The Mirror Crack — The Picture of Dorian Gray

The theatre is crowded. Dorian has brought Basil and Lord Henry, sure that Sibyl's Juliet will justify every claim he has made. The fat manager meets them with an oily smile and waves jewelled hands as he leads them to the box. Dorian loathes him. He had come looking for Miranda and met Caliban. From the first lines the voice is pretty and empty. She speaks as if the words mean nothing. It is not nerves. It is bad art. The pit and gallery lose interest, talk, and whistle. At the back of the dress-circle the manager stamps and swears. Henry is bored and wants to leave. Dorian stays through the wreck of the balcony scene.

After the failure he finds her radiant in the room behind the stage. She says real love has made the play feel hollow, that acting passion now would be a profanation, and that she has chosen him over the pageant. He hears only the humiliation of the house. He tells her she has killed his love, that without her art she is nothing, a third-rate actress with a pretty face. She kneels, begs, promises to try again, and mentions her brother only to say the threat was a jest. Dorian looks down with exquisite disdain, says he cannot see her again, and walks out.

He wanders until dawn through dark streets, then into Covent Garden, where carts of lilies and a carter's cherries dull the pain for a moment. At home the Venetian lantern is still burning. On the way to bed his eye falls on Basil's portrait. In the dawn light the mouth has a touch of cruelty. He snatches up an oval glass framed in ivory Cupids, one of Lord Henry's presents, and his own lips show no such line. He remembers the wish in the studio, blames Sibyl, then pities the girl sobbing at his feet and decides the canvas will be his conscience. He will not listen to Henry. He will go back, make amends, and marry her. He draws a screen in front of the picture, steps onto the grass, and says her name over and over while the birds sing in the wet garden.