The Picture of Dorian Gray | Page 9

a self-conscious
and satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was a rustle of
chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, and the blue cloud-shadows
chased themselves across the grass like swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden!
And how delightful other people's emotions were!-- much more delightful than their
ideas, it seemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's friends--those were the
fascinating things in life. He pictured to himself with silent amusement the tedious
luncheon that he had missed by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his
aunt's, he would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole
conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the necessity for model
lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the importance of those virtues, for
whose exercise there was no necessity in their own lives. The rich would have spoken on
the value of thrift, and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour. It was
charming to have escaped all that! As he thought of his aunt, an idea seemed to strike him.
He turned to Hallward and said, "My dear fellow, I have just remembered."
"Remembered what, Harry?"
"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray."
"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown.
"Don't look so angry, Basil. 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. I am bound to state that 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 to
myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly freckled, and tramping about on
huge feet. I wish I had known it was your friend."

"I am very glad you didn't, Harry."
"Why?"
"I don't want you to meet him."
"You don't want me to meet him?"
"No."
"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming into the garden.
"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing.
The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight. "Ask Mr. Gray to
wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few moments." The man bowed and went up the walk.
Then he looked at Lord Henry. "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he said. "He has a
simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite right in what she said of him. Don't
spoil him. Don't try to influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide,
and has many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one person who gives
to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an artist depends on him. Mind, Harry, I
trust you." He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against
his will.
"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward by the arm, he
almost led him into the house.

CHAPTER 2
As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with his back to them,
turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's "Forest Scenes." "You must lend me
these, Basil," he cried. "I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming."
"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian."
"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of myself," answered the
lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught
sight of Lord Henry, a faint blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. "I
beg your pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you."
"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I have just been
telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you have spoiled everything."
"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, stepping
forward and extending his hand. "My aunt has often spoken to me about you. You are

one of her favourites, and, I am afraid, one of her victims also."
"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian with a funny look of
penitence. "I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really
forgot all about it. We were to have played a duet together--three duets, I believe. I don't
know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened to