finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_10_part_0.txt
The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapters 15-16
chapters 15-16
{"name": "Chapters 15 & 16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421171214/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/study-guide/summary-chapters-15-and-16", "summary": "Later that evening, Dorian attends a party thrown by Lady Narborough, a wealthy widow and popular socialite. He acts naturally and comfortably, charming his hostess and successfully masking his tortured conscience, but is unable to stomach any food. Most of the guests are dull and witless, so Dorian is glad when Lord Henry arrives. As usual, Dorian delights in Henry's paradoxical, slightly offensive witticisms. The evening goes smoothly until Dorian is asked how he spent the previous night. He founders and retracts several answers, clearly discombobulated and unnecessarily defensive. Henry can easily see that something is wrong, but when he tries to get Dorian to share his troubles, the younger man excuses himself, saying that he is \"out of temper\" and \"must go home.\" Once home, Dorian faces the fact that Basil's belongings, which he had left in Dorian's closet, still have to be destroyed. He throws them into his fireplace, feeling sick at the smell of burning fabric and leather. He is then overcome by an unspecified \"mad craving.\" He examines \"a small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer\" taken from one of his cabinets, and decides to leave. His cab driver at first refuses to take him where he wants to go, but soon relents and accepts Dorian's bribe. During the long cab ride, Dorian remembers Lord Henry's words from their first meeting: \"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.\" He feels as if his soul is quite sick, and takes comfort in the idea of curing it. He dismounts from the cab and walks several blocks, nervously checking behind him, until he finds a small, dilapidated house hidden in an alley between two factories. He enters the house, which is revealed to be an opium den. Inside are groups of haggard, complacent, disheveled individuals. Among them is Adrian Singleton, who joins Dorian at the bar. They are harassed by two women, and Dorian walks out of the place. As he is leaving, one of the women calls him \"Prince Charming,\" at which point an unrecognized sailor springs to his feet and pursues Dorian outside. The sailor grabs Dorian by the throat, brings him to his knees, and points a revolver in his face, telling him that he is the brother of Sibyl Vane, whom Dorian drove to suicide. He only knew his sister's lover by the nickname \"Prince Charming.\" Dorian pretends to have never heard of Sibyl Vane, and tells James to hold his face under the lamplight. James complies, and realizes that he has made a mistake: Sibyl died 18 years ago, making her lover nearly 40, but the person standing before him looks no older than 20. James is embarrassed, and begs Dorian's forgiveness. Dorian chides him for his behavior and flees. James then speaks with the two women from the bar and learns that Dorian is much older than he seems. One of the women remarks that \"it's nigh on eighteen year since Prince Charming made me what I am.\" Realizing that he has been deceived, James rushes after Dorian in an outrage, but turns the corner to find that the villain has already disappeared.", "analysis": "Dorian succumbs to paranoia at Lady Narborough's home, but his fear of being discovered prove unnecessary.  His hostess tells him that \"you are made to be good - you look so good.\"  The inability to accept the possibility that a young, innocent appearance hides anything other than an innocent, beautiful personality is a common one in Dorian's social circle; this superficiality is what allows him to maintain a level of respect and admiration, despite the preponderance of nasty rumors, and even despite the guilt of a murder weighing on his conscience. Wilde uses Dorian's group of friends to parody the superficiality of London's aristocracy.  Lord Henry's convictions that beauty is the most important thing in the world and that physical beauty is the greatest asset a person can have seem to be shockingly accurate, at least amongst people such as those whom Dorian and Henry associate with.  This raises an important question: if Lord Henry's morally shallow beliefs are justified, can we condemn his character for espousing them? Dorian's odd mannerisms while handling the ornate box of opium and his discreet flight to the opium den reveal an addiction that we have been thus far unaware of.  Dorian has always escaped his guilt by immersing himself in pleasurable distractions, but his lapse into addiction signifies that he has sunk to yet a lower level of degradation.  This addiction also reminds us of the nature of Dorian's relationship to the portrait.  Like an addict, Dorian cannot refrain from seeking out and indulging himself in new guilty pleasures.  And, like an addict, Dorian cannot help but return to the attic and bask in the horror of his disfigured soul. Adrian's presence in the opium den bothers Dorian because he \"wanted to be where no one knew who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself.\"  His past, however, haunts him no matter where he turns.  One might expect Dorian to take some solace from the fact that, unlike Alan Campbell, Adrian is willing to interact with Dorian, but other people mean so little to Dorian at this point that he can only view Adrian as a nuisance.  Instead of taking pity on Adrian's deplorable state, Dorian is repulsed. The inescapability of the past is also exemplified by the reappearance of Sibyl's vengeful brother.  James Vane seeks revenge for the very first instance of Dorian's corruption: the act of selfish vanity that caused the initial change in the painting.  James's determination to avenge his sister's death represents the culmination of all of Dorian's sins, returning to hunt him down.  However, superficiality does not fail Dorian yet; in this first encounter with James, Dorian's face literally saves his life."}

That evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large
button-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady
Narborough's drawing-room by bowing servants.  His forehead was
throbbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his
manner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as
ever.  Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to
play a part.  Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could
have believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any
tragedy of our age.  Those finely shaped fingers could never have
clutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God
and goodness.  He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his
demeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a
double life.

It was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who
was a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the
remains of really remarkable ugliness.  She had proved an excellent
wife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her
husband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed,
and married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she
devoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery,
and French _esprit_ when she could get it.

Dorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that
she was extremely glad she had not met him in early life.  "I know, my
dear, I should have fallen madly in love with you," she used to say,
"and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake.  It is most
fortunate that you were not thought of at the time.  As it was, our
bonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to
raise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody.
However, that was all Narborough's fault.  He was dreadfully
short-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who
never sees anything."

Her guests this evening were rather tedious.  The fact was, as she
explained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married
daughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make
matters worse, had actually brought her husband with her.  "I think it
is most unkind of her, my dear," she whispered.  "Of course I go and
stay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old
woman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake
them up.  You don't know what an existence they lead down there.  It is
pure unadulterated country life.  They get up early, because they have
so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to
think about.  There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since
the time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep
after dinner.  You shan't sit next either of them.  You shall sit by me
and amuse me."

Dorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room.  Yes:
it was certainly a tedious party.  Two of the people he had never seen
before, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those
middle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies,
but are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an
overdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always
trying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to
her great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against
her; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and
Venetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy
dull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once
seen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked,
white-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the
impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of
ideas.

He was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the
great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the
mauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed:  "How horrid of Henry Wotton to be
so late!  I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised
faithfully not to disappoint me."

It was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door
opened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some
insincere apology, he ceased to feel bored.

But at dinner he could not eat anything.  Plate after plate went away
untasted.  Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called "an
insult to poor Adolphe, who invented the _menu_ specially for you," and
now and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence
and abstracted manner.  From time to time the butler filled his glass
with champagne.  He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase.

"Dorian," said Lord Henry at last, as the _chaud-froid_ was being handed
round, "what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of
sorts."

"I believe he is in love," cried Lady Narborough, "and that he is
afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous.  He is quite right.  I
certainly should."

"Dear Lady Narborough," murmured Dorian, smiling, "I have not been in
love for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town."

"How you men can fall in love with that woman!" exclaimed the old lady.
"I really cannot understand it."

"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl,
Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry.  "She is the one link between us and
your short frocks."

"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry.  But I
remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _decolletee_
she was then."

"She is still _decolletee_," he answered, taking an olive in his long
fingers; "and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an
_edition de luxe_ of a bad French novel.  She is really wonderful, and
full of surprises.  Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary.
When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief."

"How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian.

"It is a most romantic explanation," laughed the hostess.  "But her
third husband, Lord Henry!  You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?"

"Certainly, Lady Narborough."

"I don't believe a word of it."

"Well, ask Mr. Gray.  He is one of her most intimate friends."

"Is it true, Mr. Gray?"

"She assures me so, Lady Narborough," said Dorian.  "I asked her
whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and
hung at her girdle.  She told me she didn't, because none of them had
had any hearts at all."

"Four husbands!  Upon my word that is _trop de zele_."

"_Trop d'audace_, I tell her," said Dorian.

"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear.  And what is Ferrol
like?  I don't know him."

"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,"
said Lord Henry, sipping his wine.

Lady Narborough hit him with her fan.  "Lord Henry, I am not at all
surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked."

"But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows.
"It can only be the next world.  This world and I are on excellent
terms."

"Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady,
shaking her head.

Lord Henry looked serious for some moments.  "It is perfectly
monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying
things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely
true."

"Isn't he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.

"I hope so," said his hostess, laughing.  "But really, if you all
worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry
again so as to be in the fashion."

"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry.
"You were far too happy.  When a woman marries again, it is because she
detested her first husband.  When a man marries again, it is because he
adored his first wife.  Women try their luck; men risk theirs."

"Narborough wasn't perfect," cried the old lady.

"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the
rejoinder.  "Women love us for our defects.  If we have enough of them,
they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.  You will never
ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough,
but it is quite true."

"Of course it is true, Lord Henry.  If we women did not love you for
your defects, where would you all be?  Not one of you would ever be
married.  You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.  Not, however,
that that would alter you much.  Nowadays all the married men live like
bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men."

"_Fin de siecle_," murmured Lord Henry.

"_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess.

"I wish it were _fin du globe_," said Dorian with a sigh.  "Life is a
great disappointment."

"Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don't
tell me that you have exhausted life.  When a man says that one knows
that life has exhausted him.  Lord Henry is very wicked, and I
sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good--you look
so good.  I must find you a nice wife.  Lord Henry, don't you think
that Mr. Gray should get married?"

"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry with a
bow.

"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him.  I shall go
through Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the
eligible young ladies."

"With their ages, Lady Narborough?" asked Dorian.

"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited.  But nothing must be done
in a hurry.  I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable
alliance, and I want you both to be happy."

"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord
Henry.  "A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love
her."

"Ah! what a cynic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair
and nodding to Lady Ruxton.  "You must come and dine with me soon
again.  You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir
Andrew prescribes for me.  You must tell me what people you would like
to meet, though.  I want it to be a delightful gathering."

"I like men who have a future and women who have a past," he answered.
"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?"

"I fear so," she said, laughing, as she stood up.  "A thousand pardons,
my dear Lady Ruxton," she added, "I didn't see you hadn't finished your
cigarette."

"Never mind, Lady Narborough.  I smoke a great deal too much.  I am
going to limit myself, for the future."

"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton," said Lord Henry.  "Moderation is a fatal
thing.  Enough is as bad as a meal.  More than enough is as good as a
feast."

Lady Ruxton glanced at him curiously.  "You must come and explain that
to me some afternoon, Lord Henry.  It sounds a fascinating theory," she
murmured, as she swept out of the room.

"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal,"
cried Lady Narborough from the door.  "If you do, we are sure to
squabble upstairs."

The men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the
table and came up to the top.  Dorian Gray changed his seat and went
and sat by Lord Henry.  Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about
the situation in the House of Commons.  He guffawed at his adversaries.
The word _doctrinaire_--word full of terror to the British
mind--reappeared from time to time between his explosions.  An
alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.  He hoisted the
Union Jack on the pinnacles of thought.  The inherited stupidity of the
race--sound English common sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be
the proper bulwark for society.

A smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at
Dorian.

"Are you better, my dear fellow?" he asked.  "You seemed rather out of
sorts at dinner."

"I am quite well, Harry.  I am tired.  That is all."

"You were charming last night.  The little duchess is quite devoted to
you.  She tells me she is going down to Selby."

"She has promised to come on the twentieth."

"Is Monmouth to be there, too?"

"Oh, yes, Harry."

"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her.  She is very
clever, too clever for a woman.  She lacks the indefinable charm of
weakness.  It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image
precious.  Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay.
White porcelain feet, if you like.  They have been through the fire,
and what fire does not destroy, it hardens.  She has had experiences."

"How long has she been married?" asked Dorian.

"An eternity, she tells me.  I believe, according to the peerage, it is
ten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity,
with time thrown in.  Who else is coming?"

"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey
Clouston, the usual set.  I have asked Lord Grotrian."

"I like him," said Lord Henry.  "A great many people don't, but I find
him charming.  He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by
being always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type."

"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry.  He may have to go to
Monte Carlo with his father."

"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are!  Try and make him come.  By
the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night.  You left before
eleven.  What did you do afterwards?  Did you go straight home?"

Dorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.

"No, Harry," he said at last, "I did not get home till nearly three."

"Did you go to the club?"

"Yes," he answered.  Then he bit his lip.  "No, I don't mean that.  I
didn't go to the club.  I walked about.  I forget what I did.... How
inquisitive you are, Harry!  You always want to know what one has been
doing.  I always want to forget what I have been doing.  I came in at
half-past two, if you wish to know the exact time.  I had left my
latch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in.  If you want any
corroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him."

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "My dear fellow, as if I cared!
Let us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman.
Something has happened to you, Dorian.  Tell me what it is.  You are
not yourself to-night."

"Don't mind me, Harry.  I am irritable, and out of temper.  I shall
come round and see you to-morrow, or next day.  Make my excuses to Lady
Narborough.  I shan't go upstairs.  I shall go home.  I must go home."

"All right, Dorian.  I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time.
The duchess is coming."

"I will try to be there, Harry," he said, leaving the room.  As he
drove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror
he thought he had strangled had come back to him.  Lord Henry's casual
questioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted
his nerve still.  Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed.  He
winced.  He hated the idea of even touching them.

Yet it had to be done.  He realized that, and when he had locked the
door of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had
thrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag.  A huge fire was blazing.  He
piled another log on it.  The smell of the singeing clothes and burning
leather was horrible.  It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume
everything.  At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some
Algerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and
forehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar.

Suddenly he started.  His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed
nervously at his underlip.  Between two of the windows stood a large
Florentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue
lapis.  He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate
and make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet
almost loathed.  His breath quickened.  A mad craving came over him.
He lit a cigarette and then threw it away.  His eyelids drooped till
the long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek.  But he still watched
the cabinet.  At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been
lying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden
spring.  A triangular drawer passed slowly out.  His fingers moved
instinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something.  It was a
small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought,
the sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with
round crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads.  He opened it.
Inside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and
persistent.

He hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his
face.  Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly
hot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock.  It was twenty
minutes to twelve.  He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as
he did so, and went into his bedroom.

As midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray,
dressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept
quietly out of his house.  In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good
horse.  He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address.

The man shook his head.  "It is too far for me," he muttered.

"Here is a sovereign for you," said Dorian.  "You shall have another if
you drive fast."

"All right, sir," answered the man, "you will be there in an hour," and
after his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly
towards the river.



A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly
in the dripping mist.  The public-houses were just closing, and dim men
and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors.  From
some of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter.  In others,
drunkards brawled and screamed.

Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian
Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and
now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said
to him on the first day they had met, "To cure the soul by means of the
senses, and the senses by means of the soul."  Yes, that was the
secret.  He had often tried it, and would try it again now.  There were
opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the
memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were
new.

The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull.  From time to time a
huge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it.  The
gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy.  Once the
man lost his way and had to drive back half a mile.  A steam rose from
the horse as it splashed up the puddles.  The sidewindows of the hansom
were clogged with a grey-flannel mist.

"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of
the soul!"  How the words rang in his ears!  His soul, certainly, was
sick to death.  Was it true that the senses could cure it?  Innocent
blood had been spilled.  What could atone for that?  Ah! for that there
was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness
was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing
out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.
Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done?  Who
had made him a judge over others?  He had said things that were
dreadful, horrible, not to be endured.

On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each
step.  He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster.
The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him.  His throat burned
and his delicate hands twitched nervously together.  He struck at the
horse madly with his stick.  The driver laughed and whipped up.  He
laughed in answer, and the man was silent.

The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some
sprawling spider.  The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist
thickened, he felt afraid.

Then they passed by lonely brickfields.  The fog was lighter here, and
he could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,
fanlike tongues of fire.  A dog barked as they went by, and far away in
the darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed.  The horse stumbled in a
rut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.

After some time they left the clay road and rattled again over
rough-paven streets.  Most of the windows were dark, but now and then
fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind.  He
watched them curiously.  They moved like monstrous marionettes and made
gestures like live things.  He hated them.  A dull rage was in his
heart.  As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from
an open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred
yards.  The driver beat at them with his whip.

It is said that passion makes one think in a circle.  Certainly with
hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped
those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in
them the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by
intellectual approval, passions that without such justification would
still have dominated his temper.  From cell to cell of his brain crept
the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all
man's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre.
Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real,
became dear to him now for that very reason.  Ugliness was the one
reality.  The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of
disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more
vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious
shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song.  They were what he needed
for forgetfulness.  In three days he would be free.

Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane.  Over
the low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black
masts of ships.  Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the
yards.

"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?" he asked huskily through the
trap.

Dorian started and peered round.  "This will do," he answered, and
having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had
promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay.  Here and
there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman.  The
light shook and splintered in the puddles.  A red glare came from an
outward-bound steamer that was coaling.  The slimy pavement looked like
a wet mackintosh.

He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he
was being followed.  In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small
shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories.  In one of
the top-windows stood a lamp.  He stopped and gave a peculiar knock.

After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being
unhooked.  The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a
word to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the
shadow as he passed.  At the end of the hall hung a tattered green
curtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him
in from the street.  He dragged it aside and entered a long low room
which looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill
flaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that
faced them, were ranged round the walls.  Greasy reflectors of ribbed
tin backed them, making quivering disks of light.  The floor was
covered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud,
and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor.  Some Malays were
crouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and
showing their white teeth as they chattered.  In one corner, with his
head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the
tawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two
haggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his
coat with an expression of disgust.  "He thinks he's got red ants on
him," laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by.  The man looked at her
in terror and began to whimper.

At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a
darkened chamber.  As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the
heavy odour of opium met him.  He heaved a deep breath, and his
nostrils quivered with pleasure.  When he entered, a young man with
smooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin
pipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner.

"You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian.

"Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly.  "None of the chaps
will speak to me now."

"I thought you had left England."

"Darlington is not going to do anything.  My brother paid the bill at
last.  George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care," he added
with a sigh.  "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends.
I think I have had too many friends."

Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such
fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses.  The twisted limbs, the
gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him.  He knew in
what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were
teaching them the secret of some new joy.  They were better off than he
was.  He was prisoned in thought.  Memory, like a horrible malady, was
eating his soul away.  From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of
Basil Hallward looking at him.  Yet he felt he could not stay.  The
presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him.  He wanted to be where no
one would know who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself.

"I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause.

"On the wharf?"

"Yes."

"That mad-cat is sure to be there.  They won't have her in this place
now."

Dorian shrugged his shoulders.  "I am sick of women who love one.
Women who hate one are much more interesting.  Besides, the stuff is
better."

"Much the same."

"I like it better.  Come and have something to drink.  I must have
something."

"I don't want anything," murmured the young man.

"Never mind."

Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar.  A
half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous
greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of
them.  The women sidled up and began to chatter.  Dorian turned his
back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton.

A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of
the women.  "We are very proud to-night," she sneered.

"For God's sake don't talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on
the ground.  "What do you want?  Money?  Here it is.  Don't ever talk
to me again."

Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then
flickered out and left them dull and glazed.  She tossed her head and
raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers.  Her companion
watched her enviously.

"It's no use," sighed Adrian Singleton.  "I don't care to go back.
What does it matter?  I am quite happy here."

"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?" said Dorian,
after a pause.

"Perhaps."

"Good night, then."

"Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping
his parched mouth with a handkerchief.

Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face.  As he drew
the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the
woman who had taken his money.  "There goes the devil's bargain!" she
hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.

"Curse you!" he answered, "don't call me that."

She snapped her fingers.  "Prince Charming is what you like to be
called, ain't it?" she yelled after him.

The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly
round.  The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear.  He
rushed out as if in pursuit.

Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain.  His
meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered
if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as
Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult.  He bit his
lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad.  Yet, after all, what did
it matter to him?  One's days were too brief to take the burden of
another's errors on one's shoulders.  Each man lived his own life and
paid his own price for living it.  The only pity was one had to pay so
often for a single fault.  One had to pay over and over again, indeed.
In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.

There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or
for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of
the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful
impulses.  Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their
will.  They move to their terrible end as automatons move.  Choice is
taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at
all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its
charm.  For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are
sins of disobedience.  When that high spirit, that morning star of
evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.

Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for
rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but
as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a
short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself
suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,
he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his
throat.

He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the
tightening fingers away.  In a second he heard the click of a revolver,
and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,
and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.

"What do you want?" he gasped.

"Keep quiet," said the man.  "If you stir, I shoot you."

"You are mad.  What have I done to you?"

"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane
was my sister.  She killed herself.  I know it.  Her death is at your
door.  I swore I would kill you in return.  For years I have sought
you.  I had no clue, no trace.  The two people who could have described
you were dead.  I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call
you.  I heard it to-night by chance.  Make your peace with God, for
to-night you are going to die."

Dorian Gray grew sick with fear.  "I never knew her," he stammered.  "I
never heard of her.  You are mad."

"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you
are going to die."  There was a horrible moment.  Dorian did not know
what to say or do.  "Down on your knees!" growled the man.  "I give you
one minute to make your peace--no more.  I go on board to-night for
India, and I must do my job first.  One minute.  That's all."

Dorian's arms fell to his side.  Paralysed with terror, he did not know
what to do.  Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain.  "Stop," he
cried.  "How long ago is it since your sister died?  Quick, tell me!"

"Eighteen years," said the man.  "Why do you ask me?  What do years
matter?"

"Eighteen years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his
voice.  "Eighteen years!  Set me under the lamp and look at my face!"

James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.
Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.

Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him
the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face
of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the
unstained purity of youth.  He seemed little more than a lad of twenty
summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been
when they had parted so many years ago.  It was obvious that this was
not the man who had destroyed her life.

He loosened his hold and reeled back.  "My God! my God!" he cried, "and
I would have murdered you!"

Dorian Gray drew a long breath.  "You have been on the brink of
committing a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at him sternly.
"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own
hands."

"Forgive me, sir," muttered James Vane.  "I was deceived.  A chance
word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track."

"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into
trouble," said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the
street.

James Vane stood on the pavement in horror.  He was trembling from head
to foot.  After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping
along the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him
with stealthy footsteps.  He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked
round with a start.  It was one of the women who had been drinking at
the bar.

"Why didn't you kill him?" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite
close to his.  "I knew you were following him when you rushed out from
Daly's. You fool!  You should have killed him.  He has lots of money,
and he's as bad as bad."

"He is not the man I am looking for," he answered, "and I want no man's
money.  I want a man's life.  The man whose life I want must be nearly
forty now.  This one is little more than a boy.  Thank God, I have not
got his blood upon my hands."

The woman gave a bitter laugh.  "Little more than a boy!" she sneered.
"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me
what I am."

"You lie!" cried James Vane.

She raised her hand up to heaven.  "Before God I am telling the truth,"
she cried.

"Before God?"

"Strike me dumb if it ain't so.  He is the worst one that comes here.
They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face.  It's nigh
on eighteen years since I met him.  He hasn't changed much since then.
I have, though," she added, with a sickly leer.

"You swear this?"

"I swear it," came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth.  "But don't give
me away to him," she whined; "I am afraid of him.  Let me have some
money for my night's lodging."

He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street,
but Dorian Gray had disappeared.  When he looked back, the woman had
vanished also.



Chapters 15 & 16
Later that evening, Dorian attends a party thrown by Lady Narborough, a wealthy widow and popular socialite. He acts naturally and comfortably, charming his hostess and successfully masking his tortured conscience, but is unable to stomach any food. Most of the guests are dull and witless, so Dorian is glad when Lord Henry arrives. As usual, Dorian delights in Henry's paradoxical, slightly offensive witticisms. The evening goes smoothly until Dorian is asked how he spent the previous night. He founders and retracts several answers, clearly discombobulated and unnecessarily defensive. Henry can easily see that something is wrong, but when he tries to get Dorian to share his troubles, the younger man excuses himself, saying that he is "out of temper" and "must go home." Once home, Dorian faces the fact that Basil's belongings, which he had left in Dorian's closet, still have to be destroyed. He throws them into his fireplace, feeling sick at the smell of burning fabric and leather. He is then overcome by an unspecified "mad craving." He examines "a small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer" taken from one of his cabinets, and decides to leave. His cab driver at first refuses to take him where he wants to go, but soon relents and accepts Dorian's bribe. During the long cab ride, Dorian remembers Lord Henry's words from their first meeting: "To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul." He feels as if his soul is quite sick, and takes comfort in the idea of curing it. He dismounts from the cab and walks several blocks, nervously checking behind him, until he finds a small, dilapidated house hidden in an alley between two factories. He enters the house, which is revealed to be an opium den. Inside are groups of haggard, complacent, disheveled individuals. Among them is Adrian Singleton, who joins Dorian at the bar. They are harassed by two women, and Dorian walks out of the place. As he is leaving, one of the women calls him "Prince Charming," at which point an unrecognized sailor springs to his feet and pursues Dorian outside. The sailor grabs Dorian by the throat, brings him to his knees, and points a revolver in his face, telling him that he is the brother of Sibyl Vane, whom Dorian drove to suicide. He only knew his sister's lover by the nickname "Prince Charming." Dorian pretends to have never heard of Sibyl Vane, and tells James to hold his face under the lamplight. James complies, and realizes that he has made a mistake: Sibyl died 18 years ago, making her lover nearly 40, but the person standing before him looks no older than 20. James is embarrassed, and begs Dorian's forgiveness. Dorian chides him for his behavior and flees. James then speaks with the two women from the bar and learns that Dorian is much older than he seems. One of the women remarks that "it's nigh on eighteen year since Prince Charming made me what I am." Realizing that he has been deceived, James rushes after Dorian in an outrage, but turns the corner to find that the villain has already disappeared.
Dorian succumbs to paranoia at Lady Narborough's home, but his fear of being discovered prove unnecessary.  His hostess tells him that "you are made to be good - you look so good."  The inability to accept the possibility that a young, innocent appearance hides anything other than an innocent, beautiful personality is a common one in Dorian's social circle; this superficiality is what allows him to maintain a level of respect and admiration, despite the preponderance of nasty rumors, and even despite the guilt of a murder weighing on his conscience. Wilde uses Dorian's group of friends to parody the superficiality of London's aristocracy.  Lord Henry's convictions that beauty is the most important thing in the world and that physical beauty is the greatest asset a person can have seem to be shockingly accurate, at least amongst people such as those whom Dorian and Henry associate with.  This raises an important question: if Lord Henry's morally shallow beliefs are justified, can we condemn his character for espousing them? Dorian's odd mannerisms while handling the ornate box of opium and his discreet flight to the opium den reveal an addiction that we have been thus far unaware of.  Dorian has always escaped his guilt by immersing himself in pleasurable distractions, but his lapse into addiction signifies that he has sunk to yet a lower level of degradation.  This addiction also reminds us of the nature of Dorian's relationship to the portrait.  Like an addict, Dorian cannot refrain from seeking out and indulging himself in new guilty pleasures.  And, like an addict, Dorian cannot help but return to the attic and bask in the horror of his disfigured soul. Adrian's presence in the opium den bothers Dorian because he "wanted to be where no one knew who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself."  His past, however, haunts him no matter where he turns.  One might expect Dorian to take some solace from the fact that, unlike Alan Campbell, Adrian is willing to interact with Dorian, but other people mean so little to Dorian at this point that he can only view Adrian as a nuisance.  Instead of taking pity on Adrian's deplorable state, Dorian is repulsed. The inescapability of the past is also exemplified by the reappearance of Sibyl's vengeful brother.  James Vane seeks revenge for the very first instance of Dorian's corruption: the act of selfish vanity that caused the initial change in the painting.  James's determination to avenge his sister's death represents the culmination of all of Dorian's sins, returning to hunt him down.  However, superficiality does not fail Dorian yet; in this first encounter with James, Dorian's face literally saves his life.