[...81] He passed out of the room, and began the ascent, Basil Hallward
following close behind. They walked softly, as men instinctively do 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 murmured, smiling. Then he added, somewhat
bitterly, "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
said, as he placed the lamp on the table.
[82] 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 odor 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 Hallward's lips as he saw in the
dim light the hideous thing on the canvas leering 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 marred that
marvellous beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and
some scarlet on the sensual lips. The sodden eyes had kept something
of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet passed
entirely away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it
was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed to recognize 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 from fire to sluggish ice in a moment. 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 is on the faces of those who are absorbed
in a play when a 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 the 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, "you met me, devoted
yourself to 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 [83] I
don't know, even now, 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. The 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 romance in it?" said Dorian, bitterly.
"My romance, as you call it . . ."
"As you called it."
"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. This is the face of a
satyr."
"It is the face of my soul."
"God! what a thing I must have worshipped! This 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 murmured.
"It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we can
remember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be
as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?"
[84] "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. The mad passions
of a hunted animal stirred within him, and he loathed the man who was
seated at the table, more than he had ever loathed anything in his
whole life. 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 moved 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. The outstretched arms shot up convulsively three times,
waving grotesque stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him once
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 quite
quiet. No one was stirring.
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
slowly widened 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 a bull's-eye 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 ragged shawl was
creeping round 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 as if in pain. He shivered, and went back,
closing the window behind him.
He passed to the door, 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 [85] the
fatal portrait, the 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. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant, and questions would
be asked. He turned back, and took it from the table. How still the
man was! How horribly white the long hands looked! He was like a
dreadful wax image.
He locked the door behind him, and crept quietly down-stairs. The
wood-work 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, 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.
Evidence? 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, 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 outside on the pavement, and seeing the flash of the
lantern reflected in the window. He waited, holding his breath.
After a few moments he opened the front door, and slipped out, shutting
it very gently behind him. Then he began ringing the bell. In about
ten 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?"
"Five minutes past two, sir," answered the man, looking at the clock
and yawning.
"Five 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."
[86] "That will do, Francis. Don't forget to call me at nine tomorrow."
"No, sir."
The man shambled down the passage in his slippers.
Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the yellow marble table, and
passed into the library. He walked up and down the room for a quarter
of an hour, biting his lip, and thinking. Then he took the Blue Book
down 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.