her own; they teetered sometimes on the edge of that special guile she could wield toward Scott. But in these letters she could also be utterly open with him; they are like conversations held in the dark between lovers when they chart the small maneuvers and upheavals of their love.
Once in New York, Scott told his parents about his love for Zelda and asked his mother to write a letter of welcome. At the end of February Zelda told him: “I s’pose you knew your Mother’s anxiously anticipated epistle at last arrived— I really am so glad she wrote— Just a nice little note—untranslatable, but she called me ‘Zelda’—”
Scott knew that a few days after he left for New York Zelda was invited to Auburn for the week of February 22. Her date was Auburn’s football hero Francis Stubbs, one of the most skillful and attractive players the champions of the Southern League possessed. No two men could have differed more than Stubbs and Fitzgerald and no man could have seemed a more formidable suitor in Scott’s eyes than the dashing and superbly confident Stubbs. For her scrapbook, Zelda clipped a photograph of him standing indolently with the great letter A upon his jersey, his soft leather helmet hanging loosely from his hand. At the bottom of his invitation to Auburn he had written: “Have a date with you Saturday P.M. Look out.” Today he remembers Zelda as “a very popular and beautiful young lady and she was not what is known as wild… but she was very much full of life and pep.” He had not fallen in love with her, but his roommate had and kept a life-size photograph of her in his room and “thought he was going to marry her right up to the time she marriedScott Fitzgerald.” In Zelda’s honor a special society was formed at Auburn, known waggishly as Zeta Sigma; its initiation rites included pilgrimages to 6 Pleasant Avenue in Montgomery, and its members, five football players, were, according to a newspaper clipping in her scrapbook, “noted for their almost rabid devotion to the principles of their fraternity.”
Understandably, Scott was worried. But Zelda rather blithely reassured him: “Sweetheart, please don’t worry about me— I want to always be a help—You know I am all yours and love you with all my heart.”
Still, her trip had disconcerted him, for while he was trying to break into journalism in New York his girl was not exactly cooling her heels at home. He had arrived in the city and presented his calling card “to the office boys of seven city editors asking to be taken on as a reporter. I had just turned twenty-two, the war was over, and I was going to trail murderers by day and do short stories by night. But the newspapers didn’t need me.” So he settled on writing advertising copy for ninety dollars a month and was not happy with his compromise. (He came up with only one snappy jingle, for a steam laundry in Iowa.) He wrote during every bit of spare time that he had and began a collection of rejection slips, which he carefully pinned on the walls of his rented room in the cheap and unfashionable Upper West Side. Zelda had promised to write every day.
Darling, I’ve nearly sat it off in the Strand to-day and all because W. E. Lawrence of the Movies is your physical counter-part. So I was informed by half a dozen girls before I could slam on a hat and see for myself— He made me so homesick— I thought at first waiting must grow easier later—but every day I want you more… I am acquiring myriad wrinkles pondering over a reply to your Mother’s note— I’m so dreadfully afraid of appearing fresh or presuming or casual— Most of my correspondents have always been boys, so I am at a loss—now in my hour of need— I really believe this is my first letter to a lady—… An old flame from the Stone Ages is calling to-night— He’ll probably leave in disgust because I just must talk about you— I love you so, and I’m so lonesome—
Her sister Clothilde was leaving
Once in New York, Scott told his parents about his love for Zelda and asked his mother to write a letter of welcome. At the end of February Zelda told him: “I s’pose you knew your Mother’s anxiously anticipated epistle at last arrived— I really am so glad she wrote— Just a nice little note—untranslatable, but she called me ‘Zelda’—”
Scott knew that a few days after he left for New York Zelda was invited to Auburn for the week of February 22. Her date was Auburn’s football hero Francis Stubbs, one of the most skillful and attractive players the champions of the Southern League possessed. No two men could have differed more than Stubbs and Fitzgerald and no man could have seemed a more formidable suitor in Scott’s eyes than the dashing and superbly confident Stubbs. For her scrapbook, Zelda clipped a photograph of him standing indolently with the great letter A upon his jersey, his soft leather helmet hanging loosely from his hand. At the bottom of his invitation to Auburn he had written: “Have a date with you Saturday P.M. Look out.” Today he remembers Zelda as “a very popular and beautiful young lady and she was not what is known as wild… but she was very much full of life and pep.” He had not fallen in love with her, but his roommate had and kept a life-size photograph of her in his room and “thought he was going to marry her right up to the time she marriedScott Fitzgerald.” In Zelda’s honor a special society was formed at Auburn, known waggishly as Zeta Sigma; its initiation rites included pilgrimages to 6 Pleasant Avenue in Montgomery, and its members, five football players, were, according to a newspaper clipping in her scrapbook, “noted for their almost rabid devotion to the principles of their fraternity.”
Understandably, Scott was worried. But Zelda rather blithely reassured him: “Sweetheart, please don’t worry about me— I want to always be a help—You know I am all yours and love you with all my heart.”
Still, her trip had disconcerted him, for while he was trying to break into journalism in New York his girl was not exactly cooling her heels at home. He had arrived in the city and presented his calling card “to the office boys of seven city editors asking to be taken on as a reporter. I had just turned twenty-two, the war was over, and I was going to trail murderers by day and do short stories by night. But the newspapers didn’t need me.” So he settled on writing advertising copy for ninety dollars a month and was not happy with his compromise. (He came up with only one snappy jingle, for a steam laundry in Iowa.) He wrote during every bit of spare time that he had and began a collection of rejection slips, which he carefully pinned on the walls of his rented room in the cheap and unfashionable Upper West Side. Zelda had promised to write every day.
Darling, I’ve nearly sat it off in the Strand to-day and all because W. E. Lawrence of the Movies is your physical counter-part. So I was informed by half a dozen girls before I could slam on a hat and see for myself— He made me so homesick— I thought at first waiting must grow easier later—but every day I want you more… I am acquiring myriad wrinkles pondering over a reply to your Mother’s note— I’m so dreadfully afraid of appearing fresh or presuming or casual— Most of my correspondents have always been boys, so I am at a loss—now in my hour of need— I really believe this is my first letter to a lady—… An old flame from the Stone Ages is calling to-night— He’ll probably leave in disgust because I just must talk about you— I love you so, and I’m so lonesome—
Her sister Clothilde was leaving
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