ABSTRACT
Clemens, back in the States in March, wrote Livy that at first he thought he never wanted to live in Hartford again, that he didn't want to cross the threshold of their house. Knowing the power their home had over him, he feared surrendering to it. Livy empathized, for she had written Alice Day of spring on Farmington Avenue. “I think there is no season of the year when the place is so charming as during April, May and June,” she sadly commented when she agreed to rent her house. Once inside, Clemens was overcome with memories: “It took my breath away.” Katy Leary and the O'Neills had the house in order for the Days. “Katy had every rug and picture and ornament and chair exactly where they had always belonged.” It was as if they had never left. Time melted away; Livy must be upstairs with the children. Momentarily he knew security and peace for the first time in years, and he wanted to prolong the feeling. “I was seized with a furious desire to have us all in this house again and right way, and never go outside the grounds any more forever–”
