Alice in lonelyland
Kay Dick
Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas Edited by Edward Burns. (Angus and Robertson £4.50) Gertrude Stein died in 1946, leaving behind her dearest friend and life companion for thirty-eight years, Alice B. Toklas, whose autobiography she had written, which turned out to be an autobiography in praise of Gertrude's genius and catalytic impact on the art add literature of her day, with especial reterence to Picasso, Matisse, Marie Laurencin, Juan Gris, Apollinaire, Hemingway, Braque, Pound, Cocteau, and so on. Towards the end, that is on the last page, Gertrude allowed Alice to say something about herself: "I am a pretty good housekeeper and ,a pretty good gardener and a pretty good needlewoman and a pretty good secretary and a pretty good editor and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once and I found it difficult to add being a pretty good author." At the beginning Gertrude had been equally generous with a couple of pages given over to Alice's first thirty years of life, launching the drama proper in 1907 when Alice first met the third genius encountered, that is Gertrude Stein — the others being Picasso and Alfred Whitehead. Naturally, Alice was shunted into other Stein reminiscences, but on the whole hers was a shadow role, and Gertrude's rule in this was followed by a recent movie which listed Alice's name in the title yet which was in no way concerned with her. Superficially, it would seem that Alice B has rather a thin time.
Alice, after Gertrude's death, lived on for a further twenty years. This selection of her letters during that period, Staying on Alone, gives some insight into the kind of woman Alice was. In an introduction, Gilbert Harrison reminds us of Mabel Dodge's question, "What keeps you going?" and Alice's answer, "Why, I suppose it's my feeling for Gertrude," which is pretty (to use Gertrude's adverb) generous considering that will in which Gertrude, still preoccupied with her genius and posterity, left all her manuscripts, correspondence and books to Yale. Some interest from her considerable estate was to go to Alice during her lifetime, the whole to go thereafter to her nephew, including that famous collection of paintings (a tribal gesture this). Alice took all this pretty calmly, even though, as these letters show, she was forced to live extremely frugally (often complaining of the cold because she could not afford adequate heating), and had to sell what smaller paintings and drawings she herself owned in order to continue supervising the work of her remaining years (requested by Gertrude), that is the publication of Gertrude's Collected Works and Correspondence. One thing that did grate, that did as it were stick in Alice's gullet, was Gertrude's final self-indulgence to her genius which drove her to leave that celebrated portrait of herself by Picasso to the Metropolitan; "An awful wrench," which "was another parting and completely undid me", this 'because it was snatched from Alice's walls by Gertrude's efficient executors. Constantly, throughout these letters, Alice lets out her sad lament for the loss of that portrait which, one would have thought, Gertrude might have permitted Alice to retain on the walls they shared during her remaining years. No wonder Alice turned to the Catholic Church in her eighties: it had all been such a trial, such a surfeit of Gertrude, even after death, that some consolation elsewhere had to be sought.
As to the value of the bulk of Alice's letters, there is no doubt that much material here will be of peripheral use to future biographers and literary historians. In themselves they are not greatly impressive, although they let out pi tiful echoes of regret and loss, not only for Gertrude's positive life, but for those thirtyeight years of Alice's reduced individuality. Visitors flocked, eager collectors of tit-bits and gossip; Alice produced a cook-book, and confronted and contradicted Stein biographers (on some of these she is extremely sharp). A sad couple of decades. When Basket, the last dog, died Alice "realised it is the beginning of living for the rest of my days without anyone who is dependent upon me for anything". Earlier Alice wrote: "I wish to God we had gone together as I always fatuously thought we would". To a Stein thesis writer Alice wrote: "You will understand my objection to your repeated references to the subject of sexuality as an approach to the understanding of Gertrude's work. She would have emphatically denied it ... " There were clearly dark undertones of misunderstanding.
She is very good and fair about Hemingway, who refused to refer to her other than as Gertrude's "companion." She is light-hearted about Juan Gris who was her friend too, and similarly about Tchelitchew. Some amusing anecdotes about Garbo and Cecil Beaton, and a very strong denial that Picasso was ever Gertrude's lover. She is extremely interesting about Marie Laurencin. Altogether much is entertaining in this area. The overall impression of Alice is one of evasion, or rather of a person so suppressed during Gertrude's lifetime that emancipation as an individual in her own right seems a losing battle. The end of Alice is very sad: money lacking, all the paintings gone ("the walls are bare"), ejection from the beloved apartment to a horrid little modern flat, physically frail, arthritic, sight failing, increasing money anxieties. Her allowance, minimal, from Gertrude's estate, was often late in reaching her, and then totally inadequate, with that sore about the Picasso portrait nagging at her until death came to stop the pain. Not a pretty picture.
What is very amusing and lucidly explanatory of the relationship is the news that Gertrude was known to Alice as 'Baby'—Baby Woojums. Papa Woojums being Carl Van Vechten, Mama Woojums being Alice. Gertrude was a very big baby and quite a handful for Mama Alice who records "Baby's last words. She said upon waking from a sleep — What is the question? And I didn't answer, thinking she was completely awakened. Then she said again — What is the question and before I could speak she went on — If there is no question then there is no answer. And she turned and went to sleep again." It seems typical of the relationship.
Particularly illuminating are the photographs in this book. plentiful and vivid, mostly snapshot pictures. Especially dramatic is one of Alice B. Toklas, five years before her death, showing her huddled in an armchair, one arthritic hand pressing a cigarette to her mouth, the other with its fingers plaintively outstretched towards us: "The pictures are gone permanently. My dim sight could not see them now. Happily a vivid memory does." Which as a final word from Alice is pretty good, considering that the ghost of Baby Woojums has so much to answer for.
Kay Dick's most recent book, Friends and Friendship, is shortly to be published by Sidgwick and Jackson.
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