Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021         Page 243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287 of 1029

“Some day I'm going to write a book for you, Bennett, and I'm going to call it “My Twenty Years with a Genius--So-Called.”

Great. Did he ever discuss his work with you at all? I know you weren't really his publisher--

No. We talked about other authors, but seldom about his work.

Another funny thing happened, to complete the story. This was later on, not this trip. The last time I saw him was several years later when Ulysses was already a big success, when he had already gotten a lot of money from us, and I had become a very favored friend. There was a girl that I knew at this time whom I liked very much, a darling little girl from Westchester, a very respectable girl from a very rich family, who had arrived in Paris with her older sister and the sister's husband, a young Wall Street banker. My girl and I liked each other very much, and I wanted to take her down to Le Touquet for the week-end, but her brother-in-law said to me, quite rightly, “You're not going to take her unless you've got a chaperon. Not that I give a damn, but if her parents ever found out that I let her go off with you for a week-end, they'd kill me. So you get a chaperon-- that's all I care about.”

Well, I didn't know who to get as a chaperon. And one night with the Joyces I said, “I want to take a great girl to Le Touquet, but how the hell can I find a chaperon in Paris?” Joyce said, “I've got the perfect chaperon for you! My son