Stormfield, Christmas Eve, 11 a.m., 1909.

Jean is dead!

And so this Autobiography closes here. I had a reason for projecting it, three years ago: that reasonⒶtextual note perishes with her.

The reason that moved me was a desire to save my copyrights from extinction, so [begin page 311] that Jean and Clara would always have a good livelihood from my books after my death. I meant that whenever a book of mine should approach its forty-two-yearⒶtextual note limit, it should at once be newly issued, with about 20,000Ⓐtextual note words of Autobiography added to its contents. This would be copyrightable for a term of twenty-eightⒶtextual note years and would practically keep the whole book alive during that term. I meant to write 500,000 words of Autobiography, and I did it.

That tedious long labor was wasted. Last March Congress added fourteenⒶtextual note years to the forty-two-yearⒶtextual note term, and so my oldest book has now about fifteenⒶtextual note years to liveⒺexplanatory note. I have no use for that addition, (I am seventy-four years old),Ⓐtextual note poor Jean has no use for it now, Clara is happily and prosperously marriedⒺexplanatory note and has no use for it.

Man proposes, Circumstances dispose.

————

Has any one ever tried to put upon paper all the little happenings connected with a dear one—happenings of the twenty-four hours preceding the sudden and unexpected death of that dear one? Would a book contain them? would two books contain them? I think not. They pour into the mind in a flood. They are littleⒶtextual note things that have been alwaysⒶtextual note happening every day, and were always so unimportant and easily forgetable before—but now! Now, how different! how precious they are, how dear, how unforgetable, how pathetic,Ⓐtextual note how sacred, how clothed with dignity!

Last night Jean, all flushed with splendid health; and I the same, from the wholesome effects ofⒶtextual note my Bermuda holidayⒺexplanatory note, strolled hand in hand from the dinner table and sat down in the library and chatted, and planned, and discussed, cheerily and happily (and how unsuspectingly!) until nineⒶtextual note,—which is late for us—then went up stairs, Jean’s friendly German dog following. At my door JeanⒶtextual note said, “I can’t kiss you good nightⒶtextual note, father: I have a cold, and you could catch it.” I bent and kissed her hand. She was moved—I saw it in her eyes—and sheⒶtextual note impulsively kissed my hand in return. Then with the usual gayⒶtextual note “Sleep well, dear!” from both, we parted.

At half past sevenⒶtextual note this morning I woke, and heard voices outside my door. I said to myself, “Jean is starting on her usual horseback-flight to the station for the mail.” Then Katy entered, stood quaking and gasping at my bedside a moment, then found her tongue:

“Miss Jean is dead!”

Possibly I know now what theⒶtextual note soldier feelsⒶtextual note when a bullet crashes through his heart.

In her bath-roomⒶtextual note there she lay, theⒶtextual note fair young creature, stretched upon the floor and covered with a sheet. And looking so placid, so natural, and as if asleep. We knew what had happened. She was an epileptic: she had been seizedⒶtextual note with a convulsion and could not get out of the tub. ThereⒶtextual note was no help near, and she was drowned. The doctor had to come several miles. His efforts, like our previous ones,Ⓐtextual note failed to bring her back to life.Ⓐtextual note

It is noon, now. How lovable she looks, how sweet and how tranquil! It is a noble face, and full of dignity; and that was a good heart that lies there so still.

In England, thirteen years ago, my wife and I were stabbed to the heart with a [begin page 312] cablegram which said “Susy was mercifully released to-day.”Ⓔexplanatory note I hadⒶtextual note to send a like shock to Clara, in Berlin, this morning. With the peremptoryⒶtextual note addition, “You must not come home.” Clara and her husband sailed from here on the 11th of this monthⒺexplanatory note. How will Clara bear it? Jean, from her babyhood, was a worshipper of Clara.

————

Four days ago I came back from a month’s holiday in Bermuda in perfected health; but by some accident the reporters failed to perceive this. Day before yesterday, letters and telegramsⒶtextual note began to arrive from friends and strangers which indicated that I was supposed to be dangerously ill. Yesterday Jean begged me to explain my case through the Associated Press. I said it was not important enough; but she was distressed and said I must think of Clara. Clara would see the report in the German papers, and as she had been nursing her husband day and night for four months and was worn out andⒶtextual note feeble, the shock might be disastrous. There was reason in that; so I sent a humorous paragraph by telephone to the Associated Press denying the “charge” that I was “dying,” and saying “I would not do such a thing at my time of life.”

Jean waⒶtextual notes a little troubled, and did not like to see me treat the matter so lightly; but I said it was best to treat it so, for there was nothing serious about it. This morning I sent the sorrowful facts of this day’s irremediable disaster to the Associated Press. Will both appear in this evening’s papers?—the one so blithe, the other so tragicⒺexplanatory note.

————

I lost Susy thirteen years ago; I lost her mother—her incomparable mother!—five and a half years ago; Clara has gone away to live in Europe; and now I have lost Jean. How poor I am, who was once so rich!Ⓐtextual note Seven months ago Mr. Rogers died—Ⓐtextual notethe best friend I ever had, and the nearest perfect, as man and gentleman, I have yet met among my race; within the past four weeks Gilder has passed away, and LaffanⒺexplanatory note—old, old friends of mine. Jean lies yonder, I sit here; we are strangers under our own roof; we kissed hands good-bye at this door last night—and it was forever, we never suspecting it. She lies there, and I sit here—writing, busying myself, to keep my heart from breaking. How dazzlingly the sunshine is flooding the hills around! It is like a mockery.

Seventy-four years old, twenty-four days ago. Seventy-four years old yesterday. Who can estimate my age to-day?

————

I have looked upon her again. I wonder I can bear it. She looks just as her mother looked when she lay dead in that Florentine villa so long ago. The sweet placidity of death! it is more beautiful than sleep.

I saw herⒶtextual note mother buried. I said I would never endure that horror again; that I would never again look into the grave of any one dear to me. I have kept to that. They will take Jean from this house to-morrow, and bear her to Elmira, New York,Ⓐtextual note where lie those of us that have been released, but I shall not follow.

[begin page 313] Jean was on the dock when the ship came in, only four days ago. She was at the door, beaming a welcome, when I reached this house the next evening. We played cards, and she tried to teach me a new game called “Mark Twain.” We sat chatting cheerily in the library last night, and she wouldn’t let me look into the loggia, where she was making Christmas preparations. She said she would finish them in the morning, and then her little French friendⒺexplanatory note would arrive from New York—the surprise would follow; the surprise she had been working over for days. While she was out for a moment I disloyally stole a look. The loggia floor was clothed with rugs and furnished with chairs and sofas; and the uncompleted surprise was there: in the form of a Christmas tree that was drenched with silver films in a most wonderful way; and on a table was a prodigal profusion of bright things which she was going to hang upon it to-day. What desecrating hand will ever banishⒶtextual note that eloquent unfinished surprise from that place?Ⓐtextual note Not mine, surely. All these little matters have happened in the last four days. “Little.” Yes—then. But not now. Nothing she said or thought or did, is little, now. AndⒶtextual note all the lavish humor!—what is become of it? It is pathos, now. Pathos, and the thought of it brings tears.

All these little things happened such a few hours ago—and now she lies yonder. Lies yonder, and cares for nothing any more. Strange—marvelous—incredible! I have had this experience before; but it would still be incredible if I had had it a thousand times.

————

“Miss Jean is dead!”

That is what Katy said. When I heard the door open behind the bed’s head without a preliminary knock, I supposed it was Jean coming to kiss me good morning, she being the only person who was used to entering without formalities.

And so—

I have been to Jean’s parlor. Such a turmoil of Christmas presents for servants and friendsⒶtextual note! They are everywhere; tables, chairs, sofas, the floor—everything is occupied, and over-occupiedⒶtextual note. It is manyⒶtextual note and many a year since I have seen the like. In that ancient day Mrs. Clemens and I used to slip softly into the nursery at midnight on Christmas Eve and look the array of presents over. The children were little, then. And now here is Jean’s parlor looking just as that nursery used to look. The presents are not labeled—the hands are forevermore idle that would have labeled them to-day. Jean’s mother always worked herself down with her Christmas preparations. Jean did the same yesterday and the preceding days, and the fatigueⒶtextual note has cost her her life. The fatigue caused the convulsion that attacked her this morning. She had had no attack for months.

————

Jean was so full of life and energy that she was constantly in danger of overtaxing her strength. Every morning she was in the saddle by half past sevenⒶtextual note, and off to the station for the mail. She examined the letters and IⒶtextual note distributed them: some to her, some to Mr. Paine, the others to the stenographerⒺexplanatory note and myself. She dispatched her share and then mounted her horse again and went around superintending her farm and her poultry the [begin page 314] rest of the day. Sometimes she played billiards with me afterⒶtextual note dinner, but she was usually too tired to play, and went early to bed.

Yesterday afternoonⒶtextual note I told her about some plans I had been devising while absent in Bermuda, to lighten her burdens. We would get a housekeeper; also we would put her share of the secretary-work into Mr. Paine’s hands.

No—she wasn’t willing. She had been making plans herself. The matter ended in a compromise. I submitted. I always did. She wouldn’t audit the bills and let Paine fill out the checks—she would continue to attend to that herself. Also, she would continue to be housekeeper, and let Katy assist. Also, she would continue toⒶtextual note answer the letters of personal friends for me. Such was the compromise. Both of us called it by that name, though I was not able to see where any formidableⒶtextual note change had been made.

However, Jean was pleased, and that was sufficient for me. She was proud of being my secretary, and I was never able to persuadeⒶtextual note her to give up any part of her share in that unlovely work. I paid her the compliment of saying she was the only honest and honorable secretary I had ever had, except Paine.Ⓐtextual note It is true that Jean had furnished me no statements, but I saidⒶtextual note I hadn’t ever wanted them from her, for she was honest, and the lack of them had never caused me any uneasiness.

Oh, that unfortunate conversation! Unwittingly I was adding to her fatigues, and she was already so tired. Before night she suspended her Christmas labors, and drewⒶtextual note up a detailedⒶtextual note statement for November, and placed it in my hands. I said, “Oh, Jean, why did you do it? didn’t you know I was only chaffing?”

But she was full of the matter, and eager to show me that her administration had been care-taking and economical. The figures confirmed her words. In the talk last night I said I found everything going so smoothly that if she were willing I would go back to Bermuda in February and get blessedly out of the clash and turmoil again for another month. She was urgent that I should do it, and said that if I would put off the trip until March she would take Katy and go with me. We struck hands upon that, and said it was settled. I had a mind to write to Bermuda by to-morrow’sⒶtextual note ship and secure a furnishedⒶtextual note house and servants. I meant to write the letter this morning. But it will never be written, now.

For she lies yonder, and before her is another journey than that.

————

Night is closing down; the rim of the sun barely shows above the skyline of the hills.

I have been looking at that face again that was growing dearer and dearer to me every day. I was getting acquainted with Jean in these last nineⒶtextual note months. She had been long an exile from home when she cameⒶtextual note to us three-quarters ofⒶtextual note a year ago. She had been shut up in sanitariums, many miles from us. How eloquently glad and gratefulⒶtextual note she was to cross her father’s threshold again!

Would I bring her back to life if I could do it? I would not. If a word would do it, I would beg for strength to withhold the word. And I would have the strength; I am sure of it. In her loss I am almostⒶtextual note bankrupt, and my life is a bitterness, but I am content: forⒶtextual note she [begin page 315] has been enriched with the most precious of all gifts—that gift which makes all other gifts mean and poor—death. I have never wanted any released friend of mine restored to life since I reached manhood. I felt in this way when Susy passed awayⒶtextual note; and later my wife; and later Mr. Rogers. When Clara met me at the station in New York and told me Mr. Rogers had died suddenly that morning, my thought was, Oh, favorite of fortune—fortunate all his long and lovely life—fortunateⒶtextual note to his latest moment! The reportersⒶtextual note said there were tears of sorrow in my eyes. True—but they were for me, not for him. He had suffered no loss. All the fortunes he had ever made before were poverty compared with this one.Ⓐtextual note

————

Why did I build this house, two years ago? To shelter this vast emptiness? How foolish I was.Ⓐtextual note But I shall stay in it. The spirits of the dead hallow a house, for me. It was not so with otherⒶtextual note members of my family. Susy died in the house we built in Hartford. Mrs. Clemens would never enter it again. But it made the house dearer to me. I have entered it once since, when it was tenantless and silent and forlorn, but to me it wasⒶtextual note a holy place and beautiful. It seemed to me that the spirits of the dead were all about me, and would speak to me and welcome me if they could: Livy, and Susy, and GeorgeⒺexplanatory note, and Henry RobinsonⒺexplanatory note, and Charles Dudley Warner. How good and kind they were, and how lovable their lives! In fancyⒶtextual note I could see them all again, I could call the children back and hear them romp again with George—that peerless black ex-slaveⒶtextual note and children’s idol whoⒶtextual note came one day—a flitting stranger—to wash windows, and stayed eighteen years. Until he died. Clara and Jean would never enter again the New York hotelsⒶtextual note which their mother had frequented in earlier days. They could not bear it. But I shall stay in this house. Ⓐtextual noteIt is dearer to me to-night than ever it was before. Jean’s spirit will make it beautiful for me always. Her lonely and tragic death—but I will not think of that, now.

————

Jean’s mother always devoted two or three weeks to Christmas shopping, and was always physically exhausted when Christmas Eve came. Jean was her veryⒶtextual note own child—she wore herself out present-hunting in New York these latter days. Paine has just found in her desk a long list of names—fifty, he thinks—people to whom she sent presents last night. Apparently she forgot no one. And Katy found there a roll of bank notes, for the servants. Also two books of signed checks which I gave her when I went to Bermuda. She hadⒶtextual note used half of them.

Her dog has been wandering about the grounds to-day, comradeless and forlorn. I have seen him from the windows.Ⓐtextual note She got him from GermanyⒺexplanatory note. He has tall ears and looks exactly like a wolf. He was educated in Germany, and knows no language but the German. Jean gave him no orders save in that tongue. And so, when the burglar alarmⒶtextual note made a fierce clamor at midnight a fortnight ago, the butler, who is French and knows no German, tried to interest the dog in the supposed burglar. He remembered two or three of Jean’s German commands (without knowing their meaning), and he shouted them to the eager dog. “Leg’ Dich!” (lie down!) The dog obeyed—to the butler’s distress. [begin page 316] “Sei ruhig!” (be still!) The dog stretched himself on the floor, and even stopped batting the floor with his tail. Then Jean came running, in her night clothes, and shouted “Los!” (goⒶtextual note! fly! rush!) and the dog sped away like the wind, tearing the silences to tatters with his bark. JeanⒶtextual note wrote me, to Bermuda, about the incident. It was the last letter I was ever to receive from her bright head and her competent hand. The dog will not be neglected.Ⓐtextual note

Paine has come in to say the reporters want photographs of Jean. He has found some proofs in her desk—excellent ones, and evidently not a fortnightⒶtextual note old. This is curiously fortunate, for she has not been photographed before for more than a year.

————

There was never a kinder heart than Jean’s. From her childhood up she always spent the most of her allowance on charities of one kind and another. AfterⒶtextual note she became secretary and had her income doubled she spent her money upon these things with a free hand. Mine too, I am glad and grateful to say.

She was a loyal friend to all animals, and she loved them all, birds, beasts and everything—even snakes—an inheritance from me. She knew all the birds; she was high up in that lore. She became a member of various humane societies when she was still a little girl—both here and abroad—and she remained an active member to the last. She founded two or threeⒶtextual note societies for the protection of animals, hereⒶtextual note and in Europe.

She was an embarrassing secretary, for she fished my correspondence out of the waste-basketⒶtextual note and answered the letters. She thought all letters deserved the courtesy of an answer. Her mother brought her up in that kindly error.

She could write a good letter, and was swift with her pen. She had but an indifferent ear for music, but her tongue took to languages with an easy facility. She never allowed her Italian, French and German to get rusty through neglect.

Her unearned and atrocious malady—epilepsy—damaged her disposition when its influence was upon her, and made her say and do ungentle things; but when the influence passed away her inborn sweetness returned, and then she was wholly lovable. Her disease, and its accompanying awful convulsions, wore out her gentle mother’s strength with grief and watching and anxiety, and caused her death, poor Livy!Ⓐtextual note Jean’s—like her mother’s—was a fine character; there is no finer.

The telegrams ofⒶtextual note sympathy are flowing in, from far and wide, now,Ⓐtextual note just as they did in ItalyⒶtextual note five years and a half ago, when this child’s mother laid down herⒶtextual note blameless life. They cannot heal the hurt, but they take away some of the pain. When Jean and I kissed hands and parted at my door last, how little did weⒶtextual note imagine thatⒶtextual note in twenty-two hours the telegraph would be bringing me words like these!

For many and many a day to come,Ⓐtextual note wherever I go in this house, remembrancers of Jean will mutely speak to me of her.Ⓐtextual note Who can count the number of them?

[begin page 317] She was an exile so long, so long! There are no words to express how grateful I am that she did not meet her fate in the house of a stranger, but in the loving shelter of her own home.Ⓐtextual note

————

“Miss Jean is dead!”

It is true. Jean is dead.Ⓐtextual note

A month ago I was writing bubbling and hilarious articlesⒶtextual note for magazines yet to appear, and now I am writing—this.Ⓐtextual note

————

Christmas Day. Noon. Last night I went to Jean’s room at intervals, and turned back the sheet and lookedⒶtextual note at the peaceful face, and kissed the cold brow, and remembered that heart-breakingⒶtextual note night in Florence so long ago, in that cavernous and silent vast villa, when I crept down stairs so many times, and turned back a sheet and looked at a face just like this one—Jean’s mother’s face—and kissed a brow that was just like this one. And last night I saw again what I had seen then—that strange and lovely miracle—the sweet soft contours of early maidenhood restored by the gracious hand of death! When Jean’s mother lay dead, all trace of care, and trouble, and suffering, and the corroding years had vanished out of the face, and I was looking again upon itⒶtextual note as I had known it and worshipedⒶtextual note it in its young bloom and beauty a whole generation before.

———— Ⓐtextual note

About threeⒶtextual note in the morning, whileⒶtextual note wandering about the house in the deep silences, as one does in times like these, when there is a dumb sense that something has been lost that will neverⒶtextual note be found again, yet must be sought, if only for the employment the useless seeking gives, I came upon Jean’s dog in the hall down stairs, and notedⒶtextual note that he did not spring to greet me, according to his hospitable habit, but came slow and sorrowfully; also I rememberedⒶtextual note that he had not visited Jean’s apartment since the tragedy. Poor fellow, did he know? I think so. Always when Jean was abroad in the open he was with her; always when she was in the house he was with her, in the night as well as in the day. Her parlor wasⒶtextual note his bedroom. Whenever I happened upon him on the ground floor he always followed me about, and when I went up stairs he went too—in a tumultuous gallop. But now it was different: after petting him a little I went to the library—he remained behind; when I went up stairs he did not follow me, save with his wistful eyes. He has wonderful eyes—big, and kind, and eloquent. He can talk with them. He is a beautiful creature, and is of the breed of the New York police-dogs.Ⓐtextual note I do not like dogs, because they bark when there is no occasion for it; but I have liked this one from the beginning, because he belonged to Jean, and because he never barks except when there is occasion—which is not oftener than twice a week.

In my wanderings I visited Jean’s parlor. On a shelf I found a pile of my books, and I knew what it meant. She was waiting for me to come home from Bermuda and autograph [begin page 318] them, then she would send them away. If I only knew whom she intended them for! But I shall never know. I willⒶtextual note keep them. Her hand has touched them—it is an accolade—they are noble, now.Ⓐtextual note

And in a closet she had hidden a surprise for me—a thing I have often wished I owned: a noble big globe. I couldn’t see it for the tears. She will never know the pride I take in it, and the pleasure. To-day the mails are full of loving remembrances for her; full of those old, old kind words she loved so well, “Merry Christmas to Jean!” If she could only haveⒶtextual note lived one day longer!

At last she ran out of money, and would not use mine. So she sent to one of those New York homes for poor girls all the clothes she could spare—and more, most likely.

————

Christmas Night. This afternoon they took her away from her room. As soon as I might, I went down to the library, and there she lay, in her coffin, dressed in exactly the same clothes she wore when she stood at the other end of the same room on the 6th of October last, as Clara’s chief bridesmaid. Her face was radiant with happy excitement then; it was the same face now, with the dignity of death and the peace of God upon it.

They told me the first mourner to come was the dog. He came uninvited, and stood up on his hind legs and rested his forepaws upon the trestle, and took a long last look at the face that was so dear to him, then went his way as silently as he had come. He knows.

At mid-afternoon it began to snow. The pity of it—that Jean could not see it! She so loved the snow.

The snow continued to fall. At six o’clock the hearse drew up to the door to bearⒶtextual note away its pathetic burden, PaineⒶtextual note playing Schubert’s “Impromptu,” which was Jean’s favoriteⒺexplanatory note. Then he played the “Intermezzo”Ⓐtextual note; that was for Susy; then he played the “Largo”Ⓐtextual note: that was for their mother. He did this at my request. Elsewhere in this Autobiography I have told how the “Intermezzo”Ⓐtextual note and the “Largo”Ⓐtextual note came to be associated,Ⓐtextual note in my heart,Ⓐtextual note with Susy and LivyⒺexplanatory note inⒶtextual note their last hours in this life.

From my windows I saw the hearseⒶtextual note and the carriages wind along the road and gradually grow vague and spectral in the falling snow, and presently disappear. Jean was gone out of my life, and would not come back any more. The cousin she had played with when they were babies togetherⒺexplanatory note—he and her beloved old Katy—were conductingⒶtextual note her to her distant childhood home, where she will lie by her mother’s side once more, in the company of Susy and Langdon.Ⓐtextual note

————

December 26. The dog came to see me at eightⒶtextual note o’clockⒶtextual note this morning. He was very affectionate, poor orphan! My room will be his quarters hereafter.

The storm raged all night. It has raged all the morning. The snow drives across the landscape in vast clouds, superb, sublime—Ⓐtextual noteand Jean not here to see.Ⓐtextual note

————

[begin page 319] 2.30 p.m. It is the time appointed. The funeral has begun. Four hundred miles away, but I can see it all, just as if I were there. The scene is the library, in the Langdon homestead. Jean’s coffin standsⒶtextual note where her mother and I stood, forty years ago, and were married; and where Susy’s coffin stood thirteenⒶtextual note yearsⒶtextual note ago; whereⒶtextual note her mother’s stood, five years and a half ago; and where mine will stand, after a little time.

————

Five o’clock. It is all over.

————

When Clara went awayⒶtextual note two weeks agoⒶtextual note to live in Europe, it was hard, but I could bear it, for I had Jean left. I said we would be a family. We said we would be close comrades and happy—just we two. That fair dream was in my mind when Jean met me at the steamer last Monday; it was in my mind when she received me at this door last Tuesday evening. We were together; we were a family! the dream had come true—oh, preciously true, contentedlyⒶtextual note true, satisfyingly true! and remained true two whole days.

And now? Now,Ⓐtextual note Jean is in the grave!

In the grave—if I can believe it.Ⓐtextual note God rest her sweet spirit!

Mark TwainⒶtextual note

End of the Autobiography. Ⓔexplanatory note