I have been driving this pen hard.I wrote 280 pages on a yarn called "Tom Sawyer Abroad," then took up the "Twins" again, destroyed the last half of the manuscript and re-wrote it in another form, and am going to continue it and finish it in Florence."Tom Sawyer" seems rather pale to the family after the extravagances of the Twins, but they came to like it after they got used to it We remained in Nauheim a little too long.If we had left there four or five days earlier we should have made Florence in 3 days; but by the time we got started Livy had got smitten with what we feared might be erysipelas--greatly swollen neck and face, and unceasing headaches.We lay idle in Frankfort 4 days, doctoring.We started Thursday and made Bale.Hard trip, because it was one of those trains that gets tired every seven minutes and stops to rest three quarters of an hour.It took us 3 ?hours to get here, instead of the regulation 2.20.We reached here Friday evening and will leave tomorrow (Tuesday) morning.The rest has made the headaches better.We shall pull through to Milan tomorrow if possible.Next day we shall start at 10 a.m., and try to make Bologna, 5 hours.Next day (Thursday) Florence, D.V.Next year we will walk, for these excursions have got to be made over again.I've got seven trunks, and I undertook to be courier because I meant to express them to Florence direct, but we were a couple of days too late.All continental roads had issued a peremptory order that no baggage should travel a mile except in the company of the owner.(All over Europe people are howling; they are separated from their baggage and can't get it forwarded to them) I have to re-ship my trunks every day.It is very amusing--uncommonly so.There seemed grave doubts about our being able to get these trunks over the Italian frontier, but I've got a very handsome note from the Frankfort Italian Consul General addressed to all Italian Customs Officers, and we shall get through if anybody does.
The Phelpses 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 and fine.
The children are all right.They paddle around a little, and drive-so do we all.Lucerne seems to be pretty full of tourists.The Fleulen boat went out crowded yesterday morning.
The Paris Herald has created a public 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, and much hope is felt.
Livy says, I have said enough bad things, and better send all our loves to you and Charley and Ida and all the children and shut up.Which I do --and shut up.
S.L.C.
They reached Florence on the 26th, and four days later we find Clemens writing again to Mrs.Crane, detailing everything at length.
Little comment on this letter is required; it fully explains itself.
Perhaps a word of description from one of his memoranda will not be out of place.Of the villa he wrote: "It is a plain, square building, like a box, and is painted light green and 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 and olive groves of the estate slant away toward the valley....Roses overflow the retaining walls and the battered and mossy stone urn on the gate-post, in pink and yellow cataracts, exactly as they do on the drop-curtains in the theaters.The house is a very fortress for strength."The Mrs.Ross in this letter was Janet Ross, daughter of Lady Duff Gordon, remembered to-day for her Egyptian letters.The Ross castle was but a little distance away.
To Mrs.Crane, in Elmira:
VILLA VIVIANI, SETTIGNANO, FLORENCE.
Sept.30, 1892
DEAR SUE,--We have been in the house several days, and certainly it is a beautiful place,--particularly at this moment, when the skies are a deep leaden color, the domes of Florence dim in the drizzling rain, and occasional perpendicular coils of lightning quivering intensely in the black sky about Galileo's Tower.It is a charming panorama, and the most conspicuous towers and domes down in the city look to-day just as they looked when Boccaccio and Dante used to contemplate them from this hillock five and six hundred years ago.
The Mademoiselle is a great help to Livy in the housekeeping, and is a cheery and cheerful presence in the house.The butler is equipped with a little French, and it is this fact that enables the house to go--but it won't go well until the family get some sort of facility with the Italian tongue, for the cook, the woman-of-all-work and the coachman understand only that.It is a stubborn and devilish language to learn, but Jean and the others will master it.Livy's German Nauheim girl is the worst off of anybody, as there is no market for her tongue at all among the help.
With the furniture in and the curtains up the house is very pretty, and not unhomelike.At mid-night last night we heard screams up stairs--Susy had set the lofty window curtains afire with a candle.This sounds kind of frightful, whereas when you come to think of it, a burning curtain or pile of furniture hasn't any element of danger about it in this fortress.
There isn't any conceivable way to burn this house down, or enable a conflagration on one floor to climb to the next.
Mrs.Ross laid in our wood, wine and servants for us, and they are excellent.She had the house scoured from Cellar to rook the curtains washed and put up, all beds pulled to pieces, beaten, washed and put together again, and beguiled the Marchese into putting a big porcelain stove in the vast central hall.She is a wonderful woman, and we don't quite see how or when we should have gotten under way without her.