B007RT1UH4 EBOK (51 page)

Have you been troubled by dancing girls and camels in the mail? Well, it will all be explained presently, I trust, if David Tudor Pole gets back to London alive. He left here headed vaguely in that direction.

The truth is, we have just escaped from Africa. Or, to go further back, he showed up here one day in late february bound for Libya in an Austin, and two hours later I had assembled what there was of myself at hand and we were gone. Unfortunately I can’t immediately give you my picture of Africa, still trying, here now, to sort it out for myself . . . the girl with the safety-pin in her ear in Bou Saada, the broken truck spring and tea in the Zintan pharmacy, the sick arab in the back seat and Saturday night in Sfax, the subterranean lunch with the sheik of Nalut, the Sudaness who served cognac as a beveridge with supper, and the Berber friend in Fes who shared his highly suspicious pipe, the Foreign Legion at Sidi-Bel-Abbes, the bacarrat table in the casino at Algiers, and Easter in the Casbah, the expensive beer-drinking party in Biskra, the twenty-some seat gentlemen’s lavatory at Leptis Magna . . . all this, and so much more.

I have never before realised how fond I am of Sevilla. And to have your letter waiting here, with questions about P. Sta Maria, was delightful; because only hours before, driving up from Cadiz, I had said I wanted to stop and look around at Sta Maria, which we did. I shan’t try to describe it here, because I’ve asked David to look you up and deliver something, also to give you at first hand his description. It is a larger town than one would think at first look, and has always had a substantial English colony, largely because of the distilleries. It is different from Sevilla largely in that most of it seems to have been planned and laid out, with streets crossing at unsympathetic right-angles, not the haphazard maze that happened here. But I understand that the English colony has greatly dwindled at Sta Maria since the war, which (no offense) recommends it. I shall try to get hold of some post card pictures here, if any are available.

As I should have said first off, how splendid for you that the 1000gns is assured! That is one of the best pieces of news in another’s life I have heard in so long. For you cannot imagine the letters which were waiting here when I got back, all I believe except yours reflexions of disaster, most especially those from the US. And now for the most distressing, and absurd piece of news from me, simply that I am going to New York in about a month. Absurd; and if you could see Sevilla now you would understand; it is the most wonderful place I have encountered, and really sitting here with the rush curtain drawn down over my balcony, and the rattling of a bottle-cart on the paving stones below, the notion of Manhattan is an absolutely insane one. But I must go back, at least as we say here, years of living among the breakage, and those strained time-ridden faces distressed from distraction by distraction . . . I don’t know. But I’d hope to settle once for all.

Incidentally, did you ever receive 8 packets of Ideales sent from here in February? and 8 packets of Bastos Flor Fina sent from Algiers? Well, shoulder the sky, my lad, and pass the can (Malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man). How I wanted to send you a ham from here, but they were beyond me.

But the Fair is coming. Not, I believe, that there is not always the Fair here. Right now, we locals are busy stringing canvas up over narrow streets, telling the ugly tourists that it is protection against the sun, but really it is simply to give the place the atmosphere of a large circus tent interior. And it never ends, the singing and the dancing and the handsome people, though the Fair will augment it, 8 excellent bullfights and hundreds of casetas, those small canvas rooms where drink is served, —served, drunk, spilled, offered, hurled, . . . menaced by monsters, risking enchantment, and afterwards piles of broken glass, and
that
is the kind of carnage testament to Living, not 1000 lost golf balls. (Do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly . . .)

And then on the metalled ways that point back. Oh, I feel such a fool trying to write this; saying and believing the absurdity of this transatlantic direction, and taking it. And so the Fair will be a final debauch and farewell, final only in a sense of finality of this trip which has lasted almost 3years, final in that it will I hope to God only be a point of returning and that you will see me sitting in a state of senile collapse at the portside in Santa Maria when you come there with your canvas and your brushes and your cooking utensils. God it must be that way.

Or you see, they would think, he is now involved in something calculatedly riotous and degeneratedly insane, the Feria at Sevilla, but he returns to sobre living. When I know that this is living, and what they have is insane, is the highest level of calculated insanity ever achieved. I have seen the ruins of Leptis Magna, marble at odd angles; and Sevilla’s fair, broken glass piled high; and now New York, already in ruins though they do not know it. Aie . . .

I shall write you soon again now, but at the moment . . . well, I did want to thank you for your letter, to explain those girls and camels, to note my absurd news and congratulate you on your good news, and now another cart passing shakes the whole house, and I’ll go down. I won’t say I’m going down on business, on work, on something pressing, that I have to answer 14 letters, that they are waiting for me to open the Cortes, or lay a cornerstone, cut a ribbon to open another concrete way toward Progress (and a future which, like the past, is likely to have no destination . . .) —No, I am going downstairs, through the patio and out the iron gate and up past the charcoal-seller’s shop, down a narrow street and turn right into a narrower one, past the old woman selling lottery (cinquenta iguales para h-o-y . . . cinquenta iguales me quedan . . .) and out into the sunlight, through the orange trees in the Plaza de la Magdalena, past the fountain, toward a sparkling glass,

and all best wishes—wait for the early owl

W.

—Well, I just came back in from that pre-prandial tour, to find Isabelle has washed my whole floor again. And I cannot tell you, I cannot tell you what Sevilla is—if you are lazy, no-good, hopeful of miracles (of a minor nature certainly in the sight of God) as I am.

the girl with the safety-pin [...] Leptis Magna: cf.
R
877–78 and 895, where WG used many of these details.

P. Sta Maria: El Puerto de Santa Maria, a little northeast of Cádiz.

distracted from distraction by distraction: a line from part 3 of Eliot’s “Burnt Norton.”

Idealis [...] Bastos Flor Fina: Spanish cigarettes.

shoulder the sky [...] God’s ways to man: a mashup of lines from A. E. Housman’s “The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux” (1922) and “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff” (1896).

Do not let me hear [...] their folly: from part 2 of Eliot’s “East Coker.”

the metalled ways: part 3 of Eliot’s “Burnt Norton” concludes: “while then world moves / In appetency, on its metalled ways / Of time past and time future.”

a 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.” (cinquenta [...] me quedan): “Fifty tickets today, I’ve got fifty tickets.” wait for the early owl: a line from “East Coker,” part 1.

To Edith Gaddis

Sevilla

19 April 1951

dear Mother,

Probably by the time you have this—well, heaven knows: we’ll likely have been through all sorts of cabled confusion, even telephonic. But I write this to confirm plans in the cable I sent you last evening [...] I’ve found a modest Norwegian motor-boat which is due here the 22nd from Genoa, and due to sail to New York the 24th. I’ve taken passage but the complication is, of course, payment, after the way American Express has arranged things for me. [...] If this has not worked out, don’t be concerned over this letter; I shall try to make some arrangement here, or wait until another boat shows up. But if it has worked out, the agents (Boise Griffin Streamship Co, 90 Broad street, NYC 4) can keep you posted on when the
Nyhaug
is due in, should be the 4th–6th of May. And what pier. [...]

Otherwise, the only thing I think of is would you reserve a room for me at the Harvard club, or the Algonquin (whichever is less expensive), planning to stay in town for 2 or three days, then out to frigid studio . . . where I’d think to go alone and have things in some order for you when the weather signals you to come out. I’ll probably need a couple of weeks there alone to collect myself. I’m quite nervous about the whole thing, to tell the truth.

And that seems to be all. I know you’re probably in a stew right now over what is happening to me; I’ve put off writing you these last few days expecting some definite word to send you. But be assured that I’m fine, here, the fair in full flowery swing, excellent bullfights, (there are 5 more) and invitation to two fancy casetas (the drinking tents of familys) on the fair grounds, where I’m going this afternoon. Otherwise, handsome men and handsome girls riding pillion on handsome horses, handsome carriages, gallons of Manzanilla, singing and dancing.

with love,

W.

To Edith Gaddis

Sevilla

[24 April 1951]

dear Mother,

Last minute wildness-es; [...] I’m afraid you’re going to have to come to the Erie Basin, Brooklyn’s shade, to find the
Nyhaug
, but there we will be, modest and without shame. I trust. And I’m afraid I’m going to arrive not as neatly as I set out, rather with an assortment of boxes, quite gipsy and not stylish; and don’t know what to suggest in the way of meeting, if you’ve a car there or what. Your new car? Oh dear. As I said, I’d plan to spend 2 or 3 days in town, if you’ve made reservation at Harvard club or the Algonquin, the latter might be best since there you could ‘visit’. But modest, and with out bath, I hope to be clean on arrival.

As for the boat, I’ve been down to look at it; and for all its smallness (slightly larger than the banana boat from central America), my cabin is really good, I hope you’ll see it; and I am the only passenger . . . SO. Honestly, such a much more excellent way to travel than the balloon dining room of tourist boats. I talked with the captain[,] very pleasant fellow, suppose I’ll be dining with him, quietly & well.

Finally thanks for your letter just received, and for all that, for the return &c, I’m quite nervous. Well, we’ll see about that. Present plans to sail tomorrow 25th, arrival about the 5 May, that can be affirmed with the agent.

nervously, love,

W.