MARIANNE MOORE
601
last we arrived at the Studio on Madison Ave. Alfred said "I'm afraid Adolf
lives in a palace." We then moved a house or two further on. "This is
almost as bad" he said "but this is the place." We went up four flights of a
spic and span apartment and "Adolf" appeared in a blouse I think but I
can't be sure, leaning over the banisters. He greeted me when introduced
very limply, in a harmless casual way and said we could not come into the
apartment proper as the floor was not dry enough to walk on. It has just
been stained I think but it was a gorgeous place in point of situation and
atmosphere, (it was a front room). There was nothing in it, but 2 pictures
on the wall, a modern oil in rather deep colors of a German street and a
small thing I didn't notice. We were shown into the studio on the oppo–
site side of the passage, also front.
It
was full of plaster statues the best
things I have seen for a long time and the only things of their kind, done
all, in right angles-they are full of drollery and wit however and some
were very powerful. One I liked particularly of a mother holding two chil–
dren-the first child sitting on the mother's lap with his feet straight out
in front of him and the second child sitting on the first, in the same posi–
tion.
(MM
sketches the statue.] He also had a cat that I liked. Mr. Wolff
himself is stout, moderately genial, naive, and dry with black hair and
beard. Alfred said, "Adolf your poems have made a hit with the highbrows,
they're all quoting you."
"Is
it posseebal?" Mr. Wolff said unconcernedly
but genially. Mterwhile we left and he said, "Miss Moore: Come and see
me."
The Kreymborgs live at 29 Bank Street, Greenwich Village. You take
the Madison Ave. car to 14th St.-that is Madison Ave. runs into 14th,
change at 14th and go along 14th to 8th Avenue. Then get out and walk:
turn to the left and then to the right in a sort of zig zag (anyone there
knows where Bank Street is). Alfred pointed out the old fashioned hous–
es and it took about 2 minutes to get to his own. He opened the door and
said, "I've brought Miss Moore." Whereupon "Mrs. Kreymborg"
advanced with the most glowing expression and said ''I'm so glad, give me
your coat. Alfred you help Miss Moore to take her things off. Put them
here. Supper's almost ready. I am so sorry Mrs. Kreymborg isn't here but
she'll be back any moment." We smiled and Alfred led me round the room
slowly showing me things. The room is large, the walls are pale yellow and
nothing is "extravagant." A small kitchenette opens from the room with
folding doors which they keep open as the kitchen is an enlarged cupboard
the width of the room. In one corner of the living room next to the far
end of the kitchen is a round fumed oak table on which we ate and fram–
ing the corner is a book case full of the things we have, the Brownings in
lamb skin and Tennyson and Shelley and against the other side of the
kitchen partition is another book case with some larger sets, Turgenev,
