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Page 3
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
by Robert Louis Stevenson
From The PaperLess Readers Club, Houston (713) 977-9505 (BBS)
Voice/Fax (713) 977-1719
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
Story of the Door
Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was
never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in
discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and
yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was
to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye;
something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but
which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner
face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was
austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a
taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not
crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved
tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at
the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in
any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. "I incline
to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother go
to the devil in his own way." In this character, it was
frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and
the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And to
such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never
marked a shade of change in his demeanour.
No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was
undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be
founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark
of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the
hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends
were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the
longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they
implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt the bond that
united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the
well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what
these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find
in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their
Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull and
would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For
all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions,
counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside
occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business,
that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.
It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them
down a by-street in a busy quarter of London. The street was
small and what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on
the weekdays. The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed and
all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the
surplus of their grains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood
along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of
smiling saleswomen. Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more
florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street
shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a
forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished
brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly
caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.
Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east the
line was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point a
certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the
street. It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a
door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall
on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged
and sordid negligence. The door, which was equipped with neither
bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained. Tramps slouched
into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept
shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the
mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to
drive away these random visitors or to repair their ravages.
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