finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_4_part_0.txt
The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapters 6-7
chapters 6-7
{"name": "Chapters 6 & 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421171214/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/study-guide/summary-chapters-6-and-7", "summary": "Lord Henry and Basil Hallward discuss Dorian's engagement at the painter's house. They are planning to dine with Dorian before going to see Sibyl's performance that night. Basil can't believe that Dorian is really engaged, saying that Dorian \"is far too sensible\" to make such a rash decision. To this, Henry replies that \"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then.\" Basil is taken aback by Henry's detached, artistic fascination with Dorian's life. The artist disapproves of Dorian's actions, and is worried about the boy's emotional health; Henry, however, is delighted, knowing that whatever the outcome is, it will be greatly entertaining. Dorian arrives, insisting that he be congratulated. Basil says that was hurt to hear about the engagement from Henry, and not from Dorian himself. Henry quickly changes the subject. Dorian wants Basil to approve of his actions, saying \"I have been right, Basil, haven't I, to take my love out of poetry, and to find my wife in Shakespeare's plays?\" Basil reluctantly agrees with Dorian. When Henry cynically remarks about the business-like nature of marriage, Basil objects, saying that Dorian \"is not like other men. He would never bring misery upon anyone. His nature is too fine for that.\" Henry continues to philosophize about the nature of women and how they act when in love. To him, \"Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and are always bothering us to do something for them.\" Dorian is sure that Sibyl's acting will put an end to Henry's cynicism and reconcile all disagreements between the three men. When they see her perform, they will be too overwhelmed by her beauty to consider anything else. The three men leave to see the play, Romeo and Juliet. The theater is surprisingly crowded that night. Once seated in their box, Lord Henry observes the obnoxious, unrefined behavior of the lower-class theatergoers. Basil comforts Dorian against Henry's cynicism. The play begins, and they all note that the orchestra is terrible. Finally, Sibyl appears on stage. She looks beautiful, but acts terribly. Her voice is exquisite, but \"from the point of view of tone\" is \"absolutely false.\" Dorian is horrified and confused. The other two men are disappointed, but are too polite to make any remarks. Her performance, usually the one saving grace in the theater's otherwise dreadful productions, only gets worse as the play progresses. After the second act, the audience hisses, and Dorian's guests stand to leave. Basil tries to comfort the boy, saying that Sibyl must be ill, and that he shouldn't be upset, since \"Love is a more wonderful thing than art\" anyway, to which Henry replies that \"They are both simply forms of imitation\". Dorian is inconsolable. Henry tells him to cheer up, since \"the secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.\" The two men leave, and Dorian forces himself to suffer through the rest of the performance. Afterwards, he rushes backstage to confront Sibyl. She is delighted to see him and surprised at his anger, since she had assumed that he would know the reason for her terrible performance. When he demands to be told why she performed badly, she tells him that having met him, she can no longer believe in the theater. Before Dorian, she says, \"acting was the one reality of my life,\" and now he has \"freed my soul from prison\" and \"taught me what reality really is.\" Having experienced true love, she says, \"it would be profanation for me to play at being in love.\" Dorian is horrified, disgusted, and completely unable to love her anymore. She can't believe it, and when he pulls away from her touch, she falls to the floor, groveling at his feet. Dorian feels repulsion rather than empathy, and leaves her sobbing on the floor. Strangely numb and unable to come to terms with Sibyl's lost talent or his unexpected callousness towards her, Dorian aimlessly wanders the city until dawn. He returns home, where he happens to glance at Basil's portrait, and is puzzled to find that the facial expression is slightly different: there seems to be \"a touch of cruelty in the mouth.\" He rubs his eyes and changes the lighting, but is certain that the picture has changed. The cruelty in the expression reminds him of his cruelty to Sibyl, but he feels wronged for the misery that she has caused him with her bad acting, and consoles himself by thinking that \"women were better suited to bear sorrow than men...When they took lovers, it was merely to have someone with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.\" Unable to make any sense of the picture's transformation, he realizes, after much pondering, that \"It held the secret of his life, and told his story...changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.\" Exhausted, he covers the portrait with a screen, and goes to sleep.", "analysis": "Dorian's relationship with Sibyl is the first major casualty of the devotion to sensual pleasure inspired by Lord Henry.  Valuing artistic beauty above all else allows Dorian to confuse his love for Sibyl's acting with a love for Sibyl herself.  She seems to be the perfect wife, because Dorian believes that she can offer him all of Shakespeare's heroines in a single body.  Indeed, Dorian remarks to Basil that he has \"had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth.\"  Dorian's love is a means of escaping reality; therefore, Sibyl's awareness of \"what reality really is\" is unacceptable. His resulting cruelty towards her is the first undeniable mark of the corruption of Dorian's character, and therefore causes the first visible change in his portrait.  He considers the aesthetic pain caused by her poor acting to be on par with Sibyl's emotional devastation at his rejection.  This belief is rooted in the sentiment expressed by Lord Henry before the trio leaves for the play, when he says \"I love acting.  It is so much more real than life.\"  This statement is a clear indication of Henry's continuing influence on Dorian. We are also reminded of the statement in the preface that \"Those who go beneath the surface  do so at their peril.\"  Dorian is not prepared to see the person beneath the surface of Sibyl's acting.  The preface also states that \"It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.\"  Dorian saw himself reflected in Sibyl's acting, because it was artful, but once her acting is revealed as artless, he can no longer see himself in it, and his feelings for her disappear.  What he thought was love for Sibyl is really a form of vanity; the pain of enduring her poor performance is actually the pain of not seeing his own reflection. In Chapter 7, Dorian undergoes several dramatic changes of character: he transforms from a devoted lover, to a bitter art critic, to a cruel betrayer, and seemingly back to a devoted lover.  This final change is, however, superficial.  He decides to do the honorable thing and marry Sibyl, but only when faced with the possibility of watching the beautiful image in the portrait succumb to degradation.  The corruption of Dorian's soul has begun in earnest, as reflected by the first visible change in the portrait. Interestingly, this chapter marks a turning point in the narrative: the focus switches from Lord Henry to Dorian.  Now that Henry's influence has begun to show its effects, the narrative no longer appears as concerned with Lord Henry himself.  At this point, the story begins to focus solely on Dorian as a corrupt figure.  At the end of the chapter, as Dorian feebly resolves to spend less time with Lord Henry and to marry Sibyl, he is acting more out of vanity than out of love or a true sense of morality; a fact that will be revealed when the portrait fails to change for the better. This is not the last time Dorian will fail to recognize the vanity that lies behind his decisions."}

"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?" said Lord Henry that
evening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol
where dinner had been laid for three.

"No, Harry," answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing
waiter.  "What is it?  Nothing about politics, I hope!  They don't
interest me.  There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons
worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little
whitewashing."

"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, watching him
as he spoke.

Hallward started and then frowned.  "Dorian engaged to be married!" he
cried.  "Impossible!"

"It is perfectly true."

"To whom?"

"To some little actress or other."

"I can't believe it.  Dorian is far too sensible."

"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear
Basil."

"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry."

"Except in America," rejoined Lord Henry languidly.  "But I didn't say
he was married.  I said he was engaged to be married.  There is a great
difference.  I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have
no recollection at all of being engaged.  I am inclined to think that I
never was engaged."

"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth.  It would be
absurd for him to marry so much beneath him."

"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil.  He is
sure to do it, then.  Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it
is always from the noblest motives."

"I hope the girl is good, Harry.  I don't want to see Dorian tied to
some vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his
intellect."

"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful," murmured Lord Henry,
sipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. "Dorian says she is
beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind.  Your
portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal
appearance of other people.  It has had that excellent effect, amongst
others.  We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his
appointment."

"Are you serious?"

"Quite serious, Basil.  I should be miserable if I thought I should
ever be more serious than I am at the present moment."

"But do you approve of it, Harry?" asked the painter, walking up and
down the room and biting his lip.  "You can't approve of it, possibly.
It is some silly infatuation."

"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now.  It is an absurd
attitude to take towards life.  We are not sent into the world to air
our moral prejudices.  I never take any notice of what common people
say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.  If a
personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality
selects is absolutely delightful to me.  Dorian Gray falls in love with
a beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her.  Why not?
If he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting.  You
know I am not a champion of marriage.  The real drawback to marriage is
that it makes one unselfish.  And unselfish people are colourless.
They lack individuality.  Still, there are certain temperaments that
marriage makes more complex.  They retain their egotism, and add to it
many other egos.  They are forced to have more than one life.  They
become more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should
fancy, the object of man's existence.  Besides, every experience is of
value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an
experience.  I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife,
passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become
fascinated by some one else.  He would be a wonderful study."

"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't.
If Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than
yourself.  You are much better than you pretend to be."

Lord Henry laughed.  "The reason we all like to think so well of others
is that we are all afraid for ourselves.  The basis of optimism is
sheer terror.  We think that we are generous because we credit our
neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a
benefit to us.  We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account,
and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare
our pockets.  I mean everything that I have said.  I have the greatest
contempt for optimism.  As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but
one whose growth is arrested.  If you want to mar a nature, you have
merely to reform it.  As for marriage, of course that would be silly,
but there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women.
I will certainly encourage them.  They have the charm of being
fashionable.  But here is Dorian himself.  He will tell you more than I
can."

"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!" said the
lad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and
shaking each of his friends by the hand in turn.  "I have never been so
happy.  Of course, it is sudden--all really delightful things are.  And
yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my
life." He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked
extraordinarily handsome.

"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian," said Hallward, "but I
don't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement.
You let Harry know."

"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner," broke in Lord
Henry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke.
"Come, let us sit down and try what the new _chef_ here is like, and then
you will tell us how it all came about."

"There is really not much to tell," cried Dorian as they took their
seats at the small round table.  "What happened was simply this.  After
I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that
little Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and
went down at eight o'clock to the theatre.  Sibyl was playing Rosalind.
Of course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd.  But Sibyl!
You should have seen her!  When she came on in her boy's clothes, she
was perfectly wonderful.  She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with
cinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little
green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak
lined with dull red.  She had never seemed to me more exquisite.  She
had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in
your studio, Basil.  Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves
round a pale rose.  As for her acting--well, you shall see her
to-night. She is simply a born artist.  I sat in the dingy box
absolutely enthralled.  I forgot that I was in London and in the
nineteenth century.  I was away with my love in a forest that no man
had ever seen.  After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke
to her.  As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes
a look that I had never seen there before.  My lips moved towards hers.
We kissed each other.  I can't describe to you what I felt at that
moment.  It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one
perfect point of rose-coloured joy.  She trembled all over and shook
like a white narcissus.  Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed
my hands.  I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help
it.  Of course, our engagement is a dead secret.  She has not even told
her own mother.  I don't know what my guardians will say.  Lord Radley
is sure to be furious.  I don't care.  I shall be of age in less than a
year, and then I can do what I like.  I have been right, Basil, haven't
I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's
plays?  Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their
secret in my ear.  I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and
kissed Juliet on the mouth."

"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right," said Hallward slowly.

"Have you seen her to-day?" asked Lord Henry.

Dorian Gray shook his head.  "I left her in the forest of Arden; I
shall find her in an orchard in Verona."

Lord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner.  "At what
particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian?  And what
did she say in answer?  Perhaps you forgot all about it."

"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did
not make any formal proposal.  I told her that I loved her, and she
said she was not worthy to be my wife.  Not worthy!  Why, the whole
world is nothing to me compared with her."

"Women are wonderfully practical," murmured Lord Henry, "much more
practical than we are.  In situations of that kind we often forget to
say anything about marriage, and they always remind us."

Hallward laid his hand upon his arm.  "Don't, Harry.  You have annoyed
Dorian.  He is not like other men.  He would never bring misery upon
any one.  His nature is too fine for that."

Lord Henry looked across the table.  "Dorian is never annoyed with me,"
he answered.  "I asked the question for the best reason possible, for
the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any
question--simple curiosity.  I have a theory that it is always the
women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women.  Except,
of course, in middle-class life.  But then the middle classes are not
modern."

Dorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head.  "You are quite incorrigible,
Harry; but I don't mind.  It is impossible to be angry with you.  When
you see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her
would be a beast, a beast without a heart.  I cannot understand how any
one can wish to shame the thing he loves.  I love Sibyl Vane.  I want
to place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the
woman who is mine.  What is marriage?  An irrevocable vow.  You mock at
it for that.  Ah! don't mock.  It is an irrevocable vow that I want to
take.  Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good.  When I
am with her, I regret all that you have taught me.  I become different
from what you have known me to be.  I am changed, and the mere touch of
Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating,
poisonous, delightful theories."

"And those are ...?" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad.

"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories
about pleasure.  All your theories, in fact, Harry."

"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about," he answered
in his slow melodious voice.  "But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory
as my own.  It belongs to Nature, not to me.  Pleasure is Nature's
test, her sign of approval.  When we are happy, we are always good, but
when we are good, we are not always happy."

"Ah! but what do you mean by good?" cried Basil Hallward.

"Yes," echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord
Henry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the
centre of the table, "what do you mean by good, Harry?"

"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self," he replied, touching
the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers.
"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.  One's own
life--that is the important thing.  As for the lives of one's
neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt
one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern.  Besides,
individualism has really the higher aim.  Modern morality consists in
accepting the standard of one's age.  I consider that for any man of
culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest
immorality."

"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a
terrible price for doing so?" suggested the painter.

"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays.  I should fancy that
the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but
self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege
of the rich."

"One has to pay in other ways but money."

"What sort of ways, Basil?"

"Oh!  I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the
consciousness of degradation."

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "My dear fellow, mediaeval art is
charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date.  One can use them in
fiction, of course.  But then the only things that one can use in
fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact.  Believe me,
no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever
knows what a pleasure is."

"I know what pleasure is," cried Dorian Gray.  "It is to adore some
one."

"That is certainly better than being adored," he answered, toying with
some fruits.  "Being adored is a nuisance.  Women treat us just as
humanity treats its gods.  They worship us, and are always bothering us
to do something for them."

"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to
us," murmured the lad gravely.  "They create love in our natures.  They
have a right to demand it back."

"That is quite true, Dorian," cried Hallward.

"Nothing is ever quite true," said Lord Henry.

"This is," interrupted Dorian.  "You must admit, Harry, that women give
to men the very gold of their lives."

"Possibly," he sighed, "but they invariably want it back in such very
small change.  That is the worry.  Women, as some witty Frenchman once
put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always
prevent us from carrying them out."

"Harry, you are dreadful!  I don't know why I like you so much."

"You will always like me, Dorian," he replied.  "Will you have some
coffee, you fellows?  Waiter, bring coffee, and _fine-champagne_, and
some cigarettes.  No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some.  Basil, I
can't allow you to smoke cigars.  You must have a cigarette.  A
cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.  It is exquisite,
and it leaves one unsatisfied.  What more can one want?  Yes, Dorian,
you will always be fond of me.  I represent to you all the sins you
have never had the courage to commit."

"What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from a
fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.
"Let us go down to the theatre.  When Sibyl comes on the stage you will
have a new ideal of life.  She will represent something to you that you
have never known."

"I have known everything," said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his
eyes, "but I am always ready for a new emotion.  I am afraid, however,
that, for me at any rate, there is no such thing.  Still, your
wonderful girl may thrill me.  I love acting.  It is so much more real
than life.  Let us go.  Dorian, you will come with me.  I am so sorry,
Basil, but there is only room for two in the brougham.  You must follow
us in a hansom."

They got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing.  The
painter was silent and preoccupied.  There was a gloom over him.  He
could not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better
than many other things that might have happened.  After a few minutes,
they all passed downstairs.  He drove off by himself, as had been
arranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in
front of him.  A strange sense of loss came over him.  He felt that
Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the
past.  Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the
crowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes.  When the cab drew
up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.



For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat
Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with
an oily tremulous smile.  He escorted them to their box with a sort of
pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top
of his voice.  Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever.  He felt as if
he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban.  Lord
Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him.  At least he declared he
did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he
was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone
bankrupt over a poet.  Hallward amused himself with watching the faces
in the pit.  The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight
flamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire.  The youths
in the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them
over the side.  They talked to each other across the theatre and shared
their oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them.  Some women
were laughing in the pit.  Their voices were horribly shrill and
discordant.  The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.

"What a place to find one's divinity in!" said Lord Henry.

"Yes!" answered Dorian Gray.  "It was here I found her, and she is
divine beyond all living things.  When she acts, you will forget
everything.  These common rough people, with their coarse faces and
brutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage.  They
sit silently and watch her.  They weep and laugh as she wills them to
do.  She makes them as responsive as a violin.  She spiritualizes them,
and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self."

"The same flesh and blood as one's self!  Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed
Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his
opera-glass.

"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter.  "I
understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl.  Any one you love
must be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must
be fine and noble.  To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth
doing.  If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without
one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have
been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and
lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of
all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world.  This
marriage is quite right.  I did not think so at first, but I admit it
now.  The gods made Sibyl Vane for you.  Without her you would have
been incomplete."

"Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand.  "I knew that
you would understand me.  Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me.  But
here is the orchestra.  It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for
about five minutes.  Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl
to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything
that is good in me."

A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of
applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage.  Yes, she was certainly
lovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought,
that he had ever seen.  There was something of the fawn in her shy
grace and startled eyes.  A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a
mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded
enthusiastic house.  She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed
to tremble.  Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud.
Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her.
Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, "Charming! charming!"

The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's
dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends.  The band, such
as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began.  Through
the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a
creature from a finer world.  Her body swayed, while she danced, as a
plant sways in the water.  The curves of her throat were the curves of
a white lily.  Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.

Yet she was curiously listless.  She showed no sign of joy when her
eyes rested on Romeo.  The few words she had to speak--

    Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
        Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
        And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss--

with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly
artificial manner.  The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view
of tone it was absolutely false.  It was wrong in colour.  It took away
all the life from the verse.  It made the passion unreal.

Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her.  He was puzzled and anxious.
Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him.  She seemed to
them to be absolutely incompetent.  They were horribly disappointed.

Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of
the second act.  They waited for that.  If she failed there, there was
nothing in her.

She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight.  That could not
be denied.  But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew
worse as she went on.  Her gestures became absurdly artificial.  She
overemphasized everything that she had to say.  The beautiful passage--

    Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--

was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been
taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she
leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--

        Although I joy in thee,
    I have no joy of this contract to-night:
    It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
    Ere one can say, "It lightens."  Sweet, good-night!
    This bud of love by summer's ripening breath
    May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet--

she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was
not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely
self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.

Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their
interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and
to whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the
dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was
the girl herself.

When the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord
Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat.  "She is quite
beautiful, Dorian," he said, "but she can't act.  Let us go."

"I am going to see the play through," answered the lad, in a hard
bitter voice.  "I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an
evening, Harry.  I apologize to you both."

"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill," interrupted
Hallward.  "We will come some other night."

"I wish she were ill," he rejoined.  "But she seems to me to be simply
callous and cold.  She has entirely altered.  Last night she was a
great artist.  This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre
actress."

"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian.  Love is a more
wonderful thing than art."

"They are both simply forms of imitation," remarked Lord Henry.  "But
do let us go.  Dorian, you must not stay here any longer.  It is not
good for one's morals to see bad acting.  Besides, I don't suppose you
will want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet
like a wooden doll?  She is very lovely, and if she knows as little
about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful
experience.  There are only two kinds of people who are really
fascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know
absolutely nothing.  Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic!
The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is
unbecoming.  Come to the club with Basil and myself.  We will smoke
cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane.  She is beautiful.
What more can you want?"

"Go away, Harry," cried the lad.  "I want to be alone.  Basil, you must
go.  Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?"  The hot tears came
to his eyes.  His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he
leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.

"Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his
voice, and the two young men passed out together.

A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose
on the third act.  Dorian Gray went back to his seat.  He looked pale,
and proud, and indifferent.  The play dragged on, and seemed
interminable.  Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots
and laughing.  The whole thing was a _fiasco_.  The last act was played
to almost empty benches.  The curtain went down on a titter and some
groans.

As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the
greenroom.  The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph
on her face.  Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire.  There was a
radiance about her.  Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of
their own.

When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy
came over her.  "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried.

"Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement.  "Horribly!  It
was dreadful.  Are you ill?  You have no idea what it was.  You have no
idea what I suffered."

The girl smiled.  "Dorian," she answered, lingering over his name with
long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to
the red petals of her mouth.  "Dorian, you should have understood.  But
you understand now, don't you?"

"Understand what?" he asked, angrily.

"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad.  Why I shall
never act well again."

He shrugged his shoulders.  "You are ill, I suppose.  When you are ill
you shouldn't act.  You make yourself ridiculous.  My friends were
bored.  I was bored."

She seemed not to listen to him.  She was transfigured with joy.  An
ecstasy of happiness dominated her.

"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one
reality of my life.  It was only in the theatre that I lived.  I
thought that it was all true.  I was Rosalind one night and Portia the
other.  The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia
were mine also.  I believed in everything.  The common people who acted
with me seemed to me to be godlike.  The painted scenes were my world.
I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real.  You came--oh, my
beautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison.  You taught me what
reality really is.  To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw
through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in
which I had always played.  To-night, for the first time, I became
conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the
moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and
that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not
what I wanted to say.  You had brought me something higher, something
of which all art is but a reflection.  You had made me understand what
love really is.  My love!  My love!  Prince Charming!  Prince of life!
I have grown sick of shadows.  You are more to me than all art can ever
be.  What have I to do with the puppets of a play?  When I came on
to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone
from me.  I thought that I was going to be wonderful.  I found that I
could do nothing.  Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.
The knowledge was exquisite to me.  I heard them hissing, and I smiled.
What could they know of love such as ours?  Take me away, Dorian--take
me away with you, where we can be quite alone.  I hate the stage.  I
might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that
burns me like fire.  Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it
signifies?  Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to
play at being in love.  You have made me see that."

He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face.  "You have
killed my love," he muttered.

She looked at him in wonder and laughed.  He made no answer.  She came
across to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair.  She knelt
down and pressed his hands to her lips.  He drew them away, and a
shudder ran through him.

Then he leaped up and went to the door.  "Yes," he cried, "you have
killed my love.  You used to stir my imagination.  Now you don't even
stir my curiosity.  You simply produce no effect.  I loved you because
you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you
realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the
shadows of art.  You have thrown it all away.  You are shallow and
stupid.  My God! how mad I was to love you!  What a fool I have been!
You are nothing to me now.  I will never see you again.  I will never
think of you.  I will never mention your name.  You don't know what you
were to me, once.  Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it!  I
wish I had never laid eyes upon you!  You have spoiled the romance of
my life.  How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!
Without your art, you are nothing.  I would have made you famous,
splendid, magnificent.  The world would have worshipped you, and you
would have borne my name.  What are you now?  A third-rate actress with
a pretty face."

The girl grew white, and trembled.  She clenched her hands together,
and her voice seemed to catch in her throat.  "You are not serious,
Dorian?" she murmured.  "You are acting."

"Acting!  I leave that to you.  You do it so well," he answered
bitterly.

She rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her
face, came across the room to him.  She put her hand upon his arm and
looked into his eyes.  He thrust her back.  "Don't touch me!" he cried.

A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay
there like a trampled flower.  "Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!" she
whispered.  "I am so sorry I didn't act well.  I was thinking of you
all the time.  But I will try--indeed, I will try.  It came so suddenly
across me, my love for you.  I think I should never have known it if
you had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other.  Kiss me again,
my love.  Don't go away from me.  I couldn't bear it.  Oh! don't go
away from me.  My brother ... No; never mind.  He didn't mean it.  He
was in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will
work so hard and try to improve.  Don't be cruel to me, because I love
you better than anything in the world.  After all, it is only once that
I have not pleased you.  But you are quite right, Dorian.  I should
have shown myself more of an artist.  It was foolish of me, and yet I
couldn't help it.  Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me." A fit of
passionate sobbing choked her.  She crouched on the floor like a
wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at
her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain.  There is
always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has
ceased to love.  Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.
Her tears and sobs annoyed him.

"I am going," he said at last in his calm clear voice.  "I don't wish
to be unkind, but I can't see you again.  You have disappointed me."

She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer.  Her little
hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him.  He
turned on his heel and left the room.  In a few moments he was out of
the theatre.

Where he went to he hardly knew.  He remembered wandering through dimly
lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking
houses.  Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after
him.  Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves
like monstrous apes.  He had seen grotesque children huddled upon
door-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.

As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.
The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed
itself into a perfect pearl.  Huge carts filled with nodding lilies
rumbled slowly down the polished empty street.  The air was heavy with
the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an
anodyne for his pain.  He followed into the market and watched the men
unloading their waggons.  A white-smocked carter offered him some
cherries.  He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money
for them, and began to eat them listlessly.  They had been plucked at
midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.  A long
line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red
roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge,
jade-green piles of vegetables.  Under the portico, with its grey,
sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls,
waiting for the auction to be over.  Others crowded round the swinging
doors of the coffee-house in the piazza.  The heavy cart-horses slipped
and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.
Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks.  Iris-necked
and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.

After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home.  For a few
moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent
square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds.
The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like
silver against it.  From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke
was rising.  It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.

In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that
hung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance,
lights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals
of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire.  He turned them out and,
having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library
towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the
ground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had
decorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries
that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal.  As
he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait
Basil Hallward had painted of him.  He started back as if in surprise.
Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled.  After he
had taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.
Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it.  In
the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk
blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed.  The
expression looked different.  One would have said that there was a
touch of cruelty in the mouth.  It was certainly strange.

He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind.  The
bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky
corners, where they lay shuddering.  But the strange expression that he
had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be
more intensified even.  The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the
lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking
into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.

He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory
Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly
into its polished depths.  No line like that warped his red lips.  What
did it mean?

He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it
again.  There were no signs of any change when he looked into the
actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression
had altered.  It was not a mere fancy of his own.  The thing was
horribly apparent.

He threw himself into a chair and began to think.  Suddenly there
flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the
day the picture had been finished.  Yes, he remembered it perfectly.
He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the
portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the
face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that
the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and
thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness
of his then just conscious boyhood.  Surely his wish had not been
fulfilled?  Such things were impossible.  It seemed monstrous even to
think of them.  And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the
touch of cruelty in the mouth.

Cruelty!  Had he been cruel?  It was the girl's fault, not his.  He had
dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he
had thought her great.  Then she had disappointed him.  She had been
shallow and unworthy.  And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over
him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little
child.  He remembered with what callousness he had watched her.  Why
had he been made like that?  Why had such a soul been given to him?
But he had suffered also.  During the three terrible hours that the
play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of
torture.  His life was well worth hers.  She had marred him for a
moment, if he had wounded her for an age.  Besides, women were better
suited to bear sorrow than men.  They lived on their emotions.  They
only thought of their emotions.  When they took lovers, it was merely
to have some one with whom they could have scenes.  Lord Henry had told
him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.  Why should he trouble
about Sibyl Vane?  She was nothing to him now.

But the picture?  What was he to say of that?  It held the secret of
his life, and told his story.  It had taught him to love his own
beauty.  Would it teach him to loathe his own soul?  Would he ever look
at it again?

No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses.  The
horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.
Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that
makes men mad.  The picture had not changed.  It was folly to think so.

Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel
smile.  Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight.  Its blue eyes
met his own.  A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the
painted image of himself, came over him.  It had altered already, and
would alter more.  Its gold would wither into grey.  Its red and white
roses would die.  For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck
and wreck its fairness.  But he would not sin.  The picture, changed or
unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.  He would
resist temptation.  He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at
any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil
Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for
impossible things.  He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends,
marry her, try to love her again.  Yes, it was his duty to do so.  She
must have suffered more than he had.  Poor child!  He had been selfish
and cruel to her.  The fascination that she had exercised over him
would return.  They would be happy together.  His life with her would
be beautiful and pure.

He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the
portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it.  "How horrible!" he murmured
to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it.  When he
stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath.  The fresh morning
air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions.  He thought only of
Sibyl.  A faint echo of his love came back to him.  He repeated her
name over and over again.  The birds that were singing in the
dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.



Chapters 6 & 7
Lord Henry and Basil Hallward discuss Dorian's engagement at the painter's house. They are planning to dine with Dorian before going to see Sibyl's performance that night. Basil can't believe that Dorian is really engaged, saying that Dorian "is far too sensible" to make such a rash decision. To this, Henry replies that "Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then." Basil is taken aback by Henry's detached, artistic fascination with Dorian's life. The artist disapproves of Dorian's actions, and is worried about the boy's emotional health; Henry, however, is delighted, knowing that whatever the outcome is, it will be greatly entertaining. Dorian arrives, insisting that he be congratulated. Basil says that was hurt to hear about the engagement from Henry, and not from Dorian himself. Henry quickly changes the subject. Dorian wants Basil to approve of his actions, saying "I have been right, Basil, haven't I, to take my love out of poetry, and to find my wife in Shakespeare's plays?" Basil reluctantly agrees with Dorian. When Henry cynically remarks about the business-like nature of marriage, Basil objects, saying that Dorian "is not like other men. He would never bring misery upon anyone. His nature is too fine for that." Henry continues to philosophize about the nature of women and how they act when in love. To him, "Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and are always bothering us to do something for them." Dorian is sure that Sibyl's acting will put an end to Henry's cynicism and reconcile all disagreements between the three men. When they see her perform, they will be too overwhelmed by her beauty to consider anything else. The three men leave to see the play, Romeo and Juliet. The theater is surprisingly crowded that night. Once seated in their box, Lord Henry observes the obnoxious, unrefined behavior of the lower-class theatergoers. Basil comforts Dorian against Henry's cynicism. The play begins, and they all note that the orchestra is terrible. Finally, Sibyl appears on stage. She looks beautiful, but acts terribly. Her voice is exquisite, but "from the point of view of tone" is "absolutely false." Dorian is horrified and confused. The other two men are disappointed, but are too polite to make any remarks. Her performance, usually the one saving grace in the theater's otherwise dreadful productions, only gets worse as the play progresses. After the second act, the audience hisses, and Dorian's guests stand to leave. Basil tries to comfort the boy, saying that Sibyl must be ill, and that he shouldn't be upset, since "Love is a more wonderful thing than art" anyway, to which Henry replies that "They are both simply forms of imitation". Dorian is inconsolable. Henry tells him to cheer up, since "the secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming." The two men leave, and Dorian forces himself to suffer through the rest of the performance. Afterwards, he rushes backstage to confront Sibyl. She is delighted to see him and surprised at his anger, since she had assumed that he would know the reason for her terrible performance. When he demands to be told why she performed badly, she tells him that having met him, she can no longer believe in the theater. Before Dorian, she says, "acting was the one reality of my life," and now he has "freed my soul from prison" and "taught me what reality really is." Having experienced true love, she says, "it would be profanation for me to play at being in love." Dorian is horrified, disgusted, and completely unable to love her anymore. She can't believe it, and when he pulls away from her touch, she falls to the floor, groveling at his feet. Dorian feels repulsion rather than empathy, and leaves her sobbing on the floor. Strangely numb and unable to come to terms with Sibyl's lost talent or his unexpected callousness towards her, Dorian aimlessly wanders the city until dawn. He returns home, where he happens to glance at Basil's portrait, and is puzzled to find that the facial expression is slightly different: there seems to be "a touch of cruelty in the mouth." He rubs his eyes and changes the lighting, but is certain that the picture has changed. The cruelty in the expression reminds him of his cruelty to Sibyl, but he feels wronged for the misery that she has caused him with her bad acting, and consoles himself by thinking that "women were better suited to bear sorrow than men...When they took lovers, it was merely to have someone with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were." Unable to make any sense of the picture's transformation, he realizes, after much pondering, that "It held the secret of his life, and told his story...changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience." Exhausted, he covers the portrait with a screen, and goes to sleep.
Dorian's relationship with Sibyl is the first major casualty of the devotion to sensual pleasure inspired by Lord Henry.  Valuing artistic beauty above all else allows Dorian to confuse his love for Sibyl's acting with a love for Sibyl herself.  She seems to be the perfect wife, because Dorian believes that she can offer him all of Shakespeare's heroines in a single body.  Indeed, Dorian remarks to Basil that he has "had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth."  Dorian's love is a means of escaping reality; therefore, Sibyl's awareness of "what reality really is" is unacceptable. His resulting cruelty towards her is the first undeniable mark of the corruption of Dorian's character, and therefore causes the first visible change in his portrait.  He considers the aesthetic pain caused by her poor acting to be on par with Sibyl's emotional devastation at his rejection.  This belief is rooted in the sentiment expressed by Lord Henry before the trio leaves for the play, when he says "I love acting.  It is so much more real than life."  This statement is a clear indication of Henry's continuing influence on Dorian. We are also reminded of the statement in the preface that "Those who go beneath the surface  do so at their peril."  Dorian is not prepared to see the person beneath the surface of Sibyl's acting.  The preface also states that "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."  Dorian saw himself reflected in Sibyl's acting, because it was artful, but once her acting is revealed as artless, he can no longer see himself in it, and his feelings for her disappear.  What he thought was love for Sibyl is really a form of vanity; the pain of enduring her poor performance is actually the pain of not seeing his own reflection. In Chapter 7, Dorian undergoes several dramatic changes of character: he transforms from a devoted lover, to a bitter art critic, to a cruel betrayer, and seemingly back to a devoted lover.  This final change is, however, superficial.  He decides to do the honorable thing and marry Sibyl, but only when faced with the possibility of watching the beautiful image in the portrait succumb to degradation.  The corruption of Dorian's soul has begun in earnest, as reflected by the first visible change in the portrait. Interestingly, this chapter marks a turning point in the narrative: the focus switches from Lord Henry to Dorian.  Now that Henry's influence has begun to show its effects, the narrative no longer appears as concerned with Lord Henry himself.  At this point, the story begins to focus solely on Dorian as a corrupt figure.  At the end of the chapter, as Dorian feebly resolves to spend less time with Lord Henry and to marry Sibyl, he is acting more out of vanity than out of love or a true sense of morality; a fact that will be revealed when the portrait fails to change for the better. This is not the last time Dorian will fail to recognize the vanity that lies behind his decisions.