ACG 900529-6

Urcat
MS Vault
597

THE LETTERS IS A CHEQUER'S LETTERS FROM RICHARD ALLINGTON TO EUNICE J. GLADSTONE (nee BLACK).

letter :description :sender's address :date :post-marked:
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Villa Lauro
Anacapri

23/7/32

Why should you feel cross with yourself for speaking
of what was in your mind, even if it was a worry? We're all more
or less in the same boat nowadays, and it's impossible not be
disturbed about it at times. I'm luckier than many since I made
contracts before the slump became heavy, but I'm not looking
forward to the day when they come up for renewal! Which makes
it all the more necessary for this book to be a success.

I'd be glad to send you extracts, especially those
which will have to be cut, but I don't think bits of a novel mean
much, and anyway after four or five or six hours hard slogging I
feel too tired to copy. My publishers have now consented to an
unexpurgated edition in France, if I can find someone to do it,
so, as I promised, you shall have one, though it won't be possible
to send it through the post.

The flowers are really beautiful, such a deep exotic
colour even though dried. The one I sent you made me think
of flesh-petals too. It came from the garden, though there are
smaller wild ones like them. Everything is terribly dried up
already - you know how it is in a warm climate, - and there seemed
nothing worth gathering. These plumbago flowers are common
things, but a lovely blue.

What you say about the 'warm cat-fur' against your
naked body sounds quite thrilling. It must be lovely to feel
it soft against your breasts or lying warm, warm between your
thighs. Such a deep warm life animals give out through their
touch. Don't you love those animal poems in Lawrence's Birds,
Beasts and Flowers? Just after the war, when I lived in the
country, I saw for several days a very curious animal love-scene.
I used to get up at dawn and walk before breakfast, and a
little way out of the village there was a pretty grey she-donkey
in a field next to another field which had three pony stallions
in it. While it lasted, she led the Perfect Woman's Life! She
squeezed her way through a very narrow gap just about dawn, in
to the other field, and then stood with her head down, looking
very innocent, while each of the stallions in turn mounted her.
I was amazed that her small body could take their large male
erections, but it did, up to the hilt! Alas, this rustic
idyll didn't last long - somebody must have found it out, for
she was taken away, and then the ponies gathered each morning
by the mended gap, hoping, but hoping in vain. I always felt
there might be a story and a moral somewhere in this, but could
never quite make out what. Can you?

There, you see, I didn't refrain from that story. When
I broke off in my last letter, it was partly because you hadn't
said I might write freely about sexual feelings, and partly because
I felt I should only be saying what you know perfectly well.
It wasn't an excuse. I will write freely if you say to, but then
you must do the same! Tell me how and what and where you like
to feel, and I will. Do you like naked teas? I don't mean
promiscuous, but à deux. It is one way to defeat an English
winter afternoon - drawn blinds, a screened fire, a rug and masses
of cushions, China tea, and then long gentle touch.

c/o Doubleday Doran
Garden City
N.Y.
U.S.A.

31/7/35

Dearest Eunice,

Very sweet of you to write. I didn't deserve it after being silent so long. But I've had rather a rotten year mixed up with some fun. You know I smashed my knee in a motor accident in Austria last June. Well, they didn't mend it properly, and it smashed again the first day I was back in England, 15th Oct. Result: another operation, weeks in bed, and months of wearing a damned splint. Got fed up, and took a boat to Tobago (B.W.I.) where I slowly convalesced, drank rum, and finished a book of essays. Then in June this year came to New York, where a surgeon examined the leg, discovered one of the silver wire stitches had bust and that there is only 'fibrous union'. This means that the bones haven't grown together properly, but new soft bone; and I have to wear a knee cap and go very easy until next June. Two years of being a crook isn't very pleasant to your loving friend, either in prospect or retrospect.

So there, so to speak, I am.

I've got a lovely old place in Connecticut, with 300 acres and a lake and wild deer and humming birds and scarlet tanagers and splendid woods. Feel like a landed proprietor for the summer. The Americans have been awfully generous to me. I got this place at less than half price (can't really afford it anyway) because I'm me, and the owner likes The Colonel's Daughter. The surgeon did all his work for nothing for ditto reason. Also, I've been given a car. So the Per-rophet is not without honour save in his own country. Do you think they'd do the same for me in Jo'burg? I don't think.

Your description of your ruddy Falls fills me with rank raving beastly envy. I'd love to see them before you beastly South Africans spoil the place! I want to see crocs and hippos and monkeys with blue bottoms and all of it. You lucky little beast. Write and tell me more about it all.

Tobago was rather fun - very remote and peaceful, with cocoa trees and cocoa nut palms and bits of 'virgin' forest (extremely virginal a forest!) and pelicans and humming birds and jacamars and King-of-the-Woods and guavas and mangoes and grape fruit and star apples and huge bamboos and bananas and niggers with enormous penises and a few lousy British and rum and sugar canes and mushrooms on my typewriter and a shark. All the same I loved it, and want to go back to the tropics.

Apropos the virgins in your hotel, I found a glorious line in a solemn psychology book the other day. It said: 'The typical insane patient is a virgin.' I always thought so, and now I know. You ought to see the virgins in Tobago. The white ones. And the blacks have such a lovely time. I had three coloured servants, and one day

7/4/36

TELEPHONE: WHITEHALL 4503.

TELEGRAMS: EXCELLETH. PICCY LONDON.

CAVENDISH HOTEL,

81, JERMYN STREET,

ST. JAMES's. S.W.1.

Dearest Eunice,

Your letter had the spirit of a propos,
arriving just in time to catch me before setting out
for Portugal. I'm taking a car, and going through
Spain and France to Austria. There I hope to finish
a novel, of which about two-thirds is now written, and,
if the omens are propitious, to begin another.

This is sad news about your having an
operation. Why didn't you tell me about it sooner?
Was it very unpleasant, and are you quite better? From
your letter it sounds as you must be all right again. I
hope so. Yes, curiously enough, I have seen one or two
of 'them' shaved, and agree that 'IT' looks very
provocative indeed. On the other hand, I also find
the bunch of curls very provocative, particularly when
(as in one case I know) they're dark on a white tummy!

Yes, I am well, and the leg is practically
right now, except that I still can't scramble about rocks
or run much. The knee has healed up without any
deformation or fantastic creaks and squeaks, and I now
walk about without thinking of it; but a few more months
are needed before it will be as strong as the other.

Happy? I think I've always been rather
a happy person if enjoying life means the same thing. I
don't expect the moon and, oddly enough, I don't get it.
But I get lots of other things I enjoy. True, I don't
get enough Eunice, but that perhaps will come too in
time.

Working? I've done a number of articles
which are of no particular interest, except to me in so far
as they help to boil the pot. I've done about 60,000
words of the new novel, and am anxious to get settled
again so that I can finish it. Don't know what you'll
think of it. After having been very enthusiastic about
it, I'm now in the state of wondering if it's as bad
as I think it is! One always goes through these
ditherings.

I'm glad you liked Artifex. It is a bit
too miscellaneous, but there is some stuff in it I
like. Unluckily, not many people seem to have understood
the main argument or attitude. But - who cares?
Yes, those Bushman drawings in the African caves are
an interesting pendant to the Stone Age paintings in
Europe. I've seen reproductions of some of the Bushmen
paintings - surprising how similar they are in feeling
and technique.

You are quite right to learn Afrikaans.

The British are an infernal bore - imagine changing Isipingo to Margate! What cretins! The interest of Africa is that it should be Africa, not England.

There is no need for you to get permission to reproduce my D.H.L. pamphlet. It is a gift to anyone who likes to reproduce it. So go right ahead, and do whatever you wish with it. Heinemann will be only too pleased. If you must have formal permission, write to A.S. Frere-Reeves, Messrs Heinemann, 99 Great Russell St, London W.C. But, believe me, you don't need it.

There seems to be mighty little news to tell you. I got back from America last October, and spent most of the winter working on this novel. Expect to be on the continent until September, and then perhaps to America by way of Japan. When do you think you will be in England? Spring of 1957? Let me know.

Well, I'm glad indeed that I had the honour of serving you in an erotic dream, and only wish it had been the reality. Certainly, if I'd been there in fact, there would have been an erection, though whether the biggest on record I can't say. I'd certainly try to make it as satisfactory a tribute as possible, whether the charming 'IT' was shaved or not. How did you get on with your six weeks 'marriage'? You are reticent, but it sounds as if you enjoyed it. Are you finding that the pleasures of IT increase with practice and time? I do hope so, for you have great potentialities that way, and I thought and still think that it was only a question of adjustment for you to get the best out of it. I often feel that I should have been able to be of more use to you. Do you still feel yourself in the same way? Tell me about all this when you next write.

I'm rather tired with a long spell of work, and looking forward to the few weeks respite before beginning again. One good thing - though it does tire me to write a long book, I recover in a very few days. I'll write you again from the continent, and send you some erotic thoughts. It's nice to do that, if you like to have them. And send me some of yours.

I loved having your letter. Don't be too long in writing again.

With ever so many kisses and a special little caress for IT

from

c/o Chatto & Windus

40 Chandos St

London W.C.

England

2/8/36

Dearest Eunice,

I write from Austria. Before leaving England I destroyed your letters and your address - like a fool. But I thought if there were another motor accident as I got killed, you'd prefer not to have your letters discovered by my executors. As a matter of fact, I thought I'd cut out your address, but when I came to look for it, I found it was my sister's in India!

Anyway, I was glad to hear from you, and hugely interested in all your news. I'm firing this off to Isipingo Beach, in the hope that it will be forwarded to you. Do let me have your other address, and I'll write you again at length. I don't like to say anything confidential in this, in case by any chance it shouldn't reach you. So don't take your usual six months to answer, for until I hear from you, I shall be worrying at the thought we may be out of touch.

I'm working very hard on a new novel, called 'Very Heaven'. About 60,000 words are now done, but I hope it will be finished by September. Publication not till early in 1937.

Now, au revoir, and write soon. I'll write you all about everything as soon as I have the address. And sorry I am I was such an ass as to lose it.

With love,