Simultaniously I will start a string of threatening letters to Helen. This should get some sort of action. I’m not kidding about the add. Do it if he continues to heckle you. Go downtown and put the adds in in person, paying cash on the spot. If they want your name give them a phoney. I find this idea extremely appealing.
Allie tells me that Jim is expected home on or about the 15th. If this is true, Vonnegulch is going to be bedlam what with my coming home at the same time. I’m continuing to entertain hopes, true or false, of being discharged late in November or early in December. If anything like that does come through, we in Message Center will be the first to know of it. For that reason I’ve an agreement with a friend in this office that if anything does come through while he is on furlough (Nov. 2–20) I will wire him about it––and vice-versa. Not much longer, cutie, believe me. And then we’ll find out how huge love can really be. We’ve not been married very long––or together much. I get starry-eyed looking ahead. It’s bound to be marvelous.
Dollink––I’m nuts about yez.
Kurt––XXXXXXX
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October 31st—1945
16 More Days
Woofy, honey:
How?
Well, we’ll have to muddle through for a while, until we develop sufficiently; until we cease to be infantile; until we get some sound information; until our ideas become nails that can be driven with a hammer––instead of being the wind-driven smoke they now are. We are young. We have doubtless assimilated a great deal of mis-information, and there are embarrassing gaps in our knowledge. If a bacterium can make a man lose his judgement; if a machine can enslave a man for life; if a labor leader can incite a dull-witted worker to smash windows; if a mother-in-law can drive a man to drunkeness; if a prostitute can rot the mind of a promising young man; if a brutal father can force his children to delinquincy––then I propose that we investigate bacteria, machines, labor leaders, mothers-in-law, prostitutes, and brutal fathers. That will take a while.
But! Both Somerset Maugham and Philip Wylie admit that they didn’t have something REAL to write until they were about 35. Real is right: Generation of Vipers and Of Human Bondage. What we propose to do is a long shot. In investigation of myself (in whom, for some damned feminine reason, you and Phoebe and Allie have placed great hopes) I can’t find much that is encouraging. I am apparently right about a lot of things. I’ve a lovely set of morals––as have you, and as have the people we give a damn about. I’m not shrewd or clever. Right now I’m cute––and it makes me want to vomit, thinking how cute I’ve been, writing for the Shortridge Daily Echo, The Cornell Daily Sun, and now these damned short stories. I can only hope that everyone starts out that way. I can only hope, and this on your instigation, that I’ve not reached my full stature. I’m willing to work like a dog to attain it. But as I’ve heard idiots who left school after the fifth grade say time and time again,
“Thar’s plenty you won’t find in books.”
…The proper answer to that is, of course, that there’s an amazing plenty you will find in books, and nothing to prevent anyone who has discovered that amazing plenty in books from investigating that plenty you wont find in books. Our job will be to put into books that plenty supposedly not now there.
If we go to Chicago we’ll have to allow hypocracy to support us for a while––as an underling in a Newspaper Office or an underling in an Advertizing Office. Either one is frankly selling one’s soul to the devil. For us it’s either that or hopping rides on freights and living in Hobo Jungles. It’s in one of those two fields that I’ve a chance of making a living for us, learning to write, and having adequate liesure in which to write what seems important to us. Starting at the bottom and working up in the newspaper business is the only prayer I’ve got of getting a column.
Or we could go to Mexico City, learn the language, live the good life––and write regularly for the New Yorker. The locality of Emily Hahn’s stories is what makes them appealing. Quaint and naiive stories from below the border may sell like wildfire. If they’re good they’ll become a regular feature. It’s worth looking into, I’m sure. There we could get a perspective on what’s going on North of us. This may be the delicious angle for which we’re looking. It may be that some concern may be interested in having a bright representative down there; willing to pay him for a few hours work each day.
I didn’t know love and marriage were like this. I didn’t know life could be this good. What I’m realizing now are the things I dreamed as a fetus. Love…
XXXXXXX
Kurt—
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November 1st, Thursday, 1945
14 more days.
Woofy, darling:
This is my day off. I slept until noon and dreamed of you the whole tossing time. From time to time you’ve been a Mildred to me, not in that I ever despised you, but because loving you was so damned stinking distracting and because it made me do so many stupid and I suppose pitiful things––despite the fact that you had told me many times that I didn’t have the chance of a snowball in Hell. That rotten feeling in my lungs and heart, where love and happiness also gnaw, comes to me still. It came to me in my dreams last night. I think that may be one reason people grow old and disillusioned and blind to the truth. We are built in such a way as to make it impossible to forget anything. Demons cannot be cast out. I cannot bear to hear anyone speak German. Father at dinner frequently quotes beautiful things in the original by Goethe. When he does I recall all the beastly brutal things that can be said in that language—and against my will project myself back to unhappier times. I’d rather have the memory of an elephant than the memory of a man. I’ve the memory of a man so I’ll never be convinced that you actually love me unless I’m with you. Darling, I’ve never known you before, and sometimes wonder if you knew yourself. Angel isn’t inapt––because you are an Angel. You’re the Angel that used to come to me in my dreams, though I didn’t know it was you. What I am is pretty obvious; but the wealth of loveliness that you’ve shown to me is as subtle as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I love you more every minute.
And that’s why I’m afraid.
In the roaring, foaming, seething fury of loving you so much I’ve promised and vowed and built air-castles; and beaten my chest and torn my hair––telling what you and I would accomplish. I get sick with fear that I’m a bluff, that I’m actually no damned good. That what I’ve sworn to do is impossible for a person like myself. I don’t know. I have no way of knowing.
“Can you play the violin?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”
I don’t want to let you and your fantastic hopes down with a thump. I don’t want those fantastic hopes to take the place of love. I don’t want successes to become the consummation of that love, because failures will be the death of it. I want
L O V E
to exist for itself alone; separate and perfect and adequate, no matter what. Because it’s on love’s account that I’m glad I’m alive. It’s on love’s account that I am willing to see life through from start to finish. Up until the time we were married I was sorry I was alive, and, after seeing air-raid shelter after air-raid shelter filled with dead human beings of absolutely every description, was willing to leave at any time. I told O’Hare so several times. He never got to feel that way. But I did: it’s the worst feeling imaginable.
And that’s why I’m afraid.
But I’m not afraid, Darling. Because now I remember what you are––more wonderfully loving than I thought anyone could be. You are the best person on Earth. There, at last, is the answer to the question, “Why do you love me.” Now you know why.
Kurt––XXXXXXX
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3 November 45
Dear Woofy, wifey:
Writing got t
o be a grind, and I got to the sloppy point, before you started showing my stories to more analytical minds, where I thought that I couldn’t miss––that all I had to do was to pound a typewriter for a couple of hours and I was bound to come up with a winner. Well, Lamby, I pooped out. And I was feeling fairly gruesome all day today on account of having pooped out. BUT! Tonight I happened to read the foreign affairs section of News Week which isn’t half the charlatan that Time is. And I read about the Russians and the Germans and the Poles and the French and the Czechs and the Dutch and the Italians––and the fact that people are wondering why they act the way they act––or how they actually act, for that matter. Everything that was reported by ace newsmen from the heart of Europe I found to be old stuff to me. I knew intricate details like what German iron ration soup is actually like and how much work a person can do on it; and I know what the inside of a German box car, in which Newsweek reports thousands of displaced persons are dying every day, looks like. I damn near died in one myself. I know what people are crazy to know about a dozen different nationalities—intimate things. And what I know will be news for the next decade, because things in Europe are more unsettled now than ever before. And those dozen nationalities are all hungry now. And I know exactly how they act when they’re hungry. And I know how the American temperment mixes with the Czech temperment and the Dutch temperment and the Russian temperment and the Englist temperment––and any combination of the unholy goddamn mess of people that shared hell for a while. By Jesus, I was there. That’s the important thing I’ve got to say right now. That, by God, is why I went through what I did. I’ve got to say it––and at length. You’ve got to make me do it and you’ve got to forgive and correct my mistakes and make me see what was important about what I’ve seen. You’ve got to ask me questions to make me remeber. It won’t be a run-of-the-mill war story––because my lousy soul isn’t going to peep once about how hungry I was or how I was mistreated. Mistreated? Jesus, have a look at the wretched lifetime ahead of most of the people I met over there––and look at what I’ve got. That’s important. And I couldn’t, didn’t want to write about it before, because instinctively I knew that I was missing something awfully important, that anything that I would write about it would fail to reveal the SIGNIFICANT. The name of it is going to be SCHOOL FOR DIPLOMATS. And right now I’m in a frenzy of trying to remember every damned thing that happened. It’s going to be LONG and revealing (I’ll tell the truth about the Americans for one thing)––AND I’LL NOT BE ABLE TO DO IT WITHOUT YOUR HELP. I’m excited, Darling, I’ve something to write about, something that crys out to be written. Keep this under your hat. We’ll have to talk it over before we start. We’ve priceless material and a chance to do our own private set of morals a proud turn. We’ll try, by Jesus. And God bless the young. I’ll have some sort of skeleton when I get home.
I love you, Darling. Keep your shell-like ears open for unanswered questions and popular conversation subjects in regard to anything European. We will crawl into bed together and make love and then we will write and then we will crawl into bed together and make love and then we will write…But while Allie is gone you must take time out to feed the dogs once a day. One week from now………..
XXXXXXX(?)
KURT
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3 NOVEMBER 45
Woofy, sweety:
The main reason that I don’t use too many BIG words is that I don’t know many big words. I’ll try to write some more stories when I get home. I’ll probably do better with you there to keep me straight. That was a beauty about the pipe and the hair, wasn’t it? You’ve surely done a sensational job of retyping, Cookie. I got the same thrill that Croneshaw got when he saw his poems in print.
I’m to be payed some time soon, but I’m not certain of getting it before I take off for Indianapolis, and I’ll not be able to do any taking off without money, so you’d better air-mail me about twenty bucks immediately. I plan to pull out of this hole for the next-to-the-last-time at noon on November 10th, Saturday. I can’t say when I’ll hit Indianapolis. Sometime on the 11th, I judge. I got the five plunks. Spaseeba.
I like the idea of a reading club––sort of equilibrium insurance against the constant torque of growing old, crystaline, and complacent. These are the most horrible times in history, I think.
Angelface: leave us not quarrel about the Capehart. And leave us not forget for one minute that I did not intentionally hop all over you. This and other important matters will be cleared up shortly.
Right now I’m groggy with the prospect of being rudely expelled into the world. I’ve been examining the shred of Persian Carpet that has so far been woven about me––and I confess that it doesn’t make much sense. It looks more like an honorable-mention quilt in an Iowa County Fair than a Persian rug. No matter.
Punk letter? Oh well, I feel punk. I’ll be home soon.
Love…
KURT
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November 4th—Sunday
1945
Woofykins––wifeykins:
I quote my sister: “One stipulation in a long dreamed of event: No one near when James is introduced to Jamesbo. That means simply that you and Woofy will have to go down and sit through Tarzan 20 or 30 times.” So that’s the way it’s going to have to be.
I’ve found a peachy book which you must endeavor to procure, Sweety––”The Small Home of Tomorrow.” I’ve decided that we had better start with two bedrooms. We can use one of them for a library until our union gives forth with issue. Right about the time you’ll get this you’ll either be feeling bloomin’ lovely or bloody rum, depending upon whether our union is to be blessed with issue. Bloody rum or bloomin’ lovely, Angel?
I’ve been fooling with time tables. I suppose it’s highly idealistic of me to pay any attention to them, but the tentative schedule looks like this:
Lv Ft. Riley 4:15 PM Nov 10
Ar Kansas City 7:40 PM “
Lv Kansas City 9:00 PM “
Ar St. Louis 3:15 AM Nov 11
Lv St. Louis 9:12 AM “
Ar Indianapolis 1:46 PM “
…If that comes to pass you’ll be one of the few wives on Earth that can say, “I know exactly where my husband is.” Is that the way you blundered home? I have an important point to make. Give me your full attention, Dollink. DO NOT ENDEAVOR TO MEET ME. DON’T! I may miss connections, leave earlier or later than expected––or hitch-hike or do almost any damned thing. I’ll call you the minute I hit town. If I haven’t called you by 7 PM on November 11th, Sunday, go over to our house and wait. Pass the time by contemplating this verity: 50-point-men will definitely be eligible for discharge by, if not before, the 1st of December. It is quite possible that my furlough will be interrupted by a telegram like this:
FURLOUGH CANCELLED. REPORT TO POST FOR SEPARATION FROM ARMY. MUCH LOVE, COLONEL PROCTER.
I surely was excited in my last letter, wasn’t I? That was last night. I was so excited that I had the screaming meemies. I’ve calmed down a little, now, and contemplate the titanic task proposed by myself in a more sober light. We’ll start it, anyway, and see if I really have something important to tell. I get ferocious jags of ambition whenever I’m with you––and if that idea doesn’t pan out we’ll cook up some more that will.
I love you sweety. And if it turns out that you’re going to have a baby let me tell you in advance that it will be a beautiful one: half me; half you. I repeat
Hello, Yin, Sweety.
Hello, Yang, Darling.
How are things in Tao?
I love you, Woofy. Else why would I bother to count the seconds and find that we are 604,800 seconds apart? Tick tock––604,799.
X X X X X X X
Kurt
admirer, adorer, wooer, beau,
boy friend,
inamorato, sweetheart,
swain, flame, love, beloved,
truelove, Lothario, amorist,
gallant, knight, cavalier servente,
cicisbeo, amoroso—Roget’s
Did you get
your check from
Uncle S.?
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November 5th…1945
Oh Damnation, Jesus Christ, Son of a Bitch, #%$&*#$%©#%$&*©¢!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This, November 5th, is the most dismally abysmal, bitterly disappointing day of my life: fifteen minutes ago I sent you a telegram––FURLOUGH CANCELLED INDEFINITELY. WEEP FOR BOTH OF US. Why cancelled? Oh God, it makes me sick to write about it:––cancelled because I am essential and because Message Center is understaffed; cancelled because there is no official way that a replacement can be obtained for me, as I am not yet eligible for discharge. Picture a balance in your mind: on one pan place this…
The vital important of having me record the nature and the source of every stupid scrap of paper to enter or leave this post;
and on the other place this…
I’ve not had a furlough in over one and a quarter years. I hate the work and the post and am about to lose my senses. I’m not doing my job well. I must make arrangements for entrance into the University of Chicago; locate and reserve an apartment; line up a job which I absolutely must have if I’m to go back to school. I was promised the furlough, given the papers. I’ve made wonderful plans and smiled myself to sleep over them. And then the furlough was taken from me. My heart is broken––and it’s damned well conceivable to me that a person CAN die of a broken heart.
No––I don’t know when I will be home. It’s evidently none of my Goddamn business when I see my wife.
Love, Kurt Page 12