Then came a
new development. I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as
Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with
heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing
across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of
some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of
your own face. And it had all been what art should be--unconscious,
ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I
determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are,
not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own
time. Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of
your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or
veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake
and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid
that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told
too much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that
I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a
little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me.
Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind
that. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt
that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio,
and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its
presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I
had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking
and that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a
mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really
shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we
fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It
often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than
it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I
determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition.
It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were
right. The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me,
Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are
made to be worshipped."

Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks,
and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe