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Feuilleton

Crime and Punishment

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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT PART I CHAPTER I On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge. He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her. This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie--no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen. This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely aware of his fears. "I want to attempt a thing _like that_ and am frightened by these trifles," he thought, with an odd smile. "Hm... yes, all is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.... But I am talking too much. It's because I chatter that


Twain's Mistake

Mark Twain at his house in New Hampshire, 1905

Mark Twain at his house in New Hampshire, 1905

Imagine: you're a respected senior citizen on your 70th birthday and widely praised for your poetry and your political accomplishments. You invite three close friends, all of them distinguished authors who've earned their stripes years and years ago. Then comes along a young brat, fancies himself very clever, and starts to publicly ridicule your guests of honor. What is he thinking?

Incredibly, Mark Twain did something similar in his speech on the occasion of the 70th birthday of John Greenleaf Whittier in 1877. Present were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Twain told a ludicrous story featuring these well-respected men as a bunch of rude drunkards. According to the authors of The Harper American Literature, the audience was horrified. Even so, wouldn't there be anything to say in Twain's favor?

Portrait painting done by Frank Millet, 1877.

Portrait painting done by Frank Millet, 1877.

Twenty nine years after his offence, Twain received a letter from a Mrs. H., or so he writes in his autobiography. She and her family were present the night of the occasion and they found humor in the speech. Twain still falls back in shame whenever he is reminded of the event, but Mrs. H.'s letter persuades him to look at his old speech again. To his surprise, he finds no single fault in it! He writes: "It is just as good as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with humor. There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it anywhere." It puzzles him. Was he too young and inexperienced to deliver the lines right? Given the chance he would have the room roaring with laughter, or so he thinks.

The autobiography shows that Twain was not deliberately malicious that night. He repeatedly states that he's ashamed of what he did and even calls himself 'imbecile'. Recollecting the long-gone evening, Twain describes the three old men in a very sweet way: the 'supernaturally grave' Emerson, the 'benignant face' of Longfellow and the 'good-fellowship' of Holmes. Surely he respected them; the disagreement was of a literary nature. While the elderly three only wrote for the educated upper-class, Twain was one of the first to capture the talk of the street, and the misery of it, in his books. Therein lies his motivation to, lovingly, attack 'the old deities' as he calls them. In fact, when you look at the speech, it becomes quite clear. Twain amplifies and contrasts the difference in style:

The old authors enter the cabin of a miner in the hills of the Sierras, using their 'nom de guerre' (fame) to demand food and liquor: "Give me agates for my meat; Give me cantharids to eat; From air and ocean bring me foods, From all zones and altitudes", says Emerson. The polite miner starts serving the men, but the authors soon annoy him. To Holmes he says: "Looky here, my fat friend, I'm a-running this shanty, and if the court knows herself, you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go dry."

As Twain rightfully observes, a daring story like this should be told with the utmost self confidence and wit. He remembers that the crowd turned dead silent. Not having much experience in public speaking, he went on with his speech feeling very uncomfortable. He might have redeemed himself by stopping and apologizing, putting emphasis on his respect for the old men. Instead it appeared that he resented the guests of honor, leaving him embarrassed for almost thirty years.

By Mark Zaremba, Madrid, February 25, 2008

Portrait painting done by Frank Millet, 1877.

Twain also was a Mississippi river steamboat pilot.