Chapter 11 - Part 2 - The Picture of Dorian Gray

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Chapter eleven, Part two. Thenhe turned his attention to embroideries and to
the tapestries that performed the office offrescoes in the chill rooms of the northern
nations of Europe. As he investigatedthe subject, and he always had an

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extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed forthe moment. In whatever he took up,
he was almost saddened by the reflectionof the ruin that time brought on
beautiful and wonderful things he, atany rate, had escaped. That summer

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followed summer, and the yellow johnquills bloomed and died many times, and
knights of horror repeated the story oftheir shame. But he was unchanged.
No winter marred his face or dainedhis flower like bloom. How different it

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was with material things. Where hadthey passed to? Where was the great
crocus colored robe on which the godsfought against the giants, that had been
worked by brown girls for the pleasureof Athena. Where the huge valerium that

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Nero had stretched across the Colosseum atRome, that Titan sail of purple,
on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by
white gilt reigned steeds. He longedto see the curious table napkins wrought for

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the Priest of the Sun, onwhich were displayed all the dainties and viands
that could be wanted for a feast. The mortuary cloth of King Chilperic,
with its three hundred golden bees,the phantas stick robes that excited the indignation
of the Bishop of Pontous and werefigured with lions, panthers, bears,

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docks, forests, rocks, hunters, all in fact that a painter can
copy from nature. And the coatthat Charles of Orleans once wore, on
the sleeves of which were embroidered theverses of a song beginning Madame ma Jesu

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to Joilleux, the musical accompaniment ofthe words being wrought in gold thread,
and each note of square shape inthose days formed with four pearls. He
read of the room that was preparedat the Palace at Rhems for the use
of Queen Joan of Burgundy, andwas decorated with thirteen hundred and twenty one

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parrots made embroidery and blazoned with theKing's arms, and five hundred and sixty
one butterflies, whose wings were similarlyornamented with the arms of the queen.
The whole worked in gold. Katinede Medicis had a morning bed made for

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her of black velvet, powdered withcrescents and sums. Its curtains were of
damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver ground,
and fringed along the edges with broideriesof pearls. And it stood in
a room hung with rows of theQueen's devices in cut black velvet upon cloth

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of silver. Louis the fourteenth hadgold embroidered caryatids fifteen feet high in his
apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of
Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises withverses from the Kurral. Its supports were

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of silver guilt, beautifully chaste andprofusely set with enameled and jeweled medallions.
It had been taken from the Turkishcamp before Vienna, and the standard of
Muhammad had stood beneath the tremulous guiltof its canopy, and so for a

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whole year he sought to accumulate themost exquisite specimens that he could find of
textile and embroidered work, getting thedainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold
thread palmates and stitched over with iridescentbeetle's wings, the Duka gauzes, that,

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from their transparency are known in theEast as woven air and running water
and evening dew, strange figured clothsfrom Java, elaborate yellow Chinese hanging books
bound in tawny satins or fair bluesilks and wrought with fleur de lis birds

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and images, veils of lassie workedin Hungary point Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish
velvets, Georgian work with its giltcoins, and Japanese fucusas with their green
toned golds and their marvelously plumaged birds. He had a special passion also for

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ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed he hadfor everything connected with the service of the
church. In the long cedar cheststhat lined the west gallery of his house,
he had stored away many rare andbeautiful specimens of what is really the
raiment of the bride of Christ,who must wear purple and jewels and fine

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linen, that she may hide thepallid, macerated body that is worn by
the suffering that she seeks for,and wounded by self inflicted pain. He
possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silkand gold thread damask, figured with a
repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set insix petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on

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either side was the pineapple device wroughtin seed pearls. The orfrees were divided
into panels representing scenes from the lifeof the Virgin, and the coronation of
the Virgin was figured in colored silksupon the hood. This was Italian work
of the fifteenth century. Another copewas of green velvet embroidered with heart shaped

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groups of acanthus leaves, from whichspread long stemmed white blossoms, the details
of which were picked out with silverthread and colored crystals. The more sporo
seraph's head in gold thread raised work. The orfrees were woven in a diaper
of red and gold silk, andwere starred with medallions of many saints and

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martyrs, among whom were Saint Sebastian. He had chasubles, also of amber
colored silk and blue silk and goldbrocade, and yellow silk damask, and
cloth of gold figured with representations ofthe Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and

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embroidered with lions and peacocks and otheremblems. Dalmatics of white satin and pink
silk damask decorated with tulips and dolphins, and fleur de lis altar, frontals
of crimson velvet and blue linen,and many corporals chalis, vales and sudaria.

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In the mystic offices to which suchthings were put, there was something
that quickened his imagination, for thesetreasures and everything that he collected in his
lovely house were to be to himmeans of forgetfulness, modes by which he
could escape for a season from thefear that seemed to him at times to

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be almost too great to be borne. Upon the walls of the lonely locked
room, where he had spent somuch of his boyhood, he had hung
with his own hands the terrible portrait, whose changing features showed him the real
degradation of his life, and infront of it had draped the purple and

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gold pall as a curtain. Forweeks, he would not go there,
would forget the hideous painted thing,and get back his light heart, his
wonderful joyousness, his passion at absorptionin mere existence. Then suddenly some night

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he would creep out of the house, go down to dreadful places near blue
Gate Fields, and stay there dayafter day until he was driven away.
On his return he would sit infront of the picture, sometimes loathing it
and himself, but filled at othertimes with that pride of individualism that is

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half the fascination of sin, andsmiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen shadow
that had to bear the burden thatshould have been his own. After a
few years, he could not endureto be long out of England, and
gave up the villa that he hadshared at Torville with Lord Henry, as

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well as the little white walled inhouse at Algiers, where they had more
than once spent the winter. Hehated to be separated from the picture that
was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his
absence some one might gain access tothe room. In spite of the elaborate

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bars that he had caused to beplaced upon the door. He was quite
conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true that the portrait still
preserved, under all the foulness andugliness of the face, its marked likeness
to himself. But what could theylearn from that? He would laugh at

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any one who tried to taunt him. He had not painted it. What
was it to him? How vileand full of shame it looked? Even
if he told them, would theybelieve it? Yet? He was afraid.
Sometimes, when he was down athis great house in Nottinghamshire, entertaining

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the fashionable young men of his ownrank who were his chief companions, and
astounding the county by the wanton luxuryand gorgeous splendor of his mode of life,
he would suddenly leave his guests andrush back to town to see that
the door had not been tampered with, and that the picture was still there.

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What if it should be stolen?The mere sort made him cold with
horror. Surely the world would knowhis secret. Then, perhaps the world
already suspected it. For while hefascinated many, there were not a few
who distrusted him. He was verynearly black balled at a West End club

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of which his birth and social positionfully entitled him to become a member,
And it was said that on oneoccasion, when he was brought by a
friend into the smoking room of theChurchill, the Duke of Berrick and another
gentleman got up in a marked mannerand went out. Curious stories became current

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about him after he had passed histwenty fifth year. It was rumored that
he had been seen brawling with foreignsailors in a low den in the distant
parts of Whitechapel, and that heconsorted with thieves and coiners and knew the
mysteries of their trade. His extraordinaryabsences became notorious, and when he used

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to reappear again in society, menwould whisper to each other in corners,
or pass him with a sneer,or look at him with cold, searching
eyes, as though they were determinedto discover his secret of insolences and attempted

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slights. He, of course tookno notice, and in the opinion of
most people, his frank, debonairmanner, his charming, boyish smile,
and the infinite grace of that wonderfulyouth that seemed never to leave him wherein
themselves a sufficient answer to the calumnies, for so they termed them. That

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was circulated about him. It wasremarked, however, that some of those
who had been most intimate with himappeared after a time to shun him.
Women who had wildly adored him,and for his sake had braved all social
censure and set convention at defiance,were seemed to grow pallid with shame or

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horror if Dorian Gray entered the room. Yet these whispered scandals only increased in
the eyes of many his strange anddangerous charm. His great wealth was a
certain element of security society. Civilizedsociety, at least, is never very

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ready to believe anything to the detrimentof those who are both rich and fascinating.
It feels instinctively that manners are ofmore importance than morals, and in
its opinion, the highest respectability isof much less value than the possession of

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a good chef. And after all, it is a very poor consolation to
be told that the man who hasgiven one a bad dinner or poor wine
is irreproachable in his private life.Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half

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cold entrees. As Lord Henry remarkedonce in a discussion on the subject,
there is possibly a good deal tobe said for his view, for the
canons of good society are or shouldbe the same as the canons of art.
Form is absolutely essential to it.It should have the dignity of a

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ceremony as well as its unreality,and should combine the insincere character of a
romantic play with the wit and beautythat make such plays delightful to us?
Is insincerity such a terrible thing?I think not. It is merely a

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method by which we can multiply ourpersonalities. Such at any rate, was
Dorian Gray's opinion. He used towonder at the shallow psychology of those who
conceive the ego in man as athing simple, permanent, reliable, and
of one essence. To him,man was a being with myriad lives and

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myriad sensations, a complex, multiformcreature that bore within itself strange legacies of
thought and passion, and whose veryflesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies of
the dead. He loved to strollthrough the gaunt, cold picture gallery of

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his country house and look at thevarious portraits of those whose blood flowed in
his veins. Here was Philip Harbertdescribed by Francis Osborne in his memoirs on
the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and KingJames, as one who was caressed by
the court for his handsome face,which kept him not long company. Was

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it young Harbut's life that he sometimesled had some strange poisonous germ werept from
body to body till it had reach'dhis own? Was it some dim sense
of that ruin'd grace that had madehim so suddenly and almost without cause,
give utterance in Basle Hollward Studio tothe mad prayer that had so changed his

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life? Here, in gold embroidered, red, doublet jewelled sir coat and
gilt edged ruff and wristbands stood SirAntony Sherrard, with his silver and black
armor piled at his feet. Whathad this man's legacy been? Had the
lover of Jovanna of Naples bequeathed himsome inheritance of sin and shame where his

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own actions merely the dreams that thedead man had not dared to realize.
Here from the fading canvas smiled LadyElizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood,
pearl stomacher and pink slashed sleeves.A flower was in her right hand,

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and her left clasped an enameled collarof white and dammers roses. On a
table by her side lay a mandolinand an apple. There were large green
rosettes upon her little pointed shoes.He knew her life and the strange stories
that were told about her lovers.Had he something of her temperament in him?

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These oval, heavy, lidid eyesseemed to look curiously at him.
What of George Willoughby, with hispowdered hair and fantastic patches, How evil
he looked? The face was saturnineand swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed

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to be twisted with disdain delicate lace. Roughs fell over the lean, yellow
hands that were so overladen with rings. He had been a Macaroni of the
eighteenth century, and the friend inhis youth of Lord Ferrars. What of
the second Lord Beckenham, the companionof the Prince Regent in his wildest days,

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and one of the witnesses at thesecret marriage with Missus Fitzhabert. How
proud and handsome he was, withhis chestnut curls and insolent poles. What
passions had he bequeathed the world?Had looked upon him as infamous. He
had led the Orgies at Carlton House. The star of the Garter glittered upon

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his breast. Beside him hung theportrait of his wife, a pallid,
thin lipped woman in black. Herblood also stirred within him. How curious
it all seemed. And his mother, with her lady Hamilton face and her
moist wine dashed lips. He knewwhat he had got from her. He

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had got from her his beauty andhis passion for the beauty of others.
She laughed at him in her loosebaccante dress. There were vine leaves in
her hair. The purple spilled fromthe cup she was holding. The carnations
of the painting had withered, butthe eyes were still wonderful in their depth

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and brilliancy of color. They seemedto follow him wherever he went. Yet
one had ancestors in literature as wellas in one's own race, nearer perhaps
in type and temperament, many ofthem, and certainly with an influence of
which one was more absolutely conscious.There were times when it appeared to Dorian

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Gray that the whole of history wasmerely the record of his own life,
Not as he had lived it inact and circumstance, but as his imagination
had created it for him, asit had been in his brain and in
his passions, he felt that hehad known them, all those strange,

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terrible figures that had passed across thestage of the world, and made sin
so marvelous and evil, so fullof subtlety. It seemed to him that,
in some mysterious way their lives hadbeen his own. The hero of
the wonderful novel that had so influencedhis life had himself known this curious fancy.

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In the seventh chapter, he tellshow, crowned with laurel lest lightning
might strike him, he had satas Tiberious in a garden at Capri,
reading the shameful boys of Elephantis,while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him,
and the flute player mocked the swingerof the censor, And as callicular,

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had caroused with the green shirted jockeysin their stables and supped in an ivory
manger with a jewel frontleted horse,And as to mission, had wandered through
a corridor lined with marble mirrors,looking round with haggard eyes for the reflection
of the dagger that was to endhis days, and sick with that ennui,

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that terrible tidy um wheatie that comeson those to whom life denies nothing,
And had peered through a clear emeraldat the red shambles of the circus,
and then, in a litter ofpearl and purple, drawn by silver
shod mules, been carried through thestreet of pomegranates to a house of gold,

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and heard men cry on Nero Caesaras he pass'd by, and as
Elagabalus had painted his face with colors, and plied the distaff among the women,
and brought the moon from Carthage andgiven her in mystic marriage to the
Sun. Over and over again.Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter and

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the two chapters immediately following, inwhich, as in some curious tapestries or
cunningly wrought enamels, bepictured the awfuland beautiful forms of those whom vice and
blood and weariness had made monstrous ormad. Philippa, Duke of Milan,

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who slew his wife and painted herlips with a scarlet poison, that her
lover might suck death from the deadthing. He fondled Pietro Barbi, the
Venetian known as Paul the Second,who sought in his vanity to assume the
title of Formosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins,

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was bought at the price of aterrible sin. Gian Maria Visconti, who
used hounds to chase living men,and whose murdered body was covered with roses
by a harlot who had loved him, the Borgia on his white horse,
with Fratricide riding beside him, andhis mantle stained with the blood of Peroto.

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Pietro Riario, the young cardinal Archbishopof Florence, child and minion of
Sixtus the Force, whose beauty wasequaled only by his debauchery, and who
received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilionof white and crimson silk, filled with
nymphs and centaurs, and gilded aboy that he might serve at the feast.

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As Ganymede or hylas et Selene,whose melancholy could be cured only by
the spectacle of death, and whohad a passion for red blood, as
other men have for red wine,the son of the fiend as was reported,
and one who had cheated his fatherat Dice when gamboling with him for

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his own soul, Chambattista Chibo,who in mockery took the name of Innocent,
and into whose torpid veins the bloodof three lads was infused by a
Jewish doctor, Sigismond or Maladesta,the lover of Ezotta and the lord of

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Rimini, whose effigy was burned atRome as the enemy of God. And
man who strangled Polisena with a napkinand gave poison to Genevradeste in a cup
of emerald, and in honor ofa shameful passion, built a pagan church

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for Christian worship. Charles the sixth, who had so wildly adored his brother's
wife that a leper had warned himof the insanity that was coming on him,
and who, when his brain hadsickened and grown strange, could only
be soothed by Saracen cards painted withthe images of love and death and madness.

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And in his trimmed jerkin and jeweledcap and a canthus like curls Crifonet
do Ballioni, who slew Astore withhis bride and simonetto with his page,
and whose comeliness was such that,as he lay dying in the yellow Piazza
of Perugia, those who had hatedhim could not choose but weep, and

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at Atlanta, who had cursed him, blessed him. There was a horrible
fascination in them all. He sawthem at night, and they troubled his
imagination. In the day, theRenaissance knew of strange manners of poisoning,
poisoning by a helmet and a lightedtorch, by an embroidered glove, and

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a jeweled fan, by a gildedpommander, and by an amber chain.
Dorian Gray had been poisoned by abook. There were moments when he looked
on evil simply as a mode throughwhich he could realize his conception of the

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beautiful end of Chapter eleven,