Hilda Doolittle: End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound

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 . 13A 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 . 14It 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, 15an 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 , 16there 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.