Mark Twain's sketches, new and old now first published in complete form |
 |
|
|
AURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN. |
 | Mark Twain's sketches, new and old |  |
AURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN.
THE facts in the following case came to me by letter from a young lady who
lives in the beautiful city of San José; she is perfectly unknown to me, and
simply signs herself “Aurelia Maria,” which may possibly be a fictitious
name. But no matter, the poor girl is almost heart-broken by the misfortunes she
has undergone, and so confused by the conflicting counsels of misguided friends
and insidious enemies, that she does not know what course to pursue in order to
extricate herself from the web of difficulties in which she seems almost hopelessly
involved. In this dilemma she turns to me for help, and supplicates for my
guidance and instruction with a moving eloquence that would touch the heart of a
statue. Hear her sad story:
She says that when she was sixteen years old she met and loved, with all the
devotion of a passionate nature, a young man from New Jersey, named Williamson
Breckinridge Caruthers, who was some six years her senior. They were engaged,
with the free consent of their friends and relatives, and for a time it seemed as if
their career was destined to be characterized by an immunity from sorrow beyond
the usual lot of humanity. But at last the tide of fortune turned; young Caruthers
became infected with small-pox of the most virulent type, and when he recovered
from his illness his face was pitted like a waffle-mould, and his comeliness gone for
ever. Aurelia thought to break off the engagement at first, but pity for her
unfortunate lover caused her to postpone the marriage-day for a season, and give
him another trial.
The very day before the wedding was to have taken place, Breckinridge, while
absorbed in watching the flight of a balloon, walked into a well and fractured one
of his legs, and it had to be taken off above the knee. Again Aurelia was moved
to break the engagement, but again love triumphed, and she set the day forward
and gave him another chance to reform.
And again misfortune overtook the unhappy youth. He lost one arm by the
premature discharge of a Fourth-of-July cannon, and within three months he got
the other pulled out by a carding-machine. Aurelia's heart was almost crushed by
these latter calamities. She could not but be deeply grieved to see her lover passing
from her by piecemeal, feeling, as she did, that he could not last for ever under
this disastrous process of reduction, yet knowing of no way to stop its dreadful
career, and in her tearful despair she almost regretted, like brokers who hold on
and lose, that she had not taken him at first, before he had suffered such an
alarming depreciation. Still, her brave soul bore her up, and she resolved to bear
with her friend's unnatural disposition yet a little longer.
Again the wedding-day approached, and again disappointment overshadowed
it: Caruthers fell ill with the erysipelas, and lost the use of one his eyes entirely.
The friends and relatives of the bride, considering that she had already put up with
more than could reasonably be expected of her, now came forward and insisted that
the match should be broken off, but after wavering awhile, Aurelia, with a generous
spirit which did her credit, said she had reflected calmly upon the matter, and could
not discover that Breckinridge was to blame.
So she extended the time once more, and he broke his other leg.
It was a sad day for the poor girl when she saw the surgeons reverently bearing
away the sack whose uses she had learned by previous experience, and her heart
told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover was gone. She felt that the
field of her affections was growing more and more circumscribed every day, but
once more she frowned down her relatives and renewed her betrothal.
Shortly before the time set for the nuptials another disaster occurred. There
was but one man scalped by the Owens River Indians last year. That man was
Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers, of New Jersey. He was hurrying home with
happiness in his heart, when he lost his hair for ever, and in that hour of bitterness
he almost cursed the mistaken mercy that had spared his head.
At last Aurelia is in serious perplexity as to what she ought to do. She still loves
her Breckinridge, she writes, with truly womanly feeling—she still loves what is left
of him—but her parents are bitterly opposed to the match, because he has no
property and is disabled from working, and she has not sufficient means to support
both comfortably. “Now, what should she do?” she asks with painful and anxious
solicitude.
It is a delicate question; it is one which involves the lifelong happiness of a
woman, and that of nearly two-thirds of a man, and I feel that it would be assuming
too great a responsibility to do more than make a mere suggestion in the case. How
would it do to build to him? If Aurelia can afford the expense, let her furnish
her mutilated lover with wooden arms and wooden legs, and a glass eye and a wig,
and give him another show; give him ninety days, without grace, and if he does not
break his neck in the meantime, marry him and take the chances. It does not seem
to me that there is much risk, any way, Aurelia, because if he sticks to his singular
propensity for damaging himself every time he sees a good opportunity, his next
experiment is bound to finish him, and then you are safe, married or single. If
married, the wooden legs and such other valuables as he may possess revert to the
widow, and you see you sustain no actual loss save the cherished fragment of a
noble but most unfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but whose
extraordinary instincts were against him. Try it, Maria. I have thought the
matter over carefully and well, and it is the only chance I see for you. It would
and broken that first; but since he has seen fit to choose a different policy and
string himself out as long as possible, I do not think we ought to upbraid him for it
if he has enjoyed it. We must do the best we can under the circumstances, and
try not to feel exasperated at him.
| Mark Twain's sketches, new and old | |