Shakespeare and Company by Beach Sylvia

Author:Beach, Sylvia [Beach, Sylvia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Shakespeare and Company (Paris, France), Shakespeare & Company (Paris, Authors, Écrivains
Publisher: New York, Harcourt, Brace
Published: 1959-04-28T19:00:00+00:00

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or those to be tipped could simply help themselves. Thus did Scott shed all he earned without concern for the future.

It was through Scott, I imagine, that I met King Vidor, of Hollywood, and through me that Scott met the young French writer Andre Chamson.

This is the way I fell in and out with Hollywood. King Vidor came to the bookshop one day to ask me if I knew any young French author who might have a book he could use for a film. I thought immediately of Andre Chamson's first

novel, The Road. This was an exciting, dramatic story, a true one, about the building of a road on Chamson's native mountain, I'Aigual, in the Cevennes. The village at the foot of the mountain that he described was the one where he had been bom and raised. It was a striking and beautiful tale that this young Cevennol told, and one that Chamson himself had lived.

So I suggested The Road to King Vidor, telling him what the story was about. "Why, that's just what I'm looking for," he said, and, at Vidor's request, I asked Chamson to drop in at the bookshop.

Vidor came back, bringing Eleanor Boardman with him to work with Chamson on the scenario. He knew no French, and Chamson no English, but I interpreted for them and was delighted when the scenario seemed to be emerging. Vidor's reputation in Europe was then at its height, and he didn't disappoint me as a man: he had depth and understanding, and very fine sensibilities.

The work on The Road had gone on for about a month when one day Vidor's big car failed to bring him to the bookshop rendezvous. A hastily scribbled note informed me that he had suddenly been called back to the United States—that's all. And that was the last we heard of him.

Many a time since then, Chamson and I have laughed— though we didn't think it funny at the time—over Vidor's promises to make Chamson a rich man. He expected the young writer to drop whatever he was doing in France and accompany him to Hollywood—where Chamson was to earn fabulous sums of money. Luckily, Chamson comes from a rather wise old race, and not for a minute did he do what they call '"''perdre le nord'^ —that is, he didn't go out of his course. He asked Vidor: "But what am I to do about my job?" Chamson had a good job—at the Chamber of Deputies, he was secretary to a Minister of State—and had no intention of abandoning his post.

All the same, I lost face in this affair, and, what was worse, so did my country. As for Scott Fitzgerald, he was horrified.

Sylvia Beach up

But he was so friendly about it all that Chamson soon forgave us for letting him down.

The Chamsons told me about a midnight visit from Scott in their little apartment behind the Pantheon. Scott had brought a bottle of champagne in a bucket that he must have picked up in a night club somewhere.

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