Steinbeck (96 page)

SAG HARBOR
JULY I, 1964

DEAR MR PRESIDENT I AM DEEPLY MOVED PLEASED AND PROUD TO LEARN THAT I WILL RECEIVE THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM. WARMEST GREETINGS

JOHN STEINBECK

[Sag Harbor]
July 14 [1964]
Bastille Day

 

Elaine buzzed me to come into the house and told me you wanted to talk to me.

As for your suggestion of my inconstancy with mea culpa overtones, it seems to me that this was your late ulcer talking and I refuse to argue with an ulcer.

Let's suppose I have an ulcer too and our ulcers get to arguing. Yours says—“You don't love me as you used to. What have I done to deserve this?” And my ulcer says “Not so. It is you who have changed. I have remained constant.”

God damn it, Pat, that's school-girl talk and school girl thinking—fine for my kids at 16 but not good enough for two men whose years should give them better counsel. Of course we have changed. If we hadn't it would be either a lie or an abnormality. I know I get tired when I used to be tireless. I am short tempered where I used to be calm and calm where I used to blow my top. That's simply age—to be accepted, not mourned over. I consider the body of my work and I do not find it good. That doesn't mean a thing except that the impulses have changed. If I have any more work in me, which I sometimes doubt, it will have to be of a kind to match my present age. I'm not the young writer of promise any more. I'm a worked-over claim. There may be a few nuggets overlooked but the territory has been pretty thoroughly assayed. More and more, young people look at me in amazement because they had thought I was dead. Among writers it is becoming very fashionable to be dead.

Just as you did not tell me about your painful ulcer, I see no reason to burden you with the knowledge that this last year was a very difficult one for me to finish. I really didn't know whether I would make it or not. But this is no attempt to match sorrows with you either. As you know I have been more fortunate than I have deserved and not as good as I have wished. That was inevitable of course but inevitability is none the less shocking.

I thought on starting this that I could make some kind of pattern emerge but nothing really seems to—nothing true.

You say that about three years ago something happened and you are trying to find some blame in yourself, perhaps. Well, you know damn well what happened three years ago. I collapsed and got taken to the hospital. I don't know what it was and neither do you but I do know that something happened and that I never returned as I went in. Whatever it was made a change. Maybe maturity hit me and required an explosion to make me aware of it.

But hell, I could go on explaining for weeks and it wouldn't mean anything. Mainly I want to rest. Somewhere I have picked up a great weariness. So come off it about my neglecting you. I'm neglecting everyone and everything. There may be some milk in this old bag yet. That's one of the things I'm trying to find out.

affectionately,
John

The Dorchester
London
January 5, 1965

Dear John:

It was the most memorable of all Christmases, the kind that can and will turn to folklore surely. And after a short time I won't be sure what happened and what didn't and that's the real stuff of truth. Aer Lingus was four hours lingering before taking off so that we did have a good experience in Dublin Airport. And sun in England.

I took the beautiful cloth [a bolt of Sardinian velvet, a Christmas gift from Huston] to Tautz and they were pleased and cautious. Today I went for a fitting of the jacket. They were still astonished at the cloth, saying the jacket would do but that for the trousers the material put up a fight. “And so it should,” I said. “It has a lifetime of fighting against my knees and my behind. Let it start now.” It is a princely gift and I shall wear it with arrogance.

I think often of Daly. And please believe me, I don't want to make a motion picture. But I do have still the hunger to make something beautiful and true. And I have the feeling that in this story are all the beauties and all the truths including the aching lustful ones. And so I'll write the little tale as well as I can and we will see whether the sound and color of it will translate to the visual. It does seem to me that in the late scramble for reality, writers have somehow overlooked the real. Will you let me know what you casually feel about this?

Meanwhile—again our thanks for an improbable time—almost into a fresh dimension.

Yours,
Sean

London
January 6, 1965

Dear Glades:

Your mission was carried out in a manner that would have made you proud. James Bond may be dead but I became 007 3/8 for the afternoon. It was after hours and I rang the bell and a dark and angry face looked out from the chained door. I demanded the manager and after a long wait was admitted. I asked him to identify himself, which so startled him that he complied. He then said it was not Midland's policy to give assurance for jewels. I said I had no knowledge of any jewel, but that the package I carried must be protected. There was a small and whispered conference in another room. Then he came back and said they would seal the package in a great envelope—that I must attest this and they would then protect the package. 007 3/8 agreed. They brought a taper and enough wax to pitch an ark within and without. And I sealed every corner—7 blobs—with my flying pig ring. They played right along with the James Bond mood. Then I signed every seal, and I was escorted to the vault to see the package deposited. Then the manager asked how recently I had seen Mr. W___. I said, “I have never seen Mr. W___. I do not know Mr. W___.” The chains grated on the door and I swept out feeling fictional as all hell.

We are having a pleasant time. Last night we saw Olivier's Othello. Probably the greatest performance I have ever seen. I am still shaken by it. We've not been tagged yet and the White House has forgotten me, praise God.

I think I'll have a go at Daly as soon as I can to see whether I can get a color key.

Love and again deep thanks.

John

[New York]
February 2, 1965

Dear Dook:

A week ago, Mary Dekker, reading in bed, took off her glasses, laid down her book and went to sleep. Just that. No struggle, no fear, no intimation. And with her medical history, she must be considered one of the lucky ones. I think I knew at Thanksgiving that I would not see her again, but that's not really valid because I had that feeling about lots of things when it wasn't true.

Mary was 60, Esther 74, Beth 70 and 163. That is quite a record of survival of four children.

In spite of knowing this was imminent, it has its shock. We were in Paris when the news came.

The trip to Ireland was wonderful. The west country isn't left behind—it's rather as though it ran concurrently but in a non-parallel time. I feel that I would like to go back there. It has a haunting kind of recognition quotient. I found a marvelous story I would like to write there.

That's all, I guess. But I did want to tell you about Mary.

love
John

New York
February 17, 1965

Dear John and Glades:

In Paris the news came that my youngest sister had died suddenly. So we ran for home. It was the first break in our family. She was the youngest and she was sixty and we were four children.

Then, since I have not worked under our capitalistic system for some time (I have given my work away for the last two years) I went to work on my book of pictures of all of the fifty states and my essay on our people. It is called America and the American. I may have to run for my life when it comes out. I am taking “the American” apart like a watch to see what makes him tick and some very curious things are emerging.

Then Elaine's aunt, the one she adored, fell ill to death and last Saturday the calls seemed to indicate she was about finished so Elaine went to Texas to help with the recessional. And she hangs on, comatose, a vegetable and alive.

Before we went to Paris I was in Gieves in Bond Street, you know that military outfitters place? The clerk, pronounced clark, was Irish. As I finished my business, he said, “You're from Ulster.”

I said, “No I am not, why do you say that?” He said, “Because you talk like an Ulsterman.”

Well, my grandfather was from Ulster, from Mulkearaugh on Lock Foyle. And I had great commerce with him surely when I was a child. But isn't it interesting that this influence should hang on to my own age of sixty-three? My grandmother was not. She was, I believe from Cork and a convert, which made her a fire-eating Protestant but I don't remember that she talked much whereas my grandfather talked all the time. If you have ever read East of Eden, Sam Hamilton was my grandfather and you'll see the mark he put on me.

The brown velvet darling has not come yet. Do you suppose the pants are still fighting back? Give our love to all there.

Yours,
John

1966
America and Americans
published. Late in year began five-month trip through Southeast Asia as correspondent for
Newsday.

 

1968
John Steinbeck died December 20 in New York City.