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

hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.

 

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 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.

 

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can

say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You

know yourself how earnestly, in the last months of the last year,

I laboured to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for

others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for

myself. Nor can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and

innocent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more

completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and

as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me,

so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for

licence. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea

of that would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own person

that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it

was as an ordinary secret sinner that I at last fell before the

assaults of temptation.

 

There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure

is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally

destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the

fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had

made my discovery. It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under

foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the

Regent’s Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with spring

odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking

the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed,

promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After

all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled,

comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will

with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at