Adapted from the original
by Mark Twain (1835-1910)
I took a large room up Broadway, in a huge old building whose top stories had been-empty-for years, given up to dust and cobwebs. I seemed invading the privacy, of the dead that first night I climbed to my room, and turning a dark angle of the stairway, a cobweb clung to my face, I reached my room. As the fire burned low, loneliness crept over, me. I covered up in bed and lay listening to the rain and wind till they lulled me to sleep.
All sit once I found myself awake. All was still but, my own heart. Presently the bedclothes began to slip away slowly, as if someone were pulling them! I could not stir. Then I seized them and drew them over my head. Once more that steady pull began, and I snatched the, covers back and held them –
By and by I felt a faint tug. My hold parted, and for the third time the blankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came from the foot of the bed! Presently I heard a heavy footstep the step of an elephant, it seemed. I lit the lamp with a trembling hand. I felt a gust of air and was conscious of a huge, cloudy presence before me. It gradually took shape-arms, legs, a body, and a great sad face. The majestic Cardiff Giant loomed above me!
All my misery vanished- for a child might know that no harm could come with the sweet face of that well-loved giant. Why, is it nobody but you? I said. I wish I had a chair-here, don’t try to sit down in that thing! But it was too late – I never saw a chair, so splintered in my life. ” Stop, stop, you’ll ruin everything,” I cried, but too late again. There was another crash and another chair was broken. Before I could stop him, the bed was destroyed.
Confound it, what is wrong with you? – I yelled. “You are big enough to know, better!” I apologize,” the giant moaned. ” I have not had a chance to sit down for a century.” And the tears came into his eyes. He sat down on the floor, wrapped up in my red blanket, and inverted my sitz-bath on his head, helmet fashion, and made himself comfortable. We talked along for half an hour, and I mentioned that he looked tired.
‘Tired? He said. ” Well I should think so. I am the spirit of the petrified man that lies across the street there in the museum. I am the ghost- of the Cardiff Giant. I can have no rest until they bury me. I haunted the museum for a long time, but who comes to the museum at midnight? So I moved here. Every night, I have haunted this place, and honestly, I am worn out. I need some help.”
I lit off my perch in excitement and said,” Why you poor, blundering old fossil, you have had all your trouble for nothing-you are haunting a plaster cast of yourself – the real Cardiff Giant is in Albany!”
The petrified, man rose slowly to his feet and said ” Honestly, is that true?” “As true as I am sitting here,” I answered. ” Well, I never felt so absurd in’ my life,” he muttered. “Now you mustn’t let this get out, think how silly you would feel if you’d made such a fool of yourself.” I heard his stately tramp die away, step by step down the stairs and into the deserted street, and I felt sorry that he had gone, poor fellow – and sorrier still that he had carried off my red blanket and my bathtub.
