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flinging himself down on the sofa. “I hope it is not about
cigarettes. He is a most hospitable creature. I like him much
myself. I am tired of myself to-night. I should like to be
better than the Frenchman you used to have. What has be-
somebody else.”
come of the Frenchman, by the bye?”
“It is about yourself,” answered Hallward in his grave deep
Dorian shrugged his shoulders. “I believe he married Lady
voice, “and I must say it to you. I shall only keep you half an
Radley’s maid, and has established her in Paris as an English
hour.”
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Oscar Wilde
Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette. “Half an hour!” he mur-
last year to have his portrait done. I had never seen him be-
mured.
fore, and had never heard anything about him at the time,
“It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for
though I have heard a good deal since. He offered an ex-
your own sake that I am speaking. I think it right that you
travagant price. I refused him. There was something in the
should know that the most dreadful things are being said
shape of his fingers that I hated. I know now that I was quite
against you in London.”
right in what I fancied about him. His life is dreadful. But
“I don’t wish to know anything about them. I love scan-
you, Dorian, with your pure, bright, innocent face, and your
dals about other people, but scandals about myself don’t in-
marvellous untroubled youth—I can’t believe anything
terest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.”
against you. And yet I see you very seldom, and you never
“They must interest you, Dorian. Every gentleman is in-
come down to the studio now, and when I am away from
terested in his good name. You don’t want people to talk of
you, and I hear all these hideous things that people are whis-
you as something vile and degraded. Of course, you have
pering about you, I don’t know what to say. Why is it, Dorian,
your position, and your wealth, and all that kind of thing.
that a man like the Duke of Berwick leaves the room of a
But position and wealth are not everything. Mind you, I
club when you enter it? Why is it that so many gentlemen in
don’t believe these rumours at all. At least, I can’t believe
London will neither go to your house or invite you to theirs?
them when I see you. Sin is a thing that writes itself across a
You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley. I met him at dinner
man’s face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of
last week. Your name happened to come up in conversation,
secret vices. There are no such things. If a wretched man has
in connection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhi-
a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of
bition at the Dudley. Staveley curled his lip and said that
his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even. Somebody—I
you might have the most artistic tastes, but that you were a
won’t mention his name, but you know him—came to me
man whom no pure-minded girl should be allowed to know,
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The Picture of Dorian Gray
and whom no chaste woman should sit in the same room
his debauchery? If Kent’s silly son takes his wife from the streets,
with. I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked
what is that to me? If Adrian Singleton writes his friend’s name
him what he meant. He told me. He told me right out be-
across a bill, am I his keeper? I know how people chatter in
fore everybody. It was horrible! Why is your friendship so
England. The middle classes air their moral prejudices over
fatal to young men? There was that wretched boy in the
their gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they call the
Guards who committed suicide. You were his great friend.
profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend that
There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England with
they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people
a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What about
they slander. In this country, it is enough for a man to have
Adrian Singleton and his dreadful end? What about Lord
distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against
Kent’s only son and his career? I met his father yesterday in
him. And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as be-
St. James’s Street. He seemed broken with shame and sor-
ing moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we
row. What about the young Duke of Perth? What sort of life
are in the native land of the hypocrite.”
has he got now? What gentleman would associate with him?”
“Dorian,” cried Hallward, “that is not the question. En-
“Stop, Basil. You are talking about things of which you
gland is bad enough I know, and English society is all wrong.
know nothing,” said Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a
That is the reason why I want you to be fine. You have not
note of infinite contempt in his voice. “You ask me why
been fine. One has a right to judge of a man by the effect he
Berwick leaves a room when I enter it. It is because I know
has over his friends. Yours seem to lose all sense of honour,
everything about his life, not because he knows anything
of goodness, of purity. You have filled them with a madness
about mine. With such blood as he has in his veins, how
for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You led
could his record be clean? You ask me about Henry Ashton
them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you can smile,
and young Perth. Did I teach the one his vices, and the other
as you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know
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Oscar Wilde
you and Harry are inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]