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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian.

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

"Certainly, Lady Narborough."

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

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

"Is it true, Mr. Gray?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"_Fin de siecle_," murmured Lord Henry.

"_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"She has promised to come on the twentieth."

"Is Monmouth to be there, too?"

"Oh, yes, Harry."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.

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

"Did you go to the club?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian.

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

"I thought you had left England."

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

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

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

"On the wharf?"

"Yes."

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

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

"Much the same."

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

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

"Never mind."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Perhaps."

"Good night, then."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you want?" he gasped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You lie!" cried James Vane.

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

"Before God?"

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

"You swear this?"

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

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

Later that evening, Dorian attends a party thrown by Lady Narborough, a wealthy widow and popular socialite. He acts naturally and comfortably, charming his hostess and successfully masking his tortured conscience, but is unable to stomach any food. Most of the guests are dull and witless, so Dorian is glad when Lord Henry arrives. As usual, Dorian delights in Henry's paradoxical, slightly offensive witticisms. The evening goes smoothly until Dorian is asked how he spent the previous night. He founders and retracts several answers, clearly discombobulated and unnecessarily defensive. Henry can easily see that something is wrong, but when he tries to get Dorian to share his troubles, the younger man excuses himself, saying that he is "out of temper" and "must go home." Once home, Dorian faces the fact that Basil's belongings, which he had left in Dorian's closet, still have to be destroyed. He throws them into his fireplace, feeling sick at the smell of burning fabric and leather. He is then overcome by an unspecified "mad craving." He examines "a small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer" taken from one of his cabinets, and decides to leave. His cab driver at first refuses to take him where he wants to go, but soon relents and accepts Dorian's bribe. During the long cab ride, Dorian remembers Lord Henry's words from their first meeting: "To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul." He feels as if his soul is quite sick, and takes comfort in the idea of curing it. He dismounts from the cab and walks several blocks, nervously checking behind him, until he finds a small, dilapidated house hidden in an alley between two factories. He enters the house, which is revealed to be an opium den. Inside are groups of haggard, complacent, disheveled individuals. Among them is Adrian Singleton, who joins Dorian at the bar. They are harassed by two women, and Dorian walks out of the place. As he is leaving, one of the women calls him "Prince Charming," at which point an unrecognized sailor springs to his feet and pursues Dorian outside. The sailor grabs Dorian by the throat, brings him to his knees, and points a revolver in his face, telling him that he is the brother of Sibyl Vane, whom Dorian drove to suicide. He only knew his sister's lover by the nickname "Prince Charming." Dorian pretends to have never heard of Sibyl Vane, and tells James to hold his face under the lamplight. James complies, and realizes that he has made a mistake: Sibyl died 18 years ago, making her lover nearly 40, but the person standing before him looks no older than 20. James is embarrassed, and begs Dorian's forgiveness. Dorian chides him for his behavior and flees. James then speaks with the two women from the bar and learns that Dorian is much older than he seems. One of the women remarks that "it's nigh on eighteen year since Prince Charming made me what I am." Realizing that he has been deceived, James rushes after Dorian in an outrage, but turns the corner to find that the villain has already disappeared.

Dorian succumbs to paranoia at Lady Narborough's home, but his fear of being discovered prove unnecessary.  His hostess tells him that "you are made to be good - you look so good."  The inability to accept the possibility that a young, innocent appearance hides anything other than an innocent, beautiful personality is a common one in Dorian's social circle; this superficiality is what allows him to maintain a level of respect and admiration, despite the preponderance of nasty rumors, and even despite the guilt of a murder weighing on his conscience. Wilde uses Dorian's group of friends to parody the superficiality of London's aristocracy.  Lord Henry's convictions that beauty is the most important thing in the world and that physical beauty is the greatest asset a person can have seem to be shockingly accurate, at least amongst people such as those whom Dorian and Henry associate with.  This raises an important question: if Lord Henry's morally shallow beliefs are justified, can we condemn his character for espousing them? Dorian's odd mannerisms while handling the ornate box of opium and his discreet flight to the opium den reveal an addiction that we have been thus far unaware of.  Dorian has always escaped his guilt by immersing himself in pleasurable distractions, but his lapse into addiction signifies that he has sunk to yet a lower level of degradation.  This addiction also reminds us of the nature of Dorian's relationship to the portrait.  Like an addict, Dorian cannot refrain from seeking out and indulging himself in new guilty pleasures.  And, like an addict, Dorian cannot help but return to the attic and bask in the horror of his disfigured soul. Adrian's presence in the opium den bothers Dorian because he "wanted to be where no one knew who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself."  His past, however, haunts him no matter where he turns.  One might expect Dorian to take some solace from the fact that, unlike Alan Campbell, Adrian is willing to interact with Dorian, but other people mean so little to Dorian at this point that he can only view Adrian as a nuisance.  Instead of taking pity on Adrian's deplorable state, Dorian is repulsed. The inescapability of the past is also exemplified by the reappearance of Sibyl's vengeful brother.  James Vane seeks revenge for the very first instance of Dorian's corruption: the act of selfish vanity that caused the initial change in the painting.  James's determination to avenge his sister's death represents the culmination of all of Dorian's sins, returning to hunt him down.  However, superficiality does not fail Dorian yet; in this first encounter with James, Dorian's face literally saves his life.


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

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

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

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

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

"His name is Prince Paradox," said Dorian.

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

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

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

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

"Yes."

"I give the truths of to-morrow."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I live in it."

"That you may censure it the better."

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

"What do they say of us?"

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

"Is that yours, Harry?"

"I give it to you."

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

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

"They are practical."

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

"Still, we have done great things."

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

"We have carried their burden."

"Only as far as the Stock Exchange."

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

"It represents the survival of the pushing."

"It has development."

"Decay fascinates me more."

"What of art?" she asked.

"It is a malady."

"Love?"

"An illusion."

"Religion?"

"The fashionable substitute for belief."

"You are a sceptic."

"Never!  Scepticism is the beginning of faith."

"What are you?"

"To define is to limit."

"Give me a clue."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Even when he is wrong?"

"Harry is never wrong, Duchess."

"And does his philosophy make you happy?"

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

"And found it, Mr. Gray?"

"Often.  Too often."

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

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

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

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

"Greek meets Greek, then?"

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

"They were defeated."

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

"You gallop with a loose rein."

"Pace gives life," was the _riposte_.

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

"What?"

"That a burnt child loves the fire."

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

"You use them for everything, except flight."

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

"You have a rival."

"Who?"

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

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

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

"Men have educated us."

"But not explained you."

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

"Sphinxes without secrets."

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

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

"That would be a premature surrender."

"Romantic art begins with its climax."

"I must keep an opportunity for retreat."

"In the Parthian manner?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He could not finish the sentence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What nonsense!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"One may lose one's way."

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

"What is that?"

"Disillusion."

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

"It came to you crowned."

"I am tired of strawberry leaves."

"They become you."

"Only in public."

"You would miss them," said Lord Henry.

"I will not part with a petal."

"Monmouth has ears."

"Old age is dull of hearing."

"Has he never been jealous?"

"I wish he had been."

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

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

She laughed.  "I have still the mask."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, sir," answered the gamekeeper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The chapter begins with Dorian and Lord Henry chatting with Gladys, the Duchess of Monmouth, during a party at a conservatory. Many guests are gathered there for an extended visit as guests of Dorian's. The guests discuss names, love, and of course the virtues of beauty. Gladys shows herself to be quite witty, holding her own in a tete-a-tete with Lord Henry. After Henry playfully mentions Dorian's old nickname, Prince Charming, she asks whether Dorian has ever truly been in love. Disturbed by the reminder of his recent confrontation, Dorian excuses himself, saying that he must pick orchids for the duchess. Dorian takes a long time to return, and as Henry wonders about his whereabouts, a disturbed cry is heard from the other room. Lord Henry rushes to the scene, and finds that Dorian has fainted. Henry insists that he stay in bed and recover, but Dorian doesn't want to be alone. All of the guests assume that he has merely collapsed from exhaustion. Dorian, however, doesn't tell them the real reason for his distress: he fainted upon seeing the face of James Vane, spying on him through the conservatory window. Dorian spends the next three days inside, "sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself." He eventually convinces himself that the face was a hallucination brought on by his conscience as a result of suppressing his guilt for so long. When Dorian finally goes outdoors, he and Lord Henry accompany Sir Geoffrey Clouston, the duchess's brother, on a short hunting excursion. Geoffrey aims at a hare, and Dorian instinctively cries out, urging him not to shoot it. Two screams are heard after the shot is fired: "the cry of a hare in pain, which is dreadful," and "the cry of a man in agony, which is worse." Geoffrey assumes that the man he has shot is a "beater," one of the men employed by the conservatory to drive the game into the open for the hunters. All hunting is called off for the day, so that the guests don't appear too callous, and Lord Henry informs Geoffrey that the man who has been shot is dead. Later, Henry and Dorian again chat with Gladys. We learn that Geoffrey is upset, but Henry blames the beater for everything and sees no reason for any remorse. He wishes, however, "that he had done the thing on purpose," and proclaims that "I should like to know someone who had committed a real murder." Dorian must excuse himself to lie down. He lies on a sofa upstairs, terrified, feeling as if the unexpected stranger's death is a sure sign that his own is imminent. He is nearly paralyzed with fear and decides to leave for a doctor, but before he can his valet sends the gamekeeper in. Knowing it must be about the dead beater, Dorian questions whether the victim had had a wife or any dependents, and offers "any sum of money you may think necessary" to provide for their needs. However, the gamekeeper has arrived to inform Dorian that the dead man was not an employee, and that no one has been able to identify him. Dorian frantically rides to the farm house where the body is being kept, and discovers that the dead man is James Vane. He is overjoyed, his eyes "full of tears, for he knew he was safe."

The discussion of names and Henry's comment that "I never quarrel with actions  with words" prompt us to consider the significance of names in the novel, and the theme of the power of words.  Upon first meeting Lord Henry in chapter 2, and first hearing the man's intoxicatingly sensuous view of the world, Dorian thinks to himself: "Words! Mere words! How terrible they were!...One could not escape from them."  It is Henry's conversational acumen that enables him to influence Dorian so profoundly, and it is a book  that Dorian considers to be primarily responsible for his own corruption. By placing such emphasis on the power of words, written or spoken, Wilde is indirectly commenting on the power of the literary art.  Fittingly, Henry follows his earlier comment with the remark, "That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature."  This comment is not merely an expression of yet another of Henry's distinctive beliefs, but an invitation for the reader to consider the value of the fantastic elements included in The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Duchess of Monmouth is one of the few characters in the book who seems capable of holding her own in conversation against Lord Henry's sharp, unorthodox witticisms.  When she says to Henry that "You value beauty far too much," she unknowingly hits on the reason for Dorian's guilt.  When Dorian leaves to pick flowers, we are reminded of the first chapter, when Henry picked a flower from Basil's garden and slowly pulled it apart, petal by petal.  As Henry's earlier action symbolized his role as both an admirer and a destroyer of delicate beauty, Dorian's action reveals that he has now symbolically replaced his mentor in this way as well. The insensitivity of the party-goers upon hearing that a man has been shot is so extreme that it reads as a parody. Sir Geoffrey's first response upon learning that he has shot a man is annoyance; he says that the event "spoiled my shooting for the day."  Lord Henry handles the news with typically superficial concern, saying that hunting must cease for the day because "It would not look well to go on."  For all of the seeming profundity of the sayings that Henry spouts in conversation, he proves himself to be, in times of crisis, incapable of viewing the world in terms of anything but appearances.  His comments in this chapter remind us of the superficial nature of his comfort to Dorian immediately after Sibyl's death , when he recommended that Dorian not sulk or involve himself with the investigation so as to preserve his reputation. Dorian himself displays some distress upon hearing of the man's death, but not for humanitarian reasons.  He urges Sir Geoffrey not to shoot, but only because the intended target, a rabbit, strikes him as beautiful.  Perhaps, since Dorian has felt like a hunted creature ever since his encounter with James Vane outside of the opium den, he sympathizes with the creature.  The emotional pain Dorian feels after learning that a man is dead is the consequence of his own self-pity: he considers the event a "bad omen," not a tragedy in its own right.  Dorian displays his true insensitivity when his immediate reaction to the news is to reach for his checkbook.  He is not compelled to comfort the family of what he assumes to be a dead employee, or even to express his condolences, but rather instinctively attempts to make the problem go away by throwing money at it. Discovering that the dead man is James Vane causes Dorian to rejoice for several reasons.  First and foremost, he no longer has to fear for his life.  However, it also means that he was not hallucinating when he saw James's face through the window.  Dorian may be cripplingly paranoid, but he is not insane.  Finally, since James's appearance was intended to make Dorian pay for his hand in Sibyl's death, now that James is dead, Dorian may once again convince himself that he has escaped unscathed from the sins of his past.

One week has passed, and Dorian has retreated to his country estate, Selby Royal. His guests include the beautiful Duchess of Monmouth ; her older, boring, somewhat jaded husband; Lady Narborough, old and flirtatious but seldom boring; and Lord Henry. The conversation is light and superficial. Lord Henry wants to re-christen some things -- especially, flowers. Beautiful objects should have beautiful names, he says. The duchess asks what new name Lord Henry shall have, and Dorian immediately answers appropriately, "Prince Paradox." The duchess tries to flirt with Dorian, and he excuses himself to fetch her some of his orchids. Lord Henry lightheartedly warns the duchess about loving Dorian. Suddenly the group hears a muted groan and the sound of a heavy fall. Lord Henry rushes to find that Dorian has fainted. When Dorian comes to, he refuses to be alone. Despite his condition, he joins the others at dinner and tries to act jolly. Now and then, however, terror shoots through him as he recalls the cause of his faint: the face of James Vane observing him through a window. Dorian spends most of the next day in his room. Feeling hunted, stalked, and sick with fear of death, he alternates between the certainty of punishment and an equal certainty that the wicked receive no such fate in this world. He concludes that the only morality is the success of the strong and the failure of the weak. On the third day, Dorian finally goes out. He has decided that he imagined James' face in the window. After breakfast, he strolls in the garden with the duchess for an hour. Then he joins her brother, Sir Geoffrey Clouston, and others who are shooting birds. A hare bursts forth, and Sir Geoffrey aims, but Dorian so admires the beauty and grace of the animal that he cries, "Let it live." Lord Geoffrey finds Dorian's plea silly and fires as the hare jumps into a thicket. Two sounds come from the brush: the cry of a hare and the cry of a man. Incredibly, a dead human body is pulled from the brush. Lord Henry recommends calling off the hunt for the day. Dorian would like to cancel the "hideous and cruel" hunt for good; he fears that the death is a bad omen. Lord Henry laughs at Dorian's concern, saying that the only thing horrible in life is boredom. There are no omens, he says. In his room, Dorian lies in terror on the sofa. Later, he calls his servant and tells him to pack. Dorian will leave at eight-thirty to catch the night express to London. He writes a note to Lord Henry, asking him to take care of the guests because he is going to London to see his doctor. Thornton, Dorian's chief gamekeeper, enters with startling news. The dead man cannot be identified. He was not one of the beaters, after all. In fact, he seems to be a sailor, armed with a gun. Dorian rushes to where the body lies. Identifying the body as James Vane's, Dorian feels safe at last.

Wilde makes excellent use of contrast in the setting of these chapters. Life at Selby Royal could not be more different from the secret world of Dorian Gray. Wilde writes about bright conversations, bright lights, and bright days. Such idyllic life adds to Dorian's discomfort when terror twice invades his country estate. Early on, he is seeking orchids but finds the face of James Vane. Just as he is recovering from the shock, a man is ominously killed by accident. Dorian decides to flee because, he realizes, "Death walked there in the sunlight." He expects evil in the opium den, not in the fresh air of Selby Royal. Dorian's tragic fate haunts him wherever he goes. Before, Dorian felt that his situation was hopeless; now, he is beginning to learn what hopelessness really feels like. Wilde exposes the egocentricity of class distinction through the death of what seems to be a lowly beater. First, Sir Geoffrey is annoyed that the "ass" got out in front of the guns. It ruins his shooting for the whole day. Then Lord Henry comments, "It is rather awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It makes people think that one is a wild shot." Incredibly, Lord Henry is more concerned with his shooting partner's reputation than with a man's death. Even Dorian seems to have little more compassion for the man than he has for the hare. He dislikes shooting and killing, but his chief concern, as usual, is himself. He sees the death as a bad omen, a threat to himself. When Thornton comes to Dorian's room, the master immediately pulls his chequebook out of a drawer. It may be kind of him to want to pay the family of the dead man, but Dorian would not think of visiting them or the corpse until he suspects that it might be James Vane. Dorian's ultimate relief is ironic. Even as he feels joy at seeing James Vane dead, he is far from safe. Glossary Tartuffe a hypocrite; the word comes from Moliere's Le Tartuffe, a play in which the lead character -- Tartuffe -- almost destroys a family that has taken him in. riposte French, "retort" or reply in a direct manner. Parthian pertaining to a shot fired by one in actual or feigned retreat; after the tactics of the archers from Parthia in Western Asia. beater someone who is hired to flush wild game from cover for hunters; on some hunts, they beat percussion instruments. censure an expression of blame or disapproval. lithe supple; easily bent; flexible. presentiment premonition; a sense that something is about to occur. Artemis in Greek mythology, the goddess of the hunt.