บทที่ บทที่ 8 · It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept several times

. It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept several times

on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered

what made his young master sleep so late. Finally his bell sounded, and

Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on a

small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin curtains,

with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the three tall

windows.

“Monsieur has well slept this morning,” he said, smiling.

“What o’clock is it, Victor?” asked Dorian Gray drowsily.

“One hour and a quarter, Monsieur.”

How late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over his

letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by hand

that morning. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside. The

others he opened listlessly. They contained the usual collection of

cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes of

charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable young

men every morning during the season. There was a rather heavy bill for

a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet had the

courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely old-fashioned

people and did not realize that we live in an age when unnecessary

things are our only necessities; and there were several very

courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders

offering to advance any sum of money at a moment’s notice and at the

most reasonable rates of interest.

After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate

dressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the

onyx-paved bathroom. The cool water refreshed him after his long sleep.

He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through. A dim sense

of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once or twice,

but there was the unreality of a dream about it.

As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a

light French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round

table close to the open window. It was an exquisite day. The warm air

seemed laden with spices. A bee flew in and buzzed round the

blue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before

him. He felt perfectly happy.

Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the

portrait, and he started.

“Too cold for Monsieur?” asked his valet, putting an omelette on the

table. “I shut the window?”

Dorian shook his head. “I am not cold,” he murmured.

Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed? Or had it been simply

his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where there

had been a look of joy? Surely a painted canvas could not alter? The

thing was absurd. It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day. It

would make him smile.

And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing! First in

the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of

cruelty round the warped lips. He almost dreaded his valet leaving the

room. He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the

portrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes

had been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to

tell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him, he called him

back. The man stood waiting for his orders. Dorian looked at him for a

moment. “I am not at home to any one, Victor,” he said with a sigh. The

man bowed and retired.

Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on

a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen. The screen

was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a

rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. He scanned it curiously,

wondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man’s life.

Should he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? What was

the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible. If it was

not true, why trouble about it? But what if, by some fate or deadlier

chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible change?

What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at his own

picture? Basil would be sure to do that. No; the thing had to be

examined, and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful

state of doubt.

He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he

looked upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside and

saw himself face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait had

altered.

As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he

found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost

scientific interest. That such a change should have taken place was

incredible to him. And yet it was a fact. Was there some subtle

affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form

and colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him? Could it be

that what that soul thought, they realized?—that what it dreamed, they

made true? Or was there some other, more terrible reason? He shuddered,

and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there, gazing at the

picture in sickened horror.

One thing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made him

conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane. It was not

too late to make reparation for that. She could still be his wife. His

unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be

transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil

Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would

be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the

fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could

lull the moral sense to sleep. But here was a visible symbol of the

degradation of sin. Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men

brought upon their souls.

Three o’clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double

chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the

scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his

way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was

wandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he

went over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had

loved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He

covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of

pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we

feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession,

not the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the

letter, he felt that he had been forgiven.

Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry’s

voice outside. “My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I can’t

bear your shutting yourself up like this.”

He made no answer at first, but remained quite still. The knocking

still continued and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry

in, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel

with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was

inevitable. He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture,

and unlocked the door.

“I am so sorry for it all, Dorian,” said Lord Henry as he entered. “But

you must not think too much about it.”

“Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?” asked the lad.

“Yes, of course,” answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly

pulling off his yellow gloves. “It is dreadful, from one point of view,

but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see her,

after the play was over?”

“Yes.”

“I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her?”

“I was brutal, Harry—perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I am

not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know

myself better.”

“Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I would

find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of yours.”

“I have got through all that,” said Dorian, shaking his head and

smiling. “I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to begin

with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in

us. Don’t sneer at it, Harry, any more—at least not before me. I want

to be good. I can’t bear the idea of my soul being hideous.”

“A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you

on it. But how are you going to begin?”

“By marrying Sibyl Vane.”

“Marrying Sibyl Vane!” cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him

in perplexed amazement. “But, my dear Dorian—”

“Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful about

marriage. Don’t say it. Don’t ever say things of that kind to me again.

Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to break my word

to her. She is to be my wife.”

“Your wife! Dorian! ... Didn’t you get my letter? I wrote to you this

morning, and sent the note down by my own man.”

“Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I was

afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn’t like. You cut

life to pieces with your epigrams.”

“You know nothing then?”

“What do you mean?”

Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray,

took both his hands in his own and held them tightly. “Dorian,” he

said, “my letter—don’t be frightened—was to tell you that Sibyl Vane is

dead.”

A cry of pain broke from the lad’s lips, and he leaped to his feet,

tearing his hands away from Lord Henry’s grasp. “Dead! Sibyl dead! It

is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?”

“It is quite true, Dorian,” said Lord Henry, gravely. “It is in all the

morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one till

I came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must not

be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in Paris.

But in London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never make

one’s _début_ with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an

interest to one’s old age. I suppose they don’t know your name at the

theatre? If they don’t, it is all right. Did any one see you going

round to her room? That is an important point.”

Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror.

Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, “Harry, did you say an

inquest? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl—? Oh, Harry, I can’t bear

it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once.”

“I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put

in that way to the public. It seems that as she was leaving the theatre

with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had

forgotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she

did not come down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the

floor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake,

some dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don’t know what it was, but

it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it was

prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously.”

“Harry, Harry, it is terrible!” cried the lad.

“Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed

up in it. I see by _The Standard_ that she was seventeen. I should have

thought she was almost younger than that. She looked such a child, and

seemed to know so little about acting. Dorian, you mustn’t let this

thing get on your nerves. You must come and dine with me, and

afterwards we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and

everybody will be there. You can come to my sister’s box. She has got

some smart women with her.”

“So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,” said Dorian Gray, half to himself,

“murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.

Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as

happily in my garden. And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go

on to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How

extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all this in a book,

Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has

happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears.

Here is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my

life. Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been

addressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent

people we call the dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, or know, or listen? Oh,

Harry, how I loved her once! It seems years ago to me now. She was

everything to me. Then came that dreadful night—was it really only last

night?—when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke. She

explained it all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a

bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something happened that made me

afraid. I can’t tell you what it was, but it was terrible. I said I

would go back to her. I felt I had done wrong. And now she is dead. My

God! My God! Harry, what shall I do? You don’t know the danger I am in,

and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would have done that for

me. She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her.”

“My dear Dorian,” answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case

and producing a gold-latten matchbox, “the only way a woman can ever

reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible

interest in life. If you had married this girl, you would have been

wretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can always

be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon

found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman

finds that out about her husband, she either becomes dreadfully dowdy,

or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman’s husband has to pay

for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been

abject—which, of course, I would not have allowed—but I assure you that

in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure.”

“I suppose it would,” muttered the lad, walking up and down the room

and looking horribly pale. “But I thought it was my duty. It is not my

fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was right.

I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good

resolutions—that they are always made too late. Mine certainly were.”

“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific

laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely _nil_.

They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions

that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said

for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they

have no account.”

“Harry,” cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him,

“why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I

don’t think I am heartless. Do you?”

“You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be

entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian,” answered Lord Henry with

his sweet melancholy smile.

The lad frowned. “I don’t like that explanation, Harry,” he rejoined,

“but I am glad you don’t think I am heartless. I am nothing of the

kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has

happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply

like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible

beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but

by which I have not been wounded.”

“It is an interesting question,” said Lord Henry, who found an

exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad’s unconscious egotism, “an

extremely interesting question. I fancy that the true explanation is

this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an

inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their

absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack

of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an

impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes,

however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses

our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply

appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are

no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are

both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle

enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that has really happened?

Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had

such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the

rest of my life. The people who have adored me—there have not been very

many, but there have been some—have always insisted on living on, long

after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have

become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for

reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is!

And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb

the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details

are always vulgar.”

“I must sow poppies in my garden,” sighed Dorian.

“There is no necessity,” rejoined his companion. “Life has always

poppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. I once

wore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic

mourning for a romance that would not die. Ultimately, however, it did

die. I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice

the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one

with the terror of eternity. Well—would you believe it?—a week ago, at

Lady Hampshire’s, I found myself seated at dinner next the lady in

question, and she insisted on going over the whole thing again, and

digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had buried my romance

in a bed of asphodel. She dragged it out again and assured me that I

had spoiled her life. I am bound to state that she ate an enormous

dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety. But what a lack of taste she

showed! The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women

never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a sixth act,

and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over, they propose

to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would

have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce.

They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art. You are

more fortunate than I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not one of the

women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane did for you.

Ordinary women always console themselves. Some of them do it by going

in for sentimental colours. Never trust a woman who wears mauve,

whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of

pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history. Others find a

great consolation in suddenly discovering the good qualities of their

husbands. They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one’s face, as if it

were the most fascinating of sins. Religion consoles some. Its

mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a woman once told me, and

I can quite understand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being

told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all. Yes;

there is really no end to the consolations that women find in modern

life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most important one.”

“What is that, Harry?” said the lad listlessly.

“Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else’s admirer when one

loses one’s own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But

really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the

women one meets! There is something to me quite beautiful about her

death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen.

They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with,

such as romance, passion, and love.”

“I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that.”

“I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more

than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have

emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all

the same. They love being dominated. I am sure you were splendid. I

have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can fancy how

delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to me the day

before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful,

but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key to

everything.”

“What was that, Harry?”

“You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of

romance—that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that

if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.”

“She will never come to life again now,” muttered the lad, burying his

face in his hands.

“No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. But you

must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply as a

strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful scene

from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl never really lived,

and so she has never really died. To you at least she was always a

dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare’s plays and left them

lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare’s music

sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched actual

life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn

for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was

strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio

died. But don’t waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real

than they are.”

There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly, and

with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours

faded wearily out of things.

After some time Dorian Gray looked up. “You have explained me to

myself, Harry,” he murmured with something of a sigh of relief. “I felt

all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I could not

express it to myself. How well you know me! But we will not talk again

of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experience. That is all.

I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as marvellous.”

“Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that

you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.”

“But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What

then?”

“Ah, then,” said Lord Henry, rising to go, “then, my dear Dorian, you

would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to

you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads

too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We

cannot spare you. And now you had better dress and drive down to the

club. We are rather late, as it is.”

“I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat

anything. What is the number of your sister’s box?”

“Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her

name on the door. But I am sorry you won’t come and dine.”

“I don’t feel up to it,” said Dorian listlessly. “But I am awfully

obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my

best friend. No one has ever understood me as you have.”

“We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian,” answered Lord

Henry, shaking him by the hand. “Good-bye. I shall see you before

nine-thirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing.”

As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in

a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down.

He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an

interminable time over everything.

As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. No;

there was no further change in the picture. It had received the news of

Sibyl Vane’s death before he had known of it himself. It was conscious

of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty that marred

the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the very moment

that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or was it

indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what passed

within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the

change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it.

Poor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked

death on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and taken her

with him. How had she played that dreadful last scene? Had she cursed

him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would

always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything by the

sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of what

she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the theatre.

When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent

on to the world’s stage to show the supreme reality of love. A

wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her

childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy tremulous grace. He

brushed them away hastily and looked again at the picture.

He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had his

choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for him—life, and

his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion,

pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins—he was to have

all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame:

that was all.

A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that

was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery

of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips

that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat

before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as

it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to which

he yielded? Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be

hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had

so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? The

pity of it! the pity of it!

For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that

existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in

answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain

unchanged. And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would surrender

the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that chance

might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?

Besides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed been prayer

that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious

scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence

upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon

dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire,

might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods

and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?

But the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt by a

prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to

alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?

For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to

follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him

the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so

it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he

would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer.

When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of

chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. Not one

blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life

would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and

fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the coloured

image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything.

He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture,

smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was

already waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord

Henry was leaning over his chair.