‘Not very well,’ he would say solemnly. ‘I have him on a diet.’
When we arrived in San Francisco I insisted on him driving with us to Los Angeles, as we had a limousine waiting. Pilou came along. During the journey he began to sing. ‘You see,’ said Cocteau, ‘he likes America.’ Suddenly he opened the car window, then opened the door of the little cage and shook Pilou out of it.
I was shocked and asked: ‘Why did you do that?’
‘He gives him freedom,’ said the interpreter.
‘But,’ I answered, ‘he’s a stranger in a foreign country – and can’t speak the language.’
Cocteau shrugged. ‘He’s smart, he’ll soon pick it up.’
*
When we arrived home in Beverly Hills, news from the studio was encouraging. Modern Times was a great success.
But again I was faced with the depressing question: should I make another silent picture? I knew I’d be taking a great chance if I did. The whole of Hollywood had deserted silent pictures and I was the only one left. I had been lucky so far, but to continue with a feeling that the art of pantomime was gradually becoming obsolete was a discouraging thought. Besides, it was not easy to contrive silent action for an hour and forty minutes, translating wit into action and creating visual jokes every twenty feet of film, for seven or eight thousand feet. Another thought was that, if I did make a talking picture, no matter how good I was I could never surpass the artistry of my pantomime. I had thought of possible voices for the tramp; whether he should speak in monosyllables or just mumble. But it was no use. If I talked I would become like any other comedian. These were the melancholy problems that confronted me.
Paulette and I had now been married for a year, but a breach was widening between us. It was partly due to my being worried and absorbed in trying to work. However, on the success of Modern Times Paulette was signed up to make several pictures for Paramount. But I could neither work nor play. In this melancholy frame of mind I decided to go to Pebble Beach with my friend Tim Durant. Perhaps I could work better there.
Pebble Beach, a hundred-odd miles south of San Francisco, was wild, baneful and slightly sinister. I called it ‘the abode of stranded souls’. It was known as the Seventeen-mile Drive; it had deer roaming through its wooded sections, and many pretentious houses unoccupied and for sale; there were fallen trees rotting in fields full of wood ticks, poison ivy, oleander bushes and deadly nightshade – a setting for banshees. Fronting the ocean, built on the rocks, were several elaborate houses occupied by millionaires; this section was known as the Gold Coast.
I had met Tim Durant when someone brought him to one of our Sunday tennis parties. Tim was very good at tennis, and we played a lot together. He had just divorced his wife, the daughter of E. F. Hutton, and had come to California to get away from it all. Tim was sympathetic, and we became very good friends.
We rented a house set back from the ocean half a mile. It was dank and miserable, and when we lit a fire it would fill the room with volumes of smoke. Tim knew many of the social set of Pebble Beach, and while he visited them I tried to work. For days and days I sat alone in the library and walked in the garden, trying to get an idea, but nothing would come. Eventually, I deferred worrying, joined Tim and met some of our neighbours. I often thought they were good material for short stories – typical de Maupassant. One large house, although comfortable, was slightly eerie and sad. The host, an agreeable chap, talked loudly and incessantly while his wife sat without uttering a word. Since her baby had died five years ago, she seldom spoke or smiled. Her only utterance was good-evening and good-night.
At another house built on the high cliffs overlooking the sea, a novelist had lost his wife. It appears she had been in the garden taking photographs and must have stepped backwards too far. When her husband went to look for her, he found only a tripod. She was never seen again.
Wilson Mizner’s sister disliked her neighbours, whose tennis court overlooked her house, and whenever her neighbours played tennis she would build a fire and volumes of smoke would cover the court.
The Fagans, an old couple, immensely rich, entertained elaborately on Sundays. The Nazi Consul, whom I met there, a blond, smooth-mannered young man, did his best to be engaging. But I gave him a wide-berth.
Occasionally we spent a week-end at the John Steinbecks’. They had a small house near Monterey. He was just on the threshold of fame, having written Tortilla Flat and a series of short stories. John worked in the morning and averaged about two thousand words a day. I was amazed at how neat were his pages, with hardly a correction. I envy him.
I like to know the way writers work and how much they turn out a day. Thomas Mann averaged about 400 words a day. Lion Feuchtwanger dictated 2,000 words, which averaged 600 written words a day. Somerset Maugham wrote 400 words a day just to keep in practice. H. G. Wells averaged 1,000 words a day, Hannen Swaffer, the English journalist, wrote from 4,000 to 5,000 words a day. The American critic, Alexander Woollcott, wrote a 700-word review in fifteen minutes, then joined a poker game – I was there when he did it. Hearst would write a 2,000-word editorial in an evening. Georges Simenon has written a short novel in a month – and of excellent literary quality. Georges tells me that he gets
