by Mark Twain
Yesterday morning the doctor left here at nine and made his rounds in Yonkers, then came back and paid Livy his usual noon visit; but this morning he had a patient or so within half a mile of here, and to save travel he thought it would be a good idea to go straight up to Livy from the breakfast table; so he sent up to say he had called in passing, and couldn’t he come up and see Livy now? Of course she said yes, and he went up. He ought to have kept still; but some devil of injudacity moved him to say—
“Mr. Clemens says you are looking distinctly better than when he last saw you, in York.”
Livy was back at him instantly:
“Why—have you seen him? How did you come to see him since yesterday afternoon?”
Luckily the doctor did not exhibit the joggle she had given him, but said composedly—
“I ran across him in the hall a minute ago when I came in.”
So then he had to get Miss Sherry outside and arrange with her to tell me that that was how he came to know my opinion of the patient’s looks. To make doubly sure he hunted me up and told me himself; then called Clara and instructed her; for although her watch is not in the forenoon, she takes Miss Sherry’s place a little while every morning while Miss Sherry goes down and plans Livy’s food for the day with the cook.
I am to see Livy a moment every afternoon until she has another bad night; and I stand in dread, for with all my practice I realize that in a sudden emergency I am but a poor clumsy liar, whereas a fine alert and capable emergency-liar is the only sort that is worth anything in a sick-chamber.
Now, Joe, just see what reputation can do. All Clara’s life she has told Livy the truth and now the reward comes: Clara lies to her three and a half hours every day, and Livy takes it all at par, whereas even when I tell her a truth it isn’t worth much without corroboration.
Clara’s talents are worked plenty hard enough without this new call upon them—Jean. Of course we do not want Jean to know her own danger, and that the doctor is spending his nights thirty feet from her. Yesterday at sunrise Clara carried an order from him to Jean’s nurse; and being worn and not at her brightest self, she delivered it in Jean’s hearing. At once Jean spoke up:
“What is the doctor doing here—is mamma worse?”
It brought Clara to herself, and she said—
“No. He telephoned this order late last night, and said let it go into effect at six or seven this morning.”
This morning Clara forgot herself again. She was in a long hall that leads past Jean’s room, and called out to Katy about something, “Take it to the doctor’s room!”
Then she flew to explain to Jean with an explanatory lie, and was happy to find that Jean was asleep and hadn’t heard.
I wish Clara were not so hard driven—so that she could take a pen and put upon paper all the details of one of her afternoons in her mother’s room. Day before yesterday (Monday), for instance. We were all desperately frightened and anxious about Jean (both lungs affected, temperature 104⅖, with high pulse and blazing fever), the whole household moving aimlessly about with absent and vacant faces—and Clara sitting miserable at heart but outwardly smiling, and telling her happy mother what good times Jean was having, coasting and carrying on out in the snow with the Dodges these splendid winter days! * * * *
Joe, Livy is the happiest person you ever saw. And she has had it all to herself for a whole week. What a week! So full of comedy and pathos and tragedy!
Jean had a good night last night, and she is doing as well as in the circumstances can be expected.
Joe, don’t let those people invite me—I couldn’t go. I have canceled all engagements, and shan’t accept another for a year.
There’ll be a full report of that dinner*—issued by Colonel Harvey as a remembrancer—and of course he will send it to all the guests. If he should overlook you—which he won’t—let me know.
Soon my brief visit is due. I’ve just been up, listening at Livy’s door. For the first time in months I heard her break into one of her girlish old-time laughs. With a word I could freeze the blood in her veins!
P.S. 1902.
Dec. 31, 4 p.m. A great disappointment. I was sitting outside Livy’s door, waiting. Clara came out a minute ago and said Livy is not so well, and the nurse can’t let me see her to-day. And Clara whispered other things. In the effort to find a new diversion for Jean, she pretended she had sent her down to a matinée in New York this afternoon. Livy was pleased, but at once wanted the name of the play. Clara was aground. She was afraid to name one—in fact couldn’t for the moment think of any name. Hesitances won’t do; so she said Jean hadn’t mentioned the name of it, but was only full of seeing Fay Davis again.
That was satisfactory, and the incident was closed. Then—
“Your father is willing to go with you and Jean to-morrow night?” (To Carnegie Hall.)
“Oh, yes. He is reformed since you are sick; never grumbles about anything he thinks you would like him to do. He’s all alacrity to do the most disagreeable things. You wouldn’t recognize him, now. He’s spoiling himself—getting so vain of himself he—”
And so on and so on—fighting for time—time to think up material. She had sent back the tickets a week ago, with a note explaining why we couldn’t come; the thing had passed out of her mind, and to have it sprung upon her out of the hoary past in this sudden way was a perilous matter and called for wariness. (It is my little juvenile piece “The Death-Wafer,” which Livy loves; and longs to hear about it from an eye-witness.)
“Who else is going?”
“Mary Foote and—and Miss Lyon and—and Elizabeth Dodge—and—I think that is all.”
“Why—has Jean invited Elizabeth and not her sister?”
(Clara had forgotten there was a sister, and was obliged to explain that she didn’t really remember, but believed Jean had mentioned the sister.)
“Well, to make sure, speak to her about it. But is that all she has invited? It is a great big box, and the management have been very kind. It mustn’t have a thin look.”
And so Livy began to worry.
“Oh, don’t you bother, Mousie. You can depend on Jean to have it full. She mentioned names, but I had the cook on my hands and wasn’t paying attention.”
And at this point, sure enough, I fell heir to my share; for Clara said—
“Day after to-morrow she’ll want to know all about it. I can’t furnish details, they’ve gone out of my head. You must post me thoroughly, to-morrow.”
She had to get back to Livy’s room, then—and perhaps explain what kept her so long.
This is a perplexing place. Livy knows the story, and I don’t. I wrote it three years ago, or more. I think I will suggest some such procedure as this—to Clara:
“Generalize—keep generalizing—about the scenery, and the costumes, and how bluff and fine the old Lord Protector was, and how pretty and innocently audacious the child was, and how pathetically bowed and broken the poor parents were, and all that, and how perfectly natural and accurate the Tower of London looked—work the Tower hard, Livy knows the Tower well—work it for all it’s worth—keep whirling it in—every time you get stuck, say ‘Oh, but the Tower! ah, the Tower!’ And keep your ears open—your mother will furnish the details, without knowing it. She’ll mention the child’s climbing up into Cromwell’s lap uninvited—and you must break into the middle of her sentence and say ‘Oh, you should have seen it!’ and she’ll say, ‘When the child put the red wafer into her own father’s hand—’ you will break in and say, ‘Oh, Mousie, it was too pitiful for anything—you could hear the whole house sob;’ and she’ll say, ‘Was the child equal to her part when she flew to Cromwell and dragged him out and stamped her foot and—’ you must break in and say ‘It was great! and when he said “Obey! she spoke by my voice; the prisoner is pardoned—set him free!” you ought to have been there! it was just grand!’”*
Mark.
1903.
Jan. 1/03. The doctor did not stay last night. Jus
t as I was beginning to dress for dinner Livy’s nurse came for me, and I saw the patient four minutes. She was in great spirits—like twenty-five years ago.
She has sent me a New-Year greeting this morning, and has had a good night.
Jean has had a good night, and does not look to me so blasted and blighted as on the previous days. She sleeps all the time. Temperature down to within a shade of normal, this morning. Everything looking well here (unberufen!)
Mark.
Jan. 28.
Livy had a slight backset yesterday, so the doctor has just told me he is going to shut off my daily visit for a few days. It will distress her, and may have an ill effect at first; but later, results will show the wisdom of it no doubt.
Katy’s absence at Old Point Comfort with Jean makes a new difficulty: Livy charges Clara with orders for Katy every day. For months Katy has prepared special dishes for Livy, and now Livy wants her stirred up—she is growing careless in her cooking the past few days and isn’t up to standard! By gracious we can’t counterfeit Katy’s cookery!
Yours ever,
Mark.
Jean is enjoying herself very well at Old Point Comfort. Clara has asked Judy to come up, and we are hoping she will say yes.
The story (“Was it Heaven—or Hell?”) appeared in the Christmas Harper when Jean’s life was hanging by a thread (as we all knew), but while she was taking joyous and active part in the Christmas fêtes and festivities of the neighborhood (as her mother supposed). The mother inquired into all the festivities with that lively interest which was so characteristic of her. She wanted all the details. She wanted all the names. If it was a young people’s party, or fête, or dance, she wanted to know. If it was at William E. Dodge’s house, or if it was at Cleveland Dodge’s, or if it was at George W. Perkins’s house, she had to have the house, the nature of the entertainment, the names of the participants, and all about it. Clara furnished these particulars; and while her mother’s face beamed with pleasure in the thought of the brave time Jean was having, Clara sat there with her still heart listening—if a heart can listen. She knew that Jean might be dying at that moment.
Italy.
Toward the end of October we carried Mrs. Clemens aboard ship, her excellent nurse, Miss Sherry, accompanying us. We reached Florence on the 9th of November. We conveyed our patient to that odious Villa di Quarto. I have already told a sufficiency of the history of our eight months’ occupancy of that infamous place. I will not inflict upon myself the useless pain of filling out the remaining months of it.
Mrs. Clemens was doomed from the beginning, but she never suspected it—we never suspected it. She had been ill many times in her life, but her miraculous recuperative powers always brought her out of these perils safely. We were full of fears and anxieties and solicitudes all the time, but I do not think we ever really lost hope. At least, not until the last two or three weeks. It was not like her to lose hope. We never expected her to lose it—and so at last when she looked me pathetically in the eyes and said “You believe I shall get well?” it was a form which she had never used before, and it was a betrayal. Her hope was perishing, and I recognized it.
During five months I had been trying to find another and satisfactory villa, in the belief that if we could get Mrs. Clemens away from the Villa di Quarto and its fiendish associations, the happier conditions would improve both the health of her spirit and that of her body. I found many villas that had every desired feature save one or two, but the lacking one or two were always essentials—features necessary to the well-being of the invalid. But at last, on Saturday the 4th of June, I heard of a villa which promised to meet all the requirements. Sunday afternoon Jean and I drove to it, examined it, and came home satisfied—more than satisfied, delighted. The purchase price was thirty thousand dollars cash, and we could have possession at once.
We got back home at five in the afternoon, and I waited until seven with my news. I was allowed to have fifteen minutes in the sick-room two or three times a day—the last of these occasions being seven in the evening—and I was also privileged to step in for a single moment at nine in the evening and say good night. At seven that evening I was at the bedside. I described the villa, exhibited its plans, and said we would buy it to-morrow if she were willing, and move her to it as soon as she could bear the journey. She was pleased. She was satisfied. And her face—snow white, marble white, these latter weeks—was radiant. I overstayed my time fifteen minutes—a strenuously forbidden trespass. As I was passing out at the door which was furthest from her bed, it was borne in upon her that, by rights, I had forfeited my privilege of coming at nine to say good night. I think so, because she kissed her hand at me and said “You’ll come again?” I said “Yes.”
I came again at nine. As I entered I saw Katy and the trained nurse, one on each side of Mrs. Clemens, who was sitting up in bed—she had not lain down for two months—and they were apparently supporting her. But she was dead. She must have died as I entered the door. She had been blessedly unaware that her end was near. She had been gaily chatting with Katy and the nurse a moment before I entered the room.
We brought her home. And in the library of her father’s house, and upon the same spot where she had stood, a young girl bride, thirty-five years before, her coffin now rested. Mr. Twichell, who had assisted at her marriage, was there to say the farewell words.
* My sixty-seventh birthday. M.T.
* June, 1906. Clara followed the instructions, and succeeded.
Monday, June 11, 1906
The beautiful morning—Noble situation of the house—Its one defect, loneliness—The visit of the deer—Sympathy with Adam and Eve in Garden of Eden—Irruption of Vesuvius—Earthquake in San Francisco.
After a week of silence and inanition I hardly know where to take up this thread again. This veranda is not the best workshop in the world, particularly in such superb weather as this. The skies are enchantingly blue. The world is a dazzle of sunshine. Monadnock is closer to us than usual by several hundred yards. The vast extent of spreading valley is intensely green—the lakes as intensely blue. And there is a new horizon—a remoter one than we have known before, for beyond the mighty half-circle of hazy mountains that form the usual frame of the picture, rise certain shadowy great domes that are unfamiliar to our eyes. Certainly this house is nobly situated. It stands solitary, reserved, and well satisfied with itself, in the midst of its hundred or so of acres of grass and grove, and from this high throne looks out upon that spacious paradise of which I have been talking.
But there is a defect—only one, but it is a defect which almost entitles it to be spelled with a capital D. This is the defect of loneliness. We have not a single neighbor, who is a neighbor. Nobody lives within two miles of us except Franklin MacVeagh, and he is the furthest off of any, because he is in Europe. My social life has to be limited to the friends who come to me. I can’t very well go to them, because I don’t like driving, and I am much too indolent to walk. The rest of the household walk and drive, daily, and thereby they survive. But I am not surviving. I am in a trance. When I have dictated a couple of hours in the forenoon I don’t know what to do with myself until ten o’clock next day. Sometimes the household are so melancholy that it ceases to be pathetic and becomes funny. Some member of it has given the house a Masonic name, The Lodge of Sorrow.
I feel for Adam and Eve now, for I know how it was with them. I am existing, broken hearted, in a Garden of Eden, and in a household consisting of six or eight persons—yet I feel as Alexander Selkirk felt, who had to cheer himself with sorrowful poetry because there was no other way to put in the time, and he said:
Oh Solitude, where are the charms that sages have seen in thy face?
Better live in the midst of alarms than dwell in this horrible place.
Adam would have said it. Adam would have written it and left it on record—if he could have spelled the words. The Garden of Eden I now know was an unendurable solitude. I know that the advent of the serpent was a
welcome change—anything for society. I would have welcomed him. I would have done anything I could think of to make him comfortable and get him to stay. He could have had all the apples, if I had to go without, myself.