Mark Twain A Biography Part 179

On February 5th he wrote that the climate and condition of his health might require him to stay in Bermuda pretty continuously, but that he wished Stormfield kept open so that he might come to it at any time. And he added:

Yesterday Mr. Allen took us on an excursion in Mr. Hamilton's big motor-boat. Present: Mrs. Allen, Mr. & Mrs. & Miss Sloane, Helen, Mildred Howells, Claude, & me. Several hours' swift skimming over ravishing blue seas, a brilliant sun; also a couple of hours of picnicking & lazying under the cedars in a secluded place.

The Orotava is arriving with 260 pa.s.sengers--I shall get letters by her, no doubt.

P. S.--Please send me the Standard Unabridged that is on the table in my bedroom. I have no dictionary here.

There is no mention in any of these letters of his trouble; but he was having occasional spasms of pain, though in that soft climate they would seem to have come with less frequency, and there was so little to disturb him, and much that contributed to his peace. Among the callers at the Bay House to see him was Woodrow Wilson, and the two put in some pleasant hours at miniature golf, "putting" on the Allen lawn. Of course a catastrophe would come along now and then--such things could not always be guarded against. In a letter toward the end of February he wrote: It is 2.30 in the morning & I am writing because I can't sleep.

I can't sleep because a professional pianist is coming to-morrow afternoon to play for me. My G.o.d! I wouldn't allow Paderewski or Gabrilowitsch to do that. I would rather have a leg amputated.

I knew he was coming, but I never dreamed it was to play for me.

When I heard the horrible news 4 hours ago, be d---d if I didn't come near screaming. I meant to slip out and be absent, but now I can't. Don't pray for me. The thing is just as d---d bad as it can be already.

Clemens's love for music did not include the piano, except for very gentle melodies, and he probably did not antic.i.p.ate these from a professional player. He did not report the sequel of the matter; but it is likely that his imagination had discounted its tortures. Sometimes his letters were pure nonsense. Once he sent a sheet, on one side of which was written:

BAY HOUSE, March s, 1910.

Received of S. L. C.

Two Dollars and Forty Cents in return for my promise to believe everything he says hereafter.

HELEN S. ALLEN.

and on the reverse:

FOR SALE

The proprietor of the hereinbefore mentioned Promise desires to part with it on account of ill health and obliged to go away somewheres so as to let it reciprocate, and will take any reasonable amount for it above 2 percent of its face because experienced parties think it will not keep but only a little while in this kind of weather & is a kind of proppity that don't give a cuss for cold storage nohow.

Clearly, however serious Mark Twain regarded his physical condition, he did not allow it to make him gloomy. He wrote that matters were going everywhere to his satisfaction; that Clara was happy; that his household and business affairs no longer troubled him; that his personal surroundings were of the pleasantest sort. Sometimes he wrote of what he was reading, and once spoke particularly of Prof. William Lyon Phelps's Literary Essays, which he said he had been unable to lay down until he had finished the book.--[To Phelps himself he wrote: "I thank you ever so much for the book, which I find charming--so charming, indeed, that I read it through in a single night, & did not regret the lost night's sleep. I am glad if I deserve what you have said about me; & even if I don't I am proud & well contented, since you think I deserve it."]

So his days seemed full of comfort. But in March I noticed that he generally dictated his letters, and once when he sent some small photographs I thought he looked thinner and older. Still he kept up his merriment. In one letter he said:

While the matter is in my mind I will remark that if you ever send me another letter which is not paged at the top I will write you with my own hand, so that I may use with utter freedom & without embarra.s.sment the kind of words which alone can describe such a criminal, to wit, - - - -; you will have to put into words those dashes because propriety will not allow me to do it myself in my secretary's hearing. You are forgiven, but don't let it occur again.

He had still made no mention of his illness; but on the 25th of March he wrote something of his plans for coming home. He had engaged pa.s.sage on the Bermudian for April 23d, he said; and he added:

But don't tell anybody. I don't want it known. I may have to go sooner if the pain in my breast does not mend its ways pretty considerable. I don't want to die here, for this is an unkind place for a person in that condition. I should have to lie in the undertaker's cellar until the ship would remove me & it is dark down there & unpleasant.

The Colliers will meet me on the pier, & I may stay with them a week or two before going home. It all depends on the breast pain. I don't want to die there. I am growing more and more particular about the place.

But in the same letter he spoke of plans for the summer, suggesting that we must look into the magic-lantern possibilities, so that library entertainments could be given at Stormfield. I confess that this letter, in spite of its light tone, made me uneasy, and I was tempted to sail for Bermuda to bring him home. Three days later he wrote again:

I have been having a most uncomfortable time for the past four days with that breast pain, which turns out to be an affection of the heart, just as I originally suspected. The news from New York is to the effect that non-bronchial weather has arrived there at last; therefore, if I can get my breast trouble in traveling condition I may sail for home a week or two earlier than has been proposed.

The same mail that brought this brought a letter from Mr. Allen, who frankly stated that matters had become very serious indeed. Mr. Clemens had had some dangerous attacks, and the physicians considered his condition critical.

These letters arrived April 1st. I went to New York at once and sailed next morning. Before sailing I consulted with Dr. Quintard, who provided me with some opiates and instructed me in the use of the hypodermic needle. He also joined me in a cablegram to the Gabrilowitsches, then in Italy, advising them to sail without delay.

CCXCII. THE VOYAGE HOME

I sent no word to Bermuda that I was coming, and when on the second morning I arrived at Hamilton, I stepped quickly ash.o.r.e from the tender and hurried to Bay House. The doors were all open, as they usually are in that summer island, and no one was visible. I was familiar with the place, and, without knocking, I went through to the room occupied by Mark Twain. As I entered I saw that he was alone, sitting in a large chair, clad in the familiar dressing-gown.

Bay House stands upon the water, and the morning light, reflected in at the window, had an unusual quality. He was not yet shaven, and he seemed unnaturally pale and gray; certainly he was much thinner. I was too startled, for the moment, to say anything. When he turned and saw me he seemed a little dazed.

"Why," he said, holding out his hand, "you didn't tell us you were coming."

"No," I said, "it is rather sudden. I didn't quite like the sound of your last letters."

"But those were not serious," he protested. "You shouldn't have come on my account."

I said then that I had come on my own account; that I had felt the need of recreation, and had decided to run down and come home with him.

"That's--very--good," he said, in his slow, gentle fashion. "Now I'm glad to see you."

His breakfast came in and he ate with an appet.i.te.

When he had been shaved and freshly propped tip in his pillows it seemed to me, after all, that I must have been mistaken in thinking him so changed. Certainly he was thinner, but his color was fine, his eyes were bright; he had no appearance of a man whose life was believed to be in danger. He told me then of the fierce attacks he had gone through, how the pains had torn at him, and how it had been necessary for him to have hypodermic injections, which he amusingly termed "hypnotic injunctions"

and "subcutaneous applications," and he had his humor out of it, as of course he must have, even though Death should stand there in person.

From Mr. and Mrs. Allen and from the physician I learned how slender had been his chances and how uncertain were the days ahead. Mr. Allen had already engaged pa.s.sage on the Oceana for the 12th, and the one purpose now was to get him physically in condition for the trip.

How devoted those kind friends had been to him! They had devised every imaginable thing for his comfort. Mr. Allen had rigged an electric bell which connected with his own room, so that he could be aroused instantly at any hour of the night. Clemens had refused to have a nurse, for it was only during the period of his extreme suffering that he needed any one, and he did not wish to have a nurse always around. When the pains were gone he was as bright and cheerful, and, seemingly, as well as ever.

On the afternoon of my arrival we drove out, as formerly, and he discussed some of the old subjects in quite the old way. He had been rereading Macaulay, he said, and spoke at considerable length of the hypocrisy and intrigue of the English court under James II. He spoke, too, of the Redding Library. I had sold for him that portion of the land where Jean's farm-house had stood, and it was in his mind to use the money for some sort of a memorial to Jean. I had written, suggesting that perhaps he would like to put up a small library building, as the Adams lot faced the corner where Jean had pa.s.sed every day when she rode to the station for the mail. He had been thinking this over, he said, and wished the idea carried out. He asked me to write at once to his lawyer, Mr. Lark, and have a paper prepared appointing trustees for a memorial library fund.

The pain did not trouble him that afternoon, nor during several succeeding days. He was gay and quite himself, and he often went out on the lawn; but we did not drive out again. For the most part, he sat propped up in his bed, reading or smoking, or talking in the old way; and as I looked at him he seemed so full of vigor and the joy of life that I could not convince myself that he would not outlive us all.

I found that he had been really very much alive during those three months--too much for his own good, sometimes--for he had not been careful of his hours or his diet, and had suffered in consequence.

He had not been writing, though he had scribbled some playful valentines and he had amused himself one day by preparing a chapter of advice--for me it appeared--which, after reading it aloud to the Allens and receiving their approval, he declared he intended to have printed for my benefit. As it would seem to have been the last bit of continued writing he ever did, and because it is characteristic and amusing, a few paragraphs may be admitted. The "advice" is concerning deportment on reaching the Gate which St. Peter is supposed to guard--

Upon arrival do not speak to St. Peter until spoken to. It is not your place to begin.

Do not begin any remark with "Say."

When applying for a ticket avoid trying to make conversation. If you must talk let the weather alone. St. Peter cares not a d.a.m.n for the weather. And don't ask him what time the 4.30 train goes; there aren't any trains in heaven, except through trains, and the less information you get about them the better for you.

You can ask him for his autograph--there is no harm in that--but be careful and don't remark that it is one of the penalties of greatness. He has heard that before.

Don't try to kodak him. h.e.l.l is full of people who have made that mistake.

Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit you would stay out and the dog would go in.

You will be wanting to slip down at night and smuggle water to those poor little chaps (the infant d.a.m.ned), but don't you try it. You would be caught, and n.o.body in heaven would respect you after that.

Explain to Helen why I don't come. If you can.

There were several pages of this counsel. One paragraph was written in shorthand. I meant to ask him to translate it; but there were many other things to think of, and I did not remember.