Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

by Oscar Hijuelos

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “No: just stating my point of view.”

  From Samuel Clemens’s Notes

  MRS. STANLEY, DESPITE MY DEEPEST allegiance to Livy, strikes me as some kind of lady, eccentric as she seems to be. Even if she gets on my nerves sometimes and goes through life like a kid, with the attitude that there is a Santa Claus (God and afterlife; happy endings), and even though she often annoys me with such optimism, I enjoy her company. Mainly I like looking at her—never directly, but in a passing way. She is beautiful in the sense that her most attractive qualities come not from her surface but from within. When she is eighty, I am fairly certain that she will be just as engaging and enticing in an eternally female way as when she was young. Livy has the same qualities but not so much control over her physical aspect, which is to say that she has been set back a bit, having suffered so much from various chronic maladies. (When I see Livy coiled up on a couch feeling so sad, I want to throw myself on her and protect her from the cruel realities of life forever; I wish I could fend off all sadness, all illness, and death from this angel. I would cut off my right hand to protect her.)

  But Dolly… when I’m around her, despite her frivolous ways, she always reminds me that there is a difference between prettiness and timeless beauty. While the young have the advantage of possessing smooth and untroubled features, which passes as a kind of loveliness, the real truth of beauty has to do with a timeless expression of physical and psychic soundness. I have to say that Mrs. Stanley seems to possess it. She not only looks young—somewhere around forty—she also never seems to age (the advantages of an untroubled life, though I can imagine that Stanley can be a handful). She seems younger and more ebullient each time I see her: For all her aristocratic affectations—her “How dooo you dooo?” and other mannerisms of speech—she seems self-assured. Stanley, on the other hand, at a relatively young age, seems old. How that union happened, aside from the allure of fame, I do not know. Seems an instance of pure luck—what a soul she is, ever so cheerful. When I’m around her, I feel a tinge of envy toward Stanley, for no matter what she says sometimes, she somehow brings me a feeling of comfort.

  DURING THE WANING MONTHS of 1897, Clemens went to pose for Dolly again. While hoping to exhibit her portrait of him at the National Gallery, she had come to view her painting as a means to express her warm feelings for the man. His sitting for her that autumn was a highlight of her days.

  “MR. CLEMENS—”

  “Samuel to you—”

  “While I know that you have had your share of hard times, is there—and forgive my curiosity—any one memory you have of yourself from a time of happiness that enters into your mind when you are feeling troubled?”

  “I don’t get what you’re asking me.”

  “Whenever I am feeling melancholy I like to recall the walks I would take as a little girl with my father in Scotland. I would prance after him, for he had a quick pace, over the meadows, and run into his arms as he, smiling sweetly, awaited me. Sometimes I dwell upon my youth, when I posed for various London and Parisian artists. I would feel overwhelmed by the way they looked at me, as though I were beautiful.”

  “You are.”

  “Well, if you think so, then I am flattered, but if you could have seen me thirty years ago—I am but a shadow of that now.”

  “You never age, Mrs. Stanley. You are as fresh as when I first saw you; if anything, you look younger to me.”

  “Thank you, Samuel. But as to my question… can you answer it?”

  He gave it some thought, then said the following:

  “There is something I think about fairly often. It goes back to my piloting days: I used to bound down the stairway from the pilothouse to the boiler deck and from there to the lower deck. Sometimes when we came to the landing of some river town and we only had an hour in that place to take on cargo, I would want to make my way to whatever bookstalls might be around. So I’d sometimes just leap off the riverboat railings onto the dock with nary a concern for tearing the tendons in my heels and spring off in my mad searches. I’d make my way into the town, nearly galloping like a pony. And I would do this again and again, without the slightest infirmity—no pains in my hands, hips, or knees then. I was light as an angel. You see, Dolly, in my youth I was made out of rubber, it seemed, and able to bounce around without the slightest benefit of conscious exercise.”

  And before Mrs. Stanley could say another word, he added, “I mean jumping down and landing hard on the planking in boots! I have sometimes seen myself doing this in a kind of silhouette—again and again—it would kill me now, of course. Takes me back to more fanciful times, when passage through this world was a dream: Even when I knew I was not made of rubber, I was barely conscious of it; it was just what it was, the vitality of youth, pure and simple. I don’t know if my memory of that easy leaping and landing down hard somehow soothes my aching limbs now, but I hold that memory in esteem just the same. Keeps me going sometimes. Wish I had the same elasticity now, but the years have taken that away from me, along with the hawk-pretty looks I once had.”

  “I disagree; you are still a handsome man.”

  “Excuse me while I guffaw, Dolly. One thing I do know is that you are a nice lady—and Stanley is a lucky bloke.”

  He then made some mention of having first met Stanley on a steamboat around 1859, which much intrigued her.

  IN THE GRIEF OF THOSE YEARS, his was a restlessness that led him and his family to extended stays in various locales—in Switzerland, in an idyllic spot called Weggis; in Budapest, in Prague, and then in Vienna, where they took up residence at the Hotels Metropole and then Krantz. Clemens chose that city of great music so that his daughter Clara might study piano (and it was there that she met a brilliant fellow student, one Ossip Gabrilowitsch, with whom she later fell in love). As for Livy, she had, in those few scant years, aged in even greater increments than Stanley had in Africa—she was thin, frail, and grandmotherly, already ancient-seeming beyond her time, a gaunt and haunted relic of her own youth, a hundred years of anguish having transformed the once delicate and youthful countenance that Clemens, while traveling to the Middle East as a young man, first spied in a cameo carried by her brother.

  Part Three

  LETTERS 1897–99

  Lucerne, August the Something or Other, 1897

  Dear Stanley,

  I greet you from a small village in Switzerland, Weggis (about a half an hour from Lucerne). Here I am writing a new novel about my old and reassuring friends Tom and Huck—a detective story—and am getting along very well with it. My Joan of Arc book is behind me (more or less). We’ve rented a small house on a hillside overlooking a picturesque lake, the whole scenario, I think, the loveliest in the world. We have a rowboat and some bicycles, and good roads, and no visitors. Nobody knows we are here. Sunday in heaven is noisy compared to this quietness.

  Sincerely yours,

  S.L.C.

  Hotel Metropole, Vienna

  December 20, 1897

  My dearest Mrs. Stanley,

  What new nails have been hammered into my palms. First Susy, then my older brother Orion, who’d always wanted to make something of himself—he is gone at the age of seventy-two. A more tiresome and mournful yoke cannot be put on anyone. If I take any solace it is in the way he went out—without pain, without any particular awareness; like a clock whose springs and gears have suddenly wound down and then stopped at a certain hour and minute and second. He was working on a book, a novel about Judas Iscariot, when the very same soul who was robust and hardy in my youth simply ceased existing. Strangely, when I heard of his passing, I could not help but wonder about the last word he wrote, for his wife found him slumped over his desk in the midst of his work. Was it the word “the” or “an” or “morning” or “night,” among the countless possibilities? We will never know. (And, of course, I wonder which last word will be my own.)

  Forgive my melancholy—it’s been with me for some years now.
Think more about our painting sessions at Richmond Terrace, which were pleasant interludes—when I was younger! For what it is worth, Mrs. Stanley, I wouldn’t mind the idea of coming through the darting and cold rain to sit again for you once we are again in London.

  As always, give my best to your mother and Stanley, my most famous friend.

  Regards,

  Samuel Clemens

  Hotel Krantz, Neuer Markt 6, Vienna

  February 15, 1898

  Dear Dolly,

  We’ve moved to the Hotel Krantz—and lo and behold, while we’re settling in, Livy looks around the lobby and sees over the concierge’s desk a picture, in oils, that looks suspiciously like me. The exact double, but dressed up, of the one you showed me not long ago in your studio—the initials D.S. in the corner giving it all away. How on earth did you do it? At any rate, I thank you heartily for making me more handsome than I am and for elevating the standards of good taste in that hotel.

  Samuel

  Richmond Terrace

  February 19, 1898

  My dear Samuel,

  I don’t want to disappoint you in any way, but it was your dear friend Stanley who first thought you might get a charge out of it. Hearing that you were moving from the Hotel Metropole to the Krantz, I wrote the hotel manager, who was delighted to put your picture up.

  With best wishes from Stanley and me,

  Dolly

  Hotel Krantz

  February 20, 1898

  Dear Stanley,

  Surely you are aware of the incident in Havana harbor a few days ago (February 15), when the US battleship Maine was blown up, allegedly sunk by a Spanish torpedo. Since I have known of many a riverboat exploding over some careless act—like a fellow smoking in a munitions hold or a boiler overheating—I’m inclined to think that it was an accident of some kind, but whatever the cause, the American papers I have been reading over here (the Hearst papers in particular) are calling it an act of war and are banging the war drums, as if this action was akin to the bombing of Fort Sumter. At any rate, the coals are being stoked in reprisal, even if there’s no definitive proof. If it turns out that the Spaniards are the cause and our boys go in, I would support them, though given all the blarney going around, I would not be surprised at all if it turns out to be a pretext for invading and annexing the island, which, as you know, has been on Uncle Sam’s list of things to do for many years now.

  And speaking of Cuba, by my internal calendar it is thirty-seven years since you and I were in that now-infamous city, sailing the harbor where that battleship went down, and thirty years since I paused briefly there on my way to Panama in 1866. My, how the clock ticks, even as the world goes on its one-minded way.

  Yours,

  Samuel Clemens

  Hotel Krantz

  March 17, 1898

  Dear Stanley,

  Vienna is beautiful, but I have never seen as much anti-Semitism in any other place as I have here. These days there’s much talk about the “Jewish question.” Here, in one of the most civilized and expensive cities in the world, the mayor, Karl Lueger, and any number of earnest and devoted family men—members of the Christian Social Party—hate the Jews! Riots are breaking out over the ethnic rights of the Germans and Czechs, and the Jews, however they stand on the issues, are caught in the middle. If I had time to run around and talk about such things—even understand what the commotion is about—I would do it; for there is much politicking going on, and it would be interesting if a body could get the hang of it. But it’s a strange atmosphere to be in. Even my first name, Samuel, has attracted the attention of the right-leaning press as sounding suspiciously Jewish—can you imagine the fuss they would make about Moses, your Welsh grandfather? I suppose I should take it as a compliment—it’s a marvelous race—by a long shot the most marvelous that the world has produced, I suppose.

  In the meantime, the merde piles up higher and higher; it seems as if all this hatred, at the Jews’ expense, will cost heavily sometime in the future.

  I wish I could understand these quarrels, but of course I can’t.

  I will now end these few lines of my grumbling: Livy calls me a grouch, and my daughters try to stay out of my way, probably with good reason.

  With best wishes,

  “Mark”

  (a.k.a. Samuel the Jew)

  Hotel Krantz

  May 20, 1898

  Dear Mrs. Stanley,

  You will notice that I begin this note with an actual date as absolute proof that I am capable of such subtleties. In your house in London a hundred years ago you said that my occasional omission of dates (or years, anyway) is a bad habit—and I have since tried to reform, as I would not want to disappoint you. Your remark has cost me worlds of time and torture and buckets of ink; but I thank you for the fine advice.

  I hope it will interest you (for I have no one else who would much care to know it) that here lately the dread of leaving the children in difficult circumstances has died down and disappeared. I am now having peace from that long, long financial nightmare and can sleep as well as anyone. It seems that with one thing and another and with much good management and advice from my benefactor, Mr. H. H. Rogers (head of Standard Oil), I have finally come out of debt. Every little while, for these three years now, Mrs. Clemens has sat down in the evenings with pencil and paper to tally up our accounts. Two nights ago I was still a worrier, but last night, she reminded me that we own a house and furniture in Hartford; that my English and American copyrights pay an income that represents a value of $200,000; and that we have $107,000 cash in the bank. What a boost to my spirits! I suddenly feel like a free man again.

  Lovingly,

  Samuel

  P.S. I have been out and bought a box of six-cent cigars; I was smoking four-and-a-half-centers before.

  Hotel Krantz

  August 24, 1898

  To the Stanleys,

  We’ve enjoyed Vienna to a point, but since the war in Cuba has ended, and on the heel of our “liberating” invasion of the Philippines, most folks around here (including myself) have gotten the notion that the United States is playing the empire game. The Austrians, who once flocked to our parlor—and have not been shy about heaping admiration upon me, despite my known disapproval of their local politics—have been receiving us far less warmly than before, even coolly. As we are being lumped in with the brutish notion of American aggression, and as Clara has finished her piano studies (her teachers have concluded that her hands are too small to overcome the technical demands of certain pieces, so she has decided to become a singer instead), we are planning on leaving soon enough—to sightsee, take some cures (Livy and I and Jean) where we can, and eventually to settle in England again, for a short time, at least.

  Of course, we will see you then, dear friends.

  Lovingly yours,

  Samuel

  THE COUNTRY LIFE

  From Lady Stanley’s Journal, Regarding the Years 1898–99

  DURING OUR YEARS OF MARRIAGE, for our occasional escapes, we had prevailed upon the respite of inns at seaside resorts such as Brighton and Llandudno or upon the generosity of friends who would invite us out to their estates, where Stanley indulged in hunting small game and I made studies from nature, Denzil always by my side. Stanley, however, had grown dissatisfied with our life in London and, seeking a permanent retreat we could call our own, decided to look for a property in the countryside. Mother was none too happy about the proposed change; Stanley felt otherwise. While there were certain advantages and comforts to be had in the capital, with its societies, theaters, and gentlemen’s clubs, he had lost his taste for the public life and perhaps wished to put some distance between himself and his detractors, of which there were many. After a long period of professional torpor, in which he seemed to move through his days with little interest in the tedious duties awaiting him in Parliament, Stanley awakened one morning to announce his intentions. Mainly he desired, at long last, “a home to call my own,” a home that he could conf
igure in his own image and where he might spend his last years, whenever they might come, in peace amid his family and the things he loved the most—his books, his artifacts, and his maps, all of which brought him comfort.

  Much as Mother disliked the idea, Stanley stood firm.

  “By God, woman, do you not know that it is now my time to find some peace at last? Do you not know that I am tired and in need of a rest?”

  Over the summer and into the first weeks of autumn in 1898, when Parliament was in recess, he spent many days looking at various properties, some fifty-seven of them in total, outside London, in the Home Counties, mainly in Surrey. But there was one estate of some seventy acres, near the town of Pirbright, thirty-five miles southwest of London, in the midst of farm country, that he returned to again and again: Furze Hill.

  A “real beauty,” he said, “but one in need of a little care, I will admit.”

  The photographs of that place were, frankly, a bit off-putting, for the house, a rather grotesquely overwrought Tudor ruin some two hundred years old, seemed to be falling apart. With its overgrowth of ivy, and with trees and bushes that practically enveloped the whole premises and crept up its turreted towers—for the grounds had apparently not been attended to for years—it seemed the kind of dwelling where a coven of witches might live; yet Stanley had his heart set on it.