It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.<\/p>\n
He was walking home about eleven o\u2019clock from Lord Henry\u2019s, where he had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy. At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of his grey ulster turned up. He had a bag in his hand. Dorian recognized him. It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for which he could not account, came over him. He made no sign of recognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.<\/p>\n
But Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping on the pavement and then hurrying after him. In a few moments, his hand was on his arm.<\/p>\n
\u201cDorian! What an extraordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for you in your library ever since nine o\u2019clock. Finally I took pity on your tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out. I am off to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see you before I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me. But I wasn\u2019t quite sure. Didn\u2019t you recognize me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I can\u2019t even recognize Grosvenor Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don\u2019t feel at all certain about it. I am sorry you are going away, as I have not seen you for ages. But I suppose you will be back soon?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo: I am going to be out of England for six months. I intend to take a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great picture I have in my head. However, it wasn\u2019t about myself I wanted to talk. Here we are at your door. Let me come in for a moment. I have something to say to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI shall be charmed. But won\u2019t you miss your train?\u201d said Dorian Gray languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his latch-key.<\/p>\n
The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his watch. \u201cI have heaps of time,\u201d he answered. \u201cThe train doesn\u2019t go till twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven. In fact, I was on my way to the club to look for you, when I met you. You see, I shan\u2019t have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things. All I have with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorian looked at him and smiled. \u201cWhat a way for a fashionable painter to travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! Come in, or the fog will get into the house. And mind you don\u2019t talk about anything serious. Nothing is serious nowadays. At least nothing should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the library. There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open hearth. The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case stood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on a little marqueterie table.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me everything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes. He is a most hospitable creature. I like him much better than the Frenchman you used to have. What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorian shrugged his shoulders. \u201cI believe he married Lady Radley\u2019s maid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker. Anglomanie<\/i> is very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly of the French, doesn\u2019t it? But\u2014do you know?\u2014he was not at all a bad servant. I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about. One often imagines things that are quite absurd. He was really very devoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away. Have another brandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take hock-and-seltzer myself. There is sure to be some in the next room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks, I won\u2019t have anything more,\u201d said the painter, taking his cap and coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the corner. \u201cAnd now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously. Don\u2019t frown like that. You make it so much more difficult for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it all about?\u201d cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging himself down on the sofa. \u201cI hope it is not about myself. I am tired of myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is about yourself,\u201d answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, \u201cand I must say it to you. I shall only keep you half an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette. \u201cHalf an hour!\u201d he murmured.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own sake that I am speaking. I think it right that you should know that the most dreadful things are being said against you in London.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t wish to know anything about them. I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don\u2019t interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey must interest you, Dorian. Every gentleman is interested in his good name. You don\u2019t want people to talk of you as something vile and degraded. Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all that kind of thing. But position and wealth are not everything. Mind you, I don\u2019t believe these rumours at all. At least, I can\u2019t believe them when I see you. Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man\u2019s face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even. Somebody\u2014I won\u2019t mention his name, but you know him\u2014came to me last year to have his portrait done. I had never seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the time, though I have heard a good deal since. He offered an extravagant price. I refused him. There was something in the shape of his fingers that I hated. I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied about him. His life is dreadful. But you, Dorian, with your pure, bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth\u2014I can\u2019t believe anything against you. And yet I see you very seldom, and you never come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I hear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I don\u2019t know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it? Why is it that so many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to theirs? You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley. I met him at dinner last week. Your name happened to come up in conversation, in connection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the Dudley. Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most artistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl should be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the same room with. I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked him what he meant. He told me. He told me right out before everybody. It was horrible! Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? There was that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide. You were his great friend. There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England with a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What about Adrian Singleton and his dreadful end? What about Lord Kent\u2019s only son and his career? I met his father yesterday in St. James\u2019s Street. He seemed broken with shame and sorrow. What about the young Duke of Perth? What sort of life has he got now? What gentleman would associate with him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStop, Basil. You are talking about things of which you know nothing,\u201d said Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt in his voice. \u201cYou ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it. It is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows anything about mine. With such blood as he has in his veins, how could his record be clean? You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth. Did I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery? If Kent\u2019s silly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me? If Adrian Singleton writes his friend\u2019s name across a bill, am I his keeper? I know how people chatter in England. The middle classes air their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people they slander. In this country, it is enough for a man to have distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him. And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDorian,\u201d cried Hallward, \u201cthat is not the question. England is bad enough I know, and English society is all wrong. That is the reason why I want you to be fine. You have not been fine. One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity. You have filled them with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you can smile, as you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know you and Harry are inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should not have made his sister\u2019s name a by-word.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTake care, Basil. You go too far.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI must speak, and you must listen. You shall listen. When you met Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her. Is there a single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the park? Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her. Then there are other stories\u2014stories that you have been seen creeping at dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in London. Are they true? Can they be true? When I first heard them, I laughed. I hear them now, and they make me shudder. What about your country-house and the life that is led there? Dorian, you don\u2019t know what is said about you. I won\u2019t tell you that I don\u2019t want to preach to you. I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by saying that, and then proceeded to break his word. I do want to preach to you. I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect you. I want you to have a clean name and a fair record. I want you to get rid of the dreadful people you associate with. Don\u2019t shrug your shoulders like that. Don\u2019t be so indifferent. You have a wonderful influence. Let it be for good, not for evil. They say that you corrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite sufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow after. I don\u2019t know whether it is so or not. How should I know? But it is said of you. I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt. Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford. He showed me a letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in her villa at Mentone. Your name was implicated in the most terrible confession I ever read. I told him that it was absurd\u2014that I knew you thoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind. Know you? I wonder do I know you? Before I could answer that, I should have to see your soul.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see my soul!\u201d muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and turning almost white from fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his voice, \u201cto see your soul. But only God can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. \u201cYou shall see it yourself, to-night!\u201d he cried, seizing a lamp from the table. \u201cCome: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn\u2019t you look at it? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me all the better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you will prate about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it face to face.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered. He stamped his foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner. He felt a terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret, and that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of all his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the hideous memory of what he had done.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into his stern eyes, \u201cI shall show you my soul. You shall see the thing that you fancy only God can see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hallward started back. \u201cThis is blasphemy, Dorian!\u201d he cried. \u201cYou must not say things like that. They are horrible, and they don\u2019t mean anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think so?\u201d He laughed again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know so. As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your good. You know I have been always a stanch friend to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t touch me. Finish what you have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter\u2019s face. He paused for a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and their throbbing cores of flame.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am waiting, Basil,\u201d said the young man in a hard clear voice.<\/p>\n
He turned round. \u201cWhat I have to say is this,\u201d he cried. \u201cYou must give me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against you. If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to end, I shall believe you. Deny them, Dorian, deny them! Can\u2019t you see what I am going through? My God! don\u2019t tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, and shameful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dorian Gray smiled. There was a curl of contempt in his lips. \u201cCome upstairs, Basil,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cI keep a diary of my life from day to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written. I shall show it to you if you come with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed my train. That makes no matter. I can go to-morrow. But don\u2019t ask me to read anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. You will not have to read long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"menu_order":13,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-34","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions\/177"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/thepictureofdoriangray\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}