15 Jan

15 January 1920

Casetta Deerholm, Ospedaletti - Italy

Sat in my room watching the day change to evening; the fire like a golden stag. Thinking of the past always dreaming it over. The cotton plant has turned yellow. Tonight the sea is douce. P.O. strike. No, no letters. [KM Notebooks] 

My dearest
Just hasty note enclosing the letter I have received from Jinnie.  I have replied saying I will take the room at 30 francs a day & Ida is going to the pension at 15. It seems to me to be really ideal. I have asked whether it will be possible to go next Wednesday. Of course I must take a car. It costs £6 but I must do it: there is no other way. And once I get there to such a place I shall be able to do a great deal more work and earn the extra money. I can't really imagine a kinder letter than this and she must have acted immediately on receipt of mine and she's been ill herself and isn't at all fit to do these things. Such behaviour on the part of human beings surprises me too much. I cannot reconcile it with what I know of Life; it is "too good to be true". I will send you a wire immediately I know the date of our leaving & I will make the most careful and complete arrangements possible as regards the forwardings of my letters and parcels. Will you see I have more novels sent? Mary Hamilton's for instance? You see I can work quite differently there and shall be so refreshed. And please darling you will still send me papers and so on - won't you? I shall want them just the same. After I send the wire to you will you address my letters, books & papers to the new address on the card.
[. . .]
I only hope my darling that you approve and do not still think it queer of me to find this solitary confinement insupportable. But the past is past; I look forward to the future - with oh - such joy! [To J.M.Murry in Collected Letters, 14 January 1920]