stories from the set, Eve hadnât really understood what her friend was up against until the Emperor started talking. With his two-cornered hat on his head and his little hand tucked in his coat, he launched into a zingy description of Hollywood full of fifty-dollar phrases like:
Titanic personalities
and
innermost humanities
. Clearly, he was partial to a full-blown soliloquy, but it didnât take long to get the gist of his message: that his irreplaceable genius was under constant threat from the essential fallibility of those in his employ.
Mr. Benton (who had obviously heard versions of the speech before) let his attention wander toward the rays of light that angled through the window shade. Somewhere outside a bird marked the dwindling day with a warble, which seemed to provide him momentary relief from his employerâs oratory, presumably by recalling some afternoon in a distant and more sensible time.
As Napoléon began to elaborate for no oneâs benefit but his own, Eve felt a surge of sympathy for Mr. Benton. He suddenly had the look of a stranger in his own office. And thatâs when she realized why his demeanor had seemed so familiar: It was the same as her fatherâs. Sitting behind their well-meaning piles of paper in their well-appointed offices, they both had good reason to let their minds wander.
Napoléon was standing now. He summed up smartly, took Eveâs hand, and then disappeared through the door, drawing the curtain on the conversation that he hadnât been invited to in the first place.
â¢
W HEN E VE EMERGED FROM Mr. Bentonâs office a few minutes later, rather than return to the Packard she headed straight for the back forty to find Olivia on the set. In a few hours they would be meeting for dinner at the Tropicana, but Eve couldnât wait to relay this turn of events. On the rolling lawn that rested gracefully between the majesty of Tara and its fields in high cotton, Eve would describe her meeting with Napoléon word-for-word, and Livvy would bust her bustle with laughter.
But as Eve came around the corner, she was startled to find the plantation desolate. Overnight, the trees had been uprooted, the grass singed, the peacocks scattered, and the stables now listed like a ship that had run ashore. Without a living soul in sight, the scene gave an irrefutable impression of abandonment. But when Eve crossed the porch and opened the front door, she found the entrance hall teeming with craftsmen.
Standing halfway up the staircase, a young man gently dented the banister with a ball-peen hammer as his colleague scuffed the treads of the steps with a pumice stone. To Eveâs left, a lanky technician with an elaborate apparatus on his backâlike that of an exterminatorâwas spraying a tainted liquid onto the bright floral wallpaper to create the impression of water stains, while another fellow brushed sepia around a taped-off square to form the ghostly shadow of where a framed work of art once had hung.
Eve passed through the entry into the inner chamber and paused beside a vandalized portrait in order to watch a man in bifocals carefully cracking a mirror with a jewelerâs hammer.
It was all so breathtaking.
Presumably, Selznick imagined that these technicians worked for himâthat they followed his instructions and fulfilled his plan like his fitters and gaffers and grips. But Eve could see in an instant that these were a different class of men. Like the archangels, these artisans had come to dismantle the utmost accomplishments of mortal men. Working with at least as much ingenuity as the finest of engineers, they were slowly undoing what pride and ambition, wealth and tradition had assembled with such self-conscious care.
As Selznick had gone on and on about his professional prowess and the artful execution of his films, Eveâs natural inclination had been to dismiss his every word. But, perhaps the megalomaniac had been onto
Titanic personalities
and
innermost humanities
. Clearly, he was partial to a full-blown soliloquy, but it didnât take long to get the gist of his message: that his irreplaceable genius was under constant threat from the essential fallibility of those in his employ.
Mr. Benton (who had obviously heard versions of the speech before) let his attention wander toward the rays of light that angled through the window shade. Somewhere outside a bird marked the dwindling day with a warble, which seemed to provide him momentary relief from his employerâs oratory, presumably by recalling some afternoon in a distant and more sensible time.
As Napoléon began to elaborate for no oneâs benefit but his own, Eve felt a surge of sympathy for Mr. Benton. He suddenly had the look of a stranger in his own office. And thatâs when she realized why his demeanor had seemed so familiar: It was the same as her fatherâs. Sitting behind their well-meaning piles of paper in their well-appointed offices, they both had good reason to let their minds wander.
Napoléon was standing now. He summed up smartly, took Eveâs hand, and then disappeared through the door, drawing the curtain on the conversation that he hadnât been invited to in the first place.
â¢
W HEN E VE EMERGED FROM Mr. Bentonâs office a few minutes later, rather than return to the Packard she headed straight for the back forty to find Olivia on the set. In a few hours they would be meeting for dinner at the Tropicana, but Eve couldnât wait to relay this turn of events. On the rolling lawn that rested gracefully between the majesty of Tara and its fields in high cotton, Eve would describe her meeting with Napoléon word-for-word, and Livvy would bust her bustle with laughter.
But as Eve came around the corner, she was startled to find the plantation desolate. Overnight, the trees had been uprooted, the grass singed, the peacocks scattered, and the stables now listed like a ship that had run ashore. Without a living soul in sight, the scene gave an irrefutable impression of abandonment. But when Eve crossed the porch and opened the front door, she found the entrance hall teeming with craftsmen.
Standing halfway up the staircase, a young man gently dented the banister with a ball-peen hammer as his colleague scuffed the treads of the steps with a pumice stone. To Eveâs left, a lanky technician with an elaborate apparatus on his backâlike that of an exterminatorâwas spraying a tainted liquid onto the bright floral wallpaper to create the impression of water stains, while another fellow brushed sepia around a taped-off square to form the ghostly shadow of where a framed work of art once had hung.
Eve passed through the entry into the inner chamber and paused beside a vandalized portrait in order to watch a man in bifocals carefully cracking a mirror with a jewelerâs hammer.
It was all so breathtaking.
Presumably, Selznick imagined that these technicians worked for himâthat they followed his instructions and fulfilled his plan like his fitters and gaffers and grips. But Eve could see in an instant that these were a different class of men. Like the archangels, these artisans had come to dismantle the utmost accomplishments of mortal men. Working with at least as much ingenuity as the finest of engineers, they were slowly undoing what pride and ambition, wealth and tradition had assembled with such self-conscious care.
As Selznick had gone on and on about his professional prowess and the artful execution of his films, Eveâs natural inclination had been to dismiss his every word. But, perhaps the megalomaniac had been onto
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