HENRY JEKYLL'S FULL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE part fourteen
By Robert Louis Stevenson
I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know,
but
that which I suppose to be most probable. The evil side of my
nature, to
which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust
and
less developed than the good which I had just deposed. Again, in
the
course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life
of
effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and
much
less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward
Hyde
was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even
as
good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written
broadly
and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must
still
believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an
imprint
of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol
in the
glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of
welcome.
This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it
bore
a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single,
than
the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto
accustomed
to call mine. And in so far I was doubtless right. I have observed
that
when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to
me at
first without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take
it, was
because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of
good
and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure
evil.
I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive
experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if
I had
lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight
from a
house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I
once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs
of dissolution, and came to myself once more with the character,
the
stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.
That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached
my
discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment
while
under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have
been
otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come
forth
an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating
action;
it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of
the
prisonhouse of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi,
that
which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my
evil,
kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion;
and
the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I
had now
two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil,
and the
other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of
whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to
despair. The
movement was thus wholly toward the worse.
Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the dryness
of
a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at times; and
as my
pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I was not only
well
known and highly considered, but growing towards the elderly man,
this
incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It was on
this
side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had
but to
drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted professor,
and to
assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the
notion;
it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I made my
preparations
with the most studious care. I took and furnished that house in
Soho,
to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged as a
housekeeper
a creature whom I knew well to be silent and unscrupulous. On the
other
side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I
described)
was to have full liberty and power about my house in the square; and
to
parry mishaps, I even called and made myself a familiar object, in
my second character. I next drew up that will to which you so much
objected; so that if anything befell me in the person of Dr.
Jekyll,
I could enter on that of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss. And
thus
fortified, as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the
strange immunities of my position.
Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their
own
person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever
did
so for his pleasures. I was the first that could plod in the
public eye
with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a
schoolboy,
strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of
liberty.
But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the 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 in his
stead,
quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man
who
could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll.
The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I
have
said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the
hands of
Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I
would
come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind
of
wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out
of
my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a
being
inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought
centered on
self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of
torture
to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at
times
aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart
from
ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It
was
Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no
worse;
he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would
even
make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde.
And
thus his conscience slumbered.
Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for even
now
I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design of
entering; I
mean but to point out the warnings and the successive steps with
which
my chastisement approached. I met with one accident which, as it
brought
on no consequence, I shall no more than mention. An act of cruelty
to a
child aroused against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I
recognised
the other day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor and the
child's
family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life;
and at
last, in order to pacify their too just resentment, Edward Hyde
had to
bring them to the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn in the name
of
Henry Jekyll. But this danger was easily eliminated from the
future, by
opening an account at another bank in the name of Edward Hyde
himself;
and when, by sloping my own hand backward, I had supplied my
double with
a signature, I thought I sat beyond the reach of fate.
Some two months before the murder of Sir Danvers, I had been out
for one
of my adventures, had returned at a late hour, and woke the next
day in
bed with somewhat odd sensations. It was in vain I looked about
me; in
vain I saw the decent furniture and tall proportions of my room in
the
square; in vain that I recognised the pattern of the bed curtains
and
the design of the mahogany frame; something still kept insisting
that I
was not where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to be,
but in
the little room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the
body
of Edward Hyde. I smiled to myself, and in my psychological way,
began
lazily to inquire into the elements of this illusion,
occasionally, even
as I did so, dropping back into a comfortable morning doze. I was
still
so engaged when, in one of my more wakeful moments, my eyes fell
upon
my hand. Now the hand of Henry Jekyll (as you have often remarked)
was
professional in shape and size: it was large, firm, white and
comely.
But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light
of a
mid-London morning, lying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean,
corder,
knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth
of
hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.
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