Zelda (71 page)

   332 “Needless to say, your letter somewhat hurt me…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   333 He wrote Scottie: “Look! I have begun to write something…”:
Letters
, pp. 61–62.

   333 “For better or worse Scottie and I form…”: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, October 20, 1939.

   333 Scott sent
Collier’s
magazine…: Andrew Turnbull,
Scott Fitzgerald
, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1962, p. 303.

   334 “She doesn’t complain…”: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, n.d. (ca. October 31, 1939).

   334 Zelda wrote him: “I’m sorry…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   334 “Dearest: I am always grateful for all the loyalties…”: ZSF to FSF,
n.d.

   334 “Zelda does not wear a bit of make up…”: 1 am grateful to Mrs. Laura Guthrie Hearne for permitting me to quote this entry, November 25, 1939, from her diary.

   335 At Highland she was considered well enough…: Dr. Robert S. Carroll to FSF, November 3, 1939. Miss Mary Porter to NM, interview, August 1, 1963.

   335 She wrote Scott: “I sent word that I ultimately…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. winter 1939).

   335 She protested bitterly to Scott: “To waste…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. winter 1939).

   336 “I feel that this is your obligation…”:
Ibid.

   336 “There isn’t forever left to either of us…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. winter 1939–1940).

   336 But she wrote him: “… a person
could…”:
ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. winter 1939–1940).

   336 “Darling: you were sweet to ’phone me…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   336 A week later she sent him another…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (postmarked February 13, 1940).

   336 At Highland she and Dr. Carroll reached a compromise…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. end of February 1940).

   337 Scott replied, “Your letter was a complete surprise…”: FSF to Dr. Robert S. Carroll, March 8, 1940.

   337 “I will be very, very happy…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. March 1940).

   337 “As soon as I have renewed associations…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. March 1940).

   338 Dr. Robert S. Carroll to FSF, April 6, 1940.

Chapter 19

   341 Carefully Scott explained to Zelda the terms…:
Letters
, p. 114.

   341 “I think of you and the many mornings…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   342 “To this sort of town a beau…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   342 She told Scott she prayed for him…:
Ibid.

   342 “I wish you read books…”:
Letters
, p. 115.

   342 “I should have said in my letter…”:
Ibid.
, p. 117.

   343 “I don’t write; and I don’t paint…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   343 He wrote Zelda: “You remember your old idea…”:
Ibid.
, pp. 118–119.

   343 Later on the same day, June 7, Scott wrote Scottie…:
Ibid.
, p. 77.

   
344 For it seemed to him that she was at last proving…:
Ibid.
, p. 78.

   344 “Your mother’s utterly endless mulling…”:
Ibid.
, pp. 78–79.

   344 “Twenty years ago
This Side of Paradise…”: Ibid.
, p. 119.

   344 “
I WON’T BE ABLE TO STICK THIS
…”: ZSF to FSF, June 18, 1940 (11:50 A.M.).

   344 “
DISREGARD TELEGRAM AM FINE
…” ZSF to FSF, June 18, 1940 (2:46 P.M.).

   344 “There’s a point beyond which families…”: FSF to Scottie, June 19, 1940.

   345 Relieved, Fitzgerald wrote them … :
Letters
, p. 83.

   345 When Scottie left for Cambridge Zelda felt…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. end of June 1940).

   345 “I do wish you were sketching…”:
Letters
, p. 121.

   346 “I know it will be dull going…”:
Ibid
, p. 89.

   346 “Things are so different than when I was young…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. summer 1940).

   346 “I have been as an Angel with Halo…”: Scottie to FSF, n.d. (ca. summer 1940).

   346 “What proms and games?…”:
Letters
, p. 62.

   347 He asked her to question herself…:
Ibid.
, p. 91.

   347 All he really cared about…:
Ibid.
, p. 98.

   347 “It was partly that times changed…”:
Letters
, p. 128.

   346 On September 28, 1940, Scott wrote…:
Ibid.
, p. 125.

   346 Zelda had forgotten his birthday…: ZSF to FSF, n.d. (ca. end September 1940).

   347 In his next weekly letter Scott…:
Letters
, p. 126.

   347 He still complained of a fever…:
Ibid.

   348 “I am deep in the novel, living in it…”:
Letters
, p. 128.

   348 In the nostalgic mood which now often imbued…: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   348 Scott’s life with Sheilah Graham was a quiet one…: Sheilah Graham to NM, interview, September 13, 1968.

   348 Sometimes they talked about Zelda…:
Ibid.

   349 “Everything is my novel now…”:
Letters
, p. 131.

   349 “It is odd that the heart is…”:
Ibid.
, p. 132.

   349 In order to avoid the strain of climbing…: The description of Scott’s death is based on
Beloved Infidel
, pp. 322–330.

   350 Harold Ober called Zelda…: Mrs. Ober to NM, interview, March 3, 1964.

   350 “In retrospect it seems as if he…”: ZSF to Harold Ober, December 24, 1940.

   350 “I have been so terribly shocked by Scott’s death…”: Edmund Wilson to ZSF, December 27, 1940.

   351 Never again “with his pockets full of promise…”: ZSF to Edmund Wilson, January 1. 1941.

   351 She said Scott would be remembered…: ZSF to Rosalind Smith, n.d.

   352 Maxwell Perkins showed Edmund Wilson the manuscript of
The Last Tycoon…
: Edmund Wilson to NM, January 19, 1968.

   352 When he was finished he placed Fitzgerald…: See Mr. Wilson’s Foreword to
The Last Tycoon
, p. xi.

   352 In the review he struck a note that has reverberated…: Stephen Vincent Benét, “The Last Tycoon”
(The Saturday Review
, 1941) in
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Man and His Work
, edited by Alfred Kazin, pp. 131–132.

   352 He would have agreed completely with a note Scott…: General notes for
The Last Tycoon.

   352 After Zelda read the novel she wrote Wilson…: ZSF to Edmund Wilson, November 5, 1941.

   353 “I confess I don’t like the heroine…”: ZSF to Mrs. Bayard Turnbull, November 13, 1941.

Chapter 20

   354 “Although you may not like it…”: ZSF to FSF, n.d.

   354 By the summer of 1942 she was writing Mrs. Turnbull…: ZSF to Mrs. Bayard Turnbull, n.d.

   
355 Later in the manuscript the Judge says a new wing…: CT, Chapter I, p. 18. The pagination of
Caesar’s Things
is not at all orderly. For example, the title page of the manuscript is preceded by a torn page of typescript. The title page reads (and this is handwritten in pencil):

Caesar’s Things —
Chapter I
by
Zelda Fitzgerald
       child —
     clarify the Epic

There are then five handwritten pages, a quarter-page of typescript followed by twenty-one pages of typescript of varying size. There are three page ones. Chapter IV begins on page 18. Rather than this stew of pages, I will give chapter and pagination as Zelda has it.

   356 “The child was dead from strain and effort…”:
CT
, Chapter I, p. 20.

   356 “What right have you to stop me?…”;
Ibid.

   356 “Before she could say anything…”:
Ibid.
, p. 21.

   356 “That God would let this happen…”:
Ibid.

   357 “Janno was dead, and dying…”:
CT
, Chapter I. There is no page number given to this brief slip of typescript. It falls between pp. 22 and 23.

   357 The Judge is saying, “You’ve ruined her…”:
Ibid.
, p. 22.

   357 “A successful life is able to summon…”:
Ibid.
, p. 23.

   358 A voice speaks to her from the well…:
CT
, Chapter III, p. 7.

   358 Then there are more voices and they turn grim…:
Ibid.
, p. 8.

   358 …to a “golden kingdom asleep…”:
Ibid.

   358 It becomes a theatre curtain, the curtain “melts…”:
Ibid.
, p. 9.

   358 “Seduction, theft, kid-napping…”:
Ibid.
, p. 10.

   358 One of the men is in uniform…:
Ibid.

   358 The men accuse her of looking “dissolute…”:
Ibid.
, p. 11.

   359 The scene is summarized: “The weak dark men…”:
Ibid.

   359 At one point Janno is sitting on a throne…:
Ibid.
, p. 12. It is entirely possible, I believe, to read a good deal of this novel as a fantasized memoir, a sort of parable about madness itself. In order to read it at all you have to float—I can think of no other way to express it—on the surfaces of Zelda’s prose.

   360 “Janno…wished that her mother had told her…”: CT, Chapter IV, p. 22.

   360 “Then something happened…
”: Ibid.

   360 Later in the manuscript Zelda writes that what happened to Janno…:
Ibid.
, p. 23.

   360 “In some of the dreams he lived in a dark…”:
Ibid.
, p. 29.

   360 She has been equivocal about marrying…
Ibid.
, p. 32.

   361 “So they were desperately in love…”:
CT
, Chapter V, p. 44.

   361 Zelda calls this phase of Janno’s life…:
Ibid.
, p. 32.

   361 And Janno, who is not content to become Jacob’s “evocateur…”:
Ibid.
, p. 33.

   361 “He hated his sister…largely because…”:
Ibid.

   361 “Jacob went on doing whatever it was…”:
Ibid.
, first page is not numbered.

   361 She envies New York, where they are living…:
Ibid.
, p. 37.

   361 Suddenly Jacob decides to go to Europe…:
Ibid.
, p. 45.

   362 “She was grateful and devoted…”:
Ibid.
, p. 47.

   362 Janno is busy “re-decorating…”:
CT
, Chapter VI, p. 46.

   362 “Everybody liked them as standard millionaires…”:
Ibid.
, p. 48.

   362 At the parties among the rich…:
Ibid.
, p. 49.

   362 “Janno had always been jealous…”:
Ibid.
, p, 50.

   363 “During the first shock of infidelities…”:
Ibid.
, p. 51.

   363 Janno calls it “a gala emblem…”:
Ibid.
, no page number given.

   363 “He and Charity put much effort into human…”:
Ibid.
, p. 53.

   363 The Comings give wonderful dinners…:
Ibid.

   
363 He perfects “his garden, his gadgets…”:
Ibid.
, p. 58.

   363 “Corning said, ‘I want all these people to love…””:
Ibid.
, no page number given. It falls between pp. 58 and 55.

   364 “Now this was paradise…”:
CT.
, Chapter VII, p. 1.

   364 Janno and Jacob have met the son of an advocate…:
Ibid.

   364 “Janno was vaguely baffled…”:
Ibid.
, p. 2.

   364 Jacob is rather bored; he “didn’t really like sitting…”:
Ibid.

   364 The villa on the Mediterranean becomes…:
Ibid.
, p. 3.

   364 “She said she would; she was horrified…”:
Ibid
., p. 4.

   365 “She could not bring herself to deny…”:
Ibid.

   365 “Jacob littered his fireplace…”:
Ibid.
, p. 5.

   366 “How was she going to live…”:
Ibid.

   366 Then suddenly Jacob acts: “‘I’ll get out of here…’”
Ibid.

   367 “He was gone…they had been much in love…”: “The Big Top,” consists of 7 typewritten pages, but the pagination begins at page 10. This quotation is from pp. 13–14.

   367 “Nobody has ever measured, even the poets…”;
Ibid.
, p. 15.

Chapter 21

   368 The inside of the cottage was simply furnished…; I am grateful to Dan Piper, Paul McLendon and Sayre Noble Godwin for their impressions of the inside of the house on Sayre Street.

   369 In May and again in December of 1942…; Newspaper clippings as well as a typed program for both shows are in ZSF’s clipping album.

   369 She glares full face out of the painting…: See second section of illustrations The painting is watercolor over a pencil sketch.

   370 “I trust that life will use you far less…”; ZSF to Scottie, n.d.

   370 In February, 1943, Scottie married…: Mrs. Harold Ober to NM, interview, March 3, 1964.

   370 “Giving Scottie away must have brought…”: ZSF to Harold Ober, February 22. 1943.

   370 To Anne Ober, who made all of the wedding…: ZSF to Mrs. Harold Ober, postmarked February 22. 1943.

   370 “Do not consider these mine; your life…”: ZSF to Scottie, n.d. (ca. spring 1943).

   371 Andrew Turnbull, who had just become…: Andrew Turnbull to NM, interview, August 6, 1964.

   371 She wrote Anne Ober…: ZSF to Mrs. Harold Ober, August II, 1943.

   371 Lucy Goldthwaite remembers seeing Zelda at a garden…: Miss Lucy Goldthwaite to NM, interview, May 20, 1965.

   372 In February she wrote Wilson: “You should redeem…”: ZSF to Edmund Wilson, February 1, 1944.

   372 “You are much to be respected…”: ZSF to Edmund Wilson, March 6, 1944.

   372 Within a few months she was writing Scottie…: ZSF to Scottie, n.d.

   372 She told Scottie: “Scott would have been so pleased…”: ZSF to Scottie, n.d. (ca. spring 1944).