Chapter Chapter 4 · One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious

. 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 day in London.

Lord Henry had not yet come in. 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,” answered a shrill 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 seventeen of them.”

“Not seventeen, Lady Henry?”

“Well, eighteen, 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 other

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 tortoise-shell 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? I always hear

Harry’s views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of

them. 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, Harry tells me. I don’t know what it

is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all are,

ain’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 ideas. No; I think our ideas 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, breaking 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, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the

rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of

frangipanni. Then he 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 after a pause.

“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. Women represent

the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of

mind over morals.”

“Harry, how can you?”

“My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so

I ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was. I

find that, ultimately, 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 is all over 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?”

“Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.”

“Never mind that. How long have you known her?”

“About three weeks.”

“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....

Well, 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 sordid sinners, and its splendid 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 evening when we

first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret

of life. I don’t know what I expected, but I went out and wandered

eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black

grassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little

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. ‘Have 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. A _grande passion_ is the privilege of

people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes

of a country. Don’t be afraid. 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, the 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 life

of the intellect—simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! I must

analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There are many

things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might

pick them up. 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 from 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 depressing. 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 that 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 Hebrew 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 both as grotesque as the

scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. 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 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 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 reedlike

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 any 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! Harry! why didn’t you tell me

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 confess 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—what are your

actual relations with Sibyl Vane?”

Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.

“Harry! Sibyl 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 belong to you some day. When

one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one

always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a

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 take 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 was under the

impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something.”

“I am not surprised.”

“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 every one of them to be bought.”

“I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other

hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all

expensive.”

“Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means,” laughed Dorian.

“By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,

and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly

recommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the

place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that I

was a munificent 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 five bankruptcies were entirely due to ‘The

Bard,’ as he insisted on calling him. He seemed to think it a

distinction.”

“It was a distinction, my dear Dorian—a great distinction. Most people

become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of

life. To have ruined one’s self over poetry is an honour. But when did

you first speak to Miss Sibyl 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 take 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.”

“Sibyl? 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 greenroom, 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

Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to me,

‘You look more like a prince. I must call you Prince Charming.’”

“Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl 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 looks as if she had seen

better days.”

“I know that look. It depresses me,” murmured Lord Henry, examining his

rings.

“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 people’s tragedies.”

“Sibyl 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. Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every

night she is more marvellous.”

“That is the reason, I suppose, that you 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,” said Dorian, opening his

blue eyes in wonder.

“You always come dreadfully late.”

“Well, I can’t help going to see Sibyl play,” he cried, “even if it is

only for a single 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 Sibyl 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 Sibyl 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.

“I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. I

have not the slightest fear of the result. You are certain to

acknowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jew’s hands.

She is bound to him for three years—at least for two years and eight

months—from the present time. I shall have to pay him something, of

course. When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and

bring her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she has made

me.”

“That would be impossible, my dear boy.”

“Yes, she will. She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in

her, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it

is personalities, not principles, that move the age.”

“Well, what night shall we go?”

“Let me see. To-day is Tuesday. Let us fix to-morrow. She plays Juliet

to-morrow.”

“All right. The Bristol at eight o’clock; and I will get Basil.”

“Not eight, Harry, please. Half-past six. We must be there before the

curtain rises. You must see her in the first act, where she meets

Romeo.”

“Half-past six! What an hour! It will be like having a meat-tea, or

reading an English novel. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before

seven. Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to

him?”

“Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather

horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful

frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous

of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit

that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don’t want

to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good

advice.”

Lord Henry smiled. “People are very fond of giving away what they need

most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity.”

“Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit

of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered

that.”

“Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his

work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his

prejudices, his principles, and his common sense. The only artists I

have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good

artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly

uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is

the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely

fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they

look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets

makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot

write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.”

“I wonder is that really so, Harry?” said Dorian Gray, putting some

perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that

stood on the table. “It must be, if you say it. And now I am off.

Imogen is waiting for me. Don’t forget about to-morrow. Good-bye.”

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! 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 psychical impulse began? How

shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! And

yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools!

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 tyrannized 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.

While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the

door, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for

dinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had

smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The

panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a

faded rose. He thought of his friend’s young fiery-coloured life and

wondered how it was all going to end.

When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o’clock, he saw a telegram

lying on the hall table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian

Gray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl

Vane.