WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

much white lace; also great pictured banners, at intervals,

receding into the distance.

A hum of tolling bells makes itself heard, but not sharply.

At three-fifty-eight a waiting interval. Presently a long

procession of gentlemen in evening dress comes in sight and

approaches until it is near to the square, then falls back

against the wall of soldiers at the sidewalk, and the white

shirt-fronts show like snowflakes and are very conspicuous where

so much warm color is all about.

A waiting pause. At four-twelve the head of the funeral

procession comes into view at last. First, a body of cavalry,

four abreast, to widen the path. Next, a great body of lancers,

in blue, with gilt helmets. Next, three six-horse mourning-

coaches; outriders and coachmen in black, with cocked hats and

white wigs. Next, troops in splendid uniforms, red, gold, and

white, exceedingly showy.

Now the multitude uncover. The soldiers present arms; there

is a low rumble of drums; the sumptuous great hearse approaches,

drawn at a walk by eight black horses plumed with black bunches

of nodding ostrich feathers; the coffin is borne into the church,

the doors are closed.

The multitude cover their heads, and the rest of the

procession moves by; first the Hungarian Guard in their

indescribably brilliant and picturesque and beautiful uniform,

inherited from the ages of barbaric splendor, and after them

other mounted forces, a long and showy array.

Then the shining crown in the square crumbled apart, a

wrecked rainbow, and melted away in radiant streams, and in the

turn of a wrist the three dirtiest and raggedest and cheerfulest

little slum-girls in Austria were capering about in the spacious

vacancy. It was a day of contrasts.

Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state. The first time

was in 1854, when she was a bride of seventeen, and then she rode

in measureless pomp and with blare of music through a fluttering

world of gay flags and decorations, down streets walled on both

hands with a press of shouting and welcoming subjects; and the

second time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her

coffin and moved down the same streets in the dead of the night

under swaying black flags, between packed human walls again; but

everywhere was a deep stillness, now–a stillness emphasized,

rather than broken, by the muffled hoofbeats of the long

cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, and the low sobbing

of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entry forty-four

years before, when she and they were young–and unaware!

A character in Baron von Berger’s recent fairy drama

“Habsburg” tells about the first coming of the girlish Empress-

Queen, and in his history draws a fine picture: I cannot make a

close translation of it, but will try to convey the spirit of the

verses:

I saw the stately pageant pass:

In her high place I saw the Empress-Queen:

I could not take my eyes away

From that fair vision, spirit-like and pure,

That rose serene, sublime, and figured to my sense

A noble Alp far lighted in the blue,

That in the flood of morning rends its veil of cloud

And stands a dream of glory to the gaze

Of them that in the Valley toil and plod.

——————————————————————

A SCRAP OF CURIOUS HISTORY

Marion City, on the Mississippi River, in the State of

Missouri–a village; time, 1845. La Bourboule-les-Bains, France

–a village; time, the end of June, 1894. I was in the one

village in that early time; I am in the other now. These times

and places are sufficiently wide apart, yet today I have the

strange sense of being thrust back into that Missourian village

and of reliving certain stirring days that I lived there so long

ago.

Last Saturday night the life of the President of the French

Republic was taken by an Italian assassin. Last night a mob

surrounded our hotel, shouting, howling, singing the

“Marseillaise,” and pelting our windows with sticks and stones;

for we have Italian waiters, and the mob demanded that they be

turned out of the house instantly–to be drubbed, and then driven

out of the village. Everybody in the hotel remained up until far

into the night, and experienced the several kinds of terror which