The Clemenses were preparing to take up residence in Florence, Italy.
The Hartford house had been sold in May, ending forever the association
with the city that had so long been a part of their lives. The Tarrytown
place, which they had never occupied, they also agreed to sell, for
it was the belief now that Mrs. Clemens's health would never greatly
prosper there. Howells says, or at least implies, that they expected
their removal to Florence to be final. He tells us, too, of one sunny
afternoon when he and Clemens sat on the grass before the mansion
at Riverdale, after Mrs. Clemens had somewhat improved, and how they
“looked up toward a balcony where by and by that lovely presence made
itself visible, as if it had stooped there from a cloud. A hand frailly
waved a handkerchief; Clemens ran over the lawn toward it, calling
tenderly.” It was a greeting to Howells the last he would ever receive
from her.
Mrs. Clemens was able to make a trip to Elmira by the end of June, and
on the 1st of July Mr. Rogers brought Clemens and his wife down the
river on his yacht to the Lackawanna pier, and they reached Quarry
Farm that evening. She improved in the quietude and restfulness of that
beloved place. Three weeks later Clemens wrote to Twichell:
Livy is coming along: eats well, sleeps some, is mostly very gay, not
very often depressed; spends all day on the porch, sleeps there a part
of the night; makes excursions in carriage & in wheel-chair; &, in the
matter of superintending everything & everybody, has resumed business at
the old stand.
During three peaceful months she spent most of her days reclining on the
wide veranda, surrounded by those dearest to her, and looking out on the
dreamlike landscape--the long, grassy slope, the drowsy city, and the
distant hills--getting strength for the far journey by sea. Clemens
did some writing, occupying the old octagonal study--shut in now and
overgrown with vines--where during the thirty years since it was built
so many of his stories had been written. 'A Dog's Tale'--that pathetic
anti-vivisection story--appears to have been the last manuscript ever
completed in the spot consecrated by Huck and Tom, and by Tom Canty the
Pauper and the little wandering Prince.
It was October 5th when they left Elmira. Two days earlier Clemens had
written in his note-book:
Today I placed flowers on Susy's grave--for the last time probably
--& read words:
“Good-night, dear heart, good-night.”
They did not return to Riverdale, but went to the Hotel Grosvenor
for the intervening weeks. They had engaged passage for Italy on the
Princess Irene, which would sail on the 24th. It was during the period
of their waiting that Clemens concluded his final Harper contract. On
that day, in his note-book, he wrote: