The Comedy Tour That Saved Mark Twain

By Micah Mattix

In the summer of 1893, Mark Twain was 57 and at the pinnacle of his career—or so it seemed. Behind him were the successes of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Huckleberry Finn (1885). Pudd’nhead Wilson was being serialized in The Century, one of America’s most prestigious literary magazines at the time, and would be published as a book the next year.Twain was making up to $1,000(roughly $30,000 in today’s dollars)for a single essay or story and was married to a coal heiress. To top it all off, he owned his own publishing company.

[2] He was also broke and deeply in debt. His publishing house, named after and briefly run by his niece’s husband,Charles L. Webster, started with a bang in 1885, publishing his own Huck Finn and Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs, which turned out to be a surprise record-breaking hit. But a series of poorly-selling titles and a badly planned, 11-volume set of American classics (which, while popular, put the company as much as$22 in the red for every sale) sent revenue and profits sharply downward.Eight years after it had started, Charles L. Webster & Co. was over $6 million in the hole. Twain had also invested heavily in James W. Paige’s promising but ultimately flawed typesetter, the Paige Compositor. The American author had gone from a pauper to a prince and back to a pauper—at least on paper.How he’d become a prince again is the story of Richard Zacks’s expertly paced Chasing the Last Laugh: Mark Twain’s Raucous and Redemptive Round-the-World Comedy Tour.

1839年夏天，57歲的馬克·吐溫正處在創(chuàng)作生涯的巔峰——或者看上去如此。他已經(jīng)創(chuàng)作了《湯姆·索亞歷險(xiǎn)記》（1876）和《哈克貝利·費(fèi)恩歷險(xiǎn)記》（1885）兩部小說(shuō)。同時(shí)，《傻瓜威爾遜》正在當(dāng)時(shí)美國(guó)最負(fù)盛名的文學(xué)雜志之一——《世紀(jì)》上連載，將在翌年結(jié)集出版。馬克·吐溫僅靠一篇文章或一個(gè)故事就能賺取1000美元（約合現(xiàn)在的30000美元），還迎娶了一個(gè)煤礦主的女兒。最重要的是，他擁有自己的出版公司。

[2]但同時(shí)他手頭拮據(jù)，負(fù)債累累。他的出版公司以自己侄女的丈夫查爾斯·L.韋伯斯特的名字命名，并暫時(shí)由其管理。1885年該出版公司成立后出版了馬克·吐溫本人的《哈克貝利·費(fèi)恩歷險(xiǎn)記》和尤利西斯·S.格蘭特的回憶錄，一鳴驚人。這些出版物出乎意料地打破了紀(jì)錄，引起了很大的轟動(dòng)。但仍有一些滯銷的書(shū)籍，加上一套策劃不周的11卷本的美國(guó)經(jīng)典叢書(shū)（雖然深受歡迎，可每售出一套，出版公司虧損22美元）使得銷售收入和利潤(rùn)大幅下滑。創(chuàng)建8年后，查爾斯·L.韋伯斯特出版公司虧損超過(guò)600萬(wàn)美元。馬克·吐溫還將巨資投在杰姆斯·W.佩奇前景廣闊的佩奇排字機(jī)上，但最終產(chǎn)品還是有缺陷。這位美國(guó)作家從乞丐到王子，再到乞丐——至少理論上如此。至于他又是如何變回王子的，這正是理查德·扎克斯在《追逐最后的笑聲：馬克吐溫喧鬧而救贖的環(huán)球喜劇之旅》一書(shū)中娓娓道來(lái)的故事。

[3] As Zacks’s subtitle tells us, Twain would go on an unprecedented world speaking tour beginning in the summer of 1895. The tour would take him across the American Midwest to Vancouver and then on to Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa. He would perform over 100 times in front of aristocrats, British generals, New Zealand ranchers, and Indian maharajas in over a year.

[4] Zacks notes that Twain hated go-ing on “the platform,” as he called it,to recount humorous episodes from his books. But he decided that it was the only way for him to get back on his feet again.

[3]正如扎克斯的副標(biāo)題所言，在1895年的夏天,馬克·吐溫開(kāi)始進(jìn)行一次前所未有的世界巡回演講。此次巡講帶他穿越美國(guó)中西部地區(qū)到達(dá)溫哥華，隨后抵達(dá)澳大利亞、新西蘭、印度和南非。一年多的時(shí)間里，他在貴族、英國(guó)將軍、新西蘭牧場(chǎng)主和印度王公面前演講100余場(chǎng)。

[5] He took his wife and his middle daughter, Clara, leaving his two other daughters, Susy and Jean, with friends and family. The tour got off to a bumpy start in Cleveland. Twain, suffering from a carbuncle on his leg, was unable to practice as much as he would have liked before the first paying audience.But he quickly found his stage legs and regularly performed in sold out houses to mostly rave reviews.

[6] While Twain wondered how American humor would play with audiences in Australia—the first stop outside the United States and Canada on the tour—he was surprised to find Australians more like Americans than even the English: “No shyness; get acquainted in five minutes,” he wrote.His first performance brought down the house. He performed before audiences of 2,000 in Sydney, four times larger than most of his American shows.Zacks writes that “What had started for him as a desperate lunge for money was starting to seem magically transformed into a victory lap for the ‘humorist of the century.’”

[7] I suspect that one of the temptations in a book on Mark Twain is to allow Twain to do all the writing. With zingers like “There is but one love which a Frenchman places above his love for his country, & that is his love for another man’s wife,” it must be hard to resist. But Zacks does an admirable job of giving us a taste of Twain’s performances and quoting his best commentary without, for the most part,overwhelming the narrative with block quotes.

[4]扎克斯寫(xiě)道，馬克·吐溫憎恨登上他說(shuō)的“那個(gè)臺(tái)子”講述自己書(shū)中的幽默章節(jié)。然而，馬克·吐溫認(rèn)為，外出演講是他重新站起來(lái)的唯一辦法。

[5]他帶著妻子和二女兒克拉拉，把另外兩個(gè)女兒蘇茜和瓊留給朋友和家人。此次旅程從克利夫蘭出發(fā)，開(kāi)始就不順利。馬克·吐溫腿上出了個(gè)癤子，根本無(wú)法在首場(chǎng)付費(fèi)聽(tīng)眾面前盡情發(fā)揮。但他很快就找回了上演講臺(tái)的感覺(jué)，經(jīng)常在座無(wú)虛席的大廳里演講，收到的好評(píng)如潮。

[6]正當(dāng)馬克·吐溫思量著怎樣用美國(guó)幽默取悅澳大利亞的聽(tīng)眾時(shí)——畢竟澳洲是美國(guó)和加拿大之外第一站——他吃驚地發(fā)現(xiàn)，澳大利亞人甚至比英國(guó)人更像美國(guó)人：“一點(diǎn)都不害羞；五分鐘就混熟了，”他寫(xiě)道。他的首場(chǎng)演講博得滿堂喝彩。在悉尼演講時(shí)，他有2000名聽(tīng)眾，比在美國(guó)的多數(shù)場(chǎng)次多四倍。扎克斯寫(xiě)道，“他的初衷是拼命賺錢，結(jié)果神奇地變成了一場(chǎng)‘世紀(jì)幽默家’的勝利之旅。”

[7]我想，在寫(xiě)關(guān)于馬克·吐溫的書(shū)時(shí)，會(huì)不禁一直引用馬克·吐溫的原話。像這樣的巧言妙語(yǔ)，如“法國(guó)人只會(huì)把一種愛(ài)置于愛(ài)國(guó)之上，那就是對(duì)別人老婆的愛(ài)”，就很難不寫(xiě)進(jìn)書(shū)里。而扎克斯的寫(xiě)作令人欽佩，讓我們領(lǐng)略到了馬克·吐溫的演講風(fēng)采，同時(shí)引用了馬克·吐溫的最佳評(píng)論，這些引文并未遮蔽作者的敘述。

[8] Zacks notes, for example, that for all the success that Australia brought him, Twain was ambivalent about the country itself. The native Australian, he wrote in his notebook, “is as sensitive”about his country “as men are of their sacred things—can’t bear to have critical things said about her. Thinks he is going to build a mighty nation here, &someday be an independent one—a republic—cut up his 60[,000] & 100,000-acre sheep runs into farms, maybe—irrigate the deserts, &—Federation is sound; but better not hurry to cut loose from England.”

[9] But Twain fell in love with India.He was astonished by the colors and the chaos, as well as the strangeness of the locals and their customs. While he disliked and tended to denounce oppression wherever he saw it (his wife mostly kept him from making gauche comments to Australian reporters), he thought imperialism worked in India,and even praised Britain’s harsh response to the Mutiny of 1857: “The military history of England is old and great, but I think it must be granted that the crushing of the Mutiny is the greatest chapter in it.”

[8]譬如，扎克斯寫(xiě)到，盡管澳大利亞給馬克·吐溫帶來(lái)了巨大成功，但他對(duì)這個(gè)國(guó)家本身并不寬容。他在筆記中寫(xiě)到，土生土長(zhǎng)的澳大利亞人對(duì)自己國(guó)家“很敏感”，“如同人們對(duì)待圣物一樣——不能容忍別人批評(píng)自己的國(guó)家。澳大利亞人認(rèn)為他們將在這里建立一個(gè)強(qiáng)大的國(guó)家，有朝一日，會(huì)實(shí)現(xiàn)獨(dú)立——建立一個(gè)共和國(guó)——開(kāi)墾6萬(wàn)英畝，乃至10萬(wàn)英畝的大牧場(chǎng)，將其變成農(nóng)田，或許——灌溉沙漠，而且——聯(lián)邦制挺好；但最好不要急于同英國(guó)斷絕關(guān)系。”

[9]但是馬克·吐溫愛(ài)上了印度。他對(duì)印度的異域風(fēng)光、混亂局勢(shì)，以及奇特的當(dāng)?shù)厝撕土?xí)俗感到吃驚。盡管他不喜歡，還傾向于譴責(zé)所到之處看到的壓迫（多數(shù)情況下他的妻子都阻止他向澳大利亞記者發(fā)表鋒芒畢露的言論），但他認(rèn)為帝國(guó)主義在印度行得通，甚至贊揚(yáng)英國(guó)對(duì)1857年印度叛亂的殘酷鎮(zhèn)壓：“英國(guó)的軍事史古老而偉大，但我認(rèn)為必須承認(rèn)，粉碎印度叛亂是其中最偉大的篇章。”

[10] After India, the three Clemenses travelled to South Africa, where Twain allowed himself to become involved in a dispute between the Dutch Boers and the English, before they headed to England at the end of July in 1896, where Twain began work on his travel book.

[11] As successful as the speaking tour was, Twain wouldn’t have come close to paying his debts had it not been for the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers,a 53-year-old executive at Standard Oil and one of America’s wealthiest men.Chasing the Last Laugh is as much about Rogers’s financial housecleaning and stewardship of Twain’s business affairs and the friendship between the two as it is about Twain’s “raucous” tour.Rogers’s son-in-law bought Webster’s leaky Library of American Literature,and the Standard Oil man, to whom Twain had given the right of attorney,transferred the rights of all of Twain’s work to his wife to protect it from his creditors. Equally important, Rogers negotiated a collected works to be coissued by two competing publishing houses after Twain’s tour. This would be his major source of income for years to come.

[10]離開(kāi)印度后，馬克·吐溫一家三人前往南非，在那里他卷入了荷蘭布爾人與英國(guó)人之間的糾紛。1896年7月底他前往英國(guó)，開(kāi)始撰寫(xiě)旅行游記。

[11]盡管馬克·吐溫的巡回演講十分成功，但若不是亨利·赫特斯?fàn)栴D·羅杰斯的幫助，他還是無(wú)法還清債務(wù)。當(dāng)年53歲的羅杰斯是標(biāo)準(zhǔn)石油公司的高管，也是當(dāng)時(shí)美國(guó)最富有的人之一。《追逐最后的笑聲》記述馬克·吐溫“喧鬧”之旅的同時(shí)，又記述了羅杰斯幫他清償債務(wù)、打理生意以及他們的友誼。羅杰斯的女婿購(gòu)買了經(jīng)濟(jì)上虧損的韋伯斯特美國(guó)文學(xué)圖書(shū)館，而馬克·吐溫授權(quán)給羅杰斯，讓他把自己所有的作品權(quán)都轉(zhuǎn)給了他的妻子，以免落入債權(quán)人之手。同樣重要的是，在馬克·吐溫的巡回演講結(jié)束之后，羅杰斯將馬克·吐溫全集交由兩家相互競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的出版社共同出版發(fā)行。這筆錢將是他未來(lái)的主要收入來(lái)源。

[12]扎克斯也讓人們重新認(rèn)識(shí)了馬克·吐溫本人。《追逐最后的笑聲》讓人們更清楚地看到，在管理金錢方面，馬克·吐溫是多么輕率和魯莽。僅僅在償清債務(wù)10天之后，他就給羅杰斯寫(xiě)了一封過(guò)分熱情的信，敘說(shuō)了一位奧地利發(fā)明家設(shè)計(jì)的新型電動(dòng)“印花機(jī)”，據(jù)說(shuō)這個(gè)機(jī)器會(huì)給地毯業(yè)和紡織業(yè)帶來(lái)革命性的變化。雖然馬克·吐溫提議的投資落空了，但他最終還是買了一家公司的股票，這家公司出售一種德國(guó)的奶粉提取物——普來(lái)斯蒙，馬克·吐溫聲稱其治愈了他多年的消化不良癥。如果在英國(guó)、美國(guó)，產(chǎn)品的銷售情況也不會(huì)好。

[12] Zacks also casts new light on Twain himself. What becomes clearer in Chasing the Last Laugh is just how rash and gullible the man was when it came to managing money. A mere 10 days after he finally paid off his debts in full, Twain wrote Rogers a gushing letter about a new “Designing Machine”built by an Austrian inventor that would supposedly revolutionize the carpet and textile industries. While Twain’s proposed investment fell through, he would eventually buy stock in a company that sold Plasmon, a German milk powder extract that Twain claimed had cured him of lifelong indigestion. It would have little success in either England or America.

[13] His wife’s insistence that he pay all his investors back in full—against Rogers’s advice—endeared him to the American public, making him even more popular after his financial failures than before. In short, it wasn’t just the speaking tour that remade Twain, it was H. H. Rogers and Olivia Langdon Clemens. Without them, he probably would have ended his life bitter, unloved by the public, and if not poor at least unwealthy—that is, as only Samuel L.Clemens and not Mark Twain. ■

[13]馬克·吐溫的妻子并未聽(tīng)從羅杰斯的勸告，執(zhí)意要他償清全部的債務(wù)，這種執(zhí)著給他贏得了美國(guó)公眾的喜愛(ài)，甚至讓他在生意失敗后更受歡迎。總之，不僅是這次巡回演講重塑了馬克·吐溫，更是羅杰斯和妻子奧利維亞·蘭登·克萊門斯的功勞。如果沒(méi)有他們，他可能會(huì)了此一生、苦不堪言，不被公眾所愛(ài)，雖說(shuō)不上貧窮，至少也不富有，只能作為無(wú)名的塞繆爾·L.克萊門斯而不是眾人熟知的馬克·吐溫而終此一生。 □