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 plaster-work, 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 mantel-shelf, and through the small
leaded panels 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 bookcases. 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 daresay, 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, Henry. 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 the 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 failures. 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
fairy 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 flower-like 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 hautbois. 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 reed-like 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 realise."
"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 physical 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 tyrannised 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.