May 9 Monday – At the Villa Reale di Quarto near Florence Sam wrote to Muriel M. Pears.
It’s a long time, dear Miss Muriel—but I have not been lazy, only holding my hands & waiting; waiting to see the patient “turn the corner;” that corner which keeps on breathing the word of promise to our ear & breaking it to our hope. Always it is going to be turned this time, sure, & we get the patient out of the bed & into a chair, & think next day will find her wheeling the garden paths. But not so. It is back to bed again after 20 minutes, to spend another month there, with another 20-minute adventure (no, epoch!) at the end of it. This has lasted for long, now, & sometimes we have frights that turn us cold.
Yes, I wish we could hope to see England in the summer, but how could it ever be? We have taken a furnished villa for the summer-months in the hills 20 miles from here—to move the madam to it? No—to make her think such a thing may happen, & so keep her courage from perishing. We went through all the motions: examined the house searchingly, took it, paid for it, & privately bade it good-bye, no member of this beleaguered family ever seriously expecting to see it again. But the effect upon the madam is distinctly helpful. To have postponed could have made her suspicious. We have backed our loud hopes & wordy encouragements with acts. Acts are the things that convince.
It is nearly noon & no call yet; which means that I am not to be allowed my 2-minute visit to the sick-room to-day. (This happens, these days, after a bad night.) So I will give up waiting for the call, & get me to the work which sweeps this world away & puts me in one which no one has visited but me—nor will, for this book is not being written for print, & is not going to be published. But first I will have one look out of the window, for the shining spread of the valley & the blue hills beyond are adorably beautiful in the pouring sunlight to-day. Good-bye, the best of luck to you! (No, not the best, the next best—I spoke unheedfully.) / Sincerely & affectionately … [MTP].
Sam also replied to H.H. Rogers’ Apr. 22:
I wish I could find a pulpit that could rationally excuse & justify Nature’s atrocities—such as persecuting harrassing & torturing unoffending people like Mrs. Randall [HHR’s mother-in-law] & Mrs. Clemens months & years to no valuable end. I cannot keep my temper when I think of those wanton & unforgivable malignities; & as I think of them several times a day I lose my temper pretty often. I have not told Mrs. Clemens of Mrs. Roger’s bereavement; it will be weeks yet, no doubt, before we can begin again to tell her things that can touch her feelings. If the doctor allows me to see her to-day she will be sure to ask me if I have heard from you, for she knows by instinct when a letter from you is due, although we never let her see any letters nowadays; I shall have to say I have a letter—& then go on & invent, saying you wrote only to say you & New York are getting along about as usual & no more to report.
I keep on hunting for villas, for it looks as if I was sure she would be able to be moved by & by, & so it helps to keep her courage up. Also I hired a summer-villa 20 miles from here for the same reason. It doesn’t look as if we could ever move her there, but Clara & I pretend with all our might.
I shan’t tell any one you & Mrs. Rogers are coming over, but I tell you it’s splendid news! for I do long for the faces of old friends. I stick close to the house except when obliged to go to town—which does not often happen—and it does get deadly lonesome on the days when the pen refuses to go & I can’t work. It’s a whole-day thing, too; for the girls are busy as bees, & far away in their corners of this barrack, & so we are not likely to meet, except at dinner—for we all breakfast in bed, & I take no luncheon. I go to bed as soon as dinner is over, for my back remains about as bad as it was in Fairhaven, & I get horrible tired. Now then, don’t you give up the European trip, but keep it in mind & come along; let Dan’l take care of the shop—it will develop him. / With benedictions on you all [MTHHR 565-6].
Sam’s notebook: “I have to keep Kirch. We dare not change doctors—Livy is too frail to risk a change & new experiments” [NB 47 TS 10].
Senator Odoardo Luchini wrote from Florence to Sam.
“After having called on the ufficio del Catasto, I could know the date of the deed concerning the sale of Villa di Quarto, made by the Dr Massari to the Countess.” He told of examining the deed and of looking into her ownership of the villa, the price paid and expenses she had undertaken for it [MTP]. Sam wrote on the env. “Important. Concerns price paid for Villa di Quarto”