I have a bedroom in the mansion (there are bats circulating in some of the rooms, and Leo keeps his light on all night, for the wind blows eerily, doors creak, and the faint cheep cheep of the bats cry in the towers above: no kidding. My studio is quite a distance from the house, and is enormous. It is a remodeled barn, and sitting in the loft is an old-fashioned barouche: I keep thinking of Rudyard’s phantom rickshaw, which is all very disconcerting.2 That is where I am now, in the studio, and you cannot imagine how cold it is, though there is a fine potbellied stove. However, I can’t seem to keep the damn thing going. It is only ten o’clock in the morning but I think I will have to warm my gizzard with a shot of whiskey. From the studio I can see the mountains, and there are buttercups blooming outside the door.
Barbarra [Barbara Lawrence]3 phoned before I left, and told me what a delightful luncheon she’d had with you. I am finishing up my story today and tomorrow, then I’m going to let it cool for maybe two weeks, and work on Other Voices, before typing it off to send.13 Will mail you a carbon, of course.
Sorry to write such a damn dull letter, but haven’t acclimated myself enough yet to give much of a report. Will try to do better next time …
Best
t
[Collection Columbia University Library]
TO MARY LOUISE ASWELL
[Yaddo]
[Saratoga Springs, N.Y.]
[May 1946]
Destroy!!! (after showing Barbara)
Marylou, my angel,
Well, I knew it was too good to last: I’m in trouble, and it’s all Leo [Lerman]’s fault.
According to Mrs. Ames, Howard Doughty and I are “insistently persecuting” him.14 See, Leo has a real aberration about snakes: he makes me escort him every day from the mansion to his studio; but he has dramatized the whole thing to such a ridiculous extent that everybody here thought he was half-way joking. So yesterday Howard came to my studio for lunch.15 When he left he stepped on a snake in my yard, and picked it up. Leo, who was standing in his doorway across the road, saw it, and began to scream: “You’re mean, you’re cruel!” then slammed the door, pulled down all his shades, and curled up under his desk, and stayed there the whole afternoon, in a real fit of terror: no one, of course, had any intention of frightening him. But two workmen who were putting firewood in our studios saw the whole thing and reported it to Mrs. A., who promptly sent a little “blue note” (all communication is carried on through these blue notes) saying that Mr. Lerman had been made ill by our (Howards’ [sic] and mine) insistent persecution. I suppose it will blow over but it’s all too absurd for words. Leo, of course, feels very badly that he got us in so much trouble. Howard wrote a wonderful note explaining everything (we felt like little naughty schoolboys, which annoyed Howard, for he is a professor at Harvard, and 42 years old.) Otherwise everything is o.k.
How goes “the house?” It is Terry, not Perry. Terry Murray.16 I have not finished my story YET. But will this week. I wrote you about M. [Marguerite] Young in my last letter.17 Darling, the strangest thing is going on, I’m dying to tell you, but am so afraid of putting it in a letter. Maybe I will phone you some day soon. You will have hysterics. Have pidgy pie, and my sweet dunny been in lately? I must write Barbarra [Barbara Lawrence] again, but she has never answered my last letter. Show her this. Has she met Terry yet?
Carson [McCullers] has been sick in bed, that is the reason she hasn’t written you. She is better now, though, and may be up today. We had breakfast together, and she seemed much better. I took a seconal last night and feel so damn dizzy I can hardly see the typewriter. Katharine [sic] [Katherine] Anne Porter and I danced together till all hours last night. She must be about sixty, but oh how she can do the hootchy-cootchy.18 She tries to act like a southern belle of sixteen or so. She is so unserious it is hard to believe she can write at all. She is like a little New York debutante. She thinks I am a wonderful dancer, and makes me dance with her all the time: it is simply awful, because she hasn’t the faintest notion of how to do the simplest steps. I love Agnes Smedley.19 Marvelous person. But of all the people here I like Howard Doughty the best.20
Oh my precious Marylou, I love you, and I love Barbarra [Barbara], and hope you both love me: you are both so dear to me. And I miss you so much it is like a real pain.
Enclosed, please find violets: I know they will be dry by the time they reach you, but remember how beautiful they were, and that is the way I send them to you, my darling dearest Marylou
[Collection Aswell Family]
TO MARY LOUISE ASWELL
[Yaddo]
[Saratoga Springs, N.Y.]
[May 18, 1946]
My precious beloved,
Another sweet letter from you, darling! It is raining here, cold and grey, but those sweet words from you made everything seem so damn cheery. This is a strange haunted place, all right. Leo is so frightened he keeps his light burning all night, and the other night he begged me to let him sit in my room: he stayed there huddled in an old wicker chair till dawn. I am not afraid except when bats get into my room. I simply can’t stand that cheep cheep crying as they circle in the dark. I have given up my barn studio, and moved into the tower of the mansion: you have to get there by climbing wierd [sic] stone stairs, and it is supposed to be haunted by a Spanish woman who was Mrs. Trask’s companion.21 Leo will not come anywhere near it. Richard [Hunter]22 saw it when he was here but at that time I had not moved in. Get him to tell you about it. It nearly scared him out of his wits.
Oh dear, I guess we might as well forget about the house. Too bad.
I am finishing my story soon. “Miriam” is being translated into German for State Department use. Seems like an odd choice for rehabilitation literature!23
When are you coming? Please please please! And what has happened to Barabrra [Barbara Lawrence]. She is the meanest human white woman ever to trod this earth. Not one word! I am worried about her, and, knowing how much I love her, it is very cruel of her to worry me this way. I know she is not much of a hand at writing letters, but this is carrying a thing too far.
Dearest, there is so much to write, but I think I will wait till we get together. Can you imagine how much I miss you? If so, you’re a genuis [sic]! Tell Gladys to get well. I doubt whether I’ll get down for the concert, but I know it will be beautiful, and will be thinking of her, and wishing her the greatest luck. Oh Marylou Marylou Marylou
I love you love you love you
yes I do, yes yes, yes I do
t
[Collection Aswell Family]
TO LEO LERMAN24
[Yaddo]
[Saratoga Springs, N.Y.]
[June 1946]
Leo—call mother: Atwater 9-3319
Tell [her] I am well—about my lovely tower—ask her should I buy a tennis racket—whether anyone has phoned—tell her to send me some cookies—tell her to send me some underwear, give her my love, and tell her to write.25
Truman
[Collection Columbia University Library]
TO LEO LERMAN
[Yaddo]
[Saratoga Springs, N.Y.]
[28 June 1946]
Leo dearest
You can’t escape blue notes! And this is one just to say how much I miss you, and how lonesome it is. Margurite [Marguerite Young] drove away in a marvelous maroon convertible: she was wearing those slacks and that crazy white hat with all the sparkling discs: she arrived in it, and she left in it: just shows what a sense of form that girl has. The man who came for her, Towner, is the most terrific Queen you ever laid eyes on. LIFE, too, has departed.26 Phyllis showed me a note Townsend gave her. It began: “The dog in the Yaddo pictures is FRANKY’S BOY O’ LONGLEIGH. He will be two years old this August.” and it went on for pages and pages. Phyllis says she will write the caption to read: “The dog is Boy, and is owned by the son of Mrs. Ames’s secretary.” Takes a woman to bitch a woman every time. Newton is quite dead from all the doings, and is spending the day in bed reading. George [Cole] left a note asking if he could draw me, which struck me odd considering how many times he said he hates to do portraits. Anyway I posed for him and the result is one of the most arresting things I’ve ever seen. It is a wonderful likeness, but there is a strange pathological intensity about it that is absolutely flooring. Everyone here thinks it wonderful, but I cannot bear to look at it too long. He gave it to me, so I will bring it home and you can see. We (Newton and myself) may leave here the 20th and go to the
