sort of way. At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act. There
was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat at a
cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the drop-scene was
drawn up and the play began. Romeo was a stout elderly gentleman, with
corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure like a beer-barrel.
Mercutio was almost as bad. He was played by the low-comedian, who had
introduced gags of his own and was on most friendly terms with the pit.
They were both as grotesque as the scenery, and that looked as if it had
come out of a country-booth. But Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly
seventeen years of age, with a little, flowerlike face, a small Greek
head with plaited coils of dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells
of passion, lips that were like the petals of a rose. She was the
loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. You said to me once that
pathos left you unmoved, but that beauty, mere beauty, could fill your
eyes with tears. I tell you, Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the
mist of tears that came across me. And her voice--I never heard such a
voice. It was very low at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to
fall singly upon one's ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded
like a flute or a distant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the
tremulous ecstasy that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are
singing. There were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of
violins. You know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of
Sibyl Vane are two things that I shall never forget. When I close my
eyes, I hear them, and each of them says something different. I don't
know which to follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her.
She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play.
One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have
seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from
her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of
Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She
has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given
him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and
the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike throat. I have
seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal
to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever
transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their
bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them.
They ride in the park in the morning and chatter at tea-parties in the
afternoon. They have their stereotyped smile and their fashionable
manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress
is! Harry! why didn't you tell me that the only thing worth loving is an
actress?"

Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian."

"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces."

"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary
charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry.

"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane."

"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life you
will tell me everything you do."

"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things.
You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would
come and confess it to you. You would understand me."

"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes,
Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And now
tell me-- reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are your
actual relations with Sibyl Vane?"

Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.
"Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!"

"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian," said
Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. "But why should
you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. When one is
in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends
by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. You know
her, at any rate, I suppose?"

"Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the
horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and
offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was
furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds of
years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I think,
from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the impression that
I had taken too much champagne, or something."

"I am not surprised."

"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I
never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and
confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy
against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought."

"I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other
hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all
expensive."

"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," laughed Dorian.
"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,
and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly
recommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the
place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that I
was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, though he
had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He told me once, with an


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