When his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if
he had thought of peering behind the screen.  The man was quite
impassive and waited for his orders.  Dorian lit a cigarette and walked
over to the glass and glanced into it.  He could see the reflection of
Victor's face perfectly.  It was like a placid mask of servility.
There was nothing to be afraid of, there.  Yet he thought it best to be
on his guard.

Speaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he
wanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to
send two of his men round at once.  It seemed to him that as the man
left the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen.  Or was
that merely his own fancy?

After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread
mittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library.  He
asked her for the key of the schoolroom.

"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?" she exclaimed.  "Why, it is full of
dust.  I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it.
It is not fit for you to see, sir.  It is not, indeed."

"I don't want it put straight, Leaf.  I only want the key."

"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it.  Why, it
hasn't been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died."

He winced at the mention of his grandfather.  He had hateful memories
of him.  "That does not matter," he answered.  "I simply want to see
the place--that is all.  Give me the key."

"And here is the key, sir," said the old lady, going over the contents
of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands.  "Here is the key.  I'll
have it off the bunch in a moment.  But you don't think of living up
there, sir, and you so comfortable here?"

"No, no," he cried petulantly.  "Thank you, Leaf.  That will do."

She lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of
the household.  He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought
best.  She left the room, wreathed in smiles.

As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round
the room.  His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily
embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century
Venetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.
Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in.  It had perhaps
served often as a pall for the dead.  Now it was to hide something that
had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death
itself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die.
What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image
on the canvas.  They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace.  They
would defile it and make it shameful.  And yet the thing would still
live on.  It would be always alive.

He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil
the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away.  Basil
would have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still
more poisonous influences that came from his own temperament.  The love
that he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was
not noble and intellectual.  It was not that mere physical admiration
of beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses
tire.  It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and
Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.  Yes, Basil could have saved him.
But it was too late now.  The past could always be annihilated.
Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that.  But the future was
inevitable.  There were passions in him that would find their terrible
outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real.

He took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that
covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen.
Was the face on the canvas viler than before?  It seemed to him that it
was unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified.  Gold hair,
blue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there.  It was simply the
expression that had altered.  That was horrible in its cruelty.
Compared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's
reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--how shallow, and of what little
account!  His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and
calling him to judgement.  A look of pain came across him, and he flung
the rich pall over the picture.  As he did so, a knock came to the
door.  He passed out as his servant entered.

"The persons are here, Monsieur."

He felt that the man must be got rid of at once.  He must not be
allowed to know where the picture was being taken to.  There was
something sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes.
Sitting down at the writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry,
asking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that
they were to meet at eight-fifteen that evening.

"Wait for an answer," he said, handing it to him, "and show the men in
here."

In two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard
himself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in
with a somewhat rough-looking young assistant.  Mr. Hubbard was a
florid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was
considerably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the
artists who dealt with him.  As a rule, he never left his shop.  He
waited for people to come to him.  But he always made an exception in
favour of Dorian Gray.  There was something about Dorian that charmed
everybody.  It was a pleasure even to see him.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?" he said, rubbing his fat freckled
hands.  "I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in
person.  I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir.  Picked it up at a
sale.  Old Florentine.  Came from Fonthill, I believe.  Admirably
suited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray."

"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr.
Hubbard.  I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame--though I
don't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day I only want a
picture carried to the top of the house for me.  It is rather heavy, so
I thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men."

"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray.  I am delighted to be of any service to
you.  Which is the work of art, sir?"

"This," replied Dorian, moving the screen back.  "Can you move it,
covering and all, just as it is?  I don't want it to get scratched
going upstairs."

"There will be no difficulty, sir," said the genial frame-maker,
beginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from
the long brass chains by which it was suspended.  "And, now, where
shall we carry it to, Mr. Gray?"

"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me.
Or perhaps you had better go in front.  I am afraid it is right at the
top of the house.  We will go up by the front staircase, as it is
wider."

He held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and
began the ascent.  The elaborate character of the frame had made the
picture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious
protests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike
of seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it
so as to help them.

"Something of a load to carry, sir," gasped the little man when they
reached the top landing.  And he wiped his shiny forehead.

"I am afraid it is rather heavy," murmured Dorian as he unlocked the
door that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious
secret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men.

He had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed,
since he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then
as a study when he grew somewhat older.  It was a large,
well-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord
Kelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness
to his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and
desired to keep at a distance.  It appeared to Dorian to have but
little changed.  There was the huge Italian _cassone_, with its
fantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which
he had so often hidden himself as a boy.  There the satinwood book-case
filled with his dog-eared schoolbooks.  On the wall behind it was
hanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen
were playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by,
carrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists.  How well he
remembered it all!  Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to
him as he looked round.  He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish
life, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait
was to be hidden away.  How little he had thought, in those dead days,
of all that was in store for him!

But there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as
this.  He had the key, and no one else could enter it.  Beneath its
purple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden,
and unclean.  What did it matter?  No one could see it.  He himself
would not see it.  Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his
soul?  He kept his youth--that was enough.  And, besides, might not
his nature grow finer, after all?  There was no reason that the future
should be so full of shame.  Some love might come across his life, and
purify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already
stirring in spirit and in flesh--those curious unpictured sins whose
very mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm.  Perhaps, some
day, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive
mouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece.

No; that was impossible.  Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing
upon the canvas was growing old.  It might escape the hideousness of
sin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it.  The cheeks would
become hollow or flaccid.  Yellow crow's feet would creep round the
fading eyes and make them horrible.  The hair would lose its
brightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross,
as the mouths of old men are.  There would be the wrinkled throat, the
cold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the
grandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood.  The picture
had to be concealed.  There was no help for it.

"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please," he said, wearily, turning round.
"I am sorry I kept you so long.  I was thinking of something else."

"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray," answered the frame-maker, who
was still gasping for breath.  "Where shall we put it, sir?"

"Oh, anywhere.  Here:  this will do.  I don't want to have it hung up.
Just lean it against the wall.  Thanks."

"Might one look at the work of art, sir?"

Dorian started.  "It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard," he said,
keeping his eye on the man.  He felt ready to leap upon him and fling
him to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that
concealed the secret of his life.  "I shan't trouble you any more now.
I am much obliged for your kindness in coming round."

"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray.  Ever ready to do anything for you,
sir." And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant,
who glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough
uncomely face.  He had never seen any one so marvellous.

When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door
and put the key in his pocket.  He felt safe now.  No one would ever
look upon the horrible thing.  No eye but his would ever see his shame.

On reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock
and that the tea had been already brought up.  On a little table of
dark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady
Radley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had
spent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry,
and beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn
and the edges soiled.  A copy of the third edition of _The St. James's
Gazette_ had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had
returned.  He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were
leaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing.
He would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed it already,
while he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set
back, and a blank space was visible on the wall.  Perhaps some night he
might find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the
room.  It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house.  He had
heard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some
servant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked
up a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower
or a shred of crumpled lace.

He sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's
note.  It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper,
and a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at
eight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James's_ languidly, and looked through
it.  A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye.  It drew
attention to the following paragraph:

INQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell
Tavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of
Sibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre,
Holborn.  A verdict of death by misadventure was returned.
Considerable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who
was greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of
Dr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased.

He frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and
flung the pieces away.  How ugly it all was!  And how horribly real
ugliness made things!  He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for
having sent him the report.  And it was certainly stupid of him to have
marked it with red pencil.  Victor might have read it.  The man knew
more than enough English for that.

Perhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something.  And, yet,
what did it matter?  What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's
death?  There was nothing to fear.  Dorian Gray had not killed her.

His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him.  What was
it, he wondered.  He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal
stand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange
Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung
himself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves.  After a
few minutes he became absorbed.  It was the strangest book that he had
ever read.  It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the
delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb
show before him.  Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly
made real to him.  Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually
revealed.

It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being,
indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who
spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the
passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his
own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through
which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere
artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue,
as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.  The
style in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid
and obscure at once, full of _argot_ and of archaisms, of technical
expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work
of some of the finest artists of the French school of _Symbolistes_.
There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in
colour.  The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical
philosophy.  One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the
spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions
of a modern sinner.  It was a poisonous book.  The heavy odour of
incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain.  The
mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so
full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated,
produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter,
a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of
the falling day and creeping shadows.

Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed
through the windows.  He read on by its wan light till he could read no
more.  Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the
lateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed
the book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his
bedside and began to dress for dinner.

It was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found
Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.

"I am so sorry, Harry," he cried, "but really it is entirely your
fault.  That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the
time was going."

"Yes, I thought you would like it," replied his host, rising from his
chair.

"I didn't say I liked it, Harry.  I said it fascinated me.  There is a
great difference."

"Ah, you have discovered that?" murmured Lord Henry.  And they passed
into the dining-room.

Dorian decides to hide the portrait in his house's old schoolroom. He calls for the key, and wraps up the dreadful portrait with an ornate, funereal coverlet. While Dorian is taking care of business, he wonders why he didn't tell Basil the truth about the painting; he knows that Basil could have helped him resist Lord Henry's malignant influence, but decides that it's too late. Dorian looks at the canvas one more time before sending it away--it looks more hateful than before to him. Dorian's servant almost walks in on him contemplating the incriminating portrait, and he hastily writes a note to Henry, asking him for something new to read, and reminding him that they have a date later. He sends the servant to deliver the note. In a moment, Mr. Hubbard, a famous frame-maker, arrives with his helper. He tries to sell Dorian a new frame, but Dorian cuts him off brusquely, saying that he just wants a heavy picture moved to another room today. Mr. Hubbard and his assistant move the picture to the schoolroom for Dorian. The schoolroom has been empty ever since Dorian grew up; nobody's been in it for four years. The room, where he spend much of his childhood, away from his unloving grandfather, reminds Dorian of his innocent youth, and it occurs to him that it might be wrong to keep the proof of his corrupt soul there. However, there's nowhere else that's safe to keep it. Dorian has a brief moment of regret --maybe he can salvage the portrait by being a better person? He ignores this impulse, realizing that the portrait will grow old anyway. He locks it in the schoolroom and rushes Mr. Hubbard out. When Dorian returns to the library, he finds that Lord Henry has complied and sent him a rather worn book. It's covered with yellow paper, and looks well-read. Along with it, Henry has sent a short note and a newspaper, in which he's circled a brief paragraph about Sibyl Vane. To distract himself from this unpleasant item, Dorian starts to read Lord Henry's yellow book. It completely absorbs him--it's beautiful and "poisonous," and he can't stop reading it. Dorian loses track of time, and is late for his meeting with Lord Henry. When he gets there, he apologizes, saying that he was wrapped up in the book, which fascinates him--however, he can't say that he exactly likes it.

For most of this chapter, Dorian is concerned with moving the portrait to an attic room where it will be safely hidden. He calls for Victor, his servant, who enters the room. It occurs to Dorian that the servant has had access to the portrait and may have looked behind the screen. He tells Victor to summon the housekeeper, Mrs. Leaf, and then to go to Mr. Hubbard, the frame maker, and ask him to send over two of his men. From Mrs. Leaf, Dorian wants the key to his old schoolroom, a spacious attic area. Mrs. Leaf wants to clean the schoolroom before Dorian sees it; Dorian finally secures the key and sends Mrs. Leaf away. Dorian locates a piece of richly-colored fabric with which to cover the portrait. Ironically, the fabric previously had been used to cover coffins, and Dorian contemplates that it will now conceal the death and degeneration of the portrait. For a moment, he wonders if he should have confessed his secret to Basil after all and asked his assistance in escaping Lord Henry's influence. He realizes that Basil could have saved him from the sins he will surely commit, but he decides that it is "too late now." The future looks inevitably bleak to Dorian. Dorian covers it just before Victor returns with the movers. Dorian is suspicious of Victor, worried that he may discover the secret of the portrait and blackmail him. He sends the servant on another errand to get him out of the house, carrying a note to Lord Henry requesting reading material and reminding his mentor of dinner plans that evening. Mr. Hubbard arrives with a rugged-looking assistant, and the two men carry the painting up the stairs to the schoolroom. When Dorian reaches the attic, he is flooded with childhood memories and regrets having to leave the portrait there to decay. However, the attic is the most secure and private place for it because Dorian has the only key to the room. He briefly considers that his nature might improve and that the evil already lurking in his soul may pass. Even so, the portrait will age, and Dorian hates the hideousness of growing old. He continues with his plans to conceal the portrait. After the movers leave, Dorian locks the door to the schoolroom and goes down to the library. Victor has already returned, leaving Dorian's tea and, from Lord Henry, a note, a well-worn book bound in yellow paper, and a newspaper. In the newspaper, Lord Henry has marked an article regarding the inquest into the death of Sibyl Vane. Dorian finds the article about Sibyl's death horribly ugly, and he frets that ugliness makes things seem too real. He is annoyed with Lord Henry for marking the article, which Victor may have noticed. Still, he reasons that he shouldn't worry about Victor reading the article because he did not kill the girl. Dorian finds the book more interesting. He begins reading, and in a short time he is engrossed by it. The book tells a story in which the sins of the world seem to be passing in review before him. Fascinated by this novel with no plot and only one character, he reads until Victor reminds him of his appointment with Lord Henry. Finally, Dorian dresses for dinner. When Dorian meets Lord Henry at the club, Lord Henry seems quietly pleased -- and not at all surprised -- that Dorian should like the book that he sent to him.

Throughout the first half of this chapter, Dorian is fraught with paranoia and fear that Victor will discover the secret of the portrait. Continuing the theme that was established in the preceding chapter, Dorian isn't enjoying the life he has chosen -- even though he craves it more than anything. Instead of a life of glorious exploration and passion, he spends his time scheming and worrying. Dorian seals his commitment to a life of vanity and debauchery when he hides and locks the portrait in the attic schoolroom. He rationalizes that he might, in fact, become more virtuous and reverse the moral decay reflected in the picture, but even he seems to know that will never happen. He seems to be thoroughly infected with the cynicism that Lord Henry has shown throughout the book; Dorian has been a good student of his mentor. It is enough for Dorian that he would wither and age without the portrait. He cannot and will not destroy the picture or attempt to negate the Faustian contract, if only because of his obsession with youthful beauty. The first ten chapters of the novel cover a time span of about a month after Dorian and Lord Henry meet. In that time, Lord Henry's influence increases, and Dorian changes significantly. As Basil points out, Dorian is not the innocent, well-meaning young man who first posed for him. With Lord Henry's encouragement, Dorian has become self-absorbed and cruel. At first, Dorian may not have been aware of the seriousness of his wish to remain youthful while the portrait aged. By the time that he hides the portrait in the attic, however, he has every reason to know the consequences. He knows that the pact will "breed horrors and yet will never die." In this chapter, Dorian seems resigned to his fate. As in the Faust legends, the central character seems to feel beyond hope. According to the Faust legend, he could save himself if he would only repent and seek absolution. Dorian does consider turning to Basil, confessing, and seeking a more enlightened path. His ultimate decision, however, is not just based on despair. True to the Faust legend, he truly craves the benefits of the bargain. Having chosen, Dorian immediately falls under the power of the "yellow book" sent by Lord Henry. It is well-worn, and the reader can assume that Lord Henry knows its contents and anticipates its effect on Dorian. Dorian is enthralled by the story and immediately adopts it as a blueprint for his life. Note that Wilde ironically chooses a book to provide the guidelines for Dorian's life of debauchery. Wilde's devotion, even obsession, to his art is indicated by an incident regarding Chapter 10. Although Wilde affected the airs of a dilettante, he was industrious and productive. After submitting The Picture of Dorian Gray for proofreading, he went to France for a much-deserved break. His editors received a startling telegram from Paris: "Stop all proofs. Wilde." The author returned in person to change the name of one character. The picture framer in the tenth chapter originally was named "Ashton." Wilde had decided that "Ashton is a gentleman's name." He changed it to "Hubbard," which he felt was more fitting for a tradesman. Glossary placid calm, peaceful. garrulous habitually talkative. Bologna a city in northern Italy. pall a cover for a coffin. Michelangelo Michelangelo Buonarroti , Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and poet. Montaigne Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , French author. Winckelmann Johann Joachim Winckelmann , German philosopher, archaeologist, and art historian. annihilated completely destroyed. inveterate firmly established by long standing; deep-rooted. impecuniosity poverty. genial having a friendly, pleasant disposition.  obsequious here, complacently complying. flaccid lacking firmness; lacking energy. death by misadventure The phrase does not specify suicide but implies some degree of fault or responsibility. argot specialized language used by a particular group. Symbolistes French, meaning "Symbolists." The term refers to the literary and artistic movement begun by French poets in the nineteenth century that spread throughout Europe and America, influencing painting and drama; closely associated with Aestheticism, it advocated individual freedom even in themes of decay, ruin, and the bizarre. wan unnaturally pale; weary; ill.

Once Basil is gone, Dorian orders his servant, Victor, to go to a nearby frame-maker and bring back two men. He then calls his housekeeper, Mrs. Leaf, whom he asks for the key to the schoolroom, which sits at the top of the house and has been unused for nearly five years. Dorian covers the portrait with an ornate satin coverlet, reflecting that the sins he commits will mar its beauty just as worms mar the body of a corpse. The men from the frame-maker's arrive, and Dorian employs them to carry the painting to the schoolroom. Here, Dorian muses, the painting will be safe from prying eyes, and if no one can actually see his deterioration, then it bears no importance. After locking the room, he returns to his study and settles down to read a book that Lord Henry has sent him. This yellow book is accompanied by a newspaper account of Sibyl's death. Horrified by the ugliness of the report, Dorian turns to the book, which traces the life of a young Parisian who devotes his life to "all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own. After reading a few pages, Dorian becomes entranced. He finds the work to be "a poisonous book," one that confuses the boundaries between vice and virtue. When Dorian meets Lord Henry for dinner later that evening, he pronounces the work fascinating. Is insincerity such a terrible thing. I think not. It is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities


It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth
birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.

He was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he
had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold
and foggy.  At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street,
a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of
his grey ulster turned up.  He had a bag in his hand.  Dorian
recognized him.  It was Basil Hallward.  A strange sense of fear, for
which he could not account, came over him.  He made no sign of
recognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.

But Hallward had seen him.  Dorian heard him first stopping on the
pavement and then hurrying after him.  In a few moments, his hand was
on his arm.

"Dorian!  What an extraordinary piece of luck!  I have been waiting for
you in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on
your tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out.  I am
off to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see
you before I left.  I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as
you passed me.  But I wasn't quite sure.  Didn't you recognize me?"

"In this fog, my dear Basil?  Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor
Square.  I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel
at all certain about it.  I am sorry you are going away, as I have not
seen you for ages.  But I suppose you will be back soon?"

"No:  I am going to be out of England for six months.  I intend to take
a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great
picture I have in my head.  However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to
talk.  Here we are at your door.  Let me come in for a moment.  I have
something to say to you."

"I shall be charmed.  But won't you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray
languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his
latch-key.

The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his
watch.  "I have heaps of time," he answered.  "The train doesn't go
till twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven.  In fact, I was on my
way to the club to look for you, when I met you.  You see, I shan't
have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things.  All I
have with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty
minutes."

Dorian looked at him and smiled.  "What a way for a fashionable painter
to travel!  A Gladstone bag and an ulster!  Come in, or the fog will
get into the house.  And mind you don't talk about anything serious.
Nothing is serious nowadays.  At least nothing should be."

Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the
library.  There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open
hearth.  The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case
stood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on
a little marqueterie table.

"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian.  He gave me
everything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes.  He is
a most hospitable creature.  I like him much better than the Frenchman
you used to have.  What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?"

Dorian shrugged his shoulders.  "I believe he married Lady Radley's
maid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker.
Anglomania is very fashionable over there now, I hear.  It seems silly
of the French, doesn't it?  But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad
servant.  I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about.  One
often imagines things that are quite absurd.  He was really very
devoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away.  Have another
brandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take
hock-and-seltzer myself.  There is sure to be some in the next room."

"Thanks, I won't have anything more," said the painter, taking his cap
and coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the
corner.  "And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously.
Don't frown like that.  You make it so much more difficult for me."

"What is it all about?" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging
himself down on the sofa.  "I hope it is not about myself.  I am tired
of myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else."

"It is about yourself," answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, "and
I must say it to you.  I shall only keep you half an hour."

Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette.  "Half an hour!" he murmured.

"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own
sake that I am speaking.  I think it right that you should know that
the most dreadful things are being said against you in London."

"I don't wish to know anything about them.  I love scandals about other
people, but scandals about myself don't interest me.  They have not got
the charm of novelty."

"They must interest you, Dorian.  Every gentleman is interested in his
good name.  You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and
degraded.  Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all
that kind of thing.  But position and wealth are not everything.  Mind
you, I don't believe these rumours at all.  At least, I can't believe
them when I see you.  Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's
face.  It cannot be concealed.  People talk sometimes of secret vices.
There are no such things.  If a wretched man has a vice, it shows
itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the
moulding of his hands even.  Somebody--I won't mention his name, but
you know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done.  I had
never seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the
time, though I have heard a good deal since.  He offered an extravagant
price.  I refused him.  There was something in the shape of his fingers
that I hated.  I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied
about him.  His life is dreadful.  But you, Dorian, with your pure,
bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth--I can't
believe anything against you.  And yet I see you very seldom, and you
never come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I
hear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I
don't know what to say.  Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of
Berwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it?  Why is it that so
many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to
theirs?  You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley.  I met him at dinner
last week.  Your name happened to come up in conversation, in
connection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the
Dudley.  Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most
artistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl
should be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the
same room with.  I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked
him what he meant.  He told me.  He told me right out before everybody.
It was horrible!  Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?  There
was that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide.  You were
his great friend.  There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England
with a tarnished name.  You and he were inseparable.  What about Adrian
Singleton and his dreadful end?  What about Lord Kent's only son and
his career?  I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street.  He
seemed broken with shame and sorrow.  What about the young Duke of
Perth?  What sort of life has he got now?  What gentleman would
associate with him?"

"Stop, Basil.  You are talking about things of which you know nothing,"
said Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt
in his voice.  "You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it.
It is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows
anything about mine.  With such blood as he has in his veins, how could
his record be clean?  You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth.
Did I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery?  If Kent's
silly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me?  If
Adrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his
keeper?  I know how people chatter in England.  The middle classes air
their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper
about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try
and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with
the people they slander.  In this country, it is enough for a man to
have distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him.
And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead
themselves?  My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land
of the hypocrite."

"Dorian," cried Hallward, "that is not the question.  England is bad
enough I know, and English society is all wrong.  That is the reason
why I want you to be fine.  You have not been fine.  One has a right to
judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends.  Yours seem to
lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity.  You have filled them
with a madness for pleasure.  They have gone down into the depths.  You
led them there.  Yes:  you led them there, and yet you can smile, as
you are smiling now.  And there is worse behind.  I know you and Harry
are inseparable.  Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should
not have made his sister's name a by-word."

"Take care, Basil.  You go too far."

"I must speak, and you must listen.  You shall listen.  When you met
Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her.  Is there
a single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the
park?  Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her.  Then
there are other stories--stories that you have been seen creeping at
dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest
dens in London.  Are they true?  Can they be true?  When I first heard
them, I laughed.  I hear them now, and they make me shudder.  What
about your country-house and the life that is led there?  Dorian, you
don't know what is said about you.  I won't tell you that I don't want
to preach to you.  I remember Harry saying once that every man who
turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by
saying that, and then proceeded to break his word.  I do want to preach
to you.  I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect
you.  I want you to have a clean name and a fair record.  I want you to
get rid of the dreadful people you associate with.  Don't shrug your
shoulders like that.  Don't be so indifferent.  You have a wonderful
influence.  Let it be for good, not for evil.  They say that you
corrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite
sufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow
after.  I don't know whether it is so or not.  How should I know?  But
it is said of you.  I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt.
Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford.  He showed me
a letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in
her villa at Mentone.  Your name was implicated in the most terrible
confession I ever read.  I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you
thoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind.  Know
you?  I wonder do I know you?  Before I could answer that, I should
have to see your soul."

"To see my soul!" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and
turning almost white from fear.

"Yes," answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his
voice, "to see your soul.  But only God can do that."

A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man.  "You
shall see it yourself, to-night!" he cried, seizing a lamp from the
table.  "Come:  it is your own handiwork.  Why shouldn't you look at
it?  You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose.
Nobody would believe you.  If they did believe you, they would like me
all the better for it.  I know the age better than you do, though you
will prate about it so tediously.  Come, I tell you.  You have
chattered enough about corruption.  Now you shall look on it face to
face."

There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered.  He stamped
his foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner.  He felt a
terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret,
and that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of
all his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the
hideous memory of what he had done.

"Yes," he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into
his stern eyes, "I shall show you my soul.  You shall see the thing
that you fancy only God can see."

Hallward started back.  "This is blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried.  "You
must not say things like that.  They are horrible, and they don't mean
anything."

"You think so?"  He laughed again.

"I know so.  As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your
good.  You know I have been always a stanch friend to you."

"Don't touch me.  Finish what you have to say."

A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face.  He paused for
a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him.  After all, what
right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray?  If he had done a
tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered!
Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and
stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and
their throbbing cores of flame.

"I am waiting, Basil," said the young man in a hard clear voice.

He turned round.  "What I have to say is this," he cried.  "You must
give me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against
you.  If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to
end, I shall believe you.  Deny them, Dorian, deny them!  Can't you see
what I am going through?  My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and
corrupt, and shameful."

Dorian Gray smiled.  There was a curl of contempt in his lips.  "Come
upstairs, Basil," he said quietly.  "I keep a diary of my life from day
to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written.  I shall
show it to you if you come with me."

"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it.  I see I have missed my
train.  That makes no matter.  I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to
read anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question."

"That shall be given to you upstairs.  I could not give it here.  You
will not have to read long."

It's the night before Dorian's thirty-eighth birthday, and he's walking home from dinner at Lord Henry's. He runs into Basil, who's walking in the other direction, suitcase in hand. He pretends not to see him, but Basil notices. Dorian feels strangely apprehensive. Basil apparently just came from Dorian's house, where he'd been waiting for hours. Dorian makes an excuse for ignoring Basil and asks where he's off to. Basil's plan it to leave England for half a year and hang out in Paris until he's painted a masterpiece. The pair reaches Dorian's house, and Basil invites himself in, saying that he's got something to say to Dorian. Dorian vaguely tries to get Basil to leave, but Basil isn't to be stopped--he's got everything he needs for his trip, so he's in no rush. The two men settle in Dorian's library, and Basil gets down to business: he wants to talk to Dorian about Dorian. Basil lays it all out there--though Basil himself can't believe that someone as innocent looking and beautiful as Dorian could commit any crimes, Dorian's name has been dragged through the mud, and pretty much everyone else in London either loathes him or fears him. Rumor has it that he's ruined the lives of loads of young women and men in various ways. Dorian revolts, saying that people gossip about how he's ruined so many of his ex-friends, but it's actually their fault--he just brings out tendencies that are already innate in people . Dorian then tries to blame it all on English society... kind of a lame excuse. But Basil's not done--he continues to enumerate the horrible things he's heard about Dorian, who has apparently even ruined the reputation of poor Lady Gwendolen, Henry's sister. We wonder how Lord Henry feels about that. Gravely, Basil says he thought he knew Dorian, but he obviously doesn't, for he can't see into Dorian's soul. For obvious reasons, this comment really gets to Dorian. He laughs bitterly, and announces that Basil will see his soul tonight, since it's his own work. Uh oh--this can't possibly end up well for Basil. Dorian is excited--and insane! He can't wait to show the portrait to Basil, and hopes that the painter will feel bad for what he's done. Basil is understandably frightened. He begs Dorian to simply answer one question--are all these charges against him true? Dorian smiles contemptuously, and lures Basil upstairs, saying that he has a diary in which he records all of his actions . Basil agrees to go with him. Cue ominous organ music...

On the eve of his thirty-eighth birthday, Dorian runs into Basil on a fog-covered street. He tries to pass him unrecognized, but Basil calls out to him and accompanies him home. Basil mentions that he is about to leave for a six-month stay in Paris but felt it necessary to stop by and warn Dorian that terrible rumors are being spread about his conduct. Basil reminds Dorian that there are no such things as "secret vices": sin, he claims, "writes itself across a man's face. Having said these words, he demands to know why so many of Dorian's friendships have ended disastrously. We learn that one boy committed suicide, and others had their careers or reputations ruined. Basil chastises Dorian for his influence over these unfortunate youths and urges him to use his considerable sway for good rather than evil. He adds that he wonders if he knows Dorian at all and wishes he were able to see the man's soul. Dorian laughs bitterly and says that the artist shall have his wish. He promises to show Basil his soul, which, he notes, most people believe only God can see. Basil decries Dorian's speech as blasphemous, and he begs Dorian to deny the terrible charges that have been made against him. Smiling, Dorian offers to show Basil the diary of his life, which he is certain will answer all of Basil's questions

In the eighteen years that pass over the course of these two chapters, Dorian undergoes a profound psychological and behavioral transformation, though he remains the same physically. Although his behavior is, in part, a function of the Gothic nature of Wilde's tale--his mysterious, potentially dangerous behavior contributes to the novel's darkness--Dorian does not simply devolve into a villain. Though he exhibits inhuman behavior as he carelessly tosses aside his proteges , he never completely sheds his conscience. This divide further manifests itself in that when Dorian looks at the painting of his dissipated self, he "sometimes loath it and himself," while at other times he is overwhelmed by "that pride of individualism that is half the fascination of sin, and smil with secret pleasure at the misshapen shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own." This tension points to the conflicted nature of Dorian's character. We might consider Dorian's search for artistic and intellectual enlightenment--much of which is catalogued in Chapter Eleven--an attempt to find refuge from the struggle between mindless egotism and gnawing guilt. Indeed, Dorian lives a life marked by fear and suspicion. He finds it difficult to leave London, giving up the country villa he shares with Lord Henry for fear that someone will stumble upon the dreaded portrait in his absence. One can argue that Dorian turns to the study of perfumes, jewels, musical instruments, and tapestries as a source of comfort. Certainly Dorian's greatest reason for indulging in the studies that Wilde describes at length is his disenchantment with the age in which he lives. Commonly referred to as the fin-de-siecle  period, the 1890s in England and Europe were marked by a world-weary sensibility that sought to free humanity from "the asceticism that deadens the senses." In art, this so-called asceticism referred primarily to artistic styles known as naturalism and realism, both of which aimed at reproducing the world as it is and ascribed a moral purpose to art. Dorian, taking the teachings of Lord Henry and the mysterious yellow book as scripture, believes that hedonism is the means by which he will rise above the "harsh, uncomely puritanism" of his age. This philosophy counters "any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience," which echoes the Preface's insistence that artists should not make distinctions between virtue and vice. According to this line of thinking, an experience is valuable in and of itself, regardless of its moral implications. Certainly, as Dorian lives his life under the rubric of aesthetic philosophy, he comes to appreciate the seductive beauty of the darker side of life, feeling "a curious delight in the thought that Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous voices." A possible seed of Dorian's undoing might be his intellectual development. Dorian is supposedly the personification of a type--a perfect blend of the scholar and the socialite--who lives his life, as Lord Henry dictates, as an individualist. Indeed, we are told that "no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself." But, paradoxically, even the tenets of Dorian's "new Hedonism" prove constricting. It appears that he may have allowed himself to be too strongly influenced by Lord Henry and the yellow book, and that the philosophy of hedonism, meant to spare its followers from the conformities of dulling Victorian morality, may have simply become another, equally limiting doctrine.


He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward
following close behind.  They walked softly, as men do instinctively at
night.  The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase.  A
rising wind made some of the windows rattle.

When they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the
floor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock.  "You insist on
knowing, Basil?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes."

"I am delighted," he answered, smiling.  Then he added, somewhat
harshly, "You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know
everything about me.  You have had more to do with my life than you
think"; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in.  A
cold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in
a flame of murky orange.  He shuddered.  "Shut the door behind you," he
whispered, as he placed the lamp on the table.

Hallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression.  The room looked
as if it had not been lived in for years.  A faded Flemish tapestry, a
curtained picture, an old Italian _cassone_, and an almost empty
book-case--that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and
a table.  As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was
standing on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered
with dust and that the carpet was in holes.  A mouse ran scuffling
behind the wainscoting.  There was a damp odour of mildew.

"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil?  Draw that
curtain back, and you will see mine."

The voice that spoke was cold and cruel.  "You are mad, Dorian, or
playing a part," muttered Hallward, frowning.

"You won't? Then I must do it myself," said the young man, and he tore
the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.

An exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the
dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him.  There was
something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.
Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at!
The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that
marvellous beauty.  There was still some gold in the thinning hair and
some scarlet on the sensual mouth.  The sodden eyes had kept something
of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet
completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat.
Yes, it was Dorian himself.  But who had done it?  He seemed to
recognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design.  The
idea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid.  He seized the lighted candle,
and held it to the picture.  In the left-hand corner was his own name,
traced in long letters of bright vermilion.

It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire.  He had never
done that.  Still, it was his own picture.  He knew it, and he felt as
if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice.  His
own picture!  What did it mean?  Why had it altered?  He turned and
looked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man.  His mouth twitched,
and his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate.  He passed his hand
across his forehead.  It was dank with clammy sweat.

The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with
that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are
absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting.  There was neither
real sorrow in it nor real joy.  There was simply the passion of the
spectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes.  He had taken
the flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so.

"What does this mean?" cried Hallward, at last.  His own voice sounded
shrill and curious in his ears.

"Years ago, when I was a boy," said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in
his hand, "you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my
good looks.  One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who
explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me
that revealed to me the wonder of beauty.  In a mad moment that, even
now, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you
would call it a prayer...."

"I remember it!  Oh, how well I remember it!  No! the thing is
impossible.  The room is damp.  Mildew has got into the canvas.  The
paints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them.  I tell you the
thing is impossible."

"Ah, what is impossible?" murmured the young man, going over to the
window and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass.

"You told me you had destroyed it."

"I was wrong.  It has destroyed me."

"I don't believe it is my picture."

"Can't you see your ideal in it?" said Dorian bitterly.

"My ideal, as you call it..."

"As you called it."

"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful.  You were to me such
an ideal as I shall never meet again.  This is the face of a satyr."

"It is the face of my soul."

"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped!  It has the eyes of a
devil."

"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil," cried Dorian with a
wild gesture of despair.

Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it.  "My God!  If it
is true," he exclaimed, "and this is what you have done with your life,
why, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you
to be!" He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it.  The
surface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it.  It was
from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come.
Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were
slowly eating the thing away.  The rotting of a corpse in a watery
grave was not so fearful.

His hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and
lay there sputtering.  He placed his foot on it and put it out.  Then
he flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table
and buried his face in his hands.

"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson!  What an awful lesson!" There was no
answer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window.  "Pray,
Dorian, pray," he murmured.  "What is it that one was taught to say in
one's boyhood?  'Lead us not into temptation.  Forgive us our sins.
Wash away our iniquities.'  Let us say that together.  The prayer of
your pride has been answered.  The prayer of your repentance will be
answered also.  I worshipped you too much.  I am punished for it.  You
worshipped yourself too much.  We are both punished."

Dorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed
eyes.  "It is too late, Basil," he faltered.

"It is never too late, Dorian.  Let us kneel down and try if we cannot
remember a prayer.  Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be
as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?"

"Those words mean nothing to me now."

"Hush!  Don't say that.  You have done enough evil in your life.  My
God!  Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?"

Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable
feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had
been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his
ear by those grinning lips.  The mad passions of a hunted animal
stirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table,
more than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything.  He glanced
wildly around.  Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest
that faced him.  His eye fell on it.  He knew what it was.  It was a
knife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord,
and had forgotten to take away with him.  He moved slowly towards it,
passing Hallward as he did so.  As soon as he got behind him, he seized
it and turned round.  Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going
to rise.  He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that
is behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and
stabbing again and again.

There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking
with blood.  Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,
waving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air.  He stabbed him
twice more, but the man did not move.  Something began to trickle on
the floor.  He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down.  Then
he threw the knife on the table, and listened.

He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet.  He
opened the door and went out on the landing.  The house was absolutely
quiet.  No one was about.  For a few seconds he stood bending over the
balustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.
Then he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in
as he did so.

The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with
bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms.  Had it not been
for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was
slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was
simply asleep.

How quickly it had all been done!  He felt strangely calm, and walking
over to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony.  The wind
had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's
tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes.  He looked down and saw the
policeman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on
the doors of the silent houses.  The crimson spot of a prowling hansom
gleamed at the corner and then vanished.  A woman in a fluttering shawl
was creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went.  Now and
then she stopped and peered back.  Once, she began to sing in a hoarse
voice.  The policeman strolled over and said something to her.  She
stumbled away, laughing.  A bitter blast swept across the square.  The
gas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their
black iron branches to and fro.  He shivered and went back, closing the
window behind him.

Having reached the door, he turned the key and opened it.  He did not
even glance at the murdered man.  He felt that the secret of the whole
thing was not to realize the situation.  The friend who had painted the
fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his
life.  That was enough.

Then he remembered the lamp.  It was a rather curious one of Moorish
workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished
steel, and studded with coarse turquoises.  Perhaps it might be missed
by his servant, and questions would be asked.  He hesitated for a
moment, then he turned back and took it from the table.  He could not
help seeing the dead thing.  How still it was!  How horribly white the
long hands looked!  It was like a dreadful wax image.

Having locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs.  The
woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain.  He stopped
several times and waited.  No:  everything was still.  It was merely
the sound of his own footsteps.

When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner.
They must be hidden away somewhere.  He unlocked a secret press that
was in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious
disguises, and put them into it.  He could easily burn them afterwards.
Then he pulled out his watch.  It was twenty minutes to two.

He sat down and began to think.  Every year--every month, almost--men
were strangled in England for what he had done.  There had been a
madness of murder in the air.  Some red star had come too close to the
earth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him?  Basil Hallward
had left the house at eleven.  No one had seen him come in again.  Most
of the servants were at Selby Royal.  His valet had gone to bed....
Paris!  Yes.  It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight
train, as he had intended.  With his curious reserved habits, it would
be months before any suspicions would be roused.  Months!  Everything
could be destroyed long before then.

A sudden thought struck him.  He put on his fur coat and hat and went
out into the hall.  There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of
the policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the
bull's-eye reflected in the window.  He waited and held his breath.

After a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting
the door very gently behind him.  Then he began ringing the bell.  In
about five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very
drowsy.

"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis," he said, stepping in;
"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?"

"Ten minutes past two, sir," answered the man, looking at the clock and
blinking.

"Ten minutes past two?  How horribly late!  You must wake me at nine
to-morrow. I have some work to do."

"All right, sir."

"Did any one call this evening?"

"Mr. Hallward, sir.  He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away
to catch his train."

"Oh!  I am sorry I didn't see him.  Did he leave any message?"

"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not
find you at the club."

"That will do, Francis.  Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow."

"No, sir."

The man shambled down the passage in his slippers.

Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the
library.  For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room,
biting his lip and thinking.  Then he took down the Blue Book from one
of the shelves and began to turn over the leaves.  "Alan Campbell, 152,
Hertford Street, Mayfair."  Yes; that was the man he wanted.

In the old schoolroom, Dorian asks Basil once more if he's sure he wants to see Dorian's secret. Basil confirms, but he's obviously uncomfortable--what are they doing in this dingy old room? Why would Dorian take him to this dreadful place? Basil thinks Dorian has lost it . Dorian flings off the covering from the painting, and Basil sees the horrible image that lies beneath. Basil is shocked, appalled, terrified, disgusted--basically, there aren't enough adjectives to contain his horror. He sees his own signature on the terrible picture, and he can tell that the subject is Dorian, but he can't believe his eyes. What could it possibly mean?! Dorian is eating all of this up; he's delighted by Basil's terror. He reminds Basil of the wish that he once made, that the portrait could grow old and he stay young... Basil remembers, but doesn't believe that it could possibly have happened . He tries to explain the portrait's transformation scientifically, but it's impossible. Basil is thoroughly disgusted by the image of the evil man in the portrait. If this is what Dorian's soul looks like, he says, all the grotesque stories about him must be true. He has the answer to his question. By now, both Basil and Dorian are upset--even Dorian is crying. Basil tries to capitalize upon this moment of vulnerability, and tells Dorian he must pray for forgiveness, but Dorian weakly says that it's too late. Basil pushes back, saying that Dorian's done enough evil--after all, the cursed portrait proves that. Dorian looks back at the portrait, and is suddenly filled with hate and rage for Basil. He seizes a knife and brutally stabs his former friend to death. Whoa. That was really sudden--we totally didn't expect it, and neither did Dorian. He's flustered, but he doesn't actually feel bad about the murder; he tries to emotionally disconnect from it. His primary concern is how to dispose of the body and avoid getting caught. Dorian realizes that since Basil was supposed to leave England, it'll probably be ages before anyone even notices that he's missing. Dorian has a sudden flash of inspiration--he makes his own alibi by sneaking out of the house, then ringing the doorbell to get back in, as though he's just coming home really late. When his valet lets him in, Dorian explains that he forgot his key, and has been out all night. Back in the library, Dorian thinks over the situation, and comes up with a solution, apparently in the person of someone named Alan Campbell.

Dorian leads Basil to the room in which he keeps the painting locked. Inside, Dorian lights a candle and tears the curtain back to reveal the portrait. The painting has become hideous, a "foul parody" of its former beauty. Basil stares at the horrifying painting in shock: he recognizes the brushwork and the signature as his own. Dorian stands back and watches Basil with "a flicker of triumph in his eyes. When Basil asks how such a thing is possible, Dorian reminds him of the day he met Lord Henry, whose cautionary words about the ephemeral nature of beauty caused Dorian to pledge his soul for eternal, unblemished youth. Basil curses the painting as "an awful lesson," believing he worshipped the youth too much and is now being punished for it. He begs Dorian to kneel and pray for forgiveness, but Dorian claims it is too late. Glancing at his picture, Dorian feels hatred welling up within him. He seizes a knife and stabs Basil repeatedly. He then opens the door and listens for the sound of anyone stirring. When he is satisfied that no one has heard the murder, he locks the room and returns to the library. Dorian hides Basil's belongings in a secret compartment in the wall, then slips quietly out to the street. After a few moments, he returns, waking his servant and thus creating the impression that he has been out all night. The servant reports that Basil has been to visit, and Dorian says he is sorry to have missed him

Chapters Thirteen and Fourteen take a decided turn for the macabre: the murder of Basil and the gruesome way it is reflected in the portrait--"as though the canvas had sweated blood"--root the novel firmly in the Gothic tradition, where darkness and supernatural horrors reign. In this setting, it becomes a challenge for Wilde to keep his hero from becoming a flat archetype of menacing evil. Much to his credit, he manages to keep Dorian a somewhat sympathetic character, even as he commits an unspeakable crime and blackmails a once dear friend to help him cover it up. Dorian remains worthy of sympathy because we see clearly the failure of his struggle to rise above a troubled conscience. With a murder added to his growing list of sins, Dorian wants nothing more than to be able to shrug off his guilt: he perceives Basil's corpse as a "thing" sitting in a chair and tries to lose himself in the lines of a French poet. The most telling evidence of Dorian's guilt can be seen as he sits waiting for the arrival of Alan Campbell; Dorian draws and soon remarks that "every face that he drew seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward." This scene resonates with the Chapter Nine scene in which Dorian asks the artist to draw a picture of Sibyl Vane so that he may better remember her: in both instances, the hedonistic Dorian betrays his gnawing conscience. Throughout the novel, Basil acts as a sort of moral ballast, reminding Lord Henry and Dorian of the price that must be paid for their pleasure seeking. In these chapters, he provides a fascinating counterpoint to the philosophy by which Dorian lives. Refusing to believe that the dissipation of a soul can occur without notice, he claims that "f a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even." The introduction of such an opposing view discloses Wilde's love of contradiction. In his essay "The Truth of Masks," Wilde wrote that " Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true." Indeed, the truth of The Picture of Dorian Gray, if one is to be found, emerges from oppositions. After all, as Dorian reflects while gazing upon his ruined portrait, art depends as much upon horror as it does upon "marvellous beauty," just as one's being is always the synthesis of a "Heaven and Hell." Like the other secondary characters in the novel, Alan Campbell is introduced and rather quickly ignored. His appearance, however, plays a vital role in establishing the darkening mood of the novel. The macabre experiments that he is accustomed to conducting as a chemist provide him with the knowledge that Dorian finds so necessary. Furthermore, the secrets that surround his personal life contribute to the air of mystery that surrounds Dorian. It is significant that the reader never learns the details of the circumstances by which Dorian blackmails Campbell. Given Wilde's increasingly indiscreet lifestyle and the increasingly hostile social attitudes toward homosexuality that flourished at the end of the nineteenth century, the reader can assume that Campbell's transgression is of a sexual nature. In 1885, the British Parliament passed the Labouchere Amendment, which widened prohibitions against male homosexual acts to include not only sodomy  but also "gross indecency" , an offense that carried a two-year prison term. Oscar Wilde himself was eventually found guilty of the latter offense. This new law was commonly known as the Blackmailer's Charter. Thus, Alan Campbell, a seemingly inconsequential character, serves as an important indicator of the social prejudices and punishments in Wilde's time.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian.

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

"Certainly, Lady Narborough."

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

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

"Is it true, Mr. Gray?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"_Fin de siecle_," murmured Lord Henry.

"_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"She has promised to come on the twentieth."

"Is Monmouth to be there, too?"

"Oh, yes, Harry."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.

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

"Did you go to the club?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That night, Dorian attends a very dull dinner party at the home of Lady Narborough, a clever but ugly socialite. She's very fond of Dorian, and she apologizes for how dull her other guests are that evening. Fortunately, Lord Henry arrives, which livens up the party a bit. Still, Dorian's feeling listless; he can't touch a bite of the exquisite dinner, and he drowns his sorrows in champagne. Henry and Lady Narborough rag Dorian a bit for being so low. Lady Narborough assumes he's in love, which directs the conversation to related topic, Dorian's friend, the infamous Madame de Ferrol. This famously beautiful lady is on her fourth husband, and they have a pleasant time gossiping sassily about her for a while. However, Dorian is still feeling down. Lady Narborough tells him he ought to get married; Henry agrees, though it doesn't stop him from sharing his cynical views on marriage. The conversation is interrupted by some of the other guests, who really aren't of interest to us. Lord Henry and Dorian take this opportunity to talk privately. Dorian won't admit that anything's wrong, and just says that he's tired. They discuss plans for an upcoming holiday in the countryside. Henry makes the mistake of asking Dorian what he was up to last night; Dorian has a minor freak out, and reacts defensively. Dorian apologizes to Henry for being so irritable, and heads off home, full of anxiety. At home, Dorian can't shake his feeling of terror. He burns Basil's traveling bag, making sure that there's no evidence that he was ever there, then tries to calm down. Suddenly, he's filled with a craving--he reaches inside a cabinet for a small, ornate box. Inside is a mysterious substance that can only be one thing: opium. Dorian puts the box back, then, disguised as a commoner, sneaks out of his house. He hails a cab and asks to be taken to a mysterious, distant location.

After the intensity of the previous three chapters, Wilde interjects this chapter as a dramatic pause. Like a light interlude in a play following profound action, Chapter 15 is more style than substance. The opening scene of the chapter is a dinner party at Lady Narborough's. Dorian arrives only an hour or so after Campbell's departure from his home. At first, Dorian is bored with the party. It includes a flirtatious but elderly hostess and several guests whose only distinction is their mediocrity. Dorian is relieved when Lord Henry arrives. At dinner, Dorian eats nothing but drinks several glasses of champagne; in fact, his thirst increases as he drinks, perhaps an allusion to his unquenchable passions. Lord Henry asks if his old protege is feeling out of sorts; Lady Narborough concludes that Dorian must be in love. Dorian manages to mutter that he has not been in love for a whole week. Despite the clever table talk, Dorian is distracted and irritable. For example, when Lord Henry questions him about his whereabouts the previous evening, Dorian becomes agitated and gives an excessively defensive and lengthy response. Lord Henry notes that there must be something wrong with Dorian, but he is characteristically unconcerned. Dorian continues to feel out of sorts, and he leaves the party early, asking Lord Henry to make excuses to the hostess for him. Again, readers should note that Dorian is so preoccupied with his secret life that he can't enjoy the pleasures for which he has given up his soul. Now Dorian has the weight of two secrets to bear -- the portrait and Basil's death. At home, Dorian burns Basil's hat and bag, the last of the evidence that Basil was ever there. He tries to relax, but a Florentine cabinet between two windows catches his attention. He stares at the cabinet, lights a cigarette, and then throws it away. Finally, he walks to the cabinet and removes a small Chinese box. In the box is a "green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and persistent." The reader can assume that the paste is an opiate of some kind. Dorian dresses as a commoner, hails a cab, and takes off toward the river. Glossary Parma violet a variety cultivated for its fragrance; after Parma, a city in northern Italy. chaud-froid French, meaning "hot-cold"; a molded, jellied cold meat or fish dish with a jellied sauce. decolletee French, meaning "in a low-cut dress." edition de luxe French, meaning "luxury edition." trop de zele French, meaning "too much zeal." trop d'audace French, meaning "too much audacity." fin de siecle French, meaning "end of the century"; a phrase especially applied to the 1890s. fin du globe French, meaning "end of the world." peerage a book listing noblemen and their families; peers as a class; rank or title of nobility. pastille French, meaning "drop"; a tablet containing aromatic substances. sovereign a gold coin formerly used in Great Britain, worth one pound.

That evening, Dorian goes to a dinner party, at which he flirts with bored noblewomen. Reflecting on his calm demeanor, he feels "keenly the terrible pleasure of a double life. Lady Narborough, the hostess, discusses the sad life of her daughter, who lives in a region of the countryside that has not witnessed a scandal since the time of Queen Elizabeth. Dorian finds the party tedious and brightens only when he learns Lord Henry will be in attendance. During dinner, after Lord Henry has arrived, Dorian finds it impossible to eat. Lord Henry asks him what is the matter. Lady Narborough suggests that Dorian is in love, though Dorian assures her that she is wrong. The party-goers talk wittily about marriage, and the ladies then leave the gentlemen to their "politics and scandal. Lord Henry and Dorian discuss a party to be held at Dorian's country estate. Lord Henry then casually asks about Dorian's whereabouts the night before; Dorian's calm facade cracks a bit and he snaps out a strange, defensive response. Rather than join the women upstairs, Dorian decides to go home early. Once Dorian arrives home, he retrieves Basil's belongings from the wall compartment and burns them. He goes to an ornate cabinet and, opening one of its drawers, draws out a canister of opium. At midnight, he dresses in common clothes and hires a coach to bring him to a London neighborhood where the city's opium dens prosper

Chapters Fifteeen-Sixteen When Lord Henry alludes to the "in de siecle"  in Chapter Fifteen, he refers more to the sensibilities that flourished in the 1890s than the chronological time period. In this decade, many people in continental Europe and England felt an unshakable sense of discontent. The values that once seemed to structure life and give it meaning were apparently lost. Two main reasons for this disenchantment were linked to the public functions of art and morality, which, in Victorian England, seemed inextricably connected. Art, it was thought, should function as a moral barometer; to the minds of many, this dictum left room for only the most restrictive morals and the most unimaginative art. The term "fin de siecle" therefore came to describe a mode of thinking that sought to escape this disenchantment and restore beauty to art and reshape  public understandings of morality. In a way, though Dorian lives a life very much in tune with fin-de-siecle thinking, he rejects Victorian morals in favor of self-determined ethics based on pleasure and experience, and he retains--and is tortured by--a very Victorian mind-set. Indeed, by viewing the painting of himself as "the most magical of mirrors," Dorian disavows the tenets of aestheticism that demand that art be completely freed of its connection to morality. The picture becomes the gauge by which Dorian measures his downfall and serves as a constant reminder of the sins that plague his conscience. If we understand Dorian as a victim of this Victorian circumstance, we can read his drastic course of action in a more sympathetic light. Indeed, by Chapter Sixteen, he is a man desperate to forget the sins for which he believes he can never be forgiven. As he sinks into the sordidness of the London docks and their opium dens, he reflects: Ugliness was the one reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of Art, the dreamy shadows of Song.  Here, Dorian's thoughts echo French poets like Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, who believed that the description of intense experience was the key to true beauty, even  when the experience itself was something sordid, ugly, or grotesque. Indeed, in this trip to the opium den, Dorian intends to do nothing less than "cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul." Of course, what Dorian finds in the opium den has a far less curative effect than he hopes. The presence of Adrian Singleton, a young man whose downfall and subsequent drug addiction is at least partially Dorian's fault, pains Dorian's conscience and makes it impossible for him to "escape from himself." The reintroduction of James Vane makes this idea of escape quite literal. The avenging brother is, admittedly, a rather weak  plot device that Wilde added to his 1891 revision of the novel. If Dorian fears and wishes to escape from himself, we can consider James the physical incarnation of that fear: James exists to precipitate the troubled Dorian's final breakdown.