Ida a Novel (29 page)

Stein’s use of “Film Deux Soeurs Qui Ne Sont Pas Soeurs” puts Ida in front of an audience, as the winner of a beauty pageant. Moreover, because the original text is a movie scenario, Stein connects Ida’s emerging celebrity status with that of movie stars. On her way home from the pageant, Ida walks into a movie, as it were: “[S]he saw a woman carrying a large bundle of wash. This woman stopped [. . .], Ida stopped too.” “Film Deux Soeurs” also plays, as
Ida
does, with the twin figure (two washerwomen, two poodles, two ladies, two parcels), the repetition of action, and the sudden, inexplicable encounter. In “Film Deux Soeurs,” even when a live poodle replaces the photographic version, “they understand nothing.” By coincidence, not long after Stein incorporated “Deux Soeurs” into the “Arthur And Jenny” version of
Ida
, she was asked for “a text in French that could be set to music” (
LR
422–427). She wrote “Les Superstitions.” Stein did not write in French very often, but two primary intertexts for
Ida
were originally in that language.

“The Superstitions Of Fred Anneday, Annday, Anday A Novel Of Real Life” combines a portrait of a man who acquires fame with a meditation on the difference between fiction and real life. An American, Fred moves to Europe and eventually becomes a celebrated topic of conversation: “[E]verybody had to say or do something about Fred Annday.” Unfortunately, the fame he had hoped for, once in hand, made him ill at ease (as was true for Stein). Because Fred has had an experience that affirmed the superstition of the cuckoo, that if it sings when you have money in your pocket “you will have money for all that year,” he has become subject to a world of overwhelming significance. Anything might mean something. He “loved superstition,” but this habit of reading everything as predictive of his future is now a burden. Fred is saved by love for a woman whose name we do not learn, which suggests that the privacy of their relationship is part of what revives his health. As the narrator unfolds her depiction of Fred, she also tells us that a novel is far more selective than real life. Whereas in everyday life one “meet[s] everyone,” a novel should be “like a dream at night” where one “comes to know relatively few persons.” Like the novelist for whom not everything is foreshadow, Fred learns how to be selective.

While writing
Doctor Faustus Lights The Lights
, Stein received a request from Page Cooper on May 9, 1938, to contribute to “a witty, satirical book expressing feminine viewpoints on some aspect of the dominant male or, perhaps, some other subject near the woman’s heart—should I say nerves. [. . .] There are no inhibitions as to form or content except that it be light satire and from a definitely feminine angle. It may be verse, drama, essay, or fiction. Perhaps you already have something you have written just for your own delight” (YCAL 27.539). Stein immediately drafted some of “Ida” on Cooper’s letter, and the finished piece was in New York by the end of May. “Ida” quite literally follows Cooper’s request for women characters who offer, or at least contemplate offering, resistance to the “dominant male”: “And then well then the question came should you do what they tell you or should you not.” While Ida eventually becomes the very essence of popularity (“think of anything to eat, there was only Ida”), she also has the ability to “rest,” which allows her to slip away from the trap of gendered or familial identity.

The references to Jenny in
Lucretia Borgia A Play
date its composition to 1938–1939, when Stein was writing the “Arthur And Jenny” version of
Ida
. The latter year has been chosen because “A Portrait Of Daisy To Daisy On Her Birthday” shares so much with
Lucretia Borgia
, and the birthday of Daisy Fellowes was April 29; as well, Stein copied some of
Lucretia Borgia
onto a 1939 typescript of “Arthur And Jenny.” The textual intimacy between
Lucretia
and “Portrait” makes them an excellent example of Stein’s working method in this period, her use of already existing texts as she made new ones. In “do be careful of eights” (from
Lucretia
and “do be very careful of fives” (from “Portrait”), we see more evidence of Stein’s interest in superstitions and prophecies, which leads to “Les Superstitions” a couple of months later, in June 1939. Like the Duchess of Windsor, Lucretia Borgia and Daisy Fellowes enjoyed the marriage bond for its status and within its confines were able to pursue other romances. The Ida of the novel (not the story) has her own multiple marriages and affairs in common with these women, but like Fred Anneday she ultimately enjoys the mutual love in companionship.

Hortense Sänger 
¹

(1895)

*

Chapter I

In the Library 
²

It was an ideal library for literary browsers, out of the noise and bustle of the city and yet within easy reach. The books were all in one vast room with high ceilings and great windows that let in a flood of sunshine. The place was undisturbed save for some ten or twelve habitual readers, who each sought out his favorite nook on some leathern lounge or great arm-chair, out of sight between tall rows of books. Occasionally an unwary stranger would inadvertently enter and disturb the silence by his resounding footsteps, but soon he would withdraw awed by the stillness and emptiness of the vast room. Sometimes the strains of Chopin’s funeral march would reach the ears of the quiet readers, as a military band, accompanying some local celebrity, on his last journey, passed down the street.

One day as the last long sad notes of the march died on the air, a young girl who had been listening intently, threw down her book with an impatient gesture, and dropped her face on the arm of the leathern couch. She was screened from all view by the heavy book-cases in front of her. There she sat in the full-glare of the noon-day sun, her book at her side, motionless. Finally with a resigned shrug she picked up her book, once more curled herself on her sofa and tried to go on reading. It was useless, a wild impatience possessed her. She was a dark-skinned girl in the full sensuous development of budding woman-hood. Her whole passionate nature had been deeply stirred by those few melancholy strains and with the sun-light heating her blood, she could not endure to rest longer. “Books, books” she muttered, “is there no end to it? Nothing but myself to feed my own eager nature. Nothing given me but musty books.” She paused her eyes glowing and her fists nervously clenched. She was not an impotent child, but a strong vigorous girl, with a full nature and a fertile brain that must be occupied, or burst its bounds.

At last she rose and left the library where most of her young life had been passed. As she passed out of the quiet retreat, the east wind struck her, and increased the tumult in her soul. “I will walk it down” she said aloud. “I must escape from myself.” She started up over the hills at a quick pace, but even that did not satisfy her, faster and faster she went, panting as she climbed the steep hills, but utterly oblivious of her bodily strain, anxious only to escape from self. At last she reached the top-most hill climbed it and paused for breath. Below her lay the blue ocean; the fresh breeze blew on her. She took off her hat and stood there bathed in sunshine, drinking in deep breaths of ocean air, and muttering her satisfaction to herself. At last she turned and now more slowly retraced her steps down the long hills until she reached her home.

Circumstances had forced Hortense Sänger to live much alone. For many years this had suited her completely. With her intense and imaginative temperament, books and her own visions had been sufficient company. She had been early inured to heavy responsibilities, and had handled them firmly for, though a dreamer by nature she had a strong practical sense.

She had now come to a period of her life, when she could no longer content herself with her own nature. She fairly lived in her favorite library. She was motherless and so at liberty to come and go at her own pleasure. Now the time had come when her old well-beloved companions began to pall. One could not live on books, she felt that she must have some human sympathy. Her passionate yearnings made her fear for the endurance of her own reason. Vague fears began to crowd on her. Her longings and desires had become morbid. She felt that she must have an outlet. Some change must come into her life, or she would no longer be able to struggle with the wild moods that now so often possessed her.

Just at this critical time her father died and thus the only tie that bound her to her old home was snapped. Not long after she accepted the invitation of some relatives and left her old haunts and, she hoped her old fears, to lead an entirely new life in a large family circle.
³

*

The Temptation

As they drew near the church the crowd in the streets increased. All Baltimore seemed to have turned out to hear the new preacher. They pressed through the throng and entered the church but as soon as they got within the door they were brought to a halt. The place was packed, every nook and corner was filled with its full allowance of uncomfortable humanity. (So closely were they crowded, that no one could see anything except the persons directly in front of them.)

After waiting a while, the crowd gradually, with that peculiar indefinable movement there is in even the densest throng, began to loosen. The pressure on the door was slightly lessened and our party by dint of pushing, waiting, squeezing, waiting again and so managing to insert themselves between the people, succeeded in forcing their way to the steps leading up to the choir-loft. Hortense who was ahead mounted two of the steps and then turned to look at the crowd below her.

Never had she seen a more motley assembly. Negroes and whites, working men and elegant youths all together. A beautiful girl with a graceful figure and dressed in those light-veil-like gowns that add so much to the charm of a Southern city was forced close up to a villainous looking Italian who was trying to push past her.

On the other side were some nuns in their long black gowns, whispering kindly to each other, frightened at finding themselves in the midst of such a thing. One delicate little woman had fainted and the crowd were forced back enough to let her husband support her out.

Other women with that rudeness peculiar to their sex, were abusing their neighbors and impatiently trying to see over their heads. An old woman barely able to totter, was trying to kneel before the central aisle, as is the custom on passing the figure of Christ. At last she succeeded but was almost crushed by a sudden movement in the throng around her.

All those strange and curiously assorted types were there, that are always to be found in a Catholic church where all ranks and conditions find a common mother. The impressive ceremonies, the wealth and imagery displayed in the building, the poetic and mystic emblems, in the church particularly in the dim evening light attract alike the ignorant and the cultured. The passivity of obedience that the church teaches is an inestimable boon in this hurried struggling life of ours.

The crowd for a moment would be still and then without any definable cause, the swaying and pushing would begin again. The heat was intense. The noises of the street came through the widely-open windows adding to the confused hum within. To avoid the heat the lights were low but the moon shone in making strange lights and shadows through the stained windows and making that strange crowd look still more weird.

Far away in the end of the church hardly distinguishable in the dim light stood the young preacher in his priestly robes waiting for the people to be still. At last he raised his hand and began his prayer. None could kneel in that densely packed throng and so all simply bowed their heads.

This attitude of prayer to an observer not participating in it has always a strange fascination. The sight of all those people bowing before a power that they dimly recognize, little children, aged grandfathers and strong men all joining in that act of prayer, is peculiarly impressive. It is a solemn and a melancholy sight to the skeptic filling him with disquieting reflections on the real worth of things. What does it all mean? Why this universal bending before, what, a God of wrath, a God of love which or neither? Are we really only the victims of blind force. “Into this universe and why not knowing,

Nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;

And out of it, as Wind along the wastes,

I know not whither, willy nilly blowing.”
⁴

Why?, why?, thus Hortense, her whole soul filled with longing thought and questioned, “A longing and for what,” she muttered, “I would not be as they.” What then, she did not know. She struggled with her thought, she tried to throw off the weight, the intolerable burden of solving for herself the great world-questions.

“After all” she continued to herself dreamily Omar Khayyam is right. “The me within thee blind” “While you live drink: —for, once dead, you never shall return; Dream-life is the only life worth living.” And then with new fervor, she muttered looking at the preacher over that sea of bowed heads, “Go on, I’ll catch your ecstacy. I’ll bow my soul to the melody of your voice and yield myself to all the suggestions of the moment. Let me only be at rest and cease to wonder why, why, why. There is no answer, there shall no longer be a questioning.” Her muttering ceased and with it, the prayer came to an end. The heads were raised and again a movement began among the crowd.