• From Arles to Berlin

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    September 30 Wednesday – At Arles, France

    October 1 Thursday – In Nimes, France at the Hotel Manivet,

    October 2 Friday – Sam and Joseph Verey left Arles for Avignon, France [2nd letter to Livy, Sept.28; NB 31 TS 7]

    October 3 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: Avignon. Oct. 3.—leaving, 11 am.

  • September 30, 1891 Wednesday

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    September 30 Wednesday – At Arles, France Sam wrote a short note to Livy.

    To Mrs. Clemens, in Ouchy, Switzerland:

    ARLES, Sept. 30, noon.

    Livy darling, I haint got no time to write to-day, because I am sight-seeing industriously & imagining my chapter.

    Bade good-bye to the river trip & gave away the boat yesterday evening. We had ten great days in her.

    We reached here after dark. We were due about 4.30, counting by distance, but we couldn’t calculate on such a lifeless current as we found.

  • October 1, 1891 Thursday

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    October 1 Thursday – In Nimes, France at the Hotel Manivet, Sam wrote to Joe Twichell. Paine muses:

    “It had been a long time since Clemens had written to his old friend Twichell, but the Rhone trip must have reminded him of those days thirteen years earlier, when, comparatively young men, he and Twichell were tramping through the Black Forest and scaling Gemmi Pass. He sent Twichell a reminder of that happy time” [MTLP 2: 558; Sept 29 to Clara Clemens].  

    Dear Joe:

  • October 2, 1891 Friday

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    October 2 Friday – Sam and Joseph Verey left Arles for Avignon, France [2nd letter to Livy, Sept.28; NB 31 TS 7].

    In Ouchy-Lausanne, Susy wrote to Louise Brownell:

    At last a lovely letter from you dear, dear Louise! I have waited with sillie impatience hoping for one every mail as if you could reach me from the ocean easily.

  • October 3, 1891 Saturday

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    October 3 Saturday – Sam’s notebook:

    Avignon. Oct. 3.—leaving, 11 am. Papal palace. This old factory—for that is what it looks like, with its gray walls (that have a plastered look) & its straight lines & sharp corners & four or 5 chimney-like projections—absence of ornament, & utter & unapproachable ugliness.

    Palace—why that is a word which suggests & promises elegance, ornament, beauty costly decoration, rich furniture not a stable, a factory [NB 31 TS 8].

  • October 4, 1891 Sunday

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    October 4 Sunday – Sam may have returned after midnight (Oct. 3-4). His notebook simply gives Oct. 4 as “Go to Ouchy” [NB 31 TS 7]. Rodney gives this as his date of return to Ouchy and says the family was packed and ready to travel [138]. In his Sept. 28 letter to Livy, Sam had suggested they go to Basel, Switzerland the day after his arrival, some 125 miles, and then on to Berlin on Monday, Oct. 5.

  • October 5, 1891 Monday

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    October 5 Monday – The planned day to leave Ouchy-Laussane for Berlin. According to Rodney, the family made this long trip in two days, stopping at Basel, Switzerland [138] and then Frankfurt, where Sam telegraphed Chatto & Windus on Oct. 7.

    Katy Leary was sent back to Elmira in order to save money. She wrote of the parting:

  • October 6, 1891 Tuesday

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    October 6 Tuesday – A travel day for the Clemens party on their way to Berlin. Sam’s notebook:

    Strassburg, Oct. 6.—Arles is very well, perhaps; but this is the place for pretty girls, apparently [NB 31 TS 8].

    Susy Clemens and her Aunt Sue Crane went apart from the rest of the family to the Hotels Schweizerhof & Luzernhof at Lucerne, Switzerland. Susy wrote to Louise Brownell:

  • October 7, 1891 Wednesday

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    October 7 Wednesday – Stopping at Frankfurt on the Main (Frankfurt) the Clemens party may have spent the night at the Hotel Continental. Sam telegraphed Chatto & Windus from the hotel, sending his new address for the next six months in Berlin, 7 Körnerstrasse, and asking them to send him a copy of “The Table,” a cookbook just issued by Webster & Co. “Don’t divulge my address, please” [MTP].

  • October 8, 1891 Thursday

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    October 8 Thursday – Another travel day for the Clemens party, making the last leg from Frankfurt to Berlin, some 340 miles, by train. Joseph Verey may have accompanied the family on to Berlin. No letter from Berlin prior to Oct. 9 is extant.