Steinbeck (20 page)

But then let it go. I'll ok the script all except the priest scene just as it stands if he wants me to. But he is going to find that a Mexican with an accent is not going to be able to say many of his speeches.

These are little things but I have a feeling that unless they are taken care of, the play is not going to have any sound of authenticity. You can argue that it doesn't matter because no one in the east ever heard of these people, anyway. Just remember some of the phony dialect in pictures and you will see that it does matter. No one believes that, in fact scorns it. I wish now I had not acted so precipitately about the wire. But I had hit bottom. I don't feel quite so badly about it now but I do think it would be better with some more work.

I think that is all and please don't give Kirkland the idea that I am riding him.

John

Los Gatos
January 5, 1938

Dear Mr. G:

In writing to thank you for the beautiful little watch, I am quite swathed in a kind of wonder and in a little fear. I am quite sure you could not have known that in me you had probably the most profound, double-barrelled, synchromesh, watch tragedy the world has ever known. I have not spoken of this before. It was too sharp.

Watches from the beginning filled me not only with longing but with sorrow and nostalgia and a little despair. But so vital is hope that when I came near to graduating from grammar school, when Elgin and Waltham were explaining in full pages the remoteness of success to a watchless person, I must admit that a little hope flickered. And so I graduated —and I got a signet ring.

All through my two years of first year Latin and my year and a half of second year Latin my time sense was so utterly undeveloped that I rarely got to school on time and sometimes left long before it was dismissed. It was only in the last six months that the little worm of spirit moved. With a surge I finished the last month of second year Latin in six weeks. I think I hoped to bribe some kinds of gods with this sacrifice. And so I graduated. I got a Waterman's pen and pencil set.

I think you can understand that my interest in higher education was nonexistent. My parents persuaded and cursed and appealed to my pride. I weakened and went to college almost frantically unenthusiastic. I had become so antisocial that I am the only person in the world who was ever blackballed from a journalistic fraternity and at a time when they needed the initiation fee. I dragged through three years not bravely but dully. I thought pain could no longer strike. And then came the time—and I couldn't take it. I didn't graduate.

The succeeding years have not been happy but I have been busy. And my sense of time, stunted from the beginning, grew so weak and thin that not only did I not know what time it was nor what day it was but once or twice have been three years out on a check stub.

I am trying to reorganize myself. Am I too old? My bones are brittle. I have sometimes to get up in the night. I feel that my fecundity is not eternal. Oh, I can feel the years a little particularly just before a rain. And now—I get a watch. I wonder if such things always come too late. I wonder if I can go back. I wonder for that matter if I can tell time!

Sincerely,
John Steinbeck

[Pacific Grove]
[January 1938]

Dear Joe and Charlotte:

It would seem that things are piling up which will keep me from going up this week end.

It is pouring rain today. By now you probably know what happened to Tortilla Flat. It was, says Carol, the worst thing she ever saw. The lines were bad but the directing and casting were even worse. The thing closed after four performances, thank God. We are really pretty happy about the whole thing because we think this may be so discouraging to Paramount that they will not try to make a picture at all now.

I get sadder and sadder. The requests and demands for money pour in. It is perfectly awful. WPA worker in pencil from Illinois—“you have got luck and I got no luck. My boy needs a hundderd dollar operation. Please send a hundderd dollars. I will pay it back.” That sort of thing. Getting worse every day. Maybe Cuernavaca isn't so far off at that if this doesn't die down. “Liberal negro school going to close if money isn't forthcoming. Can you stand by and see this school close after fifteen years?” Someone told a Salinas ladies' club that I had made three hundred thousand dollars this year. It is driving me crazy. “If you will just send me a railroad ticket to Boise I can come to California and get rid of my rheumatism.” They're nightmarish. Some may be phonys but so damned many of them aren't. Nearly every one is a desperate catching at a million-to-one chance. The damned things haunt me. There's no way of getting over the truth and that we have very little money. It's nibbling me to death.

I think Carol is having a marvelous time. She is so rushed that she can hardly breathe but in spite of that she gets off a letter nearly every day. I think she is taking New York and picking its bones. She is seeing everything and doing everything. We will be poor little provincials to her from now on. I'm really glad she went alone because I am prone to say oh to hell with it and not go the places I've wanted to go (my grammar will give you a mild idea of my mental condition).

bye and
thanks for asking me.
john

Los Gatos
[1938]

Dear Miss Luce:

Annie Laurie says you are worried about your playing of the part of Curley's wife although from the reviews it appears that you are playing it marvelously. I am deeply grateful to you and to the others in the cast for your feeling about the play. You have surely made it much more than it was by such a feeling.

About the girl—I don't know of course what you think about her, but perhaps if I should tell you a little about her as I know her, it might clear your feeling about her.

She grew up in an atmosphere of fighting and suspicion. Quite early she learned that she must never trust any one but she was never able to carry out what she learned. A natural trustfulness broke through constantly and every time it did, she got hurt. Her moral training was most rigid. She was told over and over that she must remain a virgin because that was the only way she could get a husband. This was harped on so often that it became a fixation. It would have been impossible to seduce her. She had only that one thing to sell and she knew it.

Now, she was trained by threat not only at home but by other kids. And any show of fear or weakness brought an instant persecution. She learned she had to be hard to cover her fright. And automatically she became hardest when she was most frightened. She is a nice, kind girl and not a floozy. No man has ever considered her as anything except a girl to try to make. She has never talked to a man except in the sexual fencing conversation. She is not highly sexed particularly but knows instinctively that if she is to be noticed at all, it will be because some one finds her sexually desirable.

As to her actual sexual life—she has had none except with Curley and there has probably been no consummation there since Curley would not consider her gratification and would probably be suspicious if she had any. Consequently she is a little starved. She knows utterly nothing about sex except the mass of misinformation girls tell one another. If anyone—a man or a woman—ever gave her a break—treated her like a person—she would be a slave to that person. Her craving for contact is immense but she, with her background, is incapable of conceiving any contact without some sexual context. With all this—if you knew her, if you could ever break down the thousand little defenses she has built up, you would find a nice person, an honest person, and you would end up by loving her. But such a thing can never happen.

I hope you won't think I'm preaching. I've known this girl and I'm just trying to tell you what she is like. She is afraid of everyone in the world. You've known girls like that, haven't you? You can see them in Central Park on a hot night. They travel in groups for protection. They pretend to be wise and hard and voluptuous.

I have a feeling that you know all this and that you are doing all this. Please forgive me if I seem to intrude on your job. I don't intend to and I am only writing this because Annie Laurie said you wondered about the girl. It's a devil of a hard part. I am very happy that you have it.

Sincerely,
John Steinbeck

Los Gatos
[1938]

Dear George:

The reason for your suspicion is well founded. This has been a difficult and unpleasant time. There has been nothing good about it. In this time my friends have rallied around, all except you. Every time there has been a possibility of putting a bad construction on anything I have done, you have put such a construction.

Some kind friend has told me about it every time you have stabbed me in the back and that whether I wanted to know it or not. I didn't want to know it really. If such things had been reported as coming from more than one person it would be easy to discount the whole thing but there has been only one source. Now I know that such things grow out of an unhappiness in you and for a long time I was able to reason so and to keep on terms of some kind of amicability. But gradually I found I didn't trust you at all, and when I knew that then I couldn't be around you any more. It became obvious that anything I said or did in your presence or wrote to you would be warped viciously and repeated and then the repetition was repeated to me and the thing was just too damned painful. I tried to sidestep, just to fade out of your picture. But that doesn't work either.

I'd like to be friends with you, George, but I can't if I have to wear a mail shirt the whole time. I wish to God your unhappiness could find some other outlet. But I can't consider you a friend when out of every contact there comes some intentionally wounding thing. This has been the most difficult time in my life.

I've needed help and trust and the benefit of the doubt, because I've tried to beat the system which destroys every writer, and from you have come only wounds and kicks in the face. And that is the reason and I think you always knew it was the reason.

john

Los Gatos
February 1938

Dear Elizabeth:

Came yesterday morning the check for royalties. Thank you. It has been raining for one solid week and we are thoroughly sick of it. Of course that will make a rich year but it is the longest and wettest rain I remember and it has sealed us in the house. Carol has a sore throat but seems finally to be licking it. The dogs are nuts for exercise.

Carol had such a good time. It comes out little by little. She couldn't remember much when she first got home but every day she remembers something. I don't think it is very real to her now. Just something she dreamed. You were all very wonderful to her. I think it has done something permanent to her ego which never was properly developed.

Unpleasant thing. I finally broke open the thing with George. At least now if he wants to quarrel it won't be lady quarreling. I feel better about that, but I don't like such things at all.

I'm so darned glad to have Carol back. She can answer the phone and I am permanently out of town. The crowd of speaking engagements continues. I don't know why this insistence on speaking. I am not going to do it, but Carol can say no in much nicer ways than I can.

I imagine the—thing will die now [the paternity charge]. It would have been so easy for them if I had kept it from Carol or if I had something to lose so that I would pay rather than fight. Maybe the attorney figured something like that. But even if there had been relations between this girl and me, Carol would have known about it and that would have fallen down in any case. I think Carol's method in a pinch is good. I have several marks on my body, one at least of them disfiguring, and apparent enough so that a wife or a mistress would be sure to have noticed them. Failure to know them would of course prove something. The worst one, a huge empyema scar, though, could be seen in a bathing suit. But I don't think—[the girl] would remember that. But I did teach all the kids to swim and she might, but there are others. I hope it never gets that far.