Editing Harry Crosby (section)

==Meets Mrs. Richard Peabody==
Crosby's mother invited Mrs. Richard Rogers Peabody (née [[Mary Phelps Jacob]]) to chaperone Crosby and some of his friends at a picnic on July 4, 1920, including dinner and a trip to the amusement park at [[Nantasket Beach]]. During dinner, Crosby never spoke to the girl on his left, breaking decorum. By some accounts, Crosby fell in love with the buxom Mrs. Peabody in about two hours, confessing his love for her in the Tunnel of Love at the amusement park.<ref name="cosmic">{{Cite web|url=http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/caresse8.html|title=Caresse Crosby, Infield|year=1998|publisher=Cosmic Baseball Association|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031211085100/http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/caresse8.html|archive-date=2003-12-11|url-status=dead|access-date=2003-12-01}}</ref> Two weeks later, they went to church together in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts and spent the night together.<ref name=wolff>{{Cite book|title=Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RpVaAAAAMAAJ|author=Geoffrey Wolff|year=2003|isbn=1-59017-066-0|publisher=New York Review of Books|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160802132422/https://books.google.com/books?id=RpVaAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1|archive-date=2016-08-02}}</ref> Their public relationship was a scandal among blue-blood Boston.<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|77}}

She was 28, six years older than Crosby, with two small children, and married. No matter what Crosby tried, Polly would not divorce Richard and marry him. Crosby took a job in Boston at the Shawmut National Bank, a job he disliked, and took the train to visit Polly in New York. In May 1921, when Polly would not respond to his demands, Crosby threatened suicide if Polly did not marry him.<ref name=wolff/><ref name="Conover">{{Cite book|last=Conover |first=Anne |title=Caresse Crosby: From Black Sun to Roccasinibalda |publisher=Capra Press |location=Santa Barbara, Calif. |year=1989 |isbn=0-595-15928-1 |url = https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595159281/techpros}}</ref>{{rp|2}} Polly's husband Richard Peabody was in and out of sanatoriums several times fighting alcoholism. In June 1921, she formally separated from him. Later that winter, Polly accepted weekend visits from Crosby, who took the midnight train home to Boston afterward.<ref name="wolff"/> In December, Polly's husband Richard offered to divorce her, and in February 1922, their marriage was legally ended.<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|330}}

[[File:Aquitania 06.jpg|thumb|right|The RMS ''Aquitania'' in 1914]]
After eight months at the Shawmut National Bank, Crosby got drunk for six days and resigned on March 14, 1922.<ref name="wolff"/> Crosby's uncle, J. P. Morgan, Jr., agreed to provide a position for Crosby in Paris at [[Morgan, Harjes & Co.|Morgan, Harjes et Cie]].<ref name="wolff"/> Crosby already spoke and read fluent French<ref name=kicks/><ref name=blackcat/> and moved to Paris in May. Polly preceded him there, but returned to the United States in July, angry and jealous.<ref name="wolff"/>{{rp|330}} On September 2, 1922, Crosby proposed to Polly via [[Transatlantic telegraph cable|transatlantic cable]], and the next day bribed his way aboard the ''[[RMS Aquitania|Aquitania]]'' for New York, which made a weekly six-day express run to New York.<ref name=wolff/><ref name="Conover"/>{{rp|2}}

===Polly and Harry marry===
[[File:Harry polly crosby 1922.JPG|thumb|Harry and Polly Crosby on the day of their marriage on September 9, 1922]]
[[File:Île Saint-Louis - Quai d'Orléans (Paris).jpg|thumb|Crosby and Polly lived in an apartment on one of two islands on the Seine during 1922.]]
On September 9, 1922, Crosby and Polly were married in the Municipal Building in New York City, and two days later they reboarded the RMS ''Aquitania'' and moved with her children to Paris. There, they joined the [[Lost Generation]] of expatriate Americans disillusioned by the loss of life in World War I and the moral and social values of their parents' generation.<ref name=blackcat>{{Cite web|url=http://blackcatbooks.com/archives/2008/12/|title=Harry Crosby and the Black Sun Press|date=December 12, 2008|publisher=Black Cat Books 2008|access-date=26 March 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100922151736/http://blackcatbooks.com/archives/2008/12/|archive-date=22 September 2010}}</ref> Crosby continued his work at Morgan, Harjes et Cie, the Morgan family's bank in Paris. They found an apartment at 12, Quai d'Orléans overlooking the Seine, on the exclusive [[Île Saint-Louis]], and Polly donned her red bathing suit and row Crosby down the Seine in his dark business suit, formal hat, umbrella, and briefcase<ref name="greenberg">{{Cite web|url=http://www.bonjourparis.com/story/the-glory-years-the-crosbys-harry-and-caresse/|title=Bonjour Paris – The Glory Years: The Crosbys: Harry and Caresse|last=Greenberg|first=Arnie|date=4 April 2005 |access-date=28 March 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708082538/http://www.bonjourparis.com/story/the-glory-years-the-crosbys-harry-and-caresse/|archive-date=8 July 2011}}</ref> to the [[Place de la Concorde]], where he walked the last few blocks to the bank on [[Place Vendôme]]. As she rowed back home, Polly, who was well endowed, enjoyed whistles, jeers, and waves from workmen. She said the exercise was good for her breasts.<ref name="greenberg"/>

After their first year in Paris, Polly shipped her children off to boarding schools in Gstaad.<ref name="Conover"/>{{rp|5}} At the end of 1923, Crosby quit Morgan, Harjes et Cie and devoted himself to the life of a poet, and later, publisher.<ref name="kicks">{{Cite web|url=http://www.litkicks.com/HarryCrosby/|title=Harry Crosby|publisher=Literary Kicks|date=November 27, 2002|access-date=18 March 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100105000728/http://litkicks.com/HarryCrosby|archive-date=5 January 2010}}</ref>

=== Life as expatriates ===
Both of them were attracted to the [[Bohemianism|bohemian]] lifestyle of the artists gathering in [[Montparnasse]]. Even by the wild standards of Paris in the 1920s, Crosby was in a league of his own. The couple lived a [[hedonist]]ic and decadent life, including an open marriage<ref name=brunner/> and numerous affairs.<ref name="allis">{{cite news|url=http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/22/black_sun_rises_again/|title=Black Sun rises again|last=Allis|first=Sam|date=February 22, 2009|access-date=16 March 2010|work=The Boston Globe|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304153205/http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/22/black_sun_rises_again/|archive-date=4 March 2009}}</ref><ref name=britannica>{{Cite web|url = http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/31195285/The-Cramoisy-Queen-A-Life-of-Caresse-Crosby|title=The Cramoisy Queen: A Life of Caresse Crosby|year=2008 |first=Paul|last= Schlueter|access-date=January 11, 2010}}</ref> They drank "oceans of champagne"<ref name=allis/> and used opium, cocaine, and hashish.<ref name="wolff"/><ref name="allis"/> They wrote a mutual suicide pact and carried cremation instructions with them.<ref name="Conover"/>

Polly and Crosby purchased their first race horse in June 1924, and then two more in April 1925.<ref name=wolff/> At the end of 1924, Crosby persuaded Polly to formally change her first name to Caresse, as he felt Polly was too prim and proper for his wife. They briefly considered Clytoris before deciding on Caresse. Crosby suggesting that her new name "begin with a C to go with Crosby and it must form a cross with mine." The two names intersected at right angles at the common "R," "the Crosby cross."<ref name=mjacobs>{{cite web|last=Jacobs|first=Michael|title=Genealogy Data Page 30|url=http://jacobsfamilytree.com/family_tree/n_1d.html|year=2008|access-date=19 October 2011|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425081121/http://jacobsfamilytree.com/family_tree/n_1d.html|archive-date=25 April 2012}}</ref>

In 1924, they rented an apartment in the Faubourg St. Germain for six months from Princess [[Marthe Bibesco]], a friend of Crosby's cousin [[Walter Van Rensselaer Berry|Walter Berry]], for 50,000 francs (the equivalent of $2,200, about ${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|2200|1924}}}} in modern dollars). When they moved in, they brought with them "two maids and a cook, a governess, and a chauffeur."<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|145}}

His inheritance, multiplied by the favorable exchange rate the American dollar enjoyed in postwar Europe, allowed them to indulge in an extravagant expatriate lifestyle. Crosby's trust fund provided them with US$12,000 per year<ref name=fisher>{{Cite book|last=Fisher|first=Clive|title=Hart Crane: a Life|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2002|isbn=0300090617|url=https://archive.org/details/hartcranelife0000fish_s2p9|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/hartcranelife0000fish_s2p9/page/397 397]}}</ref> (or ${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|12000|1929}}}} in modern dollars). Still, Crosby repeatedly overdrew his account at State Street Trust in Boston and at Morgan, Harjes, in Paris.

During 1929, Crosby wired his father, an investment banker, several times asking him to put more money from his inheritance into his account. In January, he asked his father to sell $4,000 worth (or ${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|4000|1929}}}} modern value) "to make up for past extravagances in New York" In May, he noted in his diary that he had sold another $4,000 worth of stock "to enjoy life when you can". In mid-July, drunk on sherry cobblers,<ref name=lyle/> he sent a cable to his father, who was not pleased by it:<ref name=wolff/>
{{blockquote|PLEASE SELL $10,000 WORTH OF STOCK. WE HAVE DECIDED TO LIVE A MAD AND EXTRAVAGANT LIFE}}

His father complied, but not without rebuking his son for his spendthrift ways.<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|144}}

===Lifestyle===
The couple became known for hosting small dinner parties from their giant bed in their palatial townhouse on [[Île Saint-Louis]], and afterward everyone was invited to enjoy their huge bathtub together, taking advantage of iced bottles of champagne near at hand.<ref name="kicks"/><ref name=greenberg/>

They took extended traveling tours. In January 1925, they traveled to North Africa, where they first smoked opium, a habit to which they returned often.<ref name=brunner/> Crosby had tattoos on the soles of his feet—a cross on one and a pagan sun symbol on the other.<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|132}}

On November 19, 1925, Crosby and Polly rented a fashionable apartment on 19, Rue de Lille, where they remained for the rest of their time in Paris.

Crosby developed an obsessive fascination with imagery centering on the sun. His poetry and journals often focused on the sun, a symbol to him of perfection, enthusiasm, freedom, heat, and destruction.<ref name="Conover"/><ref name=hallowell/> Crosby claimed to be a "sun worshiper in love with death."<ref name=fitch>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zpu5_c2o-2IC|title=Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties|last=Fitch|first=Noel Riley|access-date=19 March 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160102145514/https://books.google.com/books?id=Zpu5_c2o-2IC|archive-date=2 January 2016|isbn=9780393302318|year=1983|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company }}</ref>{{rp|235}} He often added a doodle of a "black sun" to his signature which also included an arrow, jutting upward from the "y" in Crosby's last name and aiming toward the center of the sun's circle: "a phallic thrust received by a welcoming erogenous zone."<ref name=brunner/>

Crosby met Ernest Hemingway on a skiing trip to Gstaad in 1926.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Hemingway and Faulkner in Their Time |author=Earl Rovit |others=Arthur Waldhorn}}</ref>{{rp|59}} In July 1927, Crosby and Hemingway visited Pamplona for the running of the bulls.<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|182}} Crosby wrote of Hemingway that "H. could drink us under the table." Harry and Caresse published the Paris edition of Hemingway's ''The Torrents of Spring''. In early 1928, they traveled to the Middle East, visiting several countries.

In late 1928, they secured a 20-year lease on a medieval mill outside of Paris in Ermenonville for living quarters, which they named Le Moulin du Soleil ("The Mill of the Sun"). It had three old stone buildings, no electricity or telephone, and a single bathroom. The Crosbys added a racing course on which to play donkey polo and a small swimming pool. The millstream had slowed to a trickle. Inside the mill, Caresse converted the old washrooms and cellars into a large kitchen. The ground floor of the central mill tower served as a dining room, where guests sat on logs cut from the neighboring woods. The mill also contained a solid brass marine cannon that was rolled out for special guests, who were announced with a loud report. A whitewashed wall near the stairway served as a guest book. It was signed by many guests who included D. H. Lawrence, [[Douglas Fairbanks]], the future [[George VI]],<ref name=young/>{{rp|279}} and [[Eva Braun]], Adolf Hitler's future wife.<ref>{{cite web|title=Honorary Esoterics: Harry & Caresse Crosby|url=http://theesotericcuriosa.blogspot.com/2010/05/honorary-esoterics-harry-caresse-crosby.html|access-date=15 June 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151202051042/http://theesotericcuriosa.blogspot.com/2010/05/honorary-esoterics-harry-caresse-crosby.html|archive-date=2 December 2015}}</ref>

They hosted wild parties at the mill, including drunken polo on donkeys, and entertained famous guests such as [[Salvador Dalí]].<ref name="allis"/> Henry wrote in his journal:

{{blockquote|Mobs for luncheon—poets and painters and pederasts and divorcées and Christ knows who and there was a great signing of names on the wall at the foot of the stairs and a firing off of the cannon and bottle after bottle of red wine and Kay Boyle made fun of Hart Crane and he was angry and flung ''The American Caravan'' into the fire because it contained a story of Kay Boyle's (he forgot it had a poem of his in it) and there was a tempest of drinking and polo ''harra burra'' on the donkeys. and{{sic}} an uproar and a confusion so that it was difficult to do my work.<ref name=young/>{{rp|284}}}}

Crosby spent hours sunbathing naked atop the mill's turret.<ref name=kicks/> Contrary to fashion of the day, he did not wear a hat. He often wore a black carnation in his lapel, and was known to color his finger- and toenails.<ref name=kicks/> Crosby once hired four horse-drawn carriages and raced them through the Paris streets.<ref name=blackcat/> They frequently dropped in at Drosso where they smoked opium.

Crosby experimented with photography and saw the medium as a viable art form before it was widely accepted as such. In 1929, he met [[Henri Cartier-Bresson]] in Le Bourget, where Cartier-Bresson's air squadron commandant had placed him under house arrest for hunting without a license. Crosby persuaded the officer to release Cartier-Bresson into his custody for a few days. The two men had an interest in photography, and Henry presented Henri with his first camera.<ref name=young>{{cite book|last1=Young|first1=Carolin C.|title=Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver: Stories of Dinner as a Work of Art|date=2002|publisher=Simon & Schuster|location=New York|isbn=978-0743222020|page=281|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iK4fBIaxFKQC&pg=PA281|access-date=15 June 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160407020216/https://books.google.com/books?id=iK4fBIaxFKQC&pg=PA281&lpg=PA281|archive-date=7 April 2016}}</ref> They spent their time together taking and printing pictures at Crosby's home, Le Moulin du Soleil.<ref name="wolff"/>{{rp|163}}<ref name="kicks"/> Cartier-Bresson was attracted to Caresse and began a sexual relationship with her that lasted until 1931, two years after Harry's suicide.<ref name=turner>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/7572563/Expert-Witness-Henri-Cartier-Bresson.html |title=Expert Witness: Henri Cartier-Bresson |first=Christopher |last=Turner |date=12 April 2010 |location=London |work=The Daily Telegraph |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924211611/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/7572563/Expert-Witness-Henri-Cartier-Bresson.html |archive-date=24 September 2015 }}</ref>

Crosby also learned to fly solo in November 1929, when the aeroplane was so new that its spelling had not been agreed upon.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.postroadmag.com/Issue_3/Etcetera3/Etcetera.html|title=Biography Extending Harry Crosby's "Brief Transit"|last=Brunner|first=Edward|number=3|edition=Fall/Winter|year=2001|publisher=Post Road Magazine|access-date=18 March 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100823050509/http://www.postroadmag.com/Issue_3/Etcetera3/Etcetera.html|archive-date=23 August 2010}}</ref>

===Extra-marital relationships===
[[File:Constance Coolidge (1892-1973), by John Singer Sargent.jpg|thumb|Constance Coolidge (1892-1973) ([[John Singer Sargent]], 1915)]]
In 1923, shortly after their arrival in Paris, Caresse introduced Crosby to her friend [[Constance Crowninshield Coolidge]], also a [[Boston Brahmin]], an American expatriate. She was the niece of [[Frank Crowninshield]], editor of ''[[Vanity Fair (U.S. magazine 1913–1936)|Vanity Fair]]'', and had been married to American diplomat [[Ray Atherton]]. Constance did not care what others thought about her. She loved anything risky and was addicted to gambling. Crosby nicknamed her the "Lady of the Golden Horse". She began a sexual relationship with Crosby that continued for several months. Harry rationalized their affair, telling Constance "One should follow every instinct no matter where it leads."<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|214–215}} But Crosby would not leave Caresse nor did Constance ask this of him.<ref name="hamalian"/>{{rp|67}} When Constance received a letter from Caresse who confessed that her affair with her husband had made her "very miserable", Constance wrote Harry and told him she would not see him any more. Harry was devastated by her decision. "Your letter was bar none the worst blow I have ever received...I wouldn't leave her under any circumstances nor as you say would you ever marry me."<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|214–215}} The three remained close friends, and on October 1, 1924, Constance married the Count Pierre de Jumilhac, although the marriage lasted only five years.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://stanforddailyarchive.com/cgi-bin/stanford?a=d&d=stanford19321019-01.2.43|access-date=13 May 2015|issue=13|newspaper=The Stanford Daily |title=French Count Dead |date=19 October 1932}}</ref>

Harry and Caresse decided on an open marriage and had several lovers. He became legendary for his seductive abilities in some social circles in Paris,<ref name=brunner/> maintaining relationships with a variety of beautiful and doting young women.<ref name=hallowell>{{Cite web|url=http://www.banger.com/crosby/bio.html|title=Harry Grew Crosby Biography|access-date=14 March 2010|first=Tom|last=Hallewell|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707210906/http://www.banger.com/crosby/bio.html|archive-date=7 July 2011}}</ref>

Their wildness was in full flower during the drunken orgies of the annual Four Arts Balls (''Bal des Quatz' Arts''). In July 1927, he turned 10 live snakes loose on the dance floor. He wrote in his diary about it later:<ref name=minter>{{cite book|last1=Minter|first1=David|title=A cultural history of the American novel : Henry James to William Faulkner|date=1996|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|isbn=978-0521467490|page=74|edition=Paperback|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ism7N_9HBckC&pg=PA74|access-date=15 June 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160415095133/https://books.google.com/books?id=ism7N_9HBckC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74|archive-date=15 April 2016}}</ref>

{{blockquote|I remember two strong young men stark naked wrestling on the floor for the honor of dancing with a young girl...and I remember a mad student drinking champagne out of a skull which he had pilfered from my Library as I had pilfered it a year ago from the [[Catacombs]]...and in a corner I watched two savages making love...and beside me sitting on the floor a plump woman with bare breasts absorbed in the passion of giving milk to one of the snakes!}}

One year, Caresse arrived topless riding a baby elephant and wearing a turquoise wig. The motif for the ball that year was Inca, and Crosby dressed for the occasion, covering himself in red ochre and wearing nothing but a loincloth and a necklace of dead pigeons.<ref name="allis"/>

Embracing the open sexuality offered by Crosby and his wife Caresse, Henri Cartier-Bresson fell into an intense sexual relationship with her that lasted until 1931.<ref name=turner/>