Mark Twain - The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (Illustrated)

“My good slave, you are curiously witless – no, I mean characteristically so. In truth, you are always consistent, always yourself, always an ass. Otherwise it must have occurred to you that if you attempted this murder with a sad heart and a heavy conscience, I would droop under the burdening in influence instantly. Fool, I should have weighed a ton, and could not have budged from the floor; but instead, you are so cheerfully anxious to kill me that your conscience is as light as a feather; hence I am away up here out of your reach. I can almost respect a mere ordinary sort of fool; but you – pah!”

I would have given anything, then, to be heavy-hearted, so that I could get this person down from there and take his life, but I could no more be heavy-hearted over such a desire than I could have sorrowed over its accomplishment. So I could only look longingly up at my master, and rave at the ill luck that denied me a heavy conscience the one only time that I had ever wanted such a thing in my life. By and by I got to musing over the hour’s strange adventure, and of course my human curiosity began to work. I set myself to framing in my mind some questions for this fiend to answer. Just then one of my boys entered, leaving the door open behind him, and exclaimed:

“My! what has been going on here? The bookcase is all one riddle of—”

I sprang up in consternation, and shouted:

“Out of this! Hurry! jump! Fly! Shut the door! Quick, or my Conscience will get away!”

The door slammed to, and I locked it. I glanced up and was grateful, to the bottom of my heart, to see that my owner was still my prisoner. I said:

“Hang you, I might have lost you! Children are the heedlessest creatures. But look here, friend, the boy did not seem to notice you at all; how is that?”

“For a very good reason. I am invisible to all but you.”

I made a mental note of that piece of information with a good deal of satisfaction. I could kill this miscreant now, if I got a chance, and no one would know it. But this very reflection made me so lighthearted that my Conscience could hardly keep his seat, but was like to float aloft toward the ceiling like a toy balloon. I said, presently:

“Come, my Conscience, let us be friendly. Let us fly a flag of truce for a while. I am suffering to ask you some questions.”

“Very well. Begin.”

“Well, then, in the first place, why were you never visible to me before?”

“Because you never asked to see me before; that is, you never asked in the right spirit and the proper form before. You were just in the right spirit this time, and when you called for your most pitiless enemy I was that person by a very large majority, though you did not suspect it.”

“Well, did that remark of mine turn you into flesh and blood?”

“No. It only made me visible to you. I am unsubstantial, just as other spirits are.”

This remark prodded me with a sharp misgiving.

If he was unsubstantial, how was I going to kill him? But I dissembled, and said persuasively:

“Conscience, it isn’t sociable of you to keep at such a distance. Come down and take another smoke.”

This was answered with a look that was full of derision, and with this observation added:

“Come where you can get at me and kill me? The invitation is declined with thanks.”

“All right,” said I to myself; “so it seems a spirit can be killed, after all; there will be one spirit lacking in this world, presently, or I lose my guess.” Then I said aloud:

“Friend—”

“There; wait a bit. I am not your friend. I am your enemy; I am not your equal, I am your master. Call me ‘my lord,’ if you please. You are too familiar.”

“I don’t like such titles. I am willing to call you, sir . That is as far as—”

“We will have no argument about this. Just obey, that is all. Go on with your chatter.”

“Very well, my lord – since nothing but my lord will suit you – I was going to ask you how long you will be visible to me?”

“Always!”

I broke out with strong indignation: “This is simply an outrage. That is what I think of it! You have dogged, and dogged, and dogged me, all the days of my life, invisible. That was misery enough, now to have such a looking thing as you tagging after me like another shadow all the rest of my day is an intolerable prospect. You have my opinion my lord, make the most of it.”

“My lad, there was never so pleased a conscience in this world as I was when you made me visible. It gives me an inconceivable advantage. Now I can look you straight in the eye, and call you names, and leer at you, jeer at you, sneer at you; and you know what eloquence there is in visible gesture and expression, more especially when the effect is heightened by audible speech. I shall always address you henceforth in your o-w-n s-n-i-v-e-l-i-n-g d-r-a-w-l – baby!”

I let fly with the coal-hod. No result. My lord said:

“Come, come! Remember the flag of truce!”

“Ah, I forgot that. I will try to be civil; and you try it, too, for a novelty. The idea of a civil conscience! It is a good joke; an excellent joke. All the consciences I have ever heard of were nagging, badgering, fault-finding, execrable savages! Yes; and always in a sweat about some poor little insignificant trifle or other – destruction catch the lot of them, I say! I would trade mine for the smallpox and seven kinds of consumption, and be glad of the chance. Now tell me, why is it that a conscience can’t haul a man over the coals once, for an offense, and then let him alone? Why is it that it wants to keep on pegging at him, day and night and night and day, week in and week out, forever and ever, about the same old thing? There is no sense in that, and no reason in it. I think a conscience that will act like that is meaner than the very dirt itself.”

“Well, we like it; that suffices.”

“Do you do it with the honest intent to improve a man?”

That question produced a sarcastic smile, and this reply:

“No, sir. Excuse me. We do it simply because it is ‘business.’ It is our trade. The purpose of it is to improve the man, but we are merely disinterested agents. We are appointed by authority, and haven’t anything to say in the matter. We obey orders and leave the consequences where they belong. But I am willing to admit this much: we do crowd the orders a trifle when we get a chance, which is most of the time. We enjoy it. We are instructed to remind a man a few times of an error; and I don’t mind acknowledging that we try to give pretty good measure. And when we get hold of a man of a peculiarly sensitive nature, oh, but we do haze him! I have consciences to come all the way from China and Russia to see a person of that kind put through his paces, on a special occasion. Why, I knew a man of that sort who had accidentally crippled a mulatto baby; the news went abroad, and I wish you may never commit another sin if the consciences didn’t flock from all over the earth to enjoy the fun and help his master exorcise him. That man walked the floor in torture for forty-eight hours, without eating or sleeping, and then blew his brains out. The child was perfectly well again in three weeks.”

“Well, you are a precious crew, not to put it too strong. I think I begin to see now why you have always been a trifle inconsistent with me. In your anxiety to get all the juice you can out of a sin, you make a man repent of it in three or four different ways. For instance, you found fault with me for lying to that tramp, and I suffered over that. But it was only yesterday that I told a tramp the square truth, to wit, that, it being regarded as bad citizenship to encourage vagrancy, I would give him nothing. What did you do then? Why, you made me say to myself, ‘Ah, it would have been so much kinder and more blameless to ease him off with a little white lie, and send him away feeling that if he could not have bread, the gentle treatment was at least something to be grateful for!’ Well, I suffered all day about that . Three days before I had fed a tramp, and fed him freely, supposing it a virtuous act. Straight off you said, ‘Oh, false citizen, to have fed a tramp!’ and I suffered as usual. I gave a tramp work; you objected to it – after the contract was made, of course; you never speak up beforehand. Next, I refused a tramp work; you objected to that. Next, I proposed to kill a tramp; you kept me awake all night, oozing remorse at every pore. Sure I was going to be right this time, I sent the next tramp away with my benediction; and I wish you may live as long as I do, if you didn’t make me smart all night again because I didn’t kill him. Is there any way of satisfying that malignant invention which is called a conscience?”