The Victims | The Writings of Mark Twain (beta)

Explanatory Notes Ⓔ

Apparatus Notes Ⓐ

See the appendixes and editorial matter for this text's published volume.

Published in: Fables of Man

Composition Date: 1901–1905

MTPDocEd

[begin page 133]

The Victims

(Early 1900s)

Paine's title is apt: at all levels of being, creatures are seen preying upon their inferiors—and in their turn being so served by their superiors. Predation is represented to be the universal condition of life. Mark Twain expressed the same view in “Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes,” in which even the microbes are found to be victims of submicroscopic germs. Each of the latter “is similarly infested, too,” and “below that infester there is yet another infester that infests him—and so on down and down and down till you strike the bottomest bottom of created life—if there is one, which is extremely doubtful.”1

The final sentence of “The Victims” points the moral of the fable: Mamma Molecule sees only that “The good spirit has deserted her Willie, who trusted him,” but the reader understands that the controlling spirit has betrayed the trust of all the members of his predatory chain. Mark Twain here approaches a demonic or even a Satanic point of view. A master and maker who has so ordered things that each creature must live by murdering a fellow creature can be regarded as an evil deity, one against whose tyrannies the brave may justifiably, if futilely, rebel.

His lifetime friend the Reverend Joseph H. Twichell understood Clemens' despair: “He was ever profoundly affected with the feeling of the pathos of life. Contemplating its heritage of inevitable pain and tears, he would question if to any one it was a good gift. ‘Would you,’ he demanded [begin page 134] of me once—‘would you, as a kind-hearted man, start the human race? Would you, now?’ ”2

Mark Twain probably worked very rapidly in making this skeletal draft, which is nevertheless sufficient to suggest what the fully written version would have been. Paine dated the manuscript 1902; Mark Twain used the paper between 1900 and 1905, and the ink and handwriting, as well as the bitter irony, make the early 1900s a probable date for this piece.

Editorial Notes

WWD , p. 527.

Quoted in “Mark Twain, In Memoriam: Interesting Passages From The Tributes Paid To The Great Humorist At The Memorial Meeting In Carnegie Hall, New York,” Harper's Weekly 54 (17 December 1910): 10.

Textual Commentary

The manuscript is copy-text. No ambiguous compound is hyphenated at the end of a line in the manuscript. Because the work is little more than a rough set of notes, its texture has not been smoothed with emendations for consistency.

[begin page 135]

The Victims

Little Johnny Microbe begged and begged his mother to let him go to the picnic and said all the nicest creatures were going to be there, and wentⒶalteration in the MS on saying and saying and saying Please,Ⓐalteration in the MS ma, can't I? please, ma, let me, till at last she said he might, and he must be good, and behave, and be sure and be home before sundown, andⒶalteration in the MS put his faith in the good spirit and no harm would come to him, and oh, do be careful, she said, it would break mamma's heart if any harm came to her darling. And she promised to have something nice for his supper when he got home.

So Johnny went to the picnic, and mamma Microbe went over to a white corpuscle to hunt the kind of game he preferred for supper. And by and by herⒶalteration in the MS microscopic eye discovered little Willie Molecule going along on his way to the picnic, and grabbed him and bit the back of his head off and took him home and knelt down and prayed, givingⒶalteration in the MS thanks to the good spirit for that he watches tenderlyⒶemendation over them that love him and trust him, allowing none to go hungry from his door.

Little Peter Anthrax begged and begged

[begin page 136]

So little Peter went to the picnic, and mamma Anthrax went out to hunt the kind of game he preferred for supper. And by and by her quick eye discovered little Johnny Microbe going along on his way to the picnic, and grabbed him and bit his faceⒶalteration in the MS off.

Little Robbie Typhus Germ begged

So little Robbie went to the picnic and mamma Typhus Germ went out to hunt

little Peter Anthrax going along
and bit his chest off

Little Davy Itch Germ begged

So little Davy went to the picnic and mamma Itch Germ went out to hunt

little Robbie Typhus Germ going along
and bit his bowels out

Little Tommy Red-Speck Spider begged

So little Tommy went to the picnic and mamma Red-Speck Spider went out to

[begin page 137]

little Davy Itch-Germ going along
and bit his buttocks offⒶtextual note

Little FannyⒶalteration in the MS Ant begged

So little Fanny went to the picnicⒶtextual note and mamma Ant went out to hunt

little Tommy Red-Speck Spider going
and bit his spine out

Little PhoebeⒶalteration in the MS Gray-Spider begged

So little Phoebe went to the picnic and mamma Gray Spider went out to hunt

little Fanny Ant going along
and bit her forequarters off

Little Sammy Pinch-Bug begged

So little Sammy went to the picnic and mamma Pinch-Bug went out to hunt

little Phoebe Gray Spider
and pierced her through the body from both sides

[begin page 138]

Little Dora Sparrow begged

So little Dora went to the picnic and mamma Sparrow went out to hunt

little Sammy Pinch-Bug and harpooned him with her beak

Little Harry Weasel begged

So little Harry went to the picnic, and mamma Weasel went out to hunt

and joined her teeth together in the person of little Dora Sparrow

Little Jacky Fox begged

So little Jacky went to the picnic and mamma Fox went out to hunt

and bit little Harry Weasel in two

Little Sophy Wildcat begged

So little Sophy went to the picnic and mamma Wildcat went out to hunt

[begin page 139]

and broke little Jacky Fox's back with a bite

Little Caleb Sierra Lion begged

So little Caleb went toⒶalteration in the MS the picnic, and mamma Sierra Lion went out to hunt

and removed little Sophy Wildcat's interiors

Little Sissy Bengal Tiger begged

So little Sissy went to the picnic and mamma Bengal Tiger went out to hunt

and caved-in the westⒶalteration in the MS side of little Caleb Sierra Lion with a pat of her paw

Little Jumbo Jackson Elephantus Ichthyosaurus Megatherium begged

So littleⒶalteration in the MS Jumbo Jackson went to the picnic, and mamma Elephantus Ichthyosaurus Megatherium went out to hunt

and fetched little Sissy Bengal Tiger a wipe with her 60-foot tail, and a rapⒶalteration in the MS with her 19-foot trunk, and observing that she did notⒶalteration in the MS respond but [begin page 140] seemed satisfied with things as they were, carried her home, cradled on her pair of curled-up 22-foot tusks and

Little Jimmy Gem-of-the-Creation Man begged

So little Jimmy went to the picnic and papa Gem-of-the Creation went out to hunt for—for—Ⓐalteration in the MSanything that might contain life and be helpless—

and hid behind a rock and shot little Jumbo Jackson dead with a magazine rifle and took his tusks and traded them to an Arab land-pirate for a cargo of captiveⒶalteration in the MS black women and children and sold them to a good Christian planter who promised to give them religious instruction and considerable to do, and blest the planter and shook hands good-bye, and said “ByⒶalteration in the MS cracky this is the way to extend our noble civilization,” and loaded up again and Went forⒶemendation MoreⒶtextual note.

The sunⒶalteration in the MS went down, and it was night.

Then mamma Molecule's heart broke and she gave it up, weeping and saying The good spirit has desertedⒶalteration in the MS my Willie, who trusted him, and he is dead and will come no more.

Editorial Emendations The Victims

Ⓐ tenderly ● lovingly/tenderly

Ⓐ civilization . . . Went for ● page torn

Alterations in the Manuscript The Victims

Ⓐ went] follows canceled ‘then he’.

Ⓐ saying Please,] ‘saying’ interlined with a caret.

Ⓐ sundown, and] followed by canceled ‘th’.

Ⓐ by her] follows canceled ‘by she’.

Ⓐ giving] interlined with a caret above canceled ‘and gave’.

Ⓐ his face] follows canceled ‘a’.

Ⓐ Fanny] follows canceled ‘Jimmy’.

Ⓐ Phoebe] interlined above canceled ‘Jimmy’.

Ⓐ to] interlined with a caret.

Ⓐ west] originally ‘western’; ‘ern’ canceled.

Ⓐ So little] ‘So’ written over ‘L’.

Ⓐ rap] interlined above canceled ‘punch’.

Ⓐ not] interlined with a caret.

Ⓐ —for—] interlined with a caret above a canceled dash.

Ⓐ captive] interlined with a caret.

Ⓐ “By] follows canceled ‘ “This’.

Ⓐ The sun] follows canceled paragraph ‘At sundown mamma Molecule’.

Ⓐ deserted] mended from ‘deter’.

Textual Notes The Victims

Ⓐ his buttocks off] Canceled in pencil on the manuscript and “off his entire after deck” interlined above it. Although this change could have been by Mark Twain, the hand looks more like Albert Bigelow Paine's.

Ⓐ to the picnic] In the blank space above this phrase Paine scrawled four words in pencil. He may have written “near starvation from looks,” or, thinking of the change he made at 137.2, he may have written “rear elevation” as an alternative to his earlier change, “after deck,” and “forward works” as an alternative to “forequarters” more in keeping with his nautical imagery. The inscription is so nearly indecipherable that it admits either conjecture.

Ⓐ civilization . . . Went for More] The corner of the manuscript has been torn off; “civilization” and “Went for” are conjectures, first suggested on a DeVoto typescript.

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