Zelda Fitzgerald: Her Voice in Paradise (56 page)

According to Sara Mayfield, though Zelda wanted a divorce she recognized that her dependence on Scott meant only reconciliation would procure her release. She told Sara the psychiatrists would keep her at the ‘nut farm’ as long as Scott paid them. ‘Because her letters were censored she had no way of appealing to her family and friends; even if she could run away, she had no money and no means of earning any. The tone of her letters became more loving, and she showed more affection for him when they were together.’
27

One letter among many similar illustrates this dependent tone:

Scott was relieved. In August, after their long separation, he wrote, ‘Husband finally sees her. She is still in bandages, shows lesbian tendencies and in spite of tenderness towards him makes irrational erotic remarks. But her violent feeling against him
specifically
has now abated.’
29
Zelda’s doctors believed her recovery depended on a ‘successful’ marriage so they advised her against conflicts with Scott. In Forel’s time doctors thought the propensity towards homosexuality and menstrual disturbances noted in female schizophrenics indicated endocrine or chemical imbalance. They gave Zelda endocrine treatments using ovarian extracts and dried thyroid gland powders. Patients were also injected with their own blood, and given potassium bromide and a serum made from the brain of a mentally stable person. Forel injected Zelda with
morphine
to induce sleep, belladonna for pain and luminal to sedate her constantly. She was also given purges of seidlitz water, wet packs and hydrotherapy.
30
The drugs alternately depressed and agitated her. Later Scott wrote to Forel about a hunch he had that Zelda’s eczema was caused by lack of elimination of poison. He believed that some crucial physical element such as semen, salt or holy water was either absent or there was too much of it. It was a clever guess, for later discoveries confirmed that some mental illness can be caused by the body’s chemical imbalance.
31

Scott vacationed in Caux from 8 to 22 August, finishing the remarkable ‘One Trip Abroad’, based on his Kelly version of
Tender.
32
Wealthy Nicole and Nelson Kelly travel to France to study painting and music, become dissipated, end up as patients in a Swiss clinic. ‘Switzerland is a country where very few things begin, but many things end’: a poignant description of a disintegrating marriage.
33

While Scott, in Caux, was writing stories to explain the collapse of his life and career, Zelda’s hospital letters glowed with romantic feeling. She drew a balcony lit by a moon with two upright chairs, each of which held a heart shaped cushion. ‘Doodo’s Balcon’, she labelled it.

Her health improved.

Suddenly she noticed the asylum had stripped her of possessions.

In Prangins Zelda found it impossible to write to Scottie. As her sense of self wavered, who she was as a mother became unclear. It was as if the free expression of her devotion to Scottie had closed down. There was little information inside an asylum that made good reading for a child.

In August Scottie made a four-day visit to Zelda. We cannot know which of them found it harder. They had little in common now,
certainly
no daily routines. Zelda’s parental role had virtually
disappeared
and Scottie’s anxiety to please made her behave unnaturally. Throughout the visit their pain was exacerbated by their awareness that soon they were again to be separated. Trying in her turn to please her daughter, Zelda wistfully urged Scottie to continue dancing. When she next visited New York she should go to Cappezio’s on 44th Street to find some dance shoes. Zelda herself would like a pair of ‘aesthete sandals size 5D’.
36

On 27 August 1930 Sara Haardt married H. L. Mencken, but
Zelda was too ill even to pen a line to her friend. It was October before Scott could write: ‘Dear Menk and Sarah: Excuse these belated congratulations, which is simply due to illness. Zelda and I were delighted to know you were being married and devoured every clipping sent from home. Please be happy. Ever Your Friend Scott (and Zelda) Fitzgerald.’
37

In September Scott renewed his acquaintance with Thomas Wolfe, who would later use him in a novel.
38
Scott, who had assured Forel he had given up other women for Zelda while still seeing Emily Vanderbilt,
39
now started sleeping with Bijou O’Conor, whom he had met in the Twenties in Paris’s Latin Quarter. Born in Bulgaria in 1896, English granddaughter of the second Earl of Minto, she had been widowed at twenty-eight, but preferred a
scandalous
reputation to remarriage.
40
Scott was attracted to this
brilliant
linguist whose reckless disposition, financial carelessness and independent spirit had the wildness of the young Zelda. Bijou, herself an alcoholic, led Scott into uncontrollable gin binges while he typed in her hotel room.
41
Bijou claimed she and Scott visited Zelda in Prangins, which if true was potentially destructive, for if Zelda had suspected they were lovers it could have precipitated a further breakdown.
42

Fortunately in September came Zelda’s first breakthrough. Forel decided to treat the eczema by hypnosis. In her trance Zelda
recognized
connections between the rash and her marital conflicts. The eczema virtually disappeared the next day, to return only
intermittently
. Yet not much else changed. She was still depressed; she still had infatuations – another in October, with ‘the red headed girl’ as Scott called her (the second of the two redheads), who resisted. Scott thought Zelda’s ‘initial shame … and the consequent struggle’ caused a third attack of eczema. But when the eczema disappeared the infatuation continued. Scott recorded a second female
infatuation
in November which again did not produce eczema, but his appearances did.
43
Confused, his pride hurt, he reported: ‘Eczema spasmodic. Lesbianism mild but constant – (they change the house of one girl after whom she tags, though now there are no more offences in that direction). Indifferent to husband. Appearance of unmotivated smile.’
44

Scott had told Rosalind about Zelda’s ‘lesbian complex’. Rosalind, who immediately expressed the Southern horror of homosexuality, remembered that when Tallulah’s lesbianism was mentioned at Ellerslie, her sister’s reaction had ‘made me think sex was preying on her mind’.
45
Rosalind thought it safer to send Zelda
helpful suggestions about treating eczema. ‘It’s almost gone now,’ Zelda replied, ‘and, unfortunately, never was the sort that Cuticura Soap could help. The Brussels fire brigade might have skirted the edges.’
46

But on 10 November another attack occurred and Forel,
determined
to discipline Zelda also for uncontrollable masturbating, moved her back to Eglantine. He told Scott they could not stop her wilful self-abuse unless she was locked up and observed. Scott’s princess was strait-jacketed by facial bandages for eczema and bound hands so she could not touch herself. This merited Scott’s terse line: ‘Short confinement for refractoriousness’.
47
Forel, who found Zelda ‘sneaky’ because she tried hard to avoid discipline,
48
  wrote to Scott: ‘L’Eglantine is, from our point of view, a good thing … For too long your wife has taken advantage of our patience. For her health, for her treatment, L’Eglantine is indispensable, and I am happy, even, that the patient’s conduct should have obliged us to try this … she sees that there are limits and that she must give in’.
49

Zelda was administered insulin shock treatments which were continued for ten years.
50
Substantial evidence shows that more female than male patients were given insulin in that period, as much to realign their behaviour as to act as a therapy.

Zelda did not improve in Eglantine. Scott wrote to the Sayres: ‘Zelda was acting badly and had to be transferred again to the house … reserved for people under restraint.’
51
He told them that
dissatisfied
with Zelda’s progress, he had suggested calling in either Dr Bleuler or Dr Jung, and Forel agreed.

Scott decided on Paul Eugen Bleuler, born 1857,
52
the psychiatrist who had named schizophrenia. Forel was keen on a second opinion because he had some hesitancy about his own diagnosis: ‘The more I saw Zelda, the more I thought at the time: she is neither a pure neurosis (meaning psychogenic) nor a real psychosis – I considered her a constitutional, emotionally unbalanced psychopath – she may improve, never completely recover.’
53

Interviewed later, Dr Forel acknowledged that over the years he had changed his original assessment. He had ‘put aside’ the schizophrenic diagnosis because ‘apart from the clinical and classical forms … certain symptoms and behaviours or activities, are called schizoid and this does not mean that the person is schizophrenic.’
54

Dr Irving Pine, Zelda’s last psychiatrist, said he felt that Zelda had consistently been misdiagnosed. He disputed the label ‘
schizophrenia
’ and suggested that part of the failure of her psychiatrists was their failure to take her talents seriously. He believed much of
her depression came from her family situation. As that accelerated, so did her depression. He and other doctors suggested that
subsequently
Zelda was treated for a psychosis, the treatment of which can cause patients to display some of the characteristics of
schizophrenia
when originally only severe depression was present. But by November 1930 Zelda was treading a path where she would become as much a victim of her treatment as of her illness.
55

As Forel had already labelled her a ‘difficult patient’ he was glad to discuss her case with Bleuler,
56
who arrived on 22 November, charging Scott the exorbitant fee of $500.
57
For that amount he would spend an afternoon with Zelda and the evening with Scott and Forel.

Bleuler confirmed Forel’s diagnosis of schizophrenia. He said the homosexuality was not constitutional, but merely a symptom which would disappear with continued treatment. He reassured Scott that marital conflict was not a contributory cause of illness. He found Zelda’s emotional capacity impaired and advised against further dancing, since that ‘passion is also engendered by the illness; just as Mme Aegorowa was the first lesbian passion after the onset of the illness’.
58

Zelda was desperate to return to America but Bleuler forbade it. She must stay put, continue weaving, carpentry, and work in the greenhouses. She must rest but could make accompanied visits to shops, opera and theatre in Geneva and go skiing. He told Scott three out of four cases like Zelda’s could be discharged as cured. One of those would resume ‘perfect functioning’ in the world; two would be delicate and slightly eccentric through life; the fourth would hurtle into ‘total insanity’. To avoid that Zelda must submit to a master, who had to be a doctor. Scott asked if
he
should become more masterful but Bleuler replied: ‘It is possible that a cast-iron character would be propitious but Mrs Fitzgerald loved and married the artist in Mr Fitzgerald.’
59

Bleuler recommended Scott should not visit too often and Zelda should prepare presents for Scottie, write frequently but should not see her for several months as her child’s first visit had proved ‘her presence was undesirable’.
60
Neither doctor looked for the motives behind that disastrous visit, nor took into account the distressing effect separation would have on both mother and child.