Read The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) Online
Authors: Mark Twain
Stein declares he will pay no more funerals. They stop.
Upon reflection I find my way is not clear, for certainly Martin is
another & not I. It is he that is Lisbet's husband.
I must renounce that marriage & win her in my own person.
By & by.
Visit other centuries to ease my heart. Marry there, by compulsion
44 shows me dream-wonders & music of spheres, but I can't
describe them, there being nothing to compare them with.
D-4
P.O. DEPT. doesn't use [MT wrote `used'] dreams so much now,
they use the late French King's post.
Katrina has dream?
Shall her implorations restore 44? 1 think so
44 must turn to animals.
Have him be a mountebank with trained animals-they talk together.
Adolf arrest the lot
D-5
INDULGENCE-murder produces one signed by Adolf, but he
points out it only saves his soul, not his life. Court doubts, but yields.
GHOST-NIGHT-castle full of spectres & wandering lights. Distant groans & cries-flight & pursuit, noiseless.
The murderer is I or my Duplicate, they can't tell which; I confess
I did it but I won't tell which. The indulgence names the Duplicate
& 44 claims to be he & that a duplicate is not human & not amenable
to law. Court is uncertain.
D-6
The emperor said:
"They blame an emperor for his appetite for notice & praise:
Look at God!"
His Majesty old Henry MMMMMDCXXII (of savage) The
Blasphemous/Uncultured said-"Yes, I am fond of (what the
books call) praises, processions, notice, attentions, reverence, fuss &
feathers. Vanities? Are they? There was never n a living creature nor
even n a god that didn't like them." [this paragraph canceled with a
single line]
D-7
I
Kings and all. [circled] All Amen n are so very very little, so
microscopically little, not alone to the eye of God but when they searchin[g]ly & honestly examine them-[selves) it seems foolish to go
thro the pretence of detecting differences & distinctions.
D-8
2
Let your condition be what it may, you will provide yourself with
the same amount of unhappiness required by your born disposition
-king & tramp alike.
D-9
3B
Pity-don't scoff at & despise & hate the race. It is (sw) victim of a
swindle, & the arbitrary character of its nature makes it blameless.
It has no responsibility.
(Both talk gently & earnestly.)
D-10
You wouldn't like everybody to (admire) (A applaud n) ["admire"
reinstated] you?
A Well .... no. A
You wouldn't like anybody to admire all sides of your character?
Why?
Nemmine. (Tell you)
Wouldn't you he satisfied if the "best people" admired as much of
your character & conduct as you do?
NO-(& that is honest.)
D-11
(B) DREAM-LIFE
A funeral;
accident;
loss of wealth;
" " wife & child
Crossed in love—
It bites, it cuts, it tears,-but keep heart, it is not real.
There is but one person in the Universe-you are he, & you are
merely a wandering Thought.
Group E
These notes, in the blue-black ink of MS pp. 432-587, on four sheets of
Par Value tablet stock, were written during 1905.
E-1
1
1 Cat passes through-she will bring news.
A 44 says n Those boys are out of date in the matter of conveying
messages-go by Fr.[ench] K[ing]'s post, now. I remember the fat &
the lean kine.
The dreams are all right enough, but the art of interpreting is
lost. 1500 yr ago they were getting to do it A SO A badly it was
considered better to depend on (augurs-do you know about those?
Yes,)
chicken-guts & other naturally intelligent sources of prophecy, recognising that when guts can't prophecy it is no use for Ezekiel to
go into the business.
Prophecy went out with the chicken guts.
E-2
2
Everything at standstill because of the missing 3.
A Search for them, must be missing 3 days n
By indulgence from Adolf:
Conspiracy to massacre the Duplicates. A by the strikers. A
Cat overhears
I lave to have signs passwords grips so as to tell who are Duplicates.
Cat reports them to August, & he, invisible, betrays them to Duplicates.
CAT [sidelined in margin]
Now is my chance, if I can only win her in my own name—
Take father Peter's advice-he says Martin is quite another person
-"green goods"