rs that faced them,
were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed tin backed
them, making quivering discs of light. The floor was covered with
ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud, and stained
with dark rings of spilt liquor. Some Malays were crouching by a little
charcoal stove playing with bone counters, and showing their white teeth
as they chattered. In one corner, with his head buried in his arms, a
sailor sprawled over a table, and by the tawdrily-painted bar that ran
across one complete side stood two haggard women mocking an old man who
was brushing the sleeves of his coat with an expression of disgust. "He
thinks he's got red ants on him," laughed one of them, as Dorian passed
by. The man looked at her in terror and began to whimper.

At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a
darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the
heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils
quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with smooth yellow
hair, who was bending over a lamp, lighting a long thin pipe, looked up
at him, and nodded in a hesitating manner.

"You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian.

"Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly. "None of the chaps
will speak to me now."

"I thought you had left England."

"Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at
last. George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care," he added,
with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends. I
think I have had too many friends."

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.

"I am going on to the other place," he said, after a pause.

"On the wharf?"

"Yes."

"That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won't have her in this place
now."

Dorian s