The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Chapter 05

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, chapter five.
For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night,
and the fat jew manager who met them at the door,
was beaming from ear to ear with an oily, tremulous smile.

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He escorted them to their box with a sort of
pompous humility, waving his fat jeweled hands and talking at
the top of his voice. Dorian Gray loathed him more
than ever. He felt as if he had come to
look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. Lord Henry,
upon the other hand, rather liked him, at least, he

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declared he did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand,
and assured him that he was proud to mean man
who had discovered a real genius and gone bankrupt over Shakespeare.
Hollward amused himself with watching the faces in the pit.
The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight flamed
like a monstrous dahlia with petals of fire. The youths

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in the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats
and hung them over the side. They talked to each
other across the theater and shared their oranges with the
tawdry painted girls who sat by them. Some women were
laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and discordant.
The sound of popping corks came from the bar. What

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a place to find one's divinity in, said Lord Henry. Yes,
answered Dorian Gray. It was here I found her, and
she is divine beyond all living things. When she acts,
you will forget everything. These common people here, with their
coarse faces and brutal gestures, become quite different when she

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is on the stage. They sit silently and watch her.
They weep and laugh as she wills them to. She
makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them,
and one feels that they are of the same flesh
and blood as one's self. Oh, I hope not, murmured
Lord Henry, who is scanning the occupants of the gallery

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through his opera glass. Don't pay any attention to m
Dorian said Halward. I understand what you mean, and I
believe in this girl. Any one you love must be marvelous,
and any girl that has the effect you describe must
be fine and noble. To spiritualize one's age, that is
something worth doing. If this girl can give a soul

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to those who have lived without one. If she can
create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have
been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of
their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are
not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration,
worthy of the adoration of the world. This marriage is

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quite right. I did not think so at first, but
I admit it now. God made sybil Vane for you.
Without her, you would have been incomplete. Thanks, Basil answered
Dorrian Gray, pressing his hand. I knew that you would
understand me. Harry is so cynical. He terrifies me. But

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here is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it
only lasts for about five minutes. Then the curtain rises,
and you will see the girl to whom I am
going to give all my life, to whom I have
given everything that is good in me. Quarter of an
hour afterwards, amidst the extraordinary turmoil of applause, sybil Vane

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stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly lovely.
To look at one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry
thought that he had ever seen. There was something of
the fawn in her shy grace and startled eyes. A
faint blush like this shadow of a rose in a
mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced

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at the crowded enthusiasts. She stepped back a few paces,
and her lips seemed to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to
his feet and began to applaud Dor and Grace sat motionless,
gazing on her like a man in a dream. Lord
Henry peered through his opera glass, murmuring charming, charming. The

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scene was the hall of Capulot's house, and Romeo in
his pilgrim's dress, had entered with Mercutio in his friends.
The band, such as it was, struck up a few
bars of music, and the dance began through the crowd
of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors. Sybil Vane moved like a
creature from a finer world. Her body swayed as she danced,

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as a plant sways in the water. The curves of
her throat were like the curves of a white lily.
Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory, yet
she was curiously listless. She she showed no sign of
joy when her eyes rested on Romeo. The few lines
she had to speak, good, Pilgrim, you do wrong your

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hand too much, which manly devotion shows in this. For
saints have hands that pilgrim hands do touch. And palm
to palm is holy Palmer's kiss. With the brief dialog
that follows were spoken in thoroughly artificial manner. The voice
was exquisite, but from the point of view of tone,

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it was absolutely false. It was wrong in color. It
took away all the life from the verse. It made
the passion unreal. Dorry and Gray grew pale as he
watched her. Neither of his friends dared to say anything
to him. She seemed to them to be absolutely incompetent.

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They were horribly disappointed. Yet they felt that the true
test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of the
second act. They waited for that. If she failed there,
there was nothing in her. She looked charming as she
came out in the moonlight. That could not be denied,

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but the staginess of her acting was unbearable and grew
worse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly artificial.
She overemphasized everything that she had to say the beautiful passage,
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face?
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek? For that

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which thou hast heard me speak Tonight was declaimed with
the painful precision of a schoolgirl who had been taught
to recite by some second rate professor of elocution, when
she leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines.
Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of
this contract to night. It is too rash, too unadvised,

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to sudden, too like the lightning which doth ceased to
be ere, one can say it lightens, sweet good night.
This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath may prove
a beauteous flower when next we meet. She spoke the
words as if they conveyed no meaning to her. It

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was not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she
seemed absolutely self contained. It was simply bad art. She
was a complete failure. Even the common, uneducated audience of
the pit and gallery lost their interest in the play.
They got restless and began to talk loudly and to whistle.

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The jew manager, who was standing at the back of
the dress circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only
person unmoved was the girl herself. When the second act
was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord
Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat.
She's quite beautiful, Dorian, he said, but she can't act.

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Let us go. I am going to see the play through,
answered the lad in a hard, bitter voice. I am
awfully sorry that I have made you waste an evening, Harry.
I apologize to both of you, my dear Dorian. I
should think miss Vane was ill, interrupted Holward. We will
come some other night. I wish she was ill, he rejoined.

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But she seems to me to be simply callous and cold.
She has entirely altered last night. She was a great artist.
To night she is merely a commonplace, mediocre actress. Don't
talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love
is a more wonderful thing than art. They are both

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simply forms of imitation, murmured Lord Henry. But do let
us go, Dorian. You must not stay here any longer.
It is not good for one's morals to see bad
acting Besides, I don't suppose you will want your wife
to act, so it is the matter. If she plays
Juliet like a wooden doll. She is very lovely, and

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if she knows as little about life as she does
about acting, she will be a delightful experience. There are
only two kinds of people who are really fascinating. People
who know absolutely everything and people who know absolutely nothing.
Oh good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic.
The secret of remaining young is never to have an

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emotion that is unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil
and myself. We will smoke cigarettes and drink to the
beauty of Sybil Vane. She is beautiful. What can you want?
Please go away, Harry cried the lad. I really want
to be alone. Basil, you don't mind my asking you
to go. Can't you see that my heart is breaking?

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The hot tears came to his eyes, his lips trembled,
and rushing to the back of the box, he leaned
up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.
Let us go, Basil, said Lord Henry with a strange
tenderness in his voice, and the two young men passed
out together. A few moments afterwards, the footlights flared up

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and the curtain rose. On the third act, Dorr and
Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale and
proud and indifferent. The play dragged on and seemed interminable.
Half the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots and laughing.
The whole thing was a fiasco. The last act was
played to almost empty benches. As soon as it was over,

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Dorry and Gray rushed behind the scenes into the green room.
The girl was standing alone there with a look of
triumph on her face. Her eyes were lit with an
exquisite fire. There was a radiance about her. Her parted
lips were smiling over some secret of their own. When
he entered, she looked at him, an expression of infinite

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joy came over her. How badly I acted tonight, Dorian?
She cried horribly, he answered, gazing at her in amazement. Horribly.
It was dreadful. Are you ill? You've no idea what
it was? You've no idea what I suffered? The girl smiled.

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Dory yen, she answered, lingering on his name, with a long,
drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter
than honey to the red petals of her lips. Dorrian,
you should have understood. But you understand now, don't you understand? What?
He asked angrily, Why I was so bad to night?

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Why I shall always be bad? Why I shall never
act well again? He shrugged his shoulders. You are ill.
I suppose when you are ill, you shouldn't act. You
make yourself ridiculous. My friends were bored. I was bored.
She seemed not to listen to him. She was transit
figured with joy, and ecstasy of happiness dominated her dor Hindrian,

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she cried. Before I knew you, acting was the one
reality in my life. It was only in the theater
that I lived. I thought that it was all true.
I was Rosalind one night and Porsche the other. The
joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of
Cordelia were mine. Also. I believed in everything. The common

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people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike.
The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows,
and I thought them real. You came, Oh, my beautiful love,
and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me
what reality really is. To night, for the first time

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in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham,
the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had
always played. To night. For the first time I became calm,
conscious that the romeo was hideous and old and painted,
that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the
scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to
speak were unreal, were not my words, not what I

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wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something
of which all art is but a reflection. You have
made me understand what love really is. My love, My love,
I am sick of shadows. You are more to me
than all art can ever be. What have I to

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do with the puppets of a play? When I came
on to night, I could not understand how it was
that everything had gone from me. Suddenly it dawned on
my soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite
to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled, What
should they know of love? Take me away, Dorin, Take

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me away with you where we can be quite alone.
I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that
I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that
burns me like fire, Oh, Dorrian, Dorrian, you understand now
what it all means. Even if I could do it,
it would be profanation for me to play at being

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in love. You have made me see that. He flung
himself down on the sofa and turned away his face.
You have killed my love, he muttered. She looked at
him in wonder and laughed. He made no answer. She
came across to him and stroked his hair with her
little fingers. She knelt down and pressed his hands to

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her lips. He drew them away, and a shudder ran
through him. Then he leapt up and went to the door. Yes,
he cried, you have killed my love. You used to
stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity.
You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you

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were wonderful, because you were genius and intellect, because you
realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and
substance to the shadows of art. You've thrown it all away.
You are shallow and stupid. My god, how mad I
was to love you. What a fool I have been.
You are nothing to me. Now I will never see

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you again. I will never think of you. I will
never mention your name. You don't know what you were
to me once. I once. Oh, I can't bear to
think of it. I wish I'd never laid eyes on you.
You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little
you can know of love? If you say it, mars
your art? What are you? Without your art? Nothing? I

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would have made you famous, splendid, magnificent. The world would
have worshiped you, and you would have belonged to me.
What do you now? A third rate actor with a
pretty face. The girl grew white and trembled. She clenched
her hands together, and her voice seemed to catch in

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her throat. You are not serious, Dorian, she murmured. You
are acting acting. I leave that to you. You do
it so well, he answered bitterly. She rose up from
her knees, and, with a piteous expression of pain in
her face, came across the room to him. She put

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her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes.
He thrust her back. Don't touch me, he cried. A
low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at
his feet and lay there like a trampled flower. Dorian, Dorian,
don't leave me, She whispered. I am sorry. I didn't
act well. I was thinking of you all the time.

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But I will try. Indeed, I will try. It came
so suddenly across me, my love for you. I think
I should never have known it if you had not
kissed me, if we had not kissed each other. Kiss
me again, my love. Don't go away from me. I
couldn't bear it. Can you forgive me for tonight? I
will work so hard and try to improve. Don't be
cruel to me, because I love you better than anything

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in the world. After all, it is only once that
I have not pleased you. But you are quite right, Dorian,
I should have shown myself more of an artist. It
was foolish of me, and yet I couldn't help it. Oh,
don't leave me, don't leave me. A fit of passionate
sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a
wounded thing, and dorry and Gray, with his beautiful eyes,

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looked down at her, and his chiseled lips curled in
exquisite disdain. There is always something ridiculous about the passions
of people whom one has ceased to love. Sybil Vain
seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. Her tears and
sobs annoyed him. I am going, he said at last,

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in his calm, clear voice. I don't wish to be unkind,
but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me.
She wept silently and made no answer, but crept nearer
to him, her little hands stretched blindly out and appeared
to be seeking for him. He turned on his heel

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and left the room. In a few moments he was
out of the theater. Where he went to he hardly knew.
He remembered wandering through dimly lit streets with gaunt, black,
shattered archways and evil looking houses. Women with hoarse voices
and harsh laughter had called after him. Drunkards had reeled by,

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cursing and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. He had
seen grotesque children huddled upon doorsteps, and had heard shrieks
and oaths from gloomy courts. When the dawn was just breaking,
he found him self at Covent Garden. Huge carts filled
with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished, empty street.

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The air was heavy with perfume of the flowers, and
the bare beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for
his pain. He followed into the market and watched the
men unloading their wagons. A white, smocked carter offered him
some cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to
accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly.

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They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of
the moon had entered into them. A long line of
boys carrying crates of stripped tulips and of yellow and
red roses defiled in front of him, threading their way
through the huge jade green piles of vegetables. Under the portico,

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with its gray, sun bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled,
bareheaded girls waiting for the auction to be over. Some time.
He hailed a hansom and drove home. He was pure
opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like
silver against it. As he was passing through the library

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towards the door of his bedroom, his eye fell upon
the portrait Basil Hallward had painted him. He started back
in surprise, and then went over to it and examined
it in the dim arrested light that struggled through the
cream colored silk blinds. The face seemed to him to
be a little changed. The expression looked different. One would

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have said there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth.
It was certainly curious. He turned round, and, walking to
the window, drew the blinds up. The bright dawn flooded
the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky quarters
where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he
had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to

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linger there, to be more intensified. Even the quivering, ardent
sunlight showed the lines of cruelty around the mouth as
clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror.
After he had done some dreadful thing, he winced, and
taking up from the table an oval glass framed in
ivory cupids that Lord Henry had given him, he glanced

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hurriedly into it. No line like that warped his red lips.
But what did it mean? He rubbed his eyes and
came close to the picture and examined it again. There
were no signs of any change when he looked into
the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that
the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere

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fancy of his own. That the thing was horribly apparent.
He threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly,
there flashed across his mind what he had said in
Basil Hallward Studio the day the picture had been finished. Yes,
he remembered it perfectly. He had uttered a mad wish
that he himself might remain young and the portrait grow old,

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that his own beauty might be untarnish, and the face
on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and
his sins. That the painted image might be seared with
the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might
keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then
just conscious boyhood. Surely his prayer had not been answered.

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Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous to even think
of them. And yet there was the picture before him,
with a touch of cruelty in the mouth. Cruelty. Had
he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his.
He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had
given his love to her because he had thought her great.

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Then she had disappointed him. She had been shallow and unworthy.
And yet a feeling of infinite regret came out him
as he thought of her, lying at his feet, sobbing
like a little child. He remembered with what callousness he
had watched her. Why had he been made like that?
Why had such a soul been given to him? But

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he suffered also during the three terrible hours as the
play lasted. He had lived centuries of pain, eon upon
eon of torture. His life was well worth hers. She
ad marred him for a moment if he wounded her
for an age. Besides, women were better suited to bear

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sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only
thought of their emotions when they took lovers. It was
merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes.
Lord Henry told him that Lord Henry knew what women were.
Why should he trouble about sybil Vain? She was nothing
to him now but the picture. What was he to

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say of that it held the secret of his life
and told his story. It had taught him to love
his own beauty? Would it teach him to loathe his
own soul? Would he ever look at it again? No?
It was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses.

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The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms
behind it. Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that
tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad. Picture had not changed.
It was folly to think so. Yet it was watching
him with its beautiful, marred face and its cruel smile.

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Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue
eyes met his own. A sense of infinite pity, not
for himself, but for the painted image of himself, came
over him. It had altered already and would alter. Its
gold would wither into gray. Its red and white roses

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would die. For every sin that he committed. A stain
would fleck and wreck its fairness. But he would not sin.
The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the
visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation. He would
not see Lord Henry anymore, would not at any rate
listen to those subtle, poisonous theories that in Basil Hollward's

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garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things.
He would go back to Sybylvane, make her amends, marry her,
try to love her again. Yes, it was his duty
to do so. She must have suffered more than he did.
Poor child. He had been selfish and cruel to her.
The fascination that she had exercised over him would return.

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They would be happy together. His life with her would
be beautiful and pure. He got up from his chair
and drew a large screen right in front of the portrait,
shuddering as he glanced at it. How horrible, he murmured
to himself, and he walked across to the window and
opened it. When he stepped out on to the grass,

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he drew a deep breath. The fresh morning air seemed
to drive away all his somber passions. He thought only
of Sybil Vain. A faint echo of his love came
back to him. He repeated her name over and over again.
The birds that were singing in the dew drenched garden
seemed to be telling the flowers about her. End of

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chapter five of the Picture of Dorry and Gray by
Oscar Wilde.