Марк Твен
The $30,000 Bequest, and Other Stories
Elfonzo heard this news shortly after it happened. “What,” said he, “has heaven and earth turned against me? I have been disappointed times without number. Shall I despair? – must I give it over? Heaven’s decrees will not fade; I will write again – I will try again; and if it traverses a gory field, I pray forgiveness at the altar of justice.”
Desolate Hill, Cumming, Geo., 1844.
Unconquered and Beloved Ambulinia – I have only time to say to you, not to despair; thy fame shall not perish; my visions are brightening before me. The whirlwind’s rage is past, and we now shall subdue our enemies without doubt. On Monday morning, when your friends are at breakfast, they will not suspect your departure, or even mistrust me being in town, as it has been reported advantageously that I have left for the west. You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we shall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights. Fail not to do this – think not of the tedious relations of our wrongs – be invincible. You alone occupy all my ambition, and I alone will make you my happy spouse, with the same unimpeached veracity. I remain, forever, your devoted friend and admirer, J. I. Elfonzo.
The appointed day ushered in undisturbed by any clouds; nothing disturbed Ambulinia’s soft beauty. With serenity and loveliness she obeys the request of Elfonzo. The moment the family seated themselves at the table – “Excuse my absence for a short time,” said she, “while I attend to the placing of those flowers, which should have been done a week ago.” And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with glittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and his golden harp. They meet – Ambulinia’s countenance brightens – Elfonzo leads up his winged steed. “Mount,” said he, “ye true-hearted, ye fearless soul – the day is ours.” She sprang upon the back of the young thunder bolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she holds an olive branch. “Lend thy aid, ye strong winds,” they exclaimed, “ye moon, ye sun, and all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered.” “Hold,” said Elfonzo, “thy dashing steed.” “Ride on,” said Ambulinia, “the voice of thunder is behind us.” And onward they went, with such rapidity that they very soon arrived at Rural Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united with all the solemnities that usually attend such divine operations. They passed the day in thanksgiving and great rejoicing, and on that evening they visited their uncle, where many of their friends and acquaintances had gathered to congratulate them in the field of untainted bliss. The kind old gentleman met them in the yard: “Well,” said he, “I wish I may die, Elfonzo, if you and Ambulinia haven’t tied a knot with your tongue that you can’t untie with your teeth. But come in, come in, never mind, all is right – the world still moves on, and no one has fallen in this great battle.”
Happy now is their lot! Unmoved by misfortune, they live among the fair beauties of the South. Heaven spreads their peace and fame upon the arch of the rainbow, and smiles propitiously at their triumph, through the tears of the storm.
THE CALIFORNIAN’S TALE
Thirty-five years ago I was out prospecting on the Stanislaus, tramping all day long with pick and pan and horn, and washing a hatful of dirt here and there, always expecting to make a rich strike, and never doing it. It was a lovely region, woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been populous, long years before, but now the people had vanished and the charming paradise was a solitude. They went away when the surface diggings gave out. In one place, where a busy little city with banks and newspapers and fire companies and a mayor and aldermen had been, was nothing but a wide expanse of emerald turf, with not even the faintest sign that human life had ever been present there. This was down toward Tuttletown. In the country neighborhood thereabouts, along the dusty roads, one found at intervals the prettiest little cottage homes, snug and cozy, and so cobwebbed with vines snowed thick with roses that the doors and windows were wholly hidden from sight – sign that these were deserted homes, forsaken years ago by defeated and disappointed families who could neither sell them nor give them away. Now and then, half an hour apart, one came across solitary log cabins of the earliest mining days, built by the first gold-miners, the predecessors of the cottage-builders. In some few cases these cabins were still occupied; and when this was so, you could depend upon it that the occupant was the very pioneer who had built the cabin; and you could depend on another thing, too – that he was there because he had once had his opportunity to go home to the States rich, and had not done it; had rather lost his wealth, and had then in his humiliation resolved to sever all communication with his home relatives and friends, and be to them thenceforth as one dead. Round about California in that day were scattered a host of these living dead men – pride-smitten poor fellows, grizzled and old at forty, whose secret thoughts were made all of regrets and longings – regrets for their wasted lives, and longings to be out of the struggle and done with it all.
It was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful expanses of grass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no glimpse of man or beast; nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad to be alive. And so, at last, in the early part of the afternoon, when I caught sight of a human creature, I felt a most grateful uplift. This person was a man about forty-five years old, and he was standing at the gate of one of those cozy little rose-clad cottages of the sort already referred to. However, this one hadn’t a deserted look; it had the look of being lived in and petted and cared for and looked after; and so had its front yard, which was a garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and flourishing. I was invited in, of course, and required to make myself at home – it was the custom of the country.
It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily and nightly familiarity with miners’ cabins – with all which this implies of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups, bacon and beans and black coffee, and nothing of ornament but war pictures from the Eastern illustrated papers tacked to the log walls. That was all hard, cheerless, materialistic desolation, but here was a nest which had aspects to rest the tired eye and refresh that something in one’s nature which, after long fasting, recognizes, when confronted by the belongings of art, howsoever cheap and modest they may be, that it has unconsciously been famishing and now has found nourishment. I could not have believed that a rag carpet could feast me so, and so content me; or that there could be such solace to the soul in wall-paper and framed lithographs, and bright-colored tidies and lamp-mats, and Windsor chairs, and varnished what-nots, with sea-shells and books and china vases on them, and the score of little unclassifiable tricks and touches that a woman’s hand distributes about a home, which one sees without knowing he sees them, yet would miss in a moment if they were taken away. The delight that was in my heart showed in my face, and the man saw it and was pleased; saw it so plainly that he answered it as if it had been spoken.
“All her work,” he said, caressingly; “she did it all herself – every bit,” and he took the room in with a glance which was full of affectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese fabrics with which women drape with careful negligence the upper part of a picture-frame was out of adjustment. He noticed it, and rearranged it with cautious pains, stepping back several times to gauge the effect before he got it to suit him. Then he gave it a light finishing pat or two with his hand, and said: “She always does that. You can’t tell just what it lacks, but it does lack something until you’ve done that – you can see it yourself after it’s done, but that is all you know; you can’t find out the law of it. It’s like the finishing pats a mother gives the child’s hair after she’s got it combed and brushed, I reckon. I’ve seen her fix all these things so much that I can do them all just her way, though I don’t know the law of any of them. But she knows the law. She knows the why and the how both; but I don’t know the why; I only know the how.”
He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands; such a bedroom as I had not seen for years: white counterpane, white pillows, carpeted floor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-table, with mirror and pin-cushion and dainty toilet things; and in the corner a wash-stand, with real china-ware bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china dish, and on a rack more than a dozen towels – towels too clean and white for one out of practice to use without some vague sense of profanation. So my face spoke again, and he answered with gratified words:
“All her work; she did it all herself – every bit. Nothing here that hasn’t felt the touch of her hand. Now you would think – But I mustn’t talk so much.”
By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail to detail of the room’s belongings, as one is apt to do when he is in a new place, where everything he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit; and I became conscious, in one of those unaccountable ways, you know, that there was something there somewhere that the man wanted me to discover for myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was trying to help me by furtive indications with his eye, so I tried hard to get on the right track, being eager to gratify him. I failed several times, as I could see out of the corner of my eye without being told; but at last I knew I must be looking straight at the thing – knew it from the pleasure issuing in invisible waves from him. He broke into a happy laugh, and rubbed his hands together, and cried out:
“That’s it! You’ve found it. I knew you would. It’s her picture.”
I went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther wall, and did find there what I had not yet noticed – a daguerreotype-case. It contained the sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful, as it seemed to me, that I had ever seen. The man drank the admiration from my face, and was fully satisfied.
“Nineteen her last birthday,” he said, as he put the picture back; “and that was the day we were married. When you see her – ah, just wait till you see her!”
“Where is she? When will she be in?”
“Oh, she’s away now. She’s gone to see her people. They live forty or fifty miles from here. She’s been gone two weeks today.”
“When do you expect her back?”
“This is Wednesday. She’ll be back Saturday, in the evening – about nine o’clock, likely.”
I felt a sharp sense of disappointment.
“I’m sorry, because I’ll be gone then,” I said, regretfully.
“Gone? No – why should you go? Don’t go. She’ll be disappointed.”
She would be disappointed – that beautiful creature! If she had said the words herself they could hardly have blessed me more. I was feeling a deep, strong longing to see her – a longing so supplicating, so insistent, that it made me afraid. I said to myself: “I will go straight away from this place, for my peace of mind’s sake.”
“You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us – people who know things, and can talk – people like you. She delights in it; for she knows – oh, she knows nearly everything herself, and can talk, oh, like a bird – and the books she reads, why, you would be astonished. Don’t go; it’s only a little while, you know, and she’ll be so disappointed.”
I heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was so deep in my thinkings and strugglings. He left me, but I didn’t know. Presently he was back, with the picture case in his hand, and he held it open before me and said:
“There, now, tell her to her face you could have stayed to see her, and you wouldn’t.”
That second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would stay and take the risk. That night we smoked the tranquil pipe, and talked till late about various things, but mainly about her; and certainly I had had no such pleasant and restful time for many a day. The Thursday followed and slipped comfortably away. Toward twilight a big miner from three miles away came – one of the grizzled, stranded pioneers – and gave us warm salutation, clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said:
“I only just dropped over to ask about the little madam, and when is she coming home. Any news from her?”
“Oh, yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom?”
“Well, I should think I would, if you don’t mind, Henry!”
Henry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would skip some of the private phrases, if we were willing; then he went on and read the bulk of it – a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious piece of handiwork, with a postscript full of affectionate regards and messages to Tom, and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends and neighbors.
As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:
“Oho, you’re at it again! Take your hands away, and let me see your eyes. You always do that when I read a letter from her. I will write and tell her.”
“Oh no, you mustn’t, Henry. I’m getting old, you know, and any little disappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she’d be here herself, and now you’ve got only a letter.”
“Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody knew she wasn’t coming till Saturday.”
“Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder what’s the matter with me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain’t we all getting ready for her? Well, I must be going now. But I’ll be on hand when she comes, old man!”
Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from his cabin a mile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a little gaiety and a good time Saturday night, if Henry thought she wouldn’t be too tired after her journey to be kept up.
“Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, you know she’d sit up six weeks to please any one of you!”
When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it read, and the loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow all up; but he said he was such an old wreck that that would happen to him if she only just mentioned his name. “Lord, we miss her so!” he said.
Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty often. Henry noticed it, and said, with a startled look:
“You don’t think she ought to be here soon, do you?”
I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and said it was a habit of mine when I was in a state of expenctancy. But he didn’t seem quite satisfied; and from that time on he began to show uneasiness. Four times he walked me up the road to a point whence we could see a long distance; and there he would stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking. Several times he said:
“I’m getting worried, I’m getting right down worried. I know she’s not due till about nine o’clock, and yet something seems to be trying to warn me that something’s happened. You don’t think anything has happened, do you?”
I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his childishness; and at last, when he repeated that imploring question still another time, I lost my patience for the moment, and spoke pretty brutally to him. It seemed to shrivel him up and cow him; and he looked so wounded and so humble after that, that I detested myself for having done the cruel and unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when Charley, another veteran, arrived toward the edge of the evening, and nestled up to Henry to hear the letter read, and talked over the preparations for the welcome. Charley fetched out one hearty speech after another, and did his best to drive away his friend’s bodings and apprehensions.
“Anything happened to her? Henry, that’s pure nonsense. There isn’t anything going to happen to her; just make your mind easy as to that. What did the letter say? Said she was well, didn’t it? And said she’d be here by nine o’clock, didn’t it? Did you ever know her to fail of her word? Why, you know you never did. Well, then, don’t you fret; she’ll be here, and that’s absolutely certain, and as sure as you are born. Come, now, let’s get to decorating – not much time left.”
Pretty soon Tom and Joe arrived, and then all hands set about adorning the house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they had brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet – these were the instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to play some rattling dance-music, and beat time with their big boots.
It was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in the door with his eyes directed up the road, his body swaying to the torture of his mental distress. He had been made to drink his wife’s health and safety several times, and now Tom shouted:
“All hands stand by! One more drink, and she’s here!”
Joe brought the glasses on a waiter, and served the party. I reached for one of the two remaining glasses, but Joe growled under his breath:
“Drop that! Take the other.”
Which I did. Henry was served last. He had hardly swallowed his drink when the clock began to strike. He listened till it finished, his face growing pale and paler; then he said:
“Boys, I’m sick with fear. Help me – I want to lie down!”
They helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle and drowse, but presently spoke like one talking in his sleep, and said: “Did I hear horses’ feet? Have they come?”
One of the veterans answered, close to his ear: “It was Jimmy Parish come to say the party got delayed, but they’re right up the road a piece, and coming along. Her horse is lame, but she’ll be here in half an hour.”
“Oh, I’m so thankful nothing has happened!”
He was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth. In a moment those handy men had his clothes off, and had tucked him into his bed in the chamber where I had washed my hands. They closed the door and came back. Then they seemed preparing to leave; but I said: “Please don’t go, gentlemen. She won’t know me; I am a stranger.”
They glanced at each other. Then Joe said:
“She? Poor thing, she’s been dead nineteen years!”
“Dead?”
“That or worse. She went to see her folks half a year after she was married, and on her way back, on a Saturday evening, the Indians captured her within five miles of this place, and she’s never been heard of since.”
“And he lost his mind in consequence?”
“Never has been sane an hour since. But he only gets bad when that time of year comes round. Then we begin to drop in here, three days before she’s due, to encourage him up, and ask if he’s heard from her, and Saturday we all come and fix up the house with flowers, and get everything ready for a dance. We’ve done it every year for nineteen years. The first Saturday there was twenty-seven of us, without counting the girls; there’s only three of us now, and the girls are gone. We drug him to sleep, or he would go wild; then he’s all right for another year – thinks she’s with him till the last three or four days come round; then he begins to look for her, and gets out his poor old letter, and we come and ask him to read it to us. Lord, she was a darling!”
A HELPLESS SITUATION
Once or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a pattern that never materially changes, in form and substance, yet I cannot get used to that letter – it always astonishes me. It affects me as the locomotive always affects me: I say to myself, “I have seen you a thousand times, you always look the same way, yet you are always a wonder, and you are always impossible; to contrive you is clearly beyond human genius – you can’t exist, you don’t exist, yet here you are!”
I have a letter of that kind by me, a very old one. I yearn to print it, and where is the harm? The writer of it is dead years ago, no doubt, and if I conceal her name and address – her this-world address – I am sure her shade will not mind. And with it I wish to print the answer which I wrote at the time but probably did not send. If it went – which is not likely – it went in the form of a copy, for I find the original still here, pigeonholed with the said letter. To that kind of letters we all write answers which we do not send, fearing to hurt where we have no desire to hurt; I have done it many a time, and this is doubtless a case of the sort.
THE LETTER
X – , California, JUNE 3, 1879.
Mr. S. L. Clemens, HARTFORD, CONN.:
Dear Sir, – You will doubtless be surprised to know who has presumed to write and ask a favor of you. Let your memory go back to your days in the Humboldt mines – ‘62-’63. You will remember, you and Clagett and Oliver and the old blacksmith Tillou lived in a lean-to which was half-way up the gulch, and there were six log cabins in the camp – strung pretty well separated up the gulch from its mouth at the desert to where the last claim was, at the divide. The lean-to you lived in was the one with a canvas roof that the cow fell down through one night, as told about by you in Roughing It– my uncle Simmons remembers it very well. He lived in the principal cabin, half-way up the divide, along with Dixon and Parker and Smith. It had two rooms, one for kitchen and the other for bunks, and was the only one that had. You and your party were there on the great night, the time they had dried-apple-pie, Uncle Simmons often speaks of it. It seems curious that dried-apple-pie should have seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows how far Humboldt was out of the world and difficult to get to, and how slim the regular bill of fare was. Sixteen years ago – it is a long time. I was a little girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived in Washoe. But Uncle Simmons ran across you every now and then, all during those weeks that you and party were there working your claim which was like the rest. The camp played out long and long ago, there wasn’t silver enough in it to make a button. You never saw my husband, but he was there after you left, and lived in that very lean-to, a bachelor then but married to me now. He often wishes there had been a photographer there in those days, he would have taken the lean-to. He got hurt in the old Hal Clayton claim that was abandoned like the others, putting in a blast and not climbing out quick enough, though he scrambled the best he could. It landed him clear down on the train and hit a Piute. For weeks they thought he would not get over it but he did, and is all right, now. Has been ever since. This is a long introduction but it is the only way I can make myself known. The favor I ask I feel assured your generous heart will grant: Give me some advice about a book I have written. I do not claim anything for it only it is mostly true and as interesting as most of the books of the times. I am unknown in the literary world and you know what that means unless one has some one of influence (like yourself) to help you by speaking a good word for you. I would like to place the book on royalty basis plan with any one you would suggest.
This is a secret from my husband and family. I intend it as a surprise in case I get it published.
Feeling you will take an interest in this and if possible write me a letter to some publisher, or, better still, if you could see them for me and then let me hear.
I appeal to you to grant me this favor. With deepest gratitude I think you for your attention.
One knows, without inquiring, that the twin of that embarrassing letter is forever and ever flying in this and that and the other direction across the continent in the mails, daily, nightly, hourly, unceasingly, unrestingly. It goes to every well-known merchant, and railway official, and manufacturer, and capitalist, and Mayor, and Congressman, and Governor, and editor, and publisher, and author, and broker, and banker – in a word, to every person who is supposed to have “influence.” It always follows the one pattern: “You do not know me, but you once knew a relative of mine,” etc., etc. We should all like to help the applicants, we should all be glad to do it, we should all like to return the sort of answer that is desired, but – Well, there is not a thing we can do that would be a help, for not in any instance does that latter ever come from anyone who can be helped. The struggler whom you could help does his own helping; it would not occur to him to apply to you, stranger. He has talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly and with energy and determination – all alone, preferring to be alone. That pathetic letter which comes to you from the incapable, the unhelpable – how do you who are familiar with it answer it? What do you find to say? You do not want to inflict a wound; you hunt ways to avoid that. What do you find? How do you get out of your hard place with a content conscience? Do you try to explain? The old reply of mine to such a letter shows that I tried that once. Was I satisfied with the result? Possibly; and possibly not; probably not; almost certainly not. I have long ago forgotten all about it. But, anyway, I append my effort:
THE REPLY
I know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madam, if upon reflection you find you still desire it. There will be a conversation. I know the form it will take. It will be like this:
MR. H. How do her books strike you?
MR. CLEMENS. I am not acquainted with them.
H. Who has been her publisher?
C. I don’t know.
H. She has one, I suppose?
C. I – I think not.
H. Ah. You think this is her first book?
C. Yes – I suppose so. I think so.
H. What is it about? What is the character of it?
C. I believe I do not know.
H. Have you seen it?
C. Well – no, I haven’t.
H. Ah-h. How long have you known her?
C. I don’t know her.
H. Don’t know her?
C. No.
H. Ah-h. How did you come to be interested in her book, then?
C. Well, she – she wrote and asked me to find a publisher for her, and mentioned you.
H. Why should she apply to you instead of me?
C. She wished me to use my influence.
H. Dear me, what has influence to do with such a matter?
C. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine her book if you were influenced.
H. Why, what we are here for is to examine books – anybody’s book that comes along. It’s our business. Why should we turn away a book unexamined because it’s a stranger’s? It would be foolish. No publisher does it. On what ground did she request your influence, since you do not know her? She must have thought you knew her literature and could speak for it. Is that it?
C. No; she knew I didn’t.
H. Well, what then? She had a reason of some sort for believing you competent to recommend her literature, and also under obligations to do it?
C. Yes, I – I knew her uncle.
H. Knew her uncle?
C. Yes.
H. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows her literature; he endorses it to you; the chain is complete, nothing further needed; you are satisfied, and therefore —
C. No, that isn’t all, there are other ties. I know the cabin her uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I did know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he went flying through the air and clear down to the trail and hit an Indian in the back with almost fatal consequences.
H. To him, or to the Indian?
C. She didn’t say which it was.
H. (With a sigh). It certainly beats the band! You don’t know her, you don’t know her literature, you don’t know who got hurt when the blast went off, you don’t know a single thing for us to build an estimate of her book upon, so far as I —
C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.
H. Oh, what use is he? Did you know him long? How long was it?
C. Well, I don’t know that I really knew him, but I must have met him, anyway. I think it was that way; you can’t tell about these things, you know, except when they are recent.
H. Recent? When was all this?
C. Sixteen years ago.
H. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said you knew him, and now you don’t know whether you did or not.
C. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I’m perfectly certain of it.
H. What makes you think you thought you knew him?
C. Why, she says I did, herself.
H. She says so!
C. Yes, she does, and I did know him, too, though I don’t remember it now.
H. Come – how can you know it when you don’t remember it.
C. I don’t know. That is, I don’t know the process, but I do know lots of things that I don’t remember, and remember lots of things that I don’t know. It’s so with every educated person.
H. (After a pause). Is your time valuable?
C. No – well, not very.
H. Mine is.
So I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon; I never do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother was always afraid I would overwork myself, but I never did.
Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would ask me those questions, and I would try to answer them to suit him, and he would hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed more and more all the time, and at last he would look tired on account of overwork, and there it would end and nothing done. I wish I could be useful to you, but, you see, they do not care for uncles or any of those things; it doesn’t move them, it doesn’t have the least effect, they don’t care for anything but the literature itself, and they as good as despise influence. But they do care for books, and are eager to get them and examine them, no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you will send yours to a publisher – any publisher – he will certainly examine it, I can assure you of that.
