silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with representations of the
Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and embroidered with lions and
peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of white satin and pink silk
damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins and fleurs-de-lis; altar
frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and many corporals,
chalice-veils, and sudaria. In the mystic offices to which such things
were put, there was something that quickened his imagination.

For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely
house, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he could
escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times to be
almost too great to be borne. Upon the walls of the lonely locked room
where he had spent so much 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 in front of it had draped the
purple-and-gold pall as a curtain. For weeks he would not go there,
would forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart,
his wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence.
Then, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to
dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day,
until he was driven away. On his return he would sit in front of the her
times, with that pride of individualism that is half the fascination of
sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen shadow that had
to bear the burden that should have been his own.

After a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and
gave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as
well as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more
than once spent the winter. He hated 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 to the room, in spite of the
elaborate bars that he had caused to be placed 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 and ugliness
of the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn
from that? He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him. He had not
painted it. What was it to him how vile and full of shame it looked?
Even if he told them, would they believe it?

Yet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great house in
Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank
who were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton
luxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly
leave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not been
tampered with and that the picture was still there. What if it should be
stolen? The mere thought made him cold with horror. Surely the world
would know his secret then. Perhaps the world already suspected it.

For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him.
He was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth and
social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was said
that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the
smoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another gentleman
got up in a marked manner and went out. Curious stories became current
about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year. It was rumoured
that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a low den in the
distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with thieves and
coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. His extraordinary
absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear again in
society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass him with a
sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though they were
determined to discover his secret.

Of such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice,
and in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his
charming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth
that seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer
to the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about
him. It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most
intimate with him appeared, 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 seen to grow pallid with shame or
horror if Dorian Gray entered the room.

Yet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his
strange and dangerous charm. His great wealth was a certain element of
security. Society--civilized society, at least-- is never very ready to
believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and
fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance
than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much
less value than the possession of a good chef. And, after all, it is a
very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad
dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life. Even the
cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees, as Lord Henry
remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is possibly a
good deal to be said for his view. For the canons of good society are,
or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely
essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, as well as
its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of a romantic
play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful to us. Is
insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is merely a method by
which we can multiply our personalities.

Such, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion. He used to wonder at the
shallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing
simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence. To him, man was a being
with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform creature
that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and
whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead. He


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