Can Such Things Be? By Ambrose Bierce
ONE OF TWINS
A LETTER FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MORTIMER BARR
You ask me if in my experience as one of a pair of twins I
ever observed anything unaccountable by the natural laws with
which we have acquaintance. As to that you shall judge; perhaps
we have not all acquaintance with the same natural laws. You may
know some that I do not, and what is to me unaccountable may be
very clear to you.
You knew my brother John - that is, you knew him when you knew
that I was not present; but neither you nor, I believe, any human
being could distinguish between him and me if we chose to seem
alike. Our parents could not; ours is the only instance of which
I have any knowledge of so close resemblance as that. I speak of
my brother John, but I am not at all sure that his name was not
Henry and mine John. We were regularly christened, but
afterward, in the very act of tattooing us with small
distinguishing marks, the operator lost his reckoning; and
although I bear upon my forearm a small “H” and he
bore a “J,” it is by no means certain that the
letters ought not to have been transposed. During our boyhood
our parents tried to distinguish us more obviously by our
clothing and other simple devices, but we would so frequently
exchange suits and otherwise circumvent the enemy that they
abandoned all such ineffectual attempts, and during all the years
that we lived together at home everybody recognized the
difficulty of the situation and made the best of it by calling us
both “Jehnry.” I have often wondered at my
father’s forbearance in not branding us conspicuously upon
our unworthy brows, but as we were tolerably good boys and used
our power of embarrassment and annoyance with commendable
moderation, we escaped the iron. My father was, in fact, a
singularly good-natured man, and I think quietly enjoyed
nature’s practical joke.
Soon after we had come to California, and settled at San Jose
(where the only good fortune that awaited us was our meeting with
so kind a friend as you) the family, as you know, was broken up
by the death of both my parents in the same week. My father died
insolvent and the homestead was sacrificed to pay his debts. My
sisters returned to relatives in the East, but owing to your
kindness John and I, then twenty-two years of age, obtained
employment in San Francisco, in different quarters of the town.
Circumstances did not permit us to live together, and we saw each
other infrequently, sometimes not oftener than once a week. As
we had few acquaintances in common, the fact of our extraordinary
likeness was little known. I come now to the matter of your
inquiry.
One day soon after we had come to this city I was walking down
Market street late in the afternoon, when I was accosted by a
well-dressed man of middle age, who after greeting me cordially
said: “Stevens, I know, of course, that you do not go out
much, but I have told my wife about you, and she would be glad to
see you at the house. I have a notion, too, that my girls are
worth knowing. Suppose you come out to-morrow at six and dine
with us, en famille; and then if the ladies can’t
amuse you afterward I’ll stand in with a few games of
billiards.”
This was said with so bright a smile and so engaging a manner
that I had not the heart to refuse, and although I had never seen
the man in my life I promptly replied: “You are very good,
sir, and it will give me great pleasure to accept the
invitation. Please present my compliments to Mrs. Margovan and
ask her to expect me.”
With a shake of the hand and a pleasant parting word the man
passed on. That he had mistaken me for my brother was plain
enough. That was an error to which I was accustomed and which it
was not my habit to rectify unless the matter seemed important.
But how had I known that this man’s name was Margovan? It
certainly is not a name that one would apply to a man at random,
with a probability that it would be right. In point of fact, the
name was as strange to me as the man.
The next morning I hastened to where my brother was employed and
met him coming out of the office with a number of bills that he
was to collect. I told him how I had “committed” him
and added that if he didn’t care to keep the engagement I
should be delighted to continue the impersonation.
“That’s queer,” he said thoughtfully.
“Margovan is the only man in the office here whom I know
well and like. When he came in this morning and we had passed
the usual greetings some singular impulse prompted me to say:
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Margovan, but I neglected to
ask your address.’ I got the address, but what under the
sun I was to do with it, I did not know until now. It’s
good of you to offer to take the consequence of your impudence,
but I’ll eat that dinner myself, if you
please.”
He ate a number of dinners at the same place - more than were
good for him, I may add without disparaging their quality; for he
fell in love with Miss Margovan, proposed marriage to her and was
heartlessly accepted.
Several weeks after I had been informed of the engagement, but
before it had been convenient for me to make the acquaintance of
the young woman and her family, I met one day on Kearney street a
handsome but somewhat dissipated-looking man whom something
prompted me to follow and watch, which I did without any scruple
whatever. He turned up Geary street and followed it until he
came to Union square. There he looked at his watch, then entered
the square. He loitered about the paths for some time, evidently
waiting for someone. Presently he was joined by a fashionably
dressed and beautiful young woman and the two walked away up
Stockton street, I following. I now felt the necessity of
extreme caution, for although the girl was a stranger it seemed
to me that she would recognize me at a glance. They made several
turns from one street to another and finally, after both had
taken a hasty look all about - which I narrowly evaded by
stepping into a doorway - they entered a house of which I do not
care to state the location. Its location was better than its
character.
I protest that my action in playing the spy upon these two
strangers was without assignable motive. It was one of which I
might or might not be ashamed, according to my estimate of the
character of the person finding it out. As an essential part of
a narrative educed by your question it is related here without
hesitancy or shame.
A week later John took me to the house of his prospective
father-in-law, and in Miss Margovan, as you have already
surmised, but to my profound astonishment, I recognized the
heroine of that discreditable adventure. A gloriously beautiful
heroine of a discreditable adventure I must in justice admit that
she was; but that fact has only this importance: her beauty was
such a surprise to me that it cast a doubt upon her identity with
the young woman I had seen before; how could the marvelous
fascination of her face have failed to strike me at that time?
But no - there was no possibility of error; the difference was
due to costume, light and general surroundings.
John and I passed the evening at the house, enduring, with the
fortitude of long experience, such delicate enough banter as our
likeness naturally suggested. When the young lady and I were
left alone for a few minutes I looked her squarely in the face
and said with sudden gravity:
“You, too, Miss Margovan, have a double: I saw her last
Tuesday afternoon in Union square.”
She trained her great gray eyes upon me for a moment, but her
glance was a trifle less steady than my own and she withdrew it,
fixing it on the tip of her shoe.
“Was she very like me?” she asked, with an
indifference which I thought a little overdone.
“So like,” said I, “that I greatly admired her,
and being unwilling to lose sight of her I confess that I
followed her until - Miss Margovan, are you sure that you
understand?”
She was now pale, but entirely calm. She again raised her eyes
to mine, with a look that did not falter.
“What do you wish me to do?” she asked. “You
need not fear to name your terms. I accept them.”
It was plain, even in the brief time given me for reflection,
that in dealing with this girl ordinary methods would not do, and
ordinary exactions were needless.
“Miss Margovan,” I said, doubtless with something of
the compassion in my voice that I had in my heart, “it is
impossible not to think you the victim of some horrible
compulsion. Rather than impose new embarrassments upon you I
would prefer to aid you to regain your freedom.”
She shook her head, sadly and hopelessly, and I continued, with
agitation:
“Your beauty unnerves me. I am disarmed by your frankness
and your distress. If you are free to act upon conscience you
will, I believe, do what you conceive to be best; if you are not
- well, Heaven help us all! You have nothing to fear from me but
such opposition to this marriage as I can try to justify on - on
other grounds.”
These were not my exact words, but that was the sense of them, as
nearly as my sudden and conflicting emotions permitted me to
express it. I rose and left her without another look at her, met
the others as they reentered the room and said, as calmly as I
could: “I have been bidding Miss Margovan good evening; it
is later than I thought.”
John decided to go with me. In the street he asked if I had
observed anything singular in Julia’s manner.
“I thought her ill,” I replied; “that is why I
left.” Nothing more was said.
The next evening I came late to my lodgings. The events of the
previous evening had made me nervous and ill; I had tried to cure
myself and attain to clear thinking by walking in the open air,
but I was oppressed with a horrible presentiment of evil - a
presentiment which I could not formulate. It was a chill, foggy
night; my clothing and hair were damp and I shook with cold. In
my dressing-gown and slippers before a blazing grate of coals I
was even more uncomfortable. I no longer shivered but shuddered
- there is a difference. The dread of some impending calamity
was so strong and dispiriting that I tried to drive it away by
inviting a real sorrow - tried to dispel the conception of a
terrible future by substituting the memory of a painful past. I
recalled the death of my parents and endeavored to fix my mind
upon the last sad scenes at their bedsides and their graves. It
all seemed vague and unreal, as having occurred ages ago and to
another person. Suddenly, striking through my thought and
parting it as a tense cord is parted by the stroke of steel - I
can think of no other comparison - I heard a sharp cry as of one
in mortal agony! The voice was that of my brother and seemed to
come from the street outside my window. I sprang to the window
and threw it open. A street lamp directly opposite threw a wan
and ghastly light upon the wet pavement and the fronts of the
houses. A single policeman, with upturned collar, was leaning
against a gatepost, quietly smoking a cigar. No one else was in
sight. I closed the window and pulled down the shade, seated
myself before the fire and tried to fix my mind upon my
surroundings. By way of assisting, by performance of some
familiar act, I looked at my watch; it marked half-past eleven.
Again I heard that awful cry! It seemed in the room - at my
side. I was frightened and for some moments had not the power to
move. A few minutes later - I have no recollection of the
intermediate time - I found myself hurrying along an unfamiliar
street as fast as I could walk. I did not know where I was, nor
whither I was going, but presently sprang up the steps of a house
before which were two or three carriages and in which were moving
lights and a subdued confusion of voices. It was the house of
Mr. Margovan.
You know, good friend, what had occurred there. In one chamber
lay Julia Margovan, hours dead by poison; in another John
Stevens, bleeding from a pistol wound in the chest, inflicted by
his own hand. As I burst into the room, pushed aside the
physicians and laid my hand upon his forehead he unclosed his
eyes, stared blankly, closed them slowly and died without a
sign.
I knew no more until six weeks afterward, when I had been nursed
back to life by your own saintly wife in your own beautiful
home. All of that you know, but what you do not know is this -
which, however, has no bearing upon the subject of your
psychological researches - at least not upon that branch of them
in which, with a delicacy and consideration all your own, you
have asked for less assistance than I think I have given
you:
One moonlight night several years afterward I was passing through
Union square. The hour was late and the square deserted.
Certain memories of the past naturally came into my mind as I
came to the spot where I had once witnessed that fateful
assignation, and with that unaccountable perversity which prompts
us to dwell upon thoughts of the most painful character I seated
myself upon one of the benches to indulge them. A man entered
the square and came along the walk toward me. His hands were
clasped behind him, his head was bowed; he seemed to observe
nothing. As he approached the shadow in which I sat I recognized
him as the man whom I had seen meet Julia Margovan years before
at that spot. But he was terribly altered - gray, worn and
haggard. Dissipation and vice were in evidence in every look;
illness was no less apparent. His clothing was in disorder, his
hair fell across his forehead in a derangement which was at once
uncanny and picturesque. He looked fitter for restraint than
liberty - the restraint of a hospital.
With no defined purpose I rose and confronted him. He raised his
head and looked me full in the face. I have no words to describe
the ghastly change that came over his own; it was a look of
unspeakable terror - he thought himself eye to eye with a ghost.
But he was a courageous man. “Damn you, John
Stevens!” he cried, and lifting his trembling arm he dashed
his fist feebly at my face and fell headlong upon the gravel as I
walked away.
Somebody found him there, stone-dead. Nothing more is known of
him, not even his name. To know of a man that he is dead should
be enough.
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