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The Damned Thing, by Ambrose Bierce

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The Damned Thing
by Ambrose Bierce, 1898



I
BY the light of a tallow candle, which had been placed on one end of a rough
table, a man was reading something written in a book. It was an old account
book, greatly worn; and the writing was not, apparently, very legible, for the
man sometimes held the page close to the flame of the candle to get a stronger
light upon it. The shadow of the book would then throw into obscurity a half of
the room, darkening a number of faces and figures; for besides the reader, eight
other men were present. Seven of them sat against the rough log walls, silent
and motionless, and, the room being small, not very far from the table. By
extending an arm any one of them could have touched the eighth man, who lay on
the table, face upward, partly covered by a sheet, his arms at his sides. He was
dead.
The man with the book was not reading aloud, and no one spoke; all seemed to be
waiting for something to occur; the dead man only was without expectation. From
the blank darkness outside came in, through the aperture that served for a
window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in the wildernessЧ the long,
nameless note of a distant coyote; the stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects
in trees; strange cries of night birds, so different from those of the birds of
day; the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of
small sounds that seem always to have been but half heard when they have
suddenly ceased, as if conscious of an indiscretion. But nothing of all this was
noted in that company; its members were not overmuch addicted to idle interest
in matters of no practical importance; that was obvious in every line of their
rugged facesЧ obvious even in the dim light of the single candle. They were
evidently men of the vicinityЧ farmers and woodmen.
The person reading was a trifle different; one would have said of him that he
was of the world, worldly, albeit there was that in his attire which attested a
certain fellowship with the organisms of his environment. His coat would hardly
have passed muster in San Francisco: his footgear was not of urban origin, and
the hat that lay by him on the floor (he was the only one uncovered) was such
that if one had considered it as an article of mere personal adornment he would
have missed its meaning. In countenance the man was rather prepossessing, with
just a hint of sternness; though that he may have assumed or cultivated, as
appropriate to one in authority. For he was a coroner. It was by virtue of his
once that he had possession of the book in which he was reading; it had been
found among the dead man's effectsЧ in his cabin, where the inquest was now
taking place.
When the coroner had finished reading he put the book into his breast pocket. At
that moment the door was pushed open and a young man entered. He, clearly, was
not of mountain birth and breeding: he was clad as those who dwell in cities.
His clothing was dusty, however, as from travel. He had, in fact, been riding
hard to attend the inquest.