[adapted]

by
Ambrose Bierce

Coronado, June 20.

I find myself more and more interested in him. It is not, I am sure, his — do you know any good noun for the word “handsome”? People do not like to say “beauty” when talking about a man. He is beautiful enough, Heaven knows; I would not even want to trust you with him — most faithful of all possible wives that you are — when he looks his best, as he always does. I also do not think the charm of his way has much to do with it.

You remember that the beauty of art is in what we cannot explain, and to you and me, my dear Irene, I think there is a little less of that in the kind of art we are talking about than to girls in their first season. I think I know how my fine gentleman gets many of his results and could perhaps give him a tip on making them better. Still, the way he acts is very pleasant. I think what interests me most is the man’s mind.

His talk is the best I have ever heard and completely unlike anyone else’s. He seems to know everything, as he should, for he has been everywhere, read everything, seen all there is to see — sometimes I think more than is good for him — and has known the strangest people. And then his voice — Irene, when I hear it I actually feel as if I should have paid at the door, though of course it is my own door.

July 3.

I fear my comments about Dr. Barritz must have been, being careless, very silly, or you would not have written of him with such joking, not to mention disrespect. Believe me, dearest, he has more good manners and seriousness (the kind, I mean, that can go with a way sometimes playful and always charming) than any of the men that you and I ever met. And young Raynor — you knew Raynor at Monterey — tells me that the men all like him and that he is treated with something like respect everywhere.

There is a secret, too — something about him and the Blavatsky people in Northern India. Raynor would not or could not tell me the details. I think that Dr. Barritz is thought — don’t you dare to laugh! — a magician. Could anything be better than that?

An ordinary mystery is not, of course, as good as a scandal, but when it is about dark and terrible things — about the use of strange powers — could anything be more interesting? It also explains the strange influence the man has on me. It is the hard-to-define thing in his art — black art. Seriously, dear, I really tremble when he looks me straight in the eyes with those deep eyes of his, which I have already tried to describe to you, but failed. How terrible if he has the power to make someone fall in love! Do you know if the Blavatsky crowd has that power — except Sepoy?

July 16.

The strangest thing! Last evening while Auntie was at one of the hotel dances (I hate them) Dr. Barritz came to visit. It was very late — I actually believe that he had talked with Auntie in the ballroom and learned from her that I was alone. I had been all the evening trying to find a way to get the truth from him about his connection with the Thugs in Sepoy, and all of that dark business, but the moment he fixed his eyes on me (for I let him in, I’m ashamed to say) I was helpless. I shook, I blushed, I — O Irene, Irene, I love the man more than words can say and you know how it is yourself.

Imagine! I, an ugly duckling from Redhorse — daughter (they say) of old Calamity Jim — certainly the one who will get his money, with no living relative but a silly old aunt who spoils me a thousand and fifty ways — having nothing at all but a million dollars and a hope in Paris, — I dare to love a god like him! My dear, if I had you here I could pull your hair out with shame.

I am sure that he knows about my feeling, for he stayed only a few minutes, said nothing except what another man could have said half as well, and pretending that he had an appointment went away. I learned today (a little bird told me — the bell-bird) that he went straight to bed. What do you think of that as a sign of very good habits?

July 17.

That little bad man, Raynor, called yesterday and his talk made me almost crazy. He never gets tired — that is to say, when he ruins about twenty good names, more or less, he does not stop between one good name and the next. (By the way, he asked about you, and his signs of interest in you had, I admit, a lot of truth.) Mr. Raynor does not follow hunting rules; like Death (which he would cause if lies about people were deadly) he has all seasons for himself.

But I like him, for we knew each other at Redhorse when we were young. He was known in those days as “Giggles,” and I — O Irene, can you ever forgive me? — I was called “Gunny.” I don’t know why; maybe because of the material of my aprons; maybe because the name has the same first sound as “Giggles,” for Gig and I were friends who played together and were always together, and the miners may have thought it a polite thing to recognize some kind of connection between us.

Later, we took in a third — another of trouble’s children, who, like an actor between tragedy and comedy, could never decide between cold and hunger. Between him and misery there was not often more than one suspender and the hope of a meal that would at the same time keep him alive and make life hard to bear.

He literally picked up a poor living for himself and an old mother by “chloriding the dumps,” that is, the miners let him search the piles of waste rock for such pieces of “pay ore” as had been missed; and these he put in sacks and sold at the Syndicate Mill. He became a member of our company — “Gunny, Giggles, and Dumps” from then on — because I helped; for I could not then, nor can I now, ignore his courage and skill in defending against Giggles the very old right of men to insult a strange and unprotected woman — myself.

After old Jim found gold in the Calamity and I began to wear shoes and go to school, and to copy me Giggles started washing his face and became Jack Raynor, of Wells, Fargo & Co., and old Mrs. Barts herself died, Dumps moved over to San Juan Smith and became a stagecoach driver, and was killed by robbers, and so forth.

Why do I tell you all this, dear? Because it is heavy on my heart. Because I walk in the valley of being humble. Because I am making myself always know that I am not worthy to untie the strap of Dr. Barritz’s shoe. Because, oh dear, oh dear, there’s a cousin of Dumps at this hotel! I haven’t spoken to him.

I never knew him well, — but do you think he has recognized me? Do, please give me in your next your honest, real opinion about it, and say you don’t think so. Do you think He knows about me already, and that that is why He left me last evening when He saw that I blushed and shook like a fool under His eyes? You know I can’t pay money to all the newspapers, and I can’t turn against anybody who was kind to Gunny at Redhorse — not if I’m thrown out of society into the sea. So the skeleton sometimes rattles behind the door.

I never cared much before, as you know, but now — now it is not the same. Jack Raynor I am sure of — he will not tell Him. He really seems to respect Him so much that he hardly dares to speak to Him at all, and I’m very much that way myself. Dear, dear! I wish I had something besides a million dollars! If Jack were three inches taller I’d marry him alive and go back to Redhorse and wear rough clothes again to the end of my miserable days.

July 25.

We had a very beautiful sunset last evening and I must tell you all about it. I ran away from Auntie and everybody and was walking alone on the beach. I expect you to believe, you unbeliever! that I had not looked out of my window on the side of the hotel that faces the sea and seen Him walking alone on the beach. If you still have any feeling of womanly modesty you will accept what I say without question.

I soon sat down under my sunshade and had for some time been looking out dreamily over the sea, when he came near, walking close to the edge of the water — it was low tide. I promise you the wet sand really seemed brighter around his feet! As he came near me he took off his hat, saying, “Miss Dement, may I sit with you? — or will you walk with me?”

The idea that neither might be okay seems not to have come to him. Did you ever know such nerve? Nerve? My dear, it was nerve, pure nerve! Well, I didn’t find it bitter, and replied, with my simple Redhorse heart in my throat, “I — I will be pleased to do anything.” Could words have been more stupid? There are depths of foolishness in me, friend of my soul, that are simply bottomless!

He held out his hand, smiling, and I put mine in it without waiting, and when his fingers closed around it to help me stand up the feeling that it was shaking made me turn very red. I got up, though, and after a while, seeing that he had not let go of my hand I pulled on it a little, but he did not let go.

He simply held on, saying nothing, but looking down into my face with some kind of smile — I didn’t know — how could I? — if it was loving, mean, or something else, for I did not look at him. How beautiful he was! — with the red light of the sunset shining deep in his eyes. Do you know, dear, if the Thugs and Experts of the Blavatsky region have any special kind of eyes?

Ah, you should have seen his great way of standing, the way he held his head like a god as he stood over me after I got to my feet! It was a good picture, but I soon spoiled it, for I began right away to fall again to the ground. There was only one thing for him to do, and he did it; he held me up with an arm around my waist.

“Miss Dement, are you ill?” he said.

It was not a cry; there was no fear or care in it. If he had added: “I guess that is about what I am expected to say,” he could not have shown his idea of the situation more clearly. His way filled me with shame and anger, for I was suffering badly. I pulled my hand out of his, took hold of the arm that was holding me up and, pushing myself free, fell down into the sand and sat helpless. My hat had fallen off while we were struggling and my hair fell around my face and shoulders in the most embarrassing way.

“Go away from me,” I shouted, almost choking. “Oh please go away, you — you bad man! How can you think that when my leg is asleep?”

I actually said those same words! And then I started to cry and cried hard. Irene, I cried!

His manner changed in a moment — I could see that much through my fingers and hair. He dropped on one knee beside me, moved the tangled hair and said in the gentlest way: “My poor girl, God knows I did not mean to hurt you. How could I? — I who love you — I who have loved you for — for years and years!”

He pulled my wet hands away from my face and covered them with kisses. My cheeks were like two coals, my whole face was burning and, I think, steaming. What could I do? I hid it on his shoulder — there was no other place. And, Oh my dear friend, how my leg tingled and thrilled, and how I wanted to kick!

We sat so for a long time. He had let go of one of my hands to put his arm around me again and I took my handkerchief and was drying my eyes and my nose. I would not look up until that was done; he tried without success to push me a little away and look into my face. Soon, when all was okay, and it had become a bit dark, I lifted my head, looked him straight in the eyes and smiled my best — my very best, dear.

“What do you mean,” I said, “by ‘years and years’?”

“My dear,” he replied, very seriously, very truly, “without the thin cheeks, the empty-looking eyes, the thin hair, the slouching walk, the rags, dirt, and being young, can you not — will you not understand? Gunny, I’m Dumps!”

In a moment I was on my feet and he on his. I grabbed him by the collar of his coat and looked closely at his handsome face as it got darker. I was out of breath with excitement.

“And you are not dead?” I asked, not really knowing what I was saying.

“Only dead in love, dear. I got better from the bullet of a robber on the road, but this, I am afraid, will kill me.”

“But about Jack — Mr. Raynor? Don’t you know — ”

“I am sorry to say, darling, that it was because of that bad person’s idea that I came here from Vienna.”

Irene, they have caught your loving friend,

Mary Jane Dement.

P.S. — The worst part is that there is no mystery; that was made up by Jack Raynor, to make me curious. James is not a Thug. He tells me very seriously that in all his travels he has never gone to Sepoy.