Chapter 20

by Oscar Wilde

　　It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and didnot even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he strolled home,smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him.He heard one of them whisper to the other, "That is Dorian Gray."He remembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out,or stared at, or talked about. He was tired of hearing his own name now.Half the charm of the little village where he had been so often latelywas that no one knew who he was. He had often told the girl whomhe had lured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him.He had told her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at himand answered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly.What a laugh she had!--just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she hadbeen in her cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but she hadeverything that he had lost.When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him.He sent him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library,and began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had saidto him.Was it really true that one could never change? He felta wild longing for the unstained purity of his boyhood--his rose-white boyhood, as Lord Henry had once called it.He knew that he had tarnished himself, filled his mind withcorruption and given horror to his fancy; that he had beenan evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joyin being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own,it had been the fairest and the most full of promise thathe had brought to shame. But was it all irretrievable?Was there no hope for him?Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he hadprayed that the portrait should bear the burden of his days,and he keep the unsullied splendour of eternal youth!All his failure had been due to that. Better for him that each sinof his life had brought its sure swift penalty along with it.There was purification in punishment. Not "Forgive us our sins"but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be the prayer of man to amost just God.The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had givento him, so many years ago now, was standing on the table,and the white-limbed Cupids laughed round it as of old.He took it up, as he had done on that night of horrorwhen be had first noted the change in the fatal picture,and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished shield.Once, some one who had terribly loved him had writtento him a mad letter, ending with these idolatrous words:"The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold.The curves of your lips rewrite history." The phrases came backto his memory, and he repeated them over and over to himself.Then he loathed his own beauty, and flinging the mirror onthe floor, crushed it into silver splinters beneath his heel.It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youththat he had prayed for. But for those two things, his lifemight have been free from stain. His beauty had been to himbut a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best?A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods,and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth hadspoiled him.It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that.It was of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think.James Vane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard.Alan Campbell had shot himself one night in his laboratory,but had not revealed the secret that he had been forced to know.The excitement, such as it was, over Basil Hallward'sdisappearance would soon pass away. It was already waning.He was perfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the deathof Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind.It was the living death of his own soul that troubled him.Basil had painted the portrait that had marred his life.He could not forgive him that. It was the portrait that haddone everything. Basil had said things to him that were unbearable,and that he had yet borne with patience. The murder hadbeen simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell,his suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it.It was nothing to him.A new life! That was what he wanted. That was what he was waiting for.Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one innocent thing,at any rate. He would never again tempt innocence. He would be good.As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in thelocked room had changed. Surely it was not still so horrible as it had been?Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel every sign of evilpassion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil had already gone away.He would go and look.He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the door,a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face and lingeredfor a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and the hideous thingthat he had hidden away would no longer be a terror to him. He felt as ifthe load had been lifted from him already.He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as washis custom, and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait.A cry of pain and indignation broke from him. He could seeno change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunningand in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite.The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if possible,than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the handseemed brighter, and more like blood newly spilled.Then he trembled. Had it been merely vanity that had madehim do his one good deed? Or the desire for a new sensation,as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking laugh?Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us dothings finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these?And why was the red stain larger than it had been? It seemedto have crept like a horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers.There was blood on the painted feet, as though the thinghad dripped--blood even on the hand that had not heldthe knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess?To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed.He felt that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even ifhe did confess, who would believe him? There was no traceof the murdered man anywhere. Everything belonging to himhad been destroyed. He himself had burned what had beenbelow-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad.They would shut him up if he persisted in his story.. . . Yet it was his duty to confess, to suffer public shame,and to make public atonement. There was a God who calledupon men to tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven.Nothing that he could do would cleanse him till he hadtold his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders.The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him.He was thinking of Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust mirror,this mirror of his soul that he was looking at.Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there been nothing morein his renunciation than that? There had been something more.At least he thought so. But who could tell? . . . No. Therehad been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her.In hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiosity'ssake he had tried the denial of self. He recognized thatnow.But this murder--was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to beburdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There wasonly one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itself--that was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long?Once it had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old.Of late he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night.When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyesshould look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions.Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had beenlike conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He woulddestroy it.He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward.He had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it.It was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter,so it would kill the painter's work, and all that that meant.It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free.It would kill this monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings,he would be at peace. He seized the thing, and stabbed the picturewith it.There was a cry heard, and a crash. The cry was so horriblein its agony that the frightened servants woke and creptout of their rooms. Two gentlemen, who were passing inthe square below, stopped and looked up at the great house.They walked on till they met a policeman and brought him back.The man rang the bell several times, but there was no answer.Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was all dark.After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining porticoand watched."Whose house is that, Constable?" asked the elder of the two gentlemen."Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir," answered the policeman.They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered.One of them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-claddomestics were talking in low whispers to each other.Old Mrs. Leaf was crying and wringing her hands. Francis wasas pale as death.After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the footmenand crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply. They called out.Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying to force the door,they got on the roof and dropped down on to the balcony. The windowsyielded easily--their bolts were old.When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendidportrait of their master as they had last seen him, in allthe wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floorwas a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart.He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage.It was not till they had examined the rings that theyrecognized who it was.