the sky, & mighty form outstretched, which I had named Napoleon Dreaming of Universal Empire—­& now this prodigious face, soft, rich, blue, spirituelle, asleep, tranquil, reposeful, lay against that giant conflagration of ruddy and golden splendors, all rayed like a wheel with the up-streaming & far-reaching lances of the sun.  It made one want to cry for delight, it was so supreme in its unimaginable majesty & beauty.

He made a pencil-sketch of the Napoleon head in his note-book, and stated that the apparition could be seen opposite the castle of Beauchastel; but in later years his treacherous memory betrayed him, and, forgetting these identifying marks, he told of it as lying a few hours above Arles, and named it the “Lost Napoleon,” because those who set out to find it did not succeed.  He even wrote an article upon the subject, in which he urged tourists to take steamer from Arles and make a short trip upstream, keeping watch on the right-hand bank, with the purpose of rediscovering the natural wonder.  Fortunately this sketch was not published.  It would have been set down as a practical joke by disappointed travelers.  One of Mark Twain’s friends, Mr. Theodore Stanton, made a persistent effort to find the Napoleon, but with the wrong directions naturally failed.

It required ten days to float to Arles.  Then the current gave out and Clemens ended the excursion and returned to Lausanne by rail.  He said: 

“It was twenty-eight miles to Marseilles, and somebody would have to row.  That would not have been pleasure; it would have meant work for the sailor, and I do not like work even when another person does it.”

To Twichell in America he wrote: 

You ought to have been along—­I could have made room for you easily, & you would have found that a pedestrian tour in Europe doesn’t begin with a raft voyage for hilarity & mild adventure & intimate contact with the unvisited native of the back settlements & extinction from the world and newspapers & a conscience in a state of coma & lazy comfort & solid happiness.  In fact, there’s nothing that’s so lovely.

But it’s all over.  I gave the raft away yesterday at Arles & am loafing along back by short stages on the rail to Ouchy, Lausanne, where the tribe are staying at the Beau Rivage and are well and prosperous.

CLXXVII

KORNERSTRASSE,7

They had decided to spend the winter in Berlin, and in October Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Crane, after some previous correspondence with an agent, went up to that city to engage an apartment.  The elevator had not reached the European apartment in those days, and it was necessary, on Mrs. Clemens’s account, to have a ground floor.  The sisters searched a good while without success, and at last reached Kornerstrasse, a short, secluded street, highly recommended by the agent.  The apartment they examined in Kornerstrasse was Number 7, and they were so much pleased with the conveniences and comfort of it and so tired that they did not notice closely its, general social environment.  The agent supplied an assortment of furniture for a consideration, and they were soon settled in the attractive, roomy place.  Clemens and the children, arriving somewhat later, expressed themselves as satisfied.