The Picture of Dorian Gray

lled wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk, long-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood tab

e mantelshelf, and through the small leaded panes of the windo

ooking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages of an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had fo

, and the door opened. "How lat

t Harry, Mr. Gray," a

nd rose to his feet. "I be

ust let me introduce myself. I know you quite well by your

nteen, La

rious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never re

hengrin, Lady H

. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people heari

her thin lips, and her fingers began to p

dy Henry. I never talk during music-at least, during good music. If

. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all are, ain't they? Even those that are born in England become foreigners after a time, don't they? It is so clever of them, and such a compliment to art. Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it? You have never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I can't afford orchids, but I spare no ex

them both with an amused smile. "So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of old brocade in Wardour

lly sudden laugh. "I have promised to drive with the duchess. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Good-bye,

rd of paradise that had been out all night in the rain, she flitted out of the room, leavi

traw-coloured hair, Dorian,

, Ha

ey are so s

e sentimen

because they are tired; women, because

uch in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putti

e with?" asked Lord

s," said Dorian

shoulders. "That is a ra

say so if you s

is

e is Sib

heard o

will some day, howev

ave anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph

how ca

or respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That is all over n

your views

t. How long hav

three

id you come

ey monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, as you once phrased it, must have something in store for me. I fancied a thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret of life. I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black grassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. A hideous Jew, in th

nce of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to

re so shallow?" cried

k your natu

o you

ack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect-simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day. The pa

was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and

t like the palmy days

to wonder what on earth I should do when I caught sight

ce, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for

a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you, Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came across me. And her voice-I never heard such a voice. It was very low at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a distant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. There were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear them, and each of them says something different. I don't know which to follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, an

loved so many

ople with dyed hair

faces. There is an extraordinary charm

d not told you a

me, Dorian. All through your life y

hings. You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a cri

am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now tell me-reach me the

ith flushed cheeks and burning ey

ut why should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one

me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of years and that her body was lyi

ot surp

m. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and confided to me that all the dramatic cri

. But, on the other hand, judging from their app

mmended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that I was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, though he h

rupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one'

lowers, and she had looked at me-at least I fancied that she had. The old Jew was persistent. He seeme

don't t

r Harry

ther time. Now I want t

ous of her power. I think we were both rather nervous. The old Jew stood grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like

, Miss Sibyl knows ho

thing of life. She lives with her mother, a faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a s

esses me," murmured Lord H

e her history, but I said

always something infinitely mean

m her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and entirely divine. Eve

h me now. I thought you must have some curious romance

y day, and I have been to the opera with you several

come dread

or a single act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think of the wonde

h me to-night, Do

is Imogen," he answered, "and to-

she Sib

ev

ratulat

e secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! I want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir thei

oy he had met in Basil Hallward's studio! His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of sc

opose to do?" said

e must get her out of the Jew's hands. She is bound to him for three years-at least for two years and eight months-from the present time. I shall have to pay hi

e impossible,

, in her, but she has personality also; and you have often told

t night sh

day. Let us fix to-morrow.

ol at eight o'clock;

st be there before the curtain rises. You must

ding an English novel. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before seve

pecially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit that

giving away what they need most themselves

to me to be just a bit of a Philistine. Since

are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. Th

rchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that stood on the table. "It must be, if you sa

s he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life-that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There we

his own creation. He had made him premature. That was something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art o

ightful to watch him. With his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like o

the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various schools! Was the

ame men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there

no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote

ot up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed like plates

m lying on the hall table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian G