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11 October 1922

Select Hotel, Place de la Sorbonne, Paris

A new way of being is not an easy thing to live. Thinking about it preparing to meet the difficulties and so on is one thing, meeting those difficulties another. I have to die to so much; I have to make such big changes. I feel the only thing to do is to get the dying over - to court it, almost (Fearfully hard, that) and then all hands to the business of being reborn again. What do I mean exactly? Let me give you an instance. Looking back, my boat is almost swamped sometimes by seas of sentiment. ‘Ah what I have missed. How sweet it was, how dear how warm, how simple, how precious.' And I think of the garden at the Isola Bella and the furry bees and the house wall so warm. But then I remember what we really felt there. The blanks, the silences, the anguish of continual misunderstanding. Were we positive, eager, real - alive? No, we were not. We were a nothingness shot with gleams of what might be. But no more. Well, I have to face everything as far as I can & see where I stand - what remains.
For with all my soul I do long for a real life, for truth, and for real strength. Its simply incredible, watching KM, to see how little causes a panic. Shes a perfect corker at toppling over. [To J. M. Murry, 11 October 1922.]