第34章

He threw himself into a chair and began to think.Suddenly there flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the day the picture had been finished.Yes, he remembered it perfectly.He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood.

Surely his wish had not been fulfilled? Such things were impossible.It seemed monstrous even to think of them.And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the touch of cruelty in the mouth.

Cruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his.

He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he had thought her great.Then she had disappointed him.She had been shallow and unworthy.And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little child.He remembered with what callousness he had watched her.Why had he been made like that?

Why had such a soul been given to him? But he had suffered also.During the three terrible hours that the play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of torture.His life was well worth hers.She had marred him for a moment, if he had wounded her for an age.Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men.They lived on their emotions.

They only thought of their emotions.When they took lovers, it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes.Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were.Why should he trouble about Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him now.

But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of his life, and told his story.It had taught him to love his own beauty.

Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again?

No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses.

The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it.Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad.The picture had not changed.It was folly to think so.

Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel smile.Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight.Its blue eyes met his own.A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the painted image of himself, came over him.It had altered already, and would alter more.Its gold would wither into grey.Its red and white roses would die.

For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck its fairness.

But he would not sin.The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience.He would resist temptation.He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things.He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, marry her, try to love her again.Yes, it was his duty to do so.She must have suffered more than he had.Poor child! He had been selfish and cruel to her.The fascination that she had exercised over him would return.They would be happy together.His life with her would be beautiful and pure.

He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it."How horrible!" he murmured to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it.When he stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath.The fresh morning air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions.He thought only of Sibyl.A faint echo of his love came back to him.He repeated her name over and over again.

The birds that were singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.