Steinbeck (88 page)

We have a little Christmas tree. Elaine and the boys are out getting ornaments. Tonight we will decorate.

I have no present for Elaine. My mind seems to have gone dead. She says she needs and wants nothing. I've whipped my brains for a fancy thought and so far have come up with nothing. Wish you were here to consult.

This is all by way of wishing you a fine Christmas and the best of years. And you will have it. But I wish we could be together.

Love to you both. You help so much.

John

Roma
January 9, 1962

Dear Robert and Cynthia:

Your very dear letters moved me very deeply as they should have done, for it is a rare and to be savored thing to have such friends. I've had to face many things these last few weeks of ceiling staring and one is my sin of pride. I have never before permitted myself the simple admission that there were things I could not do so only my will held out. But here I have an opponent against whom will has no terror. I think I could continue the course I set. Whether I could complete it and at what cost to others is another matter. The giving it up was the hardest thing. Once that was accomplished, other things fell into place. It is very good to have friends but even better, knowing this, not to have to test them. Thank you with all my heart.

I'm sure Elaine has told you of our adjusted plan and how we intend to settle in the sun on Capri for a time. Meanwhile the boys will range about on many side trips and use us for a center. In one way it is perhaps better. They will know a small part of the world much better. Maybe the whole world is too much to gulp down. And they do not seem in the least perturbed at the change in plans. As you said they would, they took it in stride. Right now they range this city like pointers and it is amazing how much they are learning to read, and to like what they are reading.

Elaine, of course, has carried the ball while I languished in a kind of impatience. Well, maybe I can help from now on. Some energy is coming back. And I feel that if I can just look out at the sea for a time certain adjustments may take place.

The last section of Travels With Charley has been giving the publishers trouble. It deals with some rough things in the south. Of course, Holiday will clean it up and even then think they will get cancelled subscriptions. But Viking wants to keep it tough and still not be sued. And I have been so bloody weak that I just don't give a damn. It seems to me that everybody in America is scared of everything mostly before it happens. I finally sent word that what reputation I had was not based on timidity or on playing safe. And I hope that is over. What I wrote either happened or I am a liar and I am not a liar. And I know that truth is no defense against libel. But there is no way of being safe except by being completely unsafe. And in the succeeding months I don't think that being careful of my health is likely to improve it. Rather it will give me another sickness called self-preservation. And that's our national sickness, and I hate it. The whole world is torn up, if the papers tell the truth and the papers themselves may be the paper tiger we hear so much about. Everywhere are paper tigers.

I wish we could see you. I've lost all rhythm of words and flow of images. Maybe it's the boys' struggles not to understand but to know that is throwing me. Even Terrence I keep forgetting is 23 and at that age understanding is not enough. One must be right as opposed to wrong and white against black. I remember it all so well.

Now as to you. Is there any chance that you might come out to Capri and to Greece? Robert I know has a double job now and how much better that is than not having enough to do. I can imagine no hell like that of an actor waiting by a telephone. I'm glad of anyone who has more than he can do. I am not working on anything and this may well be a large part of my illness—the “doctor, heal thyself” business.

When work is not in me, I think it will never come again. It is always so. And I've been in a black funk about it. My pencil has wavered and my hand has been shaky. I know it doesn't matter a damn whether I ever write another word but it matters to me. For I would be a gelatinous mess without that hope that one time something really and truly good would come of it. And the odds against that, however great, have no effect on the hope for it or the despair of it.

I haven't said any of the things I intended, I guess. Maybe I implied them. Maybe best said—I value you and I am glad of you.

Let that carry all the charge it can because it is true and you cannot overload the truth. Love to you both,

 

John

 

I'm ashamed of my weakness in that last few weeks but there it is. I
was
weak and very weary and I couldn't seem to bring up any reserves. But I do feel a small return of vitality.

Villa Panorama
Capri
February I, 1962

Dear Elizabeth:

The north wind seems to have blown itself out and this morning is serene and beautiful—silver olive trees on the hill behind us and the glowing oranges below.

Yesterday I got a letter from Pat crying his eyes out about how much money I am going to lose in lawsuits and indicating that I will have to carry it alone, which is probably true.

What has happened here is what has happened all over America. Caution is King. What started out as a simple piece of truth now wears all the clothing of sensationalism and has lost every vestige of its purity. It doesn't feel clean to me any more. The only value of the passage lay in its shock value. Now it has become that book with the dirty words and by a magical turnabout the dirty words are no longer the cheer leaders' but mine. When I get the galleys I shall see what I want to do. I know that by simple suggestion I can make them much uglier without saying them. Do you remember when the B.O.M. [Book-of-the-Month Club] suggested the removal of certain words from The Wayward Bus and when I agreed, it was discovered that the words weren't there? Thousands bought Ulysses for the privilege of seeing one single word in print and didn't read the rest.

The quiet here is very soothing and healing. It has been so cold that we have simply gone to bed after dark but that has changed now. When the wind stopped, the air grew much warmer.

We are going to walk down to the Piccola Marina this afternoon and get the bus back.

That's all now—love to all there,

John

Capri
February 10, 1962

Dear Pat:

By now the galleys will have been returned and the old process continued.

The weather here is uncertain which makes me like it more. A few chilled and forlorn tourists come over on the daily boat and wander about disconsolately until the boat takes them back. Meanwhile the shops and workrooms here are going full swing making the things they will sell to the tourists who engulf the Island in the summer.

We live a life of incredible quiet. Although somewhat troubled by vestiges of a Presbyterian conscience, I have succeeded in doing nothing whatsoever, and it seems to be working because I feel much better. We rise late, take a walk, read the papers. Sometimes we have dinner in and at others eat at little restaurants deep in the thick and Moorish walls of the old buildings. At our favorite place, we have a table in front of the opening of the pizza oven which serves instead of a fireplace.

This is no tropic place in the winter. The climate is about northern California. The storms come and the wind blows and then suddenly comes a golden day—very like Monterey. The people here are not like other Italians. They seem to be a separate breed. They are very kind and friendly, physically short and wide and with enormous muscular development from climbing the hills and carrying and pulling loads. There are few motors here because there are only three roads, and no cars are allowed in the town. The result is no noise and absolutely pure air which few people living have ever smelled. I wonder if it could not be shown that most urban populations are systematically poisoned with carbon monoxide. That could easily account for the lung troubles as well as others.

Elaine is loving the life here. As usual she knows everyone and everyone loves her. Also her Italian is growing by leaps and bounds. Our plans are still to remain here until the end of April by which time my health should be well back. There is something very soothing and benign here.

My 60th birthday is this month. I don't know how it happened but there it is. And I must say I never expected to make it. Carola Guinzburg [Carola Guinzburg Lauro, Thomas Guinzburg's sister] and her husband are coming over for it and we will cook a big fish.

Ken Galbraith asked us to go to India but we are refusing. Maybe some other time but not now for I know now I cannot do everything. It is enough to be able to do anything.

love
John

Villa Panorama
Capri
February 13-14, 1962

Dear Robert:

Your bedridden letter came a couple of days ago and the parts about your book, I think, need an answer. By the way, Elaine has a better title than mine. Hers is—There is Nothing Like a Broad, by Dame Judith Anderson.

Now let me give you the benefit of my experience in facing 400 pages of blank stock—the appalling stuff that must be filled. I know that no one really wants the benefit of anyone's experience which is probably why it is so freely offered. But the following are some of the things I have had to do to keep from going nuts.

Well, actually that's about all.

I know that no two people have the same methods. However, these mostly work for me.

There's a great big wind storm blowing. No boats in today. The seas are white. Elaine came in blue with cold. Part of the island has no electricity but we have been lucky so far. When Jove puts on a storm, he does it well.

Oh! it's a lovely storm. And we're cooking beans and watching it through our big windows. We're sheltered by the cliff but we can see the trees whipping and the sea churning white down far below us. Life is very good at this moment.

love to all there
John

[Capri]
February 13 or
thereabouts [1962]

Dear Chase—

Well this is more like it. Now I feel at home. I'll write this one letter to you and perhaps one to Elizabeth and then put these two precious [yellow] pads away. And any boy who lays a finger on them is going to get clobbered. They have been known to use a whole pad on false starts of a letter to some snotty little girl. But if they mess with these I'll let them have it. And as for the pencils—They never know how I know they are using my pencils. I guess they think everyone is a pencil biter and an eraser gnawer. I am not. A bitten pencil drives me mad and a chewed eraser makes me throw the pencil away. All this would indicate a neatness I don't have.

 

February 15

That's how it goes. Today is a great blowy storm. The olive trees are wrestling the wind like girls with their underskirts showing. And the tall pencil cypresses just chuckle and bow. No window in Capri is tight so that the wind moans like cats. The bell is tolling. Someone being buried. Here, instead of death notices, the family sticks up little posters on all the walls and boardings—“Our father—Paliato Pucci, after a long and sweet life, went to his sleep—date—mourned by his family. Obs. date—time.” Bills about 12” by 10”. When we go down for the papers we will see for whom the bell tolls.

Our postman has a lean and hungry look. We know that he was a painter but he has also sent word that he is a painter. It is clearly yet wordlessly understood that we would do better to buy a painting if we want our letters delivered quickly and happily. He does water colors of Caprician architecture or will take a commission. They aren't very good—in fact they are much worse than that—they aren't very bad and that's the worst kind of painting there is. The postman is a living proof that the artist need not be helpless.