a cup of emerald, and in honour of a shameful passion built a pagan
church for Christian worship; Charles VI, who had so wildly adored his
brother's wife that a leper had warned him of the insanity that was
coming on him, and who, when his brain had sickened and grown strange,
could only be soothed by Saracen cards painted with the images of love
and death and madness; and, in his trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and
acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his
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 hated him
could not choose but weep, and Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.

There was a horrible fascination in them all. He saw them at night, and
they troubled his imagination in the day. The Renaissance knew of
strange manners of poisoning-- poisoning by a helmet and a lighted
torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander
and by an amber chain. Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There
were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he
could realize his conception of the beautiful.

CHAPTER 12

It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth
birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.

He was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he had
been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold and
foggy. At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, a man
passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of his
grey ulster turned up. He had a bag in his hand. Dorian recognized him.
It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for which he could not
account, came over him. He made no sign of recognition and went on
quickly in the direction of his own house.

But Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping on the
pavement and then hurrying after him. In a few moments, his hand was on
his arm.

"Dorian! What an extraordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for
you in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on your
tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out. I am off to
Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see you before
I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me.
But I wasn't quite sure. Didn't you recognize me?"

"In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor
Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel at
all certain about it. I am sorry you are going away, as I have not seen
you for ages. But I suppose you will be back soon?"

"No: I am going to be out of England for six months. I intend to take a
studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great picture
I have in my head. However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to talk.
Here we are at your door. Let me come in for a moment. I have something
to say to you."

"I shall be charmed. But won't you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray
languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his latch-key.

The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his
watch. "I have heaps of time," he answered. "The train doesn't go till
twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven. In fact, I was on my way to
the club to look for you, when I met you. You see, I shan't have any
delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things. All I have with
me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty minutes."

Dorian looked at him and smiled. "What a way for a fashionable painter
to travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! Come in, or the fog will get
into the house. And mind you don't talk about anything serious. Nothing
is serious nowadays. At least nothing should be."

Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the
library. There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open hearth.
The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case stood, with
some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on a little
marqueterie table.

"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me
everything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes. He is a
most hospitable creature. I like him much better than the Frenchman you
used to have. What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?"

Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I believe he married Lady Radley's maid,
and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker. Anglomania is
very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly of the French,
doesn't it? But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad servant. I never
liked him, but I had nothing to complain about. One often imagines
things that are quite absurd. He was really very devoted to me and
seemed quite sorry when he went away. Have another brandy-and-soda? Or
would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take hock-and-seltzer myself.
There is sure to be some in the next room."

"Thanks, I won't have anything more," said the painter, taking his cap
and coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the
corner. "And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously.
Don't frown like that. You make it so much more difficult for me."

"What is it all about?" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging
himself down on the sofa. "I hope it is not about myself. I am tired of
myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else."



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