Dorian Gray is eternally analyzing everything to try and see beauty. It seems everything he does requires a sense of artfulness. Here, Dorian more blatantly explores his home to find a hidden beauty in the corruption he had created. Beginning, where Dorian leaves Alan Campbell to dispose of Basil's body, Dorian is most focused on redeeming his misdeeds by finding prominent domestic beauties around him.
Leaving Alan Campbell to do his work, Dorian Gray proceeded to downstairs. Alan Campbell was indeed saving his reputation. For this he was grateful. There was so much in his past that he needed to forget, and so much that he could not. His past was marred with corruption and villainy. All he would like to do is to forget it. Though, when he began to take an alternative perspective, would he really rather have had it otherwise?
Dorian began to imagine. All those years ago, if he had not sat that one portrait for Basil Hallward, what would he be? He knew: he would be the withered, wrinkled, ugly thing which hung hidden in the room from which he had just exited. He would not have this beauty that he so cherished. Rather, he would have had it, but it would have inevitably led to the ugliness he feared. Was Dorian really sorry he had made the wish? For certain, if he hadn't he would be unable to see life the way he did now. He would not see beauty where he was otherwise able to. He would not be able to read books and philosophize for hours as to whether the outcome was righteously deserved by the characters. He would not be able to speculate as to whether a rose was influenced by or dependent upon sunshine, or whether a well-intended deed gone bad was really because the doer was trying to look in the face his own self-projected image, and then in the end found the real one. Such were only lesser musing of Dorian Gray of late, and he did in fact owe some great deal to that which required him to do so much that he later regretted.
Reaching the bottom of the staircase, Dorian sighed. There was so much beauty to be gained from the world around him, and what right did he have to taint it with the bitterness that defiled his own soul? He decided to shed light upon beauty he kept right in his own household.
Wandering through his hallways, Dorian see revisited all of the paintings and sculptures hanging on the walls, or displayed on shelves. There were the Greek sculptures, the etchings, Chinese scriptures, Japanese silks, Ukiyo-es, and his collection of ancient pottery that he had openly displayed in his halls. There was so much ancient beauty in all this, that its mere existence was a consolation to Dorian's troubled soul.
Delving deeper, he went into the library. Dorian pulled down a faded volume. Opening its leaves he witnessed a vast anthology of Persian miniatures. Each told a story all its own, of love and cruelty. He read bits of tomes: Homer's The Odyssey, Ugrasravas' Mahabharata, and Beowulf. Indeed, Dorian was reminded that he lived among beauty.
Dorian wandered into the conservatory. In the warmth of the indoors, plants flourished. Vines of ivy crept up the walls, and roses bloomed. A potted tree draped its red leaves over the waxy stone floor. In the fish pond, golden scales flitted by, renewing Dorian's sense in the vitality of life. Transparent water plants swayed left and right with the slight ripples in the water. It was indeed beautiful.
He felt slightly recovered. By 7:30, Alan would be done disposing of Dorian's crime, and would be left to ponder peace. He called his servant, instructing him to bring a glass of rosé wine to him in the drawing room where he would wait out the rest of the time. He sat down at the piano. Drawing his fingers over the keys, Dorian began to play. His fingers skimmed over the keys, playing the familiar chords of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. He felt the rich warmth of the melody, and still, it had a chilling feeling to it. He got images from some dank mansion of a lost love, and he thought of his own. There was an apparent darkness to the song, and it too had beauty to it. Dorian relaxed, letting his fingers play of their own. He thought of cold breezes wafting in heavy satin curtains through open windows, and starry skies. He thought of a girl's sadness after being turned away by her beloved. Dorian thought of the lovely face of the moon reflected on a hollow pond, and of someone standing over it. He thought of blood intermingling with the water, and the cold hand of a murderer.
He could not escape it. No matter what he did, Dorian was unable to escape the corruption that had been branded on his soul for so long. It was not just from the murder of Basil Hallward, but for everything. He had driven a girl to suicide, blackmailed his friend, had lost all innocence… Where was Dorian Gray to go? He wanted beauty. He saw beauty in everything, though. He wanted to see a beautiful beauty. He wanted un untainted pure, natural beauty.
As he played on through the long, lonely measures of the sonata, he realized how ironic it all really was. He was simply unable to escape from his misdeed. Was there not a hidden beauty in that? Indeed, there was a beauty in irony.
The music progressed. He played on through the darkness, through the musical nocturne. It was complemented from the outdoors by the song of a bird. The sun shone through the window, pooling in fragmented rectangle on the tile floor. Only an hour had passed since Dorian Gray had last descended the staircase.