LitCharts (2024)

Dorian leads Basil to the top of the house. He is smiling with a strange pride at what he is about to reveal. He tells Basil that he is the one man who will know everything about him. Basil is confused. Dorian is acting very strangely, and the room they have entered is cobwebbed and creepy. Dorian tells Basil that he is about to see his soul just as he wished. As he flings off the cover of the portrait, Basil lets out a cry of horror at the state of his once most beautiful work. He can’t believe the monstrosity he sees, yet he knows that it is the very same portrait. Dorian stands observing his own image. He is chillingly calm.

Dorian reminds Basil of the wish he had made on seeing the portrait for the first time. Basil can’t believe what Dorian is insinuating. Surely, some scientific cause could be detected. Dorian asks Basil if he can see the ideal boy that he once worshipped. Basil is horrified. There is nothing of the same beauty – the face on the canvas is like a devil, or a corpse. Basil sinks into a chair and starts weeping, crying out to Dorian to pray for his soul to be saved. He says he also needs forgiveness, he was wrong to worship Dorian so. He begs them to pray together.

Dorian tells Basil it is too late for prayer, he doesn’t believe in the words. Basil scolds him. Feelings of hatred start to overwhelm Dorian. He hates Basil with a passion. He is possessed, as if the portrait itself is turning him against its maker. He spots a knife in the room and goes slowly to fetch it. Turning suddenly around, wielding the knife, Dorian rushes at Basil and stabs him in the neck, again and again, until Basil stops moving.

The sound of Basil’s blood is a horrible drip, drip, drip on the floor of the schoolroom. Dorian goes out, and listens. The house is quiet and dark. He goes back to the room and locks himself in. He marvels at how easily he has killed Basil, how calm the man looks seated in the chair slumped over as if in sleep. Dorian goes to the window and watches the street, feeling strangely calm. There is a policeman outside dealing with a vagabond woman.

Without looking back, Dorian leaves the room. He thinks the best way to succeed now is not to think about what has just happened. But, he has forgotten the lamp inside the room. Returning, he cannot help but look at the body, and is suddenly filled with new terror at its appearance, at its stillness and long white hands. He locks up the room and goes down to the library. He says to himself that since Basil was supposed to go to Paris that evening for six months, nobody would suspect anything for months.

It occurs to Dorian that he has plenty of time to dispose of Basil’s body. He fetches his servant Francis and asks to be woken early the next morning and if there had been any visitors. When Francis tells him about Basil’s visit, Dorian feigns innocence and says he’ll await news from Paris. With the servant gone, Dorian paces hurriedly, and swinging into action, fetches an address book and finds the address of a man named Alan Campbell.