Les Rosiers
Ancien chemin de Castelnau
Montpellier
France
28/2/55

My dear Eunice,

One result of all this fracas is that I have
managed to link up with old friends from whom I got cut off
during the latest effort to end war and put Mr Churchill out
of a job.

So you have a Harriet aged 7. And I have a
Catherine aged 16, who is already a bit of a hand-full as well
as an arm-full. I brought her here some four years ago because
I could not bear the idea of either English schools or boarding
schools, but I wanted a "good" school, and my old friend
Professor Gustave Cohen said the only two best High Schools
in southern France are Nice and Montpellier. As I would rather
live in France than in Nice, I moved here. Might be a lot
worse. We practically never see an American, and except for
my own friends there hasn't been a Brit in the place for years.

Tell me about Harriet, send photo, and draw map.

Strange about Catherine - she is sportive as all
hell, good at skiing, horse-riding, fencing, rock-climbing,
swimming, and such a good shot she almost always gets five bulls
out of five. Serve me right. But she is also a poet.

What she does in life I don't know. What do women
do with their lives? Waste them on men who don't deserve them.

Cats and irises. Yellow ones? Irises, I mean?
We have lovely yellow or rather gold irises in the Camargue
in the spring. The local government employs highly-paid labour
every year to destroy them.

This Lawrence book has become a bit of a bore
as well as demonstrating what lying phonies the British are. But
they've over-done it, and instead of killing the book as they hoped,
they've advertised it. They hoped to kill it by putting up
a terrific barrage of insults on the publication Sunday.
The result seems to support Abraham Lincoln's statement about
not being able to fool all the people all the time. On Saturday
the 29th Jan, I heard from Collins that advance sales were
"about 23,000". On Sunday came down a wholesale vilification of
me since it has not occurred in England since Lady C. of blessed
memory. On the Monday the 31st, sales were "approximately
29,000". 35,000 copies were printed before publication, and
a third impression has been ordered.

Everything is being done, even with official support,
to kill the book, so if you can help to get it read.... It
not only exposes Lawrence - it exposes a whole gang of British
phonies and an American too. There is a frightful battle going
on in America to try to stop it there. All I ask is -LOOK AT
THE EVIDENCE.

You will never lose a friend who has really known

you,

Les Rosiers
Ancient chemin de Castelnau
Montpellier

78/79

Dearest Junice,

"When I saw the South African stamp felt sure
the letter was about Roy Campbell, whose recent death is such
a loss to literature.
But no:

the yellow iris ( Iris pseudacorus) grows wild
(strange to say) as far north as England, as well as down here.
It is a marsh plant, but generally you find it almost as a
water-plant since it grows actually in the water of ditches and
small streams. Unfortunately even if they propagate by seed
they will be difficult to find because in the early autumn
clean-up the vegetation along the streams is all cut down.
Moreover, I think they survive this annual massacre because they
propagate by a "creeping rhizome" under the mud, which would
explain the long lines of them ix at the edge of ditches.
It would be possible to keep these damp for so long a journey
would it? I must enquire. The old English name for it, by
the way, was water-flag or bastard floure-de-luce.

I enclose my last passport note, from which you
will observe that I have become an elderly boze with too much
flab, and that tendency to look like an old woman which is so
distressing and well-nigh universal complaint at my age.
In another envelope I will send you the last of my Hollywood
empress photos, taken about 12 years ago. I don't like it, but
a contemporary one would wreck your whole campaign for the cats.

At first I thought you wanted me with my Siamese. I
me haven't got a Siamese (or, indeed any cat), and could hardly
borrow one. However, I see, this is not required.

It's hard to praise cats without cursing dogs, much
as one cannot praise women without abusing men. Anyway in
Africa you ought to avoid cats and dogs and such commonplace
reptiles, and cultivate some of these lovely deer and antelopes -
gild their hoofs and horns and have them run about the house, as
the little antelopes do in Tunis and Algeria. But of course if
it is a choice between dogs and cats, I am 100% for cats as you
know. The fifth, abominable morals and destructiveness of dogs
are obvious to everyone but the hearty morons who cultivate them;
and the dog is so stupid it can't live away from humans. The cat,
on the other hand, while tolerating human beings in its home,
usually with indifference, is perfectly self-possessed and
self-contained. Cats don't caress us," said Montaigne, "They
caress themselves against us."
A salutary truth which shows
the animal's intelligence. They make themselves agreeable only when
they want something, exactly like children, the most intelligent
section of our species. Unless indeed, again like children,
they think they can get what they want more easily by
uttering piteous cries. The cleanliness of cats, their
voluptuous or hieratic poses, their mysterious habits, make them
the ideal pets for imaginative and fastidious persons. Their
grace and agility are often backed with courage, at least in the
females. I have known a mother cat kill a poisonous snake
with a display of vindictive heroism worthy of a general in a deep

["bomb-proof dug-out. Of course they can become as tyrannical\nas pretty women, but why not?", "We are in rather a turmoil at present. This old\nbut very strongly-built ( of solid stone) pension is to be\npulled down, and the magnificent old trees in the big quiet\ngarden are to be destroyed. Simply for the purpose of building\nloafers' tenements. It is disgraceful, for at the moment\nthe garden is full of nightingales and hoo poes, and when all\nthe leaves are out one cannot see the Franciscan fathers in the\nsmall monastery at the end of the garden. However, it is\nabout time to move. Catherine missed her Bachot last year,\nbut hopes to get it this June. She will be 16 in July, and\nmy friends think that is the age for her to start work in\nParis. As she is bilingual ( she is already certain of the\n1st prize for English and for French in the top form of the\nLycee here) the idea is to start on one of the rather numerous\nofficial jobs which require a perfect knowledge of both languages,\nspoken and written. Any girl who shows the required ability\nto think in French and talk in English and vice versa ( not so\neasy!) has a good chance to get a training scholarship, as interpreter\nFailing that, a knowledge of shorthand and typing, can secure\na secretary's job. They are better paid than you'd think, and\nthere is a constant demand. Of course part of my ideal was for\nher to take a science degree (you see how they are being howled\nfor to-day!) but she isn't good enough at maths.\nI don't want to leave the Midi, but if I stay\ndown here I shall never see her. Friends are trying to find us\na country cottage about a couple of hours from Paris, and then\nshe can escape for week-ends.", "You may not think it, but I have been and still am\nin a very poor state of health, so it may be just as well to\nbe nearer the Paris doctors. My illness is a mixture of\noverwork, nerves, age and general weakness. It's quite an effort\nto walk the 2 miles to the post office and back.\nMy recent books are \"Introduction to Pistral\" and\n\"Frauds\". Modern readers are mainly interested in themselves,\nso that you won't be surprised to hear that they have neglected\nPistral (a great poet and most amiable character) and have\nrushed for the Frauds. Then they accuse me of always writing\nabout unpleasant characters! Under the title \"Portrait of a\nRebel\" I have in the press a book on R.L. Stevenson, due for\nLondon publication this September.\nI am supposed to be doing\na book on Balzac - must, as I've signed the contract.\nI'm X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 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Catherine is here with me. She failed her second Baccalaureat by only four marks - als. So instead of lounging through the summer, she has to work for the "second chance" exams in Sept, which is allowed those candidates who only just fail. The questions she had to answer were very hard. I should have scored a 0. No, she isn't married, though I am much exposed to the visits of young men on motor bikes - all of whom disappear when she goes back to the university! What next?

I am sorry indeed about the photos. I think I wrote to H'wood, and never had any reply.

Well, it was Ursula and not I who revealed the appalling scandal of the Phul-Nana. I always follow the rule of the Officers Mess, and never mention a woman's name, nor drop any hints. It seems only fair.

I congratulate you on winning the Gold Medal for your iris. It is a real achievement. How much better a lovely new flower than an ugly new book.

Do you know Jessica Brett Young? She is writing and editing a Life and Letters of her husband, and wrote to me from a Park Land hotel about a passage in my life of DHL. She now writes from Cape Town.

Why are the small woes of existence so unbearable? I have to get my hair cut, and I ought to go to the village pudding-bowl expert, but as callers develop throughout the summer, I must go to Cosne. The car needs greasing and the hand-break must be tightened - a dreary morning or afternoon waiting in Sancerre, where tourists now have the impudence to intrude in August. I had to send my second tripewriter to Nevers for a minor repair of about ten minutes - it has been away for 3 weeks and will cost half the national xx debt. And so forth. But one triumph... I was asked to write the introduction to the third vol of the immense and rather useless Composite Biog of DHL which is being issued by Prof Nehls at the University of Wisconsin. A set of proofs were air-mailed me via Orly, and the girl ( not man) who sent them from USA made the blunder of valuing them at

Sury en Vaux
Cher
France

8/8/60

Dearest Eunice,

I enclose with this a letter from my London agent - and don't bother to return it, keep it for the address. I had to write to her today on another matter, and mentioned you would be sending in some time this month. She does a lot with female magazines, and if/when you get to London (Eng) would no doubt introduce you to editresses.

Nothing has come through from Ann Elmo, but when you have work to show her, I'm sure she'll do her best. The American market is very different from the English, but of course much more profitable. If you could get in there and be paid at their rates, six articles a year would keep you and Harriet in comfort - modest comfort - in Eurrup. The difficulty is to get in. I never could.

Of course there is an immense gap - at present between Harriet, a schoolgirl of 12, and Catha a university student of 22. But the gap will quickly narrow, and the ardour of the aficionada should help! Catha is now riding bareback, the only way to get a good seat, it seems. But I think she is already too old to be anything extra. Still, it is all great fun for her, and so much better than going to inane parties in Paris. I don't know how she is going to earn a living, but we must meet that bridge when we come to it. The present objective is to get the university degree, and to learn modern Provençal.

What a shame about the money and property. I never had any, but I should have been awfully cross if someone had gone and lost it for me. The great difficulty is that, owing to the enormous rise in industrial and commercial wages, and the huge profits made by most concerns, the cost of living constantly rises. Payment for writing or any art or intellectual service rather tends to fall, because there are so many people trying to sell such work, and they've got to take what they can get. Food is terribly dear, and rents, especially in big towns, extortionate. And there seems no end to it.

Many people think and say that since the last war England and London have become impossible, ruled by trade unions and bureaucrats, and just generally dreary and frustrating. On the other hand, my wife, Netta ( about whom you ask) thinks otherwise. As a rule I never speak about one woman to another, but I am sure you will respect my confidence in this. We were very cheerful together and both devoted, as we still are, to Catha. When we got back to Paris in '46, with my permission she had a lover. (I saw she was eager for it, so opposition was unless.) Later, in the south of France, she got more and more restless, because she likes big towns, and I like the remote country. Finally in 1950 ( when Catha was 12) we agreed that she should go to London on her own for a time. There she got a job, poor one at first, but now a pretty good one, and stayed on. She doesn't want to divorce,

and we meet at least twice a year, perfectly friendly, and
go to bed together. I know she has lovers in London, and she knows
I have mistresses. Next month or a little later I am taking
her on a motor trip, and we shall certainly have the same bedroom.
It seems a sensible solution. It would kill me to live in
London, and as she hasn't the interest of writing, the country
bores her. She doesn't want to live with another man, but
doesn't hesitate to have an affair when she wants. The modern
woman, what?

I wonder why love-making has tired you. I should say
you had a perfectly healthy woman's body and that you are
well-sexed. (By the way, the other day I found that in India
there is intense desire and admiration of women who have a
profuse lubrication! It is said to excite the men enormously.)
I should think that the "tiredness" is not really physical,
but due to some inner "refusal", some psychological disgust,
which you have never realised and thus never been able to
throw off. Even frail women, much less robust than you, can
spend a night with orgasm after orgasm, and get up (late!) the next
day feeling exceptionally light and cheerful. Physiologically
the sex-act should be a release, and not "tiring", though of
course in excess it is. But what is "excess"? Relative,
of course. 26 times in 24 hours is said to be the limit for
a healthy woman. But who is ever that lucky?

I didn't see the book you speak of - about the
male who changed into a female. There was an even stranger
case I read of somewhere - a woman who had all the external
sex parts of a female, but inside somehow had seminal vescicle, testicles of a man. She always fell in love with
women, and when she had an orgasm, male semen was ejected from
her urethra. Impossible to make her a male, as there was no penis,
and the testicles were not real ones, but simply male "tissue".
I don't think these strange intermediates really answer the
Tikus-Tiras question. I think his answer was correct,
because male sensation is mainly in the glans of the penis, whereas
in the female it is much more diffused (lips, breath, nipples,
belly, thighs) and the tiny clitoris is three times as rich in
sensual nerves as the penis. There is obviously no way
of measuring what another person feels, but I think this shows
that the balance is strongly towards the woman. On the other hand,
women are slower in coming to their pleasure, are often inhibited
by psychological or other difficulties, can't put off their
modesty with their clothes, and can't concentrate on their pleasure
because of the dread of pregnancy. Of course, the modern pessary
and ointment are a nearly 100% sure protection, but they aren't
always easy to get. Can you get them in S.A.? The Catholics manage
to have them forbidden in France (of all countries!) with the
result that women have to go to Switzerland or England to get fitted,
and smuggle them back. The abortion rate apparently has
risen fearfully, and the Swiss doctors say they are overwhelmed with
applications from French women imploring their aid.

Ever so much love,

Dr W. Stekel estimates that round about 50% of American women
are completely frigid. Why?

Sury en Vaux
Cher

10/9/60

Dearest Eunice,

I am sorry indeed you have this unexpected
discouragement from Mrs Colin. I am about 99% sure that
I wrote her you contemplated doing articles and spoke of women's
magazines. It may be that she has given up placing articles or
trying to place them - though in fact all agents do that work -
but I suspect it is a roundabout way of telling you the articles
are not suitable for the English market. England has become
more and more self-centred, and the "new wave" in writers are
all for puritan isolationism, anti-hedonism, anti-European.
Recently, an old friend of mine brought to see me his (illegitimate)
daughter who has been brought up by a well-known English writer.
(My friend, also a writer, lives on the continent.) Well, the girl
was dressed like a housemaid, talked of dogs mainly, despised
everything French, including an excellent meal I wasted on the
trollop. By which I mean that they are so isolated from the rest
of the world, they can scarcely take in the lives of other peoples
unless presented in their terms.

I suggest you write to Miss Elmo personally
( 545 Fifth Avenue, New York 17, N.Y.) mentioning my letter to
her about you, and asking if she thinks it any use for you to
submit articles for women's magazines. Mrs C. may be a blessing
in disguise, for one American article will net you as much as five or
even ten English. Let me know what happens.

Your Meinertzhagen tip turned out to be an excellent
one. After much delay I managed to get the book, and the whole
passage (by TEL's best friend) is simply devastating. I sent
it to London and N.Y. Times, which both find excuses for not issuing
it! And yet any silly pro-Lawrence lie is given full publicity.
Of course, the Lawrence Myth is part of British government propaganda,
and as long as they can block the truth, they'll do it. I'm sending
the thing to such friends of theirs as the Italians, Germans and
Russians. We'll see what happens. I'm much obliged to you
for sending the cutting. The book seems to have been ignored in
England. Meinertzhagen was not a Jew, but an Englishman descended
from a Danish family, but convinced that Zionism was the right
policy- contrary to most of his colleagues at the Colonial
Office who were influenced by Lawrence to back those Arab cut-throats.

You will see that the prosecution of Penguin for
issuing the unexpurgated Lady C. is postponed for a month. I
think there is a very good chance Allen Lane will go to prison.
Of course men and women now currently and without mauvaise honte
say "count" and "cock" and "balls" and "fuck" and so on, but seeing
them in print is different and still arouses a guilt complex - I
don't quite know why. I was most interested to learn from my
old friend (mentioned above) who was a Don Juan in his prime
that in London the girls weren't moved by a man saving the
famous words, but were almost invariably excited when they saw them
in print in Joyce's Ulysses. Of course, that was 30 years ago, and
I wonder if it is true now, and generally true? Of course women

do like sexey books, but I am sure they prefer them to be
romantic-sexey rather than sensual. Many years ago there was
a wide confidential enquiry among educated girls to find out
which books they used to excite themselves to masturbate - and
it turned out that the favourite was Tennyson's Idylls of the
King! I think this is in character - there is a good deal
of idealism in women, and perhaps their failure (as in Americans)
is the inability to make the necessary transfer from romantic-love
to sensual-love. Still, I think this applies mostly to
the "Anglo-Saxon" countries. French, Italian, Spanish and
even German women are all very sensual.

It was a surprise to me when my old friend asserted that
he had found Ulysses excited women. I suppose he meant only very
small detached passages, for in general the book seems to me
a dirty old ex-priest doing dirt on the female sex, and I denounce
him accordingly.⁴ Personally I never allow anyone in my
presence to use "cunt" in derision. I always interrupt and say:
"Cunts are such an admirable institution that nothing and nobody
should be allowed to bring them into ridicule and contempt."

I mused over your pussy crack that I have reached a time
of life when I must Hanker after young girls. I believe I
might enjoy feeling and licking them, but no more; and for
real sensual pleasure still prefer plump, full-breasted, round-
bottomed, uninhibited older women. And I think the reason is easily
found in my sexual "education". Before puberty (i.e. before
I made seed when I came) I did feel and lick the hairless cunts
of little girls, but I was initiated into everything else by
three women much older than I - one a maid-servant and the other
two distant kinswomen - who discovered, or rather passed on to
each other, that in spite of immaturity and a then very slim but not
short cock, I could give them everything they enjoyed with no
slightest risk. From those experiences I am sure stem the
lusts and satisfactions - and disappointments - of a lifetime.
People yell "Freud" if one makes such a statement, but it is
simply a matter of fact in this case. In adult life people
often forget their earliest experiences - I know I did, and
was astounded when on patiently fishing up memories I realised
what an active sex-life I lived in those pre-puberty years.
I remembered by thinking of the two different houses we lived in
and the people I knew, and thus gradually many such memories
returned, though I dare say some or many are lost for ever.
What I must add is that in both cases it was the females who took
the first initiative, i.e. both the small girls and the women.

How exasperatingly stupid the "news" of the day is!
I really think I shall again stop reading newspapers - perhaps my
most cheerful periods have been when I never looked at a paper for
months. If anything really important happens people can't help
telling you, but the object of newspapers is the purely cynical
one of making money by twisting events into "news" which will
frighten or flatter the newspaper-buyer. Fear, however, pays better
than flattery, though both are usually mixed.

Don't let the Colin dispirit you too much. And
try Elmo.
All love,darling, Richard

Sury en Vaux
Cher
France

1/10/60

Darling Eunice,

No, you are not "taking up my time", and even if you were doing so, you would have the right. You gave me so generously the enjoyment of your lovely self and beautiful body, which I have always remembered with nostalgic pleasure, and I should be a filthy little bastard if I were not always grateful to you. Whatever you may say, you are a beautiful woman, and I am proud to have been one of your lovers.

I think your letter to Ann Elmo is perfectly adequate, and I do hope she and Rosica's friend will be able to help you in this crisis.

Of course I know of Harriet Cohen, and loved her playing of 18th century Italian and French music. For a time she was mistress of a friend of mine, who made me his confident, and used to rave about her. I never met her, but I always remember her beautiful playing. My friend was a Jewish American, clever, talented, but so much less glamorous that I always felt she must have accepted him more from pity than for love, for he was crazy to madness about her. Women must get a lot of quiet amusement out of the antics of us men.

No, dear, I'm not a French citizen, and shan't be, unless the English compel me. Think of the advantages - I am not subject to either French or English mobilisation, don't have to serve on juries, and French income tax is lighter than English. The Larousse was simply a "job" to make some extra money for Catha. A writer is very favoured, in the sense that his stock in trade is a typewriter, paper, and a bit of brains, and one doesn't have to naturalise to use them.

In writing to Catha I often sign myself "ton Son et Lumière". Brigitte Bardot is evidently in love with the actor Sami Frey. I suppose Charrier won't divoce, and the strain sent Frey into a mental clinic, and made Brigitte simulate a suicide. It'll be all right, and they'll soon be in bed together. The newspapers make the trouble.

I see that the solicitor for Penguins and Lady C. has told the Anglo-American press I am going to testify on their behalf. Well, I'm not. I think I told you Catha got into trouble by not arranging properly her transfer from the University of Paris to the University of Aix, and by naively entrusting the certificate of her B.A. to the Students Union of Sciences Politiques who promptly pinched it. I dealt with the theft through the head New Zealand delegate to Unesco, who happened to be here, and was so angry when he heard the story of this robbery of a girl that he whirled down to the French Minister of Education, and got that put right. For the transfer there was a most lucky set of coincidences. I am an honorary member of the "Félibres" (the admirers of Mistral) who gave me the Prix de Gratitude Mistralienne in 1958 for my book on Mistral. By great good luck the Rector

of the Aix University is also head of the Félibres, and I got at
him through Cyril Upton, who is Riviera correspondent for the
Times, and adviser to the Félibres on English books about Mistral,
and as he is under some obligation to me, he has put everything
right.

The whole Lady C. prosecution seems to me a storm in
a pee-pot. Books such as "Lolita" circulate freely in England,
and are certainly much more "sexey" than DHL's rather innocent
Lady C. Lawrence Durrell's novels - where everybody fucks
everyone - are widely praised, and he is constantly on the
BBC. Have you read Durrell? He is a good friend of mine.
His present mistress is a lovely French woman, who has two
children by two previous men, and Larry has two daughters by two
previous women. The youngest is called "Sapphie" and I haven't
seen her, but Catha says she is lovely and very intelligent.
Anyway, if you have read the unexpurgated Lady C. you will
almost certainly agree with me that it doesn't contain much that
most women haven't done and said - i.e. they have had lovers and
committed adultery, and let their lovers say fuck and cunt to
them. What seems to me impossible almost, is that a woman
like Connie, with a Royal Academy father, after being brought
up in such circles, marrying, and now come to her second or third
lover, shouldn't know what is meant by the word "cunt". I think
myself that Frieda, being German, and married to prof Weekley, who
was very calvinist, may not have known it, when DHL used it
to her when putting flowers in her cunt-hair. Surely every
English-speaking girl knows it long before she is 20? Can you
remember when and how you learned it? Don't say it was me!

I am going down to Aix in a few days, to see that all
is well with Catha, and that she has somewhere decent to live.
I may spend part of the winter down there. I was looking forward
to a few days of good fucking with my wife, but she can't come.
The LCC have terminated the lease of her house in Chelsea, and she
has to find another place. Her mother, who is very elderly,
wanted her to share a flat, but if she were silly enough to
consent to that, she could never have a peaceful fuck! Well, I'd
looked forward to coming in her again, and now it must be postponed.
She is a splendid woman, sensual and not romantic, and a really
glorious fuck, and a good, sweet friend to me in addition. I
don't mind her having lovers - her cunt is just as sweet and
lovely to me.

Well, dear girl, if I can do anything to help you
on the literary front, command me. But I am really far less
of an influence in yanko-sachsen countries than my world
reputati^n - translated into 17 languages - would imply. Hang
them, gorbellied chuffs, they hate us youth.

I wish I could kiss you and give you confidence - which
is conceited. I wish also you would let me have your naked MANNEN
measurements - r und the tits over the nipples, round the waist,
the bottom, the thigh, and the length of your cleft. I bet anything
that my wife, who is constantly having affirs and thinks herself
and indeed is very desirable, is bigger and fatter than you are.
I'll send you her measurments - she has splendid tits and bottom.

Sury en Vaux

Cher

France

10/10/60

Dearest Eunice,

There isn't any official Censor or Censorship
in England - typical of their hypocrisy, for there exist
various means by which the authorities can suppress a book.
The Lady C. case is not at all what you have been told or have
inferred.

There is a law against the printing, publication, and
sale of "obscene books" in England, and all violating it are
in law guilty of a misdemeanour and liable to prison sentences
up to two years. ( Vizitelly was imprisoned for publishing
Zola - before that in 1841 Foxon for publishing Shelley's poems,
and not so long ago Montalk for even trying to print some
harmlessly bawdy poems was given six months.) The law has
been changed, and whereas under the old law the finest art
or literature in the world would not be admitted as a plea
in defence if some grimy old lawyer thought them "obscene",
"obscenity" has now been rather vaguely defined as "likely to
inflame passions" ( or some such words) and "experts" in art or
literature may now give evidence that publication of the work
in question is "in the public interest".

BUT, Lady C. has already been persecuted ruthlessly
by the British police, who have a vendetta against Lawrence,
partly because he was a proletarian who dared to have genius,
partly because he was a workingman who ran away with a "gentleman's"
wife, and later dared to describe her cunt and fucking to
the public as of Constance Chatterley, and partly because they
effectively thought him a spy in wartime. Anyhow, under English
law any "citizen" can act as "common informer" against a book
he thinks obscene ( no less than 30 copies of The Colonel's
Daughter were informed against, but the Home Office official concerned
happened to be a friend, the more so since I had been his wife's
first lover) and there exist horrible things called Watch and Ward
Societies, or Anti-Vice Societies, of pernicious busybodies out
to destroy everything they don't approve of.

Allen Lane is out on bail, charged with a misdemeanor,
and must stand his trial at the Old Bailey before a judge and a
jury of British petit bourgeois. Previously my old friend
A.S. Frere had to stand three consecutive trials at the Old Bailey
for publishing a novel ( which he hadn't read, though he bravely
said he had, and took all the blame) which was written by a flaming
pansy, who in the novel wrote as a girl describing her experiences
with men. ( There must be a panze on Heinemann's staff, as they
are doing other buggery books, and Frere is out.) Anyway, poor
old Frere had to sit or stand in the dock, and listen to all their
tripe and insults, and only escaped because the jury three times
disagreed. But, note well, in this case there was no fuck, cunt,
John Thomas, Lady Jane, no sticking of flowers in cunt-hair,
no panegyric of fucking as the mystical salvation of the world.
I think Jane was an awful fool to take the risk, and with those

Sury en Vaux
Cher

II/II/60

Dearest Eunice,

I was enchanted to have your delightful and exciting letter. Obeydient to your commands I at once inscribed to Harriet the latest English pocket-book edition in 2 vols, and posted it, surface. The air-mail for books from here to S.A. is prohibitive. The two covers each have a Renaissance lady with naked breasts, so you may have to put a paper cover over if Harriet takes them to school. As a matter of fact the translation has been a steady seller in several editions in USA - the Brits were only 30 years in discovering this, as the first US edition was in 1930. I would like to send you the edition illustrated by Rockwell Kent, but I wonder if the S.A. Customs might destroy it as obscene - though it is published by Doubleday, and Rockwell is a known illustrator. The naked women have impossibly idealised round and erect breasts. Where their pussies are shown they aren't pussies, but shaved and with no cleft. But there are naked couples in bed (sex of male hidden) the nun seeing Masetto's cock as he lies asleep, etc., etc. and one which looks like a woman (clothed) with her skirt pulled up on top of a man - though the text shows she is only pretending. If you think we could risk sending without too much chance of confiscation, I'll order from N.Y. for you. Tell me.

The idea of visiting S.A. is most exciting. The great snag is that I am the world's worst lecturer, and no good on TV or broadcasting - though Durrell is always pestering me to try again. I know it is useless because I dislike the radio public. But I might be able to do it on my own. I'll find out what the Air France flight costs, and will you find out what the average, just-possible, hotel costs. More than it's worth, no doubt.

You have really mistaken me about Lesbians and Buggers. As a matter of fact, I think women are quite often bi-sexual, having affairs with women without in the least losing their pleasure in men; and some of the women I've been with have gone to bed with other women quite frankly, and with no disturbance. Both my wives did it with my agreement, and it wasn't that which broke up the first marriage - it was the war and lots of other things. What annoys me is the small intense highly "superior" exclusive Lesbian group, and the much larger Bugger ditto. The females are venomously anti-male, and the males anti-female, except that they sometimes have a woman to show their contempt. The Lesbians don't much matter, but in London (and to some extent in Paris) the Buggers form a very powerful, semi-secret society with a great deal of dangerous influence - particularly in the theatre, and in literature. Also these men go for small boys (as Norman Douglas did) and the British boy scout movement is riddled with it. Somewhere I have a letter I can show you written by a scout master, attacking me for the woman-worship in All Men, and describing his experiences such as going out with a boy on a picnic, both stripping, and the boy dancing for him with an erect prick. Possibly that doesn't

Sury en Vaux
Cher

21/1/61

Dearest Eunice,

A delay - but on return from Rome I went down with flu and threat of bronchitis. A nuisance. Luckily, I managed to stay in the hotel (am still there, in Aix) and so avoided the hideous servitude of a clinic. MUCH better, but still doing a bit of barking; and having to take drugs. This winter in Europe is most boring, though not so bad as it is in USA and in Eastern Europe.

The central heating is working again at Sury, and I think of returning, but I don't want to risk the journey until I feel fairly sure the car won't run into snow or (worse) iced roads. At the moment, the great main road (7) seems free, but it might be better to make a big sweep round the south-west...

I didn't get your warning letter until after I had posted you a little message of love, and rejoice that your woman's wit saved you from the unintentional indiscretion. I do hope the "wifely duty" wasn't too much. Legally a woman can't be raped by her husband, but in fact (which has nothing to do with Law) she damn well can be. Alas.

Your letter sounds not too unhappy, but then women learn to hide their wounds. Anyway, I do hope all is well with you and the small one. May you both be happy.

Apropos "wifely duty", middle-class men in England used sometimes to believe that a woman ought not to feel anything in fucking - only "bad" women did. Consequently, the following happened. "Z" told me her husband used to wake her up and "have" her without any courtship or preliminaries, hurting her at first, and leaving her unsatisfied. She had to masturbate to finish, and once, in her anger, let the dog lick her off in order to express her contempt. "Y" told me a somewhat similar story, adding: "He didn't give me an atom of sensation, and I just thought how ridiculous his bottom looked bumping between my legs".

Your letter made me think of a privately-printed (and now unobtainable) book by Louis Aragon, written before he became a communist - after being seduced by a Russian woman. This was called "Irene's Cunt" and was frankly erotic. It related the story of an inn-keeper's wife, a red-head, bullied and subjugated by her husband, until he had a stroke. Then she got her revenge for all he had inflicted on her. She put him in a wheeled-chair, unable to move or speak, before the hearth, and there gave herself to the Lesbian desires of neighbouring women, including those who had once been his mistresses. A really lustful book; The frontispiece was by K. Miró. It was a design of men's things, erect, one or two spurting semen, others drooping; and in miniature a group of naked women pointing derisively and saying: And what must our happiness depend on these? Indeed, a question to be asked, and perhaps an explanation of the present immense "wave" of Lesbianism. Two women can scarcely disappoint one another.

Soon I shall write more. Meanwhile send me

Sury en Vaux

Cher

9/2/61

Dearest Eunice,

I write in bed! A second time this winter I am smitten with flu and bronchitis, and this time is more serious than the first. I have to lie still and keep warm. Luckily I don't have to drag Catha up from Aix, since I am well looked after by an old char ( ungratefully known as "the crone") and by my peasant neighbours. In case of real trouble, there is a local nurse, but I hope and believe I shan't need her.

Do forgive delay in writing, but I have had rather a bad time.

I do think I'm getting better, and as soon as I can I'll write again.

All love, my dear,

Sury en Vaux
Cher

14/2/61

Dearest Eunice,

I fear this is a very dismal valentine. The
second "go" of bronchitis has been worse than the earlier one,
and I am still coughing away like a demented watch-dog.
Luckily, the weather is very mild for February, though alas,
I can't enjoy it. But it is easier to keep warm and thus
reduces the chance of pneumonia, which is getting less every
day. I don't stay in bed all day, but get up around the
middle when the sun is warm, attend to letters etc. The
new furnace works well, and needs replenishing only twice
a day. I am quite well looked after - no need to take
Catha away from her studies. "The crone" comes to do the
housework, and Suzanne Guénaud and the girls bring me milk
and eggs, and do any errands. In my case, the flu starts
up the bronchs - and there we are. Flu has been bad in
England, worse than here - there were over 1000 deaths from
it last week. A friend who lives in Switzerland has just
gone to London, and says everyone seems to be coughing!

On top of this I got the shock of the Air
France estimates. From Nice ( not Paris) to Cape Town and
back, tourist, comes to well over 300 pounds sterling!
One has to fly to Brazzaville, change planes for Jo'berg, and
apparently spend the night there, as there is no plane
connecting that flight with the Cape. I wonder if they're
right?

I seem to have no other news. I'll ask my agent to
get Harriet a copy of the illustrated hardback Decameron.
There is talk of a new hardback of my Laclos, but the offer
is monstrous. The publisher talks of 7000 at 27/6, and offers
me 200 quid - the public is asked to put up about 9500, and
the man who did the work gets a tip.

Have you had a copy of a privately ( and very badly)
printed pamphlet of mine on Rome and also the German illustrated
paperback on DHL? I meant to send them and think I did, but
the medicine they give me must have dope in it, for I have
completely forgotten to whom I sent copies. They went surface,
so won't arrive yet.

Much much love, dear girl,

Sury en Vaux

Cher

22/2/61

Dearest Eunice,

It was so sweet of you to write at once, even
though that dreary letter reached you on Valentine's day!

All that you predict has come true, and I have been
most horribly depressed, but this morning I woke with a "morning
erection" which, as you know, is a sign of health in us poor
males. You girls don't have it, do you? I wonder why it
happens? Some say it is due to a full bladder. Now, it so
chances that I often wake up at dawn, go and piss, and then sleep
for less than an hour, and wake with a perfectly stiff cock.
So I don't believe the full bladder story. The analysts say that
one's forgotten night dreams are the cause. If so, why doesn't
a girl wake with an erected clitoris?

I have been greatly helped by an unusually long
warm spell of February weather, which has made the bronchs less
awful. And now, the coughing, though not over, is so far
diminished, that I no longer have that muscular pain in the
tum! Squalid details. It is a relief, though, not to
be dependent on "the crone" and my kind peasant neighbours, who
have enough work of their own, without having to bother with a
sick neighbour.

You realise that in a tiny village like this,
where I am kind of "squire" though a foreigner, I have to be
most correct; and go elsewhere for fucking. But I watch
the peasant women at work in the gardens - their strong arms,
sturdy legs, firm bottoms and breasts - and wonder if they
might not be rather good in bed. Probably not, at least
for me, as I must have a certain intellectual and mental
sympathy with a woman. Still, Henri IV used to say that the
peasant women were really far better bed-fellows than the scented
fine ladies of the Court. He liked a woman to smell of Woman,
and I must say I do.

What you wrote about the differences of cunts is
entirely true, and I will write again about that. So much to
be said!

Much love, and this time kisses on your pretty

pussy!

P.S. I didn't tell C. about my illness - didn't want to interfere
with the University course. It is very severe indeed in France.

Sury en Vaux

Cher

25/2/61

Darling Eunice,

How right you were to warn me! Since my
last letter I've had a sharp relapse - not back to bronchs and
barking, thank whatever, but into the depression and limpness
you predicted. Injections, vitamin pills, "tonic", oranges etc.
It is so humiliating to be brought down by a filthy microorganism
picked up from the proletariat in a post-office!

Still, I think I am all right.

26/2/61

The date tells all! I had just made that rather
ill-considered boast about being "all right" when I come over
all queer like, had to retire to bed for the rest of the day
and night. You were perfectly right to warn me of what
might happen, as I said yesterday. Fortunately, the
weather is wonderfully mild. The quince tree and lilacs I
see from this window are in bud, and the big poplar down the
lane is almost in leaf. The children bring me violets and
snowdrops. So I am not to be pitied.

Dear girl, I feel cross with those lovers who
tried to excuse their incompetence by criticising you.
It is not true that your arch is too high or anything - you
are a perfectly formed and beautiful woman sexually. I remember
your telling me of another man who thought you were too wet - as
if anything could be more flattering to a suitor!

Nor is there anything odd about your coming only when
fucked from behind. Here is a quotation from Stekel: "Mrs
H.R. married 4 years never had an organism. One day her
husband took her from behind. She experienced so tremendous
an orgasm that she thought her husband had "doped" her or
used some special device. The orgasm lasted three or four
hours, and was so intense a sensation she could think of
nothing else. Since then she has always been receptive, and her
orgasm takes place with similar intensity. The first experience
awoke her sensuality."

That of course is an extreme case, because after all
Stekel is an M.D., and this was a patient; but he had immense
experience, and his books have an advantage over many English
sex books - the women are much franker in telling their
experiences, whereas the English are often such little humbugs.
(I think they are much better now.) Anyway, Stekel in various
places brings up this problem of the "position" required by
different women. As you rightly imply, different cunts
have different requirements - and why not? Stekel thinks that
a woman may subconsciously refuse her sensuality to the face-to-face,
out of (unconscious) feminine pride - she doesn't want the
man to have the "superiority" of being on top! Similarly,
there are women - I have known at least one - who get infinitely
more pleasure if they are "on top", and regulating the movements.

Stekel also thinks that in some if not many cases the response
is conditioned by the position a woman takes when masturbating.
A woman who masturbates lying on her back likes a man on top;
a woman who lies on her face to masturbate prefers to be on top,
or to be fucked from behind. Of course the fuss about the
dangers or wickedness of masturbation is all over - Stekel
indeed says he quite often advises women to masturbate to keep
healthy when they haven't lovers. I should imagine that
very likely most if not all sex-conscious women masturbate.
And I find to my surprise that Stekel places the bottom next
to the cunt as the most sexually aroused part of a woman - I
should have thought breasts and lips before. But of course
every woman is a law to herself, and there is nothing more
idiotic than the "clubman's" cliché that "all women are the same"
and Kipling ( who must have loathed women) with his "Colonel's
lady and Judy O'Grady".

Incidentally among his "case histories" Stekel has
two or three almost perfect Lady Chatterleys. There is one
of an aristocratic Viennese lady, who was unsatisfied by her
husband and upper-class lovers. Then one day she was in a
wood and made love to by a forester, a "coarse working-class
fellow who used the coarse sex words". With this man she
achieved splendid comes, and used the fuck and cunt and cock
words with delight.

I look forward to hearing what you got out of
the Durrell quartet. It is a notable achievement, I think.
An American university is bringing out a collection of essays
on him, and I am pleased to hear that they are kicking off with
the one I published about him in Paris, in English. I'll try to
get you the book when it comes out. At the moment Durrell and
his girl are in London - sent for post-haste by 20th Century
Fox, who bought the film rights. They want him to oversee the
production, and to be on hand for changes of dialogue. So often
dialogue which is all right on paper doesn't go in the movies -
usually it must be as brief as possible. I think Elizabeth
Taylor is playing Justice, but I don't know who are playing the
other women. Melissa is the one who breaks the male heart - so
frail and so pathetic. Have you noticed in those books that
in most cases it is the woman who makes the first actually physical
advance? The sadism in the books I don't like,
but Scobie is a delight. All that fun and farce about the
artificial whiskey. Larry tells me a lot of that actually
happened. I find it all great fun, and rejoice in his success.

How is your Harriet? Well and happy I trust, and
not finding school too boring. Catha complains that Aix
university is overworking her, but in the same letter admits that
she is brown from sun-bathing outside her Camargue Mas! The
two facts don't quite hang together. Her demands for books
are frequent - since I returned I've sent Katherine Mansfield,
François Coppée, Marcel Proust, and Etruscan Paintings! Oh, yes,
and an illustrated Japanese Flower-arranging book.

Much much love, dearest girl - try to forgive
my ailments - and write all you can,

Richard

18/3/61

Dearest Eunice,

I write this from Catha's Mas in the
Camargue. She was taken ill, high fever, nearly 104°,
and of course I came down at once. I feared malaria - there
is still some malaria in the Camargue - but the doctor says
it is a bad form of this year's flu. Wonder if they know?
She was given all sorts of biotics or whatever, and is now
much better. We hope she can go back to the University
on Monday - I'll drive her back to Aix.

I am out of touch - had no letters since
Monday 13th, but should pick them up at Aix day after
tomorrow. A London publisher suggested to my agent that I
might do the introduction - a long one & - for a new book of
photographs of Venice, and offered expenses, so that I can
bring my knowledge up to date. I still don't know if
the terms are satisfactory. They all try to get work for
a mere song - there are so many journalists who want to get
into book form, and so many amateurs with incomes ready to
do anything to get their names in print...

I hope this rather precipitate withdrawal of
5th. Af. from the Commonwealth won't start up disorders.
What a world of fools we live in.

Forgive brief and broken letter. I am very tired
with trying to look after Cx.

Did you get the Rome pamphlet and the German book
(by me) on DHLawrence which I sent? If not, they are lost,
and I must repeat when I get back to Sury.

With love from
Richard

IF WE WANT a detailed picture of the beloved, we find Ana-
creon's Bathyllus, but not in the poet's own words, for it is the
Alexandrian Anacreontea that have survived.

PORTRAIT OF BATHYLLUS

Paint for me Bathyllus, the lover, as I tell you. Make his hair bright;
black at the roots, yet golden at the ends; and let the free tendrils of his
hair lie lawless as they choose.

Let his eyebrow, which is darker than a serpent, garland his dew-
soft brow. Let his fierce dark eye be tempered with grace - the fierce-
ness of Ares, the grace of Aphrodite - so that any one who flees from
the one surrenders to the other.

Make his downy cheek like a rose-tinted apple. Make the flush of
his skin like that of Modesty if you had to paint him. And I know not
in what fashion you should make his lips - soft and full like Persuasion;
yet the wax keeps all his speech in silence.

After his face set down his ivory throat, surpassing Adonis. Paint
his chest and two hands like Hermes, his thighs like Polydeuces, and his
belly like Dionysus; and above his soft thighs, make his smooth sex,
the fire near his thighs, already desirous of the Paphian.

Yours is a poor art since you cannot show his back as well. And what
shall I say to you of his feet?

Take your money, take whatever you ask. Depose Apollo himself
and make Bathyllus, and if ever you come to Samos set up Bathyllus
instead of Phoebus.

(Anacreontea, tr. Richard Aldington)

Sury en Vaux
Cher

7/8/61

Darling Eunice,

I was so very pleased to have your letter with the corn-cob stamps, which I certainly shan't give away, but keep because they came from you. In exchange I send you the proof of a Greek poem translated by me which is to appear in an anthology of "Friendship" - we know what that means! My first thought was to refuse, and then I thought "Well, if they want to do it, why not?" and no one will suspect me of being of the fraternity. So I let the man have it - he is called Anthony Blond, which is surely a pseudonym? Or perhaps not. And then I wrote a friendly letter to one of my wife's lovers, at her request when she was over. It seems he thinks much of me as a writer, and hesitated to fuck her because he thought I might object. Of course I didn't mention it in the letter, but he will see that I am quite friendly. Why can't we all be sensible - men and women - about the pleasures of our partners, and get away from this destructive possessiveness, which is just selfishness and business-man's greed? The fact that she opens her thighs to other lovers doesn't make any the less delightful as a bed-mate. So why any fuss? she takes all proper precautions.

I believe I'd be flattered if you sent me a wifely nag. Meanwhile, may I send you a husbandly grumble about money, in confidence. I think I wrote you from Venice about the two "paperbacks" in USA. Both have gone through, and the advances amount to 5500 dollars, one half (already paid) on publication, and the second half on publication. Well, such is the grab of publishers to-day, that I haven't had one cent, and probably shan't get anything until the accounts come in next year. The publishers have twisted a clause in the agreements into paying themselves 50%. Now, if I had received my just 2250 dollars I could have planned the trip to you at once. But I get only 1375 dollars (when they condescend to pay and less 10% to agent) and it is not enough. In 1958-9 the Russians sent me £250 ex gratia payments as royalties, and last year £750. This year, although they have published a volume of Collected Short Stories and have a new revised translation of Hero in the press, I haven't had a kopek. Will they pay or won't they? In this present state of "tension" one doesn't know. Last year they paid in May - it is now August. It seems to me that to make the round trip and to live in S.A. and have a place for us to meet I shall need at least £600. Don't you think? In the hope of making a little more I have agreed to do yet another (crashing bore) short book on DHLawrence for a London publisher, but my agent won't let me sign the proposed agreement, and that is in great uncertainty. Another London proposal - yet one more illustration of my Boccaccio - is held up by the selfishness and greed of the present publishers, who haven't an EXCLUSIVE contract, but try to frighten my agent out of doing it. Please, dear, forgive this dreary grumble, but I must provide for G., and I must have enough to do things properly in S.A. I'll keep you informed -

One was Scotch and the other was Italian, and both really
loved doing it, so much so that the moment I began to
come in their mouths, they came too, without even being touched.
Of course they liked being felt and licked and fucked too, but
I really think that was the supreme ecstasy. They were
genuine phallus-worshippers ( which many women boast they are,
and are not) and certainly gave me pleasures I had never even
imagined.

I have been interested in reading Dr Stekel's
very frank books, with their genuine case histories, to see how
often women have told them they think they would feel much more
if only their husbands or lovers would lick them, with love, first.
It may be early experience. Certainly the two I have known
who insisted on being licked, and found extreme pleasure in it,
had both been initiated very early by an older girl or woman.
And then of course transferred to men. X. was initiated about
I3 by a German governess, and Y. by a school-teacher.
I know my wife had a similar experience when very young,
but it is only at 50 that it has become a passion. She says
that/lovers do lick her, but "They don't really love it and do
it as you do." That may be feminine flattery, but I think it
is true.

If only these damned publishers will pay up as
they should! Then I could worship and lick your cunt as
you would want, and perhaps give you the pleasure I should
love you to have...

I will try to get a new photograph of Catha to
send you in exchange for the press photograch of Harriet.
She is not as lovely as her mother, but obviously a pretty,
vivacious and attractive girl. You must be very proud of her.
Netta was very beautiful as a young woman, but now the
"looks" are gone. But when she strips I am still amazed and
delighted by the beauty of her body. She has big firm
breasts, a smooth rounded belly, plump bottom, and very
vigorous cunt-hair - so alive, it is charming. By vigorous
dieting I have brought down my weight considerably, but I
still have to cut out all bread, butter, beer, potatoes,
sugar, cakes, etc. I have dropped 10 pounds in the
last month, but still need to reduce further.

Your dream of the rhino - rather awful but
so it is. Perhaps you would like a lover to come on you
rather than in you. I have known that too, and it is not so
easy or pleasant for the man, but satisfies some strange
feminine desire. But it may merely have been a nightmare
due to unnatural abstinence.

I must rush to catch post. And do write me
intimately about yourself, as I do.

Dearest loved one;

Hotel de Sévigné

Aix en Provence

B. du R.

30/II/61

Dearest Eunice,

One of D.H. Lawrence's letters begins: "What a miserable devil you are -always lamentoso." I begin to feel I deserve it too. Instead of a really cheerful bit of news I have to admit that I've had and still have acute bronchitis. It is a great nuisance, especially since one of the reasons for coming down here was to avoid such things. But after an exceptionally mild and sunny autumn we had storms and sheets of rain and a drop in temperature. Like the Americans, the French will frowst by over-heating. I could battle it in my hotel room by keeping the window open, but not in the cafés or restaurants. Inevitably one gets "a cold" and as I have chronic bronchitis that almost inevitably means three weeks of acute ditto. Luckily my general health is much better than it was a few years back, and I didn't go down too badly. To-day the sky is blue again, and I may venture out for lunch - the food in this place is of a dreariness only to be explained by the fact that the patrons are not really French but refugees from Algeria.

You will be amazed to learn that just before I was smitten down by this pest your supposedly lost letter of the 15th Sept turned up. I couldn't complain to the post-office because it wasn't wholly their fault. True, they were slow in delivering the letter to the Camargue address, so it arrived by itself after Catha had belatedly collected for me an earlier batch. The fool of a peasant "forgot" this one as he "forgot" the others, and it was the merest chance I got it.

Yes, the Caesars were calumniated by their biographers for purposes of political propaganda. Voltaire was the first to realise this and particularly defended Tiberius. The Romans couldn't understand why in his later years Tiberius preferred Capri to Rome, just as a modern Parisian can't understood anyone who prefers to live out of Paris. So the Romans said he went there to practise sexual orgies, which is no doubt what they would have done themselves. At the Imperial Court there were always (under proper supervision) a certain number of wards, orphans of great families, who had to receive the best education and to be protected against being forced into marriage for the sake of their money. The ingenious Suetonius transforms them into the partners of Tiberius's alleged orgies. He was supposed to have made them perform "Sphintrian chains" - a girl would be had by two men simultaneously, one in her cunt and one in her bottom; or there would be a line or circles of several, each doing 69 to one and having it done by another; or several boys would have each other's bottoms and the last one have a woman. In order to "prove" this medals showing such scenes were fabricated and supposedly dug up on Capri. When I was first on Capri I

was shown a row of ruined rooms which were supposed to be the
scene of these orgies, but it has now been proved that they
are the substructures of a row of big shops.

The Jews, the Romans and later the Teutons were mainly
responsible for sexual prudery and hypocrisy. The Egyptians
had so little belief in female chastity that they derived
descent only from the mother. At banquets they were served
by almost naked girls who afterwards were had by any of the men
or women who wanted them. So too the Estruscans. The Greeks
were nearly all sodomites, and married simply to have children
and a housekeeper while they sentimentalised over the naked boys
in the wrestling and running grounds. The women of course
retaliated with adulteries, but also lesbianism and the use
of the artificial phallus. A papyrus mime of Herondas shows
a dialogue between two women who complain of the neglect of
their husbands, one confesses she has a "baubon" (artificial
phallus) describes it as made of stuffed soft leather with a
handle, the other woman begs to borrow it, the first one
refuses but promises to tell her the address of the expert who
makes them. Such objects if they existed in Pompeii were
of course destroyed by the heat of the eruption, but the Secret
Museum at Naples (which I've seen) has many hundreds of
phalluses from little ones in gold or coral to full-sized ones
in bronze and clay. The bronze ones may or may not have been
used, but several of those in clay were obviously worn by long
usage. If the Pompeian paintings in that collection are
evidence, then the Romans liked to lick women, to take them
from behind, and to have them ride on top. The hypocrisy
came in the official pretence either that such things didn't
happen or more often in an exaggerated and feigned reprobation.

In case I didn't mention it before, the Nutting book
on T.E.Lawrence was received much more coldly in England than
I expected, and such papers as the Times, Times Lit. Supp, and
N. Statesman gave more or less credit to me. Then, a few days
ago I got accounts of my TEL paperback for the first half
of 1961. I haven't the 1960 accounts here, but I remember that
for the first half the sales were about 1250, for the second half
2500; and now the first half of 1961 shows sales of 7,123,
making total sales to date of that edition 42,848. Add those
to the nearly 30,000 of the original edition, and you have over
70,000, proving that the really desperate and unscrupulous
efforts of the Lawrence Bureau to discredit and suppress the book
have failed.

A note from my N.Y. agent tells me that the
paperback of my life of DHL has just appeared there; and that
is all I know. We must wait and see what happens. The book
of collected essays on Durrell (which leads off with mine) is
postponed to January. I don't think it will directly
help his sales, but (as it is published by a university)
it should do something to counter the miserable and envious
little critics who are endlessly trying to destroy him.

This letter may be delayed, as it must be weighed
and stamped at the main post office, and I'm not sure I can
get that far at present. Thank goodness the sun is shining
again.

Very much love, darling, and kisses everywhere.

Sury en Vaux
Cher

26/2/62

Dearest Eunice,

Though I date from Sury, I am still at Aix,
in the midst of packing, but hoping to get off first things
tomorrow morning, and to reach Sury before noon on Wednesday -
in time to get the central heating started. In spite of
the bad weather in northern Europe, we have had a very mild winter
here, except for a short cold spell at Christmas. Unluckily,
just as I completed all arrangements to go, there has been a
return of cold further north, and I may run into rain or even
snow or iced roads. Hope not.

I am much troubled by your evident worry about
Harriet. It seems to me most urgent that you should take
her at once to a consulting psychologist - not a pscho-analyst
or a psychiatrist, but one of the trained women psychological
advisers on children and adolescents who are becoming more and
more consulted in Europe. (It is the job for which Catha is
training.) There are certain tests and a quiet talk, which
often result in a surprising change for the better. You will
probably find that the root of the trouble is her upset at the
situation between you and xx her father; and that can be dealt
with. These things are complex, and the advice of an expert
is needed.

There doesn't seem much news to give you. It has
been very pleasant to see Catha here, though she spends her
week-ends in the Camargue. She is making friends with students
and professors, and it is better for me to be away for a bit so that
she eats with the other students, and makes more friends.
And, of course, it is very expensive for me to live in a hotel,
and for us both to eat in restaurants. I shall have to
economise at Sury.

So far as publishing is concerned it is the same
dreary story of frustration and publishers' robbery. I hear
from Moscow that the new Russian translation of Hero was
issued in an edition of 100,000, and has already sold out.
Small comfort to me, because since the Powers affair they
have stopped even the meagre payments they were making.
I believe I sent you the illustrated German pocketbook on
DHL? I hear from Rowohlt that another edition of 30,000
is to appear in German Switzerland, but of course Rowohlt grabs
half the royalties (miserably low anyway) and I get only 2000 DM,
less than 150 sterling. In USA New Directions made a deal
with another firm for a paperback of my Laclos. They didn't
even consult me, and only by accident did I hear of it. And
of course they'll sneak half that, though I don't think the
agreement gives it to them. I must try to find it in Sury.
And so it goes on.

Don't be taken in by the articles about Lady C.
A jury has given its verdict, and the case can't be re-opened.
But the anti-DHLs are furious, and are trying to bring discredit
on him. The scholar you mention is one Sparrow, Warden of
All Souls, Oxford, in whose hall hangs a portrait of that

pure lily of non-homosexual behaviour and propaganda, TEL!

What they refer to is a paragraph in Lady C. where Mellors says that he did have intercourse with a woman that way "out of pure sensuality". I don't remember if it was with Connie or another woman.)

As if this was so exceptional! I can think off-hand of four women, beside yourself, who haven't told me they had experienced it. And one actually preferred it, strange as that may seem. But rest assured, they can't re-open the case, and the attacks will simply advertise the book. Lots of people will have missed that paragraph - I did myself until it was pointed out to me.

The new collection of DHL's letters will be out very soon now. Last week I reviewed them for the N.Y. Saturday Review. Naturally I gave them a boost, but had only 700 words. I think the most interesting are some very early ones (1908-10) written to a Liverpool girl, Blanche Jennings, who was a socialist-suffragette post-office clerk. Of course he flirts with her a bit, and is sometimes long-winded; but they show much of the best side of him before he was spoiled by the London gossips and highbrows, and driven mad by persecution and the war. There are some beautiful descriptive passages. The one woman he seems to have wanted after Frieda is Cynthia Asquith. If you look at Glad Ghosts (of which she is the heroine) you will see he imagined himself having a baby with her. It now comes out that in 1923 Frieda offered herself to Murray, who refused because he wouldn't "betray" DHL - hence his reference to betrayal in the Café Royal scene. She did become his mistress after 1930, and he smugly reported that it was the greatest experience of his life. Whatever women do, I think men should fuck and not tell.

I must break this off, as I have a dozen things to do before evening, and want to go off at dawn, if possible. I'll write again from Sury.

Try not to worry about Harriet, and do seriously think about consulting a psychologist.

Very much love,

What a shame you both had flu, and in summer. I think the subsequent depression is almost worse than the illness itself.

Sury en Vaux

Cher

4/3/62

Dearest Eunice,

Iced roads and snow were reported even in the Rhône valley, and I had to make a wide detour south and west to get back here. Everything went well until Bourges, when I ran into a flurry of snow. This melted, but there was snow again last night. Now the day is almost muggy and there is a too rapid thaw. I was most kindly welcomed back by my peasant neighbours, and the women had prepared everything for me. The central heating works perfectly, and the only difficulty is to regulate it to meet these sudden changes of temperature. It is a great pleasure to be free of the squalor of a hotel public bath, to be able to soak at will as long as I want every day, and then to have enough warmed towels instead of the pair of chilly diapers provided by a small French hotel.

It is also a pleasure to be free from restaurants, and to do my own cooking. I made a genuine pot-au-few, which was excellent when warm, and then formed a very nice cold meat jelly. And of course wine is half the price. And after the noise of Aix, the complete quiet of this little hamlet is very restful.

Since I got back to my books I have been re-reading the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, and realising how much the stage has been brought down by puritanism and then by modern "suggestiveness". In The Custom of the Country there is a farcical situation. A young man of gentleman status finds himself penniless in a foreign country. He is approached by a bawd, who offers him good money if he will come to her "establishment" and serve the women who are ready to pay for a good fuck. He conceits himself a lusty fellow, and is delighted. He exclaims:

"Bring me a hundred of 'em: I'll despatch 'em. What women you shall please; I am monstrous lusty; Not to be taken down..." He even promises the bawd: "You shall have it, by my faith, and handsomely!"

Some time later he limps on, and delivers this pathetic soliloquy:

"Now do I look as if I were crow-trodden! Fie, how my hams shrink under me! Oh me, I am broken-winded too! Is this a life? Is this the recreation I have aimed at? I had a body once, a handsome body, And wholesome too: Now I appear like a rascal That had been hung a year or two in gibbets. Fie, how I faint! - Women! keep me from women! Place me before a cannon, 'tis a pleasure; Stretch me upon a rack, a recreation; But women! oh, the devil, women! Curtius' gulf was never half so dangerous.