The Picture of Dorian Gray Page #4

lf she still wished to go,

I'd become cold and indifferent.

I'd ask her to let herself out,

saying that I couldn't bear sad farewells

or something equally appropriate.

But if after that she left,

then I'd believe her to be as good

as she is beautiful

and I'd beg her forgiveness and marry her.

I've always thought

your wickedness a pose.

I know better now.

You're an unmitigated cad.

Will you try my experiment, Dorian?

Miss Vane. Miss Vane, has Sir Tristan,

as you have so charmingly called him,

ever invited you to see

the wonderful portrait

that Basil Hallward has made of him?

No, he hasn't. I should love to see it.

May I?

Of course you may, darling.

Tonight, if you wish.

I shall always remember this room

just as it is now,

the lamplight, you at the piano,

my own happiness.

Your clock thinks

it's time for me to go home.

Clocks can't help being disagreeable.

They think it's their duty.

It's that cat. I thought I saw its eyes move.

Perhaps you did.

Lord Henry says it's one of

the 73 great gods of Egypt.

-Doesn't it frighten you?

-It does a little. Listen to this.

"Dawn follows Dawn, and Nights grow old

and all the while this curious cat

"Lies crouching on the Chinese mat

with eyes of satin rimmed with gold.

"Get hence, you loathsome mystery!

Hideous animal, get hence!

"You wake in me each bestial sense,

you make me what I would not be.

"You make my creed a barren sham,

"you wake foul dreams

"of sensual life."

-What a strange poem. Who wrote it?

-A brilliant young lrishman out of Oxford.

His name is Oscar Wilde.

Why do you look at me so strangely?

What would you do, Sibyl,

if I should say to you,

"Don't leave me now, don't go home?"

What would you do, Sibyl?

I suppose I should have expected

a conventional reaction.

-Good night, then.

-Good night.

You don't mind letting yourself out,

do you? I can't bear sad farewells.

A wise friend warned me

that your innocence,

upon which I would have staked my life,

would fail to meet the test

I set before you.

I called his wisdom cynicism,

but now I know better.

You have killed my love.

You have been false, not to me,

but to the ideal I had formed of you.

You used to stir my imagination.

Now you are nothing to me.

I will never see you again.

I will never mention your name.

I will never think of you.

Henceforth, I shall live only for pleasure.

Everything else is meaningless.

And if this leads me

to the destruction of my soul,

then it is only you who are responsible.

Do not try to see me.

I shall leave England

and not return for a long time.

I am sending with this letter

a gift of money,

which will compensate you

for any disappointment you may feel.

I have been living in a land of illusions.

Now, I shall make an end of dreams.

My real life begins.

My own life, in which you cannot

possibly have any part.

Five minutes, Miss Vane.

ln spite of himself, Dorian was troubled

by what he had done.

His uneasy conscience

made him avoid those he knew,

and all night he had wandered alone

through the dimly lit streets

and evil-looking houses

of the London half-world.

When at last he returned to his silent,

shuttered house in Mayfair,

he could not overcome

a sense of something ominous impending.

His eye fell on the portrait

Basil Hallward had painted of him.

ln the dim, shaded light,

the face appeared to him

to be a little changed.

The expression looked somehow different.

One would have said that there was

a touch of cruelty in the mouth.

It was very strange.

There was no doubt

that the whole expression had altered.

The lines of cruelty about the mouth

were unmistakable.

There was no such expression on his face.

lf only the picture could change,

and I could be always as I am now.

For that I would give everything.

Yes, there is nothing in the whole world

I would not give.

I would give my soul for that.

But, surely, his wish had not been fulfilled.

Such things were impossible.

It was monstrous even to think of it.

What if someone else observed the

horrible change, his valet, perhaps?

What if Basil Hallward came

and asked to look at his own picture?

But he was being ridiculous.

This was a mere hallucination.

An illusion

brought on by his troubled senses.

The picture had not changed.

He was mad to think so.

A painted canvas could not alter.

He would look at it again

after he had slept, when he was calmer,

and he would laugh at this fantastic idea.

But in the afternoon when he returned

to examine the portrait again,

fantastic as the idea was,

his memory of that cruel look

was disturbingly vivid.

It was true. The expression had altered.

There was no doubt of it.

It was incredible, and yet it was a fact.

Was this portrait to become for him

the emblem of his own conscience?

Would it teach him to loathe his own soul?

But if this painting

was to be his conscience made visible,

then he would let it instruct him.

He would give it no reason

to reproach him.

He would live purely and nobly.

He had been cruel to Sibyl Vane.

But it was not too late to make that right.

She could still be his wife.

He would marry her.

They could be happy together.

He implored her forgiveness.

He blamed himself.

He gave way to the luxury of self-reproach.

When he finished the letter,

he felt that he had been forgiven.

Dorian, let me in. I must see you.

Open the door, Dorian.

I'll not go away until I see you.

Dorian, let me in.

You shouldn't lock yourself in

like this, Dorian.

I'm sorry for it all, dreadfully sorry.

-You mean about Sibyl Vane?

-Yes, of course.

It's all right now, Harry.

I'm actually grateful to you.

I've learned to know myself better.

I know you will sneer at me,

but from now on,

I'm going to do as my conscience bids me.

-What on earth are you talking about?

-About Sibyl Vane. I'm going to marry her.

-Marry her!

-I know what you're going to say.

Something cynical about marriage.

Don't say it.

Two weeks ago, I asked Sibyl to marry me.

I'm not going to break my word to her.

-Then you don't know.

-Know what?

-Haven't you read the morning papers?

-No, I haven't.

What is it, Harry? What's happened?

Sibyl Vane is dead.

That's why I hurried here to see you.

I didn't want you

to see anyone until I came.

When I found

that you had locked yourself in,

I assumed you knew about it.

There'll be an inquest,

and you mustn't get mixed up in it.

They don't know your name at the theater,

I suppose, and if they don't, it's all right.

-Did Sibyl... Tell me everything, Harry.

-It was obviously not an accident.

Though I suppose it must be

put that way to the public.

Half past twelve or so, she was leaving

the theater with her mother,

when she said she'd forgotten something,

and went back to her dressing room.

She didn't come down again.

They found her lying on the floor.

She'd swallowed something.

By mistake, they say.

She died instantaneously.

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