Clemens, coming to say good night, saw a little group about her bed, Clara and Jean standing as if dazed. He went and bent over and looked into her face, surprised that she did not greet him. He did not suspect what had happened until he heard one of the daughters ask:
“Katie, is it true? Oh, Katie, is it true?”
He realized then that she was gone.
In his note-book that night he wrote:
At a quarter past 9 this evening she that was the life of my life
passed to the relief & the peace of death after as months of unjust
& unearned suffering. I first saw her near 37 years ago, & now I
have looked upon her face for the last time. Oh, so unexpected!...
I was full of remorse for things done & said in these 34 years of
married life that hurt Livy's heart.
He envied her lying there, so free from it all, with the great peace upon her face. He wrote to Howells and to Twichell, and to Mrs. Crane, those nearest and dearest ones. To Twichell he said:
How sweet she was in death, how young, how beautiful, how like her
dear girlish self of thirty years ago, not a gray hair showing!
This rejuvenescence was noticeable within two hours after her death;
& when I went down again (2.30) it was complete. In all that night
& all that day she never noticed my caressing hand—it seemed
strange.
To Howells he recalled the closing scene:
I bent over her & looked in her face & I think I spoke—I was
surprised & troubled that she did not notice me. Then we understood
& our hearts broke. How poor we are to-day!
But how thankful I am that her persecutions are ended! I would not
call her back if I could.
To-day, treasured in her worn, old Testament, I found a dear &
gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 13, 1896, about
our poor Susy's death. I am tired & old; I wish I were with Livy.
And in a few days: