19 March 1928 – 25 March 1928

These are the last pages at the end of Orlando and it is twenty-five minutes to one; and I have written everything I have to write and on Saturday we go abroad. Yes it’s done—Orlando—begun on 8th October, as a joke; and now rather too long for my liking. It may fall between stools, be too long for a joke, and too frivolous for a serious book. All this I dismiss from a mind avid only of green fields, the sun, wine; sitting doing nothing. I have been for the last 6 weeks rather a bucket than a fountain; sitting to be shot into by one person after another. A rabbit that passes across a shooting gallery, and one’s friends go poppop. Heaven be praised, Sibyl today puts us off; which leaves Dadie only and a whole day’s solitude, please Heaven, tomorrow. But I intend to control this rabbit-shooting business when I come back. And money making. I hope to settle in and write one nice little discreet article for £25 each month; and so live; without stress; and so read—what I want to read. At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials. But I think I have made moral reflections enough, and should describe people, save that, when seen so colourlessly, by duty not wish, one’s mind is a little slack in taking notes. Watery blowy weather; and this time next week we shall be in the middle of France.