600
SUSAN SONTAG
It
looks as if he is asking directions. He is pointing. He has a complacent
beautiful face, and is probably a German-Jewish refugee scholar who lives near
Columbia University. The short youth in the black leather jacket stands facing
him, tapping on a guitar that he carries. He doesn't answer. Then, like the
propeller of an old plane, he gradually begins trembling, vibrating with anger,
stamping his booted muddy feet, brandishing the guitar. The old man takes a
step back, looking more disgusted than surprised or fearful. He must have
heard that madmen roam the streets, but may have been counting on never
meeting one. He takes another step backward. The short youth clubs him to the
sidewalk with his guitar. A flurry of blows with the guitar fall upon the victim's
head and chest and legs. The old man groans, twitches once or twice, and lies
still. The short youth goes on prodding and mauling the unresisting body, a
nasal song on his lips.
Watching from a doorway down the street, Jekyll felt that songon his lips,
too. "What did it matter?" said the voice. He who had seen so many people die,
poor, discarded, and always mustered without stint both compassion and
indignation, he who had also saved so many lives, patched innumerable bodies
and restored them to health, might be pardoned for watching once,just once,
without pity, without intervening-not confined to the better part of
feelings-as if it were a dream. Who was breaking that old man's bones?
If
that
was Hyde, then he must be stopped.
Jekyll seeks the energy to live out his own acts. Inwardly, he begins
composing the new will that he would dictate to Lanyon tomorrow morning.
Hyde's aid seems ghostly now. Jekyll realizes that he is alone in a world of
monsters, that the struggle between the good magicians and the bad ones is a
distraction, if not an illusion. He must go after their chieftan, the master
magician, the one beyond good and bad, who had confused and tempted him.
Let Utterson send him all his energy, by whatever conduits are open. This time,
he won't give it back.
While Utterson is rolling around in his bed in Oyster Bay, watching Poole
scrub the carpet, and Hyde is squatting down by the bike again in Plattsburg,
Jekyll, also in Plattsburg, is getting his arms into his coat. Hyde looks up again .
"Wait!" he howls. "I've changed my mind."
Jekyll, who is concentrating on certain sensations he mayor may not be
having in his chest, thinking about the blue light that mayor may not be
emanating from Utterson at this very moment, feels a stab of alarm. "What?'
"Maybe you were right. That stuff you said last night." There is a strange,
repulsive insinuation in Hyde's voice. "About going back to the city."
"What about your mother?" Jekyll is desperate.
"Let her croak," Hyde shouts jubilantly. ''I'm coming with you!"
