"It looks quite imposing," he said.
Arriving at Stormfield, he stepped, unassisted, from the carriage to
greet the members of the household, and with all his old courtliness
offered each his hand. Then in a canvas chair we had brought we carried
him up-stairs to his room--the big, beautiful room that looked out to the
sunset hills. This was Thursday evening, April 14, 1910.
LXX.
THE CLOSE OF A GREAT LIFE
Mark Twain lived just a week from that day and hour. For a time he
seemed full of life, talking freely, and suffering little. Clara and
Ossip Gabrilowitsch arrived on Saturday and found him cheerful, quite
like himself. At intervals he read. "Suetonius" and "Carlyle" lay on
the bed beside him, and he would pick them up and read a page or a
paragraph. Sometimes when I saw him thus--the high color still in his
face, the clear light in his eyes'--I said: "It is not reality. He is
not going to die."
But by Wednesday of the following week it was evident that the end was
near. We did not know it then, but the mysterious messenger of his birth
year, Halley's comet, became visible that night in the sky.[13]
On Thursday morning, the 21st, his mind was still fairly clear, and he
read a little from one of the volumes on his bed.
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