Clemens was able to write pretty steadily that summer in Nauheim and
turned off a quantity of copy. He completed several short articles
and stories, and began, or at least continued work on, two books--'Tom
Sawyer Abroad' and 'Those Extraordinary Twins'--the latter being the
original form of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson'. As early as August 4th he wrote
to Hall that he had finished forty thousand words of the “Tom Sawyer”
story, and that it was to be offered to some young people's magazine,
Harper's Young People or St. Nicholas; but then he suddenly decided that
his narrative method was altogether wrong. To Hall on the 10th he wrote:
I have dropped that novel I wrote you about because I saw a more
effective way of using the main episode--to wit, by telling it
through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn & Tom
Sawyer (still 15 years old) & their friend the freed slave Jim
around the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, &
somewhere after the end of that great voyage he will work in that
original episode & then nobody will suspect that a whole book has
been written & the globe circumnavigated merely to get that episode
in in an effective (& at the same time apparently unintentional)
way. I have written 12,000 words of this new narrative, & find that
the humor flows as easily as the adventures & surprises--so I shall
go along and make a book of from 50,000 to 100,000 words.
It is a story for boys, of course, & I think it will interest any
boy between 8 years & 80.
When I was in New York the other day Mrs. Dodge, editor of St.
Nicholas, wrote and offered me $5,000 for (serial right) a story for
boys 50,000 words long. I wrote back and declined, for I had other
matter in my mind then.
I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write
so that it will not only interest boys, but will also strongly
interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges
the audience.
Now, this story doesn't need to be restricted to a child's magazine
--it is proper enough for any magazine, I should think, or for a
syndicate. I don't swear it, but I think so.
Proposed title--New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
He was full of his usual enthusiasm in any new undertaking, and writes
of the Extraordinary Twins:
By and by I shall have to offer (for grown folks' magazine) a novel
entitled, 'Those Extraordinary Twins'. It's the howling farce I
told you I had begun awhile back. I laid it aside to ferment while
I wrote Tom Sawyer Abroad, but I took it up again on a little
different plan lately, and it is swimming along satisfactorily now.
I think all sorts of folks will read it. It is clear out of the
common order--it is a fresh idea--I don't think it resembles
anything in literature.
He was quite right; it did not resemble anything in literature, nor did
it greatly resemble literature, though something at least related to
literature would eventually grow out of it.
In a letter written many years afterward by Frank Mason, then
consul-general at Frankfort, he refers to “that happy summer at
Nauheim.” Mason was often a visitor there, and we may believe that his
memory of the summer was justified. For one thing, Clemens himself was
in better health and spirits and able to continue his work. But an
even greater happiness lay in the fact that two eminent physicians had
pronounced Mrs. Clemens free from any organic ills. To Orion, Clemens
wrote:
We are in the clouds because the bath physicians say positively that
Livy has no heart disease but has only weakness of the heart muscles
and will soon be well again. That was worth going to Europe to find
out.
It was enough to change the whole atmosphere of the household, and
financial worries were less considered. Another letter to Orion relates
history:
The Twichells have been here four days & we have had good times with
them. Joe & I ran over to Homburg, the great pleasure-resort,
Saturday, to dine with friends, & in the morning I went walking in
the promenade & met the British ambassador to the Court of Berlin
and he introduced me to the Prince of Wales. I found him a most
unusually comfortable and unembarrassing Englishman.
Twichell has reported Mark Twain's meeting with the Prince (later Edward
VII) as having come about by special request of the latter, made through
the British ambassador. “The meeting,” he says, “was a most cordial one
on both sides, and presently the Prince took Mark Twain's arm and the
two marched up and down, talking earnestly together, the Prince, solid,
erect, and soldier-like, Clemens weaving along in his curious, swinging
gait in a full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun-umbrella of the most
scandalous description.”
When they parted Clemens said:
“It has been, indeed, a great pleasure to meet your Royal Highness.”
The Prince answered:
“And it is a pleasure, Mr. Clemens, to have met you--again.”
Clemens was puzzled to reply.
“Why,” he said, “have we met before?”
The Prince smiled happily.
“Oh yes,” he said; “don't you remember that day on the Strand when you
were on the top of a bus and I was heading a procession and you had on
your new overcoat with flap-pockets?”--[See chap. clxiii, “A Letter to
the Queen of England.”]
It was the highest compliment he could have paid, for it showed that
he had read, and had remembered all those years. Clemens expressed
to Twichell regret that he had forgotten to mention his visit to the
Prince's sister, Louise, in Ottawa, but he had his opportunity at a
dinner next day. Later the Prince had him to supper and they passed an
entire evening together.
There was a certain uneasiness in the Nauheim atmosphere that year, for
the cholera had broken out at Hamburg, and its victims were dying at a
terrific rate. It was almost impossible to get authentic news as to
the spread of the epidemic, for the German papers were curiously
conservative in their reports. Clemens wrote an article on the subject
but concluded not to print it. A paragraph will convey its tenor.
What I am trying to make the reader understand is the strangeness of
the situation here--a mighty tragedy being played upon a stage that
is close to us, & yet we are as ignorant of its details as we should
be if the stage were in China. We sit “in front,” & the audience is
in fact the world; but the curtain is down, & from behind it we hear
only an inarticulate murmur. The Hamburg disaster must go into
history as the disaster without a history.
He closes with an item from a physician's letter--an item which he says
“gives you a sudden and terrific sense of the situation there.”
For in a line it flashes before you--this ghastly picture--a thing
seen by the physician: a wagon going along the street with five sick
people in it, and with them four dead ones.
CLXXXII. THE VILLA VIVIANI. 'The American Claimant', published in May
l (1892), did not bring a very satisfactory return. For one thing, the
book-trade was light, and then the Claimant was not up to his usual
standard. It had been written under hard circumstances and by a pen
long out of practice; it had not paid, and its author must work all
the harder on the new undertakings. The conditions at Nauheim seemed
favorable, and they lingered there until well into September. To Mrs.
Crane, who had returned to America, Clemens wrote on the 18th, from
Lucerne, in the midst of their travel to Italy:
We remained in Nauheim a little too long. If we had left four or
five days earlier we should have made Florence in three days. Hard
trip because it was one of those trains that gets tired every 7
minutes and stops to rest three-quarters of an hour. It took us
3 1/2 hours to get there instead of the regulation 2 hours. We
shall pull through to Milan to-morrow if possible. Next day we
shall start at 10 AM and try to make Bologna, 5 hours. Next day,
Florence, D. V. Next year we will walk. Phelps came to Frankfort
and we had some great times--dinner at his hotel; & the Masons,
supper at our inn--Livy not in it. She was merely allowed a
glimpse, no more. Of course Phelps said she was merely pretending
to be ill; was never looking so well & fine.
A Paris journal has created a happy interest by inoculating one of
its correspondents with cholera. A man said yesterday he wished to
God they would inoculate all of them. Yes, the interest is quite
general and strong & much hope is felt.
Livy says I have said enough bad things, and better send all our
loves & shut up. Which I do--and shut up.
They lingered at Lucerne until Mrs. Clemens was rested and better able
to continue the journey, arriving at last in Florence, September
26th. They drove out to the Villa Viviani in the afternoon and found
everything in readiness for their reception, even to the dinner, which
was prepared and on the table. Clemens, in his notes, speaks of this and
adds:
It takes but a sentence to state that, but it makes an indolent person
tired to think of the planning & work and trouble that lie concealed in
it.
Some further memoranda made at this time have that intimate interest
which gives reality and charm. The 'contadino' brought up their trunks
from the station, and Clemens wrote:
The 'contadino' is middle-aged & like the rest of the peasants--that
is to say, brown, handsome, good-natured, courteous, & entirely
independent without making any offensive show of it. He charged too
much for the trunks, I was told. My informer explained that this
was customary.
September 27. The rest of the trunks brought up this morning. He
charged too much again, but I was told that this was also customary.
It's all right, then. I do not wish to violate the customs. Hired
landau, horses, & coachman. Terms, 480 francs a month & a pourboire
to the coachman, I to furnish lodging for the man & the horses, but
nothing else. The landau has seen better days & weighs 30 tons.
The horses are feeble & object to the landau; they stop & turn
around every now & then & examine it with surprise & suspicion.
This causes delay. But it entertains the people along the road.
They came out & stood around with their hands in their pockets &
discussed the matter with each other. I was told that they said
that a 30-ton landau was not the thing for horses like those--what
they needed was a wheelbarrow.
His description of the house pictures it as exactly today as it did
then, for it has not changed in these twenty years, nor greatly,
perhaps, in the centuries since it was built.
It is a plain, square building, like a box, & is painted light
yellow & has green window-shutters. It stands in a commanding
position on the artificial terrace of liberal dimensions, which is
walled around with masonry. From the walls the vineyards & olive
orchards of the estate slant away toward the valley. There are
several tall trees, stately stone-pines, also fig-trees & trees of
breeds not familiar to me. Roses overflow the retaining-walls, &
the battered & mossy stone urn on the gate-posts, in pink & yellow
cataracts exactly as they do on the drop-curtains in the theaters.
The house is a very fortress for strength. The main walls--all
brick covered with plaster--are about 3 feet thick. I have several
times tried to count the rooms of the house, but the irregularities
baffle me. There seem to be 28. There are plenty of windows &
worlds of sunlight. The floors are sleek & shiny & full of
reflections, for each is a mirror in its way, softly imaging all
objects after the subdued fashion of forest lakes. The curious
feature of the house is the salon. This is a spacious & lofty
vacuum which occupies the center of the house. All the rest of the
house is built around it; it extends up through both stories & its
roof projects some feet above the rest of the building. The sense
of its vastness strikes you the moment you step into it & cast your
eyes around it & aloft. There are divans distributed along its
walls. They make little or no show, though their aggregate length
is 57 feet. A piano in it is a lost object. We have tried to
reduce the sense of desert space & emptiness with tables & things,
but they have a defeated look, & do not do any good. Whatever
stands or moves under that soaring painted vault is belittled.
He describes the interior of this vast room (they grew to love it),
dwelling upon the plaster-relief portraits above its six doors,
Florentine senators and judges, ancient dwellers there and former owners
of the estate.
The date of one of them is 1305--middle-aged, then, & a judge--he
could have known, as a youth, the very greatest Italian artists, &
he could have walked & talked with Dante, & probably did. The date
of another is 1343--he could have known Boccaccio & spent his
afternoons wandering in Fiesole, gazing down on plague-reeking
Florence & listening to that man's improper tales, & he probably
did. The date of another is 1463--he could have met Columbus & he
knew the magnificent Lorenzo, of course. These are all Cerretanis
--or Cerretani-Twains, as I may say, for I have adopted myself into
their family on account of its antiquity--my origin having been
heretofore too recent to suit me.
We are considering the details of Viviani at some length, for it was in
this setting that he began and largely completed what was to be his most
important work of this later time--in some respects his most important
of any time--the 'Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc'. If the reader
loves this book, and he must love it if he has read it, he will not
begrudge the space here given to the scene of its inspiration. The
outdoor picture of Viviani is of even more importance, for he wrote
oftener out-of-doors than elsewhere. Clemens added it to his notes
several months later, but it belongs here.
The situation of this villa is perfect. It is three miles from
Florence, on the side of a hill. Beyond some hill-spurs is Fiesole
perched upon its steep terraces; in the immediate foreground is the
imposing mass of the Ross castle, its walls and turrets rich with
the mellow weather-stains of forgotten centuries; in the distant
plain lies Florence, pink & gray & brown, with the ruddy, huge dome
of the cathedral dominating its center like a captive balloon, &
flanked on the right by the smaller bulb of the Medici chapel & on
the left by the airy tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; all around the
horizon is a billowy rim of lofty blue hills, snowed white with
innumerable villas. After nine months of familiarity with this
panorama I still think, as I thought in the beginning, that this is
the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon,
the most satisfying to the eye & the spirit. To see the sun sink
down, drowned in his pink & purple & golden floods, & overwhelm
Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim &
faint & turn the solid city into a city of dreams, is a sight to
stir the coldest nature & make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy.
The Clemens household at Florence consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens,
Susy, and Jean. Clara had soon returned to Berlin to attend Mrs.
Willard's school and for piano instruction. Mrs. Clemens improved in
the balmy autumn air of Florence and in the peaceful life of their
well-ordered villa. In a memorandum of October 27th Clemens wrote:
The first month is finished. We are wonted now. This carefree life
at a Florentine villa is an ideal existence. The weather is divine,
the outside aspects lovely, the days and nights tranquil and
reposeful, the seclusion from the world and its worries as
satisfactory as a dream. Late in the afternoons friends come out
from the city & drink tea in the open air & tell what is happening
in the world; & when the great sun sinks down upon Florence & the
daily miracle begins they hold their breath & look. It is not a
time for talk.
No wonder he could work in that environment. He finished 'Tom Sawyer
Abroad', also a short story, 'The L 1,000,000 Bank-Note' (planned many
years before), discovered the literary mistake of the 'Extraordinary
Twins' and began converting it into the worthier tale, 'Pudd'nhead
Wilson', soon completed and on its way to America.
With this work out of his hands, Clemens was ready for his great new
undertaking. A seed sown by the wind more than forty years before was
ready to bloom. He would write the story of Joan of Arc.