by Mark Twain
“At last, this dream seemed about to be fulfilled. A stranger came by, one day, who said his name was Kalula. I told him my name, and he said he loved me. My heart gave a great bound of gratitude and pleasure, for I had loved him at sight, and now I said so. He took me to his breast and said he would not wish to be happier than he was now. We went strolling together far over the ice-floes, telling all about each other, and planning, oh, the loveliest future! When we were tired at last we sat down and ate, for he had soap and candles and I had brought along some blubber. We were hungry, and nothing was ever so good.
“He belonged to a tribe whose haunts were far to the north, and I found that he had never heard of my father, which rejoiced me exceedingly. I mean he had heard of the millionaire, but had never heard his name—so, you see, he could not know that I was the heiress. You may be sure that I did not tell him. I was loved for myself at last, and was satisfied. I was so happy—oh, happier than you can think!
“By and by it was toward supper-time, and I led him home. As we approached our house he was amazed, and cried out:
“‘How splendid! Is that your father’s?’
“It gave me a pang to hear that tone and see that admiring light in his eye, but the feeling quickly passed away, for I loved him so, and he looked so handsome and noble. All my family of aunts and uncles and cousins were pleased with him, and many guests were called in, and the house was shut up tight and the rag-lamps lighted, and when everything was hot and comfortable and suffocating, we began a joyous feast in celebration of my betrothal.
“When the feast was over, my father’s vanity overcame him, and he could not resist the temptation to show off his riches and let Kalula see what good fortune he had stumbled into—and mainly, of course, he wanted to enjoy the poor man’s amazement. I could have cried—but it would have done no good to try to dissuade my father, so I said nothing, but merely sat there and suffered.
“My father went straight to the hiding-place, in full sight of everybody, and got out the fish-hooks and brought them and flung them scatteringly over my head, so that they fell in glittering confusion on the platform at my lover’s knee.
“Of course, the astounding spectacle took the poor lad’s breath away. He could only stare in stupid astonishment, and wonder how a single individual could possess such incredible riches. Then presently he glanced brilliantly up and exclaimed:
“‘Ah, it is you who are the renowned millionaire!’
“My father and all the rest burst into shouts of happy laughter, and when my father gathered the treasure carelessly up as if it might be mere rubbish and of no consequence, and carried it back to its place, poor Kalula’s surprise was a study. He said:
“‘Is it possible that you put such things away without counting them?’
“My father delivered a vainglorious horse-laugh, and said:
“‘Well, truly, a body may know you have never been rich, since a mere matter of a fish-hook or two is such a mighty matter in your eyes.’
“Kalula was confused, and hung his head, but said:
“‘Ah, indeed, sir, I was never worth the value of the barb of one of those precious things, and I have never seen any man before who was so rich in them as to render the counting of his hoard worth while, since the wealthiest man I have ever known, till now, was possessed of but three.’
“My foolish father roared again with jejune delight, and allowed the impression to remain that he was not accustomed to count his hooks and keep sharp watch over them. He was showing off, you see. Count them? Why, he counted them every day!
“I had met and got acquainted with my darling just at dawn; I had brought him home just at dark, three hours afterward—for the days were shortening toward the six-months’ night at that time. We kept up the festivities many hours; then, at last, the guests departed and the rest of us distributed ourselves along the walls on sleeping-benches, and soon all were steeped in dreams but me. I was too happy, too excited, to sleep. After I had lain quiet a long, long time, a dim form passed by me and was swallowed up in the gloom that pervaded the farther end of the house. I could not make out who it was, or whether it was man or woman. Presently that figure or another one passed me going the other way. I wondered what it all meant, but wondering did no good; and while I was still wondering, I fell asleep.
“I do not know how long I slept, but at last I came suddenly broad awake and heard my father say in a terrible voice, ‘By the great Snow God, there’s a fish-hook gone!’ Something told me that that meant sorrow for me, and the blood in my veins turned cold. The presentiment was confirmed in the same instant: my father shouted, ‘Up, everybody, and seize the stranger!’ Then there was an outburst of cries and curses from all sides, and a wild rush of dim forms through the obscurity. I flew to my beloved’s help, but what could I do but wait and wring my hands?—he was already fenced away from me by a living wall, he was being bound hand and foot. Not until he was secured would they let me get to him. I flung myself upon his poor insulted form and cried my grief out upon his breast, while my father and all my family scoffed at me and heaped threats and shameful epithets upon him. He bore his ill usage with a tranquil dignity which endeared him to me more than ever, and made me proud and happy to suffer with him and for him. I heard my father order that the elders of the tribe be called together to try my Kalula for his life.
“‘What?’ I said, ‘before any search has been made for the lost hook?’
“‘Lost hook!’ they all shouted, in derison; and my father added, mockingly, ‘Stand back, everybody, and be properly serious—she is going to hunt up that lost hook; oh, without doubt she will find it!’—whereat they all laughed again.
“I was not disturbed—I had no fears, no doubts. I said:
“‘It is for you to laugh now; it is your turn. But ours is coming; wait and see.’
“I got a rag-lamp. I thought I should find that miserable thing in one little moment; and I set about the matter with such confidence that those people grew grave, beginning to suspect that perhaps they had been too hasty. But, alas and alas!—oh, the bitterness of that search! There was deep silence while one might count his fingers ten or twelve times, then my heart began to sink, and around me the mockings began again, and grew steadily louder and more assured, until at last, when I gave up, they burst into volley after volley of cruel laughter.
“None will ever know what I suffered then. But my love was my support and my strength, and I took my rightful place at my Kalula’s side, and put my arm about his neck, and whispered in his ear, saying:
“‘You are innocent, my own—that I know; but say it to me yourself, for my comfort, then I can bear whatever is in store for us.’
“He answered:
“‘As surely as I stand upon the brink of death at this moment, I am innocent. Be comforted, then, O bruised heart; be at peace, O thou breath of my nostrils, life of my life!’
“‘Now, then, let the elders come!’—and as I said the words there was a gathering sound of crunching snow outside, and then a vision of stooping forms filing in at the door—the elders.
“My father formally accused the prisoner, and detailed the happenings of the night. He said that the watchman was outside the door, and that in the house were none but the family and the stranger. ‘Would the family steal their own property?’
“He paused. The elders sat silent many minutes; at last, one after another said to his neighbor, ‘This looks bad for the stranger’—sorrowful words for me to hear. Then my father sat down. O miserable, miserable me! at that very moment I could have proved my darling innocent, but I did not know it!
“The chief of the court asked:
“‘Is there any here to defend the prisoner?’
“I rose and said:
“‘Why should he steal that hook, or any or all of them? In another day he would have been heir to the whole!’
“I stood waiting. There was a long silence, the steam from the many breaths rising about me like a fog. At
last, one elder after another nodded his head slowly several times, and muttered, ‘There is force in what the child has said.’ Oh, the heartlift that was in those words!—so transient, but oh, so precious! I sat down.
“‘If any would say further, let him speak now, or after hold his peace,’ said the chief of the court.
“My father rose and said:
“‘In the night a form passed by me in the gloom, going toward the treasury, and presently returned. I think, now, it was the stranger.’
“Oh, I was like to swoon! I had supposed that that was my secret; not the grip of the great Ice God himself could have dragged it out of my heart.
“The chief of the court said sternly to my poor Kalula:
“‘Speak!’
“Kalula hesitated, then answered:
“‘It was I. I could not sleep for thinking of the beautiful hooks. I went there and kissed them and fondled them, to appease my spirit and drown it in a harmless joy, then I put them back. I may have dropped one, but I stole none.’
“Oh, a fatal admission to make in such a place! There was an awful hush. I knew he had pronounced his own doom, and that all was over. On every face you could see the words hieroglyphed: ‘It is a confession!—and paltry, lame, and thin.’
“I sat drawing in my breath in faint gasps—and waiting. Presently, I heard the solemn words I knew were coming; and each word, as it came, was a knife in my heart:
“‘It is the command of the court that the accused be subjected to the trial by water.’
“Oh, curses be upon the head of him who brought ‘trial by water’ to our land! It came, generations ago, from some far country, that lies none knows where. Before that, our fathers used augury and other unsure methods of trial, and doubtless some poor, guilty creatures escaped with their lives sometimes; but it is not so with trial by water, which is an invention by wiser men than we poor, ignorant savages are. By it the innocent are proved innocent, without doubt or question, for they drown; and the guilty are proven guilty with the same certainty, for they do not drown. My heart was breaking in my bosom, for I said, ‘He is innocent, and he will go down under the waves and I shall never see him more.’
“I never left his side after that. I mourned in his arms all the precious hours, and he poured out the deep stream of his love upon me, and oh, I was so miserable and so happy! At last, they tore him from me, and I followed sobbing after them, and saw them fling him into the sea—then I covered my face with my hands. Agony? Oh, I know the deepest deeps of that word!
“The next moment the people burst into a shout of malicious joy, and I took away my hands, startled. Oh, bitter sight—he was swimming!
“My heart turned instantly to stone, to ice. I said, ‘He was guilty, and he lied to me!’
“I turned my back in scorn and went my way homeward.
“They took him far out to sea and set him on an iceberg that was drifting southward in the great waters. Then my family came home, and my father said to me:
“‘Your thief sent his dying message to you, saying, “Tell her I am innocent, and that all the days and all the hours and all the minutes while I starve and perish I shall love her and think of her and bless the day that gave me sight of her sweet face.” Quite pretty, even poetical!’
“I said, ‘He is dirt—let me never hear mention of him again.’ And oh, to think—he was innocent all the time!
“Nine months—nine dull, sad months—went by, and at last came the day of the Great Annual Sacrifice, when all the maidens of the tribe wash their faces and comb their hair. With the first sweep of my comb, out came the fatal fish-hook from where it had been all those months nestling, and I fell fainting into the arms of my remorseful father! Groaning, he said, ‘We murdered him, and I shall never smile again!’ He has kept his word. Listen: from that day to this not a month goes by that I do not comb my hair. But oh, where is the good of it all now!”
So ended the poor maid’s humble little tale—whereby we learn that, since a hundred million dollars in New York and twenty-two fish-hooks on the border of the Arctic Circle represent the same financial supremacy, a man in straitened circumstances is a fool to stay in New York when he can buy ten cents’ worth of fish-hooks and emigrate.
1893
IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD?
I WAS SPENDING the month of March, 1892, at Mentone, in the Riviera. At this retired spot one has all the advantages, privately, which are to be had at Monte Carlo and Nice, a few miles farther along, publicly. That is to say, one has the flooding sunshine, the balmy air, and the brilliant blue sea, without the marring additions of human powwow and fuss and feathers and display. Mentone is quiet, simple, restful, unpretentious; the rich and the gaudy do not come there. As a rule, I mean, the rich do not come there. Now and then a rich man comes, and I presently got acquainted with one of these. Partially to disguise him I will call him Smith. One day, in the Hôtel des Anglais, at the second breakfast, he exclaimed:
“Quick! Cast your eye on the man going out at the door. Take in every detail of him.”
“Why?”
“Do you know who he is?”
“Yes. He spent several days here before you came. He is an old, retired, and very rich silk manufacturer from Lyons, they say, and I guess he is alone in the world, for he always looks sad and dreamy, and doesn’t talk with anybody. His name is Théophile Magnan.”
I supposed that Smith would now proceed to justify the large interest which he had shown in Monsieur Magnan; but instead he dropped into a brown study, and was apparently lost to me and to the rest of the world during some minutes. Now and then he passed his fingers through his flossy white hair, to assist his thinking, and meantime he allowed his breakfast to go on cooling. At last he said:
“No, it’s gone; I can’t call it back.”
“Can’t call what back?”
“It’s one of Hans Andersen’s beautiful little stories. But it’s gone from me. Part of it is like this: A child has a caged bird, which it loves, but thoughtlessly neglects. The bird pours out its song unheard and unheeded; but in time, hunger and thirst assail the creature, and its song grows plaintive and feeble and finally ceases—the bird dies. The child comes, and is smitten to the heart with remorse; then, with bitter tears and lamentations, it calls its mates, and they bury the bird with elaborate pomp and the tenderest grief, without knowing, poor things, that it isn’t children only who starve poets to death and then spend enough on their funerals and monuments to have kept them alive and made them easy and comfortable. Now—”
But here we were interrupted. About ten that evening I ran across Smith, and he asked me up to his parlor to help him smoke and drink hot Scotch. It was a cozy place, with its comfortable chairs, its cheerful lamps, and its friendly open fire of seasoned olive-wood. To make everything perfect, there was the muffled booming of the surf outside. After the second Scotch and much lazy and contented chat, Smith said:
“Now we are properly primed—I to tell a curious history, and you to listen to it. It has been a secret for many years—a secret between me and three others; but I am going to break the seal now. Are you comfortable?”
“Perfectly. Go on.”
Here follows what he told me:
A long time ago I was a young artist—a very young artist, in fact—and I wandered about the country parts of France, sketching here and sketching there, and was presently joined by a couple of darling young Frenchmen who were at the same kind of thing that I was doing. We were as happy as we were poor, or as poor as we were happy—phrase it to suit yourself. Claude Frère and Carl Boulanger—these are the names of those boys; dear, dear fellows, and the sunniest spirits that ever laughed at poverty and had a noble good time in all weathers.
At last we ran hard aground in a Breton village, and an artist as poor as ourselves took us in and literally saved us from starving—François Millet—
“What! the great François Millet?”
Great? He wasn’t any greater than we were
, then. He hadn’t any fame, even in his own village; and he was so poor that he hadn’t anything to feed us on but turnips, and even the turnips failed us sometimes. We four became fast friends, doting friends, inseparables. We painted away together with all our might, piling up stock, piling up stock, but very seldom getting rid of any of it. We had lovely times together; but, O my soul! how we were pinched now and then!
For a little over two years this went on. At last, one day, Claude said:
“Boys, we’ve come to the end. Do you understand that?—absolutely to the end. Everybody has struck—there’s a league formed against us. I’ve been all around the village and it’s just as I tell you. They refuse to credit us for another centime until all the odds and ends are paid up.”
