Humboldt's Gift (1976 Pulitzer Prize) - Saul Bellow [191]
Thaxter meantime was saying, “Of course you worry about working with me. Of course you’re afraid I’ll run off with my end of the advance, and you’ll either have to refund your end or do the book alone. That would be a nightmare to a man with an anxious character like yours.”
“I could use the money,” I said, “but don’t ask me to commit suicide. If I got stuck with a responsibility like that, if you were to beat it and I had to do work alone, my head would go off like a bomb.”
“Well, you’d be fully covered. You could protect yourself contractually. It would be stipulated that your only obligation by contract would be to do the major essay on each of the countries. There’ll be six countries—England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Austria. The serial rights to those would be yours, completely. Those alone, if you handle them right, might be worth fifty thousand dollars. So my proposal is this, Charlie, we start with Spain, the simplest country, and see how it goes. Now listen to this, Stewart says he’ll stake you to a month at the Ritz in Madrid. On approval. You couldn’t ask anything fairer. You’d both love it. The Prado is right around the corner. The Michelin Guide lists quite a few first-class restaurants now, like the Escuadrôn. I’ll set up all the interviews. There’ll be a stream of painters, poets, critics, historians, sociologists, architects, musicians, and underground leaders coming to you at the Ritz. You could sit there all day conversing with excellent people and eating and drinking fantastically and making a fortune besides. In three weeks’ time you could write a piece called ‘Contemporary Spain, a Cultural Overview’ or something like that.”
Renata, returning to consciousness, was now listening with interest to what Thaxter was saying. “Would this publisher really pick up the tab? Madrid sounds like a wonderful deal,” she said.
“You know what these giant conglomerates are,” said Thaxter. “What would a few thousand bucks mean to Stewart?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“It generally means ‘No’ when Charlie says he’ll think about it.”
Thaxter bent toward me in his Stetson hat. “I can follow your train of thought,” he said. “You’re thinking that I better do my book on the dictators first. Thaxter, avec tout ce qu’il a sur son assiette? Too many irons in the fire. But that’s just it. Other people would burn themselves but with me, the more irons the better I function. I can wrap up five dictators in three months,” Thaxter asserted.
“Madrid sounds enchanting,” said Renata.
“The old country for your mother, isn’t it?” I said.
“Let me give you the rundown on the international Ritz Hotel situation,” said Thaxter. “The London Ritz is played out— soiled, run-down. The Paris Ritz belongs to the Arab oil billionaires, the Onassis types, and the Texas barons. No waiter will pay attention to you there. Right now, with those Portuguese upheavals, the Lisbon Ritz isn’t a restful place. But Spain is still stable and feudal enough to give the real old-fashioned Ritz treatment.”
Thaxter and Renata had this in common: they fancied themselves to be Europeans, Renata because of the Señora, Thaxter because of his French governess, his international family connections, his BA in French at Olivet College, Michigan.
Money apart, Renata saw in me the hope of an interesting life, Thaxter saw the hope of a higher one leading perhaps to a Major Statement. We were sipping tea and sherry and eating pastries iced in beautiful colors while I waited for Kathleen to arrive.
“Trying to keep up with your interests,” said Thaxter, “I’ve been reading your man Rudolf Steiner, and he’s fascinating. I expected something like Madame Blavatsky, but he turns out to be a very rational kind of mystic. What’s his angle on Goethe?”
“Don’t start that, Thaxter,” said Renata.
But I needed a serious conversation. I longed for it. “It isn’t mysticism,” I said. “Goethe simply