Adlon

Hoppla, wir leben.... but only just, only just only just. Done in geometry, overlaid with film on a transparent screen in front of the stage, and bits of screen in the geometric pattern with picture behind. Built up like scaffolding to top of stage with bits of scene in every compartment lighted as each comes in with two electric bulbs concealed in the top of the particular cube, square or rhomboid in use at the moment. It all revolved. People stood forty feet above our craning and cricked necks and said. Heart's blood, wir leben, you will see, blood of our souls, we will drink, we live, hopla wir leben.... In their excited moments you felt they would step over the edge and plunge to death on the footlights. Film part all squares and shapes and breakings in and fallings apart, most convincing, modern and distinguished. Verging on absolutism. Music too, just incessant, insistent unmelody, noise, with strong barbaric rhythm, thump thump, and senseless squeaks, but amazing, and came right over. But oh, my god, Hopla, why did they live? Talk of attention breaking with movietone. Here it was calmly expected to cope with at least twenty different things going on at the same time.

Thank the Lynix, thank it and pat it and stroke it and scratch its hair at the back for it, that is like a bush of heliotrope full of bees, and say how sweet and dear its letter was. Made dog very proud and happy and pompous. Stuch nose right up in air where it has been ever since, even though his ears still hear nothing but a song (so called that put to shame utterly the Tarasova, Hopla wir leben. Hopla. Hopla wir leben. She had two baby spotlights trained on her face. All else was pure black, and she had a black velvet curtain round her. And she was large and portly, and glared and glowered, and her mouth clapped on the words like one of those morse code clappers. Clappety clap.

A good miss that for the lynx. Darling, such rare and beautiful dirt floats round here. Movies are fuller of intrigue than you can have imagined. Intirgue, and prongs and best renaissance venom.

SUNDAY (though you'd never think so)

This had to come to an untimely end hier, because it was time to see the King of Kings. I felt nothing would make me miss it. Really it wasn't half as bad as might have been expected. Very over pompous in decor, as you have already complained, sheer lath and plaster, and the usual low brawling at the pseudo pseudo banquet of the unreformed Mary Magdalen, played like weary death by Jacqueline Logan, a feeble runt with a face like a pining jackass. But herr Christ was (apart from anything else) really very beautiful, and had quite magnificent gestures with head and neck, and most female aspect generally, and I don't think they could have done better really. Also a frightfully cute hide, thin and very graceful, and altogether Dog has quite a case on him, even if he wasn't Christ. Large crowd scenes handled in the true de Mille manner, and bum to the last. And very good shot of earthquake as Christ dies. The Calvary scene very strong stuff, and Warner as Christ looking quite too homo and handsome on the cross. Very good effect of large precipices grinding slowly

on each other, and huge flakes falling away covered with clinging human beings. Small dog behaved beautifully, and didn't put his nose into his navel once, even in the most sadistic scenes.

Then home to a hurried meal, quaking rather at prospect of being feted as the saviour of artistic films chez Pabst. Come at half past eight, he had said, and we had chewed our tails all day, should we change and should we have dinner before going. Debated the horrors of being wrong on either point. Arrived, and Sat down meekly, curling our tails gracefully round our back paws. Mrs Pabst in red, very young and cute with vague nigger quality, only fair skin, and black hair. One felt, Pabst's very careful choice. He is a god like little demi-god. Just our Fido gone fat, rubicund and gayer, and a sweeping Germanic hospitality and generosity and cordiality that you just sink onto like a warm feather bed. I had him in a corner most of the evening, and he showed me photographs of his work by the million, including many from Joyless Street, with Garbom-looking quite out of this world altogether. His new film has another nordic ice flower from Sweden, a male. We all lick our lips and consider day bed. I will have photos to show you when we return.

Dog enjoyed himself no end. He likes Huns, and he does like to be among movie people of the right kind. Pabst is a joy to be with, and he has a beautiful way of expressing himself that brings home some small point in the most poignant manner. I do hope I shall be able to reproduce his style when I quote him.

Dog nowwags his lordly tail at the Lynnixs kind telegram. Fancy old Gaunt going. It must have been the title the Lynnix found for it. He cabled back, ten per cent royalty and 200 dollars advance, on the small dog's recommendation. Dog now contemplates another high tragedy to follow it up, and has ideas of becoming a best seller with Hall Cain stuff.

So the Herrang is exalte. Do you wonder? Herrangs dont find Lynnixs every day of their lives. I am wanting to hear of the honey coloured front paws pawing the air and dynamo noises, but I am pretty dead sure if said paws paw, it wont be the air but hide. Give both my love, the Wolf and the Herrang. Hit a museum today. Pictures. Modern (so called) An epic sub Haudleyesque Gathering of terrible 1870 art, Harrt, Ahrt, and Awt. Muck. Drainage. And shoals of intense huns standing before them in dreamy attitudes. Truly a wonderful race. They swallow all with equal avidity. But the film The Queen Was In The Parlour was hissed of from one of the Palasts here, tell the Herrang, and perple demanded money back.

Lovely Lynnix, he is both good and happy, and waits for the honey coloured dynamo paws of a surpressed Lynnix. Love and love,

SIGNED (Cuthbert witness)

TELEFON: CENTRUM 14212/15
TELEGR: ADR.: ADLON BERLIN

Hotel Adlon Berlin W.
Unter den Linden 1
am Pariser Platz.

Hippo hurrahs... have just been on the phone to Pabst, who fell over himself and will take us to Babelsburg tomorrow morning. Got photos from Ufa today of his newest film, a film of the Crimea (we saw the sets built up at Babelsburg yesterday. Among the photos one of Pabst himself, young, very very very very Lesbian, and he is Deeeeeeeellllllliiigheed to mit you. Hum! Lang's wife looks marvellous, B licks his chops and says he must meet him. Millions of stills to show you. Ufa filled my arms with them today, and they are all falling round us generally. Some mystery about Richter. They all sniff. Kopf Hoch, have just learnt, was directed by her husband, and they had no stills nor photos of her. Some good ones of Brigitte Helm and Camilla Horn, also Willy Fritsch and Crazy Mazie, Veidt, they say, ah Veidt, pouf!! Utmost disapproval. A quitter. Pouf. A lofely still of Fuetterer (barks) who has just finished a new film called the prince of something. Babelsburg was wonderful. Small dog not so impressed as he might have been, but oh, oh, oh, what equipment, and such a feeling of the movies. Sheer life to the Dog.

How he wishes the Lynnix were here, and
how naughty of the good frail sensitive Lynx

to say it would hate it. It would love the studios anyway. Poor Lynnix, did it get its bee uti ful tail scratched at the French Institut I guess the Wolfass was mad at the Kipper, or (in the H. D. style) wasn't he? Do tell me, I am at my wit's end.... I guess he rang it up, or didn't he? Or he will or wont he? Don't over-rate the wolf. Dog is far less wily, oily, tricky than he is. Darling Lynnix, we do miss it very much, and wish it was along in this atmosphere of bottled America. Tea in the hall becomes literally a fracas. You expect bums to hurtle past your ear. Give our love to the Herring and tell him I am lending him a few stills and ask him if he has any of Greta Garbo as there is to be a new article by her or on her. We dine with the Wright tonight. Dirt may fly. Dogs will try out, anyway, their established and famous method of painless extraction.

Mark descended yesterday, and came to the Ufa studion, sniffing with frog bristles brindling all over him. I expect to meet the Lang on Saturday. Dear me, god takes a very bad second place to the Lang here, and dogs tail begins to sink between his legs. But Pabst tomorrow is going to be .... ssh!!

Have bought the Lynnix a perfectly preposterous present, on a par with the new curtains and the incense burner. You'll love it. They have a couple of excellent Carlo Crivellis here and yet another portrait by Giogione which we have obtained reproductions for the Lynnix's pet portfolio, and Fido will return laden with Greek stuff. Wuff wuff. Dogs are happy. Big Dog overeating. Small dog sleeps all day.

Reversal of the London business. Big dog gets

up with the dawn while small dog looking like a scaly
anteater, rolls up in a ball under a pyramid of pink eiderdown.

Darling Lynnix, don't mind what the Wolf does. I mean,
you said yourself he looked Veidtish. He is. Ring him up
with some pink and purple story, and say you neeeeeeed him.

Personally I prefer the Herring. His idea for scenario
sounds too bloody orful, and I'm doing no poetry in that
sense while I live. How perfectly stinking, do tell him
to come off that Parnassus stuff, its his one intolerable
vice. Do have him in, and get him to talk, talk, talk.

What is his heart's desire other than to be a Veidt? Why
does he why doesn't he, what is he, you know, all the stuff
you did on the dog. Good, clever Lynnix.

Much much love, and don't miss Camille. The king of
kings is here. Fido says I must go alone. I might go with
pabst :?¹½;.=3? There might be every reason then why

Jesus Christ couldn't pass the British censor. Some
good new Ufa stuff in the offing, and a new Lang super super
in January.

Love, and to the monkey pup. Barks. Bounces and
puppy antics from a dog who forgets how big he is.

Its a kitten its a kitten its a kitten....... Brave, handsome,
beautiful, sad, noble, furry, dignified kitten, hurry up and come
and have that star or starfish or star maiden or whatever it is
removed. We will await it on Thursday in the chill dawn, and
escort it to its basket, which will not be the Nurnberger Platz,
which, though nice and warm, is full of children and blowsy old
dames, and aint so savoury in Winter as it was in Summer... Fido
is MOST sniffy, and I have to keep reminding himt hat he is
getting too bloody white for words. Which reminds me that the
Sunday Express has now got hold of MY tail. Nobody is deceived
by Mr. Macpherson's "art" except perhaps his Communist friends
and Sovkino cronies. That maketh Rover to wag his stump.
Fido has just remarked out of the blue that she DOES think
V S is the bloodiest old sadist going. What bee is now in Fido's
dog bonnet? We go to Pabst to tea today and are sure to Meet
louisa Brooks, which is already giving me gastritis, pleurisy
and Brights disease. Yaddik had lunck with the Montagu who
pumped him all he knew to get dirt on Rover, and thinks Close Up
TOO rude because when he sent us an article, we printed it
among correspondence!!!!!

Wish you had seen the Gert. I never saw anybody with less
feeling for movement in my life. Quite still she doesn't look
too bad, but when she moves its like an overfed pigmy hippo
swaying in the breeze. She stands still and undulates, and
it doesn't mean a thing, but she DID make Michigan Zee seem
rather flashy in comparison, and rather outre, and rather a
desperate ragamuffin. She has a huge fat behind, large befront
and slavic eyes and a Fido nose and arms like rolypoly pudding.
I thought it was meant to be abstract dancing, or neo-absolutism
or ism of some particularly laconic and supine order, but no,
it's meant to be very disrespectful and very bad and bold, which
you didn't discover until she gave an imitation of a German
Spinelly, which was cheap clowning far cruder and more sub-Perdita-
ish than any five year old brat could do. Exit two disillusioned
Fidos.

Poor, brave handsome kitten, don't be a sick sad worried
cat, and just get on that train and tell itself its troubles are
almost over, and tell itself it must be a NAICE woman from now
on. Poor kitten, Rover will say all he can in the way of nice
things when he sees it, and will pat its whiskers, and show it
that it need not have fear or any uneasiness. You see, Rover
has seen Sachs and listened to Sachs, and that has altered his whole
life. He wants Kitten to see Sachs and listen to Sachs too, and
it won't ever feel it has anything to worry about ever any more.
Sachs only moan was that we needn't be too misled at the progress
as still the "workers" had not the means. Which is wrong and
bad and all that, but a problem Dog feels, for another occasion,
and anyhow its such thousands of years in advance of the Bilious,
clammy sentiment oozed by V S, that it DOES mislead Dog into
thinking it very fine and very progressive indeed.

He sends love with barks, and kisses with wags
to his Sorry Kitten.

D O G sends a long-distance wuff to his Kitten.

Wonders if he will have forgotten what it looks like again. Is sure to
have a shock when he sees it. Is nervous about the space the two dogs'
behinds will occupy, and thinks it will be a bit congested for a Kat
that likes the Wide Open Spaces. Is distinctly flurried, and feels he
ought to hire a kennel for a few days????

Yaddik gone sick. Hasmal a la gorge. Am so bored with people with throats
drat 'em. Fido got nervous - as per - and slept with a stocking round
his neck. But woke in good form. Yaddik seems rather ill, poor boy, and
unhappy, but we can't do much, and hope to take him to Hamburg, but
all depends on doktor. I think its an ulcer like Fido had. Anyhow the
man is coming in a half hour and may put him and us out of our misery.
Then we F and D. have to dash to the Soviets and see another Russian
film. And the Dog's film is going back to Territet where he has decided
to go in October for a week to finish it up with Moviola and winder
and proper accommodation, as here it only gets scratched lying around.
Shall have to have a rubber lined dustbin.!!!!!! .........

Met - as F has told you - Otzep last night. An interesting but
somewhat nervewracking occasion, and the little female who had the baby
in the loft in Joyless Street was there. She is very lovely off screen,
and genuinely sweet and unaffected, and I imagine intelligent - or
perhaps I mean by that Perceptive. Which is much the same. The
little man himself was almost a pathological case he was so nervous.
Egocentric I imagine, with inferiority-superiority complex and desire
to be approved of making him a sort of nervous wreck. Odd little man,
quite likeable, with large, fat homo assistant. Sorkin being very
charming and boyish, and another large gent. who seemed to be in the
know but did not make himself intelligible as a person or as a personality.
We met at the bunch hang out - Cafe Meiricke near top of Kurfurstendamm.
D O G made notes. Ouch. One D O E S suffer in the corse of ahrt.

Had his Links letter and thinks what a clever old sort of link it is.
Must have some new discs. Sounded cosy that story of drinks. Dog
misses them here. He looks forward to the joy of brewing more punch
and breaking the kikken's best tumblers in the kikken's expensif little
basket.

The Berlin station is now closing down. Good night everybody
Goodnight. Veeeeeeepwppwppwpwpw prvp.

Dearest Mog,

many thanks for the Mog-spits, very welcome as
always. Trust all excitements at Kenwin have relish and
do not pall. So you won't come to meet us in Paris. How
very wise! I'M wondering what you liked and didn't like
about meeting the Fratillaria- illarium. And whether he and
you got together over dear Eric's nasty-bit-of-work.
O dear! Life is full of worries.

I like this Rhoda crittur. How much has she written
and where and when is more of her coming out? I think
her name is soo ohdd and rhegal. O. B. is having an audition
Cat, at the theatre where Gwen Francgwyzyxvgn Davies is
playing and she's giving it, and he has to stand on the stage
at night when the audience has departed and be listened to
speaking poetry. And he's learnt two poems of Rhoda!
I told Bud who said O and 00000 and 0000000000000, in
swelling yells. And 000000000 OW E's asking for trouble!
The idea is, it seems, that he may go on the stage in one
of her plays, and as her next is Madchen in Uniform where
she'll be the schoolmistress, Fido suggests O. B. is to be
the leading girl.

find Endown thinks you are raving mad. I couldn't quite
Fido thinks

find out where or why. It started with Peter's accident
under your lavabo. But she says I am mad too. What an
awful thing is sanity! And when I get alarmed by her
precipitation and general attitude toward film I become
"bone lazy" which I say I wish were true, since it would
imply contentment, work really being an attempt to have
things different to add lustre or to keep the head
above water. And I said I couldn't see how an english quota
quickie could add lustre or lead anywhere. That if it
was a case of getting money back, I was too inexperienced
to be the best one to choose, and that if it was an "art"
fillum it would be simply whistling in the dark, as a
few film societies might book it and what difference would it
have made to anybody or anything except Fido's purse?

Snyhow, it was all very complicated - Fido "is prepared"
to drop £2000, and with it I have a chance to put myself
over. Then I say where and as what? Then she says I ought
to know, and I say maybe, but I'm not sure that's the way.
Rather like Rhoda Peter being advanced ten thousand dollars
to write a best seller in a week dictating it to three
strange secretaries from nine to six. Can you see me doing
good or even passable work that way? Well, - bone lazy
I may be, but what I ses is I hate to get balled up
by premature delivery - if Fido wants a bonny baby she
oughtn't to try to precipitate a miscarriage.

Well, - you see - The Usual Dog Yaps!

Love to Mog and its whiskers. And to Pup.

VILLA KENWIN

BURIER LA TOUR
VEVEY

Téléphone: Vevey 52.927

Cat darling,

Couldn't we have your Statement for Life and Letters and
make it once and for all a best seller? Never have I chucked
so much; Eleanor Glynn is a pale shadow next this; and through
it all, this priceless picture of a wilting invalid eternally
vast forth into outer darkness while Edward Godfree seemed
in constant migration in his nightshirt to the cellar. Not the
least of its charms is the literary style, or lack of it. But
it's gorgeous in every way; what a story it would make!

Well, everything must be hotzytotsy, as they say in
MY new country, and if that doesn't secure liberation we might
as well live under Hitler. What a superb monster dear Cuthbert
appears in this; and I loved the allusion to even during the daytime
(with blushes and bated breath, as though that were the
culminating masterstroke of monstrosity!)

No news from here. Everything, anyhow, would pale
into insignificance after your glowing contribution to the gaiety
of nations. Well, here's good luck to it, and god bless
adultery!

Love and barks (but mostly guffaws)

Kinnerton

Dear Kat,

it WOULD be heavenly - please, please don't forget to send
me the pages. I'll take every care of them, and love and
cherish them. It isn't only knowing you intimately that makes
me feel that something from you is something more than a literary
event - but a kind of psychic achievement that enriches
everyone who has the luck or wisdom to read it! I do so really
mean that, and ever since the first startling and mysterious
sentence of Palimpsest's been a - not so much ideal as a sort
of vista that opened up every kind of meaning. Sounds damp
and silly, but it's not really. Good Kat, I'm glad and grateful
and very eager to begin.

Kenwin sounds lovely. I don't really think you're missing much
yet. Nothing has really started yet. And the weather is odd.
There was a terrific storm on Saturday, which alas, wrecked most
of my upstairs paint and water is hanging in bags under the piled
walls and looks most peculiar and feels most damp! Men are about
to rear ladders and stamp over everything, and I suppose that's
one of the joys of a flat in a mews! And London seems still
pretty empty, but will be filling up now. I wish you'd come
over here instead of going to Vienna. Two Hollywood men -
Ben Hecht and Geo. McArthur, - who wrote A L of Hollywood's best
films, broke away and made an independent film at what was reported
NO COST. The result was astounding. A LOVELY film. Then I heard
the "no cost" was sixty thousand pounds, and was sobered. But the

2

thing is magnificent, and really film. McArthur is Helen Hayes husband
and Hecht has written all kinds of things. Apparently a crazy
couple, and they've taken the old studio on Long Island and are
making more films. They have, however, the right pull, for they
have managed to contrive release through Paramount, which means
their films are publicised and shown at the biggest theatres. Still,
it was a pleasant shock to find again a real film that spoke real
film language. It was called Murder Without Passion, and is
completely cynical and devastating.

I feel I'd like another holiday! Shall try what Eidenow gave
Eilлен - iron injections. She says they are wonderful.

Please - Cat - hurry and send those papers. I'm now three
chapters through a quite new book. I think I like it. But so
far it's a secret. And I've been trying to get the other one
rounded off. When it is Prentice shall certainly be given it -
I expect he'll retire in horror, but there's nothing like
trying!

DO come over soon,

love always,

64 E. 66th St, N Y C

Dearest Cat,

I'm writing this quickly to give to Fido to bring back, that being the quickest way of getting a letter to you. Fido will bring it in person I expect, and let me warn you right now that you're going to hear plenty of complaints about your old Rover. Don't pay too much attention to them. Not till you've heard my side of it. Use your judgment, remembering what Fido can be like - arrogant, mad and cataleptic. Poor Fido, you'll be bored to death to have to hear of new complications. But as they are here, I give the outline. I said I could not leave New York - that if Turtle were in NY I'd be quite happy to go to him but that to leave it and bury myself alone in Boston when everything in me was living in and for New York would be madness and do harm. Fido said I had promised. I reminded her I had promised I would have a talk with the Turtle and no more. That if - having arrived - I didn't want to go through with it I wouldn't. On that understanding (as I thought) we sailed. But no, I had promised. Bryher went up in smoke. Either that, said she putting pistol to head, or divorce. For here was I with some foolish mania or obsession which could be cleared in a couple of months which was precipitating me upon some dire scandal in which she would be involved, and her Social Career could not permit such risks. That kind of talk is so helpful. Asked to elucidate, with a whisk of her tail, off she had scuttled into her warren. "I couldn't possibly until you have been analysed." It grew in five minutes into one of those monumental, hideous eruptions of insanity. Suddenly there was Bryher howling at me like a demon. I found myself grow like a large lump of lead with sheer boredom. Really, said I to myself, here is this howling maniac delivering obscene ultimatums, and what the hell. Here was Monte Carlo all over again, and she hadn't sense enough to know one never twice goes through something like that. As to analysis, from that moment it was made impossible. Sachs came up and I talked over everything with him, announcing my intention of separation. He said if I was convinced then I must do what I felt was right, but suggested making no decision which I might regret while still smarting from the encounter. He said frankly he preferred not to take me as already he was Bryher's analyst and friend. And suggested I wait and test my attitude for a while, then if still uncertain go in the fall to Freud. That seemed so logical I agreed.

There it is - stupid, dreary and dull. I wouldn't bother you with it, dearest Cat, except that I know Fido will, and will come to you with tales which I swear are fantasies of her mind, of how I'm sleeping all over Harlem, dissipating and destroying myself. Jimmie is the new Tony. Because he is an artist and a gentleman and a friend to the best that only makes it worse. A party we had arranged in her honour returning from Boston to which people like Van Vechten, Muriel Draper, Berenice, Dorothy Sheldon, Glenway Westcott and many more, all important and influential, had been invited to meet her, and to which she had agreed to come, she refused at the last moment and sent no apology, saying "Nothing would make her associate

with my cut-throat friends." That sort of thing. And Jimmie
who shares a flat with Olivia Wyndham - whom you'll remember
as one of the Elizabeth Ponsonby, Duff-Cooper set, and two
charming people - Lloyd and Edna Thomas, had gone to great
expense, which none of them could afford, to get in food and drinks.
And these were my cut-throat friends! Well, you can cut worse things
than throats, or maybe some knives cut two ways. I think Fido
was just crazy, but definitely, there are forms of craziness
that have horror in them, and there seems no guarantee that
this won't happen again and again. For this reason - unless
I DO see clearly a way out, I shall in all probability go to
Freud, - provided that is not made impossible by any emergency.

I do say, in all sincerity, I'm terribly, terribly sorry
to bore you with this again. It doesn't either worry or depress
me actually, so don't worry about me in any way. Please. As I
say, that happened once, it attacked again but failed to touch.
That's my side of it. I'm sorry for Fido's, and for what must
have caused the anger. How that poor little dog hates me sometimes!

Now to more pleasant matters -

You'll hear of the Stein Opera. It's lovely, lovely. I never
felt so happy and exhilarated in my life. That feeling lasted all
night and this morning. And I thought it was going to be frightful!

Carl was there, and Fido met him at last.

We've all had a curious grippe due to the intense cold -
record even for New York. Not since 1880 sort of thing. The result
with me was a cold which I subdued, then the next day (the day
we were going to Hartford for the Opera) I rose, made coffee and
sat down to enjoy it and a cigarette, having done which, I got up
and suddenly couldn't walk. Looked like I'd broken a bone in my heel.
Simply I couldn't move. During the day it passed off almost as
suddenly as it had come. Most people get it in the hips.. Awful
if one got it in the what-not.

Lovely new tunes here. I'm bringing them over.

My love to Kinnerton. I hope you like the bed there!