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Correspondence from Ninette Shumway to Jane Wolfe and Dorothy Olsen
July 27, 1926
My dear Jane and Astrid,
93!
Jane's letter and Astrid's [Dorothy Olsen] came in this morning and four letters from Tunis. I did not answer because I was in such a terrible frame of mind!
I did not answer because I was in such a terrible frame of mind!
Beast's anger having relented, I feel better but still I am not happy.
I feel so terribly unsettled! much as I have lived 6 years here I do not feel at home and want to get away!
Beast promises to get us all to France soon. Ah, how I pray that his financial hopes come true! I do cling to him because I simply can not take care of my family alone and I worry my head off with the burden of the responsibility I have so lightly assumed.
I asked Helen [Helen Fraux] to send money for Howard's [Howard Shumway] trip over to America and she did. He was sailing on the 20th with a half-rate ticket and an American passport. On the 18th it occurred to me that Lulu could use that passport and go to Tunis. Result, I stopped Howard, (a terrible disappointment to him and to me too), and asked the Consul to amend the passport for Lulu, which he agreed to do (snarling all the time.)
I did it out of a sense of duty to Beast, to obey his summons. Then the passport went off by mistake on the boat without Howard! Beast has gone to Paris and I am left with this awful feeling that I have meddled and that nothing is accomplished. I feel dreadfully about it. It is not the actual hardship that bothers me, it is the uncertainty that surrounds me. I do not know what to do or what is expected of me. I don't know how to bring up my children. If I had remained home, I would do what my parents did with me. If I had stayed in America I would act like the people I have known. But having met the Beast I suspect all old systems and do not know how to apply his. The backbone of one's mode of living is one's financial situation. I can't class myself a beggar nor anything else. I seem to be in a peculiar situation such as no one ever found themselves into. I belong to no country. I can't get out of Cefalu because I have no passport and no Consul will give me one and no one to help or advise me! I have written to my hometown to demand information.
I do want to return to France to be in a civilised country and to start the little ones to school among the French since I can not go back to America. Since it is Beast's intention to help me, I am asking him to try and find a little house somewhere with a big garden where I can work like hell, produce something and feel I have a right to live. How I would like to be in the farm where you are now! I believe that part of the country is very beautiful there! Have they not a little hut in a corner where I could stow away my little family?
But don't get the idea that the children are a burden to me. I live for them and am very ambitious for them. But my ambitions have not definite shape . The abandonment of the p1an of an Abbey of Thelema has left me completely flat.
Beast went and wrote the Traffico in Palermo to take Lulu and board her somewhere until she goes! I was foolish enough to. complain to him that she was suffering from hunger.
We all did at times a bit but there are always a few dribbles coming in to. keep the pot boiling! Arturo sends his bit, Helen and Alma [Alma Hirsig] a few dollar bills, my father 100 lbs every 3 months! I keep going and we seldom suffer. I have learned to make a bit go a long way, and distribute it well. These last 2 weeks, having had $7.00 from Helen to be used for other purposes (signing a document in Palermo,) I have been quite well off and have made merry though moderately. That is about finished and, with the end of cash returns always the depression and apprehension of the future which I knew are only shadows, but which poison my life. These ought to be replaced by a firm purpose to. get somewhere, but lacks!
Beast will either have to kick me out or set me on my feet in a little house in France, giving me a new start.
Jane is quite right about little Jane-Hera; she is exactly the type of child Jane would love; strongly masculine, but she had lived too close to Shummy [Ninette Shumway]; she needs to mix with other children and lose her timidity and savagery. She never says: I, or me or mine, but always "Ginni is going to put on Ginni's coat. Ginni is Jane-Newah." I have just shaved her head as a sanitary precaution—it becomes her well!
Dick is well again after weeks of bad digestion. He has regained and looks fine!
Lulu is O.K.; she is not as robust as Ginni, but I have gone and frightened you without cause; she is much taller than children of her age here and looks much better than most of them; has good color and good appetite. I am always fussing if they are not like fresh-blown roses.
Howard's bronchial catarrh seems to be about gone; his summer in the woods keeping goats has not harmed him physically; but he's a dunce about reacting! We have no time for lessons.
As for No. 5. I cannot tell for sure; I pray to all the Gods that he will not materialize for another 10 years but there are positive symptoms and I say with horror it is quite a probable thing. Nevertheless I shan't let him rob me of my sense of humor.
If it is not too much of an effort write me again. If Aumont [Gerard Aumont] comes here to get Lulu, I hope he stops a few days for a chat.
Much love to you both.
Ninette.
P.S. die Mars—28th.
I wrote my letter when quite depressed; as I read it over it sounds foolishly blue. Today I am in good spirits and I laugh at myself for my hysterical fears. I would get along better if I had more confidence in myself and I could give up worrying and trust the Gods fully. They have never failed me; the hardships are only to develop qualities in us or to open our minds to some truths; I know it so well, but I always stumble over the same pitfall! Don't fail to reassure Beast over Lulu. I have painted things a bit blacker than they were. I will hang on like a "bull-bitch" and try never to complain again. Amen.
Ninette
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