Saturday Storytime: One of Twins

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I’d been reading Ambrose Bierce. I read a bit about him as well, and I was struck by how little mystery there is in his “mysterious disappearance”. Bierce’s stories themselves testify how easy it was for people to disappear in a country that was still sparsely settled, how easy it was for letters to go astray, how hard it was to identify the stranger who up and died in the chaos of growing towns, how suddenly and unexpectedly death could come. That a 71-year-old journalist with asthma, following the Mexican revolutionary army, might suddenly stop communicating and never be heard from again is not unexpected, even if we never get the details of how and where he died. I can’t help but think that stories like this contributed to the air of mystery involved.

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.

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Saturday Storytime: One of Twins
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2 thoughts on “Saturday Storytime: One of Twins

  1. 1

    I really appreciate the Saturday storytimes. I’ve lost all time and energy for free reading on my own, and these nudge me to do a bit of it every week in an amount I can fit in without feeling guilty about it (we won’t talk about my trek through the archives of the sci-fi journal you’ve linked to before… 😉 )

  2. 2

    While I agree that Bierce’s disappearance isn’t really all that mysterious, I still experienced a bit of frisson the first time I read his wonderful ghost story An Inhabitant of Carcosa, which beguns thusly:

    For there be divers sorts of death — some wherein the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite away with the spirit. This commonly occurreth only in solitude (such is God’s will) and, none seeing the end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long journey —

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