The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories


"The coin? What can the coin say?"

"It can say it is not the coin that the astrologer 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 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, through an unfortunate mistake, has 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 didn't examine 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. The astrologer 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 away 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 jailer, and calling them Grand
Chamberlain, and Prince This and Prince That, and Admiral of the Fleet,
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 recognized 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 eyes 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 hurrahed 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 with deceiving me
with that lie. He was not embarrassed, but said, quite simply and
composedly:

"Ah, 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 combination? 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 criticize! 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
apologized, 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 mongrel 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.
Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these
juvenilities and laugh at them--and 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--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."

We were traveling at the time and 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-cloth, 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, with 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?"

"No," said the juggler; "no one can do that."

"You are only an apprentice; you don't know your trade. Give me the
seed. I will show you." He took the seed and said, "What shall I raise
from it?"

"It is a cherry seed; of course you will raise a cherry."

"Oh no; that is a trifle; any novice can do that. Shall I raise an
orange-tree from it?"

"Oh yes!" and the juggler laughed.

"And shall I make it bear other fruits as well as oranges?"

"If God wills!" and they all laughed.

Satan put the seed in the ground, put a handful of dust on it, and said,
"Rise!"

A tiny stem shot up and began to grow, and grew so fast that in five
minutes it was a great tree, and we were sitting in the shade of it.
There was a murmur of wonder, then all looked up and saw a strange and
pretty sight, for the branches were heavy with fruits of many kinds and
colors--oranges, grapes, bananas, peaches, cherries, apricots, and so on.
Baskets were brought, and the unlading of the tree began; and the people
crowded around Satan and kissed his hand, and praised him, calling him
the prince of jugglers. The news went about the town, and everybody came
running to see the wonder--and they remembered to bring baskets, too.
But the tree was equal to the occasion; it put out new fruits as fast as
any were removed; baskets were filled by the score and by the hundred,
but always the supply remained undiminished. At last a foreigner in
white linen and sun-helmet arrived, and exclaimed, angrily:

"Away from here! Clear out, you dogs; the tree is on my lands and is my
property."

The natives put down their baskets and made humble obeisance. Satan made
humble obeisance, too, with his fingers to his forehead, in the native
way, and said:

"Please let them have their pleasure for an hour, sir--only that, and no
longer. Afterward you may forbid them; and you will still have more
fruit than you and the state together can consume in a year."

This made the foreigner very angry, and he cried out, "Who are you, you
vagabond, to tell your betters what they may do and what they mayn't!"
and he struck Satan with his cane and followed this error with a kick.

The fruits rotted on the branches, and the leaves withered and fell. The
foreigner gazed at the bare limbs with the look of one who is surprised,
and not gratified. Satan said:

"Take good care of the tree, for its health and yours are bound together.
It will never bear again, but if you tend it well it will live long.
Water its roots once in each hour every night--and do it yourself; it
must not be done by proxy, and to do it in daylight will not answer. If
you fail only once in any night, the tree will die, and you likewise. Do
not go home to your own country any more--you would not reach there; make
no business or pleasure engagements which require you to go outside your
gate at night--you cannot afford the risk; do not rent or sell this
place--it would be injudicious."

The foreigner was proud and wouldn't beg, but I thought he looked as if
he would like to. While he stood gazing at Satan we vanished away and
landed in Ceylon.

I was sorry for that man; sorry Satan hadn't been his customary self and
killed him or made him a lunatic. It would have been a mercy. Satan
overheard the thought, and said:

"I would have done it but for his wife, who has not offended me. She is
coming to him presently from their native land, Portugal. She is well,
but has not long to live, and has been yearning to see him and persuade
him to go back with her next year. She will die without knowing he can't
leave that place."

"He won't tell her?"

"He? He will not trust that secret with any one; he will reflect that it
could be revealed in sleep, in the hearing of some Portuguese guest's
servant some time or other."

"Did none of those natives understand what you said to him?"

"None of them understood, but he will always be afraid that some of them
did. That fear will be torture to him, for he has been a harsh master to
them. In his dreams he will imagine them chopping his tree down. That
will make his days uncomfortable--I have already arranged for his
nights."

It grieved me, though not sharply, to see him take such a malicious
satisfaction in his plans for this foreigner.

"Does he believe what you told him, Satan?"

"He thought he didn't, but our vanishing helped. The tree, where there
had been no tree before--that helped. The insane and uncanny variety of
fruits--the sudden withering--all these things are helps. Let him think
as he may, reason as he may, one thing is certain, he will water the
tree. But between this and night he will begin his changed career with a
very natural precaution--for him."

"What is that?"

"He will fetch a priest to cast out the tree's devil. You are such a
humorous race--and don't suspect it."

"Will he tell the priest?"

"No. He will say a juggler from Bombay created it, and that he wants the
juggler's devil driven out of it, so that it will thrive and be fruitful
again. The priest's incantations will fail; then the Portuguese will
give up that scheme and get his watering-pot ready."

"But the priest will burn the tree. I know it; he will not allow it to
remain."

"Yes, and anywhere in Europe he would burn the man, too. But in India
the people are civilized, and these things will not happen. The man will
drive the priest away and take care of the tree."

I reflected a little, then said, "Satan, you have given him a hard life,
I think."

"Comparatively. It must not be mistaken for a holiday."

We flitted from place to place around the world as we had done before,
Satan showing me a hundred wonders, most of them reflecting in some way
the weakness and triviality of our race. He did this now every few days
--not out of malice--I am sure of that--it only seemed to amuse and
interest him, just as a naturalist might be amused and interested by a
collection of ants.




Chapter 11

For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came
less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all. This always
made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing interest in our
tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one
day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while.
He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He had
investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he
said, that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for
his return.

"And you are going away, and will not come back any more?"

"Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it has been
pleasant--pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see each
other any more."

"In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another, surely?"

Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, "There is
no other."

A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a
vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words
might be true--even must be true.

"Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"

"No. How could I? But if it can only be true--"

"It is true."

A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before
it could issue in words, and I said, "But--but--we have seen that future
life--seen it in its actuality, and so--"

"It was a vision--it had no existence."

I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me.
"A vision?--a vi--"

"Life itself is only a vision, a dream."

It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times
in my musings!

"Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world--the sun, the moon,
the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a dream; they have no existence.
Nothing exists save empty space--and you!"

"I!"

"And you are not you--you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a
thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream--your dream,
creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this,
then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the
nothingness out of which you made me....

"I am perishing already--I am failing--I am passing away. In a little
while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless
solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a
thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable,
indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself
and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!

"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago--centuries, ages,
eons, ago!--for you have existed, companionless, through all the
eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that
your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction!
Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane--like all
dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet
preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy,
yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life,
yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness
unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels
painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and
maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell--mouths
mercy and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied
by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other
people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them
all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the
responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it
where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine
obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...

"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a
dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly
creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks--in a
word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks
are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no
universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all
a dream--a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you
are but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless
thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he
had said was true.






A FABLE

Once upon a time an artist who had painted a small and very beautiful
picture placed it so that he could see it in the mirror. He said, "This
doubles the distance and softens it, and it is twice as lovely as it was
before."

The animals out in the woods heard of this through the housecat, who was
greatly admired by them because he was so learned, and so refined and
civilized, and so polite and high-bred, and could tell them so much which
they didn't know before, and were not certain about afterward. They were
much excited about this new piece of gossip, and they asked questions, so
as to get at a full understanding of it. They asked what a picture was,
and the cat explained.

"It is a flat thing," he said; "wonderfully flat, marvelously flat,
enchantingly flat and elegant. And, oh, so beautiful!"

That excited them almost to a frenzy, and they said they would give the
world to see it. Then the bear asked:

"What is it that makes it so beautiful?"

"It is the looks of it," said the cat.

This filled them with admiration and uncertainty, and they were more
excited than ever. Then the cow asked:

"What is a mirror?"

"It is a hole in the wall," said the cat. "You look in it, and there you
see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and
inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and
round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy."

The ass had not said anything as yet; he now began to throw doubts.
He said there had never been anything as beautiful as this before, and
probably wasn't now. He said that when it took a whole basketful of
sesquipedalian adjectives to whoop up a thing of beauty, it was time for
suspicion.

It was easy to see that these doubts were having an effect upon the
animals, so the cat went off offended. The subject was dropped for a
couple of days, but in the meantime curiosity was taking a fresh start,
aid there was a revival of interest perceptible. Then the animals
assailed the ass for spoiling what could possibly have been a pleasure to
them, on a mere suspicion that the picture was not beautiful, without any
evidence that such was the case. The ass was not, troubled; he was calm,
and said there was one way to find out who was in the right, himself or
the cat: he would go and look in that hole, and come back and tell what
he found there. The animals felt relieved and grateful, and asked him to
go at once--which he did.

But he did not know where he ought to stand; and so, through error, he
stood between the picture and the mirror. The result was that the
picture had no chance, and didn't show up. He returned home and said:

"The cat lied. There was nothing in that hole but an ass. There wasn't
a sign of a flat thing visible. It was a handsome ass, and friendly, but
just an ass, and nothing more."

The elephant asked:

"Did you see it good and clear? Were you close to it?"

"I saw it good and clear, O Hathi, King of Beasts. I was so close that I
touched noses with it."

"This is very strange," said the elephant; "the cat was always truthful
before--as far as we could make out. Let another witness try. Go,
Baloo, look in the hole, and come and report."

So the bear went. When he came back, he said:

"Both the cat and the ass have lied; there was nothing in the hole but a
bear."

Great was the surprise and puzzlement of the animals. Each was now
anxious to make the test himself and get at the straight truth. The
elephant sent them one at a time.

First, the cow. She found nothing in the hole but a cow.

The tiger found nothing in it but a tiger.

The lion found nothing in it but a lion.

The leopard found nothing in it but a leopard.

The camel found a camel, and nothing more.

Then Hathi was wroth, and said he would have the truth, if he had to go
and fetch it himself. When he returned, he abused his whole subjectry
for liars, and was in an unappeasable fury with the moral and mental
blindness of the cat. He said that anybody but a near-sighted fool could
see that there was nothing in the hole but an elephant.

MORAL, BY THE CAT

You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it
and the mirror of your imagination. You may not see your ears, but they
will be there.






HUNTING THE DECEITFUL TURKEY

When I was a boy my uncle and his big boys hunted with the rifle, the
youngest boy Fred and I with a shotgun--a small single-barrelled shotgun
which was properly suited to our size and strength; it was not much
heavier than a broom. We carried it turn about, half an hour at a time.
I was not able to hit anything with it, but I liked to try. Fred and I
hunted feathered small game, the others hunted deer, squirrels, wild
turkeys, and such things. My uncle and the big boys were good shots.
They killed hawks and wild geese and such like on the wing; and they
didn't wound or kill squirrels, they stunned them. When the dogs treed a
squirrel, the squirrel would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and
flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way
--and not quite succeeding. You could see his wee little ears sticking
up. You couldn't see his nose, but you knew where it was. Then the
hunter, despising a "rest" for his rifle, stood up and took offhand aim
at the limb and sent a bullet into it immediately under the squirrel's
nose, and down tumbled the animal, unwounded, but unconscious; the dogs
gave him a shake and he was dead. Sometimes when the distance was great
and the wind not accurately allowed for, the bullet would hit the
squirrel's head; the dogs could do as they pleased with that one--the
hunter's pride was hurt, and he wouldn't allow it to go into the gamebag.