第18章

I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured.The plain women are very useful.If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper.The other women are very charming.They commit one mistake, however.They paint in order to try and look young.Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly.Rouge and esprit used to go together.That is all over now.As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society.However, tell me about your genius.How long have you known her?""Ah! Harry, your views terrify me.

"Never mind that.How long have you known her?""About three weeks."

"And where did you come across her?"

"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it.After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you.You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.For days after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins.As I lounged in the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they led.Some of them fascinated me.Others filled me with terror.There was an exquisite poison in the air.I had a passion for sensations....Well, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search of some adventure.I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, as you once phrased it, must have something in store for me.I fancied a thousand things.The mere danger gave me a sense of delight.I remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret of life.I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black grassless squares.About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills.A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar.He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled shirt.'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility.

There was something about him, Harry, that amused me.He was such a monster.

You will laugh at me, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the stage-box.To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if I hadn't-- my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest romance of my life.I see you are laughing.It is horrid of you!""I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you.

But you should not say the greatest romance of your life.You should say the first romance of your life.You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love.A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do.That is the one use of the idle classes of a country.

Don't be afraid.There are exquisite things in store for you.This is merely the beginning.""Do you think my nature so shallow?" cried Dorian Gray angrily.

"No; I think your nature so deep."

"How do you mean?"

"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 either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect--simply a confession of failure.Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day.The passion for property is in it.There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.But I don't want to interrupt you.Go on with your story.""Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face.I looked out from behind the curtain and surveyed the house.It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake.The gallery and pit were fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the dress-circle.Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there was a terrible consumption of nuts going on.""It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama.""Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing.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?""I should think The Idiot Boy, or Dumb but Innocent.Our fathers used to like that sort of piece, I believe.The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us.In art, as in politics, les grandpères ont toujours tort.""This play was good enough for us, Harry.It was Romeo and Juliet.

I must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare done in such a wretched hole of a place.Still, I felt interested, in a sort of way.At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act.There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the drop-scene was drawn up and the play began.Romeo was a stout elderly gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure like a beer-barrel.

Mercutio was almost as bad.He was played by the low-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most friendly terms with the pit.