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28 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
those gray afternoons, he lapsed into periods of silence. Since he was
always the center of attention, this would put a damper on the talk.
One afternoon, I did not bother to report in at the office, thinking
it a useless formality and not required of anyone who visited
so frequently. I sat down on the lawn with the Pounds, and a few
minutes later, an attendant came rushing up, demanding to know
why I had not reported in at the desk. We were several hundred
feet from the office, and this incident proved that Ezra was under
constant surveillance. He cautioned me that I must always make
sure to report; otherwise, it might result in the curtailment of his
privilege of receiving visitors. I was surprised to learn that Dorothy
Pound was required to report every afternoon as though she were
visiting her husband for the first time.
On another occasion, I persuaded a fellow student at the Institute,
Michael Reck, to come out with me. He was a crew-cut type,
more an admirer of Cummings than of Pound. I believe that I
finally lured him out to the hospital by saying that Cummings was
to be there, or that he might turn up. Despite Ezra's fame, there
were many young people who thought of him as some sort of evil
genius who might corrupt them, and they seemed determined not
to pursue the matter any further.
With a continued show of reluctance, Reck accompanied me.
When we approached the admitting office, I cautioned him to tell
the attendant that he had visited Ezra before. He fluffed the line,
however, possibly through fear that he might get into serious difficulties
with the "government", and finally stammered that this was
his first visit. It was then that I realized he would never become a
poet, for he obviously had no talent as a liar.
I tried to repair the damage by attempting to bulldoze him in. I
stepped in front of him, but it was too late. The attendant was new
at the job, and he went into a rear office, reappearing with a grave
type in his mid-thirties, no doubt an on-the-job-training psychiatrist.
He informed us that it would be impossible for Reck to see
Pound without going through the requisite preliminaries, as Pound
was "a political prisoner".
Ezra was delighted to learn that the officials were being so frank
about his status, and it gave me new insight into the opposition of
the state that held him in bondage. As I plunged deeper into the