Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown
into the room.

"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian," he said gravely.
"I called last night, and they told me you were at the opera.
Of course, I knew that was impossible. But I wish you had left
word where you had really gone to. I passed a dreadful evening,
half afraid that one tragedy might be followed by another.
I think you might have telegraphed for me when you heard of it first.
I read of it quite by chance in a late edition of The Globe
that I picked up at the club. I came here at once and was
miserable at not finding you. I can't tell you how heart-broken
I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer.
But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl's mother?
For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave
the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it?
But I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could
not lighten. Poor woman! What a state she must be in!
And her only child, too! What did she say about it
all?"

"My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some
pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian
glass and looking dreadfully bored. "I was at the opera.
You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister,
for the first time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming;
and Patti sang divinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects.
If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened.
It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things.
I may mention that she was not the woman's only child. There is
a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not on the stage.
He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell me about yourself and what you
are painting."

"You went to the opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly
and with a strained touch of pain in his voice. "You went to
the opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging?
You can talk to me of other women being charming, and of Patti
singing divinely, before the girl you loved has even the quiet
of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there are horrors in store
for that little white body of hers!"

"Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet.
"You must not tell me about things. What is done is done.
What is past is past."

"You call yesterday the past?"

"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is
only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion.
A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can
invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions.
I want to use them, to enjoy them,