In Touch: The Letters of Paul Bowles

By Paul Bowles and Jeffrey Miller

This extraordinary collection of correspondence by Paul Bowles spans eight decades and provides an evolving portrait of an artist renowned for his privacy. From his earliest extant letter, written at the age of four, to his precocious effusions to Aaron Copeland and to Gertrude Stein; from his meditations on mescaline as relayed to Ned Rorem, to his intensely moving letters to Jane Bowles during her illness, In Touch fills in the lacunae left by previous biographers and offers a rare look at the many aspects of Bowles's brilliant career—as composer, novelist, short-story master, travel writer, translator, ethnographer, and literary critic.

Here is Bowles on the genesis of his first novel, The Sheltering Sky; on his distaste for Western melodies and his dogged attempts to record indigenous Moroccan music; on the Beats, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and Tennessee Williams; on the nature and craft of writing; on Bernardo Bertolucci, David Byrne, and Sting; on the decline of American and the challenges of living in North Africa. Gossipy, reflective, enlightening, and always entertaining, In Touch stands as an epistolary autobiography of one of the legendary writers of our time, and a unique chronicle of the twentieth-century avant-garde.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Oct 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781466882607

Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles was born in 1910 and studied music with composer Aaron Copland before moving to Tangier, Morocco. A devastatingly imaginative observer of the West's encounter with the East, he is the author of four highly acclaimed novels: The Sheltering Sky, Let It Come Down, The Spider's House, and Up Above the World. In addition to being one of the most powerful postwar American novelists, Bowles was an acclaimed composer, a travel writer, a poet, a translator, and a short story writer. He died in Morocco in 1999.

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EARLY LETTERS

TO DANIEL BURNS

Summer 1928

Jamaica, New York

O sugar babe! O girl of my dreams! Oyez! Oyez! How is hell o sugar babe o beloved since I met your sweet lips o blue eyes o red lips! How much is gas? O girl of my Sigma Chi the damned things won’t work o sugar babe! O Monticello! O dream river! O thick meals of grease lucky strike a coca cola why goddamn it o beloved thutty ayut mahls o beloved o red lips before me o camels o chesterfields o Virginia! O god o hell o damn o Virginia! O beloved beloved beloved beloved beloved. Contempt always changes to pity, when understanding opens the door. That is an adage of mine own. Intéressant? As I grow older, all the things I formerly scoffed at become things to grieve over. Think what a soft old heart I shall have by the time I am fifty! You’ll be able to push your finger through it like a creampuff.

My not imaginary illness having long ago passed over, I now feel able to write as unintelligibly as I want to. Unfortunately, I find it slightly less easy to be thus than I used to. Perhaps that is because I have not thoroughly recovered. N’estce pas correct? You never seemed to be able to understand that pure inspiration is bound to be unintelligible, and that until it is refined into something legible or intelligible it is worth understanding, but afterward it is as nothing. The great majority of persons insist upon their brainfood’s being refined, and go so far as to claim that the pure inspiration is worth nothing until refined—that thoughts must be chained, and trained into the narrow passages which society has chosen to understand. You can understand anything if you leave your mind free. From this it is clear that a geologist cannot go on a picnic without stuffed eggs. Nor can Buddha go into the mountains without his barometer.

Jesus lives, and Greenwich Village is most fascinating in August. Suffer the little kids to come unto me and I went avant-hier to the Fifth Avenue Playhouse to see The City without Jews. M. Royé seems to be acquainted with you, of which I may add $3.49 at a bargain. Brass is more sufficient que Elinor Wylie. Of which Jennifer Lorn is exquisite, but of what avail to utter faint praise. All of her romances are exquisite. Mr. Hodge and Mr. Hazard. The Orphan Angel. As to this The Gateway to Life by Frank Thiess, The Magic Mountain and Fools by Thomas Mann are some Germanic literature I have read recently.

Attempt, while you are in London, to purchase transition 13, which so far is unattainable here.

May I retract some? It is when one is sleepy that unintelligibility arrives. I had never realized it before. Drowsiness is exactly the same in my head as Fever, Delirium and Tipsiness. The last mentioned I have experienced but once, and do not need to go through it again, as I can attain the same effect by staying up until one o’clock. And I am positive I should write the same in both cases. Only when mine soul is weighted with physical illnesses do I become pensive and conventional.

As far as I can see, I haven’t said anything, and so I may as well lay this aside. Or perhaps you enjoy this pathological ramble? I always fancied you had a morbid side. If my whim was correct, you must certainly be interested in watching me stagger along like this. And so I shall prod myself a bit farther for your benefit.

Tell me all about England, for I am extraordinarily excited about it. I feel as though the United States were only a temporary exile and England my true home. Which in a way is idiocy and in a way is the truth.

The same two discouraging ladies who in 1927 informed me that I am less than an amoeba, this year decided that I am at the end of a civilization, that I epitomize a decayed civilization, in its last feeble flares to resurrect itself in the eyes of the other civilizations. They maintained that all my paintings and music merely strengthened the case for them, and were representative of imminent death: the final false energy of the moribund. Their absurdities are really the only absurdities of other people I can bear, and probably I can bear those only because they pertain to me. (They have been reading Spengler.)

Mary Crouch, the fascinating person I told you about, is in Vienna exploding all over town. She’s fought with Dr. Adler and Countess Obalowski or some such etymological freak, and rooms at the French Embassy. My eyes are too rebellious for me to see clearly.

TO BRUCE MORRISSETTE

November 16, 1928

Charlottesville, Virginia

At five minutes after ten I darkened the room. I had read my mail, among which was your card of instructions. I laid myself into a pile of cushions on my bed, covered my head tight with a quilt, and uncorked the bottle of ether. It was a few minutes before my extremities began to freeze. Gradual climbing of numbness up and down toward a center. Heart beating furiously. Deliberate long breathing. Abstraction of thought. Suddenly the odor became more pungent. Hot flames of ice poured down my throat and the blankets were soaked with ether. I can remember all the tunes in Petrouchka. The organ grinder tune, the flutist’s piece, the gypsy dance, the pursuit and finale. It’s coming. Whining while I breathed. Today is Wednesday. ABCDEFGH oh God. Shifting a little in position of foot which no longer exists. Something is singing. Several tones. They’re going to stop one by one until only one tone is there and then there is the sea. Columbia the gem of the ocean oh God oh God ABCDEFGHIJK12345—I can remember all the tunes in Petrouchka and the sin of 180°–A = sin A. La mer bleue. An esker, a kame, a terminal moraine. Glaciation. I can remember all my subjects. I’m all right. 1234567 Paul Frederic Bowles. Wednesday. Long breathing. Now—if you can get out of this you shall be saved. Out! Save yourself from eternal damnation! Pushing back of quilt. Gasping on pillow. Corner of mouth all down and jelly and blue. Oh sick! Oh mottle mouth! Oh face of tragic muse! The room is grey and winks. I can still feel stucco of wall. Material of blanket. Gasp slowly. Do you love me? Down! Down! Don’t, Paul! Don’t fall! The fall of Lucifer! Come, darling. I’m getting all right. Snuggle quilt over head. Breathe again into fumble bottle. ABABAB Wednesday. je suis tu es il est elle est nous kimono Columbia the God! Oh God! Only three tones now. Being born. Hospital. Fuzzy slow aaaaah! aaaaaaah! I remember being born. I was blue and soft at the corners of my mouth. Oh sad face! Oh sick lips! I can remember. This is the base. Here! I can still realize that this is the base. I’m going back home. Two worlds. One is daylight and touch. I’m going away to Death’s Black Arms. Oh God! Idiot! Don’t quiver your feet. Lie still. This is the base. Below all our life. How fast is my heart? Move far away. Sink. I’ve spilled mall of the eathe. All eithe all ove. Clearsh. Silly laughing wakes somewhat. The negro maid will hear. Door locked—strange how I remember how one thinks even now. Down! But this is the base below all our life is death. Underground water. A long period of slow involuntary wrenching of lungs. No thoughts. Only tones. One will end. Two will be gone. Only one. It’s a sea of one thick thin tone lasting long.

And then the absurd pushing away of quilt again and raising head. Whole room making fun of me. Sit up. Oh gone daffy down dilly where have you been? Get up onto knees. Look into mirror. Get away. I’m heterosexual. Oh my face! Only one hope. Oh God over and over. Knock over picture of tree in corner. (Still on floor, now) Hang onto black curtain on closet door. Assume crucifix posture, gasping. Remember Mother. Gasps. Think of her now that you’re going away. Fall back into bed. Repetition of all that went before. Hear nothing. No Petrouchka. Where is the base? Oh—God! What comes below? But I can’t!

But what comes below? There’s got to be a base! Run! There’s nothing. Theyvebee theyvebeendeceiving. There’s nothing. Not only noteven on on on no no no

And at half past two this afternoon I arose. No nausea. Only my heart is still crashing at five o’clock. Take me away. Go away. I want to be dead. I taste swollen and sick and delft blue. Anemone. Don’t ever come back again. The whole bottle of ether is empty and was on floor. I threw it sometime. I threw the cork too, but I can’t find that. Augusta ich liebe dich. Dietrich Ostrich. Ich. Sick. Sticky. Go away and never come back. Nothing can ever be beautiful any more. Everything spoiled.

But really no more ether. I have bought a lot more but I don’t want it. Anyone can have it. I won’t bring it to you.

Give us away. Crazy!

Elegy in a Country Churchyard. cos(180°–A) = cosA. feuilles d’automne. Jesus saves. Never again. You’ve got to comfort me.

TO DANIEL BURNS

November 1928

Charlottesville, Virginia

Your letter was slightly depressing, I thought. Don’t tell me you think you’re getting old! And it seems as though I never should be old. Still seventeen, although the happy part of it is that down here everyone believes I’m nineteen. Not that I’ve told anyone such a lie, or even pretended to admit it when anyone remarks about it. In fact, I deny it vigorously, look extraordinarily (more than usual) innocent and say incredulously: but do I LOOK nineteen? I have painted four things since I came. The first was called Sacrifice, and was done in black and white. I sold it to a student. The second was a portrait of Virgin Mary which shocked everyone. The third was Nausea and the fourth The Poet. You will undoubtedly be amazed at my new style, which is almost monochromatic and extremely heavy.

I have composed and written one piece, called Monotonal, and it bores almost everyone. I have made literally dozens of friends and most of them are intelligent and sympathetic. He’s really a good St. Bernard. Watches after children, never shows the slightest sign of temper, obeys— — — $95—bargain.

And I am doing all manner of strange things, one of which is to inhale ether until I am quite drunk. It’s a fad here among some circles.

Last night I saw Dracula. The Count was William Tilden the tennis player, if you can believe it. He behaved most hammily, I thought, although the mob cheered him as though he’d rescued Jesus from the cross.

One sees very little here. Concerts are infrequent. Maier and Pattison came and I heard them. The Barrère Little Symphony came and I heard it. And that’s all. However, this weekend I am going down to Richmond and the Chicago Opera Company will be there for two nights. Don’t you enjoy all these little provincialities?

As I told you, I am making a collection of records, and add to it daily. Think of Bach, Haydn and Palestrina figuring prominently in it, not to mention Gluck and Wagner! I am having a headache and I think it would be wise to rest a bit. I’ve been staying up all night too many nights in succession, and it will indubitably ruin me unless I stop it.

I haven’t written to M. Royer since I’ve been here, and for the love of God please forgive me for writing you such a bromidic and unnecessarily dull letter.

TO BRUCE MORRISSETTE

Spring 1929

Paris

The very possibility of your coming over here helps my morale tremendously. Since I returned from my trip I’ve been depressed—so much so that I haven’t hunted up anyone, or scarcely anyone. It’s the most contemptible of weaknesses: to allow oneself to become depressed, but quoi faire? E adesso io studio italiano, e la lingua è molto incantevole, ma, felicemente, abbastanza facile.* (If you can get the sense of what I’m trying to bleat!) It’s a lot of fun. Gotta do something to get my mind off my inconceivably stupid dejection.

But, old top, I’m serious. Can’t you really come over? And I’m just as serious when I say, your arrival might prevent an untimely suicide. You see — all I’m doing is borrowing money right and left, and it’s discouraging. Not that your advent would stop the borrowing, but it would put an end to the discouragement. I have abso no-one to go anywhere with. All my acquaintances are the appointment kind. Between appointments I lie exhausted on my bed—not physically exhausted, but morally so. And besides, two together can live so extremely less expensively. For example, it’s possible then to cut one’s room expense precisely in half, one’s taxi-fare precisely in half, etc., and—how much happier one is with a companion in Paris! It’s not a city where you feel comfortable alone. Unless you have someone to talk to, the continual effervescence seems futile—the gaiety unnecessary, and one becomes involuntarily embittered.

You want information? You need a passport—for that one must have a photostat copy of his birth-certificate, ten dollars, some photos of his mug, and a witness. Then afterward you need a visa—ten $ more, at the French Consul, French Line Pier, west end of 14 or 15 St. Your boatfare—if you are willing to dispense with lace and incense, you can come over on one of the ships of the Atlantic Transport Co.—Minnesota, Minnewaska, Minnehahah, and several other Minne’s. About $85, in season, I believe. I came Tourist 3rd on Holland-America Line, off-season—$112 complete. In season about $125. You wouldn’t want a pension—God! no! not in Paris. In Nice, it’s very convenient. I lived at one there a week and got out of it très bon marché, but in Paris they’re expensive and hellish, and there’s no chance of eating out at restaurants. As to your health, bosh! Of course it’s important, but I’m just as delicate, if not moreso than you, and I’m as healthy now as ever before. The food is excellent and almost given away, if you go to the right restaurants. Taxi-fares begin at 1 fr. and go up by 25 centimes. That is: four cents for the first ½ kil., and one cent for every ¼ kil. thereafter. Cheap as hell!

You can live comfortably here, including entertainments and everyth. for at most $1.50 a day. That as I say includes room, breakfast brought up to you in bed, tips, meals, taxis and concerts. I bought my ticket an hour ago for the Stravinsky Festival Friday. 6 fr. counting tax—that is: 24¢. And I shall hear Le Sacre! plus L’Oiseau and Petrouchka! The concerts here are marvels, and there are dozens of them.

If you could only come before July, you’d be here in time to see the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, which is the most wonderful exhibit I’ve ever seen.

I was surprised to hear that my records are on sale. I don’t know who’s selling them, or who’s receiving the money they bring. Strange things occur, indeed!

Further — I should enjoy knowing the various theories as to the reason of my leaving Virginia. I’ve no doubt that everyone attached some very sinister or at least disgusting import to my sudden exodus. It doesn’t bother me, but it interests me. Tell me. And tell me, I implore you, if you are coming over. I mean, cable me immediately if you decide to, and then I shall stay here and meet you at the port for the boat-train. Otherwise I am likely to go to England and live at a friend’s home.

If we went to live down in the Alps, from where I just returned, expenses would be considerably reduced further, and it is — — I can’t quite say — it’s too beautiful to try to put into words; it’s the only place I’ve ever seen where I could walk alone for twelve hours and think of nothing but external objects. One day of solitude in the Alps refreshes your mind as aspirin does to a wilted rose. You mayn’t believe it, as C. L. Dodgson says, but I’m not exaggerating. We could stay here in Paris until the tourists became too insufferable, and then we could clear out to any one of fifty little villages I have explored during the past three weeks. If you want my itinerary, voici: — Annecy, La Roche-sur-Foron, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Les Praz, Les Tines, L’Argentière, Col des Montets, Vallorcine, Le Châtelard (Switz.), Tête Noire, Trient, Col de la Forclaz, Sovernier, Sembrancher, Orsières (where I spent Ascension Day, and wrote a piece which I called Ascension Day at Orsières!), Martigny, Territet, Vevey, Lausanne, Geneva, Annemasse, Aix-les-Bains, Chambéry, Grenoble, Aspressur-Buëch (God’s own countree), Veynes, Peyruis, where vermillion poppies grow wild by billions, Digne, Puget, Nice, Monte Carlo, Cannes, Antibes, Hyères, Toulon, Marseille, Lyon, Bourg, Paris.

I’d have stayed in Switzerland in aeternum unless I’d bought an aller et retour ticket that couldn’t be prolonged more than twice; a ticket that forced me to come back to Paris because I didn’t want to have it become void and worthless.

My drawings—I have no idea. My books my mother took home with her (I hope) in the car. She drove down shortly after I left. My records, God save whoever’s selling them. I wrote for them to be sent here.

Yah! I’m going to the Comtesse de Lavillatte’s for tea! Ain’t I gettin’ swell? And I have four poems in the new This Quarter.

But you’ve got to come. For you, as for me, it will mean so much more than a trip to Europe. I had suspected it would. I who discovered that when people said honeysuckle smells sweet they were expressing in words what was utterly inexpressible verbally to me, also have discovered that I cannot tell what I have found here because it means so much more than I can translate into thoughts, and so much more than even yet I realize. It means, as I said, dying and beginning another life. It would mean the same for you. For Pollard, it meant becoming what he hoped to be, more sophisticated. It meant nil.

Get together what you have and viens. I shall share with thee that which I have. Your mother objects—it cannot be otherwise. Mine wrote at first that she would die and acted Verdiesque, but I notice now that she’s bridging, faisant des emplettes, picnicking, etc. comme ordinaire. And I am a fils unique. Yes, you may say, but mine is older, would be sadder, more deeply stricken — — but, mon vieux, the offspring does not live for the old stock. The old stock has fulfilled its purpose. The offspring is ten times more important. It must get away. The old stock becomes reconciled much more quickly than you think. And it means so much to you. And it means (I can’t deny it) so damned much to me. Write. Arrivederla!

TO DANIEL BURNS

Autumn 1929

Manhattan

I was pleased to get your letter. I’m working as you know at Dutton’s and it keeps me so occupé that I have no opportunity to do much else, like correcting papers, much as the cash would aid. Yes—aid, especially now, since I’m no longer living at home, but alone in Greenwich Village. I find it more interesting, if less comfortable, than going to Jamaica each evening. I live at 122, Bank Street, and get home about 6:30 in the evening. Épaté to hear you will give me your transition nos 16 & 17 because they’re all I need to complete my set. I received a copy of Tambour, that little brown French-English review you liked so much, and it had two of my poems. Then I received Blues no 7, with four of mine, and the Morada with one. I love to see them in print. You understand the complex, if it is one. It’s prevalent, anyway.

Whether you meant this Friday to meet you or not I couldn’t tell. You said I go to Columbia on Friday evening. Couldn’t you join me either for dinner before or a movie afterward? My phone here is Plaza 7400 and ask for me. Oh! I saw Martha Marsh Sunday and am to see her again tonight. She wants to see you only she fears you don’t want to see her. Why, I don’t know.

TO BRUCE MORRISSETTE

October 23, 1929

New York City

My latest literary misdemeanor is a four part fugue on sex. The characters are an I, a woman, a curé and a Lesbienne. Someday I shall type and mail it. But this weekend I intend to post you a copy of Tambour no. 4, which arrived last week from Salemson. One exemplaire numérotée, which I keep. I also shall send This Quarter no. 4 which I have discovered was kept out of this patrie curious as it may seem. 1, 2 and 3 are still procurable at advanced prices, and then the first issue of the new series published by Titus and popularized horribly. But no no. 4. My mss. aussi, and a little book of verse in french interesting because the translations from the chinese might as well be in English by Arthur Waley, so much the same impression do the words convey. I like the binding, too, and perhaps you will after a while. You will keep it, at any rate. Two books I read last week are good: The Future of Futurism by John Rodker, rather a scholarly bit of writing (He has contributed to The Exile; and unless my memory tromps me, to transition.) and Lars Porsena, by Robert Graves (!!) an amusing treatise of 75 pages on profanity and obscenity. Really, even he! I am into Jeune Fille by Gerard d’Houville now. Ordinaire comme caporal. Pas d’étui riche!*

The only girl I have ever lost weight lying awake nights for is back in New York. and I had not seen her for 18 months. Reunion. Bonheur éternel! BAISERS INFINIS! Glory! Gorgeous! Préoccupation quotidien. Téléphoner. Cinq heures et demie. The only, the only, the only. ‘Ve given her about three dozen of my favoured discs to play to herself in her room. ‘Ve lent her books, money, everything. Because she really is only, only, only! (Strangely, her ma is Lesb. and her pa an awful rake, from his looks.) ‘S been expelled from every school she’s ever attended, here and en Angleterre. She and I shared our enthusiasm for Stravinsky back in winter 1927–1928 and we heard together L’Histoire du Soldat at its Amer. Première. We saw Eva le G’s Three Sisters together. ‘Twas she who used to injure old Italian crones on Ninth Avenue by tossing empty bottles down from the elevated cars onto their pates. ‘Twas she who used to Charleston on the edge of the parapet of the roof on Central Park South. ‘Tis she who is intimate with drunks and subway guards, who masques as a boy and frequents men’s toilets to read the inscriptions. O merveilleuse! Only! Only! Only!

Honegger—o-neg-guerre. Au moins, à Paris. S’il était français, ça serait—o-neg-jé. Étant suisse, on dit celui-là. Pourquoi, je n’ai pas d’idée, parce qu’il n’y a pas de langue suisse. (Aux Grisons, il y a des dialectes, presque des langues, mais composées d’un mélange d’allemand et de l’italien, autant que je sache.*) Called up Carl Van V. tonight and he says he has a nasty cold!! Visited his quarters last week. Quite gorgeous. De Luxe, Greenwich Village, Harlem, Park Avenue effect. Chinese mainly, with brilliantly colored walls and ceilings. He was garbed also dans la façon chinoise: salmon pink silk shirt open at the gullet, black satin mandarin coat, glowpurple leather slippers, white socks, silver bracelet with large turquoise. He sat for most of the time at a low table of onyx, serving Martinis which were frightfully strong and with which he was admirably generous. His collection of books is breathtaking. And he is fascination himself. His eyes envelop you. He seems to be given to gazing at you for long stretches of time, during which you feel yourself passing in and out of him.

My photographicomposition is one of a dozen or more which I took about two years ago here in N.Y. It is merely a little statue I made, photographed against one of my machinery motifs. She’s mine, all mine. The statue is the only try at sculpture I ever made. I think that year I stabbed into everything: linoleum cuts, woodcarving, primitive design in the three primary colors, making boxes, furniture, photographs, automatic writing, becoming a connoisseur at odors (I did manage that better than anything, although not to any great degree. I collected incense and perfume. Had 28 kinds of incense and knew them all blindfolded, raw or burning. Then I mixed them and got some interesting results. The perfumes I sometimes sprayed into the powder. Ravishing). No, stabbed is not the correct word: pricked!

I object to your aversion to de Falla. He may be cheap, but not any more so than Respighi. The El Amor Brujo is quite magnifique, and El Retablo de Maese Pedro is at least amusing, and Nights in the Gardens of Spain is beautiful. The 3 cornered hat is rather rotten, but so I think is La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin and Beau Soir; also parts of Respighi’s Trittico Botticelliano. Even of El Sombrero de 3 picos or whatever it is I like the Danse du Meunier. (Also de Falla did La Vida Breve. Terrible, I think. Albéniz and Bizet putting together their worst efforts.) Milhaud has a propensity for mixing his major and minor and that’s his most distinctive feature. Van Vechten pronounced Poulenc correctly and he’s the only person I’ve heard who has. (Save Lehman, I must confess, but sh-h!) I like Dukas more, daily. I don’t know La Péri, do you? Mon bien cher (hell!) you most emphatically did call Hilton a blonde I insist, and it’s possible that I still have the letter. You did! You did! A personable blonde, tall etc. … God damn that Farquhar or however the son of a bitch spells his name! He cast aspersions on my taste when he heard I was collecting Arab music. Perhaps he would be forgivable if he didn’t collect Brahms so assiduously. That is, if he were a purist he’d have some grounds for his violent objections to a sociological interest in music. But he is merely 19th siècle. He depressed me intolerably. I never set foot in his nest but once, and had the feeling I was a victim. Perhaps of a defective cinnamon bear. Extraordinary Women and Vestal Fire. Have you read Lady Chatterton’s Lover, Lawrence’s excrement? I skimmed through it one night in Paris, but was unmoved. Sleeveless Errand raised a hubbub in London, but remains unmolested here. In Paris it was on sale in street bookstalls with The Wild Party, Ulysses, The Crimes of Love by good old de Sade, and Frank Harris’s autobiography. However, here raids are taking place in the better bibliothèques. Mr. Marks, who keeps a store in W. 47, told me Sat. that a neighbor of his had been indicted for selling Chansons de Bilitis of Louÿs. Imagines-toi! Mr. Marks sells the books of the Black Sun Press of Paris. Nice Joyce, but $30 for a pamphlet is too much.

You must come to N. Y. I want to see you. Assez de raison! All I can clearly remember of you is your eyes, too clear, and reminiscent of marshes by the sea. But I can always see your eyes looking straight at me, which aids, at any rate. Naïf to the stranger, and frightening critical to the acquaintance.

I have a feeling that my recordlibrary lacks nineteenth century music. That is, true 19th cent. music, like Beeth., Schumann, Chop., Schub, Rossini, etc. (Not 19th Cents. like Wagner, Franck, Moussorgsky, etc.) I think that’s exactly what it does lack. Too much Bach and Bax. Carl v V has Les Biches of Poulenc.

Bon soir — parce que je suis fatigué.

TO BRUCE MORRISSETTE

November 18, 1929

122 Bank Street

New York City

Just heard the Rare Book Manager reading a list of Machen bookprices. First Edition of Anatomy of Tobacco $95.00. Already! Surprising, Amazing. A run on William Blake not so surprising. A new edition of the Urizen at $8.00. But I go on forever. Montague Summers has an unexpected popularity, also. His two tomes on Vampires sell quite well. All this is strange amid tornadoes of demands for Milne’s new book, for Ex-Husband, Farewell to Arms … En Route of Huysmans I want to read. Just now I’m eating Berlioz’s Autobiography. Rather nice. Easy going. Less musical than romantic. My letter to Blues elicited a reply asking if it might be run in the January issue. The ed. called it relevant. Vox Bowlensis. I hope you enjoy the Flute de Jade. I merely skimmed it. But my dictionary gives Névritique, not Néritique as you typed. And you say yours says Neurotique. I prefer that, if possible. When was your lexicon published? It is probably a matter of epochs. Mine is Mid-Vic. Yours is sans doute more recent. The newest includes lyncher, a form of execution, etc. rather to put to death by means of, etc. …

Why are you astounded to find a difference between our outlooks? We are most decidedly antitheses. And as you say I am a paradox in the shell of another in the shell of another in the shell of another and on up into infinity. Inconsistency. But you too have a few incongruities: being able to stand Prokofiev, an unbalanced interest in eroticism, your hair, une couronne raide, your eyes, the windows of a luxurious asylum. I suppose, however, your outlook is more sustained, more intensive and specialized than mine. And I think you have a credo. You have the right to one, even if not. Whereas I, a victim of arrested development, I who have never yet had an adolescence, and have no conception of anything as it is, I have no right to anything save perhaps discipline.

New York is dark. I will be famous. The elevateds blow past at the end of the street making a sound like the winter wind unobstructed in the forest. White grins and snow. Chagall.

All the people in my Bank St. abode know each other. The landlord is the liquorprovider. I shall kill him. He cleaned my room in company with his paramour Saturday and broke the jade off my matchbox (threw it away moreover), knocked down le matin dans la mer, took a large segment out of the second record of the fountains of rome, and filched a box of pall mall (corktipt). The entire house is packed with quarterbaked aesthetes who display their pitifulness more satisfactorily when ivre. Horrible monsters who know no Debussy save la Fille aux Cheveux and L’Après-Midi, who rave inordinately over things like Metropolis, a miscarriage by Grofé which appeared last year, and who do batik in the bathtubs during moments of sobriety. Girls with bushy hair who lock their doors and play Chopin ferociously. Guys who can say nothing but guts and god damn this country. I’m going to clear out. Worse. Worse. Each one I have seen seems to look on me as a discovery and has threescore acquaintances he or she insists that I meet because he or it is positive his or its friends would be interested in me. Never a word about whether I’d be interested in them, in any of them. They all assemble and cook indigestible suppers over kerosene stoves and fireplaces with faulty flues. Oh! Rather garlic, dandelion wine in Little Italy beyond MacDougal St.

Are you coming up Christmas? I advise it. Really do. See the Roerich Musée and Van Cortlandt Park at snowy dawn. Go to Coney on a raining afternoon and smell the ocean, lying on your back at the end of the breakwater. No one will be in sight in any direction. And we must hunt up the new Chinese Theatre, the Thalia having burned. I believe nothing is lost. Do you want the Morada and Blues? If, I’ll post them. The chimes of St. Thomas across the ave. are ringing. Charming. Yes, the no. 4 This Quarter is stagnant. Fresh water that has run into blind channels and backed up. Mine solely a hoax, I admit. But hush. Not Here I am, at least. Write as always, a delicious letter.

TO BRUCE MORRISSETTE

November 29, 1929

New York City

It is such a vilely inclement weather today and the postoffice is such a long walk and I feel so ambitionless with my useless arm that probably the mailing of your parcel will necessarily be remiss until monday. (I enjoy tucking things and things into a parcel, and I enjoy receiving a package into which the sender has stuffed several crops of afterthoughts. I love the shock of finding, besides everything I had expected to be in the bundle, some surprise. Of course I am positive you prefer to ascertain beforehand exactly what is to be mailed you, and so I always divulge the contents to you during a period of several weeks before I finally get to the point of tying it up and going on the gênant pilgrimage to the postoffice with it.)

Wat of Osbert, Edith and Sacheverell?

Please describe me the Sacre. You know I have heard it only once, and I have forgotten (Stupid word for Sacre because there is no remembering or forgetting there. One visits it as one does a garden, walks along the bordered paths and admires the masses of flowers. Each time he may walk along some different route until he has as he believes exhausted them. (He never thinks of making his own paths in any direction he wants, straight across the beds of flowers, into the clumps of shrubs and sitting down behind a hedge to look about. Ceci va sans dire.) And I suppose then he tires of the garden and says it no longer holds any interest for him. It is too late to approach it from any other entrance, and so he visits it only very rarely, to show it to a friend, or to experiment with its colors at unusual times, such as to see the sundial by moonlight, or to see the hollyhocks at sunset on an autumn day. He cannot either remember it or forget it. All he can do is recognize it when he sees it, visiting it.) it almost completely; we will say completely. All I retain is an overmastering rhythm and some low notes somewhere in the interior. Describe it for me in time order.

The only difference I can see between the Romanticist and the Neo-Romanticist is that besides not having had the Realistic school from which to learn lessons (nor the Dadaists nor Surrealists) the Romantic having faith and hoping, wrote as though he had lost it, while the Neo-Romanticist having lost all hope and faith of the kind the Romantic had, makes his faith in his creations. But Jolas says the neo-romantic attitude toward life and art is doomed from the outset because its aim is irrationalism. Be that or be it not, I should never be capable of holding any other than a romantic outlook. In the beginning, romanticism was understood to have originated from a decision that nature in all its manifestations is something which corresponds most nearly with the ideal which man has formed of beauty, no? Before that, generally nature was taken more or less for granted; was seen only in the light of its relation to human activities. The romantic sees all human activities only in the light of their relation to the abstract idea he has formed of beauty. (It is only when romanticism is bound up with morality or religion or convention that it becomes tedious or might one say nauseating.) I am a romantic perhaps pathologically. It is a mania, obsession, psychosis, idée fixe, complex, fixation, whatever you like. Non capivro, but I do know that the romantic conception of nature is so inextricably messed up in my subconscious that I have in some cases absolutely no control over the effects certain phenomena produce on me. e.g.: — I may be reading, completely engrossed by the book. The wind may blow in through the window without my noticing it. In a few moments I am distracted by an oppression. I realize my heart-action has been accelerated considerably. I am forced to reason back through the few preceding instants to discover the cause. I know it is nothing in the book. But if I reread the page, I will find that at a certain passage the heart jumps. At the same time now I am conscious of the breeze which entered and struck my cheek relatively long long ago. I realize that the three things are inseparable: the subconscious registers the breeze and rejoices. At the same time the impression conveyed by the book I am reading reaches the sub. The reflex bangs the heart, forces the blood to my head, causing me enough discomfort to make me cease reading. The second time I can reconstruct the drama; after that there is no reaction. I suppose it is the same principle (the reconstruction) (the reenaction) as the retina-tricks one can do. But the fact that feeling the wind causes any kind of stimulation, especially through subconscious channels, proves to me that an essentially romantic system of behavior has been set up in me by environment sometime during my childhood. I deplore this, not only because romanticism is sadly déclassé, but because I realize romantics are necessarily weak mentally, from the pedantic-materialistic point of view anyway.

TO BRUCE MORRISSETTE

December 13, 1929

New York City

... writing with the new transition, out today, in my cap. It is [word missing] the most important revue published. It does no good to revile it or to ridicule it; it is like the Mercury was a few years ago: it pops up and goes right on like a wartank. Only now it has become an institution. People are using the word transitionish when referring to ultimae thules of any modernism in art. But after all, why not? It deserves its popularity. One recalls the modest natal number, sage green cover, looking like a thin roman à 10 fr. now an elephantine thing. 295 pages, red and yellow cover by Schwitters (the man of Hannover about whom I told you, he who gives vocal sonatas at home), with the inscription: transition no. 18. from instinct to new composition, word lore, totality, magic, synthesism. Its table of contents is divided into six parts: the Synthesist Universe (or Dreams and the Chthonian Mind), Little Anthology, Explorations, Revolution of the Words, Work in Progress (J. Joyce) and Narrative. The Synthesist Universe uses at least six score words that nobody ever heard of, but which can all be found in the unabridged. The Anthology seems excellent, with such as Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, Bravig Imbs (still my minion) and Edgar Calmer. Explorations devotes itself in the main to cutting Joyce up into millions of little pieces and tagging them: Asyndeton, Hypotyposis, Chiasmus, Auxis, Paregmenon, and on and on. The Revolution of the Word is engrossing, consisting as it does of lengthy articles and poems in la nouvelle française, cette langue amusante; also of a tale in what Jolas names palaeologisms. The Work in Progress as usual is obscene and guffawing and Narratives are quite good.

I am tired of modern décor. The time’s up. It must go on. Rather it shows unmistakable signs of crystallization and rot. It will linger on commercially, but aesthetically, adieu as far as I am concerned.

C’est tout fini entre la Seule et moi. Je l’ai présentée au garçon qui habite la chambre directement au-dessus de la mienne, et maintenant chaque soir elle vient le voir, sans me regarder. Plus d’évènements dramatiques!! Et rigolamment, lui, il est amoureux de trois filles et cinq garçons.*

I have been devoting all my time to travelresearch. I am charting a journey from Casablanca to Bergen. It will be stupendous. If you weren’t coming up I should do it alone, starting in March. But if you are coming (in June?) we will go ensemble. Right? Then of course the complete itinerary will be reversed: from Bergen to Casablanca. Bergen, down to Oslo will be épatant, and I have roadmaps with distances. Then on down to Göteborg, Hälsingborg, Kjöbenhavn (scarcely recognizable as Copenhagen to me), Schleswig, Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen, Oldenburg, Apeldoorn, Grave, Gheel, Liège, where we can visit Georges Linze and the Belgian avantgarde, Mersch, Luxemburg, Thionville, Metz, Nancy, which has a townhall I did not see when I was there, Charm … [letters missing] Épinal, where I bought some green apricots (a charming, yes, town), Remiremont, Vesoul (a dull place—even its name), Besançon, which I must see, Champagnole, Gex, Bellegarde, Rumilly, a gorgeous, gorgeous town (only the ones I comment on are the ones I happened to stumble on, on different trips. I’ve never been to the others). Aix-les-B, Chambéry and Montélimar, to all of which I paid short visits. And we shall go through the château at Chambéry together. I didn’t. It was closed. Across to Aosta and on to Lugano, then to Menaggio and Gravedona, Chiavenna and Davos, where two dévoués of Mann are staying. You, they and I have much in common. From Davos to Zernez, Santa Maria (I am doing this at lunch in a restaurant. Don’t think I’m looking at a map. It would hurt my vanity), Merano, to Venézia, Trieste, Fiume, Ragusa (Dubrovnik, in Slavic) and across to Bari from which we can make a sidetrip (much as I detest sidetrips) to the Castle of Otranto, south of Bari, back to Auletta … [letters missing] and down to Messina, Cefalù and Palermo. Palermo to Tunis (another sidetrip up to Carthage) and then 2122 km. across through Oran to Casablanca. One may ask — yes — a dead end — where to then? But from Casablanca we can go anywhere necessary by ship for practically nil: that is, Paris for $16 or so (remember, the trip is on foot and takes about a year) (no, about 40 weeks). Starting in June is rather late. But 3 mo. across from C. to Tunis makes it the end of Sept. which is very bad all around. We must start from Bergen and end up in Maroc or wherever we’ll be in March or something. It will make it fall, through Rumilly region. What more celestial, and the cold days will be saved by the Italian sun in December.

You will get a passport and I shall get extra visas for mine. You must write and modify my plans because I shall return home to save money for the journey. In the interim I shall continue adding mileages and days. (You will notice I have kept as much as possible in the countries which have a low currency value, avoiding Germany & Switzerland.)

Écris et pardonnes ce furor.

Tu peux, je le sais.*

TO BRUCE MORRISSETTE

December 30, 1929

Hotel McAlpin, New York

You write too seldom. I suppose you’re being dragged as you put it from person’s house to person’s house. The holidays are uneasy unpleasant days. It is so much more peaceful and encouraging when everyone has shipt back off to college and left the city behind. However these days are the same as all other days to me and I am glad of it. It is one the morning of my birthday. A nineteenth one. So old and so little to show for it. Discouraging. But I suspect one feels so much worse one’s twentieth. I wonder if I shall see my 20th? Probably.

A good play is Death Takes a Holiday. Philip Merivale. Banal in material but delightful in treatment. I am going to Tudor City New Year’s Eve.