The wedding of Ossip Gabrilowitsch and Clara Clemens was not delayed.
Gabrilowitsch had signed for a concert tour in Europe, and unless the
marriage took place forthwith it must be postponed many months. It
followed, therefore, fifteen days after the engagement. They were busy
days. Clemens, enormously excited and pleased over the prospect of the
first wedding in his family, personally attended to the selection of
those who were to have announcement-cards, employing a stenographer to
make the list.
October 6th was a perfect wedding-day. It was one of those quiet, lovely
fall days when the whole world seems at peace. Claude, the butler, with
his usual skill in such matters, had decorated the great living-room
with gay autumn foliage and flowers, brought in mainly from the woods
and fields. They blended perfectly with the warm tones of the walls and
furnishings, and I do not remember ever having seen a more beautiful
room. Only relatives and a few of the nearest friends were invited to
the ceremony. The Twichells came over a day ahead, for Twichell, who
had assisted in the marriage rites between Samuel Clemens and Olivia
Langdon, was to perform that ceremony for their daughter now. A
fellow-student of the bride and groom when they had been pupils of
Leschetizky, in Vienna--Miss Ethel Newcomb--was at the piano and played
softly the Wedding March from “Taunhauser.” Jean Clemens was the only
bridesmaid, and she was stately and classically beautiful, with a proud
dignity in her office. Jervis Langdon, the bride's cousin and childhood
playmate, acted as best man, and Clemens, of course, gave the bride
away. By request he wore his scarlet Oxford gown over his snowy
flannels, and was splendid beyond words. I do not write of the
appearance of the bride and groom, for brides and grooms are always
handsome and always happy, and certainly these were no exception. It was
all so soon over, the feasting ended, and the principals whirling away
into the future. I have a picture in my mind of them seated together in
the automobile, with Richard Watson Gilder standing on the step for
a last good-by, and before them a wide expanse of autumn foliage and
distant hills. I remember Gilder's voice saying, when the car was on the
turn, and they were waving back to us:
“Over the hills and far away,
Beyond the utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, beyond the day,
Through all the world she followed him.”
The matter of the wedding had been kept from the newspapers until the
eve of the wedding, when the Associated Press had been notified. A
representative was there; but Clemens had characteristically interviewed
himself on the subject, and it was only necessary to hand the reporter
a typewritten copy. Replying to the question (put to himself), “Are you
pleased with the marriage?” he answered:
Yes, fully as much as any marriage could please me or any other
father. There are two or three solemn things in life and a happy
marriage is one of them, for the terrors of life are all to come.
I am glad of this marriage, and Mrs. Clemens would be glad, for she
always had a warm affection for Gabrilowitsch.
There was another wedding at Stormfield on the following afternoon--an
imitation wedding. Little Joy came up with me, and wished she could
stand in just the spot where she had seen the bride stand, and she
expressed a wish that she could get married like that. Clemens said:
“Frankness is a jewel; only the young can afford it.”
Then he happened to remember a ridiculous boy-doll--a white-haired
creature with red coat and green trousers, a souvenir imitation of
himself from one of the Rogerses' Christmas trees. He knew where it was,
and he got it out. Then he said:
“Now, Joy, we will have another wedding. This is Mr. Colonel Williams,
and you are to become his wedded wife.”
So Joy stood up very gravely and Clemens performed the ceremony, and
I gave the bride away, and Joy to him became Mrs. Colonel Williams
thereafter, and entered happily into her new estate.