第57章

"I must speak, and you must listen.You shall listen.When you met Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her.Is there a single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the park?

Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her.Then there are other stories-- stories that you have been seen creeping at dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in London.

Are they true? Can they be true? When I first heard them, I laughed.Ihear them now, and they make me shudder.What about your country-house and the life that is led there? Dorian, you don't know what is said about you.I won't tell you that I don't want to preach to you.I remember Harry saying once that every man who turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by saying that, and then proceeded to break his word.I do want to preach to you.I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect you.I want you to have a clean name and a fair record.I want you to get rid of the dreadful people you associate with.

Don't shrug your shoulders like that.Don't be so indifferent.You have a wonderful influence.Let it be for good, not for evil.They say that you corrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite sufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow after.

I don't know whether it is so or not.How should I know? But it is said of you.I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt.Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford.He showed me a letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in her villa at Mentone.

Your name was implicated in the most terrible confession I ever read.Itold him that it was absurd--that I knew you thoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind.Know you? I wonder do I know you? Before I could answer that, I should have to see your soul.""To see my soul!" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and turning almost white from fear.

"Yes," answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his voice, "to see your soul.But only God can do that."A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man.

"You shall see it yourself, to-night!" he cried, seizing a lamp from the table."Come: it is your own handiwork.Why shouldn't you look at it? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose.Nobody would believe you.If they did believe you, they would like me all the better for it.I know the age better than you do, though you will prate about it so tediously.Come, I tell you.You have chattered enough about corruption.

Now you shall look on it face to face."

There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered.He stamped his foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner.He felt a terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret, and that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of all his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the hideous memory of what he had done.

"Yes," he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into his stern eyes, "I shall show you my soul.You shall see the thing that you fancy only God can see."Hallward started back."This is blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried.

"You must not say things like that.They are horrible, and they don't mean anything.""You think so?" He laughed again.

"I know so.As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your good.You know I have been always a stanch friend to you.""Don't touch me.Finish what you have to say."A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face.He paused for a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him.After all, what right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and their throbbing cores of flame.

"I am waiting, Basil," said the young man in a hard clear voice.

He turned round."What I have to say is this," he cried."You must give me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against you.If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to end, I shall believe you.Deny them, Dorian, deny them! Can't you see what Iam going through? My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, and shameful."Dorian Gray smiled.There was a curl of contempt in his lips.

"Come upstairs, Basil," he said quietly."I keep a diary of my life from day to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written.I shall show it to you if you come with me.""I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it.I see I have missed my train.That makes no matter.I can go to-morrow.But don't ask me to read anything to-night.All I want is a plain answer to my question.""That shall be given to you upstairs.I could not give it here.

You will not have to read long."