Only those who have survived can lift weights lightly, and humor is an easy presentation of wisdom and strength. Churchill was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. It can be said that he has a strong tongue.
1
Churchill didn’t like his son-in-law very much. Once he and his son-in-law attended a party at the same time, someone asked who he admired the most. In front of his son-in-law, Churchill replied: “Mussolini. Because he had the courage to shoot his son-in-law, I couldn’t do it.”
2
Churchill and the British female political leader Nancy Astor disliked each other and ridiculed each other every time they met. Once the two had a dispute, Astor said to Churchill annoyedly: “If I were your wife, I would put poison in your coffee.” Churchill replied in no hurry: “If I were your husband , I will drink it without hesitation.”
3
At Churchill’s 75th birthday party, a young journalist said to him: “I hope I can congratulate you on your birthday next year.” Churchill patted the young man on the shoulder and said, “I think you are so strong, so there should be no problem. .”
4
Once when Churchill was drunk, he ran into Labour Congresswoman Bessie Braddock. The other party laughed at him and said, “You are drunk! Look at you, you are disgustingly drunk!” Churchill retorted, “I am tomorrow.” You can wake up in the morning, and you will still be as ugly as you are now tomorrow morning.”
5
Once a British woman asked Churchill: “Every time you give a speech, the hall is always crowded, don’t you feel excited?” Churchill replied, “Thanks for the praise, but whenever I feel this way , I always let myself remember one thing, if I am not giving a speech but being hanged, I am afraid the audience will double.”
a few minutes the news had spread in the town and soon a dozen boats full of people were on their way to the cave, followed shortly after by the crowded steam ferry. Tom Sawyer was in a boat with the judge. When the heavy door of the cave was opened, a sad sight presented itself in the gloomy twilight of the place. There the Indian Joe lay stretched to the ground, dead, with his face close to the crack in the door, as if his eyes were to the last Moment longingly for the light and lust of the beautiful world of God out there. Tom was deeply moved, knowing from personal experience what the villain had suffered. But although his pity was lively, he felt at the same time an overflowing feeling of enthusiasm and relief,
The Indian Joe’s dagger was close to him; the blade was broken in two. The large base beam of the door had been worked with unspeakable effort by the knife and finally cut through; but it was in vain[282] Work, because from the outside the rock formed a natural threshold on which the weak knife had to be smashed. Even without this stone obstacle, the work would have been in vain, for he would never have been able to force his body through under the door, and Indian Joe knew that very well. Even so, he had continued to carve and drill just to get something[283] do only to bring the hideously slowly creeping time over there, in order to force his tormented spirits to some activity. Usually a number of pits of light, which had been left behind by the respective visitors, could be seen stuck in the cracks and crevices of this vestibule. Nothing of it could be seen today. The imprisoned man must have gathered and eaten them all. He must have seized some bats for the same purpose, as was evident from the wings lying around. The unfortunate man had literally died of starvation. Not far from him a stalactite formation had grown up from the ground over the centuries, nourished by the falling drop of a stalactite hanging down above. The Indian Joe had broken off the stalactite and placed a stone on the stump, in which he made a small indentation to catch the precious drop, which fell once in twenty minutes with the regularity of a clock pendulum – all in all a teaspoonful in twenty-four hours. That drop fell when the pyramids were new, it fell when Troy sank, when Rome was founded, when Christ was crucified, when William the Conqueror created the British Empire, when Columbus sailed, when the war of independence broke out. That drop is still falling now and it will continue to fall when all these things will have sunk through the daylight of history into the twilight of legend, into the deep night of oblivion. Does everything down here have its purpose, its purpose? Did that drop have to fall so patiently, for five thousand years, in order to meet the needs of those ephemeral human mayfly ready to be? Will he have any other mission to accomplish in ten thousand years? Who could know! But what does it matter? – Many, many years have passed since that unfortunate woman took the stone[284] cave to catch the precious drop, but to this day every visitor to the cave looks longest at this stone and the falling drop. The ‘Indian Joe’s Cup’ ranks first among the wonders of the cave; even Aladdin’s Palace cannot compete with it.
Indian Joe was buried close to the exit of the cave. People flocked to the funeral from every corner of the sky, seven miles around, by boat and by car. They had brought their children and all sorts of groceries, and finally left as satisfied as if Joe had been hanged.
The following morning Tom took his friend Huck to a secret place to discuss something important with him. In the meantime, Huck had found out about Tom’s adventure, but he said that there was still something there that he would certainly not have heard and that he just wanted to talk about it. Huck’s face took on a sad expression; he said, “I already know what you want, Tom! You went to number two and only found schnapps, right? Nobody told me, but when I heard about the schnapps story, I knew straight away that it was you. You haven’t found any money, I know that, otherwise you would have let me know. Well, Tom, I always had a suspicion that we’d end up going out empty-handed. ”
“But, Huck, I didn’t say a word about the innkeeper! Everything was still in order in his tavern when I went to the picnic on Saturday. Don’t you know anymore You were supposed to watch over there all night! ”
“God knows, yes. It feels like an eternity to me. It was the same night I crept up there behind the Indian Joe behind Mrs. Douglas’s garden fence. ”
“You sneaked after him?”
“Yes, but you keep your mouth clean, do you hear? Of the[285] Guy could have left good friends, and I don’t want to rush them on me. If I hadn’t been, the villain would be in Texas now or God knows where. ”
Huck now confidently shared his entire adventure with Tom, of which he had only heard a fragment from the old Valaisan.
“Well,” then concluded Huck, returning to the main question, “and whoever dug the schnapps in number two has the money too, that much is certain! We can wipe our mouth! ”
“Huck, the money was never in number two.”
‘ What? “Huck stared into Tom’s face,” Tom, are you finally on the trail of the treasure again? ”
“Huck, – he’s in the cave!”
Huck’s eyes shone.
“Say it again, Tom.”
“The money is in the cave!”
“Tom, – Lord God once more – is it a joke or a serious one?”
“Serious, Huck, as serious as anything can be in life. Do you want to come along and get it out? ”
“So what! That means – if it’s somewhere, where we can get it and find our way out again. ”
“That’s what I stand for!”
“But how do you think that the money -”
“Just wait until you’re there. If we don’t find it, I’ll give you my drum and everything else I have, as sure as – ”
“It’s a word. So when? ”
“Right now if you want. Are you strong enough? ”
“Is it far in the cave? I’ve only been back on my walking sticks for three days; I don’t think they’re going any further than a mile, Tom. ”
[286]
“It’s about five miles the ordinary way, of course, but it’s a huge cut off on a way I only know. I’ll take you there in the boat and you shouldn’t lift a finger. ”
“Well, let’s go, Tom.”
“That’s right, but we need bread and meat and our pipes first, a couple of little sacks and a ball of string, then a couple of those newfangled things they call matches. I tell you, I would have been delighted if I had had some the other day when I was so in a tight spot. ”
Shortly after noon the boys ‘borrowed’ a small boat from a man who was not home at the time and immediately set off. When they were a few miles below the Cave Cove, Tom said:
“You see, Huck, the whole steep stretch of shore from ‘Cave Bay’ to here is the same everywhere – no house, no forest, just scrub; but look, the bright spot up there where there must have been a landslide, that’s my mark. Now we’re landing. ”
And they landed.
“Where we are now, Huck, you could hit the hole we crawled out of with a fishing rod. See if you can find it. ”
Huck searched everywhere but found nothing. Tom proudly walked up to a thick bush of sumac bushes and said:
“Here it is! Look at it, Huck, it’s the nicest hole in the whole country. But that you keep your mouth shut. I’ve wanted to be a robber for a long time, but I needed something like the hole here, just didn’t want to be found. Now I’ve got it and we’re fine, just tell Joe Harper and Ben Rogers, because we have to have a whole lot, otherwise the thing won’t be chic. Tom Sawyer’s gang, it’s splendid, is it Huck? ”
[287]
“It does, Tom, God knows it does! And who is robbed? ”
“Well, everyone. We just lie in wait for people, that’s how you do it. ”
“And do they kill?”
»Nah – always not! Lock them in the cave until they ranzion themselves. ”
»Ranzion – what? What does this mean?”
“Well, give money! Your friends have to scrape together everything they can, and if the sum you ask isn’t together after a year, then the prisoners are killed. That’s the way it’s usually done. Only women are allowed to live. You lock them up, but you don’t kill them. They are always beautiful and rich and terribly fearful. You take their watches and their other belongings away from them, but always take off your hat to them and are polite. Nobody is as polite as the robbers, you can read that in every book. Well, the women, they love you, and once they’ve been in the cave for two or three weeks, they stop crying and you can’t get rid of them after all. If you wanted to drive them out, they would quickly turn around and come back. That’s what it says in all books. ”
“Well, I’ll put up with that. It’s even better than being a pirate. ”
“It’s better in one way, it’s not that far from home and closer to the circus and all that stuff.”
Now everything was ready and the boys slipped into the hole, Tom first. They crawled with difficulty to the other end of the little tunnel, then fastened their leash and pushed forward. A few steps brought her to the spring, and Tom felt a cold shiver showered over him. He showed Huck what was left of the wick, the one with a[288] Clump of clay was attached to the rock face, describing how he and Becky watched desperately as the flame flickered out and flickered out.
The boys now spoke only in whispers, for the silence and desolation of the place depressed their mood. They stepped on and came to the other passage that ended at the supposed ‘abyss’. By the candlelight, however, it turned out that there was no unfathomable abyss, but only a steep mud wall twenty to thirty feet deep. Tom whispered:
“Now I want to show you something, Huck.”
He picked up the candle and said:
“Look around that corner as far as you can. Do you see something? There, on the big boulder over there – blackened with candle smoke? ”
“Tom, it’s a cross !”
“Well, where is number two? Under the cross , huh? Right there I saw Indian Joe raising his candle, Huck! ”
Huck stared at the mysterious symbol for a while and then breathed in a trembling voice:
“Tom, let’s get out of here!”
“What, and let the treasure down?”
“Yes Dear. The Indian Joe’s ghost is certainly haunted here. ”
“Keep it, Huck, not here! It’s haunted where the guy died, at the exit over there – five miles from here! ”
“Nah, Tom, I don’t think so. He’s haunted his money. I know how ghosts do it, and you know too! ”
Tom began to think that Huck would be right in the end[289] could. Evil suspicions arose in him. Suddenly a redeeming thought occurred to him.
“Think about it, Huck, we’re both fools! How can a ghost haunt where there is a cross! ”
That was spot on.
“Tom, I never thought of that. But that’s the way it is. The cross is lucky for us. We want to climb down there and look at the box. ”
Tom led the way by cutting rough steps into the mud wall as he descended. Huck followed. Four corridors led out of the small cave in which the boulder stood. The boys examined three of them with no success. They found a little hiding place with a bundle of woolen blankets, an old braces, a piece of ham rind, and the gnawed bones of two or three chickens. But the gold box was nowhere to be seen. The boys searched everything and searched it again, for nothing! – Tom said:
“It said under the cross. Here we are closest below. It can’t be under the rock itself, it sits firmly on the bottom, now what? ”
Again they searched all over the place and then sat down discouraged. Huck didn’t know what to suggest. After a while Tom said:
“Look here, Huck, there are footprints and drops of sebum in the clay on this side of the rock and only here. That means something, in the end the money is under the rock. I’m digging here in the clay. ”
“It’s not a stupid thought, Tom,” Huck replied briskly.
Tom’s knife was at hand right now, and he had barely dug four inches when he struck wood.
“Well, Huck! Do you hear the?”
[290]
Huck now began to dig and scratch too. Soon a couple of boards were exposed and taken away. These had hidden a natural crevice that led under the rocks. Tom crawled in and held his candle down as far as he could but couldn’t see the end of the crack. So he suggested that we should go on researching, and he stooped and crawled forward; the narrow gap gradually led downwards. Tom followed the winding run first to the right and then to the left, Huck on his heels. When Tom made another sharp turn, he suddenly called out:
“Lord, my goodness, Huck look here!”
It was the gold box that stood there, certainly and truly, in a neat little cave, together with an empty powder bag, a couple of rifles in leather cases and an old belt, everything soaked with seeping drops of water.
“Found it, finally found it!” Huck cheered, digging through the sparkling coins with his hands. “But now we’re rich, Tom!”
“I counted on it for sure, Huck, and yet it’s almost too good to be true. But if we have the treasure, that much is certain. Let’s not waste any more time now, but swiftly get history to safety. Show me if I can lift the box. ”
It weighed maybe fifty pounds. Tom could only lift it with difficulty, there was no way of taking it away.
“I thought so,” he said, “back then in the haunted house the guys were having a hard time, – I noticed it right away. It’s good that I took the little sacks with me. ”
The money was soon distributed in the sacks and the boys carried it up to the boulder with the cross.
“Now let’s get the rifles and the other stuff,” suggested Huck.
[291]
“Keep it safe, we’ll leave it there. We can use all of this wonderfully once we are robbers. We’ll celebrate our orgies in the cave, it’s just made for orgies! ”
“What’s that – orgies?”
“What do I know? But robbers always have orgies, and of course we have to do that too. Forward, Huck, we have to move fast, we’ve been here too long. It will be late, I’m hungry too;[292] but we don’t want to eat and smoke until we’re in the boat. ”
Shortly afterwards they emerged from the sumac bushes, looked cautiously on all sides, saw that the air was clear, and soon sat in the boat chewing and smoking. As the sun was about to set, they repelled. Tom rowed along the bank in the steadily widening dusk, and they landed, chatting merrily, shortly after nightfall.
“Now, Huck,” cried Tom, “let’s hide the money in the Widow Douglas’ woodshed, and I’ll come tomorrow morning and we’ll count and share the stuff and then look in the woods for a place where we can safely bury it. You lie quietly here now and guard the glory, meanwhile I quickly fetch Master Taylor’s handcart. I’ll be right back!”
He disappeared and after a short time returned with a cart, in which he put the two money bags, threw a few old rags on them and then set off with his load. At the old Valaiser’s house the boys stopped to rest. When they were about to go on, the old man stepped out and called:
“Holla, who is it?”
“Huck and Tom Sawyer.”
“All right, and now, fast forward, boys, everything is waiting for you. Come on, nimble, run to, I want to pull the cart, bring it on. My loyalty is not as easy as it could be. Bricks on it or old iron? ”
“Old metal,” said Tom laconically.
“I thought so, thought I did. The local boys do a lot of work and waste a lot of time in order to find such old ironwork for which they can only buy a few pfennigs[293] get a lot more time and effort in the foundry than they would need to earn as much honest work. Well, it’s just part of human nature, can’t be changed. Just swiftly, forwards, forwards! ”
The boys wanted to know why such a hurry was necessary.
“Don’t ask for a long time – just go ahead, you’ll see when we get to the widow.”
Huck felt bad premonitions rise within him. He was used to being falsely accused of stupid pranks.
“Mr. Jones, of course we have done nothing,” he protested timidly.
The old man laughed heartily.
“Who knows, Huck, my boy, who knows? Aren’t you a good friend of the widow? ”
“Oh yes, in any case, she was kind to me!”
“So what! Then why are you afraid? ”
Huck had not yet fully resolved the question when he felt himself pushed into Mrs. Douglas’ salon with Tom. Jones left the cart at the door and followed them.
The house was brightly lit, and everyone who meant anything in town was there. There were Thatchers, and Harpers, Rogers, Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, the priest, the editor and many others, all in festive clothes. Mrs. Douglas received the boys as warmly as one could receive two such looking human children. They were literally covered with clay and drops of sebum. Aunt Polly turned fiery red with embarrassment, frowned threateningly, and shook her gray head reproachfully and disapprovingly at Tom. But no one could be more embarrassed or ashamed than the boys themselves. Mr. Jones said:
[294]
“Tom hasn’t been home yet; I had already given up all hope of bringing him here, but then just outside my front door I stumble across the two of them, and I just brought them with me as they walked and stood. ”
“And that was very right,” affirmed the widow. “Come with me, boys!”
She took them with her into a bedroom and said:
“Now wash and get dressed. Here are two new suits, shirts, socks, all complete. They are yours, Huck, – no, no thanks, – Mr. Jones bought one and I bought the other. If Tom lends one tonight, both will probably fit. So quickly into it. We wait so long. Come down quickly when you’ve groped enough. ”
And she went.
