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
bookcase--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 mantel-shelf, 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 recognise his own brush-work,
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 mantel-shelf, 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 the 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 someone 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 realise 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 aroused. 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 anyone 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.