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Адаптация текста, комментарии и словарь С. А. Матвеева

© Матвеев С.А., адаптация текста, словарь, 2020

© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2020

Story of the Door

Mr. Utterson[1] the lawyer was cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for other people.

“I let my brother go to the devil in his own way,” he used to say quaintly. And he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

Mr. Utterson was undemonstrative. His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. People did not know, 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. But the two men counted these excursions the chief jewel of each week.

One day their way led them down a by-street[2] in a busy quarter of London. The street was small and what is called quiet. The inhabitants were all doing well. Even on Sunday, 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.

Two doors from one corner[3], 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 stories high; showed no window, nothing but a door on the lower story and a discoloured wall on the upper.

Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the street; but when they came abreast of the entry, the former lifted up his cane and pointed.

“Did you ever remark that door?” he asked; and when his companion had replied in the affirmative, “It is connected,” added he, “with a very odd story.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice, “and what was that?”

“Well,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen. Street after street, and all the folks asleep—street after street, till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to look for a policeman. All at once[4], I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running hard. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing. The man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground. It was hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some devil. I gave a cry, ran to them, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one ugly look. The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, appeared. Well, the child was frightened; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. We told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this, as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And there was the man, really like Satan. ‘If you choose to make capital out of this accident,’ said he, ‘I am naturally helpless. Gentlemen always wish to avoid a scene. How much?’

Well, we demanded a hundred pounds for the child’s family. The next thing was to get the money; and where do you think he carried us but to that place with the door?—whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the rest, signed with a name that I can’t mention, but it was a name at least very well known and often printed. He was quite easy and sneering.

‘Set your mind at rest,’ says he, ‘I will stay with you till the banks open and cash the cheque myself.’

So we all set off, the doctor, and the child’s father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the night in my chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went to the bank. I gave in the check myself, and said I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was genuine.”

“Tut-tut![5]” said Mr. Utterson.

“I see you feel as I do,” said Mr. Enfield. “Yes, it’s a bad story. For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the celebrated person, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good. Black-mail[6], I suppose. Black-Mail House is what I call that place with the door, in consequence. Though even that, you know, is far from explaining all,” he added.

Mr. Utterson asked rather suddenly:

“And you don’t know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?”

“A likely place[7], isn’t it?” returned Mr. Enfield. “But I happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or other.”

“And you never asked about the place with the door?” said Mr.Utterson.

“No, sir: I had a delicacy,” was the reply. “I feel very strongly about putting questions. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some man (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back-garden. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks queer, the less I ask.”

“A very good rule,” said the lawyer.

“But I have studied the place for myself,” continued Mr. Enfield. “It seems scarcely a house. There is no other door, and nobody goes in or out of that one. There are three windows looking on the court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut but they’re clean. And then there is a chimney which is generally smoking; so somebody must live there. And yet it’s not so sure; for the buildings are so packed together about that court, that it’s hard to say where one ends and another begins.”

The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then, “Enfield,” said Mr. Utterson, “that’s a good rule of yours.”

“Yes, I think it is,” returned Enfield.

“But for all that,” continued the lawyer, “there’s one point I want to ask: I want to ask the name of that man who walked over the child.”

“Well,” said Mr. Enfield, “I can’t see what harm it would do. It was a man of the name of Hyde.”

“Hm,” said Mr. Utterson. “What sort of a man is he?”

“He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can say nothing about him. No, sir; I can’t describe him.”

Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence.

“You are sure he used a key?” he inquired at last.

“My dear sir…” began Enfield, surprised out of himself.

“Yes, I know,” said Utterson; “I know it must seem strange. The fact is, if I do not ask you the name of the other man, it is because I know it already. You see, Richard, your tale can be useful for me.”

“The fellow had a key,” returned the other, “and he has it still. I saw him use it, not a week ago.”

Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but did not say a word; and the young man presently resumed.

“I am ashamed of my long tongue. Let us make a bargain never to refer to this again.”

“With all my heart,” said the lawyer.

Search for Mr. Hyde

That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in somber spirits[8] and sat down to dinner without relish. It was his custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the fire and to read, until the clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when he would go to bed. On this night, however, as soon as the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his business-room[9]. There he opened his safe, took from the most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr. Jekyll’s Will, and sat down to study its contents. It provided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., etc., all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his “friend and benefactor Edward Hyde,” but that in case of Dr. Jekyll’s “disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months,” the said Edward Hyde should inherit the said Henry Jekyll’s possessions without further delay and free from any burden or obligation. This document offended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of regular life. It was already bad enough when the name was but a name of which he could learn no more.

“I thought it was madness,” he said, as he replaced the obnoxious paper in the safe, “and now I begin to fear it is disgrace.”

With that he blew out his candle, put on his coat, and set forth in the direction of Cavendish Square[10], that citadel of medicine, where his friend, Dr. Lanyon[11], had his house and received his patients.

“If any one knows, it will be Lanyon,” he had thought.

The butler welcomed him; he was ushered direct from the door to the dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone. This was a hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a boisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and welcomed him with both hands. The geniality was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both at school and college, and enjoyed each other’s company.

After a little talk, the lawyer led up to the subject which so disagreeably pre-occupied his mind.

“I suppose, Lanyon,” said he “you and I must be the two oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?”

“I wish the friends were younger,” chuckled Dr. Lanyon. “But I suppose we are. And what of that? I see little of him now.”

“Indeed?” said Utterson. “I thought you had some common interest.”

“We had,” was the reply. “But it is more than ten years since Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me. He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him, as they say, I see and I have seen little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash,” added the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, “has estranged us.”

“They have only differed on some point of science,” Mr. Utterson thought. He gave his friend a few seconds to calm himself, and then approached the question.

“Did you ever come across a protege of his—Mr. Hyde?” he asked.

“Hyde?” repeated Lanyon. “No. Never heard of him.”

That was all the information that the lawyer carried back with him.

Six o’clock struck on the bells of the church that was so conveniently near to Mr. Utterson’s dwelling, and still he was thinking about the problem. Hitherto it had touched him on the intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged, or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield’s tale went by before his mind.

He would see lamps of a nocturnal city; then the figure of a man walking swiftly; then a child running from the doctor’s; and then these met, and that human devil trod the child down and passed on regardless of her screams.

Or else he would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep, dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the sleeper recalled, and there would stand by his side a figure to whom power was given. And still the figure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams, it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his eyes. If he could but once set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps roll altogether away, as all mysterious things when well examined.

From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door in the by-street of shops. In the morning before office hours, at noon, and at night under the face of the city moon, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen post.

“If he be Mr. Hyde,” he had thought, “I shall be Mr. Seek.”

And at last his patience was rewarded. It was a fine dry night; frost in the air; the streets were clean; the lamps were drawing a regular pattern of light and shadow. By ten o’clock, when the shops were closed, the by-street was very solitary and very silent. Mr. Utterson had been some minutes at his post, when he was aware of an odd, light footstep drawing near. He withdrew into the entry of the court.

The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as they turned the end of the street. The lawyer, looking forth from the entry, could soon see the man he had to deal with. He was small and very plainly dressed. And he made straight for the door, crossing the roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a key from his pocket like one approaching home.

Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he passed. “Mr. Hyde, I think?”

Mr. Hyde shrank back. But his fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer in the face, he answered coolly enough:

“That is my name. What do you want?”

“I see you are going in,” returned the lawyer. “I am an old friend of Dr. Jekyll’s—Mr. Utterson—you must have heard my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might let me in.”

“You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home,” replied Mr. Hyde. And then suddenly, but still without looking up,

“How did you know me?” he asked.

“On your side,” said Mr. Utterson, “will you do me a favour?”

“With pleasure,” replied the other. “What shall it be?”

“Will you let me see your face?” asked the lawyer.

Mr. Hyde hesitated, and then looked at Mr. Utterson.

“Now I shall know you again,” said Mr. Utterson. “It may be useful.”

“Yes,” returned Mr. Hyde, “it is as well we have, met; and you should have my address.”

And he gave an address in Soho[12].

“And now,” said Mr. Hyde, “how did you know me?”

“By description,” was the reply.

“Whose description?”

“We have common friends,” said Mr. Utterson.

“Common friends?” echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely. “Who are they?”

“Jekyll, for instance,” said the lawyer.

“He never told you,” cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger. “I did not think you would have lied!”

He snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment, with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house.

The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, in disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing, and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.

“There must be something else,” said the perplexed gentleman. “There is something more, if I could find a name for it. This man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic! O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.”