A Tramp Abroad - The Original Classic Edition. Twain Mark

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СКАЧАТЬ in force. The emperor said it was--but charitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so precious a life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the world's most illustrious heroes.

       But this tramp only asked--"Were any of these heroes men of science?" This raised a laugh, of course, for science was despised in those days. But the tramp was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a little

       in advance of his age, but no matter--science would come to be honored, some time or other. He said he would march against the dragon in the morning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, but he declined, and said, "spears were useless to men of science." They allowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the

       stables.

       When he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see.

       The emperor said:

       "Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack."

       But the tramp said:

       "It is not a knapsack," and moved straight on.

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       The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast volumes

       of sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight

       stole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical

       knapsack--which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to modern times--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the

       dragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires

       in an instant, and the dragon curled up and died.

       This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the egg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and patiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus he had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out

       the dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die. He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the extinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck and said:

       "Deliverer, name your request," at the same time beckoning out behind with his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance. But the tramp gave them no observance. He simply said:

       "My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany."

       The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:

       "This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand, by my halidome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be

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       done with it?"

       But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed from the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to

       buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them or not.

       So originated the widespread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany;

       and as a custom once established in these old lands is imperishable, this one remains universal in the empire to this day. Such is the legend of the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle, now called the "Spectacular Ruin."

       On the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, we passed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water from the crest of a lofty elevation. A stretch of two hundred yards of the high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass

       of buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The place was in fine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. This castle had its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeating it

       because I doubted the truth of some of its minor details.

       Along in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting away the frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They were fifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp corner

       they began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for the

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       explosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could WE do? You can't back a raft upstream, you can't hurry it downstream, you can't

       scatter out to one side when you haven't any room to speak of, you won't take to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear to

       be blasting there, too. Your resources are limited, you see. There is simply nothing for it but to watch and pray.

       For some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles an hour and we were still making that. We had been dancing right along until

       those men began to shout; then for the next ten minutes it seemed to me

       that I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast went off we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result. No harm done; none of the stones fell in the water. Another blast followed, and another and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the water just astern of us.

       We ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it was certainly one of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, either aship or ashore. Of course we frequently manned the poles and shoved earnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts of dust and debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole and looked up to get the bearings of his share of it. It was very busy times along there for

       a while. It appeared certain that we must perish, but even that was not the bitterest thought; no, the abjectly unheroic nature of the

       death--that was the sting--that and the bizarre wording of the resulting

       obituary: "SHOT WITH A ROCK, ON A RAFT." There would be no poetry written about it. None COULD be written about it. Example:

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       NOT by war's shock, or war's shaft,--SHOT, with a rock, on a raft.

       No poet who valued his reputation would touch such a theme as that. I should be distinguished as the only "distinguished dead" who went down to the grave unsonneted, in 1878.

       But we escaped, and I have never regretted it. The last blast was a peculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done raining around us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, a later and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedestrians and wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to the water just the same.

       It seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railway gradings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We have

       the notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, but confine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding, operatic singing, and assassination. We have blundered, that is plain.

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