B007RT1UH4 EBOK (43 page)

I’m afraid I’m getting in a mood for Paris.
Will
you be there?

All best wishes to you both,

W. Gaddis

Recognitions: probably a reference to the Clementine
Recognitions
: see 23 November 1953.

To Edith Gaddis

24, rue de la Chaussée d’Antin

Paris IXe

10 october, 1950

dear Mother,

I’m sorry the troubled mind I’ve given you, again, over my where-abouts, and the wild moment over a check for 20$. It all worked out. I got back from Barcelona, there it was with many other letters, each from a friend with some monumental disaster of his or her own. Do you think I should start out all over again, choose my friends from BBD&O? I do believe you must feel that way by now. Maybe even that I should be bbd&o too. And so, at anyrate, I got out of Spain with 5pesetas, just enough to tip a porter, and after a last meal in Barcelona (I in the restaurant, to an old woman: How much is a tortilla with potatoes (a potato omelette); she: With two eggs? 8pesetas. I: How much is it with one egg? she: 5pesetas. I: Give me a tortilla with one egg . . .) and got into France, arriving in Paris next morning with 11francs (4¢). Washed, dressed, up to Unesco, and I shan’t describe what passed there, enough to say it was consistent with every other payment-experience in the past. But I finally did get part of what they owe me, so I’m getting on well enough here now. What will happen next I do not know.

Barney is no where in sight, so I don’t know what monkey-business he has managed about this flat (there was a letter waiting from him in Barcelona wanting to borrow 20,0000francs . . . imagine). Perhaps, of course, he has payed the rent. In case not, though, I move quietly in and out, not especially wanting an interview with the old woman (landlady) until I have one with the young man (Barney). The only relics I have of him are three disgraceful pairs of flannel trousers, one very sad pair of Chaplinesque black shoes, and every newspaper printed since I left.

This morning a wire from the English painter I met in Palamos, saying he’s on his way to Paris. He will have to sleep in the sink, that’s all.

Juancho proves to be great fun to see again after so long; though he has managed a moustache which goes down at its ends and gives him greatly the sad old Chinaman look. He looks much older. He says he cannot get over how well I look (having seen me only in semi-desperate circumstances with shirts held together by adhesive tape &c). He looks much older. He says he cannot get over how well I look, so it may please you to know that I look well. To counterbalance the enclosed photo-, taken on the street in Barcelona where, as you see, I was sporting about disguised as a young gentleman. This will, anyhow, give you a picture of my New Suit. Also my new Shoes. Also my new linen waistcoat, my new stick, and someone elses old shirt. Also the Barcelona lions, which surround Columbus who is standing atop a column pointing toward New York. [...]

Don’t worry about sending extra money. Don’t worry about Margaret and I married next week. Of course if she does appear here this afternoon wanting to get married there won’t be much to do but marry her. As everything stands though, I don’t expect her. I’ve decided it’s safest for me to make my own plans, centred about finishing a first draft of this novel before Christmas; then if Margaret suddenly comes up with some wild and immediate presentation of herself, I can, as you know, change any plans of mine with real Barney-esque alacrity. So don’t worry about extra money until there’s a decisive sound from that young lady. She writes many splendid letters, but I think it will take her a little while to pull herself together, marriage-wise. It might even be before Christmas. That would be remarkable. Then I would most certainly be sending a handful of wild letters, cables, wires asking for a loan. Meanwhile I read books and try to write one. [...]

with love,

W.

BBD&O: New York advertising agency founded in 1928.

WG in Spain: top, in Barcelona, 1950; bottom, in Seville, spring 1951.

To John Napper

Paris

19 October 1950

dear John.

I’m sorry to be so long answering: Paris is just what it always is, the endless round of people, wild-eyed schemes, re-encounters, disasters, new projects, conversation, adding to that future which, like the past is liable to have no destination. I’ve been busy since arrival drinking beer at Lipp’s sidewalk terrace, re-adjusting my homestead, shaking hands, playing charades, waiting for you after your telegram and meaning to write you after your card, and trying to make my mind up about staying here or going to London until December holidays. And I’ve finally decided to stay here. Largely because I have this comparatively comfortable place to live, at least I’m fully familiar with it and this room is a good one to work in. Tomorrow morning I intend to open my avalanche of folders and papers and look at what I did in Palamos. Somehow I believe it won’t look as good here as it did there. And settle down to finish it by the end of the year. Of course there are such passing temptations as a motor trip to Tel Aviv, something about buying a car here and selling it there after a journey through Greece Yougoslavia Turkey and whatever else lies between, but I hold off such distractions, —unless someone actually appears at the door with the car . . .

But I still intend to get to London within the next two months, and thank you again for your renewed invitation, I shall take advantage of it certainly. When the weather gets a little colder, when your pond is frozen over. For the moment it seems most sensible for me to sit right down here and get to work. The notion of wandering around London looking for a satisfactory place to live, to work, in the worst fog season I understand, with no comprehension of pounds-shillings-pence (& guineas and florins and half-crowns) (guineas and crowns which don’t exist but everyone deals in them), I imagine time and money going and gone, and I still loose in that fog with my sheaf of papers. And so as soon as these charades stop I’ll sit down and work; and as soon as that drags I want to come over, and let you know well enough in advance. The trouble with this room is that I’ve spent so much time here being lazy that it’s not like that industrious confinement in the hotel Condal, where the moment I entered about the only thing in my mind was the only piece of personal furniture in the room, this typewriter; but here there are distractions on every hand, some with corks and some with legs and voices. There are even books to read. And Charley Chaplin in
City Lights
.

Barney, who was at the University of London, is going over in a day or two, intending to finish his thesis. We’d thought we might settle down together, mutual encouragement to exemplary life of industry, but we have never set one another such examples before, and right now can do no better than charades it appears. That is what is going on in the room right now, which may explain any disjointed-ness in this note. I hope to write you a better soon, and to see you within six or eight weeks. Meanwhile let me know if there is again the chance of your coming over here, believe me, you’ll be most welcome in the charades.

best wishes to you both,

W. Gaddis

future [...] no destination: from part 3 of Eliot’s “Dry Salvages”: “We cannot think [...] of a future that is not liable / Like the past, to have no destination.”

City Lights
: one of Chaplin’s best-known films (1931).