There is no mention in any of these letters of his trouble; but he was
having occasional spasms of pain, though in that soft climate they would
seem to have come with less frequency, and there was so little to disturb
him, and much that contributed to his peace. Among the callers at the
Bay House to see him was Woodrow Wilson, and the two put in some pleasant
hours at miniature golf, "putting" on the Allen lawn. Of course a
catastrophe would come along now and then—such things could not always
be guarded against. In a letter toward the end of February he wrote:
It is 2.30 in the morning & I am writing because I can't sleep.
I can't sleep because a professional pianist is coming to-morrow
afternoon to play for me. My God! I wouldn't allow Paderewski or
Gabrilowitsch to do that. I would rather have a leg amputated.
I knew he was coming, but I never dreamed it was to play for me.
When I heard the horrible news 4 hours ago, be d—-d if I didn't
come near screaming. I meant to slip out and be absent, but now I
can't. Don't pray for me. The thing is just as d—-d bad as it can
be already.
Clemens's love for music did not include the piano, except for very gentle melodies, and he probably did not anticipate these from a professional player. He did not report the sequel of the matter; but it is likely that his imagination had discounted its tortures. Sometimes his letters were pure nonsense. Once he sent a sheet, on one side of which was written:
BAY HOUSE,
March s, 1910.
Received of S. L. C.
Two Dollars and Forty Cents
in return for my promise to believe everything he says
hereafter.
HELEN S. ALLEN.
and on the reverse:
FOR SALE
The proprietor of the hereinbefore mentioned Promise desires to part with it on account of ill health and obliged to go away somewheres so as to let it recipricate, and will take any reasonable amount for it above 2 percent of its face because experienced parties think it will not keep but only a little while in this kind of weather & is a kind of proppity that don't give a cuss for cold storage nohow.
Clearly, however serious Mark Twain regarded his physical condition, he did not allow it to make him gloomy. He wrote that matters were going everywhere to his satisfaction; that Clara was happy; that his household and business affairs no longer troubled him; that his personal surroundings were of the pleasantest sort. Sometimes he wrote of what he was reading, and once spoke particularly of Prof. William Lyon Phelps's Literary Essays, which he said he had been unable to lay down until he had finished the book.—[To Phelps himself he wrote: "I thank you ever so much for the book, which I find charming—so charming, indeed, that I read it through in a single night, & did not regret the lost night's sleep. I am glad if I deserve what you have said about me; & even if I don't I am proud & well contented, since you think I deserve it.">[
So his days seemed full of comfort. But in March I noticed that he generally dictated his letters, and once when he sent some small photographs I thought he looked thinner and older. Still he kept up his merriment. In one letter he said:
While the matter is in my mind I will remark that if you ever send me another letter which is not paged at the top I will write you with my own hand, so that I may use with utter freedom & without embarrassment the kind of words which alone can describe such a criminal, to wit, - - - -; you will have to put into words those dashes because propriety will not allow me to do it myself in my secretary's hearing. You are forgiven, but don't let it occur again.
He had still made no mention of his illness; but on the 25th of March he wrote something of his plans for coming home. He had engaged passage on the Bermudian for April 23d, he said; and he added: