Kabanata Kabanata 9 · As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown

. As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown

into the room.

“I am so glad I have found you, Dorian,” he said gravely. “I called

last night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew

that was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really

gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy

might be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for me

when you heard of it first. I read of it quite by chance in a late

edition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club. I came here at

once and was miserable at not finding you. I can’t tell you how

heart-broken I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer.

But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl’s mother? For a

moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the

paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn’t it? But I was afraid of

intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a

state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about

it all?”

“My dear Basil, how do I know?” murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some

pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass

and looking dreadfully bored. “I was at the opera. You should have come

on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry’s sister, for the first time. We

were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely.

Don’t talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn’t talk about a thing, it

has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives

reality to things. I may mention that she was not the woman’s only

child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not on

the stage. He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell me about

yourself and what you are painting.”

“You went to the opera?” said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a

strained touch of pain in his voice. “You went to the opera while Sibyl

Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me of other

women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before the girl

you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there

are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!”

“Stop, Basil! I won’t hear it!” cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. “You

must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is

past.”

“You call yesterday the past?”

“What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only

shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is

master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a

pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use

them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”

“Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You

look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come

down to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural,

and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the

whole world. Now, I don’t know what has come over you. You talk as if

you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry’s influence. I see

that.”

The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few

moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden. “I owe a great

deal to Harry, Basil,” he said at last, “more than I owe to you. You

only taught me to be vain.”

“Well, I am punished for that, Dorian—or shall be some day.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Basil,” he exclaimed, turning round. “I

don’t know what you want. What do you want?”

“I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint,” said the artist sadly.

“Basil,” said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his

shoulder, “you have come too late. Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl

Vane had killed herself—”

“Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?” cried

Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.

“My dear Basil! Surely you don’t think it was a vulgar accident? Of

course she killed herself.”

The elder man buried his face in his hands. “How fearful,” he muttered,

and a shudder ran through him.

“No,” said Dorian Gray, “there is nothing fearful about it. It is one

of the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act

lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful

wives, or something tedious. You know what I mean—middle-class virtue

and all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her

finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she played—the

night you saw her—she acted badly because she had known the reality of

love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died.

She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the

martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of

martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying, you must not

think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday at a particular

moment—about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to six—you would

have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who brought me the

news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I suffered

immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can,

except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You come

down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled,

and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You remind me of a

story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty

years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, or some

unjust law altered—I forget exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded,

and nothing could exceed his disappointment. He had absolutely nothing

to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a confirmed misanthrope. And

besides, my dear old Basil, if you really want to console me, teach me

rather to forget what has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic

point of view. Was it not Gautier who used to write about _la

consolation des arts_? I remember picking up a little vellum-covered

book in your studio one day and chancing on that delightful phrase.

Well, I am not like that young man you told me of when we were down at

Marlow together, the young man who used to say that yellow satin could

console one for all the miseries of life. I love beautiful things that

one can touch and handle. Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquer-work,

carved ivories, exquisite surroundings, luxury, pomp—there is much to

be got from all these. But the artistic temperament that they create,

or at any rate reveal, is still more to me. To become the spectator of

one’s own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life. I

know you are surprised at my talking to you like this. You have not

realized how I have developed. I was a schoolboy when you knew me. I am

a man now. I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. I am

different, but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must

always be my friend. Of course, I am very fond of Harry. But I know

that you are better than he is. You are not stronger—you are too much

afraid of life—but you are better. And how happy we used to be

together! Don’t leave me, Basil, and don’t quarrel with me. I am what I

am. There is nothing more to be said.”

The painter felt strangely moved. The lad was infinitely dear to him,

and his personality had been the great turning point in his art. He

could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his

indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There was

so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.

“Well, Dorian,” he said at length, with a sad smile, “I won’t speak to

you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your

name won’t be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take

place this afternoon. Have they summoned you?”

Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at

the mention of the word “inquest.” There was something so crude and

vulgar about everything of the kind. “They don’t know my name,” he

answered.

“But surely she did?”

“Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned

to any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to learn

who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince

Charming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl,

Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a

few kisses and some broken pathetic words.”

“I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you

must come and sit to me yourself again. I can’t get on without you.”

“I can never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!” he exclaimed,

starting back.

The painter stared at him. “My dear boy, what nonsense!” he cried. “Do

you mean to say you don’t like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have

you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best

thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian. It is simply

disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room

looked different as I came in.”

“My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don’t imagine I let

him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimes—that

is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong on the portrait.”

“Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for

it. Let me see it.” And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room.

A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray’s lips, and he rushed between

the painter and the screen. “Basil,” he said, looking very pale, “you

must not look at it. I don’t wish you to.”

“Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn’t I look at

it?” exclaimed Hallward, laughing.

“If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never

speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don’t offer

any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, if you

touch this screen, everything is over between us.”

Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute

amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was actually

pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of his eyes

were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over.

“Dorian!”

“Don’t speak!”

“But what is the matter? Of course I won’t look at it if you don’t want

me to,” he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over

towards the window. “But, really, it seems rather absurd that I

shouldn’t see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in

Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of

varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?”

“To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?” exclaimed Dorian Gray, a

strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be

shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? That

was impossible. Something—he did not know what—had to be done at once.

“Yes; I don’t suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going

to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de

Sèze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will only

be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for that

time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you keep it

always behind a screen, you can’t care much about it.”

Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of

perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible

danger. “You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it,” he

cried. “Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for being

consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only difference

is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can’t have forgotten

that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would

induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly the

same thing.” He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into his

eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half

seriously and half in jest, “If you want to have a strange quarter of

an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won’t exhibit your picture. He

told me why he wouldn’t, and it was a revelation to me.” Yes, perhaps

Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try.

“Basil,” he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in

the face, “we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I shall

tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my

picture?”

The painter shuddered in spite of himself. “Dorian, if I told you, you

might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I

could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me

never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to

look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from

the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any

fame or reputation.”

“No, Basil, you must tell me,” insisted Dorian Gray. “I think I have a

right to know.” His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity

had taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward’s

mystery.

“Let us sit down, Dorian,” said the painter, looking troubled. “Let us

sit down. And just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the

picture something curious?—something that probably at first did not

strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?”

“Basil!” cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling

hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.

“I see you did. Don’t speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say.

Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most

extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and

power, by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen

ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I

worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted

to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When

you were away from me, you were still present in my art.... Of course,

I never let you know anything about this. It would have been

impossible. You would not have understood it. I hardly understood it

myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to face, and that

the world had become wonderful to my eyes—too wonderful, perhaps, for

in such mad worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, no less

than the peril of keeping them.... Weeks and weeks went on, and I grew

more and more absorbed in you. Then came a new development. I had drawn

you as Paris in dainty armour, and as Adonis with huntsman’s cloak and

polished boar-spear. Crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on

the prow of Adrian’s barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. You

had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen in the

water’s silent silver the marvel of your own face. And it had all been

what art should be—unconscious, ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day

I sometimes think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as

you actually are, not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own

dress and in your own time. Whether it was the realism of the method,

or the mere wonder of your own personality, thus directly presented to

me without mist or veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at

it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I

grew afraid that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that

I had told too much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it

was that I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You

were a little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant

to me. Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not

mind that. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I

felt that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my

studio, and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of

its presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that

I had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely

good-looking and that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling

that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is

ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract

than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour—that is all.

It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely

than it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I

determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.

It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were

right. The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me,

Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are

made to be worshipped.”

Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and

a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the

time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who

had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he

himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord

Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was

too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be

some one who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of

the things that life had in store?

“It is extraordinary to me, Dorian,” said Hallward, “that you should

have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?”

“I saw something in it,” he answered, “something that seemed to me very

curious.”

“Well, you don’t mind my looking at the thing now?”

Dorian shook his head. “You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not

possibly let you stand in front of that picture.”

“You will some day, surely?”

“Never.”

“Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been

the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I

have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don’t know what it cost

me to tell you all that I have told you.”

“My dear Basil,” said Dorian, “what have you told me? Simply that you

felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment.”

“It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I

have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one

should never put one’s worship into words.”

“It was a very disappointing confession.”

“Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn’t see anything else in the

picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?”

“No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn’t

talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we

must always remain so.”

“You have got Harry,” said the painter sadly.

“Oh, Harry!” cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. “Harry spends

his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is

improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I

don’t think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would sooner go

to you, Basil.”

“You will sit to me again?”

“Impossible!”

“You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes

across two ideal things. Few come across one.”

“I can’t explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again.

There is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own. I

will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant.”

“Pleasanter for you, I am afraid,” murmured Hallward regretfully. “And

now good-bye. I am sorry you won’t let me look at the picture once

again. But that can’t be helped. I quite understand what you feel about

it.”

As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How

little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that, instead

of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded,

almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend! How much that

strange confession explained to him! The painter’s absurd fits of

jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious

reticences—he understood them all now, and he felt sorry. There seemed

to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance.

He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at all

costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had been mad

of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, in a room

to which any of his friends had access.