15 October 1934 – 21 October 1934

Quite cured today. So the W. L. illness lasted two days. Helped off by old Ethel’s bluff affection and stir yesterday by buying a blouse; by falling fast asleep after dinner. Writing away this morning. I am so sleepy. Is this age? I can’t shake it off. And so gloomy. That’s the end of the book. I looked up past diaries—a reason for keeping them, and found the same misery after Waves— after Lighthouse. I was, I remember, nearer suicide, seriously, than since 1913. It is after all natural. I’ve been galloping now for three months—so excited I made a plunge at my paper—well, cut that all off— after the first divine relief, of course some terrible blankness must spread. There’s nothing left of the people, of the ideas, of the strain, of the whole life in short that has been racing round my brain: not only the brain; it has seized hold of my leisure; think how I used to sit still on the same railway lines—running on my book. Well, so there’s nothing to be done the next two or three or even four weeks but dandle oneself; refuse to face it; refuse to think about it. This time Roger makes it harder than usual. We had tea with Nessa yesterday. Yes, his death is worse than Lytton’s. Why, I wonder? Such a blank wall. Such a silence: such a poverty. How he reverberated!