10 January 1922

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

What with them and my poor dear pussy - he who got out today & began to scratch, scratched away, kept at it, sat up, took a deep breath, scratched his ear, wiped his whiskers, scratched on, SCRATCHED - until finally only the tip of a quivering tail was to be seen & he was rescued by the gentle Ernestine. He wrung his little paws in despair. Poor lamb! To think he will not be able to scratch through until April. I suppose snow is beautiful. I hate it. It always seems to me a kind of humbug - a justification of mystery and I hate mystery. And then there is no movement. All is still - white - cold - deathly eternal. Every time I look out I feel inclined to say I refuse it. But perhaps if one goes about and skims over all is different.
   How are your Swarees? Is everybody just the same? I am working at such a long story that I still can only just see the end in my imagination - the longest by far Ive ever written. Its called The Doves Nest. Tell me what you are working at? Or are you resting? I hope I shall see Marie Loo in her garden of Eden one day - one's mind's eye isn't good enough. But winter is a bad black time for work I think. Ones brain gets congealed. It is v. hard. Goodnight my dear dear Brett. With tender love
                Tig [To Dorothy Brett, 9 January 1922.]