The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (46 page)

"Here! how do you want that set, leaded, or solid?"

For about a moment the original Katzenyammer was surprised
out of himself; but the next moment he was all there, and jumped
up shouting—

You bastard of black magic, I'll"-he finished with his fist,
delivering a blow on the twin's jaw that would have broken anybody else's, but this jaw stood it uncrushed; then the pair danced
about the place hammering, banging, ramming each other like
battering machines, everybody looking on with wonder and awe
and admiration, and hoping neither of them would survive. They
fought half an hour, then sat down panting, exhausted, and streaming with blood-they hadn't strength to go on.

The pair sat glaring at each other a while, then the original said-

"Look here, my man, who are you, anyway? Answer up!"

"I'm Katzenyammer, foreman of the shop. That's who I am, if
you want to know."

"It's a lie. Have you been setting type in there?"

"Yes, I have."

"The hell you have! who told you you could?"

"I told myself. That's sufficient."

"Not on your life! Do you belong to the union?"

"No, I don't."

"Then you're a scab. Boys, up and at him!"

Which they did, with a will, fuming and cursing and swearing in
a way which it was an education to listen to. In another minute
there would not have been anything left of that Duplicate, I
reckon, but he promptly set up a ringing shout of "Help, boys,
help!" and in the same moment perfect Duplicates of all the rest of
us came swarming in and plunged into the battle!

But it was another draw. It had to be, for each Duplicate fought
his own mate and was his exact match, and neither could whip the
other. Then they tried the issue with swords, but it was a draw once
more. The parties drew apart, now, and acrimoniously discussed the
situation. The Duplicates refused to join the union, neither would
they throw up their job; they were stubbornly deaf to both threats
and persuasion. So there it was-just a deadlock! If the Duplicates
remained, the Originals were without a living-why, they couldn't even collect their waiting-time, now! Their impregnable position,
which they had been so proud of and so arrogant about had turned
to air and vacancy. These were very grave and serious facts, cold
and clammy ones; and the deeper they sank down into the consciousness of the ousted men the colder and clammier they became.

It was a hard situation, and pitiful. A person may say that the
men had only gotten what they deserved, but when that is said is all
said? I think not. They were only human beings, they had been
foolish, they deserved some punishment, but to take their very
bread was surely a punishment beyond the measure of their fault.
But there it was-the disaster was come, the calamity had fallen,
and no man could see a way out of the difficulty. The more one
examined it the more perplexing and baffling and irremediable it
seemed. And all so unjust, so unfair; for in the talk it came out that
the Duplicates did not need to eat or drink or sleep, so long as the
Originals did those things-there was enough for both; but when a
Duplicate did them, by George, his Original got no benefit out of it!
Then look at that other thing: the Originals were out of work and
wageless, yet they would be supporting these intruding scabs, out of
their food and drink, and by gracious not even a thank-you for it! It
came out that the scabs got no pay for their work in the shop, and
didn't care for it and wouldn't ask for it. Doangivadam finally hit
upon a fair and honorable compromise, as he thought, and the boys
came up a little out of their droop to listen. Doangivadam's idea
was, for the Duplicates to do the work, and for the Originals to take
the pay, and fairly and honorably eat and sleep enough for both. It
looked bright and hopeful for a moment, but then the clouds settled
down again: the plan wouldn't answer; it would not be lawful for
unions and scabs to have dealings together. So that idea had to be
given up, and everybody was gloomier than ever. Meantime Katzenyammer had been drinking hard, to drown his exasperations, but
it was not effective, he couldn't seem to hold enough, and yet he
was full. He was only half drunk; the trouble was, that his Duplicate had gotten the other half of the dividend, and was just as
drunk, and as insufficiently drunk, as he was. When he realized
this he was deeply hurt, and said reproachfully to his Duplicate, who sat there blinking and suffused with a divine contentment..- - - - - - - - -- - -

"Nobody asked you to partake; such conduct is grossly ill-bredno gentleman would do such a thing."

Some were sorry for the Duplicate, for he was not to blame, but
several of the Originals were evidently not sorry for him, but
offended at him and ashamed of him. But the Duplicate was not
affected, he did not say anything, but just blinked and looked
drowsy and grateful, the same as before.

The talk went on, but it arrived nowhere, of course. The situation remained despairingly incurable and desperate. Then the talk
turned upon the magician and 44, and quickly became bitter and
vengeful. When it was at its sharpest, the magician came mooning
in; and when he saw all those Duplicates he was either thunderstruck with amazement or he played it well. The men were vexed
to see him act so, and they said, indignantly-

"It's your own fiendish work and you needn't be pretending
surprise."

He was frightened at their looks and their manner, and hastened
to deny, with energy and apparent earnestness, that this was any
work of his; he said he had given a quite different command, and
he only wished 44 were here, he would keep his word and burn
him to ashes for misusing his enchantments; he said he would go
and find him; and was starting away, but they jumped in front of
him and barred his way, and Katzenyammer-original was furious,
and said-

"You are trying to escape, but you'll not! You don't have to stir
out of your tracks to produce that limb of perdition, and you know
it and we know it. Summon him-summon him and destroy him,
or I give my honor I will denounce you to the Holy Office!"

That was a plenty. The poor old man got white and shaky, and
put up his hand and mumbled some strange words, and in an
instant, bang! went a thunderclap, and there stood 44 in the midst,
dainty and gay in his butterfly clothes!

All sprang up with horror in their faces to protest, for at bottom
no one really wanted the boy destroyed, they only believed they
did; there was a scream, and Katrina came flying, with her gray hair streaming behind her; for one moment a blot of black darkness fell
upon the place and extinguished us all; the next moment in our
midst stood that slender figure transformed to a core of dazzling
white fire; in the succeeding moment it crumbled to ashes and we
were blotted out in the black darkness again. Out of it rose an
adoring cry-broken in the middle by a pause and a sob-

"The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away . . . . . . . blessed
be the name of the Lord!"

It was Katrina; it was the faithful Christian parting with its all,
yet still adoring the smiting hand.

I WENT invisible the most of the next clay, for I had no heart to
talk about common matters, and had rather a shrinking from talking about the matter which was uppermost in all minds. I was full
of sorrow, and also of remorse, which is the way with us in the first
days of a bereavement, and at such times we wish to be alone with
our trouble and our bitter recallings of failings of loyalty or love
toward the comrade who is gone. There were more of these sins to
my charge than I could have believed; they rose up and accused me
at every turn, and kept me saying with heart-wearing iteration,
"Oh, if he were only back again, how true I would be, and how
differently I would act." I remembered so many times when I could
perhaps have led him toward the life eternal, and had let the
chance go by; and now he was lost and I to blame, and where was I
to find comfort?

I always came back to that, I could not long persuade myself to
other and less torturing thoughts-such, for instance, as wonderings over his yielding to the temptation to overstep the bounds of
the magician's prohibition when he knew so well that it could cost
him his life. Over that, of a surety, I might and did wonder in vain,
quite in vain; there was no understanding it. He was volatile, and
lacking in prudence, I knew that; but I had not dreamed that he was entirely destitute of prudence, I had not dreamed that he could
actually risk his life to gratify a whim. Well, and what was I trying
to get out of these reasonings? This-and I had to confess it: I was
trying to excuse myself for my desertion of him in his sore need;
when my promised prayers, which might have saved him, were
withheld, and neglected, and even forgotten. I turned here and
there and yonder for solace, but in every path stood an accusing
spirit and barred the way; solace for me there was none.

No one of the household was indifferent to Katrina's grief, and
the most of them went to her and tried to comfort her. I was not of
these, I could not have borne it if she had asked me if I had prayed
as I had said I would, or if she had thanked me for my prayers,
taking for granted that I had kept my word. But I sat invisible
while the others offered their comforting words; and every sob that
came from her broken heart was another reproach and gave me a
guilty pang. But her misery could not be abated. She moaned and
wept, saying over and over again that if the magician had only
shown a little mercy, which could have cost him nothing, and had
granted time for a priest to come and give her boy absolution, all
would have been well, and now he would be happy in heaven and
she in the earth-but no! he had cruelly sent the lad unassoiled to
judgment and the eternal fires of hell, and so had doomed her also
to the pains of hell forevermore, for in heaven she should feel them
all the days of eternity, looking down upon him suffering there and
she powerless to assuage his thirst with one poor drop of water!

There was another thing which wrung her heart, and she could
not speak of it without new floods of tears: her boy had died
unreconciled to the Church, and his ashes could not be buried in
holy ground; no priest could be present, no prayer uttered above
them by consecrated lips, they were as the ashes of the beasts that
perish, and fit only to lie in a dishonored grave.

And now and then, with a new outburst of love and grief she
would paint the graces of his form, and the beauty of his young
face, and his tenderness for her, and tell this and that and the other
little thing that he had done or said, so dear and fond, so prized at
the time, so sacred now forevermore!

I could not endure it; and I floated from the place upon the
unrevealing air, and went wandering here and there disconsolate
and finding everywhere reminders of him, and a new heartbreak
with each.

By reason of the strange and uncanny tragedy, all the household
were in a subdued and timorous state, and full of vague and
formless and depressing apprehensions and boding terrors, and they
went wandering about, aimless, comfortless and forlorn; and such
talking together as there was, was of the disjointed and rambling
sort that indicates preoccupation. However, if the Duplicates were
properly of the household, what I have just been saying does not
include them. They were not affected, they did not seem interested.
They stuck industriously to their work, and one met them going to
it or coming from it, but they did not speak except when spoken to.
They did not go to the table, nor to the chess-room; they did not
seem to avoid us, they took no pains about that, they merely did not
seek us. But we avoided them, which was natural. Every time I met
myself unexpectedly I got a shock and caught my breath, and was
as irritated for being startled as a person is when he runs up against
himself in a mirror which he didn't know was there.

Of course the destruction of a youth by supernatural flames
summoned unlawfully from hell was not an event that could be
hidden. The news of it went quickly all about and made a great
and terrifying excitement in the village and the region, and at once
a summons came for the magician to appear before a commission of
the Holy Office. He could not be found. Then a second summons
was posted, admonishing him to appear within twentyfour hours or
remain subject to the pains and penalties attaching to contumacy. It
did not seem to us likely that he would accept either of these
invitations, if he could get out of it.

All day long, things went as I have described-a dreary time.
Next day it was the same, with the added gloom of the preparations
for the burial. This took place at midnight, in accordance with the
law in such cases, and was attended by all the occupants of the
castle except the sick lady and the Duplicates. We buried the ashes
in waste ground half a mile from the castle, without prayer or blessing, unless the tears of Katrina and our sorrow were in some
sense a blessing. It was a gusty night, with flurries of snow, and a
black sky with ragged cloud-rack driving across it. We came on
foot, bearing flaring and unsteady torches; and when all was over,
we inverted the torches and thrust them into the soft mould of the
grave and so left them, sole and perishable memorial and remembrancer of him who was gone.

Home again, it was with a burdened and desolate weight at my
heart that I entered my room. There sat the corpse!

MY SENSES forsook me and I should have fallen, but it put
up its hand and flipped its fingers toward me and this brought an
influence of some kind which banished my faint and restored me;
yes, more than that, for I was fresher and finer now than I had been
before the fatigues of the funeral. I started away at once and with
such haste as I could command, for I had never seen the day that I
was not afraid of a ghost or would stay where one was if there was
another place convenient. But I was stopped by a word, in a voice
which I knew and which was music to my ears-