Chapter XXXVI: of the Mississippi book (20)

“Ah, Korner Street, Korner Street, why did I not think of you
before! A place fit for the gods, dear sir. Quiet?--notice how
still it is; and remember this is noonday--noonday. It is but one
block long, you see, just a sweet, dear little nest hid away here in
the heart of the great metropolis, its presence and its sacred quiet
unsuspected by the restless crowds that swarm along the stately
thoroughfares yonder at its two extremities. And----”

“This building is handsome, but I don't think much of the others.
They look pretty commonplace, compared with the rest of Berlin.”

“Dear! dear! have you noticed that? It is just an affectation of
the nobility. What they want----”

“The nobility? Do they live in----”

“In this street? That is good! very good, indeed! I wish the Duke
of Sassafras-Hagenstein could hear you say that. When the Duke
first moved in here he----”

“Does he live in this street?”

“Him! Well, I should say so! Do you see the big, plain house over
there with the placard in the third floor window? That's his
house.”

“The placard that says 'Furnished rooms to let'? Does he keep
boarders?”

“What an idea! Him! With a rent-roll of twelve hundred thousand
marks a year? Oh, positively this is too good.”

“Well, what does he have that sign up for?”

The assistant took me by the buttonhole & said, with a merry light
beaming in his eye:

“Why, my dear sir, a person would know you are new to Berlin just by
your innocent questions. Our aristocracy, our old, real, genuine
aristocracy, are full of the quaintest eccentricities,
eccentricities inherited for centuries, eccentricities which they
are prouder of than they are of their titles, and that sign-board
there is one of them. They all hang them out. And it's regulated
by an unwritten law. A baron is entitled to hang out two, a count
five, a duke fifteen----”

“Then they are all dukes over on that side, I sup----”

“Every one of them. Now the old Duke of Backofenhofenschwartz not
the present Duke, but the last but one, he----”

“Does he live over the sausage-shop in the cellar?”

“No, the one farther along, where the eighteenth yellow cat is
chewing the door-mat----”

“But all the yellow cats are chewing the door-mats.”

“Yes, but I mean the eighteenth one. Count. No, never mind;
there's a lot more come. I'll get you another mark. Let me see---”

They could not remain permanently in Komerstrasse, but they stuck it out till the end of December--about two months. Then they made such settlement with the agent as they could--that is to say, they paid the rest of their year's rent--and established themselves in a handsome apartment at the Hotel Royal, Unter den Linden. There was no need to be ashamed of this address, for it was one of the best in Berlin.

As for Komerstrasse, it is cleaner now. It is still not aristocratic, but it is eminently respectable. There is a new post-office that takes in Number 7, where one may post mail and send telegrams and use the Fernsprecher--which is to say the telephone--and be politely treated by uniformed officials, who have all heard of Mark Twain, but have no knowledge of his former occupation of their premises.

CLXXVIII. A WINTER IN BERLIN

Clemens, meantime, had been trying to establish himself in his work, but his rheumatism racked him occasionally and was always a menace. Closing a letter to Hall, he said:

“I must stop-my arm is howling.”

He put in a good deal of time devising publishing schemes, principal among them being a plan for various cheap editions of his books, pamphlets, and such like, to sell for a few cents. These projects appear never to have been really undertaken, Hall very likely fearing that a flood of cheap issues would interfere with the more important trade. It seemed dangerous to trifle with an apparently increasing prosperity, and Clemens was willing enough to agree with this view.

Clemens had still another letter to write for Laffan and McClure, and he made a pretty careful study of Berlin with that end in view. But his arm kept him from any regular work. He made notes, however. Once he wrote:

The first gospel of all monarchies should be Rebellion; the second
should be Rebellion; and the third and all gospels, and the only
gospel of any monarchy, should be Rebellion--against Church and
State.

And again:

I wrote a chapter on this language 13 years ago and tried my level
best to improve it and simplify it for these people, and this is the
result--a word of thirty-nine letters. It merely concentrates the
alphabet with a shovel. It hurts me to know that that chapter is
not in any of their text-books and they don't use it in the
university.

Socially, that winter in Berlin was eventful enough. William Walter Phelps, of New Jersey (Clemens had known him in America), was United States minister at the German capital, while at the Emperor's court there was a cousin, Frau von Versen, nee Clemens, one of the St. Louis family. She had married a young German officer who had risen to the rank of a full general. Mark Twain and his family were welcome guests at all the diplomatic events--often brilliant levees, gatherings of distinguished men and women from every circle of achievement. Labouchere of 'Truth' was there, De Blowitz of the 'Times', and authors, ambassadors, and scientists of rank. Clemens became immediately a distinguished figure at these assemblies. His popularity in Germany was openly manifested. At any gathering he was surrounded by a brilliant company, eager to do him honor. He was recognized whenever he appeared on the street, and saluted, though in his notes he says he was sometimes mistaken for the historian Mommsen, whom he resembled in hair and features. His books were displayed for sale everywhere, and a special cheap edition of them was issued at a few cents per copy.

Captain Bingham (later General Bingham, Commissioner of Police in New York City) and John Jackson were attaches of the legation, both of them popular with the public in general, and especially so with the Clemens family. Susy Clemens, writing to her father during a temporary absence, tells of a party at Mrs. Jackson's, and especially refers to Captain Bingham in the most complimentary terms.

“He never left me sitting alone, nor in an awkward situation of any kind, but always came cordially to the rescue. My gratitude toward him was absolutely limitless.”

She adds that Mrs. Bingham was very handsome and decidedly the most attractive lady present. Berlin was Susy's first real taste of society, and she was reveling in it. In her letter she refers to Minister Phelps by the rather disrespectful nickname of “Yaas,” a term conferred because of his pronunciation of that affirmative. The Clemens children were not entirely happy in the company of the minister. They were fond of him, but he was a great tease. They were quite young enough, but it seemed always to give him delight to make them appear much younger. In the letter above quoted Susy says:

When I saw Mr. Phelps I put out my hand enthusiastically and said,
“Oh, Mr. Phelps, good evening,” whereat he drew back and said, so
all could hear, “What, you here! why, you're too young. Do you
think you know how to behave?” As there were two or three young
gentlemen near by to whom I hadn't been introduced I wasn't exactly
overjoyed at this greeting.

We may imagine that the nickname “Yaas” had been invented by Susy in secret retaliation, though she was ready enough to forgive him, for he was kindness itself at heart.

In one of his later dictations Clemens related an anecdote concerning a dinner with Phelps, when he (Clemens) had been invited to meet Count S----, a cabinet minister of long and illustrious descent. Clemens, and Phelps too, it seems, felt overshadowed by this ancestry.

Of course I wanted to let out the fact that I had some ancestors,
too; but I did not want to pull them out of their graves by the
ears, and I never could seem to get the chance to work them in, in a
way that would look sufficiently casual. I suppose Phelps was in
the same difficulty. In fact he looked distraught now and then just
as a person looks who wants to uncover an ancestor purely by
accident and cannot think of a way that will seem accidental enough.
But at last, after dinner, he made a try. He took us about his
drawing-room, showing us the pictures, and finally stopped before a
rude and ancient engraving. It was a picture of the court that
tried Charles I. There was a pyramid of judges in Puritan slouch
hats, and below them three bareheaded secretaries seated at a table.
Mr. Phelps put his finger upon one of the three and said, with
exulting indifference:

“An ancestor of mine.”

I put a finger on a judge and retorted with scathing languidness:
“Ancestor of mine. But it is a small matter. I have others.”

Clemens was sincerely fond of Phelps and spent a good deal of time at the legation headquarters. Sometimes he wrote there. An American journalist, Henry W. Fischer, remembers seeing him there several times scribbling on such scraps of paper as came handy, and recalls that on one occasion he delivered an address to a German and English audience on the “Awful German Tongue.” This was probably the lecture that brought Clemens to bed with pneumonia. With Mrs. Clemens he had been down to Ilsenburg, in the Hartz Mountains, for a week of change. It was pleasant there, and they would have remained longer but for the Berlin lecture engagement. As it was, they found Berlin very cold and the lecture-room crowded and hot. When the lecture was over they stopped at General von Versen's for a ball, arriving at home about two in the morning. Clemens awoke with a heavy cold and lung congestion. He remained in bed, a very sick man indeed, for the better part of a month. It was unpleasant enough at first, though he rather enjoyed the convalescent period. He could sit up in bed and read and receive occasional callers. Fischer brought him Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth, always a favorite.--[Clemens was deeply interested in the Margravine, and at one time began a novel with her absorbing history as its theme. He gave it up, probably feeling that the romantic form could add nothing to the Margravine's own story.]--The Emperor sent Frau von Versen with an invitation for him to attend the consecration of some flags in the palace. When she returned, conveying thanks and excuses, his Majesty commanded her to prepare a dinner at her home for Mark Twain and himself and a few special guests, the date to be arranged when Clemens's physician should pronounce him well enough to attend.

Members of the Clemens household were impressed by this royal attention. Little Jean was especially awed. She said:

“I wish I could be in papa's clothes”; then, after reflection, “but that wouldn't be any use. I reckon the Emperor wouldn't recognize me.” And a little later, when she had been considering all the notables and nobilities of her father's recent association, she added:

“Why, papa, if it keeps on like this, pretty soon there won't be anybody for you to get acquainted with but God,” which Mark Twain decided was not quite as much of a compliment as it had at first seemed.

It was during the period of his convalescence that Clemens prepared his sixth letter for the New York Sun and McClure's syndicate, “The German Chicago,” a finely descriptive article on Berlin, and German customs and institutions generally. Perhaps the best part of it is where he describes the grand and prolonged celebration which had been given in honor of Professor Virchow's seventieth birthday.--[Rudolph Virchow, an eminent German pathologist and anthropologist and scholar; then one of the most prominent figures of the German Reichstag. He died in 1902.]--He tells how the demonstrations had continued in one form or another day after day, and merged at last into the seventieth birthday of Professor Helmholtz--[Herman von Helmholtz, an eminent German physicist, one of the most distinguished scientists of the nineteenth century. He died in 1894.]--also how these great affairs finally culminated in a mighty 'commers', or beer-fest, given in their honor by a thousand German students. This letter has been published in Mark Twain's “Complete Works,” and is well worth reading to-day. His place had been at the table of the two heroes of the occasion, Virchow and Helmholtz, a place where he could see and hear all that went on; and he was immensely impressed at the honor which Germany paid to her men of science. The climax came when Mommsen unexpectedly entered the room.--[Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903), an eminent German historian and archeologist, a powerful factor in all liberal movements. From 1874-1895 permanent secretary of the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences.]

There seemed to be some signal whereby the students on the platform
were made aware that a professor had arrived at the remote door of
entrance, for you would see them suddenly rise to their feet, strike
an erect military attitude, then draw their swords; the swords of
all their brethren standing guard at the innumerable tables would
flash from the scabbard and be held aloft--a handsome spectacle.
Three clear bugle-notes would ring out, then all these swords would
come down with a crash, twice repeated, on the tables and be
uplifted and held aloft again; then in the distance you would see
the gay uniforms and uplifted swords of a guard of honor clearing
the way and conducting the guest down to his place. The songs were
stirring, and the immense outpour from young life and young lungs,
the crash of swords, and the thunder of the beer-mugs gradually
worked a body up to what seemed the last possible summit of
excitement. It surely seemed to me that I had reached that summit,
that I had reached my limit, and that there was no higher lift
devisable for me. When apparently the last eminent guest had long
ago taken his place, again those three bugle-blasts rang out, and
once more the swords leaped from their scabbards. Who might this
late comer be? Nobody was interested to inquire. Still, indolent
eyes were turned toward the distant entrance, and we saw the silken
gleam and the lifted sword of a guard of honor plowing through the
remote crowds. Then we saw that end of the house rising to its
feet; saw it rise abreast the advancing guard all along like a wave.
This supreme honor had been offered to no one before. There was an
excited whisper at our table--“Mommsen!”--and the whole house rose
--rose and shouted and stamped and clapped and banged the beer-mugs.
Just simply a storm! Then the little man with his long hair and
Emersonian face edged his way past us and took his seat. I could
have touched him with my hand--Mommsen!--think of it!

This was one of those immense surprises that can happen only a few
times in one's life. I was not dreaming of him; he was to me only a
giant myth, a world-shadowing specter, not a reality. The surprise
of it all can be only comparable to a man's suddenly coming upon
Mont Blanc, with its awful form towering into the sky, when he
didn't suspect he was in its neighborhood. I would have walked a
great many miles to get a sight of him, and here he was, without
trouble, or tramp, or cost of any kind. Here he was, clothed in a
titanic deceptive modesty which made him look like other men. Here
he was, carrying the Roman world and all the Caesars in his
hospitable skull, and doing it as easily as that other luminous
vault, the skull of the universe, carries the Milky Way and the
constellations.

During his convalescent days, Clemens had plenty of time to reflect and to look out of the window. His notebook preserves some of his reflections. In one place he says:

The Emperor passes in a modest open carriage. Next that happy
12-year-old butcher-boy, all in white apron and turban, standing up
& so proud!

How fast they drive-nothing like it but in London. And the horses
seem to be of very fine breed, though I am not an expert in horses
& do not speak with assurance. I can always tell which is the front
end of a horse, but beyond that my art is not above the ordinary.

The “Court Gazette” of a German paper can be covered with a playing-
card. In an English paper the movements of titled people take up
about three times that room. In the papers of Republican France
from six to sixteen times as much. There, if a Duke's dog should
catch cold in the head they would stop the press to announce it and
cry about it. In Germany they respect titles, in England they
revere them, in France they adore them. That is, the French
newspapers do.

Been taken for Mommsen twice. We have the same hair, but on
examination it was found the brains were different.

On February 14th he records that Professor Helmholtz called, but unfortunately leaves no further memorandum of that visit. He was quite recovered by this time, but was still cautioned about going out in the severe weather. In the final entry he says:

Thirty days sick abed--full of interest--read the debates and get
excited over them, though don't 'versteh'. By reading keep in a
state of excited ignorance, like a blind man in a house afire;
flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested; don't
know how I got in and can't find the way out, but I'm having a
booming time all to myself.

Don't know what a 'Schelgesetzentwurf' is, but I keep as excited over it and as worried about it as if it was my own child. I simply live on the Sch.; it is my daily bread. I wouldn't have the question settled for anything in the world. Especially now that I've lost the 'offentliche Militargericht circus'. I read all the debates on that question with a never-failing interest, but all at once they sprung a vote on me a couple of days ago & did something by a vote of 100 to 143, but I couldn't find out what it was.

CLXXIX. A DINNER WITH WILLIAM II.

The dinner with Emperor William II. at General von Versen's was set for the 20th of February. A few days before, Mark Twain entered in his note-book:

In that day the Imperial lion and the Democratic lamb shall sit down
together, and a little General shall feed them.

Mark Twain was the guest of honor on this occasion, and was seated at the Emperor's right hand. The Emperor's brother, Prince Heinrich, sat opposite; Prince Radolin farther along. Rudolf Lindau, of the Foreign Office, was also present. There were fourteen at the table, all told. In his memorandum made at the time, Clemens gave no account of the dinner beyond the above details, only adding:

After dinner 6 or 8 officers came in, & all hands adjourned to the
big room out of the smoking-room and held a “smoking parliament”
after the style of the ancient Potsdam one, till midnight, when the
Emperor shook hands and left.

It was not until fourteen years later that Mark Twain related some special matters pertaining to that evening. He may have expanded then somewhat to fill out spaces of his memory, and embroidered them, as was his wont; but that something happened, either in reality or in his imagination, which justified his version of it we may believe. He told it as here given, premising: “This may appear in print after I am dead, but not before.

“From 1891 until day before yesterday I had never mentioned the
matter, nor set it down with a pen, nor ever referred to it in any
way--not even to my wife, to whom I was accustomed to tell
everything that happened to me.

“At the dinner his Majesty chatted briskly and entertainingly along
in easy and flowing English, and now and then he interrupted himself
to address a remark to me or to some other individual of the guests.
When the reply had been delivered he resumed his talk. I noticed
that the table etiquette tallied with that which was the law of my
house at home when we had guests; that is to say, the guests
answered when the host favored them with a remark, and then quieted
down and behaved themselves until they got another chance. If I had
been in the Emperor's chair and he in mine I should have felt
infinitely comfortable and at home, but I was guest now, and
consequently felt less at home. From old experience I was familiar
with the rules of the game and familiar with their exercise from the
high place of host; but I was not familiar with the trammeled and
less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little
strange and out of place. But there was no animosity--no, the
Emperor was host, therefore, according to my own rule, he had a
right to do the talking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no
interruptions or other improvements except upon invitation; and of
course it could be my turn some day--some day, on some friendly
visit of inspection to America, it might be my pleasure and
distinction to have him as guest at my table; then I would give him
a rest and a quiet time.

“In one way there was a difference between his table and mine-for
instance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally
they conferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only
human, although I regret it. When a guest answered a question he
did it with a deferential voice and manner; he did not put any
emotion into it, and he did not spin it out, but got it out of his
system as quickly as he could, and then looked relieved. The
Emperor was used to this atmosphere, and it did not chill his blood;
maybe it was an inspiration to him, for he was alert, brilliant, and
full of animation; also he was most gracefully and felicitously
complimentary to my books--and I will remark here that the happy
phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts and the
happy delivery of it another. I once mentioned the high compliment
which he paid to the book 'Old Times on the Mississippi'; but there
were others, among them some high praise of my description in 'A
Tramp Abroad' of certain striking phases of German student life.

“Fifteen or twenty minutes before the dinner ended the Emperor made
a remark to me in praise of our generous soldier pensions; then,
without pausing, he continued the remark, not speaking to me, but
across the table to his brother, Prince Heinrich. The Prince
replied, endorsing the Emperor's view of the matter. Then I
followed with my own view of it. I said that in the beginning our
government's generosity to the soldier was clear in its intent and
praiseworthy, since the pensions were conferred upon soldiers who
had earned them, soldiers who had been disabled in the war and could
no longer earn a livelihood for themselves and their families, but
that the pensions decreed and added later lacked the virtue of a
clean motive, and had, little by little, degenerated into a wider
and wider and more and more offensive system of vote-purchasing, and
was now become a source of corruption, which was an unpleasant thing
to contemplate and was a danger besides. I think that that was
about the substance of my remark; but in any case the remark had a
quite definite result, and that is the memorable thing about it
--manifestly it made everybody uncomfortable. I seemed to perceive
this quite plainly. I had committed an indiscretion. Possibly it
was in violating etiquette by intruding a remark when I had not been
invited to make one; possibly it was in taking issue with an opinion
promulgated by his Majesty. I do not know which it was, but I quite
clearly remember the effect which my act produced--to wit, the
Emperor refrained from addressing any remarks to me afterward, and
not merely during the brief remainder of the dinner, but afterward
in the kneip-room, where beer and cigars and hilarious anecdoting
prevailed until about midnight. I am sure that the Emperor's good
night was the only thing he said to me in all that time.

“Was this rebuke studied and intentional? I don't know, but I
regarded it in that way. I can't be absolutely sure of it because
of modifying doubts created afterward by one or two circumstances.
For example: the Empress Dowager invited me to her palace, and the
reigning Empress invited me to breakfast, and also sent for General
von Versen to come to her palace and read to her and her ladies from
my books.”

It was a personal message from the Emperor that fourteen years later recalled to him this curious circumstance. A gentleman whom Clemens knew went on a diplomatic mission to Germany. Upon being presented to Emperor William, the latter had immediately begun to talk of Mark Twain and his work. He spoke of the description of German student life as the greatest thing of its kind ever written, and of the sketch on the German language as wonderful; then he said:

“Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards, ask him if he remembers that dinner at Von Versen's, and ask him why he didn't do any more talking at that dinner.”

It seemed a mysterious message. Clemens thought it might have been meant to convey some sort of an imperial apology; but again it might have meant that Mark Twain's breach and the Emperor's coolness on that occasion were purely imaginary, and that the Emperor had really expected him to talk far more than he did.

Returning to the Royal Hotel after the Von Versen dinner, Mark Twain received his second high compliment that day on the Mississippi book. The portier, a tow-headed young German, must have been comparatively new at the hotel; for apparently he had just that day learned that his favorite author, whose books he had long been collecting, was actually present in the flesh. Clemens, all ready to apologize for asking so late an admission, was greeted by the portier's round face all sunshine and smiles. The young German then poured out a stream of welcome and compliments and dragged the author to a small bedroom near the front door, where he excitedly pointed out a row of books, German translations of Mark Twain.

“There,” he said; “you wrote them. I've found it out. Lieber Gott! I did not know it before, and I ask a million pardons. That one there, Old Times on the Mississippi, is the best you ever wrote.”

The note-book records only one social event following the Emperor's dinner--a dinner with the secretary of the legation. The note says:

At the Emperor's dinner black cravats were ordered. Tonight I went in a black cravat and everybody else wore white ones. Just my luck.

The Berlin activities came to an end then. He was still physically far from robust, and his doctors peremptorily ordered him to stay indoors or to go to a warmer climate. This was March 1st. Clemens and his wife took Joseph Very, and, leaving the others for the time in Berlin, set out for Mentone, in the south of France.

CLXXX. MANY WANDERINGS

Mentone was warm and quiet, and Clemens worked when his arm permitted. He was alone there with Mrs. Clemens, and they wandered about a good deal, idling and picture-making, enjoying a sort of belated honeymoon. Clemens wrote to Susy:

Joseph is gone to Nice to educate himself in kodaking--and to get the pictures mounted which mama thinks she took here; but I noticed she didn't take the plug out, as a rule. When she did she took nine pictures on top of each other--composites.

They remained a month in Mentone, then went over to Pisa, and sent Joseph to bring the rest of the party to Rome. In Rome they spent another month--a period of sight-seeing, enjoyable, but to Clemens pretty profitless.

“I do not expect to be able to write any literature this year,” he said in a letter to Hall near the end of April. “The moment I take up my pen my rheumatism returns.”

Still he struggled along and managed to pile up a good deal of copy in the course of weeks. From Rome to Florence, at the end of April, and so pleasing was the prospect, and so salubrious the air of that ancient city, that they resolved to engage residence there for the next winter. They inspected accommodations of various kinds, and finally, through Prof. Willard Fiske, were directed to the Villa Viviani, near Settignano, on a hill to the eastward of Florence, with vineyard and olive-grove sloping away to the city lying in a haze-a vision of beauty and peace. They closed the arrangement for Viviani, and about the middle of May went up to Venice for a fortnight of sight-seeing--a break in the travel back to Germany. William Gedney Bunce, the Hartford artist, was in Venice, and Sarah Orne Jewett and other home friends.

From Venice, by way of Lake Como and “a tangled route” (his note-book says) to Lucerne, and so northward to Berlin and on to Bad Nauheim, where they had planned to spend the summer. Clemens for some weeks had contemplated a trip to America, for matters there seemed to demand his personal attention. Summer arrangements for the family being now concluded, he left within the week and set sail on the Havel for New York. To Jean he wrote a cheerful good-by letter, more cheerful, we may believe, than he felt.

BREMEN, 7.45 A.M., June 14, 1892.

DEAR JEAN CLEMENS,--I am up & shaved & got my clean shirt on & feel mighty fine, & am going down to show off before I put on the rest of my clothes.

Perhaps mama & Mrs. Hague can persuade the Hauswirth to do right; but if he don't you go down & kill his dog.

I wish you would invite the Consul-General and his ladies down to take one of those slim dinners with mama, then he would complain to the Government.

Clemens felt that his presence in America, was demanded by two things. Hall's reports continued, as ever, optimistic; but the semi-annual statements were less encouraging. The Library of Literature and some of the other books were selling well enough; but the continuous increase of capital required by a business conducted on the instalment plan had steadily added to the firm's liabilities, while the prospect of a general tightening in the money-market made the outlook not a particularly happy one. Clemens thought he might be able to dispose of the Library or an interest in it, or even of his share of the business itself, to some one with means sufficient to put it on an easier financial footing. The uncertainties of trade and the burden of increased debt had become a nightmare which interfered with his sleep. It seemed hard enough to earn a living with a crippled arm, without this heavy business care.

The second interest requiring attention was that other old one--the machine. Clemens had left the matter in Paige's hands, and Paige, with persuasive eloquence, had interested Chicago capital to a point where a company had been formed to manufacture the type-setter in that city. Paige reported that he had got several million dollars subscribed for the construction of a factory, and that he had been placed on a salary as a sort of general “consulting omniscient” at five thousand dollars a month. Clemens, who had been negotiating again with the Mallorys for the disposal of his machine royalties, thought it proper to find out just what was going on. He remained in America less than two weeks, during which he made a flying trip to Chicago and found that Paige's company really had a factory started, and proposed to manufacture fifty machines. It was not easy to find out the exact status of this new company, but Clemens at least was hopeful enough of its prospects to call off the negotiations with the Mallorys which had promised considerable cash in hand. He had been able to accomplish nothing material in the publishing situation, but his heart-to-heart talk with Hall for some reason had seemed comforting. The business had been expanding; they would now “concentrate.” He returned on the Lahn, and he must have been in better health and spirits, for it is said he kept the ship very merry during the passage. He told many extravagantly amusing yarns; so many that a court was convened to try him on the charge of “inordinate and unscientific lying.” Many witnesses testified, and his own testimony was so unconvincing that the jury convicted him without leaving the bench. He was sentenced to read aloud from his own works for a considerable period every day until the steamer should reach port. It is said that he faithfully carried out this part of the program, and that the proceeds from the trial and the various readings amounted to something more than six hundred dollars, which was turned over to the Seamen's Fund.

Clemens's arm was really much better, and he put in a good deal of spare time during the trip writing an article on “All Sorts and Conditions of Ships,” from Noah's Ark down to the fine new Havel, then the latest word in ship-construction. It was an article written in a happy vein and is profitable reading to-day. The description of Columbus as he appeared on the deck of his flag-ship is particularly rich and flowing:

If the weather was chilly he came up clad from plumed helmet to
spurred heel in magnificent plate-armor inlaid with arabesques of
gold, having previously warmed it at the galley fire. If the
weather was warm he came up in the ordinary sailor toggery of the
time-great slouch hat of blue velvet, with a flowing brush of snowy
ostrich-plumes, fastened on with a flashing cluster of diamonds and
emeralds; gold-embroidered doublet of green velvet, with slashed
sleeves exposing undersleeves of crimson satin; deep collar and cuff
ruffles of rich, limp lace; trunk hose of pink velvet, with big
knee-knots of brocaded yellow ribbon; pearl-tinted silk stockings,
clocked and daintily embroidered; lemon-colored buskins of unborn
kid, funnel-topped, and drooping low to expose the pretty stockings;
deep gauntlets of finest white heretic skin, from the factory of the
Holy Inquisition, formerly part of the person of a lady of rank;
rapier with sheath crusted with jewels and hanging from a broad
baldric upholstered with rubies and sapphires.

CLXXXI. NAUHEIM AND THE PRINCE OF WALES

Clemens was able to write pretty steadily that summer in Nauheim and turned off a quantity of copy. He completed several short articles and stories, and began, or at least continued work on, two books--'Tom Sawyer Abroad' and 'Those Extraordinary Twins'--the latter being the original form of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson'. As early as August 4th he wrote to Hall that he had finished forty thousand words of the “Tom Sawyer” story, and that it was to be offered to some young people's magazine, Harper's Young People or St. Nicholas; but then he suddenly decided that his narrative method was altogether wrong. To Hall on the 10th he wrote:

I have dropped that novel I wrote you about because I saw a more
effective way of using the main episode--to wit, by telling it
through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn & Tom
Sawyer (still 15 years old) & their friend the freed slave Jim
around the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, &
somewhere after the end of that great voyage he will work in that
original episode & then nobody will suspect that a whole book has
been written & the globe circumnavigated merely to get that episode
in in an effective (& at the same time apparently unintentional)
way. I have written 12,000 words of this new narrative, & find that
the humor flows as easily as the adventures & surprises--so I shall
go along and make a book of from 50,000 to 100,000 words.

It is a story for boys, of course, & I think it will interest any
boy between 8 years & 80.

When I was in New York the other day Mrs. Dodge, editor of St.
Nicholas, wrote and offered me $5,000 for (serial right) a story for
boys 50,000 words long. I wrote back and declined, for I had other
matter in my mind then.

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write
so that it will not only interest boys, but will also strongly
interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges
the audience.

Now, this story doesn't need to be restricted to a child's magazine
--it is proper enough for any magazine, I should think, or for a
syndicate. I don't swear it, but I think so.

Proposed title--New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

He was full of his usual enthusiasm in any new undertaking, and writes of the Extraordinary Twins:

By and by I shall have to offer (for grown folks' magazine) a novel
entitled, 'Those Extraordinary Twins'. It's the howling farce I
told you I had begun awhile back. I laid it aside to ferment while
I wrote Tom Sawyer Abroad, but I took it up again on a little
different plan lately, and it is swimming along satisfactorily now.
I think all sorts of folks will read it. It is clear out of the
common order--it is a fresh idea--I don't think it resembles
anything in literature.

He was quite right; it did not resemble anything in literature, nor did it greatly resemble literature, though something at least related to literature would eventually grow out of it.

In a letter written many years afterward by Frank Mason, then consul-general at Frankfort, he refers to “that happy summer at Nauheim.” Mason was often a visitor there, and we may believe that his memory of the summer was justified. For one thing, Clemens himself was in better health and spirits and able to continue his work. But an even greater happiness lay in the fact that two eminent physicians had pronounced Mrs. Clemens free from any organic ills. To Orion, Clemens wrote:

We are in the clouds because the bath physicians say positively that
Livy has no heart disease but has only weakness of the heart muscles
and will soon be well again. That was worth going to Europe to find
out.

It was enough to change the whole atmosphere of the household, and financial worries were less considered. Another letter to Orion relates history:

The Twichells have been here four days & we have had good times with
them. Joe & I ran over to Homburg, the great pleasure-resort,
Saturday, to dine with friends, & in the morning I went walking in
the promenade & met the British ambassador to the Court of Berlin
and he introduced me to the Prince of Wales. I found him a most
unusually comfortable and unembarrassing Englishman.

Twichell has reported Mark Twain's meeting with the Prince (later Edward VII) as having come about by special request of the latter, made through the British ambassador. “The meeting,” he says, “was a most cordial one on both sides, and presently the Prince took Mark Twain's arm and the two marched up and down, talking earnestly together, the Prince, solid, erect, and soldier-like, Clemens weaving along in his curious, swinging gait in a full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun-umbrella of the most scandalous description.”

When they parted Clemens said:

“It has been, indeed, a great pleasure to meet your Royal Highness.”

The Prince answered:

“And it is a pleasure, Mr. Clemens, to have met you--again.”

Clemens was puzzled to reply.

“Why,” he said, “have we met before?”

The Prince smiled happily.

“Oh yes,” he said; “don't you remember that day on the Strand when you were on the top of a bus and I was heading a procession and you had on your new overcoat with flap-pockets?”--[See chap. clxiii, “A Letter to the Queen of England.”]

It was the highest compliment he could have paid, for it showed that he had read, and had remembered all those years. Clemens expressed to Twichell regret that he had forgotten to mention his visit to the Prince's sister, Louise, in Ottawa, but he had his opportunity at a dinner next day. Later the Prince had him to supper and they passed an entire evening together.

There was a certain uneasiness in the Nauheim atmosphere that year, for the cholera had broken out at Hamburg, and its victims were dying at a terrific rate. It was almost impossible to get authentic news as to the spread of the epidemic, for the German papers were curiously conservative in their reports. Clemens wrote an article on the subject but concluded not to print it. A paragraph will convey its tenor.

What I am trying to make the reader understand is the strangeness of
the situation here--a mighty tragedy being played upon a stage that
is close to us, & yet we are as ignorant of its details as we should
be if the stage were in China. We sit “in front,” & the audience is
in fact the world; but the curtain is down, & from behind it we hear
only an inarticulate murmur. The Hamburg disaster must go into
history as the disaster without a history.

He closes with an item from a physician's letter--an item which he says “gives you a sudden and terrific sense of the situation there.”

For in a line it flashes before you--this ghastly picture--a thing
seen by the physician: a wagon going along the street with five sick
people in it, and with them four dead ones.

CLXXXII. THE VILLA VIVIANI. 'The American Claimant', published in May l (1892), did not bring a very satisfactory return. For one thing, the book-trade was light, and then the Claimant was not up to his usual standard. It had been written under hard circumstances and by a pen long out of practice; it had not paid, and its author must work all the harder on the new undertakings. The conditions at Nauheim seemed favorable, and they lingered there until well into September. To Mrs. Crane, who had returned to America, Clemens wrote on the 18th, from Lucerne, in the midst of their travel to Italy:

We remained in Nauheim a little too long. If we had left four or
five days earlier we should have made Florence in three days. Hard
trip because it was one of those trains that gets tired every 7
minutes and stops to rest three-quarters of an hour. It took us
3 1/2 hours to get there instead of the regulation 2 hours. We
shall pull through to Milan to-morrow if possible. Next day we
shall start at 10 AM and try to make Bologna, 5 hours. Next day,
Florence, D. V. Next year we will walk. Phelps came to Frankfort
and we had some great times--dinner at his hotel; & the Masons,
supper at our inn--Livy not in it. She was merely allowed a
glimpse, no more. Of course Phelps said she was merely pretending
to be ill; was never looking so well & fine.

A Paris journal has created a happy interest by inoculating one of
its correspondents with cholera. A man said yesterday he wished to
God they would inoculate all of them. Yes, the interest is quite
general and strong & much hope is felt.

Livy says I have said enough bad things, and better send all our
loves & shut up. Which I do--and shut up.

They lingered at Lucerne until Mrs. Clemens was rested and better able to continue the journey, arriving at last in Florence, September 26th. They drove out to the Villa Viviani in the afternoon and found everything in readiness for their reception, even to the dinner, which was prepared and on the table. Clemens, in his notes, speaks of this and adds:

It takes but a sentence to state that, but it makes an indolent person tired to think of the planning & work and trouble that lie concealed in it.

Some further memoranda made at this time have that intimate interest which gives reality and charm. The 'contadino' brought up their trunks from the station, and Clemens wrote:

The 'contadino' is middle-aged & like the rest of the peasants--that
is to say, brown, handsome, good-natured, courteous, & entirely
independent without making any offensive show of it. He charged too
much for the trunks, I was told. My informer explained that this
was customary.

September 27. The rest of the trunks brought up this morning. He
charged too much again, but I was told that this was also customary.
It's all right, then. I do not wish to violate the customs. Hired
landau, horses, & coachman. Terms, 480 francs a month & a pourboire
to the coachman, I to furnish lodging for the man & the horses, but
nothing else. The landau has seen better days & weighs 30 tons.
The horses are feeble & object to the landau; they stop & turn
around every now & then & examine it with surprise & suspicion.
This causes delay. But it entertains the people along the road.
They came out & stood around with their hands in their pockets &
discussed the matter with each other. I was told that they said
that a 30-ton landau was not the thing for horses like those--what
they needed was a wheelbarrow.

His description of the house pictures it as exactly today as it did then, for it has not changed in these twenty years, nor greatly, perhaps, in the centuries since it was built.

It is a plain, square building, like a box, & is painted light
yellow & has green window-shutters. It stands in a commanding
position on the artificial terrace of liberal dimensions, which is
walled around with masonry. From the walls the vineyards & olive
orchards of the estate slant away toward the valley. There are
several tall trees, stately stone-pines, also fig-trees & trees of
breeds not familiar to me. Roses overflow the retaining-walls, &
the battered & mossy stone urn on the gate-posts, in pink & yellow
cataracts exactly as they do on the drop-curtains in the theaters.
The house is a very fortress for strength. The main walls--all
brick covered with plaster--are about 3 feet thick. I have several
times tried to count the rooms of the house, but the irregularities
baffle me. There seem to be 28. There are plenty of windows &
worlds of sunlight. The floors are sleek & shiny & full of
reflections, for each is a mirror in its way, softly imaging all
objects after the subdued fashion of forest lakes. The curious
feature of the house is the salon. This is a spacious & lofty
vacuum which occupies the center of the house. All the rest of the
house is built around it; it extends up through both stories & its
roof projects some feet above the rest of the building. The sense
of its vastness strikes you the moment you step into it & cast your
eyes around it & aloft. There are divans distributed along its
walls. They make little or no show, though their aggregate length
is 57 feet. A piano in it is a lost object. We have tried to
reduce the sense of desert space & emptiness with tables & things,
but they have a defeated look, & do not do any good. Whatever
stands or moves under that soaring painted vault is belittled.

He describes the interior of this vast room (they grew to love it), dwelling upon the plaster-relief portraits above its six doors, Florentine senators and judges, ancient dwellers there and former owners of the estate.

The date of one of them is 1305--middle-aged, then, & a judge--he
could have known, as a youth, the very greatest Italian artists, &
he could have walked & talked with Dante, & probably did. The date
of another is 1343--he could have known Boccaccio & spent his
afternoons wandering in Fiesole, gazing down on plague-reeking
Florence & listening to that man's improper tales, & he probably
did. The date of another is 1463--he could have met Columbus & he
knew the magnificent Lorenzo, of course. These are all Cerretanis
--or Cerretani-Twains, as I may say, for I have adopted myself into
their family on account of its antiquity--my origin having been
heretofore too recent to suit me.

We are considering the details of Viviani at some length, for it was in this setting that he began and largely completed what was to be his most important work of this later time--in some respects his most important of any time--the 'Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc'. If the reader loves this book, and he must love it if he has read it, he will not begrudge the space here given to the scene of its inspiration. The outdoor picture of Viviani is of even more importance, for he wrote oftener out-of-doors than elsewhere. Clemens added it to his notes several months later, but it belongs here.

The situation of this villa is perfect. It is three miles from
Florence, on the side of a hill. Beyond some hill-spurs is Fiesole
perched upon its steep terraces; in the immediate foreground is the
imposing mass of the Ross castle, its walls and turrets rich with
the mellow weather-stains of forgotten centuries; in the distant
plain lies Florence, pink & gray & brown, with the ruddy, huge dome
of the cathedral dominating its center like a captive balloon, &
flanked on the right by the smaller bulb of the Medici chapel & on
the left by the airy tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; all around the
horizon is a billowy rim of lofty blue hills, snowed white with
innumerable villas. After nine months of familiarity with this
panorama I still think, as I thought in the beginning, that this is
the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon,
the most satisfying to the eye & the spirit. To see the sun sink
down, drowned in his pink & purple & golden floods, & overwhelm
Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim &
faint & turn the solid city into a city of dreams, is a sight to
stir the coldest nature & make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy.

The Clemens household at Florence consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, Susy, and Jean. Clara had soon returned to Berlin to attend Mrs. Willard's school and for piano instruction. Mrs. Clemens improved in the balmy autumn air of Florence and in the peaceful life of their well-ordered villa. In a memorandum of October 27th Clemens wrote:

The first month is finished. We are wonted now. This carefree life
at a Florentine villa is an ideal existence. The weather is divine,
the outside aspects lovely, the days and nights tranquil and
reposeful, the seclusion from the world and its worries as
satisfactory as a dream. Late in the afternoons friends come out
from the city & drink tea in the open air & tell what is happening
in the world; & when the great sun sinks down upon Florence & the
daily miracle begins they hold their breath & look. It is not a
time for talk.

No wonder he could work in that environment. He finished 'Tom Sawyer Abroad', also a short story, 'The L 1,000,000 Bank-Note' (planned many years before), discovered the literary mistake of the 'Extraordinary Twins' and began converting it into the worthier tale, 'Pudd'nhead Wilson', soon completed and on its way to America.

With this work out of his hands, Clemens was ready for his great new undertaking. A seed sown by the wind more than forty years before was ready to bloom. He would write the story of Joan of Arc.

CLXXXIII. THE SIEUR DE CONTE AND JOAN

In a note which he made many years later Mark Twain declared that he was fourteen years at work on Joan of Arc; that he had been twelve years preparing for it, and that he was two years in writing it.