10 September 1934 – 16 September 1934

Roger died on Sunday. Tomorrow we go up, following some instinct, to the funeral. I feel dazed; very wooden. Women cry, L. says: but I don’t know why I cry—mostly with Nessa. And I’m too stupid to write anything. My head all stiff. I think the poverty of life now is what comes to me; and this blackish veil over everything. Hot weather; a wind blowing. The substance gone out of everything. I don’t think this is exaggerated. It’ll come back I suppose. Indeed I feel a great wish, now and then, to live more all over the place, to see people, to create, only for the time one can’t make the effort. And I can’t write to Helen, but I must now shut this and try. Maupassant, on writers (true I think). “En lui aucun sentiment simple n’existe plus. Tout ce qu’il voit, ses joies, ses plaisirs, ses souffrances, ses désespoirs, deviennent instantanément des sujets d’observation. Il analyse malgré tout, malgré lui, sans fin, les coeurs, les visages, les gestes, les intonations.” Remember turning aside at mother’s bed, when she had died, and Stella* took us in, to laugh, secretly, at the nurse crying. She’s pretending, I said, aged 13, and was afraid I was not feeling enough. So now. The writer’s temperament. “Ne jamais souffrir, penser, aimer, sentir, comme tout le monde, bonnement, franchement, simplement, sans s’analyser soi-même après chaque joie et après chaque sanglot.” Sur l’eau 116

I was glad we went to the service on Thursday. It was a very hot summer’s day. And all very simple and dignified. Music. Not a word spoken. We sat there, before the open doors that lead into the garden. Flowers and strollers which Roger would have liked. He lay under an old red brocade with two branches of very bright many coloured flowers. It is a strong instinct to be with one’s friends. I thought of him too, at intervals. Dignified and honest and large—“large sweet soul”—something ripe and musical about him—and then the fun and the fact that he had lived with such variety and generosity and curiosity. I thought of this.