The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde [best fiction novels to read TXT] 📗

in store for that little white body of hers!’

‘Stop, Basil! I won’t hear it!’ cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. ‘You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is past.’

‘You call yesterday the past?’

‘What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an 127 of 250

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emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.’

‘Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You look exactly the same wonderful boy who used to come down to my studio, day after day, to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I don’t know what has come over you. You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry’s influence. I see that.’

The lad flushed up, and, going to the window, looked out on the green, flickering garden for a few moments. ‘I owe a great deal to Harry, Basil,’ he said, at last,—‘more than I owe to you. You only taught me to be vain.’

‘Well, I am punished for that, Dorian,—or shall be some day.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Basil,’ he exclaimed, turning round. ‘I don’t know what you want. What do you want?’

‘I want the Dorian Gray I used to know.’

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‘Basil,’ said the lad, going over to him, and putting his hand on his shoulder, ‘you have come too late. Yesterday when I heard that Sibyl Vane had killed herself—‘

‘Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?’ cried Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.

‘My dear Basil! Surely you don’t think it was a vulgar accident? Of course she killed herself It is one of the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious. You know what I mean,—middle-class virtue, and all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she played—the night you saw her—she acted badly because she had known the reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying, you must not think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday at a particular moment,—about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to six,—you would have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who brought me the 129 of 250

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news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I suffered immensely, then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can, except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, or some unjust law altered,—I forget exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment.

He had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of ennui, and became a confirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really want to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic point of view. Was it not Gautier who used to write about la consolation des arts? I remember picking up a little vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that delightful phrase. Well, I am not like that young man you told me of when we were down at Marlowe together, the young man who used to say that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life. I love beautiful things that one can touch and handle. Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquer- work, carved ivories, 130 of 250

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exquisite surroundings, luxury, pomp,—there is much to be got from all these. But the artistic temperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to me. To become the spectator of one’s own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking to you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. I was a school-boy when you knew me. I am a man now. I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course I am very fond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is.

You are not stronger,—you are too much afraid of life,—

but you are better. And how happy we used to be together! Don’t leave me, Basil, and don’t quarrel with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said.’

Hallward felt strangely moved. Rugged and

straightforward as he was, there was something in his nature that was purely feminine in its tenderness. The lad was infinitely dear to him, and his personality had been the great turning-point in his art. He could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.

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‘Well, Dorian,’ he said, at length, with a sad smile, ‘I won’t speak to you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your name won’t be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take place this afternoon. Have they summoned you?’

Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at the mention of the word ‘inquest.’ There was something so crude and vulgar about everything of the kind. ‘They don’t know my name,’ he answered.

‘But surely she did?’

‘Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned to any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince Charming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of her, Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a few kisses and some broken pathetic words.’

‘I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you must come and sit to me yourself again. I can’t get on without you.’

‘I will never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!’ he exclaimed, starting back.

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Hallward stared at him, ‘My dear boy, what nonsense!’

he cried. ‘Do you mean to say you don’t like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever painted. Do take that screen away, Dorian. It is simply horrid of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room looked different as I came in.’

‘My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don’t imagine I let him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimes,—that is all. No; I did it myself.

The light was too strong on the portrait.’

‘Too strong! Impossible, my dear fellow! It is an admirable place for it. Let me see it.’ And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room.

A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray’s lips, and he rushed between Hallward and the screen. ‘Basil,’ he said, looking very pale, ‘you must not look at it. I don’t wish you to.’

‘Not look at my own work! you are not serious. Why shouldn’t I look at it?’ exclaimed Hallward, laughing.

‘If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honor I will never speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don’t offer any explanation, and you are not to 133 of 250

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ask for any. But, remember, if you touch this screen, everything is over between us.’

Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was absolutely pallid with rage. His hands were clinched, and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over.

‘Dorian!’

‘Don’t speak!’

‘But what is the matter? Of course I won’t look at it if you don’t want me to,’ he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel, and going over towards the window. ‘But, really, it seems rather absurd that I shouldn’t see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to- day?’

‘To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?’ exclaimed Dorian Gray, a strange sense of terror creeping over him.

Was the world going to be shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? That was impossible.

Something—he did not know what—had to be done at once.

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‘Yes: I don’t suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de Sèze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will only be away a month.

I should think you could easily spare it for that time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you hide it always behind a screen, you can’t care much abut it.’

Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible danger. ‘You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it,’ he said. ‘Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for being consistent have just as many moods as others. The only difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can’t have forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly the same thing.’

He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into his eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half seriously and half in jest, ‘If you want to have an interesting quarter of an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won’t exhibit your picture. He told me why he wouldn’t, and it was a revelation to me.’ Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try.

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‘Basil,’ he said, coming over quite close, and looking him straight in the face, ‘we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I will tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?’

Hallward shuddered in spite of himself. ‘Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh