Chapter 6 — The Picture of Dorian Gray

Basil joins Lord Henry and Dorian for dinner at the Bristol, expecting art talk and learning instead that Dorian is engaged to Sibyl Vane. Basil is stunned: he fears the marriage will destroy the boy he painted and doubts that an actress can belong to Dorian's world. Henry treats the announcement as entertainment, mocking marriage while praising folly as wisdom.

Dorian arrives flushed with happiness and tells how he watched Sibyl as Rosalind, kissed her backstage, and took love out of poetry into life. He claims an irrevocable vow will make him faithful and that Sibyl's hand makes him forget Henry's poisonous theories. Henry answers with epigrams about pleasure, women, and the price of living only for oneself.

Basil pleads from affection while Henry performs irony; Dorian declares victory by quoting Shakespeare. No one asks what Sibyl wants beyond the roles she plays. The dinner closes with Henry and Dorian riding to the theatre in a brougham while Basil follows in a hansom, already feeling that life has come between them.

Wilde stages the public test before the private catastrophe: three men debate an absent woman, and the one who loves her most has not yet seen her fail onstage.