What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?’ said the younger man. He watched him intently after he had spoken.
‘I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that doesn’t suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime. It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder. […] ’
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
‘It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder’, said Lord Henry to Dorian but the truth is: Dorian did not only murder Howard Basil but also threatened his old Chemist friend to clear the corpse for him. He has cleanly gotten away with the murder. Lord Henry never understands his ‘close’ friend. Even if Dorian was on the point of confessing and sharing the innermost self to him, he just dismissed him as being too innocent or too ‘perfect’ to commit any crime.
For this Dorian could only have ‘heaved a sigh’. Lord Henry did not realise that his friend, Dorian, has made a fateful oath; he will be young forever and it will be him in the portrait that will be aged. He did not realise that indeed in his friend’s secret room there was a portrait which betrayed the old withered wicked images and soul of his friend. Yet when Dorian confessed that "Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it." Lord Henry just replied "Ah! then it must be an illusion.”.
What a tragedy.
It is tragic that after knowing each other for a life – time but neither of them knows each other. It is even more tragic when you have sorrow in your heart to share it but the other just dismisses you, ignores you, or worst don’t bother to listen to you. And that’s supposed to be your ‘close’ friend.
