part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the

despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the

dislike with which he was himself regarded. Hence the ape-like tricks

that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the

pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of

my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would

long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But

his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at

the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of

this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off

by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.

It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this

description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that suffice;

and yet even to these, habit brought—no, not alleviation—but a certain

callousness of soul, a certain acquiescence of despair; and my

punishment might have gone on for years, but for the last calamity

which has now fallen, and which has finally severed me from my own face

and nature. My provision of the salt, which had never been renewed

since the date of the first experiment, began to run low. I sent out

for a fresh supply and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed, and

the first change of colour, not the second; I drank it and it was

without efficiency. You will learn from Poole how I have had London

ransacked; it was in vain; and I am now persuaded that my first supply

was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity which lent efficacy

to the draught.

About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement under

the influence of the last of the old powders. This, then, is the last

time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts

or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I

delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has

hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great

prudence and great good luck. Should the throes of change take me in

the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time

shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness

and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from

the action of his ape-like spite. And indeed the doom that is closing

on us both has already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now,

when I shall again and forever reindue that hated personality, I know

how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with

the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and

down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of

menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to

release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is

my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than

myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my

confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.