Book: Sketches New and Old, Part 7.
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Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Sketches New and Old, Part 7.
I felt inexpressibly relieved to know that I had only been listening to
the harmless vagaries of a madman instead of the genuine experiences of a
bloodthirsty cannibal.
THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED"--[Written about 1865.]
Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from the
Roman "Daily Evening Fasces," of the date of that tremendous occurrence.
Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction as
gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder and writing
them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He takes a living delight in
this labor of love--for such it is to him, especially if he knows that
all the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only one
that will contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret has
often come over me that I was not reporting in Rome when Caesar was
killed--reporting on an evening paper, and the only one in the city, and
getting at least twelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with this
most magnificent "item" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Other
events have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed so
peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite "item" of the present
day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high rank, fame, and
social and political standing of the actors in it.
However, as I was not permitted to report Caesar's assassination in the
regular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translate
the following able account of it from the original Latin of the Roman
Daily Evening Fasces of that date--second edition:
Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild excitement
yesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody affrays which sicken
the heart and fill the soul with fear, while they inspire all thinking
men with forebodings for the future of a city where human life is held so
cheaply and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As the
result of that affray, it is our painful duty, as public journalists, to
record the death of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose name
is known wherever this paper circulates, and where fame it has been our
pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongue
of slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor ability. We refer to
Mr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect.
The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could determine them
from the conflicting statements of eye-witnesses, were about as
follows:-- The affair was an election row, of course. Nine-tenths of the
ghastly butcheries that disgrace the city nowadays grow out of the
bickerings and jealousies and animosities engendered by these accursed
elections. Rome would be the gainer by it if her very constables were
elected to serve a century; for in our experience we have never even been
able to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen
knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with drunken
vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense majority for Caesar
at the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown was
offered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing it
three times was not sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of
such men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of the
disappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth
and other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically and
contemptuously of Mr. Caesar's conduct upon that occasion.
We are further informed that there are many among us who think they are
justified in believing that the assassination of Julius Caesar was a
put-up thing--a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched by Marcus Brutus and a
lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully according to
the program. Whether there be good grounds for this suspicion or not, we
leave to the people to judge for themselves, only asking that they will
read the following account of the sad occurrence carefully and
dispassionately before they render that judgment.
The Senate was already in session, and Caesar was coming down the street
toward the capitol, conversing with some personal friends, and followed,
as usual, by a large number of citizens. Just as he was passing in front
of Demosthenes and Thucydides' drug store, he was observing casually to a
gentleman, who, our informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides
of March were come. The reply was, "Yes, they are come, but not gone
yet." At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day,
and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the kind,
which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus also said
something about an "humble suit" which he wanted read. Artexnidorus
begged that attention might be paid to his first, because it was of
personal consequence to Caesar. The latter replied that what concerned
himself should be read last, or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged
and beseeched him to read the paper instantly!--[Mark that: It is hinted
by William Shakespeare, who saw the beginning and the end of the
unfortunate affray, that this "schedule" was simply a note discovering to
Caesar that a plot was brewing to take his life.]--However, Caesar
shook him off, and refused to read any petition in the street. He then
entered the capitol, and the crowd followed him.
About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we consider
that, taken in connection with the events which succeeded it, it bears an
appalling significance: Mr. Papilius Lena remarked to George W. Cassias
(commonly known as the "Nobby Boy of the Third Ward"), a bruiser in the
pay of the Opposition, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive;
and when Cassias asked "What enterprise?" he only closed his left eye
temporarily and said with simulated indifference, "Fare you well," and
sauntered toward Caesar. Marcus Brutus, who is suspected of being the
ringleader of the band that killed Caesar, asked what it was that Lena
had said. Cassias told him, and added in a low tone, "I fear our purpose
is discovered."
Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena, and a moment
after Cassias urged that lean and hungry vagrant, Casca, whose reputation
here is none of the best, to be sudden, for he feared prevention. He
then turned to Brutus, apparently much excited, and asked what should be
done, and swore that either he or Caesar would never turn back--he would
kill himself first. At this time Caesar was talking to some of the
back-country members about the approaching fall elections, and paying
little attention to what was going on around him. Billy Trebonius got
into conversation with the people's friend and Caesar's--Mark Antony--and
under some pretense or other got him away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca,
Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of infamous desperadoes
that infest Rome at present, closed around the doomed Caesar. Then
Metellus Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled
from banishment, but Caesar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and
refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request, first
Brutus and then Cassias begged for the return of the banished Publius;
but Caesar still refused. He said he could not be moved; that he was as
fixed as the North Star, and proceeded to speak in the most complimentary
terms of the firmness of that star and its steady character. Then he
said he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the country
that was; therefore, since he was "constant" that Cimber should be
banished, he was also "constant" that he should stay banished, and he'd
be hanged if he didn't keep him so!
Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at
Caesar and struck him with a dirk, Caesar grabbing him by the arm with
his right hand, and launching a blow straight from the shoulder with his
left, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed up
against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants.
Cassias and Cimber and Cinna rushed, upon him with their daggers drawn,
and the former succeeded in inflicting a wound upon his body; but before
he could strike again, and before either of the others could strike at
all, Caesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as many blows
of his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in an indescribable
uproar; the throng of citizens is the lobbies had blockaded the doors in
their frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-arms
and his assistants were struggling with the assassins, venerable senators
had cast aside their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches and
flying down the aisles in wild confusion toward the shelter of the
committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting "Po-lice! Po-lice!"
in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din like shrieking
winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all great Caesar stood
with his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought his
assailants weaponless and hand to hand, with the defiant bearing and the
unwavering courage which he had shown before on many a bloody field.
Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck him with their daggers and
fell, as their brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last,
when Caesar saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a murderous
knife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with grief and amazement,
and, dropping his invincible left arm by his side, he hid his face in the
folds of his mantle and received the treacherous blow without an effort
to stay the hand that gave it. He only said, "Et tu, Brute?" and fell
lifeless on the marble pavement.
We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was the same
one he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he overcame the
Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it was found to be
cut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothing
in the pockets. It will be exhibited at the coroner's inquest, and will
be damning proof of the fact of the killing. These latter facts may be
relied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position enables him to
learn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbing
interest of-to-day.
LATER: While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and other
friends of the late Caesar got hold of the body, and lugged it off to the
Forum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were making speeches over
it and raising such a row among the people that, as we go to press, the
chief of police is satisfied there is going to be a riot, and is taking
measures accordingly.
THE WIDOW'S PROTEST
One of the saddest things that ever came under my notice (said the
banker's clerk) was there in Corning during the war. Dan Murphy enlisted
as a private, and fought very bravely. The boys all liked him, and when
a wound by and by weakened him down till carrying a musket was too heavy
work for him, they clubbed together and fixed him up as a sutler. He
made money then, and sent it always to his wife to bank for him. She was
a washer and ironer, and knew enough by hard experience to keep money
when she got it. She didn't waste a penny.
On the contrary, she began to get miserly as her bank-account grew. She
grieved to part with a cent, poor creature, for twice in her hard-working
life she had known what it was to be hungry, cold, friendless, sick, and
without a dollar in the world, and she had a haunting dread of suffering
so again. Well, at last Dan died; and the boys, in testimony of their
esteem and respect for him, telegraphed to Mrs. Murphy to know if she
would like to have him embalmed and sent home; when you know the usual
custom was to dump a poor devil like him into a shallow hole, and then
inform his friends what had become of him. Mrs. Murphy jumped to the
conclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm her
dead husband, and so she telegraphed "Yes." It was at the "wake" that
the bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow.
She uttered a wild, sad wail that pierced every heart, and said,
"Sivinty-foive dollars for stooffin' Dan, blister their sowls! Did thim
divils suppose I was goin' to stairt a Museim, that I'd be dalin' in such
expinsive curiassities !"
The banker's clerk said there was not a dry eye in the house.
THE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMIST--[Written about 1866.]
"There was a fellow traveling around in that country," said Mr.
Nickerson, "with a moral-religious show--a sort of scriptural panorama
--and he hired a wooden-headed old slab to play the piano for him.
After the first night's performance the showman says:
"'My friend, you seem to know pretty much all the tunes there are, and
you worry along first rate. But then, didn't you notice that sometimes
last night the piece you happened to be playing was a little rough on the
proprieties, so to speak--didn't seem to jibe with the general gait of
the picture that was passing at the time, as it were--was a little
foreign to the subject, you know--as if you didn't either trump or follow
suit, you understand?'
"'Well, no,' the fellow said; 'he hadn't noticed, but it might be; he had
played along just as it came handy.'
"So they put it up that the simple old dummy was to keep his eye on the
panorama after that, and as soon as a stunning picture was reeled out he
was to fit it to a dot with a piece of music that would help the audience
to get the idea of the subject, and warm them up like a camp-meeting
revival. That sort of thing would corral their sympathies, the showman
said.
"There was a big audience that night-mostly middle-aged and old people
who belong to the church, and took a strong interest in Bible matters,
and the balance were pretty much young bucks and heifers--they always
come out strong on panoramas, you know, because it gives them a chance to
taste one another's complexions in the dark.
"Well, the showman began to swell himself up for his lecture, and the old
mud-Jobber tackled the piano and ran his fingers up and down once or
twice to see that she was all right, and the fellows behind the curtain
commenced to grind out the panorama. The showman balanced his weight on
his right foot, and propped his hands over his hips, and flung his eyes
over his shoulder at the scenery, and said:
"'Ladies and gentlemen, the painting now before you illustrates the
beautiful and touching parable of the Prodigal Son. Observe the happy
expression just breaking over the features of the poor, suffering youth
--so worn and weary with his long march; note also the ecstasy beaming
from the uplifted countenance of the aged father, and the joy that
sparkles in the eyes of the excited group of youths and maidens, and
seems ready to burst into the welcoming chorus from their lips. The
lesson, my friends, is as solemn and instructive as the story is tender
and beautiful.'
"The mud-Jobber was all ready, and when the second speech was finished,
struck up:
"Oh, we'll all get blind drunk
When Johnny comes marching home!
"Some of the people giggled, and some groaned a little. The showman
couldn't say a word; he looked at the pianist sharp, but he was all
lovely and serene--he didn't know there was anything out of gear.
"The panorama moved on, and the showman drummed up his grit and started
in fresh.
"'Ladies and gentlemen, the fine picture now unfolding itself to your
gaze exhibits one of the most notable events in Bible history--our
Saviour and His disciples upon the Sea of Galilee. How grand, how
awe-inspiring are the reflections which the subject invokes! What
sublimity of faith is revealed to us in this lesson from the sacred
writings! The Saviour rebukes the angry waves, and walks securely
upon the bosom of the deep!'
"All around the house they were whispering, 'Oh, how lovely, how
beautiful!' and the orchestra let himself out again:
"A life on the ocean wave,
And a home on the rolling deep!
"There was a good deal of honest snickering turned on this time, and
considerable groaning, and one or two old deacons got up and went out.
The showman grated his teeth, and cursed the piano man to himself; but
the fellow sat there like a knot on a log, and seemed to think he was
doing first-rate.
"After things got quiet the showman thought he would make one more
stagger at it, anyway, though his confidence was beginning to get mighty
shaky. The supes started the panorama grinding along again, and he says:
"'Ladies and gentlemen, this exquisite painting represents the raising of
Lazarus from the dead by our Saviour. The subject has been handled with
marvelous skill by the artist, and such touching sweetness and tenderness
of expression has he thrown into it that I have known peculiarly
sensitive persons to be even affected to tears by looking at it. Observe
the half-confused, half-inquiring look upon the countenance of the
awakened Lazarus. Observe, also, the attitude and expression of the
Saviour, who takes him gently by the sleeve of his shroud with one hand,
while He points with the other toward the distant city.'
"Before anybody could get off an opinion in the case the innocent old ass
at the piano struck up:
"Come rise up, William Ri-i-ley,
And go along with me!
"Whe-ew! All the solemn old flats got up in a huff to go, and everybody
else laughed till the windows rattled.
"The showman went down and grabbed the orchestra and shook him up and
says:
"'That lets you out, you know, you chowder-headed old clam. Go to the
doorkeeper and get your money, and cut your stick--vamose the ranch!
Ladies and gentlemen, circumstances over which I have no control compel
me prematurely to dismiss the house.'"
CURING A COLD--[Written about 1864]
It is a good thing, perhaps, to write for the amusement of the public,
but it is a far higher and nobler thing to write for their instruction,
their profit, their actual and tangible benefit. The latter is the sole
object of this article. If it prove the means of restoring to health one
solitary sufferer among my race, of lighting up once more the fire of
hope and joy in his faded eyes, or bringing back to his dead heart again
the quick, generous impulses of other days, I shall be amply rewarded for
my labor; my soul will be permeated with the sacred delight a Christian.
feels when he has done a good, unselfish deed.
Having led a pure and blameless life, I am justified in believing that no
man who knows me will reject the suggestions I am about to make, out of
fear that I am trying to deceive him. Let the public do itself the honor
to read my experience in doctoring a cold, as herein set forth, and then
follow in my footsteps.
When the White House was burned in Virginia City, I lost my home, my
happiness, my constitution, and my trunk. The loss of the two first
named articles was a matter of no great consequence, since a home without
a mother, or a sister, or a distant young female relative in it, to
remind you, by putting your soiled linen out of sight and taking your
boots down off the mantelpiece, that there are those who think about you
and care for you, is easily obtained. And I cared nothing for the loss
of my happiness, because, not being a poet, it could not be possible that
melancholy would abide with me long. But to lose a good constitution and
a better trunk were serious misfortunes. On the day of the fire my
constitution succumbed to a severe cold, caused by undue exertion in
getting ready to do something. I suffered to no purpose, too, because
the plan I was figuring at for the extinguishing of the fire was so
elaborate that I never got it completed until the middle of the following
week.
The first time I began to sneeze, a friend told me to go and bathe my
feet in hot water and go to bed. I did so. Shortly afterward, another
friend advised me to get up and take a cold shower-bath. I did that
also. Within the hour, another friend assured me that it was policy to
"feed a cold and starve a fever." I had both. So I thought it best to
fill myself up for the cold, and then keep dark and let the fever starve
awhile.
In a case of, this kind, I seldom do things by halves; I ate pretty
heartily; I conferred my custom upon a stranger who had just opened his
restaurant that morning; he waited near me in respectful silence until I
had finished feeding my cold, when he inquired if the people about
Virginia City were much afflicted with colds? I told him I thought they
were. He then went out and took in his sign.
I started down toward the office, and on the way encountered another
bosom friend, who told me that a quart of salt-water, taken warm, would
come as near curing a cold as anything in the world. I hardly thought I
had room for it, but I tried it anyhow. The result was surprising. I
believed I had thrown up my immortal soul.
Now, as I am giving my experience only for the benefit of those who are
troubled with the distemper I am writing about, I feel that they will see
the propriety of my cautioning them against following such portions of it
as proved inefficient with me, and acting upon this conviction, I warn
them against warm salt-water. It may be a good enough remedy, but I
think it is too severe. If I had another cold in the head, and there
were no course left me but to take either an earthquake or a quart of
warm saltwater, I would take my chances on the earthquake.
After the storm which had been raging in my stomach had subsided, and no
more good Samaritans happening along, I went on borrowing handkerchiefs
again and blowing them to atoms, as had been my custom in the early
stages of my cold, until I came across a lady who had just arrived from
over the plains, and who said she had lived in a part of the country
where doctors were scarce, and had from necessity acquired considerable
skill in the treatment of simple "family complaints." I knew she must
have had much experience, for she appeared to be a hundred and fifty
years old.
She mixed a decoction composed of molasses, aquafortis, turpentine, and
various other drugs, and instructed me to take a wine-glass full of it
every fifteen minutes. I never took but one dose; that was enough; it
robbed me of all moral principle, and awoke every unworthy impulse of my
nature. Under its malign influence my brain conceived miracles of
meanness, but my hands were too feeble to execute them; at that time, had
it not been that my strength had surrendered to a succession of assaults
from infallible remedies for my cold, I am satisfied that I would have
tried to rob the graveyard. Like most other people, I often feel mean,
and act accordingly; but until I took that medicine I had never reveled
in such supernatural depravity, and felt proud of it. At the end of two
days I was ready to go to doctoring again. I took a few more unfailing
remedies, and finally drove my cold from my head to my lungs.
I got to coughing incessantly, and my voice fell below zero; I conversed
in a thundering bass, two octaves below my natural tone; I could only
compass my regular nightly repose by coughing myself down to a state of
utter exhaustion, and then the moment I began to talk in my sleep, my
discordant voice woke me up again.
My case grew more and more serious every day. A Plain gin was
recommended; I took it. Then gin and molasses; I took that also. Then
gin and onions; I added the onions, and took all three. I detected no
particular result, however, except that I had acquired a breath like a
buzzard's.
I found I had to travel for my health. I went to Lake Bigler with my
reportorial comrade, Wilson. It is gratifying to me to reflect that we
traveled in considerable style; we went in the Pioneer coach, and my
friend took all his baggage with him, consisting of two excellent silk
handkerchiefs and a daguerreotype of his grandmother. We sailed and
hunted and fished and danced all day, and I doctored my cough all night.
By managing in this way, I made out to improve every hour in the
twenty-four. But my disease continued to grow worse.
A sheet-bath was recommended. I had never refused a remedy yet, and it
seemed poor policy to commence then; therefore I determined to take a
sheet-bath, notwithstanding I had no idea what sort of arrangement it
was. It was administered at midnight, and the weather was very frosty.
My breast and back were bared, and a sheet (there appeared to be a
thousand yards of it) soaked in ice-water, was wound around me until I
resembled a swab for a Columbiad.
It is a cruel expedient. When the chilly rag touches one's warm flesh,
it makes him start with sudden violence, and gasp for breath just as men
do in the death-agony. It froze the marrow in my bones and stopped the
beating of my heart. I thought my time had come.