Alonzo Fitz and Other Stories
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ALONZO FITZ AND OTHER STORIES
by Mark Twain
Contents:
The Loves Of Alonzo Fitz Clarence And Rosannah Ethelton
On The Decay Of The Art Of Lying
About Magnanimous-Incident Literature
The Grateful Poodle
The Benevolent Author
The Grateful Husband
Punch, Brothers, Punch
The Great Revolution In Pitcairn
The Canvasser's Tale
An Encounter With An Interviewer
Paris Notes
Legend Of Sagenfeld, In Germany
Speech On The Babies
Speech On The Weather
Concerning The American Language
Rogers
THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON
It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's day. The town of
Eastport, in the state of Maine, lay buried under a deep snow that was
newly fallen. The customary bustle in the streets was wanting. One
could look long distances down them and see nothing but a dead-white
emptiness, with silence to match. Of course I do not mean that you could
see the silence--no, you could only hear it. The sidewalks were merely
long, deep ditches, with steep snow walls on either side. Here and there
you might hear the faint, far scrape of a wooden shovel, and if you were
quick enough you might catch a glimpse of a distant black figure stooping
and disappearing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment
with a motion which you would know meant the heaving out of a shovelful
of snow. But you needed to be quick, for that black figure would not
linger, but would soon drop that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing
itself with its arms to warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for
snow-shovelers or anybody else to stay out long.
Presently the sky darkened; then the wind rose and began to blow in
fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds of powdery snow aloft, and
straight ahead, and everywhere. Under the impulse of one of these gusts,
great white drifts banked themselves like graves across the streets; a
moment later another gust shifted them around the other way, driving a
fine spray of snow from their sharp crests, as the gale drives the spume
flakes from wave-crests at sea; a third gust swept that place as clean as
your hand, if it saw fit. This was fooling, this was play; but each and
all of the gusts dumped some snow into the sidewalk ditches, for that was
business.
Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant little parlor,
in a lovely blue silk dressing-gown, with cuffs and facings of crimson
satin, elaborately quilted. The remains of his breakfast were before
him, and the dainty and costly little table service added a harmonious
charm to the grace, beauty, and richness of the fixed appointments of the
room. A cheery fire was blazing on the hearth.
A furious gust of wind shook the windows, and a great wave of snow washed
against them with a drenching sound, so to speak. The handsome young
bachelor murmured:
"That means, no going out to-day. Well, I am content. But what to do
for company? Mother is well enough, Aunt Susan is well enough; but
these, like the poor, I have with me always. On so grim a day as this,
one needs a new interest, a fresh element, to whet the dull edge of
captivity. That was very neatly said, but it doesn't mean anything.
One doesn't want the edge of captivity sharpened up, you know, but just
the reverse."
He glanced at his pretty French mantel-clock.
"That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever knows what time it is;
and when it does know, it lies about it--which amounts to the same thing.
Alfred!"
There was no answer.
"Alfred! . . . Good servant, but as uncertain as the clock."
Alonzo touched an electric bell button in the wall. He waited a moment,
then touched it again; waited a few moments more, and said:
"Battery out of order, no doubt. But now that I have started, I will
find out what time it is." He stepped to a speaking-tube in the wall,
blew its whistle, and called, "Mother!" and repeated it twice.
"Well, that's no use. Mother's battery is out of order, too. Can't
raise anybody down-stairs--that is plain."
He sat down at a rosewood desk, leaned his chin on the left-hand edge of
it and spoke, as if to the floor: "Aunt Susan!"
A low, pleasant voice answered, "Is that you, Alonzo?'
"Yes. I'm too lazy and comfortable to go downstairs; I am in extremity,
and I can't seem to scare up any help."
"Dear me, what is the matter?"
"Matter enough, I can tell you!"
"Oh, don't keep me in suspense, dear! What is it?"
"I want to know what time it is."
"You abominable boy, what a turn you did give me! Is that all?"
"All--on my honor. Calm yourself. Tell me the time, and receive my
blessing."
"Just five minutes after nine. No charge--keep your blessing."
"Thanks. It wouldn't have impoverished me, aunty, nor so enriched you
that you could live without other means."
He got up, murmuring, "Just five minutes after nine," and faced his
clock. "Ah," said he, "you are doing better than usual. You are only
thirty-four minutes wrong. Let me see . . . let me see. . . .
Thirty-three and twenty-one are fifty-four; four times fifty-four are two
hundred and thirty-six. One off, leaves two hundred and thirty-five.
That's right."
He turned the hands of his clock forward till they marked twenty-five
minutes to one, and said, "Now see if you can't keep right for a while
--else I'll raffle you!"
He sat down at the desk again, and said, "Aunt Susan!"
"Yes, dear."
"Had breakfast?"
"Yes, indeed, an hour ago."
"Busy?"
"No--except sewing. Why?"
"Got any company?"
"No, but I expect some at half past nine."
"I wish I did. I'm lonesome. I want to talk to somebody."
"Very well, talk to me."
"But this is very private."
"Don't be afraid--talk right along, there's nobody here but me."
"I hardly know whether to venture or not, but--"
"But what? Oh, don't stop there! You know you can trust me, Alonzo--you
know, you can."
"I feel it, aunt, but this is very serious. It affects me deeply--me,
and all the family---even the whole community."
"Oh, Alonzo, tell me! I will never breathe a word of it. What is it?"
"Aunt, if I might dare--"
"Oh, please go on! I love you, and feel for you. Tell me all.
Confide in me. What is it?"
"The weather!"
"Plague take the weather! I don't see how you can have the heart to
serve me so, Lon."
"There, there, aunty dear, I'm sorry; I am, on my honor. I won't do it
again. Do you forgive me?"
"Yes, since you seem so sincere about it, though I know I oughtn't to.
You will fool me again as soon as I have forgotten this time."
"No, I won't, honor bright. But such weather, oh, such weather! You've
got to keep your spirits up artificially. It is snowy, and blowy, and
gusty, and bitter cold! How is the weather with you?"
"Warm and rainy and melancholy. The mourners go about the streets with
their umbrellas running streams from the end of every whalebone. There's
an elevated double pavement of umbrellas, stretching down the sides of
the streets as far as I can see. I've got a fire for cheerfulness, and
the windows open to keep cool. But it is vain, it is useless: nothing
comes in but the balmy breath of December, with its burden of mocking
odors from the flowers that possess the realm outside, and rejoice in
their lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man is low, and flaunt their
gaudy splendors in his face while his soul is clothed in sackcloth and
ashes and his heart breaketh."
Alonzo opened his lips to say, "You ought to print that, and get it
framed," but checked himself, for he heard his aunt speaking to some one
else. He went and stood at the window and looked out upon the wintry
prospect. The storm was driving the snow before it more furiously than
ever; window-shutters were slamming and banging; a forlorn dog, with
bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing his quaking body
against a windward wall for shelter and protection; a young girl was
plowing knee-deep through the drifts, with her face turned from the
blast, and the cape of her waterproof blowing straight rearward over her
head. Alonzo shuddered, and said with a sigh, "Better the slop, and the
sultry rain, and even the insolent flowers, than this!"
He turned from the window, moved a step, and stopped in a listening
attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a familiar song caught his ear. He
remained there, with his head unconsciously bent forward, drinking in the
melody, stirring neither hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There was a
blemish in the execution of the song, but to Alonzo it seemed an added
charm instead of a defect. This blemish consisted of a marked flatting
of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh notes of the refrain or
chorus of the piece. When the music ended, Alonzo drew a deep breath,
and said, "Ah, I never have heard 'In the Sweet By-and-by' sung like that
before!"
He stepped quickly to the desk, listened a moment, and said in a guarded,
confidential voice, "Aunty, who is this divine singer?"
"She is the company I was expecting. Stays with me a month or two.
I will introduce you. Miss--"
"For goodness' sake, wait a moment, Aunt Susan! You never stop to think
what you are about!"
He flew to his bedchamber, and returned in a moment perceptibly changed
in his outward appearance, and remarking, snappishly:
"Hang it, she would have introduced me to this angel in that sky-blue
dressing-gown with red-hot lapels! Women never think, when they get
a-going."
He hastened and stood by the desk, and said eagerly, "Now, Aunty, I am
ready," and fell to smiling and bowing with all the persuasiveness and
elegance that were in him.
"Very well. Miss Rosannah Ethelton, let me introduce to you my favorite
nephew, Mr. Alonzo Fitz Clarence. There! You are both good people, and
I like you; so I am going to trust you together while I attend to a few
household affairs. Sit down, Rosannah; sit down, Alonzo. Good-by; I
sha'n't be gone long."
Alonzo had been bowing and smiling all the while, and motioning imaginary
young ladies to sit down in imaginary chairs, but now he took a seat
himself, mentally saying, "Oh, this is luck! Let the winds blow now, and
the snow drive, and the heavens frown! Little I care!"
While these young people chat themselves into an acquaintanceship, let us
take the liberty of inspecting the sweeter and fairer of the two. She
sat alone, at her graceful ease, in a richly furnished apartment which
was manifestly the private parlor of a refined and sensible lady,
if signs and symbols may go for anything. For instance, by a low,
comfortable chair stood a dainty, top-heavy workstand, whose summit was a
fancifully embroidered shallow basket, with varicolored crewels, and
other strings and odds and ends protruding from under the gaping lid and
hanging down in negligent profusion. On the floor lay bright shreds of
Turkey red, Prussian blue, and kindred fabrics, bits of ribbon, a spool
or two, a pair of scissors, and a roll or so of tinted silken stuffs.
On a luxurious sofa, upholstered with some sort of soft Indian goods
wrought in black and gold threads interwebbed with other threads not so
pronounced in color, lay a great square of coarse white stuff, upon whose
surface a rich bouquet of flowers was growing, under the deft cultivation
of the crochet-needle. The household cat was asleep on this work of art.
In a bay-window stood an easel with an unfinished picture on it, and a
palette and brushes on a chair beside it. There were books everywhere:
Robertson's Sermons, Tennyson, Moody and Sankey, Hawthorne, Rab and His
Friends, cook-books, prayer-books, pattern-books--and books about all
kinds of odious and exasperating pottery, of course. There was a piano,
with a deck-load of music, and more in a tender. There was a great
plenty of pictures on the walls, on the shelves of the mantelpiece, and
around generally; where coigns of vantage offered were statuettes, and
quaint and pretty gimcracks, and rare and costly specimens of peculiarly
devilish china. The bay-window gave upon a garden that was ablaze with
foreign and domestic flowers and flowering shrubs.
But the sweet young girl was the daintiest thing these premises, within
or without, could offer for contemplation: delicately chiseled features,
of Grecian cast; her complexion the pure snow of a japonica that is
receiving a faint reflected enrichment from some scarlet neighbor of the
garden; great, soft blue eyes fringed with long, curving lashes; an
expression made up of the trustfulness of a child and the gentleness of
a fawn; a beautiful head crowned with its own prodigal gold; a lithe and
rounded figure, whose every attitude and movement was instinct with
native grace.
Her dress and adornment were marked by that exquisite harmony that can
come only of a fine natural taste perfected by culture. Her gown was of
a simple magenta tulle, cut bias, traversed by three rows of light-blue
flounces, with the selvage edges turned up with ashes-of-roses chenille;
overdress of dark bay tarlatan with scarlet satin lambrequins;
corn-colored polonaise, en zanier, looped with mother-of-pearl buttons
and silver cord, and hauled aft and made fast by buff velvet lashings;
basque of lavender reps, picked out with valenciennes; low neck, short
sleeves; maroon velvet necktie edged with delicate pink silk; inside
handkerchief of some simple three-ply ingrain fabric of a soft saffron
tint; coral bracelets and locket-chain; coiffure of forget-me-nots and
lilies-of-the-valley massed around a noble calla.
This was all; yet even in this subdued attire she was divinely beautiful.
Then what must she have been when adorned for the festival or the ball?
All this time she had been busily chatting with Alonzo, unconscious of
our inspection. The minutes still sped, and still she talked. But by
and by she happened to look up, and saw the clock. A crimson blush sent
its rich flood through her cheeks, and she exclaimed:
"There, good-by, Mr. Fitz Clarence; I must go now!"
She sprang from her chair with such haste that she hardly heard the young
man's answering good-by. She stood radiant, graceful, beautiful, and
gazed, wondering, upon the accusing clock. Presently her pouting lips
parted, and she said:
"Five minutes after eleven! Nearly two hours, and it did not seem twenty
minutes! Oh, dear, what will he think of me!"
At the self-same moment Alonzo was staring at his clock. And presently
he said:
"Twenty-five minutes to three! Nearly two hours, and I didn't believe it
was two minutes! Is it possible that this clock is humbugging again?
Miss Ethelton! Just one moment, please. Are you there yet?"
"Yes, but be quick; I'm going right away."
"Would you be so kind as to tell me what time it is?"
The girl blushed again, murmured to herself, "It's right down cruel of
him to ask me!" and then spoke up and answered with admirably
counterfeited unconcern, "Five minutes after eleven."
"Oh, thank you! You have to go, now, have you?"
"I'm sorry."
No reply.
"Miss Ethelton!"
"Well?"
"You you're there yet, ain't you?"
"Yes; but please hurry. What did you want to say?"
"Well, I--well, nothing in particular. It's very lonesome here. It's
asking a great deal, I know, but would you mind talking with me again by
and by--that is, if it will not trouble you too much?"
"I don't know but I'll think about it. I'll try."
"Oh, thanks! Miss Ethelton! . . . Ah, me, she's gone, and here are
the black clouds and the whirling snow and the raging winds come again!
But she said good-by. She didn't say good morning, she said good-by!
. . . The clock was right, after all. What a lightning-winged
two hours it was!"
He sat down, and gazed dreamily into his fire for a while, then heaved a
sigh and said:
"How wonderful it is! Two little hours ago I was a free man, and now my
heart's in San Francisco!"
About that time Rosannah Ethelton, propped in the window-seat of her
bedchamber, book in hand, was gazing vacantly out over the rainy seas
that washed the Golden Gate, and whispering to herself, "How different he
is from poor Burley, with his empty head and his single little antic
talent of mimicry!"
II
Four weeks later Mr. Sidney Algernon Burley was entertaining a gay
luncheon company, in a sumptuous drawing-room on Telegraph Hill, with
some capital imitations of the voices and gestures of certain popular
actors and San Franciscan literary people and Bonanza grandees. He was
elegantly upholstered, and was a handsome fellow, barring a trifling cast
in his eye. He seemed very jovial, but nevertheless he kept his eye on
the door with an expectant and uneasy watchfulness. By and by a nobby
lackey appeared, and delivered a message to the mistress, who nodded her
head understandingly. That seemed to settle the thing for Mr. Burley;
his vivacity decreased little by little, and a dejected look began to
creep into one of his eyes and a sinister one into the other.
The rest of the company departed in due time, leaving him with the
mistress, to whom he said:
"There is no longer any question about it. She avoids me. She
continually excuses herself. If I could see her, if I could speak to her
only a moment, but this suspense--"
"Perhaps her seeming avoidance is mere accident, Mr. Burley. Go to the
small drawing-room up-stairs and amuse yourself a moment. I will
despatch a household order that is on my mind, and then I will go to her
room. Without doubt she will be persuaded to see you."
Mr. Burley went up-stairs, intending to go to the small drawing-room, but
as he was passing "Aunt Susan's" private parlor, the door of which stood
slightly ajar, he heard a joyous laugh which he recognized; so without
knock or announcement he stepped confidently in. But before he could
make his presence known he heard words that harrowed up his soul and
chilled his young blood, he heard a voice say:
"Darling, it has come!"
Then he heard Rosannah Ethelton, whose back was toward him, say:
"So has yours, dearest!"
He saw her bowed form bend lower; he heard her kiss something--not merely
once, but again and again! His soul raged within him. The heartbreaking
conversation went on:
"Rosannah, I knew you must be beautiful, but this is dazzling, this is
blinding, this is intoxicating!"
"Alonzo, it is such happiness to hear you say it. I know it is not true,
but I am so grateful to have you think it is, nevertheless! I knew you
must have a noble face, but the grace and majesty of the reality beggar
the poor creation of my fancy."
Burley heard that rattling shower of kisses again.
"Thank you, my Rosannah! The photograph flatters me, but you must not
allow yourself to think of that. Sweetheart?"
"Yes, Alonzo."
"I am so happy, Rosannah."
"Oh, Alonzo, none that have gone before me knew what love was, none that
come after me will ever know what happiness is. I float in a gorgeous
cloud land, a boundless firmament of enchanted and bewildering ecstasy!"
"Oh, my Rosannah! for you are mine, are you not?"
"Wholly, oh, wholly yours, Alonzo, now and forever! All the day long,
and all through my nightly dreams, one song sings itself, and its sweet
burden is, 'Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Alonzo Fitz Clarence, Eastport, state
of Maine!'"
"Curse him, I've got his address, anyway!" roared Burley, inwardly, and
rushed from the place.
Just behind the unconscious Alonzo stood his mother, a picture of
astonishment. She was so muffled from head to heel in furs that nothing
of herself was visible but her eyes and nose. She was a good allegory of
winter, for she was powdered all over with snow.
Behind the unconscious Rosannah stood "Aunt Susan," another picture of
astonishment. She was a good allegory of summer, for she was lightly
clad, and was vigorously cooling the perspiration on her face with a fan.
Both of these women had tears of joy in their eyes.
"Soho!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitz Clarence, "this explains why nobody has been
able to drag you out of your room for six weeks, Alonzo!"
"So ho!" exclaimed Aunt Susan, "this explains why you have been a hermit
for the past six weeks, Rosannah!"
The young couple were on their feet in an instant, abashed, and standing
like detected dealers in stolen goods awaiting judge Lynch's doom.
"Bless you, my son! I am happy in your happiness. Come to your mother's
arms, Alonzo!"
"Bless you, Rosannah, for my dear nephew's sake! Come to my arms!"
Then was there a mingling of hearts and of tears of rejoicing on
Telegraph Hill and in Eastport Square.
Servants were called by the elders, in both places. Unto one was given
the order, "Pile this fire high, with hickory wood, and bring me a
roasting-hot lemonade."
Unto the other was given the order, "Put out this fire, and bring me two
palm-leaf fans and a pitcher of ice-water."
Then the young people were dismissed, and the elders sat down to talk the
sweet surprise over and make the wedding plans.
Some minutes before this Mr. Burley rushed from the mansion on Telegraph
Hill without meeting or taking formal leave of anybody. He hissed
through his teeth, in unconscious imitation of a popular favorite in
melodrama, "Him shall she never wed! I have sworn it! Ere great Nature
shall have doffed her winter's ermine to don the emerald gauds of spring,
she shall be mine!"
III
Two weeks later. Every few hours, during same three or four days, a very
prim and devout-looking Episcopal clergyman, with a cast in his eye, had
visited Alonzo. According to his card, he was the Rev. Melton Hargrave,
of Cincinnati. He said he had retired from the ministry on account of
his health. If he had said on account of ill-health, he would probably
have erred, to judge by his wholesome looks and firm build. He was the
inventor of an improvement in telephones, and hoped to make his bread by
selling the privilege of using it. "At present," he continued, "a man
may go and tap a telegraph wire which is conveying a song or a concert
from one state to another, and he can attach his private telephone and
steal a hearing of that music as it passes along. My invention will stop
all that."
"Well," answered Alonzo, "if the owner of the music could not miss what
was stolen, why should he care?"
"He shouldn't care," said the Reverend.
"Well?" said Alonzo, inquiringly.
"Suppose," replied the Reverend, "suppose that, instead of music that was
passing along and being stolen, the burden of the wire was loving
endearments of the most private and sacred nature?"
Alonzo shuddered from head to heel. "Sir, it is a priceless invention,"
said he; "I must have it at any cost."
But the invention was delayed somewhere on the road from Cincinnati, most
unaccountably. The impatient Alonzo could hardly wait. The thought of
Rosannah's sweet words being shared with him by some ribald thief was
galling to him. The Reverend came frequently and lamented the delay, and
told of measures he had taken to hurry things up. This was some little
comfort to Alonzo.
One forenoon the Reverend ascended the stairs and knocked at Alonzo's
door. There was no response. He entered, glanced eagerly around,
closed the door softly, then ran to the telephone. The exquisitely soft
and remote strains of the "Sweet By-and-by" came floating through the
instrument. The singer was flatting, as usual, the five notes that
follow the first two in the chorus, when the Reverend interrupted her
with this word, in a voice which was an exact imitation of Alonzo's, with
just the faintest flavor of impatience added:
"Sweetheart?"
"Yes, Alonzo?"
"Please don't sing that any more this week--try something modern."
The agile step that goes with a happy heart was heard on the stairs, and
the Reverend, smiling diabolically, sought sudden refuge behind the heavy
folds of the velvet window-curtains. Alonzo entered and flew to the
telephone. Said he:
"Rosannah, dear, shall we sing something together?"
"Something modern?" asked she, with sarcastic bitterness.
"Yes, if you prefer."
"Sing it yourself, if you like!"
This snappishness amazed and wounded the young man. He said:
"Rosannah, that was not like you."
"I suppose it becomes me as much as your very polite speech became you,
Mr. Fitz Clarence."
"Mister Fitz Clarence! Rosannah, there was nothing impolite about my
speech."
"Oh, indeed! Of course, then, I misunderstood you, and I most humbly beg
your pardon, ha-ha-ha! No doubt you said, 'Don't sing it any more
to-day.'"
"Sing what any more to-day?"
"The song you mentioned, of course, How very obtuse we are, all of a
sudden!"
"I never mentioned any song."
"Oh, you didn't?"
"No, I didn't!"
"I am compelled to remark that you did."
"And I am obliged to reiterate that I didn't."
"A second rudeness! That is sufficient, sir. I will never forgive you.
All is over between us."
Then came a muffled sound of crying. Alonzo hastened to say:
"Oh, Rosannah, unsay those words! There is some dreadful mystery here,
some hideous mistake. I am utterly earnest and sincere when I say I
never said anything about any song. I would not hurt you for the whole
world . . . . Rosannah, dear speak to me, won't you?"