"Der Trinkspruch auf die Babies" | 29 Nov. 1879
Der Deutsche correspondent. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.), 29 Nov. 1879. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045081/1879-11-29/ed-1/seq-7/>
The following text is a heavily shortened translation of Mark Twain's speech "The Babies". A composite version of the original can be found in Mark Twain speaking (Fatout, 131-134).
Key to annotations on German translations of Mark Twain's original texts
| Transcription | English Translation / Original Text |
|---|---|
| „Der Trinkspruch auf die Babies,“ | “{A toast to} the babies. |
| die Trostspender in unseren Bekümmernissen, deren bei unseren Festen nicht vergessen werden darf - bildete wohl den launigsten Theil des Bankettes, das der Tennessee-Armee-Verein am 13. November zu Ehren Grant's in Chicago gab. Der geistreiche Mark Twain, der Redner mit dem unverwüstlichen Humor, nahm sich unter den Kriegern der Babies an. Es sei eine Schande, sagte er, daß man bei den Banketten, die seit 6000 Jahren stattgefunden, immer der Babies vergessen. Ihr Soldaten wisset, daß, wenn ein Baby im Familien Hauptquartier ankam, Ihr Eure Entlassung nehmen mußtet. Das Baby wurde der Ober-Commandant, der keine Rücksicht nimmt auf Zeit, Entfernung, Wetter oder andere Dinge. Ihr mußtet seine Befehle vollstrecken, ob sie nun möglich waren oder nicht. Ihr konntet dem Tode bei Donelson und Vicksburg in's Antlitz sehen und Schlag für Schlag erwiedern, aber Ihr ließet es Euch gefallen, wenn das Baby Euch bei'm Barte packte. Wenn es dem Baby einfiel, um 1/2 3 U. morgens einen Spaziergang zu machen, seid Ihr nicht sofort aufgestanden? Ihr waret unter einem guten Commando! .... Was für ein Schauspiel das für die Armee von Tennessee! Und auch wie unangenehm für die Nachbarn, denn wohl Niemand im Umkreise von drei Meilen liebt Militärmusik um 3 Uhr Morgens ... Was für eine Idee Das, daß ein Baby Nichts gilt! Ein Baby ist gerade genug für Haus und Hof. Es gibt auch mehr zu thun, als Ihr und das Ministerium des Innern besorgen könnet. Es ist unternehmend, unwiderstehlich, voll von gesetzlosem Treiben. Ihr möget thun, was Ihr wollt, Ihr könnet das Baby nicht auf der Reservation halten. Es ist die höchste Zeit, daß der Toastmeister die Bedeutung der Babies anerkennt. Wenn wir nach fünfzig Jahren todt sein werden, wird unsere Flagge über eine Republik von 200 Millionen Seelen wehen. Unser jetziger „Schooner“ von einer Republik wird ein großer politischer Leviathan sein, ein „Great Eastern,“ und die Babies von heute werden auf dem Deck sein. Unter Diesen hat der künftige Farragut vielleicht jetzt mit dem Zahnen zu thun; der künftige Astronom blinzelt die glänzende Milchstraße an. In jenen Wiegen befindet sich ein nächster Präsident, befinden sich spätere 60,000 Aemterjäger, befindet sich der zukünftige Obercommandant der amerikanischen Armee'n, dessen Strategie sich jetzt darauf beschränkt, den Weg für seine Zehe nach seinem Munde zu finden, ein Streben, dem auch der berühmte Gast dieses Abends vor 56 Jahren seine Aufmerksamkeit zugewendet hat.“ Die von uns auszugsweise mitgetheilte launige Rede übte selbstverständlich die heiterste Wirkung aus. | As they comfort us in our sorrows, let us not forget them in our festivities" {- was probably the most humorous part of the banquet given by the Tennessee Army Association in honor of [General] Grant in Chicago on November 13. Among the warriors, the witty Mark Twain, this speaker with an indestructible sense of humor, paid tribute to the babies.} <I like that. We haven't all had the good fortune to be ladies, we haven't all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground. We've all been babies.> It is a shame, {he said,} that for a thousand [translated as "six thousand"] years the world's banquets have utterly ignored the baby < - as if he didn't amount to anything! If you will stop and think a minute - if you will go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married life and recontemplate your first baby, you will remember that he amounted to a great deal, and even something over.> You soldiers all know that when the little fellow arrived at family headquarters you had to hand in your resignation. He took entire command. <You became his lackey - his mere body servant, and you had to stand around, too.> He was not a commander who made allowances for time, distance, weather, or anything else - you had to execute his order whether it was possible or not. <And there was only one form of marching in his manual of tactics, and that was the double-quick. He treated you with every sort of insolence and disrespect, and the bravest of you didn't dare to say a word.> You could face the death-storm at Donelson and Vicksburg, and give back blow for blow; but when he clawed your whiskers, <and pulled your hair, and twisted your nose,> you had to take it. <When the thunders of war were sounding in your ears you set your faces toward the batteries, and advanced with steady tread; but when he turned on the terrors of his war-whoop you advanced in the other direction - and mighty glad of the chance, too. When he called for soothing-syrup, did you venture to throw out any side remarks about certain services being unbecoming an officer and a gentleman? No. You got up and got it. When he ordered his pap-bottle and it was not warm, did you talk back? Not you. You went to work and warmed it. You even descended so far in your menial office as to take a suck at that warm, insipid stuff yourself, to see if it was right - three parts water to one of milk, a touch of sugar to modify the colic, and a drop of peppermint to kill those hiccoughs. I can taste that stuff yet. And how many things you learned as you went along! Sentimental young folks still take stock in that beautiful old saying that when the baby smiles in his sleep, it is because the angels are whispering to him. Very pretty, but too thin -simply wind on the stomach, my friends.> If the baby proposed to take a walk at his usual hour - half-past two in the morning - didn't you rise up promptly <and remark - with a mental addition which would not improve a Sunday-school book much, that that was the very thing you were about to propose yourself? Oh!> you were under good discipline, <and as you went fluttering up and down the room in your undress uniform, you not only prattled undignified baby-talk, but even tuned up your martial voices and tried to sing! - "Rock-a-by baby in the treetop," for instance.> What a spectacle for an Army of the Tennessee! And what an affliction for the neighbors, too; for it is not everybody within a mile around that [translated as "for nobody within three miles around"] likes military music at three in the morning. <And when you had been keeping this sort of thing up two or three hours, and your little velvet-head intimated that nothing suited him like exercise and noise, and proposed to fight it out on that line if it took all night - what did you do? [When Mark Twain paused, voices shouted: "Go on!"] You simply went on till you dropped in the last ditch.> The idea that a baby doesn't amount to anything! Why, one baby is just a house and a front yard full by itself. One baby can furnish more business than you and your whole Interior Department can attend to. He is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. Do what you please, you can't make him stay on the reservation. <Sufficient unto the day is one baby - as long as you are in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot; and there ain't any real difference between triplets and an insurrection.> Yes, it was high time for a toast-master to recognize the importance of the babies. <Think what is in store for the present crop!> Fifty years from now we shall all be dead - I trust - and then this flag, if it still survive <- and let us hope it may ->, will be floating over a Republic numbering 200,000,000 souls, <according to the settled laws of our increase;> our present schooner of State will have grown into a political leviathan - a Great Eastern - and the cradled babies of to-day will be on deck. <Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave a big contract on their hands. Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are.> In one of these cradles [translated as "among those"] the <unconscious> Farragut of the future is at this moment teething <- think of it! - and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another> the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way <with but a languid interest - poor little chap! - and wondering what has become of that other one they call the wet-nurse; in another the future great historian is lying - and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended;> in another {lies} the future President <is busying himself with no profounder problem of state than what the mischief has become of his hair so early;> and in a mighty array of other cradles there are now some sixty thousand future office-seekers, <getting ready to furnish him occasion to grapple with that same old problem a second time.> And in still one more <cradle, somewhere under the flag,> the future <illustrious> commander-in- chief of the American armies is <so little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be> giving his whole strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get his big toe into his mouth - an achievement which, <meaning no disrespect,> the illustrious guest of this evening turned his entire attention to some fifty-six years ago; <and if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded.> {Needless to say, the witty speech, portions of which we have shared above, had the most cheerful effect.} |