The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature)

by Mark Twain

  Q. Pray name them.

  A. Father Peter had found his money in a path-I had found mine in a road. Father Peter's find consisted exclusively of gold ducats-mine also. Father Peter found eleven hundred and seven ducats-I exactly the same.

  This closed his evidence; and certainly it made a strong impression on the house; one could see that.

  Wilhelm Meidling asked him some questions, then called us boys, and we told our tale. It made the people laugh, and we were ashamed. We were feeling pretty badly anyhow, because Wilhelm was hopeless, and showed it. lie was doing as well as he could, poor young fellow, but nothing was in his favor, and such sympathy as there was was now plainly not with his client. It might be difficult for court and people to believe Father Adolf's story, considering his character, but it was almost impossible to believe Father Peter's. We were already feeling badly enough, but when Father Adolf's lawyer said he believed he would not ask us any questions, for our story was a little delicate and it would be cruel for him to put any strain upon it, everybody tittered, and it was almost more than we could bear. Then he made a sarcastic little speech, and got so much fun out of our tale, and made it seem so ridiculous and childish and every way impossible and foolish that it made everybody laugh till the tears came; and at last Marget could not keep up her courage any longer, but broke down and cried, and I was so sorry for her.

  Now I noticed something that braced me up. It was Satan, standing alongside of Wilhelm! And there was such a contrast: Satan looked so confident, had such a spirit in his eyes and face, and Wilhelm looked so depressed and despondent. We two were comfortable now, and judged that he would testify, and would persuade the bench and the people that black was white and white black, or any other color he wanted it. We glanced around to see what the strangers in the house thought of him, for he was beautiful, you know; stunning, in fact; but no one was noticing him; so we knew by that that he was invisible.

  That lawyer was saying his last words; and while he was saying them Satan began to melt into Wilhelm. He melted into him and disappeared; and then there was a change, when his spirit began to look out of Wilhelm's eyes.

  That lawyer finished quite seriously, and with dignity. He pointed to the money, and said-

  "The love of it is the root of all evil. There it lies, the ancient tempter, newly red with the shame of its latest victory-the dishonor of a priest of God and of his two poor juvenile helpers in crime. If it could but speak, let us hope that it would be constrained to confess that of all its conquests this was the basest and the most pathetic."

  He sat down. Wilhelm rose, and said-

  "From the testimony of the reverend Father Adolf I gather that he found this money in a road more than two years ago. Correct me, sir, if I misunderstood you."

  Father Adolf said his understanding of it was correct.

  "And that the money so found was never out of his hands thenceforth up to a certain definite date-the last day of last year. Correct me, sir, if I am wrong."

  Father Adolf nodded his head. Wilhelm turned to the bench and said-

  "If I prove that this money here was not that money, then it is not his?"

  "Certainly not, but this is irregular. If you had such a witness it was your duty to give proper notice of it and have him here to-" He broke off and began to consult with the other judges. Meantime that other lawyer got up excited and began to protest against allowing new witnesses to be brought into the case at this late stage.

  The judges decided that his contention was just and must be allowed.

  "But this is not a new witness," said Wilhelm. "It has already been partly examined. I speak of the coin."

  "The coin? What can the coin say?"

  "It can say it is not the coin that Father Adolf once possessed. It can say it was not in existence last December. By its date it can say this."

  And it was so! There was the greatest excitement in the court while that lawyer, and Father Adolf and the judges were reaching for coins and examining them and exclaiming. And everybody was full of admiration of Wilhelm's brightness in happening to think of that neat idea. At last order was called and the court said-

  "All of the coins but four are of the date of the present year. The court tenders its sincere sympathy to the accused, and its deep regret that he, an innocent man, should through an unfortunate mistake have suffered the undeserved humiliation of imprisonment and trial. The case is dismissed."

  So the money could speak, after all, though that lawyer thought it couldn't. The court rose, and almost everybody came forward to shake hands with Marget and congratulate her and then to shake with Wilhelm and praise him; and Satan had stepped out of Wilhelm and was standing around looking on full of interest, and people walking through him every which way, not knowing he was there. And Wilhelm could not explain why he only thought of the date on the coins at the last moment, instead of earlier; he said it just occurred to him all of a sudden, like an inspiration, and he brought it right out without any hesitation, for although he hadn't examined the coins he seemed somehow to know it was true. That was honest of him, and like him; another would have pretended he had thought of it earlier, and was keeping it back for a surprise.

  He had dulled down a little, now; not much, but still you could notice that he hadn't that luminous look in his eyes that he had while Satan was in him. He nearly got it back, though, for a moment, when Marget came and praised him and thanked him, and couldn't keep him from seeing how proud she was of him. Father Adolf went off dissatisfied and cursing, and Solomon Isaacs gathered up the money and carried it away. It was Father Peter's for good and all, now.

  Satan was gone. I judged that he had spirited himself to the jail to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was right. Marget and the rest of us hurried thither at our best speed, in a great state of rejoicing.

  Well, what Satan had done was this. He had appeared before that poor prisoner exclaiming-

  "The trial is over, and you stand forever disgraced as a thief-by verdict of the court!"

  The shock unseated the old man's reason. When we arrived, ten minutes later, he was parading pompously up and down and delivering commands to this and that and the other constable or jailor, and calling them Grand Chamberlain, and Prince This and Prince That, and Admiral of the Fleet, and Field Marshal in Command, and all such fustian, and was as happy as a bird. He thought he was Emperor!

  Marget flung herself on his breast and cried, and indeed everybody was moved, almost to heartbreak. He recognised Marget, but could not understand why she should cry. He patted her on the shoulder and said-

  "Don't do it, dear; remember, there are witnesses, and it is not becoming in the Crown Princess. Tell me your trouble-it shall be mended; there is nothing the Emperor cannot do." Then he looked around and saw old Ursula with her apron to her eyes. He was puzzled at that, and said, "And what is the matter with you?"

  Through her sobs she got out words explaining that she was distressed to see him-"so." He reflected over that a moment, then muttered, as if to himself, "A singular old thing, the Dowager Duchess-means well, but is always snuffling, and never able to tell what it is about. It is because she doesn't know." His eye fell on Wilhelm. "Prince of India," he said, "I divine that it is you that the Crown Princess is concerned about. Her tears shall be dried; I will no longer stand between you; she shall share your throne; and between you, you shall inherit mine. There, little lady, have I done well? you can smile, now-isn't it so?"

  He petted Marget, and kissed her, and was so contented with himself and with everybody, that he could not do enough for us all, but began to give away kingdoms and such things right and left, and the least that any of us got was a principality. And so at last being persuaded to go home, he marched in imposing state, and when the crowds along the way saw how it gratified him to be hurrah'd at, they humored him to the top of his desire, and he responded with condescending bows and gracious smiles, and often stretched out a hand and said "Bless you, my people."

 
As pitiful a sight as ever I saw. And Marget and old Ursula crying, all the way.

  On my road home I came upon Satan, and reproached him for deceiving me with that lie. He was not embarrassed, but said, quite simply and composedly—

  you mistake-it was the truth. I said he would be happy the rest of his days, and he will. For he will always think he is the Emperor, and his pride in it and his joy in it will endure to the end. He is now, and will remain, the one utterly happy person in this Empire."

  "But the method of it, Satan, the method! Couldn't you have done it without depriving him of his reason?"

  It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.

  "What an ass you are!" he said. "Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combi nation? No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those. The few that imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the rest are no happier than the sane. Of course no man is entirely in his right mind at any time, but I have been referring to the extreme cases. I have taken from this man that trumpery thing which the race regards as a Mind; I have replaced his tin life with a silver-gilt fiction; you see the result-and you criticise! I said I would make him permanently happy, and I have done it. I have made him happy by the only means possible to his race-and you are not satisfied!" He heaved a discouraged sigh, and said, "It seems to me that this race is hard to please."

  There it was, you see. He didn't seem to know any way to do a person a favor except by killing him or making a lunatic out of him. I apologised, as well as I could; but privately I did not think much of his processes. At that time.

  Satan was accustomed to say that our race lived a life of continuous and uninterrupted self-deception. It duped itself from cradle to grave with shams and delusions which it mistook for realities, and this made its entire life a sham. Of the score of fine qualities which it imagined it had, and was vain of, it really possessed hardly one. It regarded itself as gold, and was only brass. One day when he was in this vein, he mentioned a detail-the sense of humor. I cheered up, then, and took issue. I said we possessed it.

  "There spoke the race!" he said; "always ready to claim what it hasn't got, and mistake its ounce of brass filings for a ton of gold dust. You have a bastard perception of humor, nothing more; a multitude of you possess that. This multitude see the comic side of a thousand low-grade and trivial things-broad incongruities, mainly; grotesqueries, absurdities, evokers of the horse-laugh. The ten thousand high-grade comicalities which exist in the world are sealed from their dull vision, they are unconscious of their presence. The ten thousand are hid from the entire race."

  By request he proceeded to name some of them.

  "No religion exists which is not littered with engaging and delightful comicalities, but the race never perceives them. Nothing can be more deliciously comical than hereditary royalties and aristocracies, but none except royal families and aristocrats are aware of it.

  "Are they?"

  "Oh, aren't they! Often they cannot sleep for laughing at their dependents. It would surprise you to know the names they privately call them by."

  "But republics and democracies see, don't they?"

  "Oh, no-and never will. While they scoff with their mouths they reverence them in their hearts. That democrat will never live who will marry a democrat into his family when he can get a duke. All forms of government-including republican and democraticare rich in funny shams and absurdities, but their supporters do not see it."

  It took him an hour to list a lot of the comicalities which the race is not capable of perceiving, then he left off. He said it would take him a month to name the rest.

  Intercourse with him had colored my mind, of course, he being a strong personality and I a weak one; therefore I was inclined to think his position correct, but I did not say it. I only said our race was progressing, and that in time its sense of humor would develop to a point where it would enable us to perceive many things which we cannot see now.

  But he only made fun of that idea, and said-

  "The race had as much humor-perception when it was created as it has now, and it will never have any more. Look at the Pope's infallibility. Does any one see the humor of that? Not a soul, except the Pope and the Conclave. Look at his loosing-and-binding author-itv-which is not confined to earth, but which even God on Ilis throne is obliged to submit to-as per the claim. Does any one see the humor of that? Not a soul outside the Vatican. Heretics rage about it, but no one laughs at it. Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at themand by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon-laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution-these can lift at a colossal humbug,-push it a little-crowd it a little-weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons: do you ever use that one? No, you leave it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No-you lack sense and the courage. Once in an age a single hero lifts it, delivers his blow, and a hoary humbug goes to ruin. Before this century closes, Robert Burns, a peasant, will break the back of the Presbyterian Church with it, and set Scotland free. I ask you again: will a day come when the race will have so developed its humor-perception as to be able to detect the funniness of Papal Infallibility and God-subordinating Papal Authority?"

  "I think so."

  'When?"

  "Well, not in my time, maybe, but in a century, anyway."

  A newspaper flashed into his hand.

  "Not in two centuries," he said. "I will prove it. Two centuries from now, a king of Italy will be assassinated. He will be under excommunication at the time-that is to say, damned to perdition by the Pope; and whom the Pope damns, Heaven itself is impotent to save-as per the claim. Here is a journal which will issue from the press in those days; we may cull from it some historical facts in advance of their occurrence; details that are full of hideous humor, but in that day the race will be as unconscious of it as it would be to-day. In her grief the widowed Queen will compose a prayer. What will she do with it? Prostrate herself and pour it into the ear of God? No. Being a good Catholic, she will know the forms of holy etiquette better. She will submit it to a Bishop, in the hope that through his influence she may get permission to pray it, in case it shall be found to be a proper kind of prayer-and regular. Is that funny? Your race will not suspect it. The Bishop will inspect the prayer, dissect it, analyse it, submit it to an ecclesiastical fire-assay, and will decide that it is innocuous. He will then lay it before the Pope, together with his expert-report and the mourner's supplica tion for permission to pray it. Now it is not good form to intrude my uncle's acquired subjects upon the Deity's attention, and the Pope will know that; but being a kind-hearted old man he will waive etiquette for charity's sake, and by his express sanction' the widow will get leave to say her prayer-at last. This is an utter and thorough endorsement of the prayer by an authority whose judgments are infallible and whose verdicts cannot be set aside by any Power in heaven or earth. The Pope will carry his generosity still further: he will order fifty pulpits to pump that same prayer into heaven. Why? If it is bad form to allow one person to intrude a subject of Satan upon the Deity's attention, is it better form to set fifty at it? Will the people of that day see the grotesqueness of the situation? No, they will contemplate it with petrified gravity. Next, 'the French clerical press' will 'complain that the interests of the Church are compromised by this display of Christian spirit,' and the Pope's note will be 'abruptly changed.' The official organ of the Vatican will announce that the religious services for the dead King were 'tolerated,' but that the Queen's prayer must be suppressed as 'incompatible with the I Liturgy.' It will be considered 'impolitic' to show Christian gentleness to a sorrowing wido
w, and so 'the concession which was made to her' will be 'rudely withdrawn.' This is Papal 'infallibility.' Will the humor of it be perceived? No-not by the public. Meantime the prayer has been received in heaven from fifty-one sources-and recorded. The record will be meekly expunged-by order from below. Is that funny-or isn't it? I think it is; in fact I know it is; but none of your race will find it out. Why don't you laugh?"

  I said I was too much hurt to laugh. I said our religion was our stay, our solace and our hope; it was the most precious thing we had, and I could not hear to hear its sacred servants derided.

  I think it touched him; for he became gentle and kind at once, and set about banishing my trouble from my mind. It did not take him long-it never did. He flashed me around the globe, stopping an hour or a week, at intervals, in one or another strange country, and doing the whole journey in a few minutes by the clock, and I was in a condition of contentment before we had covered the first stage. Satan was always good and considerate, that way. He liked to rough a person up, but he liked to smooth him down again just as well.

  We stopped at a little city in India and looked on while a juggler did his tricks before a group of natives. They were wonderful, but I knew Satan could beat that game, and I begged him to show off a little, and he said he would. He changed himself into a native, in turban and breech-clout, and very considerately conferred on me a temporary knowledge of the language.

  The juggler exhibited a seed, covered it with earth in a small flower-pot, then put a rag over the pot; after a minute the rag began to rise; in ten minutes it had risen a foot; then the rag was removed and a little tree was exposed, which had leaves upon it and ripe fruit. We ate the fruit, and it was good. But Satan said-

  "Why do you cover the pot? Can't you grow the tree in the sunlight?"