The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce — Volume 2: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians

by Ambrose Bierce

  THE MAN AND THE SNAKE

  It is of veritabyll report, and attested of so many that there be nowe of wyse and learned none to gaynsaye it, that y'e serpente hys eye hath a magnetick propertie that whosoe falleth into its svasion is drawn forwards in despyte of his wille, and perisheth miserabyll by y'e creature hys byte.

  Stretched at ease upon a sofa, in gown and slippers, Harker Braytonsmiled as he read the foregoing sentence in old Morryster's _Marvells ofScience._ "The only marvel in the matter," he said to himself, "is thatthe wise and learned in Morryster's day should have believed suchnonsense as is rejected by most of even the ignorant in ours." A trainof reflection followed--for Brayton was a man of thought--and heunconsciously lowered his book without altering the direction of hiseyes. As soon as the volume had gone below the line of sight, somethingin an obscure corner of the room recalled his attention to hissurroundings. What he saw, in the shadow under his bed, was two smallpoints of light, apparently about an inch apart. They might have beenreflections of the gas jet above him, in metal nail heads; he gave thembut little thought and resumed his reading. A moment later something--some impulse which it did not occur to him to analyze--impelled him tolower the book again and seek for what he saw before. The points oflight were still there. They seemed to have become brighter than before,shining with a greenish lustre that he had not at first observed. Hethought, too, that they might have moved a trifle--were somewhat nearer.They were still too much in shadow, however, to reveal their nature andorigin to an indolent attention, and again he resumed his reading.Suddenly something in the text suggested a thought that made him startand drop the book for the third time to the side of the sofa, whence,escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling to the floor, back upward.Brayton, half-risen, was staring intently into the obscurity beneath thebed, where the points of light shone with, it seemed to him, an addedfire. His attention was now fully aroused, his gaze eager andimperative. It disclosed, almost directly under the foot-rail of thebed, the coils of a large serpent--the points of light were its eyes!Its horrible head, thrust flatly forth from the innermost coil andresting upon the outermost, was directed straight toward him, thedefinition of the wide, brutal jaw and the idiot-like forehead servingto show the direction of its malevolent gaze. The eyes were no longermerely luminous points; they looked into his own with a meaning, amalign significance.

  II

  A snake in a bedroom of a modern city dwelling of the better sort is,happily, not so common a phenomenon as to make explanation altogetherneedless. Harker Brayton, a bachelor of thirty-five, a scholar, idlerand something of an athlete, rich, popular and of sound health, hadreturned to San Francisco from all manner of remote and unfamiliarcountries. His tastes, always a trifle luxurious, had taken on an addedexuberance from long privation; and the resources of even the CastleHotel being inadequate to their perfect gratification, he had gladlyaccepted the hospitality of his friend, Dr. Druring, the distinguishedscientist. Dr. Druring's house, a large, old-fashioned one in what isnow an obscure quarter of the city, had an outer and visible aspect ofproud reserve. It plainly would not associate with the contiguouselements of its altered environment, and appeared to have developed someof the eccentricities which come of isolation. One of these was a"wing," conspicuously irrelevant in point of architecture, and no lessrebellious in matter of purpose; for it was a combination of laboratory,menagerie and museum. It was here that the doctor indulged thescientific side of his nature in the study of such forms of animal lifeas engaged his interest and comforted his taste--which, it must beconfessed, ran rather to the lower types. For one of the higher nimblyand sweetly to recommend itself unto his gentle senses it had at leastto retain certain rudimentary characteristics allying it to such"dragons of the prime" as toads and snakes. His scientific sympathieswere distinctly reptilian; he loved nature's vulgarians and describedhimself as the Zola of zooelogy. His wife and daughters not having theadvantage to share his enlightened curiosity regarding the works andways of our ill-starred fellow-creatures, were with needless austerityexcluded from what he called the Snakery and doomed to companionshipwith their own kind, though to soften the rigors of their lot he hadpermitted them out of his great wealth to outdo the reptiles in thegorgeousness of their surroundings and to shine with a superiorsplendor.

  Architecturally and in point of "furnishing" the Snakery had a severesimplicity befitting the humble circumstances of its occupants, many ofwhom, indeed, could not safely have been intrusted with the liberty thatis necessary to the full enjoyment of luxury, for they had thetroublesome peculiarity of being alive. In their own apartments,however, they were under as little personal restraint as was compatiblewith their protection from the baneful habit of swallowing one another;and, as Brayton had thoughtfully been apprised, it was more than atradition that some of them had at divers times been found in parts ofthe premises where it would have embarrassed them to explain theirpresence. Despite the Snakery and its uncanny associations--to which,indeed, he gave little attention--Brayton found life at the Druringmansion very much to his mind.

  III

  Beyond a smart shock of surprise and a shudder of mere loathing Mr.Brayton was not greatly affected. His first thought was to ring the callbell and bring a servant; but although the bell cord dangled within easyreach he made no movement toward it; it had occurred to his mind thatthe act might subject him to the suspicion of fear, which he certainlydid not feel. He was more keenly conscious of the incongruous nature ofthe situation than affected by its perils; it was revolting, but absurd.

  The reptile was of a species with which Brayton was unfamiliar. Itslength he could only conjecture; the body at the largest visible partseemed about as thick as his forearm. In what way was it dangerous, ifin any way? Was it venomous? Was it a constrictor? His knowledge ofnature's danger signals did not enable him to say; he had neverdeciphered the code.

  If not dangerous the creature was at least offensive. It was _de trop_--"matter out of place"--an impertinence. The gem was unworthy of thesetting. Even the barbarous taste of our time and country, which hadloaded the walls of the room with pictures, the floor with furniture andthe furniture with bric-a-brac, had not quite fitted the place for thisbit of the savage life of the jungle. Besides--insupportable thought!--the exhalations of its breath mingled with the atmosphere which hehimself was breathing.

  These thoughts shaped themselves with greater or less definition inBrayton's mind and begot action. The process is what we callconsideration and decision. It is thus that we are wise and unwise. Itis thus that the withered leaf in an autumn breeze shows greater or lessintelligence than its fellows, falling upon the land or upon the lake.The secret of human action is an open one: something contracts ourmuscles. Does it matter if we give to the preparatory molecular changesthe name of will?

  Brayton rose to his feet and prepared to back softly away from thesnake, without disturbing it if possible, and through the door. Menretire so from the presence of the great, for greatness is power andpower is a menace. He knew that he could walk backward without error.Should the monster follow, the taste which had plastered the walls withpaintings had consistently supplied a rack of murderous Oriental weaponsfrom which he could snatch one to suit the occasion. In the mean timethe snake's eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than before.

  Brayton lifted his right foot free of the floor to step backward. Thatmoment he felt a strong aversion to doing so.

  "I am accounted brave," he thought; "is bravery, then, no more thanpride? Because there are none to witness the shame shall I retreat?"

  He was steadying himself with his right hand upon the back of a chair,his foot suspended.

  "Nonsense!" he said aloud; "I am not so great a coward as to fear toseem to myself afraid."

  He lifted the foot a little higher by slightly bending the knee andthrust it sharply to the floor--an inch in front of the other! He couldnot think how that occurred. A trial with the left foot had the sameresult; it was again in advance of the right.
The hand upon the chairback was grasping it; the arm was straight, reaching somewhat backward.One might have said that he was reluctant to lose his hold. The snake'smalignant head was still thrust forth from the inner coil as before, theneck level. It had not moved, but its eyes were now electric sparks,radiating an infinity of luminous needles.

  The man had an ashy pallor. Again he took a step forward, and another,partly dragging the chair, which when finally released fell upon thefloor with a crash. The man groaned; the snake made neither sound normotion, but its eyes were two dazzling suns. The reptile itself waswholly concealed by them. They gave off enlarging rings of rich andvivid colors, which at their greatest expansion successively vanishedlike soap-bubbles; they seemed to approach his very face, and anon werean immeasurable distance away. He heard, somewhere, the continuousthrobbing of a great drum, with desultory bursts of far music,inconceivably sweet, like the tones of an aeolian harp. He knew it forthe sunrise melody of Memnon's statue, and thought he stood in theNileside reeds hearing with exalted sense that immortal anthem throughthe silence of the centuries.

  The music ceased; rather, it became by insensible degrees the distantroll of a retreating thunder-storm. A landscape, glittering with sun andrain, stretched before him, arched with a vivid rainbow framing in itsgiant curve a hundred visible cities. In the middle distance a vastserpent, wearing a crown, reared its head out of its voluminousconvolutions and looked at him with his dead mother's eyes. Suddenlythis enchanting landscape seemed to rise swiftly upward like the dropscene at a theatre, and vanished in a blank. Something struck him a hardblow upon the face and breast. He had fallen to the floor; the blood ranfrom his broken nose and his bruised lips. For a time he was dazed andstunned, and lay with closed eyes, his face against the floor. In a fewmoments he had recovered, and then knew that this fall, by withdrawinghis eyes, had broken the spell that held him. He felt that now, bykeeping his gaze averted, he would be able to retreat. But the thoughtof the serpent within a few feet of his head, yet unseen--perhaps in thevery act of springing upon him and throwing its coils about his throat--was too horrible! He lifted his head, stared again into those balefuleyes and was again in bondage.

  The snake had not moved and appeared somewhat to have lost its powerupon the imagination; the gorgeous illusions of a few moments beforewere not repeated. Beneath that flat and brainless brow its black, beadyeyes simply glittered as at first with an expression unspeakablymalignant. It was as if the creature, assured of its triumph, haddetermined to practise no more alluring wiles.

  Now ensued a fearful scene. The man, prone upon the floor, within a yardof his enemy, raised the upper part of his body upon his elbows, hishead thrown back, his legs extended to their full length. His face waswhite between its stains of blood; his eyes were strained open to theiruttermost expansion. There was froth upon his lips; it dropped off inflakes. Strong convulsions ran through his body, making almostserpentile undulations. He bent himself at the waist, shifting his legsfrom side to side. And every movement left him a little nearer to thesnake. He thrust his hands forward to brace himself back, yet constantlyadvanced upon his elbows.

  IV

  Dr. Druring and his wife sat in the library. The scientist was in raregood humor.

  "I have just obtained by exchange with another collector," he said, "asplendid specimen of the _ophiophagus_."

  "And what may that be?" the lady inquired with a somewhat languidinterest.

  "Why, bless my soul, what profound ignorance! My dear, a man whoascertains after marriage that his wife does not know Greek is entitledto a divorce. The _ophiophagus_ is a snake that eats other snakes."

  "I hope it will eat all yours," she said, absently shifting the lamp."But how does it get the other snakes? By charming them, I suppose."

  "That is just like you, dear," said the doctor, with an affectation ofpetulance. "You know how irritating to me is any allusion to that vulgarsuperstition about a snake's power of fascination."

  The conversation was interrupted by a mighty cry, which rang through thesilent house like the voice of a demon shouting in a tomb! Again and yetagain it sounded, with terrible distinctness. They sprang to their feet,the man confused, the lady pale and speechless with fright. Almostbefore the echoes of the last cry had died away the doctor was out ofthe room, springing up the stairs two steps at a time. In the corridorin front of Brayton's chamber he met some servants who had come from theupper floor. Together they rushed at the door without knocking. It wasunfastened and gave way. Brayton lay upon his stomach on the floor,dead. His head and arms were partly concealed under the foot rail of thebed. They pulled the body away, turning it upon the back. The face wasdaubed with blood and froth, the eyes were wide open, staring--adreadful sight!

  "Died in a fit," said the scientist, bending his knee and placing hishand upon the heart. While in that position, he chanced to look underthe bed. "Good God!" he added, "how did this thing get in here?"

  He reached under the bed, pulled out the snake and flung it, stillcoiled, to the center of the room, whence with a harsh, shuffling soundit slid across the polished floor till stopped by the wall, where it laywithout motion. It was a stuffed snake; its eyes were two shoe buttons.