ák, whom he had gotten to know in Vienna; there were others, but Stanley went back so far in his life that he immediately set out to write Lady Stanley a letter of condolence, despite the fact that he would have preferred to not dwell on the subject at all.
Villa di Quarto, Firenze
May 11, ’04
Dear Lady Stanley,
I have lost a dear and honored friend — how fast they fall about me now, in my age! The world has lost a tried and true hero. And you — what have you lost? It is beyond estimate — we who know you, and what he was to you, know that much. How far he stretches across my life! I knew him when his work was all before him, fifteen years before the great day when he wrote his name faraway up on the blue of the sky for the world to see and applaud and remember. I have known him as friend and intimate ever since. I grieve with you and with your family, dear Lady Stanley. It would be “we,” instead of “I,” if Mrs. Clemens knew, but in all these twenty months that she has lain a prisoner in her bed, we have hidden from her anything that could sadden her. Many a friend is gone whom she asks about and thinks is still living.
In deepest sympathy I beg the privilege of signing myself,
Your friend,
S
Wherever she was there was Eden.
— SAMUEL CLEMENS, “EXTRACTS FROM ADAM’S DIARY,” 1904
Not a month later, a shout was heard coming from Livy’s sickroom: “Come quickly, Mr. Clemens!”
And with that Clemens rushed to her side. Not a few moments before, she had said to Katy Leary, “I’ve been awful sick.” And while Miss Leary, holding Livy in her arms, told her, “You’ll be all right,” she gasped, then slumped forward, her chin resting on her housekeeper’s shoulder. Samuel knelt before her; as her eyes were still open, he hoped she would recognize him. But she said not a word, neither did she move; in that instant, as it occurred to him that she had been released into her final peace, his heart began to beat rapidly; then his right eye and cheek began to twitch and his stomach went into knots, and while he could hear what was going on around him — his daughters, now beside him, wailing out in grief — he felt himself at a far remove from that room and only came around when Clara and Jean huddled near him, weeping. Then indeed, when he realized she was gone, he staggered from the room, opened a liquor cabinet, his hands shaking, and bolted down two full glasses of whiskey. Her visage, with her lips so tightly pursed, neither smiling nor contorted into a frown, haunted him in its lifelessness. Everything seemed lifeless then; though he knew that a mantel clock was surely ticking, its hands seemed frozen in place, and through the windows he could see that the gardens were absolutely still — in those moments, he wondered if he had been the one to die; but this was not the case, and he began to weep and weep. What else could he do but go back into that room and sit helplessly before her throughout the night and into the next day? The doctor had come in at five with all manner of arcane devices and closed the doors as he made preparations to embalm her. At least, in those hours, he consoled himself by thinking that in the repose of sleep and release from her sufferings, the gauntness of her features had faded and she became, in his eyes, beautiful again — an angel.
“Just remember, if you can, wherever you have gone, that I adored you, and not only for the way you helped me raise our children but also because you never abandoned me; not once did you falter, and I will never forget that. And when you are in the other world, with Susy, I hope that you will always remember the day we met, in New York City in 1867, when an organ grinder was playing ‘In the Sweet By and By’ on the sidewalk across from the St. Nicholas Hotel, and the way you, in your beauty and quiet ways, looked at me, as if I would certainly be your man.”
SUFFERING A SEVERE DEPRESSION, Clara did not leave her mother’s bedroom for days; Jean was visited by a sudden epileptic seizure. Clemens occupied his time writing letters, among them this one to Lady Stanley in London.
Villa Reale di Quarto
June 10, ’04
Dear Lady Stanley,
As you no doubt already know, Livy is gone, and I am numb, as you must have been over Stanley. Even now we are preparing for her transport to America — to Elmira, where she will rest beside Susy and others of our family. What can I say but that hers was the best heart that ever beat beside my own? I blame myself for her premature passing. She should have had a much easier life than the one I gave her. But she put up with me, my irascible personality and all, and her reward for so many kindly efforts was nothing less than heartbreak. At least her death was instantaneous: I do not think that even after twenty-two months of suffering (by my count) she expected it to come so suddenly, but it did.
As to your deeply held beliefs in spiritualism, though I am numbed, I still see Mrs. Clemens in my every waking thought. I dream about her — perhaps she is a ghost, but I doubt it: I don’t sleep much in any case. But she comes to me all the same, not so much as a spirit who might be contacted — what I know you believe in, with your spiritualistic societies — but as a calming note during my nights. And so I thank you for the abundance of your thoughts in that regard.
Yours,
Samuel
TOWARD THE END OF JUNE, when the Clemenses finally departed for America on the steamship Prinz Oskar, they arranged to transport the two gray mares that Livy had bought for her daughters. Their Italian butler and maid had also come along with their party. On that journey his daughters’ faces remained hidden behind mourning veils so thickly meshed that one could not see their eyes. Clemens spent much of the transatlantic journey stretched out on a lounge chair on the deck, bundled up against the high winds, ever aware that his wife, in a lavender dress and velvet slippers, lay in her coffin in the ship’s hold. Looking out over the horizon and the endlessness of the churning waters, he was so stunned by the depth of his sadness that he hardly ever spoke.
THE CABINET MANUSCRIPT AND OXFORD 1907
When you and I are dead and forgotten, the name of Stanley will live!
— DOROTHY STANLEY TO A RIOTOUS MOB DURING STANLEY’S FIRST CAMPAIGN FOR PARLIAMENT, 1895
IN THE YEARS THAT FOLLOWED Stanley’s passing, his widow lost her taste for visiting Furze Hill but continued to do so in good weather for Denzil, who had grown fond of the outdoor life. Not far removed in temperament from Stanley, he was a lonely-seeming child, despite the tutors and the smothering attentions of his mother and grandmother. Delicate in his manners, and already better educated than most children of his age, he seemed to come to life only when he was out in the countryside and free to consort with the farmhands and their children and roam the property’s gardens and woods. Even if his father had once survived the most rugged terrains in the world, Denzil, their precious treasure, was guarded closely, as if he were a young prince. He was never allowed to climb trees or swim in the pond Dolly had named Stanleypool, and he could not venture out without a servant trailing behind him at a discreet distance. But he was already an enthusiastic, if not entirely accomplished, horseman, having been taught to ride at the age of seven; his equestrian pursuits were always conducted under the vigilant eye of a footman who led him along by the reins.