Ida a Novel (26 page)

So by the late 1930s, Van Vechten had offered unwavering support and love for a quarter century. Cerf was inherently a commercial publisher and wanted books from her that would sell well. He published
Everybody’s Autobiography
(1937) but then refused
Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights
(1938, not published until 1949), and Stein responded by working with other publishers for
Picasso
(1938),
The World Is Round
(1939) and
Paris France
(1940).
Ida
thus marked Stein’s return to the Random House list after more than three years away. About her friendship with Wilder she was passionate, and he would visit her biannually, in 1935, 1937 and 1939. During the last visit she recorded something he said: “What is important is that you are one of the rare writers in America who is not haunted by the spoken word. You write the written word and the written word speaks, the spoken word written never speaks” (YCAL 74.1356). In these three men, Stein had a steady friend, a relatively dedicated publisher, and an understanding interlocutor.

1937

May 17, Bilignin

Gertrude Stein to Thornton Wilder: “[L]isten perhaps I will do a novel about you and call it Ida about you or about Mrs Simpson, I think it is time for me to write a novel, now Mrs Simpson is not a puzzle to me but you are, but I can see that she might be a puzzle to me, so perhaps I could write that novel, come, Thornton, come, I could do it so much better with you to make commentaries but now that [Everybody’s] Autobiography is done I must do it, I have begun Ida, a novel” (
TW
144).

[June?], Bilignin

Stein to Bennett Cerf: “I am working at a novel, it is called Ida a novel and it seems to begin well, and finishing the Daniel Webster play” (RHC).

June 26, Bilignin

Stein to Carl Van Vechten: “I have started a pleasing novel called Ida a novel, I think you will like it I hope it goes on and is a novel I always do want to write one” (
CVV
553).

July 18, Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “[W]ill you but you would never say no to me but will you really will you, ever since my earliest days [. . .] I have loved the word collaborate and I always always wanted to and now will you oh Thornton will you will you collaborate on Ida the Novel, we must do it together [. . .] a really truly novel is too much for me all alone we must do it together, how we will talk about it and talk about it oh dear it will be wonderful to collaborate at last, you would not say no Thornton and worse still you would not do no, just think how we could do Ida a novel together and what a theme” (
TW
154).
¹

July [18?], Paris

Wilder to Stein: He tells of receiving an invitation to visit the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Austria (
TW
155–156).
²

July 20, Paris

Wilder to Stein: On the idea of collaborating, he writes, “I certainly don’t say
no
yet I tremble to say
yes
. / So I am thinking about it all the time” (
TW
158).
³

August 28, Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “[William and Mildred Rogers] have been and gone [. . .] and now once more I am left to Woodward and to Ida” (
TW
163).
⁴

September 7, Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “I am brimming with ideas [about Ida], nothing [practical?] yet but quite xcitable” (
TW
168).

September 9, Zurich

Wilder to Stein: “I received a long letter from Sibyl [Colefax] at Wasserleonburg—from which I send you a glittering letterhead [with the coat of arms of England]. She said she talked with [the Duke and Duchess of Windsor] from lunchtime until 2:15 in the morning; that they are completely happy: that he is abounding in vitality of mind; that between lunch and tea they joined the haymakers in the valley and that he took a scythe and cut the best swathe of them all.
⁵
[. . .] I keep thinking a lot about [Ida]. And especially at Salzburg where the world was composed of people who know in their bones what pure Ida-ness is and hopefully—hopelessly struggle along to attain it. Salzburg is a Walpurgisnacht of Celebrities. / But I just about despair of finding out what our Ida did, despair just in proportion as I close in more and more happily on what Ida was. . . . But as for ‘plot’ about Ida, I’m stuck, like a mule in a bog” (
TW
170–171).

September 22, Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “Dearest of collaborators, / Ida has started pretty nearly nearly started, there are going to be one or some from every state perhaps every country and they well they are not to get to Bay Shore and they are not to know about Ida but they are going to leave where they are, two from Utah have been very good, but the rest well anyway did you use to say shame shame fie for shame everybody knows your name well it is going to be the other way” (
TW
178).

[Late September], Zurich

Wilder to Alice Toklas: “As Gertrude says: [‘]The world’s full of plots. Your life’s full of plots; my life’s full of plots. Plots aren’t interesting anymore’” (
TW
181).

September 29, Bilignin

Stein to Van Vechten: “I am writing an American novel called Ida, it begins well, but then it begins to get too funny and one must not be too funny” (
CVV
570).

October 4, Zurich

Wilder to Stein: Writing the plays
Our Town
and
The Merchant of Yonkers
has his full attention, and he writes, “It’s too late. I dare not turn aside now, not even for Ida. Besides, she obstinately refuses to give up the secret of her ‘action.’ There she is: glorious as ‘description’ and like Aristotle’s god: the mover—unmoved. / Perhaps her description is all her narration. / Perhaps just as poetry now gives way to prose; so narration gives way to description” (
TW
182).

October 5, Bilignin

Stein to Van Vechten: “[A]nd just what is the sadness of America and its [sweetness?] I am awfully interested in it, and trying to do it in Ida” (
CVV
571).

October 16, Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “[A]nd Thornton have you by any chance on your person and could be parted from it a map of these United States I kind of need it to make Ida go on, she is going on some, but a map would help, and here there are none” (
TW
187).

October 20, Zurich

Wilder to Stein: “The best bookstore in Zürich is sending you a map of the greatest country in the world. Love it dearly. Someday we’ll drive all over it together pointing out
BEAUTIES
to left and right. [. . .] I feel all funny and ants-in-my-. . . . . . . shirt to think that
IDA
is leaning on that glorious map and going on. If I see light on Ida, the light on Ida that I’ve been groping for two-and-a-half months I shall become very obstreperous and wish to share it with you” (
TW
188).

October 22, Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “Thanks for the map, the big one was not right but on the back some little ones with the straight lines of the states and they are inspiring they are so good for Ida” (
TW
190).

October 26, Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “[G]etting ready to go [back to Paris] and so getting ready to see you, yes Ida needs helping she goes on but any kind thought is more than welcome” (
TW
191).

November 3, Paris

Stein to Wilder: “[W]e forgot to talk about the ms for Yale, but we will on Thursday, I have an idea for rewriting Ida, lots of love” (
TW
192).

November 4, Paris

Wilder to Stein: “So I read and reread
IDA
. / And often with bewitched delight; and sometimes in the dark—oh, yes, confident for
her
; but in the dark, for me. / But my incomprehensions are an old story. / I’m proud of being a slow-digester, a struggler-de-bonne-volonté and a ruminator. / Oh, Ida” (
TW
193).

November 11, Paris

Stein to Wilder: “[A]nd there is lots xciting, Ida gently progressing but just now not so much” (
TW
194).

December 8, Paris

Stein to Wilder: “I think I have a scheme for Ida which will pull it together, it came out of our last talk together the one about the difference between Making of Americans and Freud, I have an idea I have not yet had time to put it in order it is just commencing but in a couple of days I xpect to begin and then later we will send it to you” (
TW
199).

1938

[March?], Paris

Stein to Wilder: “[A]nd you will do the novel yet yes we will, you know Thornton I find so many on the quays and I read them all and I begin to really know what a novel is, come Thornton come and I’ll tell you” (
TW
211).

April 23, Tucson, Arizona

Wilder to Stein: “Is
IDA A NOVEL
still the chief work on the desk [?]” (
TW
216).

May 11, Paris

Stein to Wilder: “Ida has become an opera, and it is a beauty, really is, an opera about Faust, I am dying to show it to you, I have the first act done [. . .] some day she will be a novel too, she is getting ready for that, but as an opera she is a wonder” (
TW
217–218).

[June?], Bilignin

Stein to Cerf: “Here we are my opera is done and nothing else is yet begun but I have a scheme for a novel in my head a long one” (RHC).

June [27?], Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “[A]nd now once more I am going to do the novel Ida, I am beginning all over again just as if it never had been done” (
TW
220).

[July?], Bilignin

Stein to Cerf: “I have just begun a longish novel, simple and I hope will turn into an adventure story, I am now on the second chapter, Alice likes it very much, she says it is like early America” (RHC).

July 26, Bilignin

Stein to Van Vechten: “I garden and I have started a novel that Mama Woojums [Toklas] says is early American” (
CVV
601).
⁶

August 15, Bilignin

Stein to Van Vechten: “I am going on writing a long novel so I am busy [. . .] I have been working a lot, nobody in the house just lots of friends around, and that makes everything peaceful” (
CVV
604).

August [25?], Bilignin

Stein to Wilder: “[A]nd now about Faust, here it is and I think a wonderful play, and please get somebody to play it cinema stage but somewhere, it is our old friend Ida but I think completely created, and I think it would be very popular, I judge from the people who love it” (
TW
222).

November 25, Paris

Stein to Van Vechten: “I am afraid Bennett [Cerf] is getting solemn, he is just and sweet and kind but I think he is beginning to believe in the importance of being earnest, and alas, I seem to see its importance less rather than more” (
CVV
616).