Princess Margaret came to Ischia yesterday and we threw flowers from the balcony. Quel camp. And in the evening I gave a dance-ball on the roof with lanterns to assist the moon and Tears-of-Christ punch to assist the spirit. Chester Kalman [Kallman] and Jimmy Schuyler and Ralph Pomeroy42 came in drag: rather amusing, though I don’t like Chester.
A kiss for Harold,
and a thousand tenderresses [sic] darling
T
[Collection New York Public Library]
TO PEARL KAZIN43
Pensione di Lustro
Forio D’Ischia
May 16 1949
Poil my Pearl—
Wasn’t that clever, the way I got you to write me a letter? But really, darling, you don’t know how grateful I am: recieving [sic] mail is a serious problem when you are as cut off from the world as we are. But little scraps keep drifting in, such as Mr Pomeroy: an ambitious young man—can he write? Anyway, he has gone away, but there are others, horrors like B. V. Winebaum, who says he knows you: wherever from, dear.44 But Jack and I live an isolated life—both of us working very hard. I have a good start on my book, and, with any luck, should have something like a draft finished before coming home. Nothing amusing happens: except I’ve taken to baking cakes—is that amusing? Also, Jack caught a rabbit and we made a rabbit stew. Before that, I had a pet bird, but it flew away before we could find a suitable recipe. Aren’t we cruel?
If, as you say, you are happy for no reason, how wonderful. That is the best kind of happy to be: so airless and independent. All other kinds of happiness seem to depend on someone else. But it is a lovely thing, that feeling you describe: like a seagull with a fish in its mouth.
The Pulitzer prizes are as shocking as usual. Peter Viereck, indeed.45 Thought the Guggenheim list very odd, too. Still, can’t get very interested. Have been reading for the first time Miss Austen: loved Emma, got a little wearied with Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey has worn me plumb out. E. Bowen’s To the North is a beautiful novel, don’t you think?46
Who misses you? None more than Truman:
Who loves you? everybody but especially Capote—
otherwise known as →
T
P.S. Write me a sweet letter.
P.P.S. Is Richard Hunter in Europe?
[Collection Pearl Kazin Bell]
TO ANDREW LYNDON
Forio D’Ischia
May 17 1949
My own and most precious baby—
2 letters, one right after the other; what joy—but, alas, how sad, for I can’t expect another for oh so long. Loved the Look cunt; gave me just the biggest thrill.
You ought to make all those gentlemen in distress chip in and buy you a mink. Really, isn’t Newton shocking: that shows such lack of taste and so little real regard for you. He doesn’t see people, as it were. Having him out of my head is like being rid of a tumor. As for C.I [Christopher Isherwood], I suspected what was wrong; furthermore, I think he is trying to pave the way toward a proposition. Ironical how all these things turn out. But darling, is it [Bill] Caskey47 or Christopher who is being loud and drunk in cheap dives? There was an ambiguity in your phrasing. That shared income system is screaming! I wish you would write Chris just so we could find out more.
So the Massey-Bigelow’s are coming back to Big Town.48 I should think they would run an excellent book-record shop. Really, it would be the ideal thing for them. How do other people get the money for such things. It would take about $50,000 I should think. You mention Bill Hope; but how is he? Is he absolutely well? Donny wrote me that you ran into Sandy at Diable. Sandy, as you may know, has been fired from Streetcar. And Donny, poor dear, is still without a publisher: everybody has turned down the book. It really is stupid.
Jack survived the cake, and I made toll-house cookies last night. Jack caught a rabbit and we made rabbit stew: it was delicious. My real life, though, seems to have become all involved with the book: it is becoming difficult to say where one begins and the other ends.
I think your witch-idea charming and delightful, perfect for someone’s October issue. Do send it to me now. I want to see the result of your operation on Miss Jenkins, too. Don’t forget about the bathtub full of potato salad.
A long letter from Sister Pierce—who sounds very chipper. I wish she would finish her story. She doesn’t mention it this time.
That friend of George Davis used to spend every summer at Shelter Island.49 He seemed to like it awfully. I hope you do go there. I’m sorry, though, that you have to go to Macon, especially in June, when it is so hot.
My lungs have about given out under the impact of these manure-filled Italian cigarettes. Though I live to be a 1000, I shall never get accustomed.
The nerve of Fritz Peters! Finistere—is that the title of a book?50 He makes me vibrate. Someone ought to shake him till his teeth fall out—that, I dare say, they would do very easily.
We leave here June 6, and will be in Paris a week or ten days; I will let you know a new address as soon as I do: it will be somewhere in Brittany, I think. But write me again here, and then American Express, Paris.
Jack says hello! hello! and love to Harold from me. Across the room I see someone in a mirror who says he loves you: who is he? why,
that’s
T
[Collection New York Public Library]
TO DONALD WINDHAM
Pensione di Lustro
Forio D’ischia
[Late May or early June 1949]
Donny dear—
Indeed, I would be only too delighted to take some pictures of swimmers and send them to you: alas, there are none! These fraidycat wops won’t dip their toes in the water until mid-July: our own bathing activities shock them profoundly.
We are leaving here June 14th—and going directly to Paris—then, a week or two later—somewhere (I think) in Brittany. But write me here so that I will hear again from you before leaving.
Whittlesey House used to be rather dreary; but they are vastly rich, and have in the last year decided to go high-brow: they lured away a lot of top-flight people from other publishing houses (including E. C. Aswell from Harpers) and have poured great sums into the project. What about Vanguard—poor but good. Or William Sloan Associates—who are really top-flight.
Saturday’s Rome Daily carried a brief item about T. Heggens [Thomas Heggen’s] death: it was so ambiguously phrased that I didn’t have the slightest notion of what had happened. It sounded like suicide. Was it?51 Or do you know anything at all about it?
There is another war on between the Santa Lucia crowd and the Di Lustro (our) set. Bu Falkner [Boo Faulkner], of the Di Lustro, is under fire from the S.L. because they claim he is overpaying the local trade: he pays 300 Lira and they give 200. Remember those thousands in Venice?
I’m working on an idea for a comic-strip: Super-queen. “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Super-queen!” Speaking of super-queens, did you hear P. [Paul] Bigelow was coming back to N.Y. to live. He’s going to be in the jewelry business: better put everything in the safe, dear.
I love your new song—even though it doesn’t have quite the pathos of Don’t Speak to Me Before Dark.
Where is Tenn now? I seem to have lost track. Is he in Paris? The [Paul] Cadmus entourage are in Florence, and creeping southward like the plague.52
Well, Donny dear (why do you call yourself Don? it’s so unsuitable), write me a 2 page letter. Love to Sandy (“Everyman’s Favorite Candy”) and oodles of passion from your pasta-weary
Sister
P.S. Salvatore has departed for the army.
[Collection Beinecke Library, Yale University]
TO ANDREW LYNDON
[Forio D’Ischia, Italy]
[3 June 1949]
Baby sister—
That’s a shame about the apartment: do you imagine there is some cabal against you? Darling, I hope this reaches you before you get off to Macon—not that I have anything important to say: after all, I’m still here on Forio with a lot of goats and donkeys. We are leaving the 14th. Do you remember that material I told you about in N.Y. and said I would send if I could find any. Well, I’ve looked here and everywhere else from Venice to Florence with no luck. However, I did find
