Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell Page B
Authors: Judith Mackrell
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accommodate her properly, and the next day arranged for her to go and stay with Janet Flanner in the centre of the city.
Nancy never arrived. For some reason she was determined to seek refuge with Raymond Michelet, even though his tiny apartment had even less room than Solita’s little house. Michelet was shocked by Nancy’s ravaged state, and with the help of Georges Sadoul (their mutual friend from the surrealist days), he begged Nancy to let him book her into a hotel where she could be properly examined by a doctor.
Sadoul doubted, however, that a doctor could do anything to help. Nancy seemed lost to them: ‘Her mind was cracked, her beautiful intelligence had clouded over and she hardly knew what to do but insult her best friends, present and absent.’ 7 She trusted no one, and that night worked herself up to the conviction that the doctor summoned by Michelet was part of a fascist conspiracy against her. On the morning of 12 March she set fire to the few papers she had with her and tried to make her escape. The taxi driver she hailed outside the hotel took one look at her dishevelled clothing, trembling limbs and wild expression and drove her to the nearest police station.
Two days later, in the ward of a public hospital, Nancy died. It was a small and pitiful death, and to those who had known her, a tragic one. Yet even in those desperate straits she remained oddly true to her nature. Throughout her life she had followed the compass of her own convictions; and even though her mind and body had been battered to a point where she was barely recognizable, she had refused to conform to what others had wanted for her; the terms on which she died had somehow remained her own.
* * *
For Zelda Fitzgerald, all hope of freedom seemed to be stolen from her with the onset of her first breakdown in 1930. Confined in the Prangins clinic in Switzerland, she was not only suffering the mental anguish of hallucinations and depression, but was also tormented by the eczema, which now flared across her face, shoulders and neck. During the periods when she was well enough to write, she sent long letters to Scott, trying to understand how she had arrived at such a pass, begging for his help as she tried to ‘unravel this infinite psychological mess’.
She wavered between guilt and rage, sometimes berating herself for her ‘hideous dependency’ on Scott, sometimes railing against his drinking and self-absorption. He, in turn, was as gentle with her as he knew how: ‘I love you with all my heart,’ he wrote in one undated letter, ‘because you are my own girl and this is all I Know.’ 8 Yet because he was wretched – and exhausted – he could not prevent himself retaliating, writing letters in which he angrily itemized all of Zelda’s crimes and derelictions. For more than a year, the two of them were in hell, stumbling and quarrelling through the wreckage of their past.
In the autumn of 1931, Zelda was well enough for them to sail back to America and, for a while, to live at home in Montgomery while Scott worked. But early in 1932 the shock of her father’s death precipitated another breakdown, and she was admitted to the Phipps clinic in Baltimore. It would, however, prove a very different experience from her time at Prangins, for it coincided with an intense period of creativity. Even though the doctors at Phipps found Zelda silent and withdrawn, inside her head she was flying, working for hours every day on her autobiographical first novel Save Me the Waltz.
In purely therapeutic terms this was a critical project for her. She was narrating her own life in her own voice, rather than having Scott’s version superimposed on her. And through the character of her heroine, Alabama, she was able to question who she was and what she had done. She puzzled over her youthful determination to reject her father’s moral principles, his integrity and his work ethic; she also tried to imagine what it would have been
Nancy never arrived. For some reason she was determined to seek refuge with Raymond Michelet, even though his tiny apartment had even less room than Solita’s little house. Michelet was shocked by Nancy’s ravaged state, and with the help of Georges Sadoul (their mutual friend from the surrealist days), he begged Nancy to let him book her into a hotel where she could be properly examined by a doctor.
Sadoul doubted, however, that a doctor could do anything to help. Nancy seemed lost to them: ‘Her mind was cracked, her beautiful intelligence had clouded over and she hardly knew what to do but insult her best friends, present and absent.’ 7 She trusted no one, and that night worked herself up to the conviction that the doctor summoned by Michelet was part of a fascist conspiracy against her. On the morning of 12 March she set fire to the few papers she had with her and tried to make her escape. The taxi driver she hailed outside the hotel took one look at her dishevelled clothing, trembling limbs and wild expression and drove her to the nearest police station.
Two days later, in the ward of a public hospital, Nancy died. It was a small and pitiful death, and to those who had known her, a tragic one. Yet even in those desperate straits she remained oddly true to her nature. Throughout her life she had followed the compass of her own convictions; and even though her mind and body had been battered to a point where she was barely recognizable, she had refused to conform to what others had wanted for her; the terms on which she died had somehow remained her own.
* * *
For Zelda Fitzgerald, all hope of freedom seemed to be stolen from her with the onset of her first breakdown in 1930. Confined in the Prangins clinic in Switzerland, she was not only suffering the mental anguish of hallucinations and depression, but was also tormented by the eczema, which now flared across her face, shoulders and neck. During the periods when she was well enough to write, she sent long letters to Scott, trying to understand how she had arrived at such a pass, begging for his help as she tried to ‘unravel this infinite psychological mess’.
She wavered between guilt and rage, sometimes berating herself for her ‘hideous dependency’ on Scott, sometimes railing against his drinking and self-absorption. He, in turn, was as gentle with her as he knew how: ‘I love you with all my heart,’ he wrote in one undated letter, ‘because you are my own girl and this is all I Know.’ 8 Yet because he was wretched – and exhausted – he could not prevent himself retaliating, writing letters in which he angrily itemized all of Zelda’s crimes and derelictions. For more than a year, the two of them were in hell, stumbling and quarrelling through the wreckage of their past.
In the autumn of 1931, Zelda was well enough for them to sail back to America and, for a while, to live at home in Montgomery while Scott worked. But early in 1932 the shock of her father’s death precipitated another breakdown, and she was admitted to the Phipps clinic in Baltimore. It would, however, prove a very different experience from her time at Prangins, for it coincided with an intense period of creativity. Even though the doctors at Phipps found Zelda silent and withdrawn, inside her head she was flying, working for hours every day on her autobiographical first novel Save Me the Waltz.
In purely therapeutic terms this was a critical project for her. She was narrating her own life in her own voice, rather than having Scott’s version superimposed on her. And through the character of her heroine, Alabama, she was able to question who she was and what she had done. She puzzled over her youthful determination to reject her father’s moral principles, his integrity and his work ethic; she also tried to imagine what it would have been
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