Pagina 55 van 490

Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his

picture and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and

his cheeks flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came

into his eyes, as if he had recognized himself for the first

time. He stood there motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious

that Hallward was speaking to him, but not catching the meaning

of his words. The sense of his own beauty came on him like a

revelation. He had never felt it before. Basil Hallward's

compliments had seemed to him to be merely the charming

exaggeration of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed at

them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then

had come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth,

his terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the

time, and now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own

loveliness, the full reality of the description flashed across

him.