Typed letter signed : Rottingdean, to Mina Curtiss, 1951 October 5

Record ID: 
192914
Accession number: 
MA 8850
Author: 
Bagnold, Enid.
Date: 
1951 October 5
Credit: 
Gift of Mina Curtiss, 1981.
Description: 
1 items (4 pages) ; 22.8 x 17.8 and 25.3 x 20.x cm + envelope
Notes: 

Formerly cataloged as MA 4430 and housed with the correspondence of Antoine Bibesco.
The play Enid Bagnold refers to was "Gertie" which opened at the Plymouth Theatre in New York on January 30, 1952 and closed on February 2, 1952 after 5 performances.

Summary: 

Concerning the death of Antoine Bibesco; commenting on Mina Curtiss' "warm and candid thoughts" on the his death; saying "Oh, I could weep for what we are and what we feel and so much spilt and running away like water, the beauty of your letter, the beauty of what A. really was and hid, the misunderstanding of so much, the lightness of so much, the poor mockery of one person for another, the fronts we put on...Can there be, after all, a better fist of it made somewhere?;" saying she heard that she was "an authority on Proust" and had published translations of his letters; expressing her anxiety about going to New York for her play; saying "Twenty years ago I should have been off my head with pride and pleasure at having a play done in New York. Now I only want to write good, superb plays. And I'm too old. This one isn't 'superb' by a long chalk;" dating and titling the next part of the letter "Sunday. / Marthe" she discusses Antoine Bibesco's cousin, Marthe at length and in detail; saying "I used, years ago, when I was 24, to have an admiration (a fearing one) of her, inculcated by Antoine and Emmanuel to whom she was then everything that they loved to 'create' - a beautiful, brilliant, witty woman, a talented, an inspired writer, redounding to their credit and her own. It took me a long time to shed this point of view;" discussing possible papers Marthe may have and a claim Marthe is making concerning a codicil to Bibesco's will; asking "Did you love Antoine? I oughtnt to ask (except that at our age one asks anything...I gather you are fifty-five? I...sixty-one.) But no one 'loved' Antoine for long. he was too uncomfortable as a lover. As a loved inmate of the heart he settled for ever. At 24 I used to pray 'Please God let him marry me'. But I'm glad he didnt. I couldnt have lived next to his darkness and light, his restless urge to 'make me;" telling her about her plans to come to New York and her fear of flying; asking "...if there is a drug that cuts out fear? Do you know of one...for 24 hours.? Why should one lie in a cocoon in horrible fear of death in the stratosphere when something man has invented can wrap one in sleep?;" relating her travel plans to New York and the rehearsal schedule for the play; relating the 'story' of Antoine's dying at length and in detail commenting on the care he was receiving from Priscilla and Marthe; adding "I dont know what happens to everything. Priscilla, I think inherits it all, house etc. Once, long ago, before he married Elizabeth he left his whole fortune to me. It was after Emmanuel committed suicide and he himself was on the point of doing so. He said to me in the grey-silver room overlooking the river in Grosvenor Road, in a sort of low contemplative fashion; 'I am going to make you rich, Virgilia.' And indeed he was very rich then. I could hardly answer for I knew he was threatening me. Threatening to take himself off for ever. It was what I had been fighting and fighting, especially all that terrible unearthly and wearing night when we walked up and down, up and down the Embankment, debating whether he too should die. Not that I was allowed any hand in it, except as a companion, a sore-aching, inadequate companion;" asking how far she is from New York and saying she would like to visit her; commenting on her play saying "(They say, these producers, when they first get your play and take it, 'Its divine. Untouchable. Beautiful.' Then they proceed to 'suggest'. And soon its all totally rewritten."

Provenance: 
Gift of Mina Curtiss, 1981.