STORY OF THE DOOR
Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man
of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold,
scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean,
long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings,
and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human
beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way
into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of
the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his
life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to
mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre,
had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an
approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with
envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds;
and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. “I
incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my
brother go to the devil in his own way.” In this character, it was
frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and
the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And to such
as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked
a shade of change in his demeanour.
No doubt the feat was easy to Mr.
Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his
friendship seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of
good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly
circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the
lawyer’s way. His friends were those of his own blood or those whom
he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth
of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt the
bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman,
the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, 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. For all
that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions,
counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside
occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business,
that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.
It chanced on one of these
rambles that their way led them down a by- street in a busy quarter
of London. The street was small and what is called quiet, but it
drove a thriving trade on the weekdays. The inhabitants were all
doing well, it seemed and all emulously hoping to do better still,
and laying out the surplus of their grains in coquetry; so that the
shop fronts stood along that thoroughfare with an air of
invitation, like rows of smiling saleswomen.
Even on Sunday, when it veiled
its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the
street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a
fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters,
well-polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note,
instantly caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.
Two doors from one corner, on the
left hand going east the line was broken by the entry of a court;
and just at that point a certain sinister block of building thrust
forward its gable on the street. It was two storeys high; showed no
window, nothing but a door on the lower storey and a blind forehead
of discoloured wall on the upper; and bore in every feature, the
marks of prolonged and sordid negligence. The door, which was
equipped with neither bell nor knocker, was blistered and
distained. Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches on
the panels; children kept shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had
tried his knife on the mouldings; and for close on a generation, no
one had appeared to drive away these random visitors or to repair
their ravages.
Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were
on the other side of the by-street; but when they came abreast of
the entry, the former lifted up his cane and pointed.
“Did you ever remark that door?”
he asked; and when his companion had replied in the affirmative,
“It is connected in my mind,” added he, “with a very odd
story.”
“Indeed?” said Mr. Utterson, with
a slight change of voice, “and what was that?”
“Well, it was this way,” returned
Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from some place at the end of the
world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way
lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be
seen but lamps. Street after street and all the folks asleep—street
after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as
empty as a church— till at last I got into that state of mind when
a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a
policeman. All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was
stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of
maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a
cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally
enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing;
for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her
screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was
hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned
Juggernaut. I gave a few halloa, took to my heels, collared my
gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a
group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no
resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the
sweat on me like running.