Pede Poena Claudo

I'd never read it before, so it was wonderful finally to experience the original novel called The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde after knowing the story from so many versions, adaptations, spoofs, and cultural riffs. Stevenson is famous for a reason, and his eloquent narrative stays interesting, suspenseful, and insightful. The mystery of the story is maintained in a brilliant way, too: we first get the public story from the perspective of a lawyer acquainted with Jekyll, and then we get the inner explanation in a narrative written by Jekyll himself. Nobody needs for me to approve this book, but it's, oh! so good!

The details of the story are extra good, too. Jekyll's original purpose was to give his base desires (unstated in the narration, but promiscuous sex is implied) unlimited rein with the ability to hide back in the safe persona of the respectable doctor, and he concocts a potion to bring out the unrestrained Mr Hyde. But (1) Jekyll begins to feel remorse when Hyde turns violent, and (2) Hyde starts turning up spontaneously and a draught is now needed to get Dr Jekyll back. So sins indulged acquire power and return with a force that we cannot escape. In biblical terms, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. In Aristotelian terms, vices and virtues are habits and become, when strengthened enough, second nature.

As a bonus, I read a Stevenson short story called “The Body-Snatcher.” Here a pair of men have a business involving grave-robbing for the purpose of providing bodies for anatomy classes, but one night one of the partners kills a man in order to increase the company's stock on hand. The very last word of the story introduces a supernatural element. The effect is shocking, both for the characters and for the reader realizing that the genre of literature he's reading has just changed at the last second. But that single word again offers the moral that “sins follow after,” or as the narration puts it, quoting Horace, punishment comes "pede claudo": on limping foot, i.e. slowly but surely.