LITMIR.BIZ

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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 honor 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 clinched, 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 Sèze, 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, and 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 usually gives 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 color seemed to me to reveal my secret. 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 foolish 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 color tell us of form and color, — 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 color 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 some one 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

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