I hope you can read all of this—pardon the abominable ball-point pen, it’s all I have with me.
Love,
Bill
St Martins-in-the-Fields: well known church in London’s Trafalgar Square.
To Edith Gaddis
Paris
6 july 1950
dear Mother,
Finally back in Paris, where, as in all the grand cities, little has changed. Now of course feeling the unwiseness of the Italian junket, though on the other hand it was wise, health being considered, and now restored, I believe. At any rate, I do have some colour in my face, unlike a good year past.
Of course we’re running into all the complications I’d thought of, and a few more. Margaret is having all the customary difficulty getting a passage, and we don’t at all know yet whether it will be managable. I can imagine not, though she still hopes on it. Of course I came back to Paris to find not only no payments through for work done, but also the fact that since their Florence conference Unesco is drastically cutting down on outside contract work; and there are quite absolutely no jobs to be had there now. I don’t know, I really don’t know. But whatever plans are managed, I’ll need money, of course. And so enclose these two checks (I wrote 100 and 200 dollars because I thought 300 might be too much for a single special-account check). Could you withdraw the money, and send me as quickly as possible 300$, a draft of some sort, care of American Express? It might be easiest to do it all through American Express there in New York. I’d thought of asking you to wire it, but think that would probably be too expensive. As I said in my other letter, I’d hoped to spend the rest of the summer here in France working and at least managing to earn enough to live on while the other [bank account] waited and grew in New York, and Margaret got there and back. But of course it is collapsing. And just to complicate everything, I’ve been offered an apartment here in Paris which I had briefly last summer, it’s a small house really, two stories, though only two rooms, with a large kitchen, bath &c., and exactly the place I’d choose and want if I should live in Paris, especially with a job, and especially if married. But the rent is 50$ a month, which seems very foolish right now, with everything else in prospect. But Paris is like enough to NewYork in the renting business, impossible to find a place, and you must take them when you see them. I couldn’t at all afford it without work, and no work seems to be forthcoming anywhere. And also with the prospect I mentioned earlier, of going to Spain to live and work on writing for a while, a fairly long while, in the fall if there’s nothing here in the way of work, —you can see the complications. Sometimes it looks as though just putting everything into one bag that would fit and going back to Spain would be the easiest and by far the most sensible thing. But too late now for such vagabonding notions. I’ve thought of going to Spain, where I could live very cheaply, and waiting there until Margaret gets back (if she goes), and she joining me there. But there’s that fine apartment here in Paris. And we couldn’t get married in Spain, being infidels. Well. I’ll let you know as anything comes up definite. [...]
with love,
W.
To Edith Gaddis
Barcelona, Spain
29 july 1950
dear Mother,
Certainly about the hottest place I’ve been in many a bachelor year, air almost impossible to breathe, just the weight of it. But Barcelona is a fine city: I believe a port is necessary to make a city fine, why Barcelona and New York and London have style, and Paris and Madrid begin to bore (me at any rate). Going to Madrid was a waste of time I suppose; but there we were in a yellow MG, and once you’ve started off in one direction down here you can’t very well change, or roads suddenly turn into foot-paths.
It was marvelous to find your letters waiting here yesterday when I came up from Madrid—I’d spent about four days there, saw Haygood who asked about John, was delighted to hear that John is respected member of respectable firm, Haygood I don’t think is awfully pleased with his Madrid life, even asked me what I thought of his going to Paris for an opening in Unesco’s library there; I warned wildly against that. I watched Wheatland buy 80$ worth of shirts (he’s the boy I drove down with), put him on his way back to Paris after showing him a bullfight, the old square and the national palace and similar small junk Madrid has to offer (though I don’t call the Prado so), and came on here.
Of your three letters of course the third was the exciting one, starting off with, —Margaret called me five minutes ago . . . Lord, how far away from it I feel here; and I suppose I envy you all some of these next weeks you’re going to pass together. Is it a strong mark in my disfavour, that I’m not on the spot asking mother for daughter’s hand? I suppose; but I really couldn’t see any better way to manage it. If I’d come certainly we’d have a grand summer together; but in September there we’d be, Margaret and I trying to raise the fare to cross the sea again, ending up postponing the marriage and finally managing it two years hence in a little church around (some) corner. Some Massapequa corner, —with the baby preacher, and George Wiebel drinking too much cider. I still favour this London notion; but had a letter from Margaret, written on shipboard in full discomfort saying she didn’t want to make another ocean voyage for some time. Well I’m not going to make one. So you must encourage her return, put her in a box if you have to. [...]
What I’d hoped might be managed—and Margaret and I talked [about] this briefly, she’s enchanted by the idea—is that I get to London a fortnight before her return, she come there, we manage a most modest wedding (with possibly one or two guest-witnesses, if they’re there, and required), and then go to Scotland or to Wales for a week or two before returning to Paris or where-ever to take up again with the dastardly currents of making a living. Doesn’t that sound reasonable? I think it sounds magnificent, even possible. What will follow heaven knows. Unesco in Paris looks ready to collapse. Perhaps writing, somewhere like Mallorca. Or even—in Madrid I met the head of the AP office there, very nice old fellow of about 60, who wants to write a book about Spain, a sort of anecdotal history, but his English isn’t very good. We sat over coñacs in his living-room one morning while he talked about it, I suddenly realised he was proposing collaboration. I said I’d write John about such a thing, certainly there are few or no good books on Spain now, current ones mostly written by American newsmen with some bone to pick, or some emotional unbalance to air. Well . . .
Tonight I plan to get on the small boat that runs over to Mallorca, and see there whether I can find a modest place to sit down and work until called back (though I think I mayn’t get as much work done as I’d hoped, the time and money short, the uncertainty, and mostly preöccupation over the wedding plans, because I so want them to work out right, —to tell the truth I never thought any wedding, even mine, would be so important.) But of course I’ve made another mistake; I’d thought Mallorca, or the coast here would be so hot nobody but myself would be fool enough to go. Now it turns up that this is the ‘season’, crowded, prices up, &c. dear heaven, all I want is a large quiet room to work in. I’m going over deck-passage, since cabins on the boat are too dear; I saw the mob buying tickets this morning, hundreds, all to sit out on the open deck of a small boat leaving this evening until 7am tomorrow. That’s the way the Spanish like to do things, it’s no fun unless 30 people are sitting in your lap, eating and tending babies. [...]
with love,
W.
Wheatland: Richard Wheatland II (1923–2009), Harvard class of ’45, from a wealthy Bangor, Maine, family. He was in Paris (1950–53) helping to administer the Marshall Plan.
To Edith Gaddis
Hotel Condal
Palamós, Gerona
Spain
9 August 1950
dear Mother,
I’m really sorry I haven’t written you in a good week now; but I really thought you’d be seeing Margaret extensively and soon, and that you could exchange notes, since I’ve written to her at length trying to make ‘plans’.
Well;
two letters from Margaret have made that word plan sound rather silly. But I must say first, again, how fortunate I am in both of you. What she is going through is a hideous difficulty on every hand, a financially, psychologically, and the sense of time passing, but she is magnificent about it. And you. I suppose I’ve know this, but not until recently appreciated it so fully. And to have her letter saying this to me, —I just don’t know anything, what to say to you, what to say to your mother! I have been so touched by all that your mother says and does and her attitude . . . I do love her so much already, can you know that? I do honestly. And think she is magnificent and how lucky you are, and this I, and how exciting it is to have her adored so quickly and genuinely by everybody like Jacob and Kathleen and Emmy (the last two talk and rave about her all the time). Possibly I shouldn’t write all this to you, but I want you to know it, and that I do more all the time appreciate you in the widest senses.
Margaret’s mother (and this must make it all the more difficult for her) is in very bad condition, ‘would be having a nervous breakdown if there were money for it’, and she is right now only concerned for that problem. You may imagine the shock to me, after the letters I’ve written you and her, all these plans for returning to Paris, London, Wales &c., to have a letter from her saying she believes she must get a job. And so right now I’m trying to figure out what best the next step may be, exchanging lengthy correspondence with her about it though she can say nothing really. I’m certainly going to stay here until the beginning of September. Then I can’t tell. I can’t tell whether it would be a good thing for me to come back there and find a job, and work at it until Margaret can work her problem out. I know this sounds strange, it’s the oldest part of the whole thing this business of not wanting to get into the New York race again, and really it’s the last thing I’d want to do. But I cannot have Margaret facing all of this alone. My other possibilities are staying abroad and if possible a job, perhaps in Paris, where I could be prepared fully to marry her when she was free of this present trouble. Or again, what sounds the most cowardly perhaps, to stay here in Spain throughout the winter and finish my work and return with it. I don’t know; But I can’t despair of it all, because of both of you being what you are I know we can work it out. [...]
I’m in good spirits just at the moment because my work is going well, slowly as I knew it would but I think well. It will go well for about six more days, then it won’t. But perhaps you can understand, the best part of it has been coming back to it, after a year of not touching it but worrying about it, to find that upon returning to it that it does retain its life for me, and still asks to be finished.
This is the ideal place for it: a small fishing town on the coast north of Barcelona, with an excellent beach where the sun blazes at noon but the place is not hot, quite cool now at evening. I’m in a hotel with a small room, though the window is large which is most important, and eating well, working until 11:30 when I go down to the beach, then lunch and work again in the afternoon. [...]
How I hope you are well (Margaret says you’re looking splendid, better than she’s ever seen you, I’m so happy to hear that). I’m sorry that so much of this must fall upon you, and say again how much I appreciate you in it. But do not let it interfere with your summer, which I hope so is a good one. One way or another, perhaps we’ll share next summer there in Massapequa, the more I think of it the more I want to and look forward to doing so. But at the moment it’s ten pm, time for dinner here in this country.
with my love,
W.
To Edith Gaddis
Palamós, Gerona
15 August 1950
dear Mother,
Many thanks for your letter, which I had Saturday, but went in to Barcelona Sunday, came back Monday night, Tuesday a holiday. I suppose funniest in this whole thing really is the round of letters we are exchanging, you & I & Margaret: you writing me not to be angry, disappointed; I writing you not to be disappointed if she can’t visit Massapequa immediately, and saying I hope she can see and talk with you honestly & freely, you writing me and saying how glad you are that she can talk with you honestly & freely, she writing me that she hopes it’s all right if she talks with you openly when I’ve just written her that I hope she will . . . well, with such support on all sides we should come through. Heaven knows I appreciate what she’s going through, I’ll wait until I’m green; but feel a bit guilty over not being there to help her; though could I if I were? Certainly the three of us could have been fun together; but how often? No for the moment I think better I sit patiently (if you can imagine that) and work. Now, as her recent letters show no sign of return soon, I may stay in Spain and try to make the best of my time alone; I think my work’s going well, but how can one tell with only one’s self to judge? I don’t know. If I can arrange something through Barney, a perilous undertaking, to make sure of the rooms at palais d’Antin, I’ll hope not to have to waste the time, money & energy going to Paris until I do know that Margaret’s coming. (Though ‘taking it philosophically’ as you say, I can see it stretching out to Christmas. Christmas indeed! Well, it better be done up by Christmas.)
Incidentally please don’t ever say to me again, Maybe it’s a test. About anything.
One thing I can lift from your mind. If we come to Spain everything happens, we find treasures sought after in other lives, other worlds, though perhaps a little late. [...] I’ve so hoped to have a letter soon saying that Margaret had come, or was coming to Massapequa; I know she wants to, & you want to; I just want her to too. (And while she’s there you might give her Stella Blandish to read. That should fix her.)
I hardly know what to say about war; certainly it’s more talked of there than here, though Spanish papers follow it well enough; all I miss is the constant chatter, hair-brained opinion and free-flying rumour thank God. But I do believe that there’s not an immediate danger; just as I most firmly believe that the whole thing will happen before 1954. But whatever, I have the modern so-little-time neurosis, and want to settle things with Margaret as soon as we can.
Her letters are splendid; only make me troubled that I can’t flatly do anything to ease things for her. And please let me assure you both that I’m not angry, bitter, disappointed, no prospect of cave-man foolishness; mostly I’m overcome by both you and she, how splendid you both are and how fortunate I.
For the moment I guess the most maddening thing is being here alone, when it would be so marvelous with her. But I’m getting work done: Lord, how slow it is with me. And the constant feelings of pleasure at it going well, disgust and depression when I read it and it looks ridiculous, pretentious, sophomoric, imitative, what-have-you. But—from the look of things—I should know by the time I see Margaret again, and the prospect of competitive living appears again, whether it is all worth it, worth finishing. I don’t know, she mentions her sister and brother-in-law’s life, he commuting, they seeing one another for about 3hours a day, both exhausted. Then he plays Golf on Saturdays. And it’s strange and all wrong to read of such a life here in Spain, anywhere in South Europe really, the Mediterranean countries, where life is such a thoroughly family affair (How to win friends and influence people, how to be a chinaman like Lin Yutang and make a lot of money . . .), even though people are poor.
In the north of Spain, here in Catalunia, they don’t drink much, they work hard but there is constantly, as one finds among poor (by American standards) people, this great quality of together-ness, a kind of trust forced upon them, so that they must trust each other, which with pots of money you don’t need to do; and apparently can’t do if you want pots of money. (For Heaven’s sake, don’t mis-read political implications into what I go on about here. It’s only what I see around me, the kindness I have shown me by these people; and contrasting, memories of such things as your purse-snatching incident on the NY subway, which I’ll never forget.)
Well again, how I wish we were all three here, what fun we should have simply walking down to the harbour tonight,
through this village. Though I’m not sure you’d bear with the food; for lunch I had five small octupi (squids?), the ink-sacs were fine. The tentacles a little disconcerting.
with my love,
W.
palais d’Antin: WG’s Paris residence in the rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, in the ninth arrondissement.
Stella Blandish: presumably No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939), a violent detective novel by British writer James Hadley Chase mentioned on p. 81 of R. (Miss Blandish’s first name is never given.) In a letter to me dated 12 June 1983, WG said, “I recall it as being regarded as seminal in the wave of sex/sadism.”
war: the Korean War, which began on 25 June 1950 when North Korean forces invaded South Korea. Two days later, President Truman commanded US air and sea forces to go to South Korea to help defend it from China-backed North Korea, and there were fears that the conflict would escalate into another world war.
(How to win friends [...] money): quoting Connolly again (see note to 4 May 1948). Dale Carnegie’s self-help book How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) is critiqued in R (498– 503). WG taught it in later years.
To John and Pauline Napper
[John Napper (1916–2001) married his second wife Pauline Davidson in 1945. He was a popular society portrait painter before expanding his palette to expressionistic oils, vivid watercolors, and book illustrations. (He did the cover and illustrations for John Gardner’s 1972 novel The Sunlight Dialogues while staying with WG in Piermont, NY.) The Nappers met WG in the summer of 1950 on the beach at Palamós; as Pauline Napper later told Crystal Alberts, the beach was almost deserted except for “a solitary figure, a man sitting surrounded by sheets of writing paper which kept shifting in the slight wind and which he was desperately trying to hold down.” When John walked over to help, he “asked him if he was English and Willie replied rather abruptly ‘No, I am American and I am working!’” Later WG came over to “apologize for his abruptness and suggested [they] meet for a drink later at a café by the harbour” (“Mapping William Gaddis,” 173n55). They became lifelong friends.]