by Edward Burns
To Gertrude Stein
[12 August 1930] Le Bristol
Hotel et Restaurant
112 Faubourg St Honoré
Paris (VIII)
Dear Gertrude,
Fania discovered that Guerlain had no tuberose, and so she sent Alice Champs-Elysées. . Floris has a tuberose. I wonder would she like to try that? I sent Alice two cards. I hope she received them. And something strange is going to happen about you very soon … I have ordered the illustrated Dix Portraits.
Dear Gertrude:1
this letter is about the plates. Do you think your pottery could make something like the enclosed?2 These are cards that a man writes for us in Montmartre each year we come over … I don’t mean exactly, of course, but with a dove with a missive in its beak and a horseshoe and two transfigured hearts and Carlo et Fania pour la vie somewhere or anyhow, whatever colors he fancies, and I should say 12 plates of salad size, but if he prefers to make dinner plates I leave it to him. . And I will send the money right away if you will tell me how much. And if he can get the plates done in time (we sail Sept 11) he can send them to the Bristol in Paris (perhaps with one of the Rose is a rose ones!) and if he can’t they can be shipped to New York. Whatever you think and whatever you like. I hope it won’t be too much bother for you. We had such a happy time with you and Alice and do hope we can have lots of them here there and everywhere and intense love to you both,
Carlo
We went to see Mistinguett[e] last night. I shall never get over thinking she is a great artist.
The weather is better, but Louis has given me a very queer feeling about automobiles. I never used to be afraid before.3 Now I tremble and quake and get all tense.
Your card came about your brother’s house. Thank you.
1. This second salutation may simply be an indication that Van Vechten had begun the letter and was interrupted.
2. To illustrate the design, Van Vechten enclosed the small card.
3. Louis was the French chauffeur whom the Van Vechtens had hired for their tour of France.
To Alice Toklas
[Postcard: Marseille—Le Square de la Bourse]
[postmark: 12 August 1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Alice darling
Guerlain is sending you to-day some perfume called Champs Elysées, I hope you will like it. It’s one of my favorites. It rains here nearly all the time otherwise we love it. It was grand seeing you two marvelous gals whom we adore—
Fania
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Aix-les-Bains—Lac du Bourget La Route au bord de l’Eau]
[postmark: 15 August 1930] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
Yesterday afternoon we had a long palaver with the potter—alas they won’t undertake to reproduce any of the symbols on your charming card—nothing but the lettering—so I’ve not given them that order and won’t unless you say so. I’m so sorry to be so ineffective. Do try me out on something else.
Your p[ost]. c[ard]s are lovely—it proves how fundamentally honest the french really are—our postman was enamored of them—but delivered them—however reluctantly. Fondest remembrances to you both always—
A. B. T.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Paris La Nuit—La Madeleine]
15 August [1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude:
Today or tomorrow a very big & very beautiful shell box will be dispatched to you. I telegraphed to Toulon for it, but had it sent here first to be sure it was quite all right. It is!—I hope it gets to you unbroken. It came here in beautiful shape. Basket is inside.
Love always,
Carlo.
To Alice Toklas
[Postcard: Cours de Taureaux—Avant l’Estacade]
18 August [1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Alice:
I am sorry about the plates, but we will play with the idea some other time. I hope he will make Rose is a Rose is a rose. We went to Le Touquet yesterday & expect to leave for Germany soon but Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas—3 rue d’Antin will always reach us. Forgive me for sending Gertrude the box, but she wanted it so badly & it is beautiful!
Love
Carlo
To Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff
[Postcard: Environs de Belley—Vieux Pont de Bognens]
[postmark: 18 August 1930] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dears
I am all xcited about the B. B’s the box and Basket, and I will have them any day now, and the weather is lovely and it would be nice seeing you again, and it may be just the french rear seat that makes you worry, try a Buick, with Louis1 and anyway come to see us and lots of love
Gertrude
and go to see George Biddle2
1. Van Vechten’s chauffeur in France.
2. George Biddle, an American artist then living in Paris. Biddle had met Van Vechten in New York through Bob Chanler and had met Stein in the spring of 1923 when he came to Paris. See George Biddle, An American Artist’s Story (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1939), pp. 204–5, 210–11.
To Alice Toklas
[Postcard: Young Black Boy and Black Girl]
22 August [1930] [Berlin]
So glad you liked the perfume—your note was charming. We’re in Berlin for a few days—Carl has never been here. It’s grand but I’m tired and will be glad to get home. Traveling is a hard job—oodles of love to you and Gertrude
Fania
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Pudelwohl! (A poodle lying on a bearskin rug)]
[postmark: 23 August 1930] [Berlin]
Dear Gertrude:
Here is another view of Basket for you. I think this is why we came to Berlin. Back in Paris next week. Did the shells arrive?
Love
Carlo.
To Carl Van Vechten and Fania Marinoff
[postmark: 26 August 1930] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest dears,
It’s come and it’s beautiful beautiful more beautiful than even I dreamed and so beautiful that even Alice says yes it is beautiful, I will have to tell Carl that it is beautiful and Fania is forgiven and I am so happy with it and it mounts up wonderfully it really is beautiful, et sans blague and the last adventure of it was funny. We got the announcement from the gare and went down to get it, Alice went in and came out with a fair sized bundle well wrapped up and said here it is and I said isn’t it any bigger than that and Alice said that is big enough it is the size of a nice glass box but said I a little sadly Carl said it was a big box with a great big shell on top I don’t see quite how it could have a very big shell on top, and Carl did say it was a big shell on a big box and Alice said well Carl xaggerated a little and we brought it home and we opened it and out came three tins of some kind of electric autogene, and I said I knew it couldn’t be as little as that and it was a mistake and it was not our package so it was too late and we could not get it any more last evening so all night I worried about some one opening up my package and spoiling my box so bright and early this morning we went down to the station at Belley and took back the package and Alice came out this time with a big case and I said yes I told you Carl said it was big and then we got home and we opened it and it is beautiful and Alice said it was beautiful and it is beautiful and everybody came in and said it is beautiful and it is even more beautiful and I have locked it with its key and Basket is jealous of the little basket which is darling but my box is lovely and Fania is forgiven and I don’t know whether it was not almost better to wait for it and get it like this it makes [it] all the more xciting, and I kiss you both and lots of love always and always
Gertrude.1
1. Note by Van Vechten, 21 January 1941: “This is about a big seashell box I saw in Toulon. Fania said no Gertrude won’t like it and Gertrude when she heard about it almost wept. So I asked Willie Seabrook who was living in Toulon to get it for her and he did.”
To Gertrude Stein
&nb
sp; [Postcard: Grevy—Zebras aus Abessinien]
28 August [1930] [Berlin]
Dear Gertrude,
I loved your letter! it is a work of art, and how could anybody help saying that the box was beautiful. Alice could not help it & Fania now thinks it is beautiful & wants one herself! It is beautiful—in a complete way, like a city of shells or the room we saw today at Potsdam. Did you know that Frederick the Great had a whole room made of shells? Anyway I loved your letter. And we’ll be back in Paris towards Saturday.
Love to you both,
Carlo.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Photograph of a street in Belley]
[postmark: 30 August 1930] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dearest Carl,
We are all very nicely enjoying ourselves, and it would be nice if you were here too, I am sending you by Virgil [Thomson] Lucy Church Amiably all about the nice country where I was given shells and brooches and also I am sending a paper weight, which I found at the [bien a la main?] and it is large anyway and I am sending lots and lots of love always and all1
Gertrude.
1. There were several brocanteurs, second-hand dealers, in Belley, but none was named “bien à la main.” It is possible that this was Stein’s private name for one of the shops.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Amenophis Der Vierte Aus El-Amarna, Um 1370 V. Chr. Berlin, Altes Museum]
30 August [1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude,
We are now back in Paris till we sail Sept. 11 on the Paris. Next to our stop in Belley—I like Berlin best of anything this summer.
Our love to you both.
C.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Vendôme—Porte d’entrée de l’Eglise de la Trinité]
1 September [1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude:
Very much excited about Virgil and Lucy Church & the paper-weight. Will be waiting. Did you receive Basket rolling on rug rather obscenely from Berlin?
Love to you both.
Carlo
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Child with Helmet and with Butterfly Wings]
1 September [1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude:
I always forgot to ask you: please write me a letter & tell me what does “Adrian Arthur” mean?—I now have the illustrated Dix Portraits.1 Some day I’d like to do a book in Paris with this firm or another, something special,
Love,
Carlo.
1. One of the portraits in Stein’s Dix Portraits was “Pavlik Tchelitchef or Adrian Arthur.” Stein never explained the reason for “Adrian Arthur.”
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Alphonse de Lamartine]
[postmark: 3 September 1930] [Bilignin par Belley Ain]
My dearest Carl,
It is lovely weather and we are loving you a lot, the weather is lovely Virgil [Thomson] has been darling, he has put the film to music with a portrait of Basket but he will be telling you all about us and everything very soon1
Gertrude.
1. Thomson had set Stein’s “Film: Deux soeurs qui sont pas soeurs” to music for soprano and piano. The piece is one of the few that Stein wrote directly in French. Stein’s dog, Basket, appears in the work.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Photograph of Josephine Baker by Walery, Paris]
5 September [1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude:—
Thanks so much for the beautiful paper-weight. You did think of something nice & Lucy Church Amiably which I shall go into more later.—You make me very happy, just to know you. People are writing frightful things about Parties. But anyway we are sailing on the 11—on the Paris1
Love to you both
Carlo
1. Van Vechten’s novel Parties had received a number of very negative reviews. The reaction to Parties is summarized in Kellner, Carl Van Vechten and the Irreverent Decades, pp. 244–46.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Saule Pleureur, Expiatory Chapel, Square Louis XVI, Paris]
[postmark: 6 September 1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude:
I have not a photograph of [Kristians] Tonny’s portrait of you, may I have one!1 Also there is a translation of a [Georges] Hugnet poem in mss. Please send this to me if it is published. I hear it is magnifique.2
Love,
Carlo.
1. Tonny had done a pen and ink portrait of Stein. The portrait is in the collection of the heirs of Gertrude Stein. See Burns, ed., Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas, p. 313.
2. Stein’s sequence of poems begun as a translation of Georges Hugnet’s Enfances evolved into a reflection on Hugnet’s poems. The two works were printed, on facing pages, in Pagany (Winter 1931), 2(1): 11–37. As published in Pagany the poem was titled “Poem Pritten on Pfances of Georges Hugnet.” The quarrel between Stein and Hugnet developed at the time that book publication of the two works was planned. The poems were to be published with both the French and English texts by Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, with illustrations by Picasso, Pavel Tchelitchew, Léon Marcoussis, and Kristians Tonny. Stein objected to the composition of the title page, particularly the line “Suivi par la traduction de Gertrude Stein.” Stein felt that “traduction” would give a false impression of what she had done. For a while it appeared that an agreement could be worked out, but by Christmas 1930, they were still at an impasse. Virgil Thomson, a friend of both Stein’s and Hugnet’s, attempted to mediate the dispute. Thomson suggested a typographic solution that would place both names on the title page in the same size type and would not mention Stein’s work as a translation. Hugnet agreed to this proposal, but Toklas, and therefore Stein, rejected it. The result was the break with Hugnet, a quarrel with Bravig Imbs, an American writer living in France, whom Stein accused of siding with Hugnet, and a short-lived break with Thomson.
Stein’s poems on Hugnet’s Enfances were published as Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded. Hugnet’s Enfances was published by Editions Cahiers d’Art in 1933 and was illustrated by Joan Miro.
To Carl Van Vechten
MS. New York Public Library, Manuscripts Division
[postmark: 8 September 1930] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My poor dear Carl,
I am awfully sorry I kind of feel it was my fault liking Parties so much just would make the critics say frightful things but anyway I do like it so much, and I am right, and you are nice and we are nice and we will all live happily ever after. Have a good trip and think of us sweetly but then you will do that. I am glad that you will help with Mary Garden1 and perhaps the opera it would give me a great deal of pleasure and would lead perhaps to our seeing a nut store and other nice things give our love to all of it and all of it to you and Fania2
Gertrude.
1. It had been suggested by Van Vechten that Mary Garden (1874–1946), the opera singer and an old friend of Van Vechten’s might be interested in singing the role of Saint Theresa in the Thomson-Stein opera Four Saints in Three Acts. Stein went so far as to write to Garden, who was then in Paris (see Stein to Thomson, postmark 4 October 1930, YCAL). Before she received a reply, however, Stein read that Garden had announced that she would no longer sing in public.
2. Van Vechten had told Stein about the Chock Full O’Nuts stores in New York that advertised “every kind of nut available.”
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Musée du Louvre: Chat Bronze]
[postmark: 10 September 1930] [Hôtel Bristol, Paris]
Dear Gertrude:
Your letter came & the photograph of [Kristians] Tonny’s picture which I think is very interesting. Why have I never heard of it before? Did you pose for it or did Tonny just paint it. Last night in bed I read a little in Lucy Church with great pleasure. It is like Virgil’s Bucolics & still it isn’t! We sail at d
awn tomorrow—but you can think of us as living in nut stores.
Much love to both! Carlo.
Please send me Tonny’s new address. I seem to have lost it.
To Carl Van Vechten
[Postcard: Man and woman dancing in a cave]
[postmark: 23 September 1930] [Bilignin par Belley
Ain]
Do you like this collection that Georges [Hugnet] and I formed for you at Champagne where Brillat-Savarin ate.1
Gertrude
1. Hugnet had come to see Stein in Bilignin to work out the details of Stein’s “translation” of his poem Enfances (see Van Vechten to Stein [6 September 1930], note 2). While he was there they visited Champagne-en-Valromey, a small town about thirty kilometers from Belley. Hugnet sent Van Vechten messages written on three postcards. The postcards are in YCAL.
To Gertrude Stein
[Postcard: Greeting from New York, Standard Oil Building, Bowling Green]
14 October [1930] [150 West Fifty-fifth Street New York]
Dear Gertrude:
I always think of you when I go into a nut store, lots of other times besides. You will be back in Paris now. New York is wilder & more terrifying than ever.
Our love for you both.
Carlo.
I have a whole shelf of your books!
To Carl Van Vechten
[postmark: 15 October 1930] Bilignin par Belley
Ain
My dearest Carl
Here we still are and will be till the middle of October, and it is rather nice autumn weather, the translation of [Georges] Hugnet’s poem is to be printed in the winter number of Pagany, they all seem nuts about it, and I guess it is because I have in it for the first time kind of solved the problem of modern poetry which torments them all, I kind of have invented a new music which is that and difficult well you’ll see.1 Also here is a prospectus of another of the Edition de la Montagne books,2 perhaps you would like to buy one if so it would give pleasure to all concerned one must encourage the young, as to my portrait you bet your life I posed and so did Basket, so much so that all his hair was worn off with the struggle, and [Kristians] Tonny’s address is 1 rue Jacques Mawas, Paris, he also did a very interesting portrait after he did mine of Ralph Church, and since then one of Bernard Faÿ.3 Let’s see what else well lots else but then it kind [of] does seem as if we would see you to tell you, they did do some plates for you not at all what we wanted but there they are and perhaps you will like them even so, and anyway we love you both very much always4
