Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

THE STRANGE CASE OF
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

R. L. STEVENSON
was born in Edinburgh, November /J,
/<S'5o, and after being called to the bar,
turned to literature as a profession. In
i88g he settled at Samoa, where he died
on December 4, 1894. This boof^ was
first published in 1886.

Printed in Great Britain

Mr. Hyde clubbed him to the earth.

Page 88

LIBRARY OF CLASSICS

DR. JEKTLL
AND MR. HTDE

by

R. L.

ST£ VENSON

LONDON AND GLASGOW
COLLINS CLEAR- TYPE PRESS

TO
KATHARINE DE MATTOS

•

It's ill to loose the bands that God decreed to hind j
Still will we be the children of the heather and the wind.
Far away from home, O it's still for you and me
That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.

INTRODUCTION

MANY things conspire to make the story of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde one of the most
remarkable, of not the most remarkable of
all the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Few readers need to be reminded of the
triumph of will over physical weakness
which Stevenson achieved in many of his
writings. None of them is a greater
monument of that triumph than this. At
Skerryvore in Bournemouth, Stevenson had
to be kept in bed and silent, righting for his
life against horrible attacks of haemorrhage.
All communication was by slate and pencil,
and in the hushed and darkened room it

was necessary to keep the patient solitary

r

8 INTRODUCTION

and to refuse him the visits of his friends.
It would be difficult to conceive of a more
impossible occasion for the production of
great literature. In the challenge of such
illness to the spirit there is nothing to
inspire, everything to depress. Yet out
of this extraordinary net of circumstances
there came one of the greatest stories in
the world. It is in a sense classic, like
the main ideas and plots of Shakespeare.
It has already been translated into many
tongues, and it is safe to say that long after
most of Stevenson's works have been for-
gotten, this one will be remembered and
quoted by generations yet unborn.

Another peculiarity of this story is its
origin in the author's dreams. In his own
well-known phrase, he has acknowledged
his debt for it to his ' Brownies ' ; and the

INTRODUCTION 9

story of that, night when he received this
amazing gift from dreamland, and of the
next three days when he wrote thirty
thousand words almost without pausing,
is one of the most startling among the
curiosities of literature. The other dream
child of Stevenson's fancy is Olalla. In
that sad and fascinating tale there is the
glamour of things mysterious, and the sug-
gestion of black magic hovering about the
foreign landscape and offering the exact
atmosphere for things sinister and illicit.
It has the mingled beauty and terror that
cling about the emergence of our vaunted
human nature from its brute inheritance.
Jekyll and Hyde is very different. The
Brownies appear to have been sporting with
jangled nightmares of chess problems and
other matters which harry the over-excited

io INTRODUCTION

brain and chase it even into the land of
sleep. Suddenly this emerged.

The third peculiarity of the story is
the destruction of its first copy. Im-
mediately upon finishing it, the author
poured it forth upon his best-beloved
collaborators and critics. One can imagine
the overwhelming effect of this, even upon
so well-balanced a mind as that of Mrs.
Stevenson. Yet her critical judgment was
not swept away. Something was wrong,
and she was quick to detect it. The purpose
of the work had been undoubtedly allegor-
ical ; but the novelist in Stevenson had
outrun the preacher, and the allegory had
tailed off into something that was but a
brilliant short story. One cannot wonder
if, at first, he violently rebelled. On re-
consideration, he found that his wife's view

INTRODUCTION 1 1

of the matter was absolutely true, and then,
to her horror, he flung the entire manuscript
into the fire. One remembers Newton *s
immortal dog Diamond, and the tragedy
of Mill's housemaid who destroyed Car-
lyle's priceless manuscript of the French
Revolution. This case was different from
these. Stevenson entirely capitulated to the
rights of the allegory, and in order that
these might be preserved he destroyed all
that he had done, lest the written manu-
script should lure him back to the short
story. Three more days of unbroken toil,
and the tale, as we now possess it, ended
its adventures and was ready for the
publisher.

It is a tale of the supernatural, and that
is not, as a rule, Stevenson's strongest line.
There is an indefinable something that

12 INTRODUCTION

separates his spirit from the world of magic
or of demons. Perhaps it is his indestruct-
ible common sense and his vivid interest in
the things of the actual world. The horror
of his supernatural work is very great, and
it is wonderfully sustained in Tod Lapraik
and Thrawn Janet: yet there is generally
some little touch of actual matter of fact
which renders the situation precarious. In
Jekyll and Hyde there is the powder and the
liquor which positively smell of the chemist's
shop. Had it been possible by any means
to get rid of these, and by some mystic spell
to accomplish the transformation, the story
would have gained a safer foothold in the
spectral world. Yet, on the other hand,
any such device would have taken it
out of the actual life of modern men,
and its hold on that was more important

INTRODUCTION 13

for its real purpose than the mere point of
artistry.

In this extraordinary tale, the Brownies
had seized upon an idea, and that idea
haunted the writer. When first we meet
those quite ordinary-looking persons, Mr.
Utterson and Mr. Enfield, we little dream
where they are going to lead us. All we
know is that it will be among the streets
and houses, of London in 1886. Gradually
the idea of the double personality emerges,
revealing itself at first by hints, and then
afterwards in broad and clear confessions.
Eight years earlier, in collaboration with
Mr. Henley, Stevenson had written his
play of Deacon Brodie. It was a dramatisa-
tion of the life of a man who, by day,
was a respectable and eminent citizen of
Edinburgh, while, by night, dressed in

i4 . INTRODUCTION

appropriate costume, he was a clever and
audacious burgler. There are many other
proofs that the idea of the double life haunted
Stevenson's imagination. One finds it in
such borderland conceptions as Olalla^ in
such dramatic realisations of the heart of
murderers as Markheim, and in such psy-
chological studies as that of the missionary
in The Ebb Tide.

But it was not from the dramatic and
artistic point of view alone that this concep-
tion took such powerful hold upon Steven-
son. All his life long he had much trouble
with his conscience, as he confesses humor-
ously in one of his poems in Scots. He
could treat his conscience as cavalierly as
most men : but, like all the rest of us, he could
neither implicitly obey it nor effectively
silence it. No one profeeses that his life

INTRODUCTION 15

was blameless of youthful excess, and no
fair judge can deny that his reactions to-
wards nobler things were as genuine and
honest as the. excesses had been. It is
imposs ble to imagine what good purpose
can be served by morbid curiosity as to the
detail of his wild oats. Every man born
has found, in one direction or another, a law
in his members warring against the law of
his mind. Some people, like Stevenson,
have natures more sensitive, violent, and
daring than the rest ; but that is only a
matter of degree and not of kind. That
Jekyll and Hyde has strong personal value
for its author is evident from his allusion in
a letter to Mr. Low, ; I send you herewith
a Gothic gnome for your Greek nymph ;
but the gnome is interesting, I think, and
he came out of a deep mine, where he

1 6 INTRODUCTION

guards the fountain of tears." The enor-
mous and unique and immediate popularity
of this volume shows its appeal to the
general conscience of mankind, and the
accuracy of its description of universal
experience.

There is a terrific passage in the Epistle
to the Romans in which the two-fold nature
of man is depicted in the most lurid words.
It is questionable if anything that has been
written since has expressed Paul's meaning
so powerfully and vividly as the story of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Yet the phenom-
enon is as old as man, and the cry is
not less ancient. Long before Paul wrote
his epistle Balaam had been fascinated
alternately by good and evil, and Ovid had
confessed that while he approved the better
way he followed the worse. Apart from

INTRODUCTION 17

morals altogether, many modern parallels
have puzzled psychologists. The extra-
ordinary cases quoted by the late Professor
William James, the curious duality of
Fiona Macleod and her author, and other
such instances old and new, will occur to
every reader. In Bunyan's Grace Abounding
and in his Christian's adventures in the
Valley of the Shadow of Death, we recognise
the same condition. Browning, in his
Ned Bratts, has taken up the idea from
Bunyan, and portrayed, in his roughest and
most vernacular, a man demanding to be
hanged while his good self was dominant,
lest, being spared, the bad man of him
should get the mastery again. These are
reinforced by many instances of the moral
collapses of good men, and by the times of
obsession which plague us all when we

1 8 INTRODUCTION

find ourselves playing sedulous ape to two
moralities. The psychological explanation
of this in ancient times was to be found in
evil spirits or in the Manichsean doctrine
of the inherent evil of matter. Of late years
the language in which the phenomenon has
been described would seem to indicate the
view that within each apparent personality
there reside two real and separate personal-
ities, or it may be more than two. On this
view a man may be two different persons
confined within one body. As we think of
the violent contrasts of character which our
lives exhibit, we can hardly wonder at so
simple although so fantastic an explanation,
especially as the bad man in us often gets
us into situations which the good man has
to reckon with and pay for.

Really, however, this double pertonality

INTRODUCTION 19

13 but a metaphorical way of speaking.
When we use it we do not mean personalities,
but groups of emotions, moods, likings, ajid
desires behind which one personality sits,
choosing and arranging which groups shall
dominate us, or sometimes going down
before the attack of one group or another.
It will be noticed that in the story of
Jekyll and Hyde memory and choice are
continuous; and the duality is entirely
voluntary and not necessary. The will
is the essence of the person, after all is
said. There are many causes which explain
the multiple so-called personalities within a
man. There is the long evolution of the
species, and the fact that fragments of a very
remote past and of primitive instincts of the
brute seem to be still capable of leaping
up into conscious life. There is also our

20 INTRODUCTION

human heredity, and the recurrence of
ancestral traits of character which crop up
unexpectedly in descendants. There are
purely physical causes, such as the condition
of one's nerves, or the effect of the weather
or of illness. There are also environ-
mental conditions, and it is undoubted that
some people can call up all the best that is
in us, while others seem to raise the worst.
Besides all this, no doubt, the responsibility
for multiple personality is largely our own.
Habits of thinking that we have cherished
or suppressed, uncontrolled impulses which
we have been too lazy to direct, these
and many other things help to explain the
condition.

It is a pitiful condition in many ways.
Men used to bkme the Devil for it, but the
Devil as an excuse is heavily overworked.

INTRODUCTION 21

After all, each of us knows that he himself
is the captain of the ship, and that it is his
business and not the Devil's to take com-
mand. Stevenson saw that, in the human
world, there was much temptation to play
with this dangerous psychological faculty
for the sake of some depraved enjoyment
or excitement which it might give ; and
he portrayed, in all its nakedness, the
sheer horror of the thing. He laid special
emphasis upon that period in the process
when recovery becomes more and more
difficult and ceases to be a matter of will,
and when the vicious side of a man, chosen
at first for his own purposes, fastens itself
in him, claws and beak, until it seems to
become his only self.

It is noteworthy that Stevenson does not
append a moral to his allegory. There was,

22 INTRODUCTION

indeed, no need to do that All who have
eyes to see can perceive, as the horror grows,
one of the supreme dangers of life. One
thing at least is obvious. It is that, for all
men, so long as they have not entirely
capitulated, it is possible to make ' some
brave output of the will." and bid defiance
to any such ghastly process within them.
Whatever be the ultimate explanation of
this recondite condition, it is certain that
there is no need to lie down under it and in
moral fatalism accept it as inevitable. The
self you choose to-day, and not the self you
chose yesterday, is the fate of to-morrow.

JOHN KELMAN.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION J

STORY OF THE DOOR 25

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 47

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE 73

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 83

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 99

REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF DR.

LANYON I I 5

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW 129

THE LAST NIGHT 137

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 175

HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT

OF THE CASE 199

STORY OF THE DOOR

STORY OF THE DOOR

MR. UTTERSON the lawyer was a man
of .a rugged countenance, that was
never lighted by a smile ; cold, scanty
and embarrassed in discourse ; back-
ward 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 ; some-
thing 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

27

28 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

alone, to mortify a taste for vintages ;
and though he enjoyed the theatre, had
not crossed the doors of one for twenty
years. But he had an approved toler-
ance 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 down-
going men. And to such as these, so

-

long as they came about his chambers,
he never marked a shade of change in
his demeanour.

STORY OF THE DOOR 29

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr.
Utterson ; for he was undemonstrative
at the best, and even his friendships
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 affec-
tions, 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

30 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 week-days. The inhabitants were
all doing well, it seemed, and all

STORY OF THE DOOR 31

emulously hoping to do better still,
" and laying out the surplus of their gains
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 clean-
liness and gaiety of note, instantly
caught and pleased the eye of the pas-
senger.

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

32 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 pro-
longed 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 genera-
tion, 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

STORY OF THE DOOR 33

when they came abreast of the entry,
the former lifted up his cane and
pointed.

" Did you ever remark that door?1
he asked ; and when his companion had
replied in the affirmative, ! It is con-
nected in my mind/3 added he, ! with
a very odd story.*1

" 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 —
DR.J. B

34 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

street after street, all lighted up as if for
a procession, and all as empty as a church
— till 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 east-
ward 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 view

STORY OF THE DOOR 35

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 run-
ning. 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

36 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 bag-
pipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of
us ; every time he looked at my prisoner,
I saw that Sawbones turned sick and
white with the 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 under-
took that he should lose them. And all
the time, as we were pitching it in red
hot, we were keeping the women off

STORY OF THE DOOR 37

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, too, 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

38 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 of it
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

STORY OF THE DOOR 39

you till the banks open, and cash the
cheque myself.' So we all set off, 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/3

" Tut-tut ! " said Mr. Utterson.

1 1 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, cele-
brated, too, and (what makes it worse)
one of your fellows who do what they

40 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

call good. Blackmail, I suppose ; an
honest man paying through the nose
for some of the capers of his youth.
Black Mail House is what I call that
place with the door, in consequence.
Though even that, you know, is far
from explaining all/3 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 ? J

E<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. Utter-
son.

STORY OF THE DOOR 41

" No, sir : I had a delicacy/3 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 start-
ing 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/5 said the
lawyer.

But I have studied the place for
myself/5 continued Mr. Eniield. It
seems scarcely a house. There is no

42 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 some-
body must live there. And yet it's not
so sure ; for the buildings are so packed
together about that 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 En-
field.

STORY OF THE DOOR 43

" 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."

if

" 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
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

44 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 Ehfield,
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

STORY OF THE DOOR 45

me," returned the other, with a touch of
sullenness. ' But I have been pedanti-
cally 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/3' said he. ' I am
ashamed of my long tongue. Let us
make a bargain never to refer to this
again.'5

With all my heart," said the lawyer.
" I shake hands on that, Richard."

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE

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

49

50 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

j

on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll's Will,
and sat down with a clouded brow^to
study its contents. The will was holo-
graph ; 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., LL.D.,
F.R.S., etc., all his possessions were to
pass into the hands of his " friend and
benefactor Edward Hyde 3 ; 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

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 51

small sums to the members of the doctors
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 know-
ledge. 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

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

the safe ; ' and now I begin to fear it
is disgrace. "

With that he blew out his candle,
put on a great coat, 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.
1 If any one knows, it will be Lanyon,"
he had thought.

The solemn butler knew and wel-
comed 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,

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 53

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 respecters 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 disagree-
ably 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

54 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

we are. And what of that ? I see
little of him now/1

" 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 un-
scientific balderdash/3 added the doctor,
flushing suddenly purple, ' would have
estranged Damon and Pythias/:

This little spirt of temper was some-
what of a relief to Mr. Utterson. " They
have only differed on some point of

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 55

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 ! 3
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 prottge
of his — one Hyde ? ' he asked.

" Hyde ? " repeated Lanyon. " No.
Never heard of him. Since my

time.3

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

$6 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

mind, toiling in mere darkness and
besieged by questions

Six o'clock struck 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

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 57

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 ;

9

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
lamp-lighted city, and at every street
corner crush a child and leave her

58 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 inordi-
nate, 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 clauses of the will. And at
least it would be a face worth seeing :
the face of a man who was without

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 59

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 con-
course, 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 ball-room floor ;
the lamps, unshaken by any wind,

-

60 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 road-
way ; 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 ac-
customed 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

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 61

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 some-
how strongly against the watcher's in-
clination. 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.

62 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 ? 5

" I see you are going in," returned
the lawyer. ! I am an old friend of
Dr. Jekyirs — Mr. Utterson, of Gaunt
Street — you must have heard my
name ; and meeting you so con-
veniently, 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, buc

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 63

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/3 replied the other.
" What shall it be ? "

" Will you let me sec 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. Utter-
son. : It may be useful. "

" Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, " it is as
well we have met ; and a propos, you
should have my address." And he gave
a number of a street in Soho.

64 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

" Good God ! " thought Mr. Utter-
son, ' can he too have been thinking of
the will ? ' But he kept his feelings to
himself, and only grunted in acknow-
ledgment of the address.

And now/2 said the other, how
did you know me ? 5

By description,13 was the reply.

Whose description ? '

We have common friends," said Mr.
Utterson.

Common friends ! echoed Mr.
Hyd°, 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.'3

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 65

" 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 un-
locked the door and disappeared into
the house.

The lawyer stood awhile when Mr.
Hyde had left him, the picture of dis-
quietude. 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 dwarf-
ish ; he gave an impression of deformity
without any namable malformation, he

had a displeasing smile, he had borne
DR.J. c

66 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 re-
garded him. There must be some-
thing else," said the perplexed gentle-
man. There is something more, if I
could find a name for it. God bless me,
the man seems hardly human ! Some-
thing troglodytic, shall we say ? or can
it be the old story of Dr. Fell ? or is it
the mere radiance 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

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 67

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 oc-
cupied 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 fan-light, Mr.
Utterson stopped and knocked. A well-
dressed, elderly servant opened the door.

" Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole i "
asked the lawyer.

68 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

" 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 ? 3

' Here, thank you/3 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 to-night there
was a shudder in his blood ; the face
of Hyde sat heavy on his memory ;
he felt (what was rare with him) a

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 69

nausea and distaste of life ; and in the
gloom of his spirits, he seemed to read
a menace in the flickering of the fire-
light 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 an-
nounce that Dr. Jekyll was gone
out.

" I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old
dissecting room door, Poole/3 he said.
1 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.

70 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

Yes, sir, he do indeed/1 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/1

" Well, good-night, Poole."
" Good-night, Mr. Utterson."
And the lawyer set out homeward
with a very heavy heart. Poor Harry
Jekyll," he thought, E my mind mis-
gives 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. Ah,
it must be that ; the ghost of some old

SEARCH FOR MR. HYDE 71

sin, the cancer of some concealed dis-
grace ; 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, lest 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 apprehen-
sion ; 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 that 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,'1

72 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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. Ah, I must put
my shoulder 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 a
transparency, the strange clauses of the
will.

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT EASE

DR. JEKYLL WAS QUITE AT

EASE

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 the loose-tongued had already their
foot on the threshold ; "they liked to sit

75

76 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

awhile 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
slyish 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 affec-

»

tion.

[ I have been wanting to speak to
you, Jekyll/3 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

DR. JEKYLL QUITE AT EASE 77

Utterson," said he, you are unfortun-
ate 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. Oh, I know he's a good fellow
— you needn't frown — an excellent fel-
low, 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 disregard-
ing 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

78 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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.

1 1 do not care to hear more/3 said he.

This is a matter I thought we had

agreed to drop/1

What I heard was abominable/'
said Utterson.

: It can make no change. You do
not understand my position/3 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/3 said Utterson, you know

DR. JEKYLL QUITE AT EASE 79

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."

1 My good Utterson," said the doctor,
E this is very good of you, this is down-
right 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 so 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

8o DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

is a private matter, and I beg of you to
let it sleep."

Utterson reflected a little, looking in
the fire.

1 1 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/3 continued the doctor, ; there
is one point I should like you to under-
stand. 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

DR. JEKYLL QUITE AT EASE 81

it would be a weight off my mind if you
would promise/3

' J can't pretend that I shall ever like
him,'1 said the lawyer.

" I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll,

laying his hand upon the other's srm ;

' I only ask for justice ; I only ask you

to help him for my sake, when I am no

longer here/1

Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh.
" Well," said he, " I promise."

THE CAREW MURDER CASE

THE CAREW MURDER CASE

NEARLY a year later, in the month of
October, 18 — , London was startled by
a crime of singular ferocity, and ren-
dered 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

0

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

'

86 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 and beautiful gentle-
man 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 im-
portance ; indeed, from his pointing, it

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 87

sometimes 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 kind-
ness 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, bran-
dishing the cane, and carrying on (as

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 89

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, with-
out doubt, had been carried away by
the murderer. A purse and a 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

90 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

he ; E 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/3 said he, : I recognise him.
I am sorry to say that this is Sir Danvers
Carew."

Good God, sir,11 exclaimed the
officer, ' c is it possible ? ' And the next
moment his eye lighted up with profes-
sional ambition. This will make a
deal of noise/3 he said. * And perhaps
you can help us to the man.r And he
briefly narrated what the maid had seen,
and showed the broken stick.

Mr. Utterson had already quailed at

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 91

the name of Hyde ; but when the stick
was laid before him, he could doubt no
longer : broken and battered as it was,
he recognised 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/1

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

92 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

continually charging and routing these
embattled vapours ; so that as the cab
crawled from street to street, Mr.
Utterson beheld a marvellous 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

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 93

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 com-
panion 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 two-
penny 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

94 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 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 CAREW MURDER CASE 95

the woman began to declare it was
.impossible, " I had better tell you
who this person is/3 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 ex-
changed glances. E He don't seem a

4

very popular character/3 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.

96 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 piles 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 ; lockfast
drawers stood open ; and on the hearth
there lay a pile of gray 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 wras found
behind the door ; and as this clinched

THE CAREW MURDER CASE 97

his suspicions, the officer declared him-
self 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 : 1 1 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 hav.e
nothing to do but wait for him at the
bank, and get out the handbills/1

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 no-
where be traced ; he had never been

DR.J. D

98 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 be-
holders.

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER *

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 labora-
tory or the dissecting rooms. The doctor
had bought the house from the heirs of
a celebrated surgeon ; and his own
tastes being rather chemical than ana-
tomical, 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

101

102 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 103

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 deadly 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/3 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 ? " ,

io4 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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.'

1 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

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 105

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.'1

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,

106 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

upright hand, and signed Edward
Hyde ' : and it signified, briefly enough
that the writer's benefactor, Dr. Jekyll,
whom he had long so unworthily re-
paid 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,J> 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.

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 107

I wish you to judge for me entirely,"
was the reply. : I have lost confidence
in my self. J:

Well, I shall consider," returned the
lawyer. ! And now one word more :
it was Hyde who dictated the terms in

0

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 have had

a fine escape/1

X

: I have had what is far more to the
purpose," returned the doctor solemnly :
I have had a lesson — O God, Utter-
son, what a lesson I have had ! ' And
he covered his face for a moment with
his hands.

io8 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

On his way out, the lawyer stopped

and had a word or two with Poole.

'By the bye/3 said he, "there was a

letter handed in to-day : what was the

\

messenger like ? ' But Poole was posi-
tive nothing had come except by post ;
' and only circulars by that/3 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 news-boys, 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

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 109

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
nabit, 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 mid-
way 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

i io DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER in

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
rights ? and, above all, since Guest,
being a great student and critic of
handwriting, would consider the step
natural and obliging ? The clerk, be-
sides, was a man of counsel ; he would
scarce read so strange a document with-
out 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 elicted a
great deal of public feeling/5 returned
Guest. The man, of course, was
mad."

H2 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

" I should like to hear your views on
that,*3 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 busi-
ness 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,'3 added the lawyer.

Just then the servant entered with a
note.

" Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir ? " in-
quired the clerk. " I thought I knew
the writing. Anything private, Mr.
Utterson ? "

INCIDENT OF THE LETTER 113

" 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
1 there's a rather singular resemblance ;
the two hands are in many points
identical : only differently sloped.'1
Rather quaint,'3 said Utterson.
It is, as you say, rather quaint, "
returned Guest,

:

ii4 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

"I wouldn't speak of this note, you
know/3 said the master.

" No, sir," said the clerk. " I under-
stand."

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.
1 Henry Jekyll forge for a murderer ! '
And his blood ran cold in his veins.

REMARABLE INCIDENT OF
DR. LANYON v

REMARKABLE INCIDENT OF
DR. LANYON

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 dis-
reputable : 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 sur-
rounded his career ; but of his present
whereabouts, not a whisper. From the

time he had left the house in Soho on

117

ii8 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 enter-
tainer; 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

INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 119

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 1 2th,
and again on the I4th, the door was
shut against the lawyer. " The doctor
was confined to the house/3 Poole said,
1 and saw no one." On the 1 5th, 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 ;

120 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 121

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.

1 1 have had a shock/3 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 Utter-
son. ; Have you seen him ? J

But Lanyon's face changed, and he
held up a trembling hand. : I wish
to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll/3
he said, in a loud, unsteady voice. ( I

122 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 ;

i

and then, after a considerable pause,

1 Can't I do anything ? ' he inquired.

We are three very old friends, Lan-

yon ; we shall not live to make others."

Nothing can 'be done," returned

Lanyon ; " ask himself."

E He will not see me," said the
lawyer.

J

! I am not surprised at that/3 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;

INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 123

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 patheti-
cally 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

i24 DR- JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

INCIDENT OF DR. LAN YON 125

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 J. G. 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

126 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

if this should cost me another ? ' And
then he condemned the fear as a dis-
loyalty, 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 bracketed. 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 to the trustee,

INCIDENT OF DR. LANYON 127

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 may4 be
doubted if, from that day forth, Utter-
son 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 ; per-
haps, 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

128 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 some-
thing on his mind. Utterson .became

4

so used to the unvarying character of
these reports, that he fell off little by
little in the frequency of his visits.

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW

DR.J.

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW

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 wnen
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.

5 And, by the way, what an ass you must

132 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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,

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW 133

like some disconsolate prisoner, Utter-
son saw Dr. Jekyll.

" What 1 Jekyll ! 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/3 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

134 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

great pleasure. I would ask you and
Mr. Enfield up, but the place is really
not fit."

Why, then,'3 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 wras 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 expres-
sion 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

INCIDENT AT THE WINDOW 135

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. Utter-
son at last turned and looked at his com-
panion. 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.

THE LAST NIGHT

THE LAST NIGHT

MR. UTTERSON was sitting by his fire-
side one evening after dinner, when he
was surprised to receive a visit from
Poole.

-x,

Bless me, Poole, what, brings you
here ? ! he cried ; and then, taking a
second look at him, What ails you ? :
he addled ; " 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

X

you want.

You know the doctor's ways, sir/5

139

140 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

replied Poole, ' and how he shuts him-
self 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. Utter-
son, sir, I'm afraid.':

! Now, my good man/1 said the
lawyer, be explicit. What are you
afraid of ? "

I've been afraid for about a week,"

.

returned Poole, doggedly disregarding
the question ; c and I can bear it no

more.1

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

j

with the glass of wine untasted on his

THE LAST NIGHT 141

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 great coat ; but
he observed with wonder the greatness

i42 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 a 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,

THE LAST NIGHT 143

there was borne in upon his mind a
crushing anticipation of calamity. The
square, when tbey got there, was all 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/5

i44 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

" Amen, Poolc,>! 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 ? '

j

" 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 house-
maid 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

THE LAST NIGHT 145

irregular, very unseemly ; your master
would be far from pleased/

" They're all afraid," said Poole.

Blank silence followed, no one pro-
testing ; only the maid lifted up 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 innfjr
door with faces of dreadful expectation.
1 And now,'3 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.

146 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

c 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 un-
looked-for termination, gave a jerk that
nearly threw him from his balance ; but
he re-collected his courage, and followed

V

the butler into the laboratory building
add 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

THE LAST NIGHT 147

uncertain hand on the red baize of the
cabinet door.

' Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see
you/3 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 any one," 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 wrere leaping on
the floor.

1 Sir," he said, looking Mr. Utterson
in the eyes, ; was that my master's
voice

I48 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

It seemed 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 isoho's in there instead of him, and
'why it stays there, is a thing that cries
to Heaven, Mr. Utterson ! "

That 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, sup-
posing Dr. Jekyll to have been — well,
murdered, what could induce the

THE LAST NIGHT 149

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, or 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

150 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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
but 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 i 8 — , Dr. J. purchased a somewhat

THE LAST NIGHT 151

large quantity from Messrs. M. He
now begs them to search with the most
sedulous care, and should any of the
same quality be left, to 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 had added,
! find me some of the old."

This is a strange note/3 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/3 returned Poole.

This is unquestionably the doctor's

152 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

hand, do you know?3 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 ? J he said. " I've seen
him ! "

" Seen him ? " repeated Mr. Utter-'
son. "Well?"

" That's it ! " said Poole. " It was
this way. I came suddenly into the
theatre 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

THE LAST NIGHT 153

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 circum-
stances/3 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 his avoid-
ance of his friends ; hence his eagerness
to find this drug, by means of which
the poor soul retains some hope of

154 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

ultimate recovery — God grant that he
be -not deceived ! There is my explana-
tion ; 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.13
: 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
Tiim, and began to whisper — " is a tall
fine build of a man, and this was more
of a dwarf." Utterson attempted to
protest. ' Oh, sir/3 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, wrhere I saw him every
morning of my life ? No, sir, that thing

THE LAST NIGHT

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.'3

" Ah, Mr. Utterson, that's talking ! "
cried the butler.

; And now comes the second ques-
tion," resumed Utterson : " Who is
going to do it ? :

Why, you and me, sir," was the
undaunted reply.

That is very well said/3 returned

156 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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/1
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,'3
he said, looking up, ! that you and I
are about to place ourselves in a position
of some peril ? !

You may say so, x sir, indeed/3
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 ? !

THE LAST NIGHT 157

" Well, sir, it went so quick, and the
creature was so doubled up, that I could
hardly swear to that/3 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 ever you met this Mr.
Hyde ? "

Yes/3 said the lawyer, I once
spoke \^ith him.':

Then you must know, as well as the
rest of us, that there was something
queer about that gentleman — something

158 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

that gave a man a turn — I don't know
rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this :
that you felt it in your marrow — kind
of cold and thin."

1 I own I felt something of what you
describe/3 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. Oh,
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

THE LAST NIGHT 159

/
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 roam. Well,
let our name be vengeance. Call Brad-
shaw."

The footman came at the summons,
very white and nervous.

Pull 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

160 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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.'1

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, he 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 still-
ness was only broken by the sound of a

THE LAST NIGHT 161

footfall moving to and fro along the
cabinet floor.

X

" So it will walk all day, sir/5 whis-
pered 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.
DR.J. F

1 62 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

Poole nodded. ; Once/1 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

j

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

THE LAST NIGHT 163

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 ; c 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

i64 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

hounded ; 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 in sunder, 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.

THE LAST NIGHT 165

Right in the midst there lay the body
of a man sorely contorted and still
twitching. They drew near on tiptoe,
turned it on his back, and beheld the
face of Edward Hyde. He was dressed
in clothes far too 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

1 66 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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
storey 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 separ-
ately by a second flight of stairs. There
were besides a few dark closets and a
spacious cellar. All these they now
thoroughly 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 pre-
decessor ; but even as they opened the

THE LAST NIGHT 167

door, they were advertised of the use-
lessness 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 cor-
ridor. : He must be buried here/3 he
said, hearkening to the sound.

" Or he may have fled/3 said Utter-
son, 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/3 ob-
served the lawyer.

" Use ! " echoed Poole. " Do you
not see, sir, it is broken ? much as if a
man had stamped on it."

1 68 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

; Ah," 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. "

x.

They mounted the stair in silence,
and still, with an occasional awestruck
glance at the dead body, proceeded
more thoroughly to examine the con-
tents 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.

This is the same drug that I was
always bringing him/3 said Poole ; and
even as he spoke, the kettle with a
startling noise boiled over.

THE LAST NIGHT 169

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

t> %

a pious work, for which Jekyll had
several times expressed a great esteem,
annotated, in his own hand, with start-
ling blasphemies.

Next, in the course of their review of
the chamber, the searchers came to the
cheval glass, into whose depth 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

170 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

presses, and their own pale and fearful
countenances stooping to look in.

This glass has seen some strange
things, sir/5 whispered Poole.

; And surely none stranger than
itself/3 echoed the lawyer, in the same

tone. " For what did Jekyll "—he

•

caught himself up at the word with a
start, and then conquering the weak-
ness : ! 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 en-
closures fell to the floor. The first was

THE LAST NIGHT 171

i

a will, drawn in the same eccentric
terms as the one which he had returned
six months before, to serve as a testa-
ment 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 papers, and last of all at the dead
malefactor stretched upon the carpet.
: My head goes round/3 he said.
! He has been all these days in posses-
sion ; he had no cause to like me ; he
must have raged to see himself displaced ;
and he has not destroyed this document."
He caught the next paper ;' it was a
brief note in the doctor's hand, and
dated at the top. " Oh, Poole ! " the

172 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

lawyer cried, he was alive and here
this day. He cannot have been dis-
posed 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 ? Oh, we must be careful. I
foresee that we may yet involve your
master in some dire catastrophe.'

Why don't you read it, sir?1
asked Poole.

Because I fear,'3 replied the lawyer,
solemnly. God grant I have no cause
for it 1 " And with that he brought the
paper to his eye, and read as follows : —

MY 'DEAR UTTERSON, — When this
shall fall into your hands, I shall have
disappeared, under what circumstances I

THE LAST NIGHT 173

have not the penetration to foresee ;
but my instincts and all the circum-
stances 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,

f HENRY JEKYLL.>!

There was a third enclosure ?
asked Utterson.

! Here, sir,'3 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

174 DR- JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

at least save his credit. It is now* ten ;
I must go home and read these docu-
ments 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 Utter-
son, 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.

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE

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 correspon-
dence ; I had seen the man, dined with
him, indeed, the night before ; and I
could imagine nothing in our inter-
course that should justify the formality
of registration. The contents increased
my wonder ; for this is how the letter

ran : —

«77

178 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

icth 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 fortune or 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.

1 I want you to postpone all other^
engagements for to-night — ay, eY£n if

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 179

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

J

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 mis-
directing you ; but even if I am in
error, you may know the right drawer

i8o DR. TEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

•^

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 pre-
vented 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

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 181

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 arrange-
ments 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

1 82 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

well aware that, if you will but punctu-
ally 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 mid-
night. 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,"

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 183

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 under-
stood 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 in-
struction, and had sent at once for a
locksmith and a carpenter. The trades-
men came while we were yet speaking ;
and we moved in a bodv to old Dr.

j

Denman's surgical theatre, from which

1 84 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

X*

(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 hours' 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

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 185

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

1 86 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

several hundred entries ; and once very
early in the list, and followed by several
marks of exclamation, [ total fail-
ure !!! " All this, though it whetted
my curiosity, told me little that was
definite. Here were a phial of some
tincture, a paper of some salt, and the
record of a series of experiments that
had led (like too many of Jekyll's in-
vestigations) to no end of practical use-
fulness. 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 gentle-
man to be received by me in secret ?
The more I reflected, the more

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 187

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 my-
self at the summons, and found a small
man crouching against the pillars of
the portico.

1 Are you come from Dr. Jekyll ? !
I asked.

He told me "yes" by a constrained ges-
ture ; 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 ;

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 combina-
tion 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 re-
semblance to incipient rigor, and was
accompanied by a marked sinking of

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 189

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 dis-
gustful 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

190 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

waist of the coat below his haunches,
and the collar sprawling wide upon his
shoulders. Strange to relate, this ludi-
crous accoutrement was far from moving
me to laughter. Rather, as there was
something abnormal and mis-begotten
in the very essence of the creature that
now faced me — something seizing, sur-
prising and revolting — this fresh dis-
parity seemed but to fit in with and to
reinforce it ; so that to my interest in the

h

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.

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 191

' Have you got it ?>: he cried. ' Have
you got it ? 3 And so lively was his im-
patience 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.
1 Come, sir/3 said I. You forget
that I have not yet trie pleasure of your
acquaintance. Be seated, if you please.'1
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 pre-occupa-
tions, and the horror I had of my visitor,
would suffer me to muster.

! I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon,"
he replied, civilly enough. <v What you
say is very well founded ; and my

1 92 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 ap-
proaches of the hysteria — " I under-
stood, a drawer . . ."

But here I took pity on my visitor's
. suspense, and some perhaps on my own

»

growing curiosity.

There it is, sir,'3 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

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 193

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 con-
tents, 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 ? J 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

I94 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

reddish hue, began, in proportion as
the crystals melted, to brighten in
colour, to effervesce audibly, and to
throw off small fumes of vapour. Sud-
denly, 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.

1 And now/5 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

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 195

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."

1 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.

196 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

But I have gone too far in the way of
inexplicable services to pause before I
see the end."

' It is well/5 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. ^ 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 swell — his face

DR. LANYON'S NARRATIVE 197

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 arm
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

198 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

its roots ; sleep has left me ; the dead-
liest terror sits by me at all hours of the
day and night ; 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 with-
out 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.

HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE

HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE

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 fellow-men, and thus, as
might have been supposed, with every
guarantee of an honourable and dis-
tinguished future. And indeed, the
worst of my faults was a certain im-
patient 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

201

202 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 pro-
gress and position in the world, I stood
already committed to a profound dup-
licity of life. 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 exact-
ing 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 203

man's dual nature. In this case, I
was driven to reflect deeply and in-
veterately 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 furtherance of knowledge or the
relief of sorrow and suffering. And

it chanced that the direction of mv

j

scientific studies, which led wholly to-
wards 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

204 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 know-^
ledge 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 205

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 pos-
sibility of such a mifacle, I had learned
to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved
daydream, on the thought of the separa-
tion of these elements. If each, I told
myself, could but be housed in separate
identities, life would be relieved of all
that was unbearable ; the unjust might
go his way, delivered from the aspira-
tions and remorse of his more upright
twin ; and the just could walk stead-
fastly and securely on his upward path,
doing the good things in which he found

206 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 continu- »
ously 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 labora-
tory table. I began to perceive more
deeply than it has ever yet been stated,
the trembling immateriality, the mist-
like transience, of this seemingly so
solid body in which we walk attired.
Certain agents I found to have the power
to shake and to pluck back that fleshly

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 207

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 evi-
dent, my discoveries were incomplete.
Enough, then, that I not only recog-
nised 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

208 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
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 im-
material 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 209

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 deat'h.
Then these agonies began swiftly to
subside, and I came to myself as if out
of a great sickness. There was some-
thing strange in my sensations, some-
thing indescribably new, and, from its
very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt

210 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

younger, lighter, happier in body ;
within I was conscious of a heady reck-
lessness, a current of disordered sensual
images running like a mill race in my
fancy, a solution of the bonds of obliga-
tion, 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,

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 211

and for the very purpose of those trans-
formations. 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 constella-
tions looked down upon me, I could
have thought, with wonder, the first
creature of that sort that their unsleep-
ing 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.

212 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 213

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 con-
scious of no repugnance, rather of a leap

of welcome. This, too, was myself. It

j

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 com-
mingled out of good and evil : and

2i4 OR- JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 hurry-
ing 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 215

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 prison-
house 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

j

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 com-
pound of whose reformation and

2i6 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

improvement I had ' already learned
to despair. The movement was thus
wholly toward the worse.

Even at that time, I had not yet con-
quered my aversion 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 217

humorous ; 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 housekeeper a creature whom
I well knew to be silent and unscrupu-
lous. 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

2i 8 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

the strange immunities of my posi-
tion.

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
thus 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 impene-
trable mantle, the safety 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 219

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
towards 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

220 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

centred 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 221

but to point out the warnings and the
successive steps with which my chastise-
ment approached. I met with one
accident which, as it brought on no con-
sequence, 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 chijd'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;

222 DR. TEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

and when, by sloping my own hand
backwards, 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 pro-
portions 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 223

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 comfort-
able morning doze. I was still so en-
gaged when, in one of my more wakeful
moments, my eye fell upon my hand.
Now, the hand of Henry Jekyll (as
you have often remarked) was pro-
fessional 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 morn-
ing, lying half shut on the bedclothes,
was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky
pallor, and thickly shaded with a swart
growth of hair. It was the hand of
Edward Hyde,

224 DR, JEKYLL AND MR. 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 ex-
quisitely 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 pair of stairs,
through the back passage, across the
open court and through the anatomical

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 225

theatre, from where I was then standing
horror-struck. It mi^ht 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 sweet-
ness 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.

DR.J. H

226 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 pos-
sibilities of my double existence. That
part of me which I had the power of
projecting had lately been much exer-
cised 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 con-
scious 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 over-
thrown, the power of voluntary change

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 227

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

228 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 229

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 for ever, 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 cfut 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.

230 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

Yes, I preferred the elderly and dis-
contented doctor, surrounded by friends,
and cherishing honest hopes ; and bade
a resolute farewell to the liberty, the
comparative youth, the light step, leap-
ing pulses 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 de-
stroyed 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 con-
science. But time began at last to
obliterate the freshness of my alarm ;

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 231

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 in-
sensate 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

232 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 provoca-
tion ; 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 tempta-
tions ; and in my case, to be tempted,
however slightly, was to fall.

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 233

Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in
me and raged. With a transport of glee,

i

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 assur-
ance 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,

234 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

and yet still hastening and still hearken-
ing 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 235

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 suc-
ceeded 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,
oh, how I rejoiced to think 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 1

236 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 last year

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 237

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 license. 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.

238 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 dis-
covery. 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 peni-
tence, but not yet moved to begin.
After all, I reflected I was like my neigh-
bours ; and then I smiled, comparing

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 239

myself with other men, comparing
my active goodwill 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
the faintness subsided, I began to be
aware of a change in the temper of my
thoughts, a greater boldness, a con-
tempt 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

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 241
consign me to the gallows. I saw I

*~> o

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 col-
league, Dr. Jekyll ? Then I remem-
bered 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

242 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 :

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 243

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 impor-
tant 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

244 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 thorough-
fares, 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 245

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, weak-
ened, 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

246 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 247
forth it seemed only by a great effort

0

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 pre-
monitory 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 sleepless-
ness 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

248 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 Jeykll. And cer-
tainly 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

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 249

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 gestic-
ulated 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

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 life is
wonderful ; I go further : I, who sicken
and freeze at the mere thought of him,
wherr I recall the abjection and passion
of this attachment, and when I know

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 251

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 pun-
ishment mijht 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

252 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

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 destruc-
tion, it has been by a combination of

JEKYLL'S FULL STATEMENT 253

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 circumscrip-
tion to the moment will probably save
it once again from the action of his
apelike 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
for ever 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

254 DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

Hyde die upon the scaffold ? or will he
find the 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 un-
happy Henry Jekyll to an end.

PR 5485 .Al 1900

SMC

Stevenson, Robert Louis,

1850-1894.
Dr. Jeky 1 1 and Mr. Hyde

AYF-2263 (mcab)

Jlfej