of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake's sake, as they say,
I see and I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash,'
added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, 'would have estranged Damon and Pythias.'3 This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to Mr. Utterson. 'They
have only differed on some point of science,' he thought; and being a man of
no scientific passions (except in the matter of conveyancing,4) he even added:
'It is nothing worse than that!' He gave his friend a few seconds to recover
his composure, and then approached the question he had come to put. 'Did
you ever come across a protege of his?one Hyde?' he asked.
'Hyde?' repeated Lanyon. 'No. Never heard of him. Since my time.'
That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried back with him
to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and fro, until the small hours of
the morning began to grow large. It was a night of little ease to his toiling
mind, toiling in mere5 darkness and besieged by questions.
Six o'clock struck on the bells of the church that was so conveniently near
to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was digging at the problem. Hitherto
it had touched him on the intellectual side alone; but now his imagination
also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross
darkness of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by before
his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be aware of the great field
of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the figure of a man walking swiftly; then
of a child running from the doctor's; and then these met, and that human
Juggernaut trod the child down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or
else he would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming
and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened,
the curtains of the bed plucked apart, and the sleeper recalled,6 and lo! there
would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given, and even at that
dead hour, he must rise and do its bidding. The figure in these two phases
haunted the lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to
see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the more swiftly
and still the more swiftly, even to dizziness, through wider labyrinths of lamp-
lighted city, and at every street corner crush a child and leave her screaming.
And still the figure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams,
it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his eyes; and thus it
was that there sprang up and grew apace in the lawyer's mind a singularly
strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity to behold the features of the real Mr.
Hyde. If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would
lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as was the habit of mysterious things
when well examined. He might see a reason for his friend's strange preference
or bondage (call it which you please) and even for the startling clause of the
will. At least it would be a face worth seeing: the face of a man who was without
bowels of mercy:7 a face which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind
of the unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred. From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the by-
street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon when business
was plenty, and time scarce, at night under the face of the fogged city moon,
3. Two inseparable youths in Greek legend whose 5. Pure, willingness to die for each other symbolizes true 6. Revived, awakened, friendship. 7. Compassion. 4. Legal transfer of property by writing deeds.
.
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1651
by all lights and at all hours of solitude or concourse, the lawyer was to be
