19 June
19 June
19 June 1920
2 Portland Villas, Hampstead - London
After the talk with Dunning there is a change.
He woke and still with his eyes closed he turned & kissed her shoulder.
That's a good beginning?
I believe that D. has the secret of my recovery and of J's awakening. All that he spoke of yesterday ... the terms were strange, but what he said was what she had known for a long time. He made the Casetta story plainer: I saw how it could be made to ‘fit'.
But this short sketch by Boulestin must be extremely simple and yet decisive ... It must not be in even the slightest degree ‘thin'. If I can include the glittering sheep, the pond, the
At the Queens Hotel. The last Thursday. I am very tired.
One must write a story about a doctor's waiting room. The glass doors with the sun from outside shining through, the autumn trees pale and fine, the cyclamen - like wax. Now a cart shakes by.
Think of the strange places that illness carries me into, the strange people one passes from hand to hand, the succession of black coated gentlemen, the men to whom she'd whispered 99, 44, 1-2-3, the servants she'd smiled at. The last waiting room, all before had been so cheerful.
Then you don't think my case is hopeless?
The disease is of long standing but certainly not hopeless.
This one, however, leaned back & said You really want to know?
Yes of course. Oh you can be quite frank with me.
Then I DO!
The carriage came & drove her away, her head buried in her collar. [KM Notebooks, undated]