The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature)

by Mark Twain

  But it made no impression on him. He had never felt a pain or a sorrow, and did not know what they were, in any really informing way. He had no knowledge of them except theoretically-that is to say, intellectually. And of course that is no good. One can never get any but a loose and ignorant notion of such things except by experience. We tried our best to make him comprehend the awful thing that had been done and how we were compromised by it, but he couldn't seem to get hold of it. He said he did not think it important where Fischer went to, in heaven he would not be missed, there were "plenty there." We tried to make him see that he was missing the point entirely; that Fischer, and not other people, was the proper one to decide about the importance of it; but it all went for nothing, he said he did not care for Fischer, there were plenty more Fischers.

  The next minute Fischer went by, on the other side of the way, and it made us sick and faint to see him, remembering the doom that was upon him, and we the cause of it. And how unconscious he was that anything had happened to him! You could see by his elastic step and his alert manner that he was well satisfied with himself for doing that hard turn for poor Frau Brandt. He kept glancing back over his shoulder expectantly. And sure enough, pretty soon Frau Brandt followed after, in charge of the officers and wearing jingling chains. A mob was in her wake, jeering and shouting "Blasphemer and heretic!" and some among them were neighbors and friends of her happier days. Some were trying to strike her, and the officers were not taking as much trouble as they might to keep them from it.

  "Oh, stop them, Satan!" It was out before we remembered that he could not interrupt them for a moment without changing their whole after-lives. He puffed a little puff toward them with his lips and they began to reel and stagger and grab at the empty air; then they broke apart and fled in every direction, shrieking, as if in intolerable pain. He had crushed a rib of each of them with that little puff. We could not help asking if their life-chart was changed.

  "Yes, entirely. Some have gained years, some have lost them. Some few will profit in various ways by the change, but only that few."

  We did not ask if we had brought poor Fischer's luck to any of them. We did not wish to know. We fully believed in Satan's desire to do us kindnesses, but we were losing confidence in his judgment. It was at this time that our growing anxiety to have him look over our life-charts and suggest improvements began to fade out and give place to other interests.

  For a day or two the whole village was in a chattering turmoil over Frau Brandt's case and over the mysterious calamity that had overtaken the mob, and at her trial the place was crowded. She was easily convicted of her blasphemies, for she uttered those terrible words again and said she would not take them back. When warned that she was imperiling her life she said they could take it and welcome, she did not want it, she would rather live with the professional devils in perdition than with these amateurs in the village. They accused her of breaking all those ribs by witchcraft, and asked her if she was not a witch? She answered scornfully-

  "No. If I had that power would any of you holy hypocrites be alive five minutes? No, I would strike you all dead. Pronounce your sentence and let me go; I am tired of your society."

  So they found her guilty, and she was excommunicated and cut off from the joys of heaven and doomed to the fires of hell; then she was clothed in a coarse robe and delivered to the secular arm, and conducted to the market place, the bell solemnly tolling the while. We saw her chained to the stake, and saw the first thin film of blue smoke rise on the still air. Then her hard face softened, and she looked upon the packed crowd in front of her and said with gentleness-

  "We played together once, in long-gone days when we were innocent little creatures. For the sake of that, I forgive you."

  We went away then, and did not see the fires consume her, but we heard the shrieks, although we put our fingers in our ears. When they ceased we knew she was in heaven notwithstanding the excommunication; and we were glad of her death and not sorry that we had brought it about.

  Chapter 8

  ONE DAY, a little while after this, Satan appeared again. We were always watching out for him-Seppi and I-and longing for him; for life was never very stagnant when he was by. He came upon us at that place in the woods where we had first met him. Being boys, we wanted to be entertained, and we asked him to do a show for us.

  "Very well," he said, "would you like to see a history of the progress of the human race?-its development of that product which it calls Civilization?"

  We said we should.

  So, with a thought, he turned the place into the Garden of Eden, and we saw Abel praying by his altar; then Cain came walking toward him with his club, and did not seem to see us, and would have stepped on my foot if I had not drawn it in. He spoke to his brother in a language which we did not understand; then he grew violent and threatening, and we knew what was going to happen, and turned away our heads for the moment; but we heard the crash of the blows and heard the shrieks and the groans; then there was silence, and we saw Abel lying in his blood and gasping out his life, and Cain standing over him and looking down at him, vengeful and unrepentant.

  Then the vision vanished, and was followed by a long series of unknown wars, murders and massacres. Next, we had the Flood, and the Ark tossing around in the stormy waters, with lofty mountains in the distance showing veiled and dim through the rain. Satan said-

  "The progress of your race was not satisfactory. It is to have another chance, now."

  The scene changed, and we saw Noah lying drunk on Ararat.

  Next, we had Sodom and Gomorrah, and "the attempt to discover two or three respectable persons there," as Satan described it. Next, Lot and his daughters in the cave.

  Next came the Hebraic wars, and we saw the victors massacre the survivors and their cattle, and save the young girls alive and distribute them around.

  Next, we had Jael; and saw her slip into the tent and drive the nail into the temples of her sleeping guest; and we were so close that when the blood gushed out it trickled in a little red stream to our feet and we could have stained our hands in it if we had wanted to.

  Next we had Egyptian wars, Greek wars, Roman wars, hideous drenchings of the earth with blood; and we saw the treacheries of the Romans toward the Carthaginians, and the sickening spectacle of the massacre of those brave people. Also we saw Caesar invade Britain-"not that those barbarians had done him any harm, but because he wanted their land, and desired to confer the blessings of civilization upon their widows and orphans," as Satan explained.

  Next Christianity was born. Then, ages of Europe passed in review before us, and we saw Christianity and Civilization march hand in hand through those ages, "leaving famine and death and desolation in their wake, and other signs of the progress of the human race," as Satan observed.

  Then the Holy Inquisition was born; "another step in your progress," Satan said. He showed us thousands of torn and mutilated heretics shrieking under the torture, and other thousands and thousands of heretics and witches burning at the stake, "always in the pleasant shade flung by the peaceful banner of the cross," as Satan remarked. And in the midst of these fearful spectacles, as an incidental matter, we had a marvelous night-show, by the light of flitting and flying torches-the butchery of Christian by Christian in France on Bartholomew's Day.

  And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other warsall over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to get more land, sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose-there is no such war in the history of your race."

  "Now," said Satan, "you have seen your progress down to the present, and you must confess that it is wonderful-in its way. We must now exhibit the future. In a year or two we shall have Blenheim and Ramillies. Look!"

  He showed us those awful slaughters.

  "You perceive," he said, "that you have made continual progress. Cain did his murder with a club; the
I did their murders with javelins and swords; the Greeks and Romans added protective armor and the fine arts of military organisation and generalship; the Christian has added guns and gunpowder; two centuries from now he will have so greatly improved the deadly effectiveness of his weapons of slaughter that all men will confess that without the Christian Civilization war must have remained a poor and trifling thing to the end of time. In that day the lands and peoples of the whole pagan world will be at the mercy of the sceptred bandits of Europe, and they will take them. Furnishing in return, the blessings of civilization.

  "Nine years from now a Prussian prince will be born who will steal Silesia; plunge several nations into bloody and desolating wars; lead a life of treachery and general and particular villainy, and be admiringly called `the Great.' Sixty-six years from now a Corsican will be born who will deluge Europe with blood and spread the Christian civilization far and wide. He also will be called `the Great.' A trifle before his day, England will begin to swallow India. In his early manhood there will be a Revolution in France whose bloody exhibitions will be a more terrible thing to see than even France will have known since the Bartholomew Day. All through the next century there will be wars-wars everywhere in the earth. Wars for gain-each one a crime on the part of the provoker of it. An English queen will reign more than sixty years, and fight more than sixty wars during her reign-spreading civilization generously; also with profit. England, desiring a weak State's diamond mires, will take them-by robbery, but courteously. Desiring another weak State's gold mines, her statesmen will try to seize them by piracy; failing, they will manufacture a war and take them in that way; and with them the small State's independence.

  The Christian missionary will exasperate the Chinese; they will kill him in a riot. They will have to pay for him, in territory, cash, and churches, sixty-two million times his value. This will exasperate the Chinese still more, and they will injudiciously rise in revolt against the insults and oppressions of the intruder. This will be Europe's chance to interfere and swallow China, and her band of royal Christian pirates will not waste it. Now then, I will show you this long array of crimson spectacles, so that you can note the progress of civilization from the time that Cain began it down to a period a couple of centuries hence."

  Then he began to laugh in the most unfeeling way, and make fun of the human race, although he knew that what he had been saying shamed us and wounded us. No one but an angel could have acted so; but suffering is nothing to them, they do not know what it is, except by hearsay.

  More than once Seppi and I had tried in a humble and diffident way to convert him; and as he had remained silent we had taken his silence as a sort of encouragement; necessarily, then, this talk of his was a disappointment to us, for it showed that we had made no deep impression upon him. The thought made us sad, and we knew, then, how the missionary must feel when he has been cherishing a glad hope and has seen it blighted. We kept our grief to ourselves, knowing that this was not the time to continue our work.

  Satan laughed his unkind laugh to a finish, then he said-

  "It is a remarkable progress. In five or six thousand years five or six high civilizations have risen, flourished, commanded the wonder of the world, then faded out and disappeared; and not one of them except the latest, ever invented any sweeping and adequate way to kill people. They all did their best, to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human race and the earliest incident in its history, but only the Christian Civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of. Two centuries from now it will he recognised that all the competent killers are Christian; then the pagan world will go to school to the Christian: not to acquire his religion, but his guns. The Turk and the Chinaman will buy those, to kill missionaries and converts with."

  By this time his theatre was at work again: and before our eyes nation after nation drifted by, during two centuries, a mighty procession, an endless procession, raging, struggling, wallowing through seas of blood, smothered in battle-smoke through which the flags glinted and the red jets from the cannon darted; and always we heard the thunder of the guns and the cries of the dying.

  "And what does it amount to?" said Satan, with his evil chuckle. "Nothing at all. You gain nothing; you always come out where you went in. For a million years the race has gone on monotonously propagating itself and monotonously re-performing this dull nonsense-to what end? No wisdom can guess! Who gets a profit out of it? Nobody but a parcel of usurping little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel defiled if you touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your hearts-if you have one-you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line: it is the foundation upon which all civilizations have been built. Drink to their perpetuation! drink to their augmentation! drink to-"

  Then he saw by our faces how much we were hurt, and he cut his sentence short and stopped chuckling, and his manner changed. He said gently-

  "No, we will drink each other's health, and let civilization go. The wine which has flown to our hands out of space by my desire, is earthly, and good enough for that other toast, but throw away the glasses-we will drink this one in wine which has not visited this world before."

  We obeyed, and reached up and received the new cups as they descended. They were shapely and beautiful goblets, but they were not made of any material that we were acquainted with. They seemed to be in motion, they seemed to be alive; and certainly the colors in them were in motion. They were very brilliant and sparkling, and of every tint, and they were never still, but flowed to and fro in rich tides which met and broke and flashed out dainty explosions of enchanting color. I think it was most like opals washing about in waves and flashing out their splendid fires. But there is nothing to compare the wine with, just as there was never anything to compare Satan's music with. We drank it, and felt a strange and witching ecstasy go stealing through us, and Seppi's eyes filled and he said worshipingly-

  "We shall be there some day, and then-"

  He glanced furtively at Satan, and I think he hoped Satan would say "Yes, you will be there some day," but Satan seemed to be thinking about something else, and said nothing. This made me feel ghastly, for I knew he had heard; nothing, spoken or unspoken, ever escaped him. Poor Seppi looked distressed, and did not finish his remark. The goblets rose, and clove their way into the sky, a triplet of radiant sundogs, and disappeared. Why didn't they stay? It seemed a bad sign, and depressed me. Should I ever see mine again? would Seppi ever see his?

  Until this day I do not know. I never asked, and Seppi never asked. It is best not to inquire too far, in some matters, if you want to be comfortable. I had doubts about Seppi's ever seeing his goblet again, and I know he had doubts in my case, for some reason or other. These doubts restrained us and we did not pry into each other's fate further than concerned the present life.

  You must never picture Satan as a solitary, but always with a lot of vagrant animals tagging around after him. Animals could not let him alone, they were so fascinated with him; and this was mutual, for he felt the same way toward them. He often said he would not give a penny for human company when he could get better. You see they were fond of each other because in a manner they were kin, through their mutual property in the absence of the Moral Sense. And kin in another particular, too-to him, as to them, there were no unpleasant smells. He said that unpleasant smells were an invention of Civilization-like modesty, and indecency. He said that to the pure all smells were sweet, to the decent all things were decent. He said that the natural man, the savage, had no prejudices about smells, and no sha
me for his God-made nakedness. Through intimacy with him we came to enjoy the society of many animals which had previously been repulsive to us, but we drew the line at the polecat. He did not; and so when he wanted to play with that creature we kept our distance. Indeed we were obliged to do this, it was not an affectation; for, while a polecat is undoubtedly a comely and graceful animal to look at, none but an angel can get any real joy out of its company. As for me, I would rather live in solitude. Seppi felt the same way.

  Of course out there in the woods we had a perfect managerie on hand. The wild creatures trooped in from everywhere, and climbed all over Satan, and sat on his shoulder and his head, and rummaged his pockets, and made themselves at home-squirrels, rabbits, snakes, birds, butterflies, every creature you could name; and the rest would sit around in a crowd and look at him and admire him and worship him, and c:,atter and squawk and talk and laugh, and he would answer back in their own languages.

  And they often beguiled him to do unlawful things. They would tell him of friends of theirs caught in traps by poachers in the prince's preserves, and would lead the way and show him, and he would release the creatures and destroy the traps. There was a reward out for the transgressor, and the keepers were on the watch, but he did not care. This time it was as usual. A rabbit came with a pitiful tale and he started, we following and protesting as far as the fence, and he changing himself into a rough and ragged poacher as he went. He got a broken-legged rabbit out of a trap, healed it with a touch and let it go-and there were the keepers in ambush, and swarmed out and surrounded him, catching him in the act. Four of them. The chief keeper, Conrad Bart, spoke his mind freely, calling Satan hard names, and said-

  'We have you at last, lousy vagabond, and now you shall pay with usury for the trouble and worry you have given us, and the nights of watching, and the scouting and the fatigue. And also for the deridings and revilings his Highness has discharged upon us for being less cunning than you and letting you outwit us so long. Oh, yes, you shall pay!"