by Anne Conover
Barker had pretensions to poetry, reciting his “Adesso” for the Snyder camera crew:
Flame not for unthinking scissor fingers
Mourn centimetres of Egyptian life in death,
Nor curse the golden Unicorn which lingers
Pacing the pane between that wind, this breath.
Caresse was fond of Barker, but not blind to the uneven quality of his verse:
The sophisticate today too often offers used currency as precious coin, which it is not . . . be it one line or an odyssey, a chemist he must be and not a trickster. But when the gold is there, glowing and rare, the poet alchemist can and does achieve his minted goal. In BB’s work I find some verses contrived, some inscrutable, but also some poems that contain the rarest currency of all.
Robert Mann, another young weekend guest of limited means and some talent who turned up at the castle, was invited by Caresse to stay on as chief-of-staff. Mann wrote to La Principessa: “to express the kind of special gratitude I feel with the phrase ‘thank you for a lovely time’ seems not only inaccurate but a sort of profanation of a sentiment at once broader and deeper.”
Caresse announced to her friend Helen Simpson in New York that “Robert Mann is here to help me administer the castle. He is a young and gifted composer . . . up until last year; he was secretary-general of the international Society for Contemporary Music, sponsor of the festival in Cologne.” The friendship that began when Mann addressed a note to “My dear Mrs. Crosby” after their first meeting ripened into a lifelong attachment.
In a later letter to “Caresse, darling,” Mann attempted to redefine their relationship. His function might be to run a year-round office in Rome, helping to choose the season’s artists, answering correspondence, and file-keeping, but for this he would have to ask a monthly salary. He could not promise to live at the castle in the summer, because his job as a translator for Roman movie crews “kept body and soul together.”
“Actually, the issue is a larger one,” Mann wrote.
. . . It hinges on the fact that a tranquil life of contemplation, tempered by friends, enhanced by books and art and brightened by laughter, seems to clash with your desires for a life of action. . . . Something of this kind must have struck you this summer, the day you had all to yourself lying in the garden, warmed by the sun. I remember your telling me about it as a special moment. . . . Because it was a moment I know well. . . . Bill [Barker] to the contrary. What is, in fact, his latest “act”-ivity? Aside from the flowing hair and drooping mustachios?
. . . I know too well now, and we both have seen that my Trastevere isolation, my music . . . are demands so great that almost all other considerations crumble before them. You need a fuller share of someone’s life, a larger embrace, a more complete devotion than my life, my arms, my heart are capable of.
“My original intention here was to write a letter of apology and explanation over the Helen-note,” Mann added; “but I have preferred to reassert my love in a more constructive way.” In closing, Mann offered his personal caveat:
You can’t on the one hand be a guardian angel (even if you are an angel) and on the other, the director of a starkly equipped country hotel. . . . Give everything free; you will have less headaches, and they greater inspiration (and devotion). And keep the number down . . . it’s more fun that way. . . . Strike straight out for talent; true talent will never let you down.
Another penniless true talent who found his way to Roccasinibalda was Gregory Corso of the West Coast Beatniks, a shaggy, dark young man who boasted that he never combed his hair. In Caresse’s view; “Bohemianism . . . has never meant five-o’clock shadow or untidy hair . . . but I like its indifference to dull formulas and its latitude for work and fun.” She allowed Corso to stay on. Stripped to the waist and looking quite like the god Pan, Corso posed for Roloff Beny with Caresse and Irene Rice Pereira in the courtyard.
Corso, who drank too much and was often high—on drugs as well as alcohol—was generally erratic and obnoxious. One evening, a guest remembered, Corso was making small talk about women and the inescapability of their being different from men. He reached out and cupped and grasped one of Caresse’s ample breasts, to illustrate his point. She very quickly slapped his hand and, unruffled, continued on with the conversation.
After his departure, Corso wrote to Caresse from Venice:
I loved my happy time with you—and good it was, too—for the last three years I was ill—and now I’m out of it—all’s joy—and I hope I made you joyous—whatever, I’m with Bill [Barker] and he’s an angel true. We meet in Venice and you be my girl friend—take me to the casino—I can win and we’ll go haffy’s—but you must put up the bread—if not, I call you a parsimonious un-lover—now how’s that! I love angels like you—I can yell at you, and you take it like a lady.
One might wonder why she felt obliged to “take it like a lady”—to provide a haven for the unconventional, the unwashed. Perhaps it was because she suspected that behind every unimpressive exterior lurked genius, a latent Ezra Pound. Or, as one chronicler of the expatriates suggested: “What drove so many Americans to stay in Europe, to become patrons, setting up places to nest down their geniuses . . . [was that] the more they rebelled, the more they fled from Puritanism, somehow in the end they felt [it] their Christian duty. . . .”
After a short stay with Caresse in Venice, Allen Ginsberg, in his role as mother-hen of the Beatniks in Paris, wrote an update of their activities:
I see Gregory [Corso,] Peter [Orlovsky,] and a few beat cats from the Bonaparte Café round corner from Deux Magots—hangout of foreign lowlife—some beautiful faces—a whole group of strange young (17-23) French boys with long hair, & their little dungareed French runaway girls. . . . when you get to America please look up On the Road by Kerouac, & Gregory Corso’s book from City Lights SF Cal . . . Gregory now all hung up on Einstein, says he had epiphany other day, he was not walking around Paris but in Middle of Universe.
Expect I’ll stay here half year at least. Sorry you didn’t like the fragment of [William] Burroughs we left with you in Venice—perhaps you thought him evil-minded or being dirty for dirt’s sake—not at all the case. . . . I won’t go into huge explanations, please take it on trust the whole thing a vast insane masterpiece. Kerouac arrives and after that we all go off to the Far East beginning by way of Greece with knapsacks morphine needles bottles of California Tokay dreams extra socks long underwear & innumerable golden manuscripts . . .
At least one unsavory character was suspected of involvement with the idealistic art colony at Rocca. Sydney E. Paulson, vice consul of the American Embassy in Rome, wrote to Caresse “to investigate the activities of one Jean Pierre LaFitte and his associates in Italy. We have reason to believe that you have had contacts with Mr. LaFitte.” Caresse denied any knowledge of LaFitte or of his activities. She noted unequivocally in the margin of the file copy of that letter: “Saw the Consul . . . never heard of him.”
One contemporary source who preferred to remain anonymous recorded a stark critique of the Center:
. . . Here with Caresse’s sour wine and goddam pasta our breath doesn’t hold out, our livers ache, and even Caresse has forgotten her crystal chandelier background. Let’s face it—here there are no folks around like Jo Davidson, Paul Valéry, Isadora Duncan, or John Reed—not here in Roccasinibalda. Her new crops of geniuses are mostly all phonies, freeloading fags and poets trying to make it on television.
Desmond O’Grady offered a kinder—if perhaps more rosyhued—view of life at the castle. He remembered no orgies, no drunkenness. “It was all very civilized. . . . [not] a fight, an argument, or a breakdown.” Caresse lived by the Greek “Golden Mean,” O’Grady said, with everything in its place and nothing done to excess. The truth may lie somewhere between.
A long history of bronchial ailments forced Caresse to retreat to the well-heated drawing rooms of Washington when t
he winter chill set in. She began to cast about for a site in Rome where she might keep a closer eye on the Castello in the cold months. Roloff Beny, the young Canadian photographer-artist-writer whom Caresse befriended, came up with a solution. A Columbia University graduate, Beny won critical acclaim in New York for his one-man show at the Knoedler Gallery before going to Rome via Paris, where he lived for a year on a Guggenheim Fellowship. A native of the bleak, prairie village of Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, Beny realized his lifelong dream of living by the water on the Lungotevere Ripa, the bank of the Tiber.
In January 1960, Beny wrote to Caresse referring to her recent—not entirely successful—eye operation:
What a joy to hear that both eyes are working again. . . . It is good to know you have survived your winter in Washington and all projects and activities as well, and I trust the princess will arrive in “fine fettle.” Roma and Rocca already seem spiritually alerted for the head of the realm. My plans call for me to leave for NY the first week of March, which seems incredibly good timing.
He offered one wing of his penthouse apartment, with a new dining room and use of the main kitchen. A “charming arrangement” in the winter garden could be the setting for lunches or intimate suppers, with the services of Vittoria, the full-time maid.
. . . Of course, Caresse, you must realize that I will have to charge at least enough to cover my expenses . . . in other words, 120,000 [lire] for a completely functioning house. In fact, 30,000 per week [less than $50 U.S. in 1960]. There will be a little heating to pay but that usually depends on the weather. I have had much more lucrative offers, but I would far prefer a tenant like La Principessa Roccasinibalda.
From Washington, Caresse wrote to Henry Miller in California about her forthcoming summer plans. The art gallery in one wing of the castle would open with a Black Sun Press retrospective exhibition: “The Giants of the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties.” Miller would be represented in all three categories, and she hoped he could come. “There are gardens, mountains and streams all about, not as rugged as Big Sur,” she urged, “but both soothing and exciting. . . .There are studios for artists and studies with turrets for writers,” (with space for Miller in either area). After Roccasinibalda, John Brown arranged for the exhibit to go on a USIS-sponsored tour of the Middle East. Caresse asked Miller to write the Foreword for the BSP traveling exhibition catalog “as a final salvo.”
Miller remained at Big Sur. When she thanked him for his “exciting and challenging” introduction to the USIS catalog, she wrote that Miller’s pessimistic view of the world was unlike her own:
. . . It is difficult for me to be despondent, but I do face the facts that the world is both grim and dangerous, more this year than last, more so today than yesterday, however I have completely come to believe in Humanism as opposed to the supernatural beliefs and theistic creeds. It seems the only true and hopeful outlook for humans.
I am growing up while growing older. I long to stretch my brain as a [hand] stretches the fingers of a glove. . . . You are right when you say man has done nothing yet with his brain and skills and opportunity. Let’s fervently hope that he is on the brink of a new and better day. . . . I saw Lindbergh land at LeBourget . . . I was aware . . . when Gagarin was circling the earth . . . I rode in one of the very first “horseless carriages.” What a century it is, and we are hardly more than halfway through. . . . who knows I may go to the moon! But for the moment, I’m perfectly willing to stay here, to carry on at Roccasinibalda.
Caresse continued her publishing activities that summer, using a small printing press she discovered in the village of Rieti. The first of the Castle Continental Editions was Our Separate Darkness, a small volume of poetry by Sy Kahn.
Kahn, a professor of humanities at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, discovered the collection of Black Sun Press papers and memorabilia in a remote room of the Castello. He recognized their value and rescued them from further damage—once from invading flying termites, and again from water that came sluicing into the room during a storm. Kahn helped Caresse to put the papers in order and urged her to sell them to a library at a university where they would be available to scholars.
When she began to search for a home for the papers, she thought of Harry T. Moore, co-editor of Portfolios during the war years in Washington. Moore also played an important role in bringing out Caresse’s autobiography. Many of the opening passages were written during a Christmas visit to Moore and his bride Beatrice, then stationed at Craig Air Force Base. At the time, Moore described Caresse as “brilliantly successful as ever in conveying her magnetic geniality in Alabama.”
He closeted the gregarious Caresse in his guest room to write her memoirs and even suggested an appropriate title, The Passionate Years. Caresse rose to the challenge and finished the book with characteristic optimism: “The answer to the challenge [of life] is always ‘Yes!’
She later wrote to Moore:
I am full of gratitude for the belief you have in me and my memories—By now; you may have read the finished product . . . and I hope it is up to your expectations—I’d hate to fail you. . . . Tomorrow April 20th [Caresse’s birthday] is publication day—but I couldn’t wait and the world at Delphi couldn’t wait, so I’m on my way there now. . . . If the book goes well, what wonderful things we can all accomplish.
After his discharge from the Army, Moore joined the faculty of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Caresse wrote again to Moore: “You may hear from Professor Sy Kahn, who . . . was interested in finding a university that might like to acquire the BSP collection.”
In the early 1960s, with other civil rights advocates battling for desegregation, Caresse would not consider a library that denied access to black students. She expressed skepticism about SIU because of the “Southern” in its title. Moore reassured her that the campus was not segregated and that black students were allowed unlimited use of university facilities. Ralph McCoy, director of the Morris Library, was looking for valuable 20th century material for his Special Collections. The Black Sun Press limited editions and the Crosby papers—original manuscripts and letters from Joyce, Hemingway, Lawrence, Hart Crane, and Pound—were choice acquisitions to add to the SIU library’s resources.
After discreet inquiries to other universities and more negotiations with Carbondale, Caresse announced her decision: “The [Southern Illinois] University sounds fine, directed by brilliant minds. Since receiving your letter, I have written to Dr. McCoy asking him to please give me a definite answer. Your help there to supervise the use of the collection is a paramount reason for selling it to them.”
Caresse also was selling the papers and manuscripts that Harry inherited from his cousin, Walter Berry, to SIU. When Moore replied that SIU was going ahead with the purchase, Caresse invited Charles Olson to the castle, to advise and assist with a new project. “Memories of . . . cocktails on the coda are certainly made more glamorous by your being present,” she wrote. “Several young poets were delighted that I had heard from you with such reckless energy in every line.”
I intended to write you before . . . to ask if this spring, just after or during Spoleto, you will meet with one or two poets to talk over and plan a prize in memory of Harry Crosby—a poetry prize of $5,000 which was paid me by SIU for letters and documents of Walter Berry, Harry’s cousin. . . .
Other judges besides yourself to be invited and provided with pasta, vino and lodging: from America, Ginsberg; from France, René Char and St. J. [ohn] Perse; from Greece, Seferis; and from Italy, Montale, Ungheretti, and number of others. The only conditions, that the poems must be submitted in English or in French . . . these are the only languages that Harry Crosby read or spoke . . . in his all-too-brief life. Have you any suggestions? Please give me your ideas and come over quickly.
It was obvious that Harry Crosby was the prevailing love of Caresse’s life. A portrait of Harry in his World War I uniform was hanging
on her bedroom wall at the castle, some 30 years after his death. Talk about Harry always brought a special look to Caresse’s face as she seemed to conjure him in her mind’s eye. In referring to Harry’s infidelities, she once said, “Well, he was a poet—the most complete poet I have ever known—and being a poet, he acted as he had to.”
Chapter XVI
A THRESHOLD FOR PEACE
“It isn’t man’s fate that I believe in, it is man’s destiny . . . and destiny to me means a world united and at peace.”
—Caresse
The next winter, Harry and Beatrice Moore invited Caresse to the SIU campus again. She had visited them several times after their move to Southern Illinois, and once was persuaded to meet with Moore’s class to discuss Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and the operation of a small publishing house in Paris in the ’20s. On another visit, in October 1963, Caresse told Moore’s students about her encounters with James Joyce and Nora when Black Sun published a portion of Joyce’s Work in Progress [Finnegan’s Wake]. The proposed class was interrupted by an event that canceled everything for the rest of that day and for several days thereafter throughout the country—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It was a traumatic time, when people needed to be together. The Moores and Caresse gathered at Buckminster Fuller’s dymaxion house on the Carbondale campus, a building that stood out in stark relief among the conventional Grant Wood/Midwest Gothic structures.
Caresse wrote the Moores regretting that she would not be with them again, since “traveling alone is more and more difficult for me on account of advancing years, which if I sit still and let them advance on me, are wonderful but to meet them even halfway takes every ounce of energy I can muster.
In May, Moore wrote from the Gresham Hotel in Dublin—the first stop in his sabbatical year abroad—that he was dedicating his most recent work, Clifftower, to Caresse. She dashed off a note of appreciation, including a counter-offer: “Why not Rome and Rocca? Here we are beautifully remote. . . . I’ll send in the car. . . . Do try to come.”