Poet
Painter

· American

Jean Kronski

Poet, painter, and the third point of the Millers' Brooklyn triangle — Vanya in Crazy Cock, Stasia in Nexus. She died by suicide in a New York asylum; word reached the Millers in 1929.

Details

Born: Estimated c. 1905; no documented date
Birthplace: Disputed — the American West (Dearborn) or Baltimore, Maryland (Ferguson)
Died: By late 1929; no firm date recorded
Place of death: New York
Nationality: American
Roles: PoetPainter
Also known as: Martha Andrews · Mara · Marion

About Jean Kronski

Jean Kronski was June Miller's invention, and the woman who wore the name remains half-invented to history. June met her in October 1926, in the Greenwich Village restaurant where June worked — an androgynous young artist with long black hair and violet eyes, newly arrived in New York and carrying a garish puppet she called Count Bruga. June decided her given name did not suit her, renamed her Jean Kronski, and furnished the new name with an invented descent from the Romanoffs. Who she was before that, Henry Miller's two biographers tell differently: Mary Dearborn records an orphan from the West, raised by foster parents and named Marion; Robert Ferguson argues she was probably Martha Andrews, daughter of a wealthy Baltimore family, known outside the Millers' circle as Mara. We keep both accounts.

Within weeks she was living with June Miller and Henry, and that winter the three took a basement flat on Brooklyn's Henry Street, one door from an alleyway called Love Lane, where they painted the ceiling violet and covered the walls with frescoes. Jean wrote poetry, painted, and quoted Arthur Rimbaud constantly — a fascination Miller caught from her and carried, decades later, into his own Rimbaud study. The household ran on performance and jealousy. Miller, who by Dearborn's account had fallen a little in love with Jean himself, combed her hair and pared her toenails one night and drove a knife into her bedroom door another. Through the last winter the two women made puppets to sell around the Village — raising money, though Miller refused to believe it, for a departure — and in April 1927 he came home to an empty apartment and a note: they had sailed for Paris. The partnership did not survive the summer — June returned to New York alone, and the triangle became the book Miller spent the next three years failing to write.

Jean made her way back to New York, and her end is known only through the Millers. Her mental health had been fragile for years — she had been institutionalized before June met her — and in late 1929, as June was arranging Henry's passage to Paris, word reached them that Jean had died by suicide in an asylum. Dearborn notes the news arrived 'at last,' its date already gone soft; no biographer records a firm one. Her afterlife is literary. She is Vanya in Crazy Cock, drafted within a year of the flight to Paris; she is Stasia in Nexus, the volume Miller postponed for nearly a decade because writing it meant reliving her; and she is Thelma in the preface to The Time of the Assassins, where Miller states her end in his own words — 'Thelma meanwhile died in an insane asylum' — and credits her talk with putting Rimbaud's name in his ear.

Folklore and open questions

A life this thinly documented attracts confident stories. These are the ones readers will meet elsewhere, and what the record actually supports.

'Born around 1905.' Neither biography gives a birth year; c. 1905 is an estimate, not a documented date.
'Her real name was Marion Fish.' The surname Fish appears in neither biography. The genuine dispute is between Dearborn's Marion — an orphan from the West — and Ferguson's Martha Andrews of Baltimore, called Mara. Nobody has settled it.
'June and Jean quarreled violently in Paris hotels.' Neither biography describes the Paris weeks at all. What is documented: the April 1927 sailing, and June's return to New York alone about two months later.
'June abandoned her in Paris.' Who left whom is not recorded anywhere. The story is usually told with June walking out; the sources say only that June came back and Jean did not.
'Her paintings and poems are lost.' Nothing documents what became of her work — lost, destroyed, or sitting unrecognized somewhere. Ferguson records only that neither her puppets nor her poetry impressed Miller.
'She died in 1930.' The certainties are Dearborn's: she returned to New York and died by suicide in an asylum, with the news reaching the Millers in late 1929. No firm date of death survives, which is why this page carries none.

Life events

1926
October: meets June Miller in the Greenwich Village restaurant where June works, carrying the puppet Count Bruga; June renames her Jean Kronski and moves her in.
1927
Winter: the triangle takes a basement flat on Henry Street, Brooklyn, near Love Lane, and paints the ceiling violet.
1927
April: sails for Paris with June, leaving Henry a note. June returns to New York alone two months later.
1929
Word reaches the Millers that she has died by suicide in a New York asylum — the news arriving, Dearborn writes, 'at last.'
1930
Miller finishes the novel of the triangle, Crazy Cock, with Jean as Vanya; it stays unpublished until 1991.
1956
The Time of the Assassins publishes; its preface remembers her as Thelma, whose talk first put Rimbaud's name in Miller's ear.
1960
Nexus appears, with Jean as Stasia — the volume Miller had put off for nearly a decade because it meant reliving the Henry Street years.

Featured in these books

The Time of the Assassins

by Henry Miller

How Jean appears in its pages: The preface's Rimbaud-obsessed figure — Jean Kronski, renamed. Her talk at the Henry Street flat planted the subject twenty years before Miller wrote the book; the preface also records her death, in his own words.

The full portrait — Thelma in The Time of the Assassins

The preface's Rimbaud-obsessed figure — Jean Kronski, renamed. Her talk at the Henry Street flat planted the subject twenty years before Miller wrote the book; the preface also records her death, in his own words.

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Thelma exists only in the book's preface, and the book exists because of her. Miller's account of how he came to Rimbaud starts in the Brooklyn basement of 1927: the poet was 'the all engrossing topic of conversation' between Thelma and his wife, and Miller — despising Thelma, drowning in the household she had unbalanced — fought to keep Rimbaud out of his mind entirely. The name stuck anyway. He finally read a line of the poetry six or seven years later, at Anaïs Nin's house in Louveciennes, and the study followed.

She is Jean Kronski, renamed once more. This profile is drawn from the preface of the 1956 New Directions edition, read in the Internet Archive's scan.

How the book draws them

The all-engrossing topicRimbaud is what Thelma and the narrator's wife talk about, endlessly, while Miller refuses on principle to learn a thing about him.
The evil geniusMiller admits he treated the poet as 'the evil genius who had unwittingly inspired all my trouble and misery' — repudiating the name because Thelma carried it.
Imitation RimbaudShe identified herself with the poet and imitated him as best she could — 'not only in her behavior but in the kind of verse she wrote.'
Le Bateau IvreWhat she raved about above all. Reading his first line of Rimbaud years later, Miller suddenly remembers it was The Drunken Boat — a title whose aptness he says he only then understood.
The snatchesFor years, everything Miller knew of Rimbaud's life came from 'the snatches Thelma had let drop' — the study's entire subject, seeded in fragments by a woman he refused to listen to.
One flat sentenceHer end arrives in passing: 'Thelma meanwhile died in an insane asylum.' Miller follows it with the confession that without Paris his own fate might have been the same — 'in that basement on Brooklyn Heights my own ship had foundered.'

At a glance

Where she appears: The preface only — the study itself is about the poet
Her role: The person who put Rimbaud's name in Miller's ear, twenty years before he wrote about him
Continuity: The same figure is Vanya in Crazy Cock and Stasia in Nexus
The real person: Jean Kronski · Contested — an orphan from the West (Dearborn) or Martha Andrews of Baltimore (Ferguson)

Nexus

by Henry Miller

How Jean appears in its pages: The third figure of the household — Jean Kronski, whose appearance is where Dearborn says the book was always going to begin, and the reason Miller put off writing it for a decade.

The full portrait — Stasia in Nexus

The third figure of the household — Jean Kronski, whose appearance is where Dearborn says the book was always going to begin, and the reason Miller put off writing it for a decade.

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Nexus opens on Stasia, not on the narrator: she is in the Observation Ward, gone there of her own accord 'to find out if she were in her right mind or not,' while Count Bruga the puppet reposes on the bureau at home. The book's first pages give her full mock-heraldic style — 'Anastasia, alias Hegoroboru, alias Bertha Filigree of Lake Tahoe-Titicaca and the Imperial Court of the Czars' — and the household's whole absurd economy is in that sentence: invented pasts, real wards, overdue rent.

She is Jean Kronski — down to the Romanoff fable and the puppet, both of which the novel repeats from life. This profile is drawn from the Grove Press text, read in the Internet Archive's scan.

How the book draws them

The opening wardThe novel begins with Stasia under observation at her own request, testing her own sanity — and the narrator's campaign to assemble proof 'that Stasia is in her right mind.'
The aliases'Anastasia, alias Hegoroboru, alias Bertha Filigree of Lake Tahoe-Titicaca and the Imperial Court of the Czars' — the book files her under an entire invented aristocracy, Romanoff bastardy included.
Mona springs herMona comes home at dawn with the news delivered like a weather report: 'I just left Stasia. I got her out about three hours ago.'
An essentially truthful soulThe narrator's verdict: Stasia lies only because Mona does — she 'acquired the habit in order to please Mona,' and even her Romanoff tale has a grain of the genuine in it.
Count Bruga on the bureauThe puppet presides over the snowbound hall bedroom — the same leering companion that Crazy Cock installed in the earlier version of this household.
'Whom do you love more?'In a 'slightly Satanic mood,' Stasia puts the triangle's whole question to the narrator directly — the needling that keeps the ménage at a boil.
The vanishingNear the end she is simply gone — not a word received — and the narrator, bound for France, catches himself dreading and half-hoping she is in Paris, waiting.

At a glance

In the book: The third figure of the Brooklyn ménage — Mona's companion, the narrator's rival
Where she appears: From the first page; she vanishes from the story before the sailing for Paris
Continuity: The same figure is Vanya in Crazy Cock, the earlier telling of this household
The real person: Jean Kronski · Contested — an orphan from the West (Dearborn) or Martha Andrews of Baltimore (Ferguson)

More people from Nexus

Mona

Crazy Cock

by Henry Miller

How Jean appears in its pages: The painter and poet Hildred installs in the flat — brilliant, unwashed, possibly mad, and the third point of the triangle. Jean Kronski, renamed.

The full portrait — Vanya in Crazy Cock

The painter and poet Hildred installs in the flat — brilliant, unwashed, possibly mad, and the third point of the triangle. Jean Kronski, renamed.

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Vanya reaches the novel before she does: the puppet she made — a sunken-visaged, leering rake called Count Bruga — sits in the Brings' bedroom grinning at Tony night and day before its maker ever walks in. When she arrives, the household reorganizes around her. Hildred waits on her, bathes her feet, defends her; Tony studies her with a hatred that keeps slipping toward fascination; and the flat becomes a theater with an audience of one.

She is Jean Kronski, renamed — the identification is stated in Mary Dearborn's introduction to this edition, and the real Count Bruga sat on the real headboard. This profile is drawn from the Grove Press text, read in the Internet Archive's scan.

How the book draws them

The puppet arrives firstBefore Vanya appears in person, Tony knows her by her work: Count Bruga, the leering puppet propped in the marital bedroom, grinning at him 'night and day like a skulking lout.'
Neither mad nor saneTaking his first long look, Tony finds her unplaceable: 'neither mad nor sane, neither old nor young,' with a beauty he calls the beauty of nature rather than of a personality — 'like a calm sea at sunrise.'
The five a.m. prowlerWhen the couple finally gets to bed at dawn, Vanya starts prowling the hall, muttering to herself — then knocks, and pulls Hildred out of bed for whispered conferences.
Kept like a catHildred fetches a tub of hot water, soaks her feet, wipes them tenderly and anoints them with cold cream. Vanya accepts it all as a matter of course.
'I'm not a horse'Her one stab at real work — a portrait of Tony Bring — comes with a complaint about waiting tables that sends Hildred out the door cold: someone in the flat has to do the dirty work.
The wardShe surfaces in a hospital, and is returned to Hildred in a doorway scene — hesitant, then wildly exuberant, her hair grown long, 'almost a bloodthirsty look about her.'
In her usual rigBare knees, black shirt, hair flung loose — marching down the stoop at noon past a Lutheran congregation whose eyes blaze at the incongruous trio arguing on the corner.

At a glance

In the book: The painter and poet Hildred moves into the flat — the triangle's third point
Her art: Puppets (Count Bruga above all), painting, and poetry
Household: The Brings' Brooklyn basement flat, at all hours
The real person: Jean Kronski · Contested — an orphan from the West (Dearborn) or Martha Andrews of Baltimore (Ferguson)

More people from Crazy Cock

People they knew

Documented connections — every one carries its source.

June Miller

Dancer

Met · 1926

June brought the artist and poet into the Millers' Brooklyn flat in October 1926, and left for Paris with her in April 1927 — the triangle Crazy Cock records and The Rosy Crucifixion retells.

— Mary V. Dearborn, The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller (1991); Crazy Cock — publisher's edition record

Henry Miller

Author

Met · 1926–1927

They shared the Henry Street basement flat from the winter of 1926-27 — Dearborn records that Miller had fallen a little in love with Jean himself, combed her hair and pared her toenails, and plotted to drive her out. He wrote her as Vanya, Stasia, and Thelma for the rest of his career.

— Mary V. Dearborn, The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller (1991); Robert Ferguson, Henry Miller: A Life (1991)

Sourced claims

Every connection the graph holds for Jean, with the evidence behind it.

Depicted in

Crazy Cock

Vanya, the painter-poet who moves into the flat, is Jean Kronski — the artist June brought home in 1926 and left for Paris with in 1927.

— Crazy Cock — publisher's edition record

Met · 1926

June Miller

June brought the artist and poet into the Millers' Brooklyn flat in October 1926, and left for Paris with her in April 1927 — the triangle Crazy Cock records and The Rosy Crucifixion retells.

— Mary V. Dearborn, The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller (1991); Crazy Cock — publisher's edition record

Depicted in

Nexus

Stasia, the third figure of Nexus's household, is Jean: Dearborn writes that Nexus 'was to pick up with the appearance of Jean Kronski,' and Ferguson treats the identification as settled.

— Mary V. Dearborn, The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller (1991); Robert Ferguson, Henry Miller: A Life (1991)

Depicted in

The Time of the Assassins

The preface calls her Thelma: the Rimbaud-obsessed woman whose talk with his wife first put the poet's name in Miller's ear, and whose death he states himself — 'Thelma meanwhile died in an insane asylum.'

— Henry Miller, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud (1956); Mary V. Dearborn, The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller (1991)

Met · 1926–1927

Henry Miller

— Mary V. Dearborn, The Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller (1991); Robert Ferguson, Henry Miller: A Life (1991)