The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) by Mark Twain Read Free Book Online

insisted that
this posthumous edition of Mark Twain's last work "is not going to
be superseded by any future text" and that it "is the closest thing to Mark Twain's intention that we shall ever have." 78 But what Mark Twain actually wrote inevitably supersedes the Paine-Duneka patchwork text, and Mark Twain's "intention"-if by that we mean his effort to achieve a total effect in a completed work-was never fulfilled.

    This is not to deny that the cut, cobbled-together, partially falsified text has the power to move and to satisfy esthetically despite its flaws. Perhaps it will last among some readers in preference to the unfinished fragmentary tales here published. But I think it possible that a writer or editor who is more sympathetic to Twain's divided mind and creative dilemma in his late life may, in the future, produce a better version than that pieced together by Paine and Duneka. Perhaps such a writer will imagine a new, wholly satisfying ending to "The Chronicle of Young Satan," or perhaps he will be able to condense, rework, and strengthen "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger" and end it with Twain's last chapter in its proper place. To carry on, flesh out, and conclude "Schoolhouse Hill" would probably be even more difficult, and yet scarcely less rewarding. In any event, such a writer will begin with the texts that Mark Twain wrote in the form in which he left them, acknowledging openly when he selects or modifies or creates or concludes. Finally it must be said that these incomplete texts are Mark Twain's own fragments, large and small, with their own value and interest; and if he produced no finished narrative frieze, he did succeed in creating a multitude of various, memorable figures in the half-sculptured stones.

Chapter 1
    T WAS 1702-May. Austria was far away from the world, and
asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to
remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon
centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still
the Age of Faith in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not
a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember
it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the
pleasure it gave me.
    Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village
was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It
drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude
where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams,
and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its
surface painted with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks
and stone-boats; behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the
lofty precipice; from the top of the precipice frowned the vast
castle, its long stretch of towers and bastions mailed in vines;
beyond the river, to the left, was a tumbled expanse of forestclothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the sun never pene trated; and to the right, lay a far-reaching plain dotted with little
homesteads nested among orchards and-shade-trees.

    The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property
of a prince with a difficult name, whose servants kept the castle
always in perfect condition for occupancy, but neither he nor his
family came there oftener than once in five years. When they came
it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all
the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a
calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy.
    Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch
pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Catholics; to revere the Virgin, the Church and the saints above everything; to hold the Monarch in awful reverence, speak of him with
bated breath, uncover before his picture, regard him as the gracious
provider of our daily bread and of all our earthly blessings, and
ourselves as being sent