‘Harry,
listen. Last night I told her that I didn’t want to see her again. But after I
left her, I realized how cruel I had been. I decided to go back to her, to marry
her. And now she is dead! Harry, what shall I do? You don’t know the danger
that I am in.’
‘My dear Dorian,’ said Lord Henry. ‘Marriage with Sybil Vane was not for you.
No, no… marriages like that are never successful. The man quickly becomes
unhappy and bored. Of course, he’s kind to his wife. We can always be kind to
people that we’re not interested in. But the woman soon discovers that her
husband is bored. And then she either becomes terribly unfashionable, or wears
very expensive hats that another woman’s husband has to pay for.’
The young man walked up and down the room. ‘I suppose that’s true,’ he said
unhappily. ‘But Harry, I don’t think that I’m cruel. Do you?’ Lord Henry
smiled. He told Dorian Gray what he wanted to hear. And then he told him clever,
amusing stories about the women that he himself had loved. He said that Sybil
Vane’s death was a beautiful end to a love story for an actress. ‘The girl
never really lived,’ he continued, ‘so she never really died. Don’t cry
for Sybil Vane. She was less real than Juliet.’
