Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda Read online

  Zelda

  12. TO SCOTT

  [March 1919]

  AL, 9 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  Dearest Scott—

  I like your letter to A. D.17 and I’m slowly mustering courage to deliver it—He’s so blind, it’ll probably be a terrible shock to him but it seems the only straight-forward thing to do—I dont see how you can write such nice family letters—and really, your mother was just sparing your feelings, or else she isn’t a literary critic—I hope she’ll like me—I’ll be as nice as possible and try to make her—but I am afraid I’m losing all pretense of femininity, and I imagine she will demand it. Eleanor Browder18 and I have formed a syndicate— and we’re “best friends” to more college boys than Solomon had wives—Just sorter buddying with ’em and I really am enjoying it— as much as I could anything without you—I have always been inclined toward masculinity. It’s such a cheery atmosphere boys radiate—And we do such unique things—Yesterday, when the University boys took their belated departure, John Sellers wheeled me thru a vast throng of people at the station, crying intermittently “The lady hasn’t walked in five years”—“God bless those who help the poor,” the lady would echo, much to the amazement and amusement of the station at large—We had collected fo’bits when our innocent past-time was rudely interrupted by a somewhat brawny arm-of-the-law being thrust between me and the rolling-chair—I was rather vehemently denounced by the police force—In fact, we are tinting the town a crimson line—and having a delightful time acquiring a bad name—and Ed Hale has left us his cut-down Flivver while he pursue[s] educational muses at Auburn. Of cource, our lives are in continual danger, and our mothers are frantic, but Eleanor and I are enjoying the sensations we create immensely—

  I guess you can tell it’s turned colder’n Blackegions by my Spencerian method—That scrawly, wiggly fist seems so inappropriate for winter. I labored for quite a while accomplishing a sunburned, open-air looking script, and almost forgot my cold-weather hand mean-time—

  The fire burning again, and the old bench looking so lonesome without us, make things mighty hard—If I weren’t so sure—If I didn’t know we just had to have each other—I think I’d cry an awful lot—I can just feel those darling, darling hands—and see your shiny hair— not slick, but wrinkled, like I did it—

  Good night, Sweetheart—

  13. TO SCOTT

  [March 1919]

  AL, 3 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  I am about to sink into a sleep of utter exhaustion—Eleanor B. and I have been actually running the Street-Car all day—We were quite a success in our business career until we ran it off the track. Then we got fired—but we were tired, anyway! Mothers of our associates just stood by and gasped—much to our glee, of cource— Things like the preceeding incident are our only amusement—

  Darling heart, I love you—truly. You are my sweetheart—and I do—I do

  I must leave or my date (awful boob) will come before I can escape—

  Good Night, Lover

  Courtesy of Princeton University Library

  This is the biggest kiss of any on earth—because I love you

  14. TO SCOTT

  [March 1919]

  AL, 4 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama] Sunday—

  Darling, darling I love you so—To-day seems like Easter, and I wish we were together walking slow thru the sunshine and the crowds from Church—Everything smells so good and warm, and your ring shines so white in the sun—like one of the church lillies with a little yellow dust on it—We ought to be together [in] the Spring—It seems made for us to love in—

  You can’t imagine what havoc the ring wrought—a whole dance was completely upset last night—Everybody thinks its lovely—and I am so proud to be your girl—to have everybody know we are in love. It’s so good to know youre always loving me—and that before long we’ll be together for all our lives—

  The Ohio troops have started a wild and heated correspondence with Montgomery damsels—From all I can gather, the whole 37th Div will be down in May—Then I guess the butterflies will flitter a trifle more— It seems dreadfully peculiar not to be worried over the prospects of the return of at least three or four fiancées. My brain is stagnating owing to the lack of scrapes—I havent had to exercise it in so long—

  Sweetheart, I love you most of all the earth—and I want to be married soon—soon—Lover—Don’t say I’m not enthusiastic—You ought to know—

  15. TO ZELDA

  [April 1919]

  Wire. Scrapbook

  [New York City]

  MISS TELDA SAYRE

    SIX PLEASANT AVE MONTGOMERY ALA TELDA FOUND KNOCKOUT LITTLE APARTMENT REASONABLE RATES I HAVE TAKEN IT FROM TWENTY SIXTH SHE MOVES INTO SAME BUILDING19 EARLY IN MAY BET-

  TER GIVE LETTER TO YOUR FATHER IM SORRY YOURE NERVOUS DONT WRITE UNLESS YOU WANT TO I LOVE YOU DEAR EVERTHING WILL BE MIGHTY FINE ALL MY LOVE

  16. TO SCOTT

  [April 1919]

  ALS, 7 pp. 6 Pleasant Ave., Montgomery, Ala.

  Dearest—

  Your letters make things seem so close—and you always said I’d wire I was “scared, Scott”—I’m really not one bit afraid—I love you so—and April has already started!

  I’m glad you went to see Tilde—I guess you are too, now that it’s over—she already writes Mamma of moving—says she never sees a single tree from her windows, and it makes her homesick—This end of the family just sits around straining their ears for Miss Bootsie’s20 little grunts and squeals—the Judge has relapsed into his usual grouch since she left—I guess they’ll be pretty lonesome without me to disturb them—Toots21 is taking an uproarious departure in about a week—She certainly makes life obnoxious sometimes. I hate people who can’t do anything calmly. When I meet persons who act as if everything, anything, were exactly what they expected and wanted, I always gasp with admiration—They always make me feel so irresponsible—and rather objects to be pitied— they love to fancy themselves suffering—they’re nearly all moral and mental hypo-crondiacs. If they’d just awake to the fact that their excuse and explanation is the necessity for a disturbing element among men—they’d be much happier, and the men much more miserable—which is exactly what they need for the improvement of things in general.

  I’ve just found, in Major Smith’s22 old books a Masonic Chart, in hieroglyphics, of cource, which is puzzling me sorely—It’s a very queer—religion?—and with the help of pencilled notes, I am about to fathom unfathomable secrets—If I could just stop reading “Scott” in every line I’d make more progress—

  Kiss me, Lover—one darling kiss—I need you so—

    Zelda

  17. TO ZELDA

  Wire. Scrapbook

  S1 NEWYORK NY 250PM APRIL 14 1919

  MISS TELDA SAYRE

    6 PLEASANT AVE MONTGOMERY ALA

  AM TAKING APARTMENT IMMEDIATELY RIGHT UNDER

  TILDES NEW APARTMENT LOVE

    SCOTT

  18. TO SCOTT

  [April 1919]

  ALS, 8 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  I feel like a full-fledged traveller—by the 18th I’ll be well qualified for my trip—In desperation, yesterday Bill LeGrand and I drove his car to Auburn and came back with ten boys to liven things up—Of cource, the day was vastly exciting—and the night more so—Thanks to a jazz band that’s been performing at Mays between Keith shows. The boys thought I’d be a charming addition to their act, and I nearly entered upon a theatrical career—

  Scott, you’re really awfully silly—In the first place, I haven’t kissed anybody good-bye, and in the second place, nobody’s left in the first place—You know, darling, that I love you too much to want to. If I did have an honest—or dishonest—desire to kiss just one or two people, I might—but I couldn’t ever want to—my mouth is yours. But s’pose I did—Don’t you know it’d just be absolutely nothing— Why can’t you understand that nothing m
eans anything except your darling self and your love—I wish we’d hurry and I’d be yours so you’d know—Sometimes I almost despair of making you feel sure—so sure that nothing could ever make you doubt like I do—

  Charlie Johnson has arisen from the depths of oblivion—I thought he was dead—and he’ll be home Easter. Seems almost like old times again—I wish you could get a glimpse of Montgomery like it really is—without the camp disturbing things so—and you’d know why I love it so—

  We are donning men’s clothing to-night—to take in some picture on Commerce St. It promises disaster, but it’s by far the most madcap of my escapades, so I’m looking forward to the dusk with great excitement. We are dragging Willie Persons along for protection—he’s effeminate—and won’t show us up so much. I could knock him out in one round—but my fertile brain is certainly being cooked over-time thinking up sure-deaths to reputations—

  Darling—darling I love you so—and I’m going to—all my life—

    Zelda

  19. TO ZELDA

  Wire. Scrapbook

  NEWYORK NY APRIL 15 1919 3AM

  MISS TILDA SAYRE

    SIX PLEASANT AVE MONTGOMERY ALA

  ARRIVE MONTGOMERY WEDNESDAY EVENING

  20. TO SCOTT

  [After April 15, 1919]

  AL, 8 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  Scott, my darling lover—everything seems so smooth and restful, like this yellow dusk. Knowing that I’ll always be yours—that you really own me—that nothing can keep us apart—is such a relief after the strain and nervous excitement of the last month. I’m so glad you came—like Summer, just when I needed you most—and took me back with you. Waiting doesn’t seem so hard now. The vague despondency has gone—I love you Sweetheart.

  Why did you buy the “best at the Exchange”?23—I’d rather have had 10¢ a quart variety—I wanted it just to know you loved the sweetness—To breathe and know you loved the smell—I think I like breathing twilit gardens and moths more than beautiful pictures or good books—It seems the most sensual of all the sences. Something in me vibrates to a dusky, dreamy smell—a smell of dying moons and shadows—

  I’ve spent to-day in the grave-yard. It really isn’t a cemetery, you know,—trying to unlock a rusty iron vault built in the side of the hill. It’s all washed and covered with weepy, watery blue flowers that might have grown from dead eyes—sticky to touch with a sickening odor— The boys wanted to get in to test my nerve—to-night—I wanted to feel “William Wreford, 1864.” Why should graves make people feel in vain? I’ve heard that so much, and Grey is so convincing, but somehow I can’t find anything hopeless in having lived—All the broken columnes and clasped hands and doves and angels mean romances— and in an hundred years I think I shall like having young people speculate on whether my eyes were brown or blue—of cource, they are neither—I hope my grave has an air of many, many years ago about it—Isn’t it funny how, out of a row of Confederate soldiers, two or three will make you think of dead lovers and dead loves—when they’re exactly like the others, even to the yellowish moss?24 Old death is so beautiful—so very beautiful—We will die together—I know—

  Sweetheart—

  21. TO SCOTT

  [April 1919]

  AL, 5 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  Those feathers—those wonderful, wonderful feathers are the most beautiful things on earth—so soft like little chickens, and rosy like fire-light. I feel so rich and pompous waving them around in the air and covering up myself with ’em. Darling, it is the prettiest thing in the world, and you were so sweet to send it—That color is rather becoming.25

  Aunt Annabel26 is certainly a procrastinator—I was wondering if pop-calls were hereditary, but I guess you just acquired the fancy. I don’t s’pose now, tho, her visit’s very momentous—except, of cource, that you’ll be glad to see her. I know, Sweetheart, that we aren’t going to need her—Don’t ask me to have more faith—I love you most of everything on earth, and somehow you[r] visit made things so much saner, and I do believe in you—Just the wild rush and knowing what you did was distasteful to you made me afraid—I’d die rather than see you miserable, and you know you hated looking incessantly at banannas and ice-cream before lunch.

  I want to go to Italy—with you, Darling—It seems so yellow— dull, mellow yellow—and that’s your color—and I’d feel so like there was nobody else is [in] existence but just you’n me—

  Les Mysterieurs27 is holding a rehearsal on me—I think I’m going [to] look cute in my ballet-dress—

  I love you, Scott, with all my heart—

  22. TO SCOTT

  [April 1919]

  ALS, 8 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  Sweetheart, Sweetheart, I love you so—and I get so lonesome when I never get a letter—you were very sweet and thoughtful to send the music—but I wish you had just scribbled on the cover what I live to hear you say. I can ’t tell you in “ten words”—or ten volumes, or ten years. I can’t even tell you a new way—But, please, Darling, try not to get tired of the old one—

  We’re having the Vaudeville28 to-night—and I’m leading “Down on the Farm”—in overalls—And, thank Goodness I’ve lost my sandals, so I guess I’ll have to dance bare-foot—and probably suffer more injuries thereby. I think I could do so much better if you were in the audience—Everytime I look nice—or do anything I mentally applaud, I always wish for you—just to hear you say you like it—

  “Marcus Aurelius”29 is my literature in the absence of your letters—Tootsie thinks he’s most remarkable. I guess he was, for his day, but now it’s all just platitudes. All philosophy is, more or less—It seems as if there’s no new wisdom—and surely people haven’t stopped thinking. I guess morality has relinquished it’s claim on the intellect—and the thinkers think dollars and wars and politics—I don’t know whether it’s evolution or degeneration—

  Look at this communication from Mamma—all on account of a wine-stained dress—Darling heart—I won’t drink any if you object—Sometimes I get so bored—and sick for you—It helps then—and afterwards, I’m just more bored and sicker for you—and ashamed—

  When are you going to marry me—I don’t want to repeat those two months—but I’ve just got to have you—when you can—because I love you, my husband—

    Zelda

  Zelda30

  If you have added whiskey to your tobacco you can substract your Mother. I am no Mrs. Guinvan however much you are like Susie. If you prefer the habits of a prostitute don’t try to mix them with gentility. Oil and water do not mix.

  23. TO SCOTT

  [May 1919]

  ALS, 8 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  Dearest Scott—

  T. G. that’s over! The vaudeville, I mean, and I am a complete wreck—but everybody says the dance was a success. It nearly broke my heart to take off those lovely Oriental pants—Some actor with this week’s Keiths tried to take me and Livye on the road with him— but I can’t ignore physical characteristics enough to elope with a positive ape. And now I’ve got just two weeks to train a Folly Ballet for Les Mysterieurs—

  “Plasher’s Mead”31 has been carefully perused—Thanks awfully for it. I haven’t read in so long—but I don’t really like it—People seldom interest me except in their relations to things, and I like men to be just incidents in books so I can imagine their characters. Nothing annoys me more than having the most trivial action analyzed and explained. Besides, Pauline is positively atrociously uninteresting— I’ll save the book and re-read it in rainy weather in the Fall—I think I’ll appreciate it more—

  Scott, you’ve been so sweet about writing—but I’m so damned tired of being told that you “used to wonder why they kept princesses in towers”32—you’ve written that verbatim, in your last six letters! It’s dreadfully hard to write so very much—and so many of your letters sound forced—I know you love me, Darling, and I love you mo
re than anything in the world, but if its going to be so much longer, we just can’t keep up this frantic writing. It’s like the last week we were to-gether—and I’d like to feel that you know I am thinking of you and loving you always. I hate writing when I haven’t time, and I just have to scribble a few lines. I’m saying all this so you’ll understand—Hectic affairs of any kind are rather trying, so please let’s write calmly and whenever we feel like it.

  I’d probably aggravate you to death to day. There’s no skin on my lips, and I have relapsed into a nervous stupor. It feels like going crazy knowing everything you do and being utterly powerless not to do it—and thinking you’ll surely scream next minute. You used to blame it all on poor Bill—and all the time, it was just my nastiness—

  Mamma gave me this33 to-day—I s’pose it’s another of her subtle suggestions—

  All my love

   Zelda

  24. TO SCOTT

  [May 1919]

  AL, 8 pp.

  [Montgomery, Alabama]

  The Fourth Alabama34 arrives Tuesday, and town looks like Mardi Gras—Perry St. is just one long booth with flags and confetti everywhere—The houses for three blocks around the Governor’s are open—or will be—and everybody’s dragging out old costumes and masks—and Good Lord, it’s hot! Commerce St. is just a long arch— Rosemont Garden’s has turned over it’s greenhouse for a flowerbarage. I wish you could see it—but, of cource, everybody’s asleep all up and down the streets. Everything is so delightfully slow, even now. Major Smith’s company that he took over is going to march with the ranks unfilled—Twenty-three men—It almost makes me cry35—I would if I weren’t expending all my energy on gum—I’ve started a continuous chew again. Your disapproval used to put me on the wagon, but now I’ve got the habit again—

  To-morrow, a man’s going to make some Kodak snaps of me in my Folly dress,36 and cource I’ll send them to you—Mamma gets rather annoying about her rose-bushes at times, so I s’pose I’ll be perched on the topmost thorn on one of ’em. She bids me tell you how beautiful they are—Even if you didn’t go into ecstacies over Mrs. McKurneys when they weren’t bloomed—