Can Such Things Be? By Ambrose Bierce
STALEY FLEMING’S HALLUCINATION
Of two men who were talking one was a physician.
“I sent for you, Doctor,” said the other, “but
I don’t think you can do me any good. May be you can
recommend a specialist in psychopathy. I fancy I’m a bit
loony.”
“You look all right,” the physician said.
“You shall judge - I have hallucinations. I wake every
night and see in my room, intently watching me, a big black
Newfoundland dog with a white forefoot.”
“You say you wake; are you sure about that?
‘Hallucinations’ are sometimes only
dreams.”
“Oh, I wake, all right. Sometimes I lie still a long time,
looking at the dog as earnestly as the dog looks at me - I always
leave the light going. When I can’t endure it any longer I
sit up in bed - and nothing is there!”
“‘M, ‘m - what is the beast’s
expression?”
“It seems to me sinister. Of course I know that, except in
art, an animal’s face in repose has always the same
expression. But this is not a real animal. Newfoundland dogs
are pretty mild looking, you know; what’s the matter with
this one?”
“Really, my diagnosis would have no value: I am not going
to treat the dog.”
The physician laughed at his own pleasantry, but narrowly watched
his patient from the corner of his eye. Presently he said:
“Fleming, your description of the beast fits the dog of the
late Atwell Barton.”
Fleming half-rose from his chair, sat again and made a visible
attempt at indifference. “I remember Barton,” he
said; “I believe he was - it was reported that -
wasn’t there something suspicious in his
death?”
Looking squarely now into the eyes of his patient, the physician
said: “Three years ago the body of your old enemy, Atwell
Barton, was found in the woods near his house and yours. He had
been stabbed to death. There have been no arrests; there was no
clew. Some of us had ‘theories.’ I had one. Have
you?”
“I? Why, bless your soul, what could I know about it? You
remember that I left for Europe almost immediately afterward - a
considerable time afterward. In the few weeks since my return
you could not expect me to construct a ‘theory.’ In
fact, I have not given the matter a thought. What about his
dog?”
“It was first to find the body. It died of starvation on
his grave.”
We do not know the inexorable law underlying coincidences.
Staley Fleming did not, or he would perhaps not have sprung to
his feet as the night wind brought in through the open window the
long wailing howl of a distant dog. He strode several times
across the room in the steadfast gaze of the physician; then,
abruptly confronting him, almost shouted: “What has all
this to do with my trouble, Dr. Halderman? You forget why you
were sent for.”
Rising, the physician laid his hand upon his patient’s arm
and said, gently: “Pardon me. I cannot diagnose your
disorder off-hand - to-morrow, perhaps. Please go to bed,
leaving your door unlocked; I will pass the night here with your
books. Can you call me without rising?”
“Yes, there is an electric bell.”
“Good. If anything disturbs you push the button without
sitting up. Good night.”
Comfortably installed in an armchair the man of medicine stared
into the glowing coals and thought deeply and long, but
apparently to little purpose, for he frequently rose and opening
a door leading to the staircase, listened intently; then resumed
his seat. Presently, however, he fell asleep, and when he woke
it was past midnight. He stirred the failing fire, lifted a book
from the table at his side and looked at the title. It was
Denneker’s “Meditations.” He opened it at
random and began to read:
“Forasmuch as it is ordained of God that all flesh hath
spirit and thereby taketh on spiritual powers, so, also, the
spirit hath powers of the flesh, even when it is gone out of the
flesh and liveth as a thing apart, as many a violence performed
by wraith and lemure sheweth. And there be who say that man is
not single in this, but the beasts have the like evil inducement,
and - ”
The reading was interrupted by a shaking of the house, as by the
fall of a heavy object. The reader flung down the book, rushed
from the room and mounted the stairs to Fleming’s
bed-chamber. He tried the door, but contrary to his instructions
it was locked. He set his shoulder against it with such force
that it gave way. On the floor near the disordered bed, in his
night clothes, lay Fleming gasping away his life.
The physician raised the dying man’s head from the floor
and observed a wound in the throat. “I should have thought
of this,” he said, believing it suicide.
When the man was dead an examination disclosed the unmistakable
marks of an animal’s fangs deeply sunken into the jugular
vein.
But there was no animal.
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