[Collection Unknown]
TO MARY LOUISE ASWELL
Taormina, January 23, 1951
Marylou darling—
After a great deal of switching back and forth, I guess we’ve arrived at the only sensible conclusion, which is not to come home. I did want so to see you, see my friends; but I suppose it would be idiotic of me to make such a move before my book is finished. I hope, darling, I’ve not put you to much trouble—about a house, I mean.173 I feel a great relief now that we’ve decided to stay.
I guess you will be seeing Pearl in a few weeks time; that is if she does take the plane-ride. I don’t frankly think she should—she has been doing some good work on a novel, and I’m afraid, without more of a head start, all that will go up in smoke when she hits New York.
It is the most beautiful day, ravishingly springlike, with oranges and roses and almond blossoms all sweetening the air. I do, do wish you were here.
Jack has finished ¾ of his book, and it is remarkable—so different from anything he has done and by far the best.174
Has Leo returned, and safely, from his junket? I have been very annoyed, not so much with him as with Linscott who, for reasons I cannot fathom, let Leo read some chapters of my book. It makes me really wild! I would like however, in a month or two, for you to see what I’ve done. I will arrange it after I’ve finished what I’m doing now.
Darling, I want such good things for you. Did I write you what Franz Warmik [unclear], the wonderful German fortuneteller, said? Yes—I think I did. Please write me. Dearest love
T
[Collection Aswell Family]
TO ANDREW LYNDON
Taormina
Feb 1, 1951
Sweet One,
We are having a sudden cold snap—that is, my fingers are snapping off. So excuse the handwriting and general numbness.
Anyway, we won’t be coming home in April—it would be rather ridiculous to interrupt my work at just this juncture. I’ve no idea when I will go back, but doubt that it will be before late summer. So I hope you will stay happily undisturbed at 232. The only sad thing is I’ve wanted so to see you. But it will be all the better when I do.
Pearl is leaving on Sunday—going to Germany for a week, then home. She should be there the middle of the month.
Darling, how goes the job? I should think it would be fun, at least at first. But I hope it does not leave you too tired to do work of your own.
This is Carnival week in Sicily; there is a great dance in the piazza tonight, and I am working on a most elaborate mask of feathers and sequins.
I haven’t heard from Phoebe in very nearly two months. I don’t know her address; could you tell me? Because I do want to write her.
Did you ever see the Agee story in Botteghe Oscure? I’ve just read a beautiful book called The Face of Spain, by Gerald Brennan [Brenan]—published in England by The Turnstile Press.175 He is the one who wrote that wonderful piece in the New Yorker last August—about looking for Lorca’s tomb.
What happened to the Rose Tattoo?176 I heard T.W. had bought a house in Key West and was going to live there with Frankie and the mad sister. It’s best, I suppose, to have the source of your inspiration right on hand.
Darling, I can’t bear it, my hands are ICE! Please write me. I love you so very much.
T
[Collection New York Public Library]
TO MARY LOUISE ASWELL
Fontana Vecchio [sic]
Taormina, Sicily
Feb 21 1951
Darling Marylou—
So happy to have your letter; I began admonishing you for not writing. See that you do, for, as Pearl will tell you, we die for mail; there is nothing more bitter than those fruitless long walks to the p.o.
I wish I did have a story to send you. I long so to write one, and maybe, when I finish the next chapter, I’ll take just such a ‘vacation’. Jack hasn’t written any stories either. I do think you will like his new book. Nor have I read any good new stories. Nothing happens here—or nothing interesting unless you are familiar with all the characters. I guess by the time this reaches you Pearl will be home; I hope, in her new job, she will have time to work on her own writing.
Honey, do you see Phoebe at all? I know the mess she’s in is a good deal her own making—but there are, as you know, so many extenuating circumstances. I understand, though I’ve not heard from her in some three months, that she has had a kind of breakdown. The way some people have deserted and slandered her is shameful. I wish you would have lunch with her. She respects you, and you just might be able to give her some encouragement.
It’s really beautiful here now, and I’m getting quite tan again. Poor Pearl, I’m afraid she got the worst of the month. But even where you are, darling, winter is very nearly over—I hope you have a wonderful spring. I hope that because I pass over your terrible problems you [don’t] think me indifferent to them: it is only that I feel that, like this winter, they are in the past, and will grow more so: put out new leaves, you can, it is in your nature. I love you tenderly. And love from Jack.
T
[Collection Aswell Family]
TO ANDREW LYNDON
Fontana Vecchia
Feb 28 1951
Darling lamb—
I could shake you, really I could: nearly 2 months and not a peep. Whatever are you doing? Which reminds me: two letters addressed to Phoebe at the Hotel Seville have been returned. Where, then, is she? She hasn’t written me since early December.
All goes quietly on this front; I work along steadily, though the going grows more difficult. It is so very difficult to sustain. I have about sixty pages more—but they face me like Kilimanjaro. I wish you were here to encourage me.
I’ve started myself a new wardrobe—a foolhardy enterprise considering my finances. First off, I sent my measurements to Ferragamo in Florence and he has made me the most beautiful pair of black shoes. I’m afraid to wear them—and anyway Jack won’t let me: says I must save them, I don’t know for what. Then I’ve had three suits made out of a strange kind of flat velvet—to die, honey. Trouble is, I’ve no place to show off this finery.
You remember that famous wooden chandelier, the one Harold bought from me. Well tell him I’ve bought two exactly like it: $25 a piece. Now if he wants me to buy one for him I will do so.
What happens with your job? It’s so mean of you not to have written me any of this.
I read Finisterre, Mr [Fritz] Peter’s [sic] latest drivel.177 Mechanical, so poorly written, so predictable—couldn’t bear it. And you? Or did you bother? I had a letter from Marylou, who said IT178 was living in Arizona and getting a divorce. She doesn’t know how lucky she is—just to be alive.
We’ve got to wash Kelly today—it’s nice and hot so he shouldn’t catch a cold. I’m getting back my tan, which never quite went away. Well, I guess it’s almost spring in New York too.
Oh—I had a note from Herr Isseyvoo [Christopher Isherwood] asking your address: that’s all he ever writes me for. I obliged him for the umpteenth time. But honey, I wish you would keep your lovers better informed. It’s so hard on mother.
Jack sends his love.
I miss you, sugar, and love you always
T
[Collection New York Public Library]
TO ROBERT LINSCOTT
Fontana Vecchia
Taormina, Sicily
Feb 28, 1951
Dear Bob—
It seems a long time, Lord yes, since I’ve heard from you, oh Wondrous One.
I’m typing my chapter five, very long it is; but don’t think I will send it until I’ve finished the next. There is only one more after that, but it will be the longest one—and looms before me like Kilimanjaro. I ought to be finished in early July—now that will be about a year from the time I started, which is not an undue length of time, despite what Marian (and possibly you) say. Anyway, I’m doing my best to make it something we can all take pleasure in.
Thanks for The Disenchanted.179 I enjoyed it, but rather half-heartedly. He has such a small sensibility, Schulberg; and I would say almost no feeling for language: time and again, during those unpunctuated lapses into ‘stream-of-concious,’ [sic] I felt the burn of embarrassment. I couldn’t believe this man called Manly Halliday ever wrote a word worth reading—because Schulberg catches only the infantile elements of his mind.180 At the end the young man says, “But Manly you’ve got to live to finish this book; now you not only know what happened but why,” or something of the sort. Aside from being hokum in itself, this denouement provides an ironic comment on Schulberg’s own work: see why? If Manly Halliday, despite Schulberg’s coarse and pretended explanations, is left drifting in the void. Bob, I don’t believe you liked this book.
Why don’t you suggest the Modern Library reprint Sarah Orne Jewett’s “The Country of The Pointed Firs”? I read it not long ago, and it seemed to me a singularly ‘true’ kind of book.
My quiet monkish life goes on as usual. It’s the height of Spring here, the sun is very hot. Give my best to Bennett. I miss you. Love
T
P.S. Scribner’s sent me a ludicrous book called From Here To Eternity. Combines
