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146 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
only go to Europe if they have means to travel back and forth as
they please.
Paul Rosenfeld writes that Sherwood Anderson introduced him
to Ezra and Mrs. Shakespear when he came to Paris. Strangely
enough, Pound's name does not appear in Anderson's published
memoirs or letters, although the two saw quite a bit of each other.
At any rate, Ezra was becoming one of the sights of Paris, a sort
of Eiffel Tower, and he knew it was time to move on, as Daniel
Boone moved West when a man settled only ten miles from him.
Early in 1923, Pound and Hemingway made a tour of Italian
battlefields, particularly Piombono and Ortobello, where Hemingway
explained the strategy of the medieval soldier of fortune and
great patron of the arts, Sigismondo de Malatesta, who, unlike
Eisenhower, was not himself a painter. This trip convinced Ezra
that he should settle in Italy.
The increasing tide of visitors prevented him from spending as
much time as he wished with the true artists of Paris. He was an
admirer of Brancusi, but was unable to see him as often as he
liked. He tells an amusing anecdote of Brancusi. One day the sculptor
saw sitting across from him, on a Paris bus, a very beautiful
girl, whose classical head and neck attracted him very much. Just
as he was about to speak to her, she reached her stop, and got off.
Reproaching himself for his hesitancy, Brancusi determined to find
her. For weeks, he rode that same bus, hoping to see her again, but
he had no luck. He gave up his vigil, and some time later, by
accident, he encountered her near his studio. He immediately
spoke to her.
"Do you know," he said, "that I saw you several months ago
on the bus, and ever since then I have been hoping we would
meet."
The young lady was pleased that she had been so noticed, and
they began a cordial conversation. It ended abruptly when, Brancusi
having mentioned that he was a sculptor, she smiled brightly
and replied, "Oh, how interesting! Do you know, I am a sculptor
too!"
The parade in and out of Sylvia Beach's bookshop must have
been a sight. Ezra usually wore a bizarre outfit of tweeds, with
bright blue square buttons, which he had designed himself; Eliot