The Best Short Works of Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  “Plenty of them.”

  “I would give anything to see some of them! Could you bring them here? And would they be visible to me?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “I suppose I ought to have known that without asking. But no matter, you can describe them. Tell me about my neighbor Thompson’s conscience, please.”

  “Very well. I know him intimately; have known him many years. I knew him when he was eleven feet high and of a faultless figure. But he is very rusty and tough and misshapen now, and hardly ever interests himself about anything. As to his present size—well, he sleeps in a cigar-box.”

  “Likely enough. There are few smaller, meaner men in this region than Hugh Thompson. Do you know Robinson’s conscience?”

  “Yes. He is a shade under four and a half feet high; used to be a blond; is a brunette now, but still shapely and comely.”

  “Well, Robinson is a good fellow. Do you know Tom Smith’s conscience?”

  “I have known him from childhood. He was thirteen inches high, and rather sluggish, when he was two years old—as nearly all of us are at that age. He is thirty-seven feet high now, and the stateliest figure in America. His legs are still racked with growing-pains, but he has a good time, nevertheless. Never sleeps. He is the most active and energetic member of the New England Conscience Club; is president of it. Night and day you can find him pegging away at Smith, panting with his labor, sleeves rolled up, countenance all alive with enjoyment. He has got his victim splendidly dragooned now. He can make poor Smith imagine that the most innocent little thing he does is an odious sin; and then he sets to work and almost tortures the soul out of him about it.”

  “Smith is the noblest man in all this section, and the purest; and yet is always breaking his heart because he cannot be good! Only a conscience could find pleasure in heaping agony upon a spirit like that. Do you know my aunt Mary’s conscience?”

  “I have seen her at a distance, but am not acquainted with her. She lives in the open air altogether, because no door is large enough to admit her.”

  “I can believe that. Let me see. Do you know the conscience of that publisher who once stole some sketches of mine for a ‘series’ of his, and then left me to pay the law expenses I had to incur in order to choke him off?”

  “Yes. He has a wide fame. He was exhibited, a month ago, with some other antiquities, for the benefit of a recent Member of the Cabinet’s conscience that was starving in exile. Tickets and fares were high, but I traveled for nothing by pretending to be the conscience of an editor, and got in for half-price by representing myself to be the conscience of a clergyman. However, the publisher’s conscience, which was to have been the main feature of the entertainment, was a failure—as an exhibition. He was there, but what of that? The management had provided a microscope with a magnifying power of only thirty thousand diameters, and so nobody got to see him, after all. There was great and general dissatisfaction, of course, but—”

  Just here there was an eager footstep on the stair; I opened the door, and my aunt Mary burst into the room. It was a joyful meeting and a cheery bombardment of questions and answers concerning family matters ensued. By and by my aunt said:

  “But I am going to abuse you a little now. You promised me, the day I saw you last, that you would look after the needs of the poor family around the corner as faithfully as I had done it myself. Well, I found out by accident that you failed of your promise. Was that right?”

  In simple truth, I never had thought of that family a second time! And now such a splintering pang of guilt shot through me! I glanced up at my Conscience. Plainly, my heavy heart was affecting him. His body was drooping forward; he seemed about to fall from the bookcase. My aunt continued:

  “And think how you have neglected my poor protégé at the almshouse, you dear, hard-hearted promise-breaker!” I blushed scarlet, and my tongue was tied. As the sense of my guilty negligence waxed sharper and stronger, my Conscience began to sway heavily back and forth; and when my aunt, after a little pause, said in a grieved tone, “Since you never once went to see her, maybe it will not distress you now to know that that poor child died, months ago, utterly friendless and forsaken!” my Conscience could no longer bear up under the weight of my sufferings, but tumbled headlong from his high perch and struck the floor with a dull, leaden thump. He lay there writhing with pain and quaking with apprehension, but straining every muscle in frantic efforts to get up. In a fever of expectancy I sprang to the door, locked it, placed my back against it, and bent a watchful gaze upon my struggling master. Already my fingers were itching to begin their murderous work.

  “Oh, what can be the matter!” exclaimed my aunt, shrinking from me, and following with her frightened eyes the direction of mine. My breath was coming in short, quick gasps now, and my excitement was almost uncontrollable. My aunt cried out:

  “Oh, do not look so! You appall me! Oh, what can the matter be? What is it you see? Why do you stare so? Why do you work your fingers like that?”

  “Peace, woman!” I said, in a hoarse whisper. “Look elsewhere; pay no attention to me; it is nothing—nothing. I am often this way. It will pass in a moment. It comes from smoking too much.”

  My injured lord was up, wild-eyed with terror, and trying to hobble toward the door. I could hardly breathe, I was so wrought up. My aunt wrung her hands, and said:

  “Oh, I knew how it would be; I knew it would come to this at last! Oh, I implore you to crush out that fatal habit while it may yet be time! You must not, you shall not be deaf to my supplications longer!” My struggling Conscience showed sudden signs of weariness! “Oh, promise me you will throw off this hateful slavery of tobacco!” My Conscience began to reel drowsily, and grope with his hands—enchanting spectacle! “I beg you, I beseech you, I implore you! Your reason is deserting you! There is madness in your eye! It flames with frenzy! Oh, hear me, hear me, and be saved! See, I plead with you on my very knees!” As she sank before me my Conscience reeled again, and then drooped languidly to the floor, blinking toward me a last supplication for mercy, with heavy eyes. “Oh, promise, or you are lost! Promise, and be redeemed! Promise! Promise and live!” With a long-drawn sigh my conquered Conscience closed his eyes and fell fast asleep!

  With an exultant shout I sprang past my aunt, and in an instant I had my lifelong foe by the throat. After so many years of waiting and longing, he was mine at last. I tore him to shreds and fragments. I rent the fragments to bits. I cast the bleeding rubbish into the fire, and drew into my nostrils the grateful incense of my burnt-offering. At last, and forever, my Conscience was dead!

  I was a free man! I turned upon my poor aunt, who was almost petrified with terror, and shouted:

  “Out of this with your paupers, your charities, your reforms, your pestilent morals! You behold before you a man whose life-conflict is done, whose soul is at peace; a man whose heart is dead to sorrow, dead to suffering, dead to remorse; a man WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE! In my joy I spare you, though I could throttle you and never feel a pang! Fly!”

  She fled. Since that day my life is all bliss. Bliss, unalloyed bliss. Nothing in all the world could persuade me to have a conscience again. I settled all my old outstanding scores, and began the world anew. I killed thirty-eight persons during the first two weeks—all of them on account of ancient grudges. I burned a dwelling that interrupted my view. I swindled a widow and some orphans out of their last cow, which is a very good one, though not thoroughbred, I believe. I have also committed scores of crimes, of various kinds, and have enjoyed my work exceedingly, whereas it would formerly have broken my heart and turned my hair gray, I have no doubt.

  In conclusion, I wish to state, by way of advertisement, that medical colleges desiring assorted tramps for scientific purposes, either by the gross, by cord measurement, or per ton, will do well to examine the lot in my cellar before purchasing elsewhere, as these were all selected and prepared by myself, and can be had at a low rate, because I wish to clear out my stock and
get ready for the spring trade.

  1876

  THE LOVES OF ALONZO FITZ CLARENCE AND ROSANNAH ETHELTON

  1

  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 down-stairs; 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.”