2 May

2 May 1920

2 Portland Villas, Hampstead - London

My dear friends,
At last the writing table is in perfect order and I have put a notice round the neck of the small angelic creature who is ‘knock man' to my door: "Engaged". At last I'm free to sit down and think of last Sunday and wish it were this. This is cold, reluctant, uneasy. Now and again a handful of rain is dashed against the window. The church bells have stopped ringing and I know that there is a leg of something with ‘nice' spring greens, rhubarb tart and custard in every house in Hampstead but mine. Its very cold, very grey; the smoke spins out of the chimney. But thank God there is a far-away piano, rocking, plunging, broken into long quivering phrases - it sounds as though it were being played under the sea.
How glad I am - how deeply glad - that we stopped the car on the other side of the tunnel and got out & leaned against the wall - with the broken village behind and then the falling terraces of green - Will you ever forget how those mountains were heaped and folded together? And the fat comfortable man taking a cigarette at his ease in the lap of the world and the small impudent children watching us while we enjoyed our timeless moment? I shall go on reliving that day down to the very last drop - But so I shall with all the time we spent together. Life is so much the richer for knowing you both and rejoicing in you. Are you my friends as much as I am your friend? There you are in my life, part of all I do and think. Let us meet very soon after you come back. [To Sydney and Violet Schiff in Collected Letters]