Part 4

“‘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.”

Most of the books, pamphlets and manuscripts we found dated from the times of Frederick the Great and of course they were in French, since Frederick neither read nor wrote German intelligently. There was in particular a volume of verse by Voltaire addressed to Frederick, with original illustrations by some French artist, but the poetry was too grossly indecent to have interest for persons outside of a psychopathic ward.

I translated some of the verses to Mark, who said: “Too much is enough. I would blush to remember any of these stanzas except to tell Krafft-Ebing about them when I get to Vienna.”

I copied one verse for him, and as he put it in his pocket he said:

“Livy is so busy mispronouncing German these days she can’t even attempt to get at this.”

After some rummaging, Mark pulled out a manuscript that seemed to be of more recent date.

“German or Chinese laundry tickets?” he asked.

“It’s German,” I said, glancing at it.

There were about ten pages of copy, neatly written and headed “Mein Briefkasten” (My letterbox). On the line below was the title: “Tetragamy by Schopenhauer.”

Mark was at once interested.

“Schopenhauer, the arch-misogynist,” he mused, “let me see, physically he might have been the grandfather of queer Strindberg of the land where the matches come from. Ever read any of his books or dramas?” he asked, and before I could deny the implication, he was off talking again: “I have studied Strindberg’s womankind, hard-faced, sullen, cold-blooded, cheeky, grasping, vindictive, hell-raising, unvirtuous, unkind vixens, all of them--a dead give-away on the author’s part, for a writer who sees no good in women confesses that he was found out by the sex he wars on and that the female of the species pronounced him n. g. before he had time to out-Ibsen the Norwegian. If I ever turn over a new leaf and beat Livy, bet your life I will have naught but honeyed words and sweet metaphor for the ladies. This fellow Strindberg’s women are all compounds of vile ingredients--hideous hags with or without angel-faces--wife-beater Strindberg whipping dead mares. Well, to return to Schopenhauer (to me as incomprehensible as mutton) what’s this?” (pointing to the word Tetragamy), “Hebrew or merely Yiddish?”

“Literally it means marrying a fourth wife.” I examined the first page of the manuscript. “Seems to deal with conditions due to monogamy.”

“Good,” exclaimed Mark, “I have always wanted to reform monogamy, when my wife isn’t looking. Now let’s have the medicine straight.”

“But,” I said, “I can’t do this long MS. justice here. The librarian will come in presently and you heard what he told us.”

“Well,” said Mark, “you sit down and copy the German while I cover you with my broad back. Should the librarian intrude, I will knock on the floor.”

Accordingly, I copied those several pages, and afterwards made the translation Mark wanted.

But for several days Mark didn’t show up at his usual haunts, and even Mr. Phelps, the American Minister in Berlin, didn’t know what had become of him. The telephone was but sparingly used then in the legation offices. However, on the third or fourth day, Mr. Phelps learned that Mark was down with bronchitis at his hotel, the Royal, and that when he wasn’t sneezing or coughing, _ennui_ plagued him sadly.

“Well,” I said, “I have got something to liven him up,” and showed Mr. Phelps the manuscript. He advised me to send it at once to the Royal, but when I called on Mark Twain a week later and inquired _sotto voce_ whether he had received the manuscript, he said:

“Of course not. The wife got it and you know she won’t let me read anything but tracts. I suppose she burnt our MS.”

“Well,” I said, “I have got a carbon and I will let you have that by and by.”

“Not while I’m at home,” he said, “for now she is on the scent, she will watch out. She is dreadfully afraid that some one may corrupt me.”

Mark remained indoors for over a month, the thing was forgotten, and later, when he asked for the manuscript, I couldn’t find it. Other interests came up and Schopenhauer was shelved, though at the time we made the find, Mark speculated on getting a book out of it by amplifying it with other writings of the philosopher, particularly his “Fragments of Philosophy” and his “Pandectes et Spicilegia”; the latter are still in manuscript or, at least, were in manuscript in the early nineties.

If Mark were alive to-day, how happy he would be at the discovery I made quite recently in an old chest of drawers. I had seen a movie play, showing the extravagant amounts of money one can earn by selling old manuscripts--including the rejection slips--and I started cleaning up an old piece of furniture wanted for less ideal purposes. And there I found the long lost Schopenhauer MS. According to the notes, this manuscript belonged to a parcel of handwritten essays willed by the philosopher to the Royal Library at Berlin and dealing with themes and matters that Schopenhauer hoped to work out and improve upon by and by. But death overtook him before he could exploit the problem in hand. Here follows the MS. Mark was not allowed to see:

_Schopenhauer’s Tetragamy._

_The Philosopher’s Attempt to reform social conditions due to Monogamy._

Neither woman’s frailty nor man’s egoism should be held responsible for those frequent miscarriages of domestic happiness encountered in married life. Nature itself is to blame. If the state of monogamy, as some of the philosophers will have it, is the natural one, then nature disarranged its own scheme beforehand by making woman’s sexual life twenty or thirty or even forty years shorter than man’s.

At the present time males and females in the civilized world are about equal in number. This, too, is taken for proof that nature favored monogamy. It is a fact, on the other hand, observable in practical life as well as by medical investigation, that a woman is well able physically to be the wife of two men at the same time.

There are no healthier and more beautiful women, of their kind, than the Tedas of Asia who marry besides their chief-husband all his brothers, no matter how many he has got.

We do not go so far as to advocate polyandry. Polyandry is a condition based on a low state of civilization. But basing our proposition on physical grounds, we venture to assert that tetragamy, reorganized and protected by law, would be a married state doing away with most of the evils of monogamy from the man’s standpoint, while contributing to woman’s happiness.

We propose the introduction of a new form of marriage on the following lines. Instead of one man marrying one woman for better or worse, we propose that two men, friends of course, marry one woman, always a young and healthy person, with this understanding:

After the woman has reached a certain age, the two friends shall be at liberty to marry another young woman, but without divorcing or abandoning the first.

The second woman shall provide the men, if she lives, with a capable and loving mate for the rest of their lives.

Such a state of things would result in the happiness of two women, both would be taken care of for life and there would be no rivalry either.

As far as the men are concerned, tetragamy would do away with a passion leading to so many fatalities: jealousy.

Now let us look at tetragamy, as defined, from an economic standpoint.

At the present time, the average young couple enters into the marriage state when the man’s capacity as a provider is unequal to the demands of the average pleasure-loving woman. His meagre resources do not allow him to supply her with the luxuries she craves, nor has he as much money for himself as before marriage. It would be a waste of words to point out that these conditions are responsible for much unhappiness among married folks.

Take a case of poverty. Many a man who can hardly support himself tries to support a wife, and not only a wife, but children, numbers of them! What is the result? The woman, driven by want, for the love of her children, becomes a breadwinner on her own account. The time she ought to devote to her little ones, born or unborn, she spends in the factory, at the washboard or sewing machine.

Is that natural? If nature favored such a state of affairs, nature would be illogical, and who dare assert so monstrous a thing?

In the state of tetragamy, man has to bear but one-half of the household’s expenses. This gives him a chance to save money and to do something for his education, while the children, being supported by two men, have better clothes, better food, more love, and a better home.

Tetragamy would make for morality, because it would make it easier for men to get married. It would make for morality because woman, having two husbands, would not be longing for an affinity. And when old, she would not suffer from the thought, or from the actual knowledge, that her husband betrays her.

Things are different to-day. The man who marries young sees the fire of love extinguished in the woman at his side after a certain number of years.

As to the average woman, in the state of monogamy, she is only too often compelled to marry a man physically inferior to her. If she escapes that fate, then, in the course of time, she must needs come to the conclusion that she is too old for her husband.

But I am not unaware that there are serious objections.

As to the children, their identity would be determined by their looks.

As to possible differences--they will not be greater than in marriage as it is to-day. If people are inclined to fight, they will do so under any conditions, good, bad or indifferent. For my own part I am inclined to think that there will be less fighting, since jealousy will be eliminated beforehand.

What about financial affairs? There should be no communism, of course. Each man could contribute his share and the woman should be allowed free disposal of her savings.

Of course, the state must take the first woman under its protection. She can never be abandoned and can be divorced for cause only.

Under the sway of monogamy duties and nature are forever in conflict. Woman is tempted when young, is abandoned morally or physically or both when old.

If this be natural, then nature should be reformed and tetragamy substituted for monogamy.

“MURDERER” BLUCHER IN OXFORD

“Oxford, though you might not think so, has a traffic cop, the same as Forty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue,” said Mark in the Savoy Lounge across the teacups after the excitement over his triumph in the British University metropolis had cooled down a bit. “He is a smart guy--actually remembers Holmes’ visit and asked me about the old man. He spoke of him as ‘Ome’s, Sweet Ome’s.’ When you come to think of it, it’s a good name, after all.

“Among other interesting things, not connected with the University, was a public house sign I lit upon at a corner not far from our inn. It showed a great warrior on a fierce charger. ‘General Blucher’ was written across the bottom. It gave me quite a start when I learned that on this spot, in 1816 or 1817, Blucher hollered for a drink and got it when on his way to the University.”

“What did he want with the University?” I queried.

“He was crowned a doctor there after Waterloo.

“I tell you, that took me down a peg, or rather a whole row of pegs. Blucher a doctor like myself! I knew him as a foul-mouthed, cruel, pestiferous, and thieving scoundrel--occasionally lucky in the field. But now I wanted to know more about him and I have haunted the British Museum for additional facts. What do you think I learned? Blucher, who was dirty and slouchy by nature, dressed up on the eve of battle:--best tunic, fancy sword, gilt lace, feathered hat and what-not! And he had himself bathed, rouged and powdered, manicured and curry-combed.

“‘I feel like a girl going to her first ball,’ he used to say.

“And people like that, who delight in murder and rapine, receive honorary degrees!”

MARK’S HUMAN SIDE

Susan, Jean, and Clara Clemens, papa Mark, and myself were having lots of fun at the famous Salamonski Circus in Berlin--Mark and I laughing with the children when there was nothing else to interest us. There was a girl of 16 or 17 doing a stunt on a horse. Mark said: “The poor child looks as if she had never had a square meal in her life--isn’t that professional smile of hers too sad for words?” While she was doing a salto mortale, a clown ran in and dived between the horse’s legs. The horse got frightened and threw the rider. Of course, the children thought this part of the program, and laughed heartily. But the girl didn’t attempt to get up, and when the riding master tried to raise her, she cried and moaned, and one of her legs hung down lifeless, while the blood spurted through her white tights.

“Keep still, children,” said Mark. “Don’t you see the poor girl is hurt?”

A stretcher came and carried off the moaning girl and the performance proceeded as if nothing had happened. But though the children begged hard, Mark would not stay.

“Another time, not now,” he insisted.

Just then a gypsy-looking, elderly woman came running from behind the scenes, looking about wildly. When her eye located the clown, she rushed up to him and hit him a terrible blow in the face. “You have ruined my girl. She will never be able to ride again,” she cried.

“Served him right,” said Mark. “I do hope the manager gets a clout on the jaw, too. For he really is the responsible guy. The clown has to get laughs, the girl has to risk her limbs, so that the manager may coin money. What a world this is, what a world! And you and I, too! I never thought of kicking myself for laughing when that poor girl broke her leg--nor did you, I bet.”

AN AUSTRALIAN SURPRISE

At the time when Mark was living quietly at Ledworth Square, London, writing “Around the World,” we met a party of Australians at the Metropole one afternoon. It was after poor Susie’s death, and the heartbroken father hadn’t made anyone laugh for months. But those “Aussies kind of woke me up,” he admitted. “Jolly guys, out there at the Antipodes,” he said after the first round; “too bad I didn’t know that when I struck Sydney. As I prepared to step upon the platform there, I wondered, with some fear and trepidation, whether your people would take kindly to my brand of humor. If they refused to be tickled by my first lecture--God have mercy upon my creditors! Of course I had my story pat. Still, as I climbed those steps, I debated in my mind whether or not I had better substitute such or such a yarn for the opening lines planned. I had half decided to risk a change, when I faced the audience and--the pleasantest, the most overwhelming surprise of my life! I met a sea, a whole Atlantic, of guffawing heads, of swaying bodies and shoulders. There wasn’t a titter or a snicker; there wasn’t any smirking or grinning; all eyes were in flood with genuine laughter; men, women, and children were crowing and chuckling aloud, were shouting and hurraying, everybody was convulsed--really I must have looked the white kangaroo for which I was named. The Sydney audience laughing at me before I opened my mouth clinched my success at the Antipodes.”

MARK IN FRANCE AND ITALY

From Paris Mark Twain usually returned disgruntled. His stories did not go in France, and there was that “Dreyfus affair” that made him sick of the “frog-eaters forever and a day.” Nor was Mark appreciated in Italy.

“The Dagoes,” he used to say, “like their humor colored with politics, of which I know nothing, or flavored with risqué stories, which my wife won’t let me write--there you are. As to France--one critical Madame gave me to understand that I am ‘lacking in the stupendous task of interpreting the great tableaux of real American life.’ See? When a wet blanket of that kind is clapped on to you, what is the use of further efforts? I am a dead one, according to Madame, and Mark Twain is too humane to whip a dead horse. I will tell you what is really the matter with France,” concluded Twain. “Every Frenchman who can read and write has in his closet a frock coat embroidered with the lilies (or whatever flower it may be) of the _Académie Française_--hoping against hope that he may be elected to the Institute like Molière or Zola. Hence Monsieur is very critical and pronounces everything he doesn’t understand ‘bosh!’ A joke in Chicago, you know, is a riddle in Paris, and, as one Frenchman put it, ‘I get guffaws out of people by thumping them on the ribs.’ I would never dare thump a Frenchman, of course--I might bust him.”

WHY MARK WOULDN’T LIKE TO DIE ABROAD

Mark Twain cracked so many jokes, I thought I would entertain him a bit myself, and told him about an aunt of mine who, while dying, heard that she was going to lie in state in the green room.

“Not in the green room,” said auntie. “I always hated that wall paper. Besides, it’s unhealthy.”

Twain admitted that was good fun, and regretted not having thought of the green paper himself.

“She must have been a fine old girl,” he said, “to stand up for her rights even ‘in extremis,’ as the doctors call it.”