Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　This outcry, saluting Herkimer's ears as he was about to enterthe iron gate of the Elliston mansion, made him pause. It was notwithout a shudder that he found himself on the point of meetinghis former acquaintance, whom he had known in the glory of youth,and whom now after an interval of five years, he was to find thevictim either of a diseased fancy or a horrible physicalmisfortune.

　　"A snake in his bosom!" repeated the young sculptor to himself."It must be he. No second man on earth has such a bosom friend.And now, my poor Rosina, Heaven grant me wisdom to discharge myerrand aright! Woman's faith must be strong indeed since thinehas not yet failed."

　　Thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance of the gate andwaited until the personage so singularly announced should makehis appearance. After an instant or two he beheld the figure of alean man, of unwholesome look, with glittering eyes and longblack hair, who seemed to imitate the motion of a snake; for,instead of walking straight forward with open front, he undulatedalong the pavement in a curved line. It may be too fanciful tosay that something, either in his moral or material aspect,suggested the idea that a miracle had been wrought bytransforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that thesnaky nature was yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mereoutward guise of humanity. Herkimer remarked that his complexionhad a greenish tinge over its sickly white, reminding him of aspecies of marble out of which he had once wrought a head ofEnvy, with her snaky locks.

　　The wretched being approached the gate, but, instead of entering,stopped short and fixed the glitter of his eye full upon thecompassionate yet steady countenance of the sculptor.

　　"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" he exclaimed.

　　And then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from theapparent lunatic's own lips, or was the real hiss of a serpent,might admit of a discussion. At all events, it made Herkimershudder to his heart's core.

　　"Do you know me, George Herkimer?" asked the snake-possessed.

　　Herkimer did know him; but it demanded all the intimate andpractical acquaintance with the human face, acquired by modellingactual likenesses in clay, to recognize the features of RoderickElliston in the visage that now met the sculptor's gaze. Yet itwas he. It added nothing to the wonder to reflect that the oncebrilliant young man had undergone this odious and fearful changeduring the no more than five brief years of Herkimer's abode atFlorence. The possibility of such a transformation being granted,it was as easy to conceive it effected in a moment as in an age.Inexpressibly shocked and startled, it was still the keenest pangwhen Herkimer remembered that the fate of his cousin Rosina, theideal of gentle womanhood, was indissolubly interwoven with thatof a being whom Providence seemed to have unhumanized.

　　"Elliston! Roderick!" cried he, "I had heard of this; but myconception came far short of the truth. What has befallen you?Why do I find you thus?"

　　"Oh, 'tis a mere nothing! A snake! A snake! The commonest thingin the world. A snake in the bosom--that's all," answeredRoderick Elliston. "But how is your own breast?" continued he,looking the sculptor in the eye with the most acute andpenetrating glance that it had ever been his fortune toencounter. "All pure and wholesome? No reptile there? By my faithand conscience, and by the devil within me, here is a wonder! Aman without a serpent in his bosom!"

　　"Be calm, Elliston," whispered George Herkimer, laying his handupon the shoulder of the snake-possessed. "I have crossed theocean to meet you. Listen! Let us be private. I bring a messagefrom Rosina--from your wife!"

　　"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" muttered Roderick.

　　With this exclamation, the most frequent in his mouth, theunfortunate man clutched both hands upon his breast as if anintolerable sting or torture impelled him to rend it open and letout the living mischief, even should it be intertwined with hisown life. He then freed himself from Herkimer's grasp by a subtlemotion, and, gliding through the gate, took refuge in hisantiquated family residence. The sculptor did not pursue him. Hesaw that no available intercourse could be expected at such amoment, and was desirous, before another meeting, to inquireclosely into the nature of Roderick's disease and thecircumstances that had reduced him to so lamentable a condition.He succeeded in obtaining the necessary information from aneminent medical gentleman.

　　Shortly after Elliston's separation from his wife--now nearlyfour years ago--his associates had observed a singular gloomspreading over his daily life, like those chill, gray mists thatsometimes steal away the sunshine from a summer's morning. Thesymptoms caused them endless perplexity. They knew not whetherill health were robbing his spirits of elasticity, or whether acanker of the mind was gradually eating, as such cankers do, fromhis moral system into the physical frame, which is but the shadowof the former. They looked for the root of this trouble in hisshattered schemes of domestic bliss,--wilfully shattered byhimself,--but could not be satisfied of its existence there. Somethought that their once brilliant friend was in an incipientstage of insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhapsbeen the forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight andgradual decline. From Roderick's own lips they could learnnothing. More than once, it is true, he had been heard to say,clutching his hands convulsively upon his breast,--"It gnaws me!It gnaws me!"--but, by different auditors, a great diversity ofexplanation was assigned to this ominous expression. What couldit be that gnawed the breast of Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow?Was it merely the tooth of physical disease? Or, in his recklesscourse, often verging upon profligacy, if not plunging into itsdepths, had he been guilty of some deed which made his bosom aprey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was plausible groundfor each of these conjectures; but it must not be concealed thatmore than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good cheer andslothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the wholematter to be Dyspepsia!

　　Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally he had become thesubject of curiosity and conjecture, and, with a morbidrepugnance to such notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estrangedhimself from all companionship. Not merely the eye of man was ahorror to him; not merely the light of a friend's countenance;but even the blessed sunshine, likewise, which in its universalbeneficence typifies the radiance of the Creator's face,expressing his love for all the creatures of his hand. The duskytwilight was now too transparent for Roderick Elliston; theblackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal abroad; and ifever he were seen, it was when the watchman's lantern gleamedupon his figure, gliding along the street, with his handsclutched upon his bosom, still muttering, "It gnaws me! It gnawsme!" What could it be that gnawed him?

　　After a time, it became known that Elliston was in the habit ofresorting to all the noted quacks that infested the city, or whommoney would tempt to journey thither from a distance. By one ofthese persons, in the exultation of a supposed cure, it wasproclaimed far and wide, by dint of handbills and littlepamphlets on dingy paper, that a distinguished gentleman,Roderick Elliston, Esq., had been relieved of a SNAKE in hisstomach! So here was the monstrous secret, ejected from itslurking place into public view, in all its horrible deformity.The mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. He, if it wereanything but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den. Theempiric's cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, ofsome stupefying drug which more nearly caused the death of thepatient than of the odious reptile that possessed him. WhenRoderick Elliston regained entire sensibility, it was to find hismisfortune the town talk--the more than nine days' wonder andhorror--while, at his bosom, he felt the sickening motion of athing alive, and the gnawing of that restless fang which seemedto gratify at once a physical appetite and a fiendish spite.

　　He summoned the old black servant, who had been bred up in hisfather's house, and was a middle-aged man while Roderick lay inhis cradle.

　　"Scipio!" he began; and then paused, with his arms folded overhis heart. "What do people say of me, Scipio."

　　"Sir! my poor master! that you had a serpent in your bosom,"answered the servant with hesitation.

　　"And what else?" asked Roderick, with a ghastly look at the man.

　　"Nothing else, dear master," replied Scipio, "only that thedoctor gave you a powder, and that the snake leaped out upon thefloor."

　　"No, no!" muttered Roderick to himself, as he shook his head, andpressed his hands with a more convulsive force upon his breast,"I feel him still. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!"

　　From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world,but rather solicited and forced himself upon the notice ofacquaintances and strangers. It was partly the result ofdesperation on finding that the cavern of his own bosom had notproved deep and dark enough to hide the secret, even while it wasso secure a fortress for the loathsome fiend that had crept intoit. But still more, this craving for notoriety was a symptom ofthe intense morbidness which now pervaded his nature. All personschronically diseased are egotists, whether the disease be of themind or body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the moretolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among thecords of mortal life. Such individuals are made acutely consciousof a self, by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore,grows to be so prominent an object with them that they cannot butpresent it to the face of every casual passer-by. There is apleasure--perhaps the greatest of which the sufferer issusceptible--in displaying the wasted or ulcerated limb, or thecancer in the breast; and the fouler the crime, with so much themore difficulty does the perpetrator prevent it from thrusting upits snake-like head to frighten the world; for it is that cancer,or that crime, which constitutes their respective individuality.Roderick Elliston, who, a little while before, had held himselfso scornfully above the common lot of men, now paid fullallegiance to this humiliating law. The snake in his bosom seemedthe symbol of a monstrous egotism to which everything wasreferred, and which he pampered, night and day, with a continualand exclusive sacrifice of devil worship.

　　He soon exhibited what most people considered indubitable tokensof insanity. In some of his moods, strange to say, he prided andgloried himself on being marked out from the ordinary experienceof mankind, by the possession of a double nature, and a lifewithin a life. He appeared to imagine that the snake was adivinity,--not celestial, it is true, but darkly infernal,--andthat he thence derived an eminence and a sanctity, horrid,indeed, yet more desirable than whatever ambition aims at. Thushe drew his misery around him like a regal mantle, and lookeddown triumphantly upon those whose vitals nourished no deadlymonster. Oftener, however, his human nature asserted its empireover him in the shape of a yearning for fellowship. It grew to behis custom to spend the whole day in wandering about the streets,aimlessly, unless it might be called an aim to establish aspecies of brotherhood between himself and the world. Withcankered ingenuity, he sought out his own disease in everybreast. Whether insane or not, he showed so keen a perception offrailty, error, and vice, that many persons gave him credit forbeing possessed not merely with a serpent, but with an actualfiend, who imparted this evil faculty of recognizing whatever wasugliest in man's heart.

　　For instance, he met an individual, who, for thirty years, hadcherished a hatred against his own brother. Roderick, amidst thethrong of the street, laid his hand on this man's chest, andlooking full into his forbidding face,"How is the snake to-day?"he inquired, with a mock expression of sympathy.

　　"The snake!" exclaimed the brother hater--"what do you mean?"

　　"The snake! The snake! Does it gnaw you?" persisted Roderick."Did you take counsel with him this morning when you should havebeen saying your prayers? Did he sting, when you thought of yourbrother's health, wealth, and good repute? Did he caper for joy,when you remembered the profligacy of his only son? And whetherhe stung, or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poisonthroughout your body and soul, converting everything to sournessand bitterness? That is the way of such serpents. I have learnedthe whole nature of them from my own!"

　　"Where is the police?" roared the object of Roderick'spersecution, at the same time giving an instinctive clutch to hisbreast. "Why is this lunatic allowed to go at large?"

　　"Ha, ha!" chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.--"His bosom serpent has stung him then!"

　　Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with alighter satire, yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-likevirulence. One day he encountered an ambitious statesman, andgravely inquired after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for ofthat species, Roderick affirmed, this gentleman's serpent mustneeds be, since its appetite was enormous enough to devour thewhole country and constitution. At another time, he stopped aclose-fisted old fellow, of great wealth, but who skulked aboutthe city in the guise of a scarecrow, with a patched bluesurtout, brown hat, and mouldy boots, scraping pence together,and picking up rusty nails. Pretending to look earnestly at thisrespectable person's stomach, Roderick assured him that his snakewas a copper-head and had been generated by the immensequantities of that base metal with which he daily defiled hisfingers. Again, he assaulted a man of rubicund visage, and toldhim that few bosom serpents had more of the devil in them thanthose that breed in the vats of a distillery. The next whomRoderick honored with his attention was a distinguishedclergyman, who happened just then to be engaged in a theologicalcontroversy, where human wrath was more perceptible than divineinspiration.

　　"You have swallowed a snake in a cup of sacramental wine," quothhe.

　　"Profane wretch!" exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, hishand stole to his breast.

　　He met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some earlydisappointment, had retired from the world, and thereafter heldno intercourse with his fellow-men, but brooded sullenly orpassionately over the irrevocable past. This man's very heart, ifRoderick might be believed, had been changed into a serpent,which would finally torment both him and itself to death.Observing a married couple, whose domestic troubles were matterof notoriety, he condoled with both on having mutually taken ahouse adder to their bosoms. To an envious author, whodepreciated works which he could never equal, he said that hissnake was the slimiest and filthiest of all the reptile tribe,but was fortunately without a sting. A man of impure life, and abrazen face, asking Roderick if there were any serpent in hisbreast, he told him that there was, and of the same species thatonce tortured Don Rodrigo, the Goth. He took a fair young girl bythe hand, and gazing sadly into her eyes, warned her that shecherished a serpent of the deadliest kind within her gentlebreast; and the world found the truth of those ominous words,when, a few months afterwards, the poor girl died of love andshame. Two ladies, rivals in fashionable life who tormented oneanother with a thousand little stings of womanish spite, weregiven to understand that each of their hearts was a nest ofdiminutive snakes, which did quite as much mischief as one greatone.

　　But nothing seemed to please Roderick better than to lay hold ofa person infected with jealousy, which he represented as anenormous green reptile, with an ice-cold length of body, and thesharpest sting of any snake save one.

　　"And what one is that?" asked a by-stander, overhearing him.

　　It was a dark-browed man who put the question; he had an evasiveeye, which in the course of a dozen years had looked no mortaldirectly in the face. There was an ambiguity about this person'scharacter,--a stain upon his reputation,--yet none could tellprecisely of what nature, although the city gossips, male andfemale, whispered the most atrocious surmises. Until a recentperiod he had followed the sea, and was, in fact, the veryshipmaster whom George Herkimer had encountered, under suchsingular circumstances, in the Grecian Archipelago.

　　"What bosom serpent has the sharpest sting?" repeated this man;but he put the question as if by a reluctant necessity, and grewpale while he was uttering it.

　　"Why need you ask?" replied Roderick, with a look of darkintelligence. "Look into your own breast. Hark! my serpentbestirs himself! He acknowledges the presence of a master fiend!"

　　And then, as the by-standers afterwards affirmed, a hissing soundwas heard, apparently in Roderick Elliston's breast. It was said,too, that an answering hiss came from the vitals of theshipmaster, as if a snake were actually lurking there and hadbeen aroused by the call of its brother reptile. If there were infact any such sound, it might have been caused by a maliciousexercise of ventriloquism on the part of Roderick.

　　Thus making his own actual serpent--if a serpent there actuallywas in his bosom--the type of each man's fatal error, or hoardedsin, or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting sounremorsefully into the sorest spot, we may well imagine thatRoderick became the pest of the city. Nobody could eludehim--none could withstand him. He grappled with the ugliest truththat he could lay his hand on, and compelled his adversary to dothe same. Strange spectacle in human life where it is theinstinctive effort of one and all to hide those sad realities,and leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of superficial topicswhich constitute the materials of intercourse between man andman! It was not to be tolerated that Roderick Elliston shouldbreak through the tacit compact by which the world has done itsbest to secure repose without relinquishing evil. The victims ofhis malicious remarks, it is true, had brothers enough to keepthem in countenance; for, by Roderick's theory, every mortalbosom harbored either a brood of small serpents or one overgrownmonster that had devoured all the rest. Still the city could notbear this new apostle. It was demanded by nearly all, andparticularly by the most respectable inhabitants, that Roderickshould no longer be permitted to violate the received rules ofdecorum by obtruding his own bosom serpent to the public gaze,and dragging those of decent people from their lurking places.

　　Accordingly, his relatives interfered and placed him in a privateasylum for the insane. When the news was noised abroad, it wasobserved that many persons walked the streets with freercountenances and covered their breasts less carefully with theirhands.

　　His confinement, however, although it contributed not a little tothe peace of the town, operated unfavorably upon Roderickhimself. In solitude his melancholy grew more black and sullen.He spent whole days--indeed, it was his sole occupation--incommuning with the serpent. A conversation was sustained, inwhich, as it seemed, the hidden monster bore a part, thoughunintelligibly to the listeners, and inaudible except in a hiss.Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sortof affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, with theintensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant emotionsincompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength andpoignancy to its opposite. Horrible love--horribleantipathy--embracing one another in his bosom, and bothconcentrating themselves upon a being that had crept into hisvitals or been engendered there, and which was nourished with hisfood, and lived upon his life, and was as intimate with him ashis own heart, and yet was the foulest of all created things! Butnot the less was it the true type of a morbid nature.

　　Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against thesnake and himself, Roderick determined to be the death of him,even at the expense of his own life. Once he attempted it bystarvation; but, while the wretched man was on the point offamishing, the monster seemed to feed upon his heart, and tothrive and wax gamesome, as if it were his sweetest and mostcongenial diet. Then he privily took a dose of active poison,imagining that it would not fail to kill either himself or thedevil that possessed him, or both together. Another mistake; forif Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own poisoned heartnor the snake by gnawing it, they had little to fear from arsenicor corrosive sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest appeared tooperate as an antidote against all other poisons. The physicianstried to suffocate the fiend with tobacco smoke. He breathed itas freely as if it were his native atmosphere. Again, theydrugged their patient with opium and drenched him withintoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be reducedto stupor and perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They succeededin rendering Roderick insensible; but, placing their hands uponhis breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel themonster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within hisnarrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, andincited to unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave upall attempts at cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submittedto his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection for the bosomfiend, and spent whole miserable days before a looking-glass,with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, to catcha glimpse of the snake's head far down within his throat. It issupposed that he succeeded; for the attendants once heard afrenzied shout, and, rushing into the room, found Rodericklifeless upon the floor.

　　He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minuteinvestigation, the medical directors of the asylum decided thathis mental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warranthis confinement, especially as its influence upon his spirits wasunfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant toremedy. His eccentricities were doubtless great; he hadhabitually violated many of the customs and prejudices ofsociety; but the world was not, without surer ground, entitled totreat him as a madman. On this decision of such competentauthority Roderick was released, and had returned to his nativecity the very day before his encounter with George Herkimer.

　　As soon as possible after learning these particulars thesculptor, together with a sad and tremulous companion, soughtElliston at his own house. It was a large, sombre edifice ofwood, with pilasters and a balcony, and was divided from one ofthe principal streets by a terrace of three elevations, which wasascended by successive flights of stone steps. Some immense oldelms almost concealed the front of the mansion. This spacious andonce magnificent family residence was built by a grandee of therace early in the past century, at which epoch, land being ofsmall comparative value, the garden and other grounds had formedquite an extensive domain. Although a portion of the ancestralheritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosurein the rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or aman of stricken heart might lie all day upon the grass, amid thesolitude of murmuring boughs, and forget that a city had grown uparound him.

　　Into this retirement the sculptor and his companion were usheredby Scipio, the old black servant, whose wrinkled visage grewalmost sunny with intelligence and joy as he paid his humblegreetings to one of the two visitors.

　　"Remain in the arbor," whispered the sculptor to the figure thatleaned upon his arm. "You will know whether, and when, to makeyour appearance."

　　"God will teach me," was the reply. "May He support me too!"

　　Roderick was reclining on the margin of a fountain which gushedinto the fleckered sunshine with the same clear sparkle and thesame voice of airy quietude as when trees of primeval growthflung their shadows cross its bosom. How strange is the life of afountain!--born at every moment, yet of an age coeval with therocks, and far surpassing the venerable antiquity of a forest.

　　"You are come! I have expected you," said Elliston, when hebecame aware of the sculptor's presence.

　　His manner was very different from that of the precedingday--quiet, courteous, and, as Herkimer thought, watchful bothover his guest and himself. This unnatural restraint was almostthe only trait that betokened anything amiss. He had just throwna book upon the grass, where it lay half opened, thus disclosingitself to be a natural history of the serpent tribe, illustratedby lifelike plates. Near it lay that bulky volume, the DuctorDubitantium of Jeremy Taylor, full of cases of conscience, and inwhich most men, possessed of a conscience, may find somethingapplicable to their purpose.

　　"You see," observed Elliston, pointing to the book of serpents,while a smile gleamed upon his lips, "I am making an effort tobecome better acquainted with my bosom friend; but I find nothingsatisfactory in this volume. If I mistake not, he will prove tobe sui generis, and akin to no other reptile in creation."

　　"Whence came this strange calamity?" inquired the sculptor.

　　"My sable friend Scipio has a story," replied Roderick, "of asnake that had lurked in this fountain--pure and innocent as itlooks--ever since it was known to the first settlers. Thisinsinuating personage once crept into the vitals of my greatgrandfather and dwelt there many years, tormenting the oldgentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short it is a familypeculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith in thisidea of the snake's being an heirloom. He is my own snake, and noman's else."

　　"But what was his origin?" demanded Herkimer.

　　"Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man's heart sufficient togenerate a brood of serpents," said Elliston with a hollow laugh."You should have heard my homilies to the good town's-people.Positively, I deem myself fortunate in having bred but a singleserpent. You, however, have none in your bosom, and thereforecannot sympathize with the rest of the world. It gnaws me! Itgnaws me!"

　　With this exclamation Roderick lost his self-control and threwhimself upon the grass, testifying his agony by intricatewrithings, in which Herkimer could not but fancy a resemblance tothe motions of a snake. Then, likewise, was heard that frightfulhiss, which often ran through the sufferer's speech, and creptbetween the words and syllables without interrupting theirsuccession.

　　"This is awful indeed!" exclaimed the sculptor--"an awfulinfliction, whether it be actual or imaginary. Tell me, RoderickElliston, is there any remedy for this loathsome evil?"

　　"Yes, but an impossible one," muttered Roderick, as he laywallowing with his face in the grass. "Could I for one momentforget myself, the serpent might not abide within me. It is mydiseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourishedhim."

　　"Then forget yourself, my husband," said a gentle voice abovehim; "forget yourself in the idea of another!"

　　Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him withthe shadow of his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet somingled with hope and unselfish love that all anguish seemed butan earthly shadow and a dream. She touched Roderick with herhand. A tremor shivered through his frame. At that moment, ifreport be trustworthy, the sculptor beheld a waving motionthrough the grass, and heard a tinkling sound, as if somethinghad plunged into the fountain. Be the truth as it might, it iscertain that Roderick Elliston sat up like a man renewed,restored to his right mind, and rescued from the fiend which hadso miserably overcome him in the battle-field of his own breast.

　　"Rosina!" cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but withnothing of the wild wail that had haunted his voice so long,"forgive! forgive!"

　　Her happy tears bedewed his face.

　　"The punishment has been severe," observed the sculptor. "EvenJustice might now forgive; how much more a woman's tenderness!Roderick Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, orwhether the morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol toyour fancy, the moral of the story is not the less true andstrong. A tremendous Egotism, manifesting itself in your case inthe form of jealousy, is as fearful a fiend as ever stole intothe human heart. Can a breast, where it has dwelt so long, bepurified?"

　　"Oh yes," said Rosina with a heavenly smile. "The serpent was buta dark fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself.The past, dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon thefuture. To give it its due importance we must think of it but asan anecdote in our Eternity."