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        "book": "CHAPTER I\n\nA SMALL TOWN\n\n\n    Put thousands together less bad,\n    But the cage less gay.--_Hobbes_.\n\n\nThe little town of Verrieres can pass for one of the prettiest in\nFranche-Comte. Its white houses with their pointed red-tiled roofs\nstretch along the slope of a hill, whose slightest undulations are\nmarked by groups of vigorous chestnuts. The Doubs flows to within some\nhundred feet above its fortifications, which were built long ago by the\nSpaniards, and are now in ruins.\n\nVerrieres is sheltered on the north by a high mountain which is one of\nthe branches of the Jura. The jagged peaks of the Verra are covered\nwith snow from the beginning of the October frosts. A torrent which\nrushes down from the mountains traverses Verrieres before throwing\nitself into the Doubs, and supplies the motive power for a great number\nof saw mills. The industry is very simple, and secures a certain\nprosperity to the majority of the inhabitants who are more peasant than\nbourgeois. It is not, however, the wood saws which have enriched this\nlittle town. It is the manufacture of painted tiles, called Mulhouse\ntiles, that is responsible for that general affluence which has caused\nthe facades of nearly all the houses in Verrieres to be rebuilt since\nthe fall of Napoleon.\n\nOne has scarcely entered the town, before one is stunned by the din of\na strident machine of terrifying aspect. Twenty heavy hammers which\nfall with a noise that makes the paved floor tremble, are lifted\nup by a wheel set in motion by the torrent. Each of these hammers\nmanufactures every day I don't know how many thousands of nails. The\nlittle pieces of iron which are rapidly transformed into nails by these\nenormous hammers, are put in position by fresh pretty young girls. This\nlabour so rough at first sight is one of the industries which most\nsurprises the traveller who penetrates for the first time the mountains\nwhich separate France and Helvetia. If when he enters Verrieres, the\ntraveller asks who owns this fine nail factory which deafens everybody\nwho goes up the Grande-Rue, he is answered in a drawling tone \"Eh!\nit belongs to M. the Mayor.\"\n\nAnd if the traveller stops a few minutes in that Grande-Rue of\nVerrieres which goes on an upward incline from the bank of the Doubs to\nnearly as far as the summit of the hill, it is a hundred to one that he\nwill see a big man with a busy and important air.\n\nWhen he comes in sight all hats are quickly taken off. His hair is\ngrizzled and he is dressed in grey. He is a Knight of several Orders,\nhas a large forehead and an aquiline nose, and if you take him all\nround, his features are not devoid of certain regularity. One might\neven think on the first inspection that it combines with the dignity\nof the village mayor that particular kind of comfortableness which is\nappropriate to the age of forty-eight or fifty. But soon the traveller\nfrom Paris will be shocked by a certain air of self-satisfaction and\nself-complacency mingled with an almost indefinable narrowness and lack\nof inspiration. One realises at last that this man's talent is limited\nto seeing that he is paid exactly what he is owed, and in paying his\nown debts at the latest possible moment.\n\nSuch is M. de Renal, the mayor of Verrieres. After having crossed the\nroad with a solemn step, he enters the mayoral residence and disappears\nfrom the eye of the traveller. But if the latter continues to walk\na hundred steps further up, he will perceive a house with a fairly\nfine appearance, with some magnificent gardens behind an iron grill\nbelonging to the house. Beyond that is an horizon line formed by the\nhills of Burgundy, which seem ideally made to delight the eyes. This\nview causes the traveller to forget that pestilential atmosphere of\npetty money-grubbing by which he is beginning to be suffocated.\n\nHe is told that this house belongs to M. de Renal. It is to the\nprofits which he has made out of his big nail factory that the mayor\nof Verrieres owes this fine residence of hewn stone which he is just\nfinishing. His family is said to be Spanish and ancient, and is alleged\nto have been established in the country well before the conquest of\nLouis XIV.\n\nSince 1815, he blushes at being a manufacturer: 1815 made him mayor\nof Verrieres. The terraced walls of this magnificent garden which\ndescends to the Doubs, plateau by plateau, also represent the reward\nof M. de Renal's proficiency in the iron-trade. Do not expect to find\nin France those picturesque gardens which surround the manufacturing\ntowns of Germany, like Leipsic, Frankfurt and Nurenburgh, etc. The\nmore walls you build in Franche-Comte and the more you fortify your\nestate with piles of stone, the more claim you will acquire on the\nrespect of your neighbours. Another reason for the admiration due to\nM. de Renal's gardens and their numerous walls, is the fact that he\nhas purchased, through sheer power of the purse, certain small parcels\nof the ground on which they stand. That saw-mill, for instance, whose\nsingular position on the banks of the Doubs struck you when you entered\nVerrieres, and where you notice the name of SOREL written in gigantic\ncharacters on the chief beam of the roof, used to occupy six years\nago that precise space on which is now reared the wall of the fourth\nterrace in M. de Renal's gardens.\n\nProud man that he was, the mayor had none the less to negotiate with\nthat tough, stubborn peasant, old Sorel. He had to pay him in good\nsolid golden louis before he could induce him to transfer his workshop\nelsewhere. As to the _public_ stream which supplied the motive power\nfor the saw-mill, M. de Renal obtained its diversion, thanks to the\ninfluence which he enjoyed at Paris. This favour was accorded him after\nthe election of 182-.\n\nHe gave Sorel four acres for every one he had previously held, five\nhundred yards lower down on the banks of the Doubs. Although this\nposition was much more advantageous for his pine-plank trade, father\nSorel (as he is called since he has become rich) knew how to exploit\nthe impatience and _mania for landed ownership_ which animated his\nneighbour to the tune of six thousand francs.\n\nIt is true that this arrangement was criticised by the wiseacres of the\nlocality. One day, it was on a Sunday four years later, as M. de Renal\nwas coming back from church in his mayor's uniform, he saw old Sorel\nsmiling at him, as he stared at him some distance away surrounded by\nhis three sons. That smile threw a fatal flood of light into the soul\nof the mayor. From that time on, he is of opinion that he could have\nobtained the exchange at a cheaper rate.\n\nIn order to win the public esteem of Verrieres it is essential that,\nthough you should build as many walls as you can, you should not adopt\nsome plan imported from Italy by those masons who cross the passes\nof the Jura in the spring on their way to Paris. Such an innovation\nwould bring down upon the head of the imprudent builder an eternal\nreputation for _wrongheadedness_, and he will be lost for ever in the\nsight of those wise, well-balanced people who dispense public esteem in\nFranche-Comte.\n\nAs a matter of fact, these prudent people exercise in the place the\nmost offensive despotism. It is by reason of this awful word, that\nanyone who has lived in that great republic which is called Paris,\nfinds living in little towns quite intolerable. The tyranny of public\nopinion (and what public opinion!) is as _stupid_ in the little towns\nof France as in the United States of America.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nA MAYOR\n\n\n        Importance! What is it, sir after all? The respect of\n        fools, the wonder of children, the envy of the rich, the\n        contempt of the wise man.--_Barnave_\n\n\nHappily for the reputation of M. de Renal as an administrator an\nimmense wall of support was necessary for the public promenade which\ngoes along the hill, a hundred steps above the course of the Doubs.\nThis admirable position secures for the promenade one of the most\npicturesque views in the whole of France. But the rain water used to\nmake furrows in the walk every spring, caused ditches to appear, and\nrendered it generally impracticable. This nuisance, which was felt\nby the whole town, put M. de Renal in the happy position of being\ncompelled to immortalise his administration by building a wall twenty\nfeet high and thirty to forty yards long.\n\nThe parapet of this wall, which occasioned M. de Renal three journeys\nto Paris (for the last Minister of the Interior but one had declared\nhimself the mortal enemy of the promenade of Verrieres), is now raised\nto a height of four feet above the ground, and as though to defy all\nministers whether past or present, it is at present adorned with tiles\nof hewn stone.\n\nHow many times have my looks plunged into the valley of the Doubs, as I\nthought of the Paris balls which I had abandoned on the previous night,\nand leant my breast against the great blocks of stone, whose beautiful\ngrey almost verged on blue. Beyond the left bank, there wind five\nor six valleys, at the bottom of which I could see quite distinctly\nseveral small streams. There is a view of them falling into the Doubs,\nafter a series of cascades. The sun is very warm in these mountains.\nWhen it beats straight down, the pensive traveller on the terrace\nfinds shelter under some magnificent plane trees. They owe their rapid\ngrowth and their fine verdure with its almost bluish shade to the new\nsoil, which M. the mayor has had placed behind his immense wall of\nsupport for (in spite of the opposition of the Municipal Council) he\nhas enlarged the promenade by more than six feet (and although he is an\nUltra and I am a Liberal, I praise him for it), and that is why both in\nhis opinion and in that of M. Valenod, the fortunate Director of the\nworkhouse of Verrieres, this terrace can brook comparison with that of\nSaint-Germain en Laye.\n\nI find personally only one thing at which to cavil in the COURS DE LA\nFIDELITE, (this official name is to be read in fifteen to twenty places\non those immortal tiles which earned M. de Renal an extra cross.) The\ngrievance I find in the Cours de la Fidelite is the barbarous manner in\nwhich the authorities have cut these vigorous plane trees and clipped\nthem to the quick. In fact they really resemble with their dwarfed,\nrounded and flattened heads the most vulgar plants of the vegetable\ngarden, while they are really capable of attaining the magnificent\ndevelopment of the English plane trees. But the wish of M. the mayor\nis despotic, and all the trees belonging to the municipality are\nruthlessly pruned twice a year. The local Liberals suggest, but they\nare probably exaggerating, that the hand of the official gardener\nhas become much more severe, since M. the Vicar Maslon started\nappropriating the clippings. This young ecclesiastic was sent to\nBesancon some years ago to keep watch on the abbe Chelan and some cures\nin the neighbouring districts. An old Surgeon-Major of Napoleon's\nItalian Army, who was living in retirement at Verrieres, and who had\nbeen in his time described by M. the mayor as both a Jacobin and a\nBonapartiste, dared to complain to the mayor one day of the periodical\nmutilation of these fine trees.\n\n\"I like the shade,\" answered M. de Renal, with just a tinge of that\nhauteur which becomes a mayor when he is talking to a surgeon, who is\na member of the Legion of Honour. \"I like the shade, I have _my_ trees\nclipped in order to give shade, and I cannot conceive that a tree can\nhave any other purpose, provided of course _it is not bringing in any\nprofit_, like the useful walnut tree.\"\n\nThis is the great word which is all decisive at Verrieres. \"BRINGING IN\nPROFIT,\" this word alone sums up the habitual trend of thought of more\nthan three-quarters of the inhabitants.\n\n_Bringing in profit_ is the consideration which decides everything in\nthis little town which you thought so pretty. The stranger who arrives\nin the town is fascinated by the beauty of the fresh deep valleys which\nsurround it, and he imagines at first that the inhabitants have an\nappreciation of the beautiful. They talk only too frequently of the\nbeauty of their country, and it cannot be denied that they lay great\nstress on it, but the reason is that it attracts a number of strangers,\nwhose money enriches the inn-keepers, a process which _brings in\nprofit_ to the town, owing to the machinery of the octroi.\n\nIt was on a fine, autumn day that M. de Renal was taking a promenade\non the Cours de la Fidelite with his wife on his arm. While listening\nto her husband (who was talking in a somewhat solemn manner) Madame de\nRenal followed anxiously with her eyes the movements of three little\nboys. The eldest, who might have been eleven years old, went too\nfrequently near the parapet and looked as though he was going to climb\nup it. A sweet voice then pronounced the name of Adolphe and the child\ngave up his ambitious project. Madame de Renal seemed a woman of thirty\nyears of age but still fairly pretty.\n\n\"He may be sorry for it, may this fine gentleman from Paris,\" said\nM. de Renal, with an offended air and a face even paler than usual.\n\"I am not without a few friends at court!\" But though I want to\ntalk to you about the provinces for two hundred pages, I lack the\nrequisite barbarity to make you undergo all the long-windedness and\ncircumlocutions of a provincial dialogue.\n\nThis fine gentleman from Paris, who was so odious to the mayor of\nVerrieres, was no other than the M. Appert, who had two days previously\nmanaged to find his way not only into the prison and workhouse of\nVerrieres, but also into the hospital, which was gratuitously conducted\nby the mayor and the principal proprietors of the district.\n\n\"But,\" said Madame de Renal timidly, \"what harm can this Paris\ngentleman do you, since you administer the poor fund with the utmost\nscrupulous honesty?\"\n\n\"He only comes to _throw_ blame and afterwards he will get some\narticles into the Liberal press.\"\n\n\"You never read them, my dear.\"\n\n\"But they always talk to us about those Jacobin articles, all that\ndistracts us and prevents us from doing good.[1] Personally, I shall\nnever forgive the cure.\"\n\n[1] Historically true.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE POOR FUND\n\n\n        A virtuous cure who does not intrigue is a providence\n        for the village.--_Fleury_\n\n\nIt should be mentioned that the cure of Verrieres, an old man of\nninety, who owed to the bracing mountain air an iron constitution and\nan iron character, had the right to visit the prison, the hospital and\nthe workhouse at any hour. It had been at precisely six o'clock in the\nmorning that M. Appert, who had a Paris recommendation to the cure,\nhad been shrewd enough to arrive at a little inquisitive town. He had\nimmediately gone on to the cure's house.\n\nThe cure Chelan became pensive as he read the letter written to him by\nthe M. le Marquis de La Mole, Peer of France, and the richest landed\nproprietor of the province.\n\n\"I am old and beloved here,\" he said to himself in a whisper, \"they\nwould not dare!\" Then he suddenly turned to the gentleman from Paris,\nwith eyes, which in spite of his great age, shone with that sacred fire\nwhich betokens the delight of doing a fine but slightly dangerous act.\n\n\"Come with me, sir,\" he said, \"but please do not express any opinion of\nthe things which we shall see, in the presence of the jailer, and above\nall not in the presence of the superintendents of the workhouse.\"\n\nM. Appert realised that he had to do with a man of spirit. He followed\nthe venerable cure, visited the hospital and workhouse, put a lot of\nquestions, but in spite of somewhat extraordinary answers, did not\nindulge in the slightest expression of censure.\n\nThis visit lasted several hours; the cure invited M. Appert to dine,\nbut the latter made the excuse of having some letters to write; as a\nmatter of fact, he did not wish to compromise his generous companion to\nany further extent. About three o'clock these gentlemen went to finish\ntheir inspection of the workhouse and then returned to the prison.\nThere they found the jailer by the gate, a kind of giant, six feet\nhigh, with bow legs. His ignoble face had become hideous by reason of\nhis terror.\n\n\"Ah, monsieur,\" he said to the cure as soon as he saw him, \"is not the\ngentleman whom I see there, M. Appert?\"\n\n\"What does that matter?\" said the cure.\n\n\"The reason is that I received yesterday the most specific orders, and\nM. the Prefect sent a message by a gendarme who must have galloped\nduring the whole of the night, that M. Appert was not to be allowed in\nthe prisons.\"\n\n\"I can tell you, M. Noiroud,\" said the cure, \"that the traveller who is\nwith me is M. Appert, but do you or do you not admit that I have the\nright to enter the prison at any hour of the day or night accompanied\nby anybody I choose?\"\n\n\"Yes, M. the cure,\" said the jailer in a low voice, lowering his head\nlike a bull-dog, induced to a grudging obedience by fear of the stick,\n\"only, M. the cure, I have a wife and children, and shall be turned out\nif they inform against me. I only have my place to live on.\"\n\n\"I, too, should be sorry enough to lose mine,\" answered the good cure,\nwith increasing emotion in his voice.\n\n\"What a difference!\" answered the jailer keenly. \"As for you, M. le\ncure, we all know that you have eight hundred francs a year, good solid\nmoney.\"\n\nSuch were the facts which, commented upon and exaggerated in twenty\ndifferent ways, had been agitating for the last two days all the odious\npassions of the little town of Verrieres.\n\nAt the present time they served as the text for the little discussion\nwhich M. de Renal was having with his wife. He had visited the cure\nearlier in the morning accompanied by M. Valenod, the director of the\nworkhouse, in order to convey their most emphatic displeasure. M.\nChelan had no protector, and felt all the weight of their words.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen, I shall be the third cure of eighty years of age who\nhas been turned out in this district. I have been here for fifty-six\nyears. I have baptized nearly all the inhabitants of the town, which\nwas only a hamlet when I came to it. Every day I marry young people\nwhose grandparents I have married in days gone by. Verrieres is my\nfamily, but I said to myself when I saw the stranger, 'This man from\nParis may as a matter of fact be a Liberal, there are only too many of\nthem about, but what harm can he do to our poor and to our prisoners?'\"\n\nThe reproaches of M. de Renal, and above all, those of M. Valenod, the\ndirector of the workhouse, became more and more animated.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen, turn me out then,\" the old cure exclaimed in a\ntrembling voice; \"I shall still continue to live in the district. As\nyou know, I inherited forty-eight years ago a piece of land that brings\nin eight hundred francs a year; I shall live on that income. I do not\nsave anything out of my living, gentlemen; and that is perhaps why,\nwhen you talk to me about it, I am not particularly frightened.\"\n\nM. de Renal always got on very well with his wife, but he did not know\nwhat to answer when she timidly repeated the phrase of M. le cure,\n\"What harm can this Paris gentleman do the prisoners?\" He was on the\npoint of quite losing his temper when she gave a cry. Her second son\nhad mounted the parapet of the terrace wall and was running along it,\nalthough the wall was raised to a height of more than twenty feet above\nthe vineyard on the other side. The fear of frightening her son and\nmaking him fall prevented Madame de Renal speaking to him. But at last\nthe child, who was smiling at his own pluck, looked at his mother, saw\nher pallor, jumped down on to the walk and ran to her. He was well\nscolded.\n\nThis little event changed the course of the conversation.\n\n\"I really mean to take Sorel, the son of the sawyer, into the house,\"\nsaid M. de Renal; \"he will look after the children, who are getting too\nnaughty for us to manage. He is a young priest, or as good as one, a\ngood Latin scholar, and will make the children get on. According to the\ncure, he has a steady character. I will give him three hundred francs a\nyear and his board. I have some doubts as to his morality, for he used\nto be the favourite of that old Surgeon-Major, Member of the Legion of\nHonour, who went to board with the Sorels, on the pretext that he was\ntheir cousin. It is quite possible that that man was really simply a\nsecret agent of the Liberals. He said that the mountain air did his\nasthma good, but that is something which has never been proved. He\nhas gone through all _Buonaparte's_ campaigns in Italy, and had even,\nit was said, voted against the Empire in the plebiscite. This Liberal\ntaught the Sorel boy Latin, and left him a number of books which he had\nbrought with him. Of course, in the ordinary way, I should have never\nthought of allowing a carpenter's son to come into contact with our\nchildren, but the cure told me, the very day before the scene which\nhas just estranged us for ever, that Sorel has been studying theology\nfor three years with the intention of entering a seminary. He is,\nconsequently, not a Liberal, and he certainly is a good Latin scholar.\n\n\"This arrangement will be convenient in more than one way,\" continued\nM. de Renal, looking at his wife with a diplomatic air. \"That Valenod\nis proud enough of his two fine Norman horses which he has just bought\nfor his carriage, but he hasn't a tutor for his children.\"\n\n\"He might take this one away from us.\"\n\n\"You approve of my plan, then?\" said M. de Renal, thanking his wife\nwith a smile for the excellent idea which she had just had. \"Well,\nthat's settled.\"\n\n\"Good gracious, my dear, how quickly you make up your mind!\"\n\n\"It is because I'm a man of character, as the cure found out right\nenough. Don't let us deceive ourselves; we are surrounded by Liberals\nin this place. All those cloth merchants are jealous of me, I am\ncertain of it; two or three are becoming rich men. Well, I should\nrather fancy it for them to see M. de Renal's children pass along the\nstreet as they go out for their walk, escorted by _their tutor_. It\nwill impress people. My grandfather often used to tell us that he had\na tutor when he was young. It may run me into a hundred crowns, but\nthat ought to be looked upon as an expense necessary for keeping up our\nposition.\"\n\nThis sudden resolution left Madame de Renal quite pensive. She was\na big, well-made woman, who had been the beauty of the country, to\nuse the local expression. She had a certain air of simplicity and\nyouthfulness in her deportment. This naive grace, with its innocence\nand its vivacity, might even have recalled to a Parisian some\nsuggestion of the sweets he had left behind him. If she had realised\nthis particular phase of her success, Madame de Renal would have been\nquite ashamed of it. All coquetry, all affectation, were absolutely\nalien to her temperament. M. Valenod, the rich director of the\nworkhouse, had the reputation of having paid her court, a fact which\nhad cast a singular glamour over her virtue; for this M. Valenod, a\nbig young man with a square, sturdy frame, florid face, and big, black\nwhiskers, was one of those coarse, blustering, and noisy people who\npass in the provinces for a \"fine man.\"\n\nMadame de Renal, who had a very shy, and apparently a very uneven\ntemperament, was particularly shocked by M. Valenod's lack of repose,\nand by his boisterous loudness. Her aloofness from what, in the\nVerrieres' jargon, was called \"having a good time,\" had earned her the\nreputation of being very proud of her birth. In fact, she never thought\nabout it, but she had been extremely glad to find the inhabitants of\nthe town visit her less frequently. We shall not deny that she passed\nfor a fool in the eyes of _their_ good ladies because she did not\nwheedle her husband, and allowed herself to miss the most splendid\nopportunities of getting fine hats from Paris or Besancon. Provided she\nwas allowed to wander in her beautiful garden, she never complained.\nShe was a naive soul, who had never educated herself up to the point\nof judging her husband and confessing to herself that he bored her.\nShe supposed, without actually formulating the thought, that there was\nno greater sweetness in the relationship between husband and wife than\nshe herself had experienced. She loved M. de Renal most when he talked\nabout his projects for their children. The elder he had destined for\nthe army, the second for the law, and the third for the Church. To sum\nup, she found M. de Renal much less boring than all the other men of\nher acquaintance.\n\nThis conjugal opinion was quite sound. The Mayor of Verrieres had a\nreputation for wit, and above all, a reputation for good form, on\nthe strength of half-a-dozen \"chestnuts\" which he had inherited from\nan uncle. Old Captain de Renal had served, before the Revolution, in\nthe infantry regiment of M. the Duke of Orleans, and was admitted\nto the Prince's salons when he went to Paris. He had seen Madame de\nMontesson, the famous Madame de Genlis, M. Ducret, the inventor, of the\nPalais-Royal. These personages would crop up only too frequently in M.\nde Renal's anecdotes. He found it, however, more and more of a strain\nto remember stories which required such delicacy in the telling, and\nfor some time past it had only been on great occasions that he would\ntrot out his anecdotes concerning the House of Orleans. As, moreover,\nhe was extremely polite, except on money matters, he passed, and justly\nso, for the most aristocratic personage in Verrieres.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nA FATHER AND A SON\n\n\n    E sara mia colpa\n    Se cosi e?\n                  --_Machiavelli_.\n\n\n\"My wife really has a head on her shoulders,\" said the mayor of\nVerrieres at six o'clock the following morning, as he went down to the\nsaw-mill of Father Sorel. \"It had never occurred to me that if I do not\ntake little Abbe Sorel, who, they say, knows Latin like an angel, that\nrestless spirit, the director of the workhouse, might have the same\nidea and snatch him away from me, though of course I told her that it\nhad, in order to preserve my proper superiority. And how smugly, to be\nsure, would he talk about his children's tutor!... The question is,\nonce the tutor's mine, shall he wear the cassock?\"\n\nM. de Renal was absorbed in this problem when he saw a peasant in the\ndistance, a man nearly six feet tall, who since dawn had apparently\nbeen occupied in measuring some pieces of wood which had been put\ndown alongside the Doubs on the towing-path. The peasant did not look\nparticularly pleased when he saw M. the Mayor approach, as these pieces\nof wood obstructed the road, and had been placed there in breach of the\nrules.\n\nFather Sorel (for it was he) was very surprised, and even more pleased\nat the singular offer which M. de Renal made him for his son Julien.\nNone the less, he listened to it with that air of sulky discontent and\napathy which the subtle inhabitants of these mountains know so well\nhow to assume. Slaves as they have been since the time of the Spanish\nConquest, they still preserve this feature, which is also found in the\ncharacter of the Egyptian fellah.\n\nSorel's answer was at first simply a long-winded recitation of\nall the formulas of respect which he knew by heart. While he was\nrepeating these empty words with an uneasy smile, which accentuated\nall the natural disingenuousness, if not, indeed, knavishness of his\nphysiognomy, the active mind of the old peasant tried to discover what\nreason could induce so important a man to take into his house his\ngood-for-nothing of a son. He was very dissatisfied with Julien, and\nit was for Julien that M. de Renal offered the undreamt-of salary of\n300 fcs. a year, with board and even clothing. This latter claim, which\nFather Sorel had had the genius to spring upon the mayor, had been\ngranted with equal suddenness by M. de Renal.\n\nThis demand made an impression on the mayor. It is clear, he said to\nhimself, that since Sorel is not beside himself with delight over my\nproposal, as in the ordinary way he ought to be, he must have had\noffers made to him elsewhere, and whom could they have come from, if\nnot from Valenod. It was in vain that M. de Renal pressed Sorel to\nclinch the matter then and there. The old peasant, astute man that\nhe was, stubbornly refused to do so. He wanted, he said, to consult\nhis son, as if in the provinces, forsooth, a rich father consulted a\npenniless son for any other reason than as a mere matter of form.\n\nA water saw-mill consists of a shed by the side of a stream. The roof\nis supported by a framework resting on four large timber pillars. A\nsaw can be seen going up and down at a height of eight to ten feet in\nthe middle of the shed, while a piece of wood is propelled against\nthis saw by a very simple mechanism. It is a wheel whose motive-power\nis supplied by the stream, which sets in motion this double piece of\nmechanism, the mechanism of the saw which goes up and down, and the\nmechanism which gently pushes the piece of wood towards the saw, which\ncuts it up into planks.\n\nApproaching his workshop, Father Sorel called Julien in his stentorian\nvoice; nobody answered. He only saw his giant elder sons, who, armed\nwith heavy axes, were cutting up the pine planks which they had to\ncarry to the saw. They were engrossed in following exactly the black\nmark traced on each piece of wood, from which every blow of their axes\nthrew off enormous shavings. They did not hear their father's voice.\nThe latter made his way towards the shed. He entered it and looked in\nvain for Julien in the place where he ought to have been by the side of\nthe saw. He saw him five or six feet higher up, sitting astride one of\nthe rafters of the roof. Instead of watching attentively the action of\nthe machinery, Julien was reading. Nothing was more anti-pathetic to\nold Sorel. He might possibly have forgiven Julien his puny physique,\nill adapted as it was to manual labour, and different as it was from\nthat of his elder brothers; but he hated this reading mania. He could\nnot read himself.\n\nIt was in vain that he called Julien two or three times. It was the\nyoung man's concentration on his book, rather than the din made by the\nsaw, which prevented him from hearing his father's terrible voice. At\nlast the latter, in spite of his age, jumped nimbly on to the tree\nthat was undergoing the action of the saw, and from there on to the\ncross-bar that supported the roof. A violent blow made the book which\nJulien held, go flying into the stream; a second blow on the head,\nequally violent, which took the form of a box on the ears, made him\nlose his balance. He was on the point of falling twelve or fifteen feet\nlower down into the middle of the levers of the running machinery which\nwould have cut him to pieces, but his father caught him as he fell, in\nhis left hand.\n\n\"So that's it, is it, lazy bones! always going to read your damned\nbooks are you, when you're keeping watch on the saw? You read them in\nthe evening if you want to, when you go to play the fool at the cure's,\nthat's the proper time.\"\n\nAlthough stunned by the force of the blow and bleeding profusely,\nJulien went back to his official post by the side of the saw. He had\ntears in his eyes, less by reason of the physical pain than on account\nof the loss of his beloved book.\n\n\"Get down, you beast, when I am talking to you,\" the noise of the\nmachinery prevented Julien from hearing this order. His father, who had\ngone down did not wish to give himself the trouble of climbing up on to\nthe machinery again, and went to fetch a long fork used for bringing\ndown nuts, with which he struck him on the shoulder. Julien had\nscarcely reached the ground, when old Sorel chased him roughly in front\nof him and pushed him roughly towards the house. \"God knows what he is\ngoing to do with me,\" said the young man to himself. As he passed, he\nlooked sorrowfully into the stream into which his book had fallen, it\nwas the one that he held dearest of all, the _Memorial of St. Helena_.\n\nHe had purple cheeks and downcast eyes. He was a young man of eighteen\nto nineteen years old, and of puny appearance, with irregular but\ndelicate features, and an aquiline nose. The big black eyes which\nbetokened in their tranquil moments a temperament at once fiery and\nreflective were at the present moment animated by an expression of\nthe most ferocious hate. Dark chestnut hair, which came low down over\nhis brow, made his forehead appear small and gave him a sinister look\nduring his angry moods. It is doubtful if any face out of all the\ninnumerable varieties of the human physiognomy was ever distinguished\nby a more arresting individuality.\n\nA supple well-knit figure, indicated agility rather than strength. His\nair of extreme pensiveness and his great pallor had given his father\nthe idea that he would not live, or that if he did, it would only be to\nbe a burden to his family. The butt of the whole house, he hated his\nbrothers and his father. He was regularly beaten in the Sunday sports\nin the public square.\n\nA little less than a year ago his pretty face had begun to win him some\nsympathy among the young girls. Universally despised as a weakling,\nJulien had adored that old Surgeon-Major, who had one day dared to talk\nto the mayor on the subject of the plane trees.\n\nThis Surgeon had sometimes paid Father Sorel for taking his son for\na day, and had taught him Latin and History, that is to say the 1796\nCampaign in Italy which was all the history he knew. When he died, he\nhad bequeathed his Cross of the Legion of Honour, his arrears of half\npay, and thirty or forty volumes, of which the most precious had just\nfallen into the public stream, which had been diverted owing to the\ninfluence of M. the Mayor.\n\nScarcely had he entered the house, when Julien felt his shoulder\ngripped by his father's powerful hand; he trembled, expecting some\nblows.\n\n\"Answer me without lying,\" cried the harsh voice of the old peasant in\nhis ears, while his hand turned him round and round, like a child's\nhand turns round a lead soldier. The big black eyes of Julien filled\nwith tears, and were confronted by the small grey eyes of the old\ncarpenter, who looked as if he meant to read to the very bottom of his\nsoul.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nA NEGOTIATION\n\n\n    Cunctando restituit rem.--_Ennius_.\n\n\n\"Answer me without lies, if you can, you damned dog, how did you get to\nknow Madame de Renal? When did you speak to her?\"\n\n\"I have never spoken to her,\" answered Julien, \"I have only seen that\nlady in church.\"\n\n\"You must have looked at her, you impudent rascal.\"\n\n\"Not once! you know, I only see God in church,\" answered Julien, with\na little hypocritical air, well suited, so he thought, to keep off the\nparental claws.\n\n\"None the less there's something that does not meet the eye,\" answered\nthe cunning peasant. He was then silent for a moment. \"But I shall\nnever get anything out of you, you damned hypocrite,\" he went on. \"As a\nmatter of fact, I am going to get rid of you, and my saw-mill will go\nall the better for it. You have nobbled the curate, or somebody else,\nwho has got you a good place. Run along and pack your traps, and I\nwill take you to M. de Renal's, where you are going to be tutor to his\nchildren.\"\n\n\"What shall I get for that?\"\n\n\"Board, clothing, and three hundred francs salary.\"\n\n\"I do not want to be a servant.\"\n\n\"Who's talking of being a servant, you brute, do you think I want my\nson to be a servant?\"\n\n\"But with whom shall I have my meals?\"\n\nThis question discomforted old Sorel, who felt he might possibly commit\nsome imprudence if he went on talking. He burst out against Julien,\nflung insult after insult at him, accused him of gluttony, and left him\nto go and consult his other sons.\n\nJulien saw them afterwards, each one leaning on his axe and holding\ncounsel. Having looked at them for a long time, Julien saw that he\ncould find out nothing, and went and stationed himself on the other\nside of the saw in order to avoid being surprised. He wanted to think\nover this unexpected piece of news, which changed his whole life,\nbut he felt himself unable to consider the matter prudently, his\nimagination being concentrated in wondering what he would see in M. de\nRenal's fine mansion.\n\n\"I must give all that up,\" he said to himself, \"rather than let myself\nbe reduced to eating with the servants. My father would like to force\nme to it. I would rather die. I have fifteen francs and eight sous of\nsavings. I will run away to-night; I will go across country by paths\nwhere there are no gendarmes to be feared, and in two days I shall be\nat Besancon. I will enlist as a soldier there, and, if necessary, I\nwill cross into Switzerland. But in that case, no more advancement, it\nwill be all up with my being a priest, that fine career which may lead\nto anything.\"\n\nThis abhorrence of eating with the servants was not really natural to\nJulien; he would have done things quite, if not more, disagreeable in\norder to get on. He derived this repugnance from the _Confessions_\nof Rousseau. It was the only book by whose help his imagination\nendeavoured to construct the world. The collection of the Bulletins of\nthe Grand Army, and the _Memorial of St. Helena_ completed his Koran.\nHe would have died for these three works. He never believed in any\nother. To use a phrase of the old Surgeon-Major, he regarded all the\nother books in the world as packs of lies, written by rogues in order\nto get on.\n\nJulien possessed both a fiery soul and one of those astonishing\nmemories which are so often combined with stupidity.\n\nIn order to win over the old cure Chelan, on whose good grace he\nrealized that his future prospects depended, he had learnt by heart the\nNew Testament in Latin. He also knew M. de Maistre's book on The Pope,\nand believed in one as little as he did in the other.\n\nSorel and his son avoided talking to each other to-day as though by\nmutual consent. In the evening Julien went to take his theology lesson\nat the cure's, but he did not consider that it was prudent to say\nanything to him about the strange proposal which had been made to his\nfather. \"It is possibly a trap,\" he said to himself, \"I must pretend\nthat I have forgotten all about it.\"\n\nEarly next morning, M. de Renal had old Sorel summoned to him.\nHe eventually arrived, after keeping M. de Renal waiting for an\nhour-and-a-half, and made, as he entered the room, a hundred apologies\ninterspersed with as many bows. After having run the gauntlet of all\nkinds of objections, Sorel was given to understand that his son would\nhave his meals with the master and mistress of the house, and that\nhe would eat alone in a room with the children on the days when they\nhad company. The more clearly Sorel realized the genuine eagerness of\nM. the Mayor, the more difficulties he felt inclined to raise. Being\nmoreover full of mistrust and astonishment, he asked to see the room\nwhere his son would sleep. It was a big room, quite decently furnished,\ninto which the servants were already engaged in carrying the beds of\nthe three children.\n\nThis circumstance explained a lot to the old peasant. He asked\nimmediately, with quite an air of assurance, to see the suit which\nwould be given to his son. M. de Renal opened his desk and took out one\nhundred francs.\n\n\"Your son will go to M. Durand, the draper, with this money and will\nget a complete black suit.\"\n\n\"And even supposing I take him away from you,\" said the peasant, who\nhad suddenly forgotten all his respectful formalities, \"will he still\nkeep this black suit?\"\n\n\"Certainly!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Sorel, in a drawling voice, \"all that remains to do is to\nagree on just one thing, the money which you will give him.\"\n\n\"What!\" exclaimed M. de Renal, indignantly, \"we agreed on that\nyesterday. I shall give him three hundred francs, I think that is a\nlot, and probably too much.\"\n\n\"That is your offer and I do not deny it,\" said old Sorel, speaking\nstill very slowly; and by a stroke of genius which will only astonish\nthose who do not know the Franche-Comte peasants, he fixed his eyes on\nM. de Renal and added, \"We shall get better terms elsewhere.\"\n\nThe Mayor's face exhibited the utmost consternation at these words. He\npulled himself together however and after a cunning conversation of\ntwo hours' length, where every single word on both sides was carefully\nweighed, the subtlety of the peasant scored a victory over the subtlety\nof the rich man, whose livelihood was not so dependent on his faculty\nof cunning. All the numerous stipulations which were to regulate\nJulien's new existence were duly formulated. Not only was his salary\nfixed at four hundred francs, but they were to be paid in advance on\nthe first of each month.\n\n\"Very well, I will give him thirty-five francs,\" said M. de Renal.\n\n\"I am quite sure,\" said the peasant, in a fawning voice, \"that a rich,\ngenerous man like the M. mayor would go as far as thirty-six francs, to\nmake up a good round sum.\"\n\n\"Agreed!\" said M. de Renal, \"but let this be final.\" For the moment his\ntemper gave him a tone of genuine firmness. The peasant saw that it\nwould not do to go any further.\n\nThen, on his side, M. de Renal managed to score. He absolutely refused\nto give old Sorel, who was very anxious to receive it on behalf of his\nson, the thirty-six francs for the first month. It had occurred to M.\nde Renal that he would have to tell his wife the figure which he had\ncut throughout these negotiations.\n\n\"Hand me back the hundred francs which I gave you,\" he said sharply.\n\"M. Durand owes me something, I will go with your son to see about a\nblack cloth suit.\"\n\nAfter this manifestation of firmness, Sorel had the prudence to return\nto his respectful formulas; they took a good quarter of an hour.\nFinally, seeing that there was nothing more to be gained, he took his\nleave. He finished his last bow with these words:\n\n\"I will send my son to the Chateau.\" The Mayor's officials called his\nhouse by this designation when they wanted to humour him.\n\nWhen he got back to his workshop, it was in vain that Sorel sought his\nson. Suspicious of what might happen, Julien had gone out in the middle\nof the night. He wished to place his Cross of the Legion of Honour and\nhis books in a place of safety. He had taken everything to a young\nwood-merchant named Fouque, who was a friend of his, and who lived in\nthe high mountain which commands Verrieres.\n\n\"God knows, you damned lazy bones,\" said his father to him when he\nre-appeared, \"if you will ever be sufficiently honourable to pay me\nback the price of your board which I have been advancing to you for so\nmany years. Take your rags and clear out to M. the Mayor's.\"\n\nJulien was astonished at not being beaten and hastened to leave. He\nhad scarcely got out of sight of his terrible father when he slackened\nhis pace. He considered that it would assist the role played by his\nhypocrisy to go and say a prayer in the church.\n\nThe word hypocrisy surprises you? The soul of the peasant had had to go\nthrough a great deal before arriving at this horrible word.\n\nJulien had seen in the days of his early childhood certain Dragoons\nof the 6th[1] with long white cloaks and hats covered with long black\nplumed helmets who were returning from Italy, and tied up their horses\nto the grilled window of his father's house. The sight had made him mad\non the military profession. Later on he had listened with ecstasy to\nthe narrations of the battles of Lodi, Arcola and Rivoli with which the\nold surgeon-major had regaled him. He observed the ardent gaze which\nthe old man used to direct towards his cross.\n\nBut when Julien was fourteen years of age they commenced to build a\nchurch at Verrieres which, in view of the smallness of the town, has\nsome claim to be called magnificent. There were four marble columns in\nparticular, the sight of which impressed Julien. They became celebrated\nin the district owing to the mortal hate which they raised between\nthe Justice of the Peace and the young vicar who had been sent from\nBesancon and who passed for a spy of the congregation. The Justice of\nthe Peace was on the point of losing his place, so said the public\nopinion at any rate. Had he not dared to have a difference with the\npriest who went every fortnight to Besancon; where he saw, so they\nsaid, my Lord the Bishop.\n\nIn the meanwhile the Justice of the Peace, who was the father of a\nnumerous family, gave several sentences which seemed unjust: all these\nsentences were inflicted on those of the inhabitants who read the\n\"_Constitutionnel_.\" The right party triumphed. It is true it was only a\nquestion of sums of three or five francs, but one of these little fines\nhad to be paid by a nail-maker, who was god-father to Julien. This man\nexclaimed in his anger \"What a change! and to think that for more than\ntwenty years the Justice of the Peace has passed for an honest man.\"\n\nThe Surgeon-Major, Julien's friend, died. Suddenly Julien left off\ntalking about Napoleon. He announced his intention of becoming a\npriest, and was always to be seen in his father's workshop occupied\nin learning by heart the Latin Bible which the cure had lent him. The\ngood old man was astonished at his progress, and passed whole evenings\nin teaching him theology. In his society Julien did not manifest other\nthan pious sentiments. Who could not possibly guess that beneath this\ngirlish face, so pale and so sweet, lurked the unbreakable resolution\nto risk a thousand deaths rather than fail to make his fortune. Making\nhis fortune primarily meant to Julien getting out of Verrieres: he\nabhorred his native country; everything that he saw there froze his\nimagination.\n\nHe had had moments of exultation since his earliest childhood. He would\nthen dream with gusto of being presented one day to the pretty women\nof Paris. He would manage to attract their attention by some dazzling\nfeat: why should he not be loved by one of them just as Buonaparte,\nwhen still poor, had been loved by the brilliant Madame de Beauharnais.\nFor many years past Julien had scarcely passed a single year of his\nlife without reminding himself that Buonaparte, the obscure and\npenniless lieutenant, had made himself master of the whole world by the\npower of his sword. This idea consoled him for his misfortune, which\nhe considered to be great, and rendered such joyful moments as he had\ndoubly intense.\n\nThe building of the church and the sentences pronounced by the Justice\nof the Peace suddenly enlightened him. An idea came to him which made\nhim almost mad for some weeks, and finally took complete possession of\nhim with all the magic that a first idea possesses for a passionate\nsoul which believes that it is original.\n\n\"At the time when Buonaparte got himself talked about, France was\nfrightened of being invaded; military distinction was necessary and\nfashionable. Nowadays, one sees priests of forty with salaries of\n100,000 francs, that is to say, three times as much as Napoleon's\nfamous generals of a division. They need persons to assist them. Look\nat that Justice of the Peace, such a good sort and such an honest man\nup to the present and so old too; he sacrifices his honour through the\nfear of incurring the displeasure of a young vicar of thirty. I must be\na priest.\"\n\nOn one occasion, in the middle of his new-found piety (he had already\nbeen studying theology for two years), he was betrayed by a sudden\nburst of fire which consumed his soul. It was at M. Chelan's. The\ngood cure had invited him to a dinner of priests, and he actually let\nhimself praise Napoleon with enthusiasm. He bound his right arm over\nhis breast, pretending that he had dislocated it in moving a trunk of a\npine-tree and carried it for two months in that painful position. After\nthis painful penance, he forgave himself. This is the young man of\neighteen with a puny physique, and scarcely looking more than seventeen\nat the outside, who entered the magnificent church of Verrieres\ncarrying a little parcel under his arm.\n\nHe found it gloomy and deserted. All the transepts in the building had\nbeen covered with crimson cloth in celebration of a feast. The result\nwas that the sun's rays produced an effect of dazzling light of the\nmost impressive and religious character. Julien shuddered. Finding\nhimself alone in the church, he established himself in the pew which\nhad the most magnificent appearance. It bore the arms of M. de Renal.\n\nJulien noticed a piece of printed paper spread out on the stool, which\nwas apparently intended to be read, he cast his eyes over it and\nsaw:--\"_Details of the execution and the last moments of Louis Jenrel,\nexecuted at Besancon the...._\" The paper was torn. The two first words\nof a line were legible on the back, they were, \"_The First Step_.\"\n\n\"Who could have put this paper there?\" said Julien. \"Poor fellow!\" he\nadded with a sigh, \"the last syllable of his name is the same as mine,\"\nand he crumpled up the paper. As he left, Julien thought he saw blood\nnear the Host, it was holy water which the priests had been sprinkling\non it, the reflection of the red curtains which covered the windows\nmade it look like blood.\n\nFinally, Julien felt ashamed of his secret terror. \"Am I going to play\nthe coward,\" he said to himself: \"_To Arms!_\" This phrase, repeated so\noften in the old Surgeon-Major's battle stories, symbolized heroism to\nJulien. He got up rapidly and walked to M. de Renal's house. As soon\nas he saw it twenty yards in front of him he was seized, in spite of\nhis fine resolution, with an overwhelming timidity. The iron grill was\nopen. He thought it was magnificent. He had to go inside.\n\nJulien was not the only person whose heart was troubled by his arrival\nin the house. The extreme timidity of Madame de Renal was fluttered\nwhen she thought of this stranger whose functions would necessitate\nhis coming between her and her children. She was accustomed to seeing\nher sons sleep in her own room. She had shed many tears that morning,\nwhen she had seen their beds carried into the apartment intended for\nthe tutor. It was in vain that she asked her husband to have the bed of\nStanislas-Xavier, the youngest, carried back into her room.\n\nWomanly delicacy was carried in Madame de Renal to the point of excess.\nShe conjured up in her imagination the most disagreeable personage, who\nwas coarse, badly groomed and encharged with the duty of scolding her\nchildren simply because he happened to know Latin, and only too ready\nto flog her sons for their ignorance of that barbarous language.\n\n\n[1] The author was sub-lieutenant in the 6th Dragoons in 1800.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nENNUI\n\n\n    Non so piu cosa son\n    Cosa facio.\n                     MOZART (_Figaro_).\n\n\nMadame de Renal was going out of the salon by the folding window which\nopened on to the garden with that vivacity and grace which was natural\nto her when she was free from human observation, when she noticed a\nyoung peasant near the entrance gate. He was still almost a child,\nextremely pale, and looked as though he had been crying. He was in a\nwhite shirt and had under his arm a perfectly new suit of violet frieze.\n\nThe little peasant's complexion was so white and his eyes were so soft,\nthat Madame de Renal's somewhat romantic spirit thought at first that\nit might be a young girl in disguise, who had come to ask some favour\nof the M. the Mayor. She took pity on this poor creature, who had\nstopped at the entrance of the door, and who apparently did not dare\nto raise its hand to the bell. Madame de Renal approached, forgetting\nfor the moment the bitter chagrin occasioned by the tutor's arrival.\nJulien, who was turned towards the gate, did not see her advance. He\ntrembled when a soft voice said quite close to his ear:\n\n\"What do you want here, my child.\"\n\nJulien turned round sharply and was so struck by Madame de Renal's\nlook, full of graciousness as it was, that up to a certain point he\nforgot to be nervous. Overcome by her beauty he soon forgot everything,\neven what he had come for. Madame de Renal repeated her question.\n\n\"I have come here to be tutor, Madame,\" he said at last, quite ashamed\nof his tears which he was drying as best as he could.\n\nMadame de Renal remained silent. They had a view of each other at close\nrange. Julien had never seen a human being so well-dressed, and above\nall he had never seen a woman with so dazzling a complexion speak to\nhim at all softly. Madame de Renal observed the big tears which had\nlingered on the cheeks of the young peasant, those cheeks which had\nbeen so pale and were now so pink. Soon she began to laugh with all the\nmad gaiety of a young girl, she made fun of herself, and was unable to\nrealise the extent of her happiness. So this was that tutor whom she\nhad imagined a dirty, badly dressed priest, who was coming to scold and\nflog her children.\n\n\"What! Monsieur,\" she said to him at last, \"you know Latin?\"\n\nThe word \"Monsieur\" astonished Julien so much that he reflected for a\nmoment.\n\n\"Yes, Madame,\" he said timidly.\n\nMadame de Renal was so happy that she plucked up the courage to say to\nJulien, \"You will not scold the poor children too much?\"\n\n\"I scold them!\" said Julien in astonishment; \"why should I?\"\n\n\"You won't, will you, Monsieur,\" she added after a little silence, in\na soft voice whose emotion became more and more intense. \"You will be\nnice to them, you promise me?\"\n\nTo hear himself called \"Monsieur\" again in all seriousness by so well\ndressed a lady was beyond all Julien's expectations. He had always said\nto himself in all the castles of Spain that he had built in his youth,\nthat no real lady would ever condescend to talk to him except when he\nhad a fine uniform. Madame de Renal, on her side, was completely taken\nin by Julien's beautiful complexion, his big black eyes, and his pretty\nhair, which was more than usually curly, because he had just plunged\nhis head into the basin of the public fountain in order to refresh\nhimself. She was over-joyed to find that this sinister tutor, whom\nshe had feared to find so harsh and severe to her children, had, as a\nmatter of fact, the timid manner of a girl. The contrast between her\nfears and what she now saw, proved a great event for Madame de Renal's\npeaceful temperament. Finally, she recovered from her surprise. She\nwas astonished to find herself at the gate of her own house talking in\nthis way and at such close quarters to this young and somewhat scantily\ndressed man.\n\n\"Let us go in, Monsieur,\" she said to him with a certain air of\nembarrassment.\n\nDuring Madame de Renal's whole life she had never been so deeply moved\nby such a sense of pure pleasure. Never had so gracious a vision\nfollowed in the wake of her disconcerting fears. So these pretty\nchildren of whom she took such care were not after all to fall into\nthe hands of a dirty grumbling priest. She had scarcely entered the\nvestibule when she turned round towards Julien, who was following her\ntrembling. His astonishment at the sight of so fine a house proved but\nan additional charm in Madame de Renal's eyes. She could not believe\nher own eyes. It seemed to her, above all, that the tutor ought to have\na black suit.\n\n\"But is it true, Monsieur,\" she said to him, stopping once again, and\nin mortal fear that she had made a mistake, so happy had her discovery\nmade her. \"Is it true that you know Latin?\" These words offended\nJulien's pride, and dissipated the charming atmosphere which he had\nbeen enjoying for the last quarter of an hour.\n\n\"Yes, Madame,\" he said, trying to assume an air of coldness, \"I know\nLatin as well as the cure, who has been good enough to say sometimes\nthat I know it even better.\"\n\nMadame de Renal thought that Julien looked extremely wicked. He had\nstopped two paces from her. She approached and said to him in a whisper:\n\n\"You won't beat my children the first few days, will you, even if they\ndo not know their lessons?\"\n\nThe softness and almost supplication of so beautiful a lady made Julien\nsuddenly forget what he owed to his reputation as a Latinist. Madame de\nRenal's face was close to his own. He smelt the perfume of a woman's\nsummer clothing, a quite astonishing experience for a poor peasant.\nJulien blushed extremely, and said with a sigh in a faltering voice:\n\n\"Fear nothing, Madame, I will obey you in everything.\"\n\nIt was only now, when her anxiety about her children had been relieved\nonce and for all, that Madame de Renal was struck by Julien's extreme\nbeauty. The comparative effeminancy of his features and his air of\nextreme embarrassment did not seem in any way ridiculous to a woman who\nwas herself extremely timid. The male air, which is usually considered\nessential to a man's beauty, would have terrified her.\n\n\"How old are you, sir,\" she said to Julien.\n\n\"Nearly nineteen.\"\n\n\"My elder son is eleven,\" went on Madame de Renal, who had completely\nrecovered her confidence. \"He will be almost a chum for you. You will\ntalk sensibly to him. His father started beating him once. The child\nwas ill for a whole week, and yet it was only a little tap.\"\n\nWhat a difference between him and me, thought Julien. Why, it was only\nyesterday that my father beat me. How happy these rich people are.\nMadame de Renal, who had already begun to observe the fine nuances of\nthe workings in the tutor's mind, took this fit of sadness for timidity\nand tried to encourage him.\n\n\"What is your name, Monsieur?\" she said to him, with an accent and\na graciousness whose charm Julien appreciated without being able to\nexplain.\n\n\"I am called Julien Sorel, Madame. I feel nervous of entering a strange\nhouse for the first time in my life. I have need of your protection\nand I want you to make many allowances for me during the first few\ndays. I have never been to the college, I was too poor. I have never\nspoken to anyone else except my cousin who was Surgeon-Major, Member\nof the Legion of Honour, and M. the cure Chelan. He will give you a\ngood account of me. My brothers always used to beat me, and you must\nnot believe them if they speak badly of me to you. You must forgive my\nfaults, Madame. I shall always mean everything for the best.\"\n\nJulien had regained his confidence during this long speech. He was\nexamining Madame de Renal. Perfect grace works wonders when it is\nnatural to the character, and above all, when the person whom it\nadorns never thinks of trying to affect it. Julien, who was quite a\nconnoisseur in feminine beauty, would have sworn at this particular\nmoment that she was not more than twenty. The rash idea of kissing her\nhand immediately occurred to him. He soon became frightened of his\nidea. A minute later he said to himself, it will be an act of cowardice\nif I do not carry out an action which may be useful to me, and lessen\nthe contempt which this fine lady probably has for a poor workman just\ntaken away from the saw-mill. Possibly Julien was a little encouraged\nthrough having heard some young girls repeat on Sundays during the last\nsix months the words \"pretty boy.\"\n\nDuring this internal debate, Madame de Renal was giving him two or\nthree hints on the way to commence handling the children. The strain\nJulien was putting on himself made him once more very pale. He said\nwith an air of constraint.\n\n\"I will never beat your children, Madame. I swear it before God.\" In\nsaying this, he dared to take Madame de Renal's hand and carry it\nto his lips. She was astonished at this act, and after reflecting,\nbecame shocked. As the weather was very warm, her arm was quite bare\nunderneath the shawl, and Julien's movement in carrying her hand to his\nlips entirely uncovered it. After a few moments she scolded herself. It\nseemed to her that her anger had not been quick enough.\n\nM. de Renal, who had heard voices, came out of his study, and assuming\nthe same air of paternal majesty with which he celebrated marriages at\nthe mayoral office, said to Julien:\n\n\"It is essential for me to have a few words with you before my children\nsee you.\" He made Julien enter a room and insisted on his wife being\npresent, although she wished to leave them alone. Having closed the\ndoor M. Renal sat down.\n\n\"M. the cure has told me that you are a worthy person, and everybody\nhere will treat you with respect. If I am satisfied with you I will\nlater on help you in having a little establishment of your own. I do\nnot wish you to see either anything more of your relatives or your\nfriends. Their tone is bound to be prejudicial to my children. Here are\nthirty-six francs for the first month, but I insist on your word not to\ngive a sou of this money to your father.\"\n\nM. de Renal was piqued against the old man for having proved the\nshrewder bargainer.\n\n\"Now, Monsieur, for I have given orders for everybody here to call you\nMonsieur, and you will appreciate the advantage of having entered the\nhouse of real gentle folk, now, Monsieur, it is not becoming for the\nchildren to see you in a jacket.\" \"Have the servants seen him?\" said M.\nde Renal to his wife.\n\n\"No, my dear,\" she answered, with an air of deep pensiveness.\n\n\"All the better. Put this on,\" he said to the surprised young man,\ngiving him a frock-coat of his own. \"Let us now go to M. Durand's the\ndraper.\"\n\nWhen M. de Renal came back with the new tutor in his black suit more\nthan an hour later, he found his wife still seated in the same place.\nShe felt calmed by Julien's presence. When she examined him she forgot\nto be frightened of him. Julien was not thinking about her at all. In\nspite of all his distrust of destiny and mankind, his soul at this\nmoment was as simple as that of a child. It seemed as though he had\nlived through years since the moment, three hours ago, when he had been\nall atremble in the church. He noticed Madame de Renal's frigid manner\nand realised that she was very angry, because he had dared to kiss her\nhand. But the proud consciousness which was given to him by the feel\nof clothes so different from those which he usually wore, transported\nhim so violently and he had so great a desire to conceal his\nexultation, that all his movements were marked by a certain spasmodic\nirresponsibility. Madame de Renal looked at him with astonishment.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" said M. de Renal to him, \"dignity above all is necessary if\nyou wish to be respected by my children.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" answered Julien, \"I feel awkward in my new clothes. I am a poor\npeasant and have never wore anything but jackets. If you allow it, I\nwill retire to my room.\"\n\n\"What do you think of this 'acquisition?'\" said M. de Renal to his wife.\n\nMadame de Renal concealed the truth from her husband, obeying an almost\ninstinctive impulse which she certainly did not own to herself.\n\n\"I am not as fascinated as you are by this little peasant. Your favours\nwill result in his not being able to keep his place, and you will have\nto send him back before the month is out.\"\n\n\"Oh, well! we'll send him back then, he cannot run me into more than\na hundred francs, and Verrieres will have got used to seeing M. de\nRenal's children with a tutor. That result would not have been achieved\nif I had allowed Julien to wear a workman's clothes. If I do send him\nback, I shall of course keep the complete black suit which I have just\nordered at the draper's. All he will keep is the ready-made suit which\nI have just put him into at the the tailor's.\"\n\nThe hour that Julien spent in his room seemed only a minute to Madame\nde Renal. The children who had been told about their new tutor began\nto overwhelm their mother with questions. Eventually Julien appeared.\nHe was quite another man. It would be incorrect to say that he was\ngrave--he was the very incarnation of gravity. He was introduced to\nthe children and spoke to them in a manner that astonished M. de Renal\nhimself.\n\n\"I am here, gentlemen, he said, as he finished his speech, to teach\nyou Latin. You know what it means to recite a lesson. Here is the Holy\nBible, he said, showing them a small volume in thirty-two mo., bound in\nblack. It deals especially with the history of our Lord Jesus Christ\nand is the part which is called the New Testament. I shall often make\nyou recite your lesson, but do you make me now recite mine.\"\n\nAdolphe, the eldest of the children, had taken up the book. \"Open it\nanywhere you like,\" went on Julien and tell me the first word of any\nverse, \"I will then recite by heart that sacred book which governs our\nconduct towards the whole world, until you stop me.\"\n\nAdolphe opened the book and read a word, and Julien recited the whole\nof the page as easily as though he had been talking French. M. de Renal\nlooked at his wife with an air of triumph The children, seeing the\nastonishment of their parents, opened their eyes wide. A servant came\nto the door of the drawing-room; Julien went on talking Latin. The\nservant first remained motionless, and then disappeared. Soon Madame's\nhouse-maid, together with the cook, arrived at the door. Adolphe had\nalready opened the book at eight different places, while Julien went\non reciting all the time with the same facility. \"Great heavens!\" said\nthe cook, a good and devout girl, quite aloud, \"what a pretty little\npriest!\" M. de Renal's self-esteem became uneasy. Instead of thinking\nof examining the tutor, his mind was concentrated in racking his memory\nfor some other Latin words. Eventually he managed to spout a phrase of\nHorace. Julien knew no other Latin except his Bible. He answered with a\nfrown. \"The holy ministry to which I destine myself has forbidden me to\nread so profane a poet.\"\n\nM. de Renal quoted quite a large number of alleged verses from Horace.\nHe explained to his children who Horace was, but the admiring children,\nscarcely attended to what he was saying: they were looking at Julien.\n\nThe servants were still at the door. Julien thought that he ought to\nprolong the test--\"M. Stanislas-Xavier also,\" he said to the youngest\nof the children, \"must give me a passage from the holy book.\"\n\nLittle Stanislas, who was quite flattered, read indifferently the first\nword of a verse, and Julien said the whole page.\n\nTo put the finishing touch on M. de Renal's triumph, M. Valenod, the\nowner of the fine Norman horses, and M. Charcot de Maugiron, the\nsub-prefect of the district came in when Julien was reciting. This\nscene earned for Julien the title of Monsieur; even the servants did\nnot dare to refuse it to him.\n\nThat evening all Verrieres flocked to M. de Renal's to see the prodigy.\nJulien answered everybody in a gloomy manner and kept his own distance.\nHis fame spread so rapidly in the town that a few hours afterwards\nM. de Renal, fearing that he would be taken away by somebody else,\nproposed to that he should sign an engagement for two years.\n\n\"No, Monsieur,\" Julien answered coldly, \"if you wished to dismiss me, I\nshould have to go. An engagement which binds me without involving you\nin any obligation is not an equal one and I refuse it.\"\n\nJulien played his cards so well, that in less than a month of his\narrival at the house, M. de Renal himself respected him. As the cure\nhad quarrelled with both M. de Renal and M. Valenod, there was no one\nwho could betray Julien's old passion for Napoleon. He always spoke of\nNapoleon with abhorrence.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE ELECTIVE AFFINITIES\n\n\n        They only manage to touch the heart by wounding it.--_A\n        Modern_.\n\n\nThe children adored him, but he did not like them in the least. His\nthoughts were elsewhere. But nothing which the little brats ever did\nmade him lose his patience. Cold, just and impassive, and none the less\nliked, inasmuch his arrival had more or less driven ennui out of the\nhouse, he was a good tutor. As for himself, he felt nothing but hate\nand abhorrence for that good society into which he had been admitted;\nadmitted, it is true at the bottom of the table, a circumstance which\nperhaps explained his hate and his abhorrence. There were certain\n'full-dress' dinners at which he was scarcely able to control his\nhate for everything that surrounded him. One St. Louis feast day in\nparticular, when M. Valenod was monopolizing the conversation of M.\nde Renal, Julien was on the point of betraying himself. He escaped\ninto the garden on the pretext of finding the children. \"What praise\nof honesty,\" he exclaimed. \"One would say that was the only virtue,\nand yet think how they respect and grovel before a man who has almost\ndoubled and trebled his fortune since he has administered the poor\nfund. I would bet anything that he makes a profit even out of the\nmonies which are intended for the foundlings of these poor creatures\nwhose misery is even more sacred than that of others. Oh, Monsters!\nMonsters! And I too, am a kind of foundling, hated as I am by my\nfather, my brothers, and all my family.\"\n\nSome days before the feast of St. Louis, when Julien was taking a\nsolitary walk and reciting his breviary in the little wood called\nthe Belvedere, which dominates the _Cours de la Fidelite_, he had\nendeavoured in vain to avoid his two brothers whom he saw coming along\nin the distance by a lonely path. The jealousy of these coarse workmen\nhad been provoked to such a pitch by their brother's fine black suit,\nby his air of extreme respectability, and by the sincere contempt which\nhe had for them, that they had beaten him until he had fainted and was\nbleeding all over.\n\nMadame de Renal, who was taking a walk with M. de Renal and the\nsub-prefect, happened to arrive in the little wood. She saw Julien\nlying on the ground and thought that he was dead. She was so overcome\nthat she made M. Valenod jealous.\n\nHis alarm was premature. Julien found Madame de Renal very pretty, but\nhe hated her on account of her beauty, for that had been the first\ndanger which had almost stopped his career.\n\nHe talked to her as little as possible, in order to make her forget the\ntransport which had induced him to kiss her hand on the first day.\n\nMadame de Renal's housemaid, Elisa, had lost no time in falling\nin love with the young tutor. She often talked about him to her\nmistress. Elisa's love had earned for Julien the hatred of one of the\nmen-servants. One day he heard the man saying to Elisa, \"You haven't\na word for me now that this dirty tutor has entered the household.\"\nThe insult was undeserved, but Julien with the instinctive vanity of a\npretty boy redoubled his care of his personal appearance. M. Valenod's\nhate also increased. He said publicly, that it was not becoming for a\nyoung abbe to be such a fop.\n\nMadame de Renal observed that Julien talked more frequently than usual\nto Mademoiselle Elisa. She learnt that the reason of these interviews\nwas the poverty of Julien's extremely small wardrobe. He had so little\nlinen that he was obliged to have it very frequently washed outside the\nhouse, and it was in these little matters that Elisa was useful to him.\nMadame de Renal was touched by this extreme poverty which she had never\nsuspected before. She was anxious to make him presents, but she did not\ndare to do so. This inner conflict was the first painful emotion that\nJulien had caused her. Till then Julien's name had been synonymous with\na pure and quite intellectual joy. Tormented by the idea of Julien's\npoverty, Madame de Renal spoke to her husband about giving him some\nlinen for a present.\n\n\"What nonsense,\" he answered, \"the very idea of giving presents to a\nman with whom we are perfectly satisfied and who is a good servant. It\nwill only be if he is remiss that we shall have to stimulate his zeal.\"\n\nMadame de Renal felt humiliated by this way of looking at things,\nthough she would never have noticed it in the days before Julien's\narrival. She never looked at the young abbe's attire, with its\ncombination of simplicity and absolute cleanliness, without saying to\nherself, \"The poor boy, how can he manage?\"\n\nLittle by little, instead of being shocked by all Julien's\ndeficiencies, she pitied him for them.\n\nMadame de Renal was one of those provincial women whom one is apt\nto take for fools during the first fortnight of acquaintanceship.\nShe had no experience of the world and never bothered to keep up the\nconversation. Nature had given her a refined and fastidious soul,\nwhile that instinct for happiness which is innate in all human beings\ncaused her, as a rule, to pay no attention to the acts of the coarse\npersons in whose midst chance had thrown her. If she had received the\nslightest education, she would have been noticeable for the spontaneity\nand vivacity of her mind, but being an heiress, she had been brought\nup in a Convent of Nuns, who were passionate devotees of the _Sacred\nHeart of Jesus_ and animated by a violent hate for the French as being\nthe enemies of the Jesuits. Madame de Renal had had enough sense to\nforget quickly all the nonsense which she had learned at the convent,\nbut had substituted nothing for it, and in the long run knew nothing.\nThe flatteries which had been lavished on her when still a child, by\nreason of the great fortune of which she was the heiress, and a decided\ntendency to passionate devotion, had given her quite an inner life of\nher own. In spite of her pose of perfect affability and her elimination\nof her individual will which was cited as a model example by all the\nhusbands in Verrieres and which made M. de Renal feel very proud, the\nmoods of her mind were usually dictated by a spirit of the most haughty\ndiscontent.\n\nMany a princess who has become a bye-word for pride has given\ninfinitely more attention to what her courtiers have been doing around\nher than did this apparently gentle and demure woman to anything which\nher husband either said or did. Up to the time of Julien's arrival she\nhad never really troubled about anything except her children. Their\nlittle maladies, their troubles, their little joys, occupied all the\nsensibility of that soul, who, during her whole life, had adored no one\nbut God, when she had been at the Sacred Heart of Besancon.\n\nA feverish attack of one of her sons would affect her almost as deeply\nas if the child had died, though she would not deign to confide\nin anyone. A burst of coarse laughter, a shrug of the shoulders,\naccompanied by some platitude on the folly of women, had been the only\nwelcome her husband had vouchsafed to those confidences about her\ntroubles, which the need of unburdening herself had induced her to make\nduring the first years of their marriage. Jokes of this kind, and above\nall, when they were directed at her children's ailments, were exquisite\ntorture to Madame de Renal. And these jokes were all she found to take\nthe place of those exaggerated sugary flatteries with which she had\nbeen regaled at the Jesuit Convent where she had passed her youth. Her\neducation had been given her by suffering. Too proud even to talk to\nher friend, Madame Derville, about troubles of this kind, she imagined\nthat all men were like her husband, M. Valenod, and the sub-prefect,\nM. Charcot de Maugiron. Coarseness, and the most brutal callousness to\neverything except financial gain, precedence, or orders, together with\nblind hate of every argument to which they objected, seemed to her as\nnatural to the male sex as wearing boots and felt hats.\n\nAfter many years, Madame de Renal had still failed to acclimatize\nherself to those monied people in whose society she had to live.\n\nHence the success of the little peasant Julien. She found in the\nsympathy of this proud and noble soul a sweet enjoyment which had all\nthe glamour and fascination of novelty.\n\nMadame de Renal soon forgave him that extreme ignorance, which\nconstituted but an additional charm, and the roughness of his manner\nwhich she succeeded in correcting. She thought that he was worth\nlistening to, even when the conversation turned on the most ordinary\nevents, even in fact when it was only a question of a poor dog which\nhad been crushed as he crossed the street by a peasant's cart going\nat a trot. The sight of the dog's pain made her husband indulge in\nhis coarse laugh, while she noticed Julien frown, with his fine black\neyebrows which were so beautifully arched.\n\nLittle by little, it seemed to her that generosity, nobility of soul\nand humanity were to be found in nobody else except this young abbe.\nShe felt for him all the sympathy and even all the admiration which\nthose virtues excite in well-born souls.\n\nIf the scene had been Paris, Julien's position towards Madame de Renal\nwould have been soon simplified. But at Paris, love is a creature of\nnovels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would soon have found\nthe elucidation of their position in three or four novels, and even\nin the couplets of the Gymnase Theatre. The novels which have traced\nout for them the part they would play, and showed them the model which\nthey were to imitate, and Julien would sooner or later have been forced\nby his vanity to follow that model, even though it had given him no\npleasure and had perhaps actually gone against the grain.\n\nIf the scene had been laid in a small town in Aveyron or the Pyrenees,\nthe slightest episode would have been rendered crucial by the fiery\ncondition of the atmosphere. But under our more gloomy skies, a poor\nyoung man who is only ambitious because his natural refinement makes\nhim feel the necessity of some of those joys which only money can give,\ncan see every day a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, is\nabsorbed in her children, and never goes to novels for her examples of\nconduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens gradually, in the\nprovinces where there is far more naturalness.\n\nMadame de Renal was often overcome to the point of tears when she\nthought of the young tutor's poverty. Julien surprised her one day\nactually crying.\n\n\"Oh Madame! has any misfortune happened to you?\"\n\n\"No, my friend,\" she answered, \"call the children, let us go for a\nwalk.\"\n\nShe took his arm and leant on it in a manner that struck Julien as\nsingular. It was the first time she had called Julien \"My friend.\"\n\nTowards the end of the walk, Julien noticed that she was blushing\nviolently. She slackened her pace.\n\n\"You have no doubt heard,\" she said, without looking at him, \"that I\nam the only heiress of a very rich aunt who lives at Besancon. She\nloads me with presents.... My sons are getting on so wonderfully that\nI should like to ask you to accept a small present as a token of my\ngratitude. It is only a matter of a few louis to enable you to get\nsome linen. But--\" she added, blushing still more, and she left off\nspeaking--\n\n\"But what, Madame?\" said Julien.\n\n\"It is unnecessary,\" she went on lowering her head, \"to mention this to\nmy husband.\"\n\n\"I may not be big, Madame, but I am not mean,\" answered Julien,\nstopping, and drawing himself up to his full height, with his\neyes shining with rage, \"and this is what you have not realised\nsufficiently. I should be lower than a menial if I were to put myself\nin the position of concealing from M de. Renal anything at all having\nto do with my money.\"\n\nMadame de Renal was thunderstruck.\n\n\"The Mayor,\" went on Julien, \"has given me on five occasions sums of\nthirty-six francs since I have been living in his house. I am ready\nto show any account-book to M. de Renal and anyone else, even to M.\nValenod who hates me.\"\n\nAs the result of this outburst, Madame de Renal remained pale and\nnervous, and the walk ended without either one or the other finding any\npretext for renewing the conversation. Julien's proud heart had found\nit more and more impossible to love Madame de Renal.\n\nAs for her, she respected him, she admired him, and she had been\nscolded by him. Under the pretext of making up for the involuntary\nhumiliation which she had caused him, she indulged in acts of the most\ntender solicitude. The novelty of these attentions made Madame de\nRenal happy for eight days. Their effect was to appease to some extent\nJulien's anger. He was far from seeing anything in them in the nature\nof a fancy for himself personally.\n\n\"That is just what rich people are,\" he said to himself--\"they snub you\nand then they think they can make up for everything by a few monkey\ntricks.\"\n\nMadame de Renal's heart was too full, and at the same time too\ninnocent, for her not too tell her husband, in spite of her resolutions\nnot to do so, about the offer she had made to Julien, and the manner in\nwhich she had been rebuffed.\n\n\"How on earth,\" answered M. de Renal, keenly piqued, \"could you put\nup with a refusal on the part of a servant,\"--and, when Madame de\nRenal protested against the word \"Servant,\" \"I am using, madam, the\nwords of the late Prince of Conde, when he presented his Chamberlains\nto his new wife. 'All these people' he said 'are servants.' I have\nalso read you this passage from the Memoirs of Besenval, a book which\nis indispensable on all questions of etiquette. 'Every person, not\na gentleman, who lives in your house and receives a salary is your\nservant.' I'll go and say a few words to M. Julien and give him a\nhundred francs.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear,\" said Madame De Renal trembling, \"I hope you won't do it\nbefore the servants!\"\n\n\"Yes, they might be jealous and rightly so,\" said her husband as he\ntook his leave, thinking of the greatness of the sum.\n\nMadame de Renal fell on a chair almost fainting in her anguish. He is\ngoing to humiliate Julien, and it is my fault! She felt an abhorrence\nfor her husband and hid her face in her hands. She resolved that\nhenceforth she would never make any more confidences.\n\nWhen she saw Julien again she was trembling all over. Her chest was so\ncramped that she could not succeed in pronouncing a single word. In her\nembarrassment she took his hands and pressed them.\n\n\"Well, my friend,\" she said to him at last, \"are you satisfied with my\nhusband?\"\n\n\"How could I be otherwise,\" answered Julien, with a bitter smile, \"he\nhas given me a hundred francs.\"\n\nMadame de Renal looked at him doubtfully.\n\n\"Give me your arm,\" she said at last, with a courageous intonation that\nJulien had not heard before.\n\nShe dared to go as far as the shop of the bookseller of Verrieres, in\nspite of his awful reputation for Liberalism. In the shop she chose\nten louis worth of books for a present for her sons. But these books\nwere those which she knew Julien was wanting. She insisted on each\nchild writing his name then and there in the bookseller's shop in\nthose books which fell to his lot. While Madame de Renal was rejoicing\nover the kind reparation which she had had the courage to make to\nJulien, the latter was overwhelmed with astonishment at the quantity\nof books which he saw at the bookseller's. He had never dared to enter\nso profane a place. His heart was palpitating. Instead of trying to\nguess what was passing in Madame de Renal's heart he pondered deeply\nover the means by which a young theological student could procure\nsome of those books. Eventually it occurred to him that it would be\npossible, with tact, to persuade M. de Renal that one of the proper\nsubjects of his sons' curriculum would be the history of the celebrated\ngentlemen who had been born in the province. After a month of careful\npreparation Julien witnessed the success of this idea. The success was\nso great that he actually dared to risk mentioning to M. de Renal in\nconversation, a matter which the noble mayor found disagreeable from\nquite another point of view. The suggestion was to contribute to the\nfortune of a Liberal by taking a subscription at the bookseller's. M.\nde Renal agreed that it would be wise to give his elder son a first\nhand acquaintance with many works which he would hear mentioned in\nconversation when he went to the Military School.\n\nBut Julien saw that the mayor had determined to go no further. He\nsuspected some secret reason but could not guess it.\n\n\"I was thinking, sir,\" he said to him one day, \"that it would be highly\nundesirable for the name of so good a gentleman as a Renal to appear on\na bookseller's dirty ledger.\" M. de Renal's face cleared.\n\n\"It would also be a black mark,\" continued Julien in a more humble\ntone, \"against a poor theology student if it ever leaked out that his\nname had been on the ledger of a bookseller who let out books. The\nLiberals might go so far as to accuse me of having asked for the most\ninfamous books. Who knows if they will not even go so far as to write\nthe titles of those perverse volumes after my name?\" But Julien was\ngetting off the track. He noticed that the Mayor's physiognomy was\nre-assuming its expression of embarrassment and displeasure. Julien was\nsilent. \"I have caught my man,\" he said to himself.\n\nIt so happened that a few days afterwards the elder of the children\nasked Julien, in M. de Renal's presence, about a book which had been\nadvertised in the _Quotidienne_.\n\n\"In order to prevent the Jacobin Party having the slightest pretext for\na score,\" said the young tutor, \"and yet give me the means of answering\nM. de Adolphe's question, you can make your most menial servant take\nout a subscription at the booksellers.\"\n\n\"That's not a bad idea,\" said M. de Renal, who was obviously very\ndelighted.\n\n\"You will have to stipulate all the same,\" said Julien in that solemn\nand almost melancholy manner which suits some people so well when they\nsee the realization of matters which they have desired for a long time\npast, \"you will have to stipulate that the servant should not take out\nany novels. Those dangerous books, once they got into the house, might\ncorrupt Madame de Renal's maids, and even the servant himself.\"\n\n\"You are forgetting the political pamphlets,\" went on M. de Renal with\nan important air. He was anxious to conceal the admiration with which\nthe cunning \"middle course\" devised by his children's tutor had filled\nhim.\n\nIn this way Julien's life was made up of a series of little acts of\ndiplomacy, and their success gave him far more food for thought than\nthe marked manifestation of favouritism which he could have read at any\ntime in Madame de Renal's heart, had he so wished.\n\nThe psychological position in which he had found himself all his\nlife was renewed again in the mayor of Verrieres' house. Here in the\nsame way as at his father's saw-mill, he deeply despised the people\nwith whom he lived, and was hated by them. He saw every day in the\nconversation of the sub-perfect, M. Valenod and the other friends of\nthe family, about things which had just taken place under their very\neyes, how little ideas corresponded to reality. If an action seemed to\nJulien worthy of admiration, it was precisely that very action which\nwould bring down upon itself the censure of the people with whom he\nlived. His inner mental reply always was, \"What beasts or what fools!\"\nThe joke was that, in spite of all his pride, he often understood\nabsolutely nothing what they were talking about.\n\nThroughout his whole life he had only spoken sincerely to the old\nSurgeon-Major.\n\nThe few ideas he had were about Buonaparte's Italian Campaigns or else\nsurgery. His youthful courage revelled in the circumstantial details of\nthe most terrible operations. He said to himself.\n\n\"I should not have flinched.\"\n\nThe first time that Madame de Renal tried to enter into conversation\nindependently of the children's education, he began to talk of surgical\noperations. She grew pale and asked him to leave off. Julien knew\nnothing beyond that.\n\nSo it came about that, though he passed his life in Madame de Renal's\ncompany, the most singular silence would reign between them as soon as\nthey were alone.\n\nWhen he was in the salon, she noticed in his eyes, in spite of all the\nhumbleness of his demeanour, an air of intellectual superiority towards\neveryone who came to visit her. If she found herself alone with him for\na single moment, she saw that he was palpably embarrassed. This made\nher feel uneasy, for her woman's instinct caused her to realise that\nthis embarrassment was not inspired by any tenderness.\n\nOwing to some mysterious idea, derived from some tale of good society,\nsuch as the old Surgeon-Major had seen it, Julien felt humiliated\nwhenever the conversation languished on any occasion when he found\nhimself in a woman's society, as though the particular pause were his\nown special fault. This sensation was a hundred times more painful in\n_tete-a-tete_. His imagination, full as it was of the most extravagant\nand most Spanish ideas of what a man ought to say when he is alone\nwith a woman, only suggested to the troubled youth things which were\nabsolutely impossible. His soul was in the clouds. Nevertheless he was\nunable to emerge from this most humiliating silence. Consequently,\nduring his long walks with Madame de Renal and the children, the\nseverity of his manner was accentuated by the poignancy of his\nsufferings. He despised himself terribly. If, by any luck, he made\nhimself speak, he came out with the most absurd things. To put the\nfinishing touch on his misery, he saw his own absurdity and exaggerated\nits extent, but what he did not see was the expression in his eyes,\nwhich were so beautiful and betokened so ardent a soul, that like good\nactors, they sometimes gave charm to something which is really devoid\nof it.\n\nMadame de Renal noticed that when he was alone with her he never\nchanced to say a good thing except when he was taken out of himself\nby some unexpected event, and consequently forgot to try and turn a\ncompliment. As the friends of the house did not spoil her by regaling\nher with new and brilliant ideas, she enjoyed with delight all the\nflashes of Julien's intellect.\n\nAfter the fall of Napoleon, every appearance of gallantry has been\nseverely exiled from provincial etiquette. People are frightened of\nlosing their jobs. All rascals look to the religious order for support,\nand hypocrisy has made firm progress even among the Liberal classes.\nOne's ennui is doubled. The only pleasures left are reading and\nagriculture.\n\nMadame de Renal, the rich heiress of a devout aunt, and married at\nsixteen to a respectable gentleman, had never felt or seen in her whole\nlife anything that had the slightest resemblance in the whole world\nto love. Her confessor, the good cure Chelan, had once mentioned love\nto her, in discussing the advances of M. de Valenod, and had drawn so\nloathsome a picture of the passion that the word now stood to her for\nnothing but the most abject debauchery. She had regarded love, such\nas she had come across it, in the very small number of novels with\nwhich chance had made her acquainted, as an exception if not indeed as\nsomething absolutely abnormal. It was, thanks to this ignorance, that\nMadame de Renal, although incessantly absorbed in Julien, was perfectly\nhappy, and never thought of reproaching herself in the slightest.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nLITTLE EPISODES\n\n\n    \"Then there were sighs, the deeper for suppression,\n    And stolen glances sweeter for the theft,\n    And burning blushes, though for no transgression.\"\n                                 _Don Juan_, c. I, st. 74.\n\n\nIt was only when Madame de Renal began to think of her maid Elisa\nthat there was some slight change in that angelic sweetness which she\nowed both to her natural character and her actual happiness. The girl\nhad come into a fortune, went to confess herself to the cure Chelan\nand confessed to him her plan of marrying Julien. The cure was truly\nrejoiced at his friend's good fortune, but he was extremely surprised\nwhen Julien resolutely informed him that Mademoiselle Elisa's offer\ncould not suit him.\n\n\"Beware, my friend, of what is passing within your heart,\" said the\ncure with a frown, \"I congratulate you on your mission, if that is the\nonly reason why you despise a more than ample fortune. It is fifty-six\nyears since I was first cure of Verrieres, and yet I shall be turned\nout, according to all appearances. I am distressed by it, and yet my\nincome amounts to eight hundred francs. I inform you of this detail so\nthat you may not be under any illusions as to what awaits you in your\ncareer as a priest. If you think of paying court to the men who enjoy\npower, your eternal damnation is assured. You may make your fortune,\nbut you will have to do harm to the poor, flatter the sub-prefect,\nthe mayor, the man who enjoys prestige, and pander to his passion;\nthis conduct, which in the world is called knowledge of life, is not\nabsolutely incompatible with salvation so far as a layman is concerned;\nbut in our career we have to make a choice; it is a question of making\none's fortune either in this world or the next; there is no middle\ncourse. Come, my dear friend, reflect, and come back in three days with\na definite answer. I am pained to detect that there is at the bottom\nof your character a sombre passion which is far from indicating to me\nthat moderation and that perfect renunciation of earthly advantages so\nnecessary for a priest; I augur well of your intellect, but allow me to\ntell you,\" added the good cure with tears in his eyes, \"I tremble for\nyour salvation in your career as a priest.\"\n\nJulien was ashamed of his emotion; he found himself loved for the first\ntime in his life; he wept with delight; and went to hide his tears in\nthe great woods behind Verrieres.\n\n\"Why am I in this position?\" he said to himself at last, \"I feel that\nI would give my life a hundred times over for this good cure Chelan,\nand he has just proved to me that I am nothing more than a fool. It\nis especially necessary for me to deceive him, and he manages to find\nme out. The secret ardour which he refers to is my plan of making my\nfortune. He thinks I am unworthy of being a priest, that too, just when\nI was imagining that my sacrifice of fifty louis would give him the\nvery highest idea of my piety and devotion to my mission.\"\n\n\"In future,\" continued Julien, \"I will only reckon on those elements in\nmy character which I have tested. Who could have told me that I should\nfind any pleasure in shedding tears? How I should like some one to\nconvince me that I am simply a fool!\"\n\nThree days later, Julien found the excuse with which he ought to have\nbeen prepared on the first day; the excuse was a piece of calumny, but\nwhat did it matter? He confessed to the cure, with a great deal of\nhesitation, that he had been persuaded from the suggested union by a\nreason he could not explain, inasmuch as it tended to damage a third\nparty. This was equivalent to impeaching Elisa's conduct. M. Chelan\nfound that his manner betrayed a certain worldly fire which was very\ndifferent from that which ought to have animated a young acolyte.\n\n\"My friend,\" he said to him again, \"be a good country citizen,\nrespected and educated, rather than a priest without a true mission.\"\n\nSo far as words were concerned, Julien answered these new remonstrances\nvery well. He managed to find the words which a young and ardent\nseminarist would have employed, but the tone in which he pronounced\nthem, together with the thinly concealed fire which blazed in his eye,\nalarmed M. Chelan.\n\nYou must not have too bad an opinion of Julien's prospects. He\ninvented with correctness all the words suitable to a prudent and\ncunning hypocrisy. It was not bad for his age. As for his tone and his\ngestures, he had spent his life with country people; he had never been\ngiven an opportunity of seeing great models. Consequently, as soon as\nhe was given a chance of getting near such gentlemen, his gestures\nbecame as admirable as his words.\n\nMadame de Renal was astonished that her maid's new fortune did not\nmake her more happy. She saw her repeatedly going to the cure and\ncoming back with tears in her eyes. At last Elisa talked to her of her\nmarriage.\n\nMadame de Renal thought she was ill. A kind of fever prevented her from\nsleeping. She only lived when either her maid or Julien were in sight.\nShe was unable to think of anything except them and the happiness\nwhich they would find in their home. Her imagination depicted in the\nmost fascinating colours the poverty of the little house, where they\nwere to live on their income of fifty louis a year. Julien could quite\nwell become an advocate at Bray, the sub-prefecture, two leagues from\nVerrieres. In that case she would see him sometimes. Madame de Renal\nsincerely believed she would go mad. She said so to her husband and\nfinally fell ill. That very evening when her maid was attending her,\nshe noticed that the girl was crying. She abhorred Elisa at that\nmoment, and started to scold her; she then begged her pardon. Elisa's\ntears redoubled. She said if her mistress would allow her, she would\ntell her all her unhappiness.\n\n\"Tell me,\" answered Madame de Renal.\n\n\"Well, Madame, he refuses me, some wicked people must have spoken badly\nabout me. He believes them.\"\n\n\"Who refuses you?\" said Madame de Renal, scarcely breathing.\n\n\"Who else, Madame, but M. Julien,\" answered the maid sobbing. \"M. the\ncure had been unable to overcome his resistance, for M. the cure thinks\nthat he ought not to refuse an honest girl on the pretext that she\nhas been a maid. After all, M. Julien's father is nothing more than\na carpenter, and how did he himself earn his living before he was at\nMadame's?\"\n\nMadame de Renal stopped listening; her excessive happiness had almost\ndeprived her of her reason. She made the girl repeat several times\nthe assurance that Julien had refused her, with a positiveness which\nshut the door on the possibility of his coming round to a more prudent\ndecision.\n\n\"I will make a last attempt,\" she said to her maid. \"I will speak to M.\nJulien.\"\n\nThe following day, after breakfast, Madame de Renal indulged in the\ndelightful luxury of pleading her rival's cause, and of seeing Elisa's\nhand and fortune stubbornly refused for a whole hour.\n\nJulien gradually emerged from his cautiously worded answers, and\nfinished by answering with spirit Madame de Renal's good advice. She\ncould not help being overcome by the torrent of happiness which, after\nso many days of despair, now inundated her soul. She felt quite ill.\nWhen she had recovered and was comfortably in her own room she sent\neveryone away. She was profoundly astonished.\n\n\"Can I be in love with Julien?\" she finally said to herself. This\ndiscovery, which at any other time would have plunged her into remorse\nand the deepest agitation, now only produced the effect of a singular,\nbut as it were, indifferent spectacle. Her soul was exhausted by all\nthat she had just gone through, and had no more sensibility to passion\nleft.\n\nMadame de Renal tried to work, and fell into a deep sleep; when she\nwoke up she did not frighten herself so much as she ought to have. She\nwas too happy to be able to see anything wrong in anything. Naive and\ninnocent as she was, this worthy provincial woman had never tortured\nher soul in her endeavours to extract from it a little sensibility to\nsome new shade of sentiment or unhappiness. Entirely absorbed as she\nhad been before Julien's arrival with that mass of work which falls\nto the lot of a good mistress of a household away from Paris, Madame\nde Renal thought of passion in the same way in which we think of a\nlottery: a certain deception, a happiness sought after by fools.\n\nThe dinner bell rang. Madame de Renal blushed violently. She heard the\nvoice of Julien who was bringing in the children. Having grown somewhat\nadroit since her falling in love, she complained of an awful headache\nin order to explain her redness.\n\n\"That's just like what all women are,\" answered M. de Renal with a\ncoarse laugh. \"Those machines have always got something or other to be\nput right.\"\n\nAlthough she was accustomed to this type of wit, Madame de Renal was\nshocked by the tone of voice. In order to distract herself, she looked\nat Julien's physiognomy; he would have pleased her at this particular\nmoment, even if he had been the ugliest man imaginable.\n\nM. de Renal, who always made a point of copying the habits of the\ngentry of the court, established himself at Vergy in the first fine\ndays of the spring; this is the village rendered celebrated by the\ntragic adventure of Gabrielle. A hundred paces from the picturesque\nruin of the old Gothic church, M. de Renal owns an old chateau with its\nfour towers and a garden designed like the one in the Tuileries with\na great many edging verges of box and avenues of chestnut trees which\nare cut twice in the year. An adjacent field, crowded with apple trees,\nserved for a promenade. Eight or ten magnificent walnut trees were at\nthe end of the orchard. Their immense foliage went as high as perhaps\neighty feet.\n\n\"Each of these cursed walnut trees,\" M. de Renal was in the habit of\nsaying, whenever his wife admired them, \"costs me the harvest of at\nleast half an acre; corn cannot grow under their shade.\"\n\nMadame de Renal found the sight of the country novel: her admiration\nreached the point of enthusiasm. The sentiment by which she was\nanimated gave her both ideas and resolution. M. de Renal had returned\nto the town, for mayoral business, two days after their arrival in\nVergy. But Madame de Renal engaged workmen at her own expense. Julien\nhad given her the idea of a little sanded path which was to go round\nthe orchard and under the big walnut trees, and render it possible\nfor the children to take their walk in the very earliest hours of the\nmorning without getting their feet wet from the dew. This idea was put\ninto execution within twenty-four hours of its being conceived. Madame\nde Renal gaily spent the whole day with Julien in supervising the\nworkmen.\n\nWhen the Mayor of Verrieres came back from the town he was very\nsurprised to find the avenue completed. His arrival surprised Madame\nde Renal as well. She had forgotten his existence. For two months\nhe talked with irritation about the boldness involved in making so\nimportant a repair without consulting him, but Madame de Renal had had\nit executed at her own expense, a fact which somewhat consoled him.\n\nShe spent her days in running about the orchard with her children,\nand in catching butterflies. They had made big hoods of clear gauze\nwith which they caught the poor _lepidoptera_. This is the barbarous\nname which Julien taught Madame de Renal. For she had had M. Godart's\nfine work ordered from Besancon, and Julien used to tell her about the\nstrange habits of the creatures.\n\nThey ruthlessly transfixed them by means of pins in a great cardboard\nbox which Julien had prepared.\n\nMadame de Renal and Julien had at last a topic of conversation; he was\nno longer exposed to the awful torture that had been occasioned by\ntheir moments of silence.\n\nThey talked incessantly and with extreme interest, though always about\nvery innocent matters. This gay, full, active life, pleased the fancy\nof everyone, except Mademoiselle Elisa who found herself overworked.\nMadame had never taken so much trouble with her dress, even at carnival\ntime, when there is a ball at Verrieres, she would say; she changes her\ngowns two or three times a day.\n\nAs it is not our intention to flatter anyone, we do not propose to\ndeny that Madame de Renal, who had a superb skin, arranged her gowns\nin such a way as to leave her arms and her bosom very exposed. She was\nextremely well made, and this style of dress suited her delightfully.\n\n\"You have never been _so young_, Madame,\" her Verrieres friends would\nsay to her, when they came to dinner at Vergy (this is one of the local\nexpressions).\n\nIt is a singular thing, and one which few amongst us will believe, but\nMadame de Renal had no specific object in taking so much trouble. She\nfound pleasure in it and spent all the time which she did not pass in\nhunting butterflies with the children and Julien, in working with Elisa\nat making gowns, without giving the matter a further thought. Her only\nexpedition to Verrieres was caused by her desire to buy some new summer\ngowns which had just come from Mulhouse.\n\nShe brought back to Vergy a young woman who was a relative of hers.\nSince her marriage, Madame de Renal had gradually become attached to\nMadame Derville, who had once been her school mate at the _Sacre Coeur_.\n\nMadame Derville laughed a great deal at what she called her cousin's\nmad ideas: \"I would never have thought of them alone,\" she said. When\nMadame de Renal was with her husband, she was ashamed of those sudden\nideas, which, are called sallies in Paris, and thought them quite\nsilly: but Madame Derville's presence gave her courage. She would start\nto telling her her thoughts in a timid voice, but after the ladies\nhad been alone for a long time, Madame de Renal's brain became more\nanimated, and a long morning spent together by the two friends passed\nlike a second, and left them in the best of spirits. On this particular\njourney, however, the acute Madame Derville thought her cousin much\nless merry, but much more happy than usual.\n\nJulien, on his side, had since coming to the country lived like an\nabsolute child, and been as happy as his pupils in running after\nthe butterflies. After so long a period of constraint and wary\ndiplomacy, he was at last alone and far from human observation; he\nwas instinctively free from any apprehension on the score of Madame\nde Renal, and abandoned himself to the sheer pleasure of being alive,\nwhich is so keen at so young an age, especially among the most\nbeautiful mountains in the world.\n\nEver since Madame Derville's arrival, Julien thought that she was his\nfriend; he took the first opportunity of showing her the view from the\nend of the new avenue, under the walnut tree; as a matter of fact it is\nequal, if not superior, to the most wonderful views that Switzerland\nand the Italian lakes can offer. If you ascend the steep slope which\ncommences some paces from there, you soon arrive at great precipices\nfringed by oak forests, which almost jut on to the river. It was to the\npeaked summits of these rocks that Julien, who was now happy, free, and\nking of the household into the bargain, would take the two friends, and\nenjoy their admiration these sublime views.\n\n\"To me it's like Mozart's music,\" Madame Derville would say.\n\nThe country around Verrieres had been spoilt for Julien by the jealousy\nof his brothers and the presence of a tyranous and angry father. He\nwas free from these bitter memories at Vergy; for the first time in\nhis life, he failed to see an enemy. When, as frequently happened, M.\nde Renal was in town, he ventured to read; soon, instead of reading at\nnight time, a procedure, moreover, which involved carefully hiding his\nlamp at the bottom of a flower-pot turned upside down, he was able to\nindulge in sleep; in the day, however, in the intervals between the\nchildren's lessons, he would come among these rocks with that book\nwhich was the one guide of his conduct and object of his enthusiasm. He\nfound in it simultaneously happiness, ecstasy and consolation for his\nmoments of discouragement.\n\nCertain remarks of Napoleon about women, several discussions about the\nmerits of the novels which were fashionable in his reign, furnished him\nnow for the first time with some ideas which any other young man of his\nage would have had for a long time.\n\nThe dog days arrived. They started the habit of spending the evenings\nunder an immense pine tree some yards from the house. The darkness was\nprofound. One evening, Julien was speaking and gesticulating, enjoying\nto the full the pleasure of being at his best when talking to young\nwomen; in one of his gestures, he touched the hand of Madame de Renal\nwhich was leaning on the back of one of those chairs of painted wood,\nwhich are so frequently to be seen in gardens.\n\nThe hand was quickly removed, but Julien thought it a point of duty\nto secure that that hand should not be removed when he touched it.\nThe idea of a duty to be performed and the consciousness of his\nstultification, or rather of his social inferiority, if he should fail\nin achieving it, immediately banished all pleasure from his heart.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nAN EVENING IN THE COUNTRY\n\n\n        M. Guerin's Dido, a charming sketch!--_Strombeck_.\n\n\nHis expression was singular when he saw Madame de Renal the next\nday; he watched her like an enemy with whom he would have to fight a\nduel. These looks, which were so different from those of the previous\nevening, made Madame de Renal lose her head; she had been kind to him\nand he appeared angry. She could not take her eyes off his.\n\nMadame Derville's presence allowed Julien to devote less time to\nconversation, and more time to thinking about what he had in his mind.\nHis one object all this day was to fortify himself by reading the\ninspired book that gave strength to his soul.\n\nHe considerably curtailed the children's lessons, and when Madame de\nRenal's presence had effectually brought him back to the pursuit of his\nambition, he decided that she absolutely must allow her hand to rest in\nhis that evening.\n\nThe setting of the sun which brought the crucial moment nearer and\nnearer made Julien's heart beat in a strange way. Night came. He\nnoticed with a joy, which took an immense weight off his heart, that\nit was going to be very dark. The sky, which was laden with big clouds\nthat had been brought along by a sultry wind, seemed to herald a storm.\nThe two friends went for their walk very late. All they did that night\nstruck Julien as strange. They were enjoying that hour which seems to\ngive certain refined souls an increased pleasure in loving.\n\nAt last they sat down, Madame de Renal beside Julien, and Madame\nDerville near her friend. Engrossed as he was by the attempt which\nhe was going to make, Julien could think of nothing to say. The\nconversation languished.\n\n\"Shall I be as nervous and miserable over my first duel?\" said Julien\nto himself; for he was too suspicious both of himself and of others,\nnot to realise his own mental state.\n\nIn his mortal anguish, he would have preferred any danger whatsoever.\nHow many times did he not wish some matter to crop up which would\nnecessitate Madame de Renal going into the house and leaving the\ngarden! The violent strain on Julien's nerves was too great for his\nvoice not to be considerably changed; soon Madame de Renal's voice\nbecame nervous as well, but Julien did not notice it. The awful battle\nraging between duty and timidity was too painful, for him to be in a\nposition to observe anything outside himself. A quarter to ten had\njust struck on the chateau clock without his having ventured anything.\nJulien was indignant at his own cowardice, and said to himself, \"at\nthe exact moment when ten o'clock strikes, I will perform what I have\nresolved to do all through the day, or I will go up to my room and blow\nout my brains.\"\n\nAfter a final moment of expectation and anxiety, during which Julien\nwas rendered almost beside himself by his excessive emotion, ten\no'clock struck from the clock over his head. Each stroke of the fatal\nclock reverberated in his bosom, and caused an almost physical pang.\n\nFinally, when the last stroke of ten was still reverberating, he\nstretched out his hand and took Madame de Renal's, who immediately\nwithdrew it. Julien, scarcely knowing what he was doing, seized it\nagain. In spite of his own excitement, he could not help being struck\nby the icy coldness of the hand which he was taking; he pressed it\nconvulsively; a last effort was made to take it away, but in the end\nthe hand remained in his.\n\nHis soul was inundated with happiness, not that he loved Madame de\nRenal, but an awful torture had just ended. He thought it necessary\nto say something, to avoid Madame Derville noticing anything. His\nvoice was now strong and ringing. Madame de Renal's, on the contrary,\nbetrayed so much emotion that her friend thought she was ill, and\nsuggested her going in. Julien scented danger, \"if Madame de Renal goes\nback to the salon, I shall relapse into the awful state in which I have\nbeen all day. I have held the hand far too short a time for it really\nto count as the scoring of an actual advantage.\"\n\nAt the moment when Madame Derville was repeating her suggestion to\ngo back to the salon, Julien squeezed vigorously the hand that was\nabandoned to him.\n\nMadame de Renal, who had started to get up, sat down again and said in\na faint voice,\n\n\"I feel a little ill, as a matter of fact, but the open air is doing me\ngood.\"\n\nThese words confirmed Julien's happiness, which at the present moment\nwas extreme; he spoke, he forgot to pose, and appeared the most\ncharming man in the world to the two friends who were listening to him.\nNevertheless, there was a slight lack of courage in all this eloquence\nwhich had suddenly come upon him. He was mortally afraid that Madame\nDerville would get tired of the wind before the storm, which was\nbeginning to rise, and want to go back alone into the salon. He would\nthen have remained _tete-a-tete_ with Madame de Renal. He had had,\nalmost by accident that blind courage which is sufficient for action;\nbut he felt that it was out of his power to speak the simplest word to\nMadame de Renal. He was certain that, however slight her reproaches\nmight be, he would nevertheless be worsted, and that the advantage he\nhad just won would be destroyed.\n\nLuckily for him on this evening, his moving and emphatic speeches found\nfavour with Madame Derville, who very often found him as clumsy as a\nchild and not at all amusing. As for Madame de Renal, with her hand in\nJulien's, she did not have a thought; she simply allowed herself to go\non living.\n\nThe hours spent under this great pine tree, planted by by Charles the\nBold according to the local tradition, were a real period of happiness.\nShe listened with delight to the soughing of the wind in the thick\nfoliage of the pine tree and to the noise of some stray drops which\nwere beginning to fall upon the leaves which were lowest down. Julien\nfailed to notice one circumstance which, if he had, would have quickly\nreassured him; Madame de Renal, who had been obliged to take away her\nhand, because she had got up to help her cousin to pick up a flower-pot\nwhich the wind had knocked over at her feet, had scarcely sat down\nagain before she gave him her hand with scarcely any difficulty and as\nthough it had already been a pre-arranged thing between them.\n\nMidnight had struck a long time ago; it was at last necessary to leave\nthe garden; they separated. Madame de Renal swept away as she was, by\nthe happiness of loving, was so completely ignorant of the world that\nshe scarcely reproached herself at all. Her happiness deprived her of\nher sleep. A leaden sleep overwhelmed Julien who was mortally fatigued\nby the battle which timidity and pride had waged in his heart all\nthrough the day.\n\nHe was called at five o'clock on the following day and scarcely gave\nMadame de Renal a single thought.\n\nHe had accomplished his duty, and a heroic duty too. The consciousness\nof this filled him with happiness; he locked himself in his room, and\nabandoned himself with quite a new pleasure to reading exploits of his\nhero.\n\nWhen the breakfast bell sounded, the reading of the Bulletins of the\nGreat Army had made him forget all his advantages of the previous day.\nHe said to himself flippantly, as he went down to the salon, \"I must\ntell that woman that I am in love with her.\" Instead of those looks\nbrimful of pleasure which he was expecting to meet, he found the stern\nvisage of M. de Renal, who had arrived from Verrieres two hours ago,\nand did not conceal his dissatisfaction at Julien's having passed the\nwhole morning without attending to the children. Nothing could have\nbeen more sordid than this self-important man when he was in a bad\ntemper and thought that he could safely show it.\n\nEach harsh word of her husband pierced Madame de Renal's heart.\n\nAs for Julien, he was so plunged in his ecstasy, and still so engrossed\nby the great events which had been passing before his eyes for several\nhours, that he had some difficulty at first in bringing his attention\nsufficiently down to listen to the harsh remarks which M. de Renal was\naddressing to him. He said to him at last, rather abruptly,\n\n\"I was ill.\"\n\nThe tone of this answer would have stung a much less sensitive man than\nthe mayor of Verrieres. He half thought of answering Julien by turning\nhim out of the house straight away. He was only restrained by the\nmaxim which he had prescribed for himself, of never hurrying unduly in\nbusiness matters.\n\n\"The young fool,\" he said to himself shortly afterwards, \"has won a\nkind of reputation in my house. That man Valenod may take him into his\nfamily, or he may quite well marry Elisa, and in either case, he will\nbe able to have the laugh of me in his heart.\"\n\nIn spite of the wisdom of these reflections, M. de Renal's\ndissatisfaction did not fail to vent itself any the less by a string\nof coarse insults which gradually irritated Julien. Madame de Renal\nwas on the point of bursting into tears. Breakfast was scarcely over,\nwhen she asked Julien to give her his arm for a walk. She leaned on him\naffectionately. Julien could only answer all that Madame de Renal said\nto him by whispering.\n\n\"_That's what rich people are like!_\"\n\nM. de Renal was walking quite close to them; his presence increased\nJulien's anger. He suddenly noticed that Madame de Renal was leaning on\nhis arm in a manner which was somewhat marked. This horrified him, and\nhe pushed her violently away and disengaged his arm.\n\nLuckily, M. de Renal did not see this new piece of impertinence; it was\nonly noticed by Madame Derville. Her friend burst into tears. M. de\nRenal now started to chase away by a shower of stones a little peasant\ngirl who had taken a private path crossing a corner of the orchard.\n\"Monsieur Julien, restrain yourself, I pray you. Remember that we all\nhave our moments of temper,\" said madame Derville rapidly.\n\nJulien looked at her coldly with eyes in which the most supreme\ncontempt was depicted.\n\nThis look astonished Madame Derville, and it would have surprised\nher even more if she had appreciated its real expression; she would\nhave read in it something like a vague hope of the most atrocious\nvengeance. It is, no doubt, such moments of humiliation which have made\nRobespierres.\n\n\"Your Julien is very violent; he frightens me,\" said Madame Derville to\nher friend, in a low voice.\n\n\"He is right to be angry,\" she answered. \"What does it matter if\nhe does pass a morning without speaking to the children, after the\nastonishing progress which he has made them make. One must admit that\nmen are very hard.\"\n\nFor the first time in her life Madame de Renal experienced a kind\nof desire for vengeance against her husband. The extreme hatred of\nthe rich by which Julien was animated was on the point of exploding.\nLuckily, M. de Renal called his gardener, and remained occupied\nwith him in barring by faggots of thorns the private road through\nthe orchard. Julien did not vouchsafe any answer to the kindly\nconsideration of which he was the object during all the rest of the\nwalk. M. de Renal had scarcely gone away before the two friends made\nthe excuse of being fatigued, and each asked him for an arm.\n\nWalking as he did between these two women whose extreme nervousness\nfilled their cheeks with a blushing embarrassment, the haughty pallor\nand sombre, resolute air of Julien formed a strange contrast. He\ndespised these women and all tender sentiments.\n\n\"What!\" he said to himself, \"not even an income of five hundred francs\nto finish my studies! Ah! how I should like to send them packing.\"\n\nAnd absorbed as he was by these stern ideas, such few courteous words\nof his two friends as he deigned to take the trouble to understand,\ndispleased him as devoid of sense, silly, feeble, in a word--feminine.\n\nAs the result of speaking for the sake of speaking and of endeavouring\nto keep the conversation alive, it came about that Madame de Renal\nmentioned that her husband had come from Verrieres because he had made\na bargain for the May straw with one of his farmers. (In this district\nit is the May straw with which the bed mattresses are filled).\n\n\"My husband will not rejoin us,\" added Madame de Renal; \"he will occupy\nhimself with finishing the re-stuffing of the house mattresses with\nthe help of the gardener and his valet. He has put the May straw this\nmorning in all the beds on the first storey; he is now at the second.\"\n\nJulien changed colour. He looked at Madame de Renal in a singular way,\nand soon managed somehow to take her on one side, doubling his pace.\nMadame Derville allowed them to get ahead.\n\n\"Save my life,\" said Julien to Madame de Renal; \"only you can do it,\nfor you know that the valet hates me desperately. I must confess to\nyou, madame, that I have a portrait. I have hidden it in the mattress\nof my bed.\"\n\nAt these words Madame de Renal in her turn became pale.\n\n\"Only you, Madame, are able at this moment to go into my room, feel\nabout without their noticing in the corner of the mattress; it\nis nearest the window. You will find a small, round box of black\ncardboard, very glossy.\"\n\n\"Does it contain a portrait?\" said Madame de Renal, scarcely able to\nhold herself upright.\n\nJulien noticed her air of discouragement, and at once proceeded to\nexploit it.\n\n\"I have a second favour to ask you, madame. I entreat you not to look\nat that portrait; it is my secret.\"\n\n\"It is a secret,\" repeated Madame de Renal in a faint voice.\n\nBut though she had been brought up among people who are proud of their\nfortune and appreciative of nothing except money, love had already\ninstilled generosity into her soul. Truly wounded as she was, it was\nwith an air of the most simple devotion that Madame de Renal asked\nJulien the questions necessary to enable her to fulfil her commission.\n\n\"So\" she said to him as she went away, \"it is a little round box of\nblack cardboard, very glossy.\"\n\n\"Yes, Madame,\" answered Julien, with that hardness which danger gives\nto men.\n\nShe ascended the second storey of the chateau as pale as though she had\nbeen going to her death. Her misery was completed by the sensation that\nshe was on the verge of falling ill, but the necessity of doing Julien\na service restored her strength.\n\n\"I must have that box,\" she said to herself, as she doubled her pace.\n\nShe heard her husband speaking to the valet in Julien's very room.\nHappily, they passed into the children's room. She lifted up the\nmattress, and plunged her hand into the stuffing so violently that she\nbruised her fingers. But, though she was very sensitive to slight pain\nof this kind, she was not conscious of it now, for she felt almost\nsimultaneously the smooth surface of the cardboard box. She seized it\nand disappeared.\n\nShe had scarcely recovered from the fear of being surprised by her\nhusband than the horror with which this box inspired her came within an\nace of positively making her feel ill.\n\n\"So Julien is in love, and I hold here the portrait of the woman whom\nhe loves!\"\n\nSeated on the chair in the ante-chamber of his apartment, Madame\nde Renal fell a prey to all the horrors of jealousy. Her extreme\nignorance, moreover, was useful to her at this juncture; her\nastonishment mitigated her grief. Julien seized the box without\nthanking her or saying a single word, and ran into his room, where\nhe lit a fire and immediately burnt it. He was pale and in a state\nof collapse. He exaggerated the extent of the danger which he had\nundergone.\n\n\"Finding Napoleon's portrait,\" he said to himself, \"in the possession\nof a man who professes so great a hate for the usurper! Found, too,\nby M. de Renal, who is so great an _ultra_, and is now in a state of\nirritation, and, to complete my imprudence, lines written in my own\nhandwriting on the white cardboard behind the portrait, lines, too,\nwhich can leave no doubt on the score of my excessive admiration. And\neach of these transports of love is dated. There was one the day before\nyesterday.\"\n\n\"All my reputation collapsed and shattered in a moment,\" said Julien\nto himself as he watched the box burn, \"and my reputation is my only\nasset. It is all I have to live by--and what a life to, by heaven!\"\n\nAn hour afterwards, this fatigue, together with the pity which he felt\nfor himself made him inclined to be more tender. He met Madame de Renal\nand took her hand, which he kissed with more sincerity than he had\never done before. She blushed with happiness and almost simultaneously\nrebuffed Julien with all the anger of jealousy. Julien's pride which\nhad been so recently wounded made him act foolishly at this juncture.\nHe saw in Madame de Renal nothing but a rich woman, he disdainfully let\nher hand fall and went away. He went and walked about meditatively in\nthe garden. Soon a bitter smile appeared on his lips.\n\n\"Here I am walking about as serenely as a man who is master of his own\ntime. I am not bothering about the children! I am exposing myself to M.\nde Renal's humiliating remarks, and he will be quite right.\" He ran to\nthe children's room. The caresses of the youngest child, whom he loved\nvery much, somewhat calmed his agony.\n\n\"He does not despise me yet,\" thought Julien. But he soon reproached\nhimself for this alleviation of his agony as though it were a new\nweakness. The children caress me just in the same way in which they\nwould caress the young hunting-hound which was bought yesterday.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nA GREAT HEART AND A SMALL FORTUNE\n\n\n    But passion most disembles, yet betrays,\n    Even by its darkness, as the blackest sky\n    Foretells the heaviest tempest.\n                           _Don Juan_, c. 4, st. 75.\n\n\nM. De Renal was going through all the rooms in the chateau, and he came\nback into the children's room with the servants who were bringing back\nthe stuffings of the mattresses. The sudden entry of this man had the\neffect on Julien of the drop of water which makes the pot overflow.\n\nLooking paler and more sinister than usual, he rushed towards him. M.\nde Renal stopped and looked at his servants.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" said Julien to him, \"Do you think your children would have\nmade the progress they have made with me with any other tutor? If you\nanswer 'No,'\" continued Julien so quickly that M. de Renal did not have\ntime to speak, \"how dare you reproach me with neglecting them?\"\n\nM. de Renal, who had scarcely recovered from his fright, concluded from\nthe strange tone he saw this little peasant assume, that he had some\nadvantageous offer in his pocket, and that he was going to leave him.\n\nThe more he spoke the more Julien's anger increased, \"I can live\nwithout you, Monsieur,\" he added.\n\n\"I am really sorry to see you so upset,\" answered M. de Renal\nshuddering a little. The servants were ten yards off engaged in making\nthe beds.\n\n\"That is not what I mean, Monsieur,\" replied Julien quite beside\nhimself. \"Think of the infamous words that you have addressed to me,\nand before women too.\"\n\nM. de Renal understood only too well what Julien was asking, and a\npainful conflict tore his soul. It happened that Julien, who was really\nmad with rage, cried out,\n\n\"I know where to go, Monsieur, when I leave your house.\"\n\nAt these words M. de Renal saw Julien installed with M. Valenod. \"Well,\nsir,\" he said at last with a sigh, just as though he had called in\na surgeon to perform the most painful operation, \"I accede to your\nrequest. I will give you fifty francs a month. Starting from the day\nafter to-morrow which is the first of the month.\"\n\nJulien wanted to laugh, and stood there dumbfounded. All his anger had\nvanished.\n\n\"I do not despise the brute enough,\" he said to himself. \"I have no\ndoubt that that is the greatest apology that so base a soul can make.\"\n\nThe children who had listened to this scene with gaping mouths, ran\ninto the garden to tell their mother that M. Julien was very angry, but\nthat he was going to have fifty francs a month.\n\nJulien followed them as a matter of habit without even looking at M. de\nRenal whom he left in a considerable state of irritation.\n\n\"That makes one hundred and sixty-eight francs,\" said the mayor to\nhimself, \"that M. Valenod has cost me. I must absolutely speak a few\nstrong words to him about his contract to provide for the foundlings.\"\n\nA minute afterwards Julien found himself opposite M. de Renal.\n\n\"I want to speak to M. Chelan on a matter of conscience. I have the\nhonour to inform you that I shall be absent some hours.\"\n\n\"Why, my dear Julien,\" said M. de Renal smiling with the falsest\nexpression possible, \"take the whole day, and to-morrow too if you\nlike, my good friend. Take the gardener's horse to go to Verrieres.\"\n\n\"He is on the very point,\" said M. de Renal to himself, \"of giving an\nanswer to Valenod. He has promised me nothing, but I must let this\nhot-headed young man have time to cool down.\"\n\nJulien quickly went away, and went up into the great forest, through\nwhich one can manage to get from Vergy to Verrieres. He did not wish\nto arrive at M. Chelan's at once. Far from wishing to cramp himself in\na new pose of hypocrisy he needed to see clear in his own soul, and to\ngive audience to the crowd of sentiments which were agitating him.\n\n\"I have won a battle,\" he said to himself, as soon as he saw that he\nwas well in the forest, and far from all human gaze. \"So I have won a\nbattle.\"\n\nThis expression shed a rosy light on his situation, and restored him to\nsome serenity.\n\n\"Here I am with a salary of fifty francs a month, M. de Renal must be\nprecious afraid, but what of?\"\n\nThis meditation about what could have put fear into the heart of that\nhappy, powerful man against whom he had been boiling with rage only\nan hour back, completed the restoration to serenity of Julien's soul.\nHe was almost able to enjoy for a moment the delightful beauty of the\nwoods amidst which he was walking. Enormous blocks of bare rocks had\nfallen down long ago in the middle of the forest by the mountain side.\nGreat cedars towered almost as high as these rocks whose shade caused a\ndelicious freshness within three yards of places where the heat of the\nsun's rays would have made it impossible to rest.\n\nJulien took breath for a moment in the shade of these great rocks,\nand then he began again to climb. Traversing a narrow path that was\nscarcely marked, and was only used by the goat herds, he soon found\nhimself standing upon an immense rock with the complete certainty of\nbeing far away from all mankind. This physical position made him smile.\nIt symbolised to him the position he was burning to attain in the moral\nsphere. The pure air of these lovely mountains filled his soul with\nserenity and even with joy. The mayor of Verrieres still continued to\ntypify in his eyes all the wealth and all the arrogance of the earth;\nbut Julien felt that the hatred that had just thrilled him had nothing\npersonal about it in spite of all the violence which he had manifested.\nIf he had left off seeing M. de Renal he would in eight days have\nforgotten him, his castle, his dogs, his children and all his family.\n\"I forced him, I don't know how, to make the greatest sacrifice. What?\nmore than fifty crowns a year, and only a minute before I managed to\nextricate myself from the greatest danger; so there are two victories\nin one day. The second one is devoid of merit, I must find out the why\nand the wherefore. But these laborious researches are for to-morrow.\"\n\nStanding up on his great rock, Julien looked at the sky which was all\nafire with an August sun. The grasshoppers sang in the field about the\nrock; when they held their peace there was universal silence around\nhim. He saw twenty leagues of country at his feet. He noticed from\ntime to time some hawk, which launching off from the great rocks over\nhis head was describing in silence its immense circles. Julien's eye\nfollowed the bird of prey mechanically. Its tranquil powerful movements\nstruck him. He envied that strength, that isolation.\n\n\"Would Napoleon's destiny be one day his?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nAN EVENING\n\n\n    Yet Julia's very coldness still was kind,\n    And tremulously gently her small hand\n    Withdrew itself from his, but left behind\n    A little pressure, thrilling, and so bland,\n    And slight, so very slight that to the mind,\n    'Twas but a doubt.\n                        _Don Juan_, c. I. st, 71.\n\n\nIt was necessary, however, to put in an appearance at Verrieres. As\nJulien left the cure house he was fortunate enough to meet M. Valenod,\nwhom he hastened to tell of the increase in his salary.\n\nOn returning to Vergy, Julien waited till night had fallen before going\ndown into the garden. His soul was fatigued by the great number of\nviolent emotions which had agitated him during the day. \"What shall I\nsay to them?\" he reflected anxiously, as he thought about the ladies.\nHe was far from realising that his soul was just in a mood to discuss\nthose trivial circumstances which usually monopolise all feminine\ninterests. Julien was often unintelligible to Madame Derville, and even\nto her friend, and he in his turn only half understood all that they\nsaid to him. Such was the effect of the force and, if I may venture to\nuse such language, the greatness of the transports of passion which\noverwhelmed the soul of this ambitious youth. In this singular being it\nwas storm nearly every day.\n\nAs he entered the garden this evening, Julien was inclined to take an\ninterest in what the pretty cousins were thinking. They were waiting\nfor him impatiently. He took his accustomed seat next to Madame de\nRenal. The darkness soon became profound. He attempted to take hold of\na white hand which he had seen some time near him, as it leant on the\nback of a chair. Some hesitation was shewn, but eventually the hand was\nwithdrawn in a manner which indicated displeasure. Julien was inclined\nto give up the attempt as a bad job, and to continue his conversation\nquite gaily, when he heard M. de Renal approaching.\n\nThe coarse words he had uttered in the morning were still ringing in\nJulien's ears. \"Would not taking possession of his wife's hand in his\nvery presence,\" he said to himself, \"be a good way of scoring off that\ncreature who has all that life can give him. Yes! I will do it. I, the\nvery man for whom he has evidenced so great a contempt.\"\n\nFrom that moment the tranquillity which was so alien to Julien's real\ncharacter quickly disappeared. He was obsessed by an anxious desire\nthat Madame de Renal should abandon her hand to him.\n\nM. de Renal was talking politics with vehemence; two or three\ncommercial men in Verrieres had been growing distinctly richer than he\nwas, and were going to annoy him over the elections. Madame Derville\nwas listening to him. Irritated by these tirades, Julien brought his\nchair nearer Madame de Renal. All his movements were concealed by the\ndarkness. He dared to put his hand very near to the pretty arm which\nwas left uncovered by the dress. He was troubled and had lost control\nof his mind. He brought his face near to that pretty arm and dared to\nput his lips on it.\n\nMadame de Renal shuddered. Her husband was four paces away. She\nhastened to give her hand to Julien, and at the same time to push him\nback a little. As M. de Renal was continuing his insults against those\nne'er-do-wells and Jacobins who were growing so rich, Julien covered\nthe hand which had been abandoned to him with kisses, which were either\nreally passionate or at any rate seemed so to Madame de Renal. But\nthe poor woman had already had the proofs on that same fatal day that\nthe man whom she adored, without owning it to herself, loved another!\nDuring the whole time Julien had been absent she had been the prey to\nan extreme unhappiness which had made her reflect.\n\n\"What,\" she said to herself, \"Am I going to love, am I going to be in\nlove? Am I, a married woman, going to fall in love? But,\" she said to\nherself, \"I have never felt for my husband this dark madness, which\nnever permits of my keeping Julien out of my thoughts. After all, he\nis only a child who is full of respect for me. This madness will be\nfleeting. In what way do the sentiments which I may have for this young\nman concern my husband? M. de Renal would be bored by the conversations\nwhich I have with Julien on imaginative subjects. As for him, he simply\nthinks of his business. I am not taking anything away from him to give\nto Julien.\"\n\nNo hypocrisy had sullied the purity of that naive soul, now swept away\nby a passion such as it had never felt before. She deceived herself,\nbut without knowing it. But none the less, a certain instinct of virtue\nwas alarmed. Such were the combats which were agitating her when\nJulien appeared in the garden. She heard him speak and almost at the\nsame moment she saw him sit down by her side. Her soul was as it were\ntransported by this charming happiness which had for the last fortnight\nsurprised her even more than it had allured. Everything was novel for\nher. None the less, she said to herself after some moments, \"the mere\npresence of Julien is quite enough to blot out all his wrongs.\" She was\nfrightened; it was then that she took away her hand.\n\nHis passionate kisses, the like of which she had never received before,\nmade her forget that perhaps he loved another woman. Soon he was no\nlonger guilty in her eyes. The cessation of that poignant pain which\nsuspicion had engendered and the presence of a happiness that she had\nnever even dreamt of, gave her ecstasies of love and of mad gaiety.\nThe evening was charming for everyone, except the mayor of Verrieres,\nwho was unable to forget his _parvenu_ manufacturers. Julien left off\nthinking about his black ambition, or about those plans of his which\nwere so difficult to accomplish. For the first time in his life he was\nled away by the power of beauty. Lost in a sweetly vague reverie, quite\nalien to his character, and softly pressing that hand, which he thought\nideally pretty, he half listened to the rustle of the leaves of the\npine trees, swept by the light night breeze, and to the dogs of the\nmill on the Doubs, who barked in the distance.\n\nBut this emotion was one of pleasure and not passion. As he entered his\nroom, he only thought of one happiness, that of taking up again his\nfavourite book. When one is twenty the idea of the world and the figure\nto be cut in it dominate everything.\n\nHe soon, however, laid down the book. As the result of thinking of the\nvictories of Napoleon, he had seen a new element in his own victory.\n\"Yes,\" he said to himself, \"I have won a battle. I must exploit it. I\nmust crush the pride of that proud gentleman while he is in retreat.\nThat would be real Napoleon. I must ask him for three days' holiday to\ngo and see my friend Fouque. If he refuses me I will threaten to give\nhim notice, but he will yield the point.\"\n\nMadame de Renal could not sleep a wink. It seemed as though, until this\nmoment, she had never lived. She was unable to distract her thoughts\nfrom the happiness of feeling Julian cover her hand with his burning\nkisses.\n\nSuddenly the awful word adultery came into her mind. All the\nloathesomeness with which the vilest debauchery can invest sensual love\npresented itself to her imagination. These ideas essayed to pollute the\ndivinely tender image which she was fashioning of Julien, and of the\nhappiness of loving him. The future began to be painted in terrible\ncolours. She began to regard herself as contemptible.\n\nThat moment was awful. Her soul was arriving in unknown countries.\nDuring the evening she had tasted a novel happiness. Now she found\nherself suddenly plunged in an atrocious unhappiness. She had never\nhad any idea of such sufferings; they troubled her reason. She thought\nfor a moment of confessing to her husband that she was apprehensive\nof loving Julien. It would be an opportunity of speaking of him.\nFortunately her memory threw up a maxim which her aunt had once given\nher on the eve of her marriage. The maxim dealt with the danger of\nmaking confidences to a husband, for a husband is after all a master.\nShe wrung her hands in the excess of her grief. She was driven this way\nand that by clashing and painful ideas. At one moment she feared that\nshe was not loved. The next the awful idea of crime tortured her, as\nmuch as if she had to be exposed in the pillory on the following day in\nthe public square of Verrieres, with a placard to explain her adultery\nto the populace.\n\nMadame de Renal had no experience of life. Even in the full possession\nof her faculties, and when fully exercising her reason, she would never\nhave appreciated any distinction between being guilty in the eyes of\nGod, and finding herself publicly overwhelmed with the crudest marks of\nuniversal contempt.\n\nWhen the awful idea of adultery, and of all the disgrace which in her\nview that crime brought in its train, left her some rest, she began to\ndream of the sweetness of living innocently with Julien as in the days\nthat had gone by.\n\nShe found herself confronted with the horrible idea that Julien loved\nanother woman. She still saw his pallor when he had feared to lose\nher portrait, or to compromise her by exposing it to view. For the\nfirst time she had caught fear on that tranquil and noble visage. He\nhad never shewn such emotion to her or her children. This additional\nanguish reached the maximum of unhappiness which the human soul is\ncapable of enduring. Unconsciously, Madame de Renal uttered cries which\nwoke up her maid. Suddenly she saw the brightness of a light appear\nnear her bed, and recognized Elisa. \"Is it you he loves?\" she exclaimed\nin her delirium.\n\nFortunately, the maid was so astonished by the terrible trouble in\nwhich she found her mistress that she paid no attention to this\nsingular expression. Madame de Renal appreciated her imprudence.\n\"I have the fever,\" she said to her, \"and I think I am a little\ndelirious.\" Completely woken up by the necessity of controlling\nherself, she became less unhappy. Reason regained that supreme control\nwhich the semi-somnolent state had taken away. To free herself from her\nmaid's continual stare, she ordered her maid to read the paper, and\nit was as she listened to the monotonous voice of this girl, reading\na long article from the _Quotidienne_ that Madame de Renal made the\nvirtuous resolution to treat Julien with absolute coldness when she saw\nhim again.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nA JOURNEY\n\n\n        Elegant people are to be found in Paris. People of\n        character may exist in the provinces.--Sieyes\n\n\nAt five o'clock the following day, before Madame de Renal was visible,\nJulien obtained a three days' holiday from her husband. Contrary to his\nexpectation Julien found himself desirous of seeing her again. He kept\nthinking of that pretty hand of hers. He went down into the garden, but\nMadame de Renal kept him waiting for a long time. But if Julien had\nloved her, he would have seen her forehead glued to the pane behind the\nhalf-closed blinds on the first floor. She was looking at him. Finally,\nin spite of her resolutions, she decided to go into the garden. Her\nhabitual pallor had been succeeded by more lively hues. This woman,\nsimple as she was, was manifestly agitated; a sentiment of constraint,\nand even of anger, altered that expression of profound serenity which\nseemed, as it were, to be above all the vulgar interests of life and\ngave so much charm to that divine face.\n\nJulien approached her with eagerness, admiring those beautiful arms\nwhich were just visible through a hastily donned shawl. The freshness\nof the morning air seemed to accentuate still more the brilliance of\nher complexion which the agitation of the past night rendered all the\nmore susceptible to all impressions. This demure and pathetic beauty,\nwhich was, at the same time, full of thoughts which are never found in\nthe inferior classes, seemed to reveal to Julien a faculty in his own\nsoul which he had never before realised. Engrossed in his admiration of\nthe charms on which his his greedy gaze was riveted, Julien took for\ngranted the friendly welcome which he was expecting to receive. He was\nall the more astonished at the icy coldness which she endeavoured to\nmanifest to him, and through which he thought he could even distinguish\nthe intention of putting him in his place.\n\nThe smile of pleasure died away from his lips as he remembered his\nrank in society, especially from the point of view of a rich and noble\nheiress. In a single moment his face exhibited nothing but haughtiness\nand anger against himself. He felt violently disgusted that he could\nhave put off his departure for more than an hour, simply to receive so\nhumiliating a welcome.\n\n\"It is only a fool,\" he said to himself, \"who is angry with others; a\nstone falls because it is heavy. Am I going to be a child all my life?\nHow on earth is it that I manage to contract the charming habit of\nshowing my real self to those people simply in return for their money?\nIf I want to win their respect and that of my own self, I must shew\nthem that it is simply a business transaction between my poverty and\ntheir wealth, but that my heart is a thousand leagues away from their\ninsolence, and is situated in too high a sphere to be affected by their\npetty marks of favour or disdain.\"\n\nWhile these feelings were crowding the soul of the young tutor, his\nmobile features assumed an expression of ferocity and injured pride.\nMadame de Renal was extremely troubled. The virtuous coldness that she\nhad meant to put into her welcome was succeeded by an expression of\ninterest--an interest animated by all the surprise brought about by\nthe sudden change which she had just seen. The empty morning platitudes\nabout their health and the fineness of the day suddenly dried up.\nJulien's judgment was disturbed by no passion, and he soon found a\nmeans of manifesting to Madame de Renal how light was the friendly\nrelationship that he considered existed between them. He said nothing\nto her about the little journey that he was going to make; saluted her,\nand went away.\n\nAs she watched him go, she was overwhelmed by the sombre haughtiness\nwhich she read in that look which had been so gracious the previous\nevening. Her eldest son ran up from the bottom of the garden, and said\nas he kissed her,\n\n\"We have a holiday, M. Julien is going on a journey.\"\n\nAt these words, Madame de Renal felt seized by a deadly coldness. She\nwas unhappy by reason of her virtue, and even more unhappy by reason of\nher weakness.\n\nThis new event engrossed her imagination, and she was transported far\nbeyond the good resolutions which she owed to the awful night she had\njust passed. It was not now a question of resisting that charming\nlover, but of losing him for ever.\n\nIt was necessary to appear at breakfast. To complete her anguish, M. de\nRenal and Madame Derville talked of nothing but Julien's departure. The\nmayor of Verrieres had noticed something unusual in the firm tone in\nwhich he had asked for a holiday.\n\n\"That little peasant has no doubt got somebody else's offer up his\nsleeve, but that somebody else, even though it's M. Valenod, is bound\nto be a little discouraged by the sum of six hundred francs, which the\nannual salary now tots up to. He must have asked yesterday at Verrieres\nfor a period of three days to think it over, and our little gentleman\nruns off to the mountains this morning so as not to be obliged to give\nme an answer. Think of having to reckon with a wretched workman who\nputs on airs, but that's what we've come to.\"\n\n\"If my husband, who does not know how deeply he has wounded Julien,\nthinks that he will leave us, what can I think myself?\" said Madame de\nRenal to herself. \"Yes, that is all decided.\" In order to be able at\nany rate to be free to cry, and to avoid answering Madame Derville's\nquestions, she pleaded an awful headache, and went to bed.\n\n\"That's what women are,\" repeated M. de Renal, \"there is always\nsomething out of order in those complicated machines,\" and he went off\njeering.\n\nWhile Madame de Renal was a prey to all the poignancy of the terrible\npassion in which chance had involved her, Julien went merrily on his\nway, surrounded by the most beautiful views that mountain scenery\ncan offer. He had to cross the great chain north of Vergy. The path\nwhich he followed rose gradually among the big beech woods, and ran\ninto infinite spirals on the slope of the high mountain which forms\nthe northern boundary of the Doubs valley. Soon the traveller's view,\nas he passed over the lower slopes bounding the course of the Doubs\ntowards the south, extends as far as the fertile plains of Burgundy and\nBeaujolais. However insensible was the soul of this ambitious youth to\nthis kind of beauty, he could not help stopping from time to time to\nlook at a spectacle at once so vast and so impressive.\n\nFinally, he reached the summit of the great mountain, near which\nhe had to pass in order to arrive by this cross-country route at\nthe solitary valley where lived his friend Fouque, the young wood\nmerchant. Julien was in no hurry to see him; either him, or any other\nhuman being. Hidden like a bird of prey amid the bare rocks which\ncrowned the great mountain, he could see a long way off anyone coming\nnear him. He discovered a little grotto in the middle of the almost\nvertical slope of one of the rocks. He found a way to it, and was soon\nensconced in this retreat. \"Here,\" he said, \"with eyes brilliant with\njoy, men cannot hurt me.\" It occurred to him to indulge in the pleasure\nof writing down those thoughts of his which were so dangerous to him\neverywhere else. A square stone served him for a desk; his pen flew. He\nsaw nothing of what was around him. He noticed at last that the sun was\nsetting behind the distant mountains of Beaujolais.\n\n\"Why shouldn't I pass the night here?\" he said to himself. \"I have\nbread, and I am free.\" He felt a spiritual exultation at the sound of\nthat great word. The necessity of playing the hypocrite resulted in his\nnot being free, even at Fouque's. Leaning his head on his two hands,\nJulien stayed in the grotto, more happy than he had ever been in his\nlife, thrilled by his dreams, and by the bliss of his freedom. Without\nrealising it, he saw all the rays of the twilight become successively\nextinguished. Surrounded by this immense obscurity, his soul wandered\ninto the contemplation of what he imagined that he would one day meet\nin Paris. First it was a woman, much more beautiful and possessed of a\nmuch more refined temperament than anything he could have found in the\nprovinces. He loved with passion, and was loved. If he separated from\nher for some instants, it was only to cover himself with glory, and to\ndeserve to be loved still more.\n\nA young man brought up in the environment of the sad truths of Paris\nsociety, would, on reaching this point in his romance, even if we\nassume him possessed of Julien's imagination, have been brought back\nto himself by the cold irony of the situation. Great deeds would have\ndisappeared from out his ken together with hope of achieving them and\nhave been succeeded by the platitude. \"If one leave one's mistress\none runs alas! the risk of being deceived two or three times a day.\"\nBut the young peasant saw nothing but the lack of opportunity between\nhimself and the most heroic feats.\n\nBut a deep night had succeeded the day, and there were still two\nleagues to walk before he could descend to the cabin in which Fouque\nlived. Before leaving the little cave, Julien made a light and\ncarefully burnt all that he had written. He quite astonished his friend\nwhen he knocked at his door at one o'clock in the morning. He found\nFouque engaged in making up his accounts. He was a young man of high\nstature, rather badly made, with big, hard features, a never-ending\nnose, and a large fund of good nature concealed beneath this repulsive\nappearance.\n\n\"Have you quarelled with M. de Renal then that you turn up unexpectedly\nlike this?\" Julien told him, but in a suitable way, the events of the\nprevious day.\n\n\"Stay with me,\" said Fouque to him. \"I see that you know M. de Renal,\nM. Valenod, the sub-prefect Maugron, the cure Chelan. You have\nunderstood the subtleties of the character of those people. So there\nyou are then, quite qualified to attend auctions. You know arithmetic\nbetter than I do; you will keep my accounts; I make a lot in my\nbusiness. The impossibility of doing everything myself, and the fear\nof taking a rascal for my partner prevents me daily from undertaking\nexcellent business. It's scarcely a month since I put Michaud de\nSaint-Amand, whom I haven't seen for six years, and whom I ran across\nat the sale at Pontarlier in the way of making six thousand francs. Why\nshouldn't it have been you who made those six thousand francs, or at\nany rate three thousand. For if I had had you with me that day, I would\nhave raised the bidding for that lot of timber and everybody else would\nsoon have run away. Be my partner.\"\n\nThis offer upset Julien. It spoilt the train of his mad dreams. Fouque\nshowed his accounts to Julien during the whole of the supper--which the\ntwo friends prepared themselves like the Homeric heroes (for Fouque\nlived alone) and proved to him all the advantages offered by his timber\nbusiness. Fouque had the highest opinion of the gifts and character of\nJulien.\n\nWhen, finally, the latter was alone in his little room of pinewood, he\nsaid to himself: \"It is true I can make some thousands of francs here\nand then take up with advantage the profession of a soldier, or of a\npriest, according to the fashion then prevalent in France. The little\nhoard that I shall have amassed will remove all petty difficulties. In\nthe solitude of this mountain I shall have dissipated to some extent my\nawful ignorance of so many of the things which make up the life of all\nthose men of fashion. But Fouque has given up all thoughts of marriage,\nand at the same time keeps telling me that solitude makes him unhappy.\nIt is clear that if he takes a partner who has no capital to put into\nhis business, he does so in the hopes of getting a companion who will\nnever leave him.\"\n\n\"Shall I deceive my friend,\" exclaimed Julien petulantly. This being\nwho found hypocrisy and complete callousness his ordinary means of\nself-preservation could not, on this occasion, endure the idea of the\nslightest lack of delicate feeling towards a man whom he loved.\n\nBut suddenly Julien was happy. He had a reason for a refusal. What!\nShall I be coward enough to waste seven or eight years. I shall get to\ntwenty-eight in that way! But at that age Bonaparte had achieved his\ngreatest feats. When I shall have made in obscurity a little money by\nfrequenting timber sales, and earning the good graces of some rascally\nunder-strappers who will guarantee that I shall still have the sacred\nfire with which one makes a name for oneself?\n\nThe following morning, Julien with considerable sangfroid, said in\nanswer to the good Fouque, who regarded the matter of the partnership\nas settled, that his vocation for the holy ministry of the altars would\nnot permit him to accept it. Fouque did not return to the subject.\n\n\"But just think,\" he repeated to him, \"I'll make you my partner, or if\nyou prefer it, I'll give you four thousand francs a year, and you want\nto return to that M. de Renal of yours, who despises you like the mud\non his shoes. When you have got two hundred louis in front of you, what\nis to prevent you from entering the seminary? I'll go further: I will\nundertake to procure for you the best living in the district, for,\"\nadded Fouque, lowering his voice, I supply firewood to M. le ----, M.\nle ----, M. ----. I provide them with first quality oak, but they only\npay me for plain wood, but never was money better invested.\n\nNothing could conquer Julien's vocation. Fouque finished by thinking\nhim a little mad. The third day, in the early morning, Julien left his\nfriend, and passed the day amongst the rocks of the great mountain. He\nfound his little cave again, but he had no longer peace of mind. His\nfriend's offers had robbed him of it. He found himself, not between\nvice and virtue, like Hercules, but between mediocrity coupled with\nan assured prosperity, and all the heroic dreams of his youth. \"So I\nhave not got real determination after all,\" he said to himself, and it\nwas his doubt on this score which pained him the most. \"I am not of\nthe stuff of which great men are made, because I fear that eight years\nspent in earning a livelihood will deprive me of that sublime energy\nwhich inspires the accomplishment of extraordinary feats.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE OPEN WORK STOCKINGS\n\n\n        A novel: a mirror which one takes out on one's walk\n        along the high road.--_Saint-Real_.\n\n\nWhen Julien perceived the picturesque ruins of the old church at Vergy,\nhe noticed that he had not given a single thought to Madame de Renal\nsince the day before yesterday. The other day, when I took my leave,\nthat woman made me realise the infinite distance which separated us;\nshe treated me like a labourer's son. No doubt she wished to signify\nher repentance for having allowed me to hold her hand the evening\nbefore.\n\n... It is, however very pretty, is that hand. What a charm, what a\nnobility is there in that woman's expression!\n\nThe possibility of making a fortune with Fouque gave a certain facility\nto Julien's logic. It was not spoilt quite so frequently by the\nirritation and the keen consciousness of his poverty and low estate in\nthe eyes of the world. Placed as it were on a high promontory, he was\nable to exercise his judgment, and had a commanding view, so to speak,\nof both extreme poverty and that competence which he still called\nwealth. He was far from judging his position really philosophically,\nbut he had enough penetration to feel different after this little\njourney into the mountain.\n\nHe was struck with the extreme uneasiness with which Madame de Renal\nlistened to the brief account which she had asked for of his journey.\nFouque had had plans of marriage, and unhappy love affairs, and long\nconfidences on this subject had formed the staple of the two friends'\nconversation. Having found happiness too soon, Fouque had realised\nthat he was not the only one who was loved. All these accounts had\nastonished Julien. He had learnt many new things. His solitary life of\nimagination and suspicion had kept him remote from anything which could\nenlighten him.\n\nDuring his absence, life had been nothing for Madame de Renal but a\nseries of tortures, which, though different, were all unbearable. She\nwas really ill.\n\n\"Now mind,\" said Madame Derville to her when she saw Julien arrive,\n\"you don't go into the garden this evening in your weak state; the damp\nair will make your complaint twice as bad.\"\n\nMadame Derville was surprised to see that her friend, who was always\nscolded by M. de Renal by reason of the excessive simplicity of her\ndress, had just got some open-work stockings and some charming little\nshoes which had come from Paris. For three days Madame de Renal's only\ndistraction had been to cut out a summer dress of a pretty little\nmaterial which was very fashionable, and get it made with express speed\nby Elisa. This dress could scarcely have been finished a few moments\nbefore Julien's arrival, but Madame de Renal put it on immediately. Her\nfriend had no longer any doubt. \"She loves,\" unhappy woman, said Madame\nDerville to herself. She understood all the strange symptoms of the\nmalady.\n\nShe saw her speak to Julien. The most violent blush was succeeded by\npallor. Anxiety was depicted in her eyes, which were riveted on those\nof the young tutor. Madame de Renal expected every minute that he would\ngive an explanation of his conduct, and announce that he was either\ngoing to leave the house or stay there. Julien carefully avoided that\nsubject, and did not even think of it. After terrible struggles, Madame\nde Renal eventually dared to say to him in a trembling voice that\nmirrored all her passion:\n\n\"Are you going to leave your pupils to take another place?\"\n\nJulien was struck by Madame de Renal's hesitating voice and look.\n\"That woman loves me,\" he said to himself! \"But after this temporary\nmoment of weakness, for which her pride is no doubt reproaching her,\nand as soon as she has ceased fearing that I shall leave, she will be\nas haughty as ever.\" This view of their mutual position passed through\nJulien's mind as rapidly as a flash of lightning. He answered with some\nhesitation,\n\n\"I shall be extremely distressed to leave children who are so nice\nand so well-born, but perhaps it will be necessary. One has duties to\noneself as well.\"\n\nAs he pronounced the expression, \"well-born\" (it was one of those\naristocratic phrases which Julien had recently learnt), he became\nanimated by a profound feeling of antipathy.\n\n\"I am not well-born,\" he said to himself, \"in that woman's eyes.\"\n\nAs Madame de Renal listened to him, she admired his genius and his\nbeauty, and the hinted possibility of his departure pierced her\nheart. All her friends at Verrieres who had come to dine at Vergy\nduring Julien's absence had complimented her almost jealously on the\nastonishing man whom her husband had had the good fortune to unearth.\nIt was not that they understood anything about the progress of\nchildren. The feat of knowing his Bible by heart, and what is more, of\nknowing it in Latin, had struck the inhabitants of Verrieres with an\nadmiration which will last perhaps a century.\n\nJulien, who never spoke to anyone, was ignorant of all this. If Madame\nde Renal had possessed the slightest presence of mind, she would have\ncomplimented him on the reputation which he had won, and Julien's\npride, once satisfied, he would have been sweet and amiable towards\nher, especially as he thought her new dress charming. Madame de Renal\nwas also pleased with her pretty dress, and with what Julien had\nsaid to her about it, and wanted to walk round the garden. But she\nsoon confessed that she was incapable of walking. She had taken the\ntraveller's arm, and the contact of that arm, far from increasing her\nstrength, deprived her of it completely.\n\nIt was night. They had scarcely sat down before Julien, availing\nhimself of his old privilege, dared to bring his lips near his pretty\nneighbour's arm, and to take her hand. He kept thinking of the boldness\nwhich Fouque had exhibited with his mistresses and not of Madame de\nRenal; the word \"well-born\" was still heavy on his heart. He felt his\nhand pressed, but experienced no pleasure. So far from his being proud,\nor even grateful for the sentiment that Madame de Renal was betraying\nthat evening by only too evident signs, he was almost insensible to\nher beauty, her elegance, and her freshness. Purity of soul, and the\nabsence of all hateful emotion, doubtless prolong the duration of\nyouth. It is the face which ages first with the majority of women.\n\nJulien sulked all the evening. Up to the present he had only been angry\nwith the social order, but from that time that Fouque had offered him\nan ignoble means of obtaining a competency, he was irritated with\nhimself. Julien was so engrossed in his thoughts, that, although from\ntime to time he said a few words to the ladies, he eventually let go\nMadame de Renal's hand without noticing it. This action overwhelmed the\nsoul of the poor woman. She saw in it her whole fate.\n\nIf she had been certain of Julien's affection, her virtue would\npossibly have found strength to resist him. But trembling lest she\nshould lose him for ever, she was distracted by her passion to\nthe point of taking again Julien's hand, which he had left in his\nabsent-mindedness leaning on the back of the chair. This action woke up\nthis ambitious youth; he would have liked to have had for witnesses all\nthose proud nobles who had regarded him at meals, when he was at the\nbottom of the table with the children, with so condescending a smile.\n\"That woman cannot despise me; in that case,\" he said to himself. \"I\nought to shew my appreciation of her beauty. I owe it to myself to be\nher lover.\" That idea would not have occurred to him before the naive\nconfidences which his friend had made.\n\nThe sudden resolution which he had just made formed an agreeable\ndistraction. He kept saying to himself, \"I must have one of those two\nwomen;\" he realised that he would have very much preferred to have\npaid court to Madame Derville. It was not that she was more agreeable,\nbut that she had always seen him as the tutor distinguished by his\nknowledge, and not as the journeyman carpenter with his cloth jacket\nfolded under his arm as he had first appeared to Madame de Renal.\n\nIt was precisely as a young workman, blushing up to the whites of his\neyes, standing by the door of the house and not daring to ring, that he\nmade the most alluring appeal to Madame de Renal's imagination.\n\nAs he went on reviewing his position, Julien saw that the conquest of\nMadame Derville, who had probably noticed the taste which Madame de\nRenal was manifesting for him, was out of the question. He was thus\nbrought back to the latter lady. \"What do I know of the character of\nthat woman?\" said Julien to himself. \"Only this: before my journey, I\nused to take her hand, and she used to take it away. To-day, I take my\nhand away, and she seizes and presses it. A fine opportunity to pay her\nback all the contempt she had had for me. God knows how many lovers she\nhas had, probably she is only deciding in my favour by reason of the\neasiness of assignations.\"\n\nSuch, alas, is the misfortune of an excessive civilisation. The soul\nof a young man of twenty, possessed of any education, is a thousand\nleagues away from that _abandon_ without which love is frequently but\nthe most tedious of duties.\n\n\"I owe it all the more to myself,\" went on the petty vanity of Julien,\n\"to succeed with that woman, by reason of the fact that if I ever make\na fortune, and I am reproached by anyone with my menial position as a\ntutor, I shall then be able to give out that it was love which got me\nthe post.\"\n\nJulien again took his hand away from Madame de Renal, and then took her\nhand again and pressed it. As they went back to the drawing-room about\nmidnight, Madame de Renal said to him in a whisper.\n\n\"You are leaving us, you are going?\"\n\nJulien answered with a sigh.\n\n\"I absolutely must leave, for I love you passionately. It is wrong\n... how wrong indeed for a young priest?\" Madame de Renal leant upon\nhis arm, and with so much abandon that her cheek felt the warmth of\nJulien's.\n\nThe nights of these two persons were quite different. Madame de\nRenal was exalted by the ecstacies of the highest moral pleasure. A\ncoquettish young girl, who loves early in life, gets habituated to\nthe trouble of love, and when she reaches the age of real passion,\nfinds the charm of novelty lacking. As Madame de Renal had never read\nany novels, all the refinements of her happiness were new to her. No\nmournful truth came to chill her, not even the spectre of the future.\nShe imagined herself as happy in ten years' time as she was at the\npresent moment. Even the idea of virtue and of her sworn fidelity to M.\nde Renal, which had agitated her some days past, now presented itself\nin vain, and was sent about its business like an importunate visitor.\n\"I will never grant anything to Julien,\" said Madame de Renal; \"we will\nlive in the future like we have been living for the last month. He\nshall be a friend.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nTHE ENGLISH SCISSORS\n\n\n        A young girl of sixteen had a pink complexion, and yet\n        used red rouge.--_Polidori_.\n\n\nFouque's offer had, as a matter of fact, taken away all Julien's\nhappiness; he could not make up his mind to any definite course. \"Alas!\nperhaps I am lacking in character. I should have been a bad soldier of\nNapoleon. At least,\" he added, \"my little intrigue with the mistress of\nthe house will distract me a little.\"\n\nHappily for him, even in this little subordinate incident, his inner\nemotions quite failed to correspond with his flippant words. He was\nfrightened of Madame de Renal because of her pretty dress. In his\neyes, that dress was a vanguard of Paris. His pride refused to leave\nanything to chance and the inspiration of the moment. He made himself\na very minute plan of campaign, moulded on the confidences of Fouque,\nand a little that he had read about love in the Bible. As he was very\nnervous, though he did not admit it to himself, he wrote down this plan.\n\nMadame de Renal was alone with him for a moment in the drawing-room on\nthe following morning.\n\n\"Have you no other name except Julien,\" she said.\n\nOur hero was at a loss to answer so nattering a question. This\ncircumstance had not been anticipated in his plan. If he had not been\nstupid enough to have made a plan, Julien's quick wit would have served\nhim well, and the surprise would only have intensified the quickness of\nhis perception.\n\nHe was clumsy, and exaggerated his clumsiness, Madame de Renal quickly\nforgave him. She attributed it to a charming frankness. And an air of\nfrankness was the very thing which in her view was just lacking in this\nman who was acknowledged to have so much genius.\n\n\"That little tutor of yours inspires me with a great deal of\nsuspicion,\" said Madame Derville to her sometimes. \"I think he looks as\nif he were always thinking, and he never acts without calculation. He\nis a sly fox.\"\n\nJulien remained profoundly humiliated by the misfortune of not having\nknown what answer to make to Madame de Renal.\n\n\"A man like I am ought to make up for this check!\" and seizing the\nmoment when they were passing from one room to another, he thought it\nwas his duty to give Madame de Renal a kiss.\n\nNothing could have been less tactful, nothing less agreeable, and\nnothing more imprudent both for him and for her. They were within\nan inch of being noticed. Madame de Renal thought him mad. She was\nfrightened, and above all, shocked. This stupidity reminded her of M.\nValenod.\n\n\"What would happen to me,\" she said to herself, \"if I were alone with\nhim?\" All her virtue returned, because her love was waning.\n\nShe so arranged it that one of her children always remained with her.\nJulien found the day very tedious, and passed it entirely in clumsily\nputting into operation his plan of seduction. He did not look at Madame\nde Renal on a single occasion without that look having a reason, but\nnevertheless he was not sufficiently stupid to fail to see that he was\nnot succeeding at all in being amiable, and was succeeding even less in\nbeing fascinating.\n\nMadame de Renal did not recover from her astonishment at finding him\nso awkward and at the same time so bold. \"It is the timidity of love\nin men of intellect,\" she said to herself with an inexpressible joy.\n\"Could it be possible that he had never been loved by my rival?\"\n\nAfter breakfast Madame de Renal went back to the drawing-room to\nreceive the visit of M. Charcot de Maugiron, the sub-prefect of Bray.\nShe was working at a little frame of fancy-work some distance from the\nground. Madame Derville was at her side; that was how she was placed\nwhen our hero thought it suitable to advance his boot in the full\nlight and press the pretty foot of Madame de Renal, whose open-work\nstockings, and pretty Paris shoe were evidently attracting the looks of\nthe gallant sub-prefect.\n\nMadame de Renal was very much afraid, and let fall her scissors, her\nball of wool and her needles, so that Julien's movement could be passed\nfor a clumsy effort, intended to prevent the fall of the scissors,\nwhich presumably he had seen slide. Fortunately, these little scissors\nof English steel were broken, and Madame de Renal did not spare her\nregrets that Julien had not succeeded in getting nearer to her. \"You\nnoticed them falling before I did--you could have prevented it,\ninstead, all your zealousness only succeeding in giving me a very big\nkick.\" All this took in the sub-perfect, but not Madame Derville. \"That\npretty boy has very silly manners,\" she thought. The social code of a\nprovincial capital never forgives this kind of lapse.\n\nMadame de Renal found an opportunity of saying to Julien, \"Be prudent,\nI order you.\"\n\nJulien appreciated his own clumsiness. He was upset. He deliberated\nwith himself for a long time, in order to ascertain whether or not he\nought to be angry at the expression \"I order you.\" He was silly enough\nto think she might have said \"I order you,\" if it were some question\nconcerning the children's education, but in answering my love she puts\nme on an equality. It is impossible to love without equality ... and\nall his mind ran riot in making common-places on equality. He angrily\nrepeated to himself that verse of Corneille which Madame Derville had\ntaught him some days before.\n\n                                      \"L'amour\n        les egalites, et ne les cherche pas.\"\n\nJulien who had never had a mistress in his whole life, but yet insisted\non playing the role of a Don Juan, made a shocking fool of himself all\nday. He had only one sensible idea. Bored with himself and Madame de\nRenal, he viewed with apprehension the advance of the evening when he\nwould have to sit by her side in the darkness of the garden. He told M.\nde Renal that he was going to Verrieres to see the cure. He left after\ndinner, and only came back in the night.\n\nAt Verrieres Julien found M. Chelan occupied in moving. He had just\nbeen deprived of his living; the curate Maslon was replacing him.\nJulien helped the good cure, and it occurred to him to write to Fouque\nthat the irresistible mission which he felt for the holy ministry had\npreviously prevented him from accepting his kind offer, but that he had\njust seen an instance of injustice, and that perhaps it would be safer\nnot to enter into Holy Orders.\n\nJulien congratulated himself on his subtlety in exploiting the\ndismissal of the cure of Verrieres so as to leave himself a loop-hole\nfor returning to commerce in the event of a gloomy prudence routing the\nspirit of heroism from his mind.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHE COCK'S SONG\n\n    Amour en latin faict amour;\n    Or done provient d'amour la mart,\n    Et, par avant, souley qui moreq,\n    Deuil, plours, pieges, forfailz, remord.\n                                     BLASON D'AMOUR.\n\n\nIf Julien had possessed a little of that adroitness on which he so\ngratuitously plumed himself, he could have congratulated himself the\nfollowing day on the effect produced by his journey to Verrieres. His\nabsence had caused his clumsiness to be forgotten. But on that day\nalso he was rather sulky. He had a ludicrous idea in the evening, and\nwith singular courage he communicated it to Madame de Renal. They had\nscarcely sat down in the garden before Julien brought his mouth near\nMadame de Renal's ear without waiting till it was sufficiently dark and\nat the risk of compromising her terribly, said to her,\n\n\"Madame, to-night, at two o'clock, I shall go into your room, I must\ntell you something.\"\n\nJulien trembled lest his request should be granted. His rakish pose\nweighed him down so terribly that if he could have followed his own\ninclination he would have returned to his room for several days and\nrefrained from seeing the ladies any more. He realised that he had\nspoiled by his clever conduct of last evening all the bright prospects\nof the day that had just passed, and was at his wits' end what to do.\n\nMadame de Renal answered the impertinent declaration which Julien had\ndared to make to her with indignation which was real and in no way\nexaggerated. He thought he could see contempt in her curt reply. The\nexpression \"for shame,\" had certainly occurred in that whispered answer.\n\nJulien went to the children's room under the pretext of having\nsomething to say to them, and on his return he placed himself beside\nMadame Derville and very far from Madame de Renal. He thus deprived\nhimself of all possibility of taking her hand. The conversation was\nserious, and Julien acquitted himself very well, apart from a few\nmoments of silence during which he was cudgelling his brains.\n\n\"Why can't I invent some pretty manoeuvre,\" he said to himself which\nwill force Madame de Renal to vouchsafe to me those unambiguous signs\nof tenderness which a few days ago made me think that she was mine.\n\nJulien was extremely disconcerted by the almost desperate plight\nto which he had brought his affairs. Nothing, however, would have\nembarrassed him more than success.\n\nWhen they separated at midnight, his pessimism made him think that\nhe enjoyed Madame Derville's contempt, and that probably he stood no\nbetter with Madame de Renal.\n\nFeeling in a very bad temper and very humiliated, Julien did not sleep.\nHe was leagues away from the idea of giving up all intriguing and\nplanning, and of living from day to day with Madame de Renal, and of\nbeing contented like a child with the happiness brought by every day.\n\nHe racked his brains inventing clever manoeuvres, which an instant\nafterwards he found absurd, and, to put it shortly, was very unhappy\nwhen two o'clock rang from the castle clock.\n\nThe noise woke him up like the cock's crow woke up St. Peter. The most\npainful episode was now timed to begin--he had not given a thought to\nhis impertinent proposition, since the moment when he had made it and\nit had been so badly received.\n\n\"I have told her that I will go to her at two o'clock,\" he said to\nhimself as he got up, \"I may be inexperienced and coarse, as the son\nof a peasant naturally would be. Madame Derville has given me to\nunderstand as much, but at any rate, I will not be weak.\"\n\nJulien had reason to congratulate himself on his courage, for he had\nnever put his self-control to so painful a test. As he opened his door,\nhe was trembling to such an extent that his knees gave way under him,\nand he was forced to lean against the wall.\n\nHe was without shoes; he went and listened at M. de Renal's door, and\ncould hear his snoring. He was disconsolate, he had no longer any\nexcuse for not going to her room. But, Great Heaven! What was he to do\nthere? He had no plan, and even if he had had one, he felt himself so\nnervous that he would have been incapable of carrying it out.\n\nEventually, suffering a thousand times more than if he had been walking\nto his death, he entered the little corridor that led to Madame de\nRenal's room. He opened the door with a trembling hand and made a\nfrightful noise.\n\nThere was light; a night light was burning on the mantelpiece. He\nhad not expected this new misfortune. As she saw him enter, Madame\nde Renal got quickly out of bed. \"Wretch,\" she cried. There was a\nlittle confusion. Julien forgot his useless plans, and turned to his\nnatural role. To fail to please so charming a woman appeared to him the\ngreatest of misfortunes. His only answer to her reproaches was to throw\nhimself at her feet while he kissed her knees. As she was speaking to\nhim with extreme harshness, he burst into tears.\n\nWhen Julien came out of Madame de Renal's room some hours afterwards,\none could have said, adopting the conventional language of the novel,\nthat there was nothing left to be desired. In fact, he owed to the love\nhe had inspired, and to the unexpected impression which her alluring\ncharms had produced upon him, a victory to which his own clumsy tactics\nwould never have led him.\n\nBut victim that he was of a distorted pride, he pretended even in\nthe sweetest moments to play the role of a man accustomed to the\nsubjugation of women: he made incredible but deliberate efforts to\nspoil his natural charm. Instead of watching the transports which he\nwas bringing into existence, and those pangs of remorse which only set\ntheir keenness into fuller relief, the idea of duty was continually\nbefore his eyes. He feared a frightful remorse, and eternal ridicule,\nif he departed from the ideal model he proposed to follow. In a word,\nthe very quality which made Julien into a superior being was precisely\nthat which prevented him from savouring the happiness which was placed\nwithin his grasp. It's like the case of a young girl of sixteen with a\ncharming complexion who is mad enough to put on rouge before going to a\nball.\n\nMortally terrified by the apparition of Julien, Madame de Renal was\nsoon a prey to the most cruel alarm. The prayers and despair of Julien\ntroubled her keenly.\n\nEven when there was nothing left for her to refuse him she pushed\nJulien away from her with a genuine indignation, and straightway threw\nherself into his arms. There was no plan apparent in all this conduct.\nShe thought herself eternally damned, and tried to hide from herself\nthe sight of hell by loading Julien with the wildest caresses. In a\nword, nothing would have been lacking in our hero's happiness, not even\nan ardent sensibility in the woman whom he had just captured, if he had\nonly known how to enjoy it. Julien's departure did not in any way bring\nto an end those ecstacies which thrilled her in spite of herself, and\nthose troubles of remorse which lacerated her.\n\n\"My God! being happy--being loved, is that all it comes to?\" This was\nJulien's first thought as he entered his room. He was a prey to the\nastonishment and nervous anxiety of the man who has just obtained\nwhat he has long desired. He has been accustomed to desire, and has\nno longer anything to desire, and nevertheless has no memories. Like\na soldier coming back from parade. Julien was absorbed in rehearsing\nthe details of his conduct. \"Have I failed in nothing which I owe to\nmyself? Have I played my part well?\"\n\nAnd what a part! the part of a man accustomed to be brilliant with\nwomen.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTHE DAY AFTER\n\n\n    He turned his lips to hers and with his hand\n    Called back the tangles of her wandering hair.\n                               _Don Juan,_ c. I, st. 170.\n\n\nHappily for Julien's fame, Madame de Renal had been too agitated and\ntoo astonished to appreciate the stupidity of the man who had in a\nsingle moment become the whole to world her.\n\n\"Oh, my God!\" she said to herself, as she pressed him to retire when\nshe saw the dawn break, \"if my husband has heard the noise, I am lost.\"\nJulien, who had had the time to make up some phrases, remembered this\none,\n\n\"Would you regret your life?\"\n\n\"Oh, very much at a moment like this, but I should not regret having\nknown you.\"\n\nJulien thought it incumbent on his dignity to go back to his room in\nbroad daylight and with deliberate imprudence.\n\nThe continuous attention with which he kept on studying his slightest\nactions with the absurd idea of appearing a man of experience had only\none advantage. When he saw Madame de Renal again at breakfast his\nconduct was a masterpiece of prudence.\n\nAs for her, she could not look at him without blushing up to the eyes,\nand could not live a moment without looking at him. She realised her\nown nervousness, and her efforts to hide it redoubled. Julien only\nlifted his eyes towards her once. At first Madame de Renal admired\nhis prudence: soon seeing that this single look was not repealed, she\nbecame alarmed. \"Could it be that he does not love me?\" she said to\nherself. \"Alas! I am quite old for him. I am ten years older than he\nis.\"\n\nAs she passed from the dining-room to the garden, she pressed Julien's\nhand. In the surprise caused by so singular a mark of love, he regarded\nher with passion, for he had thought her very pretty over breakfast,\nand while keeping his eyes downcast he had passed his time in thinking\nof the details of her charms. This look consoled Madame de Renal. It\ndid not take away all her anxiety, but her anxiety tended to take away\nnearly completely all her remorse towards her husband.\n\nThe husband had noticed nothing at breakfast. It was not so with\nMadame Derville. She thought she saw Madame de Renal on the point of\nsuccumbing. During the whole day her bold and incisive friendship\nregaled her cousin with those innuendoes which were intended to paint\nin hideous colours the dangers she was running.\n\nMadame de Renal was burning to find herself alone with Julien. She\nwished to ask him if he still loved her. In spite of the unalterable\nsweetness of her character, she was several times on the point of\nnotifying her friend how officious she was.\n\nMadame Derville arranged things so adroitly that evening in the garden,\nthat she found herself placed between Madame de Renal and Julien.\nMadame de Renal, who had thought in her imagination how delicious it\nwould be to press Julien's hand and carry it to her lips, was not able\nto address a single word to him.\n\nThis hitch increased her agitation. She was devoured by one pang of\nremorse. She had so scolded Julien for his imprudence in coming to her\nroom on the preceding night, that she trembled lest he should not come\nto-night. She left the garden early and went and ensconced herself in\nher room, but not being able to control her impatience, she went and\nglued her ear to Julien's door. In spite of the uncertainty and passion\nwhich devoured her, she did not dare to enter. This action seemed\nto her the greatest possible meanness, for it forms the basis of a\nprovincial proverb.\n\nThe servants had not yet all gone to bed. Prudence at last compelled\nher to return to her room. Two hours of waiting were two centuries of\ntorture.\n\nJulien was too faithful to what he called his duty to fail to\naccomplish stage by stage what he had mapped out for himself.\n\nAs one o'clock struck, he escaped softly from his room, assured himself\nthat the master of the house was soundly asleep, and appeared in Madame\nde Renal's room. To-night he experienced more happiness by the side of\nhis love, for he thought less constantly about the part he had to play.\nHe had eyes to see, and ears to hear. What Madame de Renal said to him\nabout his age contributed to give him some assurance.\n\n\"Alas! I am ten years older than you. How can you love me?\" she\nrepeated vaguely, because the idea oppressed her.\n\nJulien could not realise her happiness, but he saw that it was genuine\nand he forgot almost entirely his own fear of being ridiculous.\n\nThe foolish thought that he was regarded as an inferior, by reason of\nhis obscure birth, disappeared also. As Julien's transports reassured\nhis timid mistress, she regained a little of her happiness, and of her\npower to judge her lover. Happily, he had not, on this occasion, that\nartificial air which had made the assignation of the previous night a\ntriumph rather than a pleasure. If she had realised his concentration\non playing a part that melancholy discovery would have taken away all\nher happiness for ever. She could only have seen in it the result of\nthe difference in their ages.\n\nAlthough Madame de Renal had never thought of the theories of love,\ndifference in age is next to difference in fortune, one of the great\ncommonplaces of provincial witticisms, whenever love is the topic of\nconversation.\n\nIn a few days Julien surrendered himself with all the ardour of his\nage, and was desperately in love.\n\n\"One must own,\" he said to himself, \"that she has an angelic kindness\nof soul, and no one in the world is prettier.\"\n\nHe had almost completely given up playing a part. In a moment of\nabandon, he even confessed to her all his nervousness. This confidence\nraised the passion which he was inspiring to its zenith. \"And I have no\nlucky rival after all,\" said Madame de Renal to herself with delight.\nShe ventured to question him on the portrait in which he used to be so\ninterested. Julien swore to her that it was that of a man.\n\nWhen Madame de Renal had enough presence of mind left to reflect, she\ndid not recover from her astonishment that so great a happiness could\nexist; and that she had never had anything of.\n\n\"Oh,\" she said to herself, \"if I had only known Julien ten years ago\nwhen I was still considered pretty.\"\n\nJulien was far from having thoughts like these. His love was still\nakin to ambition. It was the joy of possessing, poor, unfortunate and\ndespised as he was, so beautiful a woman. His acts of devotion, and his\necstacies at the sight of his mistress's charms finished by reassuring\nher a little with regard to the difference of age. If she had possessed\na little of that knowledge of life which the woman of thirty has\nenjoyed in the more civilised of countries for quite a long time, she\nwould have trembled for the duration of a love, which only seemed to\nthrive on novelty and the intoxication of a young man's vanity. In\nthose moments when he forgot his ambition, Julien admired ecstatically\neven the hats and even the dresses of Madame de Renal. He could not\nsate himself with the pleasure of smelling their perfume. He would open\nher mirrored cupboard, and remain hours on end admiring the beauty and\nthe order of everything that he found there. His love leaned on him and\nlooked at him. He was looking at those jewels and those dresses which\nhad had been her wedding presents.\n\n\"I might have married a man like that,\" thought Madame de Renal\nsometimes. \"What a fiery soul! What a delightful life one would have\nwith him?\"\n\nAs for Julien, he had never been so near to those terrible instruments\nof feminine artillery. \"It is impossible,\" he said to himself \"for\nthere to be anything more beautiful in Paris.\" He could find no flaw\nin his happiness. The sincere admiration and ecstacies of his mistress\nwould frequently make him forget that silly pose which had rendered\nhim so stiff and almost ridiculous during the first moments of the\nintrigue. There were moments where, in spite of his habitual hypocrisy,\nhe found an extreme delight in confessing to this great lady who\nadmired him, his ignorance of a crowd of little usages. His mistress's\nrank seemed to lift him above himself. Madame de Renal, on her side,\nwould find the sweetest thrill of intellectual voluptuousness in thus\ninstructing in a number of little things this young man who was so full\nof genius, and who was looked upon by everyone as destined one day to\ngo so far. Even the sub-prefect and M. Valenod could not help admiring\nhim. She thought it made them less foolish. As for Madame Derville, she\nwas very far from being in a position to express the same sentiments.\nRendered desperate by what she thought she divined, and seeing that\nher good advice was becoming offensive to a woman who had literally\nlost her head, she left Vergy without giving the explanation, which\nher friend carefully refrained from asking. Madame de Renal shed a few\ntears for her, and soon found her happiness greater than ever. As a\nresult of her departure, she found herself alone with her lover nearly\nthe whole day.\n\nJulien abandoned himself all the more to the delightful society of his\nsweetheart, since, whenever he was alone, Fouque's fatal proposition\nstill continued to agitate him. During the first days of his novel life\nthere were moments when the man who had never loved, who had never been\nloved by anyone, would find so delicious a pleasure in being sincere,\nthat he was on the point of confessing to Madame de Renal that ambition\nwhich up to then had been the very essence of his existence. He would\nhave liked to have been able to consult her on the strange temptation\nwhich Fouque's offer held out to him, but a little episode rendered any\nfrankness impossible.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nTHE FIRST DEPUTY\n\n    Oh, how this spring of love resembleth\n    The uncertain glory of an April day,\n    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,\n    And by and by a cloud takes all away.\n                   _Two Gentlemen of Verona._\n\n\nOne evening when the sun was setting, and he was sitting near his love,\nat the bottom of the orchard, far from all intruders, he meditated\ndeeply. \"Will such sweet moments\" he said to himself \"last for ever?\"\nHis soul was engrossed in the difficulty of deciding on a calling. He\nlamented that great attack of unhappiness which comes at the end of\nchildhood and spoils the first years of youth in those who are not rich.\n\n\"Ah!\" he exclaimed, \"was not Napoleon the heaven-sent saviour for young\nFrenchmen? Who is to replace him? What will those unfortunate youths\ndo without him, who, even though they are richer than I am, have only\njust the few crowns necessary to procure an education for themselves,\nbut have not at the age of twenty enough money to buy a man and advance\nthemselves in their career.\" \"Whatever one does,\" he added, with a deep\nsigh, \"this fatal memory will always prevent our being happy.\"\n\nHe suddenly saw Madame de Renal frown. She assumed a cold and\ndisdainful air. She thought his way of looking at things typical of a\nservant. Brought up as she was with the idea that she was very rich,\nshe took it for granted that Julien was so also. She loved him a\nthousand times more than life and set no store by money.\n\nJulien was far from guessing these ideas, but that frown brought him\nback to earth. He had sufficient presence of mind to manipulate his\nphrases, and to give the noble lady who was sitting so near him on the\ngrass seat to understand that the words he had just repeated had been\nheard by him during his journey to his friend the wood merchant. It was\nthe logic of infidels.\n\n\"Well, have nothing to do with those people,\" said Madame de Renal,\nstill keeping a little of that icy air which had suddenly succeeded an\nexpression of the warmest tenderness.\n\nThis frown, or rather his remorse for his own imprudence, was the\nfirst check to the illusion which was transporting Julien. He said to\nhimself, \"She is good and sweet, she has a great fancy for me, but she\nhas been brought up in the enemy's camp. They must be particularly\nafraid of that class of men of spirit who, after a good education, have\nnot enough money to take up a career. What would become of those nobles\nif we had an opportunity of fighting them with equal arms. Suppose me,\nfor example, mayor of Verrieres, and as well meaning and honest as M.\nde Renal is at bottom. What short shrift I should make of the vicaire,\nM. Valenod and all their jobberies! How justice would triumph in\nVerrieres. It is not their talents which would stop me. They are always\nfumbling about.\"\n\nThat day Julien's happiness almost became permanent. Our hero lacked\nthe power of daring to be sincere. He ought to have had the courage to\nhave given battle, and on the spot; Madame de Renal had been astonished\nby Julien's phrase, because the men in her circle kept on repeating\nthat the return of Robespierre was essentially possible by reason of\nthose over-educated young persons of the lower classes. Madame de\nRenal's coldness lasted a longish time, and struck Julien as marked.\nThe reason was that the fear that she had said something in some way or\nother disagreeable to him, succeeded her annoyance for his own breach\nof taste. This unhappiness was vividly reflected in those features\nwhich looked so pure and so naive when she was happy and away from\nintruders.\n\nJulien no longer dared to surrender himself to his dreams. Growing\ncalmer and less infatuated, he considered that it was imprudent to go\nand see Madame de Renal in her room. It was better for her to come to\nhim. If a servant noticed her going about the house, a dozen different\nexcuses could explain it.\n\nBut this arrangement had also its inconveniences. Julien had received\nfrom Fouque some books, which he, as a theology student would never\nhave dared to ask for in a bookshop. He only dared to open them at\nnight. He would often have found it much more convenient not to be\ninterrupted by a visit, the very waiting for which had even on the\nevening before the little scene in the orchard completely destroyed his\nmood for reading.\n\nHe had Madame de Renal to thank for understanding books in quite a new\nway. He had dared to question her on a number of little things, the\nignorance of which cuts quite short the intellectual progress of any\nyoung man born out of society, however much natural genius one may\nchoose to ascribe to him.\n\nThis education given through sheer love by a woman who was extremely\nignorant, was a piece of luck. Julien managed to get a clear insight\ninto society such as it is to-day. His mind was not bewildered by the\nnarration of what it had been once, two thousand years ago, or even\nsixty years ago, in the time of Voltaire and Louis XV. The scales fell\nfrom his eyes to his inexpressible joy, and he understood at last what\nwas going on in Verrieres.\n\nIn the first place there were the very complicated intrigues which\nhad been woven for the last two years around the prefect of Besancon.\nThey were backed up by letters from Paris, written by the cream of\nthe aristocracy. The scheme was to make M. de Moirod (he was the most\ndevout man in the district) the first and not the second deputy of the\nmayor of Verrieres.\n\nHe had for a competitor a very rich manufacturer whom it was essential\nto push back into the place of second deputy.\n\nJulien understood at last the innuendoes which he had surprised,\nwhen the high society of the locality used to come and dine at M. de\nRenal's. This privileged society was deeply concerned with the choice\nof a first deputy, while the rest of the town, and above all, the\nLiberals, did not even suspect its possibility. The factor which made\nthe matter important was that, as everybody knows, the east side of the\nmain street of Verrieres has to be put more than nine feet back since\nthat street has become a royal route.\n\nNow if M. de Moirod, who had three houses liable to have their frontage\nput back, succeeded in becoming first deputy and consequently mayor in\nthe event of M. de Renal being elected to the chamber, he would shut\nhis eyes, and it would be possible to make little imperceptible repairs\nin the houses projecting on to the public road, as the result of which\nthey would last a hundred years. In spite of the great piety and proved\nintegrity of M. de Moirod, everyone was certain that he would prove\namenable, because he had a great many children. Among the houses liable\nto have their frontage put back nine belonged to the cream of Verrieres\nsociety.\n\nIn Julien's eyes this intrigue was much more important than the history\nof the battle of Fontenoy, whose name he now came across for the first\ntime in one of the books which Fouque had sent him. There had been\nmany things which had astonished Julien since the time five years ago\nwhen he had started going to the cure's in the evening. But discretion\nand humility of spirit being the primary qualities of a theological\nstudent, it had always been impossible for him to put questions.\n\nOne day Madame de Renal was giving an order to her husband's valet who\nwas Julien's enemy.\n\n\"But, Madame, to-day is the last Friday in the month,\" the man answered\nin a rather strange manner.\n\n\"Go,\" said Madame de Renal.\n\n\"Well,\" said Julien, \"I suppose he's going to go to that corn shop\nwhich was once a church, and has recently been restored to religion,\nbut what is he going to do there? That's one of the mysteries which I\nhave never been able to fathom.\"\n\n\"It's a very literary institution, but a very curious one,\" answered\nMadame de Renal. \"Women are not admitted to it. All I know is, that\neverybody uses the second person singular. This servant, for instance,\nwill go and meet M. Valenod there, and the haughty prig will not be\na bit offended at hearing himself addressed by Saint-Jean in that\nfamiliar way, and will answer him in the same way. If you are keen on\nknowing what takes place, I will ask M. de Maugiron and M. Valenod\nfor details. We pay twenty francs for each servant, to prevent their\ncutting our throats one fine day.\"\n\nTime flew. The memory of his mistress's charms distracted Julien from\nhis black ambition. The necessity of refraining from mentioning gloomy\nor intellectual topics since they both belonged to opposing parties,\nadded, without his suspecting it, to the happiness which he owed her,\nand to the dominion which she acquired over him.\n\nOn the occasions when the presence of the precocious children reduced\nthem to speaking the language of cold reason, Julien looking at her\nwith eyes sparkling with love, would listen with complete docility to\nher explanations of the world as it is. Frequently, in the middle of an\naccount of some cunning piece of jobbery, with reference to a road or\na contract, Madame de Renal's mind would suddenly wander to the very\npoint of delirium. Julien found it necessary to scold her. She indulged\nwhen with him in the same intimate gestures which she used with her\nown children. The fact was that there were days when she deceived\nherself that she loved him like her own child. Had she not repeatedly\nto answer his naive questions about a thousand simple things that a\nwell-born child of fifteen knows quite well? An instant afterwards\nshe would admire him like her master. His genius would even go so far\nas to frighten her. She thought she should see more clearly every day\nthe future great man in this young abbe. She saw him Pope; she saw him\nfirst minister like Richelieu. \"Shall I live long enough to see you in\nyour glory?\" she said to Julien. \"There is room for a great man; church\nand state have need of one.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nA KING AT VERRIERES\n\n\n    Do you not deserve to be thrown aside like a plebeian\n    corpse which has no soul and whose blood flows no\n    longer in its veins.\n                   _Sermon of the Bishop at the Chapel of Saint Clement_.\n\n\nOn the 3rd of September at ten o'clock in the evening, a gendarme woke\nup the whole of Verrieres by galloping up the main street. He brought\nthe news that His Majesty the King of ---- would arrive the following\nSunday, and it was already Tuesday. The prefect authorised, that is to\nsay, demanded the forming of a guard of honour. They were to exhibit\nall possible pomp. An express messenger was sent to Vergy. M. de Renal\narrived during the night and found the town in a commotion. Each\nindividual had his own pretensions; those who were less busy hired\nbalconies to see the King.\n\nWho was to command the Guard of Honour? M. de Renal at once realised\nhow essential it was in the interests of the houses liable to have\ntheir frontage put back that M. de Moirod should have the command.\nThat might entitle him to the post of first deputy-mayor. There was\nnothing to say against the devoutness of M. de Moirod. It brooked\nno comparison, but he had never sat on a horse. He was a man of\nthirty-six, timid in every way, and equally frightened of falling and\nof looking ridiculous. The mayor had summoned him as early as five\no'clock in the morning.\n\n\"You see, monsieur, I ask your advice, as though you already occupy\nthat post to which all the people on the right side want to carry you.\nIn this unhappy town, manufacturers are prospering, the Liberal party\nis becoming possessed of millions, it aspires to power; it will manage\nto exploit everything to its own ends. Let us consult the interests of\nthe king, the interest of the monarchy, and above all, the interest of\nour holy religion. Who do you think, monsieur, could be entrusted with\nthe command of the guard of honour?\"\n\nIn spite of the terrible fear with which horses inspired him, M. de\nMoirod finished by accepting this honour like a martyr. \"I shall know\nhow to take the right tone,\" he said to the mayor. There was scarcely\ntime enough to get ready the uniforms which had served seven years ago\non the occasion of the passage of a prince of the blood.\n\nAt seven o'clock, Madame de Renal arrived at Vergy with Julien and\nthe children. She found her drawing room filled with Liberal ladies\nwho preached the union of all parties and had come to beg her to urge\nher husband to grant a place to theirs in the guard of honour. One of\nthem actually asserted that if her husband was not chosen he would go\nbankrupt out of chagrin. Madame de Renal quickly got rid of all these\npeople. She seemed very engrossed.\n\nJulien was astonished, and what was more, angry that she should make\na mystery of what was disturbing her, \"I had anticipated it,\" he said\nbitterly to himself. \"Her love is being over-shadowed by the happiness\nof receiving a King in her house. All this hubbub overcomes her. She\nwill love me once more when the ideas of her caste no longer trouble\nher brain.\"\n\nAn astonishing fact, he only loved her the more.\n\nThe decorators began to fill the house. He watched a long time for the\nopportunity to exchange a few words. He eventually found her as she was\ncoming out of his own room, carrying one of his suits. They were alone.\nHe tried to speak to her. She ran away, refusing to listen to him. \"I\nam an absolute fool to love a woman like that, whose ambition renders\nher as mad as her husband.\"\n\nShe was madder. One of her great wishes which she had never confessed\nto Julien for fear of shocking him, was to see him leave off, if only\nfor one day, his gloomy black suit. With an adroitness which was truly\nadmirable in so ingenuous a woman, she secured first from M. de Moirod,\nand subsequently, from M. the sub-perfect de Maugiron, an assurance\nthat Julien should be nominated a guard of honour in preference to five\nor six young people, the sons of very well-off manufacturers, of whom\ntwo at least, were models of piety. M. de Valenod, who reckoned on\nlending his carriage to the prettiest women in the town, and on showing\noff his fine Norman steeds, consented to let Julien (the being he hated\nmost in the whole world) have one of his horses. But all the guards of\nhonour, either possessed or had borrowed, one of those pretty sky-blue\nuniforms, with two silver colonel epaulettes, which had shone seven\nyears ago. Madame de Renal wanted a new uniform, and she only had four\ndays in which to send to Besancon and get from there the uniform, the\narms, the hat, etc., everything necessary for a Guard of Honour. The\nmost delightful part of it was that she thought it imprudent to get\nJulien's uniform made at Verrieres. She wanted to surprise both him and\nthe town.\n\nHaving settled the questions of the guards of honour, and of the public\nwelcome finished, the mayor had now to organise a great religious\nceremony. The King of ---- did not wish to pass through Verrieres\nwithout visiting the famous relic of St. Clement, which is kept at\nBray-le-Haut barely a league from the town. The authorities wanted\nto have a numerous attendance of the clergy, but this matter was the\nmost difficult to arrange. M. Maslon, the new cure, wanted to avoid at\nany price the presence of M. Chelan. It was in vain that M. de Renal\ntried to represent to him that it would be imprudent to do so. M. the\nMarquis de La Mole whose ancestors had been governors of the province\nfor so many generations, had been chosen to accompany the King of ----.\nHe had known the abbe Chelan for thirty years. He would certainly ask\nnews of him when he arrived at Verrieres, and if he found him disgraced\nhe was the very man to go and route him out in the little house to\nwhich he had retired, accompanied by all the escort that he had at his\ndisposition. What a rebuff that would be?\n\n\"I shall be disgraced both here and at Besancon,\" answered the abbe\nMaslon, \"if he appears among my clergy. A Jansenist, by the Lord.\"\n\n\"Whatever you can say, my dear abbe,\" replied M. de Renal, \"I'll never\nexpose the administration of Verrieres to receiving such an affront\nfrom M. de la Mole. You do not know him. He is orthodox enough at\nCourt, but here in the provinces, he is a satirical wit and cynic,\nwhose only object is to make people uncomfortable. He is capable of\ncovering us with ridicule in the eyes of the Liberals, simply in order\nto amuse himself.\"\n\nIt was only on the night between the Saturday and the Sunday, after\nthree whole days of negotiations that the pride of the abbe Maslon bent\nbefore the fear of the mayor, which was now changing into courage. It\nwas necessary to write a honeyed letter to the abbe Chelan, begging\nhim to be present at the ceremony in connection with the relic of\nBray-le-Haut, if of course, his great age and his infirmity allowed him\nto do so. M. Chelan asked for and obtained a letter of invitation for\nJulien, who was to accompany him as his sub-deacon.\n\nFrom the beginning of the Sunday morning, thousands of peasants began\nto arrive from the neighbouring mountains, and to inundate the streets\nof Verrieres. It was the finest sunshine. Finally, about three o'clock,\na thrill swept through all this crowd. A great fire had been perceived\non a rock two leagues from Verrieres. This signal announced that the\nking had just entered the territory of the department. At the same\ntime, the sound of all the bells and the repeated volleys from an old\nSpanish cannon which belonged to the town, testified to its joy at\nthis great event. Half the population climbed on to the roofs. All the\nwomen were on the balconies. The guard of honour started to march, The\nbrilliant uniforms were universally admired; everybody recognised a\nrelative or a friend. They made fun of the timidity of M. de Moirod,\nwhose prudent hand was ready every single minute to catch hold of his\nsaddle-bow. But one remark resulted in all the others being forgotten;\nthe first cavalier in the ninth line was a very pretty, slim boy, who\nwas not recognised at first. He soon created a general sensation, as\nsome uttered a cry of indignation, and others were dumbfounded with\nastonishment. They recognised in this young man, who was sitting one\nof the Norman horses of M. Valenod, little Sorel, the carpenter's son.\nThere was a unanimous out-cry against the mayor, above all on the part\nof the Liberals. What, because this little labourer, who masqueraded as\nan abbe, was tutor to his brats, he had the audacity to nominate him\nguard of honour to the prejudice of rich manufacturers like so-and-so\nand so-and-so! \"Those gentlemen,\" said a banker's wife, \"ought to put\nthat insolent gutter-boy in his proper place.\"\n\n\"He is cunning and carries a sabre,\" answered her neighbour. \"He would\nbe dastardly enough to slash them in the face.\"\n\nThe conversation of aristocratic society was more dangerous. The ladies\nbegan to ask each other if the mayor alone was responsible for this\ngrave impropriety. Speaking generally, they did justice to his contempt\nfor lack of birth.\n\nJulien was the happiest of men, while he was the subject of so much\nconversation. Bold by nature, he sat a horse better than the majority\nof the young men of this mountain town. He saw that, in the eyes of the\nwomen, he was the topic of interest.\n\nHis epaulettes were more brilliant than those of the others, because\nthey were new. His horse pranced at every moment. He reached the zenith\nof joy.\n\nHis happiness was unbounded when, as they passed by the old rampart,\nthe noise of the little cannon made his horse prance outside the line.\nBy a great piece of luck he did not fall; from that moment he felt\nhimself a hero. He was one of Napoleon's officers of artillery, and was\ncharging a battery.\n\nOne person was happier than he. She had first seen him pass from one\nof the folding windows in the Hotel de Ville. Then taking her carriage\nand rapidly making a long detour, she arrived in time to shudder when\nhis horse took him outside the line. Finally she put her carriage to\nthe gallop, left by another gate of the town, succeeded in rejoining\nthe route by which the King was to pass, and was able to follow the\nGuard of Honour at twenty paces distance in the midst of a noble dust.\nSix thousand peasants cried \"Long live the King,\" when the mayor had\nthe honour to harangue his Majesty. An hour afterwards, when all the\nspeeches had been listened to, and the King was going to enter the\ntown, the little cannon began again to discharge its spasmodic volleys.\nBut an accident ensued, the victim being, not one of the cannoneers who\nhad proved their mettle at Leipsic and at Montreuil, but the future\ndeputy-mayor, M. de Moirod. His horse gently laid him in the one heap\nof mud on the high road, a somewhat scandalous circumstance, inasmuch\nas it was necessary to extricate him to allow the King to pass. His\nMajesty alighted at the fine new church, which was decked out to-day\nwith all its crimson curtains. The King was due to dine, and then\nafterwards take his carriage again and go and pay his respects to the\ncelebrated relic of Saint Clement. Scarcely was the King in the church\nthan Julien galloped towards the house of M. de Renal. Once there\nhe doffed with a sigh his fine sky-blue uniform, his sabre and his\nepaulettes, to put on again his shabby little black suit. He mounted\nhis horse again, and in a few moments was at Bray-le-Haut, which was\non the summit of a very pretty hill. \"Enthusiasm is responsible for\nthese numbers of peasants,\" thought Julien. It was impossible to move\na step at Verrieres, and here there were more than ten thousand round\nthis ancient abbey. Half ruined by the vandalism of the Revolution,\nit had been magnificently restored since the Restoration, and people\nwere already beginning to talk of miracles. Julien rejoined the abbe\nChelan, who scolded him roundly and gave him a cassock and a surplice.\nHe dressed quickly and followed M. Chelan, who was going to pay a call\non the young bishop of Agde. He was a nephew of M. de la Mole, who had\nbeen recently nominated, and had been charged with the duty of showing\nthe relic to the King. But the bishop was not to be found.\n\nThe clergy began to get impatient. It was awaiting its chief in the\nsombre Gothic cloister of the ancient abbey. Twenty-four cures had\nbeen brought together so as to represent the ancient chapter of\nBray-le-Haut, which before 1789 consisted of twenty-four canons. The\ncures, having deplored the bishop's youth for three-quarters of an\nhour, thought it fitting for their senior to visit Monseigneur to\napprise him that the King was on the point of arriving, and that it was\ntime to betake himself to the choir. The great age of M. Chelan gave\nhim the seniority. In spite of the bad temper which he was manifesting\nto Julien, he signed him to follow. Julien was wearing his surplice\nwith distinction. By means of some trick or other of ecclesiastical\ndress, he had made his fine curling hair very flat, but by a\nforgetfulness, which redoubled the anger of M. Chelan, the spurs of the\nGuard of Honour could be seen below the long folds of his cassock.\n\nWhen they arrived at the bishop's apartment, the tall lackeys with\ntheir lace-frills scarcely deigned to answer the old cure to the effect\nthat Monseigneur was not receiving. They made fun of him when he tried\nto explain that in his capacity of senior member of the chapter of\nBray-le-Haut, he had the privilege of being admitted at any time to the\nofficiating bishop.\n\nJulien's haughty temper was shocked by the lackeys' insolence. He\nstarted to traverse the corridors of the ancient abbey, and to shake\nall the doors which he found. A very small one yielded to his efforts,\nand he found himself in a cell in the midst of Monseigneur's valets,\nwho were dressed in black suits with chains on their necks. His hurried\nmanner made these gentlemen think that he had been sent by the bishop,\nand they let him pass. He went some steps further on, and found himself\nin an immense Gothic hall, which was extremely dark, and completely\nwainscotted in black oak. The ogive windows had all been walled in\nwith brick except one. There was nothing to disguise the coarseness\nof this masonry, which offered a melancholy contrast to the ancient\nmagnificence of the woodwork. The two great sides of this hall, so\ncelebrated among Burgundian antiquaries, and built by the Duke, Charles\nthe Bold, about 1470 in expiation of some sin, were adorned with richly\nsculptured wooden stalls. All the mysteries of the Apocalypse were to\nbe seen portrayed in wood of different colours.\n\nThis melancholy magnificence, debased as it was by the sight of the\nbare bricks and the plaster (which was still quite white) affected\nJulien. He stopped in silence. He saw at the other extremity of the\nhall, near the one window which let in the daylight, a movable mahogany\nmirror. A young man in a violet robe and a lace surplice, but with his\nhead bare, was standing still three paces from the glass. This piece\nof furniture seemed strange in a place like this, and had doubtless\nbeen only brought there on the previous day. Julien thought that the\nyoung man had the appearance of being irritated. He was solemnly giving\nbenedictions with his right hand close to the mirror.\n\n\"What can this mean,\" he thought. \"Is this young priest performing some\npreliminary ceremony? Perhaps he is the bishop's secretary. He will be\nas insolent as the lackeys. Never mind though! Let us try.\" He advanced\nand traversed somewhat slowly the length of the hall, with his gaze\nfixed all the time on the one window, and looking at the young man who\ncontinued without any intermission bestowing slowly an infinite number\nof blessings.\n\nThe nearer he approached the better he could distinguish his angry\nmanner. The richness of the lace surplice stopped Julien in spite of\nhimself some paces in front of the mirror. \"It is my duty to speak,\" he\nsaid to himself at last. But the beauty of the hall had moved him, and\nhe was already upset by the harsh words he anticipated.\n\nThe young man saw him in the mirror, turned round, and suddenly\ndiscarding his angry manner, said to him in the gentlest tone,\n\n\"Well, Monsieur, has it been arranged at last?\"\n\nJulien was dumbfounded. As the young man began to turn towards him,\nJulien saw the pectoral cross on his breast. It was the bishop of Agde.\n\"As young as that,\" thought Julien. \"At most six or eight years older\nthan I am!\"\n\nHe was ashamed of his spurs.\n\n\"Monseigneur,\" he said at last, \"I am sent by M. Chelan, the senior of\nthe chapter.\"\n\n\"Ah, he has been well recommended to me,\" said the bishop in a polished\ntone which doubled Julien's delight, \"But I beg your pardon, Monsieur,\nI mistook you for the person who was to bring me my mitre. It was badly\npacked at Paris. The silver cloth towards the top has been terribly\nspoiled. It will look awful,\" ended the young bishop sadly, \"And\nbesides, I am being kept waiting.\"\n\n\"Monseigneur, I will go and fetch the mitre if your grace will let me.\"\n\nJulien's fine eyes did their work.\n\n\"Go, Monsieur,\" answered the bishop, with charming politeness. \"I need\nit immediately. I am grieved to keep the gentlemen of the chapter\nwaiting.\"\n\nWhen Julien reached the centre of the hall, he turned round towards the\nbishop, and saw that he had again commenced giving benedictions.\n\n\"What can it be?\" Julien asked himself. \"No doubt it is a necessary\necclesiastical preliminary for the ceremony which is to take place.\"\nWhen he reached the cell in which the valets were congregated, he\nsaw the mitre in their hands. These gentlemen succumbed in spite of\nthemselves to his imperious look, and gave him Monseigneur's mitre.\n\nHe felt proud to carry it. As he crossed the hall he walked slowly. He\nheld it with reverence. He found the bishop seated before the glass,\nbut from time to time, his right hand, although fatigued, still gave a\nblessing. Julien helped him to adjust his mitre. The bishop shook his\nhead.\n\n\"Ah! it will keep on,\" he said to Julien with an air of satisfaction.\n\"Do you mind going a little way off?\"\n\nThen the bishop went very quickly to the centre of the room, then\napproached the mirror, again resumed his angry manner, and gravely\nbegan to give blessings.\n\nJulien was motionless with astonishment. He was tempted to understand,\nbut did not dare. The bishop stopped, and suddenly abandoning his grave\nmanner looked at him and said:\n\n\"What do you think of my mitre, monsieur, is it on right?\"\n\n\"Quite right, Monseigneur.\"\n\n\"It is not too far back? That would look a little silly, but I mustn't\non the other hand wear it down over the eyes like an officer's shako.\"\n\n\"It seems to me to be on quite right.\"\n\n\"The King of ---- is accustomed to a venerable clergy who are doubtless\nvery solemn. I should not like to appear lacking in dignity, especially\nby reason of my youth.\"\n\nAnd the bishop started again to walk about and give benedictions.\n\n\"It is quite clear,\" said Julien, daring to understand at last, \"He is\npractising giving his benediction.\"\n\n\"I am ready,\" the bishop said after a few moments. \"Go, Monsieur, and\nadvise the senior and the gentlemen of the chapter.\"\n\nSoon M. Chelan, followed by the two oldest cures, entered by a big\nmagnificently sculptured door, which Julien had not previously noticed.\nBut this time he remained in his place quite at the back, and was only\nable to see the bishop over the shoulders of ecclesiastics who were\npressing at the door in crowds.\n\nThe bishop began slowly to traverse the hall. When he reached the\nthreshold, the cures formed themselves into a procession. After a short\nmoment of confusion, the procession began to march intoning the psalm.\nThe bishop, who was between M. Chelan and a very old cure, was the last\nto advance. Julien being in attendance on the abbe Chelan managed to\nget quite near Monseigneur. They followed the long corridors of the\nabbey of Bray-le-Haut. In spite of the brilliant sun they were dark and\ndamp. They arrived finally at the portico of the cloister. Julien was\ndumbfounded with admiration for so fine a ceremony. His emotions were\ndivided between thoughts of his own ambition which had been reawakened\nby the bishop's youth and thoughts of the latter's refinement and\nexquisite politeness. This politeness was quite different to that of M.\nde Renal, even on his good days. \"The higher you lift yourself towards\nthe first rank of society,\" said Julien to himself, \"the more charming\nmanners you find.\"\n\nThey entered the church by a side door; suddenly an awful noise made\nthe ancient walls echo. Julien thought they were going to crumble. It\nwas the little piece of artillery again. It had been drawn at a gallop\nby eight horses and had just arrived. Immediately on its arrival it had\nbeen run out by the Leipsic cannoneers and fired five shots a minute as\nthough the Prussians had been the target.\n\nBut this admirable noise no longer produced any effect on Julien. He no\nlonger thought of Napoleon and military glory. \"To be bishop of Agde so\nyoung,\" he thought. \"But where is Agde? How much does it bring in? Two\nor three hundred thousand francs, perhaps.\"\n\nMonseigneur's lackeys appeared with a magnificent canopy. M. Chelan\ntook one of the poles, but as a matter of fact it was Julien who\ncarried it. The bishop took his place underneath. He had really\nsucceeded in looking old; and our hero's admiration was now quite\nunbounded. \"What can't one accomplish with skill,\" he thought.\n\nThe king entered. Julien had the good fortune to see him at close\nquarters. The bishop began to harangue him with unction, without\nforgetting a little nuance of very polite anxiety for his Majesty.\nWe will not repeat a description of the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut.\nThey filled all the columns of the journals of the department for a\nfortnight on end. Julien learnt from the bishop that the king was\ndescended from Charles the Bold.\n\nAt a later date, it was one of Julien's duties to check the accounts\nof the cost of this ceremony. M. de la Mole, who had succeeded in\nprocuring a bishopric for his nephew, had wished to do him the favour\nof being himself responsible for all the expenses. The ceremony alone\nof Bray-le-Haute cost three thousand eight hundred francs.\n\nAfter the speech of the bishop, and the answer of the king, his\nMajesty took up a position underneath the canopy, and then knelt very\ndevoutly on a cushion near the altar. The choir was surrounded by\nstalls, and the stalls were raised two steps from the pavement. It\nwas at the bottom of these steps that Julien sat at the feet of M.\nde Chelan almost like a train-bearer sitting next to his cardinal in\nthe Sixtine chapel at Rome. There was a _Te Deum_, floods of incense,\ninnumerable volleys of musketry and artillery; the peasants were drunk\nwith happiness and piety. A day like this undoes the work of a hundred\nnumbers of the Jacobin papers.\n\nJulien was six paces from the king, who was really praying with\ndevotion. He noticed for the first time a little man with a witty\nexpression, who wore an almost plain suit. But he had a sky-blue ribbon\nover this very simple suit. He was nearer the king than many other\nlords, whose clothes were embroidered with gold to such an extent that,\nto use Julien's expression, it was impossible to see the cloth. He\nlearnt some minutes later that it was Monsieur de la Mole. He thought\nhe looked haughty, and even insolent.\n\n\"I'm sure this marquis is not so polite as my pretty bishop,\" he\nthought. \"Ah, the ecclesiastical calling makes men mild and good. But\nthe king has come to venerate the relic, and I don't see a trace of the\nrelic. Where has Saint Clement got to?\"\n\nA little priest who sat next to him informed him that the venerable\nrelic was at the top of the building in a _chapelle ardente_.\n\n\"What is a _chapelle ardente_,\" said Julien to himself.\n\nBut he was reluctant to ask the meaning of this word. He redoubled his\nattention.\n\nThe etiquette on the occasion of a visit of a sovereign prince is\nthat the canons do not accompany the bishop. But, as he started on\nhis march to the _chapelle ardente_, my lord bishop of Agde called\nthe abbe Chelan. Julien dared to follow him. Having climbed up a long\nstaircase, they reached an extremely small door whose Gothic frame\nwas magnificently gilded. This work looked as though it had been\nconstructed the day before.\n\nTwenty-four young girls belonging to the most distinguished families in\nVerrieres were assembled in front of the door. The bishop knelt down\nin the midst of these pretty maidens before he opened the door. While\nhe was praying aloud, they seemed unable to exhaust their admiration\nfor his fine lace, his gracious mien, and his young and gentle face.\nThis spectacle deprived our hero of his last remnants of reason. At\nthis moment he would have fought for the Inquisition, and with a good\nconscience. The door suddenly opened. The little chapel was blazing\nwith light. More than a thousand candles could be seen before the\naltar, divided into eight lines and separated from each other by\nbouquets of flowers. The suave odour of the purest incense eddied\nout from the door of the sanctuary. The chapel, which had been newly\ngilded, was extremely small but very high. Julien noticed that there\nwere candles more than fifteen feet high upon the altar. The young\ngirls could not restrain a cry of admiration. Only the twenty-four\nyoung girls, the two cures and Julien had been admitted into the little\nvestibule of the chapel. Soon the king arrived, followed by Monsieur\nde la Mole and his great Chamberlain. The guards themselves remained\noutside kneeling and presenting arms.\n\nHis Majesty precipitated, rather than threw himself, on to the stool.\nIt was only then that Julien, who was keeping close to the gilded\ndoor, perceived over the bare arm of a young girl, the charming statue\nof St. Clement. It was hidden under the altar, and bore the dress of\na young Roman soldier. It had a large wound on its neck, from which\nthe blood seemed to flow. The artist had surpassed himself. The eyes,\nwhich though dying were full of grace, were half closed. A budding\nmoustache adored that charming mouth which, though half closed, seemed\nnotwithstanding to be praying. The young girl next to Julien wept warm\ntears at the sight. One of her tears fell on Julien's hand.\n\nAfter a moment of prayer in the profoundest silence, that was only\nbroken by the distant sound of the bells of all the villages within a\nradius of ten leagues, the bishop of Agde asked the king's permission\nto speak. He finished a short but very touching speech with a passage,\nthe very simplicity of which assured its effectiveness:\n\n\"Never forget, young Christian women, that you have seen one of the\ngreatest kings of the world on his knees before the servants of\nthis Almighty and terrible God. These servants, feeble, persecuted,\nassassinated as they were on earth, as you can see by the still\nbleeding wounds of Saint Clement, will triumph in Heaven. You will\nremember them, my young Christian women, will you not, this day for\never, and will detest the infidel. You will be for ever faithful to\nthis God who is so great, so terrible, but so good?\"\n\nWith these words the bishop rose authoritatively.\n\n\"You promise me?\" he said, lifting up his arm with an inspired air.\n\n\"We promise,\" said the young girls melting into tears.\n\n\"I accept your promise in the name of the terrible God,\" added the\nbishop in a thunderous voice, and the ceremony was at an end.\n\nThe king himself was crying. It was only a long time afterwards that\nJulien had sufficient self-possession to enquire \"where were the bones\nof the Saint that had been sent from Rome to Philip the Good, Duke of\nBurgundy?\" He was told that they were hidden in the charming waxen\nfigure.\n\nHis Majesty deigned to allow the young ladies who had accompanied him\ninto the chapel to wear a red ribbon on which were embroidered these\nwords, \"HATE OF THE INFIDEL. PERPETUAL ADORATION.\"\n\nMonsieur de la Mole had ten thousand bottles of wine distributed among\nthe peasants. In the evening at Verrieres, the Liberals made a point of\nhaving illuminations which were a hundred times better than those of\nthe Royalists. Before leaving, the king paid a visit to M. de Moirod.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nTHINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING\n\n\n    The grotesqueness of every-day events conceals the real\n           unhappiness of the passions.--_Barnave_.\n\nAs he was replacing the usual furniture in the room which M. de la\nMole had occupied, Julien found a piece of very strong paper folded in\nfour. He read at the bottom of the first page \"To His Excellency M.\nle Marquis de la Mole, peer of France, Chevalier of the Orders of the\nKing, etc. etc.\" It was a petition in the rough hand-writing of a cook.\n\n        \"Monsieur le Marquis, I have had religious principles\n        all my life. I was in Lyons exposed to the bombs at\n        the time of the siege, in '93 of execrable memory. I\n        communicate, I go to Mass every Sunday in the parochial\n        church. I have never missed the paschal duty, even in\n        '93 of execrable memory. My cook used to keep servants\n        before the revolution, my cook fasts on Fridays. I am\n        universally respected in Verrieres, and I venture to\n        say I deserve to be so. I walk under the canopy in the\n        processions at the side of the cure and of the mayor. On\n        great occasions I carry a big candle, bought at my own\n        expense.\n\n        \"I ask Monsieur the marquis for the lottery appointment\n        of Verrieres, which in one way or another is bound to\n        be vacant shortly as the beneficiary is very ill, and\n        moreover votes on the wrong side at elections, etc. De\n        Cholin.\"\n\nIn the margin of this petition was a recommendation signed \"de Moirod\"\nwhich began with this line, \"I have had the honour, the worthy person\nwho makes this request.\"\n\n\"So even that imbecile de Cholin shows me the way to go about things,\"\nsaid Julien to himself.\n\nEight days after the passage of the King of ---- through Verrieres,\nthe one question which predominated over the innumerable falsehoods,\nfoolish conjectures, and ridiculous discussions, etc., etc., which had\nhad successively for their object the king, the Marquis de la Mole,\nthe ten thousand bottles of wine, the fall of poor de Moirod, who,\nhoping to win a cross, only left his room a week after his fall, was\nthe absolute indecency of having _foisted_ Julien Sorel, a carpenter's\nson, into the Guard of Honour. You should have heard on this point the\nrich manufacturers of printed calico, the very persons who used to bawl\nthemselves hoarse in preaching equality, morning and evening in the\ncafe. That haughty woman, Madame de Renal, was of course responsible\nfor this abomination. The reason? The fine eyes and fresh complexion of\nthe little abbe Sorel explained everything else.\n\nA short time after their return to Vergy, Stanislas, the youngest of\nthe children, caught the fever; Madame de Renal was suddenly attacked\nby an awful remorse. For the first time she reproached herself for her\nlove with some logic. She seemed to understand as though by a miracle\nthe enormity of the sin into which she had let herself be swept. Up to\nthat moment, although deeply religious, she had never thought of the\ngreatness of her crime in the eyes of God.\n\nIn former times she had loved God passionately in the Convent of\nthe Sacred Heart; in the present circumstances, she feared him with\nequal intensity. The struggles which lacerated her soul were all the\nmore awful in that her fear was quite irrational. Julien found that\nthe least argument irritated instead of soothing her. She saw in the\nillness the language of hell. Moreover, Julien was himself very fond of\nthe little Stanislas.\n\nIt soon assumed a serious character. Then incessant remorse deprived\nMadame de Renal of even her power of sleep. She ensconced herself in a\ngloomy silence: if she had opened her mouth, it would only have been to\nconfess her crime to God and mankind.\n\n\"I urge you,\" said Julien to her, as soon as they got alone, \"not to\nspeak to anyone. Let me be the sole confidant of your sufferings. If\nyou still love me, do not speak. Your words will not be able to take\naway our Stanislas' fever.\" But his consolations produced no effect.\nHe did not know that Madame de Renal had got it into her head that, in\norder to appease the wrath of a jealous God, it was necessary either to\nhate Julien, or let her son die. It was because she felt she could not\nhate her lover that she was so unhappy.\n\n\"Fly from me,\" she said one day to Julien. \"In the name of God leave\nthis house. It is your presence here which kills my son. God punishes\nme,\" she added in a low voice. \"He is just. I admire his fairness.\nMy crime is awful, and I was living without remorse,\" she exclaimed.\n\"That was the first sign of my desertion of God: I ought to be doubly\npunished.\"\n\nJulien was profoundly touched. He could see in this neither hypocrisy\nnor exaggeration. \"She thinks that she is killing her son by loving me,\nand all the same the unhappy woman loves me more than her son. I cannot\ndoubt it. It is remorse for that which is killing her. Those sentiments\nof hers have real greatness. But how could I have inspired such a love,\nI who am so poor, so badly-educated, so ignorant, and sometimes so\ncoarse in my manners?\"\n\nOne night the child was extremely ill. At about two o'clock in the\nmorning, M. de Renal came to see it. The child consumed by fever, and\nextremely flushed, could not recognise its father. Suddenly Madame de\nRenal threw herself at her husband's feet; Julien saw that she was\ngoing to confess everything and ruin herself for ever.\n\nFortunately this extraordinary proceeding annoyed M. de Renal.\n\n\"Adieu! Adieu!\" he said, going away.\n\n\"No, listen to me,\" cried his wife on her knees before him, trying to\nhold him back. \"Hear the whole truth. It is I who am killing my son. I\ngave him life, and I am taking it back. Heaven is punishing me. In the\neyes of God I am guilty of murder. It is necessary that I should ruin\nand humiliate myself. Perhaps that sacrifice will appease the the Lord.\"\n\nIf M. de Renal had been a man of any imagination, he would then have\nrealized everything.\n\n\"Romantic nonsense,\" he cried, moving his wife away as she tried to\nembrace his knees. \"All that is romantic nonsense! Julien, go and fetch\nthe doctor at daybreak,\" and he went back to bed. Madame de Renal fell\non her knees half-fainting, repelling Julien's help with a hysterical\ngesture.\n\nJulien was astonished.\n\n\"So this is what adultery is,\" he said to himself. \"Is it possible\nthat those scoundrels of priests should be right, that they who commit\nso many sins themselves should have the privilege of knowing the true\ntheory of sin? How droll!\"\n\nFor twenty minutes after M. de Renal had gone back to bed, Julien saw\nthe woman he loved with her head resting on her son's little bed,\nmotionless, and almost unconscious. \"There,\" he said to himself, \"is\na woman of superior temperament brought to the depths of unhappiness\nsimply because she has known me.\"\n\n\"Time moves quickly. What can I do for her? I must make up my mind. I\nhave not got simply myself to consider now. What do I care for men and\ntheir buffooneries? What can I do for her? Leave her? But I should be\nleaving her alone and a prey to the most awful grief. That automaton\nof a husband is more harm to her than good. He is so coarse that he is\nbound to speak harshly to her. She may go mad and throw herself out of\nthe window.\"\n\n\"If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will confess\neverything, and who knows, in spite of the legacy which she is bound to\nbring him, he will create a scandal. She may confess everything (great\nGod) to that scoundrel of an abbe who makes the illness of a child\nof six an excuse for not budging from this house, and not without a\npurpose either. In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all she\nknows of the man; she only sees the priest.\"\n\n\"Go away,\" said Madame de Renal suddenly to him, opening her eyes.\n\n\"I would give my life a thousand times to know what could be of most\nuse to you,\" answered Julien. \"I have never loved you so much, my dear\nangel, or rather it is only from this last moment that I begin to adore\nyou as you deserve to be adored. What would become of me far from you,\nand with the consciousness that you are unhappy owing to what I have\ndone? But don't let my suffering come into the matter. I will go--yes,\nmy love! But if I leave you, dear; if I cease to watch over you, to be\nincessantly between you and your husband, you will tell him everything.\nYou will ruin yourself. Remember that he will hound you out of his\nhouse in disgrace. Besancon will talk of the scandal. You will be said\nto be absolutely in the wrong. You will never lift up your head again\nafter that shame.\"\n\n\"That's what I ask,\" she cried, standing up. \"I shall suffer, so much\nthe better.\"\n\n\"But you will also make him unhappy through that awful scandal.\"\n\n\"But I shall be humiliating myself, throwing myself into the mire, and\nby those means, perhaps, I shall save my son. Such a humiliation in the\neyes of all is perhaps to be regarded as a public penitence. So far as\nmy weak judgment goes, is it not the greatest sacrifice that I can make\nto God?--perhaps He will deign to accept my humiliation, and to leave\nme my son. Show me another sacrifice which is more painful and I will\nrush to it.\"\n\n\"Let me punish myself. I too am guilty. Do you wish me to retire to the\nTrappist Monastery? The austerity of that life may appease your God.\nOh, heaven, why cannot I take Stanislas's illness upon myself?\"\n\n\"Ah, do you love him then,\" said Madame de Renal, getting up and\nthrowing herself in his arms.\n\nAt the same time she repelled him with horror.\n\n\"I believe you! I believe you! Oh, my one friend,\" she cried falling on\nher knees again. \"Why are you not the father of Stanislas? In that case\nit would not be a terrible sin to love you more than your son.\"\n\n\"Won't you allow me to stay and love you henceforth like a brother? It\nis the only rational atonement. It may appease the wrath of the Most\nHigh.\"\n\n\"Am I,\" she cried, getting up and taking Julien's head between her two\nhands, and holding it some distance from her. \"Am I to love you as if\nyou were a brother? Is it in my power to love you like that?\" Julien\nmelted into tears.\n\n\"I will obey you,\" he said, falling at her feet. \"I will obey you in\nwhatever you order me. That is all there is left for me to do. My mind\nis struck with blindness. I do not see any course to take. If I leave\nyou you will tell your husband everything. You will ruin yourself\nand him as well. He will never be nominated deputy after incurring\nsuch ridicule. If I stay, you will think I am the cause of your son's\ndeath, and you will die of grief. Do you wish to try the effect of my\ndeparture. If you wish, I will punish myself for our sin by leaving you\nfor eight days. I will pass them in any retreat you like. In the abbey\nof Bray-le-Haut, for instance. But swear that you will say nothing to\nyour husband during my absence. Remember that if you speak I shall\nnever be able to come back.\"\n\nShe promised and he left, but was called back at the end of two days.\n\n\"It is impossible for me to keep my oath without you. I shall speak to\nmy husband if you are not constantly there to enjoin me to silence by\nyour looks. Every hour of this abominable life seems to last a day.\"\n\nFinally heaven had pity on this unfortunate mother. Little by little\nStanislas got out of danger. But the ice was broken. Her reason had\nrealised the extent of her sin. She could not recover her equilibrium\nagain. Her pangs of remorse remained, and were what they ought to have\nbeen in so sincere a heart. Her life was heaven and hell: hell when she\ndid not see Julien; heaven when she was at his feet.\n\n\"I do not deceive myself any more,\" she would say to him, even during\nthe moments when she dared to surrender herself to his full love. \"I\nam damned, irrevocably damned. You are young, heaven may forgive you,\nbut I, I am damned. I know it by a certain sign. I am afraid, who would\nnot be afraid at the sight of hell? but at the bottom of my heart I\ndo not repent at all. I would commit my sin over again if I had the\nopportunity. If heaven will only forbear to punish me in this world and\nthrough my children, I shall have more than I deserve. But you, at any\nrate, my Julien,\" she would cry at other moments, \"are you happy? Do\nyou think I love you enough?\"\n\nThe suspiciousness and morbid pride of Julien, who needed, above all,\na self-sacrificing love, altogether vanished when he saw at every hour\nof the day so great and indisputable a sacrifice. He adored Madame\nde Renal. \"It makes no difference her being noble, and my being a\nlabourer's son. She loves me.... she does not regard me as a valet\ncharged with the functions of a lover.\" That fear once dismissed,\nJulien fell into all the madness of love, into all its deadly\nuncertainties.\n\n\"At any rate,\" she would cry, seeing his doubts of her love, \"let me\nfeel quite happy during the three days we still have together. Let us\nmake haste; perhaps to-morrow will be too late. If heaven strikes me\nthrough my children, it will be in vain that I shall try only to live\nto love you, and to be blind to the fact that it is my crime which has\nkilled them. I could not survive that blow. Even if I wished I could\nnot; I should go mad.\"\n\n\"Ah, if only I could take your sin on myself as you so generously\noffered to take Stanislas' burning fever!\"\n\nThis great moral crisis changed the character of the sentiment\nwhich united Julien and his mistress. His love was no longer simply\nadmiration for her beauty, and the pride of possessing her.\n\nHenceforth their happiness was of a quite superior character. The flame\nwhich consumed them was more intense. They had transports filled with\nmadness. Judged by the worldly standard their happiness would have\nappeared intensified. But they no longer found that delicious serenity,\nthat cloudless happiness, that facile joy of the first period of their\nlove, when Madame de Renal's only fear was that Julien did not love her\nenough. Their happiness had at times the complexion of crime.\n\nIn their happiest and apparently their most tranquil moments, Madame\nde Renal would suddenly cry out, \"Oh, great God, I see hell,\" as she\npressed Julien's hand with a convulsive grasp. \"What horrible tortures!\nI have well deserved them.\" She grasped him and hung on to him like ivy\nonto a wall.\n\nJulien would try in vain to calm that agitated soul. She would take his\nhand, cover it with kisses. Then, relapsing into a gloomy reverie, she\nwould say, \"Hell itself would be a blessing for me. I should still have\nsome days to pass with him on this earth, but hell on earth, the death\nof my children. Still, perhaps my crime will be forgiven me at that\nprice. Oh, great God, do not grant me my pardon at so great a price.\nThese poor children have in no way transgressed against You. I, I am\nthe only culprit. I love a man who is not my husband.\"\n\nJulien subsequently saw Madame de Renal attain what were apparently\nmoments of tranquillity. She was endeavouring to control herself;\nshe did not wish to poison the life of the man she loved. They found\nthe days pass with the rapidity of lightning amid these alternating\nmoods of love, remorse, and voluptuousness. Julien lost the habit of\nreflecting.\n\nMademoiselle Elisa went to attend to a little lawsuit which she had at\nVerrieres. She found Valenod very piqued against Julien. She hated the\ntutor and would often speak about him.\n\n\"You will ruin me, Monsieur, if I tell the truth,\" she said one day to\nValenod. \"All masters have an understanding amongst themselves with\nregard to matters of importance. There are certain disclosures which\npoor servants are never forgiven.\"\n\nAfter these stereotyped phrases, which his curiosity managed to cut\nshort, Monsieur Valenod received some information extremely mortifying\nto his self-conceit.\n\nThis woman, who was the most distinguished in the district, the woman\non whom he had lavished so much attention in the last six years, and\nmade no secret of it, more was the pity, this woman who was so proud,\nwhose disdain had put him to the blush times without number, had just\ntaken for her lover a little workman masquerading as a tutor. And to\nfill the cup of his jealousy, Madame de Renal adored that lover.\n\n\"And,\" added the housemaid with a sigh, \"Julien did not put himself out\nat all to make his conquest, his manner was as cold as ever, even with\nMadame.\"\n\nElisa had only become certain in the country, but she believed that\nthis intrigue dated from much further back. \"That is no doubt the\nreason,\" she added spitefully, \"why he refused to marry me. And to\nthink what a fool I was when I went to consult Madame de Renal and\nbegged her to speak to the tutor.\"\n\nThe very same evening, M. de Renal received from the town, together\nwith his paper, a long anonymous letter which apprised him in the\ngreatest detail of what was taking place in his house. Julien saw him\npale as he read this letter written on blue paper, and look at him\nwith a malicious expression. During all that evening the mayor failed\nto throw off his trouble. It was in vain that Julien paid him court by\nasking for explanations about the genealogy of the best families in\nBurgundy.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nANONYMOUS LETTERS\n\n\n    Do not give dalliance\n    Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw\n    To the fire i' the blood.--_Tempest_.\n\n\nAs they left the drawing-room about midnight, Julien had time to say to\nhis love,\n\n\"Don't let us see each other to-night. Your husband has suspicions. I\nwould swear that that big letter he read with a sigh was an anonymous\nletter.\"\n\nFortunately, Julien locked himself into his room. Madame de Renal had\nthe mad idea that this warning was only a pretext for not seeing her.\nShe absolutely lost her head, and came to his door at the accustomed\nhour. Julien, who had heard the noise in the corridor, immediately blew\nout his lamp. Someone was trying to open the door. Was it Madame de\nRenal? Was it a jealous husband?\n\nVery early next morning the cook, who liked Julien, brought him a book,\non the cover of which he read these words written in Italian: _Guardate\nalla pagina_ 130.\n\nJulien shuddered at the imprudence, looked for page 130, and found\npinned to it the following letter hastily written, bathed with tears,\nand full of spelling mistakes. Madame de Renal was usually very\ncorrect. He was touched by this circumstance, and somewhat forgot the\nawfulness of the indiscretion.\n\n        \"So you did not want to receive me to-night? There are\n        moments when I think that I have never read down to the\n        depths of your soul. Your looks frighten me. I am afraid\n        of you. Great God! perhaps you have never loved me? In\n        that case let my husband discover my love, and shut me\n        up in a prison in the country far away from my children.\n        Perhaps God wills it so. I shall die soon, but you will\n        have proved yourself a monster.\n\n        \"Do you not love me? Are you tired of my fits of folly\n        and of remorse, you wicked man? Do you wish to ruin me?\n        I will show you an easy way. Go and show this letter to\n        all Verrieres, or rather show it to M. Valenod. Tell him\n        that I love you, nay, do not utter such a blasphemy,\n        tell him I adore you, that it was only on the day I saw\n        you that my life commenced; that even in the maddest\n        moments of my youth I never even dreamt of the happiness\n        that I owe to you, that I have sacrificed my life to\n        you and that I am sacrificing my soul. You know that\n        I am sacrificing much more. But does that man know\n        the meaning of sacrifice? Tell him, I say, simply to\n        irritate him, that I will defy all evil tongues, that\n        the only misfortune for me in the whole world would\n        be to witness any change in the only man who holds me\n        to life. What a happiness it would be to me to lose\n        my life, to offer it up as a sacrifice and to have no\n        longer any fear for my children.\n\n        \"Have no doubt about it, dear one, if it is an\n        anonymous letter, it comes from that odious being who\n        has persecuted me for the last six years with his loud\n        voice, his stories about his jumps on horseback, his\n        fatuity, and the never ending catalogue of all his\n        advantages.\n\n        \"Is there an anonymous letter? I should like to discuss\n        that question with you, you wicked man; but no, you\n        acted rightly. Clasping you in my arms perhaps for the\n        last time, I should never have been able to argue as\n        coldly as I do, now that I am alone. From this moment\n        our happiness will no longer be so easy. Will that be a\n        vexation for you? Yes, on those days when you haven't\n        received some amusing book from M. Fouque. The sacrifice\n        is made; to-morrow, whether there is or whether there is\n        not any anonymous letter, I myself will tell my husband\n        I have received an anonymous letter and that it is\n        necessary to give you a golden bridge at once, find some\n        honourable excuse, and send you back to your parents\n        without delay.\n\n        \"Alas, dear one, we are going to be separated for a\n        fortnight, perhaps a month! Go, I will do you justice,\n        you will suffer as much as I, but anyway, this is the\n        only means of disposing of this anonymous letter. It is\n        not the first that my husband has received, and on my\n        score too. Alas! how I used to laugh over them!\n\n        \"My one aim is to make my husband think that the letter\n        comes from M. Valenod; I have no doubt that he is\n        its author. If you leave the house, make a point of\n        establishing yourself at Verrieres; I will manage that\n        my husband should think of passing a fortnight there\n        in order to prove to the fools there was no coldness\n        between him and me. Once at Verrieres, establish ties of\n        friendship with everyone, even with the Liberals. I am\n        sure that all their ladies will seek you out.\n\n        \"Do not quarrel with M. Valenod, or cut off his ears,\n        as you said you would one day. Try, on the contrary, to\n        ingratiate yourself with him. The essential point is\n        that it should be notorious in Verrieres that you are\n        going to enter the household either of Valenod or of\n        someone else to take charge of the children's education.\n\n        \"That is what my husband will never put up with. If he\n        does feel bound to resign himself to it, well, at any\n        rate, you will be living in Verrieres and I shall be\n        seeing you sometimes. My children, who love you so much,\n        will go and see you. Great God! I feel that I love my\n        children all the more because they love you. How is\n        all this going to end? I am wandering.... Anyway you\n        understand your line of conduct. Be nice, polite, but\n        not in any way disdainful to those coarse persons. I\n        ask you on my knees; they will be the arbiters of our\n        fate. Do not fear for a moment but that, so far as you\n        are concerned, my husband will conform to what public\n        opinion lays down for him.\n\n        \"It is you who will supply me with the anonymous letter.\n        Equip yourself with patience and a pair of scissors, cut\n        out from a book the words which you will see, then stick\n        them with the mouth-glue on to the leaf of loose paper\n        which I am sending you. It comes to me from M. Valenod.\n        Be on your guard against a search in your room; burn the\n        pages of the book which you are going to mutilate. If\n        you do not find the words ready-made, have the patience\n        to form them letter by letter. I have made the anonymous\n        letter too short.\n\n\n        ANONYMOUS LETTER.\n\n\n        'MADAME,\n\n        All your little goings-on are known, but the persons\n        interested in stopping have been warned. I have still\n        sufficient friendship left for you to urge you to cease\n        all relations with the little peasant. If you are\n        sensible enough to do this, your husband will believe\n        that the notification he has received is misleading, and\n        he will be left in his illusion. Remember that I have\n        your secret; tremble, unhappy woman, you must now _walk\n        straight_ before me.'\n\n\n        \"As soon as you have finished glueing together the\n        words that make up this letter (have you recognised the\n        director's special style of speech) leave the house, I\n        will meet you.\n\n        \"I will go into the village and come back with a\n        troubled face. As a matter of fact I shall be very much\n        troubled. Great God! What a risk I run, and all because\n        you thought you guessed an anonymous letter. Finally,\n        looking very much upset, I shall give this letter to my\n        husband and say that an unknown man handed it to me. As\n        for you, go for a walk with the children, on the road to\n        the great woods, and do not come back before dinner-time.\n\n        \"You will be able to see the tower of the dovecot from\n        the top of the rocks. If things go well for us, I\n        will place a white handkerchief there, in case of the\n        contrary, there will be nothing at all.\n\n        \"Ungrateful man, will not your heart find out some means\n        of telling me that you love me before you leave for that\n        walk. Whatever happens, be certain of one thing: I shall\n        never survive our final separation by a single day.\n        Oh, you bad mother! but what is the use of my writing\n        those two words, dear Julien? I do not feel them, at\n        this moment I can only think of you. I have only written\n        them so as not to be blamed by you, but what is the good\n        of deception now that I find myself face to face with\n        losing you? Yes, let my soul seem monstrous to you,\n        but do not let me lie to the man whom I adore. I have\n        already deceived only too much in this life of mine. Go!\n        I forgive you if you love me no more. I have not the\n        time to read over my letter. It is a small thing in my\n        eyes to pay for the happy days that I have just passed\n        in your arms with the price of my life. You know that\n        they will cost me more.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nDIALOGUE WITH A MASTER\n\n\n     Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we;\n     For such as we are made of, such we be.--_Twelfth Night_.\n\n\nIt was with a childish pleasure that for a whole hour Julien put the\nwords together. As he came out of his room, he met his pupils with\ntheir mother. She took the letter with a simplicity and a courage whose\ncalmness terrified him.\n\n\"Is the mouth-glue dry enough yet?\" she asked him.\n\n\"And is this the woman who was so maddened by remorse?\" he thought.\n\"What are her plans at this moment?\" He was too proud to ask her, but\nshe had never perhaps pleased him more.\n\n\"If this turns out badly,\" she added with the same coolness, \"I shall\nbe deprived of everything. Take charge of this, and bury it in some\nplace of the mountain. It will perhaps one day be my only resource.\"\n\nShe gave him a glass case in red morocco filled with gold and some\ndiamonds.\n\n\"Now go,\" she said to him.\n\nShe kissed the children, embracing the youngest twice. Julien remained\nmotionless. She left him at a rapid pace without looking at him.\n\nFrom the moment that M. de Renal had opened the anonymous letter his\nlife had been awful. He had not been so agitated since a duel which he\nhad just missed having in 1816, and to do him justice, the prospect of\nreceiving a bullet would have made him less unhappy. He scrutinised the\nletter from every standpoint. \"Is that not a woman's handwriting?\" he\nsaid to himself. In that case, what woman had written it? He reviewed\nall those whom he knew at Verrieres without being able to fix his\nsuspicions on any one. Could a man have dictated that letter? Who\nwas that man? Equal uncertainty on this point. The majority of his\nacquaintances were jealous of him, and, no doubt, hated him. \"I must\nconsult my wife,\" he said to himself through habit, as he got up from\nthe arm-chair in which he had collapsed.\n\n\"Great God!\" he said aloud before he got up, striking his head, \"it is\nshe above all of whom I must be distrustful. At the present moment she\nis my enemy,\" and tears came into his eyes through sheer anger.\n\nBy a poetic justice for that hardness of heart which constitutes the\nprovincial idea of shrewdness, the two men whom M. de Renal feared the\nmost at the present moment were his two most intimate friends.\n\n\"I have ten friends perhaps after those,\" and he passed them in review,\ngauging the degree of consolation which he could get from each one.\n\"All of them, all of them,\" he exclaimed in a rage, \"will derive the\nmost supreme pleasure from my awful experience.\"\n\nAs luck would have it, he thought himself envied, and not without\nreason. Apart from his superb town mansion in which the king of ----\nhad recently spent the night, and thus conferred on it an enduring\nhonour, he had decorated his chateau at Vergy extremely well. The\nfacade was painted white and the windows adorned with fine green\nshutters. He was consoled for a moment by the thought of this\nmagnificence. The fact was that this chateau was seen from three or\nfour leagues off, to the great prejudice of all the country houses or\nso-called chateaux of the neighbourhood, which had been left in the\nhumble grey colour given them by time.\n\nThere was one of his friends on whose pity and whose tears M. de Renal\ncould count, the churchwarden of the parish; but he was an idiot who\ncried at everything. This man, however, was his only resource. \"What\nunhappiness is comparable to mine,\" he exclaimed with rage. \"What\nisolation!\"\n\n\"Is it possible?\" said this truly pitiable man to himself. \"Is it\npossible that I have no friend in my misfortune of whom I can ask\nadvice? for my mind is wandering, I feel it. Oh, Falcoz! oh, Ducros!\"\nhe exclaimed with bitterness. Those were the names of two friends of\nhis childhood whom he had dropped owing to his snobbery in 1814. They\nwere not noble, and he had wished to change the footing of equality on\nwhich they had been living with him since their childhood.\n\nOne of them, Falcoz, a paper-merchant of Verrieres, and a man of\nintellect and spirit, had bought a printing press in the chief town of\nthe department and undertaken the production of a journal. The priestly\ncongregation had resolved to ruin him; his journal had been condemned,\nand he had been deprived of his printer's diploma. In these sad\ncircumstances he ventured to write to M. de Renal for the first time\nfor ten years. The mayor of Verrieres thought it his duty to answer\nin the old Roman style: \"If the King's Minister were to do me the\nhonour of consulting me, I should say to him, ruin ruthlessly all the\nprovincial printers, and make printing a monopoly like tobacco.\" M. de\nRenal was horrified to remember the terms of this letter to an intimate\nfriend whom all Verrieres had once admired, \"Who would have said that\nI, with my rank, my fortune, my decorations, would ever come to regret\nit?\" It was in these transports of rage, directed now against himself,\nnow against all his surroundings, that he passed an awful night; but,\nfortunately, it never occurred to him to spy on his wife.\n\n\"I am accustomed to Louise,\" he said to himself, \"she knows all my\naffairs. If I were free to marry to-morrow, I should not find anyone to\ntake her place.\" Then he began to plume himself on the idea that his\nwife was innocent. This point of view did not require any manifestation\nof character, and suited him much better. \"How many calumniated women\nhas one not seen?\"\n\n\"But,\" he suddenly exclaimed, as he walked about feverishly, \"shall I\nput up with her making a fool of me with her lover as though I were\na man of no account, some mere ragamuffin? Is all Verrieres to make\nmerry over my complaisance? What have they not said about Charmier\n(he was a husband in the district who was notoriously deceived)? Was\nthere not a smile on every lip at the mention of his name? He is a good\nadvocate, but whoever said anything about his talent for speaking? 'Oh,\nCharmier,' they say, 'Bernard's Charmier,' he is thus designated by the\nname of the man who disgraces him.\"\n\n\"I have no daughter, thank heaven,\" M. de Renal would say at other\ntimes, \"and the way in which I am going to punish the mother will\nconsequently not be so harmful to my children's household. I could\nsurprise this little peasant with my wife and kill them both; in that\ncase the tragedy of the situation would perhaps do away with the\ngrotesque element.\" This idea appealed to him. He followed it up in all\nits details. \"The penal code is on my side, and whatever happens our\ncongregation and my friends on the jury will save me.\" He examined his\nhunting-knife which was quite sharp, but the idea of blood frightened\nhim.\n\n\"I could thrash this insolent tutor within an inch of his life and\nhound him out of the house; but what a sensation that would make in\nVerrieres and even over the whole department! After Falcoz' journal had\nbeen condemned, and when its chief editor left prison, I had a hand\nin making him lose his place of six hundred francs a year. They say\nthat this scribbler has dared to show himself again in Besancon. He\nmay lampoon me adroitly and in such a way that it will be impossible\nto bring him up before the courts. Bring him up before the courts!\nThe insolent wretch will insinuate in a thousand and one ways that he\nhas spoken the truth. A well-born man who keeps his place like I do,\nis hated by all the plebeians. I shall see my name in all those awful\nParis papers. Oh, my God, what depths. To see the ancient name of\nRenal plunged in the mire of ridicule. If I ever travel I shall have\nto change my name. What! abandon that name which is my glory and my\nstrength. Could anything be worse than that?\n\n\"If I do not kill my wife but turn her out in disgrace, she has her\naunt in Besancon who is going to hand all her fortune over to her.\nMy wife will go and live in Paris with Julien. It will be known at\nVerrieres, and I shall be taken for a dupe.\" The unhappy man then\nnoticed from the paleness of the lamplight that the dawn was beginning\nto appear. He went to get a little fresh air in the garden. At this\nmoment he had almost determined to make no scandal, particularly in\nview of the fact that a scandal would overwhelm with joy all his good\nfriends in Verrieres.\n\nThe promenade in the garden calmed him a little. \"No,\" he exclaimed,\n\"I shall not deprive myself of my wife, she is too useful to me.\" He\nimagined with horror what his house would be without his wife. The only\nrelative he had was the Marquise of R---- old, stupid, and malicious.\n\nA very sensible idea occurred to him, but its execution required a\nstrength of character considerably superior to the small amount of\ncharacter which the poor man possessed. \"If I keep my wife,\" he said\nto himself, \"I know what I shall do one day; on some occasion when\nshe makes me lose patience, I shall reproach her with her guilt. She\nis proud, we shall quarrel, and all this will happen before she has\ninherited her aunt's fortune. And how they will all make fun of me\nthen! My wife loves her children, the result will be that everything\nwill go to them. But as for me, I shall be the laughing-stock of\nVerrieres. 'What,' they will say, 'he could not even manage to revenge\nhimself on his wife!' Would it not be better to leave it and verify\nnothing? In that case I tie my hands, and cannot afterwards reproach\nher with anything.\"\n\nAn instant afterwards M. de Renal, once more a prey to wounded vanity,\nset himself laboriously to recollect all the methods of procedure\nmentioned in the billiard-room of the _Casino_ or the _Nobles' Club_ in\nVerrieres, when some fine talker interrupted the pool to divert himself\nat the expense of some deceived husband. How cruel these pleasantries\nappeared to him at the present moment!\n\n\"My God, why is my wife not dead! then I should be impregnable against\nridicule. Why am I not a widower? I should go and pass six months in\nParis in the best society. After this moment of happiness occasioned\nby the idea of widowerhood, his imagination reverted to the means of\nassuring himself of the truth. Should he put a slight layer of bran\nbefore the door of Julien's room at midnight after everyone had gone to\nbed? He would see the impression of the feet in the following morning.\n\n\"But that's no good,\" he suddenly exclaimed with rage. \"That\ninquisitive Elisa will notice it, and they will soon know all over the\nhouse that I am jealous.\"\n\nIn another _Casino_ tale a husband had assured himself of his\nmisfortune by tying a hair with a little wax so that it shut the door\nof the gallant as effectually as a seal.\n\nAfter so many hours of uncertainty this means of clearing up his fate\nseemed to him emphatically the best, and he was thinking of availing\nhimself of it when, in one of the turnings of the avenue he met the\nvery woman whom he would like to have seen dead. She was coming back\nfrom the village. She had gone to hear mass in the church of Vergy.\nA tradition, extremely doubtful in the eyes of the cold philosopher,\nbut in which she believed, alleges that the little church was once the\nchapel of the chateau of the Lord of Vergy. This idea obsessed Madame\nde Renal all the time in the church that she had counted on spending in\nprayer. She kept on imagining to herself the spectacle of her husband\nkilling Julien when out hunting as though by accident, and then making\nher eat his heart in the evening.\n\n\"My fate,\" she said to herself, \"depends on what he will think when\nhe listens to me. It may be I shall never get another opportunity\nof speaking to him after this fatal quarter of an hour. He is not a\nreasonable person who is governed by his intellect. In that case, with\nthe help of my weak intelligence, I could anticipate what he will do or\nsay. He will decide our common fate. He has the power. But this fate\ndepends on my adroitness, on my skill in directing the ideas of this\ncrank, who is blinded by his rage and unable to see half of what takes\nplace. Great God! I need talent and coolness, where shall I get it?\"\n\nShe regained her calmness as though by magic, and she entered the\ngarden and saw her husband in the distance. His dishevelled hair and\ndisordered dress showed that he had not slept.\n\nShe gave him a letter with a broken seal but folded. As for him,\nwithout opening it, he gazed at his wife with the eyes of a madman.\n\n\"Here's an abominable thing,\" she said to him, \"which an evil-looking\nman who makes out that he knows you and is under an obligation to you,\nhanded to me as I was passing behind the notary's garden. I insist on\none thing and that is that you send back this M. Julien to his parents\nand without delay.\" Madame de Renal hastened to say these words,\nperhaps a little before the psychological moment, in order to free\nherself from the awful prospect of having to say them.\n\nShe was seized with joy on seeing that which she was occasioning to her\nhusband. She realised from the fixed stare which he was rivetting on\nher that Julien had surmised rightly.\n\n\"What a genius he is to be so brilliantly diplomatic instead of\nsuccumbing to so real a misfortune,\" she thought. \"He will go very far\nin the future! Alas, his successes will only make him forget me.\"\n\nThis little act of admiration for the man whom she adored quite cured\nher of her trouble.\n\nShe congratulated herself on her tactics. \"I have not been unworthy of\nJulien,\" she said to herself with a sweet and secret pleasure.\n\nM. de Renal kept examining the second anonymous letter which the\nreader may remember was composed of printed words glued on to a paper\nverging on blue. He did not say a word for fear of giving himself away.\n\"They still make fun of me in every possible way,\" said M. de Renal\nto himself, overwhelmed with exhaustion. \"Still more new insults to\nexamine and all the time on account of my wife.\" He was on the point\nof heaping on her the coarsest insults. He was barely checked by the\nprospects of the Besancon legacy. Consumed by the need of venting his\nfeelings on something, he crumpled up the paper of the second anonymous\nletter and began to walk about with huge strides. He needed to get\naway from his wife. A few moments afterwards he came back to her in a\nquieter frame of mind.\n\n\"The thing is to take some definite line and send Julien away,\" she\nsaid immediately, \"after all it is only a labourer's son. You will\ncompensate him by a few crowns and besides he is clever and will easily\nmanage to find a place, with M. Valenod for example, or with the\nsub-prefect De Maugiron who both have children. In that way you will\nnot be doing him any wrong....\" \"There you go talking like the fool\nthat you are,\" exclaimed M. de Renal in a terrible voice. \"How can one\nhope that a woman will show any good sense? You never bother yourself\nabout common sense. How can you ever get to know anything? Your\nindifference and your idleness give you no energy except for hunting\nthose miserable butterflies, which we are unfortunate to have in our\nhouses.\"\n\nMadame de Renal let him speak and he spoke for a long time. _He was\nworking off his anger_, to use the local expression.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" she answered him at last, \"I speak as a woman who has\nbeen outraged in her honour, that is to say, in what she holds most\nprecious.\"\n\nMadame de Renal preserved an unalterable sang-froid during all this\npainful conversation on the result of which depended the possibility of\nstill living under the same roof as Julien. She sought for the ideas\nwhich she thought most adapted to guide her husband's blind anger\ninto a safe channel. She had been insensible to all the insulting\nimputations which he had addressed to her. She was not listening to\nthem, she was then thinking about Julien. \"Will he be pleased with me?\"\n\n\"This little peasant whom we have loaded with attentions, and even with\npresents, may be innocent,\" she said to him at last, \"but he is none\nthe less the occasion of the first affront that I have ever received.\nMonsieur, when I read this abominable paper, I vowed to myself that\neither he or I should leave your house.\"\n\n\"Do you want to make a scandal so as to dishonour me and yourself as\nwell? You will make things hum in Verrieres I can assure you.\"\n\n\"It is true, the degree of prosperity in which your prudent management\nhas succeeded in placing you yourself, your family and the town is the\nsubject of general envy.... Well, I will urge Julien to ask you for\na holiday to go and spend the month with that wood-merchant of the\nmountains, a fit friend to be sure for this little labourer.\"\n\n\"Mind you do nothing at all,\" resumed M. de Renal with a fair amount of\ntranquillity. \"I particularly insist on your not speaking to him. You\nwill put him into a temper and make him quarrel with me. You know to\nwhat extent this little gentleman is always spoiling for a quarrel.\"\n\n\"That young man has no tact,\" resumed Madame de Renal. \"He may be\nlearned, you know all about that, but at bottom he is only a peasant.\nFor my own part I never thought much of him since he refused to\nmarry Elisa. It was an assured fortune; and that on the pretext that\nsometimes she had made secret visits to M. Valenod.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said M. de Renal, lifting up his eyebrows inordinately. \"What,\ndid Julien tell you that?\"\n\n\"Not exactly, he always talked of the vocation which calls him to the\nholy ministry, but believe me, the first vocation for those lower-class\npeople is getting their bread and butter. He gave me to understand that\nhe was quite aware of her secret visits.\"\n\n\"And I--I was ignorant,\" exclaimed M. de Renal, growing as angry as\nbefore and accentuating his words. \"Things take place in my house which\nI know nothing about.... What! has there been anything between Elisa\nand Valenod?\"\n\n\"Oh, that's old history, my dear,\" said Madame de Renal with a smile,\n\"and perhaps no harm has come of it. It was at the time when your good\nfriend Valenod would not have minded their thinking at Verrieres that a\nperfectly platonic little affection was growing up between him and me.\"\n\n\"I had that idea once myself,\" exclaimed M. de Renal, furiously\nstriking his head as he progressed from discovery to discovery, \"and\nyou told me nothing about it.\"\n\n\"Should one set two friends by the ears on account of a little fit of\nvanity on the part of our dear director? What society woman has not had\naddressed to her a few letters which were both extremely witty and even\na little gallant?\"\n\n\"He has written to you?\"\n\n\"He writes a great deal.\"\n\n\"Show me those letters at once, I order you,\" and M. de Renal pulled\nhimself up to his six feet.\n\n\"I will do nothing of the kind,\" he was answered with a sweetness\nverging on indifference. \"I will show you them one day when you are in\na better frame of mind.\"\n\n\"This very instant, odds life,\" exclaimed M. de Renal, transported with\nrage and yet happier than he had been for twelve hours.\n\n\"Will you swear to me,\" said Madame de Renal quite gravely, \"never to\nquarrel with the director of the workhouse about these letters?\"\n\n\"Quarrel or no quarrel, I can take those foundlings away from him,\nbut,\" he continued furiously, \"I want those letters at once. Where are\nthey?\"\n\n\"In a drawer in my secretary, but I shall certainly not give you the\nkey.\"\n\n\"I'll manage to break it,\" he cried, running towards his wife's room.\n\nHe did break in fact with a bar of iron a costly secretary of veined\nmahogany which came from Paris and which he had often been accustomed\nto wipe with the nap of his coat, when he thought he had detected a\nspot.\n\nMadame de Renal had climbed up at a run the hundred and twenty steps\nof the dovecot. She tied the corner of a white handkerchief to one of\nthe bars of iron of the little window. She was the happiest of women.\nWith tears in her eyes she looked towards the great mountain forest.\n\"Doubtless,\" she said to herself, \"Julien is watching for this happy\nsignal.\"\n\nShe listened attentively for a long time and then she cursed the\nmonotonous noise of the grasshopper and the song of the birds. \"Had it\nnot been for that importunate noise, a cry of joy starting from the big\nrocks could have arrived here.\" Her greedy eye devoured that immense\nslope of dark verdure which was as level as a meadow.\n\n\"Why isn't he clever enough,\" she said to herself, quite overcome, \"to\ninvent some signal to tell me that his happiness is equal to mine?\" She\nonly came down from the dovecot when she was frightened of her husband\ncoming there to look for her.\n\nShe found him furious. He was perusing the soothing phrases of M. de\nValenod and reading them with an emotion to which they were but little\nused.\n\n\"I always come back to the same idea,\" said Madame de Renal seizing\na moment when a pause in her husband's ejaculations gave her the\npossibility of getting heard. \"It is necessary for Julien to travel.\nWhatever talent he may have for Latin, he is only a peasant after all,\noften coarse and lacking in tact. Thinking to be polite, he addresses\ninflated compliments to me every day, which are in bad taste. He learns\nthem by heart out of some novel or other.\"\n\n\"He never reads one,\" exclaimed M. de Renal. \"I am assured of it. Do\nyou think that I am the master of a house who is so blind as to be\nignorant of what takes place in his own home.\"\n\n\"Well, if he doesn't read these droll compliments anywhere, he invents\nthem, and that's all the worse so far as he is concerned. He must have\ntalked about me in this tone in Verrieres and perhaps without going so\nfar,\" said Madame Renal with the idea of making a discovery, \"he may\nhave talked in the same strain to Elisa, which is almost the same as if\nhe had said it to M. Valenod.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" exclaimed M. de Renal, shaking the table and the room with one of\nthe most violent raps ever made by a human fist. \"The anonymous printed\nletter and Valenod's letters are written on the same paper.\"\n\n\"At last,\" thought Madame de Renal. She pretended to be overwhelmed\nat this discovery, and without having the courage to add a single\nword, went and sat down some way off on the divan at the bottom of the\ndrawing-room.\n\nFrom this point the battle was won. She had a great deal of trouble in\npreventing M. de Renal from going to speak to the supposed author of\nthe anonymous letter. \"What, can't you see that making a scene with M.\nValenod without sufficient proof would be the most signal mistake? You\nare envied, Monsieur, and who is responsible? Your talents: your wise\nmanagement, your tasteful buildings, the dowry which I have brought\nyou, and above all, the substantial legacy which we are entitled to\nhope for from my good aunt, a legacy, the importance of which is\ninordinately exaggerated, have made you into the first person in\nVerrieres.\"\n\n\"You are forgetting my birth,\" said M. de Renal, smiling a little.\n\n\"You are one of the most distinguished gentlemen in the province,\"\nreplied Madame de Renal emphatically. \"If the king were free and could\ngive birth its proper due, you would no doubt figure in the Chamber of\nPeers, etc. And being in this magnificent position, you yet wish to\ngive the envious a fact to take hold of.\"\n\n\"To speak about this anonymous letter to M. Valenod is equivalent\nto proclaiming over the whole of Verrieres, nay, over the whole of\nBesancon, over the whole province that this little bourgeois who has\nbeen admitted perhaps imprudently to intimacy _with a Renal_, has\nmanaged to offend him. At the time when those letters which you have\njust taken prove that I have reciprocated M. Valenod's love, you ought\nto kill me. I should have deserved it a hundred times over, but not to\nshow him your anger. Remember that all our neighbours are only waiting\nfor an excuse to revenge themselves for your superiority. Remember that\nin 1816 you had a hand in certain arrests.\n\n\"I think that you show neither consideration nor love for me,\"\nexclaimed M. de Renal with all the bitterness evoked by such a memory,\n\"and I was not made a peer.\"\n\n\"I am thinking, my dear,\" resumed Madame de Renal with a smile, \"that\nI shall be richer than you are, that I have been your companion for\ntwelve years, and that by virtue of those qualifications I am entitled\nto have a voice in the council and, above all, in to-day's business. If\nyou prefer M. Julien to me,\" she added, with a touch of temper which\nwas but thinly disguised, \"I am ready to go and pass a winter with my\naunt.\" These words proved a lucky shot. They possessed a firmness which\nendeavoured to clothe itself with courtesy. It decided M. de Renal, but\nfollowing the provincial custom, he still thought for a long time, and\nwent again over all his arguments; his wife let him speak. There was\nstill a touch of anger in his intonation. Finally two hours of futile\nrant exhausted the strength of a man who had been subject during the\nwhole night to a continuous fit of anger. He determined on the line of\nconduct he was going to follow with regard to M. Valenod, Julien and\neven Elisa.\n\nMadame de Renal was on the point once or twice during this great scene\nof feeling some sympathy for the very real unhappiness of the man\nwho had been so dear to her for twelve years. But true passions are\nselfish. Besides she was expecting him every instant to mention the\nanonymous letter which he had received the day before and he did not\nmention it. In order to feel quite safe, Madame de Renal wanted to know\nthe ideas which the letter had succeeding in suggesting to the man on\nwhom her fate depended, for, in the provinces the husbands are the\nmasters of public opinion. A husband who complains covers himself with\nridicule, an inconvenience which becomes no less dangerous in France\nwith each succeeding year; but if he refuses to provide his wife with\nmoney, she falls to the status of a labouring woman at fifteen sous a\nday, while the virtuous souls have scruples about employing her.\n\nAn odalisque in the seraglio can love the Sultan with all her might.\nHe is all-powerful and she has no hope of stealing his authority by\na series of little subtleties. The master's vengeance is terrible\nand bloody but martial and generous; a dagger thrust finishes\neverything. But it is by stabbing her with public contempt that a\nnineteenth-century husband kills his wife. It is by shutting against\nher the doors of all the drawing-rooms.\n\nWhen Madame de Renal returned to her room, her feeling of danger was\nvividly awakened. She was shocked by the disorder in which she found\nit. The locks of all the pretty little boxes had been broken. Many\nplanks in the floor had been lifted up. \"He would have no pity on me,\"\nshe said to herself. \"To think of his spoiling like this, this coloured\nwood floor which he likes so much; he gets red with rage whenever one\nof his children comes into it with wet shoes, and now it is spoilt for\never.\" The spectacle of this violence immediately banished the last\nscruples which she was entertaining with respect to that victory which\nshe had won only too rapidly.\n\nJulien came back with the children a little before the dinner-bell.\nMadame de Renal said to him very drily at dessert when the servant had\nleft the room:\n\n\"You have told me about your wish to go and spend a fortnight at\nVerrieres. M. de Renal is kind enough to give you a holiday. You can\nleave as soon as you like, but the childrens' exercises will be sent to\nyou every day so that they do not waste their time.\"\n\n\"I shall certainly not allow you more than a week,\" said M. de Renal in\na very bitter tone. Julien thought his visage betrayed the anxiety of a\nman who was seriously harassed.\n\n\"He has not yet decided what line to take,\" he said to his love during\na moment when they were alone together in the drawing-room.\n\nMadame de Renal rapidly recounted to him all she had done since the\nmorning.\n\n\"The details are for to-night,\" she added with a smile.\n\n\"Feminine perversity,\" thought Julien, \"What can be the pleasure, what\ncan be the instinct which induces them to deceive us.\"\n\n\"I think you are both enlightened and at the same time blinded by your\nlove,\" he said to her with some coldness. \"Your conduct to-day has been\nadmirable, but is it prudent for us to try and see each other to-night?\nThis house is paved with enemies. Just think of Elisa's passionate\nhatred for me.\"\n\n\"That hate is very like the passionate indifference which you no doubt\nhave for me.\"\n\n\"Even if I were indifferent I ought to save you from the peril in which\nI have plunged you. If chance so wills it that M. de Renal should speak\nto Elisa, she can acquaint him with everything in a single word. What\nis to prevent him from hiding near my room fully armed?\"\n\n\"What, not even courage?\" said Madame de Renal, with all the\nhaughtiness of a scion of nobility.\n\n\"I will never demean myself to speak about my courage,\" said Julien,\ncoldly, \"it would be mean to do so. Let the world judge by the facts.\nBut,\" he added, taking her hand, \"you have no idea how devoted I am to\nyou and how over-joyed I am of being able to say good-bye to you before\nthis cruel separation.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nMANNERS OF PROCEDURE IN 1830\n\n\n     Speech has been given to man to conceal his thought.\n                                             _R.P. Malagrida_.\n\n\nJulien had scarcely arrived at Verrieres before he reproached himself\nwith his injustice towards Madame de Renal. \"I should have despised\nher for a weakling of a woman if she had not had the strength to go\nthrough with her scene with M. de Renal. But she has acquitted herself\nlike a diplomatist and I sympathise with the defeat of the man who is\nmy enemy. There is a bourgeois prejudice in my action; my vanity is\noffended because M. de Renal is a man. Men form a vast and illustrious\nbody to which I have the honour to belong. I am nothing but a fool.\" M.\nChelan had refused the magnificent apartments which the most important\nLiberals in the district had offered him, when his loss of his living\nhad necessitated his leaving the parsonage. The two rooms which he had\nrented were littered with his books. Julien, wishing to show Verrieres\nwhat a priest could do, went and fetched a dozen pinewood planks from\nhis father, carried them on his back all along the Grande-Rue, borrowed\nsome tools from an old comrade and soon built a kind of book-case in\nwhich he arranged M. Chelan's books.\n\n\"I thought you were corrupted by the vanity of the world,\" said the\nold man to him as he cried with joy, \"but this is something which well\nredeems all the childishness of that brilliant Guard of Honour uniform\nwhich has made you so many enemies.\"\n\nM. de Renal had ordered Julien to stay at his house. No one suspected\nwhat had taken place. The third day after his arrival Julien saw no\nless a personage than M. the sub-prefect de Maugiron come all the way\nup the stairs to his room. It was only after two long hours of fatuous\ngossip and long-winded lamentations about the wickedness of man, the\nlack of honesty among the people entrusted with the administration\nof the public funds, the dangers of his poor France, etc. etc., that\nJulien was at last vouchsafed a glimpse of the object of the visit.\nThey were already on the landing of the staircase and the poor half\ndisgraced tutor was escorting with all proper deference the future\nprefect of some prosperous department, when the latter was pleased to\ntake an interest in Julien's fortune, to praise his moderation in money\nmatters, etc., etc. Finally M. de Maugiron, embracing him in the most\npaternal way, proposed that he should leave M. de Renal and enter the\nhousehold of an official who had children to educate and who, like King\nPhilippe, thanked Heaven not so much that they had been granted to him,\nbut for the fact that they had been born in the same neighbourhood as\nM. Julien. Their tutor would enjoy a salary of 800 francs, payable\nnot from month to month, which is not at all aristocratic, said M. de\nMaugiron, but quarterly and always in advance.\n\nIt was Julien's turn now. After he had been bored for an hour and a\nhalf by waiting for what he had to say, his answer was perfect and,\nabove all, as long as a bishop's charge. It suggested everything and\nyet said nothing clearly. It showed at the same time respect for M.\nde Renal, veneration for the public of Verrieres and gratitude to the\ndistinguished sub-prefect. The sub-prefect, astonished at finding\nhim more Jesuitical than himself, tried in vain to obtain something\ndefinite. Julien was delighted, seized the opportunity to practise, and\nstarted his answer all over again in different language. Never has an\neloquent minister who wished to make the most of the end of a session\nwhen the Chamber really seemed desirous of waking up, said less in more\nwords.\n\nM. de Maugiron had scarcely left before Julien began to laugh like\na madman. In order to exploit his Jesuitical smartness, he wrote a\nnine-page letter to M. de Renal in which he gave him an account of all\nthat had been said to him and humbly asked his advice. \"But the old\nscoundrel has not told me the name of the person who is making the\noffer. It is bound to be M. Valenod who, no doubt, sees in my exile at\nVerrieres the result of his anonymous letter.\"\n\nHaving sent off his despatch and feeling as satisfied as a hunter who\nat six o'clock in the morning on a fine autumn day, comes out into\na plain that abounds with game, he went out to go and ask advice of\nM. Chelan. But before he had arrived at the good cure's, providence,\nwishing to shower favours upon him, threw in his path M. de Valenod,\nto whom he owned quite freely that his heart was torn in two; a poor\nlad such as he was owed an exclusive devotion to the vocation to which\nit had pleased Heaven to call him. But vocation was not everything in\nthis base world. In order to work worthily at the vine of the Lord,\nand to be not totally unworthy of so many worthy colleagues, it was\nnecessary to be educated; it was necessary to spend two expensive years\nat the seminary of Besancon; saving consequently became an imperative\nnecessity, and was certainly much easier with a salary of eight hundred\nfrancs paid quarterly than with six hundred francs which one received\nmonthly. On the other hand, did not Heaven, by placing him by the side\nof the young de Renals, and especially by inspiring him with a special\ndevotion to them, seem to indicate that it was not proper to abandon\nthat education for another one.\n\nJulien reached such a degree of perfection in that particular kind of\neloquence which has succeeded the drastic quickness of the empire, that\nhe finished by boring himself with the sound of his own words.\n\nOn reaching home he found a valet of M. Valenod in full livery who had\nbeen looking for him all over the town, with a card inviting him to\ndinner for that same day.\n\nJulien had never been in that man's house. Only a few days before\nhe had been thinking of nothing but the means of giving him a sound\nthrashing without getting into trouble with the police. Although\nthe time of the dinner was one o'clock, Julien thought it was more\ndeferential to present himself at half-past twelve at the office of M.\nthe director of the workhouse. He found him parading his importance in\nthe middle of a lot of despatch boxes. His large black whiskers, his\nenormous quantity of hair, his Greek bonnet placed across the top of\nhis head, his immense pipe, his embroidered slippers, the big chains\nof gold crossed all over his breast, and the whole stock-in-trade of\na provincial financier who considers himself prosperous, failed to\nimpose on Julien in the least: They only made him think the more of the\nthrashing which he owed him.\n\nHe asked for the honour of being introduced to Madame Valenod. She\nwas dressing and was unable to receive him. By way of compensation he\nhad the privilege of witnessing the toilet of M. the director of the\nworkhouse. They subsequently went into the apartment of Madame Valenod,\nwho introduced her children to him with tears in her eyes. This lady\nwas one of the most important in Verrieres, had a big face like a\nman's, on which she had put rouge in honour of this great function. She\ndisplayed all the maternal pathos of which she was capable.\n\nJulien thought all the time of Madame de Renal. His distrust made him\nonly susceptible to those associations which are called up by their\nopposites, but he was then affected to the verge of breaking down.\nThis tendency was increased by the sight of the house of the director\nof the workhouse. He was shown over it. Everything in it was new and\nmagnificent, and he was told the price of every article of furniture.\nBut Julien detected a certain element of sordidness, which smacked of\nstolen money into the bargain. Everybody in it, down to the servants,\nhad the air of setting his face in advance against contempt.\n\nThe collector of taxes, the superintendent of indirect taxes, the\nofficer of gendarmerie, and two or three other public officials arrived\nwith their wives. They were followed by some rich Liberals. Dinner was\nannounced. It occurred to Julien, who was already feeling upset, that\nthere were some poor prisoners on the other side of the dining-room\nwall, and that an illicit profit had perhaps been made over their\nrations of meat in order to purchase all that garish luxury with which\nthey were trying to overwhelm him.\n\n\"Perhaps they are hungry at this very minute,\" he said to himself. He\nfelt a choking in his throat. He found it impossible to eat and almost\nimpossible to speak. Matters became much worse a quarter of an hour\nafterwards; they heard in the distance some refrains of a popular song\nthat was, it must be confessed, a little vulgar, which was being sung\nby one of the inmates. M. Valenod gave a look to one of his liveried\nservants who disappeared and soon there was no more singing to be\nheard. At that moment a valet offered Julien some Rhine wine in a green\nglass and Madame Valenod made a point of asking him to note that this\nwine cost nine francs a bottle in the market. Julien held up his green\nglass and said to M. Valenod,\n\n\"They are not singing that wretched song any more.\"\n\n\"Zounds, I should think not,\" answered the triumphant governor. \"I have\nmade the rascals keep quiet.\"\n\nThese words were too much for Julien. He had the manners of his new\nposition, but he had not yet assimilated its spirit. In spite of all\nhis hypocrisy and its frequent practice, he felt a big tear drip down\nhis cheek.\n\nHe tried to hide it in the green glass, but he found it absolutely\nimpossible to do justice to the Rhine wine. \"Preventing singing he said\nto himself: Oh, my God, and you suffer it.\"\n\nFortunately nobody noticed his ill-bred emotion. The collector of\ntaxes had struck up a royalist song. \"So this,\" reflected Julien's\nconscience during the hubbub of the refrain which was sung in chorus,\n\"is the sordid prosperity which you will eventually reach, and you will\nonly enjoy it under these conditions and in company like this. You\nwill, perhaps, have a post worth twenty thousand francs; but while you\ngorge yourself on meat, you will have to prevent a poor prisoner from\nsinging; you will give dinners with the money which you have stolen out\nof his miserable rations and during your dinners he will be still more\nwretched. Oh, Napoleon, how sweet it was to climb to fortune in your\nway through the dangers of a battle, but to think of aggravating the\npain of the unfortunate in this cowardly way.\"\n\nI own that the weakness which Julien had been manifesting in this\nsoliloquy gives me a poor opinion of him. He is worthy of being the\naccomplice of those kid-gloved conspirators who purport to change the\nwhole essence of a great country's existence, without wishing to have\non their conscience the most trivial scratch.\n\nJulien was sharply brought back to his role. He had not been invited to\ndine in such good company simply to moon dreamily and say nothing.\n\nA retired manufacturer of cotton prints, a corresponding member of the\nAcademy of Besancon and of that of Uzes, spoke to him from the other\nend of the table and asked him if what was said everywhere about his\nastonishing progress in the study of the New Testament was really true.\n\nA profound silence was suddenly inaugurated. A New Testament in Latin\nwas found as though by magic in the possession of the learned member\nof the two Academies. After Julien had answered, part of a sentence\nin Latin was read at random. Julien then recited. His memory proved\nfaithful and the prodigy was admired with all the boisterous energy of\nthe end of dinner. Julien looked at the flushed faces of the ladies. A\ngood many were not so plain. He recognised the wife of the collector,\nwho was a fine singer.\n\n\"I am ashamed, as a matter of fact, to talk Latin so long before these\nladies,\" he said, turning his eyes on her. \"If M. Rubigneau,\" that was\nthe name of the member of the two Academies, \"will be kind enough to\nread a Latin sentence at random instead of answering by following the\nLatin text, I will try to translate it impromptu.\" This second test\ncompleted his glory.\n\nSeveral Liberals were there, who, though rich, were none the less the\nhappy fathers of children capable of obtaining scholarships, and had\nconsequently been suddenly converted at the last mission. In spite of\nthis diplomatic step, M. de Renal had never been willing to receive\nthem in his house. These worthy people, who only knew Julien by name\nand from having seen him on horseback on the day of the king of ----'s\nentry, were his most noisy admirers. \"When will those fools get tired\nof listening to this Biblical language, which they don't understand in\nthe least,\" he thought. But, on the contrary, that language amused them\nby its strangeness and made them smile. But Julien got tired.\n\nAs six o'clock struck he got up gravely and talked about a chapter in\nLigorio's New Theology which he had to learn by heart to recite on the\nfollowing day to M. Chelan, \"for,\" he added pleasantly, \"my business is\nto get lessons said by heart to me, and to say them by heart myself.\"\n\nThere was much laughter and admiration; such is the kind of wit which\nis customary in Verrieres. Julien had already got up and in spite of\netiquette everybody got up as well, so great is the dominion exercised\nby genius. Madame Valenod kept him for another quarter of an hour. He\nreally must hear her children recite their catechisms. They made the\nmost absurd mistakes which he alone noticed. He was careful not to\npoint them out. \"What ignorance of the first principles of religion,\"\nhe thought. Finally he bowed and thought he could get away; but they\ninsisted on his trying a fable of La Fontaine.\n\n\"That author is quite immoral,\" said Julien to Madame Valenod. A\ncertain fable on Messire Jean Chouart dares to pour ridicule on\nall that we hold most venerable. He is shrewdly blamed by the best\ncommentators. Before Julien left he received four or five invitations\nto dinner. \"This young man is an honour to the department,\" cried all\nthe guests in chorus. They even went so far as to talk of a pension\nvoted out of the municipal funds to put him in the position of\ncontinuing his studies at Paris.\n\nWhile this rash idea was resounding through the dining-room Julien\nhad swiftly reached the front door. \"You scum, you scum,\" he cried,\nthree or four times in succession in a low voice as he indulged in the\npleasure of breathing in the fresh air.\n\nHe felt quite an aristocrat at this moment, though he was the very\nman who had been shocked for so long a period by the haughty smile of\ndisdainful superiority which he detected behind all the courtesies\naddressed to him at M. de Renal's. He could not help realising the\nextreme difference. Why let us even forget the fact of its being money\nstolen from the poor inmates, he said to himself as he went away, let\nus forget also their stopping the singing. M. de Renal would never\nthink of telling his guests the price of each bottle of wine with\nwhich he regales them, and as for this M. Valenod, and his chronic\ncataloguing of his various belongings, he cannot talk of his house, his\nestate, etc., in the presence of his wife without saying, \"Your house,\nyour estate.\"\n\nThis lady, who was apparently so keenly alive to the delights of\ndecorum, had just had an awful scene during the dinner with a servant\nwho had broken a wine-glass and spoilt one of her dozens; and the\nservant too had answered her back with the utmost insolence.\n\n\"What a collection,\" said Julien to himself; \"I would not live like\nthey do were they to give me half of all they steal. I shall give\nmyself away one fine day. I should not be able to restrain myself from\nexpressing the disgust with which they inspire one.\"\n\nIt was necessary, however, to obey Madame de Renal's injunction and be\npresent at several dinners of the same kind. Julien was the fashion; he\nwas forgiven his Guard of Honour uniform, or rather that indiscretion\nwas the real cause of his successes. Soon the only question in\nVerrieres was whether M. de Renal or M. the director of the workhouse\nwould be the victor in the struggle for the clever young man. These\ngentlemen formed, together with M. Maslon, a triumvirate which had\ntyrannised over the town for a number of years. People were jealous of\nthe mayor, and the Liberals had good cause for complaint, but, after\nall, he was noble and born for a superior position, while M. Valenod's\nfather had not left him six hundred francs a year. His career had\nnecessitated a transition from pitying the shabby green suit which had\nbeen so notorious in his youth, to envying the Norman horses, his gold\nchains, his Paris clothes, his whole present prosperity.\n\nJulien thought that he had discovered one honest man in the whirlpool\nof this novel world. He was a geometrist named Gros, and had the\nreputation of being a Jacobin. Julien, who had vowed to say nothing\nbut that which he disbelieved himself, was obliged to watch himself\ncarefully when speaking to M. Gros. He received big packets of\nexercises from Vergy. He was advised to visit his father frequently,\nand he fulfilled his unpleasant duty. In a word he was patching his\nreputation together pretty well, when he was thoroughly surprised to\nfind himself woken up one morning by two hands held over his eyes.\n\nIt was Madame de Renal who had made a trip to the town, and who,\nrunning up the stairs four at a time while she left her children\nplaying with a pet rabbit, had reached Julien's room a moment before\nher sons. This moment was delicious but very short: Madame de Renal\nhad disappeared when the children arrived with the rabbit which\nthey wanted to show to their friend. Julien gave them all a hearty\nwelcome, including the rabbit. He seemed at home again. He felt that\nhe loved these children and that he enjoyed gossiping with them. He\nwas astonished at the sweetness of their voices, at the simplicity\nand dignity of their little ways; he felt he needed to purge his\nimagination of all the vulgar practices and all the unpleasantnesses\namong which he had been living in Verrieres. For there everyone was\nalways frightened of being scored off, and luxury and poverty were at\ndaggers drawn.\n\nThe people with whom he would dine would enter into confidences over\nthe joint which were as humiliating for themselves as they were\nnauseating to the hearer.\n\n\"You others, who are nobles, you are right to be proud,\" he said to\nMadame de Renal, as he gave her an account of all the dinners which he\nhad put up with.\n\n\"You're the fashion then,\" and she laughed heartily as she thought of\nthe rouge which Madame Valenod thought herself obliged to put on each\ntime she expected Julien. \"I think she has designs on your heart,\" she\nadded.\n\nThe breakfast was delicious. The presence of the children, though\napparently embarrassing, increased as a matter of fact the happiness of\nthe party. The poor children did not know how to give expression to the\njoy at seeing Julien again. The servants had not failed to tell them\nthat he had been offered two hundred francs a year more to educate the\nlittle Valenods.\n\nStanislas-Xavier, who was still pale from his illness, suddenly asked\nhis mother in the middle of the breakfast, the value of his silver\ncover and of the goblet in which he was drinking.\n\n\"Why do you want to know that?\"\n\n\"I want to sell them to give the price to M. Julien so that he shan't\nbe _done_ if he stays with us.\"\n\nJulien kissed him with tears in his eyes. His mother wept\nunrestrainedly, for Julien took Stanislas on his knees and explained to\nhim that he should not use the word \"done\" which, when employed in that\nmeaning was an expression only fit for the servants' hall. Seeing the\npleasure which he was giving to Madame de Renal, he tried to explain\nthe meaning of being \"done\" by picturesque illustrations which amused\nthe children.\n\n\"I understand,\" said Stanislas, \"it's like the crow who is silly enough\nto let his cheese fall and be taken by the fox who has been playing the\nflatterer.\"\n\nMadame de Renal felt mad with joy and covered her children with kisses,\na process which involved her leaning a little on Julien.\n\nSuddenly the door opened. It was M. de Renal. His severe and\ndiscontented expression contrasted strangely with the sweet joy\nwhich his presence dissipated. Madame de Renal grew pale, she felt\nherself incapable of denying anything. Julien seized command of the\nconversation and commenced telling M. the mayor in a loud voice the\nincident of the silver goblet which Stanislas wanted to sell. He was\nquite certain this story would not be appreciated. M. de Renal first\nof all frowned mechanically at the mere mention of money. Any allusion\nto that mineral, he was accustomed to say, is always a prelude to some\ndemand made upon my purse. But this was something more than a mere\nmoney matter. His suspicions were increased. The air of happiness which\nanimated his family during his absence was not calculated to smooth\nmatters over with a man who was a prey to so touchy a vanity. \"Yes,\nyes,\" he said, as his wife started to praise to him the combined grace\nand cleverness of the way in which Julien gave ideas to his pupils. \"I\nknow, he renders me hateful to my own children. It is easy enough for\nhim to make himself a hundred times more loveable to them than I am\nmyself, though after all, I am the master. In this century everything\ntends to make _legitimate_ authority unpopular. Poor France!\"\n\nMadame de Renal had not stopped to examine the fine shades of the\nwelcome which her husband gave her. She had just caught a glimpse of\nthe possibility of spending twelve hours with Julien. She had a lot of\npurchases to make in the town and declared that she positively insisted\nin going to dine at the tavern. She stuck to her idea in spite of all\nher husband's protests and remonstrances. The children were delighted\nwith the mere word tavern, which our modern prudery denounces with so\nmuch gusto.\n\nM. de Renal left his wife in the first draper's shop which she entered\nand went to pay some visits. He came back more morose than he had\nbeen in the morning. He was convinced that the whole town was busy\nwith himself and Julien. As a matter of fact no one had yet given him\nany inkling as to the more offensive part of the public gossip. Those\nitems which had been repeated to M. the mayor dealt exclusively with\nthe question of whether Julien would remain with him with six hundred\nfrancs, or would accept the eight hundred francs offered by M. the\ndirector of the workhouse.\n\nThe director, when he met M. de Renal in society, gave him the cold\nshoulder. These tactics were not without cleverness. There is no\nimpulsiveness in the provinces. Sensations are so rare there that they\nare never allowed to be wasted.\n\nM. le Valenod was what is called a hundred miles from Paris a _faraud_;\nthat means a coarse imprudent type of man. His triumphant existence\nsince 1815 had consolidated his natural qualities. He reigned, so\nto say, in Verrieres subject to the orders of M. de Renal; but as\nhe was much more energetic, was ashamed of nothing, had a finger in\neverything, and was always going about writing and speaking, and\nwas oblivious of all snubs, he had, although without any personal\npretensions, eventually come to equal the mayor in reputation in the\neyes of the ecclesiastical authorities. M. Valenod had, as it were,\nsaid to the local tradesmen \"Give me the two biggest fools among your\nnumber;\" to the men of law \"Show me the two greatest dunces;\" to the\nsanitary officials \"Point out to me the two biggest charlatans.\" When\nhe had thus collected the most impudent members of each separate\ncalling, he had practically said to them, \"Let us reign together.\"\n\nThe manners of those people were offensive to M. de Renal. The\ncoarseness of Valenod took offence at nothing, not even the frequency\nwith which the little abbe Maslon would give the lie to him in public.\n\nBut in the middle of all this prosperity M. Valenod found it necessary\nto reassure himself by a number of petty acts of insolence on the\nscore of the crude truths which he well realised that everybody was\njustified in addressing to him. His activity had redoubled since the\nfears which the visit of M. Appert had left him. He had made three\njourneys to Besancon. He wrote several letters by each courier; he sent\nothers by unknown men who came to his house at nightfall. Perhaps he\nhad been wrong in securing the dismissal of the old cure Chelan. For\nthis piece of vindictiveness had resulted in his being considered an\nextremely malicious man by several pious women of good birth. Besides,\nthe rendering of this service had placed him in absolute dependence\non M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair from whom he received some strange\ncommissions. He had reached this point in his intrigues when he had\nyielded to the pleasure of writing an anonymous letter, and thus\nincreasing his embarrassment. His wife declared to him that she wanted\nto have Julien in her house; her vanity was intoxicated with the idea.\n\nSuch being his position M. Valenod imagined in advance a decisive\nscene with his old colleague M. de Renal. The latter might address\nto him some harsh words, which he would not mind much; but he might\nwrite to Besancon and even to Paris. Some minister's cousin might\nsuddenly fall down on Verrieres and take over the workhouse. Valenod\nthought of coming to terms with the Liberals. It was for that purpose\nthat several of them had been invited to the dinner when Julien was\npresent. He would have obtained powerful support against the mayor but\nthe elections might supervene, and it was only too evident that the\ndirectorship of the workhouse was inconsistent with voting on the wrong\nside. Madame de Renal had made a shrewd guess at this intrigue, and\nwhile she explained it to Julien as he gave her his arm to pass from\none shop to another, they found themselves gradually taken as far as\nthe _Cours de la Fidelite_ where they spent several hours nearly as\ntranquil as those at Vergy.\n\nAt the same time M. Valenod was trying to put off a definite crisis\nwith his old patron by himself assuming the aggressive. These tactics\nsucceeded on this particular day, but aggravated the mayor's bad\ntemper. Never has vanity at close grips with all the harshness and\nmeanness of a pettifogging love of money reduced a man to a more sorry\ncondition than that of M. de Renal when he entered the tavern. The\nchildren, on the other hand, had never been more joyful and more merry.\nThis contrast put the finishing touch on his pique.\n\n\"So far as I can see I am not wanted in my family,\" he said as he\nentered in a tone which he meant to be impressive.\n\nFor answer, his wife took him on one side and declared that it was\nessential to send Julien away. The hours of happiness which she had\njust enjoyed had given her again the ease and firmness of demeanour\nnecessary to follow out the plan of campaign which she had been\nhatching for a fortnight. The finishing touch to the trouble of the\npoor mayor of Verrieres was the fact that he knew that they joked\npublicly in the town about his love for cash. Valenod was as generous\nas a thief, and on his side had acquitted himself brilliantly in the\nlast five or six collections for the Brotherhood of St. Joseph, the\ncongregation of the Virgin, the congregation of the Holy Sacrament,\netc., etc.\n\nM. de Renal's name had been seen more than once at the bottom of the\nlist of gentlefolk of Verrieres, and the surrounding neighbourhood\nwho were adroitly classified in the list of the collecting brethren\naccording to the amount of their offerings. It was in vain that he said\nthat he was _not making money_. The clergy stands no nonsense in such\nmatters.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nSORROWS OF AN OFFICIAL\n\n\n        Il piacere di alzar la testa tutto l'anno, e ben pagato\n        da certi quarti d'ora che bisogna passar.--_Casti_.\n\n\nLet us leave this petty man to his petty fears; why did he take a man\nof spirit into his household when he needed someone with the soul\nof a valet? Why can't he select his staff? The ordinary trend of\nthe nineteenth century is that when a noble and powerful individual\nencounters a man of spirit, he kills him, exiles him and imprisons him,\nor so humiliates him that the other is foolish enough to die of grief.\nIn this country it so happens that it is not merely the man of spirit\nwho suffers. The great misfortunes of the little towns of France and of\nrepresentative governments, like that of New York, is that they find\nit impossible to forget the existence of individuals like M. de Renal.\nIt is these men who make public opinion in a town of twenty thousand\ninhabitants, and public opinion is terrible in a country which has a\ncharter of liberty. A man, though of a naturally noble and generous\ndisposition, who would have been your friend in the natural course of\nevents, but who happens to live a hundred leagues off, judges you by\nthe public opinion of your town which is made by those fools who have\nchanced to be born noble, rich and conservative. Unhappy is the man who\ndistinguishes himself.\n\nImmediately after dinner they left for Vergy, but the next day but\none Julien saw the whole family return to Verrieres. An hour had not\npassed before he discovered to his great surprise that Madame de Renal\nhad some mystery up her sleeve. Whenever he came into the room she\nwould break off her conversation with her husband and would almost\nseem to desire that he should go away. Julien did not need to be given\nthis hint twice. He became cold and reserved. Madame de Renal noticed\nit and did not ask for an explanation. \"Is she going to give me a\nsuccessor,\" thought Julien. \"And to think of her being so familiar\nwith me the day before yesterday, but that is how these great ladies\nare said to act. It's just like kings. One never gets any more warning\nthan the disgraced minister who enters his house to find his letter of\ndismissal.\" Julien noticed that these conversations which left off so\nabruptly at his approach, often dealt with a big house which belonged\nto the municipality of Verrieres, a house which though old was large\nand commodious and situated opposite the church in the most busy\ncommercial district of the town. \"What connection can there be between\nthis house and a new lover,\" said Julien to himself. In his chagrin he\nrepeated to himself the pretty verses of Francis I. which seemed novel\nto him, for Madame de Renal had only taught him them a month before:\n\n    Souvent femme varie\n    Bien fol est qui s'y fie.\n\nM. de Renal took the mail to Besancon. This journey was a matter of two\nhours. He seemed extremely harassed. On his return he threw a big grey\npaper parcel on the table.\n\n\"Here's that silly business,\" he said to his wife. An hour afterwards\nJulien saw the bill-poster carrying the big parcel. He followed him\neagerly. \"I shall learn the secret at the first street corner.\" He\nwaited impatiently behind the bill-poster who was smearing the back of\nthe poster with his big brush. It had scarcely been put in its place\nbefore Julien's curiosity saw the detailed announcement of the putting\nup for public auction of that big old house whose name had figured so\nfrequently in M. de Renal's conversations with his wife. The auction of\nthe lease was announced for to-morrow at two o'clock in the Town Hall\nafter the extinction of the third fire. Julien was very disappointed.\nHe found the time a little short. How could there be time to apprise\nall the other would-be purchasers. But, moreover, the bill, which was\ndated a fortnight back, and which he read again in its entirety in\nthree distinct places, taught him nothing.\n\nHe went to visit the house which was to let. The porter, who had not\nseen him approach, was saying mysteriously to a neighbour:\n\n\"Pooh, pooh, waste of time. M. Maslon has promised him that he shall\nhave it for three hundred francs; and, as the mayor kicked, he has been\nsummoned to the bishop's palace by M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair.\"\n\nJulien's arrival seemed very much to disconcert the two friends who\ndid not say another word. Julien made a point of being present at the\nauction of the lease.\n\nThere was a crowd in the badly-lighted hall, but everybody kept\nquizzing each other in quite a singular way. All eyes were fixed on a\ntable where Julien perceived three little lighted candle-ends on a tin\nplate. The usher was crying out \"Three hundred francs, gentlemen.\"\n\n\"Three hundred francs, that's a bit too thick,\" said a man to his\nneighbour in a low voice. Julien was between the two of them. \"It's\nworth more than eight hundred, I will raise the bidding.\" \"It's cutting\noff your nose to spite your face. What will you gain by putting M.\nMaslon, M. Valenod, the Bishop, this terrible Grand Vicar de Frilair\nand the whole gang on your track.\"\n\n\"Three hundred and twenty francs,\" shouted out the other.\n\n\"Damned brute,\" answered his neighbour. \"Why here we have a spy of the\nmayor,\" he added, designating Julien.\n\nJulien turned sharply round to punish this remark, but the two,\nFranc-comtois, were no longer paying any attention to him. Their\ncoolness gave him back his own. At that moment the last candle-end\nwent out and the usher's drawling voice awarded the house to M. de St.\nGiraud of the office of the prefecture of ---- for a term of nine years\nand for a rent of 320 francs.\n\nAs soon as the mayor had left the hall, the gossip began again.\n\n\"Here's thirty francs that Grogeot's recklessness is landing the\nmunicipality in for,\" said one--\"But,\" answered another, \"M. de Saint\nGiraud will revenge himself on Grogeot.\"\n\n\"How monstrous,\" said a big man on Julien's left. \"A house which I\nmyself would have given eight hundred francs for my factory, and I\nwould have got a good bargain.\"\n\n\"Pooh!\" answered a young manufacturer, \"doesn't M. de St. Giraud belong\nto the congregation? Haven't his four children got scholarships? poor\nman! The community of Verrieres must give him five hundred francs over\nand above his salary, that is all.\"\n\n\"And to say that the mayor was not able to stop it,\" remarked a third.\n\"For he's an ultra he is, I'm glad to say, but he doesn't steal.\"\n\n\"Doesn't he?\" answered another. \"Suppose it's simply a mere game of\n'snap'[1] then. Everything goes into a big common purse, and everything\nis divided up at the end of the year. But here's that little Sorel,\nlet's go away.\"\n\nJulien got home in a very bad temper. He found Madame de Renal very sad.\n\n\"You come from the auction?\" she said to him.\n\n\"Yes, madam, where I had the honour of passing for a spy of M. the\nMayor.\"\n\n\"If he had taken my advice, he would have gone on a journey.\"\n\nAt this moment Monsieur de Renal appeared: he looked very dismal. The\ndinner passed without a single word. Monsieur de Renal ordered Julien\nto follow the children to Vergy.\n\nMadame de Renal endeavoured to console her husband.\n\n\"You ought to be used to it, my dear.\"\n\nThat evening they were seated in silence around the domestic hearth.\nThe crackle of the burnt pinewood was their only distraction. It\nwas one of those moments of silence which happen in the most united\nfamilies. One of the children cried out gaily,\n\n\"Somebody's ringing, somebody's ringing!\"\n\n\"Zounds! supposing it's Monsieur de Saint Giraud who has come under\nthe pretext of thanking me,\" exclaimed the mayor. \"I will give him a\ndressing down. It is outrageous. It is Valenod to whom he'll feel under\nan obligation, and it is I who get compromised. What shall I say if\nthose damned Jacobin journalists get hold of this anecdote, and turn me\ninto a M. Nonante Cinque.\"\n\nA very good-looking man, with big black whiskers, entered at this\nmoment, preceded by the servant.\n\n\"Monsieur the mayor, I am Signor Geronimo. Here is a letter which M.\nthe Chevalier de Beauvoisis, who is attached to the Embassy of Naples,\ngave me for you on my departure. That is only nine days ago, added\nSignor Geronimo, gaily looking at Madame de Renal. Your cousin, and my\ngood friend, Signor de Beauvoisis says that you know Italian, Madame.\"\n\nThe Neapolitan's good humour changed this gloomy evening into a very\ngay one. Madame de Renal insisted upon giving him supper. She put the\nwhole house on the go. She wanted to free Julien at any price from the\nimputation of espionage which she had heard already twice that day.\n\nSignor Geronimo was an excellent singer, excellent company, and had\nvery gay qualities which, at any rate in France, are hardly compatible\nwith each other. After dinner he sang a little duet with Madame de\nRenal, and told some charming tales. At one o'clock in the morning the\nchildren protested, when Julien suggested that they should go to bed.\n\n\"Another of those stories,\" said the eldest.\n\n\"It is my own, Signorino,\" answered Signor Geronimo.\n\n\"Eight years ago I was, like you, a young pupil of the Naples\nConservatoire. I mean I was your age, but I did not have the honour to\nbe the son of the distinguished mayor of the pretty town of Verrieres.\"\nThis phrase made M. de Renal sigh, and look at his wife.\n\n\"Signor Zingarelli,\" continued the young singer, somewhat exaggerating\nhis action, and thus making the children burst into laughter, \"Signor\nZingarelli was an excellent though severe master. He is not popular at\nthe Conservatoire, but he insists on the pretence being kept up that he\nis. I went out as often as I could. I used to go to the little Theatre\nde San Carlino, where I used to hear divine music. But heavens! the\nquestion was to scrape together the eight sous which were the price of\nadmission to the parterre? An enormous sum,\" he said, looking at the\nchildren and watching them laugh. \"Signor Giovannone, director of the\nSan Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen. 'That child is a treasure,'\nhe said.\n\n\"'Would you like me to engage you, my dear boy?' he said.\n\n\"'And how much will you give me?'\n\n\"'Forty ducats a month.' That is one hundred and sixty francs,\ngentlemen. I thought the gates of heaven had opened.\n\n\"'But,' I said to Giovannone, 'how shall I get the strict Zingarelli to\nlet me go out?'\n\n\"'_Lascia fare a me_.'\"\n\n\"Leave it to me,\" exclaimed the eldest of the children.\n\n\"Quite right, my young sir. Signor Giovannone he says to me, 'First\nsign this little piece of paper, my dear friend.' I sign.\n\n\"He gives me three ducats. I had never seen so much money. Then he told\nme what I had to do.\n\n\"Next day I asked the terrible Zingarelli for an audience. His old\nvalet ushered me in.\n\n\"'What do you want of me, you naughty boy?' said Zingarelli.\n\n\"'Maestro,' I said, 'I repent of all my faults. I will never go out of\nthe Conservatoire by passing through the iron grill. I will redouble my\ndiligence.'\n\n\"'If I were not frightened of spoiling the finest bass voice I have\never heard, I would put you in prison for a fortnight on bread and\nwater, you rascal.'\n\n\"'Maestro,' I answered, 'I will be the model boy of the whole school,\n_credete a me_, but I would ask one favour of you. If anyone comes and\nasks permission for me to sing outside, refuse. As a favour, please say\nthat you cannot let me.'\n\n\"'And who the devil do you think is going to ask for a ne'er-do-well\nlike you? Do you think I should ever allow you to leave the\nConservatoire? Do you want to make fun of me? Clear out! Clear out!' he\nsaid, trying to give me a kick, 'or look out for prison and dry bread.'\"\n\nOne thing astonished Julien. The solitary weeks passed at Verrieres in\nde Renal's house had been a period of happiness for him. He had only\nexperienced revulsions and sad thoughts at the dinners to which he had\nbeen invited. And was he not able to read, write and reflect, without\nbeing distracted, in this solitary house? He was not distracted every\nmoment from his brilliant reveries by the cruel necessity of studying\nthe movement of a false soul in order to deceive it by intrigue and\nhypocrisy.\n\n\"To think of happiness being so near to me--the expense of a life\nlike that is small enough. I could have my choice of either marrying\nMademoiselle Elisa or of entering into partnership with Fouque. But it\nis only the traveller who has just scaled a steep mountain and sits\ndown on the summit who finds a perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be\nhappy if he had to rest all the time?\"\n\nMadame de Renal's mind had now reached a state of desperation. In spite\nof her resolutions, she had explained to Julien all the details of the\nauction. \"He will make me forget all my oaths!\" she thought.\n\nShe would have sacrificed her life without hesitation to save that\nof her husband if she had seen him in danger. She was one of those\nnoble, romantic souls who find a source of perpetual remorse equal to\nthat occasioned by the actual perpetration of a crime, in seeing the\npossibility of a generous action and not doing it. None the less, there\nwere deadly days when she was not able to banish the imagination of\nthe excessive happiness which she would enjoy if she suddenly became a\nwidow, and were able to marry Julien.\n\nHe loved her sons much more than their father did; in spite of his\nstrict justice they were devoted to him. She quite realised that if\nshe married Julien, it would be necessary to leave that Vergy, whose\nshades were so dear to her. She pictured herself living at Paris, and\ncontinuing to give her sons an education which would make them admired\nby everyone. Her children, herself, and Julien! They would be all\nperfectly happy!\n\nStrange result of marriage such as the nineteenth century has made it!\nThe boredom of matrimonial life makes love fade away inevitably, when\nlove has preceded the marriage. But none the less, said a philosopher,\nmarried life soon reduces those people who are sufficiently rich\nnot to have to work, to a sense of being utterly bored by all quiet\nenjoyments. And among women, it is only arid souls whom it does not\npredispose to love.\n\nThe philosopher's reflection makes me excuse Madame de Renal, but she\nwas not excused in Verrieres, and without her suspecting it, the whole\ntown found its sole topic of interest in the scandal of her intrigue.\nAs a result of this great affair, the autumn was less boring than usual.\n\nThe autumn and part of the winter passed very quickly. It was necessary\nto leave the woods of Vergy. Good Verrieres society began to be\nindignant at the fact that its anathemas made so little impression on\nMonsieur de Renal. Within eight days, several serious personages who\nmade up for their habitual gravity of demeanour by their pleasure in\nfulfilling missions of this kind, gave him the most cruel suspicions,\nat the same time utilising the most measured terms.\n\nM. Valenod, who was playing a deep game, had placed Elisa in an\naristocratic family of great repute, where there were five women.\nElisa, fearing, so she said, not to find a place during the winter, had\nonly asked from this family about two-thirds of what she had received\nin the house of the mayor. The girl hit upon the excellent idea of\ngoing to confession at the same time to both the old cure Chelan,\nand also to the new one, so as to tell both of them in detail about\nJulien's amours.\n\nThe day after his arrival, the abbe Chelan summoned Julien to him at\nsix o'clock in the morning.\n\n\"I ask you nothing,\" he said. \"I beg you, and if needs be I insist,\nthat you either leave for the Seminary of Besancon, or for your friend\nFouque, who is always ready to provide you with a splendid future. I\nhave seen to everything and have arranged everything, but you must\nleave, and not come back to Verrieres for a year.\"\n\nJulien did not answer. He was considering whether his honour ought to\nregard itself offended at the trouble which Chelan, who, after all, was\nnot his father, had taken on his behalf.\n\n\"I shall have the honour of seeing you again to-morrow at the same\nhour,\" he said finally to the cure.\n\nChelan, who reckoned on carrying so young a man by storm, talked a\ngreat deal. Julien, cloaked in the most complete humbleness, both of\ndemeanour and expression, did not open his lips.\n\nEventually he left, and ran to warn Madame de Renal whom he found in\ndespair. Her husband had just spoken to her with a certain amount of\nfrankness. The weakness of his character found support in the prospect\nof the legacy, and had decided him to treat her as perfectly innocent.\nHe had just confessed to her the strange state in which he had found\npublic opinion in Verrieres. The public was wrong; it had been misled\nby jealous tongues. But, after all, what was one to do?\n\nMadame de Renal was, for the moment, under the illusion that Julien\nwould accept the offer of Valenod and stay at Verrieres. But she was no\nlonger the simple, timid woman that she had been the preceding year.\nHer fatal passion and remorse had enlightened her. She soon realised\nthe painful truth (while at the same time she listened to her husband),\nthat at any rate a temporary separation had become essential.\n\nWhen he is far from me, Julien will revert to those ambitious projects\nwhich are so natural when one has no money. And I, Great God! I am so\nrich, and my riches are so useless for my happiness. He will forget\nme. Loveable as he is, he will be loved, and he will love. You unhappy\nwoman. What can I complain of? Heaven is just. I was not virtuous\nenough to leave off the crime. Fate robs me of my judgment. I could\neasily have bribed Elisa if I had wanted to; nothing was easier. I did\nnot take the trouble to reflect for a moment. The mad imagination of\nlove absorbed all my time. I am ruined.\n\nWhen Julien apprised Madame de Renal of the terrible news of his\ndeparture, he was struck with one thing. He did not find her put\nforward any selfish objections. She was evidently making efforts not to\ncry.\n\n\"We have need of firmness, my dear.\" She cut off a strand of her hair.\n\"I do no know what I shall do,\" she said to him, \"but promise me if I\ndie, never to forget my children. Whether you are far or near, try to\nmake them into honest men. If there is a new revolution, all the nobles\nwill have their throats cut. Their father will probably emigrate,\nbecause of that peasant on the roof who got killed. Watch over my\nfamily. Give me your hand. Adieu, my dear. These are our last moments.\nHaving made this great sacrifice, I hope I shall have the courage to\nconsider my reputation in public.\"\n\nJulien had been expecting despair. The simplicity of this farewell\ntouched him.\n\n\"No, I am not going to receive your farewell like this. I will leave\nyou now, as you yourself wish it. But three days after my departure I\nwill come back to see you at night.\"\n\nMadame de Renal's life was changed. So Julien really loved her, since\nof his own accord he had thought of seeing her again. Her awful grief\nbecame changed into one of the keenest transports of joy which she had\nfelt in her whole life. Everything became easy for her. The certainty\nof seeing her lover deprived these last moments of their poignancy.\nFrom that moment, both Madame de Renal's demeanour and the expression\nof her face were noble, firm, and perfectly dignified.\n\nM. de Renal soon came back. He was beside himself. He eventually\nmentioned to his wife the anonymous letter which he had received two\nmonths before.\n\n\"I will take it to the Casino, and shew everybody that it has been sent\nby that brute Valenod, whom I took out of the gutter and made into one\nof the richest tradesmen in Verrieres. I will disgrace him publicly,\nand then I will fight him. This is too much.\"\n\n\"Great Heavens! I may become a widow,\" thought Madame de Renal, and\nalmost at the same time she said to herself,\n\n\"If I do not, as I certainly can, prevent this duel, I shall be the\nmurderess of my own husband.\"\n\nShe had never expended so much skill in honoring his vanity. Within\ntwo hours she made him see, and always by virtue of reasons which he\ndiscovered himself, that it was necessary to show more friendship than\never to M. Valenod, and even to take Elisa back into the household.\n\nMadame de Renal had need of courage to bring herself to see again the\ngirl who was the cause of her unhappiness. But this idea was one of\nJulien's. Finally, having been put on the track three or four times,\nM. de Renal arrived spontaneously at the conclusion, disagreeable\nthough it was from the financial standpoint, that the most painful\nthing that could happen to him would be that Julien, in the middle of\nthe effervescence of popular gossip throughout Verrieres, should stay\nin the town as the tutor of Valenod's children. It was obviously to\nJulien's interest to accept the offer of the director of the workhouse.\nConversely, it was essential for M. de Renal's prestige that Julien\nshould leave Verrieres to enter the seminary of Besancon or that of\nDijon. But how to make him decide on that course? And then how is he\ngoing to live?\n\nM. de Renal, seeing a monetary sacrifice looming in the distance,\nwas in deeper despair than his wife. As for her, she felt after this\ninterview in the position of a man of spirit who, tired of life, has\ntaken a dose of stramonium. He only acts mechanically so to speak, and\ntakes no longer any interest in anything. In this way, Louis XIV. came\nto say on his death-bed, \"When I was king.\" An admirable epigram.\n\nNext morning, M. de Renal received quite early an anonymous letter.\nIt was written in a most insulting style, and the coarsest words\napplicable to his position occurred on every line. It was the work of\nsome jealous subordinate. This letter made him think again of fighting\na duel with Valenod. Soon his courage went as far as the idea of\nimmediate action. He left the house alone, went to the armourer's and\ngot some pistols which he loaded.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" he said to himself, \"even though the strict\nadministration of the Emperor Napoleon were to become fashionable\nagain, I should not have one sou's worth of jobbery to reproach myself\nwith; at the outside, I have shut my eyes, and I have some good letters\nin my desk which authorise me to do so.\"\n\nMadame de Renal was terrified by her husband's cold anger. It recalled\nto her the fatal idea of widowhood which she had so much trouble in\nrepelling. She closeted herself with him. For several hours she talked\nto him in vain. The new anonymous letter had decided him. Finally she\nsucceeded in transforming the courage which had decided him to box\nValenod's ears, into the courage of offering six hundred francs to\nJulien, which would keep him for one year in a seminary.\n\nM. de Renal cursed a thousand times the day that he had had the\nill-starred idea of taking a tutor into his house, and forgot the\nanonymous letter.\n\nHe consoled himself a little by an idea which he did not tell his\nwife. With the exercise of some skill, and by exploiting the romantic\nideas of the young man, he hoped to be able to induce him to refuse M.\nValenod's offer at a cheaper price.\n\nMadame de Renal had much more trouble in proving to Julien that\ninasmuch as he was sacrificing the post of six hundred francs a year\nin order to enable her husband to keep up appearances, he need have no\nshame about accepting the compensation. But Julien would say each time,\n\"I have never thought for a moment of accepting that offer. You have\nmade me so used to a refined life that the coarseness of those people\nwould kill me.\"\n\nCruel necessity bent Julien's will with its iron hand. His pride gave\nhim the illusion that he only accepted the sum offered by M. de Renal\nas a loan, and induced him to give him a promissory note, repayable in\nfive years with interest.\n\nMadame de Renal had, of course, many thousands of francs which had been\nconcealed in the little mountain cave.\n\nShe offered them to him all a tremble, feeling only too keenly that\nthey would be angrily refused.\n\n\"Do you wish,\" said Julien to her, \"to make the memory of our love\nloathsome?\"\n\nFinally Julien left Verrieres. M. de Renal was very happy, but when\nthe fatal moment came to accept money from him the sacrifice proved\nbeyond Julien's strength. He refused point blank. M. de Renal embraced\nhim around the neck with tears in his eyes. Julien had asked him for\na testimonial of good conduct, and his enthusiasm could find no terms\nmagnificent enough in which to extol his conduct.\n\nOur hero had five louis of savings and he reckoned on asking Fouque for\nan equal sum.\n\nHe was very moved. But one league from Verrieres, where he left so much\nthat was dear to him, he only thought of the happiness of seeing the\ncapital of a great military town like Besancon.\n\nDuring the short absence of three days, Madame de Renal was the victim\nof one of the cruellest deceptions to which love is liable. Her life\nwas tolerable, because between her and extreme unhappiness there was\nstill that last interview which she was to have with Julien.\n\nFinally during the night of the third day, she heard from a distance\nthe preconcerted signal. Julien, having passed through a thousand\ndangers, appeared before her. In this moment she only had one\nthought--\"I see him for the last time.\" Instead of answering the\nendearments of her lover, she seemed more dead than alive. If she\nforced herself to tell him that she loved him, she said it with an\nembarrassed air which almost proved the contrary. Nothing could rid her\nof the cruel idea of eternal separation. The suspicious Julien thought\nfor the moment that he was already forgotten. His pointed remarks to\nthis effect were only answered by great tears which flowed down in\nsilence, and by some hysterical pressings of the hand.\n\n\"But,\" Julien would answer his mistress's cold protestations, \"Great\nHeavens! How can you expect me to believe you? You would show one\nhundred times more sincere affection to Madame Derville to a mere\nacquaintance.\"\n\nMadame de Renal was petrified, and at a loss for an answer.\n\n\"It is impossible to be more unhappy. I hope I am going to die. I feel\nmy heart turn to ice.\"\n\nThose were the longest answers which he could obtain.\n\nWhen the approach of day rendered it necessary for him to leave Madame\nde Renal, her tears completely ceased. She saw him tie a knotted rope\nto the window without saying a word, and without returning her kisses.\nIt was in vain that Julien said to her.\n\n\"So now we have reached the state of affairs which you wished for\nso much. Henceforward you will live without remorse. The slightest\nindisposition of your children will no longer make you see them in the\ntomb.\"\n\n\"I am sorry that you cannot kiss Stanislas,\" she said coldly.\n\nJulien finished by being profoundly impressed by the cold embraces of\nthis living corpse. He could think of nothing else for several leagues.\nHis soul was overwhelmed, and before passing the mountain, and while\nhe could still see the church tower of Verrieres he turned round\nfrequently.\n\n\n[1] C'est pigeon qui vole. A reference to a contemporary animal game\nwith a pun on the word \"vole.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nA CAPITAL\n\n\n        What a noise, what busy people! What ideas for the\n        future in a brain of twenty! What distraction offered by\n        love.--_Barnave_.\n\n\nFinally he saw some black walls near a distant mountain. It was the\ncitadel of Besancon. \"How different it would be for me,\" he said\nwith a sigh, \"if I were arriving at this noble military town to be\nsub-lieutenant in one of the regiments entrusted with its defence.\"\nBesancon is not only one of the prettiest towns in France, it abounds\nin people of spirit and brains. But Julien was only a little peasant,\nand had no means of approaching distinguished people.\n\nHe had taken a civilian suit at Fouque's, and it was in this dress that\nhe passed the drawbridge. Steeped as he was in the history of the siege\nof 1674, he wished to see the ramparts of the citadel before shutting\nhimself up in the seminary. He was within an ace two or three times\nof getting himself arrested by the sentinel. He was penetrating into\nplaces which military genius forbids the public to enter, in order to\nsell twelve or fifteen francs worth of corn every year.\n\nThe height of the walls, the depth of the ditches, the terrible aspect\nof the cannons had been engrossing him for several hours when he passed\nbefore the great cafe on the boulevard. He was motionless with wonder;\nit was in vain that he read the word _cafe_, written in big characters\nabove the two immense doors. He could not believe his eyes. He made an\neffort to overcome his timidity. He dared to enter, and found himself\nin a hall twenty or thirty yards long, and with a ceiling at least\ntwenty feet high. To-day, everything had a fascination for him.\n\nTwo games of billiards were in progress. The waiters were crying out\nthe scores. The players ran round the tables encumbered by spectators.\nClouds of tobacco smoke came from everybody's mouth, and enveloped them\nin a blue haze. The high stature of these men, their rounded shoulders,\ntheir heavy gait, their enormous whiskers, the long tailed coats which\ncovered them, everything combined to attract Julien's attention. These\nnoble children of the antique Bisontium only spoke at the top of their\nvoice. They gave themselves terrible martial airs. Julien stood still\nand admired them. He kept thinking of the immensity and magnificence\nof a great capital like Besancon. He felt absolutely devoid of the\nrequisite courage to ask one of those haughty looking gentlemen, who\nwere crying out the billiard scores, for a cup of coffee.\n\nBut the young lady at the bar had noticed the charming face of this\nyoung civilian from the country, who had stopped three feet from\nthe stove with his little parcel under his arm, and was looking at\nthe fine white plaster bust of the king. This young lady, a big\n_Franc-comtoise_, very well made, and dressed with the elegance\nsuitable to the prestige of the cafe, had already said two or three\ntimes in a little voice not intended to be heard by any one except\nJulien, \"Monsieur, Monsieur.\" Julien's eyes encountered big blue eyes\nfull of tenderness, and saw that he was the person who was being spoken\nto.\n\nHe sharply approached the bar and the pretty girl, as though he had\nbeen marching towards the enemy. In this great manoeuvre the parcel fell.\n\nWhat pity will not our provincial inspire in the young lycee scholars\nof Paris, who, at the early age of fifteen, know already how to enter\na cafe with so distinguished an air? But these children who have such\nstyle at fifteen turn commonplace at eighteen. The impassioned timidity\nwhich is met with in the provinces, sometimes manages to master its own\nnervousness, and thus trains the will. \"I must tell her the truth,\"\nthought Julien, who was becoming courageous by dint of conquering his\ntimidity as he approached this pretty girl, who deigned to address him.\n\n\"Madame, this is the first time in my life that I have come to\nBesancon. I should like to have some bread and a cup of coffee in\nreturn for payment.\"\n\nThe young lady smiled a little, and then blushed. She feared the ironic\nattention and the jests of the billiard players might be turned against\nthis pretty young man. He would be frightened and would not appear\nthere again.\n\n\"Sit here near me,\" she said to him, showing him a marble table almost\ncompletely hidden by the enormous mahogany counter which extended into\nthe hall.\n\nThe young lady leant over the counter, and had thus an opportunity of\ndisplaying a superb figure. Julien noticed it. All his ideas changed.\nThe pretty young lady had just placed before him a cup, some sugar, and\na little roll. She hesitated to call a waiter for the coffee, as she\nrealised that his arrival would put an end to her _tete-a-tete_ with\nJulien.\n\nJulien was pensively comparing this blonde and merry beauty with\ncertain memories which would often thrill him. The thought of the\npassion of which he had been the object, nearly freed him from all\nhis timidity. The pretty young woman had only one moment to save the\nsituation. She read it in Julien's looks.\n\n\"This pipe smoke makes you cough; come and have breakfast to-morrow\nbefore eight o'clock in the morning. I am practically alone then.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\" said Julien, with the caressing smile of happy\ntimidity.\n\n\"Amanda Binet.\"\n\n\"Will you allow me to send you within an hour's time a little parcel\nabout as big as this?\"\n\nThe beautiful Amanda reflected a little.\n\n\"I am watched. What you ask may compromise me. All the same, I will\nwrite my address on a card, which you will put on your parcel. Send it\nboldly to me.\"\n\n\"My name is Julien Sorel,\" said the young man. \"I have neither\nrelatives nor acquaintances at Besancon.\"\n\n\"Ah, I understand,\" she said joyfully. \"You come to study law.\"\n\n\"Alas, no,\" answered Julien, \"I am being sent to the Seminary.\"\n\nThe most complete discouragement damped Amanda's features. She called\na waiter. She had courage now. The waiter poured out some coffee for\nJulien without looking at him.\n\nAmanda was receiving money at the counter. Julien was proud of having\ndared to speak: a dispute was going on at one of the billiard tables.\nThe cries and the protests of the players resounded over the immense\nhall, and made a din which astonished Julien. Amanda was dreamy, and\nkept her eyes lowered.\n\n\"If you like, Mademoiselle,\" he said to her suddenly with assurance, \"I\nwill say that I am your cousin.\"\n\nThis little air of authority pleased Amanda. \"He's not a mere nobody,\"\nshe thought. She spoke to him very quickly, without looking at him,\nbecause her eye was occupied in seeing if anybody was coming near the\ncounter.\n\n\"I come from Genlis, near Dijon. Say that you are also from Genlis and\nare my mother's cousin.\"\n\n\"I shall not fail to do so.\"\n\n\"All the gentlemen who go to the Seminary pass here before the cafe\nevery Thursday in the summer at five o'clock.\"\n\n\"If you think of me when I am passing, have a bunch of violets in your\nhand.\"\n\nAmanda looked at him with an astonished air. This look changed Julien's\ncourage into audacity. Nevertheless, he reddened considerably, as he\nsaid to her. \"I feel that I love you with the most violent love.\"\n\n\"Speak in lower tones,\" she said to him with a frightened air.\n\nJulien was trying to recollect phrases out of a volume of the _Nouvelle\nHeloise_ which he had found at Vergy. His memory served him in good\nstead. For ten minutes he recited the _Nouvelle Heloise_ to the\ndelighted Mademoiselle Amanda. He was happy on the strength of his own\nbravery, when suddenly the beautiful Franc-contoise assumed an icy\nair. One of her lovers had appeared at the cafe door. He approached\nthe bar, whistling, and swaggering his shoulders. He looked at Julien.\nThe latter's imagination, which always indulged in extremes, suddenly\nbrimmed over with ideas of a duel. He paled greatly, put down his\ncup, assumed an assured demeanour, and considered his rival very\nattentively. As this rival lowered his head, while he familiarly poured\nout on the counter a glass of brandy for himself, Amanda ordered Julien\nwith a look to lower his eyes. He obeyed, and for two minutes kept\nmotionless in his place, pale, resolute, and only thinking of what was\ngoing to happen. He was truly happy at this moment. The rival had been\nastonished by Julien's eyes. Gulping down his glass of brandy, he said\na few words to Amanda, placed his two hands in the pockets of his big\ntail coat, and approached the billiard table, whistling, and looking at\nJulien. The latter got up transported with rage, but he did not know\nwhat to do in order to be offensive. He put down his little parcel, and\nwalked towards the billiard table with all the swagger he could muster.\n\nIt was in vain that prudence said to him, \"but your ecclesiastical\ncareer will be ruined by a duel immediately on top of your arrival at\nBesancon.\"\n\n\"What does it matter. It shall never be said that I let an insolent\nfellow go scot free.\"\n\nAmanda saw his courage. It contrasted prettily with the simplicity of\nhis manners. She instantly preferred him to the big young man with the\ntail coat. She got up, and while appearing to be following with her eye\nsomebody who was passing in the street, she went and quickly placed\nherself between him and the billiard table.\n\n\"Take care not to look askance at that gentleman. He is my\nbrother-in-law.\"\n\n\"What does it matter? He looked at me.\"\n\n\"Do you want to make me unhappy? No doubt he looked at you, why it may\nbe he is going to speak to you. I told him that you were a relative of\nmy mother, and that you had arrived from Genlis. He is a Franc-contois,\nand has never gone beyond Doleon the Burgundy Road, so say what you\nlike and fear nothing.\"\n\nJulien was still hesitating. Her barmaid's imagination furnished her\nwith an abundance of lies, and she quickly added.\n\n\"No doubt he looked at you, but it was at a moment when he was asking\nme who you were. He is a man who is boorish with everyone. He did not\nmean to insult you.\"\n\nJulien's eye followed the pretended brother-in-law. He saw him buy a\nticket for the pool, which they were playing at the further of the\ntwo billiard tables. Julien heard his loud voice shouting out in a\nthreatening tone, \"My turn to play.\"\n\nHe passed sharply before Madame Amanda, and took a step towards the\nbilliard table. Amanda seized him by the arm.\n\n\"Come and pay me first,\" she said to him.\n\n\"That is right,\" thought Julien. \"She is frightened that I shall leave\nwithout paying.\" Amanda was as agitated as he was, and very red. She\ngave him the change as slowly as she could, while she repeated to him,\nin a low voice,\n\n\"Leave the cafe this instant, or I shall love you no more, and yet I do\nlove you very much.\"\n\nJulien did go out, but slowly. \"Am I not in duty bound,\" he repeated\nto himself, \"to go and stare at that coarse person in my turn?\" This\nuncertainty kept him on the boulevard in the front of the cafe for an\nhour; he kept looking if his man was coming out. He did not come out,\nand Julien went away.\n\nHe had only been at Besancon some hours, and already he had overcome\none pang of remorse. The old surgeon-major had formerly given him some\nfencing lessons, in spite of his gout. That was all the science which\nJulien could enlist in the service of his anger. But this embarrassment\nwould have been nothing if he had only known how to vent his temper\notherwise than by the giving of a blow, for if it had come to a matter\nof fisticuffs, his enormous rival would have beaten him and then\ncleared out.\n\n\"There is not much difference between a seminary and a prison,\" said\nJulien to himself, \"for a poor devil like me, without protectors and\nwithout money. I must leave my civilian clothes in some inn, where I\ncan put my black suit on again. If I ever manage to get out of the\nseminary for a few hours, I shall be able to see Mdlle. Amanda again in\nmy lay clothes.\" This reasoning was all very fine. Though Julien passed\nin front of all the inns, he did not dare to enter a single one.\n\nFinally, as he was passing again before the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, his\nanxious eyes encountered those of a big woman, still fairly young, with\na high colour, and a gay and happy air. He approached her and told his\nstory.\n\n\"Certainly, my pretty little abbe,\" said the hostess of the\nAmbassadeurs to him, \"I will keep your lay clothes for you, and I will\neven have them regularly brushed. In weather like this, it is not good\nto leave a suit of cloth without touching it.\" She took a key, and\nconducted him herself to a room, and advised him to make out a note of\nwhat he was leaving.\n\n\"Good heavens. How well you look like that, M. the abbe Sorel,\" said\nthe big woman to him when he came down to the kitchen. I will go and\nget a good dinner served up to you, and she added in a low voice, \"It\nwill only cost twenty sous instead of the fifty which everybody else\npays, for one must really take care of your little purse strings.\"\n\n\"I have ten louis,\" Julien replied with certain pride.\n\n\"Oh, great heavens,\" answered the good hostess in alarm. \"Don't talk\nso loud, there are quite a lot of bad characters in Besancon. They'll\nsteal all that from you in less than no time, and above all, never go\ninto the cafe s, they are filled with bad characters.\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Julien, to whom those words gave food for thought.\n\n\"Don't go anywhere else, except to my place. I will make coffee for\nyou. Remember that you will always find a friend here, and a good\ndinner for twenty sous. So now you understand, I hope. Go and sit down\nat table, I will serve you myself.\"\n\n\"I shan't be able to eat,\" said Julien to her. \"I am too upset. I am\ngoing to enter the seminary, as I leave you.\" The good woman, would not\nallow him to leave before she had filled his pockets with provisions.\nFinally Julien took his road towards the terrible place. The hostess\nwas standing at the threshold, and showed him the way.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nTHE SEMINARY\n\n\n        Three hundred and thirty-six dinners at eighty-five\n        centimes. Three hundred and thirty-six suppers at fifty\n        centimes. Chocolate to those who are entitled to it. How\n        much profit can be made on the contract?--_Valenod of\n        Besancon_.\n\n\nHe saw in the distance the iron gilt cross on the door. He approached\nslowly. His legs seemed to give way beneath him. \"So here is this hell\nupon earth which I shall be unable to leave.\"\n\nFinally he made up his mind to ring. The noise of the bell reverberated\nas though through a solitude. At the end of ten minutes a pale man,\nclothed in black, came and opened the door. Julien looked at him, and\nimmediately lowered his eyes. This porter had a singular physiognomy.\nThe green projecting pupils of his eyes were as round as those of a\ncat. The straight lines of his eyebrows betokened the impossibility of\nany sympathy. His thin lips came round in a semicircle over projecting\nteeth. None the less, his physiognomy did not so much betoken crime\nas rather that perfect callousness which is so much more terrifying\nto the young. The one sentiment which Julien's rapid gaze surmised in\nthis long and devout face was a profound contempt for every topic of\nconversation which did not deal with things celestial. Julien raised\nhis eyes with an effort, and in a voice rendered quavering by the\nbeating of his heart explained that he desired to speak to M. Pirard,\nthe director of the Seminary. Without saying a word the man in black\nsigned to him to follow. They ascended two stories by a large staircase\nwith a wooden rail, whose warped stairs inclined to the side opposite\nthe wall, and seemed on the point of falling. A little door with a\nbig cemetery cross of white wood painted black at the top was opened\nwith difficulty, and the porter made him enter a dark low room, whose\nwhitewashed walls were decorated with two big pictures blackened by\nage. In this room Julien was left alone. He was overwhelmed. His heart\nwas beating violently. He would have been happy to have ventured to\ncry. A silence of death reigned over the whole house.\n\nAt the end of a quarter of an hour, which seemed a whole day to him,\nthe sinister looking porter reappeared on the threshold of a door at\nthe other end of the room, and without vouchsafing a word, signed to\nhim to advance. He entered into a room even larger than the first,\nand very badly lighted. The walls also were whitened, but there was\nno furniture. Only in a corner near the door Julien saw as he passed\na white wooden bed, two straw chairs, and a little pinewood armchair\nwithout any cushions. He perceived at the other end of the room, near a\nsmall window with yellow panes decorated with badly kept flower vases,\na man seated at a table, and covered with a dilapidated cassock. He\nappeared to be in a temper, and took one after the other a number of\nlittle squares of paper, which he arranged on his table after he had\nwritten some words on them. He did not notice Julien's presence. The\nlatter did not move, but kept standing near the centre of the room in\nthe place where the porter, who had gone out and shut the door, had\nleft him.\n\nTen minutes passed in this way: the badly dressed man kept on writing\nall the time. Julien's emotion and terror were so great that he thought\nhe was on the point of falling. A philosopher would have said, possibly\nwrongly, \"It is a violent impression made by ugliness on a soul\nintended by nature to love the beautiful.\"\n\nThe man who was writing lifted up his head. Julien only perceived it\nafter a moment had passed, and even after seeing it, he still remained\nmotionless, as though struck dead by the terrible look of which he\nwas the victim. Julien's troubled eyes just managed to make out a\nlong face, all covered with red blotches except the forehead, which\nmanifested a mortal pallor. Two little black eyes, calculated to\nterrify the most courageous, shone between these red cheeks and that\nwhite forehead. The vast area of his forehead was bounded by thick,\nflat, jet black hair.\n\n\"Will you come near, yes or no?\" said the man at last, impatiently.\n\nJulien advanced with an uneasy step, and at last, paler than he had\never been in his life and on the point of falling, stopped three paces\nfrom the little white wooden table which was covered with the squares\nof paper.\n\n\"Nearer,\" said the man.\n\nJulien advanced still further, holding out his hand, as though trying\nto lean on something.\n\n\"Your name?\"\n\n\"Julien Sorel.\"\n\n\"You are certainly very late,\" said the man to him, as he rivetted\nagain on him that terrible gaze.\n\nJulien could not endure this look. Holding out his hand as though to\nsupport himself, he fell all his length along the floor.\n\nThe man rang. Julien had only lost the use of his eyes and the power of\nmovement. He heard steps approaching.\n\nHe was lifted up and placed on the little armchair of white wood. He\nheard the terrible man saying to the porter,\n\n\"He has had an epileptic fit apparently, and this is the finishing\ntouch.\"\n\nWhen Julien was able to open his eyes, the man with the red face was\ngoing on with his writing. The porter had disappeared. \"I must have\ncourage,\" said our hero to himself, \"and above all, hide what I feel.\"\nHe felt violently sick. \"If anything happens to me, God knows what they\nwill think of me.\"\n\nFinally the man stopped writing and looked sideways at Julien.\n\n\"Are you in a fit state to answer me?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Julien in an enfeebled voice.\n\n\"Ah, that's fortunate.\"\n\nThe man in black had half got up, and was looking impatiently for a\nletter in the drawer of his pinewood table, which opened with a grind.\nHe found it, sat down slowly, and looking again at Julien in a manner\ncalculated to suck out of him the little life which he still possessed,\nsaid,\n\n\"You have been recommended to me by M. Chelan. He was the best cure in\nthe diocese; he was an upright man if there ever was one, and my friend\nfor thirty years.\"\n\n\"Oh. It's to M. Pirard then that I have the honour of speaking?\" said\nJulien in a dying voice.\n\n\"Apparently,\" replied the director of the seminary, as he looked at him\ndisagreeably.\n\nThe glitter of his little eyes doubled and was followed by an\ninvoluntary movement of the muscles of the corner of the mouth. It\nwas the physiognomy of the tiger savouring in advance the pleasure of\ndevouring its prey.\n\n\"Chelan's letter is short,\" he said, as though speaking to himself.\n\"_Intelligenti pauca_. In the present time it is impossible to write\ntoo little.\" He read aloud:--\n\n        \"I recommend to you Julien Sorel of this parish, whom\n        I baptized nearly twenty years ago, the son of a rich\n        carpenter who gives him nothing. Julien will be a\n        remarkable worker in the vineyard of the Lord. He lacks\n        neither memory nor intelligence; he has some faculty\n        for reflection. Will he persevere in his calling? Is he\n        sincere?\"\n\n\"Sincere,\" repeated the abbe Pirard with an astonished air, looking at\nJulien. But the abbe's look was already less devoid of all humanity.\n\"Sincere,\" he repeated, lowering his voice, and resuming his reading:--\n\n        \"I ask you for a stipend for Julien Sorel. He will earn\n        it by passing the necessary examinations. I have taught\n        him a little theology, that old and good theology of the\n        Bossuets, the Arnaults, and the Fleury's. If the person\n        does not suit you, send him back to me. The director\n        of the workhouse, whom you know well, offers him eight\n        hundred to be tutor to his children. My inner self is\n        tranquil, thanks to God. I am accustoming myself to the\n        terrible blow, 'Vale et me ama.'\"\n\nThe abbe Pirard, speaking more slowly as he read the signature,\npronounced with a sigh the word, \"Chelan.\"\n\n\"He is tranquil,\" he said, \"in fact his righteousness deserves such a\nrecompense. May God grant it to me in such a case.\" He looked up to\nheaven and made the sign of the cross. At the sight of that sacred sign\nJulien felt an alleviation of the profound horror which had frozen him\nsince his entry into the house.\n\n\"I have here three hundred and twenty-one aspirants for the most holy\nstate,\" said the abbe Pirard at last, in a tone, which though severe,\nwas not malicious; \"only seven or eight have been recommended to me by\nsuch men as the abbe Chelan; so you will be the ninth of these among\nthe three hundred and twenty-one. But my protection means neither\nfavour nor weakness, it means doubled care, and doubled severity\nagainst vice. Go and lock that door.\"\n\nJulian made an effort to walk, and managed not to fall. He noticed that\na little window near the entrance door looked out on to the country.\nHe saw the trees; that sight did him as much good as the sight of old\nfriends.\n\n\"'Loquerisne linquam latinam?'\" (Do you speak Latin?) said the abbe\nPirard to him as he came back.\n\n\"'Ita, pater optime,'\" (Yes, excellent Father) answered Julien,\nrecovering himself a little. But it was certain that nobody in the\nworld had ever appeared to him less excellent than had M. Pirard for\nthe last half hour.\n\nThe conversation continued in Latin. The expression in the abbe's eyes\nsoftened. Julien regained some self-possession. \"How weak I am,\" he\nthought, \"to let myself be imposed on by these appearances of virtue.\nThe man is probably nothing more than a rascal, like M. Maslon,\" and\nJulien congratulated himself on having hidden nearly all his money in\nhis boots.\n\nThe abbe Pirard examined Julien in theology; he was surprised at\nthe extent of his knowledge, but his astonishment increased when he\nquestioned him in particular on sacred scriptures. But when it came to\nquestions of the doctrines of the Fathers, he perceived that Julien\nscarcely even knew the names of Saint Jerome, Saint Augustin, Saint\nBonaventure, Saint Basile, etc., etc.\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" thought the abbe Pirard, \"this is simply that\nfatal tendency to Protestantism for which I have always reproached\nChelan. A profound, and only too profound knowledge of the Holy\nScriptures.\"\n\n(Julien had just started speaking to him, without being questioned on\nthe point, about the real time when Genesis, the Pentateuch, etc., has\nbeen written).\n\n\"To what does this never-ending reasoning over the Holy Scriptures lead\nto?\" thought the abbe Pirard, \"if not to self-examination, that is to\nsay, the most awful Protestantism. And by the side of this imprudent\nknowledge, nothing about the Fathers to compensate for that tendency.\"\n\nBut the astonishment of the director of the seminary was quite\nunbounded when having questioned Julien about the authority of the\nPope, and expecting to hear the maxims of the ancient Gallican Church,\nthe young man recited to him the whole book of M. de Maistre \"Strange\nman, that Chelan,\" thought the abbe Pirard. \"Did he show him the book\nsimply to teach him to make fun of it?\"\n\nIt was in vain that he questioned Julien and endeavoured to guess if\nhe seriously believed in the doctrine of M. de Maistre. The young man\nonly answered what he had learnt by heart. From this moment Julien was\nreally happy. He felt that he was master of himself. After a very long\nexamination, it seemed to him that M. Pirard's severity towards him was\nonly affected. Indeed, the director of the seminary would have embraced\nJulien in the name of logic, for he found so much clearness, precision\nand lucidity in his answers, had it not been for the principles of\naustere gravity towards his theology pupils which he had inculcated in\nhimself for the last fifteen years.\n\n\"Here we have a bold and healthy mind,\" he said to himself, \"but corpus\ndebile\" (the body is weak).\n\n\"Do you often fall like that?\" he said to Julien in French, pointing\nwith his finger to the floor.\n\n\"It's the first time in my life. The porter's face unnerved me,\" added\nJulien, blushing like a child. The abbe Pirard almost smiled.\n\n\"That's the result of vain worldly pomp. You are apparently accustomed\nto smiling faces, those veritable theatres of falsehood. Truth is\naustere, Monsieur, but is not our task down here also austere? You must\nbe careful that your conscience guards against that weakness of yours,\ntoo much sensibility to vain external graces.\"\n\n\"If you had not been recommended to me,\" said the abbe Pirard, resuming\nthe Latin language with an obvious pleasure, \"If you had not been\nrecommended by a man, by the abbe Chelan, I would talk to you the vain\nlanguage of that world, to which it would appear you are only too well\naccustomed. I would tell you that the full stipend which you solicit\nis the most difficult thing in the world to obtain. But the fifty-six\nyears which the abbe Chelan has spent in apostolic work have stood him\nin poor stead if he cannot dispose of a stipend at the seminary.\"\n\nAfter these words, the abbe Pirard recommended Julien not to enter any\nsecret society or congregation without his consent.\n\n\"I give you my word of honour,\" said Julien, with all an honest man's\nexpansion of heart. The director of the seminary smiled for the first\ntime.\n\n\"That expression is not used here,\" he said to him. \"It is too\nreminiscent of that vain honour of worldly people, which leads them to\nso many errors and often to so many crimes. You owe me obedience by\nvirtue of paragraph seventeen of the bull Unam Eccesiam of St. Pius the\nFifth. I am your ecclesiastical superior. To hear in this house, my\ndear son, is to obey. How much money, have you?\"\n\n(\"So here we are,\" said Julien to himself, \"that was the reason of the\n'my very dear son').\"\n\n\"Thirty-five francs, my father.\"\n\n\"Write out carefully how you use that money. You will have to give me\nan account of it.\"\n\nThis painful audience had lasted three hours. Julien summoned the\nporter.\n\n\"Go and install Julien Sorel in cell No. 103,\" said the abbe Pirard to\nthe man.\n\nAs a great favour he let Julien have a place all to himself. \"Carry his\nbox there,\" he added.\n\nJulien lowered his eyes, and recognised his box just in front of him.\nHe had been looking at it for three hours and had not recognised it.\n\nAs he arrived at No. 103, which was a little room eight feet square on\nthe top story of the house, Julien noticed that it looked out on to the\nramparts, and he perceived beyond them the pretty plain which the Doubs\ndivides from the town.\n\n\"What a charming view!\" exclaimed Julien. In speaking like this he did\nnot feel what the words actually expressed. The violent sensations\nwhich he had experienced during the short time that he had been at\nBesancon had absolutely exhausted his strength. He sat down near the\nwindow on the one wooden chair in the cell, and fell at once into a\nprofound sleep. He did not hear either the supper bell or the bell for\nbenediction. They had forgotten him. When the first rays of the sun\nwoke him up the following morning, he found himself lying on the floor.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nTHE WORLD, OR WHAT THE RICH LACK\n\n\n        I am alone in the world. No one deigns to spare me\n        a thought. All those whom I see make their fortune,\n        have an insolence and hardness of heart which I do not\n        feel in myself. They hate me by reason of kindness\n        and good-humour. Oh, I shall die soon, either from\n        starvation or the unhappiness of seeing men so hard of\n        heart.--_Young_.\n\n\nHe hastened to brush his clothes and run down. He was late. Instead of\ntrying to justify himself Julien crossed his arms over his breast.\n\n\"Peccavi pater optime (I have sinned, I confess my fault, oh, my\nfather),\" he said with a contrite air.\n\nThis first speech was a great success. The clever ones among the\nseminarists saw that they had to deal with a man who knew something\nabout the elements of the profession. The recreation hour arrived, and\nJulien saw that he was the object of general curiosity, but he only\nmanifested reserved silence. Following the maxims he had laid down for\nhimself, he considered his three hundred and twenty-one comrades as\nenemies. The most dangerous of all in his eyes was the abbe Pirard. A\nfew days afterwards Julien had to choose a confessor, and was given a\nlist.\n\n\"Great heavens! what do they take me for?\" he said to himself. \"Do they\nthink I don't understand what's what?\" Then he chose the abbe Pirard.\n\nThis step proved decisive without his suspecting it.\n\nA little seminarist, who was quite young and a native of Verrieres, and\nwho had declared himself his friend since the first day, informed him\nthat he would probably have acted more prudently if he had chosen M.\nCastanede, the sub-director of the seminary.\n\n\"The abbe Castanede is the enemy of Pirard, who is suspected of\nJansenism,\" added the little seminarist in a whisper. All the first\nsteps of our hero were, in spite of the prudence on which he plumed\nhimself, as much mistakes as his choice of a confessor. Misled as he\nwas by all the self-confidence of a man of imagination, he took his\nprojects for facts, and believed that he was a consummate hypocrite.\nHis folly went so far as to reproach himself for his success in this\nkind of weakness.\n\n\"Alas, it is my only weapon,\" he said to himself. \"At another period I\nshould have earned my livelihood by eloquent deeds in the face of the\nenemy.\"\n\nSatisfied as he was with his own conduct, Julien looked around him. He\nfound everywhere the appearance of the purest virtue.\n\nEight or ten seminarists lived in the odour of sanctity, and had\nvisions like Saint Theresa, and Saint Francis, when he received his\nstigmata on Mount _Vernia_ in the Appenines. But it was a great secret\nand their friends concealed it. These poor young people who had\nvisions were always in the infirmary. A hundred others combined an\nindefatigable application to a robust faith. They worked till they fell\nill, but without learning much. Two or three were distinguished by a\nreal talent, amongst others a student of the name of Chazel, but both\nthey and Julien felt mutually unsympathetic.\n\nThe rest of these three hundred and twenty-one seminarists consisted\nexclusively of coarse persons, who were by no means sure of\nunderstanding the Latin words which they kept on repeating the livelong\nday. Nearly all were the sons of peasants, and they preferred to gain\ntheir livelihood by reciting some Latin words than by ploughing the\nearth. It was after this examination of his colleagues that Julien,\nduring the first few days, promised himself a speedy success.\n\n\"Intelligent people are needed in every service,\" he said to himself,\n\"for, after all, there is work to be done. I should have been a\nsergeant under Napoleon. I shall be a grand vicar among these future\ncures.\"\n\n\"All these poor devils,\" he added, \"manual labourers as they have been\nsince their childhood, have lived on curded milk and black bread up\ntill they arrived here. They would only eat meat five or six times a\nyear in their hovels. Like the Roman soldiers who used to find war the\ntime of rest, these poor peasants are enchanted with the delights of\nthe seminary.\"\n\nJulien could never read anything in their gloomy eyes but the\nsatisfaction of physical craving after dinner, and the expectation\nof sensual pleasure before the meal. Such were the people among whom\nJulien had to distinguish himself; but the fact which he did not know,\nand which they refrained from telling him, was that coming out first\nin the different courses of dogma, ecclesiastical history, etc., etc.,\nwhich are taken at the seminary, constituted in their eyes, neither\nmore nor less than a splendid sin.\n\nSince the time of Voltaire and two-chamber Government, which is at\nbottom simply distrust and personal self-examination, and gives the\npopular mind that bad habit of being suspicious, the Church of France\nseems to have realised that books are its real enemies. It is the\nsubmissive heart which counts for everything in its eyes. It suspects,\nand rightly so, any success in studies, even sacred ones. What is to\nprevent a superior man from crossing over to the opposite side like\nSieyes or Gregory. The trembling Church clings on to the Pope as its\none chance of safety. The Pope alone is in a position to attempt to\nparalyse all personal self-examination, and to make an impression by\nmeans of the pompous piety of his court ceremonial on the bored and\nmorbid spirit of fashionable society.\n\nJulien, as he began to get some glimpse of these various truths,\nwhich are none the less in total contradiction to all the official\npronouncements of any seminary, fell into a profound melancholy. He\nworked a great deal and rapidly succeeded in learning things which were\nextremely useful to a priest, extremely false in his own eyes, and\ndevoid of the slightest interest for him. He felt there was nothing\nelse to do.\n\n\"Am I then forgotten by the whole world,\" he thought. He did not know\nthat M. Pirard had received and thrown into the fire several letters\nwith the Dijon stamp in which the most lively passion would pierce\nthrough the most formal conventionalism of style. \"This love seems to\nbe fought by great attacks of remorse. All the better,\" thought the\nabbe Pirard. \"At any rate this lad has not loved an infidel woman.\"\n\nOne day the abbe Pirard opened a letter which seemed half-blotted out\nby tears. It was an adieu for ever. \"At last,\" said the writer to\nJulien, \"Heaven has granted me the grace of hating, not the author of\nmy fall, but my fall itself. The sacrifice has been made, dear one, not\nwithout tears as you see. The safety of those to whom I must devote\nmy life, and whom you love so much, is the decisive factor. A just\nbut terrible God will no longer see His way to avenge on them their\nmother's crimes. Adieu, Julien. Be just towards all men.\" The end of\nthe letter was nearly entirely illegible. The writer gave an address at\nDijon, but at the same time expressed the hope that Julien would not\nanswer, or at any rate would employ language which a reformed woman\ncould read without blushing. Julien's melancholy, aggravated by the\nmediocre nourishment which the contractor who gave dinners at thirteen\ncentimes per head supplied to the seminary, began to affect his health,\nwhen Fouque suddenly appeared in his room one morning.\n\n\"I have been able to get in at last. I have duly been five times to\nBesancon in order to see you. Could never get in. I put someone by the\ndoor to watch. Why the devil don't you ever go out?\"\n\n\"It is a test which I have imposed on myself.\"\n\n\"I find you greatly changed, but here you are again. I have just\nlearned from a couple of good five franc pieces that I was only a fool\nnot to have offered them on my first journey.\"\n\nThe conversation of the two friends went on for ever. Julien changed\ncolour when Fouque said to him,\n\n\"Do you know, by the by, that your pupils' mother has become positively\ndevout.\"\n\nAnd he began to talk in that off-hand manner which makes so singular an\nimpression on the passionate soul, whose dearest interests are being\ndestroyed without the speaker having the faintest suspicion of it.\n\n\"Yes, my friend, the most exalted devoutness. She is said to make\npilgrimages. But to the eternal shame of the abbe Maslon, who has\nplayed the spy so long on that poor M. Chelan, Madame de Renal would\nhave nothing to do with him. She goes to confession to Dijon or\nBesancon.\"\n\n\"She goes to Besancon,\" said Julien, flushing all over his forehead.\n\n\"Pretty often,\" said Fouque in a questioning manner.\n\n\"Have you got any _Constitutionnels_ on you?\"\n\n\"What do you say?\" replied Fouque.\n\n\"I'm asking if you've got any _Constitutionnels_?\" went on Julien\nin the quietest tone imaginable. \"They cost thirty sous a number here.\"\n\n\"What!\" exclaimed Fouque. \"Liberals even in the seminary! Poor France,\"\nhe added, assuming the abbe Maslon's hypocritical voice and sugary tone.\n\nThis visit would have made a deep impression on our hero, if he had not\nbeen put on the track of an important discovery by some words addressed\nto him the following day by the little seminarist from Verrieres.\nJulien's conduct since he had been at the seminary had been nothing but\na series of false steps. He began to make bitter fun of himself.\n\nIn point of fact the important actions in his life had been cleverly\nmanaged, but he was careless about details, and cleverness in a\nseminary consists in attention to details. Consequently, he had already\nthe reputation among his comrades of being a _strong-minded person._ He\nhad been betrayed by a number of little actions.\n\nHe had been convicted in their eyes of this enormity, _he thought and\njudged for himself_ instead of blindly following authority and example.\nThe abbe Pirard had been no help to him. He had not spoken to him\non a single occasion apart from the confessional, and even there he\nlistened more than he spoke. Matters would have been very different if\nhe had chosen the abbe Castanede. The moment that Julien realised his\nfolly, he ceased to be bored. He wished to know the whole extent of the\nevil, and to effect this emerged a little from that haughty obstinate\nsilence with which he had scrupulously rebuffed his comrades. It was\nnow that they took their revenge on him. His advances were welcomed by\na contempt verging on derision. He realised that there had not been one\nsingle hour from the time of his entry into the seminary, particularly\nduring recreation time, which had not resulted in affecting him one\nway or another, which had not increased the number of his enemies, or\nwon for him the goodwill of some seminarist who was either sincerely\nvirtuous or of a fibre slightly less coarse than that of the others.\nThe evil to repair was infinite, and the task very difficult.\nHenceforth, Julien's attention was always on guard. The problem before\nhim was to map out a new character for himself.\n\nThe moving of his eyes for example, occasioned him a great deal of\ntrouble. It is with good reason that they are carried lowered in these\nplaces.\n\n\"How presumptuous I was at Verrieres,\" said Julien to himself. \"I\nthought I lived; I was only preparing for life, and here I am at last\nin the world such as I shall find it, until my part comes to an end,\nsurrounded by real enemies. What immense difficulties,\" he added,\n\"are involved in keeping up this hypocrisy every single minute. It is\nenough to put the labours of Hercules into the shade. The Hercules of\nmodern times is the Pope Sixtus Quintus, who deceived by his modesty\nfifteen years on end forty Cardinals who had seen the liveliness and\nhaughtiness of his whole youth.\n\n\"So knowledge is nothing here,\" he said to himself with disgust.\n\"Progress in doctrine, in sacred history, etc., only seem to count.\nEverything said on those subjects is only intended to entrap fools like\nme. Alas my only merit consists in my rapid progress, and in the way in\nwhich I grasp all their nonsense. Do they really value those things at\ntheir true worth? Do they judge them like I do. And I had the stupidity\nto be proud of my quickness. The only result of my coming out top has\nbeen to give me inveterate enemies. Chazel, who really knows more than\nI do, always throws some blunder in his compositions which gets him put\nback to the fiftieth place. If he comes out first, it is only because\nhe is absent-minded. O how useful would one word, just one word, of M.\nPirard, have been to me.\"\n\nAs soon as Julien was disillusioned, the long exercises in ascetic\npiety, such as the attendances in the chapel five times a week, the\nintonation of hymns at the chapel of the Sacre Coeur, etc., etc.,\nwhich had previously seemed to him so deadly boring, became his most\ninteresting opportunities for action. Thanks to a severe introspection,\nand above all, by trying not to overdo his methods, Julien did not\nattempt at the outset to perform significant actions (that is to say,\nactions which are proof of a certain Christian perfection) like those\nseminarists who served as a model to the rest.\n\nSeminarists have a special way, even of eating a poached egg, which\nbetokens progress in the devout life.\n\nThe reader who smiles at this will perhaps be good enough to remember\nall the mistakes which the abbe Delille made over the eating of an egg\nwhen he was invited to breakfast with a lady of the Court of Louis XVI.\n\nJulien first tried to arrive at the state of _non culpa_, that is\nto say the state of the young seminarist whose demeanour and manner\nof moving his arms, eyes, etc. while in fact without any trace of\nworldliness, do not yet indicate that the person is entirely absorbed\nby the conception of the other world, and the idea of the pure\nnothingness of this one.\n\nJulien incessantly found such phrases as these charcoaled on the walls\nof the corridors. \"What are sixty years of ordeals balanced against\nan eternity of delights or any eternity of boiling oil in hell?\" He\ndespised them no longer. He realised that it was necessary to have them\nincessantly before his eyes. \"What am I going to do all my life,\" he\nsaid to himself. \"I shall sell to the faithful a place in heaven. How\nam I going to make that place visible to their eyes? By the difference\nbetween my appearance and that of a layman.\"\n\nAfter several months of absolutely unremitting application, Julien\nstill had the appearance of thinking. The way in which he would move\nhis eyes and hold his mouth did not betoken that implicit faith which\nis ready to believe everything and undergo everything, even at the cost\nof martyrdom. Julien saw with anger that he was surpassed in this by\nthe coarsest peasants. There was good reason for their not appearing\nfull of thought.\n\nWhat pains did he not take to acquire that facial expression of blindly\nfervent faith which is found so frequently in the Italian convents,\nand of which Le Guerchin has left such perfect models in his Church\npictures for the benefit of us laymen.\n\nOn feast-days, the seminarists were regaled with sausages and cabbage.\nJulien's table neighbours observed that he did not appreciate this\nhappiness. That was looked upon as one of his paramount crimes.\nHis comrades saw in this a most odious trait, and the most foolish\nhypocrisy. Nothing made him more enemies.\n\n\"Look at this bourgeois, look at this stuck-up person,\" they would\nsay, \"who pretends to despise the best rations there are, sausages and\ncabbage, shame on the villain! The haughty wretch, he is damned for\never.\"\n\n\"Alas, these young peasants, who are my comrades, find their ignorance\nan immense advantage,\" Julien would exclaim in his moments of\ndiscouragement. \"The professor has not got to deliver them on their\narrival at the seminary from that awful number of worldly ideas which I\nbrought into it, and which they read on my face whatever I do.\"\n\nJulien watched with an attention bordering on envy the coarsest of the\nlittle peasants who arrived at the seminary. From the moment when they\nwere made to doff their shabby jackets to don the black robe, their\neducation consisted of an immense and limitless respect for _hard\nliquid cash_ as they say in Franche-Comte.\n\nThat is the consecrated and heroic way of expressing the sublime idea\nof current money.\n\nThese seminarists, like the heroes in Voltaire's novels, found their\nhappiness in dining well. Julien discovered in nearly all of them\nan innate respect for the man who wears a suit of good cloth. This\nsentiment appreciates the distributive justice, which is given us at\nour courts, at its value or even above its true value. \"What can one\ngain,\" they would often repeat among themselves, \"by having a law suit\nwith 'a big man?'\"\n\nThat is the expression current in the valleys of the Jura to express\na rich man. One can judge of their respect for the richest entity\nof all--the government. Failure to smile deferentially at the mere\nname of M. the Prefect is regarded as an imprudence in the eyes of\nthe Franche-Comte peasant, and imprudence in poor people is quickly\npunished by lack of bread.\n\nAfter having been almost suffocated at first by his feeling of\ncontempt, Julien eventually experienced a feeling of pity; it often\nhappened that the fathers of most of his comrades would enter their\nhovel in winter evenings and fail to find there either bread, chestnuts\nor potatoes.\n\n\"What is there astonishing then?\" Julien would say to himself, \"if in\ntheir eyes the happy man is in the first place the one who has just had\na good dinner, and in the second place the one who possesses a good\nsuit? My comrades have a lasting vocation, that is to say, they see\nin the ecclesiastical calling a long continuance of the happiness of\ndining well and having a warm suit.\"\n\nJulien happened to hear a young imaginative seminarist say to his\ncompanion.\n\n\"Why shouldn't I become Pope like Sixtus Quintus who kept pigs?\"\n\n\"They only make Italians Popes,\" answered his friend. \"But they will\ncertainly draw lots amongst us for the great vicarships, canonries and\nperhaps bishoprics. M. P---- Bishop of Chalons, is the son of a cooper.\nThat's what my father is.\"\n\nOne day, in the middle of a theology lesson, the Abbe Pirard summoned\nJulien to him. The young fellow was delighted to leave the dark, moral\natmosphere in which he had been plunged. Julien received from the\ndirector the same welcome which had frightened him so much on the first\nday of his entry.\n\n\"Explain to me what is written on this playing card?\" he said, looking\nat him in a way calculated to make him sink into the earth.\n\nJulien read:\n\n\"Amanda Binet of the Giraffe Cafe before eight o'clock. Say you're from\nGenlis, and my mother's cousin.\"\n\nJulien realised the immense danger. The spies of the abbe Castanede had\nstolen the address.\n\n\"I was trembling with fear the day I came here,\" he answered, looking\nat the abbe Pirard's forehead, for he could not endure that terrible\ngaze. \"M. Chelan told me that this is a place of informers and\nmischief-makers of all kinds, and that spying and tale-bearing by one\ncomrade on another was encouraged by the authorities. Heaven wishes it\nto be so, so as to show life such as it is to the young priests, and\nfill them with disgust for the world and all its pomps.\"\n\n\"And it's to me that you make these fine speeches,\" said the abbe\nPirard furiously. \"You young villain.\"\n\n\"My brothers used to beat me at Verrieres,\" answered Julien coldly,\n\"When they had occasion to be jealous of me.\"\n\n\"Indeed, indeed,\" exclaimed M. Pirard, almost beside himself.\n\nJulien went on with his story without being in the least intimidated:--\n\n\"The day of my arrival at Besancon I was hungry, and I entered a\ncafe. My spirit was full of revulsion for so profane a place, but I\nthought that my breakfast would cost me less than at an inn. A lady,\nwho seemed to be the mistress of the establishment, took pity on my\ninexperience. 'Besancon is full of bad characters,' she said to me. 'I\nfear something will happen to you, sir. If some mishap should occur to\nyou, have recourse to me and send to my house before eight o'clock. If\nthe porters of the seminary refuse to execute your errand, say you are\nmy cousin and a native of Genlis.'\"\n\n\"I will have all this chatter verified,\" exclaimed the abbe Pirard,\nunable to stand still, and walking about the room.\n\n\"Back to the cell.\"\n\nThe abbe followed Julien and locked him in. The latter immediately\nbegan to examine his trunk, at the bottom of which the fatal cards had\nbeen so carefully hidden. Nothing was missing in the trunk, but several\nthings had been disarranged. Nevertheless, he had never been without\nthe key. What luck that, during the whole time of my blindness, said\nJulien to himself, I never availed myself of the permission to go out\nthat Monsieur Castanede would offer me so frequently, with a kindness\nwhich I now understand. Perhaps I should have had the weakness to have\nchanged my clothes and gone to see the fair Amanda, and then I should\nhave been ruined. When they gave up hope of exploiting that piece of\ninformation for the accomplishment of his ruin, they had used it to\ninform against him. Two hours afterwards the director summoned him.\n\n\"You did not lie,\" he said to him, with a less severe look, \"but\nkeeping an address like that is an indiscretion of a gravity which you\nare unable to realise. Unhappy child! It may perhaps do you harm in ten\nyears' time.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nFIRST EXPERIENCE OF LIFE\n\n\n        The present time, Great God! is the ark of the Lord;\n        cursed be he who touches it.--_Diderot_.\n\n\nThe reader will kindly excuse us if we give very few clear and definite\nfacts concerning this period of Julien's life. It is not that we\nlack facts; quite the contrary. But it may be that what he saw in\nthe seminary is too black for the medium colour which the author\nhas endeavoured to preserve throughout these pages. Those of our\ncontemporaries who have suffered from certain things cannot remember\nthem without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that\nof reading a tale.\n\nJulien achieved scant success in his essays at hypocritical gestures.\nHe experienced moments of disgust, and even of complete discouragement.\nHe was not a success, even in a a vile career. The slightest help\nfrom outside would have sufficed to have given him heart again, for\nthe difficulty to overcome was not very great, but he was alone, like\na derelict ship in the middle of the ocean. \"And when I do succeed,\"\nhe would say to himself, \"think of having to pass a whole lifetime in\nsuch awful company, gluttons who have no thought but for the large\nomelette which they will guzzle at dinner-time, or persons like the\nabbe Castanede, who finds no crime too black! They will attain power,\nbut, great heavens! at what cost.\n\n\"The will of man is powerful, I read it everywhere, but is it enough to\novercome so great a disgust? The task of all the great men was easy by\ncomparison. However terrible was the danger, they found it fine, and\nwho can realise, except myself, the ugliness of my surroundings?\"\n\nThis moment was the most trying in his whole life. It would have been\nso easy for him to have enlisted in one of the fine regiments at the\ngarrison of Besancon. He could have become a Latin master. He needed so\nlittle for his subsistence, but in that case no more career, no more\nfuture for his imagination. It was equivalent to death. Here is one of\nhis sad days in detail:\n\n\"I have so often presumed to congratulate myself on being different\nfrom the other young peasants! Well, I have lived enough to realise\nthat _difference engenders hate_,\" he said to himself one morning.\nThis great truth had just been borne in upon him by one of his most\nirritating failures. He had been working for eight days at teaching a\npupil who lived in an odour of sanctity. He used to go out with him\ninto the courtyard and listen submissively to pieces of fatuity enough\nto send one to sleep standing. Suddenly the weather turned stormy. The\nthunder growled, and the holy pupil exclaimed as he roughly pushed him\naway.\n\n\"Listen! Everyone for himself in this world. I don't want to be burned\nby the thunder. God may strike you with lightning like a blasphemer,\nlike a Voltaire.\"\n\n\"I deserve to be drowned if I go to sleep during the storm,\" exclaimed\nJulien, with his teeth clenched with rage, and with his eyes opened\ntowards the sky now furrowed by the lightning. \"Let us try the conquest\nof some other rogue.\"\n\nThe bell rang for the abbe Castanede's course of sacred history. That\nday the abbe Castanede was teaching those young peasants already\nso frightened by their father's hardships and poverty, that the\nGovernment, that entity so terrible in their eyes, possessed no real\nand legitimate power except by virtue of the delegation of God's vicar\non earth.\n\n\"Render yourselves worthy, by the holiness of your life and by your\nobedience, of the benevolence of the Pope. Be _like a stick in his\nhands_,\" he added, \"and you will obtain a superb position, where you\nwill be far from all control, and enjoy the King's commands, a position\nfrom which you cannot be removed, and where one-third of the salary\nis paid by the Government, while the faithful who are moulded by your\npreaching pay the other two-thirds.\"\n\nCastanede stopped in the courtyard after he left the lesson-room. \"It\nis particularly appropriate to say of a cure,\" he said to the pupils\nwho formed a ring round him, \"that the place is worth as much as the\nman is worth. I myself have known parishes in the mountains where the\nsurplice fees were worth more than that of many town livings. There was\nquite as much money, without counting the fat capons, the eggs, fresh\nbutter, and a thousand and one pleasant details, and there the cure is\nindisputably the first man. There is not a good meal to which he is not\ninvited, feted, etc.\"\n\nCastanede had scarcely gone back to his room before the pupils split up\ninto knots. Julien did not form part of any of them; he was left out\nlike a black sheep. He saw in every knot a pupil tossing a coin in the\nair, and if he managed to guess right in this game of heads or tails,\nhis comrades would decide that he would soon have one of those fat\nlivings.\n\nAnecdotes ensued. A certain young priest, who had scarcely been\nordained a year, had given a tame rabbit to the maidservant of an old\ncure, and had succeeded in being asked to be his curate. In a few\nmonths afterwards, for the cure had quickly died, he had replaced him\nin that excellent living. Another had succeeded in getting himself\ndesignated as a successor to a very rich town living, by being present\nat all the meals of an old, paralytic cure, and by dexterously carving\nhis poultry. The seminarists, like all young people, exaggerated the\neffect of those little devices, which have an element of originality,\nand which strike the imagination.\n\n\"I must take part in these conversations,\" said Julien to himself. When\nthey did not talk about sausages and good livings, the conversation ran\non the worldly aspect of ecclesiastical doctrine, on the differences of\nbishops and prefects, of mayors and cures. Julien caught sight of the\nconception of a second god, but of a god who was much more formidable\nand much more powerful than the other one. That second god was the\nPope. They said among themselves, in a low voice, however, and when\nthey were quite sure that they would not be heard by Pirard, that\nthe reason for the Pope not taking the trouble of nominating all the\nprefects and mayors of France, was that he had entrusted that duty to\nthe King of France by entitling him a senior son of the Church.\n\nIt was about this time that Julien thought he could exploit, for the\nbenefit of his own reputation, his knowledge of De Maistre's book\non the Pope. In point of fact, he did astonish his comrades, but it\nwas only another misfortune. He displeased them by expounding their\nown opinions better than they could themselves. Chelan had acted as\nimprudently for Julien as he had for himself. He had given him the\nhabit of reasoning correctly, and of not being put off by empty words,\nbut he had neglected to tell him that this habit was a crime in the\nperson of no importance, since every piece of logical reasoning is\noffensive.\n\nJulien's command of language added consequently a new crime to his\nscore. By dint of thinking about him, his colleagues succeeded in\nexpressing the horror with which he would inspire them by a single\nexpression; they nicknamed him Martin Luther, \"particularly,\" they\nsaid, \"because of that infernal logic which makes him so proud.\"\n\nSeveral young seminarists had a fresher complexion than Julien, and\ncould pass as better-looking, but he had white hands, and was unable to\nconceal certain refined habits of personal cleanliness. This advantage\nproved a disadvantage in the gloomy house in which chance had cast\nhim. The dirty peasants among whom he lived asserted that he had very\nabandoned morals. We fear that we may weary our reader by a narration\nof the thousand and one misfortunes of our hero. The most vigorous of\nhis comrades, for example, wanted to start the custom of beating him.\nHe was obliged to arm himself with an iron compass, and to indicate,\nthough by signs, that he would make use of it. Signs cannot figure in a\nspy's report to such good advantage as words.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nA PROCESSION\n\n\n        All hearts were moved. The presence of God seemed to\n        have descended into these narrow Gothic streets that\n        stretched in every direction, and were sanded by the\n        care of the faithful.--_Young_.\n\n\nIt was in vain that Julien pretended to be petty and stupid. He could\nnot please; he was too different. Yet all these professors, he said to\nhimself, are very clever people, men in a thousand. Why do they not\nlike my humility? Only one seemed to take advantage of his readiness\nto believe everything, and apparently to swallow everything. This was\nthe abbe Chas-Bernard, the director of the ceremonies of the cathedral,\nwhere, for the last fifteen years, he had been given occasion to hope\nfor a canonry. While waiting, he taught homiletics at the seminary.\nDuring the period of Julien's blindness, this class was one of those in\nwhich he most frequently came out top. The abbe Chas had used this as\nan opportunity to manifest some friendship to him, and when the class\nbroke up, he would be glad to take him by the arm for some turns in the\ngarden.\n\n\"What is he getting at,\" Julien would say to himself. He noticed\nwith astonishment that, for hours on end, the abbe would talk to him\nabout the ornaments possessed by the cathedral. It had seventeen lace\nchasubles, besides the mourning vestments. A lot was hoped from the old\nwife of the judge de Rubempre. This lady, who was ninety years of age,\nhad kept for at least seventy years her wedding dress of superb Lyons\nmaterial, embroidered with gold.\n\n\"Imagine, my friend,\" the abbe Chas would say, stopping abruptly, and\nstaring with amazement, \"that this material keeps quite stiff. There\nis so much gold in it. It is generally thought in Besancon that the\nwill of the judge's wife will result in the cathedral treasure being\nincreased by more than ten chasubles, without counting four or five\ncapes for the great feast. I will go further,\" said the abbe Chas,\nlowering his voice, \"I have reasons for thinking the judge's wife will\nleave us her magnificent silver gilt candlesticks, supposed to have\nbeen bought in Italy by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, whose\nfavourite minister was one of the good lady's ancestors.\"\n\n\"But what is the fellow getting at with all this old clothes business,\"\nthought Julien. \"These adroit preliminaries have been going on for\ncenturies, and nothing comes of them. He must be very suspicious of me.\nHe is cleverer than all the others, whose secret aim can be guessed so\neasily in a fortnight. I understand. He must have been suffering for\nfifteen years from mortified ambition.\"\n\nJulien was summoned one evening in the middle of the fencing lesson to\nthe abbe Pirard, who said to him.\n\n\"To-morrow is the feast of Corpus Domini (the Fete Dieu) the abbe\nChas-Bernard needs you to help him to decorate the cathedral. Go and\nobey.\" The abbe Pirard called him back and added sympathetically. \"It\ndepends on you whether you will utilise the occasion to go into the\ntown.\"\n\n\"Incedo per ignes,\" answered Julien. (I have secret enemies).\n\nJulien went to the cathedral next morning with downcast eyes. The sight\nof the streets and the activity which was beginning to prevail in the\ntown did him good. In all quarters they were extending the fronts of\nthe houses for the procession.\n\nAll the time that he had passed in the seminary seemed to him no more\nthan a moment. His thoughts were of Vergy, and of the pretty Amanda\nwhom he might perhaps meet, for her cafe was not very far off. He saw\nin the distance the abbe Chas-Bernard on the threshold of his beloved\ncathedral. He was a big man with a jovial face and a frank air. To-day\nhe looked triumphant. \"I was expecting you, my dear son,\" he cried as\nsoon as he saw Julien in the distance. \"Be welcome. This day's duty\nwill be protracted and arduous. Let us fortify ourselves by a first\nbreakfast. We will have the second at ten o'clock during high mass.\"\n\n\"I do not wish, sir,\" said Julien to him gravely, \"to be alone for a\nsingle instant. Deign to observe,\" he added, showing him the clock over\ntheir heads, \"that I have arrived at one minute to five.\"\n\n\"So those little rascals at the seminary frightened you. It is very\ngood of you to think of them,\" said the abbe. \"But is the road less\nbeautiful because there are thorns in the hedges which border it.\nTravellers go on their way, and leave the wicked thorns to wait in vain\nwhere they are. And now to work my dear friend, to work.\"\n\nThe abbe Chas was right in saying that the task would be arduous. There\nhad been a great funeral ceremony at the cathedral the previous day.\nThey had not been able to make any preparations. They had consequently\nonly one morning for dressing all the Gothic pillars which constitute\nthe three naves with a kind of red damask cloth ascending to a height\nof thirty feet. The Bishop had fetched by mail four decorators from\nParis, but these gentry were not able to do everything, and far from\ngiving any encouragement to the clumsiness of the Besancon colleagues,\nthey made it twice as great by making fun of them.\n\nJulien saw that he would have to climb the ladder himself. His agility\nserved him in good stead. He undertook the direction of the decorators\nfrom town. The Abbe Chas was delighted as he watched him flit from\nladder to ladder. When all the pillars were dressed in damask, five\nenormous bouquets of feathers had to be placed on the great baldachin\nabove the grand altar. A rich coping of gilded wood was supported by\neight big straight columns of Italian marble, but to reach the centre\nof the baldachin above the tabernacle involved walking over an old\nwooden cornice which was forty feet high and possibly worm-eaten.\n\nThe sight of this difficult crossing had extinguished the gaiety of the\nParisian decorators, which up till then had been so brilliant. They\nlooked at it from down below, argued a great deal, but did not go up.\nJulien seized hold of the bouquets of feathers and climbed the ladder\nat a run. He placed it neatly on the crown-shaped ornament in the\ncentre of the baldachin. When he came down the ladder again, the abbe\nChas-Bernard embraced him in his arms.\n\n\"Optime\" exclaimed the good priest, \"I will tell this to Monseigneur.\"\n\nBreakfast at ten o'clock was very gay. The abbe Chas had never seen his\nchurch look so beautiful.\n\n\"Dear disciple,\" he said to Julien. \"My mother used to let out chairs\nin this venerable building, so I have been brought up in this great\nedifice. The Terror of Robespierre ruined us, but when I was eight\nyears old, that was my age then, I used to serve masses in private\nhouses, so you see I got my meals on mass-days. Nobody could fold a\nchasuble better than I could, and I never cut the fringes. After the\nre-establishment of public worship by Napoleon, I had the good fortune\nto direct everything in this venerable metropolis. Five times a year do\nmy eyes see it adorned with these fine ornaments. But it has never been\nso resplendent, and the damask breadths have never been so well tied or\nso close to the pillars as they are to-day.\"\n\n\"So he is going to tell me his secret at last,\" said Julien. \"Now he is\ngoing to talk about himself. He is expanding.\" But nothing imprudent\nwas said by the man in spite of his evident exaltation.\n\n\"All the same he has worked a great deal,\" said Julien to himself.\n\"He is happy. What a man! What an example for me! He really takes the\ncake.\" (This was a vulgar phrase which he had learned from the old\nsurgeon).\n\nAs the sanctus of high mass sounded, Julien wanted to take a surplice\nto follow the bishop in the superb procession. \"And the thieves, my\nfriend! And the thieves,\" exclaimed the abbe Chas. \"Have you forgotten\nthem? The procession will go out, but we will watch, will you and I.\nWe shall be very lucky if we get off with the loss of a couple of ells\nof this fine lace which surrounds the base of the pillars. It is a\ngift of Madame de Rubempre. It comes from her great-grandfather the\nfamous Count. It is made of real gold, my friend,\" added the abbe in\na whisper, and with evident exaltation. \"And all genuine. I entrust\nyou with the watching of the north wing. Do not leave it. I will keep\nthe south wing and the great nave for myself. Keep an eye on the\nconfessional. It is there that the women accomplices of the thieves\nalways spy. Look out for the moment when we turn our backs.\"\n\nAs he finished speaking, a quarter to twelve struck. Immediately\nafterwards the sound of the great clock was heard. It rang a full peal.\nThese full solemn sounds affected Julien. His imagination was no longer\nturned to things earthly. The perfume of the incense and of the rose\nleaves thrown before the holy sacrament by little children disguised as\nSt. John increased his exaltation.\n\nLogically the grave sounds of the bell should only have recalled to\nJulien's mind the thought of the labour of twenty men paid fifty-four\ncentimes each, and possibly helped by fifteen or twenty faithful souls.\nLogically, he ought to have thought of the wear and tear of the cords\nand of the framework and of the danger of the clock itself, which\nfalls down every two centuries, and to have considered the means of\ndiminishing the salary of the bell-ringers, or of paying them by some\nindulgence or other grace dispensed from the treasures of the Church\nwithout diminishing its purse.\n\nJulien's soul exalted by these sounds with all their virile fulness,\ninstead of making these wise reflections, wandered in the realm\nof imagination. He will never turn out a good priest or a good\nadministrator. Souls which get thrilled so easily are at the best\nonly capable of producing an artist. At this moment the presumption\nof Julien bursts out into full view. Perhaps fifty of his comrades\nin the seminary made attentive to the realities of life by their own\nunpopularity and the Jacobinism which they are taught to see hiding\nbehind every hedge, would have had no other thought suggested by the\ngreat bell of the cathedral except the wages of the ringers. They would\nhave analysed with the genius of Bareme whether the intensity of the\nemotion produced among the public was worth the money which was given\nto the ringers. If Julien had only tried to think of the material\ninterests of the cathedral, his imagination would have transcended its\nactual object and thought of economizing forty francs on the fabric\nand have lost the opportunity of avoiding an expense of twenty-five\ncentimes.\n\nWhile the procession slowly traversed Besancon on the finest day\nimaginable, and stopped at the brilliant altar-stations put up by the\nauthorities, the church remained in profound silence. There prevailed a\nsemi-obscurity, an agreeable freshness. It was still perfumed with the\nfragrance of flowers and incense.\n\nThe silence, the deep solitude, the freshness of the long naves\nsweetened Julien's reverie. He did not fear being troubled by the\nabbe Chas, who was engaged in another part of the building. His soul\nhad almost abandoned its mortal tenement, which was pacing slowly the\nnorth wing which had been trusted to his surveillance. He was all the\nmore tranquil when he had assured himself that there was no one in the\nconfessional except some devout women. His eyes looked in front of him\nseeing nothing.\n\nHis reverie was almost broken by the sight of two well-dressed women,\none in the Confessional, and the other on a chair quite near her. He\nlooked without seeing, but noticed, however, either by reason of some\nvague appreciation of his duties or admiration for the aristocratic\nbut simple dress of the ladies, that there was no priest in the\nConfessional.\n\n\"It is singular,\" he thought, \"that if these fair ladies are devout,\nthey are not kneeling before some altar, or that if they are in society\nthey have not an advantageous position in the first row of some\nbalcony. How well cut that dress is! How graceful!\"\n\nHe slackened his pace to try and look at them. The lady who was\nkneeling in the Confessional turned her head a little hearing the noise\nof Julien's step in this solemn place. Suddenly she gave a loud cry,\nand felt ill.\n\nAs the lady collapsed and fell backwards on her knees, her friend who\nwas near her hastened to help her. At the same time Julien saw the\nshoulders of the lady who was falling backwards. His eyes were struck\nby a twisted necklace of fine, big pearls, which he knew well. What\nwere his emotions when he recognised the hair of Madame de Renal? It\nwas she! The lady who was trying to prevent her from falling was Madame\nDerville. Julien was beside himself and hastened to their side. Madame\nde Renal's fall would perhaps have carried her friend along with her,\nif Julien had not supported them. He saw the head of Madame de Renal,\npale and entirely devoid of consciousness floating on his shoulder. He\nhelped Madame Derville to lean that charming head up against a straw\nchair. He knelt down.\n\nMadame Derville turned round and recognised him.\n\n\"Away, monsieur, away!\" she said to him, in a tone of the most lively\nanger. \"Above all, do not let her see you again. The sight of you would\nbe sure to horrify her. She was so happy before you came. Your conduct\nis atrocious. Flee! Take yourself off if you have any shame left.\"\n\nThese words were spoken with so much authority, and Julien felt so\nweak, that he did take himself off. \"She always hated me,\" he said to\nhimself, thinking of Madame Derville. At the same moment the nasal\nchanting of the first priests in the procession which was now coming\nback resounded in the church. The abbe Chas-Bernard called Julien, who\nat first did not hear him, several times. He came at last and took his\narm behind a pillar where Julien had taken refuge more dead than alive.\nHe wanted to present him to the Bishop.\n\n\"Are you feeling well, my child?\" said the abbe to him, seeing him so\npale, and almost incapable of walking. \"You have worked too much.\" The\nabbe gave him his arm. \"Come, sit down behind me here, on the little\nseat of the dispenser of holy water; I will hide you.\"\n\nThey were now beside the main door.\n\n\"Calm yourself. We have still a good twenty minutes before Monseigneur\nappears. Try and pull yourself together. I will lift you up when he\npasses, for in spite of my age, I am strong and vigorous.\"\n\nJulien was trembling so violently when the Bishop passed, that the abbe\nChas gave up the idea of presenting him.\n\n\"Do not take it too much to heart,\" he said. \"I will find another\nopportunity.\"\n\nThe same evening he had six pounds of candles which had been saved, he\nsaid, by Julien's carefulness, and by the promptness with which he had\nextinguished them, carried to the seminary chapel. Nothing could have\nbeen nearer the truth. The poor boy was extinguished himself. He had\nnot had a single thought after meeting Madame de Renal.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\nTHE FIRST PROMOTION\n\n\n    He knew his age, he knew his department, and he is rich.\n                                               _The Forerunner_.\n\n\nJulien had not emerged from the deep reverie in which the episode in\nthe cathedral had plunged him, when the severe abbe Pirard summoned him.\n\n\"M. the abbe Chas-Bernard has just written in your favour. I am on\nthe whole sufficiently satisfied with your conduct. You are extremely\nimprudent and irresponsible without outward signs of it. However, up\nto the present, you have proved yourself possessed of a good and even\ngenerous heart. Your intellect is superior. Taking it all round, I see\nin you a spark which one must not neglect.\n\n\"I am on the point of leaving this house after fifteen years of work.\nMy crime is that I have left the seminarists to their free will, and\nthat I have neither protected nor served that secret society of which\nyou spoke to me at the Confessional. I wish to do something for you\nbefore I leave. I would have done so two months earlier, for you\ndeserve it, had it not been for the information laid against you as\nthe result of the finding in your trunk of Amanda Binet's address. I\nwill make you New and Old Testament tutor. Julien was transported with\ngratitude and evolved the idea of throwing himself on his knees and\nthanking God. He yielded to a truer impulse, and approaching the abbe\nPirard, took his hand and pressed it to his lips.\n\n\"What is the meaning of this?\" exclaimed the director angrily, but\nJulien's eyes said even more than his act.\n\nThe abbe Pirard looked at him in astonishment, after the manner of a\nman who has long lost the habit of encountering refined emotions. The\nattention deceived the director. His voice altered.\n\n\"Well yes, my child, I am attached to you. Heaven knows that I have\nbeen so in spite of myself. I ought to show neither hate nor love to\nanyone. I see in you something which offends the vulgar. Jealousy and\ncalumny will pursue you in whatever place Providence may place you.\nYour comrades will never behold you without hate, and if they pretend\nto like you, it will only be to betray you with greater certainty. For\nthis there is only one remedy. Seek help only from God, who, to punish\nyou for your presumption, has cursed you with the inevitable hatred\nof your comrades. Let your conduct be pure. That is the only resource\nwhich I can see for you. If you love truth with an irresistible\nembrace, your enemies will sooner or later be confounded.\"\n\nIt had been so long since Julien had heard a friendly voice that he\nmust be forgiven a weakness. He burst out into tears.\n\nThe abbe Pirard held out his arms to him. This moment was very sweet\nto both of them. Julien was mad with joy. This promotion was the first\nwhich he had obtained. The advantages were immense. To realise them one\nmust have been condemned to pass months on end without an instant's\nsolitude, and in immediate contact with comrades who were at the best\nimportunate, and for the most part insupportable. Their cries alone\nwould have sufficed to disorganise a delicate constitution. The noise\nand joy of these peasants, well-fed and well-clothed as they were,\ncould only find a vent for itself, or believe in its own completeness\nwhen they were shouting with all the strength of their lungs.\n\nNow Julien dined alone, or nearly an hour later than the other\nseminarists. He had a key of the garden and could walk in it when no\none else was there.\n\nJulien was astonished to perceive that he was now hated less. He, on\nthe contrary, had been expecting that their hate would become twice as\nintense. That secret desire of his that he should not be spoken to,\nwhich had been only too manifest before, and had earned him so many\nenemies, was no longer looked upon as a sign of ridiculous haughtiness.\nIt became, in the eyes of the coarse beings who surrounded him, a just\nappreciation of his own dignity. The hatred of him sensibly diminished,\nabove all among the youngest of his comrades, who were now his pupils,\nand whom he treated with much politeness. Gradually he obtained his own\nfollowing. It became looked upon as bad form to call him Martin Luther.\n\nBut what is the good of enumerating his friends and his enemies? The\nwhole business is squalid, and all the more squalid in proportion to\nthe truth of the picture. And yet the clergy supply the only teachers\nof morals which the people have. What would happen to the people\nwithout them? Will the paper ever replace the cure?\n\nSince Julien's new dignity, the director of the seminary made a point\nof never speaking to him without witnesses. These tactics were prudent,\nboth for the master and for the pupil, but above all it was meant for\na test. The invariable principle of that severe Jansenist Pirard was\nthis--\"if a man has merit in your eyes, put obstacles in the way of\nall he desires, and of everything which he undertakes. If the merit is\nreal, he will manage to overthrow or get round those obstacles.\"\n\nIt was the hunting season. It had occurred to Fouque to send a stag\nand a boar to the seminary as though they came from Julien's parents.\nThe dead animals were put down on the floor between the kitchen and\nthe refectory. It was there that they were seen by all the seminarists\non their way to dinner. They constituted a great attraction for their\ncuriosity. The boar, dead though it was, made the youngest ones feel\nfrightened. They touched its tusks. They talked of nothing else for a\nwhole week.\n\nThis gift, which raised Julien's family to the level of that class\nof society which deserves respect, struck a deadly blow at all\njealousy. He enjoyed a superiority, consecrated by fortune. Chazel,\nthe most distinguished of the seminarists, made advances to him, and\nalways reproached him for not having previously apprised them of his\nparents' position and had thus involved them in treating money without\nsufficient respect. A conscription took place, from which Julien, in\nhis capacity as seminarist, was exempt. This circumstance affected him\nprofoundly. \"So there is just passed for ever that moment which, twenty\nyears earlier, would have seen my heroic life begin. He was walking\nalone in the seminary garden. He heard the masons who were walling up\nthe cloister walls talking between themselves.\n\n\"Yes, we must go. There's the new conscription. When _the other_ was\nalive it was good business. A mason could become an officer then, could\nbecome a general then. One has seen such things.\"\n\n\"You go and see now. It's only the ragamuffins who leave for the army.\nAny one _who has anything_ stays in the country here.\"\n\n\"The man who is born wretched stays wretched, and there you are.\"\n\n\"I say, is it true what they say, that the other is dead?\" put in the\nthird mason.\n\n\"Oh well, it's the '_big men_' who say that, you see. The other one\nmade them afraid.\"\n\n\"What a difference. How the fortification went ahead in his time. And\nto think of his being betrayed by his own marshals.\"\n\nThis conversation consoled Julien a little. As he went away, he\nrepeated with a sigh:\n\n\"_Le seul roi dont le peuple a garde la memoire._\"\n\nThe time for the examination arrived. Julien answered brilliantly. He\nsaw that Chazel endeavoured to exhibit all his knowledge. On the first\nday the examiners, nominated by the famous Grand Vicar de Frilair, were\nvery irritated at always having to put first, or at any rate second,\non their list, that Julien Sorel, who had been designated to them as\nthe Benjamin of the Abbe Pirard. There were bets in the seminary that\nJulien would come out first in the final list of the examination, a\nprivilege which carried with it the honour of dining with my Lord\nBishop. But at the end of a sitting, dealing with the fathers of the\nChurch, an adroit examiner, having first interrogated Julien on Saint\nJerome and his passion for Cicero, went on to speak about Horace,\nVirgil and other profane authors. Julien had learnt by heart a great\nnumber of passages from these authors without his comrades' knowledge.\nSwept away by his successes, he forgot the place where he was, and\nrecited in paraphrase with spirit several odes of Horace at the\nrepeated request of the examiner. Having for twenty minutes given him\nenough rope to hang himself, the examiner changed his expression, and\nbitterly reproached him for the time he had wasted on these profane\nstudies, and the useless or criminal ideas which he had got into his\nhead.\n\n\"I am a fool, sir. You are right,\" said Julien modestly, realising the\nadroit stratagem of which he was the victim.\n\nThis examiner's dodge was considered dirty, even at the seminary, but\nthis did not prevent the abbe de Frilair, that adroit individual who\nhad so cleverly organised the machinery of the Besancon congregation,\nand whose despatches to Paris put fear into the hearts of judges,\nprefect, and even the generals of the garrison, from placing with\nhis powerful hand the number 198 against Julien's name. He enjoyed\nsubjecting his enemy, Pirard the Jansenist, to this mortification.\n\nHis chief object for the last ten years had been to deprive him of the\nheadship of the seminary. The abbe, who had himself followed the plan\nwhich he had indicated to Julien, was sincere, pious, devoted to his\nduties and devoid of intrigue, but heaven in its anger had given him\nthat bilious temperament which is by nature so deeply sensitive to\ninsults and to hate. None of the insults which were addressed to him\nwas wasted on his burning soul. He would have handed in his resignation\na hundred times over, but he believed that he was useful in the place\nwhere Providence had set him. \"I prevent the progress of Jesuitism and\nIdolatry,\" he said to himself.\n\nAt the time of the examinations, it was perhaps nearly two months\nsince he had spoken to Julien, and nevertheless, he was ill for eight\ndays when, on receipt of the official letter announcing the result of\nthe competition, he saw the number 198 placed beside the name of that\npupil whom he regarded as the glory of his town. This stern character\nfound his only consolation in concentrating all his surveillance on\nJulien. He was delighted that he discovered in him neither anger, nor\nvindictiveness, nor discouragement.\n\nJulien felt a thrill some months afterwards when he received a letter.\nIt bore the Paris post-mark. Madame de Renal is remembering her\npromises at last, he thought. A gentleman who signed himself Paul\nSorel, and who said that he was his relative, sent him a letter of\ncredit for five hundred francs. The writer went on to add that if\nJulien went on to study successfully the good Latin authors, a similar\nsum would be sent to him every year.\n\n\"It is she. It is her kindness,\" said Julien to himself, feeling quite\novercome. \"She wishes to console me. But why not a single word of\naffection?\"\n\nHe was making a mistake in regard to this letter, for Madame de Renal,\nunder the influence of her friend, Madame Derville, was abandoning\nherself absolutely to profound remorse. She would often think, in\nspite of herself, of that singular being, the meeting with whom had\nrevolutionized her life. But she carefully refrained from writing to\nhim.\n\nIf we were to talk the terminology of the seminary, we would be able\nto recognise a miracle in the sending of these five hundred francs and\nto say that heaven was making use of Monsieur de Frilair himself in\norder to give this gift to Julien. Twelve years previously the abbe de\nFrilair had arrived in Besancon with an extremely exiguous portmanteau,\nwhich, according to the story, contained all his fortune. He was now\none of the richest proprietors of the department. In the course of his\nprosperity, he had bought the one half of an estate, while the other\nhalf had been inherited by Monsieur de la Mole. Consequently there was\na great lawsuit between these two personages.\n\nM. le Marquis de la Mole felt that, in spite of his brilliant life at\nParis and the offices which he held at Court, it would be dangerous to\nfight at Besancon against the Grand Vicar, who was reputed to make and\nunmake prefects.\n\nInstead of soliciting a present of fifty thousand francs which could\nhave been smuggled into the budget under some name or other, and of\nthrowing up this miserable lawsuit with the abbe Frilair over a matter\nof fifty thousand francs, the marquis lost his temper. He thought\nhe was in the right, absolutely in the right. Moreover, if one is\npermitted to say so, who is the judge who has not got a son, or at any\nrate a cousin to push in the world?\n\nIn order to enlighten the blindest minds the abbe de Frilair took\nthe carriage of my Lord the Bishop eight days after the first decree\nwhich he obtained, and went himself to convey the cross of the Legion\nof Honour to his advocate. M. de la Mole, a little dumbfounded at\nthe demeanour of the other side, and appreciating also that his own\nadvocates were slackening their efforts, asked advice of the abbe\nChelan, who put him in communication with M. Pirard.\n\nAt the period of our story the relations between these two men had\nlasted for several years. The abbe Pirard imported into this affair\nhis characteristic passion. Being in constant touch with the Marquis's\nadvocates, he studied his case, and finding it just, he became quite\nopenly the solicitor of M. de la Mole against the all-powerful Grand\nVicar. The latter felt outraged by such insolence, and on the part of a\nlittle Jansenist into the bargain.\n\n\"See what this Court nobility who pretend to be so powerful really\nare,\" would say the abbe de Frilair to his intimates. M. de la Mole has\nnot even sent a miserable cross to his agent at Besancon, and will let\nhim be tamely turned out. None the less, so they write me, this noble\npeer never lets a week go by without going to show off his blue ribbon\nin the drawing-room of the Keeper of Seal, whoever it may be.\n\nIn spite of all the energy of the abbe Pirard, and although M. de la\nMole was always on the best of terms with the minister of justice, and\nabove all with his officials, the best that he could achieve after six\ncareful years was not to lose his lawsuit right out. Being as he was\nin ceaseless correspondence with the abbe Pirard in connection with an\naffair in which they were both passionately interested, the Marquis\ncame to appreciate the abbe's particular kind of intellect. Little by\nlittle, and in spite of the immense distance in their social positions,\ntheir correspondence assumed the tone of friendship. The abbe Pirard\ntold the Marquis that they wanted to heap insults upon him till he\nshould be forced to hand in his resignation. In his anger against what,\nin his opinion, was the infamous stratagem employed against Julien, he\nnarrated his history to the Marquis.\n\nAlthough extremely rich, this great lord was by no means miserly. He\nhad never been able to prevail on the abbe Pirard to accept even the\nreimbursement of the postal expenses occasioned by the lawsuit. He\nseized the opportunity of sending five hundred francs to his favourite\npupil. M. de la Mole himself took the trouble of writing the covering\nletter. This gave the abbe food for thought. One day the latter\nreceived a little note which requested him to go immediately on an\nurgent matter to an inn on the outskirts of Besancon. He found there\nthe steward of M. de la Mole.\n\n\"M. le Marquis has instructed me to bring you his carriage,\" said the\nman to him. \"He hopes that after you have read this letter you will\nfind it convenient to leave for Paris in four or five days. I will\nemploy the time in the meanwhile in asking you to be good enough to\nshow me the estates of M. le Marquis in the Franche-Comte, so that I\ncan go over them.\"\n\nThe letter was short:--\n\n        \"Rid yourself, my good sir, of all the chicanery of the\n        provinces and come and breathe the peaceful atmosphere\n        of Paris. I send you my carriage which has orders to\n        await your decision for four days. I will await you\n        myself at Paris until Tuesday. You only require to say\n        so, monsieur, to accept in your own name one of the best\n        livings in the environs of Paris. The richest of your\n        future parishioners has never seen you, but is more\n        devoted than you can possibly think: he is the Marquis\n        de la Mole.\"\n\nWithout having suspected it, the stern abbe Pirard loved this seminary,\npeopled as it was by his enemies, but to which for the past fifteen\nyears he had devoted all his thoughts. M. de la Mole's letter had\nthe effect on him of the visit of the surgeon come to perform a\ndifficult but necessary operation. His dismissal was certain. He made\nan appointment with the steward for three days later. For forty-eight\nhours he was in a fever of uncertainty. Finally he wrote to the M. de\nla Mole, and composed for my Lord the Bishop a letter, a masterpiece of\necclesiastical style, although it was a little long; it would have been\ndifficult to have found more unimpeachable phrases, and ones breathing\na more sincere respect. And nevertheless, this letter, intended as it\nwas to get M. de Frilair into trouble with his patron, gave utterance\nto all the serious matters of complaint, and even descended to the\nlittle squalid intrigues which, having been endured with resignation\nfor six years, were forcing the abbe Pirard to leave the diocese.\n\nThey stole his firewood, they poisoned his dog, etc., etc.\n\nHaving finished this letter he had Julien called. Like all the other\nseminarists, he was sleeping at eight o'clock in the evening.\n\n\"You know where the Bishop's Palace is,\" he said to him in good\nclassical Latin. \"Take this letter to my Lord. I will not hide from\nyou that I am sending you into the midst of the wolves. Be all ears\nand eyes. Let there be no lies in your answers, but realise that the\nman questioning you will possibly experience a real joy in being able\nto hurt you. I am very pleased, my child, at being able to give you\nthis experience before I leave you, for I do not hide from you that the\nletter which you are bearing is my resignation.\"\n\nJulien stood motionless. He loved the abbe Pirard. It was in vain that\nprudence said to him,\n\n\"After this honest man's departure the Sacre-Coeur party will disgrace\nme and perhaps expel me.\"\n\nHe could not think of himself. He was embarrassed by a phrase which he\nwas trying to turn in a polite way, but as a matter of fact he found\nhimself without the brains to do so.\n\n\"Well, my friend, are you not going?\"\n\n\"Is it because they say, monsieur,\" answered Julian timidly, \"that you\nhave put nothing on one side during your long administration. I have\nsix hundred francs.\"\n\nHis tears prevented him from continuing.\n\n\"_That also will be noticed,_\" said the ex-director of the seminary\ncoldly. \"Go to the Palace. It is getting late.\"\n\nChance would so have it that on that evening, the abbe de Frilair\nwas on duty in the salon of the Palace. My lord was dining with the\nprefect, so it was to M. de Frilair himself that Julien, though he did\nnot know it, handed the letter.\n\nJulien was astonished to see this abbe boldly open the letter which was\naddressed to the Bishop. The face of the Grand Vicar soon expressed\nsurprise, tinged with a lively pleasure, and became twice as grave\nas before. Julien, struck with his good appearance, found time to\nscrutinise him while he was reading. This face would have possessed\nmore dignity had it not been for the extreme subtlety which appeared\nin some features, and would have gone to the fact of actually denoting\nfalseness if the possessor of this fine countenance had ceased\nto school it for a single minute. The very prominent nose formed\na perfectly straight line and unfortunately gave to an otherwise\ndistinguished profile, a curious resemblance to the physiognomy of\na fox. Otherwise this abbe, who appeared so engrossed with Monsieur\nPirard's resignation, was dressed with an elegance which Julien had\nnever seen before in any priest and which pleased him exceedingly.\n\nIt was only later that Julien knew in what the special talent of the\nabbe de Frilair really consisted. He knew how to amuse his bishop,\nan amiable old man made for Paris life, and who looked upon Besancon\nas exile. This Bishop had very bad sight, and was passionately fond\nof fish. The abbe de Frilair used to take the bones out of the fish\nwhich was served to my Lord. Julien looked silently at the abbe who\nwas rereading the resignation when the door suddenly opened with a\nnoise. A richly dressed lackey passed in rapidly. Julien had only\ntime to turn round towards the door. He perceived a little old man\nwearing a pectoral cross. He prostrated himself. The Bishop addressed a\nbenevolent smile to him and passed on. The handsome abbe followed him\nand Julien was left alone in the salon, and was able to admire at his\nleisure its pious magnificence.\n\nThe Bishop of Besancon, a man whose spirit had been tried but\nnot broken by the long miseries of the emigration, was more than\nseventy-five years old and concerned himself infinitely little with\nwhat might happen in ten years' time.\n\n\"Who is that clever-looking seminarist I think I saw as I passed?\" said\nthe Bishop. \"Oughtn't they to be in bed according to my regulations.\"\n\n\"That one is very wide-awake I assure you, my Lord, and he brings\ngreat news. It is the resignation of the only Jansenist residing in\nyour diocese, that terrible abbe Pirard realises at last that we mean\nbusiness.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the Bishop with a laugh. \"I challenge you to replace him\nwith any man of equal worth, and to show you how much I prize that man,\nI will invite him to dinner for to-morrow.\"\n\nThe Grand Vicar tried to slide in a few words concerning the choice of\na successor. The prelate, who was little disposed to talk business,\nsaid to him.\n\n\"Before we install the other, let us get to know a little of the\ncircumstances under which the present one is going. Fetch me this\nseminarist. The truth is in the mouth of children.\"\n\nJulien was summoned. \"I shall find myself between two inquisitors,\"\nhe thought. He had never felt more courageous. At the moment when he\nentered, two valets, better dressed than M. Valenod himself, were\nundressing my lord. That prelate thought he ought to question Julien\non his studies before questioning him about M. Pirard. He talked a\nlittle theology, and was astonished. He soon came to the humanities,\nto Virgil, to Horace, to Cicero. \"It was those names,\" thought Julien,\nthat earned me my number 198. I have nothing to lose. Let us try\nand shine. He succeeded. The prelate, who was an excellent humanist\nhimself, was delighted.\n\nAt the prefect's dinner, a young girl who was justly celebrated,\nhad recited the poem of the Madeleine. He was in the mood to talk\nliterature, and very quickly forgot the abbe Pirard and his affairs\nto discuss with the seminarist whether Horace was rich or poor. The\nprelate quoted several odes, but sometimes his memory was sluggish,\nand then Julien would recite with modesty the whole ode: the fact\nwhich struck the bishop was that Julien never deviated from the\nconversational tone. He spoke his twenty or thirty Latin verses as\nthough he had been speaking of what was taking place in his own\nseminary. They talked for a long time of Virgil, or Cicero, and the\nprelate could not help complimenting the young seminarist. \"You could\nnot have studied better.\"\n\n\"My Lord,\" said Julien, \"your seminary can offer you 197 much less\nunworthy of your high esteem.\"\n\n\"How is that?\" said the Prelate astonished by the number.\n\n\"I can support by official proof just what I have had the honour of\nsaying before my lord. I obtained the number 198 at the seminary's\nannual examination by giving accurate answers to the very questions\nwhich are earning me at the present moment my lord's approbation.\n\n\"Ah, it is the Benjamin of the abbe Pirard,\" said the Bishop with a\nlaugh, as he looked at M. de Frilair. \"We should have been prepared\nfor this. But it is fair fighting. Did you not have to be woken up, my\nfriend,\" he said, addressing himself to Julien. \"To be sent here?\"\n\n\"Yes, my Lord. I have only been out of the seminary alone once in my\nlife to go and help M. the abbe Chas-Bernard decorate the cathedral on\nCorpus Christi day.\n\n\"Optime,\" said the Bishop. \"So, it is you who showed proof of so much\ncourage by placing the bouquets of feathers on the baldachin. They\nmake me shudder. They make me fear that they will cost some man his\nlife. You will go far, my friend, but I do not wish to cut short your\nbrilliant career by making you die of hunger.\"\n\nAnd by the order of the Bishop, biscuits and wine were brought in, to\nwhich Julien did honour, and the abbe de Frilair, who knew that his\nBishop liked to see people eat gaily and with a good appetite, even\ngreater honour.\n\nThe prelate, more and more satisfied with the end of his evening,\ntalked for a moment of ecclesiastical history. He saw that Julien did\nnot understand. The prelate passed on to the moral condition of the\nRoman Empire under the system of the Emperor Constantine. The end of\npaganism had been accompanied by that state of anxiety and of doubt\nwhich afflicts sad and jaded spirits in the nineteenth century. My Lord\nnoticed Julien's ignorance of almost the very name of Tacitus. To the\nastonishment of the prelate, Julien answered frankly that that author\nwas not to be found in the seminary library.\n\n\"I am truly very glad,\" said the Bishop gaily, \"You relieve me of an\nembarrassment. I have been trying for the last five minutes to find a\nway of thanking you for the charming evening which you have given me in\na way that I could certainly never have expected. I did not anticipate\nfinding a teacher in a pupil in my seminary. Although the gift is not\nunduly canonical, I want to give you a Tacitus.\" The prelate had eight\nvolumes in a superior binding fetched for him, and insisted on writing\nhimself on the title page of the first volume a Latin compliment to\nJulien Sorel. The Bishop plumed himself on his fine Latinity. He\nfinished by saying to him in a serious tone, which completely clashed\nwith the rest of the conversation.\n\n\"Young man, if you are good, you will have one day the best living in\nmy diocese, and one not a hundred leagues from my episcopal palace, but\nyou must be good.\"\n\nLaden with his volumes, Julien left the palace in a state of great\nastonishment as midnight was striking.\n\nMy Lord had not said a word to him about the abbe Pirard. Julien was\nparticularly astonished by the Bishop's extreme politeness. He had had\nno conception of such an urbanity in form combined with so natural an\nair of dignity. Julien was especially struck by the contrast on seeing\nagain the gloomy abbe Pirard, who was impatiently awaiting him.\n\n\"Quid tibi dixerunt (What have they said to you)?\" he cried out to him\nin a loud voice as soon as he saw him in the distance. \"Speak French,\nand repeat my Lord's own words without either adding or subtracting\nanything,\" said the ex-Director of the seminary in his harsh tone,\nand with his particularly inelegant manners, as Julien got slightly\nconfused in translating into Latin the speeches of the Bishop.\n\n\"What a strange present on the part of the Bishop to a young\nseminarist,\" he ventured to say as he turned over the leaves of the\nsuperb Tacitus, whose gilt edges seemed to horrify him.\n\nTwo o'clock was already striking when he allowed his favourite pupil to\nretire to his room after an extremely detailed account.\n\n\"Leave me the first volume of your Tacitus,\" he said to him. \"Where\nis my Lord Bishop's compliment? This Latin line will serve as your\nlightning-conductor in this house after my departure.\"\n\nErit tibi, fili mi, successor meus tanquam leo querens quem devoret.\n(For my successor will be to you, my son, like a ravening lion seeking\nsomeone to devour).\n\nThe following morning Julien noticed a certain strangeness in\nthe manner in which his comrades spoke to him. It only made him\nmore reserved. \"This,\" he thought, \"is the result of M. Pirard's\nresignation. It is known over the whole house, and I pass for his\nfavourite. There ought logically to be an insult in their demeanour.\"\nBut he could not detect it. On the contrary, there was an absence of\nhate in the eyes of all those he met along the corridors. \"What is the\nmeaning of this? It is doubtless a trap. Let us play a wary game.\"\n\nFinally the little seminarist said to him with a laugh,\n\n\"Cornelii Taciti opera omnia (complete works of Tacitus).\"\n\nOn hearing these words, they all congratulated Julien enviously, not\nonly on the magnificent present which he had received from my lord, but\nalso on the two hours' conversation with which he had been honoured.\nThey knew even its minutest details. From that moment envy ceased\ncompletely. They courted him basely. The abbe Castanede, who had\nmanifested towards him the most extreme insolence the very day before,\ncame and took his arm and invited him to breakfast.\n\nBy some fatality in Julien's character, while the insolence of these\ncoarse creatures had occasioned him great pain, their baseness afforded\nhim disgust, but no pleasure.\n\nTowards mid-day the abbe Pirard took leave of his pupils, but not\nbefore addressing to them a severe admonition.\n\n\"Do you wish for the honours of the world,\" he said to them. \"For all\nthe social advantages, for the pleasure of commanding pleasures, of\nsetting the laws at defiance, and the pleasure of being insolent with\nimpunity to all? Or do you wish for your eternal salvation? The most\nbackward of you have only got to open your eyes to distinguish the true\nways.\"\n\nHe had scarcely left before the devotees of the _Sacre Coeur de Jesus_\nwent into the chapel to intone a Te Deum. Nobody in the seminary took\nthe ex-director's admonition seriously.\n\n\"He shows a great deal of temper because he is losing his job,\" was\nwhat was said in every quarter.\n\nNot a single seminarist was simple enough to believe in the voluntary\nresignation of a position which put him into such close touch with the\nbig contractors.\n\nThe abbe Pirard went and established himself in the finest inn at\nBesancon, and making an excuse of business which he had not got,\ninsisted on passing a couple of days there. The Bishop had invited\nhim to dinner, and in order to chaff his Grand Vicar de Frilair,\nendeavoured to make him shine. They were at dessert when the\nextraordinary intelligence arrived from Paris that the abbe Pirard had\nbeen appointed to the magnificent living of N. ---- four leagues from\nParis. The good prelate congratulated him upon it. He saw in the whole\naffair a piece of good play which put him in a good temper and gave him\nthe highest opinion of the abbe's talents. He gave him a magnificent\nLatin certificate, and enjoined silence on the abbe de Frilair, who was\nventuring to remonstrate.\n\nThe same evening, my Lord conveyed his admiration to the Marquise de\nRubempre. This was great news for fine Besancon society. They abandoned\nthemselves to all kinds of conjectures over this extraordinary favour.\nThey already saw the abbe Pirard a Bishop. The more subtle brains\nthought M. de la Mole was a minister, and indulged on this day in\nsmiles at the imperious airs that M. the abbe de Frilair adopted in\nsociety.\n\nThe following day the abbe Pirard was almost mobbed in the streets,\nand the tradesmen came to their shop doors when he went to solicit an\ninterview with the judges who had had to try the Marquis's lawsuit. For\nthe first time in his life he was politely received by them. The stern\nJansenist, indignant as he was with all that he saw, worked long with\nthe advocates whom he had chosen for the Marquis de la Mole, and left\nfor Paris. He was weak enough to tell two or three college friends who\naccompanied him to the carriage whose armorial bearings they admired,\nthat after having administered the Seminary for fifteen years he was\nleaving Besancon with five hundred and twenty francs of savings. His\nfriends kissed him with tears in their eyes, and said to each other,\n\n\"The good abbe could have spared himself that lie. It is really too\nridiculous.\"\n\nThe vulgar, blinded as they are by the love of money, were\nconstitutionally incapable of understanding that it was in his own\nsincerity that the abbe Pirard had found the necessary strength to\nfight for six years against Marie Alacoque, the _Sacre Coeur de Jesus_,\nthe Jesuits and his Bishop.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nAN AMBITIOUS MAN\n\n\n    There is only one nobility, the title of duke; a marquis is\n    ridiculous; the word duke makes one turn round.\n                                       _Edinburgh Review_.\n\n\nThe Marquis de la Mole received the abbe Pirard without any of those\naristocratic mannerisms whose very politeness is at the same time so\nimpertinent to one who understands them. It would have been a waste of\ntime, and the Marquis was sufficiently expeditious in big affairs to\nhave no time to lose.\n\nHe had been intriguing for six months to get both the king and people\nto accept a minister who, as a matter of gratitude, was to make him a\nDuke. The Marquis had been asking his Besancon advocate for years on\nend for a clear and precise summary of his Franche-Comte lawsuits. How\ncould the celebrated advocate explain to him what he did not understand\nhimself? The little square of paper which the abbe handed him explained\nthe whole matter.\n\n\"My dear abbe,\" said the Marquis to him, having got through in less\nthan five minutes all polite formulae of personal questions. \"My dear\nabbe, in the midst of my pretended prosperity I lack the time to occupy\nmyself seriously with two little matters which are rather important,\nmy family and my affairs. I manage the fortune of my house on a large\nscale. I can carry it far. I manage my pleasures, and that is the first\nconsideration in my eyes,\" he added, as he saw a look of astonishment\nin the abbe Pirard's eyes. Although a man of common sense, the abbe was\nsurprised to hear a man talk so frankly about his pleasures.\n\n\"Work doubtless exists in Paris,\" continued the great lord, \"but it is\nperched on the fifth story, and as soon as I take anyone up, he takes\nan apartment on the second floor, and his wife starts a day at home;\nthe result is no more work and no more efforts except either to be, or\nappear to be, a society man. That is the only thing they bother about,\nas soon as they have got their bread and butter.\n\n\"For my lawsuits, yes, for every single one of them, I have, to put it\nplainly, advocates who quarrel to death. One died of consumption the\nday before yesterday. Taking my business all round, would you believe,\nmonsieur, that for three years I have given up all hope of finding a\nman who deigns, during the time he is acting as my clerk, to give a\nlittle serious thought to what he is doing. Besides, all this is only a\npreliminary.\n\n\"I respect you and would venture to add that, although I only see you\nfor the first time to-day, I like you. Will you be my secretary at a\nsalary of eight hundred francs or even double. I shall still be the\ngainer by it, I swear to you, and I will manage to reserve that fine\nliving for you for the day when we shall no longer be able to agree.\"\nThe abbe refused, but the genuine embarrassment in which he saw the\nMarquis suggested an idea to him towards the end of the conversation.\n\n\"I have left in the depths of my seminary a poor young man who, if I\nmistake not, will be harshly persecuted. If he were only a simple monk\nhe would be already _in pace_. So far this young man only knows Latin\nand the Holy Scriptures, but it is not impossible that he will one day\nexhibit great talent, either for preaching or the guiding of souls. I\ndo not know what he will do, but he has the sacred fire. He may go far.\nI thought of giving him to our Bishop, if we had ever had one who was a\nlittle of your way of considering men and things.\"\n\n\"What is your young man's extraction?\" said the Marquis.\n\n\"He is said to be the son of a carpenter in our mountains. I rather\nbelieve he is the natural son of some rich man. I have seen him receive\nan anonymous or pseudonymous letter with a bill for five hundred\nfrancs.\"\n\n\"Oh, it is Julien Sorel,\" said the Marquis.\n\n\"How do you know his name?\" said the abbe, in astonishment, reddening\nat his question.\n\n\"That's what I'm not going to tell you,\" answered the Marquis.\n\n\"Well,\" replied the abbe, \"you might try making him your secretary. He\nhas energy. He has a logical mind. In a word, it's worth trying.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said the Marquis. \"But would he be the kind of man to allow\nhis palm to be greased by the Prefect of Police or any one else and\nthen spy on me? That is only my objection.\"\n\nAfter hearing the favourable assurances of the abbe Pirard, the Marquis\ntook a thousand franc note.\n\n\"Send this journey money to Julien Sorel. Let him come to me.\"\n\n\"One sees at once,\" said the abbe Pirard, \"that you live in Paris.\nYou do not know the tyranny which weighs us poor provincials down,\nand particularly those priests who are not friendly to the Jesuits.\nThey will refuse to let Julien Sorel leave. They will manage to cloak\nthemselves in the most clever excuses. They will answer me that he is\nill, that his letters were lost in the post, etc., etc.\"\n\n\"I will get a letter from the minister to the Bishop, one of these\ndays,\" answered the Marquis.\n\n\"I was forgetting to warn you of one thing,\" said the abbe. \"This young\nman, though of low birth, has a high spirit. He will be of no use if\nyou madden his pride. You will make him stupid.\"\n\n\"That pleases me,\" said the Marquis. \"I will make him my son's comrade.\nWill that be enough for you?\"\n\nSome time afterwards, Julien received a letter in an unknown writing,\nand bearing the Chelon postmark. He found in it a draft on a Besancon\nmerchant, and instructions to present himself at Paris without delay.\nThe letter was signed in a fictitious name, but Julien had felt a\nthrill in opening it. A leaf of a tree had fallen down at his feet. It\nwas the agreed signal between himself and the abbe Pirard.\n\nWithin an hour's time, Julien was summoned to the Bishop's Palace,\nwhere he found himself welcomed with a quite paternal benevolence. My\nlord quoted Horace and at the same time complimented him very adroitly\non the exalted destiny which awaited him in Paris in such a way as\nto elicit an explanation by way of thanks. Julien was unable to say\nanything, simply because he did not know anything, and my Lord showed\nhim much consideration. One of the little priests in the bishopric\nwrote to the mayor, who hastened to bring in person a signed passport,\nwhere the name of the traveller had been left in blank.\n\nBefore midnight of the same evening, Julien was at Fouque's. His\nfriend's shrewd mind was more astonished than pleased with the future\nwhich seemed to await his friend.\n\n\"You will finish up,\" said that Liberal voter, \"with a place in the\nGovernment, which will compel you to take some step which will be\ncalumniated. It will only be by your own disgrace that I shall have\nnews of you. Remember that, even from the financial standpoint, it is\nbetter to earn a hundred louis in a good timber business, of which\none is his own master, than to receive four thousand francs from a\nGovernment, even though it were that of King Solomon.\"\n\nJulien saw nothing in this except the pettiness of spirit of a country\nbourgeois. At last he was going to make an appearance in the theatre of\ngreat events. Everything was over-shadowed in his eyes by the happiness\nof going to Paris, which he imagined to be populated by people of\nintellect, full of intrigues and full of hypocrisy, but as polite as\nthe Bishop of Besancon and the Bishop of Agde. He represented to his\nfriend that he was deprived of any free choice in the matter by the\nabbe Pirard's letter.'\n\nThe following day he arrived at Verrieres about noon. He felt the\nhappiest of men for he counted on seeing Madame de Renal again. He\nwent first to his protector the good abbe Chelan. He met with a severe\nwelcome.\n\n\"Do you think you are under any obligation to me?\" said M. Chelan to\nhim, without answering his greeting. \"You will take breakfast with me.\nDuring that time I will have a horse hired for you and you will leave\nVerrieres without seeing anyone.\"\n\n\"Hearing is obeying,\" answered Julien with a demeanour smacking of\nthe seminary, and the only questions now discussed were theology and\nclassical Latin.\n\nHe mounted his horse, rode a league, and then perceiving a wood and\nnot seeing any one who could notice him enter, he plunged into it.\nAt sunset, he sent away the horse. Later, he entered the cottage of\na peasant, who consented to sell him a ladder and to follow him with\nit to the little wood which commands the _Cours de la Fidelite_ at\nVerrieres.\n\n\"I have been following a poor mutineer of a conscript ... or a\nsmuggler,\" said the peasant as he took leave of him, \"but what does\nit matter? My ladder has been well paid for, and I myself have done a\nthing or two in that line.\"\n\nThe night was very black. Towards one o'clock in the morning, Julien,\nladen with his ladder, entered Verrieres. He descended as soon as he\ncould into the bed of the stream, which is banked within two walls, and\ntraverses M. de Renal's magnificent gardens at a depth of ten feet.\nJulien easily climbed up the ladder. \"How will the watch dogs welcome\nme,\" he thought. \"It all turns on that.\" The dogs barked and galloped\ntowards him, but he whistled softly and they came and caressed him.\nThen climbing from terrace to terrace he easily managed, although all\nthe grills were shut, to get as far as the window of Madame de Renal's\nbedroom which, on the garden side, was only eight or six feet above the\nground. There was a little heart shaped opening in the shutters which\nJulien knew well. To his great disappointment, this little opening was\nnot illuminated by the flare of a little night-light inside.\n\n\"Good God,\" he said to himself. \"This room is not occupied by Madame de\nRenal. Where can she be sleeping? The family must be at Verrieres since\nI have found the dogs here, but I might meet M. de Renal himself, or\neven a stranger in this room without a light, and then what a scandal!\"\nThe most prudent course was to retreat, but this idea horrified Julien.\n\n\"If it's a stranger, I will run away for all I'm worth, and leave my\nladder behind me, but if it is she, what a welcome awaits me! I can\nwell imagine that she has fallen into a mood of penitence and the most\nexalted piety, but after all, she still has some remembrance of me,\nsince she has written to me.\" This bit of reasoning decided him.\n\nWith a beating heart, but resolved none the less to see her or perish\nin the attempt, he threw some little pebbles against the shutter.\nNo answer. He leaned his long ladder beside the window, and himself\nknocked on the shutter, at first softly, and then more strongly.\n\"However dark it is, they may still shoot me,\" thought Julien. This\nidea made the mad adventure simply a question of bravery.\n\n\"This room is not being slept in to-night,\" he thought, \"or whatever\nperson might be there would have woken up by now. So far as it is\nconcerned, therefore, no further precautions are needed. I must only\ntry not to be heard by the persons sleeping in the other rooms.\"\n\nHe descended, placed his ladder against one of the shutters, climbed\nup again, and placing his hand through the heart-shaped opening, was\nfortunate enough to find pretty quickly the wire which is attached to\nthe hook which closed the shutter. He pulled this wire. It was with an\nineffable joy that he felt that the shutter was no longer held back,\nand yielded to his effort.\n\nI must open it bit by bit and let her recognise my voice. He opened the\nshutter enough to pass his head through it, while he repeated in a low\nvoice, \"It's a friend.\"\n\nHe pricked up his ears and assured himself that nothing disturbed the\nprofound silence of the room, but there could be no doubt about it,\nthere was no light, even half-extinguished, on the mantelpiece. It was\na very bad sign.\n\n\"Look out for the gun-shot,\" he reflected a little, then he ventured\nto knock against the window with his finger. No answer. He knocked\nharder. I must finish it one way or another, even if I have to break\nthe window. When he was knocking very hard, he thought he could catch\na glimpse through the darkness of something like a white shadow that\nwas crossing the room. At last there was no doubt about it. He saw a\nshadow which appeared to advance with extreme slowness. Suddenly he saw\na cheek placed against the pane to which his eye was glued.\n\nHe shuddered and went away a little, but the night was so black that\nhe could not, even at this distance, distinguish if it were Madame de\nRenal. He was frightened of her crying out at first in alarm. He heard\nthe dogs prowling and growling around the foot of the ladder. \"It is\nI,\" he repeated fairly loudly. \"A friend.\"\n\nNo answer. The white phantom had disappeared.\n\n\"Deign to open to me. I must speak to you. I am too unhappy.\" And he\nknocked hard enough to break the pane.\n\nA crisp sound followed. The casement fastening of the window yielded.\nHe pushed the casement and leaped lightly into the room.\n\nThe white phantom flitted away from him. He took hold of its arms. It\nwas a woman. All his ideas of courage vanished. \"If it is she, what is\nshe going to say?\" What were his emotions when a little cry gave him to\nunderstand, that it was Madame de Renal?\n\nHe clasped her in his arms. She trembled and scarcely had the strength\nto push him away.\n\n\"Unhappy man. What are you doing?\" Her agonised voice could scarcely\narticulate the words.\n\nJulien thought that her voice rang with the most genuine indignation.\n\n\"I have come to see you after a cruel separation of more than fourteen\nmonths.\"\n\n\"Go away, leave me at once. Oh, M. Chelan, why did you prevent me\nwriting to him? I could then have foreseen this horror.\" She pushed\nhim away with a truly extraordinary strength. \"Heaven has deigned to\nenlighten me,\" she repeated in a broken voice. \"Go away! Flee!\"\n\n\"After fourteen months of unhappiness I shall certainly not leave you\nwithout a word. I want to know all you have done. Yes, I have loved\nyou enough to deserve this confidence. I want to know everything.\"\nThis authoritative tone dominated Madame de Renal's heart in spite of\nherself. Julien, who was hugging her passionately and resisting her\nefforts to get loose, left off clasping her in his arms. This reassured\nMadame de Renal a little.\n\n\"I will take away the ladder,\" he said, \"to prevent it compromising\nus in case some servant should be awakened by the noise, and go on a\nround.\"\n\n\"Oh leave me, leave me!\" she cried with an admirable anger. \"What\ndo men matter to me! It is God who sees the awful scene you are now\nmaking. You are abusing meanly the sentiments which I had for you but\nhave no longer. Do you hear, Monsieur Julien?\"\n\nHe took away the ladder very slowly so as not to make a noise.\n\n\"Is your husband in town, dear,\" he said to her not in order to defy\nher but as a sheer matter of habit.\n\n\"Don't talk to me like that, I beg you, or I will call my husband. I\nfeel only too guilty in not having sent you away before. I pity you,\"\nshe said to him, trying to wound his, as she well knew, irritable pride.\n\nThis refusal of all endearments, this abrupt way of breaking so tender\na tie which he thought still subsisted, carried the transports of\nJulien's love to the point of delirium.\n\n\"What! is it possible you do not love me?\" he said to her, with one of\nthose accents that come straight from the heart and impose a severe\nstrain on the cold equanimity of the listener.\n\nShe did not answer. As for him, he wept bitterly.\n\nIn fact he had no longer the strength to speak.\n\n\"So I am completely forgotten by the one being who ever loved me, what\nis the good of living on henceforth?\" As soon as he had no longer to\nfear the danger of meeting a man all his courage had left him; his\nheart now contained no emotion except that of love.\n\nHe wept for a long time in silence.\n\nHe took her hand; she tried to take it away, and after a few almost\nconvulsive moments, surrendered it to him. It was extremely dark; they\nwere both sitting on Madame de Renal's bed.\n\n\"What a change from fourteen months ago,\" thought Julien, and his tears\nredoubled. \"So absence is really bound to destroy all human sentiments.\"\n\n\"Deign to tell me what has happened to you?\" Julien said at last.\n\n\"My follies,\" answered Madame de Renal in a hard voice whose frigid\nintonation contained in it a certain element of reproach, \"were no\ndoubt known in the town when you left, your conduct was so imprudent.\nSome time afterwards when I was in despair the venerable Chelan came to\nsee me. He tried in vain for a long time to obtain a confession. One\nday he took me to that church at Dijon where I made my first communion.\nIn that place he ventured to speak himself----\" Madame de Renal\nwas interrupted by her tears. \"What a moment of shame. I confessed\neverything. The good man was gracious enough not to overwhelm me with\nthe weight of his indignation. He grieved with me. During that time I\nused to write letters to you every day which I never ventured to send.\nI hid them carefully and when I was more than usually unhappy I shut\nmyself up in my room and read over my letters.\"\n\n\"At last M. Chelan induced me to hand them over to him, some of them\nwritten a little more discreetly were sent to you, you never answered.\"\n\n\"I never received any letters from you, I swear!\"\n\n\"Great heavens! Who can have intercepted them? Imagine my grief until\nthe day I saw you in the cathedral. I did not know if you were still\nalive.\"\n\n\"God granted me the grace of understanding how much I was sinning\ntowards Him, towards my children, towards my husband,\" went on Madame\nde Renal. \"He never loved me in the way that I then thought that you\nhad loved me.\"\n\nJulien rushed into her arms, as a matter of fact without any particular\npurpose and feeling quite beside himself. But Madame de Renal repelled\nhim and continued fairly firmly.\n\n\"My venerable friend, M. Chelan, made me understand that in marrying I\nhad plighted all my affections, even those which I did not then know,\nand which I had never felt before a certain fatal attachment ... after\nthe great sacrifice of the letters that were so dear to me, my life has\nflowed on, if not happily, at any rate calmly. Do not disturb it. Be\na friend to me, my best friend.\" Julien covered her hand with kisses.\nShe perceived he was still crying. \"Do not cry, you pain me so much.\nTell me, in your turn, what you have been doing,\" Julien was unable\nto speak. \"I want to know the life you lead at the seminary,\" she\nrepeated. \"And then you will go.\"\n\nWithout thinking about what he was saying Julien spoke of the\nnumberless intrigues and jealousies which he had first encountered, and\nthen of the great serenity of his life after he had been made a tutor.\n\n\"It was then,\" he added, \"that after a long silence which was no doubt\nintended to make me realise what I see only too clearly to-day, that\nyou no longer loved me and that I had become a matter of indifference\nto you....\"\n\nMadame de Renal wrung her hands.\n\n\"It was then that you sent me the sum of five hundred francs.\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Madame de Renal.\n\n\"It was a letter stamped Paris and signed Paul Sorel so as to avert\nsuspicion.\"\n\nThere was a little discussion about how the letter could possibly have\noriginated.\n\nThe psychological situation was altered. Without knowing it Julien had\nabandoned his solemn tone; they were now once more on the footing of a\ntender affection. It was so dark that they did not see each other but\nthe tone of their voices was eloquent of everything. Julien clasped\nhis arm round his love's waist. This movement had its dangers. She\ntried to put Julien's arms away from her; at this juncture he cleverly\ndiverted her attention by an interesting detail in his story. The arm\nwas practically forgotten and remained in its present position.\n\nAfter many conjectures as to the origin of the five hundred francs\nletter, Julien took up his story. He regained a little of his\nself-control as he spoke of his past life, which compared with what he\nwas now experiencing interested him so little. His attention was now\nconcentrated on the final outcome of of his visit. \"You will have to\ngo,\" were the curt words he heard from time to time.\n\n\"What a disgrace for me if I am dismissed. My remorse will embitter all\nmy life,\" he said to himself, \"she will never write to me. God knows\nwhen I shall come back to this part of the country.\" From this moment\nJulien's heart became rapidly oblivious of all the heavenly delights of\nhis present position.\n\nSeated as he was close to a woman whom he adored and practically\nclasping her in his arms in this room, the scene of his former\nhappiness, amid a deep obscurity, seeing quite clearly as he did that\nshe had just started crying, and feeling that she was sobbing from the\nheaving of her chest, he was unfortunate enough to turn into a cold\ndiplomatist, nearly as cold as in those days when in the courtyard\nof the seminary he found himself the butt of some malicious joke on\nthe part of one of his comrades who was stronger than he was. Julien\nprotracted his story by talking of his unhappy life since his departure\nfrom Verrieres.\n\n\"So,\" said Madame de Renal to herself, \"after a year's absence and\ndeprived almost entirely of all tokens of memory while I myself was\nforgetting him, he only thought of the happy days that he had had in\nVerrieres.\" Her sobs redoubled. Julien saw the success of his story.\nHe realised that he must play his last card. He abruptly mentioned a\nletter he had just received from Paris.\n\n\"I have taken leave of my Lord Bishop.\"\n\n\"What! you are not going back to Besancon? You are leaving us for ever?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Julien resolutely, \"yes, I am leaving a country where I\nhave been forgotten even by the woman whom I loved more than anyone in\nmy life; I am leaving it and I shall never see it again. I am going to\nParis.\"\n\n\"You are going to Paris, dear,\" exclaimed Madame de Renal.\n\nHer voice was almost choked by her tears and showed the extremity of\nher trouble. Julien had need of this encouragement. He was on the point\nof executing a manoeuvre which might decide everything against him; and\nup to the time of this exclamation he could not tell what effect he was\nproducing as he was unable to see. He no longer hesitated. The fear of\nremorse gave him complete control over himself. He coldly added as he\ngot up.\n\n\"Yes, madame, I leave you for ever. May you be happy. Adieu.\"\n\nHe moved some steps towards the window. He began to open it. Madame de\nRenal rushed to him and threw herself into his arms. So it was in this\nway that, after a dialogue lasting three hours, Julien obtained what he\ndesired so passionately during the first two hours.\n\nMadame de Renal's return to her tender feelings and this overshadowing\nof her remorse would have been a divine happiness had they come a\nlittle earlier; but, as they had been obtained by artifice, they were\nsimply a pleasure. Julien insisted on lighting the night-light in spite\nof his mistress's opposition.\n\n\"Do you wish me then,\" he said to her \"to have no recollection of\nhaving seen you. Is the love in those charming eyes to be lost to me\nfor ever? Is the whiteness of that pretty hand to remain invisible?\nRemember that perhaps I am leaving you for a very long time.\"\n\nMadame de Renal could refuse him nothing. His argument made her melt\ninto tears. But the dawn was beginning to throw into sharp relief the\noutlines of the pine trees on the mountain east of Verrieres. Instead\nof going away Julien, drunk with pleasure, asked Madame de Renal to let\nhim pass the day in her room and leave the following night.\n\n\"And why not?\" she answered. \"This fatal relapse robs me of all my\nrespect and will mar all my life,\" and she pressed him to her heart.\n\"My husband is no longer the same; he has suspicions, he believes I led\nhim the way I wanted in all this business, and shows great irritation\nagainst me. If he hears the slightest noise I shall be ruined, he will\nhound me out like the unhappy woman that I am.\"\n\n\"Ah here we have a phrase of M. Chelan's,\" said Julien \"you would not\nhave talked like that before my cruel departure to the seminary; in\nthose days you used to love me.\"\n\nJulien was rewarded for the frigidity which he put into those words. He\nsaw his love suddenly forget the danger which her husband's presence\ncompelled her to run, in thinking of the much greater danger of seeing\nJulien doubt her love. The daylight grew rapidly brighter and vividly\nilluminated the room. Julien savoured once more all the deliciousness\nof pride, when he saw this charming woman in his arms and almost at his\nfeet, the only woman whom he had ever loved, and who had been entirely\nabsorbed only a few hours before by her fear of a terrible God and her\ndevotion to her duties. Resolutions, fortified by a year's persuasion,\nhad failed to hold out against his courage.\n\nThey soon heard a noise in the house. A matter that Madame de Renal had\nnot thought of began to trouble her.\n\n\"That wicked Elisa will come into the room. What are we to do with this\nenormous ladder?\" she said to her sweetheart, \"where are we to hide it?\nI will take it to the loft,\" she exclaimed suddenly half playfully.\n\n\"But you will have to pass through the servants' room,\" said Julien in\nastonishment.\n\n\"I will leave the ladder in the corridor and will call the servant and\nsend him on an errand.\"\n\n\"Think of some explanation to have ready in the event of a servant\npassing the ladder and noticing it in the corridor.\"\n\n\"Yes, my angel,\" said Madame de Renal giving him a kiss \"as for you,\ndear, remember to hide under the bed pretty quickly if Elisa enters\nhere during my absence.\"\n\nJulien was astonished by this sudden gaiety--\"So\" he thought, \"the\napproach of a real danger instead of troubling her gives her back\nher spirits before she forgets her remorse. Truly a superior woman.\nYes, that's a heart over which it is glorious to reign.\" Julien was\ntransported with delight.\n\nMadame de Renal took the ladder, which was obviously too heavy for her.\nJulien went to her help. He was admiring that elegant figure which was\nso far from betokening any strength when she suddenly seized the ladder\nwithout assistance and took it up as if it had been a chair. She took\nit rapidly into the corridor of the third storey where she laid it\nalongside the wall. She called a servant, and in order to give him time\nto dress himself, went up into the dovecot.\n\nFive minutes later, when she came back to the corridor, she found no\nsigns of the ladder. What had happened to it? If Julien had been out\nof the house she would not have minded the danger in the least. But\nsupposing her husband were to see the ladder just now, the incident\nmight be awful. Madame de Renal ran all over the house.\n\nMadame de Renal finally discovered the ladder under the roof where the\nservant had carried it and even hid it.\n\n\"What does it matter what happens in twenty-four hours,\" she thought,\n\"when Julien will be gone?\"\n\nShe had a vague idea that she ought to take leave of life but what\nmattered her duty? He was restored to her after a separation which she\nhad thought eternal. She was seeing him again and the efforts he had\nmade to reach her showed the extent of his love.\n\n\"What shall I say to my husband,\" she said to him. \"If the servant\ntells him he found this ladder?\" She was pensive for a moment. \"They\nwill need twenty-four hours to discover the peasant who sold it\nto you.\" And she threw herself into Julien's arms and clasped him\nconvulsively.\n\n\"Oh, if I could only die like this,\" she cried covering him with\nkisses. \"But you mustn't die of starvation,\" she said with a smile.\n\n\"Come, I will first hide you in Madame Derville's room which is always\nlocked.\" She went and watched at the other end of the corridor and\nJulien ran in. \"Mind you don't try and open if any one knocks,\" she\nsaid as she locked him in. \"Anyway it would only be a frolic of the\nchildren as they play together.\"\n\n\"Get them to come into the garden under the window,\" said Julien, \"so\nthat I may have the pleasure of seeing them. Make them speak.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" cried Madame de Renal to him as she went away. She soon\nreturned with oranges, biscuits and a bottle of Malaga wine. She had\nnot been able to steal any bread.\n\n\"What is your husband doing?\" said Julien.\n\n\"He is writing out the figures of the bargains he is going to make with\nthe peasants.\"\n\nBut eight o'clock had struck and they were making a lot of noise in the\nhouse. If Madame de Renal failed to put in an appearance, they would\nlook for her all over the house. She was obliged to leave him. Soon she\ncame back, in defiance of all prudence, bringing him a cup of coffee.\nShe was frightened lest he should die of starvation.\n\nShe managed after breakfast to bring the children under the window of\nMadame Derville's room. He thought they had grown a great deal, but\nthey had begun to look common, or else his ideas had changed. Madame de\nRenal spoke to them about Julien. The elder answered in an affectionate\ntone and regretted his old tutor, but he found that the younger\nchildren had almost forgotten him.\n\nM. de Renal did not go out that morning; he was going up and downstairs\nincessantly engaged in bargaining with some peasants to whom he was\nselling potatoes.\n\nMadame de Renal did not have an instant to give to her prisoner until\ndinner-time. When the bell had been rung and dinner had been served,\nit occurred to her to steal a plate of warm soup for him. As she\nnoiselessly approached the door of the room which he occupied, she\nfound herself face to face with the servant who had hid the ladder\nin the morning. At the time he too was going noiselessly along the\ncorridor, as though listening for something. The servant took himself\noff in some confusion.\n\nMadame de Renal boldly entered Julien's room. The news of this\nencounter made him shudder.\n\n\"You are frightened,\" she said to him, \"but I would brave all the\ndangers in the world without flinching. There is only one thing I fear,\nand that is the moment when I shall be alone after you have left,\" and\nshe left him and ran downstairs.\n\n\"Ah,\" thought Julien ecstatically, \"remorse is the only danger which\nthis sublime soul is afraid of.\"\n\nAt last evening came. Monsieur de Renal went to the Casino.\n\nHis wife had given out that she was suffering from an awful headache.\nShe went to her room, hastened to dismiss Elisa and quickly got up in\norder to let Julien out.\n\nHe was literally starving. Madame de Renal went to the pantry to fetch\nsome bread. Julien heard a loud cry. Madame de Renal came back and told\nhim that when she went to the dark pantry and got near the cupboard\nwhere they kept the bread, she had touched a woman's arm as she\nstretched out her hand. It was Elisa who had uttered the cry Julien had\nheard.\n\n\"What was she doing there?\"\n\n\"Stealing some sweets or else spying on us,\" said Madame de Renal with\ncomplete indifference, \"but luckily I found a pie and a big loaf of\nbread.\"\n\n\"But what have you got there?\" said Julien pointing to the pockets of\nher apron.\n\nMadame de Renal had forgotten that they had been filled with bread\nsince dinner.\n\nJulien clasped her in his arms with the most lively passion. She had\nnever seemed to him so beautiful. \"I could not meet a woman of greater\ncharacter even at Paris,\" he said confusedly to himself. She combined\nall the clumsiness of a woman who was but little accustomed to paying\nattentions of this kind, with all the genuine courage of a person who\nis only afraid of dangers of quite a different sphere and quite a\ndifferent kind of awfulness.\n\nWhile Julien was enjoying his supper with a hearty appetite and his\nsweetheart was rallying him on the simplicity of the meal, the door of\nthe room was suddenly shaken violently. It was M. de Renal.\n\n\"Why have you shut yourself in?\" he cried to her.\n\nJulien had only just time to slip under the sofa.\n\nOn any ordinary day Madame de Renal would have been upset by this\nquestion which was put with true conjugal harshness; but she realised\nthat M. de Renal had only to bend down a little to notice Julien, for\nM. de Renal had flung himself into the chair opposite the sofa which\nJulien had been sitting in one moment before.\n\nHer headache served as an excuse for everything. While her husband on\nhis side went into a long-winded account of the billiards pool which he\nhad won at Casino, \"yes, to be sure a nineteen franc pool,\" he added.\nShe noticed Julien's hat on a chair three paces in front of them.\nHer self-possession became twice as great, she began to undress, and\nrapidly passing one minute behind her husband threw her dress over the\nchair with the hat on it.\n\nAt last M. de Renal left. She begged Julien to start over again his\naccount of his life at the Seminary. \"I was not listening to you\nyesterday all the time you were speaking, I was only thinking of\nprevailing on myself to send you away.\"\n\nShe was the personification of indiscretion. They talked very loud and\nabout two o'clock in the morning they were interrupted by a violent\nknock at the door. It was M. de Renal again.\n\n\"Open quickly, there are thieves in the house!\" he said. \"Saint Jean\nfound their ladder this morning.\"\n\n\"This is the end of everything,\" cried Madame de Renal, throwing\nherself into Julien's arms. \"He will kill both of us, he doesn't\nbelieve there are any thieves. I will die in your arms, and be more\nhappy in my death than I ever was in my life.\" She made no attempt to\nanswer her husband who was beginning to lose his temper, but started\nkissing Julien passionately.\n\n\"Save Stanislas's mother,\" he said to her with an imperious look. \"I\nwill jump down into the courtyard through the lavatory window, and\nescape in the garden; the dogs have recognised me. Make my clothes into\na parcel and throw them into the garden as soon as you can. In the\nmeanwhile let him break the door down. But above all, no confession, I\nforbid you to confess, it is better that he should suspect rather than\nbe certain.\"\n\n\"You will kill yourself as you jump!\" was her only answer and her only\nanxiety.\n\nShe went with him to the lavatory window; she then took sufficient time\nto hide his clothes. She finally opened the door to her husband who was\nboiling with rage. He looked in the room and in the lavatory without\nsaying a word and disappeared. Julien's clothes were thrown down to\nhim; he seized them and ran rapidly towards the bottom of the garden in\nthe direction of the Doubs.\n\nAs he was running he heard a bullet whistle past him, and heard at the\nsame time the report of a gun.\n\n\"It is not M. de Renal,\" he thought, \"he's far too bad a shot.\" The\ndogs ran silently at his side, the second shot apparently broke the paw\nof one dog, for he began to whine piteously. Julien jumped the wall of\nthe terrace, did fifty paces under cover, and began to fly in another\ndirection. He heard voices calling and had a distinct view of his enemy\nthe servant firing a gun; a farmer also began to shoot away from the\nother side of the garden. Julien had already reached the bank of the\nDoubs where he dressed himself.\n\nAn hour later he was a league from Verrieres on the Geneva road. \"If\nthey had suspicions,\" thought Julien, \"they will look for me on the\nParis road.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nTHE PLEASURES OF THE COUNTRY\n\n     O rus quando ego te aspiciam?--_Horace_\n\n\n\"You've no doubt come to wait for the Paris mail, Monsieur,\" said the\nhost of an inn where he had stopped to breakfast.\n\n\"To-day or to-morrow, it matters little,\" said Julien.\n\nThe mail arrived while he was still posing as indifferent. There were\ntwo free places.\n\n\"Why! it's you my poor Falcoz,\" said the traveller who was coming from\nthe Geneva side to the one who was getting in at the same time as\nJulien.\n\n\"I thought you were settled in the outskirts of Lyons,\" said Falcoz,\n\"in a delicious valley near the Rhone.\"\n\n\"Nicely settled! I am running away.\"\n\n\"What! you are running away? you Saint Giraud! Have you, who look so\nvirtuous, committed some crime?\" said Falcoz with a smile.\n\n\"On my faith it comes to the same thing. I am running away from the\nabominable life which one leads in the provinces. I like the freshness\nof the woods and the country tranquillity, as you know. You have often\naccused me of being romantic. I don't want to hear politics talked as\nlong as I live, and politics are hounding me out.\"\n\n\"But what party do you belong to?\"\n\n\"To none and that's what ruins me. That's all there is to be said\nabout my political life--I like music and painting. A good book is\nan event for me. I am going to be forty-four. How much longer have I\ngot to live? Fifteen--twenty--thirty years at the outside. Well, I\nwant the ministers in thirty years' time to be a little cleverer than\nthose of to-day but quite as honest. The history of England serves as\na mirror for our own future. There will always be a king who will try\nto increase his prerogative. The ambition of becoming a deputy, the\nfame of Mirabeau and the hundreds of thousand francs which he won for\nhimself will always prevent the rich people in the province from going\nto sleep: they will call that being Liberal and loving the people. The\ndesire of becoming a peer or a gentleman of the chamber will always win\nover the ultras. On the ship of state every one is anxious to take over\nthe steering because it is well paid. Will there be never a poor little\nplace for the simple passenger?\"\n\n\"Is it the last elections which are forcing you out of the province?\"\n\n\"My misfortune goes further back. Four years ago I was forty and\npossessed 500,000 francs. I am four years older to-day and probably\n50,000 francs to the bad, as I shall lose that sum on the sale of my\nchateau of Monfleury in a superb position near the Rhone.\n\n\"At Paris I was tired of that perpetual comedy which is rendered\nobligatory by what you call nineteenth-century civilisation. I thirsted\nfor good nature and simplicity. I bought an estate in the mountains\nnear the Rhine, there was no more beautiful place under the heavens.\n\n\"The village clergyman and the gentry of the locality pay me court for\nsix months; I invite them to dinner; I have left Paris, I tell them, so\nas to avoid talking politics or hearing politics talked for the rest of\nmy life. As you know I do not subscribe to any paper, the less letters\nthe postman brought me the happier I was.\n\n\"That did not suit the vicar's book. I was soon the victim of a\nthousand unreasonable requests, annoyances, etc. I wished to give two\nor three hundred francs a year to the poor, I was asked to give it\nto the Paris associations, that of Saint Joseph, that of the Virgin,\netc. I refused. I was then insulted in a hundred ways. I was foolish\nenough to be upset by it. I could not go out in the morning to enjoy\nthe beauty of our mountain without finding some annoyance which\ndistracted me from my reveries and recalled unpleasantly both men and\ntheir wickedness. On the Rogation processions, for instance whose\nchanting I enjoy (it is probably a Greek melody) they will not bless\nmy fields because, says the clergyman, they belong to an infidel. A\ncow dies belonging to a devout old peasant woman. She says the reason\nis the neighbourhood of a pond which belongs to my infidel self, a\nphilosopher coming from Paris, and eight days afterwards I find my\nfish in agonies poisoned by lime. Intrigue in all its forms envelops\nme. The justice of the peace, who is an honest man, but frightened of\nlosing his place, always decides against me. The peace of the country\nproved a hell for me. Once they saw that I was abandoned by the vicar,\nthe head of the village congregation, and that I was not supported by\nthe retired captain who was the head of the Liberals they all fell upon\nme, down to the mason whom I had supported for a year, down to the very\nwheel-wright who wanted to cheat me with impunity over the repairing of\nmy ploughs.\n\n\"In order to find some support, and to win at any rate some of my law\nsuits I became a Liberal, but, as you say, those damned elections come\nalong. They asked me for my vote.\"\n\n\"For an unknown man?\"\n\n\"Not at all, for a man whom I knew only too well. I refused. It was\nterribly imprudent. From that moment I had the Liberals on my hands as\nwell, and my position became intolerable. I believe that if the vicar\nhad got it into his head to accuse me of assassinating my servant,\nthere would be twenty witnesses of the two parties who would swear that\nthey had seen me committing the crime.\"\n\n\"You mean to say you want to live in the country without pandering\nto the passions of your neighbours, without even listening to their\ngossip. What a mistake!\"\n\n\"It is rectified at last. Monfleury is for sale. I will lose 50,000\nfrancs if necessary, but I am over-joyed I am leaving that hell of\nhypocrisy and annoyance. I am going to look for solitude and rustic\npeace in the only place where those things are to be found in France,\non a fourth storey looking on to the Champs-Elysees; and, moreover, I\nam actually deliberating if I shall not commence my political career by\ngiving consecrated bread to the parish in the Roule quarter.\"\n\n\"All this would not have happened under Bonaparte,\" said Falcoz with\neyes shining with rage and sorrow.\n\n\"Very good, but why didn't your Bonaparte manage to keep his position?\nEverything which I suffer to-day is his work.\"\n\nAt this point Julien's attention was redoubled. He had realised from\nthe first word that the Bonapartist Falcoz was the old boyhood friend\nof M. de Renal, who had been repudiated by him in 1816, and that the\nphilosopher Saint-Giraud must be the brother of that chief of the\nprefecture of----who managed to get the houses of the municipality\nknocked down to him at a cheap price.\n\n\"And all this is the work of your Bonaparte. An honest man, aged forty,\nand possessed of five hundred thousand francs however inoffensive he\nis, cannot settle in the provinces and find peace there; those priests\nand nobles of his will turn him out.\"\n\n\"Oh don't talk evil of him,\" exclaimed Falcoz. \"France was never so\nhigh in the esteem of the nations as during the thirteen years of his\nreign; then every single act was great.\"\n\n\"Your emperor, devil take him,\" replied the man of forty-four, \"was\nonly great on his battle fields and when he reorganised the finances\nabout 1802. What is the meaning of all his conduct since then? What\nwith his chamberlains, his pomp, and his receptions in the Tuileries,\nhe has simply provided a new edition of all the monarchical tomfoolery.\nIt was a revised edition and might possibly have lasted for a century\nor two. The nobles and the priests wish to go back to the old one, but\nthey did not have the iron hand necessary to impose it on the public.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's just how an old printer would talk.\"\n\n\"Who has turned me out of my estate?\" continued the printer, angrily.\n\"The priests, whom Napoleon called back by his Concordat instead\nof treating them like the State treats doctors, barristers, and\nastronomers, simply seeing in them ordinary citizens, and not bothering\nabout the particular calling by which they are trying to earn their\nlivelihood. Should we be saddled with these insolent gentlemen today,\nif your Bonaparte had not created barons and counts? No, they were out\nof fashion. Next to the priests, it's the little country nobility who\nhave annoyed me the most, and compelled me to become a Liberal.\"\n\nThe conversation was endless. The theme will occupy France for another\nhalf-century. As Saint-Giraud kept always repeating that it was\nimpossible to live in the provinces, Julien timidly suggested the case\nof M. de Renal.\n\n\"Zounds, young man, you're a nice one,\" exclaimed Falcoz. \"He turned\nspider so as not to be fly, and a terrible spider into the bargain.\nBut I see that he is beaten by that man Valenod. Do you know that\nscoundrel? He's the villain of the piece. What will your M. de Renal\nsay if he sees himself turned out one of these fine days, and Valenod\nput in his place?\"\n\n\"He will be left to brood over his crimes,\" said Saint-Giraud. \"Do\nyou know Verrieres, young man? Well, Bonaparte, heaven confound him!\nBonaparte and his monarchical tomfoolery rendered possible the reign\nof the Renals and the Chelans, which brought about the reign of the\nValenods and the Maslons.\"\n\nThis conversation, with its gloomy politics, astonished Julien and\ndistracted him from his delicious reveries.\n\nHe appreciated but little the first sight of Paris as perceived in the\ndistance. The castles in the air he had built about his future had to\nstruggle with the still present memory of the twenty-four hours that\nhe had just passed in Verrieres. He vowed that he would never abandon\nhis mistress's children, and that he would leave everything in order\nto protect them, if the impertinence of the priests brought about a\nrepublic and the persecution of the nobles.\n\nWhat would have happened on the night of his arrival in Verrieres if,\nat the moment when he had leant his ladder against the casement of\nMadame de Renal's bedroom he had found that room occupied by a stranger\nor by M. de Renal?\n\nBut how delicious, too, had been those first two hours when his\nsweetheart had been sincerely anxious to send him away and he had\npleaded his cause, sitting down by her in the darkness! A soul like\nJulien's is haunted by such memories for a lifetime. The rest of the\ninterview was already becoming merged in the first period of their\nlove, fourteen months previous.\n\nJulien was awakened from his deep meditation by the stopping of the\ncoach. They had just entered the courtyard of the Post in the Rue\nRousseau. \"I want to go to La Malmaison,\" he said to a cabriolet which\napproached.\n\n\"At this time, Monsieur--what for?\"\n\n\"What's that got to do with you? Get on.\"\n\nEvery real passion only thinks about itself. That is why, in my view,\npassions are ridiculous at Paris, where one's neighbour always insists\non one's considering him a great deal. I shall refrain from recounting\nJulien's ecstasy at La Malmaison. He wept. What! in spite of those\nwretched white walls, built this very year, which cut the path up into\nbits? Yes, monsieur, for Julien, as for posterity, there was nothing to\nchoose between Arcole, Saint Helena, and La Malmaison.\n\nIn the evening, Julien hesitated a great deal before going to the\ntheatre. He had strange ideas about that place of perdition.\n\nA deep distrust prevented him from admiring actual Paris. He was only\naffected by the monuments left behind by his hero.\n\n\"So here I am in the centre of intrigue and hypocrisy. Here reign the\nprotectors of the abbe de Frilair.\" On the evening of the third day\nhis curiosity got the better of his plan of seeing everything before\npresenting himself to the abbe Pirard. The abbe explained to him coldly\nthe kind of life which he was to expect at M. de la Mole's.\n\n\"If you do not prove useful to him at the end of some months you will\ngo back to the seminary, but not in disgrace. You will live in the\nhouse of the marquis, who is one of the greatest seigneurs of France.\nYou will wear black, but like a man who is in mourning, and not like\nan ecclesiastic. I insist on your following your theological studies\nthree days a week in a seminary where I will introduce you. Every day\nat twelve o'clock you will establish yourself in the marquis's library;\nhe counts on making use of you in drafting letters concerning his\nlawsuits and other matters. The marquis will scribble on the margin\nof each letter he gets the kind of answer which is required. I have\nassured him that at the end of three months you will be so competent to\ndraft the answers, that out of every dozen you hand to the marquis for\nsignature, he will be able to sign eight or nine. In the evening, at\neight o'clock, you will tidy up his bureau, and at ten you will be free.\n\n\"It may be,\" continued the abbe Pirard, \"that some old lady or some\nsmooth-voiced man will hint at immense advantages, or will crudely\noffer you gold, to show him the letters which the marquis has received.\"\n\n\"Ah, monsieur,\" exclaimed Julien, blushing.\n\n\"It is singular,\" said the abbe with a bitter smile, \"that poor as\nyou are, and after a year at a seminary, you still have any of this\nvirtuous indignation left. You must have been very blind.\"\n\n\"Can it be that blood will tell,\" muttered the abbe in a whisper, as\nthough speaking to himself. \"The singular thing is,\" he added, looking\nat Julien, \"that the marquis knows you--I don't know how. He will give\nyou a salary of a hundred louis to commence with. He is a man who only\nacts by his whim. That is his weakness. He will quarrel with you about\nthe most childish matters. If he is satisfied, your wages may rise in\nconsequence up to eight thousand francs.\n\n\"But you realise,\" went on the abbe, sourly, \"that he is not giving\nyou all this money simply on account of your personal charm. The thing\nis to prove yourself useful. If I were in your place I would talk very\nlittle, and I would never talk about what I know nothing about.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said the abbe, \"I have made some enquiries for you. I was\nforgetting M. de la Mole's family. He has two children--a daughter and\na son of nineteen, eminently elegant--the kind of madman who never\nknows to-day what he will do to-morrow. He has spirit and valour; he\nhas been through the Spanish war. The marquis hopes, I don't know why,\nthat you will become a friend of the young count Norbert. I told him\nthat you were a great classic, and possibly he reckons on your teaching\nhis son some ready-made phrases about Cicero and Virgil.\n\n\"If I were you, I should never allow that handsome young man to make\nfun of me, and before I accepted his advances, which you will find\nperfectly polite but a little ironical, I would make him repeat them\nmore than once.\n\n\"I will not hide from you the fact that the young count de La Mole is\nbound to despise you at first, because you are nothing more than a\nlittle bourgeois. His grandfather belonged to the court, and had the\nhonour of having his head cut off in the Place de Greve on the 26th\nApril, 1574, on account of a political intrigue.\n\n\"As for you, you are the son of a carpenter of Verrieres, and what\nis more, in receipt of his father's wages. Ponder well over these\ndifferences, and look up the family history in Moreri. All the\nflatterers who dine at their house make from time to time what they\ncall delicate allusions to it.\n\n\"Be careful of how you answer the pleasantries of M. the count de La\nMole, chief of a squadron of hussars, and a future peer of France, and\ndon't come and complain to me later on.\"\n\n\"It seems to me,\" said Julien, blushing violently, \"that I ought not\neven to answer a man who despises me.\"\n\n\"You have no idea of his contempt. It will only manifest itself by\ninflated compliments. If you were a fool, you might be taken in by it.\nIf you want to make your fortune, you ought to let yourself be taken in\nby it.\"\n\n\"Shall I be looked upon as ungrateful,\" said Julien, \"if I return to my\nlittle cell Number 108 when I find that all this no longer suits me?\"\n\n\"All the toadies of the house will no doubt calumniate you,\" said the\nabbe, \"but I myself will come to the rescue. Adsum qui feci. I will say\nthat I am responsible for that resolution.\"\n\nJulien was overwhelmed by the bitter and almost vindictive tone which\nhe noticed in M. Pirard; that tone completely infected his last answer.\n\nThe fact is that the abbe had a conscientious scruple about loving\nJulien, and it was with a kind of religious fear that he took so direct\na part in another's life.\n\n\"You will also see,\" he added with the same bad grace, as though\naccomplishing a painful duty, \"you also will see Madame the marquise\nde La Mole. She is a big blonde woman about forty, devout, perfectly\npolite, and even more insignificant. She is the daughter of the old\nDuke de Chaulnes so well known for his aristocratic prejudices. This\ngreat lady is a kind of synopsis in high relief of all the fundamental\ncharacteristics of women of her rank. She does not conceal for her own\npart that the possession of ancestors who went through the crusades\nis the sole advantage which she respects. Money only comes a long way\nafterwards. Does that astonish you? We are no longer in the provinces,\nmy friend.\n\n\"You will see many great lords in her salon talk about our princes in\na tone of singular flippancy. As for Madame de la Mole, she lowers her\nvoice out of respect every time she mentions the name of a Prince, and\nabove all the name of a Princess. I would not advise you to say in her\nhearing that Philip II. or Henry VII. were monsters. They were kings, a\nfact which gives them indisputable rights to the respect of creatures\nwithout birth like you and me. Nevertheless,\" added M. Pirard, \"we are\npriests, for she will take you for one; that being our capacity, she\nconsiders us as spiritual valets necessary for her salvation.\"\n\n\"Monsieur,\" said Julien, \"I do not think I shall be long at Paris.\"\n\n\"Good, but remember that no man of our class can make his fortune\nexcept through the great lords. With that indefinable element in your\ncharacter, at any rate I think it is, you will be persecuted if you\ndo not make your fortune. There is no middle course for you, make no\nmistake about it; people see that they do not give you pleasure when\nthey speak to you; in a social country like this you are condemned to\nunhappiness if you do not succeed in winning respect.\"\n\n\"What would have become of you at Besancon without this whim of the\nmarquis de la Mole? One day you will realise the extraordinary extent\nof what he has done for you, and if you are not a monster you will be\neternally grateful to him and his family. How many poor abbes more\nlearned than you have lived years at Paris on the fifteen sous they\ngot for their mass and their ten sous they got for their dissertations\nin the Sorbonne. Remember what I told you last winter about the first\nyears of that bad man Cardinal Dubois. Are you proud enough by chance\nto think yourself more talented than he was?\n\n\"Take, for instance, a quiet and average man like myself; I reckoned\non dying in my seminary. I was childish enough to get attached to\nit. Well I was on the point of being turned out, when I handed in\nmy resignation. You know what my fortune consisted of. I had five\nhundred and twenty francs capital neither more nor less, not a friend,\nscarcely two or three acquaintances. M. de la Mole, whom I had never\nseen, extricated me from that quandary. He only had to say the word\nand I was given a living where the parishioners are well-to-do people\nabove all crude vices, and where the income puts me to shame, it is so\ndisproportionate to my work. I refrained from talking to you all this\ntime simply to enable you to find your level a bit.\n\n\"One word more, I have the misfortune to be irritable. It is possible\nthat you and I will cease to be on speaking terms.\n\n\"If the airs of the marquise or the spiteful pleasantries of her son\nmake the house absolutely intolerable for you I advise you to finish\nyour studies in some seminary thirty leagues from Paris and rather\nnorth than south. There is more civilisation in the north, and, he\nadded lowering his voice, I must admit that the nearness of the Paris\npapers puts fear into our petty tyrants.\n\n\"If we continue to find pleasure in each other's society and if the\nmarquis's house does not suit you, I will offer you the post of my\ncurate, and will go equal shares with you in what I get from the\nliving. I owe you that and even more, he added interrupting Julien's\nthanks, for the extraordinary offer which you made me at Besancon. If\ninstead of having five hundred and twenty francs I had had nothing you\nwould have saved me.\"\n\nThe abbe's voice had lost its tone of cruelty, Julien was ashamed to\nfeel tears in his eyes. He was desperately anxious to throw himself\ninto his friend's arms. He could not help saying to him in the most\nmanly manner he could assume:\n\n\"I was hated by my father from the cradle; it was one of my great\nmisfortunes, but I shall no longer complain of my luck, I have found\nanother father in you, monsieur.\"\n\n\"That is good, that is good,\" said the embarrassed abbe, then suddenly\nremembering quite appropriately a seminary platitude \"you must never\nsay luck, my child, always say providence.\"\n\nThe fiacre stopped. The coachman lifted up the bronze knocker of an\nimmense door. It was the Hotel de la Mole, and to prevent the passers\nby having any doubt on the subject these words could be read in black\nmarble over the door.\n\nThis affectation displeased Julien. \"They are so frightened of the\nJacobins. They see a Robespierre and his tumbril behind every head.\nTheir panic is often gloriously grotesque and they advertise their\nhouse like this so that in the event of a rising the rabble can\nrecognise it and loot it.\" He communicated his thought to the abbe\nPirard.\n\n\"Yes, poor child, you will soon be my curate. What a dreadful idea you\nhave got into your head.\"\n\n\"Nothing could be simpler,\" said Julien.\n\nThe gravity of the porter, and above all, the cleanness of the the\ncourt, struck him with admiration. It was fine sunshine. \"What\nmagnificent architecture,\" he said to his friend. The hotel in question\nwas one of those buildings of the Faubourg Saint-Germain with a flat\nfacade built about the time of Voltaire's death. At no other period had\nfashion and beauty been so far from one another.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nENTRY INTO SOCIETY\n\n\n        Ludicrous and pathetic memory: the first drawing-room\n        where one appeared alone and without support at the\n        age of eighteen! the look of a woman sufficed to\n        intimidate me. The more I wished to please the more\n        clumsy I became. I evolved the most unfounded ideas\n        about everything. I would either abandon myself without\n        any reason, or I would regard a man as an enemy simply\n        because he had looked at me with a serious air; but\n        all the same, in the middle of the unhappiness of\n        my timidity, how beautiful did I find a beautiful\n        day--_Kant_.\n\n\nJulien stopped in amazement in the middle of the courtyard. \"Pull\nyourself together,\" said the abbe Pirard. \"You get horrible ideas into\nyour head, besides you are only a child. What has happened to the\nnil mirari of Horace (no enthusiasm) remember that when they see you\nestablished here this crowd of lackeys will make fun of you. They will\nsee in you an equal who has been unjustly placed above them; and, under\na masquerade of good advice and a desire to help you, they will try to\nmake you fall into some gross blunder.\"\n\n\"Let them do their worst,\" said Julien biting his lip, and he became as\ndistrustful as ever.\n\nThe salons on the first storey which our gentlemen went through before\nreaching the marquis' study, would have seemed to you, my reader, as\ngloomy as they were magnificent. If they had been given to you just as\nthey were, you would have refused to live in them. This was the domain\nof yawning and melancholy reasoning. They redoubled Julien's rapture.\n\"How can any one be unhappy?\" he thought, \"who lives in so splendid an\nabode.\"\n\nFinally our gentlemen arrived at the ugliest rooms in this superb\nsuite. There was scarcely any light. They found there a little keen\nman with a lively eye and a blonde wig. The abbe turned round\nto Julien and presented him. It was the marquis. Julien had much\ndifficulty in recognising him, he found his manner was so polite.\nIt was no longer the grand seigneur with that haughty manner of the\nabbey of Bray-le-Haut. Julien thought that his wig had much too many\nhairs. As the result of this opinion he was not at all intimidated.\nThe descendant of the friend of Henry III. seemed to him at first of\na rather insignificant appearance. He was extremely thin and very\nrestless, but he soon noticed that the marquis had a politeness which\nwas even more pleasant to his listener than that of the Bishop of\nBesancon himself. The audience only lasted three minutes. As they went\nout the abbe said to Julien,\n\n\"You looked at the marquis just as you would have looked at a picture.\nI am not a great expert in what these people here call politeness. You\nwill soon know more about it than I do, but really the boldness of your\nlooks seemed scarcely polite.\"\n\nThey had got back into the fiacre. The driver stopped near the\nboulevard; the abbe ushered Julien into a suite of large rooms. Julien\nnoticed that there was no furniture. He was looking at the magnificent\ngilded clock representing a subject which he thought very indecent,\nwhen a very elegant gentleman approached him with a smiling air. Julien\nbowed slightly.\n\nThe gentleman smiled and put his hand on his shoulder. Julien shuddered\nand leapt back, he reddened with rage. The abbe Pirard, in spite of his\ngravity, laughed till the tears came into his eyes. The gentleman was a\ntailor.\n\n\"I give you your liberty for two days,\" said the abbe as they went\nout. \"You cannot be introduced before then to Madame de la Mole. Any\none else would watch over you as if you were a young girl during these\nfirst few moments of your life in this new Babylon. Get ruined at once\nif you have got to be ruined, and I will be rid of my own weakness of\nbeing fond of you. The day after to-morrow this tailor will bring you\ntwo suits, you will give the man who tries them on five francs. Apart\nfrom that don't let these Parisians hear the sound of your voice. If\nyou say a word they will manage somehow to make fun of you. They have a\ntalent for it. Come and see me the day after to-morrow at noon.... Go\nand ruin yourself.... I was forgetting, go and order boots and a hat at\nthese addresses.\"\n\nJulien scrutinised the handwriting of the addresses.\n\n\"It's the marquis's hand,\" said the abbe; \"he is an energetic man who\nforesees everything, and prefers doing to ordering. He is taking you\ninto his house, so that you may spare him that kind of trouble. Will\nyou have enough brains to execute efficiently all the instructions\nwhich he will give you with scarcely a word of explanation? The future\nwill show, look after yourself.\"\n\nJulien entered the shops indicated by the addresses without saying a\nsingle word. He observed that he was received with respect, and that\nthe bootmaker as he wrote his name down in the ledger put M. de Sorel.\n\nWhen he was in the Cemetery of Pere La Chaise a very obliging\ngentleman, and what is more, one who was Liberal in his views,\nsuggested that he should show Julien the tomb of Marshal Ney which a\nsagacious statecraft had deprived of the honour of an epitaph, but when\nhe left this Liberal, who with tears in his eyes almost clasped him in\nhis arms, Julien was without his watch. Enriched by this experience two\ndays afterwards he presented himself to the abbe Pirard, who looked at\nhim for a long time.\n\n\"Perhaps you are going to become a fop,\" said the abbe to him severely.\nJulien looked like a very young man in full mourning; as a matter of\nfact, he looked very well, but the good abbe was too provincial himself\nto see that Julien still carried his shoulders in that particular way\nwhich signifies in the provinces both elegance and importance. When the\nmarquis saw Julien his opinion of his graces differed so radically from\nthat of the good abbe as he said,\n\n\"Would you have any objection to M. le Sorel taking some dancing\nlessons?\"\n\nThe abbe was thunderstruck.\n\n\"No,\" he answered at last. \"Julien is not a priest.\"\n\nThe marquis went up the steps of a little secret staircase two at a\ntime, and installed our hero in a pretty attic which looked out on the\nbig garden of the hotel. He asked him how many shirts he had got at the\nlinen drapers.\n\n\"Two,\" answered Julien, intimidated at seeing so great a lord\ncondescend to such details.\n\n\"Very good,\" replied the marquis quite seriously, and with a certain\ncurt imperiousness which gave Julien food for thought. \"Very good, get\ntwenty-two more shirts. Here are your first quarter's wages.\"\n\nAs he went down from the attic the marquis called an old man. \"Arsene,\"\nhe said to him, \"you will serve M. Sorel.\" A few minutes afterwards\nJulien found himself alone in a magnificent library. It was a delicious\nmoment. To prevent his emotion being discovered he went and hid in\na little dark corner. From there he contemplated with rapture the\nbrilliant backs of the books. \"I shall be able to read all these,\" he\nsaid to himself. \"How can I fail to like it here? M. de Renal would\nhave thought himself dishonoured for ever by doing one-hundredth part\nof what the Marquis de la Mole has just done for me.\n\n\"But let me have a look at the copies I have to make.\" Having finished\nthis work Julien ventured to approach the books. He almost went mad\nwith joy as he opened an edition of Voltaire. He ran and opened the\ndoor of the library to avoid being surprised. He then indulged in the\nluxury of opening each of the eighty volumes. They were magnificently\nbound and were the masterpiece of the best binder in London. It was\neven more than was required to raise Julien's admiration to the maximum.\n\nAn hour afterwards the marquis came in and was surprised to notice that\nJulien spelt cela with two \"ll\" cella. \"Is all that the abbe told me of\nhis knowledge simply a fairy tale?\" The marquis was greatly discouraged\nand gently said to him,\n\n\"You are not sure of your spelling?\"\n\n\"That is true,\" said Julien without thinking in the least of the\ninjustice that he was doing to himself. He was overcome by the kindness\nof the marquis which recalled to him through sheer force of contrast\nthe superciliousness of M. de Renal.\n\n\"This trial of the little Franc-comtois abbe is waste of time,\" thought\nthe marquis, \"but I had such great need of a reliable man.\"\n\n\"You spell cela with one 'l,'\" said the marquis to him, \"and when you\nhave finished your copies look the words whose spelling you are not\nsure of up in the dictionary.\"\n\nThe marquis sent for him at six o'clock. He looked at Julien's boots\nwith manifest pain. \"I am sorry for a mistake I made. I did not tell\nyou that you must dress every day at half-past five.\"\n\nJulien looked at him but did not understand.\n\n\"I mean to say put on stockings. Arsene will remind you. To-day I will\nmake your apologies.\"\n\nAs he finished the sentence M. de la Mole escorted Julien into a salon\nresplendent with gilding. On similar occasions M. de Renal always made\na point of doubling his pace so as to have the privilege of being the\nfirst to pass the threshold. His former employer's petty vanity caused\nJulien to tread on the marquis's feet and hurt him a great deal because\nof his gout. \"So he is clumsy to the bargain,\" he said to himself. He\npresented him to a woman of high stature and of imposing appearance.\nIt was the marquise. Julien thought that her manner was impertinent,\nand that she was a little like Madame de Maugiron, the wife of the\nsub-prefect of the arrondissement of Verrieres when she was present\nat the Saint-Charles dinner. Rendered somewhat nervous by the extreme\nmagnificence of the salon Julien did not hear what M. de la Mole was\nsaying. The marquise scarcely deigned to look at him. There were\nseveral men there, among whom Julien recognised with an inexpressible\npleasure the young bishop of Agde who had deigned to speak to him some\nmonths before at the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. This young prelate was\ndoubtless frightened by the tender look which the timidity of Julien\nfixed on him, and did not bother to recognise \"the provincial.\"\n\nThe men assembled in this salon seemed to Julien to have a certain\nelement of gloom and constraint. Conversation takes place in a low\nvoice in Paris and little details are not exaggerated.\n\nA handsome young man with moustaches, came in about half-past six. He\nwas very pale, and had a very small head.\n\n\"You always keep us waiting\" said the marquise, as he kissed her hand.\n\nJulien realised that it was the Count de la Mole. From the very first\nhe thought he was charming.\n\n\"Is it possible,\" he said to himself \"that this is the man whose\noffensive jests are going to drive me out of the house.\"\n\nAs the result of scrutinising count Norbert, Julien noticed that he\nwas in boots and spurs. \"And I have got to be in shoes just like\nan inferior apparently.\" They sat down at table, Julien heard the\nmarquise raising her voice a little and saying something severe. Almost\nsimultaneously he noticed an extremely blonde and very well developed\nyoung person who had just sat down opposite him. Nevertheless she\nmade no appeal to him. Looking at her attentively he thought that he\nhad never seen such beautiful eyes, although they betokened a great\ncoldness of soul. Subsequently Julien thought that, though they\nlooked bored and sceptical, they were conscious of the duty of being\nimpressive. \"Madame de Renal of course had very fine eyes\" he said to\nhimself, \"she used to be universally complimented on them, but they had\nnothing in common with these.\" Julien did not know enough of society\nto appreciate that it was the fire of repartee which from time to time\ngave their brilliancy to the eyes of Mademoiselle Mathilde (for that\nwas the name he heard her called by). When Madame de Renal's eyes\nbecame animated, it was with the fire of passion, or as the result of a\ngenerous indignation on hearing of some evil deed. Towards the end of\nthe meal Julien found a word to express Mademoiselle de la Mole's type\nof beauty. Her eyes are scintillating, he said to himself. Apart from\nher eyes she was cruelly like her mother, whom he liked less and less,\nand he ceased looking at her. By way of compensation he thought Count\nNorbert admirable in every respect. Julien was so fascinated that the\nidea never occurred to him of being jealous, and hating him because he\nwas richer and of nobler birth than he was himself.\n\nJulien thought that the marquis looked bored.\n\nAbout the second course he said to his son: \"Norbert, I ask all your\ngood offices for M. Julien Sorel, whom I have just taken into my staff\nand of whom I hope to make a man _si cella se peut_.\"\n\n\"He is my secretary,\" said the marquis to his neighbour, \"and he spells\ncela with two ll's.\" Everybody looked at Julien, who bowed to Norbert\nin a manner that was slightly too marked, but speaking generally they\nwere satisfied with his expression.\n\nThe marquis must have spoken about the kind of education which Julien\nhad received for one of the guests tackled him on Horace. \"It was\njust by talking about Horace that I succeeded with the bishop of\nBesancon,\" said Julien to himself. Apparently that is the only author\nthey know. From that instant he was master of himself. This transition\nwas rendered easy because he had just decided that he would never look\nupon Madamoiselle de la Mole as a woman after his own taste. Since the\nseminary he had the lowest opinion of men, and was not to be easily\nintimidated by them. He would have enjoyed all his self-possession if\nthe dining-room had been furnished with less magnificence. It was,\nas a matter of fact, two mirrors each eight feet high in which he\nwould look from time to time at the man who was speaking to him about\nHorace, which continued to impress him. His phrases were not too long\nfor a provincial, he had fine eyes whose brilliancy was doubled by his\nquavering timidity, or by his happy bashfulness when he had given a\ngood answer. They found him pleasant. This kind of examination gave\na little interest to a solemn dinner. The marquis signed to Julien's\nquestioner to press him sharply. \"Can he possibly know something?\" he\nthought.\n\nJulien answered and thought out new ideas. He lost sufficient of his\nnervousness, not indeed to exhibit any wit, for that is impossible\nfor any one ignorant of the special language which is used in Paris,\nbut to show himself possessed of ideas which, though presented out of\nplace and ungracefully, were yet original. They saw that he knew Latin\nperfectly.\n\nJulien's adversary was a member of the Academy Inscriptions who chanced\nto know Latin. He found Julien a very good humanist, was not frightened\nof making him feel uncomfortable, and really tried to embarrass him. In\nthe heat of the controversy Julien eventually forgot the magnificent\nfurniture of the dining-room. He managed to expound theories concerning\nthe Latin poets which his questioner had never read of anywhere. Like\nan honest man, he gave the young secretary all due credit for them.\nAs luck would have it, they started a discussion on the question\nof whether Horace was poor or rich, a good humoured and careless\nvoluptuary who made verses to amuse himself, like Chapelle the friend\nof Moliere and de la Fontaine, or a poor devil of a poet laureate who\nwrote odes for the king's birthday like Southey, the accuser of Lord\nByron. They talked about the state of society under Augustus and under\nGeorge IV. At both periods the aristocracy was all-powerful, but,\nwhile at Rome it was despoiled of its power by Maecenas who was only a\nsimple knight, it had in England reduced George IV practically to the\nposition of a Venetian doge. This discussion seemed to lift the marquis\nout of that state of bored torpor in which he had been plunged at the\nbeginning of the dinner.\n\nJulien found meaningless such modern names as Southey, Lord Byron,\nand George IV, which he now heard pronounced for the first time. But\nevery one noticed that whenever the conversation dealt with events that\nhad taken place in Rome and about which knowledge could be obtained\nby a perusal of the works of Horace, Martial or Tacitus, etc., he\nshowed an indisputable superiority. Julien coolly appropriated several\nideas which he had learnt from the bishop of Besancon in the historic\nconversation which he had had with that prelate. These ideas were not\nthe least appreciated.\n\nWhen every one was tired of talking about poets the marquise, who\nalways made it a rule to admire whatever amused her husband, deigned\nto look at Julien. \"Perhaps an educated man lies hid beneath the\nclumsy manners of this young abbe,\" said the Academician who happened\nto be near the marquise. Julien caught a few words of what he said.\nReady-made phrases suited the intellect of the mistress of the house\nquite well. She adopted this one about Julien, and was very pleased\nwith herself for having invited the academician to dinner. \"He has\namused M. de la Mole\" she thought.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nTHE FIRST STEPS\n\n\n        This immense valley, filled with brilliant lights and so\n        many thousands of men dazzles my sight. No one knows me.\n        All are superior to me. I lose my head. _Poemi dell' av.\n        REINA_.\n\nJulien was copying letters in the library very early the next day\nwhen Mademoiselle Mathilde came in by a little dummy door very well\nmasked by the backs of the books. While Julien was admiring the\ndevice, Mademoiselle Mathilde seemed astonished and somewhat annoyed\nat finding him there: Julien saw that she was in curl-papers and had\na hard, haughty, and masculine expression. Mademoiselle de la Mole\nhad the habit of surreptitiously stealing books from her father's\nlibrary. Julien's presence rendered this morning's journey abortive,\na fact which annoyed her all the more as she had come to fetch the\nsecond volume of Voltaire's _Princess of Babylon_, a worthy climax to\none of the most eminently monarchical and religious educations which\nthe convent of the Sacred Heart had ever provided. This poor girl of\nnineteen already required some element of spiciness in order to get up\nan interest in a novel.\n\nCount Norbert put in an appearance in the library about three o'clock.\nHe had come to study a paper so as to be able to talk politics in the\nevening, and was very glad to meet Julien, whose existence he had\nforgotten. He was charming, and offered him a ride on horseback.\n\n\"My father will excuse us until dinner.\"\n\nJulien appreciated the us and thought it charming.\n\n\"Great heavens! M. le Comte,\" said Julien, \"if it were a question of\nfelling an eighty-foot tree or hewing it out and making it into planks\nI would acquit myself all right, I daresay, but as for riding a horse,\nI haven't done such a thing six times in my life.\"\n\n\"Well, this will be the seventh,\" said Norbert.\n\nAs a matter of fact, Julien remembered the king of ----'s entry into\nVerrieres, and thought he rode extremely well. But as they were\nreturning from the Bois de Boulogne he fell right in the middle of the\nRue du Bac, as he suddenly tried to get out of the way of a cabriolet,\nand was spattered all over with mud. It was lucky that he had two\nsuits. The marquis, wishing to favour him with a few words at dinner,\nasked him for news of his excursion. Norbert began immediately to\nanswer him in general terms.\n\n\"M. le Comte is extremely kind to me,\" answered Julien. \"I thank him\nfor it, and I fully appreciate it. He was good enough to have the\nquietest and prettiest horse given to me, but after all he could\nnot tie me on to it, and owing to the lack of that precaution, I\nhad a fall right in the middle of that long street near the bridge.\nMadame Mathilde made a futile effort to hide a burst of laughter, and\nsubsequently was indiscreet enough to ask for details. Julien acquitted\nhimself with much simplicity. He had grace without knowing it.\n\n\"I prophesy favourably about that little priest,\" said the marquis to\nthe academician. \"Think of a provincial being simple over a matter like\nthat. Such a thing has never been witnessed before, and will never be\nwitnessed again; and what is more, he describes his misfortune before\nladies.\"\n\nJulien put his listeners so thoroughly at their ease over his\nmisfortune that at the end of the dinner, when the general conversation\nhad gone off on to another subject, Mademoiselle Mathilde asked her\nbrother some questions over the details of the unfortunate occurrence.\nAs she put numerous questions, and as Julien met her eyes several\ntimes, he ventured to answer himself, although the questions had not\nbeen addressed to him, and all three of them finished up by laughing\njust as though they had all been inhabitants of some village in the\ndepths of a forest.\n\nOn the following day Julien attended two theology lectures, and then\ncame back to copy out about twenty letters. He found a young man, who\nthough very carefully dressed, had a mean appearance and an envious\nexpression, established near him in the library.\n\nThe marquis entered, \"What are you doing here, M. Tanbeau?\" he said\nseverely to the new-comer.\n\n\"I thought--\" answered the young man, with a base smile.\n\n\"No, monsieur, you thought nothing of the kind. This is a try-on, but\nit is an unfortunate one.\"\n\nYoung Tanbeau got up in a rage and disappeared. He was a nephew of the\nacademician who was a friend of Madame de la Mole, and intended to take\nup the profession of letters. The academician had induced the marquis\nto take him as a secretary. Tanbeau used to work in a separate room,\nbut having heard of the favour that was vouchsafed to Julien he wished\nto share it, and he had gone this morning and established his desk in\nthe library.\n\nAt four o'clock Julien ventured, after a little hesitation, to present\nhimself to Count Norbert. The latter was on the point of going riding,\nand being a man of perfect politeness felt embarrassed.\n\n\"I think,\" he said to Julien, \"that you had better go to the riding\nschool, and after a few weeks, I shall be charmed to ride with you.\"\n\n\"I should like to have the honour of thanking you for the kindness\nwhich you have shewn me. Believe me, monsieur,\" added Julien very\nseriously, \"that I appreciate all I owe you. If your horse has not been\nhurt by the reason of my clumsiness of yesterday, and if it is free I\nshould like to ride it this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Well, upon my word, my dear Sorel, you do so at your own risk and\nperil; kindly assume that I have put forth all the objections required\nby prudence. As a matter of fact it is four o'clock, we have no time to\nlose.\"\n\nAs soon as Julien was on horseback, he said to the young count, \"What\nmust one do not to fall off?\"\n\n\"Lots of things,\" answered Norbert, bursting into laughter. \"Keep your\nbody back for instance.\"\n\nJulien put his horse to the trot. They were at the Place Louis XVI.\n\n\"Oh, you foolhardy youngster,\" said Norbert \"there are too many\ncarriages here, and they are driven by careless drivers into the\nbargain. Once you are on the ground their tilburies will run over your\nbody, they will not risk spoiling their horses' mouths by pulling up\nshort.\"\n\nNorbert saw Julien twenty times on the point of tumbling, but in the\nend the excursion finished without misadventure. As they came back the\nyoung count said to his sister,\n\n\"Allow me to introduce a dashing dare-devil.\"\n\nWhen he talked to his father over the dinner from one end of the table\nto the other, he did justice to Julien's courage. It was the only\nthing one could possibly praise about his style of riding. The young\ncount had heard in the morning the men who groomed the horses in the\ncourtyard making Julien's fall an opportunity for the most outrageous\njokes at his expense.\n\nIn spite of so much kindness Julien soon felt himself completely\nisolated in this family. All their customs seemed strange to him, and\nhe was cognizant of none of them. His blunders were the delight of the\nvalets.\n\nThe abbe Pirard had left for his living. \"If Julien is a weak reed,\nlet him perish. If he is a man of spirit, let him get out of his\ndifficulties all alone,\" he thought.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nTHE HOTEL DE LA MOLE\n\n\n        What is he doing here? Will he like it there? Will he\n        try to please?--_Ronsard_.\n\n\nIf everything in the aristocratic salon of the Hotel de la Mole seemed\nstrange to Julien, that pale young man in his black suit seemed in his\nturn very strange to those persons who deigned to notice him. Madame de\nla Mole suggested to her husband that he should send him off on some\nbusiness on those days when they had certain persons to dinner.\n\n\"I wish to carry the experiment to its logical conclusion,\" answered\nthe marquis. \"The abbe Pirard contends that we are wrong in crushing\nthe self-respect of the people whom we allow around us. _One can only\nlean on what resists_. The only thing against this man is his unknown\nface, apart from that he is a deaf mute.\"\n\n\"If I am to know my way about,\" said Julien to himself. \"I must write\ndown the names of the persons whom I see come to the salon together\nwith a few words on their character.\"\n\nHe put at the head of the list five or six friends of the house who\ntook every opportunity of paying court to him, believing that he was\nprotected by a whim of the marquis. They were poor dull devils. But it\nmust be said in praise of this class of men, such as they are found\nto-day in the salons of the aristocracy, that every one did not find\nthem equally tame. One of them was now allowing himself to be bullied\nby the marquis, who was venting his irritation at a harsh remark which\nhad been addressed to him by the marquise.\n\nThe masters of the house were too proud or too prone to boredom; they\nwere too much used to finding their only distraction in the addressing\nof insults, to enable them to expect true friends. But, except on\nrainy days and in rare moments of savage boredom, they always showed\nthemselves perfectly polite.\n\nIf the five or six toadies who manifested so paternal an affection\ntowards Julien had deserted the Hotel de la Mole, the marquise would\nhave been exposed to long spells of solitude, and in the eyes of women\nof that class, solitude is awful, it is the symbol of _disgrace_.\n\nThe marquis was charming to his wife. He saw that her salon was\nsufficiently furnished, though not with peers, for he did not think his\nnew colleagues were sufficiently noble to come to his house as friends,\nor sufficiently amusing to be admitted as inferiors.\n\nIt was only later that Julien fathomed these secrets. The governing\npolicy of a household, though it forms the staple of conversation in\nbourgeois families, is only alluded to in families of the class of that\nof the marquis in moments of distress. So paramount even in this bored\ncentury is the necessity of amusing one's self, that even on the days\nof dinner-parties the marquis had scarcely left the salon before all\nthe guests ran away. Provided that one did not make any jests about\neither God or the priests or the king or the persons in office, or the\nartists who enjoyed the favour of the court, or of anything that was\nestablished, provided that one did not praise either Beranger or the\nopposition papers, or Voltaire or Rousseau or anything which involved\nany element of free speech, provided that above all that one never\ntalked politics, one could discuss everything with freedom.\n\nThere is no income of a hundred thousand crowns a year and no blue\nribbon which could sustain a contest against such a code of salon\netiquette.\n\nThe slightest live idea appeared a crudity. In spite of the prevailing\ngood form, perfect politeness, and desire to please, _ennui_ was\nvisible in every face. The young people who came to pay their calls\nwere frightened of speaking of anything which might make them suspected\nof thinking or of betraying that they had read something prohibited,\nand relapsed into silence after a few elegant phrases about Rossini and\nthe weather.\n\nJulien noticed that the conversation was usually kept alive by two\nviscounts and five barons whom M. de la Mole had known at the time of\nthe emigration. These gentlemen enjoyed an income of from six to eight\nhundred thousand francs. Four swore by the _Quotidienne_ and three\nby the _Gazette de France_. One of them had every day some anecdote\nto tell about the Chateau, in which he made lavish use of the word\n_admirable_. Julien noticed that he had five crosses, the others as a\nrule only had three.\n\nBy way of compensation six footmen in livery were to be seen in the\nante-room, and during the whole evening ices or tea were served every\nquarter-of-an-hour, while about midnight there was a kind of supper\nwith champagne.\n\nThis was the reason that sometimes induced Julien to stay till the\nend. Apart from this he could scarcely understand why any one could\nbring himself to take seriously the ordinary conversation in this\nmagnificently gilded salon. Sometimes he would look at the talkers to\nsee if they themselves were not making fun of what they were saying.\n\"My M. de Maistre, whom I know by heart,\" he thought, \"has put it a\nhundred times better, and all the same he is pretty boring.\"\n\nJulien was not the only one to appreciate this stifling moral\natmosphere. Some consoled themselves by taking a great quantity of\nices, others by the pleasure of saying all the rest of the evening, \"I\nhave just come from the Hotel de la Mole where I learnt that Russia,\netc.\"\n\nJulien learnt from one of the toadies that scarcely six months ago\nmadame de la Mole had rewarded more than twenty years of assiduous\nattention by promoting the poor baron Le Bourguignon, who had been a\nsub-prefect since the restoration, to the rank of prefect.\n\nThis great event had whetted the zeal of all these gentlemen.\nPreviously there were few things to which they would have objected,\nnow they objected to nothing. There was rarely any overt lack of\nconsideration, but Julien had already caught at meals two or three\nlittle short dialogues between the marquis and his wife which were\ncruel to those who were seated near them. These noble personages did\nnot conceal their sincere contempt for everyone who was not sprung\nfrom people who were entitled to ride in the carriages of the king.\nJulien noticed that the word crusade was the only word which gave their\nface an expression of deep seriousness akin to respect. Their ordinary\nrespect had always a touch of condescension. In the middle of this\nmagnificence and this boredom Julien was interested in nothing except\nM. de la Mole. He was delighted to hear him protest one day that he\nhad had nothing to do with the promotion of that poor Le Bourguignon,\nit was an attention to the marquise. Julien knew the truth from the\nabbe Pirard.\n\nThe abbe was working in the marquis's library with Julien one morning\nat the eternal de Frilair lawsuit.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" said Julien suddenly, \"is dining every day with madame la\nmarquise one of my duties or a special favour that they show to me?\"\n\n\"It's a special honour,\" replied the scandalised abbe. \"M. the\nAcademician, who has been cultivating the family for fifteen years, has\nnever been able to obtain so much for his M. Tanbeau.\"\n\n\"I find it, sir, the most painful part of my employment. I was less\nbored at the seminary. Some times I see even mademoiselle de la Mole\nyawn, and yet she ought to be accustomed to the social charms of the\nfriends of the house. I am frightened of falling asleep. As a favour,\nobtain permission for me to go and get a forty sous' dinner in some\nobscure inn.\"\n\nThe abbe who was a true snob, was very appreciative of the honour of\ndining with a great lord. While he was endeavouring to get Julien to\nunderstand this point of view a slight noise made them turn round.\nJulien saw mademoiselle de la Mole listening. He reddened. She had come\nto fetch a book and had heard everything. She began to entertain some\nrespect for Julien. \"He has not been born servile,\" she thought, \"like\nthat old abbe. Heavens, how ugly he is.\"\n\nAt dinner Julien did not venture to look at mademoiselle de la Mole\nbut she was kind enough to speak to him. They were expecting a lot\nof visitors that day and she asked him to stay. The young girls of\nParis are not at all fond of persons of a certain age, especially when\nthey are slovenly. Julien did not need much penetration to realise\nthat the colleagues of M. le Bourguignon who remained in the salon\nhad the privilege of being the ordinary butt of mademoiselle de la\nMole's jokes. On this particular day, whether or not by reason of some\naffectation on her part, she proved cruel to bores.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole was the centre of a little knot which used to\nform nearly every evening behind the marquise's immense arm-chair.\nThere were to be found there the marquis de Croisenois, the comte\nde Caylus, the vicomte de Luz and two or three other young officers,\nthe friends of Norbert or his sister. These gentlemen used to sit\ndown on a large blue sofa. At the end of the sofa, opposite the part\nwhere the brilliant Mathilde was sitting, Julien sat in silence on a\nlittle, rather low straw chair. This modest position was envied by all\nthe toadies; Norbert kept his father's young secretary in countenance\nby speaking to him, or mentioning him by name once or twice in the\nevening. On this particular occasion mademoiselle de la Mole asked him\nwhat was the height of the mountain on which the citadel of Besancon\nis planted. Julien had never any idea if this mountain was higher or\nlower than Montmartre. He often laughed heartily at what was said in\nthis little knot, but he felt himself incapable of inventing anything\nanalagous. It was like a strange language which he understood but could\nnot speak.\n\nOn this particular day Matilde's friends manifested a continuous\nhostility to the visitors who came into the vast salon. The friends of\nthe house were the favoured victims at first, inasmuch as they were\nbetter known. You can form your opinion as to whether Julien paid\nattention; everything interested him, both the substance of things and\nthe manner of making fun of them.\n\n\"And there is M. Descoulis,\" said Matilde; \"he doesn't wear a wig any\nmore. Does he want to get a prefectship through sheer force of genius?\nHe is displaying that bald forehead which he says is filled with lofty\nthoughts.\"\n\n\"He is a man who knows the whole world,\" said the marquis de\nCroisenois. \"He also goes to my uncle the cardinal's. He is capable of\ncultivating a falsehood with each of his friends for years on end, and\nhe has two or three hundred friends. He knows how to nurse friendship,\nthat is his talent. He will go out, just as you see him, in the worst\nwinter weather, and be at the door of one of his friends by seven\no'clock in the morning.\n\n\"He quarrels from time to time and he writes seven or eight letters\nfor each quarrel. Then he has a reconciliation and he writes seven or\neight letters to express his bursts of friendship. But he shines most\nbrilliantly in the frank and sincere expansiveness of the honest man\nwho keeps nothing up his sleeve. This manoeuvre is brought into play\nwhen he has some favour to ask. One of my uncle's grand vicars is very\ngood at telling the life of M. Descoulis since the restoration. I will\nbring him to you.\"\n\n\"Bah! I don't believe all that, it's professional jealousy among the\nlower classes,\" said the comte de Caylus.\n\n\"M. Descoulis will live in history,\" replied the marquis. \"He brought\nabout the restoration together with the abbe de Pradt and messieurs de\nTalleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo.\"\n\n\"That man has handled millions,\" said Norbert, \"and I can't conceive\nwhy he should come here to swallow my father's epigrams which are\nfrequently atrocious. 'How many times have you betrayed your friends,\nmy dear Descoulis?' he shouted at him one day from one end of the table\nto the other.\"\n\n\"But is it true that he has played the traitor?\" asked mademoiselle de\nla Mole. \"Who has not played the traitor?\"\n\n\"Why!\" said the comte de Caylus to Norbert, \"do you have that\ncelebrated Liberal, M. Sainclair, in your house. What the devil's he\ncome here for? I must go up to him and speak to him and make him speak.\nHe is said to be so clever.\"\n\n\"But how will your mother receive him?\" said M. de Croisenois. \"He has\nsuch extravagant, generous and independent ideas.\"\n\n\"Look,\" said mademoiselle de la Mole, \"look at the independent man who\nbows down to the ground to M. Descoulis while he grabs hold of his\nhand. I almost thought he was going to put it to his lips.\"\n\n\"Descoulis must stand better with the powers that be than we thought,\"\nanswered M. de Croisenois.\n\n\"Sainclair comes here in order to get into the academy,\" said Norbert.\n\"See how he bows to the baron L----, Croisenois.\"\n\n\"It would be less base to kneel down,\" replied M. de Luz.\n\n\"My dear Sorel,\" said Norbert, \"you are extremely smart, but you come\nfrom the mountains. Mind you never bow like that great poet is doing,\neven to God the Father.\"\n\n\"Ah there's a really witty man, M. the Baron Baton,\" said mademoiselle\nde la Mole, imitating a little the voice of the flunkey who had just\nannounced him.\n\n\"I think that even your servants make fun of him. What a name Baron\nBaton,\" said M. de Caylus.\n\n\"What's in a name?\" he said to us the other day, went on Matilde.\n\"Imagine the Duke de Bouillon announced for the first time. So far as I\nam concerned the public only need to get used to me.\"\n\n\"Julien left the vicinity of the sofa.\"\n\nStill insufficiently appreciative of the charming subtleties of a\ndelicate raillery to laugh at a joke, he considered that a jest ought\nto have some logical foundation. He saw nothing in these young peoples'\nconversation except a vein of universal scandal-mongering and was\nshocked by it. His provincial or English prudery went so far as to\ndetect envy in it, though in this he was certainly mistaken.\n\n\"Count Norbert,\" he said to himself, \"who has had to make three drafts\nfor a twenty-line letter to his colonel would be only too glad to have\nwritten once in his whole life one page as good as M. Sainclair.\"\n\nJulien approached successively the several groups and attracted no\nattention by reason of his lack of importance. He followed the Baron\nBaton from a distance and tried to hear him.\n\nThis witty man appeared nervous and Julien did not see him recover\nhis equanimity before he had hit upon three or four stinging phrases.\nJulien thought that this kind of wit had great need of space.\n\nThe Baron could not make epigrams. He needed at least four sentences of\nsix lines each, in order to be brilliant.\n\n\"That man argues, he does not talk,\" said someone behind Julien. He\nturned round and reddened with pleasure when he heard the name of the\ncomte Chalvet. He was the subtlest man of the century. Julien had often\nfound his name in the _Memorial of St. Helena_ and in the portions of\nhistory dictated by Napoleon. The diction of comte Chalvet was laconic,\nhis phrases were flashes of lightning--just, vivid, deep. If he talked\nabout any matter the conversation immediately made a step forward; he\nimported facts into it; it was a pleasure to hear him. In politics,\nhowever, he was a brazen cynic.\n\n\"I am independent, I am,\" he was saying to a gentleman with three\nstars, of whom apparently he was making fun. \"Why insist on my having\nto-day the same opinion I had six weeks ago. In that case my opinion\nwould be my master.\"\n\nFour grave young men who were standing round scowled; these gentlemen\ndid not like flippancy. The comte saw that he had gone too far. Luckily\nhe perceived the honest M. Balland, a veritable hypocrite of honesty.\nThe count began to talk to him; people closed up, for they realised\nthat poor Balland was going to be the next victim.\n\nM. Balland, although he was horribly ugly and his first steps in the\nworld were almost unmentionable, had by dint of his morals and his\nmorality married a very rich wife who had died; he subsequently married\na second very rich one who was never seen in society. He enjoyed, in\nall humility, an income of sixty thousand francs, and had his own\nflatterers. Comte Chalvet talked to him pitilessly about all this.\nThere was soon a circle of thirty persons around them. Everybody was\nsmiling, including the solemn young men who were the hope of the\ncentury.\n\n\"Why does he come to M. de la Mole where he is obviously only a\nlaughing stock?\" thought Julien. He approached the abbe Pirard to ask\nhim.\n\nM. Balland made his escape.\n\n\"Good,\" said Norbert, \"there is one of the spies of my father gone;\nthere is only the little limping Napier left.\"\n\n\"Can that be the key of the riddle?\" thought Julien, \"but if so, why\ndoes the marquis receive M. Balland?\"\n\nThe stern abbe Pirard was scowling in a corner of the salon listening\nto the lackeys announcing the names.\n\n\"This is nothing more than a den,\" he was saying like another Basil, \"I\nsee none but shady people come in.\"\n\nAs a matter of fact the severe abbe did not know what constitutes\nhigh society. But his friends the Jansenites, had given him some very\nprecise notions about those men who only get into society by reason\nof their extreme subtlety in the service of all parties, or of their\nmonstrous wealth. For some minutes that evening he answered Julien's\neager questions fully and freely, and then suddenly stopped short\ngrieved at having always to say ill of every one, and thinking he was\nguilty of a sin. Bilious Jansenist as he was, and believing as he did\nin the duty of Christian charity, his life was a perpetual conflict.\n\n\"How strange that abbe Pirard looks,\" said mademoiselle de la Mole, as\nJulien came near the sofa.\n\nJulien felt irritated, but she was right all the same. M. Pirard was\nunquestionably the most honest man in the salon, but his pimply face,\nwhich was suffering from the stings of conscience, made him look\nhideous at this particular moment. \"Trust physiognomy after this,\"\nthought Julien, \"it is only when the delicate conscience of the abbe\nPirard is reproaching him for some trifling lapse that he looks so\nawful; while the expression of that notorious spy Napier shows a pure\nand tranquil happiness.\" The abbe Pirard, however, had made great\nconcessions to his party. He had taken a servant, and was very well\ndressed.\n\nJulien noticed something strange in the salon, it was that all eyes\nwere being turned towards the door, and there was a semi silence. The\nflunkey was announcing the famous Barron Tolly, who had just become\npublicly conspicuous by reason of the elections. Julien came forward\nand had a very good view of him. The baron had been the president of\nan electoral college; he had the brilliant idea of spiriting away\nthe little squares of paper which contained the votes of one of the\nparties. But to make up for it he replaced them by an equal number of\nother little pieces of paper containing a name agreeable to himself.\nThis drastic manoeuvre had been noticed by some of the voters, who had\nmade an immediate point of congratulating the Baron de Tolly. The good\nfellow was still pale from this great business. Malicious persons had\npronounced the word galleys. M. de la Mole received him coldly. The\npoor Baron made his escape.\n\n\"If he leaves us so quickly it's to go to M. Comte's,\"[1] said Comte\nChalvet and everyone laughed.\n\nLittle Tanbeau was trying to win his spurs by talking to some silent\nnoblemen and some intriguers who, though shady, were all men of wit,\nand were on this particular night in great force in M. de la Mole's\nsalon (for he was mentioned for a place in the ministry). If he had not\nyet any subtlety of perception he made up for it as one will see by the\nenergy of his words.\n\n\"Why not sentence that man to ten years' imprisonment,\" he was saying\nat the moment when Julien approached his knot. \"Those reptiles should\nbe confined in the bottom of a dungeon, they ought to languish to death\nin gaol, otherwise their venom will grow and become more dangerous.\nWhat is the good of sentencing him to a fine of a thousand crowns? He\nis poor, so be it, all the better, but his party will pay for him. What\nthe case required was a five hundred francs fine and ten years in a\ndungeon.\"\n\n\"Well to be sure, who is the monster they are speaking about?\" thought\nJulien who was viewing with amazement the vehement tone and hysterical\ngestures of his colleague. At this moment the thin, drawn, little face\nof the academician's nephew was hideous. Julien soon learnt that they\nwere talking of the greatest poet of the century.\n\n\"You monster,\" Julien exclaimed half aloud, while tears of generosity\nmoistened his eyes. \"You little rascal,\" he thought, \"I will pay you\nout for this.\"\n\n\"Yet,\" he thought, \"those are the unborn hopes of the party of which\nthe marquis is one of the chiefs. How many crosses and how many\nsinecures would that celebrated man whom he is now defaming have\naccumulated if he had sold himself--I won't say to the mediocre\nministry of M. de Nerval--but to one of those reasonably honest\nministries which we have seen follow each other in succession.\"\n\nThe abbe Pirard motioned to Julien from some distance off; M. de la\nMole had just said something to him. But when Julien, who was listening\nat the moment with downcast eyes to the lamentations of the bishop,\nhad at length got free and was able to get near his friend, he found\nhim monopolised by the abominable little Tanbeau. The little beast\nhated him as the cause of Julien's favour with the marquis, and was now\nmaking up to him.\n\n\"_When will death deliver us from that aged rottenness_,\" it was in\nthese words of a biblical energy that the little man of letters was\nnow talking of the venerable Lord Holland. His merit consisted in an\nexcellent knowledge of the biography of living men, and he had just\nmade a rapid review of all the men who could aspire to some influence\nunder the reign of the new King of England.\n\nThe abbe Pirard passed in to an adjacent salon. Julien followed him.\n\n\"I warn you the marquis does not like scribblers, it is his only\nprejudice. Know Latin and Greek if you can manage it, the history of\nthe Egyptians, Persians, etc., he will honour and protect you as a\nlearned man. But don't write a page of French, especially on serious\nmatters which are above your position in society, or he will call you\na scribbler and take you for a scoundrel. How is it that living as you\ndo in the hotel of a great lord you don't know the Duke de Castries'\nepigram on Alembert and Rousseau: 'the fellow wants to reason about\neverything and hasn't got an income of a thousand crowns'!\"\n\n\"Everything leaks out here,\" thought Julien, \"just like the seminary.\"\nHe had written eight or six fairly drastic pages. It was a kind of\nhistorical eulogy of the old surgeon-major who had, he said, made a man\nof him. \"The little note book,\" said Julien to himself, \"has always\nbeen locked.\" He went up to his room, burnt his manuscript and returned\nto the salon. The brilliant scoundrels had left it, only the men with\nthe stars were left.\n\nSeven or eight very aristocratic ladies, very devout, very affected,\nand of from thirty to thirty-five years of age, were grouped round\nthe table that the servants had just brought in ready served. The\nbrilliant marechale de Fervaques came in apologising for the lateness\nof the hour. It was more than midnight: she went and sat down near\nthe marquise. Julien was deeply touched, she had the eyes and the\nexpression of madame de Renal.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole's circle was still full of people. She was\nengaged with her friends in making fun of the unfortunate comte de\nThaler. He was the only son of that celebrated Jew who was famous for\nthe riches that he had won by lending money to kings to make war on the\npeoples.\n\nThe Jew had just died leaving his son an income of one hundred thousand\ncrowns a month, and a name that was only too well known. This strange\nposition required either a simple character or force of will power.\n\nUnfortunately the comte was simply a fellow who was inflated by all\nkinds of pretensions which had been suggested to him by all his toadies.\n\nM. de Caylus asserted that they had induced him to make up his mind to\nask for the hand of mademoiselle de la Mole, to whom the marquis de\nCroisenois, who would be a duke with a hundred thousand francs a year,\nwas paying his attentions.\n\n\"Oh, do not accuse him of having a mind,\" said Norbert pitifully.\n\nWill-power was what the poor comte de Thaler lacked most of all. So\nfar as this side of his character went he was worthy of being a king.\nHe would take council from everybody, but he never had the courage to\nfollow any advice to the bitter end.\n\n\"His physiognomy would be sufficient in itself,\" mademoiselle de la\nMole was fond of saying, \"to have inspired her with a holy joy.\" It\nwas a singular mixture of anxiety and disappointment, but from time to\ntime one could distinguish gusts of self-importance, and above all that\ntrenchant tone suited to the richest man in France, especially when he\nhad nothing to be ashamed of in his personal appearance and was not yet\nthirty-six. \"He is timidly insolent,\" M. de Croisenois would say. The\ncomte de Caylus, Norbert, and two or three moustachioed young people\nmade fun of him to their heart's content without him suspecting it, and\nfinally packed him off as one o'clock struck.\n\n\"Are those your famous Arab horses waiting for you at the door in this\nawful weather?\" said Norbert to him.\n\n\"No, it is a new pair which are much cheaper,\" said M. de Thaler. \"The\nhorse on the left cost me five thousand francs, while the one on the\nright is only worth one hundred louis, but I would ask you to believe\nme when I say that I only have him out at night. His trot you see is\nexactly like the other ones.\"\n\nNorbert's remark made the comte think it was good form for a man like\nhim to make a hobby of his horses, and that he must not let them get\nwet. He went away, and the other gentleman left a minute afterwards\nmaking fun of him all the time. \"So,\" thought Julien as he heard them\nlaugh on the staircase, \"I have the privilege of seeing the exact\nopposite of my own situation. I have not got twenty louis a year and I\nfound myself side by side with a man who has twenty louis an hour and\nthey made fun of him. Seeing a sight like that cures one of envy.\"\n\n\n[1] celebrated conjuror.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nSENSIBILITY AND A GREAT PIOUS LADY\n\n\n        An idea which has any life in it seems like a crudity,\n        so accustomed are they to colourless expression. Woe to\n        him who introduces new ideas into his conversation!\n                                          --_Faublas_.\n\n\nThis was the stage Julien had reached, when after several months of\nprobation the steward of the household handed him the third quarter of\nhis wages. M. de la Mole had entrusted him with the administration of\nhis estates in Brittany and Normandy. Julien made frequent journeys\nthere. He had chief control of the correspondence relating to the\nfamous lawsuit with the abbe de Frilair. M. Pirard had instructed him.\n\nOn the data of the short notes which the marquis would scribble on the\nmargin of all the various paper which were addressed to him, Julien\nwould compose answers which were nearly all signed.\n\nAt the Theology School his professors complained of his lack of\nindustry, but they did not fail to regard him as one of their most\ndistinguished pupils. This varied work, tackled as it was with all\nthe ardour of suffering ambition, soon robbed Julien of that fresh\ncomplexion which he had brought from the provinces. His pallor\nconstituted one of his merits in the eyes of his comrades, the young\nseminarist; he found them much less malicious, much less ready to bow\ndown to a silver crown than those of Besancon; they thought he was\nconsumptive. The marquis had given him a horse.\n\nJulien fearing that he might meet people during his rides on horseback,\nhad given out that this exercise had been prescribed by the doctors.\nThe abbe Pirard had taken him into several Jansenist Societies. Julien\nwas astonished; the idea of religion was indissolubly connected in his\nmind with the ideas of hypocrisy and covetousness. He admired those\naustere pious men who never gave a thought to their income. Several\nJansenists became friendly with him and would give him advice. A new\nworld opened before him. At the Jansenists he got to know a comte\nAltamira, who was nearly six feet high, was a Liberal, a believer, and\nhad been condemned to death in his own country. He was struck by the\nstrange contrast of devoutness and love of liberty.\n\nJulien's relations with the young comte had become cool. Norbert\nhad thought that he answered the jokes of his friends with too much\nsharpness. Julien had committed one or two breaches of social etiquette\nand vowed to himself that he would never speak to mademoiselle\nMathilde. They were always perfectly polite to him in the Hotel de\nla Mole but he felt himself quite lost. His provincial common sense\nexplained this result by the vulgar proverb _Tout beau tout nouveau_.\n\nHe gradually came to have a little more penetration than during his\nfirst days, or it may have been that the first glamour of Parisian\nurbanity had passed off. As soon as he left off working, he fell a prey\nto a mortal boredom. He was experiencing the withering effects of that\nadmirable politeness so typical of good society, which is so perfectly\nmodulated to every degree of the social hierarchy.\n\nNo doubt the provinces can be reproached with a commonness and lack of\npolish in their tone; but they show a certain amount of passion, when\nthey answer you. Julien's self-respect was never wounded at the Hotel\nde la Mole, but he often felt at the end of the day as though he would\nlike to cry. A cafe-waiter in the provinces will take an interest in\nyou if you happen to have some accident as you enter his cafe, but if\nthis accident has everything about it which is disagreeable to your\nvanity, he will repeat ten times in succession the very word which\ntortures you, as he tells you how sorry he is. At Paris they make a\npoint of laughing in secret, but you always remain a stranger.\n\nWe pass in silence over a number of little episodes which would have\nmade Julien ridiculous, if he had not been to some extent above\nridicule. A foolish sensibility resulted in his committing innumerable\nacts of bad taste. All his pleasures were precautions; he practiced\npistol shooting every day, he was one of the promising pupils of the\nmost famous maitres d'armes. As soon as he had an instant to himself,\ninstead of employing it in reading as he did before, he would rush\noff to the riding school and ask for the most vicious horses. When he\nwent out with the master of the riding school he was almost invariably\nthrown.\n\nThe marquis found him convenient by reason of his persistent industry,\nhis silence and his intelligence, and gradually took him into his\nconfidence with regard to all his affairs, which were in any way\ndifficult to unravel. The marquis was a sagacious business man on all\nthose occasions when his lofty ambition gave him some respite; having\nspecial information within his reach, he would speculate successfully\non the Exchange. He would buy mansions and forests; but he would easily\nlose his temper. He would give away hundreds of louis, and would go\nto law for a few hundred francs. Rich men with a lofty spirit have\nrecourse to business not so much for results as for distraction. The\nmarquis needed a chief of staff who would put all his money affairs\ninto clear and lucid order. Madame de la Mole, although of so even a\ncharacter, sometimes made fun of Julien. Great ladies have a horror\nof those unexpected incidents which are produced by a sensitive\ncharacter; they constitute the opposite pole of etiquette. On two or\nthree occasions the marquis took his part. \"If he is ridiculous in your\nsalon, he triumphs in his office.\" Julien on his side thought he had\ncaught the marquise's secret. She deigned to manifest an interest in\neverything the minute the Baron de la Joumate was announced. He was a\ncold individual with an expressionless physiognomy. He was tall, thin,\nugly, very well dressed, passed his life in his chateau, and generally\nspeaking said nothing about anything. Such was his outlook on life.\nMadame de la Mole would have been happy for the first time in her life\nif she could have made him her daughter's husband.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nPRONUNCIATION\n\n\n        If fatuity is pardonable it is in one's first youth,\n        for it is then the exaggeration of an amiable thing. It\n        needs an air of love, gaiety, nonchalance. But fatuity\n        coupled with self-importance; fatuity with a solemn and\n        self-sufficient manner! This extravagance of stupidity\n        was reserved for the XIXth century. Such are the persons\n        who want to unchain the _hydra of revolutions_!--LE\n        JOHANNISBURG, _Pamphlet_.\n\nConsidering that he was a new arrival who was too disdainful to put any\nquestions, Julien did not fall into unduly great mistakes. One day when\nhe was forced into a cafe in the Rue St. Honore by a sudden shower,\na big man in a beaver coat, surprised by his gloomy look, looked at\nhim in return just as mademoiselle Amanda's lover had done before at\nBesancon.\n\nJulien had reproached himself too often for having endured the other\ninsult to put up with this stare. He asked for an explanation. The\nman in the tail-coat immediately addressed him in the lowest and most\ninsulting language. All the people in the cafe surrounded them. The\npassers-by stopped before the door. Julien always carried some little\npistols as a matter of precaution. His hand was grasping them nervously\nin his pocket. Nevertheless he behaved wisely and confined himself to\nrepeating to his man \"Monsieur, your address, I despise you.\"\n\nThe persistency in which he kept repeating these six words eventually\nimpressed the crowd.\n\n\"By Jove, the other who's talking all to himself ought to give him\nhis address,\" they exclaimed. The man in the tail-coat hearing this\nrepeated several times, flung five or six cards in Julien's face.\n\nFortunately none of them hit him in the face; he had mentally resolved\nnot to use his pistols except in the event of his being hit. The man\nwent away, though not without turning round from time to time to shake\nhis fist and hurl insults at him.\n\nJulien was bathed in sweat. \"So,\" he said angrily to himself, \"the\nmeanest of mankind has it in his power to affect me as much as this.\nHow am I to kill so humiliating a sensitiveness?\"\n\nWhere was he to find a second? He did not have a single friend. He had\nseveral acquaintances, but they all regularly left him after six weeks\nof social intercourse. \"I am unsociable,\" he thought, and \"I am now\ncruelly punished for it.\" Finally it occurred to him to rout out an old\nlieutenant of the 96th, named Lievin, a poor devil with whom he often\nused to fence. Julien was frank with him.\n\n\"I am quite willing to be your second,\" said Lievin, \"but on one\ncondition. If you fail to wound your man you will fight with me\nstraight away.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said Julien quite delighted; and they went to find M. de\nBeauvoisis at the address indicated on his card at the end of the\nFaubourg Saint Germain.\n\nIt was seven o'clock in the morning. It was only when he was being\nushered in, that Julien thought that it might quite well be the young\nrelation of Madame de Renal, who had once been employed at the Rome\nor Naples Embassy, and who had given the singer Geronimo a letter of\nintroduction.\n\nJulien gave one of the cards which had been flung at him the previous\nevening together with one of his own to a tall valet.\n\nHe and his second were kept waiting for a good three-quarters of\nan hour. Eventually they were ushered in to a elegantly furnished\napartment. They found there a tall young man who was dressed like a\ndoll. His features presented the perfection and the lack of expression\nof Greek beauty. His head, which was remarkably straight, had the\nfinest blonde hair. It was dressed with great care and not a single\nhair was out of place.\n\n\"It was to have his hair done like this, that is why this damned\nfop has kept us waiting,\" thought the lieutenant of the 96th. The\nvariegated dressing gown, the morning trousers, everything down to the\nembroidered slippers was correct. He was marvellously well-groomed.\nHis blank and aristocratic physiognomy betokened rare and orthodox\nideas; the ideal of a Metternichian diplomatist. Napoleon as well did\nnot like to have in his entourage officers who thought.\n\nJulien, to whom his lieutenant of the 96th had explained, that keeping\nhim waiting was an additional insult after having thrown his card\nso rudely in his face, entered brusquely M. de Beauvoisis' room. He\nintended to be insolent, but at the same time to exhibit good form.\n\nJulien was so astonished by the niceness of M. de Beauvoisis'\nmanners and by the combination of formality, self-importance, and\nself-satisfaction in his demeanour, by the admirable elegance of\neverything that surrounded him, that he abandoned immediately all\nidea of being insolent. It was not his man of the day before. His\nastonishment was so great at meeting so distinguished a person, instead\nof the rude creature whom he was looking for, that he could not find a\nsingle word to say. He presented one of the cards which had been thrown\nat him.\n\n\"That's my name,\" said the young diplomat, not at all impressed by\nJulien's black suit at seven o'clock in the morning, \"but I do not\nunderstand the honour.\"\n\nHis manner of pronouncing these last words revived a little of Julien's\nbad temper.\n\n\"I have come to fight you, monsieur,\" and he explained in a few words\nthe whole matter.\n\nM. Charles de Beauvoisis, after mature reflection, was fairly satisfied\nwith the cut of Julien's black suit.\n\n\"It comes from Staub, that's clear,\" he said to himself, as he heard\nhim speak. \"That waistcoat is in good taste. Those boots are all right,\nbut on the other hand just think of wearing a black suit in the early\nmorning! It must be to have a better chance of not being hit,\" said the\nchevalier de Beauvoisis to himself.\n\nAfter he had given himself this explanation he became again perfectly\npolite to Julien, and almost treated him as an equal. The conversation\nwas fairly lengthy, for the matter was a delicate one, but eventually\nJulien could not refuse to acknowledge the actual facts. The perfectly\nmannered young man before him did not bear any resemblance to the\nvulgar fellow who had insulted him the previous day.\n\nJulien felt an invincible repugnance towards him. He noted the\nself-sufficiency of the chevalier de Beauvoisis, for that was the name\nby which he had referred to himself, shocked as he was when Julien\ncalled him simply \"Monsieur.\"\n\nHe admired his gravity which, though tinged with a certain modest\nfatuity, he never abandoned for a single moment. He was astonished at\nhis singular manner of moving his tongue as he pronounced his words,\nbut after all, this did not present the slightest excuse for picking a\nquarrel.\n\nThe young diplomatist very graciously offered to fight, but the\nex-lieutenant of the 96th, who had been sitting down for an hour with\nhis legs wide apart, his hands on his thigh, and his elbows stuck out,\ndecided that his friend, monsieur de Sorel, was not the kind to go and\npick a quarrel with a man because someone else had stolen that man's\nvisiting cards.\n\nJulien went out in a very bad temper. The chevalier de Beauvoisis'\ncarriage was waiting for him in the courtyard before the steps. By\nchance Julien raised his eyes and recognised in the coachman his man of\nthe day before.\n\nSeeing him, catching hold of him by his big jacket, tumbling him down\nfrom his seat, and horse-whipping him thoroughly took scarcely a moment.\n\nTwo lackeys tried to defend their comrade. Julien received some blows\nfrom their fists. At the same moment, he cocked one of his little\npistols and fired on them. They took to flight. All this took about a\nminute.\n\nThe chevalier de Beauvoisis descended the staircase with the most\npleasing gravity, repeating with his lordly pronunciation, \"What is\nthis, what is this.\" He was manifestly very curious, but his diplomatic\nimportance would not allow him to evince any greater interest.\n\nWhen he knew what it was all about, a certain haughtiness tried to\nassert itself in that expression of slightly playful nonchalance which\nshould never leave a diplomatist's face.\n\nThe lieutenant of the 96th began to realise that M. de Beauvoisis was\nanxious to fight. He was also diplomatic enough to wish to reserve for\nhis friend the advantage of taking the initiative.\n\n\"This time,\" he exclaimed, \"there is ground for duel.\"\n\n\"I think there's enough,\" answered the diplomat.\n\n\"Turn that rascal out,\" he said to his lackeys. \"Let someone else get\nup.\"\n\nThe door of the carriage was open. The chevalier insisted on doing\nthe honours to Julien and his friend. They sent for a friend of M. de\nBeauvoisis, who chose them a quiet place. The conversation on their\nway went as a matter of fact very well indeed. The only extraordinary\nfeature was the diplomatist in a dressing-gown.\n\n\"These gentlemen, although very noble, are by no means as boring,\"\nthought Julien, \"as the people who come and dine at M. de la Mole's,\nand I can see why,\" he added a moment afterwards. \"They allow\nthemselves to be indecent.\" They talked about the dancers that the\npublic had distinguished with its favour at the ballet presented\nthe night before. The two gentlemen alluded to some spicy anecdotes\nof which Julien and his second, the lieutenant of the 96th, were\nabsolutely ignorant.\n\nJulien was not stupid enough to pretend to know them. He confessed his\nignorance with a good grace. This frankness pleased the chevalier's\nfriend. He told him these stories with the greatest detail and\nextremely well.\n\nOne thing astonished Julien inordinately. The carriage was pulled up\nfor a moment by an altar which was being built in the middle of the\nstreet for the procession of Corpus Christi Day. The two gentlemen\nindulged in the luxury of several jests. According to them, the cure\nwas the son of an archbishop. Such a joke would never have been heard\nin the house of M. de la Mole, who was trying to be made a duke. The\nduel was over in a minute. Julien got a ball in his arm. They bandaged\nit with handkerchiefs which they wetted with brandy, and the chevalier\nde Beauvoisis requested Julien with great politeness to allow him to\ntake him home in the same carriage that had brought him. When Julien\ngave the name of M. de la Mole's hotel, the young diplomat and his\nfriend exchanged looks. Julien's fiacre was here, but they found these\ngentlemen's conversation more entertaining than that of the good\nlieutenant of the 96th.\n\n\"By Jove, so a duel is only that,\" thought Julien. \"What luck I found\nthat coachman again. How unhappy I should have been if I had had to put\nup with that insult as well.\" The amusing conversation had scarcely\nbeen interrupted. Julien realised that the affectation of diplomatists\nis good for something.\n\n\"So ennui,\" he said himself, \"is not a necessary incident of\nconversation among well-born people. These gentlemen make fun of the\nCorpus Christi procession and dare to tell extremely obscene anecdotes,\nand what is more, with picturesque details. The only thing they really\nlack is the ability to discuss politics logically, and that lack is\nmore than compensated by their graceful tone, and the perfect aptness\nof their expressions.\" Julien experienced a lively inclination for\nthem. \"How happy I should be to see them often.\"\n\nThey had scarcely taken leave of each other before the chevalier de\nBeauvoisis had enquiries made. They were not brilliant.\n\nHe was very curious to know his man. Could he decently pay a call on\nhim? The little information he had succeeded in obtaining from him was\nnot of an encouraging character.\n\n\"Oh, this is awful,\" he said to his second. \"I can't possibly own up\nto having fought a duel with a mere secretary of M. de la Mole, simply\nbecause my coachman stole my visiting cards.\"\n\n\"There is no doubt that all this may make you look ridiculous.\"\n\nThat very evening the chevalier de Beauvoisis and his friend said\neverywhere that this M. Sorel who was, moreover, quite a charming young\nman, was a natural son of an intimate friend of the marquis de la Mole.\nThis statement was readily accepted. Once it was established, the young\ndiplomatist and friend deigned to call several times on Julien during\nthe fortnight. Julien owned to them that he had only been to the Opera\nonce in his life. \"That is awful,\" said one, \"that is the only place\none does go to. Your first visit must be when they are playing the\n'_Comte Ory_.'\"\n\nThe chevalier de Beauvoisis introduced him at the opera to the famous\nsinger Geronimo, who was then enjoying an immense success.\n\nJulien almost paid court to the chevalier. His mixture of self-respect,\nmysterious self-importance, and fatuous youthfulness fascinated him.\nThe chevalier, for example, would stammer a little, simply because he\nhad the honour of seeing frequently a very noble lord who had this\ndefect. Julien had never before found combined in one and the same\nperson the drollery which amuses, and those perfect manners which\nshould be the object of a poor provincial's imitation.\n\nHe was seen at the opera with the chevalier de Beauvoisis. This\nassociation got him talked about.\n\n\"Well,\" said M. de la Mole to him one day, \"so here you are, the\nnatural son of a rich gentleman of Franche-Comte, an intimate friend of\nmine.\"\n\nThe marquis cut Julien short as he started to protest that he had not\nin any way contributed to obtaining any credence for this rumour.\n\n\"M. de Beauvoisis did not fancy having fought a duel with the son of a\ncarpenter.\"\n\n\"I know it, I know it,\" said M. de la Mole. \"It is my business now to\ngive some consistency to this story which rather suits me. But I have\none favour to ask of you, which will only cost you a bare half-hour of\nyour time. Go and watch every opera day at half-past eleven all the\npeople in society coming out in the vestibule. I still see you have\ncertain provincial mannerisms. You must rid yourself of them. Besides\nit would do no harm to know, at any rate by sight, some of the great\npersonages to whom I may one day send you on a commission. Call in at\nthe box office to get identified. Admission has been secured for you.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nAN ATTACK OF GOUT\n\n\n     And I got advancement, not on my merit, but because my\n                master had the gout.--_Bertolotti_.\n\nThe reader is perhaps surprised by this free and almost friendly tone.\nWe had forgotten to say that the marquis had been confined to his house\nfor six weeks by the gout.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole and her mother were at Hyeres near the\nmarquise's mother. The comte Norbert only saw his father at stray\nmoments. They got on very well, but had nothing to say to each other.\nM. de la Mole, reduced to Julien's society, was astonished to find that\nhe possessed ideas. He made him read the papers to him. Soon the young\nsecretary was competent to pick out the interesting passages. There was\na new paper which the marquis abhorred. He had sworn never to read it,\nand spoke about it every day. Julien laughed. In his irritation against\nthe present time, the marquis made him read Livy aloud. The improvised\ntranslation of the Latin text amused him. The marquis said one day\nin that tone of excessive politeness which frequently tried Julien's\npatience,\n\n\"Allow me to present you with a blue suit, my dear Sorel. When you find\nit convenient to wear it and to come and see me, I shall look upon you\nas the younger brother of the comte de Chaulnes, that is to say, the\nson of my friend the old Duke.\"\n\nJulien did not quite gather what it was all about, but he tried a visit\nin the blue suit that very evening. The marquis treated him like an\nequal. Julien had a spirit capable of appreciating true politeness, but\nhe had no idea of nuances. Before this freak of the marquis's he would\nhave sworn that it was impossible for him to have been treated with\nmore consideration. \"What an admirable talent,\" said Julien to himself.\nWhen he got up to go, the marquis apologised for not being able to\naccompany him by reason of his gout.\n\nJulien was preoccupied by this strange idea. \"Perhaps he is making fun\nof me,\" he thought. He went to ask advice of the abbe Pirard, who being\nless polite than the marquis, made no other answer except to whistle\nand change the subject.\n\nJulien presented himself to the marquis the next morning in his black\nsuit, with his letter case and his letters for signature. He was\nreceived in the old way, but when he wore the blue suit that evening,\nthe marquis's tone was quite different, and absolutely as polite as on\nthe previous day.\n\n\"As you are not exactly bored,\" said the marquis to him, \"by these\nvisits which you are kind enough to pay to a poor old man, you must\ntell him about all the little incidents of your life, but you must\nbe frank and think of nothing except narrating them clearly and in\nan amusing way. For one must amuse oneself,\" continued the marquis.\n\"That's the only reality in life. I can't have my life saved in a\nbattle every day, or get a present of a million francs every day, but\nif I had Rivarol here by my sofa he would rid me every day of an hour\nof suffering and boredom. I saw a lot of him at Hamburg during the\nemigration.\"\n\nAnd the marquis told Julien the stories of Rivarol and the inhabitants\nof Hamburg who needed the combined efforts of four individuals to\nunderstand an epigram. M. de la Mole, being reduced to the society of\nthis little abbe, tried to teach him. He put Julien's pride on its\nmettle. As he was asked to speak the truth, Julien resolved to tell\neverything, but to suppress two things, his fanatical admiration for\nthe name which irritated the marquis, and that complete scepticism,\nwhich was not particularly appropriate to a prospective cure. His\nlittle affair with the chevalier de Beauvoisis came in very handy. The\nmarquis laughed till the tears came into his eyes at the scene in the\ncafe in the Rue St. Honore with the coachman who had loaded him with\nsordid insults. The occasion was marked by a complete frankness between\nthe marquis and the protege.\n\nM. de la Mole became interested in this singular character. At the\nbeginning he had encouraged Julian's droll blunders in order to enjoy\nlaughing at them. Soon he found it more interesting to correct very\ngently this young man's false outlook on life.\n\n\"All other provincials who come to Paris admire everything,\"\nthought the marquis. \"This one hates everything. They have too much\naffectation; he has not affectation enough; and fools take him for a\nfool.\"\n\nThe attack of gout was protracted by the great winter cold and lasted\nsome months.\n\n\"One gets quite attached to a fine spaniel,\" thought the marquis. \"Why\nshould I be so ashamed of being attached to this little abbe? He is\noriginal. I treat him as a son. Well, where's the bother? The whim, if\nit lasts, will cost me a diamond and five hundred louis in my will.\"\nOnce the marquis had realised his protege's strength of character, he\nentrusted him with some new business every day.\n\nJulien noticed with alarm that this great lord would often give him\ninconsistent orders with regard to the same matter.\n\nThat might compromise him seriously. Julien now made a point whenever\nhe worked with him, of bringing a register with him in which he wrote\nhis instructions which the marquis initialled. Julien had now a clerk\nwho would transcribe the instructions relating to each matter in a\nseparate book. This book also contained a copy of all the letters.\n\nThis idea seemed at first absolutely boring and ridiculous, but in two\nmonths the marquis appreciated its advantages. Julien suggested to him\nthat he should take a clerk out of a banker's who was to keep proper\nbook-keeping accounts of all the receipts and of all the expenses of\nthe estates which Julien had been charged to administer.\n\nThese measures so enlightened the marquis as to his own affairs that\nhe could indulge the pleasure of undertaking two or three speculations\nwithout the help of his nominee who always robbed him.\n\n\"Take three thousand francs for yourself,\" he said one day to his young\nsteward.\n\n\"Monsieur, I should lay myself open to calumny.\"\n\n\"What do you want then?\" retorted the marquis irritably.\n\n\"Perhaps you will be kind enough to make out a statement of account and\nenter it in your own hand in the book. That order will give me a sum of\n3,000 francs. Besides it's M. the abbe Pirard who had the idea of all\nthis exactness in accounts.\" The marquis wrote out his instructions in\nthe register with the bored air of the Marquis de Moncade listening to\nthe accounts of his steward M. Poisson.\n\nBusiness was never talked when Julien appeared in the evening in\nhis blue suit. The kindness of the marquis was so flattering to the\nself-respect of our hero, which was always morbidly sensitive, that\nin spite of himself, he soon came to feel a kind of attachment for\nthis nice old man. It is not that Julien was a man of sensibility\nas the phrase is understood at Paris, but he was not a monster, and\nno one since the death of the old major had talked to him with so\nmuch kindness. He observed that the marquis showed a politeness and\nconsideration for his own personal feelings which he had never found in\nthe old surgeon. He now realised that the surgeon was much prouder of\nhis cross than was the marquis of his blue ribbon. The marquis's father\nhad been a great lord.\n\nOne day, at the end of a morning audience for the transaction of\nbusiness, when the black suit was worn, Julien happened to amuse the\nmarquis who kept him for a couple of hours, and insisted on giving him\nsome banknotes which his nominee had just brought from the house.\n\n\"I hope M. le Marquis, that I am not deviating from the profound\nrespect which I owe you, if I beg you to allow me to say a word.\"\n\n\"Speak, my friend.\"\n\n\"M. le Marquis will deign to allow me to refuse this gift. It is not\nmeant for the man in the black suit, and it would completely spoil\nthose manners which you have kindly put up with in the man in the blue\nsuit.\" He saluted with much respect and went out without looking at his\nemployer.\n\nThis incident amused the marquis. He told it in the evening to the abbe\nPirard.\n\n\"I must confess one thing to you, my dear abbe. I know Julien's birth,\nand I authorise you not to regard this confidence as a secret.\"\n\nHis conduct this morning is noble, thought the marquis, so I will\nennoble him myself.\n\nSome time afterwards the marquis was able to go out.\n\n\"Go and pass a couple of months at London,\" he said to Julien.\n\"Ordinary and special couriers will bring you the letters I have\nreceived, together with my notes. You will write out the answers and\nsend them back to me, putting each letter inside the answer. I have\nascertained that the delay will be no more than five days.\"\n\nAs he took the post down the Calais route, Julien was astonished at the\ntriviality of the alleged business on which he had been sent.\n\nWe will say nothing about the feeling of hate and almost horror with\nwhich he touched English soil. His mad passion for Bonaparte is already\nknown. He saw in every officer a Sir Hudson Low, in every great\nnoble a Lord Bathurst, ordering the infamies of St. Helena and being\nrecompensed by six years of office.\n\nAt London he really got to know the meaning of sublime fatuity. He had\nstruck up a friendship with some young Russian nobles who initiated him.\n\n\"Your future is assured, my dear Sorel,\" they said to him. \"You\nnaturally have that cold demeanour, _a thousand leagues away from the\nsensation one has at the moment_, that we have been making such efforts\nto acquire.\"\n\n\"You have not understood your century,\" said the Prince Korasoff to\nhim. \"Always do the opposite of what is expected of you. On my honour\nthere you have the sole religion of the period. Don't be foolish or\naffected, for then follies and affectations will be expected of you,\nand the maxim will not longer prove true.\"\n\nJulien covered himself with glory one day in the Salon of the Duke\nof Fitz-Folke who had invited him to dinner together with the Prince\nKorasoff. They waited for an hour. The way in which Julien conducted\nhimself in the middle of twenty people who were waiting is still quoted\nas a precedent among the young secretaries of the London Embassy. His\ndemeanour was unimpeachable.\n\nIn spite of his friends, the dandies, he made a point of seeing the\ncelebrated Philip Vane, the one philosopher that England has had\nsince Locke. He found him finishing his seventh year in prison. The\naristocracy doesn't joke in this country, thought Julien. Moreover Vane\nis disgraced, calumniated, etc.\n\nJulien found him in cheery spirits. The rage of the aristocracy\nprevented him from being bored. \"There's the only merry man I've seen\nin England,\" thought Julien to himself, as he left the prison.\n\n\"The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God,\" Vane had\nsaid to him.\n\nWe suppress the rest of the system as being cynical.\n\n\"What amusing notion do you bring me from England?\" said M. la Mole to\nhim on his return. He was silent. \"What notion do you bring me, amusing\nor otherwise?\" repeated the marquis sharply.\n\n\"In the first place,\" said Julien, \"The sanest Englishman is mad one\nhour every day. He is visited by the Demon of Suicide who is the local\nGod.\n\n\"In the second place, intellect and genius lose twenty-five per cent.\nof their value when they disembark in England.\n\n\"In the third place, nothing in the world is so beautiful, so\nadmirable, so touching, as the English landscapes.\"\n\n\"Now it is my turn,\" said the marquis.\n\n\"In the first place, why do you go and say at the ball at the Russian\nAmbassador's that there were three hundred thousand young men of twenty\nin France who passionately desire war? Do you think that is nice for\nthe kings?\"\n\n\"One doesn't know what to do when talking to great diplomats,\" said\nJulien. \"They have a mania for starting serious discussions. If one\nconfines oneself to the commonplaces of the papers, one is taken for a\nfool. If one indulges in some original truth, they are astonished and\nat a loss for an answer, and get you informed by the first Secretary\nof the Embassy at seven o'clock next day that your conduct has been\nunbecoming.\"\n\n\"Not bad,\" said the marquis laughing. \"Anyway I will wager Monsieur\nDeep-one that you have not guessed what you went to do in England.\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" answered Julien. \"I went there to dine once a week with\nthe king's ambassador, who is the most polite of men.\"\n\n\"You went to fetch this cross you see here,\" said the marquis to him.\n\"I do not want to make you leave off your black suit, and I have got\naccustomed to the more amusing tone I have assumed with the man who\nwears the blue suit. So understand this until further orders. When I\nsee this cross, you will be my friend, the Duke of Chaulne's younger\nson, who has been employed in the diplomatic service the last six\nmonths without having any idea of it. Observe,\" added the marquis\nvery seriously, cutting short all manifestations of thanks, \"that I\ndo not want you to forget your place. That is always a mistake and a\nmisfortune both for patron and for dependent. When my lawsuits bore\nyou, or when you no longer suit me, I will ask a good living like that\nof our good friend the abbe Pirard's for you, and nothing more,\" added\nthe marquis dryly. This put Julien's pride at its ease. He talked much\nmore. He did not so frequently think himself insulted and aimed at by\nthose phrases which are susceptible of some interpretation which is\nscarcely polite, and which anybody may give utterance to in the course\nof an animated conversation.\n\nThis cross earned him a singular visit. It was that of the baron de\nValenod, who came to Paris to thank the Minister for his barony, and\narrive at an understanding with him. He was going to be nominated mayor\nof Verrieres, and to supersede M. de Renal.\n\nJulien did not fail to smile to himself when M. Valenod gave him to\nunderstand that they had just found out that M. de Renal was a Jacobin.\nThe fact was that the new baron was the ministerial candidate at the\nelection for which they were all getting ready, and that it was M. de\nRenal who was the Liberal candidate at the great electoral college of\nthe department, which was, in fact, very ultra.\n\nIt was in vain that Julien tried to learn something about madame de\nRenal. The baron seemed to remember their former rivalry, and was\nimpenetrable. He concluded by canvassing Julien for his father's vote\nat the election which was going to take place. Julien promised to write.\n\n\"You ought, monsieur le Chevalier, to present me to M. the marquis de\nla Mole.\"\n\n\"I ought, as a matter of fact,\" thought Julien. \"But a rascal like\nthat!\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" he answered, \"I am too small a personage in the\nHotel de la Mole to take it upon myself to introduce anyone.\" Julien\ntold the marquis everything. In the evening he described Valenod's\npretensions, as well as his deeds and feats since 1814.\n\n\"Not only will you present the new baron to me,\" replied de la Mole,\nvery seriously, \"but I will invite him to dinner for the day after\nto-morrow. He will be one of our new prefects.\"\n\n\"If that is the case, I ask for my father the post of director of the\nworkhouse,\" answered Julien, coldly.\n\n\"With pleasure,\" answered the marquis gaily. \"It shall be granted. I\nwas expecting a lecture. You are getting on.\"\n\nM. de Valenod informed Julien that the manager of the lottery office at\nVerrieres had just died. Julien thought it humorous to give that place\nto M. de Cholin, the old dotard whose petition he had once picked up in\nde la Mole's room. The marquis laughed heartily at the petition, which\nJulien recited as he made him sign the letter which requested that\nappointment of the minister of finance.\n\nM. de Cholin had scarcely been nominated, when Julien learnt that that\npost had been asked by the department for the celebrated geometrician,\nmonsieur Gros. That generous man had an income of only 1400 francs, and\nevery year had lent 600 to the late manager who had just died, to help\nhim bring up his family.\n\nJulien was astonished at what he had done.\n\n\"That's nothing,\" he said to himself. \"It will be necessary to commit\nseveral other injustices if I mean to get on, and also to conceal them\nbeneath pretty, sentimental speeches. Poor monsieur Gros! It is he who\ndeserves the cross. It is I who have it, and I ought to conform to the\nspirit of the Government which gives it me.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\nWHAT IS THE DECORATION WHICH CONFERS DISTINCTION?\n\n\n    \"Thy water refreshes me not,\" said the transformed genie.\n    \"'Tis nevertheless the freshest well in all Diar-Bekir\"--_Pellico_.\n\n\nOne day Julien had just returned from the charming estate of Villequier\non the banks of the Seine, which was the especial subject of M. de la\nMole's interest because it was the only one of all his properties which\nhad belonged to the celebrated Boniface de la Mole.\n\nHe found the marquise and her daughter, who had just come back from\nHyeres, in the hotel. Julien was a dandy now, and understood the art of\nParis life. He manifested a perfect coldness towards mademoiselle de la\nMole. He seemed to have retained no recollection of the day when she\nhad asked him so gaily for details of his fall from his horse.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole thought that he had grown taller and paler.\nThere was no longer anything of the provincial in his figure or his\nappearance. It was not so with his conversation. Too much of the\nserious and too much of the positive element were still noticeable. In\nspite of these sober qualities, his conversation, thanks to his pride,\nwas destitute of any trace of the subordinate. One simply felt that\nthere were still too many things which he took seriously. But one saw\nthat he was the kind of man to stick to his guns.\n\n\"He lacks lightness of touch, but not brains,\" said mademoiselle de la\nMole to her father, as she rallied him on the cross that he had given\nJulien. \"My brother has been asking you for it for sixteen months, and\nhe is a La Mole.\"\n\n\"Yes, but Julien has surprises, and that's what the de la Mole, whom\nyou were referring to, has never been guilty of.\"\n\nM. the duc de Retz was announced.\n\nMathilde felt herself seized by an irresistible attack of yawning. She\nknew so well the old gildings and the old habitues of her father's\nsalon. She conjured up an absolutely boring picture of the life which\nshe was going to take up at Paris, and yet, when at Hyeres, she had\nregretted Paris.\n\n\"And yet I am nineteen,\" she thought. \"That's the age of happiness, say\nall those gilt-edged ninnies.\"\n\nShe looked at eight or ten new volumes of poetry which had accumulated\non the table in the salon during her journey in Provence. She had the\nmisfortune to have more brains than M.M. de Croisnois, de Caylus, de\nLuz, and her other friends. She anticipated all that they were going to\ntell her about the fine sky of Provence, poetry, the South, etc., etc.\n\nThese fine eyes, which were the home of the deepest ennui, and worse\nstill, of the despair of ever finding pleasure, lingered on Julien. At\nany rate, he was not exactly like the others.\n\n\"Monsieur Sorel,\" she said, in that short, sharp voice, destitute of\nall femininity, which is so frequent among young women of the upper\nclass.\n\n\"Monsieur Sorel, are you coming to-night to M. de Retz's ball?\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle, I have not had the honour of being presented to M. the\nduke.\" (One would have said that these words and that title seared the\nmouth of the proud provincial).\n\n\"He asked my brother to take you there, and if you go, you could\ntell me some details about the Villequier estate. We are thinking of\ngoing there in the spring, and I would like to know if the chateau is\nhabitable, and if the neighbouring places are as pretty as they say.\nThere are so many unmerited reputations.\"\n\nJulien did not answer.\n\n\"Come to the ball with my brother,\" she added, very dryly. Julien bowed\nrespectfully.\n\n\"So I owe my due to the members of the family, even in the middle of a\nball. Am I not paid to be their business man?\" His bad temper added,\n\"God knows, moreover, if what I tell the daughter will not put out the\nplans of the father, brother, and mother. It is just like the court of\na sovereign prince. You have to be absolutely negative, and yet give no\none any right to complain.\"\n\n\"How that big girl displeases me!\" he thought, as he watched the walk\nof Mademoiselle de la Mole, whom her mother had called to present to\nseveral women friends of hers. She exaggerates all the fashions. Her\ndress almost falls down to her shoulders, she is even paler than before\nshe went away. How nondescript her hair has grown as the result of\nbeing blonde! You would say that the light passed through it.\n\nWhat a haughty way of bowing and of looking at you! What queenly\ngestures! Mademoiselle de la Mole had just called her brother at the\nmoment when he was leaving the salon.\n\nThe comte de Norbert approached Julien.\n\n\"My dear Sorel,\" he said to him. \"Where would you like me to pick you\nup to-night for Monsieur's ball. He expressly asked me to bring you.\"\n\n\"I know well whom I have to thank for so much kindness,\" answered\nJulien bowing to the ground.\n\nHis bad temper, being unable to find anything to lay hold of in the\npolite and almost sympathetic tone in which Norbert had spoken to\nhim, set itself to work on the answer he had made to that courteous\ninvitation. He detected in it a trace of subservience.\n\nWhen he arrived at the ball in the evening, he was struck with the\nmagnificence of the Hotel de Retz. The courtyard at the entrance was\ncovered with an immense tent of crimson with golden stars. Nothing\ncould have been more elegant. Beyond the tent, the court had been\ntransformed into a wood of orange trees and of pink laurels in full\nflower. As they had been careful to bury the vases sufficiently deep,\nthe laurel trees and the orange trees appeared to come straight out of\nthe ground. The road which the carriages traversed was sanded.\n\nAll this seemed extraordinary to our provincial. He had never had any\nidea of such magnificence. In a single instant his thrilled imagination\nhad left his bad temper a thousand leagues behind. In the carriage on\ntheir way to the ball Norbert had been happy, while he saw everything\nin black colours. They had scarcely entered the courtyard before the\nroles changed.\n\nNorbert was only struck by a few details which, in the midst of all\nthat magnificence, had not been able to be attended to. He calculated\nthe expense of each item, and Julien remarked that the nearer he got\nto a sum total, the more jealous and bad-tempered he appeared.\n\nAs for himself, he was fascinated and full of admiration when he\nreached the first of the salons where they were dancing. His emotion\nwas so great that it almost made him nervous. There was a crush at the\ndoor of the second salon, and the crowd was so great that he found it\nimpossible to advance. The decorations of the second salon presented\nthe Alhambra of Grenada.\n\n\"That's the queen of the ball one must admit,\" said a young man with a\nmoustache whose shoulder stuck into Julien's chest.\n\n\"Mademoiselle Formant who has been the prettiest all the winter,\nrealises that she will have to go down to the second place. See how\nstrange she looks.\"\n\n\"In truth she is straining every nerve to please. Just look at that\ngracious smile now that she is doing the figure in that quadrille all\nalone. On my honour it is unique.\"\n\n\"Mademoiselle de la Mole looks as if she controlled the pleasure which\nshe derives from her triumph, of which she is perfectly conscious. One\nmight say that she fears to please anyone who talks to her.\"\n\n\"Very good. That is the art of alluring.\"\n\nJulien vainly endeavoured to catch sight of the alluring woman. Seven\nor eight men who were taller than he prevented him from seeing her.\n\n\"There is quite a lot of coquetry in that noble reserve,\" said the\nyoung man with a moustache.\n\n\"And in those big blue eyes, which are lowered so slowly when one would\nthink they were on the point of betraying themselves,\" answered his\nneighbour. \"On my faith, nothing could be cleverer.\"\n\n\"See the pretty Formant looking quite common next to her,\" said the\nfirst.\n\n\"That air of reserve means how much sweetness would I spend on you if\nyou were the man who was worthy of me.\"\n\n\"And who could be worthy of the sublime Mathilde,\" said the first man.\n\"Some sovereign prince, handsome, witty, well-made, a hero in war, and\ntwenty years old at the most.\"\n\n\"The natural son of the Emperor of Russia ... who would be made a\nsovereign in honour of his marriage, or quite simply the comte de\nThaler, who looks like a dressed-up peasant.\"\n\nThe door was free, and Julien could go in.\n\n\"Since these puppets consider her so remarkable, it is worth while\nfor me to study her,\" he thought. \"I shall then understand what these\npeople regard as perfection.\"\n\nAs his eyes were trying to find her, Mathilde looked at him. \"My duty\ncalls me,\" said Julien to himself. But it was only his expression which\nwas bad-humoured.\n\nHis curiosity made him advance with a pleasure which the extremely low\ncut dress on Mathilde's shoulder very quickly accentuated, in a manner\nwhich was scarcely flattering for his own self-respect. \"Her beauty has\nyouth,\" he thought. Five or six people, whom Julien recognised as those\nwho had been speaking at the door were between her and him.\n\n\"Now, Monsieur, you have been here all the winter,\" she said to him.\n\"Is it not true that this is the finest ball of the season.\"\n\nHe did not answer.\n\n\"This quadrille of Coulon's strikes me as admirable, and those ladies\ndance it perfectly.\" The young men turned round to see who was the\nhappy man, an answer from whom was positively insisted on. The answer\nwas not encouraging.\n\n\"I shall not be able to be a good judge, mademoiselle, I pass my life\nin writing. This is the first ball of this magnificence which I have\never seen.\"\n\nThe young men with moustaches were scandalised.\n\n\"You are a wise man, Monsieur Sorel,\" came the answer with a more\nmarked interest. \"You look upon all these balls, all these festivities,\nlike a philosopher, like J. J. Rousseau. All these follies astonish\nwithout alluring you.\"\n\nJulien's imagination had just hit upon an epigram which banished all\nillusions from his mind. His mouth assumed the expression of a perhaps\nslightly exaggerated disdain.\n\n\"J. J. Rousseau,\" he answered, \"is in my view only a fool when he takes\nit upon himself to criticise society. He did not understand it, and\nhe went into it with the spirit of a lackey who has risen above his\nstation.\"\n\n\"He wrote the _Contrat Social_,\" answered Mathilde reverently.\n\n\"While he preaches the Republic, and the overthrow of monarchical\ndignities, the parvenu was intoxicated with happiness if a duke would\ngo out of his way after dinner to one of his friends.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, the Duke of Luxembourg at Montmorency, used to accompany a\nCoindet from the neighbourhood of Paris,\" went on Mademoiselle de\nla Mole, with all the pleasure and enthusiasm of her first flush of\npedantry. She was intoxicated with her knowledge, almost like the\nacademician who discovered the existence of King Feretrius.\n\nJulien's look was still penetrating and severe. Mathilde had had\na moment's enthusiasm. Her partner's coldness disconcerted her\nprofoundly. She was all the more astonished, as it was she who was\naccustomed to produce that particular effect on others.\n\nAt this moment the marquis de Croisenois was advancing eagerly towards\nmademoiselle de la Mole. He was for a moment three yards away from her.\nHe was unable to get closer because of the crowd. He smiled at the\nobstacle. The young marquise de Rouvray was near her. She was a cousin\nof Mathilde. She was giving her arm to her husband who had only married\nher a fortnight ago. The marquis de Rouvray, who was also very young,\nhad all the love which seizes a man who, having contracted a marriage\nof convenience exclusively arranged by the notaries, finds a person who\nis ideally pretty. M. de Rouvray would be a duke on the death of a very\nold uncle.\n\nWhile the marquis de Croisenois was struggling to get through the\ncrowd, and smiling at Mathilde she fixed her big divinely blue eyes\non him and his neighbours. \"Could anything be flatter,\" she said to\nherself. \"There is Croisenois who wants to marry me, he is gentle and\npolite, he has perfect manners like M. de Rouvray. If they did not\nbore, those gentlemen would be quite charming. He too, would accompany\nme to the ball with that smug limited expression. One year after the\nmarriage I shall have my carriage, my horses, my dresses, my chateau\ntwenty leagues from Paris. All this would be as nice as possible, and\nenough to make a Countess de Roiville, for example, die of envy and\nafterwards--\"\n\nMathilde bored herself in anticipation. The marquis de Croisenois\nmanaged to approach her and spoke to her, but she was dreaming and\ndid not listen to him. The noise of his words began to get mixed\nwith the buzz of the ball. Her eye mechanically followed Julien who\nhad gone away, with an air which, though respectful, was yet proud\nand discontented. She noticed in a corner far from the moving crowd,\nthe comte Altamira who had been condemned to death in his own country\nand whom the reader knows already. One of his relatives had married a\nPrince de Conti in the reign of Louis XIV. This historical fact was\nsome protection against the police of the congregation.\n\n\"I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction,\" said\nMathilde. \"It is the only thing which cannot be bought.\"\n\n\"Why, that's an epigram, I just said, what a pity it did not come at a\nmoment when I could have reaped all the credit for it.\" Mathilde had\ntoo much taste to work into the conversation a prepared epigram but\nat the same time she was too vain not to be extremely pleased with\nherself. A happy expression succeeded the palpable boredom of her face.\nThe marquis de Croisenois, who had never left off talking, saw a chance\nof success and waxed twice as eloquent.\n\n\"What objection could a caviller find with my epigram,\" said Mathilde\nto herself. \"I would answer my critic in this way: The title of baron\nor vicomte is to be bought; a cross, why it is a gift. My brother\nhas just got one. What has he done? A promotion, why that can be\nobtained by being ten years in a garrison or have the minister of war\nfor a relative, and you'll be a chief of a squadron like Norbert. A\ngreat fortune! That's rather more difficult, and consequently more\nmeritorious. It is really quite funny. It's the opposite of what\nthe books say. Well, to win a fortune why you marry M. Rothschild's\ndaughter. Really my epigram is quite deep. Being condemned to death is\nstill the one privilege which one has never thought of canvassing.\"\n\n\"Do you know the comte Altamira,\" she said to M. de Croisenois.\n\nHer thoughts seemed to have been so far away, and this question had\nso little connection with all that the poor marquis had been saying\nfor the last five minutes, that his good temper was ruffled. He was\nnevertheless a man of wit and celebrated for being so.\n\n\"Mathilde is eccentric,\" he thought, \"that's a nuisance, but she will\ngive her husband such a fine social position. I don't know how the\nmarquis de la Mole manages. He is connected with all that is best in\nall parties. He is a man who is bound to come out on top. And, besides,\nthis eccentricity of Mathilde's may pass for genius. Genius when allied\nwith good birth and a large fortune, so far from being ridiculous, is\nhighly distinguished. She has wit, moreover, when she wants to, that\nmixture in fact of brains, character, and ready wit which constitute\nperfection.\"\n\nAs it is difficult to do two things at the same time, the marquis\nanswered Mathilde with a vacant expression as though he were reciting a\nlesson.\n\n\"Who does not know that poor Altamira?\" and he told her the history of\nhis conspiracy, abortive, ridiculous and absurd.\n\n\"Very absurd,\" said Mathilde as if she were talking to herself, \"but he\nhas done something. I want to see a man; bring him to me,\" she said to\nthe scandalized marquis.\n\nComte Altamira was one of the most avowed admirers of mademoiselle de\nla Mole's haughty and impertinent manner. In his opinion she was one of\nthe most beautiful persons in Paris.\n\n\"How fine she would be on a throne,\" he said to M. de Croisenois; and\nmade no demur at being taken up to Mathilde.\n\nThere are a good number of people in society who would like to\nestablish the fact that nothing is in such bad form as a conspiracy, in\nthe nineteenth century; it smacks of Jacobinism. And what could be more\nsordid than unsuccessful Jacobinism.\n\nMathilde's expression made fun a little of Altamira and M. de\nCroisenois, but she listened to him with pleasure.\n\n\"A conspirator at a ball, what a pretty contrast,\" she thought. She\nthought that this man with his black moustache looked like a lion at\nrest, but she soon perceived that his mind had only one point of view:\n_utility, admiration for utility_.\n\nThe young comte thought nothing worthy his attention except what tended\nto give his country two chamber government. He left Mathilde, who was\nthe prettiest person at the ball, with alacrity, because he saw a\nPeruvian general come in. Desparing of Europe such as M. de Metternich\nhad arranged it, poor Altamira had been reduced to thinking that when\nthe States of South America had become strong and powerful they could\nrestore to Europe the liberty which Mirabeau has given it.\n\nA crowd of moustachised young men had approached Mathilde. She realized\nthat Altamira had not felt allured, and was piqued by his departure.\nShe saw his black eye gleam as he talked to the Peruvian general.\nMademoiselle de la Mole looked at the young Frenchmen with that\nprofound seriousness which none of her rivals could imitate, \"which\nof them,\" she thought, \"could get himself condemned to death, even\nsupposing he had a favourable opportunity?\"\n\nThis singular look flattered those who were not very intelligent, but\ndisconcerted the others. They feared the discharge of some stinging\nepigram that would be difficult to answer.\n\n\"Good birth vouchsafes a hundred qualities whose absence would offend\nme. I see as much in the case of Julien,\" thought Mathilde, \"but it\nwithers up those qualities of soul which make a man get condemned to\ndeath.\"\n\nAt that moment some one was saying near her: \"Comte Altamira is the\nsecond son of the Prince of San Nazaro-Pimentel; it was a Pimentel who\ntried to save Conradin, was beheaded in 1268. It is one of the noblest\nfamilies in Naples.\"\n\n\"So,\" said Mathilde to herself, \"what a pretty proof this is of my\nmaxim, that good birth deprives a man of that force of character\nin default of which a man does not get condemned to death. I seem\ndoomed to reason falsely to-night. Since I am only a woman like any\nother, well I must dance.\" She yielded to the solicitations of M. de\nCroisenois who had been asking for a gallop for the last hour. To\ndistract herself from her failure in philosophy, Mathilde made a point\nof being perfectly fascinating. M. de Croisenois was enchanted. But\nneither the dance nor her wish to please one of the handsomest men at\ncourt, nor anything at all, succeeded in distracting Mathilde. She\ncould not possibly have been more of a success. She was the queen of\nthe ball. She coldly appreciated the fact.\n\n\"What a blank life I shall pass with a person like Croisenois,\" she\nsaid to herself as he took her back to her place an hour afterwards.\n\"What pleasure do I get,\" she added sadly, \"if after an absence of\nsix months I find myself at a ball which all the women of Paris were\nmad with jealousy to go to? And what is more I am surrounded by the\nhomage of an ideally constituted circle of society. The only bourgeois\nare some peers and perhaps one or two Juliens. And yet,\" she added\nwith increasing sadness, \"what advantages has not fate bestowed upon\nme! Distinction, fortune, youth, everything except happiness. My most\ndubious advantages are the very ones they have been speaking to me\nabout all the evening. Wit, I believe I have it, because I obviously\nfrighten everyone. If they venture to tackle a serious subject, they\nwill arrive after five minutes of conversation and as though they had\nmade a great discovery at a conclusion which we have been repeating to\nthem for the last hour. I am beautiful, I have that advantage for which\nmadame de Stael would have sacrificed everything, and yet I'm dying of\nboredom. Shall I have reason to be less bored when I have changed my\nname for that of the marquis de Croisenois?\n\n\"My God though,\" she added, while she almost felt as if she would like\nto cry, \"isn't he really quite perfect? He's a paragon of the education\nof the age; you can't look at him without his finding something\ncharming and even witty to say to you; he is brave. But that Sorel is\nstrange,\" she said to herself, and the expression of her eyes changed\nfrom melancholy to anger. \"I told him that I had something to say to\nhim and he hasn't deigned to reappear.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\nTHE BALL\n\n\n        The luxurious dresses, the glitter of the candles; all\n        those pretty arms and fine shoulders; the bouquets,\n        the intoxicating strains of Rossini, the paintings of\n        Ciceri. I am beside myself.--_Journeys of Useri_.\n\n\n\"You are in a bad temper,\" said the marquise de la Mole to her; \"let me\ncaution you, it is ungracious at a ball.\"\n\n\"I only have a headache,\" answered Mathilde disdainfully, \"it is too\nhot here.\"\n\nAt this moment the old Baron Tolly became ill and fell down, as though\nto justify mademoiselle de la Mole's remark. They were obliged to carry\nhim away. They talked about apoplexy. It was a disagreeable incident.\n\nMathilde did not bother much about it.\n\nShe made a point of never looking at old men, or at anyone who had the\nreputation of being bad company.\n\nShe danced in order to escape the conversation about the apoplexy,\nwhich was not apoplexy inasmuch as the baron put in an appearance the\nfollowing day.\n\n\"But Sorel does not come,\" she said to herself after she had danced.\nShe was almost looking round for him when she found him in another\nsalon. Astonishing, but he seemed to have lost that impassive coldness\nthat was so natural to him; he no longer looked English.\n\n\"He is talking to comte Altamira who was sentenced to death,\" said\nMathilde to herself. \"His eye is full of a sombre fire; he looks like a\nprince in disguise; his haughtiness has become twice as pronounced.\"\n\nJulien came back to where she was, still talking to Altamira. She\nlooked at Altamira fixedly, studying his features in order to trace\nthose lofty qualities which can earn a man the honour of being\ncondemned to death.\n\n\"Yes,\" he was saying to comte Altamira as he passed by her, \"Danton was\na real man.\"\n\n\"Heavens can he be a Danton?\" said Mathilde to herself, \"but he has\nso noble a face, and that Danton was so horribly ugly, a butcher I\nbelieve.\" Julien was still fairly near her. She did not hesitate to\ncall him; she had the consciousness and the pride of putting a question\nthat was unusual for a young girl.\n\n\"Was not Danton a butcher?\" she said to him.\n\n\"Yes, in the eyes of certain persons,\" Julien answered her with the\nmost thinly disguised expression of contempt. His eyes were still\nardent from his conversation with Altamira, \"but unfortunately for\nthe people of good birth he was an advocate at Mery-sur-Seine, that\nis to say, mademoiselle,\" he added maliciously, \"he began like many\npeers whom I see here. It was true that Danton laboured under a great\ndisadvantage in the eyes of beauty; he was ugly.\"\n\nThese last few words were spoken rapidly in an extraordinary and indeed\nvery discourteous manner.\n\nJulien waited for a moment, leaning slightly forward and with an air of\nproud humility. He seemed to be saying, \"I am paid to answer you and I\nlive on my pay.\" He did not deign to look up at Mathilde. She looked\nlike his slave with her fine eyes open abnormally wide and fixed on\nhim. Finally as the silence continued he looked at her, like a valet\nlooking at his master to receive orders. Although his eyes met the full\ngaze of Mathilde which were fixed on him all the time with a strange\nexpression, he went away with a marked eagerness.\n\n\"To think of a man who is as handsome as he is,\" said Mathilde to\nherself as she emerged from her reverie, \"praising ugliness in such a\nway, he is not like Caylus or Croisenois. This Sorel has something like\nmy father's look when he goes to a fancy dress ball as Napoleon.\" She\nhad completely forgotten Danton. \"Yes, I am decidedly bored to-night.\"\nShe took her brother's arm and to his great disgust made him take\nher round the ball-room. The idea occurred to her of following the\nconversation between Julien and the man who had been condemned to\ndeath.\n\nThe crowd was enormous. She managed to find them, however, at the\nmoment when two yards in front of her Altamira was going near a\ndumb-waiter to take an ice. He was talking to Julien with his body half\nturned round. He saw an arm in an embroidered coat which was taking an\nice close by. The embroidery seemed to attract his attention. He turned\nround to look at the person to whom the arm belonged. His noble and yet\nsimple eyes immediately assumed a slightly disdainful expression.\n\n\"You see that man,\" he said to Julien in a low voice; \"that is the\nPrince of Araceli Ambassador of ----. He asked M. de Nerval, your\nMinister for Foreign Affairs, for my extradition this morning. See,\nthere he is over there playing whist. Monsieur de Nerval is willing\nenough to give me up, for we gave up two or three conspirators to you\nin 1816. If I am given up to my king I shall be hanged in twenty-four\nhours. It will be one of those handsome moustachioed gentlemen who will\narrest me.\"\n\n\"The wretches!\" exclaimed Julien half aloud.\n\nMathilde did not lose a syllable of their conversation. Her ennui had\nvanished.\n\n\"They are not scoundrels,\" replied Count Altamira. \"I talk to you about\nmyself in order to give you a vivid impression. Look at the Prince of\nAraceli. He casts his eyes on his golden fleece every five minutes; he\ncannot get over the pleasure of seeing that decoration on his breast.\nIn reality the poor man is really an anachronism. The fleece was a\nsignal honour a hundred years ago, but he would have been nowhere\nnear it in those days. But nowadays, so far as people of birth are\nconcerned, you have to be an Araceli to be delighted with it. He had a\nwhole town hanged in order to get it.\"\n\n\"Is that the price he had to pay?\" said Julien anxiously.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" answered Altamira coldly, \"he probably had about thirty\nrich landed proprietors in his district who had the reputation of being\nLiberals thrown into the river.\"\n\n\"What a monster!\" pursued Julien.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole who was leaning her head forward with keenest\ninterest was so near him that her beautiful hair almost touched his\nshoulder.\n\n\"You are very young,\" answered Altamira. \"I was telling you that I had\na married sister in Provence. She is still pretty, good and gentle; she\nis an excellent mother, performs all her duties faithfully, is pious\nbut not a bigot.\"\n\n\"What is he driving at?\" thought mademoiselle de la Mole.\n\n\"She is happy,\" continued the comte Altamira; \"she was so in 1815. I\nwas then in hiding at her house on her estate near the Antibes. Well\nthe moment she learnt of marshall Ney's execution she began to dance.\"\n\n\"Is it possible?\" said Julien, thunderstruck.\n\n\"It's party spirit,\" replied Altamira. \"There are no longer any real\npassions in the nineteenth century: that's why one is so bored in\nFrance. People commit acts of the greatest cruelty, but without any\nfeeling of cruelty.\"\n\n\"So much the worse,\" said Julien, \"when one does commit a crime one\nought at least to take pleasure in committing it; that's the only good\nthing they have about them and that's the only way in which they have\nthe slightest justification.\"\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole had entirely forgotten what she owed to herself\nand placed herself completely between Altamira and Julien. Her brother,\nwho was giving her his arm, and was accustomed to obey her, was\nlooking at another part of the room, and in order to keep himself in\ncountenance was pretending to be stopped by the crowd.\n\n\"You are right,\" Altamira went on, \"one takes pleasure in nothing one\ndoes, and one does not remember it: this applies even to crimes. I can\nshow you perhaps ten men in this ballroom who have been convicted of\nmurder. They have forgotten all about it and everybody else as well.\"\n\n\"Many are moved to the point of tears if their dog breaks a paw.\nWhen you throw flowers on their grave at Pere-la-Chaise, as you say\nso humorously in Paris, we learn they united all the virtues of the\nknights of chivalry, and we speak about the noble feats of their\ngreat-grandfather who lived in the reign of Henri IV. If, in spite of\nthe good offices of the Prince de Araceli, I escape hanging and I ever\nmanage to enjoy the use of my money in Paris, I will get you to dine\nwith eight or ten of these respected and callous murderers.\n\n\"At that dinner you and I will be the only ones whose blood is pure,\nbut I shall be despised and almost hated as a monster, while you will\nbe simply despised as a man of the people who has pushed his way into\ngood society.\"\n\n\"Nothing could be truer,\" said mademoiselle de la Mole.\n\nAltamira looked at her in astonishment; but Julien did not deign to\nlook at her.\n\n\"Observe that the revolution, at whose head I found myself,\" continued\nthe comte Altamira, \"only failed for the one reason that I would not\ncut off three heads and distribute among our partisans seven or eight\nmillions which happened to be in a box of which I happened to have the\nkey. My king, who is burning to have me hanged to-day, and who called\nme by my christian name before the rebellion, would have given me the\ngreat ribbon of his order if I had had those three heads cut off and\nhad had the money in those boxes distributed; for I should have had at\nleast a semi-success and my country would have had a charta like ----.\nSo wags the world; it's a game of chess.\"\n\n\"At that time,\" answered Julien with a fiery eye, \"you did not know the\ngame; now....\"\n\n\"You mean I would have the heads cut off, and I would not be a\nGirondin, as you said I was the other day? I will give you your\nanswer,\" said Altamira sadly, \"when you have killed a man in a duel--a\nfar less ugly matter than having him put to death by an executioner.\"\n\n\"Upon my word,\" said Julien, \"the end justifies the means. If instead\nof being an insignificant man I had some power I would have three men\nhanged in order to save four men's lives.\"\n\nHis eyes expressed the fire of his own conscience; they met the eyes of\nmademoiselle de la Mole who was close by him, and their contempt, so\nfar from changing into politeness seemed to redouble.\n\nShe was deeply shocked; but she found herself unable to forget Julien;\nshe dragged her brother away and went off in a temper.\n\n\"I must take some punch and dance a lot,\" she said to herself. \"I will\npick out the best partner and cut some figure at any price. Good, there\nis that celebrated cynic, the comte de Fervaques.\" She accepted his\ninvitation; they danced. \"The question is,\" she thought, \"which of us\ntwo will be the more impertinent, but in order to make absolute fun\nof him, I must get him to talk.\" Soon all the other members of the\nquadrille were dancing as a matter of formality, they did not want to\nlose any of Mathilde's cutting reparte. M. de Fervaques felt uneasy and\nas he could only find elegant expressions instead of ideas, began to\nscowl. Mathilde, who was in a bad temper was cruel, and made an enemy\nof him. She danced till daylight and then went home terribly tired.\nBut when she was in the carriage the little vitality she had left, was\nstill employed in making her sad and unhappy. She had been despised by\nJulien and could not despise him.\n\nJulien was at the zenith of his happiness. He was enchanted without\nhis knowing it by the music, the flowers, the pretty women, the\ngeneral elegance, and above all by his own imagination which dreamt of\ndistinctions for himself and of liberty for all.\n\n\"What a fine ball,\" he said to the comte. \"Nothing is lacking.\"\n\n\"Thought is lacking\" answered Altamira, and his face betrayed that\ncontempt which is only more deadly from the very fact that a manifest\neffort is being made to hide it as a matter of politeness.\n\n\"You are right, monsieur the comte, there isn't any thought at all, let\nalone enough to make a conspiracy.\"\n\n\"I am here because of my name, but thought is hated in your salons.\nThought must not soar above the level of the point of a Vaudeville\ncouplet: it is then rewarded. But as for your man who thinks, if he\nshows energy and originality we call him a cynic. Was not that name\ngiven by one of your judges to Courier. You put him in prison as\nwell as Beranger. The priestly congregation hands over to the police\neveryone who is worth anything amongst you individually; and good\nsociety applauds.\n\n\"The fact is your effete society prizes conventionalism above\neverything else. You will never get beyond military bravery. You will\nhave Murats, never Washingtons. I can see nothing in France except\nvanity. A man who goes on speaking on the spur of the moment may easily\ncome to make an imprudent witticism and the master of the house thinks\nhimself insulted.\"\n\nAs he was saying this, the carriage in which the comte was seeing\nJulien home stopped before the Hotel de la Mole. Julien was in love\nwith his conspirator. Altamira had paid him this great compliment which\nwas evidently the expression of a sound conviction. \"You have not got\nthe French flippancy and you understand the principle of _utility_.\"\nIt happened that Julien had seen the day before _Marino Faliero_, a\ntragedy, by Casmir Delavigne.\n\n\"Has not Israel Bertuccio got more character than all those noble\nVenetians?\" said our rebellious plebeian to himself, \"and yet those\nare the people whose nobility goes back to the year seven hundred, a\ncentury before Charlemagne, while the cream of the nobility at M. de\nRitz's ball to-night only goes back, and that rather lamely, to the\nthirteenth century. Well, in spite of all the noble Venetians whose\nbirth makes so great, it is Israel Bertuccio whom one remembers.\n\n\"A conspiracy annihilates all titles conferred by social caprice.\nThere, a man takes for his crest the rank that is given him by the way\nin which he faces death. The intellect itself loses some of its power.\n\n\"What would Danton have been to-day in this age of the Valenods and the\nRenals? Not even a deputy for the Public Prosecutor.\n\n\"What am I saying? He would have sold himself to the priests, he\nwould have been a minister, for after all the great Danton did steal.\nMirabeau also sold himself. Napoleon stole millions in Italy, otherwise\nhe would have been stopped short in his career by poverty like\nPichegru. Only La Fayette refrained from stealing. Ought one to steal,\nought one to sell oneself?\" thought Julien. This question pulled him up\nshort. He passed the rest of the night in reading the history of the\nrevolution.\n\nWhen he wrote his letters in the library the following day, his mind\nwas still concentrated on his conversation with count Altamira.\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" he said to himself after a long reverie, \"If the\nSpanish Liberals had not injured their nation by crimes they would not\nhave been cleared out as easily as they were.\n\n\"They were haughty, talkative children--just like I am!\" he suddenly\nexclaimed as though waking up with a start.\n\n\"What difficulty have I surmounted that entitles me to judge such\ndevils who, once alive, dared to begin to act. I am like a man who\nexclaims at the close of a meal, 'I won't dine to-morrow; but that\nwon't prevent me from feeling as strong and merry like I do to-day.'\nWho knows what one feels when one is half-way through a great action?\"\n\nThese lofty thoughts were disturbed by the unexpected arrival in\nthe library of mademoiselle de la Mole. He was so animated by his\nadmiration for the great qualities of such invincibles as Danton,\nMirabeau, and Carnot that, though he fixed his eyes on mademoiselle de\nla Mole, he neither gave her a thought nor bowed to her, and scarcely\neven saw her. When finally his big, open eyes realized her presence,\ntheir expression vanished. Mademoiselle de la Mole noticed it with\nbitterness.\n\nIt was in vain that she asked him for Vely's History of France which\nwas on the highest shelf, and thus necessitated Julien going to fetch\nthe longer of the two ladders. Julien had brought the ladder and had\nfetched the volume and given it to her, but had not yet been able to\ngive her a single thought. As he was taking the ladder back he hit\nin his hurry one of the glass panes in the library with his elbow;\nthe noise of the glass falling on the floor finally brought him to\nhimself. He hastened to apologise to mademoiselle de la Mole. He tried\nto be polite and was certainly nothing more. Mathilde saw clearly that\nshe had disturbed him, and that he would have preferred to have gone\non thinking about what he had been engrossed in before her arrival,\nto speaking to her. After looking at him for some time she went\nslowly away. Julien watched her walk. He enjoyed the contrast of her\npresent dress with the elegant magnificence of the previous night. The\ndifference between the two expressions was equally striking. The young\ngirl who had been so haughty at the Duke de Retz's ball, had, at the\npresent moment, an almost plaintive expression. \"As a matter of fact,\"\nsaid Julien to himself, \"that black dress makes the beauty of her\nfigure all the more striking. She has a queenly carriage; but why is\nshe in mourning?\"\n\n\"If I ask someone the reason for this mourning, they will think I am\nputting my foot in it again.\" Julien had now quite emerged from the\ndepth of his enthusiasm. \"I must read over again all the letters I have\nwritten this morning. God knows how many missed out words and blunders\nI shall find. As he was forcing himself to concentrate his mind on the\nfirst of these letters he heard the rustle of a silk dress near him.\nHe suddenly turned round, mademoiselle de la Mole was two yards from\nhis table, she was smiling. This second interruption put Julien into a\nbad temper. Mathilde had just fully realized that she meant nothing to\nthis young man. Her smile was intended to hide her embarrassment; she\nsucceeded in doing so.\n\n\"You are evidently thinking of something very interesting, Monsieur\nSorel. Is it not some curious anecdote about that conspiracy which\nis responsible for comte Altamira being in Paris? Tell me what it is\nabout, I am burning to know. I will be discreet, I swear it.\" She was\nastonished at hearing herself utter these words. What! was she asking a\nfavour of an inferior! Her embarrassment increased, and she added with\na little touch of flippancy,\n\n\"What has managed to turn such a usually cold person as yourself, into\nan inspired being, a kind of Michael Angelo prophet?\"\n\nThis sharp and indiscreet question wounded Julien deeply, and rendered\nhim madder than ever.\n\n\"Was Danton right in stealing?\" he said to her brusquely in a manner\nthat grew more and more surly. \"Ought the revolutionaries of Piedmont\nand of Spain to have injured the people by crimes? To have given all\nthe places in the army and all the orders to undeserving persons? Would\nnot the persons who wore these orders have feared the return of the\nking? Ought they to have allowed the treasure of Turin to be looted?\nIn a word, mademoiselle,\" he said, coming near her with a terrifying\nexpression, \"ought the man who wishes to chase ignorance and crime from\nthe world to pass like the whirlwind and do evil indiscriminately?\"\n\nMathilde felt frightened, was unable to stand his look, and retreated a\ncouples of paces. She looked at him a moment, and then ashamed of her\nown fear, left the library with a light step.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL\n\nQUEEN MARGUERITE\n\n\n        Love! In what madness do you not manage to make us find\n        pleasure!\n                                      Letters of a Portuguese Nun.\n\n\nJulien reread his letters. \"How ridiculous I must have appeared in the\neyes of that Parisian doll,\" he said to himself when the dinner-bell\nrang. \"How foolish to have really told her what I was thinking! Perhaps\nit was not so foolish. Telling the truth on that occasion was worthy of\nme. Why did she come to question me on personal matters? That question\nwas indiscreet on her part. She broke the convention. My thoughts about\nDanton are not part of the sacrifice which her father pays me to make.\"\n\nWhen he came into the dining-room Julien's thoughts were distracted\nfrom his bad temper by mademoiselle de la Mole's mourning which was all\nthe more striking because none of the other members of the family were\nin black.\n\nAfter dinner he felt completely rid of the feeling which had obsessed\nhim all day. Fortunately the academician who knew Latin was at dinner.\n\"That's the man who will make the least fun of me,\" said Julien to\nhimself, \"if, as I surmise, my question about mademoiselle de la Mole's\nmourning is in bad taste.\"\n\nMathilde was looking at him with a singular expression. \"So this is the\ncoquetry of the women of this part of the country, just as madame de\nRenal described it to me,\" said Julien to himself. \"I was not nice to\nher this morning. I did not humour her caprice of talking to me. I got\nup in value in her eyes. The Devil doubtless is no loser by it.\n\n\"Later on her haughty disdain will manage to revenge herself. I defy\nher to do her worst. What a contrast with what I have lost! What\ncharming naturalness? What naivety! I used to know her thoughts before\nshe did herself. I used to see them come into existence. The only rival\nshe had in her heart was the fear of her childrens' death. It was a\nreasonable, natural feeling to me, and even though I suffered from it I\nfound it charming. I have been a fool. The ideas I had in my head about\nParis prevented me from appreciating that sublime woman.\n\n\"Great God what a contrast and what do I find here? Arid, haughty\nvanity: all the fine shades of wounded egotism and nothing more.\"\n\nThey got up from table. \"I must not let my academician get snapped up,\"\nsaid Julien to himself. He went up to him as they were passing into the\ngarden, assumed an air of soft submissiveness and shared in his fury\nagainst the success of Hernani.\n\n\"If only we were still in the days of _lettres de cachet_!\" he said.\n\n\"Then he would not have dared,\" exclaimed the academician with a\ngesture worthy of Talma.\n\nJulien quoted some words from Virgil's Georgics in reference to a\nflower and expressed the opinion that nothing was equal to the abbe\nDelille's verses. In a word he flattered the academician in every\npossible way. He then said to him with the utmost indifference, \"I\nsuppose mademoiselle de la Mole has inherited something from some uncle\nfor whom she is in mourning.\"\n\n\"What! you belong to the house?\" said the academician stopping short,\n\"and you do not know her folly? As a matter of fact it is strange her\nmother should allow her to do such things, but between ourselves, they\ndo not shine in this household exactly by their force of character.\nMademoiselle's share has to do for all of them, and governs them.\nTo-day is the thirtieth of April!\" and the academician stopped and\nlooked meaningly at Julien. Julien smiled with the most knowing\nexpression he could master. \"What connection can there be between\nruling a household, wearing a black dress, and the thirtieth April?\" he\nsaid to himself. \"I must be even sillier than I thought.\"\n\n\"I must confess....\" he said to the academician while he continued to\nquestion him with his look. \"Let us take a turn round the garden,\"\nsaid the academician delighted at seeing an opportunity of telling a\nlong and well-turned story.\n\n\"What! is it really possible you do not know what happened on the 30th\nApril, 1574?\"\n\n\"And where?\" said Julien in astonishment.\n\n\"At the place de Greve.\"\n\nJulien was extremely astonished that these words did not supply him\nwith the key. His curiosity and his expectation of a tragic interest\nwhich would be in such harmony with his own character gave his eyes\nthat brilliance which the teller of a story likes to see so much in\nthe person who is listening to him. The academician was delighted at\nfinding a virgin ear, and narrated at length to Julien how Boniface de\nla Mole, the handsomest young man of this century together with Annibal\nde Coconasso, his friend, a gentleman of Piedmont, had been beheaded on\nthe 30th April, 1574. La Mole was the adored lover of Queen Marguerite\nof Navarre and \"observe,\" continued the academician, \"that mademoiselle\nde La Mole's full name is Mathilde Marguerite. La Mole was at the same\ntime a favourite of the Duke d'Alencon and the intimate friend of\nhis mistress's husband, the King of Navarre, subsequently Henri IV.\nOn Shrove Tuesday of that year 1574, the court happened to be at St.\nGermain with the poor king Charles IX. who was dying. La Mole wished\nto rescue his friends the princes, whom Queen Catherine of Medici was\nkeeping prisoner in her Court. He advanced two hundred cavalry under\nthe walls of St. Germain; the Duke d'Alencon was frightened and La Mole\nwas thrown to the executioner.\n\n\"But the thing which affects mademoiselle Mathilde, and what she has\nadmitted to me herself seven or eight years ago when she was twelve,\nis a head! a head!----and the academician lifted up his eyes to the\nheavens. What struck her in this political catastrophe, was the hiding\nof Queen Marguerite de Navarre in a house in the place de Greve and\nher then asking for her lover's head. At midnight on the following day\nshe took that head in her carriage and went and buried it herself in a\nchapel at the foot of the hill at Montmartre.\"\n\n\"Impossible?\" cried Julien really moved.\n\n\"Mademoiselle Mathilde despises her brother because, as you see, he\ndoes not bother one whit about this ancient history, and never wears\nmourning on the thirtieth of April. It is since the time of this\ncelebrated execution and in order to recall the intimate friendship\nof La Mole for the said Coconasso, who Italian that he was, bore\nthe name of Annibal that all the men of that family bear that name.\nAnd,\" added the academician lowering his voice, \"this Coconasso was,\naccording to Charles IX. himself, one of the cruellest assassins of the\ntwenty-fourth August, 1572. But how is it possible, my dear Sorel, that\nyou should be ignorant of these things--you who take your meals with\nthe family.\"\n\n\"So that is why mademoiselle de la Mole twice called her brother\nAnnibal at dinner. I thought I had heard wrong.\"\n\n\"It was a reproach. It is strange that the marquise should allow such\nfollies. The husband of that great girl will have a fine time of it.\"\n\nThis remark was followed by five or six satiric phrases. Julien was\nshocked by the joy which shone in the academician's eyes. \"We are just\na couple of servants,\" he thought, \"engaged in talking scandal about\nour masters. But I ought not to be astonished at anything this academy\nman does.\"\n\nJulien had surprised him on his knees one day before the marquise de\nla Mole; he was asking her for a tobacco receivership for a nephew in\nthe provinces. In the evening a little chambermaid of mademoiselle de\nla Mole, who was paying court to Julien, just as Elisa had used to do,\ngave him to understand that her mistress's mourning was very far from\nbeing worn simply to attract attention. This eccentricity was rooted in\nher character. She really loved that la Mole, the beloved lover of the\nmost witty queen of the century, who had died through trying to set his\nfriends at liberty--and what friends! The first prince of the blood and\nHenri IV.\n\nAccustomed as he had been to the perfect naturalness which shone\nthroughout madame de Renal's whole demeanour, Julien could not help\nfinding all the women of Paris affected, and, though by no means of a\nmorose disposition, found nothing to say to them. Mademoiselle de la\nMole was an exception.\n\nHe now began to cease taking for coldness of heart that kind of beauty\nwhich attaches importance to a noble bearing. He had long conversations\nwith mademoiselle de la Mole, who would sometimes walk with him in\nthe garden after dinner. She told him one day that she was reading\nthe History of D'Aubigne and also Brantome. \"Strange books to read,\"\nthought Julien; \"and the marquis does not allow her to read Walter\nScott's novels!\"\n\nShe told him one day, with that pleased brilliancy in her eyes, which\nis the real test of genuine admiration, about a characteristic act of a\nyoung woman of the reign of Henry III., which she had just read in the\nmemoirs of L'Etoile. Finding her husband unfaithful she stabbed him.\n\nJulien's vanity was nattered. A person who was surrounded by so much\nhomage, and who governed the whole house, according to the academician,\ndeigned to talk to him on a footing almost resembling friendship.\n\n\"I made a mistake,\" thought Julien soon afterwards. \"This is not\nfamiliarity, I am simply the confidante of a tragedy, she needs to\nspeak to someone. I pass in this family for a man of learning. I will\ngo and read Brantome, D'Aubigne, L'Etoile. I shall then be able to\nchallenge some of the anecdotes which madame de la Mole speaks to me\nabout. I want to leave off this role of the passive confidante.\"\n\nHis conversations with this young girl, whose demeanour was so\nimpressive and yet so easy, gradually became more interesting. He\nforgot his grim role of the rebel plebian. He found her well-informed\nand even logical. Her opinions in the gardens were very different to\nthose which she owned to in the salon. Sometimes she exhibited an\nenthusiasm and a frankness which were in absolute contrast to her usual\ncold haughtiness.\n\n\"The wars of the League were the heroic days of France,\" she said\nto him one day, with eyes shining with enthusiasm. \"Then everyone\nfought to gain something which he desired, for the sake of his party's\ntriumph, and not just in order to win a cross as in the days of your\nemperor. Admit that there was then less egotism and less pettiness. I\nlove that century.\"\n\n\"And Boniface de la Mole was the hero of it,\" he said to her.\n\n\"At least he was loved in a way that it is perhaps sweet to be loved.\nWhat woman alive now would not be horrified at touching the head of her\ndecapitated lover?\"\n\nMadame de la Mole called her daughter. To be effective hypocrisy\nought to hide itself, yet Julien had half confided his admiration for\nNapoleon to mademoiselle de la Mole.\n\nJulien remained alone in the garden. \"That is the immense advantage\nthey have over us,\" he said to himself. \"Their ancestors lift them\nabove vulgar sentiments, and they have not got always to be thinking\nabout their subsistence! What misery,\" he added bitterly. \"I am not\nworthy to discuss these great matters. My life is nothing more than a\nseries of hypocrisies because I have not got a thousand francs a year\nwith which to buy my bread and butter.\"\n\nMathilde came running back. \"What are you dreaming about, monsieur?\"\nshe said to him.\n\nJulien was tired of despising himself. Through sheer pride he frankly\ntold her his thoughts. He blushed a great deal while talking to such\na person about his own poverty. He tried to make it as plain as he\ncould that he was not asking for anything. Mathilde never thought\nhim so handsome; she detected in him an expression of frankness and\nsensitiveness which he often lacked.\n\nWithin a month of this episode Julien was pensively walking in the\ngarden of the hotel; but his face had no longer the hardness and\nphilosophic superciliousness which the chronic consciousness of his\ninferior position had used to write upon it. He had just escorted\nmademoiselle de la Mole to the door of the salon. She said she had hurt\nher foot while running with her brother.\n\n\"She leaned on my arm in a very singular way,\" said Julien to himself.\n\"Am I a coxcomb, or is it true that she has taken a fancy to me? She\nlistens to me so gently, even when I confess to her all the sufferings\nof my pride! She too, who is so haughty to everyone! They would be\nvery astonished in the salon if they saw that expression of hers. It\nis quite certain that she does not show anyone else such sweetness and\ngoodness.\"\n\nJulien endeavoured not to exaggerate this singular friendship. He\nhimself compared it to an armed truce. When they met again each day,\nthey almost seemed before they took up the almost intimate tone of the\nprevious day to ask themselves \"are we going to be friends or enemies\nto-day?\" Julien had realised that to allow himself to be insulted\nwith impunity even once by this haughty girl would mean the loss of\neverything. \"If I have got to quarrel would it not be better that it\nshould be straight away in defending the rights of my own pride,\nthan in parrying the expressions of contempt which would follow the\nslightest abandonment of my duty to my own self-respect?\"\n\nOn many occasions, on days when she was in a bad temper Mathilde, tried\nto play the great lady with him. These attempts were extremely subtle,\nbut Julien rebuffed them roughly.\n\nOne day he brusquely interrupted her. \"Has mademoiselle de la Mole any\norders to give her father's secretary?\" he said to her. \"If so he must\nlisten to her orders, and execute them, but apart from that he has not\na single word to say to her. He is not paid to tell her his thoughts.\"\n\nThis kind of life, together with the singular surmises which it\noccasioned, dissipated the boredom which he had been accustomed to\nexperience in that magnificent salon, where everyone was afraid, and\nwhere any kind of jest was in bad form.\n\n\"It would be humorous if she loved me but whether she loves me or\nnot,\" went on Julien, \"I have for my confidential friend a girl of\nspirit before whom I see the whole household quake, while the marquis\nde Croisenois does so more than anyone else. Yes, to be sure, that\nsame young man who is so polite, so gentle, and so brave, and who has\ncombined all those advantages of birth and fortune a single one of\nwhich would put my heart at rest--he is madly in love with her, he\nought to marry her. How many letters has M. de la Mole made me write\nto the two notaries in order to arrange the contract? And I, though I\nam an absolute inferior when I have my pen in my hand, why, I triumph\nover that young man two hours afterwards in this very garden; for,\nafter all, her preference is striking and direct. Perhaps she hates\nhim because she sees in him a future husband. She is haughty enough\nfor that. As for her kindness to me, I receive it in my capacity of\nconfidential servant.\n\n\"But no, I am either mad or she is making advances to me; the colder\nand more respectful I show myself to her, the more she runs after me.\nIt may be a deliberate piece of affectation; but I see her eyes become\nanimated when I appear unexpectedly. Can the women of Paris manage to\nact to such an extent. What does it matter to me! I have appearances in\nmy favour, let us enjoy appearances. Heavens, how beautiful she is!\nHow I like her great blue eyes when I see them at close quarters, and\nthey look at me in the way they often do? What a difference between\nthis spring and that of last year, when I lived an unhappy life among\nthree hundred dirty malicious hypocrites, and only kept myself afloat\nthrough sheer force of character, I was almost as malicious as they\nwere.\"\n\n\"That young girl is making fun of me,\" Julien would think in his\nsuspicious days. \"She is acting in concert with her brother to make\na fool of me. But she seems to have an absolute contempt for her\nbrother's lack of energy. He is brave and that is all. He has not a\nthought which dares to deviate from the conventional. It is always\nI who have to take up the cudgels in his defence. A young girl of\nnineteen! Can one at that age act up faithfully every second of the\nday to the part which one has determined to play. On the other hand\nwhenever mademoiselle de la Mole fixes her eyes on me with a singular\nexpression comte Norbert always goes away. I think that suspicious.\nOught he not to be indignant at his sister singling out a servant of\nher household? For that is how I heard the Duke de Chaulnes speak about\nme. This recollection caused anger to supersede every other emotion. It\nis simply a fashion for old fashioned phraseology on the part of the\neccentric duke?\"\n\n\"Well, she is pretty!\" continued Julien with a tigerish expression, \"I\nwill have her, I will then go away, and woe to him who disturbs me in\nmy flight.\"\n\nThis idea became Julien's sole preoccupation. He could not think of\nanything else. His days passed like hours.\n\nEvery moment when he tried to concentrate on some important matter\nhis mind became a blank, and he would wake up a quarter of an hour\nafterwards with a beating heart and an anxious mind, brooding over this\nidea \"does she love me?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI\n\nA YOUNG GIRL'S DOMINION\n\n\n        I admire her beauty but I fear her intellect.--_Merimee_.\n\n\nIf Julien had employed the time which he spent in exaggerating\nMatilde's beauty or in working himself up into a rage against that\nfamily haughtiness which she was forgetting for his sake in examining\nwhat was going on in the salon, he would have understood the secret of\nher dominion over all that surrounded her.\n\nWhen anyone displeased mademoiselle de La Mole she managed to punish\nthe offender by a jest which was so guarded, so well chosen, so polite\nand so neatly timed, that the more the victim thought about it, the\nsorer grew the wound. She gradually became positively terrible to\nwounded vanity. As she attached no value to many things which the\nrest of her family very seriously wanted, she always struck them as\nself-possessed. The salons of the aristocracy are nice enough to brag\nabout when you leave them, but that is all; mere politeness alone only\ncounts for something in its own right during the first few days. Julien\nexperienced this after the first fascination and the first astonishment\nhad passed off. \"Politeness,\" he said to himself \"is nothing but the\nabsence of that bad temper which would be occasioned by bad manners.\"\nMathilde was frequently bored; perhaps she would have been bored\nanywhere. She then found a real distraction and real pleasure in\nsharpening an epigram.\n\nIt was perhaps in order to have more amusing victims than her great\nrelations, the academician and the five or six other men of inferior\nclass who paid her court, that she had given encouragement to the\nmarquis de Croisenois, the comte Caylus and two or three other young\nmen of the highest rank. They simply represented new subjects for\nepigrams.\n\nWe will admit with reluctance, for we are fond of Mathilde, that she\nhad received many letters from several of them and had sometimes\nanswered them. We hasten to add that this person constitutes an\nexception to the manners of the century. Lack of prudence is not\ngenerally the fault with which the pupils of the noble convent of the\nSacred Heart can be reproached.\n\nOne day the marquis de Croisenois returned to Mathilde a fairly\ncompromising letter which she had written the previous night. He\nthought that he was thereby advancing his cause a great deal by taking\nthis highly prudent step. But the very imprudence of her correspondence\nwas the very element in it Mathilde liked. Her pleasure was to stake\nher fate. She did not speak to him again for six weeks.\n\nShe amused herself with the letters of these young men, but in her view\nthey were all like each other. It was invariably a case of the most\nprofound, the most melancholy, passion.\n\n\"They all represent the same perfect man, ready to leave for\nPalestine,\" she exclaimed to her cousin. \"Can you conceive of anything\nmore insipid? So these are the letters I am going to receive all my\nlife! There can only be a change every twenty years according to the\nkind of vogue which happens to be fashionable. They must have had more\ncolour in them in the days of the Empire. In those days all these young\nsociety men had seen or accomplished feats which really had an element\nof greatness. The Duke of N---- my uncle was at Wagram.\"\n\n\"What brains do you need to deal a sabre blow? And when they have had\nthe luck to do that they talk of it so often!\" said mademoiselle de\nSainte-Heredite, Mathilde's cousin.\n\n\"Well, those tales give me pleasure. Being in a real battle, a battle\nof Napoleon, where six thousand soldiers were killed, why, that's proof\nof courage. Exposing one's self to danger elevates the soul and saves\nit from the boredom in which my poor admirers seem to be sunk; and that\nboredom is contagious. Which of them ever thought of doing anything\nextraordinary? They are trying to win my hand, a pretty business to\nbe sure! I am rich and my father will procure advancement for his\nson-in-law. Well! I hope he'll manage to find someone who is a little\nbit amusing.\"\n\nMathilde's keen, sharp and picturesque view of life spoilt her language\nas one sees. An expression of hers would often constitute a blemish\nin the eyes of her polished friends. If she had been less fashionable\nthey would almost have owned that her manner of speaking was, from the\nstandpoint of feminine delicacy, to some extent unduly coloured.\n\nShe, on her side, was very unjust towards the handsome cavaliers who\nfill the Bois de Boulogne. She envisaged the future not with terror,\nthat would have been a vivid emotion, but with a disgust which was very\nrare at her age.\n\nWhat could she desire? Fortune, good birth, wit, beauty, according to\nwhat the world said, and according to what she believed, all these\nthings had been lavished upon her by the hands of chance.\n\nSo this was the state of mind of the most envied heiress of the\nfaubourg Saint-Germain when she began to find pleasure in walking with\nJulien. She was astonished at his pride; she admired the ability of the\nlittle bourgeois. \"He will manage to get made a bishop like the abbe\nMouray,\" she said to herself.\n\nSoon the sincere and unaffected opposition with which our hero received\nseveral of her ideas filled her mind; she continued to think about\nit, she told her friend the slightest details of the conversation,\nbut thought that she would never succeed in fully rendering all their\nmeaning.\n\nAn idea suddenly flashed across her; \"I have the happiness of loving,\"\nshe said to herself one day with an incredible ecstasy of joy. \"I am in\nlove, I am in love, it is clear! Where can a young, witty and beautiful\ngirl of my own age find sensations if not in love? It is no good. I\nshall never feel any love for Croisenois, Caylus, and _tutti quanti_.\nThey are unimpeachable, perhaps too unimpeachable; any way they bore\nme.\"\n\nShe rehearsed in her mind all the descriptions of passion which she\nhad read in _Manon Lescaut_, the _Nouvelle Heloise_, the _Letters of\na Portuguese Nun_, etc., etc. It was only a question of course of the\ngrand passion; light love was unworthy of a girl of her age and birth.\nShe vouchsafed the name of love to that heroic sentiment which was met\nwith in France in the time of Henri III. and Bassompierre. That love\ndid not basely yield to obstacles, but, far from it, inspired great\ndeeds. \"How unfortunate for me that there is not a real court like that\nof Catherine de' Medici or of Louis XIII. I feel equal to the boldest\nand greatest actions. What would I not make of a king who was a man of\nspirit like Louis XIII. if he were sighing at my feet! I would take\nhim to the Vendee, as the Baron de Tolly is so fond of saying, and\nfrom that base he would re-conquer his kingdom; then no more about a\ncharter--and Julien would help me. What does he lack? name and fortune.\nHe will make a name, he will win a fortune.\n\n\"Croisenois lacks nothing, and he will never be anything else all his\nlife but a duke who is half 'ultra' and half Liberal, an undecided\nbeing who never goes to extremes and consequently always plays second\nfiddle.\n\n\"What great action is not an extreme at the moment when it is\nundertaken? It is only after accomplishment that it seems possible to\ncommonplace individuals. Yes, it is love with all its miracles which\nis going to reign over my heart; I feel as much from the fire which is\nthrilling me. Heaven owed me this boon. It will not then have lavished\nin vain all its bounties on one single person. My happiness will be\nworthy of me. Each day will no longer be the cold replica of the day\nbefore. There is grandeur and audacity in the very fact of daring to\nlove a man, placed so far beneath me by his social position. Let us see\nwhat happens, will he continue to deserve me? I will abandon him at the\nfirst sign of weakness which I detect. A girl of my birth and of that\nmediaeval temperament which they are good enough to ascribe to me (she\nwas quoting from her father) must not behave like a fool.\n\n\"But should I not be behaving like a fool if I were to love the marquis\nde Croisenois? I should simply have a new edition over again of that\nhappiness enjoyed by my girl cousins which I so utterly despise. I\nalready know everything the poor marquis would say to me and every\nanswer I should make. What's the good of a love which makes one\nyawn? One might as well be in a nunnery. I shall have a celebration\nof the signing of a contract just like my younger cousin when the\ngrandparents all break down, provided of course that they are not\nannoyed by some condition introduced into the contract at the eleventh\nhour by the notary on the other side.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII\n\nIS HE A DANTON?\n\n\n        The need of anxiety. These words summed up the character\n        of my aunt, the beautiful Marguerite de Valois, who was\n        soon to marry the King of Navarre whom we see reigning\n        at present in France under the name of Henry IV. The\n        need of staking something was the key to the character\n        of this charming princess; hence her quarrels and\n        reconciliations with her brothers from the time when she\n        was sixteen. Now, what can a young girl stake? The most\n        precious thing she has: her reputation, the esteem of a\n        lifetime.\n                        _Memoirs of the Duke d' Angouleme._\n                        _the natural son of Charles IX_.\n\n\n\"There is no contract to sign for Julien and me, there is no notary;\neverything is on the heroic plane, everything is the child of chance.\nApart from the noble birth which he lacks, it is the love of Marguerite\nde Valois for the young La Mole, the most distinguished man of the\ntime, over again. Is it my fault that the young men of the court are\nsuch great advocates of the conventional, and turn pale at the mere\nidea of the slightest adventure which is a little out of the ordinary?\nA little journey in Greece or Africa represents the highest pitch of\ntheir audacity, and moreover they can only march in troops. As soon as\nthey find themselves alone they are frightened, not of the Bedouin's\nlance, but of ridicule and that fear makes them mad.\n\n\"My little Julien on the other hand only likes to act alone. This\nunique person never thinks for a minute of seeking help or support in\nothers! He despises others, and that is why I do not despise him.\n\n\"If Julien were noble as well as poor, my love would simply be a vulgar\npiece of stupidity, a sheer mesalliance; I would have nothing to do\nwith it; it would be absolutely devoid of the characteristic traits of\ngrand passion--the immensity of the difficulty to be overcome and the\nblack uncertainty cf the result.\"\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole was so engrossed in these pretty arguments that\nwithout realising what she was doing, she praised Julien to the marquis\nde Croisenois and her brother on the following day. Her eloquence went\nso far that it provoked them.\n\n\"You be careful of this young man who has so much energy,\" exclaimed\nher brother; \"if we have another revolution he will have us all\nguillotined.\"\n\nShe was careful not to answer, but hastened to rally her brother and\nthe marquis de Croisenois on the apprehension which energy caused them.\n\"It is at bottom simply the fear of meeting the unexpected, the fear of\nbeing non-plussed in the presence of the unexpected--\"\n\n\"Always, always, gentlemen, the fear of ridicule, a monster which had\nthe misfortune to die in 1816.\"\n\n\"Ridicule has ceased to exist in a country where there are two\nparties,\" M. de la Mole was fond of saying.\n\nHis daughter had understood the idea.\n\n\"So, gentlemen,\" she would say to Julien's enemies, \"you will be\nfrightened all your life and you will be told afterwards,\n\n          \"Ce n'etait pas un loup, ce n'en etait que l'ombre.\"\n\nMatilde soon left them. Her brother's words horrified her; they\noccasioned her much anxiety, but the day afterwards she regarded them\nas tantamount to the highest praise.\n\n\"His energy frightens them in this age where all energy is dead. I will\ntell him my brother's phrase. I want to see what answer he will make.\nBut I will choose one of the moments when his eyes are shining. Then he\nwill not be able to lie to me.\n\n\"He must be a Danton!\" she added after a long and vague reverie. \"Well,\nsuppose the revolution begins again, what figures will Croisenois and\nmy brother cut then? It is settled in advance: Sublime resignation.\nThey will be heroic sheep who will allow their throats to be cut\nwithout saying a word. Their one fear when they die will still be the\nfear of being bad form. If a Jacobin came to arrest my little Julien he\nwould blow his brains out, however small a chance he had of escaping.\nHe is not frightened of doing anything in bad form.\"\n\nThese last words made her pensive; they recalled painful memories and\ndeprived her of all her boldness. These words reminded her of the jests\nof MM. de Caylus, Croisenois, de Luz and her brother; these gentlemen\njoined in censuring Julien for his priestly demeanour, which they said\nwas humble and hypocritical.\n\n\"But,\" she went on suddenly with her eyes gleaming with joy, \"the very\nbitterness and the very frequency of their jests prove in spite of\nthemselves that he is the most distinguished man whom we have seen this\nwinter. What matter his defects and the things which they make fun of?\nHe has the element of greatness and they are shocked by it. Yes, they,\nthe very men who are so good and so charitable in other matters. It is\na fact that he is poor and that he has studied in order to be a priest;\nthey are the heads of a squadron and never had any need of studying;\nthey found it less trouble.\n\n\"In spite of all the handicap of his everlasting black suit and of that\npriestly expression which he must wear, poor boy, if he isn't to die of\nhunger, his merit frightens them, nothing could be clearer. And as for\nthat priest-like expression, why he no longer has it after we have been\nalone for some moments, and after those gentlemen have evolved what\nthey imagine to be a subtle and impromptu epigram, is not their first\nlook towards Julien? I have often noticed it. And yet they know well\nthat he never speaks to them unless he is questioned. I am the only one\nwhom he speaks to. He thinks I have a lofty soul. He only answers the\npoints they raise sufficiently to be polite. He immediately reverts\ninto respectfulness. But with me he will discuss things for whole\nhours, he is not certain of his ideas so long as I find the slightest\nobjection to them. There has not been a single rifle-shot fired all\nthis winter; words have been the only means of attracting attention.\nWell, my father, who is a superior man and will carry the fortunes of\nour house very far, respects Julien. Every one else hates him, no one\ndespises him except my mother's devout friends.\"\n\nThe Comte de Caylus had or pretended to have a great passion for\nhorses; he passed his life in his stables and often breakfasted there.\nThis great passion, together with his habit of never laughing, won for\nhim much respect among his friends: he was the eagle of the little\ncircle.\n\nAs soon as they had reassembled the following day behind madame de la\nMole's armchair, M. de Caylus, supported by Croisenois and by Norbert,\nbegan in Julien's absence to attack sharply the high opinion which\nMathilde entertained for Julien. He did this without any provocation,\nand almost the very minute that he caught sight of mademoiselle de la\nMole. She tumbled to the subtlety immediately and was delighted with it.\n\n\"So there they are all leagued together,\" she said to herself, \"against\na man of genius who has not ten louis a year to bless himself with and\nwho cannot answer them except in so far as he is questioned. They are\nfrightened of him, black coat and all. But how would things stand if he\nhad epaulettes?\"\n\nShe had never been more brilliant, hardly had Caylus and his allies\nopened their attack than she riddled them with sarcastic jests. When\nthe fire of these brilliant officers was at length extinguished she\nsaid to M. de Caylus,\n\n\"Suppose that some gentleman in the Franche-Comte mountains finds out\nto-morrow that Julien is his natural son and gives him a name and\nsome thousands of francs, why in six months he will be an officer of\nhussars like you, gentlemen, in six weeks he will have moustaches like\nyou gentlemen. And then his greatness of character will no longer be\nan object of ridicule. I shall then see you reduced, monsieur the\nfuture duke, to this stale and bad argument, the superiority of the\ncourt nobility over the provincial nobility. But where will you be\nif I choose to push you to extremities and am mischievous enough to\nmake Julien's father a Spanish duke, who was a prisoner of war at\nBesancon in the time of Napoleon, and who out of conscientious scruples\nacknowledges him on his death bed?\" MM. de Caylus, and de Croisenois\nfound all these assumptions of illegitimacy in rather bad taste. That\nwas all they saw in Mathilde's reasoning.\n\nHis sister's words were so clear that Norbert, in spite of his\nsubmissiveness, assumed a solemn air, which one must admit did not\nharmonise very well with his amiable, smiling face. He ventured to say\na few words.\n\n\"Are you ill? my dear,\" answered Mathilde with a little air of\nseriousness. \"You must be very bad to answer jests by moralizing.\"\n\n\"Moralizing from you! Are you soliciting a job as prefect?\"\n\nMathilde soon forgot the irritation of the comte de Caylus, the bad\ntemper of Norbert, and the taciturn despair of M. de Croisenois. She\nhad to decide one way or the other a fatal question which had just\nseized upon her soul.\n\n\"Julien is sincere enough with me,\" she said to herself, \"a man at\nhis age, in a inferior position, and rendered unhappy as he is by an\nextraordinary ambition, must have need of a woman friend. I am perhaps\nthat friend, but I see no sign of love in him. Taking into account the\naudacity of his character he would surely have spoken to me about his\nlove.\"\n\nThis uncertainty and this discussion with herself which henceforth\nmonopolised Mathilde's time, and in connection with which she found new\narguments each time that Julien spoke to her, completely routed those\nfits of boredom to which she had been so liable.\n\nDaughter as she was of a man of intellect who might become a minister,\nmademoiselle de la Mole had been when in the convent of the Sacred\nHeart, the object of the most excessive flattery. This misfortune can\nnever be compensated for. She had been persuaded that by reason of all\nher advantages of birth, fortune, etc., she ought to be happier than\nany one else. This is the cause of the boredom of princes and of all\ntheir follies.\n\nMathilde had not escaped the deadly influence of this idea. However\nintelligent one may be, one cannot at the age of ten be on one's guard\nagainst the flatteries of a whole convent, which are apparently so well\nfounded.\n\nFrom the moment that she had decided that she loved Julien, she\nwas no longer bored. She congratulated herself every day on having\ndeliberately decided to indulge in a grand passion. \"This amusement\nis very dangerous,\" she thought. \"All the better, all the better, a\nthousand times. Without a grand passion I should be languishing in\nboredom during the finest time of my life, the years from sixteen\nto twenty. I have already wasted my finest years: all my pleasure\nconsisted in being obliged to listen to the silly arguments of my\nmother's friends who when at Coblentz in 1792 were not quite so strict,\nso they say, as their words of to-day.\"\n\nIt was while Mathilde was a prey to these great fits of uncertainty\nthat Julien was baffled by those long looks of hers which lingered upon\nhim. He noticed, no doubt, an increased frigidity in the manner of\ncomte Norbert, and a fresh touch of haughtiness in the manner of MM. de\nCaylus, de Luz and de Croisenois. He was accustomed to that. He would\nsometimes be their victim in this way at the end of an evening when, in\nview of the position he occupied, he had been unduly brilliant. Had it\nnot been for the especial welcome with which Mathilde would greet him,\nand the curiosity with which all this society inspired him, he would\nhave avoided following these brilliant moustachioed young men into the\ngarden, when they accompanied mademoiselle de La Mole there, in the\nhour after dinner.\n\n\"Yes,\" Julien would say to himself, \"it is impossible for me to deceive\nmyself, mademoiselle de la Mole looks at me in a very singular way.\nBut even when her fine blue open eyes are fixed on me, wide open with\nthe most abandon, I always detect behind them an element of scrutiny,\nself-possession and malice. Is it possible that this may be love? But\nhow different to madame de Renal's looks!\"\n\nOne evening after dinner Julien, who had followed M. de la Mole into\nhis study, was rapidly walking back to the garden. He approached\nMathilde's circle without any warning, and caught some words pronounced\nin a very loud voice. She was teasing her brother. Julien heard his\nname distinctly pronounced twice. He appeared. There was immediately\na profound silence and abortive efforts were made to dissipate it.\nMademoiselle de la Mole and her brother were too animated to find\nanother topic of conversation. MM. de Caylus, de Croisenois, de Luz,\nand one of their friends, manifested an icy coldness to Julien. He went\naway.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII\n\nA PLOT\n\n\n        Disconnected remarks, casual meetings, become\n        transformed in the eyes of an imaginative man into\n        the most convincing proofs, if he has any fire in his\n        temperament.--_Schiller_.\n\n\nThe following day he again caught Norbert and his sister talking about\nhim. A funereal silence was established on his arrival as on the\nprevious day. His suspicions were now unbounded. \"Can these charming\nyoung people have started to make fun of me? I must own this is much\nmore probable, much more natural than any suggested passion on the part\nof mademoiselle de La Mole for a poor devil of a secretary. In the\nfirst place, have those people got any passions at all? Mystification\nis their strong point. They are jealous of my poor little superiority\nin speaking. Being jealous again is one of their weaknesses. On that\nbasis everything is explicable. Mademoiselle de La Mole simply wants to\npersuade me that she is marking me out for special favour in order to\nshow me off to her betrothed?\"\n\nThis cruel suspicion completely changed Julien's psychological\ncondition. The idea found in his heart a budding love which it had no\ndifficulty in destroying. This love was only founded on Mathilde's rare\nbeauty, or rather on her queenly manners and her admirable dresses.\nJulien was still a parvenu in this respect. We are assured that there\nis nothing equal to a pretty society women for dazzling a peasant\nwho is at the same time a man of intellect, when he is admitted to\nfirst class society. It had not been Mathilde's character which had\ngiven Julien food for dreams in the days that had just passed. He had\nsufficient sense to realise that he knew nothing about her character.\nAll he saw of it might be merely superficial.\n\nFor instance, Mathilde would not have missed mass on Sunday for\nanything in the world. She accompanied her mother there nearly every\ntime. If when in the salon of the Hotel de La Mole some indiscreet man\nforgot where he was, and indulged in the remotest allusion to any jest\nagainst the real or supposed interests of Church or State, Mathilde\nimmediately assumed an icy seriousness. Her previously arch expression\nre-assumed all the impassive haughtiness of an old family portrait.\n\nBut Julien had assured himself that she always had one or two of\nVoltaire's most philosophic volumes in her room. He himself would\noften steal some tomes of that fine edition which was so magnificently\nbound. By moving each volume a little distance from the one next to it\nhe managed to hide the absence of the one he took away, but he soon\nnoticed that someone else was reading Voltaire. He had recourse to a\ntrick worthy of the seminary and placed some pieces of hair on those\nvolumes which he thought were likely to interest mademoiselle de La\nMole. They disappeared for whole weeks.\n\nM. de La Mole had lost patience with his bookseller, who always sent\nhim all the spurious memoirs, and had instructed Julien to buy all the\nnew books, which were at all stimulating. But in order to prevent the\npoison spreading over the household, the secretary was ordered to place\nthe books in a little book-case that stood in the marquis's own room.\nHe was soon quite certain that although the new books were hostile to\nthe interests of both State and Church, they very quickly disappeared.\nIt was certainly not Norbert who read them.\n\nJulien attached undue importance to this discovery, and attributed to\nmademoiselle de la Mole a Machiavellian role. This seeming depravity\nconstituted a charm in his eyes, the one moral charm, in fact, which\nshe possessed. He was led into this extravagance by his boredom with\nhypocrisy and moral platitudes.\n\nIt was more a case of his exciting his own imagination than of his\nbeing swept away by his love.\n\nIt was only after he had abandoned himself to reveries about the\nelegance of mademoiselle de la Mole's figure, the excellent taste\nof he dress, the whiteness of her hand, the beauty of her arm, the\n_disinvoltura_ of all her movements, that he began to find himself in\nlove. Then in order to complete the charm he thought her a Catherine\nde' Medici. Nothing was too deep or too criminal for the character\nwhich he ascribed to her. She was the ideal of the Maslons, the\nFrilairs, and the Castanedes whom he had admired so much in his youth.\nTo put it shortly, she represented in his eyes the Paris ideal.\n\nCould anything possibly be more humorous than believing in the depth or\nin the depravity of the Parisian character?\n\nIt is impossible that this _trio_ is making fun of me thought Julien.\nThe reader knows little of his character if he has not begun already\nto imagine his cold and gloomy expression when he answered Mathilde's\nlooks. A bitter irony rebuffed those assurances of friendship which the\nastonished mademoiselle de la Mole ventured to hazard on two or three\noccasions.\n\nPiqued by this sudden eccentricity, the heart of this young girl,\nthough naturally cold, bored and intellectual, became as impassioned as\nit was naturally capable of being. But there was also a large element\nof pride in Mathilde's character, and the birth of a sentiment which\nmade all her happiness dependent on another, was accompanied by a\ngloomy melancholy.\n\nJulien had derived sufficient advantage from his stay in Paris to\nappreciate that this was not the frigid melancholy of ennui. Instead\nof being keen as she had been on at homes, theatres, and all kinds of\ndistractions, she now shunned them.\n\nMusic sung by Frenchmen bored Mathilde to death, yet Julien, who\nalways made a point of being present when the audience came out of the\nOpera, noticed that she made a point of getting taken there as often\nas she could. He thought he noticed that she had lost a little of that\nbrilliant neatness of touch which used to be manifest in everything\nshe did. She would sometimes answer her friends with jests rendered\npositively outrageous through the sheer force of their stinging energy.\nHe thought that she made a special butt of the marquis de Croisenois.\nThat young man must be desperately in love with money not to give the\ngo-by to that girl, however rich she maybe, thought Julien. And as for\nhimself, indignant at these outrages on masculine self-respect, he\nredoubled his frigidity towards her. Sometimes he went so far as to\nanswer her with scant courtesy.\n\nIn spite of his resolution not to become the dupe of Mathilde's signs\nof interest, these manifestations were so palpable on certain days, and\nJulien, whose eyes were beginning to be opened, began to find her so\npretty, that he was sometimes embarrassed.\n\n\"These young people of society will score in the long run by their\nskill and their coolness over my inexperience,\" he said to himself. \"I\nmust leave and put an end to all this.\" The marquis had just entrusted\nhim with the administration of a number of small estates and houses\nwhich he possessed in Lower Languedoc. A journey was necessary; M. de\nla Mole reluctantly consented. Julien had become his other self, except\nin those matters which concerned his political career.\n\n\"So, when we come to balance the account,\" Julien said to himself,\nas he prepared his departure, \"they have not caught me. Whether the\njests that mademoiselle de la Mole made to those gentlemen are real,\nor whether they were only intended to inspire me with confidence, they\nhave simply amused me.\n\n\"If there is no conspiracy against the carpenter's son, mademoiselle de\nla Mole is an enigma, but at any rate, she is quite as much an enigma\nfor the marquis de Croisenois as she is to me. Yesterday, for instance,\nher bad temper was very real, and I had the pleasure of seeing her\nsnub, thanks to her favour for me, a young man who is as noble and as\nrich as I am a poor scoundrel of a plebeian. That is my finest triumph;\nit will divert me in my post-chaise as I traverse the Languedoc plains.\"\n\nHe had kept his departure a secret, but Mathilde knew, even better than\nhe did himself, that he was going to leave Paris the following day for\na long time. She developed a maddening headache, which was rendered\nworse by the stuffy salon. She walked a great deal in the garden, and\npersecuted Norbert, the marquis de Croisenois, Caylus, de Luz, and\nsome other young men who had dined at the Hotel de la Mole, to such an\nextent by her mordant witticisms, that she drove them to take their\nleave. She kept looking at Julien in a strange way.\n\n\"Perhaps that look is a pose,\" thought Julien, \"but how about that\nhurried breathing and all that agitation? Bah,\" he said to himself,\n\"who am I to judge of such things? We are dealing with the cream of\nParisian sublimity and subtlety. As for that hurried breathing which\nwas on the point of affecting me, she no doubt studied it with Leontine\nFay, whom she likes so much.\"\n\nThey were left alone; the conversation was obviously languishing. \"No,\nJulien has no feeling for me,\" said Mathilde to herself, in a state of\nreal unhappiness.\n\nAs he was taking leave of her she took his arm violently.\n\n\"You will receive a letter from me this evening,\" she said to him in a\nvoice that was so changed that its tone was scarcely recognisable.\n\nThis circumstance affected Julien immediately.\n\n\"My father,\" she continued, \"has a proper regard for the services you\nrender him. You must not leave to-morrow; find an excuse.\" And she ran\naway.\n\nHer figure was charming. It was impossible to have a prettier foot. She\nran with a grace which fascinated Julien, but will the reader guess\nwhat he began to think about after she had finally left him? He felt\nwounded by the imperious tone with which she had said the words, \"you\nmust.\" Louis XV. too, when on his death-bed, had been keenly irritated\nby the words \"you must,\" which had been tactlessly pronounced by his\nfirst physician, and yet Louis XV. was not a parvenu.\n\nAn hour afterwards a footman gave Julien a letter. It was quite simply\na declaration of love.\n\n\"The style is too affected,\" said Julien to himself, as he endeavoured\nto control by his literary criticism the joy which was spreading over\nhis cheeks and forcing him to smile in spite of himself.\n\nAt last his passionate exultation was too strong to be controlled. \"So\nI,\" he suddenly exclaimed, \"I, the poor peasant, get a declaration of\nlove from a great lady.\"\n\n\"As for myself, I haven't done so badly,\" he added, restraining his\njoy as much as he could. \"I have managed to preserve my self-respect.\nI did not say that I loved her.\" He began to study the formation of\nthe letters. Mademoiselle de la Mole had a pretty little English\nhandwriting. He needed some concrete occupation to distract him from a\njoy which verged on delirium.\n\n\"Your departure forces me to speak.... I could not bear not to see you\nagain.\"\n\nA thought had just struck Julien like a new discovery. It interrupted\nhis examination of Mathilde's letter, and redoubled his joy. \"So I\nscore over the marquis de Croisenois,\" he exclaimed. \"Yes, I who could\nonly talk seriously! And he is so handsome. He has a moustache and a\ncharming uniform. He always manages to say something witty and clever\njust at the psychological moment.\"\n\nJulien experienced a delightful minute. He was wandering at random in\nthe garden, mad with happiness.\n\nAfterwards he went up to his desk, and had himself ushered in to the\nmarquis de la Mole, who was fortunately still in. He showed him several\nstamped papers which had come from Normandy, and had no difficulty\nin convincing him that he was obliged to put off his departure for\nLanguedoc in order to look after the Normandy lawsuits.\n\n\"I am very glad that you are not going,\" said the marquis to him, when\nthey had finished talking business. \"I like seeing you.\" Julien went\nout; the words irritated him.\n\n\"And I--I am going to seduce his daughter! and perhaps render\nimpossible that marriage with the marquis de Croisenois to which the\nmarquis looks forward with such delight. If he does not get made a\nduke, at any rate his daughter will have a coronet.\" Julien thought of\nleaving for Languedoc in spite of Mathilde's letter, and in spite of\nthe explanation he had just given to the marquis. This flash of virtue\nquickly disappeared.\n\n\"How kind it is of me,\" he said to himself, \"me ... a plebeian, takes\npity on a family of this rank! Yes, me, whom the duke of Chaulnes\ncalls a servant! How does the marquis manage to increase his immense\nfortune? By selling stock when he picks up information at the castle\nthat there will be a panic of a _coup d'etat_ on the following day.\nAnd shall I, who have been flung down into the lowest class by a cruel\nprovidence--I, whom providence has given a noble heart but not an\nincome of a thousand francs, that is to say, not enough to buy bread\nwith, literally not enough to buy bread with--shall I refuse a pleasure\nthat presents itself? A limpid fountain which will quench my thirst in\nthis scorching desert of mediocrity which I am traversing with such\ndifficulty! Upon my word, I am not such a fool! Each man for himself in\nthat desert of egoism which is called life.\"\n\nAnd he remembered certain disdainful looks which madame de la Mole, and\nespecially her lady friends, had favoured him with.\n\nThe pleasure of scoring over the marquis de Croisenois completed the\nrout of this echo of virtue.\n\n\"How I should like to make him angry,\" said Julien. \"With what\nconfidence would I give him a sword thrust now!\" And he went through\nthe segoon thrust. \"Up till now I have been a mere usher, who exploited\nbasely the little courage he had. After this letter I am his equal.\n\n\"Yes,\" he slowly said to himself, with an infinite pleasure, \"the\nmerits of the marquis and myself have been weighed in the balance, and\nit is the poor carpenter from the Jura who turns the scale.\n\n\"Good!\" he exclaimed, \"this is how I shall sign my answer. Don't\nimagine, mademoiselle de la Mole, that I am forgetting my place. I will\nmake you realise and fully appreciate that it is for a carpenter's son\nthat you are betraying a descendant of the famous Guy de Croisenois who\nfollowed St. Louis to the Crusade.\"\n\nJulien was unable to control his joy. He was obliged to go down into\nthe garden. He had locked himself in his room, but he found it too\nnarrow to breathe in.\n\n\"To think of it being me, the poor peasant from the Jura,\" he kept\non repeating to himself, \"to think of it being me who am eternally\ncondemned to wear this gloomy black suit! Alas twenty years ago I would\nhave worn a uniform like they do! In those days a man like me either\ngot killed or became a general at thirty-six. The letter which he held\nclenched in his hand gave him a heroic pose and stature. Nowadays, it\nis true, if one sticks to this black suit, one gets at forty an income\nof a hundred thousand francs and the blue ribbon like my lord bishop of\nBeauvais.\n\n\"Well,\" he said to himself with a Mephistophelian smile, \"I have more\nbrains than they. I am shrewd enough to choose the uniform of my\ncentury. And he felt a quickening of his ambition and of his attachment\nto his ecclesiastical dress. What cardinals of even lower birth than\nmine have not succeeded in governing! My compatriot Granvelle, for\ninstance.\"\n\nJulien's agitation became gradually calmed! Prudence emerged to the\ntop. He said to himself like his master Tartuffe whose part he knew by\nheart:\n\n    Je puis croire ces mots, un artifice honnete.\n    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *\n    Je ne me firai point a des propos si doux,\n    Qu'un peu de ses faveurs apres quoi je soupire\n    Ne vienne m'assurer tout ce qu'ils m'ont pudire.\n                                  _Tartuffe, act iv. Scene v_.\n\n\"Tartuffe, too, was ruined by a woman, and he was as good as most\nmen.... My answer may be shown.... and the way out of that is this,\" he\nadded pronouncing his words slowly with an intonation of deliberate and\nrestrained ferocity. \"We will begin by quoting the most vivid passages\nfrom the letter of the sublime Mathilde.\"\n\n\"Quite so, but M. de Croisenois' lackeys will hurl themselves upon me\nand snatch the original away.\"\n\n\"No, they won't, for I am well armed, and as we know I am accustomed to\nfiring on lackeys.\"\n\n\"Well, suppose one of them has courage, and hurls himself upon me. He\nhas been promised a hundred napoleons. I kill him, or wound him, good,\nthat's what they want. I shall be thrown into prison legally. I shall\nbe had up in the police court and the judges will send me with all\njustice and all equity to keep Messieurs Fontan and Magalon company\nin Poissy. There I shall be landed in the middle of four hundred\nscoundrels.... And am I to have the slightest pity on these people,\"\nhe exclaimed getting up impetuously! \"Do they show any to persons of\nthe third estate when they have them in their power!\" With these words\nhis gratitude to M. de la Mole, which had been in spite of himself\ntorturing his conscience up to this time, breathed its last.\n\n\"Softly, gentlemen, I follow this little Machiavellian trick, the abbe\nMaslon or M. Castanede of the seminary could not have done better. You\nwill take the provocative letter away from me and I shall exemplify the\nsecond volume of Colonel Caron at Colmar.\"\n\n\"One moment, gentlemen, I will send the fatal letter in a well-sealed\npacket to M. the abbe Pirard to take care of. He's an honest man, a\nJansenist, and consequently incorruptible. Yes, but he will open the\nletters.... Fouque is the man to whom I must send it.\"\n\nWe must admit that Julien's expression was awful, his countenance\nghastly; it breathed unmitigated criminality. It represented the\nunhappy man at war with all society.\n\n\"To arms,\" exclaimed Julien. And he bounded up the flight of steps\nof the hotel with one stride. He entered the stall of the street\nscrivener; he frightened him. \"Copy this,\" he said, giving him\nmademoiselle de la Mole's letter.\n\nWhile the scrivener was working, he himself wrote to Fouque. He asked\nhim to take care of a valuable deposit. \"But he said to himself,\"\nbreaking in upon his train of thought, \"the secret service of the\npost-office will open my letter, and will give you gentlemen the one\nyou are looking for ... not quite, gentlemen.\" He went and bought an\nenormous Bible from a Protestant bookseller, skillfully hid Mathilde's\nletter in the cover, and packed it all up. His parcel left by the\ndiligence addressed to one of Fouque's workmen, whose name was known to\nnobody at Paris.\n\nThis done, he returned to the Hotel de la Mole, joyous and buoyant.\n\nNow it's our turn he exclaimed as he locked himself into the room and\nthrew off his coat.\n\n\"What! mademoiselle,\" he wrote to Mathilde, \"is it mademoiselle de la\nMole who gets Arsene her father's lackey to hand an only too flattering\nletter to a poor carpenter from the Jura, in order no doubt to make\nfun of his simplicity?\" And he copied out the most explicit phrases in\nthe letter which he had just received. His own letter would have done\nhonour to the diplomatic prudence of M. the Chevalier de Beauvoisis.\nIt was still only ten o'clock when Julien entered the Italian opera,\nintoxicated with happiness and that feeling of his own power which was\nso novel for a poor devil like him. He heard his friend Geronimo sing.\nMusic had never exalted him to such a pitch.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV\n\nA YOUNG GIRL'S THOUGHTS\n\n\n        What perplexity! What sleepless nights! Great God. Am I\n        going to make myself contemptible? He will despise me\n        himself. But he is leaving, he is going away.\n                                    _Alfred de Musset_\n\n\nMathilde had not written without a struggle. Whatever might have been\nthe beginning of her interest in Julien, it soon dominated that pride\nwhich had reigned unchallenged in her heart since she had begun to know\nherself. This cold and haughty soul was swept away for the first time\nby a sentiment of passion, but if this passion dominated her pride,\nit still kept faithfully to the habits of that pride. Two months of\nstruggles and new sensations had transformed, so to speak her whole\nmoral life.\n\nMathilde thought she was in sight of happiness. This vista,\nirresistible as it is for those who combine a superior intellect with\na courageous soul, had to struggle for a long time against her self\nrespect and all her vulgar duties. One day she went into her mother's\nroom at seven o'clock in the morning and asked permission to take\nrefuge in Villequier. The marquise did not even deign to answer her,\nand advised her to go back to bed. This was the last effort of vulgar\nprudence and respect for tradition.\n\nThe fear of doing wrong and of offending those ideas which the\nCaylus's, the de Luz's, the Croisenois' held for sacred had little\npower over her soul. She considered such creatures incapable of\nunderstanding her. She would have consulted them, if it had been a\nmatter of buying a carriage or an estate. Her real fear was that Julien\nwas displeased with her.\n\n\"Perhaps he, too, has only the appearance of a superior man?\"\n\nShe abhorred lack of character; that was her one objection to the\nhandsome young men who surrounded her. The more they made elegant\nfun of everything which deviated from the prevailing mode, or which\nconformed to it but indifferently, the lower they fell in her eyes.\n\nThey were brave and that was all. \"And after all in what way were they\nbrave?\" she said to herself. \"In duels, but the duel is nothing more\nthan a formality. The whole thing is mapped out beforehand, even the\ncorrect thing to say when you fall. Stretched on the turf, and with\nyour hand on your heart, you must vouchsafe a generous forgiveness to\nthe adversary, and a few words for a fair lady, who is often imaginary,\nor if she does exist, will go to a ball on the day of your death for\nfear of arousing suspicion.\"\n\n\"One braves danger at the head of a squadron brilliant with steel, but\nhow about that danger which is solitary, strange, unforeseen and really\nugly.\"\n\n\"Alas,\" said Mathilde to herself, \"it was at the court of Henri III.\nthat men who were great both by character and by birth were to be\nfound! Yes! If Julien had served at Jarnac or Moncontour, I should no\nlonger doubt. In those days of strength and vigour Frenchmen were not\ndolls. The day of the battle was almost the one which presented the\nfewest problems.\"\n\nTheir life was not imprisoned, like an Egyptian mummy in a covering\nwhich was common to all, and always the same. \"Yes,\" she added, \"there\nwas more real courage in going home alone at eleven o'clock in the\nevening when one came out of the Hotel de Soissons where Catherine\nde' Medici lived than there is nowadays in running over to Algiers.\nA man's life was then a series of hazards. Nowadays civilisation has\nbanished hazard. There are no more surprises. If anything new appears\nin any idea there are not sufficient epigrams to immortalise it, but if\nanything new appears in actual life, our panic reaches the lowest depth\nof cowardice. Whatever folly panic makes us commit is excused. What a\ndegenerate and boring age! What would Boniface de la Mole have said\nif, lifting his cut-off head out of the tomb, he had seen seventeen of\nhis descendants allow themselves to be caught like sheep in 1793 in\norder to be guillotined two days afterwards! Death was certain, but it\nwould have been bad form to have defended themselves and to have killed\nat least one or two Jacobins. Yes! in the heroic days of France, in\nthe age of Boniface de la Mole, Julien would have been the chief of\na squadron, while my brother would have been the young priest with\ndecorous manners, with wisdom in his eyes and reason on his lips.\" Some\nmonths previously Mathilde had given up all hope of meeting any being\nwho was a little different from the common pattern. She had found some\nhappiness in allowing herself to write to some young society men. This\nrash procedure, which was so unbecoming and so imprudent in a young\ngirl, might have disgraced her in the eyes of M. de Croisenois, the\nDuke de Chaulnes, his father, and the whole Hotel de Chaulnes, who on\nseeing the projected marriage broken off would have wanted to know the\nreason. At that time Mathilde had been unable to sleep on those days\nwhen she had written one of her letters. But those letters were only\nanswers. But now she ventured to declare her own love. She wrote first\n(what a terrible word!) to a man of the lowest social grade.\n\nThis circumstance rendered her eternal disgrace quite inevitable in the\nevent of detection. Who of the women who visited her mother would have\ndared to take her part? What official excuse could be evolved which\ncould successfully cope with the awful contempt of society.\n\nBesides speaking was awful enough, but writing! \"There are some\nthings which are not written!\" Napoleon had exclaimed on learning of\nthe capitulation of Baylen. And it was Julien who had told her that\nepigram, as though giving her a lesson that was to come in useful\nsubsequently.\n\nBut all this was comparatively unimportant, Mathilde's anguish had\nother causes. Forgetting the terrible effect it would produce on\nsociety, and the ineffable blot on her scutcheon that would follow such\nan outrage on her own caste, Mathilde was going to write to a person\nof a very different character to the Croisenois', the de Luz's, the\nCaylus's.\n\nShe would have been frightened at the depth and mystery in Julien's\ncharacter, even if she had merely entered into a conventional\nacquaintance with him. And she was going to make him her lover, perhaps\nher master.\n\n\"What will his pretensions not be, if he is ever in a position to do\neverything with me? Well! I shall say, like Medea: _Au milieu de tant\nde perils il me reste Moi_.\" She believed that Julien had no respect\nfor nobility of blood. What was more, he probably did not love her.\n\nIn these last moments of awful doubt her feminine pride suggested to\nher certain ideas. \"Everything is bound to be extraordinary in the life\nof a girl like me,\" exclaimed Mathilde impatiently. The pride, which\nhad been drilled into her since her cradle, began to struggle with her\nvirtue. It was at this moment that Julien's departure precipitated\neverything.\n\n(Such characters are luckily very rare.)\n\nVery late in the evening, Julien was malicious enough to have a very\nheavy trunk taken down to the porter's lodge. He called the valet, who\nwas courting mademoiselle de la Mole's chambermaid, to move it. \"This\nmanoeuvre cannot result in anything,\" he said to himself, \"but if it\ndoes succeed, she will think that I have gone.\" Very tickled by this\nhumorous thought, he fell asleep. Mathilde did not sleep a wink.\n\nJulien left the hotel very early the next morning without being seen,\nbut he came back before eight o'clock.\n\nHe had scarcely entered the library before M. de la Mole appeared\non the threshold. He handed her his answer. He thought that it was\nhis duty to speak to her, it was certainly perfectly feasible, but\nmademoiselle de la Mole would not listen to him and disappeared. Julien\nwas delighted. He did not know what to say.\n\n\"If all this is not a put up job with comte Norbert, it is clear that\nit is my cold looks which have kindled the strange love which this\naristocratic girl chooses to entertain for me. I should be really\ntoo much of a fool if I ever allowed myself to take a fancy to that\nbig blonde doll.\" This train of reasoning left him colder and more\ncalculating than he had ever been.\n\n\"In the battle for which we are preparing,\" he added, \"pride of birth\nwill be like a high hill which constitutes a military position between\nher and me. That must be the field of the manoeuvres. I made a great\nmistake in staying in Paris; this postponing of my departure cheapens\nand exposes me, if all this is simply a trick. What danger was there in\nleaving? If they were making fun of me, I was making fun of them. If\nher interest for me was in any way real, I was making that interest a\nhundred times more intense.\"\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole's letter had given Julien's vanity so keen a\npleasure, that wreathed as he was in smiles at his good fortune he had\nforgotten to think seriously about the propriety of leaving.\n\nIt was one of the fatal elements of his character to be extremely\nsensitive to his own weaknesses. He was extremely upset by this one,\nand had almost forgotten the incredible victory which had preceded this\nslight check, when about nine o'clock mademoiselle de la Mole appeared\non the threshold of the library, flung him a letter and ran away.\n\n\"So this is going to be the romance by letters,\" he said as he picked\nit up. \"The enemy makes a false move; I will reply by coldness and\nvirtue.\"\n\nHe was asked with a poignancy which merely increased his inner gaiety\nto give a definite answer. He indulged in the pleasure of mystifying\nthose persons who he thought wanted to make fun of him for two pages,\nand it was out of humour again that he announced towards the end of his\nanswer his definite departure on the following morning.\n\n\"The garden will be a useful place to hand her the letter,\" he thought\nafter he had finished it, and he went there. He looked at the window of\nmademoiselle de la Mole's room.\n\nIt was on the first storey, next to her mother's apartment, but there\nwas a large ground floor.\n\nThis latter was so high that, as Julien walked under the avenue\nof pines with his letter in his hands, he could not be seen from\nmademoiselle de la Mole's window. The dome formed by the well clipped\npines intercepted the view. \"What!\" said Julien to himself angrily,\n\"another indiscretion! If they have really begun making fun of me,\nshowing myself with a letter is playing into my enemy's hands.\"\n\nNorbert's room was exactly above his sister's and if Julien came out\nfrom under the dome formed by the clipped branches of the pine, the\ncomte and his friend could follow all his movements.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole appeared behind her window; he half showed his\nletter; she lowered her head, then Julien ran up to his own room and\nmet accidentally on the main staircase the fair Mathilde, who seized\nthe letter with complete self-possession and smiling eyes.\n\n\"What passion there was in the eyes of that poor madame de Renal,\" said\nJulien to himself, \"when she ventured to receive a letter from me,\neven after six months of intimate relationship! I don't think she ever\nlooked at me with smiling eyes in her whole life.\"\n\nHe did not formulate so precisely the rest of his answer; was he\nperhaps ashamed of the triviality of the motive which were actuating\nhim?\n\n\"But how different too,\" he went on to think, \"are her elegant morning\ndress and her distinguished appearance! A man of taste on seeing\nmademoiselle de la Mole thirty yards off would infer the position which\nshe occupies in society. That is what can be called a specific merit.\"\n\nIn spite of all this humorousness, Julien was not yet quite honest with\nhimself; madame de Renal had no marquis de Croisenois to sacrifice to\nhim. His only rival was that grotesque sub-prefect, M. Charcot, who\nassumed the name of Maugiron, because there were no Maugirons left in\nFrance.\n\nAt five o'clock Julien received a third letter. It was thrown to him\nfrom the library door. Mademoiselle de la Mole ran away again. \"What\na mania for writing,\" he said to himself with a laugh, \"when one can\ntalk so easily. The enemy wants my letters, that is clear, and many of\nthem.\" He did not hurry to open this one. \"More elegant phrases,\" he\nthought; but he paled as he read it. There were only eight lines.\n\n\"I need to speak to you; I must speak to you this evening. Be in\nthe garden at the moment when one o'clock is striking. Take the big\ngardeners' ladder near the well; place it against my window, and climb\nup to my room. It is moonlight; never mind.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV\n\nIS IT A PLOT?\n\n\nOh, how cruel is the interval between the conception\nand the execution of a great project. What vain fears,\nwhat fits of irresolution! It is a matter of life and\ndeath--even more is at stake honour!--_Schiller_.\n\n\n\"This is getting serious,\" thought Julien, \"and a little too clear,\"\nhe added after thinking a little. \"Why to be sure! This fine young\nlady can talk to me in the library with a freedom which, thank heaven,\nis absolutely complete; the marquis, frightened as he is that I show\nhim accounts, never sets foot in it. Why! M. de la Mole and the comte\nNorbert, the only persons who ever come here, are absent nearly the\nwhole day, and the sublime Mathilde for whom a sovereign prince\nwould not be too noble a suitor, wants me to commit an abominable\nindiscretion.\n\n\"It is clear they want to ruin me, or at the least make fun of me.\nFirst they wanted to ruin me by my own letters; they happen to be\ndiscreet; well, they want some act which is clearer than daylight.\nThese handsome little gentlemen think I am too silly or too conceited.\nThe devil! To think of climbing like this up a ladder to a storey\ntwenty-five feet high in the finest moonlight. They would have time to\nsee me, even from the neighbouring houses. I shall cut a pretty figure\nto be sure on my ladder!\" Julien went up to his room again and began\nto pack his trunk whistling. He had decided to leave and not even to\nanswer.\n\nBut this wise resolution did not give him peace of mind. \"If by\nchance,\" he suddenly said to himself after he had closed his trunk,\n\"Mathilde is in good faith, why then I cut the figure of an arrant\ncoward in her eyes. I have no birth myself, so I need great qualities\nattested straight away by speaking actions--money down--no charitable\ncredit.\"\n\nHe spent a quarter-of-an-hour in reflecting. \"What is the good of\ndenying it?\" he said at last. \"She will think me a coward. I shall lose\nnot only the most brilliant person in high society, as they all said at\nM. the duke de Retz's ball, but also the heavenly pleasure of seeing\nthe marquis de Croisenois, the son of a duke, who will be one day a\nduke himself, sacrificed to me. A charming young man who has all the\nqualities I lack. A happy wit, birth, fortune....\n\n\"This regret will haunt me all my life, not on her account, 'there are\nso many mistresses!... but there is only one honour!' says old don\nDiego. And here am I clearly and palpably shrinking from the first\ndanger that presents itself; for the duel with M. de Beauvoisis was\nsimply a joke. This is quite different. A servant may fire at me point\nblank, but that is the least danger; I may be disgraced.\n\n\"This is getting serious, my boy,\" he added with a Gascon gaiety and\naccent. \"Honour is at stake. A poor devil flung by chance into as low a\ngrade as I am will never find such an opportunity again. I shall have\nmy conquests, but they will be inferior ones....\"\n\nHe reflected for a long time, he walked up and down hurriedly, and\nthen from time to time would suddenly stop. A magnificent marble bust\nof cardinal de Richelieu had been placed in his room. It attracted his\ngaze in spite of himself. This bust seemed to look at him severely as\nthough reproaching him with the lack of that audacity which ought to be\nso natural to the French character. \"Would I have hesitated in your age\ngreat man?\"\n\n\"At the worst,\" said Julien to himself, \"suppose all this is a trap,\nit is pretty black and pretty compromising for a young girl. They know\nthat I am not the man to hold my tongue. They will therefore have to\nkill me. That was right enough in 1574 in the days of Boniface de la\nMole, but nobody today would ever have the pluck. They are not the same\nmen. Mademoiselle de la Mole is the object of so much jealousy. Four\nhundred salons would ring with her disgrace to-morrow, and how pleased\nthey would all be.\n\n\"The servants gossip among themselves about marked the favours of\nwhich I am the recipient. I know it, I have heard them....\n\n\"On the other hand they're her letters. They may think that I have\nthem on me. They may surprise me in her room and take them from me. I\nshall have to deal with two, three, or four men. How can I tell? But\nwhere are they going to find these men? Where are they to find discreet\nsubordinates in Paris? Justice frightens them.... By God! It may be the\nCaylus's, the Croisenois', the de Luz's themselves. The idea of the\nludicrous figure I should cut in the middle of them at the particular\nminute may have attracted them. Look out for the fate of Abelard, M.\nthe secretary.\n\n\"Well, by heaven, I'll mark you. I'll strike at your faces like Caesar's\nsoldiers at Pharsalia. As for the letters, I can put them in a safe\nplace.\"\n\nJulien copied out the two last, hid them in a fine volume of Voltaire\nin the library and himself took the originals to the post.\n\n\"What folly am I going to rush into,\" he said to himself with surprise\nand terror when he returned. He had been a quarter of an hour without\ncontemplating what he was to do on this coming night.\n\n\"But if I refuse, I am bound to despise myself afterwards. This matter\nwill always occasion me great doubt during my whole life, and to a man\nlike me such doubts are the most poignant unhappiness. Did I not feel\nlike that for Amanda's lover! I think I would find it easier to forgive\nmyself for a perfectly clear crime; once admitted, I could leave off\nthinking of it.\n\n\"Why! I shall have been the rival of a man who bears one of the finest\nnames in France, and then out of pure light-heartedness, declared\nmyself his inferior! After all, it is cowardly not to go; these words\nclinch everything,\" exclaimed Julien as he got up ... \"besides she is\nquite pretty.\"\n\n\"If this is not a piece of treachery, what a folly is she not\ncommitting for my sake. If it's a piece of mystification, by heaven,\ngentlemen, it only depends on me to turn the jest into earnest and that\nI will do.\n\n\"But supposing they tie my hands together at the moment I enter the\nroom: they may have placed some ingenious machine there.\n\n\"It's like a duel,\" he said to himself with a laugh. \"Everyone makes\na full parade, says my _maitre d'armes_, but the good God, who wishes\nthe thing to end, makes one of them forget to parry. Besides, here's\nsomething to answer them with.\" He drew his pistols out of his pocket,\nand although the priming was shining, he renewed it.\n\nThere was still several hours to wait. Julien wrote to Fouque in order\nto have something to do. \"My friend, do not open the enclosed letter\nexcept in the event of an accident, if you hear that something strange\nhas happened to me. In that case blot out the proper names in the\nmanuscript which I am sending you, make eight copies of it, and send\nit to the papers of Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Brussels, etc. Ten\ndays later have the manuscript printed, send the first copy to M. the\nmarquis de la Mole, and a fortnight after that throw the other copies\nat night into the streets of Verrieres.\"\n\nJulien made this little memoir in defence of his position as little\ncompromising as possible for mademoiselle de la Mole. Fouque was only\nto open it in the event of an accident. It was put in the form of a\nstory, but in fact it exactly described his situation.\n\nJulien had just fastened his packet when the dinner bell rang. It made\nhis heart beat. His imagination was distracted by the story which he\nhad just composed, and fell a prey to tragic presentiments. He saw\nhimself seized by servants, trussed, and taken into a cellar with a gag\nin his mouth. A servant was stationed there, who never let him out of\nsight, and if the family honour required that the adventure should have\na tragic end, it was easy to finish everything with those poisons which\nleave no trace. They could then say that he had died of an illness and\nwould carry his dead body back into his room.\n\nThrilled like a dramatic author by his own story, Julien was really\nafraid when he entered the dining-room. He looked at all those liveried\nservants--he studied their faces. \"Which ones are chosen for to-night's\nexpedition?\" he said to himself. \"The memories of the court of Henri\nIII. are so vivid in this family, and so often recalled, that if they\nthink they have been insulted they will show more resolution than other\npersons of the same rank.\" He looked at mademoiselle de la Mole in\norder to read the family plans in her eyes; she was pale and looked\nquite middle-aged. He thought that she had never looked so great: she\nwas really handsome and imposing; he almost fell in love with her.\n\"_Pallida morte futura_,\" he said to himself (her pallor indicates\nher great plans). It was in vain that after dinner he made a point of\nwalking for a long time in the garden, mademoiselle did not appear.\nSpeaking to her at that moment would have lifted a great weight off his\nheart.\n\nWhy not admit it? he was afraid. As he had resolved to act, he was not\nashamed to abandon himself to this emotion. \"So long as I show the\nnecessary courage at the actual moment,\" he said to himself, \"what\ndoes it matter what I feel at this particular moment?\" He went to\nreconnoitre the situation and find out the weight of the ladder.\n\n\"This is an instrument,\" he said to himself with a smile, \"which I am\nfated to use both here and at Verrieres. What a difference! In those\ndays,\" he added with a sigh, \"I was not obliged to distrust the person\nfor whom I exposed myself to danger. What a difference also in the\ndanger!\"\n\n\"There would have been no dishonour for me if I had been killed in M.\nde Renal's gardens. It would have been easy to have made my death into\na mystery. But here all kinds of abominable scandal will be talked in\nthe salons of the Hotel de Chaulnes, the Hotel de Caylus, de Retz,\netc., everywhere in fact. I shall go down to posterity as a monster.\"\n\n\"For two or three years,\" he went on with a laugh, making fun of\nhimself; but the idea paralysed him. \"And how am I going to manage to\nget justified? Suppose that Fouque does print my posthumous pamphlet,\nit will only be taken for an additional infamy. Why! I get received\ninto a house, and I reward the hospitality which I have received,\nthe kindness with which I have been loaded by printing a pamphlet\nabout what has happened and attacking the honour of women! Nay! I'd a\nthousand times rather be duped.\"\n\nThe evening was awful.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI\n\nONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING\n\n\n        This garden was very big, it had been planned a\n        few years ago in perfect taste. But the trees were\n        more than a century old. It had a certain rustic\n        atmosphere.--_Massinger_.\n\n\nHe was going to write a countermanding letter to Fouque when eleven\no'clock struck. He noisily turned the lock of the door of his room as\nthough he had locked himself in. He went with a sleuth-like step to\nobserve what was happening over the house, especially on the fourth\nstorey where the servants slept. There was nothing unusual. One of\nmadame de la Mole's chambermaids was giving an entertainment, the\nservants were taking punch with much gaiety. \"Those who laugh like\nthat,\" thought Julien, \"cannot be participating in the nocturnal\nexpedition; if they were, they would be more serious.\"\n\nEventually he stationed himself in an obscure corner of the garden. \"If\ntheir plan is to hide themselves from the servants of the house, they\nwill despatch the persons whom they have told off to surprise me over\nthe garden wall.\n\n\"If M. de Croisenois shows any sense of proportion in this matter, he\nis bound to find it less compromising for the young person, whom he\nwishes to make his wife if he has me surprised before I enter her room.\"\n\nHe made a military and extremely detailed reconnaissance. \"My honour is\nat stake,\" he thought. \"If I tumble into some pitfall it will not be an\nexcuse in my own eyes to say, 'I never thought of it.'\"\n\nThe weather was desperately serene. About eleven o'clock the moon rose,\nat half-past twelve it completely illuminated the facade of the hotel\nlooking out upon the garden.\n\n\"She is mad,\" Julien said to himself. As one o'clock struck there\nwas still a light in comte Norbert's windows. Julien had never been\nso frightened in his life, he only saw the dangers of the enterprise\nand had no enthusiasm at all. He went and took the immense ladder,\nwaited five minutes to give her time to tell him not to go, and five\nminutes after one placed the ladder against Mathilde's window. He\nmounted softly, pistol in hand, astonished at not being attacked. As he\napproached the window it opened noiselessly.\n\n\"So there you are, monsieur,\" said Mathilde to him with considerable\nemotion. \"I have been following your movements for the last hour.\"\n\nJulien was very much embarrassed. He did not know how to conduct\nhimself. He did not feel at all in love. He thought in his\nembarrassment that he ought to be venturesome. He tried to kiss\nMathilde.\n\n\"For shame,\" she said to him, pushing him away.\n\nExtremely glad at being rebuffed, he hastened to look round him. The\nmoon was so brilliant that the shadows which it made in mademoiselle de\nla Mole's room were black. \"It's quite possible for men to be concealed\nwithout my seeing them,\" he thought.\n\n\"What have you got in your pocket at the side of your coat?\" Mathilde\nsaid to him, delighted at finding something to talk about. She was\nsuffering strangely; all those sentiments of reserve and timidity which\nwere so natural to a girl of good birth, had reasserted their dominion\nand were torturing her.\n\n\"I have all kinds of arms and pistols,\" answered Julien equally glad at\nhaving something to say.\n\n\"You must take the ladder away,\" said Mathilde.\n\n\"It is very big, and may break the windows of the salon down below or\nthe room on the ground floor.\"\n\n\"You must not break the windows,\" replied Mathilde making a vain effort\nto assume an ordinary conversational tone; \"it seems to me you can\nlower the ladder by tying a cord to the first rung. I have always a\nsupply of cords at hand.\"\n\n\"So this is a woman in love,\" thought Julien. \"She actually dares to\nsay that she is in love. So much self-possession and such shrewdness in\ntaking precautions are sufficient indications that I am not triumphing\nover M. de Croisenois as I foolishly believed, but that I am simply\nsucceeding him. As a matter of fact, what does it matter to me? Do I\nlove her? I am triumphing over the marquis in so far as he would be\nvery angry at having a successor, and angrier still at that successor\nbeing myself. How haughtily he looked at me this evening in the Cafe\nTortoni when he pretended not to recognise me! And how maliciously he\nbowed to me afterwards, when he could not get out of it.\"\n\nJulien had tied the cord to the last rung of the ladder. He lowered it\nsoftly and leant far out of the balcony in order to avoid its touching\nthe window pane. \"A fine opportunity to kill me,\" he thought, \"if\nanyone is hidden in Mathilde's room;\" but a profound silence continued\nto reign everywhere.\n\nThe ladder touched the ground. Julien succeeded in laying it on the\nborder of the exotic flowers along side the wall.\n\n\"What will my mother say,\" said Mathilde, \"when she sees her beautiful\nplants all crushed? You must throw down the cord,\" she added with great\nself-possession. \"If it were noticed going up to the balcony, it would\nbe a difficult circumstance to explain.\"\n\n\"And how am I to get away?\" said Julien in a jesting tone affecting the\nCreole accent. (One of the chambermaids of the household had been born\nin Saint-Domingo.)\n\n\"You? Why you will leave by the door,\" said Mathilde, delighted at the\nidea.\n\n\"Ah! how worthy this man is of all my love,\" she thought.\n\nJulien had just let the cord fall into the garden; Mathilde grasped\nhis arm. He thought he had been seized by an enemy and turned round\nsharply, drawing a dagger. She had thought that she had heard a window\nopening. They remained motionless and scarcely breathed. The moonlight\nlit up everything. The noise was not renewed and there was no more\ncause for anxiety.\n\nThen their embarrassment began again; it was great on both sides.\nJulien assured himself that the door was completely locked; he thought\nof looking under the bed, but he did not dare; \"they might have\nstationed one or two lackeys there.\" Finally he feared that he might\nreproach himself in the future for this lack of prudence, and did\nlook. Mathilde had fallen into all the anguish of the most extreme\ntimidity. She was horrified at her position.\n\n\"What have you done with my letters?\" she said at last.\n\n\"What a good opportunity to upset these gentlemen, if they are\neavesdropping, and thus avoiding the battle,\" thought Julien.\n\n\"The first is hid in a big Protestant Bible, which last night's\ndiligence is taking far away from here.\"\n\nHe spoke very distinctly as he went into these details, so as to be\nheard by any persons who might be concealed in two large mahogany\ncupboards which he had not dared to inspect.\n\n\"The other two are in the post and are bound for the same destination\nas the first.\"\n\n\"Heavens, why all these precautions?\" said Mathilde in alarm.\n\n\"What is the good of my lying?\" thought Julien, and he confessed all\nhis suspicions.\n\n\"So that's the cause for the coldness of your letters, dear,\" exclaimed\nMathilde in a tone of madness rather than of tenderness.\n\nJulien did not notice that nuance. The endearment made him lose his\nhead, or at any rate his suspicions vanished. He dared to clasp in his\narms that beautiful girl who inspired him with such respect. He was\nonly partially rebuffed. He fell back on his memory as he had once at\nBesancon with Armanda Binet, and recited by heart several of the finest\nphrases out of the _Nouvelle Heloise_.\n\n\"You have the heart of a man,\" was the answer she made without\nlistening too attentively to his phrases; \"I wanted to test your\ncourage, I confess it. Your first suspicions and your resolutions show\nyou even more intrepid, dear, than I had believed.\"\n\nMathilde had to make an effort to call him \"dear,\" and was evidently\npaying more attention to this strange method of speech than to\nthe substance of what she was saying. Being called \"dear\" without\nany tenderness in the tone afforded no pleasure to Julien; he was\nastonished at not being happy, and eventually fell back on his\nreasoning in order to be so. He saw that he was respected by this proud\nyoung girl who never gave undeserved praise; by means of this reasoning\nhe managed to enjoy the happiness of satisfied vanity. It was not,\nit was true, that soulful pleasure which he had sometimes found with\nmadame de Renal. There was no element of tenderness in the feelings\nof these first few minutes. It was the keen happiness of a gratified\nambition, and Julien was, above all, ambitious. He talked again of\nthe people whom he had suspected and of the precautions which he had\ndevised. As he spoke, he thought of the best means of exploiting his\nvictory.\n\nMathilde was still very embarrassed and seemed paralysed by the\nsteps which she had taken. She appeared delighted to find a topic\nof conversation. They talked of how they were to see each other\nagain. Julien extracted a delicious joy from the consciousness of\nthe intelligence and the courage, of which he again proved himself\npossessed during this discussion. They had to reckon with extremely\nsharp people, the little Tanbeau was certainly a spy, but Mathilde and\nhimself as well had their share of cleverness.\n\nWhat was easier than to meet in the library, and there make all\narrangements?\n\n\"I can appear in all parts of the hotel,\" added Julien, \"without\nrousing suspicion almost, in fact, in madame de la Mole's own room.\"\nIt was absolutely necessary to go through it in order to reach her\ndaughter's room. If Mathilde thought it preferable for him always to\ncome by a ladder, then he would expose himself to that paltry danger\nwith a heart intoxicated with joy.\n\nAs she listened to him speaking, Mathilde was shocked by this air of\ntriumph. \"So he is my master,\" she said to herself, she was already a\nprey to remorse. Her reason was horrified at the signal folly which she\nhad just committed. If she had had the power she would have annihilated\nboth herself and Julien. When for a few moments she managed by sheer\nwill-power to silence her pangs of remorse, she was rendered very\nunhappy by her timidity and wounded shame. She had quite failed to\nforesee the awful plight in which she now found herself.\n\n\"I must speak to him, however,\" she said at last. \"That is the proper\nthing to do. One does talk to one's lover.\" And then with a view of\naccomplishing a duty, and with a tenderness which was manifested rather\nin the words which she employed than in the inflection of her voice,\nshe recounted various resolutions which she had made concerning him\nduring the last few days.\n\nShe had decided that if he should dare to come to her room by the help\nof the gardener's ladder according to his instructions, she would be\nentirely his. But never were such tender passages spoken in a more\npolite and frigid tone. Up to the present this assignation had been\nicy. It was enough to make one hate the name of love. What a lesson\nin morality for a young and imprudent girl! Is it worth while to ruin\none's future for moments such as this?\n\nAfter long fits of hesitation which a superficial observer might have\nmistaken for the result of the most emphatic hate (so great is the\ndifficulty which a woman's self-respect finds in yielding even to so\nfirm a will as hers) Mathilde became eventually a charming mistress.\n\nIn point of fact, these ecstasies were a little artificial. Passionate\nlove was still more the model which they imitated than a real actuality.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole thought she was fulfilling a duty towards\nherself and towards her lover. \"The poor boy,\" she said to herself,\n\"has shewn a consummate bravery. He deserves to be happy or it is\nreally I who will be shewing a lack of character.\" But she would have\nbeen glad to have redeemed the cruel necessity in which she found\nherself even at the price of an eternity of unhappiness.\n\nIn spite of the awful violence she was doing to herself she was\ncompletely mistress of her words.\n\nNo regret and no reproach spoiled that night which Julien found\nextraordinary rather than happy. Great heavens! what a difference to\nhis last twenty-four hours' stay in Verrieres. These fine Paris manners\nmanage to spoil everything, even love, he said to himself, quite\nunjustly.\n\nHe abandoned himself to these reflections as he stood upright in one of\nthe great mahogany cupboards into which he had been put at the sign of\nthe first sounds of movement in the neighbouring apartment, which was\nmadame de la Mole's. Mathilde followed her mother to mass, the servants\nsoon left the apartment and Julien easily escaped before they came back\nto finish their work.\n\nHe mounted a horse and tried to find the most solitary spots in one\nof the forests near Paris. He was more astonished than happy. The\nhappiness which filled his soul from time to time resembled that of a\nyoung sub-lieutenant who as the result of some surprising feat has just\nbeen made a full-fledged colonel by the commander-in-chief; he felt\nhimself lifted up to an immense height. Everything which was above him\nthe day before was now on a level with him or even below him. Little\nby little Julien's happiness increased in proportion as he got further\naway from Paris.\n\nIf there was no tenderness in his soul, the reason was that, however\nstrange it may appear to say so, Mathilde had in everything she had\ndone, simply accomplished a duty. The only thing she had not foreseen\nin all the events of that night, was the shame and unhappiness which\nshe had experienced instead of that absolute felicity which is found in\nnovels.\n\n\"Can I have made a mistake, and not be in love with him?\" she said to\nherself.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII\n\nAN OLD SWORD\n\n\nI now mean to be serious; it is time\nSince laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious.\nA jest at vice by virtues called a crime.\n                             _Don Juan, c. xiii._\n\n\nShe did not appear at dinner. She came for a minute into the salon in\nthe evening, but did not look at Julien. He considered this behaviour\nstrange, \"but,\" he thought, \"I do not know their usages. She will give\nme some good reason for all this.\" None the less he was a prey to\nthe most extreme curiosity; he studied the expression of Mathilde's\nfeatures; he was bound to own to himself that she looked cold and\nmalicious. It was evidently not the same woman who on the proceeding\nnight had had, or pretended to have, transports of happiness which were\ntoo extravagant to be genuine.\n\nThe day after, and the subsequent day she showed the same coldness;\nshe did not look at him, she did not notice his existence. Julien was\ndevoured by the keenest anxiety and was a thousand leagues removed from\nthat feeling of triumph which had been his only emotion on the first\nday. \"Can it be by chance,\" he said to himself, \"a return to virtue?\"\nBut this was a very bourgeois word to apply to the haughty Mathilde.\n\n\"Placed in an ordinary position in life she would disbelieve in\nreligion,\" thought Julien, \"she only likes it in so far as it is very\nuseful to the interests of her class.\"\n\nBut perhaps she may as a mere matter of delicacy be keenly reproaching\nherself for the mistake which she has committed. Julien believed that\nhe was her first lover.\n\n\"But,\" he said to himself at other moments, \"I must admit that there is\nno trace of naivety, simplicity, or tenderness in her own demeanour;\nI have never seen her more haughty, can she despise me? It would be\nworthy of her to reproach herself simply because of my low birth, for\nwhat she has done for me.\"\n\nWhile Julien, full of those preconceived ideas which he had found in\nbooks and in his memories of Verrieres, was chasing the phantom of a\ntender mistress, who from the minute when she has made her lover happy\nno longer thinks of her own existence, Mathilde's vanity was infuriated\nagainst him.\n\nAs for the last two months she had no longer been bored, she was not\nfrightened of boredom; consequently, without being able to have the\nslightest suspicion of it, Julien had lost his greatest advantage.\n\n\"I have given myself a master,\" said mademoiselle de la Mole to\nherself, a prey to the blackest sorrow. \"Luckily he is honour itself,\nbut if I offend his vanity, he will revenge himself by making known\nthe nature of our relations.\" Mathilde had never had a lover, and\nthough passing through a stage of life which affords some tender\nillusions even to the coldest souls, she fell a prey to the most bitter\nreflections.\n\n\"He has an immense dominion over me since his reign is one of terror,\nand he is capable, if I provoke him, of punishing me with an awful\npenalty.\" This idea alone was enough to induce mademoiselle de la\nMole to insult him. Courage was the primary quality in her character.\nThe only thing which could give her any thrill and cure her from a\nfundamental and chronically recurring ennui was the idea that she was\nstaking her entire existence on a single throw.\n\nAs mademoiselle de la Mole obstinately refused to look at him, Julien\non the third day in spite of her evident objection, followed her into\nthe billiard-room after dinner.\n\n\"Well, sir, you think you have acquired some very strong rights over\nme?\" she said to him with scarcely controlled anger, \"since you venture\nto speak to me, in spite of my very clearly manifested wish? Do you\nknow that no one in the world has had such effrontery?\"\n\nThe dialogue of these two lovers was incomparably humourous. Without\nsuspecting it, they were animated by mutual sentiments of the most\nvivid hate. As neither the one nor the other had a meekly patient\ncharacter, while they were both disciples of good form, they soon came\nto informing each other quite clearly that they would break for ever.\n\n\"I swear eternal secrecy to you,\" said Julien. \"I should like to add\nthat I would never address a single word to you, were it not that a\nmarked change might perhaps jeopardise your reputation.\" He saluted\nrespectfully and left.\n\nHe accomplished easily enough what he believed to be a duty; he was\nvery far from thinking himself much in love with mademoiselle de la\nMole. He had certainly not loved her three days before, when he had\nbeen hidden in the big mahogany cupboard. But the moment that he found\nhimself estranged from her for ever his mood underwent a complete and\nrapid change.\n\nHis memory tortured him by going over the least details in that night,\nwhich had as a matter of fact left him so cold. In the very night that\nfollowed this announcement of a final rupture, Julien almost went mad\nat being obliged to own to himself that he loved mademoiselle de la\nMole.\n\nThis discovery was followed by awful struggles: all his emotions were\noverwhelmed.\n\nTwo days later, instead of being haughty towards M. de Croisenois, he\ncould have almost burst out into tears and embraced him.\n\nHis habituation to unhappiness gave him a gleam of commonsense, he\ndecided to leave for Languedoc, packed his trunk and went to the post.\n\nHe felt he would faint, when on arriving at the office of the mails, he\nwas told that by a singular chance there was a place in the Toulouse\nmail. He booked it and returned to the Hotel de la Mole to announce his\ndeparture to the marquis.\n\nM. de la Mole had gone out. More dead than alive Julien went into\nthe library to wait for him. What was his emotion when he found\nmademoiselle de la Mole there.\n\nAs she saw him come, she assumed a malicious expression which it was\nimpossible to mistake.\n\nIn his unhappiness and surprise Julien lost his head and was weak\nenough to say to her in a tone of the most heartfelt tenderness. \"So\nyou love me no more.\"\n\n\"I am horrified at having given myself to the first man who came\nalong,\" said Mathilde crying with rage against herself.\n\n\"The first man who came along,\" cried Julien, and he made for an old\nmediaeval sword which was kept in the library as a curiosity.\n\nHis grief--which he thought was at its maximum at the moment when he\nhad spoken to mademoiselle de la Mole--had been rendered a hundred\ntimes more intense by the tears of shame which he saw her shedding.\n\nHe would have been the happiest of men if he had been able to kill her.\n\nWhen he was on the point of drawing the sword with some difficulty from\nits ancient scabbard, Mathilde, rendered happy by so novel a sensation,\nadvanced proudly towards him, her tears were dry.\n\nThe thought of his benefactor--the marquis de la Mole--presented\nitself vividly to Julien. \"Shall I kill his daughter?\" he said to\nhimself, \"how horrible.\" He made a movement to throw down the sword.\n\"She will certainly,\" he thought, \"burst out laughing at the sight of\nsuch a melodramatic pose:\" that idea was responsible for his regaining\nall his self-possession. He looked curiously at the blade of the old\nsword as though he had been looking for some spot of rust, then put it\nback in the scabbard and replaced it with the utmost tranquillity on\nthe gilt bronze nail from which it hung.\n\nThe whole manoeuvre, which towards the end was very slow, lasted quite\na minute; mademoiselle de la Mole looked at him in astonishment. \"So\nI have been on the verge of being killed by my lover,\" she said to\nherself.\n\nThis idea transported her into the palmiest days of the age of Charles\nIX. and of Henri III.\n\nShe stood motionless before Julien, who had just replaced the sword;\nshe looked at him with eyes whose hatred had disappeared. It must be\nowned that she was very fascinating at this moment, certainly no woman\nlooked less like a Parisian doll (this expression symbolised Julien's\ngreat objection to the women of this city).\n\n\"I shall relapse into some weakness for him,\" thought Mathilde; \"it\nis quite likely that he will think himself my lord and master after a\nrelapse like that at the very moment that I have been talking to him so\nfirmly.\" She ran away.\n\n\"By heaven, she is pretty said Julien as he watched her run and that's\nthe creature who threw herself into my arms with so much passion\nscarcely a week ago ... and to think that those moments will never\ncome back? And that it's my fault, to think of my being lacking\nin appreciation at the very moment when I was doing something so\nextraordinarily interesting! I must own that I was born with a very\ndull and unfortunate character.\"\n\nThe marquis appeared; Julien hastened to announce his departure.\n\n\"Where to?\" said M. de la Mole.\n\n\"For Languedoc.\"\n\n\"No, if you please, you are reserved for higher destinies. If you leave\nit will be for the North.... In military phraseology I actually confine\nyou in the hotel. You will compel me to be never more than two or three\nhours away. I may have need of you at any moment.\"\n\nJulien bowed and retired without a word, leaving the marquis in a state\nof great astonishment. He was incapable of speaking. He shut himself\nup in his room. He was there free to exaggerate to himself all the\nawfulness of his fate.\n\n\"So,\" he thought, \"I cannot even get away. God knows how many days\nthe marquis will keep me in Paris. Great God, what will become of me,\nand not a friend whom I can consult? The abbe Pirard will never let\nme finish my first sentence, while the comte Altamira will propose\nenlisting me in some conspiracy. And yet I am mad; I feel it, I am mad.\nWho will be able to guide me, what will become of me?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\n\nCRUEL MOMENTS\n\n\n        And she confesses it to me! She goes into even\n        the smallest details! Her beautiful eyes fixed on\n        mine, and describes the love which she felt for\n        another.--_Schiller_.\n\n\nThe delighted mademoiselle de la Mole thought of nothing but the\nhappiness of having been nearly killed. She went so far as to say to\nherself, \"he is worthy of being my master since he was on the point of\nkilling me. How many handsome young society men would have to be melted\ntogether before they were capable of so passionate a transport.\"\n\n\"I must admit that he was very handsome at the time when he climbed up\non the chair to replace the sword in the same picturesque position in\nwhich the decorator hung it! After all it was not so foolish of me to\nlove him.\"\n\nIf at that moment some honourable means of reconciliation had presented\nitself, she would have embraced it with pleasure. Julien locked in his\nroom was a prey to the most violent despair. He thought in his madness\nof throwing himself at her feet. If instead of hiding himself in an out\nof the way place, he had wandered about the garden of the hotel so as\nto keep within reach of any opportunity, he would perhaps have changed\nin a single moment his awful unhappiness into the keenest happiness.\n\nBut the tact for whose lack we are now reproaching him would have been\nincompatible with that sublime seizure of the sword, which at the\npresent time rendered him so handsome in the eyes of mademoiselle de\nla Mole. This whim in Julien's favour lasted the whole day; Mathilde\nconjured up a charming image of the short moments during which she had\nloved him: she regretted them.\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" she said to herself, \"my passion for this poor\nboy can from his point of view only have lasted from one hour after\nmidnight when I saw him arrive by his ladder with all his pistols in\nhis coat pocket, till eight o'clock in the morning. It was a quarter of\nan hour after that as I listened to mass at Sainte-Valere that I began\nto think that he might very well try to terrify me into obedience.\"\n\nAfter dinner mademoiselle de la Mole, so far from avoiding Julien,\nspoke to him and made him promise to follow her into the garden. He\nobeyed. It was a new experience.\n\nWithout suspecting it Mathilde was yielding to the love which she was\nnow feeling for him again. She found an extreme pleasure in walking by\nhis side, and she looked curiously at those hands which had seized the\nsword to kill her that very morning.\n\nAfter such an action, after all that had taken place, some of the\nformer conversation was out of the question.\n\nMathilde gradually began to talk confidentially to him about the\nstate of her heart. She found a singular pleasure in this kind of\nconversation, she even went so far as to describe to him the fleeting\nmoments of enthusiasm which she had experienced for M. de Croisenois,\nfor M. de Caylus----\n\n\"What! M. de Caylus as well!\" exclaimed Julien, and all the jealousy of\na discarded lover burst out in those words, Mathilde thought as much,\nbut did not feel at all insulted.\n\nShe continued torturing Julien by describing her former sentiments with\nthe most picturesque detail and the accent of the most intimate truth.\nHe saw that she was portraying what she had in her mind's eye. He had\nthe pain of noticing that as she spoke she made new discoveries in her\nown heart.\n\nThe unhappiness of jealousy could not be carried further.\n\nIt is cruel enough to suspect that a rival is loved, but there is no\ndoubt that to hear the woman one adores confess in detail the love\nwhich rivals inspires, is the utmost limit of anguish.\n\nOh, how great a punishment was there now for those impulses of pride\nwhich had induced Julien to place himself as superior to the Caylus\nand the Croisenois! How deeply did he feel his own unhappiness as he\nexaggerated to himself their most petty advantages. With what hearty\ngood faith he despised himself.\n\nMathilde struck him as adorable. All words are weak to express his\nexcessive admiration. As he walked beside her he looked surreptitiously\nat her hands, her arms, her queenly bearing. He was so completely\novercome by love and unhappiness as to be on the point of falling at\nher feet and crying \"pity.\"\n\n\"Yes, and that person who is so beautiful, who is so superior to\neverything and who loved me once, will doubtless soon love M. de\nCaylus.\"\n\nJulien could have no doubts of mademoiselle de la Mole's sincerity,\nthe accent of truth was only too palpable in everything she said. In\norder that nothing might be wanting to complete his unhappiness there\nwere moments when, as a result of thinking about the sentiments which\nshe had once experienced for M. de Caylus, Mathilde came to talk of\nhim, as though she loved him at the present time. She certainly put an\ninflection of love into her voice. Julien distinguished it clearly.\n\nHe would have suffered less if his bosom had been filled inside with\nmolten lead. Plunged as he was in this abyss of unhappiness how could\nthe poor boy have guessed that it was simply because she was talking to\nhim, that mademoiselle de la Mole found so much pleasure in recalling\nthose weaknesses of love which she had formerly experienced for M. de\nCaylus or M. de Luz.\n\nWords fail to express Julien's anguish. He listened to these detailed\nconfidences of the love she had experienced for others in that very\navenue of pines where he had waited so few days ago for one o'clock\nto strike that he might invade her room. No human being can undergo a\ngreater degree of unhappiness.\n\nThis kind of familiar cruelty lasted for eight long days. Mathilde\nsometimes seemed to seek opportunities of speaking to him and sometimes\nnot to avoid them; and the one topic of conversation to which they both\nseemed to revert with a kind of cruel pleasure, was the description of\nthe sentiments she had felt for others. She told him about the letters\nwhich she had written, she remembered their very words, she recited\nwhole sentences by heart.\n\nShe seemed during these last days to be envisaging Julien with a kind\nof malicious joy. She found a keen enjoyment in his pangs.\n\nOne sees that Julien had no experience of life; he had not even read\nany novels. If he had been a little less awkward and he had coolly said\nto the young girl, whom he adored so much and who had been giving him\nsuch strange confidences: \"admit that though I am not worth as much as\nall these gentlemen, I am none the less the man whom you loved,\" she\nwould perhaps have been happy at being at thus guessed; at any rate\nsuccess would have entirely depended on the grace with which Julien had\nexpressed the idea, and on the moment which he had chosen to do so. In\nany case he would have extricated himself well and advantageously from\na situation which Mathilde was beginning to find monotonous.\n\n\"And you love me no longer, me, who adores you!\" said Julien to her one\nday, overcome by love and unhappiness. This piece of folly was perhaps\nthe greatest which he could have committed. These words immediately\ndestroyed all the pleasure which mademoiselle de la Mole found in\ntalking to him about the state of her heart. She was beginning to be\nsurprised that he did not, after what had happened, take offence at\nwhat she told him. She had even gone so far as to imagine at the very\nmoment when he made that foolish remark that perhaps he did not love\nher any more. \"His pride has doubtless extinguished his love,\" she was\nsaying to herself. \"He is not the man to sit still and see people like\nCaylus, de Luz, Croisenois whom he admits are so superior, preferred to\nhim. No, I shall never see him at my feet again.\"\n\nJulien had often in the naivety of his unhappiness, during the previous\ndays praised sincerely the brilliant qualities of these gentlemen; he\nwould even go so far as to exaggerate them. This nuance had not escaped\nmademoiselle de la Mole, she was astonished by it, but did not guess\nits reason. Julien's frenzied soul, in praising a rival whom he thought\nwas loved, was sympathising with his happiness.\n\nThese frank but stupid words changed everything in a single moment;\nconfident that she was loved, Mathilde despised him utterly.\n\nShe was walking with him when he made his ill-timed remark; she left\nhim, and her parting look expressed the most awful contempt. She\nreturned to the salon and did not look at him again during the whole\nevening. This contempt monopolised her mind the following day. The\nimpulse which during the last week had made her find so much pleasure\nin treating Julien as her most intimate friend was out of the question;\nthe very sight of him was disagreeable. The sensation Mathilde felt\nreached the point of disgust; nothing can express the extreme contempt\nwhich she experienced when her eyes fell upon him.\n\nJulien had understood nothing of the history of Mathilde's heart during\nthe last week, but he distinguished the contempt. He had the good sense\nonly to appear before her on the rarest possible occasions, and never\nlooked at her.\n\nBut it was not without a mortal anguish that he, as it were, deprived\nhimself of her presence. He thought he felt his unhappiness increasing\nstill further. \"The courage of a man's heart cannot be carried\nfurther,\" he said to himself. He passed his life seated at a little\nwindow at the top of the hotel; the blind was carefully closed, and\nfrom here at any rate he could see mademoiselle de la Mole when she\nappeared in the garden.\n\nWhat were his emotions when he saw her walking after dinner with M. de\nCaylus, M. de Luz, or some other for whom she had confessed to him some\nformer amorous weakness!\n\nJulien had no idea that unhappiness could be so intense; he was on\nthe point of shouting out. This firm soul was at last completely\noverwhelmed.\n\nThinking about anything else except mademoiselle de la Mole had become\nodious to him; he became incapable of writing the simplest letters.\n\n\"You are mad,\" the marquis said to him.\n\nJulien was frightened that his secret might be guessed, talked\nabout illness and succeeded in being believed. Fortunately for him\nthe marquis rallied him at dinner about his next journey; Mathilde\nunderstood that it might be a very long one. It was now several days\nthat Julien had avoided her, and the brilliant young men who had all\nthat this pale sombre being she had once loved was lacking, had no\nlonger the power of drawing her out of her reverie.\n\n\"An ordinary girl,\" she said to herself, \"would have sought out the man\nshe preferred among those young people who are the cynosure of a salon;\nbut one of the characteristics of genius is not to drive its thoughts\nover the rut traced by the vulgar.\n\n\"Why, if I were the companion of a man like Julien, who only lacks the\nfortune that I possess, I should be continually exciting attention, I\nshould not pass through life unnoticed. Far from incessantly fearing\na revolution like my cousins who are so frightened of the people that\nthey have not the pluck to scold a postillion who drives them badly, I\nshould be certain of playing a role and a great role, for the man whom\nI have chosen has a character and a boundless ambition. What does he\nlack? Friends, money? I will give them him.\" But she treated Julien in\nher thought as an inferior being whose love one could win whenever one\nwanted.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\nTHE OPERA BOUFFE\n\n\n    How the spring of love resembleth\n    The uncertain glory of an April day,\n    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,\n    And by and by a cloud takes all away.--_Shakespeare_.\n\n\nEngrossed by thoughts of her future and the singular role which\nshe hoped to play, Mathilde soon came to miss the dry metaphysical\nconversations which she had often had with Julien. Fatigued by\nthese lofty thoughts she would sometimes also miss those moments of\nhappiness which she had found by his side; these last memories were not\nunattended by remorse which at certain times even overwhelmed her.\n\n\"But one may have a weakness,\" she said to herself, \"a girl like I am\nshould only forget herself for a man of real merit; they will not say\nthat it is his pretty moustache or his skill in horsemanship which have\nfascinated me, but rather his deep discussions on the future of France\nand his ideas on the analogy between the events which are going to\nburst upon us and the English revolution of 1688.\"\n\n\"I have been seduced,\" she answered in her remorse. \"I am a weak\nwoman, but at least I have not been led astray like a doll by exterior\nadvantages.\"\n\n\"If there is a revolution why should not Julien Sorel play the role of\nRoland and I the role of Madame Roland? I prefer that part to Madame de\nStael's; the immorality of my conduct will constitute an obstacle in\nthis age of ours. I will certainly not let them reproach me with an act\nof weakness; I should die of shame.\"\n\nMathilde's reveries were not all as grave, one must admit, as the\nthoughts which we have just transcribed.\n\nShe would look at Julien and find a charming grace in his slightest\naction.\n\n\"I have doubtless,\" she would say, \"succeeded in destroying in him the\nvery faintest idea he had of any one else's rights.\"\n\n\"The air of unhappiness and deep passion with which the poor boy\ndeclared his love to me eight days ago proves it; I must own it was\nvery extraordinary of me to manifest anger at words in which there\nshone so much respect and so much of passion. Am I not his real wife?\nThose words of his were quite natural, and I must admit, were really\nvery nice. Julien still continued to love me, even after those eternal\nconversations in which I had only spoken to him (cruelly enough I\nadmit), about those weaknesses of love which the boredom of the life\nI lead had inspired me for those young society men of whom he is so\njealous. Ah, if he only knew what little danger I have to fear from\nthem; how withered and stereotyped they seem to me in comparison with\nhim.\"\n\nWhile indulging in these reflections Mathilde made a random pencil\nsketch of a profile on a page of her album. One of the profiles she\nhad just finished surprised and delighted her. It had a striking\nresemblance to Julien. \"It is the voice of heaven. That's one of the\nmiracles of love,\" she cried ecstatically; \"Without suspecting it, I\nhave drawn his portrait.\"\n\nShe fled to her room, shut herself up in it, and with much application\nmade strenuous endeavours to draw Julien's portrait, but she was unable\nto succeed; the profile she had traced at random still remained the\nmost like him. Mathilde was delighted with it. She saw in it a palpable\nproof of the grand passion.\n\nShe only left her album very late when the marquise had her called to\ngo to the Italian Opera. Her one idea was to catch sight of Julien, so\nthat she might get her mother to request him to keep them company.\n\nHe did not appear, and the ladies had only ordinary vulgar creatures in\ntheir box. During the first act of the opera, Mathilde dreamt of the\nman she loved with all the ecstasies of the most vivid passion; but a\nlove-maxim in the second act sung it must be owned to a melody worthy\nof Cimarosa pierced her heart. The heroine of the opera said \"You must\npunish me for the excessive adoration which I feel for him. I love him\ntoo much.\"\n\nFrom the moment that Mathilde heard this sublime song everything in\nthe world ceased to exist. She was spoken to, she did not answer; her\nmother reprimanded her, she could scarcely bring herself to look at\nher. Her ecstasy reached a state of exultation and passion analogous\nto the most violent transports which Julien had felt for her for some\ndays. The divinely graceful melody to which the maxim, which seemed\nto have such a striking application to her own position, was sung,\nengrossed all the minutes when she was not actually thinking of Julien.\nThanks to her love for music she was on this particular evening like\nmadame de Renal always was, when she thought of Julien. Love of the\nhead has doubtless more intelligence than true love, but it only has\nmoments of enthusiasm. It knows itself too well, it sits in judgment on\nitself incessantly; far from distracting thought it is made by sheer\nforce of thought.\n\nOn returning home Mathilde, in spite of madame de la Mole's\nremonstrances, pretended to have a fever and spent a part of the night\nin going over this melody on her piano. She sang the words of the\ncelebrated air which had so fascinated her:--\n\n     Devo punirmi, devo punirmi.\n     Se troppo amai, etc.\n\nAs the result of this night of madness, she imagined that she had\nsucceeded in triumphing over her love. This page will be prejudicial\nin more than one way to the unfortunate author. Frigid souls will\naccuse him of indecency. But the young ladies who shine in the Paris\nsalons have no right to feel insulted at the supposition that one of\ntheir number might be liable to those transports of madness which have\nbeen degrading the character of Mathilde. That character is purely\nimaginary, and is even drawn quite differently from that social code\nwhich will guarantee so distinguished a place in the world's history to\nnineteenth century civilization.\n\nThe young girls who have adorned this winter's balls are certainly not\nlacking in prudence.\n\nI do not think either that they can be accused of being unduly scornful\nof a brilliant fortune, horses, fine estates and all the guarantees\nof a pleasant position in society. Far from finding these advantages\nsimply equivalent to boredom, they usually concentrate on them their\nmost constant desires and and devote to them such passion as their\nhearts possess.\n\nNor again is it love which is the dominant principle in the career of\nyoung men who, like Julien, are gifted with some talent; they attach\nthemselves with an irresistible grip to some coterie, and when the\ncoterie succeeds all the good things of society are rained upon them.\nWoe to the studious man who belongs to no coterie, even his smallest\nand most doubtful successes will constitute a grievance, and lofty\nvirtue will rob him and triumph. Yes, monsieur, a novel is a mirror\nwhich goes out on a highway. Sometimes it reflects the azure of the\nheavens, sometimes the mire of the pools of mud on the way, and the\nman who carries this mirror in his knapsack is forsooth to be accused\nby you of being immoral! His mirror shows the mire, and you accuse the\nmirror! Rather accuse the main road where the mud is, or rather the\ninspector of roads who allows the water to accumulate and the mud to\nform.\n\nNow that it is quite understood that Mathilde's character is impossible\nin our own age, which is as discreet as it is virtuous, I am less\nfrightened of offence by continuing the history of the follies of this\ncharming girl.\n\nDuring the whole of the following day she looked out for opportunities\nof convincing herself of her triumph over her mad passion. Her great\naim was to displease Julien in everything; but not one of his movements\nescaped her.\n\nJulien was too unhappy, and above all too agitated to appreciate so\ncomplicated a stratagem of passion. Still less was he capable of\nseeing how favourable it really was to him. He was duped by it. His\nunhappiness had perhaps never been so extreme. His actions were so\nlittle controlled by his intellect that if some mournful philosopher\nhad said to him, \"Think how to exploit as quickly as you can those\nsymptoms which promise to be favourable to you. In this kind of\nhead-love which is seen at Paris, the same mood cannot last more than\ntwo days,\" he would not have understood him. But however ecstatic he\nmight feel, Julien was a man of honour. Discretion was his first duty.\nHe appreciated it. Asking advice, describing his agony to the first\nman who came along would have constituted a happiness analogous to\nthat of the unhappy man who, when traversing a burning desert receives\nfrom heaven a drop of icy water. He realised the danger, was frightened\nof answering an indiscreet question by a torrent of tears, and shut\nhimself up in his own room.\n\nHe saw Mathilde walking in the garden for a long time. When she at last\nleft it, he went down there and approached the rose bush from which she\nhad taken a flower.\n\nThe night was dark and he could abandon himself to his unhappiness\nwithout fear of being seen. It was obvious to him that mademoiselle de\nla Mole loved one of those young officers with whom she had chatted so\ngaily. She had loved him, but she had realised his little merit, \"and\nas a matter of fact I had very little,\" Julien said to himself with\nfull conviction. \"Taking me all round I am a very dull, vulgar person,\nvery boring to others and quite unbearable to myself.\" He was mortally\ndisgusted with all his good qualities, and with all the things which he\nhad once loved so enthusiastically; and it was when his imagination was\nin this distorted condition that he undertook to judge life by means of\nits aid. This mistake is typical of a superior man.\n\nThe idea of suicide presented itself to him several times; the idea was\nfull of charm, and like a delicious rest; because it was the glass of\niced water offered to the wretch dying of thirst and heat in the desert.\n\n\"My death will increase the contempt she has for me,\" he exclaimed.\n\"What a memory I should leave her.\"\n\nCourage is the only resource of a human being who has fallen into this\nlast abyss of unhappiness. Julien did not have sufficient genius to say\nto himself, \"I must dare,\" but as he looked at the window of Mathilde's\nroom he saw through the blinds that she was putting out her light. He\nconjured up that charming room which he had seen, alas! once in his\nwhole life. His imagination did not go any further.\n\nOne o'clock struck. Hearing the stroke of the clock and saying to\nhimself, \"I will climb up the ladder,\" scarcely took a moment.\n\nIt was the flash of genius, good reasons crowded on his mind. \"May I be\nmore fortunate than before,\" he said to himself. He ran to the ladder.\nThe gardener had chained it up. With the help of the cock of one of\nhis little pistols which he broke, Julien, who for the time being was\nanimated by a superhuman force, twisted one of the links of the chain\nwhich held the ladder. He was master of it in a few minutes, and placed\nit against Mathilde's window.\n\n\"She will be angry and riddle me with scornful words! What does it\nmatter? I will give her a kiss, one last kiss. I will go up to my room\nand kill myself ... my lips will touch her cheek before I die.\"\n\nHe flew up the ladder and knocked at the blind; Mathilde heard him\nafter some minutes and tried to open the blind but the ladder was in\nthe way. Julien hung to the iron hook intending to keep the blind open,\nand at the imminent risk of falling down, gave the ladder a violent\nshake which moved it a little. Mathilde was able to open the blind.\n\nHe threw himself into the window more dead than alive.\n\n\"So it is you, dear,\" she said as she rushed into his arms.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe excess of Julien's happiness was indescribable. Mathilde's almost\nequalled his own.\n\nShe talked against herself to him and denounced herself.\n\n\"Punish me for my awful pride,\" she said to him, clasping him in her\narms so tightly as almost to choke him. \"You are my master, dear, I\nam your slave. I must ask your pardon on my knees for having tried to\nrebel.\" She left his arms to fall at his feet. \"Yes,\" she said to him,\nstill intoxicated with happiness and with love, \"you are my master,\nreign over me for ever. When your slave tries to revolt, punish her\nseverely.\"\n\nIn another moment she tore herself from his arms, and lit a candle,\nand it was only by a supreme effort that Julien could prevent her from\ncutting off a whole tress of her hair.\n\n\"I want to remind myself,\" she said to him, \"that I am your handmaid.\nIf I am ever led astray again by my abominable pride, show me this hair\nand say, 'It is not a question of the emotion which your soul may be\nfeeling at present, you have sworn to obey, obey on your honour.'\"\n\nBut it is wiser to suppress the description of so intense a transport\nof delirious happiness.\n\nJulien's unselfishness was equal to his happiness. \"I must go down by\nthe ladder,\" he said to Mathilde, when he saw the dawn of day appear\nfrom the quarter of the east over the distant chimneys beyond the\ngarden. \"The sacrifice that I impose on myself is worthy of you. I\ndeprive myself of some hours of the most astonishing happiness that a\nhuman soul can savour, but it is a sacrifice I make for the sake of\nyour reputation. If you know my heart you will appreciate how violent\nis the strain to which I am putting myself. Will you always be to me\nwhat you are now? But honour speaks, it suffices. Let me tell you that\nsince our last interview, thieves have not been the only object of\nsuspicion. M. de la Mole has set a guard in the garden. M. Croisenois\nis surrounded by spies: they know what he does every night.\"\n\nMathilde burst out laughing at this idea. Her mother and a chamber-maid\nwere woken up, they suddenly began to speak to her through the door.\nJulien looked at her, she grew pale as she scolded the chamber-maid,\nand she did not deign to speak to her mother. \"But suppose they think\nof opening the window, they will see the ladder,\" Julien said to her.\n\nHe clasped her again in his arms, rushed on to the ladder, and slid,\nrather than climbed down; he was on the ground in a moment.\n\nThree seconds after the ladder was in the avenue of pines, and\nMathilde's honour was saved. Julien returned to his room and found that\nhe was bleeding and almost naked. He had wounded himself in sliding\ndown in that dare-devil way.\n\nExtreme happiness had made him regain all the energy of his character.\nIf twenty men had presented themselves it would have proved at this\nmoment only an additional pleasure to have attacked them unaided.\nHappily his military prowess was not put to the proof. He laid the\nladder in its usual place and replaced the chain which held it. He did\nnot forget to efface the mark which the ladder had left on the bed of\nexotic flowers under Mathilde's window.\n\nAs he was moving his hand over the soft ground in the darkness and\nsatisfying himself that the mark had entirely disappeared, he felt\nsomething fall down on his hands. It was a whole tress of Mathilde's\nhair which she had cut off and thrown down to him.\n\nShe was at the window.\n\n\"That's what your servant sends you,\" she said to him in a fairly loud\nvoice, \"It is the sign of eternal gratitude. I renounce the exercise of\nmy reason, be my master.\"\n\nJulien was quite overcome and was on the point of going to fetch the\nladder again and climbing back into her room. Finally reason prevailed.\n\nGetting back into the hotel from the garden was not easy. He succeeded\nin forcing the door of a cellar. Once in the house he was obliged to\nbreak through the door of his room as silently as possible. In his\nagitation he had left in the little room which he had just abandoned so\nrapidly, the key which was in the pocket of his coat. \"I only hope she\nthinks of hiding that fatal trophy,\" he thought.\n\nFinally fatigue prevailed over happiness, and as the sun was rising he\nfell into a deep sleep.\n\nThe breakfast bell only just managed to wake him up. He appeared in the\ndining-room. Shortly afterwards Mathilde came in. Julien's pride felt\ndeliciously flattered as he saw the love which shone in the eyes of\nthis beautiful creature who was surrounded by so much homage; but soon\nhis discretion had occasion to be alarmed.\n\nMaking an excuse of the little time that she had had to do her hair,\nMathilde had arranged it in such a way that Julien could see at the\nfirst glance the full extent of the sacrifice that she had made for his\nsake, by cutting off her hair on the previous night.\n\nIf it had been possible to spoil so beautiful a face by anything\nwhatsoever, Mathilde would have succeeded in doing it. A whole tress\nof her beautiful blonde hair was cut off to within half an inch of the\nscalp.\n\nMathilde's whole manner during breakfast was in keeping with this\ninitial imprudence. One might have said that she had made a specific\npoint of trying to inform the whole world of her mad passion for\nJulien. Happily on this particular day M. de la Mole and the marquis\nwere very much concerned about an approaching bestowal of \"blue\nribbons\" which was going to take place, and in which M. de Chaulnes was\nnot comprised. Towards the end of the meal, Mathilde, who was talking\nto Julien, happened to call him \"My Master.\" He blushed up to the\nwhites of his eyes.\n\nMathilde was not left alone for an instant that day, whether by chance\nor the deliberate policy of madame de la Mole. In the evening when she\npassed from the dining-room into the salon, however, she managed to say\nto Julien: \"You may be thinking I am making an excuse, but mamma has\njust decided that one of her women is to spend the night in my room.\"\n\nThis day passed with lightning rapidity. Julien was at the zenith of\nhappiness. At seven o'clock in the morning of the following day he\ninstalled himself in the library. He hoped the mademoiselle de la Mole\nwould deign to appear there; he had written her an interminable letter.\nHe only saw her several hours afterwards at breakfast. Her hair was\ndone to-day with the very greatest care; a marvellous art had managed\nto hide the place where the hair had been cut. She looked at Julien\nonce or twice, but her eyes were polite and calm, and there was no\nquestion of calling him \"My Master.\"\n\nJulien's astonishment prevented him from breathing--Mathilde was\nreproaching herself for all she had done for him. After mature\nreflection, she had come to the conclusion that he was a person who,\nthough not absolutely commonplace, was yet not sufficiently different\nfrom the common ruck to deserve all the strange follies that she\nhad ventured for his sake. To sum up she did not give love a single\nthought; on this particular day she was tired of loving.\n\nAs for Julien, his emotions were those of a child of sixteen. He was a\nsuccessive prey to awful doubt, astonishment and despair during this\nbreakfast which he thought would never end.\n\nAs soon as he could decently get up from the table, he flew rather than\nran to the stable, saddled his horse himself, and galloped off. \"I\nmust kill my heart through sheer force of physical fatigue,\" he said\nto himself as he galloped through the Meudon woods. \"What have I done,\nwhat have I said to deserve a disgrace like this?\"\n\n\"I must do nothing and say nothing to-day,\" he thought as he re-entered\nthe hotel. \"I must be as dead physically as I am morally.\" Julien saw\nnothing any more, it was only his corpse which kept moving.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\n\nTHE JAPANESE VASE\n\n\n        His heart does not first realise the full extremity of\n        his unhappiness: he is more troubled than moved. But as\n        reason returns he feels the depth of his misfortune. All\n        the pleasures of life seem to have been destroyed, he\n        can only feel the sharp barbs of a lacerating despair.\n        But what is the use of talking of physical pain? What\n        pain which is only felt by the body can be compared to\n        this pain?--_Jean Paul_.\n\n\nThe dinner bell rang, Julien had barely time to dress: he found\nMathilde in the salon. She was pressing her brother and M. de\nCroisenois to promise her that they would not go and spend the evening\nat Suresnes with madame the marechale de Fervaques.\n\nIt would have been difficult to have shown herself more amiable or\nfascinating to them. M. de Luz, de Caylus and several of their friends\ncame in after dinner. One would have said that mademoiselle de la Mole\nhad commenced again to cultivate the most scrupulous conventionality\nat the same time as her sisterly affection. Although the weather was\ndelightful this evening, she refused to go out into the garden, and\ninsisted on their all staying near the arm-chair where madame de la\nMole was sitting. The blue sofa was the centre of the group as it had\nbeen in the winter.\n\nMathilde was out of temper with the garden, or at any rate she found it\nabsolutely boring: it was bound up with the memory of Julien.\n\nUnhappiness blunts the edge of the intellect. Our hero had the bad\ntaste to stop by that little straw chair which had formerly witnessed\nhis most brilliant triumphs. To-day none spoke to him, his presence\nseemed to be unnoticed, and worse than that. Those of mademoiselle de\nla Mole's friends who were sitting near him at the end of the sofa,\nmade a point of somehow or other turning their back on him, at any rate\nhe thought so.\n\n\"It is a court disgrace,\" he thought. He tried to study for a moment\nthe people who were endeavouring to overwhelm him with their contempt.\nM. de Luz had an important post in the King's suite, the result of\nwhich was that the handsome officer began every conversation with\nevery listener who came along by telling him this special piece of\ninformation. His uncle had started at seven o'clock for St. Cloud\nand reckoned on spending the night there. This detail was introduced\nwith all the appearance of good nature but it never failed to be\nworked in. As Julien scrutinized M. de Croisenois with a stern gaze of\nunhappiness, he observed that this good amiable young man attributed\na great influence to occult causes. He even went so far as to become\nmelancholy and out of temper if he saw an event of the slightest\nimportance ascribed to a simple and perfectly natural cause.\n\n\"There is an element of madness in this,\" Julien said to himself.\nThis man's character has a striking analogy with that of the Emperor\nAlexander, such as the Prince Korasoff described it to me. During the\nfirst year of his stay in Paris poor Julien, fresh from the seminary\nand dazzled by the graces of all these amiable young people, whom he\nfound so novel, had felt bound to admire them. Their true character was\nonly beginning to become outlined in his eyes.\n\n\"I am playing an undignified role here,\" he suddenly thought. The\nquestion was, how he could leave the little straw chair without undue\nawkwardness. He wanted to invent something, and tried to extract some\nnovel excuse from an imagination which was otherwise engrossed. He was\ncompelled to fall back on his memory, which was, it must be owned,\nsomewhat poor in resources of this kind.\n\nThe poor boy was still very much out of his element, and could not have\nexhibited a more complete and noticeable awkwardness when he got up to\nleave the salon. His misery was only too palpable in his whole manner.\nHe had been playing, for the last three quarters of an hour, the role\nof an officious inferior from whom one does not take the trouble to\nhide what one really thinks.\n\nThe critical observations he had just made on his rivals prevented\nhim, however, from taking his own unhappiness too tragically. His pride\ncould take support in what had taken place the previous day. \"Whatever\nmay be their advantages over me,\" he thought, as he went into the\ngarden alone, \"Mathilde has never been to a single one of them what,\ntwice in my life, she has deigned to be to me!\" His penetration did not\ngo further. He absolutely failed to appreciate the character of the\nextraordinary person whom chance had just made the supreme mistress of\nall his happiness.\n\nHe tried, on the following day, to make himself and his horse dead\ntired with fatigue. He made no attempt in the evening to go near the\nblue sofa to which Mathilde remained constant. He noticed that comte\nNorbert did not even deign to look at him when he met him about the\nhouse. \"He must be doing something very much against the grain,\" he\nthought; \"he is naturally so polite.\"\n\nSleep would have been a happiness to Julien. In spite of his physical\nfatigue, memories which were only too seductive commenced to invade his\nimagination. He had not the genius to see that, inasmuch as his long\nrides on horseback over forests on the outskirts of Paris only affected\nhim, and had no affect at all on Mathilde's heart or mind, he was\nconsequently leaving his eventual destiny to the caprice of chance. He\nthought that one thing would give his pain an infinite relief: it would\nbe to speak to Mathilde. Yet what would he venture to say to her?\n\nHe was dreaming deeply about this at seven o'clock one morning when he\nsuddenly saw her enter the library.\n\n\"I know, monsieur, that you are anxious to speak to me.\"\n\n\"Great heavens! who told you?\"\n\n\"I know, anyway; that is enough. If you are dishonourable, you can\nruin me, or at least try to. But this danger, which I do not believe\nto be real, will certainly not prevent me from being sincere. I do\nnot love you any more, monsieur, I have been led astray by my foolish\nimagination.\"\n\nDistracted by love and unhappiness, as a result of this terrible blow,\nJulien tried to justify himself. Nothing could have been more absurd.\nDoes one make any excuses for failure to please? But reason had no\nlonger any control over his actions. A blind instinct urged him to get\nthe determination of his fate postponed. He thought that, so long as\nhe kept on speaking, all could not be over. Mathilde had not listened\nto his words; their sound irritated her. She could not conceive how he\ncould have the audacity to interrupt her.\n\nShe was rendered equally unhappy this morning by remorseful virtue and\nremorseful pride. She felt to some extent pulverised by the idea of\nhaving given a little abbe, who was the son of a peasant, rights over\nher. \"It is almost,\" she said to herself, in those moments when she\nexaggerated her own misfortune, \"as though I had a weakness for one of\nmy footmen to reproach myself with.\" In bold, proud natures there is\nonly one step from anger against themselves to wrath against others. In\nthese cases the very transports of fury constitute a vivid pleasure.\n\nIn a single minute mademoiselle de la Mole reached the point of loading\nJulien with the signs of the most extreme contempt. She had infinite\nwit, and this wit was always triumphant in the art of torturing vanity\nand wounding it cruelly.\n\nFor the first time in his life Julien found himself subjected to\nthe energy of a superior intellect, which was animated against him\nby the most violent hate. Far from having at present the slightest\nthought of defending himself, he came to despise himself. Hearing\nhimself overwhelmed with such marks of contempt which were so cleverly\ncalculated to destroy any good opinion that he might have of himself,\nhe thought that Mathilde was right, and that she did not say enough.\n\nAs for her, she found it deliciously gratifying to her pride to punish\nin this way both herself and him for the adoration that she had felt\nsome days previously.\n\nShe did not have to invent and improvise the cruel remarks which she\naddressed to him with so much gusto.\n\nAll she had to do was to repeat what the advocate of the other side had\nbeen saying against her love in her own heart for the last eight days.\n\nEach word intensified a hundredfold Julien's awful unhappiness. He\nwanted to run away, but mademoiselle de la Mole took hold of his arm\nauthoritatively.\n\n\"Be good enough to remark,\" he said to her, \"that you are talking very\nloud. You will be heard in the next room.\"\n\n\"What does it matter?\" mademoiselle de la Mole answered haughtily. \"Who\nwill dare to say they have heard me? I want to cure your miserable\nvanity once and for all of any ideas you may have indulged in on my\naccount.\"\n\nWhen Julien was allowed to leave the library he was so astonished\nthat he was less sensitive to his unhappiness. \"She does not love me\nany more,\" he repeated to himself, speaking aloud as though to teach\nhimself how he stood. \"It seems that she has loved me eight or ten\ndays, but I shall love her all my life.\"\n\n\"Is it really possible she was nothing to me, nothing to my heart so\nfew days back?\"\n\nMathilde's heart was inundated by the joy of satisfied pride. So she\nhad been able to break with him for ever! So complete a triumph over so\nstrong an inclination rendered her completely happy. \"So this little\ngentleman will understand, once and for all, that he has not, and will\nnever have, any dominion over me.\" She was so happy that in reality she\nceased to love at this particular moment.\n\nIn a less passionate being than Julien love would have become\nimpossible after a scene of such awful humiliation. Without deviating\nfor a single minute from the requirements of her own self-respect,\nmademoiselle de la Mole had addressed to him some of those unpleasant\nremarks which are so well thought out that they may seem true, even\nwhen remembered in cold blood.\n\nThe conclusion which Julien drew in the first moment of so surprising a\nscene, was that Mathilde was infinitely proud. He firmly believed that\nall was over between them for ever, and none the less, he was awkward\nand nervous towards her at breakfast on the following day. This was a\nfault from which up to now he had been exempt.\n\nBoth in small things as in big it was his habit to know what he ought\nand wanted to do, and he used to act accordingly.\n\nThe same day after breakfast madame de la Mole asked him for a fairly\nrare, seditious pamphlet which her cure had surreptitiously brought her\nin the morning, and Julien, as he took it from a bracket, knocked over\na blue porcelain vase which was as ugly as it could possibly be.\n\nMadame de la Mole got up, uttering a cry of distress, and proceeded to\ncontemplate at close quarters the ruins of her beloved vase. \"It was\nold Japanese,\" she said. \"It came to me from my great aunt, the abbess\nof Chelles. It was a present from the Dutch to the Regent, the Duke of\nOrleans, who had given it to his daughter....\"\n\nMathilde had followed her mother's movements, and felt delighted at\nseeing that the blue vase, that she had thought horribly ugly, was\nbroken. Julien was taciturn, and not unduly upset. He saw mademoiselle\nde la Mole quite near him.\n\n\"This vase,\" he said to her, \"has been destroyed for ever. The same is\nthe case with the sentiment which was once master of my heart. I would\nask you to accept my apologies for all the pieces of madness which it\nhas made me commit.\" And he went out.\n\n\"One would really say,\" said madame de la Mole, as he went out of the\nroom, \"that this M. Sorel is quite proud of what he has just done.\"\n\nThese words went right home to Mathilde's heart. \"It is true,\" she\nsaid to herself; \"my mother has guessed right. That is the sentiment\nwhich animates him.\" It was only then that she ceased rejoicing over\nyesterday's scene. \"Well, it is all over,\" she said to herself, with\nan apparent calm. \"It is a great lesson, anyway. It is an awful and\nhumiliating mistake! It is enough to make me prudent all the rest of my\nlife.\"\n\n\"Why didn't I speak the truth?\" thought Julien. \"Why am I still\ntortured by the love which I once had for that mad woman?\"\n\nFar, however, from being extinguished as he had hoped it would be, his\nlove grew more and more rapidly. \"She is mad, it is true,\" he said\nto himself. \"Is she any the less adorable for that? Is it possible\nfor anyone to be prettier? Is not mademoiselle de la Mole the ideal\nquintessence of all the most vivid pleasures of the most elegant\ncivilisation?\" These memories of a bygone happiness seized hold of\nJulien's mind, and quickly proceeded to destroy all the work of his\nreason.\n\nIt is in vain that reason wrestles with memories of this character. Its\nstern struggles only increase the fascination.\n\nTwenty-four hours after the breaking of the Japanese vase, Julien was\nunquestionably one of the most unhappy men in the world.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LI\n\nTHE SECRET NOTE\n\n\n        I have seen everything I relate, and if I may have made\n        a mistake when I saw it, I am certainly not deceiving\n        you in telling you of it.\n                                      _Letter to the author_.\n\n\nThe marquis summoned him; M. de la Mole looked rejuvenated, his eye was\nbrilliant.\n\n\"Let us discuss your memory a little,\" he said to Julien, \"it is said\nto be prodigious. Could you learn four pages by heart and go and say\nthem at London, but without altering a single word?\"\n\nThe marquis was irritably fingering, the day's _Quotidienne_, and was\ntrying in vain to hide an extreme seriousness which Julien had never\nnoticed in him before, even when discussing the Frilair lawsuit.\n\nJulien had already learned sufficient manners to appreciate that he\nought to appear completely taken in by the lightness of tone which was\nbeing manifested.\n\n\"This number of the _Quotidienne_ is not very amusing possibly, but if\nM. the marquis will allow me, I shall do myself the honour to-morrow\nmorning of reciting it to him from beginning to end.\"\n\n\"What, even the advertisements?\"\n\n\"Quite accurately and without leaving out a word.\"\n\n\"You give me your word?\" replied the marquis with sudden gravity.\n\n\"Yes, monsieur; the only thing which could upset my memory is the fear\nof breaking my promise.\"\n\n\"The fact is, I forgot to put this question to you yesterday: I am\nnot going to ask for your oath never to repeat what you are going to\nhear. I know you too well to insult you like that. I have answered for\nyou. I am going to take you into a salon where a dozen persons will he\nassembled. You will make a note of what each one says.\n\n\"Do not be uneasy. It will not be a confused conversation by any means.\nEach one will speak in his turn, though not necessarily in an orderly\nmanner,\" added the marquis falling back into that light, subtle manner\nwhich was so natural to him. \"While we are talking, you will write out\ntwenty pages and will come back here with me, and we will get those\ntwenty pages down to four, and those are the four pages you will recite\nto me to-morrow morning instead of the four pages of the _Quotidienne_.\nYou will leave immediately afterwards. You must post about like a\nyoung man travelling on pleasure. Your aim will be to avoid attracting\nattention. You will arrive at the house of a great personage. You will\nthere need more skill. Your business will then be to take in all his\nentourage, for among his secretaries and his servants are some people\nwho have sold themselves to our enemies, and who spy on our travelling\nagents in order to intercept them.\n\n\"You will have an insignificant letter of introduction. At the moment\nhis Excellency looks at you, you will take out this watch of mine,\nwhich I will lend you for the journey. Wear it now, it will be so much\ndone; at any rate give me yours.\n\n\"The duke himself will be good enough to write at your dictation the\nfour pages you have learnt by heart.\n\n\"Having done this, but not earlier, mind you, you can, if his\nExcellency questions you, tell him about the meeting at which you are\nnow going to be present.\n\n\"You will be prevented from boring yourself on the journey between\nParis and the minister's residence by the thought that there are people\nwho would like nothing better than to fire a shot at M. the abbe Sorel.\nIn that case that gentleman's mission will be finished, and I see a\ngreat delay, for how are we to know of your death, my dear friend? Even\nyour zeal cannot go to the length of informing us of it.\n\n\"Run straight away and buy a complete suit,\" went on the marquis\nseriously. \"Dress in the fashion of two years ago. To-night you must\nlook somewhat badly groomed. When you travel, on the other hand, you\nwill be as usual. Does this surprise you? Does your suspiciousness\nguess the secret? Yes, my friend, one of the venerable personages you\nare going to hear deliver his opinion, is perfectly capable of giving\ninformation as the result of which you stand a very good chance of\nbeing given at least opium some fine evening in some good inn where you\nwill have asked for supper.\"\n\n\"It is better,\" said Julien, \"to do an extra thirty leagues and not\ntake the direct road. It is a case of Rome, I suppose....\" The marquis\nassumed an expression of extreme haughtiness and dissatisfaction which\nJulien had never seen him wear since Bray-le-Haut.\n\n\"That is what you will know, monsieur, when I think it proper to tell\nyou. I do not like questions.\"\n\n\"That was not one,\" answered Julien eagerly. \"I swear, monsieur, I was\nthinking quite aloud. My mind was trying to find out the safest route.\"\n\n\"Yes, it seems your mind was a very long way off. Remember that an\nemissary, and particularly one of your age should not appear to be a\nman who forces confidences.\"\n\nJulien was very mortified; he was in the wrong. His vanity tried to\nfind an excuse and did not find one.\n\n\"You understand,\" added monsieur de la Mole, \"that one always falls\nback on one's heart when one has committed some mistake.\"\n\nAn hour afterwards Julien was in the marquis's ante-chamber. He looked\nquite like a servant with his old clothes, a tie of a dubious white,\nand a certain touch of the usher in his whole appearance. The marquis\nburst out laughing as he saw him, and it was only then that Julien's\njustification was complete.\n\n\"If this young man betrays me,\" said M. de la Mole to himself, \"whom is\none to trust? And yet, when one acts, one must trust someone. My son\nand his brilliant friends of the same calibre have as much courage and\nloyalty as a hundred thousand men. If it were necessary to fight, they\nwould die on the steps of the throne. They know everything--except\nwhat one needs in emergency. Devil take me if I can find a single one\namong them who can learn four pages by heart and do a hundred leagues\nwithout being tracked down. Norbert would know how to sell his life as\ndearly as his grandfathers did. But any conscript could do as much.\"\n\nThe marquis fell into a profound reverie. \"As for selling one's life\ntoo,\" he said with a sigh, \"perhaps this Sorel would manage it quite as\nwell as he could.\n\n\"Let us get into the carriage,\" said the marquis as though to chase\naway an unwanted idea.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" said Julien, \"while they were getting this suit ready for\nme, I learnt the first page of to-days _Quotidienne_ by heart.\"\n\nThe marquis took the paper. Julien recited it without making a single\nmistake. \"Good,\" said the marquis, who this night felt very diplomatic.\n\"During the time he takes over this our young man will not notice the\nstreets through which we are passing.\"\n\nThey arrived in a big salon that looked melancholy enough and was\npartly upholstered in green velvet. In the middle of the room\na scowling lackey had just placed a big dining-table which he\nsubsequently changed into a writing-table by means of an immense green\ninkstained tablecloth which had been plundered from some minister.\n\nThe master of the house was an enormous man whose name was not\npronounced. Julien thought he had the appearance and eloquence of a\nman who ruminated. At a sign from the marquis, Julien had remained at\nthe lower end of the table. In order to keep himself in countenance,\nhe began to cut quills. He counted out of the corner of his eye seven\nvisitors, but Julien could only see their backs. Two seemed to him\nto be speaking to M. de la Mole on a footing of equality, the others\nseemed more or less respectful.\n\nA new person entered without being announced. \"This is strange,\"\nthought Julien. \"People are not announced in this salon. Is this\nprecaution taken in my honour?\" Everybody got up to welcome the new\narrival. He wore the same extremely distinguished decoration as three\nof the other persons who were in the salon. They talked fairly low. In\nendeavouring to form an opinion of the new comer, Julien was reduced to\nseeing what he could learn from his features and his appearance. He was\nshort and thick-set. He had a high colour and a brilliant eye and an\nexpression that looked like a malignant boar, and nothing else.\n\nJulien's attention was partly distracted by the almost immediate\narrival of a very different kind of person. It was a tall very thin\nman who wore three or four waistcoats. His eye was caressing, his\ndemeanour polite.\n\n\"He looks exactly like the old bishop of Besancon,\" thought Julien.\nThis man evidently belonged to the church, was apparently not more than\nfifty to fifty-five years of age, and no one could have looked more\npaternal than he did.\n\nThe young bishop of Agde appeared. He looked very astonished when,\nin making a scrutiny of those present, his gaze fell upon Julien. He\nhad not spoken to him since the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. His look of\nsurprise embarrassed and irritated Julien. \"What!\" he said to himself,\n\"will knowing a man always turn out unfortunate for me? I don't feel\nthe least bit intimidated by all those great lords whom I have never\nseen, but the look of that young bishop freezes me. I must admit that I\nam a very strange and very unhappy person.\"\n\nAn extremely swarthy little man entered noisily soon afterwards and\nstarted talking as soon as he reached the door. He had a yellow\ncomplexion and looked a little mad. As soon as this ruthless talker\narrived, the others formed themselves into knots with the apparent\nobject of avoiding the bother of listening to him.\n\nAs they went away from the mantelpiece they came near the lower end\nof the table where Julien was placed. His countenance became more and\nmore embarrassed, for whatever efforts he made, he could not avoid\nhearing, and in spite of all his lack of experience he appreciated\nall the moment of the things which they were discussing with such\ncomplete frankness, and the importance which the high personages whom\nhe apparently had under his observation must attach to their being kept\nsecret.\n\nJulien had already cut twenty quills as slowly as possible; this\ndistraction would shortly be no longer available. He looked in vain at\nM. de la Mole's eyes for an order; the marquis had forgotten him.\n\n\"What I am doing is ridiculous,\" he said to himself as he cut his\nquills, \"but persons with so mediocre an appearance and who are\nhandling such great interests either for themselves or for others must\nbe extremely liable to take offence. My unfortunate look has a certain\nquestioning and scarcely respectful expression, which will doubtless\nirritate them. But if I palpably lower my eyes I shall look as if I\nwere picking up every word they said.\"\n\nHis embarrassment was extreme, he was listening to strange things.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LII\n\nTHE DISCUSSION\n\n\n        The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice\n        everything for the public welfare, there are thousands\n        and millions who think of nothing except their\n        enjoyments and their vanity. One is requested in Paris\n        by reason of the qualities not of one's self but of\n        one's carriage.\n                                        --NAPOLEON, Memorial.\n\n\nThe footman rushed in saying \"Monsieur the duke de ----\"\n\n\"Hold your tongue, you are just a fool,\" said the duke as he entered.\nHe spoke these words so well, and with so much majesty, that Julien\ncould not help thinking this great person's accomplishments were\nlimited to the science of snubbing a lackey. Julien raised his\neyes and immediately lowered them. He had so fully appreciated the\nsignificance of the new arrival that he feared that his look might be\nan indiscretion.\n\nThe duke was a man of fifty dressed like a dandy and with a jerky\nwalk. He had a narrow head with a large nose and a face that jutted\nforward; it would have been difficult to have looked at the same time\nmore insignificant. His arrival was the signal for the opening of the\nmeeting.\n\nJulien was sharply interrupted in his physiognomical observations by\nde la Mole's voice. \"I present to you M. the abbe Sorel,\" said the\nMarquis. \"He is gifted with an astonishing memory; it is scarcely an\nhour ago since I spoke to him of the mission by which he might be\nhonoured, and he has learned the first page of the _Quotidienne_ by\nheart in order to give proof of his memory.\"\n\n\"Ah! foreign news of that poor N--\" said the master of the house. He\ntook up the paper eagerly and looked at Julien in a manner rendered\nhumorous by its own self-importance. \"Speak, monsieur,\" he said to him.\n\nThe silence was profound, all eyes were fixed on Julien. He recited\nso well that the duke said at the end of twenty lines, \"That is\nenough.\" The little man who looked like a boar sat down. He was the\npresident, for he had scarcely taken his place before he showed Julien\na card-table and signed to him to bring it near him. Julien established\nhimself at it with writing materials. He counted twelve persons seated\nround the green table cloth.\n\n\"M. Sorel,\" said the Duke, \"retire into next room, you will be called.\"\n\nThe master of the house began to look very anxious. \"The shutters\nare not shut,\" he said to his neighbour in a semi-whisper. \"It is no\ngood looking out of the window,\" he stupidly cried to Julien--\"so\nhere I am more or less mixed up in a conspiracy,\" thought the latter.\n\"Fortunately it is not one of those which lead to the Place-de-Greve.\nEven though there were danger, I owe this and even more to the marquis,\nand should be glad to be given the chance of making up for all the\nsorrow which my madness may one day occasion him.\"\n\nWhile thinking of his own madness and his own unhappiness he regarded\nthe place where he was, in such a way as to imprint it upon his memory\nfor ever. He then remembered for the first time that he had never heard\nthe lackey tell the name of the street, and that the marquis had taken\na fiacre which he never did in the ordinary way. Julien was left to\nhis own reflections for a long time. He was in a salon upholstered in\nred velvet with large pieces of gold lace. A large ivory crucifix was\non the console-table and a gilt-edged, magnificently bound copy of M.\nde Maistre's book _The Pope_ was on the mantelpiece. Julien opened it\nso as not to appear to be eavesdropping. From time to time they talked\nloudly in the next room. At last the door was opened and he was called\nin.\n\n\"Remember, gentlemen,\" the president was saying \"that from this moment\nwe are talking in the presence of the duke of ----. This gentleman,\"\nhe said, pointing to Julien, \"is a young acolyte devoted to our sacred\ncause who by the aid of his marvellous memory will repeat quite easily\nour very slightest words.\"\n\n\"It is your turn to speak, Monsieur,\" he said pointing to the paternal\nlooking personage who wore three or four waistcoats. Julien thought it\nwould have been more natural to have called him the gentleman in the\nwaistcoats. He took some paper and wrote a great deal.\n\n(At this juncture the author would have liked to have put a page of\ndots. \"That,\" said his publisher, \"would be clumsy and in the case of\nso light a work clumsiness is death.\"\n\n\"Politics,\" replies the author, \"is a stone tied round the neck of\nliterature which submerges it in less than six months. Politics in the\nmidst of imaginative matter is like a pistol shot in the middle of a\nconcert. The noise is racking without being energetic. It does not\nharmonise with the sound of any instrument. These politics will give\nmortal offence to one half of the readers and will bore the other half,\nwho will have already read the ideas in question as set out in the\nmorning paper in its own drastic manner.\"\n\n\"If your characters don't talk politics,\" replied the publisher, \"they\ncease to be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book is no longer a mirror as\nyou claim?\")\n\nJulien's record ran to twenty-six pages. Here is a very diluted\nextract, for it has been necessary to adopt the invariable practice of\nsuppressing those ludicrous passages, whose violence would have seemed\neither offensive or intolerable (see the _Gazette des Tribunaux_).\n\nThe man with the waistcoats and the paternal expression (he was perhaps\na bishop) often smiled and then his eyes, which were surrounded with\na floating forest of eyebrows, assumed a singular brilliance and an\nunusually decided expression. This personage whom they made speak first\nbefore the duke (\"but what duke is it?\" thought Julien to himself) with\nthe apparent object of expounding various points of view and fulfilling\nthe functions of an advocate-general, appeared to Julien to fall into\nthe uncertainty and lack of definiteness with which those officials\nare so often taxed. During the course of the discussion the duke went\nso far as to reproach him on this score. After several sentences of\nmorality and indulgent philosophy the man in the waistcoats said,\n\n\"Noble England, under the guiding hand of a great man, the immortal\nPitt, has spent forty milliards of francs in opposing the revolution.\nIf this meeting will allow me to treat so melancholy a subject with\nsome frankness, England fails to realise sufficiently that in dealing\nwith a man like Buonaparte, especially when they have nothing to\noppose him with, except a bundle of good intentions there is nothing\ndecisive except personal methods.\"\n\n\"Ah! praising assassination again!\" said the master of the house\nanxiously.\n\n\"Spare us your sentimental sermons,\" cried the president angrily. His\nboarlike eye shone with a savage brilliance. \"Go on,\" he said to the\nman with the waistcoats. The cheeks and the forehead of the president\nbecame purple.\n\n\"Noble England,\" replied the advocate-general, \"is crushed to-day:\nfor each Englishman before paying for his own bread is obliged to pay\nthe interest on forty milliards of francs which were used against the\nJacobins. She has no more Pitt.\"\n\n\"She has the Duke of Wellington,\" said a military personage looking\nvery important.\n\n\"Please, gentlemen, silence,\" exclaimed the president. \"If we are still\ngoing to dispute, there was no point in having M. Sorel in.\"\n\n\"We know that monsieur has many ideas,\" said the duke irritably,\nlooking at the interrupter who was an old Napoleonic general. Julien\nsaw that these words contained some personal and very offensive\nallusion. Everybody smiled, the turncoat general appeared beside\nhimself with rage.\n\n\"There is no longer a Pitt, gentlemen,\" went on the speaker with all\nthe despondency of a man who has given up all hope of bringing his\nlisteners to reason. \"If there were a new Pitt in England, you would\nnot dupe a nation twice over by the same means.\"\n\n\"That's why a victorious general, a Buonaparte, will be henceforward\nimpossible in France,\" exclaimed the military interrupter.\n\nOn this occasion neither the president nor the duke ventured to get\nangry, though Julien thought he read in their eyes that they would\nvery much like to have done so. They lowered their eyes, and the duke\ncontented himself with sighing in quite an audible manner. But the\nspeaker was put upon his mettle.\n\n\"My audience is eager for me to finish,\" he said vigorously, completely\ndiscarding that smiling politeness and that balanced diction that\nJulien thought had expressed his character so well. \"It is eager for\nme to finish, it is not grateful to me for the efforts I am making to\noffend nobody's ears, however long they may be. Well, gentlemen, I will\nbe brief.\n\n\"I will tell you in quite common words: England has not got a sou with\nwhich to help the good cause. If Pitt himself were to come back he\nwould never succeed with all his genius in duping the small English\nlandowners, for they know that the short Waterloo campaign alone cost\nthem a milliard of francs. As you like clear phrases,\" continued the\nspeaker, becoming more and more animated, \"I will say this to you: Help\nyourselves, for England has not got a guinea left to help you with,\nand when England does not pay, Austria, Russia and Prussia--who will\nonly have courage but have no money--cannot launch more than one or two\ncampaigns against France.\n\n\"One may hope that the young soldiers who will be recruited by the\nJacobins will be beaten in the first campaign, and possibly in the\nsecond; but, even though I seem a revolutionary in your prejudiced\neyes, in the third campaign--in the third campaign I say--you will have\nthe soldiers of 1794 who were no longer the soldiers enlisted in 1792.\"\n\nAt this point interruption broke out simultaneously from three or four\nquarters.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" said the president to Julien, \"Go and make a precis in the\nnext room of the beginning of the report which you have written out.\"\n\nJulien went out to his great regret. The speaker was just dealing\nwith the question of probabilities which formed the usual subject\nfor his meditations. \"They are frightened of my making fun of them,\"\nhe thought. When he was called back, M. de la Mole was saying with a\nseriousness which seemed quite humorous to Julien who knew him so well,\n\n\"Yes, gentlemen, one finds the phrase, 'is it god, table or tub?'\nespecially applicable to this unhappy people. '_It is god_' exclaims\nthe writer of fables. It is to you, gentlemen, that this noble and\nprofound phrase seems to apply. Act on your own initiative, and noble\nFrance will appear again, almost such as our ancestors made her, and as\nour own eyes have seen her before the death of Louis XVI.\n\n\"England execrates disgraceful Jacobinism as much as we do, or at any\nrate her noble lords do. Without English gold, Austria and Prussia\nwould only be able to give battle two or three times. Would that be\nsufficient to ensure a successful occupation like the one which M. de\nRichelieu so foolishly failed to exploit in 1817? I do not think so.\"\n\nAt this point there was an interruption which was stifled by the hushes\nof the whole room. It came again from the old Imperial general who\nwanted the blue ribbon and wished to figure among the authors of the\nsecret note.\n\n\"I do not think so,\" replied M. de la Mole, after the uproar had\nsubsided. He laid stress on the \"I\" with an insolence which charmed\nJulien.\n\n\"That's a pretty piece of acting,\" he said to himself, as he made his\npen almost keep pace with the marquis' words.\n\nM. de la Mole annihilated the twenty campaigns of the turncoat with a\nwell turned phrase.\n\n\"It is not only on foreign powers,\" continued the marquis in a more\neven tone, \"on whom we shall be able to rely for a new military\noccupation. All those young men who write inflammatory articles\nin the _Globe_ will provide you with three or four thousand young\ncaptains among whom you may find men with the genius, but not the good\nintentions of a Kleber, a Hoche, a Jourdan, a Pichegru.\"\n\n\"We did not know how to glorify him,\" said the president. \"He should\nhave been immortalized.\"\n\n\"Finally, it is necessary for France to have two parties,\" went on M.\nde la Mole; \"but two parties not merely in name, but with clear-cut\nlines of cleavage. Let us realise what has got to be crushed. On\nthe one hand the journalists and the electors, in a word, public\nopinion; youth and all that admire it. While it is stupefying itself\nwith the noise of its own vain words, we have certain advantages of\nadministrating the expenditure of the budget.\"\n\nAt this point there was another interruption.\n\n\"As for you, monsieur,\" said M. de la Mole to the interrupter, with an\nadmirable haughtiness and ease of manner, \"you do not spend, if the\nwords chokes you, but you devour the forty thousand francs put down to\nyou in the State budget, and the eighty thousand which you receive from\nthe civil list.\"\n\n\"Well, monsieur, since you force me to it, I will be bold enough to\ntake you for an example. Like your noble ancestors, who followed Saint\nLouis to the crusade, you ought in return for those hundred and twenty\nthousand francs to show us at any rate a regiment; a company, why, what\nam I saying? say half a company, even if it only had fifty men, ready\nto fight and devoted to the good cause to the point of risking their\nlives in its service. You have nothing but lackeys, who in the event of\na rebellion would frighten you yourselves.\"\n\n\"Throne, Church, Nobility are liable to perish to-morrow, gentlemen,\nso long as you refrain from creating in each department a force of\nfive hundred devoted men, devoted I mean, not only with all the French\ncourage, but with all the Spanish constancy.\n\n\"Half of this force ought to be composed of our children, our nephews,\nof real gentlemen, in fact. Each of them will have beside him not a\nlittle talkative bourgeois ready to hoist the tricolor cockade, if 1815\nturns up again, but a good, frank and simple peasant like Cathelineau.\nOur gentleman will have educated him, it will be his own foster brother\nif it is possible. Let each of us sacrifice the fifth of his income in\norder to form this little devoted force of five hundred men in each\ndepartment. Then you will be able to reckon on a foreign occupation.\nThe foreign soldier will never penetrate even as far as Dijon if he\nis not certain of finding five hundred friendly soldiers in each\ndepartment.\n\n\"The foreign kings will only listen to you when you are in a position\nto announce to them that you have twenty thousand gentlemen ready to\ntake up arms in order to open to them the gates of France. The service\nis troublesome, you say. Gentlemen, it is the only way of saving our\nlives. There is war to the death between the liberty of the press and\nour existence as gentlemen. Become manufacturers, become peasants, or\ntake up your guns. Be timid if you like, but do not be stupid. Open\nyour eyes.\n\n\"'_Form your battalions_,' I would say to you in the words of the\nJacobin songs. Some noble Gustavus Adolphus will then be found who,\ntouched by the imminent peril of the monarchical principle, will make\na dash three hundred leagues from his own country, and will do for\nyou what Gustavus did for the Protestant princes. Do you want to go\non talking without acting? In fifty years' time there will be only\npresidents or republics in Europe and not one king, and with those\nthree letters R. O. I. you will see the last of the priests and the\ngentlemen. I can see nothing but candidates paying court to squalid\nmajorities.\n\n\"It is no use your saying that at the present time France has not\na single accredited general who is universally known and loved,\nthat the army is only known and organised in the interests of the\nthrone and the church, and that it has been deprived of all its old\ntroopers, while each of the Prussian and Austrian regiments count fifty\nnon-commissioned officers who have seen fire.\n\n\"Two hundred thousand young men of the middle classes are spoiling for\nwar--\"\n\n\"A truce to disagreeable truths,\" said a grave personage in a pompous\ntone. He was apparently a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, for M.\nde la Mole smiled pleasantly, instead of getting angry, a circumstance\nwhich greatly impressed Julien.\n\n\"A truce to unpleasant truths, let us resume, gentlemen. The man who\nneeds to have a gangrened leg cut off would be ill advised to say to\nhis surgeon, 'this disease is very healthy.' If I may use the metaphor,\ngentlemen, the noble duke of ---- is our surgeon.\"\n\n\"So the great words have at last been uttered,\" thought Julien. \"It is\ntowards the ---- that I shall gallop to-night.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIII\n\nTHE CLERGY, THE FORESTS, LIBERTY\n\n\n        The first law of every being, is to preserve itself and\n        live. You sow hemlock, and expect to see ears of corn\n        ripen.--_Machiavelli_.\n\n\nThe great personage continued. One could see that he knew his subject.\nHe proceeded to expound the following great truths with a soft and\ntempered eloquence with which Julien was inordinately delighted:--\n\n\"1. England has not a guinea to help us with; economy and Hume are\nthe fashion there. Even the saints will not give us any money, and M.\nBrougham will make fun of us.\n\n\"2. The impossibility of getting the kings of Europe to embark on more\nthan two campaigns without English gold; two campaigns will not be\nenough to dispose of the middle classes.\n\n\"3. The necessity of forming an armed party in France. Without this,\nthe monarchical principle in Europe will not risk even two campaigns.\n\n\"The fourth point which I venture to suggest to you, as self-evident,\nis this:\n\n\"The impossibility of forming an armed party in France without the\nclergy. I am bold enough to tell you this because I will prove it to\nyou, gentlemen. You must make every sacrifice for the clergy.\n\n\"Firstly, because as it is occupied with its mission by day and by\nnight, and guided by highly capable men established far from these\nstorms at three hundred leagues from your frontiers----\"\n\n\"Ah, Rome, Rome!\" exclaimed the master of the house.\n\n\"Yes, monsieur, Rome,\" replied the Cardinal haughtily. \"Whatever more\nor less ingenious jokes may have been the fashion when you were young,\nI have no hesitation in saying that in 1830 it is only the clergy,\nunder the guidance of Rome, who has the ear of the lower classes.\n\n\"Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day appointed by\ntheir chiefs, and the people--who after all provide soldiers--will be\nmore touched by the voices of its priests than by all the versifying in\nthe whole world.\" (This personality provoked some murmurs.)\n\n\"The clergy has a genius superior to yours,\" went on the cardinal\nraising his voice. \"All the progress that has been made towards this\nessential point of having an armed party in France has been made by\nus.\" At this juncture facts were introduced. \"Who used eighty thousand\nrifles in Vendee?\" etc., etc.\n\n\"So long as the clergy is without its forests it is helpless. At\nthe first war the minister of finance will write to his agents that\nthere is no money to be had except for the cure. At bottom France\ndoes not believe, and she loves war. Whoever gives her war will be\ndoubly popular, for making war is, to use a vulgar phrase, the same as\nstarving the Jesuits; making war means delivering those monsters of\npride--the men of France--from the menace of foreign intervention.\"\n\nThe cardinal had a favourable hearing. \"M. de Nerval,\" he said, \"will\nhave to leave the ministry, his name irritates and to no purpose.\"\n\nAt these words everybody got up and talked at the same time. \"I will be\nsent away again,\" thought Julien, but the sapient president himself had\nforgotten both the presence and existence of Julien.\n\nAll eyes were turned upon a man whom Julien recognised. It was M. de\nNerval, the prime minister, whom he had seen at M. the duc de Retz's\nball.\n\nThe disorder was at its height, as the papers say when they talk of the\nChamber. At the end of a long quarter of an hour a little quiet was\nestablished.\n\nThen M. de Nerval got up and said in an apostolic tone and a singular\nvoice:\n\n\"I will not go so far as to say that I do not set great store on being\na minister.\n\n\"It has been demonstrated to me, gentlemen, that my name will double\nthe forces of the Jacobins by making many moderates divide against\nus. I should therefore be willing to retire; but the ways of the Lord\nare only visible to a small number; but,\" he added, looking fixedly\nat the cardinal, \"I have a mission. Heaven has said: 'You will either\nloose your head on the scaffold or you will re-establish the monarchy\nof France and reduce the Chambers to the condition of the parliament of\nLouis XV.,' and that, gentlemen, I shall do.\"\n\nHe finished his speech, sat down, and there was a long silence.\n\n\"What a good actor,\" thought Julien. He made his usual mistake of\nascribing too much intelligence to the people. Excited by the debates\nof so lively an evening, and above all by the sincerity of the\ndiscussion, M. de Nerval did at this moment believe in his mission.\nThis man had great courage, but at the same time no sense.\n\nDuring the silence that followed the impressive words, \"I shall do it,\"\nmidnight struck. Julien thought that the striking of the clock had in\nit a certain element of funereal majesty. He felt moved.\n\nThe discussion was soon resumed with increasing energy, and above all\nwith an incredible naivety. \"These people will have me poisoned,\"\nthought Julien at times. \"How can they say such things before a\nplebian.\"\n\nThey were still talking when two o'clock struck. The master of the\nhouse had been sleeping for some time. M. de la Mole was obliged to\nring for new candles. M. de Nerval, the minister, had left at the\nquarter to two, but not without having repeatedly studied Julien's face\nin a mirror which was at the minister's side. His departure had seemed\nto put everybody at their ease.\n\nWhile they were bringing new candles, the man in the waistcoats,\nwhispered to his neighbour: \"God knows what that man will say to the\nking. He may throw ridicule upon us and spoil our future.\"\n\n\"One must own that he must possess an unusual self-assurance, not to\nsay impudence, to put in an appearance here There were signs of it\nbefore he became a minister; but a portfolio changes everything and\nswamps all a man's interests; he must have felt its effect.\"\n\nThe minister had scarcely left before the general of Buonaparte closed\nhis eyes. He now talked of his health and his wounds, consulted his\nwatch, and went away.\n\n\"I will wager,\" said the man in the waistcoats, \"that the general is\nrunning after the minister; he will apologise for having been here and\npretend that he is our leader.\"\n\n\"Let us now deliberate, gentlemen,\" said the president, after the\nsleepy servants had finished bringing and lighting new candles. \"Let us\nleave off trying to persuade each other. Let us think of the contents\nof the note which will be read by our friends outside in forty-eight\nhours from now. We have heard ministers spoken of. Now that M. de\nNerval has left us, we are at liberty to say 'what we do care for\nministers.'\"\n\nThe cardinal gave a subtle smile of approval.\n\n\"Nothing is easier it seems to me than summing up our position,\" said\nthe young bishop of Agde, with the restrained concentrated fire of the\nmost exalted fanaticism. He had kept silent up to this time; his eye,\nwhich Julien had noticed as being soft and calm at the beginning, had\nbecome fiery during the first hour of the discussion. His soul was now\nbubbling over like lava from Vesuvius.\n\n\"England only made one mistake from 1806 to 1814,\" he said, \"and that\nwas in not taking direct and personal measures against Napoleon. As\nsoon as that man had made dukes and chamberlains, as soon as he had\nre-established the throne, the mission that God had entrusted to him\nwas finished. The only thing to do with him was to sacrifice him.\nThe scriptures teach us in more than one place how to make an end of\ntyrants\" (at this point there were several Latin quotations).\n\n\"To-day, gentlemen, it is not a man who has to be sacrificed, it\nis Paris. What is the use of arming your five hundred men in each\ndepartment, a hazardous and interminable enterprise? What is the good\nof involving France in a matter which is personal to Paris? Paris alone\nhas done the evil, with its journals and it salons. Let the new Babylon\nperish.\n\n\"We must bring to an end the conflict between the church and Paris.\nSuch a catastrophe would even be in the worldly interests of the\nthrone. Why did not Paris dare to whisper a word under Buonaparte? Ask\nthe cannon of Saint-Roch?\"\n\nJulien did not leave with M. de la Mole before three o'clock in the\nmorning.\n\nThe marquis seemed tired and ashamed. For the first time in his life\nin conversation with Julien, his tone was plaintive. He asked him for\nhis word never to reveal the excesses of zeal, that was his expression,\nof which chance had just made him a witness. \"Only mention it to our\nforeign friend, if he seriously insists on knowing what our young\nmadmen are like. What does it matter to them if a state is overthrown,\nthey will become cardinals and will take refuge in Rome. As for us, we\nshall be massacred by the peasants in our chateaus.\"\n\nThe secret note into which the marquis condensed Julien's full report\nof twenty-six pages was not ready before a quarter to five.\n\n\"I am dead tired,\" said the marquis, \"as is quite obvious from the lack\nof clearness at the end of this note; I am more dissatisfied with it\nthan with anything I ever did in my whole life. Look here, my friend,\"\nhe added, \"go and rest for some hours, and as I am frightened you might\nbe kidnapped, I shall lock you up in your room.\"\n\nThe marquis took Julien on the following day to a lonely chateau at a\ngood distance from Paris. There were strange guests there whom Julien\nthought were priests. He was given a passport which was made out in a\nfictitious name, but indicated the real destination of his journey,\nwhich he had always pretended not to know. He got into a carriage alone.\n\nThe marquis had no anxiety on the score of his memory. Julien\nhad recited the secret note to him several times but he was very\napprehensive of his being intercepted.\n\n\"Above all, mind you look like a coxcomb who is simply travelling to\nkill time,\" he said affectionately to him when he was leaving the\nsalon. \"Perhaps there was more than one treacherous brother in this\nevening's meeting.\"\n\nThe journey was quick and very melancholy. Julien had scarcely got\nout of the marquis's sight before he forgot his secret note and his\nmission, and only thought about Mathilde's disdain.\n\nAt a village some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came and told him\nthat there were no horses. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Julien\nwas very annoyed and asked for supper. He walked in front of the door\nand gradually without being noticed passed into the stable-yard. He did\nnot see any horses there.\n\n\"That man looked strange though,\" thought Julien to himself. \"He was\nscrutinizing me with his brutal eyes.\"\n\nAs one sees he was beginning to be slightly sceptical of all he heard.\nHe thought of escaping after supper, and in order to learn at any rate\nsomething about the surrounding country, he left his room to go and\nwarm himself at the kitchen fire. He was overjoyed to find there the\ncelebrated singer, signor Geronimo.\n\nThe Neopolitan was ensconced in an armchair which he had had brought\nnear the fire. He was groaning aloud, and was speaking more to himself\nthan to the twenty dumbfounded German peasants who surrounded him.\n\n\"Those people will be my ruin,\" he cried to Julien, \"I have promised to\nsing to-morrow at Mayence. Seven sovereign princes have gone there to\nhear me. Let us go and take the air,\" he added, meaningly.\n\nWhen he had gone a hundred yards down the road, and it was impossible\nto be overheard, he said to Julien:\n\n\"Do you know the real truth, the postmaster is a scoundrel. When I went\nout for a walk I gave twenty sous to a little ragamuffin who told me\neverything. There are twelve horses in the stable at the other end of\nthe village. They want to stop some courier.\"\n\n\"Really,\" said Julien innocently.\n\nDiscovering the fraud was not enough; the thing was to get away, but\nGeronimo and his friends could not succeed in doing this.\n\n\"Let us wait for daybreak,\" said the singer at last, \"they are\nmistrustful of us. It is perhaps you or me whom they suspect. We will\norder a good breakfast to-morrow morning, we will go for a walk while\nthey are getting it ready, we will then escape, we will hire horses,\nand gain the next station.\"\n\n\"And how about your luggage?\" said Julien, who thought perhaps Geronimo\nhimself might have been sent to intercept him. They had to have supper\nand go to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep when he was woken\nup with a start by the voices of two persons who were speaking in his\nroom with utmost freedom.\n\nHe recognised the postmaster armed with a dark lantern. The light was\nturned on the carriage-seat which Julien had had taken up into his\nroom. Beside the postmaster was a man who was calmly searching the open\nseat. Julien could see nothing except the sleeves of his coat which\nwere black and very tight.\n\n\"It's a cassock,\" he said to himself and he softly seized the little\npistol which he had placed under his pillow.\n\n\"Don't be frightened of his waking up, cure,\" said the postmaster, \"the\nwine that has been served him was the stuff prepared by yourself.\"\n\n\"I can't find any trace of papers,\" answered the cure. \"A lot of linen\nand essences, pommades, and vanities. It's a young man of the world\non pleasure bent. The other one who effects an Italian accent is more\nlikely to be the emissary.\"\n\nThe men approached Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat.\nHe felt very tempted to kill them for thieves. Nothing could be safer\nin its consequences. He was very desirous of doing so.... \"I should\nonly be a fool,\" he said to himself, \"I should compromise my mission.\"\n\"He is not a diplomatist,\" said the priest after searching his coat. He\nwent away and did well to do so.\n\n\"It will be a bad business for him,\" Julien was saying to himself, \"if\nhe touches me in my bed. He may have quite well come to stab me, and I\nwon't put up with that.\"\n\nThe cure turned his head, Julien half opened his eyes. He was\ninordinately astonished, he was the abbe Castanede. As a matter of\nfact, although these two persons had made a point of talking in a\nfairly low voice, he had thought from the first that he recognised one\nof the voices. Julien was seized with an inordinate desire to purge the\nearth of one of its most cowardly villains; \"But my mission,\" he said\nto himself.\n\nThe cure and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour afterwards\nJulien pretended to have just woken up. He called out and woke up the\nwhole house.\n\n\"I am poisoned,\" he exclaimed, \"I am suffering horribly!\" He wanted an\nexcuse to go to Geronimo's help. He found him half suffocated by the\nlaudanum that had been contained in the wine.\n\nJulien had been apprehensive of some trick of this character and had\nsupped on some chocolate which he had brought from Paris. He could not\nwake Geronimo up sufficiently to induce him to leave.\n\n\"If they were to give me the whole kingdom of Naples,\" said the singer,\n\"I would not now give up the pleasure of sleeping.\"\n\n\"But the seven sovereign princes?\"\n\n\"Let them wait.\"\n\nJulien left alone, and arrived at the house of the great personage\nwithout other incident. He wasted a whole morning in vainly soliciting\nan audience. Fortunately about four o'clock the duke wanted to take\nthe air. Julien saw him go out on foot and he did not hesitate\nto ask him for alms. When at two yards' distance from the great\npersonage he pulled out the Marquis de la Mole's watch and exhibited\nit ostentatiously. \"_Follow me at a distance_,\" said the man without\nlooking at him.\n\nAt a quarter of a league's distance the duke suddenly entered a little\n_coffee-house_. It was in a room of this low class inn that Julien had\nthe honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished\nhe was told to \"_start again and go more slowly_.\"\n\nThe prince took notes. \"Reach the next posting station on foot. Leave\nyour luggage and your carriage here. Get to Strasbourg as best you can\nand at half-past twelve on the twenty-second of the month (it was at\npresent the tenth) come to this same coffee-house. Do not leave for\nhalf-an-hour. Silence!\"\n\nThese were the only words which Julien heard. They sufficed to inspire\nhim with the highest admiration. \"That is the way,\" he thought, \"that\nreal business is done; what would this great statesman say if he were\nto listen to the impassioned ranters heard three days ago?\"\n\nJulien took two days to reach Strasbourg. He thought he would have\nnothing to do there. He made a great detour. \"If that devil of an abbe\nCastanede has recognised me he is not the kind of man to loose track\nof me easily.... And how he would revel in making a fool of me, and\ncausing my mission to fail.\"\n\nFortunately the abbe Castanede, who was chief of the congregational\npolice on all the northern frontier had not recognised him. And the\nStrasbourg Jesuits, although very zealous, never gave a thought to\nobserving Julien, who with his cross and his blue tail-coat looked\nlike a young military man, very much engrossed in his own personal\nappearance.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIV\n\nSTRASBOURG\n\n\n        Fascination! Love gives thee all his love, energy and\n        all his power of suffering unhappiness. It is only\n        his enchanting pleasures, his sweet delights, which\n        are outside thy sphere. When I saw her sleep I was\n        made to say \"With all her angelic beauty and her sweet\n        weaknesses she is absolutely mine! There she is, quite\n        in my power, such as Heaven made her in its pity in\n        order to ravish a man's heart.\"--_Ode of Schiller_.\n\n\nJulien was compelled to spend eight days in Strasbourg and tried to\ndistract himself by thoughts of military glory and patriotic devotion.\nWas he in love then? he could not tell, he only felt in his tortured\nsoul that Mathilde was the absolute mistress both of his happiness\nand of his imagination. He needed all the energy of his character\nto keep himself from sinking into despair. It was out of his power\nto think of anything unconnected with mademoiselle de la Mole. His\nambition and his simple personal successes had formerly distracted him\nfrom the sentiments which madame de Renal had inspired. Mathilde was\nall-absorbing; she loomed large over his whole future.\n\nJulien saw failure in every phase of that future. This same individual\nwhom we remember to have been so presumptuous and haughty at Verrieres,\nhad fallen into an excess of grotesque modesty.\n\nThree days ago he would only have been too pleased to have killed the\nabbe Castanede, and now, at Strasbourg, if a child had picked a quarrel\nwith him he would have thought the child was in the right. In thinking\nagain about the adversaries and enemies whom he had met in his life he\nalways thought that he, Julien, had been in the wrong. The fact was\nthat the same powerful imagination which had formerly been continuously\nemployed in painting a successful future in the most brilliant colours\nhad now been transformed into his implacable enemy.\n\nThe absolute solicitude of a traveller's life increased the ascendancy\nof this sinister imagination. What a boon a friend would have been!\nBut Julien said to himself, \"Is there a single heart which beats with\naffection for me? And even if I did have a friend, would not honour\nenjoin me to eternal silence?\"\n\nHe was riding gloomily in the outskirts of Kehl; it is a market town\non the banks of the Rhine and immortalised by Desaix and Gouvion\nSaint-Cyr. A German peasant showed him the little brooks, roads and\nislands of the Rhine, which have acquired a name through the courage of\nthese great generals. Julien was guiding his horse with his left hand,\nwhile he held unfolded in his right the superb map which adorns the\n_Memoirs of the Marshal Saint Cyr_. A merry exclamation made him lift\nhis head.\n\nIt was the Prince Korasoff, that London friend of his, who had\ninitiated him some months before into the elementary rules of high\nfatuity. Faithful to his great art, Korasoff, who had just arrived at\nStrasbourg, had been one hour in Kehl and had never read a single line\nin his whole life about the siege of 1796, began to explain it all to\nJulien. The German peasant looked at him in astonishment; for he knew\nenough French to appreciate the enormous blunders which the prince was\nmaking. Julien was a thousand leagues away from the peasant's thoughts.\nHe was looking in astonishment at the handsome young man and admiring\nhis grace in sitting a horse.\n\n\"What a lucky temperament,\" he said to himself, \"and how his trousers\nsuit him and how elegantly his hair is cut! Alas, if I had been like\nhim, it might have been that she would not have come to dislike me\nafter loving me for three days.\"\n\nWhen the prince had finished his siege of Kehl, he said to Julien,\n\"You look like a Trappist, you are carrying to excess that principle\nof gravity which I enjoined upon you in London. A melancholy manner\ncannot be good form. What is wanted is an air of boredom. If you are\nmelancholy, it is because you lack something, because you have failed\nin something.\"\n\n\"That means showing one's own inferiority; if, on the other hand you\nare bored, it is only what has made an unsuccessful attempt to please\nyou, which is inferior. So realise, my dear friend, the enormity of\nyour mistake.\"\n\nJulien tossed a crown to the gaping peasant who was listening to them.\n\n\"Good,\" said the prince, \"that shows grace and a noble disdain, very\ngood!\" And he put his horse to the gallop. Full of a stupid admiration,\nJulien followed him.\n\n\"Ah! if I have been like that, she would not have preferred Croisenois\nto me!\" The more his reason was offended by the grotesque affectations\nof the prince the more he despised himself for not having them. It was\nimpossible for self-disgust to be carried further.\n\nThe prince still finding him distinctly melancholy, said to him as they\nre-entered Strasbourg, \"Come, my dear fellow, have you lost all your\nmoney, or perhaps you are in love with some little actress.\n\n\"The Russians copy French manners, but always at an interval of fifty\nyears. They have now reached the age of Louis XV.\"\n\nThese jests about love brought the tears to Julien's eyes. \"Why should\nI not consult this charming man,\" he suddenly said to himself.\n\n\"Well, yes, my dear friend,\" he said to the prince, \"you see in me a\nman who is very much in love and jilted into the bargain. A charming\nwoman who lives in a neighbouring town has left me stranded here after\nthree passionate days, and the change kills me.\"\n\nUsing fictitious names, he described to the prince Mathilde's conduct\nand character.\n\n\"You need not finish,\" said Korasoff. \"In order to give you confidence\nin your doctor, I will finish the story you have confided to me. This\nyoung woman's husband enjoys an enormous income, or even more probably,\nshe belongs herself to the high nobility of the district. She must be\nproud about something.\"\n\nJulien nodded his head, he had no longer the courage to speak. \"Very\ngood,\" said the prince, \"here are three fairly bitter pills that you\nwill take without delay.\n\n\"1. See madame ----. What is her name, any way?\"\n\n\"Madame de Dubois.\"\n\n\"What a name!\" said the prince bursting into laughter. \"But forgive me,\nyou find it sublime. Your tactics must be to see Madame de Dubois every\nday; above all do not appear to be cold and piqued. Remember the great\nprinciple of your century: be the opposite of what is expected. Be\nexactly as you were the week before you were honoured by her favours.\"\n\n\"Ah! I was calm enough then,\" exclaimed Julien in despair, \"I thought I\nwas taking pity on her....\"\n\n\"The moth is burning itself at the candle,\" continued the prince using\na metaphor as old as the world.\n\n\"1. You will see her every day.\n\n\"2. You will pay court to a woman in her own set, but without\nmanifesting a passion, do you understand? I do not disguise from\nyou that your role is difficult; you are playing a part, and if she\nrealises you are playing it you are lost.\"\n\n\"She has so much intelligence and I have so little, I shall be lost,\"\nsaid Julien sadly.\n\n\"No, you are only more in love than I thought. Madame de Dubois is\npreoccupied with herself as are all women who have been favoured\nby heaven either with too much pedigree or too much money. She\ncontemplates herself instead of contemplating you, consequently she\ndoes not know you. During the two or three fits of love into which she\nmanaged to work herself for your especial benefit, she saw in you the\nhero of her dreams, and not the man you really are.\n\n\"But, deuce take it, this is elementary, my dear Sorel, are you an\nabsolute novice?\n\n\"Oddslife! Let us go into this shop. Look at that charming black\ncravat, one would say it was made by John Anderson of Burlington\nStreet. Be kind enough to take it and throw far away that awful black\ncord which you are wearing round your neck.\"\n\n\"And now,\" continued the prince as they came out of the shop of the\nfirst hosier of Strasbourg, \"what is the society in which madame de\nDubois lives? Great God, what a name, don't be angry, my dear Sorel, I\ncan't help it.... Now, whom are you going to pay court to?\"\n\n\"To an absolute prude, the daughter of an immensely rich\nstocking-merchant. She has the finest eyes in the world and they please\nme infinitely; she doubtless holds the highest place in the society\nof the district, but in the midst of all her greatness she blushes\nand becomes positively confused if anyone starts talking about trade\nor shops. And, unfortunately, her father was one of the best known\nmerchants in Strasbourg.\"\n\n\"So,\" said the prince with a laugh, \"you are sure that when one talks\nabout trade your fair lady thinks about herself and not about you. This\nsilly weakness is divine and extremely useful, it will prevent you\nfrom yielding to a single moment's folly when near her sparkling eyes.\nSuccess is assured.\"\n\nJulien was thinking of madame the marechale de Fervaques who often\ncame to the Hotel de la Mole. She was a beautiful foreigner who had\nmarried the marechal a year before his death. The one object of her\nwhole life seemed to be to make people forget that she was the daughter\nof a manufacturer. In order to cut some figure in Paris she had placed\nherself at the head of the party of piety.\n\nJulien sincerely admired the prince; what would he not have given to\nhave possessed his affectations! The conversation between the two\nfriends was interminable. Korasoff was delighted: No Frenchman had ever\nlistened to him for so long. \"So I have succeeded at last,\" said the\nprince to himself complacently, \"in getting a proper hearing and that\ntoo through giving lessons to my master.\"\n\n\"So we are quite agreed,\" he repeated to Julien for the tenth time.\n\"When you talk to the young beauty, I mean the daughter of the\nStrasbourg stocking merchant in the presence of madame de Dubois, not\na trace of passion. But on the other hand be ardently passionate when\nyou write. Reading a well-written love-letter is a prude's supremest\npleasure. It is a moment of relaxation. She leaves off posing and dares\nto listen to her own heart; consequently two letters a day.\"\n\n\"Never, never,\" said Julien despondently, \"I would rather be ground in\na mortar than make up three phrases. I am a corpse, my dear fellow,\nhope nothing from me. Let me die by the road side.\"\n\n\"And who is talking about making up phrases? I have got six volumes\nof copied-out love-letters in my bag. I have letters to suit every\nvariation of feminine character, including the most highly virtuous.\nDid not Kalisky pay court at Richmond-on-the-Thames at three leagues\nfrom London, you know, to the prettiest Quakeress in the whole of\nEngland?\"\n\nJulien was less unhappy when he left his friend at two o'clock in the\nmorning.\n\nThe prince summoned a copyist on the following day, and two days\nafterwards Julien was the possessor of fifty-three carefully numbered\nlove-letters intended for the most sublime and the most melancholy\nvirtue.\n\n\"The reason why there is not fifty-four,\" said the prince \"is because\nKalisky allowed himself to be dismissed. But what does it matter to\nyou, if you are badly treated by the stocking-merchant's daughter since\nyou only wish to produce an impression upon madame de Dubois' heart.\"\n\nThey went out riding every day, the prince was mad on Julien. Not\nknowing how else to manifest his sudden friendship, he finished up by\noffering him the hand of one of his cousins, a rich Moscow heiress;\n\"and once married,\" he added, \"my influence and that cross of yours\nwill get you made a Colonel within two years.\"\n\n\"But that cross was not given me by Napoleon, far from it.\"\n\n\"What does it matter?\" said the prince, \"didn't he invent it. It is\nstill the first in Europe by a long way.\"\n\nJulien was on the point of accepting; but his duty called him back to\nthe great personage. When he left Korasoff he promised to write. He\nreceived the answer to the secret note which he had brought, and posted\ntowards Paris; but he had scarcely been alone for two successive days\nbefore leaving France, and Mathilde seemed a worse punishment than\ndeath. \"I will not marry the millions Korasoff offers me,\" he said to\nhimself, \"and I will follow his advice.\n\n\"After all the art of seduction is his speciality. He has thought about\nnothing else except that alone for more than fifteen years, for he is\nnow thirty.\n\n\"One can't say that he lacks intelligence; he is subtle and cunning;\nenthusiasm and poetry are impossible in such a character. He is an\nattorney: an additional reason for his not making a mistake.\n\n\"I must do it, I will pay court to madame de Fervaques.\n\n\"It is very likely she will bore me a little, but I will look at her\nbeautiful eyes which are so like those other eyes which have loved me\nmore than anyone in the world.\n\n\"She is a foreigner; she is a new character to observe.\n\n\"I feel mad, and as though I were going to the devil. I must follow the\nadvice of a friend and not trust myself.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LV\n\nTHE MINISTRY OF VIRTUE\n\n\n        But if I take this pleasure with so much prudence\n        and circumspection I shall no longer find it a\n        pleasure.--_Lope de Vega_.\n\n\nAs soon as our hero had returned to Paris and had come out of the\nstudy of the marquis de La Mole, who seemed very displeased with the\ndespatches that were given him, he rushed off for the comte Altamira.\nThis noble foreigner combined with the advantage of having once been\ncondemned to death a very grave demeanour together with the good\nfortune of a devout temperament; these two qualities, and more than\nanything, the comte's high birth, made an especial appeal to madame de\nFervaques who saw a lot of him.\n\nJulien solemnly confessed to him that he was very much in love with her.\n\n\"Her virtue is the purest and the highest,\" answered Altamira, \"only it\nis a little Jesuitical and dogmatic.\n\n\"There are days when, though I understand each of the expressions which\nshe makes use of, I never understand the whole sentence. She often\nmakes me think that I do not know French as well as I am said to. But\nyour acquaintance with her will get you talked about; it will give you\nweight in the world. But let us go to Bustos,\" said Count Altamira\nwho had a methodical turn of mind; \"he once paid court to madame la\nmarechale.\"\n\nDon Diego Bustos had the matter explained to him at length, while he\nsaid nothing, like a barrister in his chambers. He had a big monk-like\nface with black moustaches and an inimitable gravity; he was, however,\na good carbonaro.\n\n\"I understand,\" he said to Julien at last. \"Has the marechale de\nFervaques had lovers, or has she not? Have you consequently any hope\nof success? That is the question. I don't mind telling you, for my own\npart, that I have failed. Now that I am no more piqued I reason it out\nto myself in this way; she is often bad tempered, and as I will tell\nyou in a minute, she is quite vindictive.\n\n\"I fail to detect in her that bilious temperament which is the sign of\ngenius, and shows as it were a veneer of passion over all its actions.\nOn the contrary, she owes her rare beauty and her fresh complexion to\nthe phlegmatic, tranquil character of the Dutch.\"\n\nJulien began to lose patience with the phlegmatic slowness of the\nimperturbable Spaniard; he could not help giving vent to some\nmonosyllables from time to time.\n\n\"Will you listen to me?\" Don Diego Bustos gravely said to him.\n\n\"Forgive the _furia franchese_; I am all ears,\" said Julien.\n\n\"The marechale de Fervaques then is a great hater; she persecutes\nruthlessly people she has never seen--advocates, poor devils of men of\nletters who have composed songs like Colle, you know?\n\n    \"J'ai la marotte\n     D'aimer Marote, etc.\"\n\nAnd Julien had to put up with the whole quotation.\n\nThe Spaniard was very pleased to get a chance of singing in French.\n\nThat divine song was never listened to more impatiently. When it was\nfinished Don Diego said--\"The marechale procured the dismissal of the\nauthor of the song:\n\n    \"Un jour l'amour au cabaret.\"\n\nJulien shuddered lest he should want to sing it. He contented himself\nwith analysing it. As a matter of fact, it was blasphemous and somewhat\nindecent.\n\n\"When the marechale become enraged against that song,\" said Don Diego,\n\"I remarked to her that a woman of her rank ought not to read all the\nstupid things that are published. Whatever progress piety and gravity\nmay make France will always have a cabaret literature.\n\n\"'Be careful,' I said to madame de Fervaques when she had succeeded\nin depriving the author, a poor devil on half-pay, of a place worth\neighteen hundred francs a year, 'you have attacked this rhymster with\nyour own arms, he may answer you with his rhymes; he will make a song\nabout virtue. The gilded salons will be on your side; but people who\nlike to laugh will repeat his epigrams.' Do you know, monsieur, what\nthe marechale answered? 'Let all Paris come and see me walking to my\nmartyrdom for the sake of the Lord. It will be a new spectacle for\nFrance. The people will learn to respect the quality. It will be the\nfinest day of my life.' Her eyes never looked finer.\"\n\n\"And she has superb ones,\" exclaimed Julien.\n\n\"I see that you are in love. Further,\" went on Don Diego Bustos\ngravely, \"she has not the bilious constitution which causes\nvindictiveness. If, however, she likes to do harm, it is because she is\nunhappy, I suspect some secret misfortune. May it not be quite well a\ncase of prude tired of her role?\"\n\nThe Spaniard looked at him in silence for a good minute.\n\n\"That's the whole point,\" he added gravely, \"and that's what may give\nyou ground for some hope. I have often reflected about it during the\ntwo years that I was her very humble servant. All your future, my\namorous sir, depends on this great problem. Is she a prude tired of her\nrole and only malicious because she is unhappy?\"\n\n\"Or,\" said Altamira emerging at last from his deep silence, \"can it be\nas I have said twenty times before, simply a case of French vanity; the\nmemory of her father, the celebrated cloth merchant, constitutes the\nunhappiness of this frigid melancholy nature. The only happiness she\ncould find would be to live in Toledo and to be tortured by a confessor\nwho would show her hell wide open every day.\"\n\n\"Altamira informs me you are one of us,\" said Don Diego, whose\ndemeanour was growing graver and graver to Julien as he went out. \"You\nwill help us one day in re-winning our liberty, so I would like to help\nyou in this little amusement. It is right that you should know the\nmarechale's style; here are four letters in her hand-writing.\"\n\n\"I will copy them out,\" exclaimed Julien, \"and bring them back to you.\"\n\n\"And you will never let anyone know a word of what we have been\nsaying.\"\n\n\"Never, on my honour,\" cried Julien.\n\n\"Well, God help you,\" added the Spaniard, and he silently escorted\nAltamira and Julien as far as the staircase.\n\nThis somewhat amused our hero; he was on the point of smiling. \"So\nwe have the devout Altamira,\" he said to himself, \"aiding me in an\nadulterous enterprise.\"\n\nDuring Don Diego's solemn conversation Julien had been attentive to the\nhours struck by the clock of the Hotel d'Aligre.\n\nThe dinner hour was drawing near, he was going to see Mathilde again.\nHe went in and dressed with much care.\n\n\"Mistake No. 1,\" he said to himself as he descended the staircase: \"I\nmust follow the prince's instructions to the letter.\"\n\nHe went up to his room again and put on a travelling suit which was as\nsimple as it could be. \"All I have to do now,\" he thought, \"is to keep\ncontrol of my expression.\" It was only half-past five and they dined at\nsix. He thought of going down to the salon which he found deserted. He\nwas moved to the point of tears at the sight of the blue sofa. \"I must\nmake an end of this foolish sensitiveness,\" he said angrily, \"it will\nbetray me.\" He took up a paper in order to keep himself in countenance\nand passed three or four times from the salon into the garden.\n\nIt was only when he was well concealed by a large oak and was trembling\nall over, that he ventured to raise his eyes at mademoiselle de la\nMole's window. It was hermetically sealed; he was on the point of\nfainting and remained for a long time leaning against the oak; then\nwith a staggering step he went to have another look at the gardener's\nladder.\n\nThe chain which he had once forced asunder--in, alas, such different\ncircumstances--had not yet been repaired. Carried away by a moment of\nmadness, Julien pressed it to his lips.\n\nAfter having wandered about for a long time between the salon and the\ngarden, Julien felt horribly tired; he was now feeling acutely the\neffects of a first success. My eyes will be expressionless and will not\nbetray me! The guests gradually arrived in the salon; the door never\nopened without instilling anxiety into Julien's heart.\n\nThey sat down at table. Mademoiselle de la Mole, always faithful to her\nhabit of keeping people waiting, eventually appeared. She blushed a\ngreat deal on seeing Julien, she had not been told of his arrival. In\naccordance with Prince Korasoff's recommendation, Julien looked at his\nhands. They were trembling. Troubled though he was beyond words by this\ndiscovery, he was sufficiently happy to look merely tired.\n\nM. de la Mole sang his praises. The marquise spoke to him a minute\nafterwards and complimented him on his tired appearance. Julien said to\nhimself at every minute, \"I ought not to look too much at mademoiselle\nde la Mole, I ought not to avoid looking at her too much either. I must\nappear as I was eight days before my unhappiness----\" He had occasion\nto be satisfied with his success and remained in the salon. Paying\nattention for the first time to the mistress of the house, he made\nevery effort to make the visitors speak and to keep the conversation\nalive.\n\nHis politeness was rewarded; madame la marechale de Fervaques was\nannounced about eight o'clock. Julien retired and shortly afterwards\nappeared dressed with the greatest care. Madame de la Mole was\ninfinitely grateful to him for this mark of respect and made a point\nof manifesting her satisfaction by telling madame de Fervaques about\nhis journey. Julien established himself near the marechale in such a\nposition that Mathilde could not notice his eyes. In this position he\nlavished in accordance with all the rules in the art of love, the most\nabject admiration on madame de Fervaques. The first of the 53 letters\nwith which Prince Korasoff had presented him commenced with a tirade on\nthis sentiment.\n\nThe marechale announced that she was going to the Opera-Bouffe. Julien\nrushed there. He ran across the Chevalier de Beauvoisis who took him\ninto a box occupied by Messieurs the Gentlemen of the Chamber, just\nnext to madame de Fervaques's box. Julien constantly looked at her. \"I\nmust keep a siege-journal,\" he said to himself as he went back to the\nhotel, \"otherwise I shall forget my attacks.\" He wrote two or three\npages on this boring theme, and in this way achieved the admirable\nresult of scarcely thinking at all about mademoiselle de la Mole.\n\nMathilde had almost forgotten him during his journey. \"He is simply\na commonplace person after all,\" she thought, \"his name will always\nrecall to me the greatest mistake in my life. I must honestly go back\nto all my ideas about prudence and honour; a woman who forgets them has\neverything to lose.\" She showed herself inclined to allow the contract\nwith the marquis de Croisenois, which had been prepared so long ago, to\nbe at last concluded. He was mad with joy; he would have been very much\nastonished had he been told that there was an element of resignation at\nthe bottom of those feelings of Mathilde which made him so proud.\n\nAll mademoiselle de la Mole's ideas changed when she saw Julien. \"As a\nmatter of fact he is my husband,\" she said to herself. \"If I am sincere\nin my return to sensible notions, he is clearly the man I ought to\nmarry.\"\n\nShe was expecting importunities and airs of unhappiness on the part of\nJulien; she commenced rehearsing her answers, for he would doubtless\ntry to address some words to her when they left the dinner table. Far\nfrom that he remained stubbornly in the salon and did not even look in\nthe direction of the garden, though God knows what pain that caused him!\n\n\"It is better to have this explanation out all at once,\" thought\nmademoiselle de la Mole; she went into the garden alone, Julien did not\nappear. Mathilde went and walked near the salon window. She found him\nvery much occupied in describing to madame de Fervaques the old ruined\nchateau which crown the banks along the Rhine and invest them with so\nmuch atmosphere. He was beginning to acquit himself with some credit\nin that sentimental picturesque jargon which is called wit in certain\nsalons. Prince Korasoff would have been very proud if he had been at\nParis. This evening was exactly what he had predicted.\n\nHe would have approved the line of conduct which Julien followed on the\nsubsequent days.\n\nAn intrigue among the members of the secret government was going to\nbestow a few blue ribbons; madame marechale de Fervaques was insisting\non her great uncle being made a chevalier of the order. The marquis de\nla Mole had the same pretensions for his father-in-law; they joined\nforces and the marechale came to the Hotel de la Mole nearly every day.\nIt was from her that Julien learned that the marquis was going to be\na minister. He was offering to the _Camarilla_ a very ingenious plan\nfor the annihilation of the charter within three years without any\ndisturbance.\n\nIf M. de la Mole became a minister, Julien could hope for a bishopric:\nbut all these important interests seemed to be veiled and hazy. His\nimagination only perceived them very vaguely, and so to speak, in\nthe far distance. The awful unhappiness which was making him into a\nmadman could find no other interest in life except the character of his\nrelations with mademoiselle de la Mole. He calculated that after five\nor six careful years he would manage to get himself loved again.\n\nThis cold brain had been reduced, as one sees, to a state of complete\ndisorder. Out of all the qualities which had formerly distinguished\nhim, all that remained was a little firmness. He was literally faithful\nto the line of conduct which prince Korasoff had dictated, and placed\nhimself every evening near madame Fervaques' armchair, but he found it\nimpossible to think of a word to say to her.\n\nThe strain of making Mathilde think that he had recovered exhausted his\nwhole moral force, and when he was with the marechale he seemed almost\nlifeless; even his eyes had lost all their fire, as in cases of extreme\nphysical suffering.\n\nAs madame de la Mole's views were invariably a counterpart of the\nopinions of that husband of hers who could make her into a Duchess, she\nhad been singing Julien's praises for some days.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVI\n\nMORAL LOVE\n\n\n    There also was of course in Adeline\n    That calm patrician polish in the address,\n    Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line\n    Of anything which Nature would express;\n    Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine.\n    At least his manner suffers not to guess\n    That anything he views can greatly please.\n                            _Don Juan, c. xiii. st._ 84.\n\n\n\"There is an element of madness in all this family's way of looking at\nthings,\" thought the marechale; \"they are infatuated with their young\nabbe, whose only accomplishment is to be a good listener, though his\neyes are fine enough, it is true.\"\n\nJulien, on his side, found in the marechale's manners an almost perfect\ninstance of that patrician calm which exhales a scrupulous politeness;\nand, what is more, announces at the same time the impossibility of\nany violent emotion. Madame de Fervaques would have been as much\nscandalised by any unexpected movement or any lack of self-control, as\nby a lack of dignity towards one's inferiors. She would have regarded\nthe slightest symptom of sensibility as a kind of moral drunkenness\nwhich puts one to the blush and was extremely prejudicial to what a\nperson of high rank owed to herself. Her great happiness was to talk of\nthe king's last hunt; her favourite book, was the Memoirs of the Duke\nde Saint Simon, especially the genealogical part.\n\nJulien knew the place where the arrangement of the light suited madame\nde Fervaques' particular style of beauty. He got there in advance, but\nwas careful to turn his chair in such a way as not to see Mathilde.\n\nAstonished one day at this consistent policy of hiding himself from\nher, she left the blue sofa and came to work by the little table near\nthe marechale's armchair. Julien had a fairly close view of her over\nmadame de Fervaques' hat.\n\nThose eyes, which were the arbiters of his fate, frightened him, and\nthen hurled him violently out of his habitual apathy. He talked, and\ntalked very well.\n\nHe was speaking to the marechale, but his one aim was to produce an\nimpression upon Mathilde's soul. He became so animated that eventually\nmadame de Fervaques did not manage to understand a word he said.\n\nThis was a prime merit. If it had occurred to Julien to follow it up by\nsome phrases of German mysticism, lofty religion, and Jesuitism, the\nmarechale would have immediately given him a rank among the superior\nmen whose mission it was to regenerate the age.\n\n\"Since he has bad enough taste,\" said mademoiselle de la Mole, \"to talk\nso long and so ardently to madame de Fervaques, I shall not listen to\nhim any more.\" She kept her resolution during the whole latter part of\nthe evening, although she had difficulty in doing so.\n\nAt midnight, when she took her mother's candle to accompany her to\nher room, madame de la Mole stopped on the staircase to enter into an\nexhaustive eulogy of Julien. Mathilde ended by losing her temper. She\ncould not get to sleep. She felt calmed by this thought: \"the very\nthings which I despise in a man may none the less constitute a great\nmerit in the eyes of the marechale.\"\n\nAs for Julien, he had done something, he was less unhappy; his eyes\nchanced to fall on the Russian leather portfolio in which prince\nKorasoff had placed the fifty-three love letters which he had presented\nto him. Julien saw a note at the bottom of the first letter: No. 1 is\nsent eight days after the first meeting.\n\n\"I am behind hand,\" exclaimed Julien. \"It is quite a long time since I\nmet madame de Fervaques.\" He immediately began to copy out this first\nlove letter. It was a homily packed with moral platitudes and deadly\ndull. Julien was fortunate enough to fall asleep at the second page.\n\nSome hours afterwards he was surprised to see the broad daylight as he\nlent on his desk. The most painful moments in his life were those when\nhe woke up every morning to realise his unhappiness. On this particular\nday he finished copying out his letter in a state verging on laughter.\n\"Is it possible,\" he said to himself, \"that there ever lived a young\nman who actually wrote like that.\" He counted several sentences of nine\nlines each. At the bottom of the original he noticed a pencilled note.\n\"These letters are delivered personally, on horseback, black cravat,\nblue tail-coat. You give the letter to the porter with a contrite air;\nexpression of profound melancholy. If you notice any chambermaid, dry\nyour eyes furtively and speak to her.\"\n\nAll this was duly carried out.\n\n\"I am taking a very bold course!\" thought Julien as he came out of the\nHotel de Fervaques, \"but all the worse for Korasoff. To think of daring\nto write to so virtuous a celebrity. I shall be treated with the utmost\ncontempt, and nothing will amuse me more. It is really the only comedy\nthat I can in any way appreciate. Yes, it will amuse me to load with\nridicule that odious creature whom I call myself. If I believed in\nmyself, I would commit some crime to distract myself.\"\n\nThe moment when Julien brought his horse back to the stable was the\nhappiest he had experienced for a whole month. Korasoff had expressly\nforbidden him to look at the mistress who had left him, on any pretext\nwhatsoever. But the step of that horse, which she knew so well, and\nJulien's way of knocking on the stable door with his riding-whip to\ncall a man, sometimes attracted Mathilde to behind the window-curtain.\nThe muslin was so light that Julien could see through it. By looking\nunder the brim of his hat in a certain way, he could get a view of\nMathilde's figure without seeing her eyes. \"Consequently,\" he said to\nhimself, \"she cannot see mine, and that is not really looking at her.\"\n\nIn the evening madame de Fervaques behaved towards him, exactly as\nthough she had never received the philosophic mystical and religious\ndissertation which he had given to her porter in the morning with so\nmelancholy an air. Chance had shown Julien on the preceding day how\nto be eloquent; he placed himself in such a position that he could\nsee Mathilde's eyes. She, on her side, left the blue sofa a minute\nafter the marechale's arrival; this involved abandoning her usual\nassociates. M. de Croisenois seemed overwhelmed by this new caprice:\nhis palpable grief alleviated the awfulness of Julien's agony.\n\nThis unexpected turn in his life made him talk like an angel, and\ninasmuch as a certain element of self-appreciation will insinuate\nitself even into those hearts which serve as a temple for the\nmost august virtue, the marechale said to herself as she got into\nher carriage, \"Madame de la Mole is right, this young priest has\ndistinction. My presence must have overawed him at first. As a matter\nof fact, the whole tone of this house is very frivolous; I can see\nnothing but instances of virtue helped by oldness, and standing in\ngreat need of the chills of age. This young man must have managed to\nappreciate the difference; he writes well, but I fear very much that\nthis request of his in his letter for me to enlighten him with my\nadvice, is really nothing less than an, as yet, unconscious sentiment.\n\n\"Nevertheless how many conversions have begun like that! What makes me\nconsider this a good omen is the difference between his style and that\nof the young people whose letters I have had an opportunity of seeing.\nOne cannot avoid recognising unction, profound seriousness, and much\nconviction in the prose of this young acolyte; he has no doubt the\nsweet virtue of a Massillon.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVII\n\nTHE FINEST PLACES IN THE CHURCH\n\n\n    Services! talents! merits! bah! belong to a coterie.\n                                               _Telemaque_.\n\n\nThe idea of a bishopric had thus become associated with the idea of\nJulien in the mind of a woman, who would sooner or later have at her\ndisposal the finest places in the Church of France. This idea had not\nstruck Julien at all; at the present time his thoughts were strictly\nlimited to his actual unhappiness. Everything tended to intensify\nit. The sight of his room, for instance, had become unbearable. When\nhe came back in the evening with his candle, each piece of furniture\nand each little ornament seemed to become articulate, and to announce\nharshly some new phase of his unhappiness.\n\n\"I have a hard task before me today,\" he said to himself as he came in\nwith a vivacity which he had not experienced for a long time; \"let us\nhope that the second letter will be as boring as the first.\"\n\nIt was more so. What he was copying seemed so absurd that he finished\nup by transcribing it line for line without thinking of the sense.\n\n\"It is even more bombastic,\" he said to himself, \"than those official\ndocuments of the treaty of Munster which my professor of diplomacy made\nme copy out at London.\"\n\nIt was only then that he remembered madame de Fervaque's letters which\nhe had forgotten to give back to the grave Spaniard Don Diego Bustos.\nHe found them. They were really almost as nonsensical as those of\nthe young Russian nobleman. Their vagueness was unlimited. It meant\neverything and nothing. \"It's the AEolian harp of style,\" thought\nJulien. \"The only real thing I see in the middle of all these lofty\nthoughts about annihilation, death, infinity, etc., is an abominable\nfear of ridicule.\"\n\nThe monologue which we have just condensed was repeated for fifteen\ndays on end. Falling off to sleep as he copied out a sort of commentary\non the Apocalypse, going with a melancholy expression to deliver it\nthe following day, taking his horse back to the stable in the hope\nof catching sight of Mathilde's dress, working, going in the evening\nto the opera on those evenings when madame de Fervaques did not come\nto the Hotel de la Mole, such were the monotonous events in Julien's\nlife. His life had more interest, when madame la Fervaques visited the\nmarquise; he could then catch a glimpse of Mathilde's eyes underneath\na feather of the marechale's hat, and he would wax eloquent. His\npicturesque and sentimental phrases began to assume a style, which was\nboth more striking and more elegant.\n\nHe quite realised that what he said was absurd in Mathilde's eyes, but\nhe wished to impress her by the elegance of his diction. \"The falser my\nspeeches are the more I ought to please,\" thought Julien, and he then\nhad the abominable audacity to exaggerate certain elements in his own\ncharacter. He soon appreciated that to avoid appearing vulgar in the\neyes of the marechale it was necessary to eschew simple and rational\nideas. He would continue on these lines, or would cut short his grand\neloquence according as he saw appreciation or indifference in the eyes\nof the two great ladies whom he had set out to please.\n\nTaking it all round, his life was less awful than when his days were\npassed in inaction.\n\n\"But,\" he said to himself one evening, \"here I am copying out the\nfifteenth of these abominable dissertations; the first fourteen have\nbeen duly delivered to the marechale's porter. I shall have the honour\nof filling all the drawers in her escritoire. And yet she treats me\nas though I never wrote. What can be the end of all this? Will my\nconstancy bore her as much as it does me? I must admit that that\nRussian friend of Korasoff's who was in love with the pretty Quakeress\nof Richmond, was a terrible man in his time; no one could be more\noverwhelming.\"\n\nLike all mediocre individuals, who chance to come into contact with the\nmanoeuvres of a great general, Julien understood nothing of the attack\nexecuted by the young Russian on the heart of the young English girl.\nThe only purpose of the first forty letters was to secure forgiveness\nfor the boldness of writing at all. The sweet person, who perhaps lived\na life of inordinate boredom, had to be induced to contract the habit\nof receiving letters, which were perhaps a little less insipid than her\neveryday life.\n\nOne morning a letter was delivered to Julien. He recognised the arms\nof madame la Fervaques, and broke the seal with an eagerness which\nwould have seemed impossible to him some days before. It was only an\ninvitation to dinner.\n\nHe rushed to prince Korasoffs instructions. Unfortunately the young\nRussian had taken it into his head to be as flippant as Dorat, just\nwhen he should have been simple and intelligible! Julien was not able\nto form any idea of the moral position which he ought to take up at the\nmarechale's dinner.\n\nThe salon was extremely magnificent and decorated like the gallery de\nDiane in the Tuileries with panelled oil-paintings.\n\nThere were some light spots on these pictures. Julien learnt later that\nthe mistress of the house had thought the subject somewhat lacking in\ndecency and that she had had the pictures corrected. \"What a moral\ncentury!\" he thought.\n\nHe noticed in this salon three of the persons who had been present\nat the drawing up of the secret note. One of them, my lord bishop of\n---- the marechale's uncle had the disposition of the ecclesiastical\npatronage, and could, it was said, refuse his niece nothing. \"What\nimmense progress I have made,\" said Julien to himself with a melancholy\nsmile, \"and how indifferent I am to it. Here I am dining with the\nfamous bishop of ----.\"\n\nThe dinner was mediocre and the conversation wearisome.\n\n\"It's like the small talk in a bad book,\" thought Julien. \"All the\ngreatest subjects of human thought are proudly tackled. After listening\nfor three minutes one asks oneself which is greater--the speaker's\nbombast, or his abominable ignorance?\"\n\nThe reader has doubtless forgotten the little man of letters named\nTanbeau, who was the nephew of the Academician, and intended to be\nprofessor, who seemed entrusted with the task of poisoning the salon of\nthe Hotel de la Mole with his base calumnies.\n\nIt was this little man who gave Julien the first inkling that though,\nmadame de Fervaques did not answer, she might quite well take an\nindulgent view of the sentiment which dictated them. M. Tanbeau's\nsinister soul was lacerated by the thought of Julien's success; \"but\nsince, on the other hand, a man of merit cannot be in two places at the\nsame time any more than a fool,\" said the future professor to himself,\n\"if Sorel becomes the lover of the sublime marechale, she will obtain\nsome lucrative position for him in the church, and I shall be rid of\nhim in the Hotel de la Mole.\"\n\nM. the abbe Pirard addressed long sermons to Julien concerning his\nsuccess at the hotel de Fervaques. There was a sectarian jealousy\nbetween the austere Jansenist and the salon of the virtuous marechale\nwhich was Jesuitical, reactionary, and monarchical.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVIII\n\nMANON LESCAUT\n\n\n        Accordingly once he was thoroughly convinced of the\n        asinine stupidity of the prior, he would usually succeed\n        well enough by calling white black, and black white.\n        _Lichtenberg_.\n\n\nThe Russian instructions peremptorily forbade the writer from ever\ncontradicting in conversation the recipient of the letters. No pretext\ncould excuse any deviation from the role of that most ecstatic\nadmiration. The letters were always based on that hypothesis.\n\nOne evening at the opera, when in madame de Fervaques' box, Julien\nspoke of the ballet of _Manon Lescaut_ in the most enthusiastic terms.\nHis only reason for talking in that strain was the fact that he thought\nit insignificant.\n\nThe marechale said that the ballet was very inferior to the abbe\nPrevost's novel.\n\n\"The idea,\" thought Julien, both surprised and amused, \"of so highly\nvirtuous a person praising a novel! Madame de Fervaques used to profess\ntwo or three times a week the most absolute contempt for those writers,\nwho, by means of their insipid works, try to corrupt a youth which is,\nalas! only too inclined to the errors of the senses.\"\n\n\"_Manon Lescaut_\" continued the marechale, \"is said to be one of the\nbest of this immoral and dangerous type of book. The weaknesses and the\ndeserved anguish of a criminal heart are, they say, portrayed with a\ntruth which is not lacking in depth; a fact which does not prevent your\nBonaparte from stating at St. Helena that it is simply a novel written\nfor lackeys.\"\n\nThe word Bonaparte restored to Julien all the activity of his mind.\n\"They have tried to ruin me with the marechale; they have told her of\nmy enthusiasm for Napoleon. This fact has sufficiently piqued her to\nmake her yield to the temptation to make me feel it.\" This discovery\namused him all the evening, and rendered him amusing. As he took leave\nof the marechale in the vestibule of the opera, she said to him,\n\"Remember, monsieur, one must not like Bonaparte if you like me; at\nthe best he can only be accepted as a necessity imposed by Providence.\nBesides, the man did not have a sufficiently supple soul to appreciate\nmasterpieces of art.\"\n\n\"When you like me,\" Julien kept on repeating to himself, \"that means\nnothing or means everything. Here we have mysteries of language which\nare beyond us poor provincials.\" And he thought a great deal about\nmadame de Renal, as he copied out an immense letter destined for the\nmarechale.\n\n\"How is it,\" she said to him the following day, with an assumed\nindifference which he thought was clumsily assumed, \"that you talk to\nme about London and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, I\nthink, when you came back from the opera?\"\n\nJulien was very embarrassed. He had copied line by line without\nthinking about what he was writing, and had apparently forgotten to\nsubstitute Paris and Saint Cloud for the words London and Richmond\nwhich occurred in the original. He commenced two or three sentences,\nbut found it impossible to finish them. He felt on the point of\nsuccumbing to a fit of idiotic laughter. Finally by picking his words\nhe succeeded in formulating this inspiration: \"Exalted as I was by the\ndiscussion of the most sublime and greatest interests of the human\nsoul, my own soul may have been somewhat absent in my letter to you.\"\n\n\"I am making an impression,\" he said to himself, \"so I can spare myself\nthe boredom of the rest of the evening.\" He left the Hotel de Fervaques\nat a run. In the evening he had another look at the original of the\nletter which he had copied out on the previous night, and soon came to\nthe fatal place where the young Russian made mention of London and of\nRichmond. Julien was very astonished to find this letter almost tender.\n\nIt had been the contrast between the apparent lightness of his\nconversation, and the sublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of\nhis letters which had marked him out for favour. The marechale was\nparticularly pleased by the longness of the sentences; this was very\nfar from being that sprightly style which that immoral man Voltaire\nhad brought into fashion. Although our hero made every possible human\neffort to eliminate from his conversation any symptom of good sense, it\nstill preserved a certain anti-monarchical and blasphemous tinge which\ndid not escape madame de Fervaques. Surrounded as she was by persons\nwho, though eminently moral, had very often not a single idea during a\nwhole evening, this lady was profoundly struck by anything resembling\na novelty, but at the same time she thought she owed it to herself to\nbe offended by it. She called this defect: Keeping the imprint of the\nlightness of the age.\n\nBut such salons are only worth observing when one has a favour to\nprocure. The reader doubtless shares all the ennui of the colourless\nlife which Julien was leading. This period represents the steppes of\nour journey.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole needed to exercise her self-control to avoid\nthinking of Julien during the whole period filled by the de Fervaques\nepisode. Her soul was a prey to violent battles; sometimes she piqued\nherself on despising that melancholy young man, but his conversation\ncaptivated her in spite of herself. She was particularly astonished by\nhis absolute falseness. He did not say a single word to the marechale\nwhich was not a lie, or at any rate, an abominable travesty of his own\nway of thinking, which Mathilde knew so perfectly in every phase. This\nMachiavellianism impressed her. \"What subtlety,\" she said to herself.\n\"What a difference between the bombastic coxcombs, or the common\nrascals like Tanbeau who talk in the same strain.\"\n\nNevertheless Julien went through awful days. It was only to accomplish\nthe most painful of duties that he put in a daily appearance in the\nmarechale's salon.\n\nThe strain of playing a part ended by depriving his mind of all its\nstrength. As he crossed each night the immense courtyard of the Hotel\nde Fervaques, it was only through sheer force in character and logic\nthat he succeeded in keeping a little above the level of despair.\n\n\"I overcame despair at the seminary,\" he said, \"yet what an awful\nprospect I had then. I was then either going to make my fortune or\ncome to grief just as I am now. I found myself obliged to pass all my\nlife in intimate association with the most contemptible and disgusting\nthings in the whole world. The following spring, just eleven short\nmonths later, I was perhaps the happiest of all young people of my own\nage.\"\n\nBut very often all this fine logic proved unavailing against the awful\nreality. He saw Mathilde every day at breakfast and at dinner. He knew\nfrom the numerous letters which de la Mole dictated to him that she was\non the eve of marrying de Croisenois. This charming man already called\ntwice a day at the Hotel de la Mole; the jealous eye of a jilted lover\nwas alive to every one of his movements. When he thought he had noticed\nthat mademoiselle de la Mole was beginning to encourage her intended,\nJulien could not help looking tenderly at his pistols as he went up to\nhis room.\n\n\"Ah,\" he said to himself, \"would it not be much wiser to take the marks\nout of my linen and to go into some solitary forest twenty leagues from\nParis to put an end to this atrocious life? I should be unknown in the\ndistrict, my death would remain a secret for a fortnight, and who would\nbother about me after a fortnight?\"\n\nThis reasoning was very logical. But on the following day a glimpse of\nMathilde's arm between the sleeve of her dress and her glove sufficed\nto plunge our young philosopher into memories which, though agonising,\nnone the less gave him a hold on life. \"Well,\" he said to himself, \"I\nwill follow this Russian plan to the end. How will it all finish?\"\n\n\"So far as the marechale is concerned, after I have copied out these\nfifty-three letters, I shall not write any others.\n\n\"As for Mathilde, these six weeks of painful acting will either leave\nher anger unchanged, or will win me a moment of reconciliation. Great\nGod! I should die of happiness.\" And he could not finish his train of\nthought.\n\nAfter a long reverie he succeeded in taking up the thread of his\nargument. \"In that case,\" he said to himself, \"I should win one day of\nhappiness, and after that her cruelties which are based, alas, on my\nlack of ability to please her will recommence. I should have nothing\nleft to do, I should be ruined and lost for ever. With such a character\nas hers what guarantee can she give me? Alas! My manners are no doubt\nlacking in elegance, and my style of speech is heavy and monotonous.\nGreat God, why am I myself?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIX\n\nENNUI\n\n\n        Sacrificing one's self to one's passions, let it pass;\n        but sacrificing one's self to passions which one has not\n        got! Oh! melancholy nineteenth century!\n                                            _Girodet_.\n\n\nMadame de Fervaques had begun reading Julien's long letters without any\npleasure, but she now began to think about them; one thing, however,\ngrieved her. \"What a pity that M. Sorel was not a real priest! He could\nthen be admitted to a kind of intimacy; but in view of that cross,\nand that almost lay dress, one is exposed to cruel questions and what\nis one to answer?\" She did not finish the train of thought, \"Some\nmalicious woman friend may think, and even spread it about that he is\nsome lower middle-class cousin or other, a relative of my father, some\ntradesman who has been decorated by the National Guard.\" Up to the\ntime which she had seen Julien, madame de Fervaque's greatest pleasure\nhad been writing the word marechale after her name. Consequently a\nmorbid parvenu vanity, which was ready to take umbrage at everything,\ncombatted the awakening of her interest in him. \"It would be so easy\nfor me,\" said the marechale, \"to make him a grand vicar in some diocese\nnear Paris! but plain M. Sorel, and what is more, a man who is the\nsecretary of M. de la Mole! It is heart-breaking.\"\n\nFor the first time in her life this soul, which was afraid of\neverything, was moved by an interest which was alien to its own\npretensions to rank and superiority. Her old porter noticed that\nwhenever he brought a letter from this handsome young man, who always\nlooked so sad, he was certain to see that absent, discontented\nexpression, which the marechale always made a point of assuming on the\nentry of any of her servants, immediately disappear. The boredom of a\nmode of life whose ambitions were concentrated on impressing the public\nwithout her having at heart any real faculty of enjoyment for that kind\nof success, had become so intolerable since she had begun to think of\nJulien that, all that was necessary to prevent her chambermaids being\nbullied for a whole day, was that their mistress should have passed\nan hour in the society of this strange young man on the evening of\nthe preceding day. His budding credit was proof against very cleverly\nwritten anonymous letters. It was in vain that Tanbeau supplied M. de\nLuz, de Croisenois, de Caylus, with two or three very clever calumnies\nwhich these gentlemen were only too glad to spread, without making\ntoo many enquiries of the actual truth of the charges. The marechale,\nwhose temperament was not calculated to be proof against these vulgar\nexpedients related her doubts to Mathilde, and was always consoled by\nher.\n\nOne day, madame de Fervaques, after having asked three times if there\nwere any letters for her, suddenly decided to answer Julien. It was a\ncase of the triumph of ennui. On reaching the second letter in his name\nthe marechale almost felt herself pulled up sharp by the unbecomingness\nof writing with her own hand so vulgar an address as to M. Sorel, care\nof M. le Marquis de la Mole.\n\n\"You must bring me envelopes with your address on,\" she said very drily\nto Julien in the evening. \"Here I am appointed lover and valet in one,\"\nthought Julien, and he bowed, amused himself by wrinkling his face up\nlike Arsene, the old valet of the marquis.\n\nHe brought the envelopes that very evening, and he received the third\nletter very early on the following day: he read five or six lines at\nthe beginning, and two or three towards the end. There were four pages\nof a small and very close writing. The lady gradually developed the\nsweet habit of writing nearly every day. Julien answered by faithful\ncopies of the Russian letters; and such is the advantage of the\nbombastic style that madame de Fervaques was not a bit astonished by\nthe lack of connection between his answers and her letters. How gravely\nirritated would her pride have been if the little Tanbeau who had\nconstituted himself a voluntary spy on all Julien's movements had been\nable to have informed her that all these letters were left unsealed and\nthrown haphazard into Julien's drawer.\n\nOne morning the porter was bringing into the library a letter to him\nfrom the marechale. Mathilde met the man, saw the letter together with\nthe address in Julien's handwriting. She entered the library as the\nporter was leaving it, the letter was still on the edge of the table.\nJulien was very busy with his work and had not yet put it in his drawer.\n\n\"I cannot endure this,\" exclaimed Mathilde, as she took possession\nof the letter, \"you are completely forgetting me, me your wife, your\nconduct is awful, monsieur.\"\n\nAt these words her pride, shocked by the awful unseemliness of her\nproceeding, prevented her from speaking. She burst into tears, and soon\nseemed to Julien scarcely able to breathe.\n\nJulien was so surprised and embarrassed that he did not fully\nappreciate how ideally fortunate this scene was for himself. He helped\nMathilde to sit down; she almost abandoned herself in his arms.\n\nThe first minute in which he noticed this movement, he felt an extreme\njoy. Immediately afterwards, he thought of Korasoff: \"I may lose\neverything by a single word.\"\n\nThe strain of carrying out his tactics was so great that his arms\nstiffened. \"I dare not even allow myself to press this supple, charming\nframe to my heart, or she will despise me or treat me badly. What an\nawful character!\" And while he cursed Mathilde's character, he loved\nher a hundred times more. He thought he had a queen in his arms.\n\nJulien's impassive coldness intensified the anguished pride which was\nlacerating the soul of mademoiselle de la Mole. She was far from having\nthe necessary self-possession to try and read in his eyes what he felt\nfor her at that particular moment. She could not make up her mind to\nlook at him. She trembled lest she might encounter a contemptuous\nexpression.\n\nSeated motionless on the library divan, with her head turned in the\nopposite direction to Julien, she was a prey to the most poignant\nanguish that pride and love can inflict upon a human soul. What an\nawful step had she just slipped into taking! \"It has been reserved\nfor me, unhappy woman that I am, to see my most unbecoming advances\nrebuffed! and rebuffed by whom?\" added her maddened and wounded pride;\n\"rebuffed by a servant of my father's! That's more than I will put up\nwith,\" she said aloud, and rising in a fury, she opened the drawer of\nJulien's table, which was two yards in front of her.\n\nShe stood petrified with horror when she saw eight or ten unopened\nletters, completely like the one the porter had just brought up. She\nrecognised Julien's handwriting, though more or less disguised, on all\nthe addresses.\n\n\"So,\" she cried, quite beside herself, \"you are not only on good terms\nwith her, but you actually despise her. You, a nobody, despise madame\nla marechale de Fervaques!\"\n\n\"Oh, forgive me, my dear,\" she added, throwing herself on her knees;\n\"despise me if you wish, but love me. I cannot live without your love.\"\nAnd she fell down in a dead faint.\n\n\"So our proud lady is lying at my feet,\" said Julien to himself.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LX\n\nA BOX AT THE BOUFFES\n\n\n   As the blackest sky\nForetells the heaviest tempest\n               _Don Juan, c._ 1. _st_.76.\n\n\nIn the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surprised than\nhappy. Mathilde's abuse proved to him the shrewdness of the Russian\ntactics. \"'Few words, few deeds,' that is my one method of salvation.\"\nHe picked up Mathilde, and without saying a word, put her back on the\ndivan. She was gradually being overcome by tears.\n\nIn order to keep herself in countenance, she took madame de Fervaques'\nletters in her hands, and slowly broke the seals. She gave a noticeable\nnervous movement when she recognised the marechale's handwriting. She\nturned over the pages of these letters without reading them. Most of\nthem were six pages.\n\n\"At least answer me,\" Mathilde said at last, in the most supplicatory\ntone, but without daring to look at Julien: \"You know how proud I am.\nIt is the misfortune of my position, and of my temperament, too, I\nconfess. Has madame de Fervaques robbed me of your heart? Has she made\nthe sacrifices to which my fatal love swept me?\"\n\nA dismal silence was all Julien's answer. \"By what right,\" he thought,\n\"does she ask me to commit an indiscretion unworthy of an honest man?\"\nMathilde tried to read the letters; her eyes were so wet with tears\nthat it was impossible for her to do so. She had been unhappy for a\nmonth past, but this haughty soul had been very far from owning its own\nfeelings even to itself. Chance alone had brought about this explosion.\nFor one instant jealousy and love had won a victory over pride. She\nwas sitting on the divan, and very near him. He saw her hair and her\nalabaster neck. For a moment he forgot all he owed to himself. He\npassed his arm around her waist, and clasped her almost to his breast.\n\nShe slowly turned her head towards him. He was astonished by the\nextreme anguish in her eyes. There was not a trace of their usual\nexpression.\n\nJulien felt his strength desert him. So great was the deadly pain of\nthe courageous feat which he was imposing on himself.\n\n\"Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain,\" said\nJulien to himself, \"if I allow myself to be swept away by the happiness\nof loving her.\" She, however, kept repeatedly assuring him at this\nmoment, in a hushed voice, and in words which she had scarcely the\nstrength to finish, of all her remorse for those steps which her\ninordinate pride had dictated.\n\n\"I, too, have pride,\" said Julien to her, in a scarcely articulate\nvoice, while his features portrayed the lowest depths of physical\nprostration.\n\nMathilde turned round sharply towards him. Hearing his voice was a\nhappiness which she had given up hoping. At this moment her only\nthought of her haughtiness was to curse it. She would have liked to\nhave found out some abnormal and incredible actions, in order to prove\nto him the extent to which she adored him and detested herself.\n\n\"That pride is probably the reason,\" continued Julien, \"why you singled\nme out for a moment. My present courageous and manly firmness is\ncertainly the reason why you respect me. I may entertain love for the\nmarechale.\"\n\nMathilde shuddered; a strange expression came into her eyes. She was\ngoing to hear her sentence pronounced. This shudder did not escape\nJulien. He felt his courage weaken.\n\n\"Ah,\" he said to himself, as he listened to the sound of the vain words\nwhich his mouth was articulating, as he thought it were some strange\nsound, \"if I could only cover those pale cheeks with kisses without\nyour feeling it.\"\n\n\"I may entertain love for the marechale,\" he continued, while his voice\nbecame weaker and weaker, \"but I certainly have no definite proof of\nher interest in me.\"\n\nMathilde looked at him. He supported that look. He hoped, at any rate,\nthat his expression had not betrayed him. He felt himself bathed in a\nlove that penetrated even into the most secret recesses of his heart.\nHe had never adored her so much; he was almost as mad as Mathilde. If\nshe had mustered sufficient self-possession and courage to manoeuvre, he\nwould have abandoned all his play-acting, and fallen at her feet. He\nhad sufficient strength to manage to continue speaking: \"Ah, Korasoff,\"\nhe exclaimed mentally, \"why are you not here? How I need a word from\nyou to guide me in my conduct.\" During this time his voice was saying,\n\n\"In default of any other sentiment, gratitude would be sufficient to\nattach me to the marechale. She has been indulgent to me; she has\nconsoled me when I have been despised. I cannot put unlimited faith\nin certain appearances which are, no doubt, extremely flattering, but\npossibly very fleeting.\"\n\n\"Oh, my God!\" exclaimed Mathilde.\n\n\"Well, what guarantee will you give me?\" replied Julien with a sharp,\nfirm intonation, which seemed to abandon for a moment the prudent forms\nof diplomacy. \"What guarantee, what god will warrant that the position\nto which you seem inclined to restore me at the present moment will\nlast more than two days?\"\n\n\"The excess of my love, and my unhappiness if you do not love me,\" she\nsaid to him, taking his hands and turning towards him.\n\nThe spasmodic movement which she had just made had slightly displaced\nher tippet; Julien caught a view of her charming shoulders. Her\nslightly dishevelled hair recalled a delicious memory....\n\nHe was on the point of succumbing. \"One imprudent word,\" he said to\nhimself, \"and I have to start all over again that long series of days\nwhich I have passed in despair. Madame de Renal used to find reasons\nfor doing what her heart dictated. This young girl of high society\nnever allows her heart to be moved except when she has proved to\nherself by sound logic that it ought to be moved.\"\n\nHe saw this proof in the twinkling of an eye, and in the twinkling\nof an eye too, he regained his courage. He took away his hands which\nMathilde was pressing in her own, and moved a little away from her with\na marked respect.\n\nHuman courage could not go further. He then busied himself with\nputting together madame de Fervaque's letters which were spread out on\nthe divan, and it was with all the appearance of extreme politeness\nthat he cruelly exploited the psychological moment by adding,\n\n\"Mademoiselle de la Mole will allow me to reflect over all this.\" He\nwent rapidly away and left the library; she heard him shut all the\ndoors one after the other.\n\n\"The monster is not the least bit troubled,\" she said to herself. \"But\nwhat am I saying? Monster? He is wise, prudent, good. It is I myself\nwho have committed more wrong than one can imagine.\"\n\nThis point of view lasted. Mathilde was almost happy today, for she\ngave herself up to love unreservedly. One would have said that this\nsoul had never been disturbed by pride (and what pride!)\n\nShe shuddered with horror when a lackey announced madame le Fervaques\ninto the salon in the evening. The man's voice struck her as sinister.\nShe could not endure the sight of the marechale, and stopped suddenly.\nJulien who had felt little pride over his painful victory, had feared\nto face her, and had not dined at the Hotel de la Mole.\n\nHis love and his happiness rapidly increased in proportion to the time\nthat elapsed from the moment of the battle. He was blaming himself\nalready. \"How could I resist her?\" he said to himself. \"Suppose she\nwere to go and leave off loving me! One single moment may change that\nhaughty soul, and I must admit that I have treated her awfully.\"\n\nIn the evening he felt that it was absolutely necessary to put in\nan appearance at the Bouffes in madame de Fervaques' box. She had\nexpressly invited him. Mathilde would be bound to know of his presence\nor his discourteous absence. In spite of the clearness of this logic,\nhe could not at the beginning of the evening bring himself to plunge\ninto society. By speaking he would lose half his happiness. Ten o'clock\nstruck and it was absolutely necessary to show himself. Luckily he\nfound the marechale's box packed with women, and was relegated to a\nplace near the door where he was completely hidden by the hats. This\nposition saved him from looking ridiculous; Caroline's divine notes of\ndespair in the _Matrimonio Segreto_ made him burst into tears. Madame\nde Fervaques saw these tears. They represented so great a contrast\nwith the masculine firmness of his usual expression that the soul\nof the old-fashioned lady, saturated as it had been for many years\nwith all the corroding acid of parvenu haughtiness, was none the less\ntouched. Such remnants of a woman's heart as she still possessed\nimpelled her to speak: she wanted to enjoy the sound of his voice at\nthis moment.\n\n\"Have you seen the de la Mole ladies?\" she said to him. \"They are\nin the third tier.\" Julien immediately craned out over the theatre,\nleaning politely enough on the front of the box. He saw Mathilde; her\neyes were shining with tears.\n\n\"And yet it is not their Opera day,\" thought Julien; \"how eager she\nmust be!\"\n\nMathilde had prevailed on her mother to come to the Bouffes in spite\nof the inconveniently high tier of the box, which a lady friend of the\nfamily had hastened to offer her. She wanted to see if Julien would\npass the evening with the marechale.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXI\n\nFRIGHTEN HER\n\n\n        So this is the fine miracle of your civilisation; you\n        have turned love into an ordinary business.--_Barnave_.\n\n\nJulien rushed into madame de la Mole's box. His eyes first met the\ntearful eyes of Mathilde; she was crying without reserve. There were\nonly insignificant personages present, the friend who had leant her\nbox, and some men whom she knew. Mathilde placed her hand on Julien's;\nshe seemed to have forgotten all fear of her mother. Almost stifled as\nshe was by her tears, she said nothing but this one word: \"Guarantees!\"\n\n\"So long as I don't speak to her,\" said Julien to himself. He was\nhimself very moved, and concealed his eyes with his hand as best\nhe could under the pretext of avoiding the dazzling light of the\nthird tier of boxes. \"If I speak she may suspect the excess of my\nemotion, the sound of my voice will betray me. All may yet be lost.\"\nHis struggles were more painful than they had been in the morning,\nhis soul had had the time to become moved. He had been frightened at\nseeing Mathilde piqued with vanity. Intoxicated as he was with love and\npleasure he resolved not to speak.\n\nIn my view this is one of the finest traits in his character, an\nindividual capable of such an effort of self-control may go far si\n_fata sinant_.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole insisted on taking Julien back to the hotel.\nLuckily it was raining a great deal, but the marquise had him placed\nopposite her, talked to him incessantly, and prevented him saying a\nsingle word to her daughter. One might have thought that the marquise\nwas nursing Julien's happiness for him; no longer fearing to lose\neverything through his excessive emotion, he madly abandoned himself to\nhis happiness.\n\nShall I dare to say that when he went back to his room Julien fell\non his knees and covered with kisses the love letters which prince\nKorasoff had given him.\n\n\"How much I owe you, great man,\" he exclaimed in his madness. Little\nby little he regained his self-possession. He compared himself to a\ngeneral who had just won a great battle. \"My advantage is definite and\nimmense,\" he said to himself, \"but what will happen to-morrow? One\ninstant may ruin everything.\"\n\nWith a passionate gesture he opened the _Memoirs_ which Napoleon had\ndictated at St. Helena and for two long hours forced himself to read\nthem. Only his eyes read; no matter, he made himself do it. During this\nsingular reading his head and his heart rose to the most exalted level\nand worked unconsciously. \"Her heart is very different from madame de\nRenal's,\" he said to himself, but he did not go further.\n\n\"Frighten her!\" he suddenly exclaimed, hurling away the book. \"The\nenemy will only obey me in so far as I frighten him, but then he will\nnot dare to show contempt for me.\"\n\nIntoxicated with joy he walked up and down his little room. In point of\nfact his happiness was based rather on pride than on love.\n\n\"Frighten her!\" he repeated proudly, and he had cause to be proud.\n\n\"Madame de Renal always doubted even in her happiest moments if my\nlove was equal to her own. In this case I have to subjugate a demon,\nconsequently I must subjugate her.\" He knew quite well that Mathilde\nwould be in the library at eight o'clock in the morning of the\nfollowing day. He did not appear before nine o'clock. He was burning\nwith love, but his head dominated his heart.\n\nScarcely a single minute passed without his repeating to himself. \"Keep\nher obsessed by this great doubt. Does he love me?\" Her own brilliant\nposition, together with the flattery of all who speak to her, tend a\nlittle too much to make her reassure herself.\n\nHe found her sitting on the divan pale and calm, but apparently\ncompletely incapable of making a single movement. She held out her\nhand,\n\n\"Dear one, it is true I have offended you, perhaps you are angry with\nme.\"\n\nJulien had not been expecting this simple tone. He was on the point of\nbetraying himself.\n\n\"You want guarantees, my dear, she added after a silence which she had\nhoped would be broken. Take me away, let us leave for London. I shall\nbe ruined, dishonoured for ever.\" She had the courage to take her hand\naway from Julien to cover her eyes with it.\n\nAll her feelings of reserve and feminine virtue had come back into her\nsoul. \"Well, dishonour me,\" she said at last with a sigh, \"that will be\na guarantee.\"\n\n\"I was happy yesterday, because I had the courage to be severe with\nmyself,\" thought Julien. After a short silence he had sufficient\ncontrol over his heart to say in an icy tone,\n\n\"Once we are on the road to London, once you are dishonoured, to employ\nyour own expression, who will answer that you will still love me? that\nmy very presence in the post-chaise will not seem importunate? I am not\na monster; to have ruined your reputation will only make me still more\nunhappy. It is not your position in society which is the obstacle, it\nis unfortunately your own character. Can you yourself guarantee that\nyou will love me for eight days?\"\n\n\"Ah! let her love me for eight days, just eight days,\" whispered\nJulien to himself, \"and I will die of happiness. What do I care for\nthe future, what do I care for life? And yet if I wish that divine\nhappiness can commence this very minute, it only depends on me.\"\n\nMathilde saw that he was pensive.\n\n\"So I am completely unworthy of you,\" she said to him, taking his hand.\n\nJulien kissed her, but at the same time the iron hand of duty gripped\nhis heart. If she sees how much I adore her I shall lose her. And\nbefore leaving her arms, he had reassumed all that dignity which is\nproper to a man.\n\nHe managed on this and the following days to conceal his inordinate\nhappiness. There were moments when he even refused himself the pleasure\nof clasping her in his arms. At other times the delirium of happiness\nprevailed over all the counsels of prudence.\n\nHe had been accustomed to station himself near a bower of honeysuckle\nin the garden arranged in such a way so as to conceal the ladder when\nhe had looked up at Mathilde's blind in the distance, and lamented her\ninconstancy. A very big oak tree was quite near, and the trunk of that\ntree prevented him from being seen by the indiscreet.\n\nAs he passed with Mathilde over this very place which recalled his\nexcessive unhappiness so vividly, the contrast between his former\ndespair and his present happiness proved too much for his character.\nTears inundated his eyes, and he carried his sweetheart's hand to his\nlips: \"It was here I used to live in my thoughts of you, it was from\nhere that I used to look at that blind, and waited whole hours for the\nhappy moment when I would see that hand open it.\"\n\nHis weakness was unreserved. He portrayed the extremity of his former\ndespair in genuine colours which could not possibly have been invented.\nShort interjections testified to that present happiness which had put\nan end to that awful agony.\n\n\"My God, what am I doing?\" thought Julien, suddenly recovering himself.\n\"I am ruining myself.\"\n\nIn his excessive alarm he thought that he already detected a diminution\nof the love in mademoiselle de la Mole's eyes. It was an illusion, but\nJulien's face suddenly changed its expression and became overspread\nby a mortal pallor. His eyes lost their fire, and an expression of\nhaughtiness touched with malice soon succeeded to his look of the most\ngenuine and unreserved love.\n\n\"But what is the matter with you, my dear,\" said Mathilde to him, both\ntenderly and anxiously.\n\n\"I am lying,\" said Julien irritably, \"and I am lying to you. I am\nreproaching myself for it, and yet God knows that I respect you\nsufficiently not to lie to you. You love me, you are devoted to me, and\nI have no need of praises in order to please you.\"\n\n\"Great heavens! are all the charming things you have been telling me\nfor the last two minutes mere phrases?\"\n\n\"And I reproach myself for it keenly, dear one. I once made them up for\na woman who loved me, and bored me--it is the weakness of my character.\nI denounce myself to you, forgive me.\"\n\nBitter tears streamed over Mathilde's cheeks.\n\n\"As soon as some trifle offends me and throws me back on my\nmeditation,\" continued Julien, \"my abominable memory, which I curse at\nthis very minute, offers me a resource, and I abuse it.\"\n\n\"So I must have slipped, without knowing it, into some action which has\ndispleased you,\" said Mathilde with a charming simplicity.\n\n\"I remember one day that when you passed near this honeysuckle you\npicked a flower, M. de Luz took it from you and you let him keep it. I\nwas two paces away.\"\n\n\"M. de Luz? It is impossible,\" replied Mathilde with all her natural\nhaughtiness. \"I do not do things like that.\"\n\n\"I am sure of it,\" Julien replied sharply.\n\n\"Well, my dear, it is true,\" said Mathilde, as she sadly lowered her\neyes. She knew positively that many months had elapsed since she had\nallowed M. de Luz to do such a thing.\n\nJulien looked at her with ineffable tenderness, \"No,\" he said to\nhimself, \"she does not love me less.\"\n\nIn the evening she rallied him with a laugh on his fancy for madame de\nFervaques. \"Think of a bourgeois loving a parvenu, those are perhaps\nthe only type of hearts that my Julien cannot make mad with love. She\nhas made you into a real dandy,\" she said playing with his hair.\n\nDuring the period when he thought himself scorned by Mathilde, Julien\nhad become one of the best dressed men in Paris. He had, moreover,\na further advantage over other dandies, in as much as once he had\nfinished dressing he never gave a further thought to his appearance.\n\nOne thing still piqued Mathilde, Julien continued to copy out the\nRussian letters and send them to the marechale.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXII\n\nTHE TIGER\n\n\n        Alas, why these things and not other\n        things?--_Beaumarchais_.\n\n\nAn English traveller tells of the intimacy in which he lived with a\ntiger. He had trained it and would caress it, but he always kept a\ncocked pistol on his table.\n\nJulien only abandoned himself to the fulness of his happiness in those\nmoments when Mathilde could not read the expression in his eyes. He\nscrupulously performed his duty of addressing some harsh word to her\nfrom time to time.\n\nWhen Mathilde's sweetness, which he noticed with some surprise,\ntogether with the completeness of her devotion were on the point of\ndepriving him of all self-control, he was courageous enough to leave\nher suddenly.\n\nMathilde loved for the first time in her life.\n\nLife had previously always dragged along at a tortoise pace, but now it\nflew.\n\nAs, however, her pride required to find a vent in some way or other,\nshe wished to expose herself to all the dangers in which her love could\ninvolve her. It was Julien who was prudent, and it was only when it was\na question of danger that she did not follow her own inclination; but\nsubmissive, and almost humble as she was when with him, she only showed\nadditional haughtiness to everyone in the house who came near her,\nwhether relatives or friends.\n\nIn the evening she would call Julien to her in the salon in the\npresence of sixty people, and have a long and private conversation with\nhim.\n\nThe little Tanbeau installed himself one day close to them. She\nrequested him to go and fetch from the library the volume of Smollet\nwhich deals with the revolution of 1688, and when he hesitated, added\nwith an expression of insulting haughtiness, which was a veritable balm\nto Julien's soul, \"Don't hurry.\"\n\n\"Have you noticed that little monster's expression?\" he said to her.\n\n\"His uncle has been in attendance in this salon for ten or twelve\nyears, otherwise I would have had him packed off immediately.\"\n\nHer behaviour towards MM. de Croisenois, de Luz, etc., though outwardly\nperfectly polite, was in reality scarcely less provocative. Mathilde\nkeenly reproached herself for all the confidential remarks about them\nwhich she had formerly made to Julien, and all the more so since she\ndid not dare to confess that she had exaggerated to him the, in fact,\nalmost absolutely innocent manifestations of interest of which these\ngentlemen had been the objects. In spite of her best resolutions her\nwomanly pride invariably prevented her from saying to Julien, \"It was\nbecause I was talking to you that I found a pleasure in describing my\nweakness in not drawing my hand away, when M. de Croisenois had placed\nhis on a marble table and had just touched it.\"\n\nBut now, as soon as one of these gentlemen had been speaking to her for\nsome moments, she found she had a question to put to Julien, and she\nmade this an excuse for keeping him by her side.\n\nShe discovered that she was _enceinte_ and joyfully informed Julien of\nthe fact.\n\n\"Do you doubt me now? Is it not a guarantee? I am your wife for ever.\"\n\nThis announcement struck Julien with profound astonishment. He was on\nthe point of forgetting the governing principle of his conduct. How am\nI to be deliberately cold and insulting towards this poor young girl,\nwho is ruining herself for my sake. And if she looked at all ill,\nhe could not, even on those days when the terrible voice of wisdom\nmade itself heard, find the courage to address to her one of those\nharsh remarks which his experience had found so indispensable to the\npreservation of their love.\n\n\"I will write to my father,\" said Mathilde to him one day, \"he is\nmore than a father to me, he is a friend; that being so, I think it\nunworthy both of you and of myself to try and deceive him, even for a\nsingle minute.\"\n\n\"Great heavens, what are you going to do?\" said Julien in alarm.\n\n\"My duty,\" she answered with eyes shining with joy.\n\nShe thought she was showing more nobility than her lover.\n\n\"But he will pack me off in disgrace.\"\n\n\"It is his right to do so, we must respect it. I will give you my arm,\nand we will go out by the front door in full daylight.\"\n\nJulien was thunderstruck and requested her to put it off for a week.\n\n\"I cannot,\" she answered, \"it is the voice of honour, I have seen my\nduty, I must follow it, and follow it at once.\"\n\n\"Well, I order you to put it off,\" said Julien at last. \"Your honour\nis safe for the present. I am your husband. The position of us will be\nchanged by this momentous step. I too am within my rights. To-day is\nTuesday, next Tuesday is the duke de Retz's at home; when M. de la Mole\ncomes home in the evening the porter will give him the fatal letter.\nHis only thought is to make you a duchess, I am sure of it. Think of\nhis unhappiness.\"\n\n\"You mean, think of his vengeance?\"\n\n\"It may be that I pity my benefactor, and am grieved at injuring him,\nbut I do not fear, and shall never fear anyone.\"\n\nMathilde yielded. This was the first occasion, since she had informed\nJulien of her condition, that he had spoken to her authoritatively.\nShe had never loved him so much. The tender part of his soul had\nfound happiness in seizing on Mathilde's condition as an excuse\nfor refraining from his cruel remarks to her. The question of the\nconfession to M. de la Mole deeply moved him. Was he going to be\nseparated from Mathilde? And, however grieved she would be to see him\ngo, would she have a thought for him after his departure?\n\nHe was almost equally horrified by the thought of the justified\nreproaches which the marquis might address to him.\n\nIn the evening he confessed to Mathilde the second reason for his\nanxiety, and then led away by his love, confessed the first as well.\n\nShe changed colour. \"Would it really make you unhappy,\" she said to\nhim, \"to pass six months far away from me?\"\n\n\"Infinitely so. It is the only thing in the world which terrifies me.\"\n\nMathilde was very happy. Julien had played his part so assiduously that\nhe had succeeded in making her think that she was the one of the two\nwho loved the more.\n\nThe fatal Tuesday arrived. When the marquis came in at midnight he\nfound a letter addressed to him, which was only to be opened himself\nwhen no one was there:--\n\n        \"My father,\n\n        \"All social ties have been broken between us, only those\n        of nature remain. Next to my husband, you are and always\n        will be the being I shall always hold most dear. My\n        eyes are full of tears, I am thinking of the pain that\n        I am causing you, but if my shame was to be prevented\n        from becoming public, and you were to be given time to\n        reflect and act, I could not postpone any longer the\n        confession that I owe you. If your affection for me,\n        which I know is extremely deep, is good enough to grant\n        me a small allowance, I will go and settle with my\n        husband anywhere you like, in Switzerland, for instance.\n        His name is so obscure that no one would recognize\n        in Madame Sorel, the daughter-in-law of a Verrieres\n        carpenter, your daughter. That is the name which I have\n        so much difficulty in writing. I fear your wrath against\n        Julien, it seems so justified. I shall not be a duchess,\n        my father; but I knew it when I loved him; for I was\n        the one who loved him first, it was I who seduced him.\n        I have inherited from you too lofty a soul to fix my\n        attention on what either is or appears to be vulgar. It\n        is in vain that I thought of M. Croisenois with a view\n        to pleasing you. Why did you place real merit under my\n        eyes? You told me yourself on my return from Hyeres,\n        'that young Sorel is the one person who amuses me,' the\n        poor boy is as grieved as I am if it is possible, at the\n        pain this letter will give you. I cannot prevent you\n        being irritated as a father, but love me as a friend.\n\n        \"Julien respected me. If he sometimes spoke to me,\n        it was only by reason of his deep gratitude towards\n        yourself, for the natural dignity of his character\n        induces him to keep to his official capacity in any\n        answers he may make to anyone who is so much above\n        him. He has a keen and instinctive appreciation of the\n        difference of social rank. It was I (I confess it with a\n        blush to my best friend, and I shall never make such a\n        confession to anyone else) who clasped his arm one day\n        in the garden.\n\n        \"Why need you be irritated with him, after twenty-four\n        hours have elapsed? My own lapse is irreparable. If you\n        insist on it, the assurance of his profound respect and\n        of his desperate grief at having displeased you, can\n        be conveyed to you through me. You need not see him at\n        all, but I shall go and join him wherever he wishes.\n        It is his right and it is my duty. He is the father of\n        my child. If your kindness will go so far as to grant\n        us six thousand francs to live on, I will receive it\n        with gratitude; if not, Julien reckons on establishing\n        himself at Besancon, where he will set up as a Latin and\n        literature master. However low may have been the station\n        from which he springs, I am certain he will raise\n        himself. With him I do not fear obscurity. If there is\n        a revolution, I am sure that he will play a prime part.\n        Can you say as much for any of those who have asked\n        for my hand? They have fine estates, you say. I cannot\n        consider that circumstance a reason for admiring them.\n        My Julien would attain a high position, even under the\n        present regime, if he had a million and my father's\n        protection....\"\n\nMathilde, who knew that the marquis was a man who always abandoned\nhimself to his first impulse, had written eight pages.\n\n\"What am I to do?\" said Julien to himself while M. de la Mole was\nreading this letter. \"Where is (first) my duty; (second) my interest?\nMy debt to him is immense. Without him I should have been a menial\nscoundrel, and not even enough of a scoundrel to be hated and\npersecuted by the others. He has made me a man of the world. The\nvillainous acts which I now have to do are (first) less frequent;\n(second) less mean. That is more than as if he had given me a million.\nI am indebted to him for this cross and the reputation of having\nrendered those alleged diplomatic services, which have lifted me out of\nthe ruck.\n\n\"If he himself were writing instructions for my conduct, what would he\nprescribe?\"\n\nJulien was sharply interrupted by M. de la Mole's old valet. \"The\nmarquis wants to see you at once, dressed or not dressed.\" The valet\nadded in a low voice, as he walked by Julien's side, \"He is beside\nhimself: look out!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIII\n\nTHE HELL OF WEAKNESS\n\n\n        A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived\n        it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle\n        ages, nay, even under Richelieu, the Frenchman had\n        _force of will_.--_Mirabeau_.\n\n\nJulien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his\nlife this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the\ninsults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished, and his\npatience was tried, but his gratitude remained unshaken.\n\n\"The poor man now sees the annihilation, in a single minute, of all\nthe fine plans which he has long cherished in his heart. But I owe it\nto him to answer. My silence tends to increase his anger.\" The part of\nTartuffe supplied the answer;\n\n\"I am not an angel.... I served you well; you paid me generously.... I\nwas grateful, but I am twenty-two.... Only you and that charming person\nunderstood my thoughts in this household.\"\n\n\"Monster,\" exclaimed the marquis. \"Charming! Charming, to be sure! The\nday when you found her charming you ought to have fled.\"\n\n\"I tried to. It was then that I asked permission to leave for\nLanguedoc.\"\n\nTired of stampeding about and overcome by his grief, the marquis threw\nhimself into an arm-chair. Julien heard him whispering to himself, \"No,\nno, he is not a wicked man.\"\n\n\"No, I am not, towards you,\" exclaimed Julien, falling on his knees.\nBut he felt extremely ashamed of this manifestation, and very quickly\ngot up again.\n\nThe marquis was really transported. When he saw this movement, he\nbegan again to load him with abominable insults, which were worthy of\nthe driver of a fiacre. The novelty of these oaths perhaps acted as a\ndistraction.\n\n\"What! is my daughter to go by the name of madame Sorel? What! is my\ndaughter not to be a duchess?\" Each time that these two ideas presented\nthemselves in all their clearness M. de la Mole was a prey to torture,\nand lost all power over the movements of his mind.\n\nJulien was afraid of being beaten.\n\nIn his lucid intervals, when he was beginning to get accustomed to his\nunhappiness, the marquis addressed to Julien reproaches which were\nreasonable enough. \"You should have fled, sir,\" he said to him. \"Your\nduty was to flee. You are the lowest of men.\"\n\nJulien approached the table and wrote:\n\n        \"I have found my life unbearable for a long time; I am\n        putting an end to it. I request monsieur the marquis to\n        accept my apologies (together with the expression of my\n        infinite gratitude) for any embarrassment that may be\n        occasioned by my death in his hotel.\"\n\n\"Kindly run your eye over this paper, M. the marquis,\" said Julien.\n\"Kill me, or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in the\nmorning. I will go and walk in the garden in the direction of the wall\nat the bottom.\"\n\n\"Go to the devil,\" cried the marquis, as he went away.\n\n\"I understand,\" thought Julien. \"He would not be sorry if I were to\nspare his valet the trouble of killing me....\n\n\"Let him kill me, if he likes; it is a satisfaction which I offer\nhim.... But, by heaven, I love life. I owe it to my son.\"\n\nThis idea, which had not previously presented itself with so much\ndefiniteness to his imagination, completely engrossed him during his\nwalk after the first few minutes which he had spent thinking about his\ndanger.\n\nThis novel interest turned him into a prudent man. \"I need advice as to\nhow to behave towards this infuriated man.... He is devoid of reason;\nhe is capable of everything. Fouque is too far away; besides, he would\nnot understand the emotions of a heart like the marquis's.\"\n\n\"Count Altamira ... am I certain of eternal silence? My request\nfor advice must not be a fresh step which will raise still further\ncomplications. Alas! I have no one left but the gloomy abbe Pirard. His\nmind is crabbed by Jansenism.... A damned Jesuit would know the world,\nand would be more in my line. M. Pirard is capable of beating me at the\nvery mention of my crime.\"\n\nThe genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's help. \"Well, I will go and\nconfess to him.\" This was his final resolution after having walked\nabout in the garden for two good hours. He no longer thought about\nbeing surprised by a gun shot. He was feeling sleepy.\n\nVery early the next day, Julien was several leagues away from Paris\nand knocked at the door of the severe Jansenist. He found to his great\nastonishment that he was not unduly surprised at his confidence.\n\n\"I ought perhaps to reproach myself,\" said the abbe, who seemed more\nanxious than irritated. \"I thought I guessed that love. My affection\nfor you, my unhappy boy, prevented me from warning the father.\"\n\n\"What will he do?\" said Julien keenly.\n\nAt that moment he loved the abbe, and would have found a scene between\nthem very painful.\n\n\"I see three alternatives,\" continued Julien.\n\n\"M. de la Mole can have me put to death,\" and he mentioned the suicide\nletter which he had left with the Marquis; (2) \"He can get Count\nNorbert to challenge me to a duel, and shoot at me point blank.\"\n\n\"You would accept?\" said the abbe furiously as he got up.\n\n\"You do not let me finish. I should certainly never fire upon my\nbenefactor's son. (3) He can send me away. If he says go to Edinburgh\nor New York, I will obey him. They can then conceal mademoiselle de la\nMole's condition, but I will never allow them to suppress my son.\"\n\n\"Have no doubt about it, that will be the first thought of that\ndepraved man.\"\n\nAt Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven\no'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter. She feared that he might\nhave considered it noble to put an end to his life; \"and without my\npermission?\" she said to herself with a pain due solely to her anger.\n\n\"If he dies I shall die,\" she said to her father. \"It will be you\nwho will be the cause of his death.... Perhaps you will rejoice at\nit but I swear by his shades that I shall at once go into mourning,\nand shall publicly appear as _Madame the widow Sorel_, I shall send\nout my invitations, you can count on it.... You will find me neither\npusillanimous nor cowardly.\"\n\nHer love went to the point of madness. M. de la Mole was flabbergasted\nin his turn.\n\nHe began to regard what had happened with a certain amount of logic.\nMathilde did not appear at breakfast. The marquis felt an immense\nweight off his mind, and was particularly flattered when he noticed\nthat she had said nothing to her mother.\n\nJulien was dismounting from his horse. Mathilde had him called and\nthrew herself into his arms almost beneath the very eyes of her\nchambermaid. Julien was not very appreciative of this transport. He had\ncome away from his long consultation with the abbe Pirard in a very\ndiplomatic and calculating mood. The calculation of possibilities had\nkilled his imagination. Mathilde told him, with tears in her eyes, that\nshe had read his suicide letter.\n\n\"My father may change his mind; do me the favour of leaving for\nVillequier this very minute. Mount your horse again, and leave the\nhotel before they get up from table.\"\n\nWhen Julien's coldness and astonishment showed no sign of abatement,\nshe burst into tears.\n\n\"Let me manage our affairs,\" she exclaimed ecstatically, as she clasped\nhim in her arms. \"You know, dear, it is not of my own free will that\nI separate from you. Write under cover to my maid. Address it in a\nstrange hand-writing, I will write volumes to you. Adieu, flee.\"\n\nThis last word wounded Julien, but he none the less obeyed. \"It will\nbe fatal,\" he thought \"if, in their most gracious moments these\naristocrats manage to shock me.\"\n\nMathilde firmly opposed all her father's prudent plans. She would\nnot open negotiations on any other basis except this. She was to be\nMadame Sorel, and was either to live with her husband in poverty in\nSwitzerland, or with her father in Paris. She rejected absolutely the\nsuggestion of a secret accouchement. \"In that case I should begin to\nbe confronted with a prospect of calumny and dishonour. I shall go\ntravelling with my husband two months after the marriage, and it will\nbe easy to pretend that my son was born at a proper time.\"\n\nThis firmness though at first received with violent fits of anger,\neventually made the marquis hesitate.\n\n\"Here,\" he said to his daughter in a moment of emotion, \"is a gift of\nten thousand francs a year. Send it to your Julien, and let him quickly\nmake it impossible for me to retract it.\"\n\nIn order to obey Mathilde, whose imperious temper he well knew, Julien\nhad travelled forty useless leagues; he was superintending the accounts\nof the farmers at Villequier. This act of benevolence on the part of\nthe marquis occasioned his return. He went and asked asylum of the abbe\nPirard, who had become Mathilde's most useful ally during his absence.\nEvery time that he was questioned by the marquis, he would prove to him\nthat any other course except public marriage would be a crime in the\neyes of God.\n\n\"And happily,\" added the abbe, \"worldly wisdom is in this instance in\nagreement with religion. Could one, in view of Mdlle. de la Mole's\npassionate character, rely for a minute on her keeping any secret which\nshe did not herself wish to preserve? If one does not reconcile oneself\nto the frankness of a public marriage, society will concern itself much\nlonger with this strange mesalliance__. Everything must be said all\nat once without either the appearance or the reality of the slightest\nmystery.\"\n\n\"It is true,\" said the marquis pensively.\n\nTwo or three friends of M. de la Mole were of the same opinion as the\nabbe Pirard. The great obstacle in their view was Mathilde's decided\ncharacter. But in spite of all these fine arguments the marquis's soul\ncould not reconcile itself to giving up all hopes of a coronet for his\ndaughter.\n\nHe ransacked his memory and his imagination for all the variations of\nknavery and duplicity which had been feasible in his youth. Yielding to\nnecessity and having fear of the law seemed absurd and humiliating for\na man in his position. He was paying dearly now for the luxury of those\nenchanting dreams concerning the future of his cherished daughter in\nwhich he had indulged for the last ten years.\n\n\"Who could have anticipated it?\" he said to himself. \"A girl of so\nproud a character, of so lofty a disposition, who is even prouder than\nI am of the name she bears? A girl whose hand has already been asked\nfor by all the cream of the nobility of France.\"\n\n\"We must give up all faith in prudence. This age is made to confound\neverything. We are marching towards chaos.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIV\n\nA MAN OF INTELLECT\n\n\n        The prefect said to himself as he rode along the highway\n        on horseback, \"why should I not be a minister, a\n        president of the council, a duke? This is how I should\n        make war.... By these means I should have all the\n        reformers put in irons.\"--_The Globe_.\n\n\nNo argument will succeed in destroying the paramount influence of ten\nyears of agreeable dreaming. The marquis thought it illogical to be\nangry, but could not bring himself to forgive. \"If only this Julien\ncould die by accident,\" he sometimes said to himself. It was in this\nway that his depressed imagination found a certain relief in running\nafter the most absurd chimaeras. They paralysed the influence of the\nwise arguments of the abbe Pirard. A month went by in this way without\nnegotiations advancing one single stage.\n\nThe marquis had in this family matter, just as he had in politics,\nbrilliant ideas over which he would be enthusiastic for two or three\ndays. And then a line of tactics would fail to please him because it\nwas based on sound arguments, while arguments only found favour in his\neyes in so far as they were based on his favourite plan. He would work\nfor three days with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a poet on bringing\nmatters to a certain stage; on the following day he would not give it a\nthought.\n\nJulien was at first disconcerted by the slowness of the marquis;\nbut, after some weeks, he began to surmise that M. de La Mole had no\ndefinite plan with regard to this matter. Madame de La Mole and the\nwhole household believed that Julien was travelling in the provinces\nin connection with the administration of the estates; he was in hiding\nin the parsonage of the abbe Pirard and saw Mathilde every day;\nevery morning she would spend an hour with her father, but they would\nsometimes go for weeks on end without talking of the matter which\nengrossed all their thoughts.\n\n\"I don't want to know where the man is,\" said the marquis to her one\nday. \"Send him this letter.\" Mathilde read:\n\n\"The Languedoc estates bring in 20,600 francs. I give 10,600 francs to\nmy daughter, and 10,000 francs to M. Julien Sorel. It is understood\nthat I give the actual estates. Tell the notary to draw up two separate\ndeeds of gift, and to bring them to me to-morrow, after this there are\nto be no more relations between us. Ah, Monsieur, could I have expected\nall this? The marquis de La Mole.\"\n\n\"I thank you very much,\" said Mathilde gaily. \"We will go and settle in\nthe Chateau d'Aiguillon, between Agen and Marmande. The country is said\nto be as beautiful as Italy.\"\n\nThis gift was an extreme surprise to Julien. He was no longer the cold,\nsevere man whom we have hitherto known. His thoughts were engrossed in\nadvance by his son's destiny. This unexpected fortune, substantial as\nit was for a man as poor as himself, made him ambitious. He pictured\na time when both his wife and himself would have an income of 36,000\nfrancs. As for Mathilde, all her emotions were concentrated on her\nadoration for her husband, for that was the name by which her pride\ninsisted on calling Julien. Her one great ambition was to secure the\nrecognition of her marriage. She passed her time in exaggerating to\nherself the consummate prudence which she had manifested in linking her\nfate to that of a superior man. The idea of personal merit became a\npositive craze with her.\n\nJulien's almost continuous absence, coupled with the complications of\nbusiness matters and the little time available in which to talk love,\ncompleted the good effect produced by the wise tactics which Julien had\npreviously discovered.\n\nMathilde finished by losing patience at seeing so little of the man\nwhom she had come really to love.\n\nIn a moment of irritation she wrote to her father and commenced her\nletter like Othello:\n\n\"My very choice is sufficient proof that I have preferred Julien to all\nthe advantages which society offered to the daughter of the marquis\nde la Mole. Such pleasures, based as they are on prestige and petty\nvanity mean nothing to me. It is now nearly six weeks since I have\nlived separated from my husband. That is sufficient to manifest my\nrespect for yourself. Before next Thursday I shall leave the paternal\nhouse. Your acts of kindness have enriched us. No one knows my secret\nexcept the venerable abbe Pirard. I shall go to him: he will marry us,\nand an hour after the ceremony we shall be on the road to Languedoc,\nand we will never appear again in Paris except by your instructions.\nBut what cuts me to the quick is that all this will provide the subject\nmatter for piquant anecdotes against me and against yourself. May not\nthe epigrams of a foolish public compel our excellent Norbert to pick a\nquarrel with Julien, under such circumstances I know I should have no\ncontrol over him. We should discover in his soul the mark of the rebel\nplebian. Oh father, I entreat you on my knees, come and be present at\nmy marriage in M. Pirard's church next Thursday. It will blunt the\nsting of malignant scandal and will guarantee the life's happiness of\nyour only daughter, and of that of my husband, etc., etc.\"\n\nThis letter threw the marquis's soul into a strange embarrassment.\nHe must at last take a definite line. All his little habits: all his\nvulgar friends had lost their influence.\n\nIn these strange circumstances the great lines of his character,\nwhich had been formed by the events of his youth, reassumed all their\noriginal force. The misfortunes of the emigration had made him into\nan imaginative man. After having enjoyed for two years an immense\nfortune and all the distinctions of the court, 1790 had flung him into\nthe awful miseries of the emigration. This hard schooling had changed\nthe character of a spirit of twenty-two. In essence, he was not so\nmuch dominated by his present riches as encamped in their midst. But\nthat very imagination which had preserved his soul from the taint of\navarice, had made him a victim of a mad passion for seeing his daughter\ndecorated by a fine title.\n\nDuring the six weeks which had just elapsed, the marquis had felt at\ntimes impelled by a caprice for making Julien rich. He considered\npoverty mean, humiliating for himself, M. de la Mole, and impossible\nin his daughter's husband; he was ready to lavish money. On the next\nday his imagination would go off on another tack, and he would think\nthat Julien would read between the lines of this financial generosity,\nchange his name, exile himself to America, and write to Mathilde that\nhe was dead for her. M. de la Mole imagined this letter written, and\nwent so far as to follow its effect on his daughter's character.\n\nThe day when he was awakened from these highly youthful dreams by\nMathilde's actual letter after he had been thinking for along time\nof killing Julien or securing his disappearance he was dreaming of\nbuilding up a brilliant position for him. He would make him take the\nname of one of his estates, and why should he not make him inherit a\npeerage? His father-in-law, M. the duke de Chaulnes, had, since the\ndeath of his own son in Spain, frequently spoken to him about his\ndesire to transmit his title to Norbert....\n\n\"One cannot help owning that Julien has a singular aptitude for\naffairs, had boldness, and is possibly even brilliant,\" said the\nmarquis to himself ... \"but I detect at the root of his character a\ncertain element which alarms me. He produces the same impression upon\neveryone, consequently there must be something real in it,\" and the\nmore difficult this reality was to seize hold of, the more it alarmed\nthe imaginative mind of the old marquis.\n\n\"My daughter expressed the same point very neatly the other day (in a\nsuppressed letter).\n\n\"Julien has not joined any salon or any coterie. He has nothing to\nsupport himself against me, and has absolutely no resource if I abandon\nhim. Now is that ignorance of the actual state of society? I have said\nto him two or three times, the only real and profitable candidature is\nthe candidature of the salons.\n\n\"No, he has not the adroit, cunning genius of an attorney who never\nloses a minute or an opportunity. He is very far from being a character\nlike Louis XL. On the other hand, I have seen him quote the most\nungenerous maxims ... it is beyond me. Can it be that he simply repeats\nthese maxims in order to use them as a _dam_ against his passions?\n\n\"However, one thing comes to the surface; he cannot bear contempt,\nthat's my hold on him.\n\n\"He has not, it is true, the religious reverence for high birth. He\ndoes not instinctively respect us.... That is wrong; but after all,\nthe only things which are supposed to make the soul of a seminary\nstudent impatient are lack of enjoyment and lack of money. He is quite\ndifferent, and cannot stand contempt at any price.\"\n\nPressed as he was by his daughter's letter, M. de la Mole realised the\nnecessity for making up his mind. \"After all, the great question is\nthis:--Did Julien's audacity go to the point of setting out to make\nadvances to my daughter because he knows I love her more than anything\nelse in the world, and because I have an income of a hundred thousand\ncrowns?\"\n\nMathilde protests to the contrary.... \"No, monsieur Julien, that is a\npoint on which I am not going to be under any illusion.\n\n\"Is it really a case of spontaneous and authentic love? or is it just\na vulgar desire to raise himself to a fine position? Mathilde is\nfar-seeing; she appreciated from the first that this suspicion might\nruin him with me--hence that confession of hers. It was she who took\nupon herself to love him the first.\n\n\"The idea of a girl of so proud a character so far forgetting herself\nas to make physical advances! To think of pressing his arm in the\ngarden in the evening! How horrible! As though there were not a hundred\nother less unseemly ways of notifying him that he was the object of her\nfavour.\n\n\"_Qui s'excuse s'accuse_; I distrust Mathilde.\" The marquis's reasoning\nwas more conclusive to-day than it was usually. Nevertheless, force\nof habit prevailed, and he resolved to gain time by writing to his\ndaughter, for a correspondence was being carried on between one wing\nof the hotel and the other. M. de la Mole did not dare to discuss\nmatters with Mathilde and to see her face to face. He was frightened of\nclinching the whole matter by yielding suddenly.\n\n        \"Mind you commit no new acts of madness; here is\n        a commission of lieutenant of Hussars for M. the\n        chevalier, Julien Sorel de la Vernaye. You see what I\n        am doing for him. Do not irritate me. Do not question\n        me. Let him leave within twenty-four hours and present\n        himself at Strasbourg where his regiment is. Here is an\n        order on my banker. Obey me.\"\n\nMathilde's love and joy were unlimited. She wished to profit by her\nvictory and immediately replied.\n\n        \"If M. de la Vernaye knew all that you are good enough\n        to do for him, he would be overwhelmed with gratitude\n        and be at your feet. But amidst all this generosity, my\n        father has forgotten me; your daughter's honour is in\n        peril. An indiscretion may produce an everlasting blot\n        which an income of twenty thousand crowns could not\n        put right. I will only send the commission to M. de la\n        Vernaye if you give me your word that my marriage will\n        be publicly celebrated at Villequier in the course of\n        next month. Shortly after that period, which I entreat\n        you not to prolong, your daughter will only be able to\n        appear in public under the name of Madame de la Vernaye.\n        How I thank you, dear papa, for having saved me from the\n        name of Sorel, etc., etc.\"\n\nThe reply was unexpected:\n\n        \"Obey or I retract everything. Tremble, you imprudent\n        young girl. I do not yet know what your Julien is,\n        and you yourself know less than I. Let him leave for\n        Strasbourg, and try to act straightly. I will notify him\n        from here of my wishes within a fortnight.\"\n\nMathilde was astonished by this firm answer. _I do not know Julien_.\nThese words threw her into a reverie which soon finished in the most\nfascinating suppositions; but she believed in their truth. My Julien's\nintellect is not clothed in the petty mean uniform of the salons, and\nmy father refuses to believe in his superiority by reason of the very\nfact which proves it.\n\nAll the same, if I do not obey this whim of his, I see the possibility\nof a public scene; a scandal would lower my position in society, and\nmight render me less fascinating in Julien's eyes. After the scandal\n... ten years of poverty; and the only thing which can prevent marrying\nfor merit becoming ridiculous is the most brilliant wealth. If I live\nfar away from my father, he is old and may forget me.... Norbert will\nmarry some clever, charming woman; old Louis XIV. was seduced by the\nduchess of Burgundy.\n\nShe decided to obey, but refrained from communicating her father's\nletter to Julien. It might perhaps have been that ferocious character\ndriven to some act of madness.\n\nJulien's joy was unlimited when she informed him in the evening that\nhe was a lieutenant of Hussars. Its extent can be imagined from the\nfact that this had constituted the ambition of his whole life, and\nalso from the passion which he now had for his son. The change of name\nstruck him with astonishment.\n\n\"After all,\" he thought, \"I have got to the end of my romance, and I\ndeserve all the credit. I have managed to win the love of that monster\nof pride,\" he added, looking at Mathilde. \"Her father cannot live\nwithout her, nor she without me.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXV\n\nA STORM\n\n\n        My God, give me mediocrity.--_Mirabeau_.\n\n\nHis mind was engrossed; he only half answered the eager tenderness that\nshe showed to him. He remained gloomy and taciturn. He had never seemed\nso great and so adorable in Mathilde's eyes. She was apprehensive of\nsome subtle twist of his pride which would spoil the whole situation.\n\nShe saw the abbe Pirard come to the hotel nearly every morning. Might\nnot Julien have divined something of her father's intentions through\nhim? Might not the marquis himself have written to him in a momentary\ncaprice. What was the explanation of Julien's stern manner following on\nso great a happiness? She did not dare to question.\n\nShe did not _dare_--she--Mathilde! From that moment her feelings for\nJulien contained a certain vague and unexpected element which was\nalmost panic. This arid soul experienced all the passion possible in\nan individual who has been brought up amid that excessive civilisation\nwhich Paris so much admires.\n\nEarly on the following day Julien was at the house of the abbe Pirard.\nSome post-horses were arriving in the courtyard with a dilapidated\nchaise which had been hired at a neighbouring station.\n\n\"A vehicle like that is out of fashion,\" said the stern abbe to him\nmorosely. \"Here are twenty thousand francs which M. de la Mole makes\nyou a gift of. He insists on your spending them within a year, but\nat the same time wants you to try to look as little ridiculous as\npossible.\" (The priest regarded flinging away so substantial a sum on a\nyoung man as simply an opportunity for sin).\n\n\"The marquis adds this: 'M. Julien de la Vernaye will have received\nthis money from his father, whom it is needless to call by any other\nname. M. de la Vernaye will perhaps think it proper to give a present\nto M. Sorel, a carpenter of Verrieres, who cared for him in his\nchildhood....' I can undertake that commission,\" added the abbe. \"I\nhave at last prevailed upon M. de la Mole to come to a settlement with\nthat Jesuit, the abbe de Frilair. His influence is unquestionably too\nmuch for us. The complete recognition of your high birth on the part\nof this man, who is in fact the governor of B---- will be one of the\nunwritten terms of the arrangement.\" Julien could no longer control his\necstasy. He embraced the abbe. He saw himself recognised.\n\n\"For shame,\" said M. Pirard, pushing him away. \"What is the meaning of\nthis worldly vanity? As for Sorel and his sons, I will offer them in my\nown name a yearly allowance of five hundred francs, which will be paid\nto each of them as long as I am satisfied with them.\"\n\nJulien was already cold and haughty. He expressed his thanks, but in\nthe vaguest terms which bound him to nothing. \"Could it be possible,\"\nhe said to himself, \"that I am the natural son of some great nobleman\nwho was exiled to our mountains by the terrible Napoleon?\" This idea\nseemed less and less improbable every minute.... \"My hatred of my\nfather would be a proof of this.... In that case, I should not be an\nunnatural monster after all.\"\n\nA few days after this soliloquy the Fifteenth Regiment of Hussars,\nwhich was one of the most brilliant in the army, was being reviewed on\nthe parade ground of Strasbourg. M. the chevalier de La Vernaye sat\nthe finest horse in Alsace, which had cost him six thousand francs. He\nwas received as a lieutenant, though he had never been sub-lieutenant\nexcept on the rolls of a regiment of which he had never heard.\n\nHis impassive manner, his stern and almost malicious eyes, his pallor,\nand his invariable self-possession, founded his reputation from\nthe very first day. Shortly afterwards his perfect and calculated\npoliteness, and his skill at shooting and fencing, of which, though\nwithout any undue ostentation, he made his comrades aware, did away\nwith all idea of making fun of him openly. After hesitating for five\nor six days, the public opinion of the regiment declared itself in his\nfavour.\n\n\"This young man has everything,\" said the facetious old officers,\n\"except youth.\"\n\nJulien wrote from Strasbourg to the old cure of Verrieres, M. Chelan,\nwho was now verging on extreme old age.\n\n\"You will have learnt, with a joy of which I have no doubt, of the\nevents which have induced my family to enrich me. Here are five hundred\nfrancs which I request you to distribute quietly, and without any\nmention of my name, among those unfortunate ones who are now poor as I\nmyself was once, and whom you will doubtless help as you once helped\nme.\"\n\nJulien was intoxicated with ambition, and not with vanity. He\nnevertheless devoted a great part of his time to attending to his\nexternal appearance. His horses, his uniform, his orderlies' liveries,\nwere all kept with a correctness which would have done credit to the\npunctiliousness of a great English nobleman. He had scarcely been made\na lieutenant as a matter of favour (and that only two days ago) than\nhe began to calculate that if he was to become commander-in-chief\nat thirty, like all the great generals, then he must be more than a\nlieutenant at twenty-three at the latest. He thought about nothing\nexcept fame and his son.\n\nIt was in the midst of the ecstasies of the most reinless ambition that\nhe was surprised by the arrival of a young valet from the Hotel de la\nMole, who had come with a letter.\n\n\"All is lost,\" wrote Mathilde to him: \"Rush here as quickly as\npossible, sacrifice everything, desert if necessary. As soon as you\nhave arrived, wait for me in a fiacre near the little garden door,\nnear No. ---- of the street ---- I will come and speak to you: I shall\nperhaps be able to introduce you into the garden. All is lost, and I am\nafraid there is no way out; count on me; you will find me staunch and\nfirm in adversity. I love you.\"\n\nA few minutes afterwards, Julien obtained a furlough from the colonel,\nand left Strasbourg at full gallop. But the awful anxiety which\ndevoured him did not allow him to continue this method of travel beyond\nMetz. He flung himself into a post-chaise, and arrived with an almost\nincredible rapidity at the indicated spot, near the little garden door\nof the Hotel de la Mole. The door opened, and Mathilde, oblivious of\nall human conventions, rushed into his arms. Fortunately, it was only\nfive o'clock in the morning, and the street was still deserted.\n\n\"All is lost. My father, fearing my tears, left Thursday night. Nobody\nknows where for? But here is his letter: read it.\" She climbed into the\nfiacre with Julien.\n\n\"I could forgive everything except the plan of seducing you because\nyou are rich. That, unhappy girl, is the awful truth. I give you my\nword of honour that I will never consent to a marriage with that man.\nI will guarantee him an income of 10,000 francs if he will live far\naway beyond the French frontiers, or better still, in America. Read the\nletter which I have just received in answer to the enquiries which I\nhave made. The impudent scoundrel had himself requested me to write to\nmadame de Renal. I will never read a single line you write concerning\nthat man. I feel a horror for both Paris and yourself. I urge you to\ncover what is bound to happen with the utmost secrecy. Be frank, have\nnothing more to do with the vile man, and you will find again the\nfather you have lost.\"\n\n\"Where is Madame de Renal's letter?\" said Julien coldly.\n\n\"Here it is. I did not want to shew it to you before you were prepared\nfor it.\"\n\n\n        LETTER\n\n        \"My duties to the sacred cause of religion and morality,\n        oblige me, monsieur, to take the painful course which I\n        have just done with regard to yourself: an infallible\n        principle orders me to do harm to my neighbour at the\n        present moment, but only in order to avoid an even\n        greater scandal. My sentiment of duty must overcome\n        the pain which I experience. It is only too true,\n        monsieur, that the conduct of the person about whom you\n        ask me to tell you the whole truth may seem incredible\n        or even honest. It may possibly be considered proper\n        to hide or to disguise part of the truth: that would\n        be in accordance with both prudence and religion. But\n        the conduct about which you desire information has\n        been in fact reprehensible to the last degree, and\n        more than I can say. Poor and greedy as the man is, it\n        is only by the aid of the most consummate hypocrisy,\n        and by seducing a weak and unhappy woman, that he has\n        endeavoured to make a career for himself and become\n        someone in the world. It is part of my painful duty to\n        add that I am obliged to believe that M. Julien has no\n        religious principles. I am driven conscientiously to\n        think that one of his methods of obtaining success in\n        any household is to try to seduce the woman who commands\n        the principal influence. His one great object, in spite\n        of his show of disinterestedness, and his stock-in-trade\n        of phrases out of novels, is to succeed in doing what he\n        likes with the master of the household and his fortune.\n        He leaves behind him unhappiness and eternal remorse,\n        etc., etc., etc.\"\n\nThis extremely long letter, which was almost blotted out by tears, was\ncertainly in madame de Renal's handwriting; it was even written with\nmore than ordinary care.\n\n\"I cannot blame M. de la Mole,\" said Julien, \"after he had finished it.\nHe is just and prudent. What father would give his beloved daughter to\nsuch a man? Adieu!\" Julien jumped out of the fiacre and rushed to his\npost-chaise, which had stopped at the end of the street. Mathilde, whom\nhe had apparently forgotten, took a few steps as though to follow him,\nbut the looks she received from the tradesmen, who were coming out on\nthe thresholds of their shops, and who knew who she was, forced her to\nreturn precipitately to the garden.\n\nJulien had left for Verrieres. During that rapid journey he was unable\nto write to Mathilde as he had intended. His hand could only form\nillegible characters on the paper.\n\nHe arrived at Verrieres on a Sunday morning. He entered the shop of the\nlocal gunsmith, who overwhelmed him with congratulations on his recent\ngood fortune. It constituted the news of the locality.\n\nJulien had much difficulty in making him understand that he wanted a\npair of pistols. At his request the gunsmith loaded the pistols.\n\nThe three peals sounded; it is a well-known signal in the villages of\nFrance, and after the various ringings in the morning announces the\nimmediate commencement of Mass.\n\nJulien entered the new church of Verrieres. All the lofty windows of\nthe building were veiled with crimson curtains. Julien found himself\nsome spaces behind the pew of madame de Renal. It seemed to him that\nshe was praying fervently The sight of the woman whom he had loved so\nmuch made Julien's arm tremble so violently that he was at first unable\nto execute his project. \"I cannot,\" he said to himself. \"It is a\nphysical impossibility.\"\n\nAt that moment the young priest, who was officiating at the Mass, rang\nthe bell for the elevation of the host. Madame de Renal lowered her\nhead, which, for a moment became entirely hidden by the folds of her\nshawl. Julien did not see her features so distinctly: he aimed a pistol\nshot at her, and missed her: he aimed a second shot, she fell.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVI\n\nSAD DETAILS\n\n\n        Do not expect any weakness on my part. I have avenged\n        myself. I have deserved death, and here I am. Pray for\n        my soul.--_Schiller_\n\n\nJulien remained motionless. He saw nothing more. When he recovered\nhimself a little he noticed all the faithful rushing from the church.\nThe priest had left the altar. Julien started fairly slowly to follow\nsome women who were going away with loud screams. A woman who was\ntrying to get away more quickly than the others, pushed him roughly. He\nfell. His feet got entangled with a chair, knocked over by the crowd;\nwhen he got up, he felt his neck gripped. A gendarme, in full uniform,\nwas arresting him. Julien tried mechanically to have recourse to his\nlittle pistol; but a second gendarme pinioned his arms.\n\nHe was taken to the prison. They went into a room where irons were put\non his hands. He was left alone. The door was doubly locked on him. All\nthis was done very quickly, and he scarcely appreciated it at all.\n\n\"Yes, upon my word, all is over,\" he said aloud as he recovered\nhimself. \"Yes, the guillotine in a fortnight ... or killing myself\nhere.\"\n\nHis reasoning did not go any further. His head felt as though it had\nbeen seized in some violent grip. He looked round to see if anyone was\nholding him. After some moments he fell into a deep sleep.\n\nMadame de Renal was not mortally wounded. The first bullet had pierced\nher hat. The second had been fired as she was turning round. The\nbullet had struck her on the shoulder, and, astonishing to relate,\nhad ricocheted from off the shoulder bone (which it had, however,\nbroken) against a gothic pillar, from which it had loosened an enormous\nsplinter of stone.\n\nWhen, after a long and painful bandaging, the solemn surgeon said to\nmadame de Renal, \"I answer for your life as I would for my own,\" she\nwas profoundly grieved.\n\nShe had been sincerely desirous of death for a long time. The letter\nwhich she had written to M. de la Mole in accordance with the\ninjunctions of her present confessor, had proved the final blow to a\ncreature already weakened by an only too permanent unhappiness. This\nunhappiness was caused by Julien's absence; but she, for her own part,\ncalled it remorse. Her director, a young ecclesiastic, who was both\nvirtuous and enthusiastic, and had recently come to Dijon, made no\nmistake as to its nature.\n\n\"Dying in this way, though not by my own hand, is very far from being\na sin,\" thought madame de Renal. \"God will perhaps forgive me for\nrejoicing over my death.\" She did not dare to add, \"and dying by\nJulien's hand puts the last touch on my happiness.\"\n\nShe had scarcely been rid of the presence of the surgeon and of all the\ncrowd of friends that had rushed to see her, than she called her maid,\nElisa. \"The gaoler,\" she said to her with a violent blush, \"is a cruel\nman. He will doubtless ill-treat him, thinking to please me by doing\nso.... I cannot bear that idea. Could you not go, as though on your own\naccount, and give the gaoler this little packet which contains some\nlouis. You will tell him that religion forbids him to treat him badly,\nabove all, he must not go and speak about the sending of this money.\"\n\nIt was this circumstance, which we have just mentioned, that Julien had\nto thank for the humanity of the gaoler of Verrieres. It was still the\nsame M. Noiraud, that ideal official, whom he remembered as being so\nfinely alarmed by M. Appert's presence.\n\nA judge appeared in the prison. \"I occasioned death by premeditation,\"\nsaid Julien to him. \"I bought the pistols and had them loaded at\nso-and-so's, a gunsmith. Article 1342 of the penal code is clear. I\ndeserve death, and I expect it.\" Astonished at this kind of answer, the\njudge started to multiply his questions, with a view of the accused\ncontradicting himself in his answers.\n\n\"Don't you see,\" said Julien to him with a smile, \"that I am making\nmyself out as guilty as you can possibly desire? Go away, monsieur, you\nwill not fail to catch the quarry you are pursuing. You will have the\npleasure to condemn me. Spare me your presence.\"\n\n\"I have an irksome duty to perform,\" thought Julien. \"I must write to\nmademoiselle de la Mole:--\"\n\n        \"I have avenged myself,\" he said to her. \"Unfortunately,\n        my name will appear in the papers, and I shall not be\n        able to escape from the world incognito. I shall die\n        in two months' time. My revenge was ghastly, like the\n        pain of being separated from you. From this moment I\n        forbid myself to write or pronounce your name. Never\n        speak of me even to my son; silence is the only way of\n        honouring me. To the ordinary commonplace man, I shall\n        represent a common assassin. Allow me the luxury of the\n        truth at this supreme moment; you will forget me. This\n        great catastrophe of which I advise you not to say a\n        single word to a single living person, will exhaust,\n        for several years to come, all that romantic and unduly\n        adventurous element which I have detected in your\n        character. You were intended by nature to live among the\n        heroes of the middle ages; exhibit their firm character.\n        Let what has to happen take place in secret and without\n        your being compromised. You will assume a false name,\n        and you will confide in no one. If you absolutely need a\n        friend's help, I bequeath the abbe Pirard to you.\n\n        \"Do not talk to anyone else, particularly to the people\n        of your own class--the de Luz's, the Caylus's.\n\n        \"A year after my death, marry M. de Croisenois; I\n        command you as your husband. Do not write to me at all,\n        I shall not answer. Though in my view, much less wicked\n        than Iago, I am going to say, like him: 'From this time\n        forth, I never will speack word.'[1]\n\n        \"I shall never be seen to speak or write again. You will\n        have received my final words and my final expressions of\n        adoration.\n\n                                                         \"J. S.\"\n\nIt was only after he had despatched this letter and had recovered\nhimself a little, that Julien felt for the first time extremely\nunhappy. Those momentous words, I shall die, meant the successive\ntearing out of his heart of each individual hope and ambition.\nDeath, in itself, was not horrible in his eyes. His whole life had\nbeen nothing but a long preparation for unhappiness, and he had\nmade a point of not losing sight of what is considered the greatest\nunhappiness of all.\n\n\"Come then,\" he said to himself; \"if I had to fight a duel in a couple\nof months, with an expert duellist, should I be weak enough to think\nabout it incessantly with panic in my soul?\"\n\nHe passed more than an hour in trying to analyze himself thoroughly on\nthis score.\n\nWhen he saw clear in his own soul, and the truth appeared before his\neyes with as much definiteness as one of the pillars of his prison, he\nthought about remorse.\n\n\"Why should I have any? I have been atrociously injured; I have\nkilled--I deserve death, but that is all. I die after having squared my\naccount with humanity. I do not leave any obligation unfulfilled. I owe\nnothing to anybody; there is nothing shameful about my death, except\nthe instrument of it; that alone, it is true, is simply sufficient to\ndisgrace me in the eyes of the bourgeois of Verrieres; but from the\nintellectual standpoint, what could be more contemptible than they? I\nhave one means of winning their consideration; by flinging pieces of\ngold to the people as I go to the scaffold. If my memory is linked with\nthe idea of gold, they will always look upon it as resplendent.\"\n\nAfter this chain of reasoning, which after a minute's reflection seemed\nto him self-evident, Julien said to himself, \"I have nothing left to do\nin the world,\" and fell into a deep sleep.\n\nAbout 9 o'clock in the evening the gaoler woke him up as he brought in\nhis supper.\n\n\"What are they saying in Verrieres?\"\n\n\"M. Julien, the oath which I took before the crucifix in the 'Royal\nCourtyard,' on the day when I was installed in my place, obliges me to\nsilence.\"\n\nHe was silent, but remained. Julien was amused by the sight of this\nvulgar hypocrisy. I must make him, he thought, wait a long time for the\nfive francs which he wants to sell his conscience for.\n\nWhen the gaoler saw him finish his meal without making any attempt to\ncorrupt him, he said in a soft and perfidious voice:\n\n\"The affection which I have for you, M. Julien, compels me to speak.\nAlthough they say that it is contrary to the interests of justice,\nbecause it may assist you in preparing your defence. M. Julien you are\na good fellow at heart, and you will be very glad to learn that madame\nde Renal is better.\"\n\n\"What! she is not dead?\" exclaimed Julien, beside himself.\n\n\"What, you know nothing?\" said the gaoler, with a stupid air which soon\nturned into exultant cupidity. \"It would be very proper, monsieur, for\nyou to give something to the surgeon, who, so far as law and justice\ngo, ought not to have spoken. But in order to please you, monsieur, I\nwent to him, and he told me everything.\"\n\n\"Anyway, the wound is not mortal,\" said Julien to him impatiently, \"you\nanswer for it on your life?\"\n\nThe gaoler, who was a giant six feet tall, was frightened and retired\ntowards the door. Julien saw that he was adopting bad tactics for\ngetting at the truth. He sat down again and flung a napoleon to M.\nNoiraud.\n\nAs the man's story proved to Julien more and more conclusively that\nmadame de Renal's wound was not mortal, he felt himself overcome by\ntears. \"Leave me,\" he said brusquely.\n\nThe gaoler obeyed. Scarcely had the door shut, than Julien exclaimed:\n\"Great God, she is not dead,\" and he fell on his knees, shedding hot\ntears.\n\nIn this supreme moment he was a believer. What mattered the hypocrisies\nof the priests? Could they abate one whit of the truth and sublimity of\nthe idea of God?\n\nIt was only then that Julien began to repent of the crime that he had\ncommitted. By a coincidence, which prevented him falling into despair,\nit was only at the present moment that the condition of physical\nirritation and semi-madness, in which he had been plunged since his\ndeparture from Paris for Verrieres came to an end.\n\nHis tears had a generous source. He had no doubt about the condemnation\nwhich awaited him.\n\n\"So she will live,\" he said to himself. \"She will live to forgive me\nand love me.\"\n\nVery late the next morning the gaoler woke him up and said, \"You must\nhave a famous spirit, M. Julien. I have come in twice, but I did not\nwant to wake you up. Here are two bottles of excellent wine which our\ncure, M. Maslon, has sent you.\"\n\n\"What, is that scoundrel still here?\" said Julien.\n\n\"Yes, monsieur,\" said the gaoler, lowering his voice. \"But do not talk\nso loud, it may do you harm.\"\n\nJulien laughed heartily.\n\n\"At the stage I have reached, my friend, you alone can do me harm in\nthe event of your ceasing to be kind and tender. You will be well\npaid,\" said Julien, changing his tone and reverting to his imperious\nmanner. This manner was immediately justified by the gift of a piece of\nmoney.\n\nM. Noiraud related again, with the greatest detail, everything he\nhad learnt about madame de Renal, but he did not make any mention of\nmademoiselle Elisa's visit.\n\nThe man was as base and servile as it was possible to be. An idea\ncrossed Julien's mind. \"This kind of misshapen giant cannot earn more\nthan three or four hundred francs, for his prison is not at all full.\nI can guarantee him ten thousand francs, if he will escape with me\nto Switzerland. The difficulty will be in persuading him of my good\nfaith.\" The idea of the long conversation he would need to have with so\nvile a person filled Julien with disgust. He thought of something else.\n\nIn the evening the time had passed. A post-chaise had come to pick him\nup at midnight. He was very pleased with his travelling companions, the\ngendarmes. When he arrived at the prison of Besancon in the morning\nthey were kind enough to place him in the upper storey of a Gothic\nturret. He judged the architecture to be of the beginning of the\nfourteenth century. He admired its fascinating grace and lightness.\nThrough a narrow space between two walls, beyond the deep court, there\nopened a superb vista.\n\nOn the following day there was an interrogation, after which he was\nleft in peace for several days. His soul was calm. He found his affair\na perfectly simple one. \"I meant to kill. I deserve to be killed.\"\n\nHis thoughts did not linger any further over this line of reasoning.\nAs for the sentence, the disagreeableness of appearing in public,\nthe defence, he considered all this as slight embarrassment, irksome\nformalities, which it would be time enough to consider on the actual\nday. The actual moment of death did not seize hold of his mind either.\n\"I will think about it after the sentence.\" Life was no longer boring,\nhe was envisaging everything from a new point of view, he had no longer\nany ambition. He rarely thought about mademoiselle de la Mole. His\npassion of remorse engrossed him a great deal, and often conjured up\nthe image of madame de Renal, particularly during the silence of the\nnight, which in this high turret was only disturbed by the song of the\nosprey.\n\nHe thanked heaven that he had not inflicted a mortal wound.\n\"Astonishing,\" he said to himself, \"I thought that she had destroyed my\nfuture happiness for ever by her letter to M. de la Mole, and here am\nI, less than a fortnight after the date of that letter, not giving a\nsingle thought to all the things that engrossed me then. An income of\ntwo or three thousand francs, on which to live quietly in a mountain\ndistrict, like Vergy.... I was happy then.... I did not realise my\nhappiness.\"\n\nAt other moments he would jump up from his chair. \"If I had mortally\nwounded madame de Renal, I would have killed myself.... I need to feel\ncertain of that so as not to horrify myself.\"\n\n\"Kill myself? That's the great question,\" he said to himself. \"Oh,\nthose judges, those fiends of red tape, who would hang their best\ncitizen in order to win the cross.... At any rate, I should escape from\ntheir control and from the bad French of their insults, which the local\npaper will call eloquence.\"\n\n\"I still have five or six weeks, more or less to live.... Kill myself.\nNo, not for a minute,\" he said to himself after some days, \"Napoleon\nwent on living.\"\n\n\"Besides, I find life pleasant, this place is quiet, I am not troubled\nwith bores,\" he added with a smile, and he began to make out a list of\nthe books which he wanted to order from Paris.\n\n\n[1] Stendhal's bad spelling is here reproduced.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVII\n\nA TURRET\n\n\n        The tomb of a friend.--_Sterne_.\n\n\nHe heard a loud noise in the corridor. It was not the time when the\ngaoler usually came up to his prison. The osprey flew away with a\nshriek. The door opened, and the venerable cure Chelan threw himself\ninto his arms. He was trembling all over and had his stick in his hands.\n\n\"Great God! Is it possible, my child--I ought to say monster?\"\n\nThe good old man could not add a single word. Julien was afraid he\nwould fall down. He was obliged to lead him to a chair. The hand of\ntime lay heavy on this man who had once been so active. He seemed to\nJulien the mere shadow of his former self.\n\nWhen he had regained his breath, he said, \"It was only the day before\nyesterday that I received your letter from Strasbourg with your five\nhundred francs for the poor of Verrieres. They brought it to me in\nthe mountains at Liveru where I am living in retirement with my\nnephew Jean. Yesterday I learnt of the catastrophe.... Heavens, is it\npossible?\" And the old man left off weeping. He did not seem to have\nany ideas left, but added mechanically, \"You will have need of your\nfive hundred francs, I will bring them back to you.\"\n\n\"I need to see you, my father,\" exclaimed Julien, really touched. \"I\nhave money, anyway.\"\n\nBut he could not obtain any coherent answer. From time to time, M.\nChelan shed some tears which coursed silently down his cheeks. He then\nlooked at Julien, and was quite dazed when he saw him kiss his hands\nand carry them to his lips. That face which had once been so vivid,\nand which had once portrayed with such vigour the most noble emotions\nwas now sunk in a perpetual apathy. A kind of peasant came soon to\nfetch the old man. \"You must not fatigue him,\" he said to Julien, who\nunderstood that he was the nephew. This visit left Julien plunged in a\ncruel unhappiness which found no vent in tears. Everything seemed to\nhim gloomy and disconsolate. He felt his heart frozen in his bosom.\n\nThis moment was the cruellest which he had experienced since the\ncrime. He had just seen death and seen it in all its ugliness. All his\nillusions about greatness of soul and nobility of character had been\ndissipated like a cloud before the hurricane.\n\nThis awful plight lasted several hours. After moral poisoning, physical\nremedies and champagne are necessary. Julien would have considered\nhimself a coward to have resorted to them. \"What a fool I am,\" he\nexclaimed, towards the end of the horrible day that he had spent\nentirely in walking up and down his narrow turret. \"It's only, if I\nhad been going to die like anybody else, that the sight of that poor\nold man would have had any right to have thrown me into this awful fit\nof sadness: but a rapid death in the flower of my age simply puts me\nbeyond the reach of such awful senility.\"\n\nIn spite of all his argumentation, Julien felt as touched as any\nweak-minded person would have been, and consequently felt unhappy\nas the result of the visit. He no longer had any element of rugged\ngreatness, or any Roman virtue. Death appeared to him at a great height\nand seemed a less easy proposition.\n\n\"This is what I shall take for my thermometer,\" he said to himself.\n\"To-night I am ten degrees below the courage requisite for\nguillotine-point level. I had that courage this morning. Anyway, what\ndoes it matter so long as it comes back to me at the necessary moment?\"\nThis thermometer idea amused him and finally managed to distract him.\n\nWhen he woke up the next day he was ashamed of the previous day. \"My\nhappiness and peace of mind are at stake.\" He almost made up his mind\nto write to the Procureur-General to request that no one should be\nadmitted to see him. \"And how about Fouque,\" he thought? \"If he takes\nit upon himself to come to Besancon, his grief will be immense.\"\nIt had perhaps been two months since he had given Fouque a thought.\n\"I was a great fool at Strasbourg. My thoughts did not go beyond my\ncoat-collar. He was much engrossed by the memory of Fouque, which\nleft him more and more touched. He walked nervously about. Here I\nam, clearly twenty degrees below death point.... If this weakness\nincreases, it will be better for me to kill myself. What joy for the\nabbe Maslon, and the Valenods, if I die like an usher.\"\n\nFouque arrived. The good, simple man, was distracted by grief. His one\nidea, so far as he had any at all, was to sell all he possessed in\norder to bribe the gaoler and secure Julien's escape. He talked to him\nat length of M. de Lavalette's escape.\n\n\"You pain me,\" Julien said to him. \"M. de Lavalette was innocent--I\nam guilty. Though you did not mean to, you made me think of the\ndifference....\"\n\n\"But is it true? What? were you going to sell all you possessed?\" said\nJulien, suddenly becoming mistrustful and observant.\n\nFouque was delighted at seeing his friend answer his obsessing idea,\nand detailed at length, and within a hundred francs, what he would get\nfor each of his properties.\n\n\"What a sublime effort for a small country land-owner,\" thought Julien.\n\"He is ready to sacrifice for me the fruits of all the economies, and\nall the little semi-swindling tricks which I used to be ashamed of when\nI saw him practice them.\"\n\n\"None of the handsome young people whom I saw in the Hotel de la Mole,\nand who read Rene, would have any of his ridiculous weaknesses: but,\nexcept those who are very young and who have also inherited riches\nand are ignorant of the value of money, which of all those handsome\nParisians would be capable of such a sacrifice?\"\n\nAll Fouque's mistakes in French and all his common gestures seemed to\ndisappear. He threw himself into his arms. Never have the provinces\nin comparison with Paris received so fine a tribute. Fouque was so\ndelighted with the momentary enthusiasm which he read in his friend's\neyes that he took it for consent to the flight.\n\nThis view of the sublime recalled to Julien all the strength that the\napparition of M. Chelan had made him lose. He was still very young;\nbut in my view he was a fine specimen. Instead of his character passing\nfrom tenderness to cunning, as is the case with the majority of men,\nage would have given him that kindness of heart which is easily melted\n... but what avail these vain prophecies.\n\nThe interrogations became more frequent in spite of all the efforts\nof Julien, who always endeavoured by his answers to shorten the whole\nmatter.\n\n\"I killed, or at any rate, I wished to occasion death, and I did so\nwith premeditation,\" he would repeat every day. But the judge was\na pedant above everything. Julien's confessions had no effect in\ncurtailing the interrogations. The judge's conceit was wounded. Julien\ndid not know that they had wanted to transfer him into an awful cell,\nand that it was only, thanks to Fouque's efforts, that he was allowed\nto keep his pretty room at the top of a hundred and eighty steps.\n\nM. the abbe de Frilair was one of the important customers who entrusted\nFouque with the purveying of their firewood. The good tradesmen managed\nto reach the all powerful grand vicar. M. de Frilair informed him,\nto his unspeakable delight, that he was so touched by Julien's good\nqualities, and by the services which he had formerly rendered to the\nseminary, that he intended to recommend him to the judges. Fouque\nthought he saw a hope of saving his friend, and as he went out, bowing\ndown to the ground, requested M. the grand vicar, to distribute a sum\nof ten louis in masses to entreat the acquittal of the accused.\n\nFouque was making a strange mistake. M. de Frilair was very far from\nbeing a Valenod. He refused, and even tried to make the good peasant\nunderstand that he would do better to keep his money. Seeing that it\nwas impossible to be clear without being indiscreet, he advised him to\ngive that sum as alms for the use of the poor prisoners, who, in point\nof fact, were destitute of everything.\n\n\"This Julien is a singular person, his action is unintelligible,\"\nthought M. de Frilair, \"and I ought to find nothing unintelligible.\nPerhaps it will be possible to make a martyr of him.... In any case,\nI shall get to the bottom of the matter, and shall perhaps find an\nopportunity of putting fear into the heart of that madame de Renal\nwho has no respect for us, and at the bottom detests me.... Perhaps\nI might be able to utilise all this as a means of a brilliant\nreconciliation with M. de la Mole, who has a weakness for the little\nseminarist.\"\n\nThe settlement of the lawsuit had been signed some weeks previously,\nand the abbe Pirard had left Besancon after having duly mentioned\nJulien's mysterious birth, on the very day when the unhappy man tried\nto assassinate madame de Renal in the church of Verrieres.\n\nThere was only one disagreeable event between himself and his death\nwhich Julien anticipated. He consulted Fouque concerning his idea\nof writing to M. the Procureur-General asking to be exempt from all\nvisits. This horror at the sight of a father, above all at a moment\nlike this, deeply shocked the honest middle-class heart of the wood\nmerchant.\n\nHe thought he understood why so many people had a passionate hatred for\nhis friend. He concealed his feelings out of respect for misfortune.\n\n\"In any case,\" he answered coldly, \"such an order for privacy would not\nbe applied to your father.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVIII\n\nA POWERFUL MAN\n\n\n        But her proceedings are so mysterious and her figure is\n        so elegant! Who can she be?--_Schiller_.\n\n\nThe doors of the turret opened very early on the following day.\n\n\"Oh! good God,\" he thought, \"here's my father! What an unpleasant\nscene!\"\n\nAt the same time a woman dressed like a peasant rushed into his arms.\nHe had difficulty in recognising her. It was mademoiselle de la Mole.\n\n\"You wicked man! Your letter only told me where you were. As for what\nyou call your crime, but which is really nothing more or less than a\nnoble vengeance, which shews me all the loftiness of the heart which\nbeats within your bosom, I only got to know of it at Verrieres.\"\n\nIn spite of all his prejudices against mademoiselle de la Mole,\nprejudices moreover which he had not owned to himself quite frankly,\nJulien found her extremely pretty. It was impossible not to recognise\nboth in what she had done and what she had said, a noble disinterested\nfeeling far above the level of anything that a petty vulgar soul would\nhave dared to do? He thought that he still loved a queen, and after a\nfew moments said to her with a remarkable nobility both of thought and\nof elocution,\n\n\"I sketched out the future very clearly. After my death I intended to\nremarry you to M. de Croisenois, who will officially of course then\nmarry a widow. The noble but slightly romantic soul of this charming\nwidow, who will have been brought back to the cult of vulgar prudence\nby an astonishing and singular event which played in her life a part\nas great as it was tragic, will deign to appreciate the very real\nmerit of the young marquis. You will resign yourself to be happy with\nordinary worldly happiness, prestige, riches, high rank. But, dear\nMathilde, if your arrival at Besancon is suspected, it will be a mortal\nblow for M. de la Mole, and that is what I shall never forgive myself.\nI have already caused him so much sorrow. The academician will say that\nhe has nursed a serpent in his bosom.\n\n\"I must confess that I little expected so much cold reason and so much\nsolicitude for the future,\" said mademoiselle de la Mole, slightly\nannoyed. \"My maid who is almost as prudent as you are, took a passport\nfor herself, and I posted here under the name of madam Michelet.\"\n\n\"And did madame Michelet find it so easy to get to see me?\"\n\n\"Ah! you are still the same superior man whom I chose to favour. I\nstarted by offering a hundred francs to one of the judge's secretaries,\nwho alleged at first that my admission into this turret was impossible.\nBut once he had got the money the worthy man kept me waiting, raised\nobjections, and I thought that he meant to rob me--\" She stopped.\n\n\"Well?\" said Julien.\n\n\"Do not be angry, my little Julien,\" she said, kissing him. \"I was\nobliged to tell my name to the secretary, who took me for a young\nworking girl from Paris in love with handsome Julien. As a matter of\nfact those are his actual expressions. I swore to him, my dear, that I\nwas your wife, and I shall have a permit to see you every day.\"\n\n\"Nothing could be madder,\" thought Julien, \"but I could not help it.\nAfter all, M. de la Mole is so great a nobleman that public opinion\nwill manage to find an excuse for the young colonel who will marry\nsuch a charming widow. My death will atone for everything;\" and he\nabandoned himself with delight to Mathilde's love. It was madness, it\nwas greatness of soul, it was the most remarkable thing possible. She\nseriously suggested that she should kill herself with him.\n\nAfter these first transports, when she had had her fill of the\nhappiness of seeing Julien, a keen curiosity suddenly invaded her soul.\nShe began to scrutinize her lover, and found him considerably above\nthe plane which she had anticipated. Boniface de La Mole seemed to be\nbrought to life again, but on a more heroic scale.\n\nMathilde saw the first advocates of the locality, and offended them by\noffering gold too crudely, but they finished by accepting.\n\nShe promptly came to the conclusion that so far as dubious and far\nreaching intrigues were concerned, everything depended at Besancon on\nM. the abbe de Frilair.\n\nShe found at first overwhelming difficulties in obtaining an interview\nwith the all-powerful leader of the congregation under the obscure name\nof madame Michelet. But the rumour of the beauty of a young dressmaker,\nwho was madly in love, and had come from Paris to Besancon to console\nthe young abbe Julien Sorel, spread over the town.\n\nMathilde walked about the Besancon streets alone: she hoped not to be\nrecognised. In any case, she thought it would be of some use to her\ncause if she produced a great impression on the people. She thought, in\nher madness, of making them rebel in order to save Julien as he walked\nto his death. Mademoiselle de la Mole thought she was dressed simply\nand in a way suitable to a woman in mourning, she was dressed in fact\nin such a way as to attract every one's attention.\n\nShe was the object of everyone's notice at Besancon when she obtained\nan audience of M. de Frilair after a week spent in soliciting it.\n\nIn spite of all her courage, the idea of an influential leader of the\ncongregation, and the idea of deep and calculating criminality, were so\nassociated with each other in her mind, that she trembled as she rang\nthe bell at the door of the bishop's palace. She could scarcely walk\nwhen she had to go up the staircase, which led to the apartment of the\nfirst grand Vicar. The solitude of the episcopal palace chilled her. \"I\nmight sit down in an armchair, and the armchair might grip my arms: I\nshould then disappear. Whom could my maid ask for? The captain of the\ngendarmerie will take care to do nothing. I am isolated in this great\ntown.\"\n\nAfter her first look at the apartment, mademoiselle de la Mole felt\nreassured. In the first place, the lackey who had opened the door to\nher had on a very elegant livery. The salon in which she was asked to\nwait displayed that refined and delicate luxury which differs so much\nfrom crude magnificence, and which is only found in the best houses in\nParis. As soon as she noticed M. de Frilair coming towards her with\nquite a paternal air, all her ideas of his criminality disappeared. She\ndid not even find on his handsome face the impress of that drastic and\nsomewhat savage courage which is so anti-pathetic to Paris society.\nThe half-smile which animated the features of the priest, who was\nall-powerful at Besancon, betokened the well-bred man, the learned\nprelate, the clever administrator. Mathilde felt herself at Paris.\n\nIt was the work of a few minutes for M. de Frilair to induce Mathilde\nto confess to him that she was the daughter of his powerful opponent,\nthe marquis de la Mole.\n\n\"As a matter of fact, I am not Madame Michelet,\" she said, reassuming\nall the haughtiness of her natural demeanour, \"and this confession\ncosts me but little since I have come to consult you, monsieur, on the\npossibility of procuring the escape of M. de la Vernaye. Moreover, he\nis only guilty of a piece of folly; the woman whom he shot at is well;\nand, in the second place, I can put down fifty-thousand francs straight\naway for the purpose of bribing the officials, and pledge myself for\ntwice that sum. Finally, my gratitude and the gratitude of my family\nwill be ready to do absolutely anything for the man who has saved M. de\nla Vernaye.\"\n\nM. de Frilair seemed astonished at the name. Mathilde shewed him\nseveral letters from the Minister of War, addressed to M. Julien Sorel\nde la Vernaye.\n\n\"You see, monsieur, that my father took upon himself the responsibility\nof his career. I married him secretly, my father was desirous that he\nshould be a superior officer before the notification of this marriage,\nwhich, after all, is somewhat singular for a de la Mole.\"\n\nMathilde noticed that M. de Frilair's expression of goodwill and mild\ncheerfulness was rapidly vanishing in proportion as he made certain\nimportant discoveries. His face exhibited a subtlety tinged with deep\nperfidiousness, the abbe had doubts, he was slowly re-reading the\nofficial documents.\n\n\"What can I get out of these strange confidences?\" he said to himself.\n\"Here I am suddenly thrown into intimate relations with a friend of\nthe celebrated marechale de Fervaques, who is the all-powerful niece\nof my lord, bishop of ---- who can make one a bishop of France. What\nI looked upon as an extremely distant possibility presents itself\nunexpectedly. This may lead me to the goal of all my hopes.\"\n\nMathilde was at first alarmed by the sudden change in the expression\nof this powerful man, with whom she was alone in a secluded room. \"But\ncome,\" she said to herself soon afterwards. \"Would it not have been\nmore unfortunate if I had made no impression at all on the cold egoism\nof a priest who was already sated with power and enjoyment?\"\n\nDazzled at the sight of this rapid and unexpected path of reaching the\nepiscopate which now disclosed itself to him, and astonished as he was\nby Mathilde's genius, M. de Frilair ceased for a moment to be on his\nguard. Mademoiselle de la Mole saw him almost at her feet, tingling\nwith ambition, and trembling nervously.\n\n\"Everything is cleared up,\" she thought. \"Madame de Fervaques' friend\nwill find nothing impossible in this town.\" In spite of a sentiment\nof still painful jealousy she had sufficient courage to explain that\nJulien was the intimate friend of the marechale, and met my lord the\nbishop of ---- nearly every day.\n\n\"If you were to draw by ballot four or five times in succession a\nlist of thirty-six jurymen from out the principal inhabitants of this\ndepartment,\" said the grand Vicar, emphasizing his words, and with a\nhard, ambitious expression in his eyes, \"I should not feel inclined to\ncongratulate myself, if I could not reckon on eight or ten friends who\nwould be the most intelligent of the lot in each list. I can always\nmanage in nearly every case to get more than a sufficient majority to\nsecure a condemnation, so you see, mademoiselle, how easy it is for me\nto secure a conviction.\" The abbe stopped short as though astonished\nby the sound of his own words; he was admitting things which are never\nsaid to the profane. But he in his turn dumbfounded Mathilde when he\ninformed her that the special feature in Julien's strange adventure\nwhich astonished and interested Besancon society, was that he had\nformerly inspired Madame de Renal with a grand passion and reciprocated\nit for a long time. M. de Frilair had no difficulty in perceiving the\nextreme trouble which his story produced.\n\n\"I have my revenge,\" he thought. \"After all it's a way of managing\nthis decided young person. I was afraid that I should not succeed.\" Her\ndistinguished and intractable appearance intensified in his eyes the\ncharm of the rare beauty whom he now saw practically entreating him. He\nregained all his self-possession--and he did not hesitate to move the\ndagger about in her heart.\n\n\"I should not be at all surprised,\" he said to her lightly, \"if we\nwere to learn that it was owing to jealousy that M. Sorel fired two\npistol shots at the woman he once loved so much. Of course she must\nhave consoled herself and for some time she has been seeing extremely\nfrequently a certain abbe Marquinot of Dijon, a kind of Jansenist, and\nas immoral as all Jansenists are.\"\n\nM. de Frilair experienced the voluptuous pleasure of torturing at\nhis leisure the heart of this beautiful girl whose weakness he had\nsurprised.\n\n\"Why,\" he added, as he fixed his ardent eyes upon Mathilde, \"should\nM. Sorel have chosen the church, if it were not for the reason that\nhis rival was celebrating mass in it at that very moment? Everyone\nattributes an infinite amount of intelligence and an even greater\namount of prudence to the fortunate man who is the object of your\ninterest. What would have been simpler than to hide himself in the\ngarden of M. de Renal which he knows so well. Once there he could put\nthe woman of whom he was jealous to death with the practical certainty\nof being neither seen, caught, nor suspected.\"\n\nThis apparently sound train of reasoning eventually made Mathilde\nloose all self-possession. Her haughty soul steeped in all that arid\nprudence, which passes in high society for the true psychology of the\nhuman heart, was not of the type to be at all quick in appreciating\nthat joy of scorning all prudence, which an ardent soul can find so\nkeen. In the high classes of Paris society in which Mathilde had lived,\nit is only rarely that passion can divest itself of prudence, and\npeople always make a point of throwing themselves out of windows from\nthe fifth storey.\n\nAt last the abbe de Frilair was sure of his power over her. He gave\nMathilde to understand (and he was doubtless lying) that he could do\nwhat he liked with the public official who was entrusted with the\nconduct of Julien's prosecution. After the thirty-six jurymen for the\nsessions had been chosen by ballot, he would approach at least thirty\njurymen directly and personally.\n\nIf M. de Frilair had not thought Mathilde so pretty, he would not have\nspoken so clearly before the fifth or sixth interview.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIX\n\nTHE INTRIGUE\n\n\n        Castres 1676--A brother has just murdered his sister\n        in the house next to mine. This gentleman had already\n        been guilty of one murder. His father saved his life by\n        causing five-hundred crowns to be distributed among the\n        councillors.--_Locke: Journey in France_.\n\n\nWhen she left the bishop's palace, Mathilde did not hesitate to\ndespatch a courier to madame de Fervaques. The fear of compromising\nherself did not stop her for a moment. She entreated her rival to\nobtain for M. de Frilair an autograph letter from the bishop of ----.\nShe went as far as to entreat her to come herself to Besancon with all\nspeed. This was an heroic act on the part of a proud and jealous soul.\n\nActing on Fouque's advice, she had had the discretion to refrain from\nmentioning the steps she had taken for Julien. Her presence troubled\nhim enough without that. A better man when face to face with death than\nhe had ever been during his life, he had remorse not only towards M. de\nla Mole, but also towards Mathilde.\n\n\"Come,\" he said to himself, \"there are times when I feel absent-minded\nand even bored by her society. She is ruining herself on my account,\nand this is how I reward her. Am I really a scoundrel?\" This question\nwould have bothered him but little in the days when he was ambitious.\nIn those days he looked upon failure as the only disgrace.\n\nHis moral discomfort when with Mathilde was proportionately emphasized\nby the fact that he inspired her at this time with the maddest and most\nextraordinary passion. She talked of nothing but the strange sacrifices\nthat she was ready to make in order to save him.\n\nExalted as she was by a sentiment on which she plumed herself, to the\ncomplete subordination of her pride, she would have liked not to have\nlet a single minute of her life go by without filling it with some\nextraordinary act. The strangest projects, and ones involving her in\nthe utmost danger, supplied the topics of her long interviews with\nJulien. The well-paid gaolers allowed her to reign over the prison.\nMathilde's ideas were not limited by the sacrifice of her reputation.\nShe would have thought nothing of making her condition known to society\nat large. Throwing herself on her knees before the king's carriage\nas it galloped along, in order to ask for Julien's pardon, and thus\nattracting the attention of the prince, at the risk of being crushed\na thousand times over, was one of the least fantastic dreams in which\nthis exalted and courageous imagination chose to indulge. She was\ncertain of being admitted into the reserved portion of the park of St.\nCloud, through those friends of hers who were employed at the king's\ncourt.\n\nJulien thought himself somewhat unworthy of so much devotion. As a\nmatter of fact, he was tired of heroism. A simple, naive, and almost\ntimid tenderness was what would have appealed to him, while Mathilde's\nhaughty soul, on the other hand, always required the idea of a public\nand an audience.\n\nIn the midst of all her anguish and all her fears for the life of\nthat lover whom she was unwilling to survive, she felt a secret need\nof astonishing the public by the extravagance of her love and the\nsublimity of her actions.\n\nJulien felt irritated at not finding himself touched by all this\nheroism. What would he have felt if he had known of all the mad ideas\nwith which Mathilde overwhelmed the devoted but eminently logical and\nlimited spirit of the good Fouque?\n\nHe did not know what to find fault with in Mathilde's devotion. For\nhe, too, would have sacrificed all his fortune, and have exposed his\nlife to the greatest risks in order to save Julien. He was dumbfounded\nby the quantity of gold which Mathilde flung away. During the first\ndays Fouque, who had all the provincial's respect for money, was much\nimpressed by the sums she spent in this way.\n\nHe at last discovered that mademoiselle de la Mole's projects\nfrequently varied, and he was greatly relieved at finding a word with\nwhich to express his blame for a character whom he found so exhausting.\nShe was changeable. There is only a step from this epithet to that of\nwrong-headed, the greatest term of opprobrium known to the provinces.\n\n\"It is singular,\" said Julien to himself, as Mathilde was going out\nof his prison one day, \"that I should be so insensible at being the\nobject of so keen a passion! And two months ago I adored her! I have,\nof course, read that the approach of death makes one lose interest\nin everything, but it is awful to feel oneself ungrateful, and not\nto be able to change. Am I an egoist, then?\" He addressed the most\nhumiliating reproaches to himself on this score.\n\nAmbition was dead in his heart; another passion had arisen from its\nashes. He called it remorse at having assassinated madame de Renal.\n\nAs a matter of fact, he loved her to the point of distraction. He\nexperienced a singular happiness on these occasions when, being left\nabsolutely alone, and without being afraid of being interrupted, he\ncould surrender himself completely to the memory of the happy days\nwhich he had once passed at Verrieres, or at Vergy. The slightest\nincidents of these days, which had fleeted away only too rapidly,\npossessed an irresistible freshness and charm. He never gave a thought\nto his Paris successes; they bored him.\n\nThese moods, which became intensified with every succeeding day, were\npartly guessed by the jealous Mathilde. She realised very clearly that\nshe had to struggle against his love of solitude. Sometimes, with\nterror in her heart, she uttered madame de Renal's name.\n\nShe saw Julien quiver. Henceforth her passion had neither bounds nor\nlimit.\n\n\"If he dies, I will die after him,\" she said to herself in all good\nfaith. \"What will the Paris salons say when they see a girl of my own\nrank carry her adoration for a lover who is condemned to death to such\na pitch as this? For sentiments like these you must go back to the age\nof the heroes. It was loves of this kind which thrilled the hearts of\nthe century of Charles IX. and Henri III.\"\n\nIn the midst of her keenest transports, when she was clasping Julien's\nhead against her heart, she would say to herself with horror, \"What!\nis this charming head doomed to fall? Well,\" she added, inflamed by\na not unhappy heroism, \"these lips of mine, which are now pressing\nagainst this pretty hair, will be icy cold less than twenty-four hours\nafterwards.\"\n\nThoughts of the awful voluptuousness of such heroic moments gripped\nher in a compelling embrace. The idea of suicide, absorbing enough\nin itself, entered that haughty soul (to which, up to the present it\nhad been so utterly alien), and soon reigned over it with an absolute\ndominion.\n\n\"No, the blood of my ancestors has not grown tepid in descending to\nme,\" said Mathilde proudly to herself.\n\n\"I have a favour to ask of you,\" said her lover to her one day. \"Put\nyour child out to nurse at Verrieres. Madame de Renal will look after\nthe nurse.\"\n\n\"Those words of yours are very harsh.\" And Mathilde paled.\n\n\"It is true, and I ask your pardon a thousand times,\" exclaimed Julien,\nemerging from his reverie, and clasping her in his arms.\n\nAfter having dried his tears, he reverted to his original idea, but\nwith greater tact. He had given a twist of melancholy philosophy to the\nconversation. He talked of that future of his which was so soon going\nto close. \"One must admit, dear one, that passions are an accident in\nlife, but such accidents only occur in superior souls.... My son's\ndeath would be in reality a happiness for your own proud family, and\nall the servants will realize as much. Neglect will be the lot of that\nchild of shame and unhappiness. I hope that, at a time which I do not\nwish to fix, but which nevertheless I am courageous enough to imagine,\nyou will obey my last advice: you will marry the marquis de Croisenois.\"\n\n\"What? Dishonoured?\"\n\n\"Dishonour cannot attach to a name such as yours. You will be a widow,\nand the widow of a madman--that is all. I will go further--my crime\nwill confer no dishonour, since it had no money motive. Perhaps when\nthe time comes for your marriage, some philosophic legislator will have\nso far prevailed on the prejudice of his contemporaries as to have\nsecured the suppression of the death penalty. Then some friendly voice\nwill say, by way of giving an instance: 'Why, madame de la Mole's first\nhusband was a madman, but not a wicked man or a criminal. It was absurd\nto have his head cut off.' So my memory will not be infamous in any\nway--at least, after a certain time.... Your position in society, your\nfortune, and, if you will allow me to say so, your genius, will make M.\nde Croisenois, once he is your husband, play a part which he would have\nnever managed to secure unaided. He only possesses birth and bravery,\nand those qualities alone, though they constituted an accomplished man\nin 1729, are an anachronism a century later on, and only give rise to\nunwarranted pretensions. You need other things if you are to place\nyourself at the head of the youth of France.\"\n\n\"You will take all the help of your firm and enterprising character\nto the political party which you will make your husband join. You may\nbe able to be a successor to the Chevreuses and the Longuevilles of\nthe Fronde--but then, dear one, the divine fire which animates you\nat present will have grown a little tepid. Allow me to tell you,\" he\nadded, \"after many other preparatory phrases, that in fifteen years'\ntime you will look upon the love you once had for me as a madness,\nwhich though excusable, was a piece of madness all the same.\"\n\nHe stopped suddenly and became meditative. He found himself again\nconfronted with the idea which shocked Mathilde so much: \"In fifteen\nyears, madame de Renal will adore my son and you will have forgotten\nhim.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXX\n\nTRANQUILITY\n\n\n        It is because I was foolish then that I am wise to-day.\n        Oh thou philosopher who seest nothing except the actual\n        instant. How short-sighted are thy views! Thine eye\n        is not adapted to follow the subterranean work of the\n        passions.--_M. Goethe_.\n\n\nThis conversation was interrupted by an interrogation followed by\na conference with the advocate entrusted with the defence. These\nmoments were the only absolutely unpleasant ones in a life made up of\nnonchalance and tender reveries.\n\n\"There is murder, and murder with premeditation,\" said Julien to the\njudge as he had done to the advocate, \"I am sorry, gentlemen, he added\nwith a smile, that this reduces your functions to a very small compass.\"\n\n\"After all,\" said Julien to himself, when he had managed to rid\nhimself of those two persons, \"I must really be brave, and apparently\nbraver than those two men. They regard that duel with an unfortunate\ntermination, which I can only seriously bother myself about on the\nactual day, as the greatest of evils and the arch-terror.\"\n\n\"The fact is that I have known a much greater unhappiness,\" continued\nJulien, as he went on philosophising with himself. \"I suffered far\nmore acutely during my first journey to Strasbourg, when I thought I\nwas abandoned by Mathilde--and to think that I desired so passionately\nthat same perfect intimacy which to-day leaves me so cold--as a matter\nof fact I am more happy alone than when that handsome girl shares my\nsolitude.\"\n\nThe advocate, who was a red-tape pedant, thought him mad, and believed,\nwith the public, that it was jealousy which had lead him to take up\nthe pistol. He ventured one day to give Julien to understand that\nthis contention, whether true or false, would be an excellent way of\npleading. But the accused man became in a single minute a passionate\nand drastic individual.\n\n\"As you value your life, monsieur,\" exclaimed Julien, quite beside\nhimself, \"mind you never put forward such an abominable lie.\" The\ncautious advocate was for a moment afraid of being assassinated.\n\nHe was preparing his case because the decisive moment was drawing near.\nThe only topic of conversation in Besancon, and all the department, was\nthe _cause celebre_. Julien did not know of this circumstance. He had\nrequested his friends never to talk to him about that kind of thing.\n\nOn this particular day, Fouque and Mathilde had tried to inform him\nof certain rumours which in their view were calculated to give hope.\nJulien had stopped them at the very first word.\n\n\"Leave me my ideal life. Your pettifogging troubles and details of\npractical life all more or less jar on me and bring me down from my\nheaven. One dies as best one can: but I wish to chose my own way of\nthinking about death. What do I care for other people? My relations\nwith other people will be sharply cut short. Be kind enough not to talk\nto me any more about those people. Seeing the judge and the advocate is\nmore than enough.\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" he said to himself, \"it seems that I am fated\nto die dreaming. An obscure creature like myself, who is certain to be\nforgotten within a fortnight, would be very silly, one must admit, to\ngo and play a part. It is nevertheless singular that I never knew so\nmuch about the art of enjoying life, as since I have seen its end so\nnear me.\"\n\nHe passed his last day in promenading upon the narrow terrace at the\ntop of the turret, smoking some excellent cigars which Mathilde had\nhad fetched from Holland by a courier. He had no suspicion that his\nappearance was waited for each day by all the telescopes in the town.\nHis thoughts were at Vergy. He never spoke to Fouque about madame de\nRenal, but his friend told him two or three times that she was rapidly\nrecovering, and these words reverberated in his heart.\n\nWhile Julien's soul was nearly all the time wholly in the realm\nof ideas, Mathilde, who, as befits an aristocratic spirit, had\noccupied herself with concrete things, had managed to make the\ndirect and intimate correspondence between madame de Fervaques and\nM. de Frilair progress so far that the great word bishopric had been\nalready pronounced. The venerable prelate, who was entrusted with the\ndistribution of the benefices, added in a postscript to one of his\nniece's letters, \"This poor Sorel is only a lunatic. I hope he will be\nrestored to us.\"\n\nAt the sight of these lines, M. de Frilair felt transported. He had no\ndoubts about saving Julien.\n\n\"But for this Jacobin law which has ordered the formation of an\nunending panel of jurymen, and which has no other real object, except\nto deprive well-born people of all their influence,\" he said to\nMathilde on the eve of the balloting for the thirty-six jurymen of the\nsession, \"I would have answered for the verdict. I certainly managed to\nget the cure N---- acquitted.\"\n\nWhen the names were selected by ballot on the following day, M. de\nFrilair experienced a genuine pleasure in finding that they contained\nfive members of the Besancon congregation and that amongst those who\nwere strangers to the town were the names of MM. Valenod, de Moirod,\nde Cholin. I can answer for these eight jurymen he said to Mathilde.\nThe first five are mere machines, Valenod is my agent: Moirod owes me\neverything: de Cholin is an imbecile who is frightened of everything.\n\nThe journal published the names of the jurymen throughout the\ndepartment, and to her husband's unspeakable terror, madame de Renal\nwished to go to Besancon. All that M. de Renal could prevail on her\nto promise was that she would not leave her bed so as to avoid the\nunpleasantness of being called to give evidence. \"You do not understand\nmy position,\" said the former mayor of Verrieres. \"I am now said to\nbe disloyal and a Liberal. No doubt that scoundrel Valenod and M. de\nFrilair will get the procureur-general and the judges to do all they\ncan to cause me unpleasantness.\"\n\nMadame de Renal found no difficulty in yielding to her husband's\norders. \"If I appear at the assize court,\" she said to herself, \"I\nshould seem as if I were asking for vengeance.\" In spite of all the\npromises she had made to the director of her conscience and to her\nhusband that she would be discreet, she had scarcely arrived at\nBesancon before she wrote with her own hand to each of the thirty-six\njurymen:--\n\n\"I shall not appear on the day of the trial, monsieur, because my\npresence might be prejudicial to M. Sorel's case. I only desire one\nthing in the world, and that I desire passionately--for him to be\nsaved. Have no doubt about it, the awful idea that I am the cause of an\ninnocent man being led to his death would poison the rest of my life\nand would no doubt curtail it. How can you condemn him to death while I\ncontinue to live? No, there is no doubt about it, society has no right\nto take away a man's life, and above all, the life of a being like\nJulien Sorel. Everyone at Verrieres knew that there were moments when\nhe was quite distracted. This poor young man has some powerful enemies,\nbut even among his enemies, (and how many has he not got?) who is there\nwho casts any doubt on his admirable talents and his deep knowledge?\nThe man whom you are going to try, monsieur, is not an ordinary person.\nFor a period of nearly eighteen months we all knew him as a devout and\nwell behaved student. Two or three times in the year he was seized by\nfits of melancholy that went to the point of distraction. The whole\ntown of Verrieres, all our neighbours at Vergy, where we live in the\nfine weather, my whole family, and monsieur the sub-prefect himself\nwill render justice to his exemplary piety. He knows all the Holy Bible\nby heart. Would a blasphemer have spent years of study in learning the\nSacred Book. My sons will have the honour of presenting you with this\nletter, they are children. Be good enough to question them, monsieur,\nthey will give you all the details concerning this poor young man which\nare necessary to convince you of how barbarous it would be to condemn\nhim. Far from revenging me, you would be putting me to death.\n\n\"What can his enemies argue against this? The wound, which was the\nresult of one of those moments of madness, which my children themselves\nused to remark in their tutor, is so little dangerous than in less\nthan two months it has allowed me to take the post from Verrieres to\nBesancon. If I learn, monsieur, that you show the slightest hesitation\nin releasing so innocent a person from the barbarity of the law, I will\nleave my bed, where I am only kept by my husband's express orders, and\nI will go and throw myself at your feet. Bring in a verdict, monsieur,\nthat the premeditation has not been made out, and you will not have an\ninnocent man's blood on your head, etc.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXI\n\nTHE TRIAL\n\n\n        The country will remember this celebrated case for\n        a long time. The interest in the accused amounted\n        to an agitation. The reason was that his crime was\n        astonishing, and yet not atrocious. Even if it had been,\n        this young man was so handsome. His brilliant career,\n        that came to an end so early in his life, intensified\n        the pathos. \"Will they condemn him?\" the women asked of\n        the men of their acquaintance, and they could be seen to\n        grow pale as they waited for the answer.--_Sainte Beuve_.\n\n\nThe day that madame de Renal and Mathilde feared so much arrived at\nlast.\n\nTheir terror was intensified by the strange appearance of the town,\nwhich had its emotional effect even upon Fouque's sturdy soul. All the\nprovince had rushed to Besancon to see the trial of this romantic case.\n\nThere had been no room left in the inns for some days. M. the president\nof the assizes, was besieged by requests for tickets; all the ladies\nin the town wanted to be present at the trial. Julien's portrait was\nhawked about the streets, etc., etc.\n\nMathilde was keeping in reserve for this supreme moment a complete\nautograph letter from my lord, bishop of ----. This prelate, who\ngoverned the Church of France and created its bishops, was good enough\nto ask for Julien's acquittal. On the eve of the trial, Mathilde took\nthis letter to the all-powerful grand vicar.\n\nWhen she was going away in tears at the end of the interview, M.\nde Frilair at last emerged from his diplomatic reserve and almost\nshewed some emotion himself. \"I will be responsible for the jury's\nverdict,\" he said to her. \"Out of the twelve persons charged with the\ninvestigation of whether your friend's crime is made out, and above\nall, whether there was premeditation, I can count six friends who are\ndevoted to my fortunes, and I have given them to understand that they\nhave it in their power to promote me to the episcopate. Baron Valenod,\nwhom I have made mayor of Verrieres, can do just as he likes with two\nof his officials, MM. de Moirod, and de Cholin. As a matter of fact,\nfate has given us for this business two jurymen of extremely loose\nviews; but, although ultra-Liberals, they are faithful to my orders on\ngreat occasions, and I have requested them to vote like M. Valenod.\nI have learnt that a sixth juryman, a manufacturer, who is immensely\nrich, and a garrulous Liberal into the bargain, has secret aspirations\nfor a contract with the War Office, and doubtless he would not like to\ndisplease me. I have had him told that M. de Valenod knows my final\ninjunctions.\"\n\n\"And who is this M. Valenod?\" said Mathilde, anxiously.\n\n\"If you knew him, you could not doubt our success. He is an audacious\nspeaker, coarse, impudent, with a natural gift for managing fools. 1814\nsaw him in low water, and I am going to make a prefect of him. He is\ncapable of beating the other jurymen if they do not vote his way.\"\n\nMathilde felt a little reassured.\n\nAnother discussion awaited her in the evening. To avoid the\nprolongation of an unpleasant scene, the result of which, in his view,\nwas absolutely certain, Julien had resolved not to make a speech.\n\n\"My advocate will speak,\" he said to Mathilde. \"I shall figure too long\nanyway as a laughing-stock to all my enemies. These provincials have\nbeen shocked by the rapidity of my success, for which I have to thank\nyou, and believe me, there is not one of them who does not desire my\nconviction, though he would be quite ready to cry like an idiot when I\nam taken to my death.\"\n\n\"They desire to see you humiliated. That is only too true,\" answered\nMathilde, \"but I do not think they are at all cruel. My presence at\nBesancon, and the sight of my sufferings have interested all the women;\nyour handsome face will do the rest. If you say a few words to your\njudges, the whole audience will be on your side, etc., etc.\"\n\nAt nine o'clock on the following day, when Julien left his prison\nfor the great hall of the Palais de Justice, the gendarmes had much\ndifficulty in driving away the immense crowd that was packed in the\ncourtyard. Julien had slept well. He was very calm, and experienced no\nother sentiment except a sense of philosophic pity towards that crowd\nof jealous creatures who were going to applaud his death sentence,\nthough without cruelty. He was very surprised when, having been\ndetained in the middle of the crowd more than a quarter of an hour,\nhe was obliged to admit that his presence affected the public with\na tender pity. He did not hear a single unpleasant remark. \"These\nprovincials are less evil than I thought,\" he said to himself.\n\nAs he entered the courtroom, he was struck by the elegance of the\narchitecture. It was real Gothic, with a number of pretty little\ncolumns hewn out of stone with the utmost care. He thought himself in\nEngland.\n\nBut his attention was soon engrossed by twelve or fifteen pretty\nwomen, who sat exactly opposite the prisoner's seat and filled the\nthree balconies above the judges and the jury. As he turned round\ntowards the public, he saw that the circular gallery that dominated the\namphitheatre was filled with women, the majority were young and seemed\nvery pretty, their eyes were shining and full of interest. The crowd\nwas enormous throughout the rest of the room. People were knocking\nagainst the door, and the janitors could not obtain silence.\n\nWhen all the eyes that were looking for Julien observed where he was,\nand saw him occupying the slightly raised place which is reserved for\nthe prisoner, he was greeted by a murmur of astonishment and tender\ninterest.\n\nYou would have taken him for under twenty on this day. He was dressed\nvery simply, but with a perfect grace. His hair and his forehead were\ncharming. Mathilde had insisted on officiating personally at his\ntoilette. Julien's pallor was extreme. Scarcely was he seated in this\nplace than he heard people say all over the room, \"Great heavens! how\nyoung he is!... But he's quite a child!... He is much better than his\nportrait.\"\n\n\"Prisoner,\" said the gendarme who was sitting on his right, \"do you see\nthose six ladies in that balcony?\" The gendarme pointed out a little\ngallery that jutted out over the amphitheatre where the jury were\nplaced. \"That's madame, the prefect's wife,\" continued the gendarme.\n\"Next to her, madame the marquise de M----. She likes you well: I have\nheard her speak to the judge of first instance. Next to her is madame\nDerville.\"\n\n\"Madame Derville!\" exclaimed Julien, and a vivid blush spread over his\nforehead. \"When she leaves here,\" he thought, \"she will write to madame\nde Renal.\" He was ignorant of madame de Renal's arrival at Besancon.\nThe witnesses were quickly heard. After the first words of the opening\nof the prosecution by the advocate-general, two of the ladies in the\nlittle balcony just opposite Julien burst into tears. Julien noticed\nthat madame Derville did not break down at all. He remarked, however,\nthat she was very red.\n\nThe advocate-general was indulging in melodrama in bad French over the\nbarbarity of the crime that had been perpetrated. Julien noticed that\nmadame Derville's neighbours seemed to manifest a keen disapproval.\nSeveral jurors, who were apparently acquainted with the ladies, spoke\nto them and seemed to reassure them. \"So far as it goes, that is\ncertainly a good omen,\" thought Julien.\n\nUp to the present, he had felt himself steeped in an unadulterated\ncontempt for all the persons who were present at the trial. This\nsentiment of disgust was intensified by the stale eloquence of\nthe advocate-general. But the coldness of Julien's soul gradually\ndisappeared before the marks of interest of which he was evidently the\nobject.\n\nHe was satisfied with the sturdy demeanour of his advocate. \"No\nphrases,\" he said to him in a whisper, as he was about to commence his\nspeech.\n\n\"All the bombast which our opponent has stolen from Bossuet and\nlavished upon you,\" said the advocate, \"has done you good.\"\n\nAs a matter of fact, he had scarcely spoken for five minutes before\npractically all the women had their handkerchiefs in their hands. The\nadvocate was encouraged, and addressed some extremely strong remarks\nto the jury. Julien shuddered. He felt on the point of breaking into\ntears. \"My God,\" he thought, \"what would my enemies say?\"\n\nHe was on the point of succumbing to the emotion which was overcoming\nhim, when, luckily for him, he surprised an insolent look from M. the\nbaron de Valenod.\n\n\"That rogue's eyes are gleaming,\" he said to himself \"What a triumph\nfor that base soul! If my crime had only produced this one result, it\nwould be my duty to curse it. God knows what he will say about it to\nmadame de Renal.\"\n\nThis idea effaced all others. Shortly afterwards Julien was brought\nback to reality by the public's manifestation of applause. The advocate\nhad just finished his speech. Julien remembered that it was good form\nto shake hands with him. The time had passed rapidly.\n\nThey brought in refreshments for the advocate and the prisoner. It was\nonly then that Julien was struck by the fact that none of the women had\nleft the audience to go and get dinner.\n\n\"Upon my word, I am dying of hunger,\" said the advocate. \"And you?\"\n\n\"I, too,\" answered Julien.\n\n\"See, there's madame, the prefect's wife, who is also getting her\ndinner,\" said the advocate, as he pointed out the little balcony. \"Keep\nup your courage; everything is going all right.\" The court sat again.\n\nMidnight struck as the president was summing up. The president was\nobliged to pause in his remarks. Amid the silence and the anxiety of\nall present, the reverberation of the clock filled the hall.\n\n\"So my last day is now beginning,\" thought Julien. He soon felt\ninflamed by the idea of his duty. Up to the present he had controlled\nhis emotion and had kept his resolution not to speak. When the\npresident of the assizes asked him if he had anything to add, he got\nup. He saw in front of him the eyes of madame Derville, which seemed\nvery brilliant in the artificial light. \"Can she by any chance be\ncrying?\" he thought.\n\n\"Gentlemen of the jury!\n\n\"I am induced to speak by my fear of that contempt which I thought,\nat the very moment of my death, I should be able to defy. Gentlemen,\nI have not the honour of belonging to your class. You behold in me a\npeasant who has rebelled against the meanness of his fortune.\n\n\"I do not ask you for any pardon,\" continued Julien, with a firmer\nnote in his voice. \"I am under no illusions. Death awaits me; it\nwill be just. I have brought myself to make an attempt on the life\nof the woman who is most worthy of all reverence and all respect.\nMadame de Renal was a mother to me. My crime was atrocious, and it\nwas premeditated. Consequently, I have deserved death, gentlemen of\nthe jury. But even if I were not so guilty, I see among you men who,\nwithout a thought for any pity that may be due to my youth, would like\nto use me as a means for punishing and discouraging for ever that class\nof young man who, though born in an inferior class, and to some extent\noppressed by poverty, have none the less been fortunate enough to\nobtain a good education, and bold enough to mix with what the pride of\nthe rich calls Society.\n\n\"That is my crime, gentlemen, and it will be punished with even more\nseverity, inasmuch as, in fact, I am very far from being judged by my\npeers. I do not see on the jury benches any peasant who has made money,\nbut only indignant bourgeois....\"\n\nJulien talked in this strain for twenty minutes. He said everything\nhe had on his mind. The advocate-general, who aspired to the favours\nof the aristocracy, writhed in his seat. But in spite of the somewhat\nabstract turn which Julien had given to his speech, all the women\nburst out into tears. Even madame Derville put her handkerchief to\nher eyes. Before finishing, Julien alluded again to the fact of his\npremeditation, to his repentance, and to the respect and unbounded\nfilial admiration which, in happier days, he had entertained for madame\nde Renal.... Madame Derville gave a cry and fainted.\n\nOne o'clock was striking when the jury retired to their room. None of\nthe women had left their places; several men had tears in their eyes.\nThe conversations were at first very animated, but, as there was a\ndelay in the verdict of the jury, their general fatigue gradually began\nto invest the gathering with an atmosphere of calm. It was a solemn\nmoment; the lights grew less brilliant. Julien, who was very tired,\nheard people around him debating the question of whether this delay was\na good or a bad omen. He was pleased to see that all the wishes were\nfor him. The jury did not come back, and yet not a woman left the court.\n\nWhen two o'clock had struck, a great movement was heard. The little\ndoor of the jury room opened. M. the baron de Valenod advanced with\na slow and melodramatic step. He was followed by all the jurors. He\ncoughed, and then declared on his soul and conscience that the jury's\nunanimous verdict was that Julien Sorel was guilty of murder, and of\nmurder with premeditation. This verdict involved the death penalty,\nwhich was pronounced a moment afterwards. Julien looked at his watch,\nand remembered M. de Lavalette. It was a quarter past two. \"To-day is\nFriday,\" he thought.\n\n\"Yes, but this day is lucky for the Valenod who has got me\nconvicted.... I am watched too well for Mathilde to manage to save me\nlike madame de Lavalette saved her husband.... So in three days' time,\nat this very hour, I shall know what view to take about the great\nperhaps.\"\n\nAt this moment he heard a cry and was called back to the things of this\nworld. The women around him were sobbing: he saw that all faces were\nturned towards a little gallery built into the crowning of a Gothic\npilaster. He knew later that Mathilde had concealed herself there. As\nthe cry was not repeated, everybody began to look at Julien again, as\nthe gendarmes were trying to get him through the crowd.\n\n\"Let us try not to give that villain Valenod any chance of laughing\nat me,\" thought Julien. \"With what a contrite sycophantic expression\nhe pronounced the verdict which entails the death penalty, while that\npoor president of the assizes, although he has been a judge for years\nand years, had tears in his eyes as he sentenced me. What a joy the\nValenod must find in revenging himself for our former rivalry for\nmadame de Renal's favors! ... So I shall never see her again! The thing\nis finished.... A last good-bye between us is impossible--I feel it....\nHow happy I should have been to have told her all the horror I feel for\nmy crime!\n\n\"Mere words. I consider myself justly convicted.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXII[1]\n\n\nWhen Julien was taken back to prison he had been taken into a room\nintended for those who were condemned to death. Although a man who in\nthe usual way would notice the most petty details, he had quite failed\nto observe that he had not been taken up to his turret. He was thinking\nof what he would say to madame de Renal if he had the happiness of\nseeing her before the final moment. He thought that she would break\ninto what he was saying and was anxious to be able to express his\nabsolute repentance with his very first words. \"How can I convince her\nthat I love her alone after committing an action like that? For after\nall, it was either out of ambition, or out of love for Mathilde, that I\nwanted to kill her.\"\n\nAs he went to bed, he came across sheets of a rough coarse material.\n\"Ah! I am in the condemned cell, he said to himself. That is right.\n\n\"Comte Altamira used to tell me that Danton, on the eve of his death,\nwould say in his loud voice: 'it is singular but you cannot conjugate\nthe verb guillotine in all its tenses: of course you can say, I shall\nbe guillotined, thou shalt be guillotined, but you don't say, I have\nbeen guillotined.'\n\n\"Why not?\" went on Julien, \"if there is another life.... Upon my word,\nit will be all up with me if I find the God of the Christians there: He\nis a tyrant, and as such, he is full of ideas of vengeance: his Bible\nspeaks of nothing but atrocious punishment. I never liked him--I could\nnever get myself to believe that anyone really liked him. He has no\npity (and he remembered several passages in the Bible) he will punish\nme atrociously.\n\n\"But supposing I find Fenelon's God: He will perhaps say to me: 'Much\nforgiveness will be vouchsafed to thee, inasmuch as thou hast loved\nmuch.'\n\n\"Have I loved much? Ah! I loved madame de Renal, but my conduct has\nbeen atrocious. In that, as in other cases, simple modest merit was\nabandoned for the sake of what was brilliant.\n\n\"But still, what fine prospects? Colonel of Hussars, if we had had a\nwar: secretary of a legation during peace: then ambassador ... for\nI should soon have picked up politics ... and even if I had been an\nidiot, would the marquis de la Mole's son-in-law have had any rivalry\nto fear? All my stupidities have been forgiven, or rather, counted\nas merits. A man of merit, then, and living in the grandest style at\nVienna or London.\n\n\"Not exactly, monsieur. Guillotined in three days' time.\"\n\nJulien laughed heartily at this sally of his wit. \"As a matter of fact,\nman has two beings within him, he thought. Who the devil can have\nthought of such a sinister notion?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, my friend: guillotined in three days,\" he answered the\ninterruptor. \"M. de Cholin will hire a window and share the expense\nwith the abbe Maslon. Well, which of those two worthy personages\nwill rob the other over the price paid for hiring that window?\" The\nfollowing passage from Rotrou's \"Venceslas\" suddenly came back into his\nmind:--\n\n              LADISLAS\n    .................Mon ame est toute prete.\n    THE KING, _father of Ladislas_.\n    L'echafaud l'est aussi: portez-y-votre tete.\n\n\"A good repartee\" he thought, as he went to sleep. He was awakened in\nthe morning by someone catching hold of him violently.\n\n\"What! already,\" said Julien, opening his haggard eyes. He thought he\nwas already in the executioner's hands.\n\nIt was Mathilde. \"Luckily, she has not understood me.\" This reflection\nrestored all his self possession. He found Mathilde as changed as\nthough she had gone through a six months' illness: she was really not\nrecognisable.\n\n\"That infamous Frilair has betrayed me,\" she said to him, wringing her\nhands. Her fury prevented her from crying.\n\n\"Was I not fine when I made my speech yesterday?\" answered Julien. \"I\nwas improvising for the first time in my life! It is true that it is to\nbe feared that it will also be the last.\"\n\nAt this moment, Julien was playing on Mathilde's character with all\nthe self-possession of a clever pianist, whose fingers are on the\ninstrument.... \"It is true,\" he added, \"that I lack the advantage of a\ndistinguished birth, but Mathilde's great soul has lifted her lover up\nto her own level. Do you think that Boniface de la Mole would have cut\na better figure before his judges?\"\n\nOn this particular day, Mathilde was as unaffectedly tender as a poor\ngirl living in a fifth storey. But she failed to extract from him any\nsimpler remark. He was paying her back without knowing it for all the\ntorture she had frequently inflicted on him.\n\n\"The sources of the Nile are unknown,\" said Julien to himself: \"it has\nnot been vouchsafed to the human eye to see the king of rivers as a\nsimple brook: similarly, no human eye shall see Julien weak. In the\nfirst place because he is not so. But I have a heart which it is easy\nto touch. The most commonplace words, if said in a genuine tone, can\nmake my voice broken and even cause me to shed tears. How often have\nfrigid characters not despised me for this weakness. They thought that\nI was asking a favour: that is what I cannot put up with.\n\n\"It is said that when at the foot of the scaffold, Danton was affected\nby the thought of his wife: but Danton had given strength to a nation\nof coxcombs and prevented the enemy from reaching Paris.... I alone\nknow what I should have been able to do.... I represent to the others\nat the very outside, simply A PERHAPS.\n\n\"If madame de Renal had been here in my cell instead of Mathilde,\nshould I have been able to have answered for myself? The extremity of\nmy despair and my repentance would have been taken for a craven fear of\ndeath by the Valenods and all the patricians of the locality. They are\nso proud, are those feeble spirits, whom their pecuniary position puts\nabove temptation! 'You see what it is to be born a carpenter's son,'\nM. de Moirod and de Cholin doubtless said after having condemned me to\ndeath! 'A man can learn to be learned and clever, but the qualities of\nthe heart--the qualities of the heart cannot be learnt.' Even in the\ncase of this poor Mathilde, who is crying now, or rather, who cannot\ncry,\" he said to himself, as he looked at her red eyes.... And he\nclasped her in his arms: the sight of a genuine grief made him forget\nthe sequence of his logic.... \"She has perhaps cried all the night,\" he\nsaid to himself, \"but how ashamed she will be of this memory on some\nfuture day! She will regard herself as having been led astray in her\nfirst youth by a plebeian's low view of life.... Le Croisenois is weak\nenough to marry her, and upon my word, he will do well to do so. She\nwill make him play a part.\"\n\n    \"Du droit qu'un esprit ferme et vaste en ses desseins\n    A sur l'esprit grossier des vulgaires humaines.\"\n\n\"Ah! that's really humorous; since I have been doomed to die, all the\nverses I ever knew in my life are coming back into my memory. It must\nbe a sign of demoralisation.\"\n\nMathilde kept on repeating in a choked voice: \"He is there in the next\nroom.\" At last he paid attention to what she was saying. \"Her voice is\nweak,\" he thought, \"but all the imperiousness of her character comes\nout in her intonation. She lowers her voice in order to avoid getting\nangry.\"\n\n\"And who is there?\" he said, gently.\n\n\"The advocate, to get you to sign your appeal.\"\n\n\"I shall not appeal.\"\n\n\"What! you will not appeal,\" she said, getting up, with her eyes\nsparkling with rage. \"And why, if you please?\"\n\n\"Because I feel at the present time that I have the courage to die\nwithout giving people occasion to laugh too much at my expense. And\nwho will guarantee that I shall be in so sound a frame of mind in two\nmonths' time, after living for a long time in this damp cell? I foresee\ninterviews with the priests, with my father. I can imagine nothing more\nunpleasant. Let's die.\"\n\nThis unexpected opposition awakened all the haughtiness of Mathilde's\ncharacter. She had not managed to see the abbe de Frilair before the\ntime when visitors were admitted to the cells in the Besancon prison.\nHer fury vented itself on Julien. She adored him, and nevertheless she\nexhibited for a good quarter of an hour in her invective against his,\nJulien's, character, and her regret at having ever loved him, the\nsame haughty soul which had formerly overwhelmed him with such cutting\ninsults in the library of the Hotel de la Mole.\n\n\"In justice to the glory of your stock, Heaven should have had you born\na man,\" he said to her.\n\n\"But as for myself,\" he thought, \"I should be very foolish to go on\nliving for two more months in this disgusting place, to serve as a\nbutt for all the infamous humiliations which the patrician party can\ndevise,[2] and having the outburst of this mad woman for my only\nconsolation.... Well, the morning after to-morrow I shall fight a duel\nwith a man known for his self-possession and his remarkable skill ...\nhis very remarkable skill,\" said the Mephistophelian part of him; \"he\nnever makes a miss. Well, so be it--good.\" (Mathilde continued to wax\neloquent). \"No, not for a minute,\" he said to himself, \"I shall not\nappeal.\"\n\nHaving made this resolution, he fell into meditation....\n\n\"The courier will bring the paper at six o'clock as usual, as he\npasses; at eight o'clock, after M. de Renal has finished reading it,\nElisa will go on tiptoe and place it on her bed. Later on she will wake\nup; suddenly, as she reads it she will become troubled; her pretty\nhands will tremble; she will go on reading down to these words: _At\nfive minutes past ten he had ceased to exist_.\n\n\"She will shed hot tears, I know her; it will matter nothing that I\ntried to assassinate her--all will be forgotten, and the person whose\nlife I wished to take will be the only one who will sincerely lament my\ndeath.\n\n\"Ah, that's a good paradox,\" he thought, and he thought about nothing\nexcept madame de Renal during the good quarter of an hour which the\nscene Mathilde was making still lasted. In spite of himself, and though\nhe made frequent answers to what Mathilde was saying, he could not take\nhis mind away from the thought of the bedroom at Verrieres. He saw the\nBesancon Gazette on the counterpane of orange taffeta; he saw that\nwhite hand clutching at it convulsively. He saw madame de Renal cry....\nHe followed the path of every tear over her charming face.\n\nMademoiselle de la Mole, being unable to get anything out of Julien,\nasked the advocate to come in. Fortunately, he was an old captain of\nthe Italian army of 1796, where he had been a comrade of Manuel.\n\nHe opposed the condemned man's resolution as a matter of form. Wishing\nto treat him with respect, Julien explained all his reasons.\n\n\"Upon my word, I can understand a man taking the view you do,\" said\nM. Felix Vaneau (that was the advocate's name) to him at last. \"But\nyou have three full days in which to appeal, and it is my duty to come\nback every day. If a volcano were to open under the prison between now\nand two months' time you would be saved. You might die of illness,\" he\nsaid, looking at Julien.\n\nJulien pressed his hand--\"I thank you, you are a good fellow. I will\nthink it over.\"\n\nAnd when Mathilde eventually left with the advocate, he felt much more\naffection for the advocate than for her.\n\n\n[1] There is no heading to this and the following chapters in the\noriginal.--TRANSL.\n\n[2] The speaker is a Jacobin.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXIII\n\n\nWhen he was deep asleep an hour afterwards, he was woken up by feeling\ntears flow over his hand. \"Oh, it is Mathilde again,\" he thought, only\nhalf awake. \"She has come again, faithful to her tactics of attacking\nmy resolution by her sentimentalism.\" Bored by the prospect of this\nnew scene of hackneyed pathos he did not open his eyes. The verses of\nBelphgor, as he ran away from his wife, came into his mind. He heard a\nstrange sigh. He opened his eyes. It was madame de Renal.\n\n\"Ah, so I see you again before I die, or is it an illusion,\" he\nexclaimed as he threw himself at her feet.\n\n\"But, forgive me, madame, you must look upon me as a mere murderer,\" he\nsaid, immediately, as he recovered himself.\n\n\"Monsieur, I have come to entreat you to appeal; I know you do not want\nto....\" her sobs choked her; she was unable to speak.\n\n\"Deign to forgive me.\"\n\n\"If you want me to forgive you,\" she said to him, getting up and\nthrowing herself into his arms, \"appeal immediately against your death\nsentence.\"\n\nJulien covered her with kisses.\n\n\"Will you come and see me every day during those two months?\"\n\n\"I swear it--every day, unless my husband forbids me.\"\n\n\"I will sign it,\" exclaimed Julien.\n\n\"What! you really forgive me! Is it possible?\"\n\nHe clasped her in his arms; he was mad. She gave a little cry.\n\n\"It is nothing,\" she said to him. \"You hurt me.\"\n\n\"Your shoulder,\" exclaimed Julien, bursting into tears. He drew back\na little, and covered her hands with kisses of fire. \"Who could\nhave prophesied this, dear, the last time I saw you in your room at\nVerrieres?\"\n\n\"Who could have prophesied then that I should write that infamous\nletter to M. de la Mole?\"\n\n\"Know that I have always loved you, and that I have never loved anyone\nbut you.\"\n\n\"Is it possible?\" cried Madame de Renal, who was delighted in her turn.\nShe leant on Julien, who was on his knees, and they cried silently for\na long time.\n\nJulien had never experienced moments like this at any period of his\nwhole life.\n\n\"And how about that young madame Michelet?\" said Madame de Renal, a\nlong time afterwards when they were able to speak. \"Or rather, that\nmademoiselle de la Mole? for I am really beginning to believe in that\nstrange romance.\"\n\n\"It is only superficially true,\" answered Julien. \"She is my wife, but\nshe is not my mistress.\"\n\nAfter interrupting each other a hundred times over, they managed with\ngreat difficulty to explain to each other what they did not know. The\nletter written to M. de la Mole had been drafted by the young priest\nwho directed Madame de Renal's conscience, and had been subsequently\ncopied by her, \"What a horrible thing religion has made me do,\" she\nsaid to him, \"and even so I softened the most awful passages in the\nletter.\"\n\nJulien's ecstatic happiness proved the fulness of her forgiveness. He\nhad never been so mad with love.\n\n\"And yet I regard myself as devout,\" madame de Renal went on to say to\nhim in the ensuing conversation. \"I believe sincerely in God! I equally\nbelieve, and I even have full proof of it, that the crime which I am\ncommitting is an awful one, and yet the very minute I see you, even\nafter you have fired two pistol shots at me--\" and at this point, in\nspite of her resistance, Julien covered her with kisses.\n\n\"Leave me alone,\" she continued, \"I want to argue with you, I am\nfrightened lest I should forget.... The very minute I see you all my\nduties disappear. I have nothing but love for you, dear, or rather, the\nword love is too weak. I feel for you what I ought only to feel for\nGod; a mixture of respect, love, obedience.... As a matter of fact, I\ndon't know what you inspire me with.... If you were to tell me to stab\nthe gaoler with a knife, the crime would be committed before I had\ngiven it a thought. Explain this very clearly to me before I leave you.\nI want to see down to the bottom of my heart; for we shall take leave\nof each other in two months.... By the bye, shall we take leave of each\nother?\" she said to him with a smile.\n\n\"I take back my words,\" exclaimed Julien, getting up, \"I shall not\nappeal from my death sentence, if you try, either by poison, knife,\npistol, charcoal, or any other means whatsoever, to put an end to your\nlife, or make any attempt upon it.\"\n\nMadame de Renal's expression suddenly changed. The most lively\ntenderness was succeeded by a mood of deep meditation.\n\n\"Supposing we were to die at once,\" she said to him.\n\n\"Who knows what one will find in the other life,\" answered Julien,\n\"perhaps torment, perhaps nothing at all. Cannot we pass two delicious\nmonths together? Two months means a good many days. I shall never have\nbeen so happy.\"\n\n\"You will never have been so happy?\"\n\n\"Never,\" repeated Julien ecstatically, \"and I am talking to you just as\nI should talk to myself. May God save me from exaggerating.\"\n\n\"Words like that are a command,\" she said with a timid melancholy smile.\n\n\"Well, you will swear by the love you have for me, to make no attempt\neither direct or indirect, upon your life ... remember,\" he added,\n\"that you must live for my son, whom Mathilde will hand over to lackeys\nas soon as she is marquise de Croisenois.\"\n\n\"I swear,\" she answered coldly, \"but I want to take away your notice\nof appeal, drawn and signed by yourself. I will go myself to M. the\nprocureur-general.\"\n\n\"Be careful, you will compromise yourself.\"\n\n\"After having taken the step of coming to see you in your prison, I\nshall be a heroine of local scandal for Besancon, and the whole of\nFranche-Comte,\" she said very dejectedly. \"I have crossed the bounds of\naustere modesty.... I am a woman who has lost her honour; it is true\nthat it is for your sake....\"\n\nHer tone was so sad that Julien embraced her with a happiness which was\nquite novel to him. It was no longer the intoxication of love, it was\nextreme gratitude. He had just realised for the first time the full\nextent of the sacrifice which she had made for him.\n\nSome charitable soul, no doubt informed M. de Renal of the long visits\nwhich his wife paid to Julien's prison; for at the end of three days\nhe sent her his carriage with the express order to return to Verrieres\nimmediately.\n\nThis cruel separation had been a bad beginning for Julien's day. He\nwas informed two or three hours later that a certain intriguing priest\n(who had, however, never managed to make any headway among the Jesuits\nof Besancon) had, since the morning, established himself in the street\noutside the prison gates. It was raining a great deal, and the man out\nthere was pretending to play the martyr. Julien was in a weak mood, and\nthis piece of stupidity annoyed him deeply.\n\nIn the morning, he had already refused this priest's visit, but the man\nhad taken it into his head to confess Julien, and to win a name for\nhimself among the young women of Besancon by all the confidences which\nhe would pretend to have received from him.\n\nHe declared in a loud voice that he would pass the day and the night by\nthe prison gates. \"God has sent me to touch the heart of this apostate\n...\" and the lower classes, who are always curious to see a scene,\nbegan to make a crowd.\n\n\"Yes, my brothers,\" he said to them, \"I will pass the day here and the\nnight, as well as all the days and all the nights which will follow.\nThe Holy Ghost has spoken to me. I am commissioned from above; I am the\nman who must save the soul of young Sorel. Do you join in my prayers,\netc.\"\n\nJulien had a horror of scandal, and of anything which could attract\nattention to him. He thought of seizing the opportunity of escaping\nfrom the world incognito; but he had some hope of seeing madame de\nRenal again, and he was desperately in love.\n\nThe prison gates were situated in one of the most populous streets. His\nsoul was tortured by the idea of this filthy priest attracting a crowd\nand creating a scandal--\"and doubtless he is repeating my name at every\nsingle minute!\" This moment was more painful than death.\n\nHe called the turnkey who was devoted to him, and sent sent him two or\nthree times at intervals of one hour to see if the priest was still by\nthe prison gates.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" said the turnkey to him on each occasion, \"he is on both\nhis knees in the mud; he is praying at the top of his voice, and saying\nlitanies for your soul.\n\n\"The impudent fellow,\" thought Julien. At this moment he actually heard\na dull buzz. It was the responses of the people to the litanies. His\npatience was strained to the utmost when he saw the turnkey himself\nmove his lips while he repeated the Latin words.\n\n\"They are beginning to say,\" added the turnkey, \"that you must have a\nvery hardened heart to refuse the help of this holy man.\"\n\n\"Oh my country, how barbarous you still are!\" exclaimed Julien, beside\nhimself with anger. And he continued his train of thought aloud,\nwithout giving a thought to the turn-key's presence.\n\n\"The man wants an article in the paper about him, and that's a way in\nwhich he will certainly get it.\n\n\"Oh you cursed provincials! At Paris I should not be subjected to all\nthese annoyances. There they are more skilled in their charlatanism.\n\n\"Show in the holy priest,\" he said at last to the turnkey, and great\nstreams of sweat flowed down his forehead. The turnkey made the sign of\nthe cross and went out rejoicing.\n\nThe holy priest turned out to be very ugly, he was even dirtier than he\nwas ugly. The cold rain intensified the obscurity and dampness of the\ncell. The priest wanted to embrace Julien, and began to wax pathetic as\nhe spoke to him. The basest hypocrisy was only too palpable; Julien had\nnever been so angry in his whole life.\n\nA quarter of an hour after the priest had come in Julien felt an\nabsolute coward. Death appeared horrible to him for the first time. He\nbegan to think about the state of decomposition which his body would be\nin two days after the execution, etc., etc.\n\nHe was on the point of betraying himself by some sign of weakness or\nthrowing himself on the priest and strangling him with his chain, when\nit occurred to him to beg the holy man to go and say a good forty franc\nmass for him on that very day.\n\nIt was twelve o'clock, so the priest took himself off.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXIV\n\n\nAs soon as he had gone out Julien wept desperately and for a long time.\nHe gradually admitted to himself that if madame de Renal had been at\nBesancon he would have confessed his weakness to her. The moment when\nhe was regretting the absence of this beloved woman he heard Mathilde's\nstep.\n\n\"The worst evil of being in prison,\" he thought \"is one's inability to\nclose one's door.\" All Mathilde said only irritated him.\n\nShe told him that M. de Valenod had had his nomination to the\nprefectship in his pocket on the day of his trial, and had consequently\ndared to defy M. de Frilair and give himself the pleasure of condemning\nhim to death.\n\n\"Why did your friend take it into his head,\" M. de Frilair just said\nto me, \"to awaken and attack the petty vanity of that bourgeois\naristocracy. Why talk about caste? He pointed out to them what they\nought to do in their own political interest; the fools had not been\ngiving it a thought and were quite ready to weep. That caste interest\nintervened and blinded their eyes to the horror of condemning a man to\ndeath. One must admit that M. Sorel is very inexperienced. If we do not\nsucceed in saving him by a petition for a reprieve, his death will be a\nkind of suicide.\"\n\nMathilde was careful not to tell Julien a matter concerning which she\nhad now no longer any doubts; it was that the abbe de Frilair seeing\nthat Julien was ruined, had thought that it would further his ambitious\nprojects to try and become his successor.\n\n\"Go and listen to a mass for me,\" he said to Mathilde, almost beside\nhimself with vexation and impotent rage, and leave me a moment in\npeace. Mathilde who was already very jealous of madame de Renal's\nvisits and who had just learned of her departure realised the cause of\nJulien's bad temper and burst into tears.\n\nHer grief was real; Julien saw this and was only the more irritated. He\nhad a crying need of solitude, and how was he to get it?\n\nEventually Mathilde, after having tried to melt him by every possible\nargument, left him alone. But almost at the same moment, Fouque\npresented himself.\n\n\"I need to be alone,\" he said, to this faithful friend, and as he saw\nhim hesitate: \"I am composing a memorial for my petition for pardon ...\none thing more ... do me a favour, and never speak to me about death.\nIf I have need of any especial services on that day, let me be the\nfirst to speak to you about it.\"\n\nWhen Julien had eventually procured solitude, he found himself more\nprostrate and more cowardly than he had been before. The little force\nwhich this enfeebled soul still possessed had all been spent in\nconcealing his condition from mademoiselle de la Mole.\n\nTowards the evening he found consolation in this idea.\n\n\"If at the very moment this morning, when death seemed so ugly to\nme, I had been given notice of my execution, the public eye would\nhave acted as a spur to glory, my demeanour would perhaps have had a\ncertain stiffness about it, like a nervous fop entering a salon. A few\npenetrating people, if there are any amongst these provincial might\nhave managed to divine my weakness.... But no one would have seen it.\"\n\nAnd he felt relieved of part of his unhappiness. \"I am a coward at this\nvery moment,\" he sang to himself, \"but no one will know it.\"\n\nAn even more unpleasant episode awaited him on the following day. His\nfather had been announcing that he would come and see him for some time\npast: the old white-haired carpenter appeared in Julien's cell before\nhe woke up.\n\nJulien felt weak, he was anticipating the most unpleasant reproaches.\nHis painful emotion was intensified by the fact that on this particular\nmorning he felt a keen remorse for not loving his father.\n\n\"Chance placed us next to each other in the world,\" he said to himself,\nwhile the turnkey was putting the cell a little in order, \"and we have\npractically done each other all the harm we possibly could. He has come\nto administer the final blow at the moment of my death.\"\n\nAs soon as they were without witnesses, the old man commenced his stern\nreproaches.\n\nJulien could not restrain his tears. \"What an unworthy weakness,\" he\nsaid to himself querulously. \"He will go about everywhere exaggerating\nmy lack of courage: what a triumph for the Valenod, and for all the\nfatuous hypocrites who rule in Verrieres! They are very great in\nFrance, they combine all the social advantages. But hitherto, I could\nat any rate say to myself, it is true they are in receipt of money, and\nthat all the honours lavished on them, but I have a noble heart.\n\n\"But here is a witness whom everyone will believe, and who will testify\nto the whole of Verrieres that I shewed weakness when confronted with\ndeath, and who will exaggerate it into the bargain! I shall be taken\nfor a coward in an ordeal which comes home to all!\"\n\nJulien was nearly desperate. He did not know how to get rid of his\nfather. He felt it absolutely beyond his strength to invent a ruse\ncapable of deceiving so shrewd an old man.\n\nHis mind rapidly reviewed all the alternatives. \"I have saved some\nmoney,\" he suddenly exclaimed.\n\nThis inspiration produced a change in the expression of the old man and\nin Julien's own condition.\n\n\"How ought I to dispose of it?\" continued Julien more quietly. The\nresult had freed him from any feeling of inferiority.\n\nThe old carpenter was burning not to let the money slip by him, but\nit seemed that Julien wanted to leave part of it to his brothers. He\ntalked at length and with animation. Julien felt cynical.\n\n\"Well, the Lord has given me a message with regard to my will. I will\ngive a thousand francs to each of my brothers and the rest to you.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said the old man. \"The rest is due to me: but since God\nhas been gracious enough to touch your heart, your debts ought to be\npaid if you wish to die like a good Christian. There are, moreover, the\nexpenses of your board and your education, which I advanced to you,\nbut which you are not thinking of.\"\n\n\"Such is paternal love,\" repeated Julien to himself, dejectedly, when\nhe was at last alone. Soon the gaoler appeared.\n\n\"Monsieur, I always bring my visitors a good bottle of champagne after\nnear relations have come to see them. It is a little dear, six francs a\nbottle, but it rejoices the heart.\"\n\n\"Bring three glasses,\" said Julien to him, with a childish eagerness,\n\"and bring in two of the prisoners whom I have heard walking about\nin the corridor.\" The gaoler brought two men into him who had once\nbeen condemned to the gallows, and had now been convicted of the same\noffence again, and were preparing to return to penal servitude. They\nwere very cheerful scoundrels, and really very remarkable by reason of\ntheir subtlety, their courage, and their coolness.\n\n\"If you give me twenty francs,\" said one of them to Julien, \"I will\ntell you the story of my life in detail. It's rich.\"\n\n\"But you will lie,\" said Julien.\n\n\"Not me,\" he answered, \"my friend there, who is jealous of my twenty\nfrancs will give me away if I say anything untrue.\"\n\nHis history was atrocious. It was evidence of a courageous heart which\nhad only one passion--that of money.\n\nAfter their departure Julien was no longer the same man. All his anger\nwith himself had disappeared. The awful grief which had been poisoned\nand rendered more acute by the weakness of which he had been a victim\nsince madame de Renal's departure had turned to melancholy.\n\n\"If I had been less taken in by appearances,\" he said to himself, \"I\nwould have had a better chance of seeing that the Paris salons are full\nof honest men like my father, or clever scoundrels like those felons.\nThey are right. The men in the salons never get up in the morning with\nthis poignant thought in their minds, how am I going to get my dinner?\nThey boast about their honesty and when they are summoned on the jury,\nthey take pride in convicting the man who has stolen a silver dish\nbecause he felt starving.\n\n\"But if there is a court, and it's a question of losing or winning a\nportfolio, my worthy salon people will commit crimes exactly similar to\nthose, which the need of getting a dinner inspired those two felons to\nperpetrate.\n\n\"There is no such thing as natural law, the expression is nothing\nmore than a silly anachronism well worthy of the advocate-general who\nharried me the other day, and whose grandfather was enriched by one of\nthe confiscations of Louis XIV. There is no such thing as right, except\nwhen there is a law to forbid a certain thing under pain of punishment.\n\n\"Before law existed, the only natural thing was the strength of the\nlion, or the need of a creature who was cold or hungry, to put it\nin one word, need. No, the people whom the world honours are merely\nvillains who have had the good fortune not to have been caught\nred-handed. The prosecutor whom society put on my track was enriched by\nan infamous act. I have committed a murder, and I am justly condemned,\nbut the Valenod who has condemned me, is by reason alone of that very\ndeed, a hundred times more harmful to society.\n\n\"Well,\" added Julien sadly but not angrily, \"in spite of his avarice,\nmy father is worth more than all those men. He never loved me.\nThe disgrace I bring upon him by an infamous death has proved the\nlast straw. That fear of lacking money, that distorted view of the\nwickedness of mankind, which is called avarice, make him find a\ntremendous consolation and sense of security in a sum of three or four\nhundred louis, which I have been able to leave him. Some Sunday, after\ndinner, he will shew his gold to all the envious men in Verrieres.\n'Which of you would not be delighted to have a son guillotined at a\nprice like this,' will be the message they will read in his eyes.\"\n\nThis philosophy might be true, but it was of such a character as to\nmake him wish for death. In this way five long days went by. He was\npolite and gentle to Mathilde, whom he saw was exasperated by the\nmost violent jealousy. One evening Julien seriously thought of taking\nhis own life. His soul was demoralised by the deep unhappiness in\nwhich madame de Renal's departure had thrown him. He could no longer\nfind pleasure in anything, either in real life or in the sphere of\nthe imagination. Lack of exercise began to affect his health, and\nto produce in him all the weakness and exaltation of a young German\nstudent. He began to lose that virile disdain which repels with a\ndrastic oath certain undignified ideas which besiege the soul of the\nunhappy.\n\n\"I loved truth.... Where is it? Hypocrisy everywhere or at any rate\ncharlatanism. Even in the most virtuous, even in the greatest,\" and his\nlips assumed an expression of disgust. \"No, man cannot trust man.\"\n\n\"Madame de ---- when she was making a collection for her poor orphans,\nused to tell me that such and such a prince had just given ten louis, a\nsheer lie. But what am I talking about. Napoleon at St. Helena ... Pure\ncharlatanism like the proclamation in favour of the king of Rome.\n\n\"Great God! If a man like that at a time when misfortune ought to\nsummon him sternly to his duty will sink to charlatanism, what is one\nto expect from the rest of the human species?\"\n\n\"Where is truth? In religion. Yes,\" he added, with a bitter smile\nof utter contempt. \"In the mouth of the Maslons, the Frilairs, the\nCastanedes--perhaps in that true Christianity whose priests were not\npaid any more than were the apostles. But St. Paul was paid by the\npleasure of commanding, speaking, getting himself talked about.\"\n\n\"Oh, if there were only a true religion. Fool that I am. I see a Gothic\ncathedral and venerable stained-glass windows, and my weak heart\nconjures up the priest to fit the scene. My soul would understand him,\nmy soul has need of him. I only find a nincompoop with dirty hair.\nAbout as comforting as a chevalier de Beauvoisis.\n\n\"But a true priest, a Massillon, a Fenelon. Massillon sacrificed\nDubois. Saint-Simon's memoirs have spoilt the illusion of Fenelon, but\nhe was a true priest anyway. In those days, tender souls could have a\nplace in the world where they could meet together. We should not then\nhave been isolated. That good priest would have talked to us of God.\nBut what God? Not the one of the Bible, a cruel petty despot, full of\nvindictiveness, but the God of Voltaire, just, good, infinite.\"\n\nHe was troubled by all the memories of that Bible which he knew by\nheart. \"But how on earth, when the deity is three people all at the\nsame time, is one to believe in the great name of GOD, after the\nfrightful way in which our priests have abused it.\"\n\n\"Living alone. What a torture.\"\n\n\"I am growing mad and unreasonable,\" said Julien to himself, striking\nhis forehead. \"I am alone here in this cell, but I have not lived\nalone on earth. I had the powerful idea of duty. The duty which rightly\nor wrongly I laid down for myself, has been to me like the trunk of a\nsolid tree which I could lean on during the storm, I stumbled, I was\nagitated. After all I was only a man, but I was not swept away.\n\n\"It must be the damp air of this cell which made me think of being\nalone.\n\n\"Why should I still play the hypocrite by cursing hypocrisy? It is\nneither death, nor the cell, nor the damp air, but madame de Renal's\nabsence which prostrates me. If, in order to see her at Verrieres, I\nhad to live whole weeks at Verrieres concealed in the cellars of her\nhouse, would I complain?\"\n\n\"The influence of my contemporaries wins the day,\" he said aloud, with\na bitter laugh. \"Though I am talking to myself and within an ace of\ndeath, I still play the hypocrite. Oh you nineteenth century! A hunter\nfires a gun shot in the forest, his quarry falls, he hastens forward\nto seize it. His foot knocks against a two-foot anthill, knocks down\nthe dwelling place of the ants, and scatters the ants and their eggs\nfar and wide. The most philosophic among the ants will never be able to\nunderstand that black, gigantic and terrifying body, the hunter's boot,\nwhich suddenly invaded their home with incredible rapidity, preceded by\na frightful noise, and accompanied by flashes of reddish fire.\"\n\n\"In the same way, death, life and eternity, are very simple things for\nanyone who has organs sufficiently vast to conceive them. An ephemeral\nfly is born at nine o'clock in the morning in the long summer days, to\ndie at five o'clock in the evening. How is it to understand the word\n'night'?\"\n\n\"Give it five more hours of existence, and it will see night, and\nunderstand its meaning.\"\n\n\"So, in my case, I shall die at the age of twenty-three. Give me five\nmore years of life in order to live with madame de Renal.\"\n\nHe began to laugh like Mephistopheles. How foolish to debate these\ngreat problems.\n\n\"(1). I am as hypocritical as though there were someone there to listen\nto me.\n\n\"(2). I am forgetting to live and to love when I have so few days left\nto live. Alas, madame de Renal is absent; perhaps her husband will\nnot let her come back to Besancon any more, to go on compromising her\nhonour.\"\n\n\"That is what makes me lonely, and not the absence of a God who is\njust, good and omnipotent, devoid of malice, and in no wise greedy of\nvengeance.\"\n\n\"Oh, if He did exist. Alas I should fall at His feet. I have deserved\ndeath, I should say to Him, but oh Thou great God, good God, indulgent\nGod, give me back her whom I love!\"\n\nBy this time the night was far advanced. After an hour or two of\npeaceful sleep, Fouque arrived.\n\nJulien felt strongly resolute, like a man who sees to the bottom of his\nsoul.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXXV\n\n\n\"I cannot play such a trick on that poor abbe Chas-Bernard, as to\nsummon him,\" he said to Fouque: \"it would prevent him from dining for\nthree whole days.--But try and find some Jansenist who is a friend of\nM. Pirard.\"\n\nFouque was impatiently waiting for this suggestion. Julien acquitted\nhimself becomingly of all the duty a man owes to provincial opinion.\nThanks to M. the abbe de Frilair, and in spite of his bad choice of a\nconfessor, Julien enjoyed in his cell the protection of the priestly\ncongregation; with a little more diplomacy he might have managed to\nescape. But the bad air of the cell produced its effect, and his\nstrength of mind diminished. But this only intensified his happiness at\nmadame de Renal's return.\n\n\"My first duty is towards you, my dear,\" she said as she embraced him;\n\"I have run away from Verrieres.\"\n\nJulien felt no petty vanity in his relations with her, and told her all\nhis weaknesses. She was good and charming to him.\n\nIn the evening she had scarcely left the prison before she made the\npriest, who had clung on to Julien like a veritable prey, go to her\naunt's: as his only object was to win prestige among the young women\nwho belonged to good Besancon society, madame de Renal easily prevailed\nupon him to go and perform a novena at the abbey of Bray-le-Haut.\n\nNo words can do justice to the madness and extravagance of Julien's\nlove.\n\nBy means of gold, and by using and abusing the influence of her aunt,\nwho was devout, rich and well-known, madame de Renal managed to see him\ntwice a day.\n\nAt this news, Mathilde's jealousy reached a pitch of positive madness.\nM. de Frilair had confessed to her that all his influence did not go\nso far as to admit of flouting the conventions by allowing her to\nsee her sweetheart more than once every day. Mathilde had madame de\nRenal followed so as to know the smallest thing she did. M. de Frilair\nexhausted all the resources of an extremely clever intellect in order\nto prove to her that Julien was unworthy of her.\n\nPlunged though she was in all these torments, she only loved him the\nmore, and made a horrible scene nearly every day.\n\nJulien wished, with all his might, to behave to the very end like an\nhonourable man towards this poor young girl whom he had so strangely\ncompromised, but the reckless love which he felt for madame de Renal\nswept him away at every single minute. When he could not manage to\npersuade Mathilde of the innocence of her rival's visits by all his\nthin excuses, he would say to himself: \"at any rate the end of the\ndrama ought to be quite near. The very fact of not being able to lie\nbetter will be an excuse for me.\"\n\nMademoiselle de La Mole learnt of the death of the marquis de\nCroisenois. The rich M. de Thaler had indulged in some unpleasant\nremarks concerning Mathilde's disappearance: M. de Croisenois went\nand asked him to recant them: M. de Thaler showed him some anonymous\nletters which had been sent to him, and which were full of details so\nartfully put together that the poor marquis could not help catching a\nglimpse of the truth.\n\nM. de Thaler indulged in some jests which were devoid of all taste.\nMaddened by anger and unhappiness, M. de Croisenois demanded such\nunqualified satisfaction, that the millionaire preferred to fight a\nduel. Stupidity triumphed, and one of the most lovable of men met with\nhis death before he was twenty-four.\n\nThis death produced a strange and morbid impression on Julien's\ndemoralised soul.\n\n\"Poor Croisenois,\" he said to Mathilde, \"really behaved very reasonably\nand very honourably towards us; he had ample ground for hating me and\npicking a quarrel with me, by reason of your indiscretion in your\nmother's salon; for the hatred which follows on contempt is usually\nfrenzied.\"\n\nM. de Croisenois' death changed all Julien's ideas concerning\nMathilde's future. He spent several days in proving to her that she\nought to accept the hand of M. de Luz. \"He is a nervous man, not too\nmuch of a Jesuit, and will doubtless be a candidate,\" he said to her.\n\"He has a more sinister and persevering ambition than poor Croisenois,\nand as there has never been a dukedom in his family, he will be only\ntoo glad to marry Julien Sorel's widow.\"\n\n\"A widow, though, who scorns the grand passions,\" answered Mathilde\ncoldly, \"for she has lived long enough to see her lover prefer to\nher after six months another woman who was the origin of all their\nunhappiness.\"\n\n\"You are unjust! Madame de Renal's visits will furnish my advocate\nat Paris, who is endeavouring to procure my pardon, with the subject\nmatter for some sensational phrases; he will depict the murderer\nhonoured by the attention of his victim. That may produce an\nimpression, and perhaps some day or other, you will see me provide the\nplot of some melodrama or other, etc., etc.\"\n\nA furious and impotent jealousy, a prolonged and hopeless unhappiness\n(for even supposing Julien was saved, how was she to win back his\nheart?), coupled with her shame and anguish at loving this unfaithful\nlover more than ever had plunged mademoiselle de la Mole into a gloomy\nsilence, from which all the careful assiduity of M. de Frilair was as\nlittle able to draw her as the rugged frankness of Fouque.\n\nAs for Julien, except in those moments which were taken up by\nMathilde's presence, he lived on love with scarcely a thought for the\nfuture.\n\n\"In former days,\" Julien said to her, \"when I might have been so happy,\nduring our walks in the wood of Vergy, a frenzied ambition swept my\nsoul into the realms of imagination. Instead of pressing to my heart\nthat charming arm which is so near my lips, the thoughts of my future\ntook me away from you; I was engaged in countless combats which I\nshould have to sustain in order to lay the foundations of a colossal\nfortune. No, I should have died without knowing what happiness was if\nyou had not come to see me in this prison.\"\n\nTwo episodes ruffled this tranquil life. Julien's confessor, Jansenist\nthough he was, was not proof against an intrigue of the Jesuits, and\nbecame their tool without knowing it.\n\nHe came to tell him one day that unless he meant to fall into the awful\nsin of suicide, he ought to take every possible step to procure his\npardon. Consequently, as the clergy have a great deal of influence with\nthe minister of Justice at Paris, an easy means presented itself; he\nought to become converted with all publicity.\n\n\"With publicity,\" repeated Julien. \"Ha, Ha! I have caught you at it--I\nhave caught you as well, my father, playing a part like any missionary.\"\n\n\"Your youth,\" replied the Jansenist gravely, \"the interesting\nappearance which Providence has given you, the still unsolved mystery\nof the motive for your crime, the heroic steps which mademoiselle de\nla Mole has so freely taken on your behalf, everything, up to the\nsurprising affection which your victim manifests towards you, has\ncontributed to make you the hero of the young women of Besancon.\nThey have forgotten everything, even politics, on your account. Your\nconversion will reverberate in their hearts and will leave behind it a\ndeep impression. You can be of considerable use to religion, and I was\nabout to hesitate for the trivial reason that in a similar circumstance\nthe Jesuits would follow a similar course. But if I did, even in the\none case which has escaped their greedy clutches they would still be\nexercising their mischief. The tears which your conversation will\ncause to be shed will annul the poisonous effect of ten editions of\nVoltaire's works.\"\n\n\"And what will be left for me,\" answered Julien, coldly, \"if I despise\nmyself? I have been ambitious; I do not mean to blame myself in any\nway. Further, I have acted in accordance with the code of the age. Now\nI am living from day to day. But I should make myself very unhappy\nif I were to yield to what the locality would regard as a piece of\ncowardice....\"\n\nMadame de Renal was responsible for the other episode which affected\nJulien in quite another way. Some intriguing woman friend or other had\nmanaged to persuade this naive and timid soul that it was her duty\nto leave for St. Cloud, and go and throw herself at the feet of King\nCharles X.\n\nShe had made the sacrifice of separating from Julien, and after\na strain as great as that, she no longer thought anything of the\nunpleasantness of making an exhibition of herself, though in former\ntimes she would have thought that worse than death.\n\n\"I will go to the king. I will confess freely that you are my lover.\nThe life of a man, and of a man like Julien, too, ought to prevail over\nevery consideration. I will tell him that it was because of jealousy\nthat you made an attempt upon my life. There are numerous instances of\npoor young people who have been saved in such a case by the clemency of\nthe jury or of the king.\"\n\n\"I will leave off seeing you; I will shut myself up in my prison,\"\nexclaimed Julien, \"and you can be quite certain that if you do not\npromise me to take no step which will make a public exhibition of us\nboth, I will kill myself in despair the day afterwards. This idea of\ngoing to Paris is not your own. Tell me the name of the intriguing\nwoman who suggested it to you.\n\n\"Let us be happy during the small number of days of this short life.\nLet us hide our existence; my crime was only too self-evident.\nMademoiselle de la Mole enjoys all possible influence at Paris. Take\nit from me that she has done all that is humanly possible. Here in\nthe provinces I have all the men of wealth and prestige against me.\nYour conduct will still further aggravate those rich and essentially\nmoderate people to whom life comes so easy.... Let us not give the\nMaslons, the Valenods, and the thousand other people who are worth more\nthan they, anything to laugh about.\"\n\nJulien came to find the bad air of the cell unbearable. Fortunately,\nnature was rejoicing in a fine sunshine on the day when they announced\nto him that he would have to die, and he was in a courageous vein.\nHe found walking in the open air as delicious a sensation as the\nnavigator, who has been at sea for a long time, finds walking on the\nground. \"Come on, everything is going all right,\" he said to himself.\n\"I am not lacking in courage.\"\n\nHis head had never looked so poetical as at that moment when it was on\nthe point of falling. The sweet minutes which he had formerly spent in\nthe woods of Vergy crowded back upon his mind with extreme force.\n\nEverything went off simply, decorously, and without any affectation on\nhis part.\n\nTwo days before he had said to Fouque: \"I cannot guarantee not to\nshow some emotion. This dense, squalid cell gives me fits of fever in\nwhich I do not recognise myself, but fear?--no! I shall not be seen to\nflinch.\"\n\nHe had made his arrangements in advance for Fouque to take Mathilde and\nmadame de Renal away on the morning of his last day.\n\n\"Drive them away in the same carriage,\" he had said. \"Do you see that\nthe post-horses do not leave off galloping. They will either fall into\neach other's arms, or manifest towards each other a mortal hatred.\nIn either case the poor women will have something to distract them a\nlittle from their awful grief.\"\n\nJulien had made madame de Renal swear that she would live to look after\nMathilde's son.\n\n\"Who knows? Perhaps we have still some sensations after our death,\" he\nhad said one day to Fouque. \"I should like to rest, for rest is the\nright word, in that little grotto in the great mountain which dominates\nVerrieres. Many a time, as I have told you, I have spent the night\nalone in that grotto, and as my gaze would plunge far and wide over the\nrichest provinces of France, ambition would inflame my heart. In those\ndays it was my passion.... Anyway, I hold that grotto dear, and one\ncannot dispute that its situation might well arouse the desires of the\nphilosopher's soul.... Well, you know! those good priests of Besancon\nwill make money out of everything. If you know how to manage it, they\nwill sell you my mortal remains.\"\n\nFouque succeeded in this melancholy business. He was passing the night\nalone in his room by his friend's body when, to his great surprise, he\nsaw Mathilde come in. A few hours before he had left her ten leagues\nfrom Besancon. Her face and eyes looked distraught.\n\n\"I want to see him,\" she said.\n\nFouque had not the courage either to speak or get up. He pointed with\nhis finger to a big blue cloak on the floor; there was wrapped in it\nall that remained of Julien.\n\nShe threw herself on her knees. The memory of Boniface de la Mole, and\nof Marguerite of Navarre gave her, no doubt, a superhuman courage. Her\ntrembling hands undid the cloak. Fouque turned away his eyes.\n\nHe heard Mathilde walking feverishly about the room. She lit several\ncandles. When Fouque could bring himself to look at her, she had placed\nJulien's head on a little marble table in front of her, and was kissing\nit on the forehead.\n\nMathilde followed her lover to the tomb which he had chosen. A great\nnumber of priests convoyed the bier, and, alone in her draped carriage,\nwithout anyone knowing it, she carried on her knees the head of the man\nwhom she had loved so much.\n\nWhen they arrived in this way at the most elevated peak of the high\nmountains of the Jura, twenty priests celebrated the service of the\ndead in the middle of the night in this little grotto, which was\nmagnificently illuminated by a countless number of wax candles.\nAttracted by this strange and singular ceremony, all the inhabitants\nof the little mountain villages which the funeral had passed through,\nfollowed it.\n\nMathilde appeared in their midst in long mourning garments, and had\nseveral thousands of five-franc pieces thrown to them at the end of the\nservice.\n\nWhen she was left alone with Fouque, she insisted on burying her\nlover's head with her own hands. Fouque nearly went mad with grief.\n\nMathilde took care that this wild grotto should be decorated with\nmarble monuments that had been sculpted in Italy at great expense.\n\nMadame de Renal kept her promise. She did not try to make any attempt\nupon her life; but she died embracing her children, three days after\nJulien.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\n",
        "summary": "M. de Renal, the mayor of the provincial town Verrieres, hires Julien Sorel to be his children's tutor. Julien is only a carpenter's son, but dreams of following in the footsteps of his hero, Napoleon. However, in Julien's time, men gain power in the Church and not in the army. Even though he is training to become a priest, Julien decides to seduce the mayor's wife, Mme. de Renal, because he thinks that it is his duty. They become lovers, but M. Valenod, the mayor's political adversary, finds out about the affair and begins to spread rumors. M. de Renal is profoundly embarrassed, but his wife convinces him that the rumors are false. M. Chelan, the town priest and Julien's mentor, sends him to the Besancon seminary to avoid any further scandal. The director of the seminary, M. Pirard, likes Julien and encourages him to become a great priest. Julien does very well at the seminary, but only because he wants to make a fortune and succeed in French society. The other priests at the seminary are not aware of Julien's hypocrisy, but are jealous of his intelligence. M. Pirard is disgusted with the political involvement of the Church and resigns. His aristocratic benefactor, the Marquis de la Mole, wants M. Pirard to be his personal secretary in Paris, but M. Pirard tells him to hire Julien instead. Julien is both enthralled and repulsed by Parisian society at the same time. He tries to fit in among the nobles but they treat him as a social inferior. However, the Marquis's daughter, Mathilde, falls in love with Julien and they become lovers. When Mathilde gets pregnant and tells the Marquis about her affair, he is furious, but soon ennobles Julien so Mathilde can marry him. Julien finally has the aristocratic title he always wanted. But Mme. de Renal sends the Marquis a letter denouncing Julien as a womanizer only concerned with making his fortune. The Marquis then refuses to let Mathilde marry Julien, who furiously returns to Verrieres and shoots Mme. de Renal. She survives, but Julien is sentenced to death anyway. Mme. de Renal forgives Julien and dies of love three days after his execution."
    },
    {
        "book": "<CHAPTER>\nBOOK I. SONG I. BOETHIUS' COMPLAINT.\n\n\n    Who wrought my studious numbers\n      Smoothly once in happier days,\n    Now perforce in tears and sadness\n      Learn a mournful strain to raise.\n    Lo, the Muses, grief-dishevelled,\n      Guide my pen and voice my woe;\n    Down their cheeks unfeigned the tear drops\n      To my sad complainings flow!\n    These alone in danger's hour\n      Faithful found, have dared attend\n    On the footsteps of the exile\n      To his lonely journey's end.\n    These that were the pride and pleasure\n      Of my youth and high estate\n    Still remain the only solace\n      Of the old man's mournful fate.\n    Old? Ah yes; swift, ere I knew it,\n      By these sorrows on me pressed\n    Age hath come; lo, Grief hath bid me\n      Wear the garb that fits her best.\n    O'er my head untimely sprinkled\n      These white hairs my woes proclaim,\n    And the skin hangs loose and shrivelled\n      On this sorrow-shrunken frame.\n    Blest is death that intervenes not\n      In the sweet, sweet years of peace,\n    But unto the broken-hearted,\n      When they call him, brings release!\n    Yet Death passes by the wretched,\n      Shuts his ear and slumbers deep;\n    Will not heed the cry of anguish,\n      Will not close the eyes that weep.\n    For, while yet inconstant Fortune\n      Poured her gifts and all was bright,\n    Death's dark hour had all but whelmed me\n      In the gloom of endless night.\n    Now, because misfortune's shadow\n      Hath o'erclouded that false face,\n    Cruel Life still halts and lingers,\n      Though I loathe his weary race.\n    Friends, why did ye once so lightly\n      Vaunt me happy among men?\n    Surely he who so hath fallen\n      Was not firmly founded then.\n\n\nWhile I was thus mutely pondering within myself, and recording my\nsorrowful complainings with my pen, it seemed to me that there appeared\nabove my head a woman of a countenance exceeding venerable. Her eyes\nwere bright as fire, and of a more than human keenness; her complexion\nwas lively, her vigour showed no trace of enfeeblement; and yet her\nyears were right full, and she plainly seemed not of our age and time.\nHer stature was difficult to judge. At one moment it exceeded not the\ncommon height, at another her forehead seemed to strike the sky; and\nwhenever she raised her head higher, she began to pierce within the very\nheavens, and to baffle the eyes of them that looked upon her. Her\ngarments were of an imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads\nand of the most delicate workmanship; and these, as her own lips\nafterwards assured me, she had herself woven with her own hands. The\nbeauty of this vesture had been somewhat tarnished by age and neglect,\nand wore that dingy look which marble contracts from exposure. On the\nlower-most edge was inwoven the Greek letter [Greek: P], on the topmost\nthe letter [Greek: Th],[A] and between the two were to be seen steps,\nlike a staircase, from the lower to the upper letter. This robe,\nmoreover, had been torn by the hands of violent persons, who had each\nsnatched away what he could clutch.[B] Her right hand held a note-book;\nin her left she bore a staff. And when she saw the Muses of Poesie\nstanding by my bedside, dictating the words of my lamentations, she was\nmoved awhile to wrath, and her eyes flashed sternly. 'Who,' said she,\n'has allowed yon play-acting wantons to approach this sick man--these\nwho, so far from giving medicine to heal his malady, even feed it with\nsweet poison? These it is who kill the rich crop of reason with the\nbarren thorns of passion, who accustom men's minds to disease, instead\nof setting them free. Now, were it some common man whom your allurements\nwere seducing, as is usually your way, I should be less indignant. On\nsuch a one I should not have spent my pains for naught. But this is one\nnurtured in the Eleatic and Academic philosophies. Nay, get ye gone, ye\nsirens, whose sweetness lasteth not; leave him for my muses to tend and\nheal!' At these words of upbraiding, the whole band, in deepened\nsadness, with downcast eyes, and blushes that confessed their shame,\ndolefully left the chamber.\n\nBut I, because my sight was dimmed with much weeping, and I could not\ntell who was this woman of authority so commanding--I was dumfoundered,\nand, with my gaze fastened on the earth, continued silently to await\nwhat she might do next. Then she drew near me and sat on the edge of my\ncouch, and, looking into my face all heavy with grief and fixed in\nsadness on the ground, she bewailed in these words the disorder of my\nmind:\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[A] [Greek: P] (P) stands for the Political life, the life of action;\n[Greek: Th] (Th) for the Theoretical life, the life of thought.\n\n[B] The Stoic, Epicurean, and other philosophical sects, which Boethius\nregards as heterodox. See also below, ch. iii., p. 14.\n\n\nSONG II. HIS DESPONDENCY.\n\n\n    Alas! in what abyss his mind\n      Is plunged, how wildly tossed!\n    Still, still towards the outer night\n      She sinks, her true light lost,\n    As oft as, lashed tumultuously\n    By earth-born blasts, care's waves rise high.\n\n    Yet once he ranged the open heavens,\n      The sun's bright pathway tracked;\n    Watched how the cold moon waxed and waned;\n      Nor rested, till there lacked\n    To his wide ken no star that steers\n    Amid the maze of circling spheres.\n\n    The causes why the blusterous winds\n      Vex ocean's tranquil face,\n    Whose hand doth turn the stable globe,\n      Or why his even race\n    From out the ruddy east the sun\n    Unto the western waves doth run:\n\n    What is it tempers cunningly\n      The placid hours of spring,\n    So that it blossoms with the rose\n      For earth's engarlanding:\n    Who loads the year's maturer prime\n    With clustered grapes in autumn time:\n\n    All this he knew--thus ever strove\n      Deep Nature's lore to guess.\n    Now, reft of reason's light, he lies,\n      And bonds his neck oppress;\n    While by the heavy load constrained,\n    His eyes to this dull earth are chained.\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n'But the time,' said she, 'calls rather for healing than for\nlamentation.' Then, with her eyes bent full upon me, 'Art thou that\nman,' she cries, 'who, erstwhile fed with the milk and reared upon the\nnourishment which is mine to give, had grown up to the full vigour of a\nmanly spirit? And yet I had bestowed such armour on thee as would have\nproved an invincible defence, hadst thou not first cast it away. Dost\nthou know me? Why art thou silent? Is it shame or amazement that hath\nstruck thee dumb? Would it were shame; but, as I see, a stupor hath\nseized upon thee.' Then, when she saw me not only answering nothing, but\nmute and utterly incapable of speech, she gently touched my breast with\nher hand, and said: 'There is no danger; these are the symptoms of\nlethargy, the usual sickness of deluded minds. For awhile he has\nforgotten himself; he will easily recover his memory, if only he first\nrecognises me. And that he may do so, let me now wipe his eyes that are\nclouded with a mist of mortal things.' Thereat, with a fold of her robe,\nshe dried my eyes all swimming with tears.\n\n\n\nSONG III. THE MISTS DISPELLED.\n\n\n    Then the gloom of night was scattered,\n      Sight returned unto mine eyes.\n    So, when haply rainy Caurus\n      Rolls the storm-clouds through the skies,\n    Hidden is the sun; all heaven\n      Is obscured in starless night.\n    But if, in wild onset sweeping,\n      Boreas frees day's prisoned light,\n    All suddenly the radiant god outstreams,\n    And strikes our dazzled eyesight with his beams.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nEven so the clouds of my melancholy were broken up. I saw the clear sky,\nand regained the power to recognise the face of my physician.\nAccordingly, when I had lifted my eyes and fixed my gaze upon her, I\nbeheld my nurse, Philosophy, whose halls I had frequented from my youth\nup.\n\n'Ah! why,' I cried, 'mistress of all excellence, hast thou come down\nfrom on high, and entered the solitude of this my exile? Is it that\nthou, too, even as I, mayst be persecuted with false accusations?'\n\n'Could I desert thee, child,' said she, 'and not lighten the burden\nwhich thou hast taken upon thee through the hatred of my name, by\nsharing this trouble? Even forgetting that it were not lawful for\nPhilosophy to leave companionless the way of the innocent, should I,\nthinkest thou, fear to incur reproach, or shrink from it, as though\nsome strange new thing had befallen? Thinkest thou that now, for the\nfirst time in an evil age, Wisdom hath been assailed by peril? Did I not\noften in days of old, before my servant Plato lived, wage stern warfare\nwith the rashness of folly? In his lifetime, too, Socrates, his master,\nwon with my aid the victory of an unjust death. And when, one after the\nother, the Epicurean herd, the Stoic, and the rest, each of them as far\nas in them lay, went about to seize the heritage he left, and were\ndragging me off protesting and resisting, as their booty, they tore in\npieces the garment which I had woven with my own hands, and, clutching\nthe torn pieces, went off, believing that the whole of me had passed\ninto their possession. And some of them, because some traces of my\nvesture were seen upon them, were destroyed through the mistake of the\nlewd multitude, who falsely deemed them to be my disciples. It may be\nthou knowest not of the banishment of Anaxagoras, of the poison draught\nof Socrates, nor of Zeno's torturing, because these things happened in\na distant country; yet mightest thou have learnt the fate of Arrius, of\nSeneca, of Soranus, whose stories are neither old nor unknown to fame.\nThese men were brought to destruction for no other reason than that,\nsettled as they were in my principles, their lives were a manifest\ncontrast to the ways of the wicked. So there is nothing thou shouldst\nwonder at, if on the seas of this life we are tossed by storm-blasts,\nseeing that we have made it our chiefest aim to refuse compliance with\nevil-doers. And though, maybe, the host of the wicked is many in number,\nyet is it contemptible, since it is under no leadership, but is hurried\nhither and thither at the blind driving of mad error. And if at times\nand seasons they set in array against us, and fall on in overwhelming\nstrength, our leader draws off her forces into the citadel while they\nare busy plundering the useless baggage. But we from our vantage ground,\nsafe from all this wild work, laugh to see them making prize of the most\nvalueless of things, protected by a bulwark which aggressive folly may\nnot aspire to reach.'\n\n\n\nSONG IV. NOTHING CAN SUBDUE VIRTUE.\n\n\n    Whoso calm, serene, sedate,\n    Sets his foot on haughty fate;\n    Firm and steadfast, come what will,\n    Keeps his mien unconquered still;\n    Him the rage of furious seas,\n    Tossing high wild menaces,\n    Nor the flames from smoky forges\n    That Vesuvius disgorges,\n    Nor the bolt that from the sky\n    Smites the tower, can terrify.\n    Why, then, shouldst thou feel affright\n    At the tyrant's weakling might?\n    Dread him not, nor fear no harm,\n    And thou shall his rage disarm;\n    But who to hope or fear gives way--\n    Lost his bosom's rightful sway--\n    He hath cast away his shield,\n    Like a coward fled the field;\n    He hath forged all unaware\n    Fetters his own neck must bear!\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\n'Dost thou understand?' she asks. Do my words sink into thy mind? Or art\nthou dull \"as the ass to the sound of the lyre\"? Why dost thou weep? Why\ndo tears stream from thy eyes?\n\n    '\"Speak out, hide it not in thy heart.\"\n\nIf thou lookest for the physician's help, thou must needs disclose thy\nwound.'\n\nThen I, gathering together what strength I could, began: 'Is there still\nneed of telling? Is not the cruelty of fortune against me plain enough?\nDoth not the very aspect of this place move thee? Is this the library,\nthe room which thou hadst chosen as thy constant resort in my home, the\nplace where we so often sat together and held discourse of all things in\nheaven and earth? Was my garb and mien like this when I explored with\nthee nature's hid secrets, and thou didst trace for me with thy wand\nthe courses of the stars, moulding the while my character and the whole\nconduct of my life after the pattern of the celestial order? Is this the\nrecompense of my obedience? Yet thou hast enjoined by Plato's mouth the\nmaxim, \"that states would be happy, either if philosophers ruled them,\nor if it should so befall that their rulers would turn philosophers.\" By\nhis mouth likewise thou didst point out this imperative reason why\nphilosophers should enter public life, to wit, lest, if the reins of\ngovernment be left to unprincipled and profligate citizens, trouble and\ndestruction should come upon the good. Following these precepts, I have\ntried to apply in the business of public administration the principles\nwhich I learnt from thee in leisured seclusion. Thou art my witness and\nthat divinity who hath implanted thee in the hearts of the wise, that I\nbrought to my duties no aim but zeal for the public good. For this cause\nI have become involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds, and, as\nhappens inevitably, if a man holds fast to the independence of\nconscience, I have had to think nothing of giving offence to the\npowerful in the cause of justice. How often have I encountered and\nbalked Conigastus in his assaults on the fortunes of the weak? How often\nhave I thwarted Trigguilla, steward of the king's household, even when\nhis villainous schemes were as good as accomplished? How often have I\nrisked my position and influence to protect poor wretches from the false\ncharges innumerable with which they were for ever being harassed by the\ngreed and license of the barbarians? No one has ever drawn me aside from\njustice to oppression. When ruin was overtaking the fortunes of the\nprovincials through the combined pressure of private rapine and public\ntaxation, I grieved no less than the sufferers. When at a season of\ngrievous scarcity a forced sale, disastrous as it was unjustifiable, was\nproclaimed, and threatened to overwhelm Campania with starvation, I\nembarked on a struggle with the praetorian prefect in the public\ninterest, I fought the case at the king's judgment-seat, and succeeded\nin preventing the enforcement of the sale. I rescued the consular\nPaulinus from the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, who in their\ncovetous hopes had already made short work of his wealth. To save\nAlbinus, who was of the same exalted rank, from the penalties of a\nprejudged charge, I exposed myself to the hatred of Cyprian, the\ninformer.\n\n'Thinkest thou I had laid up for myself store of enmities enough? Well,\nwith the rest of my countrymen, at any rate, my safety should have been\nassured, since my love of justice had left me no hope of security at\ncourt. Yet who was it brought the charges by which I have been struck\ndown? Why, one of my accusers is Basil, who, after being dismissed from\nthe king's household, was driven by his debts to lodge an information\nagainst my name. There is Opilio, there is Gaudentius, men who for many\nand various offences the king's sentence had condemned to banishment;\nand when they declined to obey, and sought to save themselves by taking\nsanctuary, the king, as soon as he heard of it, decreed that, if they\ndid not depart from the city of Ravenna within a prescribed time, they\nshould be branded on the forehead and expelled. What would exceed the\nrigour of this severity? And yet on that same day these very men lodged\nan information against me, and the information was admitted. Just\nHeaven! had I deserved this by my way of life? Did it make them fit\naccusers that my condemnation was a foregone conclusion? Has fortune no\nshame--if not at the accusation of the innocent, at least for the\nvileness of the accusers? Perhaps thou wonderest what is the sum of the\ncharges laid against me? I wished, they say, to save the senate. But\nhow? I am accused of hindering an informer from producing evidence to\nprove the senate guilty of treason. Tell me, then, what is thy counsel,\nO my mistress. Shall I deny the charge, lest I bring shame on thee? But\nI did wish it, and I shall never cease to wish it. Shall I admit it?\nThen the work of thwarting the informer will come to an end. Shall I\ncall the wish for the preservation of that illustrious house a crime?\nOf a truth the senate, by its decrees concerning me, has made it such!\nBut blind folly, though it deceive itself with false names, cannot alter\nthe true merits of things, and, mindful of the precept of Socrates, I do\nnot think it right either to keep the truth concealed or allow falsehood\nto pass. But this, however it may be, I leave to thy judgment and to the\nverdict of the discerning. Moreover, lest the course of events and the\ntrue facts should be hidden from posterity, I have myself committed to\nwriting an account of the transaction.\n\n'What need to speak of the forged letters by which an attempt is made to\nprove that I hoped for the freedom of Rome? Their falsity would have\nbeen manifest, if I had been allowed to use the confession of the\ninformers themselves, evidence which has in all matters the most\nconvincing force. Why, what hope of freedom is left to us? Would there\nwere any! I should have answered with the epigram of Canius when\nCaligula declared him to have been cognisant of a conspiracy against\nhim. \"If I had known,\" said he, \"thou shouldst never have known.\" Grief\nhath not so blunted my perceptions in this matter that I should complain\nbecause impious wretches contrive their villainies against the virtuous,\nbut at their achievement of their hopes I do exceedingly marvel. For\nevil purposes are, perchance, due to the imperfection of human nature;\nthat it should be possible for scoundrels to carry out their worst\nschemes against the innocent, while God beholdeth, is verily monstrous.\nFor this cause, not without reason, one of thy disciples asked, \"If God\nexists, whence comes evil? Yet whence comes good, if He exists not?\"\nHowever, it might well be that wretches who seek the blood of all honest\nmen and of the whole senate should wish to destroy me also, whom they\nsaw to be a bulwark of the senate and all honest men. But did I deserve\nsuch a fate from the Fathers also? Thou rememberest, methinks--since\nthou didst ever stand by my side to direct what I should do or say--thou\nrememberest, I say, how at Verona, when the king, eager for the general\ndestruction, was bent on implicating the whole senatorial order in the\ncharge of treason brought against Albinus, with what indifference to my\nown peril I maintained the innocence of its members, one and all. Thou\nknowest that what I say is the truth, and that I have never boasted of\nmy good deeds in a spirit of self-praise. For whenever a man by\nproclaiming his good deeds receives the recompense of fame, he\ndiminishes in a measure the secret reward of a good conscience. What\nissues have overtaken my innocency thou seest. Instead of reaping the\nrewards of true virtue, I undergo the penalties of a guilt falsely laid\nto my charge--nay, more than this; never did an open confession of guilt\ncause such unanimous severity among the assessors, but that some\nconsideration, either of the mere frailty of human nature, or of\nfortune's universal instability, availed to soften the verdict of some\nfew. Had I been accused of a design to fire the temples, to slaughter\nthe priests with impious sword, of plotting the massacre of all honest\nmen, I should yet have been produced in court, and only punished on due\nconfession or conviction. Now for my too great zeal towards the senate I\nhave been condemned to outlawry and death, unheard and undefended, at a\ndistance of near five hundred miles away.[C] Oh, my judges, well do ye\ndeserve that no one should hereafter be convicted of a fault like mine!\n\n'Yet even my very accusers saw how honourable was the charge they\nbrought against me, and, in order to overlay it with some shadow of\nguilt, they falsely asserted that in the pursuit of my ambition I had\nstained my conscience with sacrilegious acts. And yet thy spirit,\nindwelling in me, had driven from the chamber of my soul all lust of\nearthly success, and with thine eye ever upon me, there could be no\nplace left for sacrilege. For thou didst daily repeat in my ear and\ninstil into my mind the Pythagorean maxim, \"Follow after God.\" It was\nnot likely, then, that I should covet the assistance of the vilest\nspirits, when thou wert moulding me to such an excellence as should\nconform me to the likeness of God. Again, the innocency of the inner\nsanctuary of my home, the company of friends of the highest probity, a\nfather-in-law revered at once for his pure character and his active\nbeneficence, shield me from the very suspicion of sacrilege.\nYet--atrocious as it is--they even draw credence for this charge from\n_thee_; I am like to be thought implicated in wickedness on this very\naccount, that I am imbued with _thy_ teachings and stablished in _thy_\nways. So it is not enough that my devotion to thee should profit me\nnothing, but thou also must be assailed by reason of the odium which I\nhave incurred. Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that\nmen's opinions for the most part look not to real merit, but to the\nevent; and only recognise foresight where Fortune has crowned the issue\nwith her approval. Whereby it comes to pass that reputation is the first\nof all things to abandon the unfortunate. I remember with chagrin how\nperverse is popular report, how various and discordant men's judgments.\nThis only will I say, that the most crushing of misfortune's burdens is,\nthat as soon as a charge is fastened upon the unhappy, they are believed\nto have deserved their sufferings. I, for my part, who have been\nbanished from all life's blessings, stripped of my honours, stained in\nrepute, am punished for well-doing.\n\n'And now methinks I see the villainous dens of the wicked surging with\njoy and gladness, all the most recklessly unscrupulous threatening a new\ncrop of lying informations, the good prostrate with terror at my danger,\nevery ruffian incited by impunity to new daring and to success by the\nprofits of audacity, the guiltless not only robbed of their peace of\nmind, but even of all means of defence. Wherefore I would fain cry out:\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[C] The distance from Rome to Pavia, the place of Boethius'\nimprisonment, is 455 Roman miles.\n\n\n\nSONG V. BOETHIUS' PRAYER.\n\n\n    'Builder of yon starry dome,\n      Thou that whirlest, throned eternal,\n    Heaven's swift globe, and, as they roam,\n      Guid'st the stars by laws supernal:\n        So in full-sphered splendour dight\n        Cynthia dims the lamps of night,\n      But unto the orb fraternal\n        Closer drawn,[D] doth lose her light.\n\n    'Who at fall of eventide,\n      Hesper, his cold radiance showeth,\n    Lucifer his beams doth hide,\n      Paling as the sun's light groweth,\n        Brief, while winter's frost holds sway,\n        By thy will the space of day;\n      Swift, when summer's fervour gloweth,\n        Speed the hours of night away.\n\n    'Thou dost rule the changing year:\n      When rude Boreas oppresses,\n    Fall the leaves; they reappear,\n      Wooed by Zephyr's soft caresses.\n        Fields that Sirius burns deep grown\n        By Arcturus' watch were sown:\n      Each the reign of law confesses,\n        Keeps the place that is his own.\n\n    'Sovereign Ruler, Lord of all!\n      Can it be that Thou disdainest\n    Only man? 'Gainst him, poor thrall,\n      Wanton Fortune plays her vainest.\n        Guilt's deserved punishment\n        Falleth on the innocent;\n      High uplifted, the profanest\n        On the just their malice vent.\n\n    'Virtue cowers in dark retreats,\n      Crime's foul stain the righteous beareth,\n    Perjury and false deceits\n      Hurt not him the wrong who dareth;\n        But whene'er the wicked trust\n        In ill strength to work their lust,\n      Kings, whom nations' awe declareth\n        Mighty, grovel in the dust.\n\n    'Look, oh look upon this earth,\n      Thou who on law's sure foundation\n    Framedst all! Have we no worth,\n      We poor men, of all creation?\n        Sore we toss on fortune's tide;\n        Master, bid the waves subside!\n      And earth's ways with consummation\n        Of Thy heaven's order guide!'\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[D] The moon is regarded as farthest from the sun at the full, and, as\nshe wanes, approaching gradually nearer.\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\nWhen I had poured out my griefs in this long and unbroken strain of\nlamentation, she, with calm countenance, and in no wise disturbed at my\ncomplainings, thus spake:\n\n'When I saw thee sorrowful, in tears, I straightway knew thee wretched\nand an exile. But how far distant that exile I should not know, had not\nthine own speech revealed it. Yet how far indeed from thy country hast\nthou, not been banished, but rather hast strayed; or, if thou wilt have\nit banishment, hast banished thyself! For no one else could ever\nlawfully have had this power over thee. Now, if thou wilt call to mind\nfrom what country thou art sprung, it is not ruled, as once was the\nAthenian polity, by the sovereignty of the multitude, but \"one is its\nRuler, one its King,\" who takes delight in the number of His citizens,\nnot in their banishment; to submit to whose governance and to obey\nwhose ordinances is perfect freedom. Art thou ignorant of that most\nancient law of this thy country, whereby it is decreed that no one\nwhatsoever, who hath chosen to fix there his dwelling, may be sent into\nexile? For truly there is no fear that one who is encompassed by its\nramparts and defences should deserve to be exiled. But he who has ceased\nto wish to dwell therein, he likewise ceases to deserve to do so. And so\nit is not so much the aspect of this place which moves me, as thy\naspect; not so much the library walls set off with glass and ivory which\nI miss, as the chamber of thy mind, wherein I once placed, not books,\nbut that which gives books their value, the doctrines which my books\ncontain. Now, what thou hast said of thy services to the commonweal is\ntrue, only too little compared with the greatness of thy deservings. The\nthings laid to thy charge whereof thou hast spoken, whether such as\nredound to thy credit, or mere false accusations, are publicly known. As\nfor the crimes and deceits of the informers, thou hast rightly deemed\nit fitting to pass them over lightly, because the popular voice hath\nbetter and more fully pronounced upon them. Thou hast bitterly\ncomplained of the injustice of the senate. Thou hast grieved over my\ncalumniation, and likewise hast lamented the damage to my good name.\nFinally, thine indignation blazed forth against fortune; thou hast\ncomplained of the unfairness with which thy merits have been\nrecompensed. Last of all thy frantic muse framed a prayer that the peace\nwhich reigns in heaven might rule earth also. But since a throng of\ntumultuous passions hath assailed thy soul, since thou art distraught\nwith anger, pain, and grief, strong remedies are not proper for thee in\nthis thy present mood. And so for a time I will use milder methods, that\nthe tumours which have grown hard through the influx of disturbing\npassion may be softened by gentle treatment, till they can bear the\nforce of sharper remedies.'\n\n\n\nSONG VI. ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR NEEDFUL ORDER\n\n\n    He who to th' unwilling furrows\n      Gives the generous grain,\n    When the Crab with baleful fervours\n      Scorches all the plain;\n    He shall find his garner bare,\n    Acorns for his scanty fare.\n\n    Go not forth to cull sweet violets\n      From the purpled steep,\n    While the furious blasts of winter\n      Through the valleys sweep;\n    Nor the grape o'erhasty bring\n    To the press in days of spring.\n\n    For to each thing God hath given\n      Its appointed time;\n    No perplexing change permits He\n      In His plan sublime.\n    So who quits the order due\n    Shall a luckless issue rue.\n\n\nVI.\n\n\n'First, then, wilt thou suffer me by a few questions to make some\nattempt to test the state of thy mind, that I may learn in what way to\nset about thy cure?'\n\n'Ask what thou wilt,' said I, 'for I will answer whatever questions thou\nchoosest to put.'\n\nThen said she: 'This world of ours--thinkest thou it is governed\nhaphazard and fortuitously, or believest thou that there is in it any\nrational guidance?'\n\n'Nay,' said I, 'in no wise may I deem that such fixed motions can be\ndetermined by random hazard, but I know that God, the Creator, presideth\nover His work, nor will the day ever come that shall drive me from\nholding fast the truth of this belief.'\n\n'Yes,' said she; 'thou didst even but now affirm it in song, lamenting\nthat men alone had no portion in the divine care. As to the rest, thou\nwert unshaken in the belief that they were ruled by reason. Yet I\nmarvel exceedingly how, in spite of thy firm hold on this opinion, thou\nart fallen into sickness. But let us probe more deeply: something or\nother is missing, I think. Now, tell me, since thou doubtest not that\nGod governs the world, dost thou perceive by what means He rules it?'\n\n'I scarcely understand what thou meanest,' I said, 'much less can I\nanswer thy question.'\n\n'Did I not say truly that something is missing, whereby, as through a\nbreach in the ramparts, disease hath crept in to disturb thy mind? But,\ntell me, dost thou remember the universal end towards which the aim of\nall nature is directed?'\n\n'I once heard,' said I, 'but sorrow hath dulled my recollection.'\n\n'And yet thou knowest whence all things have proceeded.'\n\n'Yes, that I know,' said I, 'and have answered that it is from God.'\n\n'Yet how is it possible that thou knowest not what is the end of\nexistence, when thou dost understand its source and origin? However,\nthese disturbances of mind have force to shake a man's position, but\ncannot pluck him up and root him altogether out of himself. But answer\nthis also, I pray thee: rememberest thou that thou art a man?'\n\n'How should I not?' said I.\n\n'Then, canst thou say what man is?'\n\n'Is this thy question: Whether I know myself for a being endowed with\nreason and subject to death? Surely I do acknowledge myself such.'\n\nThen she: 'Dost know nothing else that thou art?'\n\n'Nothing.'\n\n'Now,' said she, 'I know another cause of thy disease, one, too, of\ngrave moment. Thou hast ceased to know thy own nature. So, then, I have\nmade full discovery both of the causes of thy sickness and the means of\nrestoring thy health. It is because forgetfulness of thyself hath\nbewildered thy mind that thou hast bewailed thee as an exile, as one\nstripped of the blessings that were his; it is because thou knowest not\nthe end of existence that thou deemest abominable and wicked men to be\nhappy and powerful; while, because thou hast forgotten by what means the\nearth is governed, thou deemest that fortune's changes ebb and flow\nwithout the restraint of a guiding hand. These are serious enough to\ncause not sickness only, but even death; but, thanks be to the Author of\nour health, the light of nature hath not yet left thee utterly. In thy\ntrue judgment concerning the world's government, in that thou believest\nit subject, not to the random drift of chance, but to divine reason, we\nhave the divine spark from which thy recovery may be hoped. Have, then,\nno fear; from these weak embers the vital heat shall once more be\nkindled within thee. But seeing that it is not yet time for strong\nremedies, and that the mind is manifestly so constituted that when it\ncasts off true opinions it straightway puts on false, wherefrom arises a\ncloud of confusion that disturbs its true vision, I will now try and\ndisperse these mists by mild and soothing application, that so the\ndarkness of misleading passion may be scattered, and thou mayst come to\ndiscern the splendour of the true light.'\n\n\n\nSONG VII. THE PERTURBATIONS OF PASSION.\n\n\n    Stars shed no light\n      Through the black night,\n        When the clouds hide;\n    And the lashed wave,\n      If the winds rave\n        O'er ocean's tide,--\n\n    Though once serene\n      As day's fair sheen,--\n        Soon fouled and spoiled\n    By the storm's spite,\n      Shows to the sight\n        Turbid and soiled.\n\n    Oft the fair rill,\n      Down the steep hill\n        Seaward that strays,\n    Some tumbled block\n      Of fallen rock\n        Hinders and stays.\n\n    Then art thou fain\n      Clear and most plain\n        Truth to discern,\n    In the right way\n      Firmly to stay,\n        Nor from it turn?\n\n    Joy, hope and fear\n      Suffer not near,\n        Drive grief away:\n    Shackled and blind\n      And lost is the mind\n        Where these have sway.\n\n\n\n\n</CHAPTER>\nBOOK II.\n\nTHE VANITY OF FORTUNE'S GIFTS\n\n\n     Summary\n\n     CH. I. Philosophy reproves Boethius for the foolishness of his\n     complaints against Fortune. Her very nature is caprice.--CH. II.\n     Philosophy in Fortune's name replies to Boethius' reproaches, and\n     proves that the gifts of Fortune are hers to give and to take\n     away.--CH. III. Boethius falls back upon his present sense of\n     misery. Philosophy reminds him of the brilliancy of his former\n     fortunes.--CH. IV. Boethius objects that the memory of past\n     happiness is the bitterest portion of the lot of the unhappy.\n     Philosophy shows that much is still left for which he may be\n     thankful. None enjoy perfect satisfaction with their lot. But\n     happiness depends not on anything which Fortune can give. It is to\n     be sought within.--CH. V. All the gifts of Fortune are external;\n     they can never truly be our own. Man cannot find his good in\n     worldly possessions. Riches bring anxiety and trouble.--CH. VI.\n     High place without virtue is an evil, not a good. Power is an empty\n     name.--CH. VII. Fame is a thing of little account when compared\n     with the immensity of the Universe and the endlessness of\n     Time.--CH. VIII. One service only can Fortune do, when she reveals\n     her own nature and distinguishes true friends from false.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<CHAPTER>\nBOOK II. I.\n\n\nThereafter for awhile she remained silent; and when she had restored my\nflagging attention by a moderate pause in her discourse, she thus began:\n'If I have thoroughly ascertained the character and causes of thy\nsickness, thou art pining with regretful longing for thy former fortune.\nIt is the change, as thou deemest, of this fortune that hath so wrought\nupon thy mind. Well do I understand that Siren's manifold wiles, the\nfatal charm of the friendship she pretends for her victims, so long as\nshe is scheming to entrap them--how she unexpectedly abandons them and\nleaves them overwhelmed with insupportable grief. Bethink thee of her\nnature, character, and deserts, and thou wilt soon acknowledge that in\nher thou hast neither possessed, nor hast thou lost, aught of any worth.\nMethinks I need not spend much pains in bringing this to thy mind,\nsince, even when she was still with thee, even while she was caressing\nthee, thou usedst to assail her in manly terms, to rebuke her, with\nmaxims drawn from my holy treasure-house. But all sudden changes of\ncircumstances bring inevitably a certain commotion of spirit. Thus it\nhath come to pass that thou also for awhile hast been parted from thy\nmind's tranquillity. But it is time for thee to take and drain a\ndraught, soft and pleasant to the taste, which, as it penetrates within,\nmay prepare the way for stronger potions. Wherefore I call to my aid the\nsweet persuasiveness of Rhetoric, who then only walketh in the right way\nwhen she forsakes not my instructions, and Music, my handmaid, I bid to\njoin with her singing, now in lighter, now in graver strain.\n\n'What is it, then, poor mortal, that hath cast thee into lamentation and\nmourning? Some strange, unwonted sight, methinks, have thine eyes seen.\nThou deemest Fortune to have changed towards thee; thou mistakest. Such\never were her ways, ever such her nature. Rather in her very mutability\nhath she preserved towards thee her true constancy. Such was she when\nshe loaded thee with caresses, when she deluded thee with the\nallurements of a false happiness. Thou hast found out how changeful is\nthe face of the blind goddess. She who still veils herself from others\nhath fully discovered to thee her whole character. If thou likest her,\ntake her as she is, and do not complain. If thou abhorrest her perfidy,\nturn from her in disdain, renounce her, for baneful are her delusions.\nThe very thing which is now the cause of thy great grief ought to have\nbrought thee tranquillity. Thou hast been forsaken by one of whom no one\ncan be sure that she will not forsake him. Or dost thou indeed set value\non a happiness that is certain to depart? Again I ask, Is Fortune's\npresence dear to thee if she cannot be trusted to stay, and though she\nwill bring sorrow when she is gone? Why, if she cannot be kept at\npleasure, and if her flight overwhelms with calamity, what is this\nfleeting visitant but a token of coming trouble? Truly it is not enough\nto look only at what lies before the eyes; wisdom gauges the issues of\nthings, and this same mutability, with its two aspects, makes the\nthreats of Fortune void of terror, and her caresses little to be\ndesired. Finally, thou oughtest to bear with whatever takes place within\nthe boundaries of Fortune's demesne, when thou hast placed thy head\nbeneath her yoke. But if thou wishest to impose a law of staying and\ndeparting on her whom thou hast of thine own accord chosen for thy\nmistress, art thou not acting wrongfully, art thou not embittering by\nimpatience a lot which thou canst not alter? Didst thou commit thy sails\nto the winds, thou wouldst voyage not whither thy intention was to go,\nbut whither the winds drave thee; didst thou entrust thy seed to the\nfields, thou wouldst set off the fruitful years against the barren. Thou\nhast resigned thyself to the sway of Fortune; thou must submit to thy\nmistress's caprices. What! art thou verily striving to stay the swing\nof the revolving wheel? Oh, stupidest of mortals, if it takes to\nstanding still, it ceases to be the wheel of Fortune.'\n\n\n\nSONG I. FORTUNE'S MALICE.\n\n\n    Mad Fortune sweeps along in wanton pride,\n    Uncertain as Euripus' surging tide;\n    Now tramples mighty kings beneath her feet;\n    Now sets the conquered in the victor's seat.\n    She heedeth not the wail of hapless woe,\n    But mocks the griefs that from her mischief flow.\n    Such is her sport; so proveth she her power;\n    And great the marvel, when in one brief hour\n    She shows her darling lifted high in bliss,\n    Then headlong plunged in misery's abyss.\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n'Now I would fain also reason with thee a little in Fortune's own words.\nDo thou observe whether her contentions be just. \"Man,\" she might say,\n\"why dost thou pursue me with thy daily complainings? What wrong have I\ndone thee? What goods of thine have I taken from thee? Choose an thou\nwilt a judge, and let us dispute before him concerning the rightful\nownership of wealth and rank. If thou succeedest in showing that any one\nof these things is the true property of mortal man, I freely grant those\nthings to be thine which thou claimest. When nature brought thee forth\nout of thy mother's womb, I took thee, naked and destitute as thou wast,\nI cherished thee with my substance, and, in the partiality of my favour\nfor thee, I brought thee up somewhat too indulgently, and this it is\nwhich now makes thee rebellious against me. I surrounded thee with a\nroyal abundance of all those things that are in my power. Now it is my\npleasure to draw back my hand. Thou hast reason to thank me for the use\nof what was not thine own; thou hast no right to complain, as if thou\nhadst lost what was wholly thine. Why, then, dost bemoan thyself? I have\ndone thee no violence. Wealth, honour, and all such things are placed\nunder my control. My handmaidens know their mistress; with me they come,\nand at my going they depart. I might boldly affirm that if those things\nthe loss of which thou lamentest had been thine, thou couldst never have\nlost them. Am I alone to be forbidden to do what I will with my own?\nUnrebuked, the skies now reveal the brightness of day, now shroud the\ndaylight in the darkness of night; the year may now engarland the face\nof the earth with flowers and fruits, now disfigure it with storms and\ncold. The sea is permitted to invite with smooth and tranquil surface\nto-day, to-morrow to roughen with wave and storm. Shall man's insatiate\ngreed bind _me_ to a constancy foreign to my character? This is my art,\nthis the game I never cease to play. I turn the wheel that spins. I\ndelight to see the high come down and the low ascend. Mount up, if thou\nwilt, but only on condition that thou wilt not think it a hardship to\ncome down when the rules of my game require it. Wert thou ignorant of my\ncharacter? Didst not know how Croesus, King of the Lydians, erstwhile\nthe dreaded rival of Cyrus, was afterwards pitiably consigned to the\nflame of the pyre, and only saved by a shower sent from heaven? Has it\n'scaped thee how Paullus paid a meed of pious tears to the misfortunes\nof King Perseus, his prisoner? What else do tragedies make such woeful\noutcry over save the overthrow of kingdoms by the indiscriminate strokes\nof Fortune? Didst thou not learn in thy childhood how there stand at the\nthreshold of Zeus 'two jars,' 'the one full of blessings, the other of\ncalamities'? How if thou hast drawn over-liberally from the good jar?\nWhat if not even now have I departed wholly from thee? What if this very\nmutability of mine is a just ground for hoping better things? But listen\nnow, and cease to let thy heart consume away with fretfulness, nor\nexpect to live on thine own terms in a realm that is common to all.'\n\n\n\nSONG II. MAN'S COVETOUSNESS.\n\n\n    What though Plenty pour her gifts\n      With a lavish hand,\n    Numberless as are the stars,\n      Countless as the sand,\n    Will the race of man, content,\n    Cease to murmur and lament?\n\n    Nay, though God, all-bounteous, give\n      Gold at man's desire--\n    Honours, rank, and fame--content\n      Not a whit is nigher;\n    But an all-devouring greed\n    Yawns with ever-widening need.\n\n    Then what bounds can e'er restrain\n      This wild lust of having,\n    When with each new bounty fed\n      Grows the frantic craving?\n    He is never rich whose fear\n    Sees grim Want forever near.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\n'If Fortune should plead thus against thee, assuredly thou wouldst not\nhave one word to offer in reply; or, if thou canst find any\njustification of thy complainings, thou must show what it is. I will\ngive thee space to speak.'\n\nThen said I: 'Verily, thy pleas are plausible--yea, steeped in the\nhoneyed sweetness of music and rhetoric. But their charm lasts only\nwhile they are sounding in the ear; the sense of his misfortunes lies\ndeeper in the heart of the wretched. So, when the sound ceases to\nvibrate upon the air, the heart's indwelling sorrow is felt with renewed\nbitterness.'\n\nThen said she: 'It is indeed as thou sayest, for we have not yet come to\nthe curing of thy sickness; as yet these are but lenitives conducing to\nthe treatment of a malady hitherto obstinate. The remedies which go deep\nI will apply in due season. Nevertheless, to deprecate thy\ndetermination to be thought wretched, I ask thee, Hast thou forgotten\nthe extent and bounds of thy felicity? I say nothing of how, when\norphaned and desolate, thou wast taken into the care of illustrious men;\nhow thou wast chosen for alliance with the highest in the state--and\neven before thou wert bound to their house by marriage, wert already\ndear to their love--which is the most precious of all ties. Did not all\npronounce thee most happy in the virtues of thy wife, the splendid\nhonours of her father, and the blessing of male issue? I pass over--for\nI care not to speak of blessings in which others also have shared--the\ndistinctions often denied to age which thou enjoyedst in thy youth. I\nchoose rather to come to the unparalleled culmination of thy good\nfortune. If the fruition of any earthly success has weight in the scale\nof happiness, can the memory of that splendour be swept away by any\nrising flood of troubles? That day when thou didst see thy two sons ride\nforth from home joint consuls, followed by a train of senators, and\nwelcomed by the good-will of the people; when these two sat in curule\nchairs in the Senate-house, and thou by thy panegyric on the king didst\nearn the fame of eloquence and ability; when in the Circus, seated\nbetween the two consuls, thou didst glut the multitude thronging around\nwith the triumphal largesses for which they looked--methinks thou didst\ncozen Fortune while she caressed thee, and made thee her darling. Thou\ndidst bear off a boon which she had never before granted to any private\nperson. Art thou, then, minded to cast up a reckoning with Fortune? Now\nfor the first time she has turned a jealous glance upon thee. If thou\ncompare the extent and bounds of thy blessings and misfortunes, thou\ncanst not deny that thou art still fortunate. Or if thou esteem not\nthyself favoured by Fortune in that thy then seeming prosperity hath\ndeparted, deem not thyself wretched, since what thou now believest to be\ncalamitous passeth also. What! art thou but now come suddenly and a\nstranger to the scene of this life? Thinkest thou there is any stability\nin human affairs, when man himself vanishes away in the swift course of\ntime? It is true that there is little trust that the gifts of chance\nwill abide; yet the last day of life is in a manner the death of all\nremaining Fortune. What difference, then, thinkest thou, is there,\nwhether thou leavest her by dying, or she leave thee by fleeing away?'\n\n\n\nSONG III. ALL PASSES.\n\n\n    When, in rosy chariot drawn,\n    Phoebus 'gins to light the dawn,\n    By his flaming beams assailed,\n    Every glimmering star is paled.\n    When the grove, by Zephyrs fed,\n    With rose-blossom blushes red;--\n    Doth rude Auster breathe thereon,\n    Bare it stands, its glory gone.\n    Smooth and tranquil lies the deep\n    While the winds are hushed in sleep.\n    Soon, when angry tempests lash,\n    Wild and high the billows dash.\n    Thus if Nature's changing face\n    Holds not still a moment's space,\n    Fleeting deem man's fortunes; deem\n    Bliss as transient as a dream.\n    One law only standeth fast:\n    Things created may not last.\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nThen said I: 'True are thine admonishings, thou nurse of all excellence;\nnor can I deny the wonder of my fortune's swift career. Yet it is this\nwhich chafes me the more cruelly in the recalling. For truly in adverse\nfortune the worst sting of misery is to _have been_ happy.'\n\n'Well,' said she, 'if thou art paying the penalty of a mistaken belief,\nthou canst not rightly impute the fault to circumstances. If it is the\nfelicity which Fortune gives that moves thee--mere name though it\nbe--come reckon up with me how rich thou art in the number and\nweightiness of thy blessings. Then if, by the blessing of Providence,\nthou hast still preserved unto thee safe and inviolate that which,\nhowsoever thou mightest reckon thy fortune, thou wouldst have thought\nthy most precious possession, what right hast thou to talk of\nill-fortune whilst keeping all Fortune's better gifts? Yet Symmachus,\nthy wife's father--a man whose splendid character does honour to the\nhuman race--is safe and unharmed; and while he bewails thy wrongs, this\nrare nature, in whom wisdom and virtue are so nobly blended, is himself\nout of danger--a boon thou wouldst have been quick to purchase at the\nprice of life itself. Thy wife yet lives, with her gentle disposition,\nher peerless modesty and virtue--this the epitome of all her graces,\nthat she is the true daughter of her sire--she lives, I say, and for thy\nsake only preserves the breath of life, though she loathes it, and pines\naway in grief and tears for thy absence, wherein, if in naught else, I\nwould allow some marring of thy felicity. What shall I say of thy sons\nand their consular dignity--how in them, so far as may be in youths of\ntheir age, the example of their father's and grandfather's character\nshines out? Since, then, the chief care of mortal man is to preserve his\nlife, how happy art thou, couldst thou but recognise thy blessings, who\npossessest even now what no one doubts to be dearer than life!\nWherefore, now dry thy tears. Fortune's hate hath not involved all thy\ndear ones; the stress of the storm that has assailed thee is not beyond\nmeasure intolerable, since there are anchors still holding firm which\nsuffer thee not to lack either consolation in the present or hope for\nthe future.'\n\n'I pray that they still may hold. For while they still remain, however\nthings may go, I shall ride out the storm. Yet thou seest how much is\nshorn of the splendour of my fortunes.'\n\n'We are gaining a little ground,' said she, 'if there is something in\nthy lot wherewith thou art not yet altogether discontented. But I cannot\nstomach thy daintiness when thou complainest with such violence of grief\nand anxiety because thy happiness falls short of completeness. Why, who\nenjoys such settled felicity as not to have some quarrel with the\ncircumstances of his lot? A troublous matter are the conditions of human\nbliss; either they are never realized in full, or never stay\npermanently. One has abundant riches, but is shamed by his ignoble\nbirth. Another is conspicuous for his nobility, but through the\nembarrassments of poverty would prefer to be obscure. A third, richly\nendowed with both, laments the loneliness of an unwedded life. Another,\nthough happily married, is doomed to childlessness, and nurses his\nwealth for a stranger to inherit. Yet another, blest with children,\nmournfully bewails the misdeeds of son or daughter. Wherefore, it is not\neasy for anyone to be at perfect peace with the circumstances of his\nlot. There lurks in each several portion something which they who\nexperience it not know nothing of, but which makes the sufferer wince.\nBesides, the more favoured a man is by Fortune, the more fastidiously\nsensitive is he; and, unless all things answer to his whim, he is\noverwhelmed by the most trifling misfortunes, because utterly unschooled\nin adversity. So petty are the trifles which rob the most fortunate of\nperfect happiness! How many are there, dost thou imagine, who would\nthink themselves nigh heaven, if but a small portion from the wreck of\nthy fortune should fall to them? This very place which thou callest\nexile is to them that dwell therein their native land. So true is it\nthat nothing is wretched, but thinking makes it so, and conversely every\nlot is happy if borne with equanimity. Who is so blest by Fortune as not\nto wish to change his state, if once he gives rein to a rebellious\nspirit? With how many bitternesses is the sweetness of human felicity\nblent! And even if that sweetness seem to him to bring delight in the\nenjoying, yet he cannot keep it from departing when it will. How\nmanifestly wretched, then, is the bliss of earthly fortune, which lasts\nnot for ever with those whose temper is equable, and can give no perfect\nsatisfaction to the anxious-minded!\n\n'Why, then, ye children of mortality, seek ye from without that\nhappiness whose seat is only within us? Error and ignorance bewilder\nyou. I will show thee, in brief, the hinge on which perfect happiness\nturns. Is there anything more precious to thee than thyself? Nothing,\nthou wilt say. If, then, thou art master of thyself, thou wilt possess\nthat which thou wilt never be willing to lose, and which Fortune cannot\ntake from thee. And that thou mayst see that happiness cannot possibly\nconsist in these things which are the sport of chance, reflect that, if\nhappiness is the highest good of a creature living in accordance with\nreason, and if a thing which can in any wise be reft away is not the\nhighest good, since that which cannot be taken away is better than it,\nit is plain that Fortune cannot aspire to bestow happiness by reason of\nits instability. And, besides, a man borne along by this transitory\nfelicity must either know or not know its unstability. If he knows not,\nhow poor is a happiness which depends on the blindness of ignorance! If\nhe knows it, he needs must fear to lose a happiness whose loss he\nbelieves to be possible. Wherefore, a never-ceasing fear suffers him not\nto be happy. Or does he count the possibility of this loss a trifling\nmatter? Insignificant, then, must be the good whose loss can be borne so\nequably. And, further, I know thee to be one settled in the belief that\nthe souls of men certainly die not with them, and convinced thereof by\nnumerous proofs; it is clear also that the felicity which Fortune\nbestows is brought to an end with the death of the body: therefore, it\ncannot be doubted but that, if happiness is conferred in this way, the\nwhole human race sinks into misery when death brings the close of all.\nBut if we know that many have sought the joy of happiness not through\ndeath only, but also through pain and suffering, how can life make men\nhappy by its presence when it makes them not wretched by its loss?'\n\n\n\nSONG IV. THE GOLDEN MEAN.\n\n\n    Who founded firm and sure\n    Would ever live secure,\n    In spite of storm and blast\n    Immovable and fast;\n    Whoso would fain deride\n    The ocean's threatening tide;--\n    His dwelling should not seek\n    On sands or mountain-peak.\n    Upon the mountain's height\n    The storm-winds wreak their spite:\n    The shifting sands disdain\n    Their burden to sustain.\n    Do thou these perils flee,\n    Fair though the prospect be,\n    And fix thy resting-place\n    On some low rock's sure base.\n    Then, though the tempests roar,\n    Seas thunder on the shore,\n    Thou in thy stronghold blest\n    And undisturbed shalt rest;\n    Live all thy days serene,\n    And mock the heavens' spleen.\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\n'But since my reasonings begin to work a soothing effect within thy\nmind, methinks I may resort to remedies somewhat stronger. Come,\nsuppose, now, the gifts of Fortune were not fleeting and transitory,\nwhat is there in them capable of ever becoming truly thine, or which\ndoes not lose value when looked at steadily and fairly weighed in the\nbalance? Are riches, I pray thee, precious either through thy nature or\nin their own? What are they but mere gold and heaps of money? Yet these\nfine things show their quality better in the spending than in the\nhoarding; for I suppose 'tis plain that greed Alva's makes men hateful,\nwhile liberality brings fame. But that which is transferred to another\ncannot remain in one's own possession; and if that be so, then money is\nonly precious when it is given away, and, by being transferred to\nothers, ceases to be one's own. Again, if all the money in the world\nwere heaped up in one man's possession, all others would be made poor.\nSound fills the ears of many at the same time without being broken into\nparts, but your riches cannot pass to many without being lessened in the\nprocess. And when this happens, they must needs impoverish those whom\nthey leave. How poor and cramped a thing, then, is riches, which more\nthan one cannot possess as an unbroken whole, which falls not to any one\nman's lot without the impoverishment of everyone else! Or is it the\nglitter of gems that allures the eye? Yet, how rarely excellent soever\nmay be their splendour, remember the flashing light is in the jewels,\nnot in the man. Indeed, I greatly marvel at men's admiration of them;\nfor what can rightly seem beautiful to a being endowed with life and\nreason, if it lack the movement and structure of life? And although such\nthings do in the end take on them more beauty from their Maker's care\nand their own brilliancy, still they in no wise merit your admiration\nsince their excellence is set at a lower grade than your own.\n\n'Does the beauty of the fields delight you? Surely, yes; it is a\nbeautiful part of a right beautiful whole. Fitly indeed do we at times\nenjoy the serene calm of the sea, admire the sky, the stars, the moon,\nthe sun. Yet is any of these thy concern? Dost thou venture to boast\nthyself of the beauty of any one of them? Art _thou_ decked with\nspring's flowers? is it _thy_ fertility that swelleth in the fruits of\nautumn? Why art thou moved with empty transports? why embracest thou an\nalien excellence as thine own? Never will fortune make thine that which\nthe nature of things has excluded from thy ownership. Doubtless the\nfruits of the earth are given for the sustenance of living creatures.\nBut if thou art content to supply thy wants so far as suffices nature,\nthere is no need to resort to fortune's bounty. Nature is content with\nfew things, and with a very little of these. If thou art minded to force\nsuperfluities upon her when she is satisfied, that which thou addest\nwill prove either unpleasant or harmful. But, now, thou thinkest it\nfine to shine in raiment of divers colours; yet--if, indeed, there is\nany pleasure in the sight of such things--it is the texture or the\nartist's skill which I shall admire.\n\n'Or perhaps it is a long train of servants that makes thee happy? Why,\nif they behave viciously, they are a ruinous burden to thy house, and\nexceeding dangerous to their own master; while if they are honest, how\ncanst thou count other men's virtue in the sum of thy possessions? From\nall which 'tis plainly proved that not one of these things which thou\nreckonest in the number of thy possessions is really thine. And if there\nis in them no beauty to be desired, why shouldst thou either grieve for\ntheir loss or find joy in their continued possession? While if they are\nbeautiful in their own nature, what is that to thee? They would have\nbeen not less pleasing in themselves, though never included among thy\npossessions. For they derive not their preciousness from being counted\nin thy riches, but rather thou hast chosen to count them in thy riches\nbecause they seemed to thee precious.\n\n'Then, what seek ye by all this noisy outcry about fortune? To chase\naway poverty, I ween, by means of abundance. And yet ye find the result\njust contrary. Why, this varied array of precious furniture needs more\naccessories for its protection; it is a true saying that they want most\nwho possess most, and, conversely, they want very little who measure\ntheir abundance by nature's requirements, not by the superfluity of vain\ndisplay. Have ye no good of your own implanted within you, that ye seek\nyour good in things external and separate? Is the nature of things so\nreversed that a creature divine by right of reason can in no other way\nbe splendid in his own eyes save by the possession of lifeless chattels?\nYet, while other things are content with their own, ye who in your\nintellect are God-like seek from the lowest of things adornment for a\nnature of supreme excellence, and perceive not how great a wrong ye do\nyour Maker. His will was that mankind should excel all things on earth.\nYe thrust down your worth beneath the lowest of things. For if that in\nwhich each thing finds its good is plainly more precious than that whose\ngood it is, by your own estimation ye put yourselves below the vilest of\nthings, when ye deem these vile things to be your good: nor does this\nfall out undeservedly. Indeed, man is so constituted that he then only\nexcels other things when he knows himself; but he is brought lower than\nthe beasts if he lose this self-knowledge. For that other creatures\nshould be ignorant of themselves is natural; in man it shows as a\ndefect. How extravagant, then, is this error of yours, in thinking that\nanything can be embellished by adornments not its own. It cannot be. For\nif such accessories add any lustre, it is the accessories that get the\npraise, while that which they veil and cover remains in its pristine\nugliness. And again I say, That is no _good_, which injures its\npossessor. Is this untrue? No, quite true, thou sayest. And yet riches\nhave often hurt those that possessed them, since the worst of men, who\nare all the more covetous by reason of their wickedness, think none but\nthemselves worthy to possess all the gold and gems the world contains.\nSo thou, who now dreadest pike and sword, mightest have trolled a carol\n\"in the robber's face,\" hadst thou entered the road of life with empty\npockets. Oh, wondrous blessedness of perishable wealth, whose\nacquisition robs thee of security!'\n\n\n\nSONG V. THE FORMER AGE.\n\n\n    Too blest the former age, their life\n      Who in the fields contented led,\n    And still, by luxury unspoiled,\n      On frugal acorns sparely fed.\n\n    No skill was theirs the luscious grape\n      With honey's sweetness to confuse;\n    Nor China's soft and sheeny silks\n      T' empurple with brave Tyrian hues.\n\n    The grass their wholesome couch, their drink\n      The stream, their roof the pine's tall shade;\n    Not theirs to cleave the deep, nor seek\n      In strange far lands the spoils of trade.\n\n    The trump of war was heard not yet,\n      Nor soiled the fields by bloodshed's stain;\n    For why should war's fierce madness arm\n      When strife brought wound, but brought not gain?\n\n    Ah! would our hearts might still return\n      To following in those ancient ways.\n    Alas! the greed of getting glows\n      More fierce than Etna's fiery blaze.\n\n    Woe, woe for him, whoe'er it was,\n      Who first gold's hidden store revealed,\n    And--perilous treasure-trove--dug out\n      The gems that fain would be concealed!\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\n'What now shall I say of rank and power, whereby, because ye know not\ntrue power and dignity, ye hope to reach the sky? Yet, when rank and\npower have fallen to the worst of men, did ever an Etna, belching forth\nflame and fiery deluge, work such mischief? Verily, as I think, thou\ndost remember how thine ancestors sought to abolish the consular power,\nwhich had been the foundation of their liberties, on account of the\noverweening pride of the consuls, and how for that self-same pride they\nhad already abolished the kingly title! And if, as happens but rarely,\nthese prerogatives are conferred on virtuous men, it is only the virtue\nof those who exercise them that pleases. So it appears that honour\ncometh not to virtue from rank, but to rank from virtue. Look, too, at\nthe nature of that power which ye find so attractive and glorious! Do ye\nnever consider, ye creatures of earth, what ye are, and over whom ye\nexercise your fancied lordship? Suppose, now, that in the mouse tribe\nthere should rise up one claiming rights and powers for himself above\nthe rest, would ye not laugh consumedly? Yet if thou lookest to his body\nalone, what creature canst thou find more feeble than man, who\noftentimes is killed by the bite of a fly, or by some insect creeping\ninto the inner passage of his system! Yet what rights can one exercise\nover another, save only as regards the body, and that which is lower\nthan the body--I mean fortune? What! wilt thou bind with thy mandates\nthe free spirit? Canst thou force from its due tranquillity the mind\nthat is firmly composed by reason? A tyrant thought to drive a man of\nfree birth to reveal his accomplices in a conspiracy, but the prisoner\nbit off his tongue and threw it into the furious tyrant's face; thus,\nthe tortures which the tyrant thought the instrument of his cruelty the\nsage made an opportunity for heroism. Moreover, what is there that one\nman can do to another which he himself may not have to undergo in his\nturn? We are told that Busiris, who used to kill his guests, was himself\nslain by his guest, Hercules. Regulus had thrown into bonds many of the\nCarthaginians whom he had taken in war; soon after he himself submitted\nhis hands to the chains of the vanquished. Then, thinkest thou that man\nhath any power who cannot prevent another's being able to do to him what\nhe himself can do to others?\n\n'Besides, if there were any element of natural and proper good in rank\nand power, they would never come to the utterly bad, since opposites are\nnot wont to be associated. Nature brooks not the union of contraries.\nSo, seeing there is no doubt that wicked wretches are oftentimes set in\nhigh places, it is also clear that things which suffer association with\nthe worst of men cannot be good in their own nature. Indeed, this\njudgment may with some reason be passed concerning all the gifts of\nfortune which fall so plentifully to all the most wicked. This ought\nalso to be considered here, I think: No one doubts a man to be brave in\nwhom he has observed a brave spirit residing. It is plain that one who\nis endowed with speed is swift-footed. So also music makes men musical,\nthe healing art physicians, rhetoric public speakers. For each of these\nhas naturally its own proper working; there is no confusion with the\neffects of contrary things--nay, even of itself it rejects what is\nincompatible. And yet wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed, nor has\npower ever made him master of himself whom vicious lusts kept bound in\nindissoluble fetters; dignity conferred on the wicked not only fails to\nmake them worthy, but contrarily reveals and displays their\nunworthiness. Why does it so happen? Because ye take pleasure in calling\nby false names things whose nature is quite incongruous thereto--by\nnames which are easily proved false by the very effects of the things\nthemselves; even so it is; these riches, that power, this dignity, are\nnone of them rightly so called. Finally, we may draw the same conclusion\nconcerning the whole sphere of Fortune, within which there is plainly\nnothing to be truly desired, nothing of intrinsic excellence; for she\nneither always joins herself to the good, nor does she make good men of\nthose to whom she is united.'\n\n\n\nSONG VI. NERO'S INFAMY.\n\n\n    We know what mischief dire he wrought--\n      Rome fired, the Fathers slain--\n    Whose hand with brother's slaughter wet\n      A mother's blood did stain.\n\n    No pitying tear his cheek bedewed,\n      As on the corse he gazed;\n    That mother's beauty, once so fair,\n      A critic's voice appraised.\n\n    Yet far and wide, from East to West,\n      His sway the nations own;\n    And scorching South and icy North\n      Obey his will alone.\n\n    Did, then, high power a curb impose\n      On Nero's phrenzied will?\n    Ah, woe when to the evil heart\n      Is joined the sword to kill!\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n\nThen said I: 'Thou knowest thyself that ambition for worldly success\nhath but little swayed me. Yet I have desired opportunity for action,\nlest virtue, in default of exercise, should languish away.'\n\nThen she: 'This is that \"last infirmity\" which is able to allure minds\nwhich, though of noble quality, have not yet been moulded to any\nexquisite refinement by the perfecting of the virtues--I mean, the love\nof glory--and fame for high services rendered to the commonweal. And yet\nconsider with me how poor and unsubstantial a thing this glory is! The\nwhole of this earth's globe, as thou hast learnt from the demonstration\nof astronomy, compared with the expanse of heaven, is found no bigger\nthan a point; that is to say, if measured by the vastness of heaven's\nsphere, it is held to occupy absolutely no space at all. Now, of this so\ninsignificant portion of the universe, it is about a fourth part, as\nPtolemy's proofs have taught us, which is inhabited by living creatures\nknown to us. If from this fourth part you take away in thought all that\nis usurped by seas and marshes, or lies a vast waste of waterless\ndesert, barely is an exceeding narrow area left for human habitation.\nYou, then, who are shut in and prisoned in this merest fraction of a\npoint's space, do ye take thought for the blazoning of your fame, for\nthe spreading abroad of your renown? Why, what amplitude or magnificence\nhas glory when confined to such narrow and petty limits?\n\n'Besides, the straitened bounds of this scant dwelling-place are\ninhabited by many nations differing widely in speech, in usages, in mode\nof life; to many of these, from the difficulty of travel, from\ndiversities of speech, from want of commercial intercourse, the fame not\nonly of individual men, but even of cities, is unable to reach. Why, in\nCicero's days, as he himself somewhere points out, the fame of the Roman\nRepublic had not yet crossed the Caucasus, and yet by that time her\nname had grown formidable to the Parthians and other nations of those\nparts. Seest thou, then, how narrow, how confined, is the glory ye take\npains to spread abroad and extend! Can the fame of a single Roman\npenetrate where the glory of the Roman name fails to pass? Moreover, the\ncustoms and institutions of different races agree not together, so that\nwhat is deemed praise worthy in one country is thought punishable in\nanother. Wherefore, if any love the applause of fame, it shall not\nprofit him to publish his name among many peoples. Then, each must be\ncontent to have the range of his glory limited to his own people; the\nsplendid immortality of fame must be confined within the bounds of a\nsingle race.\n\n'Once more, how many of high renown in their own times have been lost in\noblivion for want of a record! Indeed, of what avail are written records\neven, which, with their authors, are overtaken by the dimness of age\nafter a somewhat longer time? But ye, when ye think on future fame,\nfancy it an immortality that ye are begetting for yourselves. Why, if\nthou scannest the infinite spaces of eternity, what room hast thou left\nfor rejoicing in the durability of thy name? Verily, if a single\nmoment's space be compared with ten thousand years, it has a certain\nrelative duration, however little, since each period is definite. But\nthis same number of years--ay, and a number many times as great--cannot\neven be compared with endless duration; for, indeed, finite periods may\nin a sort be compared one with another, but a finite and an infinite\nnever. So it comes to pass that fame, though it extend to ever so wide a\nspace of years, if it be compared to never-lessening eternity, seems not\nshort-lived merely, but altogether nothing. But as for you, ye know not\nhow to act aright, unless it be to court the popular breeze, and win the\nempty applause of the multitude--nay, ye abandon the superlative worth\nof conscience and virtue, and ask a recompense from the poor words of\nothers. Let me tell thee how wittily one did mock the shallowness of\nthis sort of arrogance. A certain man assailed one who had put on the\nname of philosopher as a cloak to pride and vain-glory, not for the\npractice of real virtue, and added: \"Now shall I know if thou art a\nphilosopher if thou bearest reproaches calmly and patiently.\" The other\nfor awhile affected to be patient, and, having endured to be abused,\ncried out derisively: \"_Now_, do you see that I am a philosopher?\" The\nother, with biting sarcasm, retorted: \"I should have hadst thou held thy\npeace.\" Moreover, what concern have choice spirits--for it is of such\nmen we speak, men who seek glory by virtue--what concern, I say, have\nthese with fame after the dissolution of the body in death's last hour?\nFor if men die wholly--which our reasonings forbid us to believe--there\nis no such thing as glory at all, since he to whom the glory is said to\nbelong is altogether non-existent. But if the mind, conscious of its own\nrectitude, is released from its earthly prison, and seeks heaven in free\nflight, doth it not despise all earthly things when it rejoices in its\ndeliverance from earthly bonds, and enters upon the joys of heaven?'\n\n\n\nSONG VII. GLORY MAY NOT LAST.\n\n\n    Oh, let him, who pants for glory's guerdon,\n      Deeming glory all in all,\n    Look and see how wide the heaven expandeth,\n      Earth's enclosing bounds how small!\n\n    Shame it is, if your proud-swelling glory\n      May not fill this narrow room!\n    Why, then, strive so vainly, oh, ye proud ones!\n      To escape your mortal doom?\n\n    Though your name, to distant regions bruited,\n      O'er the earth be widely spread,\n    Though full many a lofty-sounding title\n      On your house its lustre shed,\n\n    Death at all this pomp and glory spurneth\n      When his hour draweth nigh,\n    Shrouds alike th' exalted and the humble,\n      Levels lowest and most high.\n\n    Where are now the bones of stanch Fabricius?\n      Brutus, Cato--where are they?\n    Lingering fame, with a few graven letters,\n      Doth their empty name display.\n\n    But to know the great dead is not given\n      From a gilded name alone;\n    Nay, ye all alike must lie forgotten,\n      'Tis not _you_ that fame makes known.\n\n    Fondly do ye deem life's little hour\n      Lengthened by fame's mortal breath;\n    There but waits you--when this, too, is taken--\n      At the last a second death.\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\n\n'But that thou mayst not think that I wage implacable warfare against\nFortune, I own there is a time when the deceitful goddess serves men\nwell--I mean when she reveals herself, uncovers her face, and confesses\nher true character. Perhaps thou dost not yet grasp my meaning. Strange\nis the thing I am trying to express, and for this cause I can scarce\nfind words to make clear my thought. For truly I believe that Ill\nFortune is of more use to men than Good Fortune. For Good Fortune, when\nshe wears the guise of happiness, and most seems to caress, is always\nlying; Ill Fortune is always truthful, since, in changing, she shows her\ninconstancy. The one deceives, the other teaches; the one enchains the\nminds of those who enjoy her favour by the semblance of delusive good,\nthe other delivers them by the knowledge of the frail nature of\nhappiness. Accordingly, thou mayst see the one fickle, shifting as the\nbreeze, and ever self-deceived; the other sober-minded, alert, and wary,\nby reason of the very discipline of adversity. Finally, Good Fortune, by\nher allurements, draws men far from the true good; Ill Fortune ofttimes\ndraws men back to true good with grappling-irons. Again, should it be\nesteemed a trifling boon, thinkest thou, that this cruel, this odious\nFortune hath discovered to thee the hearts of thy faithful friends--that\nother hid from thee alike the faces of the true friends and of the\nfalse, but in departing she hath taken away _her_ friends, and left thee\n_thine_? What price wouldst thou not have given for this service in the\nfulness of thy prosperity when thou seemedst to thyself fortunate?\nCease, then, to seek the wealth thou hast lost, since in true friends\nthou hast found the most precious of all riches.'\n\n\n\nSONG VIII. LOVE IS LORD OF ALL.\n\n\n    Why are Nature's changes bound\n    To a fixed and ordered round?\n    What to leagued peace hath bent\n    Every warring element?\n    Wherefore doth the rosy morn\n    Rise on Phoebus' car upborne?\n    Why should Phoebe rule the night,\n    Led by Hesper's guiding light?\n    What the power that doth restrain\n    In his place the restless main,\n    That within fixed bounds he keeps,\n    Nor o'er earth in deluge sweeps?\n    Love it is that holds the chains,\n    Love o'er sea and earth that reigns;\n    Love--whom else but sovereign Love?--\n    Love, high lord in heaven above!\n    Yet should he his care remit,\n    All that now so close is knit\n    In sweet love and holy peace,\n    Would no more from conflict cease,\n    But with strife's rude shock and jar\n    All the world's fair fabric mar.\n\n    Tribes and nations Love unites\n    By just treaty's sacred rites;\n    Wedlock's bonds he sanctifies\n    By affection's softest ties.\n    Love appointeth, as is due,\n    Faithful laws to comrades true--\n    Love, all-sovereign Love!--oh, then,\n    Ye are blest, ye sons of men,\n    If the love that rules the sky\n    In your hearts is throned on high!\n\n\n\n</CHAPTER>\n\nBOOK III.\n\nTRUE HAPPINESS AND FALSE.\n\n\n     SUMMARY\n\n     CH. I. Boethius beseeches Philosophy to continue. She promises to\n     lead him to true happiness.--CH. II. Happiness is the one end which\n     all created beings seek. They aim variously at (_a_) wealth, or\n     (_b_) rank, or (_c_) sovereignty, or (_d_) glory, or (_e_)\n     pleasure, because they think thereby to attain either (_a_)\n     contentment, (_b_) reverence, (_c_) power, (_d_) renown, or (_e_)\n     gladness of heart, in one or other of which they severally imagine\n     happiness to consist.--CH. III. Philosophy proceeds to consider\n     whether happiness can really be secured in any of these ways, (_a_)\n     So far from bringing contentment, riches only add to men's\n     wants.--CH. IV. (_b_) High position cannot of itself win respect.\n     Titles command no reverence in distant and barbarous lands. They\n     even fall into contempt through lapse of time.--CH. V. (_c_)\n     Sovereignty cannot even bestow safety. History tells of the\n     downfall of kings and their ministers. Tyrants go in fear of their\n     lives. --CH. VI. (_d_) Fame conferred on the unworthy is but\n     disgrace. The splendour of noble birth is not a man's own, but his\n     ancestors'.--CH. VII. (_e_) Pleasure begins in the restlessness of\n     desire, and ends in repentance. Even the pure pleasures of home may\n     turn to gall and bitterness.--CH. VIII. All fail, then, to give\n     what they promise. There is, moreover, some accompanying evil\n     involved in each of these aims. Beauty and bodily strength are\n     likewise of little worth. In strength man is surpassed by the\n     brutes; beauty is but outward show.--CH. IX. The source of men's\n     error in following these phantoms of good is that _they break up\n     and separate that which is in its nature one and indivisible_.\n     Contentment, power, reverence, renown, and joy are essentially\n     bound up one with the other, and, if they are to be attained at\n     all, must be attained _together_. True happiness, if it can be\n     found, will include them all. But it cannot be found among the\n     perishable things hitherto considered.--CH. X. Such a happiness\n     necessarily exists. Its seat is in God. Nay, God is very happiness,\n     and in a manner, therefore, the happy man partakes also of the\n     Divine nature. All other ends are relative to this good, since they\n     are all pursued only for the sake of good; it is _good_ which is\n     the sole ultimate end. And since the sole end is also happiness, it\n     is plain that this good and happiness are in essence the same.--CH.\n     XI. Unity is another aspect of goodness. Now, all things subsist so\n     long only as they preserve the unity of their being; when they lose\n     this unity, they perish. But the bent of nature forces all things\n     (plants and inanimate things, as well as animals) to strive to\n     continue in life. Therefore, all things desire unity, for unity is\n     essential to life. But unity and goodness were shown to be the\n     same. Therefore, good is proved to be the end towards which the\n     whole universe tends.[E]--CH. XII. Boethius acknowledges that he is\n     but recollecting truths he once knew. Philosophy goes on to show\n     that it is goodness also by which the whole world is governed.[F]\n     Boethius professes compunction for his former folly. But the\n     paradox of evil is introduced, and he is once more perplexed.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[E] This solves the second of the points left in doubt at the end of bk.\ni., ch. vi.\n\n[F] This solves the third. No distinct account is given of the first,\nbut an answer may be gathered from the general argument of bks. ii.,\niii., and iv.\n\n\n\n\n<CHAPTER>\nBOOK III. I.\n\n\nShe ceased, but I stood fixed by the sweetness of the song in wonderment\nand eager expectation, my ears still strained to listen. And then after\na little I said: 'Thou sovereign solace of the stricken soul, what\nrefreshment hast thou brought me, no less by the sweetness of thy\nsinging than by the weightiness of thy discourse! Verily, I think not\nthat I shall hereafter be unequal to the blows of Fortune. Wherefore, I\nno longer dread the remedies which thou saidst were something too severe\nfor my strength; nay, rather, I am eager to hear of them and call for\nthem with all vehemence.'\n\nThen said she: 'I marked thee fastening upon my words silently and\nintently, and I expected, or--to speak more truly--I myself brought\nabout in thee, this state of mind. What now remains is of such sort that\nto the taste indeed it is biting, but when received within it turns to\nsweetness. But whereas thou dost profess thyself desirous of hearing,\nwith what ardour wouldst thou not burn didst thou but perceive whither\nit is my task to lead thee!'\n\n'Whither?' said I.\n\n'To true felicity,' said she, 'which even now thy spirit sees in dreams,\nbut cannot behold in very truth, while thine eyes are engrossed with\nsemblances.'\n\nThen said I: 'I beseech thee, do thou show to me her true shape without\na moment's loss.'\n\n'Gladly will I, for thy sake,' said she. 'But first I will try to sketch\nin words, and describe a cause which is more familiar to thee, that,\nwhen thou hast viewed this carefully, thou mayst turn thy eyes the other\nway, and recognise the beauty of true happiness.'\n\n\n\nSONG I. THE THORNS OF ERROR.\n\n\n    Who fain would sow the fallow field,\n      And see the growing corn,\n    Must first remove the useless weeds,\n      The bramble and the thorn.\n\n    After ill savour, honey's taste\n      Is to the mouth more sweet;\n    After the storm, the twinkling stars\n      The eyes more cheerly greet.\n\n    When night hath past, the bright dawn comes\n      In car of rosy hue;\n    So drive the false bliss from thy mind,\n      And thou shall see the true.\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nFor a little space she remained in a fixed gaze, withdrawn, as it were,\ninto the august chamber of her mind; then she thus began:\n\n'All mortal creatures in those anxious aims which find employment in so\nmany varied pursuits, though they take many paths, yet strive to reach\none goal--the goal of happiness. Now, _the good_ is that which, when a\nman hath got, he can lack nothing further. This it is which is the\nsupreme good of all, containing within itself all particular good; so\nthat if anything is still wanting thereto, this cannot be the supreme\ngood, since something would be left outside which might be desired. 'Tis\nclear, then, that happiness is a state perfected by the assembling\ntogether of all good things. To this state, as we have said, all men try\nto attain, but by different paths. For the desire of the true good is\nnaturally implanted in the minds of men; only error leads them aside out\nof the way in pursuit of the false. Some, deeming it the highest good to\nwant for nothing, spare no pains to attain affluence; others, judging\nthe good to be that to which respect is most worthily paid, strive to\nwin the reverence of their fellow-citizens by the attainment of official\ndignity. Some there are who fix the chief good in supreme power; these\neither wish themselves to enjoy sovereignty, or try to attach themselves\nto those who have it. Those, again, who think renown to be something of\nsupreme excellence are in haste to spread abroad the glory of their name\neither through the arts of war or of peace. A great many measure the\nattainment of good by joy and gladness of heart; these think it the\nheight of happiness to give themselves over to pleasure. Others there\nare, again, who interchange the ends and means one with the other in\ntheir aims; for instance, some want riches for the sake of pleasure and\npower, some covet power either for the sake of money or in order to\nbring renown to their name. So it is on these ends, then, that the aim\nof human acts and wishes is centred, and on others like to these--for\ninstance, noble birth and popularity, which seem to compass a certain\nrenown; wife and children, which are sought for the sweetness of their\npossession; while as for friendship, the most sacred kind indeed is\ncounted in the category of virtue, not of fortune; but other kinds are\nentered upon for the sake of power or of enjoyment. And as for bodily\nexcellences, it is obvious that they are to be ranged with the above.\nFor strength and stature surely manifest power; beauty and fleetness of\nfoot bring celebrity; health brings pleasure. It is plain, then, that\nthe only object sought for in all these ways is _happiness_. For that\nwhich each seeks in preference to all else, that is in his judgment the\nsupreme good. And we have defined the supreme good to be happiness.\nTherefore, that state which each wishes in preference to all others is\nin his judgment happy.\n\n'Thou hast, then, set before thine eyes something like a scheme of human\nhappiness--wealth, rank, power, glory, pleasure. Now Epicurus, from a\nsole regard to these considerations, with some consistency concluded the\nhighest good to be pleasure, because all the other objects seem to bring\nsome delight to the soul. But to return to human pursuits and aims:\nman's mind seeks to recover its proper good, in spite of the mistiness\nof its recollection, but, like a drunken man, knows not by what path to\nreturn home. Think you they are wrong who strive to escape want? Nay,\ntruly there is nothing which can so well complete happiness as a state\nabounding in all good things, needing nothing from outside, but wholly\nself-sufficing. Do they fall into error who deem that which is best to\nbe also best deserving to receive the homage of reverence? Not at all.\nThat cannot possibly be vile and contemptible, to attain which the\nendeavours of nearly all mankind are directed. Then, is power not to be\nreckoned in the category of good? Why, can that which is plainly more\nefficacious than anything else be esteemed a thing feeble and void of\nstrength? Or is renown to be thought of no account? Nay, it cannot be\nignored that the highest renown is constantly associated with the\nhighest excellence. And what need is there to say that happiness is not\nhaunted by care and gloom, nor exposed to trouble and vexation, since\nthat is a condition we ask of the very least of things, from the\npossession and enjoyment of which we expect delight? So, then, these are\nthe blessings men wish to win; they want riches, rank, sovereignty,\nglory, pleasure, because they believe that by these means they will\nsecure independence, reverence, power, renown, and joy of heart.\nTherefore, it is _the good_ which men seek by such divers courses; and\nherein is easily shown the might of Nature's power, since, although\nopinions are so various and discordant, yet they agree in cherishing\n_good_ as the end.'\n\n\n\nSONG II. THE BENT OF NATURE.\n\n\n    How the might of Nature sways\n    All the world in ordered ways,\n    How resistless laws control\n    Each least portion of the whole--\n    Fain would I in sounding verse\n    On my pliant strings rehearse.\n\n    Lo, the lion captive ta'en\n    Meekly wears his gilded chain;\n    Yet though he by hand be fed,\n    Though a master's whip he dread,\n    If but once the taste of gore\n    Whet his cruel lips once more,\n    Straight his slumbering fierceness wakes,\n    With one roar his bonds he breaks,\n    And first wreaks his vengeful force\n    On his trainer's mangled corse.\n\n    And the woodland songster, pent\n    In forlorn imprisonment,\n    Though a mistress' lavish care\n    Store of honeyed sweets prepare;\n    Yet, if in his narrow cage,\n    As he hops from bar to bar,\n    He should spy the woods afar,\n    Cool with sheltering foliage,\n    All these dainties he will spurn,\n    To the woods his heart will turn;\n    Only for the woods he longs,\n    Pipes the woods in all his songs.\n\n    To rude force the sapling bends,\n    While the hand its pressure lends;\n    If the hand its pressure slack,\n    Straight the supple wood springs back.\n    Phoebus in the western main\n    Sinks; but swift his car again\n    By a secret path is borne\n    To the wonted gates of morn.\n\n    Thus are all things seen to yearn\n    In due time for due return;\n    And no order fixed may stay,\n    Save which in th' appointed way\n    Joins the end to the beginning\n    In a steady cycle spinning.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\n'Ye, too, creatures of earth, have some glimmering of your origin,\nhowever faint, and though in a vision dim and clouded, yet in some wise,\nnotwithstanding, ye discern the true end of happiness, and so the aim of\nnature leads you thither--to that true good--while error in many forms\nleads you astray therefrom. For reflect whether men are able to win\nhappiness by those means through which they think to reach the proposed\nend. Truly, if either wealth, rank, or any of the rest, bring with them\nanything of such sort as seems to have nothing wanting to it that is\ngood, we, too, acknowledge that some are made happy by the acquisition\nof these things. But if they are not able to fulfil their promises, and,\nmoreover, lack many good things, is not the happiness men seek in them\nclearly discovered to be a false show? Therefore do I first ask thee\nthyself, who but lately wert living in affluence, amid all that\nabundance of wealth, was thy mind never troubled in consequence of some\nwrong done to thee?'\n\n'Nay,' said I, 'I cannot ever remember a time when my mind was so\ncompletely at peace as not to feel the pang of some uneasiness.'\n\n'Was it not because either something was absent which thou wouldst not\nhave absent, or present which thou wouldst have away?'\n\n'Yes,' said I.\n\n'Then, thou didst want the presence of the one, the absence of the\nother?'\n\n'Admitted.'\n\n'But a man lacks that of which he is in want?'\n\n'He does.'\n\n'And he who lacks something is not in all points self-sufficing?'\n\n'No; certainly not,' said I.\n\n'So wert thou, then, in the plenitude of thy wealth, supporting this\ninsufficiency?'\n\n'I must have been.'\n\n'Wealth, then, cannot make its possessor independent and free from all\nwant, yet this was what it seemed to promise. Moreover, I think this\nalso well deserves to be considered--that there is nothing in the\nspecial nature of money to hinder its being taken away from those who\npossess it against their will.'\n\n'I admit it.'\n\n'Why, of course, when every day the stronger wrests it from the weaker\nwithout his consent. Else, whence come lawsuits, except in seeking to\nrecover moneys which have been taken away against their owner's will by\nforce or fraud?'\n\n'True,' said I.\n\n'Then, everyone will need some extraneous means of protection to keep\nhis money safe.'\n\n'Who can venture to deny it?'\n\n'Yet he would not, unless he possessed the money which it is possible to\nlose.'\n\n'No; he certainly would not.'\n\n'Then, we have worked round to an opposite conclusion: the wealth which\nwas thought to make a man independent rather puts him in need of further\nprotection. How in the world, then, can want be driven away by riches?\nCannot the rich feel hunger? Cannot they thirst? Are not the limbs of\nthe wealthy sensitive to the winter's cold? \"But,\" thou wilt say, \"the\nrich have the wherewithal to sate their hunger, the means to get rid of\nthirst and cold.\" True enough; want can thus be soothed by riches,\nwholly removed it cannot be. For if this ever-gaping, ever-craving want\nis glutted by wealth, it needs must be that the want itself which can be\nso glutted still remains. I do not speak of how very little suffices for\nnature, and how for avarice nothing is enough. Wherefore, if wealth\ncannot get rid of want, and makes new wants of its own, how can ye\nbelieve that it bestows independence?'\n\n\n\nSONG III. THE INSATIABLENESS OF AVARICE.\n\n\n    Though the covetous grown wealthy\n      See his piles of gold rise high;\n    Though he gather store of treasure\n      That can never satisfy;\n    Though with pearls his gorget blazes,\n      Rarest that the ocean yields;\n    Though a hundred head of oxen\n      Travail in his ample fields;\n    Ne'er shall carking care forsake him\n      While he draws this vital breath,\n    And his riches go not with him,\n      When his eyes are closed in death.\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\n'Well, but official dignity clothes him to whom it comes with honour and\nreverence! Have, then, offices of state such power as to plant virtue in\nthe minds of their possessors, and drive out vice? Nay, they are rather\nwont to signalize iniquity than to chase it away, and hence arises our\nindignation that honours so often fall to the most iniquitous of men.\nAccordingly, Catullus calls Nonius an \"ulcer-spot,\" though \"sitting in\nthe curule chair.\" Dost not see what infamy high position brings upon\nthe bad? Surely their unworthiness will be less conspicuous if their\nrank does not draw upon them the public notice! In thy own case, wouldst\nthou ever have been induced by all these perils to think of sharing\noffice with Decoratus, since thou hast discerned in him the spirit of a\nrascally parasite and informer? No; we cannot deem men worthy of\nreverence on account of their office, whom we deem unworthy of the\noffice itself. But didst thou see a man endued with wisdom, couldst thou\nsuppose him not worthy of reverence, nor of that wisdom with which he\nwas endued?'\n\n'No; certainly not.'\n\n'There is in Virtue a dignity of her own which she forthwith passes over\nto those to whom she is united. And since public honours cannot do this,\nit is clear that they do not possess the true beauty of dignity. And\nhere this well deserves to be noticed--that if a man is the more scorned\nin proportion as he is despised by a greater number, high position not\nonly fails to win reverence for the wicked, but even loads them the more\nwith contempt by drawing more attention to them. But not without\nretribution; for the wicked pay back a return in kind to the dignities\nthey put on by the pollution of their touch. Perhaps, too, another\nconsideration may teach thee to confess that true reverence cannot come\nthrough these counterfeit dignities. It is this: If one who had been\nmany times consul chanced to visit barbaric lands, would his office win\nhim the reverence of the barbarians? And yet if reverence were the\nnatural effect of dignities, they would not forego their proper function\nin any part of the world, even as fire never anywhere fails to give\nforth heat. But since this effect is not due to their own efficacy, but\nis attached to them by the mistaken opinion of mankind, they disappear\nstraightway when they are set before those who do not esteem them\ndignities. Thus the case stands with foreign peoples. But does their\nrepute last for ever, even in the land of their origin? Why, the\nprefecture, which was once a great power, is now an empty name--a burden\nmerely on the senator's fortune; the commissioner of the public corn\nsupply was once a personage--now what is more contemptible than this\noffice? For, as we said just now, that which hath no true comeliness of\nits own now receives, now loses, lustre at the caprice of those who have\nto do with it. So, then, if dignities cannot win men reverence, if they\nare actually sullied by the contamination of the wicked, if they lose\ntheir splendour through time's changes, if they come into contempt\nmerely for lack of public estimation, what precious beauty have they in\nthemselves, much less to give to others?'\n\n\n\nSONG IV. DISGRACE OF HONOURS CONFERRED BY A TYRANT.\n\n\n    Though royal purple soothes his pride,\n      And snowy pearls his neck adorn,\n    Nero in all his riot lives\n      The mark of universal scorn.\n\n    Yet he on reverend heads conferred\n      Th' inglorious honours of the state.\n    Shall we, then, deem them truly blessed\n      Whom such preferment hath made great?\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\n'Well, then, does sovereignty and the intimacy of kings prove able to\nconfer power? Why, surely does not the happiness of kings endure for\never? And yet antiquity is full of examples, and these days also, of\nkings whose happiness has turned into calamity. How glorious a power,\nwhich is not even found effectual for its own preservation! But if\nhappiness has its source in sovereign power, is not happiness\ndiminished, and misery inflicted in its stead, in so far as that power\nfalls short of completeness? Yet, however widely human sovereignty be\nextended, there must still be more peoples left, over whom each several\nking holds no sway. Now, at whatever point the power on which happiness\ndepends ceases, here powerlessness steals in and makes wretchedness; so,\nby this way of reckoning, there must needs be a balance of wretchedness\nin the lot of the king. The tyrant who had made trial of the perils of\nhis condition figured the fears that haunt a throne under the image of a\nsword hanging over a man's head.[G] What sort of power, then, is this\nwhich cannot drive away the gnawings of anxiety, or shun the stings of\nterror? Fain would they themselves have lived secure, but they cannot;\nthen they boast about their power! Dost thou count him to possess power\nwhom thou seest to wish what he cannot bring to pass? Dost thou count\nhim to possess power who encompasses himself with a body-guard, who\nfears those he terrifies more than they fear him, who, to keep up the\nsemblance of power, is himself at the mercy of his slaves? Need I say\nanything of the friends of kings, when I show royal dominion itself so\nutterly and miserably weak--why ofttimes the royal power in its\nplenitude brings them low, ofttimes involves them in its fall? Nero\ndrove his friend and preceptor, Seneca, to the choice of the manner of\nhis death. Antoninus exposed Papinianus, who was long powerful at\ncourt, to the swords of the soldiery. Yet each of these was willing to\nrenounce his power. Seneca tried to surrender his wealth also to Nero,\nand go into retirement; but neither achieved his purpose. When they\ntottered, their very greatness dragged them down. What manner of thing,\nthen, is this power which keeps men in fear while they possess it--which\nwhen thou art fain to keep, thou art not safe, and when thou desirest to\nlay it aside thou canst not rid thyself of? Are friends any protection\nwho have been attached by fortune, not by virtue? Nay; him whom good\nfortune has made a friend, ill fortune will make an enemy. And what\nplague is more effectual to do hurt than a foe of one's own household?'\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[G] The sword of Damocles.\n\n\nSONG V. SELF-MASTERY.\n\n\n    Who on power sets his aim,\n    First must his own spirit tame;\n    He must shun his neck to thrust\n    'Neath th' unholy yoke of lust.\n    For, though India's far-off land\n    Bow before his wide command,\n    Utmost Thule homage pay--\n    If he cannot drive away\n    Haunting care and black distress,\n    In his power, he's powerless.\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\n'Again, how misleading, how base, a thing ofttimes is glory! Well does\nthe tragic poet exclaim:\n\n    '\"Oh, fond Repute, how many a time and oft\n    Hast them raised high in pride the base-born churl!\"\n\nFor many have won a great name through the mistaken beliefs of the\nmultitude--and what can be imagined more shameful than that? Nay, they\nwho are praised falsely must needs themselves blush at their own\npraises! And even when praise is won by merit, still, how does it add to\nthe good conscience of the wise man who measures his good not by popular\nrepute, but by the truth of inner conviction? And if at all it does seem\na fair thing to get this same renown spread abroad, it follows that any\nfailure so to spread it is held foul. But if, as I set forth but now,\nthere must needs be many tribes and peoples whom the fame of any single\nman cannot reach, it follows that he whom thou esteemest glorious seems\nall inglorious in a neighbouring quarter of the globe. As to popular\nfavour, I do not think it even worthy of mention in this place, since it\nnever cometh of judgment, and never lasteth steadily.\n\n'Then, again, who does not see how empty, how foolish, is the fame of\nnoble birth? Why, if the nobility is based on renown, the renown is\nanother's! For, truly, nobility seems to be a sort of reputation coming\nfrom the merits of ancestors. But if it is the praise which brings\nrenown, of necessity it is they who are praised that are famous.\nWherefore, the fame of another clothes thee not with splendour if thou\nhast none of thine own. So, if there is any excellence in nobility of\nbirth, methinks it is this alone--that it would seem to impose upon the\nnobly born the obligation not to degenerate from the virtue of their\nancestors.'\n\n\n\nSONG VI. TRUE NOBILITY.\n\n\n    All men are of one kindred stock, though scattered far and wide;\n    For one is Father of us all--one doth for all provide.\n    He gave the sun his golden beams, the moon her silver horn;\n    He set mankind upon the earth, as stars the heavens adorn.\n    He shut a soul--a heaven-born soul--within the body's frame;\n    The noble origin he gave each mortal wight may claim.\n    Why boast ye, then, so loud of race and high ancestral line?\n    If ye behold your being's source, and God's supreme design,\n    None is degenerate, none base, unless by taint of sin\n    And cherished vice he foully stain his heavenly origin.\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n\n'Then, what shall I say of the pleasures of the body? The lust thereof\nis full of uneasiness; the sating, of repentance. What sicknesses, what\nintolerable pains, are they wont to bring on the bodies of those who\nenjoy them--the fruits of iniquity, as it were! Now, what sweetness the\nstimulus of pleasure may have I do not know. But that the issues of\npleasure are painful everyone may understand who chooses to recall the\nmemory of his own fleshly lusts. Nay, if these can make happiness, there\nis no reason why the beasts also should not be happy, since all their\nefforts are eagerly set upon satisfying the bodily wants. I know,\nindeed, that the sweetness of wife and children should be right comely,\nyet only too true to nature is what was said of one--that he found in\nhis sons his tormentors. And how galling such a contingency would be, I\nmust needs put thee in mind, since thou hast never in any wise suffered\nsuch experiences, nor art thou now under any uneasiness. In such a case,\nI agree with my servant Euripides, who said that a man without children\nwas fortunate in his misfortune.'[H]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[H] Paley translates the lines in Euripides' 'Andromache': 'They [the\nchildless] are indeed spared from much pain and sorrow, but their\nsupposed happiness is after all but wretchedness.' Euripides' meaning is\ntherefore really just the reverse of that which Boethius makes it. See\nEuripides, 'Andromache,' Il. 418-420.\n\n\n\nSONG VII. PLEASURE'S STING.\n\n\n        This is the way of Pleasure:\n    She stings them that despoil her;\n    And, like the winged toiler\n        Who's lost her honeyed treasure,\n      She flies, but leaves her smart\n      Deep-rankling in the heart.\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\n\n'It is beyond doubt, then, that these paths do not lead to happiness;\nthey cannot guide anyone to the promised goal. Now, I will very briefly\nshow what serious evils are involved in following them. Just consider.\nIs it thy endeavour to heap up money? Why, thou must wrest it from its\npresent possessor! Art thou minded to put on the splendour of official\ndignity? Thou must beg from those who have the giving of it; thou who\ncovetest to outvie others in honour must lower thyself to the humble\nposture of petition. Dost thou long for power? Thou must face perils,\nfor thou wilt be at the mercy of thy subjects' plots. Is glory thy aim?\nThou art lured on through all manner of hardships, and there is an end\nto thy peace of mind. Art fain to lead a life of pleasure? Yet who does\nnot scorn and contemn one who is the slave of the weakest and vilest of\nthings--the body? Again, on how slight and perishable a possession do\nthey rely who set before themselves bodily excellences! Can ye ever\nsurpass the elephant in bulk or the bull in strength? Can ye excel the\ntiger in swiftness? Look upon the infinitude, the solidity, the swift\nmotion, of the heavens, and for once cease to admire things mean and\nworthless. And yet the heavens are not so much to be admired on this\naccount as for the reason which guides them. Then, how transient is the\nlustre of beauty! how soon gone!--more fleeting than the fading bloom of\nspring flowers. And yet if, as Aristotle says, men should see with the\neyes of Lynceus, so that their sight might pierce through obstructions,\nwould not that body of Alcibiades, so gloriously fair in outward\nseeming, appear altogether loathsome when all its inward parts lay open\nto the view? Therefore, it is not thy own nature that makes thee seem\nbeautiful, but the weakness of the eyes that see thee. Yet prize as\nunduly as ye will that body's excellences; so long as ye know that this\nthat ye admire, whatever its worth, can be dissolved away by the feeble\nflame of a three days' fever. From all which considerations we may\nconclude as a whole, that these things which cannot make good the\nadvantages they promise, which are never made perfect by the assemblage\nof all good things--these neither lead as by-ways to happiness, nor\nthemselves make men completely happy.'\n\n\n\nSONG VIII. HUMAN FOLLY.\n\n\n      Alas! how wide astray\n    Doth Ignorance these wretched mortals lead\n      From Truth's own way!\n      For not on leafy stems\n    Do ye within the green wood look for gold,\n      Nor strip the vine for gems;\n\n      Your nets ye do not spread\n    Upon the hill-tops, that the groaning board\n      With fish be furnished;\n      If ye are fain to chase\n    The bounding goat, ye sweep not in vain search\n      The ocean's ruffled face.\n\n      The sea's far depths they know,\n    Each hidden nook, wherein the waves o'erwash\n      The pearl as white as snow;\n      Where lurks the Tyrian shell,\n    Where fish and prickly urchins do abound,\n      All this they know full well.\n\n      But not to know or care\n    Where hidden lies the good all hearts desire--\n      This blindness they can bear;\n      With gaze on earth low-bent,\n    They seek for that which reacheth far beyond\n      The starry firmament.\n\n      What curse shall I call down\n    On hearts so dull? May they the race still run\n      For wealth and high renown!\n      And when with much ado\n    The false good they have grasped--ah, then too late!--\n      May they discern the true!\n\n\n\nIX.\n\n\n'This much may well suffice to set forth the form of false happiness; if\nthis is now clear to thine eyes, the next step is to show what true\nhappiness is.'\n\n'Indeed,' said I, 'I see clearly enough that neither is independence to\nbe found in wealth, nor power in sovereignty, nor reverence in\ndignities, nor fame in glory, nor true joy in pleasures.'\n\n'Hast thou discerned also the causes why this is so?'\n\n'I seem to have some inkling, but I should like to learn more at large\nfrom thee.'\n\n'Why, truly the reason is hard at hand. _That which is simple and\nindivisible by nature human error separates_, and transforms from the\ntrue and perfect to the false and imperfect. Dost thou imagine that\nwhich lacketh nothing can want power?'\n\n'Certainly not.'\n\n'Right; for if there is any feebleness of strength in anything, in this\nthere must necessarily be need of external protection.'\n\n'That is so.'\n\n'Accordingly, the nature of independence and power is one and the same.'\n\n'It seems so.'\n\n'Well, but dost think that anything of such a nature as this can be\nlooked upon with contempt, or is it rather of all things most worthy of\nveneration?'\n\n'Nay; there can be no doubt as to that.'\n\n'Let us, then, add reverence to independence and power, and conclude\nthese three to be one.'\n\n'We must if we will acknowledge the truth.'\n\n'Thinkest thou, then, this combination of qualities to be obscure and\nwithout distinction, or rather famous in all renown? Just consider: can\nthat want renown which has been agreed to be lacking in nothing, to be\nsupreme in power, and right worthy of honour, for the reason that it\ncannot bestow this upon itself, and so comes to appear somewhat poor in\nesteem?'\n\n'I cannot but acknowledge that, being what it is, this union of\nqualities is also right famous.'\n\n'It follows, then, that we must admit that renown is not different from\nthe other three.'\n\n'It does,' said I.\n\n'That, then, which needs nothing outside itself, which can accomplish\nall things in its own strength, which enjoys fame and compels reverence,\nmust not this evidently be also fully crowned with joy?'\n\n'In sooth, I cannot conceive,' said I, 'how any sadness can find\nentrance into such a state; wherefore I must needs acknowledge it full\nof joy--at least, if our former conclusions are to hold.'\n\n'Then, for the same reasons, this also is necessary--that independence,\npower, renown, reverence, and sweetness of delight, are different only\nin name, but in substance differ no wise one from the other.'\n\n'It is,' said I.\n\n'This, then, which is one, and simple by nature, human perversity\nseparates, and, in trying to win a part of that which has no parts,\nfails to attain not only that portion (since there are no portions), but\nalso the whole, to which it does not dream of aspiring.'\n\n'How so?' said I.\n\n'He who, to escape want, seeks riches, gives himself no concern about\npower; he prefers a mean and low estate, and also denies himself many\npleasures dear to nature to avoid losing the money which he has gained.\nBut at this rate he does not even attain to independence--a weakling\nvoid of strength, vexed by distresses, mean and despised, and buried in\nobscurity. He, again, who thirsts alone for power squanders his wealth,\ndespises pleasure, and thinks fame and rank alike worthless without\npower. But thou seest in how many ways his state also is defective.\nSometimes it happens that he lacks necessaries, that he is gnawed by\nanxieties, and, since he cannot rid himself of these inconveniences,\neven ceases to have that power which was his whole end and aim. In like\nmanner may we cast up the reckoning in case of rank, of glory, or of\npleasure. For since each one of these severally is identical with the\nrest, whosoever seeks any one of them without the others does not even\nlay hold of that one which he makes his aim.'\n\n'Well,' said I, 'what then?'\n\n'Suppose anyone desire to obtain them together, he does indeed wish for\nhappiness as a whole; but will he find it in these things which, as we\nhave proved, are unable to bestow what they promise?'\n\n'Nay; by no means,' said I.\n\n'Then, happiness must certainly not be sought in these things which\nseverally are believed to afford some one of the blessings most to be\ndesired.'\n\n'They must not, I admit. No conclusion could be more true.'\n\n'So, then, the form and the causes of false happiness are set before\nthine eyes. Now turn thy gaze to the other side; there thou wilt\nstraightway see the true happiness I promised.'\n\n'Yea, indeed, 'tis plain to the blind.' said I. 'Thou didst point it out\neven now in seeking to unfold the causes of the false. For, unless I am\nmistaken, that is true and perfect happiness which crowns one with the\nunion of independence, power, reverence, renown, and joy. And to prove\nto thee with how deep an insight I have listened--since all these are\nthe same--that which can truly bestow one of them I know to be without\ndoubt full and complete happiness.'\n\n'Happy art thou, my scholar, in this thy conviction; only one thing\nshouldst thou add.'\n\n'What is that?' said I.\n\n'Is there aught, thinkest thou, amid these mortal and perishable things\nwhich can produce a state such as this?'\n\n'Nay, surely not; and this thou hast so amply demonstrated that no word\nmore is needed.'\n\n'Well, then, these things seem to give to mortals shadows of the true\ngood, or some kind of imperfect good; but the true and perfect good they\ncannot bestow.'\n\n'Even so,' said I.\n\n'Since, then, thou hast learnt what that true happiness is, and what men\nfalsely call happiness, it now remains that thou shouldst learn from\nwhat source to seek this.'\n\n'Yes; to this I have long been eagerly looking forward.'\n\n'Well, since, as Plato maintains in the \"Timaeus,\" we ought even in the\nmost trivial matters to implore the Divine protection, what thinkest\nthou should we now do in order to deserve to find the seat of that\nhighest good?'\n\n'We must invoke the Father of all things,' said I; 'for without this no\nenterprise sets out from a right beginning.'\n\n'Thou sayest well,' said she; and forthwith lifted up her voice and\nsang:\n\n\n\nSONG IX. INVOCATION.\n\n[I] \n\n\n    Maker of earth and sky, from age to age\n    Who rul'st the world by reason; at whose word\n    Time issues from Eternity's abyss:\n    To all that moves the source of movement, fixed\n    Thyself and moveless. Thee no cause impelled\n    Extrinsic this proportioned frame to shape\n    From shapeless matter; but, deep-set within\n    Thy inmost being, the form of perfect good,\n    From envy free; and Thou didst mould the whole\n    To that supernal pattern. Beauteous\n    The world in Thee thus imaged, being Thyself\n\n\n    Most beautiful. So Thou the work didst fashion\n    In that fair likeness, bidding it put on\n    Perfection through the exquisite perfectness\n    Of every part's contrivance. Thou dost bind\n    The elements in balanced harmony,\n    So that the hot and cold, the moist and dry,\n    Contend not; nor the pure fire leaping up\n    Escape, or weight of waters whelm the earth.\n\n    Thou joinest and diffusest through the whole,\n    Linking accordantly its several parts,\n    A soul of threefold nature, moving all.\n    This, cleft in twain, and in two circles gathered,\n    Speeds in a path that on itself returns,\n    Encompassing mind's limits, and conforms\n    The heavens to her true semblance. Lesser souls\n    And lesser lives by a like ordinance\n    Thou sendest forth, each to its starry car\n    Affixing, and dost strew them far and wide\n    O'er earth and heaven. These by a law benign\n    Thou biddest turn again, and render back\n    To thee their fires. Oh, grant, almighty Father,\n    Grant us on reason's wing to soar aloft\n    To heaven's exalted height; grant us to see\n    The fount of good; grant us, the true light found,\n    To fix our steadfast eyes in vision clear\n    On Thee. Disperse the heavy mists of earth,\n    And shine in Thine own splendour. For Thou art\n    The true serenity and perfect rest\n    Of every pious soul--to see Thy face,\n    The end and the beginning--One the guide,\n    The traveller, the pathway, and the goal.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[I] The substance of this poem is taken from Plato's 'Timaeus,' 29-42.\nSee Jowett, vol. iii., pp. 448-462 (third edition).\n\n\n\nX.\n\n\n'Since now thou hast seen what is the form of the imperfect good, and\nwhat the form of the perfect also, methinks I should next show in what\nmanner this perfection of felicity is built up. And here I conceive it\nproper to inquire, first, whether any excellence, such as thou hast\nlately defined, can exist in the nature of things, lest we be deceived\nby an empty fiction of thought to which no true reality answers. But it\ncannot be denied that such does exist, and is, as it were, the source of\nall things good. For everything which is called imperfect is spoken of\nas imperfect by reason of the privation of some perfection; so it comes\nto pass that, whenever imperfection is found in any particular, there\nmust necessarily be a perfection in respect of that particular also. For\nwere there no such perfection, it is utterly inconceivable how that\nso-called _im_perfection should come into existence. Nature does not\nmake a beginning with things mutilated and imperfect; she starts with\nwhat is whole and perfect, and falls away later to these feeble and\ninferior productions. So if there is, as we showed before, a happiness\nof a frail and imperfect kind, it cannot be doubted but there is also a\nhappiness substantial and perfect.'\n\n'Most true is thy conclusion, and most sure,' said I.\n\n'Next to consider where the dwelling-place of this happiness may be. The\ncommon belief of all mankind agrees that God, the supreme of all things,\nis good. For since nothing can be imagined better than God, how can we\ndoubt Him to be good than whom there is nothing better? Now, reason\nshows God to be good in such wise as to prove that in Him is perfect\ngood. For were it not so, He would not be supreme of all things; for\nthere would be something else more excellent, possessed of perfect good,\nwhich would seem to have the advantage in priority and dignity, since it\nhas clearly appeared that all perfect things are prior to those less\ncomplete. Wherefore, lest we fall into an infinite regression, we must\nacknowledge the supreme God to be full of supreme and perfect good. But\nwe have determined that true happiness is the perfect good; therefore\ntrue happiness must dwell in the supreme Deity.'\n\n'I accept thy reasonings,' said I; 'they cannot in any wise be\ndisputed.'\n\n'But, come, see how strictly and incontrovertibly thou mayst prove this\nour assertion that the supreme Godhead hath fullest possession of the\nhighest good.'\n\n'In what way, pray?' said I.\n\n'Do not rashly suppose that He who is the Father of all things hath\nreceived that highest good of which He is said to be possessed either\nfrom some external source, or hath it as a natural endowment in such\nsort that thou mightest consider the essence of the happiness possessed,\nand of the God who possesses it, distinct and different. For if thou\ndeemest it received from without, thou mayst esteem that which gives\nmore excellent than that which has received. But Him we most worthily\nacknowledge to be the most supremely excellent of all things. If,\nhowever, it is in Him by nature, yet is logically distinct, the thought\nis inconceivable, since we are speaking of God, who is supreme of all\nthings. Who was there to join these distinct essences? Finally, when one\nthing is different from another, the things so conceived as distinct\ncannot be identical. Therefore that which of its own nature is distinct\nfrom the highest good is not itself the highest good--an impious thought\nof Him than whom, 'tis plain, nothing can be more excellent. For\nuniversally nothing can be better in nature than the source from which\nit has come; therefore on most true grounds of reason would I conclude\nthat which is the source of all things to be in its own essence the\nhighest good.'\n\n'And most justly,' said I.\n\n'But the highest good has been admitted to be happiness.'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Then,' said she, 'it is necessary to acknowledge that God is very\nhappiness.'\n\n'Yes,' said I; 'I cannot gainsay my former admissions, and I see clearly\nthat this is a necessary inference therefrom.'\n\n'Reflect, also,' said she, 'whether the same conclusion is not further\nconfirmed by considering that there cannot be two supreme goods distinct\none from the other. For the goods which are different clearly cannot be\nseverally each what the other is: wherefore neither of the two can be\nperfect, since to either the other is wanting; but since it is not\nperfect, it cannot manifestly be the supreme good. By no means, then,\ncan goods which are supreme be different one from the other. But we have\nconcluded that both happiness and God are the supreme good; wherefore\nthat which is highest Divinity must also itself necessarily be supreme\nhappiness.'\n\n'No conclusion,' said I, 'could be truer to fact, nor more soundly\nreasoned out, nor more worthy of God.'\n\n'Then, further,' said she, 'just as geometricians are wont to draw\ninferences from their demonstrations to which they give the name\n\"deductions,\" so will I add here a sort of corollary. For since men\nbecome happy by the acquisition of happiness, while happiness is very\nGodship, it is manifest that they become happy by the acquisition of\nGodship. But as by the acquisition of justice men become just, and wise\nby the acquisition of wisdom, so by parity of reasoning by acquiring\nGodship they must of necessity become gods. So every man who is happy is\na god; and though in nature God is One only, yet there is nothing to\nhinder that very many should be gods by participation in that nature.'\n\n'A fair conclusion, and a precious,' said I, 'deduction or corollary, by\nwhichever name thou wilt call it.'\n\n'And yet,' said she, 'not one whit fairer than this which reason\npersuades us to add.'\n\n'Why, what?' said I.\n\n'Why, seeing happiness has many particulars included under it, should\nall these be regarded as forming one body of happiness, as it were, made\nup of various parts, or is there some one of them which forms the full\nessence of happiness, while all the rest are relative to this?'\n\n'I would thou wouldst unfold the whole matter to me at large.'\n\n'We judge happiness to be good, do we not?'\n\n'Yea, the supreme good.'\n\n'And this superlative applies to all; for this same happiness is\nadjudged to be the completest independence, the highest power,\nreverence, renown, and pleasure.'\n\n'What then?'\n\n'Are all these goods--independence, power, and the rest--to be deemed\nmembers of happiness, as it were, or are they all relative to good as to\ntheir summit and crown?'\n\n'I understand the problem, but I desire to hear how thou wouldst solve\nit.'\n\n'Well, then, listen to the determination of the matter. Were all these\nmembers composing happiness, they would differ severally one from the\nother. For this is the nature of parts--that by their difference they\ncompose one body. All these, however, have been proved to be the same;\ntherefore they cannot possibly be members, otherwise happiness will seem\nto be built up out of one member, which cannot be.'\n\n'There can be no doubt as to that,' said I; 'but I am impatient to hear\nwhat remains.'\n\n'Why, it is manifest that all the others are relative to the good. For\nthe very reason why independence is sought is that it is judged good,\nand so power also, because it is believed to be good. The same, too, may\nbe supposed of reverence, of renown, and of pleasant delight. Good,\nthen, is the sum and source of all desirable things. That which has not\nin itself any good, either in reality or in semblance, can in no wise be\ndesired. Contrariwise, even things which by nature are not good are\ndesired as if they were truly good, if they seem to be so. Whereby it\ncomes to pass that goodness is rightly believed to be the sum and hinge\nand cause of all things desirable. Now, that for the sake of which\nanything is desired itself seems to be most wished for. For instance, if\nanyone wishes to ride for the sake of health, he does not so much wish\nfor the exercise of riding as the benefit of his health. Since, then,\nall things are sought for the sake of the good, it is not these so much\nas good itself that is sought by all. But that on account of which all\nother things are wished for was, we agreed, happiness; wherefore thus\nalso it appears that it is happiness alone which is sought. From all\nwhich it is transparently clear that the essence of absolute good and of\nhappiness is one and the same.'\n\n'I cannot see how anyone can dissent from these conclusions.'\n\n'But we have also proved that God and true happiness are one and the\nsame.'\n\n'Yes,' said I.\n\n'Then we can safely conclude, also, that God's essence is seated in\nabsolute good, and nowhere else.'\n\n\n\nSONG X. THE TRUE LIGHT.\n\n\n    Hither come, all ye whose minds\n    Lust with rosy fetters binds--\n    Lust to bondage hard compelling\n    Th' earthy souls that are his dwelling--\n    Here shall be your labour's close;\n    Here your haven of repose.\n    Come, to your one refuge press;\n    Wide it stands to all distress!\n\n    Not the glint of yellow gold\n    Down bright Hermus' current rolled;\n    Not the Tagus' precious sands,\n    Nor in far-off scorching lands\n    All the radiant gems that hide\n    Under Indus' storied tide--\n    Emerald green and glistering white--\n    Can illume our feeble sight;\n    But they rather leave the mind\n    In its native darkness blind.\n    For the fairest beams they shed\n    In earth's lowest depths were fed;\n    But the splendour that supplies\n    Strength and vigour to the skies,\n    And the universe controls,\n    Shunneth dark and ruined souls.\n    He who once hath seen _this_ light\n    Will not call the sunbeam bright.\n\n\n\nXI.\n\n\n'I quite agree,' said I, 'truly all thy reasonings hold admirably\ntogether.'\n\nThen said she: 'What value wouldst thou put upon the boon shouldst thou\ncome to the knowledge of the absolute good?'\n\n'Oh, an infinite,' said I, 'if only I were so blest as to learn to know\nGod also who is the good.'\n\n'Yet this will I make clear to thee on truest grounds of reason, if only\nour recent conclusions stand fast.'\n\n'They will.'\n\n'Have we not shown that those things which most men desire are not true\nand perfect good precisely for this cause--that they differ severally\none from another, and, seeing that one is wanting to another, they\ncannot bestow full and absolute good; but that they become the true good\nwhen they are gathered, as it were, into one form and agency, so that\nthat which is independence is likewise power, reverence, renown, and\npleasant delight, and unless they are all one and the same, they have no\nclaim to be counted among things desirable?'\n\n'Yes; this was clearly proved, and cannot in any wise be doubted.'\n\n'Now, when things are far from being good while they are different, but\nbecome good as soon as they are one, is it not true that these become\ngood by acquiring unity?'\n\n'It seems so,' said I.\n\n'But dost not thou allow that all which is good is good by participation\nin goodness?'\n\n'It is.'\n\n'Then, thou must on similar grounds admit that unity and goodness are\nthe same; for when the effects of things in their natural working differ\nnot, their essence is one and the same.'\n\n'There is no denying it.'\n\n'Now, dost thou know,' said she, 'that all which is abides and subsists\nso long as it continues one, but so soon as it ceases to be one it\nperishes and falls to pieces?'\n\n'In what way?'\n\n'Why, take animals, for example. When soul and body come together, and\ncontinue in one, this is, we say, a living creature; but when this unity\nis broken by the separation of these two, the creature dies, and is\nclearly no longer living. The body also, while it remains in one form by\nthe joining together of its members, presents a human appearance; but if\nthe separation and dispersal of the parts break up the body's unity, it\nceases to be what it was. And if we extend our survey to all other\nthings, without doubt it will manifestly appear that each several thing\nsubsists while it is one, but when it ceases to be one perishes.'\n\n'Yes; when I consider further, I see it to be even as thou sayest.'\n\n'Well, is there aught,' said she, 'which, in so far as it acts\nconformably to nature, abandons the wish for life, and desires to come\nto death and corruption?'\n\n'Looking to living creatures, which have some faults of choice, I find\nnone that, without external compulsion, forego the will to live, and of\ntheir own accord hasten to destruction. For every creature diligently\npursues the end of self-preservation, and shuns death and destruction!\nAs to herbs and trees, and inanimate things generally, I am altogether\nin doubt what to think.'\n\n'And yet there is no possibility of question about this either, since\nthou seest how herbs and trees grow in places suitable for them, where,\nas far as their nature admits, they cannot quickly wither and die. Some\nspring up in the plains, others in the mountains; some grow in marshes,\nothers cling to rocks; and others, again, find a fertile soil in the\nbarren sands; and if you try to transplant these elsewhere, they wither\naway. Nature gives to each the soil that suits it, and uses her\ndiligence to prevent any of them dying, so long as it is possible for\nthem to continue alive. Why do they all draw their nourishment from\nroots as from a mouth dipped into the earth, and distribute the strong\nbark over the pith? Why are all the softer parts like the pith deeply\nencased within, while the external parts have the strong texture of\nwood, and outside of all is the bark to resist the weather's\ninclemency, like a champion stout in endurance? Again, how great is\nnature's diligence to secure universal propagation by multiplying seed!\nWho does not know all these to be contrivances, not only for the present\nmaintenance of a species, but for its lasting continuance, generation\nafter generation, for ever? And do not also the things believed\ninanimate on like grounds of reason seek each what is proper to itself?\nWhy do the flames shoot lightly upward, while the earth presses downward\nwith its weight, if it is not that these motions and situations are\nsuitable to their respective natures? Moreover, each several thing is\npreserved by that which is agreeable to its nature, even as it is\ndestroyed by things inimical. Things solid like stones resist\ndisintegration by the close adhesion of their parts. Things fluid like\nair and water yield easily to what divides them, but swiftly flow back\nand mingle with those parts from which they have been severed, while\nfire, again, refuses to be cut at all. And we are not now treating of\nthe voluntary motions of an intelligent soul, but of the drift of\nnature. Even so is it that we digest our food without thinking about it,\nand draw our breath unconsciously in sleep; nay, even in living\ncreatures the love of life cometh not of conscious will, but from the\nprinciples of nature. For oftentimes in the stress of circumstances will\nchooses the death which nature shrinks from; and contrarily, in spite of\nnatural appetite, will restrains that work of reproduction by which\nalone the persistence of perishable creatures is maintained. So entirely\ndoes this love of self come from drift of nature, not from animal\nimpulse. Providence has furnished things with this most cogent reason\nfor continuance: they must desire life, so long as it is naturally\npossible for them to continue living. Wherefore in no way mayst thou\ndoubt but that things naturally aim at continuance of existence, and\nshun destruction.'\n\n'I confess,' said I, 'that what I lately thought uncertain, I now\nperceive to be indubitably clear.'\n\n'Now, that which seeks to subsist and continue desires to be one; for if\nits oneness be gone, its very existence cannot continue.'\n\n'True,' said I.\n\n'All things, then, desire to be one.'\n\n'I agree.'\n\n'But we have proved that one is the very same thing as good.'\n\n'We have.'\n\n'All things, then, seek the good; indeed, you may express the fact by\ndefining good as that which all desire.'\n\n'Nothing could be more truly thought out. Either there is no single end\nto which all things are relative, or else the end to which all things\nuniversally hasten must be the highest good of all.'\n\nThen she: 'Exceedingly do I rejoice, dear pupil; thine eye is now fixed\non the very central mark of truth. Moreover, herein is revealed that of\nwhich thou didst erstwhile profess thyself ignorant.'\n\n'What is that?' said I.\n\n'The end and aim of the whole universe. Surely it is that which is\ndesired of all; and, since we have concluded the good to be such, we\nought to acknowledge the end and aim of the whole universe to be \"the\ngood.\"'\n\n\n\nSONG XI. REMINISCENCE.\n\n[J]\n\n\n    Who truth pursues, who from false ways\n      His heedful steps would keep,\n    By inward light must search within\n      In meditation deep;\n    All outward bent he must repress\n    His soul's true treasure to possess.\n\n    Then all that error's mists obscured\n      Shall shine more clear than light,\n    This fleshly frame's oblivious weight\n      Hath quenched not reason quite;\n    The germs of truth still lie within,\n    Whence we by learning all may win.\n\n    Else how could ye the answer due\n      Untaught to questions give,\n    Were't not that deep within the soul\n      Truth's secret sparks do live?\n    If Plato's teaching erreth not,\n    We learn but that we have forgot.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[J] The doctrine of Reminiscence--_i.e._, that all learning is really\nrecollection--is set forth at length by Plato in the 'Meno,' 81-86, and\nthe 'Phaedo,' 72-76. See Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 40-47 and 213-218.\n\n\nXII.\n\n\nThen said I: 'With all my heart I agree with Plato; indeed, this is now\nthe second time that these things have been brought back to my\nmind--first I lost them through the clogging contact of the body; then\nafter through the stress of heavy grief.'\n\nThen she continued: 'If thou wilt reflect upon thy former admissions, it\nwill not be long before thou dost also recollect that of which erstwhile\nthou didst confess thyself ignorant.'\n\n'What is that?' said I.\n\n'The principles of the world's government,' said she.\n\n'Yes; I remember my confession, and, although I now anticipate what thou\nintendest, I have a desire to hear the argument plainly set forth.'\n\n'Awhile ago thou deemedst it beyond all doubt that God doth govern the\nworld.'\n\n'I do not think it doubtful now, nor shall I ever; and by what reasons\nI am brought to this assurance I will briefly set forth. This world\ncould never have taken shape as a single system out of parts so diverse\nand opposite were it not that there is One who joins together these so\ndiverse things. And when it had once come together, the very diversity\nof natures would have dissevered it and torn it asunder in universal\ndiscord were there not One who keeps together what He has joined. Nor\nwould the order of nature proceed so regularly, nor could its course\nexhibit motions so fixed in respect of position, time, range, efficacy,\nand character, unless there were One who, Himself abiding, disposed\nthese various vicissitudes of change. This power, whatsoever it be,\nwhereby they remain as they were created, and are kept in motion, I call\nby the name which all recognise--God.'\n\nThen said she: 'Seeing that such is thy belief, it will cost me little\ntrouble, I think, to enable thee to win happiness, and return in safety\nto thy own country. But let us give our attention to the task that we\nhave set before ourselves. Have we not counted independence in the\ncategory of happiness, and agreed that God is absolute happiness?'\n\n'Truly, we have.'\n\n'Then, He will need no external assistance for the ruling of the world.\nOtherwise, if He stands in need of aught, He will not possess complete\nindependence.'\n\n'That is necessarily so,' said I.\n\n'Then, by His own power alone He disposes all things.'\n\n'It cannot be denied.'\n\n'Now, God was proved to be absolute good.'\n\n'Yes; I remember.'\n\n'Then, He disposes all things by the agency of good, if it be true that\n_He_ rules all things by His own power whom we have agreed to be good;\nand He is, as it were, the rudder and helm by which the world's\nmechanism is kept steady and in order.'\n\n'Heartily do I agree; and, indeed, I anticipated what thou wouldst say,\nthough it may be in feeble surmise only.'\n\n'I well believe it,' said she; 'for, as I think, thou now bringest to\nthe search eyes quicker in discerning truth; but what I shall say next\nis no less plain and easy to see.'\n\n'What is it?' said I.\n\n'Why,' said she, 'since God is rightly believed to govern all things\nwith the rudder of goodness, and since all things do likewise, as I have\ntaught, haste towards good by the very aim of nature, can it be doubted\nthat His governance is willingly accepted, and that all submit\nthemselves to the sway of the Disposer as conformed and attempered to\nHis rule?'\n\n'Necessarily so,' said I; 'no rule would seem happy if it were a yoke\nimposed on reluctant wills, and not the safe-keeping of obedient\nsubjects.'\n\n'There is nothing, then, which, while it follows nature, endeavours to\nresist good.'\n\n'No; nothing.'\n\n'But if anything should, will it have the least success against Him whom\nwe rightly agreed to be supreme Lord of happiness?'\n\n'It would be utterly impotent.'\n\n'There is nothing, then, which has either the will or the power to\noppose this supreme good.'\n\n'No; I think not.'\n\n'So, then,' said she, 'it is the supreme good which rules in strength,\nand graciously disposes all things.'\n\nThen said I: 'How delighted am I at thy reasonings, and the conclusion\nto which thou hast brought them, but most of all at these very words\nwhich thou usest! I am now at last ashamed of the folly that so sorely\nvexed me.'\n\n'Thou hast heard the story of the giants assailing heaven; but a\nbeneficent strength disposed of them also, as they deserved. But shall\nwe submit our arguments to the shock of mutual collision?--it may be\nfrom the impact some fair spark of truth may be struck out.'\n\n'If it be thy good pleasure,' said I.\n\n'No one can doubt that God is all-powerful.'\n\n'No one at all can question it who thinks consistently.'\n\n'Now, there is nothing which One who is all-powerful cannot do.'\n\n'Nothing.'\n\n'But can God do evil, then?'\n\n'Nay; by no means.'\n\n'Then, evil is nothing,' said she, 'since He to whom nothing is\nimpossible is unable to do evil.'\n\n'Art thou mocking me,' said I, 'weaving a labyrinth of tangled\narguments, now seeming to begin where thou didst end, and now to end\nwhere thou didst begin, or dost thou build up some wondrous circle of\nDivine simplicity? For, truly, a little before thou didst begin with\nhappiness, and say it was the supreme good, and didst declare it to be\nseated in the supreme Godhead. God Himself, too, thou didst affirm to be\nsupreme good and all-complete happiness; and from this thou didst go on\nto add, as by the way, the proof that no one would be happy unless he\nwere likewise God. Again, thou didst say that the very form of good was\nthe essence both of God and of happiness, and didst teach that the\nabsolute One was the absolute good which was sought by universal nature.\nThou didst maintain, also, that God rules the universe by the governance\nof goodness, that all things obey Him willingly, and that evil has no\nexistence in nature. And all this thou didst unfold without the help of\nassumptions from without, but by inherent and proper proofs, drawing\ncredence one from the other.'\n\nThen answered she: 'Far is it from me to mock thee; nay, by the blessing\nof God, whom we lately addressed in prayer, we have achieved the most\nimportant of all objects. For such is the form of the Divine essence,\nthat neither can it pass into things external, nor take up anything\nexternal into itself; but, as Parmenides says of it,\n\n    '\"In body like to a sphere on all sides perfectly rounded,\"\n\nit rolls the restless orb of the universe, keeping itself motionless the\nwhile. And if I have also employed reasonings not drawn from without,\nbut lying within the compass of our subject, there is no cause for thee\nto marvel, since thou hast learnt on Plato's authority that words ought\nto be akin to the matter of which they treat.'\n\n\n\nSONG XII. ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE.\n\n\n    Blest he whose feet have stood\n    Beside the fount of good;\n    Blest he whose will could break\n    Earth's chains for wisdom's sake!\n\n    The Thracian bard, 'tis said,\n    Mourned his dear consort dead;\n    To hear the plaintive strain\n    The woods moved in his train,\n    And the stream ceased to flow,\n    Held by so soft a woe;\n    The deer without dismay\n    Beside the lion lay;\n    The hound, by song subdued,\n    No more the hare pursued,\n    But the pang unassuaged\n    In his own bosom raged.\n    The music that could calm\n    All else brought him no balm.\n    Chiding the powers immortal,\n    He came unto Hell's portal;\n    There breathed all tender things\n    Upon his sounding strings,\n    Each rhapsody high-wrought\n    His goddess-mother taught--\n    All he from grief could borrow\n    And love redoubling sorrow,\n    Till, as the echoes waken,\n    All Taenarus is shaken;\n    Whilst he to ruth persuades\n    The monarch of the shades\n    With dulcet prayer. Spell-bound,\n    The triple-headed hound\n    At sounds so strangely sweet\n    Falls crouching at his feet.\n    The dread Avengers, too,\n    That guilty minds pursue\n    With ever-haunting fears,\n    Are all dissolved in tears.\n    Ixion, on his wheel,\n    A respite brief doth feel;\n    For, lo! the wheel stands still.\n    And, while those sad notes thrill,\n    Thirst-maddened Tantalus\n    Listens, oblivious\n    Of the stream's mockery\n    And his long agony.\n    The vulture, too, doth spare\n    Some little while to tear\n    At Tityus' rent side,\n    Sated and pacified.\n\n    At length the shadowy king,\n    His sorrows pitying,\n    'He hath prevailed!' cried;\n    'We give him back his bride!\n    To him she shall belong,\n    As guerdon of his song.\n    One sole condition yet\n    Upon the boon is set:\n    Let him not turn his eyes\n    To view his hard-won prize,\n    Till they securely pass\n    The gates of Hell.' Alas!\n    What law can lovers move?\n    A higher law is love!\n    For Orpheus--woe is me!--\n    On his Eurydice--\n    Day's threshold all but won--\n    Looked, lost, and was undone!\n\n    Ye who the light pursue,\n    This story is for you,\n    Who seek to find a way\n    Unto the clearer day.\n    If on the darkness past\n    One backward look ye cast,\n    Your weak and wandering eyes\n    Have lost the matchless prize.\n\n\n\n</CHAPTER>\nBOOK IV.\n\nGOOD AND ILL FORTUNE.\n\n\n     SUMMARY.\n\n     CH. I. The mystery of the seeming moral confusion. Philosophy\n     engages to make this plain, and to fulfil her former promise to the\n     full.--CH. II. Accordingly, (a) she first expounds the paradox that\n     the good alone have power, the bad are altogether powerless.--CH.\n     III. (b) The righteous never lack their reward, nor the wicked\n     their punishment.--CH. IV. (c) The wicked are more unhappy when\n     they accomplish their desires than when they fail to attain them.\n     (d) Evil-doers are more fortunate when they expiate their crimes by\n     suffering punishment than when they escape unpunished. (e) The\n     wrong-doer is more wretched than he who suffers injury.--CH. V.\n     Boethius still cannot understand why the distribution of happiness\n     and misery to the righteous and the wicked seems the result of\n     chance. Philosophy replies that this only seems so because we do\n     not understand the principles of God's moral governance.--CH. VI.\n     The distinction of Fate and Providence. The apparent moral\n     confusion is due to our ignorance of the secret counsels of God's\n     providence. If we possessed the key, we should see how all things\n     are guided to good.--CH. VII. Thus all fortune is good fortune; for\n     it either rewards, disciplines, amends, or punishes, and so is\n     either useful or just.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<CHAPTER>\nBOOK IV. I.\n\n\nSoftly and sweetly Philosophy sang these verses to the end without\nlosing aught of the dignity of her expression or the seriousness of her\ntones; then, forasmuch as I was as yet unable to forget my deeply-seated\nsorrow, just as she was about to say something further, I broke in and\ncried: 'O thou guide into the way of true light, all that thy voice hath\nuttered from the beginning even unto now has manifestly seemed to me at\nonce divine contemplated in itself, and by the force of thy arguments\nplaced beyond the possibility of overthrow. Moreover, these truths have\nnot been altogether unfamiliar to me heretofore, though because of\nindignation at my wrongs they have for a time been forgotten. But, lo!\nherein is the very chiefest cause of my grief--that, while there exists\na good ruler of the universe, it is possible that evil should be at all,\nstill more that it should go unpunished. Surely thou must see how\ndeservedly this of itself provokes astonishment. But a yet greater\nmarvel follows: While wickedness reigns and flourishes, virtue not only\nlacks its reward, but is even thrust down and trampled under the feet of\nthe wicked, and suffers punishment in the place of crime. That this\nshould happen under the rule of a God who knows all things and can do\nall things, but wills only the good, cannot be sufficiently wondered at\nnor sufficiently lamented.'\n\nThen said she: 'It would indeed be infinitely astounding, and of all\nmonstrous things most horrible, if, as thou esteemest, in the\nwell-ordered home of so great a householder, the base vessels should be\nheld in honour, the precious left to neglect. But it is not so. For if\nwe hold unshaken those conclusions which we lately reached, thou shall\nlearn that, by the will of Him of whose realm we are speaking, the good\nare always strong, the bad always weak and impotent; that vices never go\nunpunished, nor virtues unrewarded; that good fortune ever befalls the\ngood, and ill fortune the bad, and much more of the sort, which shall\nhush thy murmurings, and stablish thee in the strong assurance of\nconviction. And since by my late instructions thou hast seen the form of\nhappiness, hast learnt, too, the seat where it is to be found, all due\npreliminaries being discharged, I will now show thee the road which will\nlead thee home. Wings, also, will I fasten to thy mind wherewith thou\nmayst soar aloft, that so, all disturbing doubts removed, thou mayst\nreturn safe to thy country, under my guidance, in the path I will show\nthee, and by the means which I furnish.'\n\n\n\nSONG I. THE SOUL'S FLIGHT.\n\n\n    Wings are mine; above the pole\n      Far aloft I soar.\n    Clothed with these, my nimble soul\n      Scorns earth's hated shore,\n    Cleaves the skies upon the wind,\n    Sees the clouds left far behind.\n\n    Soon the glowing point she nears,\n      Where the heavens rotate,\n    Follows through the starry spheres\n      Phoebus' course, or straight\n    Takes for comrade 'mid the stars\n    Saturn cold or glittering Mars;\n\n    Thus each circling orb explores\n      Through Night's stole that peers;\n    Then, when all are numbered, soars\n      Far beyond the spheres,\n    Mounting heaven's supremest height\n    To the very Fount of light.\n\n    There the Sovereign of the world\n      His calm sway maintains;\n    As the globe is onward whirled\n      Guides the chariot reins,\n    And in splendour glittering\n    Reigns the universal King.\n\n    Hither if thy wandering feet\n      Find at last a way,\n    Here thy long-lost home thou'lt greet:\n      'Dear lost land,' thou'lt say,\n    'Though from thee I've wandered wide,\n    Hence I came, here will abide.'\n\n    Yet if ever thou art fain\n      Visitant to be\n    Of earth's gloomy night again,\n      Surely thou wilt see\n    Tyrants whom the nations fear\n    Dwell in hapless exile here.\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nThen said I: 'Verily, wondrous great are thy promises; yet I do not\ndoubt but thou canst make them good: only keep me not in suspense after\nraising such hopes.'\n\n'Learn, then, first,' said she, 'how that power ever waits upon the\ngood, while the bad are left wholly destitute of strength.[K] Of these\ntruths the one proves the other; for since good and evil are contraries,\nif it is made plain that good is power, the feebleness of evil is\nclearly seen, and, conversely, if the frail nature of evil is made\nmanifest, the strength of good is thereby known. However, to win ampler\ncredence for my conclusion, I will pursue both paths, and draw\nconfirmation for my statements first in one way and then in the other.\n\n'The carrying out of any human action depends upon two things--to wit,\nwill and power; if either be wanting, nothing can be accomplished. For\nif the will be lacking, no attempt at all is made to do what is not\nwilled; whereas if there be no power, the will is all in vain. And so,\nif thou seest any man wishing to attain some end, yet utterly failing to\nattain it, thou canst not doubt that he lacked the power of getting what\nhe wished for.'\n\n'Why, certainly not; there is no denying it.'\n\n'Canst thou, then, doubt that he whom thou seest to have accomplished\nwhat he willed had also the power to accomplish it?'\n\n'Of course not.'\n\n'Then, in respect of what he can accomplish a man is to be reckoned\nstrong, in respect of what he cannot accomplish weak?'\n\n'Granted,' said I.\n\n'Then, dost thou remember that, by our former reasonings, it was\nconcluded that the whole aim of man's will, though the means of pursuit\nvary, is set intently upon happiness?'\n\n'I do remember that this, too, was proved.'\n\n'Dost thou also call to mind how happiness is absolute good, and\ntherefore that, when happiness is sought, it is good which is in all\ncases the object of desire?'\n\n'Nay, I do not so much call to mind as keep it fixed in my memory.'\n\n'Then, all men, good and bad alike, with one indistinguishable purpose\nstrive to reach good?'\n\n'Yes, that follows.'\n\n'But it is certain that by the attainment of good men become good?'\n\n'It is.'\n\n'Then, do the good attain their object?'\n\n'It seems so.'\n\n'But if the bad were to attain the good which is _their_ object, they\ncould not be bad?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Then, since both seek good, but while the one sort attain it, the other\nattain it not, is there any doubt that the good are endued with power,\nwhile they who are bad are weak?'\n\n'If any doubt it, he is incapable of reflecting on the nature of things,\nor the consequences involved in reasoning.'\n\n'Again, supposing there are two things to which the same function is\nprescribed in the course of nature, and one of these successfully\naccomplishes the function by natural action, the other is altogether\nincapable of that natural action, instead of which, in a way other than\nis agreeable to its nature, it--I will not say fulfils its function, but\nfeigns to fulfil it: which of these two would in thy view be the\nstronger?'\n\n'I guess thy meaning, but I pray thee let me hear thee more at large.'\n\n'Walking is man's natural motion, is it not?'\n\n'Certainly.'\n\n'Thou dost not doubt, I suppose, that it is natural for the feet to\ndischarge this function?'\n\n'No; surely I do not.'\n\n'Now, if one man who is able to use his feet walks, and another to whom\nthe natural use of his feet is wanting tries to walk on his hands,\nwhich of the two wouldst thou rightly esteem the stronger?'\n\n'Go on,' said I; 'no one can question but that he who has the natural\ncapacity has more strength than he who has it not.'\n\n'Now, the supreme good is set up as the end alike for the bad and for\nthe good; but the good seek it through the natural action of the\nvirtues, whereas the bad try to attain this same good through all manner\nof concupiscence, which is not the natural way of attaining good. Or\ndost thou think otherwise?'\n\n'Nay; rather, one further consequence is clear to me: for from my\nadmissions it must needs follow that the good have power, and the bad\nare impotent.'\n\n'Thou anticipatest rightly, and that as physicians reckon is a sign that\nnature is set working, and is throwing off the disease. But, since I see\nthee so ready at understanding, I will heap proof on proof. Look how\nmanifest is the extremity of vicious men's weakness; they cannot even\nreach that goal to which the aim of nature leads and almost constrains\nthem. What if they were left without this mighty, this well-nigh\nirresistible help of nature's guidance! Consider also how momentous is\nthe powerlessness which incapacitates the wicked. Not light or\ntrivial[L] are the prizes which they contend for, but which they cannot\nwin or hold; nay, their failure concerns the very sum and crown of\nthings. Poor wretches! they fail to compass even that for which they\ntoil day and night. Herein also the strength of the good conspicuously\nappears. For just as thou wouldst judge him to be the strongest walker\nwhose legs could carry him to a point beyond which no further advance\nwas possible, so must thou needs account him strong in power who so\nattains the end of his desires that nothing further to be desired lies\nbeyond. Whence follows the obvious conclusion that they who are wicked\nare seen likewise to be wholly destitute of strength. For why do they\nforsake virtue and follow vice? Is it from ignorance of what is good?\nWell, what is more weak and feeble than the blindness of ignorance? Do\nthey know what they ought to follow, but lust drives them aside out of\nthe way? If it be so, they are still frail by reason of their\nincontinence, for they cannot fight against vice. Or do they knowingly\nand wilfully forsake the good and turn aside to vice? Why, at this rate,\nthey not only cease to have power, but cease to be at all. For they who\nforsake the common end of all things that are, they likewise also cease\nto be at all. Now, to some it may seem strange that we should assert\nthat the bad, who form the greater part of mankind, do not exist. But\nthe fact is so. I do not, indeed, deny that they who are bad are bad,\nbut that they _are_ in an unqualified and absolute sense I deny. Just as\nwe call a corpse a dead man, but cannot call it simply \"man,\" so I would\nallow the vicious to be bad, but that they _are_ in an absolute sense I\ncannot allow. That only _is_ which maintains its place and keeps its\nnature; whatever falls away from this forsakes the existence which is\nessential to its nature. \"But,\" thou wilt say, \"the bad have an\nability.\" Nor do I wish to deny it; only this ability of theirs comes\nnot from strength, but from impotence. For their ability is to do evil,\nwhich would have had no efficacy at all if they could have continued in\nthe performance of good. So this ability of theirs proves them still\nmore plainly to have no power. For if, as we concluded just now, evil is\nnothing, 'tis clear that the wicked can effect nothing, since they are\nonly able to do evil.'\n\n''Tis evident.'\n\n'And that thou mayst understand what is the precise force of this power,\nwe determined, did we not, awhile back, that nothing has more power than\nsupreme good?'\n\n'We did,' said I.\n\n'But that same highest good cannot do evil?'\n\n'Certainly not.'\n\n'Is there anyone, then, who thinks that men are able to do all things?'\n\n'None but a madman.'\n\n'Yet they are able to do evil?'\n\n'Ay; would they could not!'\n\n'Since, then, he who can do only good is omnipotent, while they who can\ndo evil also are not omnipotent, it is manifest that they who can do\nevil have less power. There is this also: we have shown that all power\nis to be reckoned among things desirable, and that all desirable things\nare referred to good as to a kind of consummation of their nature. But\nthe ability to commit crime cannot be referred to the good; therefore it\nis not a thing to be desired. And yet all power is desirable; it is\nclear, then, that ability to do evil is not power. From all which\nconsiderations appeareth the power of the good, and the indubitable\nweakness of the bad, and it is clear that Plato's judgment was true; the\nwise alone are able to do what they would, while the wicked follow their\nown hearts' lust, but can _not_ accomplish what they would. For they go\non in their wilfulness fancying they will attain what they wish for in\nthe paths of delight; but they are very far from its attainment, since\nshameful deeds lead not to happiness.'\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[K] The paradoxes in this chapter and chapter iv. are taken from Plato's\n'Gorgias.' See Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 348-366, and also pp. 400, 401\n('Gorgias,' 466-479, and 508, 509).\n\n[L]\n\n'No trivial game is here; the strife Is waged for Turnus' own dear\nlife.'\n\n_Conington_.\n\nSee Virgil, AEneid,' xii. 764, 745: _cf_. 'Iliad,' xxii. 159-162.\n\n\n\nSONG II. THE BONDAGE OF PASSION.\n\n\n    When high-enthroned the monarch sits, resplendent in the pride\n    Of purple robes, while flashing steel guards him on every side;\n    When baleful terrors on his brow with frowning menace lower,\n    And Passion shakes his labouring breast--how dreadful seems his power!\n    But if the vesture of his state from such a one thou tear,\n    Thou'lt see what load of secret bonds this lord of earth doth wear.\n    Lust's poison rankles; o'er his mind rage sweeps in tempest rude;\n    Sorrow his spirit vexes sore, and empty hopes delude.\n    Then thou'lt confess: one hapless wretch, whom many lords oppress,\n    Does never what he would, but lives in thraldom's helplessness.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\n'Thou seest, then, in what foulness unrighteous deeds are sunk, with\nwhat splendour righteousness shines. Whereby it is manifest that\ngoodness never lacks its reward, nor crime its punishment. For, verily,\nin all manner of transactions that for the sake of which the particular\naction is done may justly be accounted the reward of that action, even\nas the wreath for the sake of which the race is run is the reward\noffered for running. Now, we have shown happiness to be that very good\nfor the sake of which all things are done. Absolute good, then, is\noffered as the common prize, as it were, of all human actions. But,\ntruly, this is a reward from which it is impossible to separate the good\nman, for one who is without good cannot properly be called good at all;\nwherefore righteous dealing never misses its reward. Rage the wicked,\nthen, never so violently, the crown shall not fall from the head of the\nwise, nor wither. Verily, other men's unrighteousness cannot pluck from\nrighteous souls their proper glory. Were the reward in which the soul of\nthe righteous delighteth received from without, then might it be taken\naway by him who gave it, or some other; but since it is conferred by his\nown righteousness, then only will he lose his prize when he has ceased\nto be righteous. Lastly, since every prize is desired because it is\nbelieved to be good, who can account him who possesses good to be\nwithout reward? And what a prize, the fairest and grandest of all! For\nremember the corollary which I chiefly insisted on a little while back,\nand reason thus: Since absolute good is happiness, 'tis clear that all\nthe good must be happy for the very reason that they are good. But it\nwas agreed that those who are happy are gods. So, then, the prize of the\ngood is one which no time may impair, no man's power lessen, no man's\nunrighteousness tarnish; 'tis very Godship. And this being so, the wise\nman cannot doubt that punishment is inseparable from the bad. For since\ngood and bad, and likewise reward and punishment, are contraries, it\nnecessarily follows that, corresponding to all that we see accrue as\nreward of the good, there is some penalty attached as punishment of\nevil. As, then, righteousness itself is the reward of the righteous, so\nwickedness itself is the punishment of the unrighteous. Now, no one who\nis visited with punishment doubts that he is visited with evil.\nAccordingly, if they were but willing to weigh their own case, could\n_they_ think themselves free from punishment whom wickedness, worst of\nall evils, has not only touched, but deeply tainted?\n\n'See, also, from the opposite standpoint--the standpoint of the\ngood--what a penalty attends upon the wicked. Thou didst learn a little\nsince that whatever is is one, and that unity itself is good.\nAccordingly, by this way of reckoning, whatever falls away from goodness\nceases to be; whence it comes to pass that the bad cease to be what they\nwere, while only the outward aspect is still left to show they have been\nmen. Wherefore, by their perversion to badness, they have lost their\ntrue human nature. Further, since righteousness alone can raise men\nabove the level of humanity, it must needs be that unrighteousness\ndegrades below man's level those whom it has cast out of man's estate.\nIt results, then, that thou canst not consider him human whom thou seest\ntransformed by vice. The violent despoiler of other men's goods,\nenflamed with covetousness, surely resembles a wolf. A bold and restless\nspirit, ever wrangling in law-courts, is like some yelping cur. The\nsecret schemer, taking pleasure in fraud and stealth, is own brother to\nthe fox. The passionate man, phrenzied with rage, we might believe to be\nanimated with the soul of a lion. The coward and runaway, afraid where\nno fear is, may be likened to the timid deer. He who is sunk in\nignorance and stupidity lives like a dull ass. He who is light and\ninconstant, never holding long to one thing, is for all the world like a\nbird. He who wallows in foul and unclean lusts is sunk in the pleasures\nof a filthy hog. So it comes to pass that he who by forsaking\nrighteousness ceases to be a man cannot pass into a Godlike condition,\nbut actually turns into a brute beast.'\n\n\n\nSONG III. CIRCE'S CUP.\n\n\n    Th' Ithacan discreet,\n    And all his storm-tossed fleet,\n    Far o'er the ocean wave\n    The winds of heaven drave--\n    Drave to the mystic isle,\n    Where dwelleth in her guile\n    That fair and faithless one,\n    The daughter of the Sun.\n    There for the stranger crew\n    With cunning spells she knew\n    To mix th' enchanted cup.\n    For whoso drinks it up,\n    Must suffer hideous change\n    To monstrous shapes and strange.\n    One like a boar appears;\n    This his huge form uprears,\n    Mighty in bulk and limb--\n    An Afric lion--grim\n    With claw and fang. Confessed\n    A wolf, this, sore distressed\n    When he would weep, doth howl;\n    And, strangely tame, these prowl\n    The Indian tiger's mates.\n\n    And though in such sore straits,\n    The pity of the god\n    Who bears the mystic rod\n    Had power the chieftain brave\n    From her fell arts to save;\n    His comrades, unrestrained,\n    The fatal goblet drained.\n    All now with low-bent head,\n    Like swine, on acorns fed;\n    Man's speech and form were reft,\n    No human feature left;\n    But steadfast still, the mind,\n    Unaltered, unresigned,\n    The monstrous change bewailed.\n\n    How little, then, availed\n    The potencies of ill!\n    These herbs, this baneful skill,\n    May change each outward part,\n    But cannot touch the heart.\n    In its true home, deep-set,\n    Man's spirit liveth yet.\n    _Those_ poisons are more fell,\n    More potent to expel\n    Man from his high estate,\n    Which subtly penetrate,\n    And leave the body whole,\n    But deep infect the soul.\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nThen said I: 'This is very true. I see that the vicious, though they\nkeep the outward form of man, are rightly said to be changed into beasts\nin respect of their spiritual nature; but, inasmuch as their cruel and\npolluted minds vent their rage in the destruction of the good, I would\nthis license were not permitted to them.'\n\n'Nor is it,' said she, 'as shall be shown in the fitting place. Yet if\nthat license which thou believest to be permitted to them were taken\naway, the punishment of the wicked would be in great part remitted. For\nverily, incredible as it may seem to some, it needs must be that the bad\nare more unfortunate when they have accomplished their desires than if\nthey are unable to get them fulfilled. If it is wretched to will evil,\nto have been able to accomplish evil is more wretched; for without the\npower the wretched will would fail of effect. Accordingly, those whom\nthou seest to will, to be able to accomplish, and to accomplish crime,\nmust needs be the victims of a threefold wretchedness, since each one of\nthese states has its own measure of wretchedness.'\n\n'Yes,' said I; 'yet I earnestly wish they might speedily be quit of this\nmisfortune by losing the ability to accomplish crime.'\n\n'They will lose it,' said she, 'sooner than perchance thou wishest, or\nthey themselves think likely; since, verily, within the narrow bounds of\nour brief life there is nothing so late in coming that anyone, least of\nall an immortal spirit, should deem it long to wait for. Their great\nexpectations, the lofty fabric of their crimes, is oft overthrown by a\nsudden and unlooked-for ending, and this but sets a limit to their\nmisery. For if wickedness makes men wretched, he is necessarily more\nwretched who is wicked for a longer time; and were it not that death, at\nall events, puts an end to the evil doings of the wicked, I should\naccount them wretched to the last degree. Indeed, if we have formed true\nconclusions about the ill fortune of wickedness, that wretchedness is\nplainly infinite which is doomed to be eternal.'\n\nThen said I: 'A wonderful inference, and difficult to grant; but I see\nthat it agrees entirely with our previous conclusions.'\n\n'Thou art right,' said she; 'but if anyone finds it hard to admit the\nconclusion, he ought in fairness either to prove some falsity in the\npremises, or to show that the combination of propositions does not\nadequately enforce the necessity of the conclusion; otherwise, if the\npremises be granted, nothing whatever can be said against the inference\nof the conclusion. And here is another statement which seems not less\nwonderful, but on the premises assumed is equally necessary.'\n\n'What is that?'\n\n'The wicked are happier in undergoing punishment than if no penalty of\njustice chasten them. And I am not now meaning what might occur to\nanyone--that bad character is amended by retribution, and is brought\ninto the right path by the terror of punishment, or that it serves as an\nexample to warn others to avoid transgression; but I believe that in\nanother way the wicked are more unfortunate when they go unpunished,\neven though no account be taken of amendment, and no regard be paid to\nexample.'\n\n'Why, what other way is there beside these?' said I.\n\nThen said she: 'Have we not agreed that the good are happy, and the evil\nwretched?'\n\n'Yes,' said I.\n\n'Now, if,' said she, 'to one in affliction there be given along with his\nmisery some good thing, is he not happier than one whose misery is\nmisery pure and simple without admixture of any good?'\n\n'It would seem so.'\n\n'But if to one thus wretched, one destitute of all good, some further\nevil be added besides those which make him wretched, is he not to be\njudged far more unhappy than he whose ill fortune is alleviated by some\nshare of good?'\n\n'It could scarcely be otherwise.'\n\n'Surely, then, the wicked, when they are punished, have a good thing\nadded to them--to wit, the punishment which by the law of justice is\ngood; and likewise, when they escape punishment, a new evil attaches to\nthem in that very freedom from punishment which thou hast rightly\nacknowledged to be an evil in the case of the unrighteous.'\n\n'I cannot deny it.'\n\n'Then, the wicked are far more unhappy when indulged with an unjust\nfreedom from punishment than when punished by a just retribution. Now,\nit is manifest that it is just for the wicked to be punished, and for\nthem to escape unpunished is unjust.'\n\n'Why, who would venture to deny it?'\n\n'This, too, no one can possibly deny--that all which is just is good,\nand, conversely, all which is unjust is bad.'\n\nThen I answered: 'These inferences do indeed follow from what we lately\nconcluded; but tell me,' said I, 'dost thou take no account of the\npunishment of the soul after the death of the body?'\n\n'Nay, truly,' said she, 'great are these penalties, some of them\ninflicted, I imagine, in the severity of retribution, others in the\nmercy of purification. But it is not my present purpose to speak of\nthese. So far, my aim hath been to make thee recognise that the power of\nthe bad which shocked thee so exceedingly is no power; to make thee see\nthat those of whose freedom from punishment thou didst complain are\nnever without the proper penalties of their unrighteousness; to teach\nthee that the license which thou prayedst might soon come to an end is\nnot long-enduring; that it would be more unhappy if it lasted longer,\nmost unhappy of all if it lasted for ever; thereafter that the\nunrighteous are more wretched if unjustly let go without punishment than\nif punished by a just retribution--from which point of view it follows\nthat the wicked are afflicted with more severe penalties just when they\nare supposed to escape punishment.'\n\nThen said I: 'While I follow thy reasonings, I am deeply impressed with\ntheir truth; but if I turn to the common convictions of men, I find few\nwho will even listen to such arguments, let alone admit them to be\ncredible.'\n\n'True,' said she; 'they cannot lift eyes accustomed to darkness to the\nlight of clear truth, and are like those birds whose vision night\nillumines and day blinds; for while they regard, not the order of the\nuniverse, but their own dispositions of mind, they think the license to\ncommit crime, and the escape from punishment, to be fortunate. But mark\nthe ordinance of eternal law. Hast thou fashioned thy soul to the\nlikeness of the better, thou hast no need of a judge to award the\nprize--by thine own act hast thou raised thyself in the scale of\nexcellence; hast thou perverted thy affections to baser things, look not\nfor punishment from one without thee--thine own act hath degraded thee,\nand thrust thee down. Even so, if alternately thou turn thy gaze upon\nthe vile earth and upon the heavens, though all without thee stand\nstill, by the mere laws of sight thou seemest now sunk in the mire, now\nsoaring among the stars. But the common herd regards not these things.\nWhat, then? Shall we go over to those whom we have shown to be like\nbrute beasts? Why, suppose, now, one who had quite lost his sight\nshould likewise forget that he had ever possessed the faculty of vision,\nand should imagine that nothing was wanting in him to human perfection,\nshould we deem those who saw as well as ever blind? Why, they will not\neven assent to this, either--that they who do wrong are more wretched\nthan those who suffer wrong, though the proof of this rests on grounds\nof reason no less strong.'\n\n'Let me hear these same reasons,' said I.\n\n'Wouldst thou deny that every wicked man deserves punishment?'\n\n'I would not, certainly.'\n\n'And that those who are wicked are unhappy is clear in manifold ways?'\n\n'Yes,' I replied.\n\n'Thou dost not doubt, then, that those who deserve punishment are\nwretched?'\n\n'Agreed,' said I.\n\n'So, then, if thou wert sitting in judgment, on whom wouldst thou decree\nthe infliction of punishment--on him who had done the wrong, or on him\nwho had suffered it?'\n\n'Without doubt, I would compensate the sufferer at the cost of the doer\nof the wrong.'\n\n'Then, the injurer would seem more wretched than the injured?'\n\n'Yes; it follows. And so for this and other reasons resting on the same\nground, inasmuch as baseness of its own nature makes men wretched, it is\nplain that a wrong involves the misery of the doer, not of the\nsufferer.'\n\n'And yet,' says she, 'the practice of the law-courts is just the\nopposite: advocates try to arouse the commiseration of the judges for\nthose who have endured some grievous and cruel wrong; whereas pity is\nrather due to the criminal, who ought to be brought to the judgment-seat\nby his accusers in a spirit not of anger, but of compassion and\nkindness, as a sick man to the physician, to have the ulcer of his fault\ncut away by punishment. Whereby the business of the advocate would\neither wholly come to a standstill, or, did men prefer to make it\nserviceable to mankind, would be restricted to the practice of\naccusation. The wicked themselves also, if through some chink or cranny\nthey were permitted to behold the virtue they have forsaken, and were to\nsee that by the pains of punishment they would rid themselves of the\nuncleanness of their vices, and win in exchange the recompense of\nrighteousness, they would no longer think these sufferings pains; they\nwould refuse the help of advocates, and would commit themselves wholly\ninto the hands of their accusers and judges. Whence it comes to pass\nthat for the wise no place is left for hatred; only the most foolish\nwould hate the good, and to hate the bad is unreasonable. For if vicious\npropensity is, as it were, a disease of the soul like bodily sickness,\neven as we account the sick in body by no means deserving of hate, but\nrather of pity, so, and much more, should they be pitied whose minds are\nassailed by wickedness, which is more frightful than any sickness.'\n\n\n\nSONG IV. THE UNREASONABLENESS OF HATRED.\n\n\n      Why all this furious strife? Oh, why\n    With rash and wilful hand provoke death's destined day?\n      If death ye seek--lo! Death is nigh,\n    Not of their master's will those coursers swift delay!\n\n      The wild beasts vent on man their rage,\n    Yet 'gainst their brothers' lives men point the murderous steel;\n      Unjust and cruel wars they wage,\n    And haste with flying darts the death to meet or deal.\n\n      No right nor reason can they show;\n    'Tis but because their lands and laws are not the same.\n      Wouldst _thou_ give each his due; then know\n    Thy love the good must have, the bad thy pity claim.\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\nOn this I said: 'I see how there is a happiness and misery founded on\nthe actual deserts of the righteous and the wicked. Nevertheless, I\nwonder in myself whether there is not some good and evil in fortune as\nthe vulgar understand it. Surely, no sensible man would rather be\nexiled, poor and disgraced, than dwell prosperously in his own country,\npowerful, wealthy, and high in honour. Indeed, the work of wisdom is\nmore clear and manifest in its operation when the happiness of rulers is\nsomehow passed on to the people around them, especially considering that\nthe prison, the law, and the other pains of legal punishment are\nproperly due only to mischievous citizens on whose account they were\noriginally instituted. Accordingly, I do exceedingly marvel why all this\nis completely reversed--why the good are harassed with the penalties due\nto crime, and the bad carry off the rewards of virtue; and I long to\nhear from thee what reason may be found for so unjust a state of\ndisorder. For assuredly I should wonder less if I could believe that all\nthings are the confused result of chance. But now my belief in God's\ngovernance doth add amazement to amazement. For, seeing that He\nsometimes assigns fair fortune to the good and harsh fortune to the bad,\nand then again deals harshly with the good, and grants to the bad their\nhearts' desire, how does this differ from chance, unless some reason is\ndiscovered for it all?'\n\n'Nay; it is not wonderful,' said she, 'if all should be thought random\nand confused when the principle of order is not known. And though thou\nknowest not the causes on which this great system depends, yet forasmuch\nas a good ruler governs the world, doubt not for thy part that all is\nrightly done.'\n\n\n\nSONG V. WONDER AND IGNORANCE.\n\n\n    Who knoweth not how near the pole\n      Bootes' course doth go,\n    Must marvel by what heavenly law\n      He moves his Wain so slow;\n    Why late he plunges 'neath the main,\n    And swiftly lights his beams again.\n\n    When the full-orbed moon grows pale\n      In the mid course of night,\n    And suddenly the stars shine forth\n      That languished in her light,\n    Th' astonied nations stand at gaze,\n    And beat the air in wild amaze.[M]\n\n    None marvels why upon the shore\n      The storm-lashed breakers beat,\n    Nor why the frost-bound glaciers melt\n      At summer's fervent heat;\n    For here the cause seems plain and clear,\n    Only what's dark and hid we fear.\n\n    Weak-minded folly magnifies\n      All that is rare and strange,\n    And the dull herd's o'erwhelmed with awe\n      At unexpected change.\n    But wonder leaves enlightened minds,\n    When ignorance no longer blinds.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[M] To frighten away the monster swallowing the moon. The superstition\nwas once common. See Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' pp. 296-302.\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\n'True,' said I; 'but, since it is thy office to unfold the hidden cause\nof things, and explain principles veiled in darkness, inform me, I pray\nthee, of thine own conclusions in this matter, since the marvel of it is\nwhat more than aught else disturbs my mind.'\n\nA smile played one moment upon her lips as she replied: 'Thou callest me\nto the greatest of all subjects of inquiry, a task for which the most\nexhaustive treatment barely suffices. Such is its nature that, as fast\nas one doubt is cut away, innumerable others spring up like Hydra's\nheads, nor could we set any limit to their renewal did we not apply the\nmind's living fire to suppress them. For there come within its scope the\nquestions of the essential simplicity of providence, of the order of\nfate, of unforeseen chance, of the Divine knowledge and predestination,\nand of the freedom of the will. How heavy is the weight of all this\nthou canst judge for thyself. But, inasmuch as to know these things also\nis part of the treatment of thy malady, we will try to give them some\nconsideration, despite the restrictions of the narrow limits of our\ntime. Moreover, thou must for a time dispense with the pleasures of\nmusic and song, if so be that thou findest any delight therein, whilst I\nweave together the connected train of reasons in proper order.'\n\n'As thou wilt,' said I.\n\nThen, as if making a new beginning, she thus discoursed: 'The coming\ninto being of all things, the whole course of development in things that\nchange, every sort of thing that moves in any wise, receives its due\ncause, order, and form from the steadfastness of the Divine mind. This\nmind, calm in the citadel of its own essential simplicity, has decreed\nthat the method of its rule shall be manifold. Viewed in the very purity\nof the Divine intelligence, this method is called _providence_; but\nviewed in regard to those things which it moves and disposes, it is\nwhat the ancients called _fate_. That these two are different will\neasily be clear to anyone who passes in review their respective\nefficacies. Providence is the Divine reason itself, seated in the\nSupreme Being, which disposes all things; fate is the disposition\ninherent in all things which move, through which providence joins all\nthings in their proper order. Providence embraces all things, however\ndifferent, however infinite; fate sets in motion separately individual\nthings, and assigns to them severally their position, form, and time.\n\n'So the unfolding of this temporal order unified into the foreview of\nthe Divine mind is providence, while the same unity broken up and\nunfolded in time is fate. And although these are different, yet is there\na dependence between them; for the order of destiny issues from the\nessential simplicity of providence. For as the artificer, forming in his\nmind beforehand the idea of the thing to be made, carries out his\ndesign, and develops from moment to moment what he had before seen in a\nsingle instant as a whole, so God in His providence ordains all things\nas parts of a single unchanging whole, but carries out these very\nordinances by fate in a time of manifold unity. So whether fate is\naccomplished by Divine spirits as the ministers of providence, or by a\nsoul, or by the service of all nature--whether by the celestial motion\nof the stars, by the efficacy of angels, or by the many-sided cunning of\ndemons--whether by all or by some of these the destined series is woven,\nthis, at least, is manifest: that providence is the fixed and simple\nform of destined events, fate their shifting series in order of time, as\nby the disposal of the Divine simplicity they are to take place. Whereby\nit is that all things which are under fate are subjected also to\nprovidence, on which fate itself is dependent; whereas certain things\nwhich are set under providence are above the chain of fate--viz., those\nthings which by their nearness to the primal Divinity are steadfastly\nfixed, and lie outside the order of fate's movements. For as the\ninnermost of several circles revolving round the same centre approaches\nthe simplicity of the midmost point, and is, as it were, a pivot round\nwhich the exterior circles turn, while the outermost, whirled in ampler\norbit, takes in a wider and wider sweep of space in proportion to its\ndeparture from the indivisible unity of the centre--while, further,\nwhatever joins and allies itself to the centre is narrowed to a like\nsimplicity, and no longer expands vaguely into space--even so whatsoever\ndeparts widely from primal mind is involved more deeply in the meshes of\nfate, and things are free from fate in proportion as they seek to come\nnearer to that central pivot; while if aught cleaves close to supreme\nmind in its absolute fixity, this, too, being free from movement, rises\nabove fate's necessity. Therefore, as is reasoning to pure intelligence,\nas that which is generated to that which is, time to eternity, a circle\nto its centre, so is the shifting series of fate to the steadfastness\nand simplicity of providence.\n\n'It is this causal series which moves heaven and the stars, attempers\nthe elements to mutual accord, and again in turn transforms them into\nnew combinations; _this_ which renews the series of all things that are\nborn and die through like successions of germ and birth; it is _its_\noperation which binds the destinies of men by an indissoluble nexus of\ncausality, and, since it issues in the beginning from unalterable\nprovidence, these destinies also must of necessity be immutable.\nAccordingly, the world is ruled for the best if this unity abiding in\nthe Divine mind puts forth an inflexible order of causes. And this\norder, by its intrinsic immutability, restricts things mutable which\notherwise would ebb and flow at random. And so it happens that, although\nto you, who are not altogether capable of understanding this order, all\nthings seem confused and disordered, nevertheless there is everywhere an\nappointed limit which guides all things to good. Verily, nothing can be\ndone for the sake of evil even by the wicked themselves; for, as we\nabundantly proved, they seek good, but are drawn out of the way by\nperverse error; far less can this order which sets out from the supreme\ncentre of good turn aside anywhither from the way in which it began.\n\n'\"Yet what confusion,\" thou wilt say, \"can be more unrighteous than that\nprosperity and adversity should indifferently befall the good, what\nthey like and what they loathe come alternately to the bad!\" Yes; but\nhave men in real life such soundness of mind that their judgments of\nrighteousness and wickedness must necessarily correspond with facts?\nWhy, on this very point their verdicts conflict, and those whom some\ndeem worthy of reward, others deem worthy of punishment. Yet granted\nthere were one who could rightly distinguish the good and bad, yet would\nhe be able to look into the soul's inmost constitution, as it were, if\nwe may borrow an expression used of the body? The marvel here is not\nunlike that which astonishes one who does not know why in health sweet\nthings suit some constitutions, and bitter others, or why some sick men\nare best alleviated by mild remedies, others by severe. But the\nphysician who distinguishes the precise conditions and characteristics\nof health and sickness does not marvel. Now, the health of the soul is\nnothing but righteousness, and vice is its sickness. God, the guide and\nphysician of the mind, it is who preserves the good and banishes the\nbad. And He looks forth from the lofty watch-tower of His providence,\nperceives what is suited to each, and assigns what He knows to be\nsuitable.\n\n'This, then, is what that extraordinary mystery of the order of destiny\ncomes to--that something is done by one who knows, whereat the ignorant\nare astonished. But let us consider a few instances whereby appears what\nis the competency of human reason to fathom the Divine unsearchableness.\nHere is one whom thou deemest the perfection of justice and scrupulous\nintegrity; to all-knowing Providence it seems far otherwise. We all know\nour Lucan's admonition that it was the winning cause that found favour\nwith the gods, the beaten cause with Cato. So, shouldst thou see\nanything in this world happening differently from thy expectation, doubt\nnot but events are rightly ordered; it is in thy judgment that there is\nperverse confusion.\n\n'Grant, however, there be somewhere found one of so happy a character\nthat God and man alike agree in their judgments about him; yet is he\nsomewhat infirm in strength of mind. It may be, if he fall into\nadversity, he will cease to practise that innocency which has failed to\nsecure his fortune. Therefore, God's wise dispensation spares him whom\nadversity might make worse, will not let him suffer who is ill fitted\nfor endurance. Another there is perfect in all virtue, so holy and nigh\nto God that providence judges it unlawful that aught untoward should\nbefall him; nay, doth not even permit him to be afflicted with bodily\ndisease. As one more excellent than I[N] hath said:\n\n    '\"The very body of the holy saint\n    Is built of purest ether.\"\n\nOften it happens that the governance is given to the good that a\nrestraint may be put upon superfluity of wickedness. To others\nprovidence assigns some mixed lot suited to their spiritual nature; some\nit will plague lest they grow rank through long prosperity; others it\nwill suffer to be vexed with sore afflictions to confirm their virtues\nby the exercise and practice of patience. Some fear overmuch what they\nhave strength to bear; others despise overmuch that to which their\nstrength is unequal. All these it brings to the test of their true self\nthrough misfortune. Some also have bought a name revered to future ages\nat the price of a glorious death; some by invincible constancy under\ntheir sufferings have afforded an example to others that virtue cannot\nbe overcome by calamity--all which things, without doubt, come to pass\nrightly and in due order, and to the benefit of those to whom they are\nseen to happen.\n\n'As to the other side of the marvel, that the bad now meet with\naffliction, now get their hearts' desire, this, too, springs from the\nsame causes. As to the afflictions, of course no one marvels, because\nall hold the wicked to be ill deserving. The truth is, their punishments\nboth frighten others from crime, and amend those on whom they are\ninflicted; while their prosperity is a powerful sermon to the good, what\njudgments they ought to pass on good fortune of this kind, which often\nattends the wicked so assiduously.\n\n'There is another object which may, I believe, be attained in such\ncases: there is one, perhaps, whose nature is so reckless and violent\nthat poverty would drive him more desperately into crime. _His_ disorder\nprovidence relieves by allowing him to amass money. Such a one, in the\nuneasiness of a conscience stained with guilt, while he contrasts his\ncharacter with his fortune, perchance grows alarmed lest he should come\nto mourn the loss of that whose possession is so pleasant to him. He\nwill, then, reform his ways, and through the fear of losing his fortune\nhe forsakes his iniquity. Some, through a prosperity unworthily borne,\nhave been hurled headlong to ruin; to some the power of the sword has\nbeen committed, to the end that the good may be tried by discipline, and\nthe bad punished. For while there can be no peace between the righteous\nand the wicked, neither can the wicked agree among themselves. How\nshould they, when each is at variance with himself, because his vices\nrend his conscience, and ofttimes they do things which, when they are\ndone, they judge ought not to have been done. Hence it is that this\nsupreme providence brings to pass this notable marvel--that the bad make\nthe bad good. For some, when they see the injustice which they\nthemselves suffer at the hands of evil-doers, are inflamed with\ndetestation of the offenders, and, in the endeavour to be unlike those\nwhom they hate, return to the ways of virtue. It is the Divine power\nalone to which things evil are also good, in that, by putting them to\nsuitable use, it bringeth them in the end to some good issue. For order\nin some way or other embraceth all things, so that even that which has\ndeparted from the appointed laws of the order, nevertheless falleth\nwithin _an_ order, though _another_ order, that nothing in the realm of\nprovidence may be left to haphazard. But\n\n     '\"Hard were the task, as a god, to recount all, nothing omitting.\"\n\nNor, truly, is it lawful for man to compass in thought all the mechanism\nof the Divine work, or set it forth in speech. Let us be content to\nhave apprehended this only--that God, the creator of universal nature,\nlikewise disposeth all things, and guides them to good; and while He\nstudies to preserve in likeness to Himself all that He has created, He\nbanishes all evil from the borders of His commonweal through the links\nof fatal necessity. Whereby it comes to pass that, if thou look to\ndisposing providence, thou wilt nowhere find the evils which are\nbelieved so to abound on earth.\n\n'But I see thou hast long been burdened with the weight of the subject,\nand fatigued with the prolixity of the argument, and now lookest for\nsome refreshment of sweet poesy. Listen, then, and may the draught so\nrestore thee that thou wilt bend thy mind more resolutely to what\nremains.'\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[N] Parmenides. Boethius seems to forget for the moment that Philosophy\nis speaking.\n\n\n\nSONG VI. THE UNIVERSAL AIM.\n\n\n    Wouldst thou with unclouded mind\n    View the laws by God designed,\n    Lift thy steadfast gaze on high\n    To the starry canopy;\n    See in rightful league of love\n    All the constellations move.\n    Fiery Sol, in full career,\n    Ne'er obstructs cold Phoebe's sphere;\n    When the Bear, at heaven's height,\n    Wheels his coursers' rapid flight,\n    Though he sees the starry train\n    Sinking in the western main,\n    He repines not, nor desires\n    In the flood to quench his fires.\n\n    In true sequence, as decreed,\n    Daily morn and eve succeed;\n    Vesper brings the shades of night,\n    Lucifer the morning light.\n    Love, in alternation due,\n    Still the cycle doth renew,\n    And discordant strife is driven\n    From the starry realm of heaven.\n    Thus, in wondrous amity,\n    Warring elements agree;\n    Hot and cold, and moist and dry,\n    Lay their ancient quarrel by;\n    High the flickering flame ascends,\n    Downward earth for ever tends.\n\n    So the year in spring's mild hours\n    Loads the air with scent of flowers;\n    Summer paints the golden grain;\n    Then, when autumn comes again,\n    Bright with fruit the orchards glow;\n    Winter brings the rain and snow.\n    Thus the seasons' fixed progression,\n    Tempered in a due succession,\n    Nourishes and brings to birth\n    All that lives and breathes on earth.\n    Then, soon run life's little day,\n    All it brought it takes away.\n\n    But One sits and guides the reins,\n    He who made and all sustains;\n    King and Lord and Fountain-head,\n    Judge most holy, Law most dread;\n    Now impels and now keeps back,\n    Holds each waverer in the track.\n    Else, were once the power withheld\n    That the circling spheres compelled\n    In their orbits to revolve,\n    This world's order would dissolve,\n    And th' harmonious whole would all\n    In one hideous ruin fall.\n\n    But through this connected frame\n    Runs one universal aim;\n    Towards the Good do all things tend,\n    Many paths, but one the end.\n    For naught lasts, unless it turns\n    Backward in its course, and yearns\n    To that Source to flow again\n    Whence its being first was ta'en.\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n\n'Dost thou, then, see the consequence of all that we have said?'\n\n'Nay; what consequence?'\n\n'That absolutely every fortune is good fortune.'\n\n'And how can that be?' said I.\n\n'Attend,' said she. 'Since every fortune, welcome and unwelcome alike,\nhas for its object the reward or trial of the good, and the punishing or\namending of the bad, every fortune must be good, since it is either just\nor useful.'\n\n'The reasoning is exceeding true,' said I, 'the conclusion, so long as I\nreflect upon the providence and fate of which thou hast taught me, based\non a strong foundation. Yet, with thy leave, we will count it among\nthose which just now thou didst set down as paradoxical.'\n\n'And why so?' said she.\n\n'Because ordinary speech is apt to assert, and that frequently, that\nsome men's fortune is bad.'\n\n'Shall we, then, for awhile approach more nearly to the language of the\nvulgar, that we may not seem to have departed too far from the usages of\nmen?'\n\n'At thy good pleasure,' said I.\n\n'That which advantageth thou callest good, dost thou not?'\n\n'Certainly.'\n\n'And that which either tries or amends advantageth?'\n\n'Granted.'\n\n'Is good, then?'\n\n'Of course.'\n\n'Well, this is _their_ case who have attained virtue and wage war with\nadversity, or turn from vice and lay hold on the path of virtue.'\n\n'I cannot deny it.'\n\n'What of the good fortune which is given as reward of the good--do the\nvulgar adjudge it bad?'\n\n'Anything but that; they deem it to be the best, as indeed it is.'\n\n'What, then, of that which remains, which, though it is harsh, puts the\nrestraint of just punishment on the bad--does popular opinion deem it\ngood?'\n\n'Nay; of all that can be imagined, it is accounted the most miserable.'\n\n'Observe, then, if, in following popular opinion, we have not ended in a\nconclusion quite paradoxical.'\n\n'How so?' said I.\n\n'Why, it results from our admissions that of all who have attained, or\nare advancing in, or are aiming at virtue, the fortune is in every case\ngood, while for those who remain in their wickedness fortune is always\nutterly bad.'\n\n'It is true,' said I; 'yet no one dare acknowledge it.'\n\n'Wherefore,' said she, 'the wise man ought not to take it ill, if ever\nhe is involved in one of fortune's conflicts, any more than it becomes a\nbrave soldier to be offended when at any time the trumpet sounds for\nbattle. The time of trial is the express opportunity for the one to win\nglory, for the other to perfect his wisdom. Hence, indeed, virtue gets\nits name, because, relying on its own efficacy, it yieldeth not to\nadversity. And ye who have taken your stand on virtue's steep ascent,\nit is not for you to be dissolved in delights or enfeebled by pleasure;\nye close in conflict--yea, in conflict most sharp--with all fortune's\nvicissitudes, lest ye suffer foul fortune to overwhelm or fair fortune\nto corrupt you. Hold the mean with all your strength. Whatever falls\nshort of this, or goes beyond, is fraught with scorn of happiness, and\nmisses the reward of toil. It rests with you to make your fortune what\nyou will. Verily, every harsh-seeming fortune, unless it either\ndisciplines or amends, is punishment.'\n\n\n\nSONG VII. THE HERO'S PATH.\n\n\n    Ten years a tedious warfare raged,\n      Ere Ilium's smoking ruins paid\n      For wedlock stained and faith betrayed,\n    And great Atrides' wrath assuaged.\n\n    But when heaven's anger asked a life,\n      And baffling winds his course withstood,\n      The king put off his fatherhood,\n    And slew his child with priestly knife.\n\n    When by the cavern's glimmering light\n      His comrades dear Odysseus saw\n      In the huge Cyclops' hideous maw\n    Engulfed, he wept the piteous sight.\n\n    But blinded soon, and wild with pain--\n      In bitter tears and sore annoy--\n      For that foul feast's unholy joy\n    Grim Polyphemus paid again.\n\n    His labours for Alcides win\n      A name of glory far and wide;\n      He tamed the Centaur's haughty pride,\n    And from the lion reft his skin.\n\n    The foul birds with sure darts he slew;\n      The golden fruit he stole--in vain\n      The dragon's watch; with triple chain\n    From hell's depths Cerberus he drew.\n\n    With their fierce lord's own flesh he fed\n      The wild steeds; Hydra overcame\n      With fire. 'Neath his own waves in shame\n    Maimed Achelous hid his head.\n\n    Huge Cacus for his crimes was slain;\n      On Libya's sands Antaeus hurled;\n      The shoulders that upheld the world\n    The great boar's dribbled spume did stain.\n\n    Last toil of all--his might sustained\n      The ball of heaven, nor did he bend\n      Beneath; this toil, his labour's end,\n    The prize of heaven's high glory gained.\n\n    Brave hearts, press on! Lo, heavenward lead\n      These bright examples! From the fight\n      Turn not your backs in coward flight;\n    Earth's conflict won, the stars your meed!\n\n\n\n\n</CHAPTER>\nBOOK V.\n\nFREE WILL AND GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE.\n\n\n     SUMMARY.\n\n     CH. I. Boethius asks if there is really any such thing as chance.\n     Philosophy answers, in conformity with Aristotle's definition\n     (Phys., II. iv.), that chance is merely relative to human purpose,\n     and that what seems fortuitous really depends on a more subtle form\n     of causation.--CH. II. Has man, then, any freedom, if the reign of\n     law is thus absolute? Freedom of choice, replies Philosophy, is a\n     necessary attribute of reason. Man has a measure of freedom, though\n     a less perfect freedom than divine natures.--CH. III. But how can\n     man's freedom be reconciled with God's absolute foreknowledge? If\n     God's foreknowledge be certain, it seems to exclude the possibility\n     of man's free will. But if man has no freedom of choice, it\n     follows that rewards and punishments are unjust as well as useless;\n     that merit and demerit are mere names; that God is the cause of\n     men's wickednesses; that prayer is meaningless.--CH. IV. The\n     explanation is that man's reasoning faculties are not adequate to\n     the apprehension of the ways of God's foreknowledge. If we could\n     know, as He knows, all that is most perplexing in this problem\n     would be made plain. For knowledge depends not on the nature of the\n     thing known, but on the faculty of the knower.--CH. V. Now, where\n     our senses conflict with our reason, we defer the judgment of the\n     lower faculty to the judgment of the higher. Our present perplexity\n     arises from our viewing God's foreknowledge from the standpoint of\n     human reason. We must try and rise to the higher standpoint of\n     God's immediate intuition.--CH. VI. To understand this higher form\n     of cognition, we must consider God's nature. God is eternal.\n     Eternity is more than mere everlasting duration. Accordingly, His\n     knowledge surveys past and future in the timelessness of an eternal\n     present. His foreseeing is seeing. Yet this foreseeing does not in\n     itself impose necessity, any more than our seeing things happen\n     makes their happening necessary. We may, however, if we please,\n     distinguish two necessities--one absolute, the other conditional on\n     knowledge. In this conditional sense alone do the things which God\n     foresees necessarily come to pass. But this kind of necessity\n     affects not the nature of things. It leaves the reality of free\n     will unimpaired, and the evils feared do not ensue. Our\n     responsibility is great, since all that we do is done in the sight\n     of all-seeing Providence.\n\n\n\n\n</CHAPTER>\n\n\n<CHAPTER>\nBOOK V. I.\n\n\nShe ceased, and was about to pass on in her discourse to the exposition\nof other matters, when I break in and say: 'Excellent is thine\nexhortation, and such as well beseemeth thy high authority; but I am\neven now experiencing one of the many difficulties which, as thou saidst\nbut now, beset the question of providence. I want to know whether thou\ndeemest that there is any such thing as chance at all, and, if so, what\nit is.'\n\nThen she made answer: 'I am anxious to fulfil my promise completely, and\nopen to thee a way of return to thy native land. As for these matters,\nthough very useful to know, they are yet a little removed from the path\nof our design, and I fear lest digressions should fatigue thee, and thou\nshouldst find thyself unequal to completing the direct journey to our\ngoal.'\n\n'Have no fear for that,' said I. 'It is rest to me to learn, where\nlearning brings delight so exquisite, especially when thy argument has\nbeen built up on all sides with undoubted conviction, and no place is\nleft for uncertainty in what follows.'\n\nShe made answer: 'I will accede to thy request;' and forthwith she thus\nbegan: 'If chance be defined as a result produced by random movement\nwithout any link of causal connection, I roundly affirm that there is no\nsuch thing as chance at all, and consider the word to be altogether\nwithout meaning, except as a symbol of the thing designated. What place\ncan be left for random action, when God constraineth all things to\norder? For \"ex nihilo nihil\" is sound doctrine which none of the\nancients gainsaid, although they used it of material substance, not of\nthe efficient principle; this they laid down as a kind of basis for all\ntheir reasonings concerning nature. Now, if a thing arise without\ncauses, it will appear to have arisen from nothing. But if this cannot\nbe, neither is it possible for there to be chance in accordance with the\ndefinition just given.'\n\n'Well,' said I, 'is there, then, nothing which can properly be called\nchance or accident, or is there something to which these names are\nappropriate, though its nature is dark to the vulgar?'\n\n'Our good Aristotle,' says she, 'has defined it concisely in his\n\"Physics,\" and closely in accordance with the truth.'\n\n'How, pray?' said I.\n\n'Thus,' says she: 'Whenever something is done for the sake of a\nparticular end, and for certain reasons some other result than that\ndesigned ensues, this is called chance; for instance, if a man is\ndigging the earth for tillage, and finds a mass of buried gold. Now,\nsuch a find is regarded as accidental; yet it is not \"ex nihilo,\" for it\nhas its proper causes, the unforeseen and unexpected concurrence of\nwhich has brought the chance about. For had not the cultivator been\ndigging, had not the man who hid the money buried it in that precise\nspot, the gold would not have been found. These, then, are the reasons\nwhy the find is a chance one, in that it results from causes which met\ntogether and concurred, not from any intention on the part of the\ndiscoverer. Since neither he who buried the gold nor he who worked in\nthe field _intended_ that the money should be found, but, as I said, it\n_happened_ by coincidence that one dug where the other buried the\ntreasure. We may, then, define chance as being an unexpected result\nflowing from a concurrence of causes where the several factors had some\ndefinite end. But the meeting and concurrence of these causes arises\nfrom that inevitable chain of order which, flowing from the\nfountain-head of Providence, disposes all things in their due time and\nplace.'\n\n\n\nSONG I.\n\nCHANCE.\n\n\n    In the rugged Persian highlands,\n      Where the masters of the bow\n    Skill to feign a flight, and, fleeing,\n      Hurl their darts and pierce the foe;\n    There the Tigris and Euphrates\n      At one source[O] their waters blend,\n    Soon to draw apart, and plainward\n      Each its separate way to wend.\n    When once more their waters mingle\n      In a channel deep and wide,\n    All the flotsam comes together\n      That is borne upon the tide:\n    Ships, and trunks of trees, uprooted\n      In the torrent's wild career,\n    Meet, as 'mid the swirling waters\n      Chance their random way may steer.\n    Yet the shelving of the channel\n      And the flowing water's force\n    Guides each movement, and determines\n      Every floating fragment's course.\n    Thus, where'er the drift of hazard\n      Seems most unrestrained to flow,\n    Chance herself is reined and bitted,\n      And the curb of law doth know.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[O] This is not, of course, literally true, though the Tigris and\nEuphrates rise in the same mountain district.\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n'I am following needfully,' said I, 'and I agree that it is as thou\nsayest. But in this series of linked causes is there any freedom left to\nour will, or does the chain of fate bind also the very motions of our\nsouls?'\n\n'There is freedom,' said she; 'nor, indeed, can any creature be\nrational, unless he be endowed with free will. For that which hath the\nnatural use of reason has the faculty of discriminative judgment, and of\nitself distinguishes what is to be shunned or desired. Now, everyone\nseeks what he judges desirable, and avoids what he thinks should be\nshunned. Wherefore, beings endowed with reason possess also the faculty\nof free choice and refusal. But I suppose this faculty not equal alike\nin all. The higher Divine essences possess a clear-sighted judgment, an\nuncorrupt will, and an effective power of accomplishing their wishes.\nHuman souls must needs be comparatively free while they abide in the\ncontemplation of the Divine mind, less free when they pass into bodily\nform, and still less, again, when they are enwrapped in earthly members.\nBut when they are given over to vices, and fall from the possession of\ntheir proper reason, then indeed their condition is utter slavery. For\nwhen they let their gaze fall from the light of highest truth to the\nlower world where darkness reigns, soon ignorance blinds their vision;\nthey are disturbed by baneful affections, by yielding and assenting to\nwhich they help to promote the slavery in which they are involved, and\nare in a manner led captive by reason of their very liberty. Yet He who\nseeth all things from eternity beholdeth these things with the eyes of\nHis providence, and assigneth to each what is predestined for it by its\nmerits:\n\n     '\"All things surveying, all things overhearing.'\"\n\n\n\nSONG II.\n\nTHE TRUE SUN.\n\n\n    Homer with mellifluous tongue\n    Phoebus' glorious light hath sung,\n      Hymning high his praise;\n      Yet _his_ feeble rays\n    Ocean's hollows may not brighten,\n    Nor earth's central gloom enlighten.\n\n    But the might of Him, who skilled\n    This great universe to build,\n      Is not thus confined;\n      Not earth's solid rind,\n    Nor night's blackest canopy,\n    Baffle His all-seeing eye.\n\n    All that is, hath been, shall be,\n    In one glance's compass, He\n      Limitless descries;\n      And, save His, no eyes\n    All the world survey--no, none!\n    _Him_, then, truly name the Sun.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nThen said I: 'But now I am once more perplexed by a problem yet more\ndifficult.'\n\n'And what is that?' said she; 'yet, in truth, I can guess what it is\nthat troubles you.'\n\n'It seems,' said I, 'too much of a paradox and a contradiction that God\nshould know all things, and yet there should be free will. For if God\nforesees everything, and can in no wise be deceived, that which\nprovidence foresees to be about to happen must necessarily come to pass.\nWherefore, if from eternity He foreknows not only what men will do, but\nalso their designs and purposes, there can be no freedom of the will,\nseeing that nothing can be done, nor can any sort of purpose be\nentertained, save such as a Divine providence, incapable of being\ndeceived, has perceived beforehand. For if the issues can be turned\naside to some other end than that foreseen by providence, there will not\nthen be any sure foreknowledge of the future, but uncertain conjecture\ninstead, and to think this of God I deem impiety.\n\n'Moreover, I do not approve the reasoning by which some think to solve\nthis puzzle. For they say that it is not because God has foreseen the\ncoming of an event that _therefore_ it is sure to come to pass, but,\nconversely, because something is about to come to pass, it cannot be\nhidden from Divine providence; and accordingly the necessity passes to\nthe opposite side, and it is not that what is foreseen must necessarily\ncome to pass, but that what is about to come to pass must necessarily be\nforeseen. But this is just as if the matter in debate were, which is\ncause and which effect--whether foreknowledge of the future cause of the\nnecessity, or the necessity of the future of the foreknowledge. But we\nneed not be at the pains of demonstrating that, whatsoever be the order\nof the causal sequence, the occurrence of things foreseen is necessary,\neven though the foreknowledge of future events does not in itself\nimpose upon them the necessity of their occurrence. For example, if a\nman be seated, the supposition of his being seated is necessarily true;\nand, conversely, if the supposition of his being seated is true, because\nhe is really seated, he must necessarily be sitting. So, in either case,\nthere is some necessity involved--in this latter case, the necessity of\nthe fact; in the former, of the truth of the statement. But in both\ncases the sitter is not therefore seated because the opinion is true,\nbut rather the opinion is true because antecedently he was sitting as a\nmatter of fact. Thus, though the cause of the truth of the opinion comes\nfrom the other side,[P] yet there is a necessity on both sides alike. We\ncan obviously reason similarly in the case of providence and the future.\nEven if future events are foreseen because they are about to happen, and\ndo not come to pass because they are foreseen, still, all the same,\nthere is a necessity, both that they should be foreseen by God as about\nto come to pass, and that when they are foreseen they should happen, and\nthis is sufficient for the destruction of free will. However, it is\npreposterous to speak of the occurrence of events in time as the cause\nof eternal foreknowledge. And yet if we believe that God foresees future\nevents because they are about to come to pass, what is it but to think\nthat the occurrence of events is the cause of His supreme providence?\nFurther, just as when I _know_ that anything is, that thing\n_necessarily_ is, so when I know that anything will be, it will\n_necessarily_ be. It follows, then, that things foreknown come to pass\ninevitably.\n\n'Lastly, to think of a thing as being in any way other than what it is,\nis not only not knowledge, but it is false opinion widely different from\nthe truth of knowledge. Consequently, if anything is about to be, and\nyet its occurrence is not certain and necessary, how can anyone foreknow\nthat it will occur? For just as knowledge itself is free from all\nadmixture of falsity, so any conception drawn from knowledge cannot be\nother than as it is conceived. For this, indeed, is the cause why\nknowledge is free from falsehood, because of necessity each thing must\ncorrespond exactly with the knowledge which grasps its nature. In what\nway, then, are we to suppose that God foreknows these uncertainties as\nabout to come to pass? For if He thinks of events which possibly may not\nhappen at all as inevitably destined to come to pass, He is deceived;\nand this it is not only impious to believe, but even so much as to\nexpress in words. If, on the other hand, He sees them in the future as\nthey are in such a sense as to know that they may equally come to pass\nor not, what sort of foreknowledge is this which comprehends nothing\ncertain nor fixed? What better is this than the absurd vaticination of\nTeiresias?\n\n      '\"Whate'er I say\n    Shall either come to pass--or not.\"\n\nIn that case, too, in what would Divine providence surpass human opinion\nif it holds for uncertain things the occurrence of which is uncertain,\neven as men do? But if at that perfectly sure Fountain-head of all\nthings no shadow of uncertainty can possibly be found, then the\noccurrence of those things which He has surely foreknown as coming is\ncertain. Wherefore there can be no freedom in human actions and designs;\nbut the Divine mind, which foresees all things without possibility of\nmistake, ties and binds them down to one only issue. But this admission\nonce made, what an upset of human affairs manifestly ensues! Vainly are\nrewards and punishments proposed for the good and bad, since no free and\nvoluntary motion of the will has deserved either one or the other; nay,\nthe punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous, which is\nnow esteemed the perfection of justice, will seem the most flagrant\ninjustice, since men are determined either way not by their own proper\nvolition, but by the necessity of what must surely be. And therefore\nneither virtue nor vice is anything, but rather good and ill desert are\nconfounded together without distinction. Moreover, seeing that the whole\ncourse of events is deduced from providence, and nothing is left free to\nhuman design, it comes to pass that our vices also are referred to the\nAuthor of all good--a thought than which none more abominable can\npossibly be conceived. Again, no ground is left for hope or prayer,\nsince how can we hope for blessings, or pray for mercy, when every\nobject of desire depends upon the links of an unalterable chain of\ncausation? Gone, then, is the one means of intercourse between God and\nman--the communion of hope and prayer--if it be true that we ever earn\nthe inestimable recompense of the Divine favour at the price of a due\nhumility; for this is the one way whereby men seem able to hold\ncommunion with God, and are joined to that unapproachable light by the\nvery act of supplication, even before they obtain their petitions. Then,\nsince these things can scarcely be believed to have any efficacy, if the\nnecessity of future events be admitted, what means will there be whereby\nwe may be brought near and cleave to Him who is the supreme Head of all?\nWherefore it needs must be that the human race, even as thou didst\nerstwhile declare in song, parted and dissevered from its Source, should\nfall to ruin.'\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[P] _I.e._, the necessity of the truth of the statement from the fact.\n\n\n\nSONG III. TRUTH'S PARADOXES.\n\n\n\n\n    Why does a strange discordance break\n      The ordered scheme's fair harmony?\n    Hath God decreed 'twixt truth and truth\n      There may such lasting warfare be,\n    That truths, each severally plain,\n    We strive to reconcile in vain?\n\n    Or is the discord not in truth,\n      Since truth is self consistent ever?\n    But, close in fleshly wrappings held,\n      The blinded mind of man can never\n    Discern--so faint her taper shines--\n    The subtle chain that all combines?\n\n    Ah! then why burns man's restless mind\n      Truth's hidden portals to unclose?\n    Knows he already what he seeks?\n      Why toil to seek it, if he knows?\n    Yet, haply if he knoweth not,\n    Why blindly seek he knows not what?[Q]\n\n\n    Who for a good he knows not sighs?\n      Who can an unknown end pursue?\n    How find? How e'en when haply found\n      Hail that strange form he never knew?\n    Or is it that man's inmost soul\n    Once knew each part and knew the whole?\n\n    Now, though by fleshly vapours dimmed,\n      Not all forgot her visions past;\n    For while the several parts are lost,\n      To the one whole she cleaveth fast;\n    Whence he who yearns the truth to find\n    Is neither sound of sight nor blind.\n\n    For neither does he know in full,\n      Nor is he reft of knowledge quite;\n    But, holding still to what is left,\n      He gropes in the uncertain light,\n    And by the part that still survives\n    To win back all he bravely strives.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Q] Compare Plato, 'Meno,' 80; Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 39, 40.\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nThen said she: 'This debate about providence is an old one, and is\nvigorously discussed by Cicero in his \"Divination\"; thou also hast long\nand earnestly pondered the problem, yet no one has had diligence and\nperseverance enough to find a solution. And the reason of this obscurity\nis that the movement of human reasoning cannot cope with the simplicity\nof the Divine foreknowledge; for if a conception of its nature could in\nany wise be framed, no shadow of uncertainty would remain. With a view\nof making this at last clear and plain, I will begin by considering the\narguments by which thou art swayed. First, I inquire into the reasons\nwhy thou art dissatisfied with the solution proposed, which is to the\neffect that, seeing the fact of foreknowledge is not thought the cause\nof the necessity of future events, foreknowledge is not to be deemed any\nhindrance to the freedom of the will. Now, surely the sole ground on\nwhich thou arguest the necessity of the future is that things which are\nforeknown cannot fail to come to pass. But if, as thou wert ready to\nacknowledge just now, the fact of foreknowledge imposes no necessity on\nthings future, what reason is there for supposing the results of\nvoluntary action constrained to a fixed issue? Suppose, for the sake of\nargument, and to see what follows, we assume that there is no\nforeknowledge. Are willed actions, then, tied down to any necessity in\n_this_ case?'\n\n'Certainly not.'\n\n'Let us assume foreknowledge again, but without its involving any actual\nnecessity; the freedom of the will, I imagine, will remain in complete\nintegrity. But thou wilt say that, even although the foreknowledge is\nnot the necessity of the future event's occurrence, yet it is a sign\nthat it will necessarily happen. Granted; but in this case it is plain\nthat, even if there had been no foreknowledge, the issues would have\nbeen inevitably certain. For a sign only indicates something which is,\ndoes not bring to pass that of which it is the sign. We require to show\nbeforehand that all things, without exception, happen of necessity in\norder that a preconception may be a sign of this necessity. Otherwise,\nif there is no such universal necessity, neither can any preconception\nbe a sign of a necessity which exists not. Manifestly, too, a proof\nestablished on firm grounds of reason must be drawn not from signs and\nloose general arguments, but from suitable and necessary causes. But how\ncan it be that things foreseen should ever fail to come to pass? Why,\nthis is to suppose us to believe that the events which providence\nforesees to be coming were not about to happen, instead of our supposing\nthat, although they should come to pass, yet there was no necessity\ninvolved in their own nature compelling their occurrence. Take an\nillustration that will help to convey my meaning. There are many things\nwhich we see taking place before our eyes--the movements of charioteers,\nfor instance, in guiding and turning their cars, and so on. Now, is any\none of these movements compelled by any necessity?'\n\n'No; certainly not. There would be no efficacy in skill if all motions\ntook place perforce.'\n\n'Then, things which in taking place are free from any necessity as to\ntheir being in the present must also, before they take place, be about\nto happen without necessity. Wherefore there are things which will come\nto pass, the occurrence of which is perfectly free from necessity. At\nall events, I imagine that no one will deny that things now taking place\nwere about to come to pass before they were actually happening. Such\nthings, however much foreknown, are in their occurrence _free_. For even\nas knowledge of things present imports no necessity into things that are\ntaking place, so foreknowledge of the future imports none into things\nthat are about to come. But this, thou wilt say, is the very point in\ndispute--whether any foreknowing is possible of things whose occurrence\nis not necessary. For here there seems to thee a contradiction, and, if\nthey are foreseen, their necessity follows; whereas if there is no\nnecessity, they can by no means be foreknown; and thou thinkest that\nnothing can be grasped as known unless it is certain, but if things\nwhose occurrence is uncertain are foreknown as certain, this is the very\nmist of opinion, not the truth of knowledge. For to think of things\notherwise than as they are, thou believest to be incompatible with the\nsoundness of knowledge.\n\n'Now, the cause of the mistake is this--that men think that all\nknowledge is cognized purely by the nature and efficacy of the thing\nknown. Whereas the case is the very reverse: all that is known is\ngrasped not conformably to its own efficacy, but rather conformably to\nthe faculty of the knower. An example will make this clear: the\nroundness of a body is recognised in one way by sight, in another by\ntouch. Sight looks upon it from a distance as a whole by a simultaneous\nreflection of rays; touch grasps the roundness piecemeal, by contact and\nattachment to the surface, and by actual movement round the periphery\nitself. Man himself, likewise, is viewed in one way by Sense, in another\nby Imagination, in another way, again, by Thought, in another by pure\nIntelligence. Sense judges figure clothed in material substance,\nImagination figure alone without matter. Thought transcends this again,\nand by its contemplation of universals considers the type itself which\nis contained in the individual. The eye of Intelligence is yet more\nexalted; for overpassing the sphere of the universal, it will behold\nabsolute form itself by the pure force of the mind's vision. Wherein the\nmain point to be considered is this: the higher faculty of comprehension\nembraces the lower, while the lower cannot rise to the higher. For Sense\nhas no efficacy beyond matter, nor can Imagination behold universal\nideas, nor Thought embrace pure form; but Intelligence, looking down, as\nit were, from its higher standpoint in its intuition of form,\ndiscriminates also the several elements which underlie it; but it\ncomprehends them in the same way as it comprehends that form itself,\nwhich could be cognized by no other than itself. For it cognizes the\nuniversal of Thought, the figure of Imagination, and the matter of\nSense, without employing Thought, Imagination, or Sense, but surveying\nall things, so to speak, under the aspect of pure form by a single flash\nof intuition. Thought also, in considering the universal, embraces\nimages and sense-impressions without resorting to Imagination or Sense.\nFor it is Thought which has thus defined the universal from its\nconceptual point of view: \"Man is a two-legged animal endowed with\nreason.\" This is indeed a universal notion, yet no one is ignorant that\nthe _thing_ is imaginable and presentable to Sense, because Thought\nconsiders it not by Imagination or Sense, but by means of rational\nconception. Imagination, too, though its faculty of viewing and forming\nrepresentations is founded upon the senses, nevertheless surveys\nsense-impressions without calling in Sense, not in the way of\nSense-perception, but of Imagination. See'st thou, then, how all things\nin cognizing use rather their own faculty than the faculty of the things\nwhich they cognize? Nor is this strange; for since every judgment is the\nact of the judge, it is necessary that each should accomplish its task\nby its own, not by another's power.'\n\n\n\nSONG IV. A PSYCHOLOGICAL FALLACY.\n\n[R]\n\n\n    From the Porch's murky depths\n      Comes a doctrine sage,\n    That doth liken living mind\n      To a written page;\n    Since all knowledge comes through\n      Sense,\n    Graven by Experience.\n\n    'As,' say they, 'the pen its marks\n      Curiously doth trace\n    On the smooth unsullied white\n      Of the paper's face,\n    So do outer things impress\n    Images on consciousness.'\n\n    But if verily the mind\n      Thus all passive lies;\n    If no living power within\n      Its own force supplies;\n    If it but reflect again,\n    Like a glass, things false and vain--\n\n\n    Whence the wondrous faculty\n      That perceives and knows,\n    That in one fair ordered scheme\n      Doth the world dispose;\n    Grasps each whole that Sense presents,\n    Or breaks into elements?\n\n    So divides and recombines,\n      And in changeful wise\n    Now to low descends, and now\n      To the height doth rise;\n    Last in inward swift review\n    Strictly sifts the false and true?\n\n    Of these ample potencies\n      Fitter cause, I ween,\n    Were Mind's self than marks impressed\n      By the outer scene.\n    Yet the body through the sense\n    Stirs the soul's intelligence.\n\n    When light flashes on the eye,\n      Or sound strikes the ear,\n    Mind aroused to due response\n      Makes the message clear;\n    And the dumb external signs\n    With the hidden forms combines.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[R] A criticism of the doctrine of the mind as a blank sheet of paper on\nwhich experience writes, as held by the Stoics in anticipation of Locke.\nSee Zeller, 'Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics,' Reichel's translation,\np. 76.\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\n'Now, although in the case of bodies endowed with sentiency the\nqualities of external objects affect the sense-organs, and the activity\nof mind is preceded by a bodily affection which calls forth the mind's\naction upon itself, and stimulates the forms till that moment lying\ninactive within, yet, I say, if in these bodies endowed with sentiency\nthe mind is not inscribed by mere passive affection, but of its own\nefficacy discriminates the impressions furnished to the body, how much\nmore do intelligences free from all bodily affections employ in their\ndiscrimination their own mental activities instead of conforming to\nexternal objects? So on these principles various modes of cognition\nbelong to distinct and different substances. For to creatures void of\nmotive power--shell-fish and other such creatures which cling to rocks\nand grow there--belongs Sense alone, void of all other modes of gaining\nknowledge; to beasts endowed with movement, in whom some capacity of\nseeking and shunning seems to have arisen, Imagination also. Thought\npertains only to the human race, as Intelligence to Divinity alone;\nhence it follows that that form of knowledge exceeds the rest which of\nits own nature cognizes not only its proper object, but the objects of\nthe other forms of knowledge also. But what if Sense and Imagination\nwere to gainsay Thought, and declare that universal which Thought deems\nitself to behold to be nothing? For the object of Sense and Imagination\ncannot be universal; so that either the judgment of Reason is true and\nthere is no sense-object, or, since they know full well that many\nobjects are presented to Sense and Imagination, the conception of\nReason, which looks on that which is perceived by Sense and particular\nas if it were a something \"universal,\" is empty of content. Suppose,\nfurther, that Reason maintains in reply that it does indeed contemplate\nthe object of both Sense and Imagination under the form of\nuniversality, while Sense and Imagination cannot aspire to the\nknowledge of the universal, since their cognizance cannot go beyond\nbodily figures, and that in the cognition of reality we ought rather to\ntrust the stronger and more perfect faculty of judgment. In a dispute of\nthis sort, should not we, in whom is planted the faculty of reasoning as\nwell as of imagining and perceiving, espouse the cause of Reason?\n\n'In like manner is it that human reason thinks that Divine Intelligence\ncannot see the future except after the fashion in which its own\nknowledge is obtained. For thy contention is, if events do not appear to\ninvolve certain and necessary issues, they cannot be foreseen as\ncertainly about to come to pass. There is, then, no foreknowledge of\nsuch events; or, if we can ever bring ourselves to believe that there\nis, there can be nothing which does not happen of necessity. If,\nhowever, we could have some part in the judgment of the Divine mind,\neven as we participate in Reason, we should think it perfectly just that\nhuman Reason should submit itself to the Divine mind, no less than we\njudged that Imagination and Sense ought to yield to Reason. Wherefore\nlet us soar, if we can, to the heights of that Supreme Intelligence; for\nthere Reason will see what in itself it cannot look upon; and that is in\nwhat way things whose occurrence is not certain may yet be seen in a\nsure and definite foreknowledge; and that this foreknowledge is not\nconjecture, but rather knowledge in its supreme simplicity, free of all\nlimits and restrictions.'\n\n\n\nSONG V. THE UPWARD LOOK.\n\n\n    In what divers shapes and fashions do the creatures great and small\n    Over wide earth's teeming surface skim, or scud, or walk, or crawl!\n    Some with elongated body sweep the ground, and, as they move,\n    Trail perforce with writhing belly in the dust a sinuous groove;\n    Some, on light wing upward soaring, swiftly do the winds divide,\n    And through heaven's ample spaces in free motion smoothly glide;\n    These earth's solid surface pressing, with firm paces onward rove,\n    Ranging through the verdant meadows, crouching in the woodland grove.\n    Great and wondrous is their variance! Yet in all the head low-bent\n    Dulls the soul and blunts the senses, though their forms be different.\n    Man alone, erect, aspiring, lifts his forehead to the skies,\n    And in upright posture steadfast seems earth's baseness to despise.\n    If with earth not all besotted, to this parable give ear,\n    Thou whose gaze is fixed on heaven, who thy face on high dost rear:\n    Lift thy soul, too, heavenward; haply lest it stain its heavenly worth,\n    And thine eyes alone look upward, while thy mind cleaves to the earth!\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\n'Since, then, as we lately proved, everything that is known is cognized\nnot in accordance with its own nature, but in accordance with the nature\nof the faculty that comprehends it, let us now contemplate, as far as\nlawful, the character of the Divine essence, that we may be able to\nunderstand also the nature of its knowledge.\n\n'God is eternal; in this judgment all rational beings agree. Let us,\nthen, consider what eternity is. For this word carries with it a\nrevelation alike of the Divine nature and of the Divine knowledge. Now,\neternity is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single\nmoment. What this is becomes more clear and manifest from a comparison\nwith things temporal. For whatever lives in time is a present proceeding\nfrom the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can\nembrace the whole space of its life together. To-morrow's state it\ngrasps not yet, while it has already lost yesterday's; nay, even in the\nlife of to-day ye live no longer than one brief transitory moment.\nWhatever, therefore, is subject to the condition of time, although, as\nAristotle deemed of the world, it never have either beginning or end,\nand its life be stretched to the whole extent of time's infinity, it yet\nis not such as rightly to be thought eternal. For it does not include\nand embrace the whole space of infinite life at once, but has no present\nhold on things to come, not yet accomplished. Accordingly, that which\nincludes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once, from\nwhich nothing future is absent, from which nothing past has escaped,\nthis is rightly called eternal; this must of necessity be ever present\nto itself in full self-possession, and hold the infinity of movable time\nin an abiding present. Wherefore they deem not rightly who imagine that\non Plato's principles the created world is made co-eternal with the\nCreator, because they are told that he believed the world to have had\nno beginning in time,[S] and to be destined never to come to an end. For\nit is one thing for existence to be endlessly prolonged, which was what\nPlato ascribed to the world, another for the whole of an endless life to\nbe embraced in the present, which is manifestly a property peculiar to\nthe Divine mind. Nor need God appear earlier in mere duration of time to\ncreated things, but only prior in the unique simplicity of His nature.\nFor the infinite progression of things in time copies this immediate\nexistence in the present of the changeless life, and when it cannot\nsucceed in equalling it, declines from movelessness into motion, and\nfalls away from the simplicity of a perpetual present to the infinite\nduration of the future and the past; and since it cannot possess the\nwhole fulness of its life together, for the very reason that in a manner\nit never ceases to be, it seems, up to a certain point, to rival that\nwhich it cannot complete and express by attaching itself indifferently\nto any present moment of time, however swift and brief; and since this\nbears some resemblance to that ever-abiding present, it bestows on\neverything to which it is assigned the semblance of existence. But since\nit cannot abide, it hurries along the infinite path of time, and the\nresult has been that it continues by ceaseless movement the life the\ncompleteness of which it could not embrace while it stood still. So, if\nwe are minded to give things their right names, we shall follow Plato in\nsaying that God indeed is eternal, but the world everlasting.\n\n'Since, then, every mode of judgment comprehends its objects conformably\nto its own nature, and since God abides for ever in an eternal present,\nHis knowledge, also transcending all movement of time, dwells in the\nsimplicity of its own changeless present, and, embracing the whole\ninfinite sweep of the past and of the future, contemplates all that\nfalls within its simple cognition as if it were now taking place. And\ntherefore, if thou wilt carefully consider that immediate presentment\nwhereby it discriminates all things, thou wilt more rightly deem it not\nforeknowledge as of something future, but knowledge of a moment that\nnever passes. For this cause the name chosen to describe it is not\nprevision, but providence, because, since utterly removed in nature from\nthings mean and trivial, its outlook embraces all things as from some\nlofty height. Why, then, dost thou insist that the things which are\nsurveyed by the Divine eye are involved in necessity, whereas clearly\nmen impose no necessity on things which they see? Does the act of vision\nadd any necessity to the things which thou seest before thy eyes?'\n\n'Assuredly not.'\n\n'And yet, if we may without unfitness compare God's present and man's,\njust as ye see certain things in this your temporary present, so does He\nsee all things in His eternal present. Wherefore this Divine\nanticipation changes not the natures and properties of things, and it\nbeholds things present before it, just as they will hereafter come to\npass in time. Nor does it confound things in its judgment, but in the\none mental view distinguishes alike what will come necessarily and what\nwithout necessity. For even as ye, when at one and the same time ye see\na man walking on the earth and the sun rising in the sky, distinguish\nbetween the two, though one glance embraces both, and judge the former\nvoluntary, the latter necessary action: so also the Divine vision in its\nuniversal range of view does in no wise confuse the characters of the\nthings which are present to its regard, though future in respect of\ntime. Whence it follows that when it perceives that something will come\ninto existence, and yet is perfectly aware that this is unbound by any\nnecessity, its apprehension is not opinion, but rather knowledge based\non truth. And if to this thou sayest that what God sees to be about to\ncome to pass cannot fail to come to pass, and that what cannot fail to\ncome to pass happens of necessity, and wilt tie me down to this word\nnecessity, I will acknowledge that thou affirmest a most solid truth,\nbut one which scarcely anyone can approach to who has not made the\nDivine his special study. For my answer would be that the same future\nevent is necessary from the standpoint of Divine knowledge, but when\nconsidered in its own nature it seems absolutely free and unfettered.\nSo, then, there are two necessities--one simple, as that men are\nnecessarily mortal; the other conditioned, as that, if you know that\nsomeone is walking, he must necessarily be walking. For that which is\nknown cannot indeed be otherwise than as it is known to be, and yet this\nfact by no means carries with it that other simple necessity. For the\nformer necessity is not imposed by the thing's own proper nature, but by\nthe addition of a condition. No necessity compels one who is voluntarily\nwalking to go forward, although it is necessary for him to go forward at\nthe moment of walking. In the same way, then, if Providence sees\nanything as present, that must necessarily be, though it is bound by no\nnecessity of nature. Now, God views as present those coming events which\nhappen of free will. These, accordingly, from the standpoint of the\nDivine vision are made necessary conditionally on the Divine\ncognizance; viewed, however, in themselves, they desist not from the\nabsolute freedom naturally theirs. Accordingly, without doubt, all\nthings will come to pass which God foreknows as about to happen, but of\nthese certain proceed of free will; and though these happen, yet by the\nfact of their existence they do not lose their proper nature, in virtue\nof which before they happened it was really possible that they might not\nhave come to pass.\n\n'What difference, then, does the denial of necessity make, since,\nthrough their being conditioned by Divine knowledge, they come to pass\nas if they were in all respects under the compulsion of necessity? This\ndifference, surely, which we saw in the case of the instances I formerly\ntook, the sun's rising and the man's walking; which at the moment of\ntheir occurrence could not but be taking place, and yet one of them\nbefore it took place was necessarily obliged to be, while the other was\nnot so at all. So likewise the things which to God are present without\ndoubt exist, but some of them come from the necessity of things, others\nfrom the power of the agent. Quite rightly, then, have we said that\nthese things are necessary if viewed from the standpoint of the Divine\nknowledge; but if they are considered in themselves, they are free from\nthe bonds of necessity, even as everything which is accessible to sense,\nregarded from the standpoint of Thought, is universal, but viewed in its\nown nature particular. \"But,\" thou wilt say, \"if it is in my power to\nchange my purpose, I shall make void providence, since I shall perchance\nchange something which comes within its foreknowledge.\" My answer is:\nThou canst indeed turn aside thy purpose; but since the truth of\nprovidence is ever at hand to see that thou canst, and whether thou\ndost, and whither thou turnest thyself, thou canst not avoid the Divine\nforeknowledge, even as thou canst not escape the sight of a present\nspectator, although of thy free will thou turn thyself to various\nactions. Wilt thou, then, say: \"Shall the Divine knowledge be changed at\nmy discretion, so that, when I will this or that, providence changes its\nknowledge correspondingly?\"\n\n'Surely not.'\n\n'True, for the Divine vision anticipates all that is coming, and\ntransforms and reduces it to the form of its own present knowledge, and\nvaries not, as thou deemest, in its foreknowledge, alternating to this\nor that, but in a single flash it forestalls and includes thy mutations\nwithout altering. And this ever-present comprehension and survey of all\nthings God has received, not from the issue of future events, but from\nthe simplicity of His own nature. Hereby also is resolved the objection\nwhich a little while ago gave thee offence--that our doings in the\nfuture were spoken of as if supplying the cause of God's knowledge. For\nthis faculty of knowledge, embracing all things in its immediate\ncognizance, has itself fixed the bounds of all things, yet itself owes\nnothing to what comes after.\n\n'And all this being so, the freedom of man's will stands unshaken, and\nlaws are not unrighteous, since their rewards and punishments are held\nforth to wills unbound by any necessity. God, who foreknoweth all\nthings, still looks down from above, and the ever-present eternity of\nHis vision concurs with the future character of all our acts, and\ndispenseth to the good rewards, to the bad punishments. Our hopes and\nprayers also are not fixed on God in vain, and when they are rightly\ndirected cannot fail of effect. Therefore, withstand vice, practise\nvirtue, lift up your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers to\nHeaven. Great is the necessity of righteousness laid upon you if ye will\nnot hide it from yourselves, seeing that all your actions are done\nbefore the eyes of a Judge who seeth all things.'\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[S] Plato expressly states the opposite in the 'Timaeus' (28B), though\npossibly there the account of the beginning of the world in time is to\nbe understood figuratively, not literally. See Jowett, vol. iii., pp.\n448, 449 (3rd edit.).\n\n\n\n\n</CHAPTER>\n\n\n<CHAPTER>\nEPILOGUE.\n\n\nWithin a short time of writing 'The Consolation of Philosophy,' Boethius\ndied by a cruel death. As to the manner of his death there is some\nuncertainty. According to one account, he was cut down by the swords of\nthe soldiers before the very judgment-seat of Theodoric; according to\nanother, a cord was first fastened round his forehead, and tightened\ntill 'his eyes started'; he was then killed with a club.\n\n_Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London_\n\n</CHAPTER>\n\n\n\nREFERENCES TO QUOTATIONS IN THE TEXT.\n\nBk. I., ch. iv., p. 17, l. 6: 'Iliad,' I. 363.\n\n  \"     ch. iv., p. 18, l. 7: Plato, 'Republic,'\n        V. 473, D; Jowett, vol. iii., pp. 170, 171\n        (3rd edit.).\n\n  \"     ch. iv., p. 22, l. 6: Plato, 'Republic,'\n        I. 347, C; Jowett, III., p. 25.\n\n  \"     ch. v., p. 30, l. 19: 'Iliad,' II., 204, 205.\n\nBk. II., ch. ii., p. 50, l. 21: 'Iliad.' XXIV.\n         527, 528.\n\n  \"      ch. vii., p. 78, l. 25: Cicero, 'De\n         Republica,' VI. 20, in the 'Somnium\n         Scipionis.'\n\nBk. III., ch. iv., p. 106, l. 10: Catullus, LII., 2.\n\n  \"       ch. vi., p. 114, l. 4: Euripides, 'Andromache,'\n          319, 320.\n\n  \"       ch. ix., p. 129, l. 3: Plato, 'Timaeus,'\n          27, C; Jowett, vol. iii., p. 448.\n\n  \"       ch. xii., p. 157, l. 14: Quoted Plato,\n          'Sophistes,' 244, E; Jowett, vol. iv.,\n          p. 374.\n\n  \"       ch. xii., p. 157, l. 22: Plato, 'Timaeus,'\n          29, B; Jowett, vol. iii., p. 449.\n\nBk. IV., ch. vi., p. 206, l. 17: Lucan, 'Pharsalia,'\n         I. 126.\n\n  \"      ch. vi., p. 210, l. 23: 'Iliad,' XII. 176.\n\nBk. V., ch. i., p. 227,l. 16: Aristotle, 'Physics,'\n        II. v. 5.\n\n  \"     ch. iii., p. 238, l. 20: Horace, 'Satires,'\n        II. v. 59.\n\n  \"     ch. iv., p. 243, l. 3: Cicero, 'De Divinatione,'\n        II. 7, 8.\n\n  \"     ch. vi., p. 258, l. 8: Aristotle, 'De\n        Caelo,' II. 1.\n\n\n",
        "summary": "The Consolation of Philosophy is a short work of literature, written in the form of a prosimetrical apocalyptic dialogue . It contains five Books, which are written in a combination of prose and verse. The dialogue is between Ancius Boethius, a prominent and learned official of the Roman Empire, and the person of Philosophy. The work opens with a scene between Boethius and the Muses of Poetry, who are attending him in his sorrow while he writes poetry of his woe. They are interrupted by the entrance of a strange and otherwordly-looking lady, Lady Philosophy. She explains that she has come to him in his hour of need, for he suffers from the sickness of being far too attached to material and earthly things. While Boethius protests that he is the victim of injustice, Lady Philosophy begins his \"cure\" by showing him the error of his ways. She begins by explaining that the vagaries of Fortune visit everyone, and he is by no means the worst of her victims. Even though he is imprisoned and due for execution, he has still the faculties of his mind and soul to comfort him. She explains that the gifts of Fortune were never his at all, but merely lent to him and taken away as easily as they were given. Health, wealth, honor, and power are things that never truly belong to any human being, and are visited on them by the wheel of fortune and quickly snatched away. Therefore it is unwise to become attached to any temporal thing. The \"cure\" continues as Boethius begins to see the logic of Philosophy's argument. They continue their dialogue and discuss the nature of earthly goods, and how they are not the path to true happiness. The thing the temporal world considers good, says Philosophy, are only inferior decorations on the ultimate earthly good, the soul and the intellectual capacity of humanity. Boethius offers a partial proof for God, a negative one based on the inadequacy of earthly attainments to satisfy the desire for perfect happiness . Therefore, since all humanity desires it, the standard for perfect happiness must exist, and that self-sufficient, powerful, and revered being who has attained perfect happiness is God. Evil has no substance, according to Philosophy, because it cannot participate in the ultimate pursuit of mankind: the supreme good. Therefore people who inflict their wickedness on the good are not truly powerful, since they have no capacity to stop the good people's attainment of the one thing that matters. God orders the world through Providence, and the order of things that happen on earth is called Fate. Though people on earth cannot understand the ways of Providence, they must nevertheless accept whatever Fate sends, for all fortune, good or bad, is good. Bad fortune can instruct the recipient in the ways of virtue, and, often is better for the soul. God does not interfere with free will, Philosophy concludes. Though God knows all things past and present, this knowledge doesn't preclude the freedom of choice of human beings. God's knowledge is not like our knowledge, and doesn't happen over a period of time. God had one act of knowing the world, and in that act knew all things, including all the free choices of all the people throughout the entire history of the world. Finally, Boethius, through this long conversation with Philosophy, has been comforted. Philosophy leaves him with the advice to cultivate virtue, for the Heavenly Judge sees all things."
    },
    {
        "book": "\nThe studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light\nsummer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through\nthe open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate\nperfume of the pink-flowering thorn.\n\nFrom the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was\nlying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry\nWotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured\nblossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to\nbear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then\nthe fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long\ntussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,\nproducing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of\nthose pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of\nan art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of\nswiftness and motion.  The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their\nway through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous\ninsistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine,\nseemed to make the stillness more oppressive.  The dim roar of London\nwas like the bourdon note of a distant organ.\n\nIn the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the\nfull-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty,\nand in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist\nhimself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago\ncaused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many\nstrange conjectures.\n\nAs the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so\nskilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his\nface, and seemed about to linger there.  But he suddenly started up,\nand closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he\nsought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he\nfeared he might awake.\n\n\"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,\" said\nLord Henry languidly.  \"You must certainly send it next year to the\nGrosvenor.  The Academy is too large and too vulgar.  Whenever I have\ngone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been\nable to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that\nI have not been able to see the people, which was worse.  The Grosvenor\nis really the only place.\"\n\n\"I don't think I shall send it anywhere,\" he answered, tossing his head\nback in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at\nOxford.  \"No, I won't send it anywhere.\"\n\nLord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through\nthe thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls\nfrom his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette.  \"Not send it anywhere?  My\ndear fellow, why?  Have you any reason?  What odd chaps you painters\nare!  You do anything in the world to gain a reputation.  As soon as\nyou have one, you seem to want to throw it away.  It is silly of you,\nfor there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,\nand that is not being talked about.  A portrait like this would set you\nfar above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite\njealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.\"\n\n\"I know you will laugh at me,\" he replied, \"but I really can't exhibit\nit.  I have put too much of myself into it.\"\n\nLord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.\n\n\"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.\"\n\n\"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you\nwere so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with\nyour rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young\nAdonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why,\nmy dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an\nintellectual expression and all that.  But beauty, real beauty, ends\nwhere an intellectual expression begins.  Intellect is in itself a mode\nof exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.  The moment one\nsits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something\nhorrid.  Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions.\nHow perfectly hideous they are!  Except, of course, in the Church.  But\nthen in the Church they don't think.  A bishop keeps on saying at the\nage of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen,\nand as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.\nYour mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but\nwhose picture really fascinates me, never thinks.  I feel quite sure of\nthat.  He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always\nhere in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in\nsummer when we want something to chill our intelligence.  Don't flatter\nyourself, Basil:  you are not in the least like him.\"\n\n\"You don't understand me, Harry,\" answered the artist.  \"Of course I am\nnot like him.  I know that perfectly well.  Indeed, I should be sorry\nto look like him.  You shrug your shoulders?  I am telling you the\ntruth.  There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual\ndistinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the\nfaltering steps of kings.  It is better not to be different from one's\nfellows.  The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.\nThey can sit at their ease and gape at the play.  If they know nothing\nof victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.  They\nlive as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without\ndisquiet.  They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it\nfrom alien hands.  Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they\nare--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we\nshall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.\"\n\n\"Dorian Gray?  Is that his name?\" asked Lord Henry, walking across the\nstudio towards Basil Hallward.\n\n\"Yes, that is his name.  I didn't intend to tell it to you.\"\n\n\"But why not?\"\n\n\"Oh, I can't explain.  When I like people immensely, I never tell their\nnames to any one.  It is like surrendering a part of them.  I have\ngrown to love secrecy.  It seems to be the one thing that can make\nmodern life mysterious or marvellous to us.  The commonest thing is\ndelightful if one only hides it.  When I leave town now I never tell my\npeople where I am going.  If I did, I would lose all my pleasure.  It\nis a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great\ndeal of romance into one's life.  I suppose you think me awfully\nfoolish about it?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" answered Lord Henry, \"not at all, my dear Basil.  You\nseem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that\nit makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.  I\nnever know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing.\nWhen we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go\ndown to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the\nmost serious faces.  My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact,\nthan I am.  She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do.\nBut when she does find me out, she makes no row at all.  I sometimes\nwish she would; but she merely laughs at me.\"\n\n\"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,\" said Basil\nHallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden.  \"I\nbelieve that you are really a very good husband, but that you are\nthoroughly ashamed of your own virtues.  You are an extraordinary\nfellow.  You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.\nYour cynicism is simply a pose.\"\n\n\"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,\"\ncried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the\ngarden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that\nstood in the shade of a tall laurel bush.  The sunlight slipped over\nthe polished leaves.  In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.\n\nAfter a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch.  \"I am afraid I must be\ngoing, Basil,\" he murmured, \"and before I go, I insist on your\nanswering a question I put to you some time ago.\"\n\n\"What is that?\" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.\n\n\"You know quite well.\"\n\n\"I do not, Harry.\"\n\n\"Well, I will tell you what it is.  I want you to explain to me why you\nwon't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture.  I want the real reason.\"\n\n\"I told you the real reason.\"\n\n\"No, you did not.  You said it was because there was too much of\nyourself in it.  Now, that is childish.\"\n\n\"Harry,\" said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, \"every\nportrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not\nof the sitter.  The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion.  It is\nnot he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on\nthe coloured canvas, reveals himself.  The reason I will not exhibit\nthis picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of\nmy own soul.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"And what is that?\" he asked.\n\n\"I will tell you,\" said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came\nover his face.\n\n\"I am all expectation, Basil,\" continued his companion, glancing at him.\n\n\"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry,\" answered the painter;\n\"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it.  Perhaps you will\nhardly believe it.\"\n\nLord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from\nthe grass and examined it.  \"I am quite sure I shall understand it,\" he\nreplied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk,\n\"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it\nis quite incredible.\"\n\nThe wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy\nlilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the\nlanguid air.  A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a\nblue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze\nwings.  Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart\nbeating, and wondered what was coming.\n\n\"The story is simply this,\" said the painter after some time.  \"Two\nmonths ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor\nartists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to\nremind the public that we are not savages.  With an evening coat and a\nwhite tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain\na reputation for being civilized.  Well, after I had been in the room\nabout ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious\nacademicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at\nme.  I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time.\nWhen our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale.  A curious sensation\nof terror came over me.  I knew that I had come face to face with some\none whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to\ndo so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art\nitself.  I did not want any external influence in my life.  You know\nyourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature.  I have always been my\nown master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray.\nThen--but I don't know how to explain it to you.  Something seemed to\ntell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life.  I had\na strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and\nexquisite sorrows.  I grew afraid and turned to quit the room.  It was\nnot conscience that made me do so:  it was a sort of cowardice.  I take\nno credit to myself for trying to escape.\"\n\n\"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil.\nConscience is the trade-name of the firm.  That is all.\"\n\n\"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.\nHowever, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used\nto be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door.  There, of course,\nI stumbled against Lady Brandon.  'You are not going to run away so\nsoon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out.  You know her curiously shrill\nvoice?\"\n\n\"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,\" said Lord Henry,\npulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.\n\n\"I could not get rid of her.  She brought me up to royalties, and\npeople with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras\nand parrot noses.  She spoke of me as her dearest friend.  I had only\nmet her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me.  I\nbelieve some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at\nleast had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the\nnineteenth-century standard of immortality.  Suddenly I found myself\nface to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely\nstirred me.  We were quite close, almost touching.  Our eyes met again.\nIt was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.\nPerhaps it was not so reckless, after all.  It was simply inevitable.\nWe would have spoken to each other without any introduction.  I am sure\nof that.  Dorian told me so afterwards.  He, too, felt that we were\ndestined to know each other.\"\n\n\"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?\" asked his\ncompanion.  \"I know she goes in for giving a rapid _precis_ of all her\nguests.  I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old\ngentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my\near, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to\neverybody in the room, the most astounding details.  I simply fled.  I\nlike to find out people for myself.  But Lady Brandon treats her guests\nexactly as an auctioneer treats his goods.  She either explains them\nentirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants\nto know.\"\n\n\"Poor Lady Brandon!  You are hard on her, Harry!\" said Hallward\nlistlessly.\n\n\"My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in\nopening a restaurant.  How could I admire her?  But tell me, what did\nshe say about Mr. Dorian Gray?\"\n\n\"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely\ninseparable.  Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do\nanything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr.\nGray?'  Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at\nonce.\"\n\n\"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far\nthe best ending for one,\" said the young lord, plucking another daisy.\n\nHallward shook his head.  \"You don't understand what friendship is,\nHarry,\" he murmured--\"or what enmity is, for that matter.  You like\nevery one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.\"\n\n\"How horribly unjust of you!\" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back\nand looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of\nglossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the\nsummer sky.  \"Yes; horribly unjust of you.  I make a great difference\nbetween people.  I choose my friends for their good looks, my\nacquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good\nintellects.  A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.\nI have not got one who is a fool.  They are all men of some\nintellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.  Is that\nvery vain of me?  I think it is rather vain.\"\n\n\"I should think it was, Harry.  But according to your category I must\nbe merely an acquaintance.\"\n\n\"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance.\"\n\n\"And much less than a friend.  A sort of brother, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Oh, brothers!  I don't care for brothers.  My elder brother won't die,\nand my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.\"\n\n\"Harry!\" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.\n\n\"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious.  But I can't help detesting my\nrelations.  I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand\nother people having the same faults as ourselves.  I quite sympathize\nwith the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices\nof the upper orders.  The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and\nimmorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of\nus makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves.  When\npoor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite\nmagnificent.  And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the\nproletariat live correctly.\"\n\n\"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is\nmore, Harry, I feel sure you don't either.\"\n\nLord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his\npatent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane.  \"How English you are\nBasil!  That is the second time you have made that observation.  If one\nputs forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to\ndo--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong.\nThe only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes\nit oneself.  Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do\nwith the sincerity of the man who expresses it.  Indeed, the\nprobabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely\nintellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured\nby either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.  However, I don't\npropose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you.  I\nlike persons better than principles, and I like persons with no\nprinciples better than anything else in the world.  Tell me more about\nMr. Dorian Gray.  How often do you see him?\"\n\n\"Every day.  I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day.  He is\nabsolutely necessary to me.\"\n\n\"How extraordinary!  I thought you would never care for anything but\nyour art.\"\n\n\"He is all my art to me now,\" said the painter gravely.  \"I sometimes\nthink, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the\nworld's history.  The first is the appearance of a new medium for art,\nand the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also.\nWhat the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of\nAntinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will\nsome day be to me.  It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from\nhim, sketch from him.  Of course, I have done all that.  But he is much\nmore to me than a model or a sitter.  I won't tell you that I am\ndissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such\nthat art cannot express it.  There is nothing that art cannot express,\nand I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good\nwork, is the best work of my life.  But in some curious way--I wonder\nwill you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an\nentirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style.  I see\nthings differently, I think of them differently.  I can now recreate\nlife in a way that was hidden from me before.  'A dream of form in days\nof thought'--who is it who says that?  I forget; but it is what Dorian\nGray has been to me.  The merely visible presence of this lad--for he\nseems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over\ntwenty--his merely visible presence--ah!  I wonder can you realize all\nthat that means?  Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh\nschool, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic\nspirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek.  The harmony of\nsoul and body--how much that is!  We in our madness have separated the\ntwo, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is\nvoid.  Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!  You remember\nthat landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price\nbut which I would not part with?  It is one of the best things I have\never done.  And why is it so?  Because, while I was painting it, Dorian\nGray sat beside me.  Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and\nfor the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I\nhad always looked for and always missed.\"\n\n\"Basil, this is extraordinary!  I must see Dorian Gray.\"\n\nHallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden.  After\nsome time he came back.  \"Harry,\" he said, \"Dorian Gray is to me simply\na motive in art.  You might see nothing in him.  I see everything in\nhim.  He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is\nthere.  He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner.  I find\nhim in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of\ncertain colours.  That is all.\"\n\n\"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?\" asked Lord Henry.\n\n\"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of\nall this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never\ncared to speak to him.  He knows nothing about it.  He shall never know\nanything about it.  But the world might guess it, and I will not bare\nmy soul to their shallow prying eyes.  My heart shall never be put\nunder their microscope.  There is too much of myself in the thing,\nHarry--too much of myself!\"\n\n\"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.  They know how useful passion\nis for publication.  Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.\"\n\n\"I hate them for it,\" cried Hallward.  \"An artist should create\nbeautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.  We\nlive in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of\nautobiography.  We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.  Some day I\nwill show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall\nnever see my portrait of Dorian Gray.\"\n\n\"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you.  It is only\nthe intellectually lost who ever argue.  Tell me, is Dorian Gray very\nfond of you?\"\n\nThe painter considered for a few moments.  \"He likes me,\" he answered\nafter a pause; \"I know he likes me.  Of course I flatter him\ndreadfully.  I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I\nknow I shall be sorry for having said.  As a rule, he is charming to\nme, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things.  Now and\nthen, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real\ndelight in giving me pain.  Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away\nmy whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put\nin his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a\nsummer's day.\"\n\n\"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will.  It is a sad thing to think\nof, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.  That\naccounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate\nourselves.  In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have\nsomething that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and\nfacts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.  The thoroughly\nwell-informed man--that is the modern ideal.  And the mind of the\nthoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing.  It is like a\n_bric-a-brac_ shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above\nits proper value.  I think you will tire first, all the same.  Some day\nyou will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little\nout of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something.\nYou will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think\nthat he has behaved very badly to you.  The next time he calls, you\nwill be perfectly cold and indifferent.  It will be a great pity, for\nit will alter you.  What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance\nof art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind\nis that it leaves one so unromantic.\"\n\n\"Harry, don't talk like that.  As long as I live, the personality of\nDorian Gray will dominate me.  You can't feel what I feel.  You change\ntoo often.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it.  Those who are\nfaithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who\nknow love's tragedies.\"  And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty\nsilver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and\nsatisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase.  There was\na rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy,\nand the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like\nswallows.  How pleasant it was in the garden!  And how delightful other\npeople's emotions were!--much more delightful than their ideas, it\nseemed to him.  One's own soul, and the passions of one's\nfriends--those were the fascinating things in life.  He pictured to\nhimself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed\nby staying so long with Basil Hallward.  Had he gone to his aunt's, he\nwould have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole\nconversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the\nnecessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the\nimportance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity\nin their own lives.  The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift,\nand the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.  It was\ncharming to have escaped all that!  As he thought of his aunt, an idea\nseemed to strike him.  He turned to Hallward and said, \"My dear fellow,\nI have just remembered.\"\n\n\"Remembered what, Harry?\"\n\n\"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray.\"\n\n\"Where was it?\" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.\n\n\"Don't look so angry, Basil.  It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's.  She\ntold me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help\nher in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray.  I am bound to\nstate that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no\nappreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not.  She said\nthat he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature.  I at once\npictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly\nfreckled, and tramping about on huge feet.  I wish I had known it was\nyour friend.\"\n\n\"I am very glad you didn't, Harry.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I don't want you to meet him.\"\n\n\"You don't want me to meet him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir,\" said the butler, coming into\nthe garden.\n\n\"You must introduce me now,\" cried Lord Henry, laughing.\n\nThe painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight.\n\"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker:  I shall be in in a few moments.\" The\nman bowed and went up the walk.\n\nThen he looked at Lord Henry.  \"Dorian Gray is my dearest friend,\" he\nsaid.  \"He has a simple and a beautiful nature.  Your aunt was quite\nright in what she said of him.  Don't spoil him.  Don't try to\ninfluence him.  Your influence would be bad.  The world is wide, and\nhas many marvellous people in it.  Don't take away from me the one\nperson who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses:  my life as an\nartist depends on him.  Mind, Harry, I trust you.\"  He spoke very\nslowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.\n\n\"What nonsense you talk!\" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward\nby the arm, he almost led him into the house.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs they entered they saw Dorian Gray.  He was seated at the piano, with\nhis back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's\n\"Forest Scenes.\"  \"You must lend me these, Basil,\" he cried.  \"I want\nto learn them.  They are perfectly charming.\"\n\n\"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of\nmyself,\" answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a\nwilful, petulant manner.  When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint\nblush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up.  \"I beg your\npardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you.\"\n\n\"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine.  I\nhave just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you\nhave spoiled everything.\"\n\n\"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord\nHenry, stepping forward and extending his hand.  \"My aunt has often\nspoken to me about you.  You are one of her favourites, and, I am\nafraid, one of her victims also.\"\n\n\"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present,\" answered Dorian with a\nfunny look of penitence.  \"I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel\nwith her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it.  We were to\nhave played a duet together--three duets, I believe.  I don't know what\nshe will say to me.  I am far too frightened to call.\"\n\n\"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt.  She is quite devoted to you.\nAnd I don't think it really matters about your not being there.  The\naudience probably thought it was a duet.  When Aunt Agatha sits down to\nthe piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people.\"\n\n\"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me,\" answered Dorian,\nlaughing.\n\nLord Henry looked at him.  Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome,\nwith his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp\ngold hair.  There was something in his face that made one trust him at\nonce.  All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's\npassionate purity.  One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from\nthe world.  No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.\n\n\"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too\ncharming.\" And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened\nhis cigarette-case.\n\nThe painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes\nready.  He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last\nremark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,\n\"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it\nawfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?\"\n\nLord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray.  \"Am I to go, Mr. Gray?\"\nhe asked.\n\n\"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry.  I see that Basil is in one of his sulky\nmoods, and I can't bear him when he sulks.  Besides, I want you to tell\nme why I should not go in for philanthropy.\"\n\n\"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray.  It is so tedious a\nsubject that one would have to talk seriously about it.  But I\ncertainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop.  You\ndon't really mind, Basil, do you?  You have often told me that you\nliked your sitters to have some one to chat to.\"\n\nHallward bit his lip.  \"If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.\nDorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself.\"\n\nLord Henry took up his hat and gloves.  \"You are very pressing, Basil,\nbut I am afraid I must go.  I have promised to meet a man at the\nOrleans.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon\nStreet.  I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when\nyou are coming.  I should be sorry to miss you.\"\n\n\"Basil,\" cried Dorian Gray, \"if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go,\ntoo.  You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is\nhorribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.  Ask\nhim to stay.  I insist upon it.\"\n\n\"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,\" said Hallward,\ngazing intently at his picture.  \"It is quite true, I never talk when I\nam working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious\nfor my unfortunate sitters.  I beg you to stay.\"\n\n\"But what about my man at the Orleans?\"\n\nThe painter laughed.  \"I don't think there will be any difficulty about\nthat.  Sit down again, Harry.  And now, Dorian, get up on the platform,\nand don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry\nsays.  He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the\nsingle exception of myself.\"\n\nDorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek\nmartyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he\nhad rather taken a fancy.  He was so unlike Basil.  They made a\ndelightful contrast.  And he had such a beautiful voice.  After a few\nmoments he said to him, \"Have you really a very bad influence, Lord\nHenry?  As bad as Basil says?\"\n\n\"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray.  All influence\nis immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.  He does\nnot think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.  His\nvirtues are not real to him.  His sins, if there are such things as\nsins, are borrowed.  He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an\nactor of a part that has not been written for him.  The aim of life is\nself-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each\nof us is here for.  People are afraid of themselves, nowadays.  They\nhave forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to\none's self.  Of course, they are charitable.  They feed the hungry and\nclothe the beggar.  But their own souls starve, and are naked.  Courage\nhas gone out of our race.  Perhaps we never really had it.  The terror\nof society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is\nthe secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us.  And\nyet--\"\n\n\"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good\nboy,\" said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look\nhad come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.\n\n\"And yet,\" continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with\nthat graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of\nhim, and that he had even in his Eton days, \"I believe that if one man\nwere to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to\nevery feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I\nbelieve that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we\nwould forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the\nHellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it\nmay be.  But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.  The\nmutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial\nthat mars our lives.  We are punished for our refusals.  Every impulse\nthat we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us.  The body\nsins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of\npurification.  Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,\nor the luxury of a regret.  The only way to get rid of a temptation is\nto yield to it.  Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for\nthe things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its\nmonstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.  It has been said that\nthe great events of the world take place in the brain.  It is in the\nbrain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place\nalso.  You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your\nrose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,\nthoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping\ndreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--\"\n\n\"Stop!\" faltered Dorian Gray, \"stop! you bewilder me.  I don't know\nwhat to say.  There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.  Don't\nspeak.  Let me think.  Or, rather, let me try not to think.\"\n\nFor nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and\neyes strangely bright.  He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh\ninfluences were at work within him.  Yet they seemed to him to have\ncome really from himself.  The few words that Basil's friend had said\nto him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in\nthem--had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before,\nbut that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.\n\nMusic had stirred him like that.  Music had troubled him many times.\nBut music was not articulate.  It was not a new world, but rather\nanother chaos, that it created in us.  Words!  Mere words!  How\nterrible they were!  How clear, and vivid, and cruel!  One could not\nescape from them.  And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!  They\nseemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to\nhave a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute.  Mere\nwords!  Was there anything so real as words?\n\nYes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.\nHe understood them now.  Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him.\nIt seemed to him that he had been walking in fire.  Why had he not\nknown it?\n\nWith his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him.  He knew the precise\npsychological moment when to say nothing.  He felt intensely\ninterested.  He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had\nproduced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen,\na book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he\nwondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience.\nHe had merely shot an arrow into the air.  Had it hit the mark?  How\nfascinating the lad was!\n\nHallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had\nthe true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes\nonly from strength.  He was unconscious of the silence.\n\n\"Basil, I am tired of standing,\" cried Dorian Gray suddenly.  \"I must\ngo out and sit in the garden.  The air is stifling here.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, I am so sorry.  When I am painting, I can't think of\nanything else.  But you never sat better.  You were perfectly still.\nAnd I have caught the effect I wanted--the half-parted lips and the\nbright look in the eyes.  I don't know what Harry has been saying to\nyou, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression.\nI suppose he has been paying you compliments.  You mustn't believe a\nword that he says.\"\n\n\"He has certainly not been paying me compliments.  Perhaps that is the\nreason that I don't believe anything he has told me.\"\n\n\"You know you believe it all,\" said Lord Henry, looking at him with his\ndreamy languorous eyes.  \"I will go out to the garden with you.  It is\nhorribly hot in the studio.  Basil, let us have something iced to\ndrink, something with strawberries in it.\"\n\n\"Certainly, Harry.  Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will\ntell him what you want.  I have got to work up this background, so I\nwill join you later on.  Don't keep Dorian too long.  I have never been\nin better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my\nmasterpiece.  It is my masterpiece as it stands.\"\n\nLord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his\nface in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their\nperfume as if it had been wine.  He came close to him and put his hand\nupon his shoulder.  \"You are quite right to do that,\" he murmured.\n\"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the\nsenses but the soul.\"\n\nThe lad started and drew back.  He was bareheaded, and the leaves had\ntossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads.\nThere was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are\nsuddenly awakened.  His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some\nhidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.\n\n\"Yes,\" continued Lord Henry, \"that is one of the great secrets of\nlife--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means\nof the soul.  You are a wonderful creation.  You know more than you\nthink you know, just as you know less than you want to know.\"\n\nDorian Gray frowned and turned his head away.  He could not help liking\nthe tall, graceful young man who was standing by him.  His romantic,\nolive-coloured face and worn expression interested him.  There was\nsomething in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating.\nHis cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm.  They\nmoved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their\nown.  But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid.  Why had\nit been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself?  He had known\nBasil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never\naltered him.  Suddenly there had come some one across his life who\nseemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery.  And, yet, what was\nthere to be afraid of?  He was not a schoolboy or a girl.  It was\nabsurd to be frightened.\n\n\"Let us go and sit in the shade,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Parker has brought\nout the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be\nquite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again.  You really must\nnot allow yourself to become sunburnt.  It would be unbecoming.\"\n\n\"What can it matter?\" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on\nthe seat at the end of the garden.\n\n\"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing\nworth having.\"\n\n\"I don't feel that, Lord Henry.\"\n\n\"No, you don't feel it now.  Some day, when you are old and wrinkled\nand ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and\npassion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you\nwill feel it terribly.  Now, wherever you go, you charm the world.\nWill it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr.\nGray.  Don't frown.  You have.  And beauty is a form of genius--is\nhigher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.  It is of the\ngreat facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the\nreflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon.  It\ncannot be questioned.  It has its divine right of sovereignty.  It\nmakes princes of those who have it.  You smile?  Ah! when you have lost\nit you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only\nsuperficial.  That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as\nthought is.  To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders.  It is only\nshallow people who do not judge by appearances.  The true mystery of\nthe world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the\ngods have been good to you.  But what the gods give they quickly take\naway.  You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly,\nand fully.  When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then\nyou will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or\nhave to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of\nyour past will make more bitter than defeats.  Every month as it wanes\nbrings you nearer to something dreadful.  Time is jealous of you, and\nwars against your lilies and your roses.  You will become sallow, and\nhollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.  You will suffer horribly.... Ah!\nrealize your youth while you have it.  Don't squander the gold of your\ndays, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure,\nor giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar.\nThese are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age.  Live!  Live\nthe wonderful life that is in you!  Let nothing be lost upon you.  Be\nalways searching for new sensations.  Be afraid of nothing.... A new\nHedonism--that is what our century wants.  You might be its visible\nsymbol.  With your personality there is nothing you could not do.  The\nworld belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that\nyou were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really\nmight be.  There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must\ntell you something about yourself.  I thought how tragic it would be if\nyou were wasted.  For there is such a little time that your youth will\nlast--such a little time.  The common hill-flowers wither, but they\nblossom again.  The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now.\nIn a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after\nyear the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars.  But we\nnever get back our youth.  The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty\nbecomes sluggish.  Our limbs fail, our senses rot.  We degenerate into\nhideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were\ntoo much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the\ncourage to yield to.  Youth!  Youth!  There is absolutely nothing in\nthe world but youth!\"\n\nDorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering.  The spray of lilac fell\nfrom his hand upon the gravel.  A furry bee came and buzzed round it\nfor a moment.  Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated\nglobe of the tiny blossoms.  He watched it with that strange interest\nin trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import\nmake us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we\ncannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays\nsudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield.  After a time the\nbee flew away.  He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian\nconvolvulus.  The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to\nand fro.\n\nSuddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made\nstaccato signs for them to come in.  They turned to each other and\nsmiled.\n\n\"I am waiting,\" he cried.  \"Do come in.  The light is quite perfect,\nand you can bring your drinks.\"\n\nThey rose up and sauntered down the walk together.  Two green-and-white\nbutterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of\nthe garden a thrush began to sing.\n\n\"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord Henry, looking at\nhim.\n\n\"Yes, I am glad now.  I wonder shall I always be glad?\"\n\n\"Always!  That is a dreadful word.  It makes me shudder when I hear it.\nWomen are so fond of using it.  They spoil every romance by trying to\nmake it last for ever.  It is a meaningless word, too.  The only\ndifference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice\nlasts a little longer.\"\n\nAs they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's\narm.  \"In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,\" he murmured,\nflushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and\nresumed his pose.\n\nLord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him.\nThe sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that\nbroke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back\nto look at his work from a distance.  In the slanting beams that\nstreamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden.  The\nheavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.\n\nAfter about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for\na long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture,\nbiting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning.  \"It is quite\nfinished,\" he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in\nlong vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.\n\nLord Henry came over and examined the picture.  It was certainly a\nwonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.\n\n\"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,\" he said.  \"It is the\nfinest portrait of modern times.  Mr. Gray, come over and look at\nyourself.\"\n\nThe lad started, as if awakened from some dream.\n\n\"Is it really finished?\" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.\n\n\"Quite finished,\" said the painter.  \"And you have sat splendidly\nto-day. I am awfully obliged to you.\"\n\n\"That is entirely due to me,\" broke in Lord Henry.  \"Isn't it, Mr.\nGray?\"\n\nDorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture\nand turned towards it.  When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks\nflushed for a moment with pleasure.  A look of joy came into his eyes,\nas if he had recognized himself for the first time.  He stood there\nmotionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to\nhim, but not catching the meaning of his words.  The sense of his own\nbeauty came on him like a revelation.  He had never felt it before.\nBasil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the\ncharming exaggeration of friendship.  He had listened to them, laughed\nat them, forgotten them.  They had not influenced his nature.  Then had\ncome Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his\nterrible warning of its brevity.  That had stirred him at the time, and\nnow, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full\nreality of the description flashed across him.  Yes, there would be a\nday when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and\ncolourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed.  The scarlet\nwould pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair.  The\nlife that was to make his soul would mar his body.  He would become\ndreadful, hideous, and uncouth.\n\nAs he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a\nknife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver.  His eyes\ndeepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears.  He felt\nas if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.\n\n\"Don't you like it?\" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the\nlad's silence, not understanding what it meant.\n\n\"Of course he likes it,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Who wouldn't like it?  It\nis one of the greatest things in modern art.  I will give you anything\nyou like to ask for it.  I must have it.\"\n\n\"It is not my property, Harry.\"\n\n\"Whose property is it?\"\n\n\"Dorian's, of course,\" answered the painter.\n\n\"He is a very lucky fellow.\"\n\n\"How sad it is!\" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon\nhis own portrait.  \"How sad it is!  I shall grow old, and horrible, and\ndreadful.  But this picture will remain always young.  It will never be\nolder than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other\nway!  If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was\nto grow old!  For that--for that--I would give everything!  Yes, there\nis nothing in the whole world I would not give!  I would give my soul\nfor that!\"\n\n\"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,\" cried Lord\nHenry, laughing.  \"It would be rather hard lines on your work.\"\n\n\"I should object very strongly, Harry,\" said Hallward.\n\nDorian Gray turned and looked at him.  \"I believe you would, Basil.\nYou like your art better than your friends.  I am no more to you than a\ngreen bronze figure.  Hardly as much, I dare say.\"\n\nThe painter stared in amazement.  It was so unlike Dorian to speak like\nthat.  What had happened?  He seemed quite angry.  His face was flushed\nand his cheeks burning.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your\nsilver Faun.  You will like them always.  How long will you like me?\nTill I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.  I know, now, that when one\nloses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.\nYour picture has taught me that.  Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right.\nYouth is the only thing worth having.  When I find that I am growing\nold, I shall kill myself.\"\n\nHallward turned pale and caught his hand.  \"Dorian!  Dorian!\" he cried,\n\"don't talk like that.  I have never had such a friend as you, and I\nshall never have such another.  You are not jealous of material things,\nare you?--you who are finer than any of them!\"\n\n\"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.  I am jealous of\nthe portrait you have painted of me.  Why should it keep what I must\nlose?  Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives\nsomething to it.  Oh, if it were only the other way!  If the picture\ncould change, and I could be always what I am now!  Why did you paint\nit?  It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!\"  The hot tears welled\ninto his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the\ndivan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.\n\n\"This is your doing, Harry,\" said the painter bitterly.\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"It is the real Dorian Gray--that\nis all.\"\n\n\"It is not.\"\n\n\"If it is not, what have I to do with it?\"\n\n\"You should have gone away when I asked you,\" he muttered.\n\n\"I stayed when you asked me,\" was Lord Henry's answer.\n\n\"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between\nyou both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever\ndone, and I will destroy it.  What is it but canvas and colour?  I will\nnot let it come across our three lives and mar them.\"\n\nDorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid\nface and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal\npainting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window.  What\nwas he doing there?  His fingers were straying about among the litter\nof tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something.  Yes, it was for\nthe long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel.  He had\nfound it at last.  He was going to rip up the canvas.\n\nWith a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to\nHallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of\nthe studio.  \"Don't, Basil, don't!\" he cried.  \"It would be murder!\"\n\n\"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian,\" said the painter\ncoldly when he had recovered from his surprise.  \"I never thought you\nwould.\"\n\n\"Appreciate it?  I am in love with it, Basil.  It is part of myself.  I\nfeel that.\"\n\n\"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and\nsent home.  Then you can do what you like with yourself.\" And he walked\nacross the room and rang the bell for tea.  \"You will have tea, of\ncourse, Dorian?  And so will you, Harry?  Or do you object to such\nsimple pleasures?\"\n\n\"I adore simple pleasures,\" said Lord Henry.  \"They are the last refuge\nof the complex.  But I don't like scenes, except on the stage.  What\nabsurd fellows you are, both of you!  I wonder who it was defined man\nas a rational animal.  It was the most premature definition ever given.\nMan is many things, but he is not rational.  I am glad he is not, after\nall--though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture.  You\nhad much better let me have it, Basil.  This silly boy doesn't really\nwant it, and I really do.\"\n\n\"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!\"\ncried Dorian Gray; \"and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy.\"\n\n\"You know the picture is yours, Dorian.  I gave it to you before it\nexisted.\"\n\n\"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you\ndon't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young.\"\n\n\"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry.\"\n\n\"Ah! this morning!  You have lived since then.\"\n\nThere came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden\ntea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table.  There was a\nrattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.\nTwo globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page.  Dorian Gray\nwent over and poured out the tea.  The two men sauntered languidly to\nthe table and examined what was under the covers.\n\n\"Let us go to the theatre to-night,\" said Lord Henry.  \"There is sure\nto be something on, somewhere.  I have promised to dine at White's, but\nit is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I\nam ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a\nsubsequent engagement.  I think that would be a rather nice excuse:  it\nwould have all the surprise of candour.\"\n\n\"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes,\" muttered Hallward.\n\"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Lord Henry dreamily, \"the costume of the nineteenth\ncentury is detestable.  It is so sombre, so depressing.  Sin is the\nonly real colour-element left in modern life.\"\n\n\"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.\"\n\n\"Before which Dorian?  The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the\none in the picture?\"\n\n\"Before either.\"\n\n\"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry,\" said the\nlad.\n\n\"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?\"\n\n\"I can't, really.  I would sooner not.  I have a lot of work to do.\"\n\n\"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"I should like that awfully.\"\n\nThe painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture.\n\"I shall stay with the real Dorian,\" he said, sadly.\n\n\"Is it the real Dorian?\" cried the original of the portrait, strolling\nacross to him.  \"Am I really like that?\"\n\n\"Yes; you are just like that.\"\n\n\"How wonderful, Basil!\"\n\n\"At least you are like it in appearance.  But it will never alter,\"\nsighed Hallward.  \"That is something.\"\n\n\"What a fuss people make about fidelity!\" exclaimed Lord Henry.  \"Why,\neven in love it is purely a question for physiology.  It has nothing to\ndo with our own will.  Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old\nmen want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.\"\n\n\"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian,\" said Hallward.  \"Stop and\ndine with me.\"\n\n\"I can't, Basil.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him.\"\n\n\"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises.  He always\nbreaks his own.  I beg you not to go.\"\n\nDorian Gray laughed and shook his head.\n\n\"I entreat you.\"\n\nThe lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them\nfrom the tea-table with an amused smile.\n\n\"I must go, Basil,\" he answered.\n\n\"Very well,\" said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on\nthe tray.  \"It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had\nbetter lose no time.  Good-bye, Harry.  Good-bye, Dorian.  Come and see\nme soon.  Come to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"You won't forget?\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" cried Dorian.\n\n\"And ... Harry!\"\n\n\"Yes, Basil?\"\n\n\"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning.\"\n\n\"I have forgotten it.\"\n\n\"I trust you.\"\n\n\"I wish I could trust myself,\" said Lord Henry, laughing.  \"Come, Mr.\nGray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.\nGood-bye, Basil.  It has been a most interesting afternoon.\"\n\nAs the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a\nsofa, and a look of pain came into his face.\n\n\n\n\n\nAt half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon\nStreet over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial\nif somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called\nselfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was\nconsidered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him.\nHis father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young\nand Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a\ncapricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at\nParis, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by\nreason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches,\nand his inordinate passion for pleasure.  The son, who had been his\nfather's secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat\nfoolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months\nlater to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great\naristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.  He had two large town\nhouses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and\ntook most of his meals at his club.  He paid some attention to the\nmanagement of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself\nfor this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of\nhaving coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of\nburning wood on his own hearth.  In politics he was a Tory, except when\nthe Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them\nfor being a pack of Radicals.  He was a hero to his valet, who bullied\nhim, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn.\nOnly England could have produced him, and he always said that the\ncountry was going to the dogs.  His principles were out of date, but\nthere was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.\n\nWhen Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough\nshooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_.  \"Well,\nHarry,\" said the old gentleman, \"what brings you out so early?  I\nthought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till\nfive.\"\n\n\"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George.  I want to get\nsomething out of you.\"\n\n\"Money, I suppose,\" said Lord Fermor, making a wry face.  \"Well, sit\ndown and tell me all about it.  Young people, nowadays, imagine that\nmoney is everything.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; \"and\nwhen they grow older they know it.  But I don't want money.  It is only\npeople who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay\nmine.  Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly\nupon it.  Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and\nconsequently they never bother me.  What I want is information:  not\nuseful information, of course; useless information.\"\n\n\"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry,\nalthough those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense.  When I was in\nthe Diplomatic, things were much better.  But I hear they let them in\nnow by examination.  What can you expect?  Examinations, sir, are pure\nhumbug from beginning to end.  If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite\nenough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.\"\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George,\" said\nLord Henry languidly.\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray?  Who is he?\" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy\nwhite eyebrows.\n\n\"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George.  Or rather, I know\nwho he is.  He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson.  His mother was a\nDevereux, Lady Margaret Devereux.  I want you to tell me about his\nmother.  What was she like?  Whom did she marry?  You have known nearly\neverybody in your time, so you might have known her.  I am very much\ninterested in Mr. Gray at present.  I have only just met him.\"\n\n\"Kelso's grandson!\" echoed the old gentleman.  \"Kelso's grandson! ...\nOf course.... I knew his mother intimately.  I believe I was at her\nchristening.  She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret\nDevereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless\nyoung fellow--a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or\nsomething of that kind.  Certainly.  I remember the whole thing as if\nit happened yesterday.  The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few\nmonths after the marriage.  There was an ugly story about it.  They\nsaid Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult\nhis son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and that\nthe fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon.  The thing was\nhushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some\ntime afterwards.  He brought his daughter back with him, I was told,\nand she never spoke to him again.  Oh, yes; it was a bad business.  The\ngirl died, too, died within a year.  So she left a son, did she?  I had\nforgotten that.  What sort of boy is he?  If he is like his mother, he\nmust be a good-looking chap.\"\n\n\"He is very good-looking,\" assented Lord Henry.\n\n\"I hope he will fall into proper hands,\" continued the old man.  \"He\nshould have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing\nby him.  His mother had money, too.  All the Selby property came to\nher, through her grandfather.  Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him\na mean dog.  He was, too.  Came to Madrid once when I was there.  Egad,\nI was ashamed of him.  The Queen used to ask me about the English noble\nwho was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares.  They\nmade quite a story of it.  I didn't dare show my face at Court for a\nmonth.  I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" answered Lord Henry.  \"I fancy that the boy will be\nwell off.  He is not of age yet.  He has Selby, I know.  He told me so.\nAnd ... his mother was very beautiful?\"\n\n\"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw,\nHarry.  What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could\nunderstand.  She could have married anybody she chose.  Carlington was\nmad after her.  She was romantic, though.  All the women of that family\nwere.  The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful.\nCarlington went on his knees to her.  Told me so himself.  She laughed\nat him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after\nhim.  And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is\nthis humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an\nAmerican?  Ain't English girls good enough for him?\"\n\n\"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George.\"\n\n\"I'll back English women against the world, Harry,\" said Lord Fermor,\nstriking the table with his fist.\n\n\"The betting is on the Americans.\"\n\n\"They don't last, I am told,\" muttered his uncle.\n\n\"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a\nsteeplechase.  They take things flying.  I don't think Dartmoor has a\nchance.\"\n\n\"Who are her people?\" grumbled the old gentleman.  \"Has she got any?\"\n\nLord Henry shook his head.  \"American girls are as clever at concealing\ntheir parents, as English women are at concealing their past,\" he said,\nrising to go.\n\n\"They are pork-packers, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake.  I am told that\npork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after\npolitics.\"\n\n\"Is she pretty?\"\n\n\"She behaves as if she was beautiful.  Most American women do.  It is\nthe secret of their charm.\"\n\n\"Why can't these American women stay in their own country?  They are\nalways telling us that it is the paradise for women.\"\n\n\"It is.  That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively\nanxious to get out of it,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Good-bye, Uncle George.\nI shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer.  Thanks for giving me\nthe information I wanted.  I always like to know everything about my\nnew friends, and nothing about my old ones.\"\n\n\"Where are you lunching, Harry?\"\n\n\"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray.  He is her latest\n_protege_.\"\n\n\"Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with\nher charity appeals.  I am sick of them.  Why, the good woman thinks\nthat I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads.\"\n\n\"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect.\nPhilanthropic people lose all sense of humanity.  It is their\ndistinguishing characteristic.\"\n\nThe old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his\nservant.  Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street\nand turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square.\n\nSo that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage.  Crudely as it had\nbeen told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a\nstrange, almost modern romance.  A beautiful woman risking everything\nfor a mad passion.  A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a\nhideous, treacherous crime.  Months of voiceless agony, and then a\nchild born in pain.  The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to\nsolitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man.  Yes; it was an\ninteresting background.  It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it\nwere.  Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something\ntragic.  Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might\nblow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as\nwith startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat\nopposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer\nrose the wakening wonder of his face.  Talking to him was like playing\nupon an exquisite violin.  He answered to every touch and thrill of the\nbow.... There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of\ninfluence.  No other activity was like it.  To project one's soul into\nsome gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's\nown intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of\npassion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though\nit were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in\nthat--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited\nand vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and\ngrossly common in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad,\nwhom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be\nfashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate.  Grace was his, and the\nwhite purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for\nus.  There was nothing that one could not do with him.  He could be\nmade a Titan or a toy.  What a pity it was that such beauty was\ndestined to fade! ...  And Basil?  From a psychological point of view,\nhow interesting he was!  The new manner in art, the fresh mode of\nlooking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence\nof one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in\ndim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing\nherself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for\nher there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are\nwonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things\nbecoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value,\nas though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect\nform whose shadow they made real:  how strange it all was!  He\nremembered something like it in history.  Was it not Plato, that artist\nin thought, who had first analyzed it?  Was it not Buonarotti who had\ncarved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own\ncentury it was strange.... Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray\nwhat, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned\nthe wonderful portrait.  He would seek to dominate him--had already,\nindeed, half done so.  He would make that wonderful spirit his own.\nThere was something fascinating in this son of love and death.\n\nSuddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses.  He found that he had\npassed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back.\nWhen he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they\nhad gone in to lunch.  He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and\npassed into the dining-room.\n\n\"Late as usual, Harry,\" cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.\n\nHe invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to\nher, looked round to see who was there.  Dorian bowed to him shyly from\nthe end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek.\nOpposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable good-nature and\ngood temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample\narchitectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are\ndescribed by contemporary historians as stoutness.  Next to her sat, on\nher right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who\nfollowed his leader in public life and in private life followed the\nbest cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in\naccordance with a wise and well-known rule.  The post on her left was\noccupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable\ncharm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence,\nhaving, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he\nhad to say before he was thirty.  His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur,\none of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so\ndreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book.\nFortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most\nintelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement\nin the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely\nearnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once\nhimself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of\nthem ever quite escape.\n\n\"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry,\" cried the duchess,\nnodding pleasantly to him across the table.  \"Do you think he will\nreally marry this fascinating young person?\"\n\n\"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess.\"\n\n\"How dreadful!\" exclaimed Lady Agatha.  \"Really, some one should\ninterfere.\"\n\n\"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American\ndry-goods store,\" said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.\n\n\"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas.\"\n\n\"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?\" asked the duchess, raising\nher large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.\n\n\"American novels,\" answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.\n\nThe duchess looked puzzled.\n\n\"Don't mind him, my dear,\" whispered Lady Agatha.  \"He never means\nanything that he says.\"\n\n\"When America was discovered,\" said the Radical member--and he began to\ngive some wearisome facts.  Like all people who try to exhaust a\nsubject, he exhausted his listeners.  The duchess sighed and exercised\nher privilege of interruption.  \"I wish to goodness it never had been\ndiscovered at all!\" she exclaimed.  \"Really, our girls have no chance\nnowadays.  It is most unfair.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered,\" said Mr.\nErskine; \"I myself would say that it had merely been detected.\"\n\n\"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants,\" answered the\nduchess vaguely.  \"I must confess that most of them are extremely\npretty.  And they dress well, too.  They get all their dresses in\nParis.  I wish I could afford to do the same.\"\n\n\"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris,\" chuckled Sir\nThomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes.\n\n\"Really!  And where do bad Americans go to when they die?\" inquired the\nduchess.\n\n\"They go to America,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\nSir Thomas frowned.  \"I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced\nagainst that great country,\" he said to Lady Agatha.  \"I have travelled\nall over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters,\nare extremely civil.  I assure you that it is an education to visit it.\"\n\n\"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?\" asked Mr.\nErskine plaintively.  \"I don't feel up to the journey.\"\n\nSir Thomas waved his hand.  \"Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on\nhis shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about\nthem. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are\nabsolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing\ncharacteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I\nassure you there is no nonsense about the Americans.\"\n\n\"How dreadful!\" cried Lord Henry.  \"I can stand brute force, but brute\nreason is quite unbearable.  There is something unfair about its use.\nIt is hitting below the intellect.\"\n\n\"I do not understand you,\" said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.\n\n\"I do, Lord Henry,\" murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile.\n\n\"Paradoxes are all very well in their way....\" rejoined the baronet.\n\n\"Was that a paradox?\" asked Mr. Erskine.  \"I did not think so.  Perhaps\nit was.  Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth.  To test\nreality we must see it on the tight rope.  When the verities become\nacrobats, we can judge them.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Lady Agatha, \"how you men argue!  I am sure I never can\nmake out what you are talking about.  Oh!  Harry, I am quite vexed with\nyou.  Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up\nthe East End?  I assure you he would be quite invaluable.  They would\nlove his playing.\"\n\n\"I want him to play to me,\" cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked\ndown the table and caught a bright answering glance.\n\n\"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel,\" continued Lady Agatha.\n\n\"I can sympathize with everything except suffering,\" said Lord Henry,\nshrugging his shoulders.  \"I cannot sympathize with that.  It is too\nugly, too horrible, too distressing.  There is something terribly\nmorbid in the modern sympathy with pain.  One should sympathize with\nthe colour, the beauty, the joy of life.  The less said about life's\nsores, the better.\"\n\n\"Still, the East End is a very important problem,\" remarked Sir Thomas\nwith a grave shake of the head.\n\n\"Quite so,\" answered the young lord.  \"It is the problem of slavery,\nand we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.\"\n\nThe politician looked at him keenly.  \"What change do you propose,\nthen?\" he asked.\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"I don't desire to change anything in England\nexcept the weather,\" he answered.  \"I am quite content with philosophic\ncontemplation.  But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt\nthrough an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should\nappeal to science to put us straight.  The advantage of the emotions is\nthat they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is\nnot emotional.\"\n\n\"But we have such grave responsibilities,\" ventured Mrs. Vandeleur\ntimidly.\n\n\"Terribly grave,\" echoed Lady Agatha.\n\nLord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine.  \"Humanity takes itself too\nseriously.  It is the world's original sin.  If the caveman had known\nhow to laugh, history would have been different.\"\n\n\"You are really very comforting,\" warbled the duchess.  \"I have always\nfelt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no\ninterest at all in the East End.  For the future I shall be able to\nlook her in the face without a blush.\"\n\n\"A blush is very becoming, Duchess,\" remarked Lord Henry.\n\n\"Only when one is young,\" she answered.  \"When an old woman like myself\nblushes, it is a very bad sign.  Ah!  Lord Henry, I wish you would tell\nme how to become young again.\"\n\nHe thought for a moment.  \"Can you remember any great error that you\ncommitted in your early days, Duchess?\" he asked, looking at her across\nthe table.\n\n\"A great many, I fear,\" she cried.\n\n\"Then commit them over again,\" he said gravely.  \"To get back one's\nyouth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.\"\n\n\"A delightful theory!\" she exclaimed.  \"I must put it into practice.\"\n\n\"A dangerous theory!\" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips.  Lady Agatha\nshook her head, but could not help being amused.  Mr. Erskine listened.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"that is one of the great secrets of life.\nNowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and\ndiscover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are\none's mistakes.\"\n\nA laugh ran round the table.\n\nHe played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and\ntransformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent\nwith fancy and winged it with paradox.  The praise of folly, as he went\non, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and\ncatching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her\nwine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the\nhills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober.  Facts fled\nbefore her like frightened forest things.  Her white feet trod the huge\npress at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round\nher bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over\nthe vat's black, dripping, sloping sides.  It was an extraordinary\nimprovisation.  He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him,\nand the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose\ntemperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and\nto lend colour to his imagination.  He was brilliant, fantastic,\nirresponsible.  He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they\nfollowed his pipe, laughing.  Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him,\nbut sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips\nand wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.\n\nAt last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room\nin the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was\nwaiting.  She wrung her hands in mock despair.  \"How annoying!\" she\ncried.  \"I must go.  I have to call for my husband at the club, to take\nhim to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be\nin the chair.  If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't\nhave a scene in this bonnet.  It is far too fragile.  A harsh word\nwould ruin it.  No, I must go, dear Agatha.  Good-bye, Lord Henry, you\nare quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing.  I am sure I don't\nknow what to say about your views.  You must come and dine with us some\nnight.  Tuesday?  Are you disengaged Tuesday?\"\n\n\"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess,\" said Lord Henry with a\nbow.\n\n\"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you,\" she cried; \"so mind you\ncome\"; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the\nother ladies.\n\nWhen Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking\na chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.\n\n\"You talk books away,\" he said; \"why don't you write one?\"\n\n\"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine.  I\nshould like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely\nas a Persian carpet and as unreal.  But there is no literary public in\nEngland for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias.\nOf all people in the world the English have the least sense of the\nbeauty of literature.\"\n\n\"I fear you are right,\" answered Mr. Erskine.  \"I myself used to have\nliterary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago.  And now, my dear\nyoung friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you\nreally meant all that you said to us at lunch?\"\n\n\"I quite forget what I said,\" smiled Lord Henry.  \"Was it all very bad?\"\n\n\"Very bad indeed.  In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if\nanything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being\nprimarily responsible.  But I should like to talk to you about life.\nThe generation into which I was born was tedious.  Some day, when you\nare tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your\nphilosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate\nenough to possess.\"\n\n\"I shall be charmed.  A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege.\nIt has a perfect host, and a perfect library.\"\n\n\"You will complete it,\" answered the old gentleman with a courteous\nbow.  \"And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt.  I am due at\nthe Athenaeum.  It is the hour when we sleep there.\"\n\n\"All of you, Mr. Erskine?\"\n\n\"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English\nAcademy of Letters.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed and rose.  \"I am going to the park,\" he cried.\n\nAs he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm.\n\"Let me come with you,\" he murmured.\n\n\"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,\"\nanswered Lord Henry.\n\n\"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you.  Do\nlet me.  And you will promise to talk to me all the time?  No one talks\nso wonderfully as you do.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I have talked quite enough for to-day,\" said Lord Henry, smiling.\n\"All I want now is to look at life.  You may come and look at it with\nme, if you care to.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nOne afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious\narm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair.  It\nwas, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled\nwainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling\nof raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,\nlong-fringed Persian rugs.  On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette\nby Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for\nMargaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies\nthat Queen had selected for her device.  Some large blue china jars and\nparrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small\nleaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a\nsummer day in London.\n\nLord Henry had not yet come in.  He was always late on principle, his\nprinciple being that punctuality is the thief of time.  So the lad was\nlooking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages\nof an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had\nfound in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the\nLouis Quatorze clock annoyed him.  Once or twice he thought of going\naway.\n\nAt last he heard a step outside, and the door opened.  \"How late you\nare, Harry!\" he murmured.\n\n\"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray,\" answered a shrill voice.\n\nHe glanced quickly round and rose to his feet.  \"I beg your pardon.  I\nthought--\"\n\n\"You thought it was my husband.  It is only his wife.  You must let me\nintroduce myself.  I know you quite well by your photographs.  I think\nmy husband has got seventeen of them.\"\n\n\"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?\"\n\n\"Well, eighteen, then.  And I saw you with him the other night at the\nopera.\"  She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her\nvague forget-me-not eyes.  She was a curious woman, whose dresses\nalways looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a\ntempest.  She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion\nwas never returned, she had kept all her illusions.  She tried to look\npicturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.  Her name was\nVictoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.\n\n\"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?\"\n\n\"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin.  I like Wagner's music better than\nanybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other\npeople hearing what one says.  That is a great advantage, don't you\nthink so, Mr. Gray?\"\n\nThe same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her\nfingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.\n\nDorian smiled and shook his head:  \"I am afraid I don't think so, Lady\nHenry.  I never talk during music--at least, during good music.  If one\nhears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.\"\n\n\"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray?  I always hear\nHarry's views from his friends.  It is the only way I get to know of\nthem.  But you must not think I don't like good music.  I adore it, but\nI am afraid of it.  It makes me too romantic.  I have simply worshipped\npianists--two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me.  I don't know what\nit is about them.  Perhaps it is that they are foreigners.  They all\nare, ain't they?  Even those that are born in England become foreigners\nafter a time, don't they?  It is so clever of them, and such a\ncompliment to art.  Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it?  You have\nnever been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray?  You must come.  I\ncan't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners.  They make\none's rooms look so picturesque.  But here is Harry!  Harry, I came in\nto look for you, to ask you something--I forget what it was--and I\nfound Mr. Gray here.  We have had such a pleasant chat about music.  We\nhave quite the same ideas.  No; I think our ideas are quite different.\nBut he has been most pleasant.  I am so glad I've seen him.\"\n\n\"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his\ndark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused\nsmile.  \"So sorry I am late, Dorian.  I went to look after a piece of\nold brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it.\nNowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.\"\n\n\"I am afraid I must be going,\" exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an\nawkward silence with her silly sudden laugh.  \"I have promised to drive\nwith the duchess.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Good-bye, Harry.  You are\ndining out, I suppose?  So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady\nThornbury's.\"\n\n\"I dare say, my dear,\" said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her\nas, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the\nrain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of\nfrangipanni.  Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the\nsofa.\n\n\"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian,\" he said after a\nfew puffs.\n\n\"Why, Harry?\"\n\n\"Because they are so sentimental.\"\n\n\"But I like sentimental people.\"\n\n\"Never marry at all, Dorian.  Men marry because they are tired; women,\nbecause they are curious:  both are disappointed.\"\n\n\"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry.  I am too much in love.\nThat is one of your aphorisms.  I am putting it into practice, as I do\neverything that you say.\"\n\n\"Who are you in love with?\" asked Lord Henry after a pause.\n\n\"With an actress,\" said Dorian Gray, blushing.\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"That is a rather commonplace\n_debut_.\"\n\n\"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry.\"\n\n\"Who is she?\"\n\n\"Her name is Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"Never heard of her.\"\n\n\"No one has.  People will some day, however.  She is a genius.\"\n\n\"My dear boy, no woman is a genius.  Women are a decorative sex.  They\nnever have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.  Women\nrepresent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the\ntriumph of mind over morals.\"\n\n\"Harry, how can you?\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian, it is quite true.  I am analysing women at present, so\nI ought to know.  The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.\nI find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain\nand the coloured.  The plain women are very useful.  If you want to\ngain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down\nto supper.  The other women are very charming.  They commit one\nmistake, however.  They paint in order to try and look young.  Our\ngrandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.  _Rouge_ and\n_esprit_ used to go together.  That is all over now.  As long as a woman\ncan look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly\nsatisfied.  As for conversation, there are only five women in London\nworth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent\nsociety.  However, tell me about your genius.  How long have you known\nher?\"\n\n\"Ah!  Harry, your views terrify me.\"\n\n\"Never mind that.  How long have you known her?\"\n\n\"About three weeks.\"\n\n\"And where did you come across her?\"\n\n\"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.\nAfter all, it never would have happened if I had not met you.  You\nfilled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.  For days\nafter I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.  As I lounged\nin the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one\nwho passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they\nled.  Some of them fascinated me.  Others filled me with terror.  There\nwas an exquisite poison in the air.  I had a passion for sensations....\nWell, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search\nof some adventure.  I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours,\nwith its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins,\nas you once phrased it, must have something in store for me.  I fancied\na thousand things.  The mere danger gave me a sense of delight.  I\nremembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we\nfirst dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret\nof life.  I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered\neastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black\ngrassless squares.  About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little\ntheatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills.  A hideous\nJew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was\nstanding at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar.  He had greasy\nringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled\nshirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off\nhis hat with an air of gorgeous servility.  There was something about\nhim, Harry, that amused me.  He was such a monster.  You will laugh at\nme, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the\nstage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if\nI hadn't--my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest\nromance of my life.  I see you are laughing.  It is horrid of you!\"\n\n\"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you.  But you\nshould not say the greatest romance of your life.  You should say the\nfirst romance of your life.  You will always be loved, and you will\nalways be in love with love.  A _grande passion_ is the privilege of\npeople who have nothing to do.  That is the one use of the idle classes\nof a country.  Don't be afraid.  There are exquisite things in store\nfor you.  This is merely the beginning.\"\n\n\"Do you think my nature so shallow?\" cried Dorian Gray angrily.\n\n\"No; I think your nature so deep.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really\nthe shallow people.  What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity,\nI call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.\nFaithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life\nof the intellect--simply a confession of failure.  Faithfulness!  I\nmust analyse it some day.  The passion for property is in it.  There\nare many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that\nothers might pick them up.  But I don't want to interrupt you.  Go on\nwith your story.\"\n\n\"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a\nvulgar drop-scene staring me in the face.  I looked out from behind the\ncurtain and surveyed the house.  It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and\ncornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were\nfairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and\nthere was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the\ndress-circle.  Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there\nwas a terrible consumption of nuts going on.\"\n\n\"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama.\"\n\n\"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing.  I began to wonder\nwhat on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill.  What\ndo you think the play was, Harry?\"\n\n\"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'.  Our fathers\nused to like that sort of piece, I believe.  The longer I live, Dorian,\nthe more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is\nnot good enough for us.  In art, as in politics, _les grandperes ont\ntoujours tort_.\"\n\n\"This play was good enough for us, Harry.  It was Romeo and Juliet.  I\nmust admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare\ndone in such a wretched hole of a place.  Still, I felt interested, in\na sort of way.  At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.\nThere was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat\nat a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the\ndrop-scene was drawn up and the play began.  Romeo was a stout elderly\ngentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure\nlike a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad.  He was played by the\nlow-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most\nfriendly terms with the pit.  They were both as grotesque as the\nscenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But\nJuliet!  Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a\nlittle, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of\ndark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were\nlike the petals of a rose.  She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen\nin my life.  You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that\nbeauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears.  I tell you,\nHarry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came\nacross me.  And her voice--I never heard such a voice.  It was very low\nat first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's\near.  Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a\ndistant hautboy.  In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy\nthat one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing.  There\nwere moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins.  You\nknow how a voice can stir one.  Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane\nare two things that I shall never forget.  When I close my eyes, I hear\nthem, and each of them says something different.  I don't know which to\nfollow.  Why should I not love her?  Harry, I do love her.  She is\neverything to me in life.  Night after night I go to see her play.  One\nevening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen.  I have\nseen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from\nher lover's lips.  I have watched her wandering through the forest of\nArden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.\nShe has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and\ngiven him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of.  She has been\ninnocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike\nthroat.  I have seen her in every age and in every costume.  Ordinary\nwomen never appeal to one's imagination.  They are limited to their\ncentury.  No glamour ever transfigures them.  One knows their minds as\neasily as one knows their bonnets.  One can always find them.  There is\nno mystery in any of them.  They ride in the park in the morning and\nchatter at tea-parties in the afternoon.  They have their stereotyped\nsmile and their fashionable manner.  They are quite obvious.  But an\nactress!  How different an actress is!  Harry! why didn't you tell me\nthat the only thing worth loving is an actress?\"\n\n\"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces.\"\n\n\"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces.  There is an extraordinary\ncharm in them, sometimes,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian.  All through your life\nyou will tell me everything you do.\"\n\n\"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true.  I cannot help telling you things.\nYou have a curious influence over me.  If I ever did a crime, I would\ncome and confess it to you.  You would understand me.\"\n\n\"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes,\nDorian.  But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same.  And\nnow tell me--reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are\nyour actual relations with Sibyl Vane?\"\n\nDorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.\n\"Harry!  Sibyl Vane is sacred!\"\n\n\"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,\" said\nLord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.  \"But why\nshould you be annoyed?  I suppose she will belong to you some day.\nWhen one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one\nalways ends by deceiving others.  That is what the world calls a\nromance.  You know her, at any rate, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Of course I know her.  On the first night I was at the theatre, the\nhorrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and\noffered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her.  I was\nfurious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds\nof years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona.  I\nthink, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the\nimpression that I had taken too much champagne, or something.\"\n\n\"I am not surprised.\"\n\n\"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers.  I told him I\nnever even read them.  He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and\nconfided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy\nagainst him, and that they were every one of them to be bought.\"\n\n\"I should not wonder if he was quite right there.  But, on the other\nhand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all\nexpensive.\"\n\n\"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means,\" laughed Dorian.\n\"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,\nand I had to go.  He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly\nrecommended.  I declined.  The next night, of course, I arrived at the\nplace again.  When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that\nI was a munificent patron of art.  He was a most offensive brute,\nthough he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare.  He told me\nonce, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely\ndue to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him.  He seemed to think\nit a distinction.\"\n\n\"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction.  Most\npeople become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose\nof life.  To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.  But when\ndid you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?\"\n\n\"The third night.  She had been playing Rosalind.  I could not help\ngoing round.  I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at\nme--at least I fancied that she had.  The old Jew was persistent.  He\nseemed determined to take me behind, so I consented.  It was curious my\nnot wanting to know her, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"No; I don't think so.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, why?\"\n\n\"I will tell you some other time.  Now I want to know about the girl.\"\n\n\"Sibyl?  Oh, she was so shy and so gentle.  There is something of a\nchild about her.  Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told\nher what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious\nof her power.  I think we were both rather nervous.  The old Jew stood\ngrinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate\nspeeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like\nchildren.  He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure\nSibyl that I was not anything of the kind.  She said quite simply to\nme, 'You look more like a prince.  I must call you Prince Charming.'\"\n\n\"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments.\"\n\n\"You don't understand her, Harry.  She regarded me merely as a person\nin a play.  She knows nothing of life.  She lives with her mother, a\nfaded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta\ndressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen\nbetter days.\"\n\n\"I know that look.  It depresses me,\" murmured Lord Henry, examining\nhis rings.\n\n\"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest\nme.\"\n\n\"You were quite right.  There is always something infinitely mean about\nother people's tragedies.\"\n\n\"Sibyl is the only thing I care about.  What is it to me where she came\nfrom?  From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and\nentirely divine.  Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every\nnight she is more marvellous.\"\n\n\"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now.  I\nthought you must have some curious romance on hand.  You have; but it\nis not quite what I expected.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have\nbeen to the opera with you several times,\" said Dorian, opening his\nblue eyes in wonder.\n\n\"You always come dreadfully late.\"\n\n\"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play,\" he cried, \"even if it is\nonly for a single act.  I get hungry for her presence; and when I think\nof the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I\nam filled with awe.\"\n\n\"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?\"\n\nHe shook his head.  \"To-night she is Imogen,\" he answered, \"and\nto-morrow night she will be Juliet.\"\n\n\"When is she Sibyl Vane?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"I congratulate you.\"\n\n\"How horrid you are!  She is all the great heroines of the world in\none.  She is more than an individual.  You laugh, but I tell you she\nhas genius.  I love her, and I must make her love me.  You, who know\nall the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me!  I\nwant to make Romeo jealous.  I want the dead lovers of the world to\nhear our laughter and grow sad.  I want a breath of our passion to stir\ntheir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.  My God,\nHarry, how I worship her!\"  He was walking up and down the room as he\nspoke.  Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks.  He was terribly\nexcited.\n\nLord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure.  How different\nhe was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's\nstudio!  His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of\nscarlet flame.  Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and\ndesire had come to meet it on the way.\n\n\"And what do you propose to do?\" said Lord Henry at last.\n\n\"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act.  I\nhave not the slightest fear of the result.  You are certain to\nacknowledge her genius.  Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands.\nShe is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight\nmonths--from the present time.  I shall have to pay him something, of\ncourse.  When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and\nbring her out properly.  She will make the world as mad as she has made\nme.\"\n\n\"That would be impossible, my dear boy.\"\n\n\"Yes, she will.  She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in\nher, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it\nis personalities, not principles, that move the age.\"\n\n\"Well, what night shall we go?\"\n\n\"Let me see.  To-day is Tuesday.  Let us fix to-morrow. She plays\nJuliet to-morrow.\"\n\n\"All right.  The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil.\"\n\n\"Not eight, Harry, please.  Half-past six.  We must be there before the\ncurtain rises.  You must see her in the first act, where she meets\nRomeo.\"\n\n\"Half-past six!  What an hour!  It will be like having a meat-tea, or\nreading an English novel.  It must be seven.  No gentleman dines before\nseven.  Shall you see Basil between this and then?  Or shall I write to\nhim?\"\n\n\"Dear Basil!  I have not laid eyes on him for a week.  It is rather\nhorrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful\nframe, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous\nof the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit\nthat I delight in it.  Perhaps you had better write to him.  I don't\nwant to see him alone.  He says things that annoy me.  He gives me good\nadvice.\"\n\nLord Henry smiled.  \"People are very fond of giving away what they need\nmost themselves.  It is what I call the depth of generosity.\"\n\n\"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit\nof a Philistine.  Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered\nthat.\"\n\n\"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his\nwork.  The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his\nprejudices, his principles, and his common sense.  The only artists I\nhave ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists.  Good\nartists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly\nuninteresting in what they are.  A great poet, a really great poet, is\nthe most unpoetical of all creatures.  But inferior poets are\nabsolutely fascinating.  The worse their rhymes are, the more\npicturesque they look.  The mere fact of having published a book of\nsecond-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible.  He lives the\npoetry that he cannot write.  The others write the poetry that they\ndare not realize.\"\n\n\"I wonder is that really so, Harry?\" said Dorian Gray, putting some\nperfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that\nstood on the table.  \"It must be, if you say it.  And now I am off.\nImogen is waiting for me.  Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye.\"\n\nAs he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began\nto think.  Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as\nDorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused\nhim not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy.  He was pleased by\nit.  It made him a more interesting study.  He had been always\nenthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary\nsubject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no\nimport.  And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by\nvivisecting others.  Human life--that appeared to him the one thing\nworth investigating.  Compared to it there was nothing else of any\nvalue.  It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of\npain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass,\nnor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the\nimagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.  There\nwere poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken\nof them.  There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through\nthem if one sought to understand their nature.  And, yet, what a great\nreward one received!  How wonderful the whole world became to one!  To\nnote the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life\nof the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated,\nat what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at\ndiscord--there was a delight in that!  What matter what the cost was?\nOne could never pay too high a price for any sensation.\n\nHe was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his\nbrown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, musical\nwords said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned\nto this white girl and bowed in worship before her.  To a large extent\nthe lad was his own creation.  He had made him premature.  That was\nsomething.  Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its\nsecrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were\nrevealed before the veil was drawn away.  Sometimes this was the effect\nof art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately\nwith the passions and the intellect.  But now and then a complex\npersonality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed,\nin its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces,\njust as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.\n\nYes, the lad was premature.  He was gathering his harvest while it was\nyet spring.  The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was\nbecoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him.  With his\nbeautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at.\nIt was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end.  He was like\none of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem\nto be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,\nand whose wounds are like red roses.\n\nSoul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were!  There was\nanimalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.\nThe senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade.  Who could\nsay where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?\nHow shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!\nAnd yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various\nschools!  Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin?  Or was the\nbody really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought?  The separation of\nspirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter\nwas a mystery also.\n\nHe began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a\nscience that each little spring of life would be revealed to us.  As it\nwas, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.\nExperience was of no ethical value.  It was merely the name men gave to\ntheir mistakes.  Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of\nwarning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation\nof character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow\nand showed us what to avoid.  But there was no motive power in\nexperience.  It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself.\nAll that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same\nas our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we\nwould do many times, and with joy.\n\nIt was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by\nwhich one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and\ncertainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to\npromise rich and fruitful results.  His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane\nwas a psychological phenomenon of no small interest.  There was no\ndoubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire\nfor new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex\npassion.  What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of\nboyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,\nchanged into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from\nsense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous.  It was the\npassions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most\nstrongly over us.  Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we\nwere conscious.  It often happened that when we thought we were\nexperimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.\n\nWhile Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the\ndoor, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for\ndinner.  He got up and looked out into the street.  The sunset had\nsmitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite.\nThe panes glowed like plates of heated metal.  The sky above was like a\nfaded rose.  He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and\nwondered how it was all going to end.\n\nWhen he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram\nlying on the hall table.  He opened it and found it was from Dorian\nGray.  It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl\nVane.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!\" whispered the girl, burying her face\nin the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to\nthe shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their\ndingy sitting-room contained.  \"I am so happy!\" she repeated, \"and you\nmust be happy, too!\"\n\nMrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her\ndaughter's head.  \"Happy!\" she echoed, \"I am only happy, Sibyl, when I\nsee you act.  You must not think of anything but your acting.  Mr.\nIsaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money.\"\n\nThe girl looked up and pouted.  \"Money, Mother?\" she cried, \"what does\nmoney matter?  Love is more than money.\"\n\n\"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to\nget a proper outfit for James.  You must not forget that, Sibyl.  Fifty\npounds is a very large sum.  Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate.\"\n\n\"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me,\"\nsaid the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window.\n\n\"I don't know how we could manage without him,\" answered the elder\nwoman querulously.\n\nSibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed.  \"We don't want him any more,\nMother.  Prince Charming rules life for us now.\" Then she paused.  A\nrose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks.  Quick breath parted\nthe petals of her lips.  They trembled.  Some southern wind of passion\nswept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress.  \"I love\nhim,\" she said simply.\n\n\"Foolish child! foolish child!\" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.\nThe waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the\nwords.\n\nThe girl laughed again.  The joy of a caged bird was in her voice.  Her\neyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a\nmoment, as though to hide their secret.  When they opened, the mist of\na dream had passed across them.\n\nThin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at\nprudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name\nof common sense.  She did not listen.  She was free in her prison of\npassion.  Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her.  She had called on\nmemory to remake him.  She had sent her soul to search for him, and it\nhad brought him back.  His kiss burned again upon her mouth.  Her\neyelids were warm with his breath.\n\nThen wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery.  This\nyoung man might be rich.  If so, marriage should be thought of.\nAgainst the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning.  The\narrows of craft shot by her.  She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.\n\nSuddenly she felt the need to speak.  The wordy silence troubled her.\n\"Mother, Mother,\" she cried, \"why does he love me so much?  I know why\nI love him.  I love him because he is like what love himself should be.\nBut what does he see in me?  I am not worthy of him.  And yet--why, I\ncannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble.  I\nfeel proud, terribly proud.  Mother, did you love my father as I love\nPrince Charming?\"\n\nThe elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her\ncheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain.  Sybil rushed\nto her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her.  \"Forgive me,\nMother.  I know it pains you to talk about our father.  But it only\npains you because you loved him so much.  Don't look so sad.  I am as\nhappy to-day as you were twenty years ago.  Ah! let me be happy for\never!\"\n\n\"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love.  Besides,\nwhat do you know of this young man?  You don't even know his name.  The\nwhole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away\nto Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you\nshould have shown more consideration.  However, as I said before, if he\nis rich ...\"\n\n\"Ah!  Mother, Mother, let me be happy!\"\n\nMrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical\ngestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a\nstage-player, clasped her in her arms.  At this moment, the door opened\nand a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room.  He was\nthick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat\nclumsy in movement.  He was not so finely bred as his sister.  One\nwould hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between\nthem.  Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile.  She\nmentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience.  She felt sure\nthat the _tableau_ was interesting.\n\n\"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think,\" said the\nlad with a good-natured grumble.\n\n\"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim,\" she cried.  \"You are a\ndreadful old bear.\"  And she ran across the room and hugged him.\n\nJames Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness.  \"I want you\nto come out with me for a walk, Sibyl.  I don't suppose I shall ever\nsee this horrid London again.  I am sure I don't want to.\"\n\n\"My son, don't say such dreadful things,\" murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up\na tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it.  She\nfelt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group.  It would\nhave increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.\n\n\"Why not, Mother?  I mean it.\"\n\n\"You pain me, my son.  I trust you will return from Australia in a\nposition of affluence.  I believe there is no society of any kind in\nthe Colonies--nothing that I would call society--so when you have made\nyour fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London.\"\n\n\"Society!\" muttered the lad.  \"I don't want to know anything about\nthat.  I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the\nstage.  I hate it.\"\n\n\"Oh, Jim!\" said Sibyl, laughing, \"how unkind of you!  But are you\nreally going for a walk with me?  That will be nice!  I was afraid you\nwere going to say good-bye to some of your friends--to Tom Hardy, who\ngave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for\nsmoking it.  It is very sweet of you to let me have your last\nafternoon.  Where shall we go?  Let us go to the park.\"\n\n\"I am too shabby,\" he answered, frowning.  \"Only swell people go to the\npark.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Jim,\" she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.\n\nHe hesitated for a moment.  \"Very well,\" he said at last, \"but don't be\ntoo long dressing.\"  She danced out of the door.  One could hear her\nsinging as she ran upstairs.  Her little feet pattered overhead.\n\nHe walked up and down the room two or three times.  Then he turned to\nthe still figure in the chair.  \"Mother, are my things ready?\" he asked.\n\n\"Quite ready, James,\" she answered, keeping her eyes on her work.  For\nsome months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this\nrough stern son of hers.  Her shallow secret nature was troubled when\ntheir eyes met.  She used to wonder if he suspected anything.  The\nsilence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her.\nShe began to complain.  Women defend themselves by attacking, just as\nthey attack by sudden and strange surrenders.  \"I hope you will be\ncontented, James, with your sea-faring life,\" she said.  \"You must\nremember that it is your own choice.  You might have entered a\nsolicitor's office.  Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in\nthe country often dine with the best families.\"\n\n\"I hate offices, and I hate clerks,\" he replied.  \"But you are quite\nright.  I have chosen my own life.  All I say is, watch over Sibyl.\nDon't let her come to any harm.  Mother, you must watch over her.\"\n\n\"James, you really talk very strangely.  Of course I watch over Sibyl.\"\n\n\"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to\ntalk to her.  Is that right?  What about that?\"\n\n\"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James.  In the\nprofession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying\nattention.  I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time.  That\nwas when acting was really understood.  As for Sibyl, I do not know at\npresent whether her attachment is serious or not.  But there is no\ndoubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman.  He is\nalways most polite to me.  Besides, he has the appearance of being\nrich, and the flowers he sends are lovely.\"\n\n\"You don't know his name, though,\" said the lad harshly.\n\n\"No,\" answered his mother with a placid expression in her face.  \"He\nhas not yet revealed his real name.  I think it is quite romantic of\nhim.  He is probably a member of the aristocracy.\"\n\nJames Vane bit his lip.  \"Watch over Sibyl, Mother,\" he cried, \"watch\nover her.\"\n\n\"My son, you distress me very much.  Sibyl is always under my special\ncare.  Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why\nshe should not contract an alliance with him.  I trust he is one of the\naristocracy.  He has all the appearance of it, I must say.  It might be\na most brilliant marriage for Sibyl.  They would make a charming\ncouple.  His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices\nthem.\"\n\nThe lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane\nwith his coarse fingers.  He had just turned round to say something\nwhen the door opened and Sibyl ran in.\n\n\"How serious you both are!\" she cried.  \"What is the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he answered.  \"I suppose one must be serious sometimes.\nGood-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is\npacked, except my shirts, so you need not trouble.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, my son,\" she answered with a bow of strained stateliness.\n\nShe was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and\nthere was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.\n\n\"Kiss me, Mother,\" said the girl.  Her flowerlike lips touched the\nwithered cheek and warmed its frost.\n\n\"My child! my child!\" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in\nsearch of an imaginary gallery.\n\n\"Come, Sibyl,\" said her brother impatiently.  He hated his mother's\naffectations.\n\nThey went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled\ndown the dreary Euston Road.  The passersby glanced in wonder at the\nsullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the\ncompany of such a graceful, refined-looking girl.  He was like a common\ngardener walking with a rose.\n\nJim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of\nsome stranger.  He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on\ngeniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace.  Sibyl,\nhowever, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing.  Her\nlove was trembling in laughter on her lips.  She was thinking of Prince\nCharming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not\ntalk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to\nsail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful\nheiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted\nbushrangers.  For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or\nwhatever he was going to be.  Oh, no!  A sailor's existence was\ndreadful.  Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse,\nhump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts\ndown and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands!  He was to\nleave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain,\nand go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to\ncome across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had\never been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon\nguarded by six mounted policemen.  The bushrangers were to attack them\nthree times, and be defeated with immense slaughter.  Or, no.  He was\nnot to go to the gold-fields at all.  They were horrid places, where\nmen got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad\nlanguage.  He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was\nriding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a\nrobber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her.  Of course,\nshe would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get\nmarried, and come home, and live in an immense house in London.  Yes,\nthere were delightful things in store for him.  But he must be very\ngood, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly.  She was\nonly a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life.  He\nmust be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his\nprayers each night before he went to sleep.  God was very good, and\nwould watch over him.  She would pray for him, too, and in a few years\nhe would come back quite rich and happy.\n\nThe lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer.  He was heart-sick\nat leaving home.\n\nYet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.\nInexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger\nof Sibyl's position.  This young dandy who was making love to her could\nmean her no good.  He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated\nhim through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,\nand which for that reason was all the more dominant within him.  He was\nconscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,\nand in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.\nChildren begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge\nthem; sometimes they forgive them.\n\nHis mother!  He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that\nhe had brooded on for many months of silence.  A chance phrase that he\nhad heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears\none night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of\nhorrible thoughts.  He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a\nhunting-crop across his face.  His brows knit together into a wedge-like\nfurrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.\n\n\"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim,\" cried Sibyl, \"and I\nam making the most delightful plans for your future.  Do say something.\"\n\n\"What do you want me to say?\"\n\n\"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us,\" she answered,\nsmiling at him.\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.  \"You are more likely to forget me than I am\nto forget you, Sibyl.\"\n\nShe flushed.  \"What do you mean, Jim?\" she asked.\n\n\"You have a new friend, I hear.  Who is he?  Why have you not told me\nabout him?  He means you no good.\"\n\n\"Stop, Jim!\" she exclaimed.  \"You must not say anything against him.  I\nlove him.\"\n\n\"Why, you don't even know his name,\" answered the lad.  \"Who is he?  I\nhave a right to know.\"\n\n\"He is called Prince Charming.  Don't you like the name.  Oh! you silly\nboy! you should never forget it.  If you only saw him, you would think\nhim the most wonderful person in the world.  Some day you will meet\nhim--when you come back from Australia.  You will like him so much.\nEverybody likes him, and I ... love him.  I wish you could come to the\ntheatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet.\nOh! how I shall play it!  Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet!\nTo have him sitting there!  To play for his delight!  I am afraid I may\nfrighten the company, frighten or enthrall them.  To be in love is to\nsurpass one's self.  Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius'\nto his loafers at the bar.  He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he\nwill announce me as a revelation.  I feel it.  And it is all his, his\nonly, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces.  But I am\npoor beside him.  Poor?  What does that matter?  When poverty creeps in\nat the door, love flies in through the window.  Our proverbs want\nrewriting.  They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time\nfor me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies.\"\n\n\"He is a gentleman,\" said the lad sullenly.\n\n\"A prince!\" she cried musically.  \"What more do you want?\"\n\n\"He wants to enslave you.\"\n\n\"I shudder at the thought of being free.\"\n\n\"I want you to beware of him.\"\n\n\"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him.\"\n\n\"Sibyl, you are mad about him.\"\n\nShe laughed and took his arm.  \"You dear old Jim, you talk as if you\nwere a hundred.  Some day you will be in love yourself.  Then you will\nknow what it is.  Don't look so sulky.  Surely you should be glad to\nthink that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have\never been before.  Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and\ndifficult.  But it will be different now.  You are going to a new\nworld, and I have found one.  Here are two chairs; let us sit down and\nsee the smart people go by.\"\n\nThey took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers.  The tulip-beds\nacross the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire.  A white\ndust--tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air.\nThe brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous\nbutterflies.\n\nShe made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects.  He\nspoke slowly and with effort.  They passed words to each other as\nplayers at a game pass counters.  Sibyl felt oppressed.  She could not\ncommunicate her joy.  A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all\nthe echo she could win.  After some time she became silent.  Suddenly\nshe caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open\ncarriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past.\n\nShe started to her feet.  \"There he is!\" she cried.\n\n\"Who?\" said Jim Vane.\n\n\"Prince Charming,\" she answered, looking after the victoria.\n\nHe jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm.  \"Show him to me.\nWhich is he?  Point him out.  I must see him!\" he exclaimed; but at\nthat moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when\nit had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park.\n\n\"He is gone,\" murmured Sibyl sadly.  \"I wish you had seen him.\"\n\n\"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does\nyou any wrong, I shall kill him.\"\n\nShe looked at him in horror.  He repeated his words.  They cut the air\nlike a dagger.  The people round began to gape.  A lady standing close\nto her tittered.\n\n\"Come away, Jim; come away,\" she whispered.  He followed her doggedly\nas she passed through the crowd.  He felt glad at what he had said.\n\nWhen they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round.  There was\npity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips.  She shook her head\nat him.  \"You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy,\nthat is all.  How can you say such horrible things?  You don't know\nwhat you are talking about.  You are simply jealous and unkind.  Ah!  I\nwish you would fall in love.  Love makes people good, and what you said\nwas wicked.\"\n\n\"I am sixteen,\" he answered, \"and I know what I am about.  Mother is no\nhelp to you.  She doesn't understand how to look after you.  I wish now\nthat I was not going to Australia at all.  I have a great mind to chuck\nthe whole thing up.  I would, if my articles hadn't been signed.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim.  You are like one of the heroes of those\nsilly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in.  I am not\ngoing to quarrel with you.  I have seen him, and oh! to see him is\nperfect happiness.  We won't quarrel.  I know you would never harm any\none I love, would you?\"\n\n\"Not as long as you love him, I suppose,\" was the sullen answer.\n\n\"I shall love him for ever!\" she cried.\n\n\"And he?\"\n\n\"For ever, too!\"\n\n\"He had better.\"\n\nShe shrank from him.  Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm.  He\nwas merely a boy.\n\nAt the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to\ntheir shabby home in the Euston Road.  It was after five o'clock, and\nSibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting.  Jim\ninsisted that she should do so.  He said that he would sooner part with\nher when their mother was not present.  She would be sure to make a\nscene, and he detested scenes of every kind.\n\nIn Sybil's own room they parted.  There was jealousy in the lad's\nheart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed\nto him, had come between them.  Yet, when her arms were flung round his\nneck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed\nher with real affection.  There were tears in his eyes as he went\ndownstairs.\n\nHis mother was waiting for him below.  She grumbled at his\nunpunctuality, as he entered.  He made no answer, but sat down to his\nmeagre meal.  The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the\nstained cloth.  Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of\nstreet-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that\nwas left to him.\n\nAfter some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his\nhands.  He felt that he had a right to know.  It should have been told\nto him before, if it was as he suspected.  Leaden with fear, his mother\nwatched him.  Words dropped mechanically from her lips.  A tattered\nlace handkerchief twitched in her fingers.  When the clock struck six,\nhe got up and went to the door.  Then he turned back and looked at her.\nTheir eyes met.  In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy.  It enraged\nhim.\n\n\"Mother, I have something to ask you,\" he said.  Her eyes wandered\nvaguely about the room.  She made no answer.  \"Tell me the truth.  I\nhave a right to know.  Were you married to my father?\"\n\nShe heaved a deep sigh.  It was a sigh of relief.  The terrible moment,\nthe moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded,\nhad come at last, and yet she felt no terror.  Indeed, in some measure\nit was a disappointment to her.  The vulgar directness of the question\ncalled for a direct answer.  The situation had not been gradually led\nup to.  It was crude.  It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.\n\n\"No,\" she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life.\n\n\"My father was a scoundrel then!\" cried the lad, clenching his fists.\n\nShe shook her head.  \"I knew he was not free.  We loved each other very\nmuch.  If he had lived, he would have made provision for us.  Don't\nspeak against him, my son.  He was your father, and a gentleman.\nIndeed, he was highly connected.\"\n\nAn oath broke from his lips.  \"I don't care for myself,\" he exclaimed,\n\"but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love\nwith her, or says he is?  Highly connected, too, I suppose.\"\n\nFor a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman.  Her\nhead drooped.  She wiped her eyes with shaking hands.  \"Sibyl has a\nmother,\" she murmured; \"I had none.\"\n\nThe lad was touched.  He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed\nher.  \"I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father,\" he\nsaid, \"but I could not help it.  I must go now.  Good-bye. Don't forget\nthat you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me\nthat if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him\ndown, and kill him like a dog.  I swear it.\"\n\nThe exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that\naccompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid\nto her.  She was familiar with the atmosphere.  She breathed more\nfreely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her\nson.  She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same\nemotional scale, but he cut her short.  Trunks had to be carried down\nand mufflers looked for.  The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out.\nThere was the bargaining with the cabman.  The moment was lost in\nvulgar details.  It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that\nshe waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son\ndrove away.  She was conscious that a great opportunity had been\nwasted.  She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt\nher life would be, now that she had only one child to look after.  She\nremembered the phrase.  It had pleased her.  Of the threat she said\nnothing.  It was vividly and dramatically expressed.  She felt that\nthey would all laugh at it some day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?\" said Lord Henry that\nevening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol\nwhere dinner had been laid for three.\n\n\"No, Harry,\" answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing\nwaiter.  \"What is it?  Nothing about politics, I hope!  They don't\ninterest me.  There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons\nworth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little\nwhitewashing.\"\n\n\"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married,\" said Lord Henry, watching him\nas he spoke.\n\nHallward started and then frowned.  \"Dorian engaged to be married!\" he\ncried.  \"Impossible!\"\n\n\"It is perfectly true.\"\n\n\"To whom?\"\n\n\"To some little actress or other.\"\n\n\"I can't believe it.  Dorian is far too sensible.\"\n\n\"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear\nBasil.\"\n\n\"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry.\"\n\n\"Except in America,\" rejoined Lord Henry languidly.  \"But I didn't say\nhe was married.  I said he was engaged to be married.  There is a great\ndifference.  I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have\nno recollection at all of being engaged.  I am inclined to think that I\nnever was engaged.\"\n\n\"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth.  It would be\nabsurd for him to marry so much beneath him.\"\n\n\"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil.  He is\nsure to do it, then.  Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it\nis always from the noblest motives.\"\n\n\"I hope the girl is good, Harry.  I don't want to see Dorian tied to\nsome vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his\nintellect.\"\n\n\"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful,\" murmured Lord Henry,\nsipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. \"Dorian says she is\nbeautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind.  Your\nportrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal\nappearance of other people.  It has had that excellent effect, amongst\nothers.  We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his\nappointment.\"\n\n\"Are you serious?\"\n\n\"Quite serious, Basil.  I should be miserable if I thought I should\never be more serious than I am at the present moment.\"\n\n\"But do you approve of it, Harry?\" asked the painter, walking up and\ndown the room and biting his lip.  \"You can't approve of it, possibly.\nIt is some silly infatuation.\"\n\n\"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now.  It is an absurd\nattitude to take towards life.  We are not sent into the world to air\nour moral prejudices.  I never take any notice of what common people\nsay, and I never interfere with what charming people do.  If a\npersonality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality\nselects is absolutely delightful to me.  Dorian Gray falls in love with\na beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her.  Why not?\nIf he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting.  You\nknow I am not a champion of marriage.  The real drawback to marriage is\nthat it makes one unselfish.  And unselfish people are colourless.\nThey lack individuality.  Still, there are certain temperaments that\nmarriage makes more complex.  They retain their egotism, and add to it\nmany other egos.  They are forced to have more than one life.  They\nbecome more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should\nfancy, the object of man's existence.  Besides, every experience is of\nvalue, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an\nexperience.  I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife,\npassionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become\nfascinated by some one else.  He would be a wonderful study.\"\n\n\"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't.\nIf Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than\nyourself.  You are much better than you pretend to be.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"The reason we all like to think so well of others\nis that we are all afraid for ourselves.  The basis of optimism is\nsheer terror.  We think that we are generous because we credit our\nneighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a\nbenefit to us.  We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account,\nand find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare\nour pockets.  I mean everything that I have said.  I have the greatest\ncontempt for optimism.  As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but\none whose growth is arrested.  If you want to mar a nature, you have\nmerely to reform it.  As for marriage, of course that would be silly,\nbut there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women.\nI will certainly encourage them.  They have the charm of being\nfashionable.  But here is Dorian himself.  He will tell you more than I\ncan.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!\" said the\nlad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and\nshaking each of his friends by the hand in turn.  \"I have never been so\nhappy.  Of course, it is sudden--all really delightful things are.  And\nyet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my\nlife.\" He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked\nextraordinarily handsome.\n\n\"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"but I\ndon't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement.\nYou let Harry know.\"\n\n\"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner,\" broke in Lord\nHenry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke.\n\"Come, let us sit down and try what the new _chef_ here is like, and then\nyou will tell us how it all came about.\"\n\n\"There is really not much to tell,\" cried Dorian as they took their\nseats at the small round table.  \"What happened was simply this.  After\nI left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that\nlittle Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and\nwent down at eight o'clock to the theatre.  Sibyl was playing Rosalind.\nOf course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd.  But Sibyl!\nYou should have seen her!  When she came on in her boy's clothes, she\nwas perfectly wonderful.  She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with\ncinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little\ngreen cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak\nlined with dull red.  She had never seemed to me more exquisite.  She\nhad all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in\nyour studio, Basil.  Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves\nround a pale rose.  As for her acting--well, you shall see her\nto-night. She is simply a born artist.  I sat in the dingy box\nabsolutely enthralled.  I forgot that I was in London and in the\nnineteenth century.  I was away with my love in a forest that no man\nhad ever seen.  After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke\nto her.  As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes\na look that I had never seen there before.  My lips moved towards hers.\nWe kissed each other.  I can't describe to you what I felt at that\nmoment.  It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one\nperfect point of rose-coloured joy.  She trembled all over and shook\nlike a white narcissus.  Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed\nmy hands.  I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help\nit.  Of course, our engagement is a dead secret.  She has not even told\nher own mother.  I don't know what my guardians will say.  Lord Radley\nis sure to be furious.  I don't care.  I shall be of age in less than a\nyear, and then I can do what I like.  I have been right, Basil, haven't\nI, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's\nplays?  Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their\nsecret in my ear.  I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and\nkissed Juliet on the mouth.\"\n\n\"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right,\" said Hallward slowly.\n\n\"Have you seen her to-day?\" asked Lord Henry.\n\nDorian Gray shook his head.  \"I left her in the forest of Arden; I\nshall find her in an orchard in Verona.\"\n\nLord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner.  \"At what\nparticular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian?  And what\ndid she say in answer?  Perhaps you forgot all about it.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did\nnot make any formal proposal.  I told her that I loved her, and she\nsaid she was not worthy to be my wife.  Not worthy!  Why, the whole\nworld is nothing to me compared with her.\"\n\n\"Women are wonderfully practical,\" murmured Lord Henry, \"much more\npractical than we are.  In situations of that kind we often forget to\nsay anything about marriage, and they always remind us.\"\n\nHallward laid his hand upon his arm.  \"Don't, Harry.  You have annoyed\nDorian.  He is not like other men.  He would never bring misery upon\nany one.  His nature is too fine for that.\"\n\nLord Henry looked across the table.  \"Dorian is never annoyed with me,\"\nhe answered.  \"I asked the question for the best reason possible, for\nthe only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any\nquestion--simple curiosity.  I have a theory that it is always the\nwomen who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women.  Except,\nof course, in middle-class life.  But then the middle classes are not\nmodern.\"\n\nDorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head.  \"You are quite incorrigible,\nHarry; but I don't mind.  It is impossible to be angry with you.  When\nyou see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her\nwould be a beast, a beast without a heart.  I cannot understand how any\none can wish to shame the thing he loves.  I love Sibyl Vane.  I want\nto place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the\nwoman who is mine.  What is marriage?  An irrevocable vow.  You mock at\nit for that.  Ah! don't mock.  It is an irrevocable vow that I want to\ntake.  Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good.  When I\nam with her, I regret all that you have taught me.  I become different\nfrom what you have known me to be.  I am changed, and the mere touch of\nSibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating,\npoisonous, delightful theories.\"\n\n\"And those are ...?\" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad.\n\n\"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories\nabout pleasure.  All your theories, in fact, Harry.\"\n\n\"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about,\" he answered\nin his slow melodious voice.  \"But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory\nas my own.  It belongs to Nature, not to me.  Pleasure is Nature's\ntest, her sign of approval.  When we are happy, we are always good, but\nwhen we are good, we are not always happy.\"\n\n\"Ah! but what do you mean by good?\" cried Basil Hallward.\n\n\"Yes,\" echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord\nHenry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the\ncentre of the table, \"what do you mean by good, Harry?\"\n\n\"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self,\" he replied, touching\nthe thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers.\n\"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.  One's own\nlife--that is the important thing.  As for the lives of one's\nneighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt\none's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern.  Besides,\nindividualism has really the higher aim.  Modern morality consists in\naccepting the standard of one's age.  I consider that for any man of\nculture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest\nimmorality.\"\n\n\"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a\nterrible price for doing so?\" suggested the painter.\n\n\"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays.  I should fancy that\nthe real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but\nself-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege\nof the rich.\"\n\n\"One has to pay in other ways but money.\"\n\n\"What sort of ways, Basil?\"\n\n\"Oh!  I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the\nconsciousness of degradation.\"\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"My dear fellow, mediaeval art is\ncharming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date.  One can use them in\nfiction, of course.  But then the only things that one can use in\nfiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact.  Believe me,\nno civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever\nknows what a pleasure is.\"\n\n\"I know what pleasure is,\" cried Dorian Gray.  \"It is to adore some\none.\"\n\n\"That is certainly better than being adored,\" he answered, toying with\nsome fruits.  \"Being adored is a nuisance.  Women treat us just as\nhumanity treats its gods.  They worship us, and are always bothering us\nto do something for them.\"\n\n\"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to\nus,\" murmured the lad gravely.  \"They create love in our natures.  They\nhave a right to demand it back.\"\n\n\"That is quite true, Dorian,\" cried Hallward.\n\n\"Nothing is ever quite true,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"This is,\" interrupted Dorian.  \"You must admit, Harry, that women give\nto men the very gold of their lives.\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" he sighed, \"but they invariably want it back in such very\nsmall change.  That is the worry.  Women, as some witty Frenchman once\nput it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always\nprevent us from carrying them out.\"\n\n\"Harry, you are dreadful!  I don't know why I like you so much.\"\n\n\"You will always like me, Dorian,\" he replied.  \"Will you have some\ncoffee, you fellows?  Waiter, bring coffee, and _fine-champagne_, and\nsome cigarettes.  No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some.  Basil, I\ncan't allow you to smoke cigars.  You must have a cigarette.  A\ncigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.  It is exquisite,\nand it leaves one unsatisfied.  What more can one want?  Yes, Dorian,\nyou will always be fond of me.  I represent to you all the sins you\nhave never had the courage to commit.\"\n\n\"What nonsense you talk, Harry!\" cried the lad, taking a light from a\nfire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.\n\"Let us go down to the theatre.  When Sibyl comes on the stage you will\nhave a new ideal of life.  She will represent something to you that you\nhave never known.\"\n\n\"I have known everything,\" said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his\neyes, \"but I am always ready for a new emotion.  I am afraid, however,\nthat, for me at any rate, there is no such thing.  Still, your\nwonderful girl may thrill me.  I love acting.  It is so much more real\nthan life.  Let us go.  Dorian, you will come with me.  I am so sorry,\nBasil, but there is only room for two in the brougham.  You must follow\nus in a hansom.\"\n\nThey got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing.  The\npainter was silent and preoccupied.  There was a gloom over him.  He\ncould not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better\nthan many other things that might have happened.  After a few minutes,\nthey all passed downstairs.  He drove off by himself, as had been\narranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in\nfront of him.  A strange sense of loss came over him.  He felt that\nDorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the\npast.  Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the\ncrowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes.  When the cab drew\nup at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.\n\n\n\n\n\nFor some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat\nJew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with\nan oily tremulous smile.  He escorted them to their box with a sort of\npompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top\nof his voice.  Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever.  He felt as if\nhe had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban.  Lord\nHenry, upon the other hand, rather liked him.  At least he declared he\ndid, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he\nwas proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone\nbankrupt over a poet.  Hallward amused himself with watching the faces\nin the pit.  The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight\nflamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire.  The youths\nin the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them\nover the side.  They talked to each other across the theatre and shared\ntheir oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them.  Some women\nwere laughing in the pit.  Their voices were horribly shrill and\ndiscordant.  The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.\n\n\"What a place to find one's divinity in!\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"Yes!\" answered Dorian Gray.  \"It was here I found her, and she is\ndivine beyond all living things.  When she acts, you will forget\neverything.  These common rough people, with their coarse faces and\nbrutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage.  They\nsit silently and watch her.  They weep and laugh as she wills them to\ndo.  She makes them as responsive as a violin.  She spiritualizes them,\nand one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self.\"\n\n\"The same flesh and blood as one's self!  Oh, I hope not!\" exclaimed\nLord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his\nopera-glass.\n\n\"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian,\" said the painter.  \"I\nunderstand what you mean, and I believe in this girl.  Any one you love\nmust be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must\nbe fine and noble.  To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth\ndoing.  If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without\none, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have\nbeen sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and\nlend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of\nall your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world.  This\nmarriage is quite right.  I did not think so at first, but I admit it\nnow.  The gods made Sibyl Vane for you.  Without her you would have\nbeen incomplete.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Basil,\" answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand.  \"I knew that\nyou would understand me.  Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me.  But\nhere is the orchestra.  It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for\nabout five minutes.  Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl\nto whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything\nthat is good in me.\"\n\nA quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of\napplause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage.  Yes, she was certainly\nlovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought,\nthat he had ever seen.  There was something of the fawn in her shy\ngrace and startled eyes.  A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a\nmirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded\nenthusiastic house.  She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed\nto tremble.  Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud.\nMotionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her.\nLord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, \"Charming! charming!\"\n\nThe scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's\ndress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends.  The band, such\nas it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began.  Through\nthe crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a\ncreature from a finer world.  Her body swayed, while she danced, as a\nplant sways in the water.  The curves of her throat were the curves of\na white lily.  Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.\n\nYet she was curiously listless.  She showed no sign of joy when her\neyes rested on Romeo.  The few words she had to speak--\n\n    Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\n        Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\n    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\n        And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss--\n\nwith the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly\nartificial manner.  The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view\nof tone it was absolutely false.  It was wrong in colour.  It took away\nall the life from the verse.  It made the passion unreal.\n\nDorian Gray grew pale as he watched her.  He was puzzled and anxious.\nNeither of his friends dared to say anything to him.  She seemed to\nthem to be absolutely incompetent.  They were horribly disappointed.\n\nYet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of\nthe second act.  They waited for that.  If she failed there, there was\nnothing in her.\n\nShe looked charming as she came out in the moonlight.  That could not\nbe denied.  But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew\nworse as she went on.  Her gestures became absurdly artificial.  She\noveremphasized everything that she had to say.  The beautiful passage--\n\n    Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,\n    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\n    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--\n\nwas declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been\ntaught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she\nleaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--\n\n        Although I joy in thee,\n    I have no joy of this contract to-night:\n    It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\n    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\n    Ere one can say, \"It lightens.\"  Sweet, good-night!\n    This bud of love by summer's ripening breath\n    May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet--\n\nshe spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was\nnot nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely\nself-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.\n\nEven the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their\ninterest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and\nto whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the\ndress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was\nthe girl herself.\n\nWhen the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord\nHenry got up from his chair and put on his coat.  \"She is quite\nbeautiful, Dorian,\" he said, \"but she can't act.  Let us go.\"\n\n\"I am going to see the play through,\" answered the lad, in a hard\nbitter voice.  \"I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an\nevening, Harry.  I apologize to you both.\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill,\" interrupted\nHallward.  \"We will come some other night.\"\n\n\"I wish she were ill,\" he rejoined.  \"But she seems to me to be simply\ncallous and cold.  She has entirely altered.  Last night she was a\ngreat artist.  This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre\nactress.\"\n\n\"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian.  Love is a more\nwonderful thing than art.\"\n\n\"They are both simply forms of imitation,\" remarked Lord Henry.  \"But\ndo let us go.  Dorian, you must not stay here any longer.  It is not\ngood for one's morals to see bad acting.  Besides, I don't suppose you\nwill want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet\nlike a wooden doll?  She is very lovely, and if she knows as little\nabout life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful\nexperience.  There are only two kinds of people who are really\nfascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know\nabsolutely nothing.  Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic!\nThe secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is\nunbecoming.  Come to the club with Basil and myself.  We will smoke\ncigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane.  She is beautiful.\nWhat more can you want?\"\n\n\"Go away, Harry,\" cried the lad.  \"I want to be alone.  Basil, you must\ngo.  Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?\"  The hot tears came\nto his eyes.  His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he\nleaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.\n\n\"Let us go, Basil,\" said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his\nvoice, and the two young men passed out together.\n\nA few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose\non the third act.  Dorian Gray went back to his seat.  He looked pale,\nand proud, and indifferent.  The play dragged on, and seemed\ninterminable.  Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots\nand laughing.  The whole thing was a _fiasco_.  The last act was played\nto almost empty benches.  The curtain went down on a titter and some\ngroans.\n\nAs soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the\ngreenroom.  The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph\non her face.  Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire.  There was a\nradiance about her.  Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of\ntheir own.\n\nWhen he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy\ncame over her.  \"How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!\" she cried.\n\n\"Horribly!\" he answered, gazing at her in amazement.  \"Horribly!  It\nwas dreadful.  Are you ill?  You have no idea what it was.  You have no\nidea what I suffered.\"\n\nThe girl smiled.  \"Dorian,\" she answered, lingering over his name with\nlong-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to\nthe red petals of her mouth.  \"Dorian, you should have understood.  But\nyou understand now, don't you?\"\n\n\"Understand what?\" he asked, angrily.\n\n\"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad.  Why I shall\nnever act well again.\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.  \"You are ill, I suppose.  When you are ill\nyou shouldn't act.  You make yourself ridiculous.  My friends were\nbored.  I was bored.\"\n\nShe seemed not to listen to him.  She was transfigured with joy.  An\necstasy of happiness dominated her.\n\n\"Dorian, Dorian,\" she cried, \"before I knew you, acting was the one\nreality of my life.  It was only in the theatre that I lived.  I\nthought that it was all true.  I was Rosalind one night and Portia the\nother.  The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia\nwere mine also.  I believed in everything.  The common people who acted\nwith me seemed to me to be godlike.  The painted scenes were my world.\nI knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real.  You came--oh, my\nbeautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison.  You taught me what\nreality really is.  To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw\nthrough the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in\nwhich I had always played.  To-night, for the first time, I became\nconscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the\nmoonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and\nthat the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not\nwhat I wanted to say.  You had brought me something higher, something\nof which all art is but a reflection.  You had made me understand what\nlove really is.  My love!  My love!  Prince Charming!  Prince of life!\nI have grown sick of shadows.  You are more to me than all art can ever\nbe.  What have I to do with the puppets of a play?  When I came on\nto-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone\nfrom me.  I thought that I was going to be wonderful.  I found that I\ncould do nothing.  Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.\nThe knowledge was exquisite to me.  I heard them hissing, and I smiled.\nWhat could they know of love such as ours?  Take me away, Dorian--take\nme away with you, where we can be quite alone.  I hate the stage.  I\nmight mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that\nburns me like fire.  Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it\nsignifies?  Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to\nplay at being in love.  You have made me see that.\"\n\nHe flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face.  \"You have\nkilled my love,\" he muttered.\n\nShe looked at him in wonder and laughed.  He made no answer.  She came\nacross to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair.  She knelt\ndown and pressed his hands to her lips.  He drew them away, and a\nshudder ran through him.\n\nThen he leaped up and went to the door.  \"Yes,\" he cried, \"you have\nkilled my love.  You used to stir my imagination.  Now you don't even\nstir my curiosity.  You simply produce no effect.  I loved you because\nyou were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you\nrealized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the\nshadows of art.  You have thrown it all away.  You are shallow and\nstupid.  My God! how mad I was to love you!  What a fool I have been!\nYou are nothing to me now.  I will never see you again.  I will never\nthink of you.  I will never mention your name.  You don't know what you\nwere to me, once.  Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it!  I\nwish I had never laid eyes upon you!  You have spoiled the romance of\nmy life.  How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!\nWithout your art, you are nothing.  I would have made you famous,\nsplendid, magnificent.  The world would have worshipped you, and you\nwould have borne my name.  What are you now?  A third-rate actress with\na pretty face.\"\n\nThe girl grew white, and trembled.  She clenched her hands together,\nand her voice seemed to catch in her throat.  \"You are not serious,\nDorian?\" she murmured.  \"You are acting.\"\n\n\"Acting!  I leave that to you.  You do it so well,\" he answered\nbitterly.\n\nShe rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her\nface, came across the room to him.  She put her hand upon his arm and\nlooked into his eyes.  He thrust her back.  \"Don't touch me!\" he cried.\n\nA low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay\nthere like a trampled flower.  \"Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!\" she\nwhispered.  \"I am so sorry I didn't act well.  I was thinking of you\nall the time.  But I will try--indeed, I will try.  It came so suddenly\nacross me, my love for you.  I think I should never have known it if\nyou had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other.  Kiss me again,\nmy love.  Don't go away from me.  I couldn't bear it.  Oh! don't go\naway from me.  My brother ... No; never mind.  He didn't mean it.  He\nwas in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will\nwork so hard and try to improve.  Don't be cruel to me, because I love\nyou better than anything in the world.  After all, it is only once that\nI have not pleased you.  But you are quite right, Dorian.  I should\nhave shown myself more of an artist.  It was foolish of me, and yet I\ncouldn't help it.  Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me.\" A fit of\npassionate sobbing choked her.  She crouched on the floor like a\nwounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at\nher, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain.  There is\nalways something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has\nceased to love.  Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.\nHer tears and sobs annoyed him.\n\n\"I am going,\" he said at last in his calm clear voice.  \"I don't wish\nto be unkind, but I can't see you again.  You have disappointed me.\"\n\nShe wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer.  Her little\nhands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him.  He\nturned on his heel and left the room.  In a few moments he was out of\nthe theatre.\n\nWhere he went to he hardly knew.  He remembered wandering through dimly\nlit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking\nhouses.  Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after\nhim.  Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves\nlike monstrous apes.  He had seen grotesque children huddled upon\ndoor-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.\n\nAs the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.\nThe darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed\nitself into a perfect pearl.  Huge carts filled with nodding lilies\nrumbled slowly down the polished empty street.  The air was heavy with\nthe perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an\nanodyne for his pain.  He followed into the market and watched the men\nunloading their waggons.  A white-smocked carter offered him some\ncherries.  He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money\nfor them, and began to eat them listlessly.  They had been plucked at\nmidnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.  A long\nline of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red\nroses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge,\njade-green piles of vegetables.  Under the portico, with its grey,\nsun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls,\nwaiting for the auction to be over.  Others crowded round the swinging\ndoors of the coffee-house in the piazza.  The heavy cart-horses slipped\nand stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.\nSome of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks.  Iris-necked\nand pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.\n\nAfter a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home.  For a few\nmoments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent\nsquare, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds.\nThe sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like\nsilver against it.  From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke\nwas rising.  It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.\n\nIn the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that\nhung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance,\nlights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals\nof flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire.  He turned them out and,\nhaving thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library\ntowards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the\nground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had\ndecorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries\nthat had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal.  As\nhe was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait\nBasil Hallward had painted of him.  He started back as if in surprise.\nThen he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled.  After he\nhad taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.\nFinally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it.  In\nthe dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk\nblinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed.  The\nexpression looked different.  One would have said that there was a\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth.  It was certainly strange.\n\nHe turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind.  The\nbright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky\ncorners, where they lay shuddering.  But the strange expression that he\nhad noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be\nmore intensified even.  The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the\nlines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking\ninto a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.\n\nHe winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory\nCupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly\ninto its polished depths.  No line like that warped his red lips.  What\ndid it mean?\n\nHe rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it\nagain.  There were no signs of any change when he looked into the\nactual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression\nhad altered.  It was not a mere fancy of his own.  The thing was\nhorribly apparent.\n\nHe threw himself into a chair and began to think.  Suddenly there\nflashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the\nday the picture had been finished.  Yes, he remembered it perfectly.\nHe had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the\nportrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the\nface on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that\nthe painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and\nthought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness\nof his then just conscious boyhood.  Surely his wish had not been\nfulfilled?  Such things were impossible.  It seemed monstrous even to\nthink of them.  And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth.\n\nCruelty!  Had he been cruel?  It was the girl's fault, not his.  He had\ndreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he\nhad thought her great.  Then she had disappointed him.  She had been\nshallow and unworthy.  And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over\nhim, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little\nchild.  He remembered with what callousness he had watched her.  Why\nhad he been made like that?  Why had such a soul been given to him?\nBut he had suffered also.  During the three terrible hours that the\nplay had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of\ntorture.  His life was well worth hers.  She had marred him for a\nmoment, if he had wounded her for an age.  Besides, women were better\nsuited to bear sorrow than men.  They lived on their emotions.  They\nonly thought of their emotions.  When they took lovers, it was merely\nto have some one with whom they could have scenes.  Lord Henry had told\nhim that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.  Why should he trouble\nabout Sibyl Vane?  She was nothing to him now.\n\nBut the picture?  What was he to say of that?  It held the secret of\nhis life, and told his story.  It had taught him to love his own\nbeauty.  Would it teach him to loathe his own soul?  Would he ever look\nat it again?\n\nNo; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses.  The\nhorrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.\nSuddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that\nmakes men mad.  The picture had not changed.  It was folly to think so.\n\nYet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel\nsmile.  Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight.  Its blue eyes\nmet his own.  A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the\npainted image of himself, came over him.  It had altered already, and\nwould alter more.  Its gold would wither into grey.  Its red and white\nroses would die.  For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck\nand wreck its fairness.  But he would not sin.  The picture, changed or\nunchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.  He would\nresist temptation.  He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at\nany rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil\nHallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for\nimpossible things.  He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends,\nmarry her, try to love her again.  Yes, it was his duty to do so.  She\nmust have suffered more than he had.  Poor child!  He had been selfish\nand cruel to her.  The fascination that she had exercised over him\nwould return.  They would be happy together.  His life with her would\nbe beautiful and pure.\n\nHe got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the\nportrait, shuddering as he glanced at it.  \"How horrible!\" he murmured\nto himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it.  When he\nstepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath.  The fresh morning\nair seemed to drive away all his sombre passions.  He thought only of\nSibyl.  A faint echo of his love came back to him.  He repeated her\nname over and over again.  The birds that were singing in the\ndew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was long past noon when he awoke.  His valet had crept several times\non tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered\nwhat made his young master sleep so late.  Finally his bell sounded,\nand Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on\na small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin\ncurtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the\nthree tall windows.\n\n\"Monsieur has well slept this morning,\" he said, smiling.\n\n\"What o'clock is it, Victor?\" asked Dorian Gray drowsily.\n\n\"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur.\"\n\nHow late it was!  He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over\nhis letters.  One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by\nhand that morning.  He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside.\nThe others he opened listlessly.  They contained the usual collection\nof cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes\nof charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable\nyoung men every morning during the season.  There was a rather heavy\nbill for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet\nhad the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely\nold-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when\nunnecessary things are our only necessities; and there were several\nvery courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders\noffering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the\nmost reasonable rates of interest.\n\nAfter about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate\ndressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the\nonyx-paved bathroom.  The cool water refreshed him after his long\nsleep.  He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through.  A\ndim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once\nor twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it.\n\nAs soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a\nlight French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round\ntable close to the open window.  It was an exquisite day.  The warm air\nseemed laden with spices.  A bee flew in and buzzed round the\nblue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before\nhim.  He felt perfectly happy.\n\nSuddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the\nportrait, and he started.\n\n\"Too cold for Monsieur?\" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the\ntable.  \"I shut the window?\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"I am not cold,\" he murmured.\n\nWas it all true?  Had the portrait really changed?  Or had it been\nsimply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where\nthere had been a look of joy?  Surely a painted canvas could not alter?\nThe thing was absurd.  It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day.\nIt would make him smile.\n\nAnd, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing!  First in\nthe dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of\ncruelty round the warped lips.  He almost dreaded his valet leaving the\nroom.  He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the\nportrait.  He was afraid of certainty.  When the coffee and cigarettes\nhad been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to\ntell him to remain.  As the door was closing behind him, he called him\nback.  The man stood waiting for his orders.  Dorian looked at him for\na moment.  \"I am not at home to any one, Victor,\" he said with a sigh.\nThe man bowed and retired.\n\nThen he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on\na luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen.  The screen\nwas an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a\nrather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern.  He scanned it curiously,\nwondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life.\n\nShould he move it aside, after all?  Why not let it stay there?  What\nwas the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible.  If it\nwas not true, why trouble about it?  But what if, by some fate or\ndeadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible\nchange?  What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at\nhis own picture?  Basil would be sure to do that.  No; the thing had to\nbe examined, and at once.  Anything would be better than this dreadful\nstate of doubt.\n\nHe got up and locked both doors.  At least he would be alone when he\nlooked upon the mask of his shame.  Then he drew the screen aside and\nsaw himself face to face.  It was perfectly true.  The portrait had\naltered.\n\nAs he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he\nfound himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost\nscientific interest.  That such a change should have taken place was\nincredible to him.  And yet it was a fact.  Was there some subtle\naffinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form\nand colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him?  Could it be\nthat what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they\nmade true?  Or was there some other, more terrible reason?  He\nshuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there,\ngazing at the picture in sickened horror.\n\nOne thing, however, he felt that it had done for him.  It had made him\nconscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane.  It was not\ntoo late to make reparation for that.  She could still be his wife.\nHis unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would\nbe transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil\nHallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would\nbe to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the\nfear of God to us all.  There were opiates for remorse, drugs that\ncould lull the moral sense to sleep.  But here was a visible symbol of\nthe degradation of sin.  Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men\nbrought upon their souls.\n\nThree o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double\nchime, but Dorian Gray did not stir.  He was trying to gather up the\nscarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his\nway through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was\nwandering.  He did not know what to do, or what to think.  Finally, he\nwent over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had\nloved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness.  He\ncovered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of\npain.  There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we\nfeel that no one else has a right to blame us.  It is the confession,\nnot the priest, that gives us absolution.  When Dorian had finished the\nletter, he felt that he had been forgiven.\n\nSuddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's\nvoice outside.  \"My dear boy, I must see you.  Let me in at once.  I\ncan't bear your shutting yourself up like this.\"\n\nHe made no answer at first, but remained quite still.  The knocking\nstill continued and grew louder.  Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry\nin, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel\nwith him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was\ninevitable.  He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture,\nand unlocked the door.\n\n\"I am so sorry for it all, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry as he entered.\n\"But you must not think too much about it.\"\n\n\"Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?\" asked the lad.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly\npulling off his yellow gloves.  \"It is dreadful, from one point of\nview, but it was not your fault.  Tell me, did you go behind and see\nher, after the play was over?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I felt sure you had.  Did you make a scene with her?\"\n\n\"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal.  But it is all right now.  I am\nnot sorry for anything that has happened.  It has taught me to know\nmyself better.\"\n\n\"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way!  I was afraid I\nwould find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of\nyours.\"\n\n\"I have got through all that,\" said Dorian, shaking his head and\nsmiling.  \"I am perfectly happy now.  I know what conscience is, to\nbegin with.  It is not what you told me it was.  It is the divinest\nthing in us.  Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before\nme.  I want to be good.  I can't bear the idea of my soul being\nhideous.\"\n\n\"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian!  I congratulate you\non it.  But how are you going to begin?\"\n\n\"By marrying Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"Marrying Sibyl Vane!\" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him\nin perplexed amazement.  \"But, my dear Dorian--\"\n\n\"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say.  Something dreadful\nabout marriage.  Don't say it.  Don't ever say things of that kind to\nme again.  Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me.  I am not going to\nbreak my word to her.  She is to be my wife.\"\n\n\"Your wife!  Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter?  I wrote to you this\nmorning, and sent the note down by my own man.\"\n\n\"Your letter?  Oh, yes, I remember.  I have not read it yet, Harry.  I\nwas afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like.  You\ncut life to pieces with your epigrams.\"\n\n\"You know nothing then?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nLord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray,\ntook both his hands in his own and held them tightly.  \"Dorian,\" he\nsaid, \"my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane\nis dead.\"\n\nA cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet,\ntearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp.  \"Dead!  Sibyl dead!\nIt is not true!  It is a horrible lie!  How dare you say it?\"\n\n\"It is quite true, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, gravely.  \"It is in all\nthe morning papers.  I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one\ntill I came.  There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must\nnot be mixed up in it.  Things like that make a man fashionable in\nParis.  But in London people are so prejudiced.  Here, one should never\nmake one's _debut_ with a scandal.  One should reserve that to give an\ninterest to one's old age.  I suppose they don't know your name at the\ntheatre?  If they don't, it is all right.  Did any one see you going\nround to her room?  That is an important point.\"\n\nDorian did not answer for a few moments.  He was dazed with horror.\nFinally he stammered, in a stifled voice, \"Harry, did you say an\ninquest?  What did you mean by that?  Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't\nbear it!  But be quick.  Tell me everything at once.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put\nin that way to the public.  It seems that as she was leaving the\ntheatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had\nforgotten something upstairs.  They waited some time for her, but she\ndid not come down again.  They ultimately found her lying dead on the\nfloor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake,\nsome dreadful thing they use at theatres.  I don't know what it was,\nbut it had either prussic acid or white lead in it.  I should fancy it\nwas prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously.\"\n\n\"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!\" cried the lad.\n\n\"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed\nup in it.  I see by _The Standard_ that she was seventeen.  I should have\nthought she was almost younger than that.  She looked such a child, and\nseemed to know so little about acting.  Dorian, you mustn't let this\nthing get on your nerves.  You must come and dine with me, and\nafterwards we will look in at the opera.  It is a Patti night, and\neverybody will be there.  You can come to my sister's box.  She has got\nsome smart women with her.\"\n\n\"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,\" said Dorian Gray, half to himself,\n\"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.\nYet the roses are not less lovely for all that.  The birds sing just as\nhappily in my garden.  And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go\non to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards.  How\nextraordinarily dramatic life is!  If I had read all this in a book,\nHarry, I think I would have wept over it.  Somehow, now that it has\nhappened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears.\nHere is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my\nlife.  Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been\naddressed to a dead girl.  Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent\npeople we call the dead?  Sibyl!  Can she feel, or know, or listen?\nOh, Harry, how I loved her once!  It seems years ago to me now.  She\nwas everything to me.  Then came that dreadful night--was it really\nonly last night?--when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke.\nShe explained it all to me.  It was terribly pathetic.  But I was not\nmoved a bit.  I thought her shallow.  Suddenly something happened that\nmade me afraid.  I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible.  I\nsaid I would go back to her.  I felt I had done wrong.  And now she is\ndead.  My God!  My God!  Harry, what shall I do?  You don't know the\ndanger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight.  She would\nhave done that for me.  She had no right to kill herself.  It was\nselfish of her.\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case\nand producing a gold-latten matchbox, \"the only way a woman can ever\nreform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible\ninterest in life.  If you had married this girl, you would have been\nwretched.  Of course, you would have treated her kindly.  One can\nalways be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.  But she would\nhave soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her.  And\nwhen a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes\ndreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's\nhusband has to pay for.  I say nothing about the social mistake, which\nwould have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but\nI assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an\nabsolute failure.\"\n\n\"I suppose it would,\" muttered the lad, walking up and down the room\nand looking horribly pale.  \"But I thought it was my duty.  It is not\nmy fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was\nright.  I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good\nresolutions--that they are always made too late.  Mine certainly were.\"\n\n\"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific\nlaws.  Their origin is pure vanity.  Their result is absolutely _nil_.\nThey give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions\nthat have a certain charm for the weak.  That is all that can be said\nfor them.  They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they\nhave no account.\"\n\n\"Harry,\" cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him,\n\"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to?  I\ndon't think I am heartless.  Do you?\"\n\n\"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be\nentitled to give yourself that name, Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry with\nhis sweet melancholy smile.\n\nThe lad frowned.  \"I don't like that explanation, Harry,\" he rejoined,\n\"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless.  I am nothing of the\nkind.  I know I am not.  And yet I must admit that this thing that has\nhappened does not affect me as it should.  It seems to me to be simply\nlike a wonderful ending to a wonderful play.  It has all the terrible\nbeauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but\nby which I have not been wounded.\"\n\n\"It is an interesting question,\" said Lord Henry, who found an\nexquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, \"an\nextremely interesting question.  I fancy that the true explanation is\nthis:  It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such\nan inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their\nabsolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack\nof style.  They affect us just as vulgarity affects us.  They give us\nan impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.\nSometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of\nbeauty crosses our lives.  If these elements of beauty are real, the\nwhole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect.  Suddenly\nwe find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the\nplay.  Or rather we are both.  We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder\nof the spectacle enthralls us.  In the present case, what is it that\nhas really happened?  Some one has killed herself for love of you.  I\nwish that I had ever had such an experience.  It would have made me in\nlove with love for the rest of my life.  The people who have adored\nme--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have\nalways insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them,\nor they to care for me.  They have become stout and tedious, and when I\nmeet them, they go in at once for reminiscences.  That awful memory of\nwoman!  What a fearful thing it is!  And what an utter intellectual\nstagnation it reveals!  One should absorb the colour of life, but one\nshould never remember its details.  Details are always vulgar.\"\n\n\"I must sow poppies in my garden,\" sighed Dorian.\n\n\"There is no necessity,\" rejoined his companion.  \"Life has always\npoppies in her hands.  Of course, now and then things linger.  I once\nwore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic\nmourning for a romance that would not die.  Ultimately, however, it did\ndie.  I forget what killed it.  I think it was her proposing to\nsacrifice the whole world for me.  That is always a dreadful moment.\nIt fills one with the terror of eternity.  Well--would you believe\nit?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner\nnext the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole\nthing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future.  I had\nburied my romance in a bed of asphodel.  She dragged it out again and\nassured me that I had spoiled her life.  I am bound to state that she\nate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety.  But what a lack\nof taste she showed!  The one charm of the past is that it is the past.\nBut women never know when the curtain has fallen.  They always want a\nsixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over,\nthey propose to continue it.  If they were allowed their own way, every\ncomedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in\na farce.  They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of\nart.  You are more fortunate than I am.  I assure you, Dorian, that not\none of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane\ndid for you.  Ordinary women always console themselves.  Some of them\ndo it by going in for sentimental colours.  Never trust a woman who\nwears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who\nis fond of pink ribbons.  It always means that they have a history.\nOthers find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good\nqualities of their husbands.  They flaunt their conjugal felicity in\none's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.  Religion\nconsoles some.  Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a\nwoman once told me, and I can quite understand it.  Besides, nothing\nmakes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.  Conscience makes\negotists of us all.  Yes; there is really no end to the consolations\nthat women find in modern life.  Indeed, I have not mentioned the most\nimportant one.\"\n\n\"What is that, Harry?\" said the lad listlessly.\n\n\"Oh, the obvious consolation.  Taking some one else's admirer when one\nloses one's own.  In good society that always whitewashes a woman.  But\nreally, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the\nwomen one meets!  There is something to me quite beautiful about her\ndeath.  I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen.\nThey make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with,\nsuch as romance, passion, and love.\"\n\n\"I was terribly cruel to her.  You forget that.\"\n\n\"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more\nthan anything else.  They have wonderfully primitive instincts.  We\nhave emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their\nmasters, all the same.  They love being dominated.  I am sure you were\nsplendid.  I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can\nfancy how delightful you looked.  And, after all, you said something to\nme the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely\nfanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key\nto everything.\"\n\n\"What was that, Harry?\"\n\n\"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of\nromance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that\nif she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.\"\n\n\"She will never come to life again now,\" muttered the lad, burying his\nface in his hands.\n\n\"No, she will never come to life.  She has played her last part.  But\nyou must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply\nas a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful\nscene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur.  The girl never really\nlived, and so she has never really died.  To you at least she was\nalways a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and\nleft them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's\nmusic sounded richer and more full of joy.  The moment she touched\nactual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away.\nMourn for Ophelia, if you like.  Put ashes on your head because\nCordelia was strangled.  Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of\nBrabantio died.  But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane.  She was\nless real than they are.\"\n\nThere was a silence.  The evening darkened in the room.  Noiselessly,\nand with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden.  The\ncolours faded wearily out of things.\n\nAfter some time Dorian Gray looked up.  \"You have explained me to\nmyself, Harry,\" he murmured with something of a sigh of relief.  \"I\nfelt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I\ncould not express it to myself.  How well you know me!  But we will not\ntalk again of what has happened.  It has been a marvellous experience.\nThat is all.  I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as\nmarvellous.\"\n\n\"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian.  There is nothing that\nyou, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.\"\n\n\"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled?  What\nthen?\"\n\n\"Ah, then,\" said Lord Henry, rising to go, \"then, my dear Dorian, you\nwould have to fight for your victories.  As it is, they are brought to\nyou.  No, you must keep your good looks.  We live in an age that reads\ntoo much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.  We\ncannot spare you.  And now you had better dress and drive down to the\nclub.  We are rather late, as it is.\"\n\n\"I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry.  I feel too tired to eat\nanything.  What is the number of your sister's box?\"\n\n\"Twenty-seven, I believe.  It is on the grand tier.  You will see her\nname on the door.  But I am sorry you won't come and dine.\"\n\n\"I don't feel up to it,\" said Dorian listlessly.  \"But I am awfully\nobliged to you for all that you have said to me.  You are certainly my\nbest friend.  No one has ever understood me as you have.\"\n\n\"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian,\" answered Lord\nHenry, shaking him by the hand.  \"Good-bye. I shall see you before\nnine-thirty, I hope.  Remember, Patti is singing.\"\n\nAs he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in\na few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down.\nHe waited impatiently for him to go.  The man seemed to take an\ninterminable time over everything.\n\nAs soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back.  No;\nthere was no further change in the picture.  It had received the news\nof Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself.  It was\nconscious of the events of life as they occurred.  The vicious cruelty\nthat marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the\nvery moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was.  Or\nwas it indifferent to results?  Did it merely take cognizance of what\npassed within the soul?  He wondered, and hoped that some day he would\nsee the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he\nhoped it.\n\nPoor Sibyl!  What a romance it had all been!  She had often mimicked\ndeath on the stage.  Then Death himself had touched her and taken her\nwith him.  How had she played that dreadful last scene?  Had she cursed\nhim, as she died?  No; she had died for love of him, and love would\nalways be a sacrament to him now.  She had atoned for everything by the\nsacrifice she had made of her life.  He would not think any more of\nwhat she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the\ntheatre.  When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic\nfigure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of\nlove.  A wonderful tragic figure?  Tears came to his eyes as he\nremembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy\ntremulous grace.  He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the\npicture.\n\nHe felt that the time had really come for making his choice.  Or had\nhis choice already been made?  Yes, life had decided that for\nhim--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life.  Eternal youth,\ninfinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder\nsins--he was to have all these things.  The portrait was to bear the\nburden of his shame: that was all.\n\nA feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that\nwas in store for the fair face on the canvas.  Once, in boyish mockery\nof Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips\nthat now smiled so cruelly at him.  Morning after morning he had sat\nbefore the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as\nit seemed to him at times.  Was it to alter now with every mood to\nwhich he yielded?  Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to\nbe hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that\nhad so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair?\nThe pity of it! the pity of it!\n\nFor a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that\nexisted between him and the picture might cease.  It had changed in\nanswer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain\nunchanged.  And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would\nsurrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that\nchance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?\nBesides, was it really under his control?  Had it indeed been prayer\nthat had produced the substitution?  Might there not be some curious\nscientific reason for it all?  If thought could exercise its influence\nupon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon\ndead and inorganic things?  Nay, without thought or conscious desire,\nmight not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods\nand passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?\nBut the reason was of no importance.  He would never again tempt by a\nprayer any terrible power.  If the picture was to alter, it was to\nalter.  That was all.  Why inquire too closely into it?\n\nFor there would be a real pleasure in watching it.  He would be able to\nfollow his mind into its secret places.  This portrait would be to him\nthe most magical of mirrors.  As it had revealed to him his own body,\nso it would reveal to him his own soul.  And when winter came upon it,\nhe would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of\nsummer.  When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid\nmask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood.\nNot one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade.  Not one pulse of\nhis life would ever weaken.  Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be\nstrong, and fleet, and joyous.  What did it matter what happened to the\ncoloured image on the canvas?  He would be safe.  That was everything.\n\nHe drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture,\nsmiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was\nalready waiting for him.  An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord\nHenry was leaning over his chair.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown\ninto the room.\n\n\"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian,\" he said gravely.  \"I called\nlast night, and they told me you were at the opera.  Of course, I knew\nthat was impossible.  But I wish you had left word where you had really\ngone to.  I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy\nmight be followed by another.  I think you might have telegraphed for\nme when you heard of it first.  I read of it quite by chance in a late\nedition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club.  I came here at once\nand was miserable at not finding you.  I can't tell you how\nheart-broken I am about the whole thing.  I know what you must suffer.\nBut where were you?  Did you go down and see the girl's mother?  For a\nmoment I thought of following you there.  They gave the address in the\npaper.  Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it?  But I was afraid of\nintruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten.  Poor woman!  What a\nstate she must be in!  And her only child, too!  What did she say about\nit all?\"\n\n\"My dear Basil, how do I know?\" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some\npale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass\nand looking dreadfully bored.  \"I was at the opera.  You should have\ncome on there.  I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first\ntime.  We were in her box.  She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang\ndivinely.  Don't talk about horrid subjects.  If one doesn't talk about\na thing, it has never happened.  It is simply expression, as Harry\nsays, that gives reality to things.  I may mention that she was not the\nwoman's only child.  There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe.  But\nhe is not on the stage.  He is a sailor, or something.  And now, tell\nme about yourself and what you are painting.\"\n\n\"You went to the opera?\" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a\nstrained touch of pain in his voice.  \"You went to the opera while\nSibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging?  You can talk to me\nof other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before\nthe girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in?  Why,\nman, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!\"\n\n\"Stop, Basil!  I won't hear it!\" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.\n\"You must not tell me about things.  What is done is done.  What is\npast is past.\"\n\n\"You call yesterday the past?\"\n\n\"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it?  It is only\nshallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion.  A man who\nis master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a\npleasure.  I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions.  I want to\nuse them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.\"\n\n\"Dorian, this is horrible!  Something has changed you completely.  You\nlook exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come\ndown to my studio to sit for his picture.  But you were simple,\nnatural, and affectionate then.  You were the most unspoiled creature\nin the whole world.  Now, I don't know what has come over you.  You\ntalk as if you had no heart, no pity in you.  It is all Harry's\ninfluence.  I see that.\"\n\nThe lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few\nmoments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden.  \"I owe a great\ndeal to Harry, Basil,\" he said at last, \"more than I owe to you.  You\nonly taught me to be vain.\"\n\n\"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean, Basil,\" he exclaimed, turning round.  \"I\ndon't know what you want.  What do you want?\"\n\n\"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint,\" said the artist sadly.\n\n\"Basil,\" said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his\nshoulder, \"you have come too late.  Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl\nVane had killed herself--\"\n\n\"Killed herself!  Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?\" cried\nHallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.\n\n\"My dear Basil!  Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident?  Of\ncourse she killed herself.\"\n\nThe elder man buried his face in his hands.  \"How fearful,\" he\nmuttered, and a shudder ran through him.\n\n\"No,\" said Dorian Gray, \"there is nothing fearful about it.  It is one\nof the great romantic tragedies of the age.  As a rule, people who act\nlead the most commonplace lives.  They are good husbands, or faithful\nwives, or something tedious.  You know what I mean--middle-class virtue\nand all that kind of thing.  How different Sibyl was!  She lived her\nfinest tragedy.  She was always a heroine.  The last night she\nplayed--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known\nthe reality of love.  When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet\nmight have died.  She passed again into the sphere of art.  There is\nsomething of the martyr about her.  Her death has all the pathetic\nuselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty.  But, as I was saying,\nyou must not think I have not suffered.  If you had come in yesterday\nat a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to\nsix--you would have found me in tears.  Even Harry, who was here, who\nbrought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through.  I\nsuffered immensely.  Then it passed away.  I cannot repeat an emotion.\nNo one can, except sentimentalists.  And you are awfully unjust, Basil.\nYou come down here to console me.  That is charming of you.  You find\nme consoled, and you are furious.  How like a sympathetic person!  You\nremind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who\nspent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance\nredressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was.\nFinally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment.  He\nhad absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a\nconfirmed misanthrope.  And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really\nwant to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to\nsee it from a proper artistic point of view.  Was it not Gautier who\nused to write about _la consolation des arts_?  I remember picking up a\nlittle vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that\ndelightful phrase.  Well, I am not like that young man you told me of\nwhen we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say\nthat yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life.  I\nlove beautiful things that one can touch and handle.  Old brocades,\ngreen bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings,\nluxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these.  But the artistic\ntemperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to\nme.  To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to\nescape the suffering of life.  I know you are surprised at my talking\nto you like this.  You have not realized how I have developed.  I was a\nschoolboy when you knew me.  I am a man now.  I have new passions, new\nthoughts, new ideas.  I am different, but you must not like me less.  I\nam changed, but you must always be my friend.  Of course, I am very\nfond of Harry.  But I know that you are better than he is.  You are not\nstronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better.  And how\nhappy we used to be together!  Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel\nwith me.  I am what I am.  There is nothing more to be said.\"\n\nThe painter felt strangely moved.  The lad was infinitely dear to him,\nand his personality had been the great turning point in his art.  He\ncould not bear the idea of reproaching him any more.  After all, his\nindifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away.  There\nwas so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.\n\n\"Well, Dorian,\" he said at length, with a sad smile, \"I won't speak to\nyou again about this horrible thing, after to-day.  I only trust your\nname won't be mentioned in connection with it.  The inquest is to take\nplace this afternoon.  Have they summoned you?\"\n\nDorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at\nthe mention of the word \"inquest.\"  There was something so crude and\nvulgar about everything of the kind.  \"They don't know my name,\" he\nanswered.\n\n\"But surely she did?\"\n\n\"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned\nto any one.  She told me once that they were all rather curious to\nlearn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince\nCharming.  It was pretty of her.  You must do me a drawing of Sibyl,\nBasil.  I should like to have something more of her than the memory of\na few kisses and some broken pathetic words.\"\n\n\"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you.  But you\nmust come and sit to me yourself again.  I can't get on without you.\"\n\n\"I can never sit to you again, Basil.  It is impossible!\" he exclaimed,\nstarting back.\n\nThe painter stared at him.  \"My dear boy, what nonsense!\" he cried.\n\"Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you?  Where is it?\nWhy have you pulled the screen in front of it?  Let me look at it.  It\nis the best thing I have ever done.  Do take the screen away, Dorian.\nIt is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that.  I\nfelt the room looked different as I came in.\"\n\n\"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil.  You don't imagine I let\nhim arrange my room for me?  He settles my flowers for me\nsometimes--that is all.  No; I did it myself.  The light was too strong\non the portrait.\"\n\n\"Too strong!  Surely not, my dear fellow?  It is an admirable place for\nit.  Let me see it.\"  And Hallward walked towards the corner of the\nroom.\n\nA cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between\nthe painter and the screen.  \"Basil,\" he said, looking very pale, \"you\nmust not look at it.  I don't wish you to.\"\n\n\"Not look at my own work!  You are not serious.  Why shouldn't I look\nat it?\" exclaimed Hallward, laughing.\n\n\"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never\nspeak to you again as long as I live.  I am quite serious.  I don't\noffer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any.  But, remember,\nif you touch this screen, everything is over between us.\"\n\nHallward was thunderstruck.  He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute\namazement.  He had never seen him like this before.  The lad was\nactually pallid with rage.  His hands were clenched, and the pupils of\nhis eyes were like disks of blue fire.  He was trembling all over.\n\n\"Dorian!\"\n\n\"Don't speak!\"\n\n\"But what is the matter?  Of course I won't look at it if you don't\nwant me to,\" he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over\ntowards the window.  \"But, really, it seems rather absurd that I\nshouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in\nParis in the autumn.  I shall probably have to give it another coat of\nvarnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?\"\n\n\"To exhibit it!  You want to exhibit it?\" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a\nstrange sense of terror creeping over him.  Was the world going to be\nshown his secret?  Were people to gape at the mystery of his life?\nThat was impossible.  Something--he did not know what--had to be done\nat once.\n\n\"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that.  Georges Petit is going\nto collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de\nSeze, which will open the first week in October.  The portrait will\nonly be away a month.  I should think you could easily spare it for\nthat time.  In fact, you are sure to be out of town.  And if you keep\nit always behind a screen, you can't care much about it.\"\n\nDorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead.  There were beads of\nperspiration there.  He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible\ndanger.  \"You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it,\" he\ncried.  \"Why have you changed your mind?  You people who go in for\nbeing consistent have just as many moods as others have.  The only\ndifference is that your moods are rather meaningless.  You can't have\nforgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world\nwould induce you to send it to any exhibition.  You told Harry exactly\nthe same thing.\" He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into\nhis eyes.  He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half\nseriously and half in jest, \"If you want to have a strange quarter of\nan hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture.  He\ntold me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me.\"  Yes, perhaps\nBasil, too, had his secret.  He would ask him and try.\n\n\"Basil,\" he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in\nthe face, \"we have each of us a secret.  Let me know yours, and I shall\ntell you mine.  What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my\npicture?\"\n\nThe painter shuddered in spite of himself.  \"Dorian, if I told you, you\nmight like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me.  I\ncould not bear your doing either of those two things.  If you wish me\nnever to look at your picture again, I am content.  I have always you\nto look at.  If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden\nfrom the world, I am satisfied.  Your friendship is dearer to me than\nany fame or reputation.\"\n\n\"No, Basil, you must tell me,\" insisted Dorian Gray.  \"I think I have a\nright to know.\"  His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity\nhad taken its place.  He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's\nmystery.\n\n\"Let us sit down, Dorian,\" said the painter, looking troubled.  \"Let us\nsit down.  And just answer me one question.  Have you noticed in the\npicture something curious?--something that probably at first did not\nstrike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?\"\n\n\"Basil!\" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling\nhands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.\n\n\"I see you did.  Don't speak.  Wait till you hear what I have to say.\nDorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most\nextraordinary influence over me.  I was dominated, soul, brain, and\npower, by you.  You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen\nideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.  I\nworshipped you.  I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke.  I\nwanted to have you all to myself.  I was only happy when I was with\nyou.  When you were away from me, you were still present in my art....\nOf course, I never let you know anything about this.  It would have\nbeen impossible.  You would not have understood it.  I hardly\nunderstood it myself.  I only knew that I had seen perfection face to\nface, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too\nwonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril\nof losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them....  Weeks and\nweeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you.  Then came a\nnew development.  I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as\nAdonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with\nheavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing\nacross the green turbid Nile.  You had leaned over the still pool of\nsome Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of\nyour own face.  And it had all been what art should be--unconscious,\nideal, and remote.  One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I\ndetermined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are,\nnot in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own\ntime.  Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of\nyour own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or\nveil, I cannot tell.  But I know that as I worked at it, every flake\nand film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret.  I grew afraid\nthat others would know of my idolatry.  I felt, Dorian, that I had told\ntoo much, that I had put too much of myself into it.  Then it was that\nI resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited.  You were a\nlittle annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me.\nHarry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me.  But I did not mind\nthat.  When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt\nthat I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio,\nand as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its\npresence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I\nhad seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking\nand that I could paint.  Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a\nmistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really\nshown in the work one creates.  Art is always more abstract than we\nfancy.  Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all.  It\noften seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than\nit ever reveals him.  And so when I got this offer from Paris, I\ndetermined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.\nIt never occurred to me that you would refuse.  I see now that you were\nright.  The picture cannot be shown.  You must not be angry with me,\nDorian, for what I have told you.  As I said to Harry, once, you are\nmade to be worshipped.\"\n\nDorian Gray drew a long breath.  The colour came back to his cheeks,\nand a smile played about his lips.  The peril was over.  He was safe\nfor the time.  Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the\npainter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered\nif he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a\nfriend.  Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous.  But that\nwas all.  He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of.\nWould there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange\nidolatry?  Was that one of the things that life had in store?\n\n\"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"that you should\nhave seen this in the portrait.  Did you really see it?\"\n\n\"I saw something in it,\" he answered, \"something that seemed to me very\ncurious.\"\n\n\"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"You must not ask me that, Basil.  I could not\npossibly let you stand in front of that picture.\"\n\n\"You will some day, surely?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps you are right.  And now good-bye, Dorian.  You have been\nthe one person in my life who has really influenced my art.  Whatever I\nhave done that is good, I owe to you.  Ah! you don't know what it cost\nme to tell you all that I have told you.\"\n\n\"My dear Basil,\" said Dorian, \"what have you told me?  Simply that you\nfelt that you admired me too much.  That is not even a compliment.\"\n\n\"It was not intended as a compliment.  It was a confession.  Now that I\nhave made it, something seems to have gone out of me.  Perhaps one\nshould never put one's worship into words.\"\n\n\"It was a very disappointing confession.\"\n\n\"Why, what did you expect, Dorian?  You didn't see anything else in the\npicture, did you?  There was nothing else to see?\"\n\n\"No; there was nothing else to see.  Why do you ask?  But you mustn't\ntalk about worship.  It is foolish.  You and I are friends, Basil, and\nwe must always remain so.\"\n\n\"You have got Harry,\" said the painter sadly.\n\n\"Oh, Harry!\" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter.  \"Harry spends\nhis days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is\nimprobable.  Just the sort of life I would like to lead.  But still I\ndon't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble.  I would sooner\ngo to you, Basil.\"\n\n\"You will sit to me again?\"\n\n\"Impossible!\"\n\n\"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian.  No man comes\nacross two ideal things.  Few come across one.\"\n\n\"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again.\nThere is something fatal about a portrait.  It has a life of its own.\nI will come and have tea with you.  That will be just as pleasant.\"\n\n\"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid,\" murmured Hallward regretfully.  \"And\nnow good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once\nagain.  But that can't be helped.  I quite understand what you feel\nabout it.\"\n\nAs he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself.  Poor Basil!  How\nlittle he knew of the true reason!  And how strange it was that,\ninstead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had\nsucceeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend!  How\nmuch that strange confession explained to him!  The painter's absurd\nfits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his\ncurious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry.\nThere seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured\nby romance.\n\nHe sighed and touched the bell.  The portrait must be hidden away at\nall costs.  He could not run such a risk of discovery again.  It had\nbeen mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour,\nin a room to which any of his friends had access.\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if\nhe had thought of peering behind the screen.  The man was quite\nimpassive and waited for his orders.  Dorian lit a cigarette and walked\nover to the glass and glanced into it.  He could see the reflection of\nVictor's face perfectly.  It was like a placid mask of servility.\nThere was nothing to be afraid of, there.  Yet he thought it best to be\non his guard.\n\nSpeaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he\nwanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to\nsend two of his men round at once.  It seemed to him that as the man\nleft the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen.  Or was\nthat merely his own fancy?\n\nAfter a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread\nmittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library.  He\nasked her for the key of the schoolroom.\n\n\"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?\" she exclaimed.  \"Why, it is full of\ndust.  I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it.\nIt is not fit for you to see, sir.  It is not, indeed.\"\n\n\"I don't want it put straight, Leaf.  I only want the key.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it.  Why, it\nhasn't been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died.\"\n\nHe winced at the mention of his grandfather.  He had hateful memories\nof him.  \"That does not matter,\" he answered.  \"I simply want to see\nthe place--that is all.  Give me the key.\"\n\n\"And here is the key, sir,\" said the old lady, going over the contents\nof her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands.  \"Here is the key.  I'll\nhave it off the bunch in a moment.  But you don't think of living up\nthere, sir, and you so comfortable here?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" he cried petulantly.  \"Thank you, Leaf.  That will do.\"\n\nShe lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of\nthe household.  He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought\nbest.  She left the room, wreathed in smiles.\n\nAs the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round\nthe room.  His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily\nembroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century\nVenetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.\nYes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in.  It had perhaps\nserved often as a pall for the dead.  Now it was to hide something that\nhad a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death\nitself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die.\nWhat the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image\non the canvas.  They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace.  They\nwould defile it and make it shameful.  And yet the thing would still\nlive on.  It would be always alive.\n\nHe shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil\nthe true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away.  Basil\nwould have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still\nmore poisonous influences that came from his own temperament.  The love\nthat he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was\nnot noble and intellectual.  It was not that mere physical admiration\nof beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses\ntire.  It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and\nWinckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.  Yes, Basil could have saved him.\nBut it was too late now.  The past could always be annihilated.\nRegret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that.  But the future was\ninevitable.  There were passions in him that would find their terrible\noutlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real.\n\nHe took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that\ncovered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen.\nWas the face on the canvas viler than before?  It seemed to him that it\nwas unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified.  Gold hair,\nblue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there.  It was simply the\nexpression that had altered.  That was horrible in its cruelty.\nCompared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's\nreproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--how shallow, and of what little\naccount!  His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and\ncalling him to judgement.  A look of pain came across him, and he flung\nthe rich pall over the picture.  As he did so, a knock came to the\ndoor.  He passed out as his servant entered.\n\n\"The persons are here, Monsieur.\"\n\nHe felt that the man must be got rid of at once.  He must not be\nallowed to know where the picture was being taken to.  There was\nsomething sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes.\nSitting down at the writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry,\nasking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that\nthey were to meet at eight-fifteen that evening.\n\n\"Wait for an answer,\" he said, handing it to him, \"and show the men in\nhere.\"\n\nIn two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard\nhimself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in\nwith a somewhat rough-looking young assistant.  Mr. Hubbard was a\nflorid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was\nconsiderably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the\nartists who dealt with him.  As a rule, he never left his shop.  He\nwaited for people to come to him.  But he always made an exception in\nfavour of Dorian Gray.  There was something about Dorian that charmed\neverybody.  It was a pleasure even to see him.\n\n\"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?\" he said, rubbing his fat freckled\nhands.  \"I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in\nperson.  I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir.  Picked it up at a\nsale.  Old Florentine.  Came from Fonthill, I believe.  Admirably\nsuited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr.\nHubbard.  I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame--though I\ndon't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day I only want a\npicture carried to the top of the house for me.  It is rather heavy, so\nI thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men.\"\n\n\"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray.  I am delighted to be of any service to\nyou.  Which is the work of art, sir?\"\n\n\"This,\" replied Dorian, moving the screen back.  \"Can you move it,\ncovering and all, just as it is?  I don't want it to get scratched\ngoing upstairs.\"\n\n\"There will be no difficulty, sir,\" said the genial frame-maker,\nbeginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from\nthe long brass chains by which it was suspended.  \"And, now, where\nshall we carry it to, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me.\nOr perhaps you had better go in front.  I am afraid it is right at the\ntop of the house.  We will go up by the front staircase, as it is\nwider.\"\n\nHe held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and\nbegan the ascent.  The elaborate character of the frame had made the\npicture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious\nprotests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike\nof seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it\nso as to help them.\n\n\"Something of a load to carry, sir,\" gasped the little man when they\nreached the top landing.  And he wiped his shiny forehead.\n\n\"I am afraid it is rather heavy,\" murmured Dorian as he unlocked the\ndoor that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious\nsecret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men.\n\nHe had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed,\nsince he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then\nas a study when he grew somewhat older.  It was a large,\nwell-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord\nKelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness\nto his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and\ndesired to keep at a distance.  It appeared to Dorian to have but\nlittle changed.  There was the huge Italian _cassone_, with its\nfantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which\nhe had so often hidden himself as a boy.  There the satinwood book-case\nfilled with his dog-eared schoolbooks.  On the wall behind it was\nhanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen\nwere playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by,\ncarrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists.  How well he\nremembered it all!  Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to\nhim as he looked round.  He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish\nlife, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait\nwas to be hidden away.  How little he had thought, in those dead days,\nof all that was in store for him!\n\nBut there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as\nthis.  He had the key, and no one else could enter it.  Beneath its\npurple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden,\nand unclean.  What did it matter?  No one could see it.  He himself\nwould not see it.  Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his\nsoul?  He kept his youth--that was enough.  And, besides, might not\nhis nature grow finer, after all?  There was no reason that the future\nshould be so full of shame.  Some love might come across his life, and\npurify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already\nstirring in spirit and in flesh--those curious unpictured sins whose\nvery mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm.  Perhaps, some\nday, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive\nmouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece.\n\nNo; that was impossible.  Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing\nupon the canvas was growing old.  It might escape the hideousness of\nsin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it.  The cheeks would\nbecome hollow or flaccid.  Yellow crow's feet would creep round the\nfading eyes and make them horrible.  The hair would lose its\nbrightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross,\nas the mouths of old men are.  There would be the wrinkled throat, the\ncold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the\ngrandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood.  The picture\nhad to be concealed.  There was no help for it.\n\n\"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please,\" he said, wearily, turning round.\n\"I am sorry I kept you so long.  I was thinking of something else.\"\n\n\"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray,\" answered the frame-maker, who\nwas still gasping for breath.  \"Where shall we put it, sir?\"\n\n\"Oh, anywhere.  Here:  this will do.  I don't want to have it hung up.\nJust lean it against the wall.  Thanks.\"\n\n\"Might one look at the work of art, sir?\"\n\nDorian started.  \"It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard,\" he said,\nkeeping his eye on the man.  He felt ready to leap upon him and fling\nhim to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that\nconcealed the secret of his life.  \"I shan't trouble you any more now.\nI am much obliged for your kindness in coming round.\"\n\n\"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray.  Ever ready to do anything for you,\nsir.\" And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant,\nwho glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough\nuncomely face.  He had never seen any one so marvellous.\n\nWhen the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door\nand put the key in his pocket.  He felt safe now.  No one would ever\nlook upon the horrible thing.  No eye but his would ever see his shame.\n\nOn reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock\nand that the tea had been already brought up.  On a little table of\ndark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady\nRadley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had\nspent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry,\nand beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn\nand the edges soiled.  A copy of the third edition of _The St. James's\nGazette_ had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had\nreturned.  He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were\nleaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing.\nHe would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed it already,\nwhile he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set\nback, and a blank space was visible on the wall.  Perhaps some night he\nmight find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the\nroom.  It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house.  He had\nheard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some\nservant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked\nup a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower\nor a shred of crumpled lace.\n\nHe sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's\nnote.  It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper,\nand a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at\neight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James's_ languidly, and looked through\nit.  A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye.  It drew\nattention to the following paragraph:\n\n\nINQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell\nTavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of\nSibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre,\nHolborn.  A verdict of death by misadventure was returned.\nConsiderable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who\nwas greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of\nDr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased.\n\n\nHe frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and\nflung the pieces away.  How ugly it all was!  And how horribly real\nugliness made things!  He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for\nhaving sent him the report.  And it was certainly stupid of him to have\nmarked it with red pencil.  Victor might have read it.  The man knew\nmore than enough English for that.\n\nPerhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something.  And, yet,\nwhat did it matter?  What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's\ndeath?  There was nothing to fear.  Dorian Gray had not killed her.\n\nHis eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him.  What was\nit, he wondered.  He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal\nstand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange\nEgyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung\nhimself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves.  After a\nfew minutes he became absorbed.  It was the strangest book that he had\never read.  It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the\ndelicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb\nshow before him.  Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly\nmade real to him.  Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually\nrevealed.\n\nIt was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being,\nindeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who\nspent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the\npassions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his\nown, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through\nwhich the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere\nartificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue,\nas much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.  The\nstyle in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid\nand obscure at once, full of _argot_ and of archaisms, of technical\nexpressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work\nof some of the finest artists of the French school of _Symbolistes_.\nThere were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in\ncolour.  The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical\nphilosophy.  One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the\nspiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions\nof a modern sinner.  It was a poisonous book.  The heavy odour of\nincense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain.  The\nmere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so\nfull as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated,\nproduced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter,\na form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of\nthe falling day and creeping shadows.\n\nCloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed\nthrough the windows.  He read on by its wan light till he could read no\nmore.  Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the\nlateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed\nthe book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his\nbedside and began to dress for dinner.\n\nIt was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found\nLord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.\n\n\"I am so sorry, Harry,\" he cried, \"but really it is entirely your\nfault.  That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the\ntime was going.\"\n\n\"Yes, I thought you would like it,\" replied his host, rising from his\nchair.\n\n\"I didn't say I liked it, Harry.  I said it fascinated me.  There is a\ngreat difference.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have discovered that?\" murmured Lord Henry.  And they passed\ninto the dining-room.\n\n\n\n\n\nFor years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of\nthis book.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never\nsought to free himself from it.  He procured from Paris no less than\nnine large-paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in\ndifferent colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the\nchanging fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have\nalmost entirely lost control.  The hero, the wonderful young Parisian\nin whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely\nblended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself.  And,\nindeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own\nlife, written before he had lived it.\n\nIn one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero.  He\nnever knew--never, indeed, had any cause to know--that somewhat\ngrotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still\nwater which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, and was\noccasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, apparently,\nbeen so remarkable.  It was with an almost cruel joy--and perhaps in\nnearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its\nplace--that he used to read the latter part of the book, with its\nreally tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow and\ndespair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, he\nhad most dearly valued.\n\nFor the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and\nmany others besides him, seemed never to leave him.  Even those who had\nheard the most evil things against him--and from time to time strange\nrumours about his mode of life crept through London and became the\nchatter of the clubs--could not believe anything to his dishonour when\nthey saw him.  He had always the look of one who had kept himself\nunspotted from the world.  Men who talked grossly became silent when\nDorian Gray entered the room.  There was something in the purity of his\nface that rebuked them.  His mere presence seemed to recall to them the\nmemory of the innocence that they had tarnished.  They wondered how one\nso charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an\nage that was at once sordid and sensual.\n\nOften, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged\nabsences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were\nhis friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep\nupstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left\nhim now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil\nHallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on\nthe canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him\nfrom the polished glass.  The very sharpness of the contrast used to\nquicken his sense of pleasure.  He grew more and more enamoured of his\nown beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.\nHe would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and\nterrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead\nor crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which\nwere the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age.  He would\nplace his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture,\nand smile.  He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs.\n\nThere were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own\ndelicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little\nill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in\ndisguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he\nhad brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant\nbecause it was purely selfish.  But moments such as these were rare.\nThat curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as\nthey sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase\nwith gratification.  The more he knew, the more he desired to know.  He\nhad mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them.\n\nYet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to\nsociety.  Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each\nWednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the\nworld his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the\nday to charm his guests with the wonders of their art.  His little\ndinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were\nnoted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited,\nas for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with\nits subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered\ncloths, and antique plate of gold and silver.  Indeed, there were many,\nespecially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw,\nin Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often\ndreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of\nthe real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and\nperfect manner of a citizen of the world.  To them he seemed to be of\nthe company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to \"make\nthemselves perfect by the worship of beauty.\"  Like Gautier, he was one\nfor whom \"the visible world existed.\"\n\nAnd, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the\narts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation.\nFashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment\nuniversal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert\nthe absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for\nhim.  His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to\ntime he affected, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of\nthe Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in\neverything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of\nhis graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies.\n\nFor, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost\nimmediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a\nsubtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the\nLondon of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the\nSatyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be\nsomething more than a mere _arbiter elegantiarum_, to be consulted on the\nwearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a\ncane.  He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have\nits reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the\nspiritualizing of the senses its highest realization.\n\nThe worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been\ndecried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions and\nsensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are\nconscious of sharing with the less highly organized forms of existence.\nBut it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had\nnever been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal\nmerely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or\nto kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a\nnew spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the\ndominant characteristic.  As he looked back upon man moving through\nhistory, he was haunted by a feeling of loss.  So much had been\nsurrendered! and to such little purpose!  There had been mad wilful\nrejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose\norigin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more\nterrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance,\nthey had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out\nthe anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to\nthe hermit the beasts of the field as his companions.\n\nYes:  there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism\nthat was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely\npuritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival.  It was\nto have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was never to\naccept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any\nmode of passionate experience.  Its aim, indeed, was to be experience\nitself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might\nbe.  Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar\nprofligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing.  But it was to\nteach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is\nitself but a moment.\n\nThere are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either\nafter one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of\ndeath, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through\nthe chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality\nitself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques,\nand that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one\nmight fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled\nwith the malady of reverie.  Gradually white fingers creep through the\ncurtains, and they appear to tremble.  In black fantastic shapes, dumb\nshadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there.  Outside,\nthere is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men\ngoing forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down\nfrom the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it\nfeared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from\nher purple cave.  Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by\ndegrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we\nwatch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.  The wan\nmirrors get back their mimic life.  The flameless tapers stand where we\nhad left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been\nstudying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the\nletter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often.\nNothing seems to us changed.  Out of the unreal shadows of the night\ncomes back the real life that we had known.  We have to resume it where\nwe had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the\nnecessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of\nstereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids\nmight open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in\nthe darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh\nshapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in\nwhich the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate,\nin no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of\njoy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain.\n\nIt was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray\nto be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life; and in his\nsearch for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and\npossess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he\nwould often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really\nalien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and\nthen, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his\nintellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that\nis not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that,\nindeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition\nof it.\n\nIt was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman\nCatholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great\nattraction for him.  The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all\nthe sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb\nrejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity\nof its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it\nsought to symbolize.  He loved to kneel down on the cold marble\npavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly\nand with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or\nraising aloft the jewelled, lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid\nwafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the \"_panis\ncaelestis_,\" the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the\nPassion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his\nbreast for his sins.  The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their\nlace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their\nsubtle fascination for him.  As he passed out, he used to look with\nwonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of\none of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn\ngrating the true story of their lives.\n\nBut he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual\ndevelopment by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of\nmistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable\nfor the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which\nthere are no stars and the moon is in travail.  Mysticism, with its\nmarvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle\nantinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a\nseason; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of\nthe _Darwinismus_ movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in\ntracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the\nbrain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of\nthe absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions,\nmorbid or healthy, normal or diseased.  Yet, as has been said of him\nbefore, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance\ncompared with life itself.  He felt keenly conscious of how barren all\nintellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment.\nHe knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual\nmysteries to reveal.\n\nAnd so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their\nmanufacture, distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums\nfrom the East.  He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not\nits counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their\ntrue relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one\nmystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets\nthat woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the\nbrain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often\nto elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several\ninfluences of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers;\nof aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that\nsickens; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to\nbe able to expel melancholy from the soul.\n\nAt another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long\nlatticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of\nolive-green lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad\ngipsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled\nTunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while\ngrinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching\nupon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of\nreed or brass and charmed--or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and\nhorrible horned adders.  The harsh intervals and shrill discords of\nbarbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's\nbeautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell\nunheeded on his ear.  He collected together from all parts of the world\nthe strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of\ndead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact\nwith Western civilizations, and loved to touch and try them.  He had\nthe mysterious _juruparis_ of the Rio Negro Indians, that women are not\nallowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been\nsubjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the\nPeruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human\nbones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, and the sonorous green\njaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular\nsweetness.  He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when\nthey were shaken; the long _clarin_ of the Mexicans, into which the\nperformer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air; the\nharsh _ture_ of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who\nsit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a\ndistance of three leagues; the _teponaztli_, that has two vibrating\ntongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an\nelastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the _yotl_-bells of\nthe Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge\ncylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the\none that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican\ntemple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a\ndescription.  The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated\nhim, and he felt a curious delight in the thought that art, like\nNature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous\nvoices.  Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his\nbox at the opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt\npleasure to \"Tannhauser\" and seeing in the prelude to that great work\nof art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul.\n\nOn one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a\ncostume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered\nwith five hundred and sixty pearls.  This taste enthralled him for\nyears, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him.  He would often\nspend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various\nstones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that\nturns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver,\nthe pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes,\ncarbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red\ncinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their\nalternate layers of ruby and sapphire.  He loved the red gold of the\nsunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow\nof the milky opal.  He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of\nextraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise _de la\nvieille roche_ that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.\n\nHe discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels.  In Alphonso's\nClericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real\njacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of\nEmathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes \"with\ncollars of real emeralds growing on their backs.\" There was a gem in\nthe brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and \"by the exhibition\nof golden letters and a scarlet robe\" the monster could be thrown into\na magical sleep and slain.  According to the great alchemist, Pierre de\nBoniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India\nmade him eloquent.  The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth\nprovoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine.  The\ngarnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her\ncolour.  The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus,\nthat discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids.\nLeonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a\nnewly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison.  The\nbezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm\nthat could cure the plague.  In the nests of Arabian birds was the\naspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any\ndanger by fire.\n\nThe King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand,\nas the ceremony of his coronation.  The gates of the palace of John the\nPriest were \"made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake\ninwrought, so that no man might bring poison within.\" Over the gable\nwere \"two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles,\" so that the\ngold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night.  In Lodge's\nstrange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the\nchamber of the queen one could behold \"all the chaste ladies of the\nworld, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of\nchrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults.\" Marco Polo\nhad seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the\nmouths of the dead.  A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that\nthe diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned\nfor seven moons over its loss.  When the Huns lured the king into the\ngreat pit, he flung it away--Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever\nfound again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight\nof gold pieces for it.  The King of Malabar had shown to a certain\nVenetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god\nthat he worshipped.\n\nWhen the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII of\nFrance, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome,\nand his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light.\nCharles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and\ntwenty-one diamonds.  Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand\nmarks, which was covered with balas rubies.  Hall described Henry VIII,\non his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing \"a\njacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other\nrich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses.\"\nThe favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold\nfiligrane.  Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour\nstudded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with\nturquoise-stones, and a skull-cap _parseme_ with pearls.  Henry II wore\njewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with\ntwelve rubies and fifty-two great orients.  The ducal hat of Charles\nthe Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with\npear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.\n\nHow exquisite life had once been!  How gorgeous in its pomp and\ndecoration!  Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.\n\nThen he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that\nperformed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of the northern\nnations of Europe.  As he investigated the subject--and he always had\nan extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment\nin whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the\nruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things.  He, at any\nrate, had escaped that.  Summer followed summer, and the yellow\njonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the\nstory of their shame, but he was unchanged.  No winter marred his face\nor stained his flowerlike bloom.  How different it was with material\nthings!  Where had they passed to?  Where was the great crocus-coloured\nrobe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked\nby brown girls for the pleasure of Athena?  Where the huge velarium\nthat Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail\nof purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a\nchariot drawn by white, gilt-reined steeds?  He longed to see the\ncurious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were\ndisplayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast;\nthe mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden\nbees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of\nPontus and were figured with \"lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests,\nrocks, hunters--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature\"; and\nthe coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which\nwere embroidered the verses of a song beginning \"_Madame, je suis tout\njoyeux_,\" the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold\nthread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four\npearls.  He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims\nfor the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with \"thirteen\nhundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the\nking's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings\nwere similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked\nin gold.\"  Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of\nblack velvet powdered with crescents and suns.  Its curtains were of\ndamask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver\nground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it\nstood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black\nvelvet upon cloth of silver.  Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides\nfifteen feet high in his apartment.  The state bed of Sobieski, King of\nPoland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with\nverses from the Koran.  Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully\nchased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions.  It\nhad been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of\nMohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy.\n\nAnd so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite\nspecimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting\nthe dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates and\nstitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that\nfrom their transparency are known in the East as \"woven air,\" and\n\"running water,\" and \"evening dew\"; strange figured cloths from Java;\nelaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair\nblue silks and wrought with _fleurs-de-lis_, birds and images; veils of\n_lacis_ worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish\nvelvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese _Foukousas_,\nwith their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds.\n\nHe had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed\nhe had for everything connected with the service of the Church.  In the\nlong cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had\nstored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the\nraiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and\nfine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by\nthe suffering that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain.\nHe possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask,\nfigured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in\nsix-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the\npine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided\ninto panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the\ncoronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood.\nThis was Italian work of the fifteenth century.  Another cope was of\ngreen velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves,\nfrom which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which\nwere picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals.  The morse\nbore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work.  The orphreys were\nwoven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with\nmedallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian.\nHe had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold\nbrocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with\nrepresentations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and\nembroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of\nwhite satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins\nand _fleurs-de-lis_; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and\nmany corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria.  In the mystic offices to\nwhich such things were put, there was something that quickened his\nimagination.\n\nFor these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely\nhouse, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he\ncould escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times\nto be almost too great to be borne.  Upon the walls of the lonely\nlocked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with\nhis own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him\nthe real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the\npurple-and-gold pall as a curtain.  For weeks he would not go there,\nwould forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart,\nhis wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence.\nThen, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to\ndreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day,\nuntil he was driven away.  On his return he would sit in front of the\npicture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other\ntimes, with that pride of individualism that is half the\nfascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen\nshadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own.\n\nAfter a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and\ngave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as\nwell as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more\nthan once spent the winter.  He hated to be separated from the picture\nthat was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his\nabsence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the\nelaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door.\n\nHe was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing.  It was true\nthat the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness\nof the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn\nfrom that?  He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him.  He had\nnot painted it.  What was it to him how vile and full of shame it\nlooked?  Even if he told them, would they believe it?\n\nYet he was afraid.  Sometimes when he was down at his great house in\nNottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank\nwho were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton\nluxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly\nleave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not\nbeen tampered with and that the picture was still there.  What if it\nshould be stolen?  The mere thought made him cold with horror.  Surely\nthe world would know his secret then.  Perhaps the world already\nsuspected it.\n\nFor, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him.\nHe was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth\nand social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was\nsaid that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the\nsmoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another\ngentleman got up in a marked manner and went out.  Curious stories\nbecame current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year.  It\nwas rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a\nlow den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with\nthieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade.  His\nextraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear\nagain in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass\nhim with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though\nthey were determined to discover his secret.\n\nOf such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice,\nand in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his\ncharming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth\nthat seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer\nto the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about\nhim.  It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most\nintimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him.  Women who had\nwildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure and\nset convention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or\nhorror if Dorian Gray entered the room.\n\nYet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his\nstrange and dangerous charm.  His great wealth was a certain element of\nsecurity.  Society--civilized society, at least--is never very ready to\nbelieve anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and\nfascinating.  It feels instinctively that manners are of more\nimportance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability\nis of much less value than the possession of a good _chef_.  And, after\nall, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has\ngiven one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private\nlife.  Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold _entrees_, as\nLord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is\npossibly a good deal to be said for his view.  For the canons of good\nsociety are, or should be, the same as the canons of art.  Form is\nabsolutely essential to it.  It should have the dignity of a ceremony,\nas well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of\na romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful\nto us.  Is insincerity such a terrible thing?  I think not.  It is\nmerely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.\n\nSuch, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion.  He used to wonder at the\nshallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing\nsimple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence.  To him, man was a\nbeing with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform\ncreature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and\npassion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies\nof the dead.  He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picture-gallery\nof his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose\nblood flowed in his veins.  Here was Philip Herbert, described by\nFrancis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and\nKing James, as one who was \"caressed by the Court for his handsome\nface, which kept him not long company.\"  Was it young Herbert's life\nthat he sometimes led?  Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body\nto body till it had reached his own?  Was it some dim sense of that\nruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause,\ngive utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had\nso changed his life?  Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled\nsurcoat, and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard,\nwith his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet.  What had this\nman's legacy been?  Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him\nsome inheritance of sin and shame?  Were his own actions merely the\ndreams that the dead man had not dared to realize?  Here, from the\nfading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl\nstomacher, and pink slashed sleeves.  A flower was in her right hand,\nand her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses.  On\na table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple.  There were large\ngreen rosettes upon her little pointed shoes.  He knew her life, and\nthe strange stories that were told about her lovers.  Had he something\nof her temperament in him?  These oval, heavy-lidded eyes seemed to\nlook curiously at him.  What of George Willoughby, with his powdered\nhair and fantastic patches?  How evil he looked!  The face was\nsaturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with\ndisdain.  Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that\nwere so overladen with rings.  He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth\ncentury, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars.  What of the\nsecond Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his\nwildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs.\nFitzherbert?  How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls\nand insolent pose!  What passions had he bequeathed?  The world had\nlooked upon him as infamous.  He had led the orgies at Carlton House.\nThe star of the Garter glittered upon his breast.  Beside him hung the\nportrait of his wife, a pallid, thin-lipped woman in black.  Her blood,\nalso, stirred within him.  How curious it all seemed!  And his mother\nwith her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, wine-dashed lips--he knew\nwhat he had got from her.  He had got from her his beauty, and his\npassion for the beauty of others.  She laughed at him in her loose\nBacchante dress.  There were vine leaves in her hair.  The purple\nspilled from the cup she was holding.  The carnations of the painting\nhad withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth and\nbrilliancy of colour.  They seemed to follow him wherever he went.\n\nYet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race,\nnearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly\nwith an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious.  There\nwere times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history\nwas merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act\nand circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it\nhad been in his brain and in his passions.  He felt that he had known\nthem all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the\nstage of the world and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of\nsubtlety.  It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had\nbeen his own.\n\nThe hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had\nhimself known this curious fancy.  In the seventh chapter he tells how,\ncrowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, as\nTiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books of\nElephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and the\nflute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, had\ncaroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in\nan ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had\nwandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round\nwith haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his\ndays, and sick with that ennui, that terrible _taedium vitae_, that comes\non those to whom life denies nothing; and had peered through a clear\nemerald at the red shambles of the circus and then, in a litter of\npearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, been carried through the\nStreet of Pomegranates to a House of Gold and heard men cry on Nero\nCaesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with\ncolours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon\nfrom Carthage and given her in mystic marriage to the Sun.\n\nOver and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the\ntwo chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious\ntapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and\nbeautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made\nmonstrous or mad:  Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and\npainted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death\nfrom the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as\nPaul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of\nFormosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was\nbought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used\nhounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with\nroses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse,\nwith Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood\nof Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence,\nchild and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his\ndebauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white\nand crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy\nthat he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose\nmelancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a\npassion for red blood, as other men have for red wine--the son of the\nFiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when\ngambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery\ntook the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of\nthree lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the\nlover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome\nas the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and\ngave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a\nshameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles\nVI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned\nhim of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had\nsickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards\npainted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his\ntrimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto\nBaglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page,\nand whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow\npiazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep,\nand Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.\n\nThere was a horrible fascination in them all.  He saw them at night,\nand they troubled his imagination in the day.  The Renaissance knew of\nstrange manners of poisoning--poisoning by a helmet and a lighted\ntorch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander\nand by an amber chain.  Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.  There\nwere moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he\ncould realize his conception of the beautiful.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth\nbirthday, as he often remembered afterwards.\n\nHe was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he\nhad been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold\nand foggy.  At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street,\na man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of\nhis grey ulster turned up.  He had a bag in his hand.  Dorian\nrecognized him.  It was Basil Hallward.  A strange sense of fear, for\nwhich he could not account, came over him.  He made no sign of\nrecognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.\n\nBut Hallward had seen him.  Dorian heard him first stopping on the\npavement and then hurrying after him.  In a few moments, his hand was\non his arm.\n\n\"Dorian!  What an extraordinary piece of luck!  I have been waiting for\nyou in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on\nyour tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out.  I am\noff to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see\nyou before I left.  I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as\nyou passed me.  But I wasn't quite sure.  Didn't you recognize me?\"\n\n\"In this fog, my dear Basil?  Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor\nSquare.  I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel\nat all certain about it.  I am sorry you are going away, as I have not\nseen you for ages.  But I suppose you will be back soon?\"\n\n\"No:  I am going to be out of England for six months.  I intend to take\na studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great\npicture I have in my head.  However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to\ntalk.  Here we are at your door.  Let me come in for a moment.  I have\nsomething to say to you.\"\n\n\"I shall be charmed.  But won't you miss your train?\" said Dorian Gray\nlanguidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his\nlatch-key.\n\nThe lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his\nwatch.  \"I have heaps of time,\" he answered.  \"The train doesn't go\ntill twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven.  In fact, I was on my\nway to the club to look for you, when I met you.  You see, I shan't\nhave any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things.  All I\nhave with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty\nminutes.\"\n\nDorian looked at him and smiled.  \"What a way for a fashionable painter\nto travel!  A Gladstone bag and an ulster!  Come in, or the fog will\nget into the house.  And mind you don't talk about anything serious.\nNothing is serious nowadays.  At least nothing should be.\"\n\nHallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the\nlibrary.  There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open\nhearth.  The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case\nstood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on\na little marqueterie table.\n\n\"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian.  He gave me\neverything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes.  He is\na most hospitable creature.  I like him much better than the Frenchman\nyou used to have.  What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?\"\n\nDorian shrugged his shoulders.  \"I believe he married Lady Radley's\nmaid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker.\nAnglomania is very fashionable over there now, I hear.  It seems silly\nof the French, doesn't it?  But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad\nservant.  I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about.  One\noften imagines things that are quite absurd.  He was really very\ndevoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away.  Have another\nbrandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take\nhock-and-seltzer myself.  There is sure to be some in the next room.\"\n\n\"Thanks, I won't have anything more,\" said the painter, taking his cap\nand coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the\ncorner.  \"And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously.\nDon't frown like that.  You make it so much more difficult for me.\"\n\n\"What is it all about?\" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging\nhimself down on the sofa.  \"I hope it is not about myself.  I am tired\nof myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else.\"\n\n\"It is about yourself,\" answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, \"and\nI must say it to you.  I shall only keep you half an hour.\"\n\nDorian sighed and lit a cigarette.  \"Half an hour!\" he murmured.\n\n\"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own\nsake that I am speaking.  I think it right that you should know that\nthe most dreadful things are being said against you in London.\"\n\n\"I don't wish to know anything about them.  I love scandals about other\npeople, but scandals about myself don't interest me.  They have not got\nthe charm of novelty.\"\n\n\"They must interest you, Dorian.  Every gentleman is interested in his\ngood name.  You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and\ndegraded.  Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all\nthat kind of thing.  But position and wealth are not everything.  Mind\nyou, I don't believe these rumours at all.  At least, I can't believe\nthem when I see you.  Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's\nface.  It cannot be concealed.  People talk sometimes of secret vices.\nThere are no such things.  If a wretched man has a vice, it shows\nitself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the\nmoulding of his hands even.  Somebody--I won't mention his name, but\nyou know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done.  I had\nnever seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the\ntime, though I have heard a good deal since.  He offered an extravagant\nprice.  I refused him.  There was something in the shape of his fingers\nthat I hated.  I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied\nabout him.  His life is dreadful.  But you, Dorian, with your pure,\nbright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth--I can't\nbelieve anything against you.  And yet I see you very seldom, and you\nnever come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I\nhear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I\ndon't know what to say.  Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of\nBerwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it?  Why is it that so\nmany gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to\ntheirs?  You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley.  I met him at dinner\nlast week.  Your name happened to come up in conversation, in\nconnection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the\nDudley.  Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most\nartistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl\nshould be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the\nsame room with.  I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked\nhim what he meant.  He told me.  He told me right out before everybody.\nIt was horrible!  Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?  There\nwas that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide.  You were\nhis great friend.  There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England\nwith a tarnished name.  You and he were inseparable.  What about Adrian\nSingleton and his dreadful end?  What about Lord Kent's only son and\nhis career?  I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street.  He\nseemed broken with shame and sorrow.  What about the young Duke of\nPerth?  What sort of life has he got now?  What gentleman would\nassociate with him?\"\n\n\"Stop, Basil.  You are talking about things of which you know nothing,\"\nsaid Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt\nin his voice.  \"You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it.\nIt is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows\nanything about mine.  With such blood as he has in his veins, how could\nhis record be clean?  You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth.\nDid I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery?  If Kent's\nsilly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me?  If\nAdrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his\nkeeper?  I know how people chatter in England.  The middle classes air\ntheir moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper\nabout what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try\nand pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with\nthe people they slander.  In this country, it is enough for a man to\nhave distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him.\nAnd what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead\nthemselves?  My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land\nof the hypocrite.\"\n\n\"Dorian,\" cried Hallward, \"that is not the question.  England is bad\nenough I know, and English society is all wrong.  That is the reason\nwhy I want you to be fine.  You have not been fine.  One has a right to\njudge of a man by the effect he has over his friends.  Yours seem to\nlose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity.  You have filled them\nwith a madness for pleasure.  They have gone down into the depths.  You\nled them there.  Yes:  you led them there, and yet you can smile, as\nyou are smiling now.  And there is worse behind.  I know you and Harry\nare inseparable.  Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should\nnot have made his sister's name a by-word.\"\n\n\"Take care, Basil.  You go too far.\"\n\n\"I must speak, and you must listen.  You shall listen.  When you met\nLady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her.  Is there\na single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the\npark?  Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her.  Then\nthere are other stories--stories that you have been seen creeping at\ndawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest\ndens in London.  Are they true?  Can they be true?  When I first heard\nthem, I laughed.  I hear them now, and they make me shudder.  What\nabout your country-house and the life that is led there?  Dorian, you\ndon't know what is said about you.  I won't tell you that I don't want\nto preach to you.  I remember Harry saying once that every man who\nturned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by\nsaying that, and then proceeded to break his word.  I do want to preach\nto you.  I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect\nyou.  I want you to have a clean name and a fair record.  I want you to\nget rid of the dreadful people you associate with.  Don't shrug your\nshoulders like that.  Don't be so indifferent.  You have a wonderful\ninfluence.  Let it be for good, not for evil.  They say that you\ncorrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite\nsufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow\nafter.  I don't know whether it is so or not.  How should I know?  But\nit is said of you.  I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt.\nLord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford.  He showed me\na letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in\nher villa at Mentone.  Your name was implicated in the most terrible\nconfession I ever read.  I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you\nthoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind.  Know\nyou?  I wonder do I know you?  Before I could answer that, I should\nhave to see your soul.\"\n\n\"To see my soul!\" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and\nturning almost white from fear.\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his\nvoice, \"to see your soul.  But only God can do that.\"\n\nA bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man.  \"You\nshall see it yourself, to-night!\" he cried, seizing a lamp from the\ntable.  \"Come:  it is your own handiwork.  Why shouldn't you look at\nit?  You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose.\nNobody would believe you.  If they did believe you, they would like me\nall the better for it.  I know the age better than you do, though you\nwill prate about it so tediously.  Come, I tell you.  You have\nchattered enough about corruption.  Now you shall look on it face to\nface.\"\n\nThere was the madness of pride in every word he uttered.  He stamped\nhis foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner.  He felt a\nterrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret,\nand that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of\nall his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the\nhideous memory of what he had done.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into\nhis stern eyes, \"I shall show you my soul.  You shall see the thing\nthat you fancy only God can see.\"\n\nHallward started back.  \"This is blasphemy, Dorian!\" he cried.  \"You\nmust not say things like that.  They are horrible, and they don't mean\nanything.\"\n\n\"You think so?\"  He laughed again.\n\n\"I know so.  As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your\ngood.  You know I have been always a stanch friend to you.\"\n\n\"Don't touch me.  Finish what you have to say.\"\n\nA twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face.  He paused for\na moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him.  After all, what\nright had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray?  If he had done a\ntithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered!\nThen he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and\nstood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and\ntheir throbbing cores of flame.\n\n\"I am waiting, Basil,\" said the young man in a hard clear voice.\n\nHe turned round.  \"What I have to say is this,\" he cried.  \"You must\ngive me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against\nyou.  If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to\nend, I shall believe you.  Deny them, Dorian, deny them!  Can't you see\nwhat I am going through?  My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and\ncorrupt, and shameful.\"\n\nDorian Gray smiled.  There was a curl of contempt in his lips.  \"Come\nupstairs, Basil,\" he said quietly.  \"I keep a diary of my life from day\nto day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written.  I shall\nshow it to you if you come with me.\"\n\n\"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it.  I see I have missed my\ntrain.  That makes no matter.  I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to\nread anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question.\"\n\n\"That shall be given to you upstairs.  I could not give it here.  You\nwill not have to read long.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nHe passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward\nfollowing close behind.  They walked softly, as men do instinctively at\nnight.  The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase.  A\nrising wind made some of the windows rattle.\n\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the\nfloor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock.  \"You insist on\nknowing, Basil?\" he asked in a low voice.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I am delighted,\" he answered, smiling.  Then he added, somewhat\nharshly, \"You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know\neverything about me.  You have had more to do with my life than you\nthink\"; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in.  A\ncold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in\na flame of murky orange.  He shuddered.  \"Shut the door behind you,\" he\nwhispered, as he placed the lamp on the table.\n\nHallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression.  The room looked\nas if it had not been lived in for years.  A faded Flemish tapestry, a\ncurtained picture, an old Italian _cassone_, and an almost empty\nbook-case--that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and\na table.  As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was\nstanding on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered\nwith dust and that the carpet was in holes.  A mouse ran scuffling\nbehind the wainscoting.  There was a damp odour of mildew.\n\n\"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil?  Draw that\ncurtain back, and you will see mine.\"\n\nThe voice that spoke was cold and cruel.  \"You are mad, Dorian, or\nplaying a part,\" muttered Hallward, frowning.\n\n\"You won't? Then I must do it myself,\" said the young man, and he tore\nthe curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.\n\nAn exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the\ndim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him.  There was\nsomething in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.\nGood heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at!\nThe horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that\nmarvellous beauty.  There was still some gold in the thinning hair and\nsome scarlet on the sensual mouth.  The sodden eyes had kept something\nof the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet\ncompletely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat.\nYes, it was Dorian himself.  But who had done it?  He seemed to\nrecognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design.  The\nidea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid.  He seized the lighted candle,\nand held it to the picture.  In the left-hand corner was his own name,\ntraced in long letters of bright vermilion.\n\nIt was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire.  He had never\ndone that.  Still, it was his own picture.  He knew it, and he felt as\nif his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice.  His\nown picture!  What did it mean?  Why had it altered?  He turned and\nlooked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man.  His mouth twitched,\nand his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate.  He passed his hand\nacross his forehead.  It was dank with clammy sweat.\n\nThe young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with\nthat strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are\nabsorbed in a play when some great artist is acting.  There was neither\nreal sorrow in it nor real joy.  There was simply the passion of the\nspectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes.  He had taken\nthe flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so.\n\n\"What does this mean?\" cried Hallward, at last.  His own voice sounded\nshrill and curious in his ears.\n\n\"Years ago, when I was a boy,\" said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in\nhis hand, \"you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my\ngood looks.  One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who\nexplained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me\nthat revealed to me the wonder of beauty.  In a mad moment that, even\nnow, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you\nwould call it a prayer....\"\n\n\"I remember it!  Oh, how well I remember it!  No! the thing is\nimpossible.  The room is damp.  Mildew has got into the canvas.  The\npaints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them.  I tell you the\nthing is impossible.\"\n\n\"Ah, what is impossible?\" murmured the young man, going over to the\nwindow and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass.\n\n\"You told me you had destroyed it.\"\n\n\"I was wrong.  It has destroyed me.\"\n\n\"I don't believe it is my picture.\"\n\n\"Can't you see your ideal in it?\" said Dorian bitterly.\n\n\"My ideal, as you call it...\"\n\n\"As you called it.\"\n\n\"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful.  You were to me such\nan ideal as I shall never meet again.  This is the face of a satyr.\"\n\n\"It is the face of my soul.\"\n\n\"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped!  It has the eyes of a\ndevil.\"\n\n\"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil,\" cried Dorian with a\nwild gesture of despair.\n\nHallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it.  \"My God!  If it\nis true,\" he exclaimed, \"and this is what you have done with your life,\nwhy, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you\nto be!\" He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it.  The\nsurface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it.  It was\nfrom within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come.\nThrough some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were\nslowly eating the thing away.  The rotting of a corpse in a watery\ngrave was not so fearful.\n\nHis hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and\nlay there sputtering.  He placed his foot on it and put it out.  Then\nhe flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table\nand buried his face in his hands.\n\n\"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson!  What an awful lesson!\" There was no\nanswer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window.  \"Pray,\nDorian, pray,\" he murmured.  \"What is it that one was taught to say in\none's boyhood?  'Lead us not into temptation.  Forgive us our sins.\nWash away our iniquities.'  Let us say that together.  The prayer of\nyour pride has been answered.  The prayer of your repentance will be\nanswered also.  I worshipped you too much.  I am punished for it.  You\nworshipped yourself too much.  We are both punished.\"\n\nDorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed\neyes.  \"It is too late, Basil,\" he faltered.\n\n\"It is never too late, Dorian.  Let us kneel down and try if we cannot\nremember a prayer.  Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be\nas scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?\"\n\n\"Those words mean nothing to me now.\"\n\n\"Hush!  Don't say that.  You have done enough evil in your life.  My\nGod!  Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?\"\n\nDorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable\nfeeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had\nbeen suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his\near by those grinning lips.  The mad passions of a hunted animal\nstirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table,\nmore than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything.  He glanced\nwildly around.  Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest\nthat faced him.  His eye fell on it.  He knew what it was.  It was a\nknife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord,\nand had forgotten to take away with him.  He moved slowly towards it,\npassing Hallward as he did so.  As soon as he got behind him, he seized\nit and turned round.  Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going\nto rise.  He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that\nis behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and\nstabbing again and again.\n\nThere was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking\nwith blood.  Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,\nwaving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air.  He stabbed him\ntwice more, but the man did not move.  Something began to trickle on\nthe floor.  He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down.  Then\nhe threw the knife on the table, and listened.\n\nHe could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet.  He\nopened the door and went out on the landing.  The house was absolutely\nquiet.  No one was about.  For a few seconds he stood bending over the\nbalustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.\nThen he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in\nas he did so.\n\nThe thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with\nbowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms.  Had it not been\nfor the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was\nslowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was\nsimply asleep.\n\nHow quickly it had all been done!  He felt strangely calm, and walking\nover to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony.  The wind\nhad blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's\ntail, starred with myriads of golden eyes.  He looked down and saw the\npoliceman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on\nthe doors of the silent houses.  The crimson spot of a prowling hansom\ngleamed at the corner and then vanished.  A woman in a fluttering shawl\nwas creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went.  Now and\nthen she stopped and peered back.  Once, she began to sing in a hoarse\nvoice.  The policeman strolled over and said something to her.  She\nstumbled away, laughing.  A bitter blast swept across the square.  The\ngas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their\nblack iron branches to and fro.  He shivered and went back, closing the\nwindow behind him.\n\nHaving reached the door, he turned the key and opened it.  He did not\neven glance at the murdered man.  He felt that the secret of the whole\nthing was not to realize the situation.  The friend who had painted the\nfatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his\nlife.  That was enough.\n\nThen he remembered the lamp.  It was a rather curious one of Moorish\nworkmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished\nsteel, and studded with coarse turquoises.  Perhaps it might be missed\nby his servant, and questions would be asked.  He hesitated for a\nmoment, then he turned back and took it from the table.  He could not\nhelp seeing the dead thing.  How still it was!  How horribly white the\nlong hands looked!  It was like a dreadful wax image.\n\nHaving locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs.  The\nwoodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain.  He stopped\nseveral times and waited.  No:  everything was still.  It was merely\nthe sound of his own footsteps.\n\nWhen he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner.\nThey must be hidden away somewhere.  He unlocked a secret press that\nwas in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious\ndisguises, and put them into it.  He could easily burn them afterwards.\nThen he pulled out his watch.  It was twenty minutes to two.\n\nHe sat down and began to think.  Every year--every month, almost--men\nwere strangled in England for what he had done.  There had been a\nmadness of murder in the air.  Some red star had come too close to the\nearth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him?  Basil Hallward\nhad left the house at eleven.  No one had seen him come in again.  Most\nof the servants were at Selby Royal.  His valet had gone to bed....\nParis!  Yes.  It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight\ntrain, as he had intended.  With his curious reserved habits, it would\nbe months before any suspicions would be roused.  Months!  Everything\ncould be destroyed long before then.\n\nA sudden thought struck him.  He put on his fur coat and hat and went\nout into the hall.  There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of\nthe policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the\nbull's-eye reflected in the window.  He waited and held his breath.\n\nAfter a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting\nthe door very gently behind him.  Then he began ringing the bell.  In\nabout five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very\ndrowsy.\n\n\"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis,\" he said, stepping in;\n\"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes past two, sir,\" answered the man, looking at the clock and\nblinking.\n\n\"Ten minutes past two?  How horribly late!  You must wake me at nine\nto-morrow. I have some work to do.\"\n\n\"All right, sir.\"\n\n\"Did any one call this evening?\"\n\n\"Mr. Hallward, sir.  He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away\nto catch his train.\"\n\n\"Oh!  I am sorry I didn't see him.  Did he leave any message?\"\n\n\"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not\nfind you at the club.\"\n\n\"That will do, Francis.  Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow.\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nThe man shambled down the passage in his slippers.\n\nDorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the\nlibrary.  For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room,\nbiting his lip and thinking.  Then he took down the Blue Book from one\nof the shelves and began to turn over the leaves.  \"Alan Campbell, 152,\nHertford Street, Mayfair.\"  Yes; that was the man he wanted.\n\n\n\n\n\nAt nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of\nchocolate on a tray and opened the shutters.  Dorian was sleeping quite\npeacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his\ncheek.  He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study.\n\nThe man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as\nhe opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he\nhad been lost in some delightful dream.  Yet he had not dreamed at all.\nHis night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain.\nBut youth smiles without any reason.  It is one of its chiefest charms.\n\nHe turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his\nchocolate.  The mellow November sun came streaming into the room.  The\nsky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air.  It was\nalmost like a morning in May.\n\nGradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent,\nblood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there\nwith terrible distinctness.  He winced at the memory of all that he had\nsuffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for\nBasil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came\nback to him, and he grew cold with passion.  The dead man was still\nsitting there, too, and in the sunlight now.  How horrible that was!\nSuch hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.\n\nHe felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken\nor grow mad.  There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory\nthan in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride\nmore than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of\njoy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the\nsenses.  But this was not one of them.  It was a thing to be driven out\nof the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might\nstrangle one itself.\n\nWhen the half-hour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, and\nthen got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his usual\ncare, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie and\nscarf-pin and changing his rings more than once.  He spent a long time\nalso over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet\nabout some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made for the\nservants at Selby, and going through his correspondence.  At some of\nthe letters, he smiled.  Three of them bored him.  One he read several\ntimes over and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his\nface.  \"That awful thing, a woman's memory!\" as Lord Henry had once\nsaid.\n\nAfter he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly\nwith a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the\ntable, sat down and wrote two letters.  One he put in his pocket, the\nother he handed to the valet.\n\n\"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell\nis out of town, get his address.\"\n\nAs soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a\npiece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and\nthen human faces.  Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew\nseemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward.  He frowned, and\ngetting up, went over to the book-case and took out a volume at hazard.\nHe was determined that he would not think about what had happened until\nit became absolutely necessary that he should do so.\n\nWhen he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page\nof the book.  It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's\nJapanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching.  The binding was\nof citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted\npomegranates.  It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton.  As he\nturned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of\nLacenaire, the cold yellow hand \"_du supplice encore mal lavee_,\" with\nits downy red hairs and its \"_doigts de faune_.\"  He glanced at his own\nwhite taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and\npassed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice:\n\n     Sur une gamme chromatique,\n       Le sein de perles ruisselant,\n     La Venus de l'Adriatique\n       Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc.\n\n     Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes\n       Suivant la phrase au pur contour,\n     S'enflent comme des gorges rondes\n       Que souleve un soupir d'amour.\n\n     L'esquif aborde et me depose,\n       Jetant son amarre au pilier,\n     Devant une facade rose,\n       Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\n\n\nHow exquisite they were!  As one read them, one seemed to be floating\ndown the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black\ngondola with silver prow and trailing curtains.  The mere lines looked\nto him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as\none pushes out to the Lido.  The sudden flashes of colour reminded him\nof the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the\ntall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through\nthe dim, dust-stained arcades.  Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he\nkept saying over and over to himself:\n\n     \"Devant une facade rose,\n        Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\"\n\nThe whole of Venice was in those two lines.  He remembered the autumn\nthat he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to\nmad delightful follies.  There was romance in every place.  But Venice,\nlike Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true\nromantic, background was everything, or almost everything.  Basil had\nbeen with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret.  Poor\nBasil!  What a horrible way for a man to die!\n\nHe sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget.  He read\nof the swallows that fly in and out of the little _cafe_ at Smyrna where\nthe Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants\nsmoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he\nread of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of\ngranite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot,\nlotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and\nwhite vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes\nthat crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those\nverses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that\ncurious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the \"_monstre\ncharmant_\" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre.  But after a\ntime the book fell from his hand.  He grew nervous, and a horrible fit\nof terror came over him.  What if Alan Campbell should be out of\nEngland?  Days would elapse before he could come back.  Perhaps he\nmight refuse to come.  What could he do then?  Every moment was of\nvital importance.\n\nThey had been great friends once, five years before--almost\ninseparable, indeed.  Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end.\nWhen they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled:  Alan\nCampbell never did.\n\nHe was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real\nappreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the\nbeauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian.  His\ndominant intellectual passion was for science.  At Cambridge he had\nspent a great deal of his time working in the laboratory, and had taken\na good class in the Natural Science Tripos of his year.  Indeed, he was\nstill devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his\nown in which he used to shut himself up all day long, greatly to the\nannoyance of his mother, who had set her heart on his standing for\nParliament and had a vague idea that a chemist was a person who made up\nprescriptions.  He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and\nplayed both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs.  In\nfact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray\ntogether--music and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to\nbe able to exercise whenever he wished--and, indeed, exercised often\nwithout being conscious of it.  They had met at Lady Berkshire's the\nnight that Rubinstein played there, and after that used to be always\nseen together at the opera and wherever good music was going on.  For\neighteen months their intimacy lasted.  Campbell was always either at\nSelby Royal or in Grosvenor Square.  To him, as to many others, Dorian\nGray was the type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in\nlife.  Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one\never knew.  But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when\nthey met and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from any\nparty at which Dorian Gray was present.  He had changed, too--was\nstrangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing\nmusic, and would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was\ncalled upon, that he was so absorbed in science that he had no time\nleft in which to practise.  And this was certainly true.  Every day he\nseemed to become more interested in biology, and his name appeared once\nor twice in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain\ncurious experiments.\n\nThis was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for.  Every second he kept\nglancing at the clock.  As the minutes went by he became horribly\nagitated.  At last he got up and began to pace up and down the room,\nlooking like a beautiful caged thing.  He took long stealthy strides.\nHis hands were curiously cold.\n\nThe suspense became unbearable.  Time seemed to him to be crawling with\nfeet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the\njagged edge of some black cleft of precipice.  He knew what was waiting\nfor him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands\nhis burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight\nand driven the eyeballs back into their cave.  It was useless.  The\nbrain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made\ngrotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain,\ndanced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving\nmasks.  Then, suddenly, time stopped for him.  Yes:  that blind,\nslow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being\ndead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its\ngrave, and showed it to him.  He stared at it.  Its very horror made\nhim stone.\n\nAt last the door opened and his servant entered.  He turned glazed eyes\nupon him.\n\n\"Mr. Campbell, sir,\" said the man.\n\nA sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back\nto his cheeks.\n\n\"Ask him to come in at once, Francis.\"  He felt that he was himself\nagain.  His mood of cowardice had passed away.\n\nThe man bowed and retired.  In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in,\nlooking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his\ncoal-black hair and dark eyebrows.\n\n\"Alan!  This is kind of you.  I thank you for coming.\"\n\n\"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray.  But you said it\nwas a matter of life and death.\"  His voice was hard and cold.  He\nspoke with slow deliberation.  There was a look of contempt in the\nsteady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian.  He kept his hands in\nthe pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed not to have noticed the\ngesture with which he had been greeted.\n\n\"Yes:  it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one\nperson.  Sit down.\"\n\nCampbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him.\nThe two men's eyes met.  In Dorian's there was infinite pity.  He knew\nthat what he was going to do was dreadful.\n\nAfter a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very\nquietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of him he\nhad sent for, \"Alan, in a locked room at the top of this house, a room\nto which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table.\nHe has been dead ten hours now.  Don't stir, and don't look at me like\nthat.  Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do\nnot concern you.  What you have to do is this--\"\n\n\"Stop, Gray.  I don't want to know anything further.  Whether what you\nhave told me is true or not true doesn't concern me.  I entirely\ndecline to be mixed up in your life.  Keep your horrible secrets to\nyourself.  They don't interest me any more.\"\n\n\"Alan, they will have to interest you.  This one will have to interest\nyou.  I am awfully sorry for you, Alan.  But I can't help myself.  You\nare the one man who is able to save me.  I am forced to bring you into\nthe matter.  I have no option.  Alan, you are scientific.  You know\nabout chemistry and things of that kind.  You have made experiments.\nWhat you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs--to\ndestroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left.  Nobody saw this\nperson come into the house.  Indeed, at the present moment he is\nsupposed to be in Paris.  He will not be missed for months.  When he is\nmissed, there must be no trace of him found here.  You, Alan, you must\nchange him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes\nthat I may scatter in the air.\"\n\n\"You are mad, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I was waiting for you to call me Dorian.\"\n\n\"You are mad, I tell you--mad to imagine that I would raise a finger to\nhelp you, mad to make this monstrous confession.  I will have nothing\nto do with this matter, whatever it is.  Do you think I am going to\nperil my reputation for you?  What is it to me what devil's work you\nare up to?\"\n\n\"It was suicide, Alan.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that.  But who drove him to it?  You, I should fancy.\"\n\n\"Do you still refuse to do this for me?\"\n\n\"Of course I refuse.  I will have absolutely nothing to do with it.  I\ndon't care what shame comes on you.  You deserve it all.  I should not\nbe sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced.  How dare you ask\nme, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror?  I should\nhave thought you knew more about people's characters.  Your friend Lord\nHenry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology, whatever else\nhe has taught you.  Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you.\nYou have come to the wrong man.  Go to some of your friends.  Don't\ncome to me.\"\n\n\"Alan, it was murder.  I killed him.  You don't know what he had made\nme suffer.  Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or\nthe marring of it than poor Harry has had.  He may not have intended\nit, the result was the same.\"\n\n\"Murder!  Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to?  I shall not\ninform upon you.  It is not my business.  Besides, without my stirring\nin the matter, you are certain to be arrested.  Nobody ever commits a\ncrime without doing something stupid.  But I will have nothing to do\nwith it.\"\n\n\"You must have something to do with it.  Wait, wait a moment; listen to\nme.  Only listen, Alan.  All I ask of you is to perform a certain\nscientific experiment.  You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the\nhorrors that you do there don't affect you.  If in some hideous\ndissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a\nleaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow\nthrough, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject.  You\nwould not turn a hair.  You would not believe that you were doing\nanything wrong.  On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were\nbenefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the\nworld, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind.\nWhat I want you to do is merely what you have often done before.\nIndeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are\naccustomed to work at.  And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence\nagainst me.  If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be\ndiscovered unless you help me.\"\n\n\"I have no desire to help you.  You forget that.  I am simply\nindifferent to the whole thing.  It has nothing to do with me.\"\n\n\"Alan, I entreat you.  Think of the position I am in.  Just before you\ncame I almost fainted with terror.  You may know terror yourself some\nday.  No! don't think of that.  Look at the matter purely from the\nscientific point of view.  You don't inquire where the dead things on\nwhich you experiment come from.  Don't inquire now.  I have told you\ntoo much as it is.  But I beg of you to do this.  We were friends once,\nAlan.\"\n\n\"Don't speak about those days, Dorian--they are dead.\"\n\n\"The dead linger sometimes.  The man upstairs will not go away.  He is\nsitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms.  Alan!\nAlan!  If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined.  Why, they will\nhang me, Alan!  Don't you understand?  They will hang me for what I\nhave done.\"\n\n\"There is no good in prolonging this scene.  I absolutely refuse to do\nanything in the matter.  It is insane of you to ask me.\"\n\n\"You refuse?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I entreat you, Alan.\"\n\n\"It is useless.\"\n\nThe same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes.  Then he stretched\nout his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it.  He\nread it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the\ntable.  Having done this, he got up and went over to the window.\n\nCampbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and\nopened it.  As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell\nback in his chair.  A horrible sense of sickness came over him.  He\nfelt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.\n\nAfter two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and\ncame and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.\n\n\"I am so sorry for you, Alan,\" he murmured, \"but you leave me no\nalternative.  I have a letter written already.  Here it is.  You see\nthe address.  If you don't help me, I must send it.  If you don't help\nme, I will send it.  You know what the result will be.  But you are\ngoing to help me.  It is impossible for you to refuse now.  I tried to\nspare you.  You will do me the justice to admit that.  You were stern,\nharsh, offensive.  You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat\nme--no living man, at any rate.  I bore it all.  Now it is for me to\ndictate terms.\"\n\nCampbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him.\n\n\"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan.  You know what they are.\nThe thing is quite simple.  Come, don't work yourself into this fever.\nThe thing has to be done.  Face it, and do it.\"\n\nA groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over.  The\nticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing\ntime into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be\nborne.  He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his\nforehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already\ncome upon him.  The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead.\nIt was intolerable.  It seemed to crush him.\n\n\"Come, Alan, you must decide at once.\"\n\n\"I cannot do it,\" he said, mechanically, as though words could alter\nthings.\n\n\"You must.  You have no choice.  Don't delay.\"\n\nHe hesitated a moment.  \"Is there a fire in the room upstairs?\"\n\n\"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos.\"\n\n\"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory.\"\n\n\"No, Alan, you must not leave the house.  Write out on a sheet of\nnotepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the\nthings back to you.\"\n\nCampbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope\nto his assistant.  Dorian took the note up and read it carefully.  Then\nhe rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as\nsoon as possible and to bring the things with him.\n\nAs the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up\nfrom the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a\nkind of ague.  For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke.  A\nfly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was\nlike the beat of a hammer.\n\nAs the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian\nGray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears.  There was something in\nthe purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him.\n\"You are infamous, absolutely infamous!\" he muttered.\n\n\"Hush, Alan.  You have saved my life,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"Your life?  Good heavens! what a life that is!  You have gone from\ncorruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime.  In\ndoing what I am going to do--what you force me to do--it is not of your\nlife that I am thinking.\"\n\n\"Ah, Alan,\" murmured Dorian with a sigh, \"I wish you had a thousandth\npart of the pity for me that I have for you.\" He turned away as he\nspoke and stood looking out at the garden.  Campbell made no answer.\n\nAfter about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant\nentered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil\nof steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps.\n\n\"Shall I leave the things here, sir?\" he asked Campbell.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Dorian.  \"And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another\nerrand for you.  What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies\nSelby with orchids?\"\n\n\"Harden, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes--Harden.  You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden\npersonally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered,\nand to have as few white ones as possible.  In fact, I don't want any\nwhite ones.  It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty\nplace--otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it.\"\n\n\"No trouble, sir.  At what time shall I be back?\"\n\nDorian looked at Campbell.  \"How long will your experiment take, Alan?\"\nhe said in a calm indifferent voice.  The presence of a third person in\nthe room seemed to give him extraordinary courage.\n\nCampbell frowned and bit his lip.  \"It will take about five hours,\" he\nanswered.\n\n\"It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven,\nFrancis.  Or stay:  just leave my things out for dressing.  You can\nhave the evening to yourself.  I am not dining at home, so I shall not\nwant you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said the man, leaving the room.\n\n\"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost.  How heavy this chest is!\nI'll take it for you.  You bring the other things.\"  He spoke rapidly\nand in an authoritative manner.  Campbell felt dominated by him.  They\nleft the room together.\n\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned\nit in the lock.  Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his\neyes.  He shuddered.  \"I don't think I can go in, Alan,\" he murmured.\n\n\"It is nothing to me.  I don't require you,\" said Campbell coldly.\n\nDorian half opened the door.  As he did so, he saw the face of his\nportrait leering in the sunlight.  On the floor in front of it the torn\ncurtain was lying.  He remembered that the night before he had\nforgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas,\nand was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder.\n\nWhat was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on\none of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood?  How horrible\nit was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the\nsilent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing\nwhose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that\nit had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it.\n\nHe heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with\nhalf-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, determined that\nhe would not look even once upon the dead man.  Then, stooping down and\ntaking up the gold-and-purple hanging, he flung it right over the\npicture.\n\nThere he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed\nthemselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him.  He heard\nCampbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other\nthings that he had required for his dreadful work.  He began to wonder\nif he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had\nthought of each other.\n\n\"Leave me now,\" said a stern voice behind him.\n\nHe turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been\nthrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing into a\nglistening yellow face.  As he was going downstairs, he heard the key\nbeing turned in the lock.\n\nIt was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library.  He\nwas pale, but absolutely calm.  \"I have done what you asked me to do,\"\nhe muttered. \"And now, good-bye. Let us never see each other again.\"\n\n\"You have saved me from ruin, Alan.  I cannot forget that,\" said Dorian\nsimply.\n\nAs soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs.  There was a horrible\nsmell of nitric acid in the room.  But the thing that had been sitting\nat the table was gone.\n\n\n\n\n\nThat evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large\nbutton-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady\nNarborough's drawing-room by bowing servants.  His forehead was\nthrobbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his\nmanner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as\never.  Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to\nplay a part.  Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could\nhave believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any\ntragedy of our age.  Those finely shaped fingers could never have\nclutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God\nand goodness.  He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his\ndemeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a\ndouble life.\n\nIt was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who\nwas a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the\nremains of really remarkable ugliness.  She had proved an excellent\nwife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her\nhusband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed,\nand married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she\ndevoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery,\nand French _esprit_ when she could get it.\n\nDorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that\nshe was extremely glad she had not met him in early life.  \"I know, my\ndear, I should have fallen madly in love with you,\" she used to say,\n\"and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake.  It is most\nfortunate that you were not thought of at the time.  As it was, our\nbonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to\nraise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody.\nHowever, that was all Narborough's fault.  He was dreadfully\nshort-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who\nnever sees anything.\"\n\nHer guests this evening were rather tedious.  The fact was, as she\nexplained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married\ndaughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make\nmatters worse, had actually brought her husband with her.  \"I think it\nis most unkind of her, my dear,\" she whispered.  \"Of course I go and\nstay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old\nwoman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake\nthem up.  You don't know what an existence they lead down there.  It is\npure unadulterated country life.  They get up early, because they have\nso much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to\nthink about.  There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since\nthe time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep\nafter dinner.  You shan't sit next either of them.  You shall sit by me\nand amuse me.\"\n\nDorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room.  Yes:\nit was certainly a tedious party.  Two of the people he had never seen\nbefore, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those\nmiddle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies,\nbut are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an\noverdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always\ntrying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to\nher great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against\nher; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and\nVenetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy\ndull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once\nseen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked,\nwhite-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the\nimpression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of\nideas.\n\nHe was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the\ngreat ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the\nmauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed:  \"How horrid of Henry Wotton to be\nso late!  I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised\nfaithfully not to disappoint me.\"\n\nIt was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door\nopened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some\ninsincere apology, he ceased to feel bored.\n\nBut at dinner he could not eat anything.  Plate after plate went away\nuntasted.  Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called \"an\ninsult to poor Adolphe, who invented the _menu_ specially for you,\" and\nnow and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence\nand abstracted manner.  From time to time the butler filled his glass\nwith champagne.  He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase.\n\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry at last, as the _chaud-froid_ was being handed\nround, \"what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of\nsorts.\"\n\n\"I believe he is in love,\" cried Lady Narborough, \"and that he is\nafraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous.  He is quite right.  I\ncertainly should.\"\n\n\"Dear Lady Narborough,\" murmured Dorian, smiling, \"I have not been in\nlove for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town.\"\n\n\"How you men can fall in love with that woman!\" exclaimed the old lady.\n\"I really cannot understand it.\"\n\n\"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl,\nLady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry.  \"She is the one link between us and\nyour short frocks.\"\n\n\"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry.  But I\nremember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _decolletee_\nshe was then.\"\n\n\"She is still _decolletee_,\" he answered, taking an olive in his long\nfingers; \"and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an\n_edition de luxe_ of a bad French novel.  She is really wonderful, and\nfull of surprises.  Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary.\nWhen her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief.\"\n\n\"How can you, Harry!\" cried Dorian.\n\n\"It is a most romantic explanation,\" laughed the hostess.  \"But her\nthird husband, Lord Henry!  You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?\"\n\n\"Certainly, Lady Narborough.\"\n\n\"I don't believe a word of it.\"\n\n\"Well, ask Mr. Gray.  He is one of her most intimate friends.\"\n\n\"Is it true, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"She assures me so, Lady Narborough,\" said Dorian.  \"I asked her\nwhether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and\nhung at her girdle.  She told me she didn't, because none of them had\nhad any hearts at all.\"\n\n\"Four husbands!  Upon my word that is _trop de zele_.\"\n\n\"_Trop d'audace_, I tell her,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear.  And what is Ferrol\nlike?  I don't know him.\"\n\n\"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,\"\nsaid Lord Henry, sipping his wine.\n\nLady Narborough hit him with her fan.  \"Lord Henry, I am not at all\nsurprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.\"\n\n\"But what world says that?\" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows.\n\"It can only be the next world.  This world and I are on excellent\nterms.\"\n\n\"Everybody I know says you are very wicked,\" cried the old lady,\nshaking her head.\n\nLord Henry looked serious for some moments.  \"It is perfectly\nmonstrous,\" he said, at last, \"the way people go about nowadays saying\nthings against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely\ntrue.\"\n\n\"Isn't he incorrigible?\" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.\n\n\"I hope so,\" said his hostess, laughing.  \"But really, if you all\nworship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry\nagain so as to be in the fashion.\"\n\n\"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough,\" broke in Lord Henry.\n\"You were far too happy.  When a woman marries again, it is because she\ndetested her first husband.  When a man marries again, it is because he\nadored his first wife.  Women try their luck; men risk theirs.\"\n\n\"Narborough wasn't perfect,\" cried the old lady.\n\n\"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady,\" was the\nrejoinder.  \"Women love us for our defects.  If we have enough of them,\nthey will forgive us everything, even our intellects.  You will never\nask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough,\nbut it is quite true.\"\n\n\"Of course it is true, Lord Henry.  If we women did not love you for\nyour defects, where would you all be?  Not one of you would ever be\nmarried.  You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.  Not, however,\nthat that would alter you much.  Nowadays all the married men live like\nbachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.\"\n\n\"_Fin de siecle_,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\n\"_Fin du globe_,\" answered his hostess.\n\n\"I wish it were _fin du globe_,\" said Dorian with a sigh.  \"Life is a\ngreat disappointment.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear,\" cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, \"don't\ntell me that you have exhausted life.  When a man says that one knows\nthat life has exhausted him.  Lord Henry is very wicked, and I\nsometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good--you look\nso good.  I must find you a nice wife.  Lord Henry, don't you think\nthat Mr. Gray should get married?\"\n\n\"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry with a\nbow.\n\n\"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him.  I shall go\nthrough Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the\neligible young ladies.\"\n\n\"With their ages, Lady Narborough?\" asked Dorian.\n\n\"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited.  But nothing must be done\nin a hurry.  I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable\nalliance, and I want you both to be happy.\"\n\n\"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!\" exclaimed Lord\nHenry.  \"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love\nher.\"\n\n\"Ah! what a cynic you are!\" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair\nand nodding to Lady Ruxton.  \"You must come and dine with me soon\nagain.  You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir\nAndrew prescribes for me.  You must tell me what people you would like\nto meet, though.  I want it to be a delightful gathering.\"\n\n\"I like men who have a future and women who have a past,\" he answered.\n\"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?\"\n\n\"I fear so,\" she said, laughing, as she stood up.  \"A thousand pardons,\nmy dear Lady Ruxton,\" she added, \"I didn't see you hadn't finished your\ncigarette.\"\n\n\"Never mind, Lady Narborough.  I smoke a great deal too much.  I am\ngoing to limit myself, for the future.\"\n\n\"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Moderation is a fatal\nthing.  Enough is as bad as a meal.  More than enough is as good as a\nfeast.\"\n\nLady Ruxton glanced at him curiously.  \"You must come and explain that\nto me some afternoon, Lord Henry.  It sounds a fascinating theory,\" she\nmurmured, as she swept out of the room.\n\n\"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal,\"\ncried Lady Narborough from the door.  \"If you do, we are sure to\nsquabble upstairs.\"\n\nThe men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the\ntable and came up to the top.  Dorian Gray changed his seat and went\nand sat by Lord Henry.  Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about\nthe situation in the House of Commons.  He guffawed at his adversaries.\nThe word _doctrinaire_--word full of terror to the British\nmind--reappeared from time to time between his explosions.  An\nalliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.  He hoisted the\nUnion Jack on the pinnacles of thought.  The inherited stupidity of the\nrace--sound English common sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be\nthe proper bulwark for society.\n\nA smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at\nDorian.\n\n\"Are you better, my dear fellow?\" he asked.  \"You seemed rather out of\nsorts at dinner.\"\n\n\"I am quite well, Harry.  I am tired.  That is all.\"\n\n\"You were charming last night.  The little duchess is quite devoted to\nyou.  She tells me she is going down to Selby.\"\n\n\"She has promised to come on the twentieth.\"\n\n\"Is Monmouth to be there, too?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, Harry.\"\n\n\"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her.  She is very\nclever, too clever for a woman.  She lacks the indefinable charm of\nweakness.  It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image\nprecious.  Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay.\nWhite porcelain feet, if you like.  They have been through the fire,\nand what fire does not destroy, it hardens.  She has had experiences.\"\n\n\"How long has she been married?\" asked Dorian.\n\n\"An eternity, she tells me.  I believe, according to the peerage, it is\nten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity,\nwith time thrown in.  Who else is coming?\"\n\n\"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey\nClouston, the usual set.  I have asked Lord Grotrian.\"\n\n\"I like him,\" said Lord Henry.  \"A great many people don't, but I find\nhim charming.  He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by\nbeing always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type.\"\n\n\"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry.  He may have to go to\nMonte Carlo with his father.\"\n\n\"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are!  Try and make him come.  By\nthe way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night.  You left before\neleven.  What did you do afterwards?  Did you go straight home?\"\n\nDorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.\n\n\"No, Harry,\" he said at last, \"I did not get home till nearly three.\"\n\n\"Did you go to the club?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered.  Then he bit his lip.  \"No, I don't mean that.  I\ndidn't go to the club.  I walked about.  I forget what I did.... How\ninquisitive you are, Harry!  You always want to know what one has been\ndoing.  I always want to forget what I have been doing.  I came in at\nhalf-past two, if you wish to know the exact time.  I had left my\nlatch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in.  If you want any\ncorroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him.\"\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"My dear fellow, as if I cared!\nLet us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman.\nSomething has happened to you, Dorian.  Tell me what it is.  You are\nnot yourself to-night.\"\n\n\"Don't mind me, Harry.  I am irritable, and out of temper.  I shall\ncome round and see you to-morrow, or next day.  Make my excuses to Lady\nNarborough.  I shan't go upstairs.  I shall go home.  I must go home.\"\n\n\"All right, Dorian.  I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time.\nThe duchess is coming.\"\n\n\"I will try to be there, Harry,\" he said, leaving the room.  As he\ndrove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror\nhe thought he had strangled had come back to him.  Lord Henry's casual\nquestioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted\nhis nerve still.  Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed.  He\nwinced.  He hated the idea of even touching them.\n\nYet it had to be done.  He realized that, and when he had locked the\ndoor of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had\nthrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag.  A huge fire was blazing.  He\npiled another log on it.  The smell of the singeing clothes and burning\nleather was horrible.  It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume\neverything.  At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some\nAlgerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and\nforehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar.\n\nSuddenly he started.  His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed\nnervously at his underlip.  Between two of the windows stood a large\nFlorentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue\nlapis.  He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate\nand make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet\nalmost loathed.  His breath quickened.  A mad craving came over him.\nHe lit a cigarette and then threw it away.  His eyelids drooped till\nthe long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek.  But he still watched\nthe cabinet.  At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been\nlying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden\nspring.  A triangular drawer passed slowly out.  His fingers moved\ninstinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something.  It was a\nsmall Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought,\nthe sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with\nround crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads.  He opened it.\nInside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and\npersistent.\n\nHe hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his\nface.  Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly\nhot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock.  It was twenty\nminutes to twelve.  He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as\nhe did so, and went into his bedroom.\n\nAs midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray,\ndressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept\nquietly out of his house.  In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good\nhorse.  He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address.\n\nThe man shook his head.  \"It is too far for me,\" he muttered.\n\n\"Here is a sovereign for you,\" said Dorian.  \"You shall have another if\nyou drive fast.\"\n\n\"All right, sir,\" answered the man, \"you will be there in an hour,\" and\nafter his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly\ntowards the river.\n\n\n\n\n\nA cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly\nin the dripping mist.  The public-houses were just closing, and dim men\nand women were clustering in broken groups round their doors.  From\nsome of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter.  In others,\ndrunkards brawled and screamed.\n\nLying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian\nGray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and\nnow and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said\nto him on the first day they had met, \"To cure the soul by means of the\nsenses, and the senses by means of the soul.\"  Yes, that was the\nsecret.  He had often tried it, and would try it again now.  There were\nopium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the\nmemory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were\nnew.\n\nThe moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull.  From time to time a\nhuge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it.  The\ngas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy.  Once the\nman lost his way and had to drive back half a mile.  A steam rose from\nthe horse as it splashed up the puddles.  The sidewindows of the hansom\nwere clogged with a grey-flannel mist.\n\n\"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of\nthe soul!\"  How the words rang in his ears!  His soul, certainly, was\nsick to death.  Was it true that the senses could cure it?  Innocent\nblood had been spilled.  What could atone for that?  Ah! for that there\nwas no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness\nwas possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing\nout, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.\nIndeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done?  Who\nhad made him a judge over others?  He had said things that were\ndreadful, horrible, not to be endured.\n\nOn and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each\nstep.  He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster.\nThe hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him.  His throat burned\nand his delicate hands twitched nervously together.  He struck at the\nhorse madly with his stick.  The driver laughed and whipped up.  He\nlaughed in answer, and the man was silent.\n\nThe way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some\nsprawling spider.  The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist\nthickened, he felt afraid.\n\nThen they passed by lonely brickfields.  The fog was lighter here, and\nhe could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,\nfanlike tongues of fire.  A dog barked as they went by, and far away in\nthe darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed.  The horse stumbled in a\nrut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.\n\nAfter some time they left the clay road and rattled again over\nrough-paven streets.  Most of the windows were dark, but now and then\nfantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind.  He\nwatched them curiously.  They moved like monstrous marionettes and made\ngestures like live things.  He hated them.  A dull rage was in his\nheart.  As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from\nan open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred\nyards.  The driver beat at them with his whip.\n\nIt is said that passion makes one think in a circle.  Certainly with\nhideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped\nthose subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in\nthem the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by\nintellectual approval, passions that without such justification would\nstill have dominated his temper.  From cell to cell of his brain crept\nthe one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all\nman's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre.\nUgliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real,\nbecame dear to him now for that very reason.  Ugliness was the one\nreality.  The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of\ndisordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more\nvivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious\nshapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song.  They were what he needed\nfor forgetfulness.  In three days he would be free.\n\nSuddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane.  Over\nthe low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black\nmasts of ships.  Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the\nyards.\n\n\"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?\" he asked huskily through the\ntrap.\n\nDorian started and peered round.  \"This will do,\" he answered, and\nhaving got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had\npromised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay.  Here and\nthere a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman.  The\nlight shook and splintered in the puddles.  A red glare came from an\noutward-bound steamer that was coaling.  The slimy pavement looked like\na wet mackintosh.\n\nHe hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he\nwas being followed.  In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small\nshabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories.  In one of\nthe top-windows stood a lamp.  He stopped and gave a peculiar knock.\n\nAfter a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being\nunhooked.  The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a\nword to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the\nshadow as he passed.  At the end of the hall hung a tattered green\ncurtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him\nin from the street.  He dragged it aside and entered a long low room\nwhich looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill\nflaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that\nfaced them, were ranged round the walls.  Greasy reflectors of ribbed\ntin backed them, making quivering disks of light.  The floor was\ncovered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud,\nand stained with dark rings of spilled liquor.  Some Malays were\ncrouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and\nshowing their white teeth as they chattered.  In one corner, with his\nhead buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the\ntawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two\nhaggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his\ncoat with an expression of disgust.  \"He thinks he's got red ants on\nhim,\" laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by.  The man looked at her\nin terror and began to whimper.\n\nAt the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a\ndarkened chamber.  As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the\nheavy odour of opium met him.  He heaved a deep breath, and his\nnostrils quivered with pleasure.  When he entered, a young man with\nsmooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin\npipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner.\n\n\"You here, Adrian?\" muttered Dorian.\n\n\"Where else should I be?\" he answered, listlessly.  \"None of the chaps\nwill speak to me now.\"\n\n\"I thought you had left England.\"\n\n\"Darlington is not going to do anything.  My brother paid the bill at\nlast.  George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care,\" he added\nwith a sigh.  \"As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends.\nI think I have had too many friends.\"\n\nDorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such\nfantastic postures on the ragged mattresses.  The twisted limbs, the\ngaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him.  He knew in\nwhat strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were\nteaching them the secret of some new joy.  They were better off than he\nwas.  He was prisoned in thought.  Memory, like a horrible malady, was\neating his soul away.  From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of\nBasil Hallward looking at him.  Yet he felt he could not stay.  The\npresence of Adrian Singleton troubled him.  He wanted to be where no\none would know who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself.\n\n\"I am going on to the other place,\" he said after a pause.\n\n\"On the wharf?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That mad-cat is sure to be there.  They won't have her in this place\nnow.\"\n\nDorian shrugged his shoulders.  \"I am sick of women who love one.\nWomen who hate one are much more interesting.  Besides, the stuff is\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Much the same.\"\n\n\"I like it better.  Come and have something to drink.  I must have\nsomething.\"\n\n\"I don't want anything,\" murmured the young man.\n\n\"Never mind.\"\n\nAdrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar.  A\nhalf-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous\ngreeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of\nthem.  The women sidled up and began to chatter.  Dorian turned his\nback on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton.\n\nA crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of\nthe women.  \"We are very proud to-night,\" she sneered.\n\n\"For God's sake don't talk to me,\" cried Dorian, stamping his foot on\nthe ground.  \"What do you want?  Money?  Here it is.  Don't ever talk\nto me again.\"\n\nTwo red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then\nflickered out and left them dull and glazed.  She tossed her head and\nraked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers.  Her companion\nwatched her enviously.\n\n\"It's no use,\" sighed Adrian Singleton.  \"I don't care to go back.\nWhat does it matter?  I am quite happy here.\"\n\n\"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?\" said Dorian,\nafter a pause.\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Good night, then.\"\n\n\"Good night,\" answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping\nhis parched mouth with a handkerchief.\n\nDorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face.  As he drew\nthe curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the\nwoman who had taken his money.  \"There goes the devil's bargain!\" she\nhiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.\n\n\"Curse you!\" he answered, \"don't call me that.\"\n\nShe snapped her fingers.  \"Prince Charming is what you like to be\ncalled, ain't it?\" she yelled after him.\n\nThe drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly\nround.  The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear.  He\nrushed out as if in pursuit.\n\nDorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain.  His\nmeeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered\nif the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as\nBasil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult.  He bit his\nlip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad.  Yet, after all, what did\nit matter to him?  One's days were too brief to take the burden of\nanother's errors on one's shoulders.  Each man lived his own life and\npaid his own price for living it.  The only pity was one had to pay so\noften for a single fault.  One had to pay over and over again, indeed.\nIn her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.\n\nThere are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or\nfor what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of\nthe body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful\nimpulses.  Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their\nwill.  They move to their terrible end as automatons move.  Choice is\ntaken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at\nall, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its\ncharm.  For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are\nsins of disobedience.  When that high spirit, that morning star of\nevil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.\n\nCallous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for\nrebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but\nas he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a\nshort cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself\nsuddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,\nhe was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his\nthroat.\n\nHe struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the\ntightening fingers away.  In a second he heard the click of a revolver,\nand saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,\nand the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.\n\n\"What do you want?\" he gasped.\n\n\"Keep quiet,\" said the man.  \"If you stir, I shoot you.\"\n\n\"You are mad.  What have I done to you?\"\n\n\"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane,\" was the answer, \"and Sibyl Vane\nwas my sister.  She killed herself.  I know it.  Her death is at your\ndoor.  I swore I would kill you in return.  For years I have sought\nyou.  I had no clue, no trace.  The two people who could have described\nyou were dead.  I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call\nyou.  I heard it to-night by chance.  Make your peace with God, for\nto-night you are going to die.\"\n\nDorian Gray grew sick with fear.  \"I never knew her,\" he stammered.  \"I\nnever heard of her.  You are mad.\"\n\n\"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you\nare going to die.\"  There was a horrible moment.  Dorian did not know\nwhat to say or do.  \"Down on your knees!\" growled the man.  \"I give you\none minute to make your peace--no more.  I go on board to-night for\nIndia, and I must do my job first.  One minute.  That's all.\"\n\nDorian's arms fell to his side.  Paralysed with terror, he did not know\nwhat to do.  Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain.  \"Stop,\" he\ncried.  \"How long ago is it since your sister died?  Quick, tell me!\"\n\n\"Eighteen years,\" said the man.  \"Why do you ask me?  What do years\nmatter?\"\n\n\"Eighteen years,\" laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his\nvoice.  \"Eighteen years!  Set me under the lamp and look at my face!\"\n\nJames Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.\nThen he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.\n\nDim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him\nthe hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face\nof the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the\nunstained purity of youth.  He seemed little more than a lad of twenty\nsummers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been\nwhen they had parted so many years ago.  It was obvious that this was\nnot the man who had destroyed her life.\n\nHe loosened his hold and reeled back.  \"My God! my God!\" he cried, \"and\nI would have murdered you!\"\n\nDorian Gray drew a long breath.  \"You have been on the brink of\ncommitting a terrible crime, my man,\" he said, looking at him sternly.\n\"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own\nhands.\"\n\n\"Forgive me, sir,\" muttered James Vane.  \"I was deceived.  A chance\nword I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track.\"\n\n\"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into\ntrouble,\" said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the\nstreet.\n\nJames Vane stood on the pavement in horror.  He was trembling from head\nto foot.  After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping\nalong the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him\nwith stealthy footsteps.  He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked\nround with a start.  It was one of the women who had been drinking at\nthe bar.\n\n\"Why didn't you kill him?\" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite\nclose to his.  \"I knew you were following him when you rushed out from\nDaly's. You fool!  You should have killed him.  He has lots of money,\nand he's as bad as bad.\"\n\n\"He is not the man I am looking for,\" he answered, \"and I want no man's\nmoney.  I want a man's life.  The man whose life I want must be nearly\nforty now.  This one is little more than a boy.  Thank God, I have not\ngot his blood upon my hands.\"\n\nThe woman gave a bitter laugh.  \"Little more than a boy!\" she sneered.\n\"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me\nwhat I am.\"\n\n\"You lie!\" cried James Vane.\n\nShe raised her hand up to heaven.  \"Before God I am telling the truth,\"\nshe cried.\n\n\"Before God?\"\n\n\"Strike me dumb if it ain't so.  He is the worst one that comes here.\nThey say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face.  It's nigh\non eighteen years since I met him.  He hasn't changed much since then.\nI have, though,\" she added, with a sickly leer.\n\n\"You swear this?\"\n\n\"I swear it,\" came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth.  \"But don't give\nme away to him,\" she whined; \"I am afraid of him.  Let me have some\nmoney for my night's lodging.\"\n\nHe broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street,\nbut Dorian Gray had disappeared.  When he looked back, the woman had\nvanished also.\n\n\n\n\n\nA week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby\nRoyal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband,\na jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests.  It was tea-time,\nand the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the\ntable lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at\nwhich the duchess was presiding.  Her white hands were moving daintily\namong the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that\nDorian had whispered to her.  Lord Henry was lying back in a\nsilk-draped wicker chair, looking at them.  On a peach-coloured divan\nsat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of\nthe last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection.  Three\nyoung men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of\nthe women.  The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were\nmore expected to arrive on the next day.\n\n\"What are you two talking about?\" said Lord Henry, strolling over to\nthe table and putting his cup down.  \"I hope Dorian has told you about\nmy plan for rechristening everything, Gladys.  It is a delightful idea.\"\n\n\"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry,\" rejoined the duchess,\nlooking up at him with her wonderful eyes.  \"I am quite satisfied with\nmy own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his.\"\n\n\"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world.  They are\nboth perfect.  I was thinking chiefly of flowers.  Yesterday I cut an\norchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as\neffective as the seven deadly sins.  In a thoughtless moment I asked\none of the gardeners what it was called.  He told me it was a fine\nspecimen of _Robinsoniana_, or something dreadful of that kind.  It is a\nsad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to\nthings.  Names are everything.  I never quarrel with actions.  My one\nquarrel is with words.  That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in\nliterature.  The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled\nto use one.  It is the only thing he is fit for.\"\n\n\"Then what should we call you, Harry?\" she asked.\n\n\"His name is Prince Paradox,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"I recognize him in a flash,\" exclaimed the duchess.\n\n\"I won't hear of it,\" laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair.  \"From\na label there is no escape!  I refuse the title.\"\n\n\"Royalties may not abdicate,\" fell as a warning from pretty lips.\n\n\"You wish me to defend my throne, then?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I give the truths of to-morrow.\"\n\n\"I prefer the mistakes of to-day,\" she answered.\n\n\"You disarm me, Gladys,\" he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood.\n\n\"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear.\"\n\n\"I never tilt against beauty,\" he said, with a wave of his hand.\n\n\"That is your error, Harry, believe me.  You value beauty far too much.\"\n\n\"How can you say that?  I admit that I think that it is better to be\nbeautiful than to be good.  But on the other hand, no one is more ready\nthan I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.\"\n\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?\" cried the duchess.\n\"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?\"\n\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys.  You, as a good\nTory, must not underrate them.  Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly\nvirtues have made our England what she is.\"\n\n\"You don't like your country, then?\" she asked.\n\n\"I live in it.\"\n\n\"That you may censure it the better.\"\n\n\"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?\" he inquired.\n\n\"What do they say of us?\"\n\n\"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop.\"\n\n\"Is that yours, Harry?\"\n\n\"I give it to you.\"\n\n\"I could not use it.  It is too true.\"\n\n\"You need not be afraid.  Our countrymen never recognize a description.\"\n\n\"They are practical.\"\n\n\"They are more cunning than practical.  When they make up their ledger,\nthey balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy.\"\n\n\"Still, we have done great things.\"\n\n\"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys.\"\n\n\"We have carried their burden.\"\n\n\"Only as far as the Stock Exchange.\"\n\nShe shook her head.  \"I believe in the race,\" she cried.\n\n\"It represents the survival of the pushing.\"\n\n\"It has development.\"\n\n\"Decay fascinates me more.\"\n\n\"What of art?\" she asked.\n\n\"It is a malady.\"\n\n\"Love?\"\n\n\"An illusion.\"\n\n\"Religion?\"\n\n\"The fashionable substitute for belief.\"\n\n\"You are a sceptic.\"\n\n\"Never!  Scepticism is the beginning of faith.\"\n\n\"What are you?\"\n\n\"To define is to limit.\"\n\n\"Give me a clue.\"\n\n\"Threads snap.  You would lose your way in the labyrinth.\"\n\n\"You bewilder me.  Let us talk of some one else.\"\n\n\"Our host is a delightful topic.  Years ago he was christened Prince\nCharming.\"\n\n\"Ah! don't remind me of that,\" cried Dorian Gray.\n\n\"Our host is rather horrid this evening,\" answered the duchess,\ncolouring.  \"I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely\nscientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern\nbutterfly.\"\n\n\"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess,\" laughed Dorian.\n\n\"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me.\"\n\n\"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?\"\n\n\"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you.  Usually because\nI come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by\nhalf-past eight.\"\n\n\"How unreasonable of her!  You should give her warning.\"\n\n\"I daren't, Mr. Gray.  Why, she invents hats for me.  You remember the\none I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party?  You don't, but it is nice\nof you to pretend that you do.  Well, she made it out of nothing.  All\ngood hats are made out of nothing.\"\n\n\"Like all good reputations, Gladys,\" interrupted Lord Henry.  \"Every\neffect that one produces gives one an enemy.  To be popular one must be\na mediocrity.\"\n\n\"Not with women,\" said the duchess, shaking her head; \"and women rule\nthe world.  I assure you we can't bear mediocrities.  We women, as some\none says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if\nyou ever love at all.\"\n\n\"It seems to me that we never do anything else,\" murmured Dorian.\n\n\"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray,\" answered the duchess with\nmock sadness.\n\n\"My dear Gladys!\" cried Lord Henry.  \"How can you say that?  Romance\nlives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art.\nBesides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.\nDifference of object does not alter singleness of passion.  It merely\nintensifies it.  We can have in life but one great experience at best,\nand the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as\npossible.\"\n\n\"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?\" asked the duchess after\na pause.\n\n\"Especially when one has been wounded by it,\" answered Lord Henry.\n\nThe duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression\nin her eyes.  \"What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?\" she inquired.\n\nDorian hesitated for a moment.  Then he threw his head back and\nlaughed.  \"I always agree with Harry, Duchess.\"\n\n\"Even when he is wrong?\"\n\n\"Harry is never wrong, Duchess.\"\n\n\"And does his philosophy make you happy?\"\n\n\"I have never searched for happiness.  Who wants happiness?  I have\nsearched for pleasure.\"\n\n\"And found it, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"Often.  Too often.\"\n\nThe duchess sighed.  \"I am searching for peace,\" she said, \"and if I\ndon't go and dress, I shall have none this evening.\"\n\n\"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess,\" cried Dorian, starting to his\nfeet and walking down the conservatory.\n\n\"You are flirting disgracefully with him,\" said Lord Henry to his\ncousin.  \"You had better take care.  He is very fascinating.\"\n\n\"If he were not, there would be no battle.\"\n\n\"Greek meets Greek, then?\"\n\n\"I am on the side of the Trojans.  They fought for a woman.\"\n\n\"They were defeated.\"\n\n\"There are worse things than capture,\" she answered.\n\n\"You gallop with a loose rein.\"\n\n\"Pace gives life,\" was the _riposte_.\n\n\"I shall write it in my diary to-night.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That a burnt child loves the fire.\"\n\n\"I am not even singed.  My wings are untouched.\"\n\n\"You use them for everything, except flight.\"\n\n\"Courage has passed from men to women.  It is a new experience for us.\"\n\n\"You have a rival.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nHe laughed.  \"Lady Narborough,\" he whispered.  \"She perfectly adores\nhim.\"\n\n\"You fill me with apprehension.  The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us\nwho are romanticists.\"\n\n\"Romanticists!  You have all the methods of science.\"\n\n\"Men have educated us.\"\n\n\"But not explained you.\"\n\n\"Describe us as a sex,\" was her challenge.\n\n\"Sphinxes without secrets.\"\n\nShe looked at him, smiling.  \"How long Mr. Gray is!\" she said.  \"Let us\ngo and help him.  I have not yet told him the colour of my frock.\"\n\n\"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys.\"\n\n\"That would be a premature surrender.\"\n\n\"Romantic art begins with its climax.\"\n\n\"I must keep an opportunity for retreat.\"\n\n\"In the Parthian manner?\"\n\n\"They found safety in the desert.  I could not do that.\"\n\n\"Women are not always allowed a choice,\" he answered, but hardly had he\nfinished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came\na stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall.  Everybody\nstarted up.  The duchess stood motionless in horror.  And with fear in\nhis eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian\nGray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon.\n\nHe was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of\nthe sofas.  After a short time, he came to himself and looked round\nwith a dazed expression.\n\n\"What has happened?\" he asked.  \"Oh!  I remember.  Am I safe here,\nHarry?\" He began to tremble.\n\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, \"you merely fainted.  That was\nall.  You must have overtired yourself.  You had better not come down\nto dinner.  I will take your place.\"\n\n\"No, I will come down,\" he said, struggling to his feet.  \"I would\nrather come down.  I must not be alone.\"\n\nHe went to his room and dressed.  There was a wild recklessness of\ngaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of\nterror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the\nwindow of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the\nface of James Vane watching him.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the\ntime in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet\nindifferent to life itself.  The consciousness of being hunted, snared,\ntracked down, had begun to dominate him.  If the tapestry did but\ntremble in the wind, he shook.  The dead leaves that were blown against\nthe leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild\nregrets.  When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face\npeering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to\nlay its hand upon his heart.\n\nBut perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of\nthe night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him.  Actual\nlife was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the\nimagination.  It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet\nof sin.  It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen\nbrood.  In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor\nthe good rewarded.  Success was given to the strong, failure thrust\nupon the weak.  That was all.  Besides, had any stranger been prowling\nround the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the\nkeepers.  Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the\ngardeners would have reported it.  Yes, it had been merely fancy.\nSibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him.  He had sailed away\nin his ship to founder in some winter sea.  From him, at any rate, he\nwas safe.  Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he\nwas.  The mask of youth had saved him.\n\nAnd yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think\nthat conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them\nvisible form, and make them move before one!  What sort of life would\nhis be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from\nsilent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear\nas he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!\nAs the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and\nthe air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder.  Oh! in what a\nwild hour of madness he had killed his friend!  How ghastly the mere\nmemory of the scene!  He saw it all again.  Each hideous detail came\nback to him with added horror.  Out of the black cave of time, terrible\nand swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin.  When Lord Henry\ncame in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will\nbreak.\n\nIt was not till the third day that he ventured to go out.  There was\nsomething in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that\nseemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life.  But\nit was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had\ncaused the change.  His own nature had revolted against the excess of\nanguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm.\nWith subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so.  Their\nstrong passions must either bruise or bend.  They either slay the man,\nor themselves die.  Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on.  The\nloves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.\nBesides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a\nterror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with\nsomething of pity and not a little of contempt.\n\nAfter breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden\nand then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp\nfrost lay like salt upon the grass.  The sky was an inverted cup of\nblue metal.  A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.\n\nAt the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey\nClouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of\nhis gun.  He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take\nthe mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered\nbracken and rough undergrowth.\n\n\"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?\" he asked.\n\n\"Not very good, Dorian.  I think most of the birds have gone to the\nopen.  I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new\nground.\"\n\nDorian strolled along by his side.  The keen aromatic air, the brown\nand red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the\nbeaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns\nthat followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful\nfreedom.  He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the\nhigh indifference of joy.\n\nSuddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front\nof them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it\nforward, started a hare.  It bolted for a thicket of alders.  Sir\nGeoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the\nanimal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he\ncried out at once, \"Don't shoot it, Geoffrey.  Let it live.\"\n\n\"What nonsense, Dorian!\" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded\ninto the thicket, he fired.  There were two cries heard, the cry of a\nhare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is\nworse.\n\n\"Good heavens!  I have hit a beater!\" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.  \"What an\nass the man was to get in front of the guns!  Stop shooting there!\" he\ncalled out at the top of his voice.  \"A man is hurt.\"\n\nThe head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand.\n\n\"Where, sir?  Where is he?\" he shouted.  At the same time, the firing\nceased along the line.\n\n\"Here,\" answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket.\n\"Why on earth don't you keep your men back?  Spoiled my shooting for\nthe day.\"\n\nDorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the\nlithe swinging branches aside.  In a few moments they emerged, dragging\na body after them into the sunlight.  He turned away in horror.  It\nseemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went.  He heard Sir\nGeoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of\nthe keeper.  The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with\nfaces.  There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of\nvoices.  A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the\nboughs overhead.\n\nAfter a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like\nendless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder.  He started\nand looked round.\n\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, \"I had better tell them that the shooting is\nstopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on.\"\n\n\"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry,\" he answered bitterly.  \"The\nwhole thing is hideous and cruel.  Is the man ...?\"\n\nHe could not finish the sentence.\n\n\"I am afraid so,\" rejoined Lord Henry.  \"He got the whole charge of\nshot in his chest.  He must have died almost instantaneously.  Come;\nlet us go home.\"\n\nThey walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly\nfifty yards without speaking.  Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and\nsaid, with a heavy sigh, \"It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen.\"\n\n\"What is?\" asked Lord Henry.  \"Oh! this accident, I suppose.  My dear\nfellow, it can't be helped.  It was the man's own fault.  Why did he\nget in front of the guns?  Besides, it is nothing to us.  It is rather\nawkward for Geoffrey, of course.  It does not do to pepper beaters.  It\nmakes people think that one is a wild shot.  And Geoffrey is not; he\nshoots very straight.  But there is no use talking about the matter.\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"It is a bad omen, Harry.  I feel as if\nsomething horrible were going to happen to some of us.  To myself,\nperhaps,\" he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of\npain.\n\nThe elder man laughed.  \"The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_,\nDorian.  That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.  But we\nare not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering\nabout this thing at dinner.  I must tell them that the subject is to be\ntabooed.  As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen.  Destiny\ndoes not send us heralds.  She is too wise or too cruel for that.\nBesides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian?  You have\neverything in the world that a man can want.  There is no one who would\nnot be delighted to change places with you.\"\n\n\"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry.  Don't\nlaugh like that.  I am telling you the truth.  The wretched peasant who\nhas just died is better off than I am.  I have no terror of death.  It\nis the coming of death that terrifies me.  Its monstrous wings seem to\nwheel in the leaden air around me.  Good heavens! don't you see a man\nmoving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?\"\n\nLord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand\nwas pointing.  \"Yes,\" he said, smiling, \"I see the gardener waiting for\nyou.  I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on\nthe table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow!  You\nmust come and see my doctor, when we get back to town.\"\n\nDorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching.  The\nman touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating\nmanner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master.\n\"Her Grace told me to wait for an answer,\" he murmured.\n\nDorian put the letter into his pocket.  \"Tell her Grace that I am\ncoming in,\" he said, coldly.  The man turned round and went rapidly in\nthe direction of the house.\n\n\"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!\" laughed Lord Henry.\n\"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most.  A woman will\nflirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.\"\n\n\"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry!  In the present\ninstance, you are quite astray.  I like the duchess very much, but I\ndon't love her.\"\n\n\"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you\nare excellently matched.\"\n\n\"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for\nscandal.\"\n\n\"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty,\" said Lord Henry,\nlighting a cigarette.\n\n\"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram.\"\n\n\"The world goes to the altar of its own accord,\" was the answer.\n\n\"I wish I could love,\" cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in\nhis voice.  \"But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the\ndesire.  I am too much concentrated on myself.  My own personality has\nbecome a burden to me.  I want to escape, to go away, to forget.  It\nwas silly of me to come down here at all.  I think I shall send a wire\nto Harvey to have the yacht got ready.  On a yacht one is safe.\"\n\n\"Safe from what, Dorian?  You are in some trouble.  Why not tell me\nwhat it is?  You know I would help you.\"\n\n\"I can't tell you, Harry,\" he answered sadly.  \"And I dare say it is\nonly a fancy of mine.  This unfortunate accident has upset me.  I have\na horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me.\"\n\n\"What nonsense!\"\n\n\"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it.  Ah! here is the duchess,\nlooking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown.  You see we have come back,\nDuchess.\"\n\n\"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray,\" she answered.  \"Poor Geoffrey is\nterribly upset.  And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare.\nHow curious!\"\n\n\"Yes, it was very curious.  I don't know what made me say it.  Some\nwhim, I suppose.  It looked the loveliest of little live things.  But I\nam sorry they told you about the man.  It is a hideous subject.\"\n\n\"It is an annoying subject,\" broke in Lord Henry.  \"It has no\npsychological value at all.  Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on\npurpose, how interesting he would be!  I should like to know some one\nwho had committed a real murder.\"\n\n\"How horrid of you, Harry!\" cried the duchess.  \"Isn't it, Mr. Gray?\nHarry, Mr. Gray is ill again.  He is going to faint.\"\n\nDorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled.  \"It is nothing,\nDuchess,\" he murmured; \"my nerves are dreadfully out of order.  That is\nall.  I am afraid I walked too far this morning.  I didn't hear what\nHarry said.  Was it very bad?  You must tell me some other time.  I\nthink I must go and lie down.  You will excuse me, won't you?\"\n\nThey had reached the great flight of steps that led from the\nconservatory on to the terrace.  As the glass door closed behind\nDorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous\neyes.  \"Are you very much in love with him?\" he asked.\n\nShe did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape.\n\"I wish I knew,\" she said at last.\n\nHe shook his head.  \"Knowledge would be fatal.  It is the uncertainty\nthat charms one.  A mist makes things wonderful.\"\n\n\"One may lose one's way.\"\n\n\"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"Disillusion.\"\n\n\"It was my _debut_ in life,\" she sighed.\n\n\"It came to you crowned.\"\n\n\"I am tired of strawberry leaves.\"\n\n\"They become you.\"\n\n\"Only in public.\"\n\n\"You would miss them,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"I will not part with a petal.\"\n\n\"Monmouth has ears.\"\n\n\"Old age is dull of hearing.\"\n\n\"Has he never been jealous?\"\n\n\"I wish he had been.\"\n\nHe glanced about as if in search of something.  \"What are you looking\nfor?\" she inquired.\n\n\"The button from your foil,\" he answered.  \"You have dropped it.\"\n\nShe laughed.  \"I have still the mask.\"\n\n\"It makes your eyes lovelier,\" was his reply.\n\nShe laughed again.  Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet\nfruit.\n\nUpstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror\nin every tingling fibre of his body.  Life had suddenly become too\nhideous a burden for him to bear.  The dreadful death of the unlucky\nbeater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to\npre-figure death for himself also.  He had nearly swooned at what Lord\nHenry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.\n\nAt five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to\npack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham\nat the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another\nnight at Selby Royal.  It was an ill-omened place.  Death walked there\nin the sunlight.  The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.\n\nThen he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to\ntown to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in\nhis absence.  As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to\nthe door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see\nhim.  He frowned and bit his lip.  \"Send him in,\" he muttered, after\nsome moments' hesitation.\n\nAs soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a\ndrawer and spread it out before him.\n\n\"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this\nmorning, Thornton?\" he said, taking up a pen.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" answered the gamekeeper.\n\n\"Was the poor fellow married?  Had he any people dependent on him?\"\nasked Dorian, looking bored.  \"If so, I should not like them to be left\nin want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary.\"\n\n\"We don't know who he is, sir.  That is what I took the liberty of\ncoming to you about.\"\n\n\"Don't know who he is?\" said Dorian, listlessly.  \"What do you mean?\nWasn't he one of your men?\"\n\n\"No, sir.  Never saw him before.  Seems like a sailor, sir.\"\n\nThe pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart\nhad suddenly stopped beating.  \"A sailor?\" he cried out.  \"Did you say\na sailor?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.  He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on\nboth arms, and that kind of thing.\"\n\n\"Was there anything found on him?\" said Dorian, leaning forward and\nlooking at the man with startled eyes.  \"Anything that would tell his\nname?\"\n\n\"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any\nkind.  A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we\nthink.\"\n\nDorian started to his feet.  A terrible hope fluttered past him.  He\nclutched at it madly.  \"Where is the body?\" he exclaimed.  \"Quick!  I\nmust see it at once.\"\n\n\"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir.  The folk don't like\nto have that sort of thing in their houses.  They say a corpse brings\nbad luck.\"\n\n\"The Home Farm!  Go there at once and meet me.  Tell one of the grooms\nto bring my horse round.  No. Never mind.  I'll go to the stables\nmyself.  It will save time.\"\n\nIn less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the\nlong avenue as hard as he could go.  The trees seemed to sweep past him\nin spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his\npath.  Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him.\nHe lashed her across the neck with his crop.  She cleft the dusky air\nlike an arrow.  The stones flew from her hoofs.\n\nAt last he reached the Home Farm.  Two men were loitering in the yard.\nHe leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them.  In the\nfarthest stable a light was glimmering.  Something seemed to tell him\nthat the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand\nupon the latch.\n\nThere he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a\ndiscovery that would either make or mar his life.  Then he thrust the\ndoor open and entered.\n\nOn a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man\ndressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers.  A spotted\nhandkerchief had been placed over the face.  A coarse candle, stuck in\na bottle, sputtered beside it.\n\nDorian Gray shuddered.  He felt that his could not be the hand to take\nthe handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to\ncome to him.\n\n\"Take that thing off the face.  I wish to see it,\" he said, clutching\nat the door-post for support.\n\nWhen the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward.  A cry of joy\nbroke from his lips.  The man who had been shot in the thicket was\nJames Vane.\n\nHe stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body.  As he rode\nhome, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good,\" cried\nLord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled\nwith rose-water. \"You are quite perfect.  Pray, don't change.\"\n\nDorian Gray shook his head.  \"No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful\nthings in my life.  I am not going to do any more.  I began my good\nactions yesterday.\"\n\n\"Where were you yesterday?\"\n\n\"In the country, Harry.  I was staying at a little inn by myself.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" said Lord Henry, smiling, \"anybody can be good in the\ncountry.  There are no temptations there.  That is the reason why\npeople who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized.\nCivilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to.  There are\nonly two ways by which man can reach it.  One is by being cultured, the\nother by being corrupt.  Country people have no opportunity of being\neither, so they stagnate.\"\n\n\"Culture and corruption,\" echoed Dorian.  \"I have known something of\nboth.  It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found\ntogether.  For I have a new ideal, Harry.  I am going to alter.  I\nthink I have altered.\"\n\n\"You have not yet told me what your good action was.  Or did you say\nyou had done more than one?\" asked his companion as he spilled into his\nplate a little crimson pyramid of seeded strawberries and, through a\nperforated, shell-shaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them.\n\n\"I can tell you, Harry.  It is not a story I could tell to any one\nelse.  I spared somebody.  It sounds vain, but you understand what I\nmean.  She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane.  I\nthink it was that which first attracted me to her.  You remember Sibyl,\ndon't you?  How long ago that seems!  Well, Hetty was not one of our\nown class, of course.  She was simply a girl in a village.  But I\nreally loved her.  I am quite sure that I loved her.  All during this\nwonderful May that we have been having, I used to run down and see her\ntwo or three times a week.  Yesterday she met me in a little orchard.\nThe apple-blossoms kept tumbling down on her hair, and she was\nlaughing.  We were to have gone away together this morning at dawn.\nSuddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I had found her.\"\n\n\"I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill\nof real pleasure, Dorian,\" interrupted Lord Henry.  \"But I can finish\nyour idyll for you.  You gave her good advice and broke her heart.\nThat was the beginning of your reformation.\"\n\n\"Harry, you are horrible!  You mustn't say these dreadful things.\nHetty's heart is not broken.  Of course, she cried and all that.  But\nthere is no disgrace upon her.  She can live, like Perdita, in her\ngarden of mint and marigold.\"\n\n\"And weep over a faithless Florizel,\" said Lord Henry, laughing, as he\nleaned back in his chair.  \"My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously\nboyish moods.  Do you think this girl will ever be really content now\nwith any one of her own rank?  I suppose she will be married some day\nto a rough carter or a grinning ploughman.  Well, the fact of having\nmet you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she\nwill be wretched.  From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I\nthink much of your great renunciation.  Even as a beginning, it is\npoor.  Besides, how do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the\npresent moment in some starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies\nround her, like Ophelia?\"\n\n\"I can't bear this, Harry!  You mock at everything, and then suggest\nthe most serious tragedies.  I am sorry I told you now.  I don't care\nwhat you say to me.  I know I was right in acting as I did.  Poor\nHetty!  As I rode past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at\nthe window, like a spray of jasmine.  Don't let us talk about it any\nmore, and don't try to persuade me that the first good action I have\ndone for years, the first little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever\nknown, is really a sort of sin.  I want to be better.  I am going to be\nbetter.  Tell me something about yourself.  What is going on in town?\nI have not been to the club for days.\"\n\n\"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance.\"\n\n\"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time,\" said\nDorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly.\n\n\"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and\nthe British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having\nmore than one topic every three months.  They have been very fortunate\nlately, however.  They have had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbell's\nsuicide.  Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist.\nScotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left\nfor Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor\nBasil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris\nat all.  I suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has\nbeen seen in San Francisco.  It is an odd thing, but every one who\ndisappears is said to be seen at San Francisco.  It must be a\ndelightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.\"\n\n\"What do you think has happened to Basil?\" asked Dorian, holding up his\nBurgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could\ndiscuss the matter so calmly.\n\n\"I have not the slightest idea.  If Basil chooses to hide himself, it\nis no business of mine.  If he is dead, I don't want to think about\nhim.  Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me.  I hate it.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said the younger man wearily.\n\n\"Because,\" said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt\ntrellis of an open vinaigrette box, \"one can survive everything\nnowadays except that.  Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in\nthe nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.  Let us have our\ncoffee in the music-room, Dorian.  You must play Chopin to me.  The man\nwith whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely.  Poor Victoria!\nI was very fond of her.  The house is rather lonely without her.  Of\ncourse, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit.  But then one\nregrets the loss even of one's worst habits.  Perhaps one regrets them\nthe most.  They are such an essential part of one's personality.\"\n\nDorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next\nroom, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white\nand black ivory of the keys.  After the coffee had been brought in, he\nstopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, \"Harry, did it ever\noccur to you that Basil was murdered?\"\n\nLord Henry yawned.  \"Basil was very popular, and always wore a\nWaterbury watch.  Why should he have been murdered?  He was not clever\nenough to have enemies.  Of course, he had a wonderful genius for\npainting.  But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as\npossible.  Basil was really rather dull.  He only interested me once,\nand that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration\nfor you and that you were the dominant motive of his art.\"\n\n\"I was very fond of Basil,\" said Dorian with a note of sadness in his\nvoice.  \"But don't people say that he was murdered?\"\n\n\"Oh, some of the papers do.  It does not seem to me to be at all\nprobable.  I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not\nthe sort of man to have gone to them.  He had no curiosity.  It was his\nchief defect.\"\n\n\"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?\"\nsaid the younger man.  He watched him intently after he had spoken.\n\n\"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that\ndoesn't suit you.  All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.\nIt is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder.  I am sorry if I hurt\nyour vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true.  Crime belongs\nexclusively to the lower orders.  I don't blame them in the smallest\ndegree.  I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us,\nsimply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.\"\n\n\"A method of procuring sensations?  Do you think, then, that a man who\nhas once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again?\nDon't tell me that.\"\n\n\"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often,\" cried Lord\nHenry, laughing.  \"That is one of the most important secrets of life.\nI should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake.  One should\nnever do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.  But let us\npass from poor Basil.  I wish I could believe that he had come to such\na really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell\ninto the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the\nscandal.  Yes:  I should fancy that was his end.  I see him lying now\non his back under those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges\nfloating over him and long weeds catching in his hair.  Do you know, I\ndon't think he would have done much more good work.  During the last\nten years his painting had gone off very much.\"\n\nDorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began\nto stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, grey-plumaged\nbird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo\nperch.  As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf\nof crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards\nand forwards.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of\nhis pocket; \"his painting had quite gone off.  It seemed to me to have\nlost something.  It had lost an ideal.  When you and he ceased to be\ngreat friends, he ceased to be a great artist.  What was it separated\nyou?  I suppose he bored you.  If so, he never forgave you.  It's a\nhabit bores have.  By the way, what has become of that wonderful\nportrait he did of you?  I don't think I have ever seen it since he\nfinished it.  Oh!  I remember your telling me years ago that you had\nsent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the\nway.  You never got it back?  What a pity! it was really a\nmasterpiece.  I remember I wanted to buy it.  I wish I had now.  It\nbelonged to Basil's best period.  Since then, his work was that curious\nmixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man\nto be called a representative British artist.  Did you advertise for\nit?  You should.\"\n\n\"I forget,\" said Dorian.  \"I suppose I did.  But I never really liked\nit.  I am sorry I sat for it.  The memory of the thing is hateful to\nme.  Why do you talk of it?  It used to remind me of those curious\nlines in some play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?--\n\n    \"Like the painting of a sorrow,\n     A face without a heart.\"\n\nYes:  that is what it was like.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"If a man treats life artistically, his brain is\nhis heart,\" he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.\n\nDorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano.\n\"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'\" he repeated, \"'a face without a\nheart.'\"\n\nThe elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes.  \"By\nthe way, Dorian,\" he said after a pause, \"'what does it profit a man if\nhe gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?--his own\nsoul'?\"\n\nThe music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend.\n\"Why do you ask me that, Harry?\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise,\n\"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer.\nThat is all.  I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by\nthe Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people\nlistening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the\nman yelling out that question to his audience.  It struck me as being\nrather dramatic.  London is very rich in curious effects of that kind.\nA wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly\nwhite faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful\nphrase flung into the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very\ngood in its way, quite a suggestion.  I thought of telling the prophet\nthat art had a soul, but that man had not.  I am afraid, however, he\nwould not have understood me.\"\n\n\"Don't, Harry.  The soul is a terrible reality.  It can be bought, and\nsold, and bartered away.  It can be poisoned, or made perfect.  There\nis a soul in each one of us.  I know it.\"\n\n\"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?\"\n\n\"Quite sure.\"\n\n\"Ah! then it must be an illusion.  The things one feels absolutely\ncertain about are never true.  That is the fatality of faith, and the\nlesson of romance.  How grave you are!  Don't be so serious.  What have\nyou or I to do with the superstitions of our age?  No:  we have given\nup our belief in the soul.  Play me something.  Play me a nocturne,\nDorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept\nyour youth.  You must have some secret.  I am only ten years older than\nyou are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow.  You are really\nwonderful, Dorian.  You have never looked more charming than you do\nto-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first.  You were rather\ncheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary.  You have changed, of\ncourse, but not in appearance.  I wish you would tell me your secret.\nTo get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take\nexercise, get up early, or be respectable.  Youth!  There is nothing\nlike it.  It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth.  The only\npeople to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much\nyounger than myself.  They seem in front of me.  Life has revealed to\nthem her latest wonder.  As for the aged, I always contradict the aged.\nI do it on principle.  If you ask them their opinion on something that\nhappened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in\n1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew\nabsolutely nothing.  How lovely that thing you are playing is!  I\nwonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping round the\nvilla and the salt spray dashing against the panes?  It is marvellously\nromantic.  What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that\nis not imitative!  Don't stop.  I want music to-night. It seems to me\nthat you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you.\nI have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of.  The\ntragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.  I am\namazed sometimes at my own sincerity.  Ah, Dorian, how happy you are!\nWhat an exquisite life you have had!  You have drunk deeply of\neverything.  You have crushed the grapes against your palate.  Nothing\nhas been hidden from you.  And it has all been to you no more than the\nsound of music.  It has not marred you.  You are still the same.\"\n\n\"I am not the same, Harry.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are the same.  I wonder what the rest of your life will be.\nDon't spoil it by renunciations.  At present you are a perfect type.\nDon't make yourself incomplete.  You are quite flawless now.  You need\nnot shake your head:  you know you are.  Besides, Dorian, don't deceive\nyourself.  Life is not governed by will or intention.  Life is a\nquestion of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which\nthought hides itself and passion has its dreams.  You may fancy\nyourself safe and think yourself strong.  But a chance tone of colour\nin a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once\nloved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten\npoem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music\nthat you had ceased to play--I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things\nlike these that our lives depend.  Browning writes about that\nsomewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us.  There are\nmoments when the odour of _lilas blanc_ passes suddenly across me, and I\nhave to live the strangest month of my life over again.  I wish I could\nchange places with you, Dorian.  The world has cried out against us\nboth, but it has always worshipped you.  It always will worship you.\nYou are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is\nafraid it has found.  I am so glad that you have never done anything,\nnever carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything\noutside of yourself!  Life has been your art.  You have set yourself to\nmusic.  Your days are your sonnets.\"\n\nDorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair.\n\"Yes, life has been exquisite,\" he murmured, \"but I am not going to\nhave the same life, Harry.  And you must not say these extravagant\nthings to me.  You don't know everything about me.  I think that if you\ndid, even you would turn from me.  You laugh.  Don't laugh.\"\n\n\"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian?  Go back and give me the\nnocturne over again.  Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that\nhangs in the dusky air.  She is waiting for you to charm her, and if\nyou play she will come closer to the earth.  You won't?  Let us go to\nthe club, then.  It has been a charming evening, and we must end it\ncharmingly.  There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know\nyou--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son.  He has already copied\nyour neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you.  He is quite\ndelightful and rather reminds me of you.\"\n\n\"I hope not,\" said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes.  \"But I am tired\nto-night, Harry.  I shan't go to the club.  It is nearly eleven, and I\nwant to go to bed early.\"\n\n\"Do stay.  You have never played so well as to-night. There was\nsomething in your touch that was wonderful.  It had more expression\nthan I had ever heard from it before.\"\n\n\"It is because I am going to be good,\" he answered, smiling.  \"I am a\nlittle changed already.\"\n\n\"You cannot change to me, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry.  \"You and I will\nalways be friends.\"\n\n\"Yet you poisoned me with a book once.  I should not forgive that.\nHarry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one.  It\ndoes harm.\"\n\n\"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize.  You will soon be\ngoing about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people\nagainst all the sins of which you have grown tired.  You are much too\ndelightful to do that.  Besides, it is no use.  You and I are what we\nare, and will be what we will be.  As for being poisoned by a book,\nthere is no such thing as that.  Art has no influence upon action.  It\nannihilates the desire to act.  It is superbly sterile.  The books that\nthe world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.\nThat is all.  But we won't discuss literature.  Come round to-morrow. I\nam going to ride at eleven.  We might go together, and I will take you\nto lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome.  She is a charming woman, and\nwants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying.\nMind you come.  Or shall we lunch with our little duchess?  She says\nshe never sees you now.  Perhaps you are tired of Gladys?  I thought\nyou would be.  Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves.  Well, in any\ncase, be here at eleven.\"\n\n\"Must I really come, Harry?\"\n\n\"Certainly.  The park is quite lovely now.  I don't think there have\nbeen such lilacs since the year I met you.\"\n\n\"Very well.  I shall be here at eleven,\" said Dorian.  \"Good night,\nHarry.\"  As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he\nhad something more to say.  Then he sighed and went out.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and\ndid not even put his silk scarf round his throat.  As he strolled home,\nsmoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him.  He\nheard one of them whisper to the other, \"That is Dorian Gray.\" He\nremembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared\nat, or talked about.  He was tired of hearing his own name now.  Half\nthe charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was\nthat no one knew who he was.  He had often told the girl whom he had\nlured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him.  He had\ntold her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and\nanswered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly.  What a\nlaugh she had!--just like a thrush singing.  And how pretty she had\nbeen in her cotton dresses and her large hats!  She knew nothing, but\nshe had everything that he had lost.\n\nWhen he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him.  He sent\nhim to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and\nbegan to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him.\n\nWas it really true that one could never change?  He felt a wild longing\nfor the unstained purity of his boyhood--his rose-white boyhood, as\nLord Henry had once called it.  He knew that he had tarnished himself,\nfilled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he\nhad been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible\njoy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had\nbeen the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to\nshame.  But was it all irretrievable?  Was there no hope for him?\n\nAh! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that\nthe portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the\nunsullied splendour of eternal youth!  All his failure had been due to\nthat.  Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure\nswift penalty along with it.  There was purification in punishment.\nNot \"Forgive us our sins\" but \"Smite us for our iniquities\" should be\nthe prayer of man to a most just God.\n\nThe curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many\nyears ago now, was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids\nlaughed round it as of old.  He took it up, as he had done on that\nnight of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal\npicture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished\nshield.  Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a\nmad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: \"The world is changed\nbecause you are made of ivory and gold.  The curves of your lips\nrewrite history.\"  The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated\nthem over and over to himself.  Then he loathed his own beauty, and\nflinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters\nbeneath his heel.  It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty\nand the youth that he had prayed for.  But for those two things, his\nlife might have been free from stain.  His beauty had been to him but a\nmask, his youth but a mockery.  What was youth at best?  A green, an\nunripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts.  Why had he\nworn its livery?  Youth had spoiled him.\n\nIt was better not to think of the past.  Nothing could alter that.  It\nwas of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think.  James\nVane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard.  Alan Campbell\nhad shot himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the\nsecret that he had been forced to know.  The excitement, such as it\nwas, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away.  It was\nalready waning.  He was perfectly safe there.  Nor, indeed, was it the\ndeath of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind.  It was the\nliving death of his own soul that troubled him.  Basil had painted the\nportrait that had marred his life.  He could not forgive him that.  It\nwas the portrait that had done everything.  Basil had said things to\nhim that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience.  The\nmurder had been simply the madness of a moment.  As for Alan Campbell,\nhis suicide had been his own act.  He had chosen to do it.  It was\nnothing to him.\n\nA new life!  That was what he wanted.  That was what he was waiting\nfor.  Surely he had begun it already.  He had spared one innocent\nthing, at any rate.  He would never again tempt innocence.  He would be\ngood.\n\nAs he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in\nthe locked room had changed.  Surely it was not still so horrible as it\nhad been?  Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel\nevery sign of evil passion from the face.  Perhaps the signs of evil\nhad already gone away.  He would go and look.\n\nHe took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs.  As he unbarred the\ndoor, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face\nand lingered for a moment about his lips.  Yes, he would be good, and\nthe hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror\nto him.  He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.\n\nHe went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and\ndragged the purple hanging from the portrait.  A cry of pain and\nindignation broke from him.  He could see no change, save that in the\neyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of\nthe hypocrite.  The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if\npossible, than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed\nbrighter, and more like blood newly spilled.  Then he trembled.  Had it\nbeen merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed?  Or the\ndesire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking\nlaugh?  Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things\nfiner than we are ourselves?  Or, perhaps, all these?  And why was the\nred stain larger than it had been?  It seemed to have crept like a\nhorrible disease over the wrinkled fingers.  There was blood on the\npainted feet, as though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand\nthat had not held the knife.  Confess?  Did it mean that he was to\nconfess?  To give himself up and be put to death?  He laughed.  He felt\nthat the idea was monstrous.  Besides, even if he did confess, who\nwould believe him?  There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere.\nEverything belonging to him had been destroyed.  He himself had burned\nwhat had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad.\nThey would shut him up if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was\nhis duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public\natonement.  There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to\nearth as well as to heaven.  Nothing that he could do would cleanse him\ntill he had told his own sin.  His sin?  He shrugged his shoulders.\nThe death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him.  He was thinking\nof Hetty Merton.  For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul\nthat he was looking at.  Vanity?  Curiosity?  Hypocrisy?  Had there\nbeen nothing more in his renunciation than that?  There had been\nsomething more.  At least he thought so.  But who could tell? ... No.\nThere had been nothing more.  Through vanity he had spared her.  In\nhypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness.  For curiosity's sake he\nhad tried the denial of self.  He recognized that now.\n\nBut this murder--was it to dog him all his life?  Was he always to be\nburdened by his past?  Was he really to confess?  Never.  There was\nonly one bit of evidence left against him.  The picture itself--that\nwas evidence.  He would destroy it.  Why had he kept it so long?  Once\nit had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old.  Of\nlate he had felt no such pleasure.  It had kept him awake at night.\nWhen he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes\nshould look upon it.  It had brought melancholy across his passions.\nIts mere memory had marred many moments of joy.  It had been like\nconscience to him.  Yes, it had been conscience.  He would destroy it.\n\nHe looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward.  He\nhad cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it.  It\nwas bright, and glistened.  As it had killed the painter, so it would\nkill the painter's work, and all that that meant.  It would kill the\npast, and when that was dead, he would be free.  It would kill this\nmonstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at\npeace.  He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it.\n\nThere was a cry heard, and a crash.  The cry was so horrible in its\nagony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms.\nTwo gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked\nup at the great house.  They walked on till they met a policeman and\nbrought him back.  The man rang the bell several times, but there was\nno answer.  Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was\nall dark.  After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico\nand watched.\n\n\"Whose house is that, Constable?\" asked the elder of the two gentlemen.\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir,\" answered the policeman.\n\nThey looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered.  One of\nthem was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.\n\nInside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics\nwere talking in low whispers to each other.  Old Mrs. Leaf was crying\nand wringing her hands.  Francis was as pale as death.\n\nAfter about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the\nfootmen and crept upstairs.  They knocked, but there was no reply.\nThey called out.  Everything was still.  Finally, after vainly trying\nto force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the\nbalcony.  The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old.\n\nWhen they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait\nof their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his\nexquisite youth and beauty.  Lying on the floor was a dead man, in\nevening dress, with a knife in his heart.  He was withered, wrinkled,\nand loathsome of visage.  It was not till they had examined the rings\nthat they recognized who it was.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
        "summary": "Dorian Gray meets Lord Henry Wotton at the studio of Basil Hallward, who is using Dorian as a model for his latest painting. Lord Henry tells Dorian about his epicurean views on life, and convinces him of the value of beauty above all other things. The young and impressionable Dorian is greatly moved by Lord Henry's words. When Basil shows them the newly completed painting, Dorian is flooded with awe at the sight of his own image, and is overwhelmed by his fear that his youth and beauty will fade. He becomes jealous that the picture will be beautiful forever while he is destined to wither and age. He passionately wishes that it could be the other way around. Lord Henry is fascinated with Dorian's innocence as much as Dorian is impressed by Henry's cynically sensual outlook on life. They become fast friends, to Basil's dismay. He fears that Henry will be a corrupting influence on the young, innocent Dorian, whom he adores. Dorian and Lord Henry become fast friends, often dining together and attending the same social functions. Henry's influence has a profound effect on the young man, who soon adopts Henry's views as his own, abandoning ethical restraints and seeing life in terms of pleasure and sensuality. Dorian falls in love with the beautiful Sibyl Vane, a poor but talented young Shakespearean actress. They are engaged to be married until Dorian brings Henry and Basil to a performance, where her acting is uncharacteristically - and inexplicably - terrible. Dorian confronts Sibyl backstage, and she tells him that since she is now truly in love, she no longer believes in acting. Disgusted and offended, Dorian breaks off their engagement and leaves her sobbing on the floor. When he returns home, he discovers that the figure in his portrait now bears a slightly different, more contemptuous facial expression. Dorian awakens late the next day feeling guilty for his treatment of Sibyl, and writes an impassioned love letter begging her forgiveness. Soon, however, Lord Henry arrives, and informs Dorian that Sibyl committed suicide last night. Dorian is shocked and wracked with guilt, but Henry convinces him to view the event artistically, saying that the superb melodrama of her death is a thing to be admired. Succumbing to the older man's suggestion, Dorian decides that he need not feel guilty, especially since his enchanted portrait will now bear his guilt for him. The picture will serve as his conscience, allowing him to live freely. When Basil visits Dorian to console him, he is appalled at his friend's apathy towards Sibyl's death. Dorian is unapologetic and annoyed by Basil's adulation of him. Paranoid that someone might discover the secret of the painting, and therefore the true nature of his soul, Dorian hides the image in his attic. Over the next several years, Dorian's face remains young and innocent, despite his many selfish affairs and scandals. He is an extremely popular socialite, admired for his fine taste and revered as a fashionable trend-setter. The picture, however, continues to age, and grows more unattractive with each foul deed. Dorian cannot keep himself from looking at the picture periodically, but he is appalled by it, and is only truly happy when he manages to forget its existence. He immerses himself in various obsessions, studying mysticism, jewelry, music, and ancient tapestries. These interests, however, are all merely distractions that allow him to forget the hideousness of his true soul. One night, Basil visits Dorian to confront him about all of the terrible rumors he has heard. The painter wants to believe that his friend is stll a good person. Dorian decides to show him the portrait so that he can see the true degradation of his soul, but when Basil sees it he is horrified, and urges his friend to repent for his sins. Basil's reaction enrages Dorian, and he murders the artist with a knife. To dispose of the body, he blackmails an estranged acquaintance, Alan Campbell, a chemist who is able to burn the body in the attic's fireplace. Alan has already been driven into isolation by Dorian's corrupting influence, and this action eventually compels him to commit suicide. Not long after, Dorian visits an opium den and is attacked by James Vane, Sibyl's brother, who has sworn revenge on the man that drove his sister to suicide. 18 years have passed since the event, however, yet Dorian still looks like a 20-year-old youth. James thinks that he is mistaken, and Dorian escapes before his would-be murderer learns the truth. Over the next several days Dorian lives in fear, sure that James is searching for him. While hunting one day, Dorian's friend Geoffrey accidentally shoots a man hiding on Dorian's property. This stranger is revealed to be James Vane. Dorian is overcome with relief, but cannot escape the fact that four deaths now weigh on his conscience. Deciding to change his life for the better, Dorian commits a good deed by refusing to corrupt a young girl who has fallen in love with him. He checks the portrait, hoping to find that it has changed for the better, but when he realizes that the only thing that has changed is the new, hypocritical smirk on the wrinkled face, he realizes that even his effort to save his soul was driven by vanity. In a fit of despair, he decides to destroy the picture with the same knife that he used to kill Basil, its creator. Downstairs, Dorian's servants hear a shriek, and rush upstairs to find their master dead on the floor, the knife plunged into his own chest. Dorian's youthful countenance is gone, and his servants are only able to recognize him by the jewelry on his fingers."
    },
    {
        "book": "\nThe studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light\nsummer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through\nthe open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate\nperfume of the pink-flowering thorn.\n\nFrom the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was\nlying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry\nWotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured\nblossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to\nbear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then\nthe fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long\ntussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,\nproducing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of\nthose pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of\nan art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of\nswiftness and motion.  The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their\nway through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous\ninsistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine,\nseemed to make the stillness more oppressive.  The dim roar of London\nwas like the bourdon note of a distant organ.\n\nIn the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the\nfull-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty,\nand in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist\nhimself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago\ncaused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many\nstrange conjectures.\n\nAs the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so\nskilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his\nface, and seemed about to linger there.  But he suddenly started up,\nand closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he\nsought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he\nfeared he might awake.\n\n\"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,\" said\nLord Henry languidly.  \"You must certainly send it next year to the\nGrosvenor.  The Academy is too large and too vulgar.  Whenever I have\ngone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been\nable to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that\nI have not been able to see the people, which was worse.  The Grosvenor\nis really the only place.\"\n\n\"I don't think I shall send it anywhere,\" he answered, tossing his head\nback in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at\nOxford.  \"No, I won't send it anywhere.\"\n\nLord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through\nthe thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls\nfrom his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette.  \"Not send it anywhere?  My\ndear fellow, why?  Have you any reason?  What odd chaps you painters\nare!  You do anything in the world to gain a reputation.  As soon as\nyou have one, you seem to want to throw it away.  It is silly of you,\nfor there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,\nand that is not being talked about.  A portrait like this would set you\nfar above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite\njealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.\"\n\n\"I know you will laugh at me,\" he replied, \"but I really can't exhibit\nit.  I have put too much of myself into it.\"\n\nLord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.\n\n\"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.\"\n\n\"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you\nwere so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with\nyour rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young\nAdonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why,\nmy dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an\nintellectual expression and all that.  But beauty, real beauty, ends\nwhere an intellectual expression begins.  Intellect is in itself a mode\nof exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.  The moment one\nsits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something\nhorrid.  Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions.\nHow perfectly hideous they are!  Except, of course, in the Church.  But\nthen in the Church they don't think.  A bishop keeps on saying at the\nage of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen,\nand as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.\nYour mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but\nwhose picture really fascinates me, never thinks.  I feel quite sure of\nthat.  He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always\nhere in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in\nsummer when we want something to chill our intelligence.  Don't flatter\nyourself, Basil:  you are not in the least like him.\"\n\n\"You don't understand me, Harry,\" answered the artist.  \"Of course I am\nnot like him.  I know that perfectly well.  Indeed, I should be sorry\nto look like him.  You shrug your shoulders?  I am telling you the\ntruth.  There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual\ndistinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the\nfaltering steps of kings.  It is better not to be different from one's\nfellows.  The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.\nThey can sit at their ease and gape at the play.  If they know nothing\nof victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.  They\nlive as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without\ndisquiet.  They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it\nfrom alien hands.  Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they\nare--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we\nshall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.\"\n\n\"Dorian Gray?  Is that his name?\" asked Lord Henry, walking across the\nstudio towards Basil Hallward.\n\n\"Yes, that is his name.  I didn't intend to tell it to you.\"\n\n\"But why not?\"\n\n\"Oh, I can't explain.  When I like people immensely, I never tell their\nnames to any one.  It is like surrendering a part of them.  I have\ngrown to love secrecy.  It seems to be the one thing that can make\nmodern life mysterious or marvellous to us.  The commonest thing is\ndelightful if one only hides it.  When I leave town now I never tell my\npeople where I am going.  If I did, I would lose all my pleasure.  It\nis a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great\ndeal of romance into one's life.  I suppose you think me awfully\nfoolish about it?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" answered Lord Henry, \"not at all, my dear Basil.  You\nseem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that\nit makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.  I\nnever know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing.\nWhen we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go\ndown to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the\nmost serious faces.  My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact,\nthan I am.  She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do.\nBut when she does find me out, she makes no row at all.  I sometimes\nwish she would; but she merely laughs at me.\"\n\n\"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,\" said Basil\nHallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden.  \"I\nbelieve that you are really a very good husband, but that you are\nthoroughly ashamed of your own virtues.  You are an extraordinary\nfellow.  You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.\nYour cynicism is simply a pose.\"\n\n\"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,\"\ncried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the\ngarden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that\nstood in the shade of a tall laurel bush.  The sunlight slipped over\nthe polished leaves.  In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.\n\nAfter a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch.  \"I am afraid I must be\ngoing, Basil,\" he murmured, \"and before I go, I insist on your\nanswering a question I put to you some time ago.\"\n\n\"What is that?\" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.\n\n\"You know quite well.\"\n\n\"I do not, Harry.\"\n\n\"Well, I will tell you what it is.  I want you to explain to me why you\nwon't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture.  I want the real reason.\"\n\n\"I told you the real reason.\"\n\n\"No, you did not.  You said it was because there was too much of\nyourself in it.  Now, that is childish.\"\n\n\"Harry,\" said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, \"every\nportrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not\nof the sitter.  The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion.  It is\nnot he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on\nthe coloured canvas, reveals himself.  The reason I will not exhibit\nthis picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of\nmy own soul.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"And what is that?\" he asked.\n\n\"I will tell you,\" said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came\nover his face.\n\n\"I am all expectation, Basil,\" continued his companion, glancing at him.\n\n\"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry,\" answered the painter;\n\"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it.  Perhaps you will\nhardly believe it.\"\n\nLord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from\nthe grass and examined it.  \"I am quite sure I shall understand it,\" he\nreplied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk,\n\"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it\nis quite incredible.\"\n\nThe wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy\nlilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the\nlanguid air.  A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a\nblue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze\nwings.  Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart\nbeating, and wondered what was coming.\n\n\"The story is simply this,\" said the painter after some time.  \"Two\nmonths ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor\nartists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to\nremind the public that we are not savages.  With an evening coat and a\nwhite tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain\na reputation for being civilized.  Well, after I had been in the room\nabout ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious\nacademicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at\nme.  I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time.\nWhen our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale.  A curious sensation\nof terror came over me.  I knew that I had come face to face with some\none whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to\ndo so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art\nitself.  I did not want any external influence in my life.  You know\nyourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature.  I have always been my\nown master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray.\nThen--but I don't know how to explain it to you.  Something seemed to\ntell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life.  I had\na strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and\nexquisite sorrows.  I grew afraid and turned to quit the room.  It was\nnot conscience that made me do so:  it was a sort of cowardice.  I take\nno credit to myself for trying to escape.\"\n\n\"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil.\nConscience is the trade-name of the firm.  That is all.\"\n\n\"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.\nHowever, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used\nto be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door.  There, of course,\nI stumbled against Lady Brandon.  'You are not going to run away so\nsoon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out.  You know her curiously shrill\nvoice?\"\n\n\"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,\" said Lord Henry,\npulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.\n\n\"I could not get rid of her.  She brought me up to royalties, and\npeople with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras\nand parrot noses.  She spoke of me as her dearest friend.  I had only\nmet her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me.  I\nbelieve some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at\nleast had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the\nnineteenth-century standard of immortality.  Suddenly I found myself\nface to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely\nstirred me.  We were quite close, almost touching.  Our eyes met again.\nIt was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.\nPerhaps it was not so reckless, after all.  It was simply inevitable.\nWe would have spoken to each other without any introduction.  I am sure\nof that.  Dorian told me so afterwards.  He, too, felt that we were\ndestined to know each other.\"\n\n\"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?\" asked his\ncompanion.  \"I know she goes in for giving a rapid _precis_ of all her\nguests.  I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old\ngentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my\near, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to\neverybody in the room, the most astounding details.  I simply fled.  I\nlike to find out people for myself.  But Lady Brandon treats her guests\nexactly as an auctioneer treats his goods.  She either explains them\nentirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants\nto know.\"\n\n\"Poor Lady Brandon!  You are hard on her, Harry!\" said Hallward\nlistlessly.\n\n\"My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in\nopening a restaurant.  How could I admire her?  But tell me, what did\nshe say about Mr. Dorian Gray?\"\n\n\"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely\ninseparable.  Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do\nanything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr.\nGray?'  Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at\nonce.\"\n\n\"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far\nthe best ending for one,\" said the young lord, plucking another daisy.\n\nHallward shook his head.  \"You don't understand what friendship is,\nHarry,\" he murmured--\"or what enmity is, for that matter.  You like\nevery one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.\"\n\n\"How horribly unjust of you!\" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back\nand looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of\nglossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the\nsummer sky.  \"Yes; horribly unjust of you.  I make a great difference\nbetween people.  I choose my friends for their good looks, my\nacquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good\nintellects.  A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.\nI have not got one who is a fool.  They are all men of some\nintellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.  Is that\nvery vain of me?  I think it is rather vain.\"\n\n\"I should think it was, Harry.  But according to your category I must\nbe merely an acquaintance.\"\n\n\"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance.\"\n\n\"And much less than a friend.  A sort of brother, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Oh, brothers!  I don't care for brothers.  My elder brother won't die,\nand my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.\"\n\n\"Harry!\" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.\n\n\"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious.  But I can't help detesting my\nrelations.  I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand\nother people having the same faults as ourselves.  I quite sympathize\nwith the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices\nof the upper orders.  The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and\nimmorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of\nus makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves.  When\npoor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite\nmagnificent.  And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the\nproletariat live correctly.\"\n\n\"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is\nmore, Harry, I feel sure you don't either.\"\n\nLord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his\npatent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane.  \"How English you are\nBasil!  That is the second time you have made that observation.  If one\nputs forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to\ndo--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong.\nThe only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes\nit oneself.  Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do\nwith the sincerity of the man who expresses it.  Indeed, the\nprobabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely\nintellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured\nby either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.  However, I don't\npropose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you.  I\nlike persons better than principles, and I like persons with no\nprinciples better than anything else in the world.  Tell me more about\nMr. Dorian Gray.  How often do you see him?\"\n\n\"Every day.  I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day.  He is\nabsolutely necessary to me.\"\n\n\"How extraordinary!  I thought you would never care for anything but\nyour art.\"\n\n\"He is all my art to me now,\" said the painter gravely.  \"I sometimes\nthink, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the\nworld's history.  The first is the appearance of a new medium for art,\nand the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also.\nWhat the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of\nAntinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will\nsome day be to me.  It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from\nhim, sketch from him.  Of course, I have done all that.  But he is much\nmore to me than a model or a sitter.  I won't tell you that I am\ndissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such\nthat art cannot express it.  There is nothing that art cannot express,\nand I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good\nwork, is the best work of my life.  But in some curious way--I wonder\nwill you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an\nentirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style.  I see\nthings differently, I think of them differently.  I can now recreate\nlife in a way that was hidden from me before.  'A dream of form in days\nof thought'--who is it who says that?  I forget; but it is what Dorian\nGray has been to me.  The merely visible presence of this lad--for he\nseems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over\ntwenty--his merely visible presence--ah!  I wonder can you realize all\nthat that means?  Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh\nschool, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic\nspirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek.  The harmony of\nsoul and body--how much that is!  We in our madness have separated the\ntwo, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is\nvoid.  Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!  You remember\nthat landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price\nbut which I would not part with?  It is one of the best things I have\never done.  And why is it so?  Because, while I was painting it, Dorian\nGray sat beside me.  Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and\nfor the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I\nhad always looked for and always missed.\"\n\n\"Basil, this is extraordinary!  I must see Dorian Gray.\"\n\nHallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden.  After\nsome time he came back.  \"Harry,\" he said, \"Dorian Gray is to me simply\na motive in art.  You might see nothing in him.  I see everything in\nhim.  He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is\nthere.  He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner.  I find\nhim in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of\ncertain colours.  That is all.\"\n\n\"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?\" asked Lord Henry.\n\n\"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of\nall this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never\ncared to speak to him.  He knows nothing about it.  He shall never know\nanything about it.  But the world might guess it, and I will not bare\nmy soul to their shallow prying eyes.  My heart shall never be put\nunder their microscope.  There is too much of myself in the thing,\nHarry--too much of myself!\"\n\n\"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.  They know how useful passion\nis for publication.  Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.\"\n\n\"I hate them for it,\" cried Hallward.  \"An artist should create\nbeautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.  We\nlive in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of\nautobiography.  We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.  Some day I\nwill show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall\nnever see my portrait of Dorian Gray.\"\n\n\"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you.  It is only\nthe intellectually lost who ever argue.  Tell me, is Dorian Gray very\nfond of you?\"\n\nThe painter considered for a few moments.  \"He likes me,\" he answered\nafter a pause; \"I know he likes me.  Of course I flatter him\ndreadfully.  I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I\nknow I shall be sorry for having said.  As a rule, he is charming to\nme, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things.  Now and\nthen, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real\ndelight in giving me pain.  Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away\nmy whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put\nin his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a\nsummer's day.\"\n\n\"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will.  It is a sad thing to think\nof, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.  That\naccounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate\nourselves.  In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have\nsomething that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and\nfacts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.  The thoroughly\nwell-informed man--that is the modern ideal.  And the mind of the\nthoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing.  It is like a\n_bric-a-brac_ shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above\nits proper value.  I think you will tire first, all the same.  Some day\nyou will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little\nout of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something.\nYou will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think\nthat he has behaved very badly to you.  The next time he calls, you\nwill be perfectly cold and indifferent.  It will be a great pity, for\nit will alter you.  What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance\nof art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind\nis that it leaves one so unromantic.\"\n\n\"Harry, don't talk like that.  As long as I live, the personality of\nDorian Gray will dominate me.  You can't feel what I feel.  You change\ntoo often.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it.  Those who are\nfaithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who\nknow love's tragedies.\"  And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty\nsilver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and\nsatisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase.  There was\na rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy,\nand the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like\nswallows.  How pleasant it was in the garden!  And how delightful other\npeople's emotions were!--much more delightful than their ideas, it\nseemed to him.  One's own soul, and the passions of one's\nfriends--those were the fascinating things in life.  He pictured to\nhimself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed\nby staying so long with Basil Hallward.  Had he gone to his aunt's, he\nwould have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole\nconversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the\nnecessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the\nimportance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity\nin their own lives.  The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift,\nand the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.  It was\ncharming to have escaped all that!  As he thought of his aunt, an idea\nseemed to strike him.  He turned to Hallward and said, \"My dear fellow,\nI have just remembered.\"\n\n\"Remembered what, Harry?\"\n\n\"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray.\"\n\n\"Where was it?\" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.\n\n\"Don't look so angry, Basil.  It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's.  She\ntold me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help\nher in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray.  I am bound to\nstate that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no\nappreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not.  She said\nthat he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature.  I at once\npictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly\nfreckled, and tramping about on huge feet.  I wish I had known it was\nyour friend.\"\n\n\"I am very glad you didn't, Harry.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I don't want you to meet him.\"\n\n\"You don't want me to meet him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir,\" said the butler, coming into\nthe garden.\n\n\"You must introduce me now,\" cried Lord Henry, laughing.\n\nThe painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight.\n\"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker:  I shall be in in a few moments.\" The\nman bowed and went up the walk.\n\nThen he looked at Lord Henry.  \"Dorian Gray is my dearest friend,\" he\nsaid.  \"He has a simple and a beautiful nature.  Your aunt was quite\nright in what she said of him.  Don't spoil him.  Don't try to\ninfluence him.  Your influence would be bad.  The world is wide, and\nhas many marvellous people in it.  Don't take away from me the one\nperson who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses:  my life as an\nartist depends on him.  Mind, Harry, I trust you.\"  He spoke very\nslowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.\n\n\"What nonsense you talk!\" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward\nby the arm, he almost led him into the house.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs they entered they saw Dorian Gray.  He was seated at the piano, with\nhis back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's\n\"Forest Scenes.\"  \"You must lend me these, Basil,\" he cried.  \"I want\nto learn them.  They are perfectly charming.\"\n\n\"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of\nmyself,\" answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a\nwilful, petulant manner.  When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint\nblush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up.  \"I beg your\npardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you.\"\n\n\"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine.  I\nhave just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you\nhave spoiled everything.\"\n\n\"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord\nHenry, stepping forward and extending his hand.  \"My aunt has often\nspoken to me about you.  You are one of her favourites, and, I am\nafraid, one of her victims also.\"\n\n\"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present,\" answered Dorian with a\nfunny look of penitence.  \"I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel\nwith her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it.  We were to\nhave played a duet together--three duets, I believe.  I don't know what\nshe will say to me.  I am far too frightened to call.\"\n\n\"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt.  She is quite devoted to you.\nAnd I don't think it really matters about your not being there.  The\naudience probably thought it was a duet.  When Aunt Agatha sits down to\nthe piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people.\"\n\n\"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me,\" answered Dorian,\nlaughing.\n\nLord Henry looked at him.  Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome,\nwith his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp\ngold hair.  There was something in his face that made one trust him at\nonce.  All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's\npassionate purity.  One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from\nthe world.  No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.\n\n\"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too\ncharming.\" And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened\nhis cigarette-case.\n\nThe painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes\nready.  He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last\nremark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,\n\"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it\nawfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?\"\n\nLord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray.  \"Am I to go, Mr. Gray?\"\nhe asked.\n\n\"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry.  I see that Basil is in one of his sulky\nmoods, and I can't bear him when he sulks.  Besides, I want you to tell\nme why I should not go in for philanthropy.\"\n\n\"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray.  It is so tedious a\nsubject that one would have to talk seriously about it.  But I\ncertainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop.  You\ndon't really mind, Basil, do you?  You have often told me that you\nliked your sitters to have some one to chat to.\"\n\nHallward bit his lip.  \"If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.\nDorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself.\"\n\nLord Henry took up his hat and gloves.  \"You are very pressing, Basil,\nbut I am afraid I must go.  I have promised to meet a man at the\nOrleans.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon\nStreet.  I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when\nyou are coming.  I should be sorry to miss you.\"\n\n\"Basil,\" cried Dorian Gray, \"if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go,\ntoo.  You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is\nhorribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.  Ask\nhim to stay.  I insist upon it.\"\n\n\"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,\" said Hallward,\ngazing intently at his picture.  \"It is quite true, I never talk when I\nam working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious\nfor my unfortunate sitters.  I beg you to stay.\"\n\n\"But what about my man at the Orleans?\"\n\nThe painter laughed.  \"I don't think there will be any difficulty about\nthat.  Sit down again, Harry.  And now, Dorian, get up on the platform,\nand don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry\nsays.  He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the\nsingle exception of myself.\"\n\nDorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek\nmartyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he\nhad rather taken a fancy.  He was so unlike Basil.  They made a\ndelightful contrast.  And he had such a beautiful voice.  After a few\nmoments he said to him, \"Have you really a very bad influence, Lord\nHenry?  As bad as Basil says?\"\n\n\"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray.  All influence\nis immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.  He does\nnot think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.  His\nvirtues are not real to him.  His sins, if there are such things as\nsins, are borrowed.  He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an\nactor of a part that has not been written for him.  The aim of life is\nself-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each\nof us is here for.  People are afraid of themselves, nowadays.  They\nhave forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to\none's self.  Of course, they are charitable.  They feed the hungry and\nclothe the beggar.  But their own souls starve, and are naked.  Courage\nhas gone out of our race.  Perhaps we never really had it.  The terror\nof society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is\nthe secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us.  And\nyet--\"\n\n\"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good\nboy,\" said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look\nhad come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.\n\n\"And yet,\" continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with\nthat graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of\nhim, and that he had even in his Eton days, \"I believe that if one man\nwere to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to\nevery feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I\nbelieve that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we\nwould forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the\nHellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it\nmay be.  But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.  The\nmutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial\nthat mars our lives.  We are punished for our refusals.  Every impulse\nthat we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us.  The body\nsins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of\npurification.  Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,\nor the luxury of a regret.  The only way to get rid of a temptation is\nto yield to it.  Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for\nthe things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its\nmonstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.  It has been said that\nthe great events of the world take place in the brain.  It is in the\nbrain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place\nalso.  You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your\nrose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,\nthoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping\ndreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--\"\n\n\"Stop!\" faltered Dorian Gray, \"stop! you bewilder me.  I don't know\nwhat to say.  There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.  Don't\nspeak.  Let me think.  Or, rather, let me try not to think.\"\n\nFor nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and\neyes strangely bright.  He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh\ninfluences were at work within him.  Yet they seemed to him to have\ncome really from himself.  The few words that Basil's friend had said\nto him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in\nthem--had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before,\nbut that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.\n\nMusic had stirred him like that.  Music had troubled him many times.\nBut music was not articulate.  It was not a new world, but rather\nanother chaos, that it created in us.  Words!  Mere words!  How\nterrible they were!  How clear, and vivid, and cruel!  One could not\nescape from them.  And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!  They\nseemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to\nhave a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute.  Mere\nwords!  Was there anything so real as words?\n\nYes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.\nHe understood them now.  Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him.\nIt seemed to him that he had been walking in fire.  Why had he not\nknown it?\n\nWith his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him.  He knew the precise\npsychological moment when to say nothing.  He felt intensely\ninterested.  He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had\nproduced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen,\na book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he\nwondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience.\nHe had merely shot an arrow into the air.  Had it hit the mark?  How\nfascinating the lad was!\n\nHallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had\nthe true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes\nonly from strength.  He was unconscious of the silence.\n\n\"Basil, I am tired of standing,\" cried Dorian Gray suddenly.  \"I must\ngo out and sit in the garden.  The air is stifling here.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, I am so sorry.  When I am painting, I can't think of\nanything else.  But you never sat better.  You were perfectly still.\nAnd I have caught the effect I wanted--the half-parted lips and the\nbright look in the eyes.  I don't know what Harry has been saying to\nyou, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression.\nI suppose he has been paying you compliments.  You mustn't believe a\nword that he says.\"\n\n\"He has certainly not been paying me compliments.  Perhaps that is the\nreason that I don't believe anything he has told me.\"\n\n\"You know you believe it all,\" said Lord Henry, looking at him with his\ndreamy languorous eyes.  \"I will go out to the garden with you.  It is\nhorribly hot in the studio.  Basil, let us have something iced to\ndrink, something with strawberries in it.\"\n\n\"Certainly, Harry.  Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will\ntell him what you want.  I have got to work up this background, so I\nwill join you later on.  Don't keep Dorian too long.  I have never been\nin better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my\nmasterpiece.  It is my masterpiece as it stands.\"\n\nLord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his\nface in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their\nperfume as if it had been wine.  He came close to him and put his hand\nupon his shoulder.  \"You are quite right to do that,\" he murmured.\n\"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the\nsenses but the soul.\"\n\nThe lad started and drew back.  He was bareheaded, and the leaves had\ntossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads.\nThere was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are\nsuddenly awakened.  His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some\nhidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.\n\n\"Yes,\" continued Lord Henry, \"that is one of the great secrets of\nlife--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means\nof the soul.  You are a wonderful creation.  You know more than you\nthink you know, just as you know less than you want to know.\"\n\nDorian Gray frowned and turned his head away.  He could not help liking\nthe tall, graceful young man who was standing by him.  His romantic,\nolive-coloured face and worn expression interested him.  There was\nsomething in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating.\nHis cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm.  They\nmoved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their\nown.  But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid.  Why had\nit been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself?  He had known\nBasil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never\naltered him.  Suddenly there had come some one across his life who\nseemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery.  And, yet, what was\nthere to be afraid of?  He was not a schoolboy or a girl.  It was\nabsurd to be frightened.\n\n\"Let us go and sit in the shade,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Parker has brought\nout the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be\nquite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again.  You really must\nnot allow yourself to become sunburnt.  It would be unbecoming.\"\n\n\"What can it matter?\" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on\nthe seat at the end of the garden.\n\n\"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing\nworth having.\"\n\n\"I don't feel that, Lord Henry.\"\n\n\"No, you don't feel it now.  Some day, when you are old and wrinkled\nand ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and\npassion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you\nwill feel it terribly.  Now, wherever you go, you charm the world.\nWill it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr.\nGray.  Don't frown.  You have.  And beauty is a form of genius--is\nhigher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.  It is of the\ngreat facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the\nreflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon.  It\ncannot be questioned.  It has its divine right of sovereignty.  It\nmakes princes of those who have it.  You smile?  Ah! when you have lost\nit you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only\nsuperficial.  That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as\nthought is.  To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders.  It is only\nshallow people who do not judge by appearances.  The true mystery of\nthe world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the\ngods have been good to you.  But what the gods give they quickly take\naway.  You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly,\nand fully.  When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then\nyou will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or\nhave to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of\nyour past will make more bitter than defeats.  Every month as it wanes\nbrings you nearer to something dreadful.  Time is jealous of you, and\nwars against your lilies and your roses.  You will become sallow, and\nhollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.  You will suffer horribly.... Ah!\nrealize your youth while you have it.  Don't squander the gold of your\ndays, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure,\nor giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar.\nThese are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age.  Live!  Live\nthe wonderful life that is in you!  Let nothing be lost upon you.  Be\nalways searching for new sensations.  Be afraid of nothing.... A new\nHedonism--that is what our century wants.  You might be its visible\nsymbol.  With your personality there is nothing you could not do.  The\nworld belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that\nyou were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really\nmight be.  There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must\ntell you something about yourself.  I thought how tragic it would be if\nyou were wasted.  For there is such a little time that your youth will\nlast--such a little time.  The common hill-flowers wither, but they\nblossom again.  The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now.\nIn a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after\nyear the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars.  But we\nnever get back our youth.  The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty\nbecomes sluggish.  Our limbs fail, our senses rot.  We degenerate into\nhideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were\ntoo much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the\ncourage to yield to.  Youth!  Youth!  There is absolutely nothing in\nthe world but youth!\"\n\nDorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering.  The spray of lilac fell\nfrom his hand upon the gravel.  A furry bee came and buzzed round it\nfor a moment.  Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated\nglobe of the tiny blossoms.  He watched it with that strange interest\nin trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import\nmake us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we\ncannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays\nsudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield.  After a time the\nbee flew away.  He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian\nconvolvulus.  The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to\nand fro.\n\nSuddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made\nstaccato signs for them to come in.  They turned to each other and\nsmiled.\n\n\"I am waiting,\" he cried.  \"Do come in.  The light is quite perfect,\nand you can bring your drinks.\"\n\nThey rose up and sauntered down the walk together.  Two green-and-white\nbutterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of\nthe garden a thrush began to sing.\n\n\"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord Henry, looking at\nhim.\n\n\"Yes, I am glad now.  I wonder shall I always be glad?\"\n\n\"Always!  That is a dreadful word.  It makes me shudder when I hear it.\nWomen are so fond of using it.  They spoil every romance by trying to\nmake it last for ever.  It is a meaningless word, too.  The only\ndifference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice\nlasts a little longer.\"\n\nAs they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's\narm.  \"In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,\" he murmured,\nflushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and\nresumed his pose.\n\nLord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him.\nThe sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that\nbroke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back\nto look at his work from a distance.  In the slanting beams that\nstreamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden.  The\nheavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.\n\nAfter about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for\na long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture,\nbiting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning.  \"It is quite\nfinished,\" he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in\nlong vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.\n\nLord Henry came over and examined the picture.  It was certainly a\nwonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.\n\n\"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,\" he said.  \"It is the\nfinest portrait of modern times.  Mr. Gray, come over and look at\nyourself.\"\n\nThe lad started, as if awakened from some dream.\n\n\"Is it really finished?\" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.\n\n\"Quite finished,\" said the painter.  \"And you have sat splendidly\nto-day. I am awfully obliged to you.\"\n\n\"That is entirely due to me,\" broke in Lord Henry.  \"Isn't it, Mr.\nGray?\"\n\nDorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture\nand turned towards it.  When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks\nflushed for a moment with pleasure.  A look of joy came into his eyes,\nas if he had recognized himself for the first time.  He stood there\nmotionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to\nhim, but not catching the meaning of his words.  The sense of his own\nbeauty came on him like a revelation.  He had never felt it before.\nBasil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the\ncharming exaggeration of friendship.  He had listened to them, laughed\nat them, forgotten them.  They had not influenced his nature.  Then had\ncome Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his\nterrible warning of its brevity.  That had stirred him at the time, and\nnow, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full\nreality of the description flashed across him.  Yes, there would be a\nday when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and\ncolourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed.  The scarlet\nwould pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair.  The\nlife that was to make his soul would mar his body.  He would become\ndreadful, hideous, and uncouth.\n\nAs he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a\nknife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver.  His eyes\ndeepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears.  He felt\nas if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.\n\n\"Don't you like it?\" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the\nlad's silence, not understanding what it meant.\n\n\"Of course he likes it,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Who wouldn't like it?  It\nis one of the greatest things in modern art.  I will give you anything\nyou like to ask for it.  I must have it.\"\n\n\"It is not my property, Harry.\"\n\n\"Whose property is it?\"\n\n\"Dorian's, of course,\" answered the painter.\n\n\"He is a very lucky fellow.\"\n\n\"How sad it is!\" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon\nhis own portrait.  \"How sad it is!  I shall grow old, and horrible, and\ndreadful.  But this picture will remain always young.  It will never be\nolder than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other\nway!  If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was\nto grow old!  For that--for that--I would give everything!  Yes, there\nis nothing in the whole world I would not give!  I would give my soul\nfor that!\"\n\n\"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,\" cried Lord\nHenry, laughing.  \"It would be rather hard lines on your work.\"\n\n\"I should object very strongly, Harry,\" said Hallward.\n\nDorian Gray turned and looked at him.  \"I believe you would, Basil.\nYou like your art better than your friends.  I am no more to you than a\ngreen bronze figure.  Hardly as much, I dare say.\"\n\nThe painter stared in amazement.  It was so unlike Dorian to speak like\nthat.  What had happened?  He seemed quite angry.  His face was flushed\nand his cheeks burning.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your\nsilver Faun.  You will like them always.  How long will you like me?\nTill I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.  I know, now, that when one\nloses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.\nYour picture has taught me that.  Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right.\nYouth is the only thing worth having.  When I find that I am growing\nold, I shall kill myself.\"\n\nHallward turned pale and caught his hand.  \"Dorian!  Dorian!\" he cried,\n\"don't talk like that.  I have never had such a friend as you, and I\nshall never have such another.  You are not jealous of material things,\nare you?--you who are finer than any of them!\"\n\n\"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.  I am jealous of\nthe portrait you have painted of me.  Why should it keep what I must\nlose?  Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives\nsomething to it.  Oh, if it were only the other way!  If the picture\ncould change, and I could be always what I am now!  Why did you paint\nit?  It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!\"  The hot tears welled\ninto his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the\ndivan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.\n\n\"This is your doing, Harry,\" said the painter bitterly.\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"It is the real Dorian Gray--that\nis all.\"\n\n\"It is not.\"\n\n\"If it is not, what have I to do with it?\"\n\n\"You should have gone away when I asked you,\" he muttered.\n\n\"I stayed when you asked me,\" was Lord Henry's answer.\n\n\"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between\nyou both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever\ndone, and I will destroy it.  What is it but canvas and colour?  I will\nnot let it come across our three lives and mar them.\"\n\nDorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid\nface and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal\npainting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window.  What\nwas he doing there?  His fingers were straying about among the litter\nof tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something.  Yes, it was for\nthe long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel.  He had\nfound it at last.  He was going to rip up the canvas.\n\nWith a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to\nHallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of\nthe studio.  \"Don't, Basil, don't!\" he cried.  \"It would be murder!\"\n\n\"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian,\" said the painter\ncoldly when he had recovered from his surprise.  \"I never thought you\nwould.\"\n\n\"Appreciate it?  I am in love with it, Basil.  It is part of myself.  I\nfeel that.\"\n\n\"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and\nsent home.  Then you can do what you like with yourself.\" And he walked\nacross the room and rang the bell for tea.  \"You will have tea, of\ncourse, Dorian?  And so will you, Harry?  Or do you object to such\nsimple pleasures?\"\n\n\"I adore simple pleasures,\" said Lord Henry.  \"They are the last refuge\nof the complex.  But I don't like scenes, except on the stage.  What\nabsurd fellows you are, both of you!  I wonder who it was defined man\nas a rational animal.  It was the most premature definition ever given.\nMan is many things, but he is not rational.  I am glad he is not, after\nall--though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture.  You\nhad much better let me have it, Basil.  This silly boy doesn't really\nwant it, and I really do.\"\n\n\"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!\"\ncried Dorian Gray; \"and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy.\"\n\n\"You know the picture is yours, Dorian.  I gave it to you before it\nexisted.\"\n\n\"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you\ndon't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young.\"\n\n\"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry.\"\n\n\"Ah! this morning!  You have lived since then.\"\n\nThere came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden\ntea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table.  There was a\nrattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.\nTwo globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page.  Dorian Gray\nwent over and poured out the tea.  The two men sauntered languidly to\nthe table and examined what was under the covers.\n\n\"Let us go to the theatre to-night,\" said Lord Henry.  \"There is sure\nto be something on, somewhere.  I have promised to dine at White's, but\nit is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I\nam ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a\nsubsequent engagement.  I think that would be a rather nice excuse:  it\nwould have all the surprise of candour.\"\n\n\"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes,\" muttered Hallward.\n\"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Lord Henry dreamily, \"the costume of the nineteenth\ncentury is detestable.  It is so sombre, so depressing.  Sin is the\nonly real colour-element left in modern life.\"\n\n\"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.\"\n\n\"Before which Dorian?  The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the\none in the picture?\"\n\n\"Before either.\"\n\n\"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry,\" said the\nlad.\n\n\"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?\"\n\n\"I can't, really.  I would sooner not.  I have a lot of work to do.\"\n\n\"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"I should like that awfully.\"\n\nThe painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture.\n\"I shall stay with the real Dorian,\" he said, sadly.\n\n\"Is it the real Dorian?\" cried the original of the portrait, strolling\nacross to him.  \"Am I really like that?\"\n\n\"Yes; you are just like that.\"\n\n\"How wonderful, Basil!\"\n\n\"At least you are like it in appearance.  But it will never alter,\"\nsighed Hallward.  \"That is something.\"\n\n\"What a fuss people make about fidelity!\" exclaimed Lord Henry.  \"Why,\neven in love it is purely a question for physiology.  It has nothing to\ndo with our own will.  Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old\nmen want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.\"\n\n\"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian,\" said Hallward.  \"Stop and\ndine with me.\"\n\n\"I can't, Basil.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him.\"\n\n\"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises.  He always\nbreaks his own.  I beg you not to go.\"\n\nDorian Gray laughed and shook his head.\n\n\"I entreat you.\"\n\nThe lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them\nfrom the tea-table with an amused smile.\n\n\"I must go, Basil,\" he answered.\n\n\"Very well,\" said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on\nthe tray.  \"It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had\nbetter lose no time.  Good-bye, Harry.  Good-bye, Dorian.  Come and see\nme soon.  Come to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"You won't forget?\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" cried Dorian.\n\n\"And ... Harry!\"\n\n\"Yes, Basil?\"\n\n\"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning.\"\n\n\"I have forgotten it.\"\n\n\"I trust you.\"\n\n\"I wish I could trust myself,\" said Lord Henry, laughing.  \"Come, Mr.\nGray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.\nGood-bye, Basil.  It has been a most interesting afternoon.\"\n\nAs the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a\nsofa, and a look of pain came into his face.\n\n\n\n\n\nAt half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon\nStreet over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial\nif somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called\nselfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was\nconsidered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him.\nHis father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young\nand Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a\ncapricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at\nParis, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by\nreason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches,\nand his inordinate passion for pleasure.  The son, who had been his\nfather's secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat\nfoolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months\nlater to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great\naristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.  He had two large town\nhouses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and\ntook most of his meals at his club.  He paid some attention to the\nmanagement of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself\nfor this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of\nhaving coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of\nburning wood on his own hearth.  In politics he was a Tory, except when\nthe Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them\nfor being a pack of Radicals.  He was a hero to his valet, who bullied\nhim, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn.\nOnly England could have produced him, and he always said that the\ncountry was going to the dogs.  His principles were out of date, but\nthere was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.\n\nWhen Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough\nshooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_.  \"Well,\nHarry,\" said the old gentleman, \"what brings you out so early?  I\nthought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till\nfive.\"\n\n\"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George.  I want to get\nsomething out of you.\"\n\n\"Money, I suppose,\" said Lord Fermor, making a wry face.  \"Well, sit\ndown and tell me all about it.  Young people, nowadays, imagine that\nmoney is everything.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; \"and\nwhen they grow older they know it.  But I don't want money.  It is only\npeople who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay\nmine.  Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly\nupon it.  Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and\nconsequently they never bother me.  What I want is information:  not\nuseful information, of course; useless information.\"\n\n\"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry,\nalthough those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense.  When I was in\nthe Diplomatic, things were much better.  But I hear they let them in\nnow by examination.  What can you expect?  Examinations, sir, are pure\nhumbug from beginning to end.  If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite\nenough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.\"\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George,\" said\nLord Henry languidly.\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray?  Who is he?\" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy\nwhite eyebrows.\n\n\"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George.  Or rather, I know\nwho he is.  He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson.  His mother was a\nDevereux, Lady Margaret Devereux.  I want you to tell me about his\nmother.  What was she like?  Whom did she marry?  You have known nearly\neverybody in your time, so you might have known her.  I am very much\ninterested in Mr. Gray at present.  I have only just met him.\"\n\n\"Kelso's grandson!\" echoed the old gentleman.  \"Kelso's grandson! ...\nOf course.... I knew his mother intimately.  I believe I was at her\nchristening.  She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret\nDevereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless\nyoung fellow--a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or\nsomething of that kind.  Certainly.  I remember the whole thing as if\nit happened yesterday.  The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few\nmonths after the marriage.  There was an ugly story about it.  They\nsaid Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult\nhis son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and that\nthe fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon.  The thing was\nhushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some\ntime afterwards.  He brought his daughter back with him, I was told,\nand she never spoke to him again.  Oh, yes; it was a bad business.  The\ngirl died, too, died within a year.  So she left a son, did she?  I had\nforgotten that.  What sort of boy is he?  If he is like his mother, he\nmust be a good-looking chap.\"\n\n\"He is very good-looking,\" assented Lord Henry.\n\n\"I hope he will fall into proper hands,\" continued the old man.  \"He\nshould have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing\nby him.  His mother had money, too.  All the Selby property came to\nher, through her grandfather.  Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him\na mean dog.  He was, too.  Came to Madrid once when I was there.  Egad,\nI was ashamed of him.  The Queen used to ask me about the English noble\nwho was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares.  They\nmade quite a story of it.  I didn't dare show my face at Court for a\nmonth.  I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" answered Lord Henry.  \"I fancy that the boy will be\nwell off.  He is not of age yet.  He has Selby, I know.  He told me so.\nAnd ... his mother was very beautiful?\"\n\n\"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw,\nHarry.  What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could\nunderstand.  She could have married anybody she chose.  Carlington was\nmad after her.  She was romantic, though.  All the women of that family\nwere.  The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful.\nCarlington went on his knees to her.  Told me so himself.  She laughed\nat him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after\nhim.  And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is\nthis humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an\nAmerican?  Ain't English girls good enough for him?\"\n\n\"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George.\"\n\n\"I'll back English women against the world, Harry,\" said Lord Fermor,\nstriking the table with his fist.\n\n\"The betting is on the Americans.\"\n\n\"They don't last, I am told,\" muttered his uncle.\n\n\"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a\nsteeplechase.  They take things flying.  I don't think Dartmoor has a\nchance.\"\n\n\"Who are her people?\" grumbled the old gentleman.  \"Has she got any?\"\n\nLord Henry shook his head.  \"American girls are as clever at concealing\ntheir parents, as English women are at concealing their past,\" he said,\nrising to go.\n\n\"They are pork-packers, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake.  I am told that\npork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after\npolitics.\"\n\n\"Is she pretty?\"\n\n\"She behaves as if she was beautiful.  Most American women do.  It is\nthe secret of their charm.\"\n\n\"Why can't these American women stay in their own country?  They are\nalways telling us that it is the paradise for women.\"\n\n\"It is.  That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively\nanxious to get out of it,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Good-bye, Uncle George.\nI shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer.  Thanks for giving me\nthe information I wanted.  I always like to know everything about my\nnew friends, and nothing about my old ones.\"\n\n\"Where are you lunching, Harry?\"\n\n\"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray.  He is her latest\n_protege_.\"\n\n\"Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with\nher charity appeals.  I am sick of them.  Why, the good woman thinks\nthat I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads.\"\n\n\"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect.\nPhilanthropic people lose all sense of humanity.  It is their\ndistinguishing characteristic.\"\n\nThe old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his\nservant.  Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street\nand turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square.\n\nSo that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage.  Crudely as it had\nbeen told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a\nstrange, almost modern romance.  A beautiful woman risking everything\nfor a mad passion.  A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a\nhideous, treacherous crime.  Months of voiceless agony, and then a\nchild born in pain.  The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to\nsolitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man.  Yes; it was an\ninteresting background.  It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it\nwere.  Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something\ntragic.  Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might\nblow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as\nwith startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat\nopposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer\nrose the wakening wonder of his face.  Talking to him was like playing\nupon an exquisite violin.  He answered to every touch and thrill of the\nbow.... There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of\ninfluence.  No other activity was like it.  To project one's soul into\nsome gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's\nown intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of\npassion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though\nit were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in\nthat--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited\nand vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and\ngrossly common in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad,\nwhom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be\nfashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate.  Grace was his, and the\nwhite purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for\nus.  There was nothing that one could not do with him.  He could be\nmade a Titan or a toy.  What a pity it was that such beauty was\ndestined to fade! ...  And Basil?  From a psychological point of view,\nhow interesting he was!  The new manner in art, the fresh mode of\nlooking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence\nof one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in\ndim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing\nherself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for\nher there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are\nwonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things\nbecoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value,\nas though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect\nform whose shadow they made real:  how strange it all was!  He\nremembered something like it in history.  Was it not Plato, that artist\nin thought, who had first analyzed it?  Was it not Buonarotti who had\ncarved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own\ncentury it was strange.... Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray\nwhat, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned\nthe wonderful portrait.  He would seek to dominate him--had already,\nindeed, half done so.  He would make that wonderful spirit his own.\nThere was something fascinating in this son of love and death.\n\nSuddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses.  He found that he had\npassed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back.\nWhen he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they\nhad gone in to lunch.  He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and\npassed into the dining-room.\n\n\"Late as usual, Harry,\" cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.\n\nHe invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to\nher, looked round to see who was there.  Dorian bowed to him shyly from\nthe end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek.\nOpposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable good-nature and\ngood temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample\narchitectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are\ndescribed by contemporary historians as stoutness.  Next to her sat, on\nher right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who\nfollowed his leader in public life and in private life followed the\nbest cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in\naccordance with a wise and well-known rule.  The post on her left was\noccupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable\ncharm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence,\nhaving, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he\nhad to say before he was thirty.  His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur,\none of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so\ndreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book.\nFortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most\nintelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement\nin the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely\nearnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once\nhimself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of\nthem ever quite escape.\n\n\"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry,\" cried the duchess,\nnodding pleasantly to him across the table.  \"Do you think he will\nreally marry this fascinating young person?\"\n\n\"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess.\"\n\n\"How dreadful!\" exclaimed Lady Agatha.  \"Really, some one should\ninterfere.\"\n\n\"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American\ndry-goods store,\" said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.\n\n\"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas.\"\n\n\"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?\" asked the duchess, raising\nher large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.\n\n\"American novels,\" answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.\n\nThe duchess looked puzzled.\n\n\"Don't mind him, my dear,\" whispered Lady Agatha.  \"He never means\nanything that he says.\"\n\n\"When America was discovered,\" said the Radical member--and he began to\ngive some wearisome facts.  Like all people who try to exhaust a\nsubject, he exhausted his listeners.  The duchess sighed and exercised\nher privilege of interruption.  \"I wish to goodness it never had been\ndiscovered at all!\" she exclaimed.  \"Really, our girls have no chance\nnowadays.  It is most unfair.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered,\" said Mr.\nErskine; \"I myself would say that it had merely been detected.\"\n\n\"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants,\" answered the\nduchess vaguely.  \"I must confess that most of them are extremely\npretty.  And they dress well, too.  They get all their dresses in\nParis.  I wish I could afford to do the same.\"\n\n\"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris,\" chuckled Sir\nThomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes.\n\n\"Really!  And where do bad Americans go to when they die?\" inquired the\nduchess.\n\n\"They go to America,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\nSir Thomas frowned.  \"I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced\nagainst that great country,\" he said to Lady Agatha.  \"I have travelled\nall over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters,\nare extremely civil.  I assure you that it is an education to visit it.\"\n\n\"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?\" asked Mr.\nErskine plaintively.  \"I don't feel up to the journey.\"\n\nSir Thomas waved his hand.  \"Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on\nhis shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about\nthem. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are\nabsolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing\ncharacteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I\nassure you there is no nonsense about the Americans.\"\n\n\"How dreadful!\" cried Lord Henry.  \"I can stand brute force, but brute\nreason is quite unbearable.  There is something unfair about its use.\nIt is hitting below the intellect.\"\n\n\"I do not understand you,\" said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.\n\n\"I do, Lord Henry,\" murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile.\n\n\"Paradoxes are all very well in their way....\" rejoined the baronet.\n\n\"Was that a paradox?\" asked Mr. Erskine.  \"I did not think so.  Perhaps\nit was.  Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth.  To test\nreality we must see it on the tight rope.  When the verities become\nacrobats, we can judge them.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Lady Agatha, \"how you men argue!  I am sure I never can\nmake out what you are talking about.  Oh!  Harry, I am quite vexed with\nyou.  Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up\nthe East End?  I assure you he would be quite invaluable.  They would\nlove his playing.\"\n\n\"I want him to play to me,\" cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked\ndown the table and caught a bright answering glance.\n\n\"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel,\" continued Lady Agatha.\n\n\"I can sympathize with everything except suffering,\" said Lord Henry,\nshrugging his shoulders.  \"I cannot sympathize with that.  It is too\nugly, too horrible, too distressing.  There is something terribly\nmorbid in the modern sympathy with pain.  One should sympathize with\nthe colour, the beauty, the joy of life.  The less said about life's\nsores, the better.\"\n\n\"Still, the East End is a very important problem,\" remarked Sir Thomas\nwith a grave shake of the head.\n\n\"Quite so,\" answered the young lord.  \"It is the problem of slavery,\nand we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.\"\n\nThe politician looked at him keenly.  \"What change do you propose,\nthen?\" he asked.\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"I don't desire to change anything in England\nexcept the weather,\" he answered.  \"I am quite content with philosophic\ncontemplation.  But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt\nthrough an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should\nappeal to science to put us straight.  The advantage of the emotions is\nthat they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is\nnot emotional.\"\n\n\"But we have such grave responsibilities,\" ventured Mrs. Vandeleur\ntimidly.\n\n\"Terribly grave,\" echoed Lady Agatha.\n\nLord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine.  \"Humanity takes itself too\nseriously.  It is the world's original sin.  If the caveman had known\nhow to laugh, history would have been different.\"\n\n\"You are really very comforting,\" warbled the duchess.  \"I have always\nfelt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no\ninterest at all in the East End.  For the future I shall be able to\nlook her in the face without a blush.\"\n\n\"A blush is very becoming, Duchess,\" remarked Lord Henry.\n\n\"Only when one is young,\" she answered.  \"When an old woman like myself\nblushes, it is a very bad sign.  Ah!  Lord Henry, I wish you would tell\nme how to become young again.\"\n\nHe thought for a moment.  \"Can you remember any great error that you\ncommitted in your early days, Duchess?\" he asked, looking at her across\nthe table.\n\n\"A great many, I fear,\" she cried.\n\n\"Then commit them over again,\" he said gravely.  \"To get back one's\nyouth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.\"\n\n\"A delightful theory!\" she exclaimed.  \"I must put it into practice.\"\n\n\"A dangerous theory!\" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips.  Lady Agatha\nshook her head, but could not help being amused.  Mr. Erskine listened.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"that is one of the great secrets of life.\nNowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and\ndiscover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are\none's mistakes.\"\n\nA laugh ran round the table.\n\nHe played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and\ntransformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent\nwith fancy and winged it with paradox.  The praise of folly, as he went\non, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and\ncatching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her\nwine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the\nhills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober.  Facts fled\nbefore her like frightened forest things.  Her white feet trod the huge\npress at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round\nher bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over\nthe vat's black, dripping, sloping sides.  It was an extraordinary\nimprovisation.  He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him,\nand the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose\ntemperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and\nto lend colour to his imagination.  He was brilliant, fantastic,\nirresponsible.  He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they\nfollowed his pipe, laughing.  Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him,\nbut sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips\nand wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.\n\nAt last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room\nin the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was\nwaiting.  She wrung her hands in mock despair.  \"How annoying!\" she\ncried.  \"I must go.  I have to call for my husband at the club, to take\nhim to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be\nin the chair.  If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't\nhave a scene in this bonnet.  It is far too fragile.  A harsh word\nwould ruin it.  No, I must go, dear Agatha.  Good-bye, Lord Henry, you\nare quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing.  I am sure I don't\nknow what to say about your views.  You must come and dine with us some\nnight.  Tuesday?  Are you disengaged Tuesday?\"\n\n\"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess,\" said Lord Henry with a\nbow.\n\n\"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you,\" she cried; \"so mind you\ncome\"; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the\nother ladies.\n\nWhen Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking\na chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.\n\n\"You talk books away,\" he said; \"why don't you write one?\"\n\n\"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine.  I\nshould like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely\nas a Persian carpet and as unreal.  But there is no literary public in\nEngland for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias.\nOf all people in the world the English have the least sense of the\nbeauty of literature.\"\n\n\"I fear you are right,\" answered Mr. Erskine.  \"I myself used to have\nliterary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago.  And now, my dear\nyoung friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you\nreally meant all that you said to us at lunch?\"\n\n\"I quite forget what I said,\" smiled Lord Henry.  \"Was it all very bad?\"\n\n\"Very bad indeed.  In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if\nanything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being\nprimarily responsible.  But I should like to talk to you about life.\nThe generation into which I was born was tedious.  Some day, when you\nare tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your\nphilosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate\nenough to possess.\"\n\n\"I shall be charmed.  A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege.\nIt has a perfect host, and a perfect library.\"\n\n\"You will complete it,\" answered the old gentleman with a courteous\nbow.  \"And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt.  I am due at\nthe Athenaeum.  It is the hour when we sleep there.\"\n\n\"All of you, Mr. Erskine?\"\n\n\"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English\nAcademy of Letters.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed and rose.  \"I am going to the park,\" he cried.\n\nAs he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm.\n\"Let me come with you,\" he murmured.\n\n\"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,\"\nanswered Lord Henry.\n\n\"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you.  Do\nlet me.  And you will promise to talk to me all the time?  No one talks\nso wonderfully as you do.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I have talked quite enough for to-day,\" said Lord Henry, smiling.\n\"All I want now is to look at life.  You may come and look at it with\nme, if you care to.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nOne afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious\narm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair.  It\nwas, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled\nwainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling\nof raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,\nlong-fringed Persian rugs.  On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette\nby Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for\nMargaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies\nthat Queen had selected for her device.  Some large blue china jars and\nparrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small\nleaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a\nsummer day in London.\n\nLord Henry had not yet come in.  He was always late on principle, his\nprinciple being that punctuality is the thief of time.  So the lad was\nlooking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages\nof an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had\nfound in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the\nLouis Quatorze clock annoyed him.  Once or twice he thought of going\naway.\n\nAt last he heard a step outside, and the door opened.  \"How late you\nare, Harry!\" he murmured.\n\n\"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray,\" answered a shrill voice.\n\nHe glanced quickly round and rose to his feet.  \"I beg your pardon.  I\nthought--\"\n\n\"You thought it was my husband.  It is only his wife.  You must let me\nintroduce myself.  I know you quite well by your photographs.  I think\nmy husband has got seventeen of them.\"\n\n\"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?\"\n\n\"Well, eighteen, then.  And I saw you with him the other night at the\nopera.\"  She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her\nvague forget-me-not eyes.  She was a curious woman, whose dresses\nalways looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a\ntempest.  She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion\nwas never returned, she had kept all her illusions.  She tried to look\npicturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.  Her name was\nVictoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.\n\n\"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?\"\n\n\"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin.  I like Wagner's music better than\nanybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other\npeople hearing what one says.  That is a great advantage, don't you\nthink so, Mr. Gray?\"\n\nThe same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her\nfingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.\n\nDorian smiled and shook his head:  \"I am afraid I don't think so, Lady\nHenry.  I never talk during music--at least, during good music.  If one\nhears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.\"\n\n\"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray?  I always hear\nHarry's views from his friends.  It is the only way I get to know of\nthem.  But you must not think I don't like good music.  I adore it, but\nI am afraid of it.  It makes me too romantic.  I have simply worshipped\npianists--two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me.  I don't know what\nit is about them.  Perhaps it is that they are foreigners.  They all\nare, ain't they?  Even those that are born in England become foreigners\nafter a time, don't they?  It is so clever of them, and such a\ncompliment to art.  Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it?  You have\nnever been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray?  You must come.  I\ncan't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners.  They make\none's rooms look so picturesque.  But here is Harry!  Harry, I came in\nto look for you, to ask you something--I forget what it was--and I\nfound Mr. Gray here.  We have had such a pleasant chat about music.  We\nhave quite the same ideas.  No; I think our ideas are quite different.\nBut he has been most pleasant.  I am so glad I've seen him.\"\n\n\"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his\ndark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused\nsmile.  \"So sorry I am late, Dorian.  I went to look after a piece of\nold brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it.\nNowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.\"\n\n\"I am afraid I must be going,\" exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an\nawkward silence with her silly sudden laugh.  \"I have promised to drive\nwith the duchess.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Good-bye, Harry.  You are\ndining out, I suppose?  So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady\nThornbury's.\"\n\n\"I dare say, my dear,\" said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her\nas, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the\nrain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of\nfrangipanni.  Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the\nsofa.\n\n\"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian,\" he said after a\nfew puffs.\n\n\"Why, Harry?\"\n\n\"Because they are so sentimental.\"\n\n\"But I like sentimental people.\"\n\n\"Never marry at all, Dorian.  Men marry because they are tired; women,\nbecause they are curious:  both are disappointed.\"\n\n\"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry.  I am too much in love.\nThat is one of your aphorisms.  I am putting it into practice, as I do\neverything that you say.\"\n\n\"Who are you in love with?\" asked Lord Henry after a pause.\n\n\"With an actress,\" said Dorian Gray, blushing.\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"That is a rather commonplace\n_debut_.\"\n\n\"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry.\"\n\n\"Who is she?\"\n\n\"Her name is Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"Never heard of her.\"\n\n\"No one has.  People will some day, however.  She is a genius.\"\n\n\"My dear boy, no woman is a genius.  Women are a decorative sex.  They\nnever have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.  Women\nrepresent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the\ntriumph of mind over morals.\"\n\n\"Harry, how can you?\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian, it is quite true.  I am analysing women at present, so\nI ought to know.  The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.\nI find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain\nand the coloured.  The plain women are very useful.  If you want to\ngain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down\nto supper.  The other women are very charming.  They commit one\nmistake, however.  They paint in order to try and look young.  Our\ngrandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.  _Rouge_ and\n_esprit_ used to go together.  That is all over now.  As long as a woman\ncan look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly\nsatisfied.  As for conversation, there are only five women in London\nworth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent\nsociety.  However, tell me about your genius.  How long have you known\nher?\"\n\n\"Ah!  Harry, your views terrify me.\"\n\n\"Never mind that.  How long have you known her?\"\n\n\"About three weeks.\"\n\n\"And where did you come across her?\"\n\n\"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.\nAfter all, it never would have happened if I had not met you.  You\nfilled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.  For days\nafter I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.  As I lounged\nin the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one\nwho passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they\nled.  Some of them fascinated me.  Others filled me with terror.  There\nwas an exquisite poison in the air.  I had a passion for sensations....\nWell, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search\nof some adventure.  I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours,\nwith its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins,\nas you once phrased it, must have something in store for me.  I fancied\na thousand things.  The mere danger gave me a sense of delight.  I\nremembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we\nfirst dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret\nof life.  I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered\neastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black\ngrassless squares.  About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little\ntheatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills.  A hideous\nJew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was\nstanding at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar.  He had greasy\nringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled\nshirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off\nhis hat with an air of gorgeous servility.  There was something about\nhim, Harry, that amused me.  He was such a monster.  You will laugh at\nme, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the\nstage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if\nI hadn't--my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest\nromance of my life.  I see you are laughing.  It is horrid of you!\"\n\n\"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you.  But you\nshould not say the greatest romance of your life.  You should say the\nfirst romance of your life.  You will always be loved, and you will\nalways be in love with love.  A _grande passion_ is the privilege of\npeople who have nothing to do.  That is the one use of the idle classes\nof a country.  Don't be afraid.  There are exquisite things in store\nfor you.  This is merely the beginning.\"\n\n\"Do you think my nature so shallow?\" cried Dorian Gray angrily.\n\n\"No; I think your nature so deep.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really\nthe shallow people.  What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity,\nI call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.\nFaithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life\nof the intellect--simply a confession of failure.  Faithfulness!  I\nmust analyse it some day.  The passion for property is in it.  There\nare many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that\nothers might pick them up.  But I don't want to interrupt you.  Go on\nwith your story.\"\n\n\"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a\nvulgar drop-scene staring me in the face.  I looked out from behind the\ncurtain and surveyed the house.  It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and\ncornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were\nfairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and\nthere was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the\ndress-circle.  Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there\nwas a terrible consumption of nuts going on.\"\n\n\"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama.\"\n\n\"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing.  I began to wonder\nwhat on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill.  What\ndo you think the play was, Harry?\"\n\n\"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'.  Our fathers\nused to like that sort of piece, I believe.  The longer I live, Dorian,\nthe more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is\nnot good enough for us.  In art, as in politics, _les grandperes ont\ntoujours tort_.\"\n\n\"This play was good enough for us, Harry.  It was Romeo and Juliet.  I\nmust admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare\ndone in such a wretched hole of a place.  Still, I felt interested, in\na sort of way.  At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.\nThere was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat\nat a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the\ndrop-scene was drawn up and the play began.  Romeo was a stout elderly\ngentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure\nlike a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad.  He was played by the\nlow-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most\nfriendly terms with the pit.  They were both as grotesque as the\nscenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But\nJuliet!  Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a\nlittle, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of\ndark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were\nlike the petals of a rose.  She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen\nin my life.  You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that\nbeauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears.  I tell you,\nHarry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came\nacross me.  And her voice--I never heard such a voice.  It was very low\nat first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's\near.  Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a\ndistant hautboy.  In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy\nthat one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing.  There\nwere moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins.  You\nknow how a voice can stir one.  Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane\nare two things that I shall never forget.  When I close my eyes, I hear\nthem, and each of them says something different.  I don't know which to\nfollow.  Why should I not love her?  Harry, I do love her.  She is\neverything to me in life.  Night after night I go to see her play.  One\nevening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen.  I have\nseen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from\nher lover's lips.  I have watched her wandering through the forest of\nArden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.\nShe has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and\ngiven him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of.  She has been\ninnocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike\nthroat.  I have seen her in every age and in every costume.  Ordinary\nwomen never appeal to one's imagination.  They are limited to their\ncentury.  No glamour ever transfigures them.  One knows their minds as\neasily as one knows their bonnets.  One can always find them.  There is\nno mystery in any of them.  They ride in the park in the morning and\nchatter at tea-parties in the afternoon.  They have their stereotyped\nsmile and their fashionable manner.  They are quite obvious.  But an\nactress!  How different an actress is!  Harry! why didn't you tell me\nthat the only thing worth loving is an actress?\"\n\n\"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces.\"\n\n\"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces.  There is an extraordinary\ncharm in them, sometimes,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian.  All through your life\nyou will tell me everything you do.\"\n\n\"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true.  I cannot help telling you things.\nYou have a curious influence over me.  If I ever did a crime, I would\ncome and confess it to you.  You would understand me.\"\n\n\"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes,\nDorian.  But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same.  And\nnow tell me--reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are\nyour actual relations with Sibyl Vane?\"\n\nDorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.\n\"Harry!  Sibyl Vane is sacred!\"\n\n\"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,\" said\nLord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.  \"But why\nshould you be annoyed?  I suppose she will belong to you some day.\nWhen one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one\nalways ends by deceiving others.  That is what the world calls a\nromance.  You know her, at any rate, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Of course I know her.  On the first night I was at the theatre, the\nhorrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and\noffered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her.  I was\nfurious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds\nof years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona.  I\nthink, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the\nimpression that I had taken too much champagne, or something.\"\n\n\"I am not surprised.\"\n\n\"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers.  I told him I\nnever even read them.  He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and\nconfided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy\nagainst him, and that they were every one of them to be bought.\"\n\n\"I should not wonder if he was quite right there.  But, on the other\nhand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all\nexpensive.\"\n\n\"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means,\" laughed Dorian.\n\"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,\nand I had to go.  He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly\nrecommended.  I declined.  The next night, of course, I arrived at the\nplace again.  When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that\nI was a munificent patron of art.  He was a most offensive brute,\nthough he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare.  He told me\nonce, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely\ndue to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him.  He seemed to think\nit a distinction.\"\n\n\"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction.  Most\npeople become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose\nof life.  To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.  But when\ndid you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?\"\n\n\"The third night.  She had been playing Rosalind.  I could not help\ngoing round.  I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at\nme--at least I fancied that she had.  The old Jew was persistent.  He\nseemed determined to take me behind, so I consented.  It was curious my\nnot wanting to know her, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"No; I don't think so.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, why?\"\n\n\"I will tell you some other time.  Now I want to know about the girl.\"\n\n\"Sibyl?  Oh, she was so shy and so gentle.  There is something of a\nchild about her.  Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told\nher what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious\nof her power.  I think we were both rather nervous.  The old Jew stood\ngrinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate\nspeeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like\nchildren.  He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure\nSibyl that I was not anything of the kind.  She said quite simply to\nme, 'You look more like a prince.  I must call you Prince Charming.'\"\n\n\"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments.\"\n\n\"You don't understand her, Harry.  She regarded me merely as a person\nin a play.  She knows nothing of life.  She lives with her mother, a\nfaded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta\ndressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen\nbetter days.\"\n\n\"I know that look.  It depresses me,\" murmured Lord Henry, examining\nhis rings.\n\n\"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest\nme.\"\n\n\"You were quite right.  There is always something infinitely mean about\nother people's tragedies.\"\n\n\"Sibyl is the only thing I care about.  What is it to me where she came\nfrom?  From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and\nentirely divine.  Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every\nnight she is more marvellous.\"\n\n\"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now.  I\nthought you must have some curious romance on hand.  You have; but it\nis not quite what I expected.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have\nbeen to the opera with you several times,\" said Dorian, opening his\nblue eyes in wonder.\n\n\"You always come dreadfully late.\"\n\n\"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play,\" he cried, \"even if it is\nonly for a single act.  I get hungry for her presence; and when I think\nof the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I\nam filled with awe.\"\n\n\"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?\"\n\nHe shook his head.  \"To-night she is Imogen,\" he answered, \"and\nto-morrow night she will be Juliet.\"\n\n\"When is she Sibyl Vane?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"I congratulate you.\"\n\n\"How horrid you are!  She is all the great heroines of the world in\none.  She is more than an individual.  You laugh, but I tell you she\nhas genius.  I love her, and I must make her love me.  You, who know\nall the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me!  I\nwant to make Romeo jealous.  I want the dead lovers of the world to\nhear our laughter and grow sad.  I want a breath of our passion to stir\ntheir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.  My God,\nHarry, how I worship her!\"  He was walking up and down the room as he\nspoke.  Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks.  He was terribly\nexcited.\n\nLord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure.  How different\nhe was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's\nstudio!  His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of\nscarlet flame.  Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and\ndesire had come to meet it on the way.\n\n\"And what do you propose to do?\" said Lord Henry at last.\n\n\"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act.  I\nhave not the slightest fear of the result.  You are certain to\nacknowledge her genius.  Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands.\nShe is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight\nmonths--from the present time.  I shall have to pay him something, of\ncourse.  When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and\nbring her out properly.  She will make the world as mad as she has made\nme.\"\n\n\"That would be impossible, my dear boy.\"\n\n\"Yes, she will.  She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in\nher, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it\nis personalities, not principles, that move the age.\"\n\n\"Well, what night shall we go?\"\n\n\"Let me see.  To-day is Tuesday.  Let us fix to-morrow. She plays\nJuliet to-morrow.\"\n\n\"All right.  The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil.\"\n\n\"Not eight, Harry, please.  Half-past six.  We must be there before the\ncurtain rises.  You must see her in the first act, where she meets\nRomeo.\"\n\n\"Half-past six!  What an hour!  It will be like having a meat-tea, or\nreading an English novel.  It must be seven.  No gentleman dines before\nseven.  Shall you see Basil between this and then?  Or shall I write to\nhim?\"\n\n\"Dear Basil!  I have not laid eyes on him for a week.  It is rather\nhorrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful\nframe, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous\nof the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit\nthat I delight in it.  Perhaps you had better write to him.  I don't\nwant to see him alone.  He says things that annoy me.  He gives me good\nadvice.\"\n\nLord Henry smiled.  \"People are very fond of giving away what they need\nmost themselves.  It is what I call the depth of generosity.\"\n\n\"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit\nof a Philistine.  Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered\nthat.\"\n\n\"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his\nwork.  The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his\nprejudices, his principles, and his common sense.  The only artists I\nhave ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists.  Good\nartists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly\nuninteresting in what they are.  A great poet, a really great poet, is\nthe most unpoetical of all creatures.  But inferior poets are\nabsolutely fascinating.  The worse their rhymes are, the more\npicturesque they look.  The mere fact of having published a book of\nsecond-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible.  He lives the\npoetry that he cannot write.  The others write the poetry that they\ndare not realize.\"\n\n\"I wonder is that really so, Harry?\" said Dorian Gray, putting some\nperfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that\nstood on the table.  \"It must be, if you say it.  And now I am off.\nImogen is waiting for me.  Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye.\"\n\nAs he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began\nto think.  Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as\nDorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused\nhim not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy.  He was pleased by\nit.  It made him a more interesting study.  He had been always\nenthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary\nsubject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no\nimport.  And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by\nvivisecting others.  Human life--that appeared to him the one thing\nworth investigating.  Compared to it there was nothing else of any\nvalue.  It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of\npain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass,\nnor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the\nimagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.  There\nwere poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken\nof them.  There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through\nthem if one sought to understand their nature.  And, yet, what a great\nreward one received!  How wonderful the whole world became to one!  To\nnote the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life\nof the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated,\nat what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at\ndiscord--there was a delight in that!  What matter what the cost was?\nOne could never pay too high a price for any sensation.\n\nHe was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his\nbrown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, musical\nwords said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned\nto this white girl and bowed in worship before her.  To a large extent\nthe lad was his own creation.  He had made him premature.  That was\nsomething.  Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its\nsecrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were\nrevealed before the veil was drawn away.  Sometimes this was the effect\nof art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately\nwith the passions and the intellect.  But now and then a complex\npersonality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed,\nin its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces,\njust as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.\n\nYes, the lad was premature.  He was gathering his harvest while it was\nyet spring.  The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was\nbecoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him.  With his\nbeautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at.\nIt was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end.  He was like\none of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem\nto be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,\nand whose wounds are like red roses.\n\nSoul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were!  There was\nanimalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.\nThe senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade.  Who could\nsay where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?\nHow shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!\nAnd yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various\nschools!  Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin?  Or was the\nbody really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought?  The separation of\nspirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter\nwas a mystery also.\n\nHe began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a\nscience that each little spring of life would be revealed to us.  As it\nwas, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.\nExperience was of no ethical value.  It was merely the name men gave to\ntheir mistakes.  Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of\nwarning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation\nof character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow\nand showed us what to avoid.  But there was no motive power in\nexperience.  It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself.\nAll that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same\nas our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we\nwould do many times, and with joy.\n\nIt was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by\nwhich one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and\ncertainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to\npromise rich and fruitful results.  His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane\nwas a psychological phenomenon of no small interest.  There was no\ndoubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire\nfor new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex\npassion.  What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of\nboyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,\nchanged into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from\nsense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous.  It was the\npassions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most\nstrongly over us.  Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we\nwere conscious.  It often happened that when we thought we were\nexperimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.\n\nWhile Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the\ndoor, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for\ndinner.  He got up and looked out into the street.  The sunset had\nsmitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite.\nThe panes glowed like plates of heated metal.  The sky above was like a\nfaded rose.  He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and\nwondered how it was all going to end.\n\nWhen he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram\nlying on the hall table.  He opened it and found it was from Dorian\nGray.  It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl\nVane.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!\" whispered the girl, burying her face\nin the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to\nthe shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their\ndingy sitting-room contained.  \"I am so happy!\" she repeated, \"and you\nmust be happy, too!\"\n\nMrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her\ndaughter's head.  \"Happy!\" she echoed, \"I am only happy, Sibyl, when I\nsee you act.  You must not think of anything but your acting.  Mr.\nIsaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money.\"\n\nThe girl looked up and pouted.  \"Money, Mother?\" she cried, \"what does\nmoney matter?  Love is more than money.\"\n\n\"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to\nget a proper outfit for James.  You must not forget that, Sibyl.  Fifty\npounds is a very large sum.  Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate.\"\n\n\"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me,\"\nsaid the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window.\n\n\"I don't know how we could manage without him,\" answered the elder\nwoman querulously.\n\nSibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed.  \"We don't want him any more,\nMother.  Prince Charming rules life for us now.\" Then she paused.  A\nrose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks.  Quick breath parted\nthe petals of her lips.  They trembled.  Some southern wind of passion\nswept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress.  \"I love\nhim,\" she said simply.\n\n\"Foolish child! foolish child!\" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.\nThe waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the\nwords.\n\nThe girl laughed again.  The joy of a caged bird was in her voice.  Her\neyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a\nmoment, as though to hide their secret.  When they opened, the mist of\na dream had passed across them.\n\nThin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at\nprudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name\nof common sense.  She did not listen.  She was free in her prison of\npassion.  Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her.  She had called on\nmemory to remake him.  She had sent her soul to search for him, and it\nhad brought him back.  His kiss burned again upon her mouth.  Her\neyelids were warm with his breath.\n\nThen wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery.  This\nyoung man might be rich.  If so, marriage should be thought of.\nAgainst the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning.  The\narrows of craft shot by her.  She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.\n\nSuddenly she felt the need to speak.  The wordy silence troubled her.\n\"Mother, Mother,\" she cried, \"why does he love me so much?  I know why\nI love him.  I love him because he is like what love himself should be.\nBut what does he see in me?  I am not worthy of him.  And yet--why, I\ncannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble.  I\nfeel proud, terribly proud.  Mother, did you love my father as I love\nPrince Charming?\"\n\nThe elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her\ncheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain.  Sybil rushed\nto her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her.  \"Forgive me,\nMother.  I know it pains you to talk about our father.  But it only\npains you because you loved him so much.  Don't look so sad.  I am as\nhappy to-day as you were twenty years ago.  Ah! let me be happy for\never!\"\n\n\"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love.  Besides,\nwhat do you know of this young man?  You don't even know his name.  The\nwhole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away\nto Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you\nshould have shown more consideration.  However, as I said before, if he\nis rich ...\"\n\n\"Ah!  Mother, Mother, let me be happy!\"\n\nMrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical\ngestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a\nstage-player, clasped her in her arms.  At this moment, the door opened\nand a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room.  He was\nthick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat\nclumsy in movement.  He was not so finely bred as his sister.  One\nwould hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between\nthem.  Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile.  She\nmentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience.  She felt sure\nthat the _tableau_ was interesting.\n\n\"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think,\" said the\nlad with a good-natured grumble.\n\n\"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim,\" she cried.  \"You are a\ndreadful old bear.\"  And she ran across the room and hugged him.\n\nJames Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness.  \"I want you\nto come out with me for a walk, Sibyl.  I don't suppose I shall ever\nsee this horrid London again.  I am sure I don't want to.\"\n\n\"My son, don't say such dreadful things,\" murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up\na tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it.  She\nfelt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group.  It would\nhave increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.\n\n\"Why not, Mother?  I mean it.\"\n\n\"You pain me, my son.  I trust you will return from Australia in a\nposition of affluence.  I believe there is no society of any kind in\nthe Colonies--nothing that I would call society--so when you have made\nyour fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London.\"\n\n\"Society!\" muttered the lad.  \"I don't want to know anything about\nthat.  I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the\nstage.  I hate it.\"\n\n\"Oh, Jim!\" said Sibyl, laughing, \"how unkind of you!  But are you\nreally going for a walk with me?  That will be nice!  I was afraid you\nwere going to say good-bye to some of your friends--to Tom Hardy, who\ngave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for\nsmoking it.  It is very sweet of you to let me have your last\nafternoon.  Where shall we go?  Let us go to the park.\"\n\n\"I am too shabby,\" he answered, frowning.  \"Only swell people go to the\npark.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Jim,\" she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.\n\nHe hesitated for a moment.  \"Very well,\" he said at last, \"but don't be\ntoo long dressing.\"  She danced out of the door.  One could hear her\nsinging as she ran upstairs.  Her little feet pattered overhead.\n\nHe walked up and down the room two or three times.  Then he turned to\nthe still figure in the chair.  \"Mother, are my things ready?\" he asked.\n\n\"Quite ready, James,\" she answered, keeping her eyes on her work.  For\nsome months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this\nrough stern son of hers.  Her shallow secret nature was troubled when\ntheir eyes met.  She used to wonder if he suspected anything.  The\nsilence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her.\nShe began to complain.  Women defend themselves by attacking, just as\nthey attack by sudden and strange surrenders.  \"I hope you will be\ncontented, James, with your sea-faring life,\" she said.  \"You must\nremember that it is your own choice.  You might have entered a\nsolicitor's office.  Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in\nthe country often dine with the best families.\"\n\n\"I hate offices, and I hate clerks,\" he replied.  \"But you are quite\nright.  I have chosen my own life.  All I say is, watch over Sibyl.\nDon't let her come to any harm.  Mother, you must watch over her.\"\n\n\"James, you really talk very strangely.  Of course I watch over Sibyl.\"\n\n\"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to\ntalk to her.  Is that right?  What about that?\"\n\n\"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James.  In the\nprofession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying\nattention.  I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time.  That\nwas when acting was really understood.  As for Sibyl, I do not know at\npresent whether her attachment is serious or not.  But there is no\ndoubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman.  He is\nalways most polite to me.  Besides, he has the appearance of being\nrich, and the flowers he sends are lovely.\"\n\n\"You don't know his name, though,\" said the lad harshly.\n\n\"No,\" answered his mother with a placid expression in her face.  \"He\nhas not yet revealed his real name.  I think it is quite romantic of\nhim.  He is probably a member of the aristocracy.\"\n\nJames Vane bit his lip.  \"Watch over Sibyl, Mother,\" he cried, \"watch\nover her.\"\n\n\"My son, you distress me very much.  Sibyl is always under my special\ncare.  Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why\nshe should not contract an alliance with him.  I trust he is one of the\naristocracy.  He has all the appearance of it, I must say.  It might be\na most brilliant marriage for Sibyl.  They would make a charming\ncouple.  His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices\nthem.\"\n\nThe lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane\nwith his coarse fingers.  He had just turned round to say something\nwhen the door opened and Sibyl ran in.\n\n\"How serious you both are!\" she cried.  \"What is the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he answered.  \"I suppose one must be serious sometimes.\nGood-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is\npacked, except my shirts, so you need not trouble.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, my son,\" she answered with a bow of strained stateliness.\n\nShe was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and\nthere was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.\n\n\"Kiss me, Mother,\" said the girl.  Her flowerlike lips touched the\nwithered cheek and warmed its frost.\n\n\"My child! my child!\" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in\nsearch of an imaginary gallery.\n\n\"Come, Sibyl,\" said her brother impatiently.  He hated his mother's\naffectations.\n\nThey went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled\ndown the dreary Euston Road.  The passersby glanced in wonder at the\nsullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the\ncompany of such a graceful, refined-looking girl.  He was like a common\ngardener walking with a rose.\n\nJim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of\nsome stranger.  He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on\ngeniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace.  Sibyl,\nhowever, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing.  Her\nlove was trembling in laughter on her lips.  She was thinking of Prince\nCharming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not\ntalk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to\nsail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful\nheiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted\nbushrangers.  For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or\nwhatever he was going to be.  Oh, no!  A sailor's existence was\ndreadful.  Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse,\nhump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts\ndown and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands!  He was to\nleave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain,\nand go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to\ncome across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had\never been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon\nguarded by six mounted policemen.  The bushrangers were to attack them\nthree times, and be defeated with immense slaughter.  Or, no.  He was\nnot to go to the gold-fields at all.  They were horrid places, where\nmen got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad\nlanguage.  He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was\nriding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a\nrobber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her.  Of course,\nshe would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get\nmarried, and come home, and live in an immense house in London.  Yes,\nthere were delightful things in store for him.  But he must be very\ngood, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly.  She was\nonly a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life.  He\nmust be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his\nprayers each night before he went to sleep.  God was very good, and\nwould watch over him.  She would pray for him, too, and in a few years\nhe would come back quite rich and happy.\n\nThe lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer.  He was heart-sick\nat leaving home.\n\nYet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.\nInexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger\nof Sibyl's position.  This young dandy who was making love to her could\nmean her no good.  He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated\nhim through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,\nand which for that reason was all the more dominant within him.  He was\nconscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,\nand in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.\nChildren begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge\nthem; sometimes they forgive them.\n\nHis mother!  He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that\nhe had brooded on for many months of silence.  A chance phrase that he\nhad heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears\none night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of\nhorrible thoughts.  He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a\nhunting-crop across his face.  His brows knit together into a wedge-like\nfurrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.\n\n\"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim,\" cried Sibyl, \"and I\nam making the most delightful plans for your future.  Do say something.\"\n\n\"What do you want me to say?\"\n\n\"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us,\" she answered,\nsmiling at him.\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.  \"You are more likely to forget me than I am\nto forget you, Sibyl.\"\n\nShe flushed.  \"What do you mean, Jim?\" she asked.\n\n\"You have a new friend, I hear.  Who is he?  Why have you not told me\nabout him?  He means you no good.\"\n\n\"Stop, Jim!\" she exclaimed.  \"You must not say anything against him.  I\nlove him.\"\n\n\"Why, you don't even know his name,\" answered the lad.  \"Who is he?  I\nhave a right to know.\"\n\n\"He is called Prince Charming.  Don't you like the name.  Oh! you silly\nboy! you should never forget it.  If you only saw him, you would think\nhim the most wonderful person in the world.  Some day you will meet\nhim--when you come back from Australia.  You will like him so much.\nEverybody likes him, and I ... love him.  I wish you could come to the\ntheatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet.\nOh! how I shall play it!  Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet!\nTo have him sitting there!  To play for his delight!  I am afraid I may\nfrighten the company, frighten or enthrall them.  To be in love is to\nsurpass one's self.  Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius'\nto his loafers at the bar.  He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he\nwill announce me as a revelation.  I feel it.  And it is all his, his\nonly, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces.  But I am\npoor beside him.  Poor?  What does that matter?  When poverty creeps in\nat the door, love flies in through the window.  Our proverbs want\nrewriting.  They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time\nfor me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies.\"\n\n\"He is a gentleman,\" said the lad sullenly.\n\n\"A prince!\" she cried musically.  \"What more do you want?\"\n\n\"He wants to enslave you.\"\n\n\"I shudder at the thought of being free.\"\n\n\"I want you to beware of him.\"\n\n\"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him.\"\n\n\"Sibyl, you are mad about him.\"\n\nShe laughed and took his arm.  \"You dear old Jim, you talk as if you\nwere a hundred.  Some day you will be in love yourself.  Then you will\nknow what it is.  Don't look so sulky.  Surely you should be glad to\nthink that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have\never been before.  Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and\ndifficult.  But it will be different now.  You are going to a new\nworld, and I have found one.  Here are two chairs; let us sit down and\nsee the smart people go by.\"\n\nThey took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers.  The tulip-beds\nacross the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire.  A white\ndust--tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air.\nThe brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous\nbutterflies.\n\nShe made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects.  He\nspoke slowly and with effort.  They passed words to each other as\nplayers at a game pass counters.  Sibyl felt oppressed.  She could not\ncommunicate her joy.  A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all\nthe echo she could win.  After some time she became silent.  Suddenly\nshe caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open\ncarriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past.\n\nShe started to her feet.  \"There he is!\" she cried.\n\n\"Who?\" said Jim Vane.\n\n\"Prince Charming,\" she answered, looking after the victoria.\n\nHe jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm.  \"Show him to me.\nWhich is he?  Point him out.  I must see him!\" he exclaimed; but at\nthat moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when\nit had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park.\n\n\"He is gone,\" murmured Sibyl sadly.  \"I wish you had seen him.\"\n\n\"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does\nyou any wrong, I shall kill him.\"\n\nShe looked at him in horror.  He repeated his words.  They cut the air\nlike a dagger.  The people round began to gape.  A lady standing close\nto her tittered.\n\n\"Come away, Jim; come away,\" she whispered.  He followed her doggedly\nas she passed through the crowd.  He felt glad at what he had said.\n\nWhen they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round.  There was\npity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips.  She shook her head\nat him.  \"You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy,\nthat is all.  How can you say such horrible things?  You don't know\nwhat you are talking about.  You are simply jealous and unkind.  Ah!  I\nwish you would fall in love.  Love makes people good, and what you said\nwas wicked.\"\n\n\"I am sixteen,\" he answered, \"and I know what I am about.  Mother is no\nhelp to you.  She doesn't understand how to look after you.  I wish now\nthat I was not going to Australia at all.  I have a great mind to chuck\nthe whole thing up.  I would, if my articles hadn't been signed.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim.  You are like one of the heroes of those\nsilly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in.  I am not\ngoing to quarrel with you.  I have seen him, and oh! to see him is\nperfect happiness.  We won't quarrel.  I know you would never harm any\none I love, would you?\"\n\n\"Not as long as you love him, I suppose,\" was the sullen answer.\n\n\"I shall love him for ever!\" she cried.\n\n\"And he?\"\n\n\"For ever, too!\"\n\n\"He had better.\"\n\nShe shrank from him.  Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm.  He\nwas merely a boy.\n\nAt the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to\ntheir shabby home in the Euston Road.  It was after five o'clock, and\nSibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting.  Jim\ninsisted that she should do so.  He said that he would sooner part with\nher when their mother was not present.  She would be sure to make a\nscene, and he detested scenes of every kind.\n\nIn Sybil's own room they parted.  There was jealousy in the lad's\nheart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed\nto him, had come between them.  Yet, when her arms were flung round his\nneck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed\nher with real affection.  There were tears in his eyes as he went\ndownstairs.\n\nHis mother was waiting for him below.  She grumbled at his\nunpunctuality, as he entered.  He made no answer, but sat down to his\nmeagre meal.  The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the\nstained cloth.  Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of\nstreet-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that\nwas left to him.\n\nAfter some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his\nhands.  He felt that he had a right to know.  It should have been told\nto him before, if it was as he suspected.  Leaden with fear, his mother\nwatched him.  Words dropped mechanically from her lips.  A tattered\nlace handkerchief twitched in her fingers.  When the clock struck six,\nhe got up and went to the door.  Then he turned back and looked at her.\nTheir eyes met.  In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy.  It enraged\nhim.\n\n\"Mother, I have something to ask you,\" he said.  Her eyes wandered\nvaguely about the room.  She made no answer.  \"Tell me the truth.  I\nhave a right to know.  Were you married to my father?\"\n\nShe heaved a deep sigh.  It was a sigh of relief.  The terrible moment,\nthe moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded,\nhad come at last, and yet she felt no terror.  Indeed, in some measure\nit was a disappointment to her.  The vulgar directness of the question\ncalled for a direct answer.  The situation had not been gradually led\nup to.  It was crude.  It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.\n\n\"No,\" she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life.\n\n\"My father was a scoundrel then!\" cried the lad, clenching his fists.\n\nShe shook her head.  \"I knew he was not free.  We loved each other very\nmuch.  If he had lived, he would have made provision for us.  Don't\nspeak against him, my son.  He was your father, and a gentleman.\nIndeed, he was highly connected.\"\n\nAn oath broke from his lips.  \"I don't care for myself,\" he exclaimed,\n\"but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love\nwith her, or says he is?  Highly connected, too, I suppose.\"\n\nFor a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman.  Her\nhead drooped.  She wiped her eyes with shaking hands.  \"Sibyl has a\nmother,\" she murmured; \"I had none.\"\n\nThe lad was touched.  He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed\nher.  \"I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father,\" he\nsaid, \"but I could not help it.  I must go now.  Good-bye. Don't forget\nthat you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me\nthat if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him\ndown, and kill him like a dog.  I swear it.\"\n\nThe exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that\naccompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid\nto her.  She was familiar with the atmosphere.  She breathed more\nfreely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her\nson.  She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same\nemotional scale, but he cut her short.  Trunks had to be carried down\nand mufflers looked for.  The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out.\nThere was the bargaining with the cabman.  The moment was lost in\nvulgar details.  It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that\nshe waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son\ndrove away.  She was conscious that a great opportunity had been\nwasted.  She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt\nher life would be, now that she had only one child to look after.  She\nremembered the phrase.  It had pleased her.  Of the threat she said\nnothing.  It was vividly and dramatically expressed.  She felt that\nthey would all laugh at it some day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?\" said Lord Henry that\nevening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol\nwhere dinner had been laid for three.\n\n\"No, Harry,\" answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing\nwaiter.  \"What is it?  Nothing about politics, I hope!  They don't\ninterest me.  There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons\nworth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little\nwhitewashing.\"\n\n\"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married,\" said Lord Henry, watching him\nas he spoke.\n\nHallward started and then frowned.  \"Dorian engaged to be married!\" he\ncried.  \"Impossible!\"\n\n\"It is perfectly true.\"\n\n\"To whom?\"\n\n\"To some little actress or other.\"\n\n\"I can't believe it.  Dorian is far too sensible.\"\n\n\"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear\nBasil.\"\n\n\"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry.\"\n\n\"Except in America,\" rejoined Lord Henry languidly.  \"But I didn't say\nhe was married.  I said he was engaged to be married.  There is a great\ndifference.  I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have\nno recollection at all of being engaged.  I am inclined to think that I\nnever was engaged.\"\n\n\"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth.  It would be\nabsurd for him to marry so much beneath him.\"\n\n\"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil.  He is\nsure to do it, then.  Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it\nis always from the noblest motives.\"\n\n\"I hope the girl is good, Harry.  I don't want to see Dorian tied to\nsome vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his\nintellect.\"\n\n\"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful,\" murmured Lord Henry,\nsipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. \"Dorian says she is\nbeautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind.  Your\nportrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal\nappearance of other people.  It has had that excellent effect, amongst\nothers.  We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his\nappointment.\"\n\n\"Are you serious?\"\n\n\"Quite serious, Basil.  I should be miserable if I thought I should\never be more serious than I am at the present moment.\"\n\n\"But do you approve of it, Harry?\" asked the painter, walking up and\ndown the room and biting his lip.  \"You can't approve of it, possibly.\nIt is some silly infatuation.\"\n\n\"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now.  It is an absurd\nattitude to take towards life.  We are not sent into the world to air\nour moral prejudices.  I never take any notice of what common people\nsay, and I never interfere with what charming people do.  If a\npersonality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality\nselects is absolutely delightful to me.  Dorian Gray falls in love with\na beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her.  Why not?\nIf he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting.  You\nknow I am not a champion of marriage.  The real drawback to marriage is\nthat it makes one unselfish.  And unselfish people are colourless.\nThey lack individuality.  Still, there are certain temperaments that\nmarriage makes more complex.  They retain their egotism, and add to it\nmany other egos.  They are forced to have more than one life.  They\nbecome more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should\nfancy, the object of man's existence.  Besides, every experience is of\nvalue, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an\nexperience.  I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife,\npassionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become\nfascinated by some one else.  He would be a wonderful study.\"\n\n\"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't.\nIf Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than\nyourself.  You are much better than you pretend to be.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"The reason we all like to think so well of others\nis that we are all afraid for ourselves.  The basis of optimism is\nsheer terror.  We think that we are generous because we credit our\nneighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a\nbenefit to us.  We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account,\nand find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare\nour pockets.  I mean everything that I have said.  I have the greatest\ncontempt for optimism.  As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but\none whose growth is arrested.  If you want to mar a nature, you have\nmerely to reform it.  As for marriage, of course that would be silly,\nbut there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women.\nI will certainly encourage them.  They have the charm of being\nfashionable.  But here is Dorian himself.  He will tell you more than I\ncan.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!\" said the\nlad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and\nshaking each of his friends by the hand in turn.  \"I have never been so\nhappy.  Of course, it is sudden--all really delightful things are.  And\nyet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my\nlife.\" He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked\nextraordinarily handsome.\n\n\"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"but I\ndon't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement.\nYou let Harry know.\"\n\n\"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner,\" broke in Lord\nHenry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke.\n\"Come, let us sit down and try what the new _chef_ here is like, and then\nyou will tell us how it all came about.\"\n\n\"There is really not much to tell,\" cried Dorian as they took their\nseats at the small round table.  \"What happened was simply this.  After\nI left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that\nlittle Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and\nwent down at eight o'clock to the theatre.  Sibyl was playing Rosalind.\nOf course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd.  But Sibyl!\nYou should have seen her!  When she came on in her boy's clothes, she\nwas perfectly wonderful.  She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with\ncinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little\ngreen cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak\nlined with dull red.  She had never seemed to me more exquisite.  She\nhad all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in\nyour studio, Basil.  Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves\nround a pale rose.  As for her acting--well, you shall see her\nto-night. She is simply a born artist.  I sat in the dingy box\nabsolutely enthralled.  I forgot that I was in London and in the\nnineteenth century.  I was away with my love in a forest that no man\nhad ever seen.  After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke\nto her.  As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes\na look that I had never seen there before.  My lips moved towards hers.\nWe kissed each other.  I can't describe to you what I felt at that\nmoment.  It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one\nperfect point of rose-coloured joy.  She trembled all over and shook\nlike a white narcissus.  Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed\nmy hands.  I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help\nit.  Of course, our engagement is a dead secret.  She has not even told\nher own mother.  I don't know what my guardians will say.  Lord Radley\nis sure to be furious.  I don't care.  I shall be of age in less than a\nyear, and then I can do what I like.  I have been right, Basil, haven't\nI, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's\nplays?  Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their\nsecret in my ear.  I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and\nkissed Juliet on the mouth.\"\n\n\"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right,\" said Hallward slowly.\n\n\"Have you seen her to-day?\" asked Lord Henry.\n\nDorian Gray shook his head.  \"I left her in the forest of Arden; I\nshall find her in an orchard in Verona.\"\n\nLord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner.  \"At what\nparticular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian?  And what\ndid she say in answer?  Perhaps you forgot all about it.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did\nnot make any formal proposal.  I told her that I loved her, and she\nsaid she was not worthy to be my wife.  Not worthy!  Why, the whole\nworld is nothing to me compared with her.\"\n\n\"Women are wonderfully practical,\" murmured Lord Henry, \"much more\npractical than we are.  In situations of that kind we often forget to\nsay anything about marriage, and they always remind us.\"\n\nHallward laid his hand upon his arm.  \"Don't, Harry.  You have annoyed\nDorian.  He is not like other men.  He would never bring misery upon\nany one.  His nature is too fine for that.\"\n\nLord Henry looked across the table.  \"Dorian is never annoyed with me,\"\nhe answered.  \"I asked the question for the best reason possible, for\nthe only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any\nquestion--simple curiosity.  I have a theory that it is always the\nwomen who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women.  Except,\nof course, in middle-class life.  But then the middle classes are not\nmodern.\"\n\nDorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head.  \"You are quite incorrigible,\nHarry; but I don't mind.  It is impossible to be angry with you.  When\nyou see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her\nwould be a beast, a beast without a heart.  I cannot understand how any\none can wish to shame the thing he loves.  I love Sibyl Vane.  I want\nto place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the\nwoman who is mine.  What is marriage?  An irrevocable vow.  You mock at\nit for that.  Ah! don't mock.  It is an irrevocable vow that I want to\ntake.  Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good.  When I\nam with her, I regret all that you have taught me.  I become different\nfrom what you have known me to be.  I am changed, and the mere touch of\nSibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating,\npoisonous, delightful theories.\"\n\n\"And those are ...?\" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad.\n\n\"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories\nabout pleasure.  All your theories, in fact, Harry.\"\n\n\"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about,\" he answered\nin his slow melodious voice.  \"But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory\nas my own.  It belongs to Nature, not to me.  Pleasure is Nature's\ntest, her sign of approval.  When we are happy, we are always good, but\nwhen we are good, we are not always happy.\"\n\n\"Ah! but what do you mean by good?\" cried Basil Hallward.\n\n\"Yes,\" echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord\nHenry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the\ncentre of the table, \"what do you mean by good, Harry?\"\n\n\"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self,\" he replied, touching\nthe thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers.\n\"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.  One's own\nlife--that is the important thing.  As for the lives of one's\nneighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt\none's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern.  Besides,\nindividualism has really the higher aim.  Modern morality consists in\naccepting the standard of one's age.  I consider that for any man of\nculture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest\nimmorality.\"\n\n\"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a\nterrible price for doing so?\" suggested the painter.\n\n\"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays.  I should fancy that\nthe real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but\nself-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege\nof the rich.\"\n\n\"One has to pay in other ways but money.\"\n\n\"What sort of ways, Basil?\"\n\n\"Oh!  I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the\nconsciousness of degradation.\"\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"My dear fellow, mediaeval art is\ncharming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date.  One can use them in\nfiction, of course.  But then the only things that one can use in\nfiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact.  Believe me,\nno civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever\nknows what a pleasure is.\"\n\n\"I know what pleasure is,\" cried Dorian Gray.  \"It is to adore some\none.\"\n\n\"That is certainly better than being adored,\" he answered, toying with\nsome fruits.  \"Being adored is a nuisance.  Women treat us just as\nhumanity treats its gods.  They worship us, and are always bothering us\nto do something for them.\"\n\n\"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to\nus,\" murmured the lad gravely.  \"They create love in our natures.  They\nhave a right to demand it back.\"\n\n\"That is quite true, Dorian,\" cried Hallward.\n\n\"Nothing is ever quite true,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"This is,\" interrupted Dorian.  \"You must admit, Harry, that women give\nto men the very gold of their lives.\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" he sighed, \"but they invariably want it back in such very\nsmall change.  That is the worry.  Women, as some witty Frenchman once\nput it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always\nprevent us from carrying them out.\"\n\n\"Harry, you are dreadful!  I don't know why I like you so much.\"\n\n\"You will always like me, Dorian,\" he replied.  \"Will you have some\ncoffee, you fellows?  Waiter, bring coffee, and _fine-champagne_, and\nsome cigarettes.  No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some.  Basil, I\ncan't allow you to smoke cigars.  You must have a cigarette.  A\ncigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.  It is exquisite,\nand it leaves one unsatisfied.  What more can one want?  Yes, Dorian,\nyou will always be fond of me.  I represent to you all the sins you\nhave never had the courage to commit.\"\n\n\"What nonsense you talk, Harry!\" cried the lad, taking a light from a\nfire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.\n\"Let us go down to the theatre.  When Sibyl comes on the stage you will\nhave a new ideal of life.  She will represent something to you that you\nhave never known.\"\n\n\"I have known everything,\" said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his\neyes, \"but I am always ready for a new emotion.  I am afraid, however,\nthat, for me at any rate, there is no such thing.  Still, your\nwonderful girl may thrill me.  I love acting.  It is so much more real\nthan life.  Let us go.  Dorian, you will come with me.  I am so sorry,\nBasil, but there is only room for two in the brougham.  You must follow\nus in a hansom.\"\n\nThey got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing.  The\npainter was silent and preoccupied.  There was a gloom over him.  He\ncould not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better\nthan many other things that might have happened.  After a few minutes,\nthey all passed downstairs.  He drove off by himself, as had been\narranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in\nfront of him.  A strange sense of loss came over him.  He felt that\nDorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the\npast.  Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the\ncrowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes.  When the cab drew\nup at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.\n\n\n\n\n\nFor some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat\nJew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with\nan oily tremulous smile.  He escorted them to their box with a sort of\npompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top\nof his voice.  Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever.  He felt as if\nhe had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban.  Lord\nHenry, upon the other hand, rather liked him.  At least he declared he\ndid, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he\nwas proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone\nbankrupt over a poet.  Hallward amused himself with watching the faces\nin the pit.  The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight\nflamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire.  The youths\nin the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them\nover the side.  They talked to each other across the theatre and shared\ntheir oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them.  Some women\nwere laughing in the pit.  Their voices were horribly shrill and\ndiscordant.  The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.\n\n\"What a place to find one's divinity in!\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"Yes!\" answered Dorian Gray.  \"It was here I found her, and she is\ndivine beyond all living things.  When she acts, you will forget\neverything.  These common rough people, with their coarse faces and\nbrutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage.  They\nsit silently and watch her.  They weep and laugh as she wills them to\ndo.  She makes them as responsive as a violin.  She spiritualizes them,\nand one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self.\"\n\n\"The same flesh and blood as one's self!  Oh, I hope not!\" exclaimed\nLord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his\nopera-glass.\n\n\"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian,\" said the painter.  \"I\nunderstand what you mean, and I believe in this girl.  Any one you love\nmust be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must\nbe fine and noble.  To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth\ndoing.  If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without\none, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have\nbeen sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and\nlend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of\nall your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world.  This\nmarriage is quite right.  I did not think so at first, but I admit it\nnow.  The gods made Sibyl Vane for you.  Without her you would have\nbeen incomplete.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Basil,\" answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand.  \"I knew that\nyou would understand me.  Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me.  But\nhere is the orchestra.  It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for\nabout five minutes.  Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl\nto whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything\nthat is good in me.\"\n\nA quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of\napplause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage.  Yes, she was certainly\nlovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought,\nthat he had ever seen.  There was something of the fawn in her shy\ngrace and startled eyes.  A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a\nmirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded\nenthusiastic house.  She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed\nto tremble.  Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud.\nMotionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her.\nLord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, \"Charming! charming!\"\n\nThe scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's\ndress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends.  The band, such\nas it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began.  Through\nthe crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a\ncreature from a finer world.  Her body swayed, while she danced, as a\nplant sways in the water.  The curves of her throat were the curves of\na white lily.  Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.\n\nYet she was curiously listless.  She showed no sign of joy when her\neyes rested on Romeo.  The few words she had to speak--\n\n    Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\n        Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\n    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\n        And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss--\n\nwith the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly\nartificial manner.  The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view\nof tone it was absolutely false.  It was wrong in colour.  It took away\nall the life from the verse.  It made the passion unreal.\n\nDorian Gray grew pale as he watched her.  He was puzzled and anxious.\nNeither of his friends dared to say anything to him.  She seemed to\nthem to be absolutely incompetent.  They were horribly disappointed.\n\nYet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of\nthe second act.  They waited for that.  If she failed there, there was\nnothing in her.\n\nShe looked charming as she came out in the moonlight.  That could not\nbe denied.  But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew\nworse as she went on.  Her gestures became absurdly artificial.  She\noveremphasized everything that she had to say.  The beautiful passage--\n\n    Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,\n    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\n    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--\n\nwas declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been\ntaught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she\nleaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--\n\n        Although I joy in thee,\n    I have no joy of this contract to-night:\n    It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\n    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\n    Ere one can say, \"It lightens.\"  Sweet, good-night!\n    This bud of love by summer's ripening breath\n    May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet--\n\nshe spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was\nnot nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely\nself-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.\n\nEven the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their\ninterest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and\nto whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the\ndress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was\nthe girl herself.\n\nWhen the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord\nHenry got up from his chair and put on his coat.  \"She is quite\nbeautiful, Dorian,\" he said, \"but she can't act.  Let us go.\"\n\n\"I am going to see the play through,\" answered the lad, in a hard\nbitter voice.  \"I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an\nevening, Harry.  I apologize to you both.\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill,\" interrupted\nHallward.  \"We will come some other night.\"\n\n\"I wish she were ill,\" he rejoined.  \"But she seems to me to be simply\ncallous and cold.  She has entirely altered.  Last night she was a\ngreat artist.  This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre\nactress.\"\n\n\"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian.  Love is a more\nwonderful thing than art.\"\n\n\"They are both simply forms of imitation,\" remarked Lord Henry.  \"But\ndo let us go.  Dorian, you must not stay here any longer.  It is not\ngood for one's morals to see bad acting.  Besides, I don't suppose you\nwill want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet\nlike a wooden doll?  She is very lovely, and if she knows as little\nabout life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful\nexperience.  There are only two kinds of people who are really\nfascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know\nabsolutely nothing.  Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic!\nThe secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is\nunbecoming.  Come to the club with Basil and myself.  We will smoke\ncigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane.  She is beautiful.\nWhat more can you want?\"\n\n\"Go away, Harry,\" cried the lad.  \"I want to be alone.  Basil, you must\ngo.  Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?\"  The hot tears came\nto his eyes.  His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he\nleaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.\n\n\"Let us go, Basil,\" said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his\nvoice, and the two young men passed out together.\n\nA few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose\non the third act.  Dorian Gray went back to his seat.  He looked pale,\nand proud, and indifferent.  The play dragged on, and seemed\ninterminable.  Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots\nand laughing.  The whole thing was a _fiasco_.  The last act was played\nto almost empty benches.  The curtain went down on a titter and some\ngroans.\n\nAs soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the\ngreenroom.  The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph\non her face.  Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire.  There was a\nradiance about her.  Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of\ntheir own.\n\nWhen he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy\ncame over her.  \"How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!\" she cried.\n\n\"Horribly!\" he answered, gazing at her in amazement.  \"Horribly!  It\nwas dreadful.  Are you ill?  You have no idea what it was.  You have no\nidea what I suffered.\"\n\nThe girl smiled.  \"Dorian,\" she answered, lingering over his name with\nlong-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to\nthe red petals of her mouth.  \"Dorian, you should have understood.  But\nyou understand now, don't you?\"\n\n\"Understand what?\" he asked, angrily.\n\n\"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad.  Why I shall\nnever act well again.\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.  \"You are ill, I suppose.  When you are ill\nyou shouldn't act.  You make yourself ridiculous.  My friends were\nbored.  I was bored.\"\n\nShe seemed not to listen to him.  She was transfigured with joy.  An\necstasy of happiness dominated her.\n\n\"Dorian, Dorian,\" she cried, \"before I knew you, acting was the one\nreality of my life.  It was only in the theatre that I lived.  I\nthought that it was all true.  I was Rosalind one night and Portia the\nother.  The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia\nwere mine also.  I believed in everything.  The common people who acted\nwith me seemed to me to be godlike.  The painted scenes were my world.\nI knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real.  You came--oh, my\nbeautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison.  You taught me what\nreality really is.  To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw\nthrough the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in\nwhich I had always played.  To-night, for the first time, I became\nconscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the\nmoonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and\nthat the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not\nwhat I wanted to say.  You had brought me something higher, something\nof which all art is but a reflection.  You had made me understand what\nlove really is.  My love!  My love!  Prince Charming!  Prince of life!\nI have grown sick of shadows.  You are more to me than all art can ever\nbe.  What have I to do with the puppets of a play?  When I came on\nto-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone\nfrom me.  I thought that I was going to be wonderful.  I found that I\ncould do nothing.  Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.\nThe knowledge was exquisite to me.  I heard them hissing, and I smiled.\nWhat could they know of love such as ours?  Take me away, Dorian--take\nme away with you, where we can be quite alone.  I hate the stage.  I\nmight mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that\nburns me like fire.  Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it\nsignifies?  Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to\nplay at being in love.  You have made me see that.\"\n\nHe flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face.  \"You have\nkilled my love,\" he muttered.\n\nShe looked at him in wonder and laughed.  He made no answer.  She came\nacross to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair.  She knelt\ndown and pressed his hands to her lips.  He drew them away, and a\nshudder ran through him.\n\nThen he leaped up and went to the door.  \"Yes,\" he cried, \"you have\nkilled my love.  You used to stir my imagination.  Now you don't even\nstir my curiosity.  You simply produce no effect.  I loved you because\nyou were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you\nrealized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the\nshadows of art.  You have thrown it all away.  You are shallow and\nstupid.  My God! how mad I was to love you!  What a fool I have been!\nYou are nothing to me now.  I will never see you again.  I will never\nthink of you.  I will never mention your name.  You don't know what you\nwere to me, once.  Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it!  I\nwish I had never laid eyes upon you!  You have spoiled the romance of\nmy life.  How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!\nWithout your art, you are nothing.  I would have made you famous,\nsplendid, magnificent.  The world would have worshipped you, and you\nwould have borne my name.  What are you now?  A third-rate actress with\na pretty face.\"\n\nThe girl grew white, and trembled.  She clenched her hands together,\nand her voice seemed to catch in her throat.  \"You are not serious,\nDorian?\" she murmured.  \"You are acting.\"\n\n\"Acting!  I leave that to you.  You do it so well,\" he answered\nbitterly.\n\nShe rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her\nface, came across the room to him.  She put her hand upon his arm and\nlooked into his eyes.  He thrust her back.  \"Don't touch me!\" he cried.\n\nA low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay\nthere like a trampled flower.  \"Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!\" she\nwhispered.  \"I am so sorry I didn't act well.  I was thinking of you\nall the time.  But I will try--indeed, I will try.  It came so suddenly\nacross me, my love for you.  I think I should never have known it if\nyou had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other.  Kiss me again,\nmy love.  Don't go away from me.  I couldn't bear it.  Oh! don't go\naway from me.  My brother ... No; never mind.  He didn't mean it.  He\nwas in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will\nwork so hard and try to improve.  Don't be cruel to me, because I love\nyou better than anything in the world.  After all, it is only once that\nI have not pleased you.  But you are quite right, Dorian.  I should\nhave shown myself more of an artist.  It was foolish of me, and yet I\ncouldn't help it.  Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me.\" A fit of\npassionate sobbing choked her.  She crouched on the floor like a\nwounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at\nher, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain.  There is\nalways something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has\nceased to love.  Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.\nHer tears and sobs annoyed him.\n\n\"I am going,\" he said at last in his calm clear voice.  \"I don't wish\nto be unkind, but I can't see you again.  You have disappointed me.\"\n\nShe wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer.  Her little\nhands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him.  He\nturned on his heel and left the room.  In a few moments he was out of\nthe theatre.\n\nWhere he went to he hardly knew.  He remembered wandering through dimly\nlit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking\nhouses.  Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after\nhim.  Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves\nlike monstrous apes.  He had seen grotesque children huddled upon\ndoor-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.\n\nAs the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.\nThe darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed\nitself into a perfect pearl.  Huge carts filled with nodding lilies\nrumbled slowly down the polished empty street.  The air was heavy with\nthe perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an\nanodyne for his pain.  He followed into the market and watched the men\nunloading their waggons.  A white-smocked carter offered him some\ncherries.  He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money\nfor them, and began to eat them listlessly.  They had been plucked at\nmidnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.  A long\nline of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red\nroses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge,\njade-green piles of vegetables.  Under the portico, with its grey,\nsun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls,\nwaiting for the auction to be over.  Others crowded round the swinging\ndoors of the coffee-house in the piazza.  The heavy cart-horses slipped\nand stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.\nSome of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks.  Iris-necked\nand pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.\n\nAfter a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home.  For a few\nmoments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent\nsquare, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds.\nThe sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like\nsilver against it.  From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke\nwas rising.  It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.\n\nIn the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that\nhung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance,\nlights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals\nof flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire.  He turned them out and,\nhaving thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library\ntowards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the\nground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had\ndecorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries\nthat had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal.  As\nhe was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait\nBasil Hallward had painted of him.  He started back as if in surprise.\nThen he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled.  After he\nhad taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.\nFinally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it.  In\nthe dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk\nblinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed.  The\nexpression looked different.  One would have said that there was a\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth.  It was certainly strange.\n\nHe turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind.  The\nbright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky\ncorners, where they lay shuddering.  But the strange expression that he\nhad noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be\nmore intensified even.  The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the\nlines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking\ninto a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.\n\nHe winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory\nCupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly\ninto its polished depths.  No line like that warped his red lips.  What\ndid it mean?\n\nHe rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it\nagain.  There were no signs of any change when he looked into the\nactual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression\nhad altered.  It was not a mere fancy of his own.  The thing was\nhorribly apparent.\n\nHe threw himself into a chair and began to think.  Suddenly there\nflashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the\nday the picture had been finished.  Yes, he remembered it perfectly.\nHe had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the\nportrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the\nface on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that\nthe painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and\nthought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness\nof his then just conscious boyhood.  Surely his wish had not been\nfulfilled?  Such things were impossible.  It seemed monstrous even to\nthink of them.  And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth.\n\nCruelty!  Had he been cruel?  It was the girl's fault, not his.  He had\ndreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he\nhad thought her great.  Then she had disappointed him.  She had been\nshallow and unworthy.  And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over\nhim, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little\nchild.  He remembered with what callousness he had watched her.  Why\nhad he been made like that?  Why had such a soul been given to him?\nBut he had suffered also.  During the three terrible hours that the\nplay had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of\ntorture.  His life was well worth hers.  She had marred him for a\nmoment, if he had wounded her for an age.  Besides, women were better\nsuited to bear sorrow than men.  They lived on their emotions.  They\nonly thought of their emotions.  When they took lovers, it was merely\nto have some one with whom they could have scenes.  Lord Henry had told\nhim that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.  Why should he trouble\nabout Sibyl Vane?  She was nothing to him now.\n\nBut the picture?  What was he to say of that?  It held the secret of\nhis life, and told his story.  It had taught him to love his own\nbeauty.  Would it teach him to loathe his own soul?  Would he ever look\nat it again?\n\nNo; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses.  The\nhorrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.\nSuddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that\nmakes men mad.  The picture had not changed.  It was folly to think so.\n\nYet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel\nsmile.  Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight.  Its blue eyes\nmet his own.  A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the\npainted image of himself, came over him.  It had altered already, and\nwould alter more.  Its gold would wither into grey.  Its red and white\nroses would die.  For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck\nand wreck its fairness.  But he would not sin.  The picture, changed or\nunchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.  He would\nresist temptation.  He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at\nany rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil\nHallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for\nimpossible things.  He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends,\nmarry her, try to love her again.  Yes, it was his duty to do so.  She\nmust have suffered more than he had.  Poor child!  He had been selfish\nand cruel to her.  The fascination that she had exercised over him\nwould return.  They would be happy together.  His life with her would\nbe beautiful and pure.\n\nHe got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the\nportrait, shuddering as he glanced at it.  \"How horrible!\" he murmured\nto himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it.  When he\nstepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath.  The fresh morning\nair seemed to drive away all his sombre passions.  He thought only of\nSibyl.  A faint echo of his love came back to him.  He repeated her\nname over and over again.  The birds that were singing in the\ndew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was long past noon when he awoke.  His valet had crept several times\non tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered\nwhat made his young master sleep so late.  Finally his bell sounded,\nand Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on\na small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin\ncurtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the\nthree tall windows.\n\n\"Monsieur has well slept this morning,\" he said, smiling.\n\n\"What o'clock is it, Victor?\" asked Dorian Gray drowsily.\n\n\"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur.\"\n\nHow late it was!  He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over\nhis letters.  One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by\nhand that morning.  He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside.\nThe others he opened listlessly.  They contained the usual collection\nof cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes\nof charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable\nyoung men every morning during the season.  There was a rather heavy\nbill for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet\nhad the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely\nold-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when\nunnecessary things are our only necessities; and there were several\nvery courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders\noffering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the\nmost reasonable rates of interest.\n\nAfter about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate\ndressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the\nonyx-paved bathroom.  The cool water refreshed him after his long\nsleep.  He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through.  A\ndim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once\nor twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it.\n\nAs soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a\nlight French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round\ntable close to the open window.  It was an exquisite day.  The warm air\nseemed laden with spices.  A bee flew in and buzzed round the\nblue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before\nhim.  He felt perfectly happy.\n\nSuddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the\nportrait, and he started.\n\n\"Too cold for Monsieur?\" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the\ntable.  \"I shut the window?\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"I am not cold,\" he murmured.\n\nWas it all true?  Had the portrait really changed?  Or had it been\nsimply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where\nthere had been a look of joy?  Surely a painted canvas could not alter?\nThe thing was absurd.  It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day.\nIt would make him smile.\n\nAnd, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing!  First in\nthe dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of\ncruelty round the warped lips.  He almost dreaded his valet leaving the\nroom.  He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the\nportrait.  He was afraid of certainty.  When the coffee and cigarettes\nhad been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to\ntell him to remain.  As the door was closing behind him, he called him\nback.  The man stood waiting for his orders.  Dorian looked at him for\na moment.  \"I am not at home to any one, Victor,\" he said with a sigh.\nThe man bowed and retired.\n\nThen he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on\na luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen.  The screen\nwas an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a\nrather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern.  He scanned it curiously,\nwondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life.\n\nShould he move it aside, after all?  Why not let it stay there?  What\nwas the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible.  If it\nwas not true, why trouble about it?  But what if, by some fate or\ndeadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible\nchange?  What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at\nhis own picture?  Basil would be sure to do that.  No; the thing had to\nbe examined, and at once.  Anything would be better than this dreadful\nstate of doubt.\n\nHe got up and locked both doors.  At least he would be alone when he\nlooked upon the mask of his shame.  Then he drew the screen aside and\nsaw himself face to face.  It was perfectly true.  The portrait had\naltered.\n\nAs he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he\nfound himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost\nscientific interest.  That such a change should have taken place was\nincredible to him.  And yet it was a fact.  Was there some subtle\naffinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form\nand colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him?  Could it be\nthat what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they\nmade true?  Or was there some other, more terrible reason?  He\nshuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there,\ngazing at the picture in sickened horror.\n\nOne thing, however, he felt that it had done for him.  It had made him\nconscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane.  It was not\ntoo late to make reparation for that.  She could still be his wife.\nHis unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would\nbe transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil\nHallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would\nbe to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the\nfear of God to us all.  There were opiates for remorse, drugs that\ncould lull the moral sense to sleep.  But here was a visible symbol of\nthe degradation of sin.  Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men\nbrought upon their souls.\n\nThree o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double\nchime, but Dorian Gray did not stir.  He was trying to gather up the\nscarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his\nway through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was\nwandering.  He did not know what to do, or what to think.  Finally, he\nwent over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had\nloved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness.  He\ncovered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of\npain.  There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we\nfeel that no one else has a right to blame us.  It is the confession,\nnot the priest, that gives us absolution.  When Dorian had finished the\nletter, he felt that he had been forgiven.\n\nSuddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's\nvoice outside.  \"My dear boy, I must see you.  Let me in at once.  I\ncan't bear your shutting yourself up like this.\"\n\nHe made no answer at first, but remained quite still.  The knocking\nstill continued and grew louder.  Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry\nin, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel\nwith him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was\ninevitable.  He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture,\nand unlocked the door.\n\n\"I am so sorry for it all, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry as he entered.\n\"But you must not think too much about it.\"\n\n\"Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?\" asked the lad.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly\npulling off his yellow gloves.  \"It is dreadful, from one point of\nview, but it was not your fault.  Tell me, did you go behind and see\nher, after the play was over?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I felt sure you had.  Did you make a scene with her?\"\n\n\"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal.  But it is all right now.  I am\nnot sorry for anything that has happened.  It has taught me to know\nmyself better.\"\n\n\"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way!  I was afraid I\nwould find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of\nyours.\"\n\n\"I have got through all that,\" said Dorian, shaking his head and\nsmiling.  \"I am perfectly happy now.  I know what conscience is, to\nbegin with.  It is not what you told me it was.  It is the divinest\nthing in us.  Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before\nme.  I want to be good.  I can't bear the idea of my soul being\nhideous.\"\n\n\"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian!  I congratulate you\non it.  But how are you going to begin?\"\n\n\"By marrying Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"Marrying Sibyl Vane!\" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him\nin perplexed amazement.  \"But, my dear Dorian--\"\n\n\"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say.  Something dreadful\nabout marriage.  Don't say it.  Don't ever say things of that kind to\nme again.  Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me.  I am not going to\nbreak my word to her.  She is to be my wife.\"\n\n\"Your wife!  Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter?  I wrote to you this\nmorning, and sent the note down by my own man.\"\n\n\"Your letter?  Oh, yes, I remember.  I have not read it yet, Harry.  I\nwas afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like.  You\ncut life to pieces with your epigrams.\"\n\n\"You know nothing then?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nLord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray,\ntook both his hands in his own and held them tightly.  \"Dorian,\" he\nsaid, \"my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane\nis dead.\"\n\nA cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet,\ntearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp.  \"Dead!  Sibyl dead!\nIt is not true!  It is a horrible lie!  How dare you say it?\"\n\n\"It is quite true, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, gravely.  \"It is in all\nthe morning papers.  I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one\ntill I came.  There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must\nnot be mixed up in it.  Things like that make a man fashionable in\nParis.  But in London people are so prejudiced.  Here, one should never\nmake one's _debut_ with a scandal.  One should reserve that to give an\ninterest to one's old age.  I suppose they don't know your name at the\ntheatre?  If they don't, it is all right.  Did any one see you going\nround to her room?  That is an important point.\"\n\nDorian did not answer for a few moments.  He was dazed with horror.\nFinally he stammered, in a stifled voice, \"Harry, did you say an\ninquest?  What did you mean by that?  Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't\nbear it!  But be quick.  Tell me everything at once.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put\nin that way to the public.  It seems that as she was leaving the\ntheatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had\nforgotten something upstairs.  They waited some time for her, but she\ndid not come down again.  They ultimately found her lying dead on the\nfloor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake,\nsome dreadful thing they use at theatres.  I don't know what it was,\nbut it had either prussic acid or white lead in it.  I should fancy it\nwas prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously.\"\n\n\"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!\" cried the lad.\n\n\"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed\nup in it.  I see by _The Standard_ that she was seventeen.  I should have\nthought she was almost younger than that.  She looked such a child, and\nseemed to know so little about acting.  Dorian, you mustn't let this\nthing get on your nerves.  You must come and dine with me, and\nafterwards we will look in at the opera.  It is a Patti night, and\neverybody will be there.  You can come to my sister's box.  She has got\nsome smart women with her.\"\n\n\"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,\" said Dorian Gray, half to himself,\n\"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.\nYet the roses are not less lovely for all that.  The birds sing just as\nhappily in my garden.  And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go\non to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards.  How\nextraordinarily dramatic life is!  If I had read all this in a book,\nHarry, I think I would have wept over it.  Somehow, now that it has\nhappened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears.\nHere is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my\nlife.  Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been\naddressed to a dead girl.  Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent\npeople we call the dead?  Sibyl!  Can she feel, or know, or listen?\nOh, Harry, how I loved her once!  It seems years ago to me now.  She\nwas everything to me.  Then came that dreadful night--was it really\nonly last night?--when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke.\nShe explained it all to me.  It was terribly pathetic.  But I was not\nmoved a bit.  I thought her shallow.  Suddenly something happened that\nmade me afraid.  I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible.  I\nsaid I would go back to her.  I felt I had done wrong.  And now she is\ndead.  My God!  My God!  Harry, what shall I do?  You don't know the\ndanger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight.  She would\nhave done that for me.  She had no right to kill herself.  It was\nselfish of her.\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case\nand producing a gold-latten matchbox, \"the only way a woman can ever\nreform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible\ninterest in life.  If you had married this girl, you would have been\nwretched.  Of course, you would have treated her kindly.  One can\nalways be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.  But she would\nhave soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her.  And\nwhen a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes\ndreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's\nhusband has to pay for.  I say nothing about the social mistake, which\nwould have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but\nI assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an\nabsolute failure.\"\n\n\"I suppose it would,\" muttered the lad, walking up and down the room\nand looking horribly pale.  \"But I thought it was my duty.  It is not\nmy fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was\nright.  I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good\nresolutions--that they are always made too late.  Mine certainly were.\"\n\n\"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific\nlaws.  Their origin is pure vanity.  Their result is absolutely _nil_.\nThey give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions\nthat have a certain charm for the weak.  That is all that can be said\nfor them.  They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they\nhave no account.\"\n\n\"Harry,\" cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him,\n\"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to?  I\ndon't think I am heartless.  Do you?\"\n\n\"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be\nentitled to give yourself that name, Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry with\nhis sweet melancholy smile.\n\nThe lad frowned.  \"I don't like that explanation, Harry,\" he rejoined,\n\"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless.  I am nothing of the\nkind.  I know I am not.  And yet I must admit that this thing that has\nhappened does not affect me as it should.  It seems to me to be simply\nlike a wonderful ending to a wonderful play.  It has all the terrible\nbeauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but\nby which I have not been wounded.\"\n\n\"It is an interesting question,\" said Lord Henry, who found an\nexquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, \"an\nextremely interesting question.  I fancy that the true explanation is\nthis:  It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such\nan inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their\nabsolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack\nof style.  They affect us just as vulgarity affects us.  They give us\nan impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.\nSometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of\nbeauty crosses our lives.  If these elements of beauty are real, the\nwhole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect.  Suddenly\nwe find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the\nplay.  Or rather we are both.  We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder\nof the spectacle enthralls us.  In the present case, what is it that\nhas really happened?  Some one has killed herself for love of you.  I\nwish that I had ever had such an experience.  It would have made me in\nlove with love for the rest of my life.  The people who have adored\nme--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have\nalways insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them,\nor they to care for me.  They have become stout and tedious, and when I\nmeet them, they go in at once for reminiscences.  That awful memory of\nwoman!  What a fearful thing it is!  And what an utter intellectual\nstagnation it reveals!  One should absorb the colour of life, but one\nshould never remember its details.  Details are always vulgar.\"\n\n\"I must sow poppies in my garden,\" sighed Dorian.\n\n\"There is no necessity,\" rejoined his companion.  \"Life has always\npoppies in her hands.  Of course, now and then things linger.  I once\nwore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic\nmourning for a romance that would not die.  Ultimately, however, it did\ndie.  I forget what killed it.  I think it was her proposing to\nsacrifice the whole world for me.  That is always a dreadful moment.\nIt fills one with the terror of eternity.  Well--would you believe\nit?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner\nnext the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole\nthing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future.  I had\nburied my romance in a bed of asphodel.  She dragged it out again and\nassured me that I had spoiled her life.  I am bound to state that she\nate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety.  But what a lack\nof taste she showed!  The one charm of the past is that it is the past.\nBut women never know when the curtain has fallen.  They always want a\nsixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over,\nthey propose to continue it.  If they were allowed their own way, every\ncomedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in\na farce.  They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of\nart.  You are more fortunate than I am.  I assure you, Dorian, that not\none of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane\ndid for you.  Ordinary women always console themselves.  Some of them\ndo it by going in for sentimental colours.  Never trust a woman who\nwears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who\nis fond of pink ribbons.  It always means that they have a history.\nOthers find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good\nqualities of their husbands.  They flaunt their conjugal felicity in\none's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.  Religion\nconsoles some.  Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a\nwoman once told me, and I can quite understand it.  Besides, nothing\nmakes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.  Conscience makes\negotists of us all.  Yes; there is really no end to the consolations\nthat women find in modern life.  Indeed, I have not mentioned the most\nimportant one.\"\n\n\"What is that, Harry?\" said the lad listlessly.\n\n\"Oh, the obvious consolation.  Taking some one else's admirer when one\nloses one's own.  In good society that always whitewashes a woman.  But\nreally, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the\nwomen one meets!  There is something to me quite beautiful about her\ndeath.  I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen.\nThey make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with,\nsuch as romance, passion, and love.\"\n\n\"I was terribly cruel to her.  You forget that.\"\n\n\"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more\nthan anything else.  They have wonderfully primitive instincts.  We\nhave emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their\nmasters, all the same.  They love being dominated.  I am sure you were\nsplendid.  I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can\nfancy how delightful you looked.  And, after all, you said something to\nme the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely\nfanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key\nto everything.\"\n\n\"What was that, Harry?\"\n\n\"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of\nromance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that\nif she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.\"\n\n\"She will never come to life again now,\" muttered the lad, burying his\nface in his hands.\n\n\"No, she will never come to life.  She has played her last part.  But\nyou must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply\nas a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful\nscene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur.  The girl never really\nlived, and so she has never really died.  To you at least she was\nalways a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and\nleft them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's\nmusic sounded richer and more full of joy.  The moment she touched\nactual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away.\nMourn for Ophelia, if you like.  Put ashes on your head because\nCordelia was strangled.  Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of\nBrabantio died.  But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane.  She was\nless real than they are.\"\n\nThere was a silence.  The evening darkened in the room.  Noiselessly,\nand with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden.  The\ncolours faded wearily out of things.\n\nAfter some time Dorian Gray looked up.  \"You have explained me to\nmyself, Harry,\" he murmured with something of a sigh of relief.  \"I\nfelt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I\ncould not express it to myself.  How well you know me!  But we will not\ntalk again of what has happened.  It has been a marvellous experience.\nThat is all.  I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as\nmarvellous.\"\n\n\"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian.  There is nothing that\nyou, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.\"\n\n\"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled?  What\nthen?\"\n\n\"Ah, then,\" said Lord Henry, rising to go, \"then, my dear Dorian, you\nwould have to fight for your victories.  As it is, they are brought to\nyou.  No, you must keep your good looks.  We live in an age that reads\ntoo much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.  We\ncannot spare you.  And now you had better dress and drive down to the\nclub.  We are rather late, as it is.\"\n\n\"I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry.  I feel too tired to eat\nanything.  What is the number of your sister's box?\"\n\n\"Twenty-seven, I believe.  It is on the grand tier.  You will see her\nname on the door.  But I am sorry you won't come and dine.\"\n\n\"I don't feel up to it,\" said Dorian listlessly.  \"But I am awfully\nobliged to you for all that you have said to me.  You are certainly my\nbest friend.  No one has ever understood me as you have.\"\n\n\"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian,\" answered Lord\nHenry, shaking him by the hand.  \"Good-bye. I shall see you before\nnine-thirty, I hope.  Remember, Patti is singing.\"\n\nAs he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in\na few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down.\nHe waited impatiently for him to go.  The man seemed to take an\ninterminable time over everything.\n\nAs soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back.  No;\nthere was no further change in the picture.  It had received the news\nof Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself.  It was\nconscious of the events of life as they occurred.  The vicious cruelty\nthat marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the\nvery moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was.  Or\nwas it indifferent to results?  Did it merely take cognizance of what\npassed within the soul?  He wondered, and hoped that some day he would\nsee the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he\nhoped it.\n\nPoor Sibyl!  What a romance it had all been!  She had often mimicked\ndeath on the stage.  Then Death himself had touched her and taken her\nwith him.  How had she played that dreadful last scene?  Had she cursed\nhim, as she died?  No; she had died for love of him, and love would\nalways be a sacrament to him now.  She had atoned for everything by the\nsacrifice she had made of her life.  He would not think any more of\nwhat she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the\ntheatre.  When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic\nfigure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of\nlove.  A wonderful tragic figure?  Tears came to his eyes as he\nremembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy\ntremulous grace.  He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the\npicture.\n\nHe felt that the time had really come for making his choice.  Or had\nhis choice already been made?  Yes, life had decided that for\nhim--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life.  Eternal youth,\ninfinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder\nsins--he was to have all these things.  The portrait was to bear the\nburden of his shame: that was all.\n\nA feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that\nwas in store for the fair face on the canvas.  Once, in boyish mockery\nof Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips\nthat now smiled so cruelly at him.  Morning after morning he had sat\nbefore the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as\nit seemed to him at times.  Was it to alter now with every mood to\nwhich he yielded?  Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to\nbe hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that\nhad so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair?\nThe pity of it! the pity of it!\n\nFor a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that\nexisted between him and the picture might cease.  It had changed in\nanswer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain\nunchanged.  And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would\nsurrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that\nchance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?\nBesides, was it really under his control?  Had it indeed been prayer\nthat had produced the substitution?  Might there not be some curious\nscientific reason for it all?  If thought could exercise its influence\nupon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon\ndead and inorganic things?  Nay, without thought or conscious desire,\nmight not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods\nand passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?\nBut the reason was of no importance.  He would never again tempt by a\nprayer any terrible power.  If the picture was to alter, it was to\nalter.  That was all.  Why inquire too closely into it?\n\nFor there would be a real pleasure in watching it.  He would be able to\nfollow his mind into its secret places.  This portrait would be to him\nthe most magical of mirrors.  As it had revealed to him his own body,\nso it would reveal to him his own soul.  And when winter came upon it,\nhe would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of\nsummer.  When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid\nmask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood.\nNot one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade.  Not one pulse of\nhis life would ever weaken.  Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be\nstrong, and fleet, and joyous.  What did it matter what happened to the\ncoloured image on the canvas?  He would be safe.  That was everything.\n\nHe drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture,\nsmiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was\nalready waiting for him.  An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord\nHenry was leaning over his chair.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown\ninto the room.\n\n\"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian,\" he said gravely.  \"I called\nlast night, and they told me you were at the opera.  Of course, I knew\nthat was impossible.  But I wish you had left word where you had really\ngone to.  I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy\nmight be followed by another.  I think you might have telegraphed for\nme when you heard of it first.  I read of it quite by chance in a late\nedition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club.  I came here at once\nand was miserable at not finding you.  I can't tell you how\nheart-broken I am about the whole thing.  I know what you must suffer.\nBut where were you?  Did you go down and see the girl's mother?  For a\nmoment I thought of following you there.  They gave the address in the\npaper.  Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it?  But I was afraid of\nintruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten.  Poor woman!  What a\nstate she must be in!  And her only child, too!  What did she say about\nit all?\"\n\n\"My dear Basil, how do I know?\" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some\npale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass\nand looking dreadfully bored.  \"I was at the opera.  You should have\ncome on there.  I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first\ntime.  We were in her box.  She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang\ndivinely.  Don't talk about horrid subjects.  If one doesn't talk about\na thing, it has never happened.  It is simply expression, as Harry\nsays, that gives reality to things.  I may mention that she was not the\nwoman's only child.  There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe.  But\nhe is not on the stage.  He is a sailor, or something.  And now, tell\nme about yourself and what you are painting.\"\n\n\"You went to the opera?\" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a\nstrained touch of pain in his voice.  \"You went to the opera while\nSibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging?  You can talk to me\nof other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before\nthe girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in?  Why,\nman, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!\"\n\n\"Stop, Basil!  I won't hear it!\" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.\n\"You must not tell me about things.  What is done is done.  What is\npast is past.\"\n\n\"You call yesterday the past?\"\n\n\"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it?  It is only\nshallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion.  A man who\nis master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a\npleasure.  I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions.  I want to\nuse them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.\"\n\n\"Dorian, this is horrible!  Something has changed you completely.  You\nlook exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come\ndown to my studio to sit for his picture.  But you were simple,\nnatural, and affectionate then.  You were the most unspoiled creature\nin the whole world.  Now, I don't know what has come over you.  You\ntalk as if you had no heart, no pity in you.  It is all Harry's\ninfluence.  I see that.\"\n\nThe lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few\nmoments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden.  \"I owe a great\ndeal to Harry, Basil,\" he said at last, \"more than I owe to you.  You\nonly taught me to be vain.\"\n\n\"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean, Basil,\" he exclaimed, turning round.  \"I\ndon't know what you want.  What do you want?\"\n\n\"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint,\" said the artist sadly.\n\n\"Basil,\" said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his\nshoulder, \"you have come too late.  Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl\nVane had killed herself--\"\n\n\"Killed herself!  Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?\" cried\nHallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.\n\n\"My dear Basil!  Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident?  Of\ncourse she killed herself.\"\n\nThe elder man buried his face in his hands.  \"How fearful,\" he\nmuttered, and a shudder ran through him.\n\n\"No,\" said Dorian Gray, \"there is nothing fearful about it.  It is one\nof the great romantic tragedies of the age.  As a rule, people who act\nlead the most commonplace lives.  They are good husbands, or faithful\nwives, or something tedious.  You know what I mean--middle-class virtue\nand all that kind of thing.  How different Sibyl was!  She lived her\nfinest tragedy.  She was always a heroine.  The last night she\nplayed--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known\nthe reality of love.  When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet\nmight have died.  She passed again into the sphere of art.  There is\nsomething of the martyr about her.  Her death has all the pathetic\nuselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty.  But, as I was saying,\nyou must not think I have not suffered.  If you had come in yesterday\nat a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to\nsix--you would have found me in tears.  Even Harry, who was here, who\nbrought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through.  I\nsuffered immensely.  Then it passed away.  I cannot repeat an emotion.\nNo one can, except sentimentalists.  And you are awfully unjust, Basil.\nYou come down here to console me.  That is charming of you.  You find\nme consoled, and you are furious.  How like a sympathetic person!  You\nremind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who\nspent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance\nredressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was.\nFinally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment.  He\nhad absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a\nconfirmed misanthrope.  And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really\nwant to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to\nsee it from a proper artistic point of view.  Was it not Gautier who\nused to write about _la consolation des arts_?  I remember picking up a\nlittle vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that\ndelightful phrase.  Well, I am not like that young man you told me of\nwhen we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say\nthat yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life.  I\nlove beautiful things that one can touch and handle.  Old brocades,\ngreen bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings,\nluxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these.  But the artistic\ntemperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to\nme.  To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to\nescape the suffering of life.  I know you are surprised at my talking\nto you like this.  You have not realized how I have developed.  I was a\nschoolboy when you knew me.  I am a man now.  I have new passions, new\nthoughts, new ideas.  I am different, but you must not like me less.  I\nam changed, but you must always be my friend.  Of course, I am very\nfond of Harry.  But I know that you are better than he is.  You are not\nstronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better.  And how\nhappy we used to be together!  Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel\nwith me.  I am what I am.  There is nothing more to be said.\"\n\nThe painter felt strangely moved.  The lad was infinitely dear to him,\nand his personality had been the great turning point in his art.  He\ncould not bear the idea of reproaching him any more.  After all, his\nindifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away.  There\nwas so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.\n\n\"Well, Dorian,\" he said at length, with a sad smile, \"I won't speak to\nyou again about this horrible thing, after to-day.  I only trust your\nname won't be mentioned in connection with it.  The inquest is to take\nplace this afternoon.  Have they summoned you?\"\n\nDorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at\nthe mention of the word \"inquest.\"  There was something so crude and\nvulgar about everything of the kind.  \"They don't know my name,\" he\nanswered.\n\n\"But surely she did?\"\n\n\"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned\nto any one.  She told me once that they were all rather curious to\nlearn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince\nCharming.  It was pretty of her.  You must do me a drawing of Sibyl,\nBasil.  I should like to have something more of her than the memory of\na few kisses and some broken pathetic words.\"\n\n\"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you.  But you\nmust come and sit to me yourself again.  I can't get on without you.\"\n\n\"I can never sit to you again, Basil.  It is impossible!\" he exclaimed,\nstarting back.\n\nThe painter stared at him.  \"My dear boy, what nonsense!\" he cried.\n\"Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you?  Where is it?\nWhy have you pulled the screen in front of it?  Let me look at it.  It\nis the best thing I have ever done.  Do take the screen away, Dorian.\nIt is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that.  I\nfelt the room looked different as I came in.\"\n\n\"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil.  You don't imagine I let\nhim arrange my room for me?  He settles my flowers for me\nsometimes--that is all.  No; I did it myself.  The light was too strong\non the portrait.\"\n\n\"Too strong!  Surely not, my dear fellow?  It is an admirable place for\nit.  Let me see it.\"  And Hallward walked towards the corner of the\nroom.\n\nA cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between\nthe painter and the screen.  \"Basil,\" he said, looking very pale, \"you\nmust not look at it.  I don't wish you to.\"\n\n\"Not look at my own work!  You are not serious.  Why shouldn't I look\nat it?\" exclaimed Hallward, laughing.\n\n\"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never\nspeak to you again as long as I live.  I am quite serious.  I don't\noffer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any.  But, remember,\nif you touch this screen, everything is over between us.\"\n\nHallward was thunderstruck.  He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute\namazement.  He had never seen him like this before.  The lad was\nactually pallid with rage.  His hands were clenched, and the pupils of\nhis eyes were like disks of blue fire.  He was trembling all over.\n\n\"Dorian!\"\n\n\"Don't speak!\"\n\n\"But what is the matter?  Of course I won't look at it if you don't\nwant me to,\" he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over\ntowards the window.  \"But, really, it seems rather absurd that I\nshouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in\nParis in the autumn.  I shall probably have to give it another coat of\nvarnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?\"\n\n\"To exhibit it!  You want to exhibit it?\" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a\nstrange sense of terror creeping over him.  Was the world going to be\nshown his secret?  Were people to gape at the mystery of his life?\nThat was impossible.  Something--he did not know what--had to be done\nat once.\n\n\"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that.  Georges Petit is going\nto collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de\nSeze, which will open the first week in October.  The portrait will\nonly be away a month.  I should think you could easily spare it for\nthat time.  In fact, you are sure to be out of town.  And if you keep\nit always behind a screen, you can't care much about it.\"\n\nDorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead.  There were beads of\nperspiration there.  He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible\ndanger.  \"You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it,\" he\ncried.  \"Why have you changed your mind?  You people who go in for\nbeing consistent have just as many moods as others have.  The only\ndifference is that your moods are rather meaningless.  You can't have\nforgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world\nwould induce you to send it to any exhibition.  You told Harry exactly\nthe same thing.\" He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into\nhis eyes.  He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half\nseriously and half in jest, \"If you want to have a strange quarter of\nan hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture.  He\ntold me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me.\"  Yes, perhaps\nBasil, too, had his secret.  He would ask him and try.\n\n\"Basil,\" he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in\nthe face, \"we have each of us a secret.  Let me know yours, and I shall\ntell you mine.  What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my\npicture?\"\n\nThe painter shuddered in spite of himself.  \"Dorian, if I told you, you\nmight like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me.  I\ncould not bear your doing either of those two things.  If you wish me\nnever to look at your picture again, I am content.  I have always you\nto look at.  If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden\nfrom the world, I am satisfied.  Your friendship is dearer to me than\nany fame or reputation.\"\n\n\"No, Basil, you must tell me,\" insisted Dorian Gray.  \"I think I have a\nright to know.\"  His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity\nhad taken its place.  He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's\nmystery.\n\n\"Let us sit down, Dorian,\" said the painter, looking troubled.  \"Let us\nsit down.  And just answer me one question.  Have you noticed in the\npicture something curious?--something that probably at first did not\nstrike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?\"\n\n\"Basil!\" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling\nhands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.\n\n\"I see you did.  Don't speak.  Wait till you hear what I have to say.\nDorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most\nextraordinary influence over me.  I was dominated, soul, brain, and\npower, by you.  You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen\nideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.  I\nworshipped you.  I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke.  I\nwanted to have you all to myself.  I was only happy when I was with\nyou.  When you were away from me, you were still present in my art....\nOf course, I never let you know anything about this.  It would have\nbeen impossible.  You would not have understood it.  I hardly\nunderstood it myself.  I only knew that I had seen perfection face to\nface, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too\nwonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril\nof losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them....  Weeks and\nweeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you.  Then came a\nnew development.  I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as\nAdonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with\nheavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing\nacross the green turbid Nile.  You had leaned over the still pool of\nsome Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of\nyour own face.  And it had all been what art should be--unconscious,\nideal, and remote.  One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I\ndetermined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are,\nnot in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own\ntime.  Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of\nyour own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or\nveil, I cannot tell.  But I know that as I worked at it, every flake\nand film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret.  I grew afraid\nthat others would know of my idolatry.  I felt, Dorian, that I had told\ntoo much, that I had put too much of myself into it.  Then it was that\nI resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited.  You were a\nlittle annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me.\nHarry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me.  But I did not mind\nthat.  When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt\nthat I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio,\nand as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its\npresence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I\nhad seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking\nand that I could paint.  Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a\nmistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really\nshown in the work one creates.  Art is always more abstract than we\nfancy.  Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all.  It\noften seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than\nit ever reveals him.  And so when I got this offer from Paris, I\ndetermined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.\nIt never occurred to me that you would refuse.  I see now that you were\nright.  The picture cannot be shown.  You must not be angry with me,\nDorian, for what I have told you.  As I said to Harry, once, you are\nmade to be worshipped.\"\n\nDorian Gray drew a long breath.  The colour came back to his cheeks,\nand a smile played about his lips.  The peril was over.  He was safe\nfor the time.  Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the\npainter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered\nif he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a\nfriend.  Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous.  But that\nwas all.  He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of.\nWould there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange\nidolatry?  Was that one of the things that life had in store?\n\n\"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"that you should\nhave seen this in the portrait.  Did you really see it?\"\n\n\"I saw something in it,\" he answered, \"something that seemed to me very\ncurious.\"\n\n\"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"You must not ask me that, Basil.  I could not\npossibly let you stand in front of that picture.\"\n\n\"You will some day, surely?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps you are right.  And now good-bye, Dorian.  You have been\nthe one person in my life who has really influenced my art.  Whatever I\nhave done that is good, I owe to you.  Ah! you don't know what it cost\nme to tell you all that I have told you.\"\n\n\"My dear Basil,\" said Dorian, \"what have you told me?  Simply that you\nfelt that you admired me too much.  That is not even a compliment.\"\n\n\"It was not intended as a compliment.  It was a confession.  Now that I\nhave made it, something seems to have gone out of me.  Perhaps one\nshould never put one's worship into words.\"\n\n\"It was a very disappointing confession.\"\n\n\"Why, what did you expect, Dorian?  You didn't see anything else in the\npicture, did you?  There was nothing else to see?\"\n\n\"No; there was nothing else to see.  Why do you ask?  But you mustn't\ntalk about worship.  It is foolish.  You and I are friends, Basil, and\nwe must always remain so.\"\n\n\"You have got Harry,\" said the painter sadly.\n\n\"Oh, Harry!\" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter.  \"Harry spends\nhis days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is\nimprobable.  Just the sort of life I would like to lead.  But still I\ndon't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble.  I would sooner\ngo to you, Basil.\"\n\n\"You will sit to me again?\"\n\n\"Impossible!\"\n\n\"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian.  No man comes\nacross two ideal things.  Few come across one.\"\n\n\"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again.\nThere is something fatal about a portrait.  It has a life of its own.\nI will come and have tea with you.  That will be just as pleasant.\"\n\n\"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid,\" murmured Hallward regretfully.  \"And\nnow good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once\nagain.  But that can't be helped.  I quite understand what you feel\nabout it.\"\n\nAs he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself.  Poor Basil!  How\nlittle he knew of the true reason!  And how strange it was that,\ninstead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had\nsucceeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend!  How\nmuch that strange confession explained to him!  The painter's absurd\nfits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his\ncurious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry.\nThere seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured\nby romance.\n\nHe sighed and touched the bell.  The portrait must be hidden away at\nall costs.  He could not run such a risk of discovery again.  It had\nbeen mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour,\nin a room to which any of his friends had access.\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if\nhe had thought of peering behind the screen.  The man was quite\nimpassive and waited for his orders.  Dorian lit a cigarette and walked\nover to the glass and glanced into it.  He could see the reflection of\nVictor's face perfectly.  It was like a placid mask of servility.\nThere was nothing to be afraid of, there.  Yet he thought it best to be\non his guard.\n\nSpeaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he\nwanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to\nsend two of his men round at once.  It seemed to him that as the man\nleft the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen.  Or was\nthat merely his own fancy?\n\nAfter a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread\nmittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library.  He\nasked her for the key of the schoolroom.\n\n\"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?\" she exclaimed.  \"Why, it is full of\ndust.  I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it.\nIt is not fit for you to see, sir.  It is not, indeed.\"\n\n\"I don't want it put straight, Leaf.  I only want the key.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it.  Why, it\nhasn't been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died.\"\n\nHe winced at the mention of his grandfather.  He had hateful memories\nof him.  \"That does not matter,\" he answered.  \"I simply want to see\nthe place--that is all.  Give me the key.\"\n\n\"And here is the key, sir,\" said the old lady, going over the contents\nof her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands.  \"Here is the key.  I'll\nhave it off the bunch in a moment.  But you don't think of living up\nthere, sir, and you so comfortable here?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" he cried petulantly.  \"Thank you, Leaf.  That will do.\"\n\nShe lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of\nthe household.  He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought\nbest.  She left the room, wreathed in smiles.\n\nAs the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round\nthe room.  His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily\nembroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century\nVenetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.\nYes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in.  It had perhaps\nserved often as a pall for the dead.  Now it was to hide something that\nhad a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death\nitself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die.\nWhat the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image\non the canvas.  They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace.  They\nwould defile it and make it shameful.  And yet the thing would still\nlive on.  It would be always alive.\n\nHe shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil\nthe true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away.  Basil\nwould have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still\nmore poisonous influences that came from his own temperament.  The love\nthat he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was\nnot noble and intellectual.  It was not that mere physical admiration\nof beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses\ntire.  It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and\nWinckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.  Yes, Basil could have saved him.\nBut it was too late now.  The past could always be annihilated.\nRegret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that.  But the future was\ninevitable.  There were passions in him that would find their terrible\noutlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real.\n\nHe took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that\ncovered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen.\nWas the face on the canvas viler than before?  It seemed to him that it\nwas unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified.  Gold hair,\nblue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there.  It was simply the\nexpression that had altered.  That was horrible in its cruelty.\nCompared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's\nreproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--how shallow, and of what little\naccount!  His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and\ncalling him to judgement.  A look of pain came across him, and he flung\nthe rich pall over the picture.  As he did so, a knock came to the\ndoor.  He passed out as his servant entered.\n\n\"The persons are here, Monsieur.\"\n\nHe felt that the man must be got rid of at once.  He must not be\nallowed to know where the picture was being taken to.  There was\nsomething sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes.\nSitting down at the writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry,\nasking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that\nthey were to meet at eight-fifteen that evening.\n\n\"Wait for an answer,\" he said, handing it to him, \"and show the men in\nhere.\"\n\nIn two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard\nhimself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in\nwith a somewhat rough-looking young assistant.  Mr. Hubbard was a\nflorid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was\nconsiderably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the\nartists who dealt with him.  As a rule, he never left his shop.  He\nwaited for people to come to him.  But he always made an exception in\nfavour of Dorian Gray.  There was something about Dorian that charmed\neverybody.  It was a pleasure even to see him.\n\n\"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?\" he said, rubbing his fat freckled\nhands.  \"I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in\nperson.  I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir.  Picked it up at a\nsale.  Old Florentine.  Came from Fonthill, I believe.  Admirably\nsuited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr.\nHubbard.  I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame--though I\ndon't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day I only want a\npicture carried to the top of the house for me.  It is rather heavy, so\nI thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men.\"\n\n\"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray.  I am delighted to be of any service to\nyou.  Which is the work of art, sir?\"\n\n\"This,\" replied Dorian, moving the screen back.  \"Can you move it,\ncovering and all, just as it is?  I don't want it to get scratched\ngoing upstairs.\"\n\n\"There will be no difficulty, sir,\" said the genial frame-maker,\nbeginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from\nthe long brass chains by which it was suspended.  \"And, now, where\nshall we carry it to, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me.\nOr perhaps you had better go in front.  I am afraid it is right at the\ntop of the house.  We will go up by the front staircase, as it is\nwider.\"\n\nHe held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and\nbegan the ascent.  The elaborate character of the frame had made the\npicture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious\nprotests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike\nof seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it\nso as to help them.\n\n\"Something of a load to carry, sir,\" gasped the little man when they\nreached the top landing.  And he wiped his shiny forehead.\n\n\"I am afraid it is rather heavy,\" murmured Dorian as he unlocked the\ndoor that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious\nsecret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men.\n\nHe had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed,\nsince he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then\nas a study when he grew somewhat older.  It was a large,\nwell-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord\nKelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness\nto his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and\ndesired to keep at a distance.  It appeared to Dorian to have but\nlittle changed.  There was the huge Italian _cassone_, with its\nfantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which\nhe had so often hidden himself as a boy.  There the satinwood book-case\nfilled with his dog-eared schoolbooks.  On the wall behind it was\nhanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen\nwere playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by,\ncarrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists.  How well he\nremembered it all!  Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to\nhim as he looked round.  He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish\nlife, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait\nwas to be hidden away.  How little he had thought, in those dead days,\nof all that was in store for him!\n\nBut there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as\nthis.  He had the key, and no one else could enter it.  Beneath its\npurple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden,\nand unclean.  What did it matter?  No one could see it.  He himself\nwould not see it.  Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his\nsoul?  He kept his youth--that was enough.  And, besides, might not\nhis nature grow finer, after all?  There was no reason that the future\nshould be so full of shame.  Some love might come across his life, and\npurify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already\nstirring in spirit and in flesh--those curious unpictured sins whose\nvery mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm.  Perhaps, some\nday, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive\nmouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece.\n\nNo; that was impossible.  Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing\nupon the canvas was growing old.  It might escape the hideousness of\nsin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it.  The cheeks would\nbecome hollow or flaccid.  Yellow crow's feet would creep round the\nfading eyes and make them horrible.  The hair would lose its\nbrightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross,\nas the mouths of old men are.  There would be the wrinkled throat, the\ncold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the\ngrandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood.  The picture\nhad to be concealed.  There was no help for it.\n\n\"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please,\" he said, wearily, turning round.\n\"I am sorry I kept you so long.  I was thinking of something else.\"\n\n\"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray,\" answered the frame-maker, who\nwas still gasping for breath.  \"Where shall we put it, sir?\"\n\n\"Oh, anywhere.  Here:  this will do.  I don't want to have it hung up.\nJust lean it against the wall.  Thanks.\"\n\n\"Might one look at the work of art, sir?\"\n\nDorian started.  \"It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard,\" he said,\nkeeping his eye on the man.  He felt ready to leap upon him and fling\nhim to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that\nconcealed the secret of his life.  \"I shan't trouble you any more now.\nI am much obliged for your kindness in coming round.\"\n\n\"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray.  Ever ready to do anything for you,\nsir.\" And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant,\nwho glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough\nuncomely face.  He had never seen any one so marvellous.\n\nWhen the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door\nand put the key in his pocket.  He felt safe now.  No one would ever\nlook upon the horrible thing.  No eye but his would ever see his shame.\n\nOn reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock\nand that the tea had been already brought up.  On a little table of\ndark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady\nRadley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had\nspent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry,\nand beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn\nand the edges soiled.  A copy of the third edition of _The St. James's\nGazette_ had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had\nreturned.  He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were\nleaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing.\nHe would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed it already,\nwhile he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set\nback, and a blank space was visible on the wall.  Perhaps some night he\nmight find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the\nroom.  It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house.  He had\nheard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some\nservant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked\nup a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower\nor a shred of crumpled lace.\n\nHe sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's\nnote.  It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper,\nand a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at\neight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James's_ languidly, and looked through\nit.  A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye.  It drew\nattention to the following paragraph:\n\n\nINQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell\nTavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of\nSibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre,\nHolborn.  A verdict of death by misadventure was returned.\nConsiderable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who\nwas greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of\nDr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased.\n\n\nHe frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and\nflung the pieces away.  How ugly it all was!  And how horribly real\nugliness made things!  He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for\nhaving sent him the report.  And it was certainly stupid of him to have\nmarked it with red pencil.  Victor might have read it.  The man knew\nmore than enough English for that.\n\nPerhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something.  And, yet,\nwhat did it matter?  What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's\ndeath?  There was nothing to fear.  Dorian Gray had not killed her.\n\nHis eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him.  What was\nit, he wondered.  He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal\nstand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange\nEgyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung\nhimself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves.  After a\nfew minutes he became absorbed.  It was the strangest book that he had\never read.  It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the\ndelicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb\nshow before him.  Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly\nmade real to him.  Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually\nrevealed.\n\nIt was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being,\nindeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who\nspent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the\npassions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his\nown, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through\nwhich the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere\nartificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue,\nas much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.  The\nstyle in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid\nand obscure at once, full of _argot_ and of archaisms, of technical\nexpressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work\nof some of the finest artists of the French school of _Symbolistes_.\nThere were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in\ncolour.  The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical\nphilosophy.  One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the\nspiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions\nof a modern sinner.  It was a poisonous book.  The heavy odour of\nincense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain.  The\nmere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so\nfull as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated,\nproduced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter,\na form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of\nthe falling day and creeping shadows.\n\nCloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed\nthrough the windows.  He read on by its wan light till he could read no\nmore.  Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the\nlateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed\nthe book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his\nbedside and began to dress for dinner.\n\nIt was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found\nLord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.\n\n\"I am so sorry, Harry,\" he cried, \"but really it is entirely your\nfault.  That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the\ntime was going.\"\n\n\"Yes, I thought you would like it,\" replied his host, rising from his\nchair.\n\n\"I didn't say I liked it, Harry.  I said it fascinated me.  There is a\ngreat difference.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have discovered that?\" murmured Lord Henry.  And they passed\ninto the dining-room.\n\n\n\n\n\nFor years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of\nthis book.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never\nsought to free himself from it.  He procured from Paris no less than\nnine large-paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in\ndifferent colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the\nchanging fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have\nalmost entirely lost control.  The hero, the wonderful young Parisian\nin whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely\nblended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself.  And,\nindeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own\nlife, written before he had lived it.\n\nIn one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero.  He\nnever knew--never, indeed, had any cause to know--that somewhat\ngrotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still\nwater which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, and was\noccasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, apparently,\nbeen so remarkable.  It was with an almost cruel joy--and perhaps in\nnearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its\nplace--that he used to read the latter part of the book, with its\nreally tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow and\ndespair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, he\nhad most dearly valued.\n\nFor the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and\nmany others besides him, seemed never to leave him.  Even those who had\nheard the most evil things against him--and from time to time strange\nrumours about his mode of life crept through London and became the\nchatter of the clubs--could not believe anything to his dishonour when\nthey saw him.  He had always the look of one who had kept himself\nunspotted from the world.  Men who talked grossly became silent when\nDorian Gray entered the room.  There was something in the purity of his\nface that rebuked them.  His mere presence seemed to recall to them the\nmemory of the innocence that they had tarnished.  They wondered how one\nso charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an\nage that was at once sordid and sensual.\n\nOften, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged\nabsences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were\nhis friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep\nupstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left\nhim now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil\nHallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on\nthe canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him\nfrom the polished glass.  The very sharpness of the contrast used to\nquicken his sense of pleasure.  He grew more and more enamoured of his\nown beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.\nHe would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and\nterrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead\nor crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which\nwere the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age.  He would\nplace his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture,\nand smile.  He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs.\n\nThere were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own\ndelicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little\nill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in\ndisguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he\nhad brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant\nbecause it was purely selfish.  But moments such as these were rare.\nThat curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as\nthey sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase\nwith gratification.  The more he knew, the more he desired to know.  He\nhad mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them.\n\nYet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to\nsociety.  Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each\nWednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the\nworld his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the\nday to charm his guests with the wonders of their art.  His little\ndinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were\nnoted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited,\nas for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with\nits subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered\ncloths, and antique plate of gold and silver.  Indeed, there were many,\nespecially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw,\nin Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often\ndreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of\nthe real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and\nperfect manner of a citizen of the world.  To them he seemed to be of\nthe company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to \"make\nthemselves perfect by the worship of beauty.\"  Like Gautier, he was one\nfor whom \"the visible world existed.\"\n\nAnd, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the\narts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation.\nFashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment\nuniversal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert\nthe absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for\nhim.  His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to\ntime he affected, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of\nthe Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in\neverything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of\nhis graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies.\n\nFor, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost\nimmediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a\nsubtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the\nLondon of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the\nSatyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be\nsomething more than a mere _arbiter elegantiarum_, to be consulted on the\nwearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a\ncane.  He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have\nits reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the\nspiritualizing of the senses its highest realization.\n\nThe worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been\ndecried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions and\nsensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are\nconscious of sharing with the less highly organized forms of existence.\nBut it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had\nnever been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal\nmerely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or\nto kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a\nnew spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the\ndominant characteristic.  As he looked back upon man moving through\nhistory, he was haunted by a feeling of loss.  So much had been\nsurrendered! and to such little purpose!  There had been mad wilful\nrejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose\norigin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more\nterrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance,\nthey had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out\nthe anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to\nthe hermit the beasts of the field as his companions.\n\nYes:  there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism\nthat was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely\npuritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival.  It was\nto have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was never to\naccept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any\nmode of passionate experience.  Its aim, indeed, was to be experience\nitself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might\nbe.  Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar\nprofligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing.  But it was to\nteach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is\nitself but a moment.\n\nThere are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either\nafter one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of\ndeath, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through\nthe chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality\nitself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques,\nand that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one\nmight fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled\nwith the malady of reverie.  Gradually white fingers creep through the\ncurtains, and they appear to tremble.  In black fantastic shapes, dumb\nshadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there.  Outside,\nthere is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men\ngoing forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down\nfrom the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it\nfeared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from\nher purple cave.  Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by\ndegrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we\nwatch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.  The wan\nmirrors get back their mimic life.  The flameless tapers stand where we\nhad left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been\nstudying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the\nletter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often.\nNothing seems to us changed.  Out of the unreal shadows of the night\ncomes back the real life that we had known.  We have to resume it where\nwe had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the\nnecessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of\nstereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids\nmight open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in\nthe darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh\nshapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in\nwhich the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate,\nin no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of\njoy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain.\n\nIt was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray\nto be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life; and in his\nsearch for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and\npossess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he\nwould often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really\nalien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and\nthen, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his\nintellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that\nis not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that,\nindeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition\nof it.\n\nIt was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman\nCatholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great\nattraction for him.  The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all\nthe sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb\nrejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity\nof its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it\nsought to symbolize.  He loved to kneel down on the cold marble\npavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly\nand with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or\nraising aloft the jewelled, lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid\nwafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the \"_panis\ncaelestis_,\" the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the\nPassion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his\nbreast for his sins.  The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their\nlace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their\nsubtle fascination for him.  As he passed out, he used to look with\nwonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of\none of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn\ngrating the true story of their lives.\n\nBut he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual\ndevelopment by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of\nmistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable\nfor the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which\nthere are no stars and the moon is in travail.  Mysticism, with its\nmarvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle\nantinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a\nseason; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of\nthe _Darwinismus_ movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in\ntracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the\nbrain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of\nthe absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions,\nmorbid or healthy, normal or diseased.  Yet, as has been said of him\nbefore, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance\ncompared with life itself.  He felt keenly conscious of how barren all\nintellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment.\nHe knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual\nmysteries to reveal.\n\nAnd so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their\nmanufacture, distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums\nfrom the East.  He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not\nits counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their\ntrue relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one\nmystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets\nthat woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the\nbrain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often\nto elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several\ninfluences of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers;\nof aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that\nsickens; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to\nbe able to expel melancholy from the soul.\n\nAt another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long\nlatticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of\nolive-green lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad\ngipsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled\nTunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while\ngrinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching\nupon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of\nreed or brass and charmed--or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and\nhorrible horned adders.  The harsh intervals and shrill discords of\nbarbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's\nbeautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell\nunheeded on his ear.  He collected together from all parts of the world\nthe strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of\ndead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact\nwith Western civilizations, and loved to touch and try them.  He had\nthe mysterious _juruparis_ of the Rio Negro Indians, that women are not\nallowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been\nsubjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the\nPeruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human\nbones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, and the sonorous green\njaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular\nsweetness.  He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when\nthey were shaken; the long _clarin_ of the Mexicans, into which the\nperformer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air; the\nharsh _ture_ of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who\nsit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a\ndistance of three leagues; the _teponaztli_, that has two vibrating\ntongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an\nelastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the _yotl_-bells of\nthe Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge\ncylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the\none that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican\ntemple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a\ndescription.  The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated\nhim, and he felt a curious delight in the thought that art, like\nNature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous\nvoices.  Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his\nbox at the opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt\npleasure to \"Tannhauser\" and seeing in the prelude to that great work\nof art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul.\n\nOn one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a\ncostume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered\nwith five hundred and sixty pearls.  This taste enthralled him for\nyears, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him.  He would often\nspend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various\nstones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that\nturns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver,\nthe pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes,\ncarbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red\ncinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their\nalternate layers of ruby and sapphire.  He loved the red gold of the\nsunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow\nof the milky opal.  He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of\nextraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise _de la\nvieille roche_ that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.\n\nHe discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels.  In Alphonso's\nClericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real\njacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of\nEmathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes \"with\ncollars of real emeralds growing on their backs.\" There was a gem in\nthe brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and \"by the exhibition\nof golden letters and a scarlet robe\" the monster could be thrown into\na magical sleep and slain.  According to the great alchemist, Pierre de\nBoniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India\nmade him eloquent.  The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth\nprovoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine.  The\ngarnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her\ncolour.  The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus,\nthat discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids.\nLeonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a\nnewly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison.  The\nbezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm\nthat could cure the plague.  In the nests of Arabian birds was the\naspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any\ndanger by fire.\n\nThe King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand,\nas the ceremony of his coronation.  The gates of the palace of John the\nPriest were \"made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake\ninwrought, so that no man might bring poison within.\" Over the gable\nwere \"two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles,\" so that the\ngold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night.  In Lodge's\nstrange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the\nchamber of the queen one could behold \"all the chaste ladies of the\nworld, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of\nchrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults.\" Marco Polo\nhad seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the\nmouths of the dead.  A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that\nthe diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned\nfor seven moons over its loss.  When the Huns lured the king into the\ngreat pit, he flung it away--Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever\nfound again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight\nof gold pieces for it.  The King of Malabar had shown to a certain\nVenetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god\nthat he worshipped.\n\nWhen the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII of\nFrance, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome,\nand his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light.\nCharles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and\ntwenty-one diamonds.  Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand\nmarks, which was covered with balas rubies.  Hall described Henry VIII,\non his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing \"a\njacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other\nrich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses.\"\nThe favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold\nfiligrane.  Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour\nstudded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with\nturquoise-stones, and a skull-cap _parseme_ with pearls.  Henry II wore\njewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with\ntwelve rubies and fifty-two great orients.  The ducal hat of Charles\nthe Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with\npear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.\n\nHow exquisite life had once been!  How gorgeous in its pomp and\ndecoration!  Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.\n\nThen he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that\nperformed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of the northern\nnations of Europe.  As he investigated the subject--and he always had\nan extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment\nin whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the\nruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things.  He, at any\nrate, had escaped that.  Summer followed summer, and the yellow\njonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the\nstory of their shame, but he was unchanged.  No winter marred his face\nor stained his flowerlike bloom.  How different it was with material\nthings!  Where had they passed to?  Where was the great crocus-coloured\nrobe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked\nby brown girls for the pleasure of Athena?  Where the huge velarium\nthat Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail\nof purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a\nchariot drawn by white, gilt-reined steeds?  He longed to see the\ncurious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were\ndisplayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast;\nthe mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden\nbees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of\nPontus and were figured with \"lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests,\nrocks, hunters--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature\"; and\nthe coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which\nwere embroidered the verses of a song beginning \"_Madame, je suis tout\njoyeux_,\" the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold\nthread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four\npearls.  He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims\nfor the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with \"thirteen\nhundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the\nking's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings\nwere similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked\nin gold.\"  Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of\nblack velvet powdered with crescents and suns.  Its curtains were of\ndamask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver\nground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it\nstood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black\nvelvet upon cloth of silver.  Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides\nfifteen feet high in his apartment.  The state bed of Sobieski, King of\nPoland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with\nverses from the Koran.  Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully\nchased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions.  It\nhad been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of\nMohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy.\n\nAnd so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite\nspecimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting\nthe dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates and\nstitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that\nfrom their transparency are known in the East as \"woven air,\" and\n\"running water,\" and \"evening dew\"; strange figured cloths from Java;\nelaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair\nblue silks and wrought with _fleurs-de-lis_, birds and images; veils of\n_lacis_ worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish\nvelvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese _Foukousas_,\nwith their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds.\n\nHe had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed\nhe had for everything connected with the service of the Church.  In the\nlong cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had\nstored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the\nraiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and\nfine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by\nthe suffering that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain.\nHe possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask,\nfigured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in\nsix-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the\npine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided\ninto panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the\ncoronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood.\nThis was Italian work of the fifteenth century.  Another cope was of\ngreen velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves,\nfrom which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which\nwere picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals.  The morse\nbore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work.  The orphreys were\nwoven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with\nmedallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian.\nHe had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold\nbrocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with\nrepresentations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and\nembroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of\nwhite satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins\nand _fleurs-de-lis_; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and\nmany corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria.  In the mystic offices to\nwhich such things were put, there was something that quickened his\nimagination.\n\nFor these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely\nhouse, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he\ncould escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times\nto be almost too great to be borne.  Upon the walls of the lonely\nlocked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with\nhis own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him\nthe real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the\npurple-and-gold pall as a curtain.  For weeks he would not go there,\nwould forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart,\nhis wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence.\nThen, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to\ndreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day,\nuntil he was driven away.  On his return he would sit in front of the\npicture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other\ntimes, with that pride of individualism that is half the\nfascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen\nshadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own.\n\nAfter a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and\ngave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as\nwell as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more\nthan once spent the winter.  He hated to be separated from the picture\nthat was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his\nabsence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the\nelaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door.\n\nHe was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing.  It was true\nthat the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness\nof the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn\nfrom that?  He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him.  He had\nnot painted it.  What was it to him how vile and full of shame it\nlooked?  Even if he told them, would they believe it?\n\nYet he was afraid.  Sometimes when he was down at his great house in\nNottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank\nwho were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton\nluxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly\nleave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not\nbeen tampered with and that the picture was still there.  What if it\nshould be stolen?  The mere thought made him cold with horror.  Surely\nthe world would know his secret then.  Perhaps the world already\nsuspected it.\n\nFor, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him.\nHe was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth\nand social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was\nsaid that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the\nsmoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another\ngentleman got up in a marked manner and went out.  Curious stories\nbecame current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year.  It\nwas rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a\nlow den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with\nthieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade.  His\nextraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear\nagain in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass\nhim with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though\nthey were determined to discover his secret.\n\nOf such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice,\nand in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his\ncharming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth\nthat seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer\nto the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about\nhim.  It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most\nintimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him.  Women who had\nwildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure and\nset convention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or\nhorror if Dorian Gray entered the room.\n\nYet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his\nstrange and dangerous charm.  His great wealth was a certain element of\nsecurity.  Society--civilized society, at least--is never very ready to\nbelieve anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and\nfascinating.  It feels instinctively that manners are of more\nimportance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability\nis of much less value than the possession of a good _chef_.  And, after\nall, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has\ngiven one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private\nlife.  Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold _entrees_, as\nLord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is\npossibly a good deal to be said for his view.  For the canons of good\nsociety are, or should be, the same as the canons of art.  Form is\nabsolutely essential to it.  It should have the dignity of a ceremony,\nas well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of\na romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful\nto us.  Is insincerity such a terrible thing?  I think not.  It is\nmerely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.\n\nSuch, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion.  He used to wonder at the\nshallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing\nsimple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence.  To him, man was a\nbeing with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform\ncreature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and\npassion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies\nof the dead.  He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picture-gallery\nof his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose\nblood flowed in his veins.  Here was Philip Herbert, described by\nFrancis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and\nKing James, as one who was \"caressed by the Court for his handsome\nface, which kept him not long company.\"  Was it young Herbert's life\nthat he sometimes led?  Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body\nto body till it had reached his own?  Was it some dim sense of that\nruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause,\ngive utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had\nso changed his life?  Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled\nsurcoat, and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard,\nwith his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet.  What had this\nman's legacy been?  Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him\nsome inheritance of sin and shame?  Were his own actions merely the\ndreams that the dead man had not dared to realize?  Here, from the\nfading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl\nstomacher, and pink slashed sleeves.  A flower was in her right hand,\nand her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses.  On\na table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple.  There were large\ngreen rosettes upon her little pointed shoes.  He knew her life, and\nthe strange stories that were told about her lovers.  Had he something\nof her temperament in him?  These oval, heavy-lidded eyes seemed to\nlook curiously at him.  What of George Willoughby, with his powdered\nhair and fantastic patches?  How evil he looked!  The face was\nsaturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with\ndisdain.  Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that\nwere so overladen with rings.  He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth\ncentury, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars.  What of the\nsecond Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his\nwildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs.\nFitzherbert?  How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls\nand insolent pose!  What passions had he bequeathed?  The world had\nlooked upon him as infamous.  He had led the orgies at Carlton House.\nThe star of the Garter glittered upon his breast.  Beside him hung the\nportrait of his wife, a pallid, thin-lipped woman in black.  Her blood,\nalso, stirred within him.  How curious it all seemed!  And his mother\nwith her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, wine-dashed lips--he knew\nwhat he had got from her.  He had got from her his beauty, and his\npassion for the beauty of others.  She laughed at him in her loose\nBacchante dress.  There were vine leaves in her hair.  The purple\nspilled from the cup she was holding.  The carnations of the painting\nhad withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth and\nbrilliancy of colour.  They seemed to follow him wherever he went.\n\nYet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race,\nnearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly\nwith an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious.  There\nwere times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history\nwas merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act\nand circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it\nhad been in his brain and in his passions.  He felt that he had known\nthem all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the\nstage of the world and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of\nsubtlety.  It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had\nbeen his own.\n\nThe hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had\nhimself known this curious fancy.  In the seventh chapter he tells how,\ncrowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, as\nTiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books of\nElephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and the\nflute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, had\ncaroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in\nan ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had\nwandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round\nwith haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his\ndays, and sick with that ennui, that terrible _taedium vitae_, that comes\non those to whom life denies nothing; and had peered through a clear\nemerald at the red shambles of the circus and then, in a litter of\npearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, been carried through the\nStreet of Pomegranates to a House of Gold and heard men cry on Nero\nCaesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with\ncolours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon\nfrom Carthage and given her in mystic marriage to the Sun.\n\nOver and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the\ntwo chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious\ntapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and\nbeautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made\nmonstrous or mad:  Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and\npainted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death\nfrom the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as\nPaul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of\nFormosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was\nbought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used\nhounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with\nroses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse,\nwith Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood\nof Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence,\nchild and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his\ndebauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white\nand crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy\nthat he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose\nmelancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a\npassion for red blood, as other men have for red wine--the son of the\nFiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when\ngambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery\ntook the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of\nthree lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the\nlover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome\nas the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and\ngave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a\nshameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles\nVI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned\nhim of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had\nsickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards\npainted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his\ntrimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto\nBaglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page,\nand whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow\npiazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep,\nand Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.\n\nThere was a horrible fascination in them all.  He saw them at night,\nand they troubled his imagination in the day.  The Renaissance knew of\nstrange manners of poisoning--poisoning by a helmet and a lighted\ntorch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander\nand by an amber chain.  Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.  There\nwere moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he\ncould realize his conception of the beautiful.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth\nbirthday, as he often remembered afterwards.\n\nHe was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he\nhad been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold\nand foggy.  At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street,\na man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of\nhis grey ulster turned up.  He had a bag in his hand.  Dorian\nrecognized him.  It was Basil Hallward.  A strange sense of fear, for\nwhich he could not account, came over him.  He made no sign of\nrecognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.\n\nBut Hallward had seen him.  Dorian heard him first stopping on the\npavement and then hurrying after him.  In a few moments, his hand was\non his arm.\n\n\"Dorian!  What an extraordinary piece of luck!  I have been waiting for\nyou in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on\nyour tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out.  I am\noff to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see\nyou before I left.  I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as\nyou passed me.  But I wasn't quite sure.  Didn't you recognize me?\"\n\n\"In this fog, my dear Basil?  Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor\nSquare.  I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel\nat all certain about it.  I am sorry you are going away, as I have not\nseen you for ages.  But I suppose you will be back soon?\"\n\n\"No:  I am going to be out of England for six months.  I intend to take\na studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great\npicture I have in my head.  However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to\ntalk.  Here we are at your door.  Let me come in for a moment.  I have\nsomething to say to you.\"\n\n\"I shall be charmed.  But won't you miss your train?\" said Dorian Gray\nlanguidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his\nlatch-key.\n\nThe lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his\nwatch.  \"I have heaps of time,\" he answered.  \"The train doesn't go\ntill twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven.  In fact, I was on my\nway to the club to look for you, when I met you.  You see, I shan't\nhave any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things.  All I\nhave with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty\nminutes.\"\n\nDorian looked at him and smiled.  \"What a way for a fashionable painter\nto travel!  A Gladstone bag and an ulster!  Come in, or the fog will\nget into the house.  And mind you don't talk about anything serious.\nNothing is serious nowadays.  At least nothing should be.\"\n\nHallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the\nlibrary.  There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open\nhearth.  The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case\nstood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on\na little marqueterie table.\n\n\"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian.  He gave me\neverything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes.  He is\na most hospitable creature.  I like him much better than the Frenchman\nyou used to have.  What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?\"\n\nDorian shrugged his shoulders.  \"I believe he married Lady Radley's\nmaid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker.\nAnglomania is very fashionable over there now, I hear.  It seems silly\nof the French, doesn't it?  But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad\nservant.  I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about.  One\noften imagines things that are quite absurd.  He was really very\ndevoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away.  Have another\nbrandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take\nhock-and-seltzer myself.  There is sure to be some in the next room.\"\n\n\"Thanks, I won't have anything more,\" said the painter, taking his cap\nand coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the\ncorner.  \"And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously.\nDon't frown like that.  You make it so much more difficult for me.\"\n\n\"What is it all about?\" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging\nhimself down on the sofa.  \"I hope it is not about myself.  I am tired\nof myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else.\"\n\n\"It is about yourself,\" answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, \"and\nI must say it to you.  I shall only keep you half an hour.\"\n\nDorian sighed and lit a cigarette.  \"Half an hour!\" he murmured.\n\n\"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own\nsake that I am speaking.  I think it right that you should know that\nthe most dreadful things are being said against you in London.\"\n\n\"I don't wish to know anything about them.  I love scandals about other\npeople, but scandals about myself don't interest me.  They have not got\nthe charm of novelty.\"\n\n\"They must interest you, Dorian.  Every gentleman is interested in his\ngood name.  You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and\ndegraded.  Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all\nthat kind of thing.  But position and wealth are not everything.  Mind\nyou, I don't believe these rumours at all.  At least, I can't believe\nthem when I see you.  Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's\nface.  It cannot be concealed.  People talk sometimes of secret vices.\nThere are no such things.  If a wretched man has a vice, it shows\nitself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the\nmoulding of his hands even.  Somebody--I won't mention his name, but\nyou know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done.  I had\nnever seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the\ntime, though I have heard a good deal since.  He offered an extravagant\nprice.  I refused him.  There was something in the shape of his fingers\nthat I hated.  I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied\nabout him.  His life is dreadful.  But you, Dorian, with your pure,\nbright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth--I can't\nbelieve anything against you.  And yet I see you very seldom, and you\nnever come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I\nhear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I\ndon't know what to say.  Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of\nBerwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it?  Why is it that so\nmany gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to\ntheirs?  You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley.  I met him at dinner\nlast week.  Your name happened to come up in conversation, in\nconnection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the\nDudley.  Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most\nartistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl\nshould be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the\nsame room with.  I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked\nhim what he meant.  He told me.  He told me right out before everybody.\nIt was horrible!  Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?  There\nwas that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide.  You were\nhis great friend.  There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England\nwith a tarnished name.  You and he were inseparable.  What about Adrian\nSingleton and his dreadful end?  What about Lord Kent's only son and\nhis career?  I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street.  He\nseemed broken with shame and sorrow.  What about the young Duke of\nPerth?  What sort of life has he got now?  What gentleman would\nassociate with him?\"\n\n\"Stop, Basil.  You are talking about things of which you know nothing,\"\nsaid Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt\nin his voice.  \"You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it.\nIt is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows\nanything about mine.  With such blood as he has in his veins, how could\nhis record be clean?  You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth.\nDid I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery?  If Kent's\nsilly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me?  If\nAdrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his\nkeeper?  I know how people chatter in England.  The middle classes air\ntheir moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper\nabout what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try\nand pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with\nthe people they slander.  In this country, it is enough for a man to\nhave distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him.\nAnd what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead\nthemselves?  My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land\nof the hypocrite.\"\n\n\"Dorian,\" cried Hallward, \"that is not the question.  England is bad\nenough I know, and English society is all wrong.  That is the reason\nwhy I want you to be fine.  You have not been fine.  One has a right to\njudge of a man by the effect he has over his friends.  Yours seem to\nlose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity.  You have filled them\nwith a madness for pleasure.  They have gone down into the depths.  You\nled them there.  Yes:  you led them there, and yet you can smile, as\nyou are smiling now.  And there is worse behind.  I know you and Harry\nare inseparable.  Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should\nnot have made his sister's name a by-word.\"\n\n\"Take care, Basil.  You go too far.\"\n\n\"I must speak, and you must listen.  You shall listen.  When you met\nLady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her.  Is there\na single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the\npark?  Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her.  Then\nthere are other stories--stories that you have been seen creeping at\ndawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest\ndens in London.  Are they true?  Can they be true?  When I first heard\nthem, I laughed.  I hear them now, and they make me shudder.  What\nabout your country-house and the life that is led there?  Dorian, you\ndon't know what is said about you.  I won't tell you that I don't want\nto preach to you.  I remember Harry saying once that every man who\nturned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by\nsaying that, and then proceeded to break his word.  I do want to preach\nto you.  I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect\nyou.  I want you to have a clean name and a fair record.  I want you to\nget rid of the dreadful people you associate with.  Don't shrug your\nshoulders like that.  Don't be so indifferent.  You have a wonderful\ninfluence.  Let it be for good, not for evil.  They say that you\ncorrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite\nsufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow\nafter.  I don't know whether it is so or not.  How should I know?  But\nit is said of you.  I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt.\nLord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford.  He showed me\na letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in\nher villa at Mentone.  Your name was implicated in the most terrible\nconfession I ever read.  I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you\nthoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind.  Know\nyou?  I wonder do I know you?  Before I could answer that, I should\nhave to see your soul.\"\n\n\"To see my soul!\" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and\nturning almost white from fear.\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his\nvoice, \"to see your soul.  But only God can do that.\"\n\nA bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man.  \"You\nshall see it yourself, to-night!\" he cried, seizing a lamp from the\ntable.  \"Come:  it is your own handiwork.  Why shouldn't you look at\nit?  You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose.\nNobody would believe you.  If they did believe you, they would like me\nall the better for it.  I know the age better than you do, though you\nwill prate about it so tediously.  Come, I tell you.  You have\nchattered enough about corruption.  Now you shall look on it face to\nface.\"\n\nThere was the madness of pride in every word he uttered.  He stamped\nhis foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner.  He felt a\nterrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret,\nand that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of\nall his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the\nhideous memory of what he had done.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into\nhis stern eyes, \"I shall show you my soul.  You shall see the thing\nthat you fancy only God can see.\"\n\nHallward started back.  \"This is blasphemy, Dorian!\" he cried.  \"You\nmust not say things like that.  They are horrible, and they don't mean\nanything.\"\n\n\"You think so?\"  He laughed again.\n\n\"I know so.  As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your\ngood.  You know I have been always a stanch friend to you.\"\n\n\"Don't touch me.  Finish what you have to say.\"\n\nA twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face.  He paused for\na moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him.  After all, what\nright had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray?  If he had done a\ntithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered!\nThen he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and\nstood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and\ntheir throbbing cores of flame.\n\n\"I am waiting, Basil,\" said the young man in a hard clear voice.\n\nHe turned round.  \"What I have to say is this,\" he cried.  \"You must\ngive me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against\nyou.  If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to\nend, I shall believe you.  Deny them, Dorian, deny them!  Can't you see\nwhat I am going through?  My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and\ncorrupt, and shameful.\"\n\nDorian Gray smiled.  There was a curl of contempt in his lips.  \"Come\nupstairs, Basil,\" he said quietly.  \"I keep a diary of my life from day\nto day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written.  I shall\nshow it to you if you come with me.\"\n\n\"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it.  I see I have missed my\ntrain.  That makes no matter.  I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to\nread anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question.\"\n\n\"That shall be given to you upstairs.  I could not give it here.  You\nwill not have to read long.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nHe passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward\nfollowing close behind.  They walked softly, as men do instinctively at\nnight.  The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase.  A\nrising wind made some of the windows rattle.\n\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the\nfloor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock.  \"You insist on\nknowing, Basil?\" he asked in a low voice.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I am delighted,\" he answered, smiling.  Then he added, somewhat\nharshly, \"You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know\neverything about me.  You have had more to do with my life than you\nthink\"; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in.  A\ncold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in\na flame of murky orange.  He shuddered.  \"Shut the door behind you,\" he\nwhispered, as he placed the lamp on the table.\n\nHallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression.  The room looked\nas if it had not been lived in for years.  A faded Flemish tapestry, a\ncurtained picture, an old Italian _cassone_, and an almost empty\nbook-case--that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and\na table.  As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was\nstanding on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered\nwith dust and that the carpet was in holes.  A mouse ran scuffling\nbehind the wainscoting.  There was a damp odour of mildew.\n\n\"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil?  Draw that\ncurtain back, and you will see mine.\"\n\nThe voice that spoke was cold and cruel.  \"You are mad, Dorian, or\nplaying a part,\" muttered Hallward, frowning.\n\n\"You won't? Then I must do it myself,\" said the young man, and he tore\nthe curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.\n\nAn exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the\ndim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him.  There was\nsomething in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.\nGood heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at!\nThe horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that\nmarvellous beauty.  There was still some gold in the thinning hair and\nsome scarlet on the sensual mouth.  The sodden eyes had kept something\nof the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet\ncompletely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat.\nYes, it was Dorian himself.  But who had done it?  He seemed to\nrecognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design.  The\nidea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid.  He seized the lighted candle,\nand held it to the picture.  In the left-hand corner was his own name,\ntraced in long letters of bright vermilion.\n\nIt was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire.  He had never\ndone that.  Still, it was his own picture.  He knew it, and he felt as\nif his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice.  His\nown picture!  What did it mean?  Why had it altered?  He turned and\nlooked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man.  His mouth twitched,\nand his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate.  He passed his hand\nacross his forehead.  It was dank with clammy sweat.\n\nThe young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with\nthat strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are\nabsorbed in a play when some great artist is acting.  There was neither\nreal sorrow in it nor real joy.  There was simply the passion of the\nspectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes.  He had taken\nthe flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so.\n\n\"What does this mean?\" cried Hallward, at last.  His own voice sounded\nshrill and curious in his ears.\n\n\"Years ago, when I was a boy,\" said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in\nhis hand, \"you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my\ngood looks.  One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who\nexplained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me\nthat revealed to me the wonder of beauty.  In a mad moment that, even\nnow, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you\nwould call it a prayer....\"\n\n\"I remember it!  Oh, how well I remember it!  No! the thing is\nimpossible.  The room is damp.  Mildew has got into the canvas.  The\npaints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them.  I tell you the\nthing is impossible.\"\n\n\"Ah, what is impossible?\" murmured the young man, going over to the\nwindow and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass.\n\n\"You told me you had destroyed it.\"\n\n\"I was wrong.  It has destroyed me.\"\n\n\"I don't believe it is my picture.\"\n\n\"Can't you see your ideal in it?\" said Dorian bitterly.\n\n\"My ideal, as you call it...\"\n\n\"As you called it.\"\n\n\"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful.  You were to me such\nan ideal as I shall never meet again.  This is the face of a satyr.\"\n\n\"It is the face of my soul.\"\n\n\"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped!  It has the eyes of a\ndevil.\"\n\n\"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil,\" cried Dorian with a\nwild gesture of despair.\n\nHallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it.  \"My God!  If it\nis true,\" he exclaimed, \"and this is what you have done with your life,\nwhy, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you\nto be!\" He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it.  The\nsurface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it.  It was\nfrom within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come.\nThrough some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were\nslowly eating the thing away.  The rotting of a corpse in a watery\ngrave was not so fearful.\n\nHis hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and\nlay there sputtering.  He placed his foot on it and put it out.  Then\nhe flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table\nand buried his face in his hands.\n\n\"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson!  What an awful lesson!\" There was no\nanswer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window.  \"Pray,\nDorian, pray,\" he murmured.  \"What is it that one was taught to say in\none's boyhood?  'Lead us not into temptation.  Forgive us our sins.\nWash away our iniquities.'  Let us say that together.  The prayer of\nyour pride has been answered.  The prayer of your repentance will be\nanswered also.  I worshipped you too much.  I am punished for it.  You\nworshipped yourself too much.  We are both punished.\"\n\nDorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed\neyes.  \"It is too late, Basil,\" he faltered.\n\n\"It is never too late, Dorian.  Let us kneel down and try if we cannot\nremember a prayer.  Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be\nas scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?\"\n\n\"Those words mean nothing to me now.\"\n\n\"Hush!  Don't say that.  You have done enough evil in your life.  My\nGod!  Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?\"\n\nDorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable\nfeeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had\nbeen suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his\near by those grinning lips.  The mad passions of a hunted animal\nstirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table,\nmore than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything.  He glanced\nwildly around.  Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest\nthat faced him.  His eye fell on it.  He knew what it was.  It was a\nknife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord,\nand had forgotten to take away with him.  He moved slowly towards it,\npassing Hallward as he did so.  As soon as he got behind him, he seized\nit and turned round.  Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going\nto rise.  He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that\nis behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and\nstabbing again and again.\n\nThere was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking\nwith blood.  Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,\nwaving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air.  He stabbed him\ntwice more, but the man did not move.  Something began to trickle on\nthe floor.  He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down.  Then\nhe threw the knife on the table, and listened.\n\nHe could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet.  He\nopened the door and went out on the landing.  The house was absolutely\nquiet.  No one was about.  For a few seconds he stood bending over the\nbalustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.\nThen he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in\nas he did so.\n\nThe thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with\nbowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms.  Had it not been\nfor the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was\nslowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was\nsimply asleep.\n\nHow quickly it had all been done!  He felt strangely calm, and walking\nover to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony.  The wind\nhad blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's\ntail, starred with myriads of golden eyes.  He looked down and saw the\npoliceman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on\nthe doors of the silent houses.  The crimson spot of a prowling hansom\ngleamed at the corner and then vanished.  A woman in a fluttering shawl\nwas creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went.  Now and\nthen she stopped and peered back.  Once, she began to sing in a hoarse\nvoice.  The policeman strolled over and said something to her.  She\nstumbled away, laughing.  A bitter blast swept across the square.  The\ngas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their\nblack iron branches to and fro.  He shivered and went back, closing the\nwindow behind him.\n\nHaving reached the door, he turned the key and opened it.  He did not\neven glance at the murdered man.  He felt that the secret of the whole\nthing was not to realize the situation.  The friend who had painted the\nfatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his\nlife.  That was enough.\n\nThen he remembered the lamp.  It was a rather curious one of Moorish\nworkmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished\nsteel, and studded with coarse turquoises.  Perhaps it might be missed\nby his servant, and questions would be asked.  He hesitated for a\nmoment, then he turned back and took it from the table.  He could not\nhelp seeing the dead thing.  How still it was!  How horribly white the\nlong hands looked!  It was like a dreadful wax image.\n\nHaving locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs.  The\nwoodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain.  He stopped\nseveral times and waited.  No:  everything was still.  It was merely\nthe sound of his own footsteps.\n\nWhen he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner.\nThey must be hidden away somewhere.  He unlocked a secret press that\nwas in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious\ndisguises, and put them into it.  He could easily burn them afterwards.\nThen he pulled out his watch.  It was twenty minutes to two.\n\nHe sat down and began to think.  Every year--every month, almost--men\nwere strangled in England for what he had done.  There had been a\nmadness of murder in the air.  Some red star had come too close to the\nearth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him?  Basil Hallward\nhad left the house at eleven.  No one had seen him come in again.  Most\nof the servants were at Selby Royal.  His valet had gone to bed....\nParis!  Yes.  It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight\ntrain, as he had intended.  With his curious reserved habits, it would\nbe months before any suspicions would be roused.  Months!  Everything\ncould be destroyed long before then.\n\nA sudden thought struck him.  He put on his fur coat and hat and went\nout into the hall.  There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of\nthe policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the\nbull's-eye reflected in the window.  He waited and held his breath.\n\nAfter a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting\nthe door very gently behind him.  Then he began ringing the bell.  In\nabout five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very\ndrowsy.\n\n\"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis,\" he said, stepping in;\n\"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes past two, sir,\" answered the man, looking at the clock and\nblinking.\n\n\"Ten minutes past two?  How horribly late!  You must wake me at nine\nto-morrow. I have some work to do.\"\n\n\"All right, sir.\"\n\n\"Did any one call this evening?\"\n\n\"Mr. Hallward, sir.  He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away\nto catch his train.\"\n\n\"Oh!  I am sorry I didn't see him.  Did he leave any message?\"\n\n\"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not\nfind you at the club.\"\n\n\"That will do, Francis.  Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow.\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nThe man shambled down the passage in his slippers.\n\nDorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the\nlibrary.  For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room,\nbiting his lip and thinking.  Then he took down the Blue Book from one\nof the shelves and began to turn over the leaves.  \"Alan Campbell, 152,\nHertford Street, Mayfair.\"  Yes; that was the man he wanted.\n\n\n\n\n\nAt nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of\nchocolate on a tray and opened the shutters.  Dorian was sleeping quite\npeacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his\ncheek.  He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study.\n\nThe man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as\nhe opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he\nhad been lost in some delightful dream.  Yet he had not dreamed at all.\nHis night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain.\nBut youth smiles without any reason.  It is one of its chiefest charms.\n\nHe turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his\nchocolate.  The mellow November sun came streaming into the room.  The\nsky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air.  It was\nalmost like a morning in May.\n\nGradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent,\nblood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there\nwith terrible distinctness.  He winced at the memory of all that he had\nsuffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for\nBasil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came\nback to him, and he grew cold with passion.  The dead man was still\nsitting there, too, and in the sunlight now.  How horrible that was!\nSuch hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.\n\nHe felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken\nor grow mad.  There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory\nthan in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride\nmore than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of\njoy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the\nsenses.  But this was not one of them.  It was a thing to be driven out\nof the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might\nstrangle one itself.\n\nWhen the half-hour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, and\nthen got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his usual\ncare, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie and\nscarf-pin and changing his rings more than once.  He spent a long time\nalso over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet\nabout some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made for the\nservants at Selby, and going through his correspondence.  At some of\nthe letters, he smiled.  Three of them bored him.  One he read several\ntimes over and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his\nface.  \"That awful thing, a woman's memory!\" as Lord Henry had once\nsaid.\n\nAfter he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly\nwith a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the\ntable, sat down and wrote two letters.  One he put in his pocket, the\nother he handed to the valet.\n\n\"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell\nis out of town, get his address.\"\n\nAs soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a\npiece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and\nthen human faces.  Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew\nseemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward.  He frowned, and\ngetting up, went over to the book-case and took out a volume at hazard.\nHe was determined that he would not think about what had happened until\nit became absolutely necessary that he should do so.\n\nWhen he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page\nof the book.  It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's\nJapanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching.  The binding was\nof citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted\npomegranates.  It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton.  As he\nturned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of\nLacenaire, the cold yellow hand \"_du supplice encore mal lavee_,\" with\nits downy red hairs and its \"_doigts de faune_.\"  He glanced at his own\nwhite taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and\npassed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice:\n\n     Sur une gamme chromatique,\n       Le sein de perles ruisselant,\n     La Venus de l'Adriatique\n       Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc.\n\n     Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes\n       Suivant la phrase au pur contour,\n     S'enflent comme des gorges rondes\n       Que souleve un soupir d'amour.\n\n     L'esquif aborde et me depose,\n       Jetant son amarre au pilier,\n     Devant une facade rose,\n       Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\n\n\nHow exquisite they were!  As one read them, one seemed to be floating\ndown the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black\ngondola with silver prow and trailing curtains.  The mere lines looked\nto him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as\none pushes out to the Lido.  The sudden flashes of colour reminded him\nof the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the\ntall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through\nthe dim, dust-stained arcades.  Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he\nkept saying over and over to himself:\n\n     \"Devant une facade rose,\n        Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\"\n\nThe whole of Venice was in those two lines.  He remembered the autumn\nthat he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to\nmad delightful follies.  There was romance in every place.  But Venice,\nlike Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true\nromantic, background was everything, or almost everything.  Basil had\nbeen with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret.  Poor\nBasil!  What a horrible way for a man to die!\n\nHe sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget.  He read\nof the swallows that fly in and out of the little _cafe_ at Smyrna where\nthe Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants\nsmoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he\nread of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of\ngranite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot,\nlotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and\nwhite vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes\nthat crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those\nverses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that\ncurious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the \"_monstre\ncharmant_\" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre.  But after a\ntime the book fell from his hand.  He grew nervous, and a horrible fit\nof terror came over him.  What if Alan Campbell should be out of\nEngland?  Days would elapse before he could come back.  Perhaps he\nmight refuse to come.  What could he do then?  Every moment was of\nvital importance.\n\nThey had been great friends once, five years before--almost\ninseparable, indeed.  Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end.\nWhen they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled:  Alan\nCampbell never did.\n\nHe was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real\nappreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the\nbeauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian.  His\ndominant intellectual passion was for science.  At Cambridge he had\nspent a great deal of his time working in the laboratory, and had taken\na good class in the Natural Science Tripos of his year.  Indeed, he was\nstill devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his\nown in which he used to shut himself up all day long, greatly to the\nannoyance of his mother, who had set her heart on his standing for\nParliament and had a vague idea that a chemist was a person who made up\nprescriptions.  He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and\nplayed both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs.  In\nfact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray\ntogether--music and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to\nbe able to exercise whenever he wished--and, indeed, exercised often\nwithout being conscious of it.  They had met at Lady Berkshire's the\nnight that Rubinstein played there, and after that used to be always\nseen together at the opera and wherever good music was going on.  For\neighteen months their intimacy lasted.  Campbell was always either at\nSelby Royal or in Grosvenor Square.  To him, as to many others, Dorian\nGray was the type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in\nlife.  Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one\never knew.  But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when\nthey met and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from any\nparty at which Dorian Gray was present.  He had changed, too--was\nstrangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing\nmusic, and would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was\ncalled upon, that he was so absorbed in science that he had no time\nleft in which to practise.  And this was certainly true.  Every day he\nseemed to become more interested in biology, and his name appeared once\nor twice in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain\ncurious experiments.\n\nThis was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for.  Every second he kept\nglancing at the clock.  As the minutes went by he became horribly\nagitated.  At last he got up and began to pace up and down the room,\nlooking like a beautiful caged thing.  He took long stealthy strides.\nHis hands were curiously cold.\n\nThe suspense became unbearable.  Time seemed to him to be crawling with\nfeet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the\njagged edge of some black cleft of precipice.  He knew what was waiting\nfor him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands\nhis burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight\nand driven the eyeballs back into their cave.  It was useless.  The\nbrain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made\ngrotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain,\ndanced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving\nmasks.  Then, suddenly, time stopped for him.  Yes:  that blind,\nslow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being\ndead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its\ngrave, and showed it to him.  He stared at it.  Its very horror made\nhim stone.\n\nAt last the door opened and his servant entered.  He turned glazed eyes\nupon him.\n\n\"Mr. Campbell, sir,\" said the man.\n\nA sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back\nto his cheeks.\n\n\"Ask him to come in at once, Francis.\"  He felt that he was himself\nagain.  His mood of cowardice had passed away.\n\nThe man bowed and retired.  In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in,\nlooking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his\ncoal-black hair and dark eyebrows.\n\n\"Alan!  This is kind of you.  I thank you for coming.\"\n\n\"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray.  But you said it\nwas a matter of life and death.\"  His voice was hard and cold.  He\nspoke with slow deliberation.  There was a look of contempt in the\nsteady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian.  He kept his hands in\nthe pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed not to have noticed the\ngesture with which he had been greeted.\n\n\"Yes:  it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one\nperson.  Sit down.\"\n\nCampbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him.\nThe two men's eyes met.  In Dorian's there was infinite pity.  He knew\nthat what he was going to do was dreadful.\n\nAfter a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very\nquietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of him he\nhad sent for, \"Alan, in a locked room at the top of this house, a room\nto which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table.\nHe has been dead ten hours now.  Don't stir, and don't look at me like\nthat.  Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do\nnot concern you.  What you have to do is this--\"\n\n\"Stop, Gray.  I don't want to know anything further.  Whether what you\nhave told me is true or not true doesn't concern me.  I entirely\ndecline to be mixed up in your life.  Keep your horrible secrets to\nyourself.  They don't interest me any more.\"\n\n\"Alan, they will have to interest you.  This one will have to interest\nyou.  I am awfully sorry for you, Alan.  But I can't help myself.  You\nare the one man who is able to save me.  I am forced to bring you into\nthe matter.  I have no option.  Alan, you are scientific.  You know\nabout chemistry and things of that kind.  You have made experiments.\nWhat you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs--to\ndestroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left.  Nobody saw this\nperson come into the house.  Indeed, at the present moment he is\nsupposed to be in Paris.  He will not be missed for months.  When he is\nmissed, there must be no trace of him found here.  You, Alan, you must\nchange him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes\nthat I may scatter in the air.\"\n\n\"You are mad, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I was waiting for you to call me Dorian.\"\n\n\"You are mad, I tell you--mad to imagine that I would raise a finger to\nhelp you, mad to make this monstrous confession.  I will have nothing\nto do with this matter, whatever it is.  Do you think I am going to\nperil my reputation for you?  What is it to me what devil's work you\nare up to?\"\n\n\"It was suicide, Alan.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that.  But who drove him to it?  You, I should fancy.\"\n\n\"Do you still refuse to do this for me?\"\n\n\"Of course I refuse.  I will have absolutely nothing to do with it.  I\ndon't care what shame comes on you.  You deserve it all.  I should not\nbe sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced.  How dare you ask\nme, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror?  I should\nhave thought you knew more about people's characters.  Your friend Lord\nHenry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology, whatever else\nhe has taught you.  Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you.\nYou have come to the wrong man.  Go to some of your friends.  Don't\ncome to me.\"\n\n\"Alan, it was murder.  I killed him.  You don't know what he had made\nme suffer.  Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or\nthe marring of it than poor Harry has had.  He may not have intended\nit, the result was the same.\"\n\n\"Murder!  Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to?  I shall not\ninform upon you.  It is not my business.  Besides, without my stirring\nin the matter, you are certain to be arrested.  Nobody ever commits a\ncrime without doing something stupid.  But I will have nothing to do\nwith it.\"\n\n\"You must have something to do with it.  Wait, wait a moment; listen to\nme.  Only listen, Alan.  All I ask of you is to perform a certain\nscientific experiment.  You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the\nhorrors that you do there don't affect you.  If in some hideous\ndissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a\nleaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow\nthrough, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject.  You\nwould not turn a hair.  You would not believe that you were doing\nanything wrong.  On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were\nbenefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the\nworld, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind.\nWhat I want you to do is merely what you have often done before.\nIndeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are\naccustomed to work at.  And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence\nagainst me.  If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be\ndiscovered unless you help me.\"\n\n\"I have no desire to help you.  You forget that.  I am simply\nindifferent to the whole thing.  It has nothing to do with me.\"\n\n\"Alan, I entreat you.  Think of the position I am in.  Just before you\ncame I almost fainted with terror.  You may know terror yourself some\nday.  No! don't think of that.  Look at the matter purely from the\nscientific point of view.  You don't inquire where the dead things on\nwhich you experiment come from.  Don't inquire now.  I have told you\ntoo much as it is.  But I beg of you to do this.  We were friends once,\nAlan.\"\n\n\"Don't speak about those days, Dorian--they are dead.\"\n\n\"The dead linger sometimes.  The man upstairs will not go away.  He is\nsitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms.  Alan!\nAlan!  If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined.  Why, they will\nhang me, Alan!  Don't you understand?  They will hang me for what I\nhave done.\"\n\n\"There is no good in prolonging this scene.  I absolutely refuse to do\nanything in the matter.  It is insane of you to ask me.\"\n\n\"You refuse?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I entreat you, Alan.\"\n\n\"It is useless.\"\n\nThe same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes.  Then he stretched\nout his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it.  He\nread it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the\ntable.  Having done this, he got up and went over to the window.\n\nCampbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and\nopened it.  As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell\nback in his chair.  A horrible sense of sickness came over him.  He\nfelt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.\n\nAfter two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and\ncame and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.\n\n\"I am so sorry for you, Alan,\" he murmured, \"but you leave me no\nalternative.  I have a letter written already.  Here it is.  You see\nthe address.  If you don't help me, I must send it.  If you don't help\nme, I will send it.  You know what the result will be.  But you are\ngoing to help me.  It is impossible for you to refuse now.  I tried to\nspare you.  You will do me the justice to admit that.  You were stern,\nharsh, offensive.  You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat\nme--no living man, at any rate.  I bore it all.  Now it is for me to\ndictate terms.\"\n\nCampbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him.\n\n\"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan.  You know what they are.\nThe thing is quite simple.  Come, don't work yourself into this fever.\nThe thing has to be done.  Face it, and do it.\"\n\nA groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over.  The\nticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing\ntime into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be\nborne.  He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his\nforehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already\ncome upon him.  The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead.\nIt was intolerable.  It seemed to crush him.\n\n\"Come, Alan, you must decide at once.\"\n\n\"I cannot do it,\" he said, mechanically, as though words could alter\nthings.\n\n\"You must.  You have no choice.  Don't delay.\"\n\nHe hesitated a moment.  \"Is there a fire in the room upstairs?\"\n\n\"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos.\"\n\n\"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory.\"\n\n\"No, Alan, you must not leave the house.  Write out on a sheet of\nnotepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the\nthings back to you.\"\n\nCampbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope\nto his assistant.  Dorian took the note up and read it carefully.  Then\nhe rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as\nsoon as possible and to bring the things with him.\n\nAs the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up\nfrom the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a\nkind of ague.  For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke.  A\nfly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was\nlike the beat of a hammer.\n\nAs the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian\nGray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears.  There was something in\nthe purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him.\n\"You are infamous, absolutely infamous!\" he muttered.\n\n\"Hush, Alan.  You have saved my life,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"Your life?  Good heavens! what a life that is!  You have gone from\ncorruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime.  In\ndoing what I am going to do--what you force me to do--it is not of your\nlife that I am thinking.\"\n\n\"Ah, Alan,\" murmured Dorian with a sigh, \"I wish you had a thousandth\npart of the pity for me that I have for you.\" He turned away as he\nspoke and stood looking out at the garden.  Campbell made no answer.\n\nAfter about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant\nentered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil\nof steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps.\n\n\"Shall I leave the things here, sir?\" he asked Campbell.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Dorian.  \"And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another\nerrand for you.  What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies\nSelby with orchids?\"\n\n\"Harden, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes--Harden.  You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden\npersonally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered,\nand to have as few white ones as possible.  In fact, I don't want any\nwhite ones.  It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty\nplace--otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it.\"\n\n\"No trouble, sir.  At what time shall I be back?\"\n\nDorian looked at Campbell.  \"How long will your experiment take, Alan?\"\nhe said in a calm indifferent voice.  The presence of a third person in\nthe room seemed to give him extraordinary courage.\n\nCampbell frowned and bit his lip.  \"It will take about five hours,\" he\nanswered.\n\n\"It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven,\nFrancis.  Or stay:  just leave my things out for dressing.  You can\nhave the evening to yourself.  I am not dining at home, so I shall not\nwant you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said the man, leaving the room.\n\n\"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost.  How heavy this chest is!\nI'll take it for you.  You bring the other things.\"  He spoke rapidly\nand in an authoritative manner.  Campbell felt dominated by him.  They\nleft the room together.\n\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned\nit in the lock.  Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his\neyes.  He shuddered.  \"I don't think I can go in, Alan,\" he murmured.\n\n\"It is nothing to me.  I don't require you,\" said Campbell coldly.\n\nDorian half opened the door.  As he did so, he saw the face of his\nportrait leering in the sunlight.  On the floor in front of it the torn\ncurtain was lying.  He remembered that the night before he had\nforgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas,\nand was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder.\n\nWhat was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on\none of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood?  How horrible\nit was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the\nsilent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing\nwhose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that\nit had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it.\n\nHe heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with\nhalf-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, determined that\nhe would not look even once upon the dead man.  Then, stooping down and\ntaking up the gold-and-purple hanging, he flung it right over the\npicture.\n\nThere he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed\nthemselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him.  He heard\nCampbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other\nthings that he had required for his dreadful work.  He began to wonder\nif he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had\nthought of each other.\n\n\"Leave me now,\" said a stern voice behind him.\n\nHe turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been\nthrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing into a\nglistening yellow face.  As he was going downstairs, he heard the key\nbeing turned in the lock.\n\nIt was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library.  He\nwas pale, but absolutely calm.  \"I have done what you asked me to do,\"\nhe muttered. \"And now, good-bye. Let us never see each other again.\"\n\n\"You have saved me from ruin, Alan.  I cannot forget that,\" said Dorian\nsimply.\n\nAs soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs.  There was a horrible\nsmell of nitric acid in the room.  But the thing that had been sitting\nat the table was gone.\n\n\n\n\n\nThat evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large\nbutton-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady\nNarborough's drawing-room by bowing servants.  His forehead was\nthrobbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his\nmanner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as\never.  Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to\nplay a part.  Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could\nhave believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any\ntragedy of our age.  Those finely shaped fingers could never have\nclutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God\nand goodness.  He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his\ndemeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a\ndouble life.\n\nIt was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who\nwas a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the\nremains of really remarkable ugliness.  She had proved an excellent\nwife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her\nhusband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed,\nand married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she\ndevoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery,\nand French _esprit_ when she could get it.\n\nDorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that\nshe was extremely glad she had not met him in early life.  \"I know, my\ndear, I should have fallen madly in love with you,\" she used to say,\n\"and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake.  It is most\nfortunate that you were not thought of at the time.  As it was, our\nbonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to\nraise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody.\nHowever, that was all Narborough's fault.  He was dreadfully\nshort-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who\nnever sees anything.\"\n\nHer guests this evening were rather tedious.  The fact was, as she\nexplained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married\ndaughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make\nmatters worse, had actually brought her husband with her.  \"I think it\nis most unkind of her, my dear,\" she whispered.  \"Of course I go and\nstay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old\nwoman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake\nthem up.  You don't know what an existence they lead down there.  It is\npure unadulterated country life.  They get up early, because they have\nso much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to\nthink about.  There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since\nthe time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep\nafter dinner.  You shan't sit next either of them.  You shall sit by me\nand amuse me.\"\n\nDorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room.  Yes:\nit was certainly a tedious party.  Two of the people he had never seen\nbefore, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those\nmiddle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies,\nbut are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an\noverdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always\ntrying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to\nher great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against\nher; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and\nVenetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy\ndull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once\nseen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked,\nwhite-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the\nimpression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of\nideas.\n\nHe was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the\ngreat ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the\nmauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed:  \"How horrid of Henry Wotton to be\nso late!  I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised\nfaithfully not to disappoint me.\"\n\nIt was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door\nopened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some\ninsincere apology, he ceased to feel bored.\n\nBut at dinner he could not eat anything.  Plate after plate went away\nuntasted.  Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called \"an\ninsult to poor Adolphe, who invented the _menu_ specially for you,\" and\nnow and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence\nand abstracted manner.  From time to time the butler filled his glass\nwith champagne.  He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase.\n\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry at last, as the _chaud-froid_ was being handed\nround, \"what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of\nsorts.\"\n\n\"I believe he is in love,\" cried Lady Narborough, \"and that he is\nafraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous.  He is quite right.  I\ncertainly should.\"\n\n\"Dear Lady Narborough,\" murmured Dorian, smiling, \"I have not been in\nlove for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town.\"\n\n\"How you men can fall in love with that woman!\" exclaimed the old lady.\n\"I really cannot understand it.\"\n\n\"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl,\nLady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry.  \"She is the one link between us and\nyour short frocks.\"\n\n\"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry.  But I\nremember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _decolletee_\nshe was then.\"\n\n\"She is still _decolletee_,\" he answered, taking an olive in his long\nfingers; \"and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an\n_edition de luxe_ of a bad French novel.  She is really wonderful, and\nfull of surprises.  Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary.\nWhen her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief.\"\n\n\"How can you, Harry!\" cried Dorian.\n\n\"It is a most romantic explanation,\" laughed the hostess.  \"But her\nthird husband, Lord Henry!  You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?\"\n\n\"Certainly, Lady Narborough.\"\n\n\"I don't believe a word of it.\"\n\n\"Well, ask Mr. Gray.  He is one of her most intimate friends.\"\n\n\"Is it true, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"She assures me so, Lady Narborough,\" said Dorian.  \"I asked her\nwhether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and\nhung at her girdle.  She told me she didn't, because none of them had\nhad any hearts at all.\"\n\n\"Four husbands!  Upon my word that is _trop de zele_.\"\n\n\"_Trop d'audace_, I tell her,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear.  And what is Ferrol\nlike?  I don't know him.\"\n\n\"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,\"\nsaid Lord Henry, sipping his wine.\n\nLady Narborough hit him with her fan.  \"Lord Henry, I am not at all\nsurprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.\"\n\n\"But what world says that?\" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows.\n\"It can only be the next world.  This world and I are on excellent\nterms.\"\n\n\"Everybody I know says you are very wicked,\" cried the old lady,\nshaking her head.\n\nLord Henry looked serious for some moments.  \"It is perfectly\nmonstrous,\" he said, at last, \"the way people go about nowadays saying\nthings against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely\ntrue.\"\n\n\"Isn't he incorrigible?\" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.\n\n\"I hope so,\" said his hostess, laughing.  \"But really, if you all\nworship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry\nagain so as to be in the fashion.\"\n\n\"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough,\" broke in Lord Henry.\n\"You were far too happy.  When a woman marries again, it is because she\ndetested her first husband.  When a man marries again, it is because he\nadored his first wife.  Women try their luck; men risk theirs.\"\n\n\"Narborough wasn't perfect,\" cried the old lady.\n\n\"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady,\" was the\nrejoinder.  \"Women love us for our defects.  If we have enough of them,\nthey will forgive us everything, even our intellects.  You will never\nask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough,\nbut it is quite true.\"\n\n\"Of course it is true, Lord Henry.  If we women did not love you for\nyour defects, where would you all be?  Not one of you would ever be\nmarried.  You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.  Not, however,\nthat that would alter you much.  Nowadays all the married men live like\nbachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.\"\n\n\"_Fin de siecle_,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\n\"_Fin du globe_,\" answered his hostess.\n\n\"I wish it were _fin du globe_,\" said Dorian with a sigh.  \"Life is a\ngreat disappointment.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear,\" cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, \"don't\ntell me that you have exhausted life.  When a man says that one knows\nthat life has exhausted him.  Lord Henry is very wicked, and I\nsometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good--you look\nso good.  I must find you a nice wife.  Lord Henry, don't you think\nthat Mr. Gray should get married?\"\n\n\"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry with a\nbow.\n\n\"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him.  I shall go\nthrough Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the\neligible young ladies.\"\n\n\"With their ages, Lady Narborough?\" asked Dorian.\n\n\"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited.  But nothing must be done\nin a hurry.  I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable\nalliance, and I want you both to be happy.\"\n\n\"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!\" exclaimed Lord\nHenry.  \"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love\nher.\"\n\n\"Ah! what a cynic you are!\" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair\nand nodding to Lady Ruxton.  \"You must come and dine with me soon\nagain.  You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir\nAndrew prescribes for me.  You must tell me what people you would like\nto meet, though.  I want it to be a delightful gathering.\"\n\n\"I like men who have a future and women who have a past,\" he answered.\n\"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?\"\n\n\"I fear so,\" she said, laughing, as she stood up.  \"A thousand pardons,\nmy dear Lady Ruxton,\" she added, \"I didn't see you hadn't finished your\ncigarette.\"\n\n\"Never mind, Lady Narborough.  I smoke a great deal too much.  I am\ngoing to limit myself, for the future.\"\n\n\"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Moderation is a fatal\nthing.  Enough is as bad as a meal.  More than enough is as good as a\nfeast.\"\n\nLady Ruxton glanced at him curiously.  \"You must come and explain that\nto me some afternoon, Lord Henry.  It sounds a fascinating theory,\" she\nmurmured, as she swept out of the room.\n\n\"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal,\"\ncried Lady Narborough from the door.  \"If you do, we are sure to\nsquabble upstairs.\"\n\nThe men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the\ntable and came up to the top.  Dorian Gray changed his seat and went\nand sat by Lord Henry.  Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about\nthe situation in the House of Commons.  He guffawed at his adversaries.\nThe word _doctrinaire_--word full of terror to the British\nmind--reappeared from time to time between his explosions.  An\nalliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.  He hoisted the\nUnion Jack on the pinnacles of thought.  The inherited stupidity of the\nrace--sound English common sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be\nthe proper bulwark for society.\n\nA smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at\nDorian.\n\n\"Are you better, my dear fellow?\" he asked.  \"You seemed rather out of\nsorts at dinner.\"\n\n\"I am quite well, Harry.  I am tired.  That is all.\"\n\n\"You were charming last night.  The little duchess is quite devoted to\nyou.  She tells me she is going down to Selby.\"\n\n\"She has promised to come on the twentieth.\"\n\n\"Is Monmouth to be there, too?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, Harry.\"\n\n\"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her.  She is very\nclever, too clever for a woman.  She lacks the indefinable charm of\nweakness.  It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image\nprecious.  Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay.\nWhite porcelain feet, if you like.  They have been through the fire,\nand what fire does not destroy, it hardens.  She has had experiences.\"\n\n\"How long has she been married?\" asked Dorian.\n\n\"An eternity, she tells me.  I believe, according to the peerage, it is\nten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity,\nwith time thrown in.  Who else is coming?\"\n\n\"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey\nClouston, the usual set.  I have asked Lord Grotrian.\"\n\n\"I like him,\" said Lord Henry.  \"A great many people don't, but I find\nhim charming.  He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by\nbeing always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type.\"\n\n\"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry.  He may have to go to\nMonte Carlo with his father.\"\n\n\"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are!  Try and make him come.  By\nthe way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night.  You left before\neleven.  What did you do afterwards?  Did you go straight home?\"\n\nDorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.\n\n\"No, Harry,\" he said at last, \"I did not get home till nearly three.\"\n\n\"Did you go to the club?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered.  Then he bit his lip.  \"No, I don't mean that.  I\ndidn't go to the club.  I walked about.  I forget what I did.... How\ninquisitive you are, Harry!  You always want to know what one has been\ndoing.  I always want to forget what I have been doing.  I came in at\nhalf-past two, if you wish to know the exact time.  I had left my\nlatch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in.  If you want any\ncorroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him.\"\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"My dear fellow, as if I cared!\nLet us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman.\nSomething has happened to you, Dorian.  Tell me what it is.  You are\nnot yourself to-night.\"\n\n\"Don't mind me, Harry.  I am irritable, and out of temper.  I shall\ncome round and see you to-morrow, or next day.  Make my excuses to Lady\nNarborough.  I shan't go upstairs.  I shall go home.  I must go home.\"\n\n\"All right, Dorian.  I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time.\nThe duchess is coming.\"\n\n\"I will try to be there, Harry,\" he said, leaving the room.  As he\ndrove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror\nhe thought he had strangled had come back to him.  Lord Henry's casual\nquestioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted\nhis nerve still.  Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed.  He\nwinced.  He hated the idea of even touching them.\n\nYet it had to be done.  He realized that, and when he had locked the\ndoor of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had\nthrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag.  A huge fire was blazing.  He\npiled another log on it.  The smell of the singeing clothes and burning\nleather was horrible.  It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume\neverything.  At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some\nAlgerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and\nforehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar.\n\nSuddenly he started.  His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed\nnervously at his underlip.  Between two of the windows stood a large\nFlorentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue\nlapis.  He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate\nand make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet\nalmost loathed.  His breath quickened.  A mad craving came over him.\nHe lit a cigarette and then threw it away.  His eyelids drooped till\nthe long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek.  But he still watched\nthe cabinet.  At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been\nlying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden\nspring.  A triangular drawer passed slowly out.  His fingers moved\ninstinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something.  It was a\nsmall Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought,\nthe sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with\nround crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads.  He opened it.\nInside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and\npersistent.\n\nHe hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his\nface.  Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly\nhot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock.  It was twenty\nminutes to twelve.  He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as\nhe did so, and went into his bedroom.\n\nAs midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray,\ndressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept\nquietly out of his house.  In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good\nhorse.  He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address.\n\nThe man shook his head.  \"It is too far for me,\" he muttered.\n\n\"Here is a sovereign for you,\" said Dorian.  \"You shall have another if\nyou drive fast.\"\n\n\"All right, sir,\" answered the man, \"you will be there in an hour,\" and\nafter his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly\ntowards the river.\n\n\n\n\n\nA cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly\nin the dripping mist.  The public-houses were just closing, and dim men\nand women were clustering in broken groups round their doors.  From\nsome of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter.  In others,\ndrunkards brawled and screamed.\n\nLying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian\nGray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and\nnow and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said\nto him on the first day they had met, \"To cure the soul by means of the\nsenses, and the senses by means of the soul.\"  Yes, that was the\nsecret.  He had often tried it, and would try it again now.  There were\nopium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the\nmemory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were\nnew.\n\nThe moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull.  From time to time a\nhuge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it.  The\ngas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy.  Once the\nman lost his way and had to drive back half a mile.  A steam rose from\nthe horse as it splashed up the puddles.  The sidewindows of the hansom\nwere clogged with a grey-flannel mist.\n\n\"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of\nthe soul!\"  How the words rang in his ears!  His soul, certainly, was\nsick to death.  Was it true that the senses could cure it?  Innocent\nblood had been spilled.  What could atone for that?  Ah! for that there\nwas no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness\nwas possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing\nout, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.\nIndeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done?  Who\nhad made him a judge over others?  He had said things that were\ndreadful, horrible, not to be endured.\n\nOn and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each\nstep.  He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster.\nThe hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him.  His throat burned\nand his delicate hands twitched nervously together.  He struck at the\nhorse madly with his stick.  The driver laughed and whipped up.  He\nlaughed in answer, and the man was silent.\n\nThe way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some\nsprawling spider.  The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist\nthickened, he felt afraid.\n\nThen they passed by lonely brickfields.  The fog was lighter here, and\nhe could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,\nfanlike tongues of fire.  A dog barked as they went by, and far away in\nthe darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed.  The horse stumbled in a\nrut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.\n\nAfter some time they left the clay road and rattled again over\nrough-paven streets.  Most of the windows were dark, but now and then\nfantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind.  He\nwatched them curiously.  They moved like monstrous marionettes and made\ngestures like live things.  He hated them.  A dull rage was in his\nheart.  As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from\nan open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred\nyards.  The driver beat at them with his whip.\n\nIt is said that passion makes one think in a circle.  Certainly with\nhideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped\nthose subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in\nthem the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by\nintellectual approval, passions that without such justification would\nstill have dominated his temper.  From cell to cell of his brain crept\nthe one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all\nman's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre.\nUgliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real,\nbecame dear to him now for that very reason.  Ugliness was the one\nreality.  The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of\ndisordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more\nvivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious\nshapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song.  They were what he needed\nfor forgetfulness.  In three days he would be free.\n\nSuddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane.  Over\nthe low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black\nmasts of ships.  Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the\nyards.\n\n\"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?\" he asked huskily through the\ntrap.\n\nDorian started and peered round.  \"This will do,\" he answered, and\nhaving got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had\npromised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay.  Here and\nthere a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman.  The\nlight shook and splintered in the puddles.  A red glare came from an\noutward-bound steamer that was coaling.  The slimy pavement looked like\na wet mackintosh.\n\nHe hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he\nwas being followed.  In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small\nshabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories.  In one of\nthe top-windows stood a lamp.  He stopped and gave a peculiar knock.\n\nAfter a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being\nunhooked.  The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a\nword to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the\nshadow as he passed.  At the end of the hall hung a tattered green\ncurtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him\nin from the street.  He dragged it aside and entered a long low room\nwhich looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill\nflaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that\nfaced them, were ranged round the walls.  Greasy reflectors of ribbed\ntin backed them, making quivering disks of light.  The floor was\ncovered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud,\nand stained with dark rings of spilled liquor.  Some Malays were\ncrouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and\nshowing their white teeth as they chattered.  In one corner, with his\nhead buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the\ntawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two\nhaggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his\ncoat with an expression of disgust.  \"He thinks he's got red ants on\nhim,\" laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by.  The man looked at her\nin terror and began to whimper.\n\nAt the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a\ndarkened chamber.  As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the\nheavy odour of opium met him.  He heaved a deep breath, and his\nnostrils quivered with pleasure.  When he entered, a young man with\nsmooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin\npipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner.\n\n\"You here, Adrian?\" muttered Dorian.\n\n\"Where else should I be?\" he answered, listlessly.  \"None of the chaps\nwill speak to me now.\"\n\n\"I thought you had left England.\"\n\n\"Darlington is not going to do anything.  My brother paid the bill at\nlast.  George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care,\" he added\nwith a sigh.  \"As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends.\nI think I have had too many friends.\"\n\nDorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such\nfantastic postures on the ragged mattresses.  The twisted limbs, the\ngaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him.  He knew in\nwhat strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were\nteaching them the secret of some new joy.  They were better off than he\nwas.  He was prisoned in thought.  Memory, like a horrible malady, was\neating his soul away.  From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of\nBasil Hallward looking at him.  Yet he felt he could not stay.  The\npresence of Adrian Singleton troubled him.  He wanted to be where no\none would know who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself.\n\n\"I am going on to the other place,\" he said after a pause.\n\n\"On the wharf?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That mad-cat is sure to be there.  They won't have her in this place\nnow.\"\n\nDorian shrugged his shoulders.  \"I am sick of women who love one.\nWomen who hate one are much more interesting.  Besides, the stuff is\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Much the same.\"\n\n\"I like it better.  Come and have something to drink.  I must have\nsomething.\"\n\n\"I don't want anything,\" murmured the young man.\n\n\"Never mind.\"\n\nAdrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar.  A\nhalf-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous\ngreeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of\nthem.  The women sidled up and began to chatter.  Dorian turned his\nback on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton.\n\nA crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of\nthe women.  \"We are very proud to-night,\" she sneered.\n\n\"For God's sake don't talk to me,\" cried Dorian, stamping his foot on\nthe ground.  \"What do you want?  Money?  Here it is.  Don't ever talk\nto me again.\"\n\nTwo red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then\nflickered out and left them dull and glazed.  She tossed her head and\nraked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers.  Her companion\nwatched her enviously.\n\n\"It's no use,\" sighed Adrian Singleton.  \"I don't care to go back.\nWhat does it matter?  I am quite happy here.\"\n\n\"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?\" said Dorian,\nafter a pause.\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Good night, then.\"\n\n\"Good night,\" answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping\nhis parched mouth with a handkerchief.\n\nDorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face.  As he drew\nthe curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the\nwoman who had taken his money.  \"There goes the devil's bargain!\" she\nhiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.\n\n\"Curse you!\" he answered, \"don't call me that.\"\n\nShe snapped her fingers.  \"Prince Charming is what you like to be\ncalled, ain't it?\" she yelled after him.\n\nThe drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly\nround.  The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear.  He\nrushed out as if in pursuit.\n\nDorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain.  His\nmeeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered\nif the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as\nBasil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult.  He bit his\nlip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad.  Yet, after all, what did\nit matter to him?  One's days were too brief to take the burden of\nanother's errors on one's shoulders.  Each man lived his own life and\npaid his own price for living it.  The only pity was one had to pay so\noften for a single fault.  One had to pay over and over again, indeed.\nIn her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.\n\nThere are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or\nfor what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of\nthe body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful\nimpulses.  Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their\nwill.  They move to their terrible end as automatons move.  Choice is\ntaken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at\nall, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its\ncharm.  For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are\nsins of disobedience.  When that high spirit, that morning star of\nevil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.\n\nCallous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for\nrebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but\nas he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a\nshort cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself\nsuddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,\nhe was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his\nthroat.\n\nHe struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the\ntightening fingers away.  In a second he heard the click of a revolver,\nand saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,\nand the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.\n\n\"What do you want?\" he gasped.\n\n\"Keep quiet,\" said the man.  \"If you stir, I shoot you.\"\n\n\"You are mad.  What have I done to you?\"\n\n\"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane,\" was the answer, \"and Sibyl Vane\nwas my sister.  She killed herself.  I know it.  Her death is at your\ndoor.  I swore I would kill you in return.  For years I have sought\nyou.  I had no clue, no trace.  The two people who could have described\nyou were dead.  I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call\nyou.  I heard it to-night by chance.  Make your peace with God, for\nto-night you are going to die.\"\n\nDorian Gray grew sick with fear.  \"I never knew her,\" he stammered.  \"I\nnever heard of her.  You are mad.\"\n\n\"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you\nare going to die.\"  There was a horrible moment.  Dorian did not know\nwhat to say or do.  \"Down on your knees!\" growled the man.  \"I give you\none minute to make your peace--no more.  I go on board to-night for\nIndia, and I must do my job first.  One minute.  That's all.\"\n\nDorian's arms fell to his side.  Paralysed with terror, he did not know\nwhat to do.  Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain.  \"Stop,\" he\ncried.  \"How long ago is it since your sister died?  Quick, tell me!\"\n\n\"Eighteen years,\" said the man.  \"Why do you ask me?  What do years\nmatter?\"\n\n\"Eighteen years,\" laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his\nvoice.  \"Eighteen years!  Set me under the lamp and look at my face!\"\n\nJames Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.\nThen he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.\n\nDim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him\nthe hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face\nof the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the\nunstained purity of youth.  He seemed little more than a lad of twenty\nsummers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been\nwhen they had parted so many years ago.  It was obvious that this was\nnot the man who had destroyed her life.\n\nHe loosened his hold and reeled back.  \"My God! my God!\" he cried, \"and\nI would have murdered you!\"\n\nDorian Gray drew a long breath.  \"You have been on the brink of\ncommitting a terrible crime, my man,\" he said, looking at him sternly.\n\"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own\nhands.\"\n\n\"Forgive me, sir,\" muttered James Vane.  \"I was deceived.  A chance\nword I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track.\"\n\n\"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into\ntrouble,\" said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the\nstreet.\n\nJames Vane stood on the pavement in horror.  He was trembling from head\nto foot.  After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping\nalong the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him\nwith stealthy footsteps.  He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked\nround with a start.  It was one of the women who had been drinking at\nthe bar.\n\n\"Why didn't you kill him?\" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite\nclose to his.  \"I knew you were following him when you rushed out from\nDaly's. You fool!  You should have killed him.  He has lots of money,\nand he's as bad as bad.\"\n\n\"He is not the man I am looking for,\" he answered, \"and I want no man's\nmoney.  I want a man's life.  The man whose life I want must be nearly\nforty now.  This one is little more than a boy.  Thank God, I have not\ngot his blood upon my hands.\"\n\nThe woman gave a bitter laugh.  \"Little more than a boy!\" she sneered.\n\"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me\nwhat I am.\"\n\n\"You lie!\" cried James Vane.\n\nShe raised her hand up to heaven.  \"Before God I am telling the truth,\"\nshe cried.\n\n\"Before God?\"\n\n\"Strike me dumb if it ain't so.  He is the worst one that comes here.\nThey say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face.  It's nigh\non eighteen years since I met him.  He hasn't changed much since then.\nI have, though,\" she added, with a sickly leer.\n\n\"You swear this?\"\n\n\"I swear it,\" came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth.  \"But don't give\nme away to him,\" she whined; \"I am afraid of him.  Let me have some\nmoney for my night's lodging.\"\n\nHe broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street,\nbut Dorian Gray had disappeared.  When he looked back, the woman had\nvanished also.\n\n\n\n\n\nA week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby\nRoyal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband,\na jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests.  It was tea-time,\nand the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the\ntable lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at\nwhich the duchess was presiding.  Her white hands were moving daintily\namong the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that\nDorian had whispered to her.  Lord Henry was lying back in a\nsilk-draped wicker chair, looking at them.  On a peach-coloured divan\nsat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of\nthe last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection.  Three\nyoung men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of\nthe women.  The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were\nmore expected to arrive on the next day.\n\n\"What are you two talking about?\" said Lord Henry, strolling over to\nthe table and putting his cup down.  \"I hope Dorian has told you about\nmy plan for rechristening everything, Gladys.  It is a delightful idea.\"\n\n\"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry,\" rejoined the duchess,\nlooking up at him with her wonderful eyes.  \"I am quite satisfied with\nmy own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his.\"\n\n\"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world.  They are\nboth perfect.  I was thinking chiefly of flowers.  Yesterday I cut an\norchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as\neffective as the seven deadly sins.  In a thoughtless moment I asked\none of the gardeners what it was called.  He told me it was a fine\nspecimen of _Robinsoniana_, or something dreadful of that kind.  It is a\nsad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to\nthings.  Names are everything.  I never quarrel with actions.  My one\nquarrel is with words.  That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in\nliterature.  The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled\nto use one.  It is the only thing he is fit for.\"\n\n\"Then what should we call you, Harry?\" she asked.\n\n\"His name is Prince Paradox,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"I recognize him in a flash,\" exclaimed the duchess.\n\n\"I won't hear of it,\" laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair.  \"From\na label there is no escape!  I refuse the title.\"\n\n\"Royalties may not abdicate,\" fell as a warning from pretty lips.\n\n\"You wish me to defend my throne, then?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I give the truths of to-morrow.\"\n\n\"I prefer the mistakes of to-day,\" she answered.\n\n\"You disarm me, Gladys,\" he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood.\n\n\"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear.\"\n\n\"I never tilt against beauty,\" he said, with a wave of his hand.\n\n\"That is your error, Harry, believe me.  You value beauty far too much.\"\n\n\"How can you say that?  I admit that I think that it is better to be\nbeautiful than to be good.  But on the other hand, no one is more ready\nthan I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.\"\n\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?\" cried the duchess.\n\"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?\"\n\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys.  You, as a good\nTory, must not underrate them.  Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly\nvirtues have made our England what she is.\"\n\n\"You don't like your country, then?\" she asked.\n\n\"I live in it.\"\n\n\"That you may censure it the better.\"\n\n\"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?\" he inquired.\n\n\"What do they say of us?\"\n\n\"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop.\"\n\n\"Is that yours, Harry?\"\n\n\"I give it to you.\"\n\n\"I could not use it.  It is too true.\"\n\n\"You need not be afraid.  Our countrymen never recognize a description.\"\n\n\"They are practical.\"\n\n\"They are more cunning than practical.  When they make up their ledger,\nthey balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy.\"\n\n\"Still, we have done great things.\"\n\n\"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys.\"\n\n\"We have carried their burden.\"\n\n\"Only as far as the Stock Exchange.\"\n\nShe shook her head.  \"I believe in the race,\" she cried.\n\n\"It represents the survival of the pushing.\"\n\n\"It has development.\"\n\n\"Decay fascinates me more.\"\n\n\"What of art?\" she asked.\n\n\"It is a malady.\"\n\n\"Love?\"\n\n\"An illusion.\"\n\n\"Religion?\"\n\n\"The fashionable substitute for belief.\"\n\n\"You are a sceptic.\"\n\n\"Never!  Scepticism is the beginning of faith.\"\n\n\"What are you?\"\n\n\"To define is to limit.\"\n\n\"Give me a clue.\"\n\n\"Threads snap.  You would lose your way in the labyrinth.\"\n\n\"You bewilder me.  Let us talk of some one else.\"\n\n\"Our host is a delightful topic.  Years ago he was christened Prince\nCharming.\"\n\n\"Ah! don't remind me of that,\" cried Dorian Gray.\n\n\"Our host is rather horrid this evening,\" answered the duchess,\ncolouring.  \"I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely\nscientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern\nbutterfly.\"\n\n\"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess,\" laughed Dorian.\n\n\"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me.\"\n\n\"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?\"\n\n\"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you.  Usually because\nI come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by\nhalf-past eight.\"\n\n\"How unreasonable of her!  You should give her warning.\"\n\n\"I daren't, Mr. Gray.  Why, she invents hats for me.  You remember the\none I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party?  You don't, but it is nice\nof you to pretend that you do.  Well, she made it out of nothing.  All\ngood hats are made out of nothing.\"\n\n\"Like all good reputations, Gladys,\" interrupted Lord Henry.  \"Every\neffect that one produces gives one an enemy.  To be popular one must be\na mediocrity.\"\n\n\"Not with women,\" said the duchess, shaking her head; \"and women rule\nthe world.  I assure you we can't bear mediocrities.  We women, as some\none says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if\nyou ever love at all.\"\n\n\"It seems to me that we never do anything else,\" murmured Dorian.\n\n\"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray,\" answered the duchess with\nmock sadness.\n\n\"My dear Gladys!\" cried Lord Henry.  \"How can you say that?  Romance\nlives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art.\nBesides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.\nDifference of object does not alter singleness of passion.  It merely\nintensifies it.  We can have in life but one great experience at best,\nand the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as\npossible.\"\n\n\"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?\" asked the duchess after\na pause.\n\n\"Especially when one has been wounded by it,\" answered Lord Henry.\n\nThe duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression\nin her eyes.  \"What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?\" she inquired.\n\nDorian hesitated for a moment.  Then he threw his head back and\nlaughed.  \"I always agree with Harry, Duchess.\"\n\n\"Even when he is wrong?\"\n\n\"Harry is never wrong, Duchess.\"\n\n\"And does his philosophy make you happy?\"\n\n\"I have never searched for happiness.  Who wants happiness?  I have\nsearched for pleasure.\"\n\n\"And found it, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"Often.  Too often.\"\n\nThe duchess sighed.  \"I am searching for peace,\" she said, \"and if I\ndon't go and dress, I shall have none this evening.\"\n\n\"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess,\" cried Dorian, starting to his\nfeet and walking down the conservatory.\n\n\"You are flirting disgracefully with him,\" said Lord Henry to his\ncousin.  \"You had better take care.  He is very fascinating.\"\n\n\"If he were not, there would be no battle.\"\n\n\"Greek meets Greek, then?\"\n\n\"I am on the side of the Trojans.  They fought for a woman.\"\n\n\"They were defeated.\"\n\n\"There are worse things than capture,\" she answered.\n\n\"You gallop with a loose rein.\"\n\n\"Pace gives life,\" was the _riposte_.\n\n\"I shall write it in my diary to-night.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That a burnt child loves the fire.\"\n\n\"I am not even singed.  My wings are untouched.\"\n\n\"You use them for everything, except flight.\"\n\n\"Courage has passed from men to women.  It is a new experience for us.\"\n\n\"You have a rival.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nHe laughed.  \"Lady Narborough,\" he whispered.  \"She perfectly adores\nhim.\"\n\n\"You fill me with apprehension.  The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us\nwho are romanticists.\"\n\n\"Romanticists!  You have all the methods of science.\"\n\n\"Men have educated us.\"\n\n\"But not explained you.\"\n\n\"Describe us as a sex,\" was her challenge.\n\n\"Sphinxes without secrets.\"\n\nShe looked at him, smiling.  \"How long Mr. Gray is!\" she said.  \"Let us\ngo and help him.  I have not yet told him the colour of my frock.\"\n\n\"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys.\"\n\n\"That would be a premature surrender.\"\n\n\"Romantic art begins with its climax.\"\n\n\"I must keep an opportunity for retreat.\"\n\n\"In the Parthian manner?\"\n\n\"They found safety in the desert.  I could not do that.\"\n\n\"Women are not always allowed a choice,\" he answered, but hardly had he\nfinished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came\na stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall.  Everybody\nstarted up.  The duchess stood motionless in horror.  And with fear in\nhis eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian\nGray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon.\n\nHe was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of\nthe sofas.  After a short time, he came to himself and looked round\nwith a dazed expression.\n\n\"What has happened?\" he asked.  \"Oh!  I remember.  Am I safe here,\nHarry?\" He began to tremble.\n\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, \"you merely fainted.  That was\nall.  You must have overtired yourself.  You had better not come down\nto dinner.  I will take your place.\"\n\n\"No, I will come down,\" he said, struggling to his feet.  \"I would\nrather come down.  I must not be alone.\"\n\nHe went to his room and dressed.  There was a wild recklessness of\ngaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of\nterror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the\nwindow of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the\nface of James Vane watching him.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the\ntime in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet\nindifferent to life itself.  The consciousness of being hunted, snared,\ntracked down, had begun to dominate him.  If the tapestry did but\ntremble in the wind, he shook.  The dead leaves that were blown against\nthe leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild\nregrets.  When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face\npeering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to\nlay its hand upon his heart.\n\nBut perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of\nthe night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him.  Actual\nlife was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the\nimagination.  It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet\nof sin.  It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen\nbrood.  In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor\nthe good rewarded.  Success was given to the strong, failure thrust\nupon the weak.  That was all.  Besides, had any stranger been prowling\nround the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the\nkeepers.  Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the\ngardeners would have reported it.  Yes, it had been merely fancy.\nSibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him.  He had sailed away\nin his ship to founder in some winter sea.  From him, at any rate, he\nwas safe.  Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he\nwas.  The mask of youth had saved him.\n\nAnd yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think\nthat conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them\nvisible form, and make them move before one!  What sort of life would\nhis be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from\nsilent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear\nas he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!\nAs the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and\nthe air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder.  Oh! in what a\nwild hour of madness he had killed his friend!  How ghastly the mere\nmemory of the scene!  He saw it all again.  Each hideous detail came\nback to him with added horror.  Out of the black cave of time, terrible\nand swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin.  When Lord Henry\ncame in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will\nbreak.\n\nIt was not till the third day that he ventured to go out.  There was\nsomething in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that\nseemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life.  But\nit was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had\ncaused the change.  His own nature had revolted against the excess of\nanguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm.\nWith subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so.  Their\nstrong passions must either bruise or bend.  They either slay the man,\nor themselves die.  Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on.  The\nloves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.\nBesides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a\nterror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with\nsomething of pity and not a little of contempt.\n\nAfter breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden\nand then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp\nfrost lay like salt upon the grass.  The sky was an inverted cup of\nblue metal.  A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.\n\nAt the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey\nClouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of\nhis gun.  He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take\nthe mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered\nbracken and rough undergrowth.\n\n\"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?\" he asked.\n\n\"Not very good, Dorian.  I think most of the birds have gone to the\nopen.  I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new\nground.\"\n\nDorian strolled along by his side.  The keen aromatic air, the brown\nand red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the\nbeaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns\nthat followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful\nfreedom.  He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the\nhigh indifference of joy.\n\nSuddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front\nof them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it\nforward, started a hare.  It bolted for a thicket of alders.  Sir\nGeoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the\nanimal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he\ncried out at once, \"Don't shoot it, Geoffrey.  Let it live.\"\n\n\"What nonsense, Dorian!\" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded\ninto the thicket, he fired.  There were two cries heard, the cry of a\nhare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is\nworse.\n\n\"Good heavens!  I have hit a beater!\" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.  \"What an\nass the man was to get in front of the guns!  Stop shooting there!\" he\ncalled out at the top of his voice.  \"A man is hurt.\"\n\nThe head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand.\n\n\"Where, sir?  Where is he?\" he shouted.  At the same time, the firing\nceased along the line.\n\n\"Here,\" answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket.\n\"Why on earth don't you keep your men back?  Spoiled my shooting for\nthe day.\"\n\nDorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the\nlithe swinging branches aside.  In a few moments they emerged, dragging\na body after them into the sunlight.  He turned away in horror.  It\nseemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went.  He heard Sir\nGeoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of\nthe keeper.  The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with\nfaces.  There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of\nvoices.  A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the\nboughs overhead.\n\nAfter a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like\nendless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder.  He started\nand looked round.\n\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, \"I had better tell them that the shooting is\nstopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on.\"\n\n\"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry,\" he answered bitterly.  \"The\nwhole thing is hideous and cruel.  Is the man ...?\"\n\nHe could not finish the sentence.\n\n\"I am afraid so,\" rejoined Lord Henry.  \"He got the whole charge of\nshot in his chest.  He must have died almost instantaneously.  Come;\nlet us go home.\"\n\nThey walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly\nfifty yards without speaking.  Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and\nsaid, with a heavy sigh, \"It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen.\"\n\n\"What is?\" asked Lord Henry.  \"Oh! this accident, I suppose.  My dear\nfellow, it can't be helped.  It was the man's own fault.  Why did he\nget in front of the guns?  Besides, it is nothing to us.  It is rather\nawkward for Geoffrey, of course.  It does not do to pepper beaters.  It\nmakes people think that one is a wild shot.  And Geoffrey is not; he\nshoots very straight.  But there is no use talking about the matter.\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"It is a bad omen, Harry.  I feel as if\nsomething horrible were going to happen to some of us.  To myself,\nperhaps,\" he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of\npain.\n\nThe elder man laughed.  \"The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_,\nDorian.  That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.  But we\nare not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering\nabout this thing at dinner.  I must tell them that the subject is to be\ntabooed.  As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen.  Destiny\ndoes not send us heralds.  She is too wise or too cruel for that.\nBesides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian?  You have\neverything in the world that a man can want.  There is no one who would\nnot be delighted to change places with you.\"\n\n\"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry.  Don't\nlaugh like that.  I am telling you the truth.  The wretched peasant who\nhas just died is better off than I am.  I have no terror of death.  It\nis the coming of death that terrifies me.  Its monstrous wings seem to\nwheel in the leaden air around me.  Good heavens! don't you see a man\nmoving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?\"\n\nLord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand\nwas pointing.  \"Yes,\" he said, smiling, \"I see the gardener waiting for\nyou.  I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on\nthe table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow!  You\nmust come and see my doctor, when we get back to town.\"\n\nDorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching.  The\nman touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating\nmanner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master.\n\"Her Grace told me to wait for an answer,\" he murmured.\n\nDorian put the letter into his pocket.  \"Tell her Grace that I am\ncoming in,\" he said, coldly.  The man turned round and went rapidly in\nthe direction of the house.\n\n\"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!\" laughed Lord Henry.\n\"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most.  A woman will\nflirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.\"\n\n\"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry!  In the present\ninstance, you are quite astray.  I like the duchess very much, but I\ndon't love her.\"\n\n\"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you\nare excellently matched.\"\n\n\"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for\nscandal.\"\n\n\"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty,\" said Lord Henry,\nlighting a cigarette.\n\n\"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram.\"\n\n\"The world goes to the altar of its own accord,\" was the answer.\n\n\"I wish I could love,\" cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in\nhis voice.  \"But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the\ndesire.  I am too much concentrated on myself.  My own personality has\nbecome a burden to me.  I want to escape, to go away, to forget.  It\nwas silly of me to come down here at all.  I think I shall send a wire\nto Harvey to have the yacht got ready.  On a yacht one is safe.\"\n\n\"Safe from what, Dorian?  You are in some trouble.  Why not tell me\nwhat it is?  You know I would help you.\"\n\n\"I can't tell you, Harry,\" he answered sadly.  \"And I dare say it is\nonly a fancy of mine.  This unfortunate accident has upset me.  I have\na horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me.\"\n\n\"What nonsense!\"\n\n\"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it.  Ah! here is the duchess,\nlooking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown.  You see we have come back,\nDuchess.\"\n\n\"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray,\" she answered.  \"Poor Geoffrey is\nterribly upset.  And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare.\nHow curious!\"\n\n\"Yes, it was very curious.  I don't know what made me say it.  Some\nwhim, I suppose.  It looked the loveliest of little live things.  But I\nam sorry they told you about the man.  It is a hideous subject.\"\n\n\"It is an annoying subject,\" broke in Lord Henry.  \"It has no\npsychological value at all.  Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on\npurpose, how interesting he would be!  I should like to know some one\nwho had committed a real murder.\"\n\n\"How horrid of you, Harry!\" cried the duchess.  \"Isn't it, Mr. Gray?\nHarry, Mr. Gray is ill again.  He is going to faint.\"\n\nDorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled.  \"It is nothing,\nDuchess,\" he murmured; \"my nerves are dreadfully out of order.  That is\nall.  I am afraid I walked too far this morning.  I didn't hear what\nHarry said.  Was it very bad?  You must tell me some other time.  I\nthink I must go and lie down.  You will excuse me, won't you?\"\n\nThey had reached the great flight of steps that led from the\nconservatory on to the terrace.  As the glass door closed behind\nDorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous\neyes.  \"Are you very much in love with him?\" he asked.\n\nShe did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape.\n\"I wish I knew,\" she said at last.\n\nHe shook his head.  \"Knowledge would be fatal.  It is the uncertainty\nthat charms one.  A mist makes things wonderful.\"\n\n\"One may lose one's way.\"\n\n\"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"Disillusion.\"\n\n\"It was my _debut_ in life,\" she sighed.\n\n\"It came to you crowned.\"\n\n\"I am tired of strawberry leaves.\"\n\n\"They become you.\"\n\n\"Only in public.\"\n\n\"You would miss them,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"I will not part with a petal.\"\n\n\"Monmouth has ears.\"\n\n\"Old age is dull of hearing.\"\n\n\"Has he never been jealous?\"\n\n\"I wish he had been.\"\n\nHe glanced about as if in search of something.  \"What are you looking\nfor?\" she inquired.\n\n\"The button from your foil,\" he answered.  \"You have dropped it.\"\n\nShe laughed.  \"I have still the mask.\"\n\n\"It makes your eyes lovelier,\" was his reply.\n\nShe laughed again.  Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet\nfruit.\n\nUpstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror\nin every tingling fibre of his body.  Life had suddenly become too\nhideous a burden for him to bear.  The dreadful death of the unlucky\nbeater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to\npre-figure death for himself also.  He had nearly swooned at what Lord\nHenry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.\n\nAt five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to\npack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham\nat the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another\nnight at Selby Royal.  It was an ill-omened place.  Death walked there\nin the sunlight.  The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.\n\nThen he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to\ntown to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in\nhis absence.  As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to\nthe door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see\nhim.  He frowned and bit his lip.  \"Send him in,\" he muttered, after\nsome moments' hesitation.\n\nAs soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a\ndrawer and spread it out before him.\n\n\"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this\nmorning, Thornton?\" he said, taking up a pen.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" answered the gamekeeper.\n\n\"Was the poor fellow married?  Had he any people dependent on him?\"\nasked Dorian, looking bored.  \"If so, I should not like them to be left\nin want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary.\"\n\n\"We don't know who he is, sir.  That is what I took the liberty of\ncoming to you about.\"\n\n\"Don't know who he is?\" said Dorian, listlessly.  \"What do you mean?\nWasn't he one of your men?\"\n\n\"No, sir.  Never saw him before.  Seems like a sailor, sir.\"\n\nThe pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart\nhad suddenly stopped beating.  \"A sailor?\" he cried out.  \"Did you say\na sailor?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.  He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on\nboth arms, and that kind of thing.\"\n\n\"Was there anything found on him?\" said Dorian, leaning forward and\nlooking at the man with startled eyes.  \"Anything that would tell his\nname?\"\n\n\"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any\nkind.  A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we\nthink.\"\n\nDorian started to his feet.  A terrible hope fluttered past him.  He\nclutched at it madly.  \"Where is the body?\" he exclaimed.  \"Quick!  I\nmust see it at once.\"\n\n\"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir.  The folk don't like\nto have that sort of thing in their houses.  They say a corpse brings\nbad luck.\"\n\n\"The Home Farm!  Go there at once and meet me.  Tell one of the grooms\nto bring my horse round.  No. Never mind.  I'll go to the stables\nmyself.  It will save time.\"\n\nIn less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the\nlong avenue as hard as he could go.  The trees seemed to sweep past him\nin spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his\npath.  Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him.\nHe lashed her across the neck with his crop.  She cleft the dusky air\nlike an arrow.  The stones flew from her hoofs.\n\nAt last he reached the Home Farm.  Two men were loitering in the yard.\nHe leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them.  In the\nfarthest stable a light was glimmering.  Something seemed to tell him\nthat the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand\nupon the latch.\n\nThere he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a\ndiscovery that would either make or mar his life.  Then he thrust the\ndoor open and entered.\n\nOn a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man\ndressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers.  A spotted\nhandkerchief had been placed over the face.  A coarse candle, stuck in\na bottle, sputtered beside it.\n\nDorian Gray shuddered.  He felt that his could not be the hand to take\nthe handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to\ncome to him.\n\n\"Take that thing off the face.  I wish to see it,\" he said, clutching\nat the door-post for support.\n\nWhen the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward.  A cry of joy\nbroke from his lips.  The man who had been shot in the thicket was\nJames Vane.\n\nHe stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body.  As he rode\nhome, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good,\" cried\nLord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled\nwith rose-water. \"You are quite perfect.  Pray, don't change.\"\n\nDorian Gray shook his head.  \"No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful\nthings in my life.  I am not going to do any more.  I began my good\nactions yesterday.\"\n\n\"Where were you yesterday?\"\n\n\"In the country, Harry.  I was staying at a little inn by myself.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" said Lord Henry, smiling, \"anybody can be good in the\ncountry.  There are no temptations there.  That is the reason why\npeople who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized.\nCivilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to.  There are\nonly two ways by which man can reach it.  One is by being cultured, the\nother by being corrupt.  Country people have no opportunity of being\neither, so they stagnate.\"\n\n\"Culture and corruption,\" echoed Dorian.  \"I have known something of\nboth.  It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found\ntogether.  For I have a new ideal, Harry.  I am going to alter.  I\nthink I have altered.\"\n\n\"You have not yet told me what your good action was.  Or did you say\nyou had done more than one?\" asked his companion as he spilled into his\nplate a little crimson pyramid of seeded strawberries and, through a\nperforated, shell-shaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them.\n\n\"I can tell you, Harry.  It is not a story I could tell to any one\nelse.  I spared somebody.  It sounds vain, but you understand what I\nmean.  She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane.  I\nthink it was that which first attracted me to her.  You remember Sibyl,\ndon't you?  How long ago that seems!  Well, Hetty was not one of our\nown class, of course.  She was simply a girl in a village.  But I\nreally loved her.  I am quite sure that I loved her.  All during this\nwonderful May that we have been having, I used to run down and see her\ntwo or three times a week.  Yesterday she met me in a little orchard.\nThe apple-blossoms kept tumbling down on her hair, and she was\nlaughing.  We were to have gone away together this morning at dawn.\nSuddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I had found her.\"\n\n\"I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill\nof real pleasure, Dorian,\" interrupted Lord Henry.  \"But I can finish\nyour idyll for you.  You gave her good advice and broke her heart.\nThat was the beginning of your reformation.\"\n\n\"Harry, you are horrible!  You mustn't say these dreadful things.\nHetty's heart is not broken.  Of course, she cried and all that.  But\nthere is no disgrace upon her.  She can live, like Perdita, in her\ngarden of mint and marigold.\"\n\n\"And weep over a faithless Florizel,\" said Lord Henry, laughing, as he\nleaned back in his chair.  \"My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously\nboyish moods.  Do you think this girl will ever be really content now\nwith any one of her own rank?  I suppose she will be married some day\nto a rough carter or a grinning ploughman.  Well, the fact of having\nmet you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she\nwill be wretched.  From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I\nthink much of your great renunciation.  Even as a beginning, it is\npoor.  Besides, how do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the\npresent moment in some starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies\nround her, like Ophelia?\"\n\n\"I can't bear this, Harry!  You mock at everything, and then suggest\nthe most serious tragedies.  I am sorry I told you now.  I don't care\nwhat you say to me.  I know I was right in acting as I did.  Poor\nHetty!  As I rode past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at\nthe window, like a spray of jasmine.  Don't let us talk about it any\nmore, and don't try to persuade me that the first good action I have\ndone for years, the first little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever\nknown, is really a sort of sin.  I want to be better.  I am going to be\nbetter.  Tell me something about yourself.  What is going on in town?\nI have not been to the club for days.\"\n\n\"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance.\"\n\n\"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time,\" said\nDorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly.\n\n\"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and\nthe British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having\nmore than one topic every three months.  They have been very fortunate\nlately, however.  They have had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbell's\nsuicide.  Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist.\nScotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left\nfor Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor\nBasil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris\nat all.  I suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has\nbeen seen in San Francisco.  It is an odd thing, but every one who\ndisappears is said to be seen at San Francisco.  It must be a\ndelightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.\"\n\n\"What do you think has happened to Basil?\" asked Dorian, holding up his\nBurgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could\ndiscuss the matter so calmly.\n\n\"I have not the slightest idea.  If Basil chooses to hide himself, it\nis no business of mine.  If he is dead, I don't want to think about\nhim.  Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me.  I hate it.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said the younger man wearily.\n\n\"Because,\" said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt\ntrellis of an open vinaigrette box, \"one can survive everything\nnowadays except that.  Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in\nthe nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.  Let us have our\ncoffee in the music-room, Dorian.  You must play Chopin to me.  The man\nwith whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely.  Poor Victoria!\nI was very fond of her.  The house is rather lonely without her.  Of\ncourse, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit.  But then one\nregrets the loss even of one's worst habits.  Perhaps one regrets them\nthe most.  They are such an essential part of one's personality.\"\n\nDorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next\nroom, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white\nand black ivory of the keys.  After the coffee had been brought in, he\nstopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, \"Harry, did it ever\noccur to you that Basil was murdered?\"\n\nLord Henry yawned.  \"Basil was very popular, and always wore a\nWaterbury watch.  Why should he have been murdered?  He was not clever\nenough to have enemies.  Of course, he had a wonderful genius for\npainting.  But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as\npossible.  Basil was really rather dull.  He only interested me once,\nand that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration\nfor you and that you were the dominant motive of his art.\"\n\n\"I was very fond of Basil,\" said Dorian with a note of sadness in his\nvoice.  \"But don't people say that he was murdered?\"\n\n\"Oh, some of the papers do.  It does not seem to me to be at all\nprobable.  I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not\nthe sort of man to have gone to them.  He had no curiosity.  It was his\nchief defect.\"\n\n\"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?\"\nsaid the younger man.  He watched him intently after he had spoken.\n\n\"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that\ndoesn't suit you.  All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.\nIt is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder.  I am sorry if I hurt\nyour vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true.  Crime belongs\nexclusively to the lower orders.  I don't blame them in the smallest\ndegree.  I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us,\nsimply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.\"\n\n\"A method of procuring sensations?  Do you think, then, that a man who\nhas once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again?\nDon't tell me that.\"\n\n\"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often,\" cried Lord\nHenry, laughing.  \"That is one of the most important secrets of life.\nI should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake.  One should\nnever do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.  But let us\npass from poor Basil.  I wish I could believe that he had come to such\na really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell\ninto the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the\nscandal.  Yes:  I should fancy that was his end.  I see him lying now\non his back under those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges\nfloating over him and long weeds catching in his hair.  Do you know, I\ndon't think he would have done much more good work.  During the last\nten years his painting had gone off very much.\"\n\nDorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began\nto stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, grey-plumaged\nbird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo\nperch.  As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf\nof crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards\nand forwards.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of\nhis pocket; \"his painting had quite gone off.  It seemed to me to have\nlost something.  It had lost an ideal.  When you and he ceased to be\ngreat friends, he ceased to be a great artist.  What was it separated\nyou?  I suppose he bored you.  If so, he never forgave you.  It's a\nhabit bores have.  By the way, what has become of that wonderful\nportrait he did of you?  I don't think I have ever seen it since he\nfinished it.  Oh!  I remember your telling me years ago that you had\nsent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the\nway.  You never got it back?  What a pity! it was really a\nmasterpiece.  I remember I wanted to buy it.  I wish I had now.  It\nbelonged to Basil's best period.  Since then, his work was that curious\nmixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man\nto be called a representative British artist.  Did you advertise for\nit?  You should.\"\n\n\"I forget,\" said Dorian.  \"I suppose I did.  But I never really liked\nit.  I am sorry I sat for it.  The memory of the thing is hateful to\nme.  Why do you talk of it?  It used to remind me of those curious\nlines in some play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?--\n\n    \"Like the painting of a sorrow,\n     A face without a heart.\"\n\nYes:  that is what it was like.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"If a man treats life artistically, his brain is\nhis heart,\" he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.\n\nDorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano.\n\"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'\" he repeated, \"'a face without a\nheart.'\"\n\nThe elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes.  \"By\nthe way, Dorian,\" he said after a pause, \"'what does it profit a man if\nhe gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?--his own\nsoul'?\"\n\nThe music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend.\n\"Why do you ask me that, Harry?\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise,\n\"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer.\nThat is all.  I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by\nthe Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people\nlistening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the\nman yelling out that question to his audience.  It struck me as being\nrather dramatic.  London is very rich in curious effects of that kind.\nA wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly\nwhite faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful\nphrase flung into the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very\ngood in its way, quite a suggestion.  I thought of telling the prophet\nthat art had a soul, but that man had not.  I am afraid, however, he\nwould not have understood me.\"\n\n\"Don't, Harry.  The soul is a terrible reality.  It can be bought, and\nsold, and bartered away.  It can be poisoned, or made perfect.  There\nis a soul in each one of us.  I know it.\"\n\n\"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?\"\n\n\"Quite sure.\"\n\n\"Ah! then it must be an illusion.  The things one feels absolutely\ncertain about are never true.  That is the fatality of faith, and the\nlesson of romance.  How grave you are!  Don't be so serious.  What have\nyou or I to do with the superstitions of our age?  No:  we have given\nup our belief in the soul.  Play me something.  Play me a nocturne,\nDorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept\nyour youth.  You must have some secret.  I am only ten years older than\nyou are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow.  You are really\nwonderful, Dorian.  You have never looked more charming than you do\nto-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first.  You were rather\ncheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary.  You have changed, of\ncourse, but not in appearance.  I wish you would tell me your secret.\nTo get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take\nexercise, get up early, or be respectable.  Youth!  There is nothing\nlike it.  It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth.  The only\npeople to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much\nyounger than myself.  They seem in front of me.  Life has revealed to\nthem her latest wonder.  As for the aged, I always contradict the aged.\nI do it on principle.  If you ask them their opinion on something that\nhappened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in\n1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew\nabsolutely nothing.  How lovely that thing you are playing is!  I\nwonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping round the\nvilla and the salt spray dashing against the panes?  It is marvellously\nromantic.  What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that\nis not imitative!  Don't stop.  I want music to-night. It seems to me\nthat you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you.\nI have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of.  The\ntragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.  I am\namazed sometimes at my own sincerity.  Ah, Dorian, how happy you are!\nWhat an exquisite life you have had!  You have drunk deeply of\neverything.  You have crushed the grapes against your palate.  Nothing\nhas been hidden from you.  And it has all been to you no more than the\nsound of music.  It has not marred you.  You are still the same.\"\n\n\"I am not the same, Harry.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are the same.  I wonder what the rest of your life will be.\nDon't spoil it by renunciations.  At present you are a perfect type.\nDon't make yourself incomplete.  You are quite flawless now.  You need\nnot shake your head:  you know you are.  Besides, Dorian, don't deceive\nyourself.  Life is not governed by will or intention.  Life is a\nquestion of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which\nthought hides itself and passion has its dreams.  You may fancy\nyourself safe and think yourself strong.  But a chance tone of colour\nin a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once\nloved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten\npoem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music\nthat you had ceased to play--I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things\nlike these that our lives depend.  Browning writes about that\nsomewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us.  There are\nmoments when the odour of _lilas blanc_ passes suddenly across me, and I\nhave to live the strangest month of my life over again.  I wish I could\nchange places with you, Dorian.  The world has cried out against us\nboth, but it has always worshipped you.  It always will worship you.\nYou are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is\nafraid it has found.  I am so glad that you have never done anything,\nnever carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything\noutside of yourself!  Life has been your art.  You have set yourself to\nmusic.  Your days are your sonnets.\"\n\nDorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair.\n\"Yes, life has been exquisite,\" he murmured, \"but I am not going to\nhave the same life, Harry.  And you must not say these extravagant\nthings to me.  You don't know everything about me.  I think that if you\ndid, even you would turn from me.  You laugh.  Don't laugh.\"\n\n\"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian?  Go back and give me the\nnocturne over again.  Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that\nhangs in the dusky air.  She is waiting for you to charm her, and if\nyou play she will come closer to the earth.  You won't?  Let us go to\nthe club, then.  It has been a charming evening, and we must end it\ncharmingly.  There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know\nyou--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son.  He has already copied\nyour neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you.  He is quite\ndelightful and rather reminds me of you.\"\n\n\"I hope not,\" said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes.  \"But I am tired\nto-night, Harry.  I shan't go to the club.  It is nearly eleven, and I\nwant to go to bed early.\"\n\n\"Do stay.  You have never played so well as to-night. There was\nsomething in your touch that was wonderful.  It had more expression\nthan I had ever heard from it before.\"\n\n\"It is because I am going to be good,\" he answered, smiling.  \"I am a\nlittle changed already.\"\n\n\"You cannot change to me, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry.  \"You and I will\nalways be friends.\"\n\n\"Yet you poisoned me with a book once.  I should not forgive that.\nHarry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one.  It\ndoes harm.\"\n\n\"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize.  You will soon be\ngoing about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people\nagainst all the sins of which you have grown tired.  You are much too\ndelightful to do that.  Besides, it is no use.  You and I are what we\nare, and will be what we will be.  As for being poisoned by a book,\nthere is no such thing as that.  Art has no influence upon action.  It\nannihilates the desire to act.  It is superbly sterile.  The books that\nthe world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.\nThat is all.  But we won't discuss literature.  Come round to-morrow. I\nam going to ride at eleven.  We might go together, and I will take you\nto lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome.  She is a charming woman, and\nwants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying.\nMind you come.  Or shall we lunch with our little duchess?  She says\nshe never sees you now.  Perhaps you are tired of Gladys?  I thought\nyou would be.  Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves.  Well, in any\ncase, be here at eleven.\"\n\n\"Must I really come, Harry?\"\n\n\"Certainly.  The park is quite lovely now.  I don't think there have\nbeen such lilacs since the year I met you.\"\n\n\"Very well.  I shall be here at eleven,\" said Dorian.  \"Good night,\nHarry.\"  As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he\nhad something more to say.  Then he sighed and went out.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and\ndid not even put his silk scarf round his throat.  As he strolled home,\nsmoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him.  He\nheard one of them whisper to the other, \"That is Dorian Gray.\" He\nremembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared\nat, or talked about.  He was tired of hearing his own name now.  Half\nthe charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was\nthat no one knew who he was.  He had often told the girl whom he had\nlured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him.  He had\ntold her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and\nanswered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly.  What a\nlaugh she had!--just like a thrush singing.  And how pretty she had\nbeen in her cotton dresses and her large hats!  She knew nothing, but\nshe had everything that he had lost.\n\nWhen he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him.  He sent\nhim to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and\nbegan to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him.\n\nWas it really true that one could never change?  He felt a wild longing\nfor the unstained purity of his boyhood--his rose-white boyhood, as\nLord Henry had once called it.  He knew that he had tarnished himself,\nfilled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he\nhad been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible\njoy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had\nbeen the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to\nshame.  But was it all irretrievable?  Was there no hope for him?\n\nAh! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that\nthe portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the\nunsullied splendour of eternal youth!  All his failure had been due to\nthat.  Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure\nswift penalty along with it.  There was purification in punishment.\nNot \"Forgive us our sins\" but \"Smite us for our iniquities\" should be\nthe prayer of man to a most just God.\n\nThe curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many\nyears ago now, was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids\nlaughed round it as of old.  He took it up, as he had done on that\nnight of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal\npicture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished\nshield.  Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a\nmad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: \"The world is changed\nbecause you are made of ivory and gold.  The curves of your lips\nrewrite history.\"  The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated\nthem over and over to himself.  Then he loathed his own beauty, and\nflinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters\nbeneath his heel.  It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty\nand the youth that he had prayed for.  But for those two things, his\nlife might have been free from stain.  His beauty had been to him but a\nmask, his youth but a mockery.  What was youth at best?  A green, an\nunripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts.  Why had he\nworn its livery?  Youth had spoiled him.\n\nIt was better not to think of the past.  Nothing could alter that.  It\nwas of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think.  James\nVane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard.  Alan Campbell\nhad shot himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the\nsecret that he had been forced to know.  The excitement, such as it\nwas, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away.  It was\nalready waning.  He was perfectly safe there.  Nor, indeed, was it the\ndeath of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind.  It was the\nliving death of his own soul that troubled him.  Basil had painted the\nportrait that had marred his life.  He could not forgive him that.  It\nwas the portrait that had done everything.  Basil had said things to\nhim that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience.  The\nmurder had been simply the madness of a moment.  As for Alan Campbell,\nhis suicide had been his own act.  He had chosen to do it.  It was\nnothing to him.\n\nA new life!  That was what he wanted.  That was what he was waiting\nfor.  Surely he had begun it already.  He had spared one innocent\nthing, at any rate.  He would never again tempt innocence.  He would be\ngood.\n\nAs he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in\nthe locked room had changed.  Surely it was not still so horrible as it\nhad been?  Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel\nevery sign of evil passion from the face.  Perhaps the signs of evil\nhad already gone away.  He would go and look.\n\nHe took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs.  As he unbarred the\ndoor, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face\nand lingered for a moment about his lips.  Yes, he would be good, and\nthe hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror\nto him.  He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.\n\nHe went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and\ndragged the purple hanging from the portrait.  A cry of pain and\nindignation broke from him.  He could see no change, save that in the\neyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of\nthe hypocrite.  The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if\npossible, than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed\nbrighter, and more like blood newly spilled.  Then he trembled.  Had it\nbeen merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed?  Or the\ndesire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking\nlaugh?  Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things\nfiner than we are ourselves?  Or, perhaps, all these?  And why was the\nred stain larger than it had been?  It seemed to have crept like a\nhorrible disease over the wrinkled fingers.  There was blood on the\npainted feet, as though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand\nthat had not held the knife.  Confess?  Did it mean that he was to\nconfess?  To give himself up and be put to death?  He laughed.  He felt\nthat the idea was monstrous.  Besides, even if he did confess, who\nwould believe him?  There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere.\nEverything belonging to him had been destroyed.  He himself had burned\nwhat had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad.\nThey would shut him up if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was\nhis duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public\natonement.  There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to\nearth as well as to heaven.  Nothing that he could do would cleanse him\ntill he had told his own sin.  His sin?  He shrugged his shoulders.\nThe death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him.  He was thinking\nof Hetty Merton.  For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul\nthat he was looking at.  Vanity?  Curiosity?  Hypocrisy?  Had there\nbeen nothing more in his renunciation than that?  There had been\nsomething more.  At least he thought so.  But who could tell? ... No.\nThere had been nothing more.  Through vanity he had spared her.  In\nhypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness.  For curiosity's sake he\nhad tried the denial of self.  He recognized that now.\n\nBut this murder--was it to dog him all his life?  Was he always to be\nburdened by his past?  Was he really to confess?  Never.  There was\nonly one bit of evidence left against him.  The picture itself--that\nwas evidence.  He would destroy it.  Why had he kept it so long?  Once\nit had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old.  Of\nlate he had felt no such pleasure.  It had kept him awake at night.\nWhen he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes\nshould look upon it.  It had brought melancholy across his passions.\nIts mere memory had marred many moments of joy.  It had been like\nconscience to him.  Yes, it had been conscience.  He would destroy it.\n\nHe looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward.  He\nhad cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it.  It\nwas bright, and glistened.  As it had killed the painter, so it would\nkill the painter's work, and all that that meant.  It would kill the\npast, and when that was dead, he would be free.  It would kill this\nmonstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at\npeace.  He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it.\n\nThere was a cry heard, and a crash.  The cry was so horrible in its\nagony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms.\nTwo gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked\nup at the great house.  They walked on till they met a policeman and\nbrought him back.  The man rang the bell several times, but there was\nno answer.  Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was\nall dark.  After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico\nand watched.\n\n\"Whose house is that, Constable?\" asked the elder of the two gentlemen.\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir,\" answered the policeman.\n\nThey looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered.  One of\nthem was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.\n\nInside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics\nwere talking in low whispers to each other.  Old Mrs. Leaf was crying\nand wringing her hands.  Francis was as pale as death.\n\nAfter about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the\nfootmen and crept upstairs.  They knocked, but there was no reply.\nThey called out.  Everything was still.  Finally, after vainly trying\nto force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the\nbalcony.  The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old.\n\nWhen they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait\nof their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his\nexquisite youth and beauty.  Lying on the floor was a dead man, in\nevening dress, with a knife in his heart.  He was withered, wrinkled,\nand loathsome of visage.  It was not till they had examined the rings\nthat they recognized who it was.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
        "summary": "The Picture of Dorian Gray is the story of one beautiful, innocent young man's seduction, moral corruption, and eventual downfall. And, oh yeah: it's also the story of a really creepy painting. We meet our three central characters at the beginning of the book, when painter Basil Hallward and his close friend, Lord Henry Wotton, are discussing the subject of Basil's newest painting, a gorgeous young thing named Dorian Gray. Basil and Henry discuss just how perfectly perfect Dorian is--he's totally innocent and completely good, as well as being the most beautiful guy ever to walk the earth. Lord Henry wants to meet this mysterious boy, but Basil doesn't want him to; for some reason, he's afraid of what will happen to Dorian if Lord Henry digs his claws into him. However, Lord Henry gets his wish--Dorian shows up that very afternoon, and, over the course of the day, Henry manages to totally change Dorian's perspective on the world. From that point on, Dorian's previously innocent point of view is dramatically different--he begins to see life as Lord Henry does, as a succession of pleasures in which questions of good and evil are irrelevant.Basil finishes his portrait of Dorian, and gives it to the young man, who keeps it in his home, where he can admire his own beauty. Lord Henry continues to exert his influence over Dorian, to Basil's dismay. Dorian grows more and more distant from Basil, his former best friend, and develops his own interests. One of these interests is Sybil Vane, a young, exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally talented--and exceptionally poor--actress. Though she's stuck performing in a terrible, third-rate theatre, she's a truly remarkable artist, and her talent and beauty win over Dorian. He falls dramatically in love with her, and she with him. For a moment, it seems like everything will turn out wonderfully. However, this is just the beginning of Dorian's story. Once he and Sybil are engaged, her talent suddenly disappears--she's so overcome with her passionate love for Dorian that none of her roles on stage seem important to her anymore. This destroys Dorian's love for her, and he brutally dumps her. Back home, he notices a something different in his portrait--it looks somehow crueler. In the meanwhile, the distraught Sybil commits suicide, just as Dorian decides to return to her and take back his terrible words.Sybil's suicide changes everything. At first, Dorian feels horrible... but he rather quickly changes his tune. On Lord Henry's suggestion, Dorian reads a mysterious \"yellow book,\" a decadent French novel that makes him reevaluate his whole belief system. The protagonist of the book lives his life in pursuit of sensual pleasures, which intrigues Dorian. From this moment on, Dorian is a changed man.Dorian starts to live as hedonistically as his wicked mentor, Lord Henry, does. The only thing that documents this turn for the worst is the portrait, which alarmingly begins to exhibit the inward corruption of Dorian's soul; the beautiful image changes, revealing new scars and physical flaws with each of Dorian's dastardly actions. As years pass, the man in the picture grows more and more hideous, as Dorian himself stays unnaturally young and beautiful. Rumors start to spread about the various people whose lives Dorian has ruined, and his formerly good reputation is destroyed.On Dorian's 38th birthday, he encounters Basil, who desperately asks his former friend if all the horrifying rumors about him are true. Dorian finally snaps and shows Basil the portrait, in which the horrible truth about his wicked nature is revealed. Basil recoils, and begs Dorian to pray for forgiveness. In response, Dorian murders Basil, stabbing him brutally. He blackmails another of his former friends into disposing of the body.Dorian retreats to an opium den after dealing with all of the evidence, where he encounters an enemy he didn't know he had--Sybil Vane's brother, James. Through a rather complicated turn of events, James ends up dead. Dorian isn't directly responsible, but it's yet another death to add to Dorian's tally of life-wrecking disasters.Dorian is relieved that his enemy is out of the way, but this event sparks a kind of mid-life crisis: he begins to wonder if his vile but enjoyable lifestyle is worth it. He actually does a good deed, by deciding not to corrupt a young girl he's got the hots for, which makes him question his past actions even more. Seeking some kind of reassurance, Dorian talks to Lord Henry, who's not any help at all, unsurprisingly. Dorian even practically admits to murdering Basil, but Henry laughs it off and doesn't believe him.That night, Dorian returns home in a pensive mood. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he hates his own beauty and breaks the mirror. Again, he vows to be good, but we find out that his various crimes don't really haunt him, because he doesn't consider them his fault. Instead, he selfishly wants to be good so that the painting will become beautiful again. Heartened by this thought, he goes up to see if his recent good deed has improved the painting. In fact, it only looks worse. Frustrated, Dorian decides to destroy the picture, the visible evidence of his dreadful crimes, and the closest thing to a conscience he has. Dorian slashes at the painting with the same knife that killed Basil, trying to destroy the work as he did the artist.A tremendous crash and a terrible cry alert the servants that something very, very bad has happened-- it's even audible outside the house. Finally, they go upstairs to check it out, and are horrified by what they find: a portrait of their master, as beautiful as ever, hangs on the wall, and a mysterious, grotesquely hideous dead man is lying on the floor with a knife in his heart. Upon close examination, the rings on the dead man's hand identify him as Dorian Gray."
    },
    {
        "book": "\nThe studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light\nsummer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through\nthe open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate\nperfume of the pink-flowering thorn.\n\nFrom the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was\nlying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry\nWotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured\nblossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to\nbear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then\nthe fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long\ntussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window,\nproducing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of\nthose pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of\nan art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of\nswiftness and motion.  The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their\nway through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous\ninsistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine,\nseemed to make the stillness more oppressive.  The dim roar of London\nwas like the bourdon note of a distant organ.\n\nIn the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the\nfull-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty,\nand in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist\nhimself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago\ncaused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many\nstrange conjectures.\n\nAs the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so\nskilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his\nface, and seemed about to linger there.  But he suddenly started up,\nand closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he\nsought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he\nfeared he might awake.\n\n\"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done,\" said\nLord Henry languidly.  \"You must certainly send it next year to the\nGrosvenor.  The Academy is too large and too vulgar.  Whenever I have\ngone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been\nable to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that\nI have not been able to see the people, which was worse.  The Grosvenor\nis really the only place.\"\n\n\"I don't think I shall send it anywhere,\" he answered, tossing his head\nback in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at\nOxford.  \"No, I won't send it anywhere.\"\n\nLord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through\nthe thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls\nfrom his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette.  \"Not send it anywhere?  My\ndear fellow, why?  Have you any reason?  What odd chaps you painters\nare!  You do anything in the world to gain a reputation.  As soon as\nyou have one, you seem to want to throw it away.  It is silly of you,\nfor there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,\nand that is not being talked about.  A portrait like this would set you\nfar above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite\njealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.\"\n\n\"I know you will laugh at me,\" he replied, \"but I really can't exhibit\nit.  I have put too much of myself into it.\"\n\nLord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed.\n\n\"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same.\"\n\n\"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you\nwere so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with\nyour rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young\nAdonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why,\nmy dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an\nintellectual expression and all that.  But beauty, real beauty, ends\nwhere an intellectual expression begins.  Intellect is in itself a mode\nof exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.  The moment one\nsits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something\nhorrid.  Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions.\nHow perfectly hideous they are!  Except, of course, in the Church.  But\nthen in the Church they don't think.  A bishop keeps on saying at the\nage of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen,\nand as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful.\nYour mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but\nwhose picture really fascinates me, never thinks.  I feel quite sure of\nthat.  He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always\nhere in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in\nsummer when we want something to chill our intelligence.  Don't flatter\nyourself, Basil:  you are not in the least like him.\"\n\n\"You don't understand me, Harry,\" answered the artist.  \"Of course I am\nnot like him.  I know that perfectly well.  Indeed, I should be sorry\nto look like him.  You shrug your shoulders?  I am telling you the\ntruth.  There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual\ndistinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the\nfaltering steps of kings.  It is better not to be different from one's\nfellows.  The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world.\nThey can sit at their ease and gape at the play.  If they know nothing\nof victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.  They\nlive as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without\ndisquiet.  They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it\nfrom alien hands.  Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they\nare--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we\nshall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.\"\n\n\"Dorian Gray?  Is that his name?\" asked Lord Henry, walking across the\nstudio towards Basil Hallward.\n\n\"Yes, that is his name.  I didn't intend to tell it to you.\"\n\n\"But why not?\"\n\n\"Oh, I can't explain.  When I like people immensely, I never tell their\nnames to any one.  It is like surrendering a part of them.  I have\ngrown to love secrecy.  It seems to be the one thing that can make\nmodern life mysterious or marvellous to us.  The commonest thing is\ndelightful if one only hides it.  When I leave town now I never tell my\npeople where I am going.  If I did, I would lose all my pleasure.  It\nis a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great\ndeal of romance into one's life.  I suppose you think me awfully\nfoolish about it?\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" answered Lord Henry, \"not at all, my dear Basil.  You\nseem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that\nit makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.  I\nnever know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing.\nWhen we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go\ndown to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the\nmost serious faces.  My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact,\nthan I am.  She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do.\nBut when she does find me out, she makes no row at all.  I sometimes\nwish she would; but she merely laughs at me.\"\n\n\"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry,\" said Basil\nHallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden.  \"I\nbelieve that you are really a very good husband, but that you are\nthoroughly ashamed of your own virtues.  You are an extraordinary\nfellow.  You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.\nYour cynicism is simply a pose.\"\n\n\"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,\"\ncried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the\ngarden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that\nstood in the shade of a tall laurel bush.  The sunlight slipped over\nthe polished leaves.  In the grass, white daisies were tremulous.\n\nAfter a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch.  \"I am afraid I must be\ngoing, Basil,\" he murmured, \"and before I go, I insist on your\nanswering a question I put to you some time ago.\"\n\n\"What is that?\" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.\n\n\"You know quite well.\"\n\n\"I do not, Harry.\"\n\n\"Well, I will tell you what it is.  I want you to explain to me why you\nwon't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture.  I want the real reason.\"\n\n\"I told you the real reason.\"\n\n\"No, you did not.  You said it was because there was too much of\nyourself in it.  Now, that is childish.\"\n\n\"Harry,\" said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, \"every\nportrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not\nof the sitter.  The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion.  It is\nnot he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on\nthe coloured canvas, reveals himself.  The reason I will not exhibit\nthis picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of\nmy own soul.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"And what is that?\" he asked.\n\n\"I will tell you,\" said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came\nover his face.\n\n\"I am all expectation, Basil,\" continued his companion, glancing at him.\n\n\"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry,\" answered the painter;\n\"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it.  Perhaps you will\nhardly believe it.\"\n\nLord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from\nthe grass and examined it.  \"I am quite sure I shall understand it,\" he\nreplied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk,\n\"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it\nis quite incredible.\"\n\nThe wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy\nlilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the\nlanguid air.  A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a\nblue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze\nwings.  Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart\nbeating, and wondered what was coming.\n\n\"The story is simply this,\" said the painter after some time.  \"Two\nmonths ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor\nartists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to\nremind the public that we are not savages.  With an evening coat and a\nwhite tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain\na reputation for being civilized.  Well, after I had been in the room\nabout ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious\nacademicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at\nme.  I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time.\nWhen our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale.  A curious sensation\nof terror came over me.  I knew that I had come face to face with some\none whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to\ndo so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art\nitself.  I did not want any external influence in my life.  You know\nyourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature.  I have always been my\nown master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray.\nThen--but I don't know how to explain it to you.  Something seemed to\ntell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life.  I had\na strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and\nexquisite sorrows.  I grew afraid and turned to quit the room.  It was\nnot conscience that made me do so:  it was a sort of cowardice.  I take\nno credit to myself for trying to escape.\"\n\n\"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil.\nConscience is the trade-name of the firm.  That is all.\"\n\n\"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either.\nHowever, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used\nto be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door.  There, of course,\nI stumbled against Lady Brandon.  'You are not going to run away so\nsoon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out.  You know her curiously shrill\nvoice?\"\n\n\"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,\" said Lord Henry,\npulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers.\n\n\"I could not get rid of her.  She brought me up to royalties, and\npeople with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras\nand parrot noses.  She spoke of me as her dearest friend.  I had only\nmet her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me.  I\nbelieve some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at\nleast had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the\nnineteenth-century standard of immortality.  Suddenly I found myself\nface to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely\nstirred me.  We were quite close, almost touching.  Our eyes met again.\nIt was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.\nPerhaps it was not so reckless, after all.  It was simply inevitable.\nWe would have spoken to each other without any introduction.  I am sure\nof that.  Dorian told me so afterwards.  He, too, felt that we were\ndestined to know each other.\"\n\n\"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?\" asked his\ncompanion.  \"I know she goes in for giving a rapid _precis_ of all her\nguests.  I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old\ngentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my\near, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to\neverybody in the room, the most astounding details.  I simply fled.  I\nlike to find out people for myself.  But Lady Brandon treats her guests\nexactly as an auctioneer treats his goods.  She either explains them\nentirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants\nto know.\"\n\n\"Poor Lady Brandon!  You are hard on her, Harry!\" said Hallward\nlistlessly.\n\n\"My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in\nopening a restaurant.  How could I admire her?  But tell me, what did\nshe say about Mr. Dorian Gray?\"\n\n\"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely\ninseparable.  Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do\nanything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr.\nGray?'  Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at\nonce.\"\n\n\"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far\nthe best ending for one,\" said the young lord, plucking another daisy.\n\nHallward shook his head.  \"You don't understand what friendship is,\nHarry,\" he murmured--\"or what enmity is, for that matter.  You like\nevery one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one.\"\n\n\"How horribly unjust of you!\" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back\nand looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of\nglossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the\nsummer sky.  \"Yes; horribly unjust of you.  I make a great difference\nbetween people.  I choose my friends for their good looks, my\nacquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good\nintellects.  A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.\nI have not got one who is a fool.  They are all men of some\nintellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.  Is that\nvery vain of me?  I think it is rather vain.\"\n\n\"I should think it was, Harry.  But according to your category I must\nbe merely an acquaintance.\"\n\n\"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance.\"\n\n\"And much less than a friend.  A sort of brother, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Oh, brothers!  I don't care for brothers.  My elder brother won't die,\nand my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.\"\n\n\"Harry!\" exclaimed Hallward, frowning.\n\n\"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious.  But I can't help detesting my\nrelations.  I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand\nother people having the same faults as ourselves.  I quite sympathize\nwith the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices\nof the upper orders.  The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and\nimmorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of\nus makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves.  When\npoor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite\nmagnificent.  And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the\nproletariat live correctly.\"\n\n\"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is\nmore, Harry, I feel sure you don't either.\"\n\nLord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his\npatent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane.  \"How English you are\nBasil!  That is the second time you have made that observation.  If one\nputs forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to\ndo--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong.\nThe only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes\nit oneself.  Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do\nwith the sincerity of the man who expresses it.  Indeed, the\nprobabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely\nintellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured\nby either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices.  However, I don't\npropose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you.  I\nlike persons better than principles, and I like persons with no\nprinciples better than anything else in the world.  Tell me more about\nMr. Dorian Gray.  How often do you see him?\"\n\n\"Every day.  I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day.  He is\nabsolutely necessary to me.\"\n\n\"How extraordinary!  I thought you would never care for anything but\nyour art.\"\n\n\"He is all my art to me now,\" said the painter gravely.  \"I sometimes\nthink, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the\nworld's history.  The first is the appearance of a new medium for art,\nand the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also.\nWhat the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of\nAntinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will\nsome day be to me.  It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from\nhim, sketch from him.  Of course, I have done all that.  But he is much\nmore to me than a model or a sitter.  I won't tell you that I am\ndissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such\nthat art cannot express it.  There is nothing that art cannot express,\nand I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good\nwork, is the best work of my life.  But in some curious way--I wonder\nwill you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an\nentirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style.  I see\nthings differently, I think of them differently.  I can now recreate\nlife in a way that was hidden from me before.  'A dream of form in days\nof thought'--who is it who says that?  I forget; but it is what Dorian\nGray has been to me.  The merely visible presence of this lad--for he\nseems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over\ntwenty--his merely visible presence--ah!  I wonder can you realize all\nthat that means?  Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh\nschool, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic\nspirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek.  The harmony of\nsoul and body--how much that is!  We in our madness have separated the\ntwo, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is\nvoid.  Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me!  You remember\nthat landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price\nbut which I would not part with?  It is one of the best things I have\never done.  And why is it so?  Because, while I was painting it, Dorian\nGray sat beside me.  Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and\nfor the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I\nhad always looked for and always missed.\"\n\n\"Basil, this is extraordinary!  I must see Dorian Gray.\"\n\nHallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden.  After\nsome time he came back.  \"Harry,\" he said, \"Dorian Gray is to me simply\na motive in art.  You might see nothing in him.  I see everything in\nhim.  He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is\nthere.  He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner.  I find\nhim in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of\ncertain colours.  That is all.\"\n\n\"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?\" asked Lord Henry.\n\n\"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of\nall this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never\ncared to speak to him.  He knows nothing about it.  He shall never know\nanything about it.  But the world might guess it, and I will not bare\nmy soul to their shallow prying eyes.  My heart shall never be put\nunder their microscope.  There is too much of myself in the thing,\nHarry--too much of myself!\"\n\n\"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.  They know how useful passion\nis for publication.  Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.\"\n\n\"I hate them for it,\" cried Hallward.  \"An artist should create\nbeautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.  We\nlive in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of\nautobiography.  We have lost the abstract sense of beauty.  Some day I\nwill show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall\nnever see my portrait of Dorian Gray.\"\n\n\"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you.  It is only\nthe intellectually lost who ever argue.  Tell me, is Dorian Gray very\nfond of you?\"\n\nThe painter considered for a few moments.  \"He likes me,\" he answered\nafter a pause; \"I know he likes me.  Of course I flatter him\ndreadfully.  I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I\nknow I shall be sorry for having said.  As a rule, he is charming to\nme, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things.  Now and\nthen, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real\ndelight in giving me pain.  Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away\nmy whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put\nin his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a\nsummer's day.\"\n\n\"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will.  It is a sad thing to think\nof, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty.  That\naccounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate\nourselves.  In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have\nsomething that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and\nfacts, in the silly hope of keeping our place.  The thoroughly\nwell-informed man--that is the modern ideal.  And the mind of the\nthoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing.  It is like a\n_bric-a-brac_ shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above\nits proper value.  I think you will tire first, all the same.  Some day\nyou will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little\nout of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something.\nYou will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think\nthat he has behaved very badly to you.  The next time he calls, you\nwill be perfectly cold and indifferent.  It will be a great pity, for\nit will alter you.  What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance\nof art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind\nis that it leaves one so unromantic.\"\n\n\"Harry, don't talk like that.  As long as I live, the personality of\nDorian Gray will dominate me.  You can't feel what I feel.  You change\ntoo often.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it.  Those who are\nfaithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who\nknow love's tragedies.\"  And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty\nsilver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and\nsatisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase.  There was\na rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy,\nand the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like\nswallows.  How pleasant it was in the garden!  And how delightful other\npeople's emotions were!--much more delightful than their ideas, it\nseemed to him.  One's own soul, and the passions of one's\nfriends--those were the fascinating things in life.  He pictured to\nhimself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed\nby staying so long with Basil Hallward.  Had he gone to his aunt's, he\nwould have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole\nconversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the\nnecessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the\nimportance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity\nin their own lives.  The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift,\nand the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour.  It was\ncharming to have escaped all that!  As he thought of his aunt, an idea\nseemed to strike him.  He turned to Hallward and said, \"My dear fellow,\nI have just remembered.\"\n\n\"Remembered what, Harry?\"\n\n\"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray.\"\n\n\"Where was it?\" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.\n\n\"Don't look so angry, Basil.  It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's.  She\ntold me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help\nher in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray.  I am bound to\nstate that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no\nappreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not.  She said\nthat he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature.  I at once\npictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly\nfreckled, and tramping about on huge feet.  I wish I had known it was\nyour friend.\"\n\n\"I am very glad you didn't, Harry.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I don't want you to meet him.\"\n\n\"You don't want me to meet him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir,\" said the butler, coming into\nthe garden.\n\n\"You must introduce me now,\" cried Lord Henry, laughing.\n\nThe painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight.\n\"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker:  I shall be in in a few moments.\" The\nman bowed and went up the walk.\n\nThen he looked at Lord Henry.  \"Dorian Gray is my dearest friend,\" he\nsaid.  \"He has a simple and a beautiful nature.  Your aunt was quite\nright in what she said of him.  Don't spoil him.  Don't try to\ninfluence him.  Your influence would be bad.  The world is wide, and\nhas many marvellous people in it.  Don't take away from me the one\nperson who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses:  my life as an\nartist depends on him.  Mind, Harry, I trust you.\"  He spoke very\nslowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will.\n\n\"What nonsense you talk!\" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward\nby the arm, he almost led him into the house.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs they entered they saw Dorian Gray.  He was seated at the piano, with\nhis back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's\n\"Forest Scenes.\"  \"You must lend me these, Basil,\" he cried.  \"I want\nto learn them.  They are perfectly charming.\"\n\n\"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of\nmyself,\" answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a\nwilful, petulant manner.  When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint\nblush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up.  \"I beg your\npardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you.\"\n\n\"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine.  I\nhave just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you\nhave spoiled everything.\"\n\n\"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord\nHenry, stepping forward and extending his hand.  \"My aunt has often\nspoken to me about you.  You are one of her favourites, and, I am\nafraid, one of her victims also.\"\n\n\"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present,\" answered Dorian with a\nfunny look of penitence.  \"I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel\nwith her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it.  We were to\nhave played a duet together--three duets, I believe.  I don't know what\nshe will say to me.  I am far too frightened to call.\"\n\n\"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt.  She is quite devoted to you.\nAnd I don't think it really matters about your not being there.  The\naudience probably thought it was a duet.  When Aunt Agatha sits down to\nthe piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people.\"\n\n\"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me,\" answered Dorian,\nlaughing.\n\nLord Henry looked at him.  Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome,\nwith his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp\ngold hair.  There was something in his face that made one trust him at\nonce.  All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's\npassionate purity.  One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from\nthe world.  No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.\n\n\"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too\ncharming.\" And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened\nhis cigarette-case.\n\nThe painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes\nready.  He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last\nremark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,\n\"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it\nawfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?\"\n\nLord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray.  \"Am I to go, Mr. Gray?\"\nhe asked.\n\n\"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry.  I see that Basil is in one of his sulky\nmoods, and I can't bear him when he sulks.  Besides, I want you to tell\nme why I should not go in for philanthropy.\"\n\n\"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray.  It is so tedious a\nsubject that one would have to talk seriously about it.  But I\ncertainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop.  You\ndon't really mind, Basil, do you?  You have often told me that you\nliked your sitters to have some one to chat to.\"\n\nHallward bit his lip.  \"If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.\nDorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself.\"\n\nLord Henry took up his hat and gloves.  \"You are very pressing, Basil,\nbut I am afraid I must go.  I have promised to meet a man at the\nOrleans.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon\nStreet.  I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when\nyou are coming.  I should be sorry to miss you.\"\n\n\"Basil,\" cried Dorian Gray, \"if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go,\ntoo.  You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is\nhorribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.  Ask\nhim to stay.  I insist upon it.\"\n\n\"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me,\" said Hallward,\ngazing intently at his picture.  \"It is quite true, I never talk when I\nam working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious\nfor my unfortunate sitters.  I beg you to stay.\"\n\n\"But what about my man at the Orleans?\"\n\nThe painter laughed.  \"I don't think there will be any difficulty about\nthat.  Sit down again, Harry.  And now, Dorian, get up on the platform,\nand don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry\nsays.  He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the\nsingle exception of myself.\"\n\nDorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek\nmartyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he\nhad rather taken a fancy.  He was so unlike Basil.  They made a\ndelightful contrast.  And he had such a beautiful voice.  After a few\nmoments he said to him, \"Have you really a very bad influence, Lord\nHenry?  As bad as Basil says?\"\n\n\"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray.  All influence\nis immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.  He does\nnot think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.  His\nvirtues are not real to him.  His sins, if there are such things as\nsins, are borrowed.  He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an\nactor of a part that has not been written for him.  The aim of life is\nself-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each\nof us is here for.  People are afraid of themselves, nowadays.  They\nhave forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to\none's self.  Of course, they are charitable.  They feed the hungry and\nclothe the beggar.  But their own souls starve, and are naked.  Courage\nhas gone out of our race.  Perhaps we never really had it.  The terror\nof society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is\nthe secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us.  And\nyet--\"\n\n\"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good\nboy,\" said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look\nhad come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.\n\n\"And yet,\" continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with\nthat graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of\nhim, and that he had even in his Eton days, \"I believe that if one man\nwere to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to\nevery feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I\nbelieve that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we\nwould forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the\nHellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it\nmay be.  But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.  The\nmutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial\nthat mars our lives.  We are punished for our refusals.  Every impulse\nthat we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us.  The body\nsins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of\npurification.  Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,\nor the luxury of a regret.  The only way to get rid of a temptation is\nto yield to it.  Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for\nthe things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its\nmonstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.  It has been said that\nthe great events of the world take place in the brain.  It is in the\nbrain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place\nalso.  You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your\nrose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,\nthoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping\ndreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--\"\n\n\"Stop!\" faltered Dorian Gray, \"stop! you bewilder me.  I don't know\nwhat to say.  There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.  Don't\nspeak.  Let me think.  Or, rather, let me try not to think.\"\n\nFor nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and\neyes strangely bright.  He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh\ninfluences were at work within him.  Yet they seemed to him to have\ncome really from himself.  The few words that Basil's friend had said\nto him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in\nthem--had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before,\nbut that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.\n\nMusic had stirred him like that.  Music had troubled him many times.\nBut music was not articulate.  It was not a new world, but rather\nanother chaos, that it created in us.  Words!  Mere words!  How\nterrible they were!  How clear, and vivid, and cruel!  One could not\nescape from them.  And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!  They\nseemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to\nhave a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute.  Mere\nwords!  Was there anything so real as words?\n\nYes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.\nHe understood them now.  Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him.\nIt seemed to him that he had been walking in fire.  Why had he not\nknown it?\n\nWith his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him.  He knew the precise\npsychological moment when to say nothing.  He felt intensely\ninterested.  He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had\nproduced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen,\na book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he\nwondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience.\nHe had merely shot an arrow into the air.  Had it hit the mark?  How\nfascinating the lad was!\n\nHallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had\nthe true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes\nonly from strength.  He was unconscious of the silence.\n\n\"Basil, I am tired of standing,\" cried Dorian Gray suddenly.  \"I must\ngo out and sit in the garden.  The air is stifling here.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, I am so sorry.  When I am painting, I can't think of\nanything else.  But you never sat better.  You were perfectly still.\nAnd I have caught the effect I wanted--the half-parted lips and the\nbright look in the eyes.  I don't know what Harry has been saying to\nyou, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression.\nI suppose he has been paying you compliments.  You mustn't believe a\nword that he says.\"\n\n\"He has certainly not been paying me compliments.  Perhaps that is the\nreason that I don't believe anything he has told me.\"\n\n\"You know you believe it all,\" said Lord Henry, looking at him with his\ndreamy languorous eyes.  \"I will go out to the garden with you.  It is\nhorribly hot in the studio.  Basil, let us have something iced to\ndrink, something with strawberries in it.\"\n\n\"Certainly, Harry.  Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will\ntell him what you want.  I have got to work up this background, so I\nwill join you later on.  Don't keep Dorian too long.  I have never been\nin better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my\nmasterpiece.  It is my masterpiece as it stands.\"\n\nLord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his\nface in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their\nperfume as if it had been wine.  He came close to him and put his hand\nupon his shoulder.  \"You are quite right to do that,\" he murmured.\n\"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the\nsenses but the soul.\"\n\nThe lad started and drew back.  He was bareheaded, and the leaves had\ntossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads.\nThere was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are\nsuddenly awakened.  His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some\nhidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.\n\n\"Yes,\" continued Lord Henry, \"that is one of the great secrets of\nlife--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means\nof the soul.  You are a wonderful creation.  You know more than you\nthink you know, just as you know less than you want to know.\"\n\nDorian Gray frowned and turned his head away.  He could not help liking\nthe tall, graceful young man who was standing by him.  His romantic,\nolive-coloured face and worn expression interested him.  There was\nsomething in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating.\nHis cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm.  They\nmoved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their\nown.  But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid.  Why had\nit been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself?  He had known\nBasil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never\naltered him.  Suddenly there had come some one across his life who\nseemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery.  And, yet, what was\nthere to be afraid of?  He was not a schoolboy or a girl.  It was\nabsurd to be frightened.\n\n\"Let us go and sit in the shade,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Parker has brought\nout the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be\nquite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again.  You really must\nnot allow yourself to become sunburnt.  It would be unbecoming.\"\n\n\"What can it matter?\" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on\nthe seat at the end of the garden.\n\n\"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing\nworth having.\"\n\n\"I don't feel that, Lord Henry.\"\n\n\"No, you don't feel it now.  Some day, when you are old and wrinkled\nand ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and\npassion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you\nwill feel it terribly.  Now, wherever you go, you charm the world.\nWill it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr.\nGray.  Don't frown.  You have.  And beauty is a form of genius--is\nhigher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.  It is of the\ngreat facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the\nreflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon.  It\ncannot be questioned.  It has its divine right of sovereignty.  It\nmakes princes of those who have it.  You smile?  Ah! when you have lost\nit you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only\nsuperficial.  That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as\nthought is.  To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders.  It is only\nshallow people who do not judge by appearances.  The true mystery of\nthe world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the\ngods have been good to you.  But what the gods give they quickly take\naway.  You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly,\nand fully.  When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then\nyou will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or\nhave to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of\nyour past will make more bitter than defeats.  Every month as it wanes\nbrings you nearer to something dreadful.  Time is jealous of you, and\nwars against your lilies and your roses.  You will become sallow, and\nhollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.  You will suffer horribly.... Ah!\nrealize your youth while you have it.  Don't squander the gold of your\ndays, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure,\nor giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar.\nThese are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age.  Live!  Live\nthe wonderful life that is in you!  Let nothing be lost upon you.  Be\nalways searching for new sensations.  Be afraid of nothing.... A new\nHedonism--that is what our century wants.  You might be its visible\nsymbol.  With your personality there is nothing you could not do.  The\nworld belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that\nyou were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really\nmight be.  There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must\ntell you something about yourself.  I thought how tragic it would be if\nyou were wasted.  For there is such a little time that your youth will\nlast--such a little time.  The common hill-flowers wither, but they\nblossom again.  The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now.\nIn a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after\nyear the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars.  But we\nnever get back our youth.  The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty\nbecomes sluggish.  Our limbs fail, our senses rot.  We degenerate into\nhideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were\ntoo much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the\ncourage to yield to.  Youth!  Youth!  There is absolutely nothing in\nthe world but youth!\"\n\nDorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering.  The spray of lilac fell\nfrom his hand upon the gravel.  A furry bee came and buzzed round it\nfor a moment.  Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated\nglobe of the tiny blossoms.  He watched it with that strange interest\nin trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import\nmake us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we\ncannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays\nsudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield.  After a time the\nbee flew away.  He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian\nconvolvulus.  The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to\nand fro.\n\nSuddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made\nstaccato signs for them to come in.  They turned to each other and\nsmiled.\n\n\"I am waiting,\" he cried.  \"Do come in.  The light is quite perfect,\nand you can bring your drinks.\"\n\nThey rose up and sauntered down the walk together.  Two green-and-white\nbutterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of\nthe garden a thrush began to sing.\n\n\"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,\" said Lord Henry, looking at\nhim.\n\n\"Yes, I am glad now.  I wonder shall I always be glad?\"\n\n\"Always!  That is a dreadful word.  It makes me shudder when I hear it.\nWomen are so fond of using it.  They spoil every romance by trying to\nmake it last for ever.  It is a meaningless word, too.  The only\ndifference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice\nlasts a little longer.\"\n\nAs they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's\narm.  \"In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,\" he murmured,\nflushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and\nresumed his pose.\n\nLord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him.\nThe sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that\nbroke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back\nto look at his work from a distance.  In the slanting beams that\nstreamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden.  The\nheavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.\n\nAfter about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for\na long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture,\nbiting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning.  \"It is quite\nfinished,\" he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in\nlong vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.\n\nLord Henry came over and examined the picture.  It was certainly a\nwonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.\n\n\"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly,\" he said.  \"It is the\nfinest portrait of modern times.  Mr. Gray, come over and look at\nyourself.\"\n\nThe lad started, as if awakened from some dream.\n\n\"Is it really finished?\" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.\n\n\"Quite finished,\" said the painter.  \"And you have sat splendidly\nto-day. I am awfully obliged to you.\"\n\n\"That is entirely due to me,\" broke in Lord Henry.  \"Isn't it, Mr.\nGray?\"\n\nDorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture\nand turned towards it.  When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks\nflushed for a moment with pleasure.  A look of joy came into his eyes,\nas if he had recognized himself for the first time.  He stood there\nmotionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to\nhim, but not catching the meaning of his words.  The sense of his own\nbeauty came on him like a revelation.  He had never felt it before.\nBasil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the\ncharming exaggeration of friendship.  He had listened to them, laughed\nat them, forgotten them.  They had not influenced his nature.  Then had\ncome Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his\nterrible warning of its brevity.  That had stirred him at the time, and\nnow, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full\nreality of the description flashed across him.  Yes, there would be a\nday when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and\ncolourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed.  The scarlet\nwould pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair.  The\nlife that was to make his soul would mar his body.  He would become\ndreadful, hideous, and uncouth.\n\nAs he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a\nknife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver.  His eyes\ndeepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears.  He felt\nas if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.\n\n\"Don't you like it?\" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the\nlad's silence, not understanding what it meant.\n\n\"Of course he likes it,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Who wouldn't like it?  It\nis one of the greatest things in modern art.  I will give you anything\nyou like to ask for it.  I must have it.\"\n\n\"It is not my property, Harry.\"\n\n\"Whose property is it?\"\n\n\"Dorian's, of course,\" answered the painter.\n\n\"He is a very lucky fellow.\"\n\n\"How sad it is!\" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon\nhis own portrait.  \"How sad it is!  I shall grow old, and horrible, and\ndreadful.  But this picture will remain always young.  It will never be\nolder than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other\nway!  If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was\nto grow old!  For that--for that--I would give everything!  Yes, there\nis nothing in the whole world I would not give!  I would give my soul\nfor that!\"\n\n\"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,\" cried Lord\nHenry, laughing.  \"It would be rather hard lines on your work.\"\n\n\"I should object very strongly, Harry,\" said Hallward.\n\nDorian Gray turned and looked at him.  \"I believe you would, Basil.\nYou like your art better than your friends.  I am no more to you than a\ngreen bronze figure.  Hardly as much, I dare say.\"\n\nThe painter stared in amazement.  It was so unlike Dorian to speak like\nthat.  What had happened?  He seemed quite angry.  His face was flushed\nand his cheeks burning.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your\nsilver Faun.  You will like them always.  How long will you like me?\nTill I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.  I know, now, that when one\nloses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.\nYour picture has taught me that.  Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right.\nYouth is the only thing worth having.  When I find that I am growing\nold, I shall kill myself.\"\n\nHallward turned pale and caught his hand.  \"Dorian!  Dorian!\" he cried,\n\"don't talk like that.  I have never had such a friend as you, and I\nshall never have such another.  You are not jealous of material things,\nare you?--you who are finer than any of them!\"\n\n\"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.  I am jealous of\nthe portrait you have painted of me.  Why should it keep what I must\nlose?  Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives\nsomething to it.  Oh, if it were only the other way!  If the picture\ncould change, and I could be always what I am now!  Why did you paint\nit?  It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!\"  The hot tears welled\ninto his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the\ndivan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.\n\n\"This is your doing, Harry,\" said the painter bitterly.\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"It is the real Dorian Gray--that\nis all.\"\n\n\"It is not.\"\n\n\"If it is not, what have I to do with it?\"\n\n\"You should have gone away when I asked you,\" he muttered.\n\n\"I stayed when you asked me,\" was Lord Henry's answer.\n\n\"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between\nyou both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever\ndone, and I will destroy it.  What is it but canvas and colour?  I will\nnot let it come across our three lives and mar them.\"\n\nDorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid\nface and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal\npainting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window.  What\nwas he doing there?  His fingers were straying about among the litter\nof tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something.  Yes, it was for\nthe long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel.  He had\nfound it at last.  He was going to rip up the canvas.\n\nWith a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to\nHallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of\nthe studio.  \"Don't, Basil, don't!\" he cried.  \"It would be murder!\"\n\n\"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian,\" said the painter\ncoldly when he had recovered from his surprise.  \"I never thought you\nwould.\"\n\n\"Appreciate it?  I am in love with it, Basil.  It is part of myself.  I\nfeel that.\"\n\n\"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and\nsent home.  Then you can do what you like with yourself.\" And he walked\nacross the room and rang the bell for tea.  \"You will have tea, of\ncourse, Dorian?  And so will you, Harry?  Or do you object to such\nsimple pleasures?\"\n\n\"I adore simple pleasures,\" said Lord Henry.  \"They are the last refuge\nof the complex.  But I don't like scenes, except on the stage.  What\nabsurd fellows you are, both of you!  I wonder who it was defined man\nas a rational animal.  It was the most premature definition ever given.\nMan is many things, but he is not rational.  I am glad he is not, after\nall--though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture.  You\nhad much better let me have it, Basil.  This silly boy doesn't really\nwant it, and I really do.\"\n\n\"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!\"\ncried Dorian Gray; \"and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy.\"\n\n\"You know the picture is yours, Dorian.  I gave it to you before it\nexisted.\"\n\n\"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you\ndon't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young.\"\n\n\"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry.\"\n\n\"Ah! this morning!  You have lived since then.\"\n\nThere came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden\ntea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table.  There was a\nrattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.\nTwo globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page.  Dorian Gray\nwent over and poured out the tea.  The two men sauntered languidly to\nthe table and examined what was under the covers.\n\n\"Let us go to the theatre to-night,\" said Lord Henry.  \"There is sure\nto be something on, somewhere.  I have promised to dine at White's, but\nit is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I\nam ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a\nsubsequent engagement.  I think that would be a rather nice excuse:  it\nwould have all the surprise of candour.\"\n\n\"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes,\" muttered Hallward.\n\"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Lord Henry dreamily, \"the costume of the nineteenth\ncentury is detestable.  It is so sombre, so depressing.  Sin is the\nonly real colour-element left in modern life.\"\n\n\"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry.\"\n\n\"Before which Dorian?  The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the\none in the picture?\"\n\n\"Before either.\"\n\n\"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry,\" said the\nlad.\n\n\"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?\"\n\n\"I can't, really.  I would sooner not.  I have a lot of work to do.\"\n\n\"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"I should like that awfully.\"\n\nThe painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture.\n\"I shall stay with the real Dorian,\" he said, sadly.\n\n\"Is it the real Dorian?\" cried the original of the portrait, strolling\nacross to him.  \"Am I really like that?\"\n\n\"Yes; you are just like that.\"\n\n\"How wonderful, Basil!\"\n\n\"At least you are like it in appearance.  But it will never alter,\"\nsighed Hallward.  \"That is something.\"\n\n\"What a fuss people make about fidelity!\" exclaimed Lord Henry.  \"Why,\neven in love it is purely a question for physiology.  It has nothing to\ndo with our own will.  Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old\nmen want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say.\"\n\n\"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian,\" said Hallward.  \"Stop and\ndine with me.\"\n\n\"I can't, Basil.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him.\"\n\n\"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises.  He always\nbreaks his own.  I beg you not to go.\"\n\nDorian Gray laughed and shook his head.\n\n\"I entreat you.\"\n\nThe lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them\nfrom the tea-table with an amused smile.\n\n\"I must go, Basil,\" he answered.\n\n\"Very well,\" said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on\nthe tray.  \"It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had\nbetter lose no time.  Good-bye, Harry.  Good-bye, Dorian.  Come and see\nme soon.  Come to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"You won't forget?\"\n\n\"No, of course not,\" cried Dorian.\n\n\"And ... Harry!\"\n\n\"Yes, Basil?\"\n\n\"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning.\"\n\n\"I have forgotten it.\"\n\n\"I trust you.\"\n\n\"I wish I could trust myself,\" said Lord Henry, laughing.  \"Come, Mr.\nGray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.\nGood-bye, Basil.  It has been a most interesting afternoon.\"\n\nAs the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a\nsofa, and a look of pain came into his face.\n\n\n\n\n\nAt half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon\nStreet over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial\nif somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called\nselfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was\nconsidered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him.\nHis father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young\nand Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a\ncapricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at\nParis, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by\nreason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches,\nand his inordinate passion for pleasure.  The son, who had been his\nfather's secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat\nfoolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months\nlater to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great\naristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.  He had two large town\nhouses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and\ntook most of his meals at his club.  He paid some attention to the\nmanagement of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself\nfor this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of\nhaving coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of\nburning wood on his own hearth.  In politics he was a Tory, except when\nthe Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them\nfor being a pack of Radicals.  He was a hero to his valet, who bullied\nhim, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn.\nOnly England could have produced him, and he always said that the\ncountry was going to the dogs.  His principles were out of date, but\nthere was a good deal to be said for his prejudices.\n\nWhen Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough\nshooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_.  \"Well,\nHarry,\" said the old gentleman, \"what brings you out so early?  I\nthought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till\nfive.\"\n\n\"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George.  I want to get\nsomething out of you.\"\n\n\"Money, I suppose,\" said Lord Fermor, making a wry face.  \"Well, sit\ndown and tell me all about it.  Young people, nowadays, imagine that\nmoney is everything.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; \"and\nwhen they grow older they know it.  But I don't want money.  It is only\npeople who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay\nmine.  Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly\nupon it.  Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and\nconsequently they never bother me.  What I want is information:  not\nuseful information, of course; useless information.\"\n\n\"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry,\nalthough those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense.  When I was in\nthe Diplomatic, things were much better.  But I hear they let them in\nnow by examination.  What can you expect?  Examinations, sir, are pure\nhumbug from beginning to end.  If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite\nenough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.\"\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George,\" said\nLord Henry languidly.\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray?  Who is he?\" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy\nwhite eyebrows.\n\n\"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George.  Or rather, I know\nwho he is.  He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson.  His mother was a\nDevereux, Lady Margaret Devereux.  I want you to tell me about his\nmother.  What was she like?  Whom did she marry?  You have known nearly\neverybody in your time, so you might have known her.  I am very much\ninterested in Mr. Gray at present.  I have only just met him.\"\n\n\"Kelso's grandson!\" echoed the old gentleman.  \"Kelso's grandson! ...\nOf course.... I knew his mother intimately.  I believe I was at her\nchristening.  She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret\nDevereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless\nyoung fellow--a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or\nsomething of that kind.  Certainly.  I remember the whole thing as if\nit happened yesterday.  The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few\nmonths after the marriage.  There was an ugly story about it.  They\nsaid Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult\nhis son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and that\nthe fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon.  The thing was\nhushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some\ntime afterwards.  He brought his daughter back with him, I was told,\nand she never spoke to him again.  Oh, yes; it was a bad business.  The\ngirl died, too, died within a year.  So she left a son, did she?  I had\nforgotten that.  What sort of boy is he?  If he is like his mother, he\nmust be a good-looking chap.\"\n\n\"He is very good-looking,\" assented Lord Henry.\n\n\"I hope he will fall into proper hands,\" continued the old man.  \"He\nshould have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing\nby him.  His mother had money, too.  All the Selby property came to\nher, through her grandfather.  Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him\na mean dog.  He was, too.  Came to Madrid once when I was there.  Egad,\nI was ashamed of him.  The Queen used to ask me about the English noble\nwho was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares.  They\nmade quite a story of it.  I didn't dare show my face at Court for a\nmonth.  I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" answered Lord Henry.  \"I fancy that the boy will be\nwell off.  He is not of age yet.  He has Selby, I know.  He told me so.\nAnd ... his mother was very beautiful?\"\n\n\"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw,\nHarry.  What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could\nunderstand.  She could have married anybody she chose.  Carlington was\nmad after her.  She was romantic, though.  All the women of that family\nwere.  The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful.\nCarlington went on his knees to her.  Told me so himself.  She laughed\nat him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after\nhim.  And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is\nthis humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an\nAmerican?  Ain't English girls good enough for him?\"\n\n\"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George.\"\n\n\"I'll back English women against the world, Harry,\" said Lord Fermor,\nstriking the table with his fist.\n\n\"The betting is on the Americans.\"\n\n\"They don't last, I am told,\" muttered his uncle.\n\n\"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a\nsteeplechase.  They take things flying.  I don't think Dartmoor has a\nchance.\"\n\n\"Who are her people?\" grumbled the old gentleman.  \"Has she got any?\"\n\nLord Henry shook his head.  \"American girls are as clever at concealing\ntheir parents, as English women are at concealing their past,\" he said,\nrising to go.\n\n\"They are pork-packers, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake.  I am told that\npork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after\npolitics.\"\n\n\"Is she pretty?\"\n\n\"She behaves as if she was beautiful.  Most American women do.  It is\nthe secret of their charm.\"\n\n\"Why can't these American women stay in their own country?  They are\nalways telling us that it is the paradise for women.\"\n\n\"It is.  That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively\nanxious to get out of it,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Good-bye, Uncle George.\nI shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer.  Thanks for giving me\nthe information I wanted.  I always like to know everything about my\nnew friends, and nothing about my old ones.\"\n\n\"Where are you lunching, Harry?\"\n\n\"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray.  He is her latest\n_protege_.\"\n\n\"Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with\nher charity appeals.  I am sick of them.  Why, the good woman thinks\nthat I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads.\"\n\n\"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect.\nPhilanthropic people lose all sense of humanity.  It is their\ndistinguishing characteristic.\"\n\nThe old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his\nservant.  Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street\nand turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square.\n\nSo that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage.  Crudely as it had\nbeen told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a\nstrange, almost modern romance.  A beautiful woman risking everything\nfor a mad passion.  A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a\nhideous, treacherous crime.  Months of voiceless agony, and then a\nchild born in pain.  The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to\nsolitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man.  Yes; it was an\ninteresting background.  It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it\nwere.  Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something\ntragic.  Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might\nblow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as\nwith startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat\nopposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer\nrose the wakening wonder of his face.  Talking to him was like playing\nupon an exquisite violin.  He answered to every touch and thrill of the\nbow.... There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of\ninfluence.  No other activity was like it.  To project one's soul into\nsome gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's\nown intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of\npassion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though\nit were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in\nthat--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited\nand vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and\ngrossly common in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad,\nwhom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be\nfashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate.  Grace was his, and the\nwhite purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for\nus.  There was nothing that one could not do with him.  He could be\nmade a Titan or a toy.  What a pity it was that such beauty was\ndestined to fade! ...  And Basil?  From a psychological point of view,\nhow interesting he was!  The new manner in art, the fresh mode of\nlooking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence\nof one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in\ndim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing\nherself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for\nher there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are\nwonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things\nbecoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value,\nas though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect\nform whose shadow they made real:  how strange it all was!  He\nremembered something like it in history.  Was it not Plato, that artist\nin thought, who had first analyzed it?  Was it not Buonarotti who had\ncarved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own\ncentury it was strange.... Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray\nwhat, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned\nthe wonderful portrait.  He would seek to dominate him--had already,\nindeed, half done so.  He would make that wonderful spirit his own.\nThere was something fascinating in this son of love and death.\n\nSuddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses.  He found that he had\npassed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back.\nWhen he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they\nhad gone in to lunch.  He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and\npassed into the dining-room.\n\n\"Late as usual, Harry,\" cried his aunt, shaking her head at him.\n\nHe invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to\nher, looked round to see who was there.  Dorian bowed to him shyly from\nthe end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek.\nOpposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable good-nature and\ngood temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample\narchitectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are\ndescribed by contemporary historians as stoutness.  Next to her sat, on\nher right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who\nfollowed his leader in public life and in private life followed the\nbest cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in\naccordance with a wise and well-known rule.  The post on her left was\noccupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable\ncharm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence,\nhaving, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he\nhad to say before he was thirty.  His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur,\none of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so\ndreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book.\nFortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most\nintelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement\nin the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely\nearnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once\nhimself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of\nthem ever quite escape.\n\n\"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry,\" cried the duchess,\nnodding pleasantly to him across the table.  \"Do you think he will\nreally marry this fascinating young person?\"\n\n\"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess.\"\n\n\"How dreadful!\" exclaimed Lady Agatha.  \"Really, some one should\ninterfere.\"\n\n\"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American\ndry-goods store,\" said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.\n\n\"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas.\"\n\n\"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?\" asked the duchess, raising\nher large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.\n\n\"American novels,\" answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.\n\nThe duchess looked puzzled.\n\n\"Don't mind him, my dear,\" whispered Lady Agatha.  \"He never means\nanything that he says.\"\n\n\"When America was discovered,\" said the Radical member--and he began to\ngive some wearisome facts.  Like all people who try to exhaust a\nsubject, he exhausted his listeners.  The duchess sighed and exercised\nher privilege of interruption.  \"I wish to goodness it never had been\ndiscovered at all!\" she exclaimed.  \"Really, our girls have no chance\nnowadays.  It is most unfair.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered,\" said Mr.\nErskine; \"I myself would say that it had merely been detected.\"\n\n\"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants,\" answered the\nduchess vaguely.  \"I must confess that most of them are extremely\npretty.  And they dress well, too.  They get all their dresses in\nParis.  I wish I could afford to do the same.\"\n\n\"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris,\" chuckled Sir\nThomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes.\n\n\"Really!  And where do bad Americans go to when they die?\" inquired the\nduchess.\n\n\"They go to America,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\nSir Thomas frowned.  \"I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced\nagainst that great country,\" he said to Lady Agatha.  \"I have travelled\nall over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters,\nare extremely civil.  I assure you that it is an education to visit it.\"\n\n\"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?\" asked Mr.\nErskine plaintively.  \"I don't feel up to the journey.\"\n\nSir Thomas waved his hand.  \"Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on\nhis shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about\nthem. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are\nabsolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing\ncharacteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I\nassure you there is no nonsense about the Americans.\"\n\n\"How dreadful!\" cried Lord Henry.  \"I can stand brute force, but brute\nreason is quite unbearable.  There is something unfair about its use.\nIt is hitting below the intellect.\"\n\n\"I do not understand you,\" said Sir Thomas, growing rather red.\n\n\"I do, Lord Henry,\" murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile.\n\n\"Paradoxes are all very well in their way....\" rejoined the baronet.\n\n\"Was that a paradox?\" asked Mr. Erskine.  \"I did not think so.  Perhaps\nit was.  Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth.  To test\nreality we must see it on the tight rope.  When the verities become\nacrobats, we can judge them.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Lady Agatha, \"how you men argue!  I am sure I never can\nmake out what you are talking about.  Oh!  Harry, I am quite vexed with\nyou.  Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up\nthe East End?  I assure you he would be quite invaluable.  They would\nlove his playing.\"\n\n\"I want him to play to me,\" cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked\ndown the table and caught a bright answering glance.\n\n\"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel,\" continued Lady Agatha.\n\n\"I can sympathize with everything except suffering,\" said Lord Henry,\nshrugging his shoulders.  \"I cannot sympathize with that.  It is too\nugly, too horrible, too distressing.  There is something terribly\nmorbid in the modern sympathy with pain.  One should sympathize with\nthe colour, the beauty, the joy of life.  The less said about life's\nsores, the better.\"\n\n\"Still, the East End is a very important problem,\" remarked Sir Thomas\nwith a grave shake of the head.\n\n\"Quite so,\" answered the young lord.  \"It is the problem of slavery,\nand we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.\"\n\nThe politician looked at him keenly.  \"What change do you propose,\nthen?\" he asked.\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"I don't desire to change anything in England\nexcept the weather,\" he answered.  \"I am quite content with philosophic\ncontemplation.  But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt\nthrough an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should\nappeal to science to put us straight.  The advantage of the emotions is\nthat they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is\nnot emotional.\"\n\n\"But we have such grave responsibilities,\" ventured Mrs. Vandeleur\ntimidly.\n\n\"Terribly grave,\" echoed Lady Agatha.\n\nLord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine.  \"Humanity takes itself too\nseriously.  It is the world's original sin.  If the caveman had known\nhow to laugh, history would have been different.\"\n\n\"You are really very comforting,\" warbled the duchess.  \"I have always\nfelt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no\ninterest at all in the East End.  For the future I shall be able to\nlook her in the face without a blush.\"\n\n\"A blush is very becoming, Duchess,\" remarked Lord Henry.\n\n\"Only when one is young,\" she answered.  \"When an old woman like myself\nblushes, it is a very bad sign.  Ah!  Lord Henry, I wish you would tell\nme how to become young again.\"\n\nHe thought for a moment.  \"Can you remember any great error that you\ncommitted in your early days, Duchess?\" he asked, looking at her across\nthe table.\n\n\"A great many, I fear,\" she cried.\n\n\"Then commit them over again,\" he said gravely.  \"To get back one's\nyouth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.\"\n\n\"A delightful theory!\" she exclaimed.  \"I must put it into practice.\"\n\n\"A dangerous theory!\" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips.  Lady Agatha\nshook her head, but could not help being amused.  Mr. Erskine listened.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, \"that is one of the great secrets of life.\nNowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and\ndiscover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are\none's mistakes.\"\n\nA laugh ran round the table.\n\nHe played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and\ntransformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent\nwith fancy and winged it with paradox.  The praise of folly, as he went\non, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and\ncatching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her\nwine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the\nhills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober.  Facts fled\nbefore her like frightened forest things.  Her white feet trod the huge\npress at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round\nher bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over\nthe vat's black, dripping, sloping sides.  It was an extraordinary\nimprovisation.  He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him,\nand the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose\ntemperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and\nto lend colour to his imagination.  He was brilliant, fantastic,\nirresponsible.  He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they\nfollowed his pipe, laughing.  Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him,\nbut sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips\nand wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes.\n\nAt last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room\nin the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was\nwaiting.  She wrung her hands in mock despair.  \"How annoying!\" she\ncried.  \"I must go.  I have to call for my husband at the club, to take\nhim to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be\nin the chair.  If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't\nhave a scene in this bonnet.  It is far too fragile.  A harsh word\nwould ruin it.  No, I must go, dear Agatha.  Good-bye, Lord Henry, you\nare quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing.  I am sure I don't\nknow what to say about your views.  You must come and dine with us some\nnight.  Tuesday?  Are you disengaged Tuesday?\"\n\n\"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess,\" said Lord Henry with a\nbow.\n\n\"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you,\" she cried; \"so mind you\ncome\"; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the\nother ladies.\n\nWhen Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking\na chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm.\n\n\"You talk books away,\" he said; \"why don't you write one?\"\n\n\"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine.  I\nshould like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely\nas a Persian carpet and as unreal.  But there is no literary public in\nEngland for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias.\nOf all people in the world the English have the least sense of the\nbeauty of literature.\"\n\n\"I fear you are right,\" answered Mr. Erskine.  \"I myself used to have\nliterary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago.  And now, my dear\nyoung friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you\nreally meant all that you said to us at lunch?\"\n\n\"I quite forget what I said,\" smiled Lord Henry.  \"Was it all very bad?\"\n\n\"Very bad indeed.  In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if\nanything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being\nprimarily responsible.  But I should like to talk to you about life.\nThe generation into which I was born was tedious.  Some day, when you\nare tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your\nphilosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate\nenough to possess.\"\n\n\"I shall be charmed.  A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege.\nIt has a perfect host, and a perfect library.\"\n\n\"You will complete it,\" answered the old gentleman with a courteous\nbow.  \"And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt.  I am due at\nthe Athenaeum.  It is the hour when we sleep there.\"\n\n\"All of you, Mr. Erskine?\"\n\n\"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English\nAcademy of Letters.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed and rose.  \"I am going to the park,\" he cried.\n\nAs he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm.\n\"Let me come with you,\" he murmured.\n\n\"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him,\"\nanswered Lord Henry.\n\n\"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you.  Do\nlet me.  And you will promise to talk to me all the time?  No one talks\nso wonderfully as you do.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I have talked quite enough for to-day,\" said Lord Henry, smiling.\n\"All I want now is to look at life.  You may come and look at it with\nme, if you care to.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nOne afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious\narm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair.  It\nwas, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled\nwainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling\nof raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk,\nlong-fringed Persian rugs.  On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette\nby Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for\nMargaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies\nthat Queen had selected for her device.  Some large blue china jars and\nparrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small\nleaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a\nsummer day in London.\n\nLord Henry had not yet come in.  He was always late on principle, his\nprinciple being that punctuality is the thief of time.  So the lad was\nlooking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages\nof an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had\nfound in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the\nLouis Quatorze clock annoyed him.  Once or twice he thought of going\naway.\n\nAt last he heard a step outside, and the door opened.  \"How late you\nare, Harry!\" he murmured.\n\n\"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray,\" answered a shrill voice.\n\nHe glanced quickly round and rose to his feet.  \"I beg your pardon.  I\nthought--\"\n\n\"You thought it was my husband.  It is only his wife.  You must let me\nintroduce myself.  I know you quite well by your photographs.  I think\nmy husband has got seventeen of them.\"\n\n\"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?\"\n\n\"Well, eighteen, then.  And I saw you with him the other night at the\nopera.\"  She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her\nvague forget-me-not eyes.  She was a curious woman, whose dresses\nalways looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a\ntempest.  She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion\nwas never returned, she had kept all her illusions.  She tried to look\npicturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.  Her name was\nVictoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church.\n\n\"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?\"\n\n\"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin.  I like Wagner's music better than\nanybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other\npeople hearing what one says.  That is a great advantage, don't you\nthink so, Mr. Gray?\"\n\nThe same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her\nfingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife.\n\nDorian smiled and shook his head:  \"I am afraid I don't think so, Lady\nHenry.  I never talk during music--at least, during good music.  If one\nhears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.\"\n\n\"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray?  I always hear\nHarry's views from his friends.  It is the only way I get to know of\nthem.  But you must not think I don't like good music.  I adore it, but\nI am afraid of it.  It makes me too romantic.  I have simply worshipped\npianists--two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me.  I don't know what\nit is about them.  Perhaps it is that they are foreigners.  They all\nare, ain't they?  Even those that are born in England become foreigners\nafter a time, don't they?  It is so clever of them, and such a\ncompliment to art.  Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it?  You have\nnever been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray?  You must come.  I\ncan't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners.  They make\none's rooms look so picturesque.  But here is Harry!  Harry, I came in\nto look for you, to ask you something--I forget what it was--and I\nfound Mr. Gray here.  We have had such a pleasant chat about music.  We\nhave quite the same ideas.  No; I think our ideas are quite different.\nBut he has been most pleasant.  I am so glad I've seen him.\"\n\n\"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his\ndark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused\nsmile.  \"So sorry I am late, Dorian.  I went to look after a piece of\nold brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it.\nNowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.\"\n\n\"I am afraid I must be going,\" exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an\nawkward silence with her silly sudden laugh.  \"I have promised to drive\nwith the duchess.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Good-bye, Harry.  You are\ndining out, I suppose?  So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady\nThornbury's.\"\n\n\"I dare say, my dear,\" said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her\nas, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the\nrain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of\nfrangipanni.  Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the\nsofa.\n\n\"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian,\" he said after a\nfew puffs.\n\n\"Why, Harry?\"\n\n\"Because they are so sentimental.\"\n\n\"But I like sentimental people.\"\n\n\"Never marry at all, Dorian.  Men marry because they are tired; women,\nbecause they are curious:  both are disappointed.\"\n\n\"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry.  I am too much in love.\nThat is one of your aphorisms.  I am putting it into practice, as I do\neverything that you say.\"\n\n\"Who are you in love with?\" asked Lord Henry after a pause.\n\n\"With an actress,\" said Dorian Gray, blushing.\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"That is a rather commonplace\n_debut_.\"\n\n\"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry.\"\n\n\"Who is she?\"\n\n\"Her name is Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"Never heard of her.\"\n\n\"No one has.  People will some day, however.  She is a genius.\"\n\n\"My dear boy, no woman is a genius.  Women are a decorative sex.  They\nnever have anything to say, but they say it charmingly.  Women\nrepresent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the\ntriumph of mind over morals.\"\n\n\"Harry, how can you?\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian, it is quite true.  I am analysing women at present, so\nI ought to know.  The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was.\nI find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain\nand the coloured.  The plain women are very useful.  If you want to\ngain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down\nto supper.  The other women are very charming.  They commit one\nmistake, however.  They paint in order to try and look young.  Our\ngrandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.  _Rouge_ and\n_esprit_ used to go together.  That is all over now.  As long as a woman\ncan look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly\nsatisfied.  As for conversation, there are only five women in London\nworth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent\nsociety.  However, tell me about your genius.  How long have you known\nher?\"\n\n\"Ah!  Harry, your views terrify me.\"\n\n\"Never mind that.  How long have you known her?\"\n\n\"About three weeks.\"\n\n\"And where did you come across her?\"\n\n\"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.\nAfter all, it never would have happened if I had not met you.  You\nfilled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.  For days\nafter I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.  As I lounged\nin the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one\nwho passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they\nled.  Some of them fascinated me.  Others filled me with terror.  There\nwas an exquisite poison in the air.  I had a passion for sensations....\nWell, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search\nof some adventure.  I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours,\nwith its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins,\nas you once phrased it, must have something in store for me.  I fancied\na thousand things.  The mere danger gave me a sense of delight.  I\nremembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we\nfirst dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret\nof life.  I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered\neastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black\ngrassless squares.  About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little\ntheatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills.  A hideous\nJew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was\nstanding at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar.  He had greasy\nringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled\nshirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off\nhis hat with an air of gorgeous servility.  There was something about\nhim, Harry, that amused me.  He was such a monster.  You will laugh at\nme, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the\nstage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if\nI hadn't--my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest\nromance of my life.  I see you are laughing.  It is horrid of you!\"\n\n\"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you.  But you\nshould not say the greatest romance of your life.  You should say the\nfirst romance of your life.  You will always be loved, and you will\nalways be in love with love.  A _grande passion_ is the privilege of\npeople who have nothing to do.  That is the one use of the idle classes\nof a country.  Don't be afraid.  There are exquisite things in store\nfor you.  This is merely the beginning.\"\n\n\"Do you think my nature so shallow?\" cried Dorian Gray angrily.\n\n\"No; I think your nature so deep.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really\nthe shallow people.  What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity,\nI call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.\nFaithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life\nof the intellect--simply a confession of failure.  Faithfulness!  I\nmust analyse it some day.  The passion for property is in it.  There\nare many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that\nothers might pick them up.  But I don't want to interrupt you.  Go on\nwith your story.\"\n\n\"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a\nvulgar drop-scene staring me in the face.  I looked out from behind the\ncurtain and surveyed the house.  It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and\ncornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were\nfairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and\nthere was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the\ndress-circle.  Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there\nwas a terrible consumption of nuts going on.\"\n\n\"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama.\"\n\n\"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing.  I began to wonder\nwhat on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill.  What\ndo you think the play was, Harry?\"\n\n\"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'.  Our fathers\nused to like that sort of piece, I believe.  The longer I live, Dorian,\nthe more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is\nnot good enough for us.  In art, as in politics, _les grandperes ont\ntoujours tort_.\"\n\n\"This play was good enough for us, Harry.  It was Romeo and Juliet.  I\nmust admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare\ndone in such a wretched hole of a place.  Still, I felt interested, in\na sort of way.  At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.\nThere was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat\nat a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the\ndrop-scene was drawn up and the play began.  Romeo was a stout elderly\ngentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure\nlike a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad.  He was played by the\nlow-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most\nfriendly terms with the pit.  They were both as grotesque as the\nscenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But\nJuliet!  Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a\nlittle, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of\ndark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were\nlike the petals of a rose.  She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen\nin my life.  You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that\nbeauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears.  I tell you,\nHarry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came\nacross me.  And her voice--I never heard such a voice.  It was very low\nat first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's\near.  Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a\ndistant hautboy.  In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy\nthat one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing.  There\nwere moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins.  You\nknow how a voice can stir one.  Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane\nare two things that I shall never forget.  When I close my eyes, I hear\nthem, and each of them says something different.  I don't know which to\nfollow.  Why should I not love her?  Harry, I do love her.  She is\neverything to me in life.  Night after night I go to see her play.  One\nevening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen.  I have\nseen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from\nher lover's lips.  I have watched her wandering through the forest of\nArden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap.\nShe has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and\ngiven him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of.  She has been\ninnocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike\nthroat.  I have seen her in every age and in every costume.  Ordinary\nwomen never appeal to one's imagination.  They are limited to their\ncentury.  No glamour ever transfigures them.  One knows their minds as\neasily as one knows their bonnets.  One can always find them.  There is\nno mystery in any of them.  They ride in the park in the morning and\nchatter at tea-parties in the afternoon.  They have their stereotyped\nsmile and their fashionable manner.  They are quite obvious.  But an\nactress!  How different an actress is!  Harry! why didn't you tell me\nthat the only thing worth loving is an actress?\"\n\n\"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces.\"\n\n\"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces.  There is an extraordinary\ncharm in them, sometimes,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian.  All through your life\nyou will tell me everything you do.\"\n\n\"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true.  I cannot help telling you things.\nYou have a curious influence over me.  If I ever did a crime, I would\ncome and confess it to you.  You would understand me.\"\n\n\"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes,\nDorian.  But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same.  And\nnow tell me--reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are\nyour actual relations with Sibyl Vane?\"\n\nDorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.\n\"Harry!  Sibyl Vane is sacred!\"\n\n\"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian,\" said\nLord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice.  \"But why\nshould you be annoyed?  I suppose she will belong to you some day.\nWhen one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one\nalways ends by deceiving others.  That is what the world calls a\nromance.  You know her, at any rate, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Of course I know her.  On the first night I was at the theatre, the\nhorrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and\noffered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her.  I was\nfurious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds\nof years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona.  I\nthink, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the\nimpression that I had taken too much champagne, or something.\"\n\n\"I am not surprised.\"\n\n\"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers.  I told him I\nnever even read them.  He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and\nconfided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy\nagainst him, and that they were every one of them to be bought.\"\n\n\"I should not wonder if he was quite right there.  But, on the other\nhand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all\nexpensive.\"\n\n\"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means,\" laughed Dorian.\n\"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre,\nand I had to go.  He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly\nrecommended.  I declined.  The next night, of course, I arrived at the\nplace again.  When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that\nI was a munificent patron of art.  He was a most offensive brute,\nthough he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare.  He told me\nonce, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely\ndue to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him.  He seemed to think\nit a distinction.\"\n\n\"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction.  Most\npeople become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose\nof life.  To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour.  But when\ndid you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?\"\n\n\"The third night.  She had been playing Rosalind.  I could not help\ngoing round.  I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at\nme--at least I fancied that she had.  The old Jew was persistent.  He\nseemed determined to take me behind, so I consented.  It was curious my\nnot wanting to know her, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"No; I don't think so.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, why?\"\n\n\"I will tell you some other time.  Now I want to know about the girl.\"\n\n\"Sibyl?  Oh, she was so shy and so gentle.  There is something of a\nchild about her.  Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told\nher what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious\nof her power.  I think we were both rather nervous.  The old Jew stood\ngrinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate\nspeeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like\nchildren.  He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure\nSibyl that I was not anything of the kind.  She said quite simply to\nme, 'You look more like a prince.  I must call you Prince Charming.'\"\n\n\"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments.\"\n\n\"You don't understand her, Harry.  She regarded me merely as a person\nin a play.  She knows nothing of life.  She lives with her mother, a\nfaded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta\ndressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen\nbetter days.\"\n\n\"I know that look.  It depresses me,\" murmured Lord Henry, examining\nhis rings.\n\n\"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest\nme.\"\n\n\"You were quite right.  There is always something infinitely mean about\nother people's tragedies.\"\n\n\"Sibyl is the only thing I care about.  What is it to me where she came\nfrom?  From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and\nentirely divine.  Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every\nnight she is more marvellous.\"\n\n\"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now.  I\nthought you must have some curious romance on hand.  You have; but it\nis not quite what I expected.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have\nbeen to the opera with you several times,\" said Dorian, opening his\nblue eyes in wonder.\n\n\"You always come dreadfully late.\"\n\n\"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play,\" he cried, \"even if it is\nonly for a single act.  I get hungry for her presence; and when I think\nof the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I\nam filled with awe.\"\n\n\"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?\"\n\nHe shook his head.  \"To-night she is Imogen,\" he answered, \"and\nto-morrow night she will be Juliet.\"\n\n\"When is she Sibyl Vane?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"I congratulate you.\"\n\n\"How horrid you are!  She is all the great heroines of the world in\none.  She is more than an individual.  You laugh, but I tell you she\nhas genius.  I love her, and I must make her love me.  You, who know\nall the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me!  I\nwant to make Romeo jealous.  I want the dead lovers of the world to\nhear our laughter and grow sad.  I want a breath of our passion to stir\ntheir dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.  My God,\nHarry, how I worship her!\"  He was walking up and down the room as he\nspoke.  Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks.  He was terribly\nexcited.\n\nLord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure.  How different\nhe was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's\nstudio!  His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of\nscarlet flame.  Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and\ndesire had come to meet it on the way.\n\n\"And what do you propose to do?\" said Lord Henry at last.\n\n\"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act.  I\nhave not the slightest fear of the result.  You are certain to\nacknowledge her genius.  Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands.\nShe is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight\nmonths--from the present time.  I shall have to pay him something, of\ncourse.  When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and\nbring her out properly.  She will make the world as mad as she has made\nme.\"\n\n\"That would be impossible, my dear boy.\"\n\n\"Yes, she will.  She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in\nher, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it\nis personalities, not principles, that move the age.\"\n\n\"Well, what night shall we go?\"\n\n\"Let me see.  To-day is Tuesday.  Let us fix to-morrow. She plays\nJuliet to-morrow.\"\n\n\"All right.  The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil.\"\n\n\"Not eight, Harry, please.  Half-past six.  We must be there before the\ncurtain rises.  You must see her in the first act, where she meets\nRomeo.\"\n\n\"Half-past six!  What an hour!  It will be like having a meat-tea, or\nreading an English novel.  It must be seven.  No gentleman dines before\nseven.  Shall you see Basil between this and then?  Or shall I write to\nhim?\"\n\n\"Dear Basil!  I have not laid eyes on him for a week.  It is rather\nhorrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful\nframe, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous\nof the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit\nthat I delight in it.  Perhaps you had better write to him.  I don't\nwant to see him alone.  He says things that annoy me.  He gives me good\nadvice.\"\n\nLord Henry smiled.  \"People are very fond of giving away what they need\nmost themselves.  It is what I call the depth of generosity.\"\n\n\"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit\nof a Philistine.  Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered\nthat.\"\n\n\"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his\nwork.  The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his\nprejudices, his principles, and his common sense.  The only artists I\nhave ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists.  Good\nartists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly\nuninteresting in what they are.  A great poet, a really great poet, is\nthe most unpoetical of all creatures.  But inferior poets are\nabsolutely fascinating.  The worse their rhymes are, the more\npicturesque they look.  The mere fact of having published a book of\nsecond-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible.  He lives the\npoetry that he cannot write.  The others write the poetry that they\ndare not realize.\"\n\n\"I wonder is that really so, Harry?\" said Dorian Gray, putting some\nperfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that\nstood on the table.  \"It must be, if you say it.  And now I am off.\nImogen is waiting for me.  Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye.\"\n\nAs he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began\nto think.  Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as\nDorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused\nhim not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy.  He was pleased by\nit.  It made him a more interesting study.  He had been always\nenthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary\nsubject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no\nimport.  And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by\nvivisecting others.  Human life--that appeared to him the one thing\nworth investigating.  Compared to it there was nothing else of any\nvalue.  It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of\npain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass,\nnor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the\nimagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.  There\nwere poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken\nof them.  There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through\nthem if one sought to understand their nature.  And, yet, what a great\nreward one received!  How wonderful the whole world became to one!  To\nnote the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life\nof the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated,\nat what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at\ndiscord--there was a delight in that!  What matter what the cost was?\nOne could never pay too high a price for any sensation.\n\nHe was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his\nbrown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, musical\nwords said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned\nto this white girl and bowed in worship before her.  To a large extent\nthe lad was his own creation.  He had made him premature.  That was\nsomething.  Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its\nsecrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were\nrevealed before the veil was drawn away.  Sometimes this was the effect\nof art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately\nwith the passions and the intellect.  But now and then a complex\npersonality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed,\nin its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces,\njust as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting.\n\nYes, the lad was premature.  He was gathering his harvest while it was\nyet spring.  The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was\nbecoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him.  With his\nbeautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at.\nIt was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end.  He was like\none of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem\nto be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty,\nand whose wounds are like red roses.\n\nSoul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were!  There was\nanimalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality.\nThe senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade.  Who could\nsay where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began?\nHow shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists!\nAnd yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various\nschools!  Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin?  Or was the\nbody really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought?  The separation of\nspirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter\nwas a mystery also.\n\nHe began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a\nscience that each little spring of life would be revealed to us.  As it\nwas, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others.\nExperience was of no ethical value.  It was merely the name men gave to\ntheir mistakes.  Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of\nwarning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation\nof character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow\nand showed us what to avoid.  But there was no motive power in\nexperience.  It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself.\nAll that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same\nas our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we\nwould do many times, and with joy.\n\nIt was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by\nwhich one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and\ncertainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to\npromise rich and fruitful results.  His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane\nwas a psychological phenomenon of no small interest.  There was no\ndoubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire\nfor new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex\npassion.  What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of\nboyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,\nchanged into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from\nsense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous.  It was the\npassions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most\nstrongly over us.  Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we\nwere conscious.  It often happened that when we thought we were\nexperimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves.\n\nWhile Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the\ndoor, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for\ndinner.  He got up and looked out into the street.  The sunset had\nsmitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite.\nThe panes glowed like plates of heated metal.  The sky above was like a\nfaded rose.  He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and\nwondered how it was all going to end.\n\nWhen he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram\nlying on the hall table.  He opened it and found it was from Dorian\nGray.  It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl\nVane.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!\" whispered the girl, burying her face\nin the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to\nthe shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their\ndingy sitting-room contained.  \"I am so happy!\" she repeated, \"and you\nmust be happy, too!\"\n\nMrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her\ndaughter's head.  \"Happy!\" she echoed, \"I am only happy, Sibyl, when I\nsee you act.  You must not think of anything but your acting.  Mr.\nIsaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money.\"\n\nThe girl looked up and pouted.  \"Money, Mother?\" she cried, \"what does\nmoney matter?  Love is more than money.\"\n\n\"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to\nget a proper outfit for James.  You must not forget that, Sibyl.  Fifty\npounds is a very large sum.  Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate.\"\n\n\"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me,\"\nsaid the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window.\n\n\"I don't know how we could manage without him,\" answered the elder\nwoman querulously.\n\nSibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed.  \"We don't want him any more,\nMother.  Prince Charming rules life for us now.\" Then she paused.  A\nrose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks.  Quick breath parted\nthe petals of her lips.  They trembled.  Some southern wind of passion\nswept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress.  \"I love\nhim,\" she said simply.\n\n\"Foolish child! foolish child!\" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.\nThe waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the\nwords.\n\nThe girl laughed again.  The joy of a caged bird was in her voice.  Her\neyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a\nmoment, as though to hide their secret.  When they opened, the mist of\na dream had passed across them.\n\nThin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at\nprudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name\nof common sense.  She did not listen.  She was free in her prison of\npassion.  Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her.  She had called on\nmemory to remake him.  She had sent her soul to search for him, and it\nhad brought him back.  His kiss burned again upon her mouth.  Her\neyelids were warm with his breath.\n\nThen wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery.  This\nyoung man might be rich.  If so, marriage should be thought of.\nAgainst the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning.  The\narrows of craft shot by her.  She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.\n\nSuddenly she felt the need to speak.  The wordy silence troubled her.\n\"Mother, Mother,\" she cried, \"why does he love me so much?  I know why\nI love him.  I love him because he is like what love himself should be.\nBut what does he see in me?  I am not worthy of him.  And yet--why, I\ncannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble.  I\nfeel proud, terribly proud.  Mother, did you love my father as I love\nPrince Charming?\"\n\nThe elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her\ncheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain.  Sybil rushed\nto her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her.  \"Forgive me,\nMother.  I know it pains you to talk about our father.  But it only\npains you because you loved him so much.  Don't look so sad.  I am as\nhappy to-day as you were twenty years ago.  Ah! let me be happy for\never!\"\n\n\"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love.  Besides,\nwhat do you know of this young man?  You don't even know his name.  The\nwhole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away\nto Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you\nshould have shown more consideration.  However, as I said before, if he\nis rich ...\"\n\n\"Ah!  Mother, Mother, let me be happy!\"\n\nMrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical\ngestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a\nstage-player, clasped her in her arms.  At this moment, the door opened\nand a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room.  He was\nthick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat\nclumsy in movement.  He was not so finely bred as his sister.  One\nwould hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between\nthem.  Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile.  She\nmentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience.  She felt sure\nthat the _tableau_ was interesting.\n\n\"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think,\" said the\nlad with a good-natured grumble.\n\n\"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim,\" she cried.  \"You are a\ndreadful old bear.\"  And she ran across the room and hugged him.\n\nJames Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness.  \"I want you\nto come out with me for a walk, Sibyl.  I don't suppose I shall ever\nsee this horrid London again.  I am sure I don't want to.\"\n\n\"My son, don't say such dreadful things,\" murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up\na tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it.  She\nfelt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group.  It would\nhave increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation.\n\n\"Why not, Mother?  I mean it.\"\n\n\"You pain me, my son.  I trust you will return from Australia in a\nposition of affluence.  I believe there is no society of any kind in\nthe Colonies--nothing that I would call society--so when you have made\nyour fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London.\"\n\n\"Society!\" muttered the lad.  \"I don't want to know anything about\nthat.  I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the\nstage.  I hate it.\"\n\n\"Oh, Jim!\" said Sibyl, laughing, \"how unkind of you!  But are you\nreally going for a walk with me?  That will be nice!  I was afraid you\nwere going to say good-bye to some of your friends--to Tom Hardy, who\ngave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for\nsmoking it.  It is very sweet of you to let me have your last\nafternoon.  Where shall we go?  Let us go to the park.\"\n\n\"I am too shabby,\" he answered, frowning.  \"Only swell people go to the\npark.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Jim,\" she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat.\n\nHe hesitated for a moment.  \"Very well,\" he said at last, \"but don't be\ntoo long dressing.\"  She danced out of the door.  One could hear her\nsinging as she ran upstairs.  Her little feet pattered overhead.\n\nHe walked up and down the room two or three times.  Then he turned to\nthe still figure in the chair.  \"Mother, are my things ready?\" he asked.\n\n\"Quite ready, James,\" she answered, keeping her eyes on her work.  For\nsome months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this\nrough stern son of hers.  Her shallow secret nature was troubled when\ntheir eyes met.  She used to wonder if he suspected anything.  The\nsilence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her.\nShe began to complain.  Women defend themselves by attacking, just as\nthey attack by sudden and strange surrenders.  \"I hope you will be\ncontented, James, with your sea-faring life,\" she said.  \"You must\nremember that it is your own choice.  You might have entered a\nsolicitor's office.  Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in\nthe country often dine with the best families.\"\n\n\"I hate offices, and I hate clerks,\" he replied.  \"But you are quite\nright.  I have chosen my own life.  All I say is, watch over Sibyl.\nDon't let her come to any harm.  Mother, you must watch over her.\"\n\n\"James, you really talk very strangely.  Of course I watch over Sibyl.\"\n\n\"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to\ntalk to her.  Is that right?  What about that?\"\n\n\"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James.  In the\nprofession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying\nattention.  I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time.  That\nwas when acting was really understood.  As for Sibyl, I do not know at\npresent whether her attachment is serious or not.  But there is no\ndoubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman.  He is\nalways most polite to me.  Besides, he has the appearance of being\nrich, and the flowers he sends are lovely.\"\n\n\"You don't know his name, though,\" said the lad harshly.\n\n\"No,\" answered his mother with a placid expression in her face.  \"He\nhas not yet revealed his real name.  I think it is quite romantic of\nhim.  He is probably a member of the aristocracy.\"\n\nJames Vane bit his lip.  \"Watch over Sibyl, Mother,\" he cried, \"watch\nover her.\"\n\n\"My son, you distress me very much.  Sibyl is always under my special\ncare.  Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why\nshe should not contract an alliance with him.  I trust he is one of the\naristocracy.  He has all the appearance of it, I must say.  It might be\na most brilliant marriage for Sibyl.  They would make a charming\ncouple.  His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices\nthem.\"\n\nThe lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane\nwith his coarse fingers.  He had just turned round to say something\nwhen the door opened and Sibyl ran in.\n\n\"How serious you both are!\" she cried.  \"What is the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he answered.  \"I suppose one must be serious sometimes.\nGood-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is\npacked, except my shirts, so you need not trouble.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, my son,\" she answered with a bow of strained stateliness.\n\nShe was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and\nthere was something in his look that had made her feel afraid.\n\n\"Kiss me, Mother,\" said the girl.  Her flowerlike lips touched the\nwithered cheek and warmed its frost.\n\n\"My child! my child!\" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in\nsearch of an imaginary gallery.\n\n\"Come, Sibyl,\" said her brother impatiently.  He hated his mother's\naffectations.\n\nThey went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled\ndown the dreary Euston Road.  The passersby glanced in wonder at the\nsullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the\ncompany of such a graceful, refined-looking girl.  He was like a common\ngardener walking with a rose.\n\nJim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of\nsome stranger.  He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on\ngeniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace.  Sibyl,\nhowever, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing.  Her\nlove was trembling in laughter on her lips.  She was thinking of Prince\nCharming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not\ntalk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to\nsail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful\nheiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted\nbushrangers.  For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or\nwhatever he was going to be.  Oh, no!  A sailor's existence was\ndreadful.  Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse,\nhump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts\ndown and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands!  He was to\nleave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain,\nand go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to\ncome across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had\never been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon\nguarded by six mounted policemen.  The bushrangers were to attack them\nthree times, and be defeated with immense slaughter.  Or, no.  He was\nnot to go to the gold-fields at all.  They were horrid places, where\nmen got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad\nlanguage.  He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was\nriding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a\nrobber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her.  Of course,\nshe would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get\nmarried, and come home, and live in an immense house in London.  Yes,\nthere were delightful things in store for him.  But he must be very\ngood, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly.  She was\nonly a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life.  He\nmust be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his\nprayers each night before he went to sleep.  God was very good, and\nwould watch over him.  She would pray for him, too, and in a few years\nhe would come back quite rich and happy.\n\nThe lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer.  He was heart-sick\nat leaving home.\n\nYet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.\nInexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger\nof Sibyl's position.  This young dandy who was making love to her could\nmean her no good.  He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated\nhim through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account,\nand which for that reason was all the more dominant within him.  He was\nconscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,\nand in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.\nChildren begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge\nthem; sometimes they forgive them.\n\nHis mother!  He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that\nhe had brooded on for many months of silence.  A chance phrase that he\nhad heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears\none night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of\nhorrible thoughts.  He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a\nhunting-crop across his face.  His brows knit together into a wedge-like\nfurrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.\n\n\"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim,\" cried Sibyl, \"and I\nam making the most delightful plans for your future.  Do say something.\"\n\n\"What do you want me to say?\"\n\n\"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us,\" she answered,\nsmiling at him.\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.  \"You are more likely to forget me than I am\nto forget you, Sibyl.\"\n\nShe flushed.  \"What do you mean, Jim?\" she asked.\n\n\"You have a new friend, I hear.  Who is he?  Why have you not told me\nabout him?  He means you no good.\"\n\n\"Stop, Jim!\" she exclaimed.  \"You must not say anything against him.  I\nlove him.\"\n\n\"Why, you don't even know his name,\" answered the lad.  \"Who is he?  I\nhave a right to know.\"\n\n\"He is called Prince Charming.  Don't you like the name.  Oh! you silly\nboy! you should never forget it.  If you only saw him, you would think\nhim the most wonderful person in the world.  Some day you will meet\nhim--when you come back from Australia.  You will like him so much.\nEverybody likes him, and I ... love him.  I wish you could come to the\ntheatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet.\nOh! how I shall play it!  Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet!\nTo have him sitting there!  To play for his delight!  I am afraid I may\nfrighten the company, frighten or enthrall them.  To be in love is to\nsurpass one's self.  Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius'\nto his loafers at the bar.  He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he\nwill announce me as a revelation.  I feel it.  And it is all his, his\nonly, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces.  But I am\npoor beside him.  Poor?  What does that matter?  When poverty creeps in\nat the door, love flies in through the window.  Our proverbs want\nrewriting.  They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time\nfor me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies.\"\n\n\"He is a gentleman,\" said the lad sullenly.\n\n\"A prince!\" she cried musically.  \"What more do you want?\"\n\n\"He wants to enslave you.\"\n\n\"I shudder at the thought of being free.\"\n\n\"I want you to beware of him.\"\n\n\"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him.\"\n\n\"Sibyl, you are mad about him.\"\n\nShe laughed and took his arm.  \"You dear old Jim, you talk as if you\nwere a hundred.  Some day you will be in love yourself.  Then you will\nknow what it is.  Don't look so sulky.  Surely you should be glad to\nthink that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have\never been before.  Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and\ndifficult.  But it will be different now.  You are going to a new\nworld, and I have found one.  Here are two chairs; let us sit down and\nsee the smart people go by.\"\n\nThey took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers.  The tulip-beds\nacross the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire.  A white\ndust--tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air.\nThe brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous\nbutterflies.\n\nShe made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects.  He\nspoke slowly and with effort.  They passed words to each other as\nplayers at a game pass counters.  Sibyl felt oppressed.  She could not\ncommunicate her joy.  A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all\nthe echo she could win.  After some time she became silent.  Suddenly\nshe caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open\ncarriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past.\n\nShe started to her feet.  \"There he is!\" she cried.\n\n\"Who?\" said Jim Vane.\n\n\"Prince Charming,\" she answered, looking after the victoria.\n\nHe jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm.  \"Show him to me.\nWhich is he?  Point him out.  I must see him!\" he exclaimed; but at\nthat moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when\nit had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park.\n\n\"He is gone,\" murmured Sibyl sadly.  \"I wish you had seen him.\"\n\n\"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does\nyou any wrong, I shall kill him.\"\n\nShe looked at him in horror.  He repeated his words.  They cut the air\nlike a dagger.  The people round began to gape.  A lady standing close\nto her tittered.\n\n\"Come away, Jim; come away,\" she whispered.  He followed her doggedly\nas she passed through the crowd.  He felt glad at what he had said.\n\nWhen they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round.  There was\npity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips.  She shook her head\nat him.  \"You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy,\nthat is all.  How can you say such horrible things?  You don't know\nwhat you are talking about.  You are simply jealous and unkind.  Ah!  I\nwish you would fall in love.  Love makes people good, and what you said\nwas wicked.\"\n\n\"I am sixteen,\" he answered, \"and I know what I am about.  Mother is no\nhelp to you.  She doesn't understand how to look after you.  I wish now\nthat I was not going to Australia at all.  I have a great mind to chuck\nthe whole thing up.  I would, if my articles hadn't been signed.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim.  You are like one of the heroes of those\nsilly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in.  I am not\ngoing to quarrel with you.  I have seen him, and oh! to see him is\nperfect happiness.  We won't quarrel.  I know you would never harm any\none I love, would you?\"\n\n\"Not as long as you love him, I suppose,\" was the sullen answer.\n\n\"I shall love him for ever!\" she cried.\n\n\"And he?\"\n\n\"For ever, too!\"\n\n\"He had better.\"\n\nShe shrank from him.  Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm.  He\nwas merely a boy.\n\nAt the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to\ntheir shabby home in the Euston Road.  It was after five o'clock, and\nSibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting.  Jim\ninsisted that she should do so.  He said that he would sooner part with\nher when their mother was not present.  She would be sure to make a\nscene, and he detested scenes of every kind.\n\nIn Sybil's own room they parted.  There was jealousy in the lad's\nheart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed\nto him, had come between them.  Yet, when her arms were flung round his\nneck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed\nher with real affection.  There were tears in his eyes as he went\ndownstairs.\n\nHis mother was waiting for him below.  She grumbled at his\nunpunctuality, as he entered.  He made no answer, but sat down to his\nmeagre meal.  The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the\nstained cloth.  Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of\nstreet-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that\nwas left to him.\n\nAfter some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his\nhands.  He felt that he had a right to know.  It should have been told\nto him before, if it was as he suspected.  Leaden with fear, his mother\nwatched him.  Words dropped mechanically from her lips.  A tattered\nlace handkerchief twitched in her fingers.  When the clock struck six,\nhe got up and went to the door.  Then he turned back and looked at her.\nTheir eyes met.  In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy.  It enraged\nhim.\n\n\"Mother, I have something to ask you,\" he said.  Her eyes wandered\nvaguely about the room.  She made no answer.  \"Tell me the truth.  I\nhave a right to know.  Were you married to my father?\"\n\nShe heaved a deep sigh.  It was a sigh of relief.  The terrible moment,\nthe moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded,\nhad come at last, and yet she felt no terror.  Indeed, in some measure\nit was a disappointment to her.  The vulgar directness of the question\ncalled for a direct answer.  The situation had not been gradually led\nup to.  It was crude.  It reminded her of a bad rehearsal.\n\n\"No,\" she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life.\n\n\"My father was a scoundrel then!\" cried the lad, clenching his fists.\n\nShe shook her head.  \"I knew he was not free.  We loved each other very\nmuch.  If he had lived, he would have made provision for us.  Don't\nspeak against him, my son.  He was your father, and a gentleman.\nIndeed, he was highly connected.\"\n\nAn oath broke from his lips.  \"I don't care for myself,\" he exclaimed,\n\"but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love\nwith her, or says he is?  Highly connected, too, I suppose.\"\n\nFor a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman.  Her\nhead drooped.  She wiped her eyes with shaking hands.  \"Sibyl has a\nmother,\" she murmured; \"I had none.\"\n\nThe lad was touched.  He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed\nher.  \"I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father,\" he\nsaid, \"but I could not help it.  I must go now.  Good-bye. Don't forget\nthat you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me\nthat if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him\ndown, and kill him like a dog.  I swear it.\"\n\nThe exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that\naccompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid\nto her.  She was familiar with the atmosphere.  She breathed more\nfreely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her\nson.  She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same\nemotional scale, but he cut her short.  Trunks had to be carried down\nand mufflers looked for.  The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out.\nThere was the bargaining with the cabman.  The moment was lost in\nvulgar details.  It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that\nshe waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son\ndrove away.  She was conscious that a great opportunity had been\nwasted.  She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt\nher life would be, now that she had only one child to look after.  She\nremembered the phrase.  It had pleased her.  Of the threat she said\nnothing.  It was vividly and dramatically expressed.  She felt that\nthey would all laugh at it some day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?\" said Lord Henry that\nevening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol\nwhere dinner had been laid for three.\n\n\"No, Harry,\" answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing\nwaiter.  \"What is it?  Nothing about politics, I hope!  They don't\ninterest me.  There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons\nworth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little\nwhitewashing.\"\n\n\"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married,\" said Lord Henry, watching him\nas he spoke.\n\nHallward started and then frowned.  \"Dorian engaged to be married!\" he\ncried.  \"Impossible!\"\n\n\"It is perfectly true.\"\n\n\"To whom?\"\n\n\"To some little actress or other.\"\n\n\"I can't believe it.  Dorian is far too sensible.\"\n\n\"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear\nBasil.\"\n\n\"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry.\"\n\n\"Except in America,\" rejoined Lord Henry languidly.  \"But I didn't say\nhe was married.  I said he was engaged to be married.  There is a great\ndifference.  I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have\nno recollection at all of being engaged.  I am inclined to think that I\nnever was engaged.\"\n\n\"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth.  It would be\nabsurd for him to marry so much beneath him.\"\n\n\"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil.  He is\nsure to do it, then.  Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it\nis always from the noblest motives.\"\n\n\"I hope the girl is good, Harry.  I don't want to see Dorian tied to\nsome vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his\nintellect.\"\n\n\"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful,\" murmured Lord Henry,\nsipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. \"Dorian says she is\nbeautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind.  Your\nportrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal\nappearance of other people.  It has had that excellent effect, amongst\nothers.  We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his\nappointment.\"\n\n\"Are you serious?\"\n\n\"Quite serious, Basil.  I should be miserable if I thought I should\never be more serious than I am at the present moment.\"\n\n\"But do you approve of it, Harry?\" asked the painter, walking up and\ndown the room and biting his lip.  \"You can't approve of it, possibly.\nIt is some silly infatuation.\"\n\n\"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now.  It is an absurd\nattitude to take towards life.  We are not sent into the world to air\nour moral prejudices.  I never take any notice of what common people\nsay, and I never interfere with what charming people do.  If a\npersonality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality\nselects is absolutely delightful to me.  Dorian Gray falls in love with\na beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her.  Why not?\nIf he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting.  You\nknow I am not a champion of marriage.  The real drawback to marriage is\nthat it makes one unselfish.  And unselfish people are colourless.\nThey lack individuality.  Still, there are certain temperaments that\nmarriage makes more complex.  They retain their egotism, and add to it\nmany other egos.  They are forced to have more than one life.  They\nbecome more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should\nfancy, the object of man's existence.  Besides, every experience is of\nvalue, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an\nexperience.  I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife,\npassionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become\nfascinated by some one else.  He would be a wonderful study.\"\n\n\"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't.\nIf Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than\nyourself.  You are much better than you pretend to be.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"The reason we all like to think so well of others\nis that we are all afraid for ourselves.  The basis of optimism is\nsheer terror.  We think that we are generous because we credit our\nneighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a\nbenefit to us.  We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account,\nand find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare\nour pockets.  I mean everything that I have said.  I have the greatest\ncontempt for optimism.  As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but\none whose growth is arrested.  If you want to mar a nature, you have\nmerely to reform it.  As for marriage, of course that would be silly,\nbut there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women.\nI will certainly encourage them.  They have the charm of being\nfashionable.  But here is Dorian himself.  He will tell you more than I\ncan.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!\" said the\nlad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and\nshaking each of his friends by the hand in turn.  \"I have never been so\nhappy.  Of course, it is sudden--all really delightful things are.  And\nyet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my\nlife.\" He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked\nextraordinarily handsome.\n\n\"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"but I\ndon't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement.\nYou let Harry know.\"\n\n\"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner,\" broke in Lord\nHenry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke.\n\"Come, let us sit down and try what the new _chef_ here is like, and then\nyou will tell us how it all came about.\"\n\n\"There is really not much to tell,\" cried Dorian as they took their\nseats at the small round table.  \"What happened was simply this.  After\nI left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that\nlittle Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and\nwent down at eight o'clock to the theatre.  Sibyl was playing Rosalind.\nOf course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd.  But Sibyl!\nYou should have seen her!  When she came on in her boy's clothes, she\nwas perfectly wonderful.  She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with\ncinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little\ngreen cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak\nlined with dull red.  She had never seemed to me more exquisite.  She\nhad all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in\nyour studio, Basil.  Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves\nround a pale rose.  As for her acting--well, you shall see her\nto-night. She is simply a born artist.  I sat in the dingy box\nabsolutely enthralled.  I forgot that I was in London and in the\nnineteenth century.  I was away with my love in a forest that no man\nhad ever seen.  After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke\nto her.  As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes\na look that I had never seen there before.  My lips moved towards hers.\nWe kissed each other.  I can't describe to you what I felt at that\nmoment.  It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one\nperfect point of rose-coloured joy.  She trembled all over and shook\nlike a white narcissus.  Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed\nmy hands.  I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help\nit.  Of course, our engagement is a dead secret.  She has not even told\nher own mother.  I don't know what my guardians will say.  Lord Radley\nis sure to be furious.  I don't care.  I shall be of age in less than a\nyear, and then I can do what I like.  I have been right, Basil, haven't\nI, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's\nplays?  Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their\nsecret in my ear.  I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and\nkissed Juliet on the mouth.\"\n\n\"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right,\" said Hallward slowly.\n\n\"Have you seen her to-day?\" asked Lord Henry.\n\nDorian Gray shook his head.  \"I left her in the forest of Arden; I\nshall find her in an orchard in Verona.\"\n\nLord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner.  \"At what\nparticular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian?  And what\ndid she say in answer?  Perhaps you forgot all about it.\"\n\n\"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did\nnot make any formal proposal.  I told her that I loved her, and she\nsaid she was not worthy to be my wife.  Not worthy!  Why, the whole\nworld is nothing to me compared with her.\"\n\n\"Women are wonderfully practical,\" murmured Lord Henry, \"much more\npractical than we are.  In situations of that kind we often forget to\nsay anything about marriage, and they always remind us.\"\n\nHallward laid his hand upon his arm.  \"Don't, Harry.  You have annoyed\nDorian.  He is not like other men.  He would never bring misery upon\nany one.  His nature is too fine for that.\"\n\nLord Henry looked across the table.  \"Dorian is never annoyed with me,\"\nhe answered.  \"I asked the question for the best reason possible, for\nthe only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any\nquestion--simple curiosity.  I have a theory that it is always the\nwomen who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women.  Except,\nof course, in middle-class life.  But then the middle classes are not\nmodern.\"\n\nDorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head.  \"You are quite incorrigible,\nHarry; but I don't mind.  It is impossible to be angry with you.  When\nyou see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her\nwould be a beast, a beast without a heart.  I cannot understand how any\none can wish to shame the thing he loves.  I love Sibyl Vane.  I want\nto place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the\nwoman who is mine.  What is marriage?  An irrevocable vow.  You mock at\nit for that.  Ah! don't mock.  It is an irrevocable vow that I want to\ntake.  Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good.  When I\nam with her, I regret all that you have taught me.  I become different\nfrom what you have known me to be.  I am changed, and the mere touch of\nSibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating,\npoisonous, delightful theories.\"\n\n\"And those are ...?\" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad.\n\n\"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories\nabout pleasure.  All your theories, in fact, Harry.\"\n\n\"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about,\" he answered\nin his slow melodious voice.  \"But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory\nas my own.  It belongs to Nature, not to me.  Pleasure is Nature's\ntest, her sign of approval.  When we are happy, we are always good, but\nwhen we are good, we are not always happy.\"\n\n\"Ah! but what do you mean by good?\" cried Basil Hallward.\n\n\"Yes,\" echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord\nHenry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the\ncentre of the table, \"what do you mean by good, Harry?\"\n\n\"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self,\" he replied, touching\nthe thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers.\n\"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.  One's own\nlife--that is the important thing.  As for the lives of one's\nneighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt\none's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern.  Besides,\nindividualism has really the higher aim.  Modern morality consists in\naccepting the standard of one's age.  I consider that for any man of\nculture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest\nimmorality.\"\n\n\"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a\nterrible price for doing so?\" suggested the painter.\n\n\"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays.  I should fancy that\nthe real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but\nself-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege\nof the rich.\"\n\n\"One has to pay in other ways but money.\"\n\n\"What sort of ways, Basil?\"\n\n\"Oh!  I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the\nconsciousness of degradation.\"\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"My dear fellow, mediaeval art is\ncharming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date.  One can use them in\nfiction, of course.  But then the only things that one can use in\nfiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact.  Believe me,\nno civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever\nknows what a pleasure is.\"\n\n\"I know what pleasure is,\" cried Dorian Gray.  \"It is to adore some\none.\"\n\n\"That is certainly better than being adored,\" he answered, toying with\nsome fruits.  \"Being adored is a nuisance.  Women treat us just as\nhumanity treats its gods.  They worship us, and are always bothering us\nto do something for them.\"\n\n\"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to\nus,\" murmured the lad gravely.  \"They create love in our natures.  They\nhave a right to demand it back.\"\n\n\"That is quite true, Dorian,\" cried Hallward.\n\n\"Nothing is ever quite true,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"This is,\" interrupted Dorian.  \"You must admit, Harry, that women give\nto men the very gold of their lives.\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" he sighed, \"but they invariably want it back in such very\nsmall change.  That is the worry.  Women, as some witty Frenchman once\nput it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always\nprevent us from carrying them out.\"\n\n\"Harry, you are dreadful!  I don't know why I like you so much.\"\n\n\"You will always like me, Dorian,\" he replied.  \"Will you have some\ncoffee, you fellows?  Waiter, bring coffee, and _fine-champagne_, and\nsome cigarettes.  No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some.  Basil, I\ncan't allow you to smoke cigars.  You must have a cigarette.  A\ncigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.  It is exquisite,\nand it leaves one unsatisfied.  What more can one want?  Yes, Dorian,\nyou will always be fond of me.  I represent to you all the sins you\nhave never had the courage to commit.\"\n\n\"What nonsense you talk, Harry!\" cried the lad, taking a light from a\nfire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table.\n\"Let us go down to the theatre.  When Sibyl comes on the stage you will\nhave a new ideal of life.  She will represent something to you that you\nhave never known.\"\n\n\"I have known everything,\" said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his\neyes, \"but I am always ready for a new emotion.  I am afraid, however,\nthat, for me at any rate, there is no such thing.  Still, your\nwonderful girl may thrill me.  I love acting.  It is so much more real\nthan life.  Let us go.  Dorian, you will come with me.  I am so sorry,\nBasil, but there is only room for two in the brougham.  You must follow\nus in a hansom.\"\n\nThey got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing.  The\npainter was silent and preoccupied.  There was a gloom over him.  He\ncould not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better\nthan many other things that might have happened.  After a few minutes,\nthey all passed downstairs.  He drove off by himself, as had been\narranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in\nfront of him.  A strange sense of loss came over him.  He felt that\nDorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the\npast.  Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the\ncrowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes.  When the cab drew\nup at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older.\n\n\n\n\n\nFor some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat\nJew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with\nan oily tremulous smile.  He escorted them to their box with a sort of\npompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top\nof his voice.  Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever.  He felt as if\nhe had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban.  Lord\nHenry, upon the other hand, rather liked him.  At least he declared he\ndid, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he\nwas proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone\nbankrupt over a poet.  Hallward amused himself with watching the faces\nin the pit.  The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight\nflamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire.  The youths\nin the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them\nover the side.  They talked to each other across the theatre and shared\ntheir oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them.  Some women\nwere laughing in the pit.  Their voices were horribly shrill and\ndiscordant.  The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar.\n\n\"What a place to find one's divinity in!\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"Yes!\" answered Dorian Gray.  \"It was here I found her, and she is\ndivine beyond all living things.  When she acts, you will forget\neverything.  These common rough people, with their coarse faces and\nbrutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage.  They\nsit silently and watch her.  They weep and laugh as she wills them to\ndo.  She makes them as responsive as a violin.  She spiritualizes them,\nand one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self.\"\n\n\"The same flesh and blood as one's self!  Oh, I hope not!\" exclaimed\nLord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his\nopera-glass.\n\n\"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian,\" said the painter.  \"I\nunderstand what you mean, and I believe in this girl.  Any one you love\nmust be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must\nbe fine and noble.  To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth\ndoing.  If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without\none, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have\nbeen sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and\nlend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of\nall your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world.  This\nmarriage is quite right.  I did not think so at first, but I admit it\nnow.  The gods made Sibyl Vane for you.  Without her you would have\nbeen incomplete.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Basil,\" answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand.  \"I knew that\nyou would understand me.  Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me.  But\nhere is the orchestra.  It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for\nabout five minutes.  Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl\nto whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything\nthat is good in me.\"\n\nA quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of\napplause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage.  Yes, she was certainly\nlovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought,\nthat he had ever seen.  There was something of the fawn in her shy\ngrace and startled eyes.  A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a\nmirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded\nenthusiastic house.  She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed\nto tremble.  Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud.\nMotionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her.\nLord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, \"Charming! charming!\"\n\nThe scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's\ndress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends.  The band, such\nas it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began.  Through\nthe crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a\ncreature from a finer world.  Her body swayed, while she danced, as a\nplant sways in the water.  The curves of her throat were the curves of\na white lily.  Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory.\n\nYet she was curiously listless.  She showed no sign of joy when her\neyes rested on Romeo.  The few words she had to speak--\n\n    Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\n        Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\n    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\n        And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss--\n\nwith the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly\nartificial manner.  The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view\nof tone it was absolutely false.  It was wrong in colour.  It took away\nall the life from the verse.  It made the passion unreal.\n\nDorian Gray grew pale as he watched her.  He was puzzled and anxious.\nNeither of his friends dared to say anything to him.  She seemed to\nthem to be absolutely incompetent.  They were horribly disappointed.\n\nYet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of\nthe second act.  They waited for that.  If she failed there, there was\nnothing in her.\n\nShe looked charming as she came out in the moonlight.  That could not\nbe denied.  But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew\nworse as she went on.  Her gestures became absurdly artificial.  She\noveremphasized everything that she had to say.  The beautiful passage--\n\n    Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,\n    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\n    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night--\n\nwas declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been\ntaught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she\nleaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines--\n\n        Although I joy in thee,\n    I have no joy of this contract to-night:\n    It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;\n    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\n    Ere one can say, \"It lightens.\"  Sweet, good-night!\n    This bud of love by summer's ripening breath\n    May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet--\n\nshe spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was\nnot nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely\nself-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure.\n\nEven the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their\ninterest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and\nto whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the\ndress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was\nthe girl herself.\n\nWhen the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord\nHenry got up from his chair and put on his coat.  \"She is quite\nbeautiful, Dorian,\" he said, \"but she can't act.  Let us go.\"\n\n\"I am going to see the play through,\" answered the lad, in a hard\nbitter voice.  \"I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an\nevening, Harry.  I apologize to you both.\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill,\" interrupted\nHallward.  \"We will come some other night.\"\n\n\"I wish she were ill,\" he rejoined.  \"But she seems to me to be simply\ncallous and cold.  She has entirely altered.  Last night she was a\ngreat artist.  This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre\nactress.\"\n\n\"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian.  Love is a more\nwonderful thing than art.\"\n\n\"They are both simply forms of imitation,\" remarked Lord Henry.  \"But\ndo let us go.  Dorian, you must not stay here any longer.  It is not\ngood for one's morals to see bad acting.  Besides, I don't suppose you\nwill want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet\nlike a wooden doll?  She is very lovely, and if she knows as little\nabout life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful\nexperience.  There are only two kinds of people who are really\nfascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know\nabsolutely nothing.  Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic!\nThe secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is\nunbecoming.  Come to the club with Basil and myself.  We will smoke\ncigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane.  She is beautiful.\nWhat more can you want?\"\n\n\"Go away, Harry,\" cried the lad.  \"I want to be alone.  Basil, you must\ngo.  Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?\"  The hot tears came\nto his eyes.  His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he\nleaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands.\n\n\"Let us go, Basil,\" said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his\nvoice, and the two young men passed out together.\n\nA few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose\non the third act.  Dorian Gray went back to his seat.  He looked pale,\nand proud, and indifferent.  The play dragged on, and seemed\ninterminable.  Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots\nand laughing.  The whole thing was a _fiasco_.  The last act was played\nto almost empty benches.  The curtain went down on a titter and some\ngroans.\n\nAs soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the\ngreenroom.  The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph\non her face.  Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire.  There was a\nradiance about her.  Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of\ntheir own.\n\nWhen he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy\ncame over her.  \"How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!\" she cried.\n\n\"Horribly!\" he answered, gazing at her in amazement.  \"Horribly!  It\nwas dreadful.  Are you ill?  You have no idea what it was.  You have no\nidea what I suffered.\"\n\nThe girl smiled.  \"Dorian,\" she answered, lingering over his name with\nlong-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to\nthe red petals of her mouth.  \"Dorian, you should have understood.  But\nyou understand now, don't you?\"\n\n\"Understand what?\" he asked, angrily.\n\n\"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad.  Why I shall\nnever act well again.\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.  \"You are ill, I suppose.  When you are ill\nyou shouldn't act.  You make yourself ridiculous.  My friends were\nbored.  I was bored.\"\n\nShe seemed not to listen to him.  She was transfigured with joy.  An\necstasy of happiness dominated her.\n\n\"Dorian, Dorian,\" she cried, \"before I knew you, acting was the one\nreality of my life.  It was only in the theatre that I lived.  I\nthought that it was all true.  I was Rosalind one night and Portia the\nother.  The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia\nwere mine also.  I believed in everything.  The common people who acted\nwith me seemed to me to be godlike.  The painted scenes were my world.\nI knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real.  You came--oh, my\nbeautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison.  You taught me what\nreality really is.  To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw\nthrough the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in\nwhich I had always played.  To-night, for the first time, I became\nconscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the\nmoonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and\nthat the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not\nwhat I wanted to say.  You had brought me something higher, something\nof which all art is but a reflection.  You had made me understand what\nlove really is.  My love!  My love!  Prince Charming!  Prince of life!\nI have grown sick of shadows.  You are more to me than all art can ever\nbe.  What have I to do with the puppets of a play?  When I came on\nto-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone\nfrom me.  I thought that I was going to be wonderful.  I found that I\ncould do nothing.  Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant.\nThe knowledge was exquisite to me.  I heard them hissing, and I smiled.\nWhat could they know of love such as ours?  Take me away, Dorian--take\nme away with you, where we can be quite alone.  I hate the stage.  I\nmight mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that\nburns me like fire.  Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it\nsignifies?  Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to\nplay at being in love.  You have made me see that.\"\n\nHe flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face.  \"You have\nkilled my love,\" he muttered.\n\nShe looked at him in wonder and laughed.  He made no answer.  She came\nacross to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair.  She knelt\ndown and pressed his hands to her lips.  He drew them away, and a\nshudder ran through him.\n\nThen he leaped up and went to the door.  \"Yes,\" he cried, \"you have\nkilled my love.  You used to stir my imagination.  Now you don't even\nstir my curiosity.  You simply produce no effect.  I loved you because\nyou were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you\nrealized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the\nshadows of art.  You have thrown it all away.  You are shallow and\nstupid.  My God! how mad I was to love you!  What a fool I have been!\nYou are nothing to me now.  I will never see you again.  I will never\nthink of you.  I will never mention your name.  You don't know what you\nwere to me, once.  Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it!  I\nwish I had never laid eyes upon you!  You have spoiled the romance of\nmy life.  How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art!\nWithout your art, you are nothing.  I would have made you famous,\nsplendid, magnificent.  The world would have worshipped you, and you\nwould have borne my name.  What are you now?  A third-rate actress with\na pretty face.\"\n\nThe girl grew white, and trembled.  She clenched her hands together,\nand her voice seemed to catch in her throat.  \"You are not serious,\nDorian?\" she murmured.  \"You are acting.\"\n\n\"Acting!  I leave that to you.  You do it so well,\" he answered\nbitterly.\n\nShe rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her\nface, came across the room to him.  She put her hand upon his arm and\nlooked into his eyes.  He thrust her back.  \"Don't touch me!\" he cried.\n\nA low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay\nthere like a trampled flower.  \"Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!\" she\nwhispered.  \"I am so sorry I didn't act well.  I was thinking of you\nall the time.  But I will try--indeed, I will try.  It came so suddenly\nacross me, my love for you.  I think I should never have known it if\nyou had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other.  Kiss me again,\nmy love.  Don't go away from me.  I couldn't bear it.  Oh! don't go\naway from me.  My brother ... No; never mind.  He didn't mean it.  He\nwas in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will\nwork so hard and try to improve.  Don't be cruel to me, because I love\nyou better than anything in the world.  After all, it is only once that\nI have not pleased you.  But you are quite right, Dorian.  I should\nhave shown myself more of an artist.  It was foolish of me, and yet I\ncouldn't help it.  Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me.\" A fit of\npassionate sobbing choked her.  She crouched on the floor like a\nwounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at\nher, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain.  There is\nalways something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has\nceased to love.  Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic.\nHer tears and sobs annoyed him.\n\n\"I am going,\" he said at last in his calm clear voice.  \"I don't wish\nto be unkind, but I can't see you again.  You have disappointed me.\"\n\nShe wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer.  Her little\nhands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him.  He\nturned on his heel and left the room.  In a few moments he was out of\nthe theatre.\n\nWhere he went to he hardly knew.  He remembered wandering through dimly\nlit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking\nhouses.  Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after\nhim.  Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves\nlike monstrous apes.  He had seen grotesque children huddled upon\ndoor-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts.\n\nAs the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden.\nThe darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed\nitself into a perfect pearl.  Huge carts filled with nodding lilies\nrumbled slowly down the polished empty street.  The air was heavy with\nthe perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an\nanodyne for his pain.  He followed into the market and watched the men\nunloading their waggons.  A white-smocked carter offered him some\ncherries.  He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money\nfor them, and began to eat them listlessly.  They had been plucked at\nmidnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them.  A long\nline of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red\nroses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge,\njade-green piles of vegetables.  Under the portico, with its grey,\nsun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls,\nwaiting for the auction to be over.  Others crowded round the swinging\ndoors of the coffee-house in the piazza.  The heavy cart-horses slipped\nand stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings.\nSome of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks.  Iris-necked\nand pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds.\n\nAfter a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home.  For a few\nmoments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent\nsquare, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds.\nThe sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like\nsilver against it.  From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke\nwas rising.  It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air.\n\nIn the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that\nhung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance,\nlights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals\nof flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire.  He turned them out and,\nhaving thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library\ntowards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the\nground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had\ndecorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries\nthat had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal.  As\nhe was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait\nBasil Hallward had painted of him.  He started back as if in surprise.\nThen he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled.  After he\nhad taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate.\nFinally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it.  In\nthe dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk\nblinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed.  The\nexpression looked different.  One would have said that there was a\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth.  It was certainly strange.\n\nHe turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind.  The\nbright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky\ncorners, where they lay shuddering.  But the strange expression that he\nhad noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be\nmore intensified even.  The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the\nlines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking\ninto a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.\n\nHe winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory\nCupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly\ninto its polished depths.  No line like that warped his red lips.  What\ndid it mean?\n\nHe rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it\nagain.  There were no signs of any change when he looked into the\nactual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression\nhad altered.  It was not a mere fancy of his own.  The thing was\nhorribly apparent.\n\nHe threw himself into a chair and began to think.  Suddenly there\nflashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the\nday the picture had been finished.  Yes, he remembered it perfectly.\nHe had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the\nportrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the\nface on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that\nthe painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and\nthought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness\nof his then just conscious boyhood.  Surely his wish had not been\nfulfilled?  Such things were impossible.  It seemed monstrous even to\nthink of them.  And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the\ntouch of cruelty in the mouth.\n\nCruelty!  Had he been cruel?  It was the girl's fault, not his.  He had\ndreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he\nhad thought her great.  Then she had disappointed him.  She had been\nshallow and unworthy.  And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over\nhim, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little\nchild.  He remembered with what callousness he had watched her.  Why\nhad he been made like that?  Why had such a soul been given to him?\nBut he had suffered also.  During the three terrible hours that the\nplay had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of\ntorture.  His life was well worth hers.  She had marred him for a\nmoment, if he had wounded her for an age.  Besides, women were better\nsuited to bear sorrow than men.  They lived on their emotions.  They\nonly thought of their emotions.  When they took lovers, it was merely\nto have some one with whom they could have scenes.  Lord Henry had told\nhim that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.  Why should he trouble\nabout Sibyl Vane?  She was nothing to him now.\n\nBut the picture?  What was he to say of that?  It held the secret of\nhis life, and told his story.  It had taught him to love his own\nbeauty.  Would it teach him to loathe his own soul?  Would he ever look\nat it again?\n\nNo; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses.  The\nhorrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.\nSuddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that\nmakes men mad.  The picture had not changed.  It was folly to think so.\n\nYet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel\nsmile.  Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight.  Its blue eyes\nmet his own.  A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the\npainted image of himself, came over him.  It had altered already, and\nwould alter more.  Its gold would wither into grey.  Its red and white\nroses would die.  For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck\nand wreck its fairness.  But he would not sin.  The picture, changed or\nunchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.  He would\nresist temptation.  He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at\nany rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil\nHallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for\nimpossible things.  He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends,\nmarry her, try to love her again.  Yes, it was his duty to do so.  She\nmust have suffered more than he had.  Poor child!  He had been selfish\nand cruel to her.  The fascination that she had exercised over him\nwould return.  They would be happy together.  His life with her would\nbe beautiful and pure.\n\nHe got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the\nportrait, shuddering as he glanced at it.  \"How horrible!\" he murmured\nto himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it.  When he\nstepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath.  The fresh morning\nair seemed to drive away all his sombre passions.  He thought only of\nSibyl.  A faint echo of his love came back to him.  He repeated her\nname over and over again.  The birds that were singing in the\ndew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was long past noon when he awoke.  His valet had crept several times\non tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered\nwhat made his young master sleep so late.  Finally his bell sounded,\nand Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on\na small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin\ncurtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the\nthree tall windows.\n\n\"Monsieur has well slept this morning,\" he said, smiling.\n\n\"What o'clock is it, Victor?\" asked Dorian Gray drowsily.\n\n\"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur.\"\n\nHow late it was!  He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over\nhis letters.  One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by\nhand that morning.  He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside.\nThe others he opened listlessly.  They contained the usual collection\nof cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes\nof charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable\nyoung men every morning during the season.  There was a rather heavy\nbill for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet\nhad the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely\nold-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when\nunnecessary things are our only necessities; and there were several\nvery courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders\noffering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the\nmost reasonable rates of interest.\n\nAfter about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate\ndressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the\nonyx-paved bathroom.  The cool water refreshed him after his long\nsleep.  He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through.  A\ndim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once\nor twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it.\n\nAs soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a\nlight French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round\ntable close to the open window.  It was an exquisite day.  The warm air\nseemed laden with spices.  A bee flew in and buzzed round the\nblue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before\nhim.  He felt perfectly happy.\n\nSuddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the\nportrait, and he started.\n\n\"Too cold for Monsieur?\" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the\ntable.  \"I shut the window?\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"I am not cold,\" he murmured.\n\nWas it all true?  Had the portrait really changed?  Or had it been\nsimply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where\nthere had been a look of joy?  Surely a painted canvas could not alter?\nThe thing was absurd.  It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day.\nIt would make him smile.\n\nAnd, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing!  First in\nthe dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of\ncruelty round the warped lips.  He almost dreaded his valet leaving the\nroom.  He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the\nportrait.  He was afraid of certainty.  When the coffee and cigarettes\nhad been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to\ntell him to remain.  As the door was closing behind him, he called him\nback.  The man stood waiting for his orders.  Dorian looked at him for\na moment.  \"I am not at home to any one, Victor,\" he said with a sigh.\nThe man bowed and retired.\n\nThen he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on\na luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen.  The screen\nwas an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a\nrather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern.  He scanned it curiously,\nwondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life.\n\nShould he move it aside, after all?  Why not let it stay there?  What\nwas the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible.  If it\nwas not true, why trouble about it?  But what if, by some fate or\ndeadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible\nchange?  What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at\nhis own picture?  Basil would be sure to do that.  No; the thing had to\nbe examined, and at once.  Anything would be better than this dreadful\nstate of doubt.\n\nHe got up and locked both doors.  At least he would be alone when he\nlooked upon the mask of his shame.  Then he drew the screen aside and\nsaw himself face to face.  It was perfectly true.  The portrait had\naltered.\n\nAs he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he\nfound himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost\nscientific interest.  That such a change should have taken place was\nincredible to him.  And yet it was a fact.  Was there some subtle\naffinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form\nand colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him?  Could it be\nthat what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they\nmade true?  Or was there some other, more terrible reason?  He\nshuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there,\ngazing at the picture in sickened horror.\n\nOne thing, however, he felt that it had done for him.  It had made him\nconscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane.  It was not\ntoo late to make reparation for that.  She could still be his wife.\nHis unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would\nbe transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil\nHallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would\nbe to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the\nfear of God to us all.  There were opiates for remorse, drugs that\ncould lull the moral sense to sleep.  But here was a visible symbol of\nthe degradation of sin.  Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men\nbrought upon their souls.\n\nThree o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double\nchime, but Dorian Gray did not stir.  He was trying to gather up the\nscarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his\nway through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was\nwandering.  He did not know what to do, or what to think.  Finally, he\nwent over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had\nloved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness.  He\ncovered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of\npain.  There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we\nfeel that no one else has a right to blame us.  It is the confession,\nnot the priest, that gives us absolution.  When Dorian had finished the\nletter, he felt that he had been forgiven.\n\nSuddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's\nvoice outside.  \"My dear boy, I must see you.  Let me in at once.  I\ncan't bear your shutting yourself up like this.\"\n\nHe made no answer at first, but remained quite still.  The knocking\nstill continued and grew louder.  Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry\nin, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel\nwith him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was\ninevitable.  He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture,\nand unlocked the door.\n\n\"I am so sorry for it all, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry as he entered.\n\"But you must not think too much about it.\"\n\n\"Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?\" asked the lad.\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly\npulling off his yellow gloves.  \"It is dreadful, from one point of\nview, but it was not your fault.  Tell me, did you go behind and see\nher, after the play was over?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I felt sure you had.  Did you make a scene with her?\"\n\n\"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal.  But it is all right now.  I am\nnot sorry for anything that has happened.  It has taught me to know\nmyself better.\"\n\n\"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way!  I was afraid I\nwould find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of\nyours.\"\n\n\"I have got through all that,\" said Dorian, shaking his head and\nsmiling.  \"I am perfectly happy now.  I know what conscience is, to\nbegin with.  It is not what you told me it was.  It is the divinest\nthing in us.  Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before\nme.  I want to be good.  I can't bear the idea of my soul being\nhideous.\"\n\n\"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian!  I congratulate you\non it.  But how are you going to begin?\"\n\n\"By marrying Sibyl Vane.\"\n\n\"Marrying Sibyl Vane!\" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him\nin perplexed amazement.  \"But, my dear Dorian--\"\n\n\"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say.  Something dreadful\nabout marriage.  Don't say it.  Don't ever say things of that kind to\nme again.  Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me.  I am not going to\nbreak my word to her.  She is to be my wife.\"\n\n\"Your wife!  Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter?  I wrote to you this\nmorning, and sent the note down by my own man.\"\n\n\"Your letter?  Oh, yes, I remember.  I have not read it yet, Harry.  I\nwas afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like.  You\ncut life to pieces with your epigrams.\"\n\n\"You know nothing then?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nLord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray,\ntook both his hands in his own and held them tightly.  \"Dorian,\" he\nsaid, \"my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane\nis dead.\"\n\nA cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet,\ntearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp.  \"Dead!  Sibyl dead!\nIt is not true!  It is a horrible lie!  How dare you say it?\"\n\n\"It is quite true, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, gravely.  \"It is in all\nthe morning papers.  I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one\ntill I came.  There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must\nnot be mixed up in it.  Things like that make a man fashionable in\nParis.  But in London people are so prejudiced.  Here, one should never\nmake one's _debut_ with a scandal.  One should reserve that to give an\ninterest to one's old age.  I suppose they don't know your name at the\ntheatre?  If they don't, it is all right.  Did any one see you going\nround to her room?  That is an important point.\"\n\nDorian did not answer for a few moments.  He was dazed with horror.\nFinally he stammered, in a stifled voice, \"Harry, did you say an\ninquest?  What did you mean by that?  Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't\nbear it!  But be quick.  Tell me everything at once.\"\n\n\"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put\nin that way to the public.  It seems that as she was leaving the\ntheatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had\nforgotten something upstairs.  They waited some time for her, but she\ndid not come down again.  They ultimately found her lying dead on the\nfloor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake,\nsome dreadful thing they use at theatres.  I don't know what it was,\nbut it had either prussic acid or white lead in it.  I should fancy it\nwas prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously.\"\n\n\"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!\" cried the lad.\n\n\"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed\nup in it.  I see by _The Standard_ that she was seventeen.  I should have\nthought she was almost younger than that.  She looked such a child, and\nseemed to know so little about acting.  Dorian, you mustn't let this\nthing get on your nerves.  You must come and dine with me, and\nafterwards we will look in at the opera.  It is a Patti night, and\neverybody will be there.  You can come to my sister's box.  She has got\nsome smart women with her.\"\n\n\"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane,\" said Dorian Gray, half to himself,\n\"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.\nYet the roses are not less lovely for all that.  The birds sing just as\nhappily in my garden.  And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go\non to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards.  How\nextraordinarily dramatic life is!  If I had read all this in a book,\nHarry, I think I would have wept over it.  Somehow, now that it has\nhappened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears.\nHere is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my\nlife.  Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been\naddressed to a dead girl.  Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent\npeople we call the dead?  Sibyl!  Can she feel, or know, or listen?\nOh, Harry, how I loved her once!  It seems years ago to me now.  She\nwas everything to me.  Then came that dreadful night--was it really\nonly last night?--when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke.\nShe explained it all to me.  It was terribly pathetic.  But I was not\nmoved a bit.  I thought her shallow.  Suddenly something happened that\nmade me afraid.  I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible.  I\nsaid I would go back to her.  I felt I had done wrong.  And now she is\ndead.  My God!  My God!  Harry, what shall I do?  You don't know the\ndanger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight.  She would\nhave done that for me.  She had no right to kill herself.  It was\nselfish of her.\"\n\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case\nand producing a gold-latten matchbox, \"the only way a woman can ever\nreform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible\ninterest in life.  If you had married this girl, you would have been\nwretched.  Of course, you would have treated her kindly.  One can\nalways be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.  But she would\nhave soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her.  And\nwhen a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes\ndreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's\nhusband has to pay for.  I say nothing about the social mistake, which\nwould have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but\nI assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an\nabsolute failure.\"\n\n\"I suppose it would,\" muttered the lad, walking up and down the room\nand looking horribly pale.  \"But I thought it was my duty.  It is not\nmy fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was\nright.  I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good\nresolutions--that they are always made too late.  Mine certainly were.\"\n\n\"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific\nlaws.  Their origin is pure vanity.  Their result is absolutely _nil_.\nThey give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions\nthat have a certain charm for the weak.  That is all that can be said\nfor them.  They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they\nhave no account.\"\n\n\"Harry,\" cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him,\n\"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to?  I\ndon't think I am heartless.  Do you?\"\n\n\"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be\nentitled to give yourself that name, Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry with\nhis sweet melancholy smile.\n\nThe lad frowned.  \"I don't like that explanation, Harry,\" he rejoined,\n\"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless.  I am nothing of the\nkind.  I know I am not.  And yet I must admit that this thing that has\nhappened does not affect me as it should.  It seems to me to be simply\nlike a wonderful ending to a wonderful play.  It has all the terrible\nbeauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but\nby which I have not been wounded.\"\n\n\"It is an interesting question,\" said Lord Henry, who found an\nexquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, \"an\nextremely interesting question.  I fancy that the true explanation is\nthis:  It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such\nan inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their\nabsolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack\nof style.  They affect us just as vulgarity affects us.  They give us\nan impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.\nSometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of\nbeauty crosses our lives.  If these elements of beauty are real, the\nwhole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect.  Suddenly\nwe find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the\nplay.  Or rather we are both.  We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder\nof the spectacle enthralls us.  In the present case, what is it that\nhas really happened?  Some one has killed herself for love of you.  I\nwish that I had ever had such an experience.  It would have made me in\nlove with love for the rest of my life.  The people who have adored\nme--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have\nalways insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them,\nor they to care for me.  They have become stout and tedious, and when I\nmeet them, they go in at once for reminiscences.  That awful memory of\nwoman!  What a fearful thing it is!  And what an utter intellectual\nstagnation it reveals!  One should absorb the colour of life, but one\nshould never remember its details.  Details are always vulgar.\"\n\n\"I must sow poppies in my garden,\" sighed Dorian.\n\n\"There is no necessity,\" rejoined his companion.  \"Life has always\npoppies in her hands.  Of course, now and then things linger.  I once\nwore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic\nmourning for a romance that would not die.  Ultimately, however, it did\ndie.  I forget what killed it.  I think it was her proposing to\nsacrifice the whole world for me.  That is always a dreadful moment.\nIt fills one with the terror of eternity.  Well--would you believe\nit?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner\nnext the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole\nthing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future.  I had\nburied my romance in a bed of asphodel.  She dragged it out again and\nassured me that I had spoiled her life.  I am bound to state that she\nate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety.  But what a lack\nof taste she showed!  The one charm of the past is that it is the past.\nBut women never know when the curtain has fallen.  They always want a\nsixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over,\nthey propose to continue it.  If they were allowed their own way, every\ncomedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in\na farce.  They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of\nart.  You are more fortunate than I am.  I assure you, Dorian, that not\none of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane\ndid for you.  Ordinary women always console themselves.  Some of them\ndo it by going in for sentimental colours.  Never trust a woman who\nwears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who\nis fond of pink ribbons.  It always means that they have a history.\nOthers find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good\nqualities of their husbands.  They flaunt their conjugal felicity in\none's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.  Religion\nconsoles some.  Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a\nwoman once told me, and I can quite understand it.  Besides, nothing\nmakes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.  Conscience makes\negotists of us all.  Yes; there is really no end to the consolations\nthat women find in modern life.  Indeed, I have not mentioned the most\nimportant one.\"\n\n\"What is that, Harry?\" said the lad listlessly.\n\n\"Oh, the obvious consolation.  Taking some one else's admirer when one\nloses one's own.  In good society that always whitewashes a woman.  But\nreally, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the\nwomen one meets!  There is something to me quite beautiful about her\ndeath.  I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen.\nThey make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with,\nsuch as romance, passion, and love.\"\n\n\"I was terribly cruel to her.  You forget that.\"\n\n\"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more\nthan anything else.  They have wonderfully primitive instincts.  We\nhave emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their\nmasters, all the same.  They love being dominated.  I am sure you were\nsplendid.  I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can\nfancy how delightful you looked.  And, after all, you said something to\nme the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely\nfanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key\nto everything.\"\n\n\"What was that, Harry?\"\n\n\"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of\nromance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that\nif she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.\"\n\n\"She will never come to life again now,\" muttered the lad, burying his\nface in his hands.\n\n\"No, she will never come to life.  She has played her last part.  But\nyou must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply\nas a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful\nscene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur.  The girl never really\nlived, and so she has never really died.  To you at least she was\nalways a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and\nleft them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's\nmusic sounded richer and more full of joy.  The moment she touched\nactual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away.\nMourn for Ophelia, if you like.  Put ashes on your head because\nCordelia was strangled.  Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of\nBrabantio died.  But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane.  She was\nless real than they are.\"\n\nThere was a silence.  The evening darkened in the room.  Noiselessly,\nand with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden.  The\ncolours faded wearily out of things.\n\nAfter some time Dorian Gray looked up.  \"You have explained me to\nmyself, Harry,\" he murmured with something of a sigh of relief.  \"I\nfelt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I\ncould not express it to myself.  How well you know me!  But we will not\ntalk again of what has happened.  It has been a marvellous experience.\nThat is all.  I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as\nmarvellous.\"\n\n\"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian.  There is nothing that\nyou, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do.\"\n\n\"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled?  What\nthen?\"\n\n\"Ah, then,\" said Lord Henry, rising to go, \"then, my dear Dorian, you\nwould have to fight for your victories.  As it is, they are brought to\nyou.  No, you must keep your good looks.  We live in an age that reads\ntoo much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.  We\ncannot spare you.  And now you had better dress and drive down to the\nclub.  We are rather late, as it is.\"\n\n\"I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry.  I feel too tired to eat\nanything.  What is the number of your sister's box?\"\n\n\"Twenty-seven, I believe.  It is on the grand tier.  You will see her\nname on the door.  But I am sorry you won't come and dine.\"\n\n\"I don't feel up to it,\" said Dorian listlessly.  \"But I am awfully\nobliged to you for all that you have said to me.  You are certainly my\nbest friend.  No one has ever understood me as you have.\"\n\n\"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian,\" answered Lord\nHenry, shaking him by the hand.  \"Good-bye. I shall see you before\nnine-thirty, I hope.  Remember, Patti is singing.\"\n\nAs he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in\na few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down.\nHe waited impatiently for him to go.  The man seemed to take an\ninterminable time over everything.\n\nAs soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back.  No;\nthere was no further change in the picture.  It had received the news\nof Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself.  It was\nconscious of the events of life as they occurred.  The vicious cruelty\nthat marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the\nvery moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was.  Or\nwas it indifferent to results?  Did it merely take cognizance of what\npassed within the soul?  He wondered, and hoped that some day he would\nsee the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he\nhoped it.\n\nPoor Sibyl!  What a romance it had all been!  She had often mimicked\ndeath on the stage.  Then Death himself had touched her and taken her\nwith him.  How had she played that dreadful last scene?  Had she cursed\nhim, as she died?  No; she had died for love of him, and love would\nalways be a sacrament to him now.  She had atoned for everything by the\nsacrifice she had made of her life.  He would not think any more of\nwhat she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the\ntheatre.  When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic\nfigure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of\nlove.  A wonderful tragic figure?  Tears came to his eyes as he\nremembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy\ntremulous grace.  He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the\npicture.\n\nHe felt that the time had really come for making his choice.  Or had\nhis choice already been made?  Yes, life had decided that for\nhim--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life.  Eternal youth,\ninfinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder\nsins--he was to have all these things.  The portrait was to bear the\nburden of his shame: that was all.\n\nA feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that\nwas in store for the fair face on the canvas.  Once, in boyish mockery\nof Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips\nthat now smiled so cruelly at him.  Morning after morning he had sat\nbefore the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as\nit seemed to him at times.  Was it to alter now with every mood to\nwhich he yielded?  Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to\nbe hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that\nhad so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair?\nThe pity of it! the pity of it!\n\nFor a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that\nexisted between him and the picture might cease.  It had changed in\nanswer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain\nunchanged.  And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would\nsurrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that\nchance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught?\nBesides, was it really under his control?  Had it indeed been prayer\nthat had produced the substitution?  Might there not be some curious\nscientific reason for it all?  If thought could exercise its influence\nupon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon\ndead and inorganic things?  Nay, without thought or conscious desire,\nmight not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods\nand passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity?\nBut the reason was of no importance.  He would never again tempt by a\nprayer any terrible power.  If the picture was to alter, it was to\nalter.  That was all.  Why inquire too closely into it?\n\nFor there would be a real pleasure in watching it.  He would be able to\nfollow his mind into its secret places.  This portrait would be to him\nthe most magical of mirrors.  As it had revealed to him his own body,\nso it would reveal to him his own soul.  And when winter came upon it,\nhe would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of\nsummer.  When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid\nmask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood.\nNot one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade.  Not one pulse of\nhis life would ever weaken.  Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be\nstrong, and fleet, and joyous.  What did it matter what happened to the\ncoloured image on the canvas?  He would be safe.  That was everything.\n\nHe drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture,\nsmiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was\nalready waiting for him.  An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord\nHenry was leaning over his chair.\n\n\n\n\n\nAs he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown\ninto the room.\n\n\"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian,\" he said gravely.  \"I called\nlast night, and they told me you were at the opera.  Of course, I knew\nthat was impossible.  But I wish you had left word where you had really\ngone to.  I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy\nmight be followed by another.  I think you might have telegraphed for\nme when you heard of it first.  I read of it quite by chance in a late\nedition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club.  I came here at once\nand was miserable at not finding you.  I can't tell you how\nheart-broken I am about the whole thing.  I know what you must suffer.\nBut where were you?  Did you go down and see the girl's mother?  For a\nmoment I thought of following you there.  They gave the address in the\npaper.  Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it?  But I was afraid of\nintruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten.  Poor woman!  What a\nstate she must be in!  And her only child, too!  What did she say about\nit all?\"\n\n\"My dear Basil, how do I know?\" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some\npale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass\nand looking dreadfully bored.  \"I was at the opera.  You should have\ncome on there.  I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first\ntime.  We were in her box.  She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang\ndivinely.  Don't talk about horrid subjects.  If one doesn't talk about\na thing, it has never happened.  It is simply expression, as Harry\nsays, that gives reality to things.  I may mention that she was not the\nwoman's only child.  There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe.  But\nhe is not on the stage.  He is a sailor, or something.  And now, tell\nme about yourself and what you are painting.\"\n\n\"You went to the opera?\" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a\nstrained touch of pain in his voice.  \"You went to the opera while\nSibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging?  You can talk to me\nof other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before\nthe girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in?  Why,\nman, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!\"\n\n\"Stop, Basil!  I won't hear it!\" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.\n\"You must not tell me about things.  What is done is done.  What is\npast is past.\"\n\n\"You call yesterday the past?\"\n\n\"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it?  It is only\nshallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion.  A man who\nis master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a\npleasure.  I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions.  I want to\nuse them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.\"\n\n\"Dorian, this is horrible!  Something has changed you completely.  You\nlook exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come\ndown to my studio to sit for his picture.  But you were simple,\nnatural, and affectionate then.  You were the most unspoiled creature\nin the whole world.  Now, I don't know what has come over you.  You\ntalk as if you had no heart, no pity in you.  It is all Harry's\ninfluence.  I see that.\"\n\nThe lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few\nmoments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden.  \"I owe a great\ndeal to Harry, Basil,\" he said at last, \"more than I owe to you.  You\nonly taught me to be vain.\"\n\n\"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day.\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean, Basil,\" he exclaimed, turning round.  \"I\ndon't know what you want.  What do you want?\"\n\n\"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint,\" said the artist sadly.\n\n\"Basil,\" said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his\nshoulder, \"you have come too late.  Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl\nVane had killed herself--\"\n\n\"Killed herself!  Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?\" cried\nHallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror.\n\n\"My dear Basil!  Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident?  Of\ncourse she killed herself.\"\n\nThe elder man buried his face in his hands.  \"How fearful,\" he\nmuttered, and a shudder ran through him.\n\n\"No,\" said Dorian Gray, \"there is nothing fearful about it.  It is one\nof the great romantic tragedies of the age.  As a rule, people who act\nlead the most commonplace lives.  They are good husbands, or faithful\nwives, or something tedious.  You know what I mean--middle-class virtue\nand all that kind of thing.  How different Sibyl was!  She lived her\nfinest tragedy.  She was always a heroine.  The last night she\nplayed--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known\nthe reality of love.  When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet\nmight have died.  She passed again into the sphere of art.  There is\nsomething of the martyr about her.  Her death has all the pathetic\nuselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty.  But, as I was saying,\nyou must not think I have not suffered.  If you had come in yesterday\nat a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to\nsix--you would have found me in tears.  Even Harry, who was here, who\nbrought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through.  I\nsuffered immensely.  Then it passed away.  I cannot repeat an emotion.\nNo one can, except sentimentalists.  And you are awfully unjust, Basil.\nYou come down here to console me.  That is charming of you.  You find\nme consoled, and you are furious.  How like a sympathetic person!  You\nremind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who\nspent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance\nredressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was.\nFinally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment.  He\nhad absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a\nconfirmed misanthrope.  And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really\nwant to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to\nsee it from a proper artistic point of view.  Was it not Gautier who\nused to write about _la consolation des arts_?  I remember picking up a\nlittle vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that\ndelightful phrase.  Well, I am not like that young man you told me of\nwhen we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say\nthat yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life.  I\nlove beautiful things that one can touch and handle.  Old brocades,\ngreen bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings,\nluxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these.  But the artistic\ntemperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to\nme.  To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to\nescape the suffering of life.  I know you are surprised at my talking\nto you like this.  You have not realized how I have developed.  I was a\nschoolboy when you knew me.  I am a man now.  I have new passions, new\nthoughts, new ideas.  I am different, but you must not like me less.  I\nam changed, but you must always be my friend.  Of course, I am very\nfond of Harry.  But I know that you are better than he is.  You are not\nstronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better.  And how\nhappy we used to be together!  Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel\nwith me.  I am what I am.  There is nothing more to be said.\"\n\nThe painter felt strangely moved.  The lad was infinitely dear to him,\nand his personality had been the great turning point in his art.  He\ncould not bear the idea of reproaching him any more.  After all, his\nindifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away.  There\nwas so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble.\n\n\"Well, Dorian,\" he said at length, with a sad smile, \"I won't speak to\nyou again about this horrible thing, after to-day.  I only trust your\nname won't be mentioned in connection with it.  The inquest is to take\nplace this afternoon.  Have they summoned you?\"\n\nDorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at\nthe mention of the word \"inquest.\"  There was something so crude and\nvulgar about everything of the kind.  \"They don't know my name,\" he\nanswered.\n\n\"But surely she did?\"\n\n\"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned\nto any one.  She told me once that they were all rather curious to\nlearn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince\nCharming.  It was pretty of her.  You must do me a drawing of Sibyl,\nBasil.  I should like to have something more of her than the memory of\na few kisses and some broken pathetic words.\"\n\n\"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you.  But you\nmust come and sit to me yourself again.  I can't get on without you.\"\n\n\"I can never sit to you again, Basil.  It is impossible!\" he exclaimed,\nstarting back.\n\nThe painter stared at him.  \"My dear boy, what nonsense!\" he cried.\n\"Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you?  Where is it?\nWhy have you pulled the screen in front of it?  Let me look at it.  It\nis the best thing I have ever done.  Do take the screen away, Dorian.\nIt is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that.  I\nfelt the room looked different as I came in.\"\n\n\"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil.  You don't imagine I let\nhim arrange my room for me?  He settles my flowers for me\nsometimes--that is all.  No; I did it myself.  The light was too strong\non the portrait.\"\n\n\"Too strong!  Surely not, my dear fellow?  It is an admirable place for\nit.  Let me see it.\"  And Hallward walked towards the corner of the\nroom.\n\nA cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between\nthe painter and the screen.  \"Basil,\" he said, looking very pale, \"you\nmust not look at it.  I don't wish you to.\"\n\n\"Not look at my own work!  You are not serious.  Why shouldn't I look\nat it?\" exclaimed Hallward, laughing.\n\n\"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never\nspeak to you again as long as I live.  I am quite serious.  I don't\noffer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any.  But, remember,\nif you touch this screen, everything is over between us.\"\n\nHallward was thunderstruck.  He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute\namazement.  He had never seen him like this before.  The lad was\nactually pallid with rage.  His hands were clenched, and the pupils of\nhis eyes were like disks of blue fire.  He was trembling all over.\n\n\"Dorian!\"\n\n\"Don't speak!\"\n\n\"But what is the matter?  Of course I won't look at it if you don't\nwant me to,\" he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over\ntowards the window.  \"But, really, it seems rather absurd that I\nshouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in\nParis in the autumn.  I shall probably have to give it another coat of\nvarnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?\"\n\n\"To exhibit it!  You want to exhibit it?\" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a\nstrange sense of terror creeping over him.  Was the world going to be\nshown his secret?  Were people to gape at the mystery of his life?\nThat was impossible.  Something--he did not know what--had to be done\nat once.\n\n\"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that.  Georges Petit is going\nto collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de\nSeze, which will open the first week in October.  The portrait will\nonly be away a month.  I should think you could easily spare it for\nthat time.  In fact, you are sure to be out of town.  And if you keep\nit always behind a screen, you can't care much about it.\"\n\nDorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead.  There were beads of\nperspiration there.  He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible\ndanger.  \"You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it,\" he\ncried.  \"Why have you changed your mind?  You people who go in for\nbeing consistent have just as many moods as others have.  The only\ndifference is that your moods are rather meaningless.  You can't have\nforgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world\nwould induce you to send it to any exhibition.  You told Harry exactly\nthe same thing.\" He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into\nhis eyes.  He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half\nseriously and half in jest, \"If you want to have a strange quarter of\nan hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture.  He\ntold me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me.\"  Yes, perhaps\nBasil, too, had his secret.  He would ask him and try.\n\n\"Basil,\" he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in\nthe face, \"we have each of us a secret.  Let me know yours, and I shall\ntell you mine.  What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my\npicture?\"\n\nThe painter shuddered in spite of himself.  \"Dorian, if I told you, you\nmight like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me.  I\ncould not bear your doing either of those two things.  If you wish me\nnever to look at your picture again, I am content.  I have always you\nto look at.  If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden\nfrom the world, I am satisfied.  Your friendship is dearer to me than\nany fame or reputation.\"\n\n\"No, Basil, you must tell me,\" insisted Dorian Gray.  \"I think I have a\nright to know.\"  His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity\nhad taken its place.  He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's\nmystery.\n\n\"Let us sit down, Dorian,\" said the painter, looking troubled.  \"Let us\nsit down.  And just answer me one question.  Have you noticed in the\npicture something curious?--something that probably at first did not\nstrike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?\"\n\n\"Basil!\" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling\nhands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes.\n\n\"I see you did.  Don't speak.  Wait till you hear what I have to say.\nDorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most\nextraordinary influence over me.  I was dominated, soul, brain, and\npower, by you.  You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen\nideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream.  I\nworshipped you.  I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke.  I\nwanted to have you all to myself.  I was only happy when I was with\nyou.  When you were away from me, you were still present in my art....\nOf course, I never let you know anything about this.  It would have\nbeen impossible.  You would not have understood it.  I hardly\nunderstood it myself.  I only knew that I had seen perfection face to\nface, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too\nwonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril\nof losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them....  Weeks and\nweeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you.  Then came a\nnew development.  I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as\nAdonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with\nheavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing\nacross the green turbid Nile.  You had leaned over the still pool of\nsome Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of\nyour own face.  And it had all been what art should be--unconscious,\nideal, and remote.  One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I\ndetermined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are,\nnot in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own\ntime.  Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of\nyour own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or\nveil, I cannot tell.  But I know that as I worked at it, every flake\nand film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret.  I grew afraid\nthat others would know of my idolatry.  I felt, Dorian, that I had told\ntoo much, that I had put too much of myself into it.  Then it was that\nI resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited.  You were a\nlittle annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me.\nHarry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me.  But I did not mind\nthat.  When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt\nthat I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio,\nand as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its\npresence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I\nhad seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking\nand that I could paint.  Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a\nmistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really\nshown in the work one creates.  Art is always more abstract than we\nfancy.  Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all.  It\noften seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than\nit ever reveals him.  And so when I got this offer from Paris, I\ndetermined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.\nIt never occurred to me that you would refuse.  I see now that you were\nright.  The picture cannot be shown.  You must not be angry with me,\nDorian, for what I have told you.  As I said to Harry, once, you are\nmade to be worshipped.\"\n\nDorian Gray drew a long breath.  The colour came back to his cheeks,\nand a smile played about his lips.  The peril was over.  He was safe\nfor the time.  Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the\npainter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered\nif he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a\nfriend.  Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous.  But that\nwas all.  He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of.\nWould there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange\nidolatry?  Was that one of the things that life had in store?\n\n\"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian,\" said Hallward, \"that you should\nhave seen this in the portrait.  Did you really see it?\"\n\n\"I saw something in it,\" he answered, \"something that seemed to me very\ncurious.\"\n\n\"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"You must not ask me that, Basil.  I could not\npossibly let you stand in front of that picture.\"\n\n\"You will some day, surely?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps you are right.  And now good-bye, Dorian.  You have been\nthe one person in my life who has really influenced my art.  Whatever I\nhave done that is good, I owe to you.  Ah! you don't know what it cost\nme to tell you all that I have told you.\"\n\n\"My dear Basil,\" said Dorian, \"what have you told me?  Simply that you\nfelt that you admired me too much.  That is not even a compliment.\"\n\n\"It was not intended as a compliment.  It was a confession.  Now that I\nhave made it, something seems to have gone out of me.  Perhaps one\nshould never put one's worship into words.\"\n\n\"It was a very disappointing confession.\"\n\n\"Why, what did you expect, Dorian?  You didn't see anything else in the\npicture, did you?  There was nothing else to see?\"\n\n\"No; there was nothing else to see.  Why do you ask?  But you mustn't\ntalk about worship.  It is foolish.  You and I are friends, Basil, and\nwe must always remain so.\"\n\n\"You have got Harry,\" said the painter sadly.\n\n\"Oh, Harry!\" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter.  \"Harry spends\nhis days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is\nimprobable.  Just the sort of life I would like to lead.  But still I\ndon't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble.  I would sooner\ngo to you, Basil.\"\n\n\"You will sit to me again?\"\n\n\"Impossible!\"\n\n\"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian.  No man comes\nacross two ideal things.  Few come across one.\"\n\n\"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again.\nThere is something fatal about a portrait.  It has a life of its own.\nI will come and have tea with you.  That will be just as pleasant.\"\n\n\"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid,\" murmured Hallward regretfully.  \"And\nnow good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once\nagain.  But that can't be helped.  I quite understand what you feel\nabout it.\"\n\nAs he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself.  Poor Basil!  How\nlittle he knew of the true reason!  And how strange it was that,\ninstead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had\nsucceeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend!  How\nmuch that strange confession explained to him!  The painter's absurd\nfits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his\ncurious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry.\nThere seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured\nby romance.\n\nHe sighed and touched the bell.  The portrait must be hidden away at\nall costs.  He could not run such a risk of discovery again.  It had\nbeen mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour,\nin a room to which any of his friends had access.\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if\nhe had thought of peering behind the screen.  The man was quite\nimpassive and waited for his orders.  Dorian lit a cigarette and walked\nover to the glass and glanced into it.  He could see the reflection of\nVictor's face perfectly.  It was like a placid mask of servility.\nThere was nothing to be afraid of, there.  Yet he thought it best to be\non his guard.\n\nSpeaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he\nwanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to\nsend two of his men round at once.  It seemed to him that as the man\nleft the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen.  Or was\nthat merely his own fancy?\n\nAfter a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread\nmittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library.  He\nasked her for the key of the schoolroom.\n\n\"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?\" she exclaimed.  \"Why, it is full of\ndust.  I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it.\nIt is not fit for you to see, sir.  It is not, indeed.\"\n\n\"I don't want it put straight, Leaf.  I only want the key.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it.  Why, it\nhasn't been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died.\"\n\nHe winced at the mention of his grandfather.  He had hateful memories\nof him.  \"That does not matter,\" he answered.  \"I simply want to see\nthe place--that is all.  Give me the key.\"\n\n\"And here is the key, sir,\" said the old lady, going over the contents\nof her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands.  \"Here is the key.  I'll\nhave it off the bunch in a moment.  But you don't think of living up\nthere, sir, and you so comfortable here?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" he cried petulantly.  \"Thank you, Leaf.  That will do.\"\n\nShe lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of\nthe household.  He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought\nbest.  She left the room, wreathed in smiles.\n\nAs the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round\nthe room.  His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily\nembroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century\nVenetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna.\nYes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in.  It had perhaps\nserved often as a pall for the dead.  Now it was to hide something that\nhad a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death\nitself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die.\nWhat the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image\non the canvas.  They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace.  They\nwould defile it and make it shameful.  And yet the thing would still\nlive on.  It would be always alive.\n\nHe shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil\nthe true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away.  Basil\nwould have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still\nmore poisonous influences that came from his own temperament.  The love\nthat he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was\nnot noble and intellectual.  It was not that mere physical admiration\nof beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses\ntire.  It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and\nWinckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.  Yes, Basil could have saved him.\nBut it was too late now.  The past could always be annihilated.\nRegret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that.  But the future was\ninevitable.  There were passions in him that would find their terrible\noutlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real.\n\nHe took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that\ncovered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen.\nWas the face on the canvas viler than before?  It seemed to him that it\nwas unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified.  Gold hair,\nblue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there.  It was simply the\nexpression that had altered.  That was horrible in its cruelty.\nCompared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's\nreproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--how shallow, and of what little\naccount!  His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and\ncalling him to judgement.  A look of pain came across him, and he flung\nthe rich pall over the picture.  As he did so, a knock came to the\ndoor.  He passed out as his servant entered.\n\n\"The persons are here, Monsieur.\"\n\nHe felt that the man must be got rid of at once.  He must not be\nallowed to know where the picture was being taken to.  There was\nsomething sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes.\nSitting down at the writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry,\nasking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that\nthey were to meet at eight-fifteen that evening.\n\n\"Wait for an answer,\" he said, handing it to him, \"and show the men in\nhere.\"\n\nIn two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard\nhimself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in\nwith a somewhat rough-looking young assistant.  Mr. Hubbard was a\nflorid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was\nconsiderably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the\nartists who dealt with him.  As a rule, he never left his shop.  He\nwaited for people to come to him.  But he always made an exception in\nfavour of Dorian Gray.  There was something about Dorian that charmed\neverybody.  It was a pleasure even to see him.\n\n\"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?\" he said, rubbing his fat freckled\nhands.  \"I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in\nperson.  I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir.  Picked it up at a\nsale.  Old Florentine.  Came from Fonthill, I believe.  Admirably\nsuited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray.\"\n\n\"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr.\nHubbard.  I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame--though I\ndon't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day I only want a\npicture carried to the top of the house for me.  It is rather heavy, so\nI thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men.\"\n\n\"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray.  I am delighted to be of any service to\nyou.  Which is the work of art, sir?\"\n\n\"This,\" replied Dorian, moving the screen back.  \"Can you move it,\ncovering and all, just as it is?  I don't want it to get scratched\ngoing upstairs.\"\n\n\"There will be no difficulty, sir,\" said the genial frame-maker,\nbeginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from\nthe long brass chains by which it was suspended.  \"And, now, where\nshall we carry it to, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me.\nOr perhaps you had better go in front.  I am afraid it is right at the\ntop of the house.  We will go up by the front staircase, as it is\nwider.\"\n\nHe held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and\nbegan the ascent.  The elaborate character of the frame had made the\npicture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious\nprotests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike\nof seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it\nso as to help them.\n\n\"Something of a load to carry, sir,\" gasped the little man when they\nreached the top landing.  And he wiped his shiny forehead.\n\n\"I am afraid it is rather heavy,\" murmured Dorian as he unlocked the\ndoor that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious\nsecret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men.\n\nHe had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed,\nsince he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then\nas a study when he grew somewhat older.  It was a large,\nwell-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord\nKelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness\nto his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and\ndesired to keep at a distance.  It appeared to Dorian to have but\nlittle changed.  There was the huge Italian _cassone_, with its\nfantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which\nhe had so often hidden himself as a boy.  There the satinwood book-case\nfilled with his dog-eared schoolbooks.  On the wall behind it was\nhanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen\nwere playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by,\ncarrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists.  How well he\nremembered it all!  Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to\nhim as he looked round.  He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish\nlife, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait\nwas to be hidden away.  How little he had thought, in those dead days,\nof all that was in store for him!\n\nBut there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as\nthis.  He had the key, and no one else could enter it.  Beneath its\npurple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden,\nand unclean.  What did it matter?  No one could see it.  He himself\nwould not see it.  Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his\nsoul?  He kept his youth--that was enough.  And, besides, might not\nhis nature grow finer, after all?  There was no reason that the future\nshould be so full of shame.  Some love might come across his life, and\npurify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already\nstirring in spirit and in flesh--those curious unpictured sins whose\nvery mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm.  Perhaps, some\nday, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive\nmouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece.\n\nNo; that was impossible.  Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing\nupon the canvas was growing old.  It might escape the hideousness of\nsin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it.  The cheeks would\nbecome hollow or flaccid.  Yellow crow's feet would creep round the\nfading eyes and make them horrible.  The hair would lose its\nbrightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross,\nas the mouths of old men are.  There would be the wrinkled throat, the\ncold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the\ngrandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood.  The picture\nhad to be concealed.  There was no help for it.\n\n\"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please,\" he said, wearily, turning round.\n\"I am sorry I kept you so long.  I was thinking of something else.\"\n\n\"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray,\" answered the frame-maker, who\nwas still gasping for breath.  \"Where shall we put it, sir?\"\n\n\"Oh, anywhere.  Here:  this will do.  I don't want to have it hung up.\nJust lean it against the wall.  Thanks.\"\n\n\"Might one look at the work of art, sir?\"\n\nDorian started.  \"It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard,\" he said,\nkeeping his eye on the man.  He felt ready to leap upon him and fling\nhim to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that\nconcealed the secret of his life.  \"I shan't trouble you any more now.\nI am much obliged for your kindness in coming round.\"\n\n\"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray.  Ever ready to do anything for you,\nsir.\" And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant,\nwho glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough\nuncomely face.  He had never seen any one so marvellous.\n\nWhen the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door\nand put the key in his pocket.  He felt safe now.  No one would ever\nlook upon the horrible thing.  No eye but his would ever see his shame.\n\nOn reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock\nand that the tea had been already brought up.  On a little table of\ndark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady\nRadley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had\nspent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry,\nand beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn\nand the edges soiled.  A copy of the third edition of _The St. James's\nGazette_ had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had\nreturned.  He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were\nleaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing.\nHe would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed it already,\nwhile he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set\nback, and a blank space was visible on the wall.  Perhaps some night he\nmight find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the\nroom.  It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house.  He had\nheard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some\nservant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked\nup a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower\nor a shred of crumpled lace.\n\nHe sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's\nnote.  It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper,\nand a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at\neight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James's_ languidly, and looked through\nit.  A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye.  It drew\nattention to the following paragraph:\n\n\nINQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell\nTavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of\nSibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre,\nHolborn.  A verdict of death by misadventure was returned.\nConsiderable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who\nwas greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of\nDr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased.\n\n\nHe frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and\nflung the pieces away.  How ugly it all was!  And how horribly real\nugliness made things!  He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for\nhaving sent him the report.  And it was certainly stupid of him to have\nmarked it with red pencil.  Victor might have read it.  The man knew\nmore than enough English for that.\n\nPerhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something.  And, yet,\nwhat did it matter?  What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's\ndeath?  There was nothing to fear.  Dorian Gray had not killed her.\n\nHis eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him.  What was\nit, he wondered.  He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal\nstand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange\nEgyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung\nhimself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves.  After a\nfew minutes he became absorbed.  It was the strangest book that he had\never read.  It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the\ndelicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb\nshow before him.  Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly\nmade real to him.  Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually\nrevealed.\n\nIt was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being,\nindeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who\nspent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the\npassions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his\nown, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through\nwhich the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere\nartificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue,\nas much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.  The\nstyle in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid\nand obscure at once, full of _argot_ and of archaisms, of technical\nexpressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work\nof some of the finest artists of the French school of _Symbolistes_.\nThere were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in\ncolour.  The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical\nphilosophy.  One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the\nspiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions\nof a modern sinner.  It was a poisonous book.  The heavy odour of\nincense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain.  The\nmere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so\nfull as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated,\nproduced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter,\na form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of\nthe falling day and creeping shadows.\n\nCloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed\nthrough the windows.  He read on by its wan light till he could read no\nmore.  Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the\nlateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed\nthe book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his\nbedside and began to dress for dinner.\n\nIt was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found\nLord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.\n\n\"I am so sorry, Harry,\" he cried, \"but really it is entirely your\nfault.  That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the\ntime was going.\"\n\n\"Yes, I thought you would like it,\" replied his host, rising from his\nchair.\n\n\"I didn't say I liked it, Harry.  I said it fascinated me.  There is a\ngreat difference.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have discovered that?\" murmured Lord Henry.  And they passed\ninto the dining-room.\n\n\n\n\n\nFor years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of\nthis book.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never\nsought to free himself from it.  He procured from Paris no less than\nnine large-paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in\ndifferent colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the\nchanging fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have\nalmost entirely lost control.  The hero, the wonderful young Parisian\nin whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely\nblended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself.  And,\nindeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own\nlife, written before he had lived it.\n\nIn one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero.  He\nnever knew--never, indeed, had any cause to know--that somewhat\ngrotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still\nwater which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, and was\noccasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, apparently,\nbeen so remarkable.  It was with an almost cruel joy--and perhaps in\nnearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its\nplace--that he used to read the latter part of the book, with its\nreally tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow and\ndespair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, he\nhad most dearly valued.\n\nFor the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and\nmany others besides him, seemed never to leave him.  Even those who had\nheard the most evil things against him--and from time to time strange\nrumours about his mode of life crept through London and became the\nchatter of the clubs--could not believe anything to his dishonour when\nthey saw him.  He had always the look of one who had kept himself\nunspotted from the world.  Men who talked grossly became silent when\nDorian Gray entered the room.  There was something in the purity of his\nface that rebuked them.  His mere presence seemed to recall to them the\nmemory of the innocence that they had tarnished.  They wondered how one\nso charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an\nage that was at once sordid and sensual.\n\nOften, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged\nabsences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were\nhis friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep\nupstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left\nhim now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil\nHallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on\nthe canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him\nfrom the polished glass.  The very sharpness of the contrast used to\nquicken his sense of pleasure.  He grew more and more enamoured of his\nown beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul.\nHe would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and\nterrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead\nor crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which\nwere the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age.  He would\nplace his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture,\nand smile.  He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs.\n\nThere were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own\ndelicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little\nill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in\ndisguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he\nhad brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant\nbecause it was purely selfish.  But moments such as these were rare.\nThat curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as\nthey sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase\nwith gratification.  The more he knew, the more he desired to know.  He\nhad mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them.\n\nYet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to\nsociety.  Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each\nWednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the\nworld his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the\nday to charm his guests with the wonders of their art.  His little\ndinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were\nnoted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited,\nas for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with\nits subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered\ncloths, and antique plate of gold and silver.  Indeed, there were many,\nespecially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw,\nin Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often\ndreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of\nthe real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and\nperfect manner of a citizen of the world.  To them he seemed to be of\nthe company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to \"make\nthemselves perfect by the worship of beauty.\"  Like Gautier, he was one\nfor whom \"the visible world existed.\"\n\nAnd, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the\narts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation.\nFashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment\nuniversal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert\nthe absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for\nhim.  His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to\ntime he affected, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of\nthe Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in\neverything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of\nhis graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies.\n\nFor, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost\nimmediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a\nsubtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the\nLondon of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the\nSatyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be\nsomething more than a mere _arbiter elegantiarum_, to be consulted on the\nwearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a\ncane.  He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have\nits reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the\nspiritualizing of the senses its highest realization.\n\nThe worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been\ndecried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions and\nsensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are\nconscious of sharing with the less highly organized forms of existence.\nBut it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had\nnever been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal\nmerely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or\nto kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a\nnew spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the\ndominant characteristic.  As he looked back upon man moving through\nhistory, he was haunted by a feeling of loss.  So much had been\nsurrendered! and to such little purpose!  There had been mad wilful\nrejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose\norigin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more\nterrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance,\nthey had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out\nthe anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to\nthe hermit the beasts of the field as his companions.\n\nYes:  there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism\nthat was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely\npuritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival.  It was\nto have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was never to\naccept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any\nmode of passionate experience.  Its aim, indeed, was to be experience\nitself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might\nbe.  Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar\nprofligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing.  But it was to\nteach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is\nitself but a moment.\n\nThere are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either\nafter one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of\ndeath, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through\nthe chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality\nitself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques,\nand that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one\nmight fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled\nwith the malady of reverie.  Gradually white fingers creep through the\ncurtains, and they appear to tremble.  In black fantastic shapes, dumb\nshadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there.  Outside,\nthere is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men\ngoing forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down\nfrom the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it\nfeared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from\nher purple cave.  Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by\ndegrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we\nwatch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.  The wan\nmirrors get back their mimic life.  The flameless tapers stand where we\nhad left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been\nstudying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the\nletter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often.\nNothing seems to us changed.  Out of the unreal shadows of the night\ncomes back the real life that we had known.  We have to resume it where\nwe had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the\nnecessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of\nstereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids\nmight open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in\nthe darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh\nshapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in\nwhich the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate,\nin no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of\njoy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain.\n\nIt was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray\nto be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life; and in his\nsearch for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and\npossess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he\nwould often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really\nalien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and\nthen, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his\nintellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that\nis not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that,\nindeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition\nof it.\n\nIt was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman\nCatholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great\nattraction for him.  The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all\nthe sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb\nrejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity\nof its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it\nsought to symbolize.  He loved to kneel down on the cold marble\npavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly\nand with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or\nraising aloft the jewelled, lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid\nwafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the \"_panis\ncaelestis_,\" the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the\nPassion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his\nbreast for his sins.  The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their\nlace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their\nsubtle fascination for him.  As he passed out, he used to look with\nwonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of\none of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn\ngrating the true story of their lives.\n\nBut he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual\ndevelopment by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of\nmistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable\nfor the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which\nthere are no stars and the moon is in travail.  Mysticism, with its\nmarvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle\nantinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a\nseason; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of\nthe _Darwinismus_ movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in\ntracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the\nbrain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of\nthe absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions,\nmorbid or healthy, normal or diseased.  Yet, as has been said of him\nbefore, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance\ncompared with life itself.  He felt keenly conscious of how barren all\nintellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment.\nHe knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual\nmysteries to reveal.\n\nAnd so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their\nmanufacture, distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums\nfrom the East.  He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not\nits counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their\ntrue relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one\nmystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets\nthat woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the\nbrain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often\nto elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several\ninfluences of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers;\nof aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that\nsickens; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to\nbe able to expel melancholy from the soul.\n\nAt another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long\nlatticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of\nolive-green lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad\ngipsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled\nTunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while\ngrinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching\nupon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of\nreed or brass and charmed--or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and\nhorrible horned adders.  The harsh intervals and shrill discords of\nbarbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's\nbeautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell\nunheeded on his ear.  He collected together from all parts of the world\nthe strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of\ndead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact\nwith Western civilizations, and loved to touch and try them.  He had\nthe mysterious _juruparis_ of the Rio Negro Indians, that women are not\nallowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been\nsubjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the\nPeruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human\nbones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, and the sonorous green\njaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular\nsweetness.  He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when\nthey were shaken; the long _clarin_ of the Mexicans, into which the\nperformer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air; the\nharsh _ture_ of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who\nsit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a\ndistance of three leagues; the _teponaztli_, that has two vibrating\ntongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an\nelastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the _yotl_-bells of\nthe Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge\ncylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the\none that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican\ntemple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a\ndescription.  The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated\nhim, and he felt a curious delight in the thought that art, like\nNature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous\nvoices.  Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his\nbox at the opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt\npleasure to \"Tannhauser\" and seeing in the prelude to that great work\nof art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul.\n\nOn one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a\ncostume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered\nwith five hundred and sixty pearls.  This taste enthralled him for\nyears, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him.  He would often\nspend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various\nstones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that\nturns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver,\nthe pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes,\ncarbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red\ncinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their\nalternate layers of ruby and sapphire.  He loved the red gold of the\nsunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow\nof the milky opal.  He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of\nextraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise _de la\nvieille roche_ that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.\n\nHe discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels.  In Alphonso's\nClericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real\njacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of\nEmathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes \"with\ncollars of real emeralds growing on their backs.\" There was a gem in\nthe brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and \"by the exhibition\nof golden letters and a scarlet robe\" the monster could be thrown into\na magical sleep and slain.  According to the great alchemist, Pierre de\nBoniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India\nmade him eloquent.  The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth\nprovoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine.  The\ngarnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her\ncolour.  The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus,\nthat discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids.\nLeonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a\nnewly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison.  The\nbezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm\nthat could cure the plague.  In the nests of Arabian birds was the\naspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any\ndanger by fire.\n\nThe King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand,\nas the ceremony of his coronation.  The gates of the palace of John the\nPriest were \"made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake\ninwrought, so that no man might bring poison within.\" Over the gable\nwere \"two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles,\" so that the\ngold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night.  In Lodge's\nstrange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the\nchamber of the queen one could behold \"all the chaste ladies of the\nworld, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of\nchrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults.\" Marco Polo\nhad seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the\nmouths of the dead.  A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that\nthe diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned\nfor seven moons over its loss.  When the Huns lured the king into the\ngreat pit, he flung it away--Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever\nfound again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight\nof gold pieces for it.  The King of Malabar had shown to a certain\nVenetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god\nthat he worshipped.\n\nWhen the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII of\nFrance, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome,\nand his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light.\nCharles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and\ntwenty-one diamonds.  Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand\nmarks, which was covered with balas rubies.  Hall described Henry VIII,\non his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing \"a\njacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other\nrich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses.\"\nThe favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold\nfiligrane.  Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour\nstudded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with\nturquoise-stones, and a skull-cap _parseme_ with pearls.  Henry II wore\njewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with\ntwelve rubies and fifty-two great orients.  The ducal hat of Charles\nthe Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with\npear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.\n\nHow exquisite life had once been!  How gorgeous in its pomp and\ndecoration!  Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.\n\nThen he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that\nperformed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of the northern\nnations of Europe.  As he investigated the subject--and he always had\nan extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment\nin whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the\nruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things.  He, at any\nrate, had escaped that.  Summer followed summer, and the yellow\njonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the\nstory of their shame, but he was unchanged.  No winter marred his face\nor stained his flowerlike bloom.  How different it was with material\nthings!  Where had they passed to?  Where was the great crocus-coloured\nrobe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked\nby brown girls for the pleasure of Athena?  Where the huge velarium\nthat Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail\nof purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a\nchariot drawn by white, gilt-reined steeds?  He longed to see the\ncurious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were\ndisplayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast;\nthe mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden\nbees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of\nPontus and were figured with \"lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests,\nrocks, hunters--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature\"; and\nthe coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which\nwere embroidered the verses of a song beginning \"_Madame, je suis tout\njoyeux_,\" the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold\nthread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four\npearls.  He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims\nfor the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with \"thirteen\nhundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the\nking's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings\nwere similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked\nin gold.\"  Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of\nblack velvet powdered with crescents and suns.  Its curtains were of\ndamask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver\nground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it\nstood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black\nvelvet upon cloth of silver.  Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides\nfifteen feet high in his apartment.  The state bed of Sobieski, King of\nPoland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with\nverses from the Koran.  Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully\nchased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions.  It\nhad been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of\nMohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy.\n\nAnd so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite\nspecimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting\nthe dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates and\nstitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that\nfrom their transparency are known in the East as \"woven air,\" and\n\"running water,\" and \"evening dew\"; strange figured cloths from Java;\nelaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair\nblue silks and wrought with _fleurs-de-lis_, birds and images; veils of\n_lacis_ worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish\nvelvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese _Foukousas_,\nwith their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds.\n\nHe had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed\nhe had for everything connected with the service of the Church.  In the\nlong cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had\nstored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the\nraiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and\nfine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by\nthe suffering that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain.\nHe possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask,\nfigured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in\nsix-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the\npine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided\ninto panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the\ncoronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood.\nThis was Italian work of the fifteenth century.  Another cope was of\ngreen velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves,\nfrom which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which\nwere picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals.  The morse\nbore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work.  The orphreys were\nwoven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with\nmedallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian.\nHe had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold\nbrocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with\nrepresentations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and\nembroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of\nwhite satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins\nand _fleurs-de-lis_; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and\nmany corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria.  In the mystic offices to\nwhich such things were put, there was something that quickened his\nimagination.\n\nFor these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely\nhouse, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he\ncould escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times\nto be almost too great to be borne.  Upon the walls of the lonely\nlocked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with\nhis own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him\nthe real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the\npurple-and-gold pall as a curtain.  For weeks he would not go there,\nwould forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart,\nhis wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence.\nThen, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to\ndreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day,\nuntil he was driven away.  On his return he would sit in front of the\npicture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other\ntimes, with that pride of individualism that is half the\nfascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen\nshadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own.\n\nAfter a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and\ngave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as\nwell as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more\nthan once spent the winter.  He hated to be separated from the picture\nthat was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his\nabsence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the\nelaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door.\n\nHe was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing.  It was true\nthat the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness\nof the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn\nfrom that?  He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him.  He had\nnot painted it.  What was it to him how vile and full of shame it\nlooked?  Even if he told them, would they believe it?\n\nYet he was afraid.  Sometimes when he was down at his great house in\nNottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank\nwho were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton\nluxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly\nleave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not\nbeen tampered with and that the picture was still there.  What if it\nshould be stolen?  The mere thought made him cold with horror.  Surely\nthe world would know his secret then.  Perhaps the world already\nsuspected it.\n\nFor, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him.\nHe was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth\nand social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was\nsaid that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the\nsmoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another\ngentleman got up in a marked manner and went out.  Curious stories\nbecame current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year.  It\nwas rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a\nlow den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with\nthieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade.  His\nextraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear\nagain in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass\nhim with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though\nthey were determined to discover his secret.\n\nOf such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice,\nand in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his\ncharming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth\nthat seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer\nto the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about\nhim.  It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most\nintimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him.  Women who had\nwildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure and\nset convention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or\nhorror if Dorian Gray entered the room.\n\nYet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his\nstrange and dangerous charm.  His great wealth was a certain element of\nsecurity.  Society--civilized society, at least--is never very ready to\nbelieve anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and\nfascinating.  It feels instinctively that manners are of more\nimportance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability\nis of much less value than the possession of a good _chef_.  And, after\nall, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has\ngiven one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private\nlife.  Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold _entrees_, as\nLord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is\npossibly a good deal to be said for his view.  For the canons of good\nsociety are, or should be, the same as the canons of art.  Form is\nabsolutely essential to it.  It should have the dignity of a ceremony,\nas well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of\na romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful\nto us.  Is insincerity such a terrible thing?  I think not.  It is\nmerely a method by which we can multiply our personalities.\n\nSuch, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion.  He used to wonder at the\nshallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing\nsimple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence.  To him, man was a\nbeing with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform\ncreature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and\npassion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies\nof the dead.  He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picture-gallery\nof his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose\nblood flowed in his veins.  Here was Philip Herbert, described by\nFrancis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and\nKing James, as one who was \"caressed by the Court for his handsome\nface, which kept him not long company.\"  Was it young Herbert's life\nthat he sometimes led?  Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body\nto body till it had reached his own?  Was it some dim sense of that\nruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause,\ngive utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had\nso changed his life?  Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled\nsurcoat, and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard,\nwith his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet.  What had this\nman's legacy been?  Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him\nsome inheritance of sin and shame?  Were his own actions merely the\ndreams that the dead man had not dared to realize?  Here, from the\nfading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl\nstomacher, and pink slashed sleeves.  A flower was in her right hand,\nand her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses.  On\na table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple.  There were large\ngreen rosettes upon her little pointed shoes.  He knew her life, and\nthe strange stories that were told about her lovers.  Had he something\nof her temperament in him?  These oval, heavy-lidded eyes seemed to\nlook curiously at him.  What of George Willoughby, with his powdered\nhair and fantastic patches?  How evil he looked!  The face was\nsaturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with\ndisdain.  Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that\nwere so overladen with rings.  He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth\ncentury, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars.  What of the\nsecond Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his\nwildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs.\nFitzherbert?  How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls\nand insolent pose!  What passions had he bequeathed?  The world had\nlooked upon him as infamous.  He had led the orgies at Carlton House.\nThe star of the Garter glittered upon his breast.  Beside him hung the\nportrait of his wife, a pallid, thin-lipped woman in black.  Her blood,\nalso, stirred within him.  How curious it all seemed!  And his mother\nwith her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, wine-dashed lips--he knew\nwhat he had got from her.  He had got from her his beauty, and his\npassion for the beauty of others.  She laughed at him in her loose\nBacchante dress.  There were vine leaves in her hair.  The purple\nspilled from the cup she was holding.  The carnations of the painting\nhad withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth and\nbrilliancy of colour.  They seemed to follow him wherever he went.\n\nYet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race,\nnearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly\nwith an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious.  There\nwere times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history\nwas merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act\nand circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it\nhad been in his brain and in his passions.  He felt that he had known\nthem all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the\nstage of the world and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of\nsubtlety.  It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had\nbeen his own.\n\nThe hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had\nhimself known this curious fancy.  In the seventh chapter he tells how,\ncrowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, as\nTiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books of\nElephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and the\nflute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, had\ncaroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in\nan ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had\nwandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round\nwith haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his\ndays, and sick with that ennui, that terrible _taedium vitae_, that comes\non those to whom life denies nothing; and had peered through a clear\nemerald at the red shambles of the circus and then, in a litter of\npearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, been carried through the\nStreet of Pomegranates to a House of Gold and heard men cry on Nero\nCaesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with\ncolours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon\nfrom Carthage and given her in mystic marriage to the Sun.\n\nOver and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the\ntwo chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious\ntapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and\nbeautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made\nmonstrous or mad:  Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and\npainted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death\nfrom the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as\nPaul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of\nFormosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was\nbought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used\nhounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with\nroses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse,\nwith Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood\nof Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence,\nchild and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his\ndebauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white\nand crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy\nthat he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose\nmelancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a\npassion for red blood, as other men have for red wine--the son of the\nFiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when\ngambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery\ntook the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of\nthree lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the\nlover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome\nas the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and\ngave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a\nshameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles\nVI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned\nhim of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had\nsickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards\npainted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his\ntrimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto\nBaglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page,\nand whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow\npiazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep,\nand Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him.\n\nThere was a horrible fascination in them all.  He saw them at night,\nand they troubled his imagination in the day.  The Renaissance knew of\nstrange manners of poisoning--poisoning by a helmet and a lighted\ntorch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander\nand by an amber chain.  Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book.  There\nwere moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he\ncould realize his conception of the beautiful.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth\nbirthday, as he often remembered afterwards.\n\nHe was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he\nhad been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold\nand foggy.  At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street,\na man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of\nhis grey ulster turned up.  He had a bag in his hand.  Dorian\nrecognized him.  It was Basil Hallward.  A strange sense of fear, for\nwhich he could not account, came over him.  He made no sign of\nrecognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house.\n\nBut Hallward had seen him.  Dorian heard him first stopping on the\npavement and then hurrying after him.  In a few moments, his hand was\non his arm.\n\n\"Dorian!  What an extraordinary piece of luck!  I have been waiting for\nyou in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on\nyour tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out.  I am\noff to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see\nyou before I left.  I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as\nyou passed me.  But I wasn't quite sure.  Didn't you recognize me?\"\n\n\"In this fog, my dear Basil?  Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor\nSquare.  I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel\nat all certain about it.  I am sorry you are going away, as I have not\nseen you for ages.  But I suppose you will be back soon?\"\n\n\"No:  I am going to be out of England for six months.  I intend to take\na studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great\npicture I have in my head.  However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to\ntalk.  Here we are at your door.  Let me come in for a moment.  I have\nsomething to say to you.\"\n\n\"I shall be charmed.  But won't you miss your train?\" said Dorian Gray\nlanguidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his\nlatch-key.\n\nThe lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his\nwatch.  \"I have heaps of time,\" he answered.  \"The train doesn't go\ntill twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven.  In fact, I was on my\nway to the club to look for you, when I met you.  You see, I shan't\nhave any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things.  All I\nhave with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty\nminutes.\"\n\nDorian looked at him and smiled.  \"What a way for a fashionable painter\nto travel!  A Gladstone bag and an ulster!  Come in, or the fog will\nget into the house.  And mind you don't talk about anything serious.\nNothing is serious nowadays.  At least nothing should be.\"\n\nHallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the\nlibrary.  There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open\nhearth.  The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case\nstood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on\na little marqueterie table.\n\n\"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian.  He gave me\neverything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes.  He is\na most hospitable creature.  I like him much better than the Frenchman\nyou used to have.  What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?\"\n\nDorian shrugged his shoulders.  \"I believe he married Lady Radley's\nmaid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker.\nAnglomania is very fashionable over there now, I hear.  It seems silly\nof the French, doesn't it?  But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad\nservant.  I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about.  One\noften imagines things that are quite absurd.  He was really very\ndevoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away.  Have another\nbrandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take\nhock-and-seltzer myself.  There is sure to be some in the next room.\"\n\n\"Thanks, I won't have anything more,\" said the painter, taking his cap\nand coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the\ncorner.  \"And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously.\nDon't frown like that.  You make it so much more difficult for me.\"\n\n\"What is it all about?\" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging\nhimself down on the sofa.  \"I hope it is not about myself.  I am tired\nof myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else.\"\n\n\"It is about yourself,\" answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, \"and\nI must say it to you.  I shall only keep you half an hour.\"\n\nDorian sighed and lit a cigarette.  \"Half an hour!\" he murmured.\n\n\"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own\nsake that I am speaking.  I think it right that you should know that\nthe most dreadful things are being said against you in London.\"\n\n\"I don't wish to know anything about them.  I love scandals about other\npeople, but scandals about myself don't interest me.  They have not got\nthe charm of novelty.\"\n\n\"They must interest you, Dorian.  Every gentleman is interested in his\ngood name.  You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and\ndegraded.  Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all\nthat kind of thing.  But position and wealth are not everything.  Mind\nyou, I don't believe these rumours at all.  At least, I can't believe\nthem when I see you.  Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's\nface.  It cannot be concealed.  People talk sometimes of secret vices.\nThere are no such things.  If a wretched man has a vice, it shows\nitself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the\nmoulding of his hands even.  Somebody--I won't mention his name, but\nyou know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done.  I had\nnever seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the\ntime, though I have heard a good deal since.  He offered an extravagant\nprice.  I refused him.  There was something in the shape of his fingers\nthat I hated.  I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied\nabout him.  His life is dreadful.  But you, Dorian, with your pure,\nbright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth--I can't\nbelieve anything against you.  And yet I see you very seldom, and you\nnever come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I\nhear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I\ndon't know what to say.  Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of\nBerwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it?  Why is it that so\nmany gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to\ntheirs?  You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley.  I met him at dinner\nlast week.  Your name happened to come up in conversation, in\nconnection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the\nDudley.  Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most\nartistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl\nshould be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the\nsame room with.  I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked\nhim what he meant.  He told me.  He told me right out before everybody.\nIt was horrible!  Why is your friendship so fatal to young men?  There\nwas that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide.  You were\nhis great friend.  There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England\nwith a tarnished name.  You and he were inseparable.  What about Adrian\nSingleton and his dreadful end?  What about Lord Kent's only son and\nhis career?  I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street.  He\nseemed broken with shame and sorrow.  What about the young Duke of\nPerth?  What sort of life has he got now?  What gentleman would\nassociate with him?\"\n\n\"Stop, Basil.  You are talking about things of which you know nothing,\"\nsaid Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt\nin his voice.  \"You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it.\nIt is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows\nanything about mine.  With such blood as he has in his veins, how could\nhis record be clean?  You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth.\nDid I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery?  If Kent's\nsilly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me?  If\nAdrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his\nkeeper?  I know how people chatter in England.  The middle classes air\ntheir moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper\nabout what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try\nand pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with\nthe people they slander.  In this country, it is enough for a man to\nhave distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him.\nAnd what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead\nthemselves?  My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land\nof the hypocrite.\"\n\n\"Dorian,\" cried Hallward, \"that is not the question.  England is bad\nenough I know, and English society is all wrong.  That is the reason\nwhy I want you to be fine.  You have not been fine.  One has a right to\njudge of a man by the effect he has over his friends.  Yours seem to\nlose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity.  You have filled them\nwith a madness for pleasure.  They have gone down into the depths.  You\nled them there.  Yes:  you led them there, and yet you can smile, as\nyou are smiling now.  And there is worse behind.  I know you and Harry\nare inseparable.  Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should\nnot have made his sister's name a by-word.\"\n\n\"Take care, Basil.  You go too far.\"\n\n\"I must speak, and you must listen.  You shall listen.  When you met\nLady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her.  Is there\na single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the\npark?  Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her.  Then\nthere are other stories--stories that you have been seen creeping at\ndawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest\ndens in London.  Are they true?  Can they be true?  When I first heard\nthem, I laughed.  I hear them now, and they make me shudder.  What\nabout your country-house and the life that is led there?  Dorian, you\ndon't know what is said about you.  I won't tell you that I don't want\nto preach to you.  I remember Harry saying once that every man who\nturned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by\nsaying that, and then proceeded to break his word.  I do want to preach\nto you.  I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect\nyou.  I want you to have a clean name and a fair record.  I want you to\nget rid of the dreadful people you associate with.  Don't shrug your\nshoulders like that.  Don't be so indifferent.  You have a wonderful\ninfluence.  Let it be for good, not for evil.  They say that you\ncorrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite\nsufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow\nafter.  I don't know whether it is so or not.  How should I know?  But\nit is said of you.  I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt.\nLord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford.  He showed me\na letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in\nher villa at Mentone.  Your name was implicated in the most terrible\nconfession I ever read.  I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you\nthoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind.  Know\nyou?  I wonder do I know you?  Before I could answer that, I should\nhave to see your soul.\"\n\n\"To see my soul!\" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and\nturning almost white from fear.\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his\nvoice, \"to see your soul.  But only God can do that.\"\n\nA bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man.  \"You\nshall see it yourself, to-night!\" he cried, seizing a lamp from the\ntable.  \"Come:  it is your own handiwork.  Why shouldn't you look at\nit?  You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose.\nNobody would believe you.  If they did believe you, they would like me\nall the better for it.  I know the age better than you do, though you\nwill prate about it so tediously.  Come, I tell you.  You have\nchattered enough about corruption.  Now you shall look on it face to\nface.\"\n\nThere was the madness of pride in every word he uttered.  He stamped\nhis foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner.  He felt a\nterrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret,\nand that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of\nall his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the\nhideous memory of what he had done.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into\nhis stern eyes, \"I shall show you my soul.  You shall see the thing\nthat you fancy only God can see.\"\n\nHallward started back.  \"This is blasphemy, Dorian!\" he cried.  \"You\nmust not say things like that.  They are horrible, and they don't mean\nanything.\"\n\n\"You think so?\"  He laughed again.\n\n\"I know so.  As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your\ngood.  You know I have been always a stanch friend to you.\"\n\n\"Don't touch me.  Finish what you have to say.\"\n\nA twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face.  He paused for\na moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him.  After all, what\nright had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray?  If he had done a\ntithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered!\nThen he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and\nstood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and\ntheir throbbing cores of flame.\n\n\"I am waiting, Basil,\" said the young man in a hard clear voice.\n\nHe turned round.  \"What I have to say is this,\" he cried.  \"You must\ngive me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against\nyou.  If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to\nend, I shall believe you.  Deny them, Dorian, deny them!  Can't you see\nwhat I am going through?  My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and\ncorrupt, and shameful.\"\n\nDorian Gray smiled.  There was a curl of contempt in his lips.  \"Come\nupstairs, Basil,\" he said quietly.  \"I keep a diary of my life from day\nto day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written.  I shall\nshow it to you if you come with me.\"\n\n\"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it.  I see I have missed my\ntrain.  That makes no matter.  I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to\nread anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question.\"\n\n\"That shall be given to you upstairs.  I could not give it here.  You\nwill not have to read long.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nHe passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward\nfollowing close behind.  They walked softly, as men do instinctively at\nnight.  The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase.  A\nrising wind made some of the windows rattle.\n\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the\nfloor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock.  \"You insist on\nknowing, Basil?\" he asked in a low voice.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I am delighted,\" he answered, smiling.  Then he added, somewhat\nharshly, \"You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know\neverything about me.  You have had more to do with my life than you\nthink\"; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in.  A\ncold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in\na flame of murky orange.  He shuddered.  \"Shut the door behind you,\" he\nwhispered, as he placed the lamp on the table.\n\nHallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression.  The room looked\nas if it had not been lived in for years.  A faded Flemish tapestry, a\ncurtained picture, an old Italian _cassone_, and an almost empty\nbook-case--that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and\na table.  As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was\nstanding on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered\nwith dust and that the carpet was in holes.  A mouse ran scuffling\nbehind the wainscoting.  There was a damp odour of mildew.\n\n\"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil?  Draw that\ncurtain back, and you will see mine.\"\n\nThe voice that spoke was cold and cruel.  \"You are mad, Dorian, or\nplaying a part,\" muttered Hallward, frowning.\n\n\"You won't? Then I must do it myself,\" said the young man, and he tore\nthe curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground.\n\nAn exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the\ndim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him.  There was\nsomething in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing.\nGood heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at!\nThe horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that\nmarvellous beauty.  There was still some gold in the thinning hair and\nsome scarlet on the sensual mouth.  The sodden eyes had kept something\nof the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet\ncompletely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat.\nYes, it was Dorian himself.  But who had done it?  He seemed to\nrecognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design.  The\nidea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid.  He seized the lighted candle,\nand held it to the picture.  In the left-hand corner was his own name,\ntraced in long letters of bright vermilion.\n\nIt was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire.  He had never\ndone that.  Still, it was his own picture.  He knew it, and he felt as\nif his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice.  His\nown picture!  What did it mean?  Why had it altered?  He turned and\nlooked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man.  His mouth twitched,\nand his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate.  He passed his hand\nacross his forehead.  It was dank with clammy sweat.\n\nThe young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with\nthat strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are\nabsorbed in a play when some great artist is acting.  There was neither\nreal sorrow in it nor real joy.  There was simply the passion of the\nspectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes.  He had taken\nthe flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so.\n\n\"What does this mean?\" cried Hallward, at last.  His own voice sounded\nshrill and curious in his ears.\n\n\"Years ago, when I was a boy,\" said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in\nhis hand, \"you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my\ngood looks.  One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who\nexplained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me\nthat revealed to me the wonder of beauty.  In a mad moment that, even\nnow, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you\nwould call it a prayer....\"\n\n\"I remember it!  Oh, how well I remember it!  No! the thing is\nimpossible.  The room is damp.  Mildew has got into the canvas.  The\npaints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them.  I tell you the\nthing is impossible.\"\n\n\"Ah, what is impossible?\" murmured the young man, going over to the\nwindow and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass.\n\n\"You told me you had destroyed it.\"\n\n\"I was wrong.  It has destroyed me.\"\n\n\"I don't believe it is my picture.\"\n\n\"Can't you see your ideal in it?\" said Dorian bitterly.\n\n\"My ideal, as you call it...\"\n\n\"As you called it.\"\n\n\"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful.  You were to me such\nan ideal as I shall never meet again.  This is the face of a satyr.\"\n\n\"It is the face of my soul.\"\n\n\"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped!  It has the eyes of a\ndevil.\"\n\n\"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil,\" cried Dorian with a\nwild gesture of despair.\n\nHallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it.  \"My God!  If it\nis true,\" he exclaimed, \"and this is what you have done with your life,\nwhy, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you\nto be!\" He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it.  The\nsurface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it.  It was\nfrom within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come.\nThrough some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were\nslowly eating the thing away.  The rotting of a corpse in a watery\ngrave was not so fearful.\n\nHis hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and\nlay there sputtering.  He placed his foot on it and put it out.  Then\nhe flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table\nand buried his face in his hands.\n\n\"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson!  What an awful lesson!\" There was no\nanswer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window.  \"Pray,\nDorian, pray,\" he murmured.  \"What is it that one was taught to say in\none's boyhood?  'Lead us not into temptation.  Forgive us our sins.\nWash away our iniquities.'  Let us say that together.  The prayer of\nyour pride has been answered.  The prayer of your repentance will be\nanswered also.  I worshipped you too much.  I am punished for it.  You\nworshipped yourself too much.  We are both punished.\"\n\nDorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed\neyes.  \"It is too late, Basil,\" he faltered.\n\n\"It is never too late, Dorian.  Let us kneel down and try if we cannot\nremember a prayer.  Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be\nas scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?\"\n\n\"Those words mean nothing to me now.\"\n\n\"Hush!  Don't say that.  You have done enough evil in your life.  My\nGod!  Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?\"\n\nDorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable\nfeeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had\nbeen suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his\near by those grinning lips.  The mad passions of a hunted animal\nstirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table,\nmore than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything.  He glanced\nwildly around.  Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest\nthat faced him.  His eye fell on it.  He knew what it was.  It was a\nknife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord,\nand had forgotten to take away with him.  He moved slowly towards it,\npassing Hallward as he did so.  As soon as he got behind him, he seized\nit and turned round.  Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going\nto rise.  He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that\nis behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and\nstabbing again and again.\n\nThere was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking\nwith blood.  Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively,\nwaving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air.  He stabbed him\ntwice more, but the man did not move.  Something began to trickle on\nthe floor.  He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down.  Then\nhe threw the knife on the table, and listened.\n\nHe could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet.  He\nopened the door and went out on the landing.  The house was absolutely\nquiet.  No one was about.  For a few seconds he stood bending over the\nbalustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness.\nThen he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in\nas he did so.\n\nThe thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with\nbowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms.  Had it not been\nfor the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was\nslowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was\nsimply asleep.\n\nHow quickly it had all been done!  He felt strangely calm, and walking\nover to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony.  The wind\nhad blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's\ntail, starred with myriads of golden eyes.  He looked down and saw the\npoliceman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on\nthe doors of the silent houses.  The crimson spot of a prowling hansom\ngleamed at the corner and then vanished.  A woman in a fluttering shawl\nwas creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went.  Now and\nthen she stopped and peered back.  Once, she began to sing in a hoarse\nvoice.  The policeman strolled over and said something to her.  She\nstumbled away, laughing.  A bitter blast swept across the square.  The\ngas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their\nblack iron branches to and fro.  He shivered and went back, closing the\nwindow behind him.\n\nHaving reached the door, he turned the key and opened it.  He did not\neven glance at the murdered man.  He felt that the secret of the whole\nthing was not to realize the situation.  The friend who had painted the\nfatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his\nlife.  That was enough.\n\nThen he remembered the lamp.  It was a rather curious one of Moorish\nworkmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished\nsteel, and studded with coarse turquoises.  Perhaps it might be missed\nby his servant, and questions would be asked.  He hesitated for a\nmoment, then he turned back and took it from the table.  He could not\nhelp seeing the dead thing.  How still it was!  How horribly white the\nlong hands looked!  It was like a dreadful wax image.\n\nHaving locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs.  The\nwoodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain.  He stopped\nseveral times and waited.  No:  everything was still.  It was merely\nthe sound of his own footsteps.\n\nWhen he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner.\nThey must be hidden away somewhere.  He unlocked a secret press that\nwas in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious\ndisguises, and put them into it.  He could easily burn them afterwards.\nThen he pulled out his watch.  It was twenty minutes to two.\n\nHe sat down and began to think.  Every year--every month, almost--men\nwere strangled in England for what he had done.  There had been a\nmadness of murder in the air.  Some red star had come too close to the\nearth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him?  Basil Hallward\nhad left the house at eleven.  No one had seen him come in again.  Most\nof the servants were at Selby Royal.  His valet had gone to bed....\nParis!  Yes.  It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight\ntrain, as he had intended.  With his curious reserved habits, it would\nbe months before any suspicions would be roused.  Months!  Everything\ncould be destroyed long before then.\n\nA sudden thought struck him.  He put on his fur coat and hat and went\nout into the hall.  There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of\nthe policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the\nbull's-eye reflected in the window.  He waited and held his breath.\n\nAfter a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting\nthe door very gently behind him.  Then he began ringing the bell.  In\nabout five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very\ndrowsy.\n\n\"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis,\" he said, stepping in;\n\"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes past two, sir,\" answered the man, looking at the clock and\nblinking.\n\n\"Ten minutes past two?  How horribly late!  You must wake me at nine\nto-morrow. I have some work to do.\"\n\n\"All right, sir.\"\n\n\"Did any one call this evening?\"\n\n\"Mr. Hallward, sir.  He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away\nto catch his train.\"\n\n\"Oh!  I am sorry I didn't see him.  Did he leave any message?\"\n\n\"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not\nfind you at the club.\"\n\n\"That will do, Francis.  Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow.\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nThe man shambled down the passage in his slippers.\n\nDorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the\nlibrary.  For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room,\nbiting his lip and thinking.  Then he took down the Blue Book from one\nof the shelves and began to turn over the leaves.  \"Alan Campbell, 152,\nHertford Street, Mayfair.\"  Yes; that was the man he wanted.\n\n\n\n\n\nAt nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of\nchocolate on a tray and opened the shutters.  Dorian was sleeping quite\npeacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his\ncheek.  He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study.\n\nThe man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as\nhe opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he\nhad been lost in some delightful dream.  Yet he had not dreamed at all.\nHis night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain.\nBut youth smiles without any reason.  It is one of its chiefest charms.\n\nHe turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his\nchocolate.  The mellow November sun came streaming into the room.  The\nsky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air.  It was\nalmost like a morning in May.\n\nGradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent,\nblood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there\nwith terrible distinctness.  He winced at the memory of all that he had\nsuffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for\nBasil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came\nback to him, and he grew cold with passion.  The dead man was still\nsitting there, too, and in the sunlight now.  How horrible that was!\nSuch hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.\n\nHe felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken\nor grow mad.  There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory\nthan in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride\nmore than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of\njoy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the\nsenses.  But this was not one of them.  It was a thing to be driven out\nof the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might\nstrangle one itself.\n\nWhen the half-hour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, and\nthen got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his usual\ncare, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie and\nscarf-pin and changing his rings more than once.  He spent a long time\nalso over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet\nabout some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made for the\nservants at Selby, and going through his correspondence.  At some of\nthe letters, he smiled.  Three of them bored him.  One he read several\ntimes over and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his\nface.  \"That awful thing, a woman's memory!\" as Lord Henry had once\nsaid.\n\nAfter he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly\nwith a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the\ntable, sat down and wrote two letters.  One he put in his pocket, the\nother he handed to the valet.\n\n\"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell\nis out of town, get his address.\"\n\nAs soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a\npiece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and\nthen human faces.  Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew\nseemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward.  He frowned, and\ngetting up, went over to the book-case and took out a volume at hazard.\nHe was determined that he would not think about what had happened until\nit became absolutely necessary that he should do so.\n\nWhen he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page\nof the book.  It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's\nJapanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching.  The binding was\nof citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted\npomegranates.  It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton.  As he\nturned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of\nLacenaire, the cold yellow hand \"_du supplice encore mal lavee_,\" with\nits downy red hairs and its \"_doigts de faune_.\"  He glanced at his own\nwhite taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and\npassed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice:\n\n     Sur une gamme chromatique,\n       Le sein de perles ruisselant,\n     La Venus de l'Adriatique\n       Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc.\n\n     Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes\n       Suivant la phrase au pur contour,\n     S'enflent comme des gorges rondes\n       Que souleve un soupir d'amour.\n\n     L'esquif aborde et me depose,\n       Jetant son amarre au pilier,\n     Devant une facade rose,\n       Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\n\n\nHow exquisite they were!  As one read them, one seemed to be floating\ndown the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black\ngondola with silver prow and trailing curtains.  The mere lines looked\nto him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as\none pushes out to the Lido.  The sudden flashes of colour reminded him\nof the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the\ntall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through\nthe dim, dust-stained arcades.  Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he\nkept saying over and over to himself:\n\n     \"Devant une facade rose,\n        Sur le marbre d'un escalier.\"\n\nThe whole of Venice was in those two lines.  He remembered the autumn\nthat he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to\nmad delightful follies.  There was romance in every place.  But Venice,\nlike Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true\nromantic, background was everything, or almost everything.  Basil had\nbeen with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret.  Poor\nBasil!  What a horrible way for a man to die!\n\nHe sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget.  He read\nof the swallows that fly in and out of the little _cafe_ at Smyrna where\nthe Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants\nsmoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he\nread of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of\ngranite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot,\nlotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and\nwhite vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes\nthat crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those\nverses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that\ncurious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the \"_monstre\ncharmant_\" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre.  But after a\ntime the book fell from his hand.  He grew nervous, and a horrible fit\nof terror came over him.  What if Alan Campbell should be out of\nEngland?  Days would elapse before he could come back.  Perhaps he\nmight refuse to come.  What could he do then?  Every moment was of\nvital importance.\n\nThey had been great friends once, five years before--almost\ninseparable, indeed.  Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end.\nWhen they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled:  Alan\nCampbell never did.\n\nHe was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real\nappreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the\nbeauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian.  His\ndominant intellectual passion was for science.  At Cambridge he had\nspent a great deal of his time working in the laboratory, and had taken\na good class in the Natural Science Tripos of his year.  Indeed, he was\nstill devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his\nown in which he used to shut himself up all day long, greatly to the\nannoyance of his mother, who had set her heart on his standing for\nParliament and had a vague idea that a chemist was a person who made up\nprescriptions.  He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and\nplayed both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs.  In\nfact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray\ntogether--music and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to\nbe able to exercise whenever he wished--and, indeed, exercised often\nwithout being conscious of it.  They had met at Lady Berkshire's the\nnight that Rubinstein played there, and after that used to be always\nseen together at the opera and wherever good music was going on.  For\neighteen months their intimacy lasted.  Campbell was always either at\nSelby Royal or in Grosvenor Square.  To him, as to many others, Dorian\nGray was the type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in\nlife.  Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one\never knew.  But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when\nthey met and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from any\nparty at which Dorian Gray was present.  He had changed, too--was\nstrangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing\nmusic, and would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was\ncalled upon, that he was so absorbed in science that he had no time\nleft in which to practise.  And this was certainly true.  Every day he\nseemed to become more interested in biology, and his name appeared once\nor twice in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain\ncurious experiments.\n\nThis was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for.  Every second he kept\nglancing at the clock.  As the minutes went by he became horribly\nagitated.  At last he got up and began to pace up and down the room,\nlooking like a beautiful caged thing.  He took long stealthy strides.\nHis hands were curiously cold.\n\nThe suspense became unbearable.  Time seemed to him to be crawling with\nfeet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the\njagged edge of some black cleft of precipice.  He knew what was waiting\nfor him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands\nhis burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight\nand driven the eyeballs back into their cave.  It was useless.  The\nbrain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made\ngrotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain,\ndanced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving\nmasks.  Then, suddenly, time stopped for him.  Yes:  that blind,\nslow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being\ndead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its\ngrave, and showed it to him.  He stared at it.  Its very horror made\nhim stone.\n\nAt last the door opened and his servant entered.  He turned glazed eyes\nupon him.\n\n\"Mr. Campbell, sir,\" said the man.\n\nA sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back\nto his cheeks.\n\n\"Ask him to come in at once, Francis.\"  He felt that he was himself\nagain.  His mood of cowardice had passed away.\n\nThe man bowed and retired.  In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in,\nlooking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his\ncoal-black hair and dark eyebrows.\n\n\"Alan!  This is kind of you.  I thank you for coming.\"\n\n\"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray.  But you said it\nwas a matter of life and death.\"  His voice was hard and cold.  He\nspoke with slow deliberation.  There was a look of contempt in the\nsteady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian.  He kept his hands in\nthe pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed not to have noticed the\ngesture with which he had been greeted.\n\n\"Yes:  it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one\nperson.  Sit down.\"\n\nCampbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him.\nThe two men's eyes met.  In Dorian's there was infinite pity.  He knew\nthat what he was going to do was dreadful.\n\nAfter a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very\nquietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of him he\nhad sent for, \"Alan, in a locked room at the top of this house, a room\nto which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table.\nHe has been dead ten hours now.  Don't stir, and don't look at me like\nthat.  Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do\nnot concern you.  What you have to do is this--\"\n\n\"Stop, Gray.  I don't want to know anything further.  Whether what you\nhave told me is true or not true doesn't concern me.  I entirely\ndecline to be mixed up in your life.  Keep your horrible secrets to\nyourself.  They don't interest me any more.\"\n\n\"Alan, they will have to interest you.  This one will have to interest\nyou.  I am awfully sorry for you, Alan.  But I can't help myself.  You\nare the one man who is able to save me.  I am forced to bring you into\nthe matter.  I have no option.  Alan, you are scientific.  You know\nabout chemistry and things of that kind.  You have made experiments.\nWhat you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs--to\ndestroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left.  Nobody saw this\nperson come into the house.  Indeed, at the present moment he is\nsupposed to be in Paris.  He will not be missed for months.  When he is\nmissed, there must be no trace of him found here.  You, Alan, you must\nchange him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes\nthat I may scatter in the air.\"\n\n\"You are mad, Dorian.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I was waiting for you to call me Dorian.\"\n\n\"You are mad, I tell you--mad to imagine that I would raise a finger to\nhelp you, mad to make this monstrous confession.  I will have nothing\nto do with this matter, whatever it is.  Do you think I am going to\nperil my reputation for you?  What is it to me what devil's work you\nare up to?\"\n\n\"It was suicide, Alan.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that.  But who drove him to it?  You, I should fancy.\"\n\n\"Do you still refuse to do this for me?\"\n\n\"Of course I refuse.  I will have absolutely nothing to do with it.  I\ndon't care what shame comes on you.  You deserve it all.  I should not\nbe sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced.  How dare you ask\nme, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror?  I should\nhave thought you knew more about people's characters.  Your friend Lord\nHenry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology, whatever else\nhe has taught you.  Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you.\nYou have come to the wrong man.  Go to some of your friends.  Don't\ncome to me.\"\n\n\"Alan, it was murder.  I killed him.  You don't know what he had made\nme suffer.  Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or\nthe marring of it than poor Harry has had.  He may not have intended\nit, the result was the same.\"\n\n\"Murder!  Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to?  I shall not\ninform upon you.  It is not my business.  Besides, without my stirring\nin the matter, you are certain to be arrested.  Nobody ever commits a\ncrime without doing something stupid.  But I will have nothing to do\nwith it.\"\n\n\"You must have something to do with it.  Wait, wait a moment; listen to\nme.  Only listen, Alan.  All I ask of you is to perform a certain\nscientific experiment.  You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the\nhorrors that you do there don't affect you.  If in some hideous\ndissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a\nleaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow\nthrough, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject.  You\nwould not turn a hair.  You would not believe that you were doing\nanything wrong.  On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were\nbenefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the\nworld, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind.\nWhat I want you to do is merely what you have often done before.\nIndeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are\naccustomed to work at.  And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence\nagainst me.  If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be\ndiscovered unless you help me.\"\n\n\"I have no desire to help you.  You forget that.  I am simply\nindifferent to the whole thing.  It has nothing to do with me.\"\n\n\"Alan, I entreat you.  Think of the position I am in.  Just before you\ncame I almost fainted with terror.  You may know terror yourself some\nday.  No! don't think of that.  Look at the matter purely from the\nscientific point of view.  You don't inquire where the dead things on\nwhich you experiment come from.  Don't inquire now.  I have told you\ntoo much as it is.  But I beg of you to do this.  We were friends once,\nAlan.\"\n\n\"Don't speak about those days, Dorian--they are dead.\"\n\n\"The dead linger sometimes.  The man upstairs will not go away.  He is\nsitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms.  Alan!\nAlan!  If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined.  Why, they will\nhang me, Alan!  Don't you understand?  They will hang me for what I\nhave done.\"\n\n\"There is no good in prolonging this scene.  I absolutely refuse to do\nanything in the matter.  It is insane of you to ask me.\"\n\n\"You refuse?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I entreat you, Alan.\"\n\n\"It is useless.\"\n\nThe same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes.  Then he stretched\nout his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it.  He\nread it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the\ntable.  Having done this, he got up and went over to the window.\n\nCampbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and\nopened it.  As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell\nback in his chair.  A horrible sense of sickness came over him.  He\nfelt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow.\n\nAfter two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and\ncame and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.\n\n\"I am so sorry for you, Alan,\" he murmured, \"but you leave me no\nalternative.  I have a letter written already.  Here it is.  You see\nthe address.  If you don't help me, I must send it.  If you don't help\nme, I will send it.  You know what the result will be.  But you are\ngoing to help me.  It is impossible for you to refuse now.  I tried to\nspare you.  You will do me the justice to admit that.  You were stern,\nharsh, offensive.  You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat\nme--no living man, at any rate.  I bore it all.  Now it is for me to\ndictate terms.\"\n\nCampbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him.\n\n\"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan.  You know what they are.\nThe thing is quite simple.  Come, don't work yourself into this fever.\nThe thing has to be done.  Face it, and do it.\"\n\nA groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over.  The\nticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing\ntime into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be\nborne.  He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his\nforehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already\ncome upon him.  The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead.\nIt was intolerable.  It seemed to crush him.\n\n\"Come, Alan, you must decide at once.\"\n\n\"I cannot do it,\" he said, mechanically, as though words could alter\nthings.\n\n\"You must.  You have no choice.  Don't delay.\"\n\nHe hesitated a moment.  \"Is there a fire in the room upstairs?\"\n\n\"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos.\"\n\n\"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory.\"\n\n\"No, Alan, you must not leave the house.  Write out on a sheet of\nnotepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the\nthings back to you.\"\n\nCampbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope\nto his assistant.  Dorian took the note up and read it carefully.  Then\nhe rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as\nsoon as possible and to bring the things with him.\n\nAs the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up\nfrom the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a\nkind of ague.  For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke.  A\nfly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was\nlike the beat of a hammer.\n\nAs the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian\nGray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears.  There was something in\nthe purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him.\n\"You are infamous, absolutely infamous!\" he muttered.\n\n\"Hush, Alan.  You have saved my life,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"Your life?  Good heavens! what a life that is!  You have gone from\ncorruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime.  In\ndoing what I am going to do--what you force me to do--it is not of your\nlife that I am thinking.\"\n\n\"Ah, Alan,\" murmured Dorian with a sigh, \"I wish you had a thousandth\npart of the pity for me that I have for you.\" He turned away as he\nspoke and stood looking out at the garden.  Campbell made no answer.\n\nAfter about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant\nentered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil\nof steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps.\n\n\"Shall I leave the things here, sir?\" he asked Campbell.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Dorian.  \"And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another\nerrand for you.  What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies\nSelby with orchids?\"\n\n\"Harden, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes--Harden.  You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden\npersonally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered,\nand to have as few white ones as possible.  In fact, I don't want any\nwhite ones.  It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty\nplace--otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it.\"\n\n\"No trouble, sir.  At what time shall I be back?\"\n\nDorian looked at Campbell.  \"How long will your experiment take, Alan?\"\nhe said in a calm indifferent voice.  The presence of a third person in\nthe room seemed to give him extraordinary courage.\n\nCampbell frowned and bit his lip.  \"It will take about five hours,\" he\nanswered.\n\n\"It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven,\nFrancis.  Or stay:  just leave my things out for dressing.  You can\nhave the evening to yourself.  I am not dining at home, so I shall not\nwant you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" said the man, leaving the room.\n\n\"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost.  How heavy this chest is!\nI'll take it for you.  You bring the other things.\"  He spoke rapidly\nand in an authoritative manner.  Campbell felt dominated by him.  They\nleft the room together.\n\nWhen they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned\nit in the lock.  Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his\neyes.  He shuddered.  \"I don't think I can go in, Alan,\" he murmured.\n\n\"It is nothing to me.  I don't require you,\" said Campbell coldly.\n\nDorian half opened the door.  As he did so, he saw the face of his\nportrait leering in the sunlight.  On the floor in front of it the torn\ncurtain was lying.  He remembered that the night before he had\nforgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas,\nand was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder.\n\nWhat was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on\none of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood?  How horrible\nit was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the\nsilent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing\nwhose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that\nit had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it.\n\nHe heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with\nhalf-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, determined that\nhe would not look even once upon the dead man.  Then, stooping down and\ntaking up the gold-and-purple hanging, he flung it right over the\npicture.\n\nThere he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed\nthemselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him.  He heard\nCampbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other\nthings that he had required for his dreadful work.  He began to wonder\nif he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had\nthought of each other.\n\n\"Leave me now,\" said a stern voice behind him.\n\nHe turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been\nthrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing into a\nglistening yellow face.  As he was going downstairs, he heard the key\nbeing turned in the lock.\n\nIt was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library.  He\nwas pale, but absolutely calm.  \"I have done what you asked me to do,\"\nhe muttered. \"And now, good-bye. Let us never see each other again.\"\n\n\"You have saved me from ruin, Alan.  I cannot forget that,\" said Dorian\nsimply.\n\nAs soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs.  There was a horrible\nsmell of nitric acid in the room.  But the thing that had been sitting\nat the table was gone.\n\n\n\n\n\nThat evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large\nbutton-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady\nNarborough's drawing-room by bowing servants.  His forehead was\nthrobbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his\nmanner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as\never.  Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to\nplay a part.  Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could\nhave believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any\ntragedy of our age.  Those finely shaped fingers could never have\nclutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God\nand goodness.  He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his\ndemeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a\ndouble life.\n\nIt was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who\nwas a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the\nremains of really remarkable ugliness.  She had proved an excellent\nwife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her\nhusband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed,\nand married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she\ndevoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery,\nand French _esprit_ when she could get it.\n\nDorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that\nshe was extremely glad she had not met him in early life.  \"I know, my\ndear, I should have fallen madly in love with you,\" she used to say,\n\"and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake.  It is most\nfortunate that you were not thought of at the time.  As it was, our\nbonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to\nraise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody.\nHowever, that was all Narborough's fault.  He was dreadfully\nshort-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who\nnever sees anything.\"\n\nHer guests this evening were rather tedious.  The fact was, as she\nexplained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married\ndaughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make\nmatters worse, had actually brought her husband with her.  \"I think it\nis most unkind of her, my dear,\" she whispered.  \"Of course I go and\nstay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old\nwoman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake\nthem up.  You don't know what an existence they lead down there.  It is\npure unadulterated country life.  They get up early, because they have\nso much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to\nthink about.  There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since\nthe time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep\nafter dinner.  You shan't sit next either of them.  You shall sit by me\nand amuse me.\"\n\nDorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room.  Yes:\nit was certainly a tedious party.  Two of the people he had never seen\nbefore, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those\nmiddle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies,\nbut are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an\noverdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always\ntrying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to\nher great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against\nher; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and\nVenetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy\ndull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once\nseen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked,\nwhite-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the\nimpression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of\nideas.\n\nHe was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the\ngreat ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the\nmauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed:  \"How horrid of Henry Wotton to be\nso late!  I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised\nfaithfully not to disappoint me.\"\n\nIt was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door\nopened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some\ninsincere apology, he ceased to feel bored.\n\nBut at dinner he could not eat anything.  Plate after plate went away\nuntasted.  Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called \"an\ninsult to poor Adolphe, who invented the _menu_ specially for you,\" and\nnow and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence\nand abstracted manner.  From time to time the butler filled his glass\nwith champagne.  He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase.\n\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry at last, as the _chaud-froid_ was being handed\nround, \"what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of\nsorts.\"\n\n\"I believe he is in love,\" cried Lady Narborough, \"and that he is\nafraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous.  He is quite right.  I\ncertainly should.\"\n\n\"Dear Lady Narborough,\" murmured Dorian, smiling, \"I have not been in\nlove for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town.\"\n\n\"How you men can fall in love with that woman!\" exclaimed the old lady.\n\"I really cannot understand it.\"\n\n\"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl,\nLady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry.  \"She is the one link between us and\nyour short frocks.\"\n\n\"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry.  But I\nremember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _decolletee_\nshe was then.\"\n\n\"She is still _decolletee_,\" he answered, taking an olive in his long\nfingers; \"and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an\n_edition de luxe_ of a bad French novel.  She is really wonderful, and\nfull of surprises.  Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary.\nWhen her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief.\"\n\n\"How can you, Harry!\" cried Dorian.\n\n\"It is a most romantic explanation,\" laughed the hostess.  \"But her\nthird husband, Lord Henry!  You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?\"\n\n\"Certainly, Lady Narborough.\"\n\n\"I don't believe a word of it.\"\n\n\"Well, ask Mr. Gray.  He is one of her most intimate friends.\"\n\n\"Is it true, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"She assures me so, Lady Narborough,\" said Dorian.  \"I asked her\nwhether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and\nhung at her girdle.  She told me she didn't, because none of them had\nhad any hearts at all.\"\n\n\"Four husbands!  Upon my word that is _trop de zele_.\"\n\n\"_Trop d'audace_, I tell her,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear.  And what is Ferrol\nlike?  I don't know him.\"\n\n\"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,\"\nsaid Lord Henry, sipping his wine.\n\nLady Narborough hit him with her fan.  \"Lord Henry, I am not at all\nsurprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.\"\n\n\"But what world says that?\" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows.\n\"It can only be the next world.  This world and I are on excellent\nterms.\"\n\n\"Everybody I know says you are very wicked,\" cried the old lady,\nshaking her head.\n\nLord Henry looked serious for some moments.  \"It is perfectly\nmonstrous,\" he said, at last, \"the way people go about nowadays saying\nthings against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely\ntrue.\"\n\n\"Isn't he incorrigible?\" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.\n\n\"I hope so,\" said his hostess, laughing.  \"But really, if you all\nworship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry\nagain so as to be in the fashion.\"\n\n\"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough,\" broke in Lord Henry.\n\"You were far too happy.  When a woman marries again, it is because she\ndetested her first husband.  When a man marries again, it is because he\nadored his first wife.  Women try their luck; men risk theirs.\"\n\n\"Narborough wasn't perfect,\" cried the old lady.\n\n\"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady,\" was the\nrejoinder.  \"Women love us for our defects.  If we have enough of them,\nthey will forgive us everything, even our intellects.  You will never\nask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough,\nbut it is quite true.\"\n\n\"Of course it is true, Lord Henry.  If we women did not love you for\nyour defects, where would you all be?  Not one of you would ever be\nmarried.  You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.  Not, however,\nthat that would alter you much.  Nowadays all the married men live like\nbachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.\"\n\n\"_Fin de siecle_,\" murmured Lord Henry.\n\n\"_Fin du globe_,\" answered his hostess.\n\n\"I wish it were _fin du globe_,\" said Dorian with a sigh.  \"Life is a\ngreat disappointment.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear,\" cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, \"don't\ntell me that you have exhausted life.  When a man says that one knows\nthat life has exhausted him.  Lord Henry is very wicked, and I\nsometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good--you look\nso good.  I must find you a nice wife.  Lord Henry, don't you think\nthat Mr. Gray should get married?\"\n\n\"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough,\" said Lord Henry with a\nbow.\n\n\"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him.  I shall go\nthrough Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the\neligible young ladies.\"\n\n\"With their ages, Lady Narborough?\" asked Dorian.\n\n\"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited.  But nothing must be done\nin a hurry.  I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable\nalliance, and I want you both to be happy.\"\n\n\"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!\" exclaimed Lord\nHenry.  \"A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love\nher.\"\n\n\"Ah! what a cynic you are!\" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair\nand nodding to Lady Ruxton.  \"You must come and dine with me soon\nagain.  You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir\nAndrew prescribes for me.  You must tell me what people you would like\nto meet, though.  I want it to be a delightful gathering.\"\n\n\"I like men who have a future and women who have a past,\" he answered.\n\"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?\"\n\n\"I fear so,\" she said, laughing, as she stood up.  \"A thousand pardons,\nmy dear Lady Ruxton,\" she added, \"I didn't see you hadn't finished your\ncigarette.\"\n\n\"Never mind, Lady Narborough.  I smoke a great deal too much.  I am\ngoing to limit myself, for the future.\"\n\n\"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton,\" said Lord Henry.  \"Moderation is a fatal\nthing.  Enough is as bad as a meal.  More than enough is as good as a\nfeast.\"\n\nLady Ruxton glanced at him curiously.  \"You must come and explain that\nto me some afternoon, Lord Henry.  It sounds a fascinating theory,\" she\nmurmured, as she swept out of the room.\n\n\"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal,\"\ncried Lady Narborough from the door.  \"If you do, we are sure to\nsquabble upstairs.\"\n\nThe men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the\ntable and came up to the top.  Dorian Gray changed his seat and went\nand sat by Lord Henry.  Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about\nthe situation in the House of Commons.  He guffawed at his adversaries.\nThe word _doctrinaire_--word full of terror to the British\nmind--reappeared from time to time between his explosions.  An\nalliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory.  He hoisted the\nUnion Jack on the pinnacles of thought.  The inherited stupidity of the\nrace--sound English common sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be\nthe proper bulwark for society.\n\nA smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at\nDorian.\n\n\"Are you better, my dear fellow?\" he asked.  \"You seemed rather out of\nsorts at dinner.\"\n\n\"I am quite well, Harry.  I am tired.  That is all.\"\n\n\"You were charming last night.  The little duchess is quite devoted to\nyou.  She tells me she is going down to Selby.\"\n\n\"She has promised to come on the twentieth.\"\n\n\"Is Monmouth to be there, too?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, Harry.\"\n\n\"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her.  She is very\nclever, too clever for a woman.  She lacks the indefinable charm of\nweakness.  It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image\nprecious.  Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay.\nWhite porcelain feet, if you like.  They have been through the fire,\nand what fire does not destroy, it hardens.  She has had experiences.\"\n\n\"How long has she been married?\" asked Dorian.\n\n\"An eternity, she tells me.  I believe, according to the peerage, it is\nten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity,\nwith time thrown in.  Who else is coming?\"\n\n\"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey\nClouston, the usual set.  I have asked Lord Grotrian.\"\n\n\"I like him,\" said Lord Henry.  \"A great many people don't, but I find\nhim charming.  He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by\nbeing always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type.\"\n\n\"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry.  He may have to go to\nMonte Carlo with his father.\"\n\n\"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are!  Try and make him come.  By\nthe way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night.  You left before\neleven.  What did you do afterwards?  Did you go straight home?\"\n\nDorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned.\n\n\"No, Harry,\" he said at last, \"I did not get home till nearly three.\"\n\n\"Did you go to the club?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered.  Then he bit his lip.  \"No, I don't mean that.  I\ndidn't go to the club.  I walked about.  I forget what I did.... How\ninquisitive you are, Harry!  You always want to know what one has been\ndoing.  I always want to forget what I have been doing.  I came in at\nhalf-past two, if you wish to know the exact time.  I had left my\nlatch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in.  If you want any\ncorroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him.\"\n\nLord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  \"My dear fellow, as if I cared!\nLet us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman.\nSomething has happened to you, Dorian.  Tell me what it is.  You are\nnot yourself to-night.\"\n\n\"Don't mind me, Harry.  I am irritable, and out of temper.  I shall\ncome round and see you to-morrow, or next day.  Make my excuses to Lady\nNarborough.  I shan't go upstairs.  I shall go home.  I must go home.\"\n\n\"All right, Dorian.  I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time.\nThe duchess is coming.\"\n\n\"I will try to be there, Harry,\" he said, leaving the room.  As he\ndrove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror\nhe thought he had strangled had come back to him.  Lord Henry's casual\nquestioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted\nhis nerve still.  Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed.  He\nwinced.  He hated the idea of even touching them.\n\nYet it had to be done.  He realized that, and when he had locked the\ndoor of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had\nthrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag.  A huge fire was blazing.  He\npiled another log on it.  The smell of the singeing clothes and burning\nleather was horrible.  It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume\neverything.  At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some\nAlgerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and\nforehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar.\n\nSuddenly he started.  His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed\nnervously at his underlip.  Between two of the windows stood a large\nFlorentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue\nlapis.  He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate\nand make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet\nalmost loathed.  His breath quickened.  A mad craving came over him.\nHe lit a cigarette and then threw it away.  His eyelids drooped till\nthe long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek.  But he still watched\nthe cabinet.  At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been\nlying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden\nspring.  A triangular drawer passed slowly out.  His fingers moved\ninstinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something.  It was a\nsmall Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought,\nthe sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with\nround crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads.  He opened it.\nInside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and\npersistent.\n\nHe hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his\nface.  Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly\nhot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock.  It was twenty\nminutes to twelve.  He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as\nhe did so, and went into his bedroom.\n\nAs midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray,\ndressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept\nquietly out of his house.  In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good\nhorse.  He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address.\n\nThe man shook his head.  \"It is too far for me,\" he muttered.\n\n\"Here is a sovereign for you,\" said Dorian.  \"You shall have another if\nyou drive fast.\"\n\n\"All right, sir,\" answered the man, \"you will be there in an hour,\" and\nafter his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly\ntowards the river.\n\n\n\n\n\nA cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly\nin the dripping mist.  The public-houses were just closing, and dim men\nand women were clustering in broken groups round their doors.  From\nsome of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter.  In others,\ndrunkards brawled and screamed.\n\nLying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian\nGray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and\nnow and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said\nto him on the first day they had met, \"To cure the soul by means of the\nsenses, and the senses by means of the soul.\"  Yes, that was the\nsecret.  He had often tried it, and would try it again now.  There were\nopium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the\nmemory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were\nnew.\n\nThe moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull.  From time to time a\nhuge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it.  The\ngas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy.  Once the\nman lost his way and had to drive back half a mile.  A steam rose from\nthe horse as it splashed up the puddles.  The sidewindows of the hansom\nwere clogged with a grey-flannel mist.\n\n\"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of\nthe soul!\"  How the words rang in his ears!  His soul, certainly, was\nsick to death.  Was it true that the senses could cure it?  Innocent\nblood had been spilled.  What could atone for that?  Ah! for that there\nwas no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness\nwas possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing\nout, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one.\nIndeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done?  Who\nhad made him a judge over others?  He had said things that were\ndreadful, horrible, not to be endured.\n\nOn and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each\nstep.  He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster.\nThe hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him.  His throat burned\nand his delicate hands twitched nervously together.  He struck at the\nhorse madly with his stick.  The driver laughed and whipped up.  He\nlaughed in answer, and the man was silent.\n\nThe way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some\nsprawling spider.  The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist\nthickened, he felt afraid.\n\nThen they passed by lonely brickfields.  The fog was lighter here, and\nhe could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange,\nfanlike tongues of fire.  A dog barked as they went by, and far away in\nthe darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed.  The horse stumbled in a\nrut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop.\n\nAfter some time they left the clay road and rattled again over\nrough-paven streets.  Most of the windows were dark, but now and then\nfantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind.  He\nwatched them curiously.  They moved like monstrous marionettes and made\ngestures like live things.  He hated them.  A dull rage was in his\nheart.  As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from\nan open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred\nyards.  The driver beat at them with his whip.\n\nIt is said that passion makes one think in a circle.  Certainly with\nhideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped\nthose subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in\nthem the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by\nintellectual approval, passions that without such justification would\nstill have dominated his temper.  From cell to cell of his brain crept\nthe one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all\nman's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre.\nUgliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real,\nbecame dear to him now for that very reason.  Ugliness was the one\nreality.  The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of\ndisordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more\nvivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious\nshapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song.  They were what he needed\nfor forgetfulness.  In three days he would be free.\n\nSuddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane.  Over\nthe low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black\nmasts of ships.  Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the\nyards.\n\n\"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?\" he asked huskily through the\ntrap.\n\nDorian started and peered round.  \"This will do,\" he answered, and\nhaving got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had\npromised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay.  Here and\nthere a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman.  The\nlight shook and splintered in the puddles.  A red glare came from an\noutward-bound steamer that was coaling.  The slimy pavement looked like\na wet mackintosh.\n\nHe hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he\nwas being followed.  In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small\nshabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories.  In one of\nthe top-windows stood a lamp.  He stopped and gave a peculiar knock.\n\nAfter a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being\nunhooked.  The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a\nword to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the\nshadow as he passed.  At the end of the hall hung a tattered green\ncurtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him\nin from the street.  He dragged it aside and entered a long low room\nwhich looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill\nflaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that\nfaced them, were ranged round the walls.  Greasy reflectors of ribbed\ntin backed them, making quivering disks of light.  The floor was\ncovered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud,\nand stained with dark rings of spilled liquor.  Some Malays were\ncrouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and\nshowing their white teeth as they chattered.  In one corner, with his\nhead buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the\ntawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two\nhaggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his\ncoat with an expression of disgust.  \"He thinks he's got red ants on\nhim,\" laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by.  The man looked at her\nin terror and began to whimper.\n\nAt the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a\ndarkened chamber.  As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the\nheavy odour of opium met him.  He heaved a deep breath, and his\nnostrils quivered with pleasure.  When he entered, a young man with\nsmooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin\npipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner.\n\n\"You here, Adrian?\" muttered Dorian.\n\n\"Where else should I be?\" he answered, listlessly.  \"None of the chaps\nwill speak to me now.\"\n\n\"I thought you had left England.\"\n\n\"Darlington is not going to do anything.  My brother paid the bill at\nlast.  George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care,\" he added\nwith a sigh.  \"As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends.\nI think I have had too many friends.\"\n\nDorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such\nfantastic postures on the ragged mattresses.  The twisted limbs, the\ngaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him.  He knew in\nwhat strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were\nteaching them the secret of some new joy.  They were better off than he\nwas.  He was prisoned in thought.  Memory, like a horrible malady, was\neating his soul away.  From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of\nBasil Hallward looking at him.  Yet he felt he could not stay.  The\npresence of Adrian Singleton troubled him.  He wanted to be where no\none would know who he was.  He wanted to escape from himself.\n\n\"I am going on to the other place,\" he said after a pause.\n\n\"On the wharf?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That mad-cat is sure to be there.  They won't have her in this place\nnow.\"\n\nDorian shrugged his shoulders.  \"I am sick of women who love one.\nWomen who hate one are much more interesting.  Besides, the stuff is\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Much the same.\"\n\n\"I like it better.  Come and have something to drink.  I must have\nsomething.\"\n\n\"I don't want anything,\" murmured the young man.\n\n\"Never mind.\"\n\nAdrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar.  A\nhalf-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous\ngreeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of\nthem.  The women sidled up and began to chatter.  Dorian turned his\nback on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton.\n\nA crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of\nthe women.  \"We are very proud to-night,\" she sneered.\n\n\"For God's sake don't talk to me,\" cried Dorian, stamping his foot on\nthe ground.  \"What do you want?  Money?  Here it is.  Don't ever talk\nto me again.\"\n\nTwo red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then\nflickered out and left them dull and glazed.  She tossed her head and\nraked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers.  Her companion\nwatched her enviously.\n\n\"It's no use,\" sighed Adrian Singleton.  \"I don't care to go back.\nWhat does it matter?  I am quite happy here.\"\n\n\"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?\" said Dorian,\nafter a pause.\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Good night, then.\"\n\n\"Good night,\" answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping\nhis parched mouth with a handkerchief.\n\nDorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face.  As he drew\nthe curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the\nwoman who had taken his money.  \"There goes the devil's bargain!\" she\nhiccoughed, in a hoarse voice.\n\n\"Curse you!\" he answered, \"don't call me that.\"\n\nShe snapped her fingers.  \"Prince Charming is what you like to be\ncalled, ain't it?\" she yelled after him.\n\nThe drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly\nround.  The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear.  He\nrushed out as if in pursuit.\n\nDorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain.  His\nmeeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered\nif the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as\nBasil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult.  He bit his\nlip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad.  Yet, after all, what did\nit matter to him?  One's days were too brief to take the burden of\nanother's errors on one's shoulders.  Each man lived his own life and\npaid his own price for living it.  The only pity was one had to pay so\noften for a single fault.  One had to pay over and over again, indeed.\nIn her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts.\n\nThere are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or\nfor what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of\nthe body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful\nimpulses.  Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their\nwill.  They move to their terrible end as automatons move.  Choice is\ntaken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at\nall, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its\ncharm.  For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are\nsins of disobedience.  When that high spirit, that morning star of\nevil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell.\n\nCallous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for\nrebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but\nas he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a\nshort cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself\nsuddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself,\nhe was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his\nthroat.\n\nHe struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the\ntightening fingers away.  In a second he heard the click of a revolver,\nand saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head,\nand the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him.\n\n\"What do you want?\" he gasped.\n\n\"Keep quiet,\" said the man.  \"If you stir, I shoot you.\"\n\n\"You are mad.  What have I done to you?\"\n\n\"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane,\" was the answer, \"and Sibyl Vane\nwas my sister.  She killed herself.  I know it.  Her death is at your\ndoor.  I swore I would kill you in return.  For years I have sought\nyou.  I had no clue, no trace.  The two people who could have described\nyou were dead.  I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call\nyou.  I heard it to-night by chance.  Make your peace with God, for\nto-night you are going to die.\"\n\nDorian Gray grew sick with fear.  \"I never knew her,\" he stammered.  \"I\nnever heard of her.  You are mad.\"\n\n\"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you\nare going to die.\"  There was a horrible moment.  Dorian did not know\nwhat to say or do.  \"Down on your knees!\" growled the man.  \"I give you\none minute to make your peace--no more.  I go on board to-night for\nIndia, and I must do my job first.  One minute.  That's all.\"\n\nDorian's arms fell to his side.  Paralysed with terror, he did not know\nwhat to do.  Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain.  \"Stop,\" he\ncried.  \"How long ago is it since your sister died?  Quick, tell me!\"\n\n\"Eighteen years,\" said the man.  \"Why do you ask me?  What do years\nmatter?\"\n\n\"Eighteen years,\" laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his\nvoice.  \"Eighteen years!  Set me under the lamp and look at my face!\"\n\nJames Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant.\nThen he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.\n\nDim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him\nthe hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face\nof the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the\nunstained purity of youth.  He seemed little more than a lad of twenty\nsummers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been\nwhen they had parted so many years ago.  It was obvious that this was\nnot the man who had destroyed her life.\n\nHe loosened his hold and reeled back.  \"My God! my God!\" he cried, \"and\nI would have murdered you!\"\n\nDorian Gray drew a long breath.  \"You have been on the brink of\ncommitting a terrible crime, my man,\" he said, looking at him sternly.\n\"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own\nhands.\"\n\n\"Forgive me, sir,\" muttered James Vane.  \"I was deceived.  A chance\nword I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track.\"\n\n\"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into\ntrouble,\" said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the\nstreet.\n\nJames Vane stood on the pavement in horror.  He was trembling from head\nto foot.  After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping\nalong the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him\nwith stealthy footsteps.  He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked\nround with a start.  It was one of the women who had been drinking at\nthe bar.\n\n\"Why didn't you kill him?\" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite\nclose to his.  \"I knew you were following him when you rushed out from\nDaly's. You fool!  You should have killed him.  He has lots of money,\nand he's as bad as bad.\"\n\n\"He is not the man I am looking for,\" he answered, \"and I want no man's\nmoney.  I want a man's life.  The man whose life I want must be nearly\nforty now.  This one is little more than a boy.  Thank God, I have not\ngot his blood upon my hands.\"\n\nThe woman gave a bitter laugh.  \"Little more than a boy!\" she sneered.\n\"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me\nwhat I am.\"\n\n\"You lie!\" cried James Vane.\n\nShe raised her hand up to heaven.  \"Before God I am telling the truth,\"\nshe cried.\n\n\"Before God?\"\n\n\"Strike me dumb if it ain't so.  He is the worst one that comes here.\nThey say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face.  It's nigh\non eighteen years since I met him.  He hasn't changed much since then.\nI have, though,\" she added, with a sickly leer.\n\n\"You swear this?\"\n\n\"I swear it,\" came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth.  \"But don't give\nme away to him,\" she whined; \"I am afraid of him.  Let me have some\nmoney for my night's lodging.\"\n\nHe broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street,\nbut Dorian Gray had disappeared.  When he looked back, the woman had\nvanished also.\n\n\n\n\n\nA week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby\nRoyal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband,\na jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests.  It was tea-time,\nand the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the\ntable lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at\nwhich the duchess was presiding.  Her white hands were moving daintily\namong the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that\nDorian had whispered to her.  Lord Henry was lying back in a\nsilk-draped wicker chair, looking at them.  On a peach-coloured divan\nsat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of\nthe last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection.  Three\nyoung men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of\nthe women.  The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were\nmore expected to arrive on the next day.\n\n\"What are you two talking about?\" said Lord Henry, strolling over to\nthe table and putting his cup down.  \"I hope Dorian has told you about\nmy plan for rechristening everything, Gladys.  It is a delightful idea.\"\n\n\"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry,\" rejoined the duchess,\nlooking up at him with her wonderful eyes.  \"I am quite satisfied with\nmy own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his.\"\n\n\"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world.  They are\nboth perfect.  I was thinking chiefly of flowers.  Yesterday I cut an\norchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as\neffective as the seven deadly sins.  In a thoughtless moment I asked\none of the gardeners what it was called.  He told me it was a fine\nspecimen of _Robinsoniana_, or something dreadful of that kind.  It is a\nsad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to\nthings.  Names are everything.  I never quarrel with actions.  My one\nquarrel is with words.  That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in\nliterature.  The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled\nto use one.  It is the only thing he is fit for.\"\n\n\"Then what should we call you, Harry?\" she asked.\n\n\"His name is Prince Paradox,\" said Dorian.\n\n\"I recognize him in a flash,\" exclaimed the duchess.\n\n\"I won't hear of it,\" laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair.  \"From\na label there is no escape!  I refuse the title.\"\n\n\"Royalties may not abdicate,\" fell as a warning from pretty lips.\n\n\"You wish me to defend my throne, then?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I give the truths of to-morrow.\"\n\n\"I prefer the mistakes of to-day,\" she answered.\n\n\"You disarm me, Gladys,\" he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood.\n\n\"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear.\"\n\n\"I never tilt against beauty,\" he said, with a wave of his hand.\n\n\"That is your error, Harry, believe me.  You value beauty far too much.\"\n\n\"How can you say that?  I admit that I think that it is better to be\nbeautiful than to be good.  But on the other hand, no one is more ready\nthan I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.\"\n\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?\" cried the duchess.\n\"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?\"\n\n\"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys.  You, as a good\nTory, must not underrate them.  Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly\nvirtues have made our England what she is.\"\n\n\"You don't like your country, then?\" she asked.\n\n\"I live in it.\"\n\n\"That you may censure it the better.\"\n\n\"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?\" he inquired.\n\n\"What do they say of us?\"\n\n\"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop.\"\n\n\"Is that yours, Harry?\"\n\n\"I give it to you.\"\n\n\"I could not use it.  It is too true.\"\n\n\"You need not be afraid.  Our countrymen never recognize a description.\"\n\n\"They are practical.\"\n\n\"They are more cunning than practical.  When they make up their ledger,\nthey balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy.\"\n\n\"Still, we have done great things.\"\n\n\"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys.\"\n\n\"We have carried their burden.\"\n\n\"Only as far as the Stock Exchange.\"\n\nShe shook her head.  \"I believe in the race,\" she cried.\n\n\"It represents the survival of the pushing.\"\n\n\"It has development.\"\n\n\"Decay fascinates me more.\"\n\n\"What of art?\" she asked.\n\n\"It is a malady.\"\n\n\"Love?\"\n\n\"An illusion.\"\n\n\"Religion?\"\n\n\"The fashionable substitute for belief.\"\n\n\"You are a sceptic.\"\n\n\"Never!  Scepticism is the beginning of faith.\"\n\n\"What are you?\"\n\n\"To define is to limit.\"\n\n\"Give me a clue.\"\n\n\"Threads snap.  You would lose your way in the labyrinth.\"\n\n\"You bewilder me.  Let us talk of some one else.\"\n\n\"Our host is a delightful topic.  Years ago he was christened Prince\nCharming.\"\n\n\"Ah! don't remind me of that,\" cried Dorian Gray.\n\n\"Our host is rather horrid this evening,\" answered the duchess,\ncolouring.  \"I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely\nscientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern\nbutterfly.\"\n\n\"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess,\" laughed Dorian.\n\n\"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me.\"\n\n\"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?\"\n\n\"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you.  Usually because\nI come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by\nhalf-past eight.\"\n\n\"How unreasonable of her!  You should give her warning.\"\n\n\"I daren't, Mr. Gray.  Why, she invents hats for me.  You remember the\none I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party?  You don't, but it is nice\nof you to pretend that you do.  Well, she made it out of nothing.  All\ngood hats are made out of nothing.\"\n\n\"Like all good reputations, Gladys,\" interrupted Lord Henry.  \"Every\neffect that one produces gives one an enemy.  To be popular one must be\na mediocrity.\"\n\n\"Not with women,\" said the duchess, shaking her head; \"and women rule\nthe world.  I assure you we can't bear mediocrities.  We women, as some\none says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if\nyou ever love at all.\"\n\n\"It seems to me that we never do anything else,\" murmured Dorian.\n\n\"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray,\" answered the duchess with\nmock sadness.\n\n\"My dear Gladys!\" cried Lord Henry.  \"How can you say that?  Romance\nlives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art.\nBesides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved.\nDifference of object does not alter singleness of passion.  It merely\nintensifies it.  We can have in life but one great experience at best,\nand the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as\npossible.\"\n\n\"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?\" asked the duchess after\na pause.\n\n\"Especially when one has been wounded by it,\" answered Lord Henry.\n\nThe duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression\nin her eyes.  \"What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?\" she inquired.\n\nDorian hesitated for a moment.  Then he threw his head back and\nlaughed.  \"I always agree with Harry, Duchess.\"\n\n\"Even when he is wrong?\"\n\n\"Harry is never wrong, Duchess.\"\n\n\"And does his philosophy make you happy?\"\n\n\"I have never searched for happiness.  Who wants happiness?  I have\nsearched for pleasure.\"\n\n\"And found it, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"Often.  Too often.\"\n\nThe duchess sighed.  \"I am searching for peace,\" she said, \"and if I\ndon't go and dress, I shall have none this evening.\"\n\n\"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess,\" cried Dorian, starting to his\nfeet and walking down the conservatory.\n\n\"You are flirting disgracefully with him,\" said Lord Henry to his\ncousin.  \"You had better take care.  He is very fascinating.\"\n\n\"If he were not, there would be no battle.\"\n\n\"Greek meets Greek, then?\"\n\n\"I am on the side of the Trojans.  They fought for a woman.\"\n\n\"They were defeated.\"\n\n\"There are worse things than capture,\" she answered.\n\n\"You gallop with a loose rein.\"\n\n\"Pace gives life,\" was the _riposte_.\n\n\"I shall write it in my diary to-night.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"That a burnt child loves the fire.\"\n\n\"I am not even singed.  My wings are untouched.\"\n\n\"You use them for everything, except flight.\"\n\n\"Courage has passed from men to women.  It is a new experience for us.\"\n\n\"You have a rival.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\nHe laughed.  \"Lady Narborough,\" he whispered.  \"She perfectly adores\nhim.\"\n\n\"You fill me with apprehension.  The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us\nwho are romanticists.\"\n\n\"Romanticists!  You have all the methods of science.\"\n\n\"Men have educated us.\"\n\n\"But not explained you.\"\n\n\"Describe us as a sex,\" was her challenge.\n\n\"Sphinxes without secrets.\"\n\nShe looked at him, smiling.  \"How long Mr. Gray is!\" she said.  \"Let us\ngo and help him.  I have not yet told him the colour of my frock.\"\n\n\"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys.\"\n\n\"That would be a premature surrender.\"\n\n\"Romantic art begins with its climax.\"\n\n\"I must keep an opportunity for retreat.\"\n\n\"In the Parthian manner?\"\n\n\"They found safety in the desert.  I could not do that.\"\n\n\"Women are not always allowed a choice,\" he answered, but hardly had he\nfinished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came\na stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall.  Everybody\nstarted up.  The duchess stood motionless in horror.  And with fear in\nhis eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian\nGray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon.\n\nHe was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of\nthe sofas.  After a short time, he came to himself and looked round\nwith a dazed expression.\n\n\"What has happened?\" he asked.  \"Oh!  I remember.  Am I safe here,\nHarry?\" He began to tremble.\n\n\"My dear Dorian,\" answered Lord Henry, \"you merely fainted.  That was\nall.  You must have overtired yourself.  You had better not come down\nto dinner.  I will take your place.\"\n\n\"No, I will come down,\" he said, struggling to his feet.  \"I would\nrather come down.  I must not be alone.\"\n\nHe went to his room and dressed.  There was a wild recklessness of\ngaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of\nterror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the\nwindow of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the\nface of James Vane watching him.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the\ntime in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet\nindifferent to life itself.  The consciousness of being hunted, snared,\ntracked down, had begun to dominate him.  If the tapestry did but\ntremble in the wind, he shook.  The dead leaves that were blown against\nthe leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild\nregrets.  When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face\npeering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to\nlay its hand upon his heart.\n\nBut perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of\nthe night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him.  Actual\nlife was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the\nimagination.  It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet\nof sin.  It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen\nbrood.  In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor\nthe good rewarded.  Success was given to the strong, failure thrust\nupon the weak.  That was all.  Besides, had any stranger been prowling\nround the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the\nkeepers.  Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the\ngardeners would have reported it.  Yes, it had been merely fancy.\nSibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him.  He had sailed away\nin his ship to founder in some winter sea.  From him, at any rate, he\nwas safe.  Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he\nwas.  The mask of youth had saved him.\n\nAnd yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think\nthat conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them\nvisible form, and make them move before one!  What sort of life would\nhis be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from\nsilent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear\nas he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!\nAs the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and\nthe air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder.  Oh! in what a\nwild hour of madness he had killed his friend!  How ghastly the mere\nmemory of the scene!  He saw it all again.  Each hideous detail came\nback to him with added horror.  Out of the black cave of time, terrible\nand swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin.  When Lord Henry\ncame in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will\nbreak.\n\nIt was not till the third day that he ventured to go out.  There was\nsomething in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that\nseemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life.  But\nit was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had\ncaused the change.  His own nature had revolted against the excess of\nanguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm.\nWith subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so.  Their\nstrong passions must either bruise or bend.  They either slay the man,\nor themselves die.  Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on.  The\nloves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude.\nBesides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a\nterror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with\nsomething of pity and not a little of contempt.\n\nAfter breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden\nand then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp\nfrost lay like salt upon the grass.  The sky was an inverted cup of\nblue metal.  A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.\n\nAt the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey\nClouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of\nhis gun.  He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take\nthe mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered\nbracken and rough undergrowth.\n\n\"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?\" he asked.\n\n\"Not very good, Dorian.  I think most of the birds have gone to the\nopen.  I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new\nground.\"\n\nDorian strolled along by his side.  The keen aromatic air, the brown\nand red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the\nbeaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns\nthat followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful\nfreedom.  He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the\nhigh indifference of joy.\n\nSuddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front\nof them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it\nforward, started a hare.  It bolted for a thicket of alders.  Sir\nGeoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the\nanimal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he\ncried out at once, \"Don't shoot it, Geoffrey.  Let it live.\"\n\n\"What nonsense, Dorian!\" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded\ninto the thicket, he fired.  There were two cries heard, the cry of a\nhare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is\nworse.\n\n\"Good heavens!  I have hit a beater!\" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey.  \"What an\nass the man was to get in front of the guns!  Stop shooting there!\" he\ncalled out at the top of his voice.  \"A man is hurt.\"\n\nThe head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand.\n\n\"Where, sir?  Where is he?\" he shouted.  At the same time, the firing\nceased along the line.\n\n\"Here,\" answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket.\n\"Why on earth don't you keep your men back?  Spoiled my shooting for\nthe day.\"\n\nDorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the\nlithe swinging branches aside.  In a few moments they emerged, dragging\na body after them into the sunlight.  He turned away in horror.  It\nseemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went.  He heard Sir\nGeoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of\nthe keeper.  The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with\nfaces.  There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of\nvoices.  A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the\nboughs overhead.\n\nAfter a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like\nendless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder.  He started\nand looked round.\n\n\"Dorian,\" said Lord Henry, \"I had better tell them that the shooting is\nstopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on.\"\n\n\"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry,\" he answered bitterly.  \"The\nwhole thing is hideous and cruel.  Is the man ...?\"\n\nHe could not finish the sentence.\n\n\"I am afraid so,\" rejoined Lord Henry.  \"He got the whole charge of\nshot in his chest.  He must have died almost instantaneously.  Come;\nlet us go home.\"\n\nThey walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly\nfifty yards without speaking.  Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and\nsaid, with a heavy sigh, \"It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen.\"\n\n\"What is?\" asked Lord Henry.  \"Oh! this accident, I suppose.  My dear\nfellow, it can't be helped.  It was the man's own fault.  Why did he\nget in front of the guns?  Besides, it is nothing to us.  It is rather\nawkward for Geoffrey, of course.  It does not do to pepper beaters.  It\nmakes people think that one is a wild shot.  And Geoffrey is not; he\nshoots very straight.  But there is no use talking about the matter.\"\n\nDorian shook his head.  \"It is a bad omen, Harry.  I feel as if\nsomething horrible were going to happen to some of us.  To myself,\nperhaps,\" he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of\npain.\n\nThe elder man laughed.  \"The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_,\nDorian.  That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.  But we\nare not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering\nabout this thing at dinner.  I must tell them that the subject is to be\ntabooed.  As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen.  Destiny\ndoes not send us heralds.  She is too wise or too cruel for that.\nBesides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian?  You have\neverything in the world that a man can want.  There is no one who would\nnot be delighted to change places with you.\"\n\n\"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry.  Don't\nlaugh like that.  I am telling you the truth.  The wretched peasant who\nhas just died is better off than I am.  I have no terror of death.  It\nis the coming of death that terrifies me.  Its monstrous wings seem to\nwheel in the leaden air around me.  Good heavens! don't you see a man\nmoving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?\"\n\nLord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand\nwas pointing.  \"Yes,\" he said, smiling, \"I see the gardener waiting for\nyou.  I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on\nthe table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow!  You\nmust come and see my doctor, when we get back to town.\"\n\nDorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching.  The\nman touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating\nmanner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master.\n\"Her Grace told me to wait for an answer,\" he murmured.\n\nDorian put the letter into his pocket.  \"Tell her Grace that I am\ncoming in,\" he said, coldly.  The man turned round and went rapidly in\nthe direction of the house.\n\n\"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!\" laughed Lord Henry.\n\"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most.  A woman will\nflirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.\"\n\n\"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry!  In the present\ninstance, you are quite astray.  I like the duchess very much, but I\ndon't love her.\"\n\n\"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you\nare excellently matched.\"\n\n\"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for\nscandal.\"\n\n\"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty,\" said Lord Henry,\nlighting a cigarette.\n\n\"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram.\"\n\n\"The world goes to the altar of its own accord,\" was the answer.\n\n\"I wish I could love,\" cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in\nhis voice.  \"But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the\ndesire.  I am too much concentrated on myself.  My own personality has\nbecome a burden to me.  I want to escape, to go away, to forget.  It\nwas silly of me to come down here at all.  I think I shall send a wire\nto Harvey to have the yacht got ready.  On a yacht one is safe.\"\n\n\"Safe from what, Dorian?  You are in some trouble.  Why not tell me\nwhat it is?  You know I would help you.\"\n\n\"I can't tell you, Harry,\" he answered sadly.  \"And I dare say it is\nonly a fancy of mine.  This unfortunate accident has upset me.  I have\na horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me.\"\n\n\"What nonsense!\"\n\n\"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it.  Ah! here is the duchess,\nlooking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown.  You see we have come back,\nDuchess.\"\n\n\"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray,\" she answered.  \"Poor Geoffrey is\nterribly upset.  And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare.\nHow curious!\"\n\n\"Yes, it was very curious.  I don't know what made me say it.  Some\nwhim, I suppose.  It looked the loveliest of little live things.  But I\nam sorry they told you about the man.  It is a hideous subject.\"\n\n\"It is an annoying subject,\" broke in Lord Henry.  \"It has no\npsychological value at all.  Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on\npurpose, how interesting he would be!  I should like to know some one\nwho had committed a real murder.\"\n\n\"How horrid of you, Harry!\" cried the duchess.  \"Isn't it, Mr. Gray?\nHarry, Mr. Gray is ill again.  He is going to faint.\"\n\nDorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled.  \"It is nothing,\nDuchess,\" he murmured; \"my nerves are dreadfully out of order.  That is\nall.  I am afraid I walked too far this morning.  I didn't hear what\nHarry said.  Was it very bad?  You must tell me some other time.  I\nthink I must go and lie down.  You will excuse me, won't you?\"\n\nThey had reached the great flight of steps that led from the\nconservatory on to the terrace.  As the glass door closed behind\nDorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous\neyes.  \"Are you very much in love with him?\" he asked.\n\nShe did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape.\n\"I wish I knew,\" she said at last.\n\nHe shook his head.  \"Knowledge would be fatal.  It is the uncertainty\nthat charms one.  A mist makes things wonderful.\"\n\n\"One may lose one's way.\"\n\n\"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"Disillusion.\"\n\n\"It was my _debut_ in life,\" she sighed.\n\n\"It came to you crowned.\"\n\n\"I am tired of strawberry leaves.\"\n\n\"They become you.\"\n\n\"Only in public.\"\n\n\"You would miss them,\" said Lord Henry.\n\n\"I will not part with a petal.\"\n\n\"Monmouth has ears.\"\n\n\"Old age is dull of hearing.\"\n\n\"Has he never been jealous?\"\n\n\"I wish he had been.\"\n\nHe glanced about as if in search of something.  \"What are you looking\nfor?\" she inquired.\n\n\"The button from your foil,\" he answered.  \"You have dropped it.\"\n\nShe laughed.  \"I have still the mask.\"\n\n\"It makes your eyes lovelier,\" was his reply.\n\nShe laughed again.  Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet\nfruit.\n\nUpstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror\nin every tingling fibre of his body.  Life had suddenly become too\nhideous a burden for him to bear.  The dreadful death of the unlucky\nbeater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to\npre-figure death for himself also.  He had nearly swooned at what Lord\nHenry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.\n\nAt five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to\npack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham\nat the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another\nnight at Selby Royal.  It was an ill-omened place.  Death walked there\nin the sunlight.  The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.\n\nThen he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to\ntown to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in\nhis absence.  As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to\nthe door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see\nhim.  He frowned and bit his lip.  \"Send him in,\" he muttered, after\nsome moments' hesitation.\n\nAs soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a\ndrawer and spread it out before him.\n\n\"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this\nmorning, Thornton?\" he said, taking up a pen.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" answered the gamekeeper.\n\n\"Was the poor fellow married?  Had he any people dependent on him?\"\nasked Dorian, looking bored.  \"If so, I should not like them to be left\nin want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary.\"\n\n\"We don't know who he is, sir.  That is what I took the liberty of\ncoming to you about.\"\n\n\"Don't know who he is?\" said Dorian, listlessly.  \"What do you mean?\nWasn't he one of your men?\"\n\n\"No, sir.  Never saw him before.  Seems like a sailor, sir.\"\n\nThe pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart\nhad suddenly stopped beating.  \"A sailor?\" he cried out.  \"Did you say\na sailor?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.  He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on\nboth arms, and that kind of thing.\"\n\n\"Was there anything found on him?\" said Dorian, leaning forward and\nlooking at the man with startled eyes.  \"Anything that would tell his\nname?\"\n\n\"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any\nkind.  A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we\nthink.\"\n\nDorian started to his feet.  A terrible hope fluttered past him.  He\nclutched at it madly.  \"Where is the body?\" he exclaimed.  \"Quick!  I\nmust see it at once.\"\n\n\"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir.  The folk don't like\nto have that sort of thing in their houses.  They say a corpse brings\nbad luck.\"\n\n\"The Home Farm!  Go there at once and meet me.  Tell one of the grooms\nto bring my horse round.  No. Never mind.  I'll go to the stables\nmyself.  It will save time.\"\n\nIn less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the\nlong avenue as hard as he could go.  The trees seemed to sweep past him\nin spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his\npath.  Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him.\nHe lashed her across the neck with his crop.  She cleft the dusky air\nlike an arrow.  The stones flew from her hoofs.\n\nAt last he reached the Home Farm.  Two men were loitering in the yard.\nHe leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them.  In the\nfarthest stable a light was glimmering.  Something seemed to tell him\nthat the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand\nupon the latch.\n\nThere he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a\ndiscovery that would either make or mar his life.  Then he thrust the\ndoor open and entered.\n\nOn a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man\ndressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers.  A spotted\nhandkerchief had been placed over the face.  A coarse candle, stuck in\na bottle, sputtered beside it.\n\nDorian Gray shuddered.  He felt that his could not be the hand to take\nthe handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to\ncome to him.\n\n\"Take that thing off the face.  I wish to see it,\" he said, clutching\nat the door-post for support.\n\nWhen the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward.  A cry of joy\nbroke from his lips.  The man who had been shot in the thicket was\nJames Vane.\n\nHe stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body.  As he rode\nhome, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good,\" cried\nLord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled\nwith rose-water. \"You are quite perfect.  Pray, don't change.\"\n\nDorian Gray shook his head.  \"No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful\nthings in my life.  I am not going to do any more.  I began my good\nactions yesterday.\"\n\n\"Where were you yesterday?\"\n\n\"In the country, Harry.  I was staying at a little inn by myself.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" said Lord Henry, smiling, \"anybody can be good in the\ncountry.  There are no temptations there.  That is the reason why\npeople who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized.\nCivilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to.  There are\nonly two ways by which man can reach it.  One is by being cultured, the\nother by being corrupt.  Country people have no opportunity of being\neither, so they stagnate.\"\n\n\"Culture and corruption,\" echoed Dorian.  \"I have known something of\nboth.  It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found\ntogether.  For I have a new ideal, Harry.  I am going to alter.  I\nthink I have altered.\"\n\n\"You have not yet told me what your good action was.  Or did you say\nyou had done more than one?\" asked his companion as he spilled into his\nplate a little crimson pyramid of seeded strawberries and, through a\nperforated, shell-shaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them.\n\n\"I can tell you, Harry.  It is not a story I could tell to any one\nelse.  I spared somebody.  It sounds vain, but you understand what I\nmean.  She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane.  I\nthink it was that which first attracted me to her.  You remember Sibyl,\ndon't you?  How long ago that seems!  Well, Hetty was not one of our\nown class, of course.  She was simply a girl in a village.  But I\nreally loved her.  I am quite sure that I loved her.  All during this\nwonderful May that we have been having, I used to run down and see her\ntwo or three times a week.  Yesterday she met me in a little orchard.\nThe apple-blossoms kept tumbling down on her hair, and she was\nlaughing.  We were to have gone away together this morning at dawn.\nSuddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I had found her.\"\n\n\"I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill\nof real pleasure, Dorian,\" interrupted Lord Henry.  \"But I can finish\nyour idyll for you.  You gave her good advice and broke her heart.\nThat was the beginning of your reformation.\"\n\n\"Harry, you are horrible!  You mustn't say these dreadful things.\nHetty's heart is not broken.  Of course, she cried and all that.  But\nthere is no disgrace upon her.  She can live, like Perdita, in her\ngarden of mint and marigold.\"\n\n\"And weep over a faithless Florizel,\" said Lord Henry, laughing, as he\nleaned back in his chair.  \"My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously\nboyish moods.  Do you think this girl will ever be really content now\nwith any one of her own rank?  I suppose she will be married some day\nto a rough carter or a grinning ploughman.  Well, the fact of having\nmet you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she\nwill be wretched.  From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I\nthink much of your great renunciation.  Even as a beginning, it is\npoor.  Besides, how do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the\npresent moment in some starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies\nround her, like Ophelia?\"\n\n\"I can't bear this, Harry!  You mock at everything, and then suggest\nthe most serious tragedies.  I am sorry I told you now.  I don't care\nwhat you say to me.  I know I was right in acting as I did.  Poor\nHetty!  As I rode past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at\nthe window, like a spray of jasmine.  Don't let us talk about it any\nmore, and don't try to persuade me that the first good action I have\ndone for years, the first little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever\nknown, is really a sort of sin.  I want to be better.  I am going to be\nbetter.  Tell me something about yourself.  What is going on in town?\nI have not been to the club for days.\"\n\n\"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance.\"\n\n\"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time,\" said\nDorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly.\n\n\"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and\nthe British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having\nmore than one topic every three months.  They have been very fortunate\nlately, however.  They have had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbell's\nsuicide.  Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist.\nScotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left\nfor Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor\nBasil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris\nat all.  I suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has\nbeen seen in San Francisco.  It is an odd thing, but every one who\ndisappears is said to be seen at San Francisco.  It must be a\ndelightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world.\"\n\n\"What do you think has happened to Basil?\" asked Dorian, holding up his\nBurgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could\ndiscuss the matter so calmly.\n\n\"I have not the slightest idea.  If Basil chooses to hide himself, it\nis no business of mine.  If he is dead, I don't want to think about\nhim.  Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me.  I hate it.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said the younger man wearily.\n\n\"Because,\" said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt\ntrellis of an open vinaigrette box, \"one can survive everything\nnowadays except that.  Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in\nthe nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.  Let us have our\ncoffee in the music-room, Dorian.  You must play Chopin to me.  The man\nwith whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely.  Poor Victoria!\nI was very fond of her.  The house is rather lonely without her.  Of\ncourse, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit.  But then one\nregrets the loss even of one's worst habits.  Perhaps one regrets them\nthe most.  They are such an essential part of one's personality.\"\n\nDorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next\nroom, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white\nand black ivory of the keys.  After the coffee had been brought in, he\nstopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, \"Harry, did it ever\noccur to you that Basil was murdered?\"\n\nLord Henry yawned.  \"Basil was very popular, and always wore a\nWaterbury watch.  Why should he have been murdered?  He was not clever\nenough to have enemies.  Of course, he had a wonderful genius for\npainting.  But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as\npossible.  Basil was really rather dull.  He only interested me once,\nand that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration\nfor you and that you were the dominant motive of his art.\"\n\n\"I was very fond of Basil,\" said Dorian with a note of sadness in his\nvoice.  \"But don't people say that he was murdered?\"\n\n\"Oh, some of the papers do.  It does not seem to me to be at all\nprobable.  I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not\nthe sort of man to have gone to them.  He had no curiosity.  It was his\nchief defect.\"\n\n\"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?\"\nsaid the younger man.  He watched him intently after he had spoken.\n\n\"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that\ndoesn't suit you.  All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime.\nIt is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder.  I am sorry if I hurt\nyour vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true.  Crime belongs\nexclusively to the lower orders.  I don't blame them in the smallest\ndegree.  I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us,\nsimply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.\"\n\n\"A method of procuring sensations?  Do you think, then, that a man who\nhas once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again?\nDon't tell me that.\"\n\n\"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often,\" cried Lord\nHenry, laughing.  \"That is one of the most important secrets of life.\nI should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake.  One should\nnever do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.  But let us\npass from poor Basil.  I wish I could believe that he had come to such\na really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell\ninto the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the\nscandal.  Yes:  I should fancy that was his end.  I see him lying now\non his back under those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges\nfloating over him and long weeds catching in his hair.  Do you know, I\ndon't think he would have done much more good work.  During the last\nten years his painting had gone off very much.\"\n\nDorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began\nto stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, grey-plumaged\nbird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo\nperch.  As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf\nof crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards\nand forwards.\n\n\"Yes,\" he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of\nhis pocket; \"his painting had quite gone off.  It seemed to me to have\nlost something.  It had lost an ideal.  When you and he ceased to be\ngreat friends, he ceased to be a great artist.  What was it separated\nyou?  I suppose he bored you.  If so, he never forgave you.  It's a\nhabit bores have.  By the way, what has become of that wonderful\nportrait he did of you?  I don't think I have ever seen it since he\nfinished it.  Oh!  I remember your telling me years ago that you had\nsent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the\nway.  You never got it back?  What a pity! it was really a\nmasterpiece.  I remember I wanted to buy it.  I wish I had now.  It\nbelonged to Basil's best period.  Since then, his work was that curious\nmixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man\nto be called a representative British artist.  Did you advertise for\nit?  You should.\"\n\n\"I forget,\" said Dorian.  \"I suppose I did.  But I never really liked\nit.  I am sorry I sat for it.  The memory of the thing is hateful to\nme.  Why do you talk of it?  It used to remind me of those curious\nlines in some play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?--\n\n    \"Like the painting of a sorrow,\n     A face without a heart.\"\n\nYes:  that is what it was like.\"\n\nLord Henry laughed.  \"If a man treats life artistically, his brain is\nhis heart,\" he answered, sinking into an arm-chair.\n\nDorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano.\n\"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'\" he repeated, \"'a face without a\nheart.'\"\n\nThe elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes.  \"By\nthe way, Dorian,\" he said after a pause, \"'what does it profit a man if\nhe gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?--his own\nsoul'?\"\n\nThe music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend.\n\"Why do you ask me that, Harry?\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise,\n\"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer.\nThat is all.  I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by\nthe Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people\nlistening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the\nman yelling out that question to his audience.  It struck me as being\nrather dramatic.  London is very rich in curious effects of that kind.\nA wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly\nwhite faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful\nphrase flung into the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very\ngood in its way, quite a suggestion.  I thought of telling the prophet\nthat art had a soul, but that man had not.  I am afraid, however, he\nwould not have understood me.\"\n\n\"Don't, Harry.  The soul is a terrible reality.  It can be bought, and\nsold, and bartered away.  It can be poisoned, or made perfect.  There\nis a soul in each one of us.  I know it.\"\n\n\"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?\"\n\n\"Quite sure.\"\n\n\"Ah! then it must be an illusion.  The things one feels absolutely\ncertain about are never true.  That is the fatality of faith, and the\nlesson of romance.  How grave you are!  Don't be so serious.  What have\nyou or I to do with the superstitions of our age?  No:  we have given\nup our belief in the soul.  Play me something.  Play me a nocturne,\nDorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept\nyour youth.  You must have some secret.  I am only ten years older than\nyou are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow.  You are really\nwonderful, Dorian.  You have never looked more charming than you do\nto-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first.  You were rather\ncheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary.  You have changed, of\ncourse, but not in appearance.  I wish you would tell me your secret.\nTo get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take\nexercise, get up early, or be respectable.  Youth!  There is nothing\nlike it.  It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth.  The only\npeople to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much\nyounger than myself.  They seem in front of me.  Life has revealed to\nthem her latest wonder.  As for the aged, I always contradict the aged.\nI do it on principle.  If you ask them their opinion on something that\nhappened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in\n1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew\nabsolutely nothing.  How lovely that thing you are playing is!  I\nwonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping round the\nvilla and the salt spray dashing against the panes?  It is marvellously\nromantic.  What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that\nis not imitative!  Don't stop.  I want music to-night. It seems to me\nthat you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you.\nI have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of.  The\ntragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.  I am\namazed sometimes at my own sincerity.  Ah, Dorian, how happy you are!\nWhat an exquisite life you have had!  You have drunk deeply of\neverything.  You have crushed the grapes against your palate.  Nothing\nhas been hidden from you.  And it has all been to you no more than the\nsound of music.  It has not marred you.  You are still the same.\"\n\n\"I am not the same, Harry.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are the same.  I wonder what the rest of your life will be.\nDon't spoil it by renunciations.  At present you are a perfect type.\nDon't make yourself incomplete.  You are quite flawless now.  You need\nnot shake your head:  you know you are.  Besides, Dorian, don't deceive\nyourself.  Life is not governed by will or intention.  Life is a\nquestion of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which\nthought hides itself and passion has its dreams.  You may fancy\nyourself safe and think yourself strong.  But a chance tone of colour\nin a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once\nloved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten\npoem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music\nthat you had ceased to play--I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things\nlike these that our lives depend.  Browning writes about that\nsomewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us.  There are\nmoments when the odour of _lilas blanc_ passes suddenly across me, and I\nhave to live the strangest month of my life over again.  I wish I could\nchange places with you, Dorian.  The world has cried out against us\nboth, but it has always worshipped you.  It always will worship you.\nYou are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is\nafraid it has found.  I am so glad that you have never done anything,\nnever carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything\noutside of yourself!  Life has been your art.  You have set yourself to\nmusic.  Your days are your sonnets.\"\n\nDorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair.\n\"Yes, life has been exquisite,\" he murmured, \"but I am not going to\nhave the same life, Harry.  And you must not say these extravagant\nthings to me.  You don't know everything about me.  I think that if you\ndid, even you would turn from me.  You laugh.  Don't laugh.\"\n\n\"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian?  Go back and give me the\nnocturne over again.  Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that\nhangs in the dusky air.  She is waiting for you to charm her, and if\nyou play she will come closer to the earth.  You won't?  Let us go to\nthe club, then.  It has been a charming evening, and we must end it\ncharmingly.  There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know\nyou--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son.  He has already copied\nyour neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you.  He is quite\ndelightful and rather reminds me of you.\"\n\n\"I hope not,\" said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes.  \"But I am tired\nto-night, Harry.  I shan't go to the club.  It is nearly eleven, and I\nwant to go to bed early.\"\n\n\"Do stay.  You have never played so well as to-night. There was\nsomething in your touch that was wonderful.  It had more expression\nthan I had ever heard from it before.\"\n\n\"It is because I am going to be good,\" he answered, smiling.  \"I am a\nlittle changed already.\"\n\n\"You cannot change to me, Dorian,\" said Lord Henry.  \"You and I will\nalways be friends.\"\n\n\"Yet you poisoned me with a book once.  I should not forgive that.\nHarry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one.  It\ndoes harm.\"\n\n\"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize.  You will soon be\ngoing about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people\nagainst all the sins of which you have grown tired.  You are much too\ndelightful to do that.  Besides, it is no use.  You and I are what we\nare, and will be what we will be.  As for being poisoned by a book,\nthere is no such thing as that.  Art has no influence upon action.  It\nannihilates the desire to act.  It is superbly sterile.  The books that\nthe world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.\nThat is all.  But we won't discuss literature.  Come round to-morrow. I\nam going to ride at eleven.  We might go together, and I will take you\nto lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome.  She is a charming woman, and\nwants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying.\nMind you come.  Or shall we lunch with our little duchess?  She says\nshe never sees you now.  Perhaps you are tired of Gladys?  I thought\nyou would be.  Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves.  Well, in any\ncase, be here at eleven.\"\n\n\"Must I really come, Harry?\"\n\n\"Certainly.  The park is quite lovely now.  I don't think there have\nbeen such lilacs since the year I met you.\"\n\n\"Very well.  I shall be here at eleven,\" said Dorian.  \"Good night,\nHarry.\"  As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he\nhad something more to say.  Then he sighed and went out.\n\n\n\n\n\nIt was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and\ndid not even put his silk scarf round his throat.  As he strolled home,\nsmoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him.  He\nheard one of them whisper to the other, \"That is Dorian Gray.\" He\nremembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared\nat, or talked about.  He was tired of hearing his own name now.  Half\nthe charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was\nthat no one knew who he was.  He had often told the girl whom he had\nlured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him.  He had\ntold her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and\nanswered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly.  What a\nlaugh she had!--just like a thrush singing.  And how pretty she had\nbeen in her cotton dresses and her large hats!  She knew nothing, but\nshe had everything that he had lost.\n\nWhen he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him.  He sent\nhim to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and\nbegan to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him.\n\nWas it really true that one could never change?  He felt a wild longing\nfor the unstained purity of his boyhood--his rose-white boyhood, as\nLord Henry had once called it.  He knew that he had tarnished himself,\nfilled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he\nhad been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible\njoy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had\nbeen the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to\nshame.  But was it all irretrievable?  Was there no hope for him?\n\nAh! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that\nthe portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the\nunsullied splendour of eternal youth!  All his failure had been due to\nthat.  Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure\nswift penalty along with it.  There was purification in punishment.\nNot \"Forgive us our sins\" but \"Smite us for our iniquities\" should be\nthe prayer of man to a most just God.\n\nThe curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many\nyears ago now, was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids\nlaughed round it as of old.  He took it up, as he had done on that\nnight of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal\npicture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished\nshield.  Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a\nmad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: \"The world is changed\nbecause you are made of ivory and gold.  The curves of your lips\nrewrite history.\"  The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated\nthem over and over to himself.  Then he loathed his own beauty, and\nflinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters\nbeneath his heel.  It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty\nand the youth that he had prayed for.  But for those two things, his\nlife might have been free from stain.  His beauty had been to him but a\nmask, his youth but a mockery.  What was youth at best?  A green, an\nunripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts.  Why had he\nworn its livery?  Youth had spoiled him.\n\nIt was better not to think of the past.  Nothing could alter that.  It\nwas of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think.  James\nVane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard.  Alan Campbell\nhad shot himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the\nsecret that he had been forced to know.  The excitement, such as it\nwas, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away.  It was\nalready waning.  He was perfectly safe there.  Nor, indeed, was it the\ndeath of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind.  It was the\nliving death of his own soul that troubled him.  Basil had painted the\nportrait that had marred his life.  He could not forgive him that.  It\nwas the portrait that had done everything.  Basil had said things to\nhim that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience.  The\nmurder had been simply the madness of a moment.  As for Alan Campbell,\nhis suicide had been his own act.  He had chosen to do it.  It was\nnothing to him.\n\nA new life!  That was what he wanted.  That was what he was waiting\nfor.  Surely he had begun it already.  He had spared one innocent\nthing, at any rate.  He would never again tempt innocence.  He would be\ngood.\n\nAs he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in\nthe locked room had changed.  Surely it was not still so horrible as it\nhad been?  Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel\nevery sign of evil passion from the face.  Perhaps the signs of evil\nhad already gone away.  He would go and look.\n\nHe took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs.  As he unbarred the\ndoor, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face\nand lingered for a moment about his lips.  Yes, he would be good, and\nthe hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror\nto him.  He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already.\n\nHe went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and\ndragged the purple hanging from the portrait.  A cry of pain and\nindignation broke from him.  He could see no change, save that in the\neyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of\nthe hypocrite.  The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if\npossible, than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed\nbrighter, and more like blood newly spilled.  Then he trembled.  Had it\nbeen merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed?  Or the\ndesire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking\nlaugh?  Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things\nfiner than we are ourselves?  Or, perhaps, all these?  And why was the\nred stain larger than it had been?  It seemed to have crept like a\nhorrible disease over the wrinkled fingers.  There was blood on the\npainted feet, as though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand\nthat had not held the knife.  Confess?  Did it mean that he was to\nconfess?  To give himself up and be put to death?  He laughed.  He felt\nthat the idea was monstrous.  Besides, even if he did confess, who\nwould believe him?  There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere.\nEverything belonging to him had been destroyed.  He himself had burned\nwhat had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad.\nThey would shut him up if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was\nhis duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public\natonement.  There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to\nearth as well as to heaven.  Nothing that he could do would cleanse him\ntill he had told his own sin.  His sin?  He shrugged his shoulders.\nThe death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him.  He was thinking\nof Hetty Merton.  For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul\nthat he was looking at.  Vanity?  Curiosity?  Hypocrisy?  Had there\nbeen nothing more in his renunciation than that?  There had been\nsomething more.  At least he thought so.  But who could tell? ... No.\nThere had been nothing more.  Through vanity he had spared her.  In\nhypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness.  For curiosity's sake he\nhad tried the denial of self.  He recognized that now.\n\nBut this murder--was it to dog him all his life?  Was he always to be\nburdened by his past?  Was he really to confess?  Never.  There was\nonly one bit of evidence left against him.  The picture itself--that\nwas evidence.  He would destroy it.  Why had he kept it so long?  Once\nit had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old.  Of\nlate he had felt no such pleasure.  It had kept him awake at night.\nWhen he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes\nshould look upon it.  It had brought melancholy across his passions.\nIts mere memory had marred many moments of joy.  It had been like\nconscience to him.  Yes, it had been conscience.  He would destroy it.\n\nHe looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward.  He\nhad cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it.  It\nwas bright, and glistened.  As it had killed the painter, so it would\nkill the painter's work, and all that that meant.  It would kill the\npast, and when that was dead, he would be free.  It would kill this\nmonstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at\npeace.  He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it.\n\nThere was a cry heard, and a crash.  The cry was so horrible in its\nagony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms.\nTwo gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked\nup at the great house.  They walked on till they met a policeman and\nbrought him back.  The man rang the bell several times, but there was\nno answer.  Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was\nall dark.  After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico\nand watched.\n\n\"Whose house is that, Constable?\" asked the elder of the two gentlemen.\n\n\"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir,\" answered the policeman.\n\nThey looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered.  One of\nthem was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle.\n\nInside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics\nwere talking in low whispers to each other.  Old Mrs. Leaf was crying\nand wringing her hands.  Francis was as pale as death.\n\nAfter about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the\nfootmen and crept upstairs.  They knocked, but there was no reply.\nThey called out.  Everything was still.  Finally, after vainly trying\nto force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the\nbalcony.  The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old.\n\nWhen they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait\nof their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his\nexquisite youth and beauty.  Lying on the floor was a dead man, in\nevening dress, with a knife in his heart.  He was withered, wrinkled,\nand loathsome of visage.  It was not till they had examined the rings\nthat they recognized who it was.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n",
        "summary": "In his London studio, artist Basil Hallward puts the finishing touches on his latest portrait, that of a young man. Although Lord Henry, who is visiting with Basil, asks about the young man's identity, Basil declines to answer, noting his preference for secrecy. Basil never intends to exhibit the painting, because if he did, it would bare the deepest feelings in his soul. However, Basil lets slip that the subject of the portrait is Dorian Gray, who shortly thereafter pays the two men a house call. Lord Henry immediately begins to influence Dorian, suggesting that he should treasure and guard his youth and beauty while he has them, because they will soon fade. Terrified of aging, Dorian wishes he could trade his soul to stay as young as he looks in the portrait; a short while later, he again wishes that he could stay young while the image in the painting aged. The portrait thus begins to take on a life-like existence; in fact, Basil's threat to burn the portrait is likened to \"murder\" and Basil prefers the company of the portrait to the real Dorian. Dorian falls in love with a young actress, Sibyl Vane, a woman he barely knows. She plays a different woman at each night's performance, earning the label of \"genius\" from Dorian, who is as smitten with her acting more than with her personality. They become engaged, much to the surprise of Lord Henry and Basil. The sweet, wholesome Sibyl discusses her engagement with her family. Because her mother is indebted to the theatre manager, Mr. Isaacs, for fifty pounds, she is against the marriage unless Dorian is wealthy; they do not know that he is. Sibyl's angry brother, James, is leaving for Australia, but he vows to kill Dorian if he wrongs his sister in any way. James also confronts his mother about gossip he has heard -- that his mother and deceased father never married, which Mrs. Vane admits is true. Dorian attends a performance of Sibyl's with Lord Henry and Basil, but the performance is terrible. Sibyl tells Dorian she can no longer act, because he has shown her a beautiful reality. Dorian is disgusted by her poor acting, because her performances were what drew him to her; he dismisses her and returns home. To his surprise, the portrait shows marks of cruelty around the mouth, lines that do not show on Dorian's face. He begins to suspect that his wish is coming true, so he vows to be good so that both he and the portrait can remain young. He, therefore, intends to apologize to Sibyl the next day and makes to marry her after all. However, he is too late: Sibyl commits suicide at the theatre that night. Dorian first feels responsibility for her death, but then views it both as wonderful entertainment and a selfish act on her part. Lord Henry tries to keep Dorian's name out of the scandal. Dorian and Lord Henry spend the evening at the opera. The next morning, Basil arrives and expresses concern for Dorian, given the events of the previous day. Dorian, however, is completely unconcerned about Sibyl or her family; he wants to talk only of happy subjects. The next day, he covers his portrait and moves it to the attic, to which Dorian has the only key. He then settles in to read a yellow book sent by Lord Henry; the book becomes Dorian's blueprint for life. Several years pass, and Dorian lives a hedonistic life according to the guidelines established by Lord Henry and the yellow book. While the face in the portrait has turned ugly, Dorian remains young, beautiful, and innocent. People talk about Dorian's \"madness of pleasure\" and his dreadful influence on the people around him, but that is of no consequence to him. Finally, when he is thirty-eight years old, Dorian shows the portrait to Basil, who begs Dorian to repent of his sin and ask that the wish be revoked. Instead, Dorian kills Basil and hides his body. Blackmailing his old friend Alan Campbell, Dorian is able to dispose of Basil's body. An hour later, Dorian attends a party, but is bored and distracted. He then heads for an opium den and, out on the street, meets Sibyl's younger brother, who has been waiting for an opportunity to harm Dorian for nearly twenty years. Dorian makes a case for mistaken identity when he claims to have the face of a twenty-year-old and cannot be the man James is looking for. A woman in the street reveals that Dorian \"sold himself to the devil for a pretty face,\" so James again pursues Dorian. At his country estate one week later, Dorian entertains guests but believes James in hunting him. Dorian soon learns, however, that a man accidentally killed in a hunting accident is James, and so he feels safe. The novel concludes six months later. Dorian and Lord Henry dine, and talk turns serious -- Dorian talks of Basil, and Lord Henry reflects on a sermon he heard the previous Sunday while walking in the park. Lord Henry also inquires about the secret of Dorian's youth, which Dorian dismisses. Dorian then asks Lord Henry never to give the yellow book to anyone else. That evening, while Dorian examines the portrait, he decides to destroy it with the knife used to murder Basil. Soon after, Dorian's servants and a police officer find an old, ugly man lying dead on the ground in front of a portrait of a young and innocent Dorian."
    }
]