A
RESUMED IDENTITY by
Ambrose Bierce
www.world-english.org
1: The
Review as a Form of Welcome
ONE
summer night a man stood on a low hill overlooking a wide expanse of forest and
field. By the full moon hanging low in the west he knew what he might not have
known otherwise: that it was near the hour of dawn. A light mist lay along the
earth, partly veiling the lower features of the landscape, but above it the
taller trees showed in well-defined masses against a clear sky. Two or three
farmhouses were visible through the haze, but in none of them, naturally, was a
light.
Nowhere,
indeed, was any sign or suggestion of life except the barking of a distant dog,
which, repeated with mechanical iteration, served rather to accentuate than
dispel the loneliness of the scene.
The man
looked curiously about him on all sides, as one who among familiar surroundings
is unable to determine his exact place and part in the scheme of things. It is
so, perhaps, that we shall act when, risen
from
the dead, we await the call to judgment.
A
hundred yards away was a straight road, showing white in the moonlight.
Endeavouring to orient himself, as a surveyor or navigator might say, the man
moved his eyes slowly along its visible length and at
a
distance of a quarter-mile to the south of his station saw, dim and grey in the
haze, a group of horsemen riding to the north. Behind them were men afoot,
marching in column, with dimly gleaming rifles aslant
above
their shoulders. They moved slowly and in silence. Another group of horsemen,
another regiment of infantry, another and another --all in unceasing motion
toward the man's point of view, past it, and beyond. A
battery
of artillery followed, the cannoneers riding with folded arms on limber and
caisson. And still the interminable procession came out of the obscurity to
south and passed into the obscurity to north, with
never a
sound of voice, nor hoof, nor wheel.
The man
could not rightly understand: he thought himself deaf; said so, and heard his
own voice, although it had an unfamiliar quality that almost alarmed him; it
disappointed his ear's expectancy in the matter of timbre and resonance. But he
was not deaf, and that for the moment sufficed.
Then he
remembered that there are natural phenomena to which someone has given the name
'acoustic shadows.' If you stand in an acoustic shadow there is one direction
from which you will hear nothing. At the
battle
of Gaines's Mill, one of the fiercest conflicts of the Civil War, with a
hundred guns in play, spectators
a mile
and a half away on the opposite side of the Chickahominy Valley heard nothing
of what they
clearly
saw. The bombardment of Port Royal, heard and felt at St.Augustine, a hundred
and fifty miles to the south, was inaudible two miles to the north in a still
atmosphere. A few days before the
surrender
at Appomattox a thunderous engagement between the commands of Sheridan and
Pickett was
unknown
to the latter commander, a mile in the rear of his own line.
These
instances were not known to the man of whom we write, but less striking ones of
the same character had not escaped his observation. He was profoundly
disquieted, but for another reason than the uncanny
silence
of that moonlight march.
'Good
Lord! ' he said to himself--and again it was as if another had spoken his
thought--'if those people are what I take them to be we have lost the battle
and they are moving on Nashville!'
Then
came a thought of self--an apprehension --a strong sense of personal peril,
such as in another we call fear. He stepped quickly into the shadow of a tree.
And still the silent battalions moved slowly
forward
in the haze.
The
chill of a sudden breeze upon the back of his neck drew his attention to the
quarter whence it came, and turning to the east he saw a faint grey light along
the horizon--the first sign of returning day.This increased his apprehension.
'I must
get away from here,' he thought, 'or I shall be discovered and taken.'
He
moved out of the shadow, walking rapidly toward the greying east. From the
safer seclusion of a clump of cedars he looked back. The entire column had
passed out of sight: the straight white road lay bare and
desolate
in the moonlight!
Puzzled
before, he was now inexpressibly astonished. So swift a passing of so slow an
army!--he could not comprehend it. Minute after minute passed unnoted; he had
lost his sense of time. He sought with a
terrible
earnestness a solution of the mystery, but sought in vain. When at last he
roused himself from his abstraction the sun's rim was visible above the hills,
but in the new conditions he found no other light
than
that of day; his understanding was involved as darkly in doubt as before.
On
every side lay cultivated fields showing no sign of war and war's ravages. From
the chimneys of the farmhouses thin ascensions of blue smoke signalled
preparations for a day's peaceful toil. Having stilled its immemorial
allocution to the moon, the watch-dog was assisting a negro who, prefixing a
team of mules to the plough, was flatting and sharping contentedly at his task.
The hero of this tale stared stupidly at the pastoral picture as if he had
never seen such a thing inall his life; then he put his hand to his head,
passed it through his
hair
and, withdrawing it, attentively considered the palm--a singular thing to do.
Apparently reassured by the act, he walked confidently toward the road.
2: When
You have Lost Your Life Consult a Physician
Dr.
Stilling Malson, of Murfreesboro, having visited a patient six or seven miles
away, on the Nash- ville road, had remained with him all night. At daybreak he
set out for home on horseback, as was the custom
of
doctors of the time and region. He had passed into the neighbourhood of Stone's
River battlefield when a man approached him from the roadside and saluted in
the military fashion, with a movement of the right
hand to
the hat-brim. But the hat was not a military hat, the man was not in uniform
and had not a martial bearing. The doctor nodded civilly, half thinking that
the stranger's uncommon greeting was
perhaps
in deference to the historic surroundings. As the stranger evidently desired
speech with him he courteously reined in his horse and waited.
'Sir,'
said the stranger, 'although a civilian, you are perhaps an enemy.'
'I am a
physician,' was the non-committal reply.
'Thank
you,' said the other. 'I am a lieutenant, of the staff of General Hazen.' He
paused a moment and looked sharply at the person whom he was addressing, then
added, 'Of the Federal army.' The physician
merely
nodded.
'Kindly
tell me,' continued the other, 'what has happened here. Where are the armies?
Which has won
the
battle?'
The
physician regarded his questioner curiously with half-shut eyes. After a
professional scrutiny, prolonged
to the
limit of politeness, 'Pardon me,' he said; 'one asking information should be
willing to
impart
it. Are you wounded?' he added, smiling.
'Not
seriously--it seems.'
The man
removed the unmilitary hat, put his hand to his head, passed it through his
hair and, withdrawing it, attentively considered the palm.
'I was
struck by a bullet and have been unconscious. It must have been a light,
glancing blow: I find no blood and feel no pain. I will not trouble you for
treatment, but will you kindly direct me to my command--to any part of the
Federal army--if you know?'
Again
the doctor did not immediately reply: he was recalling much that is recorded in
the books of his profession--something about lost identity and the effect of
familiar scenes in restoring it. At length he looked the man in the face,
smiled, and said:
'Lieutenant,
you are not wearing the uniform of your rank and service.'
At this
the man glanced down at his civilian attire, lifted his eyes, and said with
hesitation:
'That
is true. I--I don't quite understand.'
Still
regarding him sharply but not unsympathetically, the man of science bluntly
inquired:
'How
old are you?'
'Twenty-three--if
that has anything to do with it.'
'You
don't look it; I should hardly have guessed you to be just that.'
The man
was growing impatient. 'We need not discuss that,' he said: 'I want to know
about the army. Not two hours ago I saw a column of troops moving northward on
this road. You must have met them. Be good
enough
to tell me the colour of their clothing, which I was unable to make out, and
I'll trouble you no more.'
'You are quite sure that you saw
them?'
'Sure? My God, sir, I could have
counted them!'
'Why,
really,' said the physician, with an amusing consciousness of his own resemblance
to the loquacious barber of the Arabian Nights, 'this is very interesting. I
met no troops.'
The man
looked at him coldly, as if he had himself observed the likeness to the barber.
'It is plain,' he said, 'that you do not care to assist me. Sir, you may go to
the devil!'
He
turned and strode away, very much at random, across the dewy fields, his
half-penitent tormentor quietly watching him from his point of vantage in the
saddle till he disappeared beyond an array of
trees.
3: The
Danger of Looking into a Pool of Water
After
leaving the road the man slackened his pace, and now went forward, rather
deviously, with a distinct feeling of fatigue. He could not account for this,
though truly the interminable loquacity of that country doctor offered itself
in explanation. Seating himself upon a rock, he laid one hand upon his knee, back
upward, and casually looked at it. It was lean and withered. He lifted both
hands to his face. It was seamed and furrowed; he could trace the lines with
the tips of his fingers. How strange!--a mere bullet-stroke and a brief
unconsciousness
should
not make one a physical wreck.
'I must
have been a long time in hospital,' he said aloud. 'Why, what a fool I am! The
battle was in December, and it is now summer!' He laughed. 'No wonder that fellow
thought me an escaped lunatic. He was wrong: I am only an escaped patient.'
At a
little distance a small plot of ground enclosed by a stone wall caught his
attention. With no very definite intent he rose and went to it. In the centre
was a square, solid monument of hewn stone. It was brown with age, weather-worn
at the angles, spotted with moss and lichen. Between the massive blocks were strips
of grass the leverage of whose roots had pushed them apart. In answer to the challenge
of this ambitious structure Time had laid his destroying hand upon it, and it would
soon be 'one with Nineveh and Tyre.' In an inscription on one side
his eye
caught a familiar name. Shaking with excitement, he craned his body across the
wall and read:
HAZEN'S BRIGADE
to
The Memory of Its Soldiers
who fell at Stone River, Dec. 31,
1862.
The man
fell back from the wall, faint and sick. Almost within an arm's length was a
little depression in the earth; it had been filled by a recent rain--a pool of
clear water. He crept to it to revive himself, lifted the upper part of his
body on his trembling arms, thrust forward his head and saw the reflection of
his face, as in a mirror. He uttered a terrible cry. His arms gave way; he fell,
face downward, into the pool and yielded up the life that had spanned another
life.
www.world-english.org
Respects to Ambrose Bierce and grateful thanks to www.world-english.org.
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