Странная история доктора Джекила и мистера Хайда / Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

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Mr. Utterson[1] the lawyer was cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for other people.

“I let my brother go to the devil in his own way,” he used to say quaintly. And he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

Mr. Utterson was undemonstrative. His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. People did not know, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend. But the two men counted these excursions the chief jewel of each week.

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