9. Dr. Lanyon's Narrative, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Dr. Lanyon's Narrative (chapter 9) of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, read by Anna Butterworth

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Doctor Lanyon's narrative. On the ninthof January, now four days ago,
I received by the evening delivery aregistered envelope addressed in the hands of my
colleague and old school companion, HenryJekyll. I was a good deal surprised
by this, for we were byno means in the habit of correspondence.

(00:22):
I had seen the man, dinedwith him, indeed the night before,
and I could imagine nothing in ourintercourse that should justify formality of registration.
The contents increased my wonder, forthis is how the letter ran tenth December
eighteenth Dear Lanion, you are oneof my oldest friends, and although we

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have differed at times on scientific questions, I cannot remember, at least on
my side, any break in ouraffection. There was never a day when
if you had said to me,Jeckyll, my life, my honor,
my reason depend upon you, Iwould not have sacrificed my left hand to
help you. Lanyon, my life, my honor, my reason all at

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your mercy. If you fail metonight, I am lost. You might
suppose, after this preface that Iam going to ask you for something dishonorable
to grant judge for yourself. Iwant you to postpone all other engagements for
to night. I even if youwere summoned to the bedside of an emperor,

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to take a cab, unless yourcarriage should be actually at the door,
and with this letter in your handfor consultation, to drive straight to
my house pool. My butler hashis orders. You will find him waiting
your arrival with a locksmith. Thedoor of my cabinet is then to be
forced. You are to go inalone, to open the glazed press letter

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E on the left hand, breakingthe lock if it be shut, and
to draw out with all its contentsas they stand, the fourth drawer from
the top, or which is thesame thing, the third from the bottom.
In my extreme distress of mind,I have a morbid fear of misdirecting
you. But even if I amin error, you may know the right

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drawer by its contents, some powders, a file and a paper book.
This drawer I beg of you tocarry back with you to Cavendish Square exactly
as it stands. That is thefirst part of the service. Now for
the second you should be back ifyou set out at once on the receipt
of this long before midnight. ButI will leave you that amount of margin,

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not only in the fear of oneof those obstacles that can neither be
prevented nor foreseen, but because anhour when your servants are in bed is
to be preferred for what will thenremain to do. At midnight. Then
I have to ask you to bealone in your consulting room, to admit
with your own hand into the housea man who will present himself in my

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name, and to place in hishands the drawer that you will have brought
with you for my cabinet. Thenyou will have played your part and earned
my gratitude completely. Five minutes afterwards, if you insist upon an explanation,
you will have understood that these arrangementsare of capital importance, and that by

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the neglect of one of them,fantastic as they must appear, you might
have charged your conscience with my deathor the shipwreck of my reason. Confident
as I am that you will nottrifle with this appeal, my heart sinks
and my hand trembles at the barethought of such a possibility. Think of
me at this hour, in astrange place, laboring under a blackness of

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distress that no fancy can exaggerate,and yet well aware that if you will
but punctually serve me, my troubleswill roll away like a story that is
told. Serve me, my dearLanyon, and save your friend H.
J. P. S. Ihave already sealed this up when a fresh

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terror struck upon my soul. Itis possible that the post office may fail
me and this letter not come intoyour hands until tomorrow morning. In that
case, dear Lanyon, do myerrand when it shall be most convenient for
you in the course of the day, and once more expect my messenger at
midnight. It may then already betoo late. And if that night passes

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without event, you will know thatyou have seen the last of Henry jackyal
Upon reading of this letter, Imade sure my colleague was insane. But
till that was proved beyond the possibilityof doubt, I felt bound to do
as he requested. The less Iunderstood of this ferrago, the less I

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was in a position to judge ofits importance. An appeal so worded could
not be set aside without a graveresponsibility. I rose accordingly from table,
got into a hansom and drove straightto Jekyll's house. The butler was awaiting
my arrival. He had received bythe same post as mine a registered letter
of instruction, and had sent atonce for a locksmith and a carpenter.

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The tradesmen came while we were yetspeaking, and we moved in a body
to old mister Denman's surgical theater,from which, as you are doubtless aware,
Jekyl's private cabinet is most conveniently entered. The door was very strong,
the lock excellent. The carpenter avowedhe would have great trouble and have to
do much damage if force were tobe used, and the locksmith was near

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despair. But this last was ahandy fellow, and after two hours work
the door stood open. The pressmarked e was unlocked, and I took
out the drawer, had it filledup with straw and tied in a sheet,
and returned with it to Cavendish Square. Here I proceeded to examine its

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contents. The powders were neatly enoughmade up, but not with the nicety
of the dispensing chemist, so thatit was plain they were of Jekyl's private
manufacture. And when I opened oneof the wrappers, I found what seemed
to be a mere simple crystalline saltof a white color. The file to
which I next turned my attention mighthave been about half full of a blood

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red liqueur, which was highly pungentto the sense of smell, and seemed
to me to contain phosphorus and somevolatile ether. At the other ingredients I
could make no guess. The bookwas an ordinary version book, and contained
little but a series of dates.These covered a period of many years,
but I observed that the entries ceasednearly a year ago, and quite abruptly.

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Here and there a brief remark wasappended to a date, usually no
more than a single word double,occurring perhaps six times in a total of
several hundred entries, and once veryearly in the list, and followed by
several marks of exclamation total failure.All this, though it whetted my curiosity,

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told me little that was definite.Here were a file of some tincture,
a paper of some salt, andthe record of a series of experiments
that had led, like to manyof Jekyll's investigations, to no end of
practical usefulness. How could the presenceof these articles in my house affect either

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the honor, the sanity or thelife of my flighty colleague. If his
messenger could go to one place,why could he not go to another?
And, even granting some impediment,why was this gentleman to be received by
me in secret? The more Ireflected, the more convinced I grew that

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I was dealing with a case ofcerebral disease. And though I dismissed my
servants to bed, I loaded anold revolver that I might be found in
some posture of self defense. Twelveo'clock had scarce rung out over lune ere.
The knocker sounded very gently on thedoor. I went myself to the

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summons and found a small man crouchingagainst the pillars of the portico. Are
you from doctor Jekyll? I asked. He told me yes by a constrained
gesture, and when I had biddenhim enter, he did not obey me.
Without a searching backward glance into thedarkness of the square, there was

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a policeman not far off, advancingwith his bull's eye open. And at
the sight I thought my visitor startedand made greater haste. These particulars struck
me I confess disagreeably, and asI followed him into the bright light of
the consulting room, I kept myhand ready on my weapon. Here at

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last I had a chance of clearlyseeing me. I had never set eyes
on him before, so much wascertain. He was small, As I
have said, I was struck besideswith the shocking exc freshion on his face,
with his remarkable combination of great muscularactivity and great apparent debility of constitution,
And last, but not least,with the odd subjective disturbance caused by

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his neighborhood. This bore some resemblanceto incipient rigor, and was accompanied by
a marked sinking of the pulse.At the time I set it down to
some idiosyncratic personal distaste and merely wonderedat the acuteness of the symptoms. But
I have since had reason to believethis cause to lie much deeper in the

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nature of man, and to turnon some nobler hinge than the principle of
hatred. This person, who hadthus from the first moment of his entrance,
struck in me what I can onlydescribe as a disgustful curiosity, was
dressed in a fashion that would havemade an ordinary person laughable. His clothes,

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that is to say, although theywere of rich and sober fabric,
were enormously too large for him inevery measurement, the trousers hanging on his
legs and rolled up to keep themfrom the ground, the waist of the
coats below his haunches, and thecollar sprawling wide upon his shoulders. Strange

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to relate this ludicrous accruitment was farfrom moving me to laughter. Rather,
as there was something abnormal and misbegottenin the very essence of the creature that
now faced me, something seizing,surprising, and revolting. This fresh disparity
seemed but to fit in with andto reinforce it, so that to my

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interest in the man's nature and characterthere was added a curiosity as to his
origin, his life, his fortune, and status in the world. These
observations, though they have taken sogreat a space to be set down in,
were yet the work of a fewseconds. My visitor was indeed on

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fire with sombrics. Have you gotit? He cried, have you got
it? And so lively was hisimpatience that he even laid his hand upon
my arm and sought to shake me. I put him back conscious at his
touch of a certain icy pang alongmy blood. Come, sir, said

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I, you forget that I havenot yet the pleasure of your acquaintance.
Be seated, if you please.And I showed him an example and sat
down myself in my customary seat,and with as fair an imitation of my
ordinary manner to a patient as thelateness of the hour, the nature of
my preoccupations, and the horror Ihad of my visitor would suffer me to

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muster. I beg your pardon,doctor Lanyon, he replied, civilly enough.
What you say is very well founded, and my impatience has shown its
heels to my politeness. I comehere at the instance of your colleague,
doctor Henry Jekyll, on a pieceof business of some moment, and I

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understood. He paused and put hishand to his throat, and I could
see, in spite of his collectedmanner, that he was wrestling against the
approaches of the hysteria. I understooda drawer. But here I took pity
on my visitor's suspense, and someperhaps on my own growing curiosity. There

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it is, sir, said I, pointing to the drawer where it lay
on the floor behind a table,and still covered with the sheet. He
sprang to it, and then pausedand laid his hand upon his heart.
I could hear his teeth great withthe convulsive action of his jaws, and
his face was so ghastly to seethat. I grew alarmed, both for

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his life and reason. Compose yourself, said I. He turned a dreadful
smile to me, and, asif with the decision of despair, plucked
away the sheet. At sight ofthe contents, he uttered one loud sob
of such immense relief that I satpetrified, And the next moment, in

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a voice that was already fairly wellunder control, have you a graduated glass,
he asked. I rose from myplace with something in an effort,
and gave him what he asked.He thanked me with a smiling nod,
measured out a few minims of thered tincture, and added one of the

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powders. The mixture, which wasat first of a reddish hue, began
in proportion as the crystals melted,to brighten in color, to effervesse audibly,
and to throw off small fumes ofvapor. Suddenly, and at the
same moment, the ebullition ceased,and the compound changed to a dark purple,

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which faded again more slowly to awater. My visitor, who had
watched these metamorphoses with a keen eye, smiled, set down the glass upon
the table, and then turned andlooked upon me with an air of scrutiny,
And now said he to settle whatremains? Will you be wise?

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Will you be guided? Will yousuffer me to take this glass in my
hand and to go forth from yourhouse without further parley? Or has the
greed of curiosity too much command ofyou? Think before you answer, for
it shall be done as you decide. As you decide, you shall be
left as you were before, andneither richer nor wiser, unless the sense

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of service rendered to a man inmortal distress may be counted as a kind
of riches of the soul. Orif you shall so prefer to choose a
new province of knowledge and new avenuesto fame and powersh shall be laid open
to you here in this room uponthe instant, and your sight shall be

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blasted by a prodigy to stagger theunbelief of Satan, Sir, said I,
affecting a coolness that I was farfrom truly possessing. You speak enigmas,
and you will perhaps not wonder thatI hear you with no very strong
impression of belief. But I havegone too far in the way of inexplicable

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services to pause before I see theend. It is well, replied my
visitor Lanyon. You remember your vows. What follows is under the seal of
our profession. And now you whohave so long been bound to the most
narrow and material views, you whohave denied the virtue of transcendental medicine,

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you who have derided your superiors.Behold, He put the glass to his
lips and drank at one gulp.A cry followed. He reeled, staggered,
clutched at the table, and heldon, staring with injected eyes,
gasping with open mouth. And asI look, there came I thought a

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change. He seemed to swell,His face became suddenly black, and the
feature seemed to melt and altar.And the next moment I had sprung to
my feet and leaped back against thewall, my arms raised to shield me
from that prodigy. My mind submergedin terror. Oh God, I screamed,

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and Oh God again and again,for there before my eyes, pale
and shaken, and half fainting,and groping before him with his hands like
a man restored from death, therestood Henry Jekyl. What he told me
in the next hour, I cannotbring my mind to set on paper.

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I saw what I saw. Iheard what I heard, and my soul
sickened at it. And yet now, when that sight has faded from my
eyes, I ask myself if Ibelieve it, and I cannot answer.
My life is shaken to its roots. Sleep has left me. The deadliest
terror sits by me at all hoursof the day and night. And I

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feel that my days are numbered,and that I must die. And yet
I shall die incredulous. As forthe moral turpitude that man unveiled to me,
even with tears of penitence, Icannot even in memory dwell on it
without a start of horror. Iwill say but one thing, Utterson,

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and that if you can bring yourmind to credit, it will be more
than enough. The creature who creptinto my house that night was on Jekyll's
own confession, known by the nameof Hide, and hunted for an in
every corner of the land, asthe murder of crew Hasty Lanyon,