the race--sound English common sense -he jovially termed it--was shown to be the proper bulwark -for society. - -A smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at Dorian. - -"Are you better, my dear fellow?" he asked. "You seemed rather -out of sorts at dinner." - -"I am quite well, Harry. I am tired. That is all." - -"You were charming last night. The little duchess is quite devoted to you. -She tells me she is going down to Selby." - -"She has promised to come on the twentieth." - -"Is Monmouth to be there, too?" - -"Oh, yes, Harry." - -"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her. She is very clever, -too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness. -It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image precious. Her feet -are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay. White porcelain feet, -if you like. They have been through the fire, and what fire does not destroy, -it hardens. She has had experiences." - -"How long has she been married?" asked Dorian. - -"An eternity, she tells me. I believe, according to the peerage, -it is ten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity, -with time thrown in. Who else is coming?" - -"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, -Geoffrey Clouston, the usual set. I have asked Lord Grotrian." - -"I like him," said Lord Henry. "A great many people don't, but I find -him charming. He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed -by being always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type." - -"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry. He may have to go to Monte -Carlo with his father." - -"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are! Try and make him come. -By the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night. -You left before eleven. What did you do afterwards? Did you go -straight home?" - -Dorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned. - -"No, Harry," he said at last, "I did not get home till nearly three." - -"Did you go to the club?" - -"Yes," he answered. Then he bit his lip. "No, I don't mean that. -I didn't go to the club. I walked about. I forget what I did. -. . . How inquisitive you are, Harry! You always want to know what -one has been doing. I always want to forget what I have been doing. -I came in at half-past two, if you wish to know the exact time. -I had left my latch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in. -If you want any corroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask -him." - -Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, as if I cared! -Let us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman. -Something has happened to you, Dorian. Tell me what it is. -You are not yourself to-night." - -"Don't mind me, Harry. I am irritable, and out of temper. -I shall come round and see you to-morrow, or next day. -Make my excuses to Lady Narborough. I shan't go upstairs. -I shall go home. I must go home." - -"All right, Dorian. I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time. -The duchess is coming." - -"I will try to be there, Harry," he said, leaving the room. -As he drove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense -of terror he thought he had strangled had come back to him. -Lord Henry's casual questioning had made him lose his -nerves for the moment, and he wanted his nerve still. -Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed. He winced. -He hated the idea of even touching them. - -Yet it had to be done. He realized that, and when he had -locked the door of his library, he opened the secret press -into which he had thrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag. -A huge fire was blazing. He piled another log on it. -The smell of the singeing clothes and burning leather was horrible. -It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume everything. -At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some Algerian -pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and -forehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar. - -Suddenly he started. His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed -nervously at his underlip. Between two of the windows stood a large -Florentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue lapis. -He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate and make afraid, -as though it held something that he longed for and yet almost loathed. -His breath quickened. A mad craving came over him. He lit a cigarette -and then threw it away. His eyelids drooped till the long fringed -lashes almost touched his cheek. But he still watched the cabinet. -At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been lying, -went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden spring. -A triangular drawer passed slowly out. His fingers moved instinctively -towards it, dipped in, and closed on something. It was a small -Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought, -the sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with -round crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads. He opened it. -Inside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy -and persistent. - -He hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his face. -Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly hot, he drew -himself up and glanced at the clock. It was twenty minutes to twelve. -He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as he did so, and went into -his bedroom. - -As midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray, -dressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, -crept quietly out of his house. In Bond Street he found a hansom -with a good horse. He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver -an address. - -The man shook his head. "It is too far for me," he muttered. - -"Here is a sovereign for you," said Dorian. "You shall have another if you -drive fast." - -"All right, sir," answered the man, "you will be there in an hour," -and after his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove -rapidly towards the river. - - - -CHAPTER 16 - -A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly -in the dripping mist. The public-houses were just closing, and dim -men and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors. -From some of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter. In others, -drunkards brawled and screamed. - -Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, -Dorian Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame -of the great city, and now and then he repeated to himself -the words that Lord Henry had said to him on the first day -they had met, "To cure the soul by means of the senses, -and the senses by means of the soul." Yes, that was the secret. -He had often tried it, and would try it again now. -There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror -where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness -of sins that were new. - -The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. From time to time -a huge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it. -The gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy. -Once the man lost his way and had to drive back half a mile. -A steam rose from the horse as it splashed up the puddles. -The sidewindows of the hansom were clogged with a grey-flannel mist. - -"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses -by means of the soul!" How the words rang in his ears! -His soul, certainly, was sick to death. Was it true that -the senses could cure it? Innocent blood had been spilled. -What could atone for that? Ah! for that there was no atonement; -but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness was -possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp -the thing out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that -had stung one. Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken -to him as he had done? Who had made him a judge over others? -He had said things that were dreadful, horrible, not to -be endured. - -On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, -at each step. He thrust up the trap and called to the man -to drive faster. The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw -at him. His throat burned and his delicate hands twitched -nervously together. He struck at the horse madly with his stick. -The driver laughed and whipped up. He laughed in answer, -and the man was silent. - -The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black -web of some sprawling spider. The monotony became unbearable, -and as the mist thickened, he felt afraid. - -Then they passed by lonely brickfields. The fog was lighter here, -and he could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange, -fanlike tongues of fire. A dog barked as they went by, -and far away in the darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed. -The horse stumbled in a rut, then swerved aside and broke into -a gallop. - -After some time they left the clay road and rattled again -over rough-paven streets. Most of the windows were dark, -but now and then fantastic shadows were silhouetted against -some lamplit blind. He watched them curiously. They moved -like monstrous marionettes and made gestures like live things. -He hated them. A dull rage was in his heart. As they turned -a corner, a woman yelled something at them from an open door, -and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred yards. -The driver beat at them with his whip. - -It is said that passion makes one think in a circle. -Certainly with hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray -shaped and reshaped those subtle words that dealt with soul -and sense, till he had found in them the full expression, -as it were, of his mood, and justified, by intellectual approval, -passions that without such justification would still have -dominated his temper. From cell to cell of his brain crept -the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible -of all man's appetites, quickened into force each trembling -nerve and fibre. Ugliness that had once been hateful -to him because it made things real, became dear to him -now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one reality. -The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence -of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, -were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, -than all the gracious shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. -They were what he needed for forgetfulness. In three days he would -be free. - -Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. -Over the low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose -the black masts of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly -sails to the yards. - -"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?" he asked huskily through the trap. - -Dorian started and peered round. "This will do," he answered, -and having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare -he had promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. -Here and there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. -The light shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from -an outward-bound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked -like a wet mackintosh. - -He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see -if he was being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached -a small shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. -In one of the top-windows stood a lamp. He stopped and gave a -peculiar knock. - -After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain -being unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without -saying a word to the squat misshapen figure that flattened -itself into the shadow as he passed. At the end of the hall -hung a tattered green curtain that swayed and shook in -the gusty wind which had followed him in from the street. -He dragged it aside and entered a long low room which looked -as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill -flaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors -that faced them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors -of ribbed tin backed them, making quivering disks of light. -The floor was covered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here -and there into mud, and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor. -Some Malays were crouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with -bone counters and showing their white teeth as they chattered. -In one corner, with his head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled -over a table, and by the tawdrily painted bar that ran across one -complete side stood two haggard women, mocking an old man who was -brushing the sleeves of his coat with an expression of disgust. -"He thinks he's got red ants on him," laughed one of them, -as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her in terror and began -to whimper. - -At the end of the room there was a little staircase, -leading to a darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its -three rickety steps, the heavy odour of opium met him. -He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils quivered with pleasure. -When he entered, a young man with smooth yellow hair, who was -bending over a lamp lighting a long thin pipe, looked up at him -and nodded in a hesitating manner. - -"You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian. - -"Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly. "None of the chaps -will speak to me now." - -"I thought you had left England." - -"Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at last. -George doesn't speak to me either. . . . I don't care," he added -with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends. -I think I have had too many friends." - -Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that -lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. -The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, -fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, -and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. -They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. -Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time -to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. -Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton -troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. -He wanted to escape from himself. - -"I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. - -"On the wharf?" - -"Yes." - -"That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won't have her in this place now." - -Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. -Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff -is better." - -"Much the same." - -"I like it better. Come and have something to drink. -I must have something." - -"I don't want anything," murmured the young man. - -"Never mind." - -Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. -A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a -hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers -in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. -Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to -Adrian Singleton. - -A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one -of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. - -"For God's sake don't talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his -foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. -Don't ever talk to me again." - -Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, -then flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed -her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. -Her companion watched her enviously. - -"It's no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don't care to go back. -What does it matter? I am quite happy here." - -"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?" said Dorian, -after a pause. - -"Perhaps." - -"Good night, then." - -"Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping -his parched mouth with a handkerchief. - -Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. -As he drew the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from -the painted lips of the woman who had taken his money. -"There goes the devil's bargain!" she hiccoughed, in a -hoarse voice. - -"Curse you!" he answered, "don't call me that." - -She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be called, -ain't it?" she yelled after him. - -The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly round. -The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He rushed out as -if in pursuit. - -Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. -His meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered -if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, -as Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. -He bit his lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. -Yet, after all, what did it matter to him? One's days were too -brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. -Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. -The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. -One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, -destiny never closed her accounts. - -There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for -what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of the body, -as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. -Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move -to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, -and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give -rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm. For all sins, -as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. -When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell from heaven, it was -as a rebel that he fell. - -Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul -hungry for rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his -step as he went, but as he darted aside into a dim archway, -that had served him often as a short cut to the ill-famed place -where he was going, he felt himself suddenly seized from behind, -and before he had time to defend himself, he was thrust back -against the wall, with a brutal hand round his throat. - -He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched -the tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click -of a revolver, and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, -pointing straight at his head, and the dusky form of a short, -thick-set man facing him. - -"What do you want?" he gasped. - -"Keep quiet," said the man. "If you stir, I shoot you." - -"You are mad. What have I done to you?" - -"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, -"and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. -Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return. -For years I have sought you. I had no clue, no trace. -The two people who could have described you were dead. -I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call you. -I heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, -for to-night you are going to die." - -Dorian Gray grew sick with fear. "I never knew her," he stammered. -"I never heard of her. You are mad." - -"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, -you are going to die." There was a horrible moment. Dorian did -not know what to say or do. "Down on your knees!" growled the man. -"I give you one minute to make your peace--no more. I go on board -to-night for India, and I must do my job first. One minute. -That's all." - -Dorian's arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he did not -know what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. -"Stop," he cried. "How long ago is it since your sister died? -Quick, tell me!" - -"Eighteen years," said the man. "Why do you ask me? -What do years matter?" - -"Eighteen years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his voice. -"Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face!" - -James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant. -Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway. - -Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show -him the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, -for the face of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom -of boyhood, all the unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more -than a lad of twenty summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, -than his sister had been when they had parted so many years ago. -It was obvious that this was not the man who had destroyed -her life. - -He loosened his hold and reeled back. "My God! my God!" -he cried, "and I would have murdered you!" - -Dorian Gray drew a long breath. "You have been on the brink of -committing a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at him sternly. -"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your -own hands." - -"Forgive me, sir," muttered James Vane. "I was deceived. -A chance word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track." - -"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get -into trouble," said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly -down the street. - -James Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling -from head to foot. After a little while, a black shadow -that had been creeping along the dripping wall moved out into -the light and came close to him with stealthy footsteps. -He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked round with a start. -It was one of the women who had been drinking at the bar. - -"Why didn't you kill him?" she hissed out, putting haggard face -quite close to his. "I knew you were following him when you -rushed out from Daly's. You fool! You should have killed him. -He has lots of money, and he's as bad as bad." - -"He is not the man I am looking for," he answered, "and I want -no man's money. I want a man's life. The man whose life I want -must be nearly forty now. This one is little more than a boy. -Thank God, I have not got his blood upon my hands." - -The woman gave a bitter laugh. "Little more than a boy!" she sneered. -"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me what -I am." - -"You lie!" cried James Vane. - -She raised her hand up to heaven. "Before God I am telling the truth," -she cried. - -"Before God?" - -"Strike me dumb if it ain't so. He is the worst one that comes here. -They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. It's nigh -on eighteen years since I met him. He hasn't changed much since then. -I have, though," she added, with a sickly leer. - -"You swear this?" - -"I swear it," came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth. -"But don't give me away to him," she whined; "I am afraid of him. -Let me have some money for my night's lodging." - -He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street, -but Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked back, the woman had -vanished also. - - - -CHAPTER 17 - -A week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby Royal, -talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband, -a jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests. -It was tea-time, and the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp -that stood on the table lit up the delicate china and hammered -silver of the service at which the duchess was presiding. -Her white hands were moving daintily among the cups, and her full red -lips were smiling at something that Dorian had whispered to her. -Lord Henry was lying back in a silk-draped wicker chair, looking at them. -On a peach-coloured divan sat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen -to the duke's description of the last Brazilian beetle that he had -added to his collection. Three young men in elaborate smoking-suits -were handing tea-cakes to some of the women. The house-party -consisted of twelve people, and there were more expected to arrive on -the next day. - -"What are you two talking about?" said Lord Henry, strolling over to -the table and putting his cup down. "I hope Dorian has told you about -my plan for rechristening everything, Gladys. It is a delightful idea." - -"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry," rejoined the duchess, -looking up at him with her wonderful eyes. "I am quite satisfied -with my own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied -with his." - -"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world. -They are both perfect. I was thinking chiefly of flowers. -Yesterday I cut an orchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous -spotted thing, as effective as the seven deadly sins. -In a thoughtless moment I asked one of the gardeners what it -was called. He told me it was a fine specimen of Robinsoniana, -or something dreadful of that kind. It is a sad truth, -but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. -Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. -My one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar -realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade -should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit -for." - -"Then what should we call you, Harry?" she asked. - -"His name is Prince Paradox," said Dorian. - -"I recognize him in a flash," exclaimed the duchess. - -"I won't hear of it," laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair. -"From a label there is no escape! I refuse the title." - -"Royalties may not abdicate," fell as a warning from pretty lips. - -"You wish me to defend my throne, then?" - -"Yes." - -"I give the truths of to-morrow." - -"I prefer the mistakes of to-day," she answered. - -"You disarm me, Gladys," he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood. - -"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear." - -"I never tilt against beauty," he said, with a wave of his hand. - -"That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much." - -"How can you say that? I admit that I think that it is better -to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, -no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better -to be good than to be ugly." - -"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?" cried the duchess. -"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?" - -"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, -must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have -made our England what she is." - -"You don't like your country, then?" she asked. - -"I live in it." - -"That you may censure it the better." - -"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?" he inquired. - -"What do they say of us?" - -"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop." - -"Is that yours, Harry?" - -"I give it to you." - -"I could not use it. It is too true." - -"You need not be afraid. Our countrymen never recognize a description." - -"They are practical." - -"They are more cunning than practical. When they make up their ledger, -they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy." - -"Still, we have done great things." - -"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys." - -"We have carried their burden." - -"Only as far as the Stock Exchange." - -She shook her head. "I believe in the race," she cried. - -"It represents the survival of the pushing." - -"It has development." - -"Decay fascinates me more." - -"What of art?" she asked. - -"It is a malady." - -"Love?" - -"An illusion." - -"Religion?" - -"The fashionable substitute for belief." - -"You are a sceptic." - -"Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith." - -"What are you?" - -"To define is to limit." - -"Give me a clue." - -"Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth." - -"You bewilder me. Let us talk of some one else." - -"Our host is a delightful topic. Years ago he was christened -Prince Charming." - -"Ah! don't remind me of that," cried Dorian Gray. - -"Our host is rather horrid this evening," answered the duchess, colouring. -"I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely scientific principles -as the best specimen he could find of a modern butterfly." - -"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess," laughed Dorian. - -"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me." - -"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?" - -"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you. -Usually because I come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her -that I must be dressed by half-past eight." - -"How unreasonable of her! You should give her warning." - -"I daren't, Mr. Gray. Why, she invents hats for me. -You remember the one I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party? -You don't, but it is nice of you to pretend that you do. -Well, she made if out of nothing. All good hats are made out -of nothing." - -"Like all good reputations, Gladys," interrupted Lord Henry. -"Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. -To be popular one must be a mediocrity." - -"Not with women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women -rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. -We women, as some one says, love with our ears, just as you men -love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." - -"It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmured Dorian. - -"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray," answered the duchess -with mock sadness. - -"My dear Gladys!" cried Lord Henry. "How can you say that? -Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an -appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is -the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does -not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. -We can have in life but one great experience at best, -and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often -as possible." - -"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the duchess -after a pause. - -"Especially when one has been wounded by it," answered Lord Henry. - -The duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious -expression in her eyes. "What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?" -she inquired. - -Dorian hesitated for a moment. Then he threw his head back and laughed. -"I always agree with Harry, Duchess." - -"Even when he is wrong?" - -"Harry is never wrong, Duchess." - -"And does his philosophy make you happy?" - -"I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? -I have searched for pleasure." - -"And found it, Mr. Gray?" - -"Often. Too often." - -The duchess sighed. "I am searching for peace," she said, -"and if I don't go and dress, I shall have none this evening." - -"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess," cried Dorian, starting to his feet -and walking down the conservatory. - -"You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his cousin. -"You had better take care. He is very fascinating." - -"If he were not, there would be no battle." - -"Greek meets Greek, then?" - -"I am on the side of the Trojans. They fought for a woman." - -"They were defeated." - -"There are worse things than capture," she answered. - -"You gallop with a loose rein." - -"Pace gives life," was the riposte. - -"I shall write it in my diary to-night." - -"What?" - -"That a burnt child loves the fire." - -"I am not even singed. My wings are untouched." - -"You use them for everything, except flight." - -"Courage has passed from men to women. It is a new experience for us." - -"You have a rival." - -"Who?" - -He laughed. "Lady Narborough," he whispered. "She perfectly adores him." - -"You fill me with apprehension. The appeal to antiquity is fatal -to us who are romanticists." - -"Romanticists! You have all the methods of science." - -"Men have educated us." - -"But not explained you." - -"Describe us as a sex," was her challenge. - -"Sphinxes without secrets." - -She looked at him, smiling. "How long Mr. Gray is!" she said. -"Let us go and help him. I have not yet told him the colour of -my frock." - -"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys." - -"That would be a premature surrender." - -"Romantic art begins with its climax." - -"I must keep an opportunity for retreat." - -"In the Parthian manner?" - -"They found safety in the desert. I could not do that." - -"Women are not always allowed a choice," he answered, but hardly had -he finished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory -came a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall. -Everybody started up. The duchess stood motionless in horror. -And with fear in his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping -palms to find Dorian Gray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a -deathlike swoon. - -He was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid -upon one of the sofas. After a short time, he came to himself -and looked round with a dazed expression. - -"What has happened?" he asked. "Oh! I remember. Am I safe here, Harry?" -He began to tremble. - -"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, "you merely fainted. That was all. -You must have overtired yourself. You had better not come down to dinner. -I will take your place." - -"No, I will come down," he said, struggling to his feet. -"I would rather come down. I must not be alone." - -He went to his room and dressed. There was a wild recklessness -of gaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then -a thrill of terror ran through him when he remembered that, -pressed against the window of the conservatory, like a -white handkerchief, he had seen the face of James Vane watching him. - - - -CHAPTER 18 - -The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most -of the time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, -and yet indifferent to life itself. The consciousness of -being hunted, snared, tracked down, had begun to dominate him. -If the tapestry did but tremble in the wind, he shook. -The dead leaves that were blown against the leaded panes seemed -to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild regrets. -When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face peering -through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to lay its -hand upon his heart. - -But perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out -of the night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him. -Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical -in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse -to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made -each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world -of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. -Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. -That was all. Besides, had any stranger been prowling round -the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the keepers. -Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the gardeners -would have reported it. Yes, it had been merely fancy. -Sibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him. -He had sailed away in his ship to founder in some winter sea. -From him, at any rate, he was safe. Why, the man did not know -who he was, could not know who he was. The mask of youth had -saved him. - -And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it -was to think that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, -and give them visible form, and make them move before one! -What sort of life would his be if, day and night, -shadows of his crime were to peer at him from silent corners, -to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear as he sat -at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep! -As the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, -and the air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder. -Oh! in what a wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! -How ghastly the mere memory of the scene! He saw it all again. -Each hideous detail came back to him with added horror. -Out of the black cave of time, terrible and swathed in scarlet, -rose the image of his sin. When Lord Henry came in at -six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will -break. - -It was not till the third day that he ventured to go out. -There was something in the clear, pine-scented air of that -winter morning that seemed to bring him back his joyousness -and his ardour for life. But it was not merely the physical -conditions of environment that had caused the change. -His own nature had revolted against the excess of anguish -that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm. -With subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so. -Their strong passions must either bruise or bend. They either -slay the man, or themselves die. Shallow sorrows and shallow -loves live on. The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed -by their own plenitude. Besides, he had convinced himself that -he had been the victim of a terror-stricken imagination, and looked -back now on his fears with something of pity and not a little -of contempt. - -After breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden -and then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp frost -lay like salt upon the grass. The sky was an inverted cup of blue metal. -A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake. - -At the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey Clouston, -the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of his gun. -He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take the mare home, -made his way towards his guest through the withered bracken and -rough undergrowth. - -"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?" he asked. - -"Not very good, Dorian. I think most of the birds have gone to the open. -I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new ground." - -Dorian strolled along by his side. The keen aromatic air, -the brown and red lights that glimmered in the wood, -the hoarse cries of the beaters ringing out from time to time, -and the sharp snaps of the guns that followed, fascinated him -and filled him with a sense of delightful freedom. -He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the high -indifference of joy. - -Suddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front -of them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing -it forward, started a hare. It bolted for a thicket of alders. -Sir Geoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something -in the animal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, -and he cried out at once, "Don't shoot it, Geoffrey. Let it live." - -"What nonsense, Dorian!" laughed his companion, and as the hare -bounded into the thicket, he fired. There were two cries heard, -the cry of a hare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, -which is worse. - -"Good heavens! I have hit a beater!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. -"What an ass the man was to get in front of the guns! -Stop shooting there!" he called out at the top of his voice. -"A man is hurt." - -The head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand. - -"Where, sir? Where is he?" he shouted. At the same time, -the firing ceased along the line. - -"Here," answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket. -"Why on earth don't you keep your men back? Spoiled my shooting for -the day." - -Dorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, -brushing the lithe swinging branches aside. In a few moments -they emerged, dragging a body after them into the sunlight. -He turned away in horror. It seemed to him that misfortune -followed wherever he went. He heard Sir Geoffrey ask if the man -was really dead, and the affirmative answer of the keeper. -The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with faces. -There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of voices. -A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the -boughs overhead. - -After a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, -like endless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. -He started and looked round. - -"Dorian," said Lord Henry, "I had better tell them that the shooting -is stopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on." - -"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry," he answered bitterly. -"The whole thing is hideous and cruel. Is the man ... ?" - -He could not finish the sentence. - -"I am afraid so," rejoined Lord Henry. "He got the whole charge of shot -in his chest. He must have died almost instantaneously. Come; let us -go home." - -They walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly fifty -yards without speaking. Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and said, -with a heavy sigh, "It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen." - -"What is?" asked Lord Henry. "Oh! this accident, I suppose. -My dear fellow, it can't be helped. It was the man's own fault. -Why did he get in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. -It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to -pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot. -And Geoffrey is not; he shoots very straight. But there is no use talking -about the matter." - -Dorian shook his head. "It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel -as if something horrible were going to happen to some of us. -To myself, perhaps," he added, passing his hand over his eyes, -with a gesture of pain. - -The elder man laughed. "The only horrible thing in the world -is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is -no forgiveness. But we are not likely to suffer from it unless -these fellows keep chattering about this thing at dinner. -I must tell them that the subject is to be tabooed. -As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. -Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel -for that. Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? -You have everything in the world that a man can want. -There is no one who would not be delighted to change places -with you." - -"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry. -Don't laugh like that. I am telling you the truth. The wretched -peasant who has just died is better off than I am. I have no -terror of death. It is the coming of death that terrifies me. -Its monstrous wings seem to wheel in the leaden air around me. -Good heavens! don't you see a man moving behind the trees there, -watching me, waiting for me?" - -Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand -was pointing. "Yes," he said, smiling, "I see the gardener waiting for you. -I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on the table -to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You must come -and see my doctor, when we get back to town." - -Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching. -The man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a -hesitating manner, and then produced a letter, which he handed -to his master. "Her Grace told me to wait for an answer," -he murmured. - -Dorian put the letter into his pocket. "Tell her Grace that I am coming in," -he said, coldly. The man turned round and went rapidly in the direction of -the house. - -"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!" laughed Lord Henry. -"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most. A woman -will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are -looking on." - -"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry! In the present instance, -you are quite astray. I like the duchess very much, but I don't love her." - -"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, -so you are excellently matched." - -"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for scandal." - -"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty," said Lord Henry, -lighting a cigarette. - -"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram." - -"The world goes to the altar of its own accord," was the answer. - -"I wish I could love," cried Dorian Gray with a deep note -of pathos in his voice. "But I seem to have lost the passion -and forgotten the desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. -My own personality has become a burden to me. I want to escape, -to go away, to forget. It was silly of me to come down here at all. -I think I shall send a wire to Harvey to have the yacht got ready. -On a yacht one is safe." - -"Safe from what, Dorian? You are in some trouble. Why not tell -me what it is? You know I would help you." - -"I can't tell you, Harry," he answered sadly. "And I dare say it -is only a fancy of mine. This unfortunate accident has upset me. -I have a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen -to me." - -"What nonsense!" - -"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it. Ah! here is -the duchess, looking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown. -You see we have come back, Duchess." - -"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray," she answered. "Poor Geoffrey is -terribly upset. And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare. -How curious!" - -"Yes, it was very curious. I don't know what made me say it. -Some whim, I suppose. It looked the loveliest of little -live things. But I am sorry they told you about the man. -It is a hideous subject." - -"It is an annoying subject," broke in Lord Henry. "It has no psychological -value at all. Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on purpose, how interesting -he would be! I should like to know some one who had committed a real murder." - -"How horrid of you, Harry!" cried the duchess. "Isn't it, -Mr. Gray? Harry, Mr. Gray is ill again. He is going to faint." - -Dorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled. "It is nothing, Duchess," -he murmured; "my nerves are dreadfully out of order. That is all. -I am afraid I walked too far this morning. I didn't hear what Harry said. -Was it very bad? You must tell me some other time. I think I must go and -lie down. You will excuse me, won't you?" - -They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the conservatory -on to the terrace. As the glass door closed behind Dorian, Lord Henry turned -and looked at the duchess with his slumberous eyes. "Are you very much -in love with him?" he asked. - -She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape. -"I wish I knew," she said at last. - -He shook his head. "Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty -that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful." - -"One may lose one's way." - -"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys." - -"What is that?" - -"Disillusion." - -"It was my debut in life," she sighed. - -"It came to you crowned." - -"I am tired of strawberry leaves." - -"They become you." - -"Only in public." - -"You would miss them," said Lord Henry. - -"I will not part with a petal." - -"Monmouth has ears." - -"Old age is dull of hearing." - -"Has he never been jealous?" - -"I wish he had been." - -He glanced about as if in search of something. "What are you looking for?" -she inquired. - -"The button from your foil," he answered. "You have dropped it." - -She laughed. "I have still the mask." - -"It makes your eyes lovelier," was his reply. - -She laughed again. Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet fruit. - -Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, -with terror in every tingling fibre of his body. Life had suddenly -become too hideous a burden for him to bear. The dreadful death -of the unlucky beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, -had seemed to him to pre-figure death for himself also. -He had nearly swooned at what Lord Henry had said in a chance mood -of cynical jesting. - -At five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave -him orders to pack his things for the night-express to town, -and to have the brougham at the door by eight-thirty. He -was determined not to sleep another night at Selby Royal. -It was an ill-omened place. Death walked there in the sunlight. -The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood. - -Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to town -to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in his absence. -As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to the door, and his -valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see him. He frowned and bit -his lip. "Send him in," he muttered, after some moments' hesitation. - -As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a drawer -and spread it out before him. - -"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident -of this morning, Thornton?" he said, taking up a pen. - -"Yes, sir," answered the gamekeeper. - -"Was the poor fellow married? Had he any people dependent on him?" -asked Dorian, looking bored. "If so, I should not like them to be left -in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary." - -"We don't know who he is, sir. That is what I took the liberty -of coming to you about." - -"Don't know who he is?" said Dorian, listlessly. "What do you mean? -Wasn't he one of your men?" - -"No, sir. Never saw him before. Seems like a sailor, sir." - -The pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his -heart had suddenly stopped beating. "A sailor?" he cried out. -"Did you say a sailor?" - -"Yes, sir. He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; -tattooed on both arms, and that kind of thing." - -"Was there anything found on him?" said Dorian, leaning forward and looking -at the man with startled eyes. "Anything that would tell his name?" - -"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any kind. -A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we think." - -Dorian started to his feet. A terrible hope fluttered past him. -He clutched at it madly. "Where is the body?" he exclaimed. -"Quick! I must see it at once." - -"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir. The folk -don't like to have that sort of thing in their houses. -They say a corpse brings bad luck." - -"The Home Farm! Go there at once and meet me. Tell one of the grooms -to bring my horse round. No. Never mind. I'll go to the stables myself. -It will save time." - -In less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the long -avenue as hard as he could go. The trees seemed to sweep past him in -spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his path. -Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him. He lashed -her across the neck with his crop. She cleft the dusky air like an arrow. -The stones flew from her hoofs. - -At last he reached the Home Farm. Two men were loitering in the yard. -He leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them. -In the farthest stable a light was glimmering. Something seemed -to tell him that the body was there, and he hurried to the door -and put his hand upon the latch. - -There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink -of a discovery that would either make or mar his life. -Then he thrust the door open and entered. - -On a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body -of a man dressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers. -A spotted handkerchief had been placed over the face. -A coarse candle, stuck in a bottle, sputtered beside it. - -Dorian Gray shuddered. He felt that his could not be the hand to take -the handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to come -to him. - -"Take that thing off the face. I wish to see it," he said, -clutching at the door-post for support. - -When the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward. -A cry of joy broke from his lips. The man who had been shot in -the thicket was James Vane. - -He stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body. -As he rode home, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew -he was safe. - - -CHAPTER 19 - -"There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good," -cried Lord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl -filled with rose-water. "You are quite perfect. Pray, don't change." - -Dorian Gray shook his head. "No, Harry, I have done too many -dreadful things in my life. I am not going to do any more. -I began my good actions yesterday." - -"Where were you yesterday?" - -"In the country, Harry. I was staying at a little inn by myself." - -"My dear boy," said Lord Henry, smiling, "anybody can be good in the country. -There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out -of town are so absolutely uncivilized. Civilization is not by any means an -easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. -One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no -opportunity of being either, so they stagnate." - -"Culture and corruption," echoed Dorian. "I have known something of both. -It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found together. -For I have a new ideal, Harry. I am going to alter. I think I -have altered." - -"You have not yet told me what your good action was. -Or did you say you had done more than one?" asked his companion -as he spilled into his plate a little crimson pyramid of seeded -strawberries and, through a perforated, shell-shaped spoon, -snowed white sugar upon them. - -"I can tell you, Harry. It is not a story I could tell to any one else. -I spared somebody. It sounds vain, but you understand what I mean. -She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane. I think it was -that which first attracted me to her. You remember Sibyl, don't you? -How long ago that seems! Well, Hetty was not one of our own class, -of course. She was simply a girl in a village. But I really loved her. -I am quite sure that I loved her. All during this wonderful May that we -have been having, I used to run down and see her two or three times a week. -Yesterday she met me in a little orchard. The apple-blossoms kept tumbling -down on her hair, and she was laughing. We were to have gone away together -this morning at dawn. Suddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I -had found her." - -"I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you -a thrill of real pleasure, Dorian," interrupted Lord Henry. -"But I can finish your idyll for you. You gave her good advice -and broke her heart. That was the beginning of your reformation." - -"Harry, you are horrible! You mustn't say these dreadful things. -Hetty's heart is not broken. Of course, she cried and all that. -But there is no disgrace upon her. She can live, like Perdita, in her -garden of mint and marigold." - -"And weep over a faithless Florizel," said Lord Henry, -laughing, as he leaned back in his chair. "My dear Dorian, -you have the most curiously boyish moods. Do you think this girl -will ever be really content now with any one of her own rank? -I suppose she will be married some day to a rough carter -or a grinning ploughman. Well, the fact of having met you, -and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, -and she will be wretched. From a moral point of view, -I cannot say that I think much of your great renunciation. -Even as a beginning, it is poor. Besides, how do you know -that Hetty isn't floating at the present moment in some -starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies round her, -like Ophelia?" - -"I can't bear this, Harry! You mock at everything, and then -suggest the most serious tragedies. I am sorry I told you now. -I don't care what you say to me. I know I was right in acting -as I did. Poor Hetty! As I rode past the farm this morning, -I saw her white face at the window, like a spray of jasmine. -Don't let us talk about it any more, and don't try to persuade -me that the first good action I have done for years, -the first little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever known, -is really a sort of sin. I want to be better. -I am going to be better. Tell me something about yourself. -What is going on in town? I have not been to the club -for days." - -"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance." - -"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time," -said Dorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly. - -"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, -and the British public are really not equal to the mental -strain of having more than one topic every three months. -They have been very fortunate lately, however. They have -had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbell's suicide. -Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist. -Scotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster -who left for Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November -was poor Basil, and the French police declare that Basil never -arrived in Paris at all. I suppose in about a fortnight we shall -be told that he has been seen in San Francisco. It is an odd thing, -but every one who disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. -It must be a delightful city, and possess all the attractions -of the next world." - -"What do you think has happened to Basil?" asked Dorian, -holding up his Burgundy against the light and wondering how it -was that he could discuss the matter so calmly. - -"I have not the slightest idea. If Basil chooses to hide himself, -it is no business of mine. If he is dead, I don't want to think -about him. Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me. -I hate it." - -"Why?" said the younger man wearily. - -"Because," said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt trellis -of an open vinaigrette box, "one can survive everything nowadays except that. -Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one -cannot explain away. Let us have our coffee in the music-room, Dorian. -You must play Chopin to me. The man with whom my wife ran away played -Chopin exquisitely. Poor Victoria! I was very fond of her. The house -is rather lonely without her. Of course, married life is merely a habit, -a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. -Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of -one's personality." - -Dorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next room, -sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white and black -ivory of the keys. After the coffee had been brought in, he stopped, -and looking over at Lord Henry, said, "Harry, did it ever occur to you that -Basil was murdered?" - -Lord Henry yawned. "Basil was very popular, and always -wore a Waterbury watch. Why should he have been murdered? -He was not clever enough to have enemies. Of course, -he had a wonderful genius for painting. But a man can -paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as possible. -Basil was really rather dull. He only interested me once, -and that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild -adoration for you and that you were the dominant motive of -his art." - -"I was very fond of Basil," said Dorian with a note of sadness in his voice. -"But don't people say that he was murdered?" - -"Oh, some of the papers do. It does not seem to me to be at all probable. -I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not the sort of man -to have gone to them. He had no curiosity. It was his chief defect." - -"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?" -said the younger man. He watched him intently after he had spoken. - -"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character -that doesn't suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity -is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder. -I am sorry if I hurt your vanity by saying so, but I assure you -it is true. Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. -I don't blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that -crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring -extraordinary sensations." - -"A method of procuring sensations? Do you think, then, that a man -who has once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again? -Don't tell me that." - -"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often," -cried Lord Henry, laughing. "That is one of the most important secrets -of life. I should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. -One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner. -But let us pass from poor Basil. I wish I could believe that he had -come to such a really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I -dare say he fell into the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor -hushed up the scandal. Yes: I should fancy that was his end. -I see him lying now on his back under those dull-green waters, -with the heavy barges floating over him and long weeds catching -in his hair. Do you know, I don't think he would have done much -more good work. During the last ten years his painting had gone off -very much." - -Dorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room -and began to stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, -grey-plumaged bird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing -itself upon a bamboo perch. As his pointed fingers touched it, -it dropped the white scurf of crinkled lids over black, -glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards and forwards. - -"Yes," he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief -out of his pocket; "his painting had quite gone off. -It seemed to me to have lost something. It had lost an ideal. -When you and he ceased to be great friends, he ceased to be a -great artist. What was it separated you? I suppose he bored you. -If so, he never forgave you. It's a habit bores have. -By the way, what has become of that wonderful portrait -he did of you? I don't think I have ever seen it since -he finished it. Oh! I remember your telling me years ago -that you had sent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid -or stolen on the way. You never got it back? What a pity! -it was really a masterpiece. I remember I wanted to buy it. -I wish I had now. It belonged to Basil's best period. -Since then, his work was that curious mixture of bad painting -and good intentions that always entitles a man to be called -a representative British artist. Did you advertise for it? -You should." - -"I forget," said Dorian. "I suppose I did. But I never really liked it. -I am sorry I sat for it. The memory of the thing is hateful to me. -Why do you talk of it? It used to remind me of those curious lines -in some play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?-- - - "Like the painting of a sorrow, - A face without a heart." - -Yes: that is what it was like." - -Lord Henry laughed. "If a man treats life artistically, -his brain is his heart," he answered, sinking into an arm-chair. - -Dorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano. -"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'" he repeated, "'a face without -a heart.'" - -The elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes. -"By the way, Dorian," he said after a pause, "'what does it profit -a man if he gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?-- -his own soul'?" - -The music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend. -"Why do you ask me that, Harry?" - -"My dear fellow," said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise, -"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer. -That is all. I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by the -Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people listening -to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the man yelling -out that question to his audience. It struck me as being rather dramatic. -London is very rich in curious effects of that kind. A wet Sunday, -an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly white faces under -a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful phrase flung into -the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very good in its way, -quite a suggestion. I thought of telling the prophet that art had -a soul, but that man had not. I am afraid, however, he would not have -understood me." - -"Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, -and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. -There is a soul in each one of us. I know it." - -"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?" - -"Quite sure." - -"Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels -absolutely certain about are never true. That is the fatality -of faith, and the lesson of romance. How grave you are! -Don't be so serious. What have you or I to do with the superstitions -of our age? No: we have given up our belief in the soul. -Play me something. Play me a nocturne, Dorian, and, as you play, -tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept your youth. -You must have some secret. I am only ten years older than -you are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are -really wonderful, Dorian. You have never looked more charming -than you do to-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first. -You were rather cheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary. -You have changed, of course, but not in appearance. -I wish you would tell me your secret. To get back my youth -I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, -get up early, or be respectable. Youth! There is nothing -like it. It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth. -The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect -are people much younger than myself. They seem in front of me. -Life has revealed to them her latest wonder. As for the aged, -I always contradict the aged. I do it on principle. -If you ask them their opinion on something that happened yesterday, -they solemnly give you the opinions current in 1820, -when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew -absolutely nothing. How lovely that thing you are playing is! -I wonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping -round the villa and the salt spray dashing against the panes? -It is marvellously romantic. What a blessing it is -that there is one art left to us that is not imitative! -Don't stop. I want music to-night. It seems to me that you -are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you. -I have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of. -The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one -is young. I am amazed sometimes at my own sincerity. -Ah, Dorian, how happy you are! What an exquisite life -you have had! You have drunk deeply of everything. -You have crushed the grapes against your palate. Nothing has -been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more than -the sound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the -same." - -"I am not the same, Harry." - -"Yes, you are the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be. -Don't spoil it by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type. -Don't make yourself incomplete. You are quite flawless now. -You need not shake your head: you know you are. Besides, Dorian, -don't deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. -Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up -cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. -You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance -tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume -that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, -a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, -a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play-- -I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend. -Browning writes about that somewhere; but our own senses will imagine -them for us. There are moments when the odour of lilas blanc passes -suddenly across me, and I have to live the strangest month of my life -over again. I wish I could change places with you, Dorian. The world -has cried out against us both, but it has always worshipped you. -It always will worship you. You are the type of what the age -is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am -so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, -or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! -Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are -your sonnets." - -Dorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair. -"Yes, life has been exquisite," he murmured, "but I am not going -to have the same life, Harry. And you must not say these -extravagant things to me. You don't know everything about me. -I think that if you did, even you would turn from me. You laugh. -Don't laugh." - -"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go back and give me -the nocturne over again. Look at that great, honey-coloured moon -that hangs in the dusky air. She is waiting for you to charm her, -and if you play she will come closer to the earth. You won't? -Let us go to the club, then. It has been a charming evening, -and we must end it charmingly. There is some one at White's who wants -immensely to know you--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son. -He has already copied your neckties, and has begged me to introduce -him to you. He is quite delightful and rather reminds me of you." - -"I hope not," said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes. -"But I am tired to-night, Harry. I shan't go to the club. -It is nearly eleven, and I want to go to bed early." - -"Do stay. You have never played so well as to-night. There was something -in your touch that was wonderful. It had more expression than I had ever -heard from it before." - -"It is because I am going to be good," he answered, smiling. -"I am a little changed already." - -"You cannot change to me, Dorian," said Lord Henry. "You and I will always -be friends." - -"Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. -Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. -It does harm." - -"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will -soon be going about like the converted, and the revivalist, -warning people against all the sins of which you have grown tired. -You are much too delightful to do that. Besides, it is no use. -You and I are what we are, and will be what we will be. -As for being poisoned by a book, there is no such thing as that. -Art has no influence upon action. It annihilates the desire -to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that the world -calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. -That is all. But we won't discuss literature. Come round -to-morrow. I am going to ride at eleven. We might go together, -and I will take you to lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome. -She is a charming woman, and wants to consult you about some -tapestries she is thinking of buying. Mind you come. Or shall we -lunch with our little duchess? She says she never sees you now. -Perhaps you are tired of Gladys? I thought you would be. -Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves. Well, in any case, be here at -eleven." - -"Must I really come, Harry?" - -"Certainly. The park is quite lovely now. I don't think there -have been such lilacs since the year I met you." - -"Very well. I shall be here at eleven," said Dorian. -"Good night, Harry." As he reached the door, he hesitated -for a moment, as if he had something more to say. Then he sighed -and went out. - - - -CHAPTER 20 - -It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and did -not even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he strolled home, -smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him. -He heard one of them whisper to the other, "That is Dorian Gray." -He remembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, -or stared at, or talked about. He was tired of hearing his own name now. -Half the charm of the little village where he had been so often lately -was that no one knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom -he had lured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him. -He had told her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him -and answered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly. -What a laugh she had!--just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had -been in her cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but she had -everything that he had lost. - -When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. -He sent him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, -and began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said -to him. - -Was it really true that one could never change? He felt -a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood-- -his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. -He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with -corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had been -an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy -in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, -it had been the fairest and the most full of promise that -he had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable? -Was there no hope for him? - -Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had -prayed that the portrait should bear the burden of his days, -and he keep the unsullied splendour of eternal youth! -All his failure had been due to that. Better for him that each sin -of his life had brought its sure swift penalty along with it. -There was purification in punishment. Not "Forgive us our sins" -but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be the prayer of man to a -most just God. - -The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given -to him, so many years ago now, was standing on the table, -and the white-limbed Cupids laughed round it as of old. -He took it up, as he had done on that night of horror -when he had first noted the change in the fatal picture, -and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished shield. -Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written -to him a mad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: -"The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. -The curves of your lips rewrite history." The phrases came back -to his memory, and he repeated them over and over to himself. -Then he loathed his own beauty, and flinging the mirror on -the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beneath his heel. -It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth -that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life -might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him -but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? -A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, -and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had -spoiled him. - -It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that. -It was of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think. -James Vane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard. -Alan Campbell had shot himself one night in his laboratory, -but had not revealed the secret that he had been forced to know. -The excitement, such as it was, over Basil Hallward's -disappearance would soon pass away. It was already waning. -He was perfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the death -of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. -It was the living death of his own soul that troubled him. -Basil had painted the portrait that had marred his life. -He could not forgive him that. It was the portrait that had -done everything. Basil had said things to him that were unbearable, -and that he had yet borne with patience. The murder had -been simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell, -his suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it. -It was nothing to him. - -A new life! That was what he wanted. That was what he was waiting for. -Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one innocent thing, -at any rate. He would never again tempt innocence. He would be good. - -As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in the -locked room had changed. Surely it was not still so horrible as it had been? -Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel every sign of evil -passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil had already gone away. -He would go and look. - -He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the door, -a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face and lingered -for a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and the hideous thing -that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror to him. He felt as if -the load had been lifted from him already. - -He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was -his custom, and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. -A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see -no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning -and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. -The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if possible, -than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand -seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. -Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had made -him do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation, -as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking laugh? -Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do -things finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? -And why was the red stain larger than it had been? It seemed -to have crept like a horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers. -There was blood on the painted feet, as though the thing -had dripped--blood even on the hand that had not held -the knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess? -To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed. -He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if -he did confess, who would believe him? There was no trace -of the murdered man anywhere. Everything belonging to him -had been destroyed. He himself had burned what had been -below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad. -They would shut him up if he persisted in his story. -. . . Yet it was his duty to confess, to suffer public shame, -and to make public atonement. There was a God who called -upon men to tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. -Nothing that he could do would cleanse him till he had -told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders. -The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him. -He was thinking of Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust mirror, -this mirror of his soul that he was looking at. -Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing more -in his renunciation than that? There had been something more. -At least he thought so. But who could tell? . . . No. There -had been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. -In hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiosity's -sake he had tried the denial of self. He recognized that -now. - -But this murder--was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be -burdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There was -only one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itself-- -that was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? -Once it had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old. -Of late he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night. -When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes -should look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions. -Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been -like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would -destroy it. - -He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. -He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. -It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, -so it would kill the painter's work, and all that that meant. -It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free. -It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, -he would be at peace. He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture -with it. - -There was a cry heard, and a crash. The cry was so horrible -in its agony that the frightened servants woke and crept -out of their rooms. Two gentlemen, who were passing in -the square below, stopped and looked up at the great house. -They walked on till they met a policeman and brought him back. -The man rang the bell several times, but there was no answer. -Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was all dark. -After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico -and watched. - -"Whose house is that, Constable?" asked the elder of the two gentlemen. - -"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir," answered the policeman. - -They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. -One of them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle. - -Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad -domestics were talking in low whispers to each other. -Old Mrs. Leaf was crying and wringing her hands. Francis was -as pale as death. - -After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the footmen -and crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply. They called out. -Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying to force the door, -they got on the roof and dropped down on to the balcony. The windows -yielded easily--their bolts were old. - -When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid -portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all -the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor -was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. -He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. -It was not till they had examined the rings that they -recognized who it was. - - -End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Dorian Gray - - |