英文
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After she left the White House Mrs. Lincoln got into serious difficulties, and made an exhibition of herself that became national gossip.
In matters of household expense she was excessively penurious. It had long been customary for the Presidents to give a number of state dinners each season. But Mrs. Lincoln argued her husband into breaking the tradition, saying that these dinners were “very costly;” that these were war-times and public receptions would be more “economical.”
Lincoln had to remind her once that “we must think of something besides economy.”
When it came, however, to buying things that appealed to her vanity—such as dresses and jewelry—she not only forgot economy, but seemed bereft of all reason and indulged in a fantastic orgy of spending.
In 1861 she had come off the prairie, confidently expecting that as “Mrs. President” she would be the center of the glittering constellation of Washington society. But to her amazement and humiliation she found herself snubbed and ostracized by the haughty aristocrats of that Southern city. In their eyes, she, a Kentuckian, had been untrue to the South: she had married a crude, awkward “nigger-lover” who was making war upon them.
Besides, she had almost no likable personal qualities. She was, it must be admitted, a mean, common, envious, affected, mannerless virago.
Unable to attain social popularity herself, she was bitterly jealous of those who had achieved it. The then reigning queen of Washington society was the renowned beauty Adele Cutts Douglas, the woman who had married Mrs. Lincoln's former sweetheart, Stephen A. Douglas. The glamorous popularity of Mrs. Douglas and Salmon P. Chase's daughter, inflamed Mrs. Lincoln with envy, and she resolved to win social victories with money—money spent on clothes and jewelry for herself.
“To keep up appearances,” she told Elizabeth Keckley, “I must have money, more money than Mr. Lincoln can spare me. He is too honest to make a penny outside of his salary; consequently, I had, and still have, no alternative but to run in debt.”
In debt she plunged, to the extent of seventy thousand dollars! A staggering sum when we remember that Lincoln's salary as President was only twenty-five thousand, and that it would have taken every penny of his income for over two years and nine months to pay for her finery alone.
I have quoted several times from Elizabeth Keckley. She was an unusually intelligent negro woman who had bought her freedom and come to Washington to set up a dress-making shop. Within a short time she had the patronage of some of the capital's leading social figures.
From 1861 to 1865 she was with Mrs. Lincoln almost daily in the White House, making dresses and serving her as a personal maid. She finally became not only Mrs. Lincoln's confidante and adviser, but her most intimate friend. The night that Lincoln lay dying, the only person Mrs. Lincoln kept calling for was Elizabeth Keckley.
Fortunately for history, Mrs. Keckley wrote a book about her experiences. It has been out of print for half a century, but dilapidated copies can be purchased now and then from rare-book dealers for ten or twenty dollars. The title is rather long: “Behind the Scenes, by Elizabeth Keckley, Formerly a Slave, but More Recently Modiste and Friend to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln: Or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House.”
Elizabeth Keckley records that in the summer of 1864, when Lincoln was running for a second term, “Mrs. Lincoln was almost crazy with fear and anxiety.”
Why? One of her New York creditors had threatened to sue her; and the possibility that Lincoln's political enemies might get wind of her debts and use them as political thunder in the bitter campaign, drove her almost to distraction.
“If he is reelected, I can keep him in ignorance of my affairs; but if he is defeated, then the bills will be sent in, and he will know all,” she sobbed hysterically.
“I could go down on my knees,” she cried to Lincoln “and plead for votes for you.”
“Mary,” he remonstrated, “I am afraid you will be punished for this overwhelming anxiety. If I am to be elected, it will be all right; if not, you must bear the disappointment.”
“And does Mr. Lincoln suspect how much you owe?” inquired Mrs. Keckley.
And here was Mrs. Lincoln's answer, as reported on page 150 of “Behind the Scenes:”
“God, no!—this was a favorite expression of hers [Mrs. Lincoln's]— and I would not have him suspect. If he knew that his wife was involved to the extent that she is, the knowledge would drive him mad.”
“The only happy feature of Lincoln's assassination,” says Mrs. Keckley, “was that he died in ignorance of these debts.”
He hadn't been in his grave a week before Mrs. Lincoln was trying to sell his shirts with his initials marked on them, offering them at a shop on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Seward, hearing about it, went, with a heavy heart, and bought up the lot himself.
When Mrs. Lincoln left the White House, she took with her a score of trunks and half a hundred packing-boxes.
That created a good deal of nasty talk.
She had already been repeatedly and publicly accused of swindling the United States Treasury by falsifying an expenseaccount for the entertainment of Prince Napoleon, and her enemies pointed out that though she had come to the Executive Mansion with only a few trunks, she was now leaving it with a whole car-load of stuff.... Why?... Was she looting the place? Had she stripped it bare of everything she could?
Even as late as October 6, 1867—almost two and a half years after she left Washington—the “Cleveland Herald,” speaking of Mrs. Lincoln, said:
“Let the country know that it required one hundred thousand dollars to make good the spoliation at the White House, and let it be proved who had the benefit of such plundering.”
True, a great many things were stolen from the White House during the reign of the “rosy empress,” but the fault was hardly hers. She made mistakes, of course: one of the first things she did was to discharge the steward and a number of the other employees, saying she was going to superintend the place herself, and put it on an economical basis.
She tried it, and the servants purloined almost everything except the door-knobs and the kitchen stove. The “Washington Star” for March 9, 1861, records that many of the guests who attended the first White House reception lost their overcoats and evening wraps. It wasn't long before even the White House furnishings were being carted away.
Fifty packing-boxes and a score of trunks! What was in them? Trash, for the most part: useless gifts, statuary, worthless pictures and books, wax wreaths, deer-heads, and a lot of old clothes and hats hopelessly outmoded—things she had worn back in Springfield years before.
“She had a passion,” says Mrs. Keckley, “for hoarding old things.”
While she was packing, her son Robert, recently graduated from Harvard, advised her to put a match to the old trumpery. When she scorned the idea, he said:
“I hope to heaven that the car that carries these boxes to Chicago catches fire and burns up all your old plunder.”
The morning Mrs. Lincoln drove away from the White House, “there was scarcely a friend to tell her good-by,” records Mrs. Keckley. “The silence was almost painful.”
Even Andrew Johnson, the new President, failed to bid her farewell. In fact, he never even wrote her a line of sympathy after the assassination. He knew that she despised him, and he reciprocated her feelings.
Absurd as it seems now in the light of history, Mrs. Lincoln firmly believed then that Andrew Johnson had been back of the plot to assassinate Lincoln.
With her two sons, Tad and Robert, Lincoln's widow traveled to Chicago, stopped for a week at the Tremont House, found it too expensive, and moved to some “small, plainly-furnished” rooms at a summer resort called Hyde Park.
Sobbing because she couldn't afford better living quarters, she refused to see or even correspond with any of her former friends or relatives, and settled down to teaching Tad to spell.
Tad had been his father's favorite. His real name was Thomas, but Lincoln had nicknamed him “Tad” or “Tadpole” because as a baby he had had an abnormally large head.
Tad usually slept with his father. The child would he around the office in the White House until he fell asleep, and then the President would shoulder him and carry him off to bed. Tad had always suffered from a slight impediment in his speech, and his father humored him; and, so with the ingenuity of a bright boy, he used his handicap as a foil to ward off attempts to educate him. He was now twelve years old, but he could neither read nor write.
Mrs. Keckley records that during his first spelling lesson, Tad spent ten minutes arguing that “a-p-e” spelled monkey. The word was illustrated with a small woodcut of what he believed to be a monkey, and it required the combined efforts of three people to convince him that he was wrong.
Mrs. Lincoln used every means in her power to persuade Congress to give her the hundred thousand dollars that Lincoln would have been paid had he lived out his second term. When Congress refused she was vitriolic in her denunciation of the “fiends” who had blocked her plans with “their infamous and villainous falsehoods.”
“The father of wickedness and lies,” she said, “will get these hoary-headed sinners when they pass away.”
Congress did finally give her twenty-two thousand—approximately the amount that would have been due Lincoln had he served the rest of that year. With this she bought and furnished a marble-front house in Chicago.
Two years elapsed, however, before Lincoln's estate was settled; and, during that time, her expenses mounted and her creditors howled. Presently she had to take in roomers; then boarders; and at last she was obliged to give up her home and move into a boarding-house, herself.
Her exchequer became more and more depleted, until, in September, 1867, she was, as she phrased it, “pressed in a most startling manner for means of subsistence.”
So she packed up a lot of her old clothes and laces and jewelry, and, with her face hidden under a heavy crepe veil, she rushed to New York incognita, registered as a “Mrs. Clark,” met Mrs. Keckley there, gathered up an armful of worn dresses, got into a carriage, drove over to the second-hand clothing dealers on Seventh Avenue, and tried to sell her wardrobe. But the prices offered were disappointingly low.
She next tried the firm of Brady & Keyes, diamond brokers, at 609 Broadway. Listening with amazement to her story, they said:
“Now listen, put your affairs in our hands, and we will raise a hundred thousand dollars for you in a few weeks.”
That sounded rosy; so she wrote, at their request, two or three letters, telling of her dire poverty.
Keyes flaunted these letters in the face of the Republican leaders, threatening to publish them unless he got cash.
But the only thing he got from these men was their opinion of Mrs. Lincoln.
Then she urged Brady & Keyes to mail a hundred and fifty thousand circulars, appealing to the generosity of people everywhere for aid; but it was well-nigh impossible to get prominent men to sign the letter.
Boiling now with wrath at the Republicans, she turned for help to Lincoln's enemies. The New York “World” was a Democratic paper that had once been suspended by government order, and its editor arrested because of its violent attacks on Lincoln. Through its columns Mrs. Lincoln pleaded poverty, admitting that she was trying to sell not only her old clothes, but even such trifles as “a parasol cover” and “two dress patterns.”
It was just before a state election; so the Democratic “World” printed a letter from her, fiercely denouncing such Republicans as Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward, and Henry J. Raymond of the “New York Times.”
With its tongue in its cheek, “The World” solemnly invited its Democratic readers to send in cash contributions to care for the abandoned and suffering widow of the first Republican President. There were few contributions.
Next she tried to get the colored people to raise money for her, urging Mrs. Keckley to throw her heart and soul into the undertaking, and promising that if the Negroes raised twenty-five thousand dollars Mrs. Keckley would get a “cut” of three hundred dollars a year during Mrs. Lincoln's life, and all of the twenty-five thousand dollars at Mrs. Lincoln's death.
Then Brady & Keyes advertised a sale of her clothes and jewelry. Crowds thronged to their store, handling the dresses, criticizing them, declaring that they were out of style, that they were absurdly high-priced, that they were “worn” and “jagged under the arms and at the bottom of the skirts,” and had “stains on the lining.”
Brady & Keyes also opened a subscription-book at their store, hoping that if the sightseers would not buy they might donate money for Mrs. Lincoln.
Finally in despair, the merchants took her clothes and jewels to Providence, Rhode Island, intending to set up an exhibition and charge twenty-five cents admission. The city authorities wouldn't hear of it.
Brady & Keyes did finally sell eight hundred and twenty-four dollars' worth of her effects, but they charged eight hundred and twenty dollars for their services and expenses.
Mrs. Lincoln's campaign to raise money for herself not only failed, it also brought upon her a storm of public condemnation. Throughout the campaign she made a disgraceful exhibition of herself—and so did the public.
She “has dishonored herself, her country and the memory of her late lamented husband,” cried the Albany “Journal.”
She was a liar and a thief—such was the accusation brought against her by Thurlow Weed in a letter to the “Commercial Advertiser.”
For years, back in Illinois, she had been “a terror to the village of Springfield,” her “eccentricities were common talk,” and “the patient Mr. Lincoln was a second Socrates within his own dwelling—” so thundered the “Hartford Evening Press.” But the “Journal” of Springfield stated editorially that for years it had been known that she was deranged, and that she should be pitied for all her strange acts.
“That dreadful woman, Mrs. Lincoln,” complained the Springfield, Massachusetts, “Republican,” “insists on thrusting her repugnant personality before the world to the great mortification of the nation.”
Mortified by these attacks, Mrs. Lincoln poured out her broken heart in a letter to Mrs. Keckley:
Robert came up last evening like a maniac and almost threatening his life, looking like death because the letters of “The World” were published in yesterday's paper.... I weep whilst I am writing. I pray for death this morning. Only my darling Taddie prevents my taking my life.
Estranged now from her sisters and kindred, she finally broke even with Robert, defying and maligning him so bitterly that certain passages of her letters had to be deleted before publication.
When Mrs. Lincoln was forty-nine years old, she wrote the Negro dressmaker: “I feel as if I had not a friend in the world save yourself.”
No other man in United States history has been so respected and loved as Abraham Lincoln; and possibly no other woman in United States history has been so fiercely denounced as his wife.
Less than a month after Mrs. Lincoln had tried to sell her old clothes, Lincoln's estate was settled. It amounted to $110,295, and was divided equally among Mrs. Lincoln and her two sons, each receiving $36,765.
Mrs. Lincoln now took Tad abroad and lived in solitude, reading French novels and avoiding all Americans.
Soon she was pleading poverty again. She petitioned the United States Senate to grant her a yearly pension of five thousand dollars. The bill was greeted in the Senate with hisses from the gallery and words of abuse from the floor.
“It is a sneaking fraud!” cried Senator Howell of Iowa.
“Mrs. Lincoln was not true to her husband!” shouted Senator Yates of Illinois. “She sympathized with the rebellion. She is not worthy of our charity.”
After months of delay and torrents of condemnation she was finally given three thousand a year.
In the summer of 1871 Tad died of typhoid fever, passing away in violent agony. Robert, her only remaining son, was married.
Alone, friendless, and in despair, Mary Lincoln became the prey of obsessions. One day in Jacksonville, Florida, she bought a cup of coffee and then refused to drink it, swearing it was poisoned.
Boarding a train for Chicago, she wired the family physician, imploring him to save Robert's life. But Robert was not ill. He met her at the station and spent a week with her at the Grand Pacific Hotel, hoping to quiet her.
Often in the middle of the night she would rush to his room, declaring that fiends were attempting to murder her, that Indians “were pulling wires out of her brain,” that “doctors were taking steel springs out of her head.”
In the daytime she visited the stores, making absurd purchases, paying, for example, three hundred dollars for lace curtains when she had no home in which to hang them.
With a heavy heart Robert Lincoln applied to the County Court of Chicago, for a trial of his mother's sanity. A jury of twelve men decided that she was insane, and she was confined in a private asylum at Batavia, Illinois.
At the end of thirteen months she was, unfortunately, released— released, but not cured. Then the poor, ailing woman went abroad to live among strangers, refusing to write Robert or let him know her address.
One day while living alone in Pau, France, she mounted a step-ladder to hang a picture above the fireplace; the ladder broke, and she fell, injuring her spinal cord. For a long time, she was unable even to walk.
Returning to her native land to die, she spent her last days at the home of her sister Mrs. Edwards, in Springfield, saying over and over: “You ought to pray now that I be taken to my husband and children.”
Although she then had six thousand dollars in cash and seventy-five thousand in government bonds, nevertheless her mind was constantly racked by absurd fears of poverty, and she was haunted by the fear that Robert, then Secretary of War, would be assassinated like his father.
Longing to escape from the harsh realities that pressed upon her, she shunned every one, closed her doors and windows, pulled down the shades, darkened her room, and lighted a candle even when the sun was shining bright.
“No urging,” says her physician, “would induce her to go out into the fresh air.”
And there, amidst the solitude and soft quiet of the candlelight, her memory doubtless winged its way back across the cruel years, and, dwelling at last among the cherished thoughts of her young womanhood, she imagined herself waltzing once more with Stephen A. Douglas, charmed by his gracious manner and listening to the rich music of his melodious vowels and clear-cut consonants.
At times she imagined that her other sweetheart, a young man named Lincoln—Abraham Lincoln—was coming to court her that night. True, he was only a poor, homely, struggling lawyer who slept in an attic above Speed's store, but she believed he might be President if she could stimulate him to try hard, and, eager to win his love, she longed to make herself beautiful for him. Although she had worn nothing but the deepest black for fifteen years, she would, at such times, slip down to the stores in Springfield; and, according to her physician, she purchased and piled up “large quantities of silks and dress goods in trunks and by the cart load, which she never used and which accumulated until it was really feared that the floor of the store room would give way.”
In 1882, on a peaceful summer evening, the poor, tired, tempestuous soul was given the release for which she had so often prayed. Following a paralytic stroke, she passed quietly away in her sister's house where, forty years before, Abraham Lincoln had put on her finger a ring bearing the words: “Love is eternal.”
中文
32
离开白宫后，林肯夫人陷入了严重的困境，声名扫地，成了公众的谈资。
在家庭日常开销上，林肯夫人十分吝啬。按照长久以来的传统，总统一家每个季度都要举办一定次数的国宴。但是林肯夫人却强烈要求林肯打破传统，因为这些宴会“十分昂贵”，还说现在是战时，公众招待会应该“节俭一些”。
有一次林肯不得不提醒她：“除了节俭，我们还应该考虑其他事情。”
然而，一旦涉及那些能够满足她虚荣心的东西，例如裙子和珠宝，她不但忘记了节俭，而且会丧失理智般沉浸在花钱的狂欢中。
一八六一年，她从大草原来到华盛顿，她自信地以为，作为“林肯夫人”，她一定能成为名流荟萃的华盛顿社交圈的中心。然而，她惊讶又屈辱地发现，自己受到了这个南方城市中傲慢贵族的漠视和排斥。在南方贵族眼中，她是一个对南方不友好的肯塔基人，因为她嫁了一个粗鄙笨拙的、将战争强加在他们身上的“黑人爱好者”。
此外，她的性格也没有任何讨喜之处。必须承认的是，她是一个吝啬、普通、充满嫉妒心、情绪很容易受到影响、毫无教养的泼妇。
她自己无法受到追捧，因此十分嫉恨那些受欢迎的名媛。当时华盛顿社交圈的女王是著名的美人阿黛尔·卡茨·道格拉斯（Adèle Cutts Douglas），也是林肯夫人昔日的恋人史蒂芬·道格拉斯的夫人。道格拉斯夫人和萨蒙·蔡斯的女儿那无与伦比的受欢迎程度激起了林肯夫人的妒忌心，因此她决定用钱来给自己带来名望——为自己买昂贵的衣服和首饰。
“为了撑场面，”她对伊丽莎白·凯克利说，“我必须要有钱。林肯先生给我的那些钱根本不够用。他为人太诚实了，除了薪水，一分钱也不会贪。结果是，我不得不负债累累。”
林肯夫人的债务高达七万美金。这是一个庞大的数字，因为林肯作为总统一年的薪水是两万五千美金。他必须不吃不喝两年零九个月才能买得起她的那些奢侈品。
我好几次都引用了伊丽莎白·凯克利的话。她是一位非常聪明的黑人女性。获得自由后，她来到了华盛顿，开了一家裁缝店。没过多久，她就得到了华盛顿名流的赞誉。
一八六一至一八六五年间，她几乎每天都在白宫为林肯夫人做衣服，并像贴身女仆一样伺候她的起居。最后，她不仅成了林肯夫人的知己和顾问，更成了林肯夫人最亲密的伙伴。林肯中枪那晚，林肯夫人唯一呼喊的人便是伊丽莎白·凯克利。
值得庆幸的是，凯克利夫人将自己的经历写成了一本书。这本书已绝版了半个世纪，但是偶尔也能从善本商手中花费十或二十美金买到一两本残破的复本。这本书的名字很长：《幕后——昔日的奴隶，今日的服装店女老板，林肯夫人的密友伊丽莎白·凯克利为您讲述她的三十年奴隶生涯和四年白宫生涯》。
伊丽莎白·凯克利写道，一八六四年夏天，当林肯为连任而忙碌的时候，“林肯夫人因恐惧和焦虑而陷入了疯狂。”
为什么呢？林肯夫人的一位纽约债主威胁说要起诉她。若让林肯的政敌听到她负债累累的风声，他们一定会借此在激烈的竞选过程中搅起腥风血雨。一想到这一点，林肯夫人便焦虑得寝食难安。
“如果他能连任，那我就能瞒住他。可是如果他失败了，他们就会寄账单来，他马上就会知道这一切。”她歇斯底里地哭着说道。
“我会跪下为你祈祷，”她哭着对林肯说，“希望你能得到更多的选票。”
“玛丽，”林肯责备道，“我担心你会因为过分焦虑而倒下。如果我能连任，那固然很好，但如果不能，你也要承受得住失落。”
“林肯先生有没有怀疑你在外面欠了钱？”凯克利夫人问道。
根据《幕后》第一百五十页上的内容，林肯夫人是这样回答的：
“上帝啊，不行！”——这是林肯夫人最喜欢说的一句话——“我不会让他怀疑的。如果他知道自己的妻子欠了那么多债，他会发疯的。”
“林肯遭遇暗杀这件事唯一令人感到欣慰的是，”凯克利夫人写道，“他至死也不知道这笔债务。”
林肯下葬后还不到一个星期，林肯夫人便将林肯那些绣着他名字首字母的衬衫拿到了宾夕法尼亚大街上的一间店铺里，打算卖掉它们换钱。
苏华德听说后怀着沉重的心情跑去那家商店，买走了林肯所有的遗物。
林肯夫人离开白宫的时候，随身带走了二十个行李箱和五十个包裹。
这引起了极大的非议。
她早就因为伪造招待拿破仑亲王的费用账单骗取国库钱财而受到了公开又持续的谴责。同时她的敌人们也指出，当初她来到白宫时只带了几个行李箱，现在却带着一车的东西离开……这些东西是从哪里来的？她有没有趁乱洗劫白宫？她是否拿走了所有能拿的东西？
即便到了一八六七年十月六日——她离开华盛顿两年半后——《克利夫兰先驱报》在提到林肯夫人时是这样说的：
“要让全国人民知道，白宫被掠走的东西价值十万美金。要证明给民众看，这一掠夺行动到底便宜了谁？”
诚然，在“绯色皇后”掌权期间，白宫确实丢失了很多东西，但也很难说是林肯夫人的错。当然，她犯了错误：一到白宫后，她做的第一件事便是辞退了管家和一些员工，声称出于节约考虑，她表示自己可以管好这个地方。
于是她接管了白宫的内务。除了门把手和厨房的炉子，仆人们几乎把白宫偷空了。一八六一年三月九日，《华盛顿之星》报道说，很多第一次参加白宫招待会的客人都说他们的外套和宽罩衫不见了。没过多久，甚至连白宫的家具也被运了出去。
五十个包裹和二十个行李箱！里面都装了些什么？大多数都是垃圾：没用的礼品、雕像、不值钱的画和书、蜡花环、鹿头，还有一大堆已经完全过时的衣物——那些她在春田市时穿的衣服。
“她对囤积旧物，”凯克利夫人说，“有着一种别样的热情。”
当林肯夫人收拾行李的时候，她那刚从哈佛毕业的儿子罗伯特建议她烧了那些中看不中用的垃圾。她对此嗤之以鼻。罗伯特说：
“我真希望载着这些包裹的马车在去芝加哥的路上着火，然后烧光你的这些战利品。”
林肯夫人离开白宫那天早晨，“没有一个朋友来为她送行。”凯克利夫人写道，“当时的情景冷清得令人难受。”
即便是新上任的总统安德鲁·约翰逊也没有来和她告别。事实上，林肯暗杀事件过后，他甚至连一句安慰的话都没有写给她。他知道林肯夫人讨厌自己，因此也用行动回应了她。
虽然现在看来很荒唐，但在当时，林肯夫人深信安德鲁·约翰逊是林肯暗杀事件背后的主使。
林肯的遗孀带着她的两个儿子泰德和罗伯特去往芝加哥。他们在蒙特饭店逗留了一个星期，发现花销太贵了，于是搬到了海德公园避暑山庄内“狭小、陈设简单”的房间里。
因为承担不起优越生活的花销，她黯然落泪。她和以前的亲戚朋友断绝了联系，安顿下来教泰德读书写字。
泰德是林肯最宠爱的儿子。他的真名叫托马斯，但是林肯总是叫他“泰德”或者“小蝌蚪”，因为他出生时脑袋大得出奇。
泰德通常都和爸爸一起睡。有的时候他躺在白宫的办公室里，躺着躺着便睡着了，然后总统就会将他扛在肩上放到床上去。泰德有一点儿口吃，于是林肯总喜欢逗他。泰德很聪明，他以自己的口吃为托词拒绝了各种受教育的机会。因此他现在已经十二岁了，但仍旧不识字。
凯克利夫人写道，泰德第一次上拼写课的时候，花了十分钟争辩猿应该写成猴子。他曾在一块木版画上见过这个词，他一直认为那块木板上画的是猴子。最后，三个人费了好大劲才说服了他。
林肯夫人想尽一切办法说服国会向她支付十万美金，理由是若林肯活着结束连任，他就能拿到那么多薪水。国会拒绝了她的请求，于是她刻薄地咒骂那些阻碍她计划的“朋友”是“声名狼藉、无恶不作的骗子”。
“这些头发花白的罪人死的时候，”她说，“邪恶之父会把他们带向地狱。”
最后，国会给了她两万两千美金——相当于林肯工作到当年年底的薪水。她用这笔钱在芝加哥买了一栋前院铺着大理石的房子。
两年过去了，但是林肯的遗产还没有处理妥当。在这期间，她的花销不断增加，她的债主也非常生气。现在，她不得不接受房客，然后是寄宿的人。最后她不得不放弃了自己的房子，搬去了寄宿式旅馆。
她的钱眼看就要用完了，到了一八六七年九月，用她自己的话说，她已经“为了寻求生活物资而处于一种十分窘迫的境地”。
于是，她打包了自己的旧衣物、饰物和珠宝，戴上厚重的面纱，赶到纽约，化名“克拉克夫人”。她与凯克利夫人碰了面，抱着一包旧裙子，雇了辆马车，驶向第七大道上的一家二手衣物店。但是店主的出价低得令人十分失望。
接着她又来到了百老汇大街609号的布雷迪-凯斯公司。这是一家钻石代理公司。听了林肯夫人令人震惊的故事后，他们说：
“听着，把你的东西给我们，我们会在几个星期内给你弄十万美金。”
这听起来很不错，于是她按照他们的要求，写了两三页纸，痛诉自己贫困交加的境况。
凯斯将这几张纸拿到了共和党领导人面前，威胁他们说如果不给他现金，就将它们发表。
但是共和党的领导人只是评价了林肯夫人几句，其他什么也没做。
接着林肯夫人要求布雷迪-凯斯公司替她向外界发送十五万份传单，向全社会的慷慨人士求助，但是没有哪位重要人物愿意为林肯夫人签名。
林肯夫人对共和党怒火中烧，于是转而向林肯的敌人求助。纽约的《世界报》是一家民主党报纸，曾一度被政府下令停刊。它的主编也因猛烈抨击林肯而遭到了逮捕。林肯夫人在《世界报》上诉说着自己的贫困，坦言自己打算卖掉旧衣物，以及像“一个阳伞套和两套裙装底样”这类琐碎的东西。
当时正是大选前夕，于是民主党的《世界报》刊登了林肯夫人的信，强烈谴责共和党的瑟洛·威德、威廉·苏华德以及《纽约时报》的亨利·雷蒙德（Henry J．Raymond）。
为了挖苦共和党，《世界报》庄重地邀请民主党读者为共和党第一任总统那被遗弃的、生活窘迫的遗孀捐款。然而，捐款的数额很少。
接着，林肯夫人又打算发动黑人为自己筹钱。她敦促凯克利夫人全身心地投入这件事中，并承诺若能从黑人那儿筹集两万五千美金，那么凯克利夫人就能在林肯夫人有生之年每年得到三百美金的好处费，并在林肯夫人去世后能拿到全部的捐款。
接着布雷迪-凯斯公司刊登了广告，要在店内售卖林肯夫人的旧衣物和珠宝。人们闻讯而来，拿着裙子评头论足，说这些裙子早就过时了，说这些衣服标价太高，还说这些衣服“十分破旧，腋下和裙底都磨损了，内里还有污渍”。
布雷迪-凯斯公司还在店铺内设置了一个认捐簿，希望来访的客人即便不愿意买下那些衣物，也能为林肯夫人捐一点儿钱。
最后，两位商人失望地将她的衣服和珠宝带到了罗得岛州的普罗维登斯，打算在那里举办一场收费展览，每张票二十五美分。但是普罗维登斯市当局根本听都不想听这件事。
林肯夫人的衣物最终卖了八百二十四美金，但是布雷迪-凯斯公司却收取了八百二十美金的服务费。
林肯夫人的筹钱运动不仅失败了，而且还引起了公众强烈的谴责。在整个过程中，她不顾廉耻地展出自己，公众也毫不犹豫地展露了他们无情的一面。
“她不仅侮辱了她自己，侮辱了她的国家，还侮辱了她死去的丈夫。”《奥尔巴尼日报》这样写道。
她是个骗子，还是一个小偷——瑟洛·威德在给《商业广告杂志》的信中这样谴责她道。
多年来，在伊利诺伊州，林肯夫人一直是“春田市的噩梦”，“她那古怪的脾气是人们津津乐道的话题”，“林肯先生在家中的忍耐力堪比第二个苏格拉底”——《哈特福特晚间新闻报》如是说。但是《春田市日报》主编却写道，多年来大家都知道林肯夫人精神不大正常，因此对于她那些奇怪的举动，我们应该报以同情。
“林肯夫人那个可怕的女人，”春田市的《共和党报》抱怨道，“坚持要将自己那令人讨厌的一面呈现在世人面前，从而成为全国的笑柄。”
面对这些辱骂，林肯夫人将自己破碎的心在信中展现给了凯克利夫人：
罗伯特昨晚回来时好像疯了一样，面如死灰，似乎没命了一般。因为昨天《世界报》把那些信登了出来……我一边哭一边给你写信。我祈祷明天早晨让我死掉算了。但是我放不下我的小泰德。
在与姐妹和其他亲属疏远了之后，她最终和罗伯特也决裂了。她公然地挖苦、诽谤自己的儿子，以至于她的信件必须将写罗伯特的段落删减后才能发表。
林肯夫人四十九岁时给她的黑人裁缝写信说道：“我觉得在这个世上，除了你，我再也没有朋友了。”
在美国历史上，没有哪位总统像林肯那样受到了如此崇高的尊敬和爱戴，同时，大概也没有哪位总统夫人像林肯夫人那样，受到了如此强烈的谴责和唾弃。
林肯夫人想方设法变卖二手衣物后一个月，林肯的遗产处理好了。林肯的遗产共约十一万零两百九十五美金，被林肯夫人和她的两个儿子平分了，每人三万六千七百六十五美金。
林肯夫人将泰德送出国后独自隐居，读法国小说，不和任何美国人接触。
没过多久，她又开始哭穷了。她向美国参议院请愿，要求每年向她支付五千美金的抚恤金。这个要求招来了参议院上上下下里里外外的嘘声和鄙视。
“这是无耻的敲诈！”爱荷华州的参议员豪厄尔这样说道。
“她和她的丈夫根本不是一路人。”伊利诺伊州的参议员耶茨说，“她同情叛军，根本不值得我们捐助。”
经过数月的耽搁和谴责，她最终得到了每年三千美金的退休金。
一八七一年夏天，泰德在极度的痛苦中死于伤寒。同时，林肯夫人剩下的唯一的儿子罗伯特也结了婚。
孤独，没有朋友，绝望。就这样，林肯夫人成了强迫症的猎物。有一天，在佛罗里达州的杰克逊维尔，她买了一杯咖啡，但拒绝喝掉，因为她坚持认为里面下了毒。
她登上回芝加哥的火车时给家庭医生发了电报，恳求他挽救罗伯特的生命。但是罗伯特并没有生病。罗伯特在车站接到了她，陪她在太平洋大酒店住了一个星期，一直试图安抚她。
半夜的时候，她总是冲到罗伯特的房间，声称有恶魔要谋害她，她说印第安人“从她脑子里拔出了金属丝”，还说医生“从她脑子里拿出了钢发条”。
白天的时候，她便四处逛街，买一些匪夷所思的东西。例如，她花三百美金买了一套奢华的蕾丝窗帘，可她连挂的地方都没有。
罗伯特·林肯带着沉重的心情向芝加哥地方法院申请判定他母亲的精神状况。由十二人组成的陪审团最终判定她患有精神疾病，接着她便被送往了伊利诺伊州巴达维亚的一家私立精神病院。
十三个月后，她被放了出来，但并未痊愈。于是这个生病的可怜女人去了国外，和陌生人住在一起，甚至拒绝给罗伯特写信，不让他知道自己的地址。
她在法国波城独居的时候，有一天她爬上梯子，想在壁炉上方挂一幅画。结果梯子坏了，她摔了下来，摔伤了脊髓，因此很长一段时间她都无法走路。
林肯夫人回到了故土，在春田市自己姐姐爱德华夫人家中度过了人生最后的时光。弥留之际她不断地说：“你现在应该祈祷，保佑我很快就能见到我的丈夫和儿子们。”
尽管当时她有六千美金现金以及七万五千美金政府债券，但她仍然荒谬地害怕贫穷，同时也总是担心当时的战争部长罗伯特会像他的父亲那样遭遇暗杀。
她不愿面对艰难的现实，于是将自己关在房间里，什么人都不见。她锁上门，关上窗，拉上窗帘，不让阳光照进房间，然后在房间里点上一支蜡烛，即便当时外面正艳阳高照。
“无论怎么劝，”她的私人医生说，“她都不肯出来呼吸一下新鲜空气。”
在那孤单而昏黄的烛光下，她的记忆越过那些残酷的岁月，回到了还是少女时的韶华岁月。她想着自己再一次和斯蒂芬·道格拉斯共舞华尔兹，沉醉在他那亲切的举止和浑厚动听的嗓音中。
偶尔她也会想起自己的另一位心上人，那位名叫林肯——亚伯拉罕·林肯的小伙子在那天晚上向她示爱。确实，他既没钱，长得也不好看，只是一个住在斯皮德杂货铺楼上的小律师，但是她相信，在自己的鞭策下，这个小伙子一定能成为总统。于是她努力取悦他，最后赢得了他的婚姻。虽然十五年来她只穿黑色的衣服，但是她会在特定的时候前往春田市的商店。据她的医生回忆，她买了“一大堆丝绸衣物和成箱的裙子，每次都是满满一马车。但她从来都不穿，只是堆在那里，真担心储藏室的地板承受不住塌掉”。
一八八二年，在一个平静的夏夜，这个疲惫而暴虐的可怜灵魂终于得到了解脱。这是她期盼已久的事情。因中风而全身瘫痪后，她在姐姐家中平静地离世了。四十年前，就是在这里，亚伯拉罕·林肯为她戴上了那枚刻着“爱是永恒”的戒指。
