The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde By Robert Louis Stevenson Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case Part 15 at The Baker Street Universe (http://johnpirillo1.blogspot.com/)

The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde

By Robert Louis Stevenson 

Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case

Part 15

We near the end of this classic story of horror, terror, madness, science gone amok, and a vision of the future where violence and drugs are intertwined around the world.

I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I was in the

mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my breast as sudden

and startling as the crash of cymbals; and bounding from my bed I rushed

to the mirror. At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed into

something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll,

I had awakened Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained? I asked

myself; and then, with another bound of terror--how was it to be

remedied? It was well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my

drugs were in the cabinet--a long journey down two pairs of stairs,

through the back passage, across the open court and through the

anatomical theatre, from where I was then standing horror-struck. It

might indeed be possible to cover my face; but of what use was that,

when I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature? And then with

an overpowering sweetness of relief, it came back upon my mind that the

servants were already used to the coming and going of my second self. I

had soon dressed, as well as I was able, in clothes of my own size: had

soon passed through the house, where Bradshaw stared and drew back at

seeing Mr. Hyde at such an hour and in such a strange array; and ten

minutes later, Dr. Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was sitting

down, with a darkened brow, to make a feint of breakfasting.

Small indeed was my appetite. This inexplicable incident, this reversal

of my previous experience, seemed, like the Babylonian finger on the

wall, to be spelling out the letters of my judgment; and I began to

reflect more seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities

of my double existence. That part of me which I had the power of

projecting, had lately been much exercised and nourished; it had seemed

to me of late as though the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as

though (when I wore that form) I were conscious of a more generous tide

of blood; and I began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged,

the balance of my nature might be permanently 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. Once, very early in my career, it had totally failed me;

since then I had been obliged on more than one occasion to double, and

once, with infinite risk of death, to treble the amount; and these rare

uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole shadow on my contentment.

Now, however, and in the light of that morning's accident, I was led to

remark that whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had been to

throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly

transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to

point to this; that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better

self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.

Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory

in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared

between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive

apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the

pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or

but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in

which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father's

interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference. To cast in my lot

with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly

indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was

to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow

and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal;

but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while

Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be

not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances

were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man;

much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and

trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast

a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found

wanting in the strength to keep to it.

Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by

friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a resolute farewell to

the liberty, the comparative youth, the light step, leaping impulses

and secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I made

this choice perhaps with some unconscious reservation, for I neither

gave up the house in Soho, nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde,

which still lay ready in my cabinet. For two months, however, I was true

to my determination; for two months, I led a life of such severity as

I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an

approving conscience. But time began at last to obliterate the freshness

of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of

course; I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde

struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I

once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.

I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his

vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that

he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long

as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete

moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the

leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these that 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 unbridled, a more

furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that

stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to

the civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God, no

man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a

provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in

which a sick child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped

myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us

continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and

in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall.

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

glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow;

and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly,

in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill

of terror. A mist dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from

the scene of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of

evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost

peg. I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance doubly sure)

destroyed my papers; thence I set out through the lamplit streets, in

the same divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on my crime, light-headedly

devising others in the future, and yet still hastening and still

hearkening in my wake for the steps of the avenger. Hyde had a song upon

his lips as he compounded the draught, and as he drank it, pledged the

dead man. The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before

Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had

fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of

self-indulgence was rent from head to foot. I saw my life as a whole:

I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my

father's hand, and through the self-denying toils of my professional

life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at

the damned horrors of the evening. I could have screamed aloud; I sought

with tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and

sounds with which my memory swarmed against me; and still, between the

petitions, the ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul. As the

acuteness of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a

sense of joy. The problem of my conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth

impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the better

part of my existence; and O, how I rejoiced to think of it! with what

willing humility I embraced anew the restrictions of natural life! with

what sincere renunciation I locked the door by which I had so often gone

and come, and ground the key under my heel!

The next day, came the news that the murder had not been overlooked,

that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and that the victim was

a man high in public estimation. It was not only a crime, it had been a

tragic folly. I think I was glad to know it; I think I was glad to have

my better impulses thus buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the

scaffold. Jekyll was now my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an

instant, and the hands of all men would be raised to take and slay him.

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