Five Countries-4 of 5
DATE BOOK FOR SATURDAY, MAY 10: Down to Madrid at 10 and I change money and buy stamps to 11 and Prado to 2, then to Burgos 5-6 for cathedral, San Sebastian, Monte Igueldo at 9 for dinner and view to 12.
DIARY PAGE: Leave after breakfast and beautiful lights on the hills, some snow-covered, and along the superhighway again to Madrid, getting stuck in traffic and still not liking the crowded, dusty city. Park in front of the Prado and I'm off to change money and buy stamps until noon, then into the incredible museum of painting until I meet him for lunch at 2. He says I must see the Goyas, so I'm back and see the wall-length dark ones of people open-mouthed and fear-eyed in their madness and hatred, and the room is somber and oppressive, even in that people don't come back here often and stay a short time. But after the sketchy sketches and the saccharine tapestry cartoons, this is a side of Goya which I can agree with JJ in being great. Stay a bit trying to decide which book we want to buy to remember the wealth of paintings in the place, and up north along a road which is pretty good, winding through the hills and relatively trafficless, and we're into Burgos, actually chilled to enter the Cathedral from the blazing public square, after resting a bit in the car with lemonades. The huge old gates open reluctantly to the choir, and there's a wealth of wood-carving and detail to look at, but I'm getting tired of Spanish intricacy, and quickly walk around the aisles looking at the terrible paintings and the plastic flowers on the altars in the side chapels. The guide says we must walk around it, and we try, but construction has blocked off one of the roads, and it's all just granite to me, and we drop into the church of St. Nicholas right next on the hillside, looking at the recommended retable of polychrome alabaster (which seems like plaster to us), and the huge silver statue of St. John the Baptist, turning black with age. Get tied up in traffic near the river, and we're out through the Porte Sainte-Marie, old, and see many signs for souvenirs of El Cid, who came from here. Up good roads to Vitoria and through industrial valleys to San Sebastian, again getting too dark to see the details of the strange little outskirt towns, and we drive through the town and up to Monte Igueldo, where we check in, dine, walk along the parapets and ramparts looking down over the town through abandoned parks, and I'm later onto the rail-less terrace just two feet down from our balcony, and there's a Rio-shaped harbor below which is just great. A breeze blows up to cool things off, and bed at 12.
DATE BOOK FOR SUNDAY, MAY 11: Up at 8 and on road at 10. Lunch at Vendreyhaye, and stop at Angouleme and Poitiers, dinner at Barriere at Tours for 102F, and home at 1:30, to bed at 2, very tired.
NOTES FROM LA BARRIERE: No wine when I asked for it; different menus (No Mousse de Phaesant on mine); almond shells in the cookies; ice slivers in the ice cream; horrid guy at next table; awful plaster displays on each serving tray; they were out of duck; stale walnut bread with cheese; empty restaurant, and later on JJ told Charles that the Camembert wasn't "bien fait," which was probably the greatest sin of all.
DIARY PAGE: This is another day of counting the hours and the countries and the stops and the meals and the kilometers left to go, and we're both eager to get back to Paris, the last day made suspenseful by his continued statements that the car probably won't make it, since it's getting worse and worse to control, and he can't drive nearly as fast as he would like to, or the thing will overheat and burn out completely. We're up at 8 and onto road at 10 after breakfast and packing and paying the bill, and we pass through St. Jean de Luz and I beg JJ not to take the bypass around Biarritz. There was some sort of bicycle race around Hendaye which stopped us, and we needed gas just where everyone else did, and had to wait on line for it, but I wanted to see this place. It was quite a bit better than Deauville, with the town smaller and clustered around rocks which led to the shore, and luxury hotels perched on cliffs looking down at spectacular breakers below. The weather was nicer, too, and the tropical look of the south was more appealing than the Englishness and haziness of the northern spa. Tied up in traffic circles in Bayonne, and finally get onto the lesser-used roads up through the former swampy land of Landes province, where they planted pine trees everywhere, and it's not swampy now, but cool and refreshing under the perpetual trees and far-between towns. Hungry when we get to Labouheyre, and stop in a pleasant place for mediocre food, and they don't seem to be equipped to serving anyone a snack, rather than a full meal in the heat of summer. JJ wants to show me Bordeau's Theater, so we stop there and have a lemonade and relax and across to the elegant theater lobby with its quiet palms and vaguely art-nouveau woodworkings, and we drive past the Esplanade des Quinconces, which has been made largely into parking lots, and we're back along the Garonne to cross the Pont de Pierre and continue our way north to Angouleme, where we see an accident just outside town, and climb through the ramparts to see the Cathedral Saint-Pierre, and the gothic groining inside is nice, but the facade leaves me cold with its stylish sobriety. JJ wants to walk around a bit, so I sit in the park overlooking the town and let him walk, and we're back to the car and up to Poitiers, where he lets me off at Notre-Dame la Grande, where the crumbling facade launches us into another conversation about what we like and don't like in art, and it passes the time as we continue to drive north, keeping my mind off counting the hours for just a bit. As night comes on we stop at Tours for La Barriere, see TD 60 for disparaging remarks, for 102 francs, and we pass Chartres just after midnight, when the lights are still on it, but the road dips below the land's general contours, so we can usually see only the steeple, and JJ's reputed view seems to be in the process of being wrecked by highway modernizations. Pass the last few towns as exits from the superhighway, and as we pass Versailles, the traffic builds up into what he says isn't bad, because it's so late, and it does clear up and we're onto the peripheral highway and into the streets of town, and we cease speaking as we get into the garage and lug out the baggage, and then we're into our own beds for the first time in a month, at 2, very very tired.
DATE BOOK FOR MONDAY, MAY 12: Laze to 12, and get groceries and change and metro to Louvre at 1:30 and see sculpture and paintings 2-5, then home to read to 7, and we eat in good group at Traiteur and walk back at 11 and to bed.
DIARY PAGE: Poor JJ has to go to work this morning, and I just don't hear him going. I lay around and come and laze til 12, and out to get groceries for breakfast and change at the bank, and decide to get back to the Louvre and there too early at 1:30 and wait til 2 to see the sculpture and paintings in the southwest wing, but many of the rooms are closed, and I fear I'm missing some of the cockier sculptures. Painting rooms also are in a state of rearrangement, with plastic walls being erected everywhere and the sounds of mad banging are hard to escape. Hardly a quiet repository of art. Back to read and relax to 7, and JJ gets home and we walk out to the Traiteur, and there are many interesting young people thee who seem to know everyone else who comes there, and it's fun watching the people order and drink their wine and talk with each other, and JJ and I, rather talked out with the trip, sit relatively quietly, having good food, and wander back to the apartment at 11 to bed.
DATE BOOK FOR TUESDAY, MAY 13: Spend all day indoors unpacking and sorting things out and reading guides and looking at books and reading and at 8 we go to Grand Vefour and see Chaplin's "Circus."
DIARY PAGE: Since the museums are closed today, I spend the day indoors unpacking and sorting things out and looking at books and reading guides and sorting out things for the laundry, and suddenly the day is gone. JJ comes home to make reservations for us at the Grand Vefour, and I've finally persuaded him to do something I want to do. It's practically in the Palais-Royal, and the decor is high-ceilinged and genteelly old, with yellow paint on mirrors to give a brightly decorated look, and we're ushered into a tiny side room with a window giving a breeze from the street, and the faces of people who pass by and look enviously in, and the people eating around us seem to be serious gourmets, except for a trio at a table in the middle of the other side, who talk loudly in American and make me wince, though the people at our side seem pleasant, getting the last of the little melons, so we can't have any, and having three or four wines, so we can sample the style of the sommelier, who's fatherly and all-knowing and genial and says he'll take care of us with a practiced sincere smile. My appetizer order surprises JJ, as it's salmon, but laced with sole, and the sauce is out of this world, and even the fish is tasty and good. He has grapefruit, or some such strange thing, and I forget what we have for the main course (though I guess I have the check and a card) but it was very very good, and the terrible taste put into our mouths by the three-stars of Barriere is taken away by the tasty wine and terrific food. Dessert is good, and we're very full, but have to leave to get to the last showing of Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus," and I'm intrigued by the films showing in Paris, they just seem so much better than New York. They show many in their original languages, and list the theaters depending on that or dubbing, the Cinematheque has superlative programming, which I suspect is not accidental, and there are even two theaters to show all their offerings. And JJ said that there was a series of Buster Keaton which were just great, and certainly they get the best of the international set, and then there's the "Student-type" which show newsreels and anti-something or other films of great energy and little style for cheap tickets. The film is good, the print flawless, and we drive back through the getting-familiar street of Montparnasse and his sections.
DATE BOOK FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 14: Get to bank for check after exercising and meditating for second straight day! To Pantheon with guy from Jamaica, and to Louvre for antiquities and works of art, and Claude over and to restaurant.
DIARY PAGE: Exercise and meditate and do yoga for the second straight day, and I'm wishing I could have somehow kept up with it through the trip, but I didn't, so there's nothing to do about it. Get to the bank to cash a check from JJ which settled the trip expenses, and then I walk down to the Pantheon, where I meet a guy from Jamaica, Queens, in the catacombs when he asks me what the guy was saying, since he somehow absorbed the facts that even though I was an American, I was understanding what he said, which is quite a trick. Everyone in the French world seems to be buried there: Voltaire, Laplace, Fourier, Hugo, Balzac, etcetcetc, and the cold tombs are grimly effective, and though the light isn't from flickering flambeaux, it seems that it might well be. Up again to wander under the huge dome among the featureless alcoves and look at the story of St. Catherine and other frescoes by Puvis de Chavannes, and we walk together to the Louvre, where I direct him to the paintings as I get out to see the antiquities and works of art, among them the last remnants of the royal jewels, with a baroque ruby and some highly intricate church gold work from various places. Last night I decided to get in touch with the people whose names had been given me, and Claude said he'd be over this evening, and he was, and we talked rather formally, and he seemed to share the French concern about using just the right American word, and even when JJ returned and they spoke French for a bit together, there was a stiffness and a willingness to suffer that I didn't quite see. Claude suggested a restaurant he knew, agreeing with JJ that I should never set foot into the tourist preserves, and we entered the checked-tablecloth place where the father showed us a table, the mother waited on us, and the daughter, learning as quickly as she could, put down the place settings, with her tongue out in a effort to do things right. There was a free cassis, which was pleasant, the cordial mixing with the white wine very nicely, and the idea of anything free and French was appealing, as was the point they made several times about the clientele here being ALL French. I had something quite good, tongue, maybe, while they had something like brains or tripe, and we all made the effort to keep up the conversation, even when it was obvious that the conversation WAS being kept up. Back to the apartment to chat for a bit, and he left and we sat around dissecting him and then went to bed.
DATE BOOK FOR THURSDAY, MAY 15: Sleep to 10:30 and out at 12 to Bois de Boulogne and Market and Bagatelle and eat in back of Grand Cascade and watch Trocadero and Biograph films 6:30-8 and dinner at Rougeot and bed.
DIARY PAGE: Ascension Thursday, and Catholic France is out of work, so we sleep until 10:30 and have a quiet breakfast and out at 12 to the Bois de Boulogne after a long drive around town, where he told me about all the nice neighborhoods which are coming down to meet the housing shortage, and how all the elegant "Hotels de Ville" which had private gardens and were family heirlooms were now torn down or converted into apartments. We stopped off at a street near him for an outdoor market that wandered up a hill and off into side streets, and it was nice to again see the pulpy-eyed fish laying in neat rows of dead scales, the crisp piles of carrots and cabbage and lettuce, and the carcasses of rabbits and young lambs hung bloody in the sun, with entrails and organs and tissues reposing in white porcelain pans beneath. The park is mostly autoroads and a few horse trails, but JJ leads us to the Bagatelle, which had been a private garden, and it's pleasant to wander the walks and look at the carp pools and see the mouchoirs in the mouchoir tree and the tulips going to pot and the roses not yet blooming, and the wild flowers in the grass under the lovely trees. I described the glass-fronted restaurant I'd seen, and it was at the Cascade, but again he wouldn't allow me to eat there, but we went into the back, under umbrellas that failed to keep the sun off, crowded, filled with children and sounds and smells and flies and glare, where all the Parisians sat and argued with the waiters and stomped out without paying their checks. I had to order the steak because that's about all they had, and it was unpleasantly raw, but the French fries were good, and JJ had a Mystere to introduce me to the chocolate and nut-covered ice cream confection. Back to the car and I want to get a schedule for the Cinematheque, so JJ drives me to the Trocadero, where we agree to meet for Biography films at 6:30, and I get a chair and watch tourists and children skate-boarding down the street and catching rides back on cars, and stare at the lovely nudes in front of the building, and cruise just a bit, but there's not much to cruise. The films are campily fun, though slow-moving, and then we're off to Rougeot, which he wants me to see because of the Art Nouveau decor and the establishment that lasted for the past 40 years, glass roof broken in only a few places. Pleasant meal, and we drive around a bit and get back to bed.
DATE BOOK FOR FRIDAY, MAY 16: Listen for second whole time to Mephistofeles (great) and then it's 1:30 (now). Go to Trocadero for Museum of Monuments and Museum of Man to 5, home to see Denis 7-9 and to dinner with JJ at Eiffel Tower in rain and bed at 12.
DIARY: Sculpture installation at Palais de Chaillot certainly has a FAR more comprehensive portal, column, statuary collection than the Louvre (but they're all PLASTER casts!). How SAD that the fact that it's plaster should depress me so much. Objectively, it shouldn't since I've always said if the FORM is there, what does it matter that it's not the exact ATOMS. But the uniformity of dull matte finish, the peeks of plaster through, the complete absence of sharp edges, the presence of bits of plaster along the seams of the molds, the pressure of society like JJ and Joe, all force me toward disappointment. Pity. Montlucon "Virgin with Bird" was there, as was one of the cowled mourners from the catafalque of Phillip Pot from the Louvre. Marble altar from Autel in 800! Chancel in Metz in VII siecle! Sarcophagus from Gayolle from Third Century with Good Shepherd! Moissac Eglise VII siecle with alpha and omega! Eglise de Saint-Pierre-des-Eglises-Chavigny, in Carolingian times! Some FANTASTICALLY primitive work done EVEN "debut XVI siecle"! Awful copies of "hunt of unicorn" with a STAG. Fantastic "Last Judgment" of Cathedral d'Albi, in Tarn, 1496-1500. Angel with folded wings forming enormous cock. The roof was leaking and dripping onto the floor, and the idiot watchman child nodded and sighed. Carpeaux "Ugolin" finally HERE. But if I DIDN'T like "The Three Graces from Tomb of Henry VI" in MARBLE, I certainly don't like it in plaster.
Great view of Eiffel Tower from top floor (third, modern sculptures) Barye comes out rather well with his animal bronzes.
Museum of Man, ALL man, ALL ages of EACH.
Musical Scale:
Five degrees Seven degrees Five degrees
15/8 2 2 1 1/2 1/2 3/4 6/7 6/5 1 1/2
SI
1 3/4 6/7 6/5
1/4 1/2 LA
3/4 1/2 1/4 1/2 1 1 6/7 6/5
SOL 1
3/4 1 1 1 1 1 6/5 1 1/2
FA 6/7
15/8 2 2 1 1/2 1/2 3/4 1
MI 6/7
1 3/4 6/7
1/2 RE 6/5
3/4 1/2 1/4 1/2 1 1 1
1/4 UT 6/7
Malay Japan Greek Greek Euro- Arab Siamese Malay Chinese
"Pelog" Harm- Chro- pean "Slendu"
onic matic
DIARY PAGE: Up late and do what I want, and put on Mephistofeles for the second complete time, and I really dig that lush, romantic, melody-filled opera! By then, and when I fill in the datebook with what I've been doing, it's 1:30, and I have breakfast sometime and get out to the Trocadero again for the Museum of Monuments, written in TD 60-61, and across for the Museum of Man, and the cases are strange in that you flick on the lights for the ones you want to see, but that cheats you from being drawn from one to the other, and you have to really search out what you want to see. I'm torn by the idea of economizing, which is obviously what they intend, and the idea of turning everything on just to defeat their purpose. But there's just too much to see, and weariness of the legs and eyes set in, and I plow through until closing time to get my money's worth, but I'm beginning to have less patience in seeing these things myself. How much better to have someone there to chat with, or yet better to go to these countries and see the artifacts in use and the costumes on the person and the little trinkets on sale in the shops. Back to shower just in time for Denis' arrival at 7, since he'd called today after JJ and I left him a note at his address, since it became clear that he didn't have a phone, and the company didn't have an ADDRESS at 10 bis Rue Amelie, though his hotel was certainly there. He reminds of Avi in his supposed Jewishness, and just as Joe's Claude was pleasant and very typical of what he was, as Joe is, Don's Denis was eager and balding and coy and cute and ugly, just as Don was. We chat for a bit with him and his friend, and JJ comes home and Denis just adores JJ's apartment, and there's a bit more of a click than there was with Claude, whom I'm sure I'll never see again. They have to leave at 9, and JJ suggests we have dinner at the Eiffel tower, which is fine with me, since I've not been up. Park underneath and it's just beginning to shower, and we ride up to the first level, where I get a view much like the one from JJ's apartment, and we eat very nicely in the touristy place, and the food isn't bad at all. Around the outside in the rain, and the lights on the various buildings and parks are nice, and we're down in the bumpy, jerky elevator, and back to bed at 12.
DATE BOOK FOR SATURDAY, MAY 17: Up at 10:30 and meet Denis at 1 at Bauhaus after reading in park 11-12, and lunch of hot dogs and beer. Bauhaus to 5. Back to finish "Varieties of Psychedelic Experience," eat at Etchegorry and see "Plainsman" to 1 am.
DIARY PAGE: I'm up and out into the park to read from 11-12, and then back down near the Trocadero with JJ to meet Denis to see the Bauhaus exhibit at the Paris Museum of Modern Art, after we're out to the nearest cafe for franks (which they call saucisson chaud, and the idea of hot sausages is vaguely off-putting, but I love their franks) and beer, and the museum is enormous and they have thousands of items, put together without too much taste or selection, it's almost as if they wanted us to see everything they did outside the fields of furniture and architecture, and then show us as little as possible about those two most important aspects. More architectural models would have been greatly appreciated. I wear out toward 5 and sit in their chairs and watch the crowd, and crowd it definitely is, pass by, and on the way out, JJ's friend the roller skating old man and his flashier son are entertaining the crowd around the central court. Denis says I should meet him the next morning for lunch, and that's fine, since JJ must get out with his brother to see their parents in the country, and it seems I'm definitely not invited: I doubt if they know I'm here, but then he says his father is very senile, and it might be embarrassing to him to have someone meet him, and he says his mother is getting irritated at it, so she probably wouldn't like to put up with anyone outside family, either. We're back to the apartment where I finally finish "Varieties of Psychedelic Experience" which I started just before I left for Morocco five weeks ago, and we're back to eat in Etchegorry, where a strolling white duet of guitarists and a dove make life miserable for me by doing a hideous rendition of "Home, Home on Their Ange" for my Americanism, and we're again to the Cinematheque to see Gary Cooper and a much maligned Jean Arthur as Ado Annie, a doll of a Buffalo Bill, and a young Antony Quinn as an Indian. It's late, and we're again home through the tree-lined streets (THAT'S one of the things that's so nice about most of Paris!) at 1 AM, to get very tired into bed. I don't know how JJ does it with work, too.
DATE BOOK FOR SUNDAY, MAY 18: Begin Narcissus and Goldmund and to Trocadero at 1 to meet Denis and Charles and Duck at Meudon and to Claude's and Gabriel's and here and eat at La Ferme and back here for sex 11:30-1 and TIRED to bed.
DIARY: Then of course the Sunday lunch in Meudon, with plump smiling, patient Jacky with whom I made conversation in the car while no one else was there, flat-faced Claude, to whose apartment we repaired to get rid of him and his dog, and to pick up some cat hairs, Denis looking even more like Philip Roth in his red turtleneck and tweed sport coat, hair impeccably trimmed, beard dark though he'd just shaved, Charles sitting next to me, getting more and more touching and laughing and talking together in English, which he's best in, and then bright blue-eyed Gabriel across the way, fascinating in his own apartment until I learn that he's married to Alain, who's away, but he'll be faithful, so Charles thinks, but he enjoys kissing from everyone, Denis picks him up about three or four times during our stay in his little flat (with the wonderful Nature Mort of Yellow Miel on the bed table), during which time enormous-nosed Claude and the cute little Philadelphian came in, and his sparkling dark eyes took on a special dog-look when he regretted that I wasn't staying around for the rest of the evening. Jacky, however, decided to stay around for the rest of the evening with Gabriel, even though he had just met Gabriel that afternoon. Denis was appalled in retrospect at what happened, saying that "Jacky was not what you'd call a good gift to give to those three for the evening." Charles agreed that he certainly wasn't sexy, but was pleasant enough. Denis enlarged upon matters to say that Jacky was quite successful because of his "grosse meat" and his ways of making love, and Charles sagely retorted that "but one has to KNOW that before it becomes impressive." There was a rush to Charles' apartment so that he could call his brother for permission for his car, and to call Gabriel to make sure it was OK that Jacky stay there. Thank goodness it WAS OK for Jacky to stay, and Denis took Charles and me to the car, and finally we were alone, at which point the conversation degenerated to practically nothing. The wine from the lunch had quite worn off, and I was feeling entirely too level-headed for both our goods. We talked of his new job, selling mutual funds, and not much else before we got back to JJ's about 7. Thankfully, he wasn't in, so we got some drinks, talked a bit, I wrote a note to leave on the table in case JJ walked in just then, and we adjourned to the bedroom where I took an infernally long time to get hard, but thanks to Charles' incessant groaning in ultimate pleasure as I sucked and licked the back of his cock, and his increasing heat through the evening, I finally came up under his diligent handwork, and just as he finished coming into my mouth, I managed to come into his mouth, and we lay together, panting, sucking diminishing returns until I twisted around to begin kissing him again. About 9 we went out to La Ferme on the Rue Mouffetard, for a rather tasty broiled lamb, and we drank plenty of wine after the free cassis, and were playing kneesies under the small table almost throughout the evening. The inevitable chanteuse was there, this time an American girl, to whom I paid absolutely no attention even when she perched on the tiny spiral staircase immediately behind my chair. Charles and I were in the middle of a monologue from me about my experiences in Vancouver, my increasing feeling of freedom and self-determination and self-respect, and he could only say he felt like a child before my adulthood of self-appreciation and optimism, to which I thought I made a rather good non-sequiter response by saying that about the only people I knew who were always optimistic and very self-assured WERE exactly children, and I was glad when he didn't take up the argument from that point. It was after 11 when we finished, but he drove me back and asked if it was possible to come up. JJ was there, dressed, thankfully, and I asked him if I could bring in a friend. He nodded yes, and they chatted for what seemed to be a longer and longer time. He asked how my day was, and I told him about it in some detail, including our first visit to the apartment earlier. He seemed to accept that, and in a couple of minutes when I drew him aside and asked if we could use the bedroom, he only said he would have to take some things out first to work with. Charles continued the conversation as I stood near the bedroom door, and I wasn't impressed by the foggy way he talked and looked, or by the wavering of his body on his feet as he stood talking. I saw JJ's eyes look him up and down more than once with his nail-skin picking, wide-eyed intense look, and he seemed not terribly happy with what he saw, but he was willing to invest the few moments talking to the first person I saw fit to bring home with me to his apartment. Then the bedroom door was closed behind us, and in the warmth of the room and the heat of the wine and the pleasantries of the kissing, I came up and had no trouble staying up through the encounter, and Charles assumed a rather nice position, finally, kneeling above me, and grasping both
DIARY PAGE: Begin reading "Narcisse and Goldmund" and breakfast and out to Trocadero somewhat later than the requested 1, and they're all waiting for me. Into two cars, I start with Denis and Jacky and Claude, and we drive out to the forest of Meudon, which is very pleasant, and into an auberge-type place which we almost have to ourselves, and there's chicken or duck roasted over the spit, and we get two ducks and one chicken for the six of us. Claude and Jacky, who speak little English, are seated on the other side, then Denis is across from Charles and me and next to Gabriel, and sitting across from Gabriel is the nicest thing I can imagine, and I'm pleased to learn he's Italian, because his cheeriness and optimism and friendliness are definitely not French, though his French is about as good as his Italian. Everyone talks about Alain, his lover, who's away on vacation, and Gabriel is faithful, they've been together for over a year, and I definitely envy Alain, except that I hear he's terribly handsome, and he does appear to be so in the photographs of him I see later of the costume party at some Countess's in Venice, and it turns out that Alain has more money than he knows what to do with, and it's thanks to Gabriel that he's learned to work for his money and live simply. What people these are! Charles speaks rather good English, and though he seems terribly nervous until he gets a few drinks into himself, I'm rather like that too, and when we've had enough beer, we begin to grab onto each other's knees and slap one on one's back, and the knees are beginning to play under the table, and he thinks I'm adorable, and I think he's just about the proper one to break a long sexual abstinence with. Meal is finished in fine style and we're out to Claude's, which is sort of a bore, except that I talk to Jacky a long time in French while they're all off somewhere. I ride back with Charles and Gabriel, and we're talking when Denis stops suddenly and Gabriel skids into the rear of Denis' car with his Volvo, and it makes his head-lights wall-eyed. To Gabriel's, where Jacky is left, and Denis drops Charles and me at his car, and we get to JJ's, where we have sex - but this is all in TD 73-75.
DATE BOOK FOR MONDAY, MAY 19: Out at 1 to buy opera tickets and stamps at post office and back at 3 to type and finish Narcissus and Goldmund and dine at La Parme and see AWFUL Casino de Paris.
DIARY: Total freedom brings with it all sorts of problems, such as those I faced when it became obvious to me that I was overstaying my term with Jean-Jacques (though I just resolved to talk to him about it---it's never any use trying to think of what he's thinking of---which goes along with my theory that all Frenchmen are really trying to hurt themselves, as Charles seems to want to make life miserable for himself by continuing to live with his parents, use his brother's car, and thus be terribly dependent on the whole lot of them, all the while wishing that he had more freedom and envying me mine. Then to make it more difficult, JJ explains with seeming truthfulness that he likes to be a person to whom others are indebted, thus if the other person doesn't particularly LIKE to feel indebted, as I don't, it's his lookout that there's some sort of balance maintained, or I'll feel the lousiest just when JJ must be assuming that I'm forever in his debt. Again, I should talk it all over with him. I know that he prefers to spend most of his time alone, but in fact most of his time is outside the apartment, so I have rather little contact with him save for the weekends, and this Sunday he took the whole weekend for another masochistic activity of his: visiting his parents for the day). Anyway, there I was, in the position of feeling I was overstaying, though in fact I could be perfectly content to remain in Paris, leisurely seeing the museums, reading when I got museum-weary, managing to get him out to some of the better restaurants from time to time, breaking up the tourist activities with such things as the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Medoun, and hoping to get to more things like the Follies Bergere and the Lido. (And just have a very pleasant interruption when the phone rings and it's Charles for me, saying he'll be back as early as possible tomorrow night, we might have a drink here, then go to dinner, then stop for a drink and watch part of the show at the Alcazar, which has been reported to be such a good one for certain spectators, and nothing could make me happier.) Then I do manage to get hold of Edward Moulton-Barrett in London, and he actually remembers my name, and would be very happy to tell me what hotel to stay in, and maybe even come out to his place for the weekend. That sounds good, too, and suddenly my idea to get back to New York immediately is let pass, and I'm making plans for London for about a week, and then I can come back to Paris about June 1 and think about going to Amsterdam, maybe with Charles, if he can be pulled away from his parents. But then there have to be letters sent to Cyndy and Joe to square things away for another few weeks, and somehow things have worked themselves out, and best of all my reactions are improving. From a low point on Friday and Saturday when I was quite sure I would be returning to New York, maybe even immediately, and a feeling of fatigue over all, I finished reading the Varieties of Psychedelic Experience on Sunday and started Narcisse and Goldmund, and the fictional life is quite interesting, too.
DIARY PAGE: Finally out of the apartment at 1 to buy opera tickets for St. Sebastian, since I see by L'Express that Ludmilla Tcherina (I think) is dancing in it, and walk over to the post office to buy stamps in their pleasant way, and find I don't have enough money and vow to come back. Back to the apartment to type TD 72-73, summing up my feelings at that point, and I finish Narcissus and Goldmund, and just the sitting quietly is very relaxing, and then since JJ is going to be out for the evening, and he says he might like to see the Lido sometimes, and since the Folies Bergere is closed today, that leaves the Casino de Paris, and I telephone for a reservation, and take a subway as close as I can get and start looking for a restaurant. Either they don't have many in that area, or they're off on the side streets, or they're on the second floor, but I have to walk quite a distance before I see La Parme, and note their bargain menu, and in for a crudités and tongue and pineapple in wine for 14 francs, along with great bread and butter, and pretty good wine, and I have a seat where I can watch all the other solitary diners at my left, including a cute guy who tries not to make eyes at me, and the bunch of salesmen up on the dais who look with disdain at the two old ladies who pass up every other table in the place to sit next to them on the dais, obviously cutting down on what they could say to each other. Service is quick and efficient, and it's really not bad. Down to the Casino and they use the trick of not opening the doors until curtain time to make it seem that a large festive crowd has gathered in the lobby, and then when the doors open, the plushy theater is only 1/4 full. The program is elaborate and seats incredibly soft, but the orchestra is terrible, and in general they don't even play, but the bass fiddle top sticks up so that it looks like everyone's always busy down there. Even many of the songs are taped, so the women have to mimic them, which they do well, but they lack the spirit of actually doing it. One of the lead male dancers is sick, so there's substitutions to make identification difficult, and the guys aren't so nice anyway, except for the tall thin one who did Romeo so awkwardly, but he's CUTE, and will have quite a body when he flings enough girls around long enough. It goes on and on, and I'm appalled by the photos of Henri Bendel, or whoever, showing obviously that he's somewhat over 85, and been in the business so long he's undoubtedly worked himself out decades ago. But some of the lights are good, and the whole thing just ISN'T as plush NEARLY as the older Follies Bergere. Forgot about the subways closing down until I get the last one, relievedly.
DATE BOOK FOR TUESDAY, MAY 20: Out at 12 to buy gift for Mom, more stamps and from France and from French union and check on London price and Charles over at 7 for sex and to Saint-Louis for dinner and drive through town (cops) till 1 am.
DIARY PAGE: Out at 12 to buy gift for Mom, and that really gets into time. First I can't find anything that I want to give Mom, and then I seem to recall that I never gave her "Joy," so I price the most expensive perfume in the world, and it IS dear. Finally buy a little bottle for about $20, and ask if they could send it. She gives me a long reason about how expensive it would be, and I should take it to the post office myself, and since I'm going right back there for more stamps, it sounds OK so I ask her to please wrap it. She looks at me, then goes to get paper and ribbon, and comes back and when I ask for a card, she has to hunt for that, taking at least 10 minutes to find a clerk who has one. Then I wrote out the card and there's a lovely be-ribboned package in front of me, and I ask her does she have a box that I can put it in for mailing? She doesn't, but goes off in search of what she could find for me, and customers come and go, and if she's on a percentage-of-sales basis, I'm costing her more money than I'm worth. She comes back with a piece of cardboard, and using a pair of scissors as a knife, proceeds to make a package, which she wraps around with paper and does the whole thing up in scotch tape, which, miraculously, she happens to have right there. I thank her no end, saying how kind she is, and she says it was her pleasure, and if it wasn't, she'd a grand actress. Over to the post office and the price is something like $5 because of the Scotch tape. He says if it were wrapped in string it would be - hum - about 85. I don't understand, but have to believe him, and ask where I can get string? He cocks his head at me in a sort of a frowning smile and goes off, to come back with cord. I wrap it, and off it goes, then I'm upstairs to close a stamp window for about half an hour as I ask for three of everything, and - miraculous! - my addition is absolutely correct for something like 491 francs, somewhat around $100. To the colonies, and the selection is fantastic, and I buy all I can, but don't have enough money. Go to Transcaparis for a London rate, then shower and Charles greets me just before 7, we have sex, and he takes me to his friends on Ile Saint-Louis for steak and strawberries and good salad and nice crowd in swinging place, and we drive all around town, getting stopped by the cops, who shy off when he casually shows his father's mayor's badge on the dashboard, back at 1 AM.
DATE BOOK FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 21: Settle tickets and get cash to noon, finish this at 1:30 (now), go to 1000 years of Polish art and Polish modern art, take Bateau Mouche to 5:15, eat at Place Victoire, and see Martyre of St. Sebastian.
DIARY PAGE: Back to Transcaparis, and everything takes so long that I leave there to get to the bank before it closes, to cash some more money, and back until 12:30 (they're supposed to close at 12, but evidently they don't) to pay for the London trip and talk more about the way back, and I don't want to take the ferry, but he doesn't accept Meyer line, and says he'll have to send a letter getting an OK for my projected trip to the Antilles when I return from London. I don't like the idea of flying back from the islands, but maybe when I'm there I can find another way around to New York - who knows what might turn up, is my thought then, and I'm not really THAT interested in HOW I get back to NYC, I just want it to be interesting, not by plane, and not by freighter, and relatively inexpensive. Back to the apartment to catch up on the datebook, decide since I'm leaving tomorrow, I should see the 1000 years of Polish art at the Petit Palais, and it's not very interesting, not even worth buying the catalog of the exhibit, and the 1000 years is rather off, since there is only a fragment of a goat head from 1000 years ago, then there's an even more anomalous shape which is supposed to be a sheet from 850 years ago, and then it skips to 1250, or something, for some rather standard Dark Ages painting from the monasteries and carving from the cloisters. Walk along the river and see a beautiful Lalique facade on a house, and get to the Polish Modern Art Exhibit, which I'm charged a student rate for, for some reason, but it's still not cheap, because there's really nothing very interesting except for a surrealist, but otherwise, it looks like things that they got ideas from Americans on, and didn't add terribly much to it. Out wondering what to do next, and since I'm near the Pont D'Alma, I decide to take a Bateau Mouche, but there's really not much to see from the river once you've been around the Notre Dame and seen the Eiffel Tower. Yes, there's the small Statue of Liberty and other boats and loads and loads of tree-tops, but that's not what I wanted. But it's cheap. Back to meet JJ, and he suggests eating at Au Roy Gourmet at the Place Victoire, and it's very good and outside, and we see Debussy's "Le Martyre de St. Sebastian," but there's little dancing, only erotic moving, and we're back tired.
DATE BOOK FOR THURSDAY, MAY 22: Up at 7, taxi to train at 8, to boat at 12, to London by 4, talking to Phillipe Michel. Get into Lancelot Hotel, call Leslie for dinner and to his place to talk to him and John to 12, and back to very agreeably staffed hotel.
NOTES FROM PARIS-LONDON TRIP: Brown bags gleaming in their plastic wrappings looked like packaged slug.
Planes were white magic markers dashed across a porous paper sky: the path widened as the ink soaked in.
Plane lines in the sky: infinitely slow cloud chambers with hopefully few collisions.
The fields of morning were covered with a film of dew, putting it out of focus and gleaming. The furrows of the field twinkled as if sown with glass.
Lovely people on train: Albee-looked in his potty vest and smooth face; the lash-less staring beautiful eyes of the tall fellow with the checked jacket (Philippe Michel); the quiet sensuality of the hairless body of the young fellow across from me, huge thumb stiffly bandaged from his father's wallet when he skinned his knuckle. Paris 8:10, into Calais 11:30, onto boat, that leaves at 12:10. Into dock at 1:30 after a strange turn. Onto train at 2; it leaves at 2:30, and get into London at 4.
DIARY PAGE: Up at 7 to put last things together and gobble some breakfast, JJ calls a taxi which is downstairs immediately, waiting just at the door for my huge suitcase, which is too heavy to start with, I know, but I have no idea how long I'm going to be away. Again the ride is long through the town, and so slow that I begin to fear I'll miss the train, but get there about 10 to 8, and I have time to look for something to read, and get Asimov's Foundation (but I recollect now that I got that for going to Edward's), and the train pulls out at 8:10, just on schedule, and since I didn't get a window seat again, I intend to stand at the window for the two hours, it couldn't be more, I think, to the coast. Took some notes which are on TD 60, and was very pleased with the early- morning look of the fields and the hills and the forests. The incredible profusion of flowers has just about finished by now, and everything is green rather than colored, but all is damp and fertile looking, and the air is fresh except when a train roars past, causing me to jolt my head back inside, and I really don't mind that the trip takes longer than I thought, especially since there are nice people to look at in the passageway. Into Calais at 11:30, and there's a lot of sitting around, and then grab the bag and lug it to the boat, getting tired en route, and everyone sits outside, so I reserve a place and then go down for a sandwich and beer, getting the first hint of English coinage since the sandwiches are two shillings or 1 franc 30, and I get rid of French change. Boat leaves at 12:10 and I'm down below to see Phillipe Michel sitting there, and we begin talking, and he's lovely, writerly, loves some French poet, and after the boat docks at 1:30, we're together into the train at 2 and it leaves at 2:30, and we chat, but he doesn't give me his address, and meets his brother in the station without offering to take me over. I'm upstairs to get change and call the fellow at the Lancelot, taxi there, get settled in nicely, then call Leslie and he invites me to dinner, I walk to his place, we go to an Italian place and back to his place to talk with him and John, and I leave at 12 and miss my way back across Holland Park and fear going completely astray, but into the hotel about 2, tired from the evening, but glad to have met Leslie. Bed is hard, but I sleep.
DATE BOOK FOR FRIDAY, MAY 23: Up at 10 and get all London information straight. Call Edward at 1, lunch at awful Kentucky, and to British Museum 2-5 after buying tickets. Dinner at Kentucky and get to Intrusion, Mamsel Angot and Knight Errant. To bar at 11 closing and stand and look and to hotel after Wimpy snack.
DIARY PAGE: Up at 10 and sort through the bookcases (after looking through the nudes again, which they so kindly leave in each room), and look at the weekly schedule of events and see what I want to see, and then about 1, subway out (finding the first entry into the system petrifying, but after the second or third time, it's fine. You just have to know where you are and where you want to go and hopefully have the right amount of change for an automatic ticket so you don't have to wait in line, and hope there aren't too many ways you can go wrong, particularly with the Circle Line, which goes to the strangest places when you least expect it) to the Royal Opera House to get tickets to opera and ballet, and then to the British Museum, where I'm glad to see that the Elgin Marble room isn't closed, although most of the others are, and hardly get up to the second floor at all. Out at 5 and am starving when I'm finished changing for the theater, and I try the Kentucky restaurant, and it's a terrible mistake, since the chicken is very tough, there's nothing with it, and the malted is hardly more than a glass of milk, and I'm in a hurry, too, because of the strange 7 PM curtains. It's a problem if you work, I'm sure, to get to these things on time, I'm sure you just have to eat afterwards. Back into the subway and get to the last seat in the first row in the second balcony, which isn't bad, but the performance doesn't have anyone that I know, and only one of the guys is really good, and most of the choreography is very story-ridden and slight. "Intrusion" could be good, but the feelings of "Harbinger," which it rather resembles, just aren't there. "Mam'selle Angot" is terrible, a sort of down-rated "Gaite Parisienne," and "Knight Errant" is fun because the lead dancer is handsome and cute, but again it's hardly the sort of thing I'd like to see again and again. Had the names of some bars from Edward, so I subway back and get there at 11 to see them closing, and stand around outside watching the old hag talking back to the kids, looking at the amazed expressions of passersby, see the "butch" numbers prowling around, but there's no one really exciting who isn't taken, and I'm back down the street to the hotel, stopping in the Wimpyburger, where the Jamaican queen lived, and have a burger and a sprizz or whatever, and the drink's awful, and bed at 1.
DATE BOOK FOR SATURDAY, MAY 24: Up at 9 and to Leslie's at 10 for Portobello Road after Don's and lunch at El Ristoro and great bus to National Gallery 2:30-5, buy pornography and to Hair, GREAT. To Leslie's and eat in Paesans and to Sombrero where I meet Frank and Svein-Erik.
DIARY: LONDON FLOWER SHOP: Double Daffs (daffodils); White Goddess (daffodil); Narsie (NARCISSUS); Hydranger's (hydrangeas); Cry-Plants (chrysanthemum plants).
5/24. FROM LONDON MAGAZINE, LISTS OF BOYS PLAYING GIRLS: (Myra Breckenridge); Tony Curtis (Some Like It Hot); Tony Perkins (Psycho); Charlie Chaplin (A Woman-1915); Charley's Aunt (Ray Bolger); Cary Grant (I was a Male War Bride); James Brown (Our Hearts Were Growing Up); Stan Laurel (Jitterbugs); George Raft (Mary Pickford as Lord Fauntleroy); Eddie Cantor (Palmy Days); Frank Sinatra (On the Town); Harold Lloyd; William Powell; Buster Keaton; Bing Crosby (High Times); Bob Hope; Gregory Peck; Mickey Rooney; Joe E. Brown; Lon Chaney; Lou Costello; Sid Fields; Fatty Arbuckle; Bill Bendix (Abroad with Two Yanks). GIRL AS BOY: Marlene Dietrich (Morocco); Greta Garbo (Queen Christina); Katharine Hepburn (Sylvia Scarlet); Shirley Temple, Charlotte Greenwood, Constance Cummings, Gloria De Haven, Doris Day, and June Haver in top hats and tails; Annabella, Jessie Matthews; Gracie Fields (Shipyard Sally); Miriam Hopkins; Louise Brooks; Blossom Sealey; Ingrid Bergman; Mary Pickford (Kiki); Clara Bow; Jayne Mansfield; Joan Fontaine; June Allyson; Beatrice Lillie; Judy Holliday (Adam's Rib).
DIARY PAGE: Look through the rest of the magazines and type out TD 41, then to Leslie's and he takes me over to Don's while they talk about business, and we wander along Portobello Road, and he's more interested in the antiques and junk than I am, but he knows where to look, knows the people, and shops for a couple of items, to give me a sense of contact with an otherwise featureless mass of people. We go to the El Ristoro for lunch, which is mediocre, but I tell Leslie it's good to let him know he takes good care of me (it's obvious he would like to take BETTER care of me, but I don't care for that now). Then he buys some flowers with lovely names (TD 41) and puts me on a double-decker bus for the National Gallery, and what a great way to see the city! I've bought a street guide, and it becomes indispensable, but I know where I am and what I'm looking at, and the bus system is fabulous. Out to the Gallery and IT is fabulous, selecting only the best to show, and keeping that in the best of condition, and in the last 20 minutes I'm down to the reserve collection in the basement, and am dazzled by what they DON'T consider important enough to show upstairs. Just a fabulous way of doing things, but a pity they don't have a catalog that I can buy, since they're out of print, and I can only borrow one, but I end up buying a LARGE book, since the place is so great. Walking up to "Hair" I see a shop like on 42nd Street, in, ask for the men's stuff, and he says I have to buy, and I say I'll buy if it's worth buying, and the five pictures for one pound are 50 apiece, not bad, but five pounds for the book IS bad, because it's just too bulky to pack back through customs. Into "Hair" in a lousy seat, and there's so much going on I really miss a lot, because I'm keeping my eye on Berger, who is the epitome of male good looks and body, but I might have missed at lot of other stuff. The nude scene was too well lit, very brief, and I missed him in it, all girls in the front, pity. Back to Leslie's, and Don treats us to dinner in Paesan's, with his Rolls carting us where we're going, and to Sombrero, where I meet Frank and Svein, and we talk, they leave, I wait around, but there's nothing better, so after making arrangements to see Svein on Tuesday, maybe still getting to Frank, I go.
DATE BOOK FOR SUNDAY, MAY 25: Wake at 7:30 and shower at 8 and do this to 10. To Victoria Station to Edward's in lovely Borough Green with David and Arthur, Colin and Ronald, and Bill and Peter Kinear and me. Pubs and garden walk and talk and dinner and back at 11 to read.
DIARY PAGE: Made arrangements for the day with Edward, so I'm waked at 7:30 and shower at 8 for the first time in ages and catch up on the datebook to 10 and pack for the weekend, again I don't know how long I'm staying, and the extension is amusing: took two bags to Paris and left one there and came with a selected one bag to London, and now I'm taking my typewriter case and selections from the selection from the selection to Edward's for tonight and maybe tomorrow. Get to Victoria Station and buy "Foundation" and think I remember what he said, but I'm confused about which is the front and which is the back, or which is the FIRST, the first I come to or the first to leave the station, so at the first stop (which I can identify), I find that I AM in the right section, and go off through Liverpudlian scenery (homes in rows undulating over the hills, factories, greenery with houses behind it) and I'm down to Borough Green and off the train, hoping I'll remember what Edward looks like. There's no one in the station, so I go toward the door and ??? Edward! And Bob! And we're into his station wagon and he's giving me the lowdown on David and Arthur, who are lovers from Canada, David a truly lovely blond, Colin, who's cute and married to Ronald, whom Edward describes as having the loveliest grey eyes, but sadly a football player's gone to fat ass. There's Peter Kinnear, a photographer who's off his oats, and Bill, who's not handsome and is faggoty, and I talk to all and sundry, we're around the garden and out to the OTHER garden, which is lovely, and walk around the territory, getting into everything, including his sister's house, and she doesn't like it, but it IS his, and then we're to the pub for drinks, which is very nice indeed, since everyone seems to know and accept him, and back to his place for a rather sad dinner which leaves me hungry. Since it's fairly obvious I'll have to sleep with Edward, I ask David and Arthur if I can go back to the city with them, and excuse myself, saying I have a date, and we talk all the way back until I'm positively weary of thinking of ways to be witty and things to say to keep them entertained as they are entertaining me. They leave me off where I can get a train home, and I'm back into the hotel, alone, which has gotten to be a terribly bad habit, at 11, and I don't feel like going to sleep, so I come and read a bit of "Foundation" and get to bed about 1.
DATE BOOK FOR MONDAY, MAY 26: Read "Foundation" and Leslie comes at 1, and we sightsee on bus to zoo, lunch at smallish zoo, then dash back to get off to Simon Boccanegra at Covent Garden at 8 and home at 11 to walk street and read and bed.
DIARY PAGE: Finish "Foundation" waiting for Leslie, who's due at 12, to come over at 1, and we debate what to do, and decide to see the zoo. The bus is held up by the crowds waiting to see Princess Anne who's going to review the "Shop London Week" or something like that, and I'm happy we're not in a cab as we laze our way along the streets. When we pass Baker Street I'm reminded of those many names I've seen that have been familiar to me, those country names that sound like lines in "Importance of Being Ernest," those names that are so connected with the English that it's just as impossible to think of Dorking on Thames in an American accent as it is to think of Tuilleries and Perpignon without a French accent. Look into some of the houses of the zoo, then I'm hungry, and we stand in a line to get greasy raw hamburgers which we eat in a windy outside, where the milk containers, paper plates and paper napkins all get neatly blown off the table onto the garbagy concrete floor. Around to look at the birds and bears and monkeys, the hoofed animal terraces and we're into the new mammal house, down under the ground into the night chambers which are warm and stuffy and smelly, mostly from people - they really don't bathe as often as they should, or rather, they don't use SOAP when they bathe as often as they should, since Leslie takes a bath every morning, but is afraid of using soap because it will dry out his skin, which is rather greasy anyway. In a typical way we wait a bit too long before getting to the bus because I want to see one last bird walk-through, and we just miss a bus and we fret through the route down to the hotel, but I get in in time to change and walk with him back to Earl's Court Station to get a subway out to the Opera House for a very well sung "Simon Boccanegra," with everyone acting to the hilt, and the soprano being considerably better than the Tebaldi I saw originally in it. The sets are rather seedy, the costumes no great shakes, but the lighting is good, the orchestra workmanlike, and the singing in many parts simply glorious. Back to the hotel at 11, and decide to walk up and down Earl's Court, looking at the people, but there's not really much around to happen with, so I tire of this rather quickly and get back to go to bed, not forgetting to leave the note for breakfast.
DATE BOOK FOR TUESDAY, MAY 27: Meet Svein-Erik at 9:30 and to Houses of Parliament 10-12, Westminster Abbey to 1, lunch to 2, and Tate to 5:30, and I'm off to Players with Edward and David and Arthur and David and to Festival and Mandy's to 2:30.
DIARY PAGE: Up at 8 and bathe myself to get just out and down the street and around the corner to Svein's, and talk a bit with Frank before he goes out to work, and Svein's being very cute in an Azak sort of way, but has a terrible cold and we both sort of use this as an excuse for not making the acquaintance a sexual thing. We're off at 10 to see the Houses of Parliament, which are open today as an extension of the Whitsuntide holiday just past, and the unity and brilliance of everything: this is not a relic, it's a working government house, is most fitting. The guide has something to say about everything, but Svein has trouble following his Welsh English, and I have to repeat certain things to him. He always wants to peep into other corridors, and he hears about the Peer's Library down somewhere, so when the whole thing is finished, he goes through a door marked private and we're in an area of offices and lockers and tables in the hall and bookcases everywhere, and a cleaning lady peers at us from a distance, and we're into leather-lined dining rooms with views over the Embankment, and finally we're back to the main hallway, to be accosted by a guard wanting to know where we were, trying to "stop" us after we'd been where we wanted to go. Out at 12, with Westminster Hall standing out in my mind as the core of the whole thing, and to Westminster Abbey, which we rather rush through since he doesn't want to see everything, but there are either actual grave sites or plaques for just about everyone, including FDR, Byron, Shelley, a whole host of kings, and Queen Elizabeth I, as well as some original Edwards and Henrys from 1100-1300, which is just fantastic, that a country would have such a CONTINUOUS history right in a series of buildings, despite all the fires and wars and floods that they had to survive through, and revolutions and changes of government, too. Stop in a coffee shop for a snacky lunch, then walk along the river to the Tate, which we cover in and out, I going into the Mimimal Art exhibit when he's slow with the other modern, and at 5:30 I get back to change and call Edward and he picks me up for dinner at the Players with David from Boston, then Arthur and David, to the performance, then to Festival which I don't care for, then to Mandy's with Edward, which is heaven, leave at 2.
DATE BOOK FOR WEDNESDAY, MAY 28: Meet Svein at 10 and to Tower of London 11-2, cab to get tickets to St. Paul's dome, walk Fleet Street and Cheshire Cheese and snack and meet Leslie at 6 for Canadian Ballet 7-10 and talk to 2.
DIARY PAGE: Groggily up to shower and meet Svein at 10, when he gets back from wherever he'd been to, and Frank walks around skinny-shanked packing up since he's moving to another apartment tomorrow. We take a long train out to the Tower of London, and he's not had breakfast, so I sit with him while he has a sandwich through his sniffles, and then we're over again to a guide, this time with an enormous group, and even I can't hear half of what he's saying about Queen Mary's imprisonment, the crows which have to stay there, the food tossed from the windows of the Tower, how it was living quarters for a number of royalty, and then we're free to go off on our own. Get into the White Tower, and there's nothing much there, which explains the lack of line, and into the Bloody Tower, which has a line and still not much to see except the last headsman's ax and the block, and a rack, then to the Armor Tower where there's an incredible assortment of spears and lances and swords and helmets and horses' armor and kings' armor and rifles and pistols and cannon and ballista and every sort of armament in quite dizzying profusion. Then into the fast-moving line for the Jewel Tower, and the top rooms are nicely rich with the directed lines, and down, down, down the stairs through the vault doors, and you see the dramatic lighting from the central cases and the reflections off the faces of the gazers, and the reflection of rainbows on the ceiling and glass from the jewels, the gems, the ornaments, and the fantastic incredible crowns, fiery in color under the hot lights, incredibly scintillant as you move in front of them, and the jewel in the scepter is so flat and mirror-like that it can't possibly stand up to the rims of St. Edward's crown, which are bands of brilliance unparalleled. Around twice and buy books about them, I taxi to get tickets for the Canadian Ballet, then taxi back to St. Paul's where we climb to the dome and look about, walk Fleet Street and look in at the Cheshire Cheese, have a snack, then I subway back to meet Leslie at 6 and we subway up to Angel, grab a snack in a Shakespearean bar across the way of cheese and bread and beer, and to the lousy ballet, but still I love "Carmina Burana" and one of the duets was good. Back to his place at 11 and talk till 2, at which point I can only stay, and he nuzzles sex.
DATE BOOK FOR THURSDAY, MAY 29: Sleep at Leslie's, meet Svein at Wallace collection 11:30-1, lunch, past Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square and to Queen's Gallery for Da Vincis. Buy stamps, to hotel to 6:30, Thieving Magpie and Mandy's to 2.
DIARY PAGE: It's all I can do to get back and wash and shave and meet Svein at the Wallace Collection at 11:30, and I meet him in the cab walking up the street at 11:50. Into the collection and for a private gallery, it's stupendous, having an exhaustive selection of all the truly second-rate French painters, and a few samples of good Dutch and Italian and English paintings, and an outstanding assembly of furniture, French and English, with lovingly tended wood finishes that give a great class to the galleries. We're out at 1 and stroll down to have lunch at a corner place, roam past Grosvenor Square, where I see the American Embassy without knowing what it is, and we get to Berkeley Square, and he has to take a picture of the pigeons, which connection I didn't make until he told me about some song. Then we're over to Buckingham for the Queen's Gallery and her collection of Da Vinci drawings, which we exhaust as they exhaust us, and we're out in the hot sun into Regent's Park to lie on the short-cropped grass, soaking in the sun and soaking the pains out of our feet, and then I decide I have to get stamps, so we walk down to the post office while I pester a gullible clerk, sending a telegram to JJ to tell him I'm NOT going to be back in town today (and assuming he'll tell Charles, who's supposed to telephone me this evening), and Svein writes two or three post cards. Ask him to join me for the "Thieving Magpie" this evening by the Old Vic Opera at the Coliseum, assuming I can get a ticket for him, and we arrange to meet there at 7:30. I'm a bit late, and Svein has met Leslie already, and they've been looking for me in the bar where I was supposed to meet Leslie, but we're all at the theater and there's a seat next to ours, and the performance is fast and not very funny, but the music is nice and they enjoy it well enough. Then we grab a cab to Mandy's - no, we walk, after Leslie leads us through the rain to a restaurant in the Italian style, rather nice, with cute waiters, and then we walk to Mandy's, where Svein and I dance, and I dance with a few other people, and Svein picks someone up who sits with us, and Leslie and I get tired enough to leave and we're back to his place, deciding that I might as well check out of the hotel, since I'm not using it at all recently.