Chapter Chapter 16 · A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly

. A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly

in the dripping mist. The public-houses were just closing, and dim men

and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors. From some

of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter. In others, drunkards

brawled and screamed.

Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian

Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and

now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said

to him on the first day they had met, “To cure the soul by means of the

senses, and the senses by means of the soul.” Yes, that was the secret.

He had often tried it, and would try it again now. There were opium

dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of

old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new.

The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. From time to time a

huge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it. The

gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy. Once the

man lost his way and had to drive back half a mile. A steam rose from

the horse as it splashed up the puddles. The sidewindows of the hansom

were clogged with a grey-flannel mist.

“To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of

the soul!” How the words rang in his ears! His soul, certainly, was

sick to death. Was it true that the senses could cure it? Innocent

blood had been spilled. What could atone for that? Ah! for that there

was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness

was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing

out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.

Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done? Who

had made him a judge over others? He had said things that were

dreadful, horrible, not to be endured.

On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each

step. He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster. The

hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. His throat burned and

his delicate hands twitched nervously together. He struck at the horse

madly with his stick. The driver laughed and whipped up. He laughed in

answer, and the man was silent.

The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some

sprawling spider. The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist

thickened, he felt afraid.

Then they passed by lonely brickfields. The fog was lighter here, and

he could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,

fanlike tongues of fire. A dog barked as they went by, and far away in

the darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed. The horse stumbled in a

rut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.

After some time they left the clay road and rattled again over

rough-paven streets. Most of the windows were dark, but now and then

fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind. He

watched them curiously. They moved like monstrous marionettes and made

gestures like live things. He hated them. A dull rage was in his heart.

As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from an open

door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred yards. The

driver beat at them with his whip.

It is said that passion makes one think in a circle. Certainly with

hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped

those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in

them the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by

intellectual approval, passions that without such justification would

still have dominated his temper. From cell to cell of his brain crept

the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all

man’s appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre.

Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real,

became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one

reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of

disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more

vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious

shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. They were what he needed for

forgetfulness. In three days he would be free.

Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. Over

the low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black

masts of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the

yards.

“Somewhere about here, sir, ain’t it?” he asked huskily through the

trap.

Dorian started and peered round. “This will do,” he answered, and

having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had

promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. Here and

there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. The

light shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an

outward-bound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked like

a wet mackintosh.

He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he

was being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small

shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. In one of

the top-windows stood a lamp. He stopped and gave a peculiar knock.

After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being

unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a word

to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the shadow as

he passed. At the end of the hall hung a tattered green curtain that

swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him in from the

street. He dragged it aside and entered a long low room which looked as

if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill flaring

gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that faced

them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed tin

backed them, making quivering disks of light. The floor was covered

with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud, and

stained with dark rings of spilled liquor. Some Malays were crouching

by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and showing

their white teeth as they chattered. In one corner, with his head

buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the tawdrily

painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two haggard women,

mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his coat with an

expression of disgust. “He thinks he’s got red ants on him,” laughed

one of them, as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her in terror and

began to whimper.

At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a

darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the

heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils

quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with smooth yellow

hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin pipe, looked up

at him and nodded in a hesitating manner.

“You here, Adrian?” muttered Dorian.

“Where else should I be?” he answered, listlessly. “None of the chaps

will speak to me now.”

“I thought you had left England.”

“Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at

last. George doesn’t speak to me either.... I don’t care,” he added

with a sigh. “As long as one has this stuff, one doesn’t want friends.

I think I have had too many friends.”

Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such

fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the

gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in

what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were

teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he

was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was

eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of

Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The

presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one

would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself.

“I am going on to the other place,” he said after a pause.

“On the wharf?”

“Yes.”

“That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won’t have her in this place

now.”

Dorian shrugged his shoulders. “I am sick of women who love one. Women

who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better.”

“Much the same.”

“I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have

something.”

“I don’t want anything,” murmured the young man.

“Never mind.”

Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A

half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous

greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of

them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back

on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton.

A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of

the women. “We are very proud to-night,” she sneered.

“For God’s sake don’t talk to me,” cried Dorian, stamping his foot on

the ground. “What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don’t ever talk to me

again.”

Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman’s sodden eyes, then

flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and

raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion

watched her enviously.

“It’s no use,” sighed Adrian Singleton. “I don’t care to go back. What

does it matter? I am quite happy here.”

“You will write to me if you want anything, won’t you?” said Dorian,

after a pause.

“Perhaps.”

“Good night, then.”

“Good night,” answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping

his parched mouth with a handkerchief.

Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew

the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the

woman who had taken his money. “There goes the devil’s bargain!” she

hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.

“Curse you!” he answered, “don’t call me that.”

She snapped her fingers. “Prince Charming is what you like to be

called, ain’t it?” she yelled after him.

The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly

round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He

rushed out as if in pursuit.

Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His

meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered

if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as

Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his

lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did

it matter to him? One’s days were too brief to take the burden of

another’s errors on one’s shoulders. Each man lived his own life and

paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so

often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed.

In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.

There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or

for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of

the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful

impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will.

They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken

from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all,

lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm.

For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of

disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell

from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.

Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for

rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but

as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a

short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself

suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,

he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his

throat.

He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the

tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver,

and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,

and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.

“What do you want?” he gasped.

“Keep quiet,” said the man. “If you stir, I shoot you.”

“You are mad. What have I done to you?”

“You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane,” was the answer, “and Sibyl Vane

was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your

door. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought you.

I had no clue, no trace. The two people who could have described you

were dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call you.

I heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, for to-night

you are going to die.”

Dorian Gray grew sick with fear. “I never knew her,” he stammered. “I

never heard of her. You are mad.”

“You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you

are going to die.” There was a horrible moment. Dorian did not know

what to say or do. “Down on your knees!” growled the man. “I give you

one minute to make your peace—no more. I go on board to-night for

India, and I must do my job first. One minute. That’s all.”

Dorian’s arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he did not know

what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. “Stop,” he

cried. “How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me!”

“Eighteen years,” said the man. “Why do you ask me? What do years

matter?”

“Eighteen years,” laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his

voice. “Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face!”

James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.

Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.

Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him

the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face

of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the

unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty

summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been

when they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was

not the man who had destroyed her life.

He loosened his hold and reeled back. “My God! my God!” he cried, “and

I would have murdered you!”

Dorian Gray drew a long breath. “You have been on the brink of

committing a terrible crime, my man,” he said, looking at him sternly.

“Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own

hands.”

“Forgive me, sir,” muttered James Vane. “I was deceived. A chance word

I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track.”

“You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into

trouble,” said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the

street.

James Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head

to foot. After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping

along the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him

with stealthy footsteps. He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked

round with a start. It was one of the women who had been drinking at

the bar.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” she hissed out, putting haggard face quite

close to his. “I knew you were following him when you rushed out from

Daly’s. You fool! You should have killed him. He has lots of money, and

he’s as bad as bad.”

“He is not the man I am looking for,” he answered, “and I want no man’s

money. I want a man’s life. The man whose life I want must be nearly

forty now. This one is little more than a boy. Thank God, I have not

got his blood upon my hands.”

The woman gave a bitter laugh. “Little more than a boy!” she sneered.

“Why, man, it’s nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me

what I am.”

“You lie!” cried James Vane.

She raised her hand up to heaven. “Before God I am telling the truth,”

she cried.

“Before God?”

“Strike me dumb if it ain’t so. He is the worst one that comes here.

They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. It’s nigh

on eighteen years since I met him. He hasn’t changed much since then. I

have, though,” she added, with a sickly leer.

“You swear this?”

“I swear it,” came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth. “But don’t give

me away to him,” she whined; “I am afraid of him. Let me have some

money for my night’s lodging.”

He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street,

but Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked back, the woman had

vanished also.