You and I have been happy; we haven’t been happy just once, we’ve been happy a thousand times. The chances that the spring, that’s for everyone, like in the popular songs, may belong to us too— the chances are pretty bright at this time because as usual, I can carry most of contemporary literary opinion, liquidated, in the hollow of my hand—and when I do, I see the swan floating on it and—I find it to be you and you only. But, Swan, float lightly because you are a swan, because by the exquisite curve of your neck the gods gave you some special favor, and even though you fractured it running against some man-made bridge, it healed and you sailed onward. Forget the past— what you can of it, and turn about and swim back home to me, to your haven for ever and ever—even though it may seem a dark cave at times and lit with torches of fury; it is the best refuge for you—turn gently in the waters through which you move and sail back.
This sounds allegorical but is very real. I want you here. The sadness of the past is with me always. The things that we have done together and the awful splits that have broken us into war survivals in the past stay like a sort of atmosphere around any house that I inhabit. The good things and the first years together, and the good months that we had two years ago in Montgomery will stay with me forever, and you should feel like I do that they can be renewed, if not in a new spring, then in a new summer. I love you my darling, darling.
P.S.98 Did I tell you that, among others, Adele Lovett came in and bought a picture and so did Louise Perkins and the Tommy Daniels from St. Paul? Will see that the Dick Myers get one free.99
144. TO SCOTT
ALS, 4 pp.
[After April 26, 1934]
[Craig House, Beacon, New York]
Dearest Do-Do:
Thanks for your long sweet letter: I have just finished part I of your book again. It is the most beautiful prose, without a wasted or irrelevant word. It is also very moving and a fine presentation of those sunlit places, which its bright glare finally faded and streaked—perhaps to dimmer nuances. In fact, Do-Do, it’s a swell book and well imbued with that sense of impersonal tragedy, as good books should be: of individual happiness drained to fill out the schemes for momentary pleasure-theories. Also, you have kept beautifully intact the personalities against so vivid a mise-en-scene that any lesser creations would have been submerged in the glitter. It is a beautiful book.
You seem afraid that it will make me recapitulate the past: remember, that at that time, I was immersed in something else—and I guess most of life is a re-hashing of the tragedies and happinesses of which it consisted in days before we started to promulgate reasons for their being so. Of cource, it is a haunting book—everything good is haunting because it calls to light something new in our consciousness
Scott: this place is most probably hidiously expensive. I do not want you to struggle through another burden like the one in Switzerland for my sake. You write too well. Also, you know that I live much within myself and would feel less strongly now than under normal circumstances about whatever you wanted to do. You have not got the right, for Scottie’s sake, and for the sake of letters to make a drudge of yourself for me.
I’m awfully glad the pictures go well: you know the ones that are yours and I gave those white anenomies to Dr. Rennie. Also I do not want that portrait of Egorowa sold. Cary has been so nice—Ask what he would like and I will try to paint it for him. I have just finished one of the Plage at Antibes. Maybe you’d like to swop it for your foot-ball players—though it is not so good—
Love
Zelda.
145. TO SCOTT
ALS, 4 pp.
[May 1934]
[Craig House, Beacon, New York]
Dearest:
You sounded so all-in over the telephone. Please don’t. If you want to ally yourself with a progressive aesthetic movement, you will have to not pay any attention to those static commentaries on the moment which is the business of newspaper critics, etc. I read you that lovely passage from Aristotle about men loving their reasons for living more than what they loved. It was like Dick Diver. There is also a beautiful and moving passage in Plato concerning the political unsuccess of the oligarchy, tunocracy[?] etc; which seems relevant to your particular purpose. You will find the page turned down if you want to read it. It concerns the fallibility of human nature. It is very poignant and is what killed my curiosity to read Karl Marx. Your book is a beautiful and moving story of a man’s disillusionment and its relative values against the social back-ground in which he counts most. So don’t pay any attention to the people who have never felt the individual responsibility of conforming to opinions dealing in futures[?] or the necessity of passing judgment on the present but be glad that you have successfully recorded our times and an ego meeting as best it could the compromises that killed it, eventually.
Besides all of which, it is expressed in an ecstatic and aspirational prose that I guess most critics are too absorbed in earning a living to yield the tempo of journalism to—
It was silly to get Bill Warren to work on the scenario—but I hope it will be good. Having a certain flare for the dramatic the boy has chosen to use it for theatrics. Yours, is a psychological drama and I’m sure Dr. Rennie would have been of lots more help—because the material is all there: “the difference between what is and what might have been,” says Baker, makes a play.
However, it’s none of my business. What is my business is that, under the circumstances, I do not see how you can reasonably expect me to go on unworriedly spending god-knows-how-much-a-day when we haven’t got it to spend. You must realize to that one as ill as I am, one place is not very different from another and that I would appreciate your working whatever adjustments would rend[er] your life less difficult—
Love Zelda
146. TO SCOTT
ALS, 3 pp.
[May 1934]
[Craig House, Beacon, New York]
Dearest Do-Do
Whenever you are ready to make the change, I will be ready to go. I am awfully home-sick in spite of the beauties of this place. If you do not feel up to making the trip, I am sure Dr. Slocum100 could arrange some way that might spare you the expense of coming up after me.
Although Zelda’s letter reads lucidly, her handwriting reveals that her condition was worsening. Courtesy of Princeton University Library
D. O: you know that I do not feel as you do about state institutions. Dr. Myers and, I suppose, many excellent doctors did their early training there. You will have to conceal as much of this from Scottie as you can anyway. So, in the words of Ernest Hemmingway, save yourself. That is what I want you to do. You have had a terrible financial struggle lately, and if there were any way that I could relieve you of any part of the burden, you know how gladly I would contribute any cooperation—which seems[?] to be all I have to offer.
I am so glad your book is on the list of best sellers.101 Maybe now you will have some measure of that ease and security you have so long deserved. Anyway, I hope it sells and sells
Devotedly
Zelda
SHEPPARD AND ENOCH PRATT HOSPITAL, TOWSON, MARYLAND,
MAY 19, 1934–APRIL 7, 1936
On May 19, 1934, Zelda transferred from Craig House to Sheppard-Pratt, where she would remain for nearly two years. The hospital grounds actually bordered the Turnbull estate and La Paix, where Zelda and Scott had lived earlier. Therefore, the countryside was familiar and reassuring to her; and Scott, who was still living at 1307 Park Avenue in Baltimore, was only a few minutes away. Unhappy that he had seen Zelda only twice while she was at Craig House, he reluctantly agreed to Zelda’s doctors’ request that he not visit her during the first two weeks. Zelda was deeply depressed, appeared apathetic, and began slipping into a frighteningly disoriented condition in which she experienced aural hallucinations. Empathizing with Zelda’s despair—which resembled his own, the publication of his novel having failed to lift him out of his depression—Scott tried to draw her back into sanity by encouraging her
to organize her work.
Two gaps exist in this section of letters: first, from the fall of 1934 until February of 1935, during which Scott was allowed to make frequent visits to the hospital and Zelda was able to spend Christmas at home with Scott and Scottie, making letters unnecessary; and then again from the fall of 1935 to April 1936, when Zelda began alternating between a religious mania, during which she was often incoherent, and a depressive silence in which she spoke to no one. Meanwhile, Scott went through the motions of living and even had a brief affair with Beatrice Dance, a wealthy married woman he met in Asheville, North Carolina. But his own already problematic health weakened as he continued to drink. An April 1936 Ledger entry—“Me caring about no one nothing” (Ledger 197)—summed up his despair.
147. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 4 pp.
1307 Park Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland, May 31, 1934.
Talked with Dr. Murdoch102 on the phone and he thought that you were worrying about my worrying about you—if you can get that complicated point. I am always worrying about you and Scottie when you are not near me but that is simply a temperamental peculiarity that I have gotten used to. It is just worrying for worrying’s sake and is not founded on any reality. Actually I am very cheered by the thought that you are within hearing distance again and am looking forward to the time when you will be closer than that. Life here has been very tranquil. Have made one of my usual mistakes in judgment in embarking on about five mutually exclusive enterprises: 1. a Post story,103 2. a second story for the Red Book,104 3. a funny offer from United Artists to jazz up some episode from Cellini’s biography to help the sale of the picture release which is imminent,105 4. an idea of staging Ring’s short plays— which has just come out with Gilbert Seldes doing the editing.106 I am thinking of lopping off the two last and getting down to business.
The trip to Virginia Beach was a complete flop as far as weather was concerned—we ran into what amounted to a very dismal mistral—and while, as you know, I always love to see the Taylor clan,107 things were all indoors. Perhaps it was just as well because Scottie, being inflicted with poison ivy on her bottom, didn’t have to see other people using the surf for a good time. However, I sat around and smoked too much and got no special profit out of the trip.
While I think of it I am enclosing a letter from Tommy Hitchcock108 which came with his check for the drawing he bought. I opened it by mistake.
To go back to domestic matters, Scottie is in good health generally and my plan is, roughly, to send her for a week that will elapse between her examinations and the beginning of a camp down to Norfolk with Cousin Ceci who would devote good attention to her and to board them at some reasonable hotel at Virginia Beach. That is to avoid a whole week here where I would have to spend much of my time playing nurse maid for her because I do not entirely like the way the children of this neighborhood behave when they run loose and the business of transportation out to the suburban districts is a little onerous especially on Saturday afternoons and Sundays when Mrs. Owens is not here. By the way she has just been invited to spend the week-end after examinations with the Ridgelys. About the camps, she seems to want to go to one of the bigger ones so I suppose she will go to either Aloha or Wyonegonic, both of which I started to investigate last year. I am still hoping that we can go to Europe toward the latter half of the summer, even if only for six weeks, whether we decide to go alone or leave Scottie in camp.
We went to tea at the Woodwards yesterday. I got into a heavy political argument with a Hitlerite. Then our incessant friend, Madam Swann,109 telephoned for Scottie and me to come there for dinner, which we did and which reinforced my feeling that she is a beheaded poullet trying to do her best but without any consistent method.
Honey, may I ask you seriously to control your reading, not going in so much for heavy books or books that refer you back to those dark hours in Paris? I know what ill effects on my ease, sleep, appetite, etc. can be caused by getting disturbed by something I’ve read and I should guess that would be doubly true in a case like yours where you are trying to get a real rest cure. However, the doctors will probably keep an eye on that.
148. TO SCOTT
ALS, 2 pp.
[Early June 1934]
[Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Towson, Maryland]
Dearest:
I am so glad all goes as well as could be expected—and I am miserable in thinking of the unhappiness my illness has caused you. I will cooperate to the best of my ability with the doctors and do all that I can to achieve a quick recovery.
Darling—I feel very disoriented and lonely. I love you, dearheart. Please try to love me some in spite of these stultifying years of sickness—and I will compensate you some way for your love and faithfullness.
I’m sorry Scottie has had poison ivy. The other day when I kissed her good-bye the little school-child scent of her neck and her funny little hesitant smile broke my heart. Be good to her Do-Do.
Dr. Murdock tells me you will be here until fall. Darling: I want so to see you. Maybe sometimes before very long I will be well enough to meet you under the gracious shadows of these trees and we can look out on the distant fields to-gether. And I will be getting better—
Dearest Love
Zelda
149. TO SCOTT
ALS, 2 pp.
[After June 9, 1934]
[Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Towson, Maryland]
Dearest Do-Do—
I was amused to read in the New Yorker the praise of Gilbert for his recognition of Ring.110 Never mind: your biography will be written. Dr. Ellgin111 said you wanted me to read more so I am reading: The Alchemist and Edward II—also I am absorbed in the travel adds. For $600 (2) dollars we could go to Oberamagau, tourist class via Berlin + Munich—including all expenses for a 3 wks trip. We could! I look nostalgicly on all the sun-burned people in the advertizements lolling on boats and beaches and think of the good times we only half appreciated. They are so young and soignées in the pictures.
It seems rather Proustian to be rambling these deep shades again so close to La Paix. It makes me sad, but it is a lovely landscape—the trees, and clouds like cotton-candy, very still and festive about the clover. And I think of your book and it haunts me. So beautiful a book.
I wish we could spend July by the sea, browning ourselves and feeling water-weighted hair flow behind us from a dive. I wish our gravest troubles were the summer gnats. I wish we were hungry for hot-dogs and dopes112 and it would be nice to smell the starch of summer linens and the faint odor of talc in blistering bath-houses. Or we could go to the Japanese Gardens with Kay Laurel and waste a hundred dollars staging conceptions of gaiety. We could lie in long citroneuse beams of the five o’clock sun on the plage at Juan-les-Pins and hear the sound of the drum and piano being scooped out to sea by the waves. Dust and alfalfa in Alabama, pines and salt at Antibes, the lethal smells of city streets in summer, buttered pop-corn and axel grease at Coney Island and Virginia beach—and the sick-sweet smells of old gardens at night, verbena or phlox or night-blooming stock—we could see if all those are still there.
It is rather disquieting to read of the importance of bangs and linen handkerchiefs, new brands of perfume and new lines to bathing-suits in the papers. I wish I had something—D. O!
When are you coming to see me?
Love, darling, and love to my sweet little Scottie
Zelda
150. TO SCOTT
ALS, 1 p.
[June 1934]
[Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Towson, Maryland]
Dearest Do-Do—
I miss you so. I look out over this dreamy summer panorama and I miss you. I think of the leaves rustling about the top of the gums at “La Paix” and I am so sorry for the unhappy times we had in that house and I am lonesome for the sense that you are near. These billowy blue skies dragging the hot fields behind like some fantastic dredge for the June hours and the rhodendrun so pompously bursting the
shadows overwhelm me with a sense of how many nice things there are. And I wish we could be going some place together—
Mrs Turnbull sent me a lovely basket of flowers a couple of weeks ago. Could Mrs. Owen’s phone and thank her for me?
I suppose Scottie has gone. I hate to think of you all alone in the house. Why don’t you go some nice place for summer? All gay with guitars, a world swung above black, reflecting water beneath a dance pavillion would make you feel young again—or maybe some new way.
If you’ll send Scottie’s address I’d like to write her when I’m better. I hope she didn’t disappoint you in school.
Love, my darling—
Zelda
151. TO ZELDA
TL (CC), 4 pp.
1307 Park Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland, June 13, 1934.
Dear Zelda:
I am dictating this letter because there is so much that it’s got to cover and I want you to have it there for reference because each point is important.
First and foremost I called Perkins this morning on an idea that I have had for a long time which is the publication of a representative group of your short pieces.113 I want to do this if only for the salutary effect on you of keeping your hand in during this period of inaction. I did not call Max with the idea of getting him to publish such a collection which, since he is committed to an amalgamation of mine for the same season,114 he naturally would shy away from it but with the idea that he could suggest a publisher who would take a chance on the idea. I break off here to include a suggestion for the general line up of the book:
Table of Contents
Introduction by F. Scott Fitzgerald (about 500 words)
Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda Page 22