The Paris Wife

place, I couldn’t imagine the book wouldn’t offend them. When Anderson heard, he’d be more than offended. My guess was we’d lose his friendship for good, the way we were clearly losing Gertrude’s. It was so hard to watch Ernest pushing these mentors away, as if striking deep blows was the only way to prove to himself (and everyone else) that he’d never really needed them in the first place. But I felt my hands were tied with this book. I couldn’t say anything else against it.

The next afternoon, Ernest arranged the typescript and put it in a bundle with a letter to Horace Liveright saying they could have the book for an advance of five hundred dollars, and that his new bullfighting novel, which he had every reason to feel excited about, was very near completed. Off the parcel went.

As we waited to hear, a fresh storm came in with more rain. We bided our time in the hotel, reading and eating better than ever. In the afternoons, Ernest and Pauline began taking long walks along the slopes behind the hotel, or winding through the town slowly, deep in conversation.

“She’s read so much,” he said to me one night when we were getting ready for bed. “And she can talk about books beautifully.”

“About more than Henry James, you mean?”

“Yes,” he said, smirking. Henry James had never stopped being our private joke, the writer that stood as the line between us, showing how stuck in the past I was no matter what else I was introduced to or had found on my own.

“She’s a smart girl all right,” I said, feeling a twinge of jealousy about their growing affinity. She was smart and seemed to find pleasure in matching Ernest intellectually. I could be a cheerleader for him and had been ever since that night in Chicago when he’d first handed me clutched and creased pages. But I wasn’t a critic. I couldn’t tell him why his work was good and why it mattered to literature, that age-old conversation among writers and lovers of books. Pauline could do that, and he was responding, as he would. He had a new energy, particularly in the evenings when he came downstairs after a day’s work, because there was someone interesting to talk to and talk with. What was more exciting than that? I could love him like crazy and work very hard to understand and support him, but I couldn’t be fresh eyes and a fresh smile after five years. I couldn’t be new.

Two days after Christmas, the reply came from Boni and Liveright. They were rejecting Torrents. Aside from the book being an unnecessarily vicious piece of satire targeting Anderson, they didn’t think it would sell well. It was too cerebral and not as funny as it intended to be. They were very interested in the novel about the Spanish fiesta, however, and eagerly awaited its completion.

“I’m a free man, then,” Ernest said sourly when he’d read the cable aloud to us. “Scott’s talked to Max Perkins at Scribner’s about me, and there’s always Harcourt. I could go anywhere.”

“Someone has to see the genius here,” Pauline said, pounding one of her small fists on the arm of her chair for effect.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Do you really want to cut ties with Liveright? They’ve done right by you with In Our Time.”

“Why do you always have to be so damned sensible? I don’t want to play it safe anymore. Besides, they should be grateful to me. I’ve made them good money.”

“They’re certainly not the only publishers around,” Pauline said. “Scott’s had great good luck with Scribner’s. Maybe that’s the thing.”

“Something good’s bound to come of it,” he said. “It’s a damned fine book.”

“Oh, it is!” she said. “I’ll go to New York myself and tell Max Perkins just what funny is if he doesn’t know.”

Ernest laughed and then sat quietly for a moment. “You know,” he said. “It might not be a bad idea to go to New York and meet with Perkins myself. Scott tells me he’s the best, but it would be good to shake the man’s hand and make the deal directly, if it’s going to happen at all.”

“Aren’t you good to know it?” Pauline said, and I was struck by how quickly this scheme, too, had become a fait accompli. She fit so well inside his ear. She told him what he most wanted to hear, and it was obviously a powerful tonic for both of them, to be united in their thinking. Meanwhile I was on my own now, against Torrents and the whole scenario.

“Surely you can do all of this by mail,” I said. “Or go in the spring, when you’ve finished the changes on the new book, and then you’ll have more to show Perkins.”

“But Torrents is finished. I know you hate the book, but I’m going to strike while the iron is hot.”

“I don’t hate it,” I said. But he was already up and refilling his drink, his head thick with plans.

“It’s the right thing, you’ll see,” Pauline said.

“I hope that’s true,” I said.

Later that night, as we were readying ourselves for bed, I said, “I’m not just sensible, you know. You used to like my forthrightness.”

“Yes,” he said, with a small sigh. “You’re very good and very true. But I’m going to do this. Are you on my side?”

How many times had he asked me that in our married life? A hundred? A thousand?

“I’m always on your side,” I said, and wondered if I was the only one who felt the complicated truth of that hovering over us in the dark room.

THIRTY-FIVE

February in Schruns was a small kind of hell. Outside, the weather raged or flailed. Inside, things weren’t much better because the stuffing of life had gone to Paris and then to New York, and I was alone with my doubts.

The night before Ernest left, I had helped him pack, but the mood was tense.

“You could come as far as Le Havre if you like, and see me off there.”

“It’s too hard with the baby on the train.”

“So leave him here with Tiddy. It’s only for a few days.”

“Maybe,” I said, but I already knew I wouldn’t do it because it wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t dispel my worries that a wedge was growing between us, that he’d stopped listening to and trusting my voice, and it couldn’t soothe my anxieties about the way he was turning toward Pauline. He was attracted to her, that was obvious, but I didn’t really believe he would act on it. He hadn’t with Duff, and she hadn’t been anywhere near as ingrained in our life. Pauline was my friend. He wouldn’t ruin that and neither would she. Her letters had arrived nearly every day since we put her on the train back to Paris. They were always addressed to us both, her two great pets, as she liked to say, her cherishables. Her tone was exuberant and inclusive and untroubled-like Pauline herself-and reading them made me feel better. It also helped to remind myself that she wanted sweeping romance, the kind in great literature. She wouldn’t settle for tawdry. It wasn’t her style.

“You’ll see Pauline in Paris, of course,” I said as Ernest put the last of his things into the suitcase.

“If there’s time. She’s very busy now with the spring fashion shows and there are lots of other friends to see. You won’t come then?”

“No, I think I’m better off here.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, and closed the case with a click.

Ernest was on the high seas for ten days, out of reach. During that time, Bumby and I kept to our routine as much as possible because it made me feel more grounded and stable. We ate the very same things at the same times. We went to bed early and rose early. In the afternoons I walked in the village or wrote letters while Tiddy cared for him. Most mornings I rehearsed a Bach-Busoni chaconne until I thought my fingers would fall off. It was for the concert, which I’d finally decided to act on. Ernest’s absence and my growing fears helped me see that I needed it more than ever. I wrote a letter to the house manager of the Salle Pleyel, a small concert hall on the rue Rochechouart, expressing my interest in performing there, as well as giving details of my background and connections. I waited for a response with trepidation, but I needn’t have. He wrote back quickly and graciously, setting a date for the thirtieth of May. The details would be settled when I returned to Paris in early April.

When Ernest finally wrote, I learned he’d headed right for Horace Liveright’s office on landing in New York. The