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1I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know, but that which I suppose to be most probable. The evil
2side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the
3good which I had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort,
4virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that
5Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as good shone upon the countenance of the
6one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the
7lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol
8in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed natural
9and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and
10divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so far I was doubtless right. I have observed
11that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first without a visible misgiving of the
12flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and
13Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil. I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and
14conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption
15and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I once more
16prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to myself once more with the
17character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll. That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached my
18discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations,
19all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.
20The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse
21of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue
22slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected
23was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other
24was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to
25despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse. Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversion to the
26dryness of a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least)
27undignified, and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing towards the elderly man, this incoherency
28of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I
29had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of
30Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I made my preparations with the
31most studious care. I took and furnished that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged as a
32housekeeper a creature whom I knew well to be silent and unscrupulous. On the other side, I announced to my servants
33that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to have full liberty and power about my house in the square; and to parry
34mishaps, I even called and made myself a familiar object, in my second character. I next drew up that will to which you
35so much objected; so that if anything befell me in the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward Hyde
36without pecuniary loss. And thus fortified, as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities of
37my position. Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under
38shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could plod in the public eye with a
39load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the
40sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it--I did not even exist! Let
41me but escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always
42standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there
43in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion,
44would be Henry Jekyll. The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I
45would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I
46would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This
47familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign
48and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of
49torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde;
50but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all,
51and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would
52even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered. Into the
53details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design of
54entering; I mean but to point out the warnings and the successive steps with which my chastisement approached. I met
55with one accident which, as it brought on no consequence, I shall no more than mention. An act of cruelty to a child
56aroused against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised the other day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor
57and the child's family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life; and at last, in order to pacify their
58too just resentment, Edward Hyde had to bring them to the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn in the name of Henry
59Jekyll. But this danger was easily eliminated from the future, by opening an account at another bank in the name of
60Edward Hyde himself; and when, by sloping my own hand backward, I had supplied my double with a signature, I thought I
61sat beyond the reach of fate.
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