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.