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Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the portrait and he started. "Too cold for monsieur?" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the table. "I shut the window?" Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured. Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed? Or had it simply been his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where there had been a look of joy?

Cited transcript

"Christ! What a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a devil." "Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil," cried Dorian with a wild gesture of despair. Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it. "My God! If it is true," he exclaimed, "and this is what you have done with your life, why, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you to be."

Cited transcript

I don't believe it is my picture. Can't you see your ideal in it? Said Dorian bitterly. My ideal, as you call it. As you called it. There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such an ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr. It is the face of my soul

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He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's mystery. Let us sit down, Dorian, said the painter, looking troubled. Let us sit down and just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the picture something curious, something that probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?

Cited transcript

"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?" "I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very curious." "Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?" Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture."

Cited transcript

There was something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing. Good heavens! It was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at. The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and some scarlet on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something of the loveliness of their blue. The noble curves had not yet completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. Yes, it was Dorian himself.

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"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, strolling across to him. "Am I really like that?" "Yes, you are just like that." "How wonderful, Basil!" "At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter," sighed Hallward. "That is something."

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Still, it was his own picture. He knew it, and he felt as if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His own picture! What did it mean? Why had it altered? He turned and looked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man. His mouth twitched, and his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate. He passed his hand across his forehead. It was dank with clammy sweat.

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Dorian's arms fell to his side. Paralyzed with terror, he did not know what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flushed across his brain. "Stop," he cried. "How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me." "Eighteen years," said the man. "Why do you ask me? What do years matter?" "Eighteen years?" laughed Dorian Gray with a touch of triumph in his voice.