October 5 Tuesday– In Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Professor Heinrich Obersteiner (1847-1922), enclosing a letter from Dr. M. Allen Starr (d.1932) of New York concerning seventeen-year-old daughter Jean’s epileptic attacks. Sam disclosed she had her sixth attack a week ago (Sept. 28).
October 4 Monday – At 5 p.m. at the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Sam wrote again to Eduard Pötzl.
Thank you ever so much for the books & the Feuilleton, & for the offer to show me the city: I accept the whole, gratefully. I shall be very glad to have you along when I get arrested on the bridge, because you will be able to explain the case to the police (and divide the punishment.)
October 3 Sunday – Sam’s notebook:
Hotel Metropole, Vienna, Oct. 3, 1897. At the next round table to ours sits a princess, daughter of the Dowager Empress Friederich & granddaughter of Victoria; also the young daughter of the above and her intended, the young Prince Henry Reuss (called Henry III); whose mother & sister and Uncle (the Prince von Wernigerode) in Ilsenberg in the Harz mountains six years ago. With them a maid of honor & a couple of equerries. Good looking people. They all smoke [NB 42 TS 39].
October 2 Saturday– In Vienna, Austria, Clara Clemens wrote to Chatto & Windus asking them to forward all letters to the Hotel Metropole [MTP].
Sam also replied to Andrew E. Murphy, whose “letter caught us on the rail & got mislaid.” Murphy’s letter is not extant. Only the American Publishing Co. would know about literary rights and be able to “answer propositions” that Murphy had inquired about [MTP].
October 1 Friday – Dolmetsch connects Laura Rothmann’s note with Bailey Hurst, American Consul in Vienna, who, by Sept. 30 had located a house for the Clemens family—the Villa Silling, in suburban Döbling. This may or may not have been the same house, as Rothmann’s note is not extant and Sam’s reply says nothing of the consul’s efforts or his prior request while in Weggis. Dolmetsch writes that because of Sam’s sudden attack of gout,
October– In Vienna, Austria Sam inscribed a small card to an unidentified person: “Very Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Oct. ‘97” [MTP].
Sam also inscribed a copy of American Drolleries, a London book by Ward, Lock and Co. (1890), with one of his aphorisms: “By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean. / Truly Yours / Mark Twain / Wien, Oct./97” [Liveauctioneers.com, Bloomsbury Auctions 25 Nov. 2007, Lot 56A]
September 30 Thursday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Mrs. Laura Rothmann, thanking her for an advertisement sent on a rental house in Vienna by du Möblirte Wohnŭng.
Her note (not extant) had been delayed, but Sam wrote they would go tomorrow to look at the house, as we shall prefer housekeeping to boarding if we can situate ourselves satisfactorily” [MTP]. See Oct. 1 entry.
September 29 Wednesday – At the Hotel Metropole in Vienna, Austria Sam wrote to Robert Barr, relating that upon their arrival in Vienna the town was “filled exactly up to the brim.” He liked Barr’s article on him that would run in the Century Jan. 1898. He thanked him again for the thesaurus, not recalling whether he had or not (he had), and enclosed a “heartily & gracefully-said tribute to Kipling,” asking Barr to send it to him.
September 28 Tuesday – Early in the morning the family set out to find more suitable accommodations. In his Sept. 19 to Robert Barr, Sam recounted they’d had to apply at “nineteen hotels” to finally secure rooms at what Dolmetsch calls the “fashionable” Hotel Metropole on Franz-Josefs-Kai [26]. Sam’s notebook gives the total hotels at fifteen, seven on Sept. 27 and eight on Sept. 28 [NB 42 TS 39]. Dolmetsch describes the hotel Metropole:
September 27 Monday – Salzburg, Austria: a gray and dreary day, rain threatened. At noon the Thomas Cook agent took the Clemens party from the hotel to the train station. At 12:40 the train left the station bound for Vienna, Austria, about 185 miles away. At 7 p.m. they arrived at the Kaiserin Elisabeth Westbahnhof, the western rail terminal in Vienna. There was a steady cold, but light rain. After a search they found two porters (Droschkes) to haul party and luggage [Dolmetsch 24; Sept. 29 to Barr; NB 42 TS 39].