The Picture Of Dorian Gray - Chapter 12

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter twelve of the Picture of DorrianGray by Oscar Wilde, read by Bob
Neufeld. It was on the ninthof November, the eve of his own
thirty eighth birthday, as he oftenremembered afterwards. He was walking home about
eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, wherehe had been dining, and was wrapped

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in heavy firs as the night wascold and foggy. At the corner of
Grosvenor Square in South Audley Street,a man passed him in the mist,
walking very fast and with the collarof his gray ulster turned up. He
had a bag in his hand.Dorrian recognized him. It was Basil Hallward.

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A strange sense of fear for whichhe could not accounts, came over
him. He made no sign ofrecognition and went on quickly in the direction
of his own house. But Hallwardhad seen him. Doran heard him,
first stopping on the pavement, andthen hurrying after him. In a few
moments, his hand was on hisarm. Dorian, what an extraordinary piece

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of luck. I have been waitingfor you in your library ever since nine
o'clock. Finally I took pity onyour 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 wantedto see you before I left. I
thought it was you, or ratheryour fur coat, as you passed me,

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but I wasn't quite sure. Didn'tyou recognize me in this fog?
Dear Basil? Why I can't evenrecognize Grosvenor Square. I believe my house
is somewhere about here, but Idon't 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 willbe back soon. No, I am

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going out of England for six months. I intend to take a stereo in
Paris and shut myself up till Ihave finished a great picture I have in
my head. However, it wasn'tabout 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. I shall be charmed. But

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won't you miss your train? SaidDorian Gray languidly as he passed up the
steps and opened the door with hislatch key. The lamplight struggled out through
the fog, and Hallward looked athis watch. Oh I have heaps of
time, he answered. The traindoesn't go till twelve fifteen, and it

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is only just eleven. In fact, I was on my way to the
club to look for you when Imet you. You see, I shan't
have any delay about luggage, asI have sent on my heavy things.
All I have with me is thisbag, and I can easily get to
Victoria in twenty minutes. Dorian lookedat him and smiled. What a way

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for a fashionable painter to travel agladstone bag and an ulster. Come in
or the fog will get into thehouse. And mind you don't talk about
anything serious. Nothing it's serious nowadays, at least nothing should be all word
shook his head as he entered andfollowed Dorian into the library. There was

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a bright wood fire blazing in thelarge open hearth. The lamps were lit,
and an open Dutch silver spirit.He stood with some siphons of soda
water and large cut glass tumblers ona little marketry table. You see,
your serfet made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me everything I

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wanted, including your best gold tippedcigarettes. He is a most hospitable creature.
I like him much better than theFrenchman you used to have. What
has come of the Frenchman? Bythe way Dorian shrugged his shoulders. I
believe he married Lady Bradley's maid andhas established her in Paris as an English

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dressmaker. Anglo Mania is very fashionableover there now, I hear seems silly
of the French, doesn't it.But do you know he was not at
all a bad servant. I neverliked him, but I had nothing to
complain about. One often imagines thingsthat are quite absurd. He was really

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very devoted to me and seemed quitesorry when he went away. Have another
brandy and soda? Or would youlike hawk and Seltzer? I always take
hawk and Seltzer myself. There issure to be some in the next room.
Thanks, I won't have anything more, said the painter, taking his
cap and coat off and throwing themon the bag that he had placed in

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the corner. And now, mydear fellow, I want to speak to
you seriously. Don't frown like that. You make it so much more difficult
for me. What is it allabout? Cried Dorian in his petulant way,
flinging himself down on the sofa.I hope it is not about myself.

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I am tired of myself to night. I should like to be somebody
else. It is about yourself,answered Hallward in his grave, deep voice.
And I must say it to you. I shall only keep you half
an hour. Dorian sighed and lita cigarette. Half an hour. He

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murmured. It has not much toask of you, Dorian. And it
is entirely for your own sake thatI am speaking. I think it right
that you should know that the mostdreadful things are being said against you in
London. I don't wish to knowanything about them. I love scandals about
other people, but handles about myselfdon't interest me. They have not got

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the charm of novelty. They mustinterest you, Dorian. Every gentleman is
interested in his good name. Youdon't 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.

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Mind you. I don't believe theserumors at all, at least I can't
believe them when I see you.Sin is a thing that writes itself across
a man's face. It cannot beconcealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices.
There are no such things. Ifa wretched man has a vice,

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it shows itself in the lines ofhis mouth, the drop of his eyelids,
the molding of his hands. Evensomebody I won't mention his name,
but you know him came to melast year to have his port had done.
I had never seen him before,and had never heard anything about him.
At the time, though I haveheard a great deal. Since he

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offered an extravagant price, I refusedhim. 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 marvelous, untroubled

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youth, I can't believe anything againstyou. And yet I see you very
seldom, and you never come downto the studio. Now, and when
I am away from you, whenI hear all these hideous things that people
are whispering about you, I don'tknow what to say. Why is it,
Dorian, that a man like theDuke of Berwick leaves the room of

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a club when you enter it?Why is it that so many gentlemen in
London will neither go to your soinvite you to theirs. You used to
be a friend of Lord Stavely.I met him at dinner last week.
Your name happened to come up inconversation in connection with the miniatures you have

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lent to the exhibition at the Dudley. Stavely 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 allowedto 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 whathe meant. He told me, He

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told me right out before everybody.It was horrible. Why is your friendship
so fatal to young men? Therewas that wretched boy in the Guards who
committed suicide. You were his greatfriend. There was Sir Henry Ashton,
who had to leave England with atarnished name. You and he were inseparable.

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What about Adrian Singleton and his dreadfulend? What about Lord Kent's only
son and his career? I methis father yesterday in Saint James's 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

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with him? Stop, Basil,you are talking about things of which you
know nothing, said Dorian Gray,biting his lip and with a note of
infinite contempt in his voice. Youask me why Berwick leaves a room when
I enter it? It is becauseI know everything about his life, not
because he knows anything about mine.With such blood as he has in his

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veins, how could his record beclean? You ask me about Henry Ashton
and Young Perth. Did I teachthe one his vices and the other his
debauchery? If Kent's silly son takeshis wife from the streets, what is
that to me? If Adrian Singletonwrites his friend's name across a bill,
am I his keeper? I knowhow people chatter in England. The middle

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classes ere their moral prejudices over theirgross dinner tables, and whisper about what
they call the proflicacies of their betters, in order to try and pretend that
they are in smart society and onintimate terms with the people they slander.
In this country it is enough fora man to have distinction and brains for

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every common tongue to wag against him. And what sort of lives do these
people who pose as being moral leadthemselves, My dear fellow, you forget
that we are in the native landof the hypocrite. Dorian, cried Hollward.

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That is not the question. Englandis bad enough. I know an
English society is all wrong. Thatis the reason why I want you to
be fine. You have not beenfine. One has a right to judge
a man by the effect he hasover his friends. Yours seem to lose

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all sense of honor, of goodness, of purity. You have filled them
with a madness for pleasure. Theyhave gone down into the depths. You
led them there, Yes, youled them there. And yet you can
smile as you are smiling now,And there is worse behind. I know

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you and Harry are inseparable. Surelyfor that reason, if none other,
you should not have made his sister'sname a byword. Take care, Basil,
you go too far. I mustspeak, and you must listen.
You shall listen. When you metLady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal

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had ever touched her is there asingle 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 areother stories, stories that you have been
seen creeping at dawn out of dreadfulhouses and slinking in disguise into the foulest

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dens of London. Are they true? Can they be true? When I
first heard them I laughed. Ihear them now and they make me shudder.
What about your country house and thelife that is led there, Dorian?
You don't know what is said aboutyou. I won't tell you that.

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I don't want to preach to you. I remember Harry saying once that
every man who had turned himself intoan amateur curate for the moment, always
began by saying that, and thenproceeded to break his word. I do
want to preach to you. Iwant you to lead such a life as
will make the world respect you.I want you to have a clean name

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and a fair record. I wantyou to get rid of the dreadful people
you associate with. Don't shrug yourshoulders like that. Don't be so indifferent.
You have a wonderful influence. Letit be for good, not for
evil. They say that you corrupteveryone with whom you become intimates, and

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that it is quite sufficient for youto enter a house for shame of some
kind to follow after. I don'tknow whether it is so or not.
How should I know, But itis said of you. I am told
things that it seems impossible to doubt. Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest

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friends at Oxford. He showed mea letter that his wife had written to
him when she was dying a loanin her fellow at Maiden Toorny. Your
name was implicated in the most terribleconfession I ever read. I told him
that it was absurd that I knewyou thoroughly, and that you were incapable
of anything of the kind know you? I wonder do I know you?

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Before I could answer, that Ishould have to see your soul. To
see my soul, muttered Dorrian Gray, starting up from the sofa and turning
almost white with fear. Yes,answered Hollwood, gravely, and with deep
toned sorrow in his voice, tosee your soul. But only God can

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do that. A bitter laugh ofmockery broke from the lips of the younger
man. You shall see it yourselftonight, he cried, seizing a lamp
from the table. Come, itis your old handiwork. Why shouldn't you
look at it. You can tellthe world all about it afterwards, if
you choose. Nobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they

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would like me all the better forit. I know the age better than
you do, though you will prateabout it so tediously. Come, I
tell you you have chattered enough aboutcorruption. Now you shall look on it
face to face. There was amadness of pride in every word he uttered.

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He stamped his foot upon the groundin his boyish, insolent manner.
He felt a terrible joy at thethought that someone else was to share his
secret, and that the man whohad painted the portrait that was the origin
of all his shame was to beburdened for the rest of his life with
the hideous memory of what he haddone. Yes, he continued, coming

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closer to him and looking steadfastly intohis stern eyes. I shall show you
my soul. You shall see thething that you fancy only God can see.
All word started back. That isblasphemy, Dorian, he cried,
You must not say things like that. They are horrible and they don't mean

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anything you think, so, helaughed again. I know so. As
for what I said to you tonight, I said it for your good.
You know I have been always astaunch friend to you. Don't touch me.
Finish what you have to say.A twisted flash of pain shot across

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the painter's face. He paused fora moment, and a wild feeling of
pity came over him. After all, what right had he to pry into
the life of Dorian Gray? Ifhe had done a tithe of what was
rumored about him, how much shemust have suffered. Then he straightened himself

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up and walked over to the fireplaceand stood there, looking at the burning
logs with their frost like ashes andtheir throbbing cores of flame. I am
waiting, Basil, said the youngman in a hard, clear voice.
He turned round. What I haveto say is this, he cried.

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You must give me some answer tothese horrible charges that are made against you.
If you tell me that they areabsolutely untrue from beginning to end,
I shall 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 bad and corrupt and shameful.Dory and Gray smiled. There was a

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curl of contempt in his lips.Come upstairs, Baso, he said quietly.
I keep a diary of my lifefrom day to day, and it
never leaves the room in which itis written. I shall show it to
you if you come with me.I shall come with you, Dorian,

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if you wish it. I seeI have missed my train. That makes
no matter. I can go tomorrow, but don't ask me to read
anything to night. All I wantis a plain answer to my question,
that shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here.
You will not have to read longend of chapter twelve.