A DOUBLE
"One of these men is genius to the other;
And so of these: which is the natural man,
And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?"
--SHAKESPEARE.
The Doctor was before me. I saw a woman by his side. She was his daughter. I know her name--Lydia.
Where were they now? Where were they ever? Her face was full of sweetness and dignity--yes, and care. It would have been the face of my fancy, but for the look of care.
Unutterable yearning came upon me. I could not see the trees on the bank of the river.
For an instant I had remained without motion, without breath. Now I felt that I must move or die.
I rose and began to stamp my feet, which seemed asleep. Peculiar physical sensations shot through my limbs. I felt drunk, and leaned on my rifle. My hands were one upon the other upon the muzzle, my chin resting on my hands, my eyes to the north star, seeing nothing.
Nothing? Yes; beyond that nothing I saw a vision--a vision of paradise.
The vision changed. I saw two men in gray running across a bare hill; a shell burst over their heads; one threw up his hands violently, and fell. The picture vanished.
Another picture was before me. The man--not the one who had fallen--was making his painful way alone in the night; he went on and on until he was swallowed by the darkness.
Again he appeared to me. He was sitting in a tent; an officer in blue uniform was showing him a map. I could see the face of neither officer nor man; both were in blue.
Farther back into the past, seemingly, this man was pushed. I saw him standing on a shore, with Dr. Khayme and Lydia. I saw him sick in a tent, and Dr. Khayme by him--yes, and Lydia.
Still further the scene shifts back. I see the man in blue helping another man to walk. They go down into a wood and hide themselves in a secret place. I can see the spot; I know it; it is the place I saw at Manassas. The man helps his companion. The man breaks his gun. The two go away.
So, after all, that gun at Manassas had never been mine; it had belonged to this man.
Who was this man?
A soldier, evidently.
What was his name?
I did not know.
Why did he sometimes wear a blue uniform?
He must be a Confederate spy; of course he is a Confederate spy.
My memory refused to abandon this man. I had known that I should recover the Doctor, and I had supposed that the Doctor's name would be the key to unlock all the past, so that my memory would be suddenly complete and continuous, but now I found the Doctor supplanted by a strange man whose name even I did not know, and who acted mysteriously, sometimes seeming to be a Confederate and at other times a Federal. I must exert my will and get rid of this man: he disturbs me; he is not real, perhaps. I have eaten nothing; I have fever; perhaps this man is a creation of my fever. I will get rid of him.
I forced the Doctor to appear. This time he was sitting in an ambulance, but not alone. The man was with him. I banished the picture, and tried again.
Another scene. The Doctor, and the man, and Willis lying hidden in a straw stack. Ah! Willis! That name has come back.
Who is Willis?
I do not know; only Willis.
It is a mistake to be following up the man. Can I not recall the Doctor without this disturbing shape? I try hard, and the Doctor's face flits by and vanishes before I can even tell its outline.
I forced the Doctor to appear and reappear; but he would remain an instant only and be gone; instead of him, this strange man persisted, and contrary to my will.
My heart misgave me. Had I been following a delusion? Was there no Dr. Khayme, after all, and worse than that, no Lydia? Her face was again before me. That look of care--or worse than care, anxiety--could it be mere fancy? No; the face was the face of my fancy, but the look was its own. I recognized the face, but the expression was not due to my thought or to my error; it was independent of me.
I saw the Doctor and Lydia and Willis and the Man! Always the Man! Lydia, even, could not lay the ghost of the strange Man who sometimes wore blue and sometimes gray.
Night fell. I was posted as a vedette near the river. There was nothing in my front. The stars came out and the moon. I thought of the moon at Chancellorsville, and of the moon at Gettysburg, and of my Captain, lying in a soldier's grave in the far-off land of the enemy. My brain was not clear. I had a buzzing in my ears. I doubted all reality. My fancy bounded from this to that. My nerves were all unstrung. I felt upon the boundary edge of heaven and hell. I knew enough to craze me should I learn no more. I watched the moon; it took the form of Lydia's face; a tree became the strange Man who would not forsake me.
Who was the Man? He gave no clew to his identity. He was mysterious. His acts were irregular. He must be imaginary only. The others are real. I know the Doctor and his name. I know Lydia and her name. I know Willis and his name. The Man's face and name are unknown; yet does he come unbidden and uppermost and always.
I made an effort to begin at the end of my memory and go back. I retraced our present march--then back to the Valley--then Falling Waters--Hagerstown--Gettysburg--the march into Pennsylvania--Chancellorsville--illness--the march to Fredericksburg--Shepherdstown--Sharpsburg--Harper's Ferry--Manassas--the SPOT, with a broken gun and with Willis--Ah! a new thought, at which I stagger for an instant--then my wound at Gaines's Mill--then Dr. Frost, and that is all.
But I have a new discovery: Willis was the injured man at second Manassas.
But no; that could not be second Manassas--it was first Manassas.
Distinctly Willis was shot at first Manassas; the Man helped Willis. Why should he help Willis?
Another and puzzling thought: How should I know Willis--a Yankee soldier?
I know his face and I know his name.
I must hunt this thought down.
Is it that I have heard this story? Not in my present time of experience. Is it that Willis was made prisoner that day--he and his companion, there in the woods? It might have been so.
But did I not see the strange man break his gun and go away from the spot? He was not captured.
Yet I may have been hidden in the woods near by, watching these two men. I must try to remember whether I saw what became of them.
Then I imagine myself hidden behind a log. I watch the strange man; he binds up Willis's leg. I see him help the sergeant--there! again a thought--Willis was a sergeant. Why could I not see that before--with the stripes on his arm? Of course hidden near by I could see that Willis was a sergeant; but how could I know that his name was Willis? Possibly I heard the strange man call him Jake--So! again it comes. I have the full name.
But I must follow them if I can. The strange man helps Willis to rise, and puts his gun under the sergeant's shoulder for a crutch, and helps him on the other side. They begin to move, but Willis drops the gun, for it sinks into the soft ground, and is useless. Then the strange man breaks his gun and the two go away. I see them moving slowly through the woods--but strange! they are no farther from me than before. I must have really followed them that day. They go on and get into the creek, and climb with difficulty the farther bank, and rest. Again they start--they reach a stubble field; I see some straw stacks; the strange man kneels by one of the stacks and works a hollow; he tells Willis to lie down; then he speaks to Willis again, and I can hear every word he says: he tells Willis to go to sleep; that he will try to get help; that if he does not return by noon to-morrow, Willis must look out for himself--maybe he'd better surrender. And Willis says, "God bless you, Jones."
And now I have the man's name, Jones--a name common enough.
I must hunt this Jones down--where have I known a Jones? But I must not now be diverted by him; I must stick to Willis.
Then I watch Willis, but only for an instant; I feel entrained by Jones, and I go with Jones even though I want to see what becomes of Willis.
It gets dark, yet I can see Jones. He goes rapidly, though I feel that he is weary. He stands on a narrow road, and I hear sounds of rattling harness, and he sees a wagon moving. He stops and looks at the wagon; I see a man get out of the wagon--a very small man; the man says, "Is that you, Jones?" Then I wonder who this man is, and though I wonder I yet know that he is Dr. Khayme. Jones sinks to the ground; the Doctor calls for brandy. Then the Doctor and Jones and the wagon turn, round in my head and all vanish, and I find myself a vedette on the North Fork of the Rappahannock, and pull myself together with a jerk.
It had been vivid, intense, real. I did not understand it, but I could not doubt it.
The relief came, and I went back to the picket-line and took my place near the right of Company H.
What next? I had come to a stop. Jones had fallen to the ground, and that was as far as I could get. What had happened to him after that?
My interest in Jones had deepened. I had tried to get rid of him and failed; now, when he disappeared of himself, I tried to see him, and failed. I wish to say that my memory served me no longer in regard to Jones. There was a blank--a blank in regard to Jones and in regard to myself also. I had got to the end of that experience, for I had no doubt that it was an experience of my own in some incomprehensible connection with Jones.
Then I return to Willis again--and, wonder of wonders, I see Jones and Dr. Khayme with Willis at the straw. There is another man also. Who is he? I do not know. He and Jones lift Willis into an ambulance, and all go away into darkness.
My mind was now in a tangle. Jones had abandoned Willis, yet had not abandoned him. Which of the two incidents was true? Neither? Both? If both, which followed the other? I did not know.
I try to follow Willis; I cannot. I try to follow Dr. Khayme; I fail. I had tried to follow Jones, and had succeeded in a measure; I try again, and fail.
Now I see this fact, which seems to me remarkable: I cannot remember Willis or the Doctor alone--Jones is always present.
Jones--Jones--where have I known a man named Jones? Jones, the corporal in Company H, was killed at Gettysburg; he is the only Jones I can recall. Yet I must have had relations with a different Jones; who was he? I must try to get him.
The Doctor's face again; Jones, too, is there. Jones is with the Doctor in a tent at night, and they are getting ready--getting ready for what? A package has been made. They are talking. The lights are put out and I lose the Doctor, but I can yet see Jones. In the dim light of the stars he comes out of the tent; a man on a horse is near; he holds another horse, ready saddled. Jones mounts, and the two ride away. And I hear Jones ask, "What is your name?" and I hear the man reply, "Jones."
What folly!
But the other Jones asks also, "Don't you know me?" and then another picture comes before me, but dimly, for it seems almost in the night: Jones--this new Jones--is standing near a prostrate horse as black as jet and is prisoner in the hands of Union men, and the other Jones is there, too, and I see that he is joyful that Jones is caught. What utter folly! Is everybody to be named Jones? I have followed one Jones and have found two--possibly three. Who is the true Jones? Is there any true Jones? Has my fevered brain but conjured up a picture, or series of pictures, of events that never had existence? Why should one Jones be glad that another Jones was caught? I give up this new Jones.
Now I was thinking without method--in a daze. Every line had resulted in an end beyond which was a blank, or else confusion. I gave myself up to mere revery.
Somehow, I had trust; I felt that I was at a beginning which was also an end. I had come far. I had recovered the name of Dr. Khayme, and of Lydia, of Sergeant Jake Willis, of Jones, with possibly another Jones; with these names I ought to work out the whole enigma. I knew that Jones was the man who had broken his gun; the man who had helped Willis; the man who had been under the bursting shell on the hill. Yes, and another thought,--the man who had been wounded there.
I knew that Lydia was the Doctor's daughter. A few more relations found would untangle everything. But how to find more? I must think. Yet thinking seemed weak. I believed that if I could quit thinking, the thing would come of itself. Yet how to quit thinking? I remembered that I had received lessons upon the power of the will from Captain Haskell and ... from ... somebody ... who?--Why, Doctor Khayme, of course.
And now another new thought, or fancy. What relation, if any, could there be between the Captain and the Doctor? In a confused way I groped in the tangle of this question until I became completely lost again, having gained, however, the knowledge that Dr. Khayme had taught me concerning the will.
I lay back and closed my eyes, to try to banish thought; the effort was vain. I opened my eyes, and dreamed. I could recall the Doctor's dark face, his large brow, his bright eyes, and a pipe--yes, a pipe, with its carven bowl showing a strange head; and I could recall more easily the Captain's long jaw, and triangle of a face, and even the slight lisp with which he spoke. What relationship had these two men? If Captain Haskell had ever known Dr. Khayme, should I not have heard him speak of the Doctor? I had known the Captain since I had known the Doctor; where had I known the Doctor? Where had I known him first? He had been my teacher. Where? I remembered--in Charleston! But why does the Doctor associate with Willis, who is distinctly a Federal soldier, and with Jones, who is sometimes a Federal? I can see the Doctor in an ambulance--and in a tent; he must be a surgeon.
Ah! yes; Willis is a prisoner, after all, and in the Confederate hospital.
The thought of a possible relationship between the Doctor and the Captain continued to come. Why should I think of such a possibility? My brain became clearer. My people must be in Charleston. The Captain may have known the Doctor in Charleston. They may have been friends. They talked of similar subjects--at least, they had views which affected me similarly. Yet that might mean nothing. I tried to give up the thought.
Again the Doctor's face, and the Captain. For one short instant these two men seemed to me to be at once identical and separate--even opposite. How preposterous! Yet at the same moment I remembered that the Captain once had said he was not sure that there was such a condition as absolute individuality. Preposterous or not, the thought, gone at once, had brought another in its train: I had never seen these two men together, and I had never seen the Doctor without Jones. Wherever the Doctor was, there was Jones also. Here came again the former glimmering notion of double and even opposite identity. Was Jones two? He was seemingly a Federal and a Confederate. I had supposed, weakly, that he was a Confederate spy in a Federal uniform; but his conduct at Manassas had not borne out the supposition. He had even broken his gun rather than have it fall into the hands of Confederates, and had helped a wounded Federal. Yet, again, that conduct might have been part of a very deep plan. What plan? To deceive the enemy so fully that he would be received everywhere as one of them? Yes; or rather to act in entire conformity with his supposed character. He must always act the complete Federal when with federals, so that no suspicion should attach to him. No doubt he had remained in the Federal camp until he had got the information needed, and had returned to the Confederates before he had been wounded by the shell.
So, all these fancies had resulted in worse than nothing; every effort I had made, on these lines, had but entangled me more. That Jones was a Confederate spy, was highly probable; this absurd notion of a double had drawn me away from the right track; he was a double, it is true, but only on the surface; he was a Confederate acting the Federal.
Jones interests me intensely. There is something extraordinary about him. No man that I ever saw or heard of seems to possess his capacity to interest me. Yet his only peculiarity is that he changes clothing. No, not his only one; he has another: he is absolutely ubiquitous.
That he has some close relationship with me is clear. Why clear? Just because I cannot get rid of him? Is that a reason? Nothing is clear. My head is not clear. All this mysterious Jones matter may be delusion. Dr. Khayme is fact, and Lydia is fact, and Willis; but as to this Jones, or these Joneses, I doubt. Doubt is not relief. Jones remains. Wherever I turn I find him. He will not down. If he is a fact, he must be the most important person related to my life. More so than Lydia?
What is Jones to me? My mind confesses defeat and struggles none the less. Could he be a brother? Can it be possible, after all, that my name is B. Jones? Anything seems possible. Yet a thought shows me that this supposition is untenable. If I am Berwick Jones, and the spy was my brother, I should have heard of him long ago.
Why? why should I hear of him, when I could not hear of myself? The Confederate army may have had a score of spies named Jones, and I had never heard of one of them.
But if he had been my brother, he would have hunted me, and would have found me! That was it.
This thought was more reasonable--but ... he might have been killed!
He must have been killed by the shell on the hill ... yes ... that is why I can trace him no farther. I have never seen him since. Why had I at first assumed that he had been wounded only? I see that I assumed too much--or too little. I had seen him under the fire, and had seen him no more; that was all.
Yet I knew absolutely and strangely that Jones had not been killed.
It is certain that the memory, in retracing a succession of events, does not voluntarily take the back track; it goes over the ground again, just as the events succeeded, from antecedent to consequent, rather than backward. It is more difficult--leaving memory aside--to take present conditions and discover the unknown which evolved these conditions, than to take present conditions and show what will be evolved from them. Of course, if we already know what preceded these conditions, there is no discovery to be claimed--and that is what I am saying: that with our knowledge of the present, the future is not a discovery; it is a mere development naturally augured from the present. An incapable general means defeat, but defeat does not imply an incapable general.
Now, I had been trying to begin with Jones on the bare hill where I had seen him latest, and to go back, but my efforts had only proved the truth of the foregoing. I had only jumped back a considerable distance, and from the past had followed Jones forward as well as my imperfect powers permitted; again I had jumped back and had followed him until he met the Doctor in the night. The episode of lifting Willis into the ambulance seemed a separate event of very short duration. My mind had unconsciously appreciated the difficulty of working backward, and had in reality endeavoured to avoid that almost impossible process by dividing Jones into several periods and following the events of each period in order of time and succession. I now, without having willed to think it, became conscious of this difficulty, and I yielded at once to suggestion. I would begin anew, and would help the natural process.
First I tried to sum up results. I found these: first, Jones, in blue, helps another man in blue and I follow him until I lose him when he reaches the Doctor. Second, Jones, in blue, and the Doctor come to Willis again--and then I lose Jones and all of them. Third, Jones--alone and in gray--is in the act of falling, with a shell bursting over him, and I lose him.
I had no doubt of the order in which these events had occurred, and none, whatever of the fact that all of Jones's life had been lost to me, if not indeed to himself, when I saw him fall. Now I wanted to find connecting events; I wanted to know how to join the Jones at the secret place in the woods with the Jones that I had seen fall, and I set my memory to work, but obtained nothing. The scene on the hill seemed unrelated to that of Willis.
There was remembrance, it is true, of Jones walking through a forest at night, but the scene was so indistinct that I could make nothing out of it; I could not decide even whether it had occurred before the time of Manassas. Then, too, there was recollection of Jonas in a tent, and of an officer in blue showing him a map, and I could also remember that I had seen or heard that Jones had been on a shore with the Doctor and Lydia. These events had no connection. Between Jones in blue and Jones in gray there were gaps which I could not cross.
Yet I set myself diligently to the task of joining these events with the more important ones; taxing my memory, diving into the past, hunting for the slightest clews.
And there was another event, farther back seemingly in the dim past, that I could faintly recall--Jones, sick in a tent with the Doctor attending him ... yes, and some one else in the tent. I strained my head to recall this scene more clearly. In this case Jones had no uniform; neither did the others wear uniform. And now a new doubt--why in a tent and without uniform?
For a moment I tried to settle this question by answering that the Confederate troops had not been provided with uniforms at so early a period; but the answer proved unsatisfactory. I knew or felt that Doctor Khayme's relationship with me was so near that, had he been a Confederate surgeon, he would have found me long since.
Yet the Doctor might be dead, as well as Jones, was the thought which followed.
But I knew again that Jones was still alive. How I knew it, I could not have told, but I knew it.
Then, too, there was a strange feeling of something like intuition in my knowing that Jones was sick--why should Jones not be wounded rather than sick? How could I know that this scene in the tent was not the sequence of the scene of the bursting shell? But I say that I knew Jones was sick, and not wounded. How could I know this?
And there was yet a third instance of unreasoning knowledge--I knew that Jones was in gray in the night and in a dense forest.
I examined myself to see whether I believed in intuition, and I reached the conclusion that only one of these events was an instance of knowledge without a foundation in reason. I knew that Jones was in gray in the dark night. Had I been told so? Had he told me so? I knew that he had been sick. Had he told me so? In any case, I knew these things and knew that my knowledge was simple. But how could I know that Jones was now alive?
Why should Jones be alive? The only answer I could then make was, that I felt sure of the fact. I had no reason to advance to myself for this knowledge, or feeling. I felt that it was more than intuition. I felt that it was experience, not the experience of sight or hearing or any of the senses, but experience nevertheless--subconscious, if you wish to call it so in these days. Though the experience was inexplicable, it was none the less valid. I wondered at myself for thinking this, yet I did not doubt. There are many avenues to the soul. To know that a man is alive, seeing him walk is not essential, nor hearing him speak, nor touching his beating pulse; he may be motionless and dumb, yet will he have the life of expression and intelligence in his face. Communication between mind and mind does not depend on nearness or direction. But I saw no face. Intelligence resides not in feature; the change of feature is but one of its myriad effects. The mind of the world affects every individual mind ... where did I hear such an idea advanced? From whom? Dr. Khayme, beyond a doubt.
I was sure of it. And then opened before me a page, and many pages, of the past, in which I read the Doctor's philosophy.
I remembered his opinions ... he was a disbeliever in war ... why, then, was he in the army?
Perhaps he was not in the army. Yet was he not doing service as a surgeon? Was he not attending to Jones, sick in a tent? But the tent itself did not prove the existence of an army. The Doctor wore no uniform.
But a tent is strong presumption of an army. Was the Doctor a surgeon? And the ambulance ... the tent coupled with the ambulance made the army almost certain. And Jones and Willis, both soldiers, assisted by the Doctor ... yes, the Doctor must be an army surgeon, although he wears no uniform. Perhaps he wears uniform only on occasions; when at work at his calling he puts it off.
I have gained a position, from which I must examine everything anew--in a new light.
I consider the Doctor a surgeon in the army. Why has he not found me? Again comes that thought of double personality, and this time it will not down so easily. I can remember the Doctor's utterances upon the universal mind, and upon the power of the will. I can remember that I had almost feared him ... and suddenly I remember that Willis had said that the Doctor could read the mind ... WHAT! WHO? I? JONES?
My brain reeled. I was faint and dizzy. If the order to march had come, I could not have moved.
What was this new and strange knowledge? How had it come? I had simply remembered that Willis had told Jones that the Doctor could tell what another man was thinking, and I had known that Willis had spoken the words to ME!
Then I was Jones. No wonder I could not get rid of him, for he had my mind in his body. One mind in two bodies? How could that be? But I remember that the Captain warned me against attributing to mind extension or divisibility or any property of matter. I am a double--perhaps more. Who knows but that the relation of mind with mind is the relation of unity? It must be so. I can see that I am Jones. No wonder that I felt tired when he was weary; no wonder that I knew he wore gray in the night; no wonder that I knew he was not dead.
Yes, the broken gun was mine; I have been a Confederate spy. I am Jones Berwick and I am Berwick Jones.