Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged  countenance  that  was
never lighted by a smile;  cold,  scanty  and  embarrassed  in  discourse;
backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow  lovable.
At friendly meetings, and when  the  wine  was  to  his  taste,  something
eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never  found
its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of
the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his  life.
He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was  alone,  to  mortify  a
taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not crossed the
doors of one for twenty years.  But  he  had  an  approved  tolerance  for
others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at  the  high  pressure  of
spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to  help
rather than to reprove. "I incline to  Cain's  heresy,"  he  used  to  say
quaintly: "I let my brother go to the devil  in  his  own  way."  In  this
character, it  was  frequently  his  fortune  to  be  the  last  reputable
acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives  of  downgoing  men.
And to such as these, so long as they came about his  chambers,  he  never
marked a shade of change in his demeanour.
     No  doubt  the  feat  was  easy  to  Mr.   Utterson;   for   he   was
undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be  founded
in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to
accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of  opportunity;  and
that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those  of  his  own  blood  or
those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like  ivy,  were  the
growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt the
bond that united him to Mr. Richard  Enfield,  his  distant  kinsman,  the
well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these  two
could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was
reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday  walks,  that  they
said nothing, looked singularly dull and would hail  with  obvious  relief
the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two  men  put  the  greatest
store by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of each week,  and
not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the  calls  of
business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.
     It chanced on one of these rambles that their way  led  them  down  a
by-street in a busy quarter of London. The street was small  and  what  is
called quiet,  but  it  drove  a  thriving  trade  on  the  weekdays.  The
inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed and all emulously hoping to  do
better still, and laying out the surplus of their grains in  coquetry;  so
that the shop  fronts  stood  along  that  thoroughfare  with  an  air  of
invitation, like rows of smiling  saleswomen.  Even  on  Sunday,  when  it
veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage,  the
street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in  a
forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses,  and
general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and  pleased  the
eye of the passenger.
     Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east the  line  was
broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point a certain  sinister
block of building thrust forward its gable  on  the  street.  It  was  two
storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower storey and
a blind forehead of discoloured wall on  the  upper;  and  bore  in  every
feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which was
equipped with neither bell  nor  knocker,  was  blistered  and  distained.
Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children
kept shop upon the steps;  the  schoolboy  had  tried  his  knife  on  the
mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one  had  appeared  to  drive
away these random visitors or to repair their ravages.
     Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of  the  by-street;
but when they came abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his cane and
pointed.
     "Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his companion had
replied in the affirmative. "It is connected in my mind," added he,  "with
a very odd story."
     "Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice, "and what
was that?"
     "Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield:  "I  was  coming  home
from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock  of  a  black
winter morning, and my way lay through a part  of  town  where  there  was
literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street  and  all  the
folks asleep-street after street, all lighted up as if  for  a  procession
and all as empty as a churchtill at last I got into  that  state  of  mind
when a man listens and listens and begins to  long  for  the  sight  of  a
policeman. All at once, I saw two  figures:  one  a  little  man  who  was
stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the  other  a  girl  of  maybe
eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross  street.
Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough  at  the  corner;
and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled  calmly
over the child's body and left her screaming  on  the  ground.  It  sounds
nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man;  it  was
like some damned Juggernaut. I gave  a  few  halloa,  took  to  my  heels,
collared my gentleman, and brought him back to  where  there  was  already
quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no
resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on
me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl's own family;
and pretty soon, the doctor, for  whom  she  had  been  sent  put  in  his
appearance. Well, the child was  not  much  the  worse,  more  frightened,
according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would  be  an
end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a  loathing
to my gentleman at first sight. So had the child's family, which was  only
natural. But the doctor's case was what struck me. He was  the  usual  cut
and dry apothecary, of  no  particular  age  and  colour,  with  a  strong
Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well,  sir,  he  was
like the rest of us; every time he looked  at  my  prisoner,  I  saw  that
Sawbones turn sick and white with desire to kill him. I knew what  was  in
his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out  of  the
question, we did the next best. We told the man we could  and  would  make
such a scandal out of this as should make his name stink from one  end  of
London to the other. If he had any friends or  any  credit,  we  undertook
that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were pitching it in  red
hot, we were keeping the women off him as best we could for they  were  as
wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was
the man in the middle, with a kind of black  sneering  coolness-frightened
to, I could see that-but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. `If  you
choose to make capital out of this accident,' said  he,  `I  am  naturally
helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says he.  `Name  your
figure.' Well, we screwed him up to  a  hundred  pounds  for  the  child's
family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but there was  something
about the lot of us that meant mischief, and at last he struck.  The  next
thing was to get the money; and where do you think he carried  us  but  to
that place with the door?-whipped out a key, went in, and  presently  came
back with the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on
Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and signed with  a  name  that  I  can't
mention, though it's one of the points of my story, but it was a  name  at
least very well known and often printed. The figure  was  stiff;  but  the
signature was good for more than that if it was only genuine. I  took  the
liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that  the  whole  business  looked
apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar door
at four in the morning and come out with another man's  cheque  for  close
upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite easy and sneering. `Set your  mind
at rest,' says he, `I will stay with you till the banks open and cash  the
cheque myself.' So we all set of, the doctor, and the child's father,  and
our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the night  in  my  chambers;
and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I  gave
in the cheque myself, and said I had every reason  to  believe  it  was  a
forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine."
     "Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.
     "I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a  bad  story.
For my man was a fellow that nobody  could  have  to  do  with,  a  really
damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of  the
proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows
who do what they call good. Black mail I suppose;  an  honest  man  paying
through the nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black Mail House  is
what I call the place with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you
know, is far from explaining all," he added, and with the words fell  into
a vein of musing.
     From this he was recalled by Mr.  Utterson  asking  rather  suddenly:
"And you don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?"
     "A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield. "But  I  happen  to
have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other."
     "And you never  asked  about  the-place  with  the  door?"  said  Mr.
Utterson.
     "No, sir: I had a delicacy," was the reply.  "I  feel  very  strongly
about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the  day  of
judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a  stone.  You  sit
quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone  goes,  starting  others;
and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of)  is
knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have  to  change
their name. No sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer
Street, the less I ask."
     "A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.
     "But I have studied the place for myself," continued Mr. Enfield. "It
seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes in or  out
of that one but, once in a great while, the  gentleman  of  my  adventure.
There are three windows looking on the court  on  the  first  floor;  none
below; the windows are always shut but they're clean. And then there is  a
chimney which is generally smoking; so somebody must live there.  And  yet
it's not so sure; for the buildings  are  so  packed  together  about  the
court, that it's hard to say where one ends and another begins."
     The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then  "Enfield,"
said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."
     "Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.
     "But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point  I  want
to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child."
     "Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would do. It  was
a man of the name of Hyde."
     "Hm," said Mr. Utterson. "What sort of a man is he to see?"
     "He is not easy to  describe.  There  is  something  wrong  with  his
appearance; something  displeasing,  something  down-right  detestable.  I
never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I  scarce  know  why.  He  must  be
deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling  of  deformity,  although  I
couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary looking man, and  yet  I
really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it;
I can't describe him. And it's not want of memory; for I declare I can see
him this moment."
     Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously  under  a
weight of consideration. "You are sure he used  a  key?"  he  inquired  at
last.
     "My dear sir ..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself.
     "Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem strange. The  fact
is, if I do not ask you the name of the other party, it is because I  know
it already. You see, Richard, your tale has gone home. If  you  have  been
inexact in any point you had better correct it."
     "I think you might have warned me," returned the other with  a  touch
of sullenness. "But I have been pedantically exact, as you  call  it.  The
fellow had a key; and what's more, he has it still. I saw him use it not a
week ago."
     Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and the  young  man
presently resumed. "Here is another lesson to say nothing," said he. "I am
ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to  refer  to  this
again."
     "With all my heart," said the lawyer. I shake hands on that, Richard."





     That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house  in  sombre
spirits and sat down to dinner without relish. It  was  his  custom  of  a
Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the  fire,  a  volume  of
some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the clock of the neighbouring
church rang out  the  hour  of  twelve,  when  he  would  go  soberly  and
gratefully to bed. On this night however, as soon as the cloth  was  taken
away, he took up a candle and went into his business room. There he opened
his safe, took from the most private part of it a document endorsed on the
envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will and sat down with a clouded  brow  to  study
its contents. The will was holograph, for  Mr.  Utterson  though  he  took
charge of it now  that  it  was  made,  had  refused  to  lend  the  least
assistance in the making of it; it provided not only that, in case of  the
decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D.,  D.C.L.,  L.L.D.,  F.R.S.,  etc.,  all  his
possessions were to pass into the hands  of  his  "friend  and  benefactor
Edward  Hyde,"  but  that  in  case  of  Dr.  Jekyll's  "disappearance  or
unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar  months,"  the
said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry  Jekyll's  shoes  without
further delay and free from any burthen or obligation beyond  the  payment
of a few small sums  to  the  members  of  the  doctor's  household.  This
document had long been the lawyer's eyesore. It offended  him  both  as  a
lawyer and as a lover of the sane and customary sides of life, to whom the
fanciful was the immodest. And hitherto it was his ignorance of  Mr.  Hyde
that had swelled his indignation; now,  by  a  sudden  turn,  it  was  his
knowledge. It was already bad enough when the name was but a name of which
he could learn no more. It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with
detestable attributes; and out of the shifting, insubstantial  mists  that
had so long  baffled  his  eye,  there  leaped  up  the  sudden,  definite
presentment of a fiend.
     "I thought it was madness," he said, as  he  replaced  the  obnoxious
paper in the safe, "and now I begin to fear it is disgrace."
     With that he blew out his candle, put on a greatcoat, and  set  forth
in the direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of medicine, where  his
friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his  house  and  received  his  crowding
patients. "If anyone knows, it will be Lanyon," he had thought.
     The solemn butler knew and welcomed him; he was subjected to no stage
of delay, but ushered direct from the door to the  dining-room  where  Dr.
Lanyon sat alone over his  wine.  This  was  a  hearty,  healthy,  dapper,
red-faced gentleman, with  a  shock  of  hair  prematurely  white,  and  a
boisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from
his chair and welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as was the  way
of the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on  genuine
feeling. For these two were old friends, old  mates  both  at  school  and
college, both thorough respectors of themselves and  of  each  other,  and
what does not always follow,  men  who  thoroughly  enjoyed  each  other's
company.
     After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject  which
so disagreeably preoccupied his mind.
     "I suppose, Lanyon," said he, "you and  I  must  be  the  two  oldest
friends that Henry Jekyll has?"
     "I wish the friends  were  younger,"  chuckled  Dr.  Lanyon.  "But  I
suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now."
     "Indeed?" said  Utterson.  "I  thought  you  had  a  bond  of  common
interest."
     "We had," was the reply. "But it is more than ten years  since  Henry
Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong,  wrong  in  mind;
and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old  sake's
sake, as they say, I see and I have seen devilish little of the man.  Such
unscientific balderdash," added  the  doctor,  flushing  suddenly  purple,
"would have estranged Damon and Pythias."
     This little spirit  of  temper  was  somewhat  of  a  relief  to  Mr.
Utterson. "They have only differed on some point of science," he  thought;
and being a man of  no  scientific  passions  (except  in  the  matter  of
conveyancing), he even added: "It is nothing worse than that!" He gave his
friend a few seconds to recover his composure,  and  then  approached  the
question he had come to put. Did you ever come across a protege of his-one
Hyde?" he asked.
     "Hyde?" repeated Lanyon. "No. Never heard of him. Since my time."***
     That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back  with
him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro, until the  small
hours of the morning began to grow large. It was a night of little ease to
his toiling mind, toiling in mere darkness and beseiged by questions.
     Six o'clock stuck on the bells of the church that was so conveniently
near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was digging at the  problem.
Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual side alone;  but  now  his
imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed
in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room,  Mr.  Enfield's
tale went by before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would  be
aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the  figure
of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the  doctor's;  and
then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the child down  and  passed
on regardless of her screams. Or else he would see a room in a rich house,
where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and  then
the door of that room would be opened, the curtains  of  the  bed  plucked
apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo! there  would  stand  by  his  side  a
figure to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, he  must  rise
and do its bidding. The figure in these two phases haunted the lawyer  all
night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to see it  glide  more
stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly and still the
more swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths  of  lamplighted
city, and at every street corner crush a child and  leave  her  screaming.
And still the figure had no face by which he might know it;  even  in  his
dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled  him  and  melted  before  his
eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and grew apace in the  lawyer's
mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity  to  behold  the
features of the real Mr. Hyde. If he could but once set eyes  on  him,  he
thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was
the habit of mysterious things when well examined. He might see  a  reason
for his friend's strange preference or bondage (call it which you  please)
and even for the startling clause of the will. At least it would be a face
worth seeing: the face of a man who was without bowels of  mercy:  a  face
which  had  but  to  show  itself  to  raise  up,  in  the  mind  of   the
unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.
     From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door  in  the
by-street of shops. In the morning  before  office  hours,  at  noon  when
business was plenty, and time scarce, at  night  under  the  face  of  the
fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse,
the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post.
     "If he be Mr. Hyde," he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek."
     And at last his patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night; frost
in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor; the lamps,  unshaken
by any wind, drawing a  regular  pattern  of  light  and  shadow.  By  ten
o'clock, when the shops were closed the by-street was very  solitary  and,
in spite of the low growl of London from all  round,  very  silent.  Small
sounds carried far; domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible
on either side of the roadway; and the  rumour  of  the  approach  of  any
passenger preceded him by a long time. Mr. Utterson had been some  minutes
at his post, when he was aware of an odd light footstep drawing  near.  In
the course of his nightly patrols, he had long  grown  accustomed  to  the
quaint effect with which the footfalls of a single  person,  while  he  is
still a great way off, suddenly spring out distinct from the vast hum  and
clatter of the city. Yet his attention had never before  been  so  sharply
and decisively arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision
of success that he withdrew into the entry of the court.
     The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled  out  suddenly  louder  as
they turned the end of the street. The  lawyer,  looking  forth  from  the
entry, could soon see what manner of man he had to deal with. He was small
and very plainly dressed and the look of him, even at that distance,  went
somehow strongly against the watcher's inclination. But he  made  straight
for the door, crossing the roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a
key from his pocket like one approaching home.
     Mr. Utterson stepped out and  touched  him  on  the  shoulder  as  he
passed. "Mr. Hyde, I think?"
     Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of  the  breath.  But  his
fear was only momentary; and though he did not  look  the  lawyer  in  the
face, he answered coolly enough: "That is my name. What do you want?"
     "I see you are going in," returned the lawyer. "I am an old friend of
Dr. Jekyll's-Mr. Utterson of Gaunt Street-you must have heard of my  name;
and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might admit me."
     "You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home,"  replied  Mr.  Hyde,
blowing in the key. And then suddenly, but still without looking up,  "How
did you know me?" he asked.
     "On your side," said Mr. Utterson "will you do me a favour?"
     "With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall it be?"
     "Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.
     Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and  then,  as  if  upon  some  sudden
reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair stared  at
each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. "Now I shall know you again,"
said Mr. Utterson. "It may be useful."
     "Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "lt is as well we have  met;  and  apropos,
you should have my address." And he gave a number of a street in Soho.
     "Good God!" thought Mr. Utterson, "can he, too, have been thinking of
the will?" But he kept  his  feelings  to  himself  and  only  grunted  in
acknowledgment of the address.
     "And now," said the other, "how did you know me?"
     "By description," was the reply.
     "Whose description?"
     "We have common friends," said Mr. Utterson.
     "Common friends," echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely. "Who are they?"
     "Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer.
     "He never told you," cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of  anger.  "I  did
not think you would have lied."
     "Come," said Mr. Utterson, "that is not fitting language."
     The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh;  and  the  next  moment,
with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked  the  door  and  disappeared
into the house.
     The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him,  the  picture  of
disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing every  step
or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in  mental  perplexity.
The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was one of a class that  is
rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave  an  impression  of
deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a  displeasing  smile,
he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort  of  murderous  mixture  of
timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and  somewhat
broken voice; all these were points against him,  but  not  all  of  these
together could explain the hitherto unknown  disgust,  loathing  and  fear
with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. "There must be something else," said
the perplexed gentleman. "There is something more, if I could find a  name
for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human!  Something  troglodytic,
shall we say? or can it be the old story of Dr. Fell? or is  it  the  mere
radience of a foul soul that thus transpires  through,  and  transfigures,
its clay continent? The last,I think; for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll,  if
ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it  is  on  that  of  your  new
friend."
     Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square  of  ancient,
handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high estate  and
let  in  flats  and  chambers  to  all  sorts  and  conditions   of   men;
map-engravers,  architects,  shady  lawyers  and  the  agents  of  obscure
enterprises. One  house,  however,  second  from  the  corner,  was  still
occupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great air of wealth
and comfort, though  it  was  now  plunged  in  darkness  except  for  the
fanlight, Mr.  Utterson  stopped  and  knocked.  A  well-dressed,  elderly
servant opened the door.
     "Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole?" asked the lawyer.
     "I will see, Mr. Utterson," said Poole, admitting the visitor, as  he
spoke, into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall paved with flags, warmed
(after the fashion of a  country  house)  by  a  bright,  open  fire,  and
furnished with costly cabinets of oak. "Will you wait here  by  the  fire,
sir? or shall I give you a light in the dining-room?"
     "Here, thank you," said the lawyer, and he drew near  and  leaned  on
the tall fender. This hall, in which he was now  left  alone,  was  a  pet
fancy of his friend the doctor's; and Utterson himself was wont  to  speak
of it as the pleasantest room in London. But tonight there was  a  shudder
in his blood; the face of Hyde sat heavy on his memory; he felt (what  was
rare with him) a nausea and distaste of life; and  in  the  gloom  of  his
spirits, he seemed to read a menace in the flickering of the firelight  on
the polished cabinets and the uneasy starting of the shadow on  the  roof.
He was ashamed of his relief, when Poole presently  returned  to  announce
that Dr. Jekyll was gone out.
     "I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting room,  Poole,"  he  said.
"Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"
     "Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant. "Mr. Hyde  has
a key."
     "Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young man,
Poole," resumed the other musingly.
     "Yes, sir, he does indeed," said Poole. "We have all orders  to  obey
him."
     "I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?" asked Utterson.
     "O, dear no, sir. He never dines here," replied the butler. Indeed we
see very little of him on this side of the house; he mostly comes and goes
by the laboratory."
     "Well, good-night, Poole."
     "Good-night, Mr. Utterson."
     And the lawyer set out homeward with a very heavy heart. "Poor  Harry
Jekyll," he thought, "my mind misgives me he is in  deep  waters!  He  was
wild when he was young; a long while ago to be sure; but  in  the  law  of
God, there is no statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost of
some old sin, the cancer of some concealed  disgrace:  punishment  coming,
PEDE CLAUDO, years after memory has forgotten and self-love  condoned  the
fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on  his  own
past, groping  in  all  the  corners  of  memory,  least  by  chance  some
Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light  there.  His  past
was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less
apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had
done, and raised up again into a sober and fearful gratitude by  the  many
he had come so near to doing yet avoided. And then  by  a  return  on  his
former subject, he conceived a spark of hope. "This  Master  Hyde,  if  he
were studied," thought he, "must have secrets of his own;  black  secrets,
by the look of him; secrets compared to which poor Jekyll's worst would be
like sunshine. Things cannot continue as they are. It  turns  me  cold  to
think of this creature stealing like a  thief  to  Harry's  bedside;  poor
Harry, what a wakening! And the danger of it; for if  this  Hyde  suspects
the existence of the will, he may grow impatient to inherit.  Ay,  I  must
put my shoulders to the wheel-if Jekyll will but let me,"  he  added,  "if
Jekyll will only let me." For once more he saw before his mind's  eye,  as
clear as transparency, the strange clauses of the will.





     A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one  of
his pleasant dinners to some five or six  old  cronies,  all  intelligent,
reputable men and all judges of good wine; and Mr. Utterson  so  contrived
that he remained behind after the others had departed.  This  was  no  new
arrangement, but a thing that had befallen many  scores  of  times.  Where
Utterson was liked, he was liked well.  Hosts  loved  to  detain  the  dry
lawyer, when the light-hearted and loose-tongued had already their foot on
the threshold; they liked to sit  a  while  in  his  unobtrusive  company,
practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the  man's  rich  silence
after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule, Dr.  Jekyll  was  no
exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side  of  the  fire-a  large,
well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something  of  a  stylish  cast
perhaps, but every mark of capacity and  kindness-you  could  see  by  his
looks that he cherished for Mr. Utterson a sincere and warm affection.
     "I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll," began the latter. "You
know that will of yours?"
     A close observer might have gathered that the topic was  distasteful;
but the doctor carried it off gaily. "My poor Utterson," said he, "you are
unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you  were
by my will; unless it were that hide-bound  pedant,  Lanyon,  at  what  he
called my scientific heresies. O, I know he's a  good  fellow-you  needn't
frown-an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more  of  him;  but  a
hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I  was  never
more disappointed in any man than Lanyon."
     "You know I never  approved  of  it,"  pursued  Utterson,  ruthlessly
disregarding the fresh topic.
     "My will? Yes, certainly, I know that," said  the  doctor,  a  trifle
sharply. "You have told me so."
     "Well, I tell you so again,"  continued  the  lawyer.  "I  have  been
learning something of young Hyde."
     The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very lips, and
there came a blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to hear more,"  said
he. "This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop."
     "What I heard was abominable," said Utterson.
     "It can make no change. You do not understand my position,"  returned
the doctor,  with  a  certain  incoherency  of  manner.  "I  am  painfully
situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange-a very strange  one.  It
is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking."
     "Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me: I am a man to be trusted. Make
a clean breast of this in confidence; and I make no doubt I  can  get  you
out of it."
     "My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is very good of you,  this
is downright good of you, and I cannot find  words  to  thank  you  in.  I
believe you fully; I would trust you before  any  man  alive,  ay,  before
myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn't what you fancy; it
is not as bad as that; and just to put your good heart  at  rest,  I  will
tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde. I  give
you my hand upon that; and I thank you again and again; and  I  will  just
add one little word, Utterson, that I'm sure you'll  take  in  good  part:
this is a private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep."
     Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire.
     "I have no doubt you are perfectly right," he said at  last,  getting
to his feet.
     "Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the last
time I hope," continued the doctor, "there is one point I should like  you
to understand. I have really a very great interest in poor  Hyde.  I  know
you have seen him; he told me so; and  I  fear  he  was  rude.  But  I  do
sincerely take a great, a very great interest in that young man; and if  I
am taken away, Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear  with
him and get his rights for him. I think you would, if you knew all; and it
would be a weight off my mind if you would promise."
     "I can't pretend that I shall ever like him," said the lawyer.
     "I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the  other's
arm; "I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him for my sake, when
I am no longer here."
     Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh. "Well," said he, "I promise."





     Nearly a year later,  in  the  month  of  October,  18-,  London  was
startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more notable
by the high position of the victim. The details were few and startling.  A
maid servant living alone in a house not far  from  the  river,  had  gone
upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city  in  the
small hours, the early part of the night  was  cloudless,  and  the  lane,
which the maid's window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full  moon.
It seems she was romantically given, for she sat down upon her box,  which
stood immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing. Never
(she  used  to  say,  with  streaming  tears,  when  she   narrated   that
experience), never had she felt more at peace with all men or thought more
kindly of the world. And as she  so  sat  she  became  aware  of  an  aged
beautiful gentleman with white hair, drawing  near  along  the  lane;  and
advancing to meet him, another and very small gentleman, to whom at  first
she paid less attention. When they had come within speech (which was  just
under the maid's eyes) the older man bowed and accosted the other  with  a
very pretty manner of politeness. It did not seem as if the subject of his
address were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it some times
appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone  on  his
face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased  to  watch  it,  it  seemed  to
breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of disposition,  yet  with
something high too, as of a well-founded self-content. Presently  her  eye
wandered to the other, and she was surprised to recognise in him a certain
Mr. Hyde, who had once visited her master and for whom she had conceived a
dislike. He had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling;  but
he answered never a word, and  seemed  to  listen  with  an  ill-contained
impatience. And then all of a sudden he broke out  in  a  great  flame  of
anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying  on  (as
the maid described it) like a madman. The old gentleman took a step  back,
with the air of one very much surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr.
Hyde broke out of all bounds and  clubbed  him  to  the  earth.  And  next
moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his  victim  under  foot  and
hailing down a  storm  of  blows,  under  which  the  bones  were  audibly
shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At  the  horror  of  these
sights and sounds, the maid fainted.
     It was two o'clock when she  came  to  herself  and  called  for  the
police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his  victim  in  the
middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the deed  had
been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had
broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty;  and  one
splintered half had rolled in the neighbouring gutter-the  other,  without
doubt, had been carried away by the murderer. A purse and gold watch  were
found upon the victim: but no cards or papers, except a sealed and stamped
envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post, and which  bore
the name and address of Mr. Utterson.
     This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, before he was out of
bed; and he had no sooner seen it and been told the circumstances, than he
shot out a solemn lip. "I shall say nothing till I have  seen  the  body,"
said he; "this may be very serious. Have the  kindness  to  wait  while  I
dress." And with  the  same  grave  countenance  he  hurried  through  his
breakfast and drove to the police  station,  whither  the  body  had  been
carried. As soon as he came into the cell, he nodded.
     "Yes," said he, "I recognise him. I am sorry to say that this is  Sir
Danvers Carew."
     "Good God, sir," exclaimed the officer, "is  it  possible?"  And  the
next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition. "This will make
a deal of noise," he said. "And perhaps you can help us to the  man."  And
he briefly narrated what the maid had seen, and showed the broken stick.
     Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde;  but  when  the
stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer; broken  and  battered
as it was, he recognized it for one that he  had  himself  presented  many
years before to Henry Jekyll.
     "Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?" he inquired.
     "Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking, is what the maid
calls him," said the officer.
     Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his head, "If you will come
with me in my cab," he said, "I think I can take you to his house."
     It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first  fog  of
the season. A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven,  but  the
wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that
as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a  marvelous
number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the
back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of  a  rich,  lurid  brown,
like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment,  the
fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance
in between the swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter  of  Soho  seen  under
these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and  slatternly  passengers,
and its lamps, which had never  been  extinguished  or  had  been  kindled
afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion  of  darkness,  seemed,  in  the
lawyer's eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare.  The  thoughts
of his mind, besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when  he  glanced  at
the companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that  terror
of the law and the law's officers, which may  at  times  assail  the  most
honest.
     As the cab drew up before the address indicated,  the  fog  lifted  a
little and showed him a dingy street, a gin palace, a  low  French  eating
house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and  twopenny  salads,  many
ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many women of many  different
nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass;  and  the
next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as brown as  umber,
and cut him off from his blackguardly surroundings. This was the  home  of
Henry Jekyll's favourite; of a man who was heir to a quarter of a  million
sterling.
     An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She  had
an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy: but her manners were excellent.  Yes,
she said, this was Mr. Hyde's, but he was not at home; he had been in that
night very late, but he had gone away again in less than  an  hour;  there
was nothing strange in that; his habits were very irregular,  and  he  was
often absent; for instance, it was nearly two months since  she  had  seen
him till yesterday.
     "Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms,"  said  the  lawyer;  and
when the woman began to declare it was impossible, "I had better tell  you
who this person is," he added. "This is  Inspector  Newcomen  of  Scotland
Yard."
     A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman's face. "Ah!" said she,
"he is in trouble! What has he done?"
     Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances. "He  don't  seem  a
very popular character," observed the latter. "And  now,  my  good  woman,
just let me and this gentleman have a look about us."
     In the whole extent of  the  house,  which  but  for  the  old  woman
remained otherwise empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple  of  rooms;  but
these were furnished with luxury and good taste. A closet was filled  with
wine; the plate was of silver, the napery elegant;  a  good  picture  hung
upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson supposed) from Henry Jekyll,  who  was
much of a connoisseur; and the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in
colour. At this moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having  been
recently and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with  their
pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the hearth  there
lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many  papers  had  been  burned.  From
these embers the inspector disinterred the butt  end  of  a  green  cheque
book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the  other  half  of  the
stick was found behind the door; and as this clinched his suspicions,  the
officer declared himself delighted. A visit to  the  bank,  where  several
thousand pounds were found to be lying to the murderer's credit, completed
his gratification.
     "You may depend upon it, sir," he told Mr. Utterson: "I have  him  in
my hand. He must have lost his head, or he never would have left the stick
or, above all, burned the cheque book. Why, money's life to  the  man.  We
have nothing to do but  wait  for  him  at  the  bank,  and  get  out  the
handbills."
     This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for  Mr.  Hyde
had numbered few familiars-even the master of the servant  maid  had  only
seen him twice; his family could nowhere be  traced;  he  had  never  been
photographed; and the few who  could  describe  him  differed  widely,  as
common observers will. Only on one point were they agreed;  and  that  was
the haunting sense  of  unexpressed  deformity  with  which  the  fugitive
impressed his beholders.





     It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to  Dr.
Jekyll's door, where he was at once admitted by Poole, and carried down by
the kitchen offices and across a yard which had once been a garden, to the
building which was indifferently known as  the  laboratory  or  dissecting
rooms. The doctor had bought the house from  the  heirs  of  a  celebrated
surgeon; and his own tastes being rather  chemical  than  anatomical,  had
changed the destination of the block at the bottom of the garden.  It  was
the first time that the lawyer had been  received  in  that  part  of  his
friend's quarters; and  he  eyed  the  dingy,  windowless  structure  with
curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness  as  he
crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and now lying  gaunt
and silent, the tables laden with chemical  apparatus,  the  floor  strewn
with crates and littered with packing straw, and the light  falling  dimly
through the foggy cupola. At the further end, a flight of  stairs  mounted
to a door covered with red baize; and through this, Mr.  Utterson  was  at
last received into the doctor's cabinet. It was a large room fitted  round
with glass presses, furnished, among other things, with a cheval-glass and
a business table, and looking out upon the court by  three  dusty  windows
barred with iron. The fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted  on
the chimney shelf, for even in the houses the fog began  to  lie  thickly;
and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr. Jekyll, looking  deathly  sick.
He did not rise to meet his visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him
welcome in a changed voice.
     "And now," said Mr. Utterson, as soon as Poole had  left  them,  "you
have heard the news?"
     The doctor shuddered. "They were crying it in the square,"  he  said.
"I heard them in my dining-room."
     "One word," said the lawyer. "Carew was my client, but  so  are  you,
and I want to know what I am doing. You have not been mad enough  to  hide
this fellow?"
     "Utterson, I swear to God," cried the doctor, "I swear to God I  will
never set eyes on him again. I bind my honour to you that I am  done  with
him in this world. It is all at an end. And indeed he  does  not  want  my
help; you do not know him as I do; he is safe, he is quite safe;  mark  my
words, he will never more be heard of."
     The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like his  friend's  feverish
manner. "You seem pretty sure of him," said he; "and for your sake, I hope
you may be right. If it came to a trial, your name might appear."
     "I am quite sure  of  him,"  replied  Jekyll;  "I  have  grounds  for
certainty that I cannot share with any one. But  there  is  one  thing  on
which you may advise me. I have-I have received a letter; and I  am  at  a
loss whether I should show it to the police. I should like to leave it  in
your hands, Utterson; you would judge wisely, I am sure; I have so great a
trust in you."
     "You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection?" asked the
lawyer.
     "No," said the other. "I cannot say that I care what becomes of Hyde;
I am quite done with him. I was thinking of my own character,  which  this
hateful business has rather exposed."
     Utterson  ruminated  awhile;  he  was  surprised  at   his   friend's
selfishness, and yet relieved by it. "Well," said he, at last, let me  see
the letter."
     The letter was written in an odd, upright  hand  and  signed  "Edward
Hyde": and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer's benefactor, Dr.
Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for a thousand generosities,
need labour under no alarm for his safety, as he had means  of  escape  on
which he placed a sure dependence.  The  lawyer  liked  this  letter  well
enough; it put a better colour on the intimacy than he had looked for; and
he blamed himself for some of his past suspicions.
     "Have you the envelope?" he asked.
     "I burned it," replied Jekyll, "before I thought what  I  was  about.
But it bore no postmark. The note was handed in."
     "Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?" asked Utterson.
     "I wish you to judge for me entirely," was the reply.  "I  have  lost
confidence in myself."
     "Well, I shall consider," returned the  lawyer.  "And  now  one  word
more: it was  Hyde  who  dictated  the  terms  in  your  will  about  that
disappearance?"
     The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; he shut his mouth
tight and nodded.
     "I knew it," said Utterson. "He meant to murder you. You had  a  fine
escape."
     "I have had what is far more to the  purpose,"  returned  the  doctor
solemnly: "I have had a lesson-O God, Utterson, what a lesson I have had!"
And he covered his face for a moment with his hands.
     On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with  Poole.
"By the bye," said he, "there was a letter handed in to-day: what was  the
messenger like?" But Poole was positive nothing had come except  by  post;
"and only circulars by that," he added.
     This news sent off the visitor with his fears  renewed.  Plainly  the
letter had come by the laboratory door;  possibly,  indeed,  it  had  been
written in the cabinet; and if  that  were  so,  it  must  be  differently
judged, and handled with the more caution. The newsboys, as he went,  were
crying themselves hoarse along the footways:  "Special  edition.  Shocking
murder of an M.P." That was the funeral oration of one friend and  client;
and he could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another
should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal.  It  was,  at  least,  a
ticklish decision that he had to make;  and  self-reliant  as  he  was  by
habit, he began to cherish a longing for advice. It  was  not  to  be  had
directly; but perhaps, he thought, it might be fished for.
     Presently after, he sat on one side  of  his  own  hearth,  with  Mr.
Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and midway  between,  at  a  nicely
calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a particular old wine  that
had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his  house.  The  fog  still
slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps  glimmered  like
carbuncles; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the
procession of the town's life was  still  rolling  in  through  the  great
arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind.  But  the  room  was  gay  with
firelight. In the bottle the acids were long ago  resolved;  the  imperial
dye had softened with time, as the colour grows richer in stained windows;
and the glow of hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards, was ready  to
be set free and to disperse the fogs  of  London.  Insensibly  the  lawyer
melted. There was no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than  Mr.  Guest;
and he was not always sure that he kept as many as  he  meant.  Guest  had
often been on business to the doctor's; he knew  Poole;  he  could  scarce
have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the  house;  he  might
draw conclusions: was it not as well, then, that he should  see  a  letter
which put that mystery to right? and above all since Guest, being a  great
student and critic of handwriting, would consider  the  step  natural  and
obliging? The clerk, besides, was a man of counsel; he could  scarce  read
so strange a document without dropping a remark; and by  that  remark  Mr.
Utterson might shape his future course.
     "This is a sad business about Sir Danvers," he said.
     "Yes, sir, indeed. It has elicited a great deal of  public  feeling,"
returned Guest. "The man, of course, was mad."
     "I should like to hear your views on that," replied Utterson. "I have
a document here in his handwriting; it is between ourselves, for I  scarce
know what to do about it; it is an ugly business at the best. But there it
is; quite in your way: a murderer's autograph."
     Guest's eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied it  with
passion. "No sir," he said: "not mad; but it is an odd hand."
     "And by all accounts a very odd writer," added the lawyer.
     Just then the servant entered with a note.
     "Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir?" inquired the clerk. "I thought I knew
the writing. Anything private, Mr. Utterson?
     "Only an invitation to dinner. Why? Do you want to see it?"
     "One moment. I thank you, sir;" and the clerk laid the two sheets  of
paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents. "Thank you,  sir,"
he said at last, returning both; "it's a very interesting autograph."
     There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson struggled with  himself.
"Why did you compare them, Guest?" he inquired suddenly.
     "Well,  sir,"  returned  the  clerk,  "there's  a   rather   singular
resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical: only  differently
sloped."
     "Rather quaint," said Utterson.
     "It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned Guest.
     "I wouldn't speak of this note, you know," said the master.
     "No, sir," said the clerk. "I understand."
     But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that night, than he  locked  the
note into his safe, where it reposed from that time  forward.  "What!"  he
thought. "Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer!" And his blood  ran  cold  in
his veins.





     Time ran on; thousands of pounds were  offered  in  reward,  for  the
death of Sir Danvers was resented as a public injury;  but  Mr.  Hyde  had
disappeared out of the ken of the police as though he had  never  existed.
Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable:  tales  came
out of the man's cruelty, at once so callous  and  violent;  of  his  vile
life, of his strange  associates,  of  the  hatred  that  seemed  to  have
surrounded his career; but of his present whereabouts, not a whisper. From
the time he had left the house in Soho on the morning of  the  murder,  he
was simply blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began
to recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow more at  quiet  with
himself. The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of thinking,  more  than
paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde. Now that  that  evil  influence
had been withdrawn, a new life began for Dr. Jekyll. He came  out  of  his
seclusion, renewed relations with his  friends,  became  once  more  their
familiar guest and entertainer; and whilst he had always  been  known  for
charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion. He was busy,  he
was much in the open air, he  did  good;  his  face  seemed  to  open  and
brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than
two months, the doctor was at peace.
     On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor's with a small
party; Lanyon had been there; and the face of the host had looked from one
to the other as in the old days when the trio were inseparable friends. On
the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door was  shut  against  the  lawyer.
"The doctor was confined to the house," Poole said, "and saw no  one."  On
the 15th, he tried again, and was again refused; and having now been  used
for the last two months to see his friend  almost  daily,  he  found  this
return of solitude to weigh upon his spirits. The fifth night  he  had  in
Guest to dine with him; and the sixth he betook himself to Dr. Lanyon's.
     There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came in,  he
was  shocked  at  the  change  which  had  taken  place  in  the  doctor's
appearance. He had his death-warrant written legibly upon  his  face.  The
rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly  balder
and older; and yet it was not so much these tokens  of  a  swift  physical
decay that arrested the lawyer's notice, as a look in the eye and  quality
of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of  the  mind.
It was unlikely that the doctor should fear death; and yet that  was  what
Utterson was tempted to suspect. "Yes," he thought; he  is  a  doctor,  he
must know his own state and that his days are counted; and  the  knowledge
is more than  he  can  bear."  And  yet  when  Utterson  remarked  on  his
ill-looks, it was with an air  of  great  firmness  that  Lanyon  declared
himself a doomed man.
     "I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall never recover.  It  is  a
question of weeks. Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes,  sir,  I
used to like it. I sometimes think if we knew all, we should be more  glad
to get away."
     "Jekyll is ill, too," observed Utterson. "Have you seen him?"
     But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a trembling hand.  "I  wish
to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll," he said in a loud, unsteady  voice.
"I am quite done with that person; and I beg that you will  spare  me  any
allusion to one whom I regard as dead."
     "Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson; and then after  a  considerable  pause,
"Can't I do anything?" he  inquired.  "We  are  three  very  old  friends,
Lanyon; we shall not live to make others."
     "Nothing can be done," returned Lanyon; "ask himself."
     "He will not see me," said the lawyer.
     "I am not surprised at that," was the  reply.  "Some  day,  Utterson,
after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn  the  right  and  wrong  of
this. I cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with
me of other things, for God's sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot keep
clear of this accursed topic, then in God's name, go, for  I  cannot  bear
it."
     As soon as he got home,  Utterson  sat  down  and  wrote  to  Jekyll,
complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of  this
unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought  him  a  long  answer,
often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious in  drift.
The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. "I do not blame  our  old  friend,"
Jekyll wrote, but I share his view that we must never meet.  I  mean  from
henceforth to lead a life of extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised,
nor must you doubt my friendship, if my door is often shut  even  to  you.
You must suffer me to go my own dark way.  I  have  brought  on  myself  a
punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief of  sinners,
I am the chief of sufferers also.  I  could  not  think  that  this  earth
contained a place for sufferings and terrors so unmanning; and you can  do
but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this destiny, and that is  to  respect
my silence." Utterson was amazed; the dark  influence  of  Hyde  had  been
withdrawn, the doctor had returned to his old tasks and  amities;  a  week
ago, the prospect had smiled with every  promise  of  a  cheerful  and  an
honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and  the
whole tenor of his life were wrecked. So great  and  unprepared  a  change
pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner and words,  there  must
lie for it some deeper ground.
     A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and in  something  less
than a fortnight he was dead. The night after the funeral, at which he had
been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door of his  business  room,  and
sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set before
him an envelope addressed by the hand and sealed with the seal of his dead
friend. "PRIVATE: for the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE, and  in  case  of
his  predecease  to  be  destroyed  unread,"  so   it   was   emphatically
superscribed; and the lawyer dreaded  to  behold  the  contents.  "I  have
buried one friend to-day," he  thought:  "what  if  this  should  cost  me
another?" And then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty,  and  broke  the
seal. Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked upon
the cover as "not to be opened till the  death  or  disappearance  of  Dr.
Henry  Jekyll."  Utterson  could  not  trust  his  eyes.   Yes,   it   was
disappearance; here again, as in the  mad  will  which  he  had  long  ago
restored to its author, here again were the idea of  a  disappearance  and
the name of Henry Jekyll bracketted. But in the will, that idea had sprung
from the sinister suggestion of the man Hyde; it  was  set  there  with  a
purpose all too plain and horrible. Written by the hand  of  Lanyon,  what
should it mean? A great curiosity came on the trustee,  to  disregard  the
prohibition and dive at  once  to  the  bottom  of  these  mysteries;  but
professional  honour  and  faith  to  his  dead  friend   were   stringent
obligations; and the packet slept in the  inmost  corner  of  his  private
safe.
     It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it;  and  it
may be doubted if, from that day forth, Utterson desired  the  society  of
his surviving friend with the same eagerness. He thought  of  him  kindly;
but his thoughts were disquieted and fearful. He went to call indeed;  but
he was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he
preferred to speak with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the  air
and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that house of
voluntary bondage, and to sit and  speak  with  its  inscrutable  recluse.
Poole had, indeed, no very pleasant news to communicate.  The  doctor,  it
appeared, now more than ever confined himself  to  the  cabinet  over  the
laboratory, where he would sometimes even sleep; he was out of spirits, he
had grown very silent, he did not read; it seemed as if he  had  something
on his mind. Utterson became so used to the unvarying character  of  these
reports, that he fell off little by little in the frequency of his visits.





     It chanced on Sunday, when Mr. Utterson was on his  usual  walk  with
Mr. Enfield, that their way lay once again through the by-street; and that
when they came in front of the door, both stopped to gaze on it.
     "Well," said Enfield, "that story's at an  end  at  least.  We  shall
never see more of Mr. Hyde."
     "I hope not," said Utterson. "Did I ever tell you  that  I  once  saw
him, and shared your feeling of repulsion?"
     "It was impossible  to  do  the  one  without  the  other,"  returned
Enfield. "And by the way, what an ass you must have  thought  me,  not  to
know that this was a back way to Dr. Jekyll's!  It  was  partly  your  own
fault that I found it out, even when I did."
     "So you found it out, did you?" said Utterson. "But if that be so, we
may step into the court and take a look at the windows. To  tell  you  the
truth, I am uneasy about poor Jekyll; and even outside, I feel as  if  the
presence of a friend might do him good."
     The court was very cool and a little  damp,  and  full  of  premature
twilight, although the sky,  high  up  overhead,  was  still  bright  with
sunset. The middle one of the three windows was half-way open; and sitting
close beside it, taking the air with an infinite  sadness  of  mien,  like
some disconsolate prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.
     "What! Jekyll!" he cried. "I trust you are better."
     "I am very low, Utterson," replied the doctor drearily, "very low. It
will not last long, thank God."
     "You stay too much indoors," said the lawyer.  "You  should  be  out,
whipping up  the  circulation  like  Mr.  Enfield  and  me.  (This  is  my
cousin-Mr. Enfield-Dr. Jekyll.) Come now; get your hat and  take  a  quick
turn with us."
     "You are very good," sighed the other. "I should like to  very  much;
but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; I dare not. But indeed,  Utterson,
I am very glad to see you; this is really a great pleasure;  I  would  ask
you and Mr. Enfield up, but the place is really not fit."
     "Why, then," said the lawyer, good-naturedly, "the best thing we  can
do is to stay down here and speak with you from where we are."
     "That is just what I was about to venture to propose,"  returned  the
doctor with a smile. But the words were hardly uttered, before  the  smile
was struck out of his face and succeeded by an expression of  such  abject
terror and despair, as froze the very blood of the  two  gentlemen  below.
They saw it but for a glimpse for the window was  instantly  thrust  down;
but that glimpse had been sufficient, and they turned and left  the  court
without a word. In silence, too, they traversed the by-street; and it  was
not until they had come into a neighbouring thoroughfare, where even  upon
a Sunday there were still some stirrings of life,  that  Mr.  Utterson  at
last turned and looked at his companion. They were both  pale;  and  there
was an answering horror in their eyes.
     "God forgive us, God forgive us," said Mr. Utterson.
     But Mr. Enfield only nodded his head very seriously,  and  walked  on
once more in silence.





     Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one  evening  after  dinner,
when he was surprised to receive a visit from Poole.
     "Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?" he cried; and then taking  a
second look at him, "What ails you?" he added; is the doctor ill?"
     "Mr. Utterson," said the man, "there is something wrong."
     "Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you," said the  lawyer.
"Now, take your time, and tell me plainly what you want."
     "You know the doctor's ways, sir," replied Poole, "and how  he  shuts
himself up. Well, he's shut up again in the cabinet; and I don't like  it,
sir-I wish I may die if I like it. Mr. Utterson, sir, I'm afraid."
     "Now, my good man," said the  lawyer,  "be  explicit.  What  are  you
afraid of?"
     "I've been  afraid  for  about  a  week,"  returned  Poole,  doggedly
disregarding the question, "and I can bear it no more."
     The man's appearance amply bore out his words; his manner was altered
for the worse; and except for the moment when he had first  announced  his
terror, he had not once looked the lawyer in the face. Even  now,  he  sat
with the glass of wine untasted on his knee, and his eyes  directed  to  a
corner of the floor. "I can bear it no more,"he repeated.
     "Come," said the lawyer, "I see you have some good reason,  Poole;  I
see there is something seriously amiss. Try to tell me what it is."
     "I think there's been foul play," said Poole, hoarsely.
     "Foul play!" cried the lawyer, a  good  deal  frightened  and  rather
inclined to be irritated in consequence. "What foul play!  What  does  the
man mean?"
     "I daren't say, sir," was the answer; but will you come along with me
and see for yourself?"
     Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and get his hat and greatcoat;
but he observed with wonder the greatness of the relief that appeared upon
the butler's face, and perhaps with no  less,  that  the  wine  was  still
untasted when he set it down to follow.
     It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March,  with  a  pale  moon,
lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and flying  wrack  of
the most diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind  made  talking  difficult,
and flecked the blood into the face. It seemed to have swept  the  streets
unusually bare of passengers, besides; for Mr.  Utterson  thought  he  had
never seen that part of London  so  deserted.  He  could  have  wished  it
otherwise; never in his life had he been conscious of so sharp a  wish  to
see and touch his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he  might,  there  was
borne in upon his mind a crushing anticipation of  calamity.  The  square,
when they got there, was full of wind and dust, and the thin trees in  the
garden were lashing themselves along the railing. Poole, who had kept  all
the way a pace or two ahead, now pulled up in the middle of the  pavement,
and in spite of the biting weather, took off his hat and mopped  his  brow
with a red pocket-handkerchief. But for all the hurry of his coming, these
were not the dews of exertion that he wiped away, but the moisture of some
strangling anguish; for his face was white and his voice, when  he  spoke,
harsh and broken.
     "Well, sir," he said, "here we are, and God grant  there  be  nothing
wrong."
     "Amen, Poole," said the lawyer.
     Thereupon the servant knocked in a very guarded manner; the door  was
opened on the chain; and a voice asked from within, "Is that you, Poole?"
     "It's all right," said Poole. "Open the door."
     The hall, when they entered it, was brightly lighted up; the fire was
built high; and about the hearth the whole of the servants, men and women,
stood huddled together like  a  flock  of  sheep.  At  the  sight  of  Mr.
Utterson, the housemaid broke into hysterical whimpering;  and  the  cook,
crying out "Bless God! it's Mr. Utterson," ran forward as if to  take  him
in her arms.
     "What, what? Are you all here?"  said  the  lawyer  peevishly.  "Very
irregular, very unseemly; your master would be far from pleased."
     "They're all afraid," said Poole.
     Blank silence followed, no one protesting; only the maid  lifted  her
voice and now wept loudly.
     "Hold your tongue!" Poole said to her, with a ferocity of accent that
testified to his own jangled nerves; and indeed,  when  the  girl  had  so
suddenly raised the note of her lamentation,  they  had  all  started  and
turned towards the inner door with faces  of  dreadful  expectation.  "And
now," continued the butler, addressing the knife-boy, "reach me a  candle,
and we'll get this through hands at once." And then he begged Mr. Utterson
to follow him, and led the way to the back garden.
     "Now, sir," said he, "you come as gently as you can. I  want  you  to
hear, and I don't want you to be heard. And  see  here,  sir,  if  by  any
chance he was to ask you in, don't go."
     Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for termination, gave a  jerk
that nearly threw him from his balance; but he recollected his courage and
followed the butler into the  laboratory  building  through  the  surgical
theatre, with its lumber of crates and bottles, to the foot of the  stair.
Here Poole motioned him to stand on one side and listen; while he himself,
setting down the candle and  making  a  great  and  obvious  call  on  his
resolution, mounted the steps and knocked with a somewhat  uncertain  hand
on the red baize of the cabinet door.
     "Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you," he called; and even as he did
so, once more violently signed to the lawyer to give ear.
     A voice answered from within: "Tell him I cannot see anyone," it said
complainingly.
     "Thank you, sir," said Poole, with a note of something  like  triumph
in his voice; and taking up his candle, he led Mr.  Utterson  back  across
the yard and into the great kitchen,  where  the  fire  was  out  and  the
beetles were leaping on the floor.
     "Sir," he said, looking Mr.  Utterson  in  the  eyes,  "Was  that  my
master's voice?"
     "It seems much changed," replied the lawyer, very  pale,  but  giving
look for look.
     "Changed? Well, yes, I think so,"  said  the  butler.  "Have  I  been
twenty years in this man's house, to be deceived about his voice? No, sir;
master's made away with; he was made away with eight  days  ago,  when  we
heard him cry out upon the name of God; and who's in there instead of him,
and why it stays there, is a thing that cries to Heaven, Mr. Utterson!"
     "This is a very strange tale, Poole; this is rather a  wild  tale  my
man," said Mr. Utterson, biting  his  finger.  "Suppose  it  were  as  you
suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll  to  have  been-well,  murdered  what  could
induce the murderer to stay? That won't hold  water;  it  doesn't  commend
itself to reason."
     "Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy, but  I'll  do  it
yet," said Poole. "All this last week (you must know) him, or it, whatever
it is that lives in that cabinet, has been crying night and day  for  some
sort of medicine and cannot get it to  his  mind.  It  was  sometimes  his
way-the master's, that is-to write his orders on  a  sheet  of  paper  and
throw it on the stair. We've had nothing else this week back; nothing  but
papers, and a closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in
when nobody was looking. Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and thrice in
the same day, there have been orders and complaints, and I have been  sent
flying to all the wholesale chemists in town. Every  time  I  brought  the
stuff back, there would be another paper telling me to return it,  because
it was not pure, and another order to  a  different  firm.  This  drug  is
wanted bitter bad, sir, whatever for."
     "Have you any of these papers?" asked Mr. Utterson.
     Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled  note,  which  the
lawyer, bending nearer to the candle, carefully examined. Its contents ran
thus: "Dr. Jekyll presents his compliments to Messrs. Maw. He assures them
that their last sample  is  impure  and  quite  useless  for  his  present
purpose. In the year 18-, Dr. J. purchased a somewhat large quantity  from
Messrs. M. He now begs them to search with most sedulous  care,and  should
any of the same quality be left, forward it to him at once. Expense is  no
consideration. The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be exaggerated."
So far the letter had run composedly enough,  but  here  with  a  sudden
splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had  broken  loose.  "For  God's
sake," he added, "find me some of the old."
     "This is a strange note," said Mr. Utterson; and then  sharply,  "How
do you come to have it open?"
     "The man at Maw's was main angry, sir, and he threw  it  back  to  me
like so much dirt," returned Poole.
     "This is unquestionably the doctor's hand, do you know?" resumed  the
lawyer.
     "I thought it looked like it," said the servant rather  sulkily;  and
then, with another voice, "But what matters hand of write?" he said. "I've
seen him!"
     "Seen him?" repeated Mr. Utterson. "Well?"
     "That's it!" said Poole. "It was this way. I came suddenly  into  the
theater from the garden. It seems he had slipped out to look for this drug
or whatever it is; for the cabinet door was open, and there he was at  the
far end of the room digging among the crates. He looked up when I came in,
gave a kind of cry, and whipped upstairs into the cabinet. It was but  for
one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my  head  like  quills.
Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face? If it was  my
master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me? I have served  him
long enough. And then..." The man paused and  passed  his  hand  over  his
face.
     "These are all very strange circumstances," said Mr. Utterson, "but I
think I begin to see daylight. Your master, Poole, is plainly seized  with
one of those maladies that both torture and deform  the  sufferer;  hence,
for aught I know, the alteration of his voice;  hence  the  mask  and  the
avoidance of his friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by  means
of which the poor soul retains some hope of  ultimate  recovery-God  grant
that he be not deceived! There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole,
ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain  and  natural,  hangs  well
together, and delivers us from all exorbitant alarms."
     "Sir," said the butler, turning to a sort of  mottled  pallor,  "that
thing was not my master, and there's the truth. My master"-here he  looked
round him and began to whisper-"is a tall, fine build of a man,  and  this
was more of a dwarf." Utterson  attempted  to  protest.  "O,  sir,"  cried
Poole, "do you think I do not know my master after twenty  years?  Do  you
think I do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door,  where  I
saw him every morning of my life? No, sir, that  thing  in  the  mask  was
never Dr. Jekyll-God knows what it was, but it was never Dr.  Jekyll;  and
it is the belief of my heart that there was murder done."
     "Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that, it will become my duty
to make certain. Much as I desire to spare your master's feelings, much as
I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove him to be  still  alive,  I
shall consider it my duty to break in that door."
     "Ah, Mr. Utterson, that's talking!" cried the butler.
     "And now comes the second question," resumed Utterson: "Who is  going
to do it?"
     "Why, you and me, sir," was the undaunted reply.
     "That's very well said," returned the lawyer; "and whatever comes  of
it, I shall make it my business to see you are no loser."
     "There is an axe in the theatre," continued  Poole;  "and  you  might
take the kitchen poker for yourself."
     The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his  hand,  and
balanced it. "Do you know, Poole," he said, looking up, "that  you  and  I
are about to place ourselves in a position of some peril?"
     "You may say so, sir, indeed," returned the butler.
     "It is well, then that we should be frank," said the other. "We  both
think more than we have said; let us make  a  clean  breast.  This  masked
figure that you saw, did you recognise it?"
     "Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature  was  so  doubled  up,
that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer. "But if you mean,  was
it Mr. Hyde?-why, yes, I think it was!" You see, it was much of  the  same
bigness; and it had the same quick, light way with it; and then  who  else
could have got in by the laboratory door? You have not forgot,  sir,  that
at the time of the murder he had still the key with him?  But  that's  not
all. I don't know, Mr. Utterson, if you ever met this Mr. Hyde?"
     "Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him."
     "Then you must know as  well  as  the  rest  of  us  that  there  was
something queer about that gentleman-something that gave a  man  a  turn-I
don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this: that you felt in  your
marrow kind of cold and thin."
     "I own I felt something of what you describe," said Mr. Utterson.
     "Quite so, sir," returned Poole. "Well, when that masked thing like a
monkey jumped from among the chemicals and whipped into  the  cabinet,  it
went down my spine like ice. O, I know it's not  evidence,  Mr.  Utterson;
I'm book-learned enough for that; but a man has his feelings, and  I  give
you my bible-word it was Mr. Hyde!"
     "Ay, ay," said the lawyer. "My fears incline to the same point. Evil,
I fear, founded-evil was sure to come-of  that  connection.  Ay  truly,  I
believe you; I believe poor Harry is killed; and I  believe  his  murderer
(for what purpose, God alone can tell) is still lurking  in  his  victim's
room. Well, let our name be vengeance. Call Bradshaw."
     The footman came at the summons, very white and nervous.
     "Put yourself together, Bradshaw," said the lawyer. "This suspense, I
know, is telling upon all of you; but it is now our intention to  make  an
end of it. Poole, here, and I are going to force our way into the cabinet.
If all is  well,  my  shoulders  are  broad  enough  to  bear  the  blame.
Meanwhile, lest anything should really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to
escape by the back, you and the boy must go round the corner with  a  pair
of good sticks and take your post at the laboratory door. We give you  ten
minutes, to get to your stations."
     As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch.  "And  now,  Poole,
let us get to ours," he said; and taking the poker under his arm, led  the
way into the yard. The scud had banked over the moon, and it was now quite
dark. The wind, which only broke in puffs and draughts into that deep well
of building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro about their  steps,
until they came into the shelter of  the  theatre,  where  they  sat  down
silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer  at  hand,
the stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall  moving  to  and
fro along the cabinet floor.
     "So it will walk all day, sir," whispered Poole; "ay, and the  better
part of the night. Only when a new sample comes from the chemist,  there's
a bit of a break. Ah, it's an ill conscience that's such an enemy to rest!
Ah, sir, there's blood foully shed in every step of it! But hark again,  a
little closer-put your heart in your ears, Mr. Utterson, and tell  me,  is
that the doctor's foot?"
     The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all  they
went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking  tread  of
Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he asked.
     Poole nodded. "Once," he said. "Once I heard it weeping!"
     "Weeping? how that?" said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden chill  of
horror.
     "Weeping like a woman or a lost soul," said the butler. "I came  away
with that upon my heart, that I could have wept too."
     But now the ten minutes drew to an end.  Poole  disinterred  the  axe
from under a stack of packing straw; the candle was set upon  the  nearest
table to light them to the attack; and they drew near with bated breath to
where that patient foot was still going up and down, up and down,  in  the
quiet of the night. "Jekyll," cried Utterson, with a loud voice, "I demand
to see you." He paused a moment, but there came no reply. "I give you fair
warning, our suspicions are aroused, and I must and  shall  see  you,"  he
resumed; "if not by fair means, then by foul-if not of your consent,  then
by brute force!"
     "Utterson," said the voice, "for God's sake, have mercy!"
     "Ah, that's not Jekyll's voice-it's Hyde's!"  cried  Utterson.  "Down
with the door, Poole!"
     Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the blow shook  the  building,
and the red baize door leaped  against  the  lock  and  hinges.  A  dismal
screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the cabinet. Up went the  axe
again, and again the panels crashed and the frame bounded; four times  the
blow fell; but the wood was tough  and  the  fittings  were  of  excellent
workmanship; and it was not until the fifth, that the lock burst  and  the
wreck of the door fell inwards on the carpet.
     The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness that  had
succeeded, stood back a little and peered in. There lay the cabinet before
their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good fire glowing and  chattering  on
the hearth, the kettle singing its thin strain,  a  drawer  or  two  open,
papers neatly set forth on the business table, and nearer  the  fire,  the
things laid out for tea; the quietest room, you would have said, and,  but
for the glazed presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that  night
in London.
     Right in the middle there lay the body of a man sorely contorted  and
still twitching. They drew near on tiptoe,  turned  it  on  its  back  and
beheld the face of Edward Hyde. He was dressed in clothes far to large for
him, clothes of the doctor's bigness; the cords of his  face  still  moved
with a semblance of life, but life was quite  gone:  and  by  the  crushed
phial in the hand and the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the  air,
Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer.
     "We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether to save or punish.
Hyde is gone to his account; and it only remains for us to find  the  body
of your master."
     The far greater proportion  of  the  building  was  occupied  by  the
theatre, which filled almost the whole ground storey and was lighted  from
above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper  story  at  one  end  and
looked upon the court. A corridor joined the theatre to the  door  on  the
by-street; and with this the cabinet communicated separately by  a  second
flight of stairs. There were besides a few dark  closets  and  a  spacious
cellar. All these they now thorougly examined. Each closet  needed  but  a
glance, for all were empty, and all, by the  dust  that  fell  from  their
doors, had stood long unopened. The cellar, indeed, was filled with  crazy
lumber, mostly dating from the times  of  the  surgeon  who  was  Jekyll's
predecessor; but even as they opened the door they were advertised of  the
uselessness of further search, by the fall of  a  perfect  mat  of  cobweb
which had for years sealed up the entrance. No where was there  any  trace
of Henry Jekyll dead or alive.
     Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor. "He must be buried here,"
he said, hearkening to the sound.
     "Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned  to  examine  the
door in the by-street. It was locked; and lying near by on the flags, they
found the key, already stained with rust.
     "This does not look like use," observed the lawyer.
     "Use!" echoed Poole. "Do you not see, sir, it is broken? much as if a
man had stamped on it."
     "Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too,  are  rusty."  The
two men looked at each other with a scare. "This  is  beyond  me,  Poole,"
said the lawyer. "Let us go back to the cabinet."
     They mounted the stair in  silence,  and  still  with  an  occasional
awestruck glance at the dead body, proceeded more  thoroughly  to  examine
the contents of the cabinet. At one table, there were traces  of  chemical
work, various measured heaps of  some  white  salt  being  laid  on  glass
saucers, as though for an experiment in which the  unhappy  man  had  been
prevented.
     "That is the same drug that I was always bringing him,"  said  Poole;
and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise boiled over.
     This brought them to the fireside, where  the  easy-chair  was  drawn
cosily up, and the tea things stood ready to the sitter's elbow, the  very
sugar in the cup. There were several books on a shelf; one lay beside  the
tea things open, and Utterson was amazed to find it  a  copy  of  a  pious
work, for which  Jekyll  had  several  times  expressed  a  great  esteem,
annotated, in his own hand with startling blasphemies.
     Next, in the course of their review of  the  chamber,  the  searchers
came  to  the  cheval-glass,  into  whose  depths  they  looked  with   an
involuntary horror. But it was so turned as to show them nothing  but  the
rosy glow playing on the roof, the fire sparkling in a hundred repetitions
along the glazed front of the presses, and  their  own  pale  and  fearful
countenances stooping to look in.
     "This glass has seen some strange things, sir," whispered Poole.
     "And surely none stranger than itself," echoed the lawyer in the same
tones. "For what did Jekyll"-he caught himself  up  at  the  word  with  a
start, and then conquering the weakness-"what could Jekyll want with  it?"
he said.
     "You may say that!" said Poole.
     Next they turned to the business table. On the desk, among  the  neat
array of papers, a large envelope was uppermost, and bore, in the doctor's
hand, the name of Mr.  Utterson.  The  lawyer  unsealed  it,  and  several
enclosures fell to the floor. The first was a  will,  drawn  in  the  same
eccentric terms as the one which he had returned  six  months  before,  to
serve as a testament in case of death and as a deed of  gift  in  case  of
disappearance; but in place of the name of Edward Hyde, the  lawyer,  with
indescribable amazement read the name of Gabriel John Utterson. He  looked
at Poole, and then back at  the  paper,  and  last  of  all  at  the  dead
malefactor stretched upon the carpet.
     "My head goes round," he  said.  "He  has  been  all  these  days  in
possession; he had no cause to like me; he must have raged to see  himself
displaced; and he has not destroyed this document."
     He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in the doctor's hand
and dated at the top. "O Poole!" the lawyer cried, "he was alive and  here
this day. He cannot have been disposed of in so short a space; he must  be
still alive, he must have fled! And then, why fled? and how? and  in  that
case, can we venture to declare this suicide? O, we  must  be  careful.  I
foresee that we may yet involve your master in some dire catastrophe."
     "Why don't you read it, sir?" asked Poole.
     "Because I fear," replied the lawyer solemnly. "God grant I  have  no
cause for it!" And with that he brought the paper to his eyes and read  as
follows:
     "My dear Utterson,-When this shall fall into your hands, I shall have
disappeared, under what  circumstances  I  have  not  the  penetration  to
foresee, but  my  instinct  and  all  the  circumstances  of  my  nameless
situation tell me that the end is sure and must be  early.  Go  then,  and
first read the narrative which Lanyon warned me he was to  place  in  your
hands; and if you care to hear more, turn to the confession of
     "Your unworthy and unhappy friend, "HENRY JEKYLL."
     "There was a third enclosure?" asked Utterson.
     "Here, sir," said Poole, and  gave  into  his  hands  a  considerable
packet sealed in several places.
     The lawyer put it in his pocket. "I would say nothing of this  paper.
If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit. It is
now ten; I must go home and read these documents in quiet; but I shall  be
back before midnight, when we shall send for the police."
     They went out, locking the door  of  the  theatre  behind  them;  and
Utterson, once more leaving the servants gathered about the  fire  in  the
hall, trudged back to his office to read the two narratives in which  this
mystery was now to be explained.





     On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the evening
delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of my colleague  and
old school companion, Henry Jekyll. I was a good deal surprised  by  this;
for we were by no means in the habit of correspondence;  I  had  seen  the
man, dined with him, indeed, the night before; and I could imagine nothing
in our intercourse that should  justify  formality  of  registration.  The
contents increased my wonder; for this is how the letter ran:
                                      "10th December, 18-.
     "Dear Lanyon,-You are one of my oldest friends; and although  we  may
have differed at times on scientific  questions,  I  cannot  remember,  at
least on my side, any break in our affection. There was never a day  when,
if you had said to me, `Jekyll, my life, my honour, my reason, depend upon
you,' I would not have sacrificed my left hand  to  help  you.  Lanyon  my
life, my honour, my reason,  are  all  at  your  mercy;  if  you  fail  me
to-night, I am lost. You might suppose, after  this  preface,  that  I  am
going to ask you for something dishonourable to grant. Judge for yourself.
     "I want you to postpone all other engagements for to-nightay, even if
you were summoned to the bedside of an emperor; to take a cab, unless your
carriage should be actually at the door; and with this letter in your hand
for consultation, to drive straight to my house. Poole, my butler, has his
orders; you will find him waiting your arrival with a locksmith. The  door
of my cabinet is then to be forced: and you are to go in  alone;  to  open
the glazed press (letter E) on the left hand, breaking the lock if  it  be
shut; and to draw out, with all its contents as  they  stand,  the  fourth
drawer from the top or (which is  the  same  thing)  the  third  from  the
bottom. In  my  extreme  distress  of  mind,  I  have  a  morbid  fear  of
misdirecting you; but even if I am in error, you may know the right drawer
by its contents: some powders, a phial and a paper book. This drawer I beg
of you to carry back with you to Cavendish Square exactly as it stands.
     "That is the first part of the  service:  now  for  the  second.  You
should be back, if you set out at once on the receipt of this, long before
midnight; but I will leave you that amount of margin, not only in the fear
of one of those obstacles that can neither be prevented nor foreseen,  but
because an hour when your servants are in bed is to be preferred for  what
will then remain to do. At midnight, then, I have to ask you to  be  alone
in your consulting room, to admit with your own hand into the house a  man
who will present himself in my name, and to place in his hands the  drawer
that you will have brought with you from my cabinet. Then  you  will  have
played  your  part  and  earned  my  gratitude  completely.  Five  minutes
afterwards, if you insist upon an explanation, you  will  have  understood
that these arrangements are of capital importance; and that by the neglect
of one of them, fantastic as they must appear, you might have charged your
conscience with my death or the shipwreck of my reason.
     "Confident as I am that you will not  trifle  with  this  appeal,  my
heart  sinks  and  my  hand  trembles  at  the  bare  thought  of  such  a
possibility. Think of me at this hour, in a strange place, labouring under
a blackness of distress that no fancy can exaggerate, and yet  well  aware
that, if you will but punctually serve me, my troubles will roll away like
a story that is told. Serve me, my dear Lanyon and save
                                 "Your friend,
                                              "H.J.
     "P.S.-I had already sealed this up when a fresh terror struck upon my
soul. It is possible that the post-office may fail me, and this letter not
come into your hands until to-morrow morning. In that case,  dear  Lanyon,
do my errand when it shall be most convenient for you in the course of the
day; and once more expect my messenger at midnight. It may then already be
too late; and if that night passes without event, you will know  that  you
have seen the last of Henry Jekyll."
     Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was insane;
but till that was proved beyond the possibility of doubt, I felt bound  to
do as he requested. The less I understood of this farrago, the less I  was
in a position to judge of its importance; and an appeal  so  worded  could
not be set aside without a grave responsibility. I rose  accordingly  from
table, got into a hansom, and drove straight to Jekyll's house. The butler
was awaiting my arrival; he had received  by  the  same  post  as  mine  a
registered letter of instruction, and had sent at once for a locksmith and
a carpenter. The tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; and  we  moved
in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical theatre, from  which  (as  you  are
doubtless aware) Jekyll's private cabinet is  most  conveniently  entered.
The door was very strong, the lock  excellent;  the  carpenter  avowed  he
would have great trouble and have to do much damage, if force were  to  be
used; and the locksmith was near  despair.  But  this  last  was  a  handy
fellow, and after two hour's work, the door stood open. The press marked E
was unlocked; and I took out the drawer, had it filled up with  straw  and
tied in a sheet, and returned with it to Cavendish Square.
     Here I proceeded to examine its contents.  The  powders  were  neatly
enough made up, but not with the nicety of the dispensing chemist; so that
it was plain they were of Jekyll's private manufacture: and when I  opened
one of the wrappers I found what seemed to me a simple crystalline salt of
a white colour. The phial, to which I next turned my attention, might have
been about half full of a blood-red liquor, which was  highly  pungent  to
the sense of smell and  seemed  to  me  to  contain  phosphorus  and  some
volatile ether. At the other ingredients I could make no guess.  The  book
was an ordinary version book and contained little but a series  of  dates.
These covered a period of many years, but  I  observed  that  the  entries
ceased nearly a year ago and quite abruptly. Here and there a brief remark
was appended to a date, usually no  more  than  a  single  word:  "double"
occurring perhaps six times in a total of  several  hundred  entries;  and
once very early in the list and followed by several marks of  exclamation,
"total failure!!!" All this, though  it  whetted  my  curiosity,  told  me
little that was definite. Here were a phial of some salt, and  the  record
of a series of experiments  that  had  led  (like  too  many  of  Jekyll's
investigations) to no end of practical usefulness. How could the  presence
of these articles in my house affect either the honour, the sanity, or the
life of my flighty colleague? If his messenger could go to one place,  why
could he not go to another? And even granting  some  impediment,  why  was
this gentleman to be received by me in secret? The more  I  reflected  the
more convinced I grew that I was dealing with a case of cerebral  disease;
and though I dismissed my servants to bed, I loaded an old revolver,  that
I might be found in some posture of self-defence.
     Twelve o'clock had scarce rung  out  over  London,  ere  the  knocker
sounded very gently on the door. I went myself at the summons, and found a
small man crouching against the pillars of the portico.
     "Are you come from Dr. Jekyll?" I asked.
     He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture; and when I had bidden  him
enter, he did not obey me without a searching  backward  glance  into  the
darkness of the square. There was a policeman not far off, advancing  with
his bull's eye open; and at the sight, I thought my  visitor  started  and
made greater haste.
     These particulars struck  me,  I  confess,  disagreeably;  and  as  I
followed him into the bright light of the consulting room, I kept my  hand
ready on my weapon. Here, at last, I had a chance of clearly seeing him. I
had never set eyes on him before, so much was certain. He was small, as  I
have said; I was struck besides with the shocking expression of his  face,
with his remarkable combination  of  great  muscular  activity  and  great
apparent debility of constitution, and-last but not  least-with  the  odd,
subjective  disturbance  caused  by  his  neighbourhood.  This  bore  some
resemblance to incipient rigour, and was accompanied by a  marked  sinking
of the pulse. At the time, I set it down to some  idiosyncratic,  personal
distaste, and merely wondered at the acuteness of the symptoms; but I have
since had reason to believe the cause to lie much deeper in the nature  of
man, and to turn on some nobler hinge than the principle of hatred.
     This person (who had thus, from the first  moment  of  his  entrance,
struck in me what I can only, describe  as  a  disgustful  curiosity)  was
dressed in a fashion that would have made an  ordinary  person  laughable;
his clothes, that is to say, although they were of rich and sober  fabric,
were enormously too  large  for  him  in  every  measurement-the  trousers
hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground, the  waist
of the coat below his haunches, and the collar  sprawling  wide  upon  his
shoulders. Strange to relate, this ludicrous  accoutrement  was  far  from
moving me to  laughter.  Rather,  as  there  was  something  abnormal  and
misbegotten  in  the  very  essence  of  the  creature  that   now   faced
me-something seizing, surprising and revoltingthis fresh disparity  seemed
but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that  to  my  interest  in  the
man's nature and character, there was added a curiosity as to his  origin,
his life, his fortune and status in the world.
     These observations, though they have taken so great a space to be set
down in, were yet the work of a few seconds. My visitor  was,  indeed,  on
fire with sombre excitement.
     "Have you got it?" he cried. "Have you got it?" And so lively was his
impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm and sought to shake me.
     I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang along my
blood. "Come, sir," said I. "You forget that I have not yet  the  pleasure
of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you  please."  And  I  showed  him  an
example, and sat down myself in my customary seat  and  with  as  fair  an
imitation of my ordinary manner to a patient, as the lateness of the hour,
the nature of my preoccupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would
suffer me to muster.
     "I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied civilly enough. "What you
say is very well founded; and my impatience has  shown  its  heels  to  my
politeness. I come here at the  instance  of  your  colleague,  Dr.  Henry
Jekyll, on a piece of business of some moment; and I  understood  ..."  He
paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in  spite  of  his
collected manner, that he was wrestling  against  the  approaches  of  the
hysteria-"I understood, a drawer ..."
     But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some perhaps on my
own growing curiosity.
     "There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the drawer, where it  lay  on
the floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.
     He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his heart: I
could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of his jaws; and his
face was so ghastly to see that I grew  alarmed  both  for  his  life  and
reason.
     "Compose yourself," said I.
     He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as  if  with  the  decision  of
despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents, he uttered  one
loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified. And the next moment,
in a voice that was  already  fairly  well  under  control,  "Have  you  a
graduated glass?" he asked.
     I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him what he
asked.
     He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few  minims  of  the
red tincture and added one of the powders. The mixture, which was at first
of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the crystals melted, to brighten
in colour, to effervesce audibly, and to throw off small fumes of  vapour.
Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullition ceased  and  the  compound
changed to a dark purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green.
My visitor, who had watched these metamorphoses with a keen  eye,  smiled,
set down the glass upon the table, and then turned and looked upon me with
an air of scrutiny.
     "And now," said he, "to settle what remains. Will you be  wise?  will
you be guided? will you suffer me to take this glass in my hand and to  go
forth from your  house  without  further  parley?  or  has  the  greed  of
curiosity too much command of you? Think before you answer, for  it  shall
be done as you decide. As you decide,  you  shall  be  left  as  you  were
before, and neither richer nor wiser, unless the sense of service rendered
to a man in mortal distress may be counted as a  kind  of  riches  of  the
soul. Or, if you shall so prefer to choose, a new  province  of  knowledge
and new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you, here, in this
room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted by  a  prodigy  to
stagger the unbelief of Satan."
     "Sir," said I, affecting  a  coolness  that  I  was  far  from  truly
possessing, "you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps  not  wonder  that  I
hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I have gone too far
in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end."
     "It is well," replied my visitor. "Lanyon, you  remember  your  vows:
what follows is under the seal of our profession. And now, you who have so
long been bound to the most narrow and material views, you who have denied
the  virtue  of  transcendental  medicine,  you  who  have  derided   your
superiors-behold!"
     He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A  cry  followed;
he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table  and  held  on,  staring  with
injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as  I  looked  there  came,  I
thought, a change-he seemed to swellhis face became suddenly black and the
features seemed to melt and alter-and the next moment, I had sprung to  my
feet and leaped back against the wall, my arms raised to  shield  me  from
that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.
     "O God!" I screamed, and "O God!" again and again; for  there  before
my eyes-pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping  before  him  with
his hands, like a man restored from death-there stood Henry Jekyll!
     What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind  to  set  on
paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened at it;
and yet now when that sight has faded from my eyes,  I  ask  myself  if  I
believe it, and I cannot answer. My life is shaken to its roots; sleep has
left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at  all  hours  of  the  day  and
night; and I feel that my days are numbered, and that I must die; and  yet
I shall die incredulous. As for the moral turpitude that man  unveiled  to
me, even with tears of penitence, I can not, even in memory, dwell  on  it
without a start of horror. I will say but one thing,  Utterson,  and  that
(if you can bring your mind to credit it) will be more  than  enough.  The
creature who  crept  into  my  house  that  night  was,  on  Jekyll's  own
confession, known by the name of Hyde and hunted for in  every  corner  of
the land as the murderer of Carew.

     HASTIE LANYON





     I was born in the year 18- to a large fortune, endowed  besides  with
excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of  the  respect  of
the wise and good among  my  fellowmen,  and  thus,  as  might  have  been
supposed, with every guarantee of an honorurable and distinguished future.
And indeed the worst of my  faults  was  a  certain  impatient  gaiety  of
disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as  I  found
it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head  high,  and
wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the  public.  Hence  it
came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of
reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my  progress  and
position in the world, I stood already committed to a  profound  duplicity
of me. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities  as  I  was
guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before  me,  I  regarded
and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather  the
exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular  degradation  in  my
faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper  trench  than  in
the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and  ill  which
divide and compound man's dual nature. In  this  case,  I  was  driven  to
reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life,  which  lies  at
the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense  a  hypocrite;  both
sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I  laid  aside
restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye  of  day,
at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering.  And
it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which  led  wholly
towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light
on this consciousness of the perennial war among my  members.  With  every
day,  and  from  both  sides  of  my  intelligence,  the  moral  and   the
intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose  partial
discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not
truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge
does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will  outstrip
me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will  be  ultimately
known for a mere  polity  of  multifarious,  incongruous  and  independent
denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced  infallibly
in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side,  and
in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough  and  primitive
duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field
of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it  was
only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the
course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest  the  most  naked
possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as  a
beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these  elements.  If
each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be
relieved of all  that  was  unbearable;  the  unjust  might  go  his  way,
delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright  twin;  and
the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the
good things in which he found his  pleasure,  and  no  longer  exposed  to
disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.  It  was  the
curse  of  mankind  that  these  incongruous  faggots  were   thus   bound
together-that in the agonised womb of  consciousness,  these  polar  twins
should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?
     I was so far in my reflections when, as I have  said,  a  side  light
began to shine upon the subject from the  laboratory  table.  I  began  to
perceive more deeply than it has  ever  yet  been  stated,  the  trembling
immateriality, the mistlike transience, of this seemingly so solid body in
which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power  to  shake
and pluck back that fleshly vestment,  even  as  a  wind  might  toss  the
curtains of a pavilion. For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into
this scientific branch of my confession. First, because I have  been  made
to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on  man's
shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it  off,  it  but  returns
upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure. Second, because,  as
my narrative will make, alas! too evident, my discoveries were incomplete.
Enough then, that I not only recognised my natural body from the mere aura
and effulgence of certain of the  powers  that  made  up  my  spirit,  but
managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned  from
their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted,  none  the
less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp of
lower elements in my soul.
     I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice.  I
knew well that I risked death; for any drug that  so  potently  controlled
and shook the very fortress of identity, might, by the least scruple of an
overdose or at the  least  inopportunity  in  the  moment  of  exhibition,
utterly blot out that immaterial  tabernacle  which  I  looked  to  it  to
change. But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last
overcame the suggestions of alarm. I had long since prepared my  tincture;
I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a  large  quantity
of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments,  to  be  the  last
ingredient required;  and  late  one  accursed  night,  I  compounded  the
elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when  the
ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow  of  courage,  drank  off  the
potion.
     The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding  in  the  bones,  deadly
nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour  of
birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to
myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something  strange  in  my
sensations, something  indescribably  new  and,  from  its  very  novelty,
incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within  I  was
conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual  images
running like  a  millrace  in  my  fancy,  a  solution  of  the  bonds  of
obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of  the  soul.  I  knew
myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more  wicked,  tenfold
more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the  thought,  in  that
moment, braced and delighted me like  wine.  I  stretched  out  my  hands,
exulting in the freshness of these sensations;  and  in  the  act,  I  was
suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.
     There was no mirror, at that date, in  my  room;  that  which  stands
beside me as I write, was brought there later on and for the very  purpose
of these transformations.  The  night  however,  was  far  gone  into  the
morning-the morning, black as it was, was nearly ripe for  the  conception
of the day-the inmates of my house were locked in the most rigorous  hours
of slumber; and I determined, flushed as I was with hope and  triumph,  to
venture in my new shape as far as to  my  bedroom.  I  crossed  the  yard,
wherein the constellations looked down upon me, I could have thought, with
wonder, the first creature of that sort that  their  unsleeping  vigilance
had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my
own house; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the  appearance
of Edward Hyde.
     I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know,  but
that which I suppose to be most probable. The evil side of my  nature,  to
which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy,  was  less  robust  and
less developed than the good which I  had  just  deposed.  Again,  in  the
course of my life, which had been,  after  all,  nine  tenths  a  life  of
effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much  less
exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward  Hyde  was  so
much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as  good  shone
upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and  plainly  on
the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be  the
lethal side of man) had left on that body  an  imprint  of  deformity  and
decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly  idol  in  the  glass,  I  was
conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.  This,  too,  was
myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a  livelier  image
of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the  imperfect  and
divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so
far I was doubtless right. I have observed that when I wore the  semblance
of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me  at  first  without  a  visible
misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human  beings,
as we meet them, are commingled out of good and  evil:  and  Edward  Hyde,
alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.
     I lingered but a moment at the  mirror:  the  second  and  conclusive
experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen  if  I  had
lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before  daylight  from  a
house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to  my  cabinet,  I  once
more prepared  and  drank  the  cup,  once  more  suffered  the  pangs  of
dissolution, and came to myself once more with the character, the  stature
and the face of Henry Jekyll.
     That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I  approached  my
discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while  under
the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise,
and from these agonies of death and birth,  I  had  come  forth  an  angel
instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating action; it was  neither
diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of  the  prisonhouse  of  my
disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that  which  stood  within
ran forth. At that time my  virtue  slumbered;  my  evil,  kept  awake  by
ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and  the  thing  that
was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as
well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still  the
old Henry Jekyll, that  incongruous  compound  of  whose  reformation  and
improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly
toward the worse.
     Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the dryness of
a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at  times;  and  as  my
pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I  was  not  only  well
known and highly considered, but growing towards  the  elderly  man,  this
incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It  was  on  this
side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I  had  but  to
drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the  noted  professor,  and  to
assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at  the  notion;
it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I  made  my  preparations
with the most studious care. I took and furnished that house in  Soho,  to
which Hyde was tracked by the police;  and  engaged  as  a  housekeeper  a
creature whom I knew well to be silent  and  unscrupulous.  On  the  other
side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to
have full liberty and power about my house in the  square;  and  to  parry
mishaps, I even called and made myself a familiar  object,  in  my  second
character. I next drew up that will to which you so much objected; so that
if anything befell me in the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter  on  that
of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss. And thus fortified, as I  supposed,
on every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities of my position.
     Men have before hired bravos to transact their  crimes,  while  their
own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did
so for his pleasures. I was the first that could plod in  the  public  eye
with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like  a  schoolboy,
strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty.  But
for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safely was complete. Think of  it-I
did not even exist! Let me but escape into my laboratory door, give me but
a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always  standing
ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde  would  pass  away  like  the
stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead,  quietly  at  home,
trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford  to  laugh
at suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll.
     The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise  were,  as  I
have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands
of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would
come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder
at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul,
and sent forth alone to do his  good  pleasure,  was  a  being  inherently
malign and villainous;  his  every  act  and  thought  centered  on  self;
drinking pleasure with bestial avidity  from  any  degree  of  torture  to
another; relentless like a man of  stone.  Henry  Jekyll  stood  at  times
aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation  was  apart  from
ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp  of  conscience.  It  was
Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse;  he
woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even  make
haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus  his
conscience slumbered.
     Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for even now
I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design  of  entering;  I
mean but to point out the warnings and the successive steps with which  my
chastisement approached. I met with one accident which, as it  brought  on
no consequence, I shall no more than mention. An act of cruelty to a child
aroused against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised  the  other
day in the person of your kinsman;  the  doctor  and  the  child's  family
joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life; and at last,  in
order to pacify their too just resentment, Edward Hyde had to  bring  them
to the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn in the name of  Henry  Jekyll.
But this danger was easily eliminated  from  the  future,  by  opening  an
account at another bank in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and  when,  by
sloping my own hand backward, I had supplied my double with a signature, I
thought I sat beyond the reach of fate.
     Some two months before the, murder of Sir Danvers, I had been out for
one of my adventures, had returned at a late hour, and woke the  next  day
in bed with somewhat odd sensations. It was in vain I looked about me;  in
vain I saw the decent furniture and tall proportions of  my  room  in  the
square; in vain that I recognised the pattern of the bed curtains and  the
design of the mahogany frame; something still kept insisting  that  I  was
not where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to be, but  in  the
little room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the body of  Edward
Hyde. I smiled to myself, and in my psychological  way,  began  lazily  to
inquire into the elements of this illusion, occasionally, even  as  I  did
so, dropping back into a comfortable morning doze. I was still so  engaged
when, in one of my more wakeful moments, my eyes fell upon  my  hand.  Now
the hand of Henry Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was professional  in
shape and size: it was large, firm, white and comely. But the hand which I
now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow  light  of  a  mid-London  morning,
lying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean, corder, knuckly, of  a  dusky
pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair. It was the hand  of
Edward Hyde.
     I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I  was  in
the mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my breast as sudden
and startling as the crash of cymbals; and bounding from my bed  I  rushed
to the mirror. At the sight that met my eyes, my blood  was  changed  into
something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I
had awakened Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained?  I  asked  myself;
and then, with another bound of terror-how was it to be remedied?  It  was
well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my  drugs  were  in  the
cabinet-a long journey down two pairs of stairs, through the back passage,
across the open court and through the anatomical theatre, from where I was
then standing horror-struck. It might indeed be possible to cover my face;
but of what use was that, when I was unable to conceal the  alteration  in
my stature? And then with an overpowering sweetness  of  relief,  it  came
back upon my mind that the servants were already used to  the  coming  and
going of my second self. I had soon dressed, as well as  I  was  able,  in
clothes of my own size: had soon passed through the house, where  Bradshaw
stared and drew back at seeing Mr. Hyde at such an  hour  and  in  such  a
strange array; and ten minutes later, Dr. Jekyll had returned to  his  own
shape and was sitting down, with a darkened  brow,  to  make  a  feint  of
breakfasting.
     Small indeed  was  my  appetite.  This  inexplicable  incident,  this
reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the Babylonian finger  on
the wall, to be spelling out the letters of my judgment; and  I  began  to
reflect more seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities of
my double existence. That part of me which I had the power of  projecting,
had lately been much exercised and nourished; it had seemed to me of  late
as though the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though (when  I
wore that form) I were conscious of a more generous tide of blood;  and  I
began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my
nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary  change  be
forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably  mine.  The
power of the drug had not been always equally displayed. Once, very  early
in my career, it had totally failed me; since then I had been  obliged  on
more than one occasion to double, and once, with infinite risk  of  death,
to treble the amount; and these rare uncertainties had cast  hitherto  the
sole shadow on my contentment. Now, however, and  in  the  light  of  that
morning's accident, I was led to remark that whereas,  in  the  beginning,
the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it  had  of  late
gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side.  All  things
therefore seemed to point to this; that I was slowly  losing  hold  of  my
original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my  second
and worse.
     Between these two, I now felt I had to choose.  My  two  natures  had
memory in common, but all  other  faculties  were  most  unequally  shared
between them. Jekyll (who was  composite)  now  with  the  most  sensitive
apprehensions, now with a  greedy  gusto,  projected  and  shared  in  the
pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to  Jekyll,  or
but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he
conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a  father's  interest;
Hyde had more than a son's indifference. To cast in my  lot  with  Jekyll,
was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged  and  had
of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand
interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever,  despised
and friendless. The bargain might appear  unequal;  but  there  was  still
another consideration  in  the  scales;  for  while  Jekyll  would  suffer
smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of
all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of  this
debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the  same  inducements  and
alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell  out
with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that  I  chose
the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.
     Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor,  surrounded  by
friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a resolute farewell  to  the
liberty, the comparative youth,  the  light  step,  leaping  impulses  and
secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I made  this
choice perhaps with some unconscious reservation, for I  neither  gave  up
the house in Soho, nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde,  which  still
lay ready in my cabinet. For  two  months,  however,  I  was  true  to  my
determination; for two months, I led a life of  such  severity  as  I  had
never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations  of  an  approving
conscience. But time began at last  to  obliterate  the  freshness  of  my
alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of  course;  I
began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after
freedom; and at  last,  in  an  hour  of  moral  weakness,  I  once  again
compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.
     I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon  his
vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he
runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I
had considered my position, made enough allowance for the  complete  moral
insensibility and insensate readiness to  evil,  which  were  the  leading
characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these that  I  was  punished.  My
devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when
I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill.
It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of
impatience with which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I
declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been  guilty
of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no  more
reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break  a  plaything.
But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts  by
which even the  worst  of  us  continues  to  walk  with  some  degree  of
steadiness among temptations; and in  my  case,  to  be  tempted,  however
slightly, was to fall.
     Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. With a  transport
of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from  every  blow;
and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that I  was  suddenly,
in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a  cold  thrill
of terror. A mist dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit;  and  fled  from
the scene of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling,  my  lust  of
evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost peg.
I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance doubly sure)  destroyed
my papers; thence I set out through  the  lamplit  streets,  in  the  same
divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on  my  crime,  light-headedly  devising
others in the future, and yet still hastening and still hearkening  in  my
wake for the steps of the avenger. Hyde had a song upon  his  lips  as  he
compounded the draught, and as he drank it,  pledged  the  dead  man.  The
pangs of transformation had not done tearing  him,  before  Henry  Jekyll,
with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon  his  knees
and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was  rent
from head to foot. I saw my life as a whole: I followed  it  up  from  the
days of childhood, when I had walked with my father's  hand,  and  through
the self-denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and again,
with the same sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening.  I
could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to smother down
the crowd of hideous images  and  sounds  with  which  my  memory  swarmed
against me; and still, between the petitions, the ugly face of my iniquity
stared into my soul. As the acuteness of this remorse began to  die  away,
it was succeeded by a sense of joy. The problem of my conduct was  solved.
Hyde was thenceforth impossible;  whether  I  would  or  not,  I  was  now
confined to the better part of my existence; and  O,  how  I  rejoiced  to
think of it! with what willing humility I embraced anew  the  restrictions
of natural life! with what sincere renunciation I locked the door by which
I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under my heel!
     The next day, came the news that the murder had been overlooked, that
the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and that the victim was  a  man
high in public estimation. It was not only a crime, it had been  a  tragic
folly. I think I was glad to know it; I think I was glad to have my better
impulses thus buttressed and guarded  by  the  terrors  of  the  scaffold.
Jekyll was now my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out  an  instant,  and
the hands of all men would be raised to take and slay him.
     I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past;  and  I  can  say
with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know  yourself
how earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I laboured to  relieve
suffering; you know that much was done  for  others,  and  that  the  days
passed quietly, almost happily for myself. Nor can  I  truly  say  that  I
wearied of this beneficent and innocent life; I think instead that I daily
enjoyed it more completely; but I was still  cursed  with  my  duality  of
purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of
me, so long indulged,  so  recently  chained  down,  began  to  growl  for
licence. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea  of  that
would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own person that  I  was  once
more tempted to trifle with my conscience;  and  it  was  as  an  ordinary
secret sinner that I at last fell before the assaults of temptation.
     There comes an end to all  things;  the  most  capacious  measure  is
filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally  destroyed
the balance of my soul. And  yet  I  was  not  alarmed;  the  fall  seemed
natural, like a return to the old days before I had made my discovery.  It
was a fine, clear, January day, wet under foot where the frost had melted,
but  cloudless  overhead;  and  the  Regent's  Park  was  full  of  winter
chirrupings and sweet with spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the
animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a  little
drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After
all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I  smiled,  comparing
myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty
of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious  thought,  a
qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering.  These
passed away, and left  me  faint;  and  then  as  in  its  turn  faintness
subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts,  a
greater boldness, a contempt  of  danger,  a  solution  of  the  bonds  of
obligation. I looked down; my  clothes  hung  formlessly  on  my  shrunken
limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once  more
Edward Hyde. A moment before  I  had  been  safe  of  all  men's  respect,
wealthy, beloved-the cloth laying for me in the dining-room at  home;  and
now I was the  common  quarry  of  mankind,  hunted,  houseless,  a  known
murderer, thrall to the gallows.
     My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have  more  than
once observed that in my second character, my faculties  seemed  sharpened
to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came  about  that,
where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance  of
the moment. My drugs were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how  was  I
to reach them? That was the problem that (crushing my temples in my hands)
I set myself to solve. The laboratory door I had closed. If  I  sought  to
enter by the house, my own servants would consign me to the gallows. I saw
I must employ another hand, and thought  of  Lanyon.  How  was  he  to  be
reached? how persuaded? Supposing that I escaped capture in  the  streets,
how was I to make my way into his presence? and how should I,  an  unknown
and displeasing visitor, prevail on the  famous  physician  to  rifle  the
study of his colleague, Dr. Jekyll? Then I remembered that of my  original
character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once  I
had conceived that kindling spark, the  way  that  I  must  follow  became
lighted up from end to end.
     Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I  could,  and  summoning  a
passing hansom, drove to an hotel in Portland Street, the name of which  I
chanced to remember. At my appearance (which was  indeed  comical  enough,
however tragic a fate these garments covered) the driver could not conceal
his mirth. I gnashed my teeth upon him with a gust of devilish  fury;  and
the smile withered from his face-happily  for  him-yet  more  happily  for
myself, for in another instant I had certainly dragged him from his perch.
At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with so black a countenance as
made the attendants tremble; not a look did they exchange in my  presence;
but obsequiously took my orders, led me to a private room, and brought  me
wherewithal to write. Hyde in danger of his life was a creature new to me;
shaken with inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of  murder,  lusting  to
inflict pain. Yet the creature was astute; mastered his fury with a  great
effort of the will; composed his two important letters, one to Lanyon  and
one to Poole; and that he might receive actual  evidence  of  their  being
posted, sent them out with directions  that  they  should  be  registered.
Thenceforward, he sat all day over the fire in the private  room,  gnawing
his nails; there he dined,  sitting  alone  with  his  fears,  the  waiter
visibly quailing before his eye; and thence,  when  the  night  was  fully
come, he set forth in the corner of a closed cab, and was  driven  to  and
fro about the streets of the city. He, I say-I cannot say, I.  That  child
of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and  hatred.  And
when at last, thinking  the  driver  had  begun  to  grow  suspicious,  he
discharged the cab  and  ventured  on  foot,  attired  in  his  misfitting
clothes, an object marked out for  observation,  into  the  midst  of  the
nocturnal passengers, these two base passions  raged  within  him  like  a
tempest. He walked fast, hunted  by  his  fears,  chattering  to  himself,
skulking through the less frequented thoroughfares, counting  the  minutes
that still divided him from midnight. Once a woman spoke to him, offering,
I think, a box of lights. He smote her in the face, and she fled.
     When I came to myself at  Lanyon's,  the  horror  of  my  old  friend
perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but a drop in
the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back  upon  these  hours.  A
change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it  was
the horror of being Hyde that racked me. I received Lanyon's  condemnation
partly in a dream; it was partly in a dream that I came  home  to  my  own
house and got into bed. I slept after the prostration of the day,  with  a
stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me
could avail to break.  I  awoke  in  the  morning  shaken,  weakened,  but
refreshed. I still hated and feared the thought of the  brute  that  slept
within me, and I had not of course forgotten the appalling dangers of  the
day before; but I was once more at home, in my own house and close  to  my
drugs; and gratitude for my escape shone so strong  in  my  soul  that  it
almost rivalled the brightness of hope.
     I was stepping leisurely across the court after  breakfast,  drinking
the chill of the air with pleasure, when I was  seized  again  with  those
indescribable sensations that heralded the change; and I had but the  time
to gain the shelter of my cabinet, before I  was  once  again  raging  and
freezing with the passions of Hyde. It took on this occasion a double dose
to recall me to myself; and alas! six hours after, as I sat looking  sadly
in the fire, the pangs returned, and the drug had to  be  re-administered.
In short, from that day forth it seemed only  by  a  great  effort  as  of
gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the drug,  that  I
was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll. At all hours of  the  day  and
night, I would be taken with the premonitory  shudder;  above  all,  if  I
slept, or even dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as Hyde  that
I awakened. Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the
sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I  had
thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature  eaten  up
and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body  and  mind,  and  solely
occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self. But when I slept, or
when the virtue of the medicine wore off,  I  would  leap  almost  without
transition (for the pangs of transformation grew daily less  marked)  into
the possession of a fancy brimming with images of terror, a  soul  boiling
with causeless hatreds, and a  body  that  seemed  not  strong  enough  to
contain the raging energies of life. The powers of  Hyde  seemed  to  have
grown with the sickliness of Jekyll.  And  certainly  the  hate  that  now
divided them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of  vital
instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that  shared
with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with  him
to death: and beyond these links of community, which  in  themselves  made
the most poignant part of his distress, he thought of Hyde,  for  all  his
energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic.  This  was
the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to  utter  cries  and
voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and  sinned;  that  what  was
dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this  again,
that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than
an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he  heard  it  mutter  and  felt  it
struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the  confidence
of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred
of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. His  terror  of  the  gallows
drove him continually to commit  temporary  suicide,  and  return  to  his
subordinate station of a part instead of a  person;  but  he  loathed  the
necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll  was  now  fallen,
and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded. Hence  the
ape-like  tricks  that  he  would  play  me,  scrawling  in  my  own  hand
blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters  and  destroying
the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been  for  his  fear  of
death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the
ruin. But his love of me is wonderful; I go further:  I,  who  sicken  and
freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion
of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut  him  off
by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.
     It is useless, and  the  time  awfully  fails  me,  to  prolong  this
description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that suffice; and
yet even  to  these,  habit  brought-no,  not  alleviation-but  a  certain
callousness of soul, a certain acquiescence of despair; and my  punishment
might have gone on for years, but for the  last  calamity  which  has  now
fallen, and which has finally severed me from my own face and  nature.  My
provision of the salt, which had never been renewed since the date of  the
first experiment, began to run low. I sent out  for  a  fresh  supply  and
mixed the draught; the  ebullition  followed,  and  the  first  change  of
colour, not the second; I drank it and it was without efficiency. You will
learn from Poole how I have had London ransacked; it was in vain; and I am
now persuaded that my first supply  was  impure,  and  that  it  was  that
unknown impurity which lent efficacy to the draught.
     About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement  under
the influence of the last of the old powders.  This,  then,  is  the  last
time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts  or
see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must  I  delay
too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative  has  hitherto
escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of  great  prudence  and
great good luck. Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing
it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after
I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and  circumscription  to  the
moment will probably save it once again from the action  of  his  ape-like
spite. And indeed the doom that is closing on us both has already  changed
and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I  shall  again  and  forever
reindue that hated personality, I know how  I  shall  sit  shuddering  and
weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most  strained  and  fearstruck
ecstasy of listening, to pace up and  down  this  room  (my  last  earthly
refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace.  Will  Hyde  die  upon  the
scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the  last  moment?
God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and  what  is  to
follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen  and
proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that  unhappy  Henry
Jekyll to an end.

Популярность: 17, Last-modified: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 07:32:25 GMT