While T.S.Eliot was skulking about in green face powder, Gertrude Stein was communing with Cubists and inventing linguistic collage. And – this is amazing – developing the code book for the Special Operations Executive of WW2.
In the summer of 1912, Braque left Paris for a holiday in Provence where he wandered into a hardware store and bought a roll of oilcloth printed with a fake wood grain. The pattern drew his attention because he was at work on a drawing of a guitar, and he was about to render the grain of the wood in pencil. Instead, he cut and pasted a piece of the factory-printed grain pattern right into his drawing. Picasso began to create collage with oilcloth as well – and added other elements to the mix. Cut and paste collage was born.
Picasso was a frequent visitor to Stein’s salon and they became friends. While Picasso and the other Cubists were cutting and pasting and working with collage, Stein began to do the same with language. Et voila!- in 1914 – Tender Buttons.
But it’s way more cunning than that.
Reading the work again I realized that not only had Stein invented the collage technique that Eliot would use in The Wasteland (1922), she was also – obviously – writing coded messages. She wrote them in 1914 but clearly this is a foreshadowing of her wartime years in France.
The times are so peculiar now, so medieval so unreasonable that for the first time in a hundred years truth is really stranger than fiction. Any truth. – Gertrude Stein, Wars I Have Seen. 1945.
What Stein – the groundbreaking modernist – was doing with these cryptic words was writing copy.
The lines and fractured sentences of Tender Buttons were important messages between the Special Operations Executive (SOE) HQ in London and their agents and spies across Nazi-occupied France.
Do Not Suck on the Soap
The SOE had the idea of sending seemingly obscure personal messages to agents in the field. This was to reduce risky radio traffic and circumvent code-breaking. When they did so, they were clearly channeling their inner Stein. Or, had she written them herself in what would be the most astonishing episode of timelessness the literary world has ever see? See for yourself.
The broadcasts in French from BBC Radio Londres would open with “Before we begin, please listen to some personal messages.” They were in code, cryptic and often amusing and nonsensical. Messages like “Do not suck on the soap”, “She is wearing a coat rack”, “Leave the grid ajar” and “There is a fire at the insurance agency”. Each had some meaning to a certain resistance group or agent in the field. They provided information to resistance members and communicated to agents. And something they were just because – simply to give the Nazis an impression of activity.
Because these messages were in code, not cipher, the enemy could not hope to understand them without a codebook They had to focus their efforts on jamming them instead.
As D-Day approached the Allies swamped the network. On the first of June alone, over 200 messages were sent, making it clear to those listening that something was happening. The broadcasts always began with the dot-dot-dot-dash of the Morse code letter V for Victory that corresponds with the opening notes of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.
Listen here:
The Long Sobs of the Violins of Autumn
Just before the D-Day landings of 6 June 1944, Radio Londres broadcast a pre-arranged signal to let the resistance know that the invasion was imminent. The signal was the first stanza of Paul Verlaine’s poem “Chanson d’automne” (1866)
The first part of the stanza, Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne (“the long sobs of the violins of autumn”) indicated that the invasion would begin within 24 hours; the second, Blessent mon cœur d’une langueur monotone (“wound my heart with a monotonous languor”) was the call to action.
The movie The Longest Day has an amusing scene of a French mayor hearing the message that is a specific call to sabotage: “John has a long moustache”. And that moment when the invasion develops on the horizon – as seen through the slit of the pill-box – has to be one of the best in film history.
OK – now we have established that Gertrude Stein was ahead of her time. Her 1914 Tender Buttons was actually a codebook used to defeat the Nazis – one of the most outrageous examples of foreshadowing in all literary history. (I personally confirmed this in a conversation with Stein herself.)
So let’s look at some of those lines and decipher the code. First, Stein’s words from A Little Called Pauline and underneath the message it conveyed to resistance fighters and agents in the field:
A little called anything shows shudders.
(Parachutists landing west of Donnemarie-Dontilly )
Come and say what prints all day.
(Your network has been betrayed. Destroy everything.)
A whole few watermelon. There is no pope.
(Blow up the lines of communication between the landing zone and the German HQs.)
No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.
(The Toklas network has been compromised.)
A little lace makes boils. This is not true.
(Bombing of the “Sapin Vert” marshalling yard at the Roubaix-Tourcoing-Wattrelos and Mouscron junction is happening now.)
Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.
(We are parachuting weapons.)
If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.
(Have your anti-panzer sections activated immediately.)
A peaceful life to arise her, noon and moon and moon.
(Alice is making rhubarb and custard.)
A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.
(The two RAF fliers you helped have arrived home safely.)
Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight,
(The parachute drop will happen at midnight on Saturday.)
Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne (“the long sobs of the violins of autumn”)
(The invasion will begin within 24 hours.)
And if you are inclined to think this far fetched – just look at some the other hundreds of messages broadcast by Radio Londres:
The Cardinal has a good appetite.
The cats are courting each other in the garden opposite
The firmament watches us from afar.
Who likes rare meat tastes good.
Sophie shaved her eyebrows.
You never see a duck with three legs.
Tuberose will come back to you soon
The music of the hearth guard is inimitable.
I wear my binoculars over my shoulder.
Time erases the sculptures.
Pierrot is a disastrous biker.
Orchestral chairs cost eighteen francs
The secretary is on the seventh floor.
Leave the grid ajar.
My innocence is undeniable
The salted pork, the glasses and the pots.
A cup of tea when night falls.
The chestnut trees seed their leaves.
A little editing, disconnect the grammar and you have a new mistress-piece by Gertrude. Try it!
And how do I know all this? Well Gertrude Stein told me herself in one of our last meetings. Read more here and here.
Here we all are in the salon with the Basket the poodle, the oeufs and the eau de vie. And just look at all that art on the Liberty green walls. And very nice it all was too. Although I was a little taken back that they seemed to be using a Picasso as a table mat! Perhaps it was a reproduction. Who knows. and I certainly was not going to say to them : Gosh! Be careful. That painting will be worth millions in just a few decades!
Thank-you Gertrude and Alice and au revoir. For now.
An Historical Note:
Almost 2000 SOE agents were sent on missions from Britain to the continent. They arrived by air and by sea. Many were exposed and executed. They included Noor Khan who was murdered at Dachau.
2016 sculpture by artist Karen Newman in honour of Noor Inayat Khan, British-Indian WW2 agent who aided French Resistance and was shot in Dachau. She was honoured in London today for her brave role #womensart pic.twitter.com/TWFI5xA9az
— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) August 28, 2020
Dear Josie,
there is indeed a memorial to all those agents of S.O.E. Their photographs adorn the walls of the stair case in the Special Forces Club. There is also a memorial plaque attached to the exterior wall on the side of St.Pauls church, (Knightsbridge) Wilton Place, London S.W.1 (next door to the Berkeley Hotel). The plaque lists those F.A.N.Y Agents of S.O.E of F-Section who did not return. However Odette, (Hallowes) who did survive the war was added to the memorial tablet when she died. There is also a memorial to them in a chuch near Guildford and also one at Beaulieu. They are also remebered at Tangmere.
All such amazing people. Such extraordinary courage!
Subject: Gertrude Stein & Riba-Rovira
Hello,
I thought this might interest you insofar as you refer to Gertrude Stein.
Because this is one of her last writings on painting, a year before her death, where she draws a kind of retrospective, in her Preface in May 1945 for the catalogue of the first Riba-Rovira Exhibition which did her oil portrait, the last one of her, it seems, in this technique, before her death.
And this portrait was at the MET in New York in 2012 in the Exhibition at the MET in New York in 2012 “The Stein Collect; Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso and the others…”.
Below is the text of the Preface.
Sincerely.
“Cesera”
GERTRUDE STEIN:
«It is inevitable that when we really need someone we find him. The person you need attracts you like a magnet. I returned to Paris, after these long years spent in the countryside and I needed a young painter, a young painter who would awaken me. Paris was magnificent, but where was the young painter? I looked everywhere: at my contemporaries and their followers. I walked a lot, I looked everywhere, in all the galleries, but the young painter was not there. Yes, I walk a lot, a lot at the edge of the Seine where we fish, where we paint, where we walk dogs (I am of those who walk their dogs). Not a single young painter!
One day, on the corner of a street, in one of these small streets in my district, I saw a man painting. I looked at him; at him and at his painting, as I always look at everybody who creates something I have an indefatigable curiosity to look and I was moved. Yes, a young painter!
We began to speak, because we speak easily, as easily as in country roads, in the small streets of the district. His story was the sad story of the young people of our time. A young Spaniard who studied in fine arts in Barcelona: civil war; exile; a concentration camp; escape. Gestapo, another prison, another escape… Eight lost years! If they were lost, who knows? And now a little misery, but all the same the painting. Why did I find that it was him the young painter, why? I visited his drawings, his painting: we speak.
I explained that for me, all modern painting is based on what Cézanne nearly made, instead of basing itself on what he almost managed to make. When he could not make a thing, he hijacked it and left it. He insisted on showing his incapacity: he spread his lack of success: showing what he could not do, became an obsession for him. People influenced by him were also obsessed by the things which they could not reach and they began the system of camouflage. It was natural to do so, even inevitable: that soon became an art, in peace and in war, and Matisse concealed and insisted at the same time on that Cézanne could not realize, and Picasso concealed, played and tormented all these things.
The only one who wanted to insist on this problem, was Juan Gris. He persisted by deepening the things which Cézanne wanted to do, but it was too hard a task for him: it killed him.
And now here we are, I find a young painter who does not follow the tendency to play with what Cézanne could not do, but who attacks any right the things which he tried to make, to create the objects which have to exist, for, and in themselves, and not in relation.
This young painter has his weaknesses and his strengths. His force will push him in this road. I am fascinated and that is why he is the young painter who I needed. He is Francisco Riba-Rovira.»
— Gertrude Stein « A la recherche d’un jeune peintre », revue Fontaine no 42, p. 287-288, 1945
— Gertrude Stein «Looking for a young painter» (Riba-Rovira) Yale University U.S.A.
— Gertrude Stein’s Preface for Riba-Rovira, Catalog of his first Exhibition May 1945 Galerie Roquepine Paris
The photo of the picture of the portrait of Gertrud Stein by Riba-Rovira is in three Catalogs :
-« The Steins Collect; Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde» New York & San Francisco page 260 n°203
– « Seeing Gertrude Stein: five stories » page 163 n°130 San Francisco & Washington
-« Aventure des Stein: Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso… » Paris page 349 fig.41
The portrait of Gertrude Stein by Riba-Rovira was in the Exhibitions:
in the MET of New-York in 2012 «The Stein Collect; Matisse, Cezanne, Picasso and the others…»
in Washington in “The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery” 2011/2012
In San Francisco in « Seeing Gertrude Stein: five stories » The Contemporary Jewish Museum 2011
In Paris Galerie Roquépine Mai 1945, the portrait of Gertrude Stein by Riba-Rovira is mentioned n°1 in the catalog of the Exhibition as being in the collection of Gertrude Stein, it is this exhibition for which she wrote the famous Preface.
Thanks for sharing all that information. Very interesting indeed.
That is a wonderful post. I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing this story.
Amazing story, I have read some about this brilliant woman and her club of the crazy writers like Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald and… a remarkable time 🙏❤
She was certainly interesting! And apparently had a great sense of humor and could laugh at herself in spite of her insistence on being a genius. This was a fun story to play with once I saw the similarities between her experiments with poetry and then remembered the nonsensical coded S.O.E. radio messages. One thing always leads to another!
Thanks for writing.
Yes indeed, and it’s definitely wise 👌 👍 🤗🙏
Josie, I couldn’t forget about the SOE agents, so here is a link to the memorial in London:
https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/57804
“VIOLETTE SZABO/ 1921-1945/ WHOSE SCULPTURE IS ON THIS PLINTH AND WHO WAS/ POSTHUMOUSLY AWARDED THE GEORGE CROSS AND/ THE CROIX DE GUERRE, WAS AMONG THE 117 S.O.E. AGENTS WHO/ DID NOT SURVIVE THEIR MISSIONS TO FRANCE.”
Thanks for the link Ashley. How young they all were!
A thoroughly enjoyable series of posts. And utterly believable!
Believable? Well…perhaps. As Stein herself said: “The times are so peculiar now, so medieval so unreasonable that for the first time in a hundred years truth is really stranger than fiction. Any truth.”– Gertrude Stein, Wars I Have Seen. 1945. That kind of sums our current era too.
Marvellous, Josie, just wonderful! And finally, in 2016, some recognition of Noor Khan. The SOE agents were all very special people. There should be a memorial to all those SOE agents who lost their lives!
Ashley´s last blog post ..Autumn’s Days!
Thanks Ashley. It was a fun series to write once my head clicked into the similarities between Stein’s poetry and the language of the coded messages from the S.O.E.
And yes – Noor Khan and all of them – so many women – should be recognized. Such extraordinary courage.
Of course, there is a case to be made out that Stein was a Nazi collaborator. From the reading I have done I don’t think that is the case.
Maybe I need to write about that sometime.
Thanka again for the comment.
She was certainly an interesting and one of the few literary celebrities. When she sailed to the US for an extended book tour in 1934, fifteen reporters went out to ship to interview her. And what a mixture of contradictions. A Republican with some repellent conservative views who appreciated the new art and was unafraid to experiment. And apparently she had a great sense of humor and could even laugh at herself. Sometimes.
Very interesting. There’s a lot I don’t know about Gertude Stein, but I did “see” her in Woody Allen’s MIDNIGHT IN PARIS.