Bab Bab 10 · When his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if

. When his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if

he had thought of peering behind the screen. The man was quite

impassive and waited for his orders. Dorian lit a cigarette and walked

over to the glass and glanced into it. He could see the reflection of

Victor’s face perfectly. It was like a placid mask of servility. There

was nothing to be afraid of, there. Yet he thought it best to be on his

guard.

Speaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he

wanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to

send two of his men round at once. It seemed to him that as the man

left the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen. Or was

that merely his own fancy?

After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread

mittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library. He

asked her for the key of the schoolroom.

“The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?” she exclaimed. “Why, it is full of

dust. I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it. It

is not fit for you to see, sir. It is not, indeed.”

“I don’t want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key.”

“Well, sir, you’ll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it. Why, it

hasn’t been opened for nearly five years—not since his lordship died.”

He winced at the mention of his grandfather. He had hateful memories of

him. “That does not matter,” he answered. “I simply want to see the

place—that is all. Give me the key.”

“And here is the key, sir,” said the old lady, going over the contents

of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands. “Here is the key. I’ll

have it off the bunch in a moment. But you don’t think of living up

there, sir, and you so comfortable here?”

“No, no,” he cried petulantly. “Thank you, Leaf. That will do.”

She lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of

the household. He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought

best. She left the room, wreathed in smiles.

As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round

the room. His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily

embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century

Venetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.

Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in. It had perhaps

served often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that

had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death

itself—something that would breed horrors and yet would never die. What

the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on

the canvas. They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace. They

would defile it and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still

live on. It would be always alive.

He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil

the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away. Basil would

have helped him to resist Lord Henry’s influence, and the still more

poisonous influences that came from his own temperament. The love that

he bore him—for it was really love—had nothing in it that was not noble

and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty

that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was

such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann,

and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him. But it was

too late now. The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or

forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable. There were

passions in him that would find their terrible outlet, dreams that

would make the shadow of their evil real.

He took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that

covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen. Was

the face on the canvas viler than before? It seemed to him that it was

unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified. Gold hair, blue

eyes, and rose-red lips—they all were there. It was simply the

expression that had altered. That was horrible in its cruelty. Compared

to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil’s

reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!—how shallow, and of what little

account! His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and

calling him to judgement. A look of pain came across him, and he flung

the rich pall over the picture. As he did so, a knock came to the door.

He passed out as his servant entered.

“The persons are here, Monsieur.”

He felt that the man must be got rid of at once. He must not be allowed

to know where the picture was being taken to. There was something sly

about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes. Sitting down at the

writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry, asking him to send him

round something to read and reminding him that they were to meet at

eight-fifteen that evening.

“Wait for an answer,” he said, handing it to him, “and show the men in

here.”

In two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard

himself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in

with a somewhat rough-looking young assistant. Mr. Hubbard was a

florid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was

considerably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the

artists who dealt with him. As a rule, he never left his shop. He

waited for people to come to him. But he always made an exception in

favour of Dorian Gray. There was something about Dorian that charmed

everybody. It was a pleasure even to see him.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?” he said, rubbing his fat freckled

hands. “I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in

person. I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir. Picked it up at a

sale. Old Florentine. Came from Fonthill, I believe. Admirably suited

for a religious subject, Mr. Gray.”

“I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr.

Hubbard. I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame—though I don’t

go in much at present for religious art—but to-day I only want a

picture carried to the top of the house for me. It is rather heavy, so

I thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men.”

“No trouble at all, Mr. Gray. I am delighted to be of any service to

you. Which is the work of art, sir?”

“This,” replied Dorian, moving the screen back. “Can you move it,

covering and all, just as it is? I don’t want it to get scratched going

upstairs.”

“There will be no difficulty, sir,” said the genial frame-maker,

beginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from

the long brass chains by which it was suspended. “And, now, where shall

we carry it to, Mr. Gray?”

“I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me. Or

perhaps you had better go in front. I am afraid it is right at the top

of the house. We will go up by the front staircase, as it is wider.”

He held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and

began the ascent. The elaborate character of the frame had made the

picture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious

protests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman’s spirited dislike

of seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it

so as to help them.

“Something of a load to carry, sir,” gasped the little man when they

reached the top landing. And he wiped his shiny forehead.

“I am afraid it is rather heavy,” murmured Dorian as he unlocked the

door that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious

secret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men.

He had not entered the place for more than four years—not, indeed,

since he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then

as a study when he grew somewhat older. It was a large,

well-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord

Kelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness

to his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and

desired to keep at a distance. It appeared to Dorian to have but little

changed. There was the huge Italian _cassone_, with its fantastically

painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which he had so

often hidden himself as a boy. There the satinwood book-case filled

with his dog-eared schoolbooks. On the wall behind it was hanging the

same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen were playing

chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by, carrying hooded

birds on their gauntleted wrists. How well he remembered it all! Every

moment of his lonely childhood came back to him as he looked round. He

recalled the stainless purity of his boyish life, and it seemed

horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait was to be hidden

away. How little he had thought, in those dead days, of all that was in

store for him!

But there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as

this. He had the key, and no one else could enter it. Beneath its

purple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden,

and unclean. What did it matter? No one could see it. He himself would

not see it. Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his soul? He

kept his youth—that was enough. And, besides, might not his nature grow

finer, after all? There was no reason that the future should be so full

of shame. Some love might come across his life, and purify him, and

shield him from those sins that seemed to be already stirring in spirit

and in flesh—those curious unpictured sins whose very mystery lent them

their subtlety and their charm. Perhaps, some day, the cruel look would

have passed away from the scarlet sensitive mouth, and he might show to

the world Basil Hallward’s masterpiece.

No; that was impossible. Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing upon

the canvas was growing old. It might escape the hideousness of sin, but

the hideousness of age was in store for it. The cheeks would become

hollow or flaccid. Yellow crow’s feet would creep round the fading eyes

and make them horrible. The hair would lose its brightness, the mouth

would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross, as the mouths of old

men are. There would be the wrinkled throat, the cold, blue-veined

hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the grandfather who had

been so stern to him in his boyhood. The picture had to be concealed.

There was no help for it.

“Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please,” he said, wearily, turning round. “I

am sorry I kept you so long. I was thinking of something else.”

“Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray,” answered the frame-maker, who

was still gasping for breath. “Where shall we put it, sir?”

“Oh, anywhere. Here: this will do. I don’t want to have it hung up.

Just lean it against the wall. Thanks.”

“Might one look at the work of art, sir?”

Dorian started. “It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard,” he said,

keeping his eye on the man. He felt ready to leap upon him and fling

him to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that

concealed the secret of his life. “I shan’t trouble you any more now. I

am much obliged for your kindness in coming round.”

“Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray. Ever ready to do anything for you,

sir.” And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant,

who glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough

uncomely face. He had never seen any one so marvellous.

When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door

and put the key in his pocket. He felt safe now. No one would ever look

upon the horrible thing. No eye but his would ever see his shame.

On reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o’clock

and that the tea had been already brought up. On a little table of dark

perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady Radley,

his guardian’s wife, a pretty professional invalid, who had spent the

preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry, and beside

it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn and the

edges soiled. A copy of the third edition of _The St. James’s Gazette_

had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had

returned. He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were

leaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing.

He would be sure to miss the picture—had no doubt missed it already,

while he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set

back, and a blank space was visible on the wall. Perhaps some night he

might find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the

room. It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one’s house. He had

heard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some

servant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked

up a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower

or a shred of crumpled lace.

He sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry’s

note. It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper,

and a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at

eight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James’s_ languidly, and looked

through it. A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye. It drew

attention to the following paragraph:

INQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.—An inquest was held this morning at the Bell

Tavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of

Sibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre,

Holborn. A verdict of death by misadventure was returned. Considerable

sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who was greatly

affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of Dr.

Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased.

He frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and

flung the pieces away. How ugly it all was! And how horribly real

ugliness made things! He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for

having sent him the report. And it was certainly stupid of him to have

marked it with red pencil. Victor might have read it. The man knew more

than enough English for that.

Perhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something. And, yet,

what did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane’s death?

There was nothing to fear. Dorian Gray had not killed her.

His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was

it, he wondered. He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal

stand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange

Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung

himself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves. After a

few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had

ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the

delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb

show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made

real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually

revealed.

It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being,

indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who

spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the

passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his

own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through

which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere

artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue,

as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin. The

style in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid

and obscure at once, full of _argot_ and of archaisms, of technical

expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work

of some of the finest artists of the French school of _Symbolistes_.

There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in

colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical

philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the

spiritual ecstasies of some mediæval saint or the morbid confessions of

a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense

seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The mere

cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so full

as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated,

produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter,

a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of

the falling day and creeping shadows.

Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed

through the windows. He read on by its wan light till he could read no

more. Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the

lateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed

the book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his

bedside and began to dress for dinner.

It was almost nine o’clock before he reached the club, where he found

Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.

“I am so sorry, Harry,” he cried, “but really it is entirely your

fault. That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the

time was going.”

“Yes, I thought you would like it,” replied his host, rising from his

chair.

“I didn’t say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a

great difference.”

“Ah, you have discovered that?” murmured Lord Henry. And they passed

into the dining-room.