A Letter found among the Papers of the late Mortimer Barr
You ask me if in my experience as one of a pair of
twins I ever observed anything unaccountable by the natural laws with
which we have acquaintance. As to that you shall judge; perhaps we have
not all acquaintance with the same natural laws. You may know some that
I do not, and what is to me unaccountable may be very clear to you.
You knew my brother John -- that is, you knew him when you knew that I
was not present; but neither you nor, I believe, any human being could
distinguish between him and me if we chose to seem alike. Our parents
could not; ours is the only instance of which I have any knowledge of so
close resemblance as that. I speak of my brother John, but I am not at
all sure that his name was not Henry and mine John. We were regularly
christened, but afterward, in the very act of tattooing us with small
distinguishing marks, the operator lost his reckoning; and although I
bear upon my forearm a small 'H' and he bore a 'J,' it is by no means
certain that the letters ought not to have been transposed. During our
boyhood our parents tried to distinguish us more obviously by our
clothing and other simple devices, but we would so frequently exchange
suits and otherwise circumvent the enemy that they abandoned all such
ineffectual attempts, and during all the years that we lived together at
home everybody recognized the difficulty of the situation and made the
best of it by calling us both 'Jehnry.' I have often wondered at my
father's forbearance in not branding us conspicuously upon our unworthy
brows, but as we were tolerably good boys and used our power of
embarrassment and annoyance with commendable moderation, we escaped the
iron. My father was, in fact, a singularly good-natured man, and I think
quietly enjoyed Nature's practical joke.
Soon after we had come to California, and settled at San Jose (where the
only good fortune that awaited us was our meeting with so kind a friend
as you), the family, as you know, was broken up by the death of both my
parents in the same week. My father died insolvent, and the homestead
was sacrificed to pay his debts. My sisters returned to relatives in the
East, but owing to your kindness John and I, then twenty-two years of
age, obtained employment in San Francisco, in different quarters of the
town. Circumstances did not permit us to live together, and we saw each
other infrequently, sometimes not oftener than once a week. As we had
few acquaintances in common, the fact of our extraordinary likeness was
little known. I come now to the matter of your inquiry.
One day soon after we had come to this city I was walking down Market
Street late in the afternoon, when I was accosted by a well-dressed man
of middle age, who after greeting me cordially said: 'Stevens, I know,
of course, that you do not go out much, but I have told my wife about
you, and she would be glad to see you at the house. I have a notion,
too, that my girls are worth knowing. Suppose you come out to-morrow at
six and dine with us, en famille; and then if the ladies can't amuse you
afterward I'll stand in with a few games of billiards.'
This was said with so bright a smile and so engaging a manner that I had
not the heart to refuse, and although I had never seen the man in my
life I promptly replied: 'You are very good, sir, and it will give me
great pleasure to accept the invitation. Please present my compliments
to Mrs. Margovan and ask her to expect me.'
With a shake of the hand and a pleasant parting word the man passed on.
That he had mistaken me for my brother was plain enough. That was an
error to which I was accustomed and which it was not my habit to rectify
unless the matter seemed important. But how had I known that this man's
name was Margovan? It certainly is not a name that one would apply to a
man at random, with a probability that it would be right. In point of
fact, the name was as strange to me as the man.
The next morning I hastened to where my brother was employed and met him
coming out of the office with a number of bills that he was to collect.
I told him how I had 'committed' him and added that if he didn't care to
keep the engagement I should be delighted to continue the impersonation.
'That's queer,' he said thoughtfully. 'Margovan is the only man in the
office here whom I know well and like. When he came in this morning and
we had passed the usual greetings some singular impulse prompted me to
say: "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Margovan, but I neglected to ask your
address." I got the address, but what under the sun I was to do with it,
I did not know until now. It's good of you to offer to take the
consequence of your impudence, but I'll eat that dinner myself, if you
please.'
He ate a number of dinners at the same place -- more than were good for
him, I may add without disparaging their quality; for he fell in love
with Miss Margovan, proposed marriage to her and was heartlessly
accepted.
Several weeks after I had been informed of the engagement, but before it
had been convenient for me to make the acquaintance of the young woman
and her family, I met one day on Kearney Street a handsome but somewhat
dissipated-looking man whom something prompted me to follow and watch,
which I did without any scruple whatever. He turned up Geary Street and
followed it until he came to Union Square. There he looked at his watch,
then entered the square. He loitered about the paths for some time,
evidently waiting for some one. Presently he was joined by a fashionably
dressed and beautiful young woman and the two walked away up Stockton
Street, I following. I now felt the necessity of extreme caution, for
although the girl was a stranger it seemed to me that she would
recognize me at a glance. They made several turns from one street to
another and finally, after both had taken a hasty look all about --
which I narrowly evaded by stepping into a doorway -- they entered a
house of which I do not care to state the location. Its location was
better than its character.
I protest that my action in playing the spy upon these two strangers was
without assignable motive. It was one of which I might or might not be
ashamed, according to my estimate of the character of the person finding
it out. As an essential part of a narrative educed by your question it
is related here without hesitancy or shame.
A week later John took me to the house of his prospective father-in-law,
and in Miss Margovan, as you have already surmised, but to my profound
astonishment, I recognized the heroine of that discreditable adventure.
A gloriously beautiful heroine of a discreditable adventure I must in
justice admit that she was; but that fact has only this importance: her
beauty was such a surprise to me that it cast a doubt upon her identity
with the young woman I had seen before; how could the marvellous
fascination of her face have failed to strike me at that time? But no --
there was no possibility of error; the difference was due to costume,
light and general surroundings.
John and I passed the evening at the house, enduring, with the fortitude
of long experience, such delicate enough banter as our likeness
naturally suggested. When the young lady and I were left alone for a few
minutes I looked her squarely in the face and said with sudden gravity:
'You, too, Miss Margovan, have a double: I saw her last Tuesday
afternoon in Union Square.'
She trained her great grey eyes upon me for a moment, but her glance was
a trifle less steady than my own and she withdrew it, fixing it on the
tip of her shoe.
'Was she very like me?' she asked, with an indifference which I thought
a little overdone.
'So like,' said I, 'that I greatly admired her, and being unwilling to
lose sight of her I confess that I followed her until -- Miss Margovan,
are you sure that you understand?'
She was now pale, but entirely calm. She again raised her eyes to mine,
with a look that did not falter.
'What do you wish me to do?' she asked. 'You need not fear to name your
terms. I accept them.'
It was plain, even in the brief time given me for reflection, that in
dealing with this girl ordinary methods would not do, and ordinary
exactions were needless.
'Miss Margovan,' I said, doubtless with something of the compassion in
my voice that I had in my heart, 'it is impossible not to think you the
victim of some horrible compulsion. Rather than impose new
embarrassments upon you I would prefer to aid you to regain your
freedom.'
She shook her head, sadly and hopelessly, and I continued, with
agitation:
'Your beauty unnerves me. I am disarmed by your frankness and your
distress. If you are free to act upon conscience you will, I believe, do
what you conceive to be best; if you are not -- well, Heaven help us
all! You have nothing to fear from me but such opposition to this
marriage as I can try to justify on -- on other grounds.'
These were not my exact words, but that was the sense of them, as nearly
as my sudden and conflicting emotions permitted me to express it. I rose
and left her without another look at her, met the others as they
re-entered the room and said, as calmly as I could: 'I have been bidding
Miss Margovan good evening; it is later than I thought.'
John decided to go with me. In the street he asked if I had observed
anything singular in Julia's manner.
'I thought her ill,' I replied; 'that is why I left.' Nothing more was
said.
The next evening I came late to my lodgings. The events of the previous
evening had made me nervous and ill; I had tried to cure myself and
attain to clear thinking by walking in the open air, but I was oppressed
with a horrible presentiment of evil -- a presentiment which I could not
formulate. It was a chill, foggy night; my clothing and hair were damp
and I shook with cold. In my dressing-gown and slippers before a blazing
grate of coals I was even more uncomfortable. I no longer shivered but
shuddered -- there is a difference. The dread of some impending calamity
was so strong and dispiriting that I tried to drive it away by inviting
a real sorrow -- tried to dispel the conception of a terrible future by
substituting the memory of a painful past. I recalled the death of my
parents and endeavoured to fix my mind upon the last sad scenes at their
bedsides and their graves. It all seemed vague and unreal, as having
occurred ages ago and to another person. Suddenly, striking through my
thought and parting it as a tense cord is parted by the stroke of steel
-- I can think of no other comparison -- I heard a sharp cry as of one
in mortal agony! The voice was that of my brother and seemed to come
from the street outside my window. I sprang to the window and threw it
open. A street lamp directly opposite threw a wan and ghastly light upon
the wet pavement and the fronts of the houses. A single policeman, with
upturned collar, was leaning against a gatepost, quietly smoking a
cigar. No one else was in sight. I closed the window and pulled down the
shade, seated myself before the fire and tried to fix my mind upon my
surroundings. By way of assisting, by performance of some familiar act,
I looked at my watch; it marked half-past eleven. Again I heard that
awful cry! It seemed in the room -- at my side. I was frightened and for
some moments had not the power to move. A few minutes later -- I have no
recollection of the intermediate time -- I found myself hurrying along
an unfamiliar street as fast as I could walk. I did not know where I
was, nor whither I was going, but presently sprang up the steps of a
house before which were two or three carriages and in which were moving
lights and a subdued confusion of voices. It was the house of Mr.
Margovan.
You know, good friend, what had occurred there. In one chamber lay Julia
Margovan, hours dead by poison; in another John Stevens, bleeding from a
pistol wound in the chest, inflicted by his own hand. As I burst into
the room; pushed aside the physicians and laid my hand upon his forehead
he unclosed his eyes, stared blankly, closed them slowly and died
without a sign.
I knew no more until six weeks afterwards, when I had been nursed back
to life by your own saintly wife in your own beautiful home. All of that
you know, but what you do not know is this -- which, however, has no
bearing upon the subject of your psychological researches -- at least
not upon that branch of them in which, with a delicacy and consideration
all your own, you have asked for less assistance than I think I have
given you:
One moonlight night several years afterward I was passing through Union
Square. The hour was late and the square deserted. Certain memories of
the past naturally came into my mind as I came to the spot where I had
once witnessed that fateful assignation, and with that unaccountable
perversity which prompts us to dwell upon thoughts of the most painful
character I seated myself upon one of the benches to indulge them. A man
entered the square and came along the walk toward me. His hands were
clasped behind him, his head was bowed; he seemed to observe nothing. As
he approached the shadow in which I sat I recognized him as the man whom
I had seen meet Julia Margovan years before at that spot. But he was
terribly altered -- grey, worn and haggard. Dissipation and vice were in
evidence in every look; illness was no less apparent. His clothing was
in disorder, his hair fell across his forehead in a derangement which
was at once uncanny, and picturesque. He looked fitter for restraint
than liberty -- the restraint of a hospital.
With no defined purpose I rose and confronted him. He raised his head
and looked me full in the face. I have no words to describe the ghastly
change that came over his own; it was a look of unspeakable terror -- he
thought himself eye to eye with a ghost. But he was a courageous man.
'Damn you, John Stevens!' he cried, and lifting his trembling arm he
dashed his fist feebly at my face and fell headlong upon the gravel as I
walked away.
Somebody found him there, stone-dead. Nothing more is known of him, not
even his name. To know of a man that he is dead should be enough.
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