Twain - Clarence writes
Hey Folks,
I’ve been sharing Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court with you (this is the 38th entry, and we are nearing the end) .
Chapter 44 – “A Postscript by Clarence” - The Yankee’s last entry ended:
“But how treacherous is fortune! In a little while – say an hour – happened a thing, by my own fault, which – but I have no heart to write that. Let the record end here.”
As Clarence explains, the Yankee – as he has done several times throughout the story – naively misjudges the nature of backward humanity:
“He proposed that we two go out and see if any help could be afforded the wounded. I was strenuous against the project.”
But the Yankee (“the Boss”) insisted and:
“The first wounded man who appealed for help, was sitting, with his back against a dead comrade. When the boss bent over him and spoke to him, the man recognized him and stabbed him.”
After dispatching the assailant:
“We carried the Boss to the cave and gave his wound, which was not very serious, the best care we could. In this service we had the help of Merlin, though we did not know it. He was disguised as a woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant goodwife. In this disguise, with brown-stained face and smooth shaven, he had appeared a few days after the Boss was hurt, and offered to cook for us, saying her people had gone off to join certain new camps which the enemy were forming, and that she was starving. The Boss had been getting along very well, and had amused himself with finishing up his record.
We were glad to have this woman, for we were short handed. We were in a trap, you see – a trap of our own making. If we stayed where we were, our dead would kill us; if we moved out of our defences, we should no longer be invincible. We had conquered; in turn we were conquered. The Boss recognized this; we all recognized it. If we could go to one of those new camps and patch up some kind of terms with the enemy – yes, but the Boss could not go, and neither could I, for I was among the first that were made sick by the poisonous air bred by those dead thousands. Others were taken down, and still others. To-morrow –
To-morrow. It is here. And with it the end. About midnight I awoke, and saw that hag making curious passes in the air about the Boss’s head and face, and wondered what it meant. . . . The woman ceased from her mysterious foolery, and started tip-toeing toward the door. I called out –
“Stop! What have you been doing?”
She halted, and said with an accent of malicious satisfaction:
“Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered! These others are perishing – you also. Ye shall all die in this place – every one – except him. He sleepeth now – and shall sleep thirteen centuries. I am Merlin!”
Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook him that he reeled about like a drunken man, and presently fetched up against one of our wires. His mouth is spread open yet; apparently he is still laughing. I suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh until the corpse turns to dust.
The Boss has never stirred – sleeps like a stone. If he does not wake to-day, we shall understand what kind ofsleep it is, and his body will then be borne to a place in one of the remote recesses of the cave where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As for the rest of us – well, it is agreed that if any one of us ever escapes alive from this place, he will write the fact here, and loyally hide the Manuscript with the Boss, our dear good chief, whose property it is, be he alive or dead.
END OF MANUSCRIPT.
- Uke Man
I’ve been sharing Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court with you (this is the 38th entry, and we are nearing the end) .
Chapter 44 – “A Postscript by Clarence” - The Yankee’s last entry ended:
“But how treacherous is fortune! In a little while – say an hour – happened a thing, by my own fault, which – but I have no heart to write that. Let the record end here.”
As Clarence explains, the Yankee – as he has done several times throughout the story – naively misjudges the nature of backward humanity:
“He proposed that we two go out and see if any help could be afforded the wounded. I was strenuous against the project.”
But the Yankee (“the Boss”) insisted and:
“The first wounded man who appealed for help, was sitting, with his back against a dead comrade. When the boss bent over him and spoke to him, the man recognized him and stabbed him.”
After dispatching the assailant:
“We carried the Boss to the cave and gave his wound, which was not very serious, the best care we could. In this service we had the help of Merlin, though we did not know it. He was disguised as a woman, and appeared to be a simple old peasant goodwife. In this disguise, with brown-stained face and smooth shaven, he had appeared a few days after the Boss was hurt, and offered to cook for us, saying her people had gone off to join certain new camps which the enemy were forming, and that she was starving. The Boss had been getting along very well, and had amused himself with finishing up his record.
We were glad to have this woman, for we were short handed. We were in a trap, you see – a trap of our own making. If we stayed where we were, our dead would kill us; if we moved out of our defences, we should no longer be invincible. We had conquered; in turn we were conquered. The Boss recognized this; we all recognized it. If we could go to one of those new camps and patch up some kind of terms with the enemy – yes, but the Boss could not go, and neither could I, for I was among the first that were made sick by the poisonous air bred by those dead thousands. Others were taken down, and still others. To-morrow –
To-morrow. It is here. And with it the end. About midnight I awoke, and saw that hag making curious passes in the air about the Boss’s head and face, and wondered what it meant. . . . The woman ceased from her mysterious foolery, and started tip-toeing toward the door. I called out –
“Stop! What have you been doing?”
She halted, and said with an accent of malicious satisfaction:
“Ye were conquerors; ye are conquered! These others are perishing – you also. Ye shall all die in this place – every one – except him. He sleepeth now – and shall sleep thirteen centuries. I am Merlin!”
Then such a delirium of silly laughter overtook him that he reeled about like a drunken man, and presently fetched up against one of our wires. His mouth is spread open yet; apparently he is still laughing. I suppose the face will retain that petrified laugh until the corpse turns to dust.
The Boss has never stirred – sleeps like a stone. If he does not wake to-day, we shall understand what kind ofsleep it is, and his body will then be borne to a place in one of the remote recesses of the cave where none will ever find it to desecrate it. As for the rest of us – well, it is agreed that if any one of us ever escapes alive from this place, he will write the fact here, and loyally hide the Manuscript with the Boss, our dear good chief, whose property it is, be he alive or dead.
END OF MANUSCRIPT.
- Uke Man
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