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《道林·格雷的画像》
The Preface
The Preface
The artist is the.99ｌｉｂ. creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and ceal the artist is arts aim.
The critic is he who 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 iiful things are corrupt without being charming.
This is a fault.
Those who fiiful meanings iiful 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 ba?9９ｌiｂ?dly written.
That is all.
The eenth tury dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own fa a glass.
The eenth tury dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own fa a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art sists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies.
Ahical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artis.9９lｉb?t is ever morbid. The artist express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vid 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 musi.
From the point of view of feeling, the actors craft is the type.
All art is at once surfad symbol.
Those who go beh 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, plex, and vital.
When .99lib.critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We five 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
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 st of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-fl thorn.
From the er of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his , 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, produg 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 vey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or cirg 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 an.
In the tre 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 disappearane years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange jectures.
As the painter looked at the gracious and ely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to lihere. 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 year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is toe and too vulgar. Whenever I have gohere, there have beeher 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 dont think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head ba that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. "No, I wont 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 ohing 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 aion."
"I know you will laugh at me," he repl9９liｂ?ied, "but I really t exhibit it. I have put too muyself 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 didnt know you were so vain; and I really t see any resemblaween you, with yed strong fad 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, aroys the harmony of any face. The moment os down to think, one bees 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 dont 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 sequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have old me, but whose picture really fasates me, hinks. 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. Dont flatter yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him."
"You dont uand me, Harry," answered the artist. "Of course I am not like him. I knoerfectly 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 distin, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from ones fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They 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 her bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank ah, Harry; my brains, such as they are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Grays 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 didnt io tell it to you."
"But why not?"
"Oh, I t explain. When I like people immensely, I ell their o any o is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the ohing that make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The ohing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I ell 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 t a great deal of romao ones life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?"
"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil. You seem tet 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 di together, o down to the Dukes--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 fused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does fi, 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 thhly ashamed of your own virtues. You are araordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your icism 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 me out into the garden together and ensced 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 wont exhibit Dorian Grays 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 act, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured vas, 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," tinued his panion, glang at him.
"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter; "and I am afraid you will hardly uand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it."
Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pialled daisy from the grass and exami. "I am quite sure I shall uand it," he replied, gazing ily at the little golden, white-feathered disk, "and as for believing things, I believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible."
The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilas, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languid air. A grasshan to chirrup by the wall, a99ｌｉb?nd 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 Hallwards heart beating, and wondered what was ing.
"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandons. 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, gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room about ten mialking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious academis, I suddenly became scious 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 khat I had e face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fasating 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 aernal influen my life. You know yourself, Harry, how indepe 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 dont 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 turo quit the room. It was not sce that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself f to escape."
"sd cowardice are really the same things, Basil. sce is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."
"I dont believe that, Harry, and I dont 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 peaco 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 neers, which is the eenth-tury standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man whose personality had sely stirred me. We were quite close, almost toug. 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 iable. We would have spoken to each other without any introdu. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were destio know each other."
"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his panion. "I know she goes in fiving a rapid precis of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a trut 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 astoundiails. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandos her guests exactly as an aueer 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 fet what he does--afraid he-- doesnt do anything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray? her 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, plug another daisy.
Hallward shook his head. "You dont uand what friendship is, Harry," he murmured--"or what enmity is, for that matter. You like every ohat is to say, you are indifferent to every one."
"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat bad 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 differeween people. I y friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man ot 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 sequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I think it is rather vain."
"I should think it was, Harry. But acc 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 dont care for brothers. My elder brother wont die, and my younger brothers seem o do anything else."
"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.
"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I t help detesting my relations. I suppose it es from the fact that none of us 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 poag on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite magnifit. A I dont suppose that ten per t of the proletariat live correctly."
"I dont agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is more, Harry, I feel sure you doher."
Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his pateher boot with a tasselled ebony e. "How English you are Basil! That is the sed time you have made that observation. If os forward ao a true Englishman--always a rash thing to do--he never dreams of sidering whether the idea is right . The only thing he siders of any importance is whether one believes it oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the siy of the man who expresses it. Ihe probabilities are that the more insihe 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 dont propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persoer 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 couldnt be happy if I didnt 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 importan the worlds history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, and the sed is the appearance of a new personality for art also. What the iion of oil-painting was to the Veians, 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 wont tell you that I am dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such that art ot express it. There is nothing that art ot 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 uand me?--his personality has suggested to me airely new manner in art, airely new mode of style. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I ow 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 fet; 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 you realize all that that means? Unsciously 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 perfe 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 ied a realism that is vulgar, ay 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 ainting 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 wont 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 shall eyes. My heart shall never be put uheir microscope. There is too muyself ihing, Harry--too muyself!"
"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broke will run to maions."
"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 whereat 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 wont argue with you. It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very fond of you?"
The painter sidered 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, a iudio 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 or for a summers day."
"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry. "Perhaps you will tire soohan he will. It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts lohay. That ats 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 thhly well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thhly 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 wont like his tone of colour, or something. You will bitterly reproach him in your ow, and seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The ime 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, dont talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of Dorian Gray will dominate me. You t feel what I feel. You ge too often."
"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I feel it. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know loves tragedies." And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-scious 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 peoples emotions were!-- much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. Ones own soul, and the passions of ones friends--those were the fasating things in life. He pictured to himself with silent amusement the tedious luhat he had missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he goo his aunts, he would have been sure to have met Loodbody there, and the whole versation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the y for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no y 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 turo 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.
"Dont look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agathas. 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 old me he was good-looking. Women have no appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not. She said that he was very ear 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 didnt, Harry."
"Why?"
"I dont want you to meet him."
"You dont wao meet him?"
"No."
"Mr. Dorian Gray is iudio, sir," said the butler, ing into the garden.
"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing.
The paiuro 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 a 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. Dont spoil him. Dont try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it. Dont 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
Chapter 2
As they ehey saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumanns "Forest Ses." "You must lehese, Basil," he cried. "I want to learhey are perfectly charming."
"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian."
"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I dont 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, aarted up. "I beg your pardon, Basil, but I didnt know you had any oh 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 iing you, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, stepping forward aending 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 Agathas 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 fot all about it. We were to have played a duet together--three duets, I believe. I dont know what she will say to me. I am far thteo call."
"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you. And I dont 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 o 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 orust him at once. All the dour of youth was there, as well as all youths passionate purity. Ohat 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 aing his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henrys last remark, he gla 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 gray?" he asked.
"Oh, please dont, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky moods, and I t bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy."
"I dont 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 dont really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you liked your sitters to have some oo chat to."
Hallward bit his lip. "If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. Dorians 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. e and see me some afternoon in Curzon Street. I am nearly always at home at five oclock. Write to me when you are ing. 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 ily at his picture. "It is quite true, I alk when I am w, and never listeher, and it must be dreadfully tedious for my unfortuters. I beg you to stay."
"But what about my man at the Orleans?"
The painter laughed. "I dont think there will be any difficulty about that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Doria up on the platform, and dont 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 distent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a delightful trast. 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 stific point of view."
"Why?"
"Because to influence a person is to give him ones 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 bees an echo of some one elses musi actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize ones nature perfectly--that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have fotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to ones self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Ce has go 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 ion--these are the two things that govern us. A--"
"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy," said the painter, deep in his work and scious only that a look had e into the lads face that he had never seen there before.
"A," tinued 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 mao live out his life fully and pletely, 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 fet all the maladies of mediaevalism, aurn 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. unished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive tle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has doh its sin, for a is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recolle 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 pla 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 fine９9lｉb.d 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 dont know what to say. There is some ao you, but I ot find it. Dont 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 scious that entirely fresh influences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to have e really from himself. The few words that Basils friend had said to him--words spoken by o 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. A what a subtle magic there was ihey seemed to be able to give a plasti 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 uood. He uood 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 khe precise psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely ied. 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 assing through a similar experience. He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? How fasating the lad was!
Hallainted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had the true refi and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate es only from strength. He was unscious 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 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 dont 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 pliments. You mustnt believe a word that he says."
"He has certainly not been paying me pliments. Perhaps that is the reason that I dont 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 iudio. Basil, let us have something iced to drink, something with strawberries in it."
"Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker es I will tell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I will join you later on. Dont keep Dorian too long. I have never been ier 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 fa the great cool lilas, 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 cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing 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 ahem trembling.
"Yes," tinued 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 fad worn expression ied him. There was something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fasating. His cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm. They moved, as he spoke, like musid seemed to have a language of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. Why had it bee for a strao reveal him to himself? He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never altered him. Suddenly there had e some one across his life who seemed to have disclosed to him lifes mystery. And, yet, what was there to be afraid of? He was not a schoolbirl. 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 bee sunburnt. It would be unbeing."
"What 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 ohing worth having."
"I dohat, Lord Henry."
"No, you dont 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. Dont frown. You have. Ay is a form of genius-- is higher, ihan genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the refle in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It ot be questioned. It has its divine right of snty. It makes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you wont 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 appearahe 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 tent yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more bitter thas. Every month as it wanes brings you o something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your lilies and your roses. You will bee sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.... Ah! realize your youth while you have it. Dont squahe gold of your days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, iving away your life to the ignorant, the on, and the vulgar. These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of e. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searg for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing. . . . A new Hedonism-- that is what our tury 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 unscious of what you really are, of what you really might be. There was so mu you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you something about yourself. I thought hic it would be if you were wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will last--such a little time. The on hill-flowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow 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 bees sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degee 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 ce to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!"
Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and w. 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 straerest in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some ion for which we ot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays suddeo the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time the bee flew away. He saw it creeping into the stairumpet of a Tyrian volvulus. 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 e in. They turo each other and smiled.
"I am waiting," he cried. "Do e in. The light is quite perfect, and you 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 er of the garden a thrush began to sing.
"Ylad 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 differeween a caprid a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer."
As they ehe studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henrys 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 vas 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 st 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 vermilioers on the left-hand er of the vas.
Lord Henry came over and examihe picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.
"My dear fellow, I gratulate you most warmly," he said. "It is the fi portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, e 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. "Isnt it, Mr. Gray?"
Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture and turowards 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 reized himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly scious that Hallward eaking to him, but not catg the meaning of his words. The sense of his owy came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallwards pliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggeration of friendship. He had listeo them, laughed at them, fottehey had not influenced his nature. Then had e Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyri 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 bee 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.
"Dont you like it?" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the lads silenot uanding what it meant.
"Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry. "Who wouldnt 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?"
"Dorians, 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 su arra, 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 paiared 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 tinued, "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 ones 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, "dont talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I shall never have suother. You are not jealous of material things, are you?-- you who are fihan any of them!"
"I am jealous of everyth藏书网ing 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 ge, 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 fa the cushions, as though he raying.
"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 Henrys answer.
"Harry, I t quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between you both you have made me hate the fi piece of work I have ever done, and I will destroy it. What is it but vas and colour? I will not let it e across our three lives and mar them."
Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid fad tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal painting-table that was set beh 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 vas.
With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to Hallward, tore the k of his hand, and flung it to the end of the studio. "Dont, Basil, dont!" 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 hought 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, a home. Then you 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 plex. But I dont like ses, except oage. 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 doesnt really want it, and I really do."
"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never five you!" cried Dorian Gray; "and I dont 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 dont really object to being remihat you are extremely young."
"I should have objected very strongly this m, Lord Henry."
"Ah! this m! You have lived sihen."
There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laderay a down upon a small Japaable. There was a rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Geian urn. Two globe-shaped a 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 uhe covers.
"Let us go to the theatre to-night," said Lord Henry. "There is sure to be something on, somewhere. I have promised to di Whites, but it is only with an old friend, so I send him a wire to say that I am ill, or that I am prevented from ing in sequence of a subsequent e. I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it would have all the surprise of dour."
"It is such a bore putting on ones dress-clothes," muttered Hallward. "And, when one has them on, they are so horrid."
"Yes," answered Lord Henry dreamily, "the e of the eenth tury is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-eleme in modern life."
"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry."
"Before which Dorian? The one who is p out tea for us, or the one in the picture?"
"Before either."
"I should like to e to the theatre with you, Lord Henry," said the lad.
"Then you shall e; and you will e, too, Basil, wont you?"
"I 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 inal 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 ot: that is all one say."
"Dont go to the theatre to-night, Dorian," said Hallward. "Stop and dih me."
"I t, Basil."
"Why?"
"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him."
"He wont 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 e you."
The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, atg 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 oray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had better lose no time. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. e and see me soon. e to-morrow."
"Certainly."
"You wont fet?"
"No, of course not," cried Dorian.
"And ... Harry!"
"Yes, Basil?"
"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this m."
"I have fotten it."
"I trust you."
"I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing. "e, Mr. Gray, my hansom is outside, and I drop you at your own place. Good-bye, Basil. It has been a most iing 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
Chapter 3
At half-past twelve 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 be from him, but who was sidered 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 servi a caprioment of annoyan not being offered the Embassy at Paris, a post to which he sidered that he was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolehe good English of his dispatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure. The son, who had been his fathers 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 twe 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 ma of his collieries in the Midland ties, exg 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 decy of burning wood on his owh. In politics he was a Tory, except wheories 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 try 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 Heered the room, he found his uting 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 affe, I assure you, Uncle Gee. 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, imagihat money is everything."
"Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and when they grow older they know it. But I dont want money. It is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle Gee, and I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoors tradesmen, and sequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information."
"Well, I 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 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 Gee," said Lord Henry languidly.
"Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy white eyebrows.
"That is what I have e to learn, Uncle Gee. Or rather, I know who he is. He is the last Lord Kelsos 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 muterested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him."
"Kelsos grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelsos grandson! ... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her christening. She was araordinarily 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 fiment, 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 alo 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 fotten 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," tihe old man. "He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing by him. His mother had mooo. 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 Queeo ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didnt dare show my face at Court for a month. I hope he treated his grandsoer than he did the jarvies."
"I dont 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 oh induced her to behave as she did, I never could uand. 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. Carlingto on his ko her. Told me so himself. She laughed at him, and there wasnt a girl in London at the time who wasnt 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 Ameri? Aint English girls good enough for him?"
"It is rather fashioo marry Ameris just now, Uncle Gee."
"Ill baglish women against the world, Harry," said Lord Fermor, striking the table with his fist.
"The betting is on the Ameris."
"They dont last, I am told," muttered his uncle.
"A long e exhausts them, but they are capital at a steeplechase. They take things flying. I dont think Dartmoor has a ce."
"Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman. "Has she got any?"
Lord Henry shook his head. "Ameri girls are as clever at cealing their parents, as English wome cealing their past," he said, rising to go.
"They are pork-packers, I suppose?"
"I hope so, Uncle Gee, for Dartmoors sake. I am told that pork-pag is the most lucrative profession in America, after politics."
"Is she pretty?"
"She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most Ameri women do. It is the secret of their charm."
"Why t these Ameri women stay in their own try? 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 Gee. I shall be late for lunch, if I stop any lohanks fivihe information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones."
"Where are you lung, Harry?"
"At Aunt Agathas. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her latest protégée."
"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 Gee, Ill tell her, but it wont 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 intton Street and turned his steps in the dire of Berkeley Square.
So that was the story of Dorian Grays 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 iing 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 mea flht blow. . . . And how charming he had been at dihe night before, as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat opposite to him at the club, the red dleshades 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 toud thrill of the bow. . . . There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influeno other activity was like it. To projees soul into some gracious form, a tarry there for a moment; to hear ones own intellectual views echoed back to oh all the added music of passion and youth; to vey oemperament 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 al in its pleasures, and grossly on in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad, whom by so curious a ce he had met in Basils studio, or could be fashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate. Grace was his, and the white purity of boyhood, ay 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 destio fade! . . . And Basil? From a psychological point of view, how iing he was! The new manner in art, the fresh mode of looking at life, suggested sely by the merely visible presence of one who was unscious 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 wakehat wonderful vision to which alone are wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things being, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfe whose shadow they made real: how stra 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 so-sequence? But in our owury it was strange. . . . Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashiohe 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 fasating in this son of love ah.
Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had passed his aunts some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back. Wheered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stid passed into the dining-room.
"Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.
He ied a facile excuse, and having taken the vat seat o 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 porary historians as stoutness. o 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 accordah a wise and well-known rule. The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of siderable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained oo Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur, one of his aunts 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 oher side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement in the House of ons, with whom she was versing in that intensely ear manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself, that all really good people fall into, and from whione 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 fasating 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 Ameri dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.
"My uncle has already suggested pork-pag Sir Thomas."
&quoods! What are Ameri dry-goods?" asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and atuating the verb.
"Ameriovels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.
The duchess looked puzzled.
"Dont 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, irls have no owadays. It is most unfair."
"Perhaps, after all, Ameriever has been discovered," said Mr. Erskine; "I mys?９９lｉｂ?elf would say that it had merely beeed."
"Oh! but I have seen spes of the inhabitants," answered the duchess vaguely. "I must fess 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 Ameris die they go to Paris," chuckled Sir Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humours cast-off clothes.
"Really! And where do bad Ameris 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 try," 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 dont 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 Ameris are aremely iing 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 Ameris."
"How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry. "I 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 uand ?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... ." rejoihe baro.
"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 oight rope. When the verities bee acrobats, we judge them."
"Dear me!" said Lady Agatha, "how you men argue! I am sure I never 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 dowable and caught a bright answering glance.
"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel," tinued Lady Agatha.
"I sympathize with everything except suffering," said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. "I ot 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 lifes 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, ary to solve it by amusing the slaves."
The politi looked at him keenly. "What ge do you propose, then?" he asked.
Lord Henry laughed. "I dont desire to ge anything in England except the weather," he answered. "I am quite tent with philosophiplation. But, as the eenth tury has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to sce to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of sce is that it is ional."
"But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs. Vaimidly.
"Terribly grave," echoed Lady Agatha.
Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. "Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the worlds inal sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, history would have been different."
"You are really very f," warbled the duchess. "I have always felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no i 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 being, 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 bee young again."
He thought for a moment. " you remember any great error that you itted in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her across the table.
"A great many, I fear," she cried.
"Then it them ain," he said gravely. "To get baes youth, one has merely to repeat ones follies."
"A delightful theory!" she exclaimed. "I must put it into practice."
"A dangerous theory!" came from Sir Thomass tight lips. Lady Agatha shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened.
"Yes," he tinued, "that is one of the great secrets of life. Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping on sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are ones 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 aured it; made it iridest with fand wi with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and catg the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her wiained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bate 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 vats black, dripping, sloping sides. It was araordinary improvisation. He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the scioushat amongst his audiehere was one whose temperament he wished to fasate 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 ook his gaze off him, but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips and wrowing grave in his darkening eyes.
At last, liveried in the e of the age, reality ehe 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 Williss Rooms, where he is going to be in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldnt have a se in this bo. It is far tile. 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 dont know what to say about your views. You must e and dih us some night. Tuesday? Are you diseuesday?"
"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 e"; 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 dont 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 hat would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary publi England for anything except neers, primers, and encyclopaedias. Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the beauty of l.iterature."
"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 fet what I said," smiled Lord Henry. "Was it all very bad?"
"Very bad indeed. In fact I sider you extremely dangerous, and if anything happens tood duchess, we shall all look on you as being primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life. The geion into which I was born was tedious. Some day, when you are tired of London, e 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 plete 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. ractising for an English Academy of Letters."
Lord Henry laughed and rose. "I am going to the park," he cried.
As he assing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. "Let me e with you," he murmured.
"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him," answered Lord Henry.
"I would sooner e with you; yes, I feel I must e with you. Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No oalks 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 e and look at it with me, if you care to."
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Oernoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reing in a luxurious arm-chair, itle library of Lord Henrys house in Mayfair. It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled wainsg of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk, long-fringed 藏书网Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les t 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 a 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 e 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 tig of the Louis Quatorze clonoyed 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 ht at the opera." She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her vague fet-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 foing to church.
"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?"
"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin. I like Wagners music better than anybodys. It is so loud that one talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, dont you think sray?"
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 dont think so, Lady Henry. I alk during music--at least, during good music. If one hears bad music, it is ones duty to drown it in versation."
"Ah! that is one of Harrys views, isnt it, Mr. Gray? I always hear Harrys views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of them. But you must not think I dont 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 dont know what it is about them. Perhaps it is that they are fners. They all are, aint they? Even those that are born in England bee fners after a time, dont they? It is so clever of them, and such a pliment to art. Makes it quite opolitan, doesnt it? You have never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must e. I t afford orchids, but I share no expense in fners. They make ones rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! Harry, I came in to look for you, to ask you something-- I fet 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 Ive seen him."
"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed," said Lord Henry, elevating his dark, crest-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 tain for hours for it. Noeople know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
"I am afraid I must be going," exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an awkward sileh 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 Thornburys."
"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 ipanni. The 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 seal."
"But I like seal people."
"Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed."
"I dont think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too mu 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 onplace début."
"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 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 it one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. randmothers 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 look ten years youhan her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for versation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these t be admitted into det society. However, tell me about yenius. 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 e across her?"
"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustnt 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 fasated 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 oclock, 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 diogether, about the search for beauty being the real secret of life. I dont 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 ris, and an enormous diamond blazed in the tre of a soiled shirt.Have a box, my Lord? he said, when he saw me, aook off his hat with an air of geous 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 t make out why I did so; a if I hadnt-- my dear Harry, if I hadnt--I should have missed the greatest romany 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 try. Dont 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 on their lives are really the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of or their laagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what sistency is to the life of the intellect--simply a fession 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 dont want to interrupt you. Go on with your story."
"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a vulgar drop-se staring me in the face. I looked out from behind the curtain and surveyed the house. It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and ucopias, 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. Wome about with es and ginger-beer, and there was a terrible ption 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 oh 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 I. 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 grandpères ont toujours tort."
"This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. I must admit that I was rather a the idea of seeing Shakespeare done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt ied, in a sort of way. At any rate, I determio 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-se 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 layed by the low-edian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most friendly terms with the pit. They were both as grotesque as the sery, and that looked as if it had e out of a try-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 ohat 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 ae. And her voice--I never heard such a voice. It was very low at first, with deep mellow hat seemed to fall singly upon ones ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a distant hautboy. In the garden-se 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 stir one. Your void the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never fet. When I y eyes, I hear them, and each of them says something different. I dont 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 evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sug the poison from her lovers 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 e into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been i, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike throat. I have seen her in every age and in every e. Ordinary women never appeal to ones imagination. They are limited to their tury. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bos. One always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the m and chatter at tea-parties iernoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable mahey are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didnt 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."
"Dont run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is araordinary 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 ot help telling you things. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would e and fess it to you. You would uand me."
"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--dont it crimes, Dorian. But I am much obliged for the pliment, 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 toug, Dorian," said Lord Henry, with a straouch 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 ones 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 ses 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 uhe 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 neers. I told him I never evehem. He seemed terribly disappoi that, and fided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a spiracy against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought."
"I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, oher hand, judging from their appearance, most of them ot 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 iheatre, and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly reended. I deed. The 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 munifit patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, though he had araordinary 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 distin."
"It was a distiny dear Dorian--a great distinost people bee bankrupt through having ied too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined ones 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 fahat she had. The old Jeersistent. He seemed determio take me behind, so I sented. It was y not wanting to know her, wasnt it?"
"No; I dont 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 gehere 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 unscious 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 pliments."
"You dont uand 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-er on the first night, and looks as if she had seeer days."
"I know that look. It depresses me," murmured Lord Henry, examining his rings.
"The Jew wao tell me her history, but I said it did not i me."
"You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about other peoples 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 airely 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 dih me now. I thought you must have some curious roman 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 e dreadfully late."
"Well, I t help going to see Sibyl play," he cried, "even if it is only for a si. 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 dih me to-night, Dorian, 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 gratulate 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 Vao 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 sciousness, 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 Hallwards 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 e to meet it on the way.
"And what do you propose to do?" said Lord Henry at last.
"I want you and Basil to e with me some night and see her act. I have not the slightest fear of the result. You are certain to aowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jews hands. She is bound to him for three years--at least for two years a 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, mate 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 oclock; and I will get Basil."
", 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. leman 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 youhan I am, I must admit that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I dont 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 sequence is that he has nothi for life but his prejudices, his principles, and his on sehe only artists I have ever known ersonally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and sequently are perfectly uing in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most uical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fasating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of sed-rate sos makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he ot 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 oable. "It must be, if you say it. And now I am off. Imogen is waiting for me. Dont fet about to-morrow. Good-bye."
As he left the room, Lord Henrys heavy eyelids drooped, and he began to think. Certainly few people had ever ied him so much as Dorian Gray, ahe lads mad adoration of some one else caused him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He leased by it. It made him a more iing study. He had been always enthralled by the methods of natural sce, but the ordinary subject-matter of that sce had seemed to him trivial and of no import. And so he had begun by viviseg himself, as he had ended by viviseg others. Human life--that appeared to him the ohing worth iigating. pared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as oched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over ones 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 si of them. There were maladies se that one had to pass through them if one sought to uand their nature. And, yet, what a great reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to oo he curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life of the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated, at oint they were in unison, and at oint 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 aion.
He was scious--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 utterahat Dorian Grays soul had turo this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad was his owion. 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 plex personality took the plad 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 remature. He was gathering his harvest while it was yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was being self-scious. It was delightful to watch him. With his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wo. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destio 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 ones 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! A 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 sce that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misuood ourselves and rarely uood others. Experience was of hical 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 certaihical effica 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 experie was as little of an active cause as sce 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 whie could arrive at any stifialysis of the passions; aainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to promise rid fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane sychological phenomenon of no small i. 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 plex passion. What there was in it o藏书网f the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by the ws of the imagination, ged 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 in we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were scious. It often happehat whehought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.
While Lord Henry sat dreaming ohings, 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 su 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 friends young fiery-coloured life and wondered how it was all going to end.
When he arrived home, about half-past twelve oclock, he saw a telegram lying on the hall table. He ope and found it was from Dorian Gray. It was to tell him that he was eo be married to Sibyl Vane.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!" whispered the girl, burying her fa the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turo the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their dingy sitting-room tained. "I am so happy!" she repeated, "and you must be happy, too!"
Mrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her daughters head. "Happy!" she echoed, "I am only happy, Sibyl, when I see you act. You must not think of anything but your ag. 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 fet that, Sibyl. Fifty pounds is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most siderate."
"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 dont knoe could mahout him," answered the elder woman querulously.
Sibyl Vaossed her head and laughed. "We dont 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 passio 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 ahe waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueo 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 radiahen closed for a moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opehe mist of a dream had passed across them.
Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hi prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of on 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 ing. The arrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.
Suddenly she felt the o speak. The wordy sileroubled 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. A--why, I ot tell--though I feel so much beh him, I dont feel humble. I feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love Prince Charming?"
The elder woman grew pale beh 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. "Five me, Mother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. But it only pains you because you loved him so much. Dont 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 dont even know his he whole thing is most inve, 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 sideration. However, as I said before, if he is rich . . ."
"Ah! Mother, Mother, let me be happy!"
Mrs. Vane gla her, and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often bee a mode of sed 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 a 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 iing.
"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think," said the lad with a good-natured grumble.
"Ah! but you dont like being kissed, Jim," she cried. "You are a dre.adful old bear." And she ran across the room and hugged him.
James Vane looked into his sisters face with tenderness. "I want you to e out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I dont suppose I shall ever see this horrid London again. I am sure I dont want to."
"My son, dont say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vaaking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She felt a little disappoihat he had not joihe 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 ies-- nothing that I would call society--so when you have made your fortune, you must e bad assert yourself in London."
"Society!" muttered the lad. "I dont want to know anything about that. I should like to make some moo take you and Sibyl off the stage. I hate it."
"Oh, 藏书网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 dooo 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. Theuro 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 aloh 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 plain. Women defend themselves by attag, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. "I hope you will be tented, James, with your sea-faring life," she said. "You must remember that it is your own choice. You might have entered a solicitors office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in the try often dih 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. Do her e 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 es every night to the theatre and goes behind to talk to her. Is that right? What about that?"
"You are speaking about things you dont uand, James. In the profession we are aced to receive a great deal of most gratifying attention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at oime. That was when ag was really uood. As for Sibyl, I do not knoresent whether her attat is serious or not. But there is no doubt that the young man iion 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 dont know his hough," 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 Va 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 tra alliah 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-pah 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 di five oclock. Everything is packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble."
"Good-bye, my son," she answered with a bow of straiateliness.
She was extremely a 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.
"e, Sibyl," said her brother impatiently. He hated his mothers affectations.
They went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled down the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wo the sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the pany of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. He was like a on 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, whies on geniuses late in life and never leaves the onplace. Sibyl, however, was quite unscious of the effect she rodug. 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 sailors 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 oo the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to e across a large of pure gold, the largest hat had ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon guarded by six mounted poli. 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, ah her, and they would get married, and e home, and live in an immense house in Londohere 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 eaight 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 e back quite rid happy.
The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heart-sick at leaving home.
Yet it was not this alohat made him gloomy and morose. Inexperiehough he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger of Sibyls position. This young dandy who was making love to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman, aed him for that, hated him through some curious rastinct for which he could not at, and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was scious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mothers nature, and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyls happiness. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they five 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 ce phrase that he had heard at the theatre, a whispered shat 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 pai 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 wao say?"
"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not fet us," she answered, smiling at him.
He shrugged his shoulders. "You are more likely tet me than I am tet 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 dont even know his name," answered the lad. "Who is he? I have a right to know."
"He is called Prince Charming. Dont you like the name. Oh! you silly boy! you should never fet 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 e back from Australia. You will like him so much. Everybody likes him, and I ... love him. I wish you could e 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 pany, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to surpass ones 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 waing. 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. Dont look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to think that, though yoing 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. Yoing to a new world, and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down ahe 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 ters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not unicate 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 Berwicks 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.
"e away, Jim; e 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 ity 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 you say such horrible things? You dont 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 o you. She doesnt uand 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 hadnt been signed."
"Oh, dont be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes of those silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of ag in. I am not going to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see him is perfect happiness. We wont 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 oclock, and Sibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before ag. 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 se, aested ses of every kind.
In Sybils own room they parted. There was jealousy in the lads heart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed to him, had e 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 affe. 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 dev each mihat 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 meically from her lips. A tattered lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six, he got up ao the door. Theurned bad 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 e at last, a she felt no terror. Indeed, in some measure it was a disappoio her. The vulgar direess of the question called for a direswer. The situation had not been gradually led up to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.
"No," she answered, w at the harsh simplicity of life.
"My father was a sdrel then!" cried the lad, g 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. Dont speak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman. Indeed, he was highly ected."
An oath broke from his lips. "I dont care for myself," he exclaimed, "but do Sibyl. . . . It is a gentleman, isnt it, who is in love with her, or says he is? Highly ected, 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. Dont fet 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 apa, 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 tihe se 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 disappoihat she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son drove away. She was scious that a great opportunity had been wasted. She soled 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
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 dont i me. There is hardly a single person in the House of ons worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little whitewashing."
"Dorian Gray is eo be married," said Lord Henry, watg him as he spoke.
Hallward started and then frowned. "Dorian eo be married!" he cried. "Impossible!"
"It is perfectly true."
"To whom?"
"To some little actress or other."
"I 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 do now and then, Harry."
"Except in America," rejoined Lord Henry languidly. "But I didnt say he was married. I said he was eo be married. There is a great difference. I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have no recolle at all of being engaged. I am ined to think that I never was engaged."
"But think of Dorians birth, and position, ah. It would be absurd for him to marry so much beh 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 thhly stupid thing, it is always from the motives."
"I hope the girl is good, Harry. I dont want to see Doriao 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 e-bitters. "Dorian says she is beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind. Your portrait of him has quied 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 doesnt fet his appoi."
"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 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 ake any notice of what on people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fasates 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 he less iing. You know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawbaarriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. They ladividuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that marriage makes more plex. They retain their egotism, and add to it many os. They are forced to have more than one life. They beore highly anized, and to be highly anized is, I should fancy, the objeaence. 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 bee fasated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study."
"You dont mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you dont. If Dorian Grays 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 be to us. We praise the bahat we may overdraw our at, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets. I meahing that I have said. I have the greatest pt 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 iing bonds between men and women. I will certainly ence them. They have the charm of being fashionable. But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than I ."
"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both gratulate 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. A seems to me to be the ohing 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 dont quite five you for not havi me know of yagement. You let Harry know."
"And I dont five you for being late for dinner," broke in Lord Henry, putting his hand on the lads shoulder and smiling as he spoke. "e, 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 di that little Italiaaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, a down at eight oclock to the theatre. Sibyl laying Rosalind. Of course, the sery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd. But Sibyl! You should have seen her! When she came on in her boys clothes, she erfectly wonderful. She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with amon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little green cap with a hawks 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 figurihat you have in your studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves round a pale rose. As for her ag--well, you shall see her to-night. She is simply a born artist. I sat in the dingy box absolutely enthralled. I fot that I was in London and in the eenth tury. 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 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 t help it. Of course, agement is a dead secret. She has not even told her own mother. I dont know what my guardians will say. Lord Radley is sure to be furious. I dont care. I shall be of age ihan a year, and then I do what I like. I have been right, Basil, havent I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeares 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 seeo-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 articular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian? And what did she say in answer? Perhaps you fot all about it."
"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a busiransa, 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 pared with her."
"Women are wonderfully practical," murmured Lord Henry, "much more practical than we are. In situations of that kien fet to say anything about marriage, and they always remind us."
Hallward laid his hand upon his arm. "Dont, 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," be answered. "I asked the question for the best reason possible, for the only reason, ihat 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 incible, Harry; but I dont 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 ot uand how any one 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! dont 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 bee different from what you have knowo be. I am ged, and the mere touch of Sibyl Vanes hand makes me fet you and all your wrong, fasating, 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 ot claim my theory as my own. It belongs to Nature, not to me. Pleasure is Natures 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 ba his chair and looking at Lord Henry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the tre of the table, "what do you mean by good, Harry?"
"To be good is to be in harmony with ones self," he replied, toug the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers. "Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. Ones own life--that is the important thing. As for the lives of ones neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one flaunt ones moral views about them, but they are not ones . Besides, individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality sists in accepting the standard of ones age. I sider 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 ones 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 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 fan remorse, in suffering, in . . . well, in the sciousness of degradation."
Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, mediaeval art is charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date. One use them in fi, of course. But then the only things that one use in fi 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 knoleasure 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. Wome us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always b 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 ba such very small ge. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Fren o it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and alrevent us from carrying them out."
"Harry, you are dreadful! I dont 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, dont mind the cigarettes--I have some. Basil, I 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 one want? Yes, Dorian, you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the ce to it."
"What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from a fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed oable. "Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl es oage you will have a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you have never known."
"I have knowhing," said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his eyes, "but I am always ready for a ion. I am afraid, however, that, for me at any rate, there is no such thing. Still, your wonderful girl may thrill me. I love ag. It is so much more real than life. Let us go. Dorian, you will e 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, a seemed to him to be better than many other things that might have happened. After a few mihey 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 agaio him all that he had been in the past. Life had e 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
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 e to look for Miranda and had bee by Caliban. Lord Henry, upoher hand, rather liked him. At least he declared he did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he roud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone bankrupt over a poet. Hallward amused himself with watg the faces i. 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 es with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women were laughing i. Their voices were horribly shrill and discordant. The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.
"What a place to find ones divinity in!" said Lord Henry.
"Yes!" answered Dorian Gray. "It was here I found her, and she is divine beyond all living things. Whes, you will fet everything. These h people, with their coarse faces and brutal gestures, bee quite different when she is oage. 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 ones self."
"The same flesh and blood as ones self! Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Lord Henry, who was sing the octs of the gallery through his lass.
"Dont pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter. "I uand 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 o spiritualize ones age--that is something worth doing. If this girl give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she strip them of their selfishness ahem 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 inplete."
"Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. "I khat you would uand me. Harry is so ical, he terrifies me. But here is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for about five mihen the curtain rises, and you will see the girl to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have givehing that is good in me."
A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst araordinary turmoil of applause, Sibyl Vaepped 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 grad startled eyes. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she gla 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 se was the hall of Capulets house, and Romeo in his pilgrims dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band, such as it was, struck up a few bars of musid 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 ier. 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 d 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 thhly artificial mahe voice was exquisite, but from the point of view of to 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 uzzled and anxious. her of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to them to be absolutely inpetent. They were horribly disappointed.
Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the baly se of the sed 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 ag 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 khe 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 sed-rate professor of elocution. When she leaned over the baly and came to those wonderful lines--
Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this tract to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one say, "It lightens." Sweet, good-night!
This bud of love by summers ripening breath
May prove a beauteous flower whe we meet--
she spoke the words as though they veyed no meaning to her. It was not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely self-tained. It was simply bad art. She was a plete failure.
Even the on uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their i 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 sed 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 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 e some ht."
"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 onplace mediocre actress."
"Dont 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 ones morals to see bad ag. Besides, I dont 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 ag, she will be a delightful experiehere are only two kinds of people who are really fasating-- people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, dont look sic! The secret of remaining young is o have aion that is unbeing. e to the club with Basil and myself. We will smoke cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful. What more you want?"
"Go away, Harry," cried the lad. "I want to be alone. Basil, you must go. Ah! 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 fa his hands.
"Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry with a straenderness in his voice, and the two young men passed out together.
A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose ohird 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 layed to almost empty behe curtai down on a titter and some groans.
As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the ses 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.
Wheered, 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 h long-drawn musi her voice, as though it were sweeter than hoo the red petals of her mouth. "Dorian, you should have uood. But you uand now, dont you?"
"Uand 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 shouldnt act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were bored. I was bored."
She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. Aasy of happiness dominated her.
"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, ag was the oy of my life. It was only iheatre 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 ihing. The on people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted ses 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 allayed. To-night, for the first time, I became scious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and paihat the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the sery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wao say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a refle. You had made me uand 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 ever be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on to-night, I could not uand 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 be quite alone. I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I imie that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you uand now what it signifi?es? 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 k doressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him.
Then he leaped up ao the door. "Yes," he cried, "you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you dont even stir my curiosity. You simply produo 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 substao 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 hink of you. I will never mention your name. You dont know what you were to me, once. Why, once . . . Oh, I t bear to think of it! I wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romany life. How little you know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing. I would have made you famous, splendid, magnifit. 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 ched her hands together, and her voice seemed to cat her throat. "You are not serious, Dorian?" she murmured. "You are ag."
"Ag! 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. "Dont 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, dont leave me!" she whispered. "I am so sorry I didnt act well. I was thinking of you all the time. But I will try--indeed, I will try. It came so suddenly ae, 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. Dont go away from me. I couldnt bear it. Oh! dont go away from me. My brother . . . No; never mind. He didnt mean it. He was i. . . . But you, oh! t you five me for to-night? I will work so hard and try to improve. Dont be cruel to me, because I love you better than anything in the world. After all, it is only ohat 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, a I couldnt help it. Oh, dont leave me, dont leave me." A fit of passionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a wouhing, 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 dont wish to be unkind, but I 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 ahe 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 t 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 t 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 ess 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. Uhe portico, with its grey, sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop led bareheaded girls, waiting for the au to be over. O.hers 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 pig 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 ure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it. From some ey opposite a thih of smoke was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.
In the huge gilt Veian lantern, spoil of some Doges barge, that hung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance, lights were still burning from three flickeris: thin blue petals of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. He turhem out and, having thrown his hat and cape oable, 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 Renaissaapestries 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 someuzzled. After he had taketon-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate. Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and exami. In the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little ged. 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 ers, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to lihere, 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 Henrys many presents to him, glanced hurriedly into its polished depths. No line like that ed his red lips. What did it mean?
He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and exami again. There were no signs of any ge when he looked into the actual painting, ahere 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 Hallwards 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 owy might be untarnished, and the fa the vas 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 scious 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 girls 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 turies 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 thahey lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. Wheook lovers, it was merely to have some oh whom they could have ses. 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 owy. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again?
No; it was merely an illusiht oroubled sehe 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 ged. It was folly to think so.
Yet it was watg him, with its beautiful marred fad its cruel smile. Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes met his own. A sense of infiy, 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 itted, a stain would fled wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, ged or unged, would be to him the visible emblem of sce. 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 Hallwards 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 fasation 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 s right in front of the portrait, shuddering as he gla it. "How horrible!" he murmured to himself, and he walked across to the window and ope. Wheepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. The fresh m air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. He thought only of Sibyl. A faint echo of his love came ba. He repeated her name over and ain. The birds that were singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.
Chapter 8
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 a, 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 m," he said, smiling.
"What oclock 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 m. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside. The others he opened listlessly. They taihe usual colle of cards, invitations to diickets for private views, programmes of charity certs, and the like that are showered on fashionable young men every m during the season. There was a rather heavy bill for a chased silver Louis-Quioilet-set that he had not yet had the ce 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 ies; and there were several very courteously worded unications from Jermyn Street money-lenders to advany sum of mo a moments notid at the most reasoes of i.
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 fotten all that he had gohrough. A dim sense of having taken part in some straragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the uy 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 bo99ｌｉb?wl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before him. He felt perfectly happy.
Suddenly his eye fell on the s that he had placed in front of the portrait, aarted.
"Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting ae oable. "I shut the window?"
Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured.
Was it all true? Had the portrait really ged? 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 vas 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 recolle of the whole thing! First in the dim twilight,.. and then in the bright dawn, he had seeouch of cruelty round the ed lips. He almost dreaded his valet leaving the room. He khat when he was alone he would have to examihe portrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes had been brought and the man turo 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 aired.
Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood fag the s. The s was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. He sed it curiously, w if ever before it had cealed the secret of a mans 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 ce, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible ge? 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 s aside and saw himself face to face. It erfectly 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 stifiterest. That such a ge should have taken place was incredible to him. A was a fact. Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form and colour on the vas 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, a afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there, gazing at the picture in sied horror.
Ohing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made him scious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Va 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 sce to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral seo 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 oclock struck, and four, and the half-h 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 passioter to the girl he had loved, impl her fiveness and acg 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 fession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had fihe letter, he felt that he had been fiven.
Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henrys voice outside. "My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I t bear your shutting yourself up like this."
He made no a first, but remained quite still. The knog still tinued 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 iable. He jumped up, drew the s 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 se 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 sce is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divihing in us. Dont s it, Harry, any more--at least not before me. I want to be good. I t bear the idea of my soul being hideous."
"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I gratulate 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 yoing to say. Something dreadful about marriage. Dont say it. Dont 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! . . . Didnt you get my letter? I wrote to you this m, ahe 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 wouldnt 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 ahem tightly. "Dorian," he said, "my letter--dont be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane is dead."
A cry of pain broke from the lads lips, and he leaped to his feet, tearing his hands away from Lord Henrys 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 m papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any oill I came. There will have to be an i, 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 ones début with a sdal. One should reserve that to give an io ones old age. I suppose they dont know your the theatre? If they dont, 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 i? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I t bear it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once."
"I have no doubt it was not an act, 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 fotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she did not e 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 dont know what it was, but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it russic 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 youhan that. She looked such a child, and seemed to know so little about ag. Dorian, you musthis thi on your nerves. You must e and dih me, and afterwards we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be there. You e to my sisters 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 dih 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. Strahat my first passionate love-letter should have been addressed to a dead girl. they feel, I wohose white silent p藏书网eople we call the dead? Sibyl! she feel, or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I loved her o 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 explai all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something happehat made me afraid. I 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 dont know the danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would have dohat for me. She had nht to kill herself. It was selfish of her."
"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case and produg a gold-latten matchbox, "the only way a woman ever reform a man is by b him so pletely that he loses all possible i in life. If you had married this girl, you would have beeched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One 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 bees dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bohat some other womans 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 ohat there is a fatality about good resolutions--that they are always made too late. Miainly were." "Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with stific laws. Their in 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 be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no at."
"Harry," cried Dorian Gray, ing over and sitting down beside him, "why is it that I ot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I dont think I am heartless. Do you?"
"You have dooo many foolish things during the last fht to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry with his sweet melancholy smile.
The lad frowned. "I dont like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined, "but I am glad you dont think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. I know I am not. A 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 iing question," said Lord Henry, who found an exquisite pleasure in play?99liｂ?ing on the lads unscious egotism, "aremely iing question. I fancy that the true explanation is this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in su inartistihat they hurt us by their crude violeheir absolute incohereheir 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 lohe 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 su experie 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 bee stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminisces. 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 y," rejoined his panion. "Life has aloppies 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 m for a romahat would not die. Ultimately, however, it did die. I fet what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills oh the terror of eternity. Well--would you believe it?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshires, I found myself seated at dinner he lady iion, and she insisted on going over the whole thing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had buried my roman 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 ay. 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 i of the play is entirely over, they propose to ti. If they were allowed their own way, every edy would have a tragiding, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art. You are more fortuhan 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 sole themselves. Some of them do it by going in for seal colours. rust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a womahirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history. Others find a great solation in suddenly disc the good qualities of their husbands. They flaunt their jugal felicity in ones face, as if it were the most fasating of sins. Religion soles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a woman oold me, and I quite uand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. sce makes egotists of us all. Yes; there is really o the solations that women find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentiohe most important one."
"What is that, Harry?" said the lad listlessly.
"Oh, the obvious solation. Taking some one elses admirer when one loses ones own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the women os! There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a tury when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things lay with, such as romance, passion, and love."
"I was terribly cruel to her. You fet that."
"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, dht 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 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 represeo you all the heroines of romahat she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen."
"She will never e to life again now," muttered the lad, burying his fa his hands.
"No, she will never e to life. She has played her last part. But you must think of that lonely death iawdry dressing-room simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful se 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 Shakespeares plays ahem lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeares 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 dont waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are."
There was a silehe 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 experiehat 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 yood looks. We live in ahat reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We ot 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 sisters box?"
"Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her name on the door. But I am sorry you wont e and dine."
"I dont 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 uood 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 hirty, 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 intermiime over everything.
As soon as he had left, he rushed to the s and drew it bao; there was no further ge in the picture. It had received the news of Sibyl Vanes death before he had known of it himself. It was scious 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 izance of assed within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the ge taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it.
Poor Sibyl! What a roma had all been! She had often mimicked death oage. Theh himself had touched her and taken her with him. How had she played that dreadful last se? 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 gh, on that horrible night at the theatre. Whehought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent on t?99ｌｉb.he worlds 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 e 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 a, 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 pai over him as he thought of the desecration that was in store for the fair fa the vas. Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigo kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. M after m he had sat before the portrait w 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 bee 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 thter 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 ged in ao a prayer; perhaps in ao a prayer it might remain unged. A, who, that knew anything about life, would surrehe ce of remaining always young, however fantastic that ce might be, or with what fateful seque might be fraught? Besides, was it really under his trol? Had it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious stific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living anism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inanic things? Nay, without thought or scious desire, might not thiernal to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom i love or strange affinity? But the reason was of no importance. He would never agai 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 watg it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magiirrors. 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, a 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 happeo the coloured image on the vas? He would be safe. That was everything.
He drew the s bato its former pla 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
Chapter 9
As he was sitting at breakfast m, 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 khat was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really goo. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that oragedy 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 a late edition of The Globe that I picked up at the club. I came here at ond was miserable at not finding you. I 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 ahe girls mother? For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isnt 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 Veian glass and looking dreadfully bored. "I was at the opera. You should have e on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harrys sister, for the first time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely. Dont talk about horrid subjects. If one doesnt 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 womans only child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not oage. 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 straiouch of pain in his voice. "You went to the opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You 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 wont 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 aion. A man who is master of himself end a sorrow as easily as he i a pleasure. I dont want to be at the mery emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to domihem."
"Dorian, this is horrible! Something has ged you pletely. You look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to e down to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural, and affeate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I dont know what has e over you. You talk as if you had , no pity in you. It is all Harrys 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 t9９lib?aught me to be vain."
"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day."
"I dont know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round. "I dont 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 e 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 dont think it was a vulgar act? Of course she killed herself."
The elder man buried his fa 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 onplace 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 firagedy. She was always a heroihe last night she played-- the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known the reality of love. When she ks uy, 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 e ierday 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, whht me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I suffered immensely. Then it passed away. I ot repeat aion. No one , except sealists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You e dowo e. That is charming of you. You find me soled, 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 fet exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappoi. He had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of ennui, and became a firmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really want to e, teach me rather tet what has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic point of view. Was it not Gautier who used to write about la solation des arts? I remember pig up a little vellum-covered book in your studio one day and g 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 sole one for all the miseries of life. I love beautiful things that one toud 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 bee the spectator of ones 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, houghts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I am ged, 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 hoy we used to be together! Dont leave me, Basil, and dont 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 reproag him any more. After all, his indifference robably merely a mood that would pass away. There was so mu him that was good, so mu him that was noble.
"Well, Dorian," he said at length, with a sad smile, "I wont speak to you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your name wont be mentioned in e with it. The i 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 "i." There was something so crude and vulgar about everything of the kind. "They dont know my name," he answered.
"But surely she did?"
"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioo any one. She told me ohat they were all rather curious to learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name rince Charming. It retty 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 e and sit to me yourself again. I t get on without you."
"I ever sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!" he exclaimed, starting back.
The paiared at him. "My dear boy, what nonsense!" he cried. "Do you mean to say you dont like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have you pulled the s in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever done. Do take the s 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 dont 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 to on the portrait."
"To! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for it. Let me see it." And Hallward walked towards the er of the room.
A cry of terror broke from Dorian Grays lips, and he rushed between the painter and the s. "Basil," he said, looking very pale, "you must not look at it. I dont wish you to."
"Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldnt 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 dont offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, if you touch this s, everything is over between us."
Hallward was thuruck. 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 ched, and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over.
"Dorian!"
"Dont speak!"
"But what is the matter? Of course I wont look at it if you dont wao," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over towards the window. "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I shouldnt see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris iumn. 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 woing 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 do once.
"Yes; I dont suppose you will object to that. Gees 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 s, you 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 ged your mind? You people who go in for being sistent have just as many moods as others have. The only difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You t have fotten 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 i, "If you want to have a strange quarter of an het Basil to tell you why he wont exhibit your picture. He told me why he wouldnt, and it was a revelation to me." Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try.
"Basil," he said, ing 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 doiher of those two things. If you wish me o look at your picture again, I am tent. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever doo 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 determio find out Basil Hallwards 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, clutg the arms of his chair with trembling hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.
"I see you did. Dont 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 ination of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of every oo whom you spoke. I wao 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 uood it. I hardly uood it myself. I only khat I had seen perfe face to face, and that the world had bee wonderful to my eyes-- too wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, han 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 huntsmans cloak and polished boar-spear. ed with heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrians barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen iers silent silver the marvel of your own face. And it had all been what art should be--unscious, ideal, ae. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determio paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, not in the e 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 preseo me without mist or veil, I ot 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 muyself into it. Then it was that I resolved o 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 aloh it, I felt that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thi my studio, and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fasation of its prese 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 ot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels iion 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 ofteo me that art ceals the artist far more pletely than it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I determio 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 ot 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 infiy for the painter who had just made this strange fession 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 ical 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 se..emed to me very curious."
"Well, you dont 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 dohat is good, I owe to you. Ah! you dont know what it e 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 pliment."
"It was not intended as a pliment. It was a fession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have go of me. Perhaps one should never put ones worship into words."
"It was a very disappointing fession."
"Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didnt 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 mustnt 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 dont think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would so to you, Basil."
"You will sit to me again?"
"Impossible!"
"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man es across two ideal things. Few e across one."
"I 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 e 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 wo me look at the picture once again. But that t be helped. I quite uand what you feel about it."
As he left the room, Do藏书网rian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How little he knew of the true reason! And how stra was that, instead of having been forced to reveal his ow, he had succeeded, almost by ce, iing a secret from his friend! How much that strange fession explaio him! The painters absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious retices-- he uood them all now, and he felt sorry. There seemed to him to be something tragi a friendship so coloured by romance.
He sighed and touched99lｉｂ? the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at all costs. He could not run such a risk of discain. It had been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, in a room to whiy of his friends had access.
Chapter 10
Chapter 10
When his servaered, be looked at him steadfastly and wondered if he had thought of peering behind the s. 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 refle of Victors 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 slow>..ly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he wao see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to send two of his men round at o seemed to him that as the mahe room his eyes wandered in the dire of the s. Or was that merely his own fancy?
After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashiohread 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 dont want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key."
"Well, sir, youll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it. Why, it hasnt been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died."
He wi 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 tents of her bunch with tremulously uain hands. "Here is the key. Ill have it off the bun a moment. But you dont think of living up there, sir, and you so fortable 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 mahings 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 seveh-tury Veian work that his grandfather had found in a vent near Bologna. Yes, that would serve to 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 a would never die. What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the vas. They would mar its beauty a away its grace. They would defile it and make it shameful. Ahe 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 Henrys influence, and the still more poisonous influehat 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 seire. 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 fetfulness could do that. But the future was iable. 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 s. Was the fa the vas viler than before? It seemed to him that it ..unged, a 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. pared to what he saw in it of sure or rebuke, how shallow Basils reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!-- how shallow, and of what little at! His own soul was looking out at him from the vas 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 servaered.
"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 o 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 mihere 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 siderably tempered by the ie impeiosity of most of the artists who dealt with him. As a rule, he never left his shop. He waited for people to e to him. But he always made an exception in favour of Dorian Gray. There was something about Dorian that charmed everybody. It leasure even to see him.
"What I do for you, Mr. Gray?" he said, rubbing his fat freckled hands. "I thought I would do myself the honour of ing 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 ing round, Mr. Hubbard. I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame-- though I dont go in much at present fious 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 s back. " you move it, c and all, just as it is? I dont 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 s by which it was suspended. "And, now, where shall we carry it tray?"
"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 ast. The elaborate character of the frame had ma??de the picture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious protests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesmans 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 mahey 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 ered the plaore 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 likeo his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and desired to keep at a dista appeared to Dorian to have but little ged. 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 pany of hawkers rode by, carrying hooded birds on their gaued wrists. How well he remembered it all! Every moment of his lonely childhood came ba 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 pla the house so secure fr eyes as this. He had the key, and no one else could e. Beh its purple pall, the face painted on the vas could grow bestial, sodden, and un. 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 e 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 Hallwards masterpiece.
No; that was impossible. Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing upon the vas was growing old. It might escape the hideousness of sin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it. The cheeks would bee hollow or flaccid. Yellow crows 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 ross, as the mouths of old mehere would be the wrihroat, 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 cealed. There was no help for it.
&qu 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 dont 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 i 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 geous hanging that cealed the secret of his life. "I shant trouble you any more now. I am much obliged for your kindness in ing 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 unely 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 reag the library, he found that it was just after five oclod 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 guardians wife, a pretty professional invalid who had spent the preg winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry, and beside it was a book bound in yelloer, the cover slightly torn and the edges soiled. A copy of the third edition of The St. Jamess Gazette had been placed oea-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 w>hat 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 s had not bee 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 ones 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 versation, or picked up a card with an address, or fouh a pillow a withered flower or a shred of crumpled lace.
He sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henrys was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper, and a book that might i him, and that he would be at the club at eight-fifteen. He opehe St. Jamess languidly, and looked through it. A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye. It drew attention to the following paragraph:
I ON AN ACTRESS.--An i was held this m at the Bell Tavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District er, on the body of Sibyl Vane, a young actress retly e the Royal Theatre, Holborn. A verdict of death by misadventure was returned. siderable 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 havi him the report. And it was certainly stupid of him to have marked it with red pencil. Viight have read it. The man knew more than enough English for that.
Perhaps he had read it and had begun to suspeething. And, yet, what did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vanes 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 straiahat wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung himself into an arm-chair and began to turhe leaves. After a few minutes he became absorbed. It was the stra 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 eenth tury all the passions and modes of thought that beloo every tury 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 ot and of archaisms, of teical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work of some of the fi 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 ierms of mystical philosophy. One hardly k times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid fessions of a modern sinner. It oisonous book. The heavy odour of inse seemed to g about its pages and to trouble the brain. The mere ce of the sentehe subtle monotony of their music, so full as it was of plex 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 unscious of the falling day and creeping shadows.
Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a creen 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 room, placed the book otle Floreable that always stood at his bedside and began to dress for dinner.
It was almost nine oclock before he reached the club, where he found Lord Henry sitting alone, in the m-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 fasated me that I fot how the time was going."
"Yes, I thought you would like it," replied his host, rising from his chair.
"I didnt say I liked it, Harry. I said it fasated me. There is a great difference."
"Ah, you have discovered that?" murmured Lord Henry. And they passed into the dining-room.
Chapter 11
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 han 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 ging fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have almost entirely lost trol. The hero, the wonderful young Parisian in whom the romantid the stific temperaments were sely blended, became to him a kind uring type of himself. And, ihe whole book seemed to him to taiory of his own life, written before he had lived it.
In one point he was more fortuhan the novels 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, at 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 fasated Basil Hallward, and many others besides him, seemed o 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 ehe 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 innoce that they had tarhey wondered how one so charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of ahat was at once sordid and sensual.
Often, ourning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged absehat gave rise to such strange jecture 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 fa the vas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him from the polished glass. The very sharpness of the trast used to qui his sense of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his owy, more and more ied in the corruption of his own soul. He would examih minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and terrible delight, the hideous lihat seared the wrinkling forehead or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, w 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 sted chamber, or in the sordid room of the little ill-famed taverhe 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 urely 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 khe more he desired to know. He had mad huhat 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 musis of the day to charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His little dinners, itling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were noted as much for the careful sele and plag of those invited, as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with its subtle symphonic arras of exotic flowers, and embroidered cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver. Ihere were many, especially among the very young men, who saw, or fahat they saw, in Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often dreamed ion or Oxford days, a type that was to bine something of the real culture of the scholar with all the grad distin and perfect manner of a citizen of the world. To them he seemed to be of the pany 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 bees 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 fasation for him. His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to time he affected, had their marked influen the young exquisites of the Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him ihing that he did, and tried to reproduce the actal 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 ing of age, and found, indeed, a subtle pleasure ihought that he might really bee to the London of his own day what to imp?99ｌｉb.erial Neronian Rome the author of the Satyri once had bee in his inmost heart he desired to be something more than a mere arbiter elegantiarum, to be sulted on the wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a ie, or the duct of a e. 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 ses highest realization.
The worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been decried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions aions that seem strohan themselves, and that they are scious of sharing with the less highly anized forms of existence. But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never been uood, 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 rejes, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose in was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorahey 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 panions.
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 unely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was o accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experies aim, indeed, was to be experieself, 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 trate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment.
There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawher 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 thay 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 ers 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 ing down from the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it feared to wake the sleepers a 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, ach the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. The wan mirret 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 ged. Out of the unreal shadows of the night es 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 y for the tinuance of energy in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids might open some m 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 ged, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no scious form of obligatiret, 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 objeongst the true objects, of life; and in his search for sensations that would be at onew and delightful, and possess that element of strahat is so essential to romance, he would often adopt certain modes of thought that he ko 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 indifferehat is not inpatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that, indeed, acc to certain modern psychologists, is often a dition of it.
It was rumoured of him ohat he was about to join the Roman Catholiunion, aainly the Roman ritual had always a great attra for him. The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb reje 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 arble 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 monstrah that pallid wafer that at times, one would fain think, is ihe "panis caelestis," the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the Passion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalid smiting his breast for his sins. The fuming sers that the grave boys, in their lad scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their subtle fasation for him. As he passed out, he used to look with wo the black fessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of one of them and listen to men and women whispering through the wrating 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 on things strao us, and the subtle antinomianism that always seems to apany it, moved him for a season; and for a season he ined to the materialistic does of the Darwinismus movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in trag the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the ception of the absolute dependence of the spirit oain physical ditions, 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 importanpared with life itself. He felt keenly scious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated from a and experiment. He khat the senses, han the soul, have their spiritual mysteries to reveal.
And so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their manufacture, distilling heavily sted oils and burning odorous gums from the East. He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its terpart in the sensuous life, a himself to discover their true relations, w what there was in frankinse that made one mystical, and in ambergris that stirred ones passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the brain, and in champak that staihe imagination; and seeking often to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of sweet-smelling roots and sted, pollen-laden flowers; of aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that sis; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul.
At aime he devoted himself eo musid in a long latticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of olive-green lacquer, he used to give curious certs in which mad gipsies tore wild musi little zithers, rave, yellow-shawled Tunisians plucked at the strairings of monstrous lutes, while grinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, croug upon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of reed or brass and charmed-- or feigo charm--great hooded snakes and horrible horned adders. The harsh intervals and shrill discords of barbaric music stirred him at times when Schuberts grace, and Chopiiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell unheeded on his ear. He collected together from all parts of the world the stra instruments that could be fouher iombs of dead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived tact with Western civilizations, and loved to toud try them. He had the mysterious juruparis of the Rio Negro Indians, that wome allowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been subjected to fasting and sc, 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 Cuzd 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 Mexis, into which the performer does not blow, but through which he ihe air; the harsh ture of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who sit all day long in high trees, and 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 aic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the yotl-bells of the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge drical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the ohat Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexi temple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a description. The fantastic character of these instruments fasated him, and he felt a curious delight ihought 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 "Tannh?user" and seeing in the prelude to that great work of art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul.
On one occasioook up the study of jewels, and appeared at a e 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 o have left him. He would often spend a whole day settling aling in their cases the various stohat be had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red by lamplight, the cymophah 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 amon-stones, e and violet spinels, and amethysts with their alternate layer>.9９ｌｉb.s of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the moonstones pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and riess of colour, and had a turquoise de la vieille roche that was the envy of all the oisseurs.
He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonsos Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real jath, and in the romantic history of Alexahe queror 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 goldeers and a scarlet robe" the monster could be thrown into a magical sleep and slain. Acc to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India made him eloquent. The elian appeased anger, and the hyath provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wihe gar 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 stoaken 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 s of Arabian birds was the aspilates, that, acc 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 ation. 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 Lodges 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 slaihief, 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 certaiian 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, acc 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 ation, 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 old armour studded with jaths, a collar of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parsemé with pearls. Henry II wore jewelled gloves reag 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 geous in its pomp and decoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.
Theurned 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 iigated the subject-- and he always had araordinary faculty of being absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the refle of the ruin that time brought oiful 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 unged. 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 represehe starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by white, gilt-reieeds? He loo 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 goldehe fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus and were figured with "lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters--all, in 藏书网fact, that a painter 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 apa of the words being wrought in gold thread, and eaote, of square shape in those days, formed with four pearls. He read of the room that repared 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 kings arms, and five hundred and sixty-oterflies, whose wings were similarly ored with the arms of the queen, the whole worked in gold." Catherine de Médicis had a m-bed made for her of black velvet powdered with crests 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 queens devices in cut black velvet upon cloth of silver. Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides fiftee 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 beh the tremulous gilt of its opy.
And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite spes that he could find of textile and embroidered wetting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates and stitched over with iridest 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 ese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair blue silks and wrought with fleurs-de-lys, birds and images; veils of lacis worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish velvets; Geian work, with its gilt s, 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 ected with the service of the Church. In the long cedar chests that lihe west gallery of his house, he had stored away many rare aiful spes of what is really the raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must urple and jewels and fine lihat 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 geous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask, figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond whi either side was the pine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided into panels representing ses from the life of the Virgin, and the ation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood. This was Italian work of the fifteenth tury. Another cope was of gree, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of athus-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 seraphs 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-lys; altar frontals of crimso and blue linen; and many corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria. In the mystic offices to which such things were put, there was something that quied his imagination.
For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely house, were to be to him means of fetfulness, 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 giures 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 fet the hideous paihing, a back his light heart, his wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existehen, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to dreadful plaear 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 fasation 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 eo 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 absene 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 scious 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 likeo himself; but what could they learn from that? He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him. He had not pai. 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, eaining the fashionable young men of his own rank who were his chief panions, and astounding the ty by the wanton luxury and geous 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 fasated 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 bee 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 Berwid anentleman got up in a marked manner a 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 fn sailors in a low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he sorted with thieves and ers and khe 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 ers, or pass him with a sneer, or look at him with cold searg eyes, as though they were determio discover his secret.
Of susolences 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 o leave him, were in themselves a suffit ao 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 sure a vention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or horror if Dorian Gray ehe room.
Yet these whispered sdals only increased in the eyes of many his strange and dangerous charm. His great wealth was a certai of security. Society--civilized society, at least-- is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rid fasating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importahan 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 solation 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 ot atone for half-cold entrées, 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 s of good society are, or should be, the same as the s of art. Form is absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as its uy, and should bihe insincere character of a romantic play with the wit ay that make such plays delightful to us. Is insiy such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by which we multiply our personalities.
Such, at any rate, was Dorian Grays opinion. He used to wo the shallow psychology of those who ceive the ego in man as a thing simple, perma, reliable, and of one esseo him, man was a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a plex 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 try house and look at the various portraits of those whose blood flowed in his veins. Here hilip 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 pany." Was it young Herberts 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 Hallwards studio, to the mad prayer that had so ged 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 mans legacy been? Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him some iance of sin and shame? Were his own aerely the dreams that the dead man had not dared to realize? Here, from the fading vas, 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 straories 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 Gee 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 mai of the eighteenth tury, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars. What of the sed Lord Beham, the panion of the Prince Regent in his wildest days, and one of the wit the secret marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert? How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls and i pose! assions had he bequeathed? The world had looked upon him as infamous. He had led the ies 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 fad 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 Bate dress. There were vine leaves in her hair. The purple spilled from the cup she was holding. The ations 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 aors in literature as well as in ones own raearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, aainly with an influence of whie was more absolutely scious. 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 ad 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 straerrible 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 hat had so influenced his life had himself known this curious fancy. In the seventh chapter he tells how, ed 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 ser; and, as Caligula, had caroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in an ivory manger with a jewel-froed horse; and, as Domitian, had wahrough a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round with haggard eyes for the refle of the dagger that was to end his days, and sick with that ennui, that terrible taedium vitae, that es 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 Pomegrao 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 ain Doriao read this fantastic chapter, and the two chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious tapestries or ingly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful aiful forms of those whom vid 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 lht suck death from the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Veian, knoaul the Sed, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of Formosus, and whose tiara, valued at two huhousand florins, was bought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visti, who used hounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with roses by a harlot who had loved him; the Bia on his white horse, with Fratricide riding beside him and his maained 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 on in a pavilion of white and crimson silk, filled with nymphs aaurs, 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 藏书网have for red wihe 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 I 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 bur Rome as the enemy of God and man, whled Polyssena with a napkin, and gave poison to Ginevra dEste in a erald, and in honour of a shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles VI, who had so wildly adored his brothers wife that a leper had warned him of the insanity that was ing on him, and who, when his brain had sied and grown strange, could only be soothed by Sara cards painted with the images of love ah and madness; and, in his trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and athuslike curls, Grifoo Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simoo with his page, and whose eliness 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 horri.ble fasation in them all. He saw them at night, and they troubled his imagination in the day. The Renaissanew of strange manners of poisoning-- poisoning by a helmet and a lighted torch, by an embrlove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander and by an amber . 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 ception of the beautiful.
Chapter 12
Chapter 12
It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth birthday, as he o?en remembered afterwards.
He was walking home about eleven oclock from Lord Henrys, where he had been dining, and was ed in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy. At the er 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 reized him. It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for which he could not at, came over him. He made no sign nition a on quickly in the dire 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 araordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for you in your library ever sinine oclock. 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 wao see you before I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me. But I wasnt quite sure. Didnt ynize me?"
"In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I t even reize Grosvenor Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I dont feel at all certain about it. I am sorry yoing away, as I have not seen you fes. But I suppose you will be back soon?"
"No: I am going to be out of England for six months. I io take a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great picture I have in my head. However, it wasnt about myself I wao talk. Here we are at your door. Let me e in for a moment. I have something to say to you."
"I shall be charmed. But wont you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray languidly as he passed up the steps and opehe 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 trai 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 shant have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things. All I have with me is in this bag, and I easily get to Victoria iy minutes."
Dorian looked at him and smiled. "What a way for a fashionable paio travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! e in, or the fog will get into the house. And mind you dont 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 opeh. 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 Fren you used to have. What has bee of the Fren, by the bye?"
Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I believe he married Lady Radleys maid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker. Anglomanie is very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly of the French, doesnt it? But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad servant. I never liked him, but I had nothing to plain about. Oen imagihings 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 hod-seltzer? I always take hod-seltzer myself. There is sure to be some in the room."
"Thanks, I wont have anything more," said the paiaking his cap and coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the er. "And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously. Dont 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 dont wish to know anything about them. I love sdals about other people, but sdals about myself dont i me. They have not got the charm of y."
"They must i you, Dorian. Every gentleman is ied in his good name. You dont eople 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 ah are not everything. Mind you, I dont believe these rumours at ..all. At least, I t believe them when I see you. Sin is a thing that writes itself across a mans face. It ot be cealed. 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 woion 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 aravagant price. I refused him. There was something in the shape of his fihat 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, i face, and your marvellous untroubled youth-- I t believe anything against you. A I see you very seldom, and you never e 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 dont know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves the room of a club when you e? Why is it that so malemen in London will her 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 happeo e up in versation, in e 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 youhere was that wretched boy in the Guards who itted 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 Sion and his dreadful end? What about Lord Kents only son and his career? I met his father yesterday in St. Jamess 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 pt in his voice. "You ask me why Berwick leaves a room wheer 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 ? You ask me about Henry Ashton and youh. Did I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery? If Kents silly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me? If Adrian Sion writes his friends 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 diables, 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 try, it is enough for a man to have distin and brains for every on too wag against him. And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you fet that we are iive 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, a you smile, as you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know you and Harry are inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for her, you should not have made his sisters 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 sdal had ever touched her. Is there a single det woman in London noould drive with her in the park? Why, even her childre allowed to live with her. Thehere 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? they be true? When I first heard them, I laughed. I hear them now, and they make me shudder. What about your try-house and the life that is led there? Dorian, you dont know what is said about you. I wont tell you that I dont want to preach to you. I remember Harry saying ohat 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 name and a fair record. I want you to get rid of the dreadful people you associate with. Dont shrug your shoulders like that. Dont be so indifferent. You have a wonderful influence. Let it be food, not for evil. They say that you corrupt every oh whom you bee intimate, and that it is quite suffit for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow after. I dont 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. Lloucester 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 fession I ever read. I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you thhly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind. Know you? I wonder do I know you? Before I could ahat, 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 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. "e: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldnt you look at it? You 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. e, 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 i manner. He felt a terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret, and that the man who had paihe portrait that was the in 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 tinued, ing closer to him and looking steadfastly into his stern eyes, "I shall show you my soul. You shall see the thing that you fanly God see."
Hallward started back. "This is blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried. "You must not say things like that. They are horrible, and they dont mean anything."
"You think so?" He laughed again.
"I know so. As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for yood. You know I have been always a stanch friend to you."
"Dont touch me. Finish what you have to say."
A twisted flash of pain shot across the painters 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 doithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Theraightened 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 ao 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, Doriahem! t you see what I am going through? My God! dont tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, and shameful."
Dorian Gray smiled. There was a curl of pt in his lips. "e 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 e with me."
"I shall e with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed my train. That makes no matter. I go to-morrow. But dont ask me to read anything to-night. All I want is a plain ao my question."
"That shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. You will not have to read long."
Chapter 13
Chapter 13
He passed out of the room and began the ast, 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, Doriahe lamp down on the floor, and taking out the key, tur 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 opehe door a in. A cold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in a flame of murky e. He shuddered. "Shut the door behind you," he whispered, as he placed the lamp oable.
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 tain, besides a chair and a table. As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned dle 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 wainsg. 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 wont? Then I must do it myself," said the young man, aore the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.
An exclamation of horror broke from the painters lips as ..t>saw in the dim light the hideous fa the vas grinning at him. There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing. Good heavens! it was Dorian Grays 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 ihinning 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 pletely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it was Dorian himself. But who had do? He seemed tnize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design. The idea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid. He seized the lighted dle, and held it to the picture. In the left-hand er was his own raced in loers ht vermilion.
It was some foul parody, some infamous igire. He had never dohat. Still, it was his own picture. He k, and he felt as if his blood had ged 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 uo articulate. He passed his hand across his forehead. It was dank with clammy sweat.
The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watg him with that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are absorbed in a play when some great artist is ag. There was her 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 explaio 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 dont 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 vas. 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 c..old, mist-stained glass.
"You told me you had destroyed it."
"I was wrong. It has destroyed me."
"I dont believe it is my picture."
"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 su ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr."
"It is the fay 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 doh 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 vas and exami. The surface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it. It was from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had e. Through some strange quiing 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 dle 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 fa 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 ones boyhood? Lead us not into temptation. Five 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 oo late, Doria us kneel down and try if we ot remember a prayer. Isnt 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! Dont say that. You have done enough evil in your life. My God! Dont you see that accursed thing leering at us?"
Dorian Gray gla the picture, and suddenly an untrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had been suggested to him by the image on the vas, 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 oop of the painted chest that faced him. His eye fell on it. He knew what it was. It was a khat he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord, and had fotten 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 ko the great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the mans head down oable 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 vulsively, 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. Thehrew the knife oable, and listened.
He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip ohreadbare carpet. He opehe door a out on the landing. The house was absolutely quiet. No one was about. For a few seds he stood bending over the balustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness. Theook out the key auro the room, log 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 ned the clotted black pool that was slowly widening oable, 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, ope and stepped out on the baly. The wind had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacocks tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down and saw the poli 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 er and then vanished. A woman in a fluttering shawl was creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went. Now and theopped and peered back. Once, she began to sing in a hoarse voice. The poli 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 brao and fro. He shivered a back, closing the window behind him.
Having reached the door, he turhe key and ope. He did not even gla the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had paihe fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had go 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 bureel, and studded with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant, and questions would be asked. He hesitated for a moment, theurned bad 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 paiopped 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 er. They must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was in the wainsg, 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 mio two.
He sat down and began to think. Every year--every month, almost-- men were strangled in England for what he had dohere had been a madness of murder in the air. Some red star had e too close to the earth. . . . A, what evidence was there against him? Basil Hallward had left the house at eleven. No one had seen him e in again. Most of the servants were at Selby Royal. His valet had goo 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 suspis would be roused. Months! Everything could be destroyed long before then.
A sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur coat and hat a out into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of the poli on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the bulls-eye reflected in the window. He waited and held his breath.
After a few moments he drew back the latd 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 fotten my latch-key. What time is it?"
"Ten minutes past two, sir," answered the man, looking at the clod blinking.
"Ten minutes past two? How horribly late! You must wake me at o-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 be went away to catch his train."
"Oh! I am sorry I didnt 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. Dont fet to call me at o-morrow."
"No, sir."
The man shambled down the passage in his slippers.
Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upoable and passed into the library. For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room, biting his lip and thinking. Theook down the Blue Book from one of the shelves and began to turhe leaves. "Alan Campbell, 152, Hertford Street, Mayfair." Yes; that was the man he wanted.
Chapter 14
Chapter 14
At nine oclock the m his servant came in with a cup of chocolate on a tray and opehe shutters. Dorian was sleeping quite peacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underh his cheek. He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study.
The man had to touch him twi 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 m in May.
Gradually the events of the preg night crept with silent, blood-stained feet into his brain and restructed themselves there with terrible distiness. He wi 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 ba, 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 gohrough he would si row mad. There were sins whose fasation was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strariumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quied 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 oself.
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 ie and scarf-pin and ging 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 corresponde 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 annoyan his face. "That awful thing, a womans memory!" as Lord Henry had once said.
After he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly with a napkin, motioo his servant to wait, and going over to the table, sat down and wrote two letters. O in his pocket, the other he hao the valet.
"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell is out of tow his address."
As soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and begag 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 likeo Basil Hallward. He frowned, aing up, went over to the book-case and took out a volume at hazard. He was determihat 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 Gautiers Emaux et Camees, Charpentiers Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etg. The binding was of citron-greeher, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted pomegranates. It had been given to him by Adrian Sion. As he turned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of Laaire, the cold yellow hand "du supplial lavé:e," with its downy red hairs and its "doigts de faune." He gla 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 atique,
Le sein de peries ruisselant,
La Vénus de lAdriatique
Sort de leau son corps rose et blanc.
Les d?mes, sur lazur des ondes
Suivant la phrase au pur tour,
Se e des ges rondes
Que soulève un soupir damour.
Lesquif aborde et me dépose,
Jetant son amarre au pilier,
Devant une fa?ade rose,
Sur le marbre dun escalier.
How exquisite they were! As ohem, 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 honeybed 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 fa?ade rose,
Sur le marbre dun 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 roman 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 Ti. Poor Basil! What a horrible way for a man to die!
He sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried tet. He read of the swallows that fly in and out of the little cafe at Smyrna where the Hadjis sit ting their amber beads and the turbaned merts smoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he read of the Obelisk in the Place de la corde 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 musi kiss-stained marble, tell of that curious statue that Gautier pares to a tralto 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 e back. Perhaps he might refuse to e. What could he do then? Every moment was of vital importance.
They had bee friends once, five years before-- almost inseparable, iheimacy had e suddenly to an end. When they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled: Alan Campbell never did.
He was aremely 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 gaiirely from Dorian. His dominant intellectual passion was for sce. At Cambridge he had spent a great deal of his time w in the laboratory, and had taken a good class iural Sce 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 erson who made up prescriptions. He was an excellent musi, however, as well, and played both the violin and the piaer than most amateurs. In fact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray together--musid that indefira that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wished-- and, indeed, exercised often without being scious of it. They had met at Lady Berkshires 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. Fhteen 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 fasating 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 resent. He had ged, too--was strangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing musid would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was called upon, that he was so absorbed in sce that he had no time left in which to practise. And this was certainly true. Every day he seemed to beore ied in biology, and his name appeared once or twi some of the stific reviews in e with certain curious experiments.
This was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for. Every sed he kept glang 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 bato 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 grihrough moving masks. Then, suddenly, time stopped for him. Yes: that blind, slow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being dead, raimbly 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 servaered. 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 e in at once, Francis." He felt that he was himself again. His mood of cowardice had passed away.
The man bowed aired. 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 ing."
"I had intended o enter your house again, Gray. But you said it was a matter of life ah." His voice was hard and cold. He spoke with slow deliberation. There was a look of pt ieady searg 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 beeed.
"Yes: it is a matter of life ah, Alan, and to more than one person. Sit down."
Campbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him. The two mens eyes met. In Dorians there was infiy. He khat what he was going to do was dreadful.
After a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very quietly, but watg 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 whiobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table. He has beeen hours now. Dont stir, and dont look at me like that. Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do not you. What you have to do is this--"
"Stop, Gray. I dont want to know anything further. Whether what you have told me is true or not true doesnt me. I entirely dee to be mixed up in your life. Keep your horrible secrets to yourself. They dont i me any more."
"Alan, they will have to i you. This one will have to i you. I am awfully sorry for you, Alan. But I t help myself. You are the one man who is able to save me. I am forced t you into the matter. I have no option. Alan, you are stific. 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 e 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 ge 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 imagihat I would raise a fio help you, mad to make this monstrous fession. 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 devils 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 dont care what shame es 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 peoples characters. Your friend Lord Henry Wotton 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 e to the wrong man. Go to some of your friends. Dont e to me."
"Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You dont 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 inte, the result was the same."
"Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have e to? I shall not inform upon you. It is not my business. Besides, without my stirring iter, you are certain to be arrested. Nobody ever its 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 stific experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there dont affect you. If in some hideous disseg-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 trary, you would probably feel that you were being the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, ratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want you to do is merely what you have often done before. Io destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are aced 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 fet that. I am simply indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me."
"Alan, I e 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! dont think of that. Look at the matter purely from the stific point of view. You dont inquire where the dead things on which you experiment e from. Dont inquire now. I have told you too much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were friends once, Alan."
"Dont 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 dont e to my assistance, I am ruined. Why, they will hang me, Alan! Dont you uand? They will hang me for what I have done."
"There is no good in prolonging this se. I absolutely refuse to do anything iter. It is insane of you to ask me."
"You refuse?"
"Yes."
"I e you, Alan."
"It is useless."
The same look of pity came into Dorian Grays eyes. Theretched 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 dohis, he got up a over to the window.
Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and ope. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell ba his chair. A horrible sense of siess 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 dont help me, I must send it. If you dont help me, I will send it. You know what the result will be. But yoing to help me. It is impossible for you to refuse now. I tried to spare you. You will do me the justiit 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 fa 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. e, dont work yourself into this fever. The thing has to be done. Face it, and do it."
A groan broke from Campbells lips and he shivered all over. The tig of the clo 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 ir was being slowly tightened round his forehead, as if the disgrace with which he藏书网 was threatened had already e upon him. The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead. It was intolerable. It seemed to crush him.
"e, Alan, you must decide at once."
"I ot do it," he said, meically, as though words could alter things.
"You must. You have no choice. Dont 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 a 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 t the things with him.
As the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up from the chair, went over to the ey-piece. He was shivering with a kind of ague. For nearly twenty minutes, her of the men spoke. A fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the tig of the clock was like the beat of a hammer.
As the chime strue, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian Gray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears. There was something in the purity and refi of that sad face that seemed te 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 servaered, 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 Rid who supplies Selby with orchids?"
"Harden, sir."
"Yes--Harden. You must go down to Rid 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 dont want any white ones. It is a lovely day, Francis, and Rid is a very pretty place-- otherwise I wouldnt 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 ce.
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 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! Ill take it for you. Y 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 tur in the lock. Theopped, and a troubled look came into his eyes. He shuddered. "I dont think I go in, Alan," he murmured.
"It is nothing to me. I dont require you," said Campbell coldly.
Dorian half opehe 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 fotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal vas, 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 vas 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, opehe door a little wider, and with half-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly iermihat 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 oricacies 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 scious that the dead man had been thrust bato 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 bato the library. He ale, but absolutely calm. "I have done what you asked me to do," he muttered "And now, good-bye. Let us never see each ain."
"You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I ot fet 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
Chapter 15
That evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large button-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady Narbhs 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 hostesss hand was as easy and graceful as ever. Perhaps one never seems so much at ones 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 e. 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 w at the calm of his demeanour, and for a mome keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life.
It was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narbh, 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 fi, 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 bo right over the mills for your sake. It is most fortuhat you were not thought of at the time. As it was, our bos were so unbeing, 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 Narbhs 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 explaio Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married daughters had e 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 e from H, but then an old woman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake them up. You dont know what aehey lead down there. It is pure unadulterated try 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 sdal in the neighbourhood sihe time of Queen Elizabeth, and sequently they all fall asleep after dinner. You shant sit either of them. You shall sit by me and amuse me."
Dorian murmured a graceful pliment and looked round the room. Yes: it was certainly a tedious party. Two of the people he had never seen before, and the others sisted of Er Harrowden, one of those middle-aged mediocrities so on in London clubs who have no enemies, but are thhly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an overdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always trying to get herself promised, but was so peculiarly plain that treat disappoi no one would ever believe anything against her; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp aian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostesss 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 uhe impression that inordinate joviality atone for aire lack of ideas.
He was rather sorry he had e, till Lady Narbh, 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 m on d he promised faithfully not to disappoint me."
It was some solation 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 anything. Plate after plate went away untasted. Lady Narbh kept scolding him for what she called "an insult to poor Adolphe, who ied the menu specially for you," and now and then Lord Henry looked across at him, w at his silend 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 Narbh, and that he is afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous. He is quite right. I certainly should."
"Dear Lady Narbh," 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 fall in love with that woman!" exclaimed the old lady. "I really ot uand it."
"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl, Lady Narbh," said Lord Henry. "She is the one liween 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 décolletée she was then."
"She is still décolletée," he answered, taking an olive in his long fingers; "and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an édition de luxe of a bad Frenovel. She is really wonderful, and full of surprises. Her capacity for family affe is extraordinary. Whehird husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief."
"How you, Harry!" cried Dorian.
"It is a most romantic explanation," laughed the hostess. "But her third husband, Lord Henry! You doo say Ferrol is the fourth?"
"Certainly, Lady Narbh."
"I dont 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 Narbh," said Dorian. "I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle. She told me she didnt, because none of them had had as at all."
"Four husbands! Upon my word that is trop de zèle."
"Trop daudace, I tell her," said Dorian.
"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol like? I dont know him."
"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes," said Lord Henry, sipping his wine.
Lady Narbh 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 only be the 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 eople go about nowadays saying things against one behind ones back that are absolutely airely true."
"Isnt he incible?" 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 Narbh," 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."
"Narbh wasnt 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 five us everything, even our intellects. You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narbh, but it is quite true."
"Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for your defects, where would y99ｌｉｂ?ou 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 muowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men."
"Fin de siècle," 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 disappoi."
"Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narbh, putting on her gloves, "dont 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, dont you think that Mr. Gray should get married?"
"I am always telling him so, Lady Narbh," said Lord Henry with a bow.
"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall gh Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the eligible young ladies."
"With their ages, Lady Narbh?" asked Dorian.
"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done in a hurry. I want it to be what The M 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 be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her."
"Ah! what a ic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair and nodding to Lady Ruxton. "You must e and dih me soon again. You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir Andrew prescribes for me. You must tell me eople you would like to meet, though. I want it to be a delightful gathering."
"I like 99lｉb.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 didnt see you hadnt finished yarette."
"Never mind, Lady Narbh. I smoke a great deal too much. I am going to limit myself, for the future."
"Pray dont, 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 gla him curiously. "You must e and explain that to me some afternoon, Lord Henry. It sounds a fasating theory," she murmured, as she swept out of the room.
"Now, mind you dont stay too long over your politid sdal," cried Lady Narbh 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 ged his seat a and sat by Lord Henry. Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about the situation in the House of ons. He guffawed at his adversaries. The word doaire--word full of terror to the British mind-- reappeared from time to time between his explosions. An alliterative prefix served as an orp://.９9lｉb? of oratory. He hoisted the Union Ja the pinnacles of thought. The ied stupidity of the race--sound English on sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be the proper bulwark for society.
A smile curved Lord Henrys lips, aurned 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 e oweh."
"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 porcelai, 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.
"Ay, she tells me. I believe, acc to the peerage, it is ten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity, with time thrown in. Who else is ing?"
"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey Clouston, the usual set. I have asked Lrotrian."
"I like him," said Lord Henry. "A great many people dont, 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 dont know if he will be able to e, Harry. He may have to go to Monte Carlo with his father."
"Ah! what a nuisance peoples people are! Try and make him e. By the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night. You left before eleven. What did you do afterwards? Did you ght home?"
Dorian gla 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. The his lip. "No, I dohat. I didnt go to the club. I walked about. I fet what I did. . . . How inquisitive you are, Harry! You always want to know what one has been doing. I always want tet 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 eviden the subject, you 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 happeo you, Dorian. Tell me what it is. You are not yourself to-night."
"Dont mind me, Harry. I am irritable, and out of temper. I shall e round and see you to-morrow, or day. Make my excuses to Lady Narbh. I shant 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 ing."
"I will try to be there, Harry," he said, leaving the room. As he drove back to his own house, he was scious that the sense of terror he thought he had strangled had e ba. Lord Henrys casual questioning had made him lose his nerves for the moment, and he wanted his ill. Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed. He winced. He hated the idea of even toug them.
Yet it had to be done. He realized that, and when he had locked the door of his library, he opehe secret press into which he had thrust Basil Hallwards coat and bag. A huge fire was blazing. He piled an on it. The smell of the singeing clothes and burniher was horrible. It took him three-quarters of an hour to e 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 usk-sted 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 et, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue lapis. He watched it as though it were a thing that could fasate and make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for a almost loathed. His breath quied. 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 et. 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 ese box of blad 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 ope. 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 gla the clock. It was twenty mio twelve. He put the box back, shutting the et doors as he did so, a into his bedroom.
As midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray, dressed only, and with a muffler ed 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 sn 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 iurned his horse round and drove rapidly towards the river.
Chapter 16
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 ba 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. Ohe 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? I blood had been spilled. What could atone for that? Ah! for that there was no ato; but though fiveness was impossible, fetfulness ossible still, and he was determiet, 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 thied, 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 e, faongues 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 marioes and made gestures like live things. He hated them. A dull rage was in his heart. As they turned a er, 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 ohink in a circle. Certainly with hideous iteratioten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped those subtle words that dealt with soul and seill he had found ihe 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 braihe ohought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all mans appetites, quied into force each trembling nerve and fibre. Uglihat had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the oy. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their inteuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. They were what he needed for fetfulness. 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 ey-stacks of the houses rose the black masts of ships. Wreaths of white mist g like ghostly sails to the yards.
"Somewhere about here, sir, aint 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 dire of the quay. Here and there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge mertman. 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 matosh.
He hurried on towards the left, glang baow and then to see if he was being followed. In about seven ht minutes he reached a small shabby house that was wedged iween 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 being unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a word to the squat misshapen figure that flatteself 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 aered a long low room which looked as if it had once been a third-rate dang-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 croug by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone ters and showing their white teeth as they chattered. In one er, with his head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the tawdrily painted bar that ran across one plete side stood two haggard women, mog an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his coat with an expression of disgust. "He thinks hes 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. Wheered, 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. Gee doesnt speak to me either. . . . I dont care," he added with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesnt 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, fasated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teag them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He risoned 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 Sion troubled him. He wao be where no one would know who he was. He wao 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 wont have her in this plaow."
Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more iing. Besides, the stuff is better."
"Much the same."
"I like it better. e and have something to drink. I must have something."
"I dont want anything," murmured the young man.
"Never mind."
Adrian Sion 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 ba them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Sion.
A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered.
"Fods sake dont talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. Dont ever talk to me again."
Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the womans soddehen flickered out ahem dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the s off the ter with greedy fingers. Her panion watched her enviously.
"Its no use," sighed Adrian Sion. "I dont care to go back. What does it matter? I am quite happy here."
"You will write to me if you want anything, wont 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 devils bargain!" she hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.
"Curse you!" he answered, "dont call me that."
She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be called, aint 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 Sion 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 sufamy of insult. He bit his lip, and for a few seds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did it matter to him? Ones days were too brief to take the burden of anothers errors on ones 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 ain, indeed. In her dealings with mainy never closed her ats.
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 suents lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and sce is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fasation and disobedies charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that m star of evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.
Callous, trated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quiing 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 be 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 wrehe tightening fingers away. In a sed 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 fag him.
"What do you want?" he gasped.
"Keep quiet," said the man. "If you stir, I shoot you."
"You are mad. What have I doo 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 iurn. 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 ce. Make your peace with God, for to-night yoing 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 fess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, yoing 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 mio make your peao more. I go on board to-night for India, and I must do my job first. One mihats all."
Dorians 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 uhe lamp and look at my face!"
James Vaated for a moment, not uanding 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 i all, than his sister had beehey 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 itting a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at him sternly. "Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeao your own hands."
"Five me, sir," muttered James Vane. "I was deceived. A ce word I heard in that damned de 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 dowreet.
James Vaood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head to foot. After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping alon..g 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 didnt you kill him?" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite close to his. "I knew you were following him when you rushed out from Dalys. You fool! You should have killed him. He has lots of money, and hes as bad as bad."
"He is not the man I am looking for," he answered, "and I want no mans money. I want a mans 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.&q..;
藏书网The woman gave a bitter laugh. "Little more than a boy!" she sneered. "Why, man, its nigh oeen years since Prince Charming made me what I am."
"You lie!" cried James Vane.
She raised her hand up to heaven. "Befod I am telling the truth," she cried.
"Befod?"
"Strike me dumb if it aint so. He is the worst ohat es here. They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. Its nigh oeen years since I met him. He hasnt ged much sihen. I have, though," she added, with a sickly leer.
"You swear this?"
"I swear it," came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth. "But dont give me away to him," she whined; "I am afraid of him. Let me have some money for my nights lodging."
He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the er of the street, but Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked back, the woman had vanished also.
Chapter 17
Chapter 17
A week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the servatory 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 oable lit up the delicate a and hammered silver of the service at which the duchess residing. 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 ba a silk-draped wicker chair, looking at them. On a peach-coloured divan sat Lady Narbh, pretending to listen to the dukes description of the last Braziliale that he had added to his colle. Three young men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of the women. The house-party sisted of twelve people, and there were more expected to arrive on the 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 dont want to be rechristened, Harry," rejoihe 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 spe of Robinsoniana, or something dreadful of that kind. It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely o things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with as. 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 pelled to use o 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 reize him in a flash," exclaimed the duchess.
"I wont 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 throhen?"
"Yes.
"I give the truths of to-morrow."
"I prefer the mistakes of to-day," she answered.
"You disarm me, Gladys," he cried, catg the wilfulness of her mood.
"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear."
"I ilt against beauty," he said, with a wave of his hand.
"That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much."
"How you say that? I admit that I think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But oher hand, no one is more ready than I am to aowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly."
"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?" cried the duchess. "What bees of your simile about the orchid?"
"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, must not ue them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made land what she is."
"You dont like your try, then?" she asked.
"I live in it."
"That you may sure 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 trymen never reize a description."
"They are practical."
"They are more ing than practical. When they make up their ledger, they balaupidity 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 Exge."
She shook her head. "I believe in the race," she cried.
"It represents the survival of the pushing."
"It has development."
"Decay fasates me more."
"What of art?" she asked.
"It is a malady."
"Love?"
"An illusion."?9９liｂ?;
&quion?"
"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! dont remind me of that," cried Dorian Gray.
"Our host is rather horrid this evening," answered the duchess, c. "I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely stific principles as the best spe he could find of a modern butterfly."
"Well, I hope he wont 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 e in at ten mio nine and tell her that I must be dressed by half-past eight."
"How unreasonable of her! You should give her warning."
"I darent, Mr. Gray. Why, she is hats for me. You remember the one I wore at Lady Hilstones garden-party? You dont, 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 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 you say that? Romance lives by repetition, aition verts 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 have in life but one great experie 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.
Doriaated for a moment. Thehrew his head bad 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 searg for peace," she said, "and if I dont go and dress, I shall have his evening."
"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess," cried Dorian, starting to his feet and walking down the servatory.
"You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his cousin. "You had better take care. He is very fasating."
"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."
"Ce has passed from men to women. It is a new experience for us."
"You have a rival."
"Who?"
He laughed. "Lady Narbh," he whispered. "She perfectly adores him."
"You fill me with apprehension. The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists.&qu99ｌib.ot;
"Romanticists! You have all the methods of sce."
"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 flladys."
"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."
"Wome always allowed a choice," he answered, but hardly had he fihe sentence before from the far end of the servatory 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 oiledbbr> floor in a deathlike swoon.
He was carried at oo 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 faihat was all. You must have overtired yourself. You had better not e down to dinner. I will take your place."
"No, I will e down," he said, struggling to his feet. "I would rather e 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 servatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the face of James Vag him.
Chapter 18
Chapter 18
The 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, a indifferent to life itself. The sciousness of being hunted, sracked 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 sailors 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 vengea of the night ahe 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 on 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 Vanes brother had not e 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.
A if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think that sce 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 ers, 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 bee suddenly colder. Oh! in what a wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere memory of the se! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came ba 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 oclock, he found him g as one whose heart will break.
It was not till the third day that he veo go out. There was something in the clear, pine-sted air of that winter m that seemed t him back his joyousness and his ardour for life. But it was not merely the physical ditions of envirohat had caused the ge. His own nature had revolted against the excess of anguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfe 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 owude. Besides, he had vinced himself that he had been the victim of a terror-stri imagination, and looked baow on his fears with something of pity and not a little of pt.
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 ied cup of blue metal. A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.
At the er of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey Clouston, the duchesss 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 bra and rough undergrowth.
"Have you had good speoffrey?" he asked.
"Not very good, Dorian. I think most of the birds have goo the open. I dare say it will be better after lunch, whe 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, fasated 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 ered 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 animals graovement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he cried out at once, "Dont shoot it, Geoffrey. Let it live."
"What nonsense, Dorian!" laughed his panion, 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 sti 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 oh dont 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 bee 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. e; let us go home."
They walked side by side in the dire 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 act, I suppose. My dear fellow, it t be helped. It was the mans own fault. Why did he get in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. It is rather awkward feoffrey, 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 niveness. But we are not likely to suffer from it uhese 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 omeiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. Besides, what oh could happen to you, Dorian? You have everything in the world that a man want. There is no one who would not be delighted to ge places with you."
"There is no oh whom I would not ge places, Harry. Dont 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 ing of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to wheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! dont you see a man moving behind the trees there, watg me, waiting for me?"
Lord Henry looked in the dire in which the trembling gloved hand ointing. "Yes," he said, smiling, "I see the gardener waiting for you. I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have oable to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You must e and see my doctor, whe back to town."
Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approag. The man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating manner, and then produced a letter, which he hao his master. "Her Grae to wait for an answer," he murmured.
Dorian put the letter into his pocket. "Tell her Grace that I am ing in," he said, coldly. The man turned round a rapidly in the dire of the house.
"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!" laughed Lord Henry. "It is one of the qualities ihat 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 dont love her."
"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you are excellently matched."
"You are talking sdal, Harry, and there is never any basis for sdal."
"The basis of every sdal is an immoral certainty," said Lord Henry, lighting a cigarette.
"You would sacrifiybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram."
"The woes 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 fotten the desire. I am too much trated on myself. My own personality has bee a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, tet. It was silly of me to e 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 t tell you, Harry," he answered sadly. "And I dare say it is only a fanihis unfortunate act has upset me. I have a horrible presehat something of the kind may happen to me."
"What nonsense!"
"I hope it is, but I t help feeling it. Ah! here is the duchess, looking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown. You see we have e back, Duchess."
"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray," she answered. "Peoffrey is terribly upset. And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare. How curious!"
"Yes, it was very curious. I dont 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 dohe thing on purpose, how iing he would be! I should like to know some one who had itted a real murder."
"How horrid of you, Harry!" cried the duchess. "Isnt 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 m. I didnt 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, wont you?"
They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the servatory 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 mu 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 uainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful."
"One may lose ones 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 ed."
"I am tired of strawberry leaves."
"They bee 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 agaieeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet fruit.
Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror iingling fibre of his body. Life had suddenly bee too hideous a burden for him to bear. The dreadful death of the unlucky beater, shot ihicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to pre-figure death for himself also. He had nearly swoo what Lord Henry had said in a ce mood of ical jesting.
At five oclock 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 anht at Sel藏书网by 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 o Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to town to sult his doctor and asking him to eain his guests in his absence. As he utting 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 maered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a drawer and spread it out before him.
"I suppose you have e about the unfortunate act of this m, Thornton?" he said, taking up a pen.
"Yes, sir," answered the gamekeeper.
"Was the poor fellow married? Had he any people depe 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 dont know who he is, sir. That is what I took the liberty of ing to you about."
"Dont know who he is?" said Dorian, listlessly. "What do you mean? Wasnt he one of your men?"
"No, sir. Never saw him before. Seems like a sailor, sir."
The pen dropped from Dorian Grays 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 det-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 ay stable in the Home Farm, sir. The folk dont like to have that sort of thing in their houses. They say a corpse brings bad luck."
"The Home Farm! Go there at ond meet me. Tell one of the grooms t my horse round. No. Never mind. Ill go to the stables myself. It will save time."
Ihan 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 iral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his path. Ohe 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 l 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 upoch.
There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a discovery that would either make or mar his life. Thehrust the door open aered.
On a heap of sag in the far er 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 dle, stu 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 e to him.
"Take that thing off the face. I wish to see it," he said, clutg 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 ihicket 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
Chapter 19
There is no use your tellihat yoing to be good," cried Lord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled with rose-water. "You are quite perfect. Pray, dont ge."
Dorian Gray shook his head. "No, Harry, I have dooo many dreadful things in my life. I am not going to do any more. I began my good as yesterday."
"Where were you yesterday?"
"In the try, Harry. I was staying at a little inn by myself."
"My dear boy," said Lord Henry, smiling, "anybody be good in the try. There are ations 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 reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. try people have no opportunity of beiher, 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 yood a was. Or did you say you had done more than one?" asked his panion 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 tell you, Harry. It 藏书网is not a story I could tell to any one else. I spared somebody. It sounds vain, but you uand 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, dont 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 m at dawn. Suddenly I determio leave her as flowerlike as I had found her."
"I should think the y of the emotion must have given you a thrill of real pleasure, Dorian," interrupted Lord Henry. "But I finish your idyll for you. You gave her good advid broke her heart. That was the beginning of your reformation."
"Harry, you are horrible! You mustnt say these dreadful things. Hettys heart is not broken. Of course, she cried and all that. But there is no disgrace upon her. She live, like Perdita, in her garden of mint and marigold."
"And weep over a faithless Florizel," said Lord Henry, laughing, as he leaned ba his chair. "My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously boyish moods. Do you think this girl will ever be really tent now with any one of her own rank? I suppose she will be married some day th carter rinning ploughman. Well, the fact of havi you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she will be wretched. From a moral point of view, I ot say that I think much of yreat renunciation. Even as a beginning, it is poor. Besides, how do you know that Hetty isnt floating at the present moment in some starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies round her, like Ophelia?"
"I t bear this, Harry! You mock at everything, and then suggest the most serious tragedies. I am sorry I told you now. I dont care what you say to me. I know I was right in ag as I did. Poor Hetty! As I rode past the farm this m, I saw her white face at the window, like a spray of jasmine. Do us talk about it any more, and dont try to persuade me that the first good a 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 Basils disappearance."
"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time," said Dorian, p 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 thaopic every three months. They have been very fortuely, however. They have had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbells 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 oor Basil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris at all. I suppose in about a fht 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 attras of the world."
"What do you think has happeo Basil?" asked Dorian, holding up his Burgundy against the light and w 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 bu９９lib?siness of mine. If he is dead, I dont 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, passih his nostrils the gilt trellis of an open vinaigrette box, "one survive everything nowadays except that. Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the eenth tury that one ot explain away. Let us have our coffee in the musi, Dorian. You must play Chopin to me. The man with whom my wife ran alayed 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 rets the loss even of ones worst habits. Perhaps rets them the most. They are su essential part of ones personality."
Dorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the room, sat down to the piano a his fingers stray across the white and black ivory of the keys. After the coffee had been brought iopped, 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 paint like Velasquez a be as dull as possible. Basil was really rather dull. He only ied me once, and that was wheold 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 dont 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 goo 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 mached him ily after he had spoken.
"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that doesnt suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to it 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 dont blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of pr extraordinary sensations."
"A method of pr sensations? Do you think, then, that a man who has onitted a murder could possibly do the same crime again? Dont tell me that."
"Oh! anything bees a pleasure if one does it too often," cried Lord Henry, laughing. "That is one of the most importas of life. I should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one ot talk about after dinner. But let us pass from poor Basil. I wish I could believe that he had e to such a really romantid as you suggest, but I t. I dare say he fell into the Seine off an omnibus and that the ductor hushed up the sdal. Yes: I should fancy that was his end. I see him lying now on his bader those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges floating over him and long weeds catg in his hair. Do you know, I dont think he would have done much mood 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 balang itself upon a bamboo perch. As his pointed fiouched it, it dropped the white scurf of kled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards and forwards.
"Yes," he tiurning 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 fave you. Its a habit bores have. By the way, what has bee of that wonderful portrait he did of you? I dont think I have ever seen it since he fi. 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 wao buy it. I wish I had now. It beloo Basils best period. Sihen, his work was that ixture of bad painting and good iions that always entitles a man to be called a representative British artist. Did you advertise for it? You should."
"I fet," 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 mas life artistically, his brain is his heart," he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.
Dorian Gray shook his head and strue soft chords on the piano. "Like the painting of a sorrow," he repeated, "a face without a heart."
The elder man lay bad 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 ahat 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 audie struck me as being rather dramatic. London is very ri curious effects of that kind. A wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a matosh, 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 uood me."
"Dont, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in eae 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 rue. That is the fatality of faith, and the lesson of romance. How grave you are! Dont be so serious. What have you or I to do with the superstitions of e? No: we have given up our belief in the soul. Play me something. Play me a noe, 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 ged, 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. Its absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth. The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much youhan myself. They seem in front of me. Life has revealed to them her latest wonder. As for the aged, I always tradict 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 ihing, 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 o left to us that is not imitative! Dont 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 siy. Ah, Dorian, hoy 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. Dont spoil it by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type. Dont make yourself inplete. You are quite flawless now. You need not shake your head: you know you are. Besides, Dorian, dont deceive yourself. Life is not governed by will or iion. 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 ce tone of colour in a room or a m sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a fottehat you had e across again, a ce from a pieusic 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 imagihem for us. There are moments when the odour of lilas blanc passes suddenly ae, and I have to live the stra month of my life ain. I wish I could ge 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 searg 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 sos."
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 dont know everything about me. I think that if you did, even you would turn from me. You laugh. Dont laugh."
"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go bad give me the noe ain. 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 e closer to the earth. You wont? Let us go to the club, then. It has been a charming evening, and we must end it charmingly. There is some o Whites who wants immeo know you--young Lord Poole, Bourhs eldest son. He has already copied your ies, 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 shant 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 bec藏书网ause I am going to be good," he answered, smiling. "I am a little ged already."
"You ot ge to me, Dorian," said Lord Henry. "You and I will always be friends."
"Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not five that. Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any o does harm."
"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will soon be going about like the verted, 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 a. 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 wont discuss literature. e 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 sult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying. Mind you e. 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 tos on ones nerves. Well, in any case, be here at eleven."
"Must I really e, Harry?"
"Certainly. The park is quite lovely now. I dont think there have been such lilacs sihe 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 a out.
Chapter 20
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 ointed 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 oor, and she had believed him. He had told her ohat 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 ge? He felt a wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood-- his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it. He khat he had tarnished himself, filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had been an evil influeo 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 beeo that. Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure swift penalty along with it. There urification in punishment. Not "Five 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 oable, 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 be had first he ge ial 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 ged 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 owy, and flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beh 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 uime, 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 B.asil Hallwards disappearance would soon pass away. It was already waning. He erfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the death of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. It was the livih of his own soul that troubled him. Basil had paihe portrait that had marred his life. He could not five him that. It was the portrait that had done everything. Basil had said things to him that were unbearable, and that he had yet borh patiehe 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 wahat was what he was waiting for. Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one ihing, at any rate. He would never agai innoce. He would be good.
As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in the locked room had ged. 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 fad 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, log the door behind him, as was his , and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could see no ge, save that in the eyes there was a look of ing and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if possible, than before--and the scarlet deotted the hand seemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Therembled. 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 mog laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things fihan 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. fess? Did it mean that he was to fess? To give himself up a to death? He laughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if he did fess, who would believe him? There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere. Everything belonging to him had beeroyed. 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 fess, to suffer public shame, and to make publient. There was a God who called upoo tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would se 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 curiositys sake he had tried the denial of self. He reized 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 fess? here was only o of evidence left against him. The picture itself-- that was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? O had given him pleasure to watch it ging 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 s. Yes, it had been sce. He would destroy it.
He looked round and saw the khat had stabbed Basil Hallward. He had ed it many times, till there was no stai upon it. It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it would kill t.he painters 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 poli 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 portid watched.
"Whose house is that, stable?" asked the elder of the two gentlemen.
"Mr. Dorian Grays, sir," answered the poli.
They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of them was Sir Henry Ashtons 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 g and wringing her hands. Francis ale as death.
After about a ９９ｌib?quarter of an hour, he got the an 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 baly. The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old.
When they ehey 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 ay. 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 examihe rings that they reized who it was.
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