17 May

17 May 1920

2 Portland Villas, Hampstead - London

[. . .] Her hat & jacket were off & hanging on a peg & still Georges did not come. This was the first time he had ever not been there to hold the chair for her, to take her hat, to hang up her bag, dangling it in his fingers as though it were something he'd never seen before - something faery. And how quiet the shop was. There was nobody else there, no sound from Madame. Only the wind blew, the old house seemed to shake, the wind hooted, the portraits of Ladies of the Pompadour period loked down & smiled, cunning & sly. Monica wished she hadn't come. Oh, what a mistake to have come. Fatal! Fatal! If Georges did not come the next moment she would go away. She took off the white kimono. She didn't want to look at herself any more. When she opened a pot of cream on the glass shelf her fingers trembled. There was a tugging feeling at her heart as though her happiness her marvelous happiness were trying to get free.
Oh, I'll go. I'll not stay. She took down her hat. But just at that moment there was a murmur from outside & steps sounded, & looking in the mirror she saw Georges bowing in the doorway. How strangely he smiled. It was the mirror of course. She turned round - quickly his lips curled back in a sort of grin & - wasn't he unshaved? He looked almost green in the face. Very sorry to have kept you waiting he said, sliding, gliding forward.
Oh no, she wasn't going to stay. I'm afraid she said. But he had lighted the gas & laid the tongs across, & was handing her the kimono. It's a wind he said. Monica submitted. [. . .] [KM Notebooks, section dated 1 May 1920.]