Part 16: Chapter XVI: Life Among the Bohemians: 1926-1931

XVI: Life Among the Bohemians: 1926-1931

Yes, yes, come in. I know, it's my first time going to one of Gertrude Stein's famous salon parties since she moved to Prague, but I've met many of these men before, back when we were in Paris. Look, there's Papa Hemingway! If you've never read his book about fighting the British in their imperial conquest of Granada from Spain, I highly recommend it. Watch yourself around him, dear, he's quite the womanizer, especially when he's deep into that absinthe. Dreadful stuff. Ernest! What do you have to say about Siam?



Qinghai and Japan went easy on them. They should have smashed the British forever. Qinghai should have used the treaty as an opportunity to twist Britain's balls off. Instead they used a golden opportunity to crush the Siamese. Qinghai's destruction is only fitting.




Siam is so weak that its king abandoned the flaccid British and turned to a manly power to defend it from Qinghai and Japan, not that it needed the protection.




Oh? Did you follow that war, Ernest?



The men of Qinghai and Japan were weak.




The men of the Soviet Union were similarly weak. The time will come when the world is ruled by the Beijing-Washington axis, America and China are both splendidly strong today.




Would you believe that Portugal somehow held Macau for all those centuries? China taking Macau is a China asserting its manliness to the world again. Ah, my pistol isn't enough sometimes.



What would you rather have than a pistol, Ernest?




A few ideas come to mind.

...Quite. Great talking to you, Ernest, but I see Salvador over there, I have to go. Salvador! Salvador Dali! This is Salvador Dali, the surrealist painter. I want to introduce you to my new friend here, she's new from America. New to our little expat expat community, that is. Remember how we used to gather in Paris before the war and the revolution?





Which revolution do you mean? Also, I resent your description of me as a surrealist painter. Have you seen the USA-Soviet borders in American Columbia? Some nameless mapmaker in Washington is clearly the patron saint of the surrealist movement.

Perhaps, Salvador, you could explain to our guest what the French Civil War was.



Gladly. Gertrude was kind enough to have a print framed. I feel that it says everything I need to say about the state of France over the past decade.




Have you two noticed that every time the French has a new government, it instantly aligns with the USSR and North Germany? The French are going to put all of us Surrealists out of work. I hear Marcel Duchamp put a urinal up for contention for membership in the French National Assembly under the name M. Fountain, and M. Fountain won a resounding plurality!



The masses have rejected politics based on tradition and embraced politics based on swings of emotion. French politics have truly been like a beautiful canvas showing their hopes and fears, at least until the Chinese killed all of their most expressive, rebellious people and left that boring republic in charge.

...Erm, yes, quite. Moving on, is...is that Cole Porter himself on the piano? Cole! Linda! I haven't seen you guys since Paris!



"I spent the winter in Italy/I looked at Mussolini and he looked at me/but he didn't look my boyfriend back home..."

Oh, don't mind Cole, he's quite proud of that new song. It's been some time indeed: did you hear that George Gershwin recently came to Prague as well?

I did not, Linda. I guess he finally realized that bringing jazz to the Americans is a doomed venture? Also, Linda, I thought I'd introduce you to my friend here. You'd better keep Cole away from her, she's quite the mankiller.

...I don't think you need to worry about Cole, she's...not exactly his type. Besides, all the men are paying attention to her. One look at her and...I want to go to Zanzibar to get away from that stare.




Zelda Fitzgerald? But she's a joy, Linda! I guess if she's here Scott is as well? I know you were joking but I would like to see Zanzibar some day. Just the name conjures up mystery and excitement. Zanzibar.

You know what they say, when Gertrude Stein's salon is open all the dinner clubs in New York are closed. Everyone who's anyone is here in Prague, and Cole and I maintain that the progress we've seen here in the SGF is partially due to the presence of so many enlightened souls.






The SGF government has found the solution to the class war, don't you think, Cole?

"Who wants to be a millionaire? I don't! And go to every swell affair? I don't! Who wants to ride behind a liveried chauffeur? A liveried chauffeur do I want? No sir! Who wants an opera box, I'll bet? I don't! And tire of Wagner at the Met? I don't! Who wants to corner Cartier's too? I don't 'cuz all I want is you!"

That is so sweet, Cole! See you and Linda later, there are so many other people we need to pay our respects to. (Mr. and Mrs. Porter's relationship isn't quite what it seems...just go along with it.) Now are my eyes deceiving me or is that F. Scott Fitzgerald himself? What do you have to say for yourself, old sport?









Have you read my new novel, Der Große Gatz? This fellow Jay Gatsby from the USA follows his high society flame back to her native Munich and tries to integrate himself into SGF society as Jan Gatz, using his amazing business acumen to pioneer new techniques to make himself one of the richest men in Europe. It's a latter-day telling of the story of Trimalchio. Every night, Gatz stares across the Isar river and sees a green light...

Now, Scott, don't give away the story, they still haven't bought the book yet! Hello there, I see your champagne flute is running on empty, let me refill it. And who is that with you? The name's Zelda, Zelda Fitzgerald. This is my husband Scott, who should probably stop drinking before he spoils Der Große Gatz to everyone in Prague.



Don't you both just love it here in the most forwards city in the world? Coming here from New York is like venturing forwards in time a decade. People always say that the USA and China are the powers of tomorrow, well, SGF is the place to be today!




Things can't continue like this forever, can they? Scott, Zelda, how can you remain so calm when the country is losing its mind?



If the world goes mad around us, is not this land self-sufficient? Let the world crumble, the music will play on in Gertrude Stein's house...and the champagne will keep flowing. Speaking of, seriously, Scott, put down the champagne, you've had enough.




I think both of you Fitzgeralds might be underestimating this vile tide sweeping the world.



Even the British are losing their grasp on some of their more radical settler possessions. I shudder to think what would happen to the Africans if South Africa fully broke with Britain and lost its leash.



Oh, lighten up! Hoffmann is dead, and with him South German militarism, right?

I certainly hope so. Now if you'll excuse me, we have more people to see... And is that who I think it is? Herr Hermann Hesse, I didn't think you travelled in these circles? A bit of a young crowd for you, eh?

There has to be at least one native of the South German Federation at this emigrant feast.




The East wakens.




For a generation, my beloved India has been a joke, but even it slowly stumbles to its feet. Did you ever get a chance to read Siddartha? If so, you'll recall how Siddartha saw the way and met the great Gautama Buddha, discoursed with him, and rejected his path, saying that he must find his own way? India is like Siddartha. It rejected the paths of its neighbors and has made its own way, knowing little joy and much suffering. Like the asetic monks of Buddha's time it has starved itself, lived impoverished and shamefully on the margins of world society, bullied by its neighbors. It has found its own path to its Enlightenment at last. Like Arjuna of old, it is reminded by Lord Krishna Himself now of its Dharma as a nation of kshatriyas, its duty to fight and conquer and kill to restore its former borders, for truly a kshatriya cannot retreat from the battlefield.

I'm no religion scholar but it sounds like you just segued from Buddhism to Hinduism, Herr Hesse.

Ah, my beloved India, how I wish to see her again! To walk the streets of Benares and bathe in the holy river Ganges...

Um...see you later, Herr Hesse! Who else is here? Ah, the hostess herself! Ms. Stein, it is lovely to see you again. I'd like to introduce my lovely ladyfriend here, fresh off the boat from New York.

It's a pleasure to see you again and it is a far greater pleasure to make your friend's acquaintance. Je suis enchanté, my pretty mademoiselle...of course, we are not in Paris anymore. Fraulein, then.

Oh, Gertrude, you always were one to charm feminine beauty, but she's my date tonight. Anyway, what have you been up to?

I recently saw a brilliant show by a young man, a local playwright named Bertolt Brecht from Augsburg. It's called Die Dreigroschenoper, perhaps you've heard of it?

The Threepenny Opera? Can't say I have. Is this Brecht fellow here tonight?

No, sadly, he had to duck out of the country out of fear of the upcoming draft. You look shocked, haven't you been following the news?



The upcoming war with the NGF and France over Slovakia, of course!



Did literally no one at this party mention that we're mere weeks away from world war? What does that say about the kind of people who come to my festivities? Oh, but of course, for the most brilliant and sensitive minds of the age, the peace they get here in this brilliant party, in the company of their peers, is their only respite from a world gone mad.







So you came across the Atlantic in ten days, eh? Hard to believe how well ships are coming along these days.




Laughing at the tragedy of international events is the only relief from the tears sometimes. They are crazy, are they not?




Have you heard about the revival of the Moldavian monarchy? In a completely different place than that which it ruled when it existed 15 years ago? How can one just move a country? The world has gone mad today, I tell you. What? No, Cole, that wasn't a song request...

"The world has gone mad today/and good's bad today/and black's white today/and day's night today/when most guys today that women prize today/are just silly jiggalos/and though I'm not a great romancer I know that you're bound to answer when I propose/anything goes!"

...Yes, Ernest, you have total permission to shoot the piano.

SGF Demographics




The World, 1931