The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

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THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

by Mark Twain



Contents:
The Mysterious Stranger
A Fable
Hunting The Deceitful Turkey
The Mcwilliamses And The Burglar Alarm





THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER


Chapter 1

It was in 1590--winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep;
it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so
forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said
that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in
Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so
taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was
only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.

Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in
the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in
peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from
the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely
content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted
with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and stone-boats;
behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the lofty precipice; from
the top of the precipice frowned a vast castle, its long stretch of
towers and bastions mailed in vines; beyond the river, a league to the
left, was a tumbled expanse of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding
gorges where the sun never penetrated; and to the right a precipice
overlooked the river, and between it and the hills just spoken of lay a
far-reaching plain dotted with little homesteads nested among orchards
and shade trees.

The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property of a
prince, whose servants kept the castle always in perfect condition for
occupancy, but neither he nor his family came there oftener than once in
five years. When they came it was as if the lord of the world had
arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when
they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which
follows an orgy.

Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with
schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Christians; to revere the
Virgin, the Church, and the saints above everything. Beyond these
matters we were not required to know much; and, in fact, not allowed to.
Knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them
discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would
not endure discontentment with His plans. We had two priests. One of
them, Father Adolf, was a very zealous and strenuous priest, much
considered.

There may have been better priests, in some ways, than Father Adolf, but
there was never one in our commune who was held in more solemn and awful
respect. This was because he had absolutely no fear of the Devil. He
was the only Christian I have ever known of whom that could be truly
said. People stood in deep dread of him on that account; for they
thought that there must be something supernatural about him, else he
could not be so bold and so confident. All men speak in bitter
disapproval of the Devil, but they do it reverently, not flippantly; but
Father Adolf's way was very different; he called him by every name he
could lay his tongue to, and it made everyone shudder that heard him; and
often he would even speak of him scornfully and scoffingly; then the
people crossed themselves and went quickly out of his presence, fearing
that something fearful might happen.

Father Adolf had actually met Satan face to face more than once, and
defied him. This was known to be so. Father Adolf said it himself. He
never made any secret of it, but spoke it right out. And that he was
speaking true there was proof in at least one instance, for on that
occasion he quarreled with the enemy, and intrepidly threw his bottle at
him; and there, upon the wall of his study, was the ruddy splotch where
it struck and broke.

But it was Father Peter, the other priest, that we all loved best and
were sorriest for. Some people charged him with talking around in
conversation that God was all goodness and would find a way to save all
his poor human children. It was a horrible thing to say, but there was
never any absolute proof that Father Peter said it; and it was out of
character for him to say it, too, for he was always good and gentle and
truthful. He wasn't charged with saying it in the pulpit, where all the
congregation could hear and testify, but only outside, in talk; and it is
easy for enemies to manufacture that. Father Peter had an enemy and a
very powerful one, the astrologer who lived in a tumbled old tower up the
valley, and put in his nights studying the stars. Every one knew he
could foretell wars and famines, though that was not so hard, for there
was always a war, and generally a famine somewhere. But he could also
read any man's life through the stars in a big book he had, and find lost
property, and every one in the village except Father Peter stood in awe
of him. Even Father Adolf, who had defied the Devil, had a wholesome
respect for the astrologer when he came through our village wearing his
tall, pointed hat and his long, flowing robe with stars on it, carrying
his big book, and a staff which was known to have magic power. The
bishop himself sometimes listened to the astrologer, it was said, for,
besides studying the stars and prophesying, the astrologer made a great
show of piety, which would impress the bishop, of course.

But Father Peter took no stock in the astrologer. He denounced him
openly as a charlatan--a fraud with no valuable knowledge of any kind, or
powers beyond those of an ordinary and rather inferior human being, which
naturally made the astrologer hate Father Peter and wish to ruin him. It
was the astrologer, as we all believed, who originated the story about
Father Peter's shocking remark and carried it to the bishop. It was said
that Father Peter had made the remark to his niece, Marget, though Marget
denied it and implored the bishop to believe her and spare her old uncle
from poverty and disgrace. But the bishop wouldn't listen. He suspended
Father Peter indefinitely, though he wouldn't go so far as to
excommunicate him on the evidence of only one witness; and now Father
Peter had been out a couple of years, and our other priest, Father Adolf,
had his flock.

Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget. They had been
favorites, but of course that changed when they came under the shadow of
the bishop's frown. Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the
rest became cool and distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when
the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most
in it. She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money
by her own industry. But her scholars fell off one by one now; she was
forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the
village; the young fellows stopped coming to the house, all except
Wilhelm Meidling--and he could have been spared; she and her uncle were
sad and forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone
out of their lives. Matters went worse and worse, all through the two
years. Clothes were wearing out, bread was harder and harder to get.
And now, at last, the very end was come. Solomon Isaacs had lent all the
money he was willing to put on the house, and gave notice that to-morrow
he would foreclose.




Chapter 2

Three of us boys were always together, and had been so from the cradle,
being fond of one another from the beginning, and this affection deepened
as the years went on--Nikolaus Bauman, son of the principal judge of the
local court; Seppi Wohlmeyer, son of the keeper of the principal inn, the
"Golden Stag," which had a nice garden, with shade trees reaching down to
the riverside, and pleasure boats for hire; and I was the third--Theodor
Fischer, son of the church organist, who was also leader of the village
musicians, teacher of the violin, composer, tax-collector of the commune,
sexton, and in other ways a useful citizen, and respected by all. We
knew the hills and the woods as well as the birds knew them; for we were
always roaming them when we had leisure--at least, when we were not
swimming or boating or fishing, or playing on the ice or sliding down
hill.

And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had that. It was
because we were pets of the oldest servingman in the castle--Felix
Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk about old times
and strange things, and to smoke with him (he taught us that) and to
drink coffee; for he had served in the wars, and was at the siege of
Vienna; and there, when the Turks were defeated and driven away, among
the captured things were bags of coffee, and the Turkish prisoners
explained the character of it and how to make a pleasant drink out of it,
and now he always kept coffee by him, to drink himself and also to
astonish the ignorant with. When it stormed he kept us all night; and
while it thundered and lightened outside he told us about ghosts and
horrors of every kind, and of battles and murders and mutilations, and
such things, and made it pleasant and cozy inside; and he told these
things from his own experience largely. He had seen many ghosts in his
time, and witches and enchanters, and once he was lost in a fierce storm
at midnight in the mountains, and by the glare of the lightning had seen
the Wild Huntsman rage on the blast with his specter dogs chasing after
him through the driving cloud-rack. Also he had seen an incubus once,
and several times he had seen the great bat that sucks the blood from the
necks of people while they are asleep, fanning them softly with its wings
and so keeping them drowsy till they die.

He encouraged us not to fear supernatural things, such as ghosts, and
said they did no harm, but only wandered about because they were lonely
and distressed and wanted kindly notice and compassion; and in time we
learned not to be afraid, and even went down with him in the night to the
haunted chamber in the dungeons of the castle. The ghost appeared only
once, and it went by very dim to the sight and floated noiseless through
the air, and then disappeared; and we scarcely trembled, he had taught us
so well. He said it came up sometimes in the night and woke him by
passing its clammy hand over his face, but it did him no hurt; it only
wanted sympathy and notice. But the strangest thing was that he had seen
angels--actual angels out of heaven--and had talked with them. They had
no wings, and wore clothes, and talked and looked and acted just like any
natural person, and you would never know them for angels except for the
wonderful things they did which a mortal could not do, and the way they
suddenly disappeared while you were talking with them, which was also a
thing which no mortal could do. And he said they were pleasant and
cheerful, not gloomy and melancholy, like ghosts.

It was after that kind of a talk one May night that we got up next
morning and had a good breakfast with him and then went down and crossed
the bridge and went away up into the hills on the left to a woody
hill-top which was a favorite place of ours, and there we stretched out
on the grass in the shade to rest and smoke and talk over these strange
things, for they were in our minds yet, and impressing us. But we
couldn't smoke, because we had been heedless and left our flint and steel
behind.

Soon there came a youth strolling toward us through the trees, and he sat
down and began to talk in a friendly way, just as if he knew us. But we
did not answer him, for he was a stranger and we were not used to
strangers and were shy of them. He had new and good clothes on, and was
handsome and had a winning face and a pleasant voice, and was easy and
graceful and unembarrassed, not slouchy and awkward and diffident, like
other boys. We wanted to be friendly with him, but didn't know how to
begin. Then I thought of the pipe, and wondered if it would be taken as
kindly meant if I offered it to him. But I remembered that we had no
fire, so I was sorry and disappointed. But he looked up bright and
pleased, and said:

"Fire? Oh, that is easy; I will furnish it."

I was so astonished I couldn't speak; for I had not said anything. He
took the pipe and blew his breath on it, and the tobacco glowed red, and
spirals of blue smoke rose up. We jumped up and were going to run, for
that was natural; and we did run a few steps, although he was yearningly
pleading for us to stay, and giving us his word that he would not do us
any harm, but only wanted to be friends with us and have company. So we
stopped and stood, and wanted to go back, being full of curiosity and
wonder, but afraid to venture. He went on coaxing, in his soft,
persuasive way; and when we saw that the pipe did not blow up and nothing
happened, our confidence returned by little and little, and presently our
curiosity got to be stronger than our fear, and we ventured back--but
slowly, and ready to fly at any alarm.

He was bent on putting us at ease, and he had the right art; one could
not remain doubtful and timorous where a person was so earnest and simple
and gentle, and talked so alluringly as he did; no, he won us over, and
it was not long before we were content and comfortable and chatty, and
glad we had found this new friend. When the feeling of constraint was
all gone we asked him how he had learned to do that strange thing, and he
said he hadn't learned it at all; it came natural to him--like other
things--other curious things.

"What ones?"

"Oh, a number; I don't know how many."

"Will you let us see you do them?"

"Do--please!" the others said.

"You won't run away again?"

"No--indeed we won't. Please do. Won't you?"

"Yes, with pleasure; but you mustn't forget your promise, you know."

We said we wouldn't, and he went to a puddle and came back with water in
a cup which he had made out of a leaf, and blew upon it and threw it out,
and it was a lump of ice the shape of the cup. We were astonished and
charmed, but not afraid any more; we were very glad to be there, and
asked him to go on and do some more things. And he did. He said he
would give us any kind of fruit we liked, whether it was in season or
not. We all spoke at once;

"Orange!"

"Apple!"

"Grapes!"

"They are in your pockets," he said, and it was true. And they were of
the best, too, and we ate them and wished we had more, though none of us
said so.

"You will find them where those came from," he said, "and everything else
your appetites call for; and you need not name the thing you wish; as
long as I am with you, you have only to wish and find."

And he said true. There was never anything so wonderful and so
interesting. Bread, cakes, sweets, nuts--whatever one wanted, it was
there. He ate nothing himself, but sat and chatted, and did one curious
thing after another to amuse us. He made a tiny toy squirrel out of
clay, and it ran up a tree and sat on a limb overhead and barked down at
us. Then he made a dog that was not much larger than a mouse, and it
treed the squirrel and danced about the tree, excited and barking, and
was as alive as any dog could be. It frightened the squirrel from tree
to tree and followed it up until both were out of sight in the forest.
He made birds out of clay and set them free, and they flew away, singing.

At last I made bold to ask him to tell us who he was.

"An angel," he said, quite simply, and set another bird free and clapped
his hands and made it fly away.

A kind of awe fell upon us when we heard him say that, and we were afraid
again; but he said we need not be troubled, there was no occasion for us
to be afraid of an angel, and he liked us, anyway. He went on chatting
as simply and unaffectedly as ever; and while he talked he made a crowd
of little men and women the size of your finger, and they went diligently
to work and cleared and leveled off a space a couple of yards square in
the grass and began to build a cunning little castle in it, the women
mixing the mortar and carrying it up the scaffoldings in pails on their
heads, just as our work-women have always done, and the men laying the
courses of masonry--five hundred of these toy people swarming briskly
about and working diligently and wiping the sweat off their faces as
natural as life. In the absorbing interest of watching those five
hundred little people make the castle grow step by step and course by
course, and take shape and symmetry, that feeling and awe soon passed
away and we were quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if we
might make some people, and he said yes, and told Seppi to make some
cannon for the walls, and told Nikolaus to make some halberdiers, with
breastplates and greaves and helmets, and I was to make some cavalry,
with horses, and in allotting these tasks he called us by our names, but
did not say how he knew them. Then Seppi asked him what his own name
was, and he said, tranquilly, "Satan," and held out a chip and caught a
little woman on it who was falling from the scaffolding and put her back
where she belonged, and said, "She is an idiot to step backward like that
and not notice what she is about."

It caught us suddenly, that name did, and our work dropped out of our
hands and broke to pieces--a cannon, a halberdier, and a horse. Satan
laughed, and asked what was the matter. I said, "Nothing, only it seemed
a strange name for an angel." He asked why.

"Because it's--it's--well, it's his name, you know."

"Yes--he is my uncle."

He said it placidly, but it took our breath for a moment and made our
hearts beat. He did not seem to notice that, but mended our halberdiers
and things with a touch, handing them to us finished, and said, "Don't
you remember?--he was an angel himself, once."

"Yes--it's true," said Seppi; "I didn't think of that."

"Before the Fall he was blameless."

"Yes," said Nikolaus, "he was without sin."

"It is a good family--ours," said Satan; "there is not a better. He is
the only member of it that has ever sinned."

I should not be able to make any one understand how exciting it all was.
You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you
are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is
just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze,
and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be
anywhere but there, not for the world. I was bursting to ask one
question--I had it on my tongue's end and could hardly hold it back--but
I was ashamed to ask it; it might be a rudeness. Satan set an ox down
that he had been making, and smiled up at me and said:

"It wouldn't be a rudeness, and I should forgive it if it was. Have I
seen him? Millions of times. From the time that I was a little child a
thousand years old I was his second favorite among the nursery angels of
our blood and lineage--to use a human phrase--yes, from that time until
the Fall, eight thousand years, measured as you count time."

"Eight--thousand!"

"Yes." He turned to Seppi, and went on as if answering something that was
in Seppi's mind: "Why, naturally I look like a boy, for that is what I
am. With us what you call time is a spacious thing; it takes a long
stretch of it to grow an angel to full age." There was a question in my
mind, and he turned to me and answered it, "I am sixteen thousand years
old--counting as you count." Then he turned to Nikolaus and said: "No,
the Fall did not affect me nor the rest of the relationship. It was only
he that I was named for who ate of the fruit of the tree and then
beguiled the man and the woman with it. We others are still ignorant of
sin; we are not able to commit it; we are without blemish, and shall
abide in that estate always. We--" Two of the little workmen were
quarreling, and in buzzing little bumblebee voices they were cursing and
swearing at each other; now came blows and blood; then they locked
themselves together in a life-and-death struggle. Satan reached out his
hand and crushed the life out of them with his fingers, threw them away,
wiped the red from his fingers on his handkerchief, and went on talking
where he had left off: "We cannot do wrong; neither have we any
disposition to do it, for we do not know what it is."

It seemed a strange speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed
that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had
committed--for murder it was, that was its true name, and it was without
palliation or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It
made us miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and so
beautiful and gracious, and had honestly believed he was an angel; and to
have him do this cruel thing--ah, it lowered him so, and we had had such
pride in him. He went right on talking, just as if nothing had happened,
telling about his travels, and the interesting things he had seen in the
big worlds of our solar systems and of other solar systems far away in
the remotenesses of space, and about the customs of the immortals that
inhabit them, somehow fascinating us, enchanting us, charming us in spite
of the pitiful scene that was now under our eyes, for the wives of the
little dead men had found the crushed and shapeless bodies and were
crying over them, and sobbing and lamenting, and a priest was kneeling
there with his hands crossed upon his breast, praying; and crowds and
crowds of pitying friends were massed about them, reverently uncovered,
with their bare heads bowed, and many with the tears running down--a
scene which Satan paid no attention to until the small noise of the
weeping and praying began to annoy him, then he reached out and took the
heavy board seat out of our swing and brought it down and mashed all
those people into the earth just as if they had been flies, and went on
talking just the same.

An angel, and kill a priest! An angel who did not know how to do wrong,
and yet destroys in cold blood hundreds of helpless poor men and women
who had never done him any harm! It made us sick to see that awful deed,
and to think that none of those poor creatures was prepared except the
priest, for none of them had ever heard a mass or seen a church. And we
were witnesses; we had seen these murders done and it was our duty to
tell, and let the law take its course.

But he went on talking right along, and worked his enchantments upon us
again with that fatal music of his voice. He made us forget everything;
we could only listen to him, and love him, and be his slaves, to do with
us as he would. He made us drunk with the joy of being with him, and of
looking into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that
thrilled along our veins from the touch of his hand.




Chapter 3

The Stranger had seen everything, he had been everywhere, he knew
everything, and he forgot nothing. What another must study, he learned
at a glance; there were no difficulties for him. And he made things live
before you when he told about them. He saw the world made; he saw Adam
created; he saw Samson surge against the pillars and bring the temple
down in ruins about him; he saw Caesar's death; he told of the daily life
in heaven; he had seen the damned writhing in the red waves of hell; and
he made us see all these things, and it was as if we were on the spot and
looking at them with our own eyes. And we felt them, too, but there was
no sign that they were anything to him beyond mere entertainments. Those
visions of hell, those poor babes and women and girls and lads and men
shrieking and supplicating in anguish--why, we could hardly bear it, but
he was as bland about it as if it had been so many imitation rats in an
artificial fire.

And always when he was talking about men and women here on the earth and
their doings--even their grandest and sublimest--we were secretly
ashamed, for his manner showed that to him they and their doings were of
paltry poor consequence; often you would think he was talking about
flies, if you didn't know. Once he even said, in so many words, that our
people down here were quite interesting to him, notwithstanding they were
so dull and ignorant and trivial and conceited, and so diseased and
rickety, and such a shabby, poor, worthless lot all around. He said it
in a quite matter-of-course way and without bitterness, just as a person
might talk about bricks or manure or any other thing that was of no
consequence and hadn't feelings. I could see he meant no offense, but in
my thoughts I set it down as not very good manners.

"Manners!" he said. "Why, it is merely the truth, and truth is good
manners; manners are a fiction. The castle is done. Do you like it?"

Any one would have been obliged to like it. It was lovely to look at, it
was so shapely and fine, and so cunningly perfect in all its particulars,
even to the little flags waving from the turrets. Satan said we must put
the artillery in place now, and station the halberdiers and display the
cavalry. Our men and horses were a spectacle to see, they were so little
like what they were intended for; for, of course, we had no art in making
such things. Satan said they were the worst he had seen; and when he
touched them and made them alive, it was just ridiculous the way they
acted, on account of their legs not being of uniform lengths. They
reeled and sprawled around as if they were drunk, and endangered
everybody's lives around them, and finally fell over and lay helpless and
kicking. It made us all laugh, though it was a shameful thing to see.
The guns were charged with dirt, to fire a salute, but they were so
crooked and so badly made that they all burst when they went off, and
killed some of the gunners and crippled the others. Satan said we would
have a storm now, and an earthquake, if we liked, but we must stand off a
piece, out of danger. We wanted to call the people away, too, but he
said never mind them; they were of no consequence, and we could make
more, some time or other, if we needed them.