Pagina 59 di 490

"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am

jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it

keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something

from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other

way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am

now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day-mock me

horribly!" The hot tears welled into his eyes; he tore his hand

away and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in

the cushions, as though he was praying.

"This is your doing, Harry," said the painter bitterly.

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian

Gray-that is all."

"It is not."

"If it is not, what have I to do with it?"

"You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered.

"I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer.