Zelda (70 page)

   289 “—and even for those lonesome bicycle…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   290 “Those monstrous, hideous men…”: Gerald Murphy to NM, interview, March 2, 1964.

   290 “Dearest Do-Do:…Gary wrote that Ernest was back…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. April 1932).

   290 She remembered that the drawings…: Dorothy Parker to NM, interview, August 26, 1964. This portrait of Fitzgerald was later given by Mrs. Parker to Rosser Evans in Hollywood. Some years after the gift Mr. Evans took it with him to Mexico where it was destroyed in a fire. In 1947 Zelda would tell H. Dan Piper that she had painted a portrait of Scott as a companion piece to her self-portrait (see second section of illustrations), and that Condé Nast had it. Neither Mr. Piper nor I have been able to locate that portrait. A third portrait of Fitzgerald was destroyed after Zelda’s death in a fire in a small shed behind the house Zelda had lived in with her mother in Montgomery.

   
291 “Yes, it was good. The eyelashes…”: Judge John Biggs, Jr., to NM, interview, June 9, 1963.

   291 The New York
Post
ran an article…: “Jan Age Priestess Brings Forth Paintings,” the New York
Post
, April 3, 1934.

   291 “There was a time…”: “Work of A Wife,” Time magazine, April 9, 1934, p. 42.

   291 “Last week…Zelda Fitzgerald showed…”:
Ibid.

   292 “The collar of his topcoat was turned up rakishly…”: James Thurber, “Scott in Thorns,”
Credos & Curios
, New York, Harper & Row, 1962, pp. 157–160.

   292 Throughout the period of Zelda’s stay at Craig House…: In the one which begins “My pictures looked very nice….” Zelda mentions that it is Easter, and it is clear that she is writing after her return from the New York exhibit (ca. April 1934).

   293 “I have now got to the Rosemary-Rome episode…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. April 1934).

   294 “You know how I play…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   294 “You have the satisfaction…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   294 Another time she wrote, “Those people…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   294 “You seem afraid that it will make me recapitulate…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. late April 1934).

   294 Scott continued to insist that she not have “too much traffic…”: FSF to ZSF, April 26, 1934.

   295 “…the only sadness is the living without you…”:
Ibid.

   295–296 Patiently she tried to explain to Scott…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. early May 1934).

   296 It is doubtful that she had time to begin the new novel…: Ledger, p. 188.

   296 “I do not feel as you do about state…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   296 “Darling I feel very disoriented and lonely…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. end of May 1934).

   297 Fitzgerald accepted the doctors’ decision…: FSF to Dr. William Elgin, May 21, 1934.

   297 “For it there is to be said…”:
Ibid.

   297 And it must have been in yet another effort to stir her from apathy…: FSF to ZSF, May 31, 1934.

   298 About the collection of her short pieces…: FSF to ZSF, June 13, 1934.

   298 He would write a five-hundred-word introduction…:
Ibid.

   298 In Scott’s opinion this sort of collection would nicely “compete with such personal collections…”:
Ibid.

   298 (Those were “Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number ——”…:
Esquire
, May and June, 1934. “Auction—Model 1934,”
Esquire
, July 1934. These articles are reprinted in
The Crack-Up.

   299 The Myers have gone to Antibes…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. mid-June 1934).

   299 She was afraid the title “Eight Women”…:
Ibid.

   299 He edited the first one, “Show Mr. and Mrs. F….”: On June 26, 1934, Fitzgerald wrote Perkins that he had “fixed up and sold some of Zelda’s little articles,” which probably refers to these pieces.
Letters, p.
249. By the beginning of November he was again writing Perkins that he had, since finishing the proofs of
Tender
in March 1934, “rewritten three articles of Zelda’s for
Esquire…
”
Letters
, p. 254.

   299 “The night of the stock market crash…”:
CU
, p. 50.

   300 Cafes have a
“desperate
swashbuckling…”:
Ibid.
, pp. 51–52.

   300 In Scott’s revision…:
Ibid.
, p. 53.

   301 Among the souvenirs of their pasts…:
Ibid.
, p. 61.

   301 “In some of the pictures we are golfing…”:
Ibid.
, p. 57.

   301 They will keep them all, “the tangible…”:
Ibid.
, p. 62.

   301–302 When at last they work they “are of young…”:
Ibid., p.
68.

   302 “She seemed in every way exactly…”: FSF to Dr. Harry Murdock, August 28, 1934.

   303 “Once she condescended to tell me something…”: Dr. William Elgin to NM, interview, March 8, 1969.

   
303 The entries in his Ledger grew more despairing…: Ledger, pp. 188–189.

   303 “Wouldn’t you like to smell the pine woods…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   303 “It seems rather Proustian to be rambling…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   304 “Summer, another summer has gone…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   304 “It is summer time and past time…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   304 “My dearest Sweetheart: There is no way to ask…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   305 He spent part of the spring in Tryon…:
Letters
, p. 264.

   305 Zelda was not coherent during most…: ZSF to FSF. n.d.

   305 As he once admitted to a friend…: James Drawbell,
The Sun Within Us, p.
177.

   306 She remembers being dressed in a red gypsy…: Mrs. Laura Guthrie Hearne to NM, interview, July 24, 1963.

   306 “Scott never wanted to sleep.”:
Ibid.

   306 Mrs. Hearne was certain that he used…:
Ibid.

   307 “At first he didn’t love her…”:
Ibid.

   307 “The tough part of the letter is to…”:
Letters, p.
530. There is some question as to whether or not Fitzgerald sent this letter. But even if he did not, the manner in which he expressed himself is a clear enough indication of his strategy.

   307 Back in Baltimore in September…:
Ibid.
, p. 531.

   307 To another friend he would admit…:
Ibid.
, pp. 528–529.

   307 “What she has been through…”: FSF to Mrs. Laura Guthrie Hearne, October 25, 1935.

   308 He wrote in his Ledger, “Me caring…”: Ledger, April 1936. This page is inserted into the Ledger and is not numbered.

   308 “…Zelda now claims to be…”:
Letters
, pp. 425–426.

Chapter 18

   309 “You are her [Zelda’s] ideal…”: Dr. Robert S. Carroll to FSF, June 25, 1936.

   310 In it Dr. Meyer said that Carroll had…: Dr. Robert S. Carroll,
What Price Alcohol?
, Macmillan, New York, 1941, p. ix.

   310 A nurse who was at the hospital…: Miss Gertrude Sykes to NM, July 26, 1963.

   311 Scottie was sent to camp and Scott wrote her there…: FSF to Scottie, July 16, 1936.

   311 He and Zelda made plans to meet for lunch…: FSF to ZSF, July 27, 1936: “They sent for a bone specialist and he said it would have to be set immediately or else I would never be able to raise my arm as high as my shoulder again so they gave me gas…and I fell asleep thinking you were in the room and saying. ‘Yes. I
am
going to stay; after all it’s my husband.’ I woke up with a plaster cast that begins below my navel, estends upward and goes west out an arm.”

   311 Scott told Perkins, “I have been…”:
Letters, p.
266.

   311 A woman who worked at the inn remembered…: Mrs. Julia Lytle to NM, interview, July 25, 1963.

   312 “He would cry over the phone…”:
Ibid.

   312 The secretary he hired that summer…: I am indebted to Myra Champion of the Pack Memorial Public Library in Asheville, North Carolina for this information regarding the late Martha Marie Shank’s reminiscences about Fitzgerald.

   313 At a New Year’s costume ball…: Dr. Robert S. Carroll to Dr. Thomas Rennie. January 6 and May 28, 1937.

   313 “We were careful with Zelda…”: Miss Mary Porter to NM, interview, August 1, 1963.

   313 He wrote Perkins about “Such stray…”:
Letters
, p. 269.

   314 “I hadn’t planned to meet Scott…”: Carl Van Vechten to NM. interview, April 17, 1963.

   314 “She was rather reserved…”: Landon Ray to NM, interview, July 25, 1963.

   314 “Have fun—I envy you and everybody…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   314 Miss Graham has written movingly of their love…: Sheilah Graham and Gerold Frank,
Beloved Infidel
, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1958, pp. 174–175.

   
315 She remembers: “…it seemed to me…”: Sheilah Graham to NM, interview, September 13, 1968.

   315 “I wish we were astride the tops of New York taxis…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   315 “Zelda is no better…”: FSF to Beatrice Dance, November 27, 1937.

   315–316 “Your mother was better…”:
Letters
, p. 22.

   316 There was always a puritanical streak…: Graham,
Beloved Infidel
, p. 248.

   316 “I have, of course, my eternal hope that a miracle…”: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, March 4, 1938.

   317 “And if the aforesaid miracle…”:
Ibid.

   317 Zelda was irritable with both the golf…: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, April 7, 1938.

   317 “All this isn’t pretty on my part…”:
Ibid.

   317 When he had lived like a vegetable in Tryon…:
Ibid.

   318 Later in her life Miss Graham said…: Sheilah Graham to NM, interview, September 13, 1968.

   318 He would never again, he swore…:
Letters
, p. 28.

   318–319 Scott answered the doctor that his recommendations lacked…: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, April 19, 1938.

   319 “Supposing Zelda at best would be a lifelong…”: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, May 19, 1938.

   320 “I love the casual gallantry of a gray March…”: ZSF, Black Notebook. In September 1939, one of Zelda’s doctors reported to Dr. Rennie that she was writing unintelligible notes for a “philosophical book.”

   321 Mrs. Sayre entered into the dispute…: Mrs. A. D. Sayre to FSF, April 26, 1938.

   322 He wrote Scottie: “Do try…”:
Letters
, p. 31.

   322 It was a casual remark, but it underlined the complicity…:
Ibid.
, p. 40.

   322 “a sense of partnership,…”:
Ibid.

   322 Zelda wrote Scott: “Scottie is the prettiest…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. June 1938).

   323 “When I was your age I lived…”:
Letters
, pp. 32–33.

   323 Fitzgerald wrote her: “…quite possibly…”:
Ibid.
, p. 26.

   323 She sent him a postcard from the Brasserie…: Scottie to FSF, August 7, 1938.

   324 The city was for her “bliss…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. September 1938).

   324 “It fill[s] me with dread to witness…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. fall 1938).

   324 They also saw Scott’s film
Three Comrades…
: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. fall 1938).

   324 “I am so sick of the moralistic tone…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. fall 1938).

   324 She pressed for release in her letters to Scott…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. This terrible reduction of life—the essential submission to routine that happens to people who are hospitalized for lengthy periods of time—
is
caught perfectly in Frederick Exley’s
A Fan’s Notes.
However, for what I take to be the essence of the special fury, terror and revenge of the insane see Blaise Cendrar,
Moravagine.

   325 She would plead to him: “D.O.
Won’t…”:
ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   325 “Don’t give up anything to get these…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   326 Christmas, 1938, she spent in Montgomery…: FSF to Rosalind Smith, December 21, 1938.

   326 Scott wrote Rosalind: “Imagine Zelda running amuk…”:
Ibid.

   326 Rosalind, he wrote Mrs. Sayre, “seems to feel…”: FSF to Mrs. A. D. Sayre, January 3, 1939.

   326 “You made a great impression…”:
Letters
, pp. 54–55.

   327 She wrote Scott: “Havannah is probably…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. end of January 1939).

   327 “It seems useless to wait any more…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. end of April 1939).

   328 “We were all afraid when she went off…”: Miss Mary Porter to NM, interview, August 1, 1963.

   328 “Don’t feel bad. You were so sweet…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. end of April 1939).

   328 “You were a peach throughout the whole trip…”:
Letters
, p. 105.

   329 Scott, who was undergoing financial and health…:
Ibid.
, pp. 57–58.

   329 “Dearest: I trust that you will not resent this…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. summer 1939).

   
330 After all Scott had been through…: FSF to Dr. R. Burke Suitt, July 5, 1939.

   330 “She is a dominant little girl…”: FSF to Dr. Suitt, July 27, 1939.

   330 But to Scott she confided her aloneness: “My tennis progresses…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. summer 1939).

   331 “Roads lace the mountains to earth…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. late summer 1939).

   331 “Be brown and happy…”: ZSF to Scottie,
n.d.

   331 Scott once wrote Scottie, “Think of the enormous…”:
Letters
, p. 51.

   331 “If you flew East I’d be glad…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   331 “When you come won’t you bring me another pair…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   332 “If Alabama should prove an unfortunate…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   332 “As you know I tried to give Zelda…”: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, September 27, 1939.

   332 “I am almost penniless…”:
Letters
, p. 110.

   332 “After her, you are my next consideration…”:
Ibid.