This is the only authoritative text of this late novel. It reproduces the manuscript which Mark Twain wrote last, and the only one he finished or called the "The Mysterious Stranger." Albert Bigelow Paine's edition of the same name has been shown to be a textual fraud. No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug, and Freely Translated from the Jug By Mark Twain UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Copyright © 2003 The Regents of the University of California All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-520-27000-8 Contents FOREWORD, ix, NO. 44, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, Chapter 1, 3, Chapter 2, 11, Chapter 3, 16, Chapter 4, 22, Chapter 5, 25, Chapter 6, 29, Chapter 7, 31, Chapter 8, 42, Chapter 9, 48, Chapter 10, 53, Chapter 11, 58, Chapter 12, 65, Chapter 13, 70, Chapter 14, 74, Chapter 15, 80, Chapter 16, 85, Chapter 17, 91, Chapter 18, 94, Chapter 19, 98, Chapter 20, 102, Chapter 21, 105, Chapter 22, 111, Chapter 23, 117, Chapter 24, 124, Chapter 25, 132, Chapter 26, 135, Chapter 27, 145, Chapter 28, 152, Chapter 29, 158, Chapter 30, 163, Chapter 31, 170, Chapter 32, 176, Chapter 33, 182, Chapter 34, 185, EXPLANATORY NOTES, 189, GLOSSARY OF PRINTER'S TERMS, 195, NOTE ON THE TEXT, 201, CHAPTER 1 It was in 1490—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Faith in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me. Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and stone-boats; behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the lofty precipice; from the top of the precipice frowned the vast castle of Rosenfeld, its long stretch of towers and bastions mailed in vines; beyond the river, a league to the left, was a tumbled expanse of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the sun never penetrated; and to the right, a precipice overlooked the river, and between it and the hills just spoken of lay a far-reaching plain dotted with little homesteads nested among orchards and shade-trees. The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property of prince Rosenfeld, whose servants kept the castle always in perfect condition for occupancy, but neither he nor his family came there oftener than once in five years. When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy. Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Catholics; to revere the Virgin, the Church and the saints above everything; to hold the Monarch in awful reverence, speak of him with bated breath, uncover before his picture, regard him as the gracious provider of our daily bread and of all our earthly blessings, and ourselves as being sent into the world with the one only mission, to labor for him, bleed for him, die for him, when necessary. Beyond these matters we were not required to know much; and in fact, not allowed to. The priests said that knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure discontentment with His plans. This was true, for the priests got it of the Bishop. It was discontentment that came so near to being the ruin of Gretel Marx the dairyman's widow, who had two horses and a cart, and carried milk to the market town. A Hussite woman named Adler came to Eseldorf and went slyly about, and began to persuade some of the ignorant and foolish to come privately by night to her house and hear "God's real message," as she called it. She was a cunning woman, and sought out only those few who could read—flattering them by saying it showed their intelligence, and that only the intelligent could understand her doctrine. She gradually got ten together, and these she poisoned nightly with her heresies in her house. And she gave them Hussite sermons, all written out, to keep for their own, and persuaded them that it was no sin to read them. One day Father Adolf came along and found the widow sitting in the shade of the horse-chestnut that stood by her house, reading these iniquities. He was a very loud and zealous and stren