Was It Heaven? Or Hell? by MARK TWAIN
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Was it Heaven? Or Hell? BY MARK TWAIN I that can paint the consternation of the "you told a lie?" aunts. It was as if the sky had crumpled "You confess it-you actually up and collapsed and the earth had tum- confess it-you told a lie!" bled to ruin with a crash. They sat side by side, white and stern, gazing speech- II less upon the culprit, who was on her The family consisted of four persons: knees before them with her face buried Margaret Lester, widow, aged thirty-six; first in one lap and then the other, moan- Helen Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen; ing and sobbing, and appealing for sym- Mrs. Lester's maiden aunts, Hannah and pathy and forgiveness and getting no Hester Gray, twins, aged sixty-seven. response, humbly kissing the hand of the Waking and sleeping, the three women one, then of the other, only to see it with- spent' their days and nights in adoring drawn as suffering defilement by those the young girl; in watching the move- soiled lips. ments of her sweet spirit in the mirror Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, of her face; in refreshing their souls in frozen amazement, with the vision of her bloom and beauty; " You told a lie?" in listening to the music of her voice; Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah fol- in gratefully recognizing how rich and lowed with the muttered and amazed fair for them was the world with this ejaculation, presence in it; in shuddering to think "You confess it-you actually confess how desolate it would be with this light it-yon told a lie!" gone out of it. It was all they could say. The situa- By nature-and inside-the agee!aunts tion was new, unheard-of, incredible; were utterly dear and lovable and good, they could not understand it, they did but in the matter of morals and conduct not know how to take hold of it, it ap- their' training had been so uncompromis- proximately paralyzed speech. ingly strict that it had made them ex- At length it was decided that the err-ing teriorly austere, not to say stern. Their child must be taken to her mother, who influence was effective in the house; so was ill, and who ought to 'know what effective that the mother and the daugh- had happened. Helen begged, besought, ter conformed to its moral and religious implored that she might be spared this requirements cheerfully, contentedly, hap- further disgrace, and that her mother pily, unquestioningly. To do this was be- might be spared the grief and pain of it; come second nature to them. And so in but this could not be: duty required this this peaceful heaven there were no clash- sacrifice, duty takes precedence of all ings, no irritations; no fault-findings, no things, nothing can absolve one from heart-burnings. a duty, with a duty no compromise In it a lie had no place. In it a lie is possible. was unthinkable. In it speech was re- Helen still begged, and said the sin stricted to absolute truth, iron-bound was her own, her mother had had no hand I truth, implacable and uncompromising in it,-why must she be made to suffer truth, let the resulting consequences be for it? ' what they might. At last, one day, un- But the aunts were obdurate in their der stress of circumstances, the darling righteousness, and said the law that visit- of the house sullied her lips with a lie- ed the sins of the parent upon the child and confessed it, with tears and self- was by all right and reason reversihle ; upbraidings. There are not any words and therefore it was but just tha t the VOL,CVI.-No, 631.-2 12 HARPER'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE.. innocent mother of a sinning child should greatly in the majority, attended to that. suffer her rightful share of the grief and Whatever the doctor believed, he believed pain and shame which were the allotted with all his heart, and would fight for wages of the sin. it whenever he got the chance; and if The three moved toward the sick-room. the intervals between chances grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways of AL this time the doctor was approach- shortening them himself. He was severe- ing the house. He was still a good dis- ly conscientious, according to his rather tance away, however. He was a good independent lights, and whatever he took doctor and a good man, and he had a to be a duty he performed, no matter good heart, but one had to know him whether the judgment of the professional a year to get over hating him, two moralists agreed with his own or not. At years to learn to endure him, three to sea, in his young days, he had used pro- learn to like him, and four or five to fanity freely, but as soon as he was con- Iearn to love him. It was 11 slow and verted he made a rule, which he rigidly trying education, but it paid. He was of stuck to ever afterwards, never to use it great stature; he had a leonine head, a except on the rarest occasions, and then leonine face, a rough voice, and an eye only when duty commanded. He had which was sometimes a pirate's and some- been a hard drinker at sea, but after his times a woman's, according to the mood. conversion he became a firm and. out- He knew nothing about etiquette, and spoken teetotaler, in order to be an ex- cared nothing about it; in speech, man- ample to the young, and from that time ner, carriage, and conduct he was the forth he seldom drank; never, indeed, ex- reverse of conventional. He was frank, cept when it seemed to him to be a duty, to the limit; he had opinions on all sub- -a condition which sometimes occurred a jects; they were always on tap and ready couple of times a year, but never as many for delivery, and he cared not a farthing as five times. whether his listener liked them or didn't. Necessarily such a man is impression- Whom he loved he loved, and manifest- able, impulsive, emotional. This one was, ed it; whom he didn't love he hated, and and had no gift at hiding his feelings; published it from the house-tops. In his or if he had it he took no trouble to exer- young days he had been a sailor, and the cise it. He carried his soul's prevailing salt airs of all the seas blew from him yet. weather in his face, and when he entered He was a sturdy and loyal Ohristian, a room the parasols or the umbrellas went and believed he was the best one in the up-figuratively speaking-according to land, and the only one whose Christianity the indications. When the soft light was was perfectly sound, healthy, full-charged in his eye it meant approval, and deliv- with common-sense, and had no decayed ered a benediction; when he came with places in it. People who had an axe to a frown he lowered the temperature ten grind, or people who for any reason want- degrees. He was a well-beloved man in ed to get on the soft side of him, called the house of his friends, but sometimes him The Ohristian,-a phrase whose deli- a dreaded one. cate flattery was music to his ears, and He had a deep affection for the Lester whose capital T was such an enchanting household, and its several members re- and vivid object to him that he could see turned this feeling with interest. They it when it fell out of a person's mouth mourned over his kind of Christianity, even in the dark. Many who were fond and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both of him stood on their consciences with parties went on loving each other just both feet ani! brazenly called him by that the same. large title habitually, because it was a He was approaching the house-out of pleasure to them to do anything that the distance; the aunts and the culprit would please him; and with eager and were moving toward the sick-chamber. cordial malice his extensive and diligent- ly cultivated crop of enemies gilded it, III beflowered it, expanded it to "The Only The three last named stood by the bed; Christian." Of these two titles, the latter the aunts austere, the transgressor softly had the wider currency; the enemy, being sobbing. The mother turned her head WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL? 13 on the pillow; her tired eyes flamed up clouded over again at once; and as he instantly with sympathy and passionate sat down he said: mother -love when they fell upon her "You two have been doing a lot of child, and she opened the refuge and shel- damage-and maybe some good. Sarno ter of her arms. good, yes-such as it is. That woman's "Wait!" said Aunt Hannah, and put disease is typhoid! You've brought it out her hand and stayed the girl from to a show-up, I think, with your insan- leaping into them. ities, and that's a service-such as it is. "Helen," said the other aunt, impres- I hadn't been able to determine what it sively, "tell your mother all. Purge your was before." soul; leave nothing unconfessed." With one impulse the old ladies sprang Standing stricken and forlorn before to their feet, quaking with terror.