A resumed identity
I--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. Endeavoring 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 gray 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 some one
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 gray 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 graying 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 signaled 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 plow, 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 in all 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.
II--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 Nashville 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
neighborhood 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 color 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.
III--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 center 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:
-THE END-
Ambrose Bierce's short story: A resumed identity
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