Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

Seeing her at least twice a week for portrait sittings, or for excursions into town, and always on Saturday for tea, he began to believe that there was some hope for them as a couple. Many of his nights alone were spent not with thoughts of Africa but of Miss Tennant herself. Always chaste in his thoughts about her, he tried never to imagine what she would look like naked, though, as he fought off the temptation to, he would concede to himself that she had a full and womanly body. And for several months, she often confided to her dead father that she had been thinking about marrying Stanley, “if only he would overcome his timidity and broach the subject. Then I would show him that I am passionately loving.” When she conceived of their wedding, it would be a grand affair, to be held in Westminster, and she, the blushing bride (so she fantasized) would make her way down the aisle toward Stanley while her father, in the bloom of health, would walk beside her: “Oh, Father, should such a day come, I know that you will surely be there.”

FOR SEVERAL MONTHS Life on the Mississippi , a gift from Stanley, served as her bedside reading, along with Stanley’s own volume on the Congo; of the two, she drew the greater pleasure from Clemens’s picaresque and captivating chronicles, though her infatuation with Stanley cast his own book in a continually forgiving light. While his The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State contained little humor, such as would make a dreary night pass more pleasantly, she found the personality of the explorer evident in the forced march of its words, its aggregation of details, and its closely observed descriptions of events. Its chronicles of obstacles overcome on his journeys were a testament to his intrepid spirit. What it lacked in tenderness it made up for in thrilling evocations of darkest Africa — and in a sanctimoniousness that Dorothy, despite her dislike of overly pious types, found inspiring. It was a book, much like Stanley himself, that was something to be contended with and taken quite seriously.

BY FEBRUARY, HOWEVER, things slowly began to change between them. One evening while attending a dinner at the Tennant mansion, he passed much of that meal in silent agony, as his stomach was badly cramped with knots so tight that several times he excused himself from the table and retreated to the study, where, at one point, Dorothy found him writhing about on the floor, doubled over in pain, uttering that with such discomforts as came to him with gastritis, he would rather die than live.

A week or so later, he was still laid up in bed, with his man Hoffman by his side and Baruti, barefoot and in a page’s uniform, pacing disconsolately up and down the halls, when Dorothy and her mother arrived at his flat. They found him pale and barely able to move, the room smelling of medicines. Stanley, ashamed of his dismal state, said little and was barely able to do more than hold Dorothy’s hand for a few moments, his face, made rigid by his pain, much like a death mask.

February 22, 1886

Dear Dorothy,

I was very much touched indeed by your visit yesterday. Though I could barely express myself well, I was sincere when I told you that it meant so much that you would inconvenience yourself to see me. I am sorry for the atmospheric disharmonies of such a sickroom, but that you remained so long to reassure me gave me a hope and gratitude that, unfortunately, I did not have the strength to express in words at the time, for these pains come and go like the tides of a river.

I hope you noticed that I had by my bedside the silver watch chain token you had given me for my birthday — I will always treasure it, as I will your gracious and attentive friendship.

Your devoted servant,

H. M. Stanley

March 15

Dear Bula Matari,

Mother and I remain deeply concerned that your recovery is taking so long; we do miss your company, and though I have remained busy as ever painting my beloved ragamuffins and with the gaieties of my life here in London, I look to the day when you are well again: Please tell me that you will get better.

Lovingly yours,

Dolly

NOT UNTIL LATE MARCH did he feel well enough to leave his flat, but even then he could barely walk without difficulty and exhaustion. His body having been drained of its strength, Stanley required the assistance of a cane, and he, on a milk diet, had lost so much weight that he was loath to come face-to-face with Dolly. Several times she had written Stanley in those days, asking him to come and visit; or she would visit him, but, as he answered her: “Such is my lamentable condition that I would prefer that we wait, as I would not be very good company: And yet your gracious concern continues to give me strength and hope for better things to come.”

In the last week of March, advised by his physician to leave London and partake of the more congenial and healthful climes of Italy, Stanley, packing a portmanteau, slipped out of the city and crossed the Channel to France, his journey taking him to Nice, then to Rome. Thereafter, he headed north to spend a week in a resort on Lake Como. Then he went south: At Capri he visited, astride a donkey, the cliffside Villas of Tiberius; at Ischia he sought the cures of the island’s natural mineral springs; a few days later, he was in Naples, from which he visited its archaeological tourist attractions.

BACK IN LONDON THAT SUMMER, while Dorothy and her mother remained on holiday at friends’ estates in Scotland, Stanley decided that he had, all along, perhaps been too reticent and guarded in his feelings about Dorothy. Suddenly he felt consumed with “the all-important question”—a marriage proposal; for two weeks it haunted his thoughts, followed him into his sleep, met him at every corner. Finally he sent an uncharacteristically brief letter of proposal to Miss Tennant.

Her answer came promptly: a two-page missive along with a pressed rose. Although she made it clear in her reply that she cared deeply for Stanley, to his dismay he quickly realized that he was being rejected — and on the maddening grounds that he was too “great” a man.

August 15, 1886

Dear Samuel,

Since I have told you somewhat of my ongoing relations with Miss Tennant, and as it the kind of story that deserves some closure, I will tell you, without mincing words, that it has ended badly; in short, she has thrown me off, and it seems that I have wasted the past sixteen months living in a fool’s paradise. As a writer (and a fine one indeed), you surely know of the vacancy that occurs when you have let go of a book — there is a great void of mental activity and emotions to be filled — and this, alas, is what, upon reflection, made me particularly susceptible to her cunning and charms. In retrospect, it is no coincidence that I fell into her trap just after I had finished my book on the founding of the Congo Free State; if I hadn’t the time to while away in the first place, I doubt if I would have spent so many hours in that woman’s company or been swept up in her gush of compliments and fulsome adulations or put up with her obnoxious mother. Without going into the bloody details, I hope it will suffice to say that I have decided to stick, henceforth, to those things I do best; as I am apparently ill-suited for romance, I have resigned myself to my bachelorhood, for, as solitary as that may be, I can at least be free of female manipulations. Thankfully I have enough friendships to make it bearable. Which is to say, Samuel, that despite this debacle, I feel remarkably well and, truthfully, somewhat relieved that it is over.