by Edward Burns
Thomson had returned to Paris in the fall of 1925. Early in 1926 the composer George Antheil received an invitation to visit Stein’s home. Antheil invited Thomson to accompany him. Stein and Thomson quickly became friends. In April 1927 Thomson composed a work for four men’s solo voices and piano using as a text Stein’s “Capital, Capitals.” The work was performed at a Grande Semaine costume fête held at the home of Stein’s friend the Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre. The success of this work encouraged Thomson to suggest that he and Stein collaborate on an opera. After some discussion of the subject matter for the work, they settled on the lives of saints, particularly Theresa of Avila and Ignatius Loyola. Stein sent Thomson a typescript of Four Saints in Three Acts in mid-June 1927. Thomson began work on the score in November, and by mid-December the vocal score for the first act was completed. Act Two was finished in February 1928 and the remainder of the work in midsummer 1928.
Stein had told Thomson to use his judgment in making the opera work on a stage, but Thomson cut nothing, setting even the stage directions to music. Later he did make some cuts, divided the role of Saint Theresa into two parts, and introduced two narrators, Commère and Compère.
In 1929 Maurice Grosser, an American painter and close friend of Thomson’s, wrote, with Stein’s approval, a working scenario for the opera. It is this scenario which has been used for all performances of the opera.
To Gertrude Stein
17 January [1928] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude:
I loved the “turn out” picture you sent on & it will be lovely in our Victorian room which is rather sweet anyway and it would make us so happy if you & Alice might sit there in the sun with us. And Fania is insane about her earrings. But she will write Alice about them. She wears them in her sleep!1
But I am dashing this off (while some one is waiting for me) mainly to tell you that I sent Marie Doro “Three Lives” & she sent me the enclosed letter which I thought you would like to see. Please send it back to me.—And now I have sent Marie Geography & Plays2
And I send you & Alice 17 purple dachshunds with silver legs! & lots of love!
Carlo
1. See Marinoff to Stein and Toklas, 23 June [1927].
2. Marie Doro, a friend of the Van Vechtens’. This letter is not in YCAL.
To Gertrude Stein
31 March [1928] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
You should have heard from me long ago but I have been to the coast again where I met Aimee Semple Mcpherson1 [i.e., McPherson] and Jack Dempsey,2 to say the least. Also saw Mabel [Dodge] on her way to Santa Barbara to wheedle a new motor out of her mother. Tony [Luhan] is staying with her mother at Santa Barbara. Mabel has written the New York part of her book and wanted me to read it, but I couldn’t get to Taos, although I stopped at Santa Fe. Maurice Sterne has been asked to paint himself and wife for the Ufizzi or is it Uffizi (well, anyway somewhere in Florence.) Think what Mabel missed.3 I have written a book about Hollywood which will be out in August.4 And I have been reading proofs on it ever since I got back. I may go to the country this summer and I may come abroad. It would be nice to see you again. Paul [Robeson] may go to London with Show Boat.5
Love and purple parrots to you!
Carlo
Marinoff is playing in Baltimore
1. Aimee Semple McPherson (1890–1944), the American evangelist. McPherson opened her Los Angeles Temple in 1923. Van Vechten wrote Marinoff a detailed letter describing his meeting McPherson in a restaurant and then his visit to her temple (see Van Vechten to Marinoff, 2 March [1928], NYPL-MD).
2. Jack Dempsey, the American heavyweight fighter.
3. Maurice Sterne (1878–1957). Sterne was born in Libau, Latvia, and came to New York in 1889. While studying painting in Paris in 1904, Sterne met Leo and Gertrude Stein. (It was Leo Stein who introduced him to the paintings of Cézanne and the impressionists and post-impressionists that were shown in the gallery of Ambroise Vollard.) Sterne was an important figure in the notebooks that Gertrude Stein kept while she was writing The Making of Americans (these notebooks are at YCAL).
Sterne married Mabel Dodge in 1917 but in the fall of 1918 left her in New Mexico, where she had fallen in love with the landscape around Taos and with an Indian, Antonio Luhan. Stern was married to his second wife, Vera Segal, in Vienna in 1923. Segal was at that time studying dance with Elizabeth Duncan in Salzburg.
In 1925 Sterne had been invited to paint a self-portrait for the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, which has a collection of self-portraits.
4. Van Vechten’s Spider Boy.
5. Robeson opened in Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern’s musical Show Boat in London 3 May 1928.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 26 April 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl
It is nice getting a letter and a photo from you that sounds and looks like you I was not at all likeing it that you were not really enjoying yourself, and now you are. I will like seeing your book, I too am correcting proofs, Payson and Clarke are bringing out a book of collected things, Useful Knowledge or Americana, all my or at least some of my American things collected, your portrait among them, there is one on Woodrow [Wilson] and A Hundred prominent men that I think you will like.1 Then Gallerie Simon is doing another little thing with very nice illustrations so you see I am for me quite cheerful.2 I do wish too you could hear my opera Four Saints in Three Acts but if you come over you will and will you come over. Absolutely, as dear Paul [Robeson] says, by the way the little nigger thing is in Useful Knowledge.3 Poor dear Mabel [Dodge] and Edwin [Dodge] has been with us, it is hard to know whether Edwin is or was Mabel and Mabel seems rather to lose it. Anyway I am more pleased than I can say that you are alright again and lots of love and good luck to Fania
Always
Gertrude.
1. Stein’s Useful Knowledge. In addition to “Advertisement” and “Introducing,” this volume collected twenty-one works by Stein, including “Van or Twenty Years After. A Second Portrait of Carl Van Vechten,” “Woodrow Wilson,” and “An Instant Answer or A Hundred Prominent Men.”
2. The success of Stein’s collaboration with Juan Gris, A Book Concluding With As A Wife Has A Cow A Love Story, encouraged Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the picture dealer and publisher, to request another manuscript from Stein. Stein sent him A Village. Are You Ready Yet Not Yet. A Play in Four Acts, which Kahnweiler published with illustrations by Elie Lascaux. See Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, p. 213.
3. Stein’s “Among Negroes” was included in Useful Knowledge.
To Gertrude Stein
19 May 1928 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
Just a line, in haste, to tell you that Marinoff is sailing on Friday, May 25, on the France directly for Paris. Her address will be Banque de Paris et de Pays Bas … I suppose you have noted Paul [Robeson]’s enormous success in Show Boat at Drury Lane, and Nora [Holt] will sail in a week or two.
love,
Carlo
I am sending you a picture.
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[4 June 1928]
Monday Morning [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]
My dear dears,
The small bad penny has turned up once more, and is to remain here for several week[s] at the Hotel Littré. Do not let me interfere with your weent[s]iest plan. But when you wish, and can spare a few minutes I should like to run in, that is hoping you are both in Paris.
Affectionately always—Fania Marinoff
To Fania Marinoff
[postmark: 4 June 1928] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Fania
I am so sorry we are just leaving Paris we leave to-morrow morning and we won’t see you and we are not at all pleased, but better luck next time. Ave
ry [Hopwood] will tell you all about us, we have been enjoying him and are you to be here for long not long enough for us I am afraid as we are away until September. Do tell us all about yourself this address always reaches us. I wish you had come a few days earlier, you would have liked the concert where they sang my thing, it really was interesting,1 lots of love to you and lots of regrets,
Always
Gertrude.
1. A concert of Virgil Thomson’s music was presented on 30 May 1928 at the Nouvelle Salle d’Orgue du Conservatoire. The program included Capital, Capitals (text by Stein), sung by Parker Steward, Victor Prahl, O. S. Walker, and Emory Foster, with Edmond Pendleton as the pianist. Also included was Le Berceau de Gertrude Stein (8 poèmes of Georges Hugnet to which have been added a Musical Composition by Virgil Thomson entitled Lady Godiva’s Waltzes), sung by Madame Marthe-Marthine, with Victor Prahl, pianist.
To Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas
[postmark: 8 June 1928] [Hôtel Littré 9 rue Littré Paris]
My dears,
I’m really very sorry I’m not going to see you I looked forward to it so much. You were both so adorable to me last year, I shall never forget it. Oh, Why won’t you come to New York once, Carl and I would try to show you how much we think of you. The concert must have been a wow! as we say in the U.S.A.
Blessings on you and have a very happy summer,
love always
Fania
Avery [Hopwood] went to Antibes to-day, so I missed him too. I never did have no luck.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Environs de Belley—Vieu—Gentilhommière de Brillat-Savarin]
[postmark: 16 June 1928] Hotel Pernollet
Belley, Ain
My dear Carl
So sorry we missed Fania it would have been a pleasure seeing her, we did see a bit of Avery [Hopwood] and he is sweeter and more delightful than ever. And you, no doubt about you but there you are well anyway lots of love
Gertrude.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 22 June 1928] Hotel Pernollet
Belley (Ain)
My dear Carl,
Here is a picture of me in my last of the Fords, it is one of my sorrows that Henry [Ford] won’t make any but I do what I can to prove that America is the mother of modern civilization. It’s nice here in a Ford car and eating pleasantly. Henry McBride is coming to see us soon but alas not you, well anyway lots of love
Gertrude.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 6 July 1928] Hotel Pernollet
Belley (Ain)
My dear Carl,
I have just seen the news in the paper of the death of dear old Avery [Hopwood] by drowning. I was awfully fond of him and we did have a charming time together this spring and I just had a note from him saying how happy he was at Juan les Pins and was looking forward to our seeing each other in September. He was a very wonderful creature and I was always awfully pleased that you had made us friends. Will you give me the address of his mother? I do want to write to her and tell her how much he meant to us.1 I hope everything is all cheerful with you. I am still doing the same writing and sitting and walking and sometimes talking, Love to you
Always
Gtrde.
1. The last letter from Hopwood to Stein had been sent from the Hôtel Provençal, Juan-les-Pins, France (26 June [1928], YCAL). The details of Hopwood’s death were at first confused. Van Vechten, who had read of his death in the New York newspapers, wrote Marinoff a letter in which he reported the version he had read (Van Vechten to Marinoff, 5 July [1928], NYPL-MD):
I know only what details I have read in the papers. After dinner Sunday July 1, Avery went swimming at Juan-les-Pins about 8 o’clock. He was out beyond the reach of the other bathers and sank almost immediately with heart disease or cramps. It was daylight and the beach was crowded. His body was immediately recovered.
In a subsequent letter Van Vechten corrected the details of Hopwood’s death (Van Vechten to Marinoff, 20 July [1928], NYPL-MD):
But the facts of his death are reassuring. He died of heart disease instantly in front of Otis Skinner’s house in two feet of water. The Skinners saw the whole thing and he was fished out immediately. There was not a drop of water in his lungs. This might have happened anywhere.
To Gertrude Stein
14 July [1928] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
My Gertrude,
Avery [Hopwood]’s death nearly knocked me flat. I don’t think anything before has ever affected me so much. On your last card to me you had written “We did see a bit of Avery and he is sweeter and more delightful than ever,” and I passed this on to him in a letter which he never received. I love your picture in the Ford and I shall see you in it soon, for I am really coming over in September. And in a week or two now I shall send you my funny book called Spider Boy.
Love,
Carlo
To Gertrude Stein
18 July [1928] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
Mrs. James Hopwood’s address is 5902 Clinton Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. I saw her off the boat last night, poor dear. AND I am sailing on the Mauretania, September 5, I shall be in Paris for a few days after the 10th, and probably again later. I am not quite sure about my address but you can reach me through Fania at the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, 3 Rue d’Antin. I think I wrote you that my cable address is Carlvecht New York.
love always,
Carlo
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 25 July 1928] Hotel Pernollet
Belley (Ain)
My dear Carl,
It will be nice seeing you and if you did come over early in September it would be nice if you came down here for a day or so and we could have quiet talks, I know how awfully cut up you must have been about Avery [Hopwood], when we saw him he was at his sweetest, the last couple of times he was in Paris he was all upset and we almost did not see him but this time he was so dear, he came and spent several afternoons and I introduced him to some of the younger frenchmen and it all amused him and then the last night he begged us to come and do Montmartre with him, he said he knew we did not do that sort of thing but it would give him so much pleasure, so we dined with a lot of them and stayed with them until for us the unholy hour of two in the morning and he was wonderful, he told me at one time when we were together going from one place to another a good deal about his complications, and he was very wonderful and then he broke down and he said some day you must know all about me but I never want you to know anything of me xcept from Carl, always know anything about me from Carl, I want him always to tell you anything about me, the whole thing moved me very deeply then afterwards he was very delightful and then at the end he thanked us so prettily for having been his guests, and he said in his own dear flattering way, everybody asks me do I know Gertrude Stein, and I always say yes I know her but she is something I keep for myself, and he said it in the lamb like way he always said those things. I am telling you all this but you will know why, I had after that a postal from him saying how happy he was at Juan les Pins which I answered but I don’t think it reached him. My dear Carl lots and lots of love and it will be nice seeing you,1
Always
Gtrde.
1. See Stein to Van Vechten, postmark 7 March 1927, note 3.
To Gertrude Stein
9 August [1928] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
Thanks a lot for your second lovely letter about Avery [Hopwood]. I read it to his mother last night. . If I miss you in September… and I do not think I shall be able to visit Belley then … I shall see you in October and November on return from the grand tour which Marinoff and I are making.
love always,
Carlo
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 3 September 1928] Hotel Pernollet
Belley (Ain)
My
dear Carl,
Welcome to Paris, I do wish I were there to say it in person but we do not get back for a month yet and I am hoping awfully hoping that in the course of the grand tour you will come by us, Aix les Bains you know is more or less on the road to anywhere and we are just there, do try to make it on the way but if not then it will be in October and November, it will be in October and November anyhow but I would like it awfully if we did see you here all by yourself and Fania and then later again in Paris. Thanks for the Spider Boy, I liked lots of it even though I really can’t realise that my California has turned into that but then after all it is not my California because even in those far off days we always despised Los Angeles and we were right.1 Anyhow it’s good fun and did they do all that to you. Do try to come to see us here but anyway we are [nearer?] seeing each other than we have been for an awfully long time and that is something
Lots and lots of love and happiness
Always
Gertrude.
1. Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, 3 February 1874. From the spring of 1875 until 1879 the family lived in Europe (Austria and France). The Steins returned to the United States in 1879 and lived in Baltimore, Maryland, until 1880, when they moved to Oakland, California. They lived in Oakland in a succession of houses until 1891, when, after the death of Stein’s father (her mother had died in 1888), her eldest brother, Michael, as head of the family, moved the Stein children (Simon, Bertha, Leo, and Gertrude) to San Francisco. In 1892 Stein and her sister Bertha went to live with their mother’s sister Fannie Bachrach in Baltimore. Except for summer visits to Michael Stein and his wife Sarah in 1897 and 1899, Stein did not return to California until she lectured there in 1935.
To Carl Van Vechten
