by Edward Burns
Always
Gertrude.
1. Imes wrote to Stein how impressed she had been with Stein’s story “Melanctha.” She offered to send Stein a copy of her first novel, Quicksand (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928). Imes’s letter to Stein is in Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, p. 216. The date on the letter should be 1929.
2. Stein and Toklas had taken a lease on a house in Bilignin, a hamlet just outside of Belley.
To Gertrude Stein
[February? 1929] 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
The [Kristians] Tonny pictures came at last. The Addises mailed them down apparently after they had heard from you. I have sold two of them & hope to sell some more, but they are very late & I have missed some people who are now gone away for some time. However …
We saw Henry McBride the other evening & he told us all about Belley & now you write you have a house! I do hope we shall see Belley this summer, but our plans are not settled yet at all. We may sail any day, but New York is pretty good just now. They sing Capital, Capitals at concerts and people love it.1 I hope some one will do the opera.
Well, anyway, here’s lots of love to you both, & I’ll try to sell some more pictures for Tonny.x
Carlo
xThey are swell pictures!
1. The Thomson-Stein work, Capital, Capitals, was performed on Sunday, 24 February 1929. It was part of the second in a series of three Copland-Sessions concerts at The Little Theatre, New York. Thomson accompanied the singers, the Ionian Quartet: Harold Dearborn, Frank Hart, Baldwin Allan-Allen, and Hildreth Martin. The other composers on the program were Roy Harris, Alexander Lipsky, and Vladimir Dukelsky.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[postmark: 15 April 1929] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl
Virgil [Thomson] is back1 and he has been telling all about how sweet you are and that we know and what a good time you gave him and everything and it all sounds very pleasant, and what are your plans, Nathalie Barney asked most tenderly about your phlebitis yesterday but I told her it wasn’t and she seemed much relieved. We are leaving for our Belley house in a couple of weeks, we bought ourselves a white caniche [poodle] of two months which we call Basket to go with it and with us and I am working making sentences about the sentence and there we are.2 And if you have any money for [Kristians] Tonny, will you send it to him, he is at St. Tropez and languishing for it because he wants to stay longer, his address 5 rue de la Mairie, Puteau Paris I think you have,
Lots of love to you and to Fania
Gertrude.
Tonny’s address is
Kristians Tonny
5 rue de la Mairie
Puteau
Seine
1. Thomson had returned to Paris from New York in March 1929.
2. Stein’s “Saving the Sentence” was published in her How to Write, pp. [11]–21.
To Gertrude Stein
22 April 1929 150 West Fifty-fifth Street
[New York]
Dear Gertrude,
I have sold four of [Kristians] Tonny’s drawings (“Deux Clous” à $20; “Les oiseaux apprivoisés” à $16; “l’Esprit s’envole” à $10; “Acrobatie equestre” à $5.) and I am sending you two cheques for these, according to the advice of Virgil [Thomson] who told me the easiest things to get cashed in Paris were cheques on N.Y. banks. I hope he is right. I am sending this on in case Tonny needs the money—I still have three sketches which I hope to dispose of.
We are sailing on the Majestie on May 10—first for London, but I do hope we shall get to Paris before you & Alice leave for the country. When will that be? We shall probably be at the Carlton in London, but the Guaranty Trust, 50 Pall Mall will surely reach us. My N.Y. cable address is “Carlvecht New York” & our permanent European address is Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, 3 Rue d’Antin. There!! Now we can all draw a long breath. We hope to be seeing you very soon.
our love to you both always! Carlo.
Virgil is a lamb!1
1. At the bottom of the first page of Van Vechten’s letter Stein wrote the word “Bilignin.” At the end of the second page she wrote a list of names: “Jean Cocteau Jean [Aman?] Ε. Renan Robert Graves Picasso.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: The King Taking the Salute of the Guards]
25 May [1929] [Carlton Hotel, London]
Dearest Gertrude,
We have no plans as yet. We shall be at the Carlton in London at least till June 3—and then we are coming to Paris & I shall probably go to Berlin. But we’ll try to get to Aix [les Bains] later. We must see you both.
Love
Carlo.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 2 June 1929] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My very dear Carl,
Here we are and there you are, alas Paris and London seem about as far away as New York not to mention Berlin but anyway we must be on your way, it’s a nice way your way and our way and it ought to be all the same way. Virgil [Thomson] writes for your news,1 he is having a bit of a piece of a concert on the eight[h] or ninth of June I think2 and he is looking forward to you being there, his address is 17 Quai Voltaire, I can’t tell you how sorry we are to be missing you but I can’t say I am not awfully pleased to be here because we are, it is nice and I am looking forward to your seeing it. It is a case of In the greenest of our valleys by good angels tenanted,3 and so will you love to you and Fania always and always
Gertrude.
How is the leg.
1. Thomson to Stein, 13 May [1929], YCAL.
2. Concert d’Oeuvres de Jeunes Compositeurs Américains was given on 17 June 1929 at the Salle Chopin, 8 rue Daru, Paris. The composers represented were Aaron Copland, Israel Citkovitz, Carlos Chávez, Roy Harris, and Virgil Thomson. The works by Thomson, all for soprano and piano, were La Valse Grégorienne (text by Georges Hugnet), La Seine (text by the Duchesse de Rohan), Le Berceau de Gertrude Stein (Huit Poemes by Georges Hugnet to which have been added a Musical Composition by Virgil Thomson entitled Lady Godiva’s Waltzes), Susie Asado (text by Stein), and Preciosilla (text by Stein). The works were sung by the soprano Madame Marthe-Marthine, with Thomson accompanying.
3. The first two lines of “The Haunted Palace,” a poem by Edgar Allan Poe in his story “The Fall of the House of Usher.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Elizabeth of York, Queen Consort of Henry VII. 1465–1503]
4 June [1929] [Carlton Hotel, London]
The leg is all right, dear Gertrude, & this time I am making whoopee in London. We must try to get to Aix [les Bains]. I think we shall manage Paris next week. Love to you both.
Carlo.
Banque de Paris et
des Pays Bas
3 rue d’Antin, Paris.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 11 June 1929] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest Carl,
Alas and yet it is nice to be here we are not to be in Paris when you get there but then you are going to be here when we are here because you are going to take a cure at Aix les Bains and so we will be together because it will be most awfully nice seeing you, and what are your plans where are you going to be we have the home we wanted and it is very satisfactory and we are very pleased with it and we have a dog named Basket and he is asleep and all we need now is seeing you and Fania and that will be soon, Virgil [Thomson] came home very happy about you, write to me right away and tell me just when we fit in to your plans because we must fit in very soon,
Lots and lots of love Gertrude.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 20 June 1929] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest Carl,
Where are you and how are you and are you in Paris and Ain is on the way surely it is and even if it isn’t we are on the way sure we are, it’s at first a nice and quiet way
and that will do you a heap of good in between and there will have to be a lot of in between, do let us know and we do love you and lots of love to you and to Fania
Gertrude.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard]
[postmark: 21 June 1929] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude,
We are now in Paris at the Hotel Bristol—112 Faubourg St. Honoré playing around. I am extremely well this time. I think we shall stay here two or three weeks more & then go motoring. Why not to Aix [les Bains] to see Gertrude & Alice? J’espere que oui.
Love,
Carlo
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Photograph of Jack Taylor]
[postmark: 27 June 1929] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude—
A thousand thanks for the morceaux choisis which arrived at exactly the same moment as Georges Hugnet, so he wrote in it too.1 More about these matters & others later, but I think I gave the boys a good time one night.2
Love,
Carlo.
1. Van Vechten’s copy of Stein’s Morceaux choisis de la fabrication des américains (Paris: Editions de la Montagne, [1929]) is in YCAL. His copy bears two inscriptions, Stein’s and Hug-net’s. Stein wrote, “Always with love for Carl to Carl Gtrde,” and Hugnet wrote, “A Carl Van Vechten En m’excusant de no pas savoir l’anglais avec toute mon amitié Georges Hugnet 1929.”
2. A reference to Hugnet and Maratier, both of whom were part of the Editions de la Montagne. Stein gave her car to Maratier.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 17 July 1929] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dear Carl,
Ci inclus Mabel [Dodge], and when are you and Fania going to eat our peas and beans which I am so actively cultivating and Alice is so actively picking and then so actively cooking, when, and were you with Hart Crane1 when he was overcome, if you see him speak to him2 for me I am very fond of him he is so sweet he might almost come from Iowa, well anyway let us know what you are doing and how you are, and lots of love to you both and à trés bientôt
Gertrude
1. Laura Riding and Robert Graves had written to Stein about the young American poet Hart Crane (1899–1932). When he arrived in Paris, Crane wrote to Stein asking to meet her (Gallup, The Flowers of Friendship, p. 227). He had been drinking heavily for nearly a week, and on 10 July he became involved in a brawl at the Café Select and was arrested. Stein had probably read about this incident in the New York Herald (Paris edition). For details on Crane in Paris see John Unterecker, Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969), pp. 595–99.
2. Note by Van Vechten, 21 January 1941: “So far as I know I never met Hart Crane, the American poet.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Photograph of a bullfighter]
[July-August 1929]1 [Spain]
Dear Gertrude,
I don’t know exactly how it happened but somehow we got cold & came down here to get warm & we did. However, it is lovely & we are enjoying it & will stay down here two or three weeks.
Love,
Carlo.
I adored the Saints in Transition.2
1. The stamp and postmark have been removed from this card.
2. Stein’s Four Saints in Three Acts. An Opera To Be Sung was published in transition (June 1929), 16/17:39–72.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Marinus—The Usurers]
[postmark: 2 August 1929] [Hotêl Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude,
Am afraid we are not going to see you this time after all, altho we still may run down to Aix [les Bains] for a day or two. Anyway we are sailing on the Ile de France Aug. 13. Much love to you both
Carlo.
We are back at the Bristol.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 3 August 1929] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest Carl,
No it would not be pretty of you to see everything in Europe excepting us now would it, we do want to see you and Fania and we do want you to lunch and dine with us or why have we been growing all these vegetables all by ourselves if it isn’t to have you eat them and when will you and how did you like Spain,
And love to you both Gertrude
To Carl Wan Wechten
[Telegram]
[12 August 1929] Belley
DID SO HOPE TO SEE YOU BUT DO BE BACK SOON ENDLESS LOVE TO YOU BOTH
GERTRUDE
To Gertrude Stein
16 Aout [1929] S.S. Ile de France
Dear Gertrude,
I think I was afraid of Aix [les Bains], I am always terribly afraid of fashionable places in season. At the last minute Virgil [Thomson] told me he thought we could stay in the little hotel where you used to stay. Anyway it would be horrible if we hadn’t seen you in the winter. I think we shall be back before long. I really don’t know why we are going to New York—except that my laundry is running low. You know it is one of my idiosyncrasies that I won’t have my clothes washed in Paris. We adored Spain.
Milles embraces to you both.
Carlo.
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 21 September 1929] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest Carl,
I wonder have you gotten the postal card we all sent you from Aix [les Bains] it was addressed simply to New York but that ought to do,1 anyway we all told you how much we liked you, George Hugnet and Virgil [Thomson] have been here with us and it was all very gay and it would have been nice if you and Fania had been here too, you will be pleased that there is a fair chance of the opera being done in Darmstadt, they are much taken with the libretto their only condition being that it should be done into German but to that since they think they can make a good translation I see no objection, and now if they like the music as well they will put it on the beginning of the spring, it would be nice if we were all at the first night well anyhow that’s a dream, and dreams are pleasant, give me news of you and lots of love2
Always
Gertrude.
1. Stein’s postal card was not delivered.
2. Carl Ebert, director of the Hessisches Landestheatre in Darmstadt, Germany, and Karl Bohm, general music director of the theatre, had expressed an interest in Four Saints in Three Acts. Thomson sent them a piano-vocal score, and there was some discussion about a premiere. Heavy financial losses, caused by productions of modern works, resulted in the resignation of several members of the theatre, and the Thomson-Stein project was abandoned.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Intreurer Freundschaft: Herzl, Grüsse & Gluckwünsche über Land & Meer]
[postmark: 4 October 1929] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude,
I am thrilled at the possibility of Darmstadt. We have never been there & we must all go there officially & fill all the hotels. But I wish they would do it in English.—However, I think Geo[rges] Hugnet has done something remarkable in his translaion & his preface. Perhaps a German can be found.
(a book went to you last week)
Much love to you both.
[Carl Van Vechten]
To Carl Van Vechten
MS. New York Public Library, Manuscripts Division
[postmark: 5 October 1929] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest Carl,
Thanks a thousand times for the Born to be of Taylor Gordon,1 I have enjoyed it immensely and the illustrations of [Miguel] Covarrubias, I am enormously taken with Gordon, already I have been impressed with [Paul] Robeson who made me realize middle class America as no one else had made me see it, the middle class America of to-day and now Gordon makes clear the kind of America I knew as a kid as it is to-day, I don’t know they have a way of seeing it from the inside and the outside that makes it clear, the way a white can’t do it, it is not realism it is reality and that’s what interests me most in the world, do give G
ordon my love and tell him if he should ever come to Paris to come to me sure with a letter from you, and the picture of the three of you by Covarrubias is a wonder and Fania is a wonderfully real angel, I have never known anything realler, do tell Covarrubias from me that I am sure some day he will do a new religious picture that will be all any of us could want. Thanks a thousand times for everything Carl and best of all for yourself and always yours
Gertrude.
1. See Van Vechten to Stein, 28 May [1927], note 4.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: View of the Skyline, New York City]
[postmark: 20 October 1929] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude,
Loved getting your swell letter about Taylor Gordon, and I am thrilled about Darmstadt. Don’t forget me.
Love,
Carlo.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Rose motto]
[December 1929-January 1930] 27 rue de Fleurus
[Paris]
My dear Carl,
