May 19 Thursday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Dr. William Wilberforce Baldwin in Rome.
Mrs. Clemens, with characteristic sharpness has hunted the mystery down & found out that it is proposed to have the Swiss surgeon make an examination with a view to an operation. She votes against it, & of course that settles it, for I would not want to take the responsibility of trying to persuade her. She wants me to thank you, but also to ask you not to bring Dr. Corka (if that is the name.)
Damn! I am so sorry I shortened your interview with her yesterday. She has mourned over it & said you were giving her comfort & courage; & now my conscience is biting me all the time for it. I will not interfere next time, I give you my word.
I made still another blunder: I remained a while after she had taken her morphia-hypodermic last night & spoiled its effect; she made me stay, but I ought not to have yielded [MTP].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: “We went to hear some opera in the Verdi Theatre. The Verdi is a splendid building and the music was the Bal Masque, not a very good opera, and the baritone Battisini is not so good as Sulli seems to think” [Gribben 725: TS 17, MTP]. Note: Isabel does not specify whom was included in the “We.”