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

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 46 of 250

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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.’

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‘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.

‘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, 48 of 250

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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.

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Chapter III

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 50 of 250

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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.’

‘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?’

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‘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 52 of 250

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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.

‘Never marry a woman with straw-colored hair, Dorian,’ he said, after a few puffs.

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‘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 54 of 250

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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 55 of 250

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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 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