CHAPTER 9
Joyce was as good as his word and brought Sylvia whatever news he had of Ulysses’s adventures in New York as the winter of early 1921 trudged on—which is to say, he brought her nothing. Except for the occasional brief letter or telegram from John Quinn saying that he was doing his best and would have a verdict soon. Still, the fate of Joyce’s book became a daily topic of conversation in Shakespeare and Company; her store was rapidly becoming the hub of all information. If someone had heard a rumor—which nearly always turned out to be false—they would bring it to 8 rue Dupuytren to deposit the intelligence with Sylvia, who could then disseminate it.
The biggest news was that no American publisher would come within a hundred feet of Joyce’s novel, and so a private edition was now out of the question. If it was declared obscene by the judges of the Jefferson Market Courthouse in New York City, it would be a banned book with a grim future.
Joyce took to coming into Shakespeare and Company and saying to Sylvia with exaggerated excitement, “Guess!”
The first time he did this, his face alight with anticipation, she’d felt her heart go from a trot to a gallop and she said, “Innocent?”
When he’d replied, “Nothing!” she wadded up a receipt and threw it at him. On subsequent occasions when he got her hopes up, she just blew smoke at him with a stern look on her face and he’d laugh till he coughed.
In a curious turn of events, Sylvia began to see Michel’s young bride Julie more often in the store. “I like to practice my English,” she said when Sylvia asked why the girl came to Shakespeare and not La Maison, where the clientele all spoke French. “Also, Michel loves this store because you showed him many poets he loves. It is a way of being close to him, you see?” Sylvia smiled, her heart breaking with pride at this. Much as she enjoyed Julie, she missed Michel and wondered why he came so seldom now. Instead, he sent Julie to purchase books and deliver his special packages of meats.
By late February, Julie had become pregnant, and she fretted that soon she would have to stop dancing. “I love ballet,” she said with glistening eyes. “It is the only thing that helped me when my father and brother died in the war, and my mother went to the convent. Ballet helped me support myself and Babette.” Julie was sweetly proud of her little sister, who was now enrolled in the university and planned to become a teacher. “How can I just give it up?”
The best solace Sylvia thought she could offer was Jane Austen novels, the very best books she knew for portraying the joys of family life. She’d never tell Julie the truth of what she’d thought to herself about the baby and the dancing: Thank goodness I’ll never have to make the same choice. She said, as convincingly as she could, “I am sure that motherhood will offer many other rewards.”
“I am sure,” Julie said resignedly. “But you understand, don’t you?”
The girl was trembling with her need to be seen and heard. Sylvia took Julie’s hands in hers and said, “I understand completely. And I suspect Michel would as well.” Anyone who read that much had to be given to empathy.
Sylvia’s mother came to Paris in the first weeks of the new year and was positively rhapsodic about Shakespeare and Company. “My dearest Sylvia! What a marvel this is!” Clapping her hands together, Eleanor Beach flitted around the store, taking one volume down and merely glancing at it before her attention was pulled in another direction. The Whitman pages are perfect! Oh, and the Blakes! Do you have any Rossetti?
Without her father or sisters present, Sylvia saw her mother in an entirely new way. She was lighter, airier, always and almost about to blow away—and entirely absorbed in her own thoughts and pursuits. Sylvia thought that she might actually be able to kiss Adrienne right in front of her mother and Eleanor wouldn’t even notice.
“Your mother is charming,” Adrienne said at the end of a long day that had included a trip to the Rodin Museum and the d’Orsay. Though she was on her feet all day in the shop, Sylvia rarely felt her muscles ache like they did after walking in and between the museums and metro stations.
“Thank you for keeping us company. It was heroic.”
“I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Eleanor knows so much about Paris and artists. I learned much from her today.”
“She does like to lecture, doesn’t she?” Sylvia’s mother had given an especially long dissertation in front of The Thinker. Sylvia might have enjoyed it more if it hadn’t been the fifth such talk of the day.
Adrienne laughed. “She does, but I like to learn.”
So did Sylvia. And she loved her mother. So why did she feel so burdened by her behavior?
Eleanor threw herself into the daily life of the store, and Sylvia was thrilled to see so many things getting done in the gust of her mother’s enthusiasm: re-alphabetizing, sweeping, dusting, and a total organization of her back room, which had lately begun to feel like a jumble of partially open boxes. “Thank you, Mother,” Sylvia said, feeling both grateful and silly for not having completed any of the tasks weeks ago. Looking at the tidy room, she couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t been able to do any of this herself. Other things—customers, conversation—always seemed more pressing.
“I’m glad to see you still need your mother,” she replied with kisses on Sylvia’s cheeks. Then, more quietly, “It’s nice to be needed.”
There was something about her mother’s tone in that phrase that broke Sylvia’s heart a little. It made painful sense, though. Eleanor thrived on the lively chaos of hosting, and of meaningful, tangible work. Like Adrienne, she realized with a jolt.
And now that her mother’s daughters were all grown, and none of them had children of their own who needed a grandmother, Eleanor was by herself much of the time. Her husband, Sylvia’s father, had always been absorbed in his parish and his teaching; except for the social events required by his job, Sylvester Beach didn’t need Eleanor for his thinking, preaching, and writing. And anyway, Sylvia always suspected her mother would rather talk about artists than God. She loved that about her.
When her mother left Paris after two whirlwind weeks to take a train to Florence, where she planned to visit one of her oldest friends who was living there, she left Sylvia with a store that was neat as a pin, and a heart that was confounded. It was easy not to think about her parents when she was away from them. But visiting with one of them made her miss them terribly, and also see them differently. Who was this woman who’d raised her? Perhaps it was time to get to know her in a new way.
That heartache was soon subsumed. News of the trial finally reached the rue Dupuytren, nearly a week after the decision had been handed down, which incensed Sylvia. Why hadn’t that damn John Quinn bothered to telegram anyone? Because he’s mortified, she had to assume. Instead it was an American tourist who came by with a days-old edition of a newspaper that revealed the verdict to her—before it had even been revealed to Joyce, she was sure, because she’d seen him just last night and they had discussed the lack of information.
And there it was in black and white: ulysses found obscene. girl editors bailed out.
Girl Editors. Could they be any more patronizing?
John Quinn’s so-called defense was summarized in the paper exactly as Ezra had predicted: Quinn had tried to convince the judges that Joyce’s writing was too difficult, confusing, and offensive in its portrayal of the body and desire, to inspire lust or corrupt anyone—especially not the most corruptible of readers, with whom the trial was apparently concerned.
What about readers who actually understand the book? Sylvia thought angrily. They wouldn’t be corrupted, either, because they would see its revolutionary nature, the staggering beauty in its sentences, and the humanity in its characters.
Sylvia was tempted to burn the paper in the stove. She kept it only to show Joyce.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to keep the pages long, as he arrived later that afternoon in high spirits. “An excellent day at my desk.”
She hated to do what she was about to do, but she couldn’t not tell him. So she handed him the newspaper.
Smoking nervously, she watched his eyes rove over the article, his expression stoic.
“Well,” he said in an even tone, handing the paper back to her. “I’m glad this aptly named Mrs. Fortune of Chicago paid the bail for Miss Anderson and Miss Heap. I’d have felt much worse if my two most important publishers had had to spend any time in jail for me.” Crooked Jesus, she heard in Adrienne’s voice.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Sylvia said. “This is a crime against literature.”
“And yet the crime is mine, apparently.” Joyce inhaled through his nose, long and slow and deep, his shoulders rising as if his whole body were inflating. Then he let it out, almost inaudibly. “My poor book.”
“Aren’t you angry?”
“At what?”
“Well . . . I’m angry at Sumner and the post office and the vice squad, and John Quinn for not coming up with a better defense, and those judges for being hopelessly illiterate.”
“I thank you for your outrage, Miss Beach.”
“You should be outraged as well!”
“But why? When you do it so well for me?”
She laughed, both amused and frustrated. “What are we going to do with you, Mr. Joyce?”
“The better question is what are we going to do with my book?”
The words were out of her mouth before the idea had even completely formed in her head: “Let me do it. Let Shakespeare and Company publish Ulysses.”
It was as if every conversation, every book she’d ever read or shelved or lent, every framed page by Whitman and Blake, every conversation she’d had with Adrienne about Cahiers, every encouragement of her parents, had been pushing James Joyce’s masterpiece to this very destination. Paris. Her door. Its very own Ithaca.
The smile he bestowed on her was whole and unfettered. “What a marvelous idea.”
“Let me work on some numbers, and draw up some terms,” she said, trying to sound calm and businesslike when what she felt like was a schoolgirl who wanted to burst out of the building and skip down the road. I, Sylvia Beach, am going to publish James Joyce! “We can discuss the details tomorrow.”
They shook hands before the blessing eyes of Walt Whitman.
“I couldn’t be happier, Miss Beach.”
Sylvia hadn’t felt this excited since the fall of 1919, knowing she would open this store and possibly, probably, be united with Adrienne. Her body was full of a burbling excitement it couldn’t contain, so she bounced about the store, scrounging up a fresh notebook and pen as she smoked. Shakespeare and Company was about to right a great wrong, ensuring the publication of a tour de force that should be required reading, not a banned book. Adrienne had been correct, of course—the right opportunity would come along for her to effect change in the world, and here it was.
And, she admitted to herself, this venture would also put her store on the map. Everyone would know about Shakespeare and Company after it published Ulysses, ensuring the store’s success, making it the kind of accomplishment that might outlive her.
It was dark when she finally lifted her eyes from the ink-damp pages of her journal where she’d written numerous equations hypothesizing profits and percentages and costs, and brainstormed ideas for marketing the book even where it had been banned. Especially there. The idea of thumbing her nose at John Sumner and everything he represented filled her with glee. The gas lamps outside cast shimmering light on damp sidewalks. It had rained. She hadn’t even noticed. Collar up, she hurried home, relieved she wasn’t too late for dinner. There was a wine shop not far out of her way, so she stopped in to purchase a fillette de champagne.
At home, Adrienne had the wireless on, and Cole Porter’s “Old Fashioned Garden” was crackling into the kitchen. Sylvia inhaled the scent of thyme and carrots and beef and thought she might just expire from happiness on the spot.
“Darling,” she said as she handed Adrienne the cold demi-bouteille. “Shakespeare and Company is going to change the world. And once again, you are the inspiration—I need to know how you publish Les Cahiers.”
Adrienne smiled and eagerly took the champagne from Sylvia’s hands. “Tell me everything.”
As Adrienne poured the golden bubbles into two coupes, Sylvia rushed through the details of her outrage about the trial’s verdict, then explained her offer to publish Joyce’s novel. “I had to do it,” she effused breathlessly, “How could I not?” Holding up her glass, Sylvia said, “To Ulysses?”
Adrienne’s eyes sparkled with surprise and pride and excitement, and she clinked the rim of her glass to Sylvia’s so that the sound rang out above the cooking and music. “To you, my dear Sylvia.”
They sipped. It was the best champagne Sylvia had ever tasted.
Over dinner, Adrienne explained how she ran the publishing side of her enterprise, starting with the printer Maurice Darantiere in Dijon, and roving over the correct number of copies to print, how to calculate profits, how to collect subscriptions from interested buyers, and how to share and distribute the proceeds. Sylvia took eager notes and asked many questions. When the clock ticked into a new day, her notebook was full of wrinkled pages, and her stiff fingers were stained black. It was the most beautiful mess she’d ever made.
When at last they rose from the kitchen table, limbs stiff and swallowing back yawns, Adrienne turned to Sylvia at the sink and said, carefully and tenderly, “I do worry about one thing, chérie.”
“Quoi?”
“I must speak plainly.” She hesitated for a moment, then said almost resignedly, “Our Crooked Jesus is very needy. He is bad with money, and other people’s money, at that. He is a very great writer, but . . . I hope . . . Well, we must find a way to protect you and the store. I hope you don’t mind my saying so. You might start by rethinking the profits. Seventy-five percent is much to give him, and you will be doing significant work. You must consider what you are worth.”
Adrienne’s warning quelled some of her joy, but she knew her lover was right. Sylvia nodded. “I know it’s true, though I wish it wasn’t. I’ll think about the seventy-five percent.”
Adrienne kissed her lightly on the lips. “I will be here to help, if you need me.”
“I always need you.” Sylvia slid her arms around Adrienne’s soft, wide waist, longing for more—skin, hands, folds, sighs, release. But Adrienne kissed her chastely on the cheek and pulled away.