Читать книгу Dorian Gray - John Garavaglia - Страница 9

“Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry.” Answered the painter. “And I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will hardly believe it.”

Lord Wotton smiled. “I am quite sure I shall understand it, and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that is quite incredible. I must meet this Dorian Gray.”

Basil got up from his seat and walked up and down the garden. After some time he came back.

“Harry,” he said, “Dorian Gray is to me simply a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colors. That is all.”

“Then why don’t you exhibit his portrait?” Asked Lord Wotton.

“Because, without intending it, I have put into some expression of all this curious artistic adoration, of which, of course, I have never cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know anything about it. But the world might guess it, and I will not bare my soul to their shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put under a microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing. Too much of myself!”

“Poets are not so scrupulous as you are.” Replied Lord Wotton. “They know how useful passion is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions.”

JOHN GRAVAGLIA

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