第 十三 章 · He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward

. He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward

following close behind. They walked softly, as men do instinctively at

night. The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase. A

rising wind made some of the windows rattle.

When they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the

floor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock. “You insist on

knowing, Basil?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“I am delighted,” he answered, smiling. Then he added, somewhat

harshly, “You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know

everything about me. You have had more to do with my life than you

think”; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in. A cold

current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in a

flame of murky orange. He shuddered. “Shut the door behind you,” he

whispered, as he placed the lamp on the table.

Hallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression. The room looked

as if it had not been lived in for years. A faded Flemish tapestry, a

curtained picture, an old Italian _cassone_, and an almost empty

book-case—that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and a

table. As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was

standing on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered

with dust and that the carpet was in holes. A mouse ran scuffling

behind the wainscoting. There was a damp odour of mildew.

“So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? Draw that

curtain back, and you will see mine.”

The voice that spoke was cold and cruel. “You are mad, Dorian, or

playing a part,” muttered Hallward, frowning.

“You won’t? Then I must do it myself,” said the young man, and he tore

the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.

An exclamation of horror broke from the painter’s lips as he saw in the

dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was

something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.

Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray’s own face that he was looking at! The

horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous

beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and some scarlet

on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something of the

loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet completely

passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it

was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed to recognize his own

brushwork, and the frame was his own design. The idea was monstrous,

yet he felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle, and held it to the

picture. In the left-hand corner was his own name, traced in long

letters of bright vermilion.

It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. He had never

done that. Still, it was his own picture. He knew it, and he felt as if

his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His own

picture! What did it mean? Why had it altered? He turned and looked at

Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man. His mouth twitched, and his

parched tongue seemed unable to articulate. He passed his hand across

his forehead. It was dank with clammy sweat.

The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with

that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are

absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting. There was neither

real sorrow in it nor real joy. There was simply the passion of the

spectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes. He had taken

the flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do

so.

“What does this mean?” cried Hallward, at last. His own voice sounded

shrill and curious in his ears.

“Years ago, when I was a boy,” said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in

his hand, “you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my

good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who

explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me

that revealed to me the wonder of beauty. In a mad moment that, even

now, I don’t know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you

would call it a prayer....”

“I remember it! Oh, how well I remember it! No! the thing is

impossible. The room is damp. Mildew has got into the canvas. The

paints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them. I tell you the

thing is impossible.”

“Ah, what is impossible?” murmured the young man, going over to the

window and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass.

“You told me you had destroyed it.”

“I was wrong. It has destroyed me.”

“I don’t believe it is my picture.”

“Can’t you see your ideal in it?” said Dorian bitterly.

“My ideal, as you call it...”

“As you called it.”

“There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such an

ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr.”

“It is the face of my soul.”

“Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a

devil.”

“Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil,” cried Dorian with a

wild gesture of despair.

Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it. “My God! If it

is true,” he exclaimed, “and this is what you have done with your life,

why, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you

to be!” He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it. The

surface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it. It was

from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come. Through

some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were slowly

eating the thing away. The rotting of a corpse in a watery grave was

not so fearful.

His hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and

lay there sputtering. He placed his foot on it and put it out. Then he

flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table and

buried his face in his hands.

“Good God, Dorian, what a lesson! What an awful lesson!” There was no

answer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window. “Pray,

Dorian, pray,” he murmured. “What is it that one was taught to say in

one’s boyhood? ‘Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us our sins. Wash

away our iniquities.’ Let us say that together. The prayer of your

pride has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be answered

also. I worshipped you too much. I am punished for it. You worshipped

yourself too much. We are both punished.”

Dorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed

eyes. “It is too late, Basil,” he faltered.

“It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we cannot

remember a prayer. Isn’t there a verse somewhere, ‘Though your sins be

as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow’?”

“Those words mean nothing to me now.”

“Hush! Don’t say that. You have done enough evil in your life. My God!

Don’t you see that accursed thing leering at us?”

Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable

feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had

been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his

ear by those grinning lips. The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred

within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table, more

than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything. He glanced wildly

around. Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest that faced

him. His eye fell on it. He knew what it was. It was a knife that he

had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord, and had

forgotten to take away with him. He moved slowly towards it, passing

Hallward as he did so. As soon as he got behind him, he seized it and

turned round. Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going to rise.

He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that is behind

the ear, crushing the man’s head down on the table and stabbing again

and again.

There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking

with blood. Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,

waving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him twice

more, but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on the

floor. He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. Then he

threw the knife on the table, and listened.

He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet. He

opened the door and went out on the landing. The house was absolutely

quiet. No one was about. For a few seconds he stood bending over the

balustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.

Then he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in

as he did so.

The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with

bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. Had it not been

for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was

slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was

simply asleep.

How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and walking

over to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony. The wind

had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock’s

tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down and saw the

policeman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on

the doors of the silent houses. The crimson spot of a prowling hansom

gleamed at the corner and then vanished. A woman in a fluttering shawl

was creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went. Now and

then she stopped and peered back. Once, she began to sing in a hoarse

voice. The policeman strolled over and said something to her. She

stumbled away, laughing. A bitter blast swept across the square. The

gas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their

black iron branches to and fro. He shivered and went back, closing the

window behind him.

Having reached the door, he turned the key and opened it. He did not

even glance at the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole

thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted the

fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his

life. That was enough.

Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish

workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished

steel, and studded with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed

by his servant, and questions would be asked. He hesitated for a

moment, then he turned back and took it from the table. He could not

help seeing the dead thing. How still it was! How horribly white the

long hands looked! It was like a dreadful wax image.

Having locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs. The

woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain. He stopped

several times and waited. No: everything was still. It was merely the

sound of his own footsteps.

When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner.

They must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was

in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious disguises,

and put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards. Then he

pulled out his watch. It was twenty minutes to two.

He sat down and began to think. Every year—every month, almost—men were

strangled in England for what he had done. There had been a madness of

murder in the air. Some red star had come too close to the earth....

And yet, what evidence was there against him? Basil Hallward had left

the house at eleven. No one had seen him come in again. Most of the

servants were at Selby Royal. His valet had gone to bed.... Paris! Yes.

It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight train, as he

had intended. With his curious reserved habits, it would be months

before any suspicions would be roused. Months! Everything could be

destroyed long before then.

A sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur coat and hat and went

out into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of the

policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the

bull’s-eye reflected in the window. He waited and held his breath.

After a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting

the door very gently behind him. Then he began ringing the bell. In

about five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very

drowsy.

“I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis,” he said, stepping in;

“but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?”

“Ten minutes past two, sir,” answered the man, looking at the clock and

blinking.

“Ten minutes past two? How horribly late! You must wake me at nine

to-morrow. I have some work to do.”

“All right, sir.”

“Did any one call this evening?”

“Mr. Hallward, sir. He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away

to catch his train.”

“Oh! I am sorry I didn’t see him. Did he leave any message?”

“No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not

find you at the club.”

“That will do, Francis. Don’t forget to call me at nine to-morrow.”

“No, sir.”

The man shambled down the passage in his slippers.

Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the

library. For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room,

biting his lip and thinking. Then he took down the Blue Book from one

of the shelves and began to turn over the leaves. “Alan Campbell, 152,

Hertford Street, Mayfair.” Yes; that was the man he wanted.