『ジキル博士とハイド氏の奇妙な事件』

“Bless me, Poole, what brings you here? What ails you? Is the doctor ill?”

“Mr. Utterson, there is something wrong.”

“Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you. Now, take your time, and tell me plainly what you want.”

“You know the doctor’s ways, sir, and how he shuts himself up. Well, he’s shut up again in the cabinet; and I don’t like it, sir—I wish I may die if I like it. Mr. Utterson, sir, I’m afraid.”

“Now, my good man, be explicit. What are you afraid of?”

“I’ve been afraid for about a week,” returned Poole, doggedly disregarding the question, “and I can bear it no more.”

Part 7

Late one winter night in London, Dr. Hastie Lanyon sat alone in his study, restless and unwell. A ring at the door announced a visitor—a small, dwarfish figure whose clothes, though cut from rich and sober fabric, hung grotesquely about his diminished frame. There was something about the man that stirred not laughter but a chill of curiosity and revulsion in Lanyon’s breast, as if the creature before him were somehow misbegotten, sprung from some unnatural source. Whatever his origin, his manner was that of a man in desperate extremity.

“Have you got it?” the stranger cried, his voice raw with impatience, and he dared to lay a hand upon Lanyon’s arm in his urgency. Lanyon recoiled at the icy sensation that passed through his blood at the touch. With what composure he could muster, he invited the visitor to sit and explain his business. The stranger begged pardon for his incivility and explained that he came at the instance of their mutual colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a matter of grave moment. He had come for a drawer—a drawer that Jekyll had sent ahead by trusted messenger.

Lanyon pointed to where the drawer lay on the floor behind a table, still covered with a sheet. The visitor sprang toward it, then paused, his face turning ghastly pale, his teeth grinding in convulsive spasms. At last, with the air of a man resigned to despair, he snatched away the covering. Upon seeing the contents—powders and a small vial of reddish tincture—he uttered one great sob of relief that left Lanyon petrified.

With a steady hand and a terrible smile, the visitor asked for a graduated glass. He measured a few minims of the red tincture, added one of the powders, and watched as the mixture shifted through strange metamorphoses: brightening, effervescing, throwing off small fumes, then settling into a dark purple, and finally fading to a watery green. He set down the glass and turned his scrutiny upon Lanyon.

“And now,” he said, “will you be wise? Will you suffer me to take this glass and go forth from your house? Or has the greed of curiosity too much command of you? As you decide, so shall it be—either you remain as you were, or a new province of knowledge shall be opened to you here, in this room, upon the instant.”