592
SUSAN SONTAG
With extraordinary quickness, Hyde shoves Jekyll onto the top of a pack–
ing crate, then pours some orange juice into two tall bluish glasses, lacing both
with what Jekyll soon discovers to be gin
(it
comes from a turpentine bottle),
then crouches gleefully on another crate.
"What's up, doc?" he cackles.
Those two bluish glasses that had been placed on a broken rattan table
strike Jekyll as odd. As Jekyll knows, Hyde lives alone since his girlfriend
walked out on him; they suggest that he had been expecting someone. HIm–
self? Jekyll has neither written nor wired Hyde (who has no telephone) about
his visit this evening. Could someone have informed Hyde that he was coming?
Jekyll, taking a sip of his drink, starts by asking about Hyde's house.
"You didn't come all the way up here to rap about my crummy house!"
Jekyll wonders if living in the country bores Hyde, after the glamorous
dangers of city life: the thrill of pursuing his victims, the excitement of being
chased by the cops. "Don't rush me," says Jekyll.
"Sorry, man," Hyde croaks. "I guess I'm just bouncing off my own peeling
walls, panting to hear what's on your mind."
"You're acting as if you already knew what it was," Jekyll ventures-in case
Hyde should have acquired some of Utterson's gift ofclairvoyance and already
knows everything he is going to say.
"I do."
Jekyll fights down his anxiety. "Then you've no reason to be impatient."
"Shit, that don't mean I know every last word," Hyde squeaks plaintively.
"I'm still wondering why you stay up here," says Jekyll.
"Don't knock it, man. You should have seen this dump when I moved in."
Hyde sounds almost wistful. "I did all the work myself,just like at the Institute.
With my own two hands."
"I know," Jekyll murmurs distractedly-while gazing at Hyde's corded,
predator hands, their backs sheathed with dusky fur, and noting that the
tranquillity of country life has not helped Hyde to stop biting his nails.
"See," Hyde croaks, a triumphant gleam in his small eyes. "You know
everything, too."
"Considering my problem," Jekyll retorts gloomily, "that wisecrack is in
awfully bad taste."
"Bad taste"-Hyde's voice becomes strident-"is my specialty, man." He
clenches his shrunken hairy fists . "Want to make something of it?"
"No," says Jekyll.
Bad' taste is Utterson's specialty, too. But whereas that seems perfectly
natural with Hyde, given his slum background and his aggressive lack of
aspirations to virtue, Utterson's case presents a real problem for Jekyll-for
everyone, probably, who has ever come under Utterson's authority. Utterson's
ribald, sadistic sense of humor must be reconciled with the gravity of his claim
