Genoa.

She took longer to close the shutter than seemed absolutely necessary. The fact that I was staring up at her, oh God, oh God, obliquely, frankly, from a window some stories lower vulgarly if you will, may or may not have been a factor in the fact. The decision of relations rests with the gentle peruser.

Genoa is perhaps the one city of continuous renaissance in Italy and is yet persistently mediaeval. If her streets are coveo-coveo caverns, gullies, and twisted stairs it is because the pristine descendants of the goat originally trod mountains in this manner.

If they still continue to build palaces and churches, and at the same time allow other churches to fall down it is because of the 'dolce far niente' that reaches up from Naples.

and the fact that the Balbi-SanCTOR SareIVA taught them to build palatialy and they have not taken the trouble to unlearn. Let it be however remembered that four feet square is sufficient space wherein to do business. to hold shop and hearth stone and that any alcove may be an estate, also that three stories and a court yard of heroic proportions may be only a vestibule( to the palace back or above) Genoa is a city wherein Christopher Columbus may well have dreamed 'Il nuevo mondo' for before her hills the glory of the sea lies down and beseecheth one. Yea the sea ever treacherous, ever changing, faithful showeth her borbers and showeth a thing more rare- or in seeming- that is from the hill of Genoa the sea seems to curl or sink from the horizon and prophecy the spire of the spherical.

The spherical moulding that we now accept as dogma and the appearance of which we seldom watch for.

None of these things have anything to do with the she of the shutters except that so far as I know she was 'una Genovesa :

When she was gone I spat at the cobbles to measure the height of my window and began unconsciously a scrutiny of the house of the 'vico'

A Jullette balcony - nothing rare in Liguria, a barred window, likewise common.

But this cage of iron on the third tier???

2

The only one in the palazzo opposite ---- no rarity but!!!!!!
Merely reminding one that in times Genoa had been a place wherein a mans
house might very conveniently have one room at least whence egress was
as difficult as ingress. A grated window needs but a bit of careful
silent filing or digging at the stone , but a window caged by outer
bars that begin a foot each side the aperture and bow out quite far
from the wall , means that the captive must do all his work in plain
sight of the ''vico'' and the iron lamp over the door-way below gave no
promise of night dark for such gnawing.

A very neat unobtrusive ornament this web of smith's work!!

The Juliet balcony was caty-cornered north from the cage
a west wall basketing - I wondered if one house owned both. It did
not or so far as I could tell did not seem to. Perhaps I am not clear
here. The ''vico'' formed an ''L'' or elbow, my window being on the co
cornex side the balcony and basket on the concave.

The lady of the shutter did not return.

That day a had watched the women washing in the Santa Brigida, the association of Brigitte Brighet and tubs is as demonstrable hereby, not modern.

In my first draft I have written '' Genoa is a town of the Gods''

A I am not satisfied with the phrase and would scratch around in the
hen yard of my vocabulary for something better, save that you want the
story and not vocabulary- whereas let us say en passant Genoa
is a town fit for a free vagabond- who is better than a prince any day-
that is if he only know enough to climb the hills behind her and can
take her galleries silently( the free vagabond naturely would)

Dorer-Memling Pellegro- Piola in one canvass that he seems to have
painted croning Lope de Vega's '' Porgue duerme mi nino--

Tened los ramos ( The Virgins' Hymn, to the-l--palm palm tress(
''Sith sleepeth the child here'' Stay ye or still ye your branches)

The Italian masters and VanDyke and because of him I have a right to
enjoy the aroma of memory for the others and yet hold to the thread of
my narrative.

In a former tale I mentioned a '' greater grand mother''
in the Louvre殿ery 9999 and Van dyke also. In the gallaxll

3- galery ''Brignole-Sala'' a careless man may see another ''
Mother and daughter'' which if he see it first or a picture postal card
or imbibe it orally from a strident''cicerone'' may remind him of the
Louvre picture(save that such an one would not remember the Louvre
picture)There is however a similarity in the placing of the figures.
The similarity of the Van Dyke with the Van Dyke-- which is often
of the background and drapery treatment. The master seldom cares for
much more than the faces of his sitters and here in his weakness if me
consider Velasquez only we must not when we watch Van Dyke, then we will
enjoy. The rule holds for most good artists. It is only the ''
''tours de force'' that ask comparisons with other work. The
creation of genius exists, thinks unto itself. As for Van Dyke and
his whims it is as he said after his canvasses ''Eccovi!

I have painted the face with a refinement no other has in mastery-
(a frenchman whose name eludes me (Chardinal perhaps) afterwards
beat him at this but his work recedes into the over-delocate)

''Eccovi'' says M Van Dyke tossing the lace at his wrist' I have
painted the face as no one else paints faces, if you want to bother with
the restof it have one of theses prentices craftmen block in some curtain
and pillarage-

Concerning the two pictures wherein a careless man mightete find certain
likenesses let us away with mystery8 The two ladies are sisters
and it shows- just a little- And if Mrs B--------s of Genoa is a sly cat
a little worn with the world a person who is bringing up her daughter
to look like a perfectly little smmnm finished snob who are we at this
late date to sit in judgment- I said or perhaps I did not say, y
that upon this day I had seen a sword- but let us again cut short
mysteries- you are no more interested in me and what I saw than I am
myself and are quite intolerant of all this bahbosh and preface as I
as I should be o if some one else drawlwd it at me.- while I was ti
tittilating between natural enoui and a semi-awakened desire to know
if the story might be worth the wrapping-

To be courteous and expeditious with you, you want the fine facts of the
tale plus the finish, less of course- the inevitable two paragraphs
of peroration that every stylist appends

4- Given a grated window in Liguria added the year D.V.- D. N.
1625 - and we have everything except a person of a family which I will not
name and the family B- Saregua or to be more exact Mateo Veruzzi,
a yellowish grey frizziness of hair about a certain redness of
countenance, and Mateo's step daughters Anna & Ysolda hyght-
Now in default of any human document of the said Mateo and such for in
instanceas a diary entrusted with such secrets as he withheld from God
and his family after the fashion of that most estimable Mr Pepys apropos
of the garter incident. Lacking I say any such accurate record of 'l'eddit
'il le dit Mateo' thoughts schemes and modes etc- we must judge
'il sopradeftoo Signore Mateo by two events and a thing let us say several
eveng events and a thing or two-
1618. The sister of le dite
Mateo marries a man prominent neither for poverty nor lack of power.
Mateo marries the widow 1624-'Be la Sala'; Anna is banned and
1625 espoused to a certain Sarequa. The caged window is added, or rather
rather a cage or bulged grating is added purely by way of decoration
of course to a certain window in the 'Casa (Sala) Veruggi-

The "Juliet" balcony has as you see nothing to do with the story
proper, altho the lady Anna may have dried her hair over the breadth
of ite, marble guard rail, as late as May of the year D.V. 1624
after which it would have been superfluous. Sunlight striking upon mar
marble and hair simultaneously is by no means repellent. However
of our Lady Anna's method of the coifure and the place where she chos
chose to make the same there remains no authenticated or documentary
record That the grating is not about the window of la dite solde
is mere coincidence. The discrepancy is explicable by the fact that sh
she was locked in her own room above during the four hours
wherein it was erected te-- changed quarters immediatly thereafter.
Even in this there is nothing unusual - no Montague and Capulet
deadly feud effect - altho Genoa has perhaps more wasted stage setti
settings for mad romance than any city in Italy. unless it be Pavia
Pavia where romance waits for you in inaccessible "ponticellis"
more
and becomes thereby the mors provocative.

5- In searching the family records for horse-thieves, murderers exiles and other brutal facts wherewith to bring the blush of shame to a very dear person who has as I believe earnestly endeavored to bring me up as a glory to the old tradition, I find 1313 Nicholas L'Angloise/bookseller and tavern keeper in the Rue St. Jaques fined 12 pence I believe it is for a certain backwardness in recognizing certain authority and powers temporal vested in some one else.

This backwardness is by no means surprising in a family that has had some of its members exiled from England every time and number of really charming people were expurgated from that tight little island for rebellion, sedition or general 'aginness' to the Gov. and the 'status quo'. However Nicholas and his backwardness have nothing to do with Genoa, 1625. However much his family record may suggest romance. Here have we an *emigre*' whom out of respect for the family I will not name we will call him simply '*L'Anglois' to-wit The Englishman*.

I have said that Nicholas (of the Rue St? Jaques) and his backwardness in recognizing certain authority etc. have nothing to do with the story. Let us however examine this statement or rather Nicholas himself apart from his backwardness meditating analytically upon N. L. Anglois. we may observe a tendency for combination, a starting point wherefrom to date the generic jacking of several trades.

Surely if a man combine in his purveying books and old wine he is all commendable, if his decendents have taken to mixing worse and more incongruous tendencies let not your censure rest too heavily upon Nicholas *le dit* of the Rue St. Jaques.

Feeling convinced that you follow my meaning thro this tangled web, even tho I *menninomn* upon second reading can not I proceed.

In 1626 L'Anglois '*pere*' combined very prettily the trades and functions of ex-chancelor at large for an exiled Treasury, Lord of three imaginary titledoms, student of chemistry and when the hoard of his highly honored '*emigre*' friends had their backs turned merchant of gems. All of which is quite beside the point save that who when the several times before mentioned M. Veruzzi of Genoa added to

6 - Genoa-

his mansion a several times before mentioned a nap of a hound

superfluous iron adornment, one Andrio Stegua, younger son of the Earl
of Lontague, to-wit Andrew L(Anglois son of L'Anglois 'pere' took up his
abode with one Mercole Bruzzi, Goldsmith, at which what is now
numerous quattordic(No.14) and sang noise or commotion neither with
grinding nor gnawing but patiently with a little red water, and two
sticks and the remanis of amanuens, a cavalry cloak began lovingly to bathe
the plaster and then the mortar of the west wall of his chamber in a
hidden place behind sundry furnishings, the "arrays" of popular
fiction only it was not the ""arrays"" in plain unromantic "Yank"
he lay in that place wherein the proverbial old maid and occasionally
the stalwart hero(altho never pictured in literature in such an act)
hunts for the proverbial burglar. In short, or rather in long
for 41 evenings Andrew L'Anglois lay under a matrass sopping a wall
and poking with little sticks quietly steadily with a little red water
and no noise at all. For which cause Le. Dit. M Veruzzi found on day
----------------- eh---------- nothing at all --- at a certain hour he
had a reasonable fair expectation of finding a daughter, whom(dispite)
inner conviction and some misgivings logic would have predicated
to be findable in a ceratin room with a grated window and whom any
Polonius would have predicated pursuadable into a match with as hand
some a man as -- of--

-888---

But women are so illogical-

E- Pound

Note; Let us remember that the face of M. Veruzzi was somewhat blotched
at this peroid of his life. Alos that I err in spelling his name Veruzzi
it is correctly spelled with one z this giving a more smeary, mushy
sound than the hard tgxt of the double zz E.P.