My feeling about Ernestine is shameful. But there it is. Her tread, her look, the way her nose is screwed round, her intense stupidity, her wrists — revolt me. This is bad. For she feels it, I am sure she does. When we speak together she blushes in a way that doesn't seem to me natural. I feel that her selfrespect is shamed by my thoughts.

Lumbago. This is a very queer thing. So sudden, so painful. I must remember it when I write about an old man. The start to get up — the pause — the look of fury — and how, lying at night, one seems to get locked. To move is an agony; till finally one discovers a movement which is possible. But that helpless feeling about with the legs first!


Paris? To remember the sound of wind — the peculiar wretchedness one can feel while the wind blows. Then the warm soft wind of spring searching out the heart. The wind I call the Ancient of Days which blows here at night. The wind that shakes the garden at night when one runs out into it. Dust. Turning one's back on a high, heavy wind. Walking along the Esplanade when the wind carries the sea over. The wind of summer, so playful, that rocked and swung in the trees here. And wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don't ever understand. I always see a field, a young horse — and there is a very fair Danish girl telling me something about her stepfather. The girl's name is Elsa Bagge.

"Grandma"

Wellington


Wrote and finished Taking the Veil. It took me about 3 hours to write finally. But I had been thinking over the decor and so on for weeks — nay, months, I believe. I can't say how thankful I am to have been born in N.Z., to know Wellington as I do, and to have it to range about in. Writing about the convent seemed so natural. I suppose I have not been in the grounds more than twice. But it is one of the places that remains as vivid as ever. I must not forget the name of Miss Sparrow, nor the name Palmer.


Played cribbage with J. I delight in seeing him win. When we play he sometimes makes faces at me — the same kind of faces that Chummie used to make. I think I am never so fond of him as when he does this.

We were talking of the personality of the cat to-day and saying that we ought to write it down. It is true he has become as real as if he could talk. I feel he does talk, and that when he is silent it is only a case of making his nettle shirt and he will begin. Perhaps the most engaging glimpse of him is playing his fiddle with wool for strings or sitting up to the piano and playing Nelly Bly. But his love Isbel, his whole complete little life side by side with ours, ought to be told. I shall never tell it, though.


Pinker writes to say The Nation has taken " The Doll's House."

1 See entry of October 18, 1920.

I am sure that meditation is the cure for the sickness of my mind, i.e. its lack of control. I have a terribly sensitive mind which receives every impression, and that is the reason why I am so carried away and borne under.


M. came, wearing her woolly lamb. A strange fate overtakes me with her. We seem to be always talking of physical subjects. They bore and disgust me, for I feel it is waste of time, and yet we always revert to them. She lay back on the pillows, talking. She had an absent air. She was saying how fine women were . . . and it was on the tip of my tongue to be indiscreet. But I was not. Thank Heaven !

I have been in pain, in bad pain all day. I ache all over. I can hardly stand. It seems impossible that I am going away on Monday.


These preparations for flight are almost incredible. The only way to keep calm is to play crib. J. and I sit opposite each other. I feel we are awfully united. And we play and laugh and it seems to keep us together. While the game lasts, we are there. A queer feeling. . . .


H. came. He says my right lung is practically all right. Can one believe such words? The other is a great deal better. He thinks my heart will

A Perfect Day

give me far less trouble at a lower level. Can this be true? He was so hopeful to-day that T.B. seemed no longer a scourge. It seemed that one recovered more often than not. Is this fantastic?

Tidied all my papers. Tore up and ruthlessly destroyed much. This is always a great satisfaction. Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. This is what life has taught me.

In the evening I wrote to O. about his book. It has taken me a week to write the letter. J. and I seem to have played cribbage off and on all day. I feel there is much love between us. Tender love. Let it not change.


There was a tremendous fall of snow on Sunday. Monday was the first real perfect day of winter. It seemed that the happiness of J. and of me reached its zenith on that day. We could not have been happier; that was the feeling. Sitting one moment on the balcony of the bed-room, for instance, or driving in the sleigh through masses of heaped-up snow. He looked so beautiful, too — hatless, strolling about with his hands in his pockets. He weighed himself. 10 stone. There was a harmonium in the waiting-room. Then I went away, after a quick but not hurried kiss. . . .

It was very beautiful on the way to Sierre. Then I kept wondering if I was seeing it all for the last time — the snowy bushes, the leafless trees. "I miss the buns."


Travelling is terrible. All is so sordid, and the train shatters one. Tunnels are hell. I am frightened of travelling.

We arrived in Paris late, but it was very beautiful — all emerging from water. In the night I looked out and saw the men with lanterns. The hotel all sordid again, — fruit peelings, wastepaper, boots, grime, ill-temper. In the evening I saw Manoukhin. But on the way there, nay, even before, I realized my heart was not in it. I feel divided in myself and angry and without virtue. Then L.M. and I had one of our famous quarrels, and I went to the wrong house. Don't forget, as I rang the bell, the scampering and laughter inside. M. had a lame girl there as interpreter. He said through her he could cure me completely. But I did not believe it. It all seemed suddenly unimportant and ugly. But the flat was nice — the red curtains, marble clock, and picture of ladies with powdered hair.


At 5.30 I went to the clinic and saw the other man, D. I asked him to explain the treatment and so on. He did so. But first: as I approached the door it opened and the hall, very light, showed, with the maid smiling, wearing a little shawl, holding back the door. Through the hall a man slipped quickly carrying what I thought was a cross of green leaves. Suddenly the arms of the little cross waved feebly, and I saw it was a small child strapped to a wooden tray. While I waited, voices came from another room — very loud voices, M.'s over and above them: Da! Da!

The Clinic

and then an interrogatory: Da? I have the feeling that M. is a really good man. I have also a sneaking feeling (I use that word 'sneaking' advisedly) that he is a kind of unscrupulous impostor. Another proof of my divided nature. All is disunited. Half boos, half cheers. Yes, that's it. To do anything, to be anything, one must gather oneself together and *one's faith make stronger.' Nothing of any worth can come from a disunited being. It's only by accident that I write anything worth a rush, and then it's only skimming the top — no more. But remember The Daughters [of the Late Colonel] was written at Mentone in November when I was not so bad as usual. I was trying with all my soul to be good. Here I try and fail, and the fact of consciousness makes each separate failure very important — each a sin. If, combined with M.'s treatment, I treated myself — worked out of this slough of despond — lived an honourable life — and, above all, made straight my relations with L.M. ... I am a sham. I am also an egoist of the deepest dye — such a one that it was very difficult to confess to it in case this book should be found. Even my being well is a kind of occasion for vanity. There is nothing worse for the soul than egoism. Therefore...


I went to M. for a treatment. A curious impression remains. M.'s beautiful gesture coming into the room was perfect. But D. shouted so, pushed his face into mine, asked me indecent questions. Ah, that's the horror of being ill. One must submit to having one's secrets held up to the light, and regarded with a cold stare. D. is a proper Frenchman. "Etes-vous constipee? " Shall I ever forget that, and the wadding of his tie showing over his white coat? M. sits apart, smoking, and his head — which is a curious shape: one is conscious of it all the time as of an instrument — hangs forward. But he is deeply different. He desires to reassure. " Pas de cavernes."

Had palpitation from the moment of getting on to the table till 5 o'clock. But when I felt this coming on while rays were working, I felt simply horribly callous. I thought : Well, if this kills me — let it ! Voila ! That shows how bad I am.


Massingham accepts the idea of a regular
story. Heard from K about *people.' It was rather
a horrible day. I was ill, and at night I had one of my terrible fits of temper over a parcel. Is it possible one can be so unruly?

Heard from J. saying he will stay in Montana. There breathes in his letter the relief from strain. It is remarkable. He does not believe a word about M. and talks of coming to *fetch ' me in May. Well, if I am any better, there will never be any more fetching. Of that I am determined. The letter kept me awake until very late. And my sciatica ! Put it on record, in case it ever goes, what a pain it is. Remember to give it to someone in a story one day. L.M. is a very tragic figure. Remember her eyes — the pupils dark — black
— and her whiteness. Even her hair seems to grow

Letters

pale. She folded the quilt and held it in her arms as though it was a baby.


Wrote at my story, read Shakespeare. Read Goethe, thought, prayed.

The day was cold and fine. But I felt ill and could do nothing but lie still all day. This going to Paris has been so much more important than it seemed. Now I begin to see it as the result, the ending of all that reading. I mean that even Cosmic Anatomy is involved. Something has been built, a raft, frail and not very seaworthy; but it will serve. Before, I was cast into the water when I was ' alone ' — I mean during my illness — and now something supports me. But much is to be done. Much discipline and meditation is needed. Above all, it is important to get work done. Heard from Pinker that Cassells have taken " A Cup of Tea."

Thought about French women and their impudent confidence in the power of sex.


Letters from B. and J. B's letter was the most beautiful I have ever received. It gave me a strange shock to find J. never even asked how things were going. A boyish letter like so many I have had, but absolutely impersonal. It might have been written to anyone. True, he was anxious for the post. But . . . that was because he is alone. Do I make J. up? Is he thankful to sink into himself again? I feel relief in every line. There's no strain — nothing that binds him. Then let it continue so. But I will not take a house anywhere. I, too, will be free. (I write exactly as I feel.) I do not want to see J. again just now. I shall beg him not to come here. He is at present just like a fish that has escaped from the hook.

A bad day. I feel ill, in an obscure way — horrible pains and so on, and weakness. I could do nothing. The weakness was not only physical. I must heal my Self before I will be well.

Yes, that is the important thing. No attention is needed here. This must be done alone and at once. It is at the root of my not getting better. My mind is not controlled. I idle, I give way, I sink into despair.


A miserable day. In the night I thought for hours of the evils of uprooting. Every time one leaves anywhere, something precious, which ought not to be killed, is left to die.


I did not go to the clinique because of my chill. Spent the day in bed, reading the papers. The feeling that someone was coming towards me is too strong for me to work. It was like sitting on a bench at the end of a long avenue in a park and seeing someone far in the distance coming your way. She tries to read. The book is in her hand, but it's all nonsense, and might as well be upside down. She reads the advertisements as though they were part of the articles.

I must not forget the long talk L.M. and I had the other evening about hate. What is hate? Who has ever described it? Why do I feel it for her? She says: "It is because I am nothing, I have suppressed all my desires to such an extent that now I have none. I don't think. I don't feel." I reply: "If you were cherished and loved for a week, you would recover." And that is true, and I would like to do it. It seems I ought to do it. But I don't. The marvel is that she understands. No one else on earth could understand.

All that week she had her little corner. "I may come into my little corner to-night?" she asks timidly, and I reply — so cold, so cynical — "If you want to." But what would I do if she didn't come?


J. arrived early in the morning. In half an hour it seemed he had been here a long time. I still regret his coming here for his sake. I know it is right for our sake. We went together to the clinique. Bare leafless trees. A wonderful glow in the sky: the windows flashed fire. M drew a picture of my heart. I wish he had not. I am haunted by the hideous picture, by the thought of my heart like a heavy drop in my breast. But he is good.


We put the chess-men on the board and began to play. It was an unsettled day. L.M. in and out with no home, — no place — whirled like a leaf along this dark passage and then out into the raw street.

J. read the Tchehov aloud. I had read one of the stories myself and it seemed to me nothing. But read aloud, it was a masterpiece. How was that?

I want to remember the evening before. I was asleep. He came in — thrust his head in at the door and as I woke, I did not know him. I saw a face which reminded me of his mother and Richard. But I felt a kind of immediate dread confusion. I knew I ought to know it and that it belonged to him, yet he was as it were not present. I think this is what people who are going out of their minds must feel about the faces that bend over them and old, old people about the children. And that accounts for the foolish offended look in their faces sometimes. They feel it's not right they should not know.


Felt ill all day. Feeling of violent confusion in my body and head. I feel more ill now than ever, so it seems.

J. went out and bought a tea-pot and so on; arranged a game of chess and we started playing. But the pains in my back and so on make my prison almost unendurable. I manage to get up, to dress, to make a show of getting to the restaurant and back without being discovered. But that is literally all. The rest is rather like being a beetle shut in a book, so shackled that one can do nothing but lie down. And even to lie down becomes a kind of agony. The worst of it is I have again lost hope. I don't, I can't believe this will change. I have got off the ship again and am swept here and there by the sea.

Discouragement


Another hellish day. But J. found some pastilles which help my throat, and it seemed to me they had a calming effect on my heart.

I had one of my perfect dreams. I was at sea, sailing with my parasol opened to just a 'freshet' of wind. Heavenly the sea, the sky, the land — parasol pink — boat pale pink.

If I could only get over my discouragement! But who is going to help with that! Now that L.M. is going I have more to do — all my clothes and so on to put away and pull out, as well as a bowl or two to wash. The effort uses what remains of my strength. By 5 o'clock I am finished and must go to bed again.

It is a very dull day. The canaries sing. I have been reading Bunin's stories. He is not a sympathetic soul, but it is good to read him ... he carries one away.


Went to the clinique. I felt that all was wrong there. M. was distrait and a little angry. D. as usual sailed over everything. But that means nothing. It seemed to me there had been some trouble or some trouble was brewing.

The servant there is a very beautiful plump woman with a ravishing smile. Her eyes are grey. She curls her hair in a small fringe and she wears a little grey shawl, an apron, and a pair of rather high boots; stepping lightly, with one small plump hand holding the shawl, she opens the door.

February

The Major and the Lady

The Mother. The Fly.

An Unhappy Man. Lucien.

Down the Sounds. A Visit. Sisters.

The New Baby. Confidences. The Dreamers. Aunt Fan. Honesty. Best Girl.

A Cup of Tea
Taking the Veil
The Doll's House


Paris. I must begin writing for Clement Shorter to-day 12 " spasms " of 2,000 words each. I thought of the Burnells, but no, I don't think so. Much better, the Sheridans, the three girls and the brother and the Father and Mother and so on, ending

A New Story

with a long description of Meg's wedding to Keith Fenwick. Well, there's the first flown out of the nest. The sisters Bead, who come to stay. The white sheet on the floor when the wedding dress is tried on. Yes, I've got the details all right. But the point is — Where shall I begin? One certainly wants to dash.

Meg was playing. I don't think I ought to begin with that. It seems to me the mother's coming home ought to be the first chapter. The other can come later. And in that playing chapter what I want to stress chiefly is : Which is the real life — that or this ? — late afternoon, these thoughts — the garden — the beauty — how all things pass — and how the end seems to come so soon.

And then again there is the darling bird — I've always loved birds — Where is the little chap? . . .

What is it that stirs one so ? What is this seeking — so joyful — ah, so gentle! And there seems to be a moment when all is to be discovered. Yes, that's the feeling. . . .


The queer thing is I only remember how much I have forgotten when I hear that piano. The garden of the Casino, the blue pansies. But oh, how am I going to write this story?

"The late afternoon was beautiful in Port Willin. There was a moment when the whole small town seemed to quiver in those last bright rays. Gold shone the harbour, the windows of the big hospital on Clifton Hill flashed fiery. Only the pigeons flying so high above Post Office Square and the plumes of smoke rising from the evening fires were silver."


Just a line to say — J. and I both have so much work to do this summer that we have decided when we leave here (end of this month) to go to the Hotel d'Angleterre, Randogne. Does that make you open your eyes? But in the summer, June and July, that place was so lovely and I know it. It would only take a day to settle and a look at the mountains, before we could work. All other arrangements are too difficult — Germany and so on. We have not, literally, the time to discover a new place and take our bearings. Then we shall be near Elizabeth, too. The winter we are going to spend in Bandol at the Beau Rivage. I am going to get a maid now at once. I can't do without one. I simply have not the time to attend to everything and I can't bear, as you know, 'untidiness.' . . . Don't speak of our plans, by chance, will you?

There is a really superb professional pianist here. He plays nearly all day and writes his own music. Au revoir. K.M.


Randogne, Switzerland. I find the rapture at being alone hard to understand. Certainly when I am sitting out of sight under a tree I feel I could be content never to return. As to *fear*,' it is gone. It is replaced by a kind of callousness. What will be, will be. But this is not a very useful statement, for I've never put it to the test.

Should I be as happy with anyone at my side? No. I'd begin to talk, and it's far nicer not to talk. Or, if it were J., he'd open a little blue book by Diderot, Jacques le Fataliste, and begin to read it, and that would make me wretched. . . . Why the devil want to read stuffy, snuffy Diderot when there is this other book before one's eyes? I do not want to be a bookworm. If its book is taken away from it, the little blind head is raised; it wags, hovers, terribly uneasy, in a void — until it begins to burrow again.

Loneliness: '*Oh Loneliness, of my sad heart be Queen!*' It isn't in the least that. My heart is not sad except when I am among people, and then I am far too

distracted to think about Queens. (Oh, dear! Here is a walking tragedy — Madame with a whole tray of food! And I begged for a basket, only a basket!)

I have watched this big heavy woman, moving so sullen, plodding in and out with her pails and brushes, coming to the door at midday and evening to look for her husband and child. She looks neither sad nor happy; she looks resigned and stupefied. Sometimes, when she stops and stares round her, she is like a cow that is being driven along a road, and sometimes when, leaning out the window, she watches her quick husband, so jauntily cutting up logs of wood, I think she hates him — and the sight of her suffocates him.


But to-day, it being the first fine day since the lodgers have come, they went off for a walk and left the nurse-girl in charge of the baby. A cradle made of two straw baskets on trestles was brought out into the sun and the baby heaped up in it. Then the nurse girl disappeared.

Round the side of the house came my woman. She stopped. She looked round quickly. She leaned over the cradle and held out her finger to the baby. Then it seemed she was simply overcome with the loveliness and the wonder of this little thing. She tip-toed round the cradle, bent over, shook her head, shook her finger — pulled up a tiny sleeve, looked at a dimpled arm. Her little girl, in a white hat (in honour of the


The Family

lodgers) danced up. I imagine my woman asked her how she would like a little brother. And the little girl was fascinated, as small children are by smaller.

" Kiss his hand," said my woman. She watched her daughter, very serious, kiss the tiny hand; and she could hardly bear that anyone should touch the infant but herself. She snatched her daughter away. . . .

When finally she dragged herself away, she was trembling. She went up the steps into the house, stood in the middle of the kitchen, and it seemed that the child within realized her love and moved. A faint, timid smile was on her lips. She believed and she did not believe.

Gyp, their dog, is the most servile creature imaginable. He is a fat brown and white spaniel with a fat round end of tail which wags for everybody at every moment. His passion is for the baby. If anyone throws him sticks he dashes off and brings them back to lay at the foot of the cradle. When his mistress carries the baby, he dances round them so madly, in such a frenzy of delight, that one doesn't believe in him. He feels himself one of the family — a family dog.


The master is a very stupid conceited fellow with a large thin nose, a tuft of hair, and long thin legs. He walks slowly, holding himself perfectly rigid. He keeps his hands in his pockets always. Yesterday he wore all day a pair of pale blue woollen slippers with tassels. And it was obvious he admired himself in these slippers tremendously. To-day he is walking about in his shirt-sleeves, wearing a sky-blue shirt. He wears black velvet trousers and a short coat. I am sure he thinks he is perfectly dressed for the country. Ah, if he only had a gun to carry on his shoulder !

When he came home, he walked stiff, rigid like a post, hands in pockets up to the front door and stood there. Did not knock, gave no sign. In less than a minute the door opened to him. His wife felt he was there.


(What a passion one feels for the sun here!)

The friend is a dashing young man in a grey suit, with a cap always worn very much on one side. His cap he does not like to take off. He is the kind of man who sits on the edge of tables or leans against the counter of bars with his thumbs in his waistcoat. He feels a god. He is sure all the girls are wild about him, and it's true each time he looks at one, she is ready to titter. For all his carelessness, he's close with money. When he and his 'friend' go up to the village for stores, he lounges in the shop, smells things, suggests things, but turns his back and whistles when it comes to adding up the bill. He thinks the friend's wife is in love with him.


(When the dog is tied up, it cries pitifully, sobs. The sound, so unrestrained, pleases them.)

The wife is small, untidy, with large gold rings in her hair. She wears white canvas shoes and a jacket trimmed with artificial fur. She is the woman who is spending the day at the sea-side. She looks dissatisfied, unhappy. I am sure she is a terrible muddler.

(The dog is really very hysterical.)

They have a little servant maid of about sixteen,

The Servant Maid

with a loose plait of dark streaky hair and silver-rimmed spectacles. She walks in a terribly meek but self-satisfied way, pushing out her stomach. She is meekness itself. How she bows her head and walks after her master! It is terrible to see. She wishes to be invisible, to pass unseen. "Don't look at me!" And she effaces herself. (This must be written very directly.) She it is who holds the baby. When the others have gone, she rather lords it over the baby, turns up his clothes and exclaims with quite an air.


The baby is at that age when it droops over a shoulder. It is still a boneless baby, blowing bubbles, in a little blue muslin frock. When it cries, it cries as though it were being squeezed. Its feet, in white boots, are like little cakes of dough.

(The dog's enthusiasm is enough to make you want to kick it. When they come out, cold, damp, depressed, there he is leaping, asking when the fun's going to begin. It is sickening.)

A queer bit of psychology: I had to disappear behind the bushes to-day in a hollow. That act made me feel nearer to normal health than I have felt for years. Nobody there; nobody wondered if I was all right, i.e. there was nothing to distinguish me, at that moment, from an ordinary human being.


Each little movement of this bird is made so ostentatiously— as if it were trying to show itself off as much as possible. Why?

But to continue with this alone-ness — to gather it

up a little? Could I. . . ? It seems to me to depend entirely on health in my case. If I were well and could spend the evenings sitting up writing till about eleven. . . .

To look up through the trees to the far-away heavenly blue.

Now it's getting late afternoon and all sounds are softer, deeper. The sough of the wind in the branches is more thoughtful.

This — this is as great happiness as I shall ever know. It is greater happiness than I had ever thought

possible. But why is it incompatible with only

because of your weakness. There is nothing to prevent you being like this. In fact, don't you yet know that the more active and apart you make your own life, the more content the other is ? What he finds intolerable is the lack of privacy. But so do you. It makes him feel as though he were living under a vacuum jar. So it does you. You hang on thinking to please him until he longs for you to be gone.


How badly, how stupidly you manage your life! Don't you realize that both of you have had enough contact to last for years, that the only way for each of you to be renewed and refreshed is for you to go apart. Not necessarily to tear apart, but to go apart as wisely as possible. You are the most stupid woman I have ever met. You never will see that it all rests with you. If you do not take the initiative, nothing will be done. The reason why you find it so hard to write is because you are learning nothing. I mean of the things

Sierre

that count — like the sight of this tree with its purple cones against the blue. How can I put it, that there is gum on the cones? " Gemmed? " No. " Beaded? " No. " They are like crystals." Must I? I am afraid so. . . .


Sierre. This is a damning little note-book, quite in the old style. How I am committed !

To-day is Tuesday. Since leaving Montana I have written about a page. The rest of the time I seem to have slept ! This, of course, started all the Old Fears : that I should never write again, that I was getting sleeping sickness and so on. But this morning I nearly kicked off, and this evening I feel perhaps a time of convalescence was absolutely necessary. The mind was choked with the wrack of all those dreadful tides.

I wrote to K to-day. It seems to bring things nearer.

It's only now I am beginning to see again and to recognise again the beauty of the world. Take the swallows to-day, their flutter-flutter, their velvet-forked tails, their transparent wings that are like the fins of fishes. The little dark head and breast golden in the light. Then the beauty of the garden, and the beauty of raked paths. . . . Then, the silence.

I wage eternally a war of small deceits. Tear this book up ! Tear it up, now ! But now I am pretending to be making notes on a book I have already read and despise. . . .

What dreadful, awful rot!

I should like to write the canary story to-morrow. So many ideas come and go. If there is time I shall write them all. If this uninterrupted time continues. The story about this hotel would be wonderful if I could do it.


If there is a book to be read, no matter how bad that book is, I read it. I will read it. Was it always so with me? I don't remember. Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.

My first conversation with O. took place on August 30, 1922.

On that occasion I began by telling him how dissatisfied I was with the idea that Life must be a lesser thing than we were capable of imagining it to be. I had the feeling that the same thing happened to nearly everybody whom I knew and whom I did not know. No sooner was their youth, with the little force and impetus characteristic of youth, done, than they stopped growing. At the very moment that one felt that now was the time to gather oneself together, to use one's whole strength, to take control, to be an adult, in fact, they seemed content to swop the darling wish of their hearts for innumerable little wishes. Or


Father and the Girls: see "The Doves' Nest," which contains also The Canary.

London

the image that suggested itself to me was that of a river flowing away in countless little trickles over a dark swamp.

They deceived themselves, of course. They called this trickling away — greater tolerance — wider interests — a sense of proportion — so that work did not rule out the possibility of 'life.' Or they called it an escape from all this mind-probing and self-consciousness — a simpler and therefore a better way of life. But sooner or later, in literature at any rate, there sounded an undertone of deep regret. There was an uneasiness, a sense of frustration. One heard, one thought one heard, the cry that began to echo in one's own being: "I have missed it. I have given up. This is not what I want. If this is all, then Life is not worth living."


But I know it is not all. How does one know that? Let me take the case of K.M. She has led, ever since she can remember, a very typically false life. Yet, through it all, there have been moments, instants, gleams, when she has felt the possibility of something quite other.

Love-birds at 472: Male and female. Male, green underbody, wings mole, tipped with yellow, broad at base, gradually growing smaller until the head feathers, as close as can be. Yellow faces : a touch of pale-blue on the chops and on the top of the beak. On the male exquisite black spots, points of jet under the beak. Tail of male bird blue.

Female yellow with overbody of pale green in delicate pencil lines. The bird is yellow, but a green-yellow. Male bird burrows in its back, finds. . . .


"Do you know what individuality is?"

"No."

"Consciousness of will. To be conscious that you have a will and can act."

Yes, it is. It's a glorious saying.


Arrived Paris. Took rooms in Select Hotel, Place de la Sorbonne, for ten francs a day per person. What feeling? Very little. The room is like the room where one could work — or so it feels. I have been a perfect torment to L.M. who is pale with dark eyes. I suspect my reactions so much that I hardly dare say what I think of the room and so on. Do I know? Not really. Not more than she.

I have thought of J. to-day. We are no longer together. Am I in the right way, though? No, not yet. Only looking on — telling others. I am not in body and soul. I feel a bit of a sham. . . . And so I am. One of the K.M.'s is so sorry. But of course she is. She has to die. Don't feed her.


Important. When we can begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves. What Shestov calls 'a touch of easy familiarity and derision' has its value.

Paris

What will happen to Anatole France and his charming smile? Doesn't it disguise a lack of feeling, like M.'s weariness?

Life should be like a steady, visible light.

What remains of all those years together? It is difficult to say. If they were so important, how could they have come to nothing. Who gave up and why?

Haven't I been saying, all along, that the fault lies in trying to cure the body and paying no heed whatever to the sick psyche? G. claims to do just what I have always dreamed might be done.

The sound of a street pipe, hundreds and hundreds of years old.


The Luxembourg Gardens. A very small railway train came along, with a wooden whistle. First it stopped, blew the whistle, and then moved slowly forward with a wonderfully expressive motion of the right arm. People mattered not at all. It went through them, past them; skirted them. Then down it fell, full length. But two gentlemen picked it up, patted its behind, and in a minute it whistled (rather longer than usual) and started off again. . . .

A little bird-like mother with a baby in her arm, and tugging at one hand a minute little girl in a coat made out of a pleated skirt, and a pink bow — it looked like pink flannel — on her clubbed hair. A very rich child in a white beaver hat passed and fell quite in love with the pink flannel bow. When its nurse was not looking it hung back and walked beside its little poor sister, looking at her wonderingly and very carefully keeping step.

A little person in a pink hat passed, very carefully dragging a minute doll's pram. It was so minute she had to drag it on a thread of cotton. Naturally, once she stopped looking and her hand gave a jerk, down fell the pram. For about two minutes she dragged it along on its side. Then she discovered the accident, rushed back, set it up, and looked round very angrily in all directions: certain some enemy had knocked it over on purpose. Her little dark direct gaze was quite frightening. Did she see some one?


Nietzsche's Birthday. Sat in the Luxembourg Gardens. Cold, wretchedly unhappy. Horrid people at lunch, everything horrid, from anfang bis zum ende.


Laubblätter. The Four Fountains. The Red Tobacco Plant. English dog. The funeral procession. Actions and Reactions. The silky husks, like the inside of the paw of a cat. Darling.

Fire is sunlight and returns to the sun again in an unending cycle. . . . G. looks exactly like a desert chief. I kept thinking of Doughty's " Arabia "...

To be wildly enthusiastic, or deadly serious — both

Indifference

are wrong. Both pass. One must keep ever present a sense of humour. It depends entirely on yourself how much you see or hear or understand. But the sense of humour I have found of use in every single occasion of my life. Now perhaps you understand what the word ' indifferent ' means. It is to learn not to mind, and not to show your mind.


I have been thinking this morning until it seems I may get things straightened out if I try to write . . . where I am.

Ever since I came to Paris I have been as ill as ever. In fact, yesterday I thought I was dying. It is not imagination. My heart is so exhausted and so tied up that I can only walk to the taxi and back. I get up at midi and go to bed at 5.30. I try to ' work ' by fits and starts, but the time has gone by. I cannot work. Ever since April I have done practically nothing. But why? Because, although M.'s treatment improved my blood and made me look well and did have a good effect on my lungs, it made my heart not a snap better, and I only won that improvement by living the life of a corpse in the Victoria Palace Hotel.

My spirit is nearly dead. My spring of life is so starved that it's just not dry. Nearly all my improved health is pretence — acting. What does it amount to? Can I walk? Only creep. Can I do anything with my hands or body? Nothing at all. I am an absolutely helpless invalid. What is my life? It is the existence of a parasite. And five years have passed now, and I am in straighter bonds than ever.

Ah, I feel a little calmer already to be writing. Thank God for writing! I am so terrified of what I am going to do. All the voices out of the ' Past ' say " Don't do it." J. says " M. is a scientist. He does his part. It's up to you to do yours." But that is no good at all. I can no more cure my psyche than my body. Less it seems to me. Isn't J. himself, perfectly fresh and well, utterly depressed by boils on his neck? Think of five years' imprisonment. Someone has got to help me to get out. If that is a confession of weakness — it is. But it's only lack of imagination that calls it so. And who is going to help me ? Remember Switzerland : "I am helpless." Of course, he is. One prisoner cannot help another. Do I believe in medicine alone? No, never. In science alone? No, never. It seems to me childish and ridiculous to suppose one can be cured like a cow if one is not a cow. And here, all these years, I have been looking for someone who agreed with me.


The Final Step

I have heard of G. who seems not only to agree but to know infinitely more about it. Why hesitate?

Fear. Fear of what? Doesn't it come down to fear of losing J.? I believe it does. But, good Heavens! Face things. What have you of him now? What is your relationship? He talks to you — sometimes — and then goes off. He thinks of you tenderly. He dreams of a life with you some day when the miracle has happened. You are important to him as a dream. Not as a living reality. For you are not one. What do you share? Almost nothing. Yet there is a deep, sweet, tender flooding of feeling in my heart which is love for him and longing for him. But what is the good of it as things stand? Life together, with me ill, is simply torture with happy moments. But it's not life. . . . You do know that J. and you are only a kind of dream of what might be. And that might-be never, never can be true unless you are well. And you won't get well by *imagining* or *waiting* or trying to bring off that miracle yourself.


Therefore if the Grand Lama of Thibet promised to help you — how can you hesitate? Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

True, Tchehov didn't. Yes, but Tchehov died. And let us be honest. How much do we know of Tchehov from his letters? Was that all? Of course not. Don't you suppose he had a whole longing life of which there

is hardly a word? Then read the final letters. He has given up hope. If you de-sentimentalize those final letters they are terrible. There is no more Tchehov. Illness has swallowed him.

But perhaps to people who are not ill, all this is nonsense. They have never travelled this road. How can they see where I am? All the more reason to go boldly forward alone. Life is not simple. In spite of all we say about the mystery of Life, when we get down to it we want to treat it as though it were a child's tale. . . .


Now, Katherine, what do you mean by health? And what do you want it for?

Answer: By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it's no good — there's only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.


Then I want to work. At what? I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals,

All is Well

books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing. (Though I may write about cabmen. That's no matter.)

But warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

I wrote this for myself. I shall now risk sending it to J. He may do with it what he likes. He must see how much I love him.

And when I say I 'I fear' — don't let it disturb you, dearest heart. We all fear when we are in waiting-rooms. Yet we must pass beyond them, and if the other can keep calm, it is all the help we can give each other. . . .


And this all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it's no longer so. I feel happy — deep down. All is well.

A Note on the Type in Which This Book Is Set

The type in which this book has been set {on the Linotype) is based on the design of William Caslon (16921766). It is a modem adaptation rather than an exact copy of the original. Caslon' s letters are noted for their extreme legibility.

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