Saul Bellow_ Letters Part 21

Love,

To Susan Gla.s.sman February 8, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

Dolly, from your nutty but devoted and adoring lover, here are a few pages more of this impossible Herzog Herzog whom I love like a foster brother. I'm sorry about whom I love like a foster brother. I'm sorry about your your brother. I feel so very loving towards you I could take the whole thing on myself and give you a rest under the sun-lying on the sand, well loved and recovering from the snows and grief of New York. brother. I feel so very loving towards you I could take the whole thing on myself and give you a rest under the sun-lying on the sand, well loved and recovering from the snows and grief of New York. Sacre bleu! Sacre bleu! What a jerk I am. But since I have gone off on you, let's make the most of the climate, anyway. Let us cling to the climate and to each other. What a jerk I am. But since I have gone off on you, let's make the most of the climate, anyway. Let us cling to the climate and to each other.

Now sweetheart, list. The name of the woman at Dell is Elizabeth Shepherd. Thank heaven I've got that down without f.u.c.king up the spelling; never was there such a f.u.c.ky-knuckled character. Tear up as many of the books as you have and give them to her, and when you come down we'll draft the introduction and it'll pay for the expensive apartment we'll have to take. But the h.e.l.l with that. Money will be found. There are always more wind-falls. Now the CBC has paid me an unexpected three hundred to produce [my one-act play] "The Wrecker" on TV. I should knock off a few of those little things. They earn one a lot of money over the long pull. So if one must pay two hundred fifty, one pays two hundred fifty. I'm so greedy to see you, I can't maintain the normal greed. We'll work matters out.

I've gotten a very clever and affectionate card from Greg about his grades (quite high) and I don't see how I can turn down the U. of C.-because of him. He's applied for a scholars.h.i.+p. So the money I'm paid there will be the least of it. As for you and me, dolly, I am not supposing that by next winter there'll be such a problem ab't Chicago as you antic.i.p.ate. Boy, the ambiguity of this Bellow! But I love you very much, Susie.

To Louis Gallo February 15, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico Dear Mr. Gallo: Your letter was a little sa.s.sy but it was amusing, too, and on the whole I thought you meant well but were being awkward, and what's the good of being a writer if you must cry every time someone makes a face? I became an editor against my will, because I'm tired of enduring the nausea that comes over me when I pick up a Little Magazine or a Literary Review. I could not bring myself to believe that matters must really be so bad-that everyone was really so spoiled and lazy and opportunistic and sly and sn.o.bbish and hopeless-that educated people really must deserve to be despised by their brothers in business (I don't mean college-educated people but those who have developed hearts and intelligences)-that the people who have power over us might as well exercise it because we have well deserved their abuse by our stupid cowardice. In short, Mr. Gallo, not to spell out the cultural history of America in the Thirties, Forties or Fifties, I decided, together with some friends who felt as I did, that it was not very profitable to keep wringing one's hands over this wicked condition. And, full of illusions, we therefore started a magazine. (The first aria of TNS #3 TNS #3 contains-or will when it appears in about a month-my estimate of the early returns on this venture.) There is no money in it for me or any of the others. I still go out now and again and teach school. I don't mind too much. Not to crown myself with too many flowers, more than my weak head can stand, the sacrifice is not really great. [ . . . ] contains-or will when it appears in about a month-my estimate of the early returns on this venture.) There is no money in it for me or any of the others. I still go out now and again and teach school. I don't mind too much. Not to crown myself with too many flowers, more than my weak head can stand, the sacrifice is not really great. [ . . . ]

You have guessed my religion, Mr. Gallo-Louis, if I may. If Mr. Einstein, Albert, declined to believe that G.o.d was playing dice with the universe, I-we-can't believe, ugly as things have become, and complicated, that human life is nothing but the misery we are continually shown. I worry about Affirmation and the Life-Affirmers-the princes of the big time [New York City] across the river from where you buy your Drano [Trenton] who whoop it up for Life . . . But I'd better check myself. I have some things to add to Seize the Day Seize the Day but not in this expository style. but not in this expository style.

I hope The n.o.ble Savage The n.o.ble Savage will work, or at least start something, and I hope to see more of your writing, a great deal more, in the magazine and elsewhere. will work, or at least start something, and I hope to see more of your writing, a great deal more, in the magazine and elsewhere.

As for your views of what I do-well, yes, your judgment is pretty sound, I believe. When I got the idea for Augie March Augie March-or rather when I discovered that one could free oneself, I became so wildly excited I couldn't control the book and my hero became too disingenuous. However, I don't enjoy discussing old books.

I must now go and read the menu at the lunch counter below. It's noon, and I get hungry by the clock.

To Jack Ludwig [n.d.] [Rio Piedras]

Dear Jack; I have tried very hard to avoid writing this letter, but I suppose there's nothing else to do now. Your phenomenal reply of February 4th forces me to tell you a few of the things I feel about your relations to the magazine and me, personally.

First, as regards TNS TNS. I know how well you can tell yourself, within your Ludwig Disneyland, that you have done things, edited, attended to the needs of the magazine. With you, the intention is enough. A few pa.s.ses of the Ludwig wand and voila voila-a magazine! You have done nothing in months but read a few ma.n.u.scripts. Others you have detained for periods up to half a year, and when asked about them have simply answered that your secretary [ . . . ] had stashed them away. Is that all? When I asked you to edit things, you said you couldn't, you had TV programs, lectures and other obligations. Still the ma.n.u.scripts kept coming back from you, when in their own sweet time they did come back, with scrawled notes recommending editing. I have those notes, a whole collection of them. Therefore, I did the [Jara] Ribnikar [piece], and thoroughly, did this and that, and would, let me add, have continued to carry you-I think my letters of last summer made that clear, those unanswered letters which were never without friendly inquiries-if you had shown the slightest sign of commitment to the magazine. I know nothing of what you felt. Only G.o.d knows that. But I do know what your actions were. And the "unintended slight" has nothing to do with it. What do you mean by "slight"? I can't figure that out. It's perfectly true that I was off in Poland for a time for reasons you understand as well as I do, and perhaps even better. By now I can't be sure that I do do know more about them. And Keith [Botsford] was off in Venice, that's true too. I a.s.sumed that during my absence you two would take charge of know more about them. And Keith [Botsford] was off in Venice, that's true too. I a.s.sumed that during my absence you two would take charge of TNS, TNS, and Keith a.s.sumed that we would do the same while he was gone. But I was in Warsaw and he in Venice, not in New York. You, an editor of the magazine, come to town on business of your own, and to mend your fences, and call neither me nor [Aaron] Asher, but conceal your presence, and then, after having done practically nothing since early summer, you write from Mpls. to ask me for a table of contents you might have gotten on the phone from Aaron. What can you, without hallucination, believe you have to do with and Keith a.s.sumed that we would do the same while he was gone. But I was in Warsaw and he in Venice, not in New York. You, an editor of the magazine, come to town on business of your own, and to mend your fences, and call neither me nor [Aaron] Asher, but conceal your presence, and then, after having done practically nothing since early summer, you write from Mpls. to ask me for a table of contents you might have gotten on the phone from Aaron. What can you, without hallucination, believe you have to do with TNS TNS? You were looking forward to the two of us in PR handling #4 #4! And what did you do about #3 #3? You sent two inept and scarcely readable paragraphs for the arias which I threw out in disgust. I don't think you are a fit editor of the magazine. You have, in some departments, good judgment. I trusted your taste and thought you might be reliable as an editor, but you are too woolly, self-absorbed, rambling, ill-organized, slovenly, heedless and insensitive to get on with. And you must be in a grotesque mess, to have lost your sense of reality to the last shred. I think you never had much of it to start with, and your letter reveals that that's gone, too.

In fact it's a fantastic doc.u.ment and I'm thinking of framing it for my museum. You thought I'd be at the boat to greet Keith? Which boat? I've heard of no boat. You took Sondra's word for it that I was in Tivoli? Well, for several days with Adam I was there. But I was in New York a good deal of the time, and so were you, before Sondra arrived. And besides, why take Sondra's word for it? She and I exchange no personal information. How would she know where I was? Did I write her that I would be at Tivoli? Without consulting me, you phoned [my lawyer] John Goetz in Mpls. to find out whether I was giving you an accurate account of the legal situation last spring, but without a second thought you simply accept what Sondra tells you of my whereabouts. There seems to me to be a small imbalance here. Especially since we're not only colleagues but "friends," and haven't seen each other in nearly a year. Pretty odd, isn't it? And if you had phoned (and I believe you'd have had the strength to resist my invitation to Tivoli) would I have come to New York to see you? In all this there is some ugliness, something I don't want explained, though I'm sure that as a disciple of the Hasidim and believer in Dialogue and an enthusiast for [Abraham Joshua] Heschel, and a man of honor from whom I have heard and endured many lectures and reproaches and whose correction I have accepted, you have a clear and truthful explanation. All the worse for you if you are not hypocritical. The amount of internal garbage you haven't taken cognizance of must be, since you never do things on the small scale, colossal.

It wouldn't do much good to see matters clearly. With the sharpest eyes in the world I'd see nothing but the stinking fog of falsehood. And I haven't got the sharpest eyes in the world; I'm not superman but superidiot. Only a giant among idiots would marry Sondra and offer you friends.h.i.+p. G.o.d knows I am not stainless faultless Bellow. I leave infinities on every side to be desired. But love her as my wife? Love you as a friend? I might as well have gone to work for Ringling Brothers and been shot out of the cannon twice a day. At least they would have let me wear a costume.

Coventry, pal, is not the place.

To Richard Stern February 27, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

Dear d.i.c.k: Don't worry about a thing. [Jules] Feiffer has all the wit, charm and pathos you could possibly want. I think this thing is going to go. For TNS TNS however-well, we have to deal with eternities. World Pub. is so slow it takes four or five months after we're done with the issue to manufacture; it's a however-well, we have to deal with eternities. World Pub. is so slow it takes four or five months after we're done with the issue to manufacture; it's a krikhik krikhik [ [64]-the word is Yiddish-schedule; two issues a year, and awfully frustrating. Chapter 1 of the new novel is very good, but so obviously part of a longer work we can't take it.

I've been hammering at Herzog's back for months, and have several hundred pages of narrative about as steady as the moon's...o...b..t. The whole now looks far different from what you saw, and that will look even more different in the end. It seems I used to work by adding steadily, and I now do it by adding and then boiling down. I know it sounds like cookery, but that's what Plato said poetry was, one of the arts of flattery, like hairdressing and soup-making.

I'll show up in Chicago towards the end of May, quite willing to talk. Even about Susan, if you like. I think by now I know her quite well. I can tell you more about her than most others can tell me. I shrink from marriage still, but not from Susan.

About May 29th, I think.

Meanwhile, give my best to Gay, to s.h.i.+ls, and to the kids. I'm sorry you didn't get the Gug, but I think it'll come one of these years. Keep after it.

a bientot,

To Gregory Bellow February [?], 1961 [Rio Piedras]

Dear Greg: Your letter amazed me. What's all this solemnity about honest men and faith and credit? I thought you were a socialist, for liberty and equality. It seems you really are a capitalist, all for the buck. Or do you think you're saving your mother from my swindles, or protecting her from bankruptcy or starvation? What sort of nonsense is this? You have two parents. Both love you. The interests of both should be close to you. Both Both.

What is it that's not rightfully mine-the alimony? Is it rightfully Anita's? By what right? Because I injured her? But I've never billed her for the pain she caused me. Or is it a one-way street? This is money I work very hard for, for I am somewhat slipshod and incompetent about my earning, and inefficient. Normally (whatever that is-what's normal with me?) I don't mind too much. But I've had a difficult time. Don't you know that? Really I'm so surprised at your failing to realize that I've had a hard time I'm tempted to laugh. After all, the difficulty and the weeping and all of it has involved you! And that's really quite funny, don't you think, that you should now be so indignant and send me boyscout messages about how a scout is honorable. But really, socialist to socialist, what's the sense of alimony rain or s.h.i.+ne? She has a job and a guaranteed income. I haven't. She's neither sick nor in dire need whereas I can without exaggeration claim I've had a wretched time. I don't suppose you think the Sondra-Adam business was fun. And with the heartbreak of it went the expense. You can't imagine how much it all costs to lose a wife and child. I've exhausted my credit. I owe Viking ten grand, and my English publisher eighteen hundred, and Sondra's mother a thousand, and [Samuel S.] Goldberg, and taxes and so on and on and on. Wouldn't it have been nice of Anita, who knew of these hards.h.i.+ps, to let me off a bit and say, "See here, I know it's rough. But though you've done me wrong I am not vengeful. You can start paying again when you're able"? Now that would have been something like humane. I could have sworn socialists were a little like that. I must have been reading the wrong books. You may ask why, with these views of alimony, I ever consented to pay it. Well, I did it because Anita's lawyer wouldn't allow me to return from the West and reside in New York unless I agreed to the terms. So to be near you I agreed. And I was good about it for years and years. But now I'm on rather lean days, so you say, Take him to court. And she says, in sorrow, I can't afford it. Not quite accurate, Greg. It would have cost her nothing if she were in the right. In that event I would have to pay the court costs, too. But she and I would have to submit statements of financial condition to the court, and perhaps the alimony might be taken away altogether. For my financial condition is pretty bad. Yes, it looks palmy. I earn six thousand here for the term, but I pay more than five thousand to Anita and Sondra, so one might say that I've come here to make that money. It only takes five months or so. But what do I do in June, Greg?

If you are, as you say, making a man of yourself you might think of the condition of another man, your father. Why does he do these things? Is he a lunatic? What's the sense of those books he writes? Obviously my unreliable financial condition is related to the fact that I write books. And you might try thinking about this in terms other than the dollar. Those are blood cells in my eccentric veins, not dimes. It's odd that I should have to persuade my son that I'm human. Fallible, silly, human, not altogether a waste of time. I'll get by somehow-sc.r.a.pe by, steal by, squeak by. I always have. If I strike it rich, why, I'll buy ice cream and Cadillacs for everybody. And then everyone will say how honest I am and your good opinion of me will return, and your faith faith in me. It's all silly. in me. It's all silly.

Your devoted Papa

To Hymen Slate March 1, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico Dear Slate- It's funny, but I had the same feeling about you, that you you were more accessible and open to feeling. Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Isaac and Abe [Kaufman] that was all the thing. It took twenty years to find out how odd everyone else was; and how much alike. In many ways the same person with different faces-a little more paranoid here, a little more depressed there. But how unlike what we thought then! I who was supposed to be worldly got my first glimpse of the world only a few years ago. And even Abe has become practical. When I was in Cambridge last year Jerry Lettwin who teaches at MIT told me that Abe was thin, quite a man about town, and no longer the old loon. Too bad, if true. were more accessible and open to feeling. Under the leaders.h.i.+p of Isaac and Abe [Kaufman] that was all the thing. It took twenty years to find out how odd everyone else was; and how much alike. In many ways the same person with different faces-a little more paranoid here, a little more depressed there. But how unlike what we thought then! I who was supposed to be worldly got my first glimpse of the world only a few years ago. And even Abe has become practical. When I was in Cambridge last year Jerry Lettwin who teaches at MIT told me that Abe was thin, quite a man about town, and no longer the old loon. Too bad, if true.

Your piece is already in proof and you should be getting a copy of TNS #3 TNS #3, and a small check. I hope it will encourage you to do more. You should, you know. You have a good voice or tone, and a lot of knowledge and ability. I'm not printing "Slate's Proof " for old time's sake. And I'd be very careful ab't firing the ambitions of any man past forty if I didn't believe it would be quite a simple thing for him to do something good. I'm convinced it wouldn't be too hard for you. Think about it.

Regards to Evelyn.

Best,

Around Hyde Park, social worker Hymen Slate was for many years a much-loved chess player and Socratic talker. He and Bellow had been cla.s.smates at Tuley High School.

To Keith Opdahl March 12, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico Dear Mr. Opdahl: Those are very stiff questions. One is always tempted to give a proper answer, the answer that wins the Bible. Of course the man of will is easier to see clearly, and seeing clearly is a sort of love, I suppose. It may be that Blake meant something of this sort when he spoke of cleansing the gates of perception. And the energetic, good or bad, make themselves more clearly seen. I can confess without much difficulty that, being a man who makes up his mind with slow pain, I admire those who know their minds. They may of course be dangerous, in that their decision will be not to love. But that doesn't prevent me from loving them, or my more affectionate characters from doing so. The affectionate characters are stubborn too, and go their own way. They have powerful will, and affection suits them because it removes obstacles and resistances. They have their own will to power, I've never been in any doubt about that. If they are not obviously selfish they are nonetheless greedy. Some sense of life acts through them, and that is their pa.s.sion. To me their affectionate charm often appears a disguise. However, I wouldn't argue argue any of these matters with you. I may well be wrong, but the drama and the comedy make that somewhat irrelevant. They are first, and the meanings are the comet's tail-when there is a comet. any of these matters with you. I may well be wrong, but the drama and the comedy make that somewhat irrelevant. They are first, and the meanings are the comet's tail-when there is a comet.

The Crab and the b.u.t.terfly depressed me terribly. It was too heavy, and I let it go and turned to depressed me terribly. It was too heavy, and I let it go and turned to Augie March Augie March instead. instead.

Sincerely yours,

Keith Opdahl is the author of The Novels of Saul Bellow: An Introduction The Novels of Saul Bellow: An Introduction (1968). (1968).

To Edward Hoagland March 13, 1961 Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico Dear Mr. Hoagland, I wonder why I found it hard to answer a letter which gave me so much pleasure. Perhaps I don't know what to do with something that satisfies me so much. We all seem to be pretty poor about praise, about giving as well as receiving. Your letter shows you to be a bright exception in the giving at any rate. I hope you will be as good about taking it when your turn comes. I know from the two books and the one story I've read that it's sure to come.

On the whole I think your judgment of what I've done is the one I would give myself. Oddly enough, I do feel extraordinarily locked up, and some of my books, especially Augie March Augie March, are written in a jail-breaking spirit. And most prison breaks, like most revolutions, are unsuccessful. After I had written The Victim The Victim, I felt the limitation of conventional despair and disappointment and all the rest of it, of that romanticism which makes excessive and ridiculous demands for the individual and seems ignorant of what there really is to ask for. In the excitement of freeing myself, I think I went too far. I would go about it differently now. As for Henderson Henderson, I understand it least of all my books. Oh, I can tell you in detail what I was after, but I'm quite blind to the whole. I can identify the pa.s.sages in which I was completing my stride, hitting home. However, it is a queer book. So is the one I'm at work on now, of which I haven't found the center. I don't seem to have connected this time either. Not as clearly as one should. I want to do the thing purely a few times before I stop. [ . . . ]

I hope you will have something to offer The n.o.ble Savage The n.o.ble Savage soon. We're making up the fourth number now and we have plenty of s.p.a.ce. Perhaps you have a story for us, or a personal essay. I'd be happy to see you write something-something personal about New York. That kind of thing is so seldom done. You could do it well. soon. We're making up the fourth number now and we have plenty of s.p.a.ce. Perhaps you have a story for us, or a personal essay. I'd be happy to see you write something-something personal about New York. That kind of thing is so seldom done. You could do it well.

Sincerely, Edward Hoagland (born 1932) is an American novelist and major essayist, particularly admired for his nature writing in such collections as The Peac.o.c.k's Tale The Peac.o.c.k's Tale (1965) and (1965) and The Courage of Turtles The Courage of Turtles (1971). (1971).

To Louis Gallo April 4, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

Dear Lou- You don't write letters easy to answer. One wants to-oh yes, indeed one does-but there's always the temptation to say, "See the collected works, vol. so and so." I'm writing a book in which I want to try my strength against some of these same questions. And argument really means nothing. That's for philosophers. Writers can only try to demonstrate in close detail without opinion. You may have the upper hand in argument. You may in fact have it in earnest truth as well. I don't know. I take you to be relentlessly kicking a way through a good many lies. The signs are there, especially in your letters and in the article on readers, which greatly impressed me.

And I suppose it doesn't greatly matter what one says in the way of position-taking. In art the real proofs are overwhelmingly factual. I wouldn't be caught dead with a Program for Life and Joy in my pocket. Or, as the new Administration has it, Energy and Fun, a Sense of Humor and all the rest of that. And the thing is mysteriously mixed with you, too, for at the same time that you say Nausea and Torture you show a knotty and bitter sense of comedy, and that, far more than the position position, is what gets me. Yes, I know the position, of course. My G.o.d! how wouldn't I know it? I never lived in my mother's bas.e.m.e.nt and used her was.h.i.+ng machine, but that's only a detail. The rest, from direct and concentrated experience, is very familiar to me too. I've never known what it was to lead an accepted life. But the non-accepted life has its own terrible dangers, and horrible corruptions as you know lie in wait for the solitary resister. A writer has his choice in America of a grand variety of h.e.l.ls. Yours happens to suit my own taste. But I am well aware that with a good projector one can make one's small troubled light cover the heavens, and one's own spindling sticks can look like the ruggedest of all crosses.

You'll find the book I'm writing now less "tender," "tolerant," etc. When a writer has such feelings, however, it's his business to lead them all into the hottest fire. He must expose them to the most destructive opposites he can find and, if he wishes to be tender, confront the murderer's face. The converse, however, is equally true, for writers who believe there is a Sarga.s.so of vomit into which we must drift are obliged to confront beauty. To deny that, you would have to deny your instincts as a writer.

Well, all right, then. [ . . . ]

Best,

To Pascal Covici May 9, 1961 [Rio Piedras]

Dear Pat: Thanks. I was glad to get your letter, of course, and I re-read the stuff and agree it's not half bad, but it'll need a lot of work yet because it can't decide whether it's funny or grim. It will need a thinning in the places where the thought is concentrated. It's an old problem with me. Maybe I'll get all the philosophy out of my system for good, now. This is the first time I've really shown my hand-my face, if you prefer-in any book. But we'll talk about that next week. I'm packing now and sweating over the papers and tickets and grades. I hear from Susie that you're well and enjoy her cooking.

Give my special love to Dorothy.

As ever,

To Susan Gla.s.sman [n.d.,] [Rio Piedras]

Now sweetheart, don't don't bring any coats and sweaters, only bring any coats and sweaters, only ultra ultra-summery things. Matters like Kosher salami are optional. I'm doing fine. I'm beginning not to be so democratically humble ab't myself. It's me-Bellow!!! I am on loan, or lend-lease, to myself from G.o.d. And a rather extraordinary piece of business.

Come, as Sh.e.l.ley said to the night, soon-soon!

To Susan Gla.s.sman [n.d.] [Rio Piedras]

[ . . . ] I eat very little since you've gone, and I read and write a great deal. Hardly any point in going to Luquillo alone. I read the Old Testament and prophets, and work with Herzog. He Herzog. He is doing beautifully and that's some comfort. First I missed you hungrily, and now I'm more peaceful, and in about ten days I'll have gotten every advantage of solitude and I'll have a head full of ache and a void at heart. is doing beautifully and that's some comfort. First I missed you hungrily, and now I'm more peaceful, and in about ten days I'll have gotten every advantage of solitude and I'll have a head full of ache and a void at heart.

[ . . . ] And I went to see The Misfits The Misfits. Oy! Oy! Philosophy, thy name is not Miller. Philosophy, thy name is not Miller.

Love and kisses,

To Susan Gla.s.sman [n.d.] [ Rio Piedras]

My dearest Doll: Here are twenty pages more, making forty this week since the jet took you from me. Signs of virtue and happiness. I live on broiled meat and salt-pills and my brains and insides go around at high speed. Have you ever visited a clothing factory, heard the sewing machines rrrrhhhahhhrrr with the loudness in the middle of the phrase? I feel like that myself, like the operator sliding in the cloth. Only the machinery is internal and the seams never end. Yesterday I went to Luquillo at last, and that was fine, but then the clouds came out and I drove home. In the Studebaker now. The Volks lost six quarts of oil in one week, and I left it in the Botsfords' shop in San Lorenzo. Keith got back early last week. We met for dinner and had some straight talk, which he seems to revel in. He'd rather have me tell him the truth than anyone I ever saw. It isn't always pleasant but then it's about him him and that's good, glorious. I'm that way myself, as you know. and that's good, glorious. I'm that way myself, as you know.

I didn't like your downcast letter very much, and putting it together with your decision not to go to Chicago I attributed it to the conversation you must have had with home when you got back. Did your mother give you a hard time on the phone? I hope that isn't so, but only the normal swing from excitement and euphoria at coming in safe to New York, and being in your own place, and the friends and the glamour after all of the Big Town, to solitude again, and bitter thoughts. But that's altogether the normal course you should have run. It can't hurt, I hear, to take this Librium. Keith was on it, too. He admits now to having had a little nervous breakdown. Probably his psychiatrist in NYC tells him so. He has a tailor in London and a psychiatrist in NYC on the same standby-footing. Ah, he's a glorious and funny man.

In all the island only I am steadily at work.

Love and good cheer, To Susan Gla.s.sman [n.d.] [Rio Piedras]

Ay Susannah! Herzog Herzog keeps rippling towards the old estuary, almost to page two hundred. The rapidity frees me somewhat, keeps me from lingering on my favorite themes or poisons. Later, later! Onwards, onwards. I want to end standing on my head like Hippocleides on the banquet table [ . . . ] The weather is not too keen, to touch on other matters, the cars work worse and worse. I took a lady to dinner who came introduced by my oldest brother. She turned out to be the complete rich neurotic. I mean complete. A woman waits for me, as Walt Whitman started to say; she contains everything, nothing neurotic is lacking. In one respect dinner was rewarding. She is a lobbyist for good causes, and she told me how a Senator tried to lay her in the Capitol during a roll-call vote. She had come to see that he voted, kept his word. His instincts were far better. He wanted to make her drunk in his private office. She said, "Only after the vote." Only the brave deserve the fair! What a world! My only vote, Dolly, I cast for beautiful you, to the tune of keeps rippling towards the old estuary, almost to page two hundred. The rapidity frees me somewhat, keeps me from lingering on my favorite themes or poisons. Later, later! Onwards, onwards. I want to end standing on my head like Hippocleides on the banquet table [ . . . ] The weather is not too keen, to touch on other matters, the cars work worse and worse. I took a lady to dinner who came introduced by my oldest brother. She turned out to be the complete rich neurotic. I mean complete. A woman waits for me, as Walt Whitman started to say; she contains everything, nothing neurotic is lacking. In one respect dinner was rewarding. She is a lobbyist for good causes, and she told me how a Senator tried to lay her in the Capitol during a roll-call vote. She had come to see that he voted, kept his word. His instincts were far better. He wanted to make her drunk in his private office. She said, "Only after the vote." Only the brave deserve the fair! What a world! My only vote, Dolly, I cast for beautiful you, to the tune of Gaudeamus Igitur Gaudeamus Igitur [ [65]. You are right about these marriage-business alliances, of course, but I suppose this represents the efforts of people who have given up the love-quest to find a reason for continuing together. As such, the love-quest certainly deserves to be tabled, shelved, stored. As romanticism, I mean, or even s.e.xual romanticism of the Reich kind. One swings from shallowness of one sort to shallowness of another, and from misery to misery. But people who see G.o.d in one another . . . aren't on the make in NYC.

I kiss you sweetly in the middle,

Bellow, who liked standing on his head, enjoyed Herodotus's tale of Hippocleides, who did so at Cleisthenes's banquet, happily exposing his genitals.