Марк Твен

Mark   Twain

       (born   1835   –   died  1910)

      Mark Twain is the pen-name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, one of the

greatest figures in American literature. He is known as a humorist and satirist of a

remarkable force. Mark Twain believed that against the assault of laughter nothing

can stand. And we hear his laughter, now playful and boisterous, now bitter and

sneering almost in all his writings.

      “The   Adventures   of   Tom   Sawyer”,   “The   Innocents   Abroad”,   “The

Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” won their creator a world-wide and enduring

popularity.   They   are   peopled   with   typical   figures   presented   with   great

truthfulness.

      Mark Twain began writing purely as a humorist, he later became a bitter

satirist. Towards the end of his life he grew more and more disillusioned and

dissatisfied with the American mode of life. In his later works (“The Connecticut

Yankee”, “The Map that Corrupted Hadleyburg”) his satire becomes trenchant.

      He ridiculed corruption, social ignorance, stupidity and the whole “Gilded

Age” as he branded contemporary bourgeois society.

      His deep scorn of all sorts of sham and corruption, his hatred of hypocrisy

can be found in his novels as well as in his short stories.

      “An Encounter with an Interviewer” (1875) is a parody on the American

press.   Within   the   limited   space   of   this   story   we   can   see   technical   devices   so

characteristic of Twain’s comic works – exaggeration, mockseriousness at the

funniest moments.

        AN ENCOUNTER WITH INTERVIEWER

                                                                             (1875)

      The nervous, dapper, “peart” young man took the chair I offered him,

and said he was connected with the Daily Thunderstorm, and added, –

      “Hoping it’s no harm, I’ve come to interview you”.

      “Come to what?”

      “Interview  you.”

      “Ah! I see. Yes-yes. Um! Yes-yes.”

      I was not feeling bright that morning. Indeed, my powers seemed a

bit under a cloud. However, I went to the bookcase, and when I had been

looking six or seven minutes I found I was obliged to refer to the young

man. I said, –

      “How do you spell it?”

      “Spell what?”

      “Interview.”

      “Oh, my goodness! What do you want to spell it for?”

      “I don’t want to spell it; I want to see what it means.”

      “Well, this is astonishing, I must say. I can tell you what it means, if

you – if you…”

      “Oh, all right! That will answer, and much oblige to you, too.”

      “In, in , ter, ter, inter-”

      “Then you spell it with an I?”

      “Why, certainly!”

      “Oh, that is what took me so long”.

      “Why my dear sir, what didyou propose to spell it with?”

      “Well, I-I-I hardly know. I had the Unabridged and I was ciphering

around in the back end hoping I might tree her among the pictures. But it’s

a very old edition.”

      “Why, my friend, they wouldn’t have apicture of it in even the latest –

my dear sir, I beg your pardon, I mean no harm in the world, but you do not

look as-as intelligent as I had expected you would. No harm, – I mean no

harm at all.”

      Oh, don’t mention it! It has often been said, and by people who

would not flatter and who could have inducement to flatter, that I am

quite   remarkable   in   that   way.   Yes-yes;   they   always   speak   of   it   with

rapture.”

      “I can easily imagine it. But about this interview. You know it is the

custom, now, to interview any man who has become notorious.”

      “Indeed! I had not heard of it before. It must be very interesting.

What do you do it with?”

  “Ah, well-well-well – this is disheartening. It ought to be done with a

club in some cases; but customarily it consists in the interviewer asking

questions and the interviewed answering them. It is all the rage now. Will

you let me ask you certain questions calculated to bring out the salient

points of your public and private history?”

      “Oh, with pleasure – with pleasure. I have a very bad memory,

but   I   hope   you   will   not   mean   that.   That   is   to   say,   it   is   an   irregular

memory – singularly irregular. Sometimes it goes in a gallop, and then,

again it will be as much as a fortnight passing a given point. This is a

great grief to me.”

      “Oh, it is no matter, so you will try to do the best you can.”

      “I will. I will put my whole mind on it.”

      “Thanks. Are you ready to begin?”

      “Ready.”

      Q: How old are you?

      A: Nineteen, in June.

      Q: Indeed! I would have taken you to be thirty-five or six. Where

were you born?

      A: In Missouri.

      Q: When did you begin to write?

      A: In 1836.

      Q: Why, how could that be, if  you are only nineteen now?

      A: I don’t know. It does seem        curious,   somehow.

      Q: It does, indeed. Whom do you consider the most remarkable man

you ever met?

      A: Aaron Burr.

      Q: But you never could have met Aaron Burr, if you are only nineteen

years   –

      A: Now, if you know more about me than I do, what do you ask me

for?

      Q: Well, it was only a suggestion; nothing more. How did you happen

to meet Burr?

      A: Well, I happened to be at his funeral one day, and he asked me to

make less noise, and –

      Q: But, good heavens! If you were at his funeral, he must have been

dead; and if he was dead, how could he care whether you made a noise or

not?

      A: I don’t know. He was always a particular kind of a man that way.

      Q: Still, I don’t understand it all. You say he spoke to you, and that he

was   dead.

      A: I didn’t say he was dead.

Q: But wasn’t he dead?

      A: Well, some said he was, some said he wasn’t.

      Q: What did you think?

      A: Oh, it was none of my business! It wasn’t any of the funeral.

      Q: Did you – However, we can never get this matter straight. Let me

ask about something else. What was the date of your birth?

      A: Monday, October, 31, 1693.

      Q: What! Impossible! That would make you a hundred and eighty

years old. How do you account for that?

      A: I don’t account for it at all.

      Q: But you said at first you were only nineteen, an now you make

your self out to be one hundred and eighty. It is an awful discrepancy.

      A: Why, have you noticed that? (Shaking hands.) Many a time it has

seemed to me like a discrepancy, but somehow I couldn’t make up my

mind. How quick you notice a thing!

      Q: Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes. Had you, or have

you, any brothers or sisters?

      A: Eh! I – I – I think so, – yes, – but don’t remember.

      Q: Well, that is the most extraordinary statement I ever heard!

      A: Why, what makes you think that?

      Q: How could I think otherwise? Why, look here! Who is this a picture

of on the wall? Isn’t that a brother of yours?

      A: Oh! Yes, yes, yes! Now you remind me of it; that was a brother of

mine. That’s William, – Bill we called him. Poor old Bill!

      Q: Why? Is he dead, then?

      A: Ah, well, I suppose so. We never could tell. There was a great

mystery about it.

      Q: That is sad, very sad. He disappeared, then?

      A: Well, yes, in a sort of general way. We buried him.

      Q: Buried him!  Buried him without knowing whether he was dead

or not?

      A: Oh, no! Not that. He was dead enough.

      Q: Well, I confess that I can’t understand this. If you  buried him and

you knew he was dead –

      A: No! no! We only thought he was.

      Q: Oh, I see! He came to life again?

      A: I bet he didn’t.

      Q: Well, I never heard anything like this. Somebody was dead.

      Somebody was buried. Now, where was the mystery?

      A: Ah, that’s just it!   That’s it exactly. You see, we were twins,-

defunct and I, – and we got mixed in the bath-tub when we were only two

weeks old, and one of us was drowned. But we didn’t know which. Some

think it was Bill. Some think it was me.

      Q: Well, that is remarkable. What do you think?

      A: Goodness knows! I would give whole worlds to know. This solemn,

this awful mystery has cast a gloom over my whole life. But I will tell you

a secret now, which I never have revealed to any creature before. One of

us had a peculiar mark, – a large mole on the back of his left hand, – that

was me. That child was the one that was drowned!

      Q: Very well, then, I don’t see that there is any mystery about it, after all.

      A: You don’t? Well, I do. Anyway I don’t see how they could ever

have been such a blundering lot as to go and bury the wrong child. But ’sh!

– don’t mention it where the family can hear of it. Heaven knows they

have heart-breaking troubles enough without adding this.

      Q: Well, I believe I have got material enough for the present, and I

am very much obliged        to you for the pains you have taken. But I was a

good deal interested in that account of Aaron Burr’s funeral. Would you

mind telling me what particular circumstance it was that made you think

Burr was such a remarkable man?

      A: Oh, it was a mere trifle! Not one man in fifty would have noticed it

at all. When the sermon was over, and the procession all ready to start for

the cemetery, and the body all arranged nice in the hearse, he said he wanted

to take a last look at the scenery, and so he got up and rode with the driver.

      Then   the   young   man   reverently   withdrew.   He   was   very   pleasant

company and I was sorry to see him go.

                                ASSIGNMENT I

      I. Read the preface and speak up on the biography of the author.

      II. Study the comments on the following phrases and samples of

spoken English.

      1. .… he   was   connected   with   the   Daily   Thunderstorm  …

      the Daily Thunderstorm is a jocular name given by Twain to the

newspaper the young man represented. The name of the paper is already

its characterization. It contains a hint and the kind of easy sensational stuff

that filled the pages.

      2. “Hoping it’s no harm, I’ve come to interview you.”

      “Come to what?”

      “How do you spell it?”

      “Spell what?”

      To express extreme surprise or disbelief of the speaker’s remark is

readdressed to him with the unbelievable section turned into the appropriate

                        interrogative. This interrogative takes a heavy stress and a quickly rising

information. This kind of response is known as a repeated question.

      3. I was not feeling bright that morning.

      Note the conditions from the verb “to feel”. When verbs of feeling

and perception (“feel” is one of them) are used in the continuous form

which is not common, they indicate a passing state.

      4. “I can tell you what it means, if you – if you – ”

      “Why, my friend, they wouldn’t have a picture of it in even the

latest e – ”

      Unfinished sentences form a peculiarities of spoken language. They

reflect the flow of thought in conversation. Twain amply uses them for he

aims at a very accurate reproduction of dialogical speech.

      5.   The   story   presents   a   sample   of   spoken   English   with   its   main

peculiarities:

      (a) Elliptical sentences:

      … and much obliged to you…

      How old are you? Nineteen.

      (b) Direct word order in interrogative sentences:

          He disappeared, then?

          He came to life again?

      (c) Contractions:

           I don’t want to spell it…

          But it’s very old edition.

      (d) Composite verbs:

      Will you let me ask you… questions… to bring out the salient points

of your… history?

      … he got up and rode with the driver.

      (e)   Ready-made   formulas   of   agreement,   disagreement,   surprise,

pleasure, apology, etc.:

      Hoping it’s no harm.

      Why, certainly!

      Indeed!

      What! Impossible !

      Thank you for the compliment, as far as it goes.

      (f) An abundant use of colloquialisms:

      … my power seemed a bit under a cloud.

      It is all the rage now.

      He was dead enough.

      He came to life again? I bet he didn’t.

      6.  “I   had   the   Unabridged   and   I   was   ciphering,   around   in   the

backend,   hoping   I   might   tree   her   among   the   pictures”.