in Madrid would be working in New York in Chicago in Emporia Zenith—no, as Walker Evans said, to not stay in one place but move around. And thank God now I am out of Madrid, for better or worse but out. I do think of people who could and would manage things quietly and well in my circumstances; which is maddening; the bad thing is to fall behind, and when the remittance appears to have to pay for what is past, and not have it for what is ahead; that is where I have messed things up; how we all cry out for a fresh start, spiritually, financially, sartorically—and the promises made, the resolutions. Well, I shall have about 50$ to go on until the next, and think I can manage, as one does in any circumstance. Dammit, I do want to settle down to respectable and gainly livelihood, but not to see Spain while in Spain is preposterous.
A remarkably wonderful letter from Barney Emmart, in London, to say that in a few days he is leaving northern France and cycling down to the Spanish border, plans to be in Spain for two or three weeks! If things do not get confused I hope to meet him in Sevilla around the beginning of April; and am of course quite excited about it, seeing a friend again. One imagines the things that might go wrong, I picture us both on the same train, having missed each other at one place, and riding hundreds of kilometres but never meeting because he is in 1st class and I in a 3rd class carriage . . . well. [...]
A very nice letter from Miss Williams, who is now in Nice and liking it all very much, tells me to come up if I am still sick (which I am not) and relax with them on the Mediterranean shore. Though no; at the moment I am too disgusted with myself for any company but one like Barney, who also spends time being disgusted with himself, pretending he weighs 300 pounds, similar productive pastimes.
When I came back from the monastery I had a note to call a Baroness Borchgrasse, she sounds like a real bloody fascist on the ’phone, had had a note from a friend (I suppose Mrs Fromkes) saying you were worried; and you know I am sorry for that; I had not realised too much time had passed since writing you; and I guess the flu would have gone away sooner under a doctor. [...]
I have three grey hairs. In front.
And so, quietly,
with love,
Bill
‘Fallas’: in R, a crass American tourist “wants to see the big fair they have in Valencia [...]. They call it the Fallas, it’s all fireworks” (882).
Baroness Borchgrasse [...] Mrs Fromkes: unidentified.
To Edith Gaddis
Sevilla
29 March 49
As Becky Sharp once said, “I think I could be a good woman, if I had five- thousand (she meant pounds 25000$) a year . . .” And so it is, and the pity of it how “money” makes the world all smiles, and this afternoon (having got your ‘note’) I pass through the streets offering benediction to sundry wretches who hours before would have merited curses between the teeth . . .
It is some time since you have recieved a cheerful letter from me, isn’t it. And here I hasten, under the aegis of wealth, to try to make up. Really; you must get tired to death of niggling notes from rocky places, detailing nothing but the weather (cold), the food (vile), the health (absence of), the prospects (ditto) . . . Because—though it does seem so at times—it is not all disaster, beggarly wonderment. Why, with the possibility of change of lodgings immediately in view, I can even tell you here in all good cheer that my stomach has succumbed to the culinary disasters of economical living, and when I lie down (which has been often) it really sounds like a huge hydro-electric plant, the Hoover Dam or the TVA or whatever, but something grand, in full operation: I hear valves open and shut, mighty rivers gush, canals furiously overflow their banks, whirlpools and cascading waterfalls, —indeed, if I do not seem to exaggerate, there have been times when I have heard the voices of men crying out down there in the darkness “Tote dat barge . . . Lif’ dat bale.” . . . well.
Spain is not the kind of a country you travel in; it is a country you flee across. To get from one place to another (the eternal problem in any respectable metaphysic) is the object; and trains, hopelessly laden, occasionally set out bravely with just such purpose. One set out recently from Valencia, and I was one of the unshaven, bread-carrying, orange-peeling idiots ‘on board’. Olive trees. All you see is olive trees. They are pretty, planted in pattern and rather like our weeping willow—pretty until you understand their purpose.
At any rate, the ‘train’ (that is a euphemism) got all the way to Alcazar that night, averaging almost 18miles per hour. Shocking age of speed. About 1:30 something thundered into Alcazar from Madrid, I climbed on its back and together we were in Sevilla the Very Next Afternoon! (I think that perhaps the reason for the trains’ pace is to give the people an illusion about the size of their country: those who have never seen maps probably believe, and with All Good Reason, that Africa would dwindle in comparison: no wonder Mr. Franco, as I read today, says ‘The Atlantic Pact without Spain is like an omelette without eggs’: He is a train-rider.) But back to my original complaint (it is hard to keep them in order), all they can grow is these damned olives, and so, logically (Spanish logic) all they eat is the oil. By they I mean we. Just today what was put before me would have roused even Old Grunter’s hackles; briefly described (I daren’t try details, the spirit is willing but the stomach weak) is was, or had been, an artichoke, now hoary and greyed with age and oil, in which it floated miraculously, the oil, slightly contaminated with a dark colouring-matter, sporting weary but invincible peas. Oh I tell you. Think of me, next mashed-potato-with-‘xxxxxbutter’ (such a foreign word I can’t even spell it) and green broccoli, beef bathed in its own juices, or perhaps a lamb steak or chop, seared but tenderly red inside, garnished with parsley (green) . . . not pityingly, just think of me. Tomorrow will be better.
(You must charitably excuse my many typing mistakes; the light in the room is about equal to the glow of a friendly cigarette—and also, if my hand shakes somewhat, it is because I am waiting, with understandable trepidation, for “Dinner”.
On the other hand (though that is ridiculous: we are still in Spain), as you know, I like, respect, enjoy the company of, and otherwise esteem Juancho. But his Iberian circle of friends out-do one another as human and social impossibilities. After the string of disasters precipitated by one of his chums in Madrid, I had the witless inspiration to look up another here, to whom he had given me a letter. Or am I the miserable ingrate? the shy boy with boarding-school manners and New England shyness?—this gentleman is an officer in the ARMY, and lives quite wretchedly with his family in a haze of music from other peoples’ radios, children, unpaid bills, plexiglass collars (the modern celluloid here), splendid medals, and used stamps—he is also a philatelist, has boxes and boxes of carefully-arranged stamps, mostly duplicates and mostly current Spanish. When he came to call (as a matter of fact he followed me ‘home’) he continued to cement our relationship the way eight-yr-olds do, the exhibition and inspection of each other’s earthly possessions: nothing in my spare luggage but that he picked up, weighed, priced, and, if I may presume to say, coveted. Now informality is one thing; but a hand reaching into one’s breast pocket for a cigarette while its owner spits on the floor, —as I say, am I still a Merricourt boy? But that floor business is a national trait; no wasteba[s]ckets (except, in this modern hostel, one beside the toilet in which to throw used paper) nor ashtrays: there is always some hag who comes to clean up: no trouble in this country over emancipated women, one of Spain’s seductive qualities to the American Boy.
Sevilla, right now, is blooming; not the palm tree, breadfruit, or banyan, but the eyes of any and all who stand to gain by tourists. In about ten days, Holy Week descends, along with floats, Virgins, barbarous crucifixes,
