tushanshu | I. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information. (Video)

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I. What I want is information: not useful information, of course; useless information. (Video)

[For a man of his era, Lord Henry has picked up the basics of the computer with surprising alacrity and ease. Perhaps he has been motivated by the understanding that it provides him with a platform of unprecedented scale.

So behold: a well-bred Englishman in his mid- to late-forties: if his good looks are a bit worn around the edges, he is still quite handsome in a way that suggests he cut a truly rakish figure when younger. His voice is exceptionally pleasant and musical, and when he speaks, his words are accompanied by graceful—though not excessive—gestures of his slender hands.]

I am given to understand that this device offers a podium to rival the pulpit at Westminster Abbey. Capital—although I assure you that I shall not bore you with a sermon; I can't abide a man who makes of himself an amateur curate.

Allow me to introduce myself—Lord Henry Wotton, late of London, which is not nearly so exciting as the vision of Moreau in which I now find myself. There are many questions with which I'm rather concerned at the moment, but most importantly, where does one find a tailor in this city? And, tiresome though domestic matters are, I suppose I must enquire after a valet. There are many indignities a gentleman may suffer in silence, but not an inadequate selection of poorly-pressed shirts.

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[Knowing that Henry is nearby brings genuine brightness back into Dorian, though in a moment he will realize that his feelings are not unmixed.] Then we are neighbours once again. I'll be there shortly.

[And Dorian is. Somewhere between fixing his appearance in the mirror and stopping at Lord Henry's door, Dorian remembers all those social conventions he has forgotten, all the trappings of their social class, long since abandoned by the youthful crowd Dorian now calls contemporary. He feels improperly dressed in the more modern clothes Favrielle has made for him. They are beautiful, but they are not the right era. Dorian remembers Toby's phrase: "A man out of place." He has never felt it so sharply until now.]

[He tries to imagine telling Lord Henry that he was gainfully employed, and he can't. He tries to imagine telling Lord Henry that he is once more attempting to turn his life around, and he feels with certain dread that it would be the end of his efforts at redemption. Dorian reminds himself, This man broke you. The resentment and bitterness he still holds for Henry Wotton are an even match for feelings of affection and admiration he can't quite shake. He swears to himself not to let Henry influence him this time.]

[But what else is there to do? Dorian knocks at Henry's door, a quick, sharp rap. He half-turns on his heel and rubs at his mouth a moment, but then he schools himself into calmness and waits to see a dead friend's face.]

[Habit being the monster that it is, Harry—who is busy going over the fixtures of his private rooms—actually forgets for a moment that he hasn't got someone to answer the knock at the door for him, and it's only after a moment of nothing happening that he recalls the problem of the nonexistent manservant. He is thus ever so slightly—and uncharacteristically—flustered when he reaches the door, but that is quickly replaced by pleasure at the sight of Dorian.]

Ah, Dorian! How good of you to come—do come in, please. [He ushers his friend in to the sitting-room, all good humour, but his sharp brown eyes miss nothing. The details of the clothes, for instance.] I regret that I haven't any refreshment to offer—as generously outfitted as my rooms are, a decent bottle of hock or sherry is not in the inventory. I hope you can forgive that small oversight.

I'll forgive you anything, if you'll do the same. [Dorian smiles at Henry, and in the movement from the door into the house, he decides on his course of action.] I'd like to get the boring parts out of the way first. Has Oscar published his novel yet?

Were you to commit something requiring forgiveness, you would always have it. With the possible exception of being late for dinner. [He starts to take his cigarette-case out, but stops short at the question about Oscar.] Oscar, publishing a novel? What are you talking about? Do you mean to say you have heard of his writing one and not told me? If you have been holding out on that crucial piece of information, I shall not forgive you indeed. I thought his literary ambitions remained limited to pious short stories and monopolising dinner conversations.

[It still hasn't quite clicked that this is not quite the Dorian he last saw at Selby Royal. As he talks, he gestures for Dorian to take a seat and sits down himself, finally taking the cigarette-case out and helping himself to a cigarette. With a gesture he offers one to Dorian as well.]

[Dorian sits and accepts the cigarette without thinking, the old habits taking him quickly. Without being prompted, he takes out his lighter, a pretty thing from the 1960s, and lights their cigarettes.] I didn't know about it when you were—down at Selby, was it? Harry, because of the strange nature of this place, it does not always wash in friends as contemporaries. To put it bluntly, if fantastically, I'm from your future. [He can't resist being slightly amused by that. It's not a phrase he has ever gotten to say before.]

[Cigarette lighters were not unknown to Harry, but pocket-sized ones were only just beginning to be invented in his day, and the most common ones he knew of were objets d'art for the tableside; the Bristol had one made to look like a fire-breathing silver dragon. So Dorian's little device causes him considerably less pause than the news that Dorian is from his future.]

[Where another man might have spluttered or exclaimed, however, Harry merely sits quite still, smoking his cigarette with no more discomposure than if he'd been told some mildly interesting piece of gossip. He is quite sure that Dorian is not lying; he can think of no reason why the boy would, for one thing, and furthermore it accounts for certain alterations in his demeanour, to say nothing of his clothing. How entirely fascinating! He exhales a thin stream of blue-tinted smoke, and smiles.]

Then perhaps you can tell me how far out of pocket Victoria's unfortunate divorce suit will leave me. And yes, when last I saw you, it was at Selby, with Monmouth and his pretty little wife and all the rest. A charming episode, at least until it got spoilt by that dreadful accident.

Edited 2013-01-28 13:29 (UTC)

[Dorian is watching Harry closely. That his old friend believes him without any real difficulty is a relief.]

[At the allusion to the death of James Vane, however, he makes a moue of displeasure.]

I remember. I can tell you that not long from now, Oscar will, yes, be publishing a novel, by the title of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Well, that's why I wanted to tell you: you're in it. As am I. Most consider it a work of pure fiction, a great triumph on his part, but it has been popular enough for a few people here to recognise my name. Some may know yours from it, even suggest you're fictional, and I thought you ought to be told beforehand.

[As he breathes in the smoke quickly gathering around them, Dorian realises just how much he has missed these exquisite cigarettes, the likes of which he hasn't been able to find in years. The heartsease pleasure of regaining something thought lost gives him a smile of which he has no consciousness.]

[Harry sits up quite straight, and Dorian will know that anything that breaks his studied langour has hit square in the gold.]

I always knew he was frivolous but I never suspected that he might be mad. Is he so terribly bored that he wants to go looking for a libel suit?

[It's said as flippantly as Harry ever says anything, but everything about his posture and the nervous way he taps the ash from his cigarette into the ash-tray indicates that he's one more piece of bad news away from practically vibrating with anger.]

Well. If, as you say, I am in this little feuilleton of Oscar's, and it is famous, then at least I am spared some trouble of rebuilding my reputation in these quarters. [A pause, a nervous inhale on the cigarette.] If it is considered a "triumph", I suppose that is some consolation as well. I should hate to be posed in a piece of three-penny hackwork.

Edited 2013-01-28 14:24 (UTC)

[It is impossible for Dorian not to grin. He had almost forgotten how entertaining the little enmity between Harry and Oscar was.] Oh, it is a marvellous thing, one of my favourite works ever written. Such pretty prose, and a wonderfully unreal texture to it. Oscar even did you the courtesy of handing you a few of his lines to add to yours.

[It is probably not very nice to be this amused by Harry being displeased, but then, Dorian isn't renowned for being a nice person.]

Did he? How very generous. I thought he preferred that sort of transaction to move in the opposite direction, as if he were a bank.

[He's quite sure that Dorian is winding him up, just a bit, but it is something the lad learned to do in quite a charming manner, and he can't really be that angry about Dorian's obvious enjoyment of his predicament. Besides, even Henry is not the sort of man who shoots a messenger for bearing bad news.]

Remind me, dear boy—precisely how far in my future did you say you are from?

[He knows full well that Dorian has offered no such information, of course.]

[That stops Dorian in his game, which he is certain Henry had intended on doing.] Ah—uh, I—

[Oh, God. He has to tell him anyway. He may as well now. Yet Dorian still sinks into his recline, uncertain, and he looks away from Henry for a moment before making himself face his old friend and say it.]

Oh, approximately . . . just short of a hundred and twenty years?

[For a long moment Henry simply stares at him, studying that beautiful young face as if it were a particularly complex piece of sheet-music. It is impossible; surely it is impossible. Perhaps, he thinks, this is some feverish dream born of his own dread at growing older, of the sudden shock of Victoria actually gathering the wherewithal to leave. But the sensations are too intense, the textures too real to be a mere dream.]

Were anyone else to say that to me, I should think that they were having a joke at my expense, and not a terribly funny one.

[He leans back in his seat, his brown agate eyes never wavering from Dorian's face.]

But you don't joke, do you? You have never done so with me—you said to me once, did you not, that if you ever committed a crime you would confess it to me.

[Henry's expression is dreamy, heavy-lidded, but there is something brewing in his brain, part of which is the deepening suspicion that there is in fact much his friend has never told him.]

[Dorian is discomforted by the focus of those eyes as he has never been before. But he is a century older now, and he doesn't look away.]

At the time, I believed I would have. But I was innocent then.

[Dorian smiles, as sweet as his voice is sweet.]

Do you have any questions, Harry? You can have any confession you like, now.

[For just a moment, Henry feels a kind of dread, and he remembers abruptly that summer afternoon in Basil Hallward's studio—that ridiculous scene where Basil, overcome by the pain of the romance that he scarcely seemed to perceive in himself, swept up his palette-knife and threatened to destroy Dorian's portrait. But the dread is quickly replaced by a strange swelling of pride within his breast; how wonderful, how unexpected, how impossibly marvellous Dorian has become! If anything he has only become more fascinating; it is almost like meeting him new all over again.]

[His cigarette nearly burned out, he stubs out the remains in the ashtray. He takes out his case, but does not open it yet.]

Let us start with the first and most obvious question. How have you achieved this astounding longevity, to say nothing of your perfectly preserved youth? I always did wonder at your secret.

Mm, that was Basil's unknowing gift to me, as it happens.

[His expression turns amused. The truth has been said, and there is no taking it back. Dorian feels that strange, deathlike peace that comes from entering a moment once dreaded, and it leaves him free range of detached emotion, as if he is looking on his own life as a spectator might.]

You remember that wonderful portrait that he did of me? I said it was stolen but that, I'm afraid, was a little lie of mine. When I exclaimed that I would give my soul to have its youth and force upon it my age, it would seem something was listening.

[He abandons his own finished cigarette with a careless hand.]

Poor Basil. You were right: it was rather severe on the picture.

[He isn't quite expecting it, but the first thing Henry feels is wounded—that Dorian has concealed such a magnificent secret from him all this time. Then disbelief—and then the certainty that Dorian is actually telling the truth.]

[Quietly, he laughs.]

I must tell you, my dear fellow, I never completely believed that story—it always seemed to me that were it true, you would have spared no effort or expense to get the portrait back. And yet what else was I to believe? Certainly not what you are telling me now, and indeed, had today's events not been so unexpectedly delightful, I should still suspect an elaborate fabrication.

[A pause, during which he toys absently with his cigarette-case.]

Where is the portrait, then? I confess I should rather like to see it.

[To see, he thinks, what time and Dorian have wrought. To see what you have wrought, Harry, he seems to hear, but he brushes the thought away like a buzzing fly.]

You can't.

[It comes out harsher than he had intended. It is his contemporary voice, not the lighter, sweeter tones of his youth. But Dorian recovers quickly, returns to the manner he is accustomed to using with Henry and smiles.] I'm afraid it isn't with me here, Harry. I didn't have it on my person when I washed up.

[The change in Dorian's voice strikes Henry as nothing in their conversation has, like a cold hand on his shoulder; it is a sound he has never heard in Dorian's voice and that—he realises suddenly—he never wished to hear. He now feels as if he might choke on that terrible sensation of dread and pride.]

[There is nothing to do for it now but to take out another cigarette and offer one to Dorian. When he speaks, his tone is smooth and unruffled, but now he can feel the strain it requires to maintain his unflappability.]

I beg your pardon. It was impertinent for me to ask. But how wonderfully like a fairy-tale it is! like Meleager and the burning brand that contained his soul. I hope for your sake that your brand is safely locked away from any who might feed it to the fire.

[But Dorian doesn't quite extract the tired bitterness from his tone, and he is staring into the fog, not at Henry.] It's fine. It was a fair request from one who did so much to paint that face.

[Dorian lights the second cigarette, inhales, lets the hint of opium take him. The hard strike of twenty-first century exhaustion caught him unawares, and his brief recovery has faltered. Does he even want to bother to lie to Harry? He isn't so sure. What should he care if Lord Henry Wotton doesn't like what he has become?]

At any rate, I'll show it to you if I have the opportunity. [The opium cigarettes and simple unwillingness to bore himself with his own ennui lift him back up, and he is able to smile properly again. He laughs his 19th century laugh.] Though I do not know if I want to share a place with the Greeks. Their mortals never fare well when gifted as I have been.

[Henry has always been exquisitely sensitive to Dorian's moods, and right now it feels like sitting on a hillside on a cloudy day—the sun obscured now, then shining brightly. It dawns on him properly now that Dorian is the elder and he the younger, for all that his friend's face remains beautifully unchanged; how, he wonders, as Dorian's spirit changed, and what would the portrait tell, were he to see it? He smiles, almost tenderly, through the tendrils of smoke from his cigarette.]

I wonder at what marvellous things you have done with this gift. Unless future ages are more unimaginably stunted than our own, all manner of ways must still lie open to you, all manner of experiences. You need not tell me everything at once; many tales are improved by brevity, but not yours, I think. But I want to hear it all, in time. You are even more extraordinary than you were the day I met you in Basil's studio.

[Dorian can't help himself: he laughs. Dorian covers his face with his hand in his laughter, the cigarette in his free hand trailing blue smoke through the air.]

I have met vampires and demons and dragons, but you remain in a class of your own. Of course, Harry. I'll tell you anything you want to hear about. I'm yours. And you may end up wanting me for more than that.

[He half-straightens from his recline, a frank brightness back in his smile as he looks to Harry.]

In the last hundred or so years, I learned how to take care of myself. I had to. The world has changed, Henry, and I with it. As your friend and, now, your elder, [that is still funny to him] let me also take care of you. There are horrors mundane and Gothic here which you don't have the skills necessary to handle. I want to help you with them.

[It's thrilling, in fact, for Henry to discover that playing to Dorian's ego is no less gratifying now than it ever has been. He had been worried for a moment there that the lad might have truly lost some of that brightness that made him so fascinating, but no. He has changed, but as Henry had hoped, he is only more interesting for it; there are murky depths where once you could see the bright stones and weeds beneath the surface of the water, as it were.]

[Meanwhile, he is genuinely—almost pathetically, though he won't show it—grateful for Dorian's offer of help in navigating this place.]

You really are a wonder. And though it does seem strange to me to do so, dear boy, [the old term of affection now used with a splash of irony] I will naturally defer to your expertise in this city. Indeed, I will be very glad to have it.

[Dorian is older now. He is old enough to know when he is doing something he shouldn't. He let himself become obsessed with Toby after all, didn't he? He knows, he knows this relationship is horrible for him. Lord Henry Wotton broke him a century ago, and some part of Dorian can recognise that Harry is breaking him even now. There are some friendships you should just walk away from.]

[Dorian leans closer to Harry, happy and eager to have the opportunity to show him this new world and something of what he is now.] Then let me take you out to dine tonight. We can cover the basics of this peculiar place while we're out. I think you'll grow to like it, despite the inconveniences. I like it. There is something interesting and new in every street.

If there is that much novelty to be found, I cannot imagine how I would not like it. [He leans forward as well, and puts a hand on Dorian's arm.] And I should be honoured to have you as my guide. I am strangely delighted to find our roles reversed, you know. It is possibly the first new experience I have had in quite some time.

[Dorian's laughter is the sort that can bring light into a decaying hotel room.] You'll find I've had some practice in it. I have been to many people what you were to me.

[But that brings him pause. He remembers the last person. Simon. And he remembers what Simon asked of him. Dorian frowns, eyes flickering to Harry's graceful hands and his cigarette. He removes his arm from Henry's touch.]

Anyway . . . if you'd like, we can head out now. [He makes himself smile.] At the least, we can find something to drink.

[Remembering his resolve, Dorian Gray is unbalanced. He does not know who he wants to be or what he wants to be doing. But Henry has always been so good at directing him to the answer for both.]

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