Wednesday - Oct. 22, 1953

7:00 p.m.

Dear Ezra Pound and Mrs. Pound,

Yes, my wine-inspired missile of last week does indeed warrant some details re my presence in Rome, and these I convey gladly. I sailed from New York on the 10th of September, arrived in Italy on the 23rd and will become the wife of Dr. Riccardo Luzzatto on the 11th of November. Riccardo and I met in Washington where he was on mission for the Italian government as Advisor to the International Materials Conference. However, his mission terminated at the end of July, and now in Rome, he is still attempting to obtain a position in keeping with his rank, experience and intelligence. How long we remain here depends wholly upon what materializes in way of a job, and I must confess that at present, with everyone fussed up over the Trieste business, the prospects (the immediate prospects anyway) look rather dim.

I'm having trouble too finding a job--nothing at the Rome Daily American where the staff of that newspaper consists of only five lean folks, and although the interview at FAO was promising, I rather doubt that anything will come of it.

I contacted Dr. Monotti the day I received your letter; we met Mrs. M. the following day at Artistico Circolo and on Monday, had dinner with them at their apartment. If it's true that your ears burn when someone thinks or talks about you, then you must surely have been inflamed that evening. Dr. and Mrs. Monotti spoke very warmly and fondly of you and feel the same frustrated indignation for your exile. He read to me a letter he'd received from Dudek re a proposed article for some of the literary magazines in the States and which Dr. M. is going to write since he wants to help in whatever way possible.

Yes--whatever way possible. Nothing is too little and nothing is too much. I remember. Yes, I remember that after my first meeting with you, I was so vehement in my indignation for the injustice that I straightaway wrote to the president of the United States requesting an audience. As soon as I posted it, I trembled in fear it would be granted, then, after musing on it, I trembled in fear that it wouldn't. It wasn't. And so, something done and yet nothing. Well, the frenzied, hectic years which I have just been through are over and already I'm infected with that strange tranquility of Italy (except when I occasionally drink too much vino rosso). The point is, I'm still concerned with "whatever way possible," and with reduced hysteria, I hope I can perhaps be a little effective. Some letters to write, some answers to be received. I only hope you agree that nothing is too little nor too much.

No, I've not yet a fluent, nor even a broad speaking knowledge of Italian, but I am studying and being right here with it *completely* enables me to pick it up more quickly.

I must close now, but must tell you what you no doubt know--you have many friends who are not passive in their reactions but are truly aiming at their goal, i.e., your freedom. Very humbly, I presume to be of them. It may be a very little bit I have to offer, but a lot of little bits make one big bit and who can tell? A year ago, I never dreamed I'd be in Italy, and one day you may say the same.

Very sincerely yours and with warmest thoughts of you both,

Saturday Night - 12 p.m.
Midnight - Oct. 30, 1953

Dear Ezra Pound,

Excuse my impudence, but Point No. 1: If someone takes something on someone else's faith, they will quite correctly accredit it to that someone else. But, if his faith is the other person's faith too, then there is, as you say, no necessity for saying, So-and-So asked me to say such-and-such.

Point 2: The fact that I was a wage-earner in Washington has nothing to do with my opinion of FDR. I can read (English anyway) and I can make my observations, limited though they may be. (You've no doubt been in contact with Beard and Tansill?)

I'm in full agreement with contrast with protection of Icardi. And if you want to know what irres me more than that--War Crimes Board for reducing German war crimes sentences. People who actually directed murders and massacres and a special Board appointed to make recommendations for reductions in their sentences.

Please enlighten me re Longanesi's "part of the truth in favor of McCarthy."

I don't know to what you refer about the postal supervision here in Italy since there is none and in fact censorship and supervision in that line has been lifted from most of the non-Russian countries.

Franco? Not to mention the obsequious catering to Tito.

It might be Riccardo Luzzatto's name is familiar to you through his work with the BBC during the war, numerous articles and the book, "Unknown War in Italy."

I shall contact Dr. Monotti again during the week and let you know what develops.

It is really something to adjust to the Italian day which begins around 8:30 a.m. with a morning of high ambitions and full energies until about noon when you begin to slow down with hunger but must drag on till 2 and by that time, you're so hungry, you eat tons of food, down a liter of wine or a fiascho and then are so stuffed and tired, you automatically head for the couch or bed and sleep off the drowsy guzz gluttony, to rise around 4:30 or 5 with a new beginning of the day--and so it goes. It's remarkable and at times most inconvenient that everything stops between 1:30 and 4:30 while the Romans do as the Romans do. In that time, occasional busses or cars, but for the most part, the morning and evening-bustling streets are grotesquely quiet and emptied of their elbow-pushing people and their impatient vehicles.

The life here? A pitiful contrast--the wealthy are wealthy and the poor are poor and unfortunately the latter are in the majority. One evening, dinner at a palacial apartment overlooking the city of Rome; the next day, the pitiful (and strange to American) sight of a middle-aged woman rummaging through garbage on the street in search of food.

But I have never seen such construction going on as here in Rome. You can't turn a corner or walk a block without coming upon road construction or enormous buildings being erected. Indeed, the Eternal City--preserves the old but brings in the new.

In the midst of the steady flow of impressions here, all the fuss about the wedding which will be on the 18th of Nov. with reception at Palazzo Barberini; pending trip to Vienna where Riccardo must see his attorney; worry about his not-yet-obtained position yet; trying to read, trying to write, trying to think, trying to learn Italian; the gross stupidity and injustice of your so-journ; and my mother and father in Pittsburgh have separated.

I must close before I start giving you a sordid life history of my family. Closing item: a very warm thank you for your letter.

I'll write again soon.