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Cursed be the day I showed him that damned thing. It burns, as if behind my eyes, the memory of when I first noticed the malice in the corners of the picture’s lips. I thought it to be nothing, of course, I was tired from spending the night awake, wandering around London after a fight with — bless her soul — Sibyl Vane, and yet it was only for me to wake up the next day and find it’s eyes hiding just the slightest of paranoia.
“One must know their own creations capabilities”, I thought, as I asked Francis to call him into my manor. How sad it is that the words “Mr. Basil Hallward, sir” — his own name! — were the genesis of his own tragedy.
His eyes gleamed in horror by the moment he set his gaze on it. I don’t exaggerate a single bit when I say I do not think he would have reacted any differently if it were completely distorted, rotten. As if a painting could ever change like that, I thought at the time.
Basil took The Thing to his atelier with him that night, to the stage where I shall tell you this story from here on.
It is tragic, truly, I can’t say it enough. His atelier once smelled of roses, the garden used to be full of flowers and sometimes, after hours of posing in silence, of watching him swim beneath the waves of his own art, he would order a servant for some food, sit on the grand piano and play me some of Chopin’s Nocturnes as we waited. Yet, the next time I paid him a visit, it smelled of something between old books and mold. He did not astray his eyes from the painting that once heard we talk about plays, books, music and even the misadventures of the mundane, nor did he say much other than a greeting, once joyful, now nothing more than a formality. But still the sun shined red through the silky curtains, and the piano was open.
It took a good couple of minutes and my hand to reach his shoulder before he finally snapped out of it.
“Apologies, I… I was a little distraught.”
He spoke.
“Have you looked into it? Have you seen it? Tell me, Basil, am I nearing madness? Henry told me I must have been hangover, yet I know what I saw. Please tell me you made some sense of it, that there is some glimpse of logic or, at the very least, that you see it too.”
“I must be honest, my dear Dorian, I fail to find any logic in it myself. But no, I highly doubt you are going mad; taking for granted we aren’t both, that is. Don’t worry though, I am working on painting over it. Soon you shall have yourself, perfect once again, to take home and hang back on the wall within all of your dozens of books; I assure you of that.”
I might have visited him twice or thrice after, all were quite similar except for his eyebags, darkening, and his waiscoat, less put together, with each one. Same was the fourth, but I noticed the garden’s door was closed off. I had, of course, no idea on why, nor the reason it uneased me so, but, really, I couldn’t help it.
The days went by; I went on a trip to Paris, learned some truly interesting things from books written during the recent revolution that there was held and quite a bit about jewelry, not to mention the costume ball to which I chose Anne de Joyeuse as my masquerade and, I must admit, might have gotten a bit palatic, as they say.
Nonetheless, my French adventures are of little to no importance here. What is, however, is that I also had the opportunity of studying, during my trip, a few things on Eastern perfume making techniques and, although I did make some for myself, of course, I also bought one that, just like Basil’s atelier once did, smelled of roses. Needless to say my first stop upon arriving back in London was a certain painter’s place in order to deliver it.
This time, he greeted me loudly. A sort of relief in his voice as he called my name. But it was far from a warm greeting; No, it was absolutely blood chilling.
The windows were closed just like the garden’s door and the piano resembled them both, covered with dust and pages upon pages of what I assume was some sort of artistic anatomy practice. The painting was covered with a purple venetian blanket, with golden ornaments — a splendid 17th century piece my uncle had once found in a convent near Bologna —, that I’ve once given him due to how beautiful he found it to be, even after I told him it might’ve very well been a shroud.
By the second I opened the door, his eyes looked up from his sketchbook in despair.
“Dorian!” he pleaded “Dorian, please! Will you model for me again?”
“Surely,” I said, walking towards the covered beauty “but what happened to the portrait?”
The moment my fingers made a glimpse of a mention of touching it, though, his hand slapped mine. Don’t touch it! He shouted.
We stood silent for what might’ve been either seconds or hours, I’m not sure. The only thing I do remember is the way he was shaking, the way that the, now left behind, sketchbook had its pages were crumpled and slightly torn and the fact that he now only wore a blouse, wrongly buttoned up, and some paint-stained trousers.
Come to think of it, I had not heard much of the name of Basil Hallward in the past month or so.
“Just… forget it, alright? I will paint you another one! A brand new, better one! One as beautiful as you are! Yes, the first one didn’t make you justice.”
“Basil, if you can’t fix it, there is no problem with that; I assure you-”
“But I can!” he stuttered “I can; I will! I will simply paint you another one while I figure it out. You deserve to have a renaissance-style painting portraying your Narcissus-like beauty. And I studied! I know I can do better than the first one, I just need you to… Oh, please, don’t look at me with those eyes. I’ve been staring at them for long enough.”
“I do not wish for a better portrait, Basil.”, I dragged out.
“I don’t understand, Dorian.” He retorted “I don’t understand what you wish from me, then. What do you wish?”
“I wish for the Basil Hallward I knew.”
His face was struck with the lights of sorrow.
“Oh Dorian… I’m afraid you’ve come too late. No artist — indeed, no one at all — could recover from that.”
He said before I put the perfume bottle on his hands and silently walked out of the manor.
Perhaps I was a tad cruel, alike to Sibyl. The man was clearly not in his right mind and yet all I did was ignore his pleas. But that ought to be his own doing, no? I never asked him for anything other than telling me what he knew. No, it was not my fault; that is the reason — and reason enough, I say — I could go away without looking back.
And away I stayed.
For a good couple of weeks, I hadn’t heard of Basil Hallward. Not even in balls and dinners that he usually attended to keep himself on the general social circles —, where his work was usually held in the limelight. Now, all the people talked of him is how he, somehow, became some sort of village blacksmith-painter, painting only enough to play to the gas.
Sometimes, of course, something recalled me of him — he was my friend, after all —, such as the empty space in my library wall or, even, something less subtle, such as when Henry mentioned their days in Oxford — moments in which, and only then, we would openly talk about the man.
But after some time of avoiding him like the plague, I got the urge, on a random Thursday night, to pay him a visit, once again.
I remember setting foot on my carriage along with the thought, in my head, of perhaps inviting him for a walk; forcing, if it were the case, those damned windows open, at least. Truth is I was tired of trying to reach out and of only seeing his decay. I missed him, had I wanted to admit it or not.
I found him on the ground, kneeling over to the hanged painting on his fireplace. The manor smelled just like oxidized oil and the windows, although clearly closed, still let some light through, only for it to be turned red under the filter of the curtains.
And Basil stood there; in the center of it all.
Praying.
He did not hear me calling, I remember that; and I remember, also, putting my hand on his shoulder, but the whole thing is still a blur in my memory.
I remember only from the point that, although I do not know what I did, I saw my hands, just as his, stained with paint or blood, holding his rosary as the mumbling of his prayers finally ceased. He slowly turned towards me; his eyes, completely lifeless, shining dull, and he looked at me like I was God.
“Dorian? Dorian. Thank God. Please, I beg you, tell me at once, what must I do to cease this?”
“Cease what? Basil, please, you’re scaring me.”
“No, no, don’t be scared. I am the one who is supposed to be scared, not you! You should be the one saying that.”
“What are you… What do you even want me to say?”
He touched my cheeks carefully, as if I was going to dilute on thin air. His hands were cold and only now I noticed how absolutely wrecked he looked.
“No… No, you were not supposed to be here!” he stood up swiftly “I’ve damaged you enough, I cannot bear staining you with sin!”
“Sin? Basil, what are you talking about?”, I retorted.
“You are too pure; I must not talk-”
“I am not a child!” I shouted, maybe a little too harshly “Basil. Tell me, what have you done?”
“I have sinned, Dorian! I have sinned. This portrait is the proof of it.”
The painting was completely distorted, as if it had slowly dissolved in oil. My eyes dripped down to the lips, curving them into a terrified — no, a cadaverous — expression, the colors wildly darker in a manner that what was once a lovely pink hue in my cheeks looked like dripping blood and those blue eyes — were they to still be called that — showed the worst depths of the sea.
It was ruined. A masterpiece completely ruined. And I looked ugly. I wondered whether that is how I am going to look when I grow old: lifeless. Yet, I told him that if anything it told more of me than of him, that the muddy brushstrokes were proof of nothing.
“But they are!” he told me “I put too much of my soul into this painting, Dorian! Too much! Perhaps it holds more of it than my own body. It is the perfect depiction of my sins, and God is punishing me for it. I know that you don’t understand, neither do I, barely. But I know that I have loved, Dorian, I have loved in a foolish, wrong manner, and I shall pay for it. This portrait is the reminder of that. It shows the exact nature of my sin, from what I worship to how it shall be destroyed, so please; I beg you, out of anyone, you are the last person who should be here. I’ve stained you enough, I do not wish to hurt you.”
“I do not care about sin at this moment; I care about you.”
“Don’t say that! Don’t you feel the eyes of that damned thing over us?”
“I don’t fear God, Basil. Not if he holds me from living, and above all, from caring about who I hold dear.”
“Oh, good Lord, it is worse than I thought” he whispered before taking my hands that still held the rosary “Then pray with me, Dorian. If you hold me so dearly, then I’m afraid you have sinned to the same extent, so let us pray; and hope God forgives you for saying such things.”
I obliged. How could I not? Would you refuse a decaying, dying man’s wish?
I do not remember when I left his place nor how I got home that night, and I would be lying to say that, were I given the opportunity to go back, I would visit him after that.
That was the last time I heard his voice, and the last time I saw him would come just a few weeks later, after receiving the news from Henry, in an eerie — and arguably worse — parallel to Sibyl.
I did not inherit anything other than a drawing and a few words from a letter he left for me, one that is stored in a locked room upstairs, along with a perfect painting that — although he attributed to no one — held my face.
“My wish for you, Dorian, is quite selfish, and I say it for I know you are brave enough: please, if you will, keep the proud claim of your sin, and descend into hell to meet me.”
“Forever yours, Basil Hallward.”