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29 August 1922

6 Pond Street, Hampstead, London

Dearest Ottoline,
   I would simply love to meet you at Taylor's whenever you ask me to come. Or if y0u would rather I met y0u anywhere else - I shall be there. I can't walk yet - absurd as it sounds - only a few puffing paces - a most humiliating & pug-like performance. But once I get my legs back or rather once my heart is stronger I shall not be dependent on Taxis. I live in them since I have come to London. I have got Fat. Wyndham Lewis I hear is also fat, May Sinclair has waxed enormous, Anne Rice can't be supported by her ankles alone. I try to comfort myself with many examples. But I don't really care - its awful how little one cares. Anything - rather than illness - rather than the Sofa, and that awful dependence on others!
   I wish you were better. I feel a heartless wretch to run on so glibly. . . But never never shall I forget for an instant what it means.
   I rather look forward to these three months in London, once I have got out of my boxes and into a real corner of my own. I dream of brand-new friends - not the dreadfully solemn ‘intensive' ones - not the mind probers. But young ones who aren't ashamed to be interested. Dear little Gerhardi who wrote Futility is one - he sounds awfully nice. And theres another I met in Switzerland - so attractive! I don't think I care very much for the real intelligentsia, Ottoline dearest. And they seem to be so uneasy, so determined not to be caught out! Who wants to catch them? [To Ottoline Morrell, 28 August 1922.]