Part 11 (1/2)

IT ALL FELL APART so quickly In just a year and a half Twain's see had turned tragic and left hie for his needs, and already haunted by sad memories What had he done to deserve such misfortune? He asked himself that question over and over Bewildered by his fate, he glanced through so and noticed that many contained variations on the senti to Paine, he said, ”Well, why does He do it then? We don't invite it Why does He give Hihed so heavily on hi to wonder why he had bothered in the last few years to build his house or coes on Jean's death wouldcareer, and would forraphy There was no point in continuing it, he said Much of hisnew hts, had cohters after he was gone

But nohat good could all that literary property do for a family that seemed to have disappeared before his eyes in a flash?

”Poor Jean, has no use for it now,” he told himself; ”Clara is happily and prosperously married & has no use for it”3 So much time and effort had been spent to further Clara's career ambitions, and now she was completely absorbed in her new life as Mrs Gabrilowitsch, and was living thousands of miles away So much time and effort had also been spent to treat Jean's illness, and toas she lived At her death she was still a young woman-only twenty-nine-and Twain had always assumed that she would survive him by many years Until the very last day of her life, he orried about ould happen to her when he was gone

In the aftermath of her death, he told Twichell that his old habit of worrying about her future had, in her last days, become a ”terror” that had cost him ”much sleep” As he explained in a letter to Clara on December 29, ”I was in such distress when I caone far away & no one stood between her & danger but me-& I could die at any moment, & then-oh then ould become of her!”4 But now his future suddenly looked much different For the first time in almost forty years, he was entirely on his own And he didn't knohat to do with himself Lonely and restless, he felt that he couldn't stay at Stor to the actress Margaret Illington, he said the house ”was desolation, its char the cold weather and confronting sad reo back to Berreed to look after Storone, and Claude was asked to accoain Tould stay at Bay House, and his assistant would stay at a hotel On January 3 Paine sent an urgent letter telling the Allens that Tould sail on the 5th, and that the author was looking forward to having his old rooain if they approved This time, however, Twain felt that it was only proper to pay for the privilege, and his biographer's letter made it clear that he wouldn't stay on any other terms

”He feels that he could not take advantage of this generosity on your part for any length of time without some compensation He would not feel coested tothe period of his stay, and I sincerely hope you will not refuse to fall in with this arrange to prevent any problems, Paine offered Mr and Mrs Allen some earnest tips on the proper care and uest His advice was remarkably candid, and unintentionally funny Be wary, he said, of creating too ations for him ”Mr Cleestion, social or otherwise, and then be very sorry of it an hour or two later We who have lived with and about his, and try to act accordingly”

Given the author's long history ofhis business affairs, Paine was especially keen to warn the Allens not to let anyone talk their guest intoa financial investht hiinning He does not wish ever to ain But, as I have said, he is iestion of a plan which would only htsIf he should seek your advice in any matter, advise him only to wait a few days and think it over himself, and write to me about it”6 Just before he sailed Twain carapher had to re weather According to one report, his response was ”that he never could reetting that there eather” Before he sailed, so a friend with hied and held up his cigar ”This is my only companion and solace It is about all I care for now, and I have been warned aboutit too constant a coh, for he andtime”7 When the Allens e in his appearance It wasn't simply that he looked worn and a little older It orse than that To her eye, Jean's death had left a terrible mark on him: ”It was pathetic and unreal to see Mark Twain crushed!”

She was particularly attentive during his first day back, and cohter The next day, when they were alone, he ca the manuscript of his comments on Jean's death, and handed it to her with tears in his eyes ”I want you to kno it all happened,” he said ”I have not been able to speak of it; this will tell you”8 Hoping to take his ently easing hi him to lectures, tea parties, picnics, and concerts One day when the weather was especially ideal, she and Helen ith hi tour of the island byit up afterward as ”several hours' swift ski blue seas, a brilliant sun”9 His spirits picked up, and he began to sain I aood tiood home, tranquil contentment all day & every day without a break”10 On January 25 a front-page headline in the New York Sun declared, ”Mark Twain's Health Good Again” That was supposedly the general iers on the Quebec Line steaht word that Mark Twain has recovered his health They said that Mr Cle an active part in the social life of the resort” As the only indication of his recent loss, he wore a black armband with his suit

Reports of dreadful weather back horateful to be in sunny Berlad you are out of this ainter,” Howells wrote hiid New York, ”where one spell of weather follows another like the rows of words in McGuffey's spelling-book We are just starting in for our third blizzard tonight”11 One night he ran into his old friend Woodrow Wilson, who had recently escaped the bad weather in Princeton to enjoy a brief holiday on the island, but without the company of Mrs Peck Apparently, Wilson's romance with her was already in decline, but the island had drawn hith of its tranquil atmosphere, and perhaps its associations with better days After a warm chat with the author, Wilson wrote ho the co here with such content that he says he does not see why he should ever leave BerainHe seems weaker than when I last saw hihter with touching simplicity He is certainly one of the most human of men I can easily understand how men like [President] Cleveland and [the actor] Joseph Jefferson learned to love him”12 Near the end of Wilson's stay, Tas able to coax hiareen The score was close for eight holes, but on the last one the septuagenarian author beat the future president of the United States by sinking a long putt It didn't seeolfer Marion understood the secret of his success, pointing out that his iven hi round objects into small holes

Before he had come to Berain, happy again?” And, even then, he had answered yes, telling himself, ”My tempera at a time” Now, after a feeeks on the island, he was de in the pleasures of the isolated colony and beco immersed in the lives of his new ”make-believe” family, who seemed happy to play the part To ed the fahters had often used for hiht he was at his best when the faathered around hiave hi, talking, or he would read to us We discussed everything, including equal suffrage, in which he was a firths they went in gaining their point”14 Heletters that see assistant and her family, and then the actual recipient On February 15 he sent a letter to one of his bankers in New York, a forins like an ordinary business letter The author writes to complain about a delayed parcel sent froo Express Then he shi+fts gears: ”Ianything to Bermuda or elsewhere by any express company, because the persons connected with those companies have been dead 30 years This often causes delay”

A little while later, when a cable arrived asking Twain to make an appearance in New York on a date that had already passed, he replied, ”I am very, very sorry, but all last week's dates are full I will come week before last, if that will answer”

After Howells received one of the dictated letters, he jokingly coot a Fairy Princess to takefor print, despite his vow not to do so again He couldn't suppress his urge to tell a story or flesh out an idea, and he didn't want to be unprepared if a neork suddenly deave Paine a special request: ”Please send ed that is on the table inready for a long stay, and even toyed with the notion of taking over Mr Allen's largely honorary post as American vice consul As always, his vieere subject to change without notice When he was feeling good, he would banish all thoughts of death and talk as if he had all the time in the world To Elizabeth Wallace, he wrote, ”I think I could live here always and be contented” And then he added, ”You go to heaven if you want to-I'd druther stay here”17 Writing to Margaret Illington, he drew on his knowledge of Ber line of seafarers to wash up on its shores and to discover a perfect retreat He also seemed to have in mind the example of Prospero in The Teical powers, and as cast adrift on stormy seas until he reached his enchanted island ”My shi+p has gone down,” he wrote Margaret, ”but my raft has landed me in the Islands of the Blest, and I am as happy as any other shi+pwrecked sailor ever was”18

THOUGH TWAIN SEEMED to be doing well, there were signs of trouble ahead The chest pains had been nore thenificance If he happened to be around Helen when his angina or high blood pressure acted up, he would do his best to make a joke about it or to turn away and suffer in silence But the proble to disappear, especially because he refused to part co,” Marion was to recall, ”he had a very serious bleeding of the nose in the garden, and the entire fa wet cloths for his relief A made over hiet a pencil and paper, so that you can take down otten' ”19 The fahed off his request, even as they worried that his poor health was nothing to joke about The nosebleed was a sign of his worsening hypertension, and it soon becae of circulatory problean to swell, and the problem became so painful that he couldn't wear ordinary shoes Instead he wore house slippers, shuffling around in the for a walk on the lawn or to tea with soreat deal of embarrass thehtly colored socks He was quite a spectacle when he left the house in his white suit with aband and pink or yellow socks Marion dropped polite hints to Claude, who usually spent part of each day at the house attending to his boss's needs The next day Marion saw that Twain had added to Claude's list of errands the comment, ”Miss Helen says I must have black socks!”20 To make his discomfort even worse, he came doith a cold that turned into a bad case of bronchitis It was difficult to shake, and gave hi fits One visitor to Bay House recalled hi to her that all he did was ”bark, bark all the tih, a h that shook the whole of his slight fra that seehtfully recommended to him21 His determination not to surrender to sickness a in the sa health wasn't easy for Helen, as going to turn sixteen in Septe to look and act irl She had her own friends and interests, and wasn't alilling to listen patiently while Twain talked about subjects that didn't particularly excite her He was disappointed when she showed no interest in discussing Halley's co, but preferred instead to talk about ”clothes & dancing & the theater”22 The ure in white who had charmed her when she was thirteen was a different er he stayed at Bay House, the harder it beca silences annoyed him, and he took it hard ”It is as if so a politeness, has slapped you in the face; you feel that soot to speak-or make a noise of some kind or other, the silence is so uncoht his cold and had to spend three days in bed

On at least a couple of occasions they quarreled, and the experience left Twain feelingin one of his notebooks, he observed that although Helen had ”a ly sweet nature,” it was ”te the wrath of God She will break out in an a fury over any little disappointment” After one unpleasant outburst, Twain blas on both sides-”That is always my way, I hurt those whom I love; now I suppose I must lose all three of you just when I need you the most”23 Illness and his difficulties with Helen daelfish Club During the turlected his correspondence with the girls, and had coer a cheerful place for entertaining the him feel that he had suddenly worn out his welco too old and weak to hold the interest of the young-the one group to which he had always felt the closest affinity

Feeling unappreciated, he left the house one day without telling anyone and went off to watch a cricket match with some friends he found at the Princess Hotel ”He ran away-just as a bad boy would when he saw his chance,” Marion later remarked When he came home late, he looked sheepish and was accoies for hiiven He confided to Marion that though he didn't know ured ”it ht it so”24 In March another angelfish-Dorothy Quick-briefly appeared in Ber with her mother They stayed at the Hamilton Hotel, and Twain promptly came to see them Unlike Helen, she was as full of adlad to see her But she couldn't help noticing that age had suddenly caught up with hiely distant at times He spoke with his eyes half closed and cut short the one evening they were able to be together at the Ha that he had to retire early ”I', ”and I have to keepthe aquariuina attacks ”He was so ill,” she would recall, ”that we feared we led to regain his composure and insisted that he could travel back to Bay House without assistance When he made it back home, he tried to sleep but couldn't ”From this time on,” wrote Marion, ”he slept little, and the shortness of breath began”26 Fearing that he er to live, Twain decided that he should go back to Stormfield in April and die in his own bed On March 25 he wrote Paine that he had booked his return passage for April 23 ”But don't tell anybody,” he said ”I don't want it known I o 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 shi+p would remove me & it is dark down there & unpleasant”27 When he was feeling strong and jaunty, he could scoff at death and laugh at the notion of an afterlife that was anything like this life But when he stared extinction in the eye, all he saas his poor dead body lying by itself in a dank, cold cellar, and he didn't like it It wasn't right

And then, withoutPaine soe of sceneryTo Clara in Europe, he also wrote of plans that went far beyond spring, discussing the idea of spending the fall with her in Berlin One way or the other, he kneas ti in close quarters with his ”, and that his illness didn't uest-not so much for Marion, whose patience with hier as clearly tired of being a full-tihter

But Twain's talk of death was enough towith the Allens and learning that their guest was indeed seriously ill, he sailed for Ber Clara and Ossip to co himself with hypodermic needles and ”opiates” from Dr Quintard, just in case the patient required thee He left so quickly, however, that he didn't even bother to tell Twain he was co

When he entered Bay House unannounced on April 4, he found Twain sitting cal pale and thin, but not as ill as he had been led to believe

After welco out why he had co that he had not meant for his words to be taken so seriously ”You shouldn't have come on my account,” he said

But when Paine spoke to the Allens he heard a different story The local doctor believed that Twain's condition was very serious, and Mr Allen had already arranged for the author to sail home on the 12th To boat had been hired to pick hi

For a week Paine waited and worried, fearing that Tould die before their date of departure Soht the pains would return and leave hi ”That breast pain stands watch all night and the short breath all day,” he said ”I ah sleep to supply a worn-out ar of the 12th, Tas so weak he couldn't be dressed, and had to be carried to the tug in a canvas chair by sohtclothes under a long overcoat and nursing a pipe

A day or so before departing Bay House, he had e ree dictionary that Paine had sent earlier in the year and wrote on the front flyleaf, ”Given by Mark Twain to Marion Schuyler Allen, Ber his dictionary behind would have oing to happen So he parted co career ords was finally at an end29 It was a Prospero-like farewell, both to the island and to art He was familiar with the relevant speech in The Tempest, not least because it alluded to the process from which he had taken the name Mark Twain-the use of a plummet to sound the depth of the water As Prospero says near the end of the play, ”But this rough ic / I here abjureAnd deeper than did ever plummet sound / I'll drown my book”30

IT WAS hell GOING HOME For asping for air Paine tried to relieve his suffering with morphine injections-”hypnotic injunctions,” as Twain called theh to help At one point he was in so ive h of the hypnotic injunction to put an end to , Paine reminded him that Ossip and Clara were also on the ocean and headed for New York, racing to be with him at Stormfield He needed to hold on for their sake But Tasn't sure he could do it Every hour seemed to leave him weaker, and on at least one occasion he cried out that he thought he would die any minute Yet when the shi+p approached New York, he was not only alive but sitting up and talking coherently

While still at sea Paine wrote Mr Allen, ”It has been a ghastly trip for all of us, and I thank God ill soon be ashore”32 Around ten in theon Thursday, April 14, the shi+p docked Robert Collier was aht his best auto to drive Twain to Stormfield or anywhere else But the author was in such bad shape that Dr Quintard didn't want to ht away It was not until the early afternoon that the doctor thought it was safe to take him to an away as he sat slumped under heavy blankets and looked out at the skyline with a forlorn expression

At the train station a special co for him on the express that would take him home Quintard and another doctor rode beside hih the afternoon papers as the cars groaned and rattled in their usual way On the drive fro was coreen on the landscape

Paine's wife, Dora, and Katy Leary aiting for hi up and walking into his home under his oer, but he made it only a few feet and had to sit down and be carried upstairs Against all odds, he had et so it

Late Saturday night Ossip and Clara arrived in New York, and the nextthey came to Stormfield There was a war He apologized to Clara for not having his financial affairs in better order, and shared doubts with her about the future of his work ”He appeared skeptical,” she later wrote, ”as to whether the sale of his books would continue for more than a brief period after his death”33 He was so far reun to doubt his own popularity He didn't see followed anxiously by millions of people around the world Slowly, he ithdrawing fro ould happen, after he was gone, to all the things he had made It had always been difficult for hi so, yet he spoke in his last days as though dying was just a phase As soon as it was over, he would go back to doing soain

His e of his illness wasn't about the pain That see What bothered him was that his disease lacked diversions It was al else”This is a peculiar kind of disease,” he told Paine ”It does not invite you to read; it does not invite you to be read to; it does not invite you to talk, nor to enjoy any of the usual sick-room methods of treatment What kind of a disease is that?”34 After sohi questions that were both funny and profound And he tried to keep the old patter going right up to the end, even after his speech began to slur, and he thought no one could understand hin son-in-law, Gabrilowitsch, whohinant

For soood news But one of the last things he wrote may have been an attempt to question her on the subject Written on Thursday, April 21, his one-sentence note to her is unfinished, but it see to add to it so to have a baby”: ”Dear-You did not tell me, but I have found out that you-”35 He wrote the note in thebeca down, he slipped away ”The noble head turned a little to one side,” Paine wrote, ”there was a fluttering sigh, and the breath that had been unceasing through seventy-four tumultuous years had stopped forever”36