"My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so I
ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was. I
find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and
the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a
reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to
supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake,
however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers
painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to
go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years
younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for
conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and
two of these can't be admitted into decent society. However, tell me
about your genius. How long have you known her?"

"Ah! Harry, your views terrify me."

"Never mind that. How long have you known her?"

"About three weeks."

"And where did you come across her?"

"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.
After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you. You filled
me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days after I
met you, something seemed to throb in my veins. As I lounged in the
park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one who
passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they led.
Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There was an
exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations. . . . Well,
one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search of
some adventure. I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours, with its
myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, as you
once phrased it, must have something in store for me. I fancied a
thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I
remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we
first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret
of life. I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered
eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black
grassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little
theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. A hideous
Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was
standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy ringlets,
and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt. 'Have a
box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an
air of gorgeous servility. There was something about him, Harry, that
amused me. He was such a monster. You will laugh at me, I know, but I
really went in and paid a whole guinea for the stage-box. To the present
day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if I hadn't-- my dear Harry,
if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest romance of my life. I see
you are laughing. It is horrid of you!"

"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you
should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the
first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will
always be in love with love. A grande passion is the privilege of people
who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes of a
country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you.
This is merely the beginning."

"Do you think my nature so shallow?" cried Dorian Gray angrily.

"No; I think your nature so deep."

"How do you mean?"

"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really
the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I
call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.
Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of
the intellect--simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! I must
analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There are many
things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might
pick them up. But I don't want to interrupt you. Go on with your story."

"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a
vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. I looked out from behind the
curtain and surveyed the house. It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and
cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were
fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and
there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the
dress-circle. Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there
was a terrible consumption of nuts going on."

"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama."

"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder what
on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill. What do you
think the play was, Harry?"

"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'. Our fathers
used to like that sort of piece, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian,
the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is
not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grandperes ont
toujours tort."

"This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. I
must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare
done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, in a


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