《化身博士》

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then the agonies began swiftly to subside. There was something strange in his sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. He felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within, he was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not innocent freedom of the soul. He knew himself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to his original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted him like wine. He stretched out his hands, exulting—and in the act, was suddenly aware that he had lost in stature.

There was no mirror at that date in his room; that which now stood beside him as he wrote had been brought there later for the very purpose of these transformations. The night was far gone, but he determined, flushed with hope and triumph, to venture in his new shape as far as his bedroom. He stole through the corridors, a stranger in his own house; and coming to his room, he saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.

He could here speak only by theory. The evil side of his nature, to which he had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good he had deposed. Edward Hyde was therefore much smaller, slighter, and younger than Henry Jekyll. As good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when he looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, he was conscious of no repugnance, but rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was himself. It seemed natural and human. In his eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance he had been accustomed to call mine.

He lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted. It remained to be seen if he had lost his identity beyond redemption, and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer his. Hurrying back to his cabinet, he once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to himself once more with the character, the stature, and the face of Henry Jekyll.

And here, for the moment, the confession paused.