4.

STREETS OF LONDON

He didn't know how long he was there. Any conscious sense of time had been lost the moment he ran from the church where his funeral was being held. He ran through London, his hands over his wasted face until he came to a dank and isolated alleyway. He sank onto the filthy ground, regardless of his pristine burial suit of slate gray. His hands, such as they were, seemed to be fastened to his face.

With his knees near his face, his boney fingers continuously trailed over the new lines of his once unchanging face. He could feel the tight skin of his hollowed cheeks… the deep lines that ran from where his nose should have been to the edge of his mouth where his lips should have been. And his teeth… oh the teeth felt like poorly set pebbles of varying shapes and sizes!

This could not be reality… the feeling of such an ugly face outweighed the sensation of Hell's flames. Was he at last wearing the face of his soul that had spent the last eighteen years on cursed canvas? If he could only laugh it off as an impossibility… But just as impossible was staying 21 for eighteen years. This was a reckoning and there would be no escaping it now.

When he at last thought to open his eyes, to peer up from the grimy ground of the alley, he realized that it was now night time. He could not stay here... For a moment he considered going home to Mayfair. But the thought of walking through Grosvenor Square with the face of a corpse terrified him. Mrs. Leaf, the housekeeper, and Francis would not allow him admittance anyway. How could they recognize their own master in such a guise?

There were many at his funeral, he saw, but as he racked his brain, he could not think of enough friends to whom he could turn to. Harry was the only friend he had left, but he was too ashamed to face him with this new hideousness. After all, it was Harry who taught him that youth and beauty were the only two things worth having in this world, and now Dorian had neither. But he could think of nowhere else to go. Perhaps if he could shroud his disgusting face and only speak to Harry without being seen… Maybe then he would have a chance to beseech him.

It wasn't until he cautiously crept from the black alley that he discovered he had no idea where he was. He did not know the church in which he fled, nor did he look at any surrounding architecture to find his way. He would need more clothes for concealing his horrid appearance, and so he would use a tactic that he had employed in the past when stumbling from an opium den with his mind fogged and his clothes half missing… He was going to steal some.

As he slinked between the lampposts, remaining in the shadows as much as possible, he at last came to a gin shop. He had been to many, probably more than half of the ones that occupied London, but this one had no familiarity. Regardless, he pushed himself into a shadow near the door and waited. He waited until he was sure he could move without being noticed.

When that time came, he entered only as far as the coat rack where there hanged hats and cloaks for his choosing. Though he was in a terrible plight, there was patience and calmness enough in him to make certain that whatever cloak he snatched had a matching hat. He did not want to draw unnecessary attention by dressing like a fool.

The cloak was of dark tweed, the color impossible to make out in the dim light of the distant lampposts. The hat was wide brimmed, and as far as he could tell, of a matching hue to the cloak. Taking them swiftly, he vanished into the night once again without so much as a word uttered his way. Pulling the hat low on his head, he threw the cloak over his shoulders and turned up the collar with every attempt to shield his face from prying eyes. He did not even want to see his own face and would not subject the rest of the world to it either…

He walked for an hour before he began to recognize the street. He was in the West End, not far from Hyde Park. He could find Lord Henry's house from here, without a doubt! A glimmer of hope rose within him as he pushed on down the damp sidewalk. He was weary and tired; the frights and pains of the day more than sufficient to exhaust even the most steadfast of men.

When he came to the door, he did not hesitate a moment. With his hideous, skeletal hand (which he didn't dare to look at) he rapped the large brass knocker of the door. No sooner had he let go of the knocker did her return the hand to a tight clasp at the collar of his stolen cloak to conceal his face and turn his face towards the shadows from the porch lamp.

It was a long wait before the door was opened by Harry's butler Tobias, who was wrapped in a shoddy robe and held an oil lamp in one hand.

"Yes, sir?" the middle aged butler asked groggily, but as properly as he could.

"I must see Harry," Dorian murmured discreetly. "Please. I realize he must be sleeping, but tell him it is a matter of-" He cut himself off before uttering the cliché of life and death. That would never interest the likes of Lord Henry enough to get out of bed in the middle of the night. "Tell him that a friend's soul depends upon him alone."

"Sir..?" Tobias squinted into the dark, obviously not trusting his own ears.

"Tell him, Tobias! I shall wait here."

"But sir," the servant shook his head. "Lord Henry Wotton is not at home. He left this evening for Paris. He had a trying day, besides, regarding the horrific incident at the funeral service for Mr. Gray…"

Dorian cringed as the latter statement was uttered. To hear his name spoken in the same sentence with 'funeral' sent a chill through him. "When… when will he return?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, sir. He could be there for a matter of months, depending on how swiftly he can complete his business."

"What business?"

"Oh, I would rather not share the affairs of my employer, sir… That's all I can tell you I'm afraid."

"Thank you, Tobias…" Dorian's voice came out so meekly that he could barely be heard. Turning, he began to walk back towards the street once more.

"Ah, who shall I say called, sir?" Tobias' voice called after him.

Dorian's step faltered for only a moment. He could not leave his name. He was dead to the world. Instead, he tried to feign deafness and continued walking without giving the sleepy butler a reply. He walked but had no destination in mind. Never had he ever felt so alone. He had no one and nothing. Not even his name. He was less than what he had reduced Basil to…

He eventually found himself in the open space of Hyde Park, and when he reached a bench, he slowly sank into it like a child would its mother's lap. But there was no such comforting feeling. It was hard and cold. He didn't even have a mother to turn to. Quietly, he began to cry within the fabric of his stolen cloak, and he could feel the tears following a foreign path down his deathly face. He was hideous and alone, so why couldn't he consider suicide?

There was once a girl who killed herself for his sake… Poor Sybil was the true tragic heroine that she had so often portrayed in her short years of living. But for Dorian to kill himself? That would have been the ultimate act of vanity and selfishness, for he would have committed suicide for his own sake. Suicide was too romantic an end for something like him. At least, that was the philosophical rationale he tried to employ with the voice of Harry in his head. The humiliating truth of it was that he was a coward, even in this degraded state. He had stared at Death in its black eyes and felt its cold embrace, but he simply did not have the courage to face oblivion again.