Nella Larsen

by Passing

  6. “sons and daughters of Ham”: reference to Ham, father of Canaan, and his descendants, the Canaanites (Genesis 9:20–27). According to the Bible, the progeny of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, populated the earth after the flood. When Noah became drunk from the wine of his vineyard and lay uncovered within his tent, he was gazed upon and mocked by his son Ham, who went and told his brothers that their father lay naked. When Noah awoke and discovered what Ham had done, he cursed his progeny, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” This biblical passage was often invoked by proslavery advocates to provide scriptural justification for the enslavement of Africans in the American South.

  7. “the tar-brush”: slang (disparaging and offensive) for black ancestry—as in brushed or “painted” with tar. Among whites, the term was used to refer to someone “black” who may not actually be so; among African Americans, the term may also refer to dark-skinned blacks.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1. “I nearly died of terror … for fear that she might be dark”: Clare expresses fear of the consequences of reproduction and racial passing, namely, the popular belief that “race will out.” The discourse on color between Clare and Gertrude expresses the anxiety of the passer that, despite skipping generations, the grosser anatomical features of race will eventually resurface, either in the first-generation offspring of miscegenated unions or in subsequent generations. The white counterpart of such a conviction would be “there’s a nigger in the wood-pile,” meaning that black ancestry will sooner or later manifest itself. Such a discourse represents the fear or conviction of the “return of the repressed” at the level of the body. Interestingly, such folk convictions may have been supported at the scientific level by the findings of such nineteenth-century investigators as biologist and botanist Gregor Johann Mendel (1822–1884), whose experiments with plants led to the formulation of the principles of heredity that provided the basis for modern genetics. Furthermore, the legal doctrine of the one-drop rule both drew on and contributed to these popular notions. Also, it is clear that here Larsen expresses the anxiety and frustration associated with her own status as the visibly black child of “white” parents. See Thadious Davis’s biography, Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance (Louisiana State University Press, 1994).

  2. “A black Jew”: most likely pertaining to or derived from the Abyssinian, or Ethiopian, Jews (as opposed to the Semitic Jews). Black Jews consider themselves one of the lost tribes of Israel and descendants of the first Jews, who, they believe, originated in Abyssinia, or Ethiopia. Interestingly, modern DNA research has proved that the Lemba, a group of black Jews in southern Africa who have long claimed priestly lineage, share the Y chromosome of the Cohanim, the Semitic priestly line traced back to Aaron. These genetic results have given credence to claims of an ancestral Jewish link for black Jews. More problematic are those whose link to Judaism is not clearly genetic. The Church of God in Philadelphia, for example, founded by Prophet F. S. Cherry, believes that Christ, with his “lamb’s wool hair,” was black. Current followers of Prophet Cherry consider themselves black Jews. One of the earliest studies of black Jews in America, based in part on Cherry’s followers, is a chapter in Arthur Huff Fauset’s Black Gods of the Metropolis(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944); some recent scholars have argued that Fauset (and others who study black Jews in the United States ) use vague, often nonracial definitions of Judaism that hopelessly skew their results. Larsen may also be referring more specifically to the Jewish congregations founded in Harlem by Chief Rabbi Wentworth Arthur Matthew (1892–1973) and his rabbinical students, beginning in 1919. Rabbi Matthew was closely connected to Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) by way of Rabbi Arnold J. Ford, the group’s musical director.

  3. wartime in France … the new gaiety of Budapest: Clare’s travels take her through France, Germany, England, and Austria-Hungary during World War I (1914–1918) and its aftermath (1919–1926). After-the-wartime in Germanyrefers to the Weimar Republic. At the time Passing takes place, Germany was a country of contrasts. Just beneath the gaiety and extravagance of the wild, opulent cabaret scene of Berlin was the crushing poverty of the failing German economy, which was, b y the late 1920s, careening toward collapse under the weight of the war reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists had also taken root: Hitler had founded the Schutzstaffel (S.S.) and published his manifesto, Mein Kampf, in 1925. Within five years of Passing’s publication, President Paul von Hindenburg (elected president of the Weimar Republic in 1925) would name Hitler chancellor, paving the way for Hitler’s ascension to power in 1934. The general strike refers to the striking coal miners in England who requested the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to convene a general strike in sympathy in early May 1925. More than two and a half million workers in transport, newspapers, and the iron and steel industries participated in the strike, which lasted for nine days. In response, the British government deployed troops to control essential supplies under the Emergency Powers Act of 1920. Although the TUC called off the strike, the miners did not return to work until November 1925. The dressmakers’ openings in Paris refers to the Art Deco exposition that opened in Paris in July 1925, showcasing clothes, jewelry, and other decorative arts, providing a stimulus to the Parisian houses of high fashion. Designers such as Poiret, Chanel, Vionnet, Lanvin, Babani, Worth, and others secured Paris’s status as the center of fashion in the 1920s (see note for page 141, page 198). The new gaietyof Budapest: The period between World War I and World War II, particularly the 1920s, is often referred to as the Silver Age of Budapest. During this time, the city was part of the Grand Tour, known for its spas and casinos that attracted Europe’s wealthy elite; the novelist Evelyn Waugh and the Prince of Wales were among its frequent visitors.

  4. And something else for which she could find no name: a line suggestively reminiscent of the phrase associated with Oscar Wilde, “the love that dare not speak its name,” referring to homosexual love. In a November 12, 1930, letter to Carl Van Vechten, Larsen writes that upon meeting a haughty Englishman (whose name was apparently Douglas), she quipped, “Pardon me, but are you the Lord Douglas who slept with Oscar Wilde?” (quoted in Thadious Davis’s Nella Larsen, Novelist of the Harlem Renaissance [Louisiana State University Press, 1994], p. 11). Though often associated with Wilde, the original phrase is from a sonnet, “The Two Loves,” by Wilde’s “lover-in-disgrace,” Lord Alfred Douglas. I am indebted to my friend and colleague Chip Delany for this clarification. Although critics have failed to note it, this line further underscores the homoerotic subtext of Larsen’s novel.

  PART TWO: RE-ENCOUNTER

  CHAPTER ONE

  1. sardony: Apparently, this is Larsen’s neologism linking the adjective sardonic with the noun irony, suggesting a mix of surprise and bitter humor, which is characterized by scorn, mockery, derision, and a reversal of expectation.

  2. “Seventh Avenue, and Lenox Avenue”: The area to which Brian refers was the heart of Prohibition Harlem, the speakeasy district bounded by 125th and 135th streets and by Lenox and Seventh avenues in the years between 1920 and 1933. Among the vast array of speakeasies, lounges, cafes, supper clubs, theaters, ball-rooms, and dance halls, one could find the famous Cotton Club (Lenox and 125th) and the Hurtig and Seamon’s Burlesque, which in 1934 became the Apollo Theater. Nearly all these establishments were segregated; though always featuring black entertainers, these establishments were open to black patrons only after the white crowds had gone home. Of the theaters, for example, only the Alhambra and the Crescent were “black,” while the Cotton Club and Connie’s Inn were “whites only” (together with Small’s Paradise and Barron Wilkins’s Club, these comprised the “big four”). At the time Larsen’s novel takes place, this area of Harlem is in its heyday, the golden age of Harlem nightlife. And as Brian’s not so subtle suggestion indicates, the Lenox–Seventh A
venue area was a site of illicit and illegal (and racially charged) recreation.

  3. “shine”: disparaging term for a black male, as in the various toasts on “Shine and the Titanic.” The term is most likely derived from shoeshine boy and the shine or blackening associated with the surface of polished shoes.

  4. “sheba”: slang term for an attractive black woman; probably signifying on the African Queen of Sheba, who, according to the Old Testament, is associated with wealth and great beauty. Possibly related to—although not necessarily the counterpart of—sheik, a popular epithet for a black lover or gigolo (or one who dresses like one), most likely popularized by its association with romantic screen idol Rudolph Valentino (1895–1926) for his signature roles, The Sheik (1921) and Son of the Sheik (1926).

  5. “Instinct of the race to survive and expand”: notion associated with Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and the theory of organic evolution advanced in Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871). In his “principle of natural selection,” Darwin promoted the idea that organisms are competitive and result in the survival of the fittest variant.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1. “Mr. Wentworth”: Hugh and Bianca Wentworth are modeled on Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff (see note for Dedication, page 183).

  2. “the Negro Welfare League”: Larsen’s parodic equivalent of the Negro uplift organizations that worked on behalf of racial progress and advancement. Best known among such organizations were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban League.

  3. “shekels”: slang term for cash, money; originally the chief silver coin of the ancient Hebrews (and currently a monetary unit in Israel).

  CHAPTER THREE

  1. “Rich man, poor man”: popular children’s nursery rhyme.

  2. “Nordic”: slang for white, a term in currency among blacks and whites during the period; originally of or pertaining to Germanic people of northern European origin, exemplified by the Scandinavians, or having physical characteristics (e.g., blond hair, blue eyes) associated with northern Europeans. Given her Scandinavian background, such a term would have had an especially fraught meaning for Larsen.

  3. “ ‘butter and egg’ men”: Here used derisively, this refers to farmers or small-town businessmen who spend money extravagantly when they come to the big city. A popular 1927 song, “The Big Butter and Egg Man,” made the “big butter and egg man from the West” synonymous with the sucker or free-spender. Texas Guinan, a New York City nightclub entertainer, popularized the description of her best customers as “big butter and egg men” with that song (see Lax and Smith, The Great Song Thesaurus). I’m indebted to Connie Eble, editor of AmericanSpeech, for help in tracking down this elusive term.

  4. “Terpsichorean art”: pertaining to dance, especially social dance. In classical mythology, Terpsichore was the Muse of dance.

  5. “dicty”: Harlemese for a “swell” or “high-toned” person, meaning snobbish, pretentious, haughty, or “hinckty,” often referring to the black bourgeoisie or “upper-class”; opposite of rat, meaning lower-class; I would guess that the more recent term siddity (or s’ditty) represents a contraction of so-dicty— a term that used to be applied to black women who were considered to be “putting on airs,” especially with speech, or trying to act more sophisticated than seemed warranted by their class background.

  6. “ ‘fay’ ”: Harlemese slang for a white person, seemingly derived from pig Latin for foe; cryptic racial code intended to confuse white people. Rudolph Fisher, Harlem Renaissance novelist, defines ofay as a contraction of old and fay, which is the original term. The term is the literary predecessor of honkey and whitey.

  7. “Slippin’ me, Irene?”: to dodge or evade, as in “to give one the slip” or to equivocate; also to trick or “put one over” on someone; possibly related to the later term slipping and sliding, which means “two-timing.”

  PART THREE: FINALE

  CHAPTER ONE

  1. “Josephine Baker”: Baker (1906–1975) was the toast of Paris in the 1920s. She made her Parisian debut in 1925 in La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and later became the star of the Folies-Bergère. She embodied for the French the essence of exotic primitivism. Notably, Baker did not appear in Shuffle Along (see note below) when she auditioned for its Philadelphia opening, because (as Baker claimed) she was considered “too dark” to be a chorine. In New York, where it became a great hit, Baker again auditioned for Shuffle Along and was placed as the “end girl” in the chorus line. Because of her talent, Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake also created a special part for her as a comedienne in the chorus line of The Chocolate Dandies (1924).

  2. “Shuffle Along”: black musical comedy that became a smash Broadway hit in 1921, where it ran for over five hundred performances. It was composed by Eubie Blake (1883–1983) and Noble Sissle (1889–1975), and written by Aubrey Lyles (1882–1932) and Flournoy Miller (1889–1971). This show introduced the black musical review to Broadway, and paved the way for later popular shows, including The Chocolate Dandies and Keep Shufflin’.

  3. “Ethel Waters”: Waters (1896–1977) was a talented blues, jazz, and, later, gospel singer, as well as a dramatic actress, who began her career on the vaudeville circuit, where she was known as “Sweet Mama Stringbean.” She later received critical acclaim as a nightclub performer, Broadway star, and recording artist during the 1920s. Recording on the Black Swan and Columbia labels, she was especially popular for her recordings of “Dinah” (1925) and “Stormy Weather” (1933). Unlike many entertainers, her career survived the Harlem Renaissance, and she became best known for performances in Du-Bose Heyward’s Mamba’s Daughters (1939) and Cabin in the Sky (1940), and Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding (1950). She was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in Pinky (1949), a film about racial passing.

  4. “Worth … Lanvin … Babani”: Charles Frederick Worth, Jeanne Lanvin, and Babani were all well-known designers associated with the great houses of haute couture in Paris during the early twentieth century. Worth opened the first fashion house in Paris and pioneered the look that became the prototype for women’s tailored suits; Lanvin’s most successful designs were her low-cut and low-waisted, ankle-length Basque dresses, or robes de style; Babani’s fashions were made from unusual fabrics and often featured unique details, such as corded tassels and metallic embroidery.

  5. Dave Freeland: Larsen’s biographer, Thadious Davis, correctly suggests that this character is modeled on novelist and short-story writer Rudolph “Bud” Fisher (1897–1934). His first novel, The Walls of Jericho, was published in 1928, the same year as Larsen’s first novel, Quicksand.

  6. “subway … underground”: The direct reference here is to the Underground Railroad, the loose network of safe houses and routes north through which escaping slaves passed from the early days of the Colonies until the early days of the Civil War. Between the American Revolution and the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, perhaps as many as 100,000 slaves escaped to freedom. The connection of the Underground Railroad to the abolitionist movement after 1800 underscores its inherently revolutionary and transgressive effects. It is to these effects that Irene somewhat ironically—and also ambiguously—refers in her “history” of the once-Confederate cup’s journey north (the implication is perhaps that the cup is “stolen property” since recovered) and in her tongue-in-cheek recounting of the cup’s untimely demise just moments earlier. In light of Irene’s tangled relationship to her own passing, her barbed synonyms for the Underground Railroad—the urban (and thus quintessentially New York) subway and the English (read pretentious) underground—play nicely on her own complicated and subterranean racial (and arguably, sexual) identity.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1. He slept in his room next to hers at night: It was not unusual for husbands and wives, especially upper- and upper-middle-class couples, to maintain separate bedrooms, or even separate apartments. Socia
lly, this arrangement would have served as a marker of status: only wealth allowed space enough for separate accommodations.

  2. Ham’s dark children: According to the Bible, after the flood, Noah’s sons—Shem, Ham, Japheth—populated the earth. Shem’s descendants became the Semites, from whom the Hebrews and most of the Middle Eastern peoples were descended; Ham’s descendants became the Hamites, and the peoples of North Africa; and Japheth’s descendants became the Ethiopians and Egyptians, many of whom migrated northward into Europe and Asia. As Noah’s second—and accursed—son, as well as the father of Canaan (see note for page 33 on page 187), Ham would have become the ancestor and progenitor of the usually dark-skinned peoples of North and East Africa, and Mesopotamia, including Ethiopians, Egyptians, Berbers, Babylonians, etc. Recent scholarship has both promoted and contested the “Hamitic hypothesis,” which challenges the assumption that the origins and predominant culture of ancient Egypt was Semitic. Other scholars challenge the attempt to distinguish between so-called Hamitic (Euro-African and Mediterranean) and more phenotypically black or Negroid racial classifications.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1. the Avenue: Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan. In midtown, from 34th to 59th streets, Fifth Avenue is known for its fashionable department stores and stylish boutiques.

  2. mashers: A masher is a man who makes sexual advances, especially to women he does not know; a flirt.

  3. “queered”: spoiled or ruined; put into a disadvantageous situation. Larsen’s repeated use of queer as an adjectival synonym for “strange” or “unusual” is curious, given the term’s widespread use at the time of Larsen’s writing as slang for homosexual. The added connotations of its use as a verb in this instance to suggest “ruin” or “spoilage” perhaps echo the word’s slang meaning, not only to the contemporary reader but perhaps even to the original readers of Passing. See Deborah McDowell’s introduction to Passing and Quicksand (Rutgers University Press, 1986) for an extended reading of the lesbian subtext of Larsen’s novel.