suburban palaces, was historically interesting, rather than cheerful. The
rooms, in number more than sixty, though richly furnished, were vast and
barnlike, and there were numbers of them wholly unused and never entered.
There was a dearth of the modern improvements which Americans have
learned to regard as a necessity, and the plumbing, such as it was, was
not always in order. The place was approached by narrow streets, along
which the more uninviting aspects of Italy were not infrequent. Youth and
health and romance might easily have reveled in the place; but it seems
now not to have been the best choice for that frail invalid, to whom
cheer and brightness and freshness and the lovelier things of hope meant
always so much.--[Villa Quarto has recently been purchased by Signor P.
de Ritter Lahony, and thoroughly restored and refreshed and beautified
without the sacrifice of any of its romantic features.]--Neither was the
climate of Florence all that they had hoped for. Their former sunny
winter had misled them. Tradition to the contrary, Italy--or at least
Tuscany--is not one perpetual dream of sunlight. It is apt to be damp
and cloudy; it is likely to be cold. Writing to MacAlister, Clemens
said:
Florentine sunshine? Bless you, there isn't any. We have heavy fogs
every morning & rain all day. This house is not merely large, it is
vast--therefore I think it must always lack the home feeling.
His dissatisfaction in it began thus early, and it grew as one thing
after another went wrong. With it all, however, Mrs. Clemens seemed to
gain a little, and was glad to see company--a reasonable amount of
company--to brighten her surroundings.
Clemens began to work and wrote a story or two, and those lively articles
about the Italian language.
To Twichell he reported progress:
I have a handsome success in one way here. I left New York under a
sort of half-promise to furnish to the Harper magazines 30,000 words
this year. Magazining is difficult work because every third page
represents two pages that you have put in the fire (you are nearly
sure to start wrong twice), & so when you have finished an article &
are willing to let it go to print it represents only 10 cents a word
instead of 30.
But this time I had the curious (& unprecedented) luck to start
right in each case. I turned out 37,000 words in 25 working days; &
the reason I think I started right every time is, that not only have
I approved and accepted the several articles, but the court of last
resort (Livy) has done the same.
On many of the between-days I did some work, but only of an idle &
not necessarily necessary sort, since it will not see print until I
am dead. I shall continue this (an hour per day), but the rest of
the year I expect to put in on a couple of long books (half-
completed ones). No more magazine work hanging over my head.
This secluded & silent solitude, this clean, soft air, & this
enchanting view of Florence, the great valley & snow-mountains that
frame it, are the right conditions for work. They are a persistent
inspiration. To-day is very lovely; when the afternoon arrives
there will be a new picture every hour till dark, & each of them
divine--or progressing from divine to diviner & divinest. On this
(second) floor Clara's room commands the finest; she keeps a window
ten feet high wide open all the time & frames it in that. I go in
from time to time every day & trade sass for a look. The central
detail is a distant & stately snow-hump that rises above & behind
black-forested hills, & its sloping vast buttresses, velvety & sun-
polished, with purple shadows between, make the sort of picture we
knew that time we walked in Switzerland in the days of our youth.
From this letter, which is of January 7, 1904, we gather that the weather
had greatly improved, and with it Mrs. Clemens's health, notwithstanding
she had an alarming attack in December. One of the stories he had
finished was "The $30,000 Bequest." The work mentioned, which would not
see print until after his death, was a continuation of those
autobiographical chapters which for years he had been setting down as the
mood seized him.
He experimented with dictation, which he had tried long before with
Redpath, and for a time now found it quite to his liking. He dictated
some of his copyright memories, and some anecdotes and episodes; but his
amanuensis wrote only longhand, which perhaps hampered him, for he tired
of it by and by and the dictations were discontinued.
Among these notes there is one elaborate description of the Villa di
Quarto, dictated at the end of the winter, by which time we are not
surprised to find he had become much attached to the place. The Italian
spring was in the air, and it was his habit to grow fond of his
surroundings. Some atmospheric paragraphs of these impressions invite us
here:
We are in the extreme south end of the house, if there is any such
thing as a south end to a house, whose orientation cannot be
determined by me, because I am incompetent in all cases where an
object does not point directly north & south. This one slants
across between, & is therefore a confusion. This little private
parlor is in one of the two corners of what I call the south end of
the house. The sun rises in such a way that all the morning it is
pouring its light through the 33 glass doors or windows which pierce
the side of the house which looks upon the terrace & garden; the
rest of the day the light floods this south end of the house, as I
call it; at noon the sun is directly above Florence yonder in the
distance in the plain, directly across those architectural features
which have been so familiar to the world in pictures for some
centuries, the Duomo, the Campanile, the Tomb of the Medici, & the
beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; in this position it begins
to reveal the secrets of the delicious blue mountains that circle
around into the west, for its light discovers, uncovers, & exposes a
white snowstorm of villas & cities that you cannot train yourself to
have confidence in, they appear & disappear so mysteriously, as if
they might not be villas & cities at all, but the ghosts of perished
ones of the remote & dim Etruscan times; & late in the afternoon the
sun sets down behind those mountains somewhere, at no particular
time & at no particular place, so far as I can see.
Again at the end of March he wrote:
Now that we have lived in this house four and a half months my
prejudices have fallen away one by one & the place has become very
homelike to me. Under certain conditions I should like to go on
living in it indefinitely. I should wish the Countess to move out
of Italy, out of Europe, out of the planet. I should want her
bonded to retire to her place in the next world & inform me which of
the two it was, so that I could arrange for my own hereafter.
Complications with their landlady had begun early, and in time, next to
Mrs. Clemens's health, to which it bore such an intimate and vital
relation, the indifference of the Countess Massiglia to their needs
became the supreme and absorbing concern of life at the villa, and led to
continued and almost continuous house-hunting.
Days when the weather permitted, Clemens drove over the hills looking for
a villa which he could lease or buy--one with conveniences and just the
right elevation and surroundings. There were plenty of villas; but some
of them were badly situated as to altitude or view; some were falling to
decay, and the search was rather a discouraging one. Still it was not
abandoned, and the reports of these excursions furnished new interest and
new hope always to the invalid at home.
"Even if we find it," he wrote Howells, "I am afraid it will be months
before we can move Mrs. Clemens. Of course it will. But it comforts us
to let on that we think otherwise, and these pretensions help to keep
hope alive in her."
She had her bad days and her good days, days when it was believed she had
passed the turning-point and was traveling the way to recovery; but the
good days were always a little less hopeful, the bad days a little more
discouraging. On February 22d Clemens wrote in his note-book:
At midnight Livy's pulse went to 192 & there was a collapse. Great
alarm. Subcutaneous injection of brandy saved her.
And to MacAlister toward the end of March:
We are having quite perfect weather now & are hoping that it will bring
effects for Mrs. Clemens.
But a few days later he added that he was watching the driving rain
through the windows, and that it was bad weather for the invalid. "But
it will not last," he said.
The invalid improved then, and there was a concert in Florence at which
Clara Clemens sang. Clemens in his note-book says:
April 8. Clara's concert was a triumph. Livy woke up & sent for
her to tell her all about it, near midnight.
But a day or two later she was worse again--then better. The hearts in
that household were as pendulums, swinging always between hope and
despair.
One familiar with the Clemens history might well have been filled with
forebodings. Already in January a member of the family, Mollie Clemens,
Orion's wife, died, news which was kept from Mrs. Clemens, as was the
death of Aldrich's son, and that of Sir Henry M. Stanley, both of which
occurred that spring.
Indeed, death harvested freely that year among the Clemens friendships.
Clemens wrote Twichell:
Yours has just this moment arrived-just as I was finishing a note to
poor Lady Stanley. I believe the last country-house visit we paid
in England was to Stanley's. Lord! how my friends & acquaintances
fall about me now in my gray-headed days! Vereshchagin, Mommsen,
Dvorak, Lenbach, & Jokai, all so recently, & now Stanley. I have
known Stanley 37 years. Goodness, who is there I haven't known?
CCXXXI
THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE
In one of his notes near the end of April Clemens writes that once more,
as at Riverdale, he has been excluded from Mrs. Clemens's room except for
the briefest moment at a time. But on May 12th, to R. W. Gilder, he
reported:
For two days now we have not been anxious about Mrs. Clemens
(unberufen). After 20 months of bedridden solitude & bodily misery
she all of a sudden ceases to be a pallid, shrunken shadow, & looks
bright & young & pretty. She remains what she always was, the most
wonderful creature of fortitude, patience, endurance, and
recuperative power that ever was. But ah, dear! it won't last;
this fiendish malady will play new treacheries upon her, and I shall
go back to my prayers again--unutterable from any pulpit!
May 13, A.M. I have just paid one of my pair of permitted 2-minute
visits per day to the sick-room. And found what I have learned to
expect--retrogression.
There was a day when she was brought out on the terrace in a wheel-chair
to see the wonder of the early Italian summer. She had been a prisoner
so long that she was almost overcome with the delight of it all--the more
so, perhaps, in the feeling that she might so soon be leaving it.
It was on Sunday, the 5th of June, that the end came. Clemens and Jean
had driven out to make some calls, and had stopped at a villa, which
promised to fulfil most of the requirements. They came home full of
enthusiasm concerning it, and Clemens, in his mind, had decided on the
purchase. In the corridor Clara said:
"She is better to-day than she has been for three months."
Then quickly, under her breath, "Unberufen," which the others, too, added
hastily--superstitiously.
Mrs. Clemens was, in fact, bright and cheerful, and anxious to hear all
about the new property which was to become their home. She urged him to
sit by her during the dinner-hour and tell her the details; but once,
when the sense of her frailties came upon her, she said they must not
mind if she could not go very soon, but be content where they were. He
remained from half past seven until eight--a forbidden privilege, but
permitted because she was so animated, feeling so well. Their talk was
as it had been in the old days, and once during it he reproached himself,
as he had so often done, and asked forgiveness for the tears he had
brought into her life. When he was summoned to go at last he chided
himself for remaining so long; but she said there was no harm, and kissed
him, saying: "You will come back," and he answered, "Yes, to say good
night," meaning at half past nine, as was the permitted custom. He stood
a moment at the door throwing kisses to her, and she returning them, her
face bright with smiles.
He was so hopeful and happy that it amounted to exaltation. He went to
his room at first, then he was moved to do a thing which he had seldom
done since Susy died. He went to the piano up-stairs and sang the old
jubilee songs that Susy had liked to hear him sing. Jean came in
presently, listening. She had not done this before, that he could
remember. He sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "My Lord He Calls Me."
He noticed Jean then and stopped, but she asked him to go on.
Mrs. Clemens, in her room, heard the distant music, and said to her
attendant:
"He is singing a good-night carol to me."
The music ceased presently, and then a moment later she asked to be
lifted up. Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound.
Clemens, coming to say good night, saw a little group about her bed,
Clara and Jean standing as if dazed. He went and bent over and looked
into her face, surprised that she did not greet him. He did not suspect
what had happened until he heard one of the daughters ask:
"Katie, is it true? Oh, Katie, is it true?"
He realized then that she was gone.
In his note-book that night he wrote:
At a quarter past 9 this evening she that was the life of my life
passed to the relief & the peace of death after as months of unjust
& unearned suffering. I first saw her near 37 years ago, & now I
have looked upon her face for the last time. Oh, so unexpected!...
I was full of remorse for things done & said in these 34 years of
married life that hurt Livy's heart.
He envied her lying there, so free from it all, with the great peace upon
her face. He wrote to Howells and to Twichell, and to Mrs. Crane, those
nearest and dearest ones. To Twichell he said:
How sweet she was in death, how young, how beautiful, how like her
dear girlish self of thirty years ago, not a gray hair showing!
This rejuvenescence was noticeable within two hours after her death;
& when I went down again (2.30) it was complete. In all that night
& all that day she never noticed my caressing hand--it seemed
strange.
To Howells he recalled the closing scene:
I bent over her & looked in her face & I think I spoke--I was
surprised & troubled that she did not notice me. Then we understood
& our hearts broke. How poor we are to-day!
But how thankful I am that her persecutions are ended! I would not
call her back if I could.
To-day, treasured in her worn, old Testament, I found a dear &
gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 13, 1896, about
our poor Susy's death. I am tired & old; I wish I were with Livy.
And in a few days:
It would break Livy's heart to see Clara. We excuse ourself from all the
friends that call--though, of course, only intimates come. Intimates
--but they are not the old, old friends, the friends of the old, old
times when we laughed. Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a
dog that I knew in the old times & could put my arms around his neck and
tell him all, everything, & ease my heart!
CCXXXII
THE SAD JOURNEY HOME
A tidal wave of sympathy poured in. Noble and commoner, friend and
stranger--humanity of every station--sent their messages of condolence to
the friend of mankind. The cablegrams came first--bundles of them from
every corner of the world--then the letters, a steady inflow. Howells,
Twichell, Aldrich--those oldest friends who had themselves learned the
meaning of grief--spoke such few and futile words as the language can
supply to allay a heart's mourning, each recalling the rarity and beauty
of the life that had slipped away. Twichell and his wife wrote:
DEAR, DEAR MARK,--There is nothing we can say. What is there to say?
But here we are--with you all every hour and every minute--filled with
unutterable thoughts; unutterable affection for the dead and for the
living.
HARMONY AND JOE.
Howells in his letter said:
She hallowed what she touched far beyond priests . . . . What are you
going to do, you poor soul?
A hundred letters crowd in for expression here, but must be denied--not,
however, the beam of hope out of Helen Keller's illumined night:
Do try to reach through grief and feel the pressure of her hand, as
I reach through darkness and feel the smile on my friends' lips and
the light in their eyes though mine are closed.
They were adrift again without plans for the future. They would return
to America to lay Mrs. Clemens to rest by Susy and little Langdon, but
beyond that they could not see. Then they remembered a quiet spot in
Massachusetts, Tyringham, near Lee, where the Gilders lived, and so, on
June 7th, he wrote:
DEAR GILDER FAMILY,--I have been worrying and worrying to know what
to do; at last I went to the girls with an idea--to ask the Gilders
to get us shelter near their summer home. It was the first time
they have not shaken their heads. So to-morrow I will cable to you
and shall hope to be in time.
An hour ago the best heart that ever beat for me and mine was
carried silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and
has lost his way. She who is gone was our head, she was our hands.
We are now trying to make plans--we: we who have never made a plan
before, nor ever needed to. If she could speak to us she would make
it all simple and easy with a word, & our perplexities would vanish
away. If she had known she was near to death she would have told us
where to go and what to do, but she was not suspecting, neither were
we. She was all our riches and she is gone; she was our breath, she
was our life, and now we are nothing.
We send you our love-and with it the love of you that was in her
heart when she died.
S. L. CLEMENS.
They arranged to sail on the Prince Oscar on the 29th of June. There was
an earlier steamer, but it was the Princess Irene, which had brought
them, and they felt they would not make the return voyage on that vessel.
During the period of waiting a curious thing happened. Clemens one day
got up in a chair in his room on the second floor to pull down the high
window-sash. It did not move easily and his hand slipped. It was only
by the merest chance that he saved himself from falling to the ground far
below. He mentions this in his note-book, and once, speaking of it to
Frederick Duneka, he said:
"Had I fallen it would probably have killed me, and in my bereaved
circumstances the world would have been convinced that it was suicide. It
was one of those curious coincidences which are always happening and
being misunderstood."
The homeward voyage and its sorrowful conclusion are pathetically
conveyed in his notes:
June 29, 1904. Sailed last night at 10. The bugle-call to
breakfast. I recognized the notes and was distressed. When I heard
them last Livy heard them with me; now they fall upon her ear
unheeded.
In my life there have been 68 Junes--but how vague & colorless 67 of
them are contrasted with the deep blackness of this one!
July 1, 1904. I cannot reproduce Livy's face in my mind's eye--I
was never in my life able to reproduce a face. It is a curious
infirmity--& now at last I realize it is a calamity.
July 2, 1904. In these 34 years we have made many voyages together,
Livy dear--& now we are making our last; you down below & lonely; I
above with the crowd & lonely.
July 3, 1904. Ship-time, 8 A.M. In 13 hours & a quarter it will be
4 weeks since Livy died.
Thirty-one years ago we made our first voyage together--& this is
our last one in company. Susy was a year old then. She died at 24
& had been in her grave 8 years.
July 10, 1904. To-night it will be 5 weeks. But to me it remains
yesterday--as it has from the first. But this funeral march--how
sad & long it is!
Two days more will end the second stage of it.
July 14, 1904 (ELMIRA). Funeral private in the house of Livy's
young maidenhood. Where she stood as a bride 34 years ago there her
coffin rested; & over it the same voice that had made her a wife
then committed her departed spirit to God now.
It was Joseph Twichell who rendered that last service. Mr. Beecher was
long since dead. It was a simple, touching utterance, closing with this
tender word of farewell:
Robert Browning, when he was nearing the end of his earthly days,
said that death was the thing that we did not believe in. Nor do we
believe in it. We who journeyed through the bygone years in
companionship with the bright spirit now withdrawn are growing old.
The way behind is long; the way before is short. The end cannot be
far off. But what of that? Can we not say, each one:
"So long that power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on;
O'er moor and fen; o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn, their angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!"
And so good-by. Good-by, dear heart! Strong, tender, and true.
Good-by until for us the morning break and these shadows fly away.
Dr. Eastman, who had succeeded Mr. Beecher, closed the service with a
prayer, and so the last office we can render in this life for those we
love was finished.
Clemens ordered that a simple marker should be placed at the grave,
bearing, besides the name, the record of birth and death, followed by the
German line:
'Gott sei dir gnadig, O meine Wonne'!
CCXXXIII
BEGINNING ANOTHER HOME
There was an extra cottage on the Gilder place at Tyringham, and this
they occupied for the rest of that sad summer. Clemens, in his
note-book, has preserved some of its aspects and incidents.
July 24, 1904. Rain--rain--rain. Cold. We built a fire in my room.
Then clawed the logs out & threw water, remembering there was a brood of
swallows in the chimney. The tragedy was averted.
July 31. LEE, MASSACHUSETTS (BERKSHIRE HILLS). Last night the young
people out on a moonlight ride. Trolley frightened Jean's horse
--collision--horse killed. Rodman Gilder picked Jean up, unconscious;
she was taken to the doctor, per the car. Face, nose, side, back
contused; tendon of left ankle broken.
August 10. NEW YORK. Clam here sick--never well since June 5. Jean is
at the summer home in the Berkshire Hills crippled.
The next entry records the third death in the Clemens family within a
period of eight months--that of Mrs. Moffett, who had been Pamela
Clemens. Clemens writes:
September 1. Died at Greenwich, Connecticut, my sister, Pamela
Moffett, aged about 73.
Death dates this year January 14, June 5, September 1.
That fall they took a house in New York City, on the corner of Ninth
Street and Fifth Avenue, No. 21, remaining for a time at the Grosvenor
while the new home was being set in order. The home furniture was
brought from Hartford, unwrapped, and established in the light of strange
environment. Clemens wrote:
We have not seen it for thirteen years. Katie Leary, our old
housekeeper, who has been in our service more than twenty-four years,
cried when she told me about it to-day. She said, "I had forgotten it
was so beautiful, and it brought Mrs. Clemens right back to me--in that
old time when she was so young and lovely."
Clara Clemens had not recovered from the strain of her mother's long
illness and the shock of her death, and she was ordered into retirement
with the care of a trained nurse. The life at 21 Fifth Avenue,
therefore, began with only two remaining members of the broken family
--Clemens and Jean.