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"Years ago, when I was a boy," said Dorian Gray, crushing the

flower in his hand, "you met me, flattered me, and taught me to

be vain of my good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend

of yours, who explained to me the wonder of youth, and you

finished a portrait of me that revealed to me the wonder of

beauty. In a mad moment that, even now, I don't know whether I

regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you would call it a

prayer...."

"I remember it! Oh, how well I remember it! No! the thing is

impossible. The room is damp. Mildew has got into the canvas. The

paints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them. I tell

you the thing is impossible."

"Ah, what is impossible?" murmured the young man, going over to

the window and leaning his forehead against the cold,

mist-stained glass.

"You told me you had destroyed it."

"I was wrong. It has destroyed me."

"I don't believe it is my picture."

"Can't you see your ideal in it?" said Dorian bitterly.

"My ideal, as you call it..."