[...22] One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a
luxurious arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in
Curzon Street. It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high
panelled wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-colored frieze and
ceiling of raised plaster-work, and its brick-dust felt carpet strewn
with long-fringed silk 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 the queen had selected for her device. Some large blue
china jars, filled with parrot-tulips, were ranged on the mantel-shelf,
and through the small leaded panes of the window streamed the
apricot-colored light of a summer's day in London.
Lord Henry had not come in yet. 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 light step outside, and the door opened. "How late
you are, Harry!" he murmured.
"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray," said a woman's 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 twenty-seven of them."
[23] "Not twenty-seven, Lady Henry?"
"Well, twenty-six, 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 always 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
any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time,
without 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 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 by conversation."
"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? 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. I don't know what it is about them. Perhaps it is
that they are foreigners. They all are, aren'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
views. No; I think our views 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, after an awkward
silence, with her silly sudden laugh. "I have promised to drive with
the duchess.--Good-by, Mr. Gray.--Good-by, Harry. You are dining out,
I suppose? So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady Thornbury's."
"I dare say, my dear," said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her,
as she flitted out of the room, looking like a bird-of-paradise that
had been out in the rain, and leaving a faint odor of patchouli behind
her. Then he shook hands with Dorian Gray, lit a cigarette, and flung
himself down on the sofa.
[24] "Never marry a woman with straw-colored 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, Harry. I am too much in love.
That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do
everything you say."
"Whom are you in love with?" said Lord Henry, looking at him with a
curious smile.
"With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing.
Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "That is a rather common-place
début," he murmured.
"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. They represent
the triumph of matter over mind, just as we men represent the triumph
of mind over morals. There are only two kinds of women, the plain and
the colored. 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 to look young. Our grandmothers
painted in order to try to talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to
go together. That has all gone out 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?"
"About three weeks. Not so much. About two weeks and two days."
"How 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.
"One evening about seven o'clock I determined to go out in search of
some adventure. I felt that this gray, monstrous London of ours, with
its myriads of people, its splendid sinners, and its sordid sins, as
[25] you once said, 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 night when we first dined together, about
the search for beauty being the poisonous 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 a little third-rate 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. ''Ave a box,
my lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an act
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 would 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. 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, people who only love once in their lives are really
shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I
call either the lethargy of custom or the lack of imagination.
Faithlessness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the
intellectual life,--simply a confession of failure. 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 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 fairly 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 horrid. 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 grand pères ont
toujours tort."
[26] "This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was 'Romeo and
Juliet.' I must admit 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 Jew 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 familiar terms with the pit. They were as grotesque as the
scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a pantomime of fifty
years ago. 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 one 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! 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."
[27] "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 confide 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,--tell me,
what are your 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 be yours 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 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 bring 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 thought I
had taken too much champagne, or something."
"I am not surprised."
"I was not surprised either. 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 all to be bought."
"I believe he was quite right there. But, on the other hand, most of
them are not at all expensive."
"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means. By this time the
lights were being put out in the theatre, and I had to go. He wanted
me to try some cigars which he strongly recommended. I declined. The
next night, of course, I arrived at the theatre again. When he saw me
he made me a low bow, and assured me that I was a 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 three
bankruptcies were entirely due to the poet, whom he insisted on calling
'The Bard.' He seemed to think it a distinction."
"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian,--a great distinction. 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 bring me behind, so I consented. It was curious
my not wanting to know her, wasn't it?"
[28] "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 door-way 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.'"
"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 who looks as if she had seen
better days."
"I know that look. It always depresses me."
"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. I go to see her act every night of my life, and every
night she is more marvellous."
"That is the reason, I suppose, that you will 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."
"You always come dreadfully late."
"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play, even if it is only for an
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
tomorrow 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 [29] 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 won't be able to refuse
to recognize 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 will have to pay him something, of
course. When all that is settled, I will take a West-End theatre and
bring her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she has made
me."
"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.
However, just as you wish. 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, designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous of it 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."
Lord Henry smiled. "He gives you good advice, I suppose. People are
very fond of giving away what they need most themselves."
"You don't mean to say that Basil has got any passion or any romance in
him?"
"I don't know whether he has any passion, but he certainly has
romance," said Lord Henry, with an amused look in his eyes. "Has he
never let you know that?"
"Never. I must ask him about it. I am rather surprised to hear it. He
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 [30]
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 give everything to their art, and consequently are perfectly
uninteresting in themselves. 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 realize."
"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 so. And now I must be
off. Imogen is waiting for me. Don't forget about to-morrow.
Good-by."
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 science, but the ordinary subject-matter
of 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.
There was nothing else of any value, compared to it. 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, or 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 colored life of the intellect,--to
observe where they met, and where they separated, at what point they
became one, 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 [31] 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 psychical 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 should 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 we gave to
our mistakes. Men had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning,
had claimed for it a certain moral 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 boy 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 tyrannized 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 [32]
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 Dorian Gray's young fiery-colored 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.
It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl Vane.