The Sailor
‘I will find that man, and I kill him like a dog.’
Later the same evening Dorian Gray was at a party. He smiled and talked, and looked as young and as good-looking as ever. But his head ached and at dinner he could not eat anything. When Lord Henry asked him if he felt unwell, Dorian said that he was tired and would go home early. At home he felt worse. Although the room was warm, his hands shook with cold. He wanted to forget for a while – to escape from the prison of his real life, and to lose himself in dreams. At midnight, in old dirty clothes, he left the house again and went to the East End of London. There he knew places where he could get opium – dark, evil places where people bought and sold the beautiful, terrible dreams of opium. He had been there many times before.
He found the house that he was looking for and went into a long, low room. Men were lying on the dirty floor, a sailor was asleep on a table and two women were drinking at the bar.
