by Oscar Wilde
“If you let anyone 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 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 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 our day is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only 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 alone, Mr. Gray.”
“I should like that awfully.”
Basil Hallward 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, 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 the 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-bye, Harry. Good-bye, 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 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, Hallward flung himself down on a sofa, and a look of pain came into his face.
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 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 plasterwork, and its brickdust 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’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 book-cases. 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,” 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 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 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 in 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 share 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 that you say.”
“Who are you in love with?” asked 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 commonplace début.”
“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 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.”
“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.
“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 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 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 an 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 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. 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 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 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.”
“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 friendly 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, flowerlike 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 hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the trem
ulous 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, 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,” 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 confide it in you. You would understand me.”
