tushanshu | 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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But sometimes a touch of the grotesque is needed to throw the beauty into sharper contrast, like a gargoyle on a cathedral—the beauty becomes the greater, and the grotesquerie transcends itself. Most men, grown old, have only further hideousness in their futures—but not you, I think. You may pass through what you perceive as ugliness, but it is merely a transition, a means by which the masterpiece that is your life becomes all the more magnificent.

[Dorian laughs without looking up. He can't tell if Henry is flattering him, trying to be kind in his way, or saying something he believes. But Dorian's ability to put faith in such ideas has been wounded over the years, so he turns the conversation away from himself. (A miracle, we know.)] I hope you don't believe you only have hideousness ahead.

[Henry's words encompass all of those possibilities, in fact. Not that he would ever plainly admit to any of them, much less all.]

I have wondered. It seems to me now that my future in London consists in no small part of being an object of the most irritating sorts of gossip. Thus, I intend to enjoy this particular respite as much as I can.

Oh, a few years abroad can be fun. English morality as it is, it is often healthier as well. [And Henry will have more cause to flee England than he realizes.]

Yes, both the literal climate and the moral climate do grow oppressive. But years? Surely the English public is not capable of sustaining a subject of interest for more than a season.

Well, there's the Lippincott's edition, that's first, and then a year later a book publication, and then—the 1890s will be busy. I won't spoil it with detail. Suffice to say, I spent a great deal of time on the Continent. But that would have been necessary regardless, so I don't blame Oscar for it. But you, Harry, are too talented at negotiating scandal to require an exile as long as mine.

Your confidence is inspiring. [Said rather dryly; it's not sarcastic, exactly, but it does encompass a fair amount of chagrin at what he imagines is to come. ] Well, one bears up as well as one can, I suppose. And here I had thought Victoria's divorce suit would be the worst of my social burdens.

[Dorian almost says, "Don't worry: all the best people will be at your funeral." But even Dorian can recognize how cruel that would be.]

[So he is kind instead.]

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Here, at least, we shall be free. [Not really thinking about the source of that line, he continues,] And exile is best when it is with friends, don't you agree?

["Almighty hath not built / Here for his envy, will not drive us hence." Henry's mind completes the line almost without his consciously willing it, but he does not say it.]

As many things are, indeed.

[In the pause, another of those unanswered questions surfaces. Dorian doesn't want to press, but this is neutral, isn't it? It seems all right to ask now.]

Ah, Harry? There was another question. I heard a long time ago that you had a picture of Sibyl Vane commissioned. I never had the chance to ask you if that was so.

[It hadn't really struck Dorian as odd at the time, but decades later, on one of those nights when all the present's efforts couldn't ward away the past, the peculiarity of it hit him.]

[Henry looks at him curiously; he had not expected Dorian to inquire after Sibyl after all this time.]

Well—yes, it is true in a manner of speaking. Basil told me you had asked him to draw or paint her—I forget exactly which. But he felt—I beg your pardon; I only repeat what he said—he felt you had forgotten the matter almost immediately thereafter. I told him he may as well paint her and I would buy it from him if you did not want it, and so I did. For she was a lovely girl, and Basil captured her remarkably well for all that he only saw her the once.

Don't apologise; Basil was right. [Dorian doesn't elaborate, but gives a selectively worded explanation.] It came into the hands of another, and when they told me the story, I was surprised. I didn't think she'd really caught your attention, except in the manner of her death. Now I understand.

Edited 2013-02-06 04:55 (UTC)

[A frown. Not for Dorian specifically, but for the implications of what he said.]

I should hope I was not careless with it. Or shall not be careless with it—time is a tricky matter in this situation, is it not? My last recollection of it is that it was in my private study in my home in Mayfair.

[Dorian hesitates. When he speaks, it is gently.] You were never careless with it. I believe that it remains in your study until it becomes the legal possession of your inheritors.

[Henry is slightly relieved by this, though not entirely.]

Ah. My brother's sons, then. Or his daughter, I suppose. They are entirely dull, responsible young people with no feeling for art—but then their mother is heiress to a family of grocers, who can teach them to appreciate little but the shine on a ripe apple.

[Though Henry is aware that there is only so much he can say against his sister-in-law, since her American fortune has done much to shore up the Marquess's estate, and by extension, Henry's own living.]

If they can truly appreciate that, they have more art in them than half of London.

It is a start, I suppose, but to find art in nature is no great achievement.

[And with that, Henry is off again on another of his declamations on art and artificiality, half-believed, half-invented on the spot. It is as if he were once again in Lady Agatha's drawing room, and Dorian's gaze and listening ear once again giving wings to his wit.]

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

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