Ischia is the strangest, most haunting and beautiful place; nothing short of a hundred pages could describe it. We have a vast apartment high-up overlooking the sea; already I have the best tan I ever had—the sun is dazzling but the nights are very cold. The boat to Naples takes 3 hours and only goes 3 times a week, so when we go in for a round of city pleasure we have to stay over night. Naples is a mad place.
Tenn & Frankie drove us from Rome to Naples; there is no use going into all the details (and it would look like the London telephone directory if I did) but they got on my nerves so much I was ready for murder. They were coming on to Ischia, but in Naples we all had a terrific falling out and Jack and I proceeded alone.12 However, we had only been here two days when who comes paddling to shore but those two. I could’ve screamed! But they had decided to be forgiving & forgetting (God help me!) and so here they are. We pray every minute they will go away. Taken in tiny doses I’m really very fond of them both, but darling I can’t tell you what it’s been like. They have simply latched onto us like barnacles. Frankie nags T.W. all day and night, and T.W., I have discovered, is a genuine paranoid. Please don’t say anything about this to anyone. I wrote Phoebe, but it is better that no one else hears about it.
But other than that, baby, I am fine—knock on wood. We will stay here until we go back to Paris, which will probably be in June.
I miss you and miss you. Jack says hello. A big kiss for Harold and oodles of love from your
T
P.S. Darling, would you look by the Perroquet and see if it is really closed? I pd. those crooks in advance, and so naturally etc.
[Collection New York Public Library]
TO ROBERT LINSCOTT
Pensione Di Lustro
Forio D’ischia
Naples, Italy
April 1st, 1949
Dear Bob—
What a strange, and strangely enchanted, place this is: an encantada in the Meditteranean [sic]. It is an island off the coast from Naples, very primitive, populated mostly by winegrowers, goatherders, W.H. Auden and the Mussolini family. I have a vast room overlooking the sea: it is wonderful to work in and I am doing quite a lot. Tennesee [Tennessee] W. has been here with us the last week but is leaving today. There is nothing to do but write and read and, thank God, I am reasonably content. The main batch of my reviews have gone astray, but those that have reached me are not too bad all in all and anyway not of that particular milieu where such things are made so much to matter I couldn’t care less. But how does it go? The book, I mean: are you satisfied or is it a disappointment? You can tell me truthfully. I have fine hopes for Summer Crossing, and I feel alive and justified in doing it, but it makes me nervous all the time, which is probably a good sign, and I do not feel like talking about it, which is another.13
I suppose soon now you will have started going to your farm—I hope it will be a lovely spring, Bob, and that all your weekends there will be as good as you are.
I miss you; write me—and best love
Truman
[Collection Columbia University Library]
TO DONALD WINDHAM
Pensione di Lustro
Forio D’ischia
Naples
April 12 1949
Donny dear—
Unlike you, I’m surprised you didn’t get the Guggenheim: who are they for if not for you? You had such a very good list of sponsors I thought you probably would get it. And what of Random. I wrote Linscott a letter, but he has not answered yet. Thank you, dear, for the review. As it was the only even literate one the book got I enjoyed seeing it. Tenn & Frankie have returned to Rome. They have their troubles, and I feel vaguely that we aggravated them; left to themselves I think they get along fine: in the company of others the gestures of lovers become perhaps too meaningful, are thrown too much into relief—especially with two people like T + F, neither of whom is sure of the other.
You ask about [William] Aalto and [James] Schuyler.14 Well, that is a story. They have divorced and in the most dramatic of fashions. According to Jimmy, Aalto is insane, has been insane for a very long time, all of which bothered him not one whit until one night about two months [ago] when Aalto tried to kill him.15 My private suspicion is that there is a great deal to be said on both sides. Jimmy, who is still here, is carrying on an affair with a tiresome little party named Charles Heilleman, Aalto is living in Rome, and sends Jimmy three letters a day, which may be a sign of insanity, but I, the hopeless romantic, think it very sweet, for all the letters say is I love you, come back! come back!
Salvatori is here. He arrived, accompanied by his new keeper, namely Boo [Robert] Faulkner, only a few hours after Tenn left—dear Tenn, lucky to the last. Though I’ve scarcely spoken to him, he seems to be a sweet quiet boy. What a pity, though, that he has to trail around with that broken-down wastrel. He has a picture of you which he carries in his wallet—he likes to show it to people: “My good friend, Donald Windham? You know him?”
So Sandy is staying in the show.16 Does that mean you will be in New York all summer? Would you like to go to Yaddo for a month or two. If so, write to Elizabeth Ames at once, and I will write her, too. You might like it there. I did.
What did you think of The Christmas Tree?17 I thought it good—with about two million reservations.
Give my love to Sandy. I miss you 25 hours of the day. Best love
T
[Collection Beinecke Library, Yale University]
TO JOHN MALCOLM BRINNIN
Pensione di Lustro
Forio d’Ischia
Naples
April 19, 1949
Malcolm dear,
No doubt you’ve had my other letter by now, and your second arrived yesterday. Congratulations on being the new director of the Poetry Center.18 As for your proposal, it seems to me a very nice one, and I should be delighted to comply—though I suppose this depends a little on when such an event would take place: do let me know what date you have in mind.19
Yes, I sent M.L. [Aswell] a proper if rather hypocritical, expression of sentiment.20 What does B. Lawrence have to say about it? M.L. writes me they are coming here in September.
Too bad about Lowell.21 I had a long letter from Newton detailing the whole thing. He sees quite a lot of Burford: innocently, or so he says, and doubtless it is. What sort of person is Burford? I get no picture of him at all. And I wish you would stop teasing and tell me about Bill. For that matter, what has happened to the Boston Bill? You are very lax.
Have you heard anything about my book? It is so very strange—nobody mentions it, not even, in his letters to me, Linscott. I have the feeling that it has evaporated, or, indeed, was never printed at all.
Jack is fine: the most beautiful color. And he is learning how to sail a boat. We sailed all around the island this past weekend. Do you know anything about this boy William Goyen? His story in the March Horizon was, while a very bad story indeed, certainly well written. You ought to try and get him for D.M.22 Best love, [unclear]
T
[Collection University of Delaware Library]
TO ANDREW LYNDON
Forio D’Ischia
April 20 1949
Darling Baby—
Why am I a monster child? My love is with you every minute, watching over you brighter than an Easter star. You and Phoebe [Pierce] are all that I miss. Thank you, precious, for the Guggenheim list. Who are those people? It does quite turn my stomach. What a shame that George did not get it.23 I really hoped he might; but as usual, sister, your prophecies bore fruit.
This is my new letter style—it all looks like blank verse: very blank. Or chicken-shit, as dear Biddy [Helen Eustis] would say.
That’s quite tiresome about Arthur Miller; the only tragedy involved is that, good in some ways as his play is, we should be in a position where there is nothing very much better to applaud.24
I envy you Lee Wiley.25 The phonograph, alas, is broken, so I do not have even that solace. I am terribly bored with the Auden set here. They are really quite impossible. A good many dreary people have shown up in the last week, but we are going to stay on through May, for really it is a lovely place.
We are going tomorrow
