I’m crazy to get to work…I’ve had the moaning blues for four nights in a row. Kissing a locket and talking to a stuffed yellow duck wearing an imported Scandanavian necktie falls short, way short. I don’t like learning from life.
Your letter was an oasis, darling, and it doesn’t take sand to make a desert. It takes sand to make an hour glass, and that’s what’s clogging our lives.
I love you, darling––those four words are all yours. That leaves me six words in any telegram. I don’t think I’ll use them.
This letter is marked like a piece of Sun copy––Thoreau would approve; it’s practical.
I lahof you.
Kurt
I KISSED IT. KISS IT, DETACH AND RETURN.
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––Now the whole of Cornell knows about it. I’ve laid a bet with a brother from Philadelphia that I’ll marry you in eight years––$50. And for every year before that that I am married to you I get, we get, a bonus of $10+++++!
Do you realize how long we can live on that sort of money, just getting out of bed for meals?
I love you, and did you know that you have thirty-five trillion (35,000,000,000,000) red corpuscles in your shapely body, and that laid edge to edge they would extend around the world about three times at the equator?
What did I say that you tried to shock your room-mate with? ––I completely forget. Should I tone down? Sex is a real part of everyone’s life––sex is peachy. Why bury it with things low and vulgar. It’s wonderful, and the most dynamic experience that will ever warp my life about itself.
I love you,
Kurt Vonnegut –– Jr.
[T]he enclosed gadget will hold up in any court, ammounting to a public declaration of intentions. If I don’t marry you in ’45, sue me––I’ll have it coming to me plus a lot of misery.
Hope the symbolism is clear. We’ll put it on our first station wagon. I love you; not more than life itself, because you are life.
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Dearest Woofy:
I was just thinking about your fourth dimension––the dimension in which you are Jane Marie Cox, not simply Jane Cox. How much prettier Jane Marie is than Jane. I love Jane but I’m terribly in love with Jane Marie. I just met her a couple of weeks ago and yet I’m sure that I could be happy with her for a lifetime.
Jane Marie is the entirely fascinating woman you promise to be––the depth and emotion and fullness which are all yours. Mr. Butler used to tell Samuel that he respected old Mr. Pontifex, not because he had done anything particularly wonderful, but because he was sure that should a need, any need, for such an act ever present itself, Mr. Pontifex would surely be able to handle it.
––Kurt
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Dear Woofy:
I’ve got a brilliant start on my novel…torn up the first chapter and a half. If you inspire me, and I know damned well you can, I’ll write one about you. Lovingme is a prerequisite, however. Do you? I do.
The spacer on the typewriter is broken. I’ve rigged up a neat little gadget, Mr. Failey’s pipe and two rubber bands, whichworks beautifully (except between the words loving and me and which and works). If it becomes standard equipment on Royal Typewriters I’ll retire and marry you in a week.
I keep wanting to kiss you which is damned hard to do from four-hundred miles away. Skip’s getting sick of my getting up in my sleep and kissing him. He’s notvery good at it. You are.
I got in a political argument with Nancy, defending Britain, and Skip, Bob, Mrs. Failey, her brother, Mr. Failey, the cook, and myself damning her. I tried to pump her for information about you…claimed she knew nothing.
I love you first, Alice next, mother next, Mary Jo next, followed by a raft of insignificant creatures struggling for recognition.
Kurt
SAVE ME 90% OF ALL DATES BETWEEN SEPT. 1–11. THE 11TH IS IMPORTANT.
XXXX
XXX GODDAM POSTOFFICE PEN
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Marry me in 1945––
This one cost 15¢
Beyond the turn where the roadway winds
Through the mist of far away
The sun still shines its
rays of hope
Behind the clouds of gray;
And through the misty shadows
Where the light seems lost from view
The thoughts of those who understand
Remain to comfort you.
Love Kurt x x x x x x x x x
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Dearest Jane––
This is a prelude to Physics, eight minutes away. Laws affecting bodies in motion are the current concern of the course, fitting handily into my mental state. ––Incidentally, I think I’m doing damned well without a typewriter, a phenomenon which here-to-for you’ve never observed. Entirely legible, I think––let me know if there are any doubts in your mind (admirable gadget) as to the nature of the characters.
Writing columns (bless you, sweet child, for seeing their merits) is usually forbidden to sophomores, and the concentration of my work is bound to become more and more dilute. However, I’ve been writing anonymous sports stories every day, describing the adroit functionings of the freshman football team, and more recently, cross country. I love you.
In Physiology now––miserable course because of the instructor. I haven’t got a prayer of a decent grade––too damned bored. It has its practical applications––I’ll listen. I’m feeling damned blasé about school in general. It’s a lapse, due to develop into a windsprint beginning this afternoon, Monday, lasting past prelims next week, followed by absolutely extra-curricular activities involving yourself.
We gave one helluva good beer party for the freshmen. Your hubby succeeded in being entirely blotto––the pleasant way. I lost my voice for the whole weekend.
We’re going to build a new bar right after fall houseparty. We’ve got a crumby but entirely functional one now. It’ll be completed in time for Junior Week, sometime in February, to which I now invite you,––darling.
Do you mind if I spend a great deal of my Thanksgiving vacation with you?––beginning about November 22. I love you.
DAMMIT! YOU’VE GOT TO COME HERE AS EARLY ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31ST, AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. THERE’S A TRAIN THAT PULLS OUT OF HERE FOR PHILLY ABOUT MIDNIGHT, SUNDAY. I’LL BUY YOU A BERTH IF YOU’LL STAY TILL THEN. ––ONE WORD FROM YOU AND I’LL SHARE IT.
I love you.
Kurt––x
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To Jane—Whom I love and shall love all my life—To be shown to our children when they begin to wonder what things are most important in this world that some fools call hell.
-Presented to you when we were too young to even be engaged.
Kurt
9/14/41
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Dearest Jane, Snow White…
Tonight I am a stooge, something I will never tolerate in later life––I’ve got too many chromosomes. About us you see the rather nifty offices of the Cornell Daily Sun. I’ll kiss you in them on November first, an event without precedent, I’m sure. I’m writing headlines; being told by another person just how long they must be, and what they must say. Oh dammit! Abraham Lincoln, J. Christ, Mickey Mouse, or Freud never took orders from anybody in later life––later life again, these are thought chains, darling, not classic literature.
Your mother’s little testimonial made me feel as solid with the Coxes as Thoreau with a woodchuck. Rod Gould, cream on the mother’s milk of DU described the document as facile and fluid. It set the house on its ear; they all want her up for houseparty.
I’ve designed a house, plans for which will be
neatly drawn up and mailed in due time. There’s that word, our little chum that stuffs sand through hour glasses. My cold is gone and I’m raising hell in all my courses, and after rushing is over I’ll knock the wind out of the goddam Sun. I haven’t done a decent job on anything since Christ was a corporal, but with two mouths to feed a real machine hits the road next Monday.
You’ve given me a million ideas and a drive I’ve never had before, but my God I’ve got to see you, simply got to. I want a boost from you that’ll set this foolish world of inferior matings and chromosome atrocities on its bruised fanny.
I’ll be there the fifteenth or sixteenth, wearing a beat up sports coat, saddle shoes with paint from the bar all over them, torn flannel slacks with acid holes in them, not a cent in my pockets, clean underwear, sox, shirt and tie. Hide me from the boys, sugarfoot, but be nice to me, for God’s sake love me; I’ll have enough for an evening of brews and one for bruises.
I’ll show you my text books––sexy, eh?––when you get up here. Damned if I won’t know plenty about plenty that people will pay me for. How much are babies? I love you.
Kurt
Sorry, can’t afford lingerie. You’ll just have to go naked for the first few years. That’s the way it’ll have to be darling. I don’t like the idea any more than you do, but we’ll have a few lean years, and we wont always be lean.
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Dearest Jane––stinky, darling:
Looking at our love from an abstract point of view––I feel abstract this evening––we’ve gone through a psychological metamorphosis. During our first biological encounters, remember? ––it scared hell out of both of us; we’d go home worried and bothered as hell. We weren’t sure if it was right––right? The most wonderful time was the last one. We were sure we were in love, probably for the rest of a heavenly lifetime––darling, we laughed and made love for the first time. That’s the way it should be, that’s the way it will be––the one thing I live for, subconsciously, is making love to you, laughing with you, having children by you. Damned if we haven’t got the chromosomes!
As for the love vitamin, vitamin E is as close as they’ve come to it. It is known as the sterility vitamin; little animals that don’t get it in their diet––what a filthy trick, even in a laboratory––lose their ability to reproduce and their sexual characteristics. Get lots of whole wheat, corn, and eggs, darling––I want a sexy wife.
Buck Young finally arrived. The room looks quite homey now––he brought several shot-glasses for our venition glass collection. We spent the day discussing our respective wives and building a huge bookcase. It’s a darb. If we can afford a workshop in the basement, the studio comes first, of course, I’d like to have one. Please? Buck knows Fritzie Gebhart at Swarthmore. We may be down to Philly for the Cornell-Penn game on November 22. This is tentative at present, but God knows I want to take you––I think he likes me a little.
I’m hacking at the Sun again. They may let me have a column again. I’m no newspaper man when it comes to writing in plain English––I can’t write in plain English––what Egor Blots said before the Cornell Society for the Exploration of Physical Phenomena, or trudging up to the football field on bleak November afternoons, every afternoon, to tease a story on the freshman football team. Helluva sentence––sorry I started it. Incidentally, you lovely little girl who loves to be kissed on every inch of your fourteen square feet of creamy skin––I’ll do it too––you are the fortunate recipiant of a year’s subscription to the Cornell Daily Sun. Delivery begins with the first issue, Monday’s, to be delivered to you at Swarthmore. Oh, lucky you! Look for me on the editorial page.
Damned if I’m not a better person since we’ve been in love. If you think you’ll ever get that seven-eighths of you that’s in Ithaca back you’re crazy. Why don’t you come up and live with me. That’s one helluva potent eighth you’re holding back, I want a complete set, the works, understand? I’ll have none of this short term loan foolishness.
When we’re married we can economize on shirts. I swear I’ll never wear one with you under the same roof. I love you more than a hacker can show on yellow paper with a grade B typewriter. My fingers wander idly over the noisey keys. I’m still looking for the lost chord. Untill then you’ll have to be satisfied with chopsticks. I love you.
Kurt
CORNELL
MEN DON’T WEAR LIPSTICK, FOR GOD’S SAKE. WELL, MOST OF THEM ANYWAY.
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Dear Jane, Darling:
Everybody seems to know that I can do fourth year French, Qualitative Analysis, Histology, Physiology and Physics but me. I need a shot in the arm, which is figurtive, as I would hate to stuff you into a hypodermic syringe.
I’m coming to Swarthmore on the eighteenth in answer to clearly audible frustrated beatings on a voluptuous breast and outspoken demands from an excited endocrine system (them’s glands). We’ve been translating our love into sex, demands for which have been kicking hell out of us. We’ve got a damned site more than just that between us. That’s what I really want to see in two weeks––I swear it; so help me, Zoroaster, I mean it.
I love you. Write me pretty quick.
Kurt
I looked at part of you under a microscope today––damned instructive. It was a slice of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. about two weeks before we get married…half of him. ––Good looking little egg, literally and figurtively.
Don’t be a psychologist unless you really want to. What about your being an English major? Don’t ignore the chromosomes your mother handed down.
X X X X X X X
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Dear Mrs. Cox
Your lovely daughter and myself have been invited to visit the Bolgianos for Thanksgiving; very wonderful people, middle aged parents of a fraternity brother of mine. Mrs. Bolgiano will write you. On Wednesday, November 19th, Ralph Bolgiano and myself are to pick up Jane at Swarthmore, and drive to his Baltimore home. We are tentatively going to a formal dance at Annapolis that night, as our part in National Defense. On Thursday we shall have dinner with the family, sailing in the afternoon. That evening, Jane and myself will be back at Swarthmore, and I shall be dead-weight until Saturday. On the afternoon of that eventful day, Cornell will challenge the unbeaten might of Pennsylvania, a classic for which I have choice tickets. I believe that there is a Swarthmore formal that night.
I hope Jane’s health wasn’t harmed as a result of houseparty––she was, incidentally, the belle. In the course of juvenile events there comes a time when one is likely to run unintentionally afoul of parents. I have insinuated myself into the lives of the Cox family. A parallel situation exists at the Vonnegut household through the vigorous efforts of another anxious male. The family resents him furiously with the exception of one supporter, Alice. I hope I have the good will of the Coxes, and that there are few epithets muttered at my frequent arrivals.
Jane and I are not going to be married in the next five years, and we’ve got sound enough minds to know what we want and to steer a straight course. ––A statement that would put worried parents happily to sleep all over the world.
Typing this sort of note ammounts to a fierce faux pas. I am, however, absolutely helpless with a pen, having transferedfrom Orchard School to public school during my formative years.
Kurt Vonnegut –
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Noon––1/3/42–––––––
Dearest Woof:
Remember our friends Yin and Yan? A pleasing little circle made up of a pair of droplets, chinese symbols of man and woman, life. Look, where Yan is more narrow Yin is her fullest; and where Yin is weak Yan is his strongest. You see, darling, they fit neatly into the pattern like a jig-saw puzzle, not like bricks.
I swear before the maker of sycamores and little fishes that I
adore you for being the heavenly cluster of ideas and woman you are. I would do anything on God’s charred acre to make you happy. It may be poor technique, but I’m the truest bum you’ve ever come across.
As I left, you said that everything was all right again––did you mean it? One century ago we agreed that our love was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to either of us, and that we had to keep it alive. I still think so. Remember the ideas we shared? ––our wish to cure an ailing world, our admiration for Thoreau, and our determination to pursue those things which are really important in life? ––our house with a courtyard and a thick squat oak in its center? ––our hacker’s studio behind the house, our well-stocked bar? ––our being called by name by every bar-tender in town? ––our children with a brilliant heritage and healthy as hell? ––our ambition to write great books, our plans to live in Europe for a while as news correspondents? ––our disdain for stuffed shirts, our admiration for clever and creative friends? ––our house full of dogs and bedroom full of bed? ––our hearts full of love? Remember any of that?
Please write soon, darling–––
Kurt
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Love, Kurt Page 3