Beryl and Robert Graves at the Posada, Deià, c. 1950

Abstract: A consideration of the letters exchanged between Robert Graves and his wife, Beryl Graves, housed at St John’s College, Oxford.

Keywords: Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Letters, Marriage

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This collection, held at St John’s College, consists of over 190 letters, post cards, notes and telegrams that date from 1939 to the 1970s. At times the sequence of the interchange can be easily followed; other times my mother’s or my father’s reply is missing or doesn’t exist. I only quote parts of the correspondence, and at times only short extracts from a letter. The letters from Robert to Beryl (148) have been fully transcribed by Philip and William Graves and can be read online by subscribing and logging into robertgravesletters.org. I have divided the present collection chronologically into twelve groups, each, of course, marking a separation — for example, the birth of my brother Juan in December 1944, or William’s bicycle accident in August 1947, when my parents spent anxious days apart, taking turns to be by William’s hospital bedside. Other later separations were due to travel and work, such as Robert’s lectures in the USA.

Robert had met Beryl in London in 1937, a few months before she married Alan Hodge, whom she’d known when they were both at Oxford. Earlier, Alan had spent two short visits working with Robert and Laura in Deià and, upon the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, had returned to England with them and with Karl Goldschmidt on the H. M. S. Grenville. In 1938 Beryl and Alan had joined Laura, Robert, and others in Brittany, where they spent some nine months in a large country house near Montauban, known as the Château de la Chevrie, a place that is mentioned a few times in this correspondence and is undoubtedly where Beryl and Robert fell in love. From there the group would move to New Hope, Pennsylvania.

After parting with Beryl, Alan Hodge maintained a lifelong friendship with both Beryl and Robert, with whom he worked on various books. My parents would spend the next forty-six years together, until my father’s death in 1985. In 1946, they left England and made their permanent home in the house Robert had built with Laura only a decade earlier.

These letters present, above all, a script of the intimacy between Robert and Beryl, ranging from the emotional to the practical.

Group 1: 1939

(3 letters from Robert)

This first group consists of three long letters from Robert to Beryl sent from the home of his friends John and Lucie Aldridge in Great Bardfield, Essex. Robert had come back to England from America on what was supposed to be just a short visit to see his family and recover from the nervous strain of his broken relationship with Laura. The first two letters to Beryl — who had remained in New Hope with Laura and other members of her circle — speak of his concern about what was already imminent war, but also reveal a growing awareness of his feelings for Beryl and a happy state of mind.

The first, dated September 25, is written on both sides and in very small writing,

My dearest Beryl,

I do hope you are not too cold: when I get back I will see and insist that you get proper warm clothes for yourself. […]

In the train to London a thin gobbler of a man began running down Roosevelt’s neutrality speech and saying that Americans only thought about their own skins and making dollars. As nobody else was brave enough to bonnet him, I did. I said about the dollars (from right across the Pullman carriage) ‘Well we owe them enough from the last War, don’t we?’ and when he went on, I said: ‘The Americans are good people and I won't allow them to be insulted.’ So an awful silence reigned and I helped a nice rather timid girl, with Streatham parents, to do a Times crossword puzzle. I would love to see prairie dogs. They came in a favourite boy’s book of mine about Canada and bisons by G. A. Henty. But I saw swallows instead yesterday, leaning over a bridge by this village. They kept flying round and round and dipping down to catch mosquitoes off the very dark water. There were perhaps 40 of them but they went so fast they seemed 80, and then their white breasts were reflected in the water and that made 160. It is now blackberry time; and today I got on a bike and climbed up into a stubble field from a sunken road, and picked 1 ½ lbs of wild damsons from a hedge for a Lucie-pie. This is jelly time — crab, and plum, and rose-berry and damson, Lucie makes. […]

Trippet & Chick had a tug of war with a rat: Trippet vas furious. It was her rat and Chick is too sissy to catch them for himself.

In the margin Robert writes:

I am very well but I always have that tightness in the solar plexus which means that I am away from home and can’t really relax until we are together again.

Always your very dear

Robert

Along another margin:

Now that I have made it plain to Nancy that things are clearer between Laura and me than they were: I am arranging a divorce. It will make her feel better too and at the end we can be friends again as we could not when tied by a non-marriage. It is a constant embarrassment to both of us in all official forms and things.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any of Beryl’s letters from this time, even though, as Robert writes: ‘I have all your letters to me in a folder; they make almost a book.’

The third letter in this group was written in late October 1939. By now Beryl had joined Robert in England and she and Alan had agreed to separate. The tone here is less nervous, the writing more legible, more spaced out. It begins:

Very dear, very good Beryl

I was so happy this morning with your letter: and about Laura’s acceptance. Things will really untangle themselves now, at last, I feel. […] It is a sunny day and the grass was frosted white this morning. Tomorrow I shall see you: it will be the same bus as last time.

And ends:

Am so very happy about you and me and it.

Your x always x Robert

The 1940s

Group 2: 1944

(11 letters from Robert to Beryl and 7 letters back from Beryl)

‘It’ was, of course, William, and three years later I was born. We were now living in the village of Galmpton, in Devon. My brother David had been killed in Burma three months before my birth, serving in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, like his father. The letters from this period date from December 1944 when Beryl was in hospital in Brixham after giving birth to Juan, and Robert was at home in Galmpton looking after William and me.

Hers are all written in pencil — presumably because ink was not allowed in the hospital. These are particularly moving and happy letters, revealing the different levels at which they connected as a couple — not only at the wonder of the new birth and the details of domestic events but also in relation to Robert’s work — prose and poetry — and Beryl’s reactions to it, particularly to the poetry. This is something that persists throughout their correspondence.

ROBERT: [23 December 1944]

Sat

Darling Beryl,

The children are in bed and tomorrow is Christmas Eve and everything is very quiet. Just me and Tabby awake but I’ve got a nice fire going and my watch is ticking away. […] I have a poem to keep me occupied but I’ll not show it to you until I’m sure that it’s taking the right course & then not for a bit either. The first poem since Lucia’s one... I was so relieved to find you so well and I’m looking forward to seeing Juan when he’s got over the shock of coming into the light.

Always and always,

. Robert .

BERYL:

Wednesday evening

Darling, could you believe it, 3 letters from you in a day. […] Yes, I was very happy last night, but that is nothing unusual. […] I love Juan. He seems very well though I don’t know how he is doing. […] Most of the time I’m just lying and thinking about your Goodness. How I do love you. And it’s so wonderful to think it has all really happened. Juan reminds me of the winter at the Chevrie.

ROBERT:

The day after Boxing Day 1944

Darling Beryl,

The children are in bed and I’m waiting for Karl’s step at the door.[1] They are well and happy. […] Isn’t it odd how fond we can afford to be of Juan now he’s safely born? Before he was altogether un- . I hope he’ll like his poem. I am having it printed especially for him at Brixham — you are right, of course, about him and La Chevrie and it has got into the poem as it did into the poem about Sleep which was about you and which someone else pretended was about Katherine Jackson.

Written in the margins:

I never know quite how much I care for the historical books I write, compared with all the other things I do. I certainly wouldn’t write so furiously without economic compulsion. And I know how much more I am interested in poems; it’s a different thing. But of course as a sort of game it is great fun writing Mrs Miltons and Fleeeces and Jesuses and clearing up the old tangles of historical nonsense.[2] Ultimately I set no store by anything except you and the children and a very few nears and dears, and my poems as a sort of twin-of-me which is my justification, and poetry to which I try to justify myself, and that means love again, which comes back in the circle to you and Wm and Lucia and Juan. The fire is nearly out but I feel very warm.

Love

Robert

BERYL: [29 December 1944]

Friday evening

I read Juan’s poem:[3] it quite took my breath away and I hardly dare look again. […] No wonder I’ve been feeling so happy and close to you these last nights.

ROBERT: [no date]

Darling,

I was thinking of you all this evening in flashes during a conversation with Karl, a very exciting one, in which we still further cleared up the Jesus tangle — which is now the best story ever told (or not yet told). […] The children are sweet and very good. […] I’ll bring the violets today. Much love sweet, lovely Beryl.

Robert

Group 3: 1946-1949

(31 letters + 1 telegram: 8 of the letters are from Beryl, the bulk of them date from 1947.)

In August of 1947, when we’d been living in Deià for a year, William had a bicycle accident on the sharp corner just beyond Canellun [Ca n’Alluny]. He spent some time being treated in Palma and was later taken to a Barcelona hospital for further treatment. Robert and Beryl took turns being with William in Palma and in Barcelona.

BERYL: [no date]

Friday morning

Darling Robert,

Glad I stayed as Wm had a very restless night. […] Do please come this afternoon if you can. I long for you and still feel so desperate about all this. […] Hope all are well. Please bring William his soldiers*. And the inside of the Chick’s Own if you see it lying about. Wm’s been awfully good.Never loved you so much as I did last night.

Lots of love to all

Beryl

*the French ones.

BERYL: [no date]

The doctors have been in and out this morning. […] I had an extraordinary night — I was reading the Lorca last night and the poems had a most violent effect on me, I suppose I was feeling rather weak. Anyhow they quite overwhelmed me & I couldn’t sleep for hours and then woke at 4.30 and slept no more. They had the effect on me that Laura’s poems used to. I don’t think my hair stood on end actually, but it might have done. […] It is very nice here and I enjoy the solitude tremendously.

ROBERT: [from Palma, no date, 1947]

The two bright spots in this nightmare are that we love each other and that Wm will eventually be all right.

And from Barcelona a few days later:

While I’m here I’ll try to get on with my Utopia.[4] Having Wm here helps me from feeling too lost and three weeks is a measurable time.

ROBERT: [no date, back in Deià]

Darling,

How are you? I do hope better.

I bowed to such a nice moon yesterday and didn’t even have time to turn the money in my pocket before I had a letter saying I’d get 400 dollars for that Antigua broadcast. [5] Thank you pretty Moon!

A few days later:

Today I worked in the morning and in the afternoon took the children to the sea. Juan ran all the way down without falling and it was such a hot day that they went on playing in the water — me too — long after the sun had left the Cala.

The 1950s

In February 1957, Robert went on his first lecture tour of America to help finance our school bills. William was now at school in England and Juan and I were going to start school in Geneva in September. We were living in the flat my parents had rented in Palma, where Juan and I were now being home-schooled, partly by Beryl. Tomás was 4.

Group 4: 1957

(11 letters and 1 postcard: 5 letters from Robert in NY + 1 postcard, and 6 letters from Beryl)

The letters from Robert are redolent with the novelty and excitement of his trip, and the huge amount of work he put into the lecture tour. His first missive, written on the plane in blue and red pencil, is a postcard advertising the TWA Super-G Constellation:

ROBERT:

Dawn Feb 4, 1957

300 miles W of GANDER (last stop Azores was very warm) flying at 18000 ft over a sea covered with drift ice. The pilot has just circled past an immense iceberg about 200 ft high. The water around shines bright green. Gander is in Newfoundland: we stop for petrol & arrive at New York soon. Me, I’m fine. Love Robert

Robert added in the margin: ‘I spy Land at last, mostly snow.’

ROBERT:

Feb 5th

I am being kept too busy to brood, my mind is working pretty well, and last night I slept like a log. I must say New York is a very nice city if one can stand the pace and lots of people can; and I keep warm.

Robert added in the margin: ‘Alastair is absolutely splendid.[6] Lots of love from him and even more from me. Will write after first lecture. x R’. In another margin, he added: ‘— How’s Latin?’

BERYL:

February 5th

Darling Robert,

We got your letter from Madrid today. […] Tomás is very sweet, Lucia and Juan both fairly helpful, and working about average. […] No more news, lots of love and good luck, Beryl

Wednesday

Darling Robert — hope you are getting on all right; we are longing to hear from you. I’m afraid there is absolutely nothing to write about here, as everything is going on exactly as usual, lessons, meals, etc. […] — Macbeth is going down very well, Moonfleet too. […] Anyhow, miss you very much, and hope you’re enjoying yourself and not losing your voice or anything else. We are still having warm and sunny weather.

Lots and lots of love, Beryl

BERYL: [no date]

Sat

I feel like Della Street dealing with your mail,[7] though actually there hasn’t been so very much. Tomás is very well and happy though occasionally he says he is sad without you and worries rather about how the Indians will treat you.

ROBERT: [7 February 1957]

Darling,

Did the Mount Holyoke lecture last night, and when there was a students’ discussion, after, in the smaller hall, it wouldn’t contain the audience so we had to go back & fill the main hall again. […] Alastair’s back is keeping up. We are never apart for a moment, so to speak, and play a lot of games in trains and taxis.

Robert added in the margin,

My whole attention is given to the details of this tour and to bringing back the most dollars with the fewest accidents. Won’t pretend that it’s not great fun, but I’m glad I’ll be back to you so soon. I ABSOLUTELY agree with you about NO MORE WINTER except in warm houses.

All my love and lots of love to the children.

After the summer, in September 1957, and thanks in part to the dollars derived from the American lecture tour, Juan and I went to school in Geneva. Now Beryl only had Tomás to look after during term time, and more freedom to travel herself.

Group 5: 1958

(3 letters from Beryl and 1 from Robert)

Beryl’s first letter, written from her parents’ house in London, describes in five pages her complicated flight to London with Tomás, and how they had to return to Paris and then travel by train and boat to England.

BERYL:

Sat Feb 1st

Darling Robert,

I dare say you got to N. Y. before we got to London. The Iberia plane set off on time but don’t know why as they knew London airport was closed by fog […] I cursed that heavy basket of oranges which I had to lug everywhere. Tomás was wonderful and enjoyed himself and was the only non-complainer of crowds of stranded air-travellers.

Robert writes to her from Massachusetts, where he is on his second lecture tour.

ROBERT:

Feb 5 1958

Dearest darling,

All very well. […] I expect to clear that 3000 dollars, quite apart from getting new jobs etc. […] I need only seven hours sleep here but get it and sleep sound. I haven’t a moment to think of anything in a brooding or contemplative way; the rule is telephones, telegraphs, travellings, talks, tucking in, tickets, toilets, etc. I will, I hope, lose those spare kilos again. […] I shall be careful not to miss you too much until it’s time to come back.

Your darling Robert

Group 6: September 1959

(19 letters September: 7 letters from Beryl and 12 from Robert.)

In September 1959, having seen a doctor in Palma, Robert flew to London to see a specialist and was then sent to St Thomas’s Hospital for prostate surgery. He had been busy at the time on various theatrical and screen projects such as the Solomon and Sheba musical he was writing with my sister Jenny, who had come to London to see him. Beryl was in Deià, where the summer season was still in full swing with all the usual complications brought about by us teenagers and friends to stay.

ROBERT:

September 3rd 1959

Darling,

No trouble with the crossing. […] I do hope the children are a bit more thoughtful about helping in the house and garden while I’m away. Love and love and love & much love to you and I am so sorry to have left you to cope at this difficult stage of the summer.

B W L J T

x x x x x

BERYL: [no date]

Sunday

So glad all is well so far. Am writing this while waiting for the Reeves to turn up for supper which I only hope they do before the rest return from the bullfight as there will have to be two sittings! Still no light despite rain and now of course the water has run out. Damn Gelat.[8] […] Had a good swim at the Cala, though Sunday, love, love, love always,

Beryl xxx

In the margin she adds: ‘Children really quite helpful — don’t worry.’

BERYL:[no date]

Wednesday

Darling Robert,

Afraid this is a rush. [...] I hope Watt contacted you about the Searle illustrations for Doubleday. Karl sent it off express this morning as we didn’t know what to do. I like all the pictures & Karl doesn’t like any of them. […] Wm just back from Palma so must stop — lots & lots of love — I hope St Thomas takes good care of you. Which one is it?

But at St Thomas’s, what was supposed to be a straightforward operation was complicated by two dangerous haemorrhages.

ROBERT: [A note scribbled in haste on the back of an envelope]:

Thursday

Darling, there’s some extra unexplained bleeding which causes me a lot of trouble — and the doctors too! So I’m having a second visit to the theatre this afternoon. Fortunately I’m very strong and in good health so all should be well.

Love & love

x Robert

— Thinking of you —

Jenny’s very helpful.

ROBERT: [no date]

Friday

Darling, they had to open me up again to repair a leak and this has set me back two or three days but the really bad pain is slowing down […] No, I haven’t had any great thoughts since Monday, & expect to be pretty empty of any for another fortnight. Anyhow: I love you and that’s all that matters at the moment.

Robert x

Added in the margin: ‘P.S. Thank Tomás for his picture. The San Tomás here is Thomas à Becket, by the way, not Aquinas or the Doubter.’

BERYL: [no date]

Monday

Darling — so relieved to get your letter of Friday this morning & hope by now you really are feeling better. A whole mass of press-cuttings have come: Poet in Hospital, Poet’s condition, Robert Graves ‘comfortable’ (always in quotes as they guess you’re not) R.G in Hospital. No-one puts ‘Poet Comfortable’.

BERYL: [no date]

Tuesday

Darling — I will come over as soon as I can get a ticket — quite apart from wanting to be with you, you will need looking after when you get out of St Thomas’s. If I had realised what you were in for, I would have gone with you — come what may — might.

ROBERT:

September 9th I think

Darling Beryl:

A bit of a bad night last night but feeling fine today. They have stopped the blood transfusions. […] Doctors very pleased with me. […] Intellectual thoughts still a bit confused but I dwell happily on love-thoughts of you.

Your own Robert x

Beryl did go to London to look after Robert, visiting him first in hospital, where he suffered a second, more severe, haemorrhage: in a letter dated 15 May 1963, Robert will remind Beryl of how he ‘escaped death’ in September 1959.

And so, we come to the sixties, where further separations create a new flurry of correspondence.

The 1960s

Group 7: 1960-1964

(31 letters: 6 from Beryl and 25 from Robert.)

Robert writes from New York, on a flight to Brussels, on another flight from Amsterdam, also from Athens, Madrid, Boston and Paris. His letters in 1960 and 1961 are filled with accounts of meetings with friends, lectures, talks and projects. He often asks after the children and, of course, the cats and dogs. In January 1960, Robert went to the USA accompanied by Jenny. His letters show how exhausting he finds it and how he misses Beryl’s practical hand.

ROBERT:

NY Sat 16 Jan

Me, I’m fine, in spite of Jenny’s ebullient chatter. I insist on a rest whenever I feel tired & get her to do the phoning. All sorts of letters & messages from all our friends here which I’m trying to sort out, but feel sort of paralysed like one gets in a shop when one can’t make up one’s mind to buy anything. But I’ll sort it all out soon; and not take on anything I think you’d advise against (You’re here with me in a very real sense).

And on 22 January:

Darling,

I’m very well but you can’t imagine the amount of talk, telephones, meals, taxis, people, my God! Anyhow, I get in a rest every afternoon and have had 2 letters from you so far and last night I got my medal,[9] and had a marvellous time with Frost the night before.[10]

But in 1961 the dominant note becomes that of his relationship with Margot Callas, which is always on his mind and which he discusses openly with Beryl.

ROBERT: [15 May, aboard a plane to Brussels, on his way to NY]

It’s good in a way to be by myself suspended in nowhere and feeling well-treated and well-loved, and to be able to write and tell you that no other woman in the world (that I know of) would have been so splendid these last months (But I have known that since 1938-9).

And in an undated letter from NY, he writes: ‘Everyone here treats me as though I had just stepped down from Heaven — wish you were here to dispel that illusion. I’m glad I came; have learned a lot about things in general, including myself.’

In the summer of 1961, I went with Robert to Athens to attend the premiere of Peggy Glanville-Hicks’s opera Nausicaa based on Homer’s Daughter.[11] Robert wrote two letters to Beryl from there.

ROBERT: [no date]

I don’t know why I was so touched at your packing my things so nicely: I suppose because I don’t believe in wifely duty as such. […] Love to Juan specially — and Tomás. Keep the compost flag flying. I have decided to enjoy this holiday. It is a novelty to be with Lucia & especially when she is no longer a schoolgirl.

ROBERT: [August]

18th

Went to a dress rehearsal of Nausicaa. Astonishing to think that Homer’s Daughter started all this — & opera isn’t what opera used to be, lots of ballet & acting and fun! Music wonderful. […] The glory that was Greece has gone but something far better has taken its place — I feel absolutely at home except for the fact that though I can read every notice and newspaper I can’t understand a single spoken word.

In September 1961, Beryl went to London ahead of Robert via Geneva in the Land Rover, where she was to leave it and exchange it for a new car, after which Robert was to join her in London, ready to start his lectures at Oxford as Professor of Poetry. Beryl’s four-page letter from Geneva is all about the money situation she encountered when she got there, and the Land Rover’s breakdown during the trip. (‘I’m awfully sorry about the L. R. and hope it won’t make too much difference to the price […] The new car looks fine. Lots of love as always, take care and don’t worry — xxx Beryl’.)

To which Robert, replies on 26 September: ‘Darling, So glad you got the car. Don’t mind the loss of the Land Rover. It’s only money’. Concerning the lack of funds in the Geneva bank, he adds, ‘anyhow we have plenty of investments in their charge still & lots of new money coming in.’

He then turns to the question of Margot: ‘If I have talked too much about Margot in my last letters, forgive me. […] No messes, or tangles, or unresolved emotions. […] And love you all the more for your marvellous patience and understanding.’

On 25 April 1963 Robert again flew to NY for lectures and talks. He writes from New York:

ROBERT: [10 May]

Darling:

Crazier and crazier. Anyhow, I gave my poetry reading in N.Y. […] Tomorrow I go to Washington. On Monday I talk to an electronic computer and also have a talk with Gina Lollobrigida (which will be recorded). On Tuesday my M.I.T lecture, on Wednesday my Hebrew lecture. Thursday home. IB 472 May 17 from Madrid. Christ! I am in a euphoric state and have stopped that loss of weight. Home comma sweet home note of exclamation. […] I have written two beautiful poems about Sleep, and Fire.

A few days later, Robert mentions a visit to New Hope and the memories it stirred in him at the time.

ROBERT: [14 May 1963, from Boston]

When I come back I want never to let things slip back again into a rut of mere companionship. I had a horrible time at New Hope on Saturday & was reminded of how you once rescued me from Hell there… Darling: I want things to be with us again as they were at 108 in 1959 when I escaped from death.[12] […] You are the most constant element of all: though you say so little, you know everything and are wholly loving to me. ¡Darling Beryl! Love to everyone, including the six open eyed kittens.

On 5 February 1964, when Robert and Beryl were both in Deià, my sister Jenny died suddenly in England. There are two letters to Beryl from Robert that year, one in late February from New York notes, ‘Have done 2 broadcasts and 2 lectures, all a great success’.

The other, in October, from Paris, where he was staying with friends, mentions hoping to see Aemile,[13] who was now his Muse.[14] Beryl was in London ahead of him, visiting family and friends before their annual stay in Oxford for his yearly lectures. In the margin, Robert writes:

You know how much I love and admire you. Those feelings are now intensified, although there has been an obvious change in the way that they can be channelled to make them real and keep us from hurting or disappointing each other.

x Robert

Group 8: 1965

(24 letters: 5 letters and 3 postcards from Beryl, 16 letters from Robert.)

Robert writes from London, New York, and finally from Mexico, where he’d gone to spend time with Aemile. Beryl’s postcards are from Russia, where she went with her friend Ruth Fainlight.[15]

BERYL: [17 February 1965, from Deià to Robert in NY.]

Glad to hear that you are relaxed and taking things easily and hope you keep it up — apart from posting letters, since yours of the 12th was not posted until the 14th. […] William is still here but expecting to go to Madrid any day — I shall miss him very much. […] So relieved from your letter that you seem to be happy at last — do write again soon.

Lots and lots of love, Beryl.

On 19 February Beryl writes: ‘I hope you are feeling all right and the lectures aren’t proving too much of a strain. […] My love, Beryl, PS Just received your telegram.’

Every letter from Robert mentions Aemile and tries to reassure Beryl, despite the seriousness of the situation:

ROBERT [February 1965]:

Darling,

Thank you for a lovely letter. It is difficult to write any hard news. I am well. […] I give my first lecture tomorrow to a girl’s college. […] I do prize you above everyone: what a lovely letter it was.

And later that month, in another undated letter, he writes:

It’s too early to think of plans — my last engagement is March 1st — you will forgive me, I know, if I do what I have always wated to do — visit Mexico — Aemile guarantees my health there for a week or two, & I want to get out of this city and walk on real stones.

Dear love to you, Robert.

But Robert’s letters were not always reaching Beryl. He was often forgetting to post them, as she already mentioned on 15 February. On 10 March, Beryl asks:

Darling — what has happened??? Are you all right?? The last news I had from you was dated two weeks ago — Feb 25th. Can’t you imagine how worried I am? […] Not a word from anyone. […] Lots of love. I do hope you are all right, as I can’t believe you wouldn’t write if you were well. Or perhaps if you looked in your pockets?

Beryl.

Robert had written from NY, on 2 March: ‘Aemile has turned all sorts of corners of late and … well, I don’t want to prophesy… but you have been marvellous and she knows it as well as I do...’.[16]

On a small piece of paper included with another letter, he writes:

How awful — letter unposted — found it under my bed. No wonder they didn’t arrive [….] Apart from those two jobs and meeting a lot of people most of whom you would have liked, and writing some new poems, I have been storing up rather than doing. It is a very strange period in my life, both restrained and expansive: but I remain recognisably myself.

Will write from Mexico.

He posts another undated letter in March, now from Mexico:

Darling, there’s not much news except that I’m very well and happy and relaxed, and thinking hard, though not much reaches paper. […] There are no shells here on the beach but little dead sea-serpents with striped tail-fins; and rough stones, not pebbles. Don’t worry about anything. I don’t now, so long as I know you’re all right, and the children. […] Here pineapples cost about 5 pesetas — enormous ones too. Dearest Beryl — I love you and always will.

Beryl’s sense of humour often masks considerable frustration, even anger. But pure irony is not her style. On 18 March she writes:

Darling — I was so glad to hear from you again before you left New York […] Also we have just received your telegram and we are so relieved to hear that Mexico is wonderful and hope it may continue so. I’m sure that if you hadn’t gone now you never would and I know you always wanted to. Don’t turn too many corners — in every letter you and Emile seem to be turning corners.

Group 9: 1966

(8 letters: 7 from Robert, 1 from Beryl)

In October Robert was at St Thomas’s again (this time to have his gallbladder removed). Omar Shah is mentioned often: Robert is about to work on the translation of the Rubaiyat. He gives Beryl news of all their mutual friends and in a letter written just before going to St Thomas’s he seeks to reassure Beryl, as he often does, that he is still close to her.

ROBERT:

Sep 26 1966

Darling,

Will cable as soon as I know definitely about the operation. […] Am very much at peace with the world at present: mainly because of your few words of encouragement before I went. It’s the …. (here Robert as usual walks away without finishing his sentence.) But mean: the love between you and me can’t be killed and shouldn’t be buried. And yet I can’t rest until I have worked out the implications of the other: at all costs except to your health and general well-being. I don’t care much about any other element.

Much love

— Robert —

In a letter written while in hospital, Robert writes, ‘I talked to Aemile in N.Y from Sally’s by phone. She was so stunned by the sound of my voice that she didn’t know what to answer.’ Robert’s relationship with Aemile would end soon afterwards and the five letters, written from NY in November, where he was on another lecture tour, are all very light-hearted.

ROBERT:

Nov 20, 1966

Anyhow: tomorrow I face Houston and the Press, and then off to Chicago with its gangsters, & then only a short stay in Minnesota & back to NY. […] Have lost one fountain pen, otherwise complete.

Much love to all and to you

Robert

x

Group 10 February 1967

(7 letters from Robert)

At this time Beryl was staying with me in Madrid after the birth of my daughter Natalia. Robert keeps Beryl well informed of all that is going on back home, with news of people in Deià, his small grandson Philip, the garden and the cats. William is also away.

ROBERT:

Feb 6 1967

Darling,

No news really [.…] Elena has been sleeping here with Philip,[17] who can almost pull out the kitchen drawer. […] Sheep woke me in the garden this morning eating broccoli at 7.30. They had got through a new hole in the fence. I drove them out over the Can Torrent wall into the road so that the AMO will take heed and mend his fences.[18] No harm done to the broccoli. […] Lots of love to Lucia and lots more to Natalia and a whole heap to you.

x Robert x

In another letter he signs off: ‘I love Deyá in the Dead Season. You seem to have been away a long time. Lots of love from Robert’

Group 11 Autumn 1967-1969

(31 letters, of which 5 are from Beryl.)

These letters cover the years when Robert travelled to Australia and Mexico (1968). He also writes from Oslo, where he went to see Juli Simon dance, and to give a lecture. When in London he often stayed with the Simons (their friendship went back to the 1940s),[19] and gives news of the family. ‘The Simons are angels; Juli dances about 8 hours a day’; ‘Heli has gone back to Cambridge.’ As always, he tells Beryl of his work — interviews, readings, lectures — and frequently mentions Juli. He seems less anxious, happier. His main concern now seems to be Juan, who was suffering from depression at this time.

On his flight to Australia from the USA he writes: ‘This is the beginning of a 17-hour flight across the Pacific […] haven’t lost anything so far. […] Plane full of crying babies. Thank God I’m not responsible.’

In October Robert flew to Mexico, where he had been invited to take part in the cultural programme for the 1968 Olympics and would be given a gold medal for his poem ‘Antorcha y Corona’. As yet unaware that he would be the only poet who would attend,[20] he writes:

Oct 3rd 1968

Awful muddle here. But the shooting is in the outskirts and everything calm in Olympic Village where I go tomorrow. […] Have no work yet, only invitations. Neruda coming soon, so is Yevtushenko, but most poets have got ill & not arrived. When these two come I’ll try to make them join me in a request to the President to proclaim an Armistice — the students seem in the right as usual.

Lots of love, darling

love to everyone

x Robert x

Shortly after Christmas, Beryl travelled with Tomás and Margot (Beryl remained good friends with her) to Moscow, from where she wrote enthusiastically, full of news of people she’d met. This is the last letter from Beryl in the collection — it is dated 1 January 1969.

Darling,

Well, Happy New Year. We are all at Boris’s flat where we spent the night, or what was left of it.[21] Tomás was playing the guitar until 5 a.m. and has just got up to go out skiing with Boris’s small boys. Apart from the people you know there came last night a man called Andre Bertels (his wife also, who is a regular Tartar in fact) and he is the chief Persian scholar here — an official Sufi. He has translated your introduction to Omar Khayyam and published it in a new magazine. […] Later, well, it is now snowing hard and we have been for a walk in the forest. […] The forest is wonderful, all grey and white. They get a lot of mushrooms here in the autumn.

Lots of love to all, Beryl.

The 1970S

Group 12: 1970s

(The last 9 letters.)

Robert is still very active. He writes from London and from Venice, where he went with Joana Simon to see Juli dance:

March 9th 1970

Darling:

Venice is still lovely and there are no tourists around […] Got here with the usual flaps but no actual losses. Julie very pleased with the Romanoff coin. As she is on rehearsal most days, or else performing, even Sundays, I have a good opportunity for working in my small, cheap, chilly hotel bedroom […] There are a couple of gondolas that ferry across the canals, despite the wash of speed boats. Lots of love to everyone

x Robert x

He also writes from Budapest, where he’d gone with my sister Catherine; and from London again in April 1973, where he explains:

Darling Beryl:

All’s well, very well. I have written a passionate plea for permanently closing [the Albert Bridge] to traffic, in honour of Noble and Far-Sighted Prince Albert. A large squad of important people are supporting this. […] Memory as poor as ever but health splendid.

Lots of love — to you & everyone —

Robert

x x x

On March 19, 1975, when words were beginning to fail him — or were they? We were all aware of his progressive memory loss — Robert wrote his last letter to Beryl. It did not need posting.

The writing is sharp, and perfectly set out on the page to read more like a poem than a letter. On a first reading I was inclined to assume that his thinking was a little muddled, his grammar not perfect. Then I understood that his choice of the word ‘meet’ for ‘meeting’, lends it a distinctive resonance, with the added adjectival suggestion of the homophone ‘mete’, as ‘suitable’ or ‘fit-for-purpose’. For it was not just a ‘meeting’, it was ‘mete.’ The next sentence ‘Everyone who knows the true love of my last word’ hangs in the air, like his well-known ‘careless comma’[22] — but could ‘the last word’ be purposefully inconclusive? Could he not be interrupting himself, in a rush to make this most important announcement, which follows: ‘May my love for always remain remain.’ And the added words, the P.S. ‘who will never be otherwise’ are a reminder of the countless marginal notes and scribbles in his letters to Beryl, always holding the most profound context, the most emotional words of all. And then the date. A reminder that he is very much aware of when he is writing.

Or perhaps Robert is here simply pledging his love to Beryl again, in response to those half-words from 1944:

She tells her love while half asleep,

In the dark hours,

With half-words whispered low:

As Earth stirs in her winter sleep

And puts out grass and flowers

Despite the snow,

Despite the falling snow.

*************

I wish to thank the staff at the St John’s College library for photographing and numbering each item and sending me the complete collection. Many thanks also to Michael Joseph for his valued editorial help.

Lucia Graves is a translator and author. Among her translations into Spanish are works by Robert Graves, Anaïs Nin and Katherine Mansfield. Her translations into English include the complete works of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. She is the author of A Woman Unknown, a personal account of her years in Spain, and a novel, The Memory House, on the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. She lives in London.