Connie and Jinnie came and brought a notice of my book. I brought in more flowers. Saw the lovely palm. Love will win if only I can stick to it. It will win after all and through all


Went for a little walk in the garden and saw all the pale violets. The beauty of palm trees. I fell in love with a tree. Japonica is a lovely flower, but people never grow enough of it.


Went for a drive. All the way gay. The house and the girl. Couldn't work: slept again. Dreadful pain in joints. Fearfully noisy house! Saw an orange-tree, an exquisite shape against the sky: when the fruit is ripe the leaves are pale yellow.


Determined to review two books to-day and to get on with "Second Helping." Saw the fool of a doctor to-day. Diddle-dum-dum-dee! Cod is the only word! Bad-in-age! Flat-ter-ie! Gal-ant-ter-ie! Frogs!!! Vous pouvez vous promener. Liar. The palm tree. Did not finish review; but no matter, it goes.

Anguish


House in a perfect uproar. Dreadfully nervous. Dressmaker came and her little apprentice who gave me the flowers. Had a bath — but all was in a tearing hurry and clatter. Had a strange dream. "She is one with the moonlight." George Sand — ma sœur.


To Villa Flora. In the garden with the unhappy woman lying on the hard bench. The Spanish brocade cloth — the piece of heliotrope. Jinnie's plan that I shall go and live there. Came back and wrote it all to J. in delight. I for the first time think I should like to join the Roman Catholic Church. I must have something.

Anguish

The postman was late. She rang and asked the eternal 'deja passe?' and heard the eternal 'pas encore, Madame.' At last Armand appeared with a letter and the papers. The letter she read. And then it happened again, again there seemed to be a dreadful loud shaking and trembling: her heart leaped. She sank down in the bed. She began to weep and could not stop.

The first bell rang. She got up, she began to dress, crying and cold. The second bell. She sat down and

steeled herself ; her throat ached, ached. She powdered herself thickly and went downstairs. In the lift: "Armand, cherchez-moi une voiture pour deux heures juste." And then one hour and a quarter in the brilliant glaring noisy salle, sipping wine to stop crying, and seeing all the animals crack up the food. The waiters kept jerking her chair, offering food. It was no good. She left and went upstairs, but that was fatal. Had she a home? A little cat? Was she any man's wife? Was it all over?


She dressed and went downstairs into the horrible hall, because there, with the monde drinking coffee, she dared not cry. A little brougham drove up with an old dragging man. She got in. "A la poste!" Oh, these little broughams, what she had gone through in them! the blue-buttoned interior, the blue cords and ivory tassels, all, all! She leaned back and lifted her veil and dried her tears. But it was no use. The post office was full. She had to wait in a queue for the telegrams among horrible men who shouted over her shoulder, horrible men. And now, where? A dose of sal volatile at the chemist's. While he made it up she walked quickly up and down the shop, twisting her hands. There was a box of Kolynos. It spoke of him, him in her room, talking about the foam, saying he'd leave his behind. Four francs seventy-five.


She bought and drank the mixture, and now, where? She got into the cab — the old man hung at the door — she couldn't speak. Suddenly down the

Bitter Life

road on the opposite side, looking very grave came Frances. She crossed over and taking her hand said " Deo gratias." And she was silent a moment. Then she said suddenly, " Come along and see M'Laren now. Let's fix it now this moment." They waited in a very quiet room, rich with books and old dark coloured prints, and dark highly polished furniture. Frances went out for a preparatory talk and then came back for her and they entered the doctor's room. He was short, dry, with a clipped beard and fine brown eyes. A fire burned: there were books everywhere. German books too. Frances stayed while the long familiar careful examination went on again. The doctor took infinite pains. When he had done she dressed, and Frances said: "Doctor, it's the desire of my life to cure this — little friend of mine. You must let me have her, you must let me do it." And after a pause which the other thought final, he said: "I think it would be ideal for her to be with you. She ought not to have to suffer noise and the constant sight of repellent people. She is highly sensitive and her disease — of such long standing, has increased it a thousandfold." He was quiet, grave, gentle. Oh, if they could have known or seen her heart that had been stabbed and stabbed. But she managed to smile and thank the doctor, and then Frances put her back into the brougham, and it was arranged she would leave in a week.


All the afternoon she had been seeing wallflowers. Let her never have a sprig of wallflowers — if ever she had a garden. Oh, anguish of life! Oh, bitter, bitter Life! That reminded her of wallflowers and Shakespeare. Yes, how in a Winter's Tale, Perdita refused gillyflowers in her garden. "They call them nature's bastards." She came back into her room and lay down. It was like Bavaria again, but worse, worse — and now she could not take a drug, or anything. She must just bear it and go on.

The Glimpse

And yet one has these 'glimpses', before which all that one ever has written (what has one written?) — all (yes, all) that one ever has read, pales. . . . The waves, as I drove home this afternoon, and the high foam, how it was suspended in the air before it fell. . . . What is it that happens in that moment of suspension? It is timeless. In that moment (what do I mean?) the whole life of the soul is contained. One is flung up — out of life — one is 'held', and then, — down, bright, broken, glittering on to the rocks, tossed back, part of the ebb and flow.


I don't want to be sentimental. But while one hangs, suspended in the air, held, — while I watched the spray, I was conscious for life of the white sky with a web of torn grey over it ; of the slipping, sliding, slithering sea ; of the dark woods blotted against the cape; of the flowers on the tree I was passing; and more — of a huge cavern where my selves (who were like ancient sea-weed gatherers) mumbled, indifferent and intimate . . . and this other self apart in the carriage,

Dickens

grasping the cold knob of her umbrella, thinking of a ship, of ropes stiffened with white paint and the wet, lapping oilskins of sailors. . . . Shall one ever be at peace with oneself? Ever quiet and uninterrupted — without pain — with the one whom one loves under the same roof? Is it too much to ask?


Oh, to be a writer, a real writer given up to it and to it alone! Oh, I failed to-day; I turned back, looked over my shoulder, and immediately it happened, I felt as though I too were struck down. The day turned cold and dark on the instant. It seemed to belong to summer twilight in London, to the clang of the gates as they close the garden, to the deep light painting the high houses, to the smell of leaves and dust, to the lamp-light, to that stirring of the senses, to the languor of twilight, the breath of it on one's cheek, to all those things which (I feel to-day) are gone from me for ever. ... I feel to-day that I shall die soon and suddenly : but not of my lungs.

There are moments when Dickens is possessed by this power of writing : he is carried away. That is bliss. It certainly is not shared by writers to-day. The death of Cheedle : dawn falling upon the edge of night. One realises exactly the mood of the writer and how he wrote, as it were, for himself, but it was not his will. He was the falling dawn, and he was the physician going to Bar. And again when . . .

Le temps des lilas et le temps des roses Ne reviendra plus ce printemps-ci, Le temps des lilas et le temps des roses Est passé — le temps des œillets aussi.


Le vent a changé — les cieux sont moroses Et nous n'irons pas couper et cueillir Les lilas en fleurs et les belles roses; Le printemps est triste et ne peut fleurir.

O joyeux et doux printemps de l'année Qui vint, l'an passé, nous ensoleiller; Notre fleur d'amour est si bien fanée Las! que ton baiser ne peut l'éveiller.

Et toi, que fais-tu? pas de fleurs écloses Point de gai soleil ni d'ombrages frais; Le temps des lilas et le temps des roses Avec notre amour est mort à jamais.

Life's a queer thing. I read this to-day, and in my mind I heard it sung in a very pure voice to a piano, and it seemed to me to be part of the great pain of youthful love.

Wickedness

I kissed her. Her cheek felt cold, white, and somehow moist. It was like kissing a church candle. I looked into her eyes : they were pale, flickering with dim, far-off lights. She smelled faintly of incense. Her skirt was rubbed and bulged at the knees.


"But how could you say that about the Blessed Virgin!" said she. "It must have hurt Our Lady so terribly."

§5

Roosters and Hens

And I saw the B.V. throwing away her copy of Je ne parle pas francais and saying: "Really, this K.M. is all that her friends say of her to me."

Roosters and Hens
By night and at early morning I love to listen to my darling roosters crowing to one another from lonely yards. Each one has a different note: I have never heard two roosters crow alike. But the hens who seem from their cackle to be laying eggs all day long sound as like one another as ... as ... In fact there's no possible distinguishing between them. L.M. says they are not all laying eggs. Some of them are frightened, surprised, excited, or just — playful. But this seems to me to make the affair even more . . . humiliating.


Easter eggs in the folded napkins. A Happy Easter. We drink to absent friends, but carelessly, not knowing whether to bow or no.


Cold and windy. Out of the window the writhing palms — the dust — the woman with a black veil. I feel I must live alone, alone, alone — with artists only to touch the door. Every artist cuts off his ear and nails it on the outside of the door for the others to shout into.


I never can remember what happens. It is so without outline. Yesterday falls into the general shade. But all the time one looks back and there are

wonders. There is always Miss H. stretching out her hands to the great defiant mosquito — crying with a kind of groan — "Oh, the darlings!" That remains for ever. And then one must never forget the dog which gets all the love of children. "Going nice ta-tas, my ducksie pet!"


Went to the fish museum at Monaco. Must remember the bubbles as the man plunged the rod into the tanks. The young girl. How nice! Young girls make me feel forty. Well, one certainly doesn't want to look 21. The woman with her three little children at Monte. . . .


And if a man will consider life in its whole circuit, and see how superabundantly it is furnished with what is extra-ordinary and beautiful and great, he shall soon know for what we were born.


I should like to have a secret code to put on record what I feel to-day. If I forget it, may my right hand forget its cunning . . . the lifted curtain . . . the hand at the fire with the ring and stretched fingers . . . no, it's snowing . . . the telegram to say he's not . . . just the words arrive 8.31. But if I say more I'll give myself away.

I wrote this because there is a real danger of forgetting that kind of intensity, and it won't do.

Coughing

December 8, 1920. No, there is no danger of forgetting.


More beautiful by far than a morning in spring or summer. The mist — the trees standing in it — not a leaf moves — not a breath stirs. There is a faint smell of burning. The sun comes slowly — slowly the room grows lighter. Suddenly, on the carpet, there is a square of pale, red light. The bird in the garden goes ' snip — snip — snip ' — a little wheezy, like the sound of a knife-grinder. The nasturtiums blaze in the garden : their leaves are pale. On the lawn, his paws tucked under him, sits the black and white cat


I cough and cough, and at each breath a dragging, boiling, bubbling sound is heard. I feel that my whole chest is boiling. I sip water, spit, sip, spit. I feel I must break my heart. And I can't expand my chest; it's as though the chest had collapsed. . . . Life is — getting a new breath. Nothing else counts.

" Can't you help me ? Can't you ? " But even while she asked him she smiled as if it didn't matter so much whether he could or couldn't.

My nature . . . my nerves . . . the question is whether I shall change or not. Per-sonally. . . . You see him ? And he has a friend, a confidant, an old schoolfellow, small, shabby, with a wooden leg, whom he has re-dis-

= iS5 =

covered. He's married. The friend enters the new menage. Little by little he gets to know the wife. No tragedy. He feels like a one-legged sparrow. Talking together in the house before she comes in. " Is that you, Beaty? Can we have some tea? "

Let the sparrow — let the sparrow — suffer the sparrow to. . . .

Charades. Roger of course commits suicide, cuts his throat with a paper knife and gurgles his life away.


The daughter of the watch-smith. Her piano-playing. Her weak heart, queer face, queer voice, awful clothes. The violets in their garden. Her little mother and father. The scene at the Baths : the coldness, the blueness of the children, her size in the red twill bathing-dress, trimmed with white braid. The steps down to the water — the rope across.

Edie has a brother Siegfried. 17. You never know whether he has begun to shave or not. He and Edie walk in arm in arm. . . . Her Sunday hat is trimmed beyond words.

Oh, that tree at the corner of May Street ! I forgot it until this moment. It was dark and hung over the street like a great shadow. The father was fair and youthful to look at. He was a clock-maker.

Avignon

Feminine Psychology

"It is said that the turtledove never drinks clear water, but always muddies it first with its foot so that it may the better suit its pensive mind."

Isola Bella: How shall I buy it?

Southward Bound

Lying facing the window I woke early. The blind was half pulled down. A deep pink light flew in the sky, and the shapes of the trees, ancient barns, towers, walls were all black. The pools and rivers were quicksilver. Nearing Avignon, the orchard in the first rays of sunlight shone with gold fruit : apples flashed like stars.


L.M.'s legs dangled. She dropped down, slowly waving her big grey legs, as though something pulled her, dragged her — the tangle of rich blue weeds on the red carpet.

"A-vig . . . Avig . . . Avig-non." she said.

"One of the loveliest names in the world done to death," said I. "A name that spans the ancient town like a bridge."

She was very impressed. But then George Moore could impress her.

Woman and Woman What I feel is: She is never for one fraction of a second unconscious. If I sigh, I know that her head lifts. I know that those grave large eyes solemnly fix on me: Why did she sigh? If I turn she suggests a cushion or another rug. If I turn again, then it is my back. Might she try to rub it for me ? There is no escape. All night : a faint rustle, the smallest cough, and her soft voice asks: "Did you speak? Can I do anything?" If I do absolutely nothing then she discovers my fatigue under my eyes. There is something profound and terrible in this eternal desire to establish contact.


Man and Woman

Mysterious is man and woman. She sat on a flat seat in the corridor and he stood above her while the dark fat man beat them up a couple of beds. She looked sulky, stubborn and bored. But it was plain to see she suited him.

"Bang on the door when you're ready, old girl!"

And the door slammed. He sat on the flap-seat, smoothed his thin smooth hair, folded his bony hands. A neat foot dangled from a trim ankle. The light shone on his glasses. Seeing him thus one could not imagine a man who looked less like a woman's man. But I admired him immensely. I was proud of them as "made in England."

England and France

Breakfast Time. It grew hot. Everywhere the light quivered green-gold. The white soft road unrolled, with plane-trees casting a trembling shade. There were piles of pumpkins and gourds : outside the house the tomatoes were spread in the sun. Blue flowers and red flowers and tufts of deep purple flared in the road-side hedges. A young boy, carrying a branch, stumbled across a yellow field, followed by a brown high-stepping little goat. We bought figs for breakfast, immense thin-skinned ones. They broke in one's fingers and tasted of wine and honey. Why is the northern fig such a chaste fair-haired virgin, such a soprano? The melting contraltos sing through the ages.


England and France. The great difference: England so rich, with the green bowers of the hops and gay women and children with their arms lifted, pausing to watch the train. A flock of yellow hens, led by a red rooster, streamed across the edge of the field. But France: an old man in a white blouse was cutting a field of small clover with an old-fashioned half-wooden scythe. The tops of the flowers were burnt; the stooks (are they stooks?) were like small heaps of half-burned tobacco.

Marie. October. She is little and grey with periwinkle — I feel inclined to write peritwinkle — blue eyes and swift, sweeping gestures. Annette said she is "une personne très supérieure — la veuve d'un cocher," and "qu'elle a son appartement à Nice... Mais, que voulez-vous? La vie est si chère. On est forcé." But Marie does not look like any of these imposing, substantial things. She is far too gay, too laughing, too light, to have ever been more than a feather in the coachman's hat. As to an appartement, I suspect it was a chair at a window which overlooked a market.


Throttling, strangling by the throat, a helpless, exhausted little black silk bag.

But one says not a word and to the best of one's belief gives no sign. I went out into the gentle rain and saw the rainbow. It deepened; it shone down into the sea and it faded: it was gone. The small gentle rain fell on the other side of the world. Frail — Frail. I felt Life was no more than this.

Marie and the Cauliflower "Mon pauvre mari rolled over and said: Tu as peur? Que tu es bête! Ce sont des rats. Douze encore." I thought, after she told me, and these words kept rippling and rippling through my mind, something had disturbed the long silent forgotten surface. How many of his words were remembered? Did anybody ever quote the living words he'd spoken? "Tu as peur?


A Cauliflower

Que tu es bête! Words spoken at night, in the dark, strangely intimate, reassuring. He turned over and lifted himself in his grave as Marie spoke. Mournful, mournful. ...

"What about a cauliflower?" I said. "A cauliflower with white sauce."

"But they are so dear, Madame," wailed Marie. "So dear. One little cauliflower for 2 fr. 50. It's robbery, it's . . ."

Suddenly through the kitchen window I saw the moon. It was so marvellously beautiful that I walked out of the kitchen door, through the garden and leaned over the gate before I knew what I was doing. The cold bars of the gate stopped me. The moon was full, transparent, glittering. It hung over the sighing sea. I looked at it for a long time. Then I turned round, and the little house faced me — a little white house quivering with light, a house like a candle shining behind a feather of mimosa-tree. I had utterly forgotten these things when I was ordering the dinner. I went back to the kitchen.


"Let us have a cauliflower at any price," I said firmly.

And Marie muttered, bending over a pot — could she have understood? — "En effet, the times are dangerous!"

Foundlings

"Does nobody want that piece of bread and butter?" says L.M. You would really think from her tone that she was saving the poor little darling from

the river or worse, willing to adopt it as her own child and bring it up so that it never should know it was once unwanted. She cannot bear to see solitary little pieces of bread and butter or lonely little cakes — or even a lump of sugar that someone has cruelly, heartlessly left in his saucer. And when you offer her the big cake, she says resignedly: "Oh, well, my dear, I'll just try," as though she knew how sensitive and easily hurt the poor old chap's feelings were, if he's passed by. After all, it can't hurt her.


L.M. is also exceedingly fond of bananas. But she eats them so slowly, so terribly slowly. Ah, they know it — somehow they realise what is in store for them when she reaches out her hand. I have seen bananas turn absolutely livid with terror, or grow pale — pale as ashes.

The Kiss ... I kissed her. Her flesh felt cold, pale, soft. I thought of nuns who have prayed all night in cold churches. . . . All her warmth and colour and passion she had offered up in prayer, in cold ancient churches. . . . She was chill, severe, pale; the light flickered in her raised eyes like the light of candles; her skirt was worn shiny over her peaked knees; she smelled faintly of incense. " No, Father. Yes, Father. Do you think so, Father? " (But still I haven't said what I wanted to say.) October 18, 1920.


Resolutions

The Doll

"Well, look!" muttered Miss Sparrow. "I've nothing to be ashamed of. Look as much as you like. I defy you. It's what I've wanted all my life," she cried brokenly, "and now I've got it. I defy you. I defy the world!" And she drew herself up in front of the window, proudly, proudly; her eyes flashed, her lips gleamed. She pressed the doll to her flat bosom. She was the Unmarried Mother.

Of course, I can't write that. I'm surprised to have made such a crude note. That's the raw idea, as they say. What I ought to do, though, is to write it, somehow, immediately, even if it's not good enough to print. My chief fault, my overwhelming fault is not writing it out. Well, now that I know it (and the disease is of very long standing) why don't I begin, at least, to follow a definite treatment? It is my experience that when an 'evil' is recognised, any delay in attempting to eradicate it is fatally weakening. And I, who love order, with my mania for the 'clean sweep,' for every single thing being ship-shape — I to know there's such an ugly spot in my mind! Weeds flourish in neglect. I must keep my garden open to the light and in order. I must at all costs plant these bulbs and not leave them (oh, shameful!) to rot on the garden paths. To-day (October 18, 1920) is Monday. I have raised my right hand and sworn. Am I ever happy except when overcoming difficulties? Never. Am I ever


free from the sense of guilt, even? Never. After I had finished that slight sketch, The Young Girl, wasn't there a moment which surpasses all other moments? Oh, yes. Then — why do you hesitate? How can you? I take my oath. Not one day shall pass without I write something — original.


The baby became covered with inkspots and served as a little reminder for days of the things she had forgotten to say and the things she might have said so differently.

The Little Cat

"Here he used to sit and sometimes on the path below there sat a small white and yellow cat with a tiny flattened face. It sat very still and its little peaked shadow lay beside it. . . .

"This little cat never ran straight. It wound its way along the path, skirting the tufts of grass, crept now by the fence, now to the side of a rubbish-heap, and its little paws seemed to touch the ground as lightly as possible as though it were afraid of being followed, — traced."

I shan't say it like that. It's only a note. But Ah, my darling, how often have I watched your small, silent progress! I shall not forget you, my little cat, as you ran along your beat on this whirling earth.

When Jean-Paul was undressed, his breast was like a small cage of bent bamboos. And she hated to see it.

Why Suffer?

"Cover yourself!" And he shot his small arms into his woollen shirt.

Why Suffer?

"I don't want you to be other than yourself. . . ."

"But if I am myself I won't do what you ask me to do. ... I feel it's forcing me. It's not me; it's not my geste."


They looked at each other and for some reason they smiled, actually smiled.

"I really and truly don't know what I want to do. Life isn't so simple as all that, you know. . . ."

And the music went on, gay, soothing, reassuring. All will be well, said the music. Life is so easy ... so easy. Why suffer . . . ?

This is the music when the elephants come in to drink out of bottles. Then the clown comes in and takes the bottles away and drinks himself.

The Last Waiting-Room

One must write a story about a doctor's waiting-room. The glass doors with the sun from outside shining through ; the autumn trees pale and fine ; the cyclamen, like wax. Now a cart shakes by.

Think of the strange places that illness carries one into ; the strange people among whom one passes from hand to hand; the succession of black-coated gentlemen to whom she'd whispered 99, 44, 1 — 2 — 3. The last waiting-room. All before had been so cheerful.


" Then you don't think my case is hopeless ? "

" The disease is of long standing, but certainly not

hopeless." This one, however, leaned back and said: " You really want to know ? "

" Yes, of course. Oh, you can be quite frank with me."

"Then, I do!"

The carriage came and drove her away, her head buried in her collar.

But the champagne was no good at all. I had to drink it because it was there ; but there was something positively malicious in the way the little bubbles hurled themselves to the brim, danced, broke. They seemed to be jeering at me.

Suffering

I should like this to be accepted as my confession.

There is no limit to human suffering. When one thinks : " Now I have touched the bottom of the sea — now I can go no deeper," one goes deeper. And so it is for ever. I thought last year in Italy, Any shadow more would be death. But this year has been so much more terrible that I think with affection of the Casetta ! Suffering is boundless, it is eternity. One pang is eternal torment. Physical suffering is — child's play. To have one's breast crushed by a great stone — one could laugh !


I do not want to die without leaving a record of my belief that suffering can be overcome. For I do believe it. What must one do? There is no question of what is called 'passing beyond it.' This is false.

The Confession

One must submit. Do not resist. Take it. Be overwhelmed. Accept it fully. Make it part of life.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. This is the mystery. This is what I must do. I must pass from personal love to greater love. I must give to the whole of life what I gave to one. The present agony will pass

— if it doesn't kill. It won't last. Now I am like a man who has had his heart torn out — but — bear it

— bear it! As in the physical world, so in the spiritual world, pain does not last for ever. It is only so terribly acute now. It is as though a ghastly accident had happened. If I can cease reliving all the shock and horror of it, cease going over it, I will get stronger.


Here, for a strange reason, rises the figure of Doctor Sorapure. He was a good man. He helped me not only to bear pain, but he suggested that perhaps bodily ill-health is necessary, is a repairing process, and he was always telling me to consider how man plays but a part in the history of the world. My simple kindly doctor was pure of heart as Tchehov was pure of heart. But for these ills one is one's own doctor. If suffering is not a repairing process, I will make it so. I will learn the lesson it teaches. These are not idle words. These are not the consolations of the sick.

Life is a mystery. The fearful pain will fade. I must turn to work. I must put my agony into something, change it. Sorrow shall be changed into joy.


It is to lose oneself more utterly, to love more deeply, to feel oneself part of life, — not separate.

Oh Life! accept me — make me worthy — teach me.

I write that. I look up. The leaves move in the garden, the sky is pale, and I catch myself weeping. It is hard — it is hard to make a good death. . . .

To live — to live — that is all. And to leave life on this earth as Tchehov left it and Tolstoi.

After a dreadful operation I remember that when I thought of the pain of being stretched out, I used to cry. Every time I felt it again, and it was unbearable.

That is what one must control. Queer! The two people left are Tchehov — dead — and unheeding, indifferent Doctor Sorapure. They are the two good men I have known.


19-12-1920. Katherine Mansfield.

At the Bay. At last the milk white harbour catches the glitter and the gulls floating on the trembling water gleam like the shadows within a pearl.

The house dog comes out of his kennel dragging the heavy chain and kalop-kalops at the water standing cold in the iron pan. The house cat emerges from nowhere and bounds on to the kitchen window sill waiting for her spill of warm morning milk.

Morning Children

Morning Children

Children! children!

Oh no. Not yet. Oh, it can't be time. Go away. I won't. Oh, why must I?

Children! Children!

They are being called by the cold servant girls.

But they simply can't get up. They simply must have one more little sleep — the best sleep of all — the warm, soft, darling little rabbit of a sleep. . . . Just let me hug it one minute more before it bounds away.


Soft little girls rolled up in rounds, just their bunch of curls showing over the sheet top ; little long pale boys stretching out their slender feet ; other little boys lying on their bellies pressing their heads into the pillows ; tiny little fellows with fresh cut hair sprouting from a tuft; little girls on their backs, their fists clenched, the bedclothes anyhow, one foot dangling; girls with pigtails or rings of white paper snails instead of hair. And now there is the sound of plunging water and all those youthful, warm bodies, the tender exposed boy children, and the firm compact little girls, lie down in the bathtubs and ruffle their shoulders scattering the bright drops as birds love to do with their wings. . . .


Squeech! Squeech! Tehee! Quee! Little boys with plastered hair, clean collars and brand new boots squeak from the nursery to the lobby to the cupboard under the stairs where the school kits are hung. Furious young voices cry: "Who's stolen my ink eraser that was in the well of my pencil box?"

They hiss through their teeth at the stolid servant girls carrying the porridge pots: "You've been at this! Thief! Spy!!"

The Stranger

"You merely find yourself in the old position of trying to change me. And I refuse to be changed. I won't change. If I don't feel these things — I don't feel them and there's an end of it."

For a moment he stood there, cold, frigid, grasping the door-handle, staring not at her but over her head. He looked like a stranger who had opened her door by accident, and felt it necessary, for some reason or other to explain the accident before he closed it again and went out of her life for ever.


Weak Tea ..." I have just partaken of that saddest of things — a cup of weak tea. Oh, why must it be weak! How much more than pathetic it is to hear someone say as she puts it down before you : "I am afraid it is rather weak." One feels such a brute to take advantage of it until it is a little stronger. I grasp the cup ; it seems to quiver — to breathe — "coward!" I confess, I can never hear a person at a tea party say (in that timid whisper you know, as though they were shamefully conscious) : "Very weak for me, please," without wanting to burst into tears. Not that I like desperately strong tea — No, let it be a moderate strength — tea

The Change

that rings the bell. Very strong tea does seem to give you your penny back — in the teapot from the taste of it.


Now and again Fred talked in his sleep. But even then you could say he was quiet. . . . She would wake up and hear him say suddenly: "it wants a couple of screws," or "try the other blade," but never more than that.

The Change

For a long time she said she did not want to change anything in him, and she meant it. Yet she hated things in him and wished they were otherwise. Then she said she did not want to change anything in him and she meant it. And the dark things that she had hated she now regarded with indifference. Then she said she did not want to change anything in him. But now she loved him so that even the dark things she loved, too. She wished them there; she was not indifferent. Still they were dark and strange but she loved them. And it was for this they had been waiting. They changed. They shed their darkness — the curse was lifted and they shone forth as Royal Princes once more, as creatures of light.


The Rivers of China She sat on the end of the box ottoman buttoning her boots. Her short fine springy hair stood out round her head. She wore a little linen camisole and a pair of short frilled knickers.

"Curse these buttons," she said, tugging at them. And then suddenly she sat up and dug the handle of the button hook into the box ottoman.

"Oh dear," she said, "I do wish I hadn't married. I wish I'd been an explorer." And then she said dreamily, "The Rivers of China, for instance."

"But what do you know about the rivers of China, darling," I said. For Mother knew no geography whatever; she knew less than a child of ten.

"Nothing," she agreed. "But I can feel the kind of hat I should wear." She was silent a moment. Then she said, "If Father hadn't died I should have travelled and then ten to one I shouldn't have married." And she looked at me dreamily — looked through me, rather.


Snow-Mountains. Have you noticed how very smug those mountains look that are covered with snow all the year round. They seem to expect me to be so full of admiring awe. It never seems to enter their silly tops to wonder whether it isn't rather dull to be so for ever and ever above suspicion.

Cultivated Minds. Such a cultivated mind doesn't really attract me. I admire it, I appreciate all "les soins et les peines" that have gone to produce it — but it leaves me cold. After all, the adventure is over. There is now nothing to do but to trim and to lop and to keep back — all faintly depressing labours. No, no, the mind I love must still have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two (real snakes), a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of — and paths threaded with those little flowers planted by the mind. It must also have real hiding places, not artificial ones.


— not gazebos and mazes. And I have never yet met the cultivated mind that has not had its shrubbery. I loathe and detest shrubberies.

Let me remember when I write about that fiddle how it runs up lightly and swings down sorrowful; how it searches —

In the white lace, the spreading veil and the pearls she looked like a gull. But a quick hungry gull with an absolutely insatiable appetite for bread. "Come feed me! Feed me!" said that quick glare. It was as though all her vitality, her cries, her movements, her wheelings depended upon the person on the bridge who carried the loaf.

The Voyage of "The Bugle"

No, no, said Miss P., that really isn't fair. I love

serious books. Why, I don't know when I've enjoyed


a book as much as — as — Dear me! How silly! It's

on the tip of my tongue — Darwin's . . . one moment

— it's coming — Darwin's Decline and Fall. . . . No, no, that wasn't the one. That's not right now. Tchuh! Tchuh! you know how it is — I can see it quite

plainly and yet . . . I've got it! Darwin's Descent of Man! . . . Was that the one — though? Do you know now I'm not certain? I feel it was, and yet it's unfamiliar. This is most extraordinary. And yet I enjoyed it so much. There was a ship. Ah! that's brought it back. Of course, of course! That was the one. Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle!

"La mère de Lao-Tse a conçu son fils rien qu'en regardant filer une étoile."


When I stuck the small drawing to the side of the mirror frame I realised that the seal — the mark — the cachet rouge — had been set on the room. It had then become the room of those two, and not her room any more. It is not that the room was dead before, but how it has gained in life ! Whence has come the tiny bouquet of tangerine fruits, the paste-pot on the writing-table, the fowl's feather stuck in Ribni's hair, the horn spectacles on the Chinese embroidery. The 'order' in which I live is not changed, but enriched ; in some strange way it is enlarged.

This is en effet just the effect of his mind upon mine. Mysterious fitness of our relationship ! And all those things which he does impose on my mind please me so deeply that they seem to be natural to me. It is all part of this feeling that he and I, different beyond the dream of difference, are yet an organic whole. We are,
as I said yesterday, the two sides of the medal, separate, distinct and yet making one. I do not feel that I need another to fulfil my being, and yet having him, I possess something that without him I would lack. In fact we are — apart from everything else — each other's critic in that he 'sees' me, I see myself reflected as more than I appear and yet not more than I am, and so I believe it is with him. So, to be together is apart from all else an act of faith in ourselves.


I went out into the garden just now. It is starry and mild. The leaves of the palm are like down-drooping feathers ; the grass looks soft, unreal, like moss. The sea sounded, and a little bell was ringing, and one fancied — was it real, was it imaginary? — one heard a body of sound, one heard all the preparations for night within the houses. Some one brings in food from the dark, lamp-stained yard. The evening meal is prepared. The charcoal is broken, the dishes are clattered; there is a soft movement on the stairs and in the passages and doorways. In dusky rooms where the shutters are closed the women, grave and quiet, turn down the beds and see that there is water in the waterjugs. Little children are sleeping. . . .


Does it always happen that while you look at the star you feel the other stars are dancing, flickering, changing places, almost playing a game on purpose to bewilder you ? It is strange that there are times when I feel the stars are not at all solemn: they are secretly gay. I felt this to-night. I sat on the cane chair and leaned against the wall. I thought of him contained in the little house against which I leaned — within reach — within call. I remembered there was a time when this thought was a distraction. Oh, it might have been a sweet distraction — but there it was ! It took away from my power to work. ... I, as it were, made him my short story. But that belongs to the Past. . . One has passed beyond it.


The Question January. Does one ever know? One never knows. She realised how foolish it would be to ask the question: "What are you thinking of?" And yet if she did not ask the question she would never be certain that he was not thinking of... Even if she asked, how could she be certain he did not make up the answer.

Your letters sounded insincere to me; I did not believe them. People don't write such things; they only think they do, or they read them in books. But real life is on quite another plane. If I were not ill, I still would have withdrawn from the world because of my hatred of insincerity. It makes me dreadfully uncomfortable and unhappy. I could have answered your letter just in your vein and 'accepted' it, you knowing how I accepted it and I knowing that you knew — but it wouldn't have lasted. It would have been another cul de sac relationship. What good would that have been to either of us?


You see — to me — life and work are two things indivisible. It's only by being true to life that I can be true to art. And to be true to life is to be good, sincere, simple, honest. I think other people have given you a wrong idea of me, perhaps. I like to love only my friends. I have no time for anything less precious. Friendship is an adventure ; but do we agree about the meaning of the word ' adventure ' ? That's so important! That's where I feel we would quarrel. If you came on to our boat should we have understood one another ?

You must not think I am ' prejudiced ' or unfair. I am not. I still wish it were possible ; but I cannot, and I won't pretend. Let us really and truly know where we are first. Let us be open with each other and not concealing anything.


" To be happy with you seems such an impossibility ! It requires a luckier star than mine ! It will never be. . . . The world is too brutal for me."

[February ?~] Le travail, même mauvais, vaut mieux que la rêverie.

" But I can't see why you should mind, so much," she said for the hundredth time. " I can't see what it is you object to. It isn't as though people would notice you even. Goodness me! I'm always meeting them since . . . since . . ." She broke off. " And it seems such a waste, too. There it is, standing in the hall, doing nothing. It seems so ungrateful, after it's been lent to you, not to give it a trial at least. Why don't you say something? "

She was pinning on her hat in front of the mirror in Mentone, 1921 the sitting room. Her outdoor jacket and gloves lay across a chair. And when he still didn't answer her she made a little weary hopeless face at the mirror which meant : " Oh dear, we're in one of our moods again ! " " If it's me you're thinking of by any chance," she said quickly, snatching at the jacket

Here is Marie with the supper. And I shall have to endure her until it is over. But that is not important : what is, is that I have not written anything to-day worth a sou. I have passed the day in a kind of idleness. Why? Does it take so long to begin again? Is it my old weakness of will ?


Oh, I must not yield! I must this evening, after my supper, get something done. It's not so terribly hard after all. And how shall I live my good life if I am content to pass even one day in idleness? It won't do. Control — of all kinds. How easy it is to lack control in little things! And once one does lack it the small bad habits — tiny perhaps — spring up like weeds and choke one's will. That is what I find.

My temper is bad; my personal habits are not above reproach; I'm ungracious — mentally untidy. I let things pass that I don't understand (unpardonable!) and I excuse myself, invent pretexts for not working. Yet is my desire to be idle greater than my desire to work? Is my love of reverie greater than my love of action. Treacherous habit! Habit above all others evil and of long standing! I must give it up at once or lose my self-respect. ... He that faileth in little


Genève: Salle d'attente. The snow lay like silver light on the tops of the mountains.

In the chill, greenish light, the wide motionless rivers looked as though they were solid, and the pale furrowed earth, with white fruit-trees like coral branches, looked as if it were water.

Later. The station clock.

The Tig Courier, Sir, is a weekly paper that pays you £950 a year for an article, personal as possible, the more intimate the better.

For three days the Editor has been waiting for your copy. To-night she got a postcard written in a train; but that was all. Will you tell her

(a) your reasons for withholding it (as subtle as you like) or

(b) when she may expect it. Address: Tig, Stillin, Bedfordshire.

Switzerland

Dear B. I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you are dancing again — *albeit delicately,' as you say.

Lo! how sweetly the Graces do it foot
To the instrument! They dauncen deftly and singen sooth
In their merriement.

That means you are really better. Don't get ill again. Isn't it awful — being ill! I lie all day on my old balcony lapping up eggs and cream and butter with no one but a pet gold-finch to bear me company. I must say the gold-finch is a great lamb. He's jet tame, and this morning after it had rained he came for his Huntley and Palmer crumb with a little twinkling rain-drop on his head. I never saw anyone look more silly and nice. Switzerland is full of birds, but they are mostly stodgy little German trots flown out of Appenrodt's catalogue. . . . But all Switzerland is on the side of the stodges. . . .


I keep walking and walking round this letter, treading on my toes and with my tail in the air; I don't know where to settle. There's so much to say and the day is so fine. Well, here goes, darling.

The journey to Geneva took no time. My watch seemed to be racing the train. We arrived some time after one, and I went and sat on a green velvet chair while L.M. saw to things. I suppose we had a long

wait there; it did not seem long. Ever since early morning those mountains that I remembered from last time had been there — huge, glittering, with snow like silver light on their tops. It was absolutely windless, and though the air was cold, it was cold like spring. In fact (perhaps you realise I am putting a terrific curb on myself) it was delicious. Only to breathe was enough. Then we got into an omnibus train, and it waddled slowly round the lake, stopping at every tiny station. Germans were in the carriage; in fact, I was embedded in Germans, huge ones — Vater und die Mama und Hanse. Every time we saw a lilac-bush, they all cried Schon! This was very oldworld. There was also a notice in the carriage to say that the company had thoughtfully provided a cabinet. This they read aloud — first, Vater, then die Mama and then little Hanse.


We arrived at Clarens just as the station clock (which was a cuckoo clock: that seems to me awfully touching, doesn't it to you?) struck seven, and a motor-car, like a coffee-mill, flew round and round the fields to Baugy. Oh dear, you realize I'm just telling you facts. The embroidery I'll have to leave for now. The hotel is simply admirable so far. Too clean. Spick is not the word, nor is span. Even the sprays of white lilac in my room were fresh from the laundry. I have two rooms and a huge balcony. And so many mountains that I haven't even begun to climb them yet. They are superb. The views from the windows, Betsy, over fields, little mushroom-like chalets, lake, trees,

Montana

and then mountains, are overwhelming. So is the green velvet and flesh-pink satin suite in the salon, with copper jugs for ornaments and a picture on the wall called Jugendidyll. More of this later.


I am posing here as a lady with a weak heart and lungs of Spanish leather. It seems to 'go down' for the present. Well, I had dinner in my room: consomme, fish with cream sauce, roast turkey, new potatoes, braised laitue, and two little tiny babas smothered in cream. I had to send the turkey and trimmings away. Even then. . . .

Saint-Galmier is superseded by Montreux,1 which the label says is saturated with carbonic acid gas. But my physiology book said this was deadly poison and we only breathed it out — never unless we were desperate, took it in. However, according to Doctors Ritter, Spingel, and Knechtli, it's marvellous for gravel and makes the water sparkle like champagne. These are the Minor Mysteries. . . .


For the first time since the war I talked German to a German. "Wollen Sie fragen ob man warten kann?" And so on. It was simply extraordinary. Why?


Montana. One thing I am determined upon. And that is to leave no sign. There was a time — it is not so long ago — when I should have written all that has happened since I left France. But now I deliberately choose to tell no living soul. I keep silence as Mother kept silence. And though there are moments when the old habit ' tempts ' me and I may even get so far as to write a page, they are only moments, and each day they are easier to conquer.

Chalet des Sapins, Montana. Just as now I say scarcely a word about my treacherous heart. If it's going to stop, it is going to stop, and there's an end of it. But I have been in this little house for nearly two days now, and it has not once quietened down. What dread to live in! But what's the use of saying aught? No, my soul, be quiet. . . .


And now, just as I felt a little better and less worried about my head and my heart, the gland has become inflamed and all the surrounding tissue, too. It looks as though an abscess were forming. So here is another scare. And with it, I've one of my queer attacks when I feel nauseated all the time and can't bear light or noise or heat or cold. Shall I get through this, too? It is not easy still to find the courage to cope with these onslaughts. . . .


Went to the Palace, and had the gland punctured. It is very unlikely that they will save the skin. I am sure, from the feeling, that they won't, and that this affair is only beginning. I shall be back at the Palace before the week is out. In the meantime I am exhausted and can't write a stroke.

A Grey Day

Well, I must confess I have had an idle day. God knows why. All was to be written, but I just didn't write it. I thought I could, but I felt tired after tea and rested instead. Is it good or bad in me to behave so? I have a sense of guilt, but at the same time I know that to rest is the very best thing I can do. And for some reason there is a kind of booming in my head — which is horrid. But marks of earthly degradation still pursue me. I am not crystal clear. Above all else I do still lack application. It's not right. There is so much to do, and I do so little. Life would be almost perfect here if only when I was pretending to work I always was working. But that is surely not too hard. Look at the stories that wait and wait just at the threshold. Why don't I let them in? And their place would be taken by others who are lurking beyond just out there — waiting for the chance.

Next Day. Yet take this morning, for instance. I don't want to write anything. It's grey ; it's heavy and dull. And short stories seem unreal and not worth doing. I don't want to write ; I want to live. What does she mean by that? It's not easy to say. But there you are!


Queer, this habit of mine of being garrulous. And I don't mean that any eye but mine should read this. This is — really private. And I must say — nothing affords me the same relief. What happens as a rule is, if I go on long enough, I break through. Yes, it's rather like tossing very large flat stones into the

stream. The question is, though, how long this will prove efficacious. Up till now, I own, it never has failed me. . . .

One's sense of the importance of small events is very juste here. They are not important at all. . . . ! ? Strange ! I suddenly found myself outside the library in Wcerishofen: spring — lilac — rain — books in black bindings.

And yet I love this quiet clouded day. A bell sounds from afar ; the birds sing one after another as if they called across the tree-tops. I love this settled stillness, and this feeling that, at any moment, down may come the rain. Where the sky is not grey, it is silvery white, streaked with little clouds. The only disagreeable feature of the day is the flies. They are really maddening, and there is nothing really to be done for them : I feel that about hardly anything.


The Barmaid

She had an immense amount of fuzzy hair piled up on top of her head, and several very large rings, which from their bright flashing look, you felt certain were engagement-rings.

Above all cooking smells I hate that of mutton chops. It is somehow such an ill-bred smell. It reminds me of commercial travellers and second-class, N.Z.

I'll stand in front of the house and knock, and when the door is opened, run in past the maid and call for whoever is there.

The Problem

Should you say wasted? No, not really. Something is gathered. This quiet time brings one nearer.


I finished Mr. and Mrs. Dove yesterday. I am not altogether pleased with it. It's a little bit made up. It's not inevitable. I mean to imply that those two may not be happy together — that that is the kind of reason for which a young girl marries. But have I done so? I don't think so. Besides, it's not strong enough. I want to be nearer — far, far nearer than that. I want to use all my force even when I am taking a fine line. And I have a sneaking notion that I have, at the end, used the Doves unwarrantably. Tu sais ce que je veux dire. I used them to round off something — didn't I? Is that quite my game? No, it's not. It's not quite the kind of truth I'm after. Now for Susannah. All must be deeply felt.

But what is one to do, with this wretched cat and mouse act? There's my difficulty! I must try to write this afternoon instead. There is no reason why I shouldn't! No reason, except the after-effects of pain on a weakened organism.


Finished An Ideal Family yesterday. It seems to me better than The Doves, but still it's not good enough. I worked at it hard enough, God knows, and yet I didn't get the deepest truth out of the idea, even once. What is this feeling? I feel again that this kind of knowledge is too easy for me; it's even a kind of

trickery. I know so much more. This looks and smells like a story, but I wouldn't buy it. I don't want to possess it — to live with it. NO. Once I have written two more, I shall tackle something different — a long story: At the Bay, with more difficult relationships. That's the whole problem.

" Out of the pocket of the mackintosh she took an ample bag, which she opened and peered into and shook. Her eyebrows were raised, her lips pressed together. . . ."

" And a very long shining blue-black hairpin gleaming on the faded carpet. . . ."

" She shuddered. And now when she looked at his photograph, even the white flower in his buttonhole looked as though it were made of a curl of muttonfat. . . ."

" And she saw Mr. Bailey in a blue apron standing at the back of one of those horrible shops. He had one hand on his hip, the other grasped the handle of a long knife that was stuck into a huge chopping block. At the back of him there hung a fringe of small rabbits, their feet tied together, a dark clot of blood trembling from their noses. . . ."


July 1 8. The noise in this house this morning is sheer hell. It has gone on steadily since shortly after six o'clock, and for some reason the maid seems to have completely lost her head. It's now nearly ten, and she hasn't cleared the breakfast away. I have to go again

Blankets

to the Palace at n, and the consequence is I'm rather nervous anyway. And I've had the flowers to do and various things to see to like — laundry. I can hardly bear it. Now she plods up. Bang! She will be at the door in a moment. I don't know how to stand it if it goes on. She's here. She's about to put the things in the lift. What are her thoughts ? I don't know or care. But I bitterly long for a little private room where I can work undisturbed. The balcony is not good enough; neither is this salon. Here again, J. has beaten me. And it's not half so important for him. . . .


A Welcome And because, when you arrive unexpected, there is so often a cold gleam in the hussif's eye which means: "I can manage the sheets perfectly, but the blankets are certainly going to be a problem," I would have you met in the doorway by a young creature carrying a not too bright lamp, it being, of course, late evening, and chanting, as you brush under the jasmine porch:

Be not afraid, the house is full of blankets, Red ones and white ones, lovely beyond dreaming, Key-pattern, tasselled, camel-hair and woolly, Softer than sleep or the bosom of a swan.


All this ! All that I write — all that I am — is on the border of the sea. It's a kind of playing. I want to put all my force behind it, but somehow, I cannot!

Ful gay was al the ground, and queynt, And poudred as men had it peynt With many a fresh and sondry flour That casten up ful good savour.

It's a chill, strange day. I can just get about. I decided this morning to write to S about the Swiss

Spahlinger treatment: whether it would be suitable for me, etc. And I shall wire you to-morrow, asking

you to go and see S. Say what you like. But let

him know that I am practically a hopeless invalid. I have tried to explain about money to him; why I haven't paid him, and I have promised to pay the first moment I can. . . .


I have been writing a story about an old man."

She looked vague. " But I don't think I like old men — do you? " said she. " They exude so."

This horrified me. It seemed so infernally petty, and more than that ... it was the saying of a vulgar little mind.

Later: I think it was shyness.

August ii. I don't know how I may write this next story. It's so difficult. But I suppose I shall. The trouble is I am so infernally cold.

Love

I would have written a card before, but I have been — am — ill, and to-day's the first day I've taken a pen even so far. I've had an attack of what the doctor calls acute enteritis. I think it was poisoning. Very high fever and sickness and dysentery and so on. Horrible. I decided yesterday to go to the Palace, but to-day makes me feel I'll try and see it out here. J. is awfully kind in the menial offices of nurse, and I've not been able to take any food except warm milk, so Ernestine can't work her worst on me. She seems, poor creature, to be much more stupid than ever! Burns everything! Leaves us without eggs, and went off for her afternoon yesterday without a word. We didn't even know she was gone.

Love August. A sudden idea of the relationship between 'lovers'."


We are neither male nor female. We are a compound of both. I choose the male who will develop and expand the male in me ; he chooses me to expand the female in him. Being made 'whole.' Yes, but that's a process. By love serve ye one another. . . . And why I choose one man for this rather than many is for safety. We bind ourselves within a ring and that ring is as it were a wall against the outside world. It is our refuge, our shelter. Here the tricks of life will not be played. Here is safety for us to grow.

Why, I talk like a child!


" If I could only sweep all my garden up the hill, to your doors ! " Her perfect little gesture as she said this.

The Candlestick

Many thanks for your stuffy letter. As for the candlestick, dear, if you remember, I gave it you on your last birthday. No wonder it reminded you of me. I have kept it in its paper and intend to return it to you with a pretty little note on your next. Or shall I first send it to you as an early Christmas present and do you return it as a late one or a New Year's gift. Easter we shall leave out. It would be a trifle excessive at Easter. I wonder which of us will be in possession of it at the last. If it is on my side, I shall leave it you in my will, all proper, and I think it would be nice of you, Camilla, to desire that it should be buried with you. Besides, one's mind faints at the idea of a candlestick whirling through space and time for ever — a fliegende candlestick, in fact !

I have been suffering from wind round the heart. Such a tiresome complaint, but not dangerous. Really, for anything to be so painful I think I would prefer a spice of danger added. The first attack was brought on by a fit of laughing.


September is different from all other months. It is more magical. I feel the strange chemical change in the earth which produces mushrooms is the cause, too, of this extra ' life ' in the air — a resilience, a sparkle. For days the weather has been the same. One wakes to see the trees outside bathed in greengold light. It's fresh — not cold. It's clear. The sky is a light pure blue. During the morning the sun gets hot. There is a haze over the mountains. Occasionally a squirrel appears, runs up the mast of a pine-tree, seizes a cone and sits in the crook of a branch, holding it like a banana. Now and again a little bird, hanging upside-down, pecks at the seed. There is a constant sound of bells from the valley. It keeps on all day, from early to late.

Midday — with long shadows. Hot and still. And yet there's always that taste of a berry rather than scent of a flower in the air. But what can one say of the afternoons? Of the evening? The rose, the gold on the mountains, the quick mounting shadows? But it's soon cold — Beautifully cold, however.

I am struck beyond words, and again it seems to me that what I am doing has no form! I ought to finish my book of stories first and then, when it's gone, really get down to my novel, Karori.


Why I should be so passionately determined to disguise this, I don't quite know. But here I lie, pretending, as Heaven knows how often I have before, to write. Supposing I were to give up this pretence and really did try? Supposing I only wrote half a page in a day — it would be half a page to the good; and I should at least be training my mind to get into the habit of regular performance. As it is, every day sees me further off my goal. And, once I had this book finished, I'm free to start the real one. And it's a question of money.

But my idea, even of the short story, has changed rather, lately — That was lucky! J. opened the door softly and I was apparently really truly engaged.... And — no, enough of this. It has served its purpose. It has put me on the right lines.


Dear Friend. I like your criticism. It is right you should have hated those things in me. For I was careless and false. I was not true in those days. But I have been trying for a long time now to " squeeze the slave out of my soul." ... I just want to let you know.

"The Garden Party"

Oh, I am in the middle of a nice story. I wish you would like it. I am writing it in this exercise book, and just broke off for a minute to write to you.

Thank you for the address. I can't go to Paris before the spring, so I think it would be better if I did not write until then. I feel this light treatment is the right one. Not that I am ill at present. I am not in the least an invalid, in any way.

It's a sunny, windy day — beautiful. There is a soft roaring in the trees and little birds fly up into the air just for the fun of being tossed about.

Good-bye. I press your hand. Do you dislike the idea we should write to each other from time to time? Katherine.

This is a moderately successful story, and that's all. It's somehow, in the episode at the lane, scamped.

The New Baby

It is late night, very dark, very still. Not a star to be seen. And now it has come on to rain. What happiness it is to listen to rain at night; joyful relief, ease; a lapping-round and hushing and brooding tenderness, all are mingled together in the sound of the fastfalling rain. God, looking down upon the rainy earth, sees how faint are these lights shining in little windows,— how easily put out. . . .


Suddenly, quick hard steps mount the stone staircase. Someone is hurrying. There is a knock at my door, and at the same moment a red beaming face is thrust in, as Ernestine announces, " He is born."

Born!

"He is born!"

Oh, Ernestine, don't turn away. Don't be afraid. Let me weep too.

You ought to keep this, my girl, just as a warning to show what an arch-wallower you can be.


Another radiant day. J. is typing my last story, The Garden Party, which I finished on my birthday. It took me nearly a month to 'recover' from At the Bay. I made at least three false starts. But I could not get away from the sound of the sea, and Beryl fanning her hair at the window. These things would not die down. But now I'm not at all sure about that story. It seems to me it's a little 'wispy' — not what it might have been. The G.P. is better. But that is not good enough, either. . . .

The last few days what one notices more than anything is the blue. Blue sky, blue mountains, all is a heavenly blueness! And clouds of all kinds — wings, soft white clouds, almost hard little golden islands, great mock-mountains. The gold deepens on the slopes. In fact, in sober fact, it is perfection.

But the late evening is the time — of times. Then with that unearthly beauty before one it is not hard to

Montana, 1921

Simplicity

realise how far one has to go. To write something that will be worthy of that rising moon, that pale light. To be 'simple' enough, as one would be simple before God. ...


Stories for my new book.

N.Z. Honesty: The Doctor, Arnold Cullen, and his wife Lydia, and Archie the friend.

L. Second Violin: Alexander and his friend in the train. Spring — spouting rain. Wet lilac.

N.Z. Six Years After: A wife and husband on board a steamer. The cold buttons. They see someone who reminds them.

L. Life Like Logs of Driftwood: This wants to be a long, very well-written story. The men are important, especially the lesser man. It wants a good deal of working... newspaper office.

N.Z. A Weak Heart: Ronnie on his bike in the evening, with his hands in his pockets, doing marvels, by that dark tree at the corner of May Street. Edie and Ronnie.

L. Widowed: Geraldine and Jimmie: a house overlooking Sloane Street and Square. Wearing those buds at her heart. "Married or not married..." From Autumn to Spring.

N.Z. Our Maude: Husband and wife play duets

— KJ —

and a one a two a three a one a two three one! His white waistcoats. Wifeling and Mahub! What a girl you are!

N.Z. At Karori: The little lamp. I seen it. And then they were silent. (Finito: October 30, 1921.)

I wish that my silence were only a two-minute one!


I wonder why it should be so very difficult to be humble. I do not think I am a good writer; I realize my faults better than anyone else could realize them. I know exactly where I fail. And yet, when I have finished a story and before I have begun another, I catch myself preening my feathers. It is disheartening. There seems to be some bad old pride in my heart; a root of it that puts out a thick shoot on the slightest provocation... This interferes very much with work. One can't be calm, clear, good as one must be, while it goes on. I look at the mountains, I try to pray and I think of something clever. It's a kind of excitement within, which shouldn't be there. Calm yourself. Clear yourself. And anything that I write in this mood will be no good; it will be full of sediment. If I were well, I would go off by myself somewhere and sit under a tree. One must learn, one must practise, to forget oneself. I can't tell the truth about Aunt Anne unless I am free to look into her life without self-consciousness. Oh God! I am divided still. I am bad. I fail in my personal life. I lapse into impatience, temper, vanity, and so I fail as thy priest. Perhaps poetry will help.

I have just thoroughly cleaned and attended to my fountain pen. If after this it leaks, then it is no gentleman!


It is time I started a new journal. Come, my unseen, my unknown, let us talk together. Yes, for the last two weeks I have written scarcely anything. I have been idle ; I have failed. Why ? Many reasons. There has been a kind of confusion in my consciousness. It has seemed as though there was no time to write. The mornings, if they are sunny, are taken up with sun-treatment ; the post eats away the afternoon. And at night I am tired.

' But it all goes deeper.' Yes, you are right. I haven't been able to yield to the kind of contemplation that is necessary. I have not felt pure in heart, not humble, not good. There's been a stirring-up of sediment. I look at the mountains and I see nothing but mountains. Be frank ! I read rubbish. I give way about writing letters. I mean I refuse to meet my obligations, and this of course weakens me in every way. Then I have broken my promise to review the books for The Nation. Another bad spot. Out of hand? Yes, that describes it — dissipated, vague, not positive, and above all, above everything, not working as I should be working — wasting time.

Wasting time. The old cry — the first and last cry — Why do ye tarry? Ah, why indeed? My deepest desire is to be a writer, to have " a body of work " done. And there the work is, there the stories wait for me, grow tired, wilt, fade, because I will not come. And I hear and I acknowledge them, and still I go on sitting at the window, playing with the ball of wool. What is to be done?


I must make another effort — at once. I must begin all over again. I must try and write simply, fully, freely, from my heart. Quietly, caring nothing for success or failure, but just going on.

I must keep this book so that I have a record of what I do each week. (Here a word. As I re-read At the Bay in proof, it seemed to me flat, dull, and not a success at all. I was very much ashamed of it. I am.) But now to resolve ! And especially to keep in touch with Life — with the sky and this moon, these stars, these cold, candid peaks.


Since then I have only written The Doll's House. A bad spell has been on me. I have begun two stories¹, but then I told them and they felt betrayed. It is absolutely fatal to give way to this temptation. . . . To-day I began to write, seriously, The Weak Heart, — a story which fascinates me deeply. What I feel it needs so peculiarly is a very subtle variation of ' tense ' from the present to the past and back again — and softness, lightness, and the feeling that all is in bud, with a play of humour over the character of Ronnie. And the feeling of the Thorndon Baths, the wet, moist, oozy . . . no, I know how it must be done.

A Prayer

May I be found worthy to do it! Lord, make me crystal clear for thy light to shine through!


These last days I have been awfully rebellious. Longing for something. I feel uprooted. I want things that J. can so easily do without, that aren't natural to him. I long for them. But then, stronger than all these desires, is the other, which is to make good before I do anything else. The sooner the books are written, the sooner I shall be well, the sooner my wishes will be in sight of fulfilment. That is sober truth, of course. As a pure matter of fact I consider this enforced confinement here as God-given. But, on the other hand, I must make the most of it quickly. It is not unlimited any more than anything else is. Oh, why — oh, why isn't anything unlimited? Why am I troubled every single day of my life by the nearness of death and its inevitability? I am really diseased on that point. And I can't speak of it. If I tell J. it makes him unhappy. If I don't tell him, it leaves me to fight it. I am tired of the battle. No one knows how tired.

To-night, when the evening-star shone through the side-window and the mountains were so lovely, I sat there thinking of death. Of all there was to do — of Life, which is so lovely — and of the fact that my body is a prison. But this state of mind is evil. It is only by acknowledging that I, being what I am, had to suffer this in order to do the work I am here to perform. It is only by acknowledging it, by being thankful that


work was not taken away from me, that I shall recover. I am weak where I must be strong.

And to-day — Saturday — less than ever. But no matter. I have progressed ... a little. I have realised what it is to be done — the strange barrier to be crossed from thinking it to writing it. . . . Daphne.

SHAKESPEARE NOTES

All's Well that Ends Well

The First Lord is worth attending to. One could have thought that his speeches and those of the Second Lord would have been interchangeable ; but he is a very definite, quick-cut character. Take, for example, the talk between the two in Act IV Scene III. The Second Lord asks him to let what he is going to tell dwell darkly with him.

First Lord: 'When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave of it.'


And then his comment:
'How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our losses.'
And this is most excellent:
'The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our faults would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.'
I like the temper of that extremely — and does it Shakespeare not reveal the man? Disillusioned and yet — amused — worldly, and yet he has feeling. But I see him as — quick, full of Life, and marvellously at his ease with his company, his surroundings, his own condition, and the whole small, solid earth. He is like a man on shipboard who is inclined to straddle just to show (but not to show off) how well his sea-legs serve him. . . .


The Clown — "a shrewd knave and an unhappy"

— comes to tell the Countess of the arrival of Bertram and his soldiers.

* Faith, there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine hats and most courteous feathers, that bow and nod the head at every man."

In that phrase there is all the charm of soldiers on prancing, jingling, dancing horses. It is a veritable little pageant. With what an air the haughty (and intolerable) Bertram wears his two-pile velvet patch — with what disdain his hand in the white laced French glove tightens upon the tight rein of his silver charger. Wonderfully sunny, with a little breeze. And the Clown, of course, sees the humour of this conceit. . . .

Parolles is a lovable creature, a brave little cocksparrow of a ruffian.


... * I am now sir, muddied in Fortune's mood, and smell somewhat strong of her strong displeasure.'

I must say Helena is a terrifying female. Her virtue, her persistence, her pegging away after the odious Bertram (and disguised as a pilgrim — so typical!)

and then telling the whole story to that good widowwoman! And that tame fish Diana. As to lying in Diana's bed and enjoying the embraces meant for Diana — well, I know nothing more sickening. It would take a respectable woman to do such a thing. The worst of it is I can so well imagine . . . for instance acting in precisely that way, and giving Diana a present afterwards. What a cup of tea the widow and D. must have enjoyed while it was taking place, or did D. at the last moment want to cry off the bargain? But to forgive such a woman ! Yet Bertram would. There's an espece de mothers-boyisme in him which makes him stupid enough for anything.


The Old King is a queer old card — he seems to have a mania for bestowing husbands. As if the one fiasco were not enough, Diana has no sooner explained herself than he begins :

" If thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower."

I think Shakespeare must have seen the humour of that. It just — at the very last moment of the play, puts breath into the old fool.

Hamlet

Coleridge on Hamlet. ' He plays that subtle trick of pretending to act only when he is very near being what he acts.'

... So do we all begin by acting and the nearer we are to what we would be the more perfect our disguise.

Hamlet

Finally there comes the moment when we are no longer acting; it may even catch us by surprise. We may look in amazement at our no longer borrowed plumage. The two have merged; that which we put on has joined that which was; acting has become action. The soul has accepted this livery for its own after a time of trying on and approving.


To act ... to see ourselves in the part — to make a larger gesture than would be ours in life — to declaim, to pronounce, to even exaggerate, to persuade ourselves (?) or others (?) To put ourselves in heart? To do more than is necessary in order that we may accomplish ce qu'il faut.

And then Hamlet is lonely. The solitary person always acts.

But I could write a thousand pages about Hamlets.

Mad Scene. If one looks at it with a cold eye it is really very poor. It depends entirely for its effect upon wispy Ophelia. The cardboard King and Queen are of course only lookers-on. They don't care a halfpenny. I think the Queen is privately rather surprised at a verse or two of her songs... And who can believe that a solitary violet withered when that silly fussy old pomposity died? And who can believe that Ophelia really loved him, and wasn't thankful to think how peaceful breakfast would be without his preaching?


The Queen's speech after Ophelia's death is exasperating to one's sense of poetic truth. If no one saw it happen — if she wasn't found until she was drowned, how does the Queen know how it happened? Dear

Shakespeare has been to the Royal Academy . . . for his picture.

Miranda and Juliet

To say that Juliet and Miranda might very well be one seems to me to show a lamentable want of perception. Innocent, early-morning-of-the-world Miranda, that fair island still half dreaming in a golden haze — lapped about with little joyful hurrying waves of love. . . . And small, frail Juliet, leaning upon the dark — a flower that is turned to the moon and closes, reluctant, at chill dawn. It is not even her Spring. It is her time for dreaming : too soon for love. There is a Spring that comes before the real Spring and so there is a love — a false Love. It is incarnate in Juliet.


Romeo and Juliet When the old nurse cackles of leaning against the dove-house wall it's just as though a beam of sunlight struck through the curtains and discovered her sitting there in the warmth with a tiny staggerer. One positively feels the warmth of the sunny wall. . . .

Twelfth Night Malvolio's "or . . . play with some rich jewel." There speaks the envious servant-heart that covets his master's possessions. I see him stroking the cloth with a sigh as he puts away his master's coat — holding up to the light or to his fingers the jewel before he snaps it into its ivory case. I see the servant copying the master's expression as he looks in the master's mirror.

Antony and Cleopatra

And that ... "having risen from a day bed where I have left Olivia sleeping." Oh, doesn't that reveal the thoughts of all those strange creatures who attend upon the lives of others !


Antony and Cleopatra

Act I. Scene i.

" The triple pillars of the world . . . " The wide arch of the ranged empire . . ." " To-night we'll wander through the streets and note The qualities of people." (That is so true a pleasure of lovers.)

Act I. Scene 2.

" A Roman thought hath struck him . . ." "Ah, then we bring forth weeds When our quick minds lie still . . ."

Enobarbus constantly amazes me, e.g. his first speeches with Antony about Cleopatra's celerity in dying.

" Your old smock brings forth a new petticoat."

Act I. Scene 3. Like Scene 2. (1) "Saw you my lord?" (2) "Where is he?" The married woman. There's jealousy! And then her fury that he's not more upset at Fulvia's death ! ' Now I know how you'll behave when I die ! '


These are beautiful lines of Antony's :

" Our separation so abides and flies That thou, residing here, goes yet with me, And I, hence fleeing, here remain with thee."

Act I. Scene 4.

" Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide To rot itself with motion."

Marvellous words! I can apply them. There is a short story. And then it seems that the weed gets caught up and it sinks ; it is gone out to sea and lost. But comes a day, a like tide, a like occasion, and it reappears more sickeningly rotten still ! Shall he? Will he? Are there any letters? No letters? The post? Does he miss me? No. Then sweep it all out to sea. Clear the water for ever ! Let me write this one day.


"His cheek so much as lacked not." (Economy of utterance.)

Act III. The short scene between Antony and the Soothsayer is very remarkable. It explains the tone of Caesar's remarks to Antony. . . . And Antony's concluding speech shows his uneasiness at the truth of it. He'll go to Egypt. He'll go where his weakness is praised for strength. There's a hankering after Egypt between the lines.

Scene 5. "Tawny-finned fishes . . . their shiny jaws. . . ." and the adjectives seem part of the nouns when Shakespeare uses them. They grace them so beautifully, attend and adorn so modestly, and yet with such skill. It so often happens with lesser writers that we are more conscious of the servants than we are of the masters, and quite forget that their office is to serve, to enlarge, to amplify the power of the master.


Anthony and Cleopatra

" Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in my ears That long time have been barren."

Good lines ! And another example of the choice of the place of words. I suppose it was instinctive. But ' fruitful ' seems to be just where it ought to be, to be resolved (musically speaking) by the word ' barren '. One reads ' fruitful ' expecting ' barren ' almost from the " sound-sense."

" ' But yet ' is as a jailor to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor."

There's matter indeed ! Does not that give the pause that always follows those hateful words. ' But yet ' — and one waits. And both look towards the slowly opening door. What is coming out ? And sometimes there's a sigh of relief after. Well, it was nothing so very awful. The gaol-mouse, so to speak, comes mousing through and cleans his face with his paw. " I am pale, Charmian."


Reminds me of Mary Shelley. " Byron had never seen any one so pale as I."

" Since I myself have given myself the cause."

What does that mean exactly? That she sent Anthony away? or let Anthony go?

" In praising Anthony I have dispraised Caesar . . . I am paid for it now."

A creature like Cleopatra always expects to be paid for things.


I dreamed I sailed to Egypt with Grandma

— a very white boat.

Cold, still. The gale last night has blown nearly all the snow off the trees; only big, frozen-looking lumps remain. In the wood where the snow is thick, bars of sunlight lay like pale fire.

I have left undone those things I ought to have done and I have done those things which I ought not to have done, e.g. violent impatience with L.M.

Wrote The Doves' Nest this afternoon. I was in no mood to write; it seemed impossible. Yet when I had finished three pages, they were all right. This is a proof (never to be too often proved) that once one has thought out a story nothing remains but the labour.

Wing Lee disappeared for the day. Read W.J.D.'s poems. I feel very near to him in mind.

I want to remember how the light fades from a room

— and one fades with it, is expunged, sitting still, knees together, hands in pocket. . . .


Little round birds in the fir-tree at the side window, scouring the tree for food. I crumbled a piece

Rested
of bread, but though the crumbs fell in the branches only two found them. There was a strange remoteness in the air, the scene, the winter cheeping. In the evening, for the first time for I felt rested. I sat up in

bed and discovered I was singing within. Even the sound of the wind is different. It is joyful, not ominous and black. Dark looks in at the window and is only black dark. In the afternoon it came on to rain, long glancing rain, falling aslant.

I have not done the work I should have done. I shirk the lunch party. This is very bad. In fact I am disgusted with myself. There must be a change from now on. What I chiefly admire in Jane Austen is that what she promises, she performs, i.e. if Sir T. is to arrive, we have his arrival at length, and it's excellent and exceeds our expectations. This is rare; it is also my very weakest point. Easy to see why. . . .


I dreamed I was at the Strand Palace, — having married M.D. — big blonde — in quantities of white satin. . . .

There was a great deal more snow this morning ; it was very soft, ' like wool.' The cocoanut was bought and sawn in half and hung from J.'s balcony. The milk came tinkling out of the nut in brightest drops — not white milk. This was a profound surprise. The flesh of the nut is very lovely — so pure white. But it was that dewy, sweet liquid which made the marvel. Whence came it? It took one to the island.

I read The Tempest. The papers came. I over-read them. Tell the truth. I did no work. In fact I was more idle and hateful than ever. Full of sin. Why? "Oh self, oh self, wake from thy common sleep." And the worst of it is I feel so much better in health. It is shameful! The Tempest seems to me astonishing this time. When one reads the same play again, it is never the same play.


Dreamed of M.S. An important dream; its tone was important. That gallery over the sea and my "Isn't it beautiful?" and his weary "No doubt." His definition of the two kinds of women. . . .

But I was not so wicked to-day. I have read a good deal of Cosmic Anatomy and understood it far better. Yes, such a book does fascinate me. Why does J. hate it so?

To get a glimpse of the relation of things — to follow that relation and find it remains true through the ages enlarges my little mind as nothing else does. It's only a greater view of psychology. It helps me with my writing, for instance, to know that hot + bun may mean Taurus, Pradhana, substance. No, that's not really what attracts me; it's that reactions to certain causes and effects always have been the same. It wasn't for nothing Constantia chose the moon and water, for instance!

Read Shakespeare. The snow is thicker, it clings to the branches like white new-born puppies.


A long typical boat dream. I was, as usual, going to N.Z. But for the first time my stepmother was very friendly — so nice. I loved her. A tragic dream as regards L.M. She disappeared, and it was too late to find her or tell her to come back at last.

Read Cosmic Anatomy. I managed to work a little. Broke through. This is a great relief. J. and I put out food for the birds. When I went to the window all the food was gone, but there was the tiny print of their feet on the sill. J. brought up the half cocoanut and sprinkled crumbs as well. Very soon, terrified, however, one came, then another, then a third, balanced on the cocoanut. They are precious little atoms.

It still snows. I think I hate snow, downright hate it. There is something stupefying in it, a kind of ' You must be worse before you're better,' and down it spins. I love, I long for the fertile earth. How I have longed for the South of France this year ! So do I now.

Soundly rated L.M. about food and clothing. She has a food ' complex.' J. and I read Mansfield Park with great enjoyment. I wonder if J. is as content as he appears ? It seems too good to be true.


The first quarter of the Moon. Jour de fete. The Christmas Tree is dismantled.

I had a very bad night and did not fall deeply asleep enough to dream.

In the morning, all white, all dim and cold, and snow still falling. While waiting in my room I watched the terrific efforts of a little bird to peck through the

ice and get at the sweet food of the nut. He succeeded. But why must he so strive?

My heart is always bad to-day. It is the cold. It feels congested, and I am uneasy, or rather my body is — vile feeling. I cough.

Read Shakespeare, read Cosmic Anatomy, read The Oxford Dictionary. Wrote. But nothing like enough.

In the afternoon W came to tea. I suspect he

is timid, fearful and deeply kind. Deep within that vast substance lurks the seed. That is not sentimental. He wished me sun as he left. I felt his wish had power and was a blessing. One can't be mistaken in such things. He is in his stockings — pea-green and red! J. came up after ski-ing, excessively handsome — a glorious object, no less. I never saw a more splendid figure.

I am wearing my ring on my middle finger as a reminder not to be so base. We shall see. . . .


It ceased snowing, and a deep, almost gentian blue sky showed. The snow lay heaped on the trees, big blobs of snow, like whipped cream. It was very cold, but, I suppose, beautiful. I cannot see this snow as anything but hateful. So it is.

My birds have made a number of little attacks on the cocoanut, but it is still frozen. I read Cosmic Anatomy, Shakespeare and the Bible. Jonah. Very nice about the gourd, and also on his journey, "paying the fare thereof."

Dreams

I wrote at my story, but did not finish the lunch party as I ought to have done. How very bad this is! Had a long talk with L.M. and suddenly saw her again as a figure in a story. She resolves into so many. I could write books about her alone!

I dreamed a long dream. Chummie was young again, so was Jeanne. Mother was alive. We were going through many strange rooms — up in lifts, alighting in lounges. It was all vaguely foreign.


All night dreamed of visiting houses, bare rooms, No. 39, going up and down in lifts, etc.

Heavily, more heavily than ever, falls the snow. It is hypnotising. One looks, wonders vaguely how much has fallen and how much will fall and — looks again. Bandaged J.'s fingers. The Mercury came with At the Bay. I am very unsatisfied.

In the afternoon J. and I played cribbage, with nuts for counters. I recalled the fact that I used to play so often with such intense — Heavens with what feelings ! — in the drawing-room at Carlton Hill while T played the piano. But it meant absolutely nothing. J. giving me a bad nut and me paying him the bad nut again was all that really mattered.

After tea we knitted and talked and then read. We were idle — snow-bound. One feels there is nothing to be done while this goes on.

Had a letter from The Sketch asking for work. I must obey. J. and I talked Paris yesterday and he quite understood. This is a proof that one must be calm and explain and be true. Remember that !


Snow. The vegetable garden fence was all
but gone. H came and said there was between
6-7 feet of snow. He was very cheerful and friendly.
Off his guard, speaking of Miss S he declared,
" Well, the fact is she is not normal. And anyone who is not normal I call mad. She is unconventional, that is to say, and people who are that are no good to anyone except themselves." When he said " mad," a look came into his eyes — a flash of power — and he swung the stethoscope, then picked up my fan and rattled it open.

Read and knitted and played cards. A long letter from S. I want to believe all he says about my story. He does see what I meant. He does not see it as a set of trivial happenings just thrown together. This is enough to be deeply grateful for — more than others will see. But I have this continual longing to write something with all my power, all my force in it.


Dreamed I was back in New Zealand.

Got up to-day. It was fine. The sun shone and melted the last trace of snow from the trees, from the roof. The drops were not like raindrops, but bigger, softer, more exquisite. They made one realise how one loves the fertile earth and hates this snow-bound cold substitute.

"The Doll's House"

The men worked outside on the snowy road, trying to raise the telegraph pole. Before they began they had lunch out of a paper, sitting astride the pole. It is very beautiful to see people sharing food. Cutting bread and passing the loaf, especially cutting bread in that age-old way, with a clasp-knife. Afterwards one got up in a tree and sat among the branches working from there, while the other lifted. The one in the tree turned into a kind of bird, as all people do in trees — chuckled, laughed out, peered from among the branches, careless. At-tend! Ar-ret! Al-lez!

January 11. In bed again. Heard from Pinker. The Dial has taken The Doll's House. Wrote and finished A Cup of Tea. It took about 4-5 hours. In the afternoon M. came. She looked fascinating in her black suit, something between a Bishop and a Fly. She spoke of my "pretty little story" in the Mercury. All the while she was here I was conscious of a falsity. We said things we meant; we were sincere, but at the back there was nothing but falsity. It was very horrible. I do not want ever to see her or hear from her again. When she said she would not come often, I wanted to cry Finito! No, she is not my friend.


A vile cold day. The parcel came from M. But when one compares it with A.'s exquisite coat. . . .

J. and I ' typed.' I hate dictating ; but the story still seems to me to be good. Is it?

All the whole time at the back of my mind slumbers not nor sleeps the idea of Paris, and I begin to plan what I will do when. Can it be true? What shall I do to express my thanks? I want to adopt a Russian baby, call him Anton, and bring him up as mine, with K. for a godfather and Mme. Tchehov for a godmother. Such is my dream.

I don't feel so sinful this day as I did, because I have written something and the tide is still high. The ancient landmarks are covered. Ah ! but to write better ! Let me write better, more deeply, more largely.

Baleful icicles hang in a fringe outside our window pane.


Heard from B. Her letter was almost frightening. It brought back the inexplicable past. It flashed into my mind too that she must have a large number of letters of mine which don't bear thinking about. In some way I fear her. I feared her at the rue de Tournon. There was a peculiar recklessness in her manner and in her tones which made me feel she would recognise no barriers at all. At the same time, of course, one is fascinated.

Wrote to K. Began a new story, but it went too slowly. J. typed for me. I am again held up by letters to write. Letters are the real curse of my existence. I hate to write them : I have to. If I don't, there they are — the great guilty gates barring my way.

Dreams

H. came and suggested my heart condition was caused by the failure to expand the diaphragm. Then why, in that case, not learn to expand it?


I got up to-day and felt better. It was intensely cold.

M. came in the afternoon. She and I were alone. She wore a little blue hood fastened under the chin with a diamond clasp. She looked like a very ancient drawing. She suggested that if I did become cured, I might no longer write. . . .

Dreamed last night I was in a ship, with the most superb, unearthly (in the heavenly sense) seas breaking. Deep, almost violet blue waves with high foamy crests, and this white foam bore down on the blue in long curls. It was a marvellous sight. The dream was about Chummie. He had married a girl without permission and Father and Mother were in despair. I ' realised ' it was to be ; what would have happened if he had not died.

Wingley made a dash at the bird window to-day.


Dreamed I was shopping, buying underclothes in Cook's and then in Warnock's. But the dream ended horribly.

Another chill, bloodless day. I got up, but all was difficult. In the afternoon J. went down the mountain and came back in the evening with a letter for me from M. So generous, so sweet a letter that I am ashamed of what I said or thought the other day.

I have worked to-day in discomfort — not half enough. I could have written a whole story. Saw for the first time an exquisite little crested bird. Its call is a trill, a shake, marvellously delightful. It was very shy, though, and never had the courage to stop and eat. Saw people in sleighs and on luges. Snow is very blue. The icicles at dawn this morning were the colour of opals — blue lit with fire. M. lent us Will Shakespeare. Really awful stuff ! I had better keep this for a sign.


A wonderfully pleasant dream about Paris. All went so well. The Doctor and his friends all had the same atmosphere. It was good, kind, quietly happy. I don't know when I've had a dream more delightful.

But the day has not been delightful. On the contrary. It snowed heavily, it was bitter cold, and my congestion worse than ever. I have been in pain and discomfort all day. My lung creaks. I have done no work. After tea I simply went to sleep out of sheer inertia. I am in a slough of despond to-day, and like everybody in such an ugly place, I am ugly, I feel ugly. It is the triumph of matter over spirit. This must not be. To-morrow at all costs (here I swear) I shall write a story. This is my first resolution ... in this journal. I dare not break it. Tomlinson's letter to J. came yesterday. It was a beautiful letter and not to be forgotten. But why am I so bad?


Tchehov made a mistake in thinking that if he had had more time he would have written more fully, described the rain, and the midwife and the doctor having tea. The truth is one can get only so much into a story; there is always a sacrifice. One has to leave out what one knows and longs to use. Why? I haven't any idea, but there it is. It's always a kind of race to get in as much as one can before it disappears.

But time is not really in it. Yet wait. I do not understand even now. I am pursued by time myself. The only occasion when I ever felt at leisure was while writing The Daughters of the Late Colonel. And at the end I was so terribly unhappy that I wrote as fast as possible for fear of dying before the story was sent. I should like to prove this, to work at real leisure. Only thus can it be done.


H. is a man to remember. At tea that day. Mrs. M. before the huge silver kettle and pots and large plates. The ornate cake; one must remember that cake. "It seems such a pity to cut it," and the way the old hand, so calmly, grasped the knife. H. leaning back, slapping two pieces of bread and butter together. "More tea, Jim?" "No, thanks. Yes. Half a cup." Pouring from the kettle to the teacup, the fat finger

on the knob. "And how is he?" "Bleeding like a pig!" "Oh, dear"—gathering her lace scarf into her lap—"I'm sorry to hear that."

H. always collects something—always will. China, silver, "any old thing that comes along." He's musical and collects fiddles. His feeling for his children is so tender that it's pain. He can't understand it.

One must remember, too, his extraordinary insecurity. The world rocks under him, and it's only when he has that stethoscope that he can lay down the law. Then lay it down he does. "What I say is: she's mad. She's not normal. And a person who isn't normal I call mad—barmy." And you hear pride in his voice; you hear the unspoken: "I am a plain man, you know. . . ."

I'm afraid there is a vein of tremendous cynicism in him, too. He feels somewhere that all is ashes. He likes to go to church, to take part, to sing when others sing, to kneel, to intone the responses. This puts his heart at rest. But when it is over and he is at home and there is a smell of beef, there comes this restlessness. When he was little, I imagine he pulled the wings off flies. And I still see suicide as his end, in a kind of melancholia, and 'nobody wants me,' and 'damned if I won't.'


Wrote to de la Mare. Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I cannot imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count. But for weeks I have thought of

Grandma

D., wanted to, longed to write to him, but something held back my pen. What? Once started, really started, all goes easily. ... I told him in this letter how much I thought of him. I suppose it is the effect of isolation that I can truly say I think of de la Mare, Tchehov, Koteliansky, Tomlinson, Lawrence, Orage, every day. They are part of my life. . . .

I have got more or less used to pain at last. I wonder sometimes if this is worse or better than what has been ; but I don't expect to be without. But I have a suspicion — sometimes a certainty — that the real cause of my illness is not my lungs at all, but something else. And if this were found and cured, all the rest would heal.


Grandma's birthday. Where is that photograph of my dear love leaning against her husband's shoulder, with her hair parted so meekly and her eyes raised? I love it. I long to have it. For one thing Mother gave it me at a time when she loved me. But for another — so much more important — it is she, my own Grandma, young and lovely. That arm. That baby sleeve. Even the velvet ribbon. I must see them again.

And one day I must write about Grandma at length, especially of her beauty in her bath — when she was about sixty. Wiping herself with the towel. I remember now how lovely she seemed to me. And her fine linen, her throat, her scent. I have never really described her yet. Patience! The time will come.