sort of bamboo, with a silver ferrule and topped by the carved head of an old disgruntled man. 2nd or 3rd hand certainly, but beautiful, and badly priced. But I guess it will always be there—it would take someone with imagination (sic) to carry it! And the shop is in the Calle del Disengaño, the Street of Disillusion. Isn’t that wonderful (& un-American).
And so. I walk much of the time, so that by yesterday my feet were really quite sore. I have been over most of Madrid I believe, the crooked narrow streets & the fine ones, the great & very formal park, a look at the tremendous pile which is the nacional palace, nobody lives there, and the streets, the streets. Quite chilly still, very in fact, so I keep moving, often get lost because the streets turn so. But the walking is the best cathartic, I agree with Mr Bean there. Have taken to wearing my fine Davega tennis-shoes, which call glances from passers-by, but otherwise I look quite like the people, they are not dark, as the popular conception of Spaniards, in the north here.
Well, Nancy. I can imagine the sort of disappointment you mean; and it is strange, because of the picture of her as one who Does Things—and I don’t mean Emmet Fox (who he? Another victim of Old Testament morality) because she has that aspect of being Alive, and I know, you must begin to wonder, when things continue to fail to work out for those people. (Perhaps she should settle down and practice “that Taoist art of disintegration which Yen Hui described to Confucius as ‘the art of sitting and forgetting’”. . .) Anyhow my best greetings to her, Something, must come.
As for Christmas, I didn’t know it was to be at Janice’s; just as glad I didn’t know: and your very brief description brings the whole thing into the room. But I must confess to some loneliness here, even for such atmosphere (though I can imagine how I should have felt there, thinking of Spain. . .) For the Woodburns, I haven’t written them, shall in a few days when I have more ‘material’, have thought of them often, still regretting missing them, and do greatly hope that things are going well for them each & both, I do like them each & both so much, and they have been so kind, as people, to me.
And hope that you are well, & happy, getting more from life than Mr. Fox.
with love,
W.
innocent abroad: Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad (1869) is a satirical travel book about Europe.
“So here I am [...] squads of emotion”: the opening lines of part 5 of “East Coker” (1940), the second of Eliot’s Four Quartets.
Bergson: Henri Bergson (1859–1941), French philosopher, perhaps best known for his book Laughter (1901); in WG’s library there is a French edition of that book inscribed “W. Gaddis San Jose, CR 1948,” along with Bergson’s Creative Evolution and Creative Mind.
Tennessee Williams: the American dramatist (1911–83) was at the height of his fame following the great success of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947.
the Myth: probably a reference to Denis de Rougemont’s Love in the Western World (1940), one of WG’s source-books for R. Chapter 2 of book 1 is entitled “The Myth,” on the European celebration of passion, especially adulterous passion, over married love, despite its connection with the death instinct.
‘a cheap sentimental humanism [...]: Connolly’s phrase: see letter of 4 May 1948.
Lady blonde: staying at a pension in Madrid, Wyatt (renamed Stephan at this point) gets involved with a blonde “flashy piece of goods” named Marga (R 797).
Ortega y Gasset: in R WG occasionally quotes from his Revolt of the Masses (1930), a call for the benevolent rule of an intellectual elite to counter the deleterious influence of the masses on art and government.
Calderon de la Barca: one of his best-known plays, La Vida es Sueño, is quoted a few times in R, in Spanish.
heavy heavy hangs over our heads: source unknown.
Walker Evans: American photographer (1903–75), who WG later said was the physical model for Wyatt in R.
about 6$: about $57.00; in 1949, $1 had the buying power of $9.50 today.
Life is very long: a phrase from part 5 of Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” (1925) that WG will quote occasionally.
Mrs Damon [...] Berlin’s First Congregational: in R, the organist of the First Congregational Church is named “Miss Ardythe, who had attacked the organ regularly since a defrauding of her maidenhead at the turn of the century” (14).
mortal coil: a phrase from Hamlet (3.1.69; “coil” meaning “turmoil”).
Stella & Bill: unidentified.
Miss Parke & Mr Waugh: presumably a friend of WG’s who visited Waugh (who was in NYC in December 1948) and told him of WG’s work in progress.
story [...] Costa Rica piece: in the summer of 1947 WG wrote an account of the Costa Rican revolution entitled “Cartago: Sobró con Quien” and a short story entitled “A Father Is Arrested,” posthumously published in the Missouri Review 27.2 (November 2004): 109–16.
South Wind : a hedonistic novel (1917) by British novelist Norman Douglas (1868–1952), set on the Capri-like island of Nepenthe.
Miss Williams: Margaret Williams (1924–2004). In a 1993 interview with Charles Monaghan, WG’s old friend Ormonde de Kay said of her: “Margaret Williams was a really live-wire, wonderful, very pretty American girl, very bright, who is now married to Bob Ginna, who used to be editor-in-chief, I think, of Little, Brown for a while, and is now sort of a freelance. Lives in Jaffrey, New Hampshire. And she does, too. Margaret was his [Gaddis’s] great love, at that time anyway” (http://www.williamgaddis.org/reminisce/remdekaymonaghan.shtml). A graduate of Vassar, she worked in journalism and book publishing as well.
Emmet Fox: (1886–1951), Irish-born American spiritual leader and self-help author.
“that Taoist art [...] forgetting’”: from p. 79 of More Trivia (Harcourt Brace, 1921), a short book of aphoristic observations by the American-born English essayist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865– 1946). Quoted in R (925).
Janice’s: one of WG’s aunts.
To Edith Gaddis
Madrid
[January 1949]
dear Mother.
[...] It is strange; but thank heavens, every day I am more glad to have come here. Still at logger-heads with the language, but can carry on a fair conversation now (though still trouble because I don’t know too many words) and struggling through some reading; besides working on the same ideas that have preöccupied me for the last 2years. And walking until now I have stopped for a while since the feet are temporarily collapsed. More trips to the Museo del Prado, where the paintings never cease to be exciting—my new inspiration, tutelary genius &c being Heironymus Bosch (I think orig. Flemish) whom you may see at the Met. too (they have 2 of his paintings) if you want some idea of the strange lands my mind is wandering now. I have bought a fine book on him, splendid reproductions & not too difficult Spanish.
Your
