"Basil," he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in
the face, "we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I shall
tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?"

The painter shuddered in spite of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, you
might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I
could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me
never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to
look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from
the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame
or reputation."

"No, Basil, you must tell me," insisted Dorian Gray. "I think I have a
right to know." His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity had
taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's mystery.

"Let us sit down, Dorian," said the painter, looking troubled. "Let us
sit down. And just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the
picture something curious?--something that probably at first did not
strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?"

"Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling
hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.

"I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say.
Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most
extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and
power, by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen
ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I
worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted
to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When
you were away from me, you were still present in my art.... Of course, I
never let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible.
You would not have understood it. I hardly understood it myself. I only
knew that I had seen perfection face to face, and that the world had
become wonderful to my eyes-- too wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad
worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, no less than the
peril of keeping them.... Weeks and weeks went on, and I grew more and
more absorbed in you. Then came a new development. I had drawn you as
Paris in dainty armour, and as Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished
boar-spear. Crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of
Adrian's barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over
the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent
silver the marvel of your own face. And it had all been what art should
be--unconscious, ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes
think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually
are, not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your
own time. Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder
of your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or
veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake and
film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that
others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told too
much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that I
resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a little
annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me. Harry, to
whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind that. When the
picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt that I was
right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio, and as soon
as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its presence, it
seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I had seen
anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking and that
I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to
think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the
work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and
colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me
that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals
him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I determined to make your
portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. It never occurred to me
that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. The picture cannot
be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, for what I have told
you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped."

Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and
a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the
time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who
had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself
would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry
had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too
clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be some
one who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the
things that life had in store?

"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should
have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?"

"I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very
curious."

"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?"

Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not
possibly let you stand in front of that picture."

"You will some day, surely?"

"Never."

"Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been
the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I
have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don't know what it cost me


<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 |