The Man out of the Nose

by Ambrose Bierce

　　

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At the intersection of two certain streets in that part of San Franciscoknown by the rather loosely applied name of North Beach, is a vacantlot, which is rather more nearly level than is usually the case withlots, vacant or otherwise, in that region. Immediately at the back ofit, to the south, however, the ground slopes steeply upward, theacclivity broken by three terraces cut into the soft rock. It is a placefor goats and poor persons, several families of each class havingoccupied it jointly and amicably "from the foundation of the city." Oneof the humble habitations of the lowest terrace is noticeable for itsrude resemblance to the human face, or rather to such a simulacrum of itas a boy might cut out of a hollowed pumpkin, meaning no offense to hisrace. The eyes are two circular windows, the nose is a door, the mouthan aperture caused by removal of a board below. There are no doorsteps.As a face, this house is too large; as a dwelling, too small. The blank,unmeaning stare of its lidless and browless eyes is uncanny. Sometimes a man steps out of the nose, turns, passes the place where theright ear should be and making his way through the throng of childrenand goats obstructing the narrow walk between his neighbors' doors andthe edge of the terrace gains the street by descending a flight ofrickety stairs. Here he pauses to consult his watch and the stranger whohappens to pass wonders why such a man as that can care what is thehour. Longer observations would show that the time of day is animportant element in the man's movements, for it is at precisely twoo'clock in the afternoon that he comes forth 365 times in every year. Having satisfied himself that he has made no mistake in the hour hereplaces the watch and walks rapidly southward up the street twosquares, turns to the right and as he approaches the next corner fixeshis eyes on an upper window in a three-story building across the way.This is a somewhat dingy structure, originally of red brick and nowgray. It shows the touch of age and dust. Built for a dwelling, it isnow a factory. I do not know what is made there; the things that arecommonly made in a factory, I suppose. I only know that at two o'clockin the afternoon of every day but Sunday it is full of activity andclatter; pulsations of some great engine shake it and there arerecurrent screams of wood tormented by the saw. At the window on whichthe man fixes an intensely expectant gaze nothing ever appears; theglass, in truth, has such a coating of dust that it has long ceased tobe transparent. The man looks at it without stopping; he merely keepsturning his head more and more backward as he leaves the buildingbehind. Passing along to the next corner, he turns to the left, goesround the block, and comes back till he reaches the point diagonallyacross the street from the factory--point on his former course, which hethen retraces, looking frequently backward over his right shoulder atthe window while it is in sight. For many years he has not been known tovary his route nor to introduce a single innovation into his action. Ina quarter of an hour he is again at the mouth of his dwelling, and awoman, who has for some time been standing in the nose, assists him toenter. He is seen no more until two o'clock the next day. The woman ishis wife. She supports herself and him by washing for the poor peopleamong whom they live, at rates which destroy Chinese and domesticcompetition. This man is about fifty-seven years of age, though he looks greatlyolder. His hair is dead white. He wears no beard, and is always newlyshaven. His hands are clean, his nails well kept. In the matter of dresshe is distinctly superior to his position, as indicated by hissurroundings and the business of his wife. He is, indeed, very neatly,if not quite fashionably, clad. His silk hat has a date no earlier thanthe year before the last, and his boots, scrupulously polished, areinnocent of patches. I am told that the suit which he wears during hisdaily excursions of fifteen minutes is not the one that he wears athome. Like everything else that he has, this is provided and kept inrepair by the wife, and is renewed as frequently as her scanty meanspermit. Thirty years ago John Hardshaw and his wife lived on Rincon Hill in oneof the finest residences of that once aristocratic quarter. He had oncebeen a physician, but having inherited a considerable estate from hisfather concerned himself no more about the ailments of hisfellow-creatures and found as much work as he cared for in managing hisown affairs. Both he and his wife were highly cultivated persons, andtheir house was frequented by a small set of such men and women aspersons of their tastes would think worth knowing. So far as these knew,Mr. and Mrs. Hardshaw lived happily together; certainly the wife wasdevoted to her handsome and accomplished husband and exceedingly proudof him. Among their acquaintances were the Barwells--man, wife and two youngchildren--of Sacramento. Mr. Barwell was a civil and mining engineer,whose duties took him much from home and frequently to San Francisco. Onthese occasions his wife commonly accompanied him and passed much of hertime at the house of her friend, Mrs. Hardshaw, always with her twochildren, of whom Mrs. Hardshaw, childless herself, grew fond.Unluckily, her husband grew equally fond of their mother--a good dealfonder. Still more unluckily, that attractive lady was less wise thanweak. At about three o'clock one autumn morning Officer No. 13 of theSacramento police saw a man stealthily leaving the rear entrance of agentleman's residence and promptly arrested him. The man--who wore aslouch hat and shaggy overcoat--offered the policeman one hundred, thenfive hundred, then one thousand dollars to be released. As he had lessthan the first mentioned sum on his person the officer treated hisproposal with virtuous contempt. Before reaching the station theprisoner agreed to give him a check for ten thousand dollars and remainironed in the willows along the river bank until it should be paid. Asthis only provoked new derision he would say no more, merely giving anobviously fictitious name. When he was searched at the station nothingof value was found on him but a miniature portrait of Mrs. Barwell--thelady of the house at which he was caught. The case was set with costlydiamonds; and something in the quality of the man's linen sent a pang ofunavailing regret through the severely incorruptible bosom of OfficerNo. 13. There was nothing about the prisoner's clothing nor person toidentify him and he was booked for burglary under the name that he hadgiven, the honorable name of John K. Smith. The K. was an inspirationupon which, doubtless, he greatly prided himself. In the mean time the mysterious disappearance of John Hardshaw wasagitating the gossips of Rincon Hill in San Francisco, and was evenmentioned in one of the newspapers. It did not occur to the lady whomthat journal considerately described as his "widow," to look for him inthe city prison at Sacramento--a town which he was not known ever tohave visited. As John K. Smith he was arraigned and, waivingexamination, committed for trial. About two weeks before the trial, Mrs. Hardshaw, accidentally learningthat her husband was held in Sacramento under an assumed name on acharge of burglary, hastened to that city without daring to mention thematter to any one and presented herself at the prison, asking for aninterview with her husband, John K. Smith. Haggard and ill with anxiety,wearing a plain traveling wrap which covered her from neck to foot, andin which she had passed the night on the steamboat, too anxious tosleep, she hardly showed for what she was, but her manner pleaded forher more strongly than anything that she chose to say in evidence of herright to admittance. She was permitted to see him alone. What occurred during that distressing interview has never transpired;but later events prove that Hardshaw had found means to subdue her willto his own. She left the prison, a broken-hearted woman, refusing toanswer a single question, and returning to her desolate home renewed, ina half-hearted way, her inquiries for her missing husband. A week latershe was herself missing: she had "gone back to the States"--nobody knewany more than that. On his trial the prisoner pleaded guilty--"by advice of his counsel," sohis counsel said. Nevertheless, the judge, in whose mind several unusualcircumstances had created a doubt, insisted on the district attorneyplacing Officer No. 13 on the stand, and the deposition of Mrs. Barwell,who was too ill to attend, was read to the jury. It was very brief: sheknew nothing of the matter except that the likeness of herself was herproperty, and had, she thought, been left on the parlor table when shehad retired on the night of the arrest. She had intended it as a presentto her husband, then and still absent in Europe on business for a miningcompany. This witness's manner when making the deposition at her residence wasafterward described by the district attorney as most extraordinary.Twice she had refused to testify, and once, when the deposition lackednothing but her signature, she had caught it from the clerk's hands andtorn it in pieces. She had called her children to the bedside andembraced them with streaming eyes, then suddenly sending them from theroom, she verified her statement by oath and signature, and fainted--"slick away," said the district attorney. It was at that time that herphysician, arriving upon the scene, took in the situation at a glanceand grasping the representative of the law by the collar chucked himinto the street and kicked his assistant after him. The insulted majestyof the law was not vindicated; the victim of the indignity did not evenmention anything of all this in court. He was ambitious to win his case,and the circumstances of the taking of that deposition were not such aswould give it weight if related; and after all, the man on trial hadcommitted an offense against the law's majesty only less heinous thanthat of the irascible physician. By suggestion of the judge the jury rendered a verdict of guilty; therewas nothing else to do, and the prisoner was sentenced to thepenitentiary for three years. His counsel, who had objected to nothingand had made no plea for lenity--had, in fact, hardly said a word--wrunghis client's hand and left the room. It was obvious to the whole barthat he had been engaged only to prevent the court from appointingcounsel who might possibly insist on making a defense. John Hardshaw served out his term at San Quentin, and when dischargedwas met at the prison gates by his wife, who had returned from "theStates" to receive him. It is thought they went straight to Europe;anyhow, a general power-of-attorney to a lawyer still living among us--from whom I have many of the facts of this simple history--was executedin Paris. This lawyer in a short time sold everything that Hardshawowned in California, and for years nothing was heard of the unfortunatecouple; though many to whose ears had come vague and inaccurateintimations of their strange story, and who had known them, recalledtheir personality with tenderness and their misfortunes with compassion. Some years later they returned, both broken in fortune and spirits andhe in health. The purpose of their return I have not been able toascertain. For some time they lived, under the name of Johnson, in arespectable enough quarter south of Market Street, pretty well put, andwere never seen away from the vicinity of their dwelling. They must havehad a little money left, for it is not known that the man had anyoccupation, the state of his health probably not permitting. The woman'sdevotion to her invalid husband was matter of remark among theirneighbors; she seemed never absent from his side and always supportingand cheering him. They would sit for hours on one of the benches in alittle public park, she reading to him, his hand in hers, her lighttouch occasionally visiting his pale brow, her still beautiful eyesfrequently lifted from the book to look into his as she made somecomment on the text, or closed the volume to beguile his mood with talkof--what? Nobody ever overheard a conversation between these two. Thereader who has had the patience to follow their history to this pointmay possibly find a pleasure in conjecture: there was probably somethingto be avoided. The bearing of the man was one of profound dejection;indeed, the unsympathetic youth of the neighborhood, with that keensense for visible characteristics which ever distinguishes the youngmale of our species, sometimes mentioned him among themselves by thename of Spoony Glum. It occurred one day that John Hardshaw was possessed by the spirit ofunrest. God knows what led him whither he went, but he crossed MarketStreet and held his way northward over the hills, and downward into theregion known as North Beach. Turning aimlessly to the left he followedhis toes along an unfamiliar street until he was opposite what for thatperiod was a rather grand dwelling, and for this is a rather shabbyfactory. Casting his eyes casually upward he saw at an open window whatit had been better that he had not seen--the face and figure of ElviraBarwell. Their eyes met. With a sharp exclamation, like the cry of astartled bird, the lady sprang to her feet and thrust her body half outof the window, clutching the casing on each side. Arrested by the cry,the people in the street below looked up. Hardshaw stood motionless,speechless, his eyes two flames. "Take care!" shouted some one in thecrowd, as the woman strained further and further forward, defying thesilent, implacable law of gravitation, as once she had defied that otherlaw which God thundered from Sinai. The suddenness of her movements hadtumbled a torrent of dark hair down her shoulders, and now it was blownabout her cheeks, almost concealing her face. A moment so, and then--! Afearful cry rang through the street, as, losing her balance, she pitchedheadlong from the window, a confused and whirling mass of skirts, limbs,hair, and white face, and struck the pavement with a horrible sound anda force of impact that was felt a hundred feet away. For a moment alleyes refused their office and turned from the sickening spectacle on thesidewalk. Drawn again to that horror, they saw it strangely augmented. Aman, hatless, seated flat upon the paving stones, held the broken,bleeding body against his breast, kissing the mangled cheeks andstreaming mouth through tangles of wet hair, his own featuresindistinguishably crimson with the blood that half-strangled him and ranin rills from his soaken beard. The reporter's task is nearly finished. The Barwells had that verymorning returned from a two years' absence in Peru. A week later thewidower, now doubly desolate, since there could be no missing thesignificance of Hardshaw's horrible demonstration, had sailed for I knownot what distant port; he has never come back to stay. Hardshaw--asJohnson no longer--passed a year in the Stockton asylum for the insane,where also, through the influence of pitying friends, his wife wasadmitted to care for him. When he was discharged, not cured butharmless, they returned to the city; it would seem ever to have had somedreadful fascination for them. For a time they lived near the MissionDolores, in poverty only less abject than that which is their presentlot; but it was too far away from the objective point of the man's dailypilgrimage. They could not afford car fare. So that poor devil of anangel from Heaven--wife to this convict and lunatic--obtained, at a fairenough rental, the blank-faced shanty on the lower terrace of Goat Hill.Thence to the structure that was a dwelling and is a factory thedistance is not so great; it is, in fact, an agreeable walk, judgingfrom the man's eager and cheerful look as he takes it. The returnjourney appears to be a trifle wearisome.

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