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Chapter XII: 86-93
[...86] At nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a
cup of chocolate on a tray, and opened the shutters. Dorian was
sleeping quite peacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand
underneath his cheek. He looked like a boy who had been tired out
with play, or study.
The man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as
he opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he
had been having some delightful dream. Yet he had not dreamed at
all. His night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of
pain. But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its
chiefest charms.
He turned round, and, leaning on his elbow, began to drink his
chocolate. The mellow November sun was streaming into the room. The
sky was bright blue, and there was a genial warmth in the air. It
was almost like a morning in May.
Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent blood-
stained feet into his brain, and reconstructed themselves there with
terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had
suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for
Basil Hallward, that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair,
came back to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was
still sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that
was! Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day.
He felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would
sicken or grow mad. There were sins whose fascination was more in
the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified
the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a
quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could
ever bring, to the senses. But this was not one of them. It was a
thing to be driven out of the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be
strangled lest it might strangle one itself.
He passed his hand across his forehead, and then got up hastily, and
dressed himself with even more than his usual attention, giving a
good deal of care to the selection of his necktie and scarf-pin, and
changing his rings more than once.
He spent a long time over breakfast, tasting the various dishes,
talking to his valet about some new liveries that he was thinking of
[87] getting made for the servants at Selby, and going through his
correspondence. Over some of the letters he smiled. Three of them
bored him. One he read several times over, and then tore up with a
slight look of annoyance in his face. "That awful thing, a woman's
memory!" as Lord Henry had once said.
When he had drunk his coffee, he sat down at the table, and wrote two
letters. One he put in his pocket, the other he handed to the valet.
"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr.
Campbell is out of town, get his address."
As soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette, and began sketching upon
a piece of paper, drawing flowers, and bits of architecture, first,
and then faces. Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew
seemed to have an extraordinary likeness to Basil Hallward. He
frowned, and, getting up, went over to the bookcase and took out a
volume at hazard. He was determined that he would not think about
what had happened, till it became absolutely necessary to do so.
When he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-
page of the book. It was Gautier's "Emaux et Camees," Charpentier's
Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. The binding was
of citron-green leather with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted
pomegranates. It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton. As he
turned over the pages his eye fell on the poem about the hand of
Lacenaire, the cold yellow hand "du supplice encore mal lavee," with
its downy red hairs and its "doigts de faune." He glanced at his own
white taper fingers, and passed on, till he came to those lovely
verses upon Venice:
Sur une gamme chromatique,
Le sein de perles ruisselant,
La Venus de l'Adriatique
Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc.
Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes
Suivant la phrase au pur contour,
S'enflent comme des gorges rondes
Que souleve un soupir d'amour.
L'esquif aborde et me depose,
Jetant son amarre au pilier,
Devant une facade rose,
Sur le marbre d'un escalier.
How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be floating
down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, lying in a
black gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines
looked to him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow
one as one pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of color
reminded him of the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that
flutter round the tall honey-combed Campanile, or stalk, with such
stately grace, through the dim arcades. Leaning back with half-
closed eyes, he kept saying over and over to himself,--
Devant une facade rose,
Sur le marbre d'un escalier.
[88] The whole of Venice was in those two lines. He remembered the
autumn that he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had
stirred him to delightful fantastic follies. There was romance in
every place. But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the background for
romance, and background was everything, or almost everything. Basil
had been with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret.
Poor Basil! what a horrible way for a man to die!
He sighed, and took up the book again, and tried to forget. He read
of the swallows that fly in and out of the little cafe at Smyrna
where the Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned
merchants smoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each
other; of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of
granite in its lonely sunless exile, and longs to be back by the hot
lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises,
and white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles, with small
beryl eyes, that crawl over the green steaming mud; and of that
curious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the
"monstre charmant" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre.
But after a time the book fell from his hand. He grew nervous, and a
horrible fit of terror came over him. What if Alan Campbell should
be out of England? Days would elapse before he could come back.
Perhaps he might refuse to come. What could he do then? Every
moment was of vital importance.
They had been great friends once, five years before,--almost
inseparable, indeed. Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end.
When they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled:
Alan Campbell never did.
He was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real
appreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the
beauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian.
His dominant intellectual passion was for science. At Cambridge he
had spent a great deal of his time working in the Laboratory, and had
taken a good class in the Natural Science tripos of his year.
Indeed, he was still devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a
laboratory of his own, in which he used to shut himself up all day
long, greatly to the annoyance of his mother, who had set her heart
on his standing for Parliament and had a vague idea that a chemist
was a person who made up prescriptions. He was an excellent
musician, however, as well, and played both the violin and the piano
better than most amateurs. In fact, it was music that had first
brought him and Dorian Gray together,--music and that indefinable
attraction that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he
wished, and indeed exercised often without being conscious of it.
They had met at Lady Berkshire's the night that Rubinstein played
there, and after that used to be always seen together at the Opera,
and wherever good music was going on. For eighteen months their
intimacy lasted. Campbell was always either at Selby Royal or in
Grosvenor Square. To him, as to many others, Dorian Gray was the
type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in life.
Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one ever
knew. But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when
[89] they met, and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from
any party at which Dorian Gray was present. He had changed, too,--
was strangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing
music of any passionate character, and would never himself play,
giving as his excuse, when he was called upon, that he was so
absorbed in science that he had no time left in which to practise.
And this was certainly true. Every day he seemed to become more
interested in biology, and his name appeared once or twice in some of
the scientific reviews, in connection with certain curious
experiments.
This was the man that Dorian Gray was waiting for, pacing up and down
the room, glancing every moment at the clock, and becoming horribly
agitated as the minutes went by. At last the door opened, and his
servant entered.
"Mr. Alan Campbell, sir."
A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the color came back
to his cheeks.
"Ask him to come in at once, Francis."
The man bowed, and retired. In a few moments Alan Campbell walked
in, looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified
by his coal-black hair and dark eyebrows.
"Alan! this is kind of you. I thank you for coming."
"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray. But you said
it was a matter of life and death." His voice was hard and cold. He
spoke with slow deliberation. There was a look of contempt in the
steady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian. He kept his hands in
the pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and appeared not to have noticed
the gesture with which he had been greeted.
"It is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one person.
Sit down."
Campbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him.
The two men's eyes met. In Dorian's there was infinite pity. He
knew that what he was going to do was dreadful.
After a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very
quietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of the
man he had sent for, "Alan, in a locked room at the top of this
house, a room to which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is
seated at a table. He has been dead ten hours now. Don't stir, and
don't look at me like that. Who the man is, why he died, how he
died, are matters that do not concern you. What you have to do is
this--"
"Stop, Gray. I don't want to know anything further. Whether what
you have told me is true or not true, doesn't concern me. I entirely
decline to be mixed up in your life. Keep your horrible secrets to
yourself. They don't interest me any more."
"Alan, they will have to interest you. This one will have to
interest you. I am awfully sorry for you, Alan. But I can't help
myself. You are the one man who is able to save me. I am forced to
bring you into the matter. I have no option. Alan, you are a
scientist. You know about chemistry, and things of that kind. You
have made experiments. What you have got to do is to destroy the
[90] thing that is up-stairs,--to destroy it so that not a vestige
will be left of it. Nobody saw this person come into the house.
Indeed, at the present moment he is supposed to be in Paris. He will
not be missed for months. When he is missed, there must be no trace
of him found here. You, Alan, you must change him, and everything
that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes that I may scatter in
the air."
"You are mad, Dorian."
"Ah! I was waiting for you to call me Dorian."
"You are mad, I tell you,--mad to imagine that I would raise a finger
to help you, mad to make this monstrous confession. I will have
nothing to do with this matter, whatever it is. Do you think I am
going to peril my reputation for you? What is it to me what devil's
work you are up to?"
"It was a suicide, Alan."
"I am glad of that. But who drove him to it? You, I should fancy."
"Do you still refuse to do this, for me?"
"Of course I refuse. I will have absolutely nothing to do with it.
I don't care what shame comes on you. You deserve it all. I should
not be sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced. How dare you
ask me, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror? I
should have thought you knew more about people's characters. Your
friend Lord Henry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology,
whatever else he has taught you. Nothing will induce me to stir a
step to help you. You have come to the wrong man. Go to some of
your friends. Don't come to me."
"Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You don't know what he had made
me suffer. Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or
the marring of it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended
it, the result was the same."
"Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to? I shall
not inform upon you. It is not my business. Besides, you are
certain to be arrested, without my stirring in the matter. Nobody
ever commits a murder without doing something stupid. But I will
have nothing to do with it."
"All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific experiment. You
go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there
don't affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid
laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red
gutters scooped out in it, you would simply look upon him as an
admirable subject. You would not turn a hair. You would not believe
that you were doing anything wrong. On the contrary, you would
probably feel that you were benefiting the human race, or increasing
the sum of knowledge in the world, or gratifying intellectual
curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want you to do is
simply what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body
must be less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at. And,
remember, it is the only piece of evidence against me. If it is
discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be discovered unless you
help me."
[91] "I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply
indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me."
"Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before
you came I almost fainted with terror. No! don't think of that.
Look at the matter purely from the scientific point of view. You
don't inquire where the dead things on which you experiment come
from. Don't inquire now. I have told you too much as it is. But I
beg of you to do this. We were friends once, Alan."
"Don't speak about those days, Dorian: they are dead."
"The dead linger sometimes. The man up-stairs will not go away. He
is sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. Alan!
Alan! if you don't come to my assistance I am ruined. Why, they will
hang me, Alan! Don't you understand? They will hang me for what I
have done."
"There is no good in prolonging this scene. I refuse absolutely to
do anything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me."
"You refuse absolutely?"
"Yes."
The same look of pity came into Dorian's eyes, then he stretched out
his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. He read
it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the table.
Having done this, he got up, and went over to the window.
Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and
opened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale, and he fell
back in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. He
felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty
hollow.
After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round,
and came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder.
"I am so sorry, Alan," he murmured, "but you leave me no alternative.
I have a letter written already. Here it is. You see the address.
If you don't help me, I must send it. You know what the result will
be. But you are going to help me. It is impossible for you to
refuse now. I tried to spare you. You will do me the justice to
admit that. You were stern, harsh, offensive. You treated me as no
man has ever dared to treat me,--no living man, at any rate. I bore
it all. Now it is for me to dictate terms."
Campbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through
him.
"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan. You know what they are.
The thing is quite simple. Come, don't work yourself into this
fever. The thing has to be done. Face it, and do it."
A groan broke from Campbell's lips, and he shivered all over. The
ticking of the clock on the mantel-piece seemed to him to be dividing
time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to
be borne. He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened
round his forehead, and as if the disgrace with which he was
threatened had already come upon him. The hand upon his shoulder
weighed like a hand of lead. It was intolerable. It seemed to crush
him.
"Come, Alan, you must decide at once."
[92] He hesitated a moment. "Is there a fire in the room up-stairs?"
he murmured.
"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos."
"I will have to go home and get some things from the laboratory."
"No, Alan, you need not leave the house. Write on a sheet of note-
paper what you want, and my servant will take a cab and bring the
things back to you."
Campbell wrote a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope
to his assistant. Dorian took the note up and read it carefully.
Then he rang the bell, and gave it to his valet, with orders to
return as soon as possible, and to bring the things with him.
When the hall door shut, Campbell started, and, having got up from
the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a
sort of ague. For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke.
A fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was
like the beat of a hammer.
As the chime struck one, Campbell turned around, and, looking at
Dorian Gray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears. There was
something in the purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed
to enrage him. "You are infamous, absolutely infamous!" he muttered.
"Hush, Alan: you have saved my life," said Dorian.
"Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from
corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. In
doing what I am going to do, what you force me to do, it is not of
your life that I am thinking."
"Ah, Alan," murmured Dorian, with a sigh, "I wish you had a
thousandth part of the pity for me that I have for you." He turned
away, as he spoke, and stood looking out at the garden. Campbell
made no answer.
After about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant
entered, carrying a mahogany chest of chemicals, with a small
electric battery set on top of it. He placed it on the table, and
went out again, returning with a long coil of steel and platinum wire
and two rather curiously-shaped iron clamps.
"Shall I leave the things here, sir?" he asked Campbell.
"Yes," said Dorian. "And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another
errand for you. What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies
Selby with orchids?"
"Harden, sir."
"Yes,--Harden. You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden
personally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered,
and to have as few white ones as possible. In fact, I don't want any
white ones. It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very
pretty place, otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it."
"No trouble, sir. At what time shall I be back?"
Dorian looked at Campbell. "How long will your experiment take,
Alan?" he said, in a calm, indifferent voice. The presence of a
third person in the room seemed to give him extraordinary courage.
Campbell frowned, and bit his lip. "It will take about five hours,"
he answered.
[93] "It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past
seven, Francis. Or stay: just leave my things out for dressing. You
can have the evening to yourself. I am not dining at home, so I
shall not want you."
"Thank you, sir," said the man, leaving the room.
"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost. How heavy this chest
is! I'll take it for you. You bring the other things." He spoke
rapidly, and in an authoritative manner. Campbell felt dominated by
him. They left the room together.
When they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned
it in the lock. Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his
eyes. He shuddered. "I don't think I can go in, Alan," he murmured.
"It is nothing to me. I don't require you," said Campbell, coldly.
Dorian half opened the door. As he did so, he saw the face of the
portrait grinning in the sunlight. On the floor in front of it the
torn curtain was lying. He remembered that the night before, for the
first time in his life, he had forgotten to hide it, when he crept
out of the room.
But what was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening,
on one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? How
horrible it was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment,
than the silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table,
the thing whose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet
showed him that it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had
left it.
He opened the door a little wider, and walked quickly in, with half-
closed eyes and averted head, determined that he would not look even
once upon the dead man. Then, stooping down, and taking up the gold-
and-purple hanging, he flung it over the picture.
He stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed
themselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him. He heard
Campbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other
things that he had required for his dreadful work. He began to
wonder if he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they
had thought of each other.
"Leave me now," said Campbell.
He turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been
thrust back into the chair and was sitting up in it, with Campbell
gazing into the glistening yellow face. As he was going downstairs
he heard the key being turned in the lock.
It was long after seven o'clock when Campbell came back into the
library. He was pale, but absolutely calm. "I have done what you
asked me to do," he muttered. "And now, good-by. Let us never see
each other again."
"You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I cannot forget that," said
Dorian, simply.
As soon as Campbell had left, he went up-stairs. There was a
horrible smell of chemicals in the room. But the thing that had been
sitting at the table was gone.
Content of Chapter XII: 86-93 [Oscar Wilde's novel: Picture of Dorian Gray]
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