Prose (75 page)

I met Neruda quite by accident in a hotel in Merida—I had no idea who he was when he invited me to go off to Chichen Itza with him and his wife.

Randall was in NY the winter of 1946, I think it was—he invited me to dinner to meet Cal.

Calder is
really
Lota's friend. He's been in Brazil several times and I didn't
really
know him until here. I admire him very much—again with that odd in-between-generations feeling. As I said before—the simple fact that I did
my
traveling earlier than the poets who aren't so much younger than I am, after all, seems to have put me in a different category—and often I'm afraid I have felt old and sophisticated, and certainly more knowledgable about art, etc.—While they were teaching and marrying, I was out observing the world.—(Mrs. Tate once reminisced about a night in Paris that I'd already heard another version of from Pauline Hemingway, etc.—Very odd.)

 

5. I'm afraid I agree with you only too well.

I don't know whether this is due to Brazil, age or what.—However, I feel I could NOT have stayed on in N.Y. And I have been personally very happy here, except for this recurring sense of anxiety and loss. However, one always hopes and hopes.—Now I am hoping a trip will do wonders—and this year so far I have written a lot, for me. Good or bad I can't say.—(Cal likes the poem in the New York Review, I think, quite a bit—)

I should mention one teacher at Walnut Hill, probably—she later taught at Wellesley. Miss Prentiss—she was an excellent teacher of English
for that age
(hopelessly romantic!)—and we
went
read some
Shakespeare with her, She helped me even more, probably, by lending me all her books I took a fancy to and admiring my early verse—too much, no doubt.

[There was also an excellent Latin teacher, Miss ?
The
best
teacher there, really
]

Miss Farwell, the assistant principal, was also very kind to me and had the excellent idea of taking me to some sort of psychiatrist in Boston,—Unfortunately, I clammed up and wouldn't talk at all. But she had the right idea—too bad it didn't work.

We were taken to Symphony Concerts, of course—also concerts at Wellesley—where,
with
through my piano teacher (how awful I've forgotten her name) I shook hands with Myra Hess (my teacher's old teacher—later
scorned
by Kirkpatrick) and Prokofiev.—P's wife sang
some
from “The Love of Three Oranges”,
*
and that and his way of playing I remember as giving me a whole new idea of music.—Possibly the idea of “irony” in music was a revelation, because at that time I liked his piano pieces best (now they're not very interesting to me) of my simple repertoire—

I also saw one of the first Calder shows, at Pittsfield, around 1931—his very first mobiles, that had cranks, or little electric motors. We spoke of this show the last time he was here—last year—and it was funny how many of the pieces I could still remember, so it must have made a big impression—

Although I think I have a prize “unhappy childhood”, almost good enough for the text-books—please don't think I dote on it.—Almost everyone has had, anyway—and since then I have been extremely lucky in many ways. I never had any difficulty getting published—I have had all those helpful awards—I often think I have been praised beyond my due—

Under 3 you speak rather disparagingly of Partisan Review in the late 30's and 40's … well, at the time I was writing the poems I like best I was very ignorant politically and I sometimes wish I could recover the dreamy state of consciousness I
levd in
lived in then—it was better for my work, and I do the world no more good now by knowing a great deal more. I was “left”
just
because my friends were, mostly—although of course we all felt the effects of the depression profoundly, and ever since noticing the split in my own family and going through my Shelley period, around 16, I had thought of myself as a “socialist.” (I was also a vegetarian until after college, I think!—and I revert to it every once in a while. I don't advocate it or even believe in it—but they drive the cattle to market here, and after each encounter with one of the cattle trains—you park the car and let the poor beasts pour around you—I give up meat again for a week or so.)

I was always anti-communist, I believe—after one or two John Reed Club affairs. I don't know whether this was due to my intelligence (No—not intelligence—just instinct and snobbery—) or what—but all the really “red” girls at college (one is taken off cruelly, but very comically in “The Group”) I found too silly—and now they're the real rich conservatives, in general.

But—before the war—we knew much
much
less. The purges in the 30's were what opened most people's eyes, of course. Here now it is dreadful for me to see young men I know making the same mistake that US intellectuals were making around 1930.
How
they can is hard to see.—They seem totally unaware of recent history. But Brazil is unbelievably provincial, and also one of its greatest drawbacks to any kind of maturity, I'm afraid, is that it has never been through a war. However—nothing here is explainable in terms that apply in the U S.—But believe me—things are very bad
here
now, and I may
have
to leave. Or Lota and I may finally choose to—

 

Rio, March 23rd, 1964

Dear Anne:

I'll enclose the fragments of a letter I did write you over a month ago, just to show you I tried. Many things have kept me from answering properly; guests, partly, but mostly I think the political situation, that is keeping everyone on edge now and which, because of Lota's job and her close connections with the State government in Rio, I can't forget for a moment. I made tentative reservations to go to England by boat next month, just for a breathing spell,—but just today we have decided to go to Milan in May for the Triennale May 20th we want to see—then I'll probably stay on and go to England for a month or six weeks alone. Perhaps I'll be able to see you there then? I think I'll be visiting friends in Sussex, but staying mostly in London—and perhaps go to Edinburgh, since I have never seen it & want to.

I'm sending back the Chronology pages and I hope you can read my corrections. You have it mostly right, however. Somewhere along the line I had an Amy Lowell Travelling Fellowship and now I have a Chapelbrook—have had it for over two years but haven't been able to make any use of it yet. I'm also a member of the Institute of Arts & Letters—but I'm not sure of the date. Although I'm always grateful for all the money I've received—considering how little I have accomplished—I feel that none of these names and awards really means too much—however they'll help fill your page … I've answered your questions, too, in a garrulous way—a lot of what I've said you don't need at all, but I'll let it go because perhaps anything that contributes an “atmosphere” will help you with the writing? I am appalled at how narrow, petty, gloomy, masochistic, even, this kind of condensation of my “life” sounds—but of course I'm sure you know there's more to life than an outline!—This is just the sketchiest of armatures, really, leaving out so many friends, people, places, events—false beginnings, retreats, mistakes, and so [on].

Yes, quote my remarks on Darwin if you like. I think I said to you, when you asked about Dr. Williams, that one of his poems I admire is “Asphodel, that greeny flower…”? Well, I re-read it the other day and was surprised to see he mentions Darwin, too—not in my sense at all, but he says, “But Darwin / opened our eyes / to the gardens of the world…” I really just got off on Darwin because of my readings about Brazil when I first came here; his first encounter with the “tropics” was on the outskirts of Rio and a lot he says in his letters home about the city and country is still true. Then I became very fond of his writing in general—his book on Coral Island is a
beauty,
if ever you have a long stretch to read in,—specialized but beautifully worked out. It seems to me that in the world of hate and horror we all inhabit that contemporary artists and writers, some of the “action painters” (although I like them, too), the “beats,” the wildest musicians, etc.—have somehow missed the point—that the
real
expression of tragedy, or just horror and pathos, lies exactly in man's ability to construct, to use form. The exquisite form of a tubercular Mozart, say, is more profoundly moving than any wild electronic wail
& tells more about that famous “human condition”
 … But this is an idea it has probably been beyond my gifts to express in poetry.

I hesitate to suggest any reading to you since I know you must be burdened with lots of things—and perhaps you'd rather not get into such subjects—but I think that Arnold Hauser's “The Philosophy of Art History” in the chapter called “Psychoanalysis & Art”, makes a lot of good clear points about romanticism, neurosis, what's neurotic & what isn't in art, and so on,—and the relationship of an artist's life to his work.

I feel rather foolish using all these words in any connection with myself. Imagine how it must have
felt
to be Tennyson, to be a “bard”—It is hard to know how one
should
feel certainly, and for me the solution most of the time has been to forget all about it. That is not altogether right—on the other hand I dislike very much the romantic self-pity and sense of privilege I feel in some poet friends.

(Forgive this typing—I have three machines of different ages—but even the newest is already rusting in this climate. Then when I switch from one to the other I make more mistakes than usual, too)

I hope you are feeling better. I'm having copies made of a few snapshots to send you next week—mostly Samambaia (that's the name of the place in Petrópolis—means “giant fern”. The actual name of the hillside we're on
e
is Sitio da Alcobaçinha, “Little Alcobáça”—that's a favorite name here, not original with us—after Alcobaça in Portugal.)—I am very fond of cats, too (I'm going through your last paragraph) and have always had them, even if they do give me asthma—a bit—dogs do too much to attempt. I'll send a picture of Tobias if I can find the negative—he's thirteen now, very handsome—also a clever if not very “good” Siamese, and a Bebe Daniels–style angora who recently died and was buried under the orange tree. I have cats in the country and birds in the city—practical solutions being best. I had a toucan, Sammy, for six years—(but in the country)—and a wonderful funny bird I adored, with eyes like blue neon lights and that huge beak. I'm fond of pets, and babies up till three … I say this because we have just had a friend with two little daughters, 11 months and 3 years, here all week, and so I know how demanding child-care is, & all about colds and shots and earaches, etc. The little one slept in my room and what I really liked best about her was the way she was quite willing to stay awake for hours in the middle of the night, standing up and chattering away at me agreeably. That's [indecipherable] age. After three comes an age I don't like—then they improve.

I am sorry I've been so slow replying—I should acknowledge your letters even if I can't answer them right away, so you'll know whether I got them or not, at least. We have just had two hours warning—
th
there'll be no water for 48 hours. This kind of thing is very common—at one point recently we had no water, no light, and no gas. The light was off for two hours only,
every night,
and since we were lucky enough to have an electric skillet we managed; until the gas co. strike was over—most of the wretched city ate cold food. But we'll be going up to Petrópolis for a long Easter weekend, thank heavens. It is incredibly beautiful here—and so hopeless—imagine the million or more favela (slum) dwellers here these two days—no water—all those babies. But I shouldn't add to your own troubles—

Affectionately Yours—Elizabeth

 

I should say—I am quite looking forward to your book, now!

 

Rio de Janeiro, April 8th, 1964

Dear Anne:

It would add interest, certainly, to your book if you could have a footnote saying I'd been shot in the Brazilian Revolution of April Fools' Day, 1964—but I wasn't. We had forty-eight rather bad hours and then it was all over much sooner than anyone had expected. My friend Lota was naturally very much involved, she and one other woman the only ones in the siege of the Governor's “palace”—and I could get news of what was going on there only by short wave occasionally since the President held all radio, T V etc here in the city.—It was a tremendous relief when we finally learned he had run away and all was over—The celebration, in the pouring rain—the whole “revolution” took place in the rain—was a weird wet sight, with paper, confetti, streamers, flags, towels, everything,
sticking—&
dancing in bathing trunks, raincoats, with umbrellas, etc—I'll spare you the politics of it all; however, what I see from U S papers is half-wrong, as always—

I hope you got a mass of rather uninteresting personal stuff that was mailed to you about two weeks ago now—the mails have naturally been worse than ever. If not, I'll send you most of it over again.

I am going away, probably about May 20th, and probably first to Italy for three weeks, then to England for a couple of months—I hope. I want to go someplace where I can speak the language, more or less, and where I think they care very little about Brazil and its politics—I'd like to forget them both for a little while. Politics are scarcely my element, and here we've heard absolutely nothing else for months—