The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Chapter 11

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, chapter eleven.
He passed out of the room and began the ascent,
Basil Hallward following close behind. They walked softly, as men
instinctively do at night. The lamp cast fantastic shadows on

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the wall and staircase. A rising wind made some of
the windows rattle. When they reached the top, landing, Dorian
set the lamp down on the floor, and taking out
the key, turned it in the lock. You insist on knowing, Basil,
he asked in a low voice. Yes, I am delighted,

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he murmured, smiling. Then he added, somewhat bitterly, you are
the one man in the world who is entitled to
know everything about me. You've had more to do with
my life than you think. And taking up the lamp,
he opened the door and went in. A cold current
of air passed them, and the light shot up for

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a moment in a flame of murky orange. He shuddered.
Shut the door behind you, he said, as he placed
the lamp on the table. Hollward glanced around him with
a puzzled expression. The room looked as if it had
not been lived in for years. A faded Flemish tapestry,

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curtained picture, an old Italian casson, and an almost empty
bookcase that was all that it seemed to contained beside
the chair and table. As Dorian Gray was lighting a
half burned candle that was standing on the mantel shelf,
he saw that the whole place was covered with dust,
and that the carpet was in holes, a mouse round

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scuffling behind the wainscoting. There was a damp odor of mildew.
So you think that it is only God who sees
the soul baele, Draw that curtain back and you will
see mine. The voice that spoke was cold and cruel.
You are mad, Dorin or playing a part, muttered Holward, frowning.

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You won't. Then I must do it myself, said the
young man, and he tore the curtain from its rod
and flung it on the ground. An exclamation of horror
broke from Hollward's lips as he saw in the dim
light the hideous thing on the canvas leering at him.
There was something in its expression that filled him with

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disgust and loathing. Good Heavens, it was doing Gray's own
face that he was looking at the horror, whatever it was,
had not yet entirely marred that marvelous beauty. There was
still some gold in the thinning hair, and some scarlet
on the sensual lips. The sodden eyes had kept something

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of the loveliness of their blue. The noble curves had
not yet passed entirely from chiseled nostrils and from plastic throat.
As it was Dorrian himself. But who had done it?
He seemed to recognize his own brushwork, and the frame
was his own design. The idea was monstrous, yet he
felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle and held it

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to the picture. In the left hand corner was his
own name, traced in long letters of bright vermilion. It
was some foul parrot, some infamous, ignobled satire. He had
never done that. Still it was his own picture. He
knew it, and he felt as if his blood had

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changed from fire to sluggish ice in a moment, his
own picture. What did it mean? Why had it altered?
He turned and looked at Dorian with the eyes of
a sick man. His mouth twitched, and his parched tongue
seemed unable to articulate. He passed his hand across his forehead.

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It was dank with clammy sweat. The young man was
leaning against the mantel shelf, watching him with that strange
expression that is on the faces of those who are
absorbed in a play when a great artist is acting.
There was neither real sorrow in it, nor real joy.
There was simply the passion of the spectator, with perhaps
a flicker of triumph in the eyes. He had taken

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the flower out of his coat and was smelling it,
or pretending to do so. What does this mean? Cried
Hallward at last, his own voice sounded shrill and curious
in his ears. Years ago, when I was a boy,
said Dorringray. You met me, devoted yourself to me, flattered me,

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and taught me to be vain of my good looks.
One day you introduced me to a friend of yours
who explained to me the wonder of youth, And you
finished a portrait of me that revealed to me the
wonder of beauty. In a mad moment that I don't
know even now whether I regret or not, I made
a wish. Perhaps you would call it a prayer. I

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remember it, Oh how well I remember it. No, The
thing is impossible. The room is damp. The mild who
has got into the canvas the pains I had used
had some wretched mineral poison in them. I tell you,
the thing is impossible. Ah, what is impossible? Murmured the
young man, going over to the window and leaning his

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forehead against the cold, mist stained glass. You told me
you destroyed it. I was wrong. It has destroyed me.
I don't believe it is my picture. Can't you see
your romance in it? Said Dorian bitterly, my romance as
you call it. As you called it, there was nothing

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evil in it, nothing shameful. This is the face of
a satter. It is the face of my soul. God,
what a thing I must have worshiped. This as the
eyes of a devil. Each of this has heaven and
hell in him, Basle, cried Dorian, with a gesture of despair.
Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it.

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I God, if it is true, he exclaimed, And this
is what you have done with your life? Why you
must be worse even than those who talk against you
fancy you to be. He held the light up again
to the canvas and examined it. The surface seemed to
be quite undisturbed, and as he had left it, it
was from within, apparently that the foulness and horror had

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come through some strange quickening of inner life. The leprosies
of sin were slowly eating the thing away. The rutting
of a corpse in a watery grave was not so fearful.
His hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket
on the floor and lay there sputtering. He placed his
foot on it and put it out. Then he flung

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himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table,
and buried his face in his hands. Good God, Dorian,
what a lesson, but an awful lesson. There was no answer,
but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window. Pray, Dorian, Pray.
He murmured, what is it that one taught to say

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in one's boyhood. Lead us not in temp temptation, for
give us our sins, wash away our iniquities. Let us
say that together the prayers of your pride has been answered.
The prayer of your repentance will be answered. Also, I
worshiped you too much. I am punished for it. You
worshiped yourself too much. We are both punished. Dorian Gray

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turned slowly round and looked at him with tear dimmed eyes.
It is too late, Basil, he murmured. It is never
too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if
we can remember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere?
Though our sins be as scarlet, yet I will make
them as white as snow. Those words mean nothing to me. Now, hush,

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don't say that you've done enough evil in your life?
My god, don't you see that a cursed thing leering
at us? Dorring Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly
an uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him.
The mad passions of a hunted animal stirred within him,

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and he loathed the man who was seated at the
table more than he had ever loathed anything in his
whole life. He glanced wildly around something glimmered on the
top of the painted chest that faced him. His eye
fell on it. He knew what it was. It was
a knife that he had brought up some days before
to cut a piece of cord, and had forgotten to

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take it away with him. He moved slowly towards it,
passing Hallward as he did so. As soon as he
got behind him, he seized it and turned round. Hollward
moved in his chair as if he was going to rise.
He rushed at him and dug the knife into the
great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man's
head down to the table and stabbing again and again.

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There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of
someone choking with blood. The outstretched arms shut up convulsively
three times, waving grotesque, stiff fingered hands in the air.
He stabbed it once more, but the man did not move.
Something began to trickle on the floor. He waited for

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a moment, still pressing the head down. Then he threw
the knife on the table and listened. He could hear
nothing but the drip drip on the threadbare carpet. He
opened the door and went out on to the landing.
The house was quite quiet, no one was stirring. He

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took out the key and returned to the room, locking
himself in. As he did so, the thing was still
seated in the chair, straining over the table with bowed
head and humped back in long fantastic arms had not
been for the red, jagged tear in the neck, and
the clotted black pool that slowly widened on the table,

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one would have said that the man was simply asleep.
How quickly it had all been done, he felt strangely calm,
and walking over to the window, opened it and stepped
out on to the balcony. The wind had blown the
fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's tail,

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starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down and
saw the policeman going as rounds and flashing a bull's
eye lantern on the doors of the silent houses. The
crimson spot of a prowling hansom gleamed at the corner
and then vanished. A woman in a ragged shawl was
creeping round by the railings, staggering as she went now

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and then she stopped and peered back once again. She
began to sing in a hoarse voice. The policeman strolled
over and said something to her. She stumbled away, laughing.
A bitter blast swept across the square. The gas lamps
flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their
black iron branches as if in pain. He shivered and

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went back, closing the window behind him. He passed through
the door, turned the key, and opened it. He did
not even glance at the murdered man. He felt that
the secret of the whole thing was not to realize
the situation. The friend who had painted the fatal portrait,
the portrait to which all his misery had been due,

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had gone out of his life. That was enough. Then
he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one
of Moorish workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques
of burnished steel. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant,
and questions would be asked. He turned back and took
it from the table. How still the man was, oh

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horribly white, the long hands looked. He was like a
dreadful wax image. He locked the door behind him and
crept quietly downstairs. The woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out,
as if in pain. He stopped several times and waited. No,
everything was still. It was merely the sound of his

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own footsteps. When he reached the library, he saw the
bag and coat in the corner. They must be hidden
away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was in
the wainscoting and put them into it. He could easily
burn them afterwards. Then he pulled out his watch. It
was twenty minutes to two. He sat down and began

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to think. Every year, every month almost men were strangled
in England for what he had done. There had been
a madness of murder in the air. Some red star
had come too close to the earth. Evidence, what evidence
was there against him? Basil Hallward had left the house

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at eleven. No one had seen him come in again.
Most of the servants were at Selby Royal. His valet
had gone to bed Paris. Yes, it was to Paris
that Basil had gone by the midnight train, as he
had intended with his curious reserved habits. It would be
months before any suspicions would be aroused. Months everything could

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be destroyed long before then, A sudden thought struck him.
He put on his fur coat and hat and went
out into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow,
heavy tread of the policemen outside on the pavement, and
seeing the flash of the lantern reflected in the window.
He waited, holding his breath. After a few moments, he

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opened the front door and slipped out, shutting it very
gently behind him. Then he began ringing the bell. It
was out ten minutes. His vallet appeared, half dressed and
looking very drowsy. I am sorry to have had to
wake you up, Frances, he said, stepping in. But I
had forgotten my latch key. What time is it? Five

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minutes past two, sir, answered the man, looking at the
clock and yawning. Five minutes past two. How horribly late.
You must wake me up at nine to morrow. I
have some work to do, all right, sir. Did anyone
call this evening, mister Holward? Sir? He stayed here till eleven,
then he went away to catch his train. Oh, I

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am sorry. I didn't see him. Did he leave any message, No, sir,
except that he would write to you. That will do, Francis,
don't forget to call me at nine to morrow, oh sir.
The man shabbled down the passage in his slippers. Doring
Gray threw his hat and coat upon the yellow marble
table and passed into the library. He walked up and

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down the room for a quarter of an hour, biting
his lip and thinking. Then he took the blue book
down from one of the shelves and began to turn
over the leaves. Alan Campbell, one fifty two Hertford Street, Mayfair. Yes,
that was the man he wanted. End of Chapter eleven.