18 February 1918 – 24 February 1918

I woke up early this morning and when I opened the shutters the full round sun was just risen. I began to repeat that verse of Shakespeare's : " Lo, here the gentle lark weary of rest," and bounded back into bed. The bound made me cough — I spat — it tasted strange — it was bright red blood. Since then I've gone on spitting each time I cough a little more. Oh, yes, of course I am frightened. But for two reasons only. I don't want to be ill, I mean ' seriously,' away from J. J. is the first thought. 2nd, I don't want to find this is real consumption, perhaps it's going to gallop — who knows ? — and I shan't have my work written. That's what matters. How unbearable it would be to die — leave * scraps,' ' bits ' . . . nothing real finished. But I feel the first thing to do is to get back to J. Yes, my right lung hurts me badly but it always does more or less. But /. and my work — they are all I think of (mixed with curious visionary longings for gardens in full flower) . L.M. has gone for the doctor. I knew this would happen. Now I'll say why. On my way here, in the train from Paris to Marseilles I sat in a carriage with two women. They were both dressed in black. One was big, one little. The little spry one had a sweet smile and light eyes. She was ex- tremely pale, had been ill — was come to repose her- self. The Big One, as the night wore on, wrapped her- self up in a black shawl — so did her friend. They shaded the lamp and started (trust 'em) talking about illnesses. I sat in the corner feeling damned ill myself. Then the big one, rolling about in the shaking train, said what a fatal place this coast is for anyone who is even threatened with lung trouble. She reeled off the most hideous examples, especially one which froze me finally, of an American belle et forte avec un simple bronchite who came down here to be cured and in three weeks had had a severe haemorrhage and died. " Adieu mon mari, adieu mes beaux enfants." This recital, in that dark moving train, told by that big woman swathed in black, had an effect on me that I wouldn't own and never mentioned. I knew the woman was a fool, hysterical, morbid, but I believed her; and her voice has gone on somewhere echoing in me ever since. . . . Juliette has come in and opened the windows ; the sea is so full of * little laughs ' and in the window space some tiny flies are busy with their darting, intri- cate dance.