30
PARTISAN REVIEW
On this Fitzgerald simply turned and fled, making his way back
to Paris, where he was to meet Zelda, as best he could. At
firs~
when
she asked him how it had gone he assured her that he had been a great
success, that they had liked him, he had bowled them over. But gradu–
ally the truth came out, until-after several drinks-Fitzgerald put his
head on his arms and began to pound the table with his fists.
"They beat me," he said, "They beat me! They beat me! They
beat
me!" Nearly
all
of the Fitzgerald of this period, and a good deal
of the history of two literary generations, is in that anecdote; it is
fabulous.
In August they went to Antibes for the month. "There was no
one at Antibes this summer," Fitzgerald wrote to Bishop, "except me,
Zelda, the Valentinos, the Murphys, Mistinguet, Rex Ingram, Dos
Passos, Alice Terry, the MacLeishes, Charles Brackett, Maude Kahn,
Esther Murphy, Marguerite Namara, E. Phillips Openheim, Mannes
the violinist, Floyd Dell, Max and Crystal Eastman, ex-Premier
Orlando, Etienne de Beaumont-just a real place to rough it and es–
cape from all the world. But we had a great time." For this year saw
the beginning of that short period when a group of Americans were
to make on the summer Riviera a brilliant social life. "The gay ele–
ments of society," said Fitzgerald, "had divided into two main streams,
one flowing toward Palm Beach and Deauville, and the other, much
smaller, toward the summer Riviera. One could get away with more
on the summer Riviera, and whatever happened seemed to have
something to do with art. From 1926 to 1929, the great years of the
Cap d'Antibes, this corner of France was dominated by a group
quite distinct from that American society which is dominated by
Europeans." The Cap d'Antibes was remote enough to seem safe from
the vulgar tourists the expatriates scorned: it was a long and uncom–
fortable overnight trip from Paris; and it was primitive enough to
seem very French; the movie house operated only one night a week,
the telephone service was shut down for two hours at noon and
completely after seven at night. This happy situation did not, of
course, last; already in 1925, as Fitzgerald's letter to Bishop shows,
things were getting out of hand, and by 1927 the half mile of glorious
beach was jammed with Americans, an apartment house was going
up, and there were two American bars doing a flourishing business.
By 1929 no one even swam off Eden Roc any more, except for a
