30 September
30 September
30 September 1920
Travelling to Menton, France
Just a line more.
The lizards here abound. There is one big fellow, a perfect miniature crocodile who lurks under the leaves that climb over a corner of the ter¬race. I watched him come forth today - very slithy - and eat an ant. You should have seen the little jaws - the flick flick of the tongue, the queer rippling pulse just below the shoulder. His eyes, too. He listened with them - and when he couldn't find another ant he stamped his front paw and then seeing that I was watching deliberately winked, and slithered away.
There is also a wasps nest in the garden. Two infant wasps came out this morning & each caught hold of a side of a leaf & began to tug. It was a brown leaf outside the size of three tea leaves. They became furi¬ous - they whimpered - whiney-pined - snatched at each other -wouldn't give way & finally one rolled over & couldn't roll back again -just lay there - kicking. I never saw such a thing. His twin then couldn't move the leaf at all. I pointed out the hideous moral to my invisible play¬mate.
Fabretta
[Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters 1920]