Speaker 1: The man in the snake one. It is of veritable report,
and attested of so many, that there be none of
wise and learned none to gainsay it that you, serpent
his eye hath a magnetic property, that whoso falleth into
its vision is drawn forwards in despite of his will,
and perishes miserable by ye creature. His bite stretched at
ease upon a sofa, in gown and slippers, Harker Brayton
smiled as he read the foregoing sentence in Old Morrister's
Marvels of Science. The only marvel in the matter, he
said to himself, is that the wise and learned in
Morrister's day should have believed such nonsense as is rejected
by most of even the ignorant in ours. A train
of reflections followed, for Brayton was a man of thought,
and he unconsciously lowered his book without altered the direction
of his eyes. As soon as the volume had gone
below the line of sight, something in an obscure corner
of the room recalled his attention to his surroundings. What
he saw, in the shadow under his bed were two
small points of light, apparently about an inch apart. They
might have been reflections of the gas jet above him
in metal nail heads. He gave them but little thought
and resumed his reading. A moment later, something, some impulse
which did not occur to him to analyze, impelled him
to lower the book again and seek for what he
saw before. The points of light were still there. They
seemed to have become brighter than before, shining with a
greenish luster which he had not at first observed. He
thought too that they might have moved a trifle or
somewhat nearer. They were still too much in the shadow, however,
to reveal their nature and origin to an indolent attention,
and he resumed his reading. Suddenly, something in the text
suggested a thought which made him start and drop the
book for a third time to the side of the sofa,
whence escaping from his hand, it fell sprawling to the
floor back upward. Brayton, half risen, was staring intently into
the obscurity beneath the bed where the points of light shone.
With it seemed to him an added fire. His attention
was now fully aroused, his gaze eager and imperative. It
disclosed almost directly beneath the foot rail of the bed
the coils of a large serpent. The points of light
were its eyes. Its horrible head, thrust flatly forward from
the innermost coil and resting upon the outermost, was directed
straight toward him, the definition of the wide brutal jaw
and the idiot like forehead serving to show the direction
of its malevolent gaze. The eyes were no longer merely
luminous points. They looked into his own with a meaning
a malie significance. Two. A snake in the bedroom of
a modern city dwelling of the better sort is happily
not so commonplace, a phenomenon as to make explanation altogether needless.
Harker Brayton, a bachelor of thirty five, a scholar, idler,
and something of an athlete, rich, popular, and of sound health,
had returned to San Francisco from all manner of remote
and unfamiliar countries. His tastes, always a trifle luxurious, had
taken on an added exuberance from long privation, and the
resources of even the Castle Hotel being inadequate for their
perfect gratification. He had gladly accepted the hospitality of his friend,
Doctor Druring, the distinguished scientist Doctor Druring's house, a large,
old fashioned one in which was now an obscure quarter
of the city, had an outer and visible aspect of reserve.
It plainly would not associate with the contiguous elements of
its altered environment, and appeared to have developed some of
the eccentricities which come of isolation. One of these was
a wing, conspicuously irrelevant in point of architecture, and no
less rebellious than the matter of purpose, for it was
a combination of laboratory, menagerie and museum. It was here
that the doctor indulged the scientific side of his nature
in the study of such forms of animal life as
engaged his interest and comforted his taste, which, it must
be confessed, ran rather to the lower forms, for one
of the higher types, nimbly and sweetly to recommend itself
unto his gentle senses, it had at least retained certain
rudimentary characteristics, allying it to such dragons of the prime
as toads and snakes. His scientific sympathies were distinctly Reptilian.
He loved nature's vulgarians, and described himself as the Zola
of zoology. His wife and daughters, not having the advantage
to share his enlightened curiosity regarding the works and ways
of our ill starred fellow creatures were, with needless austerity,
excluded from what he called the snakery, and doomed to
companionship with their own kind. Though to soften the rigors
of their lot, he had permitted them, out of his
great wealth, to outdo the reptiles in the gorgeousness of
their surroundings, and to shine with the superior splendor architecturally
and in point of furnishing. The snakery had a severe simplicity,
befitting the humble circumstances of its occupants, many of whom
indeed could not safely have been entrusted with the liberty
which is necessary to the full enjoyment of luxury, for
they had the troublesome peculiarity of being alive in their
own apartments. However, they were under as little personal restraint
as was compatible with their protection from the baneful habit
of swallowing one another. And as Brighton had thoughtfully been apprized,
it was more than a tradition that some of them had,
at divers times been found in parts of the premises
where it would have embarrassed them to explain their presence.
Despite the snakery and its uncanny associations, to which indeed
he gave little attention, Brayton found life at the Juring
mansion very much to his mind. Three Beyond a smart
shock of surprise and a shudder of mere loathing, mister
Brayton was not greatly affected. His first thought was to
ring the call bell and bring a servant, But although
the bell cord nangled within easy reach, he made no
movement toward it. It had occurred to his mind that
the act might subject him to the suspicion of fear,
which he certainly did not feel. He was more keenly
conscious of the incongruous nature of the situation than affected
by its perils. It was revolting, but absurd. The reptile
was of a species with which Brayton was unfamiliar. Its length,
he could only conjecture. The body at the largest visible
part seemed about as thick as his forearm. In what
way was it dangerous? If in any way was it venomous?
Was it a constrictor? His knowledge of nature's danger signals
did not enable him to say. He had never deciphered
the code If not dangerous, the creature was at least offensive.
It was de trop matter, out of place, an impertinence.
The gem was unworthy of the setting. Even a barbarous
taste of our time and country, which had loaded the
walls of the room with pictures, the floor with furniture,
and the furniture with bric a brac, had not quite
fitted the place for this bit of the savage life
of the jungle. Besides insupportable thought, the exhalations of its
breath mingled with the atmosphere which he himself was breathing.
These thoughts shaped themselves with greater or less definition in
Brayton's mind, and begot action. The process is what we
call consideration and decision. It is thus that we are
wise and unwise. It is thus that the withered leaf
in an autumn breeze shows greater or less intense dilligence
than its fellows falling upon the land or upon the lake.
The secret of human action is an open one. Something
contracts our muscles. Does it matter if we give to
the preparatory molecular changes the name of Will Brayton rose
to his feet and prepared to back softly away from
the snake without disturbing it, if possible, and through the
door people retire so from the presence of the great,
for greatness's power and power is a menace. He knew
that he could walk backward without obstruction and find the
door without air. Should the monster follow. The taste, which
had plastered the walls with paintings, said consistently supplied a
rack of murderous oriental weapons from which he could snatch
one the suit the occasion. In the meantime, the snake's
eyes burned with a more pitiless malevolence than ever. Brayton
lifted his right foot free of the floor to step backward.
That moment he felt a strong aversion to doing so.
I am accounted, brave, he murmured, is bravery then no
more than pride? Because there are none to witness the shame?
Shall I retreat? He was steadying himself with his right
hand upon the back of a chair as foot suspended. Nonsense,
he said aloud, I am not so great a coward
as to fear to seem to myself afraid. He lifted
the foot a little higher by slightly bending the knee,
and thrust it sharply to the floor an inch in
front of the other. He could not think how that occurred.
A trial with the left foot had the same result.
It was again in advance of the right. The hand
upon the chair back was grasping it. The arm was straight,
reaching somewhe backward. One might have seen that he was
reluctant to lose his hold. The snake's malignant head was
still thrust forth from the inner coil as before the
neck level. It had not moved, but its eyes were
now electric sparks radiating an infinity of luminous needles. The
man had an ashy pallor. Again he took a step
forward and another, partly dragging the chair, which, when finally released,
fell upon the floor with a crash. The man groaned.
The snake made neither sound nor motion, but its eyes
were two dazzling suns. The reptile itself was wholly concealed
by them. They gave off enlarging rings of rich and
vivid colors, which, at their greatest expansion successively vanished like
soap bubbles. They seemed to approach his very face, and
a nonon were an immeasurable distance away. He heard somewhere
the continual throbbing of a great drum, with desultory bursts
of far music, inconceivably sweet, like the tones of an
Eolian harp. He knew it for the sunrise melody of
Menon's statue, and thought he stood in the nile side reeds,
hearing with exalted sense that immortal anthem. Through the silence
of the centuries. The music ceased, rather, it became by
insensible dear greased the distant roll of a retreating thunderstorm.
A landscape glittering with sun and rain stretched before him,
arched with a vivid rainbow, framing in its giant curve
a hundred visible cities. In the middle distance, a vast
serpent wearing a crown reared his head out of its
voluminous convolutions and looked at him with his dead mother's eyes. Suddenly,
this enchanting landscape seemed to rise swiftly upward, like the
drop scene at a theater, and vanished in a blank.
Something struck him a hard blow upon the face and breast.
He had fallen to the floor. The blood ran from
his broken nose and his bruised lips. For a moment
he was dazed and stunned, and lay with closed eyes,
his face against the door. In a few moments he
had recovered, and then realized that his fall. By withdrawing
his eyes had broken the spell which held him. He
felt that now, by keeping his gaze averted, he would
be able to retreat. But the thought of the serpent
within a few feet of his head, yet unseen, perhaps
in the very act of springing upon him and throwing
its coils about his throat, was too horrible. He lifted
his head, stared again into those baleful eyes, and was
again in bondage. The snake had not moved, and appeared
somewhat to have lost its power upon the imagination. The
gorgeous illusions of a few moments before were not repeated.
Beneath that flat and brainless brow, its black, beady eyes
simply glittered as at first, with an expression unspeakably malignant.
It was as if the creature, knowing its triumph assured,
had determined to practice no more alluring wiles. Now ensued
a fearful scene. The man, prone upon the floor within
a yard of his enemy, raised the upper part of
his body upon his elbows, his head thrown back, his
legs extended to their full length, His face was white
beneath its scouts of blood. His eyes were strained open
to their uttermost expansion. There was froth upon his lips.
It dropped off in flakes. Strong convulsions ran through his body,
making almost serpentine undulations. He bent himself at the waist,
shifting his legs from side to side, and every movement
left him a little nearer to the snake. He thrust
his hands forward to brace himself back, yet constantly advanced
upon his elbows. Four Doctor Druring and his wife sat
in the library. The scientist was in rare good humor.
I have just obtained by exchange with another collector, he said,
a splendid specimen of the Ophia vegas. And what may
that be? The lady inquired, with a somewhat languid interest.
Why bless my soul? What profound ignorance, my dear? A
man who ascertains after marriage that his wife does not
know Greek is entitled to a divorce. The Ophia vegas
is a snake which eats other snakes. I hope it
will eat all yours, she said, absently, shifting the lamp.
But how does it get the other snakes? By charming them.
I suppose that is just like you, dear, said the doctor,
with an affectation of petulance. You know how irritating to
me is any allusion to that vulgar superstition about the
snake's power of fascination. The conversation was interrupted by a
mighty cry, which rang through the silent house, like the
voice of a demon shouting in a tomb. Again, and
yet again, it sounded with terrible distinctness. They sprang to
their feet, the man confused, the lady pale and speechless
with fright. Almost before the echoes of the last cry
had died away, the doctor was out of the room,
springing up the staircase two steps at a time. In
the corridor in front of Brayton's chamber, he met some
servants who had come from the upper floor. Together, they
rushed at the door without knocking. It was unfastened and
gave way. Brayton lay upon his stomach on the floor, dead.
His head and arms were partly concealed under the foot
rail of the bed. They pulled the body away, turning
it upon the back. The face was dabbed with blood
and froth. The eyes were wide open, staring a dreadful
sight died in a fit, said the scientist, bending his
knee and placing his hand upon the heart. While in
that position, he happened to glance under the bed. Good God,
he added, how did this thing get in here? He
reached under the bed, pulled out the snake, and flung it,
still coiled, to the center of the room, whence, with
a harsh shuffling sound, it slid across the polished floor
till it stopped by the wall, where it lay without motion.
It was a stuffed snake. Its eyes were two shoe buttons.
And of the Man and the Snake by Ambrose Bierce