It was very sad on the rue Daguerre for a few days. We missed Stanley badly. Moreover, without her money we were soon in financial straits again. Once more we had to eat at prix fixe restaurants like Aux Cent Colonnes, where a fee of 28 cents donnait droit à 1 soupe, 1 entrée, 2 légumes, fromage ou dessert (pain à discretion): the enumeration still haunts me, as does the taste of the food. All day long I was hungry. I lowered my eyes when passing the windows of pastry shops, unable to endure the beauty of their displays—the éclairs, millefeuilles, gâteaux mocha, pavés suisses, barquettes de fraises, madeleines, cake anglais, and those lovely ones whose name I never knew, shaped like the hull of a sailboat, half the deck plated with chocolate, the other half with mocha, and full of a rich deposit tasting of nuts and nougat. On top of all this the prices of everything in Paris seemed to be rising. We realized we would have to go to work.
For foreigners whose passports were stamped, like ours, with the compulsory declaration to ne pas prendre aucun emploi salarié, work was not easy to find. But even our half-hearted efforts bore fruit. Graeme was taken on as a proofreader by the New York Herald, thanks to his having met the managing editor at a bar, and I began picking up a little money typing manuscripts for expatriate American writers. His work was monotonous, but mine—beating the pages of some unreadable holograph short story or novel into typescript at 2 francs a page, punctuation included—was depressing: there was not the slightest chance of such work ever being published. I deplored the growing fad for a literary career, even while I was making a bare living from it. In the United States at this time everyone who could do nothing else had decided to be a writer, for it was clear that writing needed no special training or equipment, like music or painting. After a month my accuracy and good spelling began to pay off: I acquired a reputation. One day I received a call from Gwen Le Gallienne, asking me to type the last three chapters of her stepfather’s latest novel under his own supervision.
Richard Le Gallienne! I was filled with awe. I had thought he was dead. I knew of him more by reputation, as the friend of Wilde, Beerbohm and Beardsley, than by anything he had written. I remembered only a few flat, fatigued, ninetyish poems in the decadent manner, a number of essays of almost unbearable whimsy, and the fact that he was vaguely connected, in a purely literary way, with the sea.
I arrived with my typewriter, paper and carbon-paper at his apartment in the rue de Rennes. Gwen and her mother were waiting at the door.
‘Mr Le Gallienne is not feeling himself,’ said Mrs Le Gallienne, a short, dark, angry-looking woman. ‘But there are only about fifty pages of his novel to be typed. He will dictate them to you from the manuscript.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t type from dictation,’ I said. ‘Unless he speaks very slowly.’
‘Have no fear of that,’ she said bitterly.
She showed me into a small, cluttered, dirty room.
‘Richard!’ she called. ‘Come now, here is the young man to type those last three chapters. You know Mr Towne wired he must have them by the next post. It was in the contract.’
The author, who had been hiding behind a screen, came out cautiously. He wore a nautical blue blazer and rumpled white flannel trousers and was quite drunk. I was surprised to see how old, thin, and haggard he was; only his blue eyes held any life, and they were barely able to focus.
‘Aha,’ he said in a fine light tenor voice. ‘There was a ship.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Le Gallienne, as if speaking to an idiot, ‘that’s the book you’re to finish. Now just come and read your manuscript, and this nice young man—he is a Canadian, by the way, and he is a writer too—will type from your dictation.’
Le Gallienne bowed gracefully, clutching at the screen. ‘I am happy to have your collaboration, sir. Would you care for a drink? Brandy and soda?’
Mrs Le Gallienne shook her head darkly at me.
‘Indeed I would, sir. But not right away.’ I set up my typewriter on a table already covered with manuscript in a thin, illegible handwriting.
‘I will leave you now, Richard,’ she said. ‘But remember, Mr Towne must have the three chapters by the next post. Otherwise—’ She waved her hand and disappeared.
‘Termagant,’ said Le Gallienne in a low voice. ‘Basilisk, vampire.’
There was a pile of typescript on the table. It ended at Chapter XX. The first sheet of handwritten manuscript seemed to be headed Chapter xxi.
‘There Was a Ship,’ said Le Gallienne in a stagey voice. ‘That’s the title. A story about the Spanish Main. And a bloody awful story too.’
‘How does Chapter xxi go?’ I asked, passing him the sheets. ‘If you’ll read it I’ll take it down, sir. But slowly, please—I’m not a touch typist.’
‘Good for you. Well, so you’re a Canaidjan. I was once in Canada—years and years ago. Lecturing. In a desolate city called To-ron-to. Heavens! You’re not from To-ron-to, are you?’
‘No, I’ve never been there.’
‘Don’t go, my boy. But now, you’re quite sure you won’t have a drink? Then I’ll just have a quick one before we start. Your health, sir.’ He pulled a flat nautical-looking bottle from the breast-pocket of his blazer and took a tremendous swig. For a moment his eyes seemed to disappear in his head, then he straightened up, glared at his manuscript and said in a brisk quarter-deck voice: ‘Ready? Centre carriage! Capitals Chapter Roman Twenty-one! Double space. New line, no indent. “Odds-fish!” cried the Merry Monarch. “This young fellow warrants our attention. What think you, Barbara?” And he turned to the Countess of Castlemaine...’
He read slowly, with ease and expression, giving the text in blocks of ten or twelve words and waiting patiently until I had finished each. I was thinking this was the easiest job I had ever had. We finished Chapter xxi in half an hour.
‘Now,’ he said, pulling out the case-bottle again, ‘a little refreshment. I am afraid we have no tumblers—but what does that signify to a pair of literary men? Come now,’ he proffered the bottle, ‘as the immortal Sairey Gamp says, “Put your lips to it.” No?’ He took a long drink, wiped his mouth and sighed. ‘You know, I heard Dickens himself publicly recite that whole sublime passage from Chuzzlewit when I was just about your age. It was unforgettable.’ He suddenly sank his head between his shoulders, put one hand to his breast, rolled his eyes upward, and chanted in a deep hoarse singsong, “’So what I always says to them as has the management of things, be they gents or be they ladies, is: don’t ask me whether I won’t take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottle on the chimley-piece so I can put my lips to it when I am so dispoged.”’
It was a thoroughly professional performance. Listening, I had the sensation of hearing the voice of Charles Dickens, and for a moment felt audibly linked with the splendours of the past. Then he belched, fell into a chair, and waved the bottle at me uncertainly. When I declined, he took another pull himself and seemed to pass out completely, leaning back with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. But when I began to type the heading of Chapter XXII he got to his feet again, gripped his manuscript and continued dictating.
The next chapter took a good deal longer: he kept losing his place and his speech was thickening badly. After he had skipped three separate paragraphs in succession, destroying the whole sense of the text, I stopped. My copy was becoming badly fouled with blocks of deletions.
‘Perhaps you’d better take a rest, sir.’
‘Rest? Rest?’ he cried. ‘Shall I not have all eternity to rest in? No, I’ll have another drink.’
‘You will not,’ said Mrs Le Gallienne in a harsh, sibilant tone, coming in quietly and twitching the bottle out of his hand. ‘You may have a cup of tea if you wish. This book must be finished within the hour, in time for the boat-train, or Mr Towne will impose the penalty provided for in the contract. You know what that means, Richard: it means twenty pounds. I will make you both a cup of good strong tea and then you can go back to work.’ She disappeared.
‘Sheridan went through this too, I believe,’ said Le Gallienne. ‘But he had the advantage of not writing drivel. My task is harder.’ He sighed deeply. ‘My dear young man, let me urge you in the strongest possible terms not to embrace the profession of letters. You see what one comes to in the end ... Yes, literature is all very well in its way—but only as a hobby. It should never be anything but the inspired recreation of a man who has what I have never had—a private ingcum. If I had been so blessed by fortune with a private ingcum, I should have continued to follow my proper bent—poetry.’
Remembering his flat, fatigued, and derivative verse, I thought this was no great loss to English literature, but felt it would do no harm to cheer him up by repeating the best stanza of the only poem of his I could recall, ‘The Second Crucifixion’:
“‘Poor Lazarus shall wait in vain
And Bartimaeus still go blind:
The healing hands shall ne’er again
Be touched by suffering humankind.
Yet every day my Lord I meet
In every London lane and street.”’
‘Good God,’ he said, ‘you know my work! Marvellous, marvellous. I thought nobody read anything but the poetaster Eliot these days—or that Yankee hooligan Elijah Pound. My dear young sir, I am touched. I even forgive you the misquotation of my own poem. At least you got four lines of it almost right anyway. Come now, a drink.’
He was groping again in the pocket of his blazer when Mrs Le Gallienne appeared with two cups of tea.
In two hours we managed to get through the book. Le Gallienne insisted on writing the end in a gigantic scrawl on the last page. Mrs Le Gallienne then gathered the typed sheets together, checked the numbered pages with a moistened thumb and put them into a large pre-addressed manila envelope that she sealed with several rapid licks of her tongue and then held firmly to her chest.
‘I think you’d better lie down now, Richard,’ she said firmly.
‘I must offer this young gentleman a drink. He has been so patient.’
‘Nonsense. It’s time for your rest.’ She turned to me with a crafty smile. ‘Please send in your bill tomorrow.’
‘No need for that,’ I said. ‘Sixty pages and carbons at two francs each is 120 francs, plus five francs for three spoiled ones. 125 francs please, Mrs Le Gallienne.’
‘Later. I must put this in the post at once. Good afternoon.’ She disappeared swiftly.
Le Gallienne turned to me with outspread hands. ‘I’m afraid all I can offer you is a drink.’
‘You haven’t got a drink. Mrs Le Gallienne took the bottle. All I want is 125 francs, sir.’
‘I haven’t a penny in my pocket, I swear. But I have this.’ He reached into the opposite breast-pocket of his blazer and produced another flat bottle. ‘Come now, a little drink?’
‘All right. But you still owe me 125 francs.’
‘My wife will pay you tomorrow. Here.’ He filled my empty teacup from his bottle and presented it.
‘I don’t think she will,’ I said. ‘Well, your health, sir.’
We drank solemnly.
‘I hope you don’t think,’ I said, ‘I typed sixty pages for a drink of brandy. Have a heart.’
‘I have a heart,’ he said. ‘I also have a wife. How can we arrange matters?’
‘You say you haven’t any money?’
‘Not a sou.’
‘All right then, give me an autographed copy of one of your books.’
‘A brilliant idea! What book would you like?’
‘Songs of the Sea.’
His expression suddenly became guarded. ‘That’s a collector’s item, my dear fellow. And I haven’t got a copy here anyway.’
‘Yes, you have,’ I said, pointing to the bookcase. ‘There it is.’
‘My very own copy, the only one I have—with all my own corrections! It’s worth ten pounds at least. Listen, here’s something almost as good. Very rare, too.’ He pulled a slim paper-covered pamphlet from the bookcase, opened it, and inscribed it with a frantic flourish. ‘This is now worth two pounds anywhere,’ he said, pressing it into my hands. ‘An edition limited to one hundred copies.’
‘It’s only a perfume catalogue!’
‘You’re a hard young man,’ he said. ‘What about one of my novels there? Take your pick.’
‘Give me The Book Bills of Narcissus over there and we’ll call it quits.’
‘But it’s worth all of two pounds.’
‘Not to a dealer. Just autograph it and if I can get more than a pound for it I’ll refund you the difference. Come on, be a sport.’
‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘The Book Bills it is. How would you like it inscribed?’
‘Anything simple and eloquent will do.’
He sat down, opened the fly-leaf and wrote for a few moments. ‘There,’ he said.
“‘To a Young Man of Letters, with gratitude and affection, Richard Le Gallienne, Paris 1929. The Labourer is worthy of his hire,” I read. ‘Why, very nice indeed, sir. I’m sure I can get a pound for this. Thank you very much.’
‘Quits?’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Paid?’
‘Paid and double paid.’
We shook hands.
‘Then let’s have another drink.’ He filled the two teacups again.
I declined with thanks. He accompanied me to the door, weaving from side to side.
‘Now remember what I told you about the profession of letters,’ he said as we stood on the threshold. ‘I beg you to abandon it at once, for your own sake. Now, this very afternoon. Tomorrow may be too late. Leave the pursuit of literature to those fortunate individuals who possess a private ingcum.’
I met Graeme at the counter of the Buffalo.
‘You’re looking tired,’ he said.
I showed him Le Gallienne’s book. ‘I’ll go to Galignani’s tomorrow and see what they’ll give me for it.’
‘It should fetch 150 francs,’ he said. ‘And—well, while you’re at it, hadn’t you better take Moore’s little pamphlet and try to sell it too?’
I nodded sadly. The same idea had already occurred to me.
‘After all,’ he said, ‘it’s best not to be sentimental about these things.’
‘I suppose not. But I’ve never been able even to read it properly. I didn’t want to cut the leaves.’
‘Good. It will fetch more. How was the Old Man of the Sea?’
I told him and mentioned the thrill of almost hearing Dickens reading from Chuzzlewit.
‘Old fraud,’ said Graeme. ‘Dickens died in 1870 and he stopped reciting publicly at least five years before then—just about the time Le Gallienne was born.’
Mr Threep of Galignani’s, a prognathous old man who wore his necktie enclosed in a wedding-ring, looked me over almost as carefully as he did the two books.
‘How did you come by these?’ he asked accusingly.
‘They are gifts.’
‘Would you sign a statement to that effect?’
‘Not before we make a price.’
‘What are you asking for them?’
‘A hundred and fifty francs for the Le Gallienne.’
‘Hm-mm.’ He picked it up as if it were contaminated. ‘This is trash, of course. Shall we say a hundred francs? Only for the superscription, mind you.’
‘A hundred and fifty is the limit.’
I had suddenly divined he was really more interested in the pamphlet.
‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ he said, suddenly baring his teeth. ‘We’ll let you have 1,000 francs for the two of them.’
‘Eight hundred and fifty francs for a signed and uncut George Moore, in mint condition? You are joking, Mr Threep.’
He gave me a beady stare, but his eyes returned to the immaculate grey wrappers of the pamphlet; he picked it up delicately, examined the inscription again, and looked at the back.
‘What are you asking for both these items?’
‘2,000 francs.’
He picked up the two books, replaced them calmly in their envelope, and pushed them a few inches towards me. ‘I’m afraid we cannot do business,’ he said.
I reached for the envelope.
His hands did not relax their hold on it.
‘Our final offer,’ he said between his teeth, ‘is 2,000 francs.’
‘Oh, all right.’
He drew the envelope back again. The look of triumph in his eyes was revolting.
I have since learned that an unsigned copy of Reminiscences of the Impresssionist Painters sold for two hundred dollars in New York. But that afternoon, coming out on the rue de Rivoli in the sunshine with eighty dollars in my pocket, I was walking on air. The money would keep us in luxury for over a month.
‘Do you think Mr Moore knew how much the little pamphlet was worth?’ I asked Graeme that night.
‘Of course he didn’t. We’ll have a good dinner tonight and drink his health. I have a feeling he would approve the transaction.’