Easter Monday. April 22

Up at 10.45; to sea with Solomon. Water still coldish. About 15 people from Costa d'Or bathing, mostly French speaking. Suleiman1 has worms.
Swallow-tail butterflies.
Currant-bush flowering in grotto.
Song on road: ×××× [crossed out]
Se ha puesto torero
Porque no tiene miedo
2
In Goring's Germany Reborn3: Hitler compares himself to King Arthur.
First clove pinks.
Tea with Schw. [Schwarz] & Strenge. Emmerich there ungezogen4.
Then to Fábrica: champagne & empanadas [sic: panades] 5. Gelat told story of tricks to get goods into Palma 30 years ago when it was a walled city and all country merchandize was taxed. Man dressed up a dead pig in a cura's cassock & ×××× [crossed out] set it upright in his carriage. "What have you there?" "A sleeping pig". The excise [sic: exize] man let him through.
A lamb smuggled in under the skirts of a pregnant woman. "What have you to declare?" "Something that's just going to bleat."
Story of men who rather than[RG] swore they'd enter Palma with wine & sobresada6 & not pay. Sat down outside the gate & ate & drank it all.
Wrote to Harrison Smith suggesting letter has gone astray: re-suggesting terms for film book.

Editorial Notes

1Salamon/Salamó,RG's bull-dog. KG
2 "He has become a bullfighter / Because he is not afraid." WG
3 Germany Reborn by Hermann Göring. London: E. Mathews & Marrot, 1934. eds
4ill-bred. KG
5meat pies in sweet pastry. KG
6red sausage. WG

Hands Referenced

    • Annotation: ink correction
    • Character: regular
    • Ink: black

Places Mentioned

  • Palma

    Palma, Majorca, Sp
    Capital and largest centre of Majorca.

  • Hotel Costa d'Or

    Llucalcari, Majorca, Sp
    In Llucalcari. Went there for drinks and occasionally meals. It was the best hotel, the Fonda being rather basic. The Turismo was closed. WG

People Mentioned

  • Swartz

    Schwarz, Georg
    German Jew. Deyá neighbour. Antique dealer. Lived with Frau Emmy Strenge, his house keeper, in Can Caballo some hundred yards from Canellun. RG and LR translated his "Almost Forgotten Germany." WG

  • Strenge

    Strenge, Frau Emmi
    Schwarz's house keeper and ? mistress. WG

  • Gelat

    Más, Juan Marroig
    Juan Marroig Mas, called Gelat: Landowner on Deyá and friend of Robert Graves and Laura Riding (L.R. & R.G.'s factotum. W.G.)

  • Hitler

    Hitler, Adolf
    (1889-1945)

  • Frau Emmerich; "Jämmerlich"

    Emmerich, Frau
    German painter, from Magdeburg, resident in Deyá. Invariably referred to with the prefix "Frau". K.G./ WG

Organizations Mentioned

  • Harrison Smith and Robert Haas

    R.G.'s American publisher for I, Claudius and Claudius the God. eds.

  • Fabrica

    Gelat's household including: his wife, the Madora, his daughter Magdalena, son Juan and daughter-in-law Anita. Other relations often present were Francisquito, his grandson, and Francesquita, Anita's little sister R.G., eds.