CHARACTERS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
LORD HENRY WOTTON
BASIL HALLWARD, an artist
DORIAN GRAY
LORD FERMOR, Lord Henry's uncle
LADY AGATHA, Lord Henry's aunt
THE DUCHESS OF HARLEY
SIBYL VANE, an actress
MRS. VANE, Sibyl's mother
JAMES VANE, Sibyl's brother
ALAN CAMPBELL
LADY NARBOROUGH
FIRST WOMAN
SECOND WOMAN
GLADYS, DUCHESS OF MONMOUTH
SETTING
The setting should represent simultaneously all the different locations of the story, so that the action can flow
quickly from one scene to the next. There is a sofa, chairs, a table and French windows. Everything is rich and
luxurious, typical of the upper-class and artistic society of the late nineteenth century. The portrait of Dorian
Gray is on stage throughout, on an upright easel positioned so that the audience sees only the back of it.
ACT ONE
SCENE 1
Basil Hallward's studio
BASIL HALLWARD and LORD HENRY WOTTON are looking at the painting on the easel.
LORD HENRY: It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done. You must cetrainly send it to the Grosvenor.
BASIL: I don't think I shall send it anywhere.
LORD HENRY: My dear fellow, why? What odd chaps you painters are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation.
As soon as you have one you, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in
the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
BASIL: I know you will laugh at me, Harry, but I really can't exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it.
LORD HENRY: (Laughing.) Upon my word, Basil, I really can't see any resemblance between you and this young Adonis:
you are not in the least like him.
BASIL: I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry to look like him. There is a fatality about all
physical and intellectual distinction. It is better not to be different from one's fellows. The ugly and the
stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. They live as we all
should live, undisturbed, indifferent, and without disquiet. Your rank and wealth, Harry, my art, Dorian Gray's
good looks - we shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly.
LORD HENRY: Dorian Gray? Is that his name?
BASIL: Yes. I didn't intend to tell you.
LORD HENRY: But why not?
BASIL: Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It is like surrendering
a part of them. I suppose you think me awfully foolish?
LORD HENRY: Not at all, my dear Basil. You seem to forget that I am married, and one of the charms of marriage is
that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. Now, tell me how you met Mr. Dorian Gray.
BASIL: Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. Well, after I had been in the room about ten minutes,
I suddenly became conscious that someone was looking at me. I turned and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. When
our eyes met, a curious sensation of terror came over me. Something seemed to tell me that I was on the verge of
a terrible crisis in my life. I grew afraid, and turned to quit the room, but as I did so, I stumbled against
Lady Brandon. "You are not going to run away so soon, Mr. Hallward?” she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill voice?
LORD HENRY: Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty.
BASIL: I could not get rid of her. Suddenly I found myself face to face with the young man. We were quite close,
almost touching. Our eyes met again, and I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him.
LORD HENRY: And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?
BASIL: Oh, something like, "Charming boy - poor dear mother and I absolutely inseparable. Quite forget what he does - afraid he - doesn't do anything - oh, yes, plays the piano - or is it the violin, dear Mr. Gray?” Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at once.
LORD HENRY: Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
BASIL: You don't understand what friendship is, Harry. You like everyone; that is to say, you are indifferent to everyone.
LORD HENRY: How horribly unjust of you! I make a great difference between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world. Tell me more about Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?
BASIL: Every day. He is all my art to me now.
LORD HENRY: How extraordinary!
BASIL: The work I have done since I met him is the best work of my life.
LORD HENRY: Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?
BASIL: Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of my artistic idolatry. He knows
nothing about it. But the world might guess it; and I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes.
LORD HENRY: Tell me, is Dorian Gray very fond of you?
BASIL: He likes me. Of course, I flatter him dreadfully. As a rule, he is charming to me, but now and
then he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry,
that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat,
an ornament for a summer's day.
LORD HENRY: Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger. Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will.
BASIL: Harry, don't talk like that. You can't feel what I feel. You change too often.
LORD HENRY: That is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it
is the faithless who know love's tragedies.... My dear fellow, I have just remembered.
BASIL: What?
LORD HENRY: Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. She told me she had discovered
a wonderful young man, who was going to help her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. But she never
told me he was good-looking. Women have no appreciation of good looks; at least good women have not. She said that
he was very earnest, and had a beautiful nature. I at once pictured a creature with spectacles and lank hair,
tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known it was your friend.
BASIL: I'm very glad you didn't, Harry.
LORD HENRY: Why?
BASIL: I don't want you to meet him. You would have a bad influence on him, and I don't want you to take away
from me the one person who gives my art whatever charm it possesses.
LORD HENRY: What nonsense you talk!
Enter DORIAN GRAY.
DORIAN: I beg your pardon, Basil, I didn't know you had anyone with you.
LORD HENRY: You must introduce me now
BASIL: This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, and old Oxford friend of mine.
LORD HENRY: My aunt has often spoken to me about you, Mr. Gray. I am afraid you are one of her favourite victims.
DORIAN: I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present. I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel with her last
Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it.
LORD HENRY: You are far too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray.
BASIL: Harry, I want to finish this picture today. Would you think it rude of me if I asked you to go away?
LORD HENRY: Am I to go, Mr. Gray?
DORIAN: 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.
LORD HENRY: I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray, it is so tedious a subject. But I certainly shall
not run away now that you have asked me to stop. You really don't mind, Basil, do you?
BASIL: If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself. And now,
Dorian, don't move about too much, or pay attention to what Lord Henry says. He has a bad influence over all his
friends, with the single exception of myself.
DORIAN: Have you really, Lord Henry?
LORD HENRY: There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral.
DORIAN: Why?
LORD HENRY: Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think with his natural
thoughts or burn with his natural passions. He becomes an echo of someone else's music.
BASIL: Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian.
LORD HENRY: To realise one's own nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for. Every impulse that
we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield
to it. Resist it, and the soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden itself. You, Mr. Gray,
have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, dreams whose mere memory
might stain your cheek with shame -
DORIAN: Stop! There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it.
BASIL: My dear fellow, I don't know what Harry has been saying to you, but you mustn't believe a word that he says.
DORIAN: I don't.
LORD HENRY: You know you believe it all. You are a wonderful creation, Mr. Gray. You know more than you think
you know, just as you know less than you want to know. You have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one
thing worth having.
DORIAN: I don't feel that, Lord Henry.
LORD HENRY: No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, you will feel it terribly.
You have a wonderfully beautiful face, and Beauty is a form of Genius. It makes princes of those who have it. It
is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world in in the visible, not the
invisible.
DORIAN: Basil, I am tired of standing. I must sit down.
BASIL: Of course, my dear fellow. I have got to work up this background.
(DORIAN goes to sit beside LORD HENRY.)
LORD HENRY: Yes, Mr. Gray, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take away. When your
youth goes, your beauty will go with it. Time is jealous of you. Ah! Realise your youth while you have it. 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. For there is such a little time that your youth will last - such a little time. The pulse 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.
(DORIAN takes a lilac blossom from a vase on the table and drinks in its perfume.)
You are quite right to do that. Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but
the soul. That is one of the great secrets of life.
BASIL: (Standing back to look at his painting.) This is my masterpiece.
LORD HENRY: You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray.
DORIAN: Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?
LORD HENRY: Always! That is a dreadful word. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to
make it last for ever.
BASIL: It is finished.
LORD HENRY: (Going to look at the picture.) My dear fellow, I congratulate you. It is the finest portrait of modern
times. Mr. Gray, come and look at yourself.
DORIAN: Is it really finished?
BASIL: Quite finished.
(DORIAN goes to look at the picture. Silence.)
BASIL: Don't you like it?
LORD HENRY: Of course he likes it. Who wouldn't like it? I will give you anything you like to ask for it. I must have it.
BASIL: It is not my property, Harry.
LORD HENRY: Whose property is it?
BASIL: Dorian's, of course.
LORD HENRY: He is a very lucky fellow.
DORIAN: How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will always remain 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!
LORD HENRY: You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil. It would be rather hard lines on your work.
BASIL: I should object very strongly, Harry.
DORIAN: I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. How long will you like me? Till I
have my first wrinkle, I suppose. Lord Henry is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find
that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.
BASIL: Dorian! Don't talk like that!
DORIAN: Why should that portrait keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me, and gives
something to it. Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day - mock me terribly! (Hot tears well into his eyes.)
BASIL: This is your doing, Harry.
LORD HENRY: It is the real Dorian Gray - that is all.
BASIL: It is not.
LORD HENRY: If it is not, what have I got to do with it?
BASIL: 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.
(He picks up a palette-knife and goes to rip up the canvas. DORIAN tears the knife out of his hand and flings it away.)
DORIAN: Don't, Basil, don't! It would be murder!
BASIL: I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian. I never thought you would.
DORIAN: Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself.
BASIL: Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished and sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself.
LORD HENRY: What absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wish you 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.
DORIAN: If you let anyone have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you! And I don't allow people to call me a
silly boy!
BASIL: You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it existed.
LORD HENRY: And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and you don't really object the being reminded
that you are extremely young.
DORIAN: I should have objected very strongly this morning.
LORD HENRY: Ah! This morning! You have lived since then. (Standing up.) Let us go to the theatre tonight. There
is sure to be something on somewhere.
DORIAN: I should like that, Lord Henry.
LORD HENRY: You will come too, Basil, won't you?
BASIL: I can't really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do.
LORD HENRY: Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray. Come, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you off
at your own place. Good-bye, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon.
BASIL: Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. Come and see me tomorrow.
DORIAN: Certainly.
BASIL: You won't forget?
DORIAN: No, of course not.
(Exit DORIAN with LORD HENRY, leaving BASIL alone. He flings himself on the sofa and a look of pain comes across
his face. Fade.)
SCENE 2
Lady Agatha's house.
LORD FERMOR, LADY AGATHA, the DUCHESS OF HARLEY and LORD HENRY.
LORD FERMOR: Agatha, I wish you would stop bothering me with your charity appeals. I am sick of them.
LADY AGATHA: But we have such grave responsibilities.
LORD HENRY: It's no good, Uncle George. Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity.
LADY AGATHA: The East End is a very important problem.
LORD FERMOR: (To the DUCHESS) My sister seems to think I have nothing to do but write cheques for her silly fads.
LADY AGATHA: They are so unhappy in Whitechapel.
LORD HENRY: I can sympathise with everything, except suffering. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing.
There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour,
the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's sores the better.
DUCHESS: You are really very comforting, Lord Henry. I have always felt rather guilty when I come to see your
dear aunt, for I take no interest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to look her in the
face without a blush.
LORD HENRY: A blush is very becoming, Duchess.
DUCHESS: Only when one is young. When an old woman like myself blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry,
I wish you would tell me how to become young again.
LORD HENRY: Can you remember any great error that you committed in your early days, Duchess?
DUCHESS: A great many, I fear.
LORD HENRY: Then commit them over again. To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat its follies.
DUCHESS: A delightful theory! I must put it into practice.
LADY AGATHA: A dangerous theory! And, by the way, Harry, I am quite vexed with you. Why did you try to persuade
our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up the East End? I assure you he would be quite invaluable. They would love
his playing.
LORD HENRY: I want him to play to me.
LORD FERMOR: Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?
LORD HENRY: He is Aunt Agatha's latest protJgJ.
LORD KELSO: But is he a gentleman?
LADY AGATHA: Mr. Dorian Gray is the last Lord Kelso's grandson
LORD FERMOR: Kelso's grandson!
LADY AGATHA: Yes. His mother was Lady Margaret Devereux.
LORD FERMOR: I believe I was at her christening.
LORD HENRY: What was she like?
LORD FERMOR: She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux. She made all the men frantic by
running away with a penniless young subaltern.
DUCHESS: How romantic!
LORD FERMOR: The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa, a few months after the marriage.
DUCHESS: How tragic!
LADY AGATHA: Wasn't there an ugly rumour about it?
LORD FERMOR: They said Kelso got some rascally brute to insult his son-in-law in public - paid him to do it -
and that the fellow spitted him like a pigeon.
DUCHESS: How terrible!
LADY AGATHA: Of course - the whole thing was hushed up.
LORD FERMOR: But, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some time afterwards.
DUCHESS: What happened to Lady Margaret?
LORD FERMOR: Kelso brought her back with him, I was told, and she never spoke to him again.
LADY AGATHA: Oh, yes, it was a bad business. The girl died within a year.
LORD HENRY: Leaving the boy to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. An interesting background.
Behind every exquisite thing that exists, there is something tragic.
LORD FERMOR: I hope he will fall into proper hands. He should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did
the right thing by him.
LADY AGATHA: His mother had money too. All the Selby property came to her through her grandfather.
LORD FERMOR: Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They made quite a story of it. I didn't dare show my face at Court for a month.
LORD HENRY: I fancy that the boy will be well off. He is not of age yet. He has the Selby property, I know. He told me so.
LORD FERMOR: Well, I must be off, Agatha. I am due at the AthenFum. It is the hour when we sleep there.
LORD HENRY: All of you, Uncle George?
LORD FERMOR: Forty of us in forty armchairs.
LORD HENRY: It sounds as if you are practising for an English Academy of Letters.
LORD FERMOR: Humbug! If a man is a gentleman he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.Good-bye, Duchess.
DUCHESS: Good-bye, Lord Fermor.
(Exit LORD FERMOR.)
(Looking at her watch.) How annoying! I must go too. I have to call for my husband at his club. If I am late, he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't have a scene in this hat. It is far too fragile. A harsh word would quite ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry; you are quite delightful, and dreadfully demoralising. You must come and dine with us some night. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday?
LORD HENRY: For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess.
DUCHESS: Ah! That is very nice, and very wrong of you; so mind you come.
(Exit.)
LADY AGATHA: Harry, I consider you extremely dangerous, and if anything happens to our good Duchess I shall look on you as being responsible. You really are a very bad influence.
(Exit.)
LORD HENRY: There is something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence.
(He smiles to himself. Fade.)
SCENE 3
Lord Henry's house.
DORIAN is seated in an armchair. Enter LORD HENRY.
DORIAN: How late you are, Harry!
LORD HENRY: So sorry, Dorian. I met my wife at Lady Thornbury's, and we have been telling each other the most absurd
stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it - much better, in fact, than I am.
DORIAN: I saw you with her the other night at the opera. It was "Lohengrin", I think.
LORD HENRY: Oh! Yes. My wife likes Wagner's music. It is so loud that she can talk the whole time without other
people hearing what she says. Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian.
DORIAN: Why, Harry?
LORD HENRY: Because they are so sentimental.
DORIAN: But I like sentimental people.
LORD HENRY: Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious; both
are disappointed.
DORIAN: I don't think I am likely to marry. I am too much in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting
it into practice, as I do everything that you say.
LORD HENRY: Who are you in love with?
DORIAN: An actress.
LORD HENRY: That is a rather commonplace debut.
DORIAN: You would not say so if you saw her, Harry.
LORD HENRY: Who is she?
DORIAN: Her name is Sibyl Vane. She is a genius.
LORD HENRY: My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say,
but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph
of mind over morals.
DORIAN: Harry, how can you?
LORD HENRY: My dear Dorian, it is quite true. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her?
DORIAN: Three weeks.
LORD HENRY: And where did you come across her?
DORIAN: It would never have happened if I had not met you. You filled me with a wild desire to know everything
about life, so, one evening I determined to go out in search of some adventure. I don't know what I expected,
but I wandered eastward through a labyrinth of grimy streets. About half-past eight I passed an absurd little
theatre. A hideous old man in the most amazing waistcoat was standing in the entrance. "Have a box, my lord?”
he said, with an air of the most gorgeous servility. There was something about him, Harry, that amused me,
and I paid a whole guinea for the stage-box. I don't know why I did it, but if I hadn't, I should have missed
the greatest romance of my life.
LORD HENRY: You should not say the greatest romance of your life, Dorian, you should say the first romance of your
life. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning.
DORIAN: Do you think my nature so shallow?
LORD HENRY: No, I think your nature so deep.
DORIAN: How do you mean?
LORD HENRY: My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really the shallow people. What
they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call their lethargy and their lack of imagination. But go
on with your story.
DORIAN: Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little box, and I began to wonder what on earth I should do,
when I caught sight of the play-bill. What do you think the play was, Harry?
LORD HENRY: "The Idiot Boy or Dumb but Innocent”?
DORIAN: It was "Romeo and Juliet”. Romeo was a stout elderly gentleman, and Mercutio was played by the low
comedian. But Juliet! Harry, she was the loveliest thing I had ever seen in my life. Night after night I go
to see her play: Juliet, Rosalind, Imogen, Desdemona. I have seen her in every age and in every costume.
Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. But an actress! Oh, Harry, why didn't you tell me that
the only thing worth loving is an actress?
LORD HENRY: Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian.
DORIAN: Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces.
LORD HENRY: Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary charm in them, sometimes.
But tell me, what are your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?
DORIAN: Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!
LORD HENRY: It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian. When one is in love, one always
begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.
But when did you first speak to Miss Vane?
DORIAN: The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. The old man offered to take me behind the scenes and
introduce me to her. She was so shy and gentle. The old man would insist on calling me "My Lord”, so I had
to assure Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to me, "You look more like a prince.
I must call you Prince Charming.”
LORD HENRY: Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl Vane knows how to pay compliments.
DORIAN: You don't understand her, Harry. She is absolutely divine. Every night I go to see her act, and every night
she is more marvellous. Tonight she is Rosalind, and tomorrow night she will be Juliet.
LORD HENRY: When is she Sibyl Vane?
DORIAN: Never. She is all the great heroines of the world in one. My God, Harry, how I worship her!
LORD HENRY: And what do you propose to do?
DORIAN: I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. You are certain to acknowledge her genius.
LORD HENRY: Well, what night shall we go?
DORIAN: Let us fix tomorrow. She plays Juliet tomorrow.
LORD HENRY: All right. The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil.
DORIAN: Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait, and though I am a little jealous of it for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit that I delight in it. Perhaps I had better write to him. I don't want to see him alone. He gives me good advice.
LORD HENRY: People are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves.
DORIAN: Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered that.
LORD HENRY: Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his prejudices, his principles, and his common sense.
DORIAN: I wonder is that really so, Harry? It must be if you say it. And now I am off. Rosalind is waiting for me. Don't forget about tomorrow. Good-bye.
(Exit.)
LORD HENRY: Yes, Dorian, gather your harvest while it is yet spring. It is no matter how it is all destined to end.
(Exit.)
SCENE 4
A dressing room at the Theatre Royal, Holborn.
SIBYL VANE is in her Juliet costume. MRS. VANE, in her Lady Capulet costume, is kneeling beside her,
sewing up the hem of her dress.
MRS. VANE: Sibyl, do keep still!
SIBYL: Oh, mother, I am so happy! And you must be happy too!
MRS. VANE: I am only happy when I see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr. Isaacs
has been very good to us, and we owe him money.
SIBYL: What does money matter? Love is more than money.
MRS. VANE: Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts, and to get a proper outfit for James.
I don't know how we could manage without him.
SIBYL: We don't want him any more, mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now.
MRS. VANE: Foolish child!
SIBYL: Why does he love me so much? I know I love him, but what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And
yet I feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love Prince Charming? Don't look so sad.
I am as happy today as you were twenty years ago. Ah! Let me be happy for ever!
MRS. VANE: My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. (She has finished her sewing, and gets up.)
Besides, what do you know of this young man? You don't even know his name. The whole thing is most inconvenient,
and really, when James is going away to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you should
have shown more consideration. However, if he is rich ...
SIBYL: Ah! Mother, mother, let me be happy!
(MRS. VANE clasps her in her arms. SIBYL kisses her. Enter JAMES VANE.)
JAMES: You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl.
SIBYL: Ah! But you don't like being kissed, Jim. You are a dreadful old bear. (She hugs him.)
JAMES: I don't suppose I shall ever see London again. I am sure I don't want to.
MRS. VANE: James, don't say such dreadful things.
JAMES: Why not, mother? I mean it.
MRS. VANE: You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a position of affluence. I believe there
is no society of any kind in the Colonies, nothing that I would call society; so when you have made your fortune
you must come back and assert yourself in London.
JAMES: Society! I don't want to know anything about that. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl
off the stage. I hate it!
SIBYL: Oh, Jim! How unkind of you!
JAMES: Mother, are my things ready?
MRS. VANE: Quite ready, James. I hope you will be contented with your sea-faring life. It is your own choice. You
might have entered a solicitor's office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and often dine with the best families.
JAMES: I hate offices, and I hate clerks! But you are quite right, I have chosen my own life. Now, Sibyl, I hear
a gentleman comes every night to the theatre, and comes behind to talk to you. Is this right? He means you no good.
MRS. VANE: You are speaking about things you don't understand, James. In the profession we are accustomed to receive
a great deal of most gratifying attention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That was when acting
was really understood. As for Sibyl, there is no doubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is
always most polite to me, and the flowers he sends are lovely.
JAMES: But who is he?
MRS. VANE: He has not yet revealed his name. I think it is quite romantic of him.
SIBYL: He is called Prince Charming.
MRS. VANE: Of course, if he is wealthy, there is no reason why Sibyl should not contract an alliance with him.
They would make a charming couple. His good looks are quite remarkable; everybody notices them.
SIBYL: If you only saw him, Jim, you would think him the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will
meet him: when you come back from Australia. You will like him so much. Everybody likes him, and I ... love him.
JAMES: If your Prince Charming ever does you any wrong I shall kill him.
SIBYL: Jim! You are like one of the heroes of those silly melodramas mother used to be so fond of acting in. I
am not going to quarrel with you. I know you would never harm anyone I love, would you?
JAMES: Not as long as you love him, I suppose.
SIBYL: I shall love him for ever!
JAMES: And he?
SIBYL: For ever, too!
JAMES: He had better. Good-bye, mother.
MRS. VANE: Good-bye, my son.
(He kisses her awkwardly on the cheek, then turns to SIBYL.)
JAMES: Come, Sibyl. (They embrace.)
SIBYL: Now, Jim, promise to be a good boy and not forget us.
JAMES: You are more likely to forget me than I am to forget you, Sibyl. Remember, if your Prince Charming ever
wrongs you, I will track him down and kill him like a dog. I swear it.
(Exit. Fade.)
SCENE 5
A Private room at the Bristol.
BASIL and LORD HENRY.
BASIL: It is such a bore putting on one's dress clothes, and when one has them on, they are so horrid.
LORD HENRY: Yes, the costume of the nineteenth century is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour
element left in modern life. But here is Dorian
(Enter DORIAN GRAY.)
DORIAN: My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me! I am engaged to be married!
BASIL: To whom?
DORISAN: To Sibyl Vane, of course. I have never been so happy.
BASIL: I can't believe it, Dorian. You are far too sensible.
LORD HENRY: Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, Basil.
BASIL: Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry.
LORD HENRY: Except in America. Every experience is of value, and, whatever one may say against marriage, it is
certainly an experience.
DORIAN: Of course it is sudden; all really delightful things are. And yet it seems to me to be the one thing I
have been looking for all my life.
LORD HENRY: Come, sit down and tell us how it all came about.
DORIAN: There is really not much to tell. After I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I went down to the theatre.
Sibyl was playing Rosalind. You should have seen her! She had never seemed to me so exquisite. After the performance
was over I went behind. As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes a look that I had never seen
there before. My lips moved towards hers. We kissed each other. I can't describe what I felt at that moment.
It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one perfect point of rose-coloured joy. Of course our
engagement is a dead secret. She has not even told her mother.
LORD HENRY: At what particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian?
DORIAN: My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did not make any formal proposal.
I told her that I loved her, and she said that she was not worthy to be my wife.
LORD HENRY: Women are wonderfully practical. In situations of that kind we often forget to say anything about
marriage, and they always remind us.
DORIAN: I love Sibyl Vane. Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. When I am with her, I regret
all that you have taught me, Harry: all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.
LORD HENRY: And those are?
DORIAN: Oh, your theories about life, about love, about pleasure.
LORD HENRY: Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about. When we are happy we are always good, but when
we are good we are not always happy.
BASIL: Ah! But what do you mean by good?
LORD HENRY: To be good is to be in harmony with oneself. Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others.
One's own life - that is the important thing.
BASIL: But surely, if one lives merely for oneself, one pays a terrible price for doing so?
LORD HENRY: Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays.
BASIL: One has to pay in other ways but money.
DORIAN: What sort of ways, Basil?
BASIL: Oh! In remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the consciousness of degradation.
LORD HENRY: Believe me, no civilised man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilised man ever knows what a pleasure is.
DORIAN: I know what pleasure is. It is to adore someone.
LORD HENRY: That is certainly better than being adored. Being adored is a nuisance. When women worship us, they
are always bothering us to do something for them.
DORIAN: Whatever they ask for they have first given to us. They create Love in our natures. They have a right
to demand it back.
BASIL: That is quite true, Dorian.
LORD HENRY: Nothing is ever quite true.
DORIAN: This is. You must admit, Harry, that women give to men the very gold of their lives.
LORD HENRY: Possibly, but they invariably want it back in such very small change. That is the worry. Women inspire
us with the desire to do masterpieces, and always prevent us from carrying them out.
DORIAN: Harry, you are dreadful! I don't know why I like you so much.
LORD HENRY: You will always like me, Dorian. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit.
DORIAN: What nonsense you talk, Harry! Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will have a
new ideal of life.
LORD HENRY: I am always ready for a new emotion. Your wonderful girl may thrill me. I love acting. It is so much more
real than life.
(Exeunt.)
SCENE 6
The Theatre Royal, Holborn.
One area represents Juliet's balcony on the stage of the theatre, where SIBYL VANE as Juliet is illuminated in a shaft of moonlight. Another represents the stage box where LORD HENRY, DORIAN and BASIL are seated, watching the performance.
SIBYL declaims her speech with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. Her acting is stagy, her gestures absurdly artificial. She over-emphasises everything.)
SIBYL: "Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek,
For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell compliment.
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say ay,
And I will take thy word; yet if thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries
They say Jove laughs."
(At this point LORD HENRY, DORIAN and BASIL begin to speak. SIBYL continues her speech quietly, but just as badly, under the conversation.)
"O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love me, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won,
I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo; but else not for the world.
In truth, fair Montagu I am too fond;
And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light.
But trust me gentleman, I'll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,
My true love's passion; therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered."
LORD HENRY: She is quite beautiful, Dorian, but she can't act. Let us go.
DORIAN: I am going to see the play through. I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an evening, Harry.
I apologise to you both.
BASIL: My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane is ill. We will come some other night.
DORIAN: I wish she were ill. But she seems to me to be simply callous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last
night she was a great artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace, mediocre actress.
BASIL: Don't talk like that about anyone you love, Dorian. Love is a more wonderful thing than Art.
LORD HENRY: They are both simply forms of imitation. But do let us go, Dorian, you must not stay here any longer.
It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic! The secret
of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. We
will drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful. What more can you want?
DORIAN: Go away, Harry. I want to be alone. Basil, you must go. Ah! Can't you see that my heart is breaking?
LORD HENRY: (With a strange tenderness in his voice.) Let us go, Basil.
(They go. DORIAN remains.)
SCENE 7
Sibyl's dressing room.
DORIAN is waiting. There is the sound of desultory applause and a few whistles. After a moment SIBYL rushes in with
a look of triumph on her face.
SIBYL: How badly I acted tonight, Dorian!
DORIAN: Horribly! It was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what I suffered.
SIBYL: Dorian, you should have understood. But you understand now, don't you?
DORIAN: Understand what?
SIBYL: Why I was so bad tonight. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall never act well again.
DORIAN: You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill you shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were
bored. I was bored.
SIBYL: (An ecstasy of happiness still dominates her.) Dorian, before I knew you, acting was the one reality in my
life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. Then you came - oh, my beautiful love! - and taught me what reality
is. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I became conscious of the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of it all.
You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You made me understand what love
really is. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns in me like fire. It would
be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that.
DORIAN: You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply
produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius, because you gave shape and substance
to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid!
SIBYL: You are not serious, Dorian?
DORIAN: My God! How mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you
again. I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. I wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have
spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art you
are nothing.
SIBYL: Dorian, you are acting.
DORIAN: Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well!
SIBYL: I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you all the time - my love for you. I should never have known
it if you had not kissed me. Kiss me again, my love.
DORIAN: (Thrusting her away.) Don't touch me!
SIBYL: Dorian, don't leave me! I couldn't bear it. My brother ... No; never mind. He didn't mean it. But you, oh!
can't you forgive me for tonight? I will try to improve. Don't be cruel to me because I love you better than anything
in the world. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me! (A fit of passionate sobbing chokes her.)
DORIAN: There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people one has ceased to love. I am going. I don't
wish to be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me. (He goes out, leaving SIBYL sobbing on the floor. Fade.)
SCENE 8
Dorian Gray's home.
Enter DORIAN. He throws aside his hat and cape, then his eye is caught by the portrait. He stares at it in surprise.
He goes over and examines it closely. He picks up a mirror and looks at himself in it, then looks back at the portrait.)
DORIAN: Strange! The whole expression has altered. What does it mean? (He stands back. A sudden thought strikes him.)
Surely my wish has not been fulfilled? That the face on the canvas should bear the burden of my passions and my sins?
Such things are impossible. And yet, there it is, with a touch of cruelty in the mouth. It taught me to love my own
beauty. Will it now teach me to loathe my own soul? For every sin that I commit will a stain wreck its fairness? But
I will not sin. The picture will be my visible conscience. I will resist temptation. I will not see Lord Henry any
more, or listen to his subtle, poisonous theories. I will go back to Sibyl, make amends, marry her, try to love her
again. Yes, it is my duty. My life with her will be beautiful and pure. (He flings a shawl over the picture.) How
horrible! I will write to Sibyl, imploring her forgiveness. (He sits down to write. It lightens to dawn.)
(Enter LORD HENRY.)
LORD HENRY: I am sorry for it all, Dorian. But you must not think too much about it.
DORIAN: Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?
LORD HENRY: Yes, of course. It is dreadful, but it was not your fault. Did you go behind and see her after the play
was over?
DORIAN: Yes. I was brutal, Harry. But it is all right now. I am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has
taught me to know myself better. I know what conscience is.
LORD HENRY: Conscience makes egotists of us all.
DORIAN: I want to be good. I can't bear the thought of my soul being hideous. I am going to marry Sibyl Vane.
LORD HENRY: Marry Sibyl Vane! But, my dear Dorian -
DORIAN: Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say - something dreadful about marriage. Don't say it. You cut life
to pieces with your epigrams.
LORD HENRY: You know nothing then?
DORIAN: What do you mean?
LORD HENRY: Dorian, Sibyl Vane is dead.
DORIAN: Dead! It is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?
LORD HENRY: It is quite true, Dorian. It is in all the morning papers. There will have to be an inquest, of course,
and you must not be mixed up in it. I suppose they don't know your name at the theatre? Did anyone see you going
round to her room?
DORIAN: An inquest? What do you mean? Did Sibyl - ?
LORD HENRY: I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put in that way to the public.
They found her lying dead on the floor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake, some dreadful
thing they use at theatres, with prussic acid in it. She seems to have died instantaneously.
DORIAN: Harry, this is terrible!
LORD HENRY: Yes, it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed up in it. You must come and
dine with me, and afterwards we will look in at the Opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be there.
You can come to my sister's box.
DORIAN: So I have murdered Sibyl Vane. Yet the roses are not less lovely, and the birds sing just as happily
in the garden. And tonight I am to dine with you, and then go on to the Opera. How extraordinarily dramatic
life is! If I had read all this in a book, Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has
happened to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. Here is the first passionate love-letter I have ever
written, and it is addressed to a dead girl. Sibyl! How I loved her once! My God, Harry, what shall I do now?
You don't know the danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would have done that for me.
She had no right to kill herself.
LORD HENRY: My dear Dorian, if you had married this girl you would have been wretched.
DORIAN: I thought it was my duty.
LORD HENRY: There is a fatality about good resolutions - they are always made too late.
DORIAN: Mine certainly were. Harry, why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I should? I don't think
I am heartless. And yet it seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the
terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded.
LORD HENRY: What has really happened? Someone has killed herself for love of you. I wish I had ever had such an
experience. Not one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane did for you.
DORIAN: I was terribly cruel to her.
LORD HENRY: I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty more than anything else. They love being dominated. But you
said something to me the other day which holds the key to everything.
DORIAN: What was that?
LORD HENRY: You said that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of romance. She was always a dream, a
phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and left them lovelier for its presence. The moment she touched
actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away.
DORIAN: You have explained me to myself, Harry. I felt what you have said, but I was afraid of it. When I think of
Sibyl now it will be as a wonderful tragic figure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of Love.
But we will not talk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experience. That is all. I wonder if life
has still in store for me anything as marvellous.
LORD HENRY: Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. Here, I have brought you something that might interest you.
(He hands DORIAN a yellow-bound book which he has brought with him.)
DORIAN: What is it?
LORD HENRY: A book that I first read when I was sixteen. It is a psychological study of a young Parisian.
DORIAN: Why should that interest me?
LORD HENRY: You will find things that you have dimly dreamed of are suddenly made real. Things of which you have
never dreamed are suddenly revealed. But now you had better come and dine with me at the club. We are rather late as it is.
DORIAN: I think I shall join you at the Opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat anything. What is the number of your
sister's box?
LORD HENRY: Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her name on the door. But I am sorry you
won't come and dine.
DORIAN: I don't feel up to it. But I am awfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me. And for your gift.
You are certainly my best friend, Harry. No one has ever understood me as you have.
LORD HENRY: We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian. Good-bye. I shall see you before nine-thirty, I hope.
Remember, Patti is singing.
(He goes out. DORIAN sits down and begins to turn the leaves of the book LORD HENRY has given him. Soon he has become
absorbed. Fade.)
SCENE 9
The same. The next morning.
DORIAN is seated, reading his book. Enter BASIL.
BASIL: I am so glad I have found you, Dorian. I called last night, and they told me you were at the Opera. Of
course I knew that was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really gone to. I passed a dreadful
evening, half afraid that one tragedy might be followed by another. But where were you?
DORIAN: My dear Basil, I was at the Opera. You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendoline, Harry's sister.
We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely.
BASIL: You went to the Opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid dressing-room?
DORIAN: What is past is past.
BASIL: You call yesterday the past?
DORIAN: What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get
rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't
want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
BASIL: Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You look exactly the same, but you talk as
if you had no heart.
DORIAN: I am changed. I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. But don't quarrel with me, Basil; you must always
be my friend. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said.
BASIL: Well, Dorian, I won't speak again about this horrible thing after today. I only trust your name won't be
mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is this afternoon. Have they summoned you?
DORIAN: They don't know my name.
BASIL: But surely she did?
DORIAN: Only my Christian name, and that I am sure she never mentioned to anyone. She called me Prince Charming.
It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl, Basil. I should like to have something more of her than
the memory of a few kisses and some broken pathetic words.
BASIL: I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you must come and sit for me yourself again.
I can't get on without you.
DORIAN: I can never sit for you again, Basil. It is impossible!
BASIL: My dear boy, what nonsense! Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Why have you covered it?
Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever done.
DORIAN: The light was too strong on the portrait.
BASIL: Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for it. Let me see it.
DORIAN: (Rushing between BASIL and the painting.) Basil, you must not look at it!
BASIL: Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn't I look at it?
DORIAN: If you try to look at it, Basil, I will never speak to you again as long as I live.
BASIL: Dorian!
DORIAN: Don't speak!
BASIL: But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't want me to. But, really, it seems
rather absurd that I shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris in the autumn.
DORIAN: You want to exhibit it?
BASIL: Yes.
DORIAN: You told me that you would never exhibit it. Why have you changed your mind? Basil, we have each of us a
secret. Let me know yours and I shall tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?
BASIL: Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not
bear that.
DORIAN: You must tell me. I think I have a right to know.
BASIL: Just answer me one question, Dorian. Have you noticed in the picture something curious? - Something that
probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?
DORIAN: Basil!
BASIL: I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. Dorian, from the moment I met you, your
personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. You became the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal
whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I was only happy when I was with you.
But in such mad worship there is peril. One fatal day I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you. As I
worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that others would
know of my idolatry. I felt that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that I resolved never to allow
the picture to be exhibited. Well, after a few days the thing left my studio, and it seemed to me that I had been
foolish in imagining that I had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking,
and that I could paint. And when I got this offer from Paris I determined to make your portrait the principal
thing in my exhibition. It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. It is
extraordinary that you should have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?
DORIAN: I saw something in it. Something that seemed to me very curious.
BASIL: You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced my art, Dorian. Whatever I have done that is
good, I owe to you. Ah! You don't know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you.
DORIAN: My dear Basil, what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a
compliment.
BASIL: It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession
DORIAN: It was a very disappointing confession.
BASIL: Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else
to see?
DORIAN: No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn't talk about worship. It is foolish. You and
I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so.
BASIL: You will sit for me again?
DORIAN: Impossible! I can't explain it to you, but I must never sit for you again. There is something fatal about a
portrait. It has a life of its own. I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant.
BASIL: Pleasanter for you, I am afraid. And now good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture again. But
it can't be helped. I quite understand what you feel about it.
(Exit.)
DORIAN: Poor Basil! How little he knows of the true reason! The portrait must be hidden away. I cannot run such a risk
of discovery again. Perhaps I should have told Basil the truth? He would have helped to save me. But it is too late now.
The past can always be annihilated. There are opiates for remorse, drugs that can lull the moral sense to sleep. But the
future is inevitable. Life has decided that for me. Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret,
wild joys and wilder sins - I shall have all these things. (He uncovers the picture.) The portrait will bear the
burden of my shame; that is all. My sins will be to this painted image what the worm is to the corpse, they will
mar its beauty, eat away its grace, defile and make it shameful. And yet the thing will still live on. It will always
be alive. And I will be safe. (He stares at the picture and a smile slowly creeps across his face.)
CURTAIN.
|
