OUR FRIEND JUDITH
465
For instance, more than once a new emerging wave of
"modem" young poets have discovered her as the only
"modem" poet among their despised and well-credited elders.
This
is because, since she began writing at fifteen, her poems
have been full of scientific, mechanical and chemical imagery.
This is how she thinks, or feels.
More than once has a young poet hastened to her flat, to
claim her as an ally, only to find her totally and by instinct
unmoved by words like modem, new, contemporary. He has
been outraged and wounded by her principle, so deeply rooted
as to
be
unconscious, and to need no expression but a con–
temptuous shrug of the shoulders, that publicity seeking or to
want critical attention is despicable. It goes without saying
that there is perhaps one critic in the world she has any time
for. He has sculked off, leaving her on her shelf, which she
takes it for granted is her proper place, to be read by an
appreciative minority.
Meanwhile she gives her lectures, walks alone through
London, writes her poems, and is seen sometimes at a concert
or a play with a middle-aged professor of Greek who has a
wife and two children.
Betty and I had speculated about this Professor, with such
remarks as: Surely she must sometimes be lonely? Hasn't she
ever wanted to marry? What about that awful moment when
one comes in from somewhere at night to an empty flat?
It happened recently that Betty's husband was on a
business trip, her children visiting, and she was unable to stand
the empty house. She asked Judith for a refuge until her own
home filled again.
Mterwards Betty rang me up to report:
"Four of the five nights Professor Adams came in about
ten or so."
"Was Judith embarrassed?"
"Would you expect her to be?"
