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Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself.

But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.

“Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a little box, with my name on the outside. From the first, I had anxiously considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to write privately to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases to which I had been summoned, and the place to which I had gone: in effect, stating all the circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what the immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would never be heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own mind. I had kept the matter a profound secret, even from my wife; and this, too, I resolved to state in my letter. I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but I was conscious that there might be danger for others, if others were compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed.

A figured dance succeeds; such once was seen In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen, Form’d by Daedalean art; a comely band Of youths and maidens, bounding hand in hand. The maids in soft simars of linen dress’d; The youths all graceful in the glossy vest: Of those the locks with flowery wreath inroll’d; Of these the sides adorn’d with swords of gold, That glittering gay, from silver belts depend. Now all at once they rise, at once descend, With well-taught feet: now shape in oblique ways, Confusedly regular, the moving maze: Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring, And undistinguish’d blend the flying ring: So whirls a wheel, in giddy circle toss’d, And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are lost. The gazing multitudes admire around: Two active tumblers in the centre bound; Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend: And general songs the sprightly revel end.