The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (5 page)

On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor's with
a small party; 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 was confined to the
house," Poole said, "and saw no one." On the 15th, he tried again,
and was again refused; and having now been used for the last two
months to see his friend almost daily, he found this return of
solitude to weigh upon his spirits. 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 written legibly
upon his face. The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen
away; he was visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much
these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer's
notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to
testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind. It was unlikely
that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what Utterson
was tempted to suspect. "Yes," he thought; "he is a doctor, he
must know his own state and that his days are counted; and the
knowledge is more than he can bear." And yet when Utterson
remarked on his ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness
that Lanyon declared himself a doomed man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am not surprised at that," was the reply. "Some day,
Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right
and wrong of this. 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 keep clear of 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, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly
mysterious in drift. 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. You must
suffer me to go my own dark way. 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. I could not think that
this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors so
unmanning; and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this
destiny, and that is 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 with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age;
and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole
tenor of his life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change
pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner and words,
there must lie for it some deeper ground.

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

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it;
and it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Utterson desired
the society of his surviving friend with the same eagerness. He
thought of him kindly; but his thoughts were disquieted and
fearful. He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to
be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak
with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the air and sounds
of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that house of
voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable
recluse. 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 was out of spirits, he had grown very silent, he did not
read; it seemed as if he had something on his mind. Utterson
became so used to the unvarying character of these reports, that
he fell off little by little in the frequency of his visits.

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

"It was impossible to do the one without the other," returned
Enfield. "And by the way, what an ass you must have thought me,
not to know that this was 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. "But if that
be so, 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, and full of
premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still
bright with sunset. The middle one of the three windows was
half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an
infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner,
Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.

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

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

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

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

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

"That is just what I was about to venture to propose,"
returned the doctor with a smile. But the words were hardly
uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded
by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the
very blood of the two gentlemen below. They saw it but for a
glimpse for the window was instantly thrust down; but that glimpse
had been sufficient, and they turned and left the court without a
word. In silence, too, they traversed the by-street; and it was
not until they had come into a neighbouring thoroughfare, where
even upon a Sunday there were still some stirrings of life, that
Mr. Utterson at last turned and looked at his companion. They
were both pale; and there was an answering 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 once more 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, and tell me plainly what you want."

"You know the doctor's ways, 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, doggedly
disregarding the question, "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. Even now, he sat with the glass of wine untasted on his
knee, and his eyes directed to a corner of the floor. "I can bear
it no more," he repeated.

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

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

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

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

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

It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale
moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and
flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture. The wind
made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face. It
seemed to have swept the streets unusually bare of passengers,
besides; for Mr. Utterson thought he had never seen that part of
London so deserted. He could have wished it otherwise; never in
his life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch
his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he might, there was borne in
upon his mind a crushing anticipation of calamity. The square,
when they got there, was full of wind and dust, and the thin trees
in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing. Poole,
who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead, 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.
But for all the hurry of his coming, these were not the dews of
exertion that he wiped away, but the moisture of some strangling
anguish; for 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 in a very guarded manner; 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? Are you all here?" said the lawyer peevishly.
"Very irregular, very unseemly; your master would be far from
pleased."

"They're all afraid," said Poole.

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