The Picture of Dorian Gray Page #48

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Fearing the story was indecent, prior to publication the magazine's editor deleted roughly five hundred words without Wilde's knowledge.

• Fiction
• Philosophy

								


"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 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, without my stirring in the matter, you are certain to be arrested.  Nobody ever commits a crime without doing something stupid.  But I will have nothing to do with it."

"You must have something to do with it.  Wait, wait a moment; listen to me.  Only listen, Alan.  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 for the blood to flow through, 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 merely what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body must be far 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."

"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.  You may know terror yourself some day.  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 upstairs 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 absolutely refuse to do anything in the matter.  It is insane of you to ask me."

"You refuse?"

"Yes."

"I entreat you, Alan."

"It is useless."

The same look of pity came into Dorian Gray'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 for you, 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.  If you don't help me, I will 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 mantelpiece 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, 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."

"I cannot do it," he said, mechanically, as though words could alter things.

"You must.  You have no choice.  Don't delay."

He hesitated a moment.  "Is there a fire in the room upstairs?"

"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos."

"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory."

"No, Alan, you must not leave the house.  Write out on a sheet of notepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the things back to you."

Campbell scrawled 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.
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