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EZRA POUND 91
wild thing. I noted him carefully because he reminded me of my
friend Carlos Williams.
"He also took note of us, partly because we only paused before
new work, and partly because there were few people in the gallery,
and partly because I was playing the fool and he was willing to be
amused by the performance. It was a warm, lazy day, there was
little serious criticism mixed with our nonsense. On the ground
floor we stopped before a figure with bunchy muscles done in clay
and painted green. It was one of a group of interesting things. I
turned to the catalogue and began to take liberties with the appalling
assemblage of consonants; 'Brzxjk—' I began. I tried again,
'Burrzisskzk—' I drew back, breathed deeply and took another run
at the hurdle, sneezed, coughed, rumbled, got as far as 'Burdidis—'
when there was a dart from behind the pedestal and I heard a voice
speaking with the gentlest fury in the world, 'Cela s'appelle tout
simplement Jaersh-ka. C'est moi que les ai sculptes.' And he disappeared
like a Greek god in a vision." 5
Richard Aldington, who was not present, tells a slightly different
version of the meeting:
"During the Albert Hall exhibit of the Allied Artists in 1913, Ezra
went round with his mother-in-law, Mrs. Shakespear. They came to
a statuette, in what was then loosely called the Futurist style, and
Ezra began capering at and making fun of it. Suddenly a gaunt,
sharp-faced young man, with flaming eyes and long dark hair,
rushed at him and threatened him with immediate personal violence.
Ezra prudently declined the combat, and at once became a warm admirer
of the young man's work. Thus we came to know Gaudier." 6
Aldington gives us a more intimate description of Gaudier than
does Pound:
"He was probably the dirtiest human being I have ever known,
and gave off horrid effluvia in hot weather. One summer day he
came to see us in our small flat; we prudently placed him on a
couch at one end of the small room and ourselves retired to the
other. Who should come in but Ford, who had been to a fashionable
luncheon, and wanted to display his shining topper and formal
morning clothes with a red carnation in the buttonhole! Unluckily
he had to sit beside Gaudier, and soon left. The next morning Ford
gave me a paternal lecture on my wildness in permitting such a