Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Mr. Gabriel Utterson, that most paradoxical of London solicitors, presents to the world a countenance as lean and dusty as an untended law-book, yet harbours within his austere frame a warmth that speaks not through words but through the quiet constancy of his deeds. He is a man who mortifies his own pleasures—drinking gin in solitude to punish a palate that yearns for finer vintages, denying himself the theatre he secretly enjoys—whilst extending to others a tolerance so expansive it borders upon the philosophical. "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way," he is wont to say, and thus he finds himself perpetually the last respectable friend of men sliding toward ruin, never once betraying by look or manner that he marks their descent.

It is through this peculiar catholicity of spirit that Utterson maintains his unlikely bond with Mr. Richard Enfield, a distant kinsman and well-known man about town. What these two taciturn companions find in one another puzzles all who observe their Sunday rambles—those cherished excursions during which they exchange scarcely a word yet guard the time jealously against all competing claims of business or pleasure.

Upon one such perambulation, their path carries them down a prosperous by-street where cheerful shop fronts gleam like rows of smiling saleswomen, a bright fire burning amid the dingy forest of London's lesser quarters. Yet here, thrusting its gable into this scene of commercial gaiety, stands a sinister edifice: two storeys of wilful neglect, windowless, its blistered door bearing neither bell nor knocker, its blank upper wall presenting what might be called a blind forehead to the street. Tramps have struck matches upon its panels; children have made its steps their playground; the schoolboy's knife has scarred its mouldings—and for a generation, no hand has driven away these visitors nor repaired their ravages.

It is this door that prompts Enfield to relate his strange tale. Returning home through lamp-lit, empty streets at three o'clock of a black winter morning, he witnessed a collision between a small, stumping man and a girl of eight or ten—whereupon the man trampled calmly over the child's body with the mechanical horror of a Juggernaut and would have continued on his way. Enfield collared the brute and brought him back to face the gathered family and a Scottish doctor as emotionally demonstrative as a bagpipe. Yet all present—family, physician, and Enfield himself—found themselves seized by an inexplicable loathing, a murderous revulsion provocation alone could not explain. The man's very presence seemed to poison the air.

They extracted from this creature one hundred pounds in compensation, and he led them to that very door with the blind forehead, producing a key and returning with gold and a cheque drawn on Coutts's—signed with a name so respectable, so celebrated for philanthropy, that Enfield cannot bring himself to speak it aloud. The cheque proved genuine, deepening rather than resolving the mystery. Enfield has dubbed the place "Black Mail House," suspecting some gentleman pays through the nose for youthful indiscretions—though even this explanation leaves much shrouded in shadow.

When Utterson presses for the trampler's name, Enfield supplies it: Hyde. The lawyer receives this intelligence with a sigh heavy as a coffin lid, confessing he already knows the name upon that cheque. Some private knowledge weighs upon him, and both men, sensing they have ventured too near dangerous ground, clasp hands upon a bargain of silence.

Yet silence, once a mystery has slipped its first mooring, proves difficult to maintain—and Utterson, returning home that evening, finds himself drawn inexorably toward the document locked in his safe: the last will and testament of his friend Dr. Henry Jekyll.

That evening found Mr. Utterson returned to the solitude of his bachelor dwelling, his appetite fled and his spirits weighed upon by a nameless foreboding. Abandoning his customary Sunday ritual of dry theological reading by the fire, he instead took up his candle and retreated to his business room, where from the most guarded recess of his safe he withdrew a document that had long offended his professional sensibilities and his fundamental attachment to the sane and customary: Dr. Jekyll's will. The instrument, drawn in Jekyll's own hand—for Utterson had steadfastly refused any part in its composition—bestowed all the doctor's worldly goods upon one Edward Hyde, not merely in the event of death but, more disturbingly, should Jekyll simply vanish for a period exceeding three months. What had formerly been an abstract indignation, rooted in ignorance of this Hyde, now transformed into something far more visceral; the name was no longer a cipher but had begun to clothe itself in detestable attributes, until from the mists of uncertainty there leaped the definite presentment of a fiend.

Seeking illumination, Utterson ventured forth to consult his old friend Dr. Lanyon, that hearty, red-faced physician whose theatrical geniality masked genuine warmth. Yet Lanyon could offer little beyond an admission of estrangement from Jekyll—some scientific disagreement that had evidently cut deep—and professed complete ignorance of any protégé named Hyde. The lawyer returned home with his questions unanswered, and through the long hours of darkness his imagination conjured terrible visions: the faceless figure of Hyde trampling a child in lamplit streets, or standing beside Jekyll's sleeping form with sinister authority. The absence of a face to anchor these phantoms only sharpened Utterson's determination to behold the man himself.

Thus began his patient vigil at the dingy door in the by-street—"If he be Mr. Hyde, I shall be Mr. Seek"—until at last, on a frost-sharp evening, the sound of approaching footsteps rewarded his persistence. The figure that emerged was small, plainly dressed, and somehow repellent even at a distance. When Utterson confronted him, Hyde's initial hissing recoil gave way to a cool, almost insolent composure; he answered questions grudgingly, offered his Soho address with unsettling calculation, and vanished into the house with savage quickness after a snarling laugh. Left alone, the lawyer struggled to articulate the profound disgust Hyde had inspired—something troglodytic, perhaps, or the mere radiance of a foul soul transfiguring its mortal vessel.

Proceeding to Jekyll's handsome residence nearby, Utterson learned from the butler Poole that the doctor was absent but that Hyde possessed a key and the household had orders to obey him. The lawyer departed with a heavy heart, his mind turning upon old sins and concealed disgraces, yet kindling a spark of resolve: he must intervene, must put his shoulder to the wheel—if only Jekyll would permit it.

A fortnight later, lingering after one of Jekyll's convivial dinners, Utterson pressed his friend directly about the will and about Hyde. The doctor's handsome face grew pale, his manner evasive yet insistent: his position was strange beyond explanation, but he assured Utterson he could rid himself of Hyde whenever he chose, and begged only that the lawyer promise to protect Hyde's rights should Jekyll be taken away—a promise Utterson gave with an irrepressible sigh, though the mystery remained as impenetrable as ever, and darker currents seemed to gather beneath Jekyll's protestations of ease.