27 July
27 July
27 July 1920
2 Portland Villas, Hampstead - London
Violet dear,
Forgive me for not answering before. I had asked some people for next Sunday: I was hoping they would refuse. But no, this morning they will be ‘so pleased' to come. So Murry and I regretfully cannot. I do want to see you both soon - and really talk. It seems - I suppose it isn't, really - so long since we have had time to talk. What I always want to do with you both is to share the event and then to share the impressions of it -the ‘afterwards'. If only there were more time but it seems to go faster and faster. One is so conscious of it sometimes. I feel as though we were trying to talk against the noise and the speed of the train - trying to hear each other - trying to convey by a look, by a gesture, what we long to talk about for hours - days. What a story one could write about a train journey - not a trip to X with the Times on ones lap "in a crisp square" but a real journey across strange country. A ‘party' of people with the carriage to themselves, travelling together, and two of them who have something they must say to each other. Can you imagine it? The impa¬tience, the excitement, the extraordinary nearness of them all to one another, the meals in the restaurant car "the new warm plates seem to come flying through the air" - & then preparing for the night - those who do sleep - those who don't. My God! Theres such a novel to be writ¬ten there. Will there be time to write it?
Yours ever with love
K.M. [To Violet Schiff in Collected Letters]