By Women Possessed

by Arthur Gelb

  “I do not trust him!” she cries. CM diary, 11/25/28.

  “A million kisses, Blessed!” note (c. 11/25/30), Yale, SL.

  he simply growls, “The climate is enervating—bad for work,” and adds, “Tropics wore me out.” letter (11/28), Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript. Library & “Love, and Admiration and Respect”: The O’Neill-Commins Correspondence, ed. Dorothy Commins (Duke University Press, 1986).

  “Had a touch of sun at Singapore because did what Englishmen and mad dogs did—bathed at noon.” letter, 8/3/46, Yale.

  she despairs, “Why drink when you know you are not sane with alcohol in you—literally not sane!” CM diary, 12/5/29.

  Carlotta suspects that this is “just the beginning!” CM diary, 12/10/28.

  “Let us be such good friends now dearest . . . I love you.” Beinecke.

  she writes: “My illusion that all will be well smashed—things seem blacker—his brain befogged!” CM diary, & A/BG interview with CM.

  locking her into her cabin and keeping the key until the reporters have left. CM diary, 12/18 to 12/19/28.

  “Gene is off again and it won’t be pretty this time because he has found a drunk to drink with him,” Carlotta notes. CM diary, 12/28/28.

  “What would be best for him?” CM diary, 1/5/29.

  “HOW ARE YOU I FEEL SO TERRIBLY WORRIED ABOUT YOU.” Yale, SL.

  She answers herself: “I’m afraid I do!” CM diary, 1/8/29.

  “Oh, God—oh, God.” CM diary.

  O’Neill’s recorded reaction is no less rapturous: “Carlotta again!—and happiness!” WD, 1/15/29.

  “Genie has come home!” she marvels “My dreams have come true.” CM diary, 1/16/29.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  records that he spent zero “creative work days” in January. WD.

  as always, he asks them not to forget their “Daddy.” late Jan. 1929, University of Virginia.

  he confides that “the whole trip, in spite of sickness and the lousy publicity I ran into, was a wonderful, stimulating experience that I wouldn’t have missed for a million.” 2/5/29, Yale, SL.

  regrets there isn’t sufficient time to rewrite the entire play. WD, 2/4/29.

  his “brains were woolly with hatred” for Agnes. letter to M. Eleanor Fitzgerald, 5/13/29, University of Texas, SL.

  George Jean Nathan, who tells him that Dynamo is “far, far below you.” letter, 3/19/29, As Ever, Gene.

  marked the start of his long-lasting friendship with Nathan. The Long Voyage Home was published Oct. 1917; Ile, May 1918; The Moon of the Caribbees, Aug. 1918.

  “Henceforth,” he tells Nathan, “I cast not only actresses but legs.” GJN quoted this to Atkinson, as per A/BG interviews with Atkinson.

  “No one knows what I see in my stuff during rehearsals, or the changes I suggest or veto.” letter, 3/12/29, Dartmouth, SL.

  thoughtful and tender and, as she remarks in her diary, “all self-consciousness is gone!” CM diary, 2/9/29.

  “Believe me,” he vows, “I can do with it!” letter to BDC, 3/12/29, Dartmouth, SL.

  he’s convinced it will be then that his “inner self” will be “freed from the dead” and he will be “liberated and reborn.” letter to Bio De Casseres, 5/10/29, Dartmouth, SL.

  some, in Carlotta’s view, “too grand,” others “too run down for decent housekeeping.” CM diary, 4/17/29.

  warm, comfortable environment where O’Neill will feel “loved—so he can work.” Ibid.

  “I’ll sit in the car.” Pigeons on the Granite.

  Amused, she calls his attention to the bidet. Ibid.

  “I loved this place!” she enthuses, relieved that “strangely enough, so did Gene!” CM diary, 4/17/29.

  asks if she may install a swimming pool, having found a suitable site on the grounds. CM diary, 4/19 & 4/20/29.

  all part of what it pleases her to call her “dot” (dowry). CM diary, 4/22/29.

  She thanks him, but says no. CM diary, 5/1/29.

  “I made him very comfortable.” A/BG interviews with CM.

  he’d always dreamed of, but could never have afforded in the United States. letter, 6/14/29, “TTWWF.”

  “Altogether the grandest bargain—this Le Plessis—that I’ve ever heard of!” Ibid.

  removed from her diaries “an occasional comment on their love-making sessions.” In Pigeons on the Granite, DG noted that CM retrieved the diaries she deposited at Yale in order to edit them.

  doesn’t want the Mercedes after all and buys a red Bugatti. CM diary, 4/26/29.

  She is so moved, she can’t speak. CM diary, 5/11/29.

  “Are we cursed?” CM diary, 5/28/29.

  “It’s a grand law that permits such stunts to get by!” EO letter to his publisher Horace Liveright, 6/14/29.

  would give her and O’Neill “more time for those we love—& who really love us!” letter, 5/15/29, “Love and Admiration and Respect.”

  anyone says she is “ruining” O’Neill and “spending all his money—say ‘yes’—and that I’m planning to eat his children & my own!” CM to SC, 5/15/29, “Love and Admiration and Respect.”

  she “cannot distinguish a lie from the truth.” CM to SC, 6/19/29, “Love and Admiration and Respect.”

  PART II: ABOUT AGNES

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  published nearly thirty years after their divorce and five years after O’Neill’s death. Part of a Long Story by AB (Doubleday & Co. Inc., New York, 1958).

  “But I did not return—not until many years later.” Ibid.

  Christine introduced him: “This is Gene O’Neill.” Ibid.

  drawn to her earthy warmth, once referred to her as “a female Christ.” A/BG interviews with MHV.

  society’s wrongful neglect of such people as herself, and she pulled herself together. A Victorian in the Modern World by HH (Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York, 1939).

  “‘Nothin’ happened. See?’” O’Neill saw. NY Daily News series, 1/24 to 1/30/32.

  he’d been deferred because of his earlier bout with tuberculosis. see LWMC.

  She said she “must go upstairs”; but she lingered. Part of a Long Story.

  “I thought him the strangest man I had ever met.” Ibid.

  “But she pours on the romance and remembers too much and too little.” undated letter to A/BG headed “Macgowan, 833 Stradella Road, Los Angeles 24 California.”

  brief exchange of empty pleasantries, and then he was gone. Part of a Long Story.

  His performance was greeted with embarrassed laughter. A/BG interviews with Romany Marie Marchand, Nina Moise, Holger Cahill, DD, JL.

  It was then that she abruptly dropped O’Neill. LB & JR left for Russia 8/17/17.

  “Please Louise!” letter, 9/19/17, Louise Bryant papers, a collection broken out from the William C. Bullitt papers in Manuscripts & Archives, at Sterling Memorial Library, Yale.

  nor did she promise a timely return. Ibid.

  O’Neill confided to an indiscreet friend, who couldn’t resist broadcasting the remark. EO to TC as reported to A/BG by JL & JJM.

  fifty dollars, the first respectable money he’d earned for creative writing. In Oct. 1916, The Seven Arts published O’Neill’s one-act play, The Long Voyage Home. A/BG interview with Waldo Frank.

  he doubted the magazine’s editors “were as overwhelmed by its hideous beauty as I was.” letter to Mark Van Doren, 5/12/44, Princeton, SL.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “But by then . . . my cross had become too heavy to bear.” letter (early March 1918), William Christian Bullitt & Anne Moen Bullitt papers, Manuscripts and Archives Section, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale.

  agreed to meet there with Hutch Collins, an actor with the Provincetown Players. Part of a Long Story.

  which bound them “hilariously together.” letter, EO
to SG, 1/29/19.

  at first dumbstruck and then, outraged, left the apartment. Part of a Long Story & interviews with SB, DD, Eleanor Fitzgerald, & Mary Pyne, to whom AB later related parts of the above incident.

  completed his cycle of four early one-act sea plays later collectively produced as S.S. Glencairn. The other three are Bound East for Cardiff, The Long Voyage Home, and In the Zone.

  strange songs of the natives coming over the waters mingled with the sounds aboard ship. Olin Downes, Boston Sunday Post, 8/29/20.

  It was plotless, as he once noted Brentano’s Book Chat, Malcolm Cowley, July/Aug. 1926.

  The Moon of the Caribbees, he later added, was his “favorite short play.” New York Sun, Ward Morehouse, 5/14/30.

  featuring an appealing photo of Agnes. 10/7/16.

  she instinctively disbelieved it, and, of course, she was right. Part of a Long Story.

  he cheerfully confessed to casual affairs in letters to Louise during his work-driven absences. John Reed collection, Houghton Library, Harvard.

  he was not “absolutely sure” whether he was still in love with Louise. Part of a Long Story.

  “Agnes knew this feeling of mine and accepted it.” letter, EO to LB (early March 1918), William Christian Bullitt & Anne Moen Bullitt papers, Manuscripts and Archives Section, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale.

  declared he had no intention of ever again going through anything like his turmoil with Louise. Part of a Long Story.

  an idea for a full-length play that was nagging at him, along with several possible one-acters. Ibid.

  the Provincetown Players were holding their collective breath. A/BG interviews with GCC, SG, JL, etc.

  O’Neill asked Agnes if she would come with him to Provincetown. She said yes. Part of a Long Story.

  several friends among O’Neill’s classmates, whom he often visited. A/BG interviews with Princeton classmates, Warren H. Hastings, Richard Weeks, & Ralph Horton.

  O’Neill was dismissed from Princeton by the Committee on Examinations and Standings “for poor scholastic standing.” Secretary of Princeton University files.

  Holladay was “the most loved man friend Gene ever had,” as he told Carlotta years later. CM diary, 2/19/32.

  establish himself as a fruit farmer while curing himself of his drinking habit. A/BG interviews with DD, & Part of a Long Story.

  telling her he wanted to return to the Hell Hole to be with Holladay. Part of a Long Story.

  soon became evident to those gathered at the Hell Hole that there was something amiss. A/BG interviews with DD & Romany Marie.

  he had no qualms about obtaining drugs for a friend. Ibid.

  unoccupied Village flat, sleeping on the floor on cast-off mattresses. A/BG interviews with CM & various Village friends including JL & JJM.

  he’d fled the restaurant, hurrying back to Agnes’s flat for solace. A/BG interviews with DD & Romany Marie, & Part of a Long Story.

  he had stopped breathing before the ambulance arrived. Ibid.

  they apparently pronounced the death as due to “chronic endocarditis.” Ken Cobb, former director of the NY City Archives, & A/BG interviews with DD & Romany Marie, & Part of a Long Story.

  The police, arriving a short time later, accepted that finding. Ken Cobb, former director of the NY City Archives.

  Christine Ell wept unstoppably. A Victorian in the Modern World.

  “We were very happy and very young.” A/BG interviews with DD.

  “He didn’t need any urging.” Ibid.

  possessing scant knowledge of the tenets of Catholicism, she would kneel during early-morning Mass. Ibid.

  attempting to kiss it with the reverence tendered a saint. A/BG interviews with clients of the mission house.

  “I pray that Gene turns to the light.” Early in 2000, Dorothy Day was pronounced a candidate for canonization by the Vatican. She had died in 1980, by which time EO had been among the departed for a quarter of a century. But if, as Day believed, there was “no time with God,” she and EO, on March 17, 2000, shared an ironic chuckle over the chance that the youthful, devil-may-care sinner they both tenderly remembered might one day transmogrify into Saint Dorothy. (According to Church authorities, candidacy for sainthood calls for a process of investigation that can take decades to complete.)

  CHAPTER TEN

  never had she “seen or touched such beautiful hair.” Part of a Long Story.

  Francis threw in the adjacent studio at no extra cost. letter from Francis to EO, 1/18/18, LS collection, Conn. College.

  “As for my little girl,” recalled Agnes, “so preposterous would have been the idea of my poet-genius with a child around that I don’t think the idea even occurred to me.” Part of a Long Story.

  He didn’t understand children and couldn’t relate to them, he said. Ibid.

  told a friend who asked if they planned to have children that probably all they would have was a book. A/BG interview with JR.

  understand that he was attempting to create “a simon-pure uncompromising American tragedy?” letter, EO to R. W. Cottingham, 5/12/44, Yale, SL.

  summarized Beyond as “the tragedy of the man who looks over the horizon, who longs with his whole soul to depart on the quest, but whom destiny confines to a place and a task that are not his.” Olin Downes, Boston Sunday Post, 8/29/20.

  “Robert Mayo was born, and developed from that beginning,” as was Ruth and the rest of the play’s characters, and “finally the complete play.” “A Letter From O’Neill,” NYT, 3/1/20.

  Louise wrote she’d “crossed three thousand miles of frozen steppes to come back to her lover.” Part of a Long Story.

  “See her!” Agnes retorted in disbelief. Ibid.

  O’Neill’s vision of the “mythical symbol of the great old and mystic Irish legends.” Ibid.

  letters he knew risked the wreckage of his romance with Agnes. Bryant preserved the letters, which did not surface until Jan. 2004. Her daughter Anne Moen Bullitt gave them to the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale.

  “I might die . . . and I want you to have everything I’ve got.” LB’s unpublished memoir, Granville Hicks Collection, George Arents Research Library, Syracuse University.

  He drank and drank in order to drug himself into “an indifferent apathy.” Ibid.

  “I stand condemned to love you forever—and hate you for what you have done to my life.” Ibid.

  the satisfaction of being able to summarily bring O’Neill to heel. Part of a Long Story.

  “And so at the crossroads I salute you as we pass: ‘Adios, Stranger!’” Ibid.

  the ramshackle studios Agnes and O’Neill occupied. A/BG interviews with Woods & her son Allen Ullman.

  at the melting snow in a bare, brown orchard, he made no comment. Ibid.

  the most tempestuously romantic couple outside the pages of a book. A/BG interview with Allen Ullman.

  since the expense of operating the Playwrights’ Theatre was barely covered by ticket sales. Considered not experimental enough for the Playwrights’ Theatre, In the Zone was first produced Oct. 31, 1917, by the more flexible off-Broadway troupe, the Washington Square Players. O’Neill at first rejected the offer of a vaudeville tour as degrading, but changed his mind when he was guaranteed a twenty-five- to forty-week run on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. In later years he disparaged In the Zone as “too facile in its conventional technique, too full of clever theatrical tricks,” saying the play “in no way represents the true me or what I desire to express.” Letter, EO to Barrett H. Clark, 5/18/19, Yale, SL.

  forgot to alert either O’Neill or Agnes to the visit. A/BG interviews with Woods.

  O’Neill would be finished working by two, and blandly offered to return at half past four. Part of a Long Story.

  “Believe me,” he wrote to Moise, “from line to line, the poor wretch can neve
r tell whether the play is farce or tragedy—so perverse a spirit is his star.” 4/9/18, Yale, SL.

  resolved not to let the threat of Louise hinder her happiness. A/BG interviews with NM.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Then he laughed, his mouth distorted with an ironic grin.” Part of a Long Story, & A/BG interviews with Teddy Ballantine & his wife, Stella.

  “I can remember my horrible astonishment and despair at this performance, along with a crazy dazed feeling that it just couldn’t be true—it couldn’t have happened.” Part of a Long Story.

  advising her to give O’Neill time to cool down. A/BG interview with SB.

  “You and I always. Us always!” Part of a Long Story.

  re-embracing her lapsed Catholic faith and concurrently conquering her morphine habit. see LWMC.

  Madden, who predeceased O’Neill, remained his agent until death. A/BG interviews with Mrs. Madden.

  widely quoted view that “the greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong.” The quotation continues: “If the Government or majorities think an individual is right, no one will interfere with him; but when agitators talk against the things considered holy, or when radicals criticize, or satirize the political gods, or question the justice of our laws and institutions, or pacifists talk against the war, how the old inquisition awakens, and ostracism, the excommunication of the church, the prison, the wheel, the torture-chamber, the mob, are called to suppress the free expression of thought.”

  already a successful novelist, was among the hopeful playwrights he was guiding, along with O’Neill, at the Playwrights’ Theatre. see LWMC.

  work in the local hardware store to help pay for his family’s rented cottage. Sometime between late Nov. and mid-Dec. 1918, EO wrote yet another one-act play, Honor Among the Bradleys, never published or produced. GJN read it and chided him for writing it and EO promptly tore it up, later acknowledging to GJN that it was “a very false and feeble piece of work.” Letter, EO to GJN, 6/20/20, Cornell, SL.

  The Moon of the Caribbees, the first of three one-act plays (the last two by other authors). Tickless Time by SG and GCC, and The Rescue by Rita Creighton Smith.