The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979
Page 17
111. Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell
33 Pont Street, London
[n.d. December 1970]
Dearest Lizzie—
I’m just off to lunch with Sidney, but yes it’s a date for the Messiah on the 17th.378 Hope you feel much better by the time this reaches you. Here in London, we’ve reached weather like one of the worst Maine summers. Less disturbing maybe because it’s the usual thing. You a see379 a streak of indirect sunlight some day at three and everyone hymns the weather.
Love to my two messianics,380
Cal
112. Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop
London
[December 1970]
Dearest Elizabeth—
I fear I may owe you an apology for versing one of your letters into my poems on you in Notebook.381 When Lamb blew up at Coleridge for calling him “Frolicsome Lamb,” Coleridge said it was necessary for the balance of his composition. I won’t say that, but what could be as real as your own words, and then there’s only a picture that does you honor. Still, too intimate maybe, and if so I humbly ask pardon.
The other night, part of a weekend alone, I was in a Knightsbridge Portuguese restaurant Offado, more people worked on the tables, half in the kitchen etc. than there were guests; even the guitarist and singer helped, then sang things like Girls from Mallorca, while I ate and consumed a carafe of rosé, their table wine.382 After a while I expected you to come in the door any moment, even began nervously looking at my watch. So much I wanted to see you.
So much I do. I’ll be in New York staying with Blair Clark about the time you get this. I think Lizzie and I are going to break. I should have done it much more cleanly some time ago. But I can’t. I wonder if anyone in his right mind could. I am back to see Lizzie and Harriet, things are not even now quite settled, but they must be.
I must see you. I can easily come to Cambridge, or it could be New York if you’d like—you must be ripe to leave Cambridge by now, but I’d rather like to see it Harvard/. Give my love to Bill. All my love to you,
Cal
113. Caroline Blackwood to Robert Lowell
[80 Redcliffe Square, London]
[December 14?, 1970]
Darling Cal—I’ve just got back to Redcliffe. Eliza383 is sobbing about her dead mother and her hoover is wailing against the wall. Genia384 is crying about you. Ivana is rather corruptly copying. London seems to be Chinese grey—oyster grey—every appalling shade of pitch, pitch grey. I miss you so much already and your plane probably hasn’t even taken off yet. If I have had drunken hysterical seizures it’s because I love you so much that I’m afraid sometimes it makes me rather deranged.
I have no news. Nothing has happened since I saw you go with those two bearded and yammering Rabbis.
“Departure for Departure/ At the Air-Terminal” [Flight to New York 2. 3 4./], from “The Dolphin” manuscript, here, composed and revised between late 1970 and January 1972.
I will get your books sent out and the other little chores etc and fix the downstairs flat. I feel very unsafe. I don’t know if you will really ever come back—if I will ever see you again—if you should come back. I just know that I have been happier with you than I have ever been—ever. So even if the whole thing ends up for me with sadness, I will always think that it was worth it.385
Love
C
114. Robert Lowell to CAROLINE CITKOWITZ
[Telegram]
BLAIR CLARK’S
229 EAST 48 STREET
NEW YORK NY DE2170
[December 21, 1970]
CAROLINE CITKOWITZ 80 REDCLIFFE SQUARE LONDON SW1
THANK[S] FOR LETTER I’M NOT A CRIPPLE ALL MY LOVE
CAL
115. Robert Lowell to CAROLINE CITKOWITZ
[Telegram]
BLAIR CLARK
229
EAST 48 ST
NEW YORK NY 10017
DE 24 70
[December 24, 1970]
CAROLINE CITKOWITZ KIRRIEMUIR ANGUS SCOTLAND ALL WELL MERRY CHRISTMAS LONG FOR YOU
CAL
116. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
[n.d. December 1970]
Dearest: I came up to get some envelopes. I had the most pleasant evening, with several exciting things coming up about work. I took one of the Libriums386 beloved Dr. B.387 gave me and it helped enormously—took it about five, just before I saw you. So I think my trouble is “chemical,” if not in origin in devastating effect. I don’t want you to worry about me—if such a thing is possible!?—because I do feel on the mend, very much so. And suddenly having this good evening, free of care and memory, was almost unbelievable. See you tomorrow.
E.
PART II
1971–1972
117. Robert Lowell to CAROLINE CITKOWITZ
[Telegram]
BLAIR CLARK|229 EAST 48TH STREET NYC
JAN 2 1200PM ’71
CAROLINE CITKOWITZ 80 REDCLIFFE SQUARE LONDON SW1
PANAM FLIGHT 2 730AM TUESDAY ALL LOVE
CAL
118. Robert Lowell to Harriet Lowell
33 Pont St., London
January 6 1970 [1971]
Dearest Harriet:
I can’t really recommend my trip back to you. Forty-five minutes waiting for Jack Thompson to come to lunch; a line of cars that moved like snails for almost fifteen miles to the airport; a long line to weigh my baggage; a slow line to pay fifty-six dollars excess weight; a line to get into the lounge to wait for the plane; a wait in the lounge to be searched for dope and bombs; a long wait for the plane to take off; people lined seated up for seven hours eight abreast; a two mile trip by the airplane on the ground across the airport at a slow walking speed; a walk of a mile inside the airport; a mile trip on a very slow escalator; a wait while three hundred bags came out of the plane before mine. Then no more waiting, but snow was on the ground and I could see my breath like smoke from a dragon streaming before my face in my cold apartment./ Now I am at rest and very tired, too tired to write you a longer letter. Your redwood bear,1 Arms of the Law,2 sits in my bookcase and reminds me of you. I loved talking to you over Christmas. All my love, take care of mother. Don’t boss her.
love,
Dad
119. Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell
[33 Pont St., London SW 1]
January 7, 1971
Dearest Lizzie:
In my thoughts I planned a much more ample personal and bread and butter letter, but still feel the jar, loss of sleep etc. of the flight. If I’d taken a later or earlier plane I would probably have been diverted to Birmingham.
I thought of a lot of kind charming things you did[.] Above all you stand out at the airport with your curled hair and beautiful smile that survived the long dull wait. Then the blue wash cloths, the buttermilk, the calm Christmas day, and the wonderful wit and good spirits of Harriet, surely rather owing to you—I mean your old undeviating loyalty.
I haven’t done much, rested, read Hamlet for class,3 Henry Adams on the English,4 a mountain of mail asking me/ to read various places without fee. I worry about your blood-pressure. Mine went back to 180, due to the journey no doubt. I’m sure both our pressures will go down. Would that all pressures might. And thankyou for breasting/ the problems and trials of my visit, so often turning trial into joy.
Love to you both,
Cal
120. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell5
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
Jan. 8, 1971
Dear Cal: My financial situation is desperate and is going to be for the rest of my life. But I will manage that; the taxes for the coming year obsess me. I have paid $15,000 since we parted in April of last year. Now I obviously can’t have $21,000 and pay $15,000. You (one)/ are forced to pay quarterly.… All of this leads me to say that the tax/ check of $5,290 which Mr. Brooks mentioned must not be turned into pounds, but put into our account here, w
hich I pay the tax with, or else they can hold it at the State Street Trust for you. Then, you must ask F. and Straus to hold, since they can’t withhold and send to the government, in a tax account for you 25 % of your earnings/ and then at the end of the year they can put it on our final tax/ accounting. I will send you a receipt for the $5,290 check.
I won’t go on about this, since the two letters6 are all anyone can take in I guess … I haven’t done anything about the papers. Exhaustion, trying to get my own affairs in shape. But I will. I am looking for a spring teaching job because I just haven’t enough money to pay the rent which, just went up over 100 per month … bringing the apartment maintenance to $500 per month.
Harriet is fine. I am fine. We miss you and hope, dearest, all is well and happy with you. I thought when I finally knew you would never be with us that I would have that empty space gradually to fill up with something new, but it is filled up with nothing but money worries. Still they are different, better, a challenge rather [than] a grief. I hate to send off a business/ letter but it is just to say that you should keep the tax on your earnings in dollars and to try to suggest how to do it.
Love from here, as always,
Elizabeth
121. Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell7
33 Pont St., [London]
January 9, 1971
Dearest Lizzie:
I trust you have Mr. Brooks’s statement. The Agency Fund gives us both a little over 13,000 when some $5000 is deducted for capital gains. I’ve suggested that this sum be sent to you to pay with all the other taxes. I hadn’t thought we had gained so much, but I guess we at one time reduced the fund to about $15000. The government scoops us like a steamshovel.8
Looking for an address this morning, I came on Lowell, Harriet, Summer Workshop, West Cornwall.9 How swiftly gone; the tears of time!10 Called the Nolans and was greeted by Cynthia, a mirthless laugh.11 I’ve recovered from flight, but have spent three days reading Hamlet and am rusty for next week’s teaching.
Love and miss talking with you,
Cal
122. Elizabeth Hardwick to Robert Lowell
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
Wednesday, Feb. 10, 1971
Dear Cal: The Listener check, changed into dollars (100.00) came here. I felt if I sent it to you—it was drawn on an American bank—and it had to be sent back to the BBC to be redigested and finally months from now passed through the computer intestines.… well, it would never show up again. I had it changed into pounds and also added another pounds worth of 100, making it 200 dollars in pounds. I am sure you have no money and am sure you should have. I haven’t received the money from the Agency Account yet, and of course you haven’t.… But, not more book-keeping.
Love,
Lizzie
* * *
Enclosed 81 pounds—$200.00
123. Elizabeth Hardwick to Mary McCarthy
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
Feb. 19, 1971
Mary, dearest: I wrote you a letter a few days ago which was returned for insufficient postage—and just as well, because now I have had the joy of a letter from you today. I was writing to say that the Literary Guild publicity magazine—a little hard-sell advertising for members—asked me to do a “personality” piece on you—400–600 words. I asked for a copy of [the] novel, which they said was not available yet, but in any case not necessary—they want just a “friendly” picture. We’ll both be deeply embarrassed I guess but I have agreed, even though I am bewildered by the sample of past work they sent me: Budd Shulberg on Irving Stone. I was writing to say how delighted I am that Birds has been chosen and to send my love and congratulations that the book is soon to come out, and my hope, nay, belief, it will be read, loved, admired and bought and that everything good will come to you … As for the horned owl present,12 I stared off into the distance at your mention of it in your letter. Yes, it came, Cal was here on the red sofa, we looked at it and I said I remembered some version from the Southern Review13 and then—blankness. I looked and looked yesterday and did not find it until this morning, still in a box, a sort of Christmas box of things not put away, a leather belt of Harriet’s, a drawing pad, a sheep bell from Greece and underneath, lo, the lovely owl cover, the paper around it, the beautiful print. I have just been on my couch, reading, and it is a beautiful moment in our vanished/ life, bringing back so much that seems gone forever—when people took houses in Rocky Port, the feel of things. When the mother leaves the house, there is more than simply taking up her work again; you feel everyone has left forever/ that kind of house, and a possibility of a year in New England—and neither the house nor New England really quite exists any more. Very moving. The “psychology” is very true, especially at the end between the mother and the boy.
I hope you are coming soon for your book. Do let me know. If you would like to stay in Cal’s studio—just vacated by Florence Malraux and Alain Resnais—it would be splendid. It is very comfortable, you can fix your own breakfast, there is a phone; you would miss telephone messages but nothing else. For awhile it was more than a little triste because dear old Cal seemed to be in the very woodwork writing poems, the air still alive with his cigarettes—but I have changed it about a bit. I haven’t given it up because of some intricate problems, or advantages I hope, coming about when our house goes cooperative, as we plan in the next six months … But that is too tangled to go into.…
My Harriet has been accepted for a first-class Spanish language camp in Mexico for July and August. Quite a bit better than that Arthur Kober camp14 I found for her last year. At the moment she and I plan to go to Castine around June 12; then I’ll come to N.Y. to see her off early in July and then back. I think of your chimneys standing nobly in the snowy, wintery sky, and the staircase and the wall paper will soon be longing for you and Jim, and so will I. I rather like being alone up in Castine, although I expect to have more visitors this year.
I’m doing pretty well, feeling a great deal better in every way. The article Mary T. mentioned15 was a sort of “popular culture” reflection and I don’t know that it is anything special. I’m writing on Ibsen now. One piece will be in the next Review and it will be followed by a second.16 I have my Barnard job for the second term and I find it terribly pleasant and easy, and while it doesn’t pay much small sums are the only way to big, or bigger, sums. Next year I have been asked to give the Christian Gauss lectures at Princeton, just three, and that made me happy; and I may have another teaching job, since of course the Princeton is just an a temporary/ addition, of a day a week. I don’t mind teaching at the most three days, preferably two, and I feel one can do just as much work if the soul is determined. All in all, this “getting on my feet,” has been the “cure.”
I have talked a number of times on the telephone to Cal, but I don’t have much of a picture of him or anything that is really “news.” To me he seems neither sick nor well and I feel a great sadness about him, but what can one do? I will sometime tell you about the three-week Christmas visit. Nothing dramatic, but more often/ foolish. I was shocked when I saw him because the person I had been missing so painfully was the rare, glorious person of at least a decade ago and when I saw him at the airport, disheveled, that darting wild look in his eye, heard the eternal jokes, it was just so pitiful. I’m afraid I feel Caroline is a sort of wicked goblin and my poor old dear giant has been turned cross-eyed and is running backward. Cal told me she slept most of the day and fell into long periods of apathy and depression.… As for Sonia, I haven’t a clue as she would say.17 I don’t think Cal and I mentioned her; I haven’t spoken to her ever about Caroline since I didn’t talk to her in England and had only one conversation up in Maine about the doctor. I think Caroline may have wanted to drop her or something and she thinks we have done her in. On the other hand, Cal has become a rather active liar! I know when he is lying but not everyone does. He will, if questioned, pass it off as a joke—or as his “joking”—and so there is no telling w
hat he may have said …
No matter, dears, just love to both of you and longing to see you both.
Lizzie
124. Robert Lowell to Mrs. Robert Lowell
[33 Pont Street, London SW 1]
[March 8, 1971]
Dearest Lizzie—
I think our letters on the agency tax-money must have crossed.18 I wrote as soon as the States Street19 letter arrived.
Through long hours of revising, a leisurely bath and a quick dressing, I have been thinking about our long past. What shall I say? That I miss your old guiding and even chiding hand. Not having you is like learning to walk. I suppose though one thing is worse than stumbling and vacillating, is to depend on someone who does these things. I do think achingly and bewilderingly about you and Harriet.
Tell Harriet that last Tuesday20 my taxi was twenty minutes late. I missed my train, got another taxi at Essex that took someone in the opposite direction, reached my class half an hour late, just as it had been dismissed. However, I made it up in the afternoon. Even muddlers survive, though shaggily.21
Do miss you both. All my love,
Cal
125. Elizabeth Hardwick to Caroline Blackwood
[15 West 67th Street, New York, N.Y.]
March 12, 1971
Dear Caroline: I have told Harriet that you are having a baby by her father. It seems to me that she will have to meet her new family, to be with you and Cal and your children before the baby comes in order to make real everything that seems unimaginable to her—England, a new family for her father. She knows that she will have very little of him from now on and that he belongs to you and all of your children, since his physical presence there and absence here is the most real thing.22 I am bringing Harriet to England on June 14th, to stay maybe a week or ten days, or at least enough days to visit you and Cal. I cannot have her continue to be entirely cut off from her father and to receive a letter when the baby comes, because of course the new child and all of the new situation are a part of her life. She does not want to go alone and as I imagine it, she and I will stay in a hotel in London and I will see my friends while she is seeing you and Cal and your family in the evenings, as it suits you; and perhaps spending a weekend in the country with all of you if you invite her. But she would be with me in London. Also, I hope she will be able to spend the week between Christmas and New Years visiting her father and you and your new child, this time without me since she would have made some acquaintance with it all previously.