The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Carl Van Vechten, 1913-1946
Page 43
I might have known that you had something inside of you that you had not told your faithful Woojums when you said you could have gone with us because you had your passport in your pocket, and now here we are sitting in the sun but no papa Woojums with us but he will be that we believe he will be and I’ll tell you all about what we feel about France and how Paris is sad because it is xpensive, a country to be gay has to be cheap living in America is so cheap and so gay but anyway we are quite nicely established and dying to see you and we will go and weep at Geneva if we do not are not allowed to go there and get you any time and all the time and all our love
Gertrude.
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[Postcard: Santa Teresa]
[May-June 1935] [Madrid, Spain]
Darling Mama Woojums and Baby Woojums!
I had to send you this1 whatever happened, and nothing much has—except it is cold as cold as cold. … But I guess it will get warmer soon when I move on to Sevilla, I hope so. Africa was cold too… The heat of New York is quite refreshing after all this. You could write me at the Anglo-South American bank in Madrid during the next two weeks!
all love to les belles Woojums!
Papa Woojums.
1. Here and in the card of 1 June 1935, Van Vechten is referring to the image of Saint Theresa of Avila on the postcard.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Statue: Santa Teresa de Jesús—Avila]
1 June 1935 Avila [Spain]
Dear Baby Woojums
Here she is right from her home town & love from
Carlo Papa Woojums.
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[Postcard: Barcelona. Torres del Templo de la Sagrada Familia]
11 June [1935] [Barcelona, Spain]
Dear Ladies Woojums!
Your letters to USA from the boat reached me here amidst these classic towers & were they sweet! and so now I am flying to Italy & soon will be on a paquebot for somewhere in USA, but until I sail (in two weeks) the Banca Commerciale Italiana in Florence will be my address, and please write me another sweet letter. Fancy you & Muk de Jari learning how to cook together. It’s too sweet!—I’ve become quite friendly with Domingo Ortega, the greatest of living toreros & I have photographed him any way but not in jaegers. I am saving that for’ Baby Woojums!
Love,
Carlo.
To Carl Wan Vechten
[postmark: 15 June 1935] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
A sweet letter to the wickedest of papa Woojums, how can I, papa Woojums who saw so much of his Woojums that he does not want to see them here. Not even to fly to Geneva to kiss them and have them kiss him, wicked wicked papa Woojums, you make us awful homesick for you and for Spain, we’d love to see you and [Domingo] Ortega, but alas we cannot even see you, we are very tranquil here and I am working a lot, I have started to describe the world as I see it under the title Geographical History of America or the relation of human nature to the human mind, it begins well and I am getting kind of wrapped up in it,1 and Alice is having sent to you in New York an umbrella she lost in Los Angeles that a hotel keeper found and that will you keep for her or Fania [to] bring it over or she use it over when we get over well anyway we love papa Woojums even the Jaegers love papa Woojums faithless though he is to his adoring familey,2
Love
Gtrde.
1. Stein’s The Geographical History of America Or The Relation Of Human Nature To The Human Mind, with an introduction by Thornton Wilder, was published by Random House on 19 October 1936.
2. Notes by Van Vechten, 22 January 1941: “Domingo Ortega, whom I photographed in Madrid.” “Edward Wasserman eventually took this umbrella to Gertrude.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Young Moroccan boy. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten]
7 July [1935] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dearest Mama and Baby Woojums!
Papa Woojums is back in God’s Country & God’s Country is very hot, and please write to Papa Woojums & console him for having left charming Italy & sunny Spain. Are you coming over for the Mississippi House boat?1 Fania sends love & kisses & so does Carlo
The umbrella is here!
Desolé to miss Colette.
Did Natalie [Barney] get her BIG Pictures?
[Carl Van Vechten]
1. See Stein to Van Vechten [11 May 1935].
To Gertrude Stein
[“A Little Too Much” motto]
27 July 1935 [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Baby Woojums,
The enclosed just arrived from Lillian May Ehrman.1 My first reaction was, Why didn’t somebody think of this before? I wrote her immediately, airmail, and suggested she get in touch with you, giving her your address. So you may be going to Hollywood to film The Good Lena! Will you please return this letter, as it goes in my Stein archives … We haven’t heard a word from you since we got back but I guess we will soon. . Yesterday I sent you some more photographs, which I think are grand. The one of Baby and Papa together is not so hot, but the one of Baby and Fania is marvellous, and the pictures of Baby alone with her vests and scarves and ALL the pictures of Alice Mama Woojums are the Top. . I also enclosed a picture of Papa W. that you asked for. . I am living in the darkroom these days, trying to make reality out of my films of Morocco and Spain. . I’ll be happier when I hear from you both. Are you coming over? Did you see Bobsie [Goodspeed]?2
Love,
Carlo
Did you get the pictures to Natalie [Barney]?
1. Ehrman wrote to Stein through Van Vechten (27 July 1935, YCAL), asking if she might have the rights to sell for Stein the story “The Gentle Lena” to a film studio. Ehrman suggested that the matter could be handled by her brother, Ivan Kahn, a Hollywood agent.
2. Mrs. Goodspeed was traveling in Europe.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Chillon et les Dents du Midi]
[postmark: 27 July 1935] [Veytraux-Chillon Switzerland]
My dearest Carl
Here we are and pretty soon I will write a wonderful long letter but now just all our love
Baby W.
We are further from you than ever but we are going to be nearer soon—or later but sometime we have a plan—on the boat a woman said I was going to have a career—it is in my hand. Heaps of love
M. W.
Dear Mr. Van Vechten:
You can imagine the wonderful talks, trips and meals we are enjoying. We accept your congratulations and look forward to the time when we may enjoy such company together. This company together in a dungeon would rob tyranny of its terror.1
Sincerely
Thornton Wilder
1. The castle of Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva, where Francois de Bonnivard was imprisoned after he and a group of patriots attempted to overthrow the yoke of the Duke of Savoy on the town of St. Victor, near Geneva. The story of this twice imprisoned patriot who fought to establish a free republic was recounted, in somewhat garbled form, by Lord Byron in his poem The Prisoner of Chillon.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 4 August 1935] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dearest dearest Papa Woojums,
The pictures have just come and they make us so sad and so happy, sad that you are and we are so far away and happy that we were there, we are delighted with them and we think they make us look very handsome we includes you and Fania and we also includes the vests, We have [been] having a lovely and lively summer, it has been hot and dry, the garden is bumed and so are we but it agrees better with us than with the garden. I have been working a lot, the new book The relation of human nature to the human mind or the Geographical History of the U.S.A. goes on very well. Thorton Wilder has just been with us for ten days and he and a little photographer who was with him know it by heart and say it is the best thing I have done.1 I have done about 70 typewritten pages and I guess it will be about double or a little more than that long, I
do not yet quite know, when it gets done I’ll send it along and then we will decide about everything, Thornton would also like to read the four in America so would you send me the copy you have here, it is the only one I have, he does not go back to America until the spring, so that is all about me, otherwise in the language of Mark Twain we get up and wash and go to bed, and as the chauffe bain has been not working very well because the sun sets on the stove pipe very often Alice does not include the washing, she was just counting that she had had only two in two weeks, Kitty Cornell’s housemate Gertrude2 something came and called the other day but we were just then in Geneva I wish we had been there calling for you Oh papa Woojums, faithless papa Woojums whom the rest of the Woojums love far far too well, love and kisses so many many kisses
Baby W.
1. Robert Davis was a philosophy student at the University of Chicago. He met Stein when she lectured there in 1934 and 1935. Davis was on his first trip abroad when he went to visit Stein in Bilignin. Davis may have taken some photographs of Stein during this visit.
2. Note by Van Vechten, 1 June 1941: “Gertrude Macy, Katharine Cornell’s secretary.”
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 7 August 1935] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest dearest papa W.
It all comes from you, everything comes from you and there is nothing that the Woojumses like better [than] that it always does come from their own papa. It will make us most happy to have the Gentle Lena in the films most most happy, how it will turn into what it will turn into we do not know but we are sure that it will be just so beautiful, Alice and I were quite upset in being so happy, I just wrote you a long letter, my it will be nice seeing you again and the film will help, yes we did give it to Nathalie [Barney] and I have written to her to ask and we will be seeing her soon,1 but we all left Paris almost at once, we are so happy with ourselves and you and Fania, it will be wonderful all being together again, and lots of love
Gtrde.
Am sending you an english publication with Procession in it.2
1. Stein could not remember if she had given Barney the group of photographs Van Vechten had prepared for her. Stein wrote Barney on [19? July 1935]; when she received no answer, she wrote again on [5 August 1935] (Stein to Barney, MSS. 1884, 1885, Doucet, Paris). Barney wrote Stein on 7 August 1935 (YCAL) acknowledging that she had received the photographs.
2. Stein’s “Procession,” in Programme (19 June 1935), 8:[8], [11]. This review was edited at Oxford University by George Sayer and Veronica Ward. In the same issue appeared “A Note on Gertrude Stein,” pp. [12–13], by Paul Treadgold. On the issue’s cover Stein wrote a dedication to Van Vechten: “To Carl to Papa Woojums to our Guardian Angel with all love. The Procession is prepared to proceed. Gtde. Baby Woojums.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard] Carl Van Vechten. Painting by Martha S. Baker. Collection of Carl Van Vechten
14 August [1935] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street
New York]
Dear Gertrude:—
You gnus are good gnus and so I am sending you Four in America today for Thornton Wilder to read. Please tell me when you receive it. We may move because a garage back of us pounds & pounds & pounds, but maybe the garage will move.
Love to Mama & Baby Woojums!
Papa W!
To Gertrude Stein
19 August [1935] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
New York City
Dearest Baby Woojums,
I had thought of almost everything, but I had never thought of putting you on an egg.1 Will you please return this as I want it for my STEIN collection. . I hope the film all happens according to schedule, so you and Mama Woojums can come to our America again to be photographed.2 Please what are you going to do in the NEXT war which seems to be coming along fast? Drive a Ford? Please get back to the USA before everything busts again, although maybe it won’t be so hot here either. If I were speaking of the weather I would say it was hotter than the hot rainy season in Ethiopia. But that will soon be over. . I sent you Four in America last week as you asked me to.
love to both les Belles Woojums, Baby and Mama
Papa Woojums
Who lives in a very DARK ROOM.
1. This obect is not in YCAL.
2. The proposal of Mrs. Ehrman to try to sell “The Gentle Lena” to the films. See Van Vechten to Stein, 27 July 1935, note 1.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Photograph by Carl Van Vechten] Carl Van Vechten’s apartment—1931. The Victorian Room.
20 August 1935 [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Yes, programme came, with its Royal Processions,1 [word?] I like very much, and Treadgold’s article, depending on your lectures as it does, so much better than usual. Please write some more of these lovely pieces, dear Baby Woojums! How are you both? We are better than well. . and I live in a proverbial DARK ROOM!
all love to you both Carlo
1. See Stein to Van Vechten [7 August 1935], note 2.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: J-E. Liotard (1702–1789) Portrait de l’Empératrice Marie-Thérèse d’Autriche (pastel, 1762)]
[postmark: 29 August 1935] [Bilignin par Belly Ain]
My dear Papa W.
The Four in America came alright thanks so much, and we don’t want to drive a Ford car in the next war, we have 30 reservists and their machine guns in the barn, 600 in Bilignin and 2500 in Belley, and they use anything they can lay hands on and they are just like pictures of themselves and they don’t remind us of war and they don’t remind us of peace and more is plenty, and they leave next Tuesday, no in the next war we will be in America and tell them about it, perhaps war like dueling will go out, I think the quickest way to stop it would be to stop the salute, that is what goes to everybody’s head no saluting no war, but we kiss papa Woojums with so much love, and we hope he don’t bow to none
Baby. W.
The [triumph?] of the eggs or egg is fine, will they make me a nice wig do you think, I would love to see the wig, perhaps they will bring you the egg to be photographed that would be nice, and papa W. may Georges Maratier,1 who took care of Pepe have a photo of Pepe, his address is 7 rue Rollin Paris and if he could have one of me too it would make him happy and one of me and Alice for Madame Giraud Cezarieu, Ain,2 that would make us all happy is it asking too much dear dear papa Woojums, and I guess that’s all
Baby W.
1. A French art dealer.
2. Madame André Giraud lived in the Chalet Vert, Avenue d’Alsace Lorraine, in Céyzérieu, a village in the department of the Ain, France. Céyzérieu is about ten kilometers southeast of Virieu-le-Grand, the nearest train station to Belley.
Stein had formed several close relationships with people in the neighborhood of Belley and took her American visitors to meet them. Among those she often visited were Baronne Pierlot and her sons who lived in Béon and Madame Giraud. Madame Giraud’s name appears in a number of Stein’s writings during the 1930s, including the play Louis XI and Madame Giraud in Stein’s Operas and Plays.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Basket of flowers—with inscription “Con mi FELICITATIÓN le envio todo mi afecto y mi mayor cariño”]
[8 September 1935] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Baby Woojums…
Today I am sending photographs to Georges Marantier [i.e., Maratier] & to Madame Giraud, the Cezarien operation of AIN.1 . . and I sent you some pictures of Avila yesterday. . I think your publisher is going to marry Sylvia Sidney.2 Huey Long is shot.3 . and Walter Winchell says F[ania]. M[arinoff]. and I are in Mexico getting a divorce! We are just the same at 150.4 . . and I hope you and Mama Woojums are just the same at Bilignin!
love
Papa W!
1. Van Vechten here seems to be playing with the words “Céyzérieu” and “cesarean.” I have been unable to determine whether Madame Giraud had had any children by a cesarean operation.
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2. Cerf wrote to Stein, 17 September 1935 (YCAL), that he was flying to Phoenix, Arizona, to marry the actress Sylvia Sidney on 10 October.
3. Long was shot on 8 September.
4. In his column in the Daily Mirror, 26 August 1935, p. 10, Walter Winchell wrote: “Are the Carl Van Vechtens arranging anything in Mexico? She is Fania Marinoff … Probably not. The same source said the Eugene O’Neills (Carlotta Monterey) were there unwinding and that isn’t true, according to chums.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Ivory Figure of a Gazelle—Egyptian, about 1375 B.C. (XVIII Dyansty). The Metropolitan Museum of Art]
[postmark: 15 September 1935] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Baby Woojums—
You are mentioned in the talking picture Top Hat (Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers) this will undoubtedly be seen in Paris.1 I can’t wait till I kiss your hand in person!
Love to Mama W! Papa W.
1. In the R. K. O. Studios film Top Hat, written by Dwight Taylor and Allan Scott, an Italian, who miscomprehends English, reads aloud a telegram where the word “Stop” has been inserted at the end of every sentence. As he reads the telegram aloud, the “Stops” destroy the sense of the message. The character played by Ginger Rogers says, “It sounds like something by Gertrude Stein” (final shooting script, 8 May 1935, #824, p. 43, NYPL-Lincoln Center).
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 17 September 1935] Bilignin par Belly
Aim
Oh Carl Carl what a wonderful door I never saw such a wonderful door before. I don’t know how you did it but you made the portal come alive like a real one never is alive, the other two tombed us doubly1 and Anita [Loos] did look so beautiful2 but what is most wonderful is the door, thanks a thousand times. Autumn has come but it’s still lovely weather and I am working and we will be here at least another month or so, perhaps longer. A funny thing happened, Bennett [Cerf] sent me a couple of this fall’s books and on the jacket they give the list of authors Random House and Modern Library are proud to print and nowhere do they include my name. I have just written to Bennett as [Eleanora] Duse said about [Gabriele] Dannunzio [i.e., D’Annunzio] when he did La Fouca, Je sais pas si c[’]etait par mechante ou mauvais gout. Of course it is not Bennett or Donald [Klopfer] but somewhere in the office, at any rate it is a mistake, and I have called their attention to it. I am sending you the dummy of the Chicago University Press’ book and Life and Letters where the[y] print one of the four lectures is printed in England,3 the University press director is very enthusiastic so I am pleased. I do love you, so much Papa Woojums we love you all