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THE Movie OF DORIAN Greyness

by

Oscar Wilde

1890, 13-Affiliate VERSION

CONTENTS

Chapter I: 3-12 Chapter Ii: 12-22 Affiliate III: 22-32 Affiliate IV: 32-36 Chapter V: 36-43 Chapter Vi: 43-52 Chapter Seven: 52-58 Chapter Viii: 58-64 Chapter 9: 65-77 Chapter 10: 77-81 Affiliate Xi: 81-86 Chapter XII: 86-93 Chapter XIII: 94-100

Affiliate I

[3] The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when thelight summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there camethrough the open door the heavy odor of the lilac, or the moredelicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Western farsi saddle-bags on which he waslying, smoking, as usual, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wottoncould just catch the gleam of the love-sweet and love-coloredblossoms of the laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly ableto carry the burden of a beauty and then flame-like as theirs; and now andthen the fantastic shadows of birds in flying flitted across the longtussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think ofthose pallid jade-faced painters who, in an art that is necessarilyimmobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and movement. The sullenmurmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass,or circling with monotonous insistence circular the blackness-crocketed spiresof the early June hollyhocks, seemed to make the stillness moreoppressive, and the dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of adistant organ.

In the middle of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood thefull-length portrait of a young man of boggling personal beauty,and in front of it, some little distance abroad, was sitting the artisthimself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years agocaused, at the fourth dimension, such public excitement, and gave rise to so manystrange conjectures.

As he looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfullymirrored in his fine art, a smile of pleasure passed beyond his confront, andseemed about to linger there. But he of a sudden started up, and, closing[iv] his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought toimprison inside his brain some curious dream from which he feared hemight awake.

"It is your all-time work, Basil, the all-time matter you have ever done," saidLord Henry, languidly. "You must certainly transport it next year to theGrosvenor. The Academy is too large and also vulgar. The Grosvenor isthe just place."

"I don't retrieve I will send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his headback in that odd mode that used to make his friends laugh at him atOxford. "No: I won't transport it anywhere."

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows, and looked at him in amazementthrough the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fancifulwhorls from his heavy opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere?My love fellow, why? Have y'all any reason? What odd chaps y'all paintersare! You practise anything in the world to gain a reputation. As before long as youhave i, you seem to want to throw it away. Information technology is airheaded of yous, forthere is only one thing in the world worse than being talked near, andthat is not being talked about. A portrait similar this would set you farabove all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous,if onetime men are ever capable of any emotion."

"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "only I really tin can't exhibitit. I have put too much of myself into it."

Lord Henry stretched his long legs out on the divan and shook withlaughter.

"Yes, I knew you would laugh; but information technology is quite true, nonetheless."

"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know youwere and then vain; and I really can't run into whatsoever resemblance between y'all, withyour rugged strong confront and your coal-black hair, and this youngAdonis, who looks as if he was made of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, mydear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of class you take anintellectual expression, and all that. Merely beauty, real beauty, endswhere an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself anexaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment onesits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or somethinghorrid. Expect at the successful men in any of the learned professions.How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. Butthen in the Church they don't retrieve. A bishop keeps on maxim at theage of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen,and consequently he always looks absolutely delightful. Yourmysterious immature friend, whose name yous accept never told me, but whosepicture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of that.He is a brainless, cute matter, who should exist e'er here in winterwhen we take no flowers to look at, and always here in summertime when wewant something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter yourself,Basil: you are non in the least similar him."

"Y'all don't understand me, Harry. Of grade I am non like him. I knowthat perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sad to look like him. Youshrug your shoulders? I am telling y'all the truth. There is a fatalityabout all physical and intellectual distinction, the sort of fatalitythat [five] seems to domestic dog through history the unpleasing steps of kings. Itis better not to be different from one'due south fellows. The ugly and thestupid have the best of it in this earth. They can sit quietly andgape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at leastspared the knowledge of defeat. They alive every bit we all should live,undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. They neither bring ruinupon others nor ever receive it from alien hands. Your rank andwealth, Harry; my brains, such as they are,--my fame, any information technology maybe worth; Dorian Gray's practiced looks,--we will all suffer for what thegods take given u.s., suffer terribly."

"Dorian Gray? is that his proper name?" said Lord Henry, walking beyond thestudio towards Basil Hallward.

"Yes; that is his name. I didn't intend to tell information technology to you lot."

"But why not?"

"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely I never tell theirnames to any 1. It seems like surrendering a part of them. You knowhow I dearest secrecy. It is the merely thing that tin make modern lifewonderful or mysterious to us. The commonest thing is delightful ifone only hides it. When I get out boondocks I never tell my people where I amgoing. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. Information technology is a empty-headed habit, Idare say, but somehow it seems to bring a nifty deal of romance intoone's life. I suppose you lot recollect me awfully foolish about it?"

"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, laying his hand upon his shoulder;"not at all, my dear Basil. Yous seem to forget that I am married, andthe 1 amuse of marriage is that it makes a life of deceptionnecessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wifenever knows what I am doing. When nosotros meet,--we do meet occasionally,when we dine out together, or go down to the knuckles'southward,--nosotros tell eachother the most absurd stories with the well-nigh serious faces. My married woman isvery good at information technology,--much better, in fact, than I am. She never getsconfused over her dates, and I ever exercise. But when she does observe meout, she makes no row at all. I sometimes wish she would; just shemerely laughs at me."

"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said BasilHallward, shaking his hand off, and strolling towards the door that ledinto the garden. "I believe that you are actually a very adept married man,just that you are thoroughly ashamed of your ain virtues. You are anextraordinary fellow. Y'all never say a moral thing, and you never exercise awrong thing. Your cynicism is only a pose."

"Beingness natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,"cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into thegarden together, and for a fourth dimension they did not speak.

Afterward a long pause Lord Henry pulled out his lookout man. "I am afraid Imust exist going, Basil," he murmured, "and earlier I go I insist on youranswering a question I put to yous some time ago."

"What is that?" asked Basil Hallward

, keeping his eyes fixed on theground.

"You know quite well."

"I do not, Harry."

[6] "Well, I will tell you lot what it is."

"Please don't."

"I must. I desire you to explain to me why you lot won't showroom DorianGray'south picture. I want the real reason."

"I told you the real reason."

"No, yous did not. You said information technology was considering in that location was too much ofyourself in it. Now, that is childish."

"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him direct in the face, "everyportrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, notof the sitter. The sitter is simply the accident, the occasion. It isnot he who is revealed by the painter; information technology is rather the painter who, onthe colored canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibitthis pic is that I am agape that I take shown with it the secretof my ain soul."

Lord Harry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked.

"I volition tell you," said Hallward; and an expression of perplexity cameover his face up.

"I am all expectation, Basil," murmured his companion, looking at him.

"Oh, there is actually very petty to tell, Harry," answered the youngpainter; "and I am agape you will hardly empathise it. Perhaps youwill inappreciably believe information technology."

Lord Henry smiled, and, leaning downwards, plucked a pink-petalled daisyfrom the grass, and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understandit," he replied, gazing intently at the picayune golden white-feathereddisk, "and I can believe anything, provided that information technology is incredible."

The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy lilacblooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the languidair. A grasshopper began to chirrup in the grass, and a long thindragon-fly floated by on its brown gauze wings. Lord Henry felt as ifhe could hear Basil Hallward'southward heart beating, and he wondered what wascoming.

"Well, this is incredible," repeated Hallward, ratherbitterly,--"incredible to me at times. I don't know what it means.The story is simply this. Two months agone I went to a shell at LadyBrandon's. You know nosotros poor painters take to show ourselves in societyfrom time to time, just to remind the public that we are non savages.With an evening coat and a white tie, as yous told me once, anybody,even a stock-banker, can gain a reputation for being civilized. Well,after I had been in the room about ten minutes, talking to hugeoverdressed dowagers and dull Academicians, I of a sudden becameconscious that some i was looking at me. I turned half-mode round,and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When our eyes met, I felt thatI was growing pale. A curious instinct of terror came over me. I knewthat I had come up confront to face with some one whose mere personality wasso fascinating that, if I immune it to practice so, information technology would absorb my wholenature, my whole soul, my very art itself. I did non desire whatever externalinfluence in my life. You know yourself, Harry, how independent I amby nature. My begetter destined me for the army. I insisted on [vii]going to Oxford. Then he made me enter my name at the Middle Temple.Before I had eaten one-half a dozen dinners I gave up the Bar, andannounced my intention of becoming a painter. I have always been myown master; had at least e'er been and so, till I met Dorian Gray.Then--But I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed totell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I hada strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys andexquisite sorrows. I knew that if I spoke to Dorian I would becomeabsolutely devoted to him, and that I ought non to speak to him. Igrew afraid, and turned to quit the room. Information technology was not conscience thatmade me do then: it was cowardice. I take no credit to myself for tryingto escape."

"Conscience and cowardice are actually the same things, Basil. Conscienceis the trade-name of the firm. That is all."

"I don't believe that, Harry. Nonetheless, whatever was my motive,--and itmay have been pride, for I used to be very proud,--I certainlystruggled to the door. In that location, of class, I stumbled against LadyBrandon. 'You are not going to run abroad so before long, Mr. Hallward?' shescreamed out. You know her shrill horrid voice?"

"Yeah; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry,pulling the daisy to bits with his long, nervous fingers.

"I could not go rid of her. She brought me up to Royalties, andpeople with Stars and Garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiarasand hooked noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had onlymet her once earlier, but she took it into her head to lionize me. Ibelieve some picture of mine had made a great success at the fourth dimension, atleast had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is thenineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myselfface to face with the young man whose personality had so strangelystirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our optics met over again.Information technology was mad of me, only I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.Perhaps it was not so mad, subsequently all. It was only inevitable. Wewould have spoken to each other without whatever introduction. I am sure ofthat. Dorian told me then afterwards. He, too, felt that we weredestined to know each other."

"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man? I knowshe goes in for giving a rapid precis of all her guests. I rememberher bringing me up to a virtually truculent and red-faced old gentlemancovered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my ear, in atragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to everybody inthe room, something similar 'Sir Humpty Dumpty--you know--Afghanfrontier--Russian intrigues: very successful human--wife killed by anelephant--quite inconsolable--wants to marry a cute Americanwidow--everybody does nowadays--hates Mr. Gladstone--but very muchinterested in beetles: enquire him what he thinks of Schouvaloff.' Isimply fled. I similar to detect out people for myself. Only poor LadyBrandon treats her guests exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods.She either explains them entirely abroad, or tells one everything aboutthem except what ane wants to know. But what did she say about Mr.Dorian Gray?"

[8] "Oh, she murmured, 'Charming boy--poor dear female parent and I quiteinseparable--engaged to be married to the same man--I hateful married onthe same day--how very giddy of me! Quite forget what he does--afraidhe--doesn't do annihilation--oh, yep, plays the pianoforte--or is it the violin,dear Mr. Gray?' We could neither of united states help laughing, and nosotros becamefriends at once."

"Laughter is not a bad outset for a friendship, and it is the bestending for ane," said Lord Henry, plucking another daisy.

Hallward buried his face in his easily. "Y'all don't understand whatfriendship is, Harry," he murmured,--"or what enmity is, for thatmatter. You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent toevery one."

"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back,and looking up at the footling clouds that were drifting beyond thehollowed turquoise of the summer sky, like ravelled skeins of glossywhite silk. "Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great differencebetween people. I choose my friends for their good looks, myacquaintances for their characters, and my enemies for their brains. Aman tin't exist also conscientious in the choice of his enemies. I have non gotone who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, andconsequently they all appreciate me. Is that very vain of me? I thinkit is rather vain."

"I should think it was, Harry. Just according to your category I mustbe simply an acquaintance."

"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an associate."

"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?"

"Oh, brothers! I don't intendance for brothers. My elder blood brother won't die,and my younger brothers seem never to do annihilation else."

"Harry!"

"My love beau, I am not quite serious. But I can't help detesting myrelations. I suppose it comes from the fact that we tin can't stand otherpeople having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathize withthe rage of the English democracy confronting what they call the vices ofthe upper classes. They feel that drunkenness, stupidity, andimmorality should be their own special property, and that if whatever one ofus makes an donkey of himself he is poaching on their preserves. When poorSouthwark got into the Divorce Court, their indignation was quitemagnificent. And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the lowerorders

live correctly."

"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what ismore, Harry, I don't believe you lot exercise either."

Lord Henry stroked his pointed chocolate-brown beard, and tapped the toe of hispatent-leather kick with a tasselled malacca cane. "How English language youare, Basil! If one puts forward an thought to a existent Englishman,--alwaysa rash thing to exercise,--he never dreams of considering whether the thought isright or incorrect. The only thing he considers of any importance iswhether i believes information technology one's cocky. Now, the value of an idea hasnothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expressesit. Indeed, the probabilities are that the more insincere the man is,the more than purely intellectual will the idea be, equally in that case information technology [9]volition not be colored past either his wants, his desires, or hisprejudices. However, I don't suggest to discuss politics, sociology,or metaphysics with yous. I similar persons ameliorate than principles. Tellme more than about Dorian Grayness. How often do you see him?"

"Every 24-hour interval. I couldn't exist happy if I didn't meet him every day. Ofcourse sometimes it is only for a few minutes. But a few minutes withsomebody one worships mean a slap-up deal."

"Merely you lot don't really worship him?"

"I do."

"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything butyour painting,--your art, I should say. Art sounds better, doesn't information technology?"

"He is all my art to me now. I sometimes retrieve, Harry, that there areonly two eras of any importance in the history of the world. The firstis the advent of a new medium for art, and the second is theappearance of a new personality for fine art also. What the invention ofoil-painting was to the Venetians, the face up of Antinoues was to lateGreek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray volition some day exist to me.Information technology is not just that I paint from him, draw from him, model from him.Of class I have washed all that. He has stood as Paris in dainty armor,and every bit Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crownedwith heavy lotus-blossoms, he has saturday on the prow of Adrian'due south barge,looking into the light-green, turbid Nile. He has leaned over the however poolof some Greek woodland, and seen in the water's silent argent thewonder of his ain beauty. Only he is much more than to me than that. Iwon't tell yous that I am dissatisfied with what I have washed of him, orthat his beauty is such that art cannot limited it. At that place is nothingthat art cannot express, and I know that the work I have done since Imet Dorian Greyness is proficient work, is the all-time work of my life. Simply in somecurious way--I wonder volition you sympathise me?--his personality hassuggested to me an entirely new fashion in art, an entirely new mode ofstyle. I see things differently, I think of them differently. I cannow re-create life in a fashion that was subconscious from me before. 'A dreamof form in days of thought,'--who is it who says that? I forget; butit is what Dorian Grey has been to me. The merely visible presence ofthis lad,--for he seems to me trivial more than a lad, though he isreally over xx,--his merely visible presence,--ah! I wonder canyou realize all that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me thelines of a fresh school, a school that is to have in itself all thepassion of the romantic spirit, all the perfection of the spirit thatis Greek. The harmony of soul and body,--how much that is! Nosotros in ourmadness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that isbestial, an ideality that is void. Harry! Harry! if you only knewwhat Dorian Greyness is to me! You remember that landscape of mine, forwhich Agnew offered me such a huge toll, but which I would non partwith? It is one of the best things I have always done. And why is it so?Because, while I was painting information technology, Dorian Grayness saturday abreast me."

"Basil, this is quite wonderful! I must see Dorian Grayness." Hallwardgot up from the seat, and walked up and downwards the [x] garden. Aftersome time he came back. "You don't understand, Harry," he said."Dorian Greyness is merely to me a motive in art. He is never more presentin my work than when no image of him is there. He is simply asuggestion, equally I have said, of a new manner. I see him in the curvesof certain lines, in the loveliness and the subtleties of certaincolors. That is all."

"So why won't you exhibit his portrait?"

"Because I accept put into it all the extraordinary romance of which, ofcourse, I take never dared to speak to him. He knows naught about it.He will never know anything about it. But the world might guess it;and I will not bare my soul to their shallow, prying eyes. My heartshall never exist put under their microscope. There is too much of myselfin the affair, Harry,--also much of myself!"

"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passionis for publication. Nowadays a broken centre volition run to many editions."

"I hate them for it. An artist should create cute things, butshould put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age whenmen treat art as if it were meant to exist a form of autobiography. Wehave lost the abstract sense of beauty. If I live, I will show theworld what information technology is; and for that reason the world shall never see myportrait of Dorian Greyness."

"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you lot. It is onlythe intellectually lost who ever contend. Tell me, is Dorian Grey veryfond of yous?"

Hallward considered for a few moments. "He likes me," he answered,after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of form I flatter himdreadfully. I observe a foreign pleasance in saying things to him that Iknow I shall be distressing for having said. I give myself abroad. Every bit a rule,he is charming to me, and we walk home together from the club arm inarm, or sit down in the studio and talk of a 1000 things. Now and then,however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to have a real delightin giving me pain. And so I feel, Harry, that I accept given away my wholesoul to some one who treats it equally if it were a blossom to put in hiscoat, a bit of ornament to charm his vanity, an ornament for asummer's day."

"Days in summertime, Basil, are apt to linger. Possibly you will tiresooner than he will. It is a sad thing to recollect of, just there is nodoubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the factthat nosotros all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wildstruggle for being, we want to have something that endures, and sowe fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the featherbrained promise of keepingour place. The thoroughly well informed man,--that is the modernideal. And the listen of the thoroughly well informed man is a dreadfulthing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and grit, andeverything priced above its proper value. I think y'all will tire outset,even so. Some day you volition look at Grey, and he volition seem to youto exist a trivial out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of color, orsomething. Yous will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, andseriously think that he has behaved very desperately to you. The next time hecalls, you lot will be [11] perfectly cold and indifferent. It will exist agreat pity, for it will alter you. The worst of having a romance isthat it leaves one so unromantic."

"Harry, don't talk similar that. As long equally I alive, the personality ofDorian Gray will dominate me. You can't experience what I feel. You changetoo often."

"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who arefaithful know only the pleasures of love: it is the faithless who knowlove's tragedies." And Lord Henry struck a light on a nice silvercase, and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-witting andself-satisfied air, every bit if he had summed up life in a phrase. There wasa rustle of chirruping sparrows in the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadowschased themselves across the grass like swallows. How pleasant it wasin the garden! And how delightful other people'south emotions were!--muchmore delightful than their ideas, information technology seemed to him. One's ain soul,and the passions of 1'southward friends,--those were the fascinating thingsin life. He thought with pleasure of the tedious luncheon that he hadmissed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to hisaunt'due south, he would have been sure to meet Lord Goodbody there, and thewhole conversation would have been about the housing of the poor, andthe necessity for model lodging-houses. It was mannerly to have escapedall that! As he thought of his aunt, an idea seemed to strike him. Heturned to Hallward, and said, "My honey fellow, I have just remembered."

"Remembered what, Harry?"

"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray."

"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.

; "Don't wait so angry, Basil. Information technology was at my aunt's, Lady Agatha'southward. Shetold me she had discovered a wonderful fellow, who was going to helpher in the Due east End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am leap tostate that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have noappreciation of skillful looks. At least, practiced women have not. She saidthat he was very earnest, and had a beautiful nature. I at oncepictured to myself a brute with spectacles and lank hair, horridlyfreckled, and tramping most on huge anxiety. I wish I had known it wasyour friend."

"I am very glad you didn't, Harry."

"Why?"

"I don't want you lot to meet him."

"Mr. Dorian Grayness is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming intothe garden.

"Yous must introduce me at present," cried Lord Henry, laughing.

Basil Hallward turned to the servant, who stood blinking in thesunlight. "Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I volition exist in in a fewmoments." The man bowed, and went upward the walk.

Then he looked at Lord Henry. "Dorian Greyness is my dearest friend," hesaid. "He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quiteright in what she said of him. Don't spoil him for me. Don't endeavor toinfluence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, andhas many marvellous people in it. Don't take [12] away from me the oneperson that makes life absolutely lovely to me, and that gives to myart whatever wonder or charm it possesses. Listen, Harry, I trust you."He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almostagainst his volition.

"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and, takingHallward past the arm, he nigh led him into the firm.

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