6 February 1922 – 12 February 1922

Letters from B. and J. B's letter was the most beautiful I have ever received. It gave me a strange shock to find J. never even asked how things were going. A boyish letter like so many I have had, but absolutely impersonal. It might have been written to anyone. True, he was anxious for the post. But . . . that was because he is alone. Do I make J. up? Is he thankful to sink into himself again? I feel relief in every line. There's no strain — nothing that binds him. Then let it continue so. But I will not take a house anywhere. I, too, will be free. (I write exactly as I feel.) I do not want to see J. again just now. I shall beg him not to come here. He is at present just like a fish that has escaped from the hook. A bad day. I feel ill, in an obscure way — horrible pains and so on, and weakness. I could do nothing. The weakness was not only physical. I must heal my Self before I will be well. Yes, that is the important thing. No attention is needed here. This must be done alone and at once. It is at the root of my not getting better. My mind is not controlled. I idle, I give way, I sink into despair.

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

1 did not go to the clinique because of my chill. Spent the day in bed, reading the papers. The feeling that someone was coming towards me is too strong for me to work. It was like sitting on a bench at the end of a long avenue in a park and seeing some- one far in the distance coming your way. She tries to read. The book is in her hand, but it's all nonsense, and might as well be upside down. She reads the advertisements as though they were part of the ar- ticles. I must not forget the long talk L.M. and I had the other evening about hate. What is hate ? Who has ever described it? Why do I feel it for her? She says: " It is because I am nothing, I have suppressed all my desires to such an extent that now I have none. I don't think. I don't feel." I reply : " If you were cherished and loved for a week, you would recover." And that is true, and I would like to do it. It seems I ought to do it. But I don't. The marvel is that she understands. No one else on earth could under- stand. All that week she had her little corner. " I may come into my little corner to-night? " she asks timidly, and I reply — so cold, so cynical — " If you want to." But what would I do if she didn't come? J. arrived early in the morning. In half an hour it seemed he had been here a long time. I still regret his coming here for his sake. I know it is right for our sake. We went together to the clinique. Bare leafless trees. A wonderful glow in the sky: the windows flashed fire. M drew a picture of my heart. I wish he had not. I am haunted by the hideous picture, by the thought of my heart like a heavy drop in my breast. But he is good.

We put the chess-men on the board and began to play. It was an unsettled day. L.M. in and out with no home, — no place — whirled like a leaf along this dark passage and then out into the raw street. J. read the Tchehov aloud. I had read one of the stories myself and it seemed to me nothing. But read aloud, it was a masterpiece. How was that? I want to remember the evening before. I was asleep. He came in — thrust his head in at the door and as I woke, I did not know him. I saw a face which reminded me of his mother and Richard. But I felt a kind of immediate dread confusion. I knew I ought to know it and that it belonged to him, yet he was as it were not present. I think this is what people who are going out of their minds must feel about the faces that bend over them and old, old people about the children. And that accounts for the foolish offended look in their faces sometimes. They feel it's not right they should not know.