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288 THIS DIFFICULT INDIVIDUAL
being foxy. They supposed that he either feigned insanity to avoid
a treason trial and a possible death sentence, or that he acquiesced
in the government's move to declare him insane in order to avoid
a trial.
Such suppositions are not only false—they are grossly unfair to
Pound, and contradict everything relating to his character, which
is apparent throughout his work. The Pound who would have done
that would not have insisted on retaining his American citizenship
while broadcasting to the United States. He would have protected
himself against retribution by taking out Italian citizenship, as he
would certainly have been justified in doing, since he had lived
there longer than he had lived in the United States.
Conversation with Ezra was not a static affair. If we were sitting
on the lawn, he would jump up every half hour or so and stride
about to keep from getting stiff, for it was damp there on any but
the hottest afternoons. On occasion, particularly if I stopped by
unannounced after I had moved from Washington, he would insist
on going back to the ward to get mail or addresses for me. If I
brought out something that I thought he would be interested in
reading, as I usually did, he would switch his various pairs of
glasses back and forth until he got the one with the proper focus.
All of his movements were made with great energy, or rather with
great expenditure of energy, as if to illustrate his theories of the
prodigality of Nature.
He was a splendid pantomimist. His youth in America had
coincided with the great period of vaudeville, and he could imitate
almost any accent, using a profusion of them while relating a single
story.
In a recent book about the Paris expatriates, The Way It Was,
by Harold Loeb, the author mentions that Ezra was apt to leave a
group at a café without warning and without saying goodbye to
anyone. 1
Such unceremonious departures are common to busy
people in many countries, although the practice must have been
irritating to the dilettantes of Montparnasse.
The late Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, developed the
habit of speaking to everyone whom he wanted to see at a Washington
cocktail party and leaving within fifteen minutes. I suppose that
Ezra had learned this trick from Henry James, for he once acted