E
passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward following
close behind. They walked softly, as men do instinctively 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
answered, smiling. Then he added, somewhat harshly, "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 whispered, as he placed the lamp on the
table.
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 mantelshelf, 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 odour
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 the painter's lips as he saw in the dim light the hideous
face on the canvas grinning 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 spoiled that marvellous
beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and some
scarlet on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something
of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet
completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic
throat. Yes, it was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed
to recognize his own brushwork, 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 in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. 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 mantelshelf, watching him with that strange expression that
one sees on the faces of those who are absorbed in a play when
some 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 his 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, crushing the flower in his hand,
"you met 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, even now, I don't know 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. 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 ideal
in it?" said Dorian bitterly.
"My ideal, as you call it..."
"As you called it."
"There was nothing evil
in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such an ideal as I shall
never meet again. This is the face of a satyr."
"It is the face of my soul."
"Christ! what a thing I
must have worshipped! It 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 faltered.
"It is never too late, Dorian.
Let us kneel down and try if we cannot remember a prayer. Isn't
there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, yet
I will make them as white as snow'?"
"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, as though it had been suggested to him by the
image on the canvas, whispered into his ear by those grinning
lips. The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred within him,
and he loathed the man who was seated at the table, more than
in his whole life he had ever loathed anything. 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 stirred 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. Three times
the outstretched arms shot up convulsively, waving grotesque,
stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him twice 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 absolutely quiet. No one was
about. For a few seconds he stood bending over the balustrade
and peering down into the black seething well of darkness. Then
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 was slowly widening
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 the long beam of his 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
fluttering shawl was creeping slowly 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
to and fro. He shivered and went back, closing the window behind
him.
Having reached the door, he 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 the fatal 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, and studded
with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant,
and questions would be asked. He hesitated for a moment, then
he turned back and took it from the table. He could not help
seeing the dead thing. How still it was! How horribly white the
long hands looked! It was like a dreadful wax image.
Having locked the door behind
him, he crept quietly downstairs. The woodwork 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,
a press in which he kept his own curious disguises, 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.... And yet, 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, and by the midnight train, as he had intended.
With his curious reserved habits, it would be months before any
suspicions would be roused. 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 on the
pavement outside and seeing the flash of the bull's-eye reflected
in the window. He waited and held his breath.
After a few moments he drew back
the latch and slipped out, shutting the door very gently behind
him. Then he began ringing the bell. In about five 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?"
"Ten minutes past two, sir,"
answered the man, looking at the clock and blinking.
"Ten 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 be 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 from Paris, if he did not find you at the
club."
"That will do, Francis.
Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow."
"No, sir."
The man shambled down the passage
in his slippers.
Dorian Gray threw his hat and
coat upon the table and passed into the library. For a quarter
of an hour he walked up and down the room, biting his lip and
thinking. Then he took down the Blue Book 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.
[Chapter Fourteen]
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Oscar Wilde Collection