The Thurber Letters, page 5
James G. Thurber, American Embassy,
Paris, France
American Embassy, Paris
The Greatest City in John World
June 11, 1919
Dear old Nuggett:
... Heavens only knows where this missive will find you, for by the time it reaches the only shore you will be through forever... that is as far as burning the midnight cigarettes goes... with Ohio State.... You know, without my elaborating on the theme that I would sure have admired to have been back on the campus with you for the final fling....
... I appreciated and liked very much your poem “The Two”, as I suggested, or made a veiled allusion to in the preamble of this melange of words and ideas, mostly words. I have showed it to quite a few persons who have been enchanted, may I not say? One of these was a Red Cross girl whom you do not know, but who has a penchant for Browning and poetry in general; and she pronounced the last line of the last verse as very fine.... Charme [Seeds]... liked your poem, too, and she showed me one she had written after tramping around the scarred slopes of battered hills north of Verdun, with the accent on Fort Douamnont, which I also visited longtemps ago. She is having a great time over here, having seen quite a bit of the front and being turned back by soldiers and station agents and generals and things on her way into Germany and Switzerland and a few other defendu spots... however, in some cases, the generals and other whatnots did not turn her back... she has a smile and a way, is it not?
... I think that I will stay in Paris as long as they let me, that is, up until the first of next November, and sh.h .. h .. h possibly longer if I can get to stay, which I can’t, I am pretty sure. In that case I will apply to be transferred to some other post over here, say Warsaw or Bukarest or Berne or wherever they will use me, even Afghanistan if necessary. For a time, of course, I was all set on getting home this summer, but now I have it all doped out differently. I may be wrong about it, of course, and I doubtlessly am. But thus is it doped out, and therefore thus am I going to do, unless some tide in the affairs of me seizes me at the flood or the nape of the neck. The way I reason... or think ... is that it is a long way back and this is in all probability the only trip I will ever make this way. So why not see all there is to see while, as we say in America, the seeing is trays beans. I thought at first that when my time in the Paris Embassy was up I would have enough money saved up to flit a quick flit about Europe and then beat it Home, but besides not having the money, the well known passports and visas are tres difficile pour obtenir maintenant, and that method of seeing Europe seems to have ended in a cul de sac.
Of course I may change my mind and get home by the first or middle of August yet, or at least in time to re-enter State and graduate....
* * *
... The chap that sailed with [me] from Hoboken, a very fine lad named Corcoran from Brown and the Harvard Law School, is reveniring aux Etats Unis on July Fifth, and there is quite an urge to join him, and there is still the possibility that I may, but there is the greater possibility that I won’t. I really must admit that I don’t exactly and absolutely know what I want to do, either now or in the near future. I have arrived, or have been arrived, at that point in one’s life which is extremely disturbing and full of hopes and fears and doubts and one thing anothers in wild profusion, I have a deep and sneaking feeling that I should return and finish school for the purpose of wearing the initials after my name and a few other reasons, and I guess that is the sensible thing to do, so the chances are that I won’t do it at all... unless someone comes out for me, as H. J. [Henry James] always says for coming over.
I must admit that Paris is going to be a very hard place to leave. It is all that dear old Henry said of it, just as wonderful just as charming. There is surely no other place in the world where there is such a variety of things that interest or amuse or instruct or enthrall. Why, it is going to be hard just to leave the concerts in the Tuilleries garden where a symphony orchestra plays beneath the acacias, plays Madame Butterfly and Thais, all the prettiest songs from the finest operas... where the moon comes up over the Louvre that reaches its old gray arms towards you invitingly and a bit menacingly, like all old Paris buildings. And in the intervals, the plash of the fountain in the wide purple tarn, the witching glow of the near rose garden in the moonlight. I took Charme there last night. And we had a real nice time, I aim to state. Dauphine terrace in the Bois de Boulogne with almost equally as good music and exactly as fine a moon, and chestnut trees as tall and whispering as the acacias... and ice cream or citronnade or biere or port, as your inclination may be. I don’t think that some of these things would ever tire, and yet of course one must snap out of them eventually and the sooner the better in many respects I know. And yet, it’s a long life, and one can really not get too much Paris if he only stays away a year....
On the other hand, I have to get back and get at something. It is impossible to get a perspective or a determination over here. All that is Paris militates against determinations and decisions, and for that reason it isn’t any too good for one in a sense....
... Another element that may enter into the scheme and play the deus ex machina and the heavy lead etc is the fact that things are rapidly closing up over here, work is subsiding mightily and the chances are very great that all but one or two of the older men will be sent back, and I am not one of the older hommes.
I suppose I will have decided it for certain one way or another by the time I get your answer deciding it another way for me; anyhow I want that answer, and the best way to get it is to ship this letter. Hence, (not being a German) I will sign.
Forever & Forver & frever,
Yours, Nugget, yours,
Jimmy
American Embassy, Paris
September 24, 1919
Dear old Laurel-wreathed Elliott:
I should have answered your wonderful letter many days ago, as it has been in my hands for quite a lil space, but it required two or three readings and since in reading it I liked to linger above each phine phrase and satisfying sentence, two or three readings passes beaucoup time away very easily. It is the best letter I have ever received, in more ways than one or two.
Of course I knew that you were headed for the stage-game—we decided that many moons ago—but I never in my hopefullest dreams for you imagined that you would pounce on New York so quickly and grab her by the scruff of the neck at the same time getting a foot hold on fame as a writer. It is all very wonderful and fine, and, believe me, old youth, there is no one who is happier over your first few successful steps up old John Ladder than I am. You seem to have managed everything just right for the best possible start, even to getting Pathed for winning the century dash, and I dare say that by the time I reach the shores again you will be standing on the top rung walking the ladder whither you wishest....
So far no crafty ideas have come to me for a world beater along the dramatic line, although I am feverishly trying to develop a few stray ideas into material to upholster a one-act play or so. I am afraid that my range doesn’t naturally reach beyond the skit sort of thing, and that if it ever does emerge above that level, it will have to be pushed with strenuous efforts. As a matter of real fact, Paris has shown me that I may have known considerable of the tricks of the writer’s craft as an omniscient student of the OSU college, but that when you drift beyond the confines of old John Campus you find that there is considerable expanding has to be done. What I mean is, I am a bit shaken in old Samuel Confidence which is the most totally destructive thing imaginable. A few of the mirages melt, you know.... Air castles must be torn down, those mushrooms of a minute’s dream, and a slow and labored foundation begun on the old site. I am also considerably uncertain as just what line to devote the old efforts to, and it is altogether a quite worrisome problem, this business of regarding the world and its chances from a point of view in Paris. Now and then I admit I sort of quail for the time being and them are the dark moments—moments which I have had to fight against all my life, mostly to myself, all alone. For I have never had a natural invisible supply of supreme confidence or even of transcendental courage, and it keeps me concentrating and gritting the molars every now and then to keep the manufacturing plant going. But eventually I always see the light, widen the slit in the dungeon walls, and let in a real ray.
Your natural bent for the drama and your turning all your efforts towards that branch of the literary field is the best possible concentration for the development of ability and ideas, and in some ways I hope they send you a rejection slip for your sporadic poems, although the arts are twins and I have a hunch that it won’t retard old dramaturgic art to toy with the lyric now and then. And I have another hunch that they won’t keep on sending rejection slips very long for the verse you may do, if it is as good as the “Two” thing you shipped over here.
I am also dipping occasional pens into poetic ink, or at least putting down sequences of words that rhyme now and then. (Have you ever tried rhyming “now” and “then”?) It all depends on the accent....
I have made several trips around about France, especially up into Normandy. She of the chimes, the tears, and the apple blossoms you know. For Norma has always had a great attraction for me. And verily it is a wonderful and a charming country. I arrived too late for the apple blossoms, but the chimes are always chiming in Normandy, and, fortunately, if Joan looks down any longer from the skies she won’t be able to detect any tears. If one likes to wander about September landscapes that are flawlessly beautiful, seemingly sculptured by the hand of a poetic giant, Normandy is the place for the wanderings; and if one, in his meanderings through September landscapes, likes to come upon mossey old manses, gray stoned old castles, crumbling old abbeys, ancient cathedrals, and the curious old gabled houses of the fourteenth century and earlier, to say nothing of occasional Roman ruins, Normandy is still the place. I leaned on the parapet along the Seine above Caudebec and watched the moon light dancing in the water like a million golden daggers, and across the stream chimes, the sweet old chimes of Normandy sounded. It was just one corner of old Normandy, and just a few minutes there, but there is nothing quite like it. And nothing quite like nosing about an old moss and ivy covered abbey, such as the one in the beautiful little town of St. Wandrille, the abbey which Monsieur Maeterlinck leased before the war because, I suppose, it seemed the most likely place in the world in which to conjure up pretty ideas and charming fancies.
Every thing in Normandy is old, richly old, many things are fairly palpitating still with the throb of history, for every one who ever amounted to anything from Vercingetorix through the day of Dick of the Lionlike Heart up to the time of Jeanne of the Arc trespassed on Normandy. The Field of the Cloth of Gold, which you may remember dimly from some old history reading hour, is there, and many a castle and pile and stretch of ground that Fame played in, or where Hate raged or Pageant parade or Glory shone. I wandered several days in and around Rouen, for Rouen is crowded to the gates with interesting and historic and beautiful things. One hot afternoon I climbed into one of the tired old carriages that are drawn about by tired old horses and driven by tired old cochers in dirty, semishining white hats, and told him to take me to the church of Saint Gervais, for my guide book promised under that edifice the oldest crypt in France, and whereas I am not a collector of crypts as it were, I rather liked the prospect of descending out of the heat into a coolness 1700 or more years old. There was no one in the aisles of the church but an old woman who sat very quiet before a alter, praying. My footsteps, though I unconsciously tip-toed, rang very loud in my ears, like the sound of sabots in a silent street. Candles burned whitely in dim spaces, their tips of light flitting and darting gracefully above the black wicks as if balanced and juggled by some invisible spirits. And then suddenly the sacristan appeared, in long white robe and round black cap. He fitted eminently. His eyes were grey and kind and they matched the stones of the church perfectly, and his voice was very gentle as if he were used to talking only at times and places where talking must be done in low tones. I brought up my best French, which isn’t best in any sense, and “demanded”, which is merely “requested” in French, to see the oldest crypt in France. He said “ah, oui” in a quiet voice and disappeared in a gloomy room to return all lit up—pardon the idea, what happened was only that he came back carrying a candle. And then he led me about the aisles a space until we came to the choir and there with a deft movement he opened a panel, carefully concealed, and the light from our candle lit the first two steps that lead down into the darkest as well as the oldest crypt in France. Also the chilliest, and in some ways the uncanniest, although I guess they are all bad enough in those respects. The place was singularly bare at first round of inspection, but then M. le sacristan began to point out the things of interest, the tombs, out into the side walls, of ancient abbots of the land, the spot in the ceiling above which William the Conqueror lay on his death bed, the stones in the wall that were put there by Roman hands, and lastly four skulls in a row, grinning of course. Skulls of the troisieme siecle perhaps, or even earlier, or perhaps not very old at all, only as far back as the douzieme siecle, peut-etre. I cared not to lift one and murmur alases and poor Yoricks over its smooth dome, and very probably if I had picked the thing up it would have one-horse chaised with admirable suddenness. There was just a narrow line of pale light entering the crypt from the outer world, and when the sacristan held his candle behind him, the dirty daylight that filtered through the antique cob-far end of the promon-tory where Cherbourg is webbed window gave the place an eerie look not conducive to desires to spend the night there below.
And then in the greater and more famous church of St. Ouen another sacristan, more voluble, gave me another candle and let me find my way up the narrow winding stairs, so narrow and so rapidly winding that had I started to run up them I would surely have been inextricably fixed there, like a vine that has woven itself in and out of the palings of an old fence. So I wandered about old thin galleries and feasted my eyes on the wonderful stained glass of the 14th and 15th centuries, and watched the old ladies kneeling like medieval wood carvings upon their prayer-stools, and watched the tips of the myriad candles like large flakes of dancing snow in the purple corners of little chapels. And then I climbed outside along the gargoyle parapets from where the view of the old houses and the tall spires of Rouen revealed so little of familiar things and so much of the stuff of sophomore history courses and the engravings in dog eared, out-of-print books, that it was no trick to imagine oneself back in the middle ages, and I stared with some surprise at the people passing below in modern mufti, whereas I half expected to see feathered, drooping cavalier hats on swaggering blades, and the cleft mitres of gloomy bishops stalking in the gardens of the church below.
From Rouen, I went to Havre for the purpose of looking at ships on the sea and also for the purpose of taking the famous boat ride from that sea-port up the Seine to Rouen. The very finest boat ride I have ever taken. The landscape is faultless on both sides the river, again with the suggestion of having been wrought by some beauty loving giant, tall trees, smooth rolling green meadows, high wooded hills, all spotted here and there with new chateaux, old castles, mouldering abbeys, and the fine forms of Gothic cathedrals.
At another time I went through Normandy to the far end of the promontory where Cherbourg is, again to see ships on the water and to watch the lights on the far end of piers winking blue and red at night. And I am all in favor of Normandy. I would like to own a new chateau or an old castle, preferably one with hidden passages, in Normandy.
As yet I haven’t made up my mind as to what I am going to do but there is so very much to see and study and be impressed with over here that it would seem sort of a sacrilege to give it all up until I have to, providing, of course, that that time isn’t too late for getting the well known start back home. Whatever I decide to do I will let you know right away and I will cable you the date of my arrival in New York, as you suggest, for there must be no more missing of the N and T connections, if it can be helped.
Paris is, by the way, a very wonderful place for the study of the French theater, providing one had enough French to be able to gather the general drift, which is just about all I have, despite the fact that I have been over here so long, almost a year now. You see it would be much easier to pick up the language if there weren’t so many Americans around that it is only occasionally, after all, that one has the opportunity of talking with French people.
I went to a very charmingly presented production of The Tales of Hoffman the other night, and tomorrow night there is “Carmen” and the night after that “Louise.” It’s a great life, in many ways, a great life, this Paris affair, so utterly darn different from American ways of going at things and getting places that it completely baffles attempts at perspective at times.
Be sure and find time toot sweet to answer this letter and if it is not asking too much write about the same number of wonderful pages that you did last time. Meanwhile the best of all in the world towards you, and much of it.
Toujours and longer,
Yours,
Jim
TO THE THURBER FAMILY
American Embassy, Paris
March 18, 1919
Dear Old Thurber [Robert]:
I am awaiting further clippings—and also a letter from you and dear Old Bill. I am addressing this letter to you because I want to send you the enclosed check for 10 beans. I understand you are about to have six or eight more cuttings [operations] to add to your collection. As a ball player, you are quite a patient. But I sure hope you will be all fixed up when this arrives—and for Heaven’s sake sign the pledge never to get anything else the matter with you. Of course you couldn’t possibly get anything new but stick away from relapses and lay off of setbacks. Decline to go into declines—and refuse to be flung amongst the refuse....
Don’t infer that I mean for you to use the $10 for to pay any bills with. It won’t go very far but fling yourself a little party, and write me a letter, using the remnants of the 10 seeds to buy a stamp with. William is able to work and you ain’t just yet—so you can probably use the few bones.
Paris, France
American Embassy, Paris
The Greatest City in John World
June 11, 1919
Dear old Nuggett:
... Heavens only knows where this missive will find you, for by the time it reaches the only shore you will be through forever... that is as far as burning the midnight cigarettes goes... with Ohio State.... You know, without my elaborating on the theme that I would sure have admired to have been back on the campus with you for the final fling....
... I appreciated and liked very much your poem “The Two”, as I suggested, or made a veiled allusion to in the preamble of this melange of words and ideas, mostly words. I have showed it to quite a few persons who have been enchanted, may I not say? One of these was a Red Cross girl whom you do not know, but who has a penchant for Browning and poetry in general; and she pronounced the last line of the last verse as very fine.... Charme [Seeds]... liked your poem, too, and she showed me one she had written after tramping around the scarred slopes of battered hills north of Verdun, with the accent on Fort Douamnont, which I also visited longtemps ago. She is having a great time over here, having seen quite a bit of the front and being turned back by soldiers and station agents and generals and things on her way into Germany and Switzerland and a few other defendu spots... however, in some cases, the generals and other whatnots did not turn her back... she has a smile and a way, is it not?
... I think that I will stay in Paris as long as they let me, that is, up until the first of next November, and sh.h .. h .. h possibly longer if I can get to stay, which I can’t, I am pretty sure. In that case I will apply to be transferred to some other post over here, say Warsaw or Bukarest or Berne or wherever they will use me, even Afghanistan if necessary. For a time, of course, I was all set on getting home this summer, but now I have it all doped out differently. I may be wrong about it, of course, and I doubtlessly am. But thus is it doped out, and therefore thus am I going to do, unless some tide in the affairs of me seizes me at the flood or the nape of the neck. The way I reason... or think ... is that it is a long way back and this is in all probability the only trip I will ever make this way. So why not see all there is to see while, as we say in America, the seeing is trays beans. I thought at first that when my time in the Paris Embassy was up I would have enough money saved up to flit a quick flit about Europe and then beat it Home, but besides not having the money, the well known passports and visas are tres difficile pour obtenir maintenant, and that method of seeing Europe seems to have ended in a cul de sac.
Of course I may change my mind and get home by the first or middle of August yet, or at least in time to re-enter State and graduate....
* * *
... The chap that sailed with [me] from Hoboken, a very fine lad named Corcoran from Brown and the Harvard Law School, is reveniring aux Etats Unis on July Fifth, and there is quite an urge to join him, and there is still the possibility that I may, but there is the greater possibility that I won’t. I really must admit that I don’t exactly and absolutely know what I want to do, either now or in the near future. I have arrived, or have been arrived, at that point in one’s life which is extremely disturbing and full of hopes and fears and doubts and one thing anothers in wild profusion, I have a deep and sneaking feeling that I should return and finish school for the purpose of wearing the initials after my name and a few other reasons, and I guess that is the sensible thing to do, so the chances are that I won’t do it at all... unless someone comes out for me, as H. J. [Henry James] always says for coming over.
I must admit that Paris is going to be a very hard place to leave. It is all that dear old Henry said of it, just as wonderful just as charming. There is surely no other place in the world where there is such a variety of things that interest or amuse or instruct or enthrall. Why, it is going to be hard just to leave the concerts in the Tuilleries garden where a symphony orchestra plays beneath the acacias, plays Madame Butterfly and Thais, all the prettiest songs from the finest operas... where the moon comes up over the Louvre that reaches its old gray arms towards you invitingly and a bit menacingly, like all old Paris buildings. And in the intervals, the plash of the fountain in the wide purple tarn, the witching glow of the near rose garden in the moonlight. I took Charme there last night. And we had a real nice time, I aim to state. Dauphine terrace in the Bois de Boulogne with almost equally as good music and exactly as fine a moon, and chestnut trees as tall and whispering as the acacias... and ice cream or citronnade or biere or port, as your inclination may be. I don’t think that some of these things would ever tire, and yet of course one must snap out of them eventually and the sooner the better in many respects I know. And yet, it’s a long life, and one can really not get too much Paris if he only stays away a year....
On the other hand, I have to get back and get at something. It is impossible to get a perspective or a determination over here. All that is Paris militates against determinations and decisions, and for that reason it isn’t any too good for one in a sense....
... Another element that may enter into the scheme and play the deus ex machina and the heavy lead etc is the fact that things are rapidly closing up over here, work is subsiding mightily and the chances are very great that all but one or two of the older men will be sent back, and I am not one of the older hommes.
I suppose I will have decided it for certain one way or another by the time I get your answer deciding it another way for me; anyhow I want that answer, and the best way to get it is to ship this letter. Hence, (not being a German) I will sign.
Forever & Forver & frever,
Yours, Nugget, yours,
Jimmy
American Embassy, Paris
September 24, 1919
Dear old Laurel-wreathed Elliott:
I should have answered your wonderful letter many days ago, as it has been in my hands for quite a lil space, but it required two or three readings and since in reading it I liked to linger above each phine phrase and satisfying sentence, two or three readings passes beaucoup time away very easily. It is the best letter I have ever received, in more ways than one or two.
Of course I knew that you were headed for the stage-game—we decided that many moons ago—but I never in my hopefullest dreams for you imagined that you would pounce on New York so quickly and grab her by the scruff of the neck at the same time getting a foot hold on fame as a writer. It is all very wonderful and fine, and, believe me, old youth, there is no one who is happier over your first few successful steps up old John Ladder than I am. You seem to have managed everything just right for the best possible start, even to getting Pathed for winning the century dash, and I dare say that by the time I reach the shores again you will be standing on the top rung walking the ladder whither you wishest....
So far no crafty ideas have come to me for a world beater along the dramatic line, although I am feverishly trying to develop a few stray ideas into material to upholster a one-act play or so. I am afraid that my range doesn’t naturally reach beyond the skit sort of thing, and that if it ever does emerge above that level, it will have to be pushed with strenuous efforts. As a matter of real fact, Paris has shown me that I may have known considerable of the tricks of the writer’s craft as an omniscient student of the OSU college, but that when you drift beyond the confines of old John Campus you find that there is considerable expanding has to be done. What I mean is, I am a bit shaken in old Samuel Confidence which is the most totally destructive thing imaginable. A few of the mirages melt, you know.... Air castles must be torn down, those mushrooms of a minute’s dream, and a slow and labored foundation begun on the old site. I am also considerably uncertain as just what line to devote the old efforts to, and it is altogether a quite worrisome problem, this business of regarding the world and its chances from a point of view in Paris. Now and then I admit I sort of quail for the time being and them are the dark moments—moments which I have had to fight against all my life, mostly to myself, all alone. For I have never had a natural invisible supply of supreme confidence or even of transcendental courage, and it keeps me concentrating and gritting the molars every now and then to keep the manufacturing plant going. But eventually I always see the light, widen the slit in the dungeon walls, and let in a real ray.
Your natural bent for the drama and your turning all your efforts towards that branch of the literary field is the best possible concentration for the development of ability and ideas, and in some ways I hope they send you a rejection slip for your sporadic poems, although the arts are twins and I have a hunch that it won’t retard old dramaturgic art to toy with the lyric now and then. And I have another hunch that they won’t keep on sending rejection slips very long for the verse you may do, if it is as good as the “Two” thing you shipped over here.
I am also dipping occasional pens into poetic ink, or at least putting down sequences of words that rhyme now and then. (Have you ever tried rhyming “now” and “then”?) It all depends on the accent....
I have made several trips around about France, especially up into Normandy. She of the chimes, the tears, and the apple blossoms you know. For Norma has always had a great attraction for me. And verily it is a wonderful and a charming country. I arrived too late for the apple blossoms, but the chimes are always chiming in Normandy, and, fortunately, if Joan looks down any longer from the skies she won’t be able to detect any tears. If one likes to wander about September landscapes that are flawlessly beautiful, seemingly sculptured by the hand of a poetic giant, Normandy is the place for the wanderings; and if one, in his meanderings through September landscapes, likes to come upon mossey old manses, gray stoned old castles, crumbling old abbeys, ancient cathedrals, and the curious old gabled houses of the fourteenth century and earlier, to say nothing of occasional Roman ruins, Normandy is still the place. I leaned on the parapet along the Seine above Caudebec and watched the moon light dancing in the water like a million golden daggers, and across the stream chimes, the sweet old chimes of Normandy sounded. It was just one corner of old Normandy, and just a few minutes there, but there is nothing quite like it. And nothing quite like nosing about an old moss and ivy covered abbey, such as the one in the beautiful little town of St. Wandrille, the abbey which Monsieur Maeterlinck leased before the war because, I suppose, it seemed the most likely place in the world in which to conjure up pretty ideas and charming fancies.
Every thing in Normandy is old, richly old, many things are fairly palpitating still with the throb of history, for every one who ever amounted to anything from Vercingetorix through the day of Dick of the Lionlike Heart up to the time of Jeanne of the Arc trespassed on Normandy. The Field of the Cloth of Gold, which you may remember dimly from some old history reading hour, is there, and many a castle and pile and stretch of ground that Fame played in, or where Hate raged or Pageant parade or Glory shone. I wandered several days in and around Rouen, for Rouen is crowded to the gates with interesting and historic and beautiful things. One hot afternoon I climbed into one of the tired old carriages that are drawn about by tired old horses and driven by tired old cochers in dirty, semishining white hats, and told him to take me to the church of Saint Gervais, for my guide book promised under that edifice the oldest crypt in France, and whereas I am not a collector of crypts as it were, I rather liked the prospect of descending out of the heat into a coolness 1700 or more years old. There was no one in the aisles of the church but an old woman who sat very quiet before a alter, praying. My footsteps, though I unconsciously tip-toed, rang very loud in my ears, like the sound of sabots in a silent street. Candles burned whitely in dim spaces, their tips of light flitting and darting gracefully above the black wicks as if balanced and juggled by some invisible spirits. And then suddenly the sacristan appeared, in long white robe and round black cap. He fitted eminently. His eyes were grey and kind and they matched the stones of the church perfectly, and his voice was very gentle as if he were used to talking only at times and places where talking must be done in low tones. I brought up my best French, which isn’t best in any sense, and “demanded”, which is merely “requested” in French, to see the oldest crypt in France. He said “ah, oui” in a quiet voice and disappeared in a gloomy room to return all lit up—pardon the idea, what happened was only that he came back carrying a candle. And then he led me about the aisles a space until we came to the choir and there with a deft movement he opened a panel, carefully concealed, and the light from our candle lit the first two steps that lead down into the darkest as well as the oldest crypt in France. Also the chilliest, and in some ways the uncanniest, although I guess they are all bad enough in those respects. The place was singularly bare at first round of inspection, but then M. le sacristan began to point out the things of interest, the tombs, out into the side walls, of ancient abbots of the land, the spot in the ceiling above which William the Conqueror lay on his death bed, the stones in the wall that were put there by Roman hands, and lastly four skulls in a row, grinning of course. Skulls of the troisieme siecle perhaps, or even earlier, or perhaps not very old at all, only as far back as the douzieme siecle, peut-etre. I cared not to lift one and murmur alases and poor Yoricks over its smooth dome, and very probably if I had picked the thing up it would have one-horse chaised with admirable suddenness. There was just a narrow line of pale light entering the crypt from the outer world, and when the sacristan held his candle behind him, the dirty daylight that filtered through the antique cob-far end of the promon-tory where Cherbourg is webbed window gave the place an eerie look not conducive to desires to spend the night there below.
And then in the greater and more famous church of St. Ouen another sacristan, more voluble, gave me another candle and let me find my way up the narrow winding stairs, so narrow and so rapidly winding that had I started to run up them I would surely have been inextricably fixed there, like a vine that has woven itself in and out of the palings of an old fence. So I wandered about old thin galleries and feasted my eyes on the wonderful stained glass of the 14th and 15th centuries, and watched the old ladies kneeling like medieval wood carvings upon their prayer-stools, and watched the tips of the myriad candles like large flakes of dancing snow in the purple corners of little chapels. And then I climbed outside along the gargoyle parapets from where the view of the old houses and the tall spires of Rouen revealed so little of familiar things and so much of the stuff of sophomore history courses and the engravings in dog eared, out-of-print books, that it was no trick to imagine oneself back in the middle ages, and I stared with some surprise at the people passing below in modern mufti, whereas I half expected to see feathered, drooping cavalier hats on swaggering blades, and the cleft mitres of gloomy bishops stalking in the gardens of the church below.
From Rouen, I went to Havre for the purpose of looking at ships on the sea and also for the purpose of taking the famous boat ride from that sea-port up the Seine to Rouen. The very finest boat ride I have ever taken. The landscape is faultless on both sides the river, again with the suggestion of having been wrought by some beauty loving giant, tall trees, smooth rolling green meadows, high wooded hills, all spotted here and there with new chateaux, old castles, mouldering abbeys, and the fine forms of Gothic cathedrals.
At another time I went through Normandy to the far end of the promontory where Cherbourg is, again to see ships on the water and to watch the lights on the far end of piers winking blue and red at night. And I am all in favor of Normandy. I would like to own a new chateau or an old castle, preferably one with hidden passages, in Normandy.
As yet I haven’t made up my mind as to what I am going to do but there is so very much to see and study and be impressed with over here that it would seem sort of a sacrilege to give it all up until I have to, providing, of course, that that time isn’t too late for getting the well known start back home. Whatever I decide to do I will let you know right away and I will cable you the date of my arrival in New York, as you suggest, for there must be no more missing of the N and T connections, if it can be helped.
Paris is, by the way, a very wonderful place for the study of the French theater, providing one had enough French to be able to gather the general drift, which is just about all I have, despite the fact that I have been over here so long, almost a year now. You see it would be much easier to pick up the language if there weren’t so many Americans around that it is only occasionally, after all, that one has the opportunity of talking with French people.
I went to a very charmingly presented production of The Tales of Hoffman the other night, and tomorrow night there is “Carmen” and the night after that “Louise.” It’s a great life, in many ways, a great life, this Paris affair, so utterly darn different from American ways of going at things and getting places that it completely baffles attempts at perspective at times.
Be sure and find time toot sweet to answer this letter and if it is not asking too much write about the same number of wonderful pages that you did last time. Meanwhile the best of all in the world towards you, and much of it.
Toujours and longer,
Yours,
Jim
TO THE THURBER FAMILY
American Embassy, Paris
March 18, 1919
Dear Old Thurber [Robert]:
I am awaiting further clippings—and also a letter from you and dear Old Bill. I am addressing this letter to you because I want to send you the enclosed check for 10 beans. I understand you are about to have six or eight more cuttings [operations] to add to your collection. As a ball player, you are quite a patient. But I sure hope you will be all fixed up when this arrives—and for Heaven’s sake sign the pledge never to get anything else the matter with you. Of course you couldn’t possibly get anything new but stick away from relapses and lay off of setbacks. Decline to go into declines—and refuse to be flung amongst the refuse....
Don’t infer that I mean for you to use the $10 for to pay any bills with. It won’t go very far but fling yourself a little party, and write me a letter, using the remnants of the 10 seeds to buy a stamp with. William is able to work and you ain’t just yet—so you can probably use the few bones.
