misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to
help rather than to reprove. "I incline to
Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let
my brother go to the devil in his own way." In
this character, it was frequently his fortune
to be the last reputable acquaintance and
the last good influence in the lives of
downgoing men. And to such as these, so
long as they came about his chambers, he
never marked a shade of change in his
demeanour.

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson;
for he was undemonstrative at the best, and
even his friendship seemed to be founded
in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is
the mark of a modest man to accept his
friendly circle ready-made from the hands
of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's
way. His friends were those of his own
blood or those whom he had known the
longest; his affections, like ivy, were the
growth of time, they implied no aptness in
the object. Hence, no doubt the bond that
united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant
kinsman, the well-known man about town. It
was a nut to crack for many, what these two
could see in each other, or what subject
they could find in common. It was reported
by those who encountered them in their
Sunday walks, that they said nothing,
looked singularly dull and would hail with
obvious relief the appearance of a friend.
For all that, the two men put the greatest
store by these excursions, counted them the

-1-

side of the by-street; but when they came
abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his
cane and pointed.

"Did you ever remark that door?" he asked;
and when his companion had replied in the
affirmative. "It is connected in my mind,"
added he, "with a very odd story."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight
change of voice, "and what was that?"

"Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield:
"I was coming home from some place at the
end of the world, about three o'clock of a
black winter morning, and my way lay
through a part of town where there was
literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street
after street and all the folks asleep street
after street, all lighted up as if for a
procession and all as empty as a 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 eastward at a good walk,
and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten
who was running as hard as she was able
down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran
into one another naturally enough at the
corner; and then came the horrible part of
the thing; for the man trampled calmly over
the child's body and left her screaming on
the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it
was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it
was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a
few halloa, took to my heels, collared my
gentleman, and brought him back to where
there was already quite a group about the
screaming child. He was perfectly cool and
made no resistance, but gave me one look,
so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me
like running. The people who had turned out
were the girl's own family; and pretty soon,
the doctor, for whom she had been sent put
in his appearance. Well, the child was not

-2-

story, but it was a name at least very well
known and often printed. The figure was
stiff; but the signature was good for more
than that if it was only genuine. I took the
liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that
the whole business looked apocryphal, and
that a man does not, in real life, walk into a
cellar door at four in the morning and come
out with another man's cheque for close
upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite
easy and sneering. `Set your mind at rest,'
says he, `I will stay with you till the banks
open and cash the cheque myself.' So we
all set of, the doctor, and the child's father,
and our friend and myself, and passed the
rest of the night in my chambers; and next
day, when we had breakfasted, went in a
body to the bank. I gave in the cheque
myself, and said I had every reason to
believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The
cheque was genuine."

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.

"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield.
"Yes, it's a bad story.

For my man was a fellow that nobody could
have to do with, a really damnable man; and
the person that drew the cheque is the very
pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and
(what makes it worse) one of your fellows
who do what they call good. Black mail I
suppose; an honest man paying through the
nose for some of the capers of his youth.
Black Mail House is what I call the place
with the door, in consequence. Though even
that, you know, is far from explaining all," he
added, and with the words fell into a vein of
musing.

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson
asking rather suddenly: "And you don't
know if the drawer of the cheque lives
there?"

-3-

the name of that man who walked over the
child."

"Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what
harm it would do. It was a man of the name
of Hyde."

"Hm," said Mr. Utterson. "What sort of a man
is he to see?"

"He is not easy to describe. There is
something wrong with his appearance;
something displeasing, something down-
right detestable. I never saw a man I so
disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He
must be deformed somewhere; he gives a
strong feeling of deformity, although I
couldn't specify the point. He's an
extraordinary looking man, and yet I really
can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I
can make no hand of it; I can't describe him.
And it's not want of memory; for I declare I
can see him this moment."

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in
silence and obviously under a weight of
consideration. "You are sure he used a
key?" he inquired at last.

"My dear sir ..." began Enfield, surprised out
of himself.

"Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must
seem strange. The fact is, if I do not ask you
the name of the other party, it is because I
know it already. You see, Richard, your tale
has gone home. If you have been inexact in
any point you had better correct it."

"I think you might have warned me," returned
the other with a touch of sullenness. "But I
have been pedantically exact, as you call it.
The fellow had a key; and what's more, he
has it still. I saw him use it not a week ago."

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a

-4-

customary sides of life, to whom the fanciful
was the immodest. And hitherto it was his
ignorance of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his
indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was
his knowledge. It was already bad enough
when the name was but a name of which he
could learn no more. It was worse when it
began to be clothed upon with destestable
attributes; and out of the shifting,
insubstantial mists that had so long baffled
his eye, there leaped up the sudden,
definite presentment of a fiend.

"I thought it was madness," he said, as he
replaced the obnoxious paper in the safe,
"and now I begin to fear it is disgrace."

With that he blew out his candle, put on a
greatcoat, and set forth in the direction of
Cavendish Square, that citadel of
medicine, where his friend, the great Dr.
Lanyon, had his house and received his
crowding patients. "If anyone knows, it will
be Lanyon," he had thought.

The solemn butler knew and welcomed him;
he was subjected to no stage of delay, but
ushered direct from the door to the dining-
room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his
wine. This was a hearty, healthy, dapper,
red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair
prematurely white, and a boisterous and
decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson,
he sprang up from his chair and welcomed
him with both hands. The geniality, as was
the way of the man, was somewhat
theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on
genuine feeling. For these two were old
friends, old mates both at school and
college, both thorough respectors of
themselves and of each other, and what
does not always follow, men who thoroughly
enjoyed each other's company.

After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up
to the subject which so disagreeably

-5-

beseiged by questions.

Six o'clock stuck on the bells of the church
that was so conveniently near to Mr.
Utterson's dwelling, and still he was digging
at the problem. Hitherto it had touched him
on the intellectual side alone; but now his
imagination also was engaged, or rather
enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the
gross darkness of the night and the
curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by
before his mind in a scroll of lighted
pictures. He would be aware of the great
field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the
figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a
child running from the doctor's; and then
these met, and that human Juggernaut trod
the child down and passed on regardless of
her screams. Or else he would see a room
in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep,
dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and
then the door of that room would be
opened, the curtains of the bed plucked
apart, the sleeper recalled, and lo! there
would stand by his side a figure to whom
power was given, and even at that dead
hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The
figure in these two phases haunted the
lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed
over, it was but to see it glide more stealthily
through sleeping houses, or move the more
swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to
dizziness, through wider labyrinths of
lamplighted city, and at every street corner
crush a child and leave her screaming. And
still the figure had no face by which he might
know it; even in his dreams, it had no face,
or one that baffled him and melted before
his eyes; and thus it was that there sprang
up and grew apace in the lawyer's mind a
singularly strong, almost an inordinate,
curiosity to behold the features of the real
Mr. Hyde. If he could but once set eyes on
him, he thought the mystery would lighten
and perhaps roll altogether away, as was
the habit of mysterious things when well

-6-

success that he withdrew into the entry of
the court.

The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled
out suddenly louder as they turned the end
of the street. The lawyer, looking forth from
the entry, could soon see what manner of
man he had to deal with. He was small and
very plainly dressed and the look of him,
even at that distance, went somehow
strongly against the watcher's inclination.
But he made straight for the door, crossing
the roadway to save time; and as he came,
he drew a key from his pocket like one
approaching home.

Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him
on the shoulder as he passed. "Mr. Hyde, I
think?"

Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake
of the breath. But his fear was only
momentary; and though he did not look the
lawyer in the face, he answered coolly
enough: "That is my name. What do you
want?"

"I see you are going in," returned the lawyer.
"I am an old friend of Dr. Jekyll's Mr.
Utterson of Gaunt Street you must have
heard of my name; and meeting you so
conveniently, I thought you might admit me."

"You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from
home," replied Mr. Hyde, blowing in the key.
And then suddenly, but still without looking
up, "How did you know me?" he asked.

"On your side," said Mr. Utterson "will you do
me a favour?"

"With pleasure," replied the other. "What shall
it be?"

"Will you let me see your face?" asked the
lawyer.

-7-

began slowly to mount the street, pausing
every step or two and putting his hand to his
brow like a man in mental perplexity. The
problem he was thus debating as he
walked, was one of a class that is rarely
solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he
gave an impression of deformity without
any nameable malformation, he had a
displeasing smile, he had borne himself to
the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture
of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with
a husky, whispering and somewhat broken
voice; all these were points against him, but
not all of these together could explain the
hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear
with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.
"There must be something else," said the
perplexed gentleman. "There is something
more, if I could find a name for it. God bless
me, the man seems hardly human!
Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can
it be the old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere
radience of a foul soul that thus transpires
through, and transfigures, its clay
continent? The last, I think; for, O my poor
old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan's
signature upon a face, it is on that of your
new friend."

Round the corner from the by-street, there
was a square of ancient, handsome
houses, now for the most part decayed
from their high estate and let in flats and
chambers to all sorts and conditions of
men; map-engravers, architects, shady
lawyers and the agents of obscure
enterprises. One house, however, second
from the corner, was still occupied entire;
and at the door of this, which wore a great
air of wealth and comfort, though it was now
plunged in darkness except for the fanlight,
Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A well-
dressed, elderly servant opened the door.

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

-8-

comes and goes by the laboratory."

"Well, good-night, Poole."

"Good-night, Mr. Utterson."

And the lawyer set out homeward with a
very heavy heart. "Poor Harry Jekyll," he
thought, "my mind misgives me he is in
deep waters! He was wild when he was
young; a long while ago to be sure; but in the
law of God, there is no statute of limitations.
Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old
sin, the cancer of some concealed
disgrace: punishment coming, pede
claudo, years after memory has forgotten
and self-love condoned the fault." And the
lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded
awhile on his own past, groping in all the
corners of memory, least by chance some
Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should
leap to light there. His past was fairly
blameless; few men could read the rolls of
their life with less apprehension; yet he was
humbled to the dust by the many ill things he
had done, and raised up again into a sober
and fearful gratitude by the many he had
come so near to doing yet avoided. And
then by a return on his former subject, he
conceived a spark of hope. "This Master
Hyde, if he were studied," thought he, "must
have secrets of his own; black secrets, by
the look of him; secrets compared to which
poor Jekyll's worst would be like sunshine.
Things cannot continue as they are. It turns
me cold to think of this creature stealing like
a thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what
a wakening! And the danger of it; for if this
Hyde suspects the existence of the will, he
may grow impatient to inherit. Ay, I must put
my shoulders to the wheel if Jekyll will but let
me," he added, "if Jekyll will only let me."
For once more he saw before his mind's
eye, as clear as transparency, the strange
clauses of the will.

-9-

Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh
topic.

"My will? Yes, certainly, I know that," said
the doctor, a trifle sharply. "You have told me
so."

"Well, I tell you so again," continued the
lawyer. "I have been learning something of
young Hyde."

The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew
pale to the very lips, and there came a
blackness about his eyes. "I do not care to
hear more," said he. "This is a matter I
thought we had agreed to drop."

"What I heard was abominable," said
Utterson.

"It can make no change. You do not
understand my position," returned the
doctor, with a certain incoherency of
manner. "I am painfully situated, Utterson;
my position is a very strange a very strange
one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be
mended by talking."

"Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me: I am a
man to be trusted. Make a clean breast of
this in confidence; and I make no doubt I can
get you out of it."

"My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is
very good of you, this is downright good of
you, and I cannot find words to thank you in. I
believe you fully; I would trust you before any
man alive, ay, before myself, if I could make
the choice; but indeed it isn't what you
fancy; it is not as bad as that; and just to put
your good heart at rest, I will tell you one
thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of
Mr. Hyde. I give you my hand upon that; and I
thank you again and again; and I will just
add one little word, Utterson, that I'm sure
you'll take in good part: this is a private

-10-

romantically given, for she sat down upon
her box, which stood immediately under the
window, and fell into a dream of musing.
Never (she used to say, with streaming
tears, when she narrated that experience),
never had she felt more at peace with all
men or thought more kindly of the world.
And as she so sat she became aware of an
aged beautiful gentleman with white hair,
drawing near along the lane; and advancing
to meet him, another and very small
gentleman, to whom at first she paid less
attention. When they had come within
speech (which was just under the maid's
eyes) the older man bowed and accosted
the other with a very pretty manner of
politeness. It did not seem as if the subject
of his address were of great importance;
indeed, from his pointing, it some times
appeared as if he were only inquiring his
way; but the moon shone on his face as he
spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it,
it seemed to breathe such an innocent and
old-world kindness of disposition, yet with
something high too, as of a well-founded
self-content. Presently her eye wandered to
the other, and she was surprised to
recognise in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who
had once visited her master and for whom
she had conceived a dislike. He had in his
hand a heavy cane, with which he was
trifling; but he answered never a word, and
seemed to listen with an ill-contained
impatience. And then all of a sudden he
broke out in a great flame of anger,
stamping with his foot, brandishing the
cane, and carrying on (as the maid
described it) like a madman. The old
gentleman took a step back, with the air of
one very much surprised and a trifle hurt;
and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all bounds
and clubbed him to the earth. And next
moment, with ape-like fury, he was
trampling his victim under foot and hailing
down a storm of blows, under which the
bones were audibly shattered and the body

-11-

name of Hyde; but when the stick was laid
before him, he could doubt no longer;
broken and battered as it was, he
recognized it for one that he had himself
presented many years before to Henry
Jekyll.

"Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?"
he inquired.

"Particularly small and particularly wicked-
looking, is what the maid calls him," said the
officer.

Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his
head, "If you will come with me in my cab,"
he said, "I think I can take you to his house."

It was by this time about nine in the morning,
and the first fog of the season. A great
chocolate-coloured pall lowered over
heaven, but the wind was continually
charging and routing these embattled
vapours; so that as the cab crawled from
street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a
marvelous number of degrees and hues of
twilight; for here it would be dark like the
back-end of evening; and there would be a
glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of
some strange conflagration; and here, for a
moment, the fog would be quite broken up,
and a haggard shaft of daylight would
glance in between the swirling wreaths. The
dismal quarter of Soho seen under these
changing glimpses, with its muddy ways,
and slatternly passengers, and its lamps,
which had never been extinguished or had
been kindled afresh to combat this mournful
reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the
lawyer's eyes, like a district of some city in
a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind,
besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and
when he glanced at the companion of his
drive, he was conscious of some touch of
that terror of the law and the law's officers,
which may at times assail the most honest.

-12-

for the old woman remained otherwise
empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of
rooms; but these were furnished with luxury
and good taste. A closet was filled with
wine; the plate was of silver, the napery
elegant; a good picture hung upon the walls,
a gift (as Utterson supposed) from Henry
Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and
the carpets were of many plies and
agreeable in colour. At this moment,
however, the rooms bore every mark of
having been recently and hurriedly
ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with
their pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers
stood open; and on the hearth there lay a
pile of grey ashes, as though many papers
had been burned. From these embers the
inspector disinterred the butt end of a green
cheque book, which had resisted the action
of the fire; the other half of the stick was
found behind the door; and as this clinched
his suspicions, the officer declared himself
delighted. A visit to the bank, where several
thousand pounds were found to be lying to
the murderer's credit, completed his
gratification.

"You may depend upon it, sir," he told Mr.
Utterson: "I have him in my hand. He must
have lost his head, or he never would have
left the stick or, above all, burned the
cheque book. Why, money's life to the man.
We have nothing to do but wait for him at the
bank, and get out the handbills."

This last, however, was not so easy of
accomplishment; for Mr. Hyde had
numbered few familiars even the master of
the servant maid had only seen him twice;
his family could nowhere be traced; he had
never been photographed; and the few who
could describe him differed widely, as
common observers will. Only on one point
were they agreed; and that was the
haunting sense of unexpressed deformity
with which the fugitive impressed his

-13-

news?"

The doctor shuddered. "They were crying it
in the square," he said. "I heard them in my
dining-room."

"One word," said the lawyer. "Carew was
my client, but so are you, and I want to know
what I am doing. You have not been mad
enough to hide this fellow?"

"Utterson, I swear to God," cried the doctor,
"I swear to God I will never set eyes on him
again. I bind my honour to you that I am done
with him in this world. It is all at an end. And
indeed he does not want my help; you do
not know him as I do; he is safe, he is quite
safe; mark my words, he will never more be
heard of."

The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like
his friend's feverish manner. "You seem
pretty sure of him," said he; "and for your
sake, I hope you may be right. If it came to a
trial, your name might appear."

"I am quite sure of him," replied Jekyll; "I
have grounds for certainty that I cannot
share with any one. But there is one thing on
which you may advise me. I have I have
received a letter; and I am at a loss whether I
should show it to the police. I should like to
leave it in your hands, Utterson; you would
judge wisely, I am sure; I have so great a
trust in you."

"You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his
detection?" asked the lawyer.

"No," said the other. "I cannot say that I care
what becomes of Hyde; I am quite done
with him. I was thinking of my own
character, which this hateful business has
rather exposed."

Utterson ruminated awhile; he was

-14-

On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had
a word or two with Poole. "By the bye," said
he, "there was a letter handed in to-day:
what was the messenger like?" But Poole
was positive nothing had come except by
post; "and only circulars by that," he added.

This news sent off the visitor with his fears
renewed. Plainly the letter had come by the
laboratory door; possibly, indeed, it had
been written in the cabinet; and if that were
so, it must be differently judged, and
handled with the more caution. The
newsboys, as he went, were crying
themselves hoarse along the footways:
"Special edition. Shocking murder of an
M.P." That was the funeral oration of one
friend and client; and he could not help a
certain apprehension lest the good name of
another should be sucked down in the eddy
of the scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish
decision that he had to make; and self-
reliant as he was by habit, he began to
cherish a longing for advice. It was not to be
had directly; but perhaps, he thought, it
might be fished for.

Presently after, he sat on one side of his
own hearth, with Mr. Guest, his head clerk,
upon the other, and midway between, at a
nicely calculated distance from the fire, a
bottle of a particular old wine that had long
dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his
house. The fog still slept on the wing above
the drowned city, where the lamps
glimmered like carbuncles; and through the
muffle and smother of these fallen clouds,
the procession of the town's life was still
rolling in through the great arteries with a
sound as of a mighty wind. But the room
was gay with firelight. In the bottle the acids
were long ago resolved; the imperial dye
had softened with time, as the colour grows
richer in stained windows; and the glow of
hot autumn afternoons on hillside vineyards,
was ready to be set free and to disperse the

-15-

"Only an invitation to dinner. Why? Do you
want to see it?"

"One moment. I thank you, sir;" and the clerk
laid the two sheets of paper alongside and
sedulously compared their contents. "Thank
you, sir," he said at last, returning both; "it's
a very interesting autograph."

There was a pause, during which Mr.
Utterson struggled with himself. "Why did
you compare them, Guest?" he inquired
suddenly.

"Well, sir," returned the clerk, "there's a
rather singular resemblance; the two hands
are in many points identical: only differently
sloped."

"Rather quaint," said Utterson.

"It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned
Guest.

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

"No, sir," said the clerk. "I understand."

But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that
night, than he locked the note into his safe,
where it reposed from that time forward.
"What!" he thought. "Henry Jekyll forge for a
murderer!" And his blood ran cold in his
veins.

Chapter 6 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 disreputable: tales came out

-16-

shocked at the change which had taken
place in the doctor's appearance. He had
his death-warrant written legibly upon his
face. The rosy man had grown pale; his
flesh had fallen away; he was visibly balder
and older; and yet it was not so much these
tokens of a swift physical decay that
arrested the lawyer's notice, as a look in the
eye and quality of manner that seemed to
testify to some deep-seated terror of the
mind. It was unlikely that the doctor should
fear death; and yet that was what Utterson
was tempted to suspect. "Yes," he thought;
he is a doctor, he must know his own state
and that his days are counted; and the
knowledge is more than he can bear." And
yet when Utterson remarked on his ill-looks,
it was with an air of great firmness that
Lanyon declared himself a doomed man.

"I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall
never recover. It is a question of weeks.
Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it; yes,
sir, I used to like it. I sometimes think if we
knew all, we should be more glad to get
away."

"Jekyll is ill, too," observed Utterson. "Have
you seen him?"

But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up
a trembling hand. "I wish to see or hear no
more of Dr. Jekyll," he said in a loud,
unsteady voice. "I am quite done with that
person; and I beg that you will spare me any
allusion to one whom I regard as dead."

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson; and then after a
considerable pause, "Can't I do anything?"
he inquired. "We are three very old friends,
Lanyon; we shall not live to make others."

"Nothing can be done," returned Lanyon;
"ask himself."

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

-17-

bed, and in something less than a fortnight
he was dead. The night after the funeral, at
which he had been sadly affected, Utterson
locked the door of his business room, and
sitting there by the light of a melancholy
candle, drew out and set before him an
envelope addressed by the hand and
sealed with the seal of his dead friend.
"PRIVATE: for the hands of G. J. Utterson
ALONE, and in case of his predecease to
be destroyed unread," so it was
emphatically superscribed; and the lawyer
dreaded to behold the contents. "I have
buried one friend to-day," he thought: "what
if this should cost me another?" And then he
condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and
broke the seal. Within there was another
enclosure, likewise sealed, and marked
upon the cover as "not to be opened till the
death or disappearance of Dr. Henry
Jekyll." Utterson could not trust his eyes.
Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as
in the mad will which he had long ago
restored to its author, here again were the
idea of a disappearance and the name of
Henry Jekyll bracketted. But in the will, that
idea had sprung from the sinister
suggestion of the man Hyde; it was set
there with a purpose all too plain and
horrible. Written by the hand of Lanyon, what
should it mean? A great curiosity came on
the trustee, to disregard the prohibition and
dive at once to the bottom of these
mysteries; but professional honour and faith
to his dead friend were stringent
obligations; and the packet slept in the
inmost corner of his private safe.

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to
conquer it; and it may be doubted if, from
that day forth, Utterson desired the society
of his surviving friend with the same
eagerness. He thought of him kindly; but his
thoughts were disquieted and fearful. He
went to call indeed; but he was perhaps
relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps,

-18-

The court was very cool and a little damp,
and full of premature twilight, although the
sky, high up overhead, was still bright with
sunset. The middle one of the three
windows was half-way open; and sitting
close beside it, taking the air with an infinite
sadness of mien, like some disconsolate
prisoner, Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.

"What! Jekyll!" he cried. "I trust you are
better."

"I am very low, Utterson," replied the doctor
drearily, "very low. It will not last long, thank
God."

"You stay too much indoors," said the
lawyer. "You should be out, whipping up the
circulation like Mr. Enfield and me. (This is
my cousin Mr. Enfield Dr. Jekyll.) Come
now; get your hat and take a quick turn with
us."

"You are very good," sighed the other. "I
should like to very much; but no, no, no, it is
quite impossible; I dare not. But indeed,
Utterson, I am very glad to see you; this is
really a great pleasure; I would ask you and
Mr. Enfield up, but the place is really not fit."

"Why, then," said the lawyer, good-
naturedly, "the best thing we can do is to
stay down here and speak with you from
where we are."

"That is just what I was about to venture to
propose," returned the doctor with a smile.
But the words were hardly uttered, before
the smile was struck out of his face and
succeeded by an expression of such abject
terror and despair, as froze the very blood
of the two gentlemen below. They saw it but
for a glimpse for the window was instantly
thrust down; but that glimpse had been
sufficient, and they turned and left the court
without a word. In silence, too, they

-19-

The man's appearance amply bore out his
words; his manner was altered for the
worse; and except for the moment when he
had first announced his terror, he had not
once looked the lawyer in the face. Even
now, he sat with the glass of wine untasted
on his knee, and his eyes directed to a
corner of the floor. "I can bear it no more,"he
repeated.

"Come," said the lawyer, "I see you have
some good reason, Poole; I see there is
something seriously amiss. Try to tell me
what it is."

"I think there's been foul play," said Poole,
hoarsely.

"Foul play!" cried the lawyer, a good deal
frightened and rather inclined to be irritated
in consequence. "What foul play! What does
the man mean?"

"I daren't say, sir," was the answer; but will
you come along with me and see for
yourself?"

Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and
get his hat and greatcoat; but he observed
with wonder the greatness of the relief that
appeared upon the butler's face, and
perhaps with no less, that the wine was still
untasted when he set it down to follow.

It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of
March, with a pale moon, lying on her back
as though the wind had tilted her, and flying
wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny
texture. The wind made talking difficult, and
flecked the blood into the face. It seemed to
have swept the streets unusually bare of
passengers, besides; for Mr. Utterson
thought he had never seen that part of
London so deserted. He could have wished
it otherwise; never in his life had he been
conscious of so sharp a wish to see and

-20-

Blank silence followed, no one protesting;
only the maid lifted her voice and now wept
loudly.

"Hold your tongue!" Poole said to her, with a
ferocity of accent that testified to his own
jangled nerves; and indeed, when the girl
had so suddenly raised the note of her
lamentation, they had all started and turned
towards the inner door with faces of
dreadful expectation. "And now," continued
the butler, addressing the knife-boy, "reach
me a candle, and we'll get this through
hands at once." And then he begged Mr.
Utterson to follow him, and led the way to
the back garden.

"Now, sir," said he, "you come as gently as
you can. I want you to hear, and I don't want
you to be heard. And see here, sir, if by any
chance he was to ask you in, don't go."

Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for
termination, gave a jerk that nearly threw
him from his balance; but he recollected his
courage and followed the butler into the
laboratory building through the surgical
theatre, with its lumber of crates and
bottles, to the foot of the stair. Here Poole
motioned him to stand on one side and
listen; while he himself, setting down the
candle and making a great and obvious call
on his resolution, mounted the steps and
knocked with a somewhat uncertain hand
on the red baize of the cabinet door.

"Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you," he
called; and even as he did so, once more
violently signed to the lawyer to give ear.

A voice answered from within: "Tell him I
cannot see anyone," it said complainingly.

"Thank you, sir," said Poole, with a note of
something like triumph in his voice; and
taking up his candle, he led Mr. Utterson

-21-

there would be another paper telling me to
return it, because it was not pure, and
another order to a different firm. This drug is
wanted bitter bad, sir, whatever for."

"Have you any of these papers?" asked Mr.
Utterson.

Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a
crumpled note, which the lawyer, bending
nearer to the candle, carefully examined. Its
contents ran thus: "Dr. Jekyll presents his
compliments to Messrs. Maw. He assures
them that their last sample is impure and
quite useless for his present purpose. In the
year 18 , Dr. J. purchased a somewhat large
quantity from Messrs. M. He now begs them
to search with most sedulous care, and
should any of the same quality be left,
forward it to him at once. Expense is no
consideration. The importance of this to Dr.
J. can hardly be exaggerated." So far the
letter had run composedly enough, but here
with a sudden splutter of the pen, the
writer's emotion had broken loose. "For
God's sake," he added, "find me some of
the old."

"This is a strange note," said Mr. Utterson;
and then sharply, "How do you come to have
it open?"

"The man at Maw's was main angry, sir,
and he threw it back to me like so much
dirt," returned Poole.

"This is unquestionably the doctor's hand,
do you know?" resumed the lawyer.

"I thought it looked like it," said the servant
rather sulkily; and then, with another voice,
"But what matters hand of write?" he said.
"I've seen him!"

"Seen him?" repeated Mr. Utterson. "Well?"

-22-

it was never Dr. Jekyll; and it is the belief of
my heart that there was murder done."

"Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that,
it will become my duty to make certain.
Much as I desire to spare your master's
feelings, much as I am puzzled by this note
which seems to prove him to be still alive, I
shall consider it my duty to break in that
door."

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

"And now comes the second question,"
resumed Utterson: "Who is going to do it?"

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

"That's very well said," returned the lawyer;
"and whatever comes of it, I shall make it my
business to see you are no loser."

"There is an axe in the theatre," continued
Poole; "and you might take the kitchen
poker for yourself."

The lawyer took that rude but weighty
instrument into his hand, and balanced it.
"Do you know, Poole," he said, looking up,
"that you and I are about to place ourselves
in a position of some peril?"

"You may say so, sir, indeed," returned the
butler.

"It is well, then that we should be frank," said
the other. "We both think more than we have
said; let us make a clean breast. This
masked figure that you saw, did you
recognise it?"

"Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature
was so doubled up, that I could hardly swear
to that," was the answer. "But if you mean,

-23-

make an end of it. Poole, here, and I are
going to force our way into the cabinet. If all
is well, my shoulders are broad enough to
bear the blame. Meanwhile, lest anything
should really be amiss, or any malefactor
seek to escape by the back, you and the
boy must go round the corner with a pair of
good sticks and take your post at the
laboratory door. We give you ten minutes, to
get to your stations."

As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his
watch. "And now, Poole, let us get to ours,"
he said; and taking the poker under his arm,
led the way into the yard. The scud had
banked over the moon, and it was now quite
dark. The wind, which only broke in puffs
and draughts into that deep well of building,
tossed the light of the candle to and fro
about their steps, until they came into the
shelter of the theatre, where they sat down
silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all
around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was
only broken by the sounds of a footfall
moving to and fro along the cabinet floor.

"So it will walk all day, sir," whispered
Poole; "ay, and the better part of the night.
Only when a new sample comes from the
chemist, there's a bit of a break. Ah, it's an
ill conscience that's such an enemy to rest!
Ah, sir, there's blood foully shed in every
step of it! But hark again, a little closer put
your heart in your ears, Mr. Utterson, and tell
me, is that the doctor's foot?"

The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a
certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it
was different indeed from the heavy
creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson
sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he
asked.

Poole nodded. "Once," he said. "Once I
heard it weeping!"

-24-

chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing
its thin strain, a drawer or two open, papers
neatly set forth on the business table, and
nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea; the
quietest room, you would have said, and,
but for the glazed presses full of chemicals,
the most commonplace that night in London.

Right in the middle there lay the body of a
man sorely contorted and still twitching.
They drew near on tiptoe, turned it on its
back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde.
He was dressed in clothes far to large for
him, clothes of the doctor's bigness; the
cords of his face still moved with a
semblance of life, but life was quite gone:
and by the crushed phial in the hand and the
strong smell of kernels that hung upon the
air, Utterson knew that he was looking on
the body of a self-destroyer.

"We have come too late," he said sternly,
"whether to save or punish. Hyde is gone to
his account; and it only remains for us to find
the body of your master."

The far greater proportion of the building
was occupied by the theatre, which filled
almost the whole ground storey and was
lighted from above, and by the cabinet,
which formed an upper story at one end and
looked upon the court. A corridor joined the
theatre to the door on the by-street; and
with this the cabinet communicated
separately by a second flight of stairs.
There were besides a few dark closets and
a spacious cellar. All these they now
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
predecessor; but even as they opened the
door they were advertised of the
uselessness of further search, by the fall of

-25-

several books on a shelf; one lay beside the
tea things open, and Utterson was amazed
to find it a copy of a pious work, for which
Jekyll had several times expressed a great
esteem, annotated, in his own hand with
startling blasphemies.

Next, in the course of their review of the
chamber, the searchers came to the cheval-
glass, into whose depths they looked with
an involuntary horror. But it was so turned as
to show them nothing but the rosy glow
playing on the roof, the fire sparkling in a
hundred repetitions along the glazed front of
the presses, and their own pale and fearful
countenances stooping to look in.

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

"And surely none stranger than itself,"
echoed the lawyer in the same tones. "For
what did Jekyll" he caught himself up at the
word with a start, and then conquering the
weakness "what could Jekyll want with it?"
he said.

"You may say that!" said Poole.

Next they turned to the business table. On
the desk, among the neat array of papers, a
large envelope was uppermost, and bore,
in the doctor's hand, the name of Mr.
Utterson. The lawyer unsealed it, and
several enclosures fell to the floor. The first
was a will, drawn in the same eccentric
terms as the one which he had returned six
months before, to serve as a testament in
case of death and as a deed of gift in case
of disappearance; but in place of the name
of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with
indescribable amazement read the name of
Gabriel John Utterson. He looked at Poole,
and then back at the paper, and last of all at
the dead malefactor stretched upon the
carpet.

-26-

The lawyer put it in his pocket. "I would say
nothing of this paper. If your master has fled
or is dead, we may at least save his credit. It
is now ten; I must go home and read these
documents in quiet; but I shall be back
before midnight, when we shall send for the
police."

They went out, locking the door of the
theatre behind them; and Utterson, once
more leaving the servants gathered about
the fire in the hall, trudged back to his office
to read the two narratives in which this
mystery was now to be explained.

Chapter 9 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
correspondence; I had seen the man, dined
with him, indeed, the night before; and I
could imagine nothing in our intercourse that
should justify formality of registration. The
contents increased my wonder; for this is
how the letter ran:

"10th December, 18 .

"Dear Lanyon, You are one of my oldest
friends; and although we may have differed
at times on scientific questions, I cannot
remember, at least on my side, any break in
our affection. There was never a day when,
if you had said to me, `Jekyll, my life, my
honour, my reason, depend upon you,' I
would not have sacrificed my left hand to
help you. Lanyon my life, my honour, my
reason, are all at your mercy; if you fail me
to-night, I am lost. You might suppose, after
this preface, that I am going to ask you for
something dishonourable to grant. Judge
for yourself.

-27-

might have charged your conscience with
my death or the shipwreck of my reason.

"Confident as I am that you will not trifle with
this appeal, my heart sinks and my hand
trembles at the bare thought of such a
possibility. Think of me at this hour, in a
strange place, labouring under a blackness
of distress that no fancy can exaggerate,
and yet well aware that, if you will but
punctually serve me, my troubles will roll
away like a story that is told. Serve me, my
dear Lanyon and save

"H.J.

"P.S. I had already sealed this up when a
fresh terror struck upon my soul. It is
possible that the post-office may fail me,
and this letter not come into your hands until
to-morrow morning. In that case, dear
Lanyon, do my errand when it shall be most
convenient for you in the course of the day;
and once more expect my messenger at
midnight. It may then already be too late;
and if that night passes without event, you
will know that you have seen the last of
Henry Jekyll."

Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure
my colleague was insane; but till that was
proved beyond the possibility of doubt, I felt
bound to do as he requested. The less I
understood of this farrago, the less I was in
a position to judge of its importance; and
an appeal so worded could not be set aside
without a grave responsibility. I rose
accordingly from table, got into a hansom,
and drove straight to Jekyll's house. The
butler was awaiting my arrival; he had
received by the same post as mine a
registered letter of instruction, and had sent
at once for a locksmith and a carpenter. The
tradesmen came while we were yet
speaking; and we moved in a body to old
Dr. Denman's surgical theatre, from which

-28-

honour, the sanity, or the life of my flighty
colleague? If his messenger could go to one
place, why could he not go to another? And
even granting some impediment, why was
this gentleman to be received by me in
secret? The more I reflected the more
convinced I grew that I was dealing with a
case of cerebral disease; and though I
dismissed my servants to bed, I loaded an
old revolver, that I might be found in some
posture of self-defence.

Twelve o'clock had scarce rung out over
London, ere the knocker sounded very
gently on the door. I went myself at the
summons, and found a small man crouching
against the pillars of the portico.

"Are you come from Dr. Jekyll?" I asked.

He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture;
and when I had bidden him enter, he did not
obey me without a searching backward
glance into the darkness of the square.
There was a policeman not far off,
advancing with his bull's eye open; and at
the sight, I thought my visitor started and
made greater haste.

These particulars struck me, I confess,
disagreeably; and as I followed him into the
bright light of the consulting room, I kept my
hand ready on my weapon. Here, at last, I
had a chance of clearly seeing him. I had
never set eyes on him before, so much was
certain. He was small, as I have said; I was
struck besides with the shocking
expression of his face, with his remarkable
combination of great muscular activity and
great apparent debility of constitution, and
last but not least with the odd, subjective
disturbance caused by his neighbourhood.
This bore some resemblance to incipient
rigour, and was accompanied by a marked
sinking of the pulse. At the time, I set it down
to some idiosyncratic, personal distaste,

-29-

customary seat and with as fair an imitation
of my ordinary manner to a patient, as the
lateness of the hour, the nature of my
preoccupations, and the horror I had of my
visitor, would suffer me to muster.

"I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied
civilly enough. "What you say is very well
founded; and my impatience has shown its
heels to my politeness. I come here at the
instance of your colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll,
on a piece of business of some moment;
and I understood ..." He paused and put his
hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite
of his collected manner, that he was
wrestling against the approaches of the
hysteria "I understood, a drawer ..."

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

"There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the
drawer, where it lay on the floor behind a
table and still covered with the sheet.

He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid
his hand upon his heart: I could hear his
teeth grate with the convulsive action of his
jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see
that I grew alarmed both for his life and
reason.

"Compose yourself," said I.

He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if
with the decision of despair, plucked away
the sheet. At sight of the contents, he
uttered one loud sob of such immense relief
that I sat petrified. And the next moment, in a
voice that was already fairly well under
control, "Have you a graduated glass?" he
asked.

I rose from my place with something of an
effort and gave him what he asked.

-30-

the seal of our profession. And now, you
who have so long been bound to the most
narrow and material views, you who have
denied the virtue of transcendental
medicine, you who have derided your
superiors behold!"

He put the glass to his lips and drank at one
gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered,
clutched at the table and held on, staring
with injected eyes, gasping with open
mouth; and as I looked there came, I
thought, a change he seemed to swell his
face became suddenly black and the
features seemed to melt and alter and the
next moment, I had sprung to my feet and
leaped back against the wall, my arms
raised to shield me from that prodigy, my
mind submerged in terror.

"O God!" I screamed, and "O God!" again
and again; for there before my eyes pale
and shaken, and half fainting, and groping
before him with his hands, like a man
restored from death there stood Henry
Jekyll!

What he told me in the next hour, I cannot
bring my mind to set on paper. I saw what I
saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul
sickened at it; and yet now when that sight
has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I
believe it, and I cannot answer. My life is
shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the
deadliest terror sits by me at all hours of the
day and night; and I feel that my days are
numbered, and that I must die; and yet I shall
die incredulous. As for the moral turpitude
that man unveiled to me, even with tears of
penitence, I can not, even in memory, dwell
on it without a start of horror. I will say but
one thing, Utterson, and that (if you can
bring your mind to credit it) will be more than
enough. The creature who crept into my
house that night was, on Jekyll's own
confession, known by the name of Hyde

-31-

relief of sorrow and suffering. And it
chanced that the direction of my scientific
studies, which led wholly towards the mystic
and the transcendental, reacted and shed a
strong light on this consciousness of the
perennial war among my members. With
every day, and from both sides of my
intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I
thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by
whose partial discovery I have been
doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that
man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two,
because the state of my own knowledge
does not pass beyond that point. Others will
follow, others will outstrip me on the same
lines; and I hazard the guess that man will
be ultimately known for a mere polity of
multifarious, incongruous and independent
denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of
my life, advanced infallibly in one direction
and in one direction only. It was on the moral
side, and in my own person, that I learned to
recognise the thorough and primitive duality
of man; I saw that, of the two natures that
contended in the field of my consciousness,
even if I could rightly be said to be either, it
was only because I was radically both; and
from an early date, even before the course
of my scientific discoveries had begun to
suggest the most naked possibility of such
a miracle, I had learned to dwell with
pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the
thought of the separation of these elements.
If each, I told myself, could be housed in
separate identities, life would be relieved of
all that was unbearable; the unjust might go
his way, delivered from the aspirations and
remorse of his more upright twin; and the
just could walk steadfastly and securely on
his upward path, doing the good things in
which he found his pleasure, and no longer
exposed to disgrace and penitence by the
hands of this extraneous evil. It was the
curse of mankind that these incongruous
faggots were thus bound together that in the
agonised womb of consciousness, these

-32-

so singular and profound at last overcame
the suggestions of alarm. I had long since
prepared my tincture; I purchased at once,
from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large
quantity of a particular salt which I knew,
from my experiments, to be the last
ingredient required; and late one accursed
night, I compounded the elements, watched
them boil and smoke together in the glass,
and when the ebullition had subsided, with
a strong glow of courage, drank off the
potion.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a
grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a
horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded
at the hour of birth or death. Then these
agonies began swiftly to subside, and I
came to myself as if out of a great sickness.
There was something strange in my
sensations, something indescribably new
and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I
felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I
was conscious of a heady recklessness, a
current of disordered sensual images
running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution
of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but
not an innocent freedom of the soul.

I knew myself, at the first breath of this new
life, to be more wicked, tenfold more
wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and
the thought, in that moment, braced and
delighted me like wine. I stretched out my
hands, exulting in the freshness of these
sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly
aware that I had lost in stature.

There was no mirror, at that date, in my
room; that which stands beside me as I
write, was brought there later on and for the
very purpose of these transformations. The
night however, was far gone into the
morning the morning, black as it was, was
nearly ripe for the conception of the day the
inmates of my house were locked in the

-33-

commingled out of good and evil: and
Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of
mankind, was pure evil.

I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the
second and conclusive experiment had yet
to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen
if I had lost my identity beyond redemption
and must flee before daylight from a house
that was no longer mine; and hurrying back
to my cabinet, I once more prepared and
drank the cup, once more suffered the
pangs of dissolution, and came to myself
once more with the character, the stature
and the face of Henry Jekyll.

That night I had come to the fatal cross-
roads. Had I approached my discovery in a
more noble spirit, had I risked the
experiment while under the empire of
generous or pious aspirations, all must
have been otherwise, and from these
agonies of death and birth, I had come forth
an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no
discriminating action; it was neither
diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors
of the prisonhouse of my disposition; and
like the captives of Philippi, that which
stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue
slumbered; my evil, kept awake by
ambition, was alert and swift to seize the
occasion; and the thing that was projected
was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had
now two characters as well as two
appearances, one was wholly evil, and the
other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that
incongruous compound of whose
reformation and improvement I had already
learned to despair. The movement was thus
wholly toward the worse.

Even at that time, I had not conquered my
aversions to the dryness of a life of study. I
would still be merrily disposed at times; and
as my pleasures were (to say the least)
undignified, and I was not only well known

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trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a
man who could afford to laugh at suspicion,
would be Henry Jekyll.

The pleasures which I made haste to seek
in my disguise were, as I have said,
undignified; I would scarce use a harder
term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they
soon began to turn toward the monstrous.
When I would come back from these
excursions, I was often plunged into a kind
of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This
familiar that I called out of my own soul, and
sent forth alone to do his good pleasure,
was a being inherently malign and
villainous; his every act and thought
centered on self; drinking pleasure with
bestial avidity from any degree of torture to
another; relentless like a man of stone.

Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before
the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation
was apart from ordinary laws, and
insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience.
It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that
was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke
again to his good qualities seemingly
unimpaired; he would even make haste,
where it was possible, to undo the evil done
by Hyde. And thus his conscience
slumbered.

Into the details of the infamy at which I thus
connived (for even now I can scarce grant
that I committed it) I have no design of
entering; I mean but to point out the
warnings and the successive steps with
which my chastisement approached. I met
with one accident which, as it brought on no
consequence, I shall no more than mention.
An act of cruelty to a child aroused against
me the anger of a passer-by, whom I
recognised the other day in the person of
your kinsman; the doctor and the child's
family joined him; there were moments
when I feared for my life; and at last, in

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of cymbals; and bounding from my bed I
rushed to the mirror. At the sight that met my
eyes, my blood was changed into
something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I
had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had
awakened Edward Hyde. How was this to
be explained? I asked myself; and then,
with another bound of terror how was it to
be remedied? It was well on in the morning;
the servants were up; all my drugs were in
the cabinet a long journey down two pairs
of stairs, through the back passage, across
the open court and through the anatomical
theatre, from where I was then standing
horror-struck. It might indeed be possible to
cover my face; but of what use was that,
when I was unable to conceal the alteration
in my stature? And then with an
overpowering sweetness of relief, it came
back upon my mind that the servants were
already used to the coming and going of my
second self. I had soon dressed, as well as I
was able, in clothes of my own size: had
soon passed through the house, where
Bradshaw stared and drew back at seeing
Mr. Hyde at such an hour and in such a
strange array; and ten minutes later, Dr.
Jekyll had returned to his own shape and
was sitting down, with a darkened brow, to
make a feint of breakfasting.

Small indeed was my appetite. This
inexplicable incident, this reversal of my
previous experience, seemed, like the
Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling
out the letters of my judgment; and I began
to reflect more seriously than ever before on
the issues and possibilities of my double
existence. That part of me which I had the
power of projecting, had lately been much
exercised and nourished; it had seemed to
me of late as though the body of Edward
Hyde had grown in stature, as though (when
I wore that form) I were conscious of a more
generous tide of blood; and I began to spy a
danger that, if this were much prolonged,

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smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde
would be not even conscious of all that he
had lost. Strange as my circumstances
were, the terms of this debate are as old
and commonplace as man; much the same
inducements and alarms cast the die for any
tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out
with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of
my fellows, that I chose the better part and
was found wanting in the strength to keep to
it.

Yes, I preferred the elderly and
discontented doctor, surrounded by friends
and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a
resolute farewell to the liberty, the
comparative youth, the light step, leaping
impulses and secret pleasures, that I had
enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I made this
choice perhaps with some unconscious
reservation, for I neither gave up the house
in Soho, nor destroyed the clothes of
Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in my
cabinet. For two months, however, I was
true to my determination; for two months, I
led a life of such severity as I had never
before attained to, and enjoyed the
compensations of an approving
conscience. But time began at last to
obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the
praises of conscience began to grow into a
thing of course; I began to be tortured with
throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling
after freedom; and at last, in an hour of
moral weakness, I once again compounded
and swallowed the transforming draught.

I do not suppose that, when a drunkard
reasons with himself upon his vice, he is
once out of five hundred times affected by
the dangers that he runs through his brutish,
physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I
had considered my position, made enough
allowance for the complete moral
insensibility and insensate readiness to
evil, which were the leading characters of

-37-

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
danmed horrors of the evening. I could have
screamed aloud; I sought with tears and
prayers to smother down the crowd of
hideous images and sounds with which my
memory swarmed against me; and still,
between the petitions, the ugly face of my
iniquity stared into my soul. As the
acuteness of this remorse began to die
away, it was succeeded by a sense of joy.
The problem of my conduct was solved.
Hyde was thenceforth impossible; whether I
would or not, I was now confined to the
better part of my existence; and O, how I
rejoiced to think of it! with what willing
humility I embraced anew the restrictions of
natural life! with what sincere renunciation I
locked the door by which I had so often
gone and come, and ground the key under
my heel!

The next day, came the news that the
murder had been overlooked, that the guilt
of Hyde was patent to the world, and that
the victim was a man high in public
estimation. It was not only a crime, it had
been a tragic folly. I think I was glad to know
it; I think I was glad to have my better
impulses thus buttressed and guarded by
the terrors of the scaffold. Jekyll was now
my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an
instant, and the hands of all men would be
raised to take and slay him.

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem
the past; and I can say with honesty that my
resolve was fruitful of some good. You
know yourself how earnestly, in the last
months of the last year, I laboured to relieve

-38-

my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken
limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was
corded and hairy. I was once more Edward
Hyde. A moment before I had been safe of
all men's respect, wealthy, beloved the
cloth laying for me in the dining-room at
home; and now I was the common quarry of
mankind, hunted, houseless, a known
murderer, thrall to the gallows.

My reason wavered, but it did not fail me
utterly. I have more than once observed that
in my second character, my faculties
seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits
more tensely elastic; thus it came about
that, where Jekyll perhaps might have
succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of
the moment. My drugs were in one of the
presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach
them? That was the problem that (crushing
my temples in my hands) I set myself to
solve. The laboratory door I had closed. If I
sought to enter by the house, my own
servants would consign me to the gallows. I
saw I must employ another hand, and
thought of Lanyon. How was he to be
reached? how persuaded? Supposing that I
escaped capture in the streets, how was I to
make my way into his presence? and how
should I, an unknown and displeasing
visitor, prevail on the famous physician to
rifle the study of his colleague, Dr. Jekyll?
Then I remembered that of my original
character, one part remained to me: I could
write my own hand; and once I had
conceived that kindling spark, the way that I
must follow became lighted up from end to
end.

Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I
could, and summoning a passing hansom,
drove to an hotel in Portland Street, the
name of which I chanced to remember. At
my appearance (which was indeed comical
enough, however tragic a fate these
garments covered) the driver could not

-39-

horror of my old friend perhaps affected me
somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but
a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with
which I looked back upon these hours. A
change had come over me. It was no longer
the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of
being Hyde that racked me. I received
Lanyon's condemnation partly in a dream; it
was partly in a dream that I came home to
my own house and got into bed. I slept after
the prostration of the day, with a stringent
and profound slumber which not even the
nightmares that wrung me could avail to
break. I awoke in the morning shaken,
weakened, but refreshed. I still hated and
feared the thought of the brute that slept
within me, and I had not of course forgotten
the appalling dangers of the day before; but
I was once more at home, in my own house
and close to my drugs; and gratitude for my
escape shone so strong in my soul that it
almost rivalled the brightness of hope.

I was stepping leisurely across the court
after breakfast, drinking the chill of the air
with pleasure, when I was seized again with
those indescribable sensations that
heralded the change; and I had but the time
to gain the shelter of my cabinet, before I
was once again raging and freezing with
the passions of Hyde. It took on this
occasion a double dose to recall me to
myself; and alas! six hours after, as I sat
looking sadly in the fire, the pangs returned,
and the drug had to be re-administered. In
short, from that day forth it seemed only by a
great effort as of gymnastics, and only
under the immediate stimulation of the drug,
that I was able to wear the countenance of
Jekyll. At all hours of the day and night, I
would be taken with the premonitory
shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed
for a moment in my chair, it was always as
Hyde that I awakened. Under the strain of
this continually impending doom and by the
sleeplessness to which I now condemned

-40-

with which he was himself regarded. Hence
the ape-like tricks that he would play me,
scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on
the pages of my books, burning the letters
and destroying the portrait of my father; and
indeed, had it not been for his fear of death,
he would long ago have ruined himself in
order to involve me in the ruin. But his love of
me is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken
and freeze at the mere thought of him, when
I recall the abjection and passion of this
attachment, and when I know how he fears
my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in
my heart to pity him.

It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to
prolong this description; no one has ever
suffered such torments, let that suffice; and
yet even to these, habit brought no, not
alleviation but a certain callousness of soul,
a certain acquiescence of despair; and my
punishment might have gone on for years,
but for the last calamity which has now
fallen, and which has finally severed me
from my own face and nature. My provision
of the salt, which had never been renewed
since the date of the first experiment, began
to run low. I sent out for a fresh supply and
mixed the draught; the ebullition followed,
and the first change of colour, not the
second; I drank it and it was without
efficiency. You will learn from Poole how I
have had London ransacked; it was in vain;
and I am now persuaded that my first supply
was impure, and that it was that unknown
impurity which lent efficacy to the draught.
About a week has passed, and I am now
finishing this statement under the influence
of the last of the old powders. This, then, is
the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry
Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his
own face (now how sadly altered!) in the
glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my
writing to an end; for if my narrative has
hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by
a combination of great prudence and great

-41-

good luck. Should the throes of change take
me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in
pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed
after I have laid it by, his wonderful
selfishness and circumscription to the
moment will probably save it once again
from the action of his ape-like spite. And
indeed the doom that is closing on us both
has already changed and crushed him. Half
an hour from now, when I shall again and
forever re-indue that hated personality, I
know how I shall sit shuddering and
weeping in my chair, or continue, with the
most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of
listening, to pace up and down this room
(my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every
sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the
scaffold? or will he find courage to release
himself at the last moment? God knows; I
am careless; this is my true hour of death,
and what is to follow concerns another than
myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and
proceed to seal up my confession, I bring
the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an
end.

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