540
SUSAN SONTAG
messages suggests a problem that Jekyll has been chewing over for
months. Clearly Utterson has sources of information to which Jekyll is
denied access. Jekyll's handsome leg begins to tremble: he'd like to get
these messages, too. Is there a circuit to which he could plug in? A
sand crab nips his toe. Jekyll jerks his right foot viciously.
Inside the cabin the Jekylls rent in Labrador for the whole of
June, the good doctor, nerves strung tight by the long hours he puts
in all year at the clinic, doesn't take advantage of his vacation to
unwind. He is thinking about Utterson. The cabin is damp, cool. The
bedsheets smell ofcamphor. Fir trees filter the crisp northern heat, and
the mountains rising on all sides make the days short, too short; the
sun doesn't surface until eight in the morning and has slid behind a
snowy peak by five.
Outdoors, thoughts of Utterson spring less frequently to mind.
Other risks become more attractive. Jekyll saunters through the
woods, as carefree as he's ever likely to be, the astringent taste of
liberty in his mouth. By three, breaking a half-hearted promise to his
wife not to attempt anything dangerous in the way of mountaineer–
ing, he is almost to the top of a steep mountain. This climb would
normally be no grand exploit for Jekyll, a competent Alpinist since his
year as a post-graduate medical student in Vienna. What does make a
mishap possible is that Jekyll is taking someone much less experienced
up with him: Richard Enfield, his wife's cousin, who is sharing the
cabin with them for the first week.
Jekyll advances nimbly, hand over hand, with Enfield following,
dogged will-power firmly in control of his neglected suburban body.
Glancing below, Jekyll spies Enfield absorbed in a duel with a boul–
der, slowed to a crawl. Jekyll stops instantly, to maintain the rope
tying them togethet at the right degree of slackness. Sure that h.is
cousin-in-law is not in serious trouble, Jekyll isn't going to embarrass
Enfield by pointing out an easy way to clamber past the obstacle
and
~urns
away, splendidly vertical.
Jekyll inhales joyously. His torso is free as long as his left elbow
stays braced in a crevasse in the rock face. His feet feel reassuringly
heavy, sure, the soles of his climbing boots secured, almost welded to
the narrow ledge on which he stands, waiting for Enfield to heave his
