𝕳𝖔𝖗𝖓𝖘 ; Dorian Gray • Basil Hallward [english]

𝕳𝖔𝖗𝖓𝖘

He remembered the first time he saw him. That time at that party. Basil still got goosebumps as he recalled how he had been charmed by Dorian just by looking at him.

The happiness Basil felt when Dorian accepted to be his model was huge. He draw hundreds of sketches trying to decide how he would paint the boy. He couldn't decide. He had fallen at Dorian's feet. Every angle, every feature of the young man seemed perfect, so much so that he didn't know if he would be able to reproduce his image

He spent hours and hours looking at the boy, and in turn having Dorian's gaze on him, and he loved that.

The most recurring doubt at the beginning was how he would paint his eyes. For him they were beautiful, but strange at the same time. They were a dilemma that Basil didn't know how to resolve. Dorian seemed to represent innocence, purity, we could even say, naivety, but if you looked right into his eyes...

It is said that eyes are the windows to the soul, and through Dorian's, Basil saw something that he didn't like at first. He saw a black mark on his soul, as if his heart had a hole, at some point he even felt as if there was something dark in him, waiting to wake up.

This increased as the friendship between Lord Henry and Dorian Gray grew. Basil felt terribly bad that he hadn't been able to stop them from meeting. He was worried because he knew that Henry wasn't a good influence for the boy, but he also was extremely jealous of the attention Henry received from Dorian. He didn't show it, or he tried not to do it, but his jealousy reached a slightly sick point. From one moment to another he found himself trying to be with Dorian as much as he could, and if he couldn't spent time with him, he locked himself up to see each of the sketches he had of Dorian, imagining that he was in front of him modeling once again.

Basil was completely proud of how the picture went out, but he was so sorry that he hadn't taken more time to finish it, so that his moments with Dorian would lengthen.

He enjoyed seeing his work hanging in the boy's mansion. It caused a kind of illusion in him to see that perhaps Dorian appreciated him as something more. For that reason it was so hard for him when he noticed that his painting was no longer on display. It hurted him that the boy didn't even allow him to see it, because he loved so much to do it. He looked the boy's long hair imagining he touched it, he looked his face wanting to caress his cheeks. He let himself be captivated again by his eyes, and by his lips, those lips that he thought so much about.

At that time Dorian still didn't know, but Basil's heart was in his hands, and he could do whatever he want with it, despise it, spit on it, even trample on it, and Basil wouldn't care. How he didn't care when he saw Dorian on top of him, smeared with his blood, holding that piece of glass he'd stabbed him with. He had wished so much to see the picture again, because he had no idea of what was going on. How could he imagine that things would end like this?

Dorian had given his soul in exchange for preserving his youth. The artist was completely horrified, but he couldn't help a small part of him wondering if he would be able to do the same in order to have the young man all to himself.

Basil tried to breathe but he couldn't, cause the air around him was damned, as was the portrait, as was Dorian.

He never saw something like this coming, although he realized that gradually the young man's innocence had gone. His blood got cold as ice, and his heart was made of stone. He got a touch like a thorn. The black mark on his soul got darker, keeping the fire of sin burning, hiding horns.

He didn't know if the curse, if Henry and his temptations, or everything together had corrupted his Dorian. And even when Basil hated that Dorian had changed so much, he had to admit that there was something he liked of that change. The boy's innocence was gone, and in some rare way, that was beautiful for him.

He got two little horns and they get me a little bit.

The truth was that Dorian had become the reason behind his art and his life. Ironically, at that moment, the boy was taking that last thing away from him, all because he wanted to get him away from the portrait.

And the man with the cut on his neck just could think about how good he had felt when he had Dorian's lips kissing him. Moments before that happened, he had seen the young man with two women, and he felt sick with jealousy. But when Dorian left them behind to talk to him, when he explained how much he appreciated the painting, he told him he didn't know how to thank him, and then he kissed him... He thought of the feel of Dorian's lips against his own, and the way he continued kissing his neck, that at that precise moment, was bleeding... But Basil didn't care, he was so into the memory of that day when he felt even... Blessed.

But beyond everything, the truth was that Dorian was damned. And so as Basil, and we may dare to say he was much worse. Because while the young man was ending the life of the artist, he decided to use his last moments to reproduce again and again the memory of that kiss Dorian had given him that day in which he was so close, only for him, as he had always dreamed.