It was now going on ten years since the publication of "The Innocents
Abroad," and there was a demand for another Mark Twain book of travel.
Clemens considered the matter, and decided that a walking-tour in Europe
might furnish the material he wanted. He spoke to his good friend, the
Rev. "Joe" Twichell, and invited him to become his guest on such an
excursion, because, as he explained, he thought he could "dig material
enough out of Joe to make it a sound investment." As a matter of fact,
he loved Twichell's companionship, and was always inviting him to share
his journeys--to Boston, to Bermuda, to Washington--wherever interest or
fancy led him. His plan now was to take the family to Germany in the
spring, and let Twichell join them later for a summer tramp down through
the Black Forest and Switzerland. Meantime the Clemens household took up
the study of German. The children had a German nurse--others a German
teacher. The household atmosphere became Teutonic. Of course it all
amused Mark Twain, as everything amused him, but he was a good student.
In a brief time he had a fair knowledge of every-day German and a
really surprising vocabulary. The little family sailed in April (1878),
and a few weeks later were settled in the Schloss Hotel, on a hill above
Heidelberg, overlooking the beautiful old castle, the ancient town, with
the Neckar winding down the hazy valley--as fair a view as there is in
all Germany.
Clemens found a room for his work in a small house not far from the
hotel. On the day of his arrival he had pointed out this house and said
he had decided to work there--that his room would be the middle one on
the third floor. Mrs. Clemens laughed, and thought the occupants of the
house might be surprised when he came over to take possession. They
amused themselves by watching "his people" and trying to make out what
they were like. One day he went over that way, and, sure enough, there
was a sign, "Furnished Rooms," and the one he had pointed out from the
hotel was vacant. It became his study forthwith.
The travelers were delighted with their location. To Howells, Clemens
wrote:
"Our bedroom has two great glass bird-cages (inclosed balconies), one
looking toward the Rhine Valley and sunset, the other looking up the
Neckar cul de sac, and, naturally, we spent nearly all our time in
these. We have tables and chairs in them . . . . It must have
been a noble genius who devised this hotel. Lord! how blessed is
the repose, the tranquillity of this place! Only two sounds: the
happy clamor of the birds in the groves and the muffled music of the
Neckar tumbling over the opposing dikes. It is no hardship to lie
awake awhile nights, for thin subdued roar has exactly the sound of
a steady rain beating upon a roof. It is so healing to the spirit;
and it bears up the thread of one's imaginings as the accompaniment
bears up a song."
Twichell was summoned for August, and wrote back eagerly at the prospect:
"Oh, my! Do you realize, Mark, what a symposium it is to be? I do.
To begin with, I am thoroughly tired, and the rest will be worth
everything. To walk with you and talk with you for weeks together
--why, it's my dream of luxury!"
Meantime the struggle with the "awful German language" went on. Rosa,
the maid, was required to speak to the children only in German, though
little Clara at first would have none of it. Susy, two years older,
tried, and really made progress, but one day she said, pathetically:
"Mama, I wish Rosa was made in English."
But presently she was writing to "Aunt Sue" (Mrs. Crane) at Quarry Farm:
"I know a lot of German; everybody says I know a lot. I give you a
million dollars to see you, and you would give two hundred dollars
to see the lovely woods we see."
Twichell arrived August 1st. Clemens met him at Baden-Baden, and they
immediately set forth on a tramp through the Black Forest, excursioning
as they pleased and having a blissful time. They did not always walk.
They were likely to take a carriage or a donkey-cart, or even a train,
when one conveniently happened along. They did not hurry, but idled and
talked and gathered flowers, or gossiped with wayside natives
--picturesque peasants in the Black Forest costume. In due time they
crossed into Switzerland and prepared to conquer the Alps.
The name Mark Twain had become about as well known in Europe as it was in
America. His face, however, was less familiar. He was not often
recognized in these wanderings, and his pen-name was carefully concealed.
It was a relief to him not to be an object of curiosity and lavish
attention. Twichell's conscience now and then prompted him to reveal the
truth. In one of his letters home he wrote how a young man at a hotel
had especially delighted in Mark's table conversation, and how he
(Twichell) had later taken the young man aside and divulged the speaker's
identity.
"I could not forbear telling him who Mark was, and the mingled
surprise and pleasure his face exhibited made me glad I had done so."
They did not climb many of the Alps on foot. They did scale the Rigi,
after which Mark Twain was not in the best walking trim; though later
they conquered Gemmi Pass--no small undertaking--that trail that winds up
and up until the traveler has only the glaciers and white peaks and the
little high-blooming flowers for company.
All day long the friends would tramp and walk together, and when they did
not walk they would hire a diligence or any vehicle that came handy, but,
whatever their means of travel the joy of comradeship amid those superb
surroundings was the same.
In Twichell's letters home we get pleasant pictures of the Mark Twain of
that day:
"Mark, to-day, was immensely absorbed in flowers. He scrambled
around and gathered a great variety, and manifested the intensest
pleasure in them . . . . Mark is splendid to walk with amid such
grand scenery, for he talks so well about it, has such a power of
strong, picturesque expression. I wish you might have heard him
today. His vigorous speech nearly did justice to the things we saw."
And in another place:
"He can't bear to see the whip used, or to see a horse pull hard.
To-day when the driver clucked up his horse and quickened his pace a
little, Mark said, 'The fellow's got the notion that we were in a
hurry.'"
Another extract refers to an incident which Mark Twain also mentions in
"A Tramp Abroad:" [8]
"Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing so delights him as a
swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once
he is in the influence of its fascinations. To throw in stones and
sticks seems to afford him rapture."
Twichell goes on to tell how he threw some driftwood into a racing
torrent and how Mark went running down-stream after it, waving and
shouting in a sort of mad ecstasy.
When a piece went over a fall and emerged to view in the foam below, he
would jump up and down and yell. He acted just like a boy.
Boy he was, then and always. Like Peter Pan, he never really grew up
--that is, if growing up means to grow solemn and uninterested in play.
Climbing the Gorner Grat with Twichell, they sat down to rest, and a lamb
from a near-by flock ventured toward them. Clemens held out his hand and
called softly. The lamb ventured nearer, curious but timid.
It was a scene for a painter: the great American humorist on one side of
the game, and the silly little creature on the other, with the Matterhorn
for a background. Mark was reminded that the time he was consuming was
valuable, but to no purpose. The Gorner Grat could wait. He held on
with undiscouraged perseverance till he carried his point; the lamb
finally put its nose in Mark's hand, and he was happy all the rest of the
day.
"In A Tramp Abroad" Mark Twain burlesques most of the walking-tour with
Harris (Twichell), feeling, perhaps, that he must make humor at whatever
cost. But to-day the other side of the picture seems more worth while.
That it seemed so to him, also, even at the time, we may gather from a
letter he sent after Twichell when it was all over and Twichell was on
his way home:
"DEAR OLD JOE,--It is actually all over! I was so low-spirited at
the station yesterday, and this morning, when I woke, I couldn't
seem to accept the dismal truth that you were really gone and the
pleasant tramping and talking at an end. Ah, my boy! It has been
such a rich holiday for me, and I feel under such deep and honest
obligations to you for coming. I am putting out of my mind all
memory of the time when I misbehaved toward you and hurt you; I am
resolved to consider it forgiven, and to store up and remember only
the charming hours of the journey and the times when I was not
unworthy to be with you and share a companionship which to me stands
first after Livy's."
Clemens had joined his family at Lausanne, and presently they journeyed
down into Italy, returning later to Germany--to Munich, where they lived
quietly with Fraulein Dahlweiner at No. 1a Karlstrasse, while he worked
on his new book of travel. When spring came they went to Paris, and
later to London, where the usual round of entertainment briefly claimed
them. It was the 3d of September, 1879, when they finally reached New
York. The papers said that Mark Twain had changed in his year and a half
of absence. He had, somehow, taken on a traveled look. One paper
remarked that he looked older than when he went to Germany, and that his
hair had turned quite gray.
[8] Chapter XXXIII.