End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound Read online

  The bars are trees now. Will the lion devour me or redeem me—or both?

  They say I must go into Zürich for another X-ray. This terrifies me. This is the terror one can not speak of, that walkelh by night. They might ask me to stay in the Klinik8 again. It is the fear of being caught, caged, confined—a confinement. I had sixteen weeks there, in the Klinik Hirslanden, last winter. But I can walk around the house now. It is too bitter cold to go out, anyway.…

  I did not see him at the time of my first confinement, 1915. I lost that child. The second was four years later, 1919. He hurtles himself into the decorous St. Faith’s Nursing Home, in Ealing, near London. Beard, black soft hat, ebony stick—something unbelievably operatic—directoire overcoat, Verdi. He stalked and stamped the length of the room. He coughed, choked or laughed, “You look like old Mrs. Grumpy” (or some such) “in Wyncote.” Wyncote was where the Pounds had lived, outside Philadelphia. True, I wore a becoming (I thought) black lace cap. Naturally, I looked no sylph. He seemed to beat with the ebony stick like a baton. I can’t remember. Then, there is a sense of his pounding, pounding (Pounding) with the stick against the wall. He had banged that way, with a stick once before, in a taxi, at a grave crisis in my life. This was a grave crisis in my life. It was happening here. “But,” he said, “my only real criticism is that this is not my child.”

  I wondered who had let him in. I did not know he was coming. From me, screams were inhibited, prohibitive. Did I want to scream? I was sorry that my appearance shocked him. The next day at noon, March 31, 1919, the child was born.

  The first time, in the taxi, was before I was married. Frances Gregg9 had filled the gap in my Philadelphia life after Ezra was gone, after our “engagement” was broken. Maybe the loss of Ezra left a vacuum; anyway, Frances filled it like a blue flame. I made my first trip to Europe with her and her mother, summer 1911. Frances wrote, about a year after her return to America, that she was getting married (“When this letter reaches you, I shall be married.”) She said that one of the objects of her marriage to this English University Extension lecturer—or in fact the chief object—was a return to Europe so that she could join me; we would all go to Belgium together where “Louis” was lecturing.

  I found Ezra waiting for me on the pavement outside the house, off Oxford Circus, where I had a room. His appearance was again unexpected, unpredictable. He began, “I as your nearest male relation” and hailed a taxi. He pushed me in. He banged with his stick, pounding (Pounding), as I have said. “You are not going with them.” I had seen them the day before at their hotel, off Victoria Station. It was all arranged. Ezra must have seen them afterwards. “There is a vague chance that the Egg,” (he called her), “may be happy. You will spoil everything.” Awkwardly, at Victoria Station, I explained to a married Frances, with a long tulle travelling veil, that I wasn’t coming. I had changed my mind. Awkwardly, the husband handed me back the cheque that I had made out for my ticket. Glowering and savage, Ezra waited till the train pulled out.

  March 10

  It was Richard Aldington10 from Sury-en-Vaux, France, who sent me the “Weekend” article. I returned it, then asked to have it back again. I wanted Erich Heydt to read it, and Bryher,11 and George Plank who was here for a few days. I had said to George, “It was the first time that I laughed about Ezra, for—how many years? It was the jamjar or peanut-butter jar with tea.” I got the article again, posted it to George in Sussex, he returned it, Joan read it. Bryher read it. Erich read it. We all felt that Ezra’s surroundings were deplorable. So I talked about Ezra. Again I wrote Richard in France, asking if I should return the “Weekend.” He wrote back, “Do by all means keep the Rattray article on Ezra. It is such a welcome change to have him reported as a human being, and not as journalist’s abstraction or political ‘cause.’ ”

  There is a human Ezra flinging books from a table in May Sinclair’s12 studio on to an inaccessible shelf that ran under the high sloping roof. “People impose on you,” he said, “you can’t get those books down. You can’t write letters to all those people.” He explained to us afterwards, “It’s her Divine Fire. You read it?” This was a swarm of minnows, according to Ezra, poets in the manner of the underprivileged hero of The Divine Fire. I had read the novel in America, before I left with Frances and her mother. I had never expected to meet any of these famous people. The strange thing is that Ezra was so inexpressibly kind to anyone who he felt had the faintest spark of submerged talent. I still think of those books, slim volumes of verse, first books I should imagine for the most part. No doubt Miss Sinclair summoned a janitor, a window-cleaner or a fireman with an imposing ladder. She wouldn’t, with her amazing Edwardian courtesy, neglect her minnows.

  Richard and Ezra and I were walking together in Kensington that morning when Ezra said, “We’ll look in on May.” Miss Sinclair opened the studio apartment door. Her somewhat Queen Mary bang or fringe was done up in curl papers. I tugged at Richard’s sleeve to suggest that we go home, but Ezra had already swung on into the studio. May Sinclair made no reference to her early morning appearance. She was as Norman Douglas once said, “a rare thing nowadays, my dear, a gentlewoman.”

  March 11

  I saw her alone in the early Twenties at her St. John’s Wood house, and once more at my flat in Sloane Street. She then had a rather grim nurse in attendance. Soon after, she disappeared into a mental home, it was reported. I did not see her again. After her death, when I was in Lausanne, 1947, I had a notice from her lawyer. She had left 50 or 100 pounds each, to Ezra, Richard and myself, and a choice of some 50 books from her library. A long printed list was sent. The lawyer, a nephew, I think, said that there were a number of claimants for the books and suggested that I did not take too many. I asked for all of Ezra’s books, Richard’s, my own, several of May’s novels and a Shakespeare concordance.

  Wyndham Lewis died a few years ago. He was blind for some time before his death.

  Was I blind? Erich Heydt, the young German Oberarzt here, seemed to think so. When I came, the second time, summer 1953, after an operation in Lausanne, he jabbed an injection needle into my arm. It was perhaps the second or third time that I had seen him—or was it the first? He said, “You know Ezra Pound, don’t you?” This was a shock coming from a stranger. Perhaps he injected me or re-injected me with Ezra. I managed a vague affirmative, wondering what business this was of Doctor Heydt. It appears that he had been in America on a sort of scholarship or travelling fellowship. He had visited various hospitals and clinics; among others, he had stayed for a time at St. Elizabeth’s. How did he know that I knew Ezra? He had seen him in the garden, surrounded by a circle of visitors, disciples. “I asked who they were. I had seen some of them in the canteen.” I did not want to talk of this. “Why don’t you look at me?” said Dr. Heydt. “Why do you look out of the window. I am talking to you.”

  I was too weak to care or listen to what he said. But maybe I did care.

  Erich Heydt got me to read some of this record to him this afternoon. He said, “The simplicity is wonderful in face of the confusion.” Pedantically, he questioned my phrasing of the Eva Hesse, “She says it was to put you in the right light—ins rechte Licht—that he founded the imagistische Schule.”

  Séraphita.13 A story by Balzac. The Being, he-her, disappears or dies in the snow. Seraphitus. Ezra brought me the story.

  The perfection of the fiery moment can not be sustained—or can it?

  March 12

  There is a prayer, the 10ème Jour Lunaire.14 It ends with the words: Que mon coeur soit sincere en tes statuts, afin que je ne sois par vetu de confusion.

  I was clothed with confusion. I had been forced into the wrong groove. Is every groove wrong? I resented the years preparing for college that might have been spent with music, drawing. Poetry? Well, I had read enough poetry. “You are a poem, though your poem’s naught,” quoted Ezra. From what? I did not ask him. We had climbed up into the big maple tree in our garden, outside Philadelphia.

>   There was a crow’s nest that my younger brother had built—bench boards and a sort of platform. The house is hidden by the great branches. There is an occasional cart or carriage from the highway or turnpike, beyond the hedge. At half-hour intervals, a tram or trolley jolts past. He must not miss the last “car” and the train to Wyncote, on the Main Line. “There is another trolley in a half-hour,” I say, preparing to slide out of the crow’s nest.

  “No, Dryad,” he says. He snatches me back. We sway with the wind. There is no wind. We sway with the stars. They are not far.

  We slide, slip, fly down through the branches, leap together to the ground. “No,” I say, breaking from his arms, “No,” drawing back from his kisses. “I’ll run ahead and stop the trolley, no—quick, get your things—books—whatever you left in the hall.” “I’ll get them next time,” he says. “Run,” I say, “run.” He just catches the trolley, swaying dangerously, barely stopping, only half stopping. Now, I must face them in the house.

  “He was late again.” My father was winding the clock. My mother said, “Where were you? I was calling. Didn’t you hear me? Where is Ezra Pound?” I said, “O—he’s gone.” “Books? Hat?” “He’ll get them next time.” Why had I ever come down out of that tree?

  “… profile of a Raubkatze”—Merkur, January 1958,15 an article by Peter Demetz—“beating through the air with his racket. I saw the Chinese amulet on his chest—I saw the split, celluloid eye shade, glued together with a piece of sticking plaster … casually, carelessly—outside, between two huge trees—Mrs. Pound was just coming out of the old Ford. I was arranging a few garden chairs, waiting … mad men were around me, pop-eyed. Pound talked of his friends in Paris and it began to rain. Pound opened the door of the old Ford … books, laundry that Mrs. Pound had brought him, packages, jam jars, etc. He explained Pisan Cantos—drew plan of Pisan camp—drumming of rain—mended eye-shade—memories of a Capanius (kapaneus?)—later, talk of escape. He is the youngest, most bitter among the Grand Old Men of letters—was hiding a secret humility.…”

  “Der Dichter ini Eisernen Käfig” appeared about two years ago. Pound’s love and hate is stressed in this new German Merkur article.

  I scratched down these few careless phrases as Erich read the article to me. No doubt it is an excellent summary like many that I have read about Ezra, but it leaves me with a terrible sense of frustration. There is so much writing and good writing about the controversial Dichter. What is my contribution? I hope that Erich is right when he says of my own record or recording, “The simplicity is wonderful in face of the confusion.”

  March 13

  For the 15eme Jour Lunaire,16 there is a prayer … ne me rends point confus dans mon esperance.

  There is the first book, sent from Venice, A Lume Spento [1908]. It is dedicated to William Brooke Smith. Ezra had brought him to see me. He was an art student, tall, graceful, dark, with a “butterfly bow” tie, such as is seen in the early Yeats portraits. Ezra read me a letter he wrote; this is under the lamp at our sitting-room table. The letter was poetic, effusive, written, it appeared, with a careful spacing of lines and unextravagant margin. I only glimpsed the writing, Ezra did not hand the letter to me. The boy was consumptive. His sister had just died.

  He waved to us from the car once. I wondered what he was doing on our West Chester turnpike. It seemed his sister was buried near West Chester. It seemed far from Wyncote. Or do I dream this?

  “What is it? What is it?” They would never answer directly. They would say, “He is so eccentric.” “What is it?” “He is impossible; he told Professor Schelling that Bernard Shaw was more important than Shakespeare.” “What is it?” “He makes himself conspicuous; he wore lurid, bright socks that the older students ruled out for freshmen. The sophomores threw him in the lily pond. They called him ‘Lily’ Pound.” “What is it?” He’s taking graduate courses now; that happened, if it happened, long ago. Why do the faculty ladies concern themselves with such small matters? What is it? He’s gone far enough away now, as an instructor in Romance languages. “What is it?” He came back, he came back, he came back.

  They asked him to leave.17 My father said, “Mr. Pound, I don’t say there was anything wrong this time. I will not forbid you the house, but I will ask you not to come so often.” “What is it?” “I found her in the snow, when I went to post a letter. She was stranded from a travelling variety company. She had nowhere to go. I asked her to my room. She slept in my bed. I slept on the floor.” “What is it? There is more to it than that. Cousin Edd knows people in Wyncote who told him—.” But they did not tell me what it was they told him. “What is it? Cousin Edd knows some people in Wyncote—.” “O—that—and I had thought that our Cousin Edd was a decent old chap.” A clergyman, a cousin of my mother’s, had told her—“What? what? what?”

  “They say in Wyncote that I am bisexual and given to unnatural lust.” I did not understand the implication of the words. Nowadays any sophisticated teenager would laugh at them. But this is—1906? 1907?

  “You must come away with me, Dryad.” “How can I? How can I?” His father would scrape up enough for him to live on. I had nothing. “Anyway,” an old school friend confided, as if to cheer me up, “they say that he was engaged to Mary Moore, anyhow. Bessie Elliot could have had him for the asking. There was Louise Skidmore, before that.” What is it? What is it? The engagement, such as it was, was shattered like a Venetian glass goblet, flung on the floor.

  Erich said, when I read this last section to him, this afternoon, “But you did not say you were actually engaged.” “It’s implied. I didn’t read all the pages to you. I did read the section about Frances filling a gap in my life, after the engagement was broken. Anyway, would she, this—the period Miss of our narrative, have gone on with the fiery kisses that I speak of, in the beginning, unless there had been—had been—at least, an understanding?” “You didn’t say he gave you a ring. Did he give you a ring?” “Of course—how German you are—.” “It was announced, everyone knew it?” “O, how you get hold of the unimportant details. Yes, no. I mean, it was understood but my parents were unhappy about it and I was shy and frightened. I didn’t have the usual conventional party—lunch, dinner or announcement dance, if that is what you mean. But what does it matter?”

  “His parents came to see you?” “Of course.” “They were pleased?” “Very—mine weren’t, as I say. Mrs. Pound brought me an exquisite pearl pendant.” “Then, you were engaged. Did you give the ring back?” “Of course.” “Did he write to you when he went to Venice?” “Yes—yes—yes—yes—yes—.”

  March 14

  “What did your father mean by ‘I don’t say there was anything wrong this time?’ Did he know about it? How did he know about it? You don’t say how he knew about it.” “Good Lord—it’s implied—there was talk—.” “Who talked? What did they say?” “How could I know.” “Didn’t you ask?” “No—no—no—no—.”

  “Was this a Quaker college? Was it far from Philadelphia?” “I don’t think Quaker—Middle West somewhere—not very near—.” “It must have been very hard for you in a family like that. Were you jealous of this girl he found who slept in his bed?”

  “How could I be jealous of anyone who slept in his bed?” “Then you didn’t—?” “Do you expect me to go into biological, pathological details?” “Yes.” “But why?” “Because it’s interesting and because I always knew there was something you wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Were you there when your father told him not to come again?” “Yes—but he said not to come so often.” “Did he come?” “Yes—no—stop—my half-brother and sister-in-law lived in a wing of the house. It was a large house. We met there—sometimes in a friend’s house—.” “Well, tell me—.”

  “The next time, maybe; Monday, maybe.” “I could come sooner.” “No, we arranged the four days. No, it’s five o’clock. You’ll miss your train—.” “I ordered the taxi.” “Well, anyhow, it’s five o’clock—you have your next
session.…”

  Session? He called our meetings, our visits, tea sessions. He comes three or four times a week. He has his own studio apartment in Zürich now, where he sees his analysands and patients. I went there a number of times, summer before last, but nothing “happened.” Did he expect, did I expect, anything to “happen”?

  The years were immaterial. He liked my light summer dresses. Ezra was not consciously a love-image. But perhaps he lurked there, hid there, under the years. In making me feel young and happy, Erich prodded him out.

  We were curled up together in an armchair when my father found us. I was “gone.” I wasn’t there. I disentangled myself. I stood up; Ezra stood beside me. It seems we must have swayed, trembling. But I don’t think we did. “Mr. Pound, I don’t say there was anything wrong…”

  “Mr. Pound, it was all wrong. You turn into a Satyr, a Lynx, and the girl in your arms (Dryad, you called her), for all her fragile, not yet lost virginity, is Maenad, bassarid.18 God keep us from Canto LXXIX, one of the Pisan Cantos.

  Mr. Pound, with your magic, your “strange spells of old deity,”19 why didn’t you complete the metamorphosis? Pad, pad, pad … come along, my Lynx. Let’s get out of here. You are suffocating and I am hungry. You spoke of grapes somewhere—you were starving.

  March 15

  “What did you feel when this—this Walter told you that?” “Look—it’s impossible to say. I felt bleak, a chasm opened—.” “But you said that you had loved this American girl, this Frances—and you were going around with Richard—.” “I don’t know what I felt. I had met Walter years before, in America, in a house the Pounds had for the summer. Ezra had come back from Europe. He asked Frances and me to this house to hear Walter play. Ezra had had a grand piano sent out from Philadelphia. ‘O,’ Ezra said, ‘they said, “Walter Rummel”—and anything was had for the asking.” “A concert pianist?” “Yes.” “An American?” “His grandfather was the Morse-Code Morse. His name was Walter Morse Rummel. His father was a German. Mrs. Shakespear was very fond of him at one time. Richard and I had seen a good deal of him in Paris.” “You were married then?” “No.”