DOR_GRAY.

1890
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
by Oscar Wilde
CHAPTER I

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the
light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came
through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more
delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he
was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord
Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and
honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed
hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and
now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across
the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the
huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making
him think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through
the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey
the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees
shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling
with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the
straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The
dim roar of London was like the burdon note of a distant organ.
In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the
full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal
beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the
artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some
years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement, and gave rise
to so many strange conjectures.
As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so
skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his
face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up,
and, closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though
he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which
he feared he might awake.
"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,"
said Lord Henry, languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to
the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I
have gone there, there have either been so many people that I have not
been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures
that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The
Grosvenor is really the only place."
"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his
head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him
at Oxford. "No; I won't send it anywhere."
Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows, and looked at him in amazement
through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful
whorls from his heavy opium-tainted cigarette.
"Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason?
What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to
gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to
throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in
the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being
talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the
young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men
are ever capable of any emotion."
"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't
exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it."
Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.
"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same."
"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know
you were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between
you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this
young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and
rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you- well,
of course you have an intellectual expression, and all that. But
beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins.
Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the
harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes
all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful
men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are!
Except, of course, in the church. But then in the church they don't
think. A bishop keeps on saying at the age of eighty what he was
told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural
consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious
young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture
really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is
some brainless, beautiful creature, who should always be here in
winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer
when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter
yourself, Basil, you are not in the least like him."
"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist. "Of course
I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be
sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the
truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual
distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history
the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from
one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this
world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know
nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of
defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and
without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever
receive it, from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my
brains, such as they are- my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian
Gray's good looks- we shall all suffer for what the gods have given
us, suffer terribly."
"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across
the studio towards Basil Hallward.
"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you."
"But why not?"
"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely I never tell
their names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have
grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make
modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is
delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my
people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is
a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great
deal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully
foolish about it?"
"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil. You
seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is
that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both
parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I
am doing. When we meet- we do meet occasionally, when we dine out
together, or go down to the Duke's- we tell each other the most absurd
stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it-
much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her
dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no
row at all. I sometimes wish she would; but she merely laughs at me."
"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said Basil
Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. "I
believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are
thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary
fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.
Your cynicism is simply a pose."
"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I
know," cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into
the garden together, and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat
that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped
over the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.
After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. "I am afraid I
must be going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your
answering a question I put to you some time ago."
"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the
ground.
"You know quite well."
"I do not, Harry."
"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why
you won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason."
"I told you the real reason."
"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of
yourself in it. Now, that is childish."
"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face,
"every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the
artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the
occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather
the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I
will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in
it the secret of my own soul."
Lord Henry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked.
"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity
came over his face.
"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing
at him.
"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the
painter; "and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps vou
will hardly believe it."
Lord Henry smiled, and, leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled
daisy from the grass, and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall
understand it," he replied, gazing intently at the little golden
white-feathered disk, "and as for believing things, I can believe
anything, provided that it is quite incredible."
The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy
lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the
languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a
blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze
wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart
beating, and wondered what was coming.
"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two
months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor
artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to
remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and
a white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can
gain a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the
room about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and
tedious Academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was
looking at me. I turned halfway round, and saw Dorian Gray for the
first time. When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A
curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come
face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating
that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my
whole soul, my very art itself. I did not want any external
influence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I am
by nature. I have always been my own master; had at least always
been so, till I met Dorian Gray. Then- but I don't know how to explain
it to you. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of a
terrible crisis in my life. I had a strange feeling that Fate had in
store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid,
and turned to quit the room. It was not conscience that made me do it:
it was a sort of cowardice. I take no credit to myself for trying to
escape."
"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil.
Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all."
"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.
However, whatever was my motive- and it may have been pride, for I
used to be very proud- I certainly struggled to the door. There, of
course, I stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run
away so soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her
curiously shrill voice?"
"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry,
pulling the daisy to bits with his long, nervous fingers.
"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to Royalties, and
people with Stars and Garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras
and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only
met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I
believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time,
at least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is
the nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found
myself face to face with the young man whose personality had so
strangely stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes
met again. It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to
introduce me to him. Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was
simply inevitable. We would have spoken to each other without any
introduction. I am sure of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He,
too, felt that we were destined to know each other."
"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?"
asked his companion. "I know she goes in for giving a rapid precis
of all her guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and
red-faced old gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons,
and hissing into my ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been
perfectly audible to everybody in the room, the most astounding
details. I simply fled. I like to find out people for myself. But Lady
Brandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods.
She either explains them entirely away, or tells one everything
about them except what one wants to know."
"Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward,
listlessly.
"My dear fellow, she tried to found a salon, and only succeeded in
opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did
she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?"
"Oh, something like 'Charming boy- poor dear mother and I absolutely
inseparable. Quite forget what he does- afraid he- doesn't do
anything- oh, yes, plays the piano- or is it the violin, dear Mr.
Gray?' Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at
once."
"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it
is far the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another
daisy.
Hallward shook his head. "You don't understand what friendship is,
Harry," he murmured- "or what enmity is, for that matter. You like
every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one."
"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat
back, and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins
of glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of
the summer sky. "Yes, horribly unjust of you. I make a great
difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks,
my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their
good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his
enemies. I have not got one who is a fool, they are all men of some
intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that
very vain of me? I think it is rather vain."
"I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must
be merely an acquaintance."
"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance."
"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?"
"Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't
die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else."
"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.
"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can't help
detesting my relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none
of us can stand other people having the same faults as ourselves. I
quite sympathize with the rage of the English democracy against what
they call the vices of the upper orders. The masses feel that
drunkenness, stupidity, and immorality should be their own special
property, and that if any one of us makes an ass of himself he is
poaching on their preserves. When poor Southwark got into the
Divorce Court, their indignation was quite magnificent. And yet I
don't suppose that ten per cent of the proletariat live correctly."
"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is
more, Harry, I feel sure that you don't either."
Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard, and tapped the toe of
his patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. "How English
you are, Basil! That is the second time you have made that
observation. If one puts forward an idea to a true Englishman-
always a rash thing to do- he never dreams of considering whether
the idea is right or wrong. The only thing he considers of any
importance is whether one believes it oneself. Now, the value of an
idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who
expresses it. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere
the man is, the more purely intellectual will the idea be, as in
that case it will not be coloured by either his wants, his desires, or
his prejudices. However, I don't propose to discuss politics,
sociology, or metaphysics with you. I like persons better than
principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything
else in the world. Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do
you see him?"
"Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. He is
absolutely necessary to me."
"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything
but your art."
"He is all my art to me now," said the painter, gravely. "I
sometimes think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance
in the world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium
for art, and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art
also. What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the
face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian
Gray will some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him,
draw from him, sketch from him. Of course I have done all that. But he
is much more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I
am dissatisfied with what I have done of him or that his beauty is
such that Art cannot express it. There is nothing that Art cannot
express, and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian
Gray, is good work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious
way- I wonder will you understand me?- his personality has suggested
to me an entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style.
I see things differently, I think of them differently. I can now
re-create life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of
form in days of thought:'- who is it who says that? I forget; but it
is what Dorian Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of
this lad- for he seems to me little more than a lad, though he is
really over twenty- his merely visible presence- ah! I wonder can
you realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the
lines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in it all the
passion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit
that is Greek. The harmony of soul and body- how much that is! We in
our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that
is vulgar, an ideality that is void. Harry! if you only knew what
Dorian Gray is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, for which
Agnew offered me such a huge price, but which I would not part with?
It is one of the best things I have ever done. And why is it so?
Because, while I was painting it, Dorian Gray sat beside me. Some
subtle influence passed from him to me, and for the first time in my
life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I had always looked for,
and always missed."
"Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray."
Hallward got up from his seat, and walked up and down the garden.
After some time he came back. "Harry," he said, "Dorian Gray is to
me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see
everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no
image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new
manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness
and subtleties of certain colours. That is all."
"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?" asked Lord Henry.
"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression
of all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have
never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never
know anything about it. But the world might guess it; and I will not
bare my soul to their shallow, prying eyes. My heart shall never be
put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the
thing, Harry- too much of myself!"
"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful
passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many
editions."
"I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create
beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We
live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form
of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some
day I will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world
shall never see my portrait of Dorian Gray."
"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is
only the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray
very fond of you?"
The painter considered for a few moments. "He likes me," he answered
after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him
dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I
know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to
me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and
then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real
delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given
away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to
put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an
ornament for a summer's day."
"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry.
"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think
of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That
accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate
ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have
something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and
facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly
well-informed man- that is the modern idea. And the mind of the
thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a
bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced
above its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same.
Some day you will look at your friend and he will seem to you to be
a little out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or
something. You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and
seriously think that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time
he calls, you will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a
great pity, for it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a
romance, a romance of art one might call it, and the worst of having a
romance of any kind is that it leaves one so unromantic."
"Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality
of Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You
change too often."
"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are
faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who
know love's tragedies." And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty
silver case, and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious
and satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There
was a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the
ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass
like swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful
other people's emotions were!- much more delightful than their
ideas, it seemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's
friends- those were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to
himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had
missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his
aunt's, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and
the whole conversation would have been about the feeding of the
poor, and the necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would
have preached the importance of those virtues, for whose exercise
there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have
spoken on the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the
dignity of labour. It was charming to have escaped all that! As he
thought of his aunt, an idea seemed to strike him. He turned to
Hallward, and said, "My dear fellow, I have just remembered."
"Remembered what, Harry?"
"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray."
"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.
"Don't look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. She
told me she had discovered a wonderful young man, who was going to
help her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am
bound to state that she never told me he was good-looking. Women
have no appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not. She
said that he was very earnest, and had a beautiful nature. I at once
pictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair,
horribly freckled, and tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known
it was your friend."
"I am very glad you didn't, Harry."
"Why?"
"I don't want you to meet him."
"You don't want me to meet him?"
"No."
"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming
into the garden.
"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing.
The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the
sunlight. "Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few
moments." The man bowed, and went up the walk.
Then he looked at Lord Henry. "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he
said. "He has a simple and beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right
in what she said of him. Don't spoil him. Don't try to influence
him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and has many
marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who
gives to my art whatever charm it possesses; my life as an artist
depends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you." He spoke very slowly, and
the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.
"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and, taking
Hallward by the arm, he almost led him into the house.
CHAPTER II

As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano,
with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of
Schumann's "Forest Scenes." "You must lend me these, Basil," he cried.
"I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming."
"That depends entirely on how you sit to-day, Dorian."
"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait
of myself," answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool, in
a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint
blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. "I beg your
pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you."
"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine.
I have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now
you have spoiled everything."
"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," said
Lord Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand. "My aunt has
often spoken to me about you. You are one of her favourites, and, I am
afraid, one of her victims, also."
"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian,
with a funny look of penitence. "I promised to go to a club in
Whitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it.
We were to have played a duet together- three duets, I believe. I
don't know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call."
"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to
you. And I don't think it really matters about your not being there.
The audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits
down to the piano she makes quite enough noise for two people."
"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," answered
Dorian, laughing.
Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully
handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes,
his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one
trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as
all youth's passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself
unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.
"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray- far too
charming." And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan, and
opened his cigarette-case.
The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes
ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last
remark he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,
"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would vou think it
awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?"
Lord Henry smiled, and looked at Dorian Gray. "Am I to go, Mr.
Gray?" he asked.
"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his
sulky moods; and I can't bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you
to tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy."
"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so tedious
a subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I
certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop.
You don't really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that
you liked your sitters to have some one to chat to."
Hallward bit his lip. "If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.
Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself."
Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. "You are very pressing,
Basil, but I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the
Orleans. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in
Curzon Street. I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me
when you are coming. I should be sorry to miss you."
"Basil," cried Dorian Gray, "if Lord Henry Wotton goes I shall go
too. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is
horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.
Ask him to stay. I insist upon it."
"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me," said Hallward,
gazing intently at his picture. "It is quite true, I never talk when I
am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious
for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay."
"But what about my man at the Orleans?"
The painter laughed. "I don't think there will be any difficulty
about that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the
platform, and don't move about too much, or pay any attention to
what Lord Henry says. He has a very bad influence over all his
friends, with the single exception of myself."
Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais, with the air of a young Greek
martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he
had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a
delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few
moments he said to him, "Have you really a very bad influence, Lord
Henry? As bad as Basil says?"
"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence
is immoral- immoral from the scientific point of view."
"Why?"
"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He
does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural
passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such
things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's
music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim
of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly- that
is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves,
nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that
one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the
hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are
naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had
it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of
God, which is the secret of religion- these are the two things that
govern us. And yet--"
"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good
boy," said the painter, deep in his work, and conscious only that a
look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.
"And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with
that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of
him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man
were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to
every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream-
I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that
we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the
Hellenic ideal- to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal,
it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The
mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial
that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse
that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The
body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of
purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,
or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation
is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing
for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its
monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that
the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the
brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place
also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your
rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,
thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping
dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame-"
"Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me. I don't know
what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.
Don't speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think."
For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips,
and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely
fresh influences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to
have come really from himself. The few words that Basil's friend had
said to him- words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox
in them- had touched some secret chord that had never been touched
before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious
pulses.
Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many
times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but
rather another chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How
terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel. One could not
escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them.
They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things,
and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of
lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
Yes, there had been things in his boyhood that he had not
understood. He understood them now. Life suddenly had become
fiery-coloured to him. It seemed to him that he had been walking in
fire. Why had he not known it?
With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise
psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely
interested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words
had produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was
sixteen, a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known
before, he wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a
similar experience. He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it
hit the mark? How fascinating the lad was!
Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that
had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate,
comes only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence.
"Basil, I am tired of standing," cried Dorian Gray, suddenly. "I
must go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here."
"My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can't think of
anything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. And
I have caught the effect I wanted- the half-parted lips and the bright
look in the eyes. I don't know what Harry has been saying to you,
but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. I
suppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn't believe a word
that he says."
"He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is
the reason that I don't believe anything he has told me."
"You know you believe it all," said Lord Henry, looking at him
with his dreamy, languorous eyes. "I will go out to the garden with
you. It is horribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something
iced to drink, something with strawberries in it."
"Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will
tell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I
will join you later on. Don't keep Dorian too long. I have never
been in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be
my masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands."
Lord Henry went out to the garden, and found Dorian Gray burying his
face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their
perfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him, and put his hand
upon his shoulder. "You are quite right to do that," he murmured.
"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure
the senses but the soul."
The lad started and drew back. He was bare-headed, and the leaves
had tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded
threads. There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have
when they are suddenly awakened. His finely-chiselled nostrils
quivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left
them trembling.
"Yes," continued Lord Henry, "that is one of the great secrets of
life- to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means
of the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you
think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."
Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help
liking the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His
romantic olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him. There
was something in his low, languid voice that was absolutely
fascinating. His cool, white, flower-like hands, even, had a curious
charm. They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a
language of their own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being
afraid. Why had it been left for a stranger to reveal him to
himself? He had known Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship
between them had never altered him. Suddenly there had come some one
across his life who seemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery.
And, yet, what was there to be afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or
a girl. It was absurd to be frightened.
"Let us go and sit in the shade," said Lord Henry. "Parker has
brought out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare you
will be quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You
really must not allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would be
unbecoming."
"What can it matter?" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on
the seat at the end of the garden.
"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray."
"Why?"
"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one
thing worth having."
"I don't feel that, Lord Henry."
"No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and
wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its
lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you
will feel it, you will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you
charm the world. Will it always be so?... You have a wonderfully
beautiful face, Mr. Gray. Don't frown. You have. And Beauty is a
form of Genius- is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no
explanation. It is of the great facts of the world, like sunlight,
or spring-time, or the reflection in dark waters of that silver
shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine
right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You
smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won't smile.... People say
sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at
least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the
wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by
appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the
invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But
what the gods give they quickly take away. You have only a few years
in which to live really, perfectly, and fully. When your youth goes,
your beauty will go with it, and then you will suddenly discover
that there are no triumphs left for you, or have to content yourself
with those mean triumphs that the memory of your past will make more
bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes brings you nearer to
something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and wars against your
lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and hollow-cheeked, and
dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.... Ah! realize your youth while
you have it. Don't squander the gold of your days, listening to the
tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, or giving away your
life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. These are the sickly
aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live the wonderful life that
is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new
sensations. Be afraid of nothing.... A new Hedonism- that is what
our century wants. You might be its visible symbol. With your
personality there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to
you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that you were quite
unconscious of what you really are, of what you really might be. There
was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must tell you
something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if you were
wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will last-
such a little time. The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom
again. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. In a
month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after
year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars. But
we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at
twenty, becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We
degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions
of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that
we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is
absolutely nothing in the world but youth!"
Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac
fell from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed
round it for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval
stellated globe of its tiny blossoms. He watched it with that
strange interest in trivial things that we try to develop when
things of high import make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some
new emotion for which we cannot find expression, or when some
thought that terrifies us lays sudden siege to the brain and calls
on us to yield. After a time the bee flew away. He saw it creeping
into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian convolvulus. The flower seemed to
quiver, and then swayed gently to and fro.
Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio, and made
staccato signs for them to come in. They turned to each other, and
smiled.
"I am waiting," he cried. "Do come in. The light is quite perfect,
and you can bring your drinks."
They rose up, and sauntered down the walk together. Two
green-and-white butterflies fluttered past them, and in the
pear-tree at the corner of the garden a thrush began to sing.
"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, looking
at him.
"Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?"
"Always! that is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear
it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by
trying to make it last forever. It is a meaningless word, too. The
only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that
the caprice lasts a little longer."
As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord
Henry's arm. "In that case, let our friendship be a caprice," he
murmured, flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the
platform and resumed his pose.
Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched
him. The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound
that broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward
stepped back to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting
beams that streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was
golden. The heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.
After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked
for a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the
picture, biting the end of one of his huge brushes, and frowning.
"It is quite finished," he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote
his name in long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the
canvas.
Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a
wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.
"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly," he said. "It is
the finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at
yourself."
The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. "Is it really
finished?" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.
"Quite finished," said the painter. "And you have sat splendidly
to-day. I am awfully obliged to you."
"That is entirely due to me," broke in Lord Henry. "Isn't it, Mr.
Gray?"
Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture
and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks
flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his
eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood
there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was
speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The
sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never
felt it before. Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be
merely the charming exaggerations of friendship. He had listened to
them, laughed at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his
nature. Then had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric
on youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at
the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own
loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him.
Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizened,
his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and
deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold
steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar
his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.
As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like
a knife, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes
deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He
felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.
"Don't you like it?" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the
lad's silence, not understanding what it meant.
"Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry. "Who wouldn't like it?
It is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you
anything you like to ask for it. I must have it."
"It is not my property, Harry."
"Whose property is it?"
"Dorian's, of course," answered the painter.
"He is a very lucky fellow."
"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed
upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible,
and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never
be older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the
other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture
that was to grow old! For that- for that- I would give everything!
Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would
give my soul for that!"
"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil," cried Lord
Henry, laughing. "It would be rather hard lines on your work."
"I should object very strongly, Harry," said Hallward.
Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. "I believe you would, Basil.
You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a
green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say."
The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak
like that. What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was
flushed and his cheeks burning.
"Yes," he continued, "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or
your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like
me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when
one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses
everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is
perfectly, right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find
that I am growing old, I shall kill myself."
Hallward turned pale, and caught his hand. "Dorian! Dorian!" he
cried, "don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you,
and I shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material
things, are you?- you who are finer than any of them!"
"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am
jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep
what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me,
and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the
picture could change. and I could be always what I am now! Why did you
paint it? It will mock me some day- mock me horribly!" The hot tears
welled into his eyes; he tore his hand away, and, flinging himself
on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was
praying.
"This is your doing, Harry," said the painter, bitterly.
Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian Gray- that
is all."
"It is not."
"If it is not, what have I to do with it?"
"You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered.
"I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer.
"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but
between you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have
ever done, and I will destroy it. What is it but canvas and colour?
I will not let it come across our three lives and mar them."
Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with
pallid face and tear-stained eyes looked at him, as he walked over
to the deal painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained
window. What was he doing there? His fingers were straying about among
the litter of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes,
it was for the long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel.
He had found it at last. He was going to rip up the canvas.
With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing
over to Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to
the end of the studio. "Don't, Basil, don't!" he cried. "It would be
murder!"
"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian," said the
painter, coldly, when he had recovered from his surprise. "I never
thought you would."
"Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself. I
feel that."
"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed,
and sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself." And he
walked across the room and rang the bell for tea. "You will have
tea, of course, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? Or do you object to
such simple pleasures?"
"I adore simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. "They are the last
refuge of the complex. But I don't like scenes, except on the stage.
What absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was
defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition
ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he
is not, after all: though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the
picture. You had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy
doesn't really want it, and I really do."
"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive
you!" cried Dorian Gray; "and I don't allow people to call me a
silly boy."
"You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it
existed."
"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you
don't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young."
"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry."
"Ah! this morning! You have lived since then."
There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a
laden tea-tray, and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was
a rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.
Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page. Dorian Gray
went over and poured out the tea. The two men sauntered languidly to
the table, and examined what was under the covers.
"Let us go to the theatre to-night," said Lord Henry. "There is sure
to be something on, somewhere. I have promised to dine at White's, but
it is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that
I am ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a
subsequent engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse:
it would have all the surprise of candour."
"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes," muttered
Hallward. "And, when one has them on, they are so horrid."
"Yes," answered Lord Henry, dreamily, "the costume of the nineteenth
century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only
real colour-element left in modern life."
"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry."
"Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or
the one in the picture?"
"Before either."
"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry," said
the lad.
"Then you shall come; and you will come too, Basil, won't you?"
"I can't really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do."
"Well, then, you and I will go, Mr. Gray."
"I should like that awfully."
The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the
picture. "I shall stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly.
"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait,
strolling across to him. "Am I really like that?"
"Yes; you are just like that."
"How wonderful, Basil!"
"At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter,"
sighed Hallward. "That is something."
"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry.
"Why, even in love it is purely a question of physiology. It has
nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and
are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can
say."
"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian," said Hallward. "Stop and
dine with me."
"I can't, Basil."
"Why?"
"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him."
"He won't like you any better for keeping your promises. He always
breaks his own. I beg you not to go."
Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head.
"I entreat you."
The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching
them from the tea-table with an amused smile.
"I must go, Basil," he answered.
"Very well," said Hallward; and he went over and laid down his cup
on the tray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had
better lose no time. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. Come and see
me soon. Come to-morrow."
"Certainly."
"You won't forget?"
"No, of course not," cried Dorian.
"And... Harry!"
"Yes, Basil?"
"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this
morning?"
"I have forgotten it."
"I trust you."
"I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing. "Come, Mr.
Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.
Good-bye, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon."
As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on
a sofa, and a look of pain came into his face.
CHAPTER III

At half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from
Curzon Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor,
a genial if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside
world called selfish because it derived no particular benefit from
him, but who was considered generous by Society as he fed the people
who amused him. His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when
Isabella was young, and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the
Diplomatic Service in a capricious moment of annoyance on not being
offered the Embassy at Paris, a post to which he considered that he
was fully entitled by reason of his birth, his indolence, the good
English of his despatches, and his inordinate passion for pleasure.
The son, who had been his father's secretary, had resigned along
with his chief, somewhat foolishly as was thought at the time, and
on succeeding some months later to the title, had set himself to the
serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely
nothing. He had two large town houses, but preferred to live in
chambers as it was less trouble, and took most of his meals at his
club. He paid some attention to the management of his collieries in
the Midland counties, excusing himself for this taint of industry on
the ground that the one advantage of having coal was that it enabled a
gentleman to afford the decency of burning wood on his own hearth.
In politics he was a Tory, except when the Tories were in office,
during which period he roundly abused them for being a pack of
Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied him, and a terror to
most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. Only England could
have produced him, and he always said that the country was going to
the dogs. His principles were out of date, but there was a good deal
to be said for his prejudices.
When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a
rough shooting coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over The Times.
"Well, Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so
early? I thought you dandies never got up until two, and were not
visible until five."
"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get
something out of you."
"Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. "Well,
sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine
that money is everything."
"Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his buttonhole in his coat;
"and when they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. It
is only people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and
I never pay mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one
lives charmingly upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's
tradesmen, and consequently they never bother me. What I want is
information; not useful information, of course; useless information."
"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue-book,
Harry, although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I
was in the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let
them in now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir,
are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he
knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is
bad for him."
"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue-books, Uncle George,"
said Lord Henry, languidly.
"Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his
bushy white eyebrows.
"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I
know who, he is. He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson. His mother
was a Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about
his mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known
nearly everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am
very much interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met
him."
"Kelso's grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso's
grandson!... Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I
was at her christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl,
Margaret Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a
penniless young fellow, a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot
regiment, or something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole
thing as if it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a
duel at Spa a few months after the marriage. There was an ugly story
about it. They said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian
brute, to insult his son-in-law in public, paid him, sir, to do it,
paid him, and that the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a
pigeon. The thing was hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone
at the club for some time afterwards. He brought his daughter back
with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it
was a bad business. The girl died too, died within a year. So she left
a son, did she? I had forgotten that. What sort of a boy is he? If
he is like his mother he must be a good-looking chap."
"He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry.
"I hope he will fall into proper hands," continued the old man.
"He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the
right thing by him. His mother had money too. All the Selby property
came to her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso,
thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was
there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about
the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about
their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didn't dare show my face
at Court for a month. I hope he treated his grandson better than he
did the jarvies."
"I don't know," answered Lord Henry. "I fancy that the boy will be
well off. He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so.
And... his mother was very beautiful?"
"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw,
Harry. What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could
understand. She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was
mad after her. She was romantic though. All the women of that family
were. The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful.
Carlington went on his knees to her. Told me so himself. She laughed
at him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after
him. And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is
this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an
American? Ain't English girls good enough for him?"
"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle
George."
"I'll back English women against the world, Harry," said Lord
Fermor, striking the table with his fist.
"The betting is on the Americans."
"They don't last, I am told," muttered his uncle.
"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a
steeplechase. They take things flying. I don't think Dartmoor has a
chance."
"Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman. "Has she got any?"
Lord Henry shook his head. "American girls are as clever at
concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their
past," he said, rising to go.
"They are pork-packers, I suppose?"
"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that
pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after
politics."
"Is she pretty?"
"She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It
is the secret of their charm."
"Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They
are always telling us that it is the Paradise for women."
"It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively
anxious to get out of it," said Lord Henry. "Good-bye, Uncle George. I
shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer. Thanks for giving me
the information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my
new friends, and nothing about my old ones."
"Where are you lunching, Harry?"
"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her
latest protege."
"Humph! Tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me with any more
of her charity appeals. I am sick of them. Why, the good woman
thinks that I have nothing to do but write cheques for her silly
fads."
"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any
effect. Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their
distinguishing characteristic."
The old gentleman growled approvingly, and rang the bell for his
servant. Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street,
and turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square.
So that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage. Crudely as it
had been told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a
strange, almost modern romance. A beautiful woman risking everything
for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a
hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a
child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to
solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes; it was an
interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect as
it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was
something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower
might blow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night
before, as with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure
he had sat opposite to him at the club, the red candleshades
staining to a richer rose the wakening wonder of his face. Talking
to him was like playing upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every
touch and thrill of the bow.... There was something terribly
enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like
it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry
there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back
to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey
one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a
strange perfume: there was a real joy in that- perhaps the most
satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our
own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its
aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad, whom by so curious a
chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be fashioned into a
marvellous type, at any rate. Grace was his, and the white purity of
boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles have kept for us.
There was nothing that one could not do with him. He could be made a
Titan or a toy. What a pity it was that such beauty was destined to
fade!... And Basil? From a psychological point of view, how
interesting he was! The new manner in art, the fresh mode of looking
at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence of
one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in dim
woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing herself,
Dryad-like and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for her
there had been awakened that wonderful vision to which alone are
wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things
becoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value,
as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect
form whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was! He
remembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato, that artist
in thought, who had first analyzed it? Was it not Buonarotti who had
carved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own
country it was strange.... Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray
what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned
the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him- had already,
indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own.
There was something fascinating in this son of Love and Death.
Suddenly he stopped, and glanced up at the houses. He found that
he had passed his aunt's some distance, and smiling to himself, turned
back. When he entered the somewhat sombre hall the butler told him
that they had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and
stick and passed into the dining-room.
"Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.
He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next
to her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed to him shyly
from the end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his
cheek. Opposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable
good-nature and good temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and
of those ample architectural proportions that in women who are not
Duchesses are described by contemporary historians as stoutness.
Next to her sat, on her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member
of Parliament, who followed his leader in public life and in private
life followed the best cooks, dining with the Tories, and thinking
with the Liberals, in accordance with a wise and well-known rule.
The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old
gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen,
however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to
Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was
thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur, one of his aunt's oldest
friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so dreadfully dowdy that
she reminded one of a badly bound hymn book. Fortunately for him she
had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most intelligent middle-aged
mediocrity, as bad as a Ministerial statement in the House of Commons,
with whom she was conversing in that intensely earnest manner which is
the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once himself, that all
really good people fall into, and from which none of them ever quite
escape.
"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry," cried the Duchess,
nodding pleasantly to him across the table. "Do you think he will
really marry this fascinating young person?"
"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess."
"How dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Agatha. "Really, some one should
interfere."
"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an
American dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking
supercilious.
"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas."
"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" asked the Duchess, raising
her large hands in wonder, and accentuating the verb.
"American novels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some
quail.
The Duchess looked puzzled.
"Don't mind him, my dear," whispered Lady Agatha. "He never means
anything that he says."
"When America was discovered," said the Radical member, and he began
to give some wearisome facts. Like all people who try to exhaust a
subject, he exhausted his listeners. The Duchess sighed, and exercised
her privilege of interruption. "I wish to goodness it never had been
discovered at all!" she exclaimed. "Really, our girls have no chance
nowadays. It is most unfair."
"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered," said Mr.
Erskine; "I myself would say that it had merely been detected."
"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants," answered the
Duchess, vaguely. "I must confess that most of them are extremely
pretty. And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in Paris.
I wish I could afford to do the same."
"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris," chuckled
Sir Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes.
"Really! And where do bad Americans go when they die?" inquired
the Duchess.
"They go to America," murmured Lord Henry.
Sir Thomas frowned. "I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced
against that great country," he said to Lady Agatha. "I have travelled
all over it, in cars provided by the directors, who, in such
matters, are extremely civil. I assure you that it is an education
to visit it."
"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?" asked
Mr. Erskine, plaintively. "I don't feel up to the journey."
Sir Thomas waved his hand. "Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on
his shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about
them. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are
absolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing
characteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I
assure you there is no nonsense about the Americans."
"How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry. "I can stand brute force, but
brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about
its use. It is hitting below the intellect."
"I do not understand you," said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.
"I do, Lord Henry," murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile.
"Paradoxes are all very well in their way..." rejoined the Baronet.
"Was that a paradox?" asked Mr. Erskine. "I did not think so.
Perhaps it was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To
test Reality we must see it on the tight-rope. When the Verities
become acrobats we can judge them."
"Dear me!" said Lady Agatha, "how you men argue! I am sure I never
can make out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am quite vexed
with you. Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to
give up the East End? I assure you he would be quite invaluable.
They would love his playing."
"I want him to play to me," cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked
down the table and caught a bright answering glance.
"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel," continued Lady Agatha.
"I can sympathize with everything, except suffering," said Lord
Henry, shrugging his shoulders. "I cannot sympathize with that. It
is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something
terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should
sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said
about life's sores the better."
"Still, the East End is a very important problem," remarked Sir
Thomas, with a grave shake of the head.
"Quite so," answered the young lord. "It is the problem of
slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves."
The politician looked at him keenly. "What change do you propose,
then?" he asked.
Lord Henry laughed. "I don't desire to change anything in England
except the weather," he answered. "I am quite content with philosophic
contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt
through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we
should appeal to Science to put us straight. The advantage of the
emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of Science
is that it is not emotional."
"But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs.
Vandeleur, timidly.
"Terribly grave," echoed Lady Agatha.
Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. "Humanity takes itself too
seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known
how to laugh; History would have been different."
"You are really very comforting," warbled the Duchess. "I have
always felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I
take no interest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be
able to look her in the face without a blush."
"A blush is very becoming, Duchess," remarked Lord Henry.
"Only when one is young," she answered. "When an old woman like
myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you
would tell me how to become young again."
He thought for a moment. "Can you remember any great error that
you committed in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her
across the table.
"A great many, I fear," she cried.
"Then commit them over again," he said, gravely. "To get back
one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies."
"A delightful theory!" she exclaimed. "I must put it into practice."
"A dangerous theory," came from Sir Thomas's tight lips. Lady Agatha
shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened.
"Yes," he continued, "that is one of the great secrets of life.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and
discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets
are one's mistakes."
A laugh ran round the room.
He played with the idea, and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and
transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent
with fancy, and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he
went on, soared into a philosophy, and Philosophy herself became
young, and catching the mad music of Pleasure, wearing, one might
fancy, her wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a
Bacchante over the hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for
being sober. Facts fled before her like frightened forest things.
Her white feet trod the huge press at which wise Omar sits, till the
seething grape-juice rose round her bare limbs in waves of purple
bubbles, or crawled in red foam over the vat's black, dripping,
sloping sides. It was an extraordinary improvisation. He felt that the
eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, and the consciousness that
amongst his audience there was one whose temperament he wished to
fascinate, seemed to give his wit keenness, and to lend colour to
his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, irresponsible. He
charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they followed his pipe
laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, but sat like one
under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips, and wonder
growing grave in his darkening eyes.
At last, liveried in the costume of the age, Reality entered the
room in the shape of a servant to tell the Duchess that her carriage
was waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. "How annoying!"
she cried. "I must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to
take him to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going
to be in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I
couldn't have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh
word would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord
Henry, you are quite delightful, and dreadfully demoralizing. I am
sure I don't know what to say about your views. You must come and dine
with us some night. Tuesday,? Are you disengaged Tuesday?"
"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess," said Lord Henry, with
a bow.
"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you," she cried; "so
mind you come;" and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha
and the other ladies.
When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and
taking a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.
"You talk books away," he said; "why don't you write one?"
"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr.
Erskine. I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that
would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is
no literary public in England for anything except newspapers, primers,
and encyclopaedies. Of all people in the world the English have the
least sense of the beauty of literature."
"I fear you are right," answered Mr. Erskine. "I myself used to have
literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. And now, my dear
young friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you
really meant all that you said to us at lunch?"
"I quite forget what I said," smiled Lord Henry. "Was it all very
bad?"
"Very bad indeed. In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if
anything happens to our good Duchess we shall all look on you as being
primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life.
The generation into which I was born was tedious. Some day, when you
are tired of London, come down to Treadley, and expound to me your
philosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate
enough to possess."
"I shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege.
It has a perfect host, and a perfect library."
"You will complete it," answered the old gentleman, with a courteous
bow. "And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt. I am due
at the Athenaeum. It is the hour when we sleep there."
"All of you, Mr. Erskine?"
"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an
English Academy of Letters."
Lord Henry laughed, and rose. "I am going to the Park," he cried.
As he was passing out of the door Dorian Gray touched him on the
arm. "Let me come with you," he murmured.
"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,"
answered Lord Henry.
"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you.
Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No one
talks so wonderfully as you do."
"Ah! I have talked quite enough for to-day," said Lord Henry,
smiling. "All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look
at it with me, if you care to."
CHAPTER IV

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 plaster-work, and its brick-dust 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 bookcases. 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
frangi-pani. 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 analyzing 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 playbills. 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 analyze it some day. The passion for property
is in it. There are many things that we would throw away if we were
not afraid that others might pick them up. But I don't want to
interrupt you. Go on with your story."
"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with
a vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. I looked out from behind
the curtain, and surveyed the house. It was a tawdry affair, all
Cupids and cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery
and pit were fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were
quite empty, and there was hardly a person in what I suppose they
called the dress-circle. Women went about with oranges and
ginger-beer, and there was a terrible consumption of nuts going on."
"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British Drama."
"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder
what on earth I should do, when I caught sight of the play-bill.
What do you think the play was, Harry?"
"I should think 'The Idiot Boy, or Dumb but Innocent.' Our fathers
used to like that sort of piece, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian,
the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers
is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grandperes
ont toujours tort."
"This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was 'Romeo and Juliet.'
I must admit 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 flower-like 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 haut-bois. In the garden-scene it had all the
tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales
are singing. There was 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 reed-like 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 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'm
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 always been
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 V

"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 breaths 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. Sibyl
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
forever!"
"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love.
Besides, what do you know of this young man. You don't even know his
name. The whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James
is going away to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say
that you should have shown more consideration. However, as I said
before, if he is rich..."
"Ah! mother, mother, let me be happy!"
Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical
gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a
stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment the door opened,
and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was
thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large, and somewhat
clumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. One would
hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between
them. Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him, and intensified her smile.
She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She
felt sure that the tableau was interesting.
"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think," said
the lad, with a good-natured grumble.
"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim," she cried. "You are a
dreadful old bear." And she ran across the room and hugged him.
James Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness. "I want
you to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don't suppose I shall
ever see this horrid London again. I am sure I don't want to."
"My son, don't say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vane, taking
up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch
it. She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group.
It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the
situation.
"Why not, mother? I mean it."
"You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a
position of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in
the Colonies, nothing that I would call society; so when you have made
your fortune you must come back and assert yourself in London."
"Society!" muttered the lad. "I don't want to know anything about
that. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the
stage. I hate it."
"Oh, Jim!" said Sibyl, laughing, "how unkind of you! But are you
really going for a walk with me? That will be nice! I was afraid you
were going to say good-bye to some of your friends- to Tom Hardy,
who gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you
for smoking it. It is very sweet of you to let me have your last
afternoon. Where shall we go? Let us go to the Park."
"I am too shabby," he answered, frowning. "Only swell people go to
the Park."
"Nonsense, Jim," she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.
He hesitated for a moment. "Very well," he said at last, "but
don't be to 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 could 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
migh