by Mark Twain
The first time the negro girl Nancy appeared in the door and saw the two heads turned in opposite directions and both talking at once, then saw the commingling arms feed potatoes into one mouth and coffee into the other at the same time, she had to pause and pull herself out of a faintness that came over her; but after that she held her grip and was able to wait on the table with fair courage.
Conversation fell naturally into the customary grooves. It was a little jerky, at first, because none of the family could get smoothly through a sentence without a wobble in it here and a break there, caused by some new surprise in the way of attitude or gesture on the part of the twins. The weather suffered the most. The weather was all finished up and disposed of, as a subject, before the simple Missourians had gotten sufficiently wonted to the spectacle of one body feeding two heads to feel composed and reconciled in the presence of so bizarre a miracle. And even after everybody’s mind became tranquilized there was still one slight distraction left: the hand that picked up a biscuit carried it to the wrong head, as often as any other way, and the wrong mouth devoured it. This was a puzzling thing, and marred the talk a little. It bothered the widow to such a degree that she presently dropped out of the conversation without knowing it, and fell to watching and guessing and talking to herself.
‘Now that hand is going to take that coffee to—no, it’s gone to the other mouth; I can’t understand it; and now, here is the dark complected hand with a potato on its fork, I’ll see what goes with it—there, the light complected head’s got it, as sure as I live!’ Finally Rowena said:
‘Ma, what is the matter with you? Are you dreaming about something?’
The old lady came to herself and blushed; then she explained with the first random thing that came into her mind: ‘I saw Mr. Angelo take up Mr. Luigi’s coffee, and I thought maybe he—shan’t I give you a cup, Mr. Angelo?’
‘Oh no, madam, I am very much obliged, but I never drink coffee, much as I would like to. You did see me take up Luigi’s cup, it is true, but if you noticed, I didn’t carry it to my mouth, but to his.’
‘Y—es, I thought you did. Did you mean to?’
‘How?’
The widow was a little embarrassed again. She said:
‘I don’t know but what I’m foolish, and you mustn’t mind; but you see, he got the coffee I was expecting to see you drink, and you got a potato that I thought he was going to get. So I thought it might be a mistake all around, and everybody getting what wasn’t intended for him.’
Both twins laughed and Luigi said:
‘Dear madam, there wasn’t any mistake. We are always helping each other that way. It is a great economy for us both; it saves time and labor. We have a system of signs which nobody can notice or understand but ourselves. If I am using both my hands and want some coffee, I make the sign and Angelo furnishes it to me; and you saw that when he needed a potato I delivered it.’
‘How convenient!’
‘Yes, and often of the extremest value. Take the Mississippi boats, for instance. They are always over-crowded. There is table-room for only half of the passengers, therefore they have to get a second table for the second half The stewards rush both parties, they give them no time to eat a satisfying meal, both divisions leave the table hungry. It isn’t so with us. Angelo books himself for the one table, I book myself for the other. Neither of us eats anything at the other’s table, but just simply works—works. Thus, you see there are four hands to feed Angelo, and the same four to feed me. Each of us eats two meals.’
The old lady was dazed with admiration, and kept saying, ‘It is perfectly wonderful, perfectly wonderful!’ and the boy Joe licked his chops enviously, but said nothing—at least aloud.
‘Yes,’ continued Luigi, ‘our construction may have its disadvantages—in fact, has—but it also has its compensations of one sort and another. Take travel, for instance. Travel is enormously expensive, in all countries; we have been obliged to do a vast deal of it—come, Angelo, don’t put any more sugar in your tea, I’m just over one indigestion and don’t want another right away—been obliged to do a deal of it, as I was saying. Well, we always travel as one person, since we occupy but one seat; so we save half the fare.’
‘How romantic!’ interjected Rowena, with effusion.
‘Yes, my dear young lady, and how practical too, and economical. In Europe, beds in the hotels are not charged with the board, but separately—another saving, for we stood to our rights and paid for the one bed only. The landlords often insisted that as both of us occupied the bed we ought—’
‘No, they didn’t, said Angelo. ‘They did it only twice, and in both cases it was a double bed—a rare thing in Europe—and the double bed gave them some excuse. Be fair to the landlords; twice doesn’t constitute “often”.’
‘Well, that depends—that depends. I knew a man who fell down a well twice. He said he didn’t mind the first time, but he thought the second time was once too often. Have I misused that word, Mrs. Cooper?’
‘To tell the truth, I was afraid you had, but it seems to look, now, like you hadn’t.’ She stopped, and was evidently struggling with the difficult problem a moment, then she added in the tone of one who is convinced without being converted, ‘It seems so, but I can’t somehow tell why.’
Rowena thought Luigi’s retort was wonderfully quick and bright, and she remarked to herself with satisfaction that there wasn’t any young native of Dawson’s Landing that could have risen to the occasion like that. Luigi detected the applause in her face, and expressed his pleasure and his thanks with his eyes; and so eloquently withal, that the girl was proud and pleased, and hung out the delicate sign of it on her cheeks.
Luigi went on, with animation:
‘Both of us get a bath for one ticket, theater seat for one ticket, pew-rent is on the same basis, but at peep-shows we pay double.’
‘We have much to be thankful for,’ said Angelo, impressively, with a reverent light in his eye and a reminiscent tone in his voice, ‘we have been greatly blessed. As a rule, what one of us has lacked, the other, by the bounty of Providence, has been able to supply. My brother is hardy, I am not; he is very masculine, assertive, aggressive; I am much less so. I am subject to illness, he is never ill. I cannot abide medicines, and cannot take them, but he has no prejudice against them, and—’
‘Why, goodness gracious,’ interrupted the widow, ‘when you are sick, does he take the medicine for you?’
‘Always, madam.’
‘Why, I never heard such a thing in my life! I think it’s beautiful of you.’
‘Oh, madam, it’s nothing, don’t mention it, it’s really nothing at all.’
‘But I say it’s beautiful, and I stick to it!’ cried the widow, with a speaking moisture in her eye. ‘A well brother to take the medicine for his poor sick brother—I wish I had such a son,’ and she glanced reproachfully at her boys. ‘I declare I’ll never rest till I’ve shook you by the hand,’ and she scrambled out of her chair in a fever of generous enthusiasm, and made for the twins, blind with her tears, and began to shake. The boy Joe corrected her:
‘You’re shaking the wrong one, ma.’
This flurried her, but she made a swift change and went on shaking.
‘Got the wrong one again, ma,’ said the boy.
‘Oh, shut up, can’t you!’ said the widow, embarrassed and irritated. ‘Give me all your hands, I want to shake them all; for I know you are both just as good as you can be.’
It was a victorious thought, a master-stroke of diplomacy, though that never occurred to her and she cared nothing for diplomacy. She shook the four hands in turn cordially, and went back to her place in a state of high and fine exaltation that made her look young and handsome.
‘Indeed I owe everything to Luigi,’ said Angelo, affectionately. ‘But for him I could not have survived our boyhood days, when we were friendless and poor—ah, so poor! We lived from hand to mouth—lived on the coarse fare of unwilling charity, and for weeks and weeks together no
t a morsel of food passed my lips, for its character revolted me and I could not eat it. But for Luigi I should have died. He ate for us both.’
‘How noble!’ sighed Rowena.
‘Do you hear that?’ said the widow, severely, to her boys. ‘Let it be an example to you—I mean you, Joe.’
Joe gave his head a barely perceptible disparaging toss and said: ‘Et for both. It ain’t anything—I’d a done it.’
‘Hush, if you haven’t got any better manners than that. You don’t see the point at all. It wasn’t good food.’
‘I don’t care—it was food, and I’d a et it if it was rotten.’
‘Shame! Such language! Can’t you understand? They were starving—actually starving—and he ate for both, and—’
‘Shucks! you gimme a chance and I’ll—’
‘There, now—close your head! and don’t you open it again till you’re asked.’
[Angelo goes on and tells how his parents the Count and Countess had to fly from Florence for political reasons, and died poor in Berlin bereft of their great property by confiscation; and how he and Luigi had to travel with a freak-show during two years and suffer semi-starvation.]
‘That hateful black-bread! but I seldom ate anything during that time; that was poor Luigi’s affair—’
‘I’ll never Mister him again!’ cried the widow, with strong emotion, ‘he’s Luigi to me, from this out!’
‘Thank you a thousand times, madam, a thousand times! though in truth I don’t deserve it.’
‘Ah, Luigi is always the fortunate one when honors are showering,’ said Angelo, plaintively, ‘now what have I done, Mrs. Cooper, that you leave me out? Come, you must strain a point in my favor.’
‘Call you Angelo? Why, certainly I will; what are you thinking of! In the case of twins, why—’
‘But, ma, you’re breaking up the story—do let him go on.’
‘You keep still, Rowena Cooper, and he can go on all the better, I reckon. One interruption don’t hurt, it’s two that makes the trouble.’
‘But you’ve added one, now, and that is three.’
‘Rowena! I will not allow you to talk back at me when you have got nothing rational to say.’
CHAPTER 3
[After breakfast the whole village crowded in, and there was a grand reception in honor of the twins; and at the close of it the gifted ‘freak’ captured everybody’s admiration by sitting down at the piano and knocking out a classic four-handed piece in great style. Then the Judge took it—or them—driving in his buggy and showed off his village.]
All along the streets the people crowded the windows and stared at the amazing twins. Troops of small boys flocked after the buggy, excited and yelling. At first the dogs showed no interest. They thought they merely saw three men in a buggy—a matter of no consequence; but when they found out the facts of the case, they altered their opinion pretty radically, and joined the boys, expressing their minds as they came. Other dogs got interested; indeed, all the dogs. It was a spirited sight to see them come leaping fences, tearing around corners, swarming out of every bystreet and alley. The noise they made was something beyond belief—or praise. They did not seem to be moved by malice but only by prejudice, the common human prejudice against lack of conformity. If the twins turned their heads, they broke and fled in every direction, but stopped at a safe distance and faced about; and then formed and came on again as soon as the strangers showed them their back. Negroes and farmers’ wives took to the woods when the buggy came upon them suddenly, and altogether the drive was pleasant and animated, and a refreshment all around.
[It was a long and lively drive. Angelo was a Methodist, Luigi was a Freethinker. The Judge was very proud of his Freethinkers’ Society, which was flourishing along in a most prosperous way and already had two members—himself and the obscure and neglected Pudd’nhead Wilson. It was to meet that evening, and he invited Luigi to join; a thing which Luigi was glad to do, partly because it would please himself, and partly because it would gravel Angelo.]
They had now arrived at the widow’s gate, and the excursion was ended. The twins politely expressed their obligations for the pleasant outing which had been afforded them; to which the Judge bowed his thanks, and then said he would now go and arrange for the Freethinkers’ meeting, and would call for Count Luigi in the evening.
‘For you also, dear sir,’ he added hastily, turning to Angelo and bowing. ‘In addressing myself particularly to your brother, I was not meaning to leave you out. It was an unintentional rudeness, I assure you, and due wholly to accident—accident and preoccupation. I beg you to forgive me.’
His quick eye had seen the sensitive blood mount into Angelo’s face, betraying the wound that had been inflicted. The sting of the slight had gone deep, but the apology was so prompt, and so evidently sincere, that the hurt was almost immediately healed, and a forgiving smile testified to the kindly Judge that all was well again.
Concealed behind Angelo’s modest and unassuming exterior, and unsuspected by any but his intimates, was a lofty pride, a pride of almost abnormal proportions, indeed, and this rendered him ever the prey of slights; and although they were almost always imaginary ones, they hurt none the less on that account. By ill fortune Judge Driscoll had happened to touch his sorest point, i.e., his conviction that his brother’s presence was welcomer everywhere than his own; that he was often invited, out of mere courtesy, where only his brother was wanted, and that in a majority of cases he would not be included in an invitation if he could be left out without offense. A sensitive nature like this is necessarily subject to moods; moods which traverse the whole gamut of feeling; moods which know all the climes of emotion, from the sunny heights of joy to the black abysses of despair. At times, in his seasons of deepest depressions, Angelo almost wished that he and his brother might become segregated from each other and be separate individuals, like other men. But of course as soon as his mind cleared and these diseased imaginings passed away, he shuddered at the repulsive thought, and earnestly prayed that it might visit him no more. To be separate, and as other men are! How awkward it would seem; how unendurable. What would he do with his hands, his arms? How would his legs feel? How odd, and strange, and grotesque every action, attitude, movement, gesture would be. To sleep by himself, eat by himself, walk by himself—how lonely, how unspeakably lonely! No, no, any fate but that. In every way and from every point, the idea was revolting.
This was of course natural; to have felt otherwise would have been unnatural. He had known no life but a combined one; he had been familiar with it from his birth; he was not able to conceive of any other as being agreeable, or even bearable. To him, in the privacy of his secret thoughts, all other men were monsters, deformities: and during three-fourths of his life their aspect had filled him with what promised to be an unconquerable aversion. But at eighteen his eye began to take note of female beauty; and little by little, undefined longings grew up in his heart, under whose softening influences the old stubborn aversion gradually diminished, and finally disappeared. Men were still monstrosities to him, still deformities, and in his sober moments he had no desire to be like them, but their strange and unsocial and uncanny construction was no longer offensive to him.
This had been a hard day for him, physically and mentally. He had been called in the morning before he had quite slept off the effects of the liquor which Luigi had drunk; and so, for the first half hour had had the seedy feeling, and languor, the brooding depression, the cobwebby mouth and druggy taste that come of dissipation and are so ill a preparation for bodily or intellectual activities; the long violent strain of the reception had followed; and this had been followed, in turn, by the dreary sight-seeing, the Judge’s wearying explanations and laudations of the sights, and the stupefying clamor of the dogs. As a congruous conclusion, a fitting end, his feelings had been hurt, a slight had been put upon him. He would have been glad to forego dinner and betake himself to rest and sleep, but he held his peace and said no word, for
he knew his brother, Luigi, was fresh, unweary, full of life, spirit, energy; he would have scoffed at the idea of wasting valuable time on a bed or a sofa, and would have refused permission.
CHAPTER 4
Rowena was dining out, Joe and Harry were belated at play, there were but three chairs and four persons that noon at the home dinner-table—the twins, the widow, and her chum, Aunt Betsy Hale. The widow soon perceived that Angelo’s spirits were as low as Luigi’s were high, and also that he had a jaded look. Her motherly solicitude was aroused, and she tried to get him interested in the talk and win him to a happier frame of mind, but the cloud of sadness remained on his countenance. Luigi lent his help, too. He used a form and a phrase which he was always accustomed to employ in these circumstances. He gave his brother an affectionate slap on the shoulder and said, encouragingly:
‘Cheer up, the worst is yet to come!’
But this did no good. It never did. If anything, it made the matter worse, as a rule, because it irritated Angelo. This made it a favorite with Luigi. By and by the widow said:
‘Angelo, you are tired, you’ve overdone yourself; you go right to bed after dinner, and get a good nap and a rest, then you’ll be all right.’
‘Indeed, I would give anything if I could do that, madam.’
‘And what’s to hender, I’d like to know? Land, the room’s yours to do what you please with! The idea that you can’t do what you like with your own!’
‘But, you see, there’s one prime essential—an essential of the very first importance—which isn’t my own.’
‘What is that?’
‘My body.’
The old ladies looked puzzled, and Aunt Betsy Hale said:
‘Why bless your heart, how is that?’
‘It’s my brother’s.’
‘Your brother’s! I don’t quite understand. I supposed it belonged to both of you.’
‘So it does. But not to both at the same time.’