were before, and neither richer nor wiser, unless the sense of service
rendered to a man in mortal distress may be counted as a kind of riches
of the soul. Or, if you shall so prefer to choose, a new province of
knowledge and new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you,
here, in this room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted
by a prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan.
Sir, said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from truly
possessing, you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder that I
hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I have gone too
far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end.
It is well, replied my visitor. Lanyon, you remember your vows: what
follows is under the seal of our profession. And now, you who have so
long been bound to the most narrow and material views, you who have
denied the virtue of transcendental medicine, you who have derided your
superiors behold!
He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he
reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with
injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I
thought, a change he seemed to swell his face became suddenly black and
the features seemed to melt and alter and the next moment, I had sprung
to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arms raised to shield
me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.
O God! I screamed, and O God! again and again; for there before my
eyes pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with
his hands, like a man restored from death there stood Henry Jekyll!
What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to set on
paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened at
it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if
I believe it, and I cannot answer. My life is shaken to its roots;
sleep has left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at all hours of the
day and night; and I feel that my days are numbered, and that I must
die; and yet I shall die incredulous. As for the moral turpitude that
man unveiled to me, even with tears of penitence, I cannot, even in
memory, dwell on it without a start of horror. I will say but one
thing, Utterson, and that (if you can bring your mind to credit it)
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