The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde
By Robert Louis Stevenson
Part Twelve "Dr. Lanyon's Narrative" Continued
He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture; and when I
had bidden him
enter, he did not obey me without a searching backward glance into
the
darkness of the square. There was a policeman not far off,
advancing
with his bull's eye open; and at the sight, I thought my visitor
started
and made greater haste.
These particulars struck me, I confess, disagreeably; and as I
followed
him into the bright light of the consulting room, I kept my hand
ready
on my weapon. Here, at last, I had a chance of clearly seeing him.
I had
never set eyes on him before, so much was certain. He was small,
as
I have said; I was struck besides with the shocking expression of
his
face, with his remarkable combination of great muscular activity
and
great apparent debility of constitution, and--last but not
least--with
the odd, subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood. This
bore
some resemblance to incipient rigour, and was accompanied by a
marked
sinking of the pulse. At the time, I set it down to some
idiosyncratic,
personal distaste, and merely wondered at the acuteness of the
symptoms;
but I have since had reason to believe the cause to lie much
deeper in
the nature of man, and to turn on some nobler hinge than the
principle
of hatred.
This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his entrance,
struck
in me what I can only, describe as a disgustful curiosity) was
dressed
in a fashion that would have made an ordinary person laughable;
his
clothes, that is to say, although they were of rich and sober
fabric,
were enormously too large for him in every measurement--the
trousers
hanging on his legs and rolled up to keep them from the ground,
the
waist of the coat below his haunches, and the collar sprawling
wide upon
his shoulders. Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was
far
from moving me to laughter. Rather, as there was something
abnormal
and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that now faced
me--something seizing, surprising and revolting--this fresh
disparity
seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that to my
interest
in the man's nature and character, there was added a curiosity as
to his
origin, his life, his fortune and status in the world.
These observations, though they have taken so great a space to be
set
down in, were yet the work of a few seconds. My visitor was,
indeed, on
fire with sombre excitement.
"Have you got it?" he cried. "Have you got
it?" And so lively was his
impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm and sought to
shake
me.
I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang along
my
blood. "Come, sir," said I. "You forget that I have
not yet the pleasure
of your acquaintance. Be seated, if you please." And I showed
him an
example, and sat down myself in my customary seat and with as fair
an
imitation of my ordinary manner to a patient, as the lateness of
the
hour, the nature of my preoccupations, and the horror I had of my
visitor, would suffer me to muster.
"I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied civilly
enough. "What you
say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown its heels to
my
politeness. I come here at the instance of your colleague, Dr.
Henry
Jekyll, on a piece of business of some moment; and I
understood..." He
paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite
of his
collected manner, that he was wrestling against the approaches of
the
hysteria--"I understood, a drawer..."
But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some perhaps on
my
own growing curiosity.
"There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the drawer,
where it lay on the
floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.
He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his
heart: I
could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of his jaws;
and
his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed both for his
life and
reason.
"Compose yourself," said I.
He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision of
despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents, he
uttered
one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified. And the
next
moment, in a voice that was already fairly well under control,
"Have you
a graduated glass?" he asked.
I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him what
he
asked.
He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the
red
tincture and added one of the powders. The mixture, which was at
first
of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the crystals melted, to
brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly, and to throw off small
fumes
of vapour. Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullition ceased
and
the compound changed to a dark purple, which faded again more
slowly to
a watery green. My visitor, who had watched these metamorphoses
with a
keen eye, smiled, set down the glass upon the table, and then
turned and
looked upon me with an air of scrutiny.
"And now," said he, "to settle what remains. Will
you be wise? will you
be guided? will you suffer me to take this glass in my hand and to
go forth from your house without further parley? or has the greed
of
curiosity too much command of you? Think before you answer, for it
shall
be done as you decide. As you decide, you shall be left as you
were
before, and neither richer nor wiser, unless the sense of service
rendered to a man in mortal distress may be counted as a kind of
riches
of the soul. Or, if you shall so prefer to choose, a new province
of
knowledge and new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to
you,
here, in this room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be
blasted by
a prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan."
"Sir," said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from
truly
possessing, "you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not
wonder that I
hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I have gone
too
far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the
end."
"It is well," replied my visitor. "Lanyon, you
remember your vows: what
follows is under the seal of our profession. And now, you who have
so
long been bound to the most narrow and material views, you who
have
denied the virtue of transcendental medicine, you who have derided
your
superiors--behold!"
He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry
followed;
he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring
with
injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there
came, I
thought, a change--he seemed to 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 and hunted
for in
every corner of the land as the murderer of Carew.
HASTIE LANYON
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