ate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety.
But what a lack of taste she showed! The one
charm of the past is that it is the past. But
women never know when the curtain has fallen.
They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the
interest of the play is entirely over they propose
to continue it. If they were allowed to have
their way, every comedy would have a tragic ending,
and every tragedy would culminate in a farce.
They are charmingly artificial, but they have no
sense of art. You are more fortunate than I am.
I assure you, Dorian, that not one of the women I
have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane
did for you. Ordinary women always console themselves.
Some of them do it by going in for sentimental colors.
Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age
may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of
pink ribbons. It always means that they have
a history. Others find a great consolation in
suddenly discovering the good qualities of their husbands.
They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one’s
face, as if it was the most fascinating of sins.
Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all
the charm of a flirtation, a woman once told me; and
I can quite understand it. Besides, nothing
makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.
There is really no end to the consolations that women
find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned
the most important one of all.”
“What is that, Harry?” said Dorian Gray,
listlessly.
“Oh, the obvious one. Taking some one
else’s admirer when one loses one’s own.
In good society that always whitewashes a woman.
But really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must
have been from all the women one meets! There
is something to me quite beautiful about her death.
I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders
happen. They make one believe in the reality
of the things that shallow, fashionable people play
with, such as romance, passion, and love.”
“I was terribly cruel to her. You forget
that.”
“I believe that women appreciate cruelty more
than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive
instincts. We have emancipated them, but they
remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same.
They love being dominated. I am sure you were
splendid. I have never seen you angry, but I
can fancy how delightful you looked. And, after
all, you said something to me the day before yesterday
that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful,
but that I see now was absolutely true, and it explains
everything.”
[50] “What was that, Harry?”
“You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented
to you all the heroines of romance—that
she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other;
that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen.”
“She will never come to life again now,”
murmured the lad, burying his face in his hands.