leaves quickly. “Elizabeth’s official lovers,” he explained. “Lord
Seymour, second husband of her stepmother, Queen Catherine Parr.
Catherine, I gather, was in the secret; otherwise she wouldn’t have
allowed Seymour to carry on with ‘Elizabeth’ as he did. And he had
about a yard of whiskers on his face at that. There was Leicester, this
big chap here with the goatee. She had him beheaded, not because he
knew anything against her, or about her real sex, but because he had
the _reputation_ of knowing things. The Virgin Queen made her alleged
lover a head shorter, just to show that she didn’t care what she did.
Henry and Francis, the French Valois brothers, Dukes of something or
other, were likewise large, sinister looking fellows. These, too, she
used, man fashion, like boobs, and as no other crowned harridan ever
used a lover. Think of Catharine (of Russia) and of Josephine and
Marie Louise--to be loved by those ladies was real fun, a treat.” Mark
lowered his voice to add: “I read somewhere that Catharine allowed the
brothers Orloff no less than fifty thousand roubles pajama money--fifty
thousand! One can buy a powerful lot of nighties for that much money,
even at the Louvre, across the way.”
“There’s the Britannica,” continued Mark, jumping up. He found a
paragraph under the caption of “Elizabeth” that tickled him immensely.
“Read this, and call me a liar if you dare.”
The paragraph states that there was “some physical defect” in
Elizabeth’s make-up, that she was “masculine in mind and temperament,”
likewise, that no man ever lost his head over her as they did over Mary
of Scots.
“’Nuff said on the score of love-making and lying,” concluded Mark.
“’Nuff for the present, I mean; but here is another thing. We all know
there is only one Hetty Green, that there never was another. Yet this
here Elizabeth, so called--_i. e._, the man who impersonated her--was
as clever a financier as John D. Rockefeller. As John D. gobbled up all
the oil in creation, or out of it, so Elizabeth, so called, lapped up
all the gold, minted and otherwise. Up to the sixties and seventies (of
the sixteenth century) Spain had an absolute monopoly of the yellow and
white metals, you know. When the person called Elizabeth died, all the
gold of the world was in English hands, and, besides, England dominated
all the ocean trade routes, where formerly the Spanish flag had been
unchallenged.”
“As circumstantial evidence, can’t be beat,” I suggested timidly,
“but--”
“You remind me of the cat that bolted a whole box of Seidlitz powders
and then had no more judgment than to lie under the open hydrant,”
exploded Mark. “Why don’t you ask me to trot out Elizabeth in an Andy
Carnegie Highland costume, kilts and all? There will be missing links,
plenty of them, after all these years, that goes without saying, but
it’s a great story, nevertheless. Needs a hunk of brain, though, to
puzzle it out to its logical conclusion.”
Soon after this conversation, the Clemenses went to Italy, and for
some little time I expected to hear from Mark further on the Elizabeth
legend. But the yarn seems to have slipped his memory, and as I found
him engrossed in matters of the moment, I didn’t try to revive his
interest in one so remote.
But I have often wondered whether, or not, his many unpublished
writings show that he brought “his hunk of brains” to work on unsexing
Elizabeth.
MARK--THE SLEIGHT-OF-HAND MAN
Minister William Walter Phelps gave a dinner to the Clemenses in
Frankfort, when Mark Twain and Livy were staying at a nearby watering
place, but Mrs. Clemens was not well enough to attend--or, as Mark
whispered to Mr. Phelps--was unwilling to go, being afraid that he
might disgrace the family by some practical joke. So Mark had it all
his own way and enjoyed his freedom hugely, keeping all in a roar.
Finally, Dr. Von Something-or-Other tried to get in a word edgewise and
abruptly asked Mark what he thought of the European equilibrium.
(Mark said afterwards: “Knowing my political incompetence, the Doctor
probably tried to inveigle me into making an ass of myself.”)
The Herr Von’s question having been delivered in no sotto voce style,
everybody pricked up ears to hear Mark’s answer.
“I can’t explain in a few words,” he said, “but I’ll demonstrate.” And
turning to Mr. Phelps: “Hand me the Doctor’s plate, please.”
The Doctor looked up “disgusted,” because he had only just commenced
to eat and was “as hungry as a dog.” Plate in hand, Mark stepped to a
space between the window and the table and asked the Doctor to join
him, bringing his knife. “Now,” he said, “I will throw the plate up
to the ceiling and you will catch it, on the end of your knife, but
don’t you spill anything. After catching it, you will please keep it
spinning upon the end of your steel for five minutes, balancing it so
as not to lose a drop of sauce, a chop, or fried murphy. And when you
have performed all these stunts without mishap, you will have gained a
correct idea of what I think of the balance of European power.”
MARK AND THE IMPERIAL MISTRESS
At Vienna, in the late nineties, Clemens one fine day intoxicated
himself with the idea that there would be millions in writing a play
with Kathi Schratt, Emperor Francis Joseph’s acknowledged mistress, as
heroine. He had in mind a collaborator among native playwrights, and
the piece was to be translated into all living tongues. Mark actually
started on the thing, adding to his knowledge of German as he went
along. Matters having gone so far, I persuaded him to go and see Frau
Schratt for local color.
“Bully,” he said. “But you must come along. I would never trust myself
alone with a royal mistress, not I.”
Well, we went, saw, and--wondered at Francis Joseph’s taste. In speech
and manner, though, the Schratt was a fine old girl. Showed us a big
houseful of presents, all gifts from his Majesty, and elaborately so
marked.
We had duly admired the silver bed, the silver folding stool and the
ditto cabinet, likewise other chamber paraphernalia of white metal,
when the Schratt said: “There is one thing more the like of which you
haven’t in America.”
“You don’t say so!” ejaculated Mark, in blasphemous German.
The Schratt pushed a button, a wall panel shot sideways, and the
handsomest silver-gilt bathtub ever came waltzing in, or rather
roller-skated in.
In our homeward bound fiacre, Mark remained silent for fully ten
minutes; then he delivered himself sadly but firmly:
“No, it’s all off with that mellerdrammer. For if I let Schratt
ride down to the footlights in that golden tub, people will want to
see the Empress in it, too; next they will holler for Kaiser Bill,
Sarah Bernhardt, Loie Fuller, and William Jennings Bryan. It won’t
work--people are such hogs!”
And the drama was never proceeded with.
MARK ON LYNCH LAW
They were talking lynch law in Professor Krafft-Ebing’s library in
Vienna--some horrible nightmare that had come in the latest cable--and
as a matter of course Clemens was asked his opinion as an American and
observer of human nature.
“Lynch law means mob-lawlessness, doesn’t it?” he drawled. “Well, what
does it argue? To my mind it argues that men in a crowd do not act as
they would as individuals. In a crowd they don’t think for themselves,
but become impregnated by the contagious sentiment uppermost in the
minds of all who happen to be en masse. While in Paris last, the
family and I toured all the places of horror, made odious during the
White Terror--we followed pretty closely the scent of the ‘Tale of Two
Cities,’ Michelet, Dumas, and others. I was particularly interested
in the ‘Official Gazette’ of the guillotine, ‘The Moniteur,’ and my
girls helped me read and digest many tell-tale pages yellow with age
and tattered by usage. Among other interesting items, I found recorded
that on a certain date the Nobles had voted to forego their feudal
privileges.
“Now, their previous failure to renounce these same rights had been
one of the prime causes of the Revolution. Yet when they acquiesced,
they were put to the knife just the same, for mob-law ruled then.
Another case in the ‘Moniteur’: I read of a deputy named Monge, the
same whom Napoleon in his Saint Helena talks pronounced a most lovable
character, so kind-hearted that he would never eat any fowl if he had
to kill it first. Yet in the Convention, in the midst of the mob of
his fellows, this same Monge vociferated for unlimited bloodshed, for
‘war to the knife.’ He had caught the contagion and, intoxicated with
bloodthirstiness, acted the madman.
“‘I love my children,’ he cried, ‘but if the Convention decrees war
on the enemies of the Republic, I will give my two daughters to the
first two of our countrymen wounded in battle.’ Would he have said that
seated quietly at his fireside? Certainly not. It was the mob that was
talking through his mouth.”
THE TERROR
Mark returned to the subject on another occasion. He said:
“You know I have always been a great admirer of Dickens, and his ‘Tale
of Two Cities’ I read at least every two years. Dickens witnessed my
first holding hands with Livy when I took her to one of his lectures in
New York. Now that I have finished ‘The Two Cities’ for the ’steenth
time, I have come to this conclusion:
“Terror is an efficacious agent only when it doesn’t last. In the long
run there is more terror in threats than in execution, for when you get
used to terror your emotions get dulled. The incarnation of the White
Terror, Robespierre, wasn’t awe-inspiring at all to the general public.
Mention of his name did not send the children to bed, or make them
crawl under the blankets. On the days when he made his great speeches,
the galleries and the aisles of the Convention Hall were thronged with
women, old and young--that does not look as if Robespierre had been an
object of general fear or abomination--does it?”
RECOLLECTIONS OF KING CHARLES AND GRANT
“Now show me the place where that ancestor of mine had King Charlie
beheaded.”
We had been sitting on some chairs which the great Napoleon had used
in Saint Helena--the heaviest sort of mahogany, “and not a rat bite to
be seen,” Mark pointed out, as we went exploring the Army Museum at
Whitehall, London.
Agreeable to his demand, I took Mark by the arm and led him to a window
looking out on the “Horse-Guards,” the famous old barracks, gazed at so
much by American visitors.
“Outside of this window,” I explained, “the Commonwealth built a
platform, and on this platform stood the block where Charles lost his
silly bean.”
“Served the traitor right,” said Mark, “but that reminds me of----”
He thought a while, then repeated:
“Why it reminds me of (let’s see, we are in the second story, are we
not?)--the grandstand in front of the Palmer House, Chicago, for that
was also entered from the windows of the second story. I am speaking
of the Chicago of 1879, welcoming General Grant after his triumphal
journey around the world. What a sight the Windy City was, and what a
grand sight he looked when he stepped upon the platform to review the
Army of the Tennessee.”
“Yes,” I interrupted, “and I saw you on that very platform shake hands
with Grant.”
But Mark Twain could not be tempted to go into his personal history
when General Grant was being discussed.
“Did you ever see a city so magnificently and so patriotically
bedecked?” he cried. “There was not a monument, palace, rookery,
saloon or telegraph pole that was not gay with streamers and bunting,
pictures, garlands, colored lanterns and placards of all sorts.”
“Yes there was,” said one of our friends.
Mark stretched out his hand and grabbed the speaker’s arm.
“No nonsense now.”
“I am as serious as you, and I say that the German Consul, with offices
opposite the Court House, did not have a flag out on the day of Grant’s
entry and reception.”
“Are you sure?” demanded Clemens.
“As sure as you are standing there. And I am proud to-day that I wrote
up the story in the Chicago ‘Times’ and that Guy Magee, the city
editor, headed it: ‘The German Son of a B----.’
“Well done. I could not have written a more accurate head myself.”
MARK MISSED GALLOWS-LAND
“Every time I went to Italy,” Mark Twain once said, “I felt like
crossing over into Monaco.”
“To gamble?”
“Guess again, when billiards and solitaire are the only games I indulge
in. Indeed, I am so ignorant, I would not know a roulette from another
baby circus. I was and I am still crazy to go to Monaco to see a
gallows, or, preferably, a hundred of them.” Mark eyed his audience
curiously. After an impressive pause, he continued:
“Once upon a time, in the days of Louis XV and Mme. du Barry, there
was a Prince of Monaco who was blessed with a very beautiful wife.
Well, evil-minded people said of this prince that he smelled like a
dead horse, and Madame the Princess simply could not endure defunct
‘gee-gee.’ So she decided that she had a perfect right to look for a
soul-mate elsewhere, and be sure she got them by the score. Of course
not in Monaco, as it is such a small country. She went to France, and
particularly to Paris, for her amusements. And every time the Prince
learned of a new lover worshipping at his wife’s shrine, he set up a
gallows and hung the favored one in effigy with frightful ceremonies.
“The country, as remarked, being rather Lilliputian, his Highness
had to go to the frontiers for his gallows planting, and as Madame
the Princess was of a very changeable nature the principality, in
the course of several years, became enclosed in a regular fence of
gallows trees. When Paris heard of this, it laughed boisterously at the
Prince’s strange humor and Madame the Princess’s latest lover swore
that he would go to Monaco, rob the gallows of their manikins and carry
them off to the future Champs Elysées for a marionette show.
“He tried--with a band of companions, but got pinched and was hanged by
the neck in person, and not in effigy. Now, I wondered whether these
gallows are still standing,” concluded Mark, “and if not, I wanted to
find their habitat anyhow--make a map of gallows-land, so to speak.”
Too bad Mark missed writing a book on so promising a subject.
THINK OF HER SORROWS
He read to several friends in Vienna what he had written about the
murdered Empress Elizabeth. “I know it is full of exaggeration,” he
admitted. “I did gown her with virtues she never thought of possessing
and I have denied all her frailties. As I learn now, she was just an
ordinary woman, and her surpassing vanity was the only extraordinary
thing about her. But think how much she suffered and think of the
man she was married to. Re-read, too, that story about the murdered
Rudolph. When Count Something approached her to break the news, she
ran to him wringing her hands and cried: ‘My Rudy is dead. Oh, my
Rudy!’ What told this Niobe among royal women that her son had been
destroyed--killed in a low debauch? When I reflect how she maintained
her self-respect in a life of constant disappointment and tragedy, I
think I did well making her out a noble soul.”
BREAKING THE NEWS GENTLY
Returning to Vienna from a flying trip to Budapest, Mark was full of “a
yarn that would illustrate like a circus and run for five years, every
Sunday a page.” He said he heard the story at the archduke Joseph’s
country place, the same Joseph who, towards the end of the war, tried
to make himself King of Hungary and failed, but the probabilities are
that the story was Mark’s own, with Magyar trimmings. It ran as follows:
A great landowner, after a business trip of several months, returned to
Budapest, and was met at the station by his carriage and pair that was
to take him to his estate in the country.
“Everything well at home?” he asked the coachman.
“Excellently well,” replied the driver, cracking his whip.
After a while the Baron ventured another question:
“Why didn’t you bring my dogs along?” he asked.
“Dogs are sick, your Excellency.”
“My dogs sick? How did that happen?”
“Ate too much fried horse.”
“Fried horse? Where did they get that?”
“Stable burned down.”
“My stable burned down, cattle and all? Awful! What about the castle?”
“Oh, the castle is all right.”
The Baron thought it over for the space of a mile, then said:
“You are sure the castle was not hurt by the fire?”
“Sure, only the two wings burned down.”
“But the family is safe?”
“Yes, the family is all right.”
When the horses entered upon their tenth mile, the Baron resumed his
examination:
“Children all well?”
“All well and happy, except János and Maritzka, who were burned.”
“Burned, oh Lord! And the Baroness, my wife?”
“Oh, she is better off than any of us. God has her in His holy keeping.
She was burned to death. Yes, indeed, she died with her mother and in
her arms.”
“This is what I call breaking the news gently,” said Mark.
DUKES AND UNBORN CAR HORSES
I told Mark Twain of the Princes and Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, “in
meeting assembled” at London, who had protested against the expulsion
of their kinsman, Dom Pedro, from the throne of Brazil.
“Just as efficacious as if the car horses that remain unbred since the
arrival of the trolley sued the Brooklyn Rapid Transit, or the Third
Avenue electric line, for murder,” snapped Mark.
“PA USED TO BE A TERRIBLE MAN”
With Mark’s daughter Susie, I was walking in the Berlin Thiergarten one
afternoon when we encountered a very rough specimen of the genus tramp.
“Look at him,” said Susie. “You know, Pa, too, was an awful man before
Mamma took him in hand and married him.” And with added seriousness,
she continued: “He used to swear and swear, and then swear again, and
the only thing that he didn’t do that was bad was to let cards and
liquor alone--some kinds of liquor.”
It is too bad that I forget Mark’s comment on the above when I told
him.
MARK ON THE BERLIN COPS
You know, of course, that Mark Twain at one time had a flat in Berlin
and kept it going for a whole month. “I am tired of hotels,” he said,
“and hereafter I am going to take my comfort in my apartment as Dr.
Johnson took his in his inn.” After that he entertained the habitués of
the embassy for a week or longer with stories of the beauties of home
life, until we voted “Koernerstrasse Nr. 7 the jewel.”
But one fine evening I found a note from him at the Hotel de Rome,
asking me to call at the Royal at 8:00. I met him in the lobby with
several sympathizing friends, and he said:
“It’s all up with Koernerstrasse; too much police.”
“Did you have burglars, or the bailiffs, in?” was asked.
“Neither; just social calls from policemen--ten per day. The cops
weren’t exactly unkind, but they annoyed me.”
“What did they do to you?”
“Asked questions.”
“Income queries?”
“Yes, of course, but I don’t mind lying about little things like that.
On the contrary, making a clean breast of it, I confessed that I get a
whole cent a word for every word I do, even for little words like ‘I’
or ‘Manafraidofhismotherinlaw.’ Did they believe me? Not they! They
thought I was exaggerating.”
“What did they ask about next?”
“Craved information about Eliza and Marie. ‘Don’t know any such
females,’ I growled severely.
“‘Mr. Clemens,’ bawled the policeman, ‘if you are trying to hoodwink
the Royal Police of Berlin, there will be trouble. Confess now. You
have an Eliza and a Marie and a Gretchen in this house.’
“‘Oh, you mean the maids,’ said I. ‘I don’t know anything about them.
My Missus hires and bosses them. Ask the girls whether I am stringing
you.’
“That evidently made no hit with the policeman, for he vociferated
respectfully but sternly:
“‘It is your duty (according to paragraph this and that of the Civil
Code) as head of the household (according to paragraph so and so of
the Civil Code) to be informed whether or not these girls have been
properly vaccinated.’
“His ‘head of the household’ made me laugh, but I managed to object:
‘How should I know?’
“‘Don’t you see them around with bare arms?’
“‘Maybe I do, but I never paid enough attention to say offhand whether
they wear cuticle or fur.’
“‘And you didn’t notice vaccination marks on their arms?’
“‘Never. I can swear to that.’
“‘Then you _do_ know, that they are not vaccinated on their arms,’ said
the policeman ever so insinuatingly. I’ll bet he read up the story of
the serpent in Paradise.
“‘On the contrary, I _don’t_ know whether they are vaccinated on
their arms or not,’ I answered truthfully. ‘Maybe they had themselves
vaccinated _under_ their arms. I haven’t looked.’
“‘Some women,’ said the policeman, ‘are so vain that they get
themselves vaccinated on their legs.’
“‘Possibly,’ I said, ‘but I have looked neither under their arms nor
under their petticoats--I presume they have legs. However, I don’t
know anything about them, for sure. And this being their day out, if
you _must_ investigate, they will be back about ten o’clock, and,
returning, you may look for yourself, if the law says so.’”
Mark indulged in one of his impressive pauses, then continued:
“That policeman did return and told the girls that he was authorized by
me to look for their vaccination marks wherever located. Of course, it
caused a row all around, the girls protesting that I was no gentleman.
So, to end it all, I paid the rent for the whole year, eleven months’
rent, and left the flat.”
THE SAUSAGE ROOM
James R. Osgood, the former Boston publisher, later a member of the new
firm of Osgood, McIlvain & Company in London, for whom I was doing the
translation of Field Marshal Count Moltke’s works, had given me a set
of Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth for Christmas, and when I went
to see Mark Twain at the Royal in Berlin during his illness, I took the
two small volumes along and offered to loan them to the sick man. He
was as pleased as a three-year-old with a new toy.
“I always wanted to read these Memoirs,” he said. “She was a corker,
that sister of the Great Frederick. I most heartily admire her. You
know Howells did this translation while U. S. Consul in Italy and
they say it is the best ever.” He dived into volume one and I left,
to return next day. When he heard me talk in the vestibule to Mrs.
Clemens, he hollered out:
“This way to the sausage room, where Her Royal Highness’ slave keeps.”
I went in.
“I am reading this book for the second time,” he said, “and it actually
makes me forget that I am sick. I forget even coughing my soul out.”
Mrs. Clemens seemed to be annoyed about the “sausage,” but Clemens said
that Heine had had the same sort of chamber when ill so long, and as
the poet was quite contented “with his French Soucisson,” he must be
with his “Frankfurter.” As a matter of fact, for its length, the room
was extremely narrow.
“If it had legs, I would call it a _dachshund_,” suggested Mark, when
Livy kept on grumbling.
I asked whether he had many visitors and he said:
“Yes, a few every day. As many as I can stand. But the women have all
deserted me. There is a bunch of American girls in Berlin just now, but
none find their way to the Royal. I am without a “_Mouche_” (French for
fly)--I mean the human kind--the same as enlivened Heine’s dying days.
What a girl that _Mouche_ was! I think she inspired some of his finest
shorter poems. She was a real comfort to him, too. Maybe she was after
advertising and liked to make Mathilda jealous. But, what of it? She
made Heine laugh and Heine’s songs will make the world happier as long
as it stands.”
While talking, he was groping in the air after flies and at last caught
one. He held it in the hollow of his hand listening to its buzzing for a
while, then asked me to take it in my own hand, never hurt it, open the
window and let it fly out.
“I learned that from Tolstoy,” he said. “Tolstoy, you know, used to
catch lots of mice in his house, but never killed them or gave them to
the cat. He carried them out to the forest and there set them free.
Why should a human being kill little animals? Because a tiger may want
to eat me--that’s no reason why I should turn tiger, is it?”
He returned to the subject of the Margravine Wilhelmina.
“They thought I went to Bayreuth to hear Wagner,” he said. “Nothing
of the kind. I like his Wedding March hugely and very little else he
has done. But, while Livy and the kids went to pieces over Tristan und
Isolde and The Nibelungen, I visited the grave of the Margravine and
looked at the temples and grottoes and houses she built, the statues
and fountains she set up, the beauty she lavished on the landscape!
Ah, Wilhelmina would have been the woman for me--for a week or two, I
mean, even as I would like to have been the Great Frederick’s dinner
companion for a little while.”
MARK’S GLIMPSE OF SCHOPENHAUER
As Mark’s German was getting worse instead of better, and as his
French was nowhere, he asked me to accompany him on his contemplated
exploration of the Berlin Royal Library. I told the librarian about our
great friend, about the interest he took in German affairs, and, in
particular, I recalled that he had met the Kaiser at dinner. Of course
the librarian turned himself inside out to be agreeable to both of us.
After showing us around a good deal, he gave us an alcove to work
in, saying: “In this set of drawers you will find some most private
papers of the royal family that are perhaps of public interest, but
the public, please remember, must learn nothing of them. They are only
to be seen by people of discretion, who value historical knowledge for
history’s sake.”