By Emily Z.

Emily Zdyrko May 25, 2001 "Floyd, Edna and Arthur"

November 8, 1917 Floyd Dell was a tall man, and thin, with a pale, solemn face that rarely smiled. Lily watched him every morning, as he walked calmly down MacDougal street before arriving at the theatre. She was fascinated with his mysteriousness and the wonderful things she felt sure he must be thinking as he walked the streets of Greenwich Village every day. She thought he must be writing new plays in his mind, or coming up with clever ways to perform the things he had already written. She was fascinated with everything he said, and would sometimes even slip into the theatre while his plays were being rehearsed, just to watch his stories being acted out. Lily wanted very much to act in one of the parts he had written, to play one of the comical newlyweds or charming women, it didn't even matter. But Lily was new to the Provincetown Players, having only joined a few months before. She was all too often relegated to bit parts and backstage work, and had never won a part in any of Floyd's plays. In fact, she thought with some pleasure, this time, none of the actresses in the troupe had! Floyd had written a new play, called "The Angel Intrudes," and he still hadn't found anyone to play the lead. He had spent several days, reading through scene after scene with everyone he could find. "I give up." Lily heard him say eventually. "We're going to have to have an open call." The call was supposed to be that afternoon, and Floyd was already in the green room, clearing away the chairs and organizing lists of actresses who were auditioning. Max was with him, and Lily could hear them talking as they prepared, hoping to find someone who could play the part of Annabelle. Lily hesitated before going into the room. Max Eastman, like Floyd, was an original member of the Provincetown Players. He had been a member of the company since the summer of its creation in Provincetown, Massachussetts, on Cape Cod. The combination of both Max and Floyd was a bit intimidating, Lily thought, but she pushed open the door and walked in. She found them, bent over a list of potential actresses. "I've asked Maggie to stop by and audition," Floyd was saying "she's always been very interested·.oh, Lily! You've sewn before, haven't you? Susan's costume, you know her blue dress? It's too big, and she doesn't know how to use the machine, and I tried, but I'm afraid I broke it·.." "Which dress?" said Lily "Of course, I've used the machine before." Ten minutes later she found herself in the costume room, fixing Susan's dress. She kept the door open as she worked, watching the actresses as they appeared for their auditions. Lily knew she wouldn't be acting in "The Angel Intrudes," but she was still fascinated with Floyd. He wasn't only a playwright, but a newspaper editor, too. He edited The Masses, a liberal paper that everyone was talking about. They all knew about Floyd, writing boldly against the war, and how the government had made him stop only a few weeks before. Floyd talked about it often; they had been at war only six months, and already freedom was disappearing from this country. He was angry, too, about the money. He could barely support himself, even with the newspaper, and now he was desperately trying to sell articles to other papers, trying to keep alive on the little money he could make. He was here, everyone, knew, because his marriage had failed, and he said he wanted some freedom and a chance to be creative. Lily felt sorry for him, and she hoped that he would be able to find an Annabelle easily. By late afternoon, though, Lily could tell they were sorely disappointed. As she worked in the costume room, she watched at least fifteen actresses come and go without being hired. She could hear Floyd and Max talking in between the auditions, growing tense and exhausted. Finally, she watched the last prospect, a red haired girl, walk into the green room.

As soon as she walked in, Floyd knew. She was delicate and tiny, with beautiful red hair that stood in sharp contrast to her pale skin. She was, he realized, quite beautiful. And she read perfectly for Annabelle, with a high, sweet and bubbly voice that Floyd knew would work wonderfully. "The part is yours, if you want it." He told her. And she did want it, of course, even though she knew she wouldn't be paid. She was trying to make it in the theatre, she said, and thought that experience was more important than money. She even had some plays that she had written, and wanted to get those produced. She's a writer, thought Floyd. That's wonderful. And he told her to be there for rehearsal the next day. It wasn't until afterwards that he took a good look her name and address, and realized who she was. "Max!" he called "you won't believe this! That was Edna Millay! You, know, the girl who wrote Renascence!"

Edna also left the theatre grinning. A part on the stage! She had been longing for this for years. That night, everything seemed perfect.

December 10, 1917 Christine Ell had already begun to close up her restaurant when Floyd and Edna appeared the next night after rehearsal. "Late night?" she asked. Floyd nodded "First rehearsal! It's going wonderfully! This is Edna, Edna Millay, Christine. She's our Annabelle·we've finally found one!" Christine looked at Edna, and then at Floyd, and she could tell how entranced he was. She knew Floyd; his bitterness towards marriage and traditional life, and wondered what he was doing with this new girl. Edna meanwhile, was looking around with some surprise. "A restaurant?" she laughed. "In back of the green room·that's a wonderful idea!" Christine smiled and told her about the idea behind the restaurant, that the members of the company should have a place to eat, inexpensively. "After all, they aren't paid for the work they do·.this is my contribution to the Players." Floyd and Edna returned to Christine's night after night from then on, after rehearsals. They always sat at a table in the far corner, drinking coffee in the near darkness. Floyd watched Edna as she sipped her coffee, and forgot everything that he had been thinking. Rehearsal, the play, and all of his problems slipped from his mind as he thought of her. He loved her voice, and he could hear her reciting the simple lines that he loved so much, just as she had, one day, only a week after she had been cast, after rehearsal in this very place. One day he asked her. "Edna." He said "When did you write Renascence?" Edna smiled, her red hair shining even in this dim light. "You won't believe me." She said softly. "But I started it when I was only eighteen. I had graduated from high school then, but couldn't go to college without money. I wrote poetry, hoping I could win the money for a scholarship." Floyd looked at her carefully. Eighteen? She must have been so young, so brilliant, so desperate for a scholarship. "I was young." She said, still smiling. "and I didn't finish the poem for years. But I don't think that anyone could tell where I left off at eighteen. Nobody has ever commented on it, anyway." "You know," Floyd said suddenly. "I'm sure I could tell where the break is! Let me look over the poem tonight. I'll show you tomorrow." Edna looked at him scornfully. "You can't tell!" she said "You'll never be able to guess. I'll tell you where the break is, if you really want to know." But Floyd wouldn't let her. And no matter how she tried to laugh it off, he was persistent. as she walked up the steps to her apartment, she tried to figure out how she felt about him. He was very nice, yes. But she didn't like that he thought he could look into her and tell such personal things about her. She had shared so much with Arthur lately, Arthur Ficke, and she almost felt that Floyd was trespassing on that. She'd never met Arthur, true, but they had been writing to each other ever since "Renascence" was published. He had advised her, helped her with her work, and that was special; she didn't want Floyd there, trying to replace Arthur. Walking home, Floyd recited what he knew of the poem over to himself, looking for anything that would let him know where she had stopped at eighteen. By the next night, he had found what he was looking for. "Here." He told her, pointing to the page. "These two lines are where you left off. 'And so beneath the weight lay I/ And suffered death, but could not die.' That's where the earlier part of the poem ends. You finished it later." Edna looked at him, smiling. She still had doubts, but suddenly they seemed much less important. She had never thought that Floyd would actually be able to guess, and suddenly, she felt close to him, too. Arthur was a close friend, but distant, she never saw him. Floyd was here, was real, was someone she could talk to, not just through the mail. And he understood, it seemed. "You guessed!" she said. "I can't believe it. I didn't think anyone knew me that well." Floyd laughed, trying to appear nonchalant, but reveling in his success. "That's not all!" he said. "These first few lines of the second part- 'Long had a lain thus, craving death/ When quietly the earth beneath/ Gave way' were written last of all, and they replace some lines which originally joined the whole poem together. Am I right?' Edna looked at him, her face full of surprise, and she was laughing. "That's amazing. How did you know?" Floyd didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure how he knew exactly, except that he knew Edna, so well. "I don't know." He admitted. "The whole thing just ·seems right." It did seem right, he thought. The poem, the play, and Edna herself. He loved her, her beauty and the strange quality it gave her. On stage she played such a shallow part, and it all seemed so silly, but in the dim light of Christine's, he understood her more fully, her poetry and the love she had for it. He wished he could take her out more often, for more than just coffee after rehearsal, but he didn't have any money, and it would take weeks of saving before he would have enough for a good dinner.

December 15, 1917 The Kit Kat Ball! Floyd looked up from the invitations he was writing and smiled. He could invite Edna! Every December for the past few years he had helped to plan this event, writing invitations and helping to plan costumes. Many of the artists who lived in Greenwich Village came, elaborately dressed in exotic costumes which they had spent weeks creating. The best part was that the invitation would be free; as the planner of the event, he could choose who was on the guest list. Floyd knew Edna would love the Kit Kat ball, and she seemed thrilled at his invitation. But what Floyd didn't know was that Edna felt unsure about him. She knew he loved her but didn't know how to respond. She didn't think she loved him, and yet she had spent quite a few days thinking about him, scribbling lines here and there while she thought, and talking to Norma about him. Floyd, of course, had been the one to find the apartment for them. "Just a few doors down from where Poe wrote Ligeia." He told her. It was small, and very cold at night, but she knew he had done his best. And at last she could have Norma living with her! It had been years since she had spent time with her sister, and now they were together again, working nights together in that dark theatre, and spending the days together, laughing and talking. Edna couldn't help but feel grateful towards him for that. And she did want to go to the Kit Kat ball! The ball was set for a Saturday night, and Edna planned to go there after the day's rehearsal. But it was nearly seven by the time they had finished, and she realized suddenly that she would need to find a costume. She raced home and tore through her closets, disdaining most of her dresses at a glance. She would need something more exciting, and different. Opening up her drawer she came across a pink scarf. Maybe·a costume made of scarves? She opened the drawer farther and found a yellow one. She grabbed the scarves and tried to think of where she could find some more of them. Then she remembered. Margaret! She only lived a few blocks away, and they had gone to Vassar together. Margaret laughed when she saw Edna's idea for a costume, but went to borrow some scarves from her neighbors. She came back with three more people to find Edna standing in front of a mirror, half naked, but covered with her two scarves. Edna entered the Kit Kat ball an hour later, dressed in a long, multicolored dress, flowers dangling from her wrists. "You look beautiful" smiled Floyd. "

January 30, 1918 January came and went, and for some reason, Edna still didn't feel right about Floyd. Sometimes he seemed wonderful; he cared so much, and tried so hard to make her happy. There were nights when everything seemed perfect, and nights when nothing seemed right, and nights when she didn't know how to feel. Two nights ago, she had been sitting in one of Floyd's old armchairs, the new script cradled in her arms. "It's wonderful," she told him, and he seemed so happy. He loved her as Annabelle, he told her, and wanted her in this play, too. They had read his dialogue aloud to each other, and the poetry, too, even singing it to music. And then they had talked, about music and poetry, and also about politics. She told him about, Inez Millholland, the "Amazon Beauty" of the suffragist movement, and how she had come to speak at Vassar. "She spoke so beautifully." She told Floyd. " And I suddenly realized how important it is, to have the vote! She was so determined, so strong, so admirable. I wanted to be like her, and to fight for women's rights in this country! We all did, even president MacCracken. When I heard that she was dead, it was devastating! She should have seen her dream realized." Floyd smiled, and for a moment, they understood each other perfectly. He spoke. "A few years ago, when the suffragists weren't so strong, she used to come parading around on horseback, up and down Fifth Avenue. She wasn't afraid of anything. She told me once, that they tried to suspend her from Vassar in her senior year. They were shocked by something she had done..I don't even remember what it was. Now, of course, she's the one they're the most proud of." Edna looked at him in disbelief. "They tried to suspend me from Vassar!" she cried. "My senior year! I took a trip and spent the night with some friends. As a joke, I signed my name with a man's in the guestbook at an inn·they were so angry they didn't want me to graduate." Floyd laughed "Wait." He told her "Soon , you'll be the one they're the most proud of." She smiled at him rather modestly, and he smiled back. Then he handed her a bronze button that he had taken from his pocket. "Hold on to this." He told her. "It was left with me by a suffragette several years ago. She was staying in one of my rooms and helping Inez to protest. Eventually, the police found her, though, and arrested her. They put her in prison for her protesting, they tried to silence her." Edna looked at the bronze button for a long time. "I wish I had the right to wear this." She told him. "I would like that more than anything in the world." That night had been inspiring and also sad for Edna. She wanted so much to fight with the suffragettes, and yet she also felt strangely out of place in politics. She thought of the green room discussions that went on during and after rehearsals so often, and how Floyd like to talk about socialism, pacing around the room wildly. He and Eugene O'Neill, the group's other playwright would spend hours talking, sometimes arguing, and sometimes agreeing about their ideas. Edna loved to watch them, to recite poetry for them sometimes. Eugene always liked to hear her recite, and Floyd begged her to often. But somehow, poetry didn't seem to fit in with politics. They were writers, all three of them, and it seemed that they should have something in common. "I even write plays," thought Edna "why do I feel so different?" But her plays were just that- different. They were stories written in verse, stories that took place in romantic settings, fairy tales. Floyd and Eugene were different; so political. Eugene would talk about Nietzsche for hours, and she couldn't feel very interested, even when Floyd tried to explain it to her. She wasn't sure how to feel about Eugene; he liked her poetry, but he seemed distant, and he made Floyd seem distant in the same way. She had to laugh when she thought of Lily, the young actress who had been given a small part in one of Floyd's new plays. She loved Eugene, always talking about his experience, and the plays that he had written for Broadway audiences! Edna couldn't feel so enthusiastic. Those nights she sat on the side mostly, and never joined in the talking. Those nights were confusing, but interesting, and Edna didn't dislike them most of the time. It was the nights with Floyd, discussing psychoanalysis, that she hated. She hated the whole idea of psycohanalysis, even though most people in Greenwich Village were fascinated. She heard about Freud almost as often as she heard about Nietzsche sometimes. His name seemed always to be present, in Christine's, in the green room, among her neighbors, even. She couldn't bear the thought of someone analyzing her personal thoughts. Floyd, apparently, could. "You're so confused." He would tell her authoritatively. "You someone to clarify for you what you want. You would be happier if you would have yourself psychoanalyzed. You're always claiming that perfect happiness does not exist; maybe that's because you don't know how to look for it." Edna would turn away on these occasions, and try to avoid the subject. When that didn't work, she tried to explain to him how she felt. "I would hate it!" she would explain passionately. "I don't want to have my creativity explained to me, and I don't need anyone to do that. I would lose everything I have. Nothing would be left of me to write." These times made her feel the same way she had felt back in December, when Floyd had first told her he could tell when she had written the different parts of Renascence. Suddenly, the kindness and understanding melted away, and she felt that her privacy had been destroyed, violated by Floyd, and she didn't know what to do. And then Floyd would begin talking, saying that he wanted to marry her, to have children, and spend their lives together. He thought psychoanalysis would help her realize that she wanted the same thing, but didn't know it. "I know this is what is right for us." He would say earnestly, his calm voice rising in desperation. "Please, can't you try to understand this?" But Edna couldn't understand. And then, one day, there was Arthur.

February 20, 1918 Edna was sitting at home when he walked in. Arthur Ficke, the tall soldier who wandered into the house one February afternoon, talking cheerfully with Floyd. A major in the army, he was dressed in his uniform his smile drawing her in, and at last, she felt something that seemed so complete, and mutual, not unbalanced. Suddenly, the years of letters exchanged seemed right, and she knew that although Floyd tried, he would never replace Arthur. They sat on the floor that afternoon, Norma, Edna Floyd and Arthur, eating a picnic dinner of sandwiches and pickles. She saw Floyd and Norma that night, talking as usual about politics and poetry. But mostly, she saw Arthur, laughing, his blue eyes smiling. She knew he loved her, and she loved him, more than she had loved Floyd, more than she had ever loved anyone. He left soon afterwards, only three days later, on a ship bound for war and danger. And she knew she couldn't be with him but she still wished, every moment of the day, that he would return. She wrote, too, these days, like she had never done before. She sat down with her pen and the lines seemed to flow so easily. Arthur, too, wrote poetry to her, and she had never been so enchanted. It was a dreary, rainy spring, and the apartment always seemed chilly, but she would spend hours sitting by the window with a pen and paper, writing, or sometimes, in the Grand Ticino restaurant, sipping tea and coffee while poetry flowed through her mind. "Into the Golden vessel of great song Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast Let other lovers lie, in love and rest Not we- articulate, so but with the tongue Of all the world; the churning blood, the long Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed Sharply together upon the escaping guest, The common soul, unguarded and grown strong Longing alone is singer to the lute Let still on nettles in the open sigh The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute As any man, and love be far and high That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit Found on the ground by every passer by."

March 1st, 1918 All Edna wanted to do was write, but she couldn't. Floyd was still there, in New York, so much closer than Arthur, and he was in trouble. The war had caused so many problems, and now the government was trying to prosecute Floyd. It had happened in late February, when a policeman had appeared to arrest him for being a socialist. Floyd had protested, telling them his magazine had dissolved months before. But they didn't listen, and Edna watched in horror as they arrested him. The trial was the worst part. For days, it seemed, they sat in the courtroom, listening to the prosecution chatter on, and watching the jurors fall asleep. Art Young had given up and drawn cartoons of all the jurors and lawyers, and ignored the trial itself. Finally, the jury went out to deliberate. Two days later, they decided they could not reach a decision. Afterwards, exhausted, they had gone to Floyd's apartment and collapsed into chairs, letting themselves rest for the first time in days. They had lain there for a few hours, too tired to move, when Floyd finally began to speak. "Thank you Edna." He said. "I would never have made it through this without you." Edna smiled. Floyd grew more serious and looked into her face. "I'm so glad," he said. "that you've changed your mind." Edna stared at him. "Changed my mind about what? What do you mean?" Now he stared at her in amazement. "About Arthur, of course! I knew it was right for us to get married, Edna. We need to be together." And then, feeling tired and frustrated, Edna began to cry. "I haven't changed my mind!" she said. "Floyd, you don't understand." They had talked all night that night, Floyd talking to her and trying to coax her in any way he could. She tried to explain to him, over and over again, that she didn't love him, didn't want to marry him, but he couldn't, wouldn't understand. Finally, she had gone home, leaving him, half angry, half heartbroken, at home. The next morning she came to his door with a sonnet, entitled "I think I should have loved you presently." He read the lines aloud to himself, over and over again, "I think I should have loved you presently And given in earnest words flung in jest And lifted honest eyes for you to see And caught your hand against my cheek and breast; And all my pretty follies flung aside That won you to me, and beneath your gaze Naked of reticence and shorn of pride, Spread like a chart my little wicked ways I that had been to you, had you remained But one more waking from a recurrent dream Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained, And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme, A ghost in marble of a girl you knew Who would have loved you in a day or two."

September , 1918

At long last, the trial was over for good. It had been yet another awful few days in court, walking through the halls, miserable and tired, while the jury deliberated. Finally, they came out again, and proclaimed that the editors of The Masses should be acquitted. It was strange, Edna thought, to be seeing Floyd so much these days. Her mother was in New York now, living with her daughters, and discovering the strange city that they lived in. Edna wrote these days, more fiercely than she had written in a while. Every night she was up late, scribbling down lines of poetry so that she would be able to sell them for a living. Her mother laughed at her and reminded her to send them off to magazines. "You won't make money," she said, laughing, "if you don't remember to sell the poems." Edna didn't care. She was writing well these days and she knew it. Things were wonderful, between her poetry and her family and the parties that she seemed to be at every night. Some strange things had happened though, in the past few weeks. Arthur was beginning to slip from her mind, and she no longer thought of him constantly. In fact, something new had begun and ended only recently. It happened after Floyd's second trial. Jack Reed had appeared, the Jack Reed that she had heard of time and time again, arriving from Russia to celebrate their victory. She had met him for the first time on the Staten Island ferry, with Floyd. They stood on the deck for a while, drinking wine that Floyd had brought, and riding, back and forth from Manhattan to Staten Island. Towards morning they finally left the ferry and stood on the shore of Staten Island, watching the sky grow pink, and then blue as the sun rose higher. She had recited "Renascence" for Floyd, the first time in a while that she had done so, and his old self, enthusiastic and happy, now that he was freed from the courtroom. And then John had begun to talk, about being a reporter in Mexico, and about General Villa, who had liked him so much that he would always give him any news he heard about the Revolution. "I would never have succeeded without him." Said John, smiling "He gave me some wonderful news scoops, he helped me to fight for human rights." John talked for nearly an hour, telling such exotic and wonderful stories about traveling, that Edna almost longed to follow him to Russia. Finally, as the three of them headed home, weary but still exuberant, Edna leaned over, drunk on wine and happiness and kissed him. John had smiled so nicely then, and she whispered in his ear "I love you for the dangers you have passed." He laughed then, recognizing the line from "Othello," but seemed so pleased, Edna thought. Floyd looked surprised, of course, but not shocked to see this all happen.

The odd thing was that Floyd seemed to love her for this, to admire her, although she thought he might be angry. He came to her, several days after the trial, still grinning from his success, and asked her to marry him. She paused, not knowing what to say. Finally, she stammered out a yes, not knowing what else to say. She couldn't bear to hurt him again. And his smile revealed how happy he was. He had been hoping for this for so long, since that day in the green room when she had read Annabelle's part, dazzling him with her acting, her voice, her red hair, unforgettable and bright against the drab walls of the green room. And then Edna shook her head. "I can't do this." She told him. "It isn't right. I can't marry you. I don't want children and a settled home. I have to write, and I cannot give that up." Epilogue: Floyd Dell married a short while later, to a woman with whom he eventually had children and a traditional home. John Reed died only a few months later from typhoid, which he contracted in Russia. Arthur Ficke remained a close friend of Edna's, although their romance did not continue. He also married another woman, and lived with her until his death in 1945. Edna went on to be involved with several other men, including Edmund Wilson. She eventually married Eugen Boissevain, the former husband of Inez Milholland. She died in 1950, at the age of 58.