Адаптация текста, комментарии и словарь С. А. Матвеева

Mr. Utterson[1] the lawyer was cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for other people.

“I let my brother go to the devil in his own way,” he used to say quaintly. And he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

Mr. Utterson was undemonstrative. His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. People did not know, 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. But the two men counted these excursions the chief jewel of each week.

One day their way led them down a by-street[2] in a busy quarter of London. The street was small and what is called quiet. The inhabitants were all doing well. Even on Sunday, the street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and pleased the eye.

Two doors from one corner[3], on the left hand going east, the line was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point, a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the street. It was two stories high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower story and a discoloured wall on the upper.

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the 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,” added he, “with a very odd story.”

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

“Well,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home 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. Street after street, and all the folks asleep—street after street, till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to look for a policeman. All at once[4], I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running hard. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing. The man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground. It was hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some devil. I gave a cry, ran to them, 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 ugly look. The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, appeared. Well, the child was frightened; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. We told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this, as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And there was the man, really like Satan. ‘If you choose to make capital out of this accident,’ said he, ‘I am naturally helpless. Gentlemen always wish to avoid a scene. How much?’

Well, we demanded a hundred pounds for the child’s family. The next thing was to get the money; and where do you think he carried us but to that place with the door?—whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the rest, signed with a name that I can’t mention, but it was a name at least very well known and often printed. 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 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 to the bank. I gave in the check myself, and said I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine.”

“Tut-tut![5]” 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 celebrated person, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good. Black-mail[6], I suppose. Black-Mail House is what I call that place with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from explaining all,” he added.

Mr. Utterson asked rather suddenly:

“And you don’t know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?”

“A likely place[7], isn’t it?” returned Mr. Enfield. “But I happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other.”

“And you never asked about the place with the door?” said Mr.Utterson.

“No, sir: I had a delicacy,” was the reply. “I feel very strongly about putting questions. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some man (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back-garden. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks queer, the less I ask.”

“A very good rule,” said the lawyer.

“But I have studied the place for myself,” continued Mr. Enfield. “It seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one. There are three windows looking on the court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut but they’re clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally smoking; so somebody must live there. And yet it’s not so sure; for the buildings are so packed together about 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 Enfield.

“But for all that,” continued the lawyer, “there’s one point I want to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child.”

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

“Hm,” said Mr. Utterson. “What sort of a man is he?”

“He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something 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 say nothing about him. No, sir; I can’t describe him.”

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence.

“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 man, it is because I know it already. You see, Richard, your tale can be useful for me.”

“The fellow had a key,” returned the other, “and he has it still. I saw him use it, not a week ago.”

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but did not say a word; and the young man presently resumed.

“I am ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to refer to this again.”

“With all my heart,” said the lawyer.

That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in somber spirits[8] 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 and to read, until the clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go 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[9]. There he opened his safe, took from the most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll’s Will, and sat down to study its contents. It provided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., etc., all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his “friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,” but that in case of Dr. Jekyll’s “disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months,” the said Edward Hyde should inherit the said Henry Jekyll’s possessions without further delay and free from any burden or obligation. This document offended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of regular life. It was already bad enough when the name was but a name of which he could learn no more.

“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 his coat, and set forth in the direction of Cavendish Square[10], that citadel of medicine, where his friend, Dr. Lanyon[11], had his house and received his patients.

“If any one knows, it will be Lanyon,” he had thought.

The butler welcomed him; he was ushered direct from the door to the dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone. This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a boisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and welcomed him with both hands. The geniality 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, and enjoyed each other’s company.

After a little talk, the lawyer led up to the subject which so disagreeably pre-occupied his mind.

“I suppose, Lanyon,” said he “you and I must be the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?”

“I wish the friends were younger,” chuckled Dr. Lanyon. “But I suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now.”

“Indeed?” said Utterson. “I thought you had some 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, as they say, I see and I have seen little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash,” added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, “has estranged us.”

“They have only differed on some point of science,” Mr. Utterson thought. He gave his friend a few seconds to calm himself, and then approached the question.

“Did you ever come across a protege of his—Mr. Hyde?” he asked.

“Hyde?” repeated Lanyon. “No. Never heard of him.”

That was all the information that the lawyer carried back with him.

Six o’clock struck on the bells of the church that was so conveniently near to Mr. Utterson’s dwelling, and still he was thinking about 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.

He would see lamps of a nocturnal city; then the figure of a man walking swiftly; then a child running from the doctor’s; and then these met, and that human devil 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 there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given. 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. If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as all mysterious things when well examined.

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, and at night under the face of the city moon, 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 were clean; the lamps were drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten o’clock, when the shops were closed, the by-street was very solitary and very silent. Mr. Utterson had been some minutes at his post, when he was aware of an odd, light footstep drawing near. 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 the man he had to deal with. He was small and very plainly dressed. And 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. 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—you must have heard my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might let me in.”

“You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home,” replied Mr. Hyde. And then suddenly, but still without looking up,

“How did you know me?” he asked.

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

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

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

Mr. Hyde hesitated, and then looked at Mr. Utterson.

“Now I shall know you again,” said Mr. Utterson. “It may be useful.”

“Yes,” returned Mr. Hyde, “it is as well we have, met; and you should have my address.”

And he gave an address in Soho[12].

“And now,” said Mr. Hyde, “how did you know me?”

“By description,” was the reply.

“Whose description?”

“We have common friends,” said Mr. Utterson.

“Common friends?” echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely. “Who are they?”

“Jekyll, for instance,” said the lawyer.

“He never told you,” cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger. “I did not think you would have lied!”

He snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment, with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house.

The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, in disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile; 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. This man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic! 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. One house, second from the corner, wore a great air of wealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness. Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A well-dressed, elderly servant opened the door.

“Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole[13]?” asked the lawyer.

“I will see, Mr. Utterson,” said Poole, admitting the visitor, as he spoke, into a large, comfortable hall. “Will you wait here by the fire, sir? Or in the dining room?”

“Here, thank you,” said the lawyer, and he drew near and leaned on the tall fender. The face of Hyde sat heavy on his memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a nausea and distaste of life.

Poole returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll was gone out.

“I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting-room[14] door, Poole,” he said. “Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?”

“Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir,” replied the servant. “Mr. Hyde has a key.”

“Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that young man, Poole,” resumed the other musingly.

“Yes, sir,” said Poole. “We have orders to obey him.”

“I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?” asked Utterson.

“O, dear no, sir. He never dines here,” replied the butler. “Indeed we see very little of him on this side of the house; he mostly comes and goes by the laboratory.”

“Well, good-night, Poole.”

“Good-night, Mr. Utterson.”

And the lawyer set out homeward with a very heavy heart.

“Poor Harry Jekyll,” he thought, “my mind tells me he is in a trouble! 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. Poor Harry! And if this Hyde suspects the existence of the will, he may grow impatient to inherit. Oh, I must do something if Jekyll will let me,” he added, “if Jekyll will let me.”

A fortnight later, the doctor gave one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old friends, all intelligent, reputable men; and Mr. Utterson remained behind after the others had departed. This was not new. Where Utterson was liked, he was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company. 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.

“I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll,” began Mr. Utterson. “Do you remember that will of yours?”

A close observer might have noticed that the topic was distasteful.

“My poor Utterson,” said the doctor, I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies. Oh, I know he’s a good fellow—an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of him; but he is a pedant; an ignorant, blatant pedant. I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon.”

“You know I never approved of it,” pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic.

“My will? Yes, certainly, I know that,” said the doctor 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. “Utterson, my position is a very strange—a very strange one.”

“Jekyll,” said Utterson, “you know me: I am a man to be trusted. And I can get you out of it.”

“My good Utterson,” said the doctor, “this is very good of you, and I cannot find words to thank you. I believe you fully; I would trust you before any man alive, before myself, if I could make the choice; but indeed it isn’t what you fancy. It is not so bad as that. I will tell you one thing: the moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde. I thank you again and again; and I will just add one little word, Utterson. This is a private matter, and let us forget it.”

Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire.

“I have no doubt you are perfectly right,” he said at last, getting to his feet.

“Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for the last time I hope,” continued the doctor, “there is one point I should like you to understand. I have really a very great interest in poor Hyde. I know you have seen him; he told me so; and I fear he was rude. But, I do sincerely take a great, a very great interest in that young man, Utterson.”

“I can’t pretend that I shall ever like him,” said the lawyer.

“I don’t ask that,” pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the other’s arm; “I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him for my sake, when I am no longer here.”

“Well,” said Utterson, “I promise.”

Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18—, London was startled by a crime of singular ferocity. The details were few and startling. A maid servant living alone in a house not far from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven. Although a fog rolled over the city, the early part of the night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. So she sat down upon her box, which stood under the window, and fell into a dream. 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 saw an aged and 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. The older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner of politeness. It 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. 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 did not answer a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained impatience. And then all of a sudden[15] 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 hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.

It was two o’clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had rolled in the gutter—the other, without 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.

“I shall say nothing till I have seen the body,” said he; “this may be very serious. Have the kindness to wait while I dress.”

And he drove to the police station, whither the body had been carried. As soon as he came into the cell, he nodded.

“Yes,” said he, “I recognise him. I am sorry to say that this is Sir Danvers Carew[16].”

“Good God, sir,” exclaimed the officer, “is it possible?”

And the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition.

“This will make a deal of noise,” he said. “And perhaps you can help us to catch the criminal.”

And he briefly narrated what the maid had seen, and showed the broken stick.

When the stick was laid before Mr. Utterson, 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.”

It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. The dismal quarter of Soho seemed, in the lawyer’s eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare. The thoughts of his mind were the gloomiest.

As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed him a dingy street, an eating-house, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many women of different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part and cut him off from the 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, 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 woman began to declare it was impossible, “I had better tell you who this person is,” he added. “This is Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard[17].”

A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman’s face.

“Ah!” said she, “he is in trouble! What has he done?”

Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances.

“He is not very popular here,” observed the latter. “And now, my good woman, just let me and this gentleman come in.”

In the whole house, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of rooms; but these were furnished with luxury and good taste. 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; drawers stood open; and on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. 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 be sure, sir,” he told Mr. Utterson: “I have him in my hand.[18] He must have lost his head, or he never would have left the stick or, above all, burned the cheque-book. Money is everything to him. We have nothing to do but wait for him at the bank, and get out the handbills[19].”

However, this was not so easy to accomplish; for Mr. Hyde had few familiars—even the master of the servant-maid had only seen him twice. His family could nowhere be traced. He had never been photographed; and the few who could describe him differed widely, as common observers will. Only on one point, were they agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.

It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to Dr. Jekyll’s door, where he was at once admitted by Poole, and carried down to the building which was known as the laboratory or the dissecting-rooms[20]. The doctor had bought the house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon. But his own tastes were rather chemical than anatomical, so he had changed the destination of the block. It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend’s quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness. 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, furnished, among other things, with a mirror-glass and a big table. There were three dusty windows barred with iron in the room. A fire burned in the grate; a lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf; and there 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,” 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 meet 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.

“Are you sure? For your sake,” said he; “I hope you may be right. If it came to a trial, your name might appear.”

“I am quite sure,” replied Jekyll; “I have grounds for certainty that I cannot share with anyone. I have—I have received a letter; and I don’t know 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.”

Utterson ruminated a while.

“Well,” said he, at last, “let me see the letter.”

The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed “Edward Hyde”: and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer’s benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for a thousand generosities, need not worry for his safety, as he had means of escape. The lawyer liked this letter.

“Have you the envelope?” he asked.

“I burned it,” replied Jekyll. “But it bore no postmark. The letter was brought to me.”

“May I keep this?” asked Utterson.

“I wish you to judge for me entirely,” was the reply. “I have lost confidence in myself.”

“Well, I shall consider,” returned the lawyer. “And now one word more: it was Hyde who dictated the terms in your will about that disappearance?”

The doctor shut his mouth tight and nodded.

“I knew it,” said Utterson. “He meant to murder you. You have had a fine escape.”

“Even more,” returned the doctor solemnly: “I have had a lesson—O God, Utterson, what a lesson I have had!”

And he covered his face for a moment with his hands.

On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with Poole.

“By the by[21],” said he, “there was a letter handed in today: what was the messenger like?”

But Poole said that nobody had come.

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.[22]!”

Presently after, Utterson sat at home, with Mr. Guest, his head clerk. The fog still slept above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles. But the room was gay with firelight. Insensibly the lawyer melted. There was no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than Mr. Guest. Guest he knew Poole; he could hear of Mr. Hyde’s familiarity about the house; he might draw conclusions. And above all since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting, would consider something useful.

“This is a sad business about Sir Danvers,” said Utterson.

“Yes, sir, indeed,” returned Guest. “The man, of course, was mad.”

“I should like to hear your views on that,” replied Utterson. “I have a document here in his handwriting; it is between ourselves, for I scarce know what to do about it; it is an ugly business. But there it is; a murderer’s autograph.”

Guest sat down at once and studied it with passion.

“No, sir,” he said: “not mad; but it is an odd hand.”

“And by all accounts a very odd writer,” added the lawyer.

Just then the servant entered with a note.

“Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir?” inquired the clerk. “I thought I knew the writing. Anything private, Mr. Utterson?”

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

“One moment. I thank you, sir”; and the clerk laid the two sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents.

“Thank you, sir,” he said at last, returning both; “it’s a very interesting autograph.”

There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson struggled with himself.

“Why did you compare them, Guest?” he inquired suddenly.

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

“Rather quaint,” said Utterson.

“It is, as you say, rather quaint,” returned Guest.

“I wouldn’t speak of this note, you know,” said the master.

“No, sir,” said the clerk. “I understand.”

But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that night than he locked the note into his safe.

“What!” he thought. “Henry Jekyll writes for a murderer!”

And his blood ran cold in his veins.

Time ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in reward, for the death of Sir Danvers was resented as a public injury[23]; but Mr. Hyde had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though he had never existed. Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable. Tales came out of the man’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; but of his present whereabouts, not a whisper. From the time he had left the house in Soho on the morning of the murder, he was simply blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to recover from his alarm, and to grow more at quiet with himself.

Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Dr. Jekyll. He came out of his seclusion, renewed relations with his friends, became once more their familiar guest and entertainer. He was busy, he was much in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the doctor was at peace[24].

On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor’s with a small party[25]; Lanyon had been there; and the face of the host had looked from one to the other as in the old days when the trio were inseparable friends. On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door was shut against the lawyer.

“The doctor is busy,” Poole said.

On the 15th, Utterson tried again, and was again refused. The fifth night he had in Guest to dine with him; and the sixth he betook himself to Dr. Lanyon’s.

There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came in, he was shocked at the change which had taken place in the doctor’s appearance. He had his death-warrant[26] written legibly upon his face. The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly balder and older. 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 greatness 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 this person is dead for me.”

“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 cannot make others.”

“Nothing can be done,” returned Lanyon; “ask Dr. Jekyll.”

“He will not see me,” said the lawyer.

“I am not surprised at that,” was the reply. “Some day, Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn everything. I cannot tell you. And in the meantime, if you can sit and talk with me of other things, for God’s sake, stay and do so; but if you cannot forget 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. 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. 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. And you can do but one thing, Utterson, 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; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole life of his were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness.

A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed[27], and in something less than a fortnight he was dead. The night after the funeral, 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 today,” 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. 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.

From that day forth, Utterson did not desire the society of his surviving friend with the same eagerness. He thought of him kindly; but his thoughts were disquieted and fearful. 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 had grown very silent, he did not read; it seemed as if he had something on his mind. So Utterson fell off little by little in the frequency of his visits.

It happened on Sunday. Mr. Utterson was on his usual walk with Mr. Enfield, their way lay once again through the by-street; and 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?”

“I can imagine,” returned Enfield. “And by the way, this is 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. “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. The middle one of the three windows was half-way open; and Dr. Jekyll himself was sitting close beside it, taking the air with infinite sadness, like some disconsolate prisoner.

“What! Jekyll!” he cried. “I hope you are better.”

“I am very low[28], 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. 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, “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 propose,” returned the doctor with a smile. His words were hardly uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded by an expression of abject terror and despair. The two gentlemen 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, they traversed the by-street. They were both pale; and there was a 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 in silence.

Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one evening after dinner, when he was surprised to receive a visit from Poole.

“Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?” he cried; and then taking a second look at him, “What ails you?” he added; “is the doctor ill?”

“Mr. Utterson,” said the man, “there is something wrong.”

“Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you,” said the lawyer. “Now, take your time[29], and tell me plainly what you want.”

“You know the doctor’s ideas, sir,” replied Poole, “and how he shuts himself up. Well, he’s shut up again in the cabinet; and I don’t like it, sir—I wish I may die if I like it. Mr. Utterson, sir, I’m afraid.”

“Now, my good man,” said the lawyer, “be explicit. What are you afraid of?”

“I’ve been afraid for about a week,” returned Poole, “and I can bear it no more.”

The man’s appearance amply bore out his words; his manner was altered for the worse; and except for the moment when he had first announced his terror, he had not once looked the lawyer in the face.

Poole 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[30],” said Poole, hoarsely.

“Foul play!” cried the lawyer, frightened and irritated. “What foul play? What does this 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 coat. He observed with wonder the greatness of the relief that appeared upon the butler’s face.

It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon. The wind made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face. Mr. Utterson thought he had never seen that part of London so deserted. The square, when they got there, was all full of wind and dust, and the thin trees in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing. Poole 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. His face was white and his voice, when he spoke, harsh and broken.

“Well, sir,” he said, “here we are, and God grant there be nothing wrong.”

“Amen, Poole,” said the lawyer.

Thereupon the servant knocked; the door was opened on the chain; and a voice asked from within, “Is that you, Poole?”

“It’s all right,” said Poole. “Open the door.”

The hall, when they entered it, was brightly lighted up; the fire was built high; and about the hearth the whole of the servants, men and women, stood huddled together like a flock of sheep. At the sight of Mr. Utterson, the housemaid broke into hysterical whimpering; and the cook, crying out, “Bless God! it’s Mr. Utterson,” ran forward as if to take him in her arms.

“What, what? Why are you all here?” said the lawyer peevishly. “Your master won’t like it.”

“They’re all afraid,” said Poole.

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

“Hold your tongue!” Poole said to her, with a ferocity. “And now,” continued the butler, addressing the knife-boy[31], “reach me a candle.”

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, sir, if by any chance he asks you in, don’t go.”

Mr. Utterson collected his courage and followed the butler into the laboratory building and 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.

A voice answered from within:

“Tell him I cannot see anyone,” it said complainingly.

“Thank you, sir,” said Poole, with a note of something like triumph in his voice; and taking up his candle, he led Mr. Utterson back across the yard and into the great kitchen, where the fire was out and the beetles were leaping on the floor.

“Sir,” he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the eyes, “was that my master’s voice?”

“It seems much changed,” replied the lawyer, very pale.

“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. But who’s in there instead of him, and why it stays there, we don’t know, Mr. Utterson!”

“This is a very strange tale, Poole; this is rather a wild tale, my man,” said Mr. Utterson, biting his finger. “Suppose it were as you suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll to have been—well, murdered, what could induce the murderer to stay? That’s not reasonable.”

“Well, Mr. Utterson, I’ll try to persuade you,” 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. Master used to write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair. We’ve had nothing else this week; nothing but papers, and a closed door, and the meals left there was taken when nobody was looking. Well, sir, every day, and twice and thrice in the same day, there have been orders and complaints, and I have been sent to all the 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. He wants this drug, sir, I don’t know why.”

“Have you any of these papers?” asked Mr. Utterson.

Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled note, which the lawyer carefully examined. Its contents ran thus:

“Dr. Jekyll presents his compliments to Messrs. M. 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 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.”

“This is a strange note,” said Mr. Utterson; and then sharply, “Why do you have it open?”

“The man at M.’s was 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 I’ve seen him!”

“Seen him?” repeated Mr. Utterson. “Well?”

“That’s it!” said Poole. “It was this way. I came suddenly into the theatre from the garden. 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 cry, and whipped upstairs into the cabinet. It was but for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face? If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me? I have served him long enough. And then…”

The man paused and passed his hand over his face.

“These are all very strange circumstances,” said Mr. Utterson, “but I think I begin to understand. Your master, Poole, is seized with one of those maladies that both torture and deform the sufferer; hence the alteration of his voice; hence the mask and the avoidance of his friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug! There is my explanation; it is sad enough, Poole, but it is plain and natural.”

“Sir,” said the butler, “that creature was not my master, and there’s the truth. My master” here he looked round him and began to whisper— “is a tall man, and this was a dwarf.”

Utterson attempted to protest.

“O, sir,” cried Poole, “do you think I do not know my master after twenty years? Do you think I cannot recognize him? I saw him every morning of my life! No, sir, that thing in the mask was never Dr. Jekyll—God knows what it was, but it was never Dr. Jekyll; and it is the belief of my heart that there was murder done.”

“Poole,” replied the lawyer, “if you say that, it will become my duty to make certain[32]. 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 a good idea!” cried the butler.

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

“Why, you and me,” was the reply.

“That’s very well said,” returned the lawyer.

“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?”

“Yes, 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.

This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?”

“Well, sir, it went so quick, that I could hardly swear to that,” was the answer. “But if you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?—why, yes, I think it was! You see, it was much of the same bigness; and 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,” said the lawyer, “I once spoke with him.”

“Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was something queer about that gentleman, sir.”

“Yes, I felt something of what you describe,” said Mr. Utterson.

“Quite so, sir,” returned Poole. “Well, that masked thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals and whipped into the cabinet. Oh, I know it’s not evidence, Mr. Utterson. But I give you my Bible-word it was Mr. Hyde!”

“Ay, ay,” said the lawyer. “My fears incline to the same point. Ay, truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry is killed; and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God alone can tell) is still lurking in his victim’s room. Well, call Bradshaw[33].”

The footman came, very white and nervous.

“So, Bradshaw,” said the lawyer,” it is our intention to make an end of it. Poole, here, and I are going to force our way into the cabinet. And 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 there.”

As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch. “And now, Poole, let us go,” he said; and taking the poker under his arm, led the way into the yard. It was now quite dark. The wind tossed the light of the candle to and fro about the steps, until they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all around; but 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 all night. Only when a new sample comes from the chemist, there’s a break. Mr. Utterson, please tell me, is that the doctor’s foot?”

It was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed.

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

Poole nodded.

“Once,” he said. “Once I heard it weeping!”

“Weeping? How that?” said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden chill of horror.

“Weeping like a woman or a lost soul,” said the butler.

But now the ten minutes drew to an end. Poole took the axe; the candle was set upon the nearest table to light them to the attack; and they drew near. The foot was still going up and down, up and down, in the quiet of the night.

“Jekyll,” cried Utterson, with a loud voice, “I demand to see you.”

He paused a moment, but there came no reply.

“I give you my warning, our suspicions are aroused, and I must and shall see you,” he resumed; “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 rang from the cabinet. Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and the frame bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was tough; and 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 stood back a little and peered in. There lay the cabinet before their eyes: the quietest room, you would have said.

But right in the midst 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 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. 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[34].

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

The greater proportion of the building was occupied by the theatre, which filled almost the whole ground story and was lighted from above. 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 a glance, all were empty, and all, by the dust that fell from their doors, had stood long unopened. Nowhere was there any trace of Henry Jekyll, dead or alive.

“He must be buried here,” Poole said.

“Or he may have fled,” said Utterson, and he turned to examine the door. It was locked; and lying near by, they found the key, already stained with rust.

“This does not look like use,” observed the lawyer.

“Use!” echoed Poole. “Do you not see, sir, it is broken?”

“Ay,” continued Utterson, “and the fractures, too, are rusty.”

The two men looked at each other with a scare.

“I cannot understand, Poole,” said the lawyer. “Let us go back to the cabinet.”

They mounted the stair in silence, and glancing at the dead body, proceeded more thoroughly to examine the contents of the cabinet. At one table, there were traces of chemical work, various measured heaps of some white salt being laid on glass saucers, as though for an experiment in which the unhappy man had been prevented.

“That is the same drug that I was always bringing him,” said Poole.

There were several books on a shelf; one lay beside the tea-cup, 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 mirror, into whose depths they looked with an involuntary horror. But it showed them nothing.

“This mirror has seen strange things, sir,” whispered Poole.

“And surely none stranger than itself,” echoed the lawyer in the same tones. “But why did Jekyll need it?”

“Who knows!” said Poole.

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

“My head goes round,” he said. “He had no cause to like me. He has not destroyed this document, why?”

He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in the doctor’s hand and dated at the top.

“O Poole!” the lawyer cried, “he was alive and here this day. He must be still alive, he must have fled! And then, why fled? and how? Oh, we must be careful. We may involve your master in some dire catastrophe.”

“Why don’t you read it, sir?” asked Poole.

“Because I fear,” replied the lawyer solemnly. And with that he brought the paper to his eyes and read as follows:

“There was a third enclosure?” asked Utterson.

“Here, sir,” said Poole, and gave into his hands a considerable packet sealed in several places.

The lawyer put it in his pocket.

“I would say nothing of this paper. If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save his credit[35]. 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 trudged back to his office to read the two narratives in which this mystery was now to be explained.

On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of my colleague and old school-companion, Henry Jekyll. I was 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 demand sending letters. The contents increased my wonder; for this is how the letter ran:

Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was insane; but I decided to do as he requested. I rose 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 to old Dr. Denman’s surgical theatre, from which Jekyll’s private cabinet is most conveniently entered. The locksmith 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, and returned with it to Cavendish Square.

Here I proceeded to examine its contents. The powders were neatly enough made up; 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 liquid, which was highly pungent to the sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and some volatile ether.

The copy-book contained a series of dates. These covered a period of many years, but I observed that the entries ceased nearly a year ago and quite abruptly. Here and there a brief remark was appended to a date, usually no more than a single word: “double” occurring perhaps six times in a total of several hundred entries; and once very early in the list and followed by several marks of exclamation, “total failure!!!” Here were a phial of some tincture, a paper of some salt, and the record of a series of experiments. How could the presence of these articles in my house affect either the honour, the sanity, or the life of my colleague? And why was the messenger 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.

Twelve o’clock had scarce rung out over London, when the knocker sounded very gently on the door. I found a small man crouching against the pillars of the portico.

“Are you from Dr. Jekyll?” I asked.

He told me “yes”; and I had bidden him enter. There was a policeman not far off; and, I thought my visitor started and made great haste.

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. 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 with the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood. At the time, I set it down to some personal distaste.

This person was dressed in a fashion that would have made an ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for him in every measurement—the trousers hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his shoulders. There was something abnormal in the very essence of the creature that now faced me—something seizing, surprising, and revolting.

These observations were yet the work of a few seconds. My visitor was on fire.

“Have you got it?” he cried. “Have you got it?”

And so lively was his impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm and sought to shake me.

I put him back.

“Come, sir,” said I. “You forget that I have not yet the pleasure of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you please.”

And I showed him an example, and sat down myself in my customary seat.

“I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon,” he replied civilly enough. “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 that he was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria— “I understood, a drawer…”

“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[38],” said I.

He turned a dreadful smile to me, and 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[39]?” he asked.

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

He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders. The mixture, which was at first of a reddish hue, began to brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly and to throw off small fumes of vapour. Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullition ceased and the compound changed to a dark purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green. My visitor, who had watched these metamorphoses with a keen eye, smiled, set down the glass upon the table, and then turned and looked upon me.

“And now,” said he, “will you be wise? will you let me take this glass in my hand and go forth from your house? or you are curious? 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. Or, if you 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.”

“Sir,” said I, “you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder that I hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end.”

“It is well,” replied my visitor. “Lanyon, you who have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine, behold!”

He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table, 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 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 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 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; I feel that my days are numbered, and that I must die. I will say but one thing, Utterson, and that if you can bring will be more than enough. The creature who crept into my house that night was, on Jekyll’s own confession, known by the name of Hyde and hunted for in every corner of the land as the murderer of Carew.

Hastie Lanyon

I was born in the year 18— to a large fortune, with every guarantee of an honourable and distinguished future. And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition[40]. When I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. I hid my views with a morbid sense of shame. It was the nature of my aspirations that made me what I was. I was driven to reflect deeply on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion. Though I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were earnest. I drew steadily nearer to that truth 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, 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, learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man. It was the curse of mankind that these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How to dissociate them?

I was so far in my reflections when a light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table. I began to perceive 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 vestment. I not only recognised my natural body for the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from their supremacy.

I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death. 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 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, drank off the potion.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit[41] that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself.

There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; I was conscious of 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. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature[42].

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. I crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked down upon me; I went 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.

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 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 had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. But this, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me without some visible disgust. This was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde alone was pure evil.

The second and conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted. 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 crossroads. The drug was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition. 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. The movement was wholly toward the worse.

Even at that time, I had not yet conquered my aversion to the life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were undignified, the incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. And 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 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 a housekeeper whom I knew to be silent and unscrupulous. On the other side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to have full liberty and power about my house. And I began to profit by the strange immunities of my position.

Men have before hired killers to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. For me, in my impenetrable 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 away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there would be Henry Jekyll!

My pleasures were, as I have said, undignified. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. This person that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone, was a being inherently malign and villainous. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was not bad; he woke again to his good qualities; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde.

I do not want to go into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived. But an act of cruelty to a child aroused against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised the other day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor and the child’s family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life; and at last, in order to pacify their resentment, Edward Hyde had to bring them to the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn in the name of Henry Jekyll. But this danger was easily eliminated from the future, by opening an account at another bank in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and when 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 returned at a late hour, and woke the next day in bed with somewhat odd sensations. My eyes fell upon my hand. Now the hand of Henry Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was large, firm, white, and comely. But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London morning, lying half shut on the bed-clothes, was lean, corded, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.

I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, before terror woke up in my breast; and I rushed to the mirror. At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed into something 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.

Small indeed was my appetite. This inexplicable incident, this reversal of my previous experience, seemed 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 as though the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though I were conscious of a more generous tide of blood; and I began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine.

The power of the drug had not been always equally displayed. Whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had gradually transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to point to this: that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.

Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll 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 a father’s interest; Hyde a son’s indifference. What to choose? I chose the better part and did not have strength to keep to it.

Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes. I made this choice, but I did not give up the house in Soho, did not destroy the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in my cabinet. For two months, however, I was true to my determination. But 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.

And I was punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more furious propensity to ill. I had voluntarily stripped myself of all balancing instincts.

Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. I met a man and I killed him. I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow. Then a mist dispersed; and I fled from the scene. I ran to the house in Soho, and destroyed my papers. After that Hyde compounded the draught and drank it.

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. I saw my life as a whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had 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 tried with tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my memory swarmed against me.

As the acuteness of the 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 oh, how I rejoiced to think it! 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 known 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. Jekyll was now my city of refuge.

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past. You know yourself how earnestly in the last months of last year, I laboured to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for myself. I led beneficent and innocent life; but I was still cursed with my duality; and the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl. And I fell before the assaults of temptation.

There comes an end to all things. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made discovery. It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the park was full of winter birds and sweet with spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.

After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde. A moment before I had been wealthy, beloved; and now I was the common quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to the gallows.

My reason wavered. My drugs were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach them? That was the problem that 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?

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.

Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I could, and summoning a passing hansom, drove to an hotel in Portland Street. At my appearance (which was indeed comical enough) 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. At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me. The men obsequiously took my orders, led me to a private room, and brought me wherewithal to write. Hyde mastered his fury with a great effort of the will; composed his two important letters, one to Lanyon and one to Poole; and sent them.

Thenceforward, he sat all day over the fire in the private room, gnawing his nails; there he dined, sitting alone with his fears; and thence, when the night was fully come, he set forth in the corner of a closed cab, and was driven to and fro about the streets of the city. He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred. And then at last he discharged the cab and ventured on foot. He walked fast, hunted by his fears. Once a woman spoke to him. He smote her in the face, and she fled.

When I came to myself at Lanyon’s, the horror of my old friend perhaps affected me somewhat: 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 awoke in the morning weakened, but refreshed.

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, at all hours of the day and night, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened. 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.

Jekyll thought of Hyde as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing, that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.

The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll, was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded.

It is useless to prolong this description; no one has ever suffered such torments. My provision of the salt began to run low[43]. I sent out for a fresh supply, and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed; I drank it and it was without efficiency. I am now persuaded that my first supply was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity which made the trick.

About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this letter under the influence of the last of the old powders. If Hyde finds my letter, he will tear it in pieces. Indeed the doom that is closing on us both, has already changed and crushed him. 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.

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.

Utterson – Аттерсон

by-street – боковая улица

two doors from one corner – за два дома от угла

all at once – вдруг

Tut-tut! – Да неужели!

black-mail – шантаж

likely place – подходящее место

in somber spirits – в угрюмом настроении

business-room – кабинет

Cavendish Square – Кавендиш-сквер

Lanyon – Лэньон

Soho – Сохо

Poole – Пул

dissecting-room – прозекторская

all of a sudden – внезапно

Danvers Carew – Дэнверс Кэрью

Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard – инспектор Ньюкомен из Скотланд-Ярда

I have him in my hand. – Он у меня в руках.

get out the handbills – разослать описание его личности

dissecting-rooms – анатомический театр

by the by – кстати

M. P. – член парламента

public injury – оскорбление, нанесённое обществу

was at peace – жил мирно

with a small party – в узком кругу друзей

death-warrant – смертный приговор

took to his bed – слёг

I am very low – мне очень плохо

take your time – не спешите

foul play – преступление

knife-boy – мальчишка с кухни

to make certain – удостовериться

Bradshaw – Бредшоу

self-destroyer – самоубийца

save his credit – спасти его доброе имя

who will present himself in my name – который явится от моего имени

may fail me – подведёт меня

compose yourself – успокойтесь

graduated glass – мерный стакан

gaiety of disposition – жажда наслаждений

horror of the spirit – тоска

I had lost in stature – я сделался меньше

to run low – иссякать