o retrato de dorian gray

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the hone-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear  the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary, Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convery the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.In the centre of the bourdon note of a distant organ.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to do many strange conjectures.

As the painter looks at the gracious and comely form he had so skifully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started you, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

“It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done, “said Lord Henry languidly. “You must certainly send it next year to the Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor is really the only place.”

“I don`t think I shall send it anywhere,” he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. “No, I won`t send it anywhere.”

Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked  at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled you in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette.

“Not send it anywhere? My dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters are!  You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion.”

  

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

publicada por primeira vez o 20 de xuño de 1890

traducida ao galego por Cristina Felpeto e publicada como

 O retrato de Dorian Gray

Santiago de Compostela, Urco Editora, 2008.

O intenso perfume das rosas enchía o estudio e, cando a lixeira brisa axitaba as árbores do xardín, entraba, pola porta aberta, u intenso arrecendo a lilas ou o aroma máis delicado das flores rosadas dos espiños.

Lord Henry Wotton, que consumirá xa, segundo o seu costume, innumerábeis cigarros, albiscaba, desde o extremo do sofá onde estaba tombado –tapizado ao estilo das algombras persas-, o replandor das floracións dun codeso, de dozura e cor de mel, cuxas ramas estremecidas apenas parecían capaces de soportar o pesa dunha beleza tan cegadora como a súa e, de cando en cando, as sombras  fantásticas de paxaros en voo deslizábanse sobre as longas cortinas de seda india colgadas diante das inmensas fiestras, producindo algo así como un efecto xaponés, o que lle facía pensar nos pintores de Tokyo, de rostros tan pálidos coma o xade, que, por medio dunha arte necesariamente inmóvil, tratan de transmitir a sensación de velocidade e de movemento. O zuñido tenaz das abellas, abríndose camino entre o alto céspedes en segar, ou dando voltas con monótona insistencia ao redor dos poeirentos cornos dourados das desordenadas madreselvas, semellaban facer máis opresiva a quietude, mentes os ruídos confusos de Londres eran como as notas graves dun órganos afastado.

No centro da peza, sobre un soporte recto, descansaba o retrato de corpo enteiro dun mozo de extraordinaria beleza e, diante, a certa distancia, estaba sentado o artista en persoa, o Basil Hallward cuxa repentina desaparición, hai algún anos, tanoo conmoverá a sociedade e dera orixe a tan estrañas suposicións.

Ao contemplar a figura aposta e elegante que ocn tanta habilidade reflectira grazas á súa arte, un sorriso de satisfacción, que quizá puidese prolongarse, ilumilou o seu rostro. Pero o artista incorporouse bruscamente e, pechando os ollos, cubriu as pálpebras cos dedos, coma se tratase de gardar no seu cerebro algún estraño soño do que temese espertar.

-É a túa mellor obra, Basil –dixo lord Henry con ton canso-, o mellor que fixeches. Non deixes  de mandala o ano que  vén á galería Grosvenor. A Academia é demasiado vulgar. Cada vez que vou alí, ou hai tanta xente que non podo ver os cadros, o que é horríbel, ou hai tantos cadros que non podo ver a xente, o que aínda é peor. A falería Grosvenor é o sitio indicado.

-Non creo que o mande a sitio ningún –repondeu o artista, botando a cabeza cara a atrás do curiosoxeito que sempre facía rir aos seus amigos de Oxford-. Non; non mandarei o retrato a ningures.

Lord Henry alzou as cellas e mirouno con asombro a través das delgadas nubes de fume que, ao saír do seu cigarro con mestura de opio, se retorcían adoptando estrañas formas.

-Non o vas enviar a ningún sitio? Por que, meu querido amigo? Que razón poderías aducir? Por que sodes unas xentes tan raras os pintores? Facedes calquera cousa para gañar unha reputación pero, axiña que a tedes diríase que cos sobra. É unha parvada, porque no mundosó hai algo peor que ser a persoa da que se fala e é ser alguén de quen non se falañ. Un retrato como ese situaríate moi por enriba de todos os novos pintores ingleses e espertaría os celos dos vellos, se é que os vellos son aínda susceptíbeis de emocións.