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The Picture of Dorian Gray
by
Oscar Wilde
CHAPTER 4
One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious
arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair. It
was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled
wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling
of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,
long-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette
by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for
Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies
that Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars and
parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small
leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a
summer day in London.
Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, his
principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. So the lad was
looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages
of an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had
found in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the
Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him. Once or twice he thought of going
away.
At last he heard a step outside, and the door opened. "How late you
are, Harry!" he murmured.
"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray," answered a shrill voice.
He glanced quickly round and rose to his feet. "I beg your pardon. I
thought—"
"You thought it was my husband. It is only his wife. You must let me
introduce myself. I know you quite well by your photographs. I think
my husband has got seventeen of them."
"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?"
"Well, eighteen, then. And I saw you with him the other night at the
opera." She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her
vague forget-me-not eyes. She was a curious woman, whose dresses
always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a
tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion
was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look
picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. Her name was
Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.
"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?"
"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin. I like Wagner's music better than
anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other
people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, don't you
think so, Mr. Gray?"
The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her
fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.
Dorian smiled and shook his head: "I am afraid I don't think so, Lady
Henry. I never talk during music—at least, during good music. If one
hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation."
"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? I always hear
Harry's views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of
them. But you must not think I don't like good music. I adore it, but
I am afraid of it. It makes me too romantic. I have simply worshipped
pianists—two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don't know what
it is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all
are, ain't they? Even those that are born in England become foreigners
after a time, don't they? It is so clever of them, and such a
compliment to art. Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it? You have
never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I
can't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners. They make
one's rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! Harry, I came in
to look for you, to ask you something—I forget what it was—and I
found Mr. Gray here. We have had such a pleasant chat about music. We
have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different.
But he has been most pleasant. I am so glad I've seen him."
"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed," said Lord Henry, elevating his
dark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused
smile. "So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of
old brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it.
Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
"I am afraid I must be going," exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an
awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh. "I have promised to drive
with the duchess. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Good-bye, Harry. You are
dining out, I suppose? So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady
Thornbury's."
"I dare say, my dear," said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her
as, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the
rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of
frangipanni. Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the
sofa.
"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian," he said after a
few puffs.
"Why, Harry?"
"Because they are so sentimental."
"But I like sentimental people."
"Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women,
because they are curious: both are disappointed."
"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love.
That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do
everything that you say."
"Who are you in love with?" asked Lord Henry after a pause.
"With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing.
Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "That is a rather commonplace
debut."
"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry."
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Sibyl Vane."
"Never heard of her."
"No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius."
"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They
never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women
represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the
triumph of mind over morals."
"Harry, how can you?"
"My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so
I ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.
I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain
and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to
gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down
to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one
mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our
grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and
esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman
can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly
satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London
worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent
society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known
her?"
"Ah! Harry, your views terrify me."
"Never mind that. How long have you known her?"
"About three weeks."
"And where did you come across her?"
"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.
After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you. You
filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days
after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins. As I lounged
in the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one
who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they
led. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There
was an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations....
Well, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search
of some adventure. I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours,
with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins,
as you once phrased it, must have something in store for me. I fancied
a thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I
remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we
first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret
of life. I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered
eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black
grassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little
theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. A hideous
Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was
standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy
ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled
shirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off
his hat with an air of gorgeous servility. There was something about
him, Harry, that amused me. He was such a monster. You will laugh at
me, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the
stage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if
I hadn't—my dear Harry, if I hadn't—I should have missed the greatest
romance of my life. I see you are laughing. It is horrid of you!"
"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you
should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the
first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will
always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of
people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes
of a country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store
for you. This is merely the beginning."
"Do you think my nature so shallow?" cried Dorian Gray angrily.
"No; I think your nature so deep."
"How do you mean?"
"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really
the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity,
I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.
Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life
of the intellect—simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! I
must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There
are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that
others might pick them up. But I don't want to interrupt you. Go on
with your story."
"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a
vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. I looked out from behind the
curtain and surveyed the house. It was a *** affair, all Cupids and
cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were
fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and
there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the
dress-circle. Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there
was a terrible consumption of nuts going on."
"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama."
"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder
what on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill. What
do you think the play was, Harry?"
"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'. Our fathers
used to like that sort of piece, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian,
the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is
not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grandperes ont
toujours tort."
"This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. I
must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare
done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, in
a sort of way. At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.
There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat
at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the
drop-scene was drawn up and the play began. Romeo was a stout elderly
gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure
like a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad. He was played by the
low-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most
friendly terms with the pit. They were both as grotesque as the
scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But
Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a
little, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of
dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were
like the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen
in my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that
beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you,
Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came
across me. And her voice—I never heard such a voice. It was very low
at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's
ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a
distant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy
that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. There
were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You
know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane
are two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear
them, and each of them says something different. I don't know which to
follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is
everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One
evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have
seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from
her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of
Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.
She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and
given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been
innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike
throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary
women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their
century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as
easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is
no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and
chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped
smile and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an
actress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didn't you tell me
that the only thing worth loving is an actress?"
"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian."
"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces."
"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary
charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry.
"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane."
"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life
you will tell me everything you do."
"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things.
You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would
come and confess it to you. You would understand me."
"People like you—the wilful sunbeams of life—don't commit crimes,
Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And
now tell me—reach me the matches, like a good boy—thanks—what are
your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?"
Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.
"Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!"
"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian," said
Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. "But why
should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day.
When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one
always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a
romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?"
"Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the
horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and
offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was
furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds
of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I
think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the
impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something."
"I am not surprised."
"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I
never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and
confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy
against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought."
"I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other
hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all
expensive."
"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," laughed Dorian.
"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,
and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly
recommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the
place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that
I was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute,
though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He told me
once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely
due to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him. He seemed to think
it a distinction."
"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian—a great distinction. Most
people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose
of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour. But when
did you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?"
"The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. I could not help
going round. I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at
me—at least I fancied that she had. The old Jew was persistent. He
seemed determined to take me behind, so I consented. It was curious my
not wanting to know her, wasn't it?"
"No; I don't think so."
"My dear Harry, why?"
"I will tell you some other time. Now I want to know about the girl."
"Sibyl? Oh, she was so shy and so gentle. There is something of a
child about her. Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told
her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious
of her power. I think we were both rather nervous. The old Jew stood
grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate
speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like
children. He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure
Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to
me, 'You look more like a prince. I must call you Prince Charming.'"
"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments."
"You don't understand her, Harry. She regarded me merely as a person
in a play. She knows nothing of life. She lives with her mother, a
faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta
dressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen
better days."
"I know that look. It depresses me," murmured Lord Henry, examining
his rings.
"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest
me."
"You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about
other people's tragedies."
"Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came
from? From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and
entirely divine. Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every
night she is more marvellous."
"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now. I
thought you must have some curious romance on hand. You have; but it
is not quite what I expected."
"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have
been to the opera with you several times," said Dorian, opening his
blue eyes in wonder.
"You always come dreadfully late."
"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play," he cried, "even if it is
only for a single act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think
of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I
am filled with awe."
"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?"
He shook his head. "To-night she is Imogen," he answered, "and
to-morrow night she will be Juliet."
"When is she Sibyl Vane?"
"Never."
"I congratulate you."
"How horrid you are! She is all the great heroines of the world in
one. She is more than an individual. You laugh, but I tell you she
has genius. I love her, and I must make her love me. You, who know
all the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! I
want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to
hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir
their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. My God,
Harry, how I worship her!" He was walking up and down the room as he
spoke. Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks. He was terribly
excited.
Lord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure. How different
he was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's
studio! His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of
scarlet flame. Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and
desire had come to meet it on the way.
"And what do you propose to do?" said Lord Henry at last.
"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. I
have not the slightest fear of the result. You are certain to
acknowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands.
She is bound to him for three years—at least for two years and eight
months—from the present time. I shall have to pay him something, of
course. When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and
bring her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she has made
me."
"That would be impossible, my dear boy."
"Yes, she will. She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in
her, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it
is personalities, not principles, that move the age."
"Well, what night shall we go?"
"Let me see. To-day is Tuesday. Let us fix to-morrow. She plays
Juliet to-morrow."
"All right. The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil."
"Not eight, Harry, please. Half-past six. We must be there before the
curtain rises. You must see her in the first act, where she meets
Romeo."
"Half-past six! What an hour! It will be like having a meat-tea, or
reading an English novel. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before
seven. Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to
him?"
"Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather
horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful
frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous
of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit
that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don't
want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good
advice."
Lord Henry smiled. "People are very fond of giving away what they need
most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity."
"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit
of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered
that."
"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his
work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his
prejudices, his principles, and his common sense. The only artists I
have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good
artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly
uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is
the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are
absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more
picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of
second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the
poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they
dare not realize."
"I wonder is that really so, Harry?" said Dorian Gray, putting some
perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that
stood on the table. "It must be, if you say it. And now I am off.
Imogen is waiting for me. Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye."
As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began
to think. Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as
Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused
him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by
it. It made him a more interesting study. He had been always
enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary
subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no
import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by
vivisecting others. Human life—that appeared to him the one thing
worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any
value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of
pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass,
nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the
imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There
were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken
of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through
them if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great
reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To
note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life
of the intellect—to observe where they met, and where they separated,
at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at
discord—there was a delight in that! What matter what the cost was?
One could never pay too high a price for any sensation.
He was conscious—and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his
brown agate eyes—that it was through certain words of his, musical
words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned
to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent
the lad was his own creation. He had made him premature. That was
something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its
secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were
revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect
of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately
with the passions and the intellect. But now and then a complex
personality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed,
in its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces,
just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.
Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was
yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was
becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him. With his
beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at.
It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like
one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem
to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,
and whose wounds are like red roses.
Soul and body, body and soul—how mysterious they were! There was
animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.
The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could
say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?
How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!
And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various
schools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or was the
body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of
spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter
was a mystery also.
He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a
science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it
was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.
Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to
their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of
warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation
of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow
and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in
experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself.
All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same
as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we
would do many times, and with joy.
It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by
which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and
certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to
promise rich and fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane
was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no
doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire
for new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex
passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of
boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,
changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from
sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the
passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most
strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we
were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were
experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.
While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the
door, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for
dinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had
smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite.
The panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a
faded rose. He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and
wondered how it was all going to end.
When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram
lying on the hall table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian
Gray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl
Vane.
CHAPTER 5
"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!" whispered the girl, burying her face
in the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to
the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their
dingy sitting-room contained. "I am so happy!" she repeated, "and you
must be happy, too!"
Mrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her
daughter's head. "Happy!" she echoed, "I am only happy, Sibyl, when I
see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr.
Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money."
The girl looked up and pouted. "Money, Mother?" she cried, "what does
money matter? Love is more than money."
"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to
get a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty
pounds is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate."
"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me,"
said the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window.
"I don't know how we could manage without him," answered the elder
woman querulously.
Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. "We don't want him any more,
Mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now." Then she paused. A
rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted
the petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion
swept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. "I love
him," she said simply.
"Foolish child! foolish child!" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.
The waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the
words.
The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. Her
eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a
moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, the mist of
a dream had passed across them.
Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at
prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name
of common sense. She did not listen. She was free in her prison of
passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She had called on
memory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and it
had brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her
eyelids were warm with his breath.
Then wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery. This
young man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of.
Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning. The
arrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.
Suddenly she felt the need to speak. The wordy silence troubled her.
"Mother, Mother," she cried, "why does he love me so much? I know why
I love him. I love him because he is like what love himself should be.
But what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And yet—why, I
cannot tell—though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble. I
feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love
Prince Charming?"
The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her
cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain. Sybil rushed
to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. "Forgive me,
Mother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. But it only
pains you because you loved him so much. Don't look so sad. I am as
happy to-day as you were twenty years ago. Ah! let me be happy for
ever!"
"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. Besides,
what do you know of this young man? You don't even know his name. The
whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away
to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you
should have shown more consideration. However, as I said before, if he
is rich ..."
"Ah! Mother, Mother, let me be happy!"
Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical
gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a
stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment, the door opened
and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was
thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat
clumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. One
would hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between
them. Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile. She
mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure
that the tableau was interesting.
"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think," said the
lad with a good-natured grumble.
"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim," she cried. "You are a
dreadful old bear." And she ran across the room and hugged him.
James Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness. "I want you
to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don't suppose I shall ever
see this horrid London again. I am sure I don't want to."
"My son, don't say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up
a *** theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She
felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would
have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.
"Why not, Mother? I mean it."
"You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a
position of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in
the Colonies—nothing that I would call society—so when you have made
your fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London."
"Society!" muttered the lad. "I don't want to know anything about
that. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the
stage. I hate it."
"Oh, Jim!" said Sibyl, laughing, "how unkind of you! But are you
really going for a walk with me? That will be nice! I was afraid you
were going to say good-bye to some of your friends—to Tom Hardy, who
gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for
smoking it. It is very sweet of you to let me have your last
afternoon. Where shall we go? Let us go to the park."
"I am too shabby," he answered, frowning. "Only swell people go to the
park."
"Nonsense, Jim," she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.
He hesitated for a moment. "Very well," he said at last, "but don't be
too long dressing." She danced out of the door. One could hear her
singing as she ran upstairs. Her little feet pattered overhead.
He walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he turned to
the still figure in the chair. "Mother, are my things ready?" he asked.
"Quite ready, James," she answered, keeping her eyes on her work. For
some months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this
rough stern son of hers. Her shallow secret nature was troubled when
their eyes met. She used to wonder if he suspected anything. The
silence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her.
She began to complain. Women defend themselves by attacking, just as
they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. "I hope you will be
contented, James, with your sea-faring life," she said. "You must
remember that it is your own choice. You might have entered a
solicitor's office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in
the country often dine with the best families."
"I hate offices, and I hate clerks," he replied. "But you are quite
right. I have chosen my own life. All I say is, watch over Sibyl.
Don't let her come to any harm. Mother, you must watch over her."
"James, you really talk very strangely. Of course I watch over Sibyl."
"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to
talk to her. Is that right? What about that?"
"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James. In the
profession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying
attention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That
was when acting was really understood. As for Sibyl, I do not know at
present whether her attachment is serious or not. But there is no
doubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is
always most polite to me. Besides, he has the appearance of being
rich, and the flowers he sends are lovely."
"You don't know his name, though," said the lad harshly.
"No," answered his mother with a placid expression in her face. "He
has not yet revealed his real name. I think it is quite romantic of
him. He is probably a member of the aristocracy."
James Vane bit his lip. "Watch over Sibyl, Mother," he cried, "watch
over her."
"My son, you distress me very much. Sibyl is always under my special
care. Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why
she should not contract an alliance with him. I trust he is one of the
aristocracy. He has all the appearance of it, I must say. It might be
a most brilliant marriage for Sibyl. They would make a charming
couple. His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices
them."
The lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane
with his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something
when the door opened and Sibyl ran in.
"How serious you both are!" she cried. "What is the matter?"
"Nothing," he answered. "I suppose one must be serious sometimes.
Good-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is
packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble."
"Good-bye, my son," she answered with a bow of strained stateliness.
She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and
there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.
"Kiss me, Mother," said the girl. Her flowerlike lips touched the
withered cheek and warmed its frost.
"My child! my child!" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in
search of an imaginary gallery.
"Come, Sibyl," said her brother impatiently. He hated his mother's
affectations.
They went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled
down the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wonder at the
sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the
company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. He was like a common
gardener walking with a rose.
Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of
some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on
geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace. Sibyl,
however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. Her
love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking of Prince
Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not
talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to
sail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful
heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted
bushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or
whatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor's existence was
dreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse,
hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts
down and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! He was to
leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain,
and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to
come across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had
ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon
guarded by six mounted policemen. The bushrangers were to attack them
three times, and be defeated with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was
not to go to the gold-fields at all. They were horrid places, where
men got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad
language. He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was
riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a
robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course,
she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get
married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes,
there were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very
good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was
only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He
must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his
prayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and
would watch over him. She would pray for him, too, and in a few years
he would come back quite rich and happy.
The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heart-sick
at leaving home.
Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.
Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger
of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was making love to her could
mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated
him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,
and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was
conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,
and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge
them; sometimes they forgive them.
His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that
he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he
had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears
one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of
horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a
hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like
furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.
"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl, "and I
am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something."
"What do you want me to say?"
"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered,
smiling at him.
He shrugged his shoulders. "You are more likely to forget me than I am
to forget you, Sibyl."
She flushed. "What do you mean, Jim?" she asked.
"You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me
about him? He means you no good."
"Stop, Jim!" she exclaimed. "You must not say anything against him. I
love him."
"Why, you don't even know his name," answered the lad. "Who is he? I
have a right to know."
"He is called Prince Charming. Don't you like the name. Oh! you silly
boy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, you would think
him the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will meet
him—when you come back from Australia. You will like him so much.
Everybody likes him, and I ... love him. I wish you could come to the
theatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet.
Oh! how I shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet!
To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may
frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to
surpass one's self. Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius'
to his loafers at the bar. He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he
will announce me as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his
only, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. But I am
poor beside him. Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in
at the door, love flies in through the window. Our proverbs want
rewriting. They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time
for me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies."
"He is a gentleman," said the lad sullenly.
"A prince!" she cried musically. "What more do you want?"
"He wants to enslave you."
"I shudder at the thought of being free."
"I want you to beware of him."
"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him."
"Sibyl, you are mad about him."
She laughed and took his arm. "You dear old Jim, you talk as if you
were a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. Then you will
know what it is. Don't look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to
think that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have
ever been before. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and
difficult. But it will be different now. You are going to a new
world, and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down and
see the smart people go by."
They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulip-beds
across the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white
dust—tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed—hung in the panting air.
The brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous
butterflies.
She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. He
spoke slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other as
players at a game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not
communicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all
the echo she could win. After some time she became silent. Suddenly
she caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open
carriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past.
She started to her feet. "There he is!" she cried.
"Who?" said Jim Vane.
"Prince Charming," she answered, looking after the victoria.
He jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm. "Show him to me.
Which is he? Point him out. I must see him!" he exclaimed; but at
that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when
it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park.
"He is gone," murmured Sibyl sadly. "I wish you had seen him."
"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does
you any wrong, I shall kill him."
She looked at him in horror. He repeated his words. They cut the air
like a dagger. The people round began to gape. A lady standing close
to her tittered.
"Come away, Jim; come away," she whispered. He followed her doggedly
as she passed through the crowd. He felt glad at what he had said.
When they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round. There was
pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. She shook her head
at him. "You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy,
that is all. How can you say such horrible things? You don't know
what you are talking about. You are simply jealous and unkind. Ah! I
wish you would fall in love. Love makes people good, and what you said
was wicked."
"I am sixteen," he answered, "and I know what I am about. Mother is no
help to you. She doesn't understand how to look after you. I wish now
that I was not going to Australia at all. I have a great mind to chuck
the whole thing up. I would, if my articles hadn't been signed."
"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes of those
silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in. I am not
going to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see him is
perfect happiness. We won't quarrel. I know you would never harm any
one I love, would you?"
"Not as long as you love him, I suppose," was the sullen answer.
"I shall love him for ever!" she cried.
"And he?"
"For ever, too!"
"He had better."
She shrank from him. Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm. He
was merely a boy.
At the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to
their shabby home in the Euston Road. It was after five o'clock, and
Sibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting. Jim
insisted that she should do so. He said that he would sooner part with
her when their mother was not present. She would be sure to make a
scene, and he detested scenes of every kind.
In Sybil's own room they parted. There was jealousy in the lad's
heart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed
to him, had come between them. Yet, when her arms were flung round his
neck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed
her with real affection. There were tears in his eyes as he went
downstairs.
His mother was waiting for him below. She grumbled at his
unpunctuality, as he entered. He made no answer, but sat down to his
meagre meal. The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the
stained cloth. Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of
street-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that
was left to him.
After some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his
hands. He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told
to him before, if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother
watched him. Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered
lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six,
he got up and went to the door. Then he turned back and looked at her.
Their eyes met. In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged
him.
"Mother, I have something to ask you," he said. Her eyes wandered
vaguely about the room. She made no answer. "Tell me the truth. I
have a right to know. Were you married to my father?"
She heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment,
the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded,
had come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed, in some measure
it was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question
called for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led
up to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.
"No," she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life.
"My father was a scoundrel then!" cried the lad, clenching his fists.
She shook her head. "I knew he was not free. We loved each other very
much. If he had lived, he would have made provision for us. Don't
speak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman.
Indeed, he was highly connected."
An oath broke from his lips. "I don't care for myself," he exclaimed,
"but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love
with her, or says he is? Highly connected, too, I suppose."
For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. Her
head drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. "Sibyl has a
mother," she murmured; "I had none."
The lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed
her. "I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father," he
said, "but I could not help it. I must go now. Good-bye. Don't forget
that you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me
that if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him
down, and kill him like a dog. I swear it."
The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that
accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid
to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more
freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her
son. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same
emotional scale, but he cut her short. Trunks had to be carried down
and mufflers looked for. The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out.
There was the bargaining with the cabman. The moment was lost in
vulgar details. It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that
she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son
drove away. She was conscious that a great opportunity had been
wasted. She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt
her life would be, now that she had only one child to look after. She
remembered the phrase. It had pleased her. Of the threat she said
nothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed. She felt that
they would all laugh at it some day.
CHAPTER 6
"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?" said Lord Henry that
evening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol
where dinner had been laid for three.
"No, Harry," answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing
waiter. "What is it? Nothing about politics, I hope! They don't
interest me. There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons
worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little
whitewashing."
"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, watching him
as he spoke.
Hallward started and then frowned. "Dorian engaged to be married!" he
cried. "Impossible!"
"It is perfectly true."
"To whom?"
"To some little actress or other."
"I can't believe it. Dorian is far too sensible."
"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear
Basil."
"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry."
"Except in America," rejoined Lord Henry languidly. "But I didn't say
he was married. I said he was engaged to be married. There is a great
difference. I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have
no recollection at all of being engaged. I am inclined to think that I
never was engaged."
"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth. It would be
absurd for him to marry so much beneath him."
"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil. He is
sure to do it, then. Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it
is always from the noblest motives."
"I hope the girl is good, Harry. I don't want to see Dorian tied to
some vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his
intellect."
"Oh, she is better than good—she is beautiful," murmured Lord Henry,
sipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. "Dorian says she is
beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind. Your
portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal
appearance of other people. It has had that excellent effect, amongst
others. We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his
appointment."
"Are you serious?"
"Quite serious, Basil. I should be miserable if I thought I should
ever be more serious than I am at the present moment."
"But do you approve of it, Harry?" asked the painter, walking up and
down the room and biting his lip. "You can't approve of it, possibly.
It is some silly infatuation."
"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd
attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air
our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people
say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a
personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality
selects is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray falls in love with
a beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her. Why not?
If he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting. You
know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is
that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless.
They lack individuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that
marriage makes more complex. They retain their egotism, and add to it
many other egos. They are forced to have more than one life. They
become more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should
fancy, the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience is of
value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an
experience. I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife,
passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become
fascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study."
"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't.
If Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than
yourself. You are much better than you pretend to be."
Lord Henry laughed. "The reason we all like to think so well of others
is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is
sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our
neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a
benefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account,
and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare
our pockets. I mean everything that I have said. I have the greatest
contempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but
one whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have
merely to reform it. As for marriage, of course that would be silly,
but there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women.
I will certainly encourage them. They have the charm of being
fashionable. But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than I
can."
"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!" said the
lad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and
shaking each of his friends by the hand in turn. "I have never been so
happy. Of course, it is sudden—all really delightful things are. And
yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my
life." He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked
extraordinarily handsome.
"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian," said Hallward, "but I
don't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement.
You let Harry know."
"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner," broke in Lord
Henry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke.
"Come, let us sit down and try what the new chef here is like, and then
you will tell us how it all came about."
"There is really not much to tell," cried Dorian as they took their
seats at the small round table. "What happened was simply this. After
I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that
little Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and
went down at eight o'clock to the theatre. Sibyl was playing Rosalind.
Of course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd. But Sibyl!
You should have seen her! When she came on in her boy's clothes, she
was perfectly wonderful. She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with
cinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little
green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak
lined with dull red. She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She
had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in
your studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves
round a pale rose. As for her acting—well, you shall see her
to-night. She is simply a born artist. I sat in the dingy box
absolutely enthralled. I forgot that I was in London and in the
nineteenth century. I was away with my love in a forest that no man
had ever seen. After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke
to her. As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes
a look that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers.
We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that
moment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one
perfect point of rose-coloured joy. She trembled all over and shook
like a white narcissus. Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed
my hands. I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help
it. Of course, our engagement is a dead secret. She has not even told
her own mother. I don't know what my guardians will say. Lord Radley
is sure to be furious. I don't care. I shall be of age in less than a
year, and then I can do what I like. I have been right, Basil, haven't
I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's
plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their
secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and
kissed Juliet on the mouth."
"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right," said Hallward slowly.
"Have you seen her to-day?" asked Lord Henry.
Dorian Gray shook his head. "I left her in the forest of Arden; I
shall find her in an orchard in Verona."
Lord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner. "At what
particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian? And what
did she say in answer? Perhaps you forgot all about it."
"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did
not make any formal proposal. I told her that I loved her, and she
said she was not worthy to be my wife. Not worthy! Why, the whole
world is nothing to me compared with her."
"Women are wonderfully practical," murmured Lord Henry, "much more
practical than we are. In situations of that kind we often forget to
say anything about marriage, and they always remind us."
Hallward laid his hand upon his arm. "Don't, Harry. You have annoyed
Dorian. He is not like other men. He would never bring misery upon
any one. His nature is too fine for that."
Lord Henry looked across the table. "Dorian is never annoyed with me,"
he answered. "I asked the question for the best reason possible, for
the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any
question—simple curiosity. I have a theory that it is always the
women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. Except,
of course, in middle-class life. But then the middle classes are not
modern."
Dorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head. "You are quite incorrigible,
Harry; but I don't mind. It is impossible to be angry with you. When
you see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her
would be a beast, a beast without a heart. I cannot understand how any
one can wish to shame the thing he loves. I love Sibyl Vane. I want
to place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the
woman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at
it for that. Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to
take. Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. When I
am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different
from what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of
Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating,
poisonous, delightful theories."
"And those are ...?" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad.
"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories
about pleasure. All your theories, in fact, Harry."
"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about," he answered
in his slow melodious voice. "But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory
as my own. It belongs to Nature, not to me. Pleasure is Nature's
test, her sign of approval. When we are happy, we are always good, but
when we are good, we are not always happy."
"Ah! but what do you mean by good?" cried Basil Hallward.
"Yes," echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord
Henry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the
centre of the table, "what do you mean by good, Harry?"
"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self," he replied, touching
the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers.
"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own
life—that is the important thing. As for the lives of one's
neighbours, if one wishes to be a *** or a Puritan, one can flaunt
one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides,
individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in
accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of
culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest
immorality."
"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a
terrible price for doing so?" suggested the painter.
"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should fancy that
the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but
self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege
of the rich."
"One has to pay in other ways but money."
"What sort of ways, Basil?"
"Oh! I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the
consciousness of degradation."
Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, mediaeval art is
charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date. One can use them in
fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in
fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me,
no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever
knows what a pleasure is."
"I know what pleasure is," cried Dorian Gray. "It is to adore some
one."
"That is certainly better than being adored," he answered, toying with
some fruits. "Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as
humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us
to do something for them."
"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to
us," murmured the lad gravely. "They create love in our natures. They
have a right to demand it back."
"That is quite true, Dorian," cried Hallward.
"Nothing is ever quite true," said Lord Henry.
"This is," interrupted Dorian. "You must admit, Harry, that women give
to men the very gold of their lives."
"Possibly," he sighed, "but they invariably want it back in such very
small change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Frenchman once
put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always
prevent us from carrying them out."
"Harry, you are dreadful! I don't know why I like you so much."
"You will always like me, Dorian," he replied. "Will you have some
coffee, you fellows? Waiter, bring coffee, and fine-champagne, and
some cigarettes. No, don't mind the cigarettes—I have some. Basil, I
can't allow you to smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A
cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite,
and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? Yes, Dorian,
you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you
have never had the courage to commit."
"What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from a
fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.
"Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will
have a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you
have never known."
"I have known everything," said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his
eyes, "but I am always ready for a new emotion. I am afraid, however,
that, for me at any rate, there is no such thing. Still, your
wonderful girl may thrill me. I love acting. It is so much more real
than life. Let us go. Dorian, you will come with me. I am so sorry,
Basil, but there is only room for two in the brougham. You must follow
us in a hansom."
They got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing. The
painter was silent and preoccupied. There was a gloom over him. He
could not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better
than many other things that might have happened. After a few minutes,
they all passed downstairs. He drove off by himself, as had been
arranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in
front of him. A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that
Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the
past. Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the
crowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes. When the cab drew
up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.
CHAPTER 7
For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat
Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with
an oily tremulous smile. He escorted them to their box with a sort of
pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top
of his voice. Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever. He felt as if
he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. Lord
Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. At least he declared he
did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he
was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone
bankrupt over a poet. Hallward amused himself with watching the faces
in the pit. The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight
flamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire. The youths
in the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them
over the side. They talked to each other across the theatre and shared
their oranges with the *** girls who sat beside them. Some women
were laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and
discordant. The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.
"What a place to find one's divinity in!" said Lord Henry.
"Yes!" answered Dorian Gray. "It was here I found her, and she is
divine beyond all living things. When she acts, you will forget
everything. These common rough people, with their coarse faces and
brutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage. They
sit silently and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to
do. She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them,
and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self."
"The same flesh and blood as one's self! Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed
Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his
opera-glass.
"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter. "I
understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Any one you love
must be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must
be fine and noble. To spiritualize one's age—that is something worth
doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without
one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have
been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and
lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of
all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world. This
marriage is quite right. I did not think so at first, but I admit it
now. The gods made Sibyl Vane for you. Without her you would have
been incomplete."
"Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. "I knew that
you would understand me. Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me. But
here is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for
about five minutes. Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl
to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything
that is good in me."
A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of
applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly
lovely to look at—one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought,
that he had ever seen. There was something of the fawn in her shy
grace and startled eyes. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a
mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded
enthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed
to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud.
Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her.
Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, "Charming! charming!"
The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's
dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band, such
as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. Through
the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a
creature from a finer world. Her body swayed, while she danced, as a
plant sways in the water. The curves of her throat were the curves of
a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.
Yet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy when her
eyes rested on Romeo. The few words she had to speak—
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss—
with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly
artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view
of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It took away
all the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal.
Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious.
Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to
them to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed.
Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of
the second act. They waited for that. If she failed there, there was
nothing in her.
She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight. That could not
be denied. But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew
worse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly artificial. She
overemphasized everything that she had to say. The beautiful passage—
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night—
was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been
taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she
leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines—
Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to
be Ere one can say, "It lightens." Sweet, good-night!
This bud of love by summer's ripening breath May prove a beauteous flower when next we
meet—
she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was
not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely
self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.
Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their
interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and
to whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the
dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was
the girl herself.
When the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord
Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat. "She is quite
beautiful, Dorian," he said, "but she can't act. Let us go."
"I am going to see the play through," answered the lad, in a hard
bitter voice. "I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an
evening, Harry. I apologize to you both."
"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill," interrupted
Hallward. "We will come some other night."
"I wish she were ill," he rejoined. "But she seems to me to be simply
callous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last night she was a
great artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre
actress."
"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more
wonderful thing than art."
"They are both simply forms of imitation," remarked Lord Henry. "But
do let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not
good for one's morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don't suppose you
will want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet
like a wooden doll? She is very lovely, and if she knows as little
about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful
experience. There are only two kinds of people who are really
fascinating—people who know absolutely everything, and people who know
absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic!
The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is
unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. We will smoke
cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful.
What more can you want?"
"Go away, Harry," cried the lad. "I want to be alone. Basil, you must
go. Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?" The hot tears came
to his eyes. His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he
leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.
"Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his
voice, and the two young men passed out together.
A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose
on the third act. Dorian Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale,
and proud, and indifferent. The play dragged on, and seemed
interminable. Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots
and laughing. The whole thing was a fiasco. The last act was played
to almost empty benches. The curtain went down on a titter and some
groans.
As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the
greenroom. The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph
on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. There was a
radiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of
their own.
When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy
came over her. "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried.
"Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement. "Horribly! It
was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was. You have no
idea what I suffered."
The girl smiled. "Dorian," she answered, lingering over his name with
long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to
the red petals of her mouth. "Dorian, you should have understood. But
you understand now, don't you?"
"Understand what?" he asked, angrily.
"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall
never act well again."
He shrugged his shoulders. "You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill
you shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were
bored. I was bored."
She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. An
ecstasy of happiness dominated her.
"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one
reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I
thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the
other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia
were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted
with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world.
I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came—oh, my
beautiful love!—and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what
reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw
through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in
which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became
conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the
moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and
that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not
what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something
of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what
love really is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life!
I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever
be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on
to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone
from me. I thought that I was going to be wonderful. I found that I
could do nothing. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.
The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled.
What could they know of love such as ours? Take me away, Dorian—take
me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I
might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that
burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it
signifies? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to
play at being in love. You have made me see that."
He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face. "You have
killed my love," he muttered.
She looked at him in wonder and laughed. He made no answer. She came
across to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair. She knelt
down and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a
shudder ran through him.
Then he leaped up and went to the door. "Yes," he cried, "you have
killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even
stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because
you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you
realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the
shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and
stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been!
You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never
think of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you
were to me, once. Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I
wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romance of
my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!
Without your art, you are nothing. I would have made you famous,
splendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you
would have borne my name. What are you now? A third-rate actress with
a pretty face."
The girl grew white, and trembled. She clenched her hands together,
and her voice seemed to catch in her throat. "You are not serious,
Dorian?" she murmured. "You are acting."
"Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well," he answered
bitterly.
She rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her
face, came across the room to him. She put her hand upon his arm and
looked into his eyes. He thrust her back. "Don't touch me!" he cried.
A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay
there like a trampled flower. "Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!" she
whispered. "I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you
all the time. But I will try—indeed, I will try. It came so suddenly
across me, my love for you. I think I should never have known it if
you had not kissed me—if we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again,
my love. Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh! don't go
away from me. My brother ... No; never mind. He didn't mean it. He
was in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will
work so hard and try to improve. Don't be cruel to me, because I love
you better than anything in the world. After all, it is only once that
I have not pleased you. But you are quite right, Dorian. I should
have shown myself more of an artist. It was foolish of me, and yet I
couldn't help it. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me." A fit of
passionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a
wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at
her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain. There is
always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has
ceased to love. Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.
Her tears and sobs annoyed him.
"I am going," he said at last in his calm clear voice. "I don't wish
to be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me."
She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. Her little
hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him. He
turned on his heel and left the room. In a few moments he was out of
the theatre.
Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly
lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking
houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after
him. Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves
like monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon
door-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.
As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.
The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed
itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies
rumbled slowly down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with
the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an
anodyne for his pain. He followed into the market and watched the men
unloading their waggons. A white-smocked carter offered him some
cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money
for them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at
midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. A long
line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red
roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge,
jade-green piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its grey,
sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls,
waiting for the auction to be over. Others crowded round the swinging
doors of the coffee-house in the piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped
and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.
Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked
and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.
After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home. For a few
moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent
square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds.
The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like
silver against it. From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke
was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.
In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that
hung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance,
lights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals
of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. He turned them out and,
having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library
towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the
ground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had
decorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries
that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal. As
he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait
Basil Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise.
Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. After he
had taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.
Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In
the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk
blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The
expression looked different. One would have said that there was a
touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange.
He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. The
bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky
corners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he
had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be
more intensified even. The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the
lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking
into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.
He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory
Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly
into its polished depths. No line like that warped his red lips. What
did it mean?
He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it
again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the
actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression
had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was
horribly apparent.
He threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly there
flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the
day the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly.
He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the
portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the
face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that
the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and
thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness
of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been
fulfilled? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to
think of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the
touch of cruelty in the mouth.
Cruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his. He had
dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he
had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been
shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over
him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little
child. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why
had he been made like that? Why had such a soul been given to him?
But he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the
play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of
torture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a
moment, if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better
suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They
only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely
to have some one with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told
him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. Why should he trouble
about Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him now.
But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of
his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own
beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look
at it again?
No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The
horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.
Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that
makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to think so.
Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel
smile. Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes
met his own. A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the
painted image of himself, came over him. It had altered already, and
would alter more. Its gold would wither into grey. Its red and white
roses would die. For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck
and wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or
unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would
resist temptation. He would not see Lord Henry any more—would not, at
any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil
Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for
impossible things. He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends,
marry her, try to love her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She
must have suffered more than he had. Poor child! He had been selfish
and cruel to her. The fascination that she had exercised over him
would return. They would be happy together. His life with her would
be beautiful and pure.
He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the
portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it. "How horrible!" he murmured
to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it. When he
stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. The fresh morning
air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. He thought only of
Sibyl. A faint echo of his love came back to him. He repeated her
name over and over again. The birds that were singing in the
dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.
End of Chapter 7 �