5 September 1938 – 11 September 1938

I don’t feel that the crisis is real—not so real as Roger in 1910 at Gordon Square, about which I’ve just been writing; and now switch off with some difficulty to use the last 20 minutes that are over before lunch. Of course we may be at war this time next week. The papers each in turn warn Hitler in the same set, grim but composed words, dictated by the Government presumably, that if he forces us we shall fight. They are all equally calm and good tempered. Nothing is to be said to provoke. Every allowance is to be made. In fact we are simply marking time as calmly as possible until Monday or Tuesday, when the oracle will speak. And we mean him to know what we think. The only doubt is whether what we say reaches his own much cumbered long ears. (I’m thinking of Roger not of Hitler—how I bless Roger and wish I could tell him so, for giving me himself to think of—what a help he remains in this welter of unreality.) All these grim men appear to me like grown ups staring incredulously at a child’s sand castle which for some inexplicable reason has become a real vast castle, needing gunpowder and dynamite to destroy it. Nobody in their senses can believe in it. Yet nobody must tell the truth. So one forgets. Meanwhile the aeroplanes are on the prowl, crossing the downs. Every preparation is made. Sirens will hoot in a particular way when there’s the first hint of a raid. L. and I no longer talk about it. Much better to play bowls and pick dahlias. They’re blazing in the sitting room, orange against the black last night. Our balcony is now up.