by Oscar Wilde
“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 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-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 she flitted out of the room, looking like a bird-of-paradise that had been out in the rain, and leaving a faint odour 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-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 you say.”
“Who 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 Sybil 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 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 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 grey, 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 East-ward, 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 grandpères ont toujours tort.”1
“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 Sybil 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, Harry, 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.”
“I wish now I had not told you about Sybil Vane.”
“You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you will tell me every thing 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, is Sybil Vane your mistress?”
Dorian Gray leapt to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. “How dare you suggest such a thing, Harry? It is horrible. Sybil 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 your mistress some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving oneself, 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 Sybil 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?”
“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.”
“Sybil? 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 green-room, 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 Sybil 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 Sybil 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.”
“I know that look. It always depresses me.”
“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 peopl
e’s tragedies.”
“Sybil 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. I go to see her act every night of my life, and every night she is more marvellous.”
“That is the reason, I suppose, that you will 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.”
“You always come dreadfully late.”
“Well, I can’t help going to see Sybil play, even if it is only for an 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 Sybil 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 Sybil 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.
