finished_summaries/shmoop/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_1_part_0.txt
The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 2
chapter 2
{"name": "Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210304030722/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/picture-dorian-gray/summary/chapter-2", "summary": "Basil and Henry return to the house, where they find Dorian at the piano. He's startled to see that there's someone else there. Basil introduces his two friends. Lord Henry brings up their other mutual acquaintance, his Aunt Agatha. While he chats politely with Dorian, he notices just how splendid the boy's looks are--there's something about him that's totally innocent and pure. Basil is distracted by Henry and Dorian's conversation--he's worried about what his old friend will say to influence his new one. He asks Henry to leave, but Dorian raises a fuss begs him to stay. Basil gives in and allows Henry to stay, but warns Dorian not to listen to everything Henry says, since he's a bad influence over everyone except Basil himself. Dorian has taken a liking to Henry already--he's charmed by how different the young lord is from his friend. As Dorian poses for the painting, Henry takes it upon himself to enlighten the boy; he launches into a long explanation of his own decadent values, basically claiming that any form of influence is a bad influence, and that people should try to live their lives fully and give into their impulses. Dorian is shocked by all this, and Basil, who's wrapped up in his painting, notices a new look in the boy's face for the first time. Henry continues his diatribe about returning to the Hellenic mode of life, in which everyone yields to all of their desires and temptations. He suggests daringly that even Dorian, whose youthful innocence is complete, has secret desires that he won't even admit to himself. This is too much for the boy, and he demands silence so he can think things through. The provocative, challenging words of Lord Henry resonate mysteriously within Dorian's soul, and he's not quite sure what's happening to him. All of a sudden, it seems as though his whole life has changed, and things that he didn't even recognize in himself before come to life. As Dorian ponders the meaning of this conversation, Henry looks on, intrigued and pleased--he knows his words have hit close to home. Meanwhile, Basil, in a painting trance, works in silence, not noticing what's happening between his two friends. Dorian breaks from his pose, and demands some rest--Basil lets him go, commenting that whatever Henry was saying to Dorian must have been working, because he posed beautifully. Henry follows Dorian to the garden, where he finds the boy desperately trying to calm himself down via aromatherapy with some lilacs. Henry approves of this--he thinks the best way to calm the soul is to appeal to the senses, and vice versa. Dorian is disturbed by the effect Lord Henry has on him, and a little afraid of him--but he's deeply intrigued by the other man. Henry warns Dorian not to get sunburnt, telling the boy that he should value his youth and exceptional beauty. He explains that to him, Beauty is the most important and valuable thing in the whole world--but that it's transient, and Dorian should enjoy it while he can. Basil calls his friends back into the studio, and as they go into the house, they confirm their new friendship. Dorian gets back into picture pose, and Basil continues his work--soon enough, he's actually done with the painting. Henry comes over to admire it exuberantly, and calls Dorian over. Dorian is overjoyed by the recognition of his own beauty; Lord Henry's words opened his eyes for the first time to just how gorgeous he is. This just makes him afraid of the day when he'll grow old and lose his beauty, and he breaks down in tears. Basil doesn't understand Dorian's reaction, and asks if he doesn't like it. Lord Henry tries to make Basil feel better, and asks to buy the painting--but Basil says it already belongs to Dorian. Dorian explains his sadness in seeing the beauty of the portrait. He can't believe that he himself will grow older every day, but the painting will never age, and he wishes it was the other way around--why can't the painting age as he stays the same? He says he would give his soul to have this wish come true. Henry jokes that Basil wouldn't like this arrangement, as it would reflect poorly upon his own work. Dorian responds too seriously that it's true--Basil likes his work better than his real friends. Dorian goes on rather madly, saying that Basil only cares for his youth and beauty, and that the day he grows old and ugly, he'll kill himself. Basil is horrified, and blames Henry for this change in Dorian; Henry, however, responds that it's the real Dorian who's emerged. Basil turns on the painting, the cause of this argument between him and his best friends. He attempts to slash the canvas, but Dorian stops him, saying that he's in love with this image of himself. Everyone calms down, and it seems that the moment of high drama is over. Everyone settles down, and, like good Englishmen, the three settle down for a cup of tea. Lord Henry proposes that they all go to the theatre that night. Dorian is all up for it, but Basil says he has to stay home and work--he sadly comments that he'll stay with the \"real\" Dorian, the innocent one in the painting. Basil begs Dorian not to go to the theatre with Lord Henry, but the boy says that he must. We get the feeling that this is rather more symbolic than it seems--will he stay back with Basil and his old self, or will he go out with Lord Henry, and perhaps come back a different person?... Dorian and Henry leave Basil in the studio, alone and pained.", "analysis": ""}

As they entered they saw Dorian Gray.  He was seated at the piano, with
his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's
"Forest Scenes."  "You must lend me these, Basil," he cried.  "I want
to learn them.  They are perfectly charming."

"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian."

"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of
myself," answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a
wilful, petulant manner.  When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint
blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up.  "I beg your
pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you."

"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine.  I
have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you
have spoiled everything."

"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," said Lord
Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand.  "My aunt has often
spoken to me about you.  You are one of her favourites, and, I am
afraid, one of her victims also."

"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian with a
funny look of penitence.  "I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel
with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it.  We were to
have played a duet together--three duets, I believe.  I don't know what
she will say to me.  I am far too frightened to call."

"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt.  She is quite devoted to you.
And I don't think it really matters about your not being there.  The
audience probably thought it was a duet.  When Aunt Agatha sits down to
the piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people."

"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," answered Dorian,
laughing.

Lord Henry looked at him.  Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome,
with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp
gold hair.  There was something in his face that made one trust him at
once.  All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's
passionate purity.  One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from
the world.  No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.

"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too
charming." And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened
his cigarette-case.

The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes
ready.  He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last
remark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said,
"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it
awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?"

Lord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray.  "Am I to go, Mr. Gray?"
he asked.

"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry.  I see that Basil is in one of his sulky
moods, and I can't bear him when he sulks.  Besides, I want you to tell
me why I should not go in for philanthropy."

"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray.  It is so tedious a
subject that one would have to talk seriously about it.  But I
certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop.  You
don't really mind, Basil, do you?  You have often told me that you
liked your sitters to have some one to chat to."

Hallward bit his lip.  "If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay.
Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself."

Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves.  "You are very pressing, Basil,
but I am afraid I must go.  I have promised to meet a man at the
Orleans.  Good-bye, Mr. Gray.  Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon
Street.  I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when
you are coming.  I should be sorry to miss you."

"Basil," cried Dorian Gray, "if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go,
too.  You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is
horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant.  Ask
him to stay.  I insist upon it."

"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me," said Hallward,
gazing intently at his picture.  "It is quite true, I never talk when I
am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious
for my unfortunate sitters.  I beg you to stay."

"But what about my man at the Orleans?"

The painter laughed.  "I don't think there will be any difficulty about
that.  Sit down again, Harry.  And now, Dorian, get up on the platform,
and don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry
says.  He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the
single exception of myself."

Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek
martyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he
had rather taken a fancy.  He was so unlike Basil.  They made a
delightful contrast.  And he had such a beautiful voice.  After a few
moments he said to him, "Have you really a very bad influence, Lord
Henry?  As bad as Basil says?"

"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray.  All influence
is immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view."

"Why?"

"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul.  He does
not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions.  His
virtues are not real to him.  His sins, if there are such things as
sins, are borrowed.  He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an
actor of a part that has not been written for him.  The aim of life is
self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each
of us is here for.  People are afraid of themselves, nowadays.  They
have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to
one's self.  Of course, they are charitable.  They feed the hungry and
clothe the beggar.  But their own souls starve, and are naked.  Courage
has gone out of our race.  Perhaps we never really had it.  The terror
of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is
the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us.  And
yet--"

"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good
boy," said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look
had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before.

"And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with
that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of
him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man
were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to
every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I
believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we
would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the
Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it
may be.  But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself.  The
mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial
that mars our lives.  We are punished for our refusals.  Every impulse
that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us.  The body
sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of
purification.  Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure,
or the luxury of a regret.  The only way to get rid of a temptation is
to yield to it.  Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for
the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its
monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.  It has been said that
the great events of the world take place in the brain.  It is in the
brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place
also.  You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your
rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid,
thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping
dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--"

"Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me.  I don't know
what to say.  There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.  Don't
speak.  Let me think.  Or, rather, let me try not to think."

For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and
eyes strangely bright.  He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh
influences were at work within him.  Yet they seemed to him to have
come really from himself.  The few words that Basil's friend had said
to him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in
them--had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before,
but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses.

Music had stirred him like that.  Music had troubled him many times.
But music was not articulate.  It was not a new world, but rather
another chaos, that it created in us.  Words!  Mere words!  How
terrible they were!  How clear, and vivid, and cruel!  One could not
escape from them.  And yet what a subtle magic there was in them!  They
seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to
have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute.  Mere
words!  Was there anything so real as words?

Yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood.
He understood them now.  Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him.
It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire.  Why had he not
known it?

With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him.  He knew the precise
psychological moment when to say nothing.  He felt intensely
interested.  He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had
produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen,
a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he
wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience.
He had merely shot an arrow into the air.  Had it hit the mark?  How
fascinating the lad was!

Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had
the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes
only from strength.  He was unconscious of the silence.

"Basil, I am tired of standing," cried Dorian Gray suddenly.  "I must
go out and sit in the garden.  The air is stifling here."

"My dear fellow, I am so sorry.  When I am painting, I can't think of
anything else.  But you never sat better.  You were perfectly still.
And I have caught the effect I wanted--the half-parted lips and the
bright look in the eyes.  I don't know what Harry has been saying to
you, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression.
I suppose he has been paying you compliments.  You mustn't believe a
word that he says."

"He has certainly not been paying me compliments.  Perhaps that is the
reason that I don't believe anything he has told me."

"You know you believe it all," said Lord Henry, looking at him with his
dreamy languorous eyes.  "I will go out to the garden with you.  It is
horribly hot in the studio.  Basil, let us have something iced to
drink, something with strawberries in it."

"Certainly, Harry.  Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will
tell him what you want.  I have got to work up this background, so I
will join you later on.  Don't keep Dorian too long.  I have never been
in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my
masterpiece.  It is my masterpiece as it stands."

Lord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his
face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their
perfume as if it had been wine.  He came close to him and put his hand
upon his shoulder.  "You are quite right to do that," he murmured.
"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the
senses but the soul."

The lad started and drew back.  He was bareheaded, and the leaves had
tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads.
There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are
suddenly awakened.  His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some
hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.

"Yes," continued Lord Henry, "that is one of the great secrets of
life--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means
of the soul.  You are a wonderful creation.  You know more than you
think you know, just as you know less than you want to know."

Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away.  He could not help liking
the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him.  His romantic,
olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him.  There was
something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating.
His cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm.  They
moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their
own.  But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid.  Why had
it been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself?  He had known
Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never
altered him.  Suddenly there had come some one across his life who
seemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery.  And, yet, what was
there to be afraid of?  He was not a schoolboy or a girl.  It was
absurd to be frightened.

"Let us go and sit in the shade," said Lord Henry.  "Parker has brought
out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be
quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again.  You really must
not allow yourself to become sunburnt.  It would be unbecoming."

"What can it matter?" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on
the seat at the end of the garden.

"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray."

"Why?"

"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing
worth having."

"I don't feel that, Lord Henry."

"No, you don't feel it now.  Some day, when you are old and wrinkled
and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and
passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you
will feel it terribly.  Now, wherever you go, you charm the world.
Will it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr.
Gray.  Don't frown.  You have.  And beauty is a form of genius--is
higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.  It is of the
great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the
reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon.  It
cannot be questioned.  It has its divine right of sovereignty.  It
makes princes of those who have it.  You smile?  Ah! when you have lost
it you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only
superficial.  That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as
thought is.  To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders.  It is only
shallow people who do not judge by appearances.  The true mystery of
the world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the
gods have been good to you.  But what the gods give they quickly take
away.  You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly,
and fully.  When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then
you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or
have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of
your past will make more bitter than defeats.  Every month as it wanes
brings you nearer to something dreadful.  Time is jealous of you, and
wars against your lilies and your roses.  You will become sallow, and
hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed.  You will suffer horribly.... Ah!
realize your youth while you have it.  Don't squander the gold of your
days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure,
or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar.
These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age.  Live!  Live
the wonderful life that is in you!  Let nothing be lost upon you.  Be
always searching for new sensations.  Be afraid of nothing.... A new
Hedonism--that is what our century wants.  You might be its visible
symbol.  With your personality there is nothing you could not do.  The
world belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that
you were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really
might be.  There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must
tell you something about yourself.  I thought how tragic it would be if
you were wasted.  For there is such a little time that your youth will
last--such a little time.  The common hill-flowers wither, but they
blossom again.  The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now.
In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after
year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars.  But we
never get back our youth.  The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty
becomes sluggish.  Our limbs fail, our senses rot.  We degenerate into
hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were
too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the
courage to yield to.  Youth!  Youth!  There is absolutely nothing in
the world but youth!"

Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering.  The spray of lilac fell
from his hand upon the gravel.  A furry bee came and buzzed round it
for a moment.  Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated
globe of the tiny blossoms.  He watched it with that strange interest
in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import
make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we
cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays
sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield.  After a time the
bee flew away.  He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian
convolvulus.  The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to
and fro.

Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made
staccato signs for them to come in.  They turned to each other and
smiled.

"I am waiting," he cried.  "Do come in.  The light is quite perfect,
and you can bring your drinks."

They rose up and sauntered down the walk together.  Two green-and-white
butterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of
the garden a thrush began to sing.

"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, looking at
him.

"Yes, I am glad now.  I wonder shall I always be glad?"

"Always!  That is a dreadful word.  It makes me shudder when I hear it.
Women are so fond of using it.  They spoil every romance by trying to
make it last for ever.  It is a meaningless word, too.  The only
difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice
lasts a little longer."

As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's
arm.  "In that case, let our friendship be a caprice," he murmured,
flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and
resumed his pose.

Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him.
The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that
broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back
to look at his work from a distance.  In the slanting beams that
streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden.  The
heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything.

After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for
a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture,
biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning.  "It is quite
finished," he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in
long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas.

Lord Henry came over and examined the picture.  It was certainly a
wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.

"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly," he said.  "It is the
finest portrait of modern times.  Mr. Gray, come over and look at
yourself."

The lad started, as if awakened from some dream.

"Is it really finished?" he murmured, stepping down from the platform.

"Quite finished," said the painter.  "And you have sat splendidly
to-day. I am awfully obliged to you."

"That is entirely due to me," broke in Lord Henry.  "Isn't it, Mr.
Gray?"

Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture
and turned towards it.  When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks
flushed for a moment with pleasure.  A look of joy came into his eyes,
as if he had recognized himself for the first time.  He stood there
motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to
him, but not catching the meaning of his words.  The sense of his own
beauty came on him like a revelation.  He had never felt it before.
Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the
charming exaggeration of friendship.  He had listened to them, laughed
at them, forgotten them.  They had not influenced his nature.  Then had
come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his
terrible warning of its brevity.  That had stirred him at the time, and
now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full
reality of the description flashed across him.  Yes, there would be a
day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and
colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed.  The scarlet
would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair.  The
life that was to make his soul would mar his body.  He would become
dreadful, hideous, and uncouth.

As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a
knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver.  His eyes
deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears.  He felt
as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.

"Don't you like it?" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the
lad's silence, not understanding what it meant.

"Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry.  "Who wouldn't like it?  It
is one of the greatest things in modern art.  I will give you anything
you like to ask for it.  I must have it."

"It is not my property, Harry."

"Whose property is it?"

"Dorian's, of course," answered the painter.

"He is a very lucky fellow."

"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon
his own portrait.  "How sad it is!  I shall grow old, and horrible, and
dreadful.  But this picture will remain always young.  It will never be
older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other
way!  If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was
to grow old!  For that--for that--I would give everything!  Yes, there
is nothing in the whole world I would not give!  I would give my soul
for that!"

"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil," cried Lord
Henry, laughing.  "It would be rather hard lines on your work."

"I should object very strongly, Harry," said Hallward.

Dorian Gray turned and looked at him.  "I believe you would, Basil.
You like your art better than your friends.  I am no more to you than a
green bronze figure.  Hardly as much, I dare say."

The painter stared in amazement.  It was so unlike Dorian to speak like
that.  What had happened?  He seemed quite angry.  His face was flushed
and his cheeks burning.

"Yes," he continued, "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your
silver Faun.  You will like them always.  How long will you like me?
Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.  I know, now, that when one
loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything.
Your picture has taught me that.  Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right.
Youth is the only thing worth having.  When I find that I am growing
old, I shall kill myself."

Hallward turned pale and caught his hand.  "Dorian!  Dorian!" he cried,
"don't talk like that.  I have never had such a friend as you, and I
shall never have such another.  You are not jealous of material things,
are you?--you who are finer than any of them!"

"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die.  I am jealous of
the portrait you have painted of me.  Why should it keep what I must
lose?  Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives
something to it.  Oh, if it were only the other way!  If the picture
could change, and I could be always what I am now!  Why did you paint
it?  It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!"  The hot tears welled
into his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the
divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying.

"This is your doing, Harry," said the painter bitterly.

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders.  "It is the real Dorian Gray--that
is all."

"It is not."

"If it is not, what have I to do with it?"

"You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered.

"I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer.

"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between
you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever
done, and I will destroy it.  What is it but canvas and colour?  I will
not let it come across our three lives and mar them."

Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid
face and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal
painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window.  What
was he doing there?  His fingers were straying about among the litter
of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something.  Yes, it was for
the long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel.  He had
found it at last.  He was going to rip up the canvas.

With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to
Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of
the studio.  "Don't, Basil, don't!" he cried.  "It would be murder!"

"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian," said the painter
coldly when he had recovered from his surprise.  "I never thought you
would."

"Appreciate it?  I am in love with it, Basil.  It is part of myself.  I
feel that."

"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and
sent home.  Then you can do what you like with yourself." And he walked
across the room and rang the bell for tea.  "You will have tea, of
course, Dorian?  And so will you, Harry?  Or do you object to such
simple pleasures?"

"I adore simple pleasures," said Lord Henry.  "They are the last refuge
of the complex.  But I don't like scenes, except on the stage.  What
absurd fellows you are, both of you!  I wonder who it was defined man
as a rational animal.  It was the most premature definition ever given.
Man is many things, but he is not rational.  I am glad he is not, after
all--though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture.  You
had much better let me have it, Basil.  This silly boy doesn't really
want it, and I really do."

"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!"
cried Dorian Gray; "and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy."

"You know the picture is yours, Dorian.  I gave it to you before it
existed."

"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you
don't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young."

"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry."

"Ah! this morning!  You have lived since then."

There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden
tea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table.  There was a
rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn.
Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page.  Dorian Gray
went over and poured out the tea.  The two men sauntered languidly to
the table and examined what was under the covers.

"Let us go to the theatre to-night," said Lord Henry.  "There is sure
to be something on, somewhere.  I have promised to dine at White's, but
it is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I
am ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a
subsequent engagement.  I think that would be a rather nice excuse:  it
would have all the surprise of candour."

"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes," muttered Hallward.
"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid."

"Yes," answered Lord Henry dreamily, "the costume of the nineteenth
century is detestable.  It is so sombre, so depressing.  Sin is the
only real colour-element left in modern life."

"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry."

"Before which Dorian?  The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the
one in the picture?"

"Before either."

"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry," said the
lad.

"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?"

"I can't, really.  I would sooner not.  I have a lot of work to do."

"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray."

"I should like that awfully."

The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture.
"I shall stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly.

"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, strolling
across to him.  "Am I really like that?"

"Yes; you are just like that."

"How wonderful, Basil!"

"At least you are like it in appearance.  But it will never alter,"
sighed Hallward.  "That is something."

"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry.  "Why,
even in love it is purely a question for physiology.  It has nothing to
do with our own will.  Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old
men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say."

"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian," said Hallward.  "Stop and
dine with me."

"I can't, Basil."

"Why?"

"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him."

"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises.  He always
breaks his own.  I beg you not to go."

Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head.

"I entreat you."

The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them
from the tea-table with an amused smile.

"I must go, Basil," he answered.

"Very well," said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on
the tray.  "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had
better lose no time.  Good-bye, Harry.  Good-bye, Dorian.  Come and see
me soon.  Come to-morrow."

"Certainly."

"You won't forget?"

"No, of course not," cried Dorian.

"And ... Harry!"

"Yes, Basil?"

"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning."

"I have forgotten it."

"I trust you."

"I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing.  "Come, Mr.
Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.
Good-bye, Basil.  It has been a most interesting afternoon."

As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a
sofa, and a look of pain came into his face.



Chapter 2
Basil and Henry return to the house, where they find Dorian at the piano. He's startled to see that there's someone else there. Basil introduces his two friends. Lord Henry brings up their other mutual acquaintance, his Aunt Agatha. While he chats politely with Dorian, he notices just how splendid the boy's looks are--there's something about him that's totally innocent and pure. Basil is distracted by Henry and Dorian's conversation--he's worried about what his old friend will say to influence his new one. He asks Henry to leave, but Dorian raises a fuss begs him to stay. Basil gives in and allows Henry to stay, but warns Dorian not to listen to everything Henry says, since he's a bad influence over everyone except Basil himself. Dorian has taken a liking to Henry already--he's charmed by how different the young lord is from his friend. As Dorian poses for the painting, Henry takes it upon himself to enlighten the boy; he launches into a long explanation of his own decadent values, basically claiming that any form of influence is a bad influence, and that people should try to live their lives fully and give into their impulses. Dorian is shocked by all this, and Basil, who's wrapped up in his painting, notices a new look in the boy's face for the first time. Henry continues his diatribe about returning to the Hellenic mode of life, in which everyone yields to all of their desires and temptations. He suggests daringly that even Dorian, whose youthful innocence is complete, has secret desires that he won't even admit to himself. This is too much for the boy, and he demands silence so he can think things through. The provocative, challenging words of Lord Henry resonate mysteriously within Dorian's soul, and he's not quite sure what's happening to him. All of a sudden, it seems as though his whole life has changed, and things that he didn't even recognize in himself before come to life. As Dorian ponders the meaning of this conversation, Henry looks on, intrigued and pleased--he knows his words have hit close to home. Meanwhile, Basil, in a painting trance, works in silence, not noticing what's happening between his two friends. Dorian breaks from his pose, and demands some rest--Basil lets him go, commenting that whatever Henry was saying to Dorian must have been working, because he posed beautifully. Henry follows Dorian to the garden, where he finds the boy desperately trying to calm himself down via aromatherapy with some lilacs. Henry approves of this--he thinks the best way to calm the soul is to appeal to the senses, and vice versa. Dorian is disturbed by the effect Lord Henry has on him, and a little afraid of him--but he's deeply intrigued by the other man. Henry warns Dorian not to get sunburnt, telling the boy that he should value his youth and exceptional beauty. He explains that to him, Beauty is the most important and valuable thing in the whole world--but that it's transient, and Dorian should enjoy it while he can. Basil calls his friends back into the studio, and as they go into the house, they confirm their new friendship. Dorian gets back into picture pose, and Basil continues his work--soon enough, he's actually done with the painting. Henry comes over to admire it exuberantly, and calls Dorian over. Dorian is overjoyed by the recognition of his own beauty; Lord Henry's words opened his eyes for the first time to just how gorgeous he is. This just makes him afraid of the day when he'll grow old and lose his beauty, and he breaks down in tears. Basil doesn't understand Dorian's reaction, and asks if he doesn't like it. Lord Henry tries to make Basil feel better, and asks to buy the painting--but Basil says it already belongs to Dorian. Dorian explains his sadness in seeing the beauty of the portrait. He can't believe that he himself will grow older every day, but the painting will never age, and he wishes it was the other way around--why can't the painting age as he stays the same? He says he would give his soul to have this wish come true. Henry jokes that Basil wouldn't like this arrangement, as it would reflect poorly upon his own work. Dorian responds too seriously that it's true--Basil likes his work better than his real friends. Dorian goes on rather madly, saying that Basil only cares for his youth and beauty, and that the day he grows old and ugly, he'll kill himself. Basil is horrified, and blames Henry for this change in Dorian; Henry, however, responds that it's the real Dorian who's emerged. Basil turns on the painting, the cause of this argument between him and his best friends. He attempts to slash the canvas, but Dorian stops him, saying that he's in love with this image of himself. Everyone calms down, and it seems that the moment of high drama is over. Everyone settles down, and, like good Englishmen, the three settle down for a cup of tea. Lord Henry proposes that they all go to the theatre that night. Dorian is all up for it, but Basil says he has to stay home and work--he sadly comments that he'll stay with the "real" Dorian, the innocent one in the painting. Basil begs Dorian not to go to the theatre with Lord Henry, but the boy says that he must. We get the feeling that this is rather more symbolic than it seems--will he stay back with Basil and his old self, or will he go out with Lord Henry, and perhaps come back a different person?... Dorian and Henry leave Basil in the studio, alone and pained.