Author's Note: The writing in bold is a direct quote from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."
He thinks of Hetty, he had preserved her innocence, and he feels not the overwhelming apathy he has become accustomed to but an alteration within himself, he has evidence of his own righteousness. The ghastly, despicable and contemptible countenance seemed to scorn and deride him however now, he was certain; it would be altered to demonstrate his virtuous and honourable conduct, he would be absolved from sin; his transgressions would not scar, blemish or disfigure his visual rendering. Nor would there be such a potent reminder of his flaws; he would once again be flawless and unblemished.
He climbs to the attic, locks the door behind him, and, in haste and disturbance throws the drape from the picture. His representation remains withered and loathsome; it was abhorrent how the features had transformed still further; "no change, save that in the eyes there was a look of cunning, and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of the hypocrite." This contemptible picture, he realised, was his essence, his core, he could not alter his fundamental nature; his eye was shrewd in its merciless depiction of his earnest depravity, dissoluteness and ultimately, his corruption.
His kindness towards Hetty was an act of narcissism, motivated by his aspiration to develop the manifestation of his character, he realised, and a method of ensuring that his exquisiteness was preserved; he did not wish for such a delicate existence as his to be tainted and contaminated by the remembrance of a solitary piece of evidence, a solitary witness, to his demise.
He is desperate to escape his past crime, his heart, his conscious; he sees the painting as the one piece of evidence enlightening and revealing his guilt and yet he would be perpetually discoloured by the foolishness, the naivety, and the artlessness as he had allowed his physical magnificence, rendered perfectly on canvas, to obliterate him.
He was a charlatan; he had believed that in wishing to help Hetty he had been motivated by a flicker of goodness that all had not been lost within him to depravity; it was a pretty untruth, a tale told to quieten a suppressed piece of innocence.
The knife on the table, he observes, is still stained with Basil's blood with the remains of his friend; he had become an executioner and his emotions were stunted he takes it, ensuring that it is not contaminated, cleans it several times attempting to cleanse his most profound wrong, the one which had led to such a contortion on his paint and canvas self, and pierces the picture.