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18 October 1922

Select Hotel, Place de la Sorbonne, Paris

It's only while Ida is my legs that she is so present. It's a false position, you see. I pretend I am doing things for myself and so on. In reality I am using Ida. And that makes her wrong (for she doesn't know where she ‘is') and in fact it is so wrong all round that it's a marvel to me we have come through. When we meet again (when I am better) you will see the difference, darling.
And I want to say I trust you absolutely. I shall love you and trust you more and more. For these things always increase as one spends them, a divine kind of money. But I am still not sincere with you. In my heart I am far more desperate about my illness and about Life than I ever show you. I long to lead a different life in every way. I have no belief whatever in any kind of medical treatment. Perhaps I am telling you this to beg you to have faith in me - to believe that whatever I do it is because I can't do otherwise. That is to say (let me say it bang out) I may go into the Institute for 3 months. I don't know that I shall. But if I have more faith in it than in Manoukhin I certainly must. Keep this private, darling. I know you will. But don't speak to anybody about it. [To Dorothy Brett, 15 October 1922.]