Speaking of Livy reminds me that your inquiry arrives at a good time (unberufen) It has been weeks (I don't know how many!) since we could have said a hopeful word, but this morning Katy came the minute the day-nurse came on watch and said words of a strange and long-forgotten sound:
"Mr.Clemens, Mrs.Clemens is really and truly better!--anybody can see it; she sees it herself; and last night at 9 o'clock she said it."There--it is heart-warming, it is splendid, it is sublime; let us enjoy it, let us make the most of it today--and bet not a farthing on tomorrow.
The tomorrows have nothing for us.Too many times they have breathed the word of promise to our ear and broken it to our hope.We take no tomorrow's word any more.
You've done a wonder, Joe: you've written a letter that can be sent in to Livy--that doesn't often happen, when either a friend or a stranger writes.You did whirl in a P.S.that wouldn't do, but you wrote it on a margin of a page in such a way that I was able to clip off the margin clear across both pages, and now Livy won't perceive that the sheet isn't the same size it used to was.It was about Aldrich's son, and I came near forgetting to remove it.It should have been written on a loose strip and enclosed.That son died on the 5th of March and Aldrich wrote me on the night before that his minutes were numbered.On the 18th Livy asked after that patient, and I was prepared, and able to give her a grateful surprise by telling her "the Aldriches are no longer uneasy about him."I do wish I could have been present and heard Charley Clark.When he can't light up a dark place nobody can.
With lots of love to you all.
MARK.
Mrs.Clemens had her bad days and her good days-days when there seemed no ray of light, and others that seemed almost to promise recovery.The foregoing letter to Twichell, and the one which follows, to Richard Watson Gilder, reflect the hope and fear that daily and hourly alternated at Villa Quarto To Richard Watson Gilder, in New York:
VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE, May 12, '04.
DEAR GILDER,--A friend of ours (the Baroness de Nolda) was here this afternoon and wanted a note of introduction to the Century, for she has something to sell to you in case you'll want to make her an offer after seeing a sample of the goods.I said "With pleasure: get the goods ready, send the same to me, I will have Jean type-write them, then I will mail them to the Century and tonight I will write the note to Mr.Gilder and start it along.Also write me a letter embodying what you have been saying to me about the goods and your proposed plan of arranging and explaining them, and I will forward that to Gilder too."As to the Baroness.She is a German; 30 years old; was married at 17; is very pretty-indeed I might say very pretty; has a lot of sons (5) running up from seven to 12 years old.Her husband is a Russian.They live half the time in Russia and the other half in Florence, and supply population alternately to the one country and then to the other.Of course it is a family that speaks languages.This occurs at their table--I know it by experience: It is Babel come again.The other day, when no guests were present to keep order, the tribes were all talking at once, and 6languages were being traded in; at last the littlest boy lost his temper and screamed out at the top of his voice, with angry sobs: "Mais, vraiment, io non capisco gar nichts."The Baroness is a little afraid of her English, therefore she will write her remarks in French--I said there's a plenty of translators in New York.Examine her samples and drop her a line.
For two entire days, now, we have not been anxious about Mrs.Clemens (unberufen).After 20 months of bed-ridden solitude and bodily misery she all of a sudden ceases to be a pallid shrunken shadow, and looks bright and young and 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!
With love to you and yours, S.L.C.
May 13 10 A.M.I have just paid one of my pair of permitted 2 minutes visits per day to the sick room.And found what I have learned to expect--retrogression, and that pathetic something in the eye which betrays the secret of a waning hope.
The year of the World's Fair had come, and an invitation from Gov.
Francis, of Missouri, came to Mark Twain in Florence, personally inviting him to attend the great celebration and carry off first prize.We may believe that Clemens felt little in the spirit of humor, but to such an invitation he must send a cheerful, even if disappointing, answer.
To Gov.Francis, of Missouri:
VILLA DI QUARTO, FIRENZE, May 26, 1904.
DEAR GOVERNOR FRANCIS,--It has been a dear wish of mine to exhibit myself at the Great Fair and get a prize, but circumstances beyond my control have interfered, and I must remain in Florence.Although I have never taken prizes anywhere else I used to take them at school in Missouri half a century ago, and I ought to be able to repeat, now, if I could have a chance.I used to get the medal for good spelling, every week, and Icould have had the medal for good conduct if there hadn't been so much curruption in Missouri in those days; still, I got it several times by trading medals and giving boot.I am willing to give boot now, if--however, those days are forever gone by in Missouri, and perhaps it is better so.Nothing ever stops the way it was in this changeable world.
Although I cannot be at the Fair, I am going to be represented there anyway, by a portrait, by Professor Gelli.You will find it excellent.
Good judges here say it is better than the original.They say it has all the merits of the original and keeps still, besides.It sounds like flattery, but it is just true.
I suppose you will get a prize, because you have created the most prodigious and in all ways most wonderful Fair the planet has ever seen.