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Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Chapter 3
SPEAKING OF this matter reminds me of many incidents, many things that I
could tell, but I think I will not try to do it now. It will be more to
my present humor to call back a little glimpse of the simple and
colorless good times we used to have in our village homes in those
peaceful days--especially in the winter. In the summer we children were
out on the breezy uplands with the flocks from dawn till night, and then
there was noisy frolicking and all that; but winter was the cozy time,
winter was the snug time. Often we gathered in old Jacques d'Arc's big
dirt-floored apartment, with a great fire going, and played games, and
sang songs, and told fortunes, and listened to the old villagers tell
tales and histories and lies and one thing and another till twelve
o'clock at night.
One winter's night we were gathered there--it was the winter that for
years afterward they called the hard winter--and that particular night
was a sharp one. It blew a gale outside, and the screaming of the wind
was a stirring sound, and I think I may say it was beautiful, for I think
it is great and fine and beautiful to hear the wind rage and storm and
blow its clarions like that, when you are inside and comfortable. And we
were. We had a roaring fire, and the pleasant spit-spit of the snow and
sleet falling in it down the chimney, and the yarning and laughing and
singing went on at a noble rate till about ten o'clock, and then we had a
supper of hot porridge and beans, and meal cakes with butter, and
appetites to match.
Little Joan sat on a box apart, and had her bowl and bread on another
one, and her pets around her helping. She had more than was usual of them
or economical, because all the outcast cats came and took up with her,
and homeless or unlovable animals of other kinds heard about it and came,
and these spread the matter to the other creatures, and they came also;
and as the birds and the other timid wild things of the woods were not
afraid of her, but always had an idea she was a friend when they came
across her, and generally struck up an acquaintance with her to get
invited to the house, she always had samples of those breeds in stock.
She was hospitable to them all, for an animal was an animal to her, and
dear by mere reason of being an animal, no matter about its sort or
social station; and as she would allow of no cages, no collars, no
fetters, but left the creatures free to come and go as they liked, that
contented them, and they came; but they didn't go, to any extent, and so
they were a marvelous nuisance, and made Jacques d'Arc swear a good deal;
but his wife said God gave the child the instinct, and knew what He was
doing when He did it, therefore it must have its course; it would be no
sound prudence to meddle with His affairs when no invitation had been
extended. So the pets were left in peace, and here they were, as I have
said, rabbits, birds, squirrels, cats, and other reptiles, all around the
child, and full of interest in her supper, and helping what they could.
There was a very small squirrel on her shoulder, sitting up, as those
creatures do, and turning a rocky fragment of prehistoric chestnut-cake
over and over in its knotty hands, and hunting for the less indurated
places, and giving its elevated bushy tail a flirt and its pointed ears a
toss when it found one--signifying thankfulness and surprise--and then it
filed that place off with those two slender front teeth which a squirrel
carries for that purpose and not for ornament, for ornamental they never
could be, as any will admit that have noticed them.
Everything was going fine and breezy and hilarious, but then there came
an interruption, for somebody hammered on the door. It was one of those
ragged road-stragglers--the eternal wars kept the country full of them.
He came in, all over snow, and stamped his feet, and shook, and brushed
himself, and shut the door, and took off his limp ruin of a hat, and
slapped it once or twice against his leg to knock off its fleece of snow,
and then glanced around on the company with a pleased look upon his thin
face, and a most yearning and famished one in his eye when it fell upon
the victuals, and then he gave us a humble and conciliatory salutation,
and said it was a blessed thing to have a fire like that on such a night,
and a roof overhead like this, and that rich food to eat, and loving
friends to talk with--ah, yes, this was true, and God help the homeless,
and such as must trudge the roads in this weather.
Nobody said anything. The embarrassed poor creature stood there and
appealed to one face after the other with his eyes, and found no welcome
in any, the smile on his own face flickering and fading and perishing,
meanwhile; then he dropped his gaze, the muscles of his face began to
twitch, and he put up his hand to cover this womanish sign of weakness.
"Sit down!"
This thunder-blast was from old Jacques d'Arc, and Joan was the object of
it. The stranger was startled, and took his hand away, and there was Joan
standing before him offering him her bowl of porridge. The man said:
"God Almighty bless you, my darling!" and then the tears came, and ran
down his cheeks, but he was afraid to take the bowl.
"Do you hear me? Sit down, I say!"
There could not be a child more easy to persuade than Joan, but this was
not the way. Her father had not the art; neither could he learn it. Joan
said:
"Father, he is hungry; I can see it."
"Let him work for food, then. We are being eaten out of house and home by
his like, and I have said I would endure it no more, and will keep my
word. He has the face of a rascal anyhow, and a villain. Sit down, I tell
you!"
"I know not if he is a rascal or no, but he is hungry, father, and shall
have my porridge--I do not need it."
"If you don't obey me I'll-- Rascals are not entitled to help from honest
people, and no bite nor sup shall they have in this house. Joan!"
She set her bowl down on the box and came over and stood before her
scowling father, and said:
"Father, if you will not let me, then it must be as you say; but I would
that you would think--then you would see that it is not right to punish
one part of him for what the other part has done; for it is that poor
stranger's head that does the evil things, but it is not his head that is
hungry, it is his stomach, and it has done no harm to anybody, but is
without blame, and innocent, not having any way to do a wrong, even if it
was minded to it. Please let--"
"What an idea! It is the most idiotic speech I ever heard."
But Aubrey, the maire, broke in, he being fond of an argument, and having
a pretty gift in that regard, as all acknowledged. Rising in his place
and leaning his knuckles upon the table and looking about him with easy
dignity, after the manner of such as be orators, he began, smooth and
persuasive:
"I will differ with you there, gossip, and will undertake to show the
company"--here he looked around upon us and nodded his head in a
confident way--"that there is a grain of sense in what the child has
said; for look you, it is of a certainty most true and demonstrable that
it is a man's head that is master and supreme ruler over his whole body.
Is that granted? Will any deny it?" He glanced around again; everybody
indicated assent. "Very well, then; that being the case, no part of the
body is responsible for the result when it carries out an order delivered
to it by the head; ergo, the head is alone responsible for crimes done by
a man's hands or feet or stomach--do you get the idea? am I right thus
far?" Everybody said yes, and said it with enthusiasm, and some said, one
to another, that the maire was in great form to-night and at his very
best--which pleased the maire exceedingly and made his eyes sparkle with
pleasure, for he overheard these things; so he went on in the same
fertile and brilliant way. "Now, then, we will consider what the term
responsibility means, and how it affects the case in point.
Responsibility makes a man responsible for only those things for which he
is properly responsible"--and he waved his spoon around in a wide sweep
to indicate the comprehensive nature of that class of responsibilities
which render people responsible, and several exclaimed, admiringly, "He
is right!--he has put that whole tangled thing into a nutshell--it is
wonderful!" After a little pause to give the interest opportunity to
gather and grow, he went on: "Very good. Let us suppose the case of a
pair of tongs that falls upon a man's foot, causing a cruel hurt. Will
you claim that the tongs are punishable for that? The question is
answered; I see by your faces that you would call such a claim absurd.
Now, why is it absurd? It is absurd because, there being no reasoning
faculty--that is to say, no faculty of personal command--in a pair of
togs, personal responsibility for the acts of the tongs is wholly absent
from the tongs; and, therefore, responsibility being absent, punishment
cannot ensue. Am I right?" A hearty burst of applause was his answer.
"Now, then, we arrive at a man's stomach. Consider how exactly, how
marvelously, indeed, its situation corresponds to that of a pair of
tongs. Listen--and take careful note, I beg you. Can a man's stomach plan
a murder? No. Can it plan a theft? No. Can it plan an incendiary fire?
No. Now answer me--can a pair of tongs?" (There were admiring shouts of
"No!" and "The cases are just exact!" and "Don't he do it splendid!")
"Now, then, friends and neighbors, a stomach which cannot plan a crime
cannot be a principal in the commission of it--that is plain, as you see.
The matter is narrowed down by that much; we will narrow it further. Can
a stomach, of its own motion, assist at a crime? The answer is no,
because command is absent, the reasoning faculty is absent, volition is
absent--as in the case of the tongs. We perceive now, do we not, that the
stomach is totally irresponsible for crimes committed, either in whole or
in part, by it?" He got a rousing cheer for response. "Then what do we
arrive at as our verdict? Clearly this: that there is no such thing in
this world as a guilty stomach; that in the body of the veriest rascal
resides a pure and innocent stomach; that, whatever it's owner may do, it
at least should be sacred in our eyes; and that while God gives us minds
to think just and charitable and honorable thoughts, it should be, and
is, our privilege, as well as our duty, not only to feed the hungry
stomach that resides in a rascal, having pity for its sorrow and its
need, but to do it gladly, gratefully, in recognition of its sturdy and
loyal maintenance of its purity and innocence in the midst of temptation
and in company so repugnant to its better feelings. I am done."
Well, you never saw such an effect! They rose--the whole house rose--an
clapped, and cheered, and praised him to the skies; and one after
another, still clapping and shouting, they crowded forward, some with
moisture in their eyes, and wrung his hands, and said such glorious
things to him that he was clear overcome with pride and happiness, and
couldn't say a word, for his voice would have broken, sure. It was
splendid to see; and everybody said he had never come up to that speech
in his life before, and never could do it again. Eloquence is a power,
there is no question of that. Even old Jacques d'Arc was carried away,
for once in his life, and shouted out:
"It's all right, Joan--give him the porridge!"
She was embarrassed, and did not seem to know what to say, and so didn't
say anything. It was because she had given the man the porridge long ago
and he had already eaten it all up. When she was asked why she had not
waited until a decision was arrived at, she said the man's stomach was
very hungry, and it would not have been wise to wait, since she could not
tell what the decision would be. Now that was a good and thoughtful idea
for a child.
The man was not a rascal at all. He was a very good fellow, only he was
out of luck, and surely that was no crime at that time in France. Now
that his stomach was proved to be innocent, it was allowed to make itself
at home; and as soon as it was well filled and needed nothing more, the
man unwound his tongue and turned it loose, and it was really a noble one
to go. He had been in the wars for years, and the things he told and the
way he told them fired everybody's patriotism away up high, and set all
hearts to thumping and all pulses to leaping; then, before anybody
rightly knew how the change was made, he was leading us a sublime march
through the ancient glories of France, and in fancy we saw the titanic
forms of the twelve paladins rise out of the mists of the past and face
their fate; we heard the tread of the innumerable hosts sweeping down to
shut them in; we saw this human tide flow and ebb, ebb and flow, and
waste away before that little band of heroes; we saw each detail pass
before us of that most stupendous, most disastrous, yet most adored and
glorious day in French legendary history; here and there and yonder,
across that vast field of the dead and dying, we saw this and that and
the other paladin dealing his prodigious blows with weary arm and failing
strength, and one by one we saw them fall, till only one remained--he
that was without peer, he whose name gives name to the Song of Songs, the
song which no Frenchman can hear and keep his feelings down and his pride
of country cool; then, grandest and pitifulest scene of all, we saw his
own pathetic death; and out stillness, as we sat with parted lips and
breathless, hanging upon this man's words, gave us a sense of the awful
stillness that reigned in that field of slaughter when that last
surviving soul had passed.
And now, in this solemn hush, the stranger gave Joan a pat or two on the
head and said:
"Little maid--whom God keep!--you have brought me from death to life this
night; now listen: here is your reward," and at that supreme time for
such a heart-melting, soul-rousing surprise, without another word he
lifted up the most noble and pathetic voice that was ever heard, and
began to pour out the great Song of Roland!
Think of that, with a French audience all stirred up and ready. Oh, where
was your spoken eloquence now! what was it to this! How fine he looked,
how stately, how inspired, as he stood there with that mighty chant
welling from his lips and his heart, his whole body transfigured, and his
rags along with it.
Everybody rose and stood while he sang, and their faces glowed and their
eyes burned; and the tears came and flowed don their cheeks and their
forms began to sway unconsciously to the swing of the song, and their
bosoms to heave and pant; and moanings broke out, and deep ejaculations;
and when the last verse was reached, and Roland lay dying, all alone,
with his face to the field and to his slain, lying there in heaps and
winrows, and took off and held up his gauntlet to God with his failing
hand, and breathed his beautiful prayer with his paling pips, all burst
out in sobs and wailings. But when the final great note died out and the
song was done, they all flung themselves in a body at the singer, stark
mad with love of him and love of France and pride in her great deeds and
old renown, and smothered him with their embracings; but Joan was there
first, hugged close to his breast, and covering his face with idolatrous
kisses.
The storm raged on outside, but that was no matter; this was the
stranger's home now, for as long as he might please.
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