"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often," cried Lord
Henry, laughing. "That is one of the most important secrets of life. I
should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. One should never
do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner. But let us pass
from poor Basil. I wish I could believe that he had come to such a
really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell into
the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the scandal.
Yes: I should fancy that was his end. I see him lying now on his back
under those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges floating over him
and long weeds catching in his hair. Do you know, I don't think he would
have done much more good work. During the last ten years his painting
had gone off very much."

Dorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began
to stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, grey-plumaged bird
with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo perch.
As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf of
crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards and
forwards.

"Yes," he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of
his pocket; "his painting had quite gone off. It seemed to me to have
lost something. It had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be great
friends, he ceased to be a great artist. What was it separated you? I
suppose he bored you. If so, he never forgave you. It's a habit bores
have. By the way, what has become of that wonderful portrait he did of
you? I don't think I have ever seen it since he finished it. Oh! I
remember your telling me years ago that you had sent it down to Selby,
and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the way. You never got it back?
What a pity! it was really a masterpiece. I remember I wanted to buy it.
I wish I had now. It belonged to Basil's best period. Since then, his
work was that curious mixture of bad painting and good intentions that
always entitles a man to be called a representative British artist. Did
you advertise for it? You should."

"I forget," said Dorian. "I suppose I did. But I never really liked it.
I am sorry I sat for it. The memory of the thing is hateful to me. Why
do you talk of it? It used to remind me of those curious lines in some
play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?--

"Like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart."

Yes: that is what it was like."

Lord Henry laughed. "If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his
heart," he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.

Dorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano.
"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'" he repeated, "'a face without a heart.'"

The elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes. "By the
way, Dorian," he said after a pause, "'what does it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?-- his own soul'?"

The music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend. "Why
do you ask me that, Harry?"

"My dear fellow," said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise,
"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer.
That is all. I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by the
Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people
listening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the
man yelling out that question to his audience. It struck me as being
rather dramatic. London is very rich in curious effects of that kind. A
wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly white
faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful phrase
flung into the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very good in
its way, quite a suggestion. I thought of telling the prophet that art
had a soul, but that man had not. I am afraid, however, he would not
have understood me."

"Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and
sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a
soul in each one of us. I know it."

"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?"

"Quite sure."

"Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels absolutely
certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the
lesson of romance. How grave you are! Don't be so serious. What have you
or I to do with the superstitions of our age? No: we have given up our
belief in the soul. Play me something. Play me a nocturne, Dorian, and,
as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept your youth. You
must have some secret. I am only ten years older than you are, and I am
wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are really wonderful, Dorian. You
have never looked more charming than you do to-night. You remind me of
the day I saw you first. You were rather cheeky, very shy, and
absolutely extraordinary. You have changed, of course, but not in
appearance. I wish you would tell me your secret. To get back my youth I
would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or
be respectable. Youth! There is nothing like it. It's absurd to talk of
the ignorance of youth. The only people to whose opinions I listen now
with any respect are people much younger than myself. They seem in front
of me. Life has revealed to them her latest wonder. As for the aged, I
always contradict the aged. I do it on principle. If you ask them their
opinion on something that happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the


<< 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 |