AI-Generated Graded Readers 　　Masaru Uchida, Gifu University 　　 　　Publication webpage: 　　https://www1.gifu-u.ac.jp/~masaru/a1/ai-generated_graded_readers.html 　　 　　Publication date: March 19, 2026 　　 　　About This Edition 　　 　　This book is a simplified English adaptation created for extensive reading practice. 　　The text was generated using ChatGPT and prepared for intermediate English learners as part of an educational project. 　　 　　Target reading level: CEFR A2-B1 　　 　　This edition aims to support fluency development through accessible vocabulary, expanded narration, and improved readability while preserving the original story structure. 　　 　　Source Text 　　 　　Original work: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 　　Author: Robert Louis Stevenson 　　 　　Source: Project Gutenberg 　　https://www.gutenberg.org/ 　　 　　Full text available at: 　　https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/43/pg43.txt 　　 　　The original text is in the public domain. 　　 　　Copyright and Use 　　 　　This simplified edition is intended for educational and non-commercial use only. 　　 　　The source text is provided by Project Gutenberg under its public domain policy. 　　Users should refer to the Project Gutenberg License for full terms: 　　 　　https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html 　　 　　This adaptation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and edited for readability and educational purposes. 　　 　　Disclaimer 　　 　　This edition is an educational adaptation and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Project Gutenberg.

　　Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Simplified Edition, Adapted and Simplified by ChatGPT)
　　
　　Part 1
　　
　　 Mr. Utterson was a lawyer in London. His face was serious, and he did not smile much, but people still trusted him. He spoke little, judged slowly, and kept other people’s secrets. On Sunday he often walked with his distant relative Mr. Enfield, and these walks were important to both men. They were not lively talkers, and many people wondered why they spent so much time together. Still, week after week, they met and walked side by side through the city.
　　 On one of these Sunday walks, they turned into a small street in a busy part of London. The shops were neat and bright, and even on a quiet day the street looked cheerful. Clean windows shone in the light, and the brass on the doors looked new and polished. But near one corner there was one ugly place that did not fit with the rest. It was a dark building with a stained door, no bell, and no knocker. The wall above it had no window, and the whole place looked forgotten and unloved.
　　 Children had played on the steps, boys had cut the wood with knives, and no one seemed to care. Mr. Enfield raised his cane and pointed at that door. “Do you see that place?” he asked. Mr. Utterson said that he did. Then Enfield looked at it again and said, “That door always makes me remember a very strange story.” Utterson turned to him at once, because something in his friend’s voice had changed.
　　 Enfield began to tell what had happened. He said that one winter night, at about three in the morning, he had been walking home through empty streets. London was dark and quiet, and he had seen almost no one for a long time. Then, at one corner, he saw two moving figures. One was a small man walking quickly down the street, and the other was a young girl running hard across the road. The two met at the corner, and then the terrible thing happened.
　　 The little man knocked the girl down and calmly walked over her body. He did not stop, did not turn back, and did not care that she cried out in pain and fear. Enfield ran after him at once, caught him, and pulled him back to the place where the child lay. By then the girl’s family had come out, and soon a doctor arrived too. The girl was hurt, but not badly hurt. Even so, everyone who saw the little man hated him almost at once.
　　 Enfield said the feeling was hard to explain. The child’s family hated him, which was natural, but the doctor hated him too, and that was stranger. The doctor was usually a cool man, not easy to move, but when he looked at the little man, his face changed. Enfield himself felt sick with anger, and he could see the same feeling in the others. The women were almost wild with rage, and they had to be held back. But the man in the middle stayed cool, and that cold calm made him even worse to look at.
　　 Enfield and the others decided that the man must pay the child’s family. “We will make a great scandal,” they told him. “Everyone in London will know your name.” The man answered in a cold voice, “No gentleman wants a public scene. Tell me how much you want.” They demanded one hundred pounds, which was a large sum, and after some resistance he agreed. Then he did a very strange thing. He took out a key, opened the ugly door, and went inside.
　　 After a short time he came back with gold and a cheque for the rest of the money. The cheque had the name of a very well-known and respected man. Enfield did not tell Utterson that name, but he said he had been shocked. It looked like blackmail, because a hateful man seemed to have power over someone good and respected. Enfield did not trust the cheque, so he stayed with the man until morning. The next day they all went to the bank together, and to everyone’s surprise, the cheque was real.
　　 Utterson listened very carefully. He asked whether the respected man lived in that building, and Enfield said no, he lived somewhere else. Enfield also said that almost no one used that strange door, except the little man from the story. There were three windows above the court, and the windows were always shut, though someone seemed to live there because smoke often came from the chimney. Utterson then asked the question that mattered most to him. “What was the name of the man who walked over the child?” he said.
　　 “His name was Hyde,” Enfield answered. He tried to describe Hyde, but he could not do it clearly. There was nothing easy to point to, yet everything about the man seemed wrong. “He looks deformed somehow,” Enfield said, “but I cannot say how.” Utterson walked on in silence for a while, thinking heavily. At last he asked one more question, “Are you sure he used a key?” and Enfield said yes, he was completely sure.
　　 Then Utterson spoke more openly. He said he had not asked the name of the man who signed the cheque because he believed he already knew it. Enfield looked surprised and a little troubled, but he insisted that every part of his story was exact. Hyde had used a key, and Enfield had seen him use it again not long before. That answer made Utterson sigh deeply. He now understood that the story was not only strange, but close to someone he knew well.
　　 Enfield then said he had talked too much already. He disliked asking questions, and he disliked carrying strange stories from one person to another. He wanted the matter to end there. “Let us make a promise,” he said. “Let us never speak of this again.” Utterson agreed at once and held out his hand. The two men shook hands on their bargain and walked on through the Sunday quiet, but in Utterson’s mind the dark door, the crushed child, and the name Hyde stayed alive and would not go away.
　　
　　Part 2
　　
　　 That evening Mr. Utterson went back to his house in a dark and troubled mood. He sat down to dinner, but he had no pleasure in the meal, and he could not keep his mind quiet. On most Sundays he read a serious book by the fire until midnight and then went calmly to bed. But this night was different from all his usual nights. As soon as the table was cleared, he took a candle and went into his business room.
　　 There he opened his safe and took out Dr. Jekyll’s will. He had hated that paper for a long time, but now he hated it more than ever. It said that if Henry Jekyll died, all his money and property would go to Edward Hyde. It also said that if Jekyll disappeared for three months, Hyde would take his place at once. Utterson stared at the page and thought, “I once believed this was only madness, but now I fear it may be shame.”
　　 He put the paper back, blew out his candle, and went out into the night. He walked to the house of Dr. Lanyon, an old friend of both himself and Jekyll. “If anyone knows the truth, Lanyon may know it,” he thought. Lanyon received him warmly and greeted him with both hands. He was a strong, cheerful man, red in the face, loud in manner, and full of life.
　　 After some friendly talk, Utterson slowly brought the conversation to Jekyll. Lanyon said that he and Jekyll had once been close, but that this was no longer true. “Henry has become too strange for me,” he said. “His ideas have gone in a wrong direction, and I see very little of him now.” Utterson felt some small relief when he heard this. He thought the break might be only about science, and not about anything worse.
　　 Then he asked the real question. “Have you ever heard of a man named Hyde?” he said. Lanyon looked surprised and said no at once. He had never heard the name before, and he knew nothing about such a man. That was all the help he could give. So Utterson went home with no new answer, and the night gave him no rest.
　　 He lay awake for hours in his dark room while the church bell marked the passing time. The story of the little girl returned again and again to his mind. He saw the empty streets, the lamps, the running child, and the small cruel man who stepped over her body as if she were nothing. Then his thoughts changed, and he imagined Jekyll asleep in a rich room while a terrible figure entered like a master. In these dark pictures the face of Hyde still would not appear clearly, and that made Utterson even more eager to see him with his own eyes.
　　 From that time on, he began to watch the ugly door. He went there in the morning before work, at noon in busy hours, and late at night when the street was quiet. Sometimes there was fog, and sometimes there was clear cold air, but still he waited. He told himself, “If he is Mr. Hyde, then I will be Mr. Seek.” Day after day he kept to this strange duty with the patient mind of a lawyer.
　　 At last, one dry and silent night, his waiting ended. The shops were shut, the street was almost empty, and the lamps made sharp lines of light and shadow on the ground. Then he heard a quick step coming nearer and nearer through the silence. He moved into the dark opening beside the door and waited there without sound. Soon he saw a small man cross the road with purpose, as if he were going home, and he saw a key already in the man’s hand.
　　 Utterson stepped forward and touched him on the shoulder. “Mr. Hyde, I think?” he said. Hyde jumped back with a sharp breath, but only for a second. “That is my name,” he answered. “What do you want?” Utterson told him that he was an old friend of Dr. Jekyll and asked to be allowed inside, but Hyde said at once that Jekyll was away.
　　 Hyde still did not look at him fully, and that itself felt strange and ugly. Then Utterson asked, “Will you let me see your face?” Hyde paused, turned, and looked at him with open defiance. They stood close together for a few seconds in the cold night. Utterson knew at once that Enfield had spoken truly. There was nothing he could point to, and yet everything about the man was hateful, wrong, and almost less than human.
　　 Hyde gave him an address in Soho and then asked how Utterson had known him. “By description,” Utterson answered. “We have common friends.” When he named Jekyll, Hyde suddenly grew angry. “He never told you,” he cried. Then he laughed in a harsh, savage way, opened the door with amazing quickness, and disappeared inside. Utterson stayed where he was for a moment, full of disgust, fear, and deep confusion.
　　 He turned the corner and went straight to Dr. Jekyll’s main house, where Poole opened the door for him. Utterson was shown into the warm hall, but Jekyll was not at home. He then asked whether it was right for Hyde to come in through the old laboratory door. “Yes, sir,” said Poole. “Mr. Hyde has a key, and we all have orders to obey him.” As he walked home again, Utterson felt a heavy pity for his old friend. He thought Jekyll must be caught in some dark trouble from the past, and he silently promised himself that he would do all he could to save him.
　　
　　Part 3
　　
　　 About two weeks later, chance gave Mr. Utterson the meeting he wanted. Dr. Jekyll held one of his pleasant dinner parties and invited a few old friends, all respectable men who enjoyed good food and good wine. Utterson came as one of the guests and stayed quietly through the evening. This was not unusual, because many hosts liked to keep him after brighter and louder visitors had gone. When the others finally left, he remained behind alone with Jekyll by the fire.
　　 Dr. Jekyll looked like a man made for friendship and comfort. He was about fifty, large, healthy in appearance, and smooth in face, with an expression that was kind though a little secretive. He spoke warmly to Utterson and seemed honestly glad to have him there. The room was rich and pleasant, and the fire gave a soft light to both men. For a few moments the lawyer almost forgot Hyde and all the dark thoughts connected with that name.
　　 But he had not stayed behind for silence only. After a pause, he turned to Jekyll and said, “I have wanted to speak to you about your will.” Jekyll answered lightly and tried to laugh the subject away. He said poor Utterson had always been troubled by that document, and then he spoke of Dr. Lanyon and called him narrow and old-fashioned in scientific matters. The lawyer let all that pass without interest and came back to the point.
　　 “You know I never approved of that will,” he said. Jekyll’s face changed a little, and his answer became shorter. “Yes, yes, I know that,” he said. “You have told me before.” Utterson then said, “I have learned something about Hyde.” At once the color left Jekyll’s face, and a darkness came into his eyes.
　　 “I do not want to hear more,” Jekyll said. “We agreed not to talk about this.” Utterson did not stop. He said what he had heard was shocking and that Hyde seemed a dangerous man. Jekyll rose into sudden feeling and answered that Utterson did not understand his position. His voice was controlled, but under it there was fear and strain.
　　 “My dear Utterson,” he said, “this matter is more than you can imagine. I can end it whenever I choose. I can be rid of Hyde.” The words were strong, yet the lawyer was not comforted by them. There was something too eager in Jekyll’s manner, as if he wished to stop questions rather than answer them. Utterson looked at him carefully and saw that his friend was deeply disturbed.
　　 “Then why keep such a man near you at all?” the lawyer asked. Jekyll turned away for a moment and stood staring into the fire. When he faced Utterson again, his voice was lower and more serious. “For reasons of my own,” he said, “I must ask you to trust me. I ask for no advice, only your patience. I am in a painful position, but I can manage it if I am left alone.”
　　 Utterson wanted to help him, and that wish made him gentler. He said, “I trust you, Jekyll, but I am troubled for you. I believe this Hyde has some power over you, and I fear what may come of it.” Jekyll quickly replied, “He has no power that I cannot break.” Then he came nearer and laid a hand on the lawyer’s arm. “Still, there is one thing I must ask of you.”
　　 He spoke now with deep feeling and a kind of shame. “You know,” he said, “that I value you greatly, and I believe you are a loyal friend. If anything happens to me, if I am taken away or disappear, I ask you to remember my will.” Utterson drew back and looked at him with alarm. The words were too close to the ugly lines of that hated paper. For a moment he could not answer.
　　 “I cannot pretend to like that request,” he said at last. “I have seen Hyde, and I do not trust him. I would rather help you against him than help him after you are gone.” Jekyll pressed his arm more strongly. “I know that,” he said. “I know you dislike him, and perhaps you are right to do so. But if I am no longer here, I ask you to be fair to him and to do what you can for him.”
　　 The lawyer was silent again. He could not understand why an honorable man should speak with such force in favor of someone so hateful. Yet he could also see that Jekyll was not playing with words. He was serious, shaken, and almost pleading. At last Utterson said slowly, “I cannot say I like it, but if the time truly comes, I will do my best to carry out your wishes fairly.”
　　 Jekyll let out a breath, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. “That is all I ask,” he said. “You are a true friend, Utterson, and I thank you.” The lawyer soon rose to go, but he left the house with no peace in his mind. Jekyll’s kindness was real, yet so was his fear, and the shadow of Hyde seemed darker than before. As Utterson walked home through the night, he felt that the mystery had not grown smaller at all, but had moved one step closer to the heart of his friend’s life.
　　
　　Part 4
　　
　　 Nearly a year passed after that evening at Dr. Jekyll’s house. During that time London went on with its usual business, and nothing openly happened to connect Hyde again with public fear. But one night in October, a new and far worse crime took place. It happened in a quiet part of the city under a clear sky. The moon shone brightly, and a maidservant, sitting at an upper window, looked down into the peaceful street below.
　　 She had been in a happy and gentle mood before going to bed. The night was calm, the air was mild, and the empty street seemed almost beautiful under the moon. After some time she saw an old gentleman with white hair walking slowly along the lane. He looked kind and well-bred, and there was something open and good in his face. At the same moment another man came up from the other direction, a small man whom the girl soon recognized with fear and dislike. It was Mr. Hyde.
　　 The old gentleman spoke politely to Hyde, perhaps only to ask the way. He bowed, pointed, and addressed him with a friendly manner that should have pleased anyone. Hyde listened without answering. He held a heavy cane loosely in his hand and seemed restless, almost trembling with anger before a word of insult had been given.
　　 Then, without warning, he burst into wild rage. He stamped his foot, lifted the cane, and struck the old gentleman down to the ground. In the next instant he attacked him with a terrible violence that seemed beyond all reason. He beat him again and again, and then trampled on the fallen body with such fury that the maid could hear the bones break from above. The horror was too great for her, and she fainted at the window.
　　 It was about two in the morning when she came back to herself and cried out for the police. Hyde was long gone, but the body still lay in the street, ruined almost beyond recognition. The cane had broken in two under the force of the blows, and one half lay in the gutter nearby while the other half had been taken away. The dead man still had a purse and a gold watch, so robbery had not been the purpose. The only paper found on him was a sealed envelope addressed to Mr. Utterson.
　　 The letter was brought to the lawyer the next morning before he had risen from bed. He heard the facts, looked at the envelope, and at once understood that something grave had happened. He dressed quickly, finished a hurried breakfast, and went with the officer to the police station where the body had been taken. As soon as he saw the dead man, he knew him. “Yes,” he said with deep sadness, “this is Sir Danvers Carew.”
　　 The officer was shocked by the importance of the victim and became eager to catch the murderer. He then showed Utterson the broken piece of cane that had been found in the street. The lawyer looked down at it and felt his heart sink. Broken though it was, he knew it at once as a cane he himself had given many years before to Henry Jekyll. When he heard again the description of the small, wicked-looking man, he could no longer doubt that Hyde had done the murder.
　　 “If you will come with me in my cab,” Utterson said, “I think I can take you to his house.” It was now morning, but a heavy fog had begun to cover London. As they drove toward Soho, the city looked dark, dirty, and unreal under the changing light. One street would be almost black, and the next would glow with a strange brown brightness through the moving mist. To Utterson, already full of fear, the whole district seemed like part of some bad dream.
　　 Hyde’s house stood in a poor and troubled neighborhood, and the woman who opened the door had an evil smile on her face. She was pale, old, and not pleasant to look at, yet there was a kind of enjoyment in her manner when she heard why they had come. Yes, she said, Mr. Hyde lived there, but he had come home very late the night before and had gone out again after a short stay. She had seen little of him lately and knew nothing of his business, but she seemed almost glad to hear that trouble had found him.
　　 The officer and Utterson searched the rooms. Though only a few were used, they were furnished with comfort and even taste. There was good wine, fine linen, silver on the table, and a handsome picture on the wall that Utterson believed Jekyll had given him. But the place showed clear signs of hurried disorder. Clothes were thrown on the floor, drawers stood open, and on the hearth lay a pile of gray ashes where many papers had recently been burned.
　　 In those ashes the officer found the end of a burned cheque book, and behind the door he found the other half of the broken cane. He was delighted, because the evidence now seemed strong and clear. A visit to the bank later showed that Hyde still had a large sum of money there, and the officer felt certain the man would sooner or later appear. But in one way the case remained difficult, for Hyde had almost no friends, no known family, and no photograph. Different people described him differently, yet all agreed on one thing: there was something deeply wrong in his appearance, something hateful that no one could fully explain.
　　 When Utterson left Soho, his mind was heavy with pity and fear. Sir Danvers Carew was dead, Hyde had become a hunted murderer, and Jekyll’s name was tied more closely than ever to disgrace. The lawyer now saw that the danger he had once imagined in secret had broken out into the open world. He could not tell how far Jekyll was guilty, or whether he was only trapped, but he knew the matter had passed beyond quiet uneasiness. A dark secret that had once stood behind a shut door had now come out stained with blood.
　　
　　Part 5
　　
　　 Late in the afternoon, Mr. Utterson went to Dr. Jekyll’s house and was admitted at once by Poole. But this time he was not taken through the front rooms where he had usually met his friend. Instead, Poole led him down through the lower parts of the house, across a yard that had once been a garden, and toward the old building at the back. It had once belonged to a famous surgeon and had been used for anatomy, but Jekyll had filled it with chemical things instead. As Utterson crossed the old theater room, with its silent benches, dusty tables, broken packing straw, and dim light from above, he felt a strong and unpleasant strangeness.
　　 At the far end, a stair went up to a door covered in red cloth, and through that door he was finally shown into Jekyll’s private cabinet. It was a large room, with glass presses, a business table, and three dusty windows looking out on the court. There was a fire in the grate, and a lamp was already burning, because the fog had begun to grow thick even inside the houses. Near the fire sat Dr. Jekyll, and at once Utterson saw how badly he looked. His face was pale like that of a dying man, and when he welcomed his guest, his hand was cold and his voice had changed.
　　 As soon as Poole left them alone, Utterson began directly. “You have heard the news?” he asked. Jekyll shuddered and said that he had. Men had been crying it aloud in the square, and he had heard them from his dining room. The lawyer then spoke with a seriousness that matched the danger of the hour. Carew had been his client, he said, but so was Jekyll, and he had to know where he stood.
　　 “You have not been mad enough to hide this fellow?” he asked. Jekyll cried out at once and raised his hand as if to stop the very thought. He swore before God that he would never see Hyde again and that he was finished with him forever. He spoke with great force and with such excited certainty that Utterson listened in gloomy doubt rather than relief. Jekyll even said Hyde was safe and would never be heard of again, but the feverish manner in which he said it made the promise feel strange and dangerous.
　　 Utterson warned him that if there were a trial, Jekyll’s own name might be drawn into the matter. Jekyll replied that he had reasons for certainty, though reasons he could not share with anyone. Then, with visible hesitation, he said there was one point on which he wished for advice. He had received a letter, he said, and did not know whether he ought to show it to the police. He trusted Utterson’s judgment and wanted to place the matter entirely in his hands.
　　 The lawyer asked whether Jekyll feared the letter might lead to Hyde’s arrest. Jekyll answered that he did not care what became of Hyde and was done with him completely. What troubled him now was his own good name, which this hateful business had exposed to shame. Utterson was surprised by the selfishness of the answer, yet he also felt a kind of relief. If Jekyll truly feared only disgrace, then perhaps the bond between him and Hyde was not what the lawyer had once imagined.
　　 He asked to see the letter. It was written in an odd upright hand and signed with the name Edward Hyde. In it, Hyde said that Dr. Jekyll, who had shown him many undeserved acts of kindness, need not fear for his safety. Hyde wrote that he had his own means of escape and could depend on them with confidence. Utterson did not like the note, but he did admit to himself that it gave a less shameful color to the connection between the two men than he had feared.
　　 He then asked for the envelope. Jekyll said he had burned it before he had thought what he was doing, though he remembered that it had no postmark because the note had been handed in by someone directly. Utterson asked if he might take the letter home and sleep on the matter. Jekyll answered that he wanted the lawyer to judge entirely for him, because he no longer trusted himself. Then Utterson asked one last hard question, whether Hyde had been the one who dictated the strange terms in the will about Jekyll’s disappearance.
　　 At that, Jekyll seemed almost faint. He shut his mouth tightly and only nodded. “I knew it,” said Utterson. “He meant to murder you, and you have had a narrow escape.” But Jekyll answered in a solemn voice that he had gained something more important than escape. He had received a lesson, he said, a terrible lesson, and then covered his face with his hands for a moment as if shame or sorrow were too much for him. The lawyer could get nothing clearer from him, and soon rose to go.
　　 On his way out, Utterson stopped Poole and asked about the letter. Had a messenger brought anything that day, and if so, what had he looked like? But Poole answered firmly that nothing had been brought except the ordinary post, and that these had only been printed circulars. That answer sent Utterson away with all his fear renewed. If no messenger had come, then the letter might have entered by the laboratory door, or worse, might even have been written in the cabinet itself. The whole matter now seemed more doubtful and more dangerous than before.
　　 As he made his way home, the newsboys in the street were still crying out the murder in loud voices. He heard Sir Danvers’s death shouted again and again through the fog, and the sound followed him like a public funeral speech. One friend and client was already gone, and he now feared that another friend’s good name might be pulled down into the same dark whirl. The decision before him was delicate and unpleasant. Though he was by nature a man who relied on himself, he began to wish for advice from some other mind.
　　 That evening he sat by his own fire with Mr. Guest, his chief clerk, between them a bottle of old wine. Guest was a quiet man, clever in business and highly skilled in the study of handwriting. Utterson trusted him more than almost anyone and felt that, perhaps without seeming to ask advice directly, he might still learn something from him. So he spoke of the sad business of Sir Danvers, then produced Hyde’s letter and called it a murderer’s autograph. Guest studied it with strong interest, said the writer was not mad but certainly odd, and then, by chance, compared it with a dinner note from Jekyll that had just been brought in. After careful study he returned both papers and quietly said that the two hands were in many points the same, only sloped in different directions. After Guest left, Utterson locked Hyde’s letter in his safe and stood still in deep cold horror, asking himself whether Henry Jekyll had forged a letter for a murderer.
　　
　　Part 6
　　
　　 Time passed, and for a while the dark danger seemed to lift. Mr. Hyde had disappeared after the murder, and no one could find him. Weeks became months, and the police had no success. During this same period, Dr. Jekyll changed in a way that greatly pleased his friends. He came out of his loneliness, saw people again, gave dinners, helped others, and returned to his old work with a new seriousness that seemed almost noble.
　　 It was as if some heavy chain had been taken from him. He spoke kindly, looked healthier, and appeared grateful for ordinary life in a way that touched those around him. Mr. Utterson saw him often and began to hope that the whole ugly business had truly ended. He believed that fear had taught Jekyll a lesson and that Hyde had at last been thrown out of his life. For two happy months this seemed to be the truth.
　　 But one day, very suddenly, the old dark pattern returned. On the eighth of January, Utterson and many others dined pleasantly with Jekyll, and the doctor received them with perfect warmth. He was cheerful, social, and at ease, and nothing in his manner suggested a new disaster. Yet only a few days later, when Utterson called again, Poole told him that Dr. Jekyll had shut himself up and would see no one. The lawyer was surprised, but not yet greatly alarmed, and he returned again the next day with the same result.
　　 This happened again and again. Sometimes Poole’s answer was respectful but firm, and sometimes it carried real fear. Jekyll stayed in his cabinet, refused his closest friends, and seemed determined to cut himself off from all ordinary human company. Utterson could not understand how such a sudden change had come. The man who had seemed saved, peaceful, and almost renewed had in a few days become hidden and silent once more.
　　 At last the lawyer turned to Dr. Lanyon, hoping that the old doctor might explain what had happened. But when Utterson was shown into Lanyon’s room, he was shocked by what he saw. The man had changed terribly in both body and spirit. His face had grown pale and thin, his hair seemed whiter than before, and there was something in his eyes that looked like a living fear.
　　 Utterson asked at once whether he was ill. Lanyon answered with surprising calm, though his words were terrible. “I have had a shock,” he said, “and I shall never recover. It is only a question of weeks now.” He did not speak like a man merely complaining of weakness. He spoke like a man who already saw death before him and had accepted that it was close. Even so, there was nothing quiet or peaceful in his state, because fear still seemed to tremble under his voice.
　　 Utterson tried to comfort him and mentioned that Jekyll also seemed unwell. At the sound of that name, Lanyon’s whole face changed. He lifted a shaking hand and spoke with violent force. He said that he wished to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll and that he regarded him as if he were already dead. The strength of that hatred and horror was so great that Utterson could only stare in silence for a moment.
　　 Then he asked if there was anything he could do. They were old friends, he said, and too old now to begin life with new friends in place of old ones. But Lanyon answered that nothing could be done, and that if Utterson wanted answers, he must ask Jekyll himself. When the lawyer said Jekyll would not receive him, Lanyon replied that he was not surprised. Then, after a pause, he said that perhaps after his death the truth might become known, but for the present he could say nothing.
　　 He begged Utterson, almost like a man asking mercy, either to stay and talk of other things or to leave him at once. He could not bear any more mention of that cursed subject. The lawyer saw that the suffering was real and deep, and he did not press further. They turned the conversation away, but the pleasant ease that had once existed between them was gone forever. When Utterson left the house, he felt that he had looked on one of the last days of a dying man.
　　 As soon as he returned home, he wrote to Jekyll. He complained gently but clearly that the doctor had closed his door to him, and he asked the cause of this sad break with Lanyon. The answer came the next day. It was long, sorrowful, and full of strange dark hints that explained little. Jekyll wrote that the quarrel with Lanyon could never be repaired and that he accepted this separation as final.
　　 He also wrote that he had decided from that time forward to live in extreme seclusion. Utterson must not be surprised, he said, if his door was often shut even against old friendship. He asked only one kindness: that Utterson would respect his silence and allow him to walk his own dark road alone. He called himself both a great sinner and a great sufferer and said that he had brought upon himself a punishment and danger that he could not name. The letter was painful to read because it sounded sincere, yet it explained nothing.
　　 Utterson sat with the paper in his hand and felt more troubled than before. Hyde seemed gone, yet peace had not returned. Instead, Jekyll had fallen into mystery again, and Lanyon, once a strong and healthy man, had been broken by something so terrible that he could not even speak of it. About a week later, Dr. Lanyon died, and Utterson was deeply moved by the loss of a faithful old friend. After the funeral he felt his loneliness more sharply than ever, and when he later received from Lanyon’s executors a sealed packet addressed to him and to no one else, to be opened only in one special case, he locked it away unread. The dead had left him a message, but the living mystery still stood closed before him.
　　
　　Part 7
　　
　　 It happened again on a Sunday, when Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield were taking their usual walk together through London. Their steps, almost by habit, brought them once more into the same by-street where the ugly door stood. The quiet shops and neat fronts were familiar now, but neither man could see that place without remembering the dark story tied to it. As they came in front of the court, both slowed, then stopped together and looked at the door in silence.
　　 Enfield was the first to speak. “Well,” he said, trying to sound light, “that story is finished at least. We shall never see more of Mr. Hyde.” Utterson answered, “I hope not,” but his voice was serious and did not carry much comfort. He then admitted something he had not told Enfield before, that he himself had once seen Hyde and had felt the same instant disgust and fear. Enfield replied that no one could do one without the other.
　　 Then Enfield added another thought that had clearly stayed with him. He said he had later learned that the strange door was only a back entrance to Dr. Jekyll’s house, and he blamed Utterson half jokingly for not making that plain sooner. Utterson showed little surprise and said that, if that was so, they might as well step into the court and look at the windows. He confessed openly now that he was uneasy about poor Jekyll. Even if they could only stand outside, he felt that the sight of a friend might still do the doctor good.
　　 So the two men turned in through the entry and passed into the narrow court behind the house. It was cooler there than in the street and a little damp, as if the sun did not often stay long in that place. Although the sky above was still bright with the late light of sunset, the court below already seemed full of early evening. The walls rose close around them, and the quiet felt heavy rather than peaceful.
　　 Above them were the three windows of Dr. Jekyll’s cabinet. The middle one stood open halfway, and beside it, sitting close as if he needed air and yet had not the strength to seek it fully, was Dr. Jekyll himself. One look was enough to shock Utterson. The doctor’s face had a deep sadness in it, and he looked less like a man resting in his own house than like some unhappy prisoner allowed for a moment to sit near the bars of his cell.
　　 “Jekyll!” cried Utterson, lifting his face toward the window. “I trust you are better.” Jekyll answered in a dull, weary voice that he was very low, very low indeed, but that it would not last much longer, thank God. The words were strange, because they sounded less like a hope of recovery than like a tired man’s thought of release. Even in that short exchange, both men below felt the weight of his suffering.
　　 Utterson at once tried to encourage him in the way a friend naturally would. He said Jekyll was keeping indoors too much and that he ought to come out and stir his blood like other men. Then he introduced Enfield properly and warmly invited Jekyll to get his hat and join them for a short walk. The offer was simple and kind, and for a moment it seemed almost enough to pull the doctor back into ordinary human life.
　　 Jekyll thanked him with real feeling. He said he would like it very much, and the sadness on his face softened for an instant as if the thought of easy company touched him deeply. But almost at once he drew back from the idea and refused it with increasing force. He said it was impossible, that he dared not, and though he gave no clear reason, his fear was plain.
　　 Even so, he said he was truly glad to see them. Their presence, he told Utterson, was a real pleasure to him, and one could hear in his voice how starved he had become for common friendship. He even said that he would invite both gentlemen up, but that the place was really not fit. The words were odd, but Utterson, wishing only to make things easier, answered in a cheerful tone that then the best plan was simply to stay below and speak to him from the court.
　　 Jekyll answered with something like a smile. He said that was exactly what he had been about to suggest, and for one brief second it seemed that the moment might become almost pleasant. The three men, though separated by height and wall and circumstance, were at least still speaking together as friends. The smile had only just formed, and Utterson had barely begun to feel relieved, when everything changed.
　　 Without warning, the expression on Jekyll’s face was struck away as if by an invisible blow. In its place there came such terror, such helpless despair, and such dreadful inward horror that the blood of the two men below seemed to stop in their veins. It was not anger, and it was not ordinary fear. It was the look of a man who had seen, or felt, something unbearable at the very center of his own life.
　　 The change lasted only a moment. Almost at once the window was thrust violently down, shutting Jekyll from their sight. But that one glimpse had been enough. Utterson and Enfield turned away from the court and left it without a word, and even when they reached the street, neither of them tried to speak. The silence between them was heavier than any conversation could have been, because both knew that they had looked for only an instant into something far worse than illness, and neither man could yet bear to give it a name.
　　
　　Part 8
　　
　　 One evening after dinner, Mr. Utterson was sitting quietly by his fire when he was surprised by a visit from Poole. The servant had come without warning, and one look at him was enough to show that something was badly wrong. His face was pale, his manner was broken, and he seemed unable to rest even for a moment. Utterson rose at once and stared at him with concern. “What has happened, Poole?” he asked. “Is Dr. Jekyll ill?”
　　 Poole did not answer that question directly. He stood near the door for a moment as if he had come to the very edge of his courage and was afraid to go farther. Then he said in a low voice, “Mr. Utterson, there is something wrong.” The lawyer tried to calm him, gave him a seat, and pushed a glass of wine toward him. “Take your time,” he said. “Sit down and tell me clearly what you mean.”
　　 But Poole did not drink. He held the glass in his hand and kept his eyes turned toward the floor, as if he could not bear to meet another man’s face. He said that the doctor had shut himself up again in the cabinet, but this time the thing was worse than before. For about a week, he said, fear had been growing inside him day and night. He had tried to bear it in silence, but he could not bear it any longer. At last he raised his eyes a little and said, “I am afraid, sir. I am terribly afraid.”
　　 Utterson was troubled, yet the more frightened he became, the more sharply he spoke. “Be exact, my man,” he said. “What is it that you are afraid of?” Poole answered in a rough and stubborn way that he hardly dared put it into words. Then, after a pause, he said something that startled the lawyer deeply. “I think there has been foul play,” he said.
　　 Utterson repeated the words with alarm and irritation together. The idea sounded wild, and yet it came from a man who was not given to foolish panic. Still, he pressed Poole to explain. What foul play could there be, he asked, and why should such a thing be hidden inside the doctor’s own room? But Poole only shook his head and said that explanation was too hard for him. He begged Utterson to come at once and judge the matter with his own eyes and ears.
　　 The lawyer saw that the servant’s distress was real and extreme. Without another word, he put on his hat and greatcoat and prepared to follow him. As he did so, he noticed the great relief that suddenly showed itself on Poole’s face. The man had not touched the wine at all, and when he set the glass down, his hand was still shaking. Together they left the house and went out into the March night.
　　 It was a wild and bitter evening, cold even for that time of year. A pale moon lay strangely in the sky, pushed sideways by the wind, while thin clouds flew across it in torn and racing lines. The streets were emptier than usual, and the wind made talking difficult. It struck sharply into the face and seemed to drive every passerby indoors. As Utterson walked beside Poole through that lonely weather, he felt that all London had somehow drawn back and left them alone with their errand.
　　 Poole said almost nothing on the way. His silence was not the silence of a man who has nothing to say, but of a man whose fear has gone too deep for easy speech. At last they reached Dr. Jekyll’s house and were let in. The sight that met them in the great kitchen was almost as strange as Poole himself. The servants were all gathered together there, pale and whispering, like a group of frightened sheep. One of the maids began to cry when she saw Utterson, as if the mere sight of someone firm and respectable was enough to break the pressure of her fear.
　　 Poole sharply ordered her to be quiet, but even he spoke with broken nerves. The others stared toward the inner parts of the house again and again, as if expecting some terrible sound. Utterson was shocked by the general terror, and his own uneasiness rose at once. “This will never do,” he said. “The whole household seems mad with fear. What has happened to your master?” Poole answered that they would soon hear enough, but he first wanted Utterson to listen carefully and say nothing too soon.
　　 He took up a candle and led the lawyer out through the yard and across the old surgical rooms toward the stair that rose to the cabinet door. When they reached the foot of the stairs, Poole motioned Utterson to stand aside and listen. Then, gathering all his courage, he climbed and knocked on the red-covered door with an uncertain hand. “Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you,” he called. His body was tense as he spoke, and even while he called out, he turned his face in a quick sign that the lawyer must attend closely to the voice within.
　　 From inside came the answer, weak and complaining. “Tell him I cannot see anyone,” it said. Poole stood still for only a second, then came back down with a look almost like grim triumph. When they were once more in the yard and then in the kitchen, he turned directly to Utterson and asked the question he had brought him there to answer. “Sir,” he said, staring hard into the lawyer’s face, “was that my master’s voice?” Utterson was very pale now, but he answered honestly that the voice seemed greatly changed.
　　 Poole seized on that answer at once. He declared that it was not the doctor’s voice at all and that no one could deceive him on that point after twenty years in the same house. Eight days before, he said, he had heard a cry from that room, a cry that had frozen his blood, and from that moment he had believed that Dr. Jekyll had been destroyed. Since then, some other being had remained in the cabinet in his place. Utterson still tried to resist so fearful a conclusion and suggested fever, madness, or some sickness that might have altered the doctor’s voice and manner. But Poole was ready with more evidence. During the whole last week, he said, the thing in the room had written order after order for a certain medicine, had rejected one sample after another, and had thrown desperate notes upon the stairs begging for the pure old kind to be found. There was something horrible in the very need, something restless, secret, and unclean, and as Utterson listened, he felt that they were no longer dealing with ordinary illness at all, but standing on the edge of a truth from which both mind and body drew back in dread.
　　
　　Part 9
　　
　　 “Have you kept any of those papers?” Mr. Utterson asked after a moment. Poole quickly searched his pocket and pulled out a crumpled note. The lawyer bent toward the candle and read it with great care. Most of it was calm enough in form and asked a chemist to search for an older and purer sample of a certain drug. But at the end the writer had lost control and added a desperate cry: “For God’s sake, find me some of the old.”
　　 Utterson looked up at once. “This is a strange note,” he said, and then asked sharply why it had been opened. Poole answered that the man at the shop had been angry and had thrown it back like dirt. The lawyer then asked whether it was truly Dr. Jekyll’s hand. Poole said that it looked like it, but his voice was stubborn and uneasy, as if that did not settle the matter at all. Then he added with force that handwriting meant nothing now, because he had actually seen the person who moved in the cabinet.
　　 At that, Utterson pressed him for the full story. Poole said that one day he had come suddenly into the old theater from the garden and found the cabinet door open. At the far end of the room, someone was searching wildly among the crates, as if in desperate need of the drug. The figure looked up, gave a strange cry, and rushed upstairs into the cabinet so quickly that Poole saw him only for a moment. But that one glimpse was enough to turn his blood cold.
　　 “If that was my master,” Poole said, “why had he a mask over his face? If it was my master, why did he cry out like a rat and run from me?” He had served Jekyll too long, he said, to be fooled in such a matter. The being in that room was smaller than Jekyll, lighter in movement, and not like him at all. Utterson still tried, even then, to hold to a more reasonable hope. He suggested that some disease might have changed Jekyll’s face and voice and driven him to hide himself in shame.
　　 Poole listened, but he did not believe a word of it. He said that the figure he had seen had the build of a dwarf and moved with a quick, ugly lightness that was not Dr. Jekyll’s way. He also said the crying need for the drug did not sound like ordinary sickness, but like some last and hopeless attempt to reverse a horror already in progress. Utterson heard him out and felt the force of every point. At last he lowered his voice and asked the question that now stood between them. “Then you believe,” he said, “that what is in the cabinet is Hyde?”
　　 “Yes, sir,” Poole answered, “that is what I believe.” He said that Hyde had once come and gone by the laboratory door and that no one in the house had ever liked or trusted him. The lawyer stood still and fought with himself for several long seconds. Then he made his decision like a man stepping into danger because there was no other honest course left. He said they would break open the cabinet door at once.
　　 Poole seemed almost grateful to hear the words. Utterson told him to fetch an axe, while he himself took up the heavy iron poker from the fireplace. He also arranged for two servants, Bradshaw and another man, to stand guard at the door in the by-street, so that if the creature inside escaped by that way, it would be stopped. They were given ten minutes to reach their places. Then Utterson and Poole went back into the theater and sat down in the dark shelter to wait.
　　 The wind moved strangely about the old building, and from London beyond came a low endless sound like a city breathing in its sleep. But nearer than that, and more terrible, there was the step inside the cabinet, going up and down, up and down, with restless patience. Poole whispered that it walked like that almost all day and much of the night, stopping only when a new sample came from a chemist. Utterson listened hard and felt his skin grow cold. The tread was light, odd, and swinging, nothing like the heavy step of Henry Jekyll.
　　 Poole then said that once, and only once, he had heard it weeping. When Utterson asked how, the man answered in a shaken whisper that it had sounded like a woman or like a lost soul. That image struck the lawyer with sudden horror, but the time for waiting was now over. He rose, went to the red-covered door, and called out in a loud firm voice, “Jekyll, I demand to see you.” There was no answer at first, and the silence felt alive.
　　 Then Utterson spoke again and said their suspicions had been aroused and that he would see the person within, by fair means if possible and by force if necessary. At that, a voice cried from inside, “Utterson, for God’s sake, have mercy!” The lawyer turned white and shouted at once that it was not Jekyll’s voice at all, but Hyde’s. “Down with the door, Poole!” he cried. Poole swung the axe with all his strength.
　　 The first blow shook the building, and from inside came a terrible cry like the scream of some trapped animal. Again and again the axe fell, while the wood crashed, the frame jumped, and the whole room answered in violent echoes. The door was strong, and the lock held longer than one might think, but at last, on the fifth great blow, the lock burst and the broken door fell inward across the carpet. The two men stood back for one breath, shocked by their own noise and by the deep stillness that followed it. Then they peered into the room.
　　 The cabinet looked strangely calm in the lamplight. The fire burned brightly, the kettle was singing, some drawers were open, and papers lay neatly arranged on the table. Tea had even been set out near the chair by the hearth, as if the occupant had expected a quiet evening. But in the middle of the room lay the twisted body of a man. When they turned it over, they saw the face of Edward Hyde.
　　 He wore clothes much too large for him, clothes made for the size of Dr. Jekyll. His face still seemed to hold the last movement of life, but life itself was gone. Near one hand lay a crushed glass vial, and in the room there hung a strong bitter smell that told Utterson the truth at once. Hyde had killed himself. The lawyer looked down sternly and said they had come too late, whether to save him or punish him.
　　 Yet the darker question remained. Where was Henry Jekyll? The two men searched the whole building with growing fear. They went through the old theater, the corridor, the dark small rooms, and the spacious cellar full of broken and forgotten things. Dust and cobwebs told them that no one had entered many of those places for years. Nowhere was there any sign of Jekyll, dead or alive.
　　 They next examined the by-street door and found the key lying nearby on the stones, broken and already red with rust at the break. That sight puzzled both men still more. It looked as if someone had stamped on it long ago, and whatever had happened, it had not happened in any simple or ordinary way. So they went back upstairs once more to study the cabinet more carefully. There, on one table, they found measured heaps of a white salt laid out for some experiment that had been interrupted.
　　 The room itself was full of unsettling signs. Beside the tea things lay an open religious book that Jekyll had once valued highly, but its margins were covered in his own hand with shocking blasphemies. There was also a great mirror, and when they looked into it, they saw only the firelight, the chemical presses, and their own pale frightened faces. Poole whispered that the glass must have seen strange things. Utterson answered under his breath that nothing in the room was stranger than the mirror itself and the use to which Jekyll must have put it.
　　 At last they came to the business table. On it lay a large envelope with Utterson’s name written clearly in Jekyll’s hand. He opened it, and several papers fell out. The first was a new will, written like the old one, but now the name of Edward Hyde had been removed and replaced with the name of Gabriel John Utterson. The lawyer stared at it in deep amazement. Hyde had evidently seen it and yet had not destroyed it.
　　 The next paper was a short note from Jekyll dated that very day. In it he said that by the time Utterson read the letter, he himself would have disappeared, though he could not tell in exactly what manner. He urged the lawyer first to read the narrative left by Dr. Lanyon and then, if he wished to know more, to turn to his own full confession. There was also a sealed packet, large and carefully closed in several places. Utterson put it into his pocket and told Poole that they must say nothing yet of these papers.
　　 It was now ten o’clock. Utterson said that if Jekyll had fled or died, they might still be able to save his good name, and that before calling the police he must read the enclosed documents in peace. So they left the cabinet, locked the theater door behind them, and returned through the troubled house. The servants still stood gathered near the fire in the hall, waiting like people who had not yet woken from a nightmare. Then the lawyer went back alone through the cold London night, carrying with him the papers that promised at last to explain the whole dreadful mystery.
　　
　　Part 10
　　
　　 When Mr. Utterson reached his own house, he went at once to his office room, shut the door, and sat down under the lamp with the papers before him. His hand was steady by habit, but his mind was full of fear. He first opened the packet left by Dr. Lanyon, because Jekyll’s note had directed him to do so. Inside he found another envelope, and on the outside were written strict instructions that it must not be opened until the death or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll.
　　 Those conditions had now been met, at least in the dark uncertain way described by Jekyll himself, and Utterson did not hesitate further. He broke the seal and unfolded the statement inside. It was written in Lanyon’s hand and dated from the ninth of January. From the first lines he could feel a grave and unusual seriousness in the words. Lanyon wrote not as a man telling a curious story, but as one who had seen something that had broken both his peace and his life.
　　 Lanyon began by saying that on that date, after a quiet evening at home, he had received a registered letter from Dr. Jekyll. This surprised him because they were no longer close, and because he had seen Jekyll only the night before at dinner with common friends. He therefore opened the letter with wonder and some distrust. But that distrust quickly gave way to alarm, because the contents were full of distress and desperate urgency.
　　 Jekyll wrote that his life, honor, reason, and soul all depended upon Lanyon’s immediate help. He begged him to put aside every other duty that night, hire a carriage if necessary, go to Jekyll’s house, and show the enclosed note to Poole. He was then to enter the laboratory, break open the cabinet door if it was shut, and take from a certain drawer all its contents, including powders, a vial, and a notebook. The drawer, Jekyll said, was marked with a letter and held the exact things needed.
　　 Lanyon was then to bring that drawer straight back to his own house in Cavendish Square. Jekyll’s instructions did not stop there. At midnight, Lanyon was to wait in his consulting room alone and admit a man who would come in Jekyll’s name. To that man, and to no one else, he must hand over the contents of the drawer. The letter ended with a wild force that showed how desperate the writer had become, and Jekyll even declared that if Lanyon failed him that night, he would be responsible for something worse than death.
　　 At first Lanyon thought the letter might be the work of madness. Yet the writing was Jekyll’s, the urgency was unmistakable, and their long friendship still held enough power to move him. He decided that, whether the matter was sane or not, a friend in such distress had a right to immediate help. So he hired a carriage and drove straight to Jekyll’s house. There he found Poole waiting anxiously with a locksmith and a carpenter, because the doctor’s orders had already prepared the way.
　　 Together they forced entry into the cabinet as they had been told. Lanyon then went to the designated drawer and examined what it held. Inside were several packets of white crystalline powder, a glass vial half full of a red liquid with a strong smell, and a notebook covered with dates and short remarks. Some of the entries were only numbers, but one phrase appeared more than once: “double.” One later entry ended abruptly, and to Lanyon’s scientific mind the whole collection suggested some experiment, but one carried on for a purpose he could not understand.
　　 He had the drawer wrapped and taken back to his own house exactly as ordered. Once there, he sent away his servants, except for one who remained available at a distance, and set the drawer in his consulting room. Then, being both a man of science and a man by nature curious, he looked more closely at the things he had fetched. The powder seemed ordinary enough in appearance, though he did not know its use. The red liquid had a penetrating smell that suggested both chemical spirit and something more unusual.
　　 The notebook gave him no real answer. It seemed to record a long series of private experiments carried out over years, yet the entries were too brief and obscure to explain them. Some dates stood close together, then large gaps appeared, as if the work had often been interrupted. One line, written in a sudden altered hand, said only that total failure had followed. The more Lanyon studied these objects, the more he felt that he stood before some secret both deliberate and dangerous.
　　 Midnight drew near, and his expectation grew more unpleasant than exciting. He armed himself with a revolver, because Jekyll’s strange urgency and the promised visit of an unknown man had awakened real fear in him. Then he sat and waited alone in the quiet room, listening to the clock and the distant movement of London outside. At last, exactly at the appointed time, there came a cautious knock at the door. Lanyon himself went to open it.
　　 On the step stood a small man in clothes much too large for him. The clothes had clearly been made for a much bigger person, and in the dim light they gave him an even stranger appearance. His face stirred in Lanyon the same instant disgust that Hyde had always caused in others, though Lanyon had not yet heard his name. At the same time, the man seemed wild with inward strain, like someone held up by the last force of desperation.
　　 He looked quickly up and down the street, as if fearing pursuit, then asked in a whisper whether this was Dr. Lanyon’s house. Lanyon answered yes and invited him in. The visitor moved with astonishing nervous speed, almost leaping into the hall, and when Lanyon looked more closely, he saw in him a mixture of fear, impatience, and greed for the thing he had come to claim. In the consulting room the stranger’s eyes fell at once upon the drawer, and he stopped as if struck.
　　 For a moment he pressed his hand to his throat and chest and stood fighting for breath. Then, with an effort, he asked whether that was the drawer from Dr. Jekyll’s cabinet. Lanyon told him that it was. At once the man sprang toward it, then suddenly checked himself and covered his face with both hands, as though overcome by a storm of emotion too violent to be shown openly. It was one of the most disturbing gestures Lanyon had ever seen.
　　 Recovering himself, the visitor asked for a graduated glass. Lanyon handed him one, still watching with a scientist’s interest mixed now with deep disgust. The man then opened the drawer, measured some of the red liquid into the glass, and added one of the white powders. The mixture first darkened, then began to bubble, smoke, and change color before their eyes. When it became quiet, it had turned into a different liquid, pale and strangely bright.
　　 The man took the glass in his hand and then turned to Lanyon with a fixed and terrible smile. He asked whether the doctor wished to leave at once and say the matter was only madness, or whether he wished to stay and learn something beyond all common knowledge. He spoke of life’s deepest secrets with a wild pride that offended Lanyon’s reason, yet the challenge also seized him. He answered that he had already gone too far to stop now and that he wished to see the end.
　　 The stranger thanked him, lifted the glass, and drank it. What followed, Lanyon wrote, can never leave his mind while mind remains. The man staggered, clutched at the table, and seemed to swell, shake, and twist under some unbearable inward struggle. His face changed, his limbs altered, and the whole body passed through a transformation so dreadful and so impossible that Lanyon recoiled in terror, feeling that both his belief and his senses were failing together.
　　 Then the horror settled into a new shape, and in place of the small misshapen visitor there stood Henry Jekyll himself. Lanyon wrote that he cried out, sprang back against the wall, and raised his hand as if to protect himself from something not of this world. Jekyll, now in his own form, began to speak rapidly and with painful emotion, explaining in outline the experiment, the divided self, and the identity of the man who had come in his place. But Lanyon confessed that from that moment onward he heard as if through a kind of deathly cloud.
　　 He understood enough to know that the impossible had happened before his eyes and that Edward Hyde and Henry Jekyll were one being in two forms. That knowledge, he said, had struck him at the roots of life. His old view of science, reason, and the order of the world had been torn open in a single night. He wrote that he would never recover from what he had seen, and that though his days might continue for a short time, the man who had sat calmly in his house before midnight was already ruined. With that declaration, Dr. Lanyon’s narrative ended, and the last unopened paper still waiting before Utterson was Henry Jekyll’s own full statement of the case.
　　
　　Part 11
　　
　　 I was born into wealth and had many natural gifts. I worked hard, and from an early age I cared greatly about the respect of wise and good people. To anyone looking at my future, I must have seemed safe on the road to honor. Yet I had one fault that shaped all the rest. I had a lively and impatient love of pleasure, and I found it hard to join that side of myself with the grave public face I wished to show the world.
　　 So I began to hide part of my life. As I grew older and looked more carefully at myself, I saw that I had become deeply divided. It was not that I was a hypocrite, because both sides of me were real and sincere. I was no less myself when I gave way to shameful pleasures than when I worked openly for knowledge or tried to relieve human suffering. But the division between these two sides of me cut deeply, and I thought about it more and more.
　　 My scientific studies helped turn those thoughts into a fixed idea. I came to believe that man is not truly one person, but at least two. In my own heart I felt these two natures fighting constantly. One part wanted good, order, duty, and honor, while the other wanted freedom from shame and restraint. I began to dream with great pleasure that these two elements might somehow be separated.
　　 If each part could live in its own body, I thought, then life would be easier. The good self could walk safely on its path without being dragged down by hidden guilt. The evil self could chase its desires without remorse or fear of public disgrace. This dream was in my mind long before science gave me even the smallest hope that such a thing might be possible. But at last my work in the laboratory began to point toward that possibility.
　　 I discovered certain chemical powers that seemed able to shake the body itself and change the outward form that holds the spirit. I will not explain the science in detail, partly because my knowledge was incomplete and partly because the result was so terrible. It is enough to say that I made a drug which could push one set of powers down and bring another set up in its place. The new form would still be truly mine, but it would carry the stamp of lower and darker elements in my soul.
　　 I hesitated for a long time before I dared to test this discovery. I knew I risked death, because a force that touched the very center of identity might also destroy it. Yet the temptation was too great. One late night I mixed the elements, watched them boil and smoke together, and when the violent movement stopped, I drank the glass. Almost at once I suffered terrible pain, a grinding in my bones, sickness, and such horror of spirit as words cannot hold.
　　 Then the pain began to pass, and in its place came a strange sweetness. I felt younger, lighter, freer, and full of wild desire. My thoughts ran in reckless streams, and all sense of duty seemed to have fallen away. At the same time, I knew at once that I had become more wicked, far more wicked, and that this change delighted me. Then, stretching out my hands in triumph, I suddenly saw that I had become smaller.
　　 There was no mirror then in my laboratory room, so I crossed the yard and went secretly through my own house to my bedroom. The people in the house were asleep, and the stars looked down on me as if I were some new creature. In my room, at last, I saw the face and form of Edward Hyde. He was smaller, younger, and gave a stronger mark of evil than the face of Henry Jekyll had ever shown of good. Yet when I looked at him, I felt no disgust. On the contrary, I welcomed him.
　　 Hyde seemed to me more direct, more whole, and more true to one side of my spirit than Jekyll had ever been. I came to believe that the reason others hated him at once was that all other men are mixtures of good and evil, while Hyde alone stood almost pure in evil. Still, one more test remained. I had to know whether I could return. So I went back, prepared the drug again, drank it, suffered the same pain, and became Henry Jekyll once more.
　　 That night was the true turning point of my life. Had I begun this work in a nobler spirit, perhaps the result might have been different. But the drug itself was neither good nor evil. It only opened the prison door and let out what was ready to run free. At that time, my virtue was sleeping and my evil was alert, and so the thing that came forth first and most strongly was Edward Hyde.
　　 Even then I had not lost my taste for pleasure, and my double life had begun to weigh more heavily on me as I grew older and more respected. Here my new power tempted me beyond resistance. I took a house in Soho for Hyde, hired a silent and dishonest servant there, and told my own servants that Hyde must be obeyed when he came to my house. I even made myself known in Hyde’s form so that his presence would not cause trouble. Then I drew up the will that left everything to him, so that if anything happened to Jekyll, Hyde could take my place without loss.
　　 In this way I believed I had made myself safe. Other men had hidden behind hired criminals to commit their crimes, but I was the first to use another self for my pleasures. I could appear in public as the respected Dr. Jekyll, then in a moment cast that identity off and plunge into secret freedom. If danger came, Hyde could pass away like breath from a mirror, and Henry Jekyll could sit calmly in his study, beyond suspicion. At the time I found the whole arrangement almost amusing.
　　 The pleasures I sought in that disguise were shameful enough, though I will not describe them in detail. But in Hyde’s hands they quickly became something worse. He was selfish in every thought, cruel by nature, and eager for any pleasure that could be gained at the cost of another person’s pain. At times I, as Jekyll, looked back on Hyde’s actions with horror. Yet conscience loosened its hold on me because I told myself that Hyde alone was guilty and that Jekyll could later do good and repair what had been done.
　　 One early warning came when Hyde’s cruelty to a child brought a group of angry people upon him. Among them, without my knowing it then, was Mr. Enfield, the relative of Utterson. Hyde had to calm them by paying money and using a cheque signed in the name of Henry Jekyll. After that, to protect myself better, I opened a bank account in Hyde’s own name and gave him a signature formed by slanting my own hand backward. I thought then that I had put myself beyond danger.
　　 But after some months, a new change appeared. One morning I woke in my own bed and own room, yet with the hand and body of Edward Hyde. I had gone to sleep as Henry Jekyll and become Hyde without taking the drug. Terror struck me at once. Still, because the servants already knew Hyde could come and go, I managed to reach the cabinet, prepare the medicine, and return to my ordinary shape.
　　 That morning taught me what was happening. Hyde had been fed and exercised, while Jekyll had grown weaker in the struggle. The balance between them was beginning to shift. I saw that if this continued, I might lose the power to return and become Hyde forever. So I forced myself to choose. I decided to remain Jekyll, to give up Hyde’s freedom and secret pleasures, and for two months I kept firmly to that resolution, though I was weak enough not to destroy Hyde’s clothes or give up the Soho house.
　　 During those two months I lived more strictly than ever before and found real peace in a better life. But the freshness of my fear slowly faded, and Hyde began to pull at me from within like a chained beast. At last, in a moment of moral weakness, I drank the potion once more. That return was more dangerous than I had expected. Hyde came back fiercer, more impatient, and more ready for evil than before.
　　 It was in that state that I met Sir Danvers Carew. His politeness, innocent as it was, stirred in Hyde a sudden storm of rage. I beat him to death with a joy so savage that even now I can hardly bear to name it. Then, when the wild fit began to pass, terror seized me. I fled to Soho, destroyed papers, and hurried back toward safety. When I drank the potion there, Henry Jekyll fell to his knees with tears of horror, gratitude, and remorse.
　　 In that moment I believed the lesson had finally been learned. Hyde, I thought, must now be impossible forever. I locked the laboratory door through which I had so often passed and crushed the key under my heel. The news of the murder on the next day only strengthened this hope, because Hyde had become a hunted criminal, and Jekyll now seemed safer inside the limits of ordinary life than ever before. I threw myself earnestly into useful work, helped others with genuine feeling, and for a time I lived quietly and almost happily. Yet the lower side of me had not died. It had only been driven down, and beneath the peace of that better life it was already beginning to hunger again.
　　
　　Part 12
　　
　　 Yet the lower side of me had not died. It had only been pressed down, and after a time it began to ask again for freedom. I did not plan to bring Hyde back, and the very thought of him filled me with horror. But I began to play carelessly with my conscience in smaller ways. I allowed myself secret excuses, and at last I fell, not as Hyde, but as Henry Jekyll acting like an ordinary hidden sinner.
　　 Everything has an end, and at last the balance in my soul gave way. It happened on a bright day in January, with clear sky above and wet ground below where the frost had melted. I sat in the sun in Regent’s Park and let myself feel pleased with my own goodness. I compared my active kindness with the colder selfishness of other men, and at that very moment of pride the change began.
　　 A terrible sickness came over me, with shaking, faintness, and inward horror. Then the weakness passed, and something else rose in its place. My thoughts became bolder, harder, and less afraid of danger or duty. I looked down and saw that my clothes hung loosely on my smaller limbs, and that the hand on my knee was hairy and misshapen. I had become Edward Hyde again, without taking the drug.
　　 One moment before I had been safe, honored, and expected at my own dinner table. The next, I was a hunted murderer with nowhere to go. Still, even in that terror my mind did not fail me. In Hyde’s form my powers often became sharper, and so, where Jekyll might have sunk into helpless fear, Hyde quickly began to plan. I had to reach the drugs in my cabinet, and the problem was how to do so without being seized.
　　 I could not go into my own house through the front, because my servants would have raised the alarm at once. So I thought of Dr. Lanyon. I asked myself how I could reach him, how I could persuade him, and how I, a stranger hateful at first sight, could make him carry out my wishes. Then I remembered that one part of Jekyll still remained to me. I could still write in my own hand, and from that moment the path before me became clear.
　　 I arranged my clothes as well as I could and took a cab to a hotel in Portland Street. My appearance was so strange that the driver began to laugh, and I almost dragged him from his seat in a storm of devilish anger. At the hotel I looked at the servants so fiercely that they trembled and hurried to obey me. There I wrote one letter to Lanyon and one to Poole, gave strict orders that both should be registered, and then waited through the day in a private room.
　　 Hyde in danger of his life was something new even to me. He was full of anger, hatred, and the desire to hurt, yet he was also clever enough to hold himself in check when needed. All day he sat by the fire, ate alone, and gnawed his nails in fear. When darkness came, he rode through the streets in a closed cab, then at last went on foot through the night, hiding from open places and muttering to himself like a beast under pursuit. Once a woman spoke to him, and he struck her in the face and fled on.
　　 When I came back to myself in Lanyon’s house, the horror in my old friend’s eyes did affect me, but only faintly beside my own deeper horror. I no longer feared the gallows most of all. I feared being Hyde. Lanyon’s judgment fell on me like words heard in a dream, and it was half in a dream too that I returned home, got into bed, and slept with a deep exhausted sleep. In the morning I woke weak and shaken, yet thankful beyond words to find myself once more in my own house and near the drugs that could still restore me.
　　 But that hope did not last. After breakfast I was crossing the court with pleasure in the cold morning air when the signs came over me again. I had just enough time to reach the shelter of the cabinet before I changed once more into Hyde. This time it took a double dose to bring me back, and six hours later, as I sat sadly by the fire, the pains returned and the medicine had to be taken again. From that day onward I could remain Jekyll only by great effort and by the immediate help of the drug.
　　 At any hour of day or night the warning shudder might seize me. If I slept, or even fell into a light doze in my chair, I woke as Hyde. Under the weight of this constant danger, and under the sleeplessness to which I now forced myself, I became weak, feverish, and almost empty in body and mind. My whole life narrowed to one fear, the fear of my other self. Yet when the medicine failed, Hyde came back more quickly than before, with less pain of change and more wild strength in his soul.
　　 Hyde seemed to grow as Jekyll grew sick. The hatred between us now became equal on both sides, though not of the same kind. As Jekyll, I had seen the full deformity of that creature who shared my mind and would share my death. He seemed to me not only evil but almost less than truly alive, as though some shapeless thing from the pit had borrowed a human body and voice. The most dreadful part was that he was tied to me more closely than wife or child, caged in my own flesh, where I could feel him stir and wait for any hour of weakness.
　　 Hyde’s hatred of Jekyll was different. He feared the gallows, and so he was forced again and again to kill himself for a moment and sink back into the lower place of a part instead of a whole person. For that reason he hated my sadness, my fear, and my wish to keep him chained. In his spite he played ugly tricks upon me. He wrote blasphemies in my books, burned letters, and even destroyed the picture of my father. If he had not loved life so fiercely, he would long before have ruined us both simply to wound me.
　　 I say “loved life,” and I mean it. Strange as it sounds, I can still almost pity him there. I who grow cold and sick at the thought of Hyde still remember how violently he clung to existence, how bitterly he feared my power to cut him off by suicide, and how passionately he struggled whenever he felt death drawing near. No one, I think, has suffered such torments as ours. Still, habit brought a certain hardness, not peace, but a dull acceptance of despair.
　　 That punishment might have continued even longer if one final disaster had not broken the last hope of escape. My store of the special salt, the one used from the first experiment, began to run low. I sent out for more and mixed the drink. The boiling came, and the first color changed, but the second did not. I drank it, and nothing happened. Then I understood at last that the first supply I had used years before must have contained some unknown impurity, and that this accidental element alone had given the medicine its power.
　　 From that moment London was searched for more of the old kind, but the search was useless. You know from Poole how notes were sent from shop to shop, how one sample after another was rejected, and how I shut myself up in the cabinet like a prisoner in the last room of a fallen house. About a week has passed since then, and now I write these words under the power of the last of the old powders. When that power is spent, Henry Jekyll will no longer think his own thoughts or see his own face in the glass except by miracle. By the time this paper is read, I shall already have gone from myself.
　　 I must finish quickly. If the change takes me while I am still writing, Hyde will tear these pages to pieces in his rage or fear. But if some little time passes after I lay the paper aside, his selfishness, which thinks only of the present moment, may perhaps save it from destruction. Even now the doom that closes on us both has already bent and crushed him. Half an hour from now I shall once again put on that hated shape forever. Then I shall either sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or pace this room, my last refuge on earth, listening in terror to every sound that may announce danger. Will Hyde die on the scaffold, or find courage to free himself at the last moment? God knows. I do not care now. This is the true hour of my death, and what comes after belongs to another. So, as I lay down my pen and seal this confession, I bring the life of unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.