Chapter 6
Months later, rewards in cash were announced were handing over Hyde; but Mr. Hyde was not found. Sir Danver’s murder was a shock for the public. Public was made aware of Mr. Hyde’s violent streak and his wild cruel nature. Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all disreputable: tales came out of the man’s cruelty, at once so callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates, of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; but of his present whereabouts, not a whisper. Mr. Utterson gradually got used to this tension and felt free and better as more and more time passed. As he was affected by Sir Danver’s death, he was relieved with absence of Hyde. Dr. Jekyll started over as well. He became more and more social with his old frinds. He became spiritually calm and religious. He could entertain his guests. He now worked hard with focus and in a peaceful manner. He was busy, he was much in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the doctor was at peace.
It was the first week of January. Mr. Utterson and Lanyon dined at Jekyll’s place for a small party. The three had been closest of friends in the old days. They looked contented to be in each other’s company. But, Utterson went over to his place again twice the next week. One day the doctor even refuse to see the lawyer making Poole make an excuse on his behalf. He visited his friend a almost daily and finally one day he felt his behaviour was odd and he needed to work on it. Somedays he asked the Guest to dine with him and the others he visited Lanyon’s place.
At Lanyon’s place, he entered and was taken aback at the sight of his friend. He looked terribly ill and weak. The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen away; he was visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer’s notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind.
Mr. Utterson could spot a certain fear of death in his eyes. He thought, ‘He must be aware of the duration of his life span and the knowledge was not bearable perhaps.’ Lanyon described himself as a man who had hit apocalypse when Utterson asked.
“I don’t think I have much time lift,” he said, “It is just a matter of few more days. I shall not be able to recover from this shock. I am content with the life I had.”
“Have you met Jekyll lately?” asked Utterson, “He has been sick too.”
“I don’t want further mention of Dr. Jekyll in front of me,” said Lanyon at once, “He no longer exists for me in my life.”
“We are the oldes of friends Lanyon. Can I do anything to mend between you too?” said Utterson, “We shall not live long enough to find friends like these again.”
“You should put that question in front of Jekyll, my friend,” he replied.
“He refused to meet me,” returned Utterson.
“I was expecting that,” said Lanyon, “One day when I am long gone. You’ll know the black and white of our situation. I cannot explain it to you. Now if you prefer to stay, let us sit and talk about something else and if you are here.”
As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll, complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a long answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly mysterious in drift. The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable. “I do not blame our old friend,” Jekyll wrote, but I share his view that we must never meet. I mean from henceforth to lead a life of extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised, nor must you doubt my friendship, if my door is often shut even to you. You must suffer me to go my own dark way. I have brought on myself a punishment and a danger that I cannot name. If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also. I could not think that this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors so unmanning; and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this destiny, and that is to respect my silence.” Utterson was amazed; the dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, the doctor had returned to his old tasks and amities; a week ago, the prospect had smiled with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age; and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole tenor of his life were wrecked. So great and unprepared a change pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon’s manner and words, there must lie for it some deeper groun Dr. Lanyon died two weeks later. Utterson was adversely affected by his death. He isolated himself in his study room a night after the funeral and retrieved the sealed letter left to him by his dead friend. The envelope seal said J.G Utterson and it further had a message ‘in case of his early demise, should be destroyed without reading,’ the lawyer didn’t wait a second before he broke the first seal. To his surprise there was another seal inside which said ‘not to be opened till decease or disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll,’ he could not believe at once he read the word ‘disappearance’ but it was there, written in bold. It reminded him instantly of that will which had the mention of the same word he had just read associated with Jekyll’s name. He couldn’t figure out the purpose of this but he reckoned it to be something miserable. He ignored his urge to disobey the words written on the seal but being honest to his profession and his dead friend, He put the packet back in his safe.
From that day onwards, Utterson’s curiosity started to overpower him. He now felt relieved when he was not admiited in his friends’ house. He no longer wished for his company with same eagerness. He would just have pleasant chats with Poole by the door without the wish to enter the boundaries of the house. The doctor had been doomed. He would not leave laboratory for hours; he was out of spirits, he had grown very silent, he did not read; it seemed as if he had something on his mind. He grew silent and dull. Utterson’s visits to him became less often with his consistent lack in enthusiasm.
