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the young man's work.
The portrait was perfection. Brush strokes were light as a feather, colours incandescent.
Time after time Michael painted, and then re-painted his canvas.
All through that day he toiled, until at last he could paint no more.
He examined both portraits for a long time, and then rage finally overtook him. Colonessi pushed his own painting to the floor and kicked it away.

'Is this how you help me? 'Damn you! I prayed to you, begged you, and this is how you reward my prayers? To send this portrait to mock me? As far a I am concerned you do not exist! To Hell with you!'

At the tavern, he sat with the whores and drank his fill.
In his mind a cruel trick had been played on him. In the studio sat a masterpiece, but he did not paint it and could not reproduce anything to satisfy his desire for perfection.
Michael wished he had never laid eyes on either the portrait or the young man. But what of his dreams? What did it all mean?
Try as he might he found it impossible to stay away from his room and the portrait that evening. He soon returned alone through the grim streets.
As the artist turned into a narrow alley he heard a woman singing with an angelic voice in the shadow of a doorway, but when he passed by was shocked to see an old streetwalker.
'Lookin' for a good time, ducky?' She asked in a shrill voice, and continued her song.
He wondered how it was possible that such a sweet melodious voice could originate from a grotesque.

Later that night the young man arrived at the studio.
'Sir, I am here for the painting.'
Colonessi stood looking at the portrait.
'Oh...It is you? At this time of night?'
'Sir, you desired to be rid of the portrait.'
Colonessi laughed nervously. He quickly blocked the young man's path to the painting. 'That was in my rage, sir. I did not mean it. Can you not leave the portrait with me for a day or two more?'
'That is not my decision to make, sir'
'But you said that it was yours. Did you not?'
'No. I said only that I painted it.'
'Well, no matter. Here it is.'
Without any warning, Colonessi suddenly lunged at the young man and stabbed him with his artist's knife. The man collapsed to the floor in pain, holding his stomach.
'Why?..' But Michael ignored his pleas. Instead, he took a pillow from his bed and pushed it roughly into the young man's face to muffle his cries while he plunged the knife deep into his chest.

It was dead of night, when he pulled the unmoving body onto the landing at the back of the building and threw it down a flight of stairs

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