4pQonT

26 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
realized the importance of placing people, an art that must be
mastered by great hostesses and critics.
On the following Tuesday, I took the bus out to the hospital. As
justification for my existence, I brought along the manuscript of
a novel. The Pounds and I spent a pleasant afternoon. No other
visitors turned up, and I had an opportunity to appreciate the man.
This was an important day for me. I had not known the details of
his case, except that he had been locked up on a charge of treason
and had been the subject of much controversy. Now, as I watched
him sitting there, enveloped in the enormous gloom of the madhouse,
I was suddenly committed to him and to his ideals, and I
knew that from that point on I would be involved in his struggle.
He has written in The Pisan Cantos,
Neither Eos nor Hesperus has suffered wrong at my hands 6 [.]
The tragedy of the First World War, which signified the downfall
of an orderly Western civilization, spurred Pound to seek
justice. It is impossible for the artist to complete himself, or do
significant work, without committing himself to this struggle. Sooner
or later, he will be asked to become a lackey to the existing order,
regardless of that order's merits. His life then becomes a precarious
existence, if he chooses to carry on without submitting, or an
empty one, if he surrenders.
I now began a routine that I maintained for the next three years.
At one o'clock each afternoon, I walked down to the F.B.I. building
at Tenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue to take the Congress
Heights bus. I arrived at St. Elizabeths about a quarter to two, and
usually remained a half hour after the bell until four-thirty, when
Ezra had to go in for his evening meal.
I have often been asked what we could find to talk about for
three hours each day over a period of years. Many of Pound's
visitors came only for an hour's visit, or less. The Flemings usually
arrived about three, and left promptly when the bell tolled four.
But they were not being educated by Ezra. The Cantos explain the
nature of these conversations:
And they want to know what we talked about?
"de litteris et de armis, praestantibusque ingeniis,