From Strasbourg and its ghosts we moved on together to Switzerland and its adventures. In Interlaken we added alpenstocks to our glengarries and, so attired, confronted the glories of the Alps. Each day we set forth from the Pension Iris to try this road or that cowpath, to cross a footbridge or scale a wooden fence. We sailed on both lakes—the Brienzersee and the Thunersee. At Brienz we visited the atelier of the woodcarver Huggler-Wyss, and later, on our walk to Heimwehfluh, we actually saw his woodcarvings walk before us. Our rucksacks stuffed with box lunches, we set forth on the day’s adventures—a trip to Mürren where cowbells tinkled and Grüssgotts welcomed us, where models for our woodcarvings stroked their beards and carried packs on their backs. Along dirt paths, past frozen waterfalls we walked, clumping our alpenstocks.
After an excursion we strolled along the Hoheweg and dropped in at Bücherer, king of watches, where I bought a gold watch for my beloved mother. First, of course, we examined every watch in that emporium of timepieces, and finally selected a beauty. Unfortunately, however, when we examined it back at the Pension, the hands had not moved since the time of purchase. We raced back to the Hoheweg, where we were regaled with profuse apologies. The management had forgotten to insert the movement.
We consoled ourselves for the Bücherer oversight with marzipan pastry at the Café Schuh. In the evening we ambled to the Kursaal for flag-swinging or an alphorn recital. I wrote rhapsodically in my journal: “Pastry and sun and green grass and L beside me sitting in the Alps. Truly Das Oberland, Das Oberland, Das Oberland ist schön.”
We added tokens to our alpenstocks as we visited towns farther aloft—for each village a small medal to nail onto our sticks. We sat waiting in misty rain on the porch of the elegant Hotel Victoria Jungfrau, hoping the sun would appear so that we could take the trip up the Jungfrau. We spent a strange and slightly hilarious day journeying by bus to Lucerne via the Rhone Glacier. Our stolid, imperious, and very German blond driver took seven hours for the outward trip, but at Lucerne, impelled to be in Interlaken in time for supper, he announced that he would make the return in only two hours. As I recorded in my journal:
Everything passed smoothly at first & we were thrilled by the Aare-Schlucht whose river gushes white over the grey boulders of the gorge, by Grimsel Pass over vertiginous cliffs, by the Rhone Glacier where a native blew “God Save the King” on his alphorn. We left the chamois and the St. Bernards when we arrived in Lucerne, but when we left Lucerne the fun began. Our driver, to make up for lost time, took it into his head to race through mountain passes, over precipitous cliffs and curves, at 80 miles an hour. We screamed for him to slow down. “Passengers do not set the pace,” he warned, and then reduced his speed to an impossible crawl. The remaining passengers included a woman from Wisconsin and a timid Dutch couple.
Boldly suggesting we all abandon the bus and charter a private car to take us back, I promptly discovered I had no money with me and could not participate in such a venture. Then Mrs. Wisconsin became ill, the Dutch couple demonstrated intense fear of the Germanic driver, and somehow we all made our way back to Interlaken. The day was a peculiar combination of lieblich scenery, majestic mountains, carefree spirits, and a strangely insinuating threat. We recovered from it, however, and were both, as Leona wrote in her journal, “happy as only we can be together in the Alps.”
Yet, as “our hearts were young and gay” trip neared its end, Leona’s journal revealed that her happiness was intermittent. We had only one more port to call before returning home, and that realization, coupled with concern about Mr. Thorndike’s lack of enthusiasm for her subject, dashed her spirits from time to time. As she wrote, “A long winter stretches ahead and my night’s rest is sometimes destroyed by mean shadows portending the return to reality.” But our next—our last—port of call was Paris, and shadows of the long winter were not yet upon us.
“In Paris at least we won’t have any hotel problems,” Leona asserted confidently. Certainly we foresaw none. In Strasbourg we had written ahead to a small hostelry on the Place St. Augustin, where Leona had stayed the year before. “It’s nothing grand,” she had said, “but it’s pleasant.” And so we wrote to the manager Monsieur Laplace, and Leona emphasized that we would pay no more than fifty francs a night, the same as she had paid last year. Monsieur Laplace wrote as ingratiating a confirmation as the proprietrix of the Belgravia had sent us. He would be delighted to see her again with her friend, at the same rate as last year. We realized later—too late—that the franc had inflated since Leona’s stay at the Malesherbes.
When we arrived, however, I was not as elated by the Hôtel Malesherbes as I had hoped to be. First of all, I realized that the ascenseur seemed to be very limited in its operations, ascending readily enough but seldom descending. Second, the hall lights were known as minuits, lighting up for only a few seconds before a timer extinguished them. Third, our chambre à coucher left much to be desired. Upon close inspection, I decided that the drapes hid a quantity of dust, and, after we had both done our laundry, we proceeded to consult a Paris hotel guide. There we discovered that, thanks to our ignorance of currency fluctuations, we were paying as much for the meager accommodations of the Malesherbes as the excellent Left Bank Hôtel Lutétia charged for a double room with bath. Such a situation could not be tolerated, and, despite our dripping laundry, we decided to arrange for an immediate departure from Monsieur Laplace and the Malesherbes. We would concoct a plausible story to account for the sudden change of plan.
With crocodile tears we approached the proprietor, informing him that my nonexistent only sister was dying in Antwerp. Like all Frenchmen, Monsieur Laplace took a reverent interest in necrological matters and expressed profound sympathy. However, when we added that we must rush to her bedside immediately, he and his sympathy were transformed. Now Monsieur Laplace became a fury incarnate. His face reddened, he jumped up and down, he paced back and forth, he scratched the seat of his pants, and simultaneously screamed at us and made out several bills. Despite my grief, I examined them carefully and informed Monsieur Laplace that he had charged us for three nights instead of one. We compromised on two nights and proceeded to repack. As we gathered up our wet laundry, Leona kept murmuring, “Ah, ma soeur, ma soeur.” The chambermaid, hovering over us, was puzzled and, pointing to me, said, “I thought it was her soeur.” “Oh, what’s the difference?” Leona replied in perfect French.
From the Lutétia on the Boulevard Raspail in the heart of the Left Bank we rejoiced to explore Paris together. We reveled in everything, from the clous in the gutters to the pissoirs, from the Citroën buses to the mustachioed boulevardiers. Together we gloried in the vistas of Paris, seen from the narrow lanes and cobblestones of the Left Bank or from the broad and elegant expanses of the Avenue de l’Opéra or the Champs Élysées. Together we roamed the Louvre, stood before the Winged Victory in her windblown pride and beauty, strolled past the worshippers of Mona Lisa, on down the corridor des Italiens to our particular treasures. We wandered through the shops together, seeking suede and leather gloves at the Galeries Lafayette, where we were squirted with gallons of free, very strong perfume, and at the Grand Maison de Blanc we were surrounded by mountains of embroidered hankies and colorful scarves. We rested our weary legs in the Tuileries Gardens, and tea-ed happily at Rumpelmeyer’s—not on tea, but on cresson sandwiches, tarte de noix, and chocolat chaud. In the evenings we dined on châteaubriand, haricots verts, and pommes frites, and spent a few hours at the Cinéac. There we watched, not the News of the Day, but a dog seated near us who, with rapt attention, followed a cartoon about a misunderstood puppy and a naughty cat. Everything was possible in the City of Light. For us together everything was pure joy.
Paris was en fête in 1937, hosting the International Exposition. Among the thousands of visitors we were struck by the Russian Pavilion, with its tractors and autos, its minerals and statistics, its air of “Look what we have done.” In close proximity was the German Pavilion, where swastikas flew and Hitler�
�s face was for sale on postcards. Of all the pavilions the one that interested us most at the time was the Spanish. There, Franco’s name was not mentioned, for the pavilion was under the auspices of the Loyalists, and due honor was paid to the 1937 Armée Populaire. In one small corner of Paris we saw a microcosm of Europe and a portent of things to come.
Our political ruminations were interrupted by a professional visit. Perhaps it was her reaction to the flying swastikas that accelerated Leona’s heartbeat. At all events, it bothered her sufficiently to make her consult a physician. Dr. Theodore Merrill, recommended by the hotel, hailed from Massachusetts. Perhaps his star asset was the fact that he spoke English. After a brief examination he diagnosed a “tricuspid valvular leak” and suggested that Leona take it easy for the rest of her stay. While he indited a lengthy epistle to Leona’s father regarding her condition, we looked around the office. As Leona wrote in her journal: “His office reminded me of an antiquated junk room. The only thing that really appeared to pertain to his profession was a set of eye tests half hidden by an Empire tapestry. His collection of trash was topped off by a branch of the Washington elm.”
We did not allow Dr. Merrill’s diagnosis to interfere too drastically with our last days in Paris. We spent a great part of them scouting the bookstalls on the quais. Our journals record our reactions: “When the tin boxes were opened [I found] Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley and his Defense, another copy of Baudelaire’s translation of Poe—1857—Rousseau.” Leona “got a nice little collection on printing—printers’ marks, wood engraving, and the Bibliothèque Nationale Catalogue on the French Revolution.”
If only we had known then that within less than a decade we would be partners in a rare book business that was selling Rousseau and Baudelaire and using Leona’s “nice little collection on printing” for reference. But in September of 1937, when we embarked on the Statendam for home after our first trip to Europe together, the future seemed less clear and certainly less hopeful than ever. Rumblings of dissension and premonitions of global war mingled with our own uncertainties. Dissatisfied with teaching, eager to write but floundering for genre and for subject, I felt unanchored, unfulfilled. Leona was especially disheartened. She wrote in her journal: “So much nearer home; so much more miserable. I know the enormity of this admission but going back implies so much & I am so completely happy just going on endlessly with Mady … I can’t stand the thought of its being over. I can’t.” The day before the Statendam docked in Hoboken, she recorded, “When I realize HOME tomorrow and all that goes with it, it seems impossible. I don’t want to go back. To what? Futile hopes and anxiety about my dissertation—trying to hold my head up against a lack of accomplishment. After we have explored Europe together, how can I face my future alone?”
EBB TIDE
Leona REALITY HIT even harder and sooner than we had anticipated. Our mothers met us at the pier, more solemn than joyous. Mady had to give up the few remaining days of her vacation to help with a course in reading skills for the Board of Education. Far more serious was the news that my father was gravely ill. In addition, we were now separated after the glorious time together, and, as I wrote in my journal in late October: “Our beautiful trip is over more than a month. How hard to accept—how difficult to believe we won’t don our glengarries, take alpenstocks in hand, and tramp the Hoheweg. It seems a bit trite almost to speak of these things when it’s all been so dreadful—what with Daddy nearly gone—the hours of horrible uncertainty—never knowing, constantly dreading & all of us loving him so.”
Within the next few weeks, my father made a marked recovery, and soon after was able to resume his practice. I was free once again to work on my dissertation, judging the results sometimes with satisfaction, sometimes doubt. I confided my doubts to Madeleine alone, who in turn was searching for a subject for her pen. After spending a day teaching grammar or reading Silas Marner to uninterested students, she longed for a more creative focus for her life.
In 1936 Van Wyck Brooks had published The Flowering of New England. Now, a year later, we devoured it, and after I read the chapter entitled “Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and Brook Farm,” I suggested to Madeleine that she write a full-length biography of Fuller. The suggestion would take root, and Brooks’s “electrical apparition,” the “queen of Cambridge,” would dominate Mady’s life during the next few years.
Meanwhile I concentrated on work for my degree. My ongoing fears about the validity and presentation of a thesis that would establish the printer’s influence upon his times arose partly from a lack of self-confidence and partly from Mr. Thorndike’s ever-present insinuations. He still wished that I had selected a subject from his beloved Arabic astrologers, and, more important, he was not accustomed to opposition of any kind. Nonetheless I persisted, but not without the attendant fear that I would have to suffer the consequences of my independence.
Coupled with these anxieties was my distress at not earning money and relying on my parents for an allowance. And all this was exacerbated by the presence in our home of Dr. Fritz Levy, a young refugee from Nazi Germany, the son of my father’s closest friend, whom my parents had invited to live with the family. He arrived in 1938, a politely annoying and somewhat patronizing physician, who, everyone was aware, was in search not only of a livelihood on these shores but of a wife. I was quite certain that Fritz had been imported not solely for humanitarian reasons, and I did not relish the situation into which I had been thrust. Fritz’s interest in me was patently manufactured and I soon sensed its lack of sincerity. My parents, I felt, had placed me in an embarrassing and untenable position, and at one point I threatened to leave home. The matter was finally resolved when Fritz married another refugee and set up for himself. Meanwhile, I vented my feelings in my diary, where I wrote in November 1938: “I can scarcely write of what I fear—there’s Czechoslovakia—and Hitler marching & marching—English perfidy and skulking France. On the other side of the sea all the world is mobilizing & soon bombs will be hissing 8c shrieking over Strasbourg. I can’t stand it. It’s also a question of my earning money to be independent of it all—including the miserable situation with Fritz.”
Despite my immersion in research and passionate pursuit of printing in 1509, my fear of Thorndike’s eventual rejection continued to haunt me. I had been influenced by Van Wyck Brooks, the acclaimed literary historian whose style was reflected in the first part of my dissertation. When I finally summoned up the courage to present that portion to Mr. Thorndike, however, his reaction was not entirely disdainful. “It seems to have some merit,” he admitted, adding, “The style cannot attain acceptance. It is too popular. You must use more academic prose.”
The dissertation was apparently still viable. We would enjoy a family get-together for Thanksgiving, the birth of friends’ babies, even Lucy’s marriage and sojourn in Mexico. We would relish Paul Muni in the role of Emile Zola and young Yehudi Menuhin playing Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the New York Philharmonic.
As for Madeleine, she had already begun preliminary research on American Transcendentalism and on Margaret Fuller, feminist, author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, citizen of the world who had taken the world as her province and accepted it. A summer in Maine would, we agreed, offer both of us the leisure and the opportunity to plunge deeper into our projects. The summer of 1938 was spent, as later summers would also be spent, in a rented cottage located one mile north of Ogunquit.
We found that cottage much as we had selected our hotels in Europe the year before—with the same touch of carefree hilarity. A young man in the English Department of Long Island City High School, where Mady had been transferred, happened to mention that he had had a great weekend near Ogunquit. Eager to summer in that area, Mady had asked where it was. The teacher had forgotten the name of the road, even the name of the town, and had no idea as to who owned the house, but he did recall that it was “the next to the last house on the dead end road a mile north of Ogunquit.” With her usual optimistic persistence, Mady ad
dressed an inquiry to:
THE OWNER
NEXT TO THE LAST HOUSE
DEAD END ROAD
ONE MILE NORTH OF OGUNQUIT, MAINE
That owner, Mr. Powers, then vacationing in Florida, actually received the letter, forwarded by a cooperative United States Post Office. And Mr. Powers would be delighted to rent his house, named Riverbank, for the season at two hundred dollars.
Our parents insisted that we inspect Riverbank in advance, and since Mady was teaching, I volunteered for the mission. It was the month of May, and Maine’s wild strawberries were ripening and the grove of Scotch pines in which the little house was set exuded a wonderful aroma. A tidal stream nearby led to the ocean, and a dory was included with the rental. Enthralled, I sat with the owner on a little broken bench outside Riverbank, dilating on the beauty of the spot. Mr. Powers was pleased but did suggest, “Miss Rostenberg, wouldn’t you like to look at the inside of the house?” The lease was signed after a whirlwind inspection, and I returned home to face the full-scale interrogation of Mady’s mother, a superb housekeeper with a very sharp mind:
“What about hot water?
“What about the stove?
“What about refrigeration?
“What about laundry?
Old Books, Rare Friends Page 10
