I smiled to myself, and in my psychological
way, began lazily to inquire into the elements of this illusion,
occasionally, even as I did so, dropping back into a comfortable
morning doze. I was still so engaged when, in one of my more
wakeful moments, my eyes fell upon my hand. Now the hand of Henry
Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was professional in shape and
size: it was large, firm, white and comely. But the hand which I
now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London
morning, lying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean, corder,
knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth
of hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.
I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I
was in the mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my
breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and
bounding from my bed I rushed to the mirror. At the sight that
met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin
and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened
Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained? I asked myself; and
then, with another bound of terror--how was it to be remedied?
It was well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my drugs
were in the cabinet--a long journey down two pairs of stairs,
through the back passage, across the open court and through the
anatomical theatre, from where I was then standing horror-struck.
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