Chapter 8

by Oscar Wilde

　　It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had creptseveral times on tiptoe into the room 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 cupof tea, and a pile of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres china,and drew back the olive-satin curtains, with their shimmeringblue 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 drowsily."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 hadbeen 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 everymorning during the season. There was a rather heavy billfor a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had notyet had the courage to send on to his guardians, who wereextremely old-fashioned people and did not realize that we livein an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities;and there were several very courteously worded communicationsfrom Jermyn Street money-lenders offering to advance any sumof money at a moment's notice and at the most reasonable ratesof interest.After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate dressing-gownof silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the onyx-paved bathroom.The cool water refreshed him after his long sleep. He seemed to haveforgotten all that he had gone through. A dim sense of having taken partin some strange tragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the unrealityof a dream about it.As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and satdown to a light French breakfast that had been laid outfor him on a small round table close to the 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 that,filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before him. He feltperfectly happy.Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in frontof 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 himsee 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 makehim 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 round the warped lips.He almost dreaded his valet leaving the room. He knew thatwhen he was alone he would have to examine the portrait.He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigaretteshad been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desireto tell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him,he called him back. The man stood waiting for his orders.Dorian looked at him for a moment. "I am not at hometo any one, Victor," he said with a sigh. The man bowedand retired.Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flunghimself down on a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facingthe 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 ever before it had concealedthe 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, eyes other thanhis spied behind and saw the horrible change? What should he doif Basil Hallward came and asked to look at his own picture?Basil would be sure to do that. No; the thing had to be examined,and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful stateof doubt.He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he lookedupon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside and saw himselfface 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 feelingof almost scientific interest. That such a change should havetaken place was incredible to him. And yet it was a fact.Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms thatshaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas and the soulthat 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 beento Sibyl Vane. It was not too late to make reparation for that.She could still be his wife. His unreal and selfish lovewould yield to some higher influence, would be transformedinto some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallwardhad painted of him would be a guide to him through life,would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscienceto others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiatesfor 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 upontheir souls.Three o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double chime,but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the scarletthreads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his way throughthe sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering.He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he went overto the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had loved,imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He coveredpage 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 noone else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest,that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the letter, he felt thathe had been forgiven.Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry'svoice outside. "My dear boy, 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 wasbetter to let Lord Henry in, and to explain to him the newlife he was going to lead, to quarrel with him if it becamenecessary 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, Dorian," said Lord Henry as he entered."But you must not think too much about it.""Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?" asked the lad."Yes, of course," answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chairand slowly pulling off his yellow gloves. "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 knowmyself better.""Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid Iwould find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hairof yours.""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 tobe good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous.""A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate youon it. But how are you going to begin?""By marrying Sibyl Vane.""Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and lookingat him in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--""Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadfulabout marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of thatkind 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 myown 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.You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.""You know nothing then?""What do you mean?"Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray,took both his hands in his own and held them tightly. "Dorian," he said,"my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vaneis dead."A cry of pain broke 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! How dare you say it?""It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely. "It is inall the morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to seeany 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 manfashionable 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 suppose they don't 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 stammered, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an inquest?What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, 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 itmust be put in that way to the public. It seems that as shewas leaving the theatre with her mother, about half-pasttwelve or so, she said she had forgotten something upstairs.They waited some time for her, but she did not come down again.They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor of herdressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake,some dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know whatit was, but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it.I should fancy it was prussic acid, as she seems to havedied instantaneously.""Harry, Harry, it is terrible!" cried the lad."Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourselfmixed 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 atthe opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be there.You can come to my sister's box. She has got some smart womenwith her.""So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself,"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throatwith a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that.The birds sing just as happily in my garden. And to-night I amto 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 havewept 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 writtenin my life. Strange, that my first passionate love-letter shouldhave 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.Suddenly something happened that made me afraid.I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible.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 nothingto keep me straight. She would have done that for me.She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish ofher.""My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarettefrom his case and producing a gold-latten matchbox,"the only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring himso 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 alwaysbe kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she wouldhave soon found out that you were absolutely indifferentto her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband,she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smartbonnets that some other woman's husband has to pay for.I say nothing about the social mistake, which would havebeen abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been anabsolute failure.""I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the roomand looking horribly pale. "But I thought it was my duty.It is not my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doingwhat was right. I remember your saying once that there is a fatalityabout good resolutions--that they are always made too late.Mine certainly were.""Good resolutions are useless attempts to interferewith 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 certaincharm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them.They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they haveno account.""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 during the last fortnightto be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered LordHenry 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 happeneddoes not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like awonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beautyof a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which Ihave not been wounded.""It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who foundan exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism,"an extremely interesting question. I fancy that the trueexplanation is this: It often happens that the real tragediesof life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurtus 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 usan impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elementsof 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 spectacleenthralls us. In the present case, what is it that hasreally happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you.I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It wouldhave 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 intellectualstagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life,but one should never remember its details. Details are alwaysvulgar.""I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian."There is no necessity," rejoined his companion. "Life has alwayspoppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger.I once wore nothing but violets all through one season,as a form of artistic 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 terrorof eternity. Well--would you believe it?--a week ago,at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner nextthe lady in question, and she insisted on going over the wholething again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future.I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel. She draggedit out again and assured me that I had spoiled her life.I am bound to state that she ate an enormous dinner, so I didnot 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 interestof the play is entirely over, they propose to continue it.If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would havea 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 notone of the women I have known would have done for me what SibylVane did for you. Ordinary women always console themselves.Some of them do it by going in for sentimental colours.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 finda great consolation in suddenly discovering the good qualitiesof their husbands. They flaunt their conjugal felicityin one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all the charmof a flirtation, a woman once told me, and I can quiteunderstand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being toldthat one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.Yes; there is really no end to the consolations that women findin modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most importantone.""What is that, Harry?" said the lad listlessly."Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else's admirer when oneloses one's own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman.But really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the womenone 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 we all play with,such as romance, passion, and love.""I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that.""I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright 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 really and absolutely angry, but I can fancy howdelightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to me the daybefore yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful,but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the keyto everything.""What was that, Harry?""You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroinesof 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," muttered 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-roomsimply 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 flittedthrough Shakespeare's plays and left them lovelier for its presence,a reed through which Shakespeare's music sounded richer and morefull 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 theyare."There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room.Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows crept in fromthe garden. The colours faded wearily out of things.After some time Dorian Gray looked up. "You have explained meto 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 beena marvellous experience. That is all. I wonder if life has stillin 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 old, 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 thatthinks 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 tiredto 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'tcome and dine.""I don't feel up to it," said Dorian listlessly. "But I amawfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me.You are certainly my best friend. No one has ever understood meas you have.""We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian," answered Lord Henry,shaking him by the hand. "Good-bye. 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,and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drewthe blinds down. He waited impatiently for him to go.The man seemed to take an interminable time over 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 receivedthe 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 drunkthe 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 placebefore his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it.Poor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimickeddeath on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and takenher with him. How had she played that dreadful last 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 atonedfor everything by the sacrifice she had made of her life.He would not think any more of what she had made him go through,on that horrible night at the theatre. When he thought of her,it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent on to the world's stageto show the supreme reality of love. A wonderful tragic figure?Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her childlike look, and winsomefanciful ways, and shy tremulous grace. He brushed them away hastily andlooked 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 decidedthat 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 crept over him as he thought of the desecrationthat was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyishmockery 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 atits 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 monstrous and loathsome thing, to be hiddenaway in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that hadso often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair?The pity of it! the pity of it!For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathythat existed between him and the picture might cease.It had changed in answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayerit might remain unchanged. And yet, who, that knew anythingabout life, would surrender the chance of remaining always young,however fantastic that chance might be, or with what fateful consequencesit 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 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 externalto 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 temptby a prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter,it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closelyinto 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 revealto him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he wouldstill be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer.When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid maskof chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood.Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulseof his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks,he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter whathappened to the coloured 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 wasalready waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and LordHenry was leaning over his chair.