A Study of the Texts of "Babylon Revisited":
from the Post to Taps

• + 384:10 "left bank" for "Left Bank." This particular error cited by White becomes moot in light of the fact (as discussed in Part One of this chapter) that the paragraph in which it appears was intended by Fitzgerald to be deleted because he lifted from it for use in Tender Is the Night. Bruccoli's text, however, has the emendation.

• - 384:14 "Le Plus qu Lent" for "La plus que lente." (Translated, the title means "More than slow.") The composer of this melody that the cab horns endlessly play is Claude Debussy. As early as 1924 both Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were struck by the unique sound emanating from the horns of autos on Parisian streets, when Fitzgerald wrote of them in an essay titled "How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year" (102). A 1930 letter from Zelda to Scott specifically mentioned Debussy as the composer of the melody the auto horns played (Correspondence 239), as did two later Fitzgerald short stories: "What a Handsome Pair!" in which the melody of La plus que lente has an evocative quality for the character Teddy, and "News from Paris--Fifteen Years Later" (221), which was not published during Fitzgerald's lifetime.

  In "What a Handsome Pair!" La plus que lente is corrupted as "La Plus Que Lent" in both Bruccoli's The Short Stories (683), as well an earlier appearance in the second edition of Bits of Paradise (334); I have not seen other printings of the story.

  White's 1966 article points out that the Arthur Mizener's 1962 Modern Short Stories (New York: W. W. Norton) is the only one (to that time) to spell the title correctly, with "La Plus que Lente (450); the 1967 revised edition of that volume would as well, although capitalization is still a problem. Ironically Mizener's 1963 The Fitzgerald Reader does not have the emendation. Without delving into the dozens of general literature anthologies that contain "Babylon Revisited," we can mention that another text since White's article that uses La Plus que Lente is George Perkins's et al. The American Tradition in Literature (New York: Random House, 1985. Sixth edition. Volume 2: 1216); it should be noted here that early editions of this same series (White cites Eds. Sculley Bradley et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1956) used La Pluie que Lent; the source for this writing of the title can apparently be traced to W. Somerset Maugham's Great Modern Reading (Garden City, N.Y.: Nelson Doubleday, 1943. 160).

  On the other hand, not a single volume of Fitzgerald's own collections has the correct spelling. Bruccoli's text has the correct gender and has the e at the end of que, but does not have the e at the end of lente, ending up with La Plus que Lent. Bruccoli, in a letter to me, stated, "I must have had a Frog check the French for me, but I don't remember now."

  Of course La Plus que Lente itself is not technically correct as the p in plus and the l in lente should not be capitalized. References I uncovered to the piano work composed by Claude Debussy yielded four that correctly cited the title as La plus que lente. A fifth reference cited the title as La plus que Lente and a sixth cited the title as La Plus Que Lente. La plus que lente is most textually correct as the MLA Handbook recommends capitalizing only the first word and any proper nouns in French titles. The tendency to capitalize the p and l undoubtedly springs from the standards for capitalization of titles in English. La plus que lente, anyone?

  The following sources correctly cite the title of Debussy's composition as La plus que lente: Briscoe, James R. Claude Debussy: A Guide to Research. New York: Garland Publishers, 1990. 13, 38, 73, 250, 282, 395. Cliburn, Van. My Favorite Debussy. RCA Stereo Records, LSC-3283, 1972. Debussy, Claude. Debussy Letters. Eds. François Lesure and Roger Nichols. Trans. Roger Nichols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987. 224. Dietschy, Marcel. A Portrait of Claude Debussy. Trans. William Ashbrook and Margaret G. Cobb Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. 160n. The following source cites the title as La plus que Lente: Locspeiser, Edward. Debussy. Toronto: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1980. 269. The following source cites the title as La Plus Que Lente: Tomsic, Dubravka. Debussy Recital. The Special Music Company, SMC-6078, 1990.

  Debussy's La plus que lente: http://www.lefeldt.de/midi/Deb_lpql.mid (from artmusic at http://www.lefeldt.de/newindex.htm?m_archiv/debussy.htm)

• + 389:4 "française" for "Française." The f needed to be capitalized as the word refers to Honoria as a Frenchwoman. Bruccoli has the correction.

• + 390:24-25 The following sentence ends with an exclamation point instead of the period: "Going out of the restaurant, a man and a woman unexpectedly hailed him." When Fitzgerald revised the typescript of this particular passage, he very definitely ended the sentence with a period (Manuscripts 435). Somehow The Saturday Evening Post ended up with the exclamation point at the end of the sentence, and no doubt Fitzgerald just overlooked it when revising the Post version of "Babylon Revisited" for Taps at Reveille. The sentence is only declarative; the sentence following it in the text has the quoted exclamation: " 'Well, the old Wales!' " Bruccoli has the correction.

• + 399:27 "aferward" for "afterward." A typographical error; corrected in Bruccoli.

• + 400:8 "to cross Bernaise" for "to a cross Béarnaise." This passage contains two errors: the first is the missing article; the second has "the proper name for a woman from that locale misspelled" (White 451). Both are corrected in Bruccoli.

• + 402:33 "bonne de toute faire" for "bonne à tout faire." This reference to a general servant White calls "an example of Fitzgerald's bad French" (451). Bruccoli corrects Fitzgerald's French.

• - 403:1-4 The question here is whether the name Richard or Lincoln should appear in the following sentence: "The door opened upon another long ring, and then voices [Lorraine Quarrles and Duncan Scaeffer have arrived for their inopportune visit to the Peters' apartment in order to find Charlie Wales], and the three in the salon looked up expectantly; Richard moved to bring the corridor within his range of vision, and Marion rose." White believes Lincoln was to have been used in place of Richard in the sentence as "Richard ... is not necessarily concerned in the action" (451). Yet White also hedges his bet by noting that the typescript of "Babylon Revisited" reads "Lincoln Jr" (Manuscripts 460), which White surmises was Fitzgerald's name for Richard before revision (451), but this is not totally true as Richard does appear earlier in the same typescript (Manuscripts 434).

  I believe Fitzgerald may have chosen the name Richard originally, and then toyed with the name Lincoln Jr. before finally settling on Richard; studying other character names and their changes, notably those of Helen and Marion, leads to this conclusion. By the point in the story where the name Lincoln Jr. is being used, the typist was already using the names Helen and Marion, whereas earlier the typist had been using their original names, Josephine and Margaret, respectively. This name business indicates that writing and/or revisions were in progress even while the manuscript was being typed; thus it follows that the name Richard was being used when the names Josephine and Margaret were also being used, but Richard had been changed to Lincoln Jr. by the time the names Helen and Marion were being used, and yet Richard, along with Helen and Marion, was the name finally used for the Post and Taps versions. Fitzgerald apparently gave his typist editorial power for this sort of thing: on the first page of the typescript, Fitzgerald writes, "Spell Charley Charlie throughout," "Helen is the dead wife," and "Marion [ditto marks] sister-in-law" (Manuscripts 417). Because Lincoln Jr. was yet in use in the final pages of the typescript (especially with the other names already having been settled upon), it appears that final decision on the son's name had not yet been made; although Richard had appeared first, it was now joined by Lincoln Jr. as a consideration.

  At any rate, authorial evidence dictates Richard must be the character moving to bring the corridor within range of vision: First, Lincoln Jr. in the typescripts was not revised at all (not even to read Richard). Second, the passage was changed at some point from "Lincoln Jr" to "Richard," the chosen name for Lincoln and Marion's son, as the Post version reads (84). Lastly, "Richard" it remained for the Taps revision. Nothing suggests that Fitzgerald ever had anyone other than Richard in mind for this passage.

  So why "Lincoln" as a possibility? As White points out (cited above) Richard was not necessarily concerned with the action; the three in the salon during this time are Charlie Wales and Lincoln and Marion Peters, the children having exited earlier (630). The sentence we are concerned with here is a compound sentence with three independent clauses. The middle clause (the one with Richard as its subject) is sandwiched between the other two clauses which have as their subjects those who are in the salon. This gives the appearance that Richard is in the salon as well, but having him included makes four people in the salon, which the first clause would definitely exclude. The placing of the "Richard" clause between the other two clause causes the textual problem. Placed elsewhere it might not cause much trouble because it would not be out of hand to suppose that a young child's curiosity would be aroused by the sound of people at the door.

  We may also ask if Lincoln would move to bring the corridor within his range of vision, especially before Marion reacted. With the bonne à tout faire answering the door, Lincoln would not need to move; he could wait for the guests to be presented. Lincoln elsewhere in the story is portrayed as a person who reacts to events; he does not move to meet them, much less make events happen. He takes what comes his way and remains in "his rut at the bank" (630). Lincoln's reactions are slow and measured: the two times that Marion becomes sick in the story and must leave the room, he delays even tending to her (627, 631-632); he acknowledges that people such as Lorraine Quarrles and Duncan Schaeffer "make her really physically sick" (632), and yet, knowing this about Marion, does not make any move of his own to try to oust these people from the apartment. For him to move before Marion rises seems unlikely since he would not be concerned about the noises coming down the hall until after noticing Marion's reaction. The only other reason for moving at all would be curiosity, and the first clause in the troubling sentence fulfills that obligation for Lincoln: "the three in the salon looked up expectantly" (630); Marion's reaction of rising would seem the next natural event, showing not just curiosity now, but an ominous concern. Lincoln's move would be last, reacting to Marion's movements.

  So should the sentence read "Richard" or "Lincoln"? Fitzgerald never left anything behind to indicate that it shouldn't be "Richard," and everything that he did, the typescript, the Post offering, and the revision for Taps all have the Peters' son in the sentence.

  In a critical error, Bruccoli's The Short Stories uses "Lincoln" for the passage. His is only the second appearance of "Babylon Revisited" (as far as Fitzgerald collections are concerned) to opt for "Lincoln," the only other being Mizener's The Fitzgerald Reader (Ironically Mizener's Modern Short Stories uses "Richard"). Others, which include the 1935 Taps at Reveille and the later Taps edition, The Portable F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" and Other Stories, Borrowed Time, The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Babylon Revisited" and Other Stories, The Bodley Head Fitzgerald, and "The Crack-Up" with Other Pieces and Stories, have "Richard."

  The final decision by an editor to choose "Lincoln" is based only on textual problems; an editor might just as well delete the clause totally or move it elsewhere to overcome the textual problem, though I'm not suggesting that. To change the clause from reading "Richard" contradicts what Fitzgerald himself wrote. The textual problem is one with which we must live.

• + 391:15 "sceptically" for "skeptically." White recommends the latter more common spelling of the word but recognizes that the former is not wrong. This textual problem was White's possible tenth error. Bruccoli opted for the not incorrect "sceptically."

  Though White prefers the more common spelling of "skeptically," he does not hold true to his line of reasoning on the spelling of "focussing" for "focusing," stating Fitzgerald himself wrote "focussing" for Taps (White 452). Again both spellings are correct (although the doubling of consonants in this regard is more a British thing), but the second is the more common variant. Mizener's The Fitzgerald Reader provoked White's comments on "focussing" because of its use of "focusing"; White notes also the Reader also changed the spelling of "travelled" to "traveled" (White 452), which are equal variants, but White failed to note that, ironically, Mizener used "travelling" and also "pedalled," both with the double l. Bruccoli has the double letters in all the words.

  Though Fitzgerald has a reputation of having been a poor speller, the words in these cases appear to be spelled the way they were originally written. White claims that "Fitzgerald himself wrote 'traveled' and 'focusing' in the Post ..." (452), but the typescript has "travelled," "focussing," and "travelling" with the double letters, (Manuscripts 418, 462, 467, respectively), so the copy editors at the Post evidently made the spelling changes, and indeed the double letters made a return in Taps.

• - 384:11 "Avenue de l'Opera" for "Avenue de l'Opéra." The acute accent over the e in "Opera" for this Paris thoroughfare has been omitted. The British volume The Crack-Up has the only text of "Babylon" correct in this regard; all others, including Bruccoli, omit the accent; apparently it is too easily overlooked; once again Fitzgerald's French should be corrected.

  The capitalization practices of the English language are again in evidence here. The French do not capitalize words such as avenue, rue, and place in such circumstances. Such capitalization also occurs elsewhere in "Babylon Revisited."

• - 387:30 "meager" for "meagre." The spelling of "meagre" did not warrant comment by White, and it was overlooked by him when he listed the variations between the Post and Taps versions. This word goes through a cycle similar to those that raised spelling questions above. "[M]eagre" was used in the typescript (Manuscripts 429); the Post edited it to "meager" (4), and "meagre" was brought back for the Taps revision. Generally speaking, the American texts of "Babylon Revisited" use "meager," while texts in the three British volumes, The Bodley Head Scott Fitzgerald, Borrowed Time, and "The Crack-Up" with Other Pieces and Stories, use "meagre." However the later edition of Taps retains the -re spelling also. Bruccoli has "meager."

  The spelling of "meagre" as such is acceptable, and like "sceptically," "travelled," "focussing," "travelling," and "pedalled," and should be retained.

• - 403:23 "shishi" for "chichi." The misspelling of this word, which would be comparable to misspelling the word chic as shic, is not identified as an error in White's textual study of Taps. The misspelling appears to emanate from its pronunciation: shee shee. The error dates back to the typescript, which also had a hyphen between the two syllables (Manuscripts 461). The Saturday Evening Post also had the spelling as "shishi," although the word was split between its syllables by an end-of-line hyphen (84). Bruccoli also retains "shishi."

  Chichi appears in Duncan Schaeffer's statement telling Charlie "Lorraine and I insist that all this [chichi], cagy business 'bout your address got to stop." The word is French in origin and is usually used in a somewhat derogatory sense, in this regard suggesting affectation, which clearly fits its use in "Babylon Revisited." The Stories, Babylon Revisited, and The Fitzgerald Reader all correctly changed the s's to c's, but retained the hyphen, ending up with "chi-chi." The spelling with the hyphen is not typical, however, and most dictionaries do not include using it as an alternative. The word has not appeared as "chichi" in any of the Fitzgerald collections.

  As a sidelight, the word chichi was also used by Fitzgerald in his story "One Trip Abroad," and it is misspelled as "shi-shi" in both Afternoon of an Author (150) and Bruccoli's The Short Stories (584).

In the Taps at Reveille text, Charlie remembers (382.10) [The Short Stories 616] that Mr. Schaeffer is part of "the long list of a year and a half ago." This implies that the list was from the period of good ["good"] times. Yet Charlie states later (383.9) [617] that he has been leading a reformed life for over a year and a half. (314)

Another mistake in events begins at 397.5 [626] when Charlie states to the Peters' "I worked hard for ten years. ..." Then at 400.15 [629] Charlie states to Lincoln Peters "She's forgotten how hard I worked for seven years there. ..." (314-315)

"No, no more," Charlie said, "I'm going slow these days."

Alix congratulated him: "You were going pretty strong a couple of years ago." (617)

"I'll stick to it all right," Charlie assured him. "I've stuck to it for over a year and a half now." (617)

"Another thing," Charlie said: "I'm able to give her certain advantages now. I'm going to take a French governess to Prague with me. I've got a lease on a new apartment--" (626)

Besides the once again puzzling use of the colon here, the question is Why is Charlie going to take a French governess to Prague? The key is in the typescript which has Charlie stating "I've considered the question of interrupting her French and I'll get around that by taking a French governess to Prague with me" (Manuscripts 448). The problem with the text that Fitzgerald left us with is that Charlie is now speaking as if he were assured that Honoria would be going with him, when in reality he is still pleading his case. In tightening dialogue Fitzgerald created a new problem; the sentence would have read better as "I would take a French governess to Prague with me."

After the intrusion of Duncan and Lorraine at the Peters' apartment, the narrative reads:

The problem here is the word still. Nothing that preceded this sentence in the text indicated that Lincoln had been swinging Honoria back and forth. The final book version, however, omitted four paragraphs that dealt a bit more with the action and dialogue during Duncan and Lorraine's visit to the Peters', including one sentence that read "Lincoln Peters had been somewhat uneasily occupying himself by swinging Honoria from side to side with her feet off the ground" (Post 84; see also Manuscripts 462). Fitzgerald's deletion of this sentence makes still extraneous in the remaining sentence.

Related to this same scene is Lorraine's outburst before leaving the Peters':

The latter half of her statement is of concern here: It was originally meant to recall Duncan having to ask, " 'How about a little drink?' said Duncan to the room at large." To which Lincoln responded " 'I'm sorry, but there isn't a thing in the house,' he said. 'We just this minute emptied the only bottle' " (Post 84). A handy excuse, which Lorraine probably didn't buy, since Charlie, if not Lincoln, had a drink in front of him, which Charlie never touched (84). Duncan's question and Lincoln's response were deleted from the revised version of "Babylon," but even though Lorraine's outburst was related to that interchange, it isn't too hard to imagine Lorraine saying her line anyway.

One more example will suffice to close this area of discussion. After Duncan and Lorraine have exited the Peters' apartment, Charlie continues to express his disgust by saying:

The obvious problem with this is that he had just seen Duncan and Lorraine twice the previous day. We understand what Charlie is really stating, of course, that he used to see these people regularly two years ago, but not any more; but might not Honoria wonder what her father is saying here? The original typescript was a bit more to the point: "People we used to see two years ago having the colossal nerve---" (Manuscripts 464).

I realize that I may be overstepping my bounds here; the words Fitzgerald reserved for a proofreader of the Basil stories he might very well apply to me:

These are problems with which the text of "Babylon Revisited" must continue; Fitzgerald died long before these textual problems were noted; recognizing the origins of the problems at least clarifies for us Fitzgerald's intent on the matters.

"Babylon Revisited" was revised during a time of Fitzgerald's life in which he was under pressure, self-imposed and otherwise. Fitzgerald not only had to ready short stories for inclusion in Taps at Reveille, but he was having to deal with an increasingly troubled life. Zelda was in her third series of breakdowns; Scott, Zelda, and Scottie would never again be living together as a family (ironic that all three would be separated from one another during both the original writing and then the revising of "Babylon"); and Fitzgerald himself continued his descent into alcoholism. That "Babylon Revisited" has textual problems is not surprising; that it doesn't have more is. The process of writing "Babylon Revisited" must have prompted some soul searching in Fitzgerald, a process that must have been repeated during its revision. For surely what Charlie Wales feared was in some measure coming to be for Fitzgerald himself: separation from his daughter Scottie, Zelda "escaped" to a hospital, continued interference from his sister-in-law Rosalind, and a worsening problem with alcohol threatening his prospects for the future.

"Babylon Revisited" has had a long and varied textual history, both in terms of its authorship by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and in its generation of scholarship. That the story has produced such minutiae is, I think, evidence of its status. Great works naturally deserve the best of all possible editing. But the textual problems, such as they are, are minor; they do not detract from the story Fitzgerald had to tell, that of a man haunted by his past and foiled in his quest for the future in a certain historical era, and its ultimate transcendance into the universality of human experience and into the annals of American literature.

Works Cited

Bruccoli, Matthew J. Introduction. The Notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark, 1978.

----------. Letter to author. 20 August 1995.

----------. Preface. The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. xiii-xix.

Buttitta, Tony. The Lost Summer: A Personal Memoir of F. Scott Fitzgerald. N.p.: Sceptre, 1988. First published as After the Good Gay Times, 1974.

Edenbaum, Robert I. " 'Babylon Revisited': A Psychological Note on F. Scott Fitzgerald." Literature and Psychology 18 (No. 1, 1968): 27-29.

• The Saturday Evening Post 203 (21 February 1931): 3-5, 82-84.
• The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. Edited with a Preface by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. 616-633.
• Taps at Reveille. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935. 382-407.
• Typescript. F. Scott Fitzgerald Manuscripts: Volume VI, The Vegetable, Stories, and Articles, Part 2. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991. 417-469.

----------. Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Eds. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Margaret M. Duggan. New York: Random House, 1980.

----------. Dear Scott/Dear Max: The Fitzgerald-Perkins Correspondence. Eds. John Kuehl and Jackson R. Bryer. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.

----------. "Echoes of the Jazz Age." The Crack-Up. Ed. Edmund Wilson. New York: New Directions Paperbook, 1956. 13-22. "Echoes of the Jazz Age" originally appeared in Scribner's Magazine in November 1931. The Crack-Up first published in 1945.

----------. F. Scott Fitzgerald Manuscripts. Introduced and arranged by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991.

----------. "How to Live on Practically Nothing a Year." Afternoon of an Author: A Selection of Uncollected Stories and Essays. Introduction and Notes by Arthur Mizener. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957. 100-116. First appeared in The Saturday Evening Post 197 (20 September 1924): 17, 165-166, 169-170.

----------. The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Andrew Turnbull. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963.

----------. "News of Paris--Fifteen Years Ago." Afternoon of an Author: A Selection of Uncollected Stories and Essays. Introduction and Notes by Arthur Mizener. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957. 221-226.

----------. "One Trip Abroad." Afternoon of an Author: A Selection of Uncollected Stories and Essays. Introduction and Notes by Arthur Mizener. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957. 142-165. First appeared in The Saturday Evening Post 203 (11 October 1930): 6-7, 48, 51, 53-54,56. Also appears in The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. Edited with a Preface by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. 577-594.

----------. Tender Is the Night. Scribner Library volume. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960, 1962. Tender Is the Night was first published by Scribner's in 1934.

----------. "What a Handsome Pair!" The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. Edited with a Preface by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. 680-697. First appeared in The Saturday Evening Post 205 (27 August 1932): 16-17, 61, 61, 63-64. Also collected in Bits of Paradise: 22 Uncollected Stories by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Selected by Matthew J. Bruccoli with Scottie Fitzgerald Smith. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974. Second edition. New York: Pocket Books, 1976. 331-352.

Griffith, Richard R. "A Note on Fitzgerald's 'Babylon Revisited.' " American Literature 35 (May 1963): 236-239.

Le Vot, André. "Fitzgerald in Paris." Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 5 (1973): 49-68.

Lindfors, Bernth. "Paris Revisited." Fitzgerald Newsletter. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. Washington, D.C.: NCR/Microcard Editions, 1969. 77-78. Originally appeared in Fitzgerald Newsletter No. 16 (Winter 1962): 4.

McCollum, Kenneth. " Babylon Revisited' Revisited." Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 3 (1971) 314-316.

Murphy, Garry N. and William C. Slattery. "The Flawed Text of 'Babylon Revisited': A Challenge to Editors, A Warning to Readers." Studies in Short Fiction 18 (Summer 1981): 315-318.

Toor, David. "Guilt and Retribution in 'Babylon Revisited.' " Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 5 (1973): 155-160.

Twitchell, James B. " 'Babylon Revisited': Chronology and Characters." Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 10 (1978): 155-160.

White, William. "Two Versions of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'Babylon Revisited': A Textual and Bibliographical Study." The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 60 (Fourth Quarter 1966): 439-452.