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.