Four Roses In Three Acts- Excerpt

In Paris there was Gertrude Stein. She hadn't always been there, she'd been at Radcliffe. She knew William James. "You are all a lost generation," William told her. Gertrude wondered what she'd lost.

William knew how smart she was. "I don't feel like taking a test," Gertrude said. "That's all right," said William. He passed her anyhow. That's smart.

What Gertrude did in Paris was art. She did other things too. But she didn't go hunting and trapping in Paris. Or drinking. At least, as far as we know, she didn't go drinking. Art was it. There were painters all over the place. Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris, you name him. Gertrude had him in tow or he had Gertrude in tow.

It was a great time in Paris and the weather was always fine.

The weather of the Twenties was always fine, up in Michigan, up in Paris, up anywhere. Never in the history of the world had there been so much fine weather.

Sometimes there was a false spring but it didn't stay false long. It got true. Then everybody was happy. People came and went. It was a great time for coming and going. People stayed to tea and had little biscuits. There was talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

And all this time Gertrude was writing her head off. She wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. But they didn't print and print and print and parint and print. Not even print once.

That's the way it is with writers. They work away and work away. Ernest worked away and worked away and so did Gertrude. But in another part of the world.

Would they ever meet, these two who worked away and worked away? That is the question.