Black Beetles in Amber

by Ambrose Bierce

METEMPSYCHOSIS

DRAMATIS PERSONF.
ST. JOHN a Presidential Candidate MCDONALD a Defeated Aspirant MRS. HAYES an Ex-President PITTS-STEVENS a Water Nymph
Scene—A Small Lake in the Alleghany Mountains.
ST. JOHN:
Hours I've immersed my muzzle in this tarn
And, quaffing copious potations, tried
To suck it dry; but ever as I pumped
Its waters into my distended skin
The labor of my zeal extruded them
In perspiration from my pores; and so,
Rilling the marginal declivity,
They fell again into their source. Ah, me!
Could I but find within these ancient hills
Some long extinct volcano, by the rains
Of countless ages in its crater brimmed
Like a full goblet, I would lay me down
Prone on the outer slope, and o'er its edge
Arching my neck, I'd siphon out its store
And flood the valleys with my sweat for aye.
So should I be accounted as a god,
Even as Father Nilus is. What's that?
Methought I heard some sawyer draw his file
With jarring, stridulous cacophany
Across his notchy blade, to set its teeth
And mine on edge. Ha! there it goes again!
Song, within.
Cold water's the milk of the mountains,
And Nature's our wet-nurse. O then,
Glue thou thy blue lips to her fountains
Forever and ever, amen!
ST. JOHN:
Why surely there's congenial company
Aloof—the spirit, I suppose, that guards
This sacred spot; perchance some water-nymph
Who laving in the crystal flood her limbs
Has taken cold, and so, with raucous voice
Afflicts the sensitive membrane of mine ear
The while she sings my sentiments.
(Enter Pitts-Stevens.) Hello!
What fiend is this?
PITTS-STEVENS:
'Tis I, be not afraid.
ST. JOHN:
And who, thou antiquated crone, art thou?
I ne'er forget a face, but names I can't
So well remember. I have seen thee oft.
When in the middle season of the night,
Curved with a cucumber, or knotted hard
With an eclectic pie, I've striven to keep
My head and heels asunder, thou has come,
With sociable familiarity,
Into my dream, but not, alas, to bless.
PITTS-STEVENS:
My name's Pitts-Stevens, age just seventeen years;
Talking teetotaler, professional
Beauty.
ST. JOHN:
What dost thou here?
PITTS-STEVENS:
I'm come, fair sir,
With paint and brush to blazon on these rocks
The merits of my master's nostrum—so:
(Paints rapidly.) "McDonald's Vinegar Bitters!"
ST. JOHN:
What are they?
PITTS-STEVENS:
A woman suffering from widowhood
Took a full bottle and was cured. A man
There was—a murderer; the doctors all
Had given him up—he'd but an hour to live.
He swallowed half a glassful. He is dead,
But not of Vinegar Bitters. A wee babe
Lay sick and cried for it. The mother gave
That innocent a spoonful and it smoothed
Its pathway to the tomb. 'Tis warranted
To cause a boy to strike his father, make
A pig squeal, start the hair upon a stone,
Or play the fiddle for a country dance.
(Enter McDonald, reading a Sunday-school book.) Good morrow, sir; I trust you're well.
MCDONALD:
H'lo, Pitts!
Observe, good friends, I have a volume here
Myself am author of—a noble book
To train the infant mind (delightful task!)
It tells how one Samantha Brown, age, six,
A gutter-bunking slave to rum, was saved
By Vinegar Bitters, went to church and now
Has an account at the Pacific Bank.
I'll read the whole work to you.
ST JOHN:
Heaven forbid!
I've elsewhere an engagement.
PITTS-STEVENS:
I am deaf.
MCDONALD (reading regardless):
"Once on a time there lived"——
(Enter Mrs. Hayes.) Behold our queen!
ALL:
Her eyes upon the ground
Before her feet she low'rs,
Walking, in thought profound,
As 'twere, upon all fours.
Her visage is austere,
Her gait a high parade;
At every step you hear
The sloshing lemonade!
MRS. HAYES (to herself):
Once, sitting in the White House, hard at work
Signing State papers (Rutherford was there,
Knitting some hose) a sudden glory fell
Upon my paper. I looked up and saw
An angel, holding in his hand a rod
Wherewith he struck me. Smarting with the blow
I rose and (cuffing Rutherford) inquired:
"Wherefore this chastisement?" The angel said:
"Four years you have been President, and still
There's rum!"—then flew to Heaven. Contrite, I swore
Such oath as lady Methodist might take,
My second term should medicine my first.
The people would not have it that way; so
I seek some candidate who'll take my soul—
My spirit of reform, fresh from my breast,
And give me his instead; and thus equipped
With my imperious and fiery essence,
Drive the Drink-Demon from the land and fill
The people up with water till their teeth
Are all afloat.
(St. John discovers himself.)
What, you?
ST. JOHN:
Aye, Madam, I'll
Swap souls with you and lead the cold sea-green
Amphibians of Prohibition on,
Pallid of nose and webbed of foot, swim-bladdered,
Gifted with gills, invincible!
MRS. HAYES:
Enough,
Stand forth and consummate the interchange.
(While McDonald and Pitts-Stevens modestly turn their
backs, the latter blushing a delicate shrimp-pink, St. John and
Mrs. Hayes effect an exchange of immortal parts. When the
transfer is complete McDonald turns and advances, uncorking
a bottle of Vinegar Bitters.)
MCDONALD (chanting):
Nectar compounded of simples
Cocted in Stygian shades—
Acids of wrinkles and pimples
From faces of ancient maids—
Acrid precipitates sunken
From tempers of scolding wives
Whose husbands, uncommonly drunken,
Are commonly found in dives,—
With this I baptize and appoint thee
(to St. John.)
To marshal the vinophobe ranks.
In the name of Dambosh I anoint thee
(pours the liquid down St. John's back.)
As King of aquatical cranks!
(The liquid blisters the royal back, and His Majesty starts
on a dead run, energetically exclaiming. Exit St. John.)
MRS. HAYES:
My soul! My soul! I'll never get it back
Unless I follow nimbly on his track.
(Exit Mrs. Hayes.)
PITTS-STEVENS:
O my! he's such a beautiful young man!
I'll follow, too, and catch him if I can.
(Exit Pitts-Stevens.)
MCDONALD:
He scarce is visible, his dust so great!
Methinks for so obscure a candidate
He runs quite well. But as for Prohibition—
I mean myself to hold the first position.
(Produces a pocket flask, topes a cruel quantity of double-distilled
thunder-and-lightning out of it, smiles so grimly as to
darken all the stage and sings):
Though fortunes vary let all be merry,
And then if e'er a disaster befall,
At Styx's ferry is Charon's wherry
In easy call.
Upon a ripple of golden tipple
That tipsy ship'll convey you best.
To king and cripple, the bottle's the nipple
Of Nature's breast!
(Curtain.)

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SLICKENS

DRAMATIS PERSONF.
HAYSEED a Granger NOZZLE a Miner RINGDIVVY a Statesman FEEGOBBLE a Lawyer JUNKET a Committee
Scene—Yuba Dam.
Feegobble, Ringdivvy, Nozzle.

NOZZLE:
My friends, since '51 I have pursued
The evil tenor of my watery way,
Removing hills as by an act of faith—
RINGDIVVY:
Just so; the steadfast faith of those who hold,
In foreign lands beyond the Eastern sea,
The shares in your concern—a simple, blind,
Unreasoning belief in dividends,
Still stimulated by assessments which,
When the skies fall, ensnaring all the larks,
Will bring, no doubt, a very great return.
ALL (singing):
O the beautiful assessment,
The exquisite assessment,
The regular assessment,
That makes the water flow.
RINGDIVVY:
The rascally-assessment!
FEEGOBBLE:
The murderous assessment!
NOZZLE:
The glorious assessment
That makes my mare to go!
FEEGOBBLE:
But, Nozzle, you, I think, were on the point
Of making a remark about some rights—
Some certain vested rights you have acquired
By long immunity; for still the law
Holds that if one do evil undisturbed
His right to do so ripens with the years;
And one may be a villain long enough
To make himself an honest gentleman.
ALL (singing):
Hail, holy law,
The soul with awe
Bows to thy dispensation.
NOZZLE:
It breaks my jaw!
RINGDIVVY:
It qualms my maw!
FEEGOBBLE:
It feeds my jaw,
It crams my maw,
It is my soul's salvation!
NOZZLE:
Why, yes, I've floated mountains to the sea
For lo! these many years; though some, they say,
Do strand themselves along the bottom lands
And cover up a village here and there,
And here and there a ranch. 'Tis said, indeed,
The granger with his female and his young
Do not infrequently go to the dickens
By premature burial in slickens.
ALL (singing):
Could slickens forever
Choke up the river,
And slime's endeavor
Be tried on grain,
How small the measure
Of granger's treasure,
How keen his pain!
RINGDIVVY:
"A consummation devoutly to be wished!"
These rascal grangers would long since have been
Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them,
But for the fact that all their wicked tribes
Affect our legislation with their bribes.
ALL (singing):
O bribery's great—
'Tis a pillar of State,
And the people they are free.
FEEGOBBLE:
It smashes my slate!
NOZZLE:
It is thievery straight!
RINGDIVVY:
But it's been the making of me!
NOZZLE:
I judge by certain shrewd sensations here
In these callosities I call my thumbs—
thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,
Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all
The cuticle and tickling through the nerves—
That some malign and awful thing draws near.
(Enter Hayseed.)
Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all
The grangers I have decently interred,
Rolled into one!
FEEGOBBLE:
Plead, phantom.
RINGDIVVY:
You've the floor.
HAYSEED:
From the margin of the river
(Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it)
Where I cherished once the pumpkin,
And the summer squash promoted,
Harvested the sweet potato,
Dallied with the fatal melon
And subdued the fierce cucumber,
I've been driven by the slickens,
Driven by the slimes and tailings!
All my family—my Polly
Ann and all my sons and daughters,
Dog and baby both included—
All were swamped in seas of slickens,
Buried fifty fathoms under,
Where they lie, prepared to play their
Gentle prank on geologic
Gents that shall exhume them later,
In the dim and distant future,
Taking them for melancholy
Relics antedating Adam.
I alone got up and dusted.
NOZZLE:
Avaunt! you horrid and infernal cuss!
What dire distress have you prepared for us?
RINGDIVVY:
Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky
My craw with filth to fill,
Into your honorable body I
Would introduce a bill.
FEEGOBBLE:
Defendant, hence, or, by the gods, I'll brain thee!—
Unless you saved some turneps to retain me.
HAYSEED:
As I was saying, I got up and dusted,
My ranch a graveyard and my business busted!
But hearing that a fellow from the City,
Who calls himself a Citizens' Committee,
Was coming up to play the very dickens,
With those who cover up our farms with slickens,
And make himself—unless I am in error—
To all such miscreants a holy terror,
I thought if I would join the dialogue
I maybe might get payment for my dog.
ALL (Singing):
O the dog is the head of Creation,
Prime work of the Master's hand;
He hasn't a known occupation,
Yet lives on the fat of the land.
Adipose, indolent, sleek and orbicular,
Sun-soaken, door matted, cross and particular,
Men, women, children, all coddle and wait on him,
Then, accidentally shutting the gate on him,
Miss from their calves, ever after, the rifted out
Mouthful of tendons that doggy has lifted out!
(Enter Junket.)
JUNKET:
Well met, my hearties! I must trouble you
Jointly and severally to provide
A comfortable carriage, with relays
Of hardy horses. This Committee means
To move in state about the country here.
I shall expect at every place I stop
Good beds, of course, and everything that's nice,
With bountiful repast of meat and wine.
For this Committee comes to sea and mark
And inwardly digest.
HAYSEED:
Digest my dog!
NOZZLE:
First square my claim for damages: the gold
Escaping with the slickens keeps me poor!
RINGDIVVY:
I merely would remark that if you'd grease
My itching palm it would more glibly glide
Into the public pocket.
FEEGOBBLE:
Sir, the wheels
Of justice move but slowly till they're oiled.
I have some certain writs and warrants here,
Prepared against your advent. You recall
The tale of Zaccheus, who did climb a tree,
And Jesus said: "Come down"?
JUNKET:
Why, bless your souls!
I've got no money; I but came to see
What all this noisy babble is about,
Make a report and file the same away.
NOZZLE, RINGDIVVY, FEEGOBBLE, HAYSEED:
How'll that help us? Reports are not our style
Of provender!
JUNKET:
Well, you can gnaw the file.
(Curtain.)

"PEACEABLE EXPULSION"

DRAMATIS PERSONF.
MOUNTWAVE a Politician HARDHAND a Workingman TOK BAK a Chinaman SATAN a Friend to Mountwave
CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS.

MOUNTWAVE:
My friend, I beg that you will lend your ears
(I know 'tis asking a good deal of you)
While I for your instruction nominate
Some certain wrongs you suffer. Men like you
Imperfectly are sensible of all
The miseries they actually feel.
Hence, Providence has prudently raised up
Clear-sighted men like me to diagnose
Their cases and inform them where they're hurt.
The wounds of honest workingmen I've made
A specialty, and probing them's my trade.
HARDHAND:
Well, Mister, s'pose you let yer bossest eye
Camp on my mortal part awhile; then you
Jes' toot my sufferin's an' tell me what's
The fashionable caper now in writhes—
The very swellest wiggle.
MOUNTWAVE:
Well, my lad,
'Tis plain as is the long, conspicuous nose
Borne, ponderous and pendulous, between
The elephant's remarkable eye-teeth
(Enter Tok Bak.)
That Chinese competition's what ails you.
BOTH (Singing):
O pig-tail Celestial,
O barbarous bestial,
Abominable Chinee!
Simian fellow man,
Primitive yellow man,
Joshian devotee!
Shoe-and-cigar machine,
Oleomargarine
You are, and butter are we—
Fat of the land are we,
Salt of the earth;
In God's image planned to be—
Noble in birth!
You, on the contrary,
Modeled upon very
Different lines indeed,
Show in conspicuous,
Base and ridiculous
Ways your inferior breed.
Wretched apology,
Shame of ethnology,
Monster unspeakably low!
Fit to be buckshotted—
Be you 'steboycotted.
Vanish—vamoose—mosy—Go!
TOK BAK:
You listen me! You beatee the big dlum
An' tell me go to Flowly Kingdom Come.
You all too muchee fool. You chinnee heap.
Such talkee like my washee—belly cheap!
(Enter Satan.)
You dlive me outee clunty towns all way;
Why you no tackle me Safflisco, hay?
SATAN:
Methought I heard a murmuring of tongues
Sound through the ceiling of the hollow earth,
As if the anti-coolie ques——ha! friends,
Well met. You see I keep my ancient word:
Where two or three are gathered in my name,
There am I in their midst.
MOUNTWAVE:
O monstrous thief!
To quote the words of Shakespeare as your own.
I know his work.
HARDHAND:
Who's Shakespeare?—what's his trade?
I've heard about the work o' that galoot
Till I'm jest sick!
TOK BAK:
Go Sunny school—you'll know
Mo' Bible. Bime by pleach—hell-talkee. Tell
'Bout Abel—mebby so he live too cheap.
He mebby all time dig on lanch—no dlink,
No splee—no go plocession fo' make vote—
No sendee money out of clunty fo'
To helpee Ilishmen. Cain killum. Josh
He catchee at it, an' he belly mad—
Say: "Allee Melicans boycottee Cain."
Not muchee—you no pleachee that:
You all same lie.
MOUNTWAVE:
This cuss must be expelled.
(Draws pistol.)
MOUNTWAVE, HARDHAND, SATAN (singing):
For Chinese expulsion, hurrah!
To mobbing and murder, all hail!
Away with your justice and law—
We'll make every pagan turn tail.
CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS:
Bedad! oof dot tief o'ze vorld—
Zat Ivan Tchanay vos got hurled
In Hella, da debil he say:
"Wor be yer return pairmit, hey?"
Und gry as 'e shaka da boot:
"Zis haythen haf nevaire been oot!"
HARDHAND:
Too many cooks are working at this broth—
I think, by thunder, t'will be mostly froth!
I'm cussed ef I can sarvy, up to date,
What good this dern fandango does the State.
MOUNTWAVE:
The State's advantage, sir, you may not see,
But think how good it is for me.
SATAN:
And me.
(Curtain.)

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