STORY
Susan Sontag
DOCTOR JEKYLL
Jekyll is thinking. Somewhere else, Gabriel Utterson is
examining jekyll's dossier, a thick, somewhat soiled tan folder with
the doctor's surname followed by the initial H. neatly printed in purple
ink on the flap. jekyll lies on the sloping beach, under-used for a
Saturday in May, searching his mouth with his tongue
to
expel some
sand . His toddler is lurching along the water's edge, his wife has gone
up to the station wagon to change from her wet bikini into a dry one.
With his back pressed against the sorched sand, his belly flattened
under the hot sun, Jekyll is thinking about the war, Utterson is
perched on a high, old-fashioned architect's chair (one that doesn't
swivel), thinking about Jekyll, and between these two points a line
might be drawn, a physical link between them like, say, a long nylon
thread. It might run from the gaudy cowboy belt that Utterson has
put on today,
to
confound extra-pious disciples in town, straight to
Jekyll's right ankle here in East Hampton. Utterson is wearing tinted
bifocals. Were jekyll to tug hard on his end, or just make a sudden
violent movement, Utterson might be jolted out of his chair. If he
falls, his spectacles might be broken.
Jekyll looks at his white toes, flexes them. Could messages using
words be sent along this thread-in code, of course? Or is only vio–
lence transmissible? jekyll's right ankle begins to itch. The sending of
