by Mark Twain
“Come whenever you like.”
“I’ll do what I can for pay. I’ve never caught a mouse, but I feel it in me that I could do it, and I will keep a lookout here. I’m not so sad, now; no, things look very different; but I was pretty sad when I came. Could I room here, do you think? Would you mind?”
“Not at all. Make yourself quite at home. There’ll be a special bed for you. I’ll see to it.”
“What larks! I never knew what nuts it was to be a cat before.”
“It has its advantages.”
“Oh, I should smile! I’ll step out, now, and browse around a little, and see if there’s anything doing in my line. Au revoir, and many many thanks for all you have done for me. I’ll be back before long.”
And so she went out, waving her tail, which meant satisfaction.
“There, now,” said 44, “that part of the plan has come out all right, and no harm done.”
“No, indeed,” I said, resuming my visible form, “we’ve done her a favor. And in her place I should feel about it just as she does. Forty-Four, it was beautiful to hear that strange language and understand it—I understood every word. Could I learn to speak it, do you think?”
“You won’t have to learn it, I’ll put it into you.”
“Good. When?”
“Now. You’ve already got it. Try! Speak out—do The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck—in catapult, or cataplasm, or whatever one might call that tongue.”
“The Boy—what was it you said?”
“It’s a poem. It hasn’t been written yet, but it’s very pretty and stirring. It’s English. But I’ll empty it into you, where you stand, in cataplasm. Now you’ve got it. Go ahead—recite.”
I did it, and never missed a wail. It was certainly beautiful in that tongue, and quaint and touching; 44 said if it was done on a back fence, by moonlight, it would make people cry—especially a quartette would. I was proud; he was not always so complimentary. I said I was glad to have the cat, particularly now that I could talk to her; and she would be happy with me, didn’t he think? Yes, he said, she would. I said—
“It’s a good night’s work we’ve done for that poor little blonde-haired lady’s-maid, and I believe, as you do, that quite soon she is going to be contented and happy.”
“As soon as she has kittens,” he said, “and it won’t be long.”
Then we began to think out a name for her, but he said—
“Leave that, for the present, you’d better have a nap.”
He gave a wave of his hand, and that was sufficient; before the wave was completed I was asleep.
Chapter 27
I woke up fresh and fine and vigorous, and found I had been asleep a little more than six minutes. The sleeps which he furnished had no dependence upon time, no connection with it, no relation to it; sometimes they did their work in one interval, sometimes in another, sometimes in half a second, sometimes in half a day, according to whether there was an interruption or wasn’t; but let the interval be long or short, the result was the same: that is to say, the reinvigoration was perfect, the physical and mental refreshment complete.
There had been an interruption, a voice had spoken. I glanced up, and saw myself standing there, within the half-open door. That is to say, I saw Emil Schwarz, my Duplicate. My conscience gave me a little prod, for his face was sad. Had he found out what had been happening at midnight, and had he come at three in the morning to reproach me?
Reproach me? What for? For getting him falsely saddled with a vulgar indiscretion? What of it? Who was the loser by it? Plainly, I, myself—I had lost the girl. And who was the gainer? He himself, and none other—he had acquired her. Ah, very well, then—let him reproach me; if he was dissatisfied, let him trade places: he wouldn’t find me objecting. Having reached solid ground by these logical reasonings, I advised my conscience to go take a tonic, and leave me to deal with this situation as a healthy person should.
Meantime, during these few seconds, I was looking at myself, standing there—and for once, I was admiring. Just because I had been doing a very handsome thing by this Duplicate, I was softening toward him, my prejudices were losing strength. I hadn’t intended to do the handsome thing, but no matter, it had happened, and it was natural for me to take the credit of it and feel a little proud of it, for I was human. Being human accounts for a good many insanities, according to 44—upwards of a thousand a day was his estimate.
It is actually the truth that I had never looked this Duplicate over before. I never could bear the sight of him. I wouldn’t look at him when I could help it; and until this moment I couldn’t look at him dispassionately and with fairness. But now I could, for I had done him a great and creditable kindness, and it quite changed his aspects.
In those days there were several things which I didn’t know. For instance I didn’t know that my voice was not the same voice to me that it was to others; but when 44 made me talk into the thing which he brought in, one day, when he had arrived home from one of his plundering-raids among the unborn centuries, and then reversed the machine and allowed me to listen to my voice as other people were used to hearing it, I recognized that it had so little resemblance to the voice I was accustomed to hearing that I should have said it was not my voice at all if the proof had not been present that it was.
Also, I had been used to supposing that the person I saw in the mirror was the person others saw when they looked at me—whereas that was not the case. For once, when 44 had come back from robbing the future he brought a camera and made some photographs of me—those were the names which he gave the things, names which he invented out of his head for the occasion, no doubt, for that was his habit, on account of his not having any principles—and always the pictures which were like me as I saw myself in the glass he pronounced poor, and those which I thought exceedingly bad, he pronounced almost supernaturally good.
And here it was again. In the figure standing by the door I was now seeing myself as others saw me, but the resemblance to the self which I was familiar with in the glass was merely a resemblance, nothing more; not approaching the common resemblance of brother to brother, but reaching only as far as the resemblance which a person usually bears to his brother-in-law. Often one does not notice that, at all, until it is pointed out; and sometimes, even then, the resemblance owes as much to imagination as to fact. It’s like a cloud which resembles a horse after some one has pointed out the resemblance. You perceive it, then, though I have often seen a cloud that didn’t. Clouds often have nothing more than a brother-in-law resemblance. I wouldn’t say this to everybody, but I believe it to be true, nevertheless. For I myself have seen clouds which looked like a brother-in-law, whereas I knew very well they didn’t. Nearly all such are hallucinations, in my opinion.
Well, there he stood, with the strong white electric light flooding him, (more plunder,) and he hardly even reached the brother-in-law standard. I realized that I had never really seen this youth before. Of course I could recognize the general pattern, I don’t deny it, but that was only because I knew who the creature was; but if I had met him in another country, the most that could have happened would have been this: that I would turn and look after him and say “I wonder if I have seen him somewhere before?” and then I would drop the matter out of my mind, as being only a fancy.
Well, there he was; that is to say, there I was. And I was interested; interested at last. He was distinctly handsome, distinctly trim and shapely, and his attitude was easy, and well-bred and graceful. Complexion—what it should be at seventeen, with a blonde ancestry: peachy, bloomy, fresh, wholesome. Clothes—precisely like mine, to a button—or the lack of it.
I was well satisfied with this front view. I had never seen my back; I was curious to see it. I said, very courteously—
“Would you please turn around for a moment?—only a moment? . . . Thank you.”
Well, well, how little we know what our backs are like! This one was all right, I hadn’t a fault to find with it, but it was
all new to me, it was the back of a stranger—hair-aspects and all. If I had seen it walking up the street in front of me it would not have occurred to me that I could be in any personal way interested in it.
“Turn again, please, if you will be so good . . . . Thank you kindly.”
I was to inspect the final detail, now—mentality. I had put it last, for I was reluctant, afraid, doubtful. Of course one glance was enough—I was expecting that. It saddened me: he was of a loftier world than I, he moved in regions where I could not tread, with my earth-shod feet. I wished I had left that detail alone.
“Come and sit down,” I said, “and tell me what it is. You wish to speak with me about something?”
“Yes,” he said, seating himself, “if you will kindly listen.”
I gave a moment’s thought to my defence, as regards the impending reproach, and was ready. He began, in a voice and manner which were in accord with the sadness which sat upon his young face—
“The master has been to me and has charged me with profaning the sanctity of his niece’s chamber.”
It was a strange place to stop, but there he stopped, and looked wistfully at me, just as a person might stop in a dream, and wait for another person to take up the matter there, without any definite text to talk to. I had to say something, and so for lack of anything better to offer, I said—
“I am truly sorry, and I hope you will be able to convince him that he is mistaken. You can, can’t you?”
“Convince him?” he answered, looking at me quite vacantly, “Why should I wish to convince him?”
I felt pretty vacant myself, now. It was a most unlooked-for question. If I had guessed a week I should not have hit upon that one. I said—and it was the only thing a body would ever think of saying—
“But you do, don’t you?”
The look he gave me was a look of compassion, if I know the signs. It seemed to say, gently, kindly, but clearly, “alas, this poor creature doesn’t know anything.” Then he uttered his answer—
“Wh-y, no, I do not see that I have that wish. It—why, you see, it isn’t any matter.”
“Good heavens! It isn’t any matter whether you stand disgraced or not?”
He shook his head, and said quite simply—
“No, it isn’t any matter, it is of no consequence.”
It was difficult to believe my ears. I said—
“Well, then, if disgrace is nothing to you, consider this point. If the report gets around, it can mean disgrace for the young lady.”
It had no effect that I could see! He said—
“Can it?” just as an idiot child might have said it.
“Can it? Why of course it can! You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”
“We-ll,” (reflectively), “I don’t know. I don’t see the bearing of it.”
“Oh, great guns, this infantile stu—this—this—why, it’s perfectly disheartening! You love her, and yet you don’t care whether her good name is ruined or not?”
“Love her?” and he had the discouraged aspect of a person who is trying to look through a fog and is not succeeding, “why, I don’t love her; what makes you think I do?”
“Well, I must say! Well, certainly this is too many for me. Why, hang it, I know you’ve been courting her.”
“Yes—oh, yes, that is true.”
“Oh, it is, is it! Very well, then, how is it that you were courting her and yet didn’t love her?”
“No, it isn’t that way. No, I loved her.”
“Oh—go on, I’ll take a breath or two—I don’t know where I am, I’m all at sea.”
He said, placidly—
“Yes, I remember about that. I loved her. It had escaped me. No—it hadn’t escaped me; it was not important, and I was thinking of something else.”
“Tell me,” I said, “is anything important to you?”
“Oh, yes!” he responded, with animation and a brightening face; then the animation and the brightness passed, and he added, wearily, “but not these things.”
Somehow, it touched me; it was like the moan of an exile. We were silent a while, thinking, ruminating, then I said—
“Schwarz, I’m not able to make it out. It is a sweet young girl, you certainly did love her, and—”
“Yes,” he said, tranquilly, “it is quite true. I believe it was yesterday . . . . yes, I think it was yesterday.”
“Oh, you think it was! But of course it’s not important. Dear me, why should it be?—a little thing like that. Now then, something has changed it. What was it? What has happened?”
“Happened? Nothing, I think. Nothing that I know of.”
“Well, then, why the devil . . . . oh, great Scott, I’ll never get my wits back again! Why, look here, Schwarz, you wanted to marry her!”
“Yes. Quite true. I think . . . . yesterday? Yes, I think it was yesterday. I am to marry her to-day. I think it’s to-day; anyway, it is pretty soon. The master requires it. He has told me so.”
“Well . . . . upon my word!”
“What is the matter?”
“Why, you are as indifferent about this as you are about everything else. You show no feeling whatever, you don’t even show interest. Come! surely you’ve got a heart hidden away somewhere; open it up; give it air; show at least some little corner of it. Land, I wish I were in your place! Don’t you care whether you marry her or not?”
“Care? Why, no, of course I don’t. You do ask the strangest questions! I wander, wander, wander! I try to make you out, I try to understand you, but it’s all fog, fog, fog—you’re just a riddle, nobody can understand you!”
Oh, the idea! the impudence of it! this to me!—from this frantic chaos of unimaginable incomprehensibilities, who couldn’t by any chance utter so much as half a sentence that Satan himself could make head or tail of!
“Oh, I like that!” I cried, flying out at him. “You can’t understand me! Oh, but that is good! It’s immortal! Why, look here, when you came, I thought I knew what you came for—I thought I knew all about it—I would have said you were coming to reproach me for—for—”
I found it difficult to get it out, and so I left it in, and after a pause, added—
“Why, Schwarz, you certainly had something on your mind when you came—I could see it in your face—but if ever you’ve got to it I’ve not discovered it—oh, not even a sign of it! You haven’t got to it, have you?”
“Oh, no!” he answered, with an outburst of very real energy. “These things were of no sort of consequence. May I tell it now? Oh, will you be good and hear me? I shall be so grateful, if you will!”
“Why, certainly, and glad to! Come, now you’re waking up, at last! You’ve got a heart in you, sure enough, and plenty of feeling—why, it burns in your eye like a star! Go ahead—I’m all interest, all sympathy.”
Oh, well, he was a different creature, now. All the fogs and puzzlings and perplexities were gone from his face, and had left it clear and full of life. He said—
“It was no idle errand that brought me. No, far from it! I came with my heart in my mouth, I came to beg, to plead, to pray—to beseech you, to implore you, to have mercy upon me!”
“Mercy—upon you?”
“Yes, mercy. Have mercy, oh, be merciful, and set me free!”
“Why, I—I—Schwarz, I don’t understand. You say, yourself, that if they want you to marry, you are quite indif—”
“Oh, not that! I care nothing for that—it is these bonds”—stretching his arms aloft—“oh, free me from them; these bonds of flesh—this decaying vile matter, this foul weight, and clog, and burden, this loathsome sack of corruption in which my spirit is imprisoned, her white wings bruised and soiled—oh, be merciful and set her free! Plead for me with that malicious magic-monger—he has been here—I saw him issue from this door—he will come again—say you will be my friend, as well as brother! for brothers indeed we are; the same womb was mother to us both, I live by you, I perish when you die—brother, be my friend
! plead with him to take away this rotting flesh and set my spirit free! Oh, this human life, this earthy life, this weary life! It is so groveling, and so mean; its ambitions are so paltry, its prides so trivial, its vanities so childish; and the glories that it values and applauds—lord, how empty! Oh, here I am a servant!—I who never served before; here I am a slave—slave among little mean kings and emperors made of clothes, the kings and emperors slaves themselves, to mud-built carrion that are their slaves!
“To think you should think I came here concerned about those other things—those inconsequentials! Why should they concern me, a spirit of air, habitant of the august Empire of Dreams? We have no morals; the angels have none; morals are for the impure; we have no principles, those chains are for men. We love the lovely whom we meet in dreams, we forget them the next day, and meet and love their like. They are dream-creatures—no others are real. Disgrace? We care nothing for disgrace, we do not know what it is. Crime? we commit it every night, while you sleep; it is nothing to us. We have no character, no one character, we have all characters; we are honest in one dream, dishonest in the next; we fight in one battle and flee from the next. We wear no chains, we cannot abide them; we have no home, no prison, the universe is our province; we do not know time, we do not know space—we live, and love, and labor, and enjoy, fifty years in an hour, while you are sleeping, snoring, repairing your crazy tissues; we circumnavigate your little globe while you wink; we are not tied within horizons, like a dog with cattle to mind, an emperor with human sheep to watch—we visit hell, we roam in heaven, our playgrounds are the constellations and the Milky Way. Oh, help, help! be my friend and brother in my need—beseech the magician, beg him, plead with him; he will listen, he will be moved, he will release me from this odious flesh!”
I was powerfully stirred—so moved, indeed, that in my pity for him I brushed aside unheeded or but half-heeded the scoffs and slurs which he had flung at my despised race, and jumped up and seized him by both hands and wrung them passionately, declaring that with all my heart and soul I would plead for him with the magician, and would not rest from these labors until my prayers should succeed or their continuance be peremptorily forbidden.
