finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_16_part_0.txt
The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapters 17-18
chapters 17-18
{"name": "Chapters 17-18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1718", "summary": "One week has passed, and Dorian has retreated to his country estate, Selby Royal. His guests include the beautiful Duchess of Monmouth ; her older, boring, somewhat jaded husband; Lady Narborough, old and flirtatious but seldom boring; and Lord Henry. The conversation is light and superficial. Lord Henry wants to re-christen some things -- especially, flowers. Beautiful objects should have beautiful names, he says. The duchess asks what new name Lord Henry shall have, and Dorian immediately answers appropriately, \"Prince Paradox.\" The duchess tries to flirt with Dorian, and he excuses himself to fetch her some of his orchids. Lord Henry lightheartedly warns the duchess about loving Dorian. Suddenly the group hears a muted groan and the sound of a heavy fall. Lord Henry rushes to find that Dorian has fainted. When Dorian comes to, he refuses to be alone. Despite his condition, he joins the others at dinner and tries to act jolly. Now and then, however, terror shoots through him as he recalls the cause of his faint: the face of James Vane observing him through a window. Dorian spends most of the next day in his room. Feeling hunted, stalked, and sick with fear of death, he alternates between the certainty of punishment and an equal certainty that the wicked receive no such fate in this world. He concludes that the only morality is the success of the strong and the failure of the weak. On the third day, Dorian finally goes out. He has decided that he imagined James' face in the window. After breakfast, he strolls in the garden with the duchess for an hour. Then he joins her brother, Sir Geoffrey Clouston, and others who are shooting birds. A hare bursts forth, and Sir Geoffrey aims, but Dorian so admires the beauty and grace of the animal that he cries, \"Let it live.\" Lord Geoffrey finds Dorian's plea silly and fires as the hare jumps into a thicket. Two sounds come from the brush: the cry of a hare and the cry of a man. Incredibly, a dead human body is pulled from the brush. Lord Henry recommends calling off the hunt for the day. Dorian would like to cancel the \"hideous and cruel\" hunt for good; he fears that the death is a bad omen. Lord Henry laughs at Dorian's concern, saying that the only thing horrible in life is boredom. There are no omens, he says. In his room, Dorian lies in terror on the sofa. Later, he calls his servant and tells him to pack. Dorian will leave at eight-thirty to catch the night express to London. He writes a note to Lord Henry, asking him to take care of the guests because he is going to London to see his doctor. Thornton, Dorian's chief gamekeeper, enters with startling news. The dead man cannot be identified. He was not one of the beaters, after all. In fact, he seems to be a sailor, armed with a gun. Dorian rushes to where the body lies. Identifying the body as James Vane's, Dorian feels safe at last.", "analysis": "Wilde makes excellent use of contrast in the setting of these chapters. Life at Selby Royal could not be more different from the secret world of Dorian Gray. Wilde writes about bright conversations, bright lights, and bright days. Such idyllic life adds to Dorian's discomfort when terror twice invades his country estate. Early on, he is seeking orchids but finds the face of James Vane. Just as he is recovering from the shock, a man is ominously killed by accident. Dorian decides to flee because, he realizes, \"Death walked there in the sunlight.\" He expects evil in the opium den, not in the fresh air of Selby Royal. Dorian's tragic fate haunts him wherever he goes. Before, Dorian felt that his situation was hopeless; now, he is beginning to learn what hopelessness really feels like. Wilde exposes the egocentricity of class distinction through the death of what seems to be a lowly beater. First, Sir Geoffrey is annoyed that the \"ass\" got out in front of the guns. It ruins his shooting for the whole day. Then Lord Henry comments, \"It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot.\" Incredibly, Lord Henry is more concerned with his shooting partner's reputation than with a man's death. Even Dorian seems to have little more compassion for the man than he has for the hare. He dislikes shooting and killing, but his chief concern, as usual, is himself. He sees the death as a bad omen, a threat to himself. When Thornton comes to Dorian's room, the master immediately pulls his chequebook out of a drawer. It may be kind of him to want to pay the family of the dead man, but Dorian would not think of visiting them or the corpse until he suspects that it might be James Vane. Dorian's ultimate relief is ironic. Even as he feels joy at seeing James Vane dead, he is far from safe. Glossary Tartuffe a hypocrite; the word comes from Moliere's Le Tartuffe, a play in which the lead character -- Tartuffe -- almost destroys a family that has taken him in. riposte French, \"retort\" or reply in a direct manner. Parthian pertaining to a shot fired by one in actual or feigned retreat; after the tactics of the archers from Parthia in Western Asia. beater someone who is hired to flush wild game from cover for hunters; on some hunts, they beat percussion instruments. censure an expression of blame or disapproval. lithe supple; easily bent; flexible. presentiment premonition; a sense that something is about to occur. Artemis in Greek mythology, the goddess of the hunt."}

A week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby
Royal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband,
a jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests.  It was tea-time,
and the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the
table lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at
which the duchess was presiding.  Her white hands were moving daintily
among the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that
Dorian had whispered to her.  Lord Henry was lying back in a
silk-draped wicker chair, looking at them.  On a peach-coloured divan
sat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of
the last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection.  Three
young men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of
the women.  The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were
more expected to arrive on the next day.

"What are you two talking about?" said Lord Henry, strolling over to
the table and putting his cup down.  "I hope Dorian has told you about
my plan for rechristening everything, Gladys.  It is a delightful idea."

"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry," rejoined the duchess,
looking up at him with her wonderful eyes.  "I am quite satisfied with
my own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his."

"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world.  They are
both perfect.  I was thinking chiefly of flowers.  Yesterday I cut an
orchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as
effective as the seven deadly sins.  In a thoughtless moment I asked
one of the gardeners what it was called.  He told me it was a fine
specimen of _Robinsoniana_, or something dreadful of that kind.  It is a
sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to
things.  Names are everything.  I never quarrel with actions.  My one
quarrel is with words.  That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in
literature.  The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled
to use one.  It is the only thing he is fit for."

"Then what should we call you, Harry?" she asked.

"His name is Prince Paradox," said Dorian.

"I recognize him in a flash," exclaimed the duchess.

"I won't hear of it," laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair.  "From
a label there is no escape!  I refuse the title."

"Royalties may not abdicate," fell as a warning from pretty lips.

"You wish me to defend my throne, then?"

"Yes."

"I give the truths of to-morrow."

"I prefer the mistakes of to-day," she answered.

"You disarm me, Gladys," he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood.

"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear."

"I never tilt against beauty," he said, with a wave of his hand.

"That is your error, Harry, believe me.  You value beauty far too much."

"How can you say that?  I admit that I think that it is better to be
beautiful than to be good.  But on the other hand, no one is more ready
than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly."

"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?" cried the duchess.
"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?"

"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys.  You, as a good
Tory, must not underrate them.  Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly
virtues have made our England what she is."

"You don't like your country, then?" she asked.

"I live in it."

"That you may censure it the better."

"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?" he inquired.

"What do they say of us?"

"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop."

"Is that yours, Harry?"

"I give it to you."

"I could not use it.  It is too true."

"You need not be afraid.  Our countrymen never recognize a description."

"They are practical."

"They are more cunning than practical.  When they make up their ledger,
they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy."

"Still, we have done great things."

"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys."

"We have carried their burden."

"Only as far as the Stock Exchange."

She shook her head.  "I believe in the race," she cried.

"It represents the survival of the pushing."

"It has development."

"Decay fascinates me more."

"What of art?" she asked.

"It is a malady."

"Love?"

"An illusion."

"Religion?"

"The fashionable substitute for belief."

"You are a sceptic."

"Never!  Scepticism is the beginning of faith."

"What are you?"

"To define is to limit."

"Give me a clue."

"Threads snap.  You would lose your way in the labyrinth."

"You bewilder me.  Let us talk of some one else."

"Our host is a delightful topic.  Years ago he was christened Prince
Charming."

"Ah! don't remind me of that," cried Dorian Gray.

"Our host is rather horrid this evening," answered the duchess,
colouring.  "I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely
scientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern
butterfly."

"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess," laughed Dorian.

"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me."

"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?"

"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you.  Usually because
I come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by
half-past eight."

"How unreasonable of her!  You should give her warning."

"I daren't, Mr. Gray.  Why, she invents hats for me.  You remember the
one I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party?  You don't, but it is nice
of you to pretend that you do.  Well, she made it out of nothing.  All
good hats are made out of nothing."

"Like all good reputations, Gladys," interrupted Lord Henry.  "Every
effect that one produces gives one an enemy.  To be popular one must be
a mediocrity."

"Not with women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule
the world.  I assure you we can't bear mediocrities.  We women, as some
one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if
you ever love at all."

"It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmured Dorian.

"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray," answered the duchess with
mock sadness.

"My dear Gladys!" cried Lord Henry.  "How can you say that?  Romance
lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art.
Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.
Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion.  It merely
intensifies it.  We can have in life but one great experience at best,
and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as
possible."

"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the duchess after
a pause.

"Especially when one has been wounded by it," answered Lord Henry.

The duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression
in her eyes.  "What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?" she inquired.

Dorian hesitated for a moment.  Then he threw his head back and
laughed.  "I always agree with Harry, Duchess."

"Even when he is wrong?"

"Harry is never wrong, Duchess."

"And does his philosophy make you happy?"

"I have never searched for happiness.  Who wants happiness?  I have
searched for pleasure."

"And found it, Mr. Gray?"

"Often.  Too often."

The duchess sighed.  "I am searching for peace," she said, "and if I
don't go and dress, I shall have none this evening."

"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess," cried Dorian, starting to his
feet and walking down the conservatory.

"You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his
cousin.  "You had better take care.  He is very fascinating."

"If he were not, there would be no battle."

"Greek meets Greek, then?"

"I am on the side of the Trojans.  They fought for a woman."

"They were defeated."

"There are worse things than capture," she answered.

"You gallop with a loose rein."

"Pace gives life," was the _riposte_.

"I shall write it in my diary to-night."

"What?"

"That a burnt child loves the fire."

"I am not even singed.  My wings are untouched."

"You use them for everything, except flight."

"Courage has passed from men to women.  It is a new experience for us."

"You have a rival."

"Who?"

He laughed.  "Lady Narborough," he whispered.  "She perfectly adores
him."

"You fill me with apprehension.  The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us
who are romanticists."

"Romanticists!  You have all the methods of science."

"Men have educated us."

"But not explained you."

"Describe us as a sex," was her challenge.

"Sphinxes without secrets."

She looked at him, smiling.  "How long Mr. Gray is!" she said.  "Let us
go and help him.  I have not yet told him the colour of my frock."

"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys."

"That would be a premature surrender."

"Romantic art begins with its climax."

"I must keep an opportunity for retreat."

"In the Parthian manner?"

"They found safety in the desert.  I could not do that."

"Women are not always allowed a choice," he answered, but hardly had he
finished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came
a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall.  Everybody
started up.  The duchess stood motionless in horror.  And with fear in
his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian
Gray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon.

He was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of
the sofas.  After a short time, he came to himself and looked round
with a dazed expression.

"What has happened?" he asked.  "Oh!  I remember.  Am I safe here,
Harry?" He began to tremble.

"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, "you merely fainted.  That was
all.  You must have overtired yourself.  You had better not come down
to dinner.  I will take your place."

"No, I will come down," he said, struggling to his feet.  "I would
rather come down.  I must not be alone."

He went to his room and dressed.  There was a wild recklessness of
gaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of
terror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the
window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the
face of James Vane watching him.



The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the
time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet
indifferent to life itself.  The consciousness of being hunted, snared,
tracked down, had begun to dominate him.  If the tapestry did but
tremble in the wind, he shook.  The dead leaves that were blown against
the leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild
regrets.  When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face
peering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to
lay its hand upon his heart.

But perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of
the night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him.  Actual
life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the
imagination.  It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet
of sin.  It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen
brood.  In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor
the good rewarded.  Success was given to the strong, failure thrust
upon the weak.  That was all.  Besides, had any stranger been prowling
round the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the
keepers.  Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the
gardeners would have reported it.  Yes, it had been merely fancy.
Sibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him.  He had sailed away
in his ship to founder in some winter sea.  From him, at any rate, he
was safe.  Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he
was.  The mask of youth had saved him.

And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think
that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them
visible form, and make them move before one!  What sort of life would
his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from
silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear
as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!
As the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and
the air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder.  Oh! in what a
wild hour of madness he had killed his friend!  How ghastly the mere
memory of the scene!  He saw it all again.  Each hideous detail came
back to him with added horror.  Out of the black cave of time, terrible
and swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin.  When Lord Henry
came in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will
break.

It was not till the third day that he ventured to go out.  There was
something in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that
seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life.  But
it was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had
caused the change.  His own nature had revolted against the excess of
anguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm.
With subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so.  Their
strong passions must either bruise or bend.  They either slay the man,
or themselves die.  Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on.  The
loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.
Besides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a
terror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with
something of pity and not a little of contempt.

After breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden
and then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp
frost lay like salt upon the grass.  The sky was an inverted cup of
blue metal.  A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.

At the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey
Clouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of
his gun.  He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take
the mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered
bracken and rough undergrowth.

"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?" he asked.

"Not very good, Dorian.  I think most of the birds have gone to the
open.  I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new
ground."

Dorian strolled along by his side.  The keen aromatic air, the brown
and red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the
beaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns
that followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful
freedom.  He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the
high indifference of joy.

Suddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front
of them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it
forward, started a hare.  It bolted for a thicket of alders.  Sir
Geoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the
animal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he
cried out at once, "Don't shoot it, Geoffrey.  Let it live."

"What nonsense, Dorian!" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded
into the thicket, he fired.  There were two cries heard, the cry of a
hare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is
worse.

"Good heavens!  I have hit a beater!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.  "What an
ass the man was to get in front of the guns!  Stop shooting there!" he
called out at the top of his voice.  "A man is hurt."

The head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand.

"Where, sir?  Where is he?" he shouted.  At the same time, the firing
ceased along the line.

"Here," answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket.
"Why on earth don't you keep your men back?  Spoiled my shooting for
the day."

Dorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the
lithe swinging branches aside.  In a few moments they emerged, dragging
a body after them into the sunlight.  He turned away in horror.  It
seemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went.  He heard Sir
Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of
the keeper.  The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with
faces.  There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of
voices.  A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the
boughs overhead.

After a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like
endless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder.  He started
and looked round.

"Dorian," said Lord Henry, "I had better tell them that the shooting is
stopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on."

"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry," he answered bitterly.  "The
whole thing is hideous and cruel.  Is the man ...?"

He could not finish the sentence.

"I am afraid so," rejoined Lord Henry.  "He got the whole charge of
shot in his chest.  He must have died almost instantaneously.  Come;
let us go home."

They walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly
fifty yards without speaking.  Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and
said, with a heavy sigh, "It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen."

"What is?" asked Lord Henry.  "Oh! this accident, I suppose.  My dear
fellow, it can't be helped.  It was the man's own fault.  Why did he
get in front of the guns?  Besides, it is nothing to us.  It is rather
awkward for Geoffrey, of course.  It does not do to pepper beaters.  It
makes people think that one is a wild shot.  And Geoffrey is not; he
shoots very straight.  But there is no use talking about the matter."

Dorian shook his head.  "It is a bad omen, Harry.  I feel as if
something horrible were going to happen to some of us.  To myself,
perhaps," he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of
pain.

The elder man laughed.  "The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_,
Dorian.  That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.  But we
are not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering
about this thing at dinner.  I must tell them that the subject is to be
tabooed.  As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen.  Destiny
does not send us heralds.  She is too wise or too cruel for that.
Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian?  You have
everything in the world that a man can want.  There is no one who would
not be delighted to change places with you."

"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry.  Don't
laugh like that.  I am telling you the truth.  The wretched peasant who
has just died is better off than I am.  I have no terror of death.  It
is the coming of death that terrifies me.  Its monstrous wings seem to
wheel in the leaden air around me.  Good heavens! don't you see a man
moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?"

Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand
was pointing.  "Yes," he said, smiling, "I see the gardener waiting for
you.  I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on
the table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow!  You
must come and see my doctor, when we get back to town."

Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching.  The
man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating
manner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master.
"Her Grace told me to wait for an answer," he murmured.

Dorian put the letter into his pocket.  "Tell her Grace that I am
coming in," he said, coldly.  The man turned round and went rapidly in
the direction of the house.

"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!" laughed Lord Henry.
"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most.  A woman will
flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on."

"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry!  In the present
instance, you are quite astray.  I like the duchess very much, but I
don't love her."

"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you
are excellently matched."

"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for
scandal."

"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty," said Lord Henry,
lighting a cigarette.

"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram."

"The world goes to the altar of its own accord," was the answer.

"I wish I could love," cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in
his voice.  "But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the
desire.  I am too much concentrated on myself.  My own personality has
become a burden to me.  I want to escape, to go away, to forget.  It
was silly of me to come down here at all.  I think I shall send a wire
to Harvey to have the yacht got ready.  On a yacht one is safe."

"Safe from what, Dorian?  You are in some trouble.  Why not tell me
what it is?  You know I would help you."

"I can't tell you, Harry," he answered sadly.  "And I dare say it is
only a fancy of mine.  This unfortunate accident has upset me.  I have
a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me."

"What nonsense!"

"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it.  Ah! here is the duchess,
looking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown.  You see we have come back,
Duchess."

"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray," she answered.  "Poor Geoffrey is
terribly upset.  And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare.
How curious!"

"Yes, it was very curious.  I don't know what made me say it.  Some
whim, I suppose.  It looked the loveliest of little live things.  But I
am sorry they told you about the man.  It is a hideous subject."

"It is an annoying subject," broke in Lord Henry.  "It has no
psychological value at all.  Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on
purpose, how interesting he would be!  I should like to know some one
who had committed a real murder."

"How horrid of you, Harry!" cried the duchess.  "Isn't it, Mr. Gray?
Harry, Mr. Gray is ill again.  He is going to faint."

Dorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled.  "It is nothing,
Duchess," he murmured; "my nerves are dreadfully out of order.  That is
all.  I am afraid I walked too far this morning.  I didn't hear what
Harry said.  Was it very bad?  You must tell me some other time.  I
think I must go and lie down.  You will excuse me, won't you?"

They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the
conservatory on to the terrace.  As the glass door closed behind
Dorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous
eyes.  "Are you very much in love with him?" he asked.

She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape.
"I wish I knew," she said at last.

He shook his head.  "Knowledge would be fatal.  It is the uncertainty
that charms one.  A mist makes things wonderful."

"One may lose one's way."

"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys."

"What is that?"

"Disillusion."

"It was my _debut_ in life," she sighed.

"It came to you crowned."

"I am tired of strawberry leaves."

"They become you."

"Only in public."

"You would miss them," said Lord Henry.

"I will not part with a petal."

"Monmouth has ears."

"Old age is dull of hearing."

"Has he never been jealous?"

"I wish he had been."

He glanced about as if in search of something.  "What are you looking
for?" she inquired.

"The button from your foil," he answered.  "You have dropped it."

She laughed.  "I have still the mask."

"It makes your eyes lovelier," was his reply.

She laughed again.  Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet
fruit.

Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror
in every tingling fibre of his body.  Life had suddenly become too
hideous a burden for him to bear.  The dreadful death of the unlucky
beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to
pre-figure death for himself also.  He had nearly swooned at what Lord
Henry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.

At five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to
pack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham
at the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another
night at Selby Royal.  It was an ill-omened place.  Death walked there
in the sunlight.  The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.

Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to
town to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in
his absence.  As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to
the door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see
him.  He frowned and bit his lip.  "Send him in," he muttered, after
some moments' hesitation.

As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a
drawer and spread it out before him.

"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this
morning, Thornton?" he said, taking up a pen.

"Yes, sir," answered the gamekeeper.

"Was the poor fellow married?  Had he any people dependent on him?"
asked Dorian, looking bored.  "If so, I should not like them to be left
in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary."

"We don't know who he is, sir.  That is what I took the liberty of
coming to you about."

"Don't know who he is?" said Dorian, listlessly.  "What do you mean?
Wasn't he one of your men?"

"No, sir.  Never saw him before.  Seems like a sailor, sir."

The pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart
had suddenly stopped beating.  "A sailor?" he cried out.  "Did you say
a sailor?"

"Yes, sir.  He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on
both arms, and that kind of thing."

"Was there anything found on him?" said Dorian, leaning forward and
looking at the man with startled eyes.  "Anything that would tell his
name?"

"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any
kind.  A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we
think."

Dorian started to his feet.  A terrible hope fluttered past him.  He
clutched at it madly.  "Where is the body?" he exclaimed.  "Quick!  I
must see it at once."

"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir.  The folk don't like
to have that sort of thing in their houses.  They say a corpse brings
bad luck."

"The Home Farm!  Go there at once and meet me.  Tell one of the grooms
to bring my horse round.  No. Never mind.  I'll go to the stables
myself.  It will save time."

In less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the
long avenue as hard as he could go.  The trees seemed to sweep past him
in spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his
path.  Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him.
He lashed her across the neck with his crop.  She cleft the dusky air
like an arrow.  The stones flew from her hoofs.

At last he reached the Home Farm.  Two men were loitering in the yard.
He leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them.  In the
farthest stable a light was glimmering.  Something seemed to tell him
that the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand
upon the latch.

There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a
discovery that would either make or mar his life.  Then he thrust the
door open and entered.

On a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man
dressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers.  A spotted
handkerchief had been placed over the face.  A coarse candle, stuck in
a bottle, sputtered beside it.

Dorian Gray shuddered.  He felt that his could not be the hand to take
the handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to
come to him.

"Take that thing off the face.  I wish to see it," he said, clutching
at the door-post for support.

When the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward.  A cry of joy
broke from his lips.  The man who had been shot in the thicket was
James Vane.

He stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body.  As he rode
home, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.



Chapters 17-18
One week has passed, and Dorian has retreated to his country estate, Selby Royal. His guests include the beautiful Duchess of Monmouth ; her older, boring, somewhat jaded husband; Lady Narborough, old and flirtatious but seldom boring; and Lord Henry. The conversation is light and superficial. Lord Henry wants to re-christen some things -- especially, flowers. Beautiful objects should have beautiful names, he says. The duchess asks what new name Lord Henry shall have, and Dorian immediately answers appropriately, "Prince Paradox." The duchess tries to flirt with Dorian, and he excuses himself to fetch her some of his orchids. Lord Henry lightheartedly warns the duchess about loving Dorian. Suddenly the group hears a muted groan and the sound of a heavy fall. Lord Henry rushes to find that Dorian has fainted. When Dorian comes to, he refuses to be alone. Despite his condition, he joins the others at dinner and tries to act jolly. Now and then, however, terror shoots through him as he recalls the cause of his faint: the face of James Vane observing him through a window. Dorian spends most of the next day in his room. Feeling hunted, stalked, and sick with fear of death, he alternates between the certainty of punishment and an equal certainty that the wicked receive no such fate in this world. He concludes that the only morality is the success of the strong and the failure of the weak. On the third day, Dorian finally goes out. He has decided that he imagined James' face in the window. After breakfast, he strolls in the garden with the duchess for an hour. Then he joins her brother, Sir Geoffrey Clouston, and others who are shooting birds. A hare bursts forth, and Sir Geoffrey aims, but Dorian so admires the beauty and grace of the animal that he cries, "Let it live." Lord Geoffrey finds Dorian's plea silly and fires as the hare jumps into a thicket. Two sounds come from the brush: the cry of a hare and the cry of a man. Incredibly, a dead human body is pulled from the brush. Lord Henry recommends calling off the hunt for the day. Dorian would like to cancel the "hideous and cruel" hunt for good; he fears that the death is a bad omen. Lord Henry laughs at Dorian's concern, saying that the only thing horrible in life is boredom. There are no omens, he says. In his room, Dorian lies in terror on the sofa. Later, he calls his servant and tells him to pack. Dorian will leave at eight-thirty to catch the night express to London. He writes a note to Lord Henry, asking him to take care of the guests because he is going to London to see his doctor. Thornton, Dorian's chief gamekeeper, enters with startling news. The dead man cannot be identified. He was not one of the beaters, after all. In fact, he seems to be a sailor, armed with a gun. Dorian rushes to where the body lies. Identifying the body as James Vane's, Dorian feels safe at last.
Wilde makes excellent use of contrast in the setting of these chapters. Life at Selby Royal could not be more different from the secret world of Dorian Gray. Wilde writes about bright conversations, bright lights, and bright days. Such idyllic life adds to Dorian's discomfort when terror twice invades his country estate. Early on, he is seeking orchids but finds the face of James Vane. Just as he is recovering from the shock, a man is ominously killed by accident. Dorian decides to flee because, he realizes, "Death walked there in the sunlight." He expects evil in the opium den, not in the fresh air of Selby Royal. Dorian's tragic fate haunts him wherever he goes. Before, Dorian felt that his situation was hopeless; now, he is beginning to learn what hopelessness really feels like. Wilde exposes the egocentricity of class distinction through the death of what seems to be a lowly beater. First, Sir Geoffrey is annoyed that the "ass" got out in front of the guns. It ruins his shooting for the whole day. Then Lord Henry comments, "It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot." Incredibly, Lord Henry is more concerned with his shooting partner's reputation than with a man's death. Even Dorian seems to have little more compassion for the man than he has for the hare. He dislikes shooting and killing, but his chief concern, as usual, is himself. He sees the death as a bad omen, a threat to himself. When Thornton comes to Dorian's room, the master immediately pulls his chequebook out of a drawer. It may be kind of him to want to pay the family of the dead man, but Dorian would not think of visiting them or the corpse until he suspects that it might be James Vane. Dorian's ultimate relief is ironic. Even as he feels joy at seeing James Vane dead, he is far from safe. Glossary Tartuffe a hypocrite; the word comes from Moliere's Le Tartuffe, a play in which the lead character -- Tartuffe -- almost destroys a family that has taken him in. riposte French, "retort" or reply in a direct manner. Parthian pertaining to a shot fired by one in actual or feigned retreat; after the tactics of the archers from Parthia in Western Asia. beater someone who is hired to flush wild game from cover for hunters; on some hunts, they beat percussion instruments. censure an expression of blame or disapproval. lithe supple; easily bent; flexible. presentiment premonition; a sense that something is about to occur. Artemis in Greek mythology, the goddess of the hunt.