by Amanda Vaill
“We’re both at the complete”: FL to GCM, undated [Saturday 16], HMD (my translation).
[>] “the price isn’t important”: Ibid., undated, HMD (my translation).
“We don’t buy pictures . . . all right”: GCM to SWM, 5 Feb. 1936, HMD.
Thus the Murphys acquired . . . grande feuille: The Murphys seem to have owned at least three Légers—this one, which was painted in 1927; Composition à un profil; and Accordion, which was painted in 1924 and dedicated to Sara at that time with an inscription on the back reading “à la bonne amitié.” Nature morte was sold in April 1989 by the dealer Guy Loudmer in Paris after having been in the possession of another owner; there is no definitive documentation that this was the painting taken in exchange for the gift of $1,, but the process of elimination suggests it. Gerald Murphy later said that he and Sara had given two other Légers to the Museum of Modern Art in 1931, but there is no record of these paintings in the Léger catalogue raisonné.
“thanks to you two . . . eternally grateful”: FL to GCM, 23 Jan. 1936, HMD (my translation).
He weighed only fifty-nine pounds: SWM to FSF, 3 Apr. 1935, PUL.
“on the mend”: SWM to EH and PH, 11 Sept. 1935, JFK.
“Dear Scott”: GCM to FSF, 11 Aug. 1935, PUL.
[>] “Dearest Sara”: FSF to SWM, 15 Aug. 1935, HMD.
20. “Life itself has stepped in now”
[>] “raw to the feelings . . . lot of good”: SWM to FSF, 20 Aug. [1935], PUL.
“very unhappy”: AMacL to EH, [14 Oct. 1936], JFK; Letters of Archibald MacLeish, pp. 284–85.
“My Dearest Scott”: SWM to FSF, 20 Aug. 1935, PUL.
“My Dearest Hemingways”: SWM to PH and EH, 11 Sept. 1935, JFK.
[>] “My Dearest Pauline”: SWM to PH, 18 Sept. [1935], JFK.
“My dearest Ernest”: SWM to EH, 18 Sept. [1935], JFK.
[>] “even though I knew . . . nobody coming”: EH to JDP, 17 Dec. 1935; Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, pp. 425–26.
“a crush”: James Mellow interview.
“maybe I am bad luck”: EH to SWM, 12 Sept. 1935, HMD.
[>] “It isn’t true”: SWM to EH, 18 Sept. [1935], JFK.
“Only place . . . sleep alone”: EH to SWM, 8 Dec. [1935], HMD.
By the winter . . . relationship had cooled: Mellow, Emest Hemingway, pp. 462–63.
“With very much love": EH to SWM, 8 Dec. [1935], HMD.
Gerald did his part . . . shape of a bell: ‘“Town Crier’ Scoops the City!” advertisement in GCM/Alexander Woollcott file, HU.
[>] “You show signs . . . strange gentlemen?”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, [summer 1939], HU.
“gift . . . valuable”: GCM to AMacL, 8 Feb. 1943, LOC.
lofty barn . . . four different churches: Description of house and location from personal on-site observation.
Dick and Alice Lee . . . Lake Placid in February: REM diary: Feb. 1936.
Honoria remembers her mother . . . doesn’t try to guess: HMD interview.
[>] “Of all our friends”: GCM to FSF, 31 Dec. 1935, PUL.
“Damn I wish . . . you were here, Sara”: EH to SWM, 11 Feb. 1936, HMD.
“Poor Sara” . . . mutual friend: Ibid., [27 Feb. 1936].
[>] “There is one . . . emotional pressure”: GCM to SWM, 16 Apr. 1936, HMD.
“Dear Sal . . . nothing much”: Ibid., 18 Apr. 1936.
[>] “active love”: TITN, p. 75.
“Thank God”: Gill, A New York Life, p. 324.
“deficiency . . . rotten”: GCM to SWM, 18 Apr. 1936, HMD.
After an inauspicious . . . bonito within two days: EH Notebooks 1936: 4–10 May, JFK.
“whining in public”: EH to Maxwell Perkins, 7 Feb. 1936; Emest Hemingway: Selected Letters, pp. 437–38.
“Do you really . . . all I know”: SWM to FSF, 3 Apr. [1936], PUL.
[>] One day . . . secluded cove: EH to SWM, 13 Jun. [1939], HMD.
And sometime during . . . their lives: SWM to EH, 20 May 1936, JFK.
“Some people . . . can’t imagine it”: John Hemingway interview.
“like a delicious”: SWM to EH, 20 May 1936, JFK.
“beautiful . . . turned out to be me”: PH to GCM, 17 Jul. [1935], HMD.
“About being snooty . . . yourself and Pauline”: SWM to EH, 20 May [1936], JFK.
[>] Now, in a story . . . “Kilimanjaro”: EH to Maxwell Perkins, 9 Apr. 1936, Emest Hemingway: Selected Letters, pp. 442–44. Hemingway’s biographer Michael Reynolds believes “Snows” was completed in April, but this letter to Perkins indicates it was still a work in progress at this point.
Although Hemingway had berated . . . kept in his files: Reynolds, Hemingway: The 1930s, p. 324.
[>] it was Sara Murphy . . . sent it to her: HMD is unsure of who found the picture, but thinks it might have been Hemingway. As related by Carlos Baker in Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (pp. 258–59 and 66 n), Hemingway later said that “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” had been inspired by an unnamed rich woman who, after his return from his 1934 African safari, had offered to stake him to a return trip. He didn’t take her up on the offer; “Snows,” he implied, is the story of what might have happened if he had done so.
“Every woman’s husband . . . Mrs. Parker’s confidante”: EH to AMacL, [undated], LOC. There is no date on this letter, nor has a postmarked envelope survived. Although Michael Reynolds, in Hemingway: The 1930s, confidently assigns it a July 23, 1933, date, this is by no means certain. References to Jane Mason’s back injury indicate only that the letter was written during or after the summer of 1933. Although most of this letter concerns Jane Mason, there’s no evidence that she was “Mrs. Parker’s confidante” or that she or her husband knew “Mr. Benchley.”
“terribly, terribly sorry”: GCM to SWM, 26 Jun. 1936, HMD.
Camp Adeline . . . main living quarters: Patrick Murphy diary: 11 Jul. 1936, HMD.
filled with bright . . . plants and flowers: GCM to FSF, 30 Jul. 1936, PUL.
[>] “like his old self’: REM to ALM, 8 Aug. 1936, FMB.
One after-supper musicale . . . fandango: FMB interview.
“a black and chromium . . . junketing”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 25 May 1936, HU.
Back at Camp Adeline . . . away in the Adirondacks: SWM to EH and PH, 29 Jul. [1936], JFK.
[>] series of projects . . . engaged his imagination now: GCM art notebook, HMD.
[>] “Honoria, I think you”: HMD interview; S(5G, p. 111.
“it is still a very doubtful”: REM to ALM, 13 Aug. 1936, FMB.
“everyone remarks on”: GCM to FSF, [ca. Aug. 1936], PUL.
“[s]he refuses to release”: Ibid., 30 Jul. 1936.
“I want new clothes”: SWM to EH and PH, 29 Jul. [1936], JFK.
[>] The previous summer . . . change the fuse: Gallos, Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake, p. 125.
Murphys were paying . . . tuition and board: FMB interview.
[>] “I spend three . . . doctors are uneasy”: GCM to Bernardine Fritz-Szold, 12 Dec. 1936, Beinecke Library.
“Patrick is an adult . . . great deal”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, [ca. Nov. 1936], HU.
“Patrick is no more”: Alexander Woollcott to GCM, 20 Nov. 1936, HU.
“pretty horrible . . . heartbreaking”: JDP to EH, 9 Jan. [1936], The Fourteenth Chronicle, p. 504.
“Jan 1” . . . snow with Gerald : PFM II diary: 23 and 24 Jan. 1937, HMD. Alice Lee ran interference . . . cajole him into eating: REM to ALM, 19 Jan. [1937], FMB.
Patrick had to have . . . wobbly scrawl: PFM II diary 1937, HMD.
Ernestine Leray . . . customs agents impounded it: REM to ALM, 5 Jan. 1937, FMB.
[>] “noted and only american . . . not ready yet”: PFM II diary: 16 Jan. 1937, HMD.
When Ernest emerged . . . “boy look so sick”: S& G, p. 115. Honoria Donnelly says that Hemingway made this visit alone, and she places it in the fall of 1936. But Hemingway doesn’t appear to have visited Saranac then—only in the autumn of
1935 and in January 1937.
“mother’s milk”: GCM to PH, 22 Jan. 1937, JFK.
“animal magnetism” . . . put-downs wearying: REM to ALM, 21 Jan. [1937], FMB.
“I feel as if we”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 29 Jan. 1937, HU.
Honoria and Fanny Myers . . . now so acute: S& G, p. 118.
On the morning of January 30 . . . “be with you”: Ibid., p. 119.
“Fate can’t have . . . away from you now”: FSF to GCM and SWM, 31 Jan. 1937, HMD.
21. “Not on the same course, nor for the same port”
[>] “There is something . . . same port”: GCM to CT, [1960], HMD.
Alice Lee Myers helped . . . heads to the Hemingways: ALM to EH [6 Feb. 1937], JFK.
Sara simply gave . . . Boys Club of New York: Title Search of Kirchner Camp, Franklin County Courthouse, Saranac Lake, New York.
“Dear Scott”: GCM to FSF, 9 Jun. 1937, PUL.
[>] “choir-boys’ gowns”: GCM to CT, 4 Sept. 1960, HMD.
“Gerald threw everything out”: AMacL, “The Art of Poetry,” The Paris Review, vol. 14, no. 58, p. 69.
“He was a painter . . . masochist to do that”: William MacLeish interview.
“It tightens the main-spring”: GCM to EH, 22 May 1927, JFK.
[>] “grimly socio-politico-economic”: GCM to SWM, 26 Jul. 1939, HMD. “some labor issue . . . longer [an] ingenue”: RB to GCM and SWM, 1 Jul. 1937, HMD.
“she never joked”: Meade, Dorothy Parker, p. 222.
“clear, objective statement”: AMacL, quoted in Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish, p. 264.
Virgil Thomson . . . The Spanish Earth: GCM to CT, 4 Sept. 1950, HMD. Don Stewart . . . Hollywood Anti-Nazi League: DOS, By a Stroke of Luck! p. 231.
Archie and Ernest . . . Earl Browder on the platform: Donaldson, Archibald MacLeish, pp. 264–65.
[>] “if there was a fascist . . . most intelligent audience”: SWM to PH, 22 Jun. [1937], JFK.
“The future . . . mine shall be”: Ibid.
“pitiful . . . dissatisf[ied] at everything”: REM to ALM, 3 Aug. 1937, and ALM to REM, 2 Aug. 1937, FMB.
“We get up . . . bed at 10 P.M.”: GCM to HMD, 13 Aug. 1937, HMD.
“I know that it doesn’t . . . better time”: GCM to SWM, [summer 1937], HMD.
[>] “with fantastic hats”: REM to ALM, 5 Aug. 1937, FMB.
“they now need . . . they’ll like you”: Lillian Hellman/HMD interview, HMD.
HeLlman was on her own . . . other friends: Meade, Dorothy Parker, pp. 282–83; REM diary: summer 1937.
“private blonde”: DaP to JDP, quoted in Mellow, Emest Hemingway, p. 499.
Although Gellhorn was not . . . ever meeting the Murphys: Martha Gellhorn to the author, 20 May 1994. Honoria Donnelly, however, has a vivid if imprecise memory of Sara and Gellhorn having some kind of confrontation involving a locked gate. “Mother was standing outside and Martha Gellhorn wouldn’t let her in,” she says; but where or when this scene might have occurred she cannot remember.
[>] “my great 37–38 epoch”: EH to AMacL, 4 Apr. 1943, LOC.
“Never having been . . . comes to nothing”: GCM to SWM, 4–9 Sept. 1937, HMD.
[>] With it went a chatty note . . . “this autumn”: SWM to EH, 20 Sept. 1937, JFK.
Sara went through all . . . birthday in November: REM diary: 1937, FMB. But Gerald was careful . . . still too fragile: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 16 Dec. 1938, HU.
“given up being . . . Hollywood”: Stella Campbell to SWM, Jan. 1937, in S& G, p. 190.
she had not endeared . . . “tiny eyes?”: Patricia Vaill interview.
[>] Sara had hoped . . . flat in London: ALM to REM, 5 Aug. 1937, FMB.
Swan Cove . . . down to the water: Much of this description is from personal observation and from Murphy home movies, HMD.
“Arabian Nights house”: KDP to SWM, 15 Jan. 1938, UVA.
“an oasis . . . both of them”: GCM to Hale Walker and Harold Heller, [May 1938], HMD.
[>] Patrick’s death . . . “far afield”: GCM to FSF, 29 Jan. and 1 Mar. 1938, PUL. Sheilah Graham . . . drank cocoa: HMD interview.
“you were awfully damn kind”: FSF to GCM, 11 Mar. 1938, PUL.
“Pears like nobody gits”: KDP to SWM, 20 Mar. 1938, UVA.
Gerald arrived in June . . . “Bed early”: SWM, 1938 Weatherbird trip log, HMD.
[>] “very engaging . . . happiness already had”: Zelda Fitzgerald to FSF, [Sept. 1938] and [autumn 1939], Milford, Zelda, p. 324.
“Look” . . . without speaking to each other: FMB interview.
Now, returning to Swan Cove . . . helplessly in the orchard: GCM to HMD, 14 Sept. 1938, and SWM, Weatherbird trip log, HMD; GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 28 Sept. 1938, HU.
[>] “Hurricane—garden gone”: SWM, 1938 Weatherbird trip log, HMD.
Sara had a quiet birthday . . . few hours at least: GCM to HMD, 5 Nov. 1938, and SWM to HMD, 16 Nov. 1938, HMD.
Tallulah quickly . . . “beautiful voice?”: Lillian Hellman/HMD interview, HMD.
[>] “ordering endless dishes": Lillian Hellman, quoted in “Hellman on the Time of the ‘Foxes,’” undated newspaper clipping, HMD.
“I’ve got a favorite lady”: REM, “To Sara,” FMB.
Sara drove down . . . stayed three weeks: SWM trip log 1939, HMD. “Dearest Sara . . . count on it”: EH to SWM, 13 Jun. [1939], HMD.
[>] “I had that orchestra . . . lovely Sara”: Ibid., 27 Dec. [1939].
“I liked Gerald . . . I love Sara”: EH to AMacL, 27 Aug. 1948, LOC
22. “Enough to make the angels weep”
[>] “A list of the painters”: Janet Flanner, Paris Was Yesterday, pp. 218–19.
“with Manners . . . even in my heyday”: SWM to GCM, [Jun. 1939]. This letter was transcribed and enclosed in a letter from GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 22 Jun. 1939, HU; the original has been lost.
[>] While the Weatherbird . . . Juan-les-Pins casino: SWM trip log 1939, HMD. “The girls, I hope . . . lines of the Ritz”: SWM to JDP and KDP, 18 Jul. [1939], UVA.
“disappointed”: SWM trip log 1939: 22 Jul., 5 Aug., 6 Aug., 13 Aug., HMD. 3,300 people . . . “all milling”: SWM to JDP and KDP, 17 Dec. 1938, UVA.
[>] “rake the Avenue”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, [late 1930s], HU.
Alice Lee Myers . . . language of flowers: FMB interview.
There was a leather . . . name stuck: Rosmond, Robert Benchley, p. 14iff; HMD interview.
company still wasn’t . . . Mark Cross were to survive: GCM to SWM, 2 Aug. 1939, HMD.
Murphys’ investment adviser . . . robust $201,: Ibid., 7 Jul. 1939, HMD.
Cole Porter . . . unreachable and uninterested: Leonard Hanna telegram to Serge Denham, 11 Feb. 1939; Ghost Town files, Records of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.
[>] Irving Berlin . . . “completely out of my field”: Serge Libidins telegram to Serge Denham, 21 Feb. 1939; Ghost Town files/Ballet Russe archive, DC/NYPL.
At the end of February . . . “Top Hat”: Irving Berlin to Serge Denham, 6 Mar. 1939, Ghost Town /z/es/Ballet Russe archive, DC/NYPL.
[>] The person who . . . Gerald Murphy: Rodgers, Musical Stages, p. 194. Rodgers, as it happened . . . understanding with Berlin: All documents are in Ghost Town files, Serge Denham Records of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.
[>] “he was a very, very good . . . sense of humor”: Frederic Franklin interview. “We all had crushes”: HMD interview.
“O worst imprisonment”: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, 20 Oct. 1939, HU.
“notes, records” . . . Raoul Pene DuBois: GCM to SD, 3 Apr. 1939, Ghost Town files, Records of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.
popular nineteenth-century . . . even dances: GCM, “Ghost Town” scenario; Ghost Town files, Records of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.
“it was so exciting . . . arts again”: HMD interview.
“furious . . . 3 days and that is all”: REM to ALM, 10 Jul. 1939, FMB.
[>] rec
ordings of Ghost Town’s score . . . unavailable: Nicolas de Gunzbourg to GCM, 16 Jun. 1939, Ghost Town files, Records of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.
The scene allows . . . top-heavy company roster: Besides Franklin and Platoff (or Platov, as he sometimes appears) the men included Serge Lifar, Michel Paniev, Roland Guerard, and Igor Youskevitch; the women, Alexandra Danilova, Alicia Markova, Tamara Toumanova, Nina Tarakaova, Mia Slavenska, Lubov Rostova, and Nathalie Leslie; “there are so many stars,” wrote one company member, “that I cannot see how there will be enough ballets to go around” (Walker, De Basil’s Ballets Russes, p. 82).
“The . . . story . . . much simpler form”: Serge Denham to Leonide Massine, 5 Apr. 1939, Ghost Town files, Records of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.
“complicate our work . . . on the increase”: Serge Denham to Jacques Rubinstein, 11 May 1939, Ghost Town files, Records of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, DC/NYPL.
[>] Ballet Russe used Gerald’s . . . popular ballet reference book: “Ghost Town,” in Goode, ed., The Book of Ballets, pp. 114–18. The typewritten version of the scenario, which is identical, was produced on GCM’s typewriter, samples of which appear elsewhere in the Ballet Russe files and in GCM’s own personal files.
some tricky maneuvering . . . fourth speeding offense: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, [Jun. 1939], HU.
“Thanks for the film . . . Aff’y. Gerald”: Ibid., 21 Apr. 1939.
[>] felt the redirection of his attention: SWM trip log 1939:13 Aug., HMD “the English”: GCM to SWM, 26 Jul. 1939, HMD.
“Very lovely . . . all fell asleep”: SWM trip log 1939:19 Aug., HMD
“Paris is on a wartime”: REM to ALM, 31 Aug. 1939, FMB.
At Maxim’s . . . “perfectly normally”: HMD interview.
“gave us advice” . . . Sara declined: SWM trip log 1939: 3 Sept., HMD.
[>] “For heaven’s sake . . . come back”: Noel Murphy to SWM, undated [1939], HMD.
[>] soldiers’ canteen: REM to GCM, 27 Aug. 1939, FMB. dissuaded only when Honoria . . . without her mother: GCM to Alexander Woollcott, [postmarked] 11 Sept. 1939, HU.
“very angoissante day”: SWM trip log 1939:1 Sept., HMD.