Mark Twain stayed in Vienna with his wife Olivia and his daughters Clara and Jean from the end of September 1897 till the end of May 1899, except for a few weeks in the summer of 1898, spent at the summer resort of Kaltenleutgeben near Vienna.
The family took quarters in Hotel Metropole, beautifully situated on the Franz-Joseph's Quay, on the right bank of the Danube Canal. Later they moved to the Hotel Krantz, opposite the old Capuchin Church and Monastery, in the center of the city.
The Human is a Fool, Hypocrite & Humbug – Contract at Last
London: “Chartless, Adrift Derelicts”– Victoria’s Jubilee – Orion Dies
N.Y. Herald Fund – Twain’s Death an Exaggeration – Peaceful Weggis & Writing Vienna &
“Leschy” for Clara – Stirring Times in Austria – FE Published
1897 – Sam recorded he was paid $11,398.65 this year by the American Publishing Co and
noted “Equator” by the entry. He estimated the Co. “cleared say $3,000” [NB 46 TS 17].
September 20 Monday – The Clemens party arrived in Innsbruck and took rooms at the Hotel Tirolerhof, where they stayed two days [Dolmetsch 23].
September 21 Tuesday – The Clemens party spent the day resting in Innsbruck, Austria.
September 22 Wednesday – The Clemens party left Innsbruck and traveled about 100 miles by rail to Salzburg, Austria, where they would say for three days.
September 23 Thursday – The Clemens party spent the day in Salzburg, Austria.
September 24 Friday – The Clemens party spent the day in Salzburg, Austria. Sam’s notebook:
“From the din of unpleasant church-bells it would seem that this village of 27,600 people is made up mainly of churches. Money represents labor, sweat, weariness. And that is what these useless churches have cost these people & are still costing them to support the useless priests & monks” [Dolmetsch 23: NB 42 TS 38].
Dolmetsch writes,
September 25 Saturday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam thanking for the $50 rec’d on Sept. 22. “Billy Claggett was here last week. He is thin and old and almost beyond recognition. His unsmiling sadness may be caused by the continued alienation from his wife and the loss of his fortune.—the latter a guess.” Orion added to the letter on Sept. 27 [MTP]. Note: William H. Claggett (1838-1901), old mining buddy of Sam’s; see Vol. I.
September 26 Sunday –The Clemens party spent the last of three days in Salzburg, Austria.
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].
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 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 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.
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]
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 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 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 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 7 Thursday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Eduard Pötzl.
The manager of this hotel has now situated us so charmingly & spaciously & economically on the next floor (Stock III), that we shall stay a month at any rate; but when the weather settles, Mrs. Clemens will wish to see the Continental & the Persian Exquisite, for we are quite willing, like the rest of the world, to better ourselves whenever we can.
October 8 Friday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to John Fletcher Hurst, thanking him for his efforts to secure them housing, but daughter Clara “has reached the conclusion that she would rather live near the centre of the city.” Sam added he was “well satisfied” where he was and had “ceased to be restless” [MTP].
October 10 Sunday – An interview with Mark Twain ran in a supplement to the Vienna newspaper Fremden-Blatt. Dolmetsch calls the interview “The most significant, certainly most penetrating, of the myriad of interviews and articles appearing about Mark Twain in Viennese newspapers during the early days of his stay.” He also writes that while freedom of the press as Sam knew it back home had never existed in Austria-Hungary, “official censorship was sloppily enforced” [32].
October 11 Monday – The ledger books of Chatto & Windus show that 1,500 additional copies of CY were printed , totaling 32,500 [Welland 236].
October 12 Tuesday – John G. Kreer (“U.S.A.”), S. Von Armon (S.F. Cal. U.S.A.”), F. Goldschmidt, L. E. Schlemm (“N.Y. U.S.A.”), and Hugo Viewega (“Hannover”) each signed a picture postcard to Sam. The text of the card, in German, appears to be the same hand as Viewega’s. The card pictures Marktkirche – Altes Rathhaus, and Liebniz – Haus in Hannover.
October 13 Wednesday – At the Metropole Hotel, Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to J. Henry Harper asking for a copy of JA to be “bound in a style proper to a personage of such exalted degree” for Queen Victoria’s granddaughter (daughter of Empress Frederick). The lady had been to Vienna and told Sam she’d read the book three times and given her copy to a girls’ school which she founded. Sam closed with,