Gray shaped and reshaped
those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in
them the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by
intellectual approval, passions that without such justification would
still have dominated his temper. From cell to cell of his brain crept
the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all man's
appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre. Ugliness
that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became
dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one reality. The
coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life,
the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their
intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of Art,
the dreamy shadows of Song. They were what he needed for forgetfulness.
In three days he would be free.

Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. Over the
low roofs and jagged chimney stacks of the houses rose the black masts
of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the yards.

"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?" he asked huskily through the
trap.

Dorian started, and peered round. "This will do," he answered, and,
having got out hastily, and given the driver the extra fare he had
promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. Here and
there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. The light
shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an
outward-bound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked like a
wet mackintosh.

He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he
was being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small
shabby house, that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. In one of
the top-windows stood a lamp. He stopped, and gave a peculiar knock.

After a little time he heard steps in the passage, and the chain being
unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a word
to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the shadow as
he passed. At the end of the hall hung a tattered green curtain that
swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him in from the
street. He dragged it aside, and entered a long, low room which looked
as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill flaring
gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirro