Now, these countries are different:  they would do all that if it were native.  It is true they praise God, but that is merely a formality, & nothing in it; they open out their whole hearts to no foreigner.

As the first anniversary of Susy’s death drew near the tension became very great.  A gloom settled on the household, a shadow of restraint.  On the morning of the 18th Clemens went early to his study.  Somewhat later Mrs. Clemens put on her hat and wrap, and taking a small bag left the house.  The others saw her go toward the steamer-landing, but made no inquiries as to her destination.  They guessed that she would take the little boat that touched at the various points along the lake shore.  This she did, in fact, with no particular plan as to where she would leave it.  One of the landing-places seemed quiet and inviting, and there she went ashore, and taking a quiet room at a small inn spent the day in reading Susy’s letters.  It was evening when she returned, and her husband, lonely and anxious, was waiting for her at the landing.  He had put in the day writing the beautiful poem, “In Memoriam,” a strain lofty, tender, and dirge-like-liquidly musical, though irregular in form.—­[Now included in the Uniform Edition.]

CXCIX

WINTER IN VIENNA

They remained two months in Weggis—­until toward the end of September; thence to Vienna, by way of Innsbruck, in the Tyrol, “where the mountains seem more approachable than in Switzerland.”  Clara Clemens wished to study the piano under Leschetizky, and this would take them to Austria for the winter.  Arriving at Vienna, they settled in the Hotel Metropole, on the banks of the Danube.  Their rooms, a corner suite, looked out on a pretty green square, the Merzimplatz, and down on the Franz Josef quay.  A little bridge crosses the river there, over which all kinds of life are continually passing.  On pleasant days Clemens liked to stand on this bridge and watch the interesting phases of the Austrian capital.  The Vienna humorist, Poetzl, quickly formed his acquaintance, and they sometimes stood there together.  Once while Clemens was making some notes, Poetzl interested the various passers by asking each one—­the errand-boy, the boot-black, the chestnut-vender, cabmen, and others—­to guess who the stranger was and what he wanted.  Most of them recognized him when their attention was called, for the newspapers had proudly heralded his arrival and his picture was widely circulated.

Clemens had scarcely arrived in Vienna, in fact, before he was pursued by photographers, journalists, and autograph-hunters.  The Viennese were his fond admirers, and knowing how the world elsewhere had honored him they were determined not to be outdone.  The ‘Neues Viener Tageblatt’, a fortnight after his arrival, said: