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Chapter VI: 43-52
[...43] It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept
several times into the room on tiptoe to see if he was stirring, and
had wondered what made his young master sleep so late. Finally his
bell sounded, and Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile
of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the
olive-satin curtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in
front of the three tall windows.
"Monsieur has well slept this morning," he said, smiling.
"What o'clock is it, Victor?" asked Dorian Gray, sleepily.
"One hour and a quarter, monsieur."
How late it was! He sat up, and, having sipped some tea, turned over
his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought
by hand that morning. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it
aside. The others he opened listlessly. They contained the usual
collection of cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private
views, programmes of charity concerts, and the like, that are
showered on fashionable young men every morning during the season.
There was a [44] rather heavy bill, for a chased silver Louis-Quinze
toilet-set, that he had not yet had the courage to send on to his
guardians, who were extremely old-fashioned people and did not
realize that we live in an age when only unnecessary things are
absolutely necessary to us; and there were several very courteously
worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders offering to
advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the most
reasonable rates of interest.
After about ten minutes he got up, and, throwing on an elaborate
dressing-gown, passed into the onyx-paved bath-room. The cool water
refreshed him after his long sleep. He seemed to have forgotten all
that he had gone through. A dim sense of having taken part in some
strange tragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the
unreality of a dream about it.
As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a
light French breakfast, that had been laid out for him on a small
round table close to an open window. It was an exquisite day. The
warm air seemed laden with spices. A bee flew in, and buzzed round
the blue-dragon bowl, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, that stood in
front of him. He felt perfectly happy.
Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of
the portrait, and he started.
"Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the
table. "I shut the window?"
Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured.
Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed? Or had it been
simply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where
there had been a look of joy? Surely a painted canvas could not
alter? The thing was absurd. It would serve as a tale to tell Basil
some day. It would make him smile.
And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing! First
in the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the
touch of cruelty in the warped lips. He almost dreaded his valet
leaving the room. He knew that when he was alone he would have to
examine the portrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee
and cigarettes had been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a
mad desire to tell him to remain. As the door closed behind him he
called him back. The man stood waiting for his orders. Dorian
looked at him for a moment. "I am not at home to any one, Victor,"
he said, with a sigh. The man bowed and retired.
He rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on a
luxuriously-cushioned couch that stood facing the screen. The screen
was an old one of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a
rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. He scanned it curiously,
wondering if it had ever before concealed the secret of a man's life.
Should he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? What
was the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible. If
it was not true, why trouble about it? But what if, by some fate or
deadlier chance, other eyes than his spied behind, and saw the
horrible change? What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked
to look at his own picture? He would be sure to do that. No; the
[45] thing had to be examined, and at once. Anything would be better
than this dreadful state of doubt.
He got up, and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he
looked upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside,
and saw himself face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait
had altered.
As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder,
he found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of
almost scientific interest. That such a change should have taken
place was incredible to him. And yet it was a fact. Was there some
subtle affinity between the chemical atoms, that shaped themselves
into form and color on the canvas, and the soul that was within him?
Could it be that what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it
dreamed, they made true? Or was there some other, more terrible
reason? He shuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch,
lay there, gazing at the picture in sickened horror.
One thing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made
him conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane. It
was not too late to make reparation for that. She could still be his
wife. His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher
influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the
portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to
him through life, would be to him what holiness was to some, and
conscience to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were
opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep.
But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. Here was an
ever-present sign of the ruin men brought upon their souls.
Three o'clock struck, and four, and half-past four, but he did not
stir. He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life, and to
weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine
labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering. He did not know
what to do, or what to think. Finally, he went over to the table and
wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had loved, imploring her
forgiveness, and accusing himself of madness. He covered page after
page with wild words of sorrow, and wilder words of pain. There is a
luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one
else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest,
that gives us absolution. When Dorian Gray had finished the letter,
he felt that he had been forgiven.
Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's
voice outside. "My dear Dorian, I must see you. Let me in at once.
I can't bear your shutting yourself up like this."
He made no answer at first, but remained quite still. The knocking
still continued, and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord
Henry in, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to
quarrel with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if
parting was inevitable. He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across
the picture, and unlocked the door.
"I am so sorry for it all, my dear boy," said Lord Henry, coming in.
"But you must not think about it too much."
[46] "Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?" asked Dorian.
"Yes, of course," answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair, and
slowly pulling his gloves off. "It is dreadful, from one point of
view, but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see
her after the play was over?"
"Yes."
"I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her?"
"I was brutal, Harry,--perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I
am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to
know myself better."
"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I
would find you plunged in remorse, and tearing your nice hair."
"I have got through all that," said Dorian, shaking his head, and
smiling. "I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to
begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest
thing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more,--at least not
before me. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul
being hideous."
"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate
you on it. But how are you going to begin?"
"By marrying Sibyl Vane."
"Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up, and looking at
him in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--"
"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful
about marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that kind to
me again. Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to
break my word to her. She is to be my wife."
"Your wife! Dorian! . . . Didn't you get my letter? I wrote to you
this morning, and sent the note down, by my own man."
"Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry.
I was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like."
Lord Henry walked across the room, and, sitting down by Dorian Gray,
took both his hands in his, and held them tightly. "Dorian," he
said, "my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl
Vane is dead."
A cry of pain rose from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet,
tearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp. "Dead! Sibyl dead!
It is not true! It is a horrible lie!"
"It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely. "It is in all
the morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any
one till I came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, and
you must not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man
fashionable in Paris. But in London people are so prejudiced. Here,
one should never make one's debut with a scandal. One should reserve
that to give an interest to one's old age. I don't suppose they know
your name at the theatre. If they don't, it is all right. Did any
one see you going round to her room? That is an important point."
Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror.
Finally he murmured, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an
inquest? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, [47] Harry, I
can't bear it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once."
"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be
put in that way to the public. As she was leaving the theatre with
her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had forgotten
something up-stairs. They waited some time for her, but she did not
come down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor
of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake, some
dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know what it was, but
it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it
was prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously. It is
very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed up in it.
I see by the Standard that she was seventeen. I should have thought
she was almost younger than that. She looked such a child, and
seemed to know so little about acting. Dorian, you mustn't let this
thing get on your nerves. You must come and dine with me, and
afterwards we will look in at the Opera. It is a Patti night, and
everybody will be there. You can come to my sister's box. She has
got some smart women with her."
"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself,--
"murdered her as certainly as if I had cut her little throat with a
knife. And the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds
sing just as happily in my garden. And to-night I am to dine with
you, and then go on to the Opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose,
afterwards. How extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all
this in a book, Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow,
now that it has happened actually, and to me, it seems far too
wonderful for tears. Here is the first passionate love-letter I have
ever written in my life. Strange, that my first passionate love-
letter should have been addressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I
wonder, those white silent people we call the dead? Sibyl! Can she
feel, or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I loved her once! It seems
years ago to me now. She was everything to me. Then came that
dreadful night--was it really only last night?--when she played so
badly, and my heart almost broke. She explained it all to me. It
was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a bit. I thought her
shallow. Then something happened that made me afraid. I can't tell
you what it was, but it was awful. I said I would go back to her. I
felt I had done wrong. And now she is dead. My God! my God! Harry,
what shall I do? You don't know the danger I am in, and there is
nothing to keep me straight. She would have done that for me. She
had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her."
"My dear Dorian, the only way a woman can ever reform a man is by
boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life.
If you had married this girl you would have been wretched. Of course
you would have treated her kindly. One can always be kind to people
about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon found out that
you were absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that
out about her husband, she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears
very smart bonnets that some other woman's husband has to [48] pay
for. I say nothing about the social mistake, but I assure you that
in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure."
"I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the room,
and looking horribly pale. "But I thought it was my duty. It is not
my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was
right. I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about
good resolutions,--that they are always made too late. Mine
certainly were."
"Good resolutions are simply a useless attempt to interfere with
scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is
absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious
sterile emotions that have a certain charm for us. That is all that
can be said for them."
"Harry," cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him,
"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I
don't think I am heartless. Do you?"
"You have done too many foolish things in your life to be entitled to
give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry, with his
sweet, melancholy smile.
The lad frowned. "I don't like that explanation, Harry," he
rejoined, "but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am
nothing of the kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that
this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It
seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play.
It has all the terrible beauty of a great tragedy, a tragedy in which
I took part, but by which I have not been wounded."
"It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who found an
exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism,--"an
extremely interesting question. I fancy that the explanation is
this. It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such
an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their
absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack
of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us
an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.
Sometimes, however, a tragedy that has artistic elements of beauty
crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole
thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we
find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the
play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere
wonder of the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is
it that has really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of
you. I wish I had ever had such an experience. It would have made
me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have
adored me--there have not been very many, but there have been some--
have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care
for them, or they to care for me. They have become stout and
tedious, and when I meet them they go in at once for reminiscences.
That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an
utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the
color of life, but one should never remember its details. Details
are always vulgar.
[49] "Of course, now and then things linger. I once wore nothing but
violets all through one season, as mourning for a romance that would
not die. Ultimately, however, it did die. I forget what killed it.
I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me.
That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of
eternity. Well,--would you believe it?--a week ago, at Lady
Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner next the lady in
question, and she insisted on going over the whole thing again, and
digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had buried my
romance in a bed of poppies. She dragged it out again, and assured
me that I had spoiled her life. I am bound to state that she ate an
enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety. But what a lack of
taste she showed! The one charm of the past is that it is the past.
But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a
sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over
they propose to continue it. If they were allowed to have their way,
every comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would
culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have
no sense of art. You are more fortunate than I am. I assure you,
Dorian, that not one of the women I have known would have done for me
what Sibyl Vane did for you. Ordinary women always console
themselves. Some of them do it by going in for sentimental colors.
Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a
woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means
that they have a history. Others find a great consolation in
suddenly discovering the good qualities of their husbands. They
flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it was the most
fascinating of sins. Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all
the charm of a flirtation, a woman once told me; and I can quite
understand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that
one is a sinner. There is really no end to the consolations that
women find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most
important one of all."
"What is that, Harry?" said Dorian Gray, listlessly.
"Oh, the obvious one. Taking some one else's admirer when one loses
one's own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But
really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the
women one meets! There is something to me quite beautiful about her
death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen.
They make one believe in the reality of the things that shallow,
fashionable people play with, such as romance, passion, and love."
"I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that."
"I believe that women appreciate cruelty more than anything else.
They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them,
but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They
love being dominated. I am sure you were splendid. I have never
seen you angry, but I can fancy how delightful you looked. And,
after all, you said something to me the day before yesterday that
seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful, but that I see now
was absolutely true, and it explains everything."
[50] "What was that, Harry?"
"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines
of romance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other;
that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen."
"She will never come to life again now," murmured the lad, burying
his face in his hands.
"No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. But
you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room
simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a
wonderful scene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl
never really lived, and so she has never really died. To you at
least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through
Shakespeare's plays and left them lovelier for its presence, a reed
through which Shakespeare's music sounded richer and more full of
joy. The moment she touched actual life, she marred it, and it
marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn for Ophelia, if you like.
Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out
against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don't
waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are."
There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly,
and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The
colors faded wearily out of things.
After some time Dorian Gray looked up. "You have explained me to
myself, Harry," he murmured, with something of a sigh of relief. "I
felt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I
could not express it to myself. How well you know me! But we will
not talk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous
experience. That is all. I wonder if life has still in store for me
anything as marvellous."
"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that
you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do."
"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and gray, and wrinkled? What
then?"
"Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go,--"then, my dear Dorian,
you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are
brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an
age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be
beautiful. We cannot spare you. And now you had better dress, and
drive down to the club. We are rather late, as it is."
"I think I shall join you at the Opera, Harry. I feel too tired to
eat anything. What is the number of your sister's box?"
"Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her
name on the door. But I am sorry you won't come and dine."
"I don't feel up to it," said Dorian, wearily. "But I am awfully
obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly
my best friend. No one has ever understood me as you have."
"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian," answered
Lord Henry, shaking him by the hand. "Good-by. I shall see you
before nine-thirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing."
As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, [51]
and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the
blinds down. He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to
take an interminable time about everything.
As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen, and drew it back.
No; there was no further change in the picture. It had received the
news of Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself. It was
conscious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious
cruelty that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt,
appeared at the very moment that the girl had drunk the poison,
whatever it was. Or was it indifferent to results? Did it merely
take cognizance of what passed within the soul? he wondered, and
hoped that some day he would see the change taking place before his
very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it.
Poor Sibyl! what a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked
death on the stage, and at last Death himself had touched her, and
brought her with him. How had she played that dreadful scene? Had
she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and
love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for
everything, by the sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not
think any more of what she had made him go through, that horrible
night at the theatre. When he thought of her, it would be as a
wonderful tragic figure to show Love had been a great reality. A
wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her
child-like look and winsome fanciful ways and shy tremulous grace.
He wiped them away hastily, and looked again at the picture.
He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had
his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for him,--
life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth,
infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder
sins,--he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the
burden of his shame: that was all.
A feeling of pain came over him as he thought of the desecration that
was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish
mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those
painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after
morning he had sat before the portrait wondering at its beauty,
almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. Was it to
alter now with every mood to which he yielded? Was it to become a
hideous and loathsome thing, to be hidden away in a locked room, to
be shut out from the sunlight that had so often touched to brighter
gold the waving wonder of the hair? The pity of it! the pity of it!
For a moment he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that
existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in
answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain
unchanged. And, yet, who, that knew anything about Life, would
surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic
that chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be
fraught? Besides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed
been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be
some curious scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise
its [52] influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise
an influence upon dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or
conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in
unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom, in secret
love or strange affinity? But the reason was of no importance. He
would never again tempt by a prayer any terrible power. If the
picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire
too closely into it?
For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able
to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to
him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own
body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came
upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the
verge of summer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind
a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of
boyhood. Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one
pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he
would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what
happened to the colored image on the canvas? He would be safe. That
was everything.
He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the
picture, smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his
valet was already waiting for him. An hour later he was at the
Opera, and Lord Henry was leaning over his chair.
Content of Chapter VI: 43-52 [Oscar Wilde's novel: Picture of Dorian Gray]
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