The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Chapter 10

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, chapter ten.
It was on the seventh day of November, the eve
of his own thirty second birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.
He was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's,

(00:22):
where he had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy
furs as the night was cold and foggy. At the
corner of Grosvenor Square in South Audley Street, a man
passed him in the midst walking very fast and with
the collar of his gray ulster turned up. He had
a bag in his hand. He recognized him. It was

(00:43):
Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear for which he
could not account, came over him. He made no sign
of recognition and went on slowly in the direction of
his own house. But Holward had seen him. Dorian had
heard him, first stopping and then hurrying after him. In

(01:04):
a few moments. His hand was on his arm. Dorian,
what an extraordinary piece of luck. I have been waiting
for you ever since nine o'clock in your library, and
finally I took pity on your tired servant and told
him to go to bed. As he let me out.
I am off to Paris by midnight train, and I
wanted particularly to see you before I left. I thought

(01:26):
it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you
passed me, but I wasn't quite sure. Didn't you recognize
me in this fog? My dear Basil? Why I can't
even recognize Grosvenor's Square. I believe my house is somewhere
about here, but I don'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 will

(01:48):
be back soon. No, I am going to be out
of England for six months. I intend to take a
studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have
finished a great picture I have in my head. However,
it wasn't about 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.

(02:10):
But won't you miss your train? Said Dorry Gray languidly,
as he passed up the steps and opened the door
with his latch key. The lamp light struggled out through
the fog, and Hallward looked at his watch. I have
heaps of time, he answered, the train doesn't go till
twelve fifteen, and it is only just eleven. In fact,

(02:33):
I was on my way to the club to look
for you when I met you. You see, I shan't
have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on
my heavy things. All I have with me is in
this bag, and I can easily get Victoria in twenty minutes.
Dorrian looked at him and smiled. What a way for
a fashionable painter to travel a gladstone bag and an

(02:54):
ulster coming nor the fog will get into the house
and mine. You don't talk about anything sidious. Nothing is
sidious nowadays, at least nothing should be. Hollward shook his
head as he entered and followed Dorian into the library.
There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large
open hearth. The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch

(03:18):
silver spirit case stood with some siphons of soda water
and large cut glass tumblers on a little table. You see,
your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave
me everything I wanted, including your best cigarettes. He is
a most hospitable creature. I like him better than the
Frenchman you used to have. What has become of the

(03:40):
frenchman by the bye. Dorian shrugged his shoulders. I believe
he married Lady Ashton's maid and has established her in
Paris as an English dressmaker. Anglo manny is very fashionable
over there. Now, I hear seems silly of the French,
doesn't it. But know he was not at all a

(04:01):
bad servant. I never liked him, but I had nothing
to complain about one. Often he imagines things that are
quite absurd. He was really very devoted to me and
seemed quite sorry when he went away. Have another brandy
and soda? Or would you like a hock and seltzer.
I always take hock and seltzer myself. There is sure
to be some in the next room. Thanks, I won't

(04:23):
have anything more, said Holward, taking his cap and coat
off and throwing them on the bag that he had
placed in the corner. And now, my dear 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 all about, cried Dorian in his petulant way,

(04:44):
flinging himself down on the sofa. I hope it is
not about myself. I'm tired of myself to night, should
like to be somebody else. It is about yourself, answered
Holward in his grave, deep voice, and I must say
it to you. I shall only keep you half an hour.

(05:04):
Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette. Half an hour. He murmured.
It is not much to ask of you, Dorian. And
it is entirely for her own sake that I am speaking.
I think it right that you should know that the
most dreadful things are being said about you in London,
things that I could hardly repeat to you. I don't

(05:27):
wish to know anything about them. I love scandals about
other people, but scandals about myself don't interest me. They
have not got the charm of novelty. They must interest you, Dorian.
Every gentleman is interested in his good name. You don't
want people to talk of you as something vile and degraded.
Of course, you have your position, in your wealth and

(05:49):
all that kind of thing. But position and wealth are
not everything, mind you. I don't believe these rumors 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 be concealed. People talk of secret vices. There

(06:10):
are no such things as secret vices. If a wretched
man has vice, it shows itself in the lines of
his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the molding of
his hands. Even somebody I won't mention his name, but
you know him, came to me last year to have
his portrait done. I had never seen him before, and

(06:30):
had never heard anything about him. At the time, though
I had heard a good deal. Since he offered an
extravagant price, I refused him. There was something in the
shape of his fingers that I hated. I now know
that I was quite right in what I fancied about him.
His life is dreadful. But you, Dorian, with your pure, bright,

(06:53):
innocent face and your marvelous, untroubled youth, I can't believe
anything against you. And yet I see you very seldom,
and you never come down to the studio. Now, and
when I am away from you, and I hear all
these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I
don't know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that
a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves the room

(07:16):
of a club when you enter it. Why is it
that so many gentlemen in London will neither go to
your house nor invite you to theirs. He used to
be a friend of Lord Cardor. I met him at
dinner last week. Your name happened to come up in
conversation in connection with the miniatures you have lent to
the exhibition at the Dudley. Cardor curled his lip and

(07:39):
said that you might have the most artistic tastes, but
that you were a man whom no pure minded girl
should be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman
would sit in the same room with. I reminded him
that I was a friend of yours and asked him
what he meant. He told me, He told me right
out before everybody. It was horrible. Why is your friendship

(08:02):
so faithful to young men? There was that wretched boy
in the Guards who committed suicide. You were his great friend.
There was Sir Henry Ashton who had to leave England
with a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What
about Adrian Singleton and his dreadful end. What about Lord
Kent's only son in his career. I met his father

(08:25):
yesterday in Saint James Street. He seemed broken with shame
and sorrow. What about the young Duke of Perth? What
sort of life has he got now? What gentlemen would
associate with him? Torreon? Dorrian, your reputation is infamous. I
know you and Harry are great friends. I see nothing

(08:45):
about that now, But surely you need not have made
his sister's name a by word. When you met Lady Gwendolen,
not a breath of scandal had ever touched her. Is
there a single 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 are

(09:06):
other stories, stories that you have been seen creeping a
dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into
the foulest dens in London? Are they true? Can they
be true? When I first heard them I laughed. I
hear them now and they make me shudder. What about
your country house and the life that is led there, Dorian?

(09:28):
You don't know what is said about you. I won't
tell you that. I don't want to preach to you.
I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned
himself into an amateur curate for the moment always said
that and then broke his word. I do want to
preach to you. I want you to lead such a
life as will make the world respect you. I want

(09:50):
you to have a clean name and a fair record.
I want you to get rid of the dreadful people
you associate with. Don't shrug your shoulders like that to
be so so different. You have a wonderful influence. Let
it be for good, not for evil. They say that
you corrupt every one whom you become intimate with, and

(10:13):
that it is quite sufficient for you to enter a
house for shame of some kind to follow after you. Oh,
I don't know whether it is so or not. How
should I know? But it is said of you. I
am told things that it seems impossible to doubt. Lord
Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford. He

(10:35):
showed me a letter that his wife had written him
when she was dying alone in her villa at menton
your name was implicated in the most terrible confession I
ever read. I told him that it was absurd that
I knew you thoroughly, and that you are incapable of
anything of the kind. Know you? Humph, I wondered, Do

(10:56):
I know you before? I could answer that I should
to see your soul. To see my soul, muttered Dorian Gray,
starting up from the sofa and turning almost white from fear. Yes,
answered Hallward, gravely, and with infinite sorrow in his voice,

(11:17):
to see your soul. But only God can do that.
A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of
the younger man. You shall see it yourself to night,
he cried, seizing a lamp from the table. Come, it
is your own handiwork. Why shouldn't you look at it?
You can tell the world all about it afterwards. If

(11:39):
you choose, nobody would believe you. If they did believe you,
they'd like me all the better for it. I know
the age better than you do, though you will prate
about it so tediously. Come, I tell you you've chatted enough
about corruption. Now you shall look at it face to face.
There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered.

(12:01):
He stamped his foot upon the ground in his boyish,
insolent manner. He felt a terrible joy the thought that
some one else was to share his secret, and that
the man who had painted the portrait that was the
origin of all his shame was to be burdened for
the rest of his life with the hideous memory of
what he had done. Yes, he continued, coming closer to

(12:25):
him and looking steadfastly into his stern eyes. I will
show you my soul. You shall see the thing that
you fancy only God can see. Hoollward started back. That
is blasphemy, Dorion, he cried. You must not say things
like that. They are horrible and they don't mean anything.

(12:48):
You don't think so, he laughed again. I know so.
As for what I have said to you to night,
I said it for your own good. You know I
have been always devoted to you. Don't touch me. Finish
what you have to say. A twisted flash of pain
shot across Hollwart's face. He paused for a moment, and

(13:11):
a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all,
what right had he to pry into the life of
Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of what
was rumored about him, how much he must have suffered.
Then he strained himself up and walked over to the
fireplace and stood there, looking at the burning logs with
their frost like ashes and their throbbing cores of flame.

(13:34):
I am waiting, Basil, said the young man in a hard,
clear voice. He turned round. What I have to say
is this, he cried. You must give me some answer
to these horrible charges that are made against you. If
you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning
to end, I will believe you. Deny them, Dorian, deny them.

(13:56):
Can't you see what I am going through? My God,
don't tell me that you are infamous? Dorr and Gray smiled.
There was a curl of contempt in his lips. Come upstairs, Basil,
he said quietly. I keep a diary of my life
from day to day, and it never leaves the room
in which it is written. I will show it to

(14:17):
you if you come with me. I will come with you, Dorian,
if you wish it. I see I have missed my train.
That makes no matter. I can go to morrow, but
don't ask me to read anything to night. All I
want is a plain answer to my question that will
be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here.

(14:39):
You won't have to read long. Don't keep me waiting.
End of chapter ten of the Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde