Chapter 8It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept several times on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered what made his young master sleep so te. Finally his bell sounded, and Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres a, and drew back the olive-satin curtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the three tall windows."Monsieur has well slept this m," he said, smiling."What oclock is it, Victor?" asked Dorian Gray drowsily."One hour and a quarter, Monsieur."How te it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by hand that m. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside. The others he opened listlessly. They taihe usual colle of cards, invitations to diickets for private views, programmes of charity certs, and the like that are showered on fashionable young men every m during the season. There was a rather heavy bill for a chased silver Louis-Quioilet-set that he had not yet had the ce to send on to his guardians, who were extremely old-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when unnecessary things are our only ies; and there were several very courteously worded unications from Jermyn Street money-lenders to advany sum of mo a moments notid at the most reasoes of i.After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an eborate dressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the onyx-paved bathroom. The cool water refreshed him after his long sleep. He seemed to have fotten all that he had gohrough. A dim sense of having taken part in some straragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the uy of a dream about it.As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a light French breakfast that had been id out for him on a small round table close to the open window. It was an exquisite day. The warm air seemed den with spices. A bee flew in and buzzed round the blue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before him. He felt perfectly happy.Suddenly his eye fell on the s that he had pced in front of the portrait, aarted."Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting ae oable. "I shut the window?"Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured.Was it all true? Had the portrait really ged? Or had it been simply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where there had been a look of joy? Surely a painted vas could not alter? The thing was absurd. It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day. It would make him smile.And, yet, how vivid was his recolle of the whole thing! First in the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seeouch of cruelty round the ed lips. He almost dreaded his valet leaving the room. He khat when he was alone he would have to examihe portrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes had been brought and the man turo go, he felt a wild desire to tell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him, he called him back. The man stood waiting for his orders. Dorian looked at him for a moment. "I am not at home to any one, Victor," he said with a sigh. The man bowed aired.Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood fag the s. The s was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. He sed it curiously, w if ever before it had cealed the secret of a mans life.Should he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? What was the use of knowing.? If the thing was true, it was terrible. If it was not true, why trouble about it? But what if, by some fate or deadlier ce, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible ge? What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at his own picture? Basil would be sure to do that. No; the thing had to be examined, and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful state of doubt.He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he looked upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the s aside and saw himself face to face. It erfectly true. The portrait had altered.As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost stifiterest. That such a ge should have taken pce was incredible to him. A was a fact. Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form and colour on the vas and the soul that was within him? Could it be that what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they made true? Or was there some other, more terrible reason? He shuddered, a afraid, and, going back to the couch, y there, gazing at the picture in sied horror.Ohing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made him scious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Va was not too te to make reparation for that. She could still be his wife. His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would be to him what holiness is to some, and sce to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral seo sleep. But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men brought upon their souls.Three oclock struck, and four, and the half-h its double chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine byrinth of passion through which he was wandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he went over to the table and wrote a passioter to the girl he had loved, impl her fiveness and acg himself of madness. He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we bme ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to bme us. It is the fession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had fihe letter, he felt that he had been fiven.Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henrys voice outside. "My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I t bear your shutting yourself up like this."He made no a first, but remained quite still. The knog still tinued and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry in, and to expin to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was iable. He jumped up, drew the s hastily across the picture, and unlocked the door."I am so sorry for it all, Dorian," said Lord Henry as he entered. "But you must not think too much about it.""Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?" asked the d."Yes, of course," answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly pulling off his yellow gloves. "It is dreadful, from one point of view, but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see her, after the py was over?""Yes.""I felt sure you had. Did you make a se with her?""I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know myself better.""Ah, Dorian, I am so gd you take it in that way! I was afraid I would find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of yours.""I have got through all that," said Dorian, shaking his head and smiling. "I am perfectly happy now. I know what sce is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divihing in us. Dont s it, Harry, any more--at least not before me. I want to be good. I t bear the idea of my soul being hideous.""A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I gratute you on it. But how are you going to begin?""By marrying Sibyl Vane.""Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--""Yes, Harry, I know what yoing to say. Something dreadful about marriage. Dont say it. Dont ever say things of that kind to me again. Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to break my word to her. She is to be my wife.""Your wife! Dorian! . . . Didnt you get my letter? I wrote to you this m, ahe note down by my own man.""Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldnt like. You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.""You know nothing then?""What do you mean?"Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray, took both his hands in his own ahem tightly. "Dorian," he said, "my letter--dont be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane is dead."A cry of pain broke from the ds lips, and he leaped to his feet, tearing his hands away from Lord Henrys grasp. "Dead! Sibyl dead! It is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?""It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely. "It is in all the m papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any oill I came. There will have to be an i, of course, and you must not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in Paris. But in London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never make ones début with a sdal. One should reserve that to give an io ones old age. I suppose they dont know your the theatre? If they dont, it is all right. Did any one see you going round to her room? That is an important point."Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror. Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an i? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I t bear it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once.""I have no doubt it was not an act, Dorian, though it must be put in that way to the public. It seems that as she was leaving the theatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had fotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she did not e down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake, some dreadful thing they use at theatres. I dont know what it was, but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it russic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously.""Harry, Harry, it is terrible!" cried the d."Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed up in it. I see by The Standard that she was seventeen. I should have thought she was almost youhan that. She looked such a child, and seemed to know so little about ag. Dorian, you musthis thi on your nerves. You must e and dih me, and afterwards we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be there. You e to my sisters box. She has got some smart women with her.""So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself, "murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden. And to-night I am to dih you, and then go on to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all this in a book, Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. Here is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my life. Strahat my first passionate love-letter should have been addressed to a dead girl. they feel, I wohose white silent people we call the dead? Sibyl! she feel, or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I loved her o seems years ago to me now. She was everything to me. Then came that dreadful night--was it really only st night?-- when she pyed so badly, and my heart almost broke. She expi all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something happehat made me afraid. I t tell you what it was, but it was terrible. I said I would go back to her. I felt I had done wrong. And now she is dead. My God! My God! Harry, what shall I do? You dont know the danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would have dohat for me. She had nht to kill herself. It was selfish of her.""My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case and produg a gold-tten matchbox, "the only way a woman ever reform a man is by b him so pletely that he loses all possible i in life. If you had married this girl, you would have beeched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either bees dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bohat some other womans husband has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed-- but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure.""I suppose it would," muttered the d, walking up and down the room and looking horribly pale. "But I thought it was my duty. It is not my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was right. I remember your saying ohat there is a fatality about good resolutions--that they are always made too te. Miainly were." "Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with stific ws. Their in is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no at.""Harry," cried Dorian Gray, ing over and sitting down beside him, "why is it that I ot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I dont think I am heartless. Do you?""You have dooo many foolish things during the st fht to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry with his sweet mencholy smile.The d frowned. "I dont like that expnation, Harry," he rejoined, "but I am gd you dont think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. I know I am not. A I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful py. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded.""It is an iing question," said Lord Henry, who found an exquisite pleasure in pying on the ds unscious egotism, "aremely iing question. I fancy that the true expnation is this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in su inartistihat they hurt us by their crude violeheir absolute incohereheir absurd want of meaning, their entire ck of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no lohe actors, but the spectators of the py. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that has really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had su experie would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored me--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have bee stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminisces. That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.""I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian."There is no y," rejoined his panion. "Life has aloppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. I once wore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic m for a romahat would not die. Ultimately, however, it did die. I fet what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills oh the terror of eternity. Well--would you believe it?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshires, I found myself seated at dinner he dy iion, and she insisted on going over the whole thing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had buried my roman a bed of asphodel. She dragged it out again and assured me that I had spoiled her life. I am bound to state that she ate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any ay. But what a ck of taste she showed! The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the i of the py is entirely over, they propose to ti. If they were allowed their own way, every edy would have a tragiding, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art. You are more fortuhan I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane did for you. Ordinary women always sole themselves. Some of them do it by going in for seal colours. rust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a womahirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history. Others find a great sotion in suddenly disc the good qualities of their husbands. They funt their jugal felicity in ones face, as if it were the most fasating of sins. Religion soles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a woman oold me, and I quite uand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. sce makes egotists of us all. Yes; there is really o the sotions that women find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentiohe most important one.""What is that, Harry?" said the d listlessly."Oh, the obvious sotion. Taking some one elses admirer when one loses ones own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the women os! There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am gd I am living in a tury when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things y with, such as romance, passion, and love.""I was terribly cruel to her. You fet that.""I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, dht cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain sves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated. I am sure you were splendid. I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I fancy how delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to me the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key to everything.""What was that, Harry?""You said to me that Sibyl Vane represeo you all the heroines of romahat she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.""She will never e to life again now," muttered the d, burying his fa his hands."No, she will never e to life. She has pyed her st part. But you must think of that lonely death iawdry dressing-room simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful se from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died. To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeares pys ahem lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeares music sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But dont waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are."There was a silehe evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things.After some time Dorian Gray looked up. "You have expined me to myself, Harry," he murmured with something of a sigh of relief. "I felt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I could not express it to myself. How well you know me! But we will not talk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experiehat is all. I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as marvellous.""Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.""But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What then?""Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to you. No, you must keep yood looks. We live in ahat reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We ot spare you. And now you had better dress and drive down to the club. We are rather te, as it is.""I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat anything. What is the number of your sisters box?""Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her name on the door. But I am sorry you wont e and dine.""I dont feel up to it," said Dorian listlessly. "But I am awfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my best friend. No one has ever uood me as you have.""We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian," answered Lord Henry, shaking him by the hand. "Good-bye. I shall see you before hirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing."As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the mps and drew the blinds down. He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an intermiime over everything.As soon as he had left, he rushed to the s and drew it bao; there was no further ge in the picture. It had received the news of Sibyl Vanes death before he had known of it himself. It was scious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the very moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or was it indifferent to results? Did it merely take izance of assed within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the ge taking pce before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it.Poor Sibyl! What a roma had all been! She had often mimicked death oage. Theh himself had touched her and taken her with him. How had she pyed that dreadful st se? Had she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything by the sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of what she had made him gh, on that horrible night at the theatre. Whehought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent on to the worlds stage to show the supreme reality of love. A wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy tremulous grace. He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the picture.He felt that the time had really e for making his choice. Or had his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for him--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle a, wild joys and wilder sins--he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all.A feeling of pai over him as he thought of the desecration that was in store for the fair fa the vas. Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigo kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. M after m he had sat before the portrait w at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to which he yielded? Was it to bee a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had so often touched thter gold the waving wonder of its hair? The pity of it! the pity of it!For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that existed between him and the picture might cease. It had ged in ao a prayer; perhaps in ao a prayer it might remain unged. A, who, that knew anything about life, would surrehe ce of remaining always young, however fantastic that ce might be, or with what fateful seque might be fraught? Besides, was it really under his trol? Had it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious stific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living anism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inanic things? Nay, without thought or scious desire, might not thiernal to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom i love or strange affinity? But the reason was of no importance. He would never agai by a prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it?For there would be a real pleasure in watg it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret pces. This portrait would be to him the most magiirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. When the blood crept from its face, a behind a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the gmour of boyhood. Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happeo the coloured image on the vas? He would be safe. That was everything.He drew the s bato its former p front of the picture, smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was already waiting for him. An hour ter he was at the opera, and Lord Henry was leaning over his chair.