The Picture of Dorian Gray

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, Innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs ; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds In flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched In front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily Immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ. In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement, and gave rise to so many strange conjectures. As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and, closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake. " It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said Lord Henry, languidly. " You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was .worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place." " I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head back In that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. " No : I won't send it anywhere."

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows, and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy opium-tainted cigarette. " Not send it anywhere ? My dear fellow, why ? Have you any reason ? What odd chaps you painters are ! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing In the world worse than being talked about, and that f is not being talked about. A portrait like- this/ would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion." " I know you will laugh at me," he replied, " but I really can't exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it." Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. " Yes, I knew you would ; but it is quite true, all the same." " Too much of yourself in it ! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you were so vain ; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you — well, of course you have an Intellectual expression, and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, / and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. How perfectly hideous they are I Except, of course, in the Church. But then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keep's on saying at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that. He is some brainless, beautiful creature, who should be always here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter yourself, Basil : you are not in the least like him." " You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist. " Of course I am not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. You shrug your shoulders ? I am telling you the truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different ■from one's fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They live as we all should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry ; my brains, such as they are — my art, whatever it may be worth ; Dorian Gray's good looks — we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly."

" Dorian Gray ? Is that his name ? " asked Lord Henry, walking across the studio towards Basil Hallward. " Yes, that Is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you." " But why not ? " " Oh, I can't explain. When I like people Immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I daresay, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully foolish about it?" " Not at all," answered Lord Henry, " not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. When we meet — we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke's — we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it — much better, in fact, than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would ; but she merely laughs at me." " I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said Basil Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. " I believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. Your cynicism is simply a pose."

" Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know," cried Lord Henry, laughing ; and the two young men went outjnto'the garden together, and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous. After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. " I am afraid I must be going, Basil," he murmured, " and before I go, I Insist on your answering a question I put to you some time ago." " What is that ? " said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. " You know quite well." " I do not, Harry." " Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason."

" I told you the real reason." " No, you did not*. You said it was because there was too much of yourself in it. Now, that is childish." " Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight In the face, " every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who Is revealed by the painter ; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of my own soul." Lord Henry laughed. " And what is that ? " he asked. " I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came over his face. " I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him.

As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's " Forest Scenes." " You must lend me these, Basil," he cried. " I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming." " That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian." " Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of myself," answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool, in a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. " I beg your pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had anyone with you." " This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you have spoiled everything." " You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, stepping forward and extending^his hand. " My aunt has often spoken to me about you. You are one of her favourites, and, I am afraid, one of her victims also." " I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian, with a funny look of penitence. " I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. We were to have played a duet together — three duets, I believe. I don't know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call."

Lord Henry

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion."

Basil Hallward — exposed

"Every time I looked at him a thrill of horror went through me, and afterwards I fell to idolising him."

" Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She Is quite devoted to you. And I don't think it really matters about your not being there. The audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to the piano she makes quite enough noise for two people." " That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," answered Dorian, laughing. Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him. " You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray — far too charming." And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan, and opened his cigarette-case. The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last remark he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said, " Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away ? " Lord Henry smiled, and looked at Dorian Gray. " Am I to go, Mr. Gray ? " he asked. " Oh, please don't, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky moods ; and I can't bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell me why I should not go in for philanthropy."

" I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so tedious a subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. You don't really mind, Basil, do you ? You have often told me that you liked your sitters to have someone to chat to." Hallward bit his lip. *' If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself." Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. " You are very pressing, Basil, but I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the Orleans. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon Street. I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when you are coming. I should be sorry to miss you." " Basil," cried Dorian Gray, " if Lord Henry Wotton goes I shall go too. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. Ask him to stay. I insist upon it." " Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me," said Hallward, gazing intently at his picture. " It is quite true, I never talk when I am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay." " But what about my man at the Orleans ? " The painter laughed. " I don't think there will be arty difficulty about that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the platform, and don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry says. He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the single exception of myself."

Lord Henry

It is personalities, not principles, one talks about nowadays; influence is fascination; fascination is contagious—Basil recognises pleasure in his own dismay too late.

Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais, with the air of a young Greek martyr, and made a little moue of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few moments he said to him, " Have you really a very bad influence, Lord Henry ? As bad as Basil says ? " " There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral — Immoral from the scientific point of view." " Why ? " " Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some-one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realise one's nature perfectly — that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion — these are the two things that govern us. And yet " " Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good boy," said the painter, deep in his work, and conscious only that a look had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. " And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of him, and that he had even in his Eton days, " I believe that if- one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream — I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal — to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. \Ve are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury The only way to get rid of a temptation I It. Resist It, and your soul grows sick of a regret. The Is to yield to with longing for the things It has forbidden to Itself, with desire for what Its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place In the brain. It Is In the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame; " " Stop I " faltered Dorian Gray, " stop ! you bewilder me. I don't know what to say. There Is some answer to you, but I cannot find It. Don't speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think." For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips, and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh iniluences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to have come really from himself. The few words that Basil's friend had said to him — words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox In them — had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing J.o curious pulses. Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather another chaos, that It created In us. Words I Mere words t How terrible they were I How clear, and vivid, and cruel I One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was In them I They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words ! Was there anything so real as words ? Yes ; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood. He understood them now. Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him. It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not known it ?

" That is entirely due to me," broke in Lord Henry. *' Isn't it, Mr. Gray ? " Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture, and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had recognised himself for the first time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming exaggerations of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed at them, forgotten them. They had not Influenced his nature. Then had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet would pass away from his lips, and the gold steal from his hair. The life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become dreadful, hideous, and uncouth. As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife, and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened Into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart. " Don't you like it ? " cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the lad's silence, not understanding what it meant. " Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry. " Who wouldn't like it ? It is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything you like to ask for it. I must have it." " It is not my property, Harry."

" Whose property is it ? " " Dorian's, of course," answered the painter. " He is a very lucky fellow." " How sad it is I " murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. " How sad it is I I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way I If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old I For that — for that — I would give everything I Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give ! I would give my soul for that I " " You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil," cried Lord Henry, laughing. " It would be rather hard lines on your work." " I should object very strongly, Harry," said Hall ward. Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. " I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I daresay."

The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like that. What had happened ? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed and his cheeks burning. " Yes," he continued, " I am less to you than your Ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me ? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton Is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself." 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 ? — you who are finer than any of them ! " " 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 were 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 though he was praying. " This is your doing, Harry," said the painter, bitterly. Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. " It is the real Dorian Gray — that is all."

" It is not." '* If it is not, what have I to do with it ? " " You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered. " I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer. " 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 colour ? I will not let it come across our three lives and mar them." Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid face and tear-stained eyes looked at him, as he walked over to the deal painting-table that was set beneath the high 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 for 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 the lad 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 I " he cried. " It would be murder J " " I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian," said the painter, 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 ? Or do you object to such simple pleasures ? " " I adore simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. " They are the last refuge of the complex. But I don't like scenes, except on the stage. What absurd fellows you are, both of you I 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 really do." " If you let anyone have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you I " 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 reminded that you are extremely young." " I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry." " Ah I this morning I 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."

Lord Henry

"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil!" cried Lord Henry, laughing—as if melodrama dispelled sacrament.

" I can sympathise with everything, except suffering," said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. " I cannot sympathise with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better." " Still, the East End is a very important problem," remarked Sir Thomas, with a grave shake of the head. " Quite so," answered the young lord. " It is the problem of slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves." The politician looked at him keenly. " What change do you propose, then ? " he asked. Lord Henry laughed. " I don't desire to change anything in England except the weather," he answered. " I am quite content with philosophic contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should appeal to Science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray, and the advantage of Science is that it is not emotional." " But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs. Vandeleur, timidly.

" All of you, Mr. Erskine? " " Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English Academy of Letters." Lord Henry laughed, and rose. " I am going to the Park," he cried. As he was passing out of the door Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. " Let me come with you," he murmured. " But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him," answered Lord Henry. " I would sooner come with you ; yes, I feel I must come with you. Do let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time ? No one talks so wonderfully as you do." " Ah ! I have talked quite enough for to-day," said Lord Henry, smiling. " All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with me, if you care to."

Basil — abandoned

"Remember what I asked you," he said calmly. "Stay with me," he implored silently.

As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began to think. Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by it. It made him a more Interesting study. He had been always enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life — that appeared to him the one thing worth Investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in Its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain, and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them If one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great reward one received ! How wonderful the whole world became to one ! To note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life of the intellect — to observe where they met, and where they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at discord — there was a delight in that ! What matter what the cost was ? One could never pay too high a price for any sensation. He was conscious — and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes — that it was through certain words of his, musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad was his own creation. He had made him premature. That was something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect. But now and then a complex personality took the place and assumed the office of art ; was indeed, in its way, a real work of art, Life having its elaborate masterpieces, just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting. Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him. With his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses. Soul and body, body and soul — how mysterious they were I There was animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality. The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the physical impulse began ? How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists I And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools I Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin ? Or was the body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought ? The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery also. He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated, was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy. It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions ; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences ; yet it was not a simple but rather a very complex passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannised most strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.

" Mother, mother, I am so happy ! " whispered the girl, burying her face in the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one armchair that their dingy sitting-room contained. " I am so happy ! " she repeated, " and you must be happy too ! " Mrs. Vane winced, and put her thin bismuth-whitened hands on her daughter's head. " Happy ! " she echoed, " I am only happy, Sibyl, when I see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr. Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money." The girl looked up and pouted. " Money, mother ? " she cried, " what does money matter ? Love is more than money." " Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts, and to get a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty pounds is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate." " He is not a gentleman, mother, and I hate the way he talks to me," said the girl, rising to her feet, and going over to the window. " I don't know how we could manage without him," answered the elder woman, querulously. Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. " We don't want him any more, mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now." Then she paused. A rose shook in her blood, and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted the petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion swept over her, and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. " I love him," she said, simply.

She started to her feet. " There he is I " she cried. " Who ? " said Jim Vane. " Prince Charming," she answered, looking after the victoria. He jumped up, and seized her roughly by the arm. " Show him to me. Which is he ? Point him out. I must see him I " he exclaimed ; but at that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the Park. ** He is gone," murmured Sibyl, sadly. " I wish you had seen him." " I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does you any wrong I shall kill him."

Sibyl Vane — after revelation

"I know everything now," she cried. "Everything. I am cured of Romeo. Romeo was loathsome."

" There is really not much to tell," cried Dorian, as they took their seats at the small round table. " What happened was simply this. After I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that little Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and went down at eight o'clock to the theatre. Sibyl was playing Rosalind. Of course the scenery was dreadful, and the Orlando absurd. But Sibyl ! You should have seen her ! When she came on in her boy's clothes she was perfectly wonderful. She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with cinnamon sleeves, slim brown cross-gartered hose, a dainty little green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak lined with dull red. She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in your studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves round a pale rose. As for her acting — well, you shall see her to-night. She is simply a born artist. I sat in the dingy box absolutely enthralled. I forgot that I was in London and in the nineteenth century. I was away with my love in a forest that no man had ever seen. After the performance was over I went behind, and spoke to her. As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes a look that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers. We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that moment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one perfect point of rose-coloured joy. She trembled all over, and shook like a white narcissus. Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed my hands. I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help it. Of course our engagement is a dead secret. She has not even told her own mother. I don't know what my guardians will say. Lord Radley is sure to be furious. I don't care. I shall be of age in less than a year, and then I can do what I like. I have been right, Basil, haven't I, to take my love out of poetry, and to find my wife in Shakespeare's plays ? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth." " Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right," said Hallward, slowly. " Have you seen her to-day ? " asked Lord Henry. Dorian Gray shook his head. " I left her in the forest of Arden, I shall find her in an orchard in Verona." Lord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner. " At what particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian ? And what did she say in answer ? Perhaps you forgot all about it." " My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did not make any formal proposal. I told her that I loved her, and she said she was not worthy to be my wife. Not worthy ! Why, the whole world is nothing to me compared with her."

" Dorian, Dorian," she cried, " before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came— oh, my beautiful love ! — and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love I my love ! Prince Charming ! Prince of life ! I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be. "What have I to do with the puppets of a play ? When I came on to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone from me. I thought that I was going to be wonderful. I found that I could do nothing. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled. What could they know of love such as ours ? Take me away, Dorian — take me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what It signifies ? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that." He flung himself down on the sofa, and turned away his face. " You have killed my love," he muttered. She looked at him in wonder, and laughed. He made no answer. She came across to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair. She knelt down and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him. Then he leaped up, and went to the door. " Yes," he cried, " you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realised the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God ! how mad I was to love you ! What a fool I have been ! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you were to me, once. "Why, once . . . Oh, I can't bear to think of it I I wish I had never laid eyes upon you ! You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art I Without your art you are nothing. I would have made you famous, splendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you would have borne my name. What are you now ? A third-rate actress with a pretty face." The girl grew white, and trembled. She clenched her hands together, and her voice seemed to catch in her throat. " You are not serious, Dorian ? " she murmured. " You are acting." " Acting I I leave that to you. You do it so well," he answered bitterly.

Dorian — collapsing grace

You have spoiled my tragedy for me," he said passionately. "It was an exquisite tragedy, and Shakespeare had never written anything like it.

She rose from her knees, and, with a piteous expression of pain in her face, came across the room to him. She put her hand upon his arm, and looked into his eyes. He thrust her back. " Don't touch me I " he cried. A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet, and lay there like a trampled flower. " Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me ! " she whispered. " I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you all the time. But I will try — indeed, I will try. It came so suddenly across me, my love for you. I think I should never have known it if you had not kissed me — if we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again, my love. Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh ! don't go away from me. My brother . . . No ; never mind. He didn't mean it. He was in jest. . . . But you, oh ! can't you forgive me for to-night ? I will work so hard, and try to improve. Don't be cruel to me because I love you better than anything in the world. After all, it is only once that I have not pleased you. But you are quite right, Dorian. I should have shown myself more of an artist. It was foolish of me ; and yet I couldn't help it. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me." A fit of passionate sobbing choked* her. She crouched on the floor like a wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain. There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love. Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. Her tears and sobs annoyed him. " I am going," he said at last, in his calm, clear voice. " I don't wish to be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me." She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. Her little hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him. He turned on his heel, and left the room. In a few moments he was out of the theatre. Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly-lit streets, past gaunt black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him. Drunkards had reeled by cursing, and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon door- " steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.

As the dawn was just breaking he found himself close to Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly rdbwn the polished empty street. The air was heavy'with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain. He followed into the market, and watched the men unloading their waggons. A white ocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him, and wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been, plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge jade-green piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its grey sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over. Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in the Piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked, and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds. After a little while, he hailed a hansom, and drove home. For a few moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent Square with its blank, close-shuttered windows, and its staring blinds. The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it. From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air. In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that hung from the ceiling of the great oak-panelled hall of entrance, lights were still burning from three flickering jets : thin blue petals of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. He turned them out, and, having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the ground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had decorated for himself, and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal. As he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait Basil Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise. Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. After he had taken the buttonhole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate. Finally he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The expression looked different. One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange. He turned round, and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be more intensified even. The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing. He winced, and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly into its polished depths. No line like that warped his red lips. What did it mean ? He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent.

He threw himself into a chair, and began to think. Suddenly there flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Halhvard's studio the day the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly. He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old ; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins ; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been fulfilled ? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to think of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the touch of cruelty in the mouth. Cruelty ! Had he been cruel ? It was the girl's fault, not his. He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little child. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why had he been made like that ? Why had such a soul been given to him ? But he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of torture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a moment, if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely to have someone with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. Why should he trouble about Sibyl Vane ? She was nothing to him now. But the picture ? What was he to say of that ? It held the secret of his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul ? Would he ever look at it again ? No ; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to think so. Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel smile. Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes met his own. A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the painted image of himself, came over him. It had altered already, and would alter more. Its gold would wither into grey. Its red and white roses would die. For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation. He would not see Lord Henry any more — would not, at any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things. He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, marry her, try to love her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She must have suffered more than he had. Poor child ! He had been selfish and cruel to her. The fascination that she had exercised over him would return. They would be happy together. His life with her would be beautiful and pure. He got up from his chair, and drew a large screen right in front of the portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it. " How horrible ! " he murmured to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it. When he stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. The fresh morning air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. He thought only of Sibyl. A faint echo of his love came back to him. He repeated her name over and over again. The birds that were singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.