The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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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?"

"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 was 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 if he
was praying.

"This is your doing, Harry," said Hallward, bitterly.

[20] "My doing?"

"Yes, yours, and you know it."

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian Gray,--
that is all," he answered.

"It is not."

"If it is not, what have I to do with it?"

"You should have gone away when I asked you."

"I stayed when you asked me."

"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 color? I
will not let it come across our three lives and mar them."

Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and looked at him
with pallid face and tear-stained eyes, as he walked over to the deal
painting-table that was set beneath the large 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 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 he 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 Hallward,
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? Tea is the only
simple pleasure left to us."

"I don't like simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. "And 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 do."

"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I will 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 mind being called a boy."

"I should have minded very much this morning, Lord Henry."

"Ah! this morning! You have lived since then."

There came a knock to the door, and the butler entered with the tea-
tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was a [21]
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 the tea out. 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 and 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 the surprise of candor."

"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 our day is
detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only color-
element left in modern life."

"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry."

"Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the
one in the picture?"

"Before either."

"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry," said the
lad.

"Then you shall come; and you will come too, Basil, won't you?"

"I can't, really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do."

"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray."

"I should like that awfully."

Basil Hallward bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the
picture. "I will stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly.

"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, running
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,"
said Hallward. "That is something."

"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" murmured Lord Henry.

"And, after all, it is purely a question for physiology. It has
nothing to do with our own will. It is either an unfortunate
accident, or an unpleasant result of temperament. 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, really."

"Why?"

"Because I have promised Lord Henry to go with him."

"He won't like you 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.

[22] "I must go, Basil," he answered.

"Very well," said Hallward; and he walked over and laid his cup down
on the tray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had
better lose no time. Good-by, Harry; good-by, Dorian. Come and see
me soon. Come to-morrow."

"Certainly."

"You won't forget?"

"No, of course not."

"And . . . Harry!"

"Yes, Basil?"

"Remember what I asked you, when 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-by, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon."

As the door closed behind them, Hallward flung himself down on a
sofa, and a look of pain came into his face.

CHAPTER III

[...22] One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a
luxurious arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in
Curzon Street. It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its
high panelled wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-colored
frieze and ceiling of raised plaster-work, and its brick-dust felt
carpet strewn with long-fringed silk 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 the queen had selected
for her device. Some large blue china jars, filled with parrot-
tulips, were ranged on the mantel-shelf, and through the small leaded
panes of the window streamed the apricot-colored light of a summer's
day in London.

Lord Henry had not come in yet. 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 light step outside, and the door opened. "How
late you are, Harry!" he murmured.

"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray," said a woman's 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 twenty-seven of them."

[23] "Not twenty-seven, Lady Henry?"

"Well, twenty-six, 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 always 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
any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time,
without 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 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 by
conversation."

"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? 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. I don't know what it is about them.
Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all are, aren'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 views. No; I think our views 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, after an awkward
silence, with her silly sudden laugh. "I have promised to drive with
the duchess.--Good-by, Mr. Gray.--Good-by, 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 she flitted out of the room, looking like a bird-of-paradise that
had been out in the rain, and leaving a faint odor of patchouli
behind her. Then he shook hands with Dorian Gray, lit a cigarette,
and flung himself down on the sofa.

[24] "Never marry a woman with straw-colored 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 you say."

"Whom are you in love with?" said Lord Henry, looking at him with a
curious smile.

"With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing.

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "That is a rather common-place
début," he murmured.

"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. They
represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as we men represent
the triumph of mind over morals. There are only two kinds of women,
the plain and the colored. 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 to look young. Our
grandmothers painted in order to try to talk brilliantly. Rouge and
esprit used to go together. That has all gone out 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?"

"About three weeks. Not so much. About two weeks and two days."

"How 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.

"One evening about seven o'clock I determined to go out in search of
some adventure. I felt that this gray, monstrous London of ours,
with its myriads of people, its splendid sinners, and its sordid
sins, as [25] you once said, 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 night when we first dined together,
about the search for beauty being the poisonous 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 a little third-
rate theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. A
hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life,
was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy
ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled
shirt. ''Ave a box, my lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took
off his hat with an act 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 would 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. 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, people who only love once in their lives are really
shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I
call either the lethargy of custom or the lack of imagination.
Faithlessness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the
intellectual life,--simply a confession of failure. 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 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 horrid. 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 grand
pères ont toujours tort."

[26] "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 Jew 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 familiar terms with the pit. They were as grotesque as
the scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a pantomime of
fifty years ago. 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
hautbois. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy that
one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. There were
moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You know
how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are
two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear
them, and each of them says something different. I don't know which
to follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is
everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play.
One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I
have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison
from her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the
forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and
dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a
guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of.
She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed
her 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 one 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! 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."

[27] "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 confide 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,--tell
me, what are your 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 be yours 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
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 bring 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 thought I
had taken too much champagne, or something."

"I am not surprised."

"I was not surprised either. 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
all to be bought."

"I believe he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, most of
them are not at all expensive."

"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means. By this time
the lights were being put out in the theatre, and I had to go. He
wanted me to try some cigars which he strongly recommended. I
declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the theatre again.
When he saw me he made me a low bow, and assured me that I was a
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 three bankruptcies were entirely due to the poet,
whom he insisted on calling 'The Bard.' He seemed to think it a
distinction."

"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian,--a great distinction. 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 bring me behind, so I consented. It was curious
my not wanting to know her, wasn't it?"

[28] "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 door-way 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.'"

"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 who looks as if she had seen
better days."

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