Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field/Breaking the News Gently
BREAKING THE NEWS GENTLY
Returning to Vienna from a flying trip to Budapest, Mark was full of "a yarn that would illustrate like a circus and run for five years, every Sunday a page." He said he heard the story at the archduke Joseph's country place, the same Joseph who, towards the end of the war, tried to make himself King of Hungary and failed, but the probabilities are that the story was Mark's own, with Magyar trimmings. It ran as follows:
A great landowner, after a business trip of several months, returned to Budapest, and was met at the station by his carriage and pair that was to take him to his estate in the country.
"Everything well at home?" he asked the coachman.
"Excellently well," replied the driver, cracking his whip.
After a while the Baron ventured another question:
"Why didn't you bring my dogs along?" he asked.
"Dogs are sick, your Excellency."
"My dogs sick? How did that happen?"
"Ate too much fried horse."
"Fried horse? Where did they get that?"
"Stable burned down."
"My stable burned down, cattle and all? Awful! What about the castle?"
"Oh, the castle is all right."
The Baron thought it over for the space of a mile, then said:
"You are sure the castle was not hurt by the fire?"
"Sure, only the two wings burned down."
"But the family is safe?"
"Yes, the family is all right."
When the horses entered upon their tenth mile, the Baron resumed his examination:
"Children all well?"
"All well and happy, except Janos and Maritzka, who were burned."
"Burned, oh Lord! And the Baroness, my wife?"
"Oh, she is better off than any of us. God has her in His holy keeping. She was burned to death. Yes, indeed, she died with her mother and in her arms."
"This is what I call breaking the news gently," said Mark.