The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913-1946

by Edward Burns

  hortensias and mimosa to you!

  Carlo V. V.

  1. Holt to Van Vechten, postmark 14 November 1926, Yale-JWJ.

  2. Ralph Barton (d. 1931) was an artist who did illustrations for Van Vechten’s Peter Whiffle: His Life and Works and The Tattooed Countess. Van Vechten dedicated his book Red: Papers on Musical Subjects to Barton.

  3. Holt to Van Vechten, postmark 27 October 1926, Yale-JWJ.

  To Carl Van Vechten

  [Rose motto]

  [postmark: 26 December 1926] 27 rue de Fleurus

  [Paris]

  My dearest Carl,

  Of course you will like Antibes and we will like [to] see you in Paris because you would have to be in Paris en route and there are lots of nice things in Antibes and in Paris, we were just talking about you the other day, you could so wonderfully do some of the American women in Europe the other version [of] the tattooed countess, Rene Crevel has tried to do one of them in his la Mort difficile, but he does not understand1 and you so wonderfully would well anyway, you have by this time gotten a long letter I wrote you about Nora [Holt] and everything, I like Nora a lot she is tender and I like her postal cards. I guess she is having a good time alright but then it is easy anybody would like her, I don’t know it’s quite tender. What other news is there I like you taking the Jean Cocteau and what is funny about it is that the people who don’t know English get something out of it when it is read to them that is rather nice.2 Then we [have] several things on the tapis a new magazine in which I am to be featured etc.3 but more of all that later when it is more and other things and anyway I do adore that those that are born already can never be any darker or lighter, it has all our native everything in it, that, go on writing Carl, I think you are most wonderfully in the vein and come to us and happy New Year and best to Fania and always yours

  Gertrude.

  1. René Crevel (1900–1935), the French writer, had met Stein through Pavel Tchelitchew (see Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, pp. 197–98). Stein is referring to the character of Mme. Dumon-Dufour in Crevel’s novel La morte difficile (1926; rpt. Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1974).

  2. Note by Van Vechten, 21 January 1941: “The motto ‘a little too much is just enough for me’ which I used on my stationery for some time.” The line comes from an anecdote in Cocteau’s essay “Visites A Maurice Barrès” in his Le Rappel A L’Ordre (Paris: Librairie Stock, 1926, p. 173):

  Un chef des Peaux-Rouges fut récemment l’invité de la Maison-Blanche. A la table du président Wilson, ses intimes lui laissant entendre qu’il mangeait et buvait peut-être un peu trop: ‘A little too much is just enough for me’, répondit-il. (Un peu trop, c’est juste assez pour moi.)

  Si je devais prendre une devise, je choisirais cette réponse magnifique.

  Van Vechten’s first use in this correspondence of stationery with this motto does not occur until a letter to Stein and Toklas postmarked 17 December 1934. The stationery is used with frequency throughout the middle 1930s. In annotating this letter Van Vechten did not have the advantage of having his letters to Stein before him. He may have assumed that when Stein wrote “I like you taking the Jean Cocteau,” she was referring to the motto. Stein is certainly echoing Van Vechten’s letter to her of 10 December 1926 when he wrote: “I like the Hogarth Press edition of Composition as Explanation and have taken an especial fancy to the one [i.e., Stein’s word portrait ‘Jean Cocteau’ which is printed in the volume] about Cocteau.”

  3. Stein is referring to larus the celestial visitor, a review edited by Sherry Mangan, which printed her “Water Pipe” (February 1927), l(l):6–9, and her “Elie Nadelman” (July 1927), 1(4): 19–20.

  To Gertrude Stein

  16 February 1927 150 West Fifty-fifth Street

  [New York]

  Dear Gertrude,

  I return to New York to find your very beautiful book awaiting me: and I have read about the lady who has a cow three times and each time with more fervor. This book seems more gay than the others and it is typographically the most beautiful.1 I am very happy to have it … In Hollywood I talked about you a great deal. Wherever I go there is curiosity about you.2 The Scott Fitzgeralds were there and they both love you.3 Hollywood is a fabulous place and I shall soon write about it. I also took the trouble to motor into Mexico to see five thousand Americans drunk at once: that’s a good title. And before that was Mabel [Dodge] and the Indians. She is just the same (and I think she should be a little different by now) and she is writing the story of her same life, but she is nice sometimes … and so am I. Robert Coates never came, but I met Robert McAlmon in Taos and think he has too much starch. I’m glad you like Nora [Holt], but who could help it? . . Nigger Heaven is going very well in London and it is running in German in the Frankfurter Zeitung and is soon to appear in Swedish and perhaps in French: le Ciel de Nègres—what a title!4 I really may come over in April. I hope to.

  my love to you!!!

  Carlo

  1. For the text of Stein’s A Book Concluding With As A Wife Has A Cow A Love Story the publisher, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and the Galerie Simon, had used the printer Leibovitz, 64 rue de Maubeuge. The four lithographs by Juan Gris were printed by Pitault, 5 rue de la Banque.

  2. Van Vechten had left New York early in January 1927 on a cross-country trip. He stopped in Chicago, several cities in New Mexico, and several cities in California. While in New Mexico he also made a short trip into Mexico. In an interview in the Los Angeles Evening Herald (20 January 1927, p. 1) Van Vechten told his interviewer, “[S]ay that I am one author who came to Los Angeles not to make money or to write for the movies, or to get color for a story.” In fact, Van Vechten saw a number of people in the movie industry who were interested in turning his novels into films. In a letter to Marinoff he wrote: “Last night I met Paul Bern in charge of all productions at Metro-Goldwyn & today King Vidor & both want to do Nigger Heaven. Well of course they won’t” (Van Vechten to Marinoff, 23 January 1927, NYPL-MD). Many of Van Vechten’s experiences in Hollwood were used in his novel Spider Boy.

  3. It was Ernest Hemingway who first introduced F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) and his wife Zelda to Stein (see Fitzgerald to Edmund Wilson [Spring 1925], in Turnbull, ed., The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald, pp. 341–42). This meeting probably took place in May 1925. Either at that meeting or at a subsequent meeting Fitzgerald gave Stein a copy of his novel The Great Gatsby. Stein wrote Fitzgerald, probably from Bilignin on 22 May [1925], about the novel. See Bruccoli, Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p. 164. Van Vechten had met the Fitzgeralds sometime in the early 1920s.

  4. For a complete list of the translations of Nigger Heaven see Kellner, A Bibliography, pp. 40–45. In French the novel was translated as Les Paradis des Nègres.

  To Carl Van Vechten

  [Rose motto]

  [postmark: 7 March 1927] 27 rue de Fleurus

  [Paris]

  My dear Carl,

  I like your looks immensely,1 it is a long time since I have seen them and looks are hard to remember but yours are more than satisfactory and it will be nice to really see you you are really coming, a new magazine crowd here were talking of the translation of your book into french and I was awfully pleased the french do make niggers into a heaven not a nigger heaven. I did too hear some rumor about it in Russian, good luck to us all.2 Avery [Hopwood] is in town but I imagine non-seeable for the moment he was so xtremely good for so long and then he is no more, I am very very fond of him with or without well you might say his mother.3 I am awfully pleased that you have done the jacket of the new edition of Three Lives have not had it yet but am looking forward to it,4 and there is a possibility of a novel that I finished this year being printed here soon, I think you will like it, it describes itself but everything when we meet.5 [Robert] McAlmon is pretty bad. [F. Scott] Fitzgerald and [E. E.] Cummings are the best of the crowd, the rest are fairly weak in the head, but more of more of it when we meet and we will,

  Lots of love

  Ge
rtrude.

  1. Van Vechten had sent Stein a photograph of himself.

  2. The translation of Nigger Heaven was published as Les paradis des Nègres, trans. J. Sabourant, pref. Paul Morand (Paris: “Es Documentaries,” Simon Kra, 1927). There has been no Russian translation of the book. An Estonian translation appeared in 1931.

  3. Stein is referring to her last meeting with Hopwood in May 1926 and to his excessive drinking, which had caused a scene. On that occasion Hopwood had invited Stein and Toklas to dinner with himself and the English writer Beverly Nichols at the Hôtel Ritz. At the dinner Hopwood became so drunk that he broke glasses and splashed wine on Stein. He later apologized to Stein (see Hopwood to Stein, undated letter [May 1926?], YCAL). The incident is also recounted in Nichols’ All I Could Never Be: Some Recollections by Beverly Nichols (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949), pp. 191–93. For another reaction to Hopwood’s drinking see Mabel Dodge to Van Vechten, 6 September 1924, YCAL. See also Van Vechten to Stein, 8 September [1924].

  4. Van Vechten had written an advertising blurb for the dust jacket of John Lane’s 1927 edition of Stein’s Three Lives.

  5. Edward W. Titus, the Polish-born husband of Helena Rubinstein, had opened a bookshop, At the Sign of the Black Manikin, in the rue Delambre, Paris, in 1924. In 1926, under the imprint of the Black Manikin Press, Titus began publishing books. He suggested printing a work by Stein and went so far as to issue a prospectus for A Novel of Thank You. Before the book could be printed Stein and Titus quarreled and the publication was canceled.

  To Gertrude Stein

  3 April [1927] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street

  [New York]

  Dear Gertrude,

  Just a line to tell you that Fania is arriving on the President Harding and that her Paris address is the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, 3 Rue d’Antin. She will undoubtedly write you. We have very much enjoyed Paul and Madame Morand who have been here for ten days and also NORA HOLT!!!1 Fania will tell you about her. And about anything else you want to know. Isn’t it nice that Three Lives is available once more. I have to buy so many copies to send about to people I want to read it.

  gold and silver orchids and white peacocks to you!

  Carlo

  1. Paul Morand (1888–1976), French diplomat and author. Morand had written the preface for Van Vechten’s Les paradis des Nègres.

  To Gertrude Stein

  10 April [1927] [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]

  My dear Gertrude Stein

  I hope you are in Paris and I hope I may see you. I expect to be here for three weeks, and my visit would be incomplete without at least a glimpse of you. I am at the Hotel Littré 9 rue Littré Phone Fleurus 67–71 and will be happy to see you and hear from you.

  Fania Marinoff

  To Gertrude Stein

  [postmark: 11 April 1927]

  Monday [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]

  Dear Gertrude Stein

  I would love to lunch Friday, will be chez vous at 12.30.

  Fania

  To Gertrude Stein

  [postmark: 24 April 1927]

  Sunday [Garches, France]

  Dear Gertrude Stein

  I’ve written Marcel [Duchamp] a note saying that you have asked us on Tuesday evening for dinner, so we will be there and Rose Rolonda, too.1 I had such a nice time the other evening, you’Ve both been so charming to me, and I adore you both for it. I’m writing from Garches—it’s grand but cold—

  Affectionately Fania

  1. Stein had known Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) since before World War I. The Van Vechtens had met him at the home of Louise and Walter Arensberg during his first visit to New York in June 1915.

  Rose Rolanda (Rosemonde Cowan) was a dancer. In 1930 she married Miguel Covarrubias (d. 1957), the Mexican-born caricaturist.

  To Gertrude Stein

  [25 April 1927]

  Monday [Hôtel de Crillon, Paris]

  Dearest Gertrude Stein

  Please may I bring Marcel [Duchamp] and Rose [Rolanda] Wednesday evening instead of to-morrow night? A friend of mine is sailing Wednesday morning and to-morrow night will be my only chance to see her. I’ve written Marcel and in case he can’t come Wednesday evening, I’ll send you another petit bleu and please don’t think I’m a nuisance, I hate breaking engagements but this was unforeseen so forgive me.

  Love to you both

  Fania

  To Fania Marinoff

  [Rose motto]

  [postmark: 29 April 1927] 27 rue de Fleurus

  [Paris]

  My dear Fania,

  Here is Bernardine Szold breaking loose I did not think we had the pleasure of each other’s acquaintance but we seem to have anyway I am sending it to you as it may be an opening for you to play, well place in me, or in me, of course I am not in it presumably because I don’t and can’t do those things. We have liked having known you, really and every time it was nicer at least it felt like it.

  And so bon voyage and best of luck

  Gtrde.

  To Carl Van Vechten

  [postmark: 5 May 1927] 27 rue de Fleurus

  Paris

  My dear Carl,

  Fania has been here and gone and we liked her being here immensely. 1 It made you all kind of real you have always been real but this was a different real and a very nice real but then that is as it is. And now she has gone but I am hoping that we will see her again later as we are staying on in Paris a little later than usual this spring and a beautiful spring it is. Hyacinths turn into wisteria alright. Are you ever to see yourself in France won’t you come and otherwise. Working a lot as usual some very funny little narratives and quite a lot of them. At the same time a very great grief as my very very dear friend Juan Gris is dying.2 Anyway lots and lots of love and how is Nora [Holt] enjoying herself best to her too and always

  Yours

  Gertrude.

  1. Marinoff had left for England on 2 May.

  2. Gris had been in ill health since 1925. His illness was diagnosed as uremia in January 1927. He died on 11 May and on 13 May was buried in the cemetery at Boulogne-sur-Seine, France.

  To Gertrude Stein

  28 May [1927] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street

  [New York]

  Dear Gertrude

  Thanks thousands of times for An Elucidation which to me is very fine.1 And I am so glad that Three Lives is again available for now I can again advise people to read Melanctha. Nella Imes,2 one of the most intelligent people I know (you will see her in Paris next winter) says it is the best Negro story she has ever read (she is Negro herself) … I know you will like Rose Wheeler3 & Taylor Gordon.4 Your home in fact is becoming a mecca—an excuse for travel. Americans now go abroad to meet Gertrude Stein. . Fania raves about your beauty & your charm. She writes me how adorable you were to her. And I must have Man Ray’s photograph.5 The Picasso portrait goes into the new illustrated edition of Peter Whiffle which I shall send you when it is ready.6 Nora [Holt] has been a sensation in New York. Everybody loves her, but now she has gone to Chicago. Lead her to a piano & ask her to sing for you when she comes back.

  My love to you!

  Carlo

  1. Stein’s “An Elucidation” was printed in transition, (April 1927), 1:64–78. In setting this issue, the printers garbled the text, and at Stein’s insistence transition reprinted the article as a separate pamphlet.

  2. Nella Larsen, Mrs. Elmer Imes (1893–1963), was a black writer, author of the novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929).

  3. The Van Vechtens had met Rose Wheeler, wife of the stockbroker Arthur Wheeler, at the home of Donald Angus.

  4. Taylor Gordon (1893–1971) was a member of the only black family in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. He worked as a car attendant for John Ringling and traveled widely with him. He studied singing for a short time and appeared in a vaudeville act, ‘The Inimitable Five,” organized by J. Rosamond Johnson. In 1925 he began a series of concerts of Negro spirituals with Johnson. In 1927 Johnson and G
ordon traveled to France and England to give concerts. The decline in Gordon’s career is traced in Robert Hemenway’s introduction to Gordon’s autobiography, Born to Be (1929; rpt., Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1975). Van Vechten’s enthusiastic foreword to the original edition is reprinted in the 1975 reprint (as is Muriel Draper’s introduction). A later appraisal by Van Vechten of Gordon should also be consulted. See The Yale University Library Gazette, (October 1980), 55(2):85.

  5. Van Vechten is alluding to references in a letter from Marinoff to him (postmark 29 April 1927, MYPL-MD). Marinoff wrote:

  Gertrude Stein has been perfectly wonderful to me. I’ve dined there several times. … Today after lunch Marcel [Duchamp] and Rose [Rolanda] and I went over to Man Ray’s studio. I like his things enormously, even his photographs. … He had a marvelous photo of Gertrude Stein taken recently. Of course she no more looks like the same person she was in 1914 … she’s beautiful now and her head is extraordinary.