📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 72
1"That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won't have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of
2women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I
3like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something." "I don't want anything," murmured the young
4man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and
5a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women
6sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A
7crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she
8sneered. "For God's sake don't talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money?
9Here it is. Don't ever talk to me again." Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then flickered
10out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her
11companion watched her enviously. "It's no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don't care to go back. What does it matter?
12I am quite happy here." "You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?" said Dorian, after a pause. "Perhaps."
13"Good night, then." "Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping his parched mouth with a
14handkerchief. Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew the curtain aside, a hideous laugh
15broke from the painted lips of the woman who had taken his money. "There goes the devil's bargain!" she hiccoughed, in a
16hoarse voice. "Curse you!" he answered, "don't call me that." She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like
17to be called, ain't it?" she yelled after him. The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly
18round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He rushed out as if in pursuit. Dorian Gray hurried
19along the quay through the drizzling rain. His meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered if
20the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of
21insult. He bit his lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did it matter to him? One's days
22were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own
23price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again,
24indeed. In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts. There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the
25passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of the body, as every cell of
26the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will.
27They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if
28it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm. For all sins, as theologians
29weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell from heaven,
30it was as a rebel that he fell. Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for rebellion, Dorian
31Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often
32as a short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself suddenly seized from behind, and before he had
33time to defend himself, he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his throat. He struggled madly for
34life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver, and
35saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head, and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing
36him. "What do you want?" he gasped. "Keep quiet," said the man. "If you stir, I shoot you." "You are mad. What have I
37done to you?" "You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I
38know it. Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought you. I had no clue, no
39trace. The two people who could have described you were dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call
40you. I heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, for to-night you are going to die." Dorian Gray grew sick
41with fear. "I never knew her," he stammered. "I never heard of her. You are mad." "You had better confess your sin, for
42as sure as I am James Vane, you are going to die." There was a horrible moment. Dorian did not know what to say or do.
43"Down on your knees!" growled the man. "I give you one minute to make your peace--no more. I go on board to-night for
44India, and I must do my job first. One minute. That's all." Dorian's arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he
45did not know what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. "Stop," he cried. "How long ago is it since your
46sister died? Quick, tell me!" "Eighteen years," said the man. "Why do you ask me? What do years matter?" "Eighteen
47years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his voice. "Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my
48face!" James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant. Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him
49from the archway. Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him the hideous error, as it
50seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the
51unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all,
52than his sister had been when they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was not the man who had
53destroyed her life. He loosened his hold and reeled back. "My God! my God!" he cried, "and I would have murdered you!"
54Dorian Gray drew a long breath. "You have been on the brink of committing a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at
55him sternly. "Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own hands." "Forgive me, sir," muttered James
56Vane. "I was deceived. A chance word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track." "You had better go home and
57put that pistol away, or you may get into trouble," said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the street.
58James Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head to foot. After a little while, a black shadow
59that had been creeping along the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him with stealthy footsteps.
60He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked round with a start. It was one of the women who had been drinking at the bar.
61"Why didn't you kill him?" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite close to his. "I knew you were following him when
62you rushed out from Daly's. You fool! You should have killed him. He has lots of money, and he's as bad as bad." "He is
63not the man I am looking for," he answered, "and I want no man's money. I want a man's life. The man whose life I want
64must be nearly forty now. This one is little more than a boy. Thank God, I have not got his blood upon my hands." The
65woman gave a bitter laugh. "Little more than a boy!" she sneered. "Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince
66Charming made me what I am." "You lie!" cried James Vane. She raised her hand up to heaven. "Before God I am telling the
67truth," she cried. "Before God?" "Strike me dumb if it ain't so. He is the worst one that comes here. They say he has
68sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. It's nigh on eighteen years since I met him. He hasn't changed much since
69then. I have, though," she added, with a sickly leer. "You swear this?" "I swear it," came in hoarse echo from her flat
70mouth. "But don't give me away to him," she whined; "I am afraid of him. Let me have some money for my night's lodging."
71He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street, but Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked
72back, the woman had vanished also.
🎉 全部完成！共 72 行