Liberation (75 page)

Also, I keep on with the reconstructed diary; am now nearing the end of 1950. A dreary period. But I would like to record the winter of 1951–1952, even if I go no further.

Also, I'm slowly writing some stuff for the expanded
Essentials of Vedanta
,
¹⁴⁷
as requested by Anandaprana. The only interesting aspect of this task is that I am reading all sorts of forgotten or hitherto unknown passages in Vivekananda's
Collected Works
. His thoughts about the importance of dwelling on the prospect of death. His image of the cab horse which says that human beings must be very immoral because they are not whipped regularly. He is so marvellous.

My angel is sick. He has severe muscle pains probably caused by some strain at the gym. And he has broken another tooth, which Kurtzman is seeing to right now. And we are supposed to go out tonight to a party at Nick Dunne's
¹⁴⁸
to see Marguerite [Lamkin], who [has] just arrived from England. (No, I've just realized that that's tomorrow, thank God.)

As for me, I've got an almost complete upper plate, anchored to the back teeth. It is very light and rocks when I eat[,] like a house in an earthquake[,] and may also have a tendency to stink if it isn't kept clean, but Don says it looks much better than my former collection of odd fangs. Toward the end, two of them began to project forward, like Dracula's.

Swami was very much better, when I saw him last night. Last Sunday, the 24th, he even gave a lecture and didn't collapse afterwards. But he complains of not being able to sleep.

James Ivory and Ismail Merchant are coming here on April 6. Ismail told me this on the phone from New York this morning. Ismail says he has talked to Calley at Warner Brothers and that he and Ivory will in any case do something about getting
Meeting by the River
produced and directed. Ismail says he likes the script. Ivory so far has only read the play; according to Ismail, he likes it very much. Meanwhile, Jim Bridges is apparently all set to go ahead on
White Hunter
. He called me on the 18th. I told him we considered his letter from Switzerland a “Dear John.” He denied this, hotly but unconvincingly. He said he would come down to see us and discuss the whole thing. He hasn't been down and we have heard nothing from him or Jack either. They are at the top of the shit list.

On March 23 we had supper with Jo Lathwood. Paul Wonner and Margit Fellegi
¹⁴⁹
were there. Bill Brown leaves for San Francisco soon, to find them yet another new home. Paul is staying on here to teach, for a while. Poor old Margit keeps having pains from her cancer (or whatever it is) but she tries so hard to be bright. Jo was telling a story about a visit she recently paid to Palm Springs. She arrived by plane and there were three paraplegics on board, also getting off there—“three
cripples
in
wheelchairs
!” Jo exclaimed, her face screwing up with aversion, “Why do they send them there?” Margit answered soothingly: “Perhaps they want to live a little longer.”

Of course, I realize that Jo's aversion is every bit as touching as Margit's compassion. Jo is scared of death and just as conscious of its nearness as Margit is, so she doesn't want to be reminded of it. Margit tries to ignore the signs of her own death, but she isn't really scared. That's the only difference between them.

 

April 14.
I'm determined to write something today because it's Easter Sunday and I've written nothing in ages. I celebrated the day by finishing the first draft of part one of
Wanderings
, up to our arrival in New York in January 1939. It ends on page 201, a bit less than I'd expected. Shan't read through it for a day or two.

Don is in New York, packing up the show. He's due to return tomorrow night. I won't report on his doings until he's back.

Before he left, he went (after consulting me) and made a scene with Jack and Jim about Jim's failure to reveal his plans to us; his decision to do
White Hunter
before
Meeting
. This had a good effect. Not that it made him change his mind but it put him in a bad strategic position. Jack was obliged to side with us and agree that Jim is cowardly and cagey. Of course it's by no means certain that they will be able to get
White Hunter
cast and started. What does seem certain is that Calley will have no part of Ivory–Merchant. He doesn't have a deal with them and isn't about to. This he told me himself, on the phone, a few days ago. Am going to see Merchant tonight. Ivory is in San Francisco. He told me definitely, on the phone from New York, that he is prepared to direct
Meeting
, although he doesn't altogether like our present script.

A horrible shock: my income taxes came to over thirteen thousand dollars. This was the result of getting the money which was in dispute with Gert Macy, all in one lump!

Jack Larson admitted to Don and me that it was he who advised Jim not to direct
Meeting
until after he'd done
White Hunter
. I don't blame him, really. But the fact remains that they could have told us much sooner.

Now we really don't want Jim to direct the picture anyhow.

The ground at Vedanta Place has now been cleared for the building of the new convent. It is rough, of course, and there are trenches in it; no more than that. But Swami seems to regard it as a potential deathtrap, a kind of miniature Grand Canyon. He phoned me specially on the 10th, when I was coming up there to read, to warn me to approach his room through the kitchen. “Oh, I'm so glad I caught you!” he exclaimed. I only saw him for about ten minutes. He seemed much better. After describing his new diet in the most minute detail, he suddenly began talking about Rama.
¹⁵⁰
The whole room was filled with his joy. Tears of joy ran down my cheeks. I forget everything he said. I came out into the kitchen and Krishna was there. All I could say was, “Oh, I'm so glad to see you!” But Krishna understood instantly. We beamed at each other in delight.

Ed Wilson, Jan van Adlmann's friend,
¹⁵¹
came with him to dinner here on March 21—I forgot to record this—and told us that the fossil shell we use to stop the door belongs to the Topanga formation from the middle Miocene and is about twenty-five million years old! I believe Charles Laughton told us something like this too, but Ed is a professional geologist. The shell was there when we bought the house and it was being used for a doorstop then. We are still using it as one, since hearing what Ed said. It seems sort of silly not to.

On April 11, I had supper with Bill Roerick, who is here playing in
The Waltz of the Toreadors
. He really is a vain old goose. I hadn't realized how much his looks—his past looks—still mean to him; and this is all the more surprising because I think he is very modest about his acting. He told me that he and Tyrone Power used to be regarded as “the two great beauties.” He also told me that Joe Ackerley had told him he was so like Forster, which sounds so incredible that I wonder if Joe wasn't making fun of him. Bill also quoted from his own sayings: “Concentration is falling in love with the present moment. There are so many pretty little moments in life which I simply can't resist.” And Bill added: “After I'd said that, I thought it was so good that I memorized it.”

 

April 23.
This is a real exotic situation. I am sitting in a stylish green-pink-white room at the Saint Louis Hotel, Bienville Street, New Orleans, at 10 a.m. having just breakfasted on bits of cheese, lettuce, apple and two glasses of Saint Louis Beaujolais. The reason why I had the wine and snacks was that the manager sent them up, to greet me on arrival. Also, I remembered how Jay Laval used to recommend wine with breakfast and I am in a piss-elegant mood which wine seems to suit.

This hotel, into which I was booked by Philip Dynia on behalf of Loyola University,
¹⁵²
is a quite beautiful old mansion with an interior courtyard, complete with fountain. It has rather chilly air-conditioning. The weather here is steamy and Gulf-coastish; yesterday, when I arrived we had a tropical rainstorm. Today is beautiful and I shall wear my white suit.

Last night, in my green corduroy
¹⁵³
with red socks (which were remarked on by someone in the audience during question time) I gave a reading from
Goodbye to Berlin
,
A Single Man
,
Lions and Shadows
and
Kathleen and Frank
, which was followed by questions. I was pretty good but I did show off outrageously, even for old prancing Dobbin, and made a gay lib declaration which brought them to their feet, clapping. The audience was too small, though. Afterwards, Philip Dynia and his exceedingly cute and flirty friend, Patrick Dunne, a plump little blond, gave a party in their atmospheric slum-elegant apartment in the Quarter. (Patrick deliberately has part of the ceiling paper hanging down in tatters.
¹⁵⁴
) Philip Dynia, who teaches political science, is an anxious, quite sympathetic young man with an Afro hairdo. I think he was humiliated by the poor turnout and by the fact that he parted with so much money for it; two thousand dollars for my fee, plus plane fare, plus the bill at this hotel, forty dollars a night. Never mind, a paid Dobbin will always prance his best, even for a dozen faggots.

Other luxuries of this hotel: a light which shows you you have a message waiting for you at the desk, if you come back and forget to ask for messages; a mint left on your pillow with a note, “We at the Saint Louis wish you a very good night.”

There is an attractive view from my window, looking down the street. The Quarter is much bigger and more beautiful than I'd remembered it. Last night, they were having a party on one of the balconies opposite. Every house has balconies, nearly. The streets seem strangely quiet at night.

Before I get up, I'll just note briefly that I spoke at the Cal. State University Honors Convocation, on April 19. I used to regard the place as a rough and ready teach-factory. But on this occasion it put on the dog, ludicrously. I had to wear a gown and mortarboard along with the others and walk in a procession beside the President, John Greenlee. And someone ahead of us carried a silver mace! The ceremony was held in the gym in front of a huge captive audience. I was allowed to take my mortarboard off before speaking; it was balancing uneasily on my head. I gave a twenty-minute version of the “Last Lecture” I gave in Santa Barbara, back in the early sixties.
¹⁵⁵
But this time it included a gay lib statement. It was very well received, though it probably shocked Fred Shroyer, my sponsor.

Now to get up. I'm to talk at a class this morning. I'm rather on their hands, but they urged me to stay this extra day. I leave tomorrow morning.

 

May 1.
Rather a flurried First. So much to be done. So much I ought to record here but can't now because other chores are more urgent.

Poor old awful tiresome John Lehmann is coming on Friday for the night. Also Ed Mendelson, to start looking through the Auden letters.
¹⁵⁶
He'll be on our necks for several days. We have to see Jon Voight this afternoon with Ivory and Merchant, although we're now convinced that he would be fatal for
Meeting
, even if he wanted to do the film and even if they like him. Lazar has gone off to Europe just when needed; we shall have to get rid of him. A producer at Paramount, Emmett Lavery Jr., wants us to do a T.V. film of [Poe's] “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”; and a very good director, Daryl Duke, who made
Pay Day
, wants to make a film out of
Prater Violet
. And I have got a polished version of the first chapter of my new book ready. I showed it to Don yesterday and he likes it.

Feeling rather senile, and I really must go to the Japanese doctor (Roy Ozawa) about my foot. He told Don that he doesn't have cancer in his, and Don says he is adorable.

Swami called me the other day, again worried lest I should have fallen and hurt myself when crossing the rough ground where the building site is, at Vedanta Place. He also told me Peter Schneider is to become a monk within a few months. Peter himself wasn't aware of his, but seemed delighted when I told him!

 

May 19.
Don marked his birthday yesterday by having most of his hair cut off and by shaving off his moustache. He looks much more handsome, interesting, formidable and aggressive without the hair. Also younger. The truth is that the long hair, beautiful as it was, seemed a bit absurd and unworthy of Don as a person. That elaborate coiffure would have been quite suitable for someone of Don's age or far younger, provided that that someone was no one in particular, just a plain face that needed an amusing frame. Don's doesn't.

Today he's depressed. Perhaps just a little bit because the hair is gone—it takes him a long time to grow it that long—but chiefly because Nick Wilder said to him at dinner last night that he wanted to come down and see some more of Don's paintings. And Don says there aren't any more that are any good. He is rattled and talks of putting off the show.

The birthday dinner, at Chianti, was with Nick and his new friend Raymond and Mike Van Horn. The food was inferior and they kept us waiting a long time for a table.

Last time I saw Swami, on the 8th, I asked him if he had had any experiences and he said no. “If I have another one, it will be the end of me.” He said this quite casually, with a certain amusement. “I couldn't stand it,” he added.

On the 12th, Elsa Laughton and I were part of a Tribute to Auden at USC. We both read some of Wystan's poems. That is to say, I read; Elsa wriggled, camped, half sang, rolled her eyes and was generally embarrassing. We both got very good notices in the press. Don says I really was good and I felt it went well. I read “O What Is That Sound,” “A shilling life,” “Danse Macabre,” “The Ship,” part of “St. Cecilia,”
¹⁵⁷
part of the Yeats poem,
¹⁵⁸
“At Dirty Dick's,”
¹⁵⁹
“Song of the Devil” and “Since.”