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.Rather, as there wassomething abnormal and misbegotten in the very essenceof the creature that now faced me something seizing,surprising, and revolting this fresh disparity seemedbut to fit in with and to reinforce it; so that to my interestin the man s nature and character, there was added acuriosity as to his origin, his life, his fortune and status inthe world.These observations, though they have taken so great aspace to be set down in, were yet the work of a fewseconds.My visitor was, indeed, on fire with sombreexcitement. Have you got it? he cried. Have you got it? And solively was his impatience that he even laid his hand uponmy arm and sought to shake me.I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icypang along my blood. Come, sir, said I. You forget thatI have not yet the pleasure of your acquaintance.Beseated, if you please. And I showed him an example, andsat down myself in my customary seat and with as fair animitation of my ordinary manner to a patient, as the84 of 118The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hydelateness of the hour, the nature of my pre-occupations,and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer me tomuster. I beg your pardon, Dr.Lanyon, he replied civillyenough. What you say is very well founded; and myimpatience has shown its heels to my politeness.I comehere at the instance of your colleague, Dr.Henry Jekyll,on a piece of business of some moment; and I under-stood. He paused and put his hand to his throat, and Icould see, in spite of his collected manner, that he waswrestling against the approaches of the hysteria Iunderstood, a drawer.But here I took pity on my visitor s suspense, andsome perhaps on my own growing curiosity. There it is, sir, said I, pointing to the drawer, where itlay on the floor behind a table and still covered with thesheet.He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his handupon his heart: I could hear his teeth grate with theconvulsive action of his jaws; and his face was so ghastlyto see that I grew alarmed both for his life and reason. Compose yourself, said I.He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with thedecision of despair, plucked away the sheet.At sight of85 of 118The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hydethe contents, he uttered one loud sob of such immenserelief that I sat petrified.And the next moment, in a voicethat was already fairly well under control, Have you agraduated glass? he asked.I rose from my place with something of an effort andgave him what he asked.He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a fewminims of the red tincture and added one of the powders.The mixture, which was at first of a reddish hue, began, inproportion as the crystals melted, to brighten in colour, toeffervesce audibly, and to throw off small fumes ofvapour.Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullitionceased and the compound changed to a dark purple, whichfaded again more slowly to a watery green.My visitor,who had watched these metamorphoses with a keen eye,smiled, set down the glass upon the table, and then turnedand looked upon me with an air of scrutiny. And now, said he, to settle what remains.Will yoube wise? will you be guided? will you suffer me to takethis glass in my hand and to go forth from your housewithout further parley? or has the greed of curiosity toomuch command of you? Think before you answer, for itshall be done as you decide.As you decide, you shall beleft as you were before, and neither richer nor wiser,86 of 118The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hydeunless the sense of service rendered to a man in mortaldistress may be counted as a kind of riches of the soul.Or,if you shall so prefer to choose, a new province ofknowledge and new avenues to fame and power shall belaid open to you, here, in this room, upon the instant; andyour sight shall be blasted by a prodigy to stagger theunbelief of Satan. Sir, said I, affecting a coolness that I was far fromtruly possessing, you speak enigmas, and you willperhaps not wonder that I hear you with no very strongimpression of belief.But I have gone too far in the way ofinexplicable services to pause before I see the end. It is well, replied my visitor. Lanyon,you remember your vows: what follows is under theseal of our profession.And now, you who have so longbeen bound to the most narrow and material views, youwho have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine,you who have derided your superiors behold!He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp.Acry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the tableand held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with openmouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change he seemed to swell his face became suddenly blackand the features seemed to melt and alter and the next87 of 118The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hydemoment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back againstthe wall, my arm raised to shield me from that prodigy,my mind submerged in terror. O God! I screamed, and O God! again and again;for there before my eyes pale and shaken, and half-fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like aman restored from death there stood Henry Jekyll!What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring mymind to set on paper.I saw what I saw, I heard what Iheard, and my soul sickened at it; and yet now when thatsight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I believe it,and I cannot answer.My life is shaken to its roots; sleephas left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at all hours ofthe day and night; I feel that my days are numbered, andthat I must die; and yet I shall die incredulous.As for themoral turpitude that man unveiled to me, even with tearsof penitence, I cannot, even in memory, dwell on itwithout a start of horror.I will say but one thing,Utterson, and that (if you can bring your mind to credit it)will be more than enough.The creature who crept into myhouse that night was, on Jekyll s own confession, knownby the name of Hyde and hunted for in every corner of theland as the murderer of Carew.HASTIE LANYON.88 of 118The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.HydeHENRY JEKYLL S FULLSTATEMENT OF THE CASEI WAS born in the year 18 to a large fortune,endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by natureto industry, fond of the respect of the wise and goodamong my fellow-men, and thus, as might have beensupposed, with every guarantee of an honourable anddistinguished future.And indeed the worst of my faultswas a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as hasmade the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard toreconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high,and wear a more than commonly grave countenancebefore the public.Hence it came about that I concealedmy pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection,and began to look round me and take stock of myprogress and position in the world, I stood alreadycommitted to a profound duplicity of life.Many a manwould have even blazoned such irregularities as I wasguilty of; but from the high views that I had set beforeme, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid senseof shame.It was thus rather the exacting nature of myaspirations than any particular degradation in my faults,89 of 118The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr
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