26 Jan
26 Jan
26 January 1920
Posted Kay two cheques. Felt ill with fatigue and cold & my lungs hurt. It is because I am not working. All is a bit of a nightmare for that reason. My temper is so bad! I feel I am horrid and can't stop it. It's a bad feeling. [KM Notebooks]
Darling Heart,
Letters are beginning to roll up from Italy. I am now up to Date to the 18th only there is not a word about The Lacket. Did you see it? Or did you just give it up? The cheques have arrived: they are more than grateful. As you can perhaps imagine I am terribly hard up & need every single sou. I meant to send Tchekov on Friday night, but in the afternoon I was stricken with a - nervous headache - absolutely dished with it all that Friday. Saturday couldn't move. Sunday the same. I think it was the reaction after the strain; also I havent slept since I left that cursed place. The brilliant doctors here prescribed me a forte dose of veronal (qui est si bon!) I refused to take it. They are mad. But today I can lift my head & walk. Feel a bit faible but that is all. I feel certain that the earliest of my reviews must have reached you for this week - the others will roll along & I'll send this week Tchekov. But that finishes my books. Don't novels ever turn up? Susie? OR Mary Hamilton? Or anybody? I can't make them up. When you said we must have novels in the paper - was that really quite reasonable? Who in God almighty's name doesn't agree? Could I stop the strike?
Oh, you do make me want to stamp so hard sometimes. Wing ought to beat you with his tail. The weather here is simply gorgeous today - the room flooded with sun. L.M. is going to try & get a job here - to help with the keep. You see she costs at least 20 FRANCS a day - & then they order me wine & frictions & gouter which I must have. [To J.M. Murry in Collected Letters]