Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (Vols. I-II) Chapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France
by Mark Twain
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 deat; 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 down 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.