It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and
did not even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he strolled home,
smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him. He
heard one of them whisper to the other, "That is Dorian Gray." He
remembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared
at, or talked about. He was tired of hearing his own name now. Half the
charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was that
no one knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom he had lured to
love him that he was poor, and she had believed him. He had told her
once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and answered that
wicked people were always very old and very ugly. What a laugh she
had!--just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had been in her
cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but she had
everything that he had lost.

When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. He sent
him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and began
to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him.

Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing
for the unstained purity of his boyhood-- his rose-white boyhood, as
Lord Henry had once called it. He knew that he had tarnished himself,
filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he
had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible joy
in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had been
the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to shame.
But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him?

Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that
the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the
unsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had been due to
that. Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure
swift penalty along with it. There was purification in punishment. Not
"Forgive us our sins" but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be the
prayer of man to a most just God.

The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many
years ago now, was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids
laughed round it as of old. He took it up, as he had done on that night
of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal picture, and
with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished shield. Once, some
one who had terribly loved him had written to him a mad letter, ending
with these idolatrous words: "The world is changed because you are made
of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history." The phrases
came back to his memory, and he repeated them over and over to himself.
Then he loathed his own beauty, and flinging the mirror on the floor,
crushed it into silver splinters beneath his heel. It was his beauty
that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for.
But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His
beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was
youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and
sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him.

It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that. It was
of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think. James Vane was
hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard. Alan Campbell had shot
himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the secret
that he had been forced to know. The excitement, such as it was, over
Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away. It was already
waning. He was perfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the death of
Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. It was the living death
of his own soul that troubled him. Basil had painted the portrait that
had marred his life. He could not forgive him that. It was the portrait
that had done everything. Basil had said things to him that were
unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience. The murder had been
simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell, his suicide had
been his own act. He had chosen to do it. It was nothing to him.

A new life! That was what he wanted. That was what he was waiting for.
Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one innocent thing, at any
rate. He would never again tempt innocence. He would be good.

As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in the
locked room had changed. Surely it was not still so horrible as it had
been? Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel every
sign of evil passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil had
already gone away. He would go and look.

He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the
door, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face and
lingered for a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and the
hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror to
him. He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.

He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and
dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and
indignation broke from him. He could see no change, save that in the
eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of
the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if
possible, than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed
brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Then he trembled. Had it
been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the desire
for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking laugh?
Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things finer
than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the red stain
larger than it had been? It seemed to have crept like a horrible disease
over the wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the painted feet, as
though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand that had not held
the knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to confess? To give himself
up and be put to death? He laughed. He felt that the idea was monstrous.


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