don’t know if I even want a life-sized portrait of myself.” Dorian answered, and then he saw Lord Wotton. “I beg your pardon, Basil, I didn’t realize you had company.”
“This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I have just been telling him what a terrific subject you are.” Basil said.
“I have a great pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray,” said Lord Wotton, stepping forward and extending his hand. “My aunt has often spoken to me about you. You are one of her favorites.”
“I am on Lady Agatha’s bad list at the present,” replied Dorian. “I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel with her last Tuesday and I genuinely forgot all about it. We were suppose to play several duets together—three duets, I believe.”
“I will make peace with my aunt. She likes you very much.” Wotton looked at him and was again struck by his youthful cherub appearance. Dorian Gray seemed curiously unspoiled by the world. He seemed to be good and pure.
It was at the moment that Lord Wotton decided not to pay attention to Basil’s warning. And although Basil had cautioned
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 13 •
Dorian about his friend’s scandalous reputation, Dorian ignored the artist as well.
Wotton’s words had a profound impact on the young impressionable Dorian, while the model took his place on the well-decorated dais. He listened excitedly as the nobleman began to explain his theory of beauty.
“To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances,” grinned Lord Wotton. He looked at the young man. “Dorian, the gods have been good to you. But what the gods give, they cruelly take away. You have only a few years in which to live. Then your youth goes—and your beauty will go with it. Then you will discover that there are no more triumphs left for you.”
Dorian frowned slightly at those words. But there was more to come.
“Realize your youth while you still have it,” Lord Wotton commanded. “One day, time will catch up with you. You will become old and gray. There is such little time that youth will last. The common hill flowers wither, but they blossom again. But we humans never get our youth back. Our limbs fail, our senses go,” he said, painting a scary picture for Dorian of old age.
“We degenerate into a hideous old age, haunted by the memory of missing out on passions that frightened us and temptations we never yielded to. Don’t squander your golden days. Live life! Search for new sensations! Be afraid of nothing!”
DORIAN GRAY
• 14 •
Dorian listened intently, wide-eyed and silent. Basil also heard these dangerous words and worried about the impression they would make on his inexperienced young friend. But he was too busy putting the finishing touches on Dorian’s painting to win him over or to stop Wotton.
For nearly ten minutes Dorian stood on the dais, motionless, with parted lips and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh influences were at work within him.
Basil painted away with that marvelous bold touch of his, that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes only from strength.
He stood staring at the picture for a long time, biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning.
“It’s finished,” he said proudly at last.
Then stooping down, he wrote his name in long red letters on the lower left corner of the canvas.
“Is it really finished?” Dorian murmured, stepping down from the platform.
Lord Wotton came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well.
“I congratulate you, Basil,” Wotton said to him. “This is the finest portrait of any man that has been created in modern times. Dorian, come look at yourself.”
Dorian looked at the painting and blushed. The sense of his own beauty hit him like a lightning bolt. When he saw it, he drew back and his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 15 •
A look of joy came into his eyes, as if he had seen himself for the first time. He stood there, speechless by the sight of his portrait.
“Speak up, boy,” Lord Wotton said, snapping Dorian awake from his silent reverie. “You’ll hurt the man’s feelings.”
“Is that how I look?” Asked Dorian, not blinking even once at the painting. “It’s so lifelike.”
“Better than life,” Lord Wotton laughed, approaching the painting for a closer look. “You and Basil will be the talk of the town.”
“The brush seemed to dance, and I painted what I saw.” Commented Basil, cleaning his brush with a rag.
The two gentlemen were excited with the finished masterwork; yet, a chill suddenly ran through Dorian. One day he would be old and wrinkled, his slender form would be gone, and his hair would fall out.
“He’ll always look like that,” Lord Wotton said, pointing to the painting, “but you, Mr. Gray, I’m afraid will not.”
The words seem to hit Dorian like fists. Basil saw the saddened look on his inspiration’s face. He frowned by the very sight of it.
“Some things are more precious because they don’t last.” Basil said, trying to perk up Dorian, but it was to no avail.
“Oh, poppycock.” Lord Wotton scoffed.
“How awful it is,” Dorian mused. “I shall grow old and horrible and dreadful. But this painting will remain always young. If it were only the other way! If only I were to be
DORIAN GRAY
• 16 •
always young and the picture grew old. For that—I would give everything! I would give my soul!”
“You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil,” cried Lord Wotton, laughing. “It would be rather hard lines on your work.”
“I should object very strongly, Harry,” said Basil.
Dorian turned and looked at him. “I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say.”
Basil stared at him in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to think and speak like that.
What happened to him?
Was this Lord Henry Wotton’s evil influence already at work?
“I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die,” said Dorian bitterly. “I know now that when one loses one’s good looks, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Wotton is right. Youth is the only thing worth
