Autobiography of Mark Twain (29 page)

One facet of the brilliant talker’s mind flashes out on us after another till we tire with interest.

That is clearly stated. We recognise that feeling. In the morning paper I find a sentence of another breed.

There had been no death before the case of Cornelius Lean which had arisen and terminated in death since the special rules had been drawn up.

By the context I know what it means, but you are without that light and will be sure to get out of it a meaning which the writer of it was not intending to convey.

[A Group of Servants]

* * *
June 4, Kaltenleutgeben
. In this family we are four. When a family has been used to a group of servants whose several terms of service with it cover these periods, to wit: 10 years, 12 years, 13 years, 17 years, 19 years, and 22 years, it is not able to understand the new ways of
a new group straight off. That would be the case at home; abroad it is the case emphasized. We have been housekeeping a fortnight, now—long enough to have learned how to pronounce the servants’ names, but not to spell them. We shan’t ever learn to spell them; they were invented in Hungary and Poland, and on paper they look like the alphabet out on a drunk. There are four: two maids, a cook, and a middle-aged woman who comes once or twice a day to help around generally. They are good-natured and friendly, and capable and willing. Their ways are not the ways which we have been so long used to with the home tribe in America but they are agreeable, and no fault is to be found with them except in one or two particulars. The cook is a love, but she talks at a gait and with a joyous interest and energy which make everything buzz. She is always excited; gets excited over big and little things alike, for she has no sense of proportion. Whether the project in hand is a barbecued bull or a hand-made cutlet it is no matter, she loses her mind; she unlimbers her tongue, and while her breath holds out you can’t tell her from a field day in the Austrian Parliament. But what of it, as long as she can cook? And she can do that. She has that mysterious art which is so rare in the world—the art of making everything taste good which comes under the enchantment of her hand. She is the kind of cook that establishes confidence with the first meal; establishes it so thoroughly that after that you do not care to know the materials of the dishes nor their names: that her hallmark is upon them is sufficient.

The youngest of the two maids, Charlotte, is about twenty; strong, handsome, capable, intelligent, self-contained, quiet—in fact, rather reserved. She has character, and dignity.

The other maid, Wuthering Heights (which is not her name), is about forty and looks considerably younger. She is quick, smart, active, energetic, breezy, good-natured, has a high-keyed voice and a loud one, talks thirteen to the dozen, talks all the time, talks in her sleep, will talk when she is dead; is here, there, and everywhere all at the same time, and is consumingly interested in every devilish thing that is going on. Particularly if it is not her affair. And she is not merely passively interested, but takes a hand; and not only takes a hand but the principal one; in fact will play the whole game, fight the whole battle herself, if you don’t find some way to turn her flank. But as she does it in the family’s interest, not her own, I find myself diffident about finding fault. Not so the family. It gravels the family. I like that. Not maliciously, but because it spices the monotony to see the family graveled. Sometimes they are driven to a point where they are sure they cannot endure her any longer, and they rise in revolt; but I stand between her and harm, for I adore Wuthering Heights. She is not a trouble to me, she freshens up my life, she keeps me interested all the time. She is not monotonous, she does not stale, she is fruitful of surprises, she is always breaking out in a new place. The family are always training her, always caulking her, but it does not make me uneasy any more, now, for I know that as fast as they stop one leak she will spring another. Her talk is my circus, my menagerie, my fireworks, my spiritual refreshment. When she is at it I would rather be there than at a fire. She talks but little to me, for I understand only about half that she says, and I have had the sagacity not to betray that I understand that half. But I open my door when she is talking to the Executive at the other end of the house, and then I hear everything, and the enjoyment is without alloy, for it is like being at a show on a free ticket. She makes the Executive’s head ache. I am sorry for that, of course; still it is a thing which cannot be helped. We must take things as we find them in this world.

The Executive’s efforts to reconstruct Wuthering Heights are marked by wisdom, patience and gentle and persuasive speech. They will succeed, yet, and it is a pity. This morning at half past eight I was lying in my bed counterfeiting sleep; the Executive was lying in hers, reasoning with Wuthering Heights, who had just brought the hot water and was buzzing around here and there and yonder preparing the baths and putting all manner of things to rights with her lightning touch, and accompanying herself with a torrent of talk, cramped down to a low-voiced flutter to keep from waking me up.

“You talk too much, Wuthering Heights, as I have told you so often before. It is your next worst fault, and you ought to try your best to break yourself of it. I—”

“Ah, indeed yes, gnädige Frau, it is the very truth you are speaking, none knows it better than I nor is sorrier. Jessus! but it is a verdammtes defect, as in your goodness you have said, yourself, these fifty times, and—”

“Don’t!
I never use such language—and I don’t like to hear it. It is dreadful. I know that it means nothing with you, and that it is common custom and came to you with your mother’s milk; but it distresses me to hear it, and besides you are always putting it into
my
mouth, which—”

“Oh, bless your kind heart, gnädige Frau, you won’t mind it in the least, after a little; it’s only because it is strange and new to you now, that it isn’t pleasant; but that will wear off in a little while, and then—oh, it’s just one of those little trifling things that don’t amount to a straw, you know—why, we all swear, the priest and everybody, and it’s nothing, really nothing at all; but I will break myself of it, I will indeed, and this very moment will I begin, for I have lived here and there in my time, and seen things, and learned wisdom, and I know, better than a many another, that there is only one right time to begin a thing, and that is on the spot. Ah yes, by Gott, as your grace was saying only yesterday—”

“There—do be still! It is as much as aperson’s life is worth to make even the triflingest remark to you, it brings such a flood. And any moment your chatter may wake my husband, and he”—after a little pause, to gather courage for a deliberate mis-statement—“he can’t abide it.”

“I will be as the grave! I will, indeed, for sleep is to the tired, sleep is the medicine that heals the weary spirit. Heilige Mutter Gottes! before I—”

“Be
still!
”

“Zu befehl. If—”

“
Still!
”

After a little pause the Executive began a tactful and low-temperature lecture which had all the ear-marks of preparation about it. I know that easy, impromptu style, and how it is manufactured, for I have worked at that trade myself. I have forgotten to mention that Wuthering Heights has not always served in a subordinate position; she has been housekeeper in a rich family in Vienna for the past ten years; consequently the habit of bossing is still strong upon her, naturally enough.

“The cook and Charlotte complain that you interfere in their affairs. It is not right. It is not your place to do that.”

“Oh, Joseph and Mary, Deuteronomy and all the saints! Think of that! Why, of course when the mistress is not in the house it is necessary that somebody—”

“No, it is not necessary at all. The cook says that the reason the coffee was cold yesterday morning was, that you removed it from the stove, and that when she put it back you removed it again.”

“Ah, but what
would
one do, gnädige Frau? It was all boiling away.”

“No matter, it was not your affair. And yesterday morning you would not let Madame Blank into the house, and told her no one was at home. My husband was at home. It was too bad—and she had come all the way from Vienna. Why did you do that?”

“Let her in?—I ask you would I let her in? and he hard at his work and not wishing to be disturbed, sunk in his labors up to his eyes and grinding out God knows what, for it is beyond me, though it has my sympathy, and none feels for him more than I do when he is in his lyings-in, that way—now
would
I let her in to break up his work in that idle way and she with no rational thing in the world to pester him about? now
could
I?”

“How do you know what she wanted?”

The shot struck in an unprotected place, and made silence for several seconds, for W. H. was not prepared for it and could not think of an answer right away. Then she recovered herself and said—

“Well—well, it was like this. Well, she—of course she could have had something proper and rational on her mind, but then I knew that if that was the case she would write, not come all the way out here from Vienna to—”

“Did you know she came from Vienna?”

I knew by the silence that another unfortified place had been hit. Then—

“Well, I—that is—well, she had that kind of a look which you have noticed upon a person when—when—”

“When what?”

“She—well, she
had
that kind of a look, anyway; for—”

“How did you know my husband did not want to be disturbed?”

“Know it? Oh, indeed, and well I knew it; for he was that busy that the sweat was leaking through the floor, and I said to the cook, said I—”

“He didn’t do a stroke of work the whole day, but sat in the balcony smoking and reading.” [In a private tone, touched with shame: “reading his own books—he is always doing it.”] “You should have told him; he would have been very glad to see Madame Blank, and was disappointed when he found out what had happened. He said so, himself.”

“Oh, indeed, yes, dear gnädige Frau, he would
say
it, that he would, but give your heart peace, he is always saying things which—why, I was saying to the butcher’s wife no longer ago than day before yesterday—”

“
Ruhig!
and let me go on. You do twice as much of the talking as you allow me to do, and I can’t have it. If—”

“It’s Viennese, gnädige Frau. Custom, you see; that’s just it. We all do it; it’s Viennese.”

“But I’m not Viennese. And I can’t get reconciled to it. And your interruptions—why, it makes no difference: if I am planning with the cook, or commissioning a dienstman, or asking the postman about the trains, no matter, you break right in, uninvited, and take charge of the whole matter, and—”

“Ah, Jessus! it’s just as I was saying, and how true was the word! It’s Viennese—all over, Viennese. Custom, you see—all custom. Sorel Blgwrxczlzbzockowicz—she’s the Princess Tzwzfzhopowic’s maid—she says she always does so, and the Princess likes it, and—”

“But I am not the Princess, and I want things
my
way; can’t you understand a simple thing like that? And there’s another thing. Between the time that the three of us went to Vienna yesterday morning, and ten at night when we returned, you seem to have had your hands over-full. When the cook’s old grandfather came to see her, what did you meddle, for?”

[A Viennese Procession]

June 26, Sunday; Kaltenleutgeben
. I went in the eight o’clock train to Vienna, to see the procession. It was a stroke of luck, for at the last moment I was feeling lazy and was minded not to go. But when I reached the station, five minutes late, the train was still there, a couple of friends were there also, and so I went. At Liesing, half an hour out, we changed to a very long train, and left for Vienna with every seat occupied. That was no sign that this was a great day, for these people are not critical about shows, they turn out for anything that comes along. Half an hour later we were driving into the city; no particular bustle anywhere—indeed less than is usual on an Austrian Sunday; bunting flying, and a decoration here and there—a quite frequent thing in this Jubilee year; but as we passed the American Embassy I saw a couple of our flags out and the Minister and his menservants arranging to have another one added. This woke me up—it seemed to indicate that something really beyond the common was to the fore.

As we neared the bridge which connects the First Bezirk with the Third, a pronounced and growing life and stir were noticeable; and when we entered the wide square where the Schwarzenberg palace is, there was something resembling a jam. As far as we could see down the broad avenue of the Park Ring both sides of it were packed with people in their holiday clothes. Our cab worked its way across the square, and then flew down empty streets, all the way, to Liebenberggasse No. 7—the dwelling we were aiming for. It stands on the corner of that street and the Park Ring, and its balconies command a mile-stretch of the latter avenue. By a trifle after nine we were in the shade of the awnings of the first-floor balcony, with a dozen other guests, and ready for the procession. Ready, but it would not start for an hour, yet, and would not reach us for half an hour afterward. As to numbers it would be a large matter; for by report it would march 25,000 strong. But it isn’t numbers that make the interest of a procession; I have seen a vast number of long processions which didn’t pay. It is clothes that make a procession; where you have those of the right pattern you can do without length. Two or three months ago I saw one with the Emperor and an Archbishop in it; and the Archbishop was being carried along under a canopied arrangement and had his skull-cap on, and the venerable Emperor was following him on foot and bareheaded. Even if that had been the entire procession, it would have paid. I am old, now, and may never be an Emperor at all; at least in this world. I have been disappointed so many times that I am growing more and more doubtful and resigned every year; but if it ever should happen, the procession will have a fresh interest for the Archbishop, for he will walk.