Pagina 351 van 490

"It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we

cannot remember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though

your sins be as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?"

"Those words mean nothing to me now."

"Hush! Don't say that. You have done enough evil in your life. My

God! Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?"

Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an

uncontrollable feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over

him, as though it had been suggested to him by the image on the

canvas, whispered into his ear by those grinning lips. The mad

passions of a hunted animal stirred within him, and he loathed

the man who was seated at the table, more than in his whole life

he had ever loathed anything. He glanced wildly around. Something

glimmered on the top of the painted chest that faced him. His eye

fell on it. He knew what it was. It was a knife that he had

brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord, and had

forgotten to take away with him. He moved slowly towards it,

passing Hallward as he did so. As soon as he got behind him, he

seized it and turned round. Hallward stirred in his chair as if

he was going to rise. He rushed at him and dug the knife into the

great vein that is behind the ear, crushing the man's head down

on the table and stabbing again and again.