The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (best free e book reader txt) 📖

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

 

by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Story of the Door

 

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was

never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in

discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and

yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was

to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye;

something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but

which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner

face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was

austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a

taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not

crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved

tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at

the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in

any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I incline

to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go

to the devil in his own way.” In this character, it was

frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and

the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And to

such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never

marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

 

No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was

undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be

founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark

of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the

hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer’s way. His friends

were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the

longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they

implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt the bond that

united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the

well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, 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. For

all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions,

counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside

occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business,

that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.

 

It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them

down a by-street in a busy quarter of London. The street was

small and what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on

the weekdays. The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed and

all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the

surplus of their grains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood

along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of

smiling saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more

florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, 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 of the passenger.

 

Two doors from one corner, 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 storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a

door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall

on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged

and sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither

bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched

into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept

shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the

mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to

drive away these random visitors or to repair their ravages.

 

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the

by-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 in my

mind,” added he, “with a very odd story.”

 

“Indeed?” said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice,

“and what was that?”

 

“Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming

home from some place at the end of the world, 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 but lamps. Street

after street and all the folks asleep—street after street, all

lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church—

till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and

listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at

once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along

eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or

ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street.

Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the

corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man

trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on

the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.

It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave

a few halloa, took to my heels, 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 look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me

like running. The people who had turned out were the girl’s own

family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent

put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse,

more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might

have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious

circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first

sight. So had the child’s family, which was only natural. But

the doctor’s case was what struck me. He was the usual cut and

dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong

Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir,

he was like the rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I

saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with desire to kill him. I

knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and

killing being out of the question, we did the next best. 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 all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot,

we were keeping the women off him as best we could for they were

as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces;

and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black sneering

coolness—frightened too, I could see that—but carrying it

off, sir, really like Satan. `If you choose to make capital out

of this accident,’ said he, `I am naturally helpless. No

gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,’ says he. `Name your

figure.’ Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the

child’s family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but

there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and

at last he struck. 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

the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on

Coutts’s, drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I

can’t mention, though it’s one of the points of my story, but it

was a name at least very well known and often printed. The figure

was stiff; but the signature was good for more than that if it was

only genuine. I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman

that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does

not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning

and come out with another man’s cheque for close upon a hundred

pounds. But 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 of, 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

in a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque myself, and said I

had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it.

The cheque was genuine.”

 

“Tut-tut,” 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

very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it

worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good. Black mail

I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the

capers of his youth. Black Mail House is what I call the place

with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you know, is far

from explaining all,” he added, and with the words fell into a

vein of musing.

 

From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather

suddenly: “And you don’t know if the drawer of the cheque lives

there?”

 

“A likely place, 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; it partakes too much of the style

of the day of judgment. 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 bland old bird

(the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his

own back garden and the family have to change their name. No sir,

I make it a