صفحة 234 من 490

He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or

had his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for

him-life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal

youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys

and wilder sins-he was to have all these things. The portrait was

to bear the burden of his shame: that was all.

A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration

that was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in

boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss,

those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning

after morning he had sat before the portrait wondering at its

beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. Was

it to alter now with every mood to which he yielded? Was it to

become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be hidden away in a

locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had so often

touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? The pity

of it! the pity of it!