The letters reveal Nirod's unique relationship with his guru. The exchanges are suffused with a special humour.
Sri Aurobindo : corresp.
Nirodbaran's correspondence with Sri Aurobindo began in February 1933 and continued till November 1938, when Sri Aurobindo injured his leg and Nirod became one of his attendants. The entire correspondence, which was carried on in three separate notebooks according to topics - private, medical, and literary - is presented in chronological order, revealing the unique relationship Nirod enjoyed with his guru, replete with free and frank exchanges and liberal doses of humour. Covering a wide range of topics, both serious and light-hearted, these letters reveal the infinite care Sri Aurobindo devoted to the spiritual development of his disciple.
THEME/S
Z has broken our thermometer. She wants to pay, shall we accept?
[Mother:] If she goes on taking her temperature she must pay as it will make her more careful in future—But is it wise to attract so much her attention on her temperature? It does not seem to help her to cure—
In yesterday's poem, you have hurdled very well indeed! You call this line, "A fathomless beauty in a sphere of pain," a magnificent one, but I did not feel its magnificence when I wrote it and am unable to see where you find it. I think you find behind these things some inner truth which magnifies everything to you, no? Otherwise the rhythm and the word music aren't very striking, what?
Well, have you become a disciple of Baron and the surrealists? You seem to suggest that significance does not matter and need not enter into the account in judging or feeling poetry! Rhythm and word music are indispensable, but are not the whole of poetry. For instance lines like these
In the human heart of Heligoland A hunger wakes for the silver sea; For waving the might of his magical wand God sits on his throne in eternity,
have plenty o rhythm and word music—a surrealist might pass them, but I certainly would not. Your suggestion that my seeing the inner truth behind a line magnifies it to me, i.e. gives it a false value to me which it does not really have as poetry, may or may not be correct. But, certainly, the significance and feeling suggested and borne home by the words and rhythm are in my view a capital part of the value of poetry. Shakespeare's lines "Absent thee from felicity awhile And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain" have a skilful and consummate rhythm and word combination, but this gets its full value as the perfect embodiment of a profound and moving significance, the expression in a few words of a whole range of human world-experience. It is for a similar quality that I have marked this line. Coming after the striking and significant image of the stars on the skyline and the single Bliss that is the source of all, it expresses with a great force of poetic vision and emotion the sense of the original Delight contrasted with the world of sorrow born from it and yet the deep presence of that Delight in an unseizable beauty of things. But even isolated and taken by itself there is a profound and moving beauty in the thought, expression and rhythm of the line and it is surprising to me that anyone can miss it. It expresses it not intellectually but through vision and emotion. As for rhythm and word music, it is certainly not striking in the sense of being out of the way or unheard of, but it is perfect—teiknically in the variation of vowels and the weaving of the consonants and the distribution of longs and shorts, more deeply in the modulated rhythmic movement and the calling in of overtones. I don't know what more you want in that line.
September 1, 1938
Guru, no, I don't suggest that significance doesn't matter. On the other hand, I said it is more probably because of the significance of the line than rhythm etc. that you call it magnificent. "Magnifies" was used jokingly, of course. As I don't yet understand much of longs, shorts, narrows and thicks of your prosody, I laid the beauty of the line at the door of significance or inner vision. So "false value" is not what I meant. I am rather limited, or my solar plexus is inhibitory to profound things told in a bare and rugged way. For instance, your three lines against:
"A rhythmic fire that opens a secret door, And the treasures of eternity are found,"
don't stir my mortal plexus very much, while perhaps your penetrating eyes see all the treasures of eternity behind the door and exclaim with rapturous delight, "How rich!" But the other three-lined one: "My moments pass with moon-imprinted sail" makes me say: "Ah, here is something real, wonderful, flashing!" You will admit that this line is more poetic than the previous two lines, though perhaps the force of poetic vision and truth is less? That will indicate to you probably that I am a bit of a romantic sentimental type who wants to see colour blend with vision before getting the plexus stirred from its depth, what?
I am afraid the language of your appreciations or criticisms here is not apposite. There is nothing "bare and rugged" in the two lines you quote; on the contrary they are rather violently figured—the osé image of a fire opening a door of a treasure-house would probably be objected to by Cousins or any other purist. The language of poetry is called bare when it is confined rigorously to just the words necessary to express the thought or feeling or to visualise what is described, without superfluous epithets, without imagery, without any least rhetorical turn in it. E.g. Cowper's
Toll for the brave— The brave! that are no more—
is bare. Byron's
Jehovah's vessels hold The godless Heathen's wine;
does not quite succeed because of a rhetorical tinge that he has not been able to keep out of the expression. When Baxter (I think it was Baxter) writes
I spoke as one who ne'er would speak again223 And as a dying man to dying men!
that might be taken as an example of strong and bare poetic language. I have written of Savitri waking on the day of destiny—
Immobile in herself, she gathered force: This was the day when Sathyavan must die.—
that is designedly bare.
But none of these lines or passages can be called rugged; for ruggedness and austerity are not the same thing; poetry is rugged when it is rough in language and rhythm or rough and unpolished but sincere in feeling. Donne is often rugged,—
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for me. Who sees God's face, that is self-life must die; What a death were it then to see God die?
but it is only the first line that is at all bare.
On the other side, you describe the line of your preference My moments pass with moon-imprinted sail
by the epithets "real, wonderful, flashing". Real or surreal? It is precisely its unreality that makes the quality of the line; it is surreal, not in any depreciatory sense, but because of its supra-physical imaginativeness, its vivid suggestion of occult vision; one does not quite know what it means, but it suggests something that one can inwardly see. It is not flashing—gleaming or glinting would be nearer the mark—it penetrates the imagination and awakens sight and stirs or thrills with a sense of beauty but it is not something that carries one away by its sudden splendour.
You say that it is more poetic than the other quotation—perhaps, but not for the reason you give; rather because it is more felicitously complete in its image and more suggestive. But you seem to attach the word poetic to the idea of something brilliant, remotely beautiful, deeply coloured or strikingly imaged with a glitter in it or a magic glimmer. On the whole what you seem to mean is that this line is "real" poetry, because it has this quality and because it has a melodious sweetness of rhythm, while the other is of a less attractive character. Your solar plexus refuses to thrill where these qualities are absent—obviously that is a serious limitation in the plasticity of your solar plexus, not that it is wrong in thrilling to these things but that it is sadly wrong in thrilling to them only. It means that your plexus remains deaf and dead to most of the greater poetry of the world—to Homer, Milton, Valmiki, Vyasa, a great part even of Shakespeare. That is surely a serious limitation of the appreciative faculty. What is strange and beautiful has its appeal, but one ought to be able also to stir to what is grand and beautiful, or strong and noble, or simple and beautiful, or pure and exquisite. Not to do so would be like being blind of one eye and seeing with the other only very vividly strange outlines and intensely bright colours.
I may add that if really I appreciate any lines for something which I see behind them but they do not actually suggest or express, then I must be a very bad critic. The lines you quote not only say nothing about the treasures except that they are found, but do not suggest anything more. If then I see from some knowledge that has nothing to do with the actual expression and suggestion of the lines all the treasures of eternity and cry "How rich"—meaning the richness, not of the treasures, but of the poetry, then I am doing something quite illegitimate which is the sign of a great unreality and confusion in my mind, very undesirable in a critic. It is not for any reason of that kind that I made a mark indicating appreciation but because I find in the passage a just and striking image with a rhythm and expression which are a sufficient body for the significance.
In today's poem the philosophy is old and poetry poor, what?
A poet is not bound to create a new philosophy—he may adopt an existing philosophy, only his expression of it must be his own, individual and true.
René wants tasteless castor-oil. We have plenty of "tasty" castor-oil, but he doesn't fancy that. So shall we buy it?
[Mother:] Yes.
September 2, 1938
...As if I had become infinity And God his mystery to me confides...
Is the link missing?
No. If God confides his mystery to you, the rest follows as a natural consequence of that portentous act of His.
I have become a Father Confessor to God, what?
That's not a father confessor but only a confidant. A father confessor would be one to whom God confesses His sins, but perhaps you think the creation is a big enough sin in itself?
September 3, 1938
You found no answer to my questions, so the delay in sending my notebook?
Well, your arguments are not so overwhelming that I would find it difficult to answer; it was the time to answer that I did not find.
You may note that you quoted some time back [31.3.38] Dante's line: "In His will is our peace" and said that written in Italian it is one of the greatest lines in all poetic literature. Well, judging by the translation (not knowing Italian rhythm), I fear again it doesn't stir me much, but it stirs you much more because you see the profound significance behind it.
How can you judge a line of poetry from a translation? That would be an astonishing feat. I simply gave the meaning of the line in order to point out that poetry can be simple and straightforward in expression and yet rank as the greatest poetry. Its not stirring you would only prove that your plexus is not receptive to great and stirring poetry, it would not prove that the poetry is not great and stirring.
R is going tonight, I hear. I would like to offer the coffee tin and cheese to you, if you won't take the jam and butter. But I will be really glad if you accept everything. R won't take them back.
[Mother:] Send me the coffee and cheese and keep the butter and jam.
September 4, 1938
Sharing its rapturous wine with every thing Till all creation be a soliloquy..."
What's this blessed soliloquy doing after a bout of wine?
Well, what else do you expect when a fellow is drunk? But it is more decent to change it into an ecstasy.
Still you have no time, now when the correspondence has gone down?
Who told you that? Since the first it has gone up or rather swelled up and my table is covered with 4-volume letters from one third of the Asram.
I suppose you are busy doing something high and mighty!
I would like to do something high and mighty, but God knows how I shall do it at this rate.
September 5, 1938
"The magic breath of God's omnipotent Grace Comes blowing from his soul's fathomless deep."
It sounds as if God had lost his breath and was panting in a vast distress!
[Image 2]
The first six lines are very perfect and beautiful, but after that histories begin.224 I think the histories might be replaced by geography or anything else and God must really stop blowing and panting.
"Now grows a universe of beauty, crowned With diamond fruits of everlasting ecstasy."
O.K.?
No; rhythm awkward. I think I should object to a crown of fruits (apples? oranges? jack-fruit?).
Govinda, the Bangalore scientist [19.8 .38] writes that he has written to the Mother, but no reply! Asks me to enquire. What is the mystery, please? Usual timelessness or uselessness?
What mystery? Do you imagine I am conducting a voluminous correspondence with people outside? Put that pathetic mistake out of your head. It would have been a marvel and a mystery and a new history begun in the invisible (upstairs) spheres of the Infinite225 if I had answered him! I don't even remember what he wrote.
In the letter to me, he challenges God to give him peace, force and faith in this life. Only then will he admit its মূল্য,226 otherwise no good.
But what মূল্য is he prepared to pay for these fine things? Does he imagine that it is God's business to deliver these goods on order? Queer kind of business basis for the action of the Divine!
He seems to think that we are striving for মোক্ষ227 or some bliss in the next life! But he does not desire that.
[Sri Aurobindo underlined "next life".]
Why don't you disabuse him of the idea and assure him that we don't care a damn for मोक्ष228 and less than a damn for the next life?
He wants peace, Force and nothing more; but in this life. Well, can the Divine give them?
Even if he can, why the deuce should he?
September 6, 1938
That was precisely what I had thought of writing to Govinda Das. Now I can quote you, toning it down, of course.
No, sir, you mustn't make it a quotation from me, but you can unload it as your own original merchandise on your unwary customer.
Dilipda has presented me with a fine pen as you can judge from my writing!
Congrats.
I fear what was being more and more "seen" in recent poems, is now getting more and more "unseen", but, at the same time, giving the same amount of trouble. I can't, for the life of me, get new expressions or thoughts. What can be done? I break my head over them but they remain as damned hard and unprofitable as the Divine! I am paying the penalty of trying to become an English poet and of facing a hard task-master!
What the deuce are you complaining about? You are writing very beautiful poetry with apparent ease and one a day of this kind is a feat. If the apparent ease covers a lot of labour, that is the lot of the poet and artist except when he is a damned phenomenon of fluency. "It is the highest art to conceal art." "The long and conscientious labour of the artist giving in the result an appearance of divine and perfect ease"—console yourself with these titbits. As for repetitions, they are almost inevitable when you are writing a poem a day. You are gaining command of your medium and that is the main thing. An inexhaustible original fecundity is a thing you have to wait for—when you are more spiritually experienced and mature.
September 7, 1938
"The silent spheres of thought have opened now Their hidden gates; I enter like a god In triumphal majesty; upon my brow Is crowned an eagle-sun, infinity-shod."
Look here now! neither eagles nor suns are in the habit of wearing shoes. Besides this idea of somebody's shoes on your head is extremely awkward and takes away entirely from the triumphal and godlike majesty of your entrance.
Please don't give a start when you see me entering like a god! Too much to bear even in poetry?
Sorry! couldn't help starting. But the start was worse when I got the vision of somebody's shoes on your godlike head.
"The starry light of earth grows suddenly pale..."
Does this starry light grow pale because of the sun?
Yes. besides the starry light is below and the sun is on your godlike head above.
Something queer happened when I was concentrating on these lines:
"I have known the fathomless beauty of the soul, That moon-like shines upon a universe".
I suddenly saw a very bright full moon, and a feminine figure walking between me and the moon. The face was indistinct.
I think the vision had nothing to do with the poetry. It was an independent phenomenon.
Well, it gave me joy, but means what?
Depends on the significance of the feminine figure; but as the face was indistinct, how to know?
"The footprints of time slowly fade away From the threshold of my life..."
These 2 lines, you say, have a "prose rhythm". What's that? Can't be explained?
How, can rhythm be explained? It is a matter of the ear, not of the intellect. Of course there are the technical elements, but you say you do not understand yet about them. But it is not a matter of technique only; the same outer technique can produce successful or unsuccessful rhythms (live or dead rhythms). One has to learn to distinguish by the ear, and the difficulty for you is to get the right sense of the cadences of the English language. That is not easy, for it has many outer and inner elements.
September 8, 1938
"Mortality fades away with dim footfalls From the measureless beauty of my life divine."
"Life" is not the right word; but if you get upon the mysterious silence of your height divine, all comes in pat enough. Obviously mortality has to walk off when you become so uppish as that.
September 9, 1938
Guru, so I am installed in X's palace! But my reaction was positively unpleasant. I spent 2 or 3 hours in the afternoon and all the time I was feeling lonely, as if were far away from you. I was quite happy in my little nook! My medical work may suffer. Mother didn't object because I didn't object!! All these thoughts smashed my Muse...
Mother would much prefer that you should be in your own room and she pointed out the objection about your work, but X said you were quite agreeable and, when both you and he seemed to desire the arrangement, she could not very well go on with her objections. Also what she agreed to was your staying there at night, not all the time.
The atmosphere also seemed so foreign to me, I don't know due. to what.
The atmosphere of X's room is not likely to be good for you; should say—it cannot be a quiet one at any rate.
I almost feel my old room is preferable to this kingdom. If you could find some trustworthy fellow to stay, I would rather go back to my room.
You should find somebody to replace you and go back to your own room.
At the same time I don't see what was the necessity of this guardianship. Is it against theft or against Y entering his rooms and arranging?
Doesn't Mother think my medical work may suffer?
She does.
Couldn't you write something in my notebook tonight?
I don't expect I shall be able to do so, but will see.
Chand writes there is no letter from you. So, one word, Guru!
Well, well! (That's one word twice repeated).
September 11, 1938
Mother must have told you all about the room incident, so I needn't go more into it.
You must have seen in today's paper the great news: Prof. Sanjib Chowdhury of Dacca (belonging to Chittagong, hip-hip hurrah!) has got the Nobel Prize in literature—for his book Songs from the Heights.
Didn't see it. Who the devil is he? The title of the book doesn't sound encouraging; but I suppose it can't be merely Noble Rubbish
But it is extremely surprising that we have heard very little about him! Have you?
Never.
This book has hit!
Hit whom?
Anyway, a great success for India, Bengal, Chittagong! I wonder if you have read it.
Never set eyes on it. No use of success unless it is deserved. Can't forget that Kipling for whose poetry I have a Noble contempt (his prose has value, at least the Jungle Book and some short stories) was illegitimately Nobelised by this confounded prize. Contemporary "success" or fame is a deceit and a snare.
September 12, 1938
In yesterday's poem, why do you fear the snow will melt when there is no snow? Only the spaces are white like snow, aren't they?
No doubt, but snow and sun together still suggest the incongruity. However it can remain—sun on snow but a non-melting sun.
September 14, 1938
"The fathomless beauty on the soul's blue rim Wakes with a heaven-stirring cry And mirrors on the heart's horizon glass..."
Lord Christ! what a yell for beauty to emit! Besides the correlation waking with a cry and mirroring is not very convincing. For heaven's sake do something about this.
What is a horizon glass? cousin of opera-glass?
"All drunken shadows of thought fade and pass..."
"Drunken shadows"!! If even shadows become bibulous and stagger, what will become of the Congress and its prohibition laws? Besides Rajagopalachari is sure to pass a law soon forbidding the publication of any book with the words "wine" and "drunken" in it.
You may damn as many lines as you like and find as many rabid utterances as you may, but I can't every day go on looking at the void for a line! I have drunk "the wine of Fire", and you see the result!
I have damned only one line and rearranged others. I have even 3 lined the wine of Fire.
I wait for your crushing strokes and then shall see if I can do the repairs.
One line please.
Otherwise down will it go into the W.P.B.
No need.
By the way, you had better hurry up with your Supermind descent, Sir. Otherwise Hitler, Mussolini & Co. will gunfire it like—!
What has Supermind to do with Hitler or Hitler with Supermind? Do you expect the Supermind to aviate to Berchtesgaden? How the devil can they gunfire S; their aeroplanes can't even reach Pondicherry, much less the Supermind. The descent of S depends on S, not on Hitler or no Hitler.
Things look damnably bad, what?
Bad enough unless Chamberlain finds a way to wriggle out of it.
Sahana says you have advised her and Amiya to take calcium. We have calcium lactate which is as good. Shall we give that?
[Mother:] She did not speak of a medicine but of some food which is usually taken in Bengal, but I do not remember its name.229
September 16, 1938
You are neither writing in my notebook nor sending me the poem. The "illumination" hasn't yet descended [29.8.38].
These things rest on the knees of the gods.
September 17, 1938
"Into aflame of vision my heart has grown And leaves behind this frail mortality..."
What follows is not very favourable, what?
It is the result of your taking French leave of mortality—quite natural.
September 18, 1938
Chand writes: "You have said 'Well, well!' The meaning has appeared quite clear to me." [11.9.38]
Queer! He seems cleverer than myself.
About the property tangle, he writes that if I share the sale money with my cousins, they will at once sell the propetry with Chand's help. They are 4 partners. My share should be half. So?
A large sum of money?
September 19, 1938
"Thy Presence wraps around my reveried sense An air burdened with heavenly frankincense..."
I say, this sounds like making a perfumed package. Reveried?
"And in my soul I feel an awakening Of thy eternal Beauty ring on ring."
Guru, I smack my lips today in satisfaction, because I find the poem damn fine! Though there are a few anomalies, e.g. heavenly, ring on ring, etc. What do you say?
Umph! Smack away but I smack also with my hand of correction. However the first stanza is O.K. and the last stanza the same when relieved of reveried and heavenly and unwrapped.
Perhaps you find the Presence of my romantic-sentimental self?
Well, there are certainly traces of both romance and sentimentality in the 4th line and the lines 9-11 are as weak as they are incomprehensible. I have corrected but it keeps the romantic touch.
Ah, what a hard Master you are and what a tough customer!
Can't help being that, otherwise you would fall back into a lax and feeble imitative romanticism which would be quite inadvisable. By "romanticism" I mean really "pseudo-romanticism" or sometimes "reproductive romanticism".
September 20, 1938
Guru, I've prepared myself for further smacks or whips!
Well, well—it doesn't catch exactly—you haven't put enough verbal or rhythmic vim into it. Lacks vitamin. Have put some vit. A and B into it. Some lines not lined because too much mine
Oh dear, dear, what a travail to produce a mouse!
The mouse was all right in intention, but its tail was not frisky enough in fact.
September 21, 1938
"The rich magnificence of the wandering sun Reflects my splendour from still height to height..."
I say, there ought to be a limit to your splendour.
If we transfer the splendour from you to God, it becomes all right—results of your extraordinary condition.
Can you tolerate God twice?
I can't—once is enough for him, so I have turned him out of one line, but brought him by pronominal implication into the whole poem throughout. I think that gives it more consistence.
I send you one of Nishikanta's recent Bengali poems, to share my joy with you. The lines I have marked seem to have your O.P. touch, don't they? He seems to have struck a new grandeur and beauty, no?
It is certainly very powerful and beautiful. By O.P. I presume you mean Overhead Poetry. That I can't say—the substance seems to be from there, but a certain kind of rhythm is also needed which I find more difficult to decide about in Bengali than in English.
Didn't you find Vasanti [suffering from anaemia] better than before?
[Mother:] Much better.
I saw Sankar Ram limping. I called him and examined him... The symptoms point towards Purpura. But the treatment is simple, which as you know, is more dietetic: fresh fruits and vegetables; iron and arsenic by mouth. We can examine his urine also.
[The Mother marked "fresh fruits... urine also".]
Yes.
I fear a simple local treatment won't be very effective. Of course, if you want us to leave him alone, we can.
It is better to treat him.
September 22, 1938
"I gather from the fathomless depth of the Mind Transparent thoughts that float through a crystal (trancèd) wind To a spirit-sky and weave a memory Around the starry flames (glimpse) of Infinity."
I read your variation [glimpse] first as "stumps". What a magnificent and original image! the starry stumps (or star-stumps) of infinity, But I fear alas that it would be condemned as surrealistic. I can't make out the variation for "crystal". Wearied? Tired of carrying tons of transparent thoughts? Surely not!
... A sun-plumed Bird made of immortal Breath."
A bird made of breath! Too surrealistic.
I have got some joy out of this poem. God knows whether that joy will be justified in your hands, or crucified! What more do you demand, Sir? Now please, fire away!
Exceedingly fine all through. The other 3 linings are mainly for the splendour and truth of the image (including of course the perfection in the expression, without which no image would have any value), but the outstanding lines are 8-12230 which have an extraordinary beauty. I might have put 4 lines, but remembering how you shouted against my first four lining effort, I curled back the impulse into myself and put three only.
We are sorry to hear that you can't decide about Bengali overhead poetry. I consider it a defect, Sir, in your poetic and supramental make-up, which you should try to remove or mend. A defect in the Supramental Avatar is—is—well doesn't fit!
Why a defect? In any case all qualities have their defects, which are also a quality. For the rest, by your logic I ought to be able to pronounce on the merits of Czechoslovakian or Arabic poetry. To pronounce whether a rhythm is O.P. or not one must have an infallible ear for the overtones and undertones of the sound music of the language—that expertness I have not got with regard to Bengali.
September 23, 1938
In yesterday's poem, I am much tempted to take the "stumps'", even if it is surrealistic. Who cares what it is when you find it magnificent? It was not "wearied wind" but "Iranced wind". Oh dear, dear!
Don't do it, sir, or you will get stumped. The "star-stumps" are "magnificent" from the humorous-reckless-epic point of view, but they can't be taken seriously. Besides you would have to change all into the same key, e.g.
"I slog on the boundless cricket field of Mind Transparent thoughts that cross like crystal wind God's wicket-keeper's dance of mystery Around the starry-stumps of infinity."
I am sorry that you didn't put 4 lines. My shout, you see, was due to a shock—seein 4 lines—a shock of delight.
It didn't sound like it!
You are surprised at Chand's cleverness! Well, Sir, your non-committal Supramental answers are sometimes damned puzzling, so I wouldn't blame him. Anyhow, shall I pass on the remark to him?
You can if you like. But he ought to have known that "Well, well in English is not a shout of approbation, but philosophical non-committal.
It seems he has disposed of his mother's ornaments which were trustingly deposited with him, to pull out a friend from difficulty. His mother has detected the "robbery" by his own admission.
Obviously it must be that—unless he robbed her more than once which is always possible.
September 24, 1938
"My life grows day by day into a deep Reverie broken by no mortal dream, For the mysterious will of the Supreme Has made it a mirror of His awakened sleep."
... Why the devil do I feel so sleepy when I try to write at night?
Probably your inspiration comes from a part of His awakened sleep and goes back to it.
S again complains of frequent micturition. Once we had given him a gland-product containing pituitary, and it had a goos effect, though temporary. Shall we try again?
[Mother:] Is it worth while if it has only a temporary effect?
September 26, 1938
... For thy immutable silences abide Like vast glaciers behind my body's door."
A vast glacier behind a door seems rather impossible. But frozen snow behind a door would convict the housekeeper of negligence.
The doctor in place of Valle asked me about vaccination. I replied that we had done it already last year. He said that there might be a few new-comers who might not have been vaccinated. I think we can say "no" about the inmates, and about workers, they can be done at their own place.
[The Mother marked the last sentence with a vertical line.]
This is right.
I do not think we have new workmen since last vaccination. If required, we have the letter written by Valle and signed by Gaffiero thanking for the help we gave for vaccination.
September 27, 1938
I hear that J is now shedding tears of joy at the sight of apples, oranges and prunes. Tears of sorrow, tears of joy, oh dear!
"fruity" tears of joy. They move me to poetry
"O apples, apples, oranges and prunes, You are God's bliss incarnate in a fruit! Meeting you after many desolate moons I sob and sniff and make a joyous bruit."
Admit that you yourself could not have done better as a poetic and mantric comment on this touching situation.
Any chance for my book or poem [17.9.38]?
The poem not yet illuminated, can't find anything that would be on the same level as the two opening and one closing stanza. Book in same condition—virgin of an answer.
September 28, 1938
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