The Life of Oscar Wilde - Frank Harris

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“Come: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn’t you look at it? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. Nobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they’d like me all the better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you will prate about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have chattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it face to face.”

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

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

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

      “You think so?” He laughed again.

      “I know so. As for what I said to you tonight, I said it for your good. You know I have been always devoted to you.”

      “Don’t touch me. Finish what you have to say.”

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

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

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

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

      “I will come with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed my train. That makes no matter. I can go tomorrow. But don’t ask me to read anything tonight. All I want is a plain answer to my question.”

      “That will be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. You won’t have to read long. Don’t keep me waiting.”

      CHAPTER XI

       Table of Contents

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

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

      “Yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “Years ago, when I was a boy,” said Dorian Gray, “you met me, devoted yourself to me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me that revealed to me the wonder of beauty. In a mad moment, that I don’t know, even now, whether I regret or not, I made a wish. Perhaps you would call it a prayer … .”

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

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

      “You told me you had destroyed it.”

      “I was wrong. It has destroyed me.”

      “I don’t believe it is my picture.”

      “Can’t you see your romance in it?” said Dorian, bitterly.

      “My romance, as you call it …”

      “As you called it.”

      “There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. This is the face of a satyr.”

      “It is the face of my soul.”

      “God! what a thing I must have worshipped! This has the eyes of a devil.”

      “Each

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