Steinbeck (30 page)

I'm feeling low this morning. I'd like to be west and God knows when that will be—maybe not until the war is over. I guess Carol hates me very much and I don't like to be hated. I'd like to go to that little house and settle for a while. No soap. I guess you'd better have the telephone cut off.

Gwyn is well. This suitcase life is not very satisfactory to her. She wants some place to light but there is none in sight. She doesn't complain at all though. And when I do get called I don't know where it will be—maybe Washington, maybe not. The new little book
[The Moon Is Down,
novel] will be out the end of Feb or early in March. Viking Press thinks it will sell a lot of them. The Sea is moving very slowly and it will never make any money. I'm awfully glad we did it and that way.

It's nice in New York now—a light snow on the tops of buildings and the air is crisp and wonderful to walk in. I've had too much on my mind to let go and just walk in it. Maybe I should.

Anyway the physical clearness of my own personal life should come out in or within two weeks. Then I'll let you know. Meanwhile Gwynnie sits on a bag of dynamite, but she is good about it. I think she wants security more than anyone I ever knew. Carol thought she did and didn't. But Gwyn who has never had any has really a gift for it—an inner security which could make an outer one if given half a chance. And so far she hasn't had that chance. If we could even take a house or an apartment in Washington that's all she wants. She wants to cook. She doesn't talk about any of these things. Do you know that the little time in the Grove is the only time since she was a little girl that she ever had a home? And oddly enough it is the only time I ever had one either.

You know it's a funny thing—I've written myself out of my lowness in this letter. I feel better and clearer. I can see this director today without dreading it. The sun has come out on the snowy roofs and there's a barrel organ playing in the street. Maybe there's some gaiety in the world. That need have nothing to do with comfort. But I'm more patient than when I started writing this letter.

After the war is done, if I can, I know what I want if my domestic difficulties and my finances will permit it. I want about ten acres near the ocean and near Monterey and I want a shabby comfortable house and room for animals, maybe a horse, and some dogs and I want some babies. Maybe I can't ever get that but it's what I want. And I'm pretty sure it's what Gwyn wants too. Then maybe I want a small boat. I suppose there isn't a chance in the world of having these. Something will come up but I'm going to try and get them just as soon as the war is over. And I may not even wait for that to start getting the babies. I know now that Gwyn can run a hospitable house where I am welcome. That's the astonishing thing. I've never been welcome. That's why our houses were so doleful. There was no hospitality in them. It is curious that I sit here and plan what is probably an impossible future. My earning years in terms of money are nearly over. Not that I won't work and probably do good work. But the years of a writer financially are very few. And there will be no chance of picking up another reserve. But that is all right too. We'll get along. There's love in the house even here.

I guess that's all. I've run off at the mouth a good deal. A kind of babbling. But seems to have been necessary.

Love
John

[Bedford Hotel}
[New York]
February 14, 1942

Dear
Toby:

I don't want to chisel in any way from Carol. I want to give her everything I can. I don't think she will be single long. She will have a lump of money and she is very pretty. I hope to goodness she is happy. Ed writes that she seems to be having a very good time with the Army set. I hope so. The complaint is just. I was cruel to her physically and mentally and she was cruel to me the same way and neither of us could help it.

I am sad at the passage of a good big slice of my life. It could have been ecstatic. That was the age for it. But I still have energy and I am still capable of loving a woman very much. So it isn't really too late for either of us.

It's the first divorce our family ever had and it makes me sad.

[unsigned]

Palisades, Rockland County
New York
[April 8, 1942]
Tuesday

Dear Toby:

The show opens tonight in New York and there is a very scared cast. They were cocky in Baltimore and they took a beating and now they are properly humble and I think will be much better for it. Gwyn and I are not going. I can't seem to get very excited but a curious kind of wave of excitement is going through theatrical New York. I never saw anything like it. I think the publicity has been so great that the critics will crack down on the play.

So far my work for the government is working out nicely. I go on every night and in the daytime.

Not I, of course. I send the stuff in. I had my voice tested the other day and it was just as I knew it would be. My enunciation is so bad and the boom in my voice is so bad that I can't be understood. I am glad too because now they will never ask me again.

Gwyn has gone down the river to get a fresh shad with roe for dinner. Almost my favorite fish in the world and baked it is perfectly wonderful. Gwyn is not going to catch this fish but to buy it fresh caught at the river side.

It is a fine warm day today and the doors are all open and certain baby flies are wandering around helplessly with wet wings and I am so friendly feeling that I do not even club them down and I really should do. I'll let their wings get dry and then I will miss them.

We are going to sit and have stingers tonight and when the show is over they will call from New York and tell us how it went and then at three o‘clock the first reviews will come out and they said they would phone those and I'm not at all sure I want to hear anything at three o'clock. But I can't hurt feelings. And I will answer the phone which fortunately is beside the bed. But I bet there is not much listen about me.

Well, I'll finish this later.

 

Dear Toby:

And now it is two days later. I'm sending you the reviews and as you will see they are almost uniformly bad. Furthermore, they are almost uniformly right. They don't really know what bothered them about the play, but I do. It was dull. For some reason, probably because of my writing, it didn't come over the footlights. In spite of that it will probably run for several months. It is too bad it isn't better. I don't know why the words don't come through. The controversy that has started as to whether we should not hate blindly is all to the good and is doing no harm. What does the harm is that it is not a dramatically interesting play.

Write soon.

John

Palisades
May 5, 1942

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I believe that the best way to get information to its proper place is to send it to the chief. I hope you will give the following to the officer of naval intelligence most able to understand and make use of it.

It is not generally known that the most complete topographical as well as faunal information about any given area is found in the zoological and ecological reports of scientists investigating the region.

For a number of years, my partner Edward F. Ricketts and I have been charting the marine animals of the coast of North America and through this work have looked into the publications from other parts of the world, including the Japanese Mandated Islands.

No Occidentals have been allowed to land in the Mandated Islands since they were taken under Japanese control.

The only publications or information to come from these Islands have been the reports of Japanese biologists, who are fine research men and truly pure members of the international scientific fraternity.

The reports are found to contain maps, soundings, reefs, harbors, buoys, lights and photographs of these areas. The information, if not already in the possession of Naval Intelligence, could be very valuable.

Yours truly,
John Steinbeck