A Diagnosis of Death: Bierce's Chilling Ghost Story - Audiobook - video Dailymotion

Gates of Imagination

Delve into the eerie and cerebral world of Ambrose Bierce's "A Diagnosis of Death," a classic short story that blurs the lines between life, death, and the supernatural. This tale introduces us to Hawver, a man who, while staying in an abandoned house once owned by a strange doctor, believes he has seen the living man's ghostly impression. He confidently recounts the experience to his doctor friend, Frayley, as proof of a new kind of paranormal phenomenon.  "A Diagnosis of Death" is a masterclass in Bierce's chillingly precise storytelling and cynical wit. The story takes a profound turn when Frayley reveals the doctor has been dead for years, and the ghost's peculiar gesture was a known precursor to his pronouncements of death. As a part of Bierce's collection, Can Such Things Be?, this story challenges conventional ghost narratives and delves into the psychological terror of an inescapable, preordained fate. This audiobook summary and analysis will explore:  The story's unique take on apparitions and the supernatural.  The unsettling blend of rational skepticism and horrifying reality.  Bierce’s masterful use of foreshadowing and irony.  The ultimate, shocking twist and its grim implications for the narrator.  Join us for this deep dive into one of Ambrose Bierce's most thought-provoking and unforgettable ghost stories. It's a must-listen for fans of classic horror, gothic literature, and tales that will leave you questioning everything.

Transcript

00:00Gates of Imagination presents A Diagnosis of Death by Ambrose Bierce, read by Billy Dixon.

00:11I am not so superstitious as some of your physicians, men of science, as you are pleased

00:17to be called, said Haver, replying to an accusation that had not been made.

00:23Some of you, only a few, I confess, believe in the immortality of the soul, and in apparitions

00:30which you have not the honesty to call ghosts.

00:34I go no further than a conviction that the living are sometimes seen where they are not,

00:39but have been, where they have lived so long, perhaps so intensely, as to have left their

00:46impress on everything about them.

00:48I know indeed that one's environment may be so affected by one's personality as to

00:53yield, long afterward, an image of one's self to the eyes of another.

00:58Doubtless the impressing personality has to be the right kind of personality as the perceiving

01:04eyes have to be the right kind of eyes.

01:07Mine, for example.

01:09Yes, the right kind of eyes conveying sensations to the wrong kind of brain, said Dr. Fraley,

01:16smiling.

01:18One likes to have an expectation gratified.

01:22That is about the reply that I supposed you would have the civility to make.

01:27Pardon me?

01:28But you say that you know.

01:31That is a good deal to say, don't you think?

01:34Perhaps you will not mind the trouble of saying how you learned.

01:38You will call it an hallucination, Haver said, but that does not matter.

01:43And he told the story.

01:44Last summer I went, as you know, to pass the hot weather term in the town of Meridian.

01:53The relative at whose house I had intended to stay was ill.

01:57So I sought other quarters.

01:59After some difficulty, I succeeded in renting a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by an

02:06eccentric doctor of the name of Mannering, who had gone away years before.

02:12No one knew where.

02:13Not even his agent.

02:14He had built the house himself and had lived in it with an old servant for about ten years.

02:20His practice, never very extensive, had after a few years been given up entirely.

02:27Not only so, but he had withdrawn himself almost altogether from social life and become a recluse.

02:34I was told by the village doctor about the only person with whom he held any relations,

02:40that during his retirement he had devoted himself to a single line of study,

02:45the result of which he had expounded in a book that did not commend itself to the approval of his professional brethren,

02:51who, indeed, considered him not entirely sane.

02:54I have not seen the book and cannot now recall the title of it,

02:59but I am told that it expounded a rather startling theory.

03:03He held that it was possible, in the case of many a person in good health,

03:08to forecast his death with precision, several months in advance of the event.

03:13The limit, I think, was eighteen months.

03:16There were local tales of his having exerted his powers of prognosis,

03:21or perhaps you would say diagnosis,

03:23and it was said that in every instance the person whose friends he had warned

03:28had died suddenly at the appointed time, and from no assignable cause.

03:34All this, however, has nothing to do with what I have to tell.

03:38I thought it might amuse a physician.

03:42The house was furnished, just as he had lived in it.

03:46It was a rather gloomy dwelling for one who was neither a recluse nor a student,

03:50and I think it gave something of its character to me.

03:55Perhaps some of its former occupant's character,

03:58for always I felt in it a certain melancholy that was not in my natural disposition,

04:04nor, I think, due to loneliness.

04:07I had no servants that slept in the house,

04:09but I have always been, as you know, rather fond of my own society,

04:14being much addicted to reading, though little to study.

04:19Whatever was the cause, the effect was dejection and a sense of impending evil.

04:26This was especially so in Dr. Mannering's study,

04:29although that room was the lightest and most airy in the house.

04:33The doctor's life-size portrait in oil hung in that room,

04:37and seemed completely to dominate it.

04:39There was nothing unusual in the picture.

04:42The man was evidently rather good-looking,

04:44about fifty years old, with iron-gray hair,

04:48a smooth-shaven face, and dark, serious eyes.

04:52Something in the picture always drew and held my attention.

04:56The man's appearance became familiar to me, and rather haunted me.

05:01One evening I was passing through this room to my bedroom with a lamp.

05:06There is no gas in Meridian.

05:09I stopped as usual before the portrait,

05:11which seemed in the lamplight to have a new expression,

05:15not easily named, but distinctly uncanny.

05:18It interested but did not disturb me.

05:21I moved the lamp from one side to the other,

05:24and observed the effects of the altered light.

05:27While so engaged, I felt an impulse to turn round.

05:31As I did so, I saw a man moving across the room,

05:35directly toward me.

05:36As soon as he came near enough for the lamplight to illuminate the face,

05:41I saw that it was Dr. Mannering himself.

05:44It was as if the portrait were walking.

05:47I beg your pardon, I said somewhat coldly, but if you knocked, I did not hear.

05:55He passed me within an arm's length, lifted his right forefinger as in warning,

06:00and without a word went on out of the room,

06:04though I observed his exit no more than I had observed his entrance.

06:07Of course, I need not tell you that this was what you will call an hallucination,

06:13and I call an apparition.

06:15That room had only two doors, of which one was locked.

06:20The other led into a bedroom, from which there was no exit.

06:24My feeling on realizing this is not an important part of the incident.

06:28Doubtless, this seems to you a very commonplace ghost story.

06:34One constructed on the regular lines laid down by the old masters of the art.

06:40If that were so, I should not have related it, even if it were true.

06:44The man was not dead.

06:46I met him today in Union Street.

06:49He passed me in a crowd.

06:50Hover had finished his story, and both men were silent.

06:56Dr. Fraley absently drummed on the table with his fingers.

07:00Did he say anything today?

07:02He asked.

07:03Anything from which you inferred that he was not dead?

07:08Hover stared and did not reply.

07:11Perhaps, continued Fraley.

07:14He made a sign, a gesture, lifted a finger as in warning.

07:18It's a trick he had, a habit when saying something serious,

07:22announcing the result of a diagnosis, for example.

07:26Yes, he did.

07:28Just as his apparition had done.

07:30But good God!

07:31Did you ever know him?

07:34Hover was apparently growing nervous.

07:36I knew him.

07:38I have read his book, as will every physician someday.

07:42It is one of the most striking and important of the century's contributions to medical science.

07:49Yes, I knew him.

07:50I attended him in an illness three years ago.

07:54He died.

07:55Hover sprang from his chair, manifestly disturbed.

07:59He strode forward and back across the room, then approached his friend,

08:03and in a voice not altogether steady, said,

08:06Doctor, have you anything to say to me as a physician?

08:10No, Hover.

08:13You are the healthiest man I ever knew.

08:16As a friend, I advise you to go to your room.

08:19You play the violin like an angel.

08:22Play it.

08:23Play something light and lively.

08:25Get this cursed bad business off your mind.

08:27The next day, Hover was found dead in his room, the violin at his neck, the bow upon the strings.

08:37His music opened before him at Chopin's funeral march.

08:40Thank you for listening to this audiobook.

08:49If you enjoyed this story, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss our next uploads.

08:57See you in the next audiobook.

A Diagnosis of Death: Bierce's Chilling Ghost Story - Audiobook

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