Chapter 37 (Chapter 39) – The Prison Visit and the Tonic
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
Hazel Sinnett bribes a prison guard with a pound to gain a five-minute visit with Jack Currer. The lords’ bench has already convicted Jack of purchasing bodies and sentenced him to hang. Dr. Straine lost his medical license and was expelled from the Anatomists’ Society, but a mob still calls for his hanging. Hazel walks through the Old Town but the prison’s thick stone walls muffle all outside noise, leaving only the moans of other prisoners and the chittering rats.
Jack did not testify at his trial, preferring to be seen as a murderer rather than a murderer and a madman. Hazel feels hollow, drained of all joy and sorrow. She finds Jack thinner than before, sitting against the wall with a die he rolls on the floor. His hair is lank, his eyes red with exhaustion. When he sees her, he stands and holds her hands through the bars. He tucks a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear. Hazel holds a small glass vial whose strange luminescence is visible through her fingers. She describes what the vial contains and the power it gives him. Jack asks a few quiet questions. Hazel extends the vial through the bars. Jack takes it and examines the tiny galaxy swirling inside.
He asks her if she would take it if she were him. Hazel pleads with him to take it so they can run away together to the Continent and start over. Jack laughs—a sound full of joy, hurt, and love—and that laugh finally makes Hazel cry. He kisses her through the bars, tasting their tears. He tells her no: taking the immortality tonic would force him to be a man on the run for the rest of his life. He insists Hazel deserves a real life as a brilliant physician who helps people and changes lives. He cannot let her toil in the shadows while he hides. Hazel argues it is not his choice, but Jack counters that he is being selfish: he cannot bear to watch her grow old and die while he lives on. He says she will always be seventeen and beautiful and brilliant to him. When she asks again if he will take the tonic, he admits he doesn’t know because he is so scared.
A guard’s heavy footsteps signal the end of the visit. Hazel kisses Jack one last time and says she will love him forever. She presses her hand against the stitches she sewed at the center of his chest. He says his heart is hers, beating or still. She repeats the phrase.
The next morning at ten o’clock, Jack Currer is hanged in the Grassmarket. The crowd is said to be the largest ever in Edinburgh for a public hanging, but Hazel does not attend. They say his body was bought and taken to the university teaching hospital. But they don’t say if it stayed there.
Key Events
- Hazel bribes a guard to visit Jack in prison.
- Jack has been convicted and sentenced to hang; Straine lost his license.
- Jack did not testify at his trial; he keeps silent.
- Hazel shows Jack the immortality tonic and explains its power.
- Jack asks if she would take it, then refuses, arguing Hazel deserves a normal life as a physician.
- They share a passionate farewell; Jack admits he is afraid.
- Hazel presses her hand over the stitches on his chest.
- Jack is hanged the next morning in the Grassmarket.
- His body is taken to the university teaching hospital, but the final location is ambiguous.
Character Development
Hazel Sinnett: Hazel demonstrates profound love and desperation by offering Jack the tonic, willing to abandon her medical ambitions for a life on the run. Her emotional numbness subsides into tears when Jack laughs, showing her capacity for feeling beneath the hollow exterior. She asserts her own agency, telling Jack it’s not his choice. Her final vow to love him forever, “beating or still,” seals her transformation from a girl seeking knowledge to a woman facing irrevocable loss.
Jack Currer: Jack, facing death, shows selflessness and clarity. He refuses the tonic to safeguard Hazel’s future as a physician, recognizing her potential to “light the world on fire.” His laugh reveals the joy and hurt of their brief time together. He admits his own selfishness—he cannot bear to outlive her. Jack’s final words affirm that his heart belongs to Hazel, whether it beats or lies still.
Dr. Straine: Though not present, Straine’s public disgrace and lost license underscore the social consequences of the body-snatching scandal. The mob’s continued rage hints at unresolved anger directed at the medical elite.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Love and Sacrifice: Both characters sacrifice for each other. Hazel risks offering the tonic, which could expose her secret and condemn her to a fugitive life. Jack gives up the chance at immortality to preserve Hazel’s destiny as a healer. Their kiss through the bars symbolizes connection across literal and metaphorical barriers.
Choice and Autonomy: Jack insists that the decision to take the tonic is his, yet he ultimately chooses what he believes is best for Hazel—a choice that denies her own say. This tension reflects the novel’s exploration of who gets to decide one’s path.
The Immortality Tonic: The glowing vial represents the possibility of cheating death, but also the cost of eternal life: loneliness, pursuit, and the inability to grow old with a loved one. Jack’s rejection elevates the tonic from a scientific marvel to a moral burden.
The Stitched Heart: Hazel’s hand on the stitches she sewed into Jack’s chest echoes their earlier miracle—she literally kept him alive once. Now those stitches mark a connection that death cannot sever.
Public Hanging as Spectacle: The huge crowd at the Grassmarket underscores the brutal public nature of justice and the dehumanization of the condemned. Hazel’s absence contrasts with the mob’s voyeurism.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is the emotional climax of Jack and Hazel’s relationship. It resolves the central suspense of Jack’s trial and reveals the fate of the immortality tonic. Jack’s refusal to use the tonic cements his character as self-sacrificing and underscores a key theme: the pursuit of immortality is less important than the quality of a finite life. Hazel’s inability to save the man she loves, despite possessing the means, introduces a tragic irony. The uncertain fate of Jack’s body—taken to the university—leaves a sliver of hope that the tonic may have been used after all, or that his remains will inform Hazel’s medical work. This chapter also sets up Hazel’s future: free to pursue her medical career, but forever marked by loss.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Jack refuse to take the immortality tonic?
Jack refuses because he believes Hazel deserves a real life as a brilliant physician, not a life on the run in the shadows. He cannot bear to outlive her and watch her age and die. Despite her arguments, he prioritizes her future over his own survival.
2. What does Hazel mean when she says “beating or still” after Jack says his heart is hers?
“Beating or still” signifies that Hazel’s love for Jack will continue whether his heart is alive (beating) or dead (still). It is a vow of eternal devotion, mirroring the immortality tonic’s promise but grounded in human love rather than scientific elixir.
3. The narrator notes that Jack’s body was taken to the university teaching hospital “but they didn’t say if it stayed there.” Why is this detail significant?
This ambiguous ending leaves open the possibility that Jack might have taken the tonic after all and escaped, or that his body was used for anatomical study. It creates suspense and preserves hope that the immortality tonic worked, while also emphasizing the dark trade in cadavers that underpins the novel’s medical world.