by Oscar Wilde
Hallward felt strangely moved. Rugged and straightforward as he was, there was something in his nature that was purely feminine in its tenderness. The lad was infinitely dear to him, and his personality had been the great turning-point in his art. He could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.
“Well, Dorian,” he said, at length, with a sad smile, “I won’t speak to you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your name won’t be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take place this afternoon. Have they summoned you?”
Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at the mention of the word “inquest.” There was something so crude and vulgar about everything of the kind. “They don’t know my name,” he answered.
“But surely she did?”
“Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned to anyone. She told me once that they were all rather curious to learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince Charming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of her, Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a few kisses and some broken pathetic words.”
“I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you must come and sit to me yourself again. I can’t get on without you.”
“I will never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!” he exclaimed, starting back.
Hallward stared at him, “My dear boy, what nonsense!” he cried. “Do you mean to say you don’t like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever painted. Do take that screen away, Dorian. It is simply horrid of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room looked different as I came in.”
“My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don’t imagine I let him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimes, that is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong on the portrait.”
“Too strong! Impossible, my dear fellow! It is an admirable place for it. Let me see it.” And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room.
A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray’s lips, and he rushed between Hallward and the screen. “Basil,” he said, looking very pale, “you must not look at it. I don’t wish you to.”
“Not look at my own work! you are not serious. Why shouldn’t I look at it?” exclaimed Hallward, laughing.
“If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don’t offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, if you touch this screen, everything is over between us.”
Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was absolutely pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over.
“Dorian!”
“Don’t speak!”
“But what is the matter? Of course I won’t look at it if you don’t want me to,” he said rather coldly, turning on his heel, and going over towards the window. “But, really, it seems rather absurd that I shouldn’t see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris, in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?”
“To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?” exclaimed Dorian Gray, a strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? That was impossible. Something, he did not know what, had to be done at once.
“Yes, I don’t suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de Sêze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will only be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for that time. In fact you are sure to be out of town. And if you hide it always behind a screen, you can’t care much about it.”
Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible danger. “You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it,” he said. “Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for being consistent have just as many moods as others. The only difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can’t have forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly the same thing.” He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into his eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half seriously and half in jest, “If you want to have an interesting quarter of an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won’t exhibit your picture. He told me why he wouldn’t, and it was a revelation to me.” Yes; perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try.
“Basil,” he said, coming over quite close, and looking him straight in the face, “we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I will tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?”
Hallward shuddered in spite of himself. “Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame or reputation.”
“No, Basil, you must tell me,” murmured Dorian Gray. “I think I have a right to know.” His feeling of terror had passed away. Curiosity had taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward’s mystery.
“Let us sit down, Dorian,” said Hallward, looking pale and pained. “Let us sit down. I will sit in the shadow, and you shall sit in the sunlight. Our lives are like that. Just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the picture something that you did not like? Something that probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?”
“Basil!” cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling hands, and gazing at him with wild, startled eyes.
“I see you did. Don’t speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. It is quite true that I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman. I suppose I never had time. Perhaps, as Harry says, a really ‘grande passion’ is the privilege of those who have nothing to do, and that is the use of the idle classes in a country. Well, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I quite admit that I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly. I was jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When I was away from you, you were still present in my art. It was all wrong and foolish. It is all wrong and foolish still. Of course I never let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible. You would not have understood it; I did not understand it myself. One day I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you. It was to have been my masterpiece. It is my masterpiece. But, as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. There was love in every line, and in every touch there was passion. I grew afraid that the world would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told too much. Then it was that I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me. Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind that. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt that I was right. Well, after a few days, the portrait left my studio, and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its presence, it seemed to me that I had been fool
ish in imagining that I had said anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking and that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour, that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris I determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. The picture must not be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped.”
Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the young man who had just made this strange confession to him. He wondered if he would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Harry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be someone who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store?
“It is extraordinary to me, Dorian,” said Hallward, “that you should have seen this in the picture. Did you really see it?”
“Of course I did.”
“Well, you don’t mind my looking at it now?”
Dorian shook his head. “You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture.”
“You will some day, surely?”
“Never.”
“Well, perhaps you are right. And now, good-bye Dorian. You have been the one person in my life of whom I have been really fond. I don’t suppose I shall often see you again. You don’t know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you.”
“My dear Basil,” cried Dorian, “what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you liked me too much. That is not even a compliment.”
“It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession.”
“A very disappointing one.”
“Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn’t see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?”
“No: there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn’t talk about not meeting me again, or anything of that kind. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so.”
“You have got Harry,” said Hallward sadly.
“Oh, Harry!” cried the lad with a ripple of laughter. “Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible, and his evenings in doing what is improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I don’t think I would go to Harry if I was in trouble. I would sooner go to you, Basil.”
“But you won’t sit to me again?”
“Impossible!”
“You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes across two ideal things. Few come across one.”
“I can’t explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant.”
“Pleasanter for you, I am afraid,” murmured Hallward, regretfully. “And now, good-bye. I am sorry you won’t let me look at the picture once again. But that can’t be helped. I quite understand what you feel about it.”
As he left the room Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil, how little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend. How much that strange confession explained to him! Basil’s absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences,—he understood them all now, and he felt sorry. There was something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance, something infinitely tragic in a romance that was at once so passionate and so sterile.
He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at all costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had been mad of him to have the thing remain, even for an hour, in a room to which any of his friends had access.
8
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 housekeeper that he wanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker’s and ask him to send two of his men round at once. It seemed to him that as the man left the room he peered in the direction of the screen. Or was that only his fancy?
After a few moments, Mrs. Leaf, a dear old lady in a black silk dress, with a photograph of the late Mr. Leaf framed in a large gold brooch at her neck, and old-fashioned thread mittens on her wrinkled hands, bustled into the room.
“Well, Master Dorian,” she said, “what can I do for you? I beg your pardon, Sir,”—here came a curtsey,—“I shouldn’t call you Master Dorian any more. But, Lord bless you, Sir, I have known you since you were a baby, and many’s the trick you’ve played on poor old Leaf. Not that you were not always a good boy, Sir, but boys will be boys, Master Dorian, and jam is a temptation to the young, isn’t it, Sir?”
He laughed. “You must always call me Master Dorian, Leaf. I will be very angry with you if you don’t. And I assure you I am quite as fond of jam now as I used to be. Only when I am asked out to tea I am never offered any. I want you to give me the key of the room at the top of the house.”
“The old school-room, Master Dorian? Why, it’s full of dust. I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it. It’s not fit for you to see, Master Dorian. It is not, indeed.”
“I don’t want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key.”
“Well, Master Dorian, you’ll be covered with cobwebs if you goes into it. Why, it hasn’t been opened for nearly five years. Not since his Lordship died.”
He winced at the mention of his dead uncle’s name. He had hateful memories of him. “That does not matter, Leaf,” he replied. “All I want is the key.”
“And here is the key, Master Dorian,” said the old lady, after going over the contents of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands. “Here is the key. I’ll have it off the ring in a moment. But you don’t think of living up there, Master Dorian, and you so comfortable here?”
“No, Leaf, I don’t. I merely want to see the place, and perhaps store something in it. That is all. Thank you, Leaf. I hope your rheumatism is better; and mind you send me up jam for breakfast.”
Mrs. Leaf shook her head. “Them foreigners doesn’t understand jam, Master Dorian. They calls it ‘compot.’ But I’ll bring it to you myself some morning, if you lets me.”
“That will be very kind of you, Leaf,” he answered, looking at the key; and, having made him an elaborate curtsey, the old lady left the room, her face wreathed in smiles. She had a strong objection to the French valet. It was a poor thing, she felt, for anyone to be born a foreigner.
As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket, and looked round the room. His eye fell on a large purple satin coverlid heavily embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century Venetian work that his uncle 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.