Keberuntungan

Mark Twain

Terjemahan Anton Kurnia

(Catatan: Ini bukan kisah rekaan. Aku mendengarnya dari seorang pendeta yang pernah menjadi instruktur di Woolwich empat puluh tahun silam dan dia bersumpah bahwa ini benar adanya.)

Kisah ini bermula di sebuah pesta jamuan di London untuk menghormati salah satu dari dua atau tiga tokoh militer Inggris paling hebat dalam generasi ini. Demi alasan yang nanti akan kuungkapkan, kurahasiakan nama dan pangkatnya yang sesungguhnya. Kita sebut saja dia Letnan Jenderal Lord Arthur Scoresby, V.C., K.C.B., dll., dsb. Betapa memukau nama yang tenar itu! Dia duduk di sana, dalam wujud nyata, dia yang kudengar namanya ribuan kali sejak tiga puluh tahun silam ketika sekonyong-konyong nama itu melejit ke puncak ketenaran dalam Perang Krimea dan dielu-elukan orang hingga seterusnya. Wajar jika aku terus-menerus menatap sosok setengah dewa itu; mengamati, meneliti, mencamkan: sikap diamnya, kewaspadaannya, aura mulia dari raut wajahnya; kejujuran bersahaja yang memancar darinya; ketaksadaran yang indah atas keagungannya—tak sadar bahwa tatapan kagum ratusan pasang mata tertancap kepadanya, tak sadar bahwa rasa cinta yang dalam dan pemujaan yang tulus meluap dari dalam dada mereka dan mengalir kepadanya.

Pendeta di sebelah kiriku adalah kenalan lamaku. Dia kini pendeta, tapi dia pernah menghabiskan separuh awal umurnya di kamp militer dan medan perang, juga sebagai instruktur sekolah militer di Woolwich. Sesaat setelah kami mulai bercakap-cakap, kulihat secercah binar terselubung di matanya, lalu dia mencondongkan diri dan berbisik penuh percaya diri kepadaku, memberi isyarat kepadaku tentang sang pahlawan dengan gerak tubuhnya. “Antara kita saja, dia sesungguhnya sangat tolol.”

Perkataannya mengejutkanku. Jika dia berbicara tentang Napoleon atau Socrates, atau Sulaiman, tentu aku tak akan seheran ini. Dua hal yang kutahu betul tentang pendeta ini: dia amat jujur dan penilaiannya terhadap orang sangat jeli. Maka, aku yakin dunia telah salah menilai pahlawan ini: dia orang yang tolol. Aku pun mencari-cari kesempatan agar Pak Pendeta berkenan membeberkan rahasia ini pada saat yang lebih nyaman dan hanya di antara kami berdua.

Beberapa hari kemudian kesempatan itu datang dan inilah yang dikisahkan Pak Pendeta kepadaku.

Sekitar empat puluh tahun silam aku adalah instruktur akademi militer di Woolwich. Aku hadir dalam salah satu bagian ketika Scoresby muda mengikuti ujian awal. Aku langsung tersentuh iba. Hampir semua yang ada di kelas dapat menjawab pertanyaan dengan gemilang dan baik, sedangkan dia—aduh, boleh dikatakan, dia tidak tahu apa-apa. Dia tampak baik, manis, menyenangkan, dan polos sehingga betapa sangat menyakitkan melihatnya berada di sana, setenang patung berhala, dan mengutarakan jawaban-jawaban yang sungguh ajaib karena kebodohan dan kepandirannya. Segenap belas kasihku timbul terhadapnya. Aku berkata kepada diriku sendiri, jika dia diuji lagi, dia tentu akan gagal. Maka, akan menjadi sebuah tindakan belas kasihan yang tak berbahaya jika aku mencegah kejatuhannya sedapat-dapatnya. Aku mendekatinya dan ternyata dia tahu sedikit tentang sejarah Caesar. Karena dia tidak tahu apa-apa selain itu, aku bertindak dan melatihnya habis-habisan bagai budak kerja paksa tentang sederetan pertanyaan terkait Caesar yang kutahu akan berguna. Jika kau percaya kepadaku, dia ternyata berhasil lolos dengan cemerlang pada saat ujian! Dia lolos berkat “latihan kilat” yang sungguh dangkal itu, dan bahkan mendapat pujian, sementara yang lainnya, yang mengetahui seribu kali lebih banyak hal daripada dia, tersingkir. Melalui sejumlah kecelakaan mujur yang aneh—kecelakaan yang tampaknya tidak akan terjadi dua kali dalam seabad—dia tak ditanyai pertanyaan di luar latihan terbatas yang dijalaninya.

Sungguh mengherankan! Yah, sepanjang masa pelatihan itu aku mendukungnya dengan semacam perasaan yang dipunyai seorang ibu terhadap anaknya yang cacat. Dan dia selalu berhasil menyelamatkan diri—jelaslah, hanya melalui keajaiban.

Kini tentu saja yang akan membuka kedoknya dan membunuhnya adalah matematika. Aku memutuskan mempermudah kematiannya sebisaku. Maka aku terus mengajari dan melatihnya, melatihnya dan mengajarinya, hanya tentang sederetan pertanyaan yang tampaknya akan diajukan oleh para penguji dan kemudian menyerahkannya kepada nasibnya. Nah, cobalah pahami hasilnya: berlawanan dengan kekhawatiranku, dia meraih hadiah pertama! Dan dengan itu dia mendapat tepuk tangan sempurna sebagai pujian.

Tidur? Tak ada tidur bagiku selama seminggu. Kesadaranku menyiksaku siang dan malam. Apa yang telah kulakukan itu murni kuperbuat sebagai belas kasih dan hanya untuk menghindarkan kejatuhan pemuda malang itu—aku tak pernah memimpikan akibat tak masuk akal semacam itu bakal terjadi. Aku merasa sebersalah dan segalau pencipta Frankenstein. Inilah seorang otak udang yang telah kuberi jalan menuju kenaikan pangkat gemilang dan tanggung jawab amat besar. Namun satu hal bisa terjadi: dia dan tanggung jawabnya akan hancur berkeping-keping pada kesempatan pertama.

Perang Krimea baru saja pecah. Tentu saja harus ada perang, kataku kepada diri sendiri: kita tak bisa tenang-tenang saja dan memberi keledai ini kesempatan untuk mati sebelum kedoknya terbongkar. Aku menantikan bencana itu. Dan bencana itu pun terjadilah. Aku limbung saat itu terjadi. Dia diumumkan sebagai komandan sebuah resimen yang akan maju bertempur! Orang-orang yang lebih baik membutuhkan waktu lama bertugas sebelum mereka meraih keagungan semacam itu. Siapa yang bisa meramal mereka akan memberikan tanggung jawab sebesar itu kepada pemuda hijau yang tak mampu menyangganya? Aku bisa mengerti jika mereka menugasinya sebagai peniup terompet. Tapi sebagai kapten? Coba pikir! Kurasa rambutku akan memutih.

Coba tebak apa yang kulakukan—aku yang begitu gemar istirahat dan malas-malasan. Aku berkata pada diri sendiri bahwa aku bertanggungjawab terhadap negara atas hal ini dan oleh karenanya aku harus pergi bersamanya untuk melindungi negara dari kebodohannya sebisa mungkin. Maka aku pun bergabung dengan pasukan itu menuju medan pertempuran.

Dan di sana, oh, Tuhan, sungguh mengerikan! Dia tak pernah melakukan apa-apa selain kesalahan! Anehnya, tak seorang pun menyadari kesalahan-kesalahannya. Setiap orang berbaik sangka kepadanya. Mereka menganggap hal-hal bodoh yang dilakukannya sebagai inisiatif yang genius. Kesalahan-kesalahan yang dia lakukan cukup untuk membuat semua orang waras menangis, dan aku memang menangis—dan mengamuk dan membentak-bentak, tapi hanya seorang diri.

Dan satu hal yang membuatku selalu takjub adalah: setiap kesalahan baru yang dilakukannya justru di mata mereka tampak sebagai sebuah keberanian yang membuat reputasinya semakin harum! Terus saja aku berkata pada diri sendiri, ia akan terus melambung begitu tinggi, hingga saat ia ketahuan, kejatuhannya akan seperti matahari terjungkir dari langit.

Dia terus maju, setahap demi setahap, melampaui mayat kawan dan lawan, hingga pada akhirnya, di saat pertempuran semakin memanas, kolonel kami gugur dan itu membuatku terkejut, sebab Scoresby-lah yang ditugaskan untuk menggantikannya! Waduh, kataku, pasti kami sebentar lagi akan menemui ajal.

Pertempuran semakin dahsyat; pasukan sekutu sedikit demi sedikit terpaksa mundur. Resimen kami menempati posisi strategis. Sebuah kesalahan pasti akan sangat fatal akibatnya. Di saat yang genting ini, kebodohan abadi yang melekat padanya kembali muncul. Ia memerintahkan resimen kami meninggalkan tempat dan menyerbu sebuah bukit di mana tak satu pun musuh terlihat! “Inilah saatnya!” ratapku dalam hati. “Inilah akhir segalanya.”

Kami bergerak ke bukit tersebut sebelum ide gila ini dapat dihentikan. Dan apakah yang kami temukan? Seluruh pasukan cadangan musuh! Apa yang terjadi kemudian? Kami diserang? Mungkin itu yang akan terjadi dalam sembilan puluh sembilan dari seratus kasus. Tetapi tidak, pasukan musuh mengira tidak mungkin hanya satu resimen yang menyerbu mereka pada saat itu. Mereka pikir yang menyerbu adalah seluruh tentara Inggris dan mereka telah terkepung, jadi mereka lari tunggang-langgang kebingungan! Dan kami mengejar mereka! Mereka sendiri menembus pusat kekuatan pasukan mereka di lapangan, dan menyebarkan kepanikan di sana, sehingga seketika terjadilah pertempuran paling menakjubkan yang pernah kau lihat. Kekalahan pasukan sekutu yang seharusnya terjadi berbalik menjadi kemenangan gemilang! Marsekal Canrobert hanya menatap, sarat dengan keheranan, kekaguman, dan kegembiraan; lalu langsung memanggil Scoresby, memeluknya erat-erat, dan memberinya lencana kehormatan di tempat, di hadapan seluruh pasukan!

Dan apa kesalahan Scoresby waktu itu? Sederhana, ia keliru mana tangan kanan dan tangan kiri—itu saja. Ia mendapat perintah untuk mundur dan bantu pasukan di kanan kami, tapi ia malah maju dan menyerbu bukit di kiri. Scoresby kemudian dikenal sebagai genius militer yang luar biasa dan kejayaannya takkan pernah pudar.

Dia sebetulnya baik dan menyenangkan, juga bukan seseorang yang suka berlagak. Namun, masalahnya, dia tak pernah tahu saat yang tepat untuk bertindak. Itu sungguh benar. Dia benar-benar orang paling konyol di alam semesta ini. Dan hingga setengah jam lalu tak seorang pun yang mengetahuinya selain dia sendiri dan aku. Hari demi hari, tahun demi tahun, dengan keberuntungan yang fenomenal dan mengherankan dia menapaki kariernya. Dia telah dikenal sebagai seorang serdadu paling cemerlang dalam peperangan selama satu generasi. Dia mengotori seluruh karier militernya dengan kesalahan demi kesalahan, dan tak pernah satu kali pun dia melakukan tindakan yang membuatnya layak diberi gelar ksatria, atau bangsawan, atau ningrat, atau apa pun. Lihatlah dadanya. Begitu sarat dengan bintang jasa dari dalam dan luar negeri. Yah, sesungguhnya setiap tanda jasa itu adalah rekaman dari setiap kebodohannya yang parah. Dan jika semua itu disimpulkan, itu semua adalah bukti bahwa hal terbaik di dunia ini yang bisa didapat oleh seseorang adalah terlahir dengan nasib mujur. Sekali lagi kunyatakan, seperti yang kukatakan dalam perjamuan itu, sesungguhnya Scoresby benar-benar orang tolol.

LUCK

Mark Twain

[Note—This is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago, and who vouched for its truth.—M.T.]

It was at a banquet in London in honor of one of the two or three conspicuously illustrious English military names of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and titles, and call him Lieutenant General Lord Arthur Scoresby, V.C., K.C.B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name! There sat the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean battlefield, to remain forever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of his greatness—unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring eyes fastened upon him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people and flowing toward him.

The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine—clergyman now, but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field, and as an instructor in the military school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I have been talking about, a veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes, and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me—indicating the hero of the banquet with a gesture:

"Privately—he's an absolute fool."

This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been greater. Two things I was well aware of: that the Reverend was a man of strict veracity, and that his judgement of men was good. Therefore I knew, beyond doubt or question, that the world was mistaken about this hero: he was a fool. So I meant to find out, at a convenient moment, how the Reverend, all solitary and alone, had discovered the secret.

Some days later the opportunity came, and this is what the Reverend told me.

About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military academy at Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections when young Scoresby underwent his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick with pity; for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he—why, dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was evidently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless; and so it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image, and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused in his behalf. I said to myself, when he comes to be examined again, he will be flung over, of course; so it will be simply a harmless act of charity to ease his fall as much as I can. I took him aside, and found that he knew a little of Cæsar's history; and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a galley slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Cæsar which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me, he went through with flying colors on examination day! He went through on that purely superficial "cram," and got compliments too, while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident—an accident not likely to happen twice in a century—he was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his drill.

It was stupefying. Well, all through his course I stood by him, with something of the sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled child; and he always saved himself—just by miracle, apparently.

Now of course the thing that would expose him and kill him at last was mathematics. I resolved to make his death as easy as I could; so I drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him, just on the line of questions which the examiners would be most likely to use, and then launching him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the result: to my consternation, he took the first prize! And with it he got a perfect ovation in the way of compliments.

Sleep? There was no more sleep for me for a week. My conscience tortured me day and night. What I had done I had done purely through charity, and only to ease the poor youth's fall—I never had dreamed of any such preposterous result as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and miserable as the creator of Frankenstein. Here was a woodenhead whom I had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious responsibilities, and but one thing could happen: he and his responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first opportunity.

The Crimean war had just broken out. Of course there had to be a war, I said to myself: we couldn't have peace and give this donkey a chance to die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came. And it made me reel when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy in a marching regiment! Better men grow old and gray in the service before they climb to a sublimity like that. And who could ever have foreseen that they would go and put such a load of responsibility on such green and inadequate shoulders? I could just barely have stood it if they had made him a cornet; but a captain—think of it! I thought my hair would turn white.

Consider what I did—I who so loved repose and inaction. I said to myself, I am responsible to the country for this, and I must go along with him and protect the country against him as far as I can. So I took my poor little capital that I had saved up through years of work and grinding economy, and went with a sigh and bought a cornetcy in his regiment, and away we went to the field.

And there—oh dear, it was awful. Blunders? Why, he never did anything but blunder. But, you see, nobody was in the fellow's secret—everybody had him focused wrong, and necessarily misinterpreted his performance every time—consequently they took his idiotic blunders for inspirations of genius; they did, honestly! His mildest blunders were enough to make a man in his right mind cry; and they did make me cry—and rage and rave too, privately. And the thing that kept me always in a sweat of apprehension was the fact that every fresh blunder he made increased the luster of his reputation! I kept saying to myself, he'll get so high, that when discovery does finally come, it will be like the sun falling out of the sky.

He went right along up, from grade to grade, over the dead bodies of his superiors, until at last, in the hottest moment of the battle of ------- down went our colonel, and my heart jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby was next in rank! Now for it, said I; we'll all land in Sheol in ten minutes, sure.

The battle was awfully hot; the allies were steadily giving way all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was vital; a blunder now must be destruction. At this crucial moment, what does this immortal fool do but detach the regiment from its place and order a charge over a neighboring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of an enemy! "There you go!" I said to myself; "this is the end at last."

And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the hill before the insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find? An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve! And what happened? We were eaten up? That is necessarily what would have happened in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But no, those Russians argued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russian center in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies was turned into a sweeping and splendid victory! Marshal Canrobert looked on, dizzy with astonishment, admiration,and delight; and sent right off for Scoresby, and hugged him, and decorated him on the field, in presence of all the armies!

And what was Scoresby's blunder that time? Merely the mistaking his right hand for his left—that was all. An order had come to him to fall back and support our right; and instead, he fell forward and went over the hill to the left. But the name he won that day as a marvelous military genius filled the world with his glory, and that glory will never fade while history books last.

He is just as good and sweet and lovable and unpretending as a man can be, but he doesn't know enough to come in when it rains. Now that is absolutely true. He is the supremest ass in the universe; and until half an hour ago nobody knew it but himself and me. He has been pursued, day by day and year by year, by a most phenomenal and astonishing luckiness. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for a generation; he has littered his whole military life with blunders, and yet has never committed one that didn't make him a knight or a baronet or a lord or something. Look at his breast; why, he is just clothed in domestic and foreign decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is the record of some shouting stupidity or other; and taken together, they are proof that the very best thing in all this world that can befall a man is to be born lucky. I say again, as I said at the banquet, Scoresby's an absolute fool.