The Picture of Dorian Gray
I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as marvellous.”
“Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that
you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.”
“But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What
then?”
“Ah, then,” said Lord Henry, rising to go, “then, my dear Dorian, you
would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to
you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads
too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We
cannot spare you. And now you had better dress and drive down to the
club. We are rather late, as it is.”
“I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat
anything. What is the number of your sister’s box?”
“Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her
name on the door. But I am sorry you won’t come and dine.”
“I don’t feel up to it,” said Dorian listlessly. “But I am awfully
obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my
best friend. No one has ever understood me as you have.”
“We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian,” answered Lord
Henry, shaking him by the hand. “Good-bye. I shall see you before
nine-thirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing.”
As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in
a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down.
He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an
interminable time over everything.
As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. No;
there was no further change in the picture. It had received the news of
Sibyl Vane’s death before he had known of it himself. It was conscious
of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty that marred
the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the very moment
that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or was it
indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what passed
within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the
change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it.
Poor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked
death on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and taken her
with him. How had she played that dreadful last scene? Had she cursed
him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would
always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything by the
sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of what
she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the theatre.
When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent
on to the world’s stage to show the supreme reality of love. A
wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her
childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy tremulous grace. He
brushed them away hastily and looked again at the picture.
He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had his
choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for him—life, and
his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion,
pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins—he was to have
all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame:
that was all.
A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that
was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery
of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips
that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat
before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as
it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to which
he yielded? Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be
hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had
so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? The
pity of it! the pity of it!
For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that
existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in
answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain
unchanged. And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would surrender
the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that chance
might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?
Besides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed been prayer
that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious
scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence
upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon
dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire,
might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods
and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?
But the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt by a
prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to
alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?
For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to
follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him
the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so
it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he
would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer.
When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of
chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. Not one
blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life
would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and
fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the coloured
image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything.
He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture,
smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was
already waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord
Henry was leaning over his chair.
CHAPTER IX.
As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown
into the room.
“I am so glad I have found you, Dorian,” he said gravely. “I called
last night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew
that was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really
gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy
might be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for me
when you heard of it first. I read of it quite by chance in a late
edition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club. I came here at
once and was miserable at not finding you. I can’t tell you how
heart-broken I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer.
But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl’s mother? For a
moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the
paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn’t it? But I was afraid of
intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a
state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about
it all?”
“My dear Basil, how do I know?” murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some
pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass
and looking dreadfully bored. “I was at the opera. You should have come
on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry’s sister, for the first time. We
were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely.
Don’t talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn’t talk about a thing, it
has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives
reality to things. I may mention that she was not the woman’s only
child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not on
the stage. He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell me about
yourself and what you are painting.”
“You went to the opera?” said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a
strained touch of pain in his voice. “You went to the opera while Sibyl
Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me of other
women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before the girl
you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there
are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!”
“Stop, Basil! I won’t hear it!” cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. “You
must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is
past.”
“You call yesterday the past?”
“What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only
shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is
master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a
pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use
them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
“Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You
look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come
down to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural,
and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the
whole world. Now, I don’t know what has come over you. You talk as if
you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry’s influence. I see
that.”
The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few
moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden. “I owe a great
deal to Harry, Basil,” he said at last, “more than I owe to you. You
only taught me to be vain.”
“Well, I am punished for that, Dorian—or shall be some day.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Basil,” he exclaimed, turning round. “I
don’t know what you want. What do you want?”
“I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint,” said the artist sadly.
“Basil,” said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his
shoulder, “you have come too late. Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl
Vane had killed herself—”
“Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?” cried
Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.
“My dear Basil! Surely you don’t think it was a vulgar accident? Of
course she killed herself.”
The elder man buried his face in his hands. “How fearful,” he muttered,
and a shudder ran through him.
“No,” said Dorian Gray, “there is nothing fearful about it. It is one
of the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act
lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful
wives, or something tedious. You know what I mean—middle-class virtue
and all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her
finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she played—the
night you saw her—she acted badly because she had known the reality of
love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died.
She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the
martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of
martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying, you must not
think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday at a particular
moment—about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to six—you would
have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who brought me the
news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I suffered
immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can,
except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You come
down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled,
and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You remind me of a
story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty
years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, or some
unjust law altered—I forget exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded,