The Picture Of Dorian Gray - Chapter 19

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter nineteen of the Picture of Dorryand Gray by Oscar wild Bred by Bobnefeld.
There is no use your telling methat you are going to be good,
cried Lord Henry, dipping his whitefingers into a red copper bowl filled
with rose water. You are quiteperfect. Pray, don't change. Dorry

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and Gray shook his head. No, Harry, I have done too many
dreadful things in my life. Iam not going to do any more.
I began my good actions yesterday.Where were you yesterday in the country,
Harry. I am staying at alittle inn by myself, my dear boy,

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said Lord Henry, smiling. Anybodycan be good in the country.
There are no temptations there. Thatis the reason why people who live out
of town are so absolutely civilized.Civilization is not, by any means an
easy thing to attain to. Thereare only two ways by which man can
reach it. One is by beingcultured, and the other by being corrupt.

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Country people have no opportunity of beingeither, so they stagnate. Culture
and corruption, echoed Dorian. Ihave known something of both. It seems
terrible to me now that they shouldever be found together. For I have
a new ideal. Harry, Iam going to alter. I think I

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have altered. You have not yettold me what your good action was.
What did you say you have done? More than one? Asked his companion,
as he spilled into his plate alittle crimson pyramid of seated strawberries,
and through a perforated shell shaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them. I

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can tell you, Harry, itis not a story I could tell to
anyone else. I spared somebody.That sounds vain, but you understand what
I mean. She was quite beautifuland wonderfully liked Sybil Vain. I think
it was that which first attracted meto her. You remember Sybil, don't

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you? How long ago? Thatseems? Well? Hetty was not one
of our own class. Of course, she was simply a girl in a
village. But I really loved her. I am quite sure that I loved
her. All during this wonderful maythat we have been having, I used
to run down and see her twoor three times a week. Yesterday she

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met me in a little orchard.The apple blossoms kept tumbling down on her
hair, and she was laughing.We were to have gone away together this
morning at dawn. Suddenly I determinedto leave her as flower like as I
had found her. I should thinkthe novelty of the emotion must have given

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you a thrill of real pleasure,Dorian interrupted, Lord Henry. But I
can finish your idol for you.You gave her good advice and broke her
heart. That was the beginning ofyour reformation. Harry, you are horrible.
You mustn't say these dreadful things.Hattie's heart is not broken. Of

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course, she cried and all that, but there is no disgrace upon her.
She can live like pery Tae inher garden of mint and marigold,
and weep over a faithless Florisle,said Lord Henry, laughing as he leaned
back in his chair. My dearDorian, you have the most curiously boyish

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moods. Do you think this girlwill ever be really content now with any
one of her own rank? Isuppose she will be married someday to a
rough carter or a grinning plowman.Well, the fact of having met you
and loved you will teach her todespise her husband, and she will be

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a wretched From a moral point ofview, I cannot say that I think
much of your great renunciation, evenas a beginning, it is poor.
Besides, how do you know thatHetty isn't floating at the present moment in
some starlit mill pond with lovely waterlilies round her like Ophelia. I can't

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bear this, Harry, You markat everything and then suggest the most serious
tragedies. I am sorry. Itold you now. I don't care what
you say to me. I knowI was right in acting as I did
poor Hetty. As I rode pastthe farm this morning, I saw her

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white face at the window like aspray of jasmine. Don't let us talk
about it anymore, and don't tryto persuade me that the first good action
I have done for years, thefirst little bit of self sacrifice I have
ever known, is really a sortof sin. I want to be better.

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I am going to be better.Tell me something about yourself. What
is going on in town? Ihave not been to the club for days.
The people are discussing poor Basil's disappearance. I should have thought they had
got tired of that by this time, said Dorian, pouring himself out some

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wine and frowning slightly. My dearboy, they have only been talking about
it for six weeks, and theBritish public are really not equal to the
mental strain of having more than onetopic every three months. They have been
very fortunate lately, however, theyhave had my own divorce case and Alan

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Campbell's suicide. Now they have gotthe mysterious disappearance of an artist. Scotland
Yard still insists that the man inthe gray Ulster had left for Paris by
the midnight train on the ninth ofNovember. Was poor Basil, and the
French police declare that Basil never arrivedin Paris at all. I suppose in

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about a fortnight we shall be toldthat he has been seen in San Francisco.
It is an odd thing, butevery one who disappears is said to
be seen in San Francisco. Itmust be a delightful city and possess all
the attractions of the next world.What do you think has happened to Basil?

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Said Dorrian, holding up his Burgundyagainst the light, and wondering how
it was that he could discuss thematter so calmly. I have not the
slightest idea. If Basil chooses tohide himself, it is no business of
mine. If he is dead,I don't want to think about him.

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Death is the only thing that everterrifies me. I hate it, why,
said the young man wearily, Because, said Lord Henry, passing beneath
his nostrils, the guilt trellis ofan open vinegarette box. One can survive
everything nowadays, except that death andvulgarity are the only two facts in the

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nineteenth century that one cannot explain away. Let us have our coffee in the
music room, Dorian, you mustplay Chopin to me. The man with
whom my wife ran away played Chopinexquisitely. Poor Victoria. I was very
fond of her. The house israther lonely without her. Of course,

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married life is merely a habit,a bad habit. But then one regrets
the loss, even of one's worsthabits. Perhaps one regrets them the most
they are such an essential part ofone's personalogy. Dorian said nothing, but
rose from the table, and,passing into the next room, sat down

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at the piano and let his fingersstray across the white and black ivory of
the keys. After the coffee hadbeen brought in, he stopped, and,
looking over at Lord Henry said Harry. Did it ever occur to you
that Basil was murdered? Lord Henryyawned. Basil was very popular and always

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wore a water berry watch. Whyshould he have been murdered? He was
not clever enough to have enemies.Of course, he had a wonderful genius
for painting. But a man canpaint like Velasquez and yet be as dull
as possible. Basil was really ratherdull. He only interested me once,

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and that was when he told meyears ago that he had a wild adoration
for you, and that you werethe dominant motive of his art. I
was very fond of Basil, saidDorian, with a note of sadness in
his voice. But don't people saythat he was murdered, Oh, some

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of the papers do. It doesnot seem to me to be at all
probable. I know there are dreadfulplaces in Paris, but Basil was not
the sort of man to have goneto them. He had no curiosity.
It was his chief defect. Whatwould you say, Harry, if I

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told you that I had murdered Basil, said the younger man. He watched
him intently after he had spoken.I would say, my dear fellow that
you you are posing for a characterthat doesn't suit you. All crime is
vulgar, just as all vulgarity iscrime. It is not in you,

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Dorrian, to commit a murder.I am sorry if I hurt your vanity
by saying so, But I assureyou it is true. Crime belongs exclusively
to the lower orders. I don'tblame them in the smallest degree. I
should fancy that crime was to themwhat art is to us, simply a
method of procuring extraordinary sensations, amethod of procuring sensations. Do you think,

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then, that a man who hasonce committed a murder could possibly do
the same crime again. Don't tellme that, oh, anything becomes a
pleasure if one does it too often, cried Lord Henry, laughing. That
is one of the most important secretsof life. I should fancy, however,
that murder is always a mistake.One should never do anything that one

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cannot talk about after dinner. Butlet us pass from poor Basil. I
wish I could believe that he hadcome to some really romantic end, as
you suggest, but I can't.I dare say he fell into the Seine
off an omnibus, and that theconductor hushed up the scandal. Yes,

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I should fancy that was his end. I see him lying now on his
back under those dull green waters,with the heavy barges floating over him,
and long weeds catching in his hair. Do you know, I don't think
he would have done much more goodwork during the last ten years. His

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painting had gone off very much.Dorrian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry
strolled across the room and began tostroke the head of a curious java parrot
alar arch, gray plumaged bird withpink crest and tail, that was balancing
itself upon a bamboo perch. Ashis pointed fingers touched it, he dropped

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the white scarf of crinkled lids overblack glass like eyes and began to sway
backwards and forwards. Yes, hecontinued, turning round and taking his handkerchief
out of his pocket. His paintinghad quite gone off. It seems to
me to have lost something. Ithad lost an ideal. When you and

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he ceased to be great friends,he ceased to be a great artist.
What was it separated you? Isuppose he bored you. If so,
he never forgave you. It's ahabit bores have. By the way,
one has become of that wonderful portraithe did of you. I don't think

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I have ever seen it since hefinished it. Oh oh, I remember
you're telling me years ago that youhad sent it down to Selby and that
it had got mislaid or stolen onthe way. You never got it back.
What a pity. It was reallya masterpiece. I remember I wanted

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to buy it. I wish Ihad now. It belonged to Basil's best
period since then his work was thatcurious mixture of bad painting and good intentions
that always entitles a man to becalled a representative British artist. Did you

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advertise for it? You should,I forget, said Dorian. I suppose
I did, but I never reallyliked it. I am sorry I sat
for it. The memory of thething is hateful to me. Why do
you talk of it? It usedto remind me of those curious lines in

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some play Hamlet. I think,how do they run? Like the painting
of a sorrow? A face withouta heart? Yes, that is what
it was like, Lord Henry laughed. If a man tweets life artistically,
his brain is his heart. Heanswered, sinking into an armchair. Dorian

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Gray shook his head and struck somesoft chords on the piano, like the
painting of a sorrow. He repeated, a face without a heart. The
elder man lay back and looked athim with half closed eyes. By the
way, Dorian, he said,after a pause, what does it profit

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a man if he gain the wholeworld and lose? How does the quotation
run his own soul? The musichard and dorring. Grace started and stared
at his friend. Why do youask me that, Harry, my dear
fellow, said Lord Henry, elevatinghis eyebrows in surprise. I asked you

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because I thought you might be ableto give me an answer, That is
all. I was going through thepark last Sunday, and close by the
marble arch there stood a little crowdof shabby looking people listening to some vulgar
street preacher. As I passed by, I heard the man yelling out that

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question to his audience. It struckme as being rather dramatic. London is
very rich in curious effects of thatkind. A wet Sunday, an uncouth
Christian in a mackintosh, a ringof sickly white faces under a broken roof
of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderfulphrase flung into the air by shrill,

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hysterical lips. It was really verygood in its way, quite a suggestion.
I thought of telling the prophets thatArt had a soul, but that
man had not. I was afraid, however, he would not have understood
me. Don't tarry. The soulis a terrible reality. It can be

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bought and souled and bartered away.It can be poisoned or made perfect.
There is a soul in each oneof us. I know it. Do
you feel quite sure of that,Dorian? Quite sure? Ah? Then
it must be an illusion. Thethings one feels absolutely certain about are never

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true. That is the fatality offaith and the lesson of romance. How
grave you are, don't be soserious. What have you or I to
do with the superstitions of our age? No, we have given up our
belief in the soul. Play mesomething, Play me a nocturne, Dorian,

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And as you play, tell mein a low voice, how you
have kept your youth. You musthave some secret. I am only ten
years older than you are, andI am wrinkled and worn and yellow.
You are really wonderful, Dorian.You have never looked more charming than you

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do to night. You remind meof the day I saw you first.
You are rather cheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary. You have changed,
of course, but not in appearance. I wish you would tell me
your secret to get back my youth. I would do anything in the world

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except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable youth. There is
nothing like it. It's absurd totalk of the ignorance of youth. The
only people to whose opinions I listennow with any respect are people much younger
than myself. They seem in frontof me life has revealed to them her

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latest wonder. As for the aged, I always contradict the aged. I
do it on principle. If youask them their opinion on something that happened
yesterday, they solemnly give you theopinion's current in eighteen twenty, when people
wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew absolutely nothing. How lovely

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that thing you are playing is.I wonder did Chopin write it in Majorca?
With the sea weeping round the villaand the salt spray dashing against the
pains it is marvelously romantic. Whata blessing it is that there is one
art left to us that is notimitative. Don't stop, I want music

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to night. It seems to methat you are the young Apollo, and
I am Marcius. In listening toyou, I have sorrows, Dorrian,
of my own, that even youknow nothing of the tragedy of old age.
Is not that one is old,but that one is young. I

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am amazed sometimes at my own sincerity. Ah, Dorrian, How happy you
are. What an exquisite life youhave had. You have drunk deeply of
everything, you have crushed the grapesagainst your palate. Nothing has been hidden

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from you, and it has allbeen to you, no more than the
sound of music. It has notmarred you. You are still the same.
I am not the same man,y, Yes, you are the
same. I wonder what the restof your life will be. Don't spoil

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it by renunciations. At present youare a perfect type. Don't make yourself
incomplete. You are quite flawless.Now. You need not shake your head.
You know you are. Besides,Dorian, don't deceive yourself. Life
is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves and

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fibers, and slowly built up cellsin which thought hides itself and passion has
its dreams. You may fancy yourselfsafe and think yourself strong. But a
chance tone of color in a roomor a morning sky, a particular perfume
that you had once loved and thatbrings subtle memories with it, A line

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from a forgotten poem that you hadcome across again, a cadence with a
piece of music that you had ceasedto play. I tell you, Dorian,
that it is on things like thesethat our lives depend. Browning writes
about that somewhere, but our ownsenses will imagine them for us. There

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are moments when the odor of leadus belong passes suddenly across me, and
I have to live the strangest monthof my life over again. I wish
I could change places with you,Dorian. The world has cried out against
us both, but it has alwaysworshiped you. It always will worship you.

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You are the type of what theage is searching for and what it
is afraid it has found. Iam so glad that you have never done
anything, never carved a statue orpainted a picture, or produced anything outside
of yourself. Life has been yourart. You have set yourself to music.

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Your days are your sonnet. Dorianrose up from the piano and passed
his hand through his hair. Yes, life has been exquisite, he murmured.
But I am not going to havethe same life, Harry, and
you must not say these extravagant thingsto me. You don't know everything about

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me. I think if you did, even you would turn from me.
You laugh, don't laugh? Whyhave you stopped playing, Dorian, Go
back and give me the knock.Turn over again. Look at that great
honey colored moon that hangs in thedusky air. She is waiting for you

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to charm her, and if youplay, she will come closer to the
earth. You won't let us goto the club. Then it has been
a charming evening and we must endit charmingly. There is someone at White's
who wants immensely to know you,young Lord Poole, Bornemouth's eldest son.

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He has already copied your neckties andhas begged me to introduce him to you.
He is quite delightful and rather remindsme of you. I hope not,
said Dorian with a sad look.In his eyes. But I am
tired to night. Harry, Ishan't go to the club. It is
nearly eleven, and I want togo to bed early. Do stay.

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You have never played so well asto night. There is something in your
touch that was wonderful. It hadmore expression than I had ever heard from
it before. It is because Iam going to be good, he answered,
smiling. I am a little changedalready. You cannot change to me,

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Dorian said, Lord Henry, youand I will always be friend.
Yet you poisoned me with a bookonce. I should not forgive that.
Harry, promise me that you willnever lend that book to anyone it does
harm my dear boy, you arereally beginning to moralize. You will soon

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be going about like the converted andthe revivalist, warning people against all the
sins of which you have grown tired. You are much too delightful to do
that. Besides, it is nouse. You and I are what we
are, and will be what wewill be. As for being poisoned by

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a book, there is no suchthing as that. Art has no influence
upon action. It annihilates the desireto act. It is superbly sterile.
The books that the world calls immoral. Are books that show the world its
own shame. That is all,But we won't discuss literature. Come round

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to morrow. I am going toride at eleven. We might go together,
and I will take you to lunchafterwards with Lady Branksome. She is
a charming woman and wants to consultyou about some tapestry she is thinking of
buying. Mind you come, Oh, shall be lunch with our little duchess,
She says, she never sees younow. Perhaps you are tired of

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Gladys. I thought you would beHer clever tongue gets on one's nerves.
Well. In any case, behere at eleven, Must I really come,
Harry? Certainly the park is quitelovely now, I don't think there
have been such lilacs since the yearI met you. Very well, I

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shall be here at eleven, saidDorian. Good night Harry. As he
reached the door, he hesitated fora moment, as if he had something
more to say. Then he sighedand went out. End of Chapter nineteen