08 October
08 October
8 October 1920
Villa Isola Bella Menton, France
As for me I am in the open air day and night. I never am in a room with the windows shut. By great good fortune Ive got Marie who every day looks after me better. And she is so sympathetic that all she cooks tastes especially good. She looks after me and anxiously asks if "la viande etait assez saignante" but sanely - in the way one not only can stand, but one loves, and when I go into the kitchen & say Marie je tremble de faim her ‘tans mieux' as she butters you a tartine is just absolutely right. So you see I do count my blessings; this house - this climate and this good soul. It will be perfeck if you can come for Xmas, but there again you must feel free. Dont think of me as too disappointed if you cant. Just feel free. If you do come L.M. is going to England to spend the 3 weeks with her sister so we'd be quite alone in the little house .. .
It happened just as I thought it would. I began on my own work yes¬terday & did a big chunk. I think its alright. But today Im reviewing Walpole as I feel you may want an extra novel or two in the paper just now as its ‘the season'. Walpole is a real case.
Tom Moult's letter was a most pathetic document, Boge. Poor little chap. He would sweep the very office. I have an idea that Bessie leads him a devil of a life. What was her operation. I feel she had - no, it sounds indelicate. Ill not write it. But shes just the kind of woman who would have that operation & then trade on poor old T's sympathies for ever after. [Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters 7 October 1920]