Café Franco-Oriental1 June 26 – Paris
Miss Drake Proceeds to Supper
No novice
In those elaborate rituals
Which allay the malice
Of knotted table & crooked chair,
The new woman in the ward
Wears purple, steps carefully
Among her secret combinations of eggshells
And breakable humming-birds,
Footing it, sallow as a mouse,
Between each cabbage-rose
Slowly opening their furred petals
To devour and drag her down
Into the carpet’s design.
With bird-quick eye cocked askew
She can see in the nick of time
How perilous needles grain the floorboards
And outwit their brambled plan;
Now through her ambushed air,
Adazzle with bright shards
Of broken glass,
She edges with wary breath,
Fending off jag and tooth,
Until, turning sideways,
She lifts one webbed foot after the other
Into the still, sultry weather2
Of the patient’s dining room.
17[b]
June 27 –
Old black hunched woman with beautiful painted bluegreen eyes & elegant bones looking at herself in mirror after narrow mirror in storefronts. –
[verso 17b]
Until bird-racketing dawn3
When her shrike-face
pecked open those locked lids,
to eat crown, palace, all
That all night had kept free her male.
And with her yellow beak
Lie and suck
The last red-berried blood drop
from his trap heart.
[19][b]
Parcae
As those three indefatigable women knit black landscapes shuttle through their heads
reflection of 3 fat French women knitting in lighted train compartment at night – black landscape, strung & knotted telephone wires, pointed fir trees – rattling & streaming through the reflections of their blind complacent faces, knitting webs of fate, utterly indifferent – landscape spins out of heads, lowered lids – bloodclots – loop, stab thread with needles –
White apparently indifferent to exterior time-flux world, constant reflections are spinning it out of their heads through their fingertips
23 [a-b]
1956
Benidorm – August 4: Saturday
CONCERNING WAVES
The bay of Benidorm is striated with color: at the horizon-line the sea is dark Prussian blue, in strong contrast to the pale, distant sky which appears almost white against the dark band of water. The central stretch of color, nearer shore, is a violent peacock-green, shading into yellower tones as the water-depth becomes more shallow until, directy in shore, light brown sand tinges the breaking waves to greenish amber.
Far out at sea, the dark blue water is constantly broken by the abrupt chalk-lines of white caps. Under the glaring sheen of the sun, the waves ripple in like blue watered-silk, their crests rising as they near shore, hanging like amber glass shot through with shadows of vivid green which run along under tip of the waves curving. Then, about five yards from shore, the wave crest breaks, on a white froth of foam which rumples shoreward on the translucent plane of the wave ahead. The white froth thins to a flattened net work of foam which dwindles to spots & vanishes as the wave gathers again to break on shore.
The long running crest of the incoming wave travels like molten glass in whose liquid bulk the fragmented colors of sand and sky blur and melt into each other: amber of furrowed sand is glassed by bright blue-green. The wave gathers, piles up on itself as it moves, toppling on the wet, hard-packed sand of the beach in a broth of clouded brown water bordered with white foam bubbles that wink and shine in the sun. A thin translucent sheet of water fans up the beach, slips back, and dwindles into the advance of the next wave, leaving momentarily in the wet sand, a glassed blue reflection of the sky.
The air is full of the sibilant rhythmic rush of waves sousing the shore: the continuous whisper of crests breaking, rank on rank, into foam is punctuated by the thudding lash of each wave as it strikes shore, bubbles seething, then goes shriveling back into the sea in a cloudy backwash of water thickened with grains of sand.
26[a]
Nimble through thickets of the blood time’s fox steals red.
August 13 – Monday
BENIDORM: Bait-Diggers
At the border of the sea, an old man and three little boys bent from the waist, facing inland and scrabbled in the sand with their hands. The old man, browned from the sun, wore a faded light blue workshirt. His gray pants, splashed wet from the waves, were rolled up above the knee and he wore a small dark blue beret on his head. The little boys bent and reached forward, scraping the sand back through their straddled legs like puppy dogs digging for a bone. Two of the boys wore short sleeved khaki shirts and shorts, while the smallest wore a white undershirt and brief green pants. As they bent and dug, waves broke at their heels and seethed up about their ankles in a broth of white foam.
August 13: Benidorm – two girls playing with diving equipment in the waves: one girl, tan and short, full-figured in a white bathing suit splashed with gaudy red flowers, puts on the blue plastic goggle, the strap around the back of her white bathing cap, the periscope sticking up over her head like a blue insect’s antennae. She ducks under the water, her back showing like the hump of a turtle, the periscope jutting up as she floats face down, arms extended. The second girl, pale, in a green bathing suit, walks along, water up to her waist, pulling her friend along by the hands, periscope bobbing in the wave like a sunken submarine.
Plastic bag: The black plastic carrying bag shone with a gloss of patent-leather in the sun. A dusting of beige sand clung to the side as if spattered from a paint brush. Along the top and bottom of the bag, which was cylindrically shaped, brass nailheads gleamed, spaced about two inches apart. A curve of the bag’s watermelon-red lining showed above the yellow cover of the book inside it.
27[a]–28[b]
August 18 – Benidorm – 1956
The houses of Benidorm cluster along the top of a rocky headland jutting out into the bay. The rocks rise, wedge-shaped, with the slope descending inland, about a hundred yards above sea level; the grain of the rocks is horizontal, and in crevices of the jagged cliffs sprout clumps of dark grass. At the uppermost left of the promontory is an elaborate white railing, scrolled as lace, bordering the Castillo observation platform; green treetops show above the slanting roof of the first one-story house which starts the hill of houses, also wedge shaped, with the narrowest segment balancing the widest segment of the cliff, on the far left, jutting into the sea. The houses pile up on each other as the rocky cliffs slope to the level of the beach, giving the impression of a cubist cliff dwelling, the colors of the houses, built squarely and in oblongs, vary from stark white to a sandy beige which blends with the warm orange tones of the rocky cliffs. The windows are generally dark oblongs occasionally arched; the stones of the houses on the lowest part of the slope toward the beach are of an orange, sun-worn, pebbled texture, like the crumbling walls of an old fortress. Next to the first low white bungalow is the taller blank stucco side of a house with an orange tile roof, partly hidden behind a two story house with white plaster peeling to soiled gray patches; this house has a second floor porch with a white railing and bright blue-painted borders around the window frame. The level of the rock cliffs drops a stage then, and green foliage shows between the weathered white house and the narrow, tall three story house next door which is topped by a reddish tile roof and rises higher, with foundations lower, than the house preceding it; this tall house appears to be part of the Hotel Planesia, which is attached by balcony terraces arched by white arcades over hanging the sea; people, dark, small specks in the distance, are sitting on the lowest level of the balcony. The blurred words “Hotel Planesia” are printed in faded black letters on the long windowless side of the building.
Below the buildings of the hotel, a staircase cut in rock zigzags down to the beach; waves break against the boulders at the foot of the cliff. The buildings appear to be rooted in the slopes of stone, to have grown organically like blanched beige rock crystals from the cliffs. On the rocks to the right of the hotel sprouts a single palm trees, fronds splayed open like a green feather duster, above which rises the raw new brick of unfinished apartment houses. The tall square sided clock tower juts above these houses, with the arched windows of the belfry and clock-face which can be seen from all over town. The clock tower is the highest point of the rising, thickening wedge of buildings, after which the rooves slope away, following the line of the hill. Next to the clock tower, lower down, is the fluted blue dome of the Castillo, sloping down, its line followed by orange tiled rooftops which flatten out and level off at the foot of the hill.
Looking at the hill into the afternoon sun, the houses and cliffs are all thrown into warm orangey beige shadow, a dark trapezoid composed of the wedge of rocks sloping inland, then, the wedge of houses with its narrowest point on the summit of rocks falling directly, with only a slight jagged slope outward, to the sea. The sun sheens the foaming waves which curve in to the beach below the castle with a blinding silver glitter that flickers and sparkles with the constant seethe of water pouring shoreward. Color of the sea blurs out in the sun’s dazzle to a foaming drench of radiance, out of which rises the shaded cliff promontory of Castle Hill.
30[a–b]
August 26 – Sunday
Paris: Hotel des deux Continents
Corner by sink: on the left wall of the room, viewed from the bed, there is an oblong of wall-space above five feet long, ten feet high, bordered on the left by a window located in dead-center of the wall, and on the right by the corner of the room opposite the door. This wall-space is divided in several sections – a smaller oblong of plastered white is set in the lower right-hand corner of the oblong, forming part of the washbowl cubicle which juts off on the wall coming in at right angles. A radiator blocks off a smaller oblong in the lowest right hand corner of the white plaster oblong. The radiator is angular, with shiny cream-painted tubes, four deep into the room, seven long; on top of the radiator, a board shelf holds a bluish plastic bag, flat-bottomed with an arched curved top, and a pale pink bag to the far left, with shiny embroidered flowers on it and a drooping cloth handle of the same material.
A brush (and comb) of blue plastic with white nylon bristles are in the left forground of the self, in front of the pink bag; a plastic oblong bottle with round blue cap and rumpled white linoleum shaving kit with blue flowers are arranged along the foreground of the shelf to the right. In the corner, at the right of the radiator, a column of several pipes rises from floor to fan up and out toward the left along the ceiling. Two slender creamy-painted pipes rise directly from floor to ceiling; at the left, a large pipe, & then two smaller ones, rise up and bend at the ceiling & wall juncture to run along the ceiling molding & curve up to disappear in the ceiling plaster at the left. A foot of sallow-painted beige molding runs along the floor; the oblong of white plaster is bordered by a narrow strip of the same molding; the remainder of the wall space, shaped like an inverted L, is covered with faded yellow wallpaper on which a faint, delicate design of whitish leaves & flowers is superimposed.
31[a]
Mrs. Nellie Meehan & Clifford, Herbert (cousin)4
Vera Rhoda Hilda Albert Willy Dora Sutcliffe
“All the Dead Dears”
Mrs. Mehan – rich-flavored dialect story. set in Yorkshire (Wuthering Heights background) – of present vivid influence of ghosts of those dead on woman who almost has second-sight – Begin – “I saw an angel once” – “my sister Miriam” – tales of hanging, pneumonia death (implied murder) mad cousins, dead good one – war photo in hospital ward – dandy photo with straw Benjies & silver knobbed canes – “He’s got his leg off. He was killed. He’s dead and he’s dead.”
“That day absolutely shone with bright and funny conversation.” – “right good do” – “numb as a tree” – “I just got a postcard from Kathleen – She’s in the arctic circle.”
“She married the one who’s experimenting with cows down in South Africa.” central tragic figure – Uncle W.5 – drama of Cathy & Heathcliffe – close – visitor goes – Mrs Meehan sees “presence” – dazzle, near couch – “Ay – you’re looking for Minnie. I know. Well you won’t find her here. She’s gone down to live in todmorden.”
31[b]
Luminous – bluish – Charlotte – watercolor magic city of glass town
poems & stories
Anne – ms – 4 ½” × 3 ⅝” poems
| Manuscript magazines | |
| colored drawing | – wooden soldiers in action |
| – Branwell age 10 |
| Apostle cupboard | – Jane Eyre |
| chap. 20 | – Charlotte B. |
| blue, red, white | horsehair |
| flowered quilt | quilt red |
| Withens – scarf, tasseled – |
blue book, leather
Sofa – Emily died – 19th Dec. 1848
Haworth – Bronte Home – old rectory
St. Michael & all angels’ church –
Haworth – Rev. Patrick Brönte
perpetual curate
walls – pink fleur de lis design on
thin grey & white stripe – portraits
samplers – cane – top hat –
father’s study on right of entrance
samplers –
Emily Jane Bronte’s rosewood writing desk – colored sealing wax – red green brown cream – Clarkes enigmatic & puzzle wafers used in sealing letters & ungummed envelopes
32[a]
memorials – collected by Henry Houston Bonnell of Philadelphia
Mr. Nichols study
Charlotte’s needlework – cross-stitch design – berries on stems
bead serviette rings by brontes – glass & white beads –
charlottes wedding wreath –
white lace & white flowers –
honeysuckle – faded
as children – brontes wrote books in microscopic script
size 1 ½ in × 2 ⅛ in – “The young man’s magazine” (1830)
pew-sittings –
Charlotte’s room –
pencils sketches of eyes, lips –
classical heads
Morocco work case – reels of cotton & embroidery
over fire place
exquisite watercolors – charlotte
a squirrel – “Condu’s” blue boy visionary
32[b]
Charlotte – tiny black satin slippers
Silvery, pink & green paisley shawl
Nursery – scribble drawings on wall
wooden oblong cradle
toys – discovered under floor boards
33[a-b]
Tuesday pm
October 9 – incredible massed color of Clare gardens: “sudden in a shaft of sunlight.” All flowers incandescent: tall frilled red, yellow & white dahlias, lavendar & mauve starry asters (michaelmas daisies); little woman feeding gabbling hectic squadrons of ducks over queen’s silver street bridge – airplane view of shiny green mallard heads, speckled brown ladies & queer pure white duck; crossed ragged green meadows before Queens – graceful cinnamon grazing horses; purple clouded skies behind Kings chapel towers, showing stark white; dappled green ivy shade of path to clare. – green grot of sunken garden; reedy pool; green sanctums of eden – huge willow slanting over mallard green still water, bird chirp & twitter; trees turning slow gold, duck quack, green tent of slender draped willow leaves,6 great copper beech tree by Clare; bird whistle; slow glide of punt & canoe; swans nibbling grass at bank; Glossy green-waxed dark leaves of ivy, rhododendron, prickle-edged holly, pine needles.
34[a]
October 21 – turning of sap in vein sheen – early morning Sunday – bells – walk along river after night rain – all hung with wet, dew, lush, juicy – squdge of mud, puddles shining with sun – grass blades by river; frosted with gauze of drops yellow willow leaves – slow drift of gray-green river – process of leaves across sunken cloud & treescape – sun’s double eye – white light – all turning – season turning – leaves fall, birds descend – spiders sheen of web – glide & coast of leaves in water slip & quag of mud – raucous claptrap of rooks – reflected light on water – brim of river – dark knotted willow trunks frame light – dark leaves on light water sap green – quaver of cloud, finned delicate willow leaves – translucent, shining amber spider – wind quaver all that green tumult over – procession – ceremony & pomp of dead season – spider – black-flecked – fishermen – speckled yellow leaves – prickle of gorse & nettle – malice glint & play of light – rise & raucous creak of rooks – light sky black flecked – polish – blue flies – sheen & gleam of wing – veined radiance
35[a]
Novel:
Every person I see again. Everything comes full circle. Tony – pale, blond, shrunken – seen at railway station – whole floating Paris day returns – the circle of despair closes upon itself. The springtime of horror, drowning, where three men menaced & no choice was worth making, but one choice of all must be made – the German train shuttling to Munich – “You would have liked me if you knew me earlier” – take, seize, drink – amputate sight of links – be blind & steep in present. Darkened room. Pale lithe bodies. Yellow wallpaper – rose bouquets – refusal – rapid running away – petering into tea, movie – knowledge someday the final thing will happen. I will see him from another life, nod in slightly lofty, slightly amused recognition from a world totally other a world where the bedding of a young blond faun is utterly irrelevant More, inconceivable. Unwished.
35[b]
Poem:
Wild hot fury – cold snow: Thick white moor – mist – lamps hanging. dim points – still: still: frozen leaves – bunched blackbird: rage – “one second more, the cat-hiss would come out.” Awareness of stifling smothering fury – walk in white blank world – symbol of shutting off from normal clear vision – futile outburst. human limits versus grand marmoreal vast power of cold, snow, stars & blackness – vanished daisies: white in head, remembered from summer – she imposes them on dry barren broken stalks – vivid sense of opposition, polar crossing of season, climate – black stone fences – stark wild landscape – tawn cat, red coal fires, burning cheeks, cat under coal house – starlings at scraps of fat – frosted hedge – pose vast impersonal white world of Nature against small violent spark of will
36[a]
The mushroom’s black underpleats
Novel: Gordon: even as mother shaped body, wants woman to shape soul – unmade, derivative, impotent – Paris, Munich, Italy – Rome & Venice – Fainting in ugliness of St. Peter’s – destruction urge – to debase self – yet soul holds back – No one to admire – curse of a woman having sex & brain – to find a man who combines both: with flaming shaping will – will to destruction – hatred of faithlessness – Paris – Rome – acrid, sick taste – shrunk maleness
37[b]-39[b]
3 classes echinoderms –
Sea stars/asteroidea
brittle stars/ophiuroidea
feather stars/unstalked crinoidea
free moving – live mouth downward
feather stars swim or crawl, live mostly attached to some object mouth upwards
Asterias – N. Atlantic coasts – Central body – radiating out into five tapering arms – flattened upper surface covered with leathery skin in which ar small lobed plates of carbonate of lime, many bearing prickles, together forming a jointed reticulate skeleton – multitudes of small pincerlike pedicellariae –
echinoderma – sea star of this type – can crawl over any surface, can squeeze supple body through incredibly narrow crevices – 6 in. per minute common sea star of N.A. south of Cape Cod (Asterias forbesi) very destructive to mussels & oysters – favorite food. – In attacking oysters or like bivalves – sea star fixes the suckers of 1 or 2 arms to 1 valve, those of the opposite arm to the other. Then straighten rays. Oyster can stand a strong sudden pull, but not a continued pull & eventually opens its shell. Sea star then extrudes stomach through mouth, digests oyster & after finished meal withdraws stomach.
Sea stars begin to eat voraciously when very young. One less than ⅜ in. across ate over 50 young clams of half that length in 6 days. A sea star – sexually mature in less than a year, produces many thousands of young Vary in shape: sharpley stellate – long tapering rays, pentagonal. With angles of pentagon produced into slender spikelike arms – to circular almost. Mostly stellate – normally 5 rays.
½ in. to 3 ft. across
1,500 known kinds: 300 genera
Mostly predacuous – feeding on molluscs, barnales, worms, crustaceans, smaller creatures which they take into their stomachs – but many are scavengers, feeding on detritus or swallowing mud & digesting out of it the organic matter sold as curios – exotic sea stars. Large bony tubercles from Pacific & Indian Oceans. Common shore – living brittle stars – snake – tails – live among seaweeds, eelgrass, in chinks & crevices of rocks or corals, buried in mud, lying on sea bottom in deep water – sea star or starfish – asteroid “prickle-skinned” – echinoderma in Greek – hedgehog & sea urchin “hérisser” Fr. – to bristle
echinoderm – multicellular (different from coelen tera = hollow guts) – bilateral – secondary radial symmetry five sectors – rays – arms five: fundamental sacs, canals, tubes carry water through body – hydraulic apparatus
Geological history – free-floating – adapted to stationary life – radiation rose from mode of feeding – effect of gravity – fixed to sea-floor, mouth turned upward to food-bearing waters.
echinoderms – natural history – sluggish, frequently immobile – free forms shun light, hide or bear cloake of seaweed by day. Some – sea-stars light depths with glorious phosphoresence when stimulated
Crinoids & Pelmatozoa – have extracted millions of tons of lime from sea & built up huges masses of rock
sea-stars dont confine selves to carrion – attack living molluscs, oysters, mussels – terrible damage – smaller kinds eaten by bottom-fishes
Stelliformia – J H Linck
MacBride – Echinodermata – Camb. Nat. Hist. I (1906) on habits spicular structure of skin – calate – crystalline carbonate of lime – in deeper layes of skin – minute spicules – beam & rafter work – grow together in small bones, plates, prickles – looks like net under microscope – Pelmatozoa – stalk-animals
Eleutherozoa {stelliformia {asteroidea
Stelliformia – sea-stars – live as a rule with mouth down, from it radiate five ciliated grooves – active search for & ingestion of animal food, alive or dead, in large portions – asteroidea – crawl – tube feet – sea-star clings to object & pulls itself along: suckers
self-division & regeneration break off portions of selves – under stimulus of danger or to get out of difficulty – discarded portions can grow again sea star – small arms with small body at one end – four little buds – comet forms – confined to sea – depend on hydraulic system – constant interchange between internal fluids & outer water through thin membrane – from tidemark down to 3 ¾ miles 
Between tidemarks – buried in moist sand – littoral or abyssal
40[a]
Whelans
Garage – white – green-double-doors – neat white picket gate separating garbage & ash tins from the muddling paws of dogs. One door open, showing, on dirt floor, a bright, primary-colored tangle of childrens’ toys: a red fire truck with whitewalled tires, white steering wheel, white rails to hold on to, a small green fronted toy truck with a red back, a red truck with grey unloading box, an orange truck on its side, bent at a wasp waist – a red cart with black rubber wheels – a dusty red tricycle. An orange handled junior-size rake
Purple & green mottle tile roof. Shaped like a pyramid.
40[b]
August 9: Saturday: windy – speed boats on Connecticut white wakes cut blue lawn, water – bright blue, twinkling! Sun: glint – green banks – fence of trees
Skiers in invisible tow lines – curve & scallop of white shearing aside – birds, swallows, martins ride & sun on the wind – sparse white cumulus – bleached heads of rye – rye stubble – wallop & gaze of boats. Waving grass-seeded heads – fountain heads of golden rod – lace plats of queen anne’s lace bright mustard fuzz – pollen – purple vetch bends nods inland from river wind – rasp, cicada buzz – golden rod against blue water – green band of trees, paler sky – crickets – dustcoated black sextons – yellow butterier than the sun – prickle of bleached stubble – whisk heads
wallop & jolt of the upkicking wave
Midas’ Country
41 [a (blank)]
41[b]
42[a]7
Words: December 1958:
| souse | Audrey |
| broth | Maureen |
| dubious | Beverley |
| duckweed | Diana |
| abide |
Names
Clarence Humberstone
Sadie Hummel
Floyd Hunkins
Hunninghacker
Hupfer
Ethel Hurry
Albert Lake
Emment Lalley
Francis Lalley
Irene Lalley
Hazel Landry
Ma digan
Ellen Mactwiggan
McQuilken
Louise Minard
David Ogg
Glenn Ogletree
Oikle
Joan Oke
Minnie Nuzzy
Feener
Rose Quigley
Loretta Rock
Winifred Root
Angela Rose
Edith Rose
Mae Rose
Otto Rose
Quentin Rose
Sadie Rose
Nora Scully
Winona Scully
Una Shirley
Phyllis Shisler
Sadie Schneider
Jack Shockett
Betty Sisk
Jack Sisson
Audrey Sisson
Betty Sisson
Betty Skerritt
Reggie Horton
Diana Yates
Nancy Teed
Roy Skinner
Rita Skinner
Ada Sleeth
Myra Sloper
Smeedy
Violet Sneed
42[b]8
Withens
Most people never get there, but stop in town for tea, pink frosted cakes, souvenir’s & colored photographs of the place too far to talk to, visiting the Church of St. Michael & All Angels, the black stone rectory rooms of memorabalia – wooden cradle, Charlotte’s bridal crown of heirloom lace & honeysuckle, Emily’s death couch, the small, luminous books & watercolors, the beaded napkin ring, the Apostle cupboard. They touched this, wore that, wrote here in a house redolent with ghosts. There are two ways to the stone house, both tiresome.
One, the public route from the town along green pastureland over stone stiles to the voluble white cataract that drops its long rag of water over rocks warped round, green-slimed, across a wooden footbridge to terrain of goatfoot-flattened grasses where a carriage road Ran a hundred years back in a time grand with the quick of their shaping tongues worn down to broken wall, old cellar hole, gate pillars leading from sheep turf to grouse country. The old carriage road’s a sunk rut, the spring clear well & gurgle under grass too green to believe. The hulk of matted grey hair & a long skull to mark a sheepfold, a track worn, losing itself, but not lost.
The other – across the slow heave, hill on hill from any other direction across bog down to the middle of the world, green-slimed, boots squelchy – brown peat – earth untouched except by grouse foot – bluewhite spines of gorse, the burnt-sugar bracken – all eternity, wildness, loneliness – peat-colored water – the house – small, lasting – pebbles on roof, name scrawls on rock – inhospitable two trees on the lee side of the hill where the long winds come, piece the light in a stillness. The furious ghosts nowhere but in the heads of the visitors & the yellow-eyed shag sheep
House of love lasts as long as love in human mind – blue-spidling gorse
44[a-b]
Roger & Joan Stein
Friday –
St. Theresa of the Child Jesus baldaquin
baldachino – rich brocade, silk & gold marble or stone canopy over altar or throne Canonisation & after anniversary of St. Therèse passing to God – “an aviator arching overhead showered roses on the moving mass below …”
Sept. 30, 1925.
In Carfin, Scotland: “Roses streamed from Venetian masts outside & inside the Grotto itself. The Little Flower shrine was smothered in roses of every hue. The village itself was adorned for the occasion, & her picture was proudly displayed outside well-nigh every door.
 |
Tobias viii, 9 |
| “The Story of the springtime of a little White Flower” |
Old St. Teresa – founded first house of Discalced (barefooted) Carmelite nuns in 1562, at Avila in Spain – Carmelite enclosure very strict – in the parlour a veil covers the grille. In addition to other penances the nuns abstain perpetually from flesh-meat, fast upon one meal a day from Sept. 14 til Easter, wear coarse garments, retire to rest on straw pallets about 11:30 pm & rise during greater part of year at 4:45
Hours of vocal prayer, two hours of mental prayer – proverbial gaiety –
“Oh, how I wish you would die, ‘dear Mamma!’ Astonished at being scolded for saying such a thing, she will answer: ‘It is because I want you to go to Heaven, & you say that to get there we must die!” In her outbursts of affection for her Father, she wishes him also to die.”
“Only one thing do I fear & that is to follow my own will. Accept then the offering I make of it, for I choose all that thou willest!”
St. Therèse: during delirium
What fears, too, the devil inspired! Everything frightened me. The bed seemed to be surrounded by awful precipices, & nails in the wall would assume the ghastly appearance of huge, coal-black fingers, filling me with terror and at times making me cry out with fright. Once, whilst Papa stood looking at me in silence, the hat in his hand was suddenly transformed into some horrible shape & I showed such fear that he turned away sobbing.
Statue: Our lady of the smile – looks down on Therèse –
Copy of Madonna by Bouchardon (1698–1762) for the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris:
Some asked if Our Lady had the Infant Jesus in her arms; others wished to know if Angels wer with her. These & further questions troubled & grieved me & I could only make one answer: ’Our Lady looked very beautiful; I saw her come towards me & smile.”
“Yet I still feel the same daring confidence that one day I shall become a great saint. I am not trusting in my own merits, for I have none; but I trust in him who is Virtue & Holiness itself.”
First Communion: Therèse had disappeared like a drop of water lost in the immensity of the ocean; Jesus alone remained – He was the Master, the King. Had not Therese asked Him to take away the liberty which frightened her?
Imitation of Christ:
St. Teresa of Avila – is calle the Doctor of Mystical Theology because of her writings on the relations of the soul with God.
Padua: “venerated relic of St. Antony’s tongue”
Loreto – 1291: Palestine passed completely into the hands of the Saracens, but, on May 10, the house where God became man & where the holy Family spent so many years was transported by angels to Tersato, in Illyria. Three years later, it was carried across the Adriatic to the province of Ancona, in Italy, where after further journeys it was set down finally in the middle of the road at Loreto in 1295. Such is the tradition & it has been accredited by many Popes & Saints & strengthened by miracles.
Catacombs – St. Cecelia’s tomb –
45[a]
St. Thérèse: Santa Croce, Rome: the relics of the true Cross, together with two of the thorns & one of the Sacred Nails. –
For some time past I had offered myself to the Child Jesus, to be his little plaything; I told Him not to treat me like one of those precious toys which children only look at & dare not touch, but rather as a little ball of no value that could be thrown on the ground, tossed about, pierced, left in a corner, or pressed to His heart, just as it might please Him. In a word, all I desired was to amuse the Holy Child, to let Him play with me just as he felt inclined. “great spiritual aridity”
About this time9 I began to have a preference for whatever was ugly & inconvenient, so much that I rejoiced when a pretty little water jug was taken from our cell & replaced by a big one, badly chipped all over …
Death of mother genevieve of St. Teresa
… “I received a very special grace. It was the first time I had assisted at a death bed … Each of the Sisters hastened to claim something belonging to our beloved Mother, and you know the precious relic I treasure. During her agony I had noticed a tear glistening on her eyelash like a diamond, and that tear, the last of all those she had shed on earth, never fell; I saw it still shining as her body lay exposed in the choir. So when evening came I made bold to approach unseen, with a little piece of linen, and now I am the happy possessor of the last tear of a Saint.”
St. Thérèse & the tear
Jesus treated me as a spoilt child for a longer time even than His more faithful spouses. After the influenza epidemic He came to me daily for several months, a privilege not shared by the Community
“All I want is a sign” –
45[b]–46[a]
“Scarcely had I laid my head on the pillow when I felt a hot stream rise to my lips, and thinking I was going to die, my heart almost broke with joy. I had already put out our lamp, so I mortified my curiosity till morning & went peacefully to sleep.
At five o’clock, the time for rising, I remembered immediately that I had some good news to learn, & going to the window I found, as I had expected, that our handkerchief was saturated with blood. What hope filled my heart!”
Oh, my God! from how much disquiet do we free ourselves by the vow of obedience!
On her deathbed:10
“Throughout my religious life the cold has caused me more physical pain than anything else – I have suffered from cold until I almost died of it.”
One night she entreated the infirmarian to sprinkle her bed with Holy Water, saying: “The devil is beside me. I do not see him but I feel him; he torments me, holding me with a grip of iron that I may not find one crumb of comfort, & adding to my sufferings that I may be driven to despair …”
Before the canonisation over 27 million souvenirs of the ‘Little Flower’ had been distributed. The demand for first class relics is unprecedented & is, of course, impossible to satisfy. Her Carfin shrine is happy to possess a piece of bone; also some of her hair, her Immaculate Conception rosary, an autograph prayer, a rose-petal, an artificial rose from her deathbed & various other secondary relics –
The remains of St. Therese were first exhumed … 1910 … as she foretold, nothing was found of her body but the bones, yet the palm-branch mentioned above was perfectly preserved & may be seen at the Carmel –
Certain extraordinary incidents – a lay sister who on kissing the feet of the servant of God was instantly cured of cerebral anemia – another nun was favored with a very strong perfume of violets while a third felt herself thrilled by a kiss bestowed on her by some invisible being. One sister perceived a bright light in the heavens & another saw a luminous crown which, rising from the earth, was soon lost in space …
supernatural cures of nuns & priests: tb, ulcers
“to believe oneself imperfect & others perfect – This is true happiness.”
“The lowest place is the only spot on earth which is not open to envy. Here alone there is neither vanity nor affliction of spirit.”
rubric: red heading, initial
“one fast-day … when our Reverend Mother ordered her some special food, I found her seasoning it with wormwood because it was too much to her taste.”
… during her noviciate, one of our Sisters, when fastening the scapular for her, ran the large pin through her shoulder, & for hours she bore the pain with joy …
* love will consume us only in the measure of our self-surrender *
“God will do all I wish in Heaven, because I have never done my own will on earth …”
“The only thing that is all its own & is essential to its being is the stone: it possesses nothing beyond …”
46[b]
The juice went through him like a lightning bolt
seasoning the beauties of this world with wormwood –
Water Skiers
motion & verve against season’s death
dream – death & corpses in arms of love
47[a]
Poems
Haworth & graves
The Bull of Bendylaw – King & court: ceremony & rule – tapestry meadow, dasies, marigolds – playing card
King & queen –
Bull – Dionysiac force – inspiration
Male virility –
unbindable
Europa & bull
color: versus black bull
Point Shirley, Revisited
Goatsucker night’s black cockpit
cock chafers, moths
Nighthawks stomachs – moths grasshoppers, bugs, beetles, wasps, spider, ants, clover-leaf weevil, may beetles
eat on wing
Superstition – peasants: in all languages
Voice: Night jar: whirr – burr of a lathe
–perch: lengthwise – knots on limb
red eye: devil-bird in ceylon
mouth enormous – net for insects,
Whippoor will – cavemouth, loud voice
Fear of darkness – those that move silently
Nest – rooftops & gravelly hills
Puck – disease in cattle
mischievous demon
puck bird
47[b]
gape thickly beset by strong bristles
moths & cock chafers
single burning note, vibration
silent flight, when disturbed, wings smite together
Night hawk, whippoor will – chuck will’s widow
Sucking teats of goats – food –
injurious to calves – Puck bird
eggs on open bare spots
enormous mouth, surprisingly wide gape
net for capture of insects – stiff long bristles
whippoorwill, cave mouth, loud voice
large eyes
Old world peasants – call about herds – believe birds subsist on stolen milk
52[a]11
white ceiling, waffle
round skylight
panelled wood
green leather seats – gold crest
is this book obscene –
– tendency to deprave & corrupt persons who read it –
whether defendants have established merits are so high that they out-balance the obscenity & book is for public good –
– onus of proof on defendants
28 people in public court
consider public, not student of literature
person who knows nothing at all about literature or lawrence but buys book for 3⁄6 – lunchtime break at factory, takes home to finish –
Jones – council on behalf of Crown – ‘Keep your feet on ground’ – don’t get lost in higher realms of lit., sociology, ethics –
Two witnesses who made observations – (spectacles) Mrs. Bennett – ‘a reader who is capable of understanding him could learn much of what his view is’ –
Professor – ‘impossible to understand any one book of L’s without having read all’ – This book a fundamental one in understand poet.
J: different picture to person with no knowledge or little learning – these consideration must apply –
53[a]–55[a]
Graham Hough – Christ’s Coll. Camb.
Has studied L: & written book – one of most impt novelists of this cen & any cen. To assess lit merits of book – true & sincere representat – of aspect of life – peculiar & individual situation of char. – sexual rels of men & women – nature of proper marriage – great importance to us all.
(Lady C & lawful husband
Judge: a ‘proper marriage’ lady C & gamekeeper
nothing to indicate there was or would be a marriage – gamek had wife,
Lord C. wouldn’t divorce her)
H: not best of L’s novels: abt. 5th
literary merit of pages not concerned w sex ‘very high’ – sexual sit. centre of book a great deal else as well – the rest not padding for sexual scenes – promiscuity hardly comes in question – very much condemned by Lawrence – a great deal of adulterous situations from Iliad on.
J: you are final judges
H: reason for repeated description of sexual scenes different, not repetitive v. impt. to show Lady C’s development – entirely necessary – a bold experiment trying to study sex. situation more openly.
J: asked abt 4 letter words
No proper language to discuss sexual matters – either clinical or disgusting – secretive, morbid attitude. L tries to redeem normally obscene words.
J: be careful not to be led away by what some people have decided is real message & real thought of book. Is he using those words – coarse words – are those words part of general makeup of the book? not justified as being for pub good.
Miss Gardner: reader in Eng lit Oxford U, author, among 5 or 6 greatest writers of this cen.
How far in your view are descriptions of sex relevant to meaning of book?
‘core & heart of book’s theme & meaning’ was description of sexual intercourse
‘a v. remarkable book, not wholly successful novel, some passages among greatest things he wrote.’
use of 4 letter words?
sexual act not shameful, word not shameful either.
Didn’t think L. was able to redeem word & usage of word ‘fuck’ – talking abt. usage within book itself.
‘certain aspects of mod soc. – degaded condition in which people live without beauty or joy – doesn’t exempt any classes – relation bet. men & wom the fundamental thing wrong – the heart of this book. Society may thus be revivified.
—
J: Whether a person would be able to read into book what witnesses have said is in it.
Mrs. Bennett – fellow of Girton, author
L. greatest writer of fiction since Hardy. Genuineness of experience & purer writer has to express exp. – physical life impt. & is being neglected – people live poor & emasculated lives, living with half of themselves – deals with sex very seriously indeed – does not set promiscuous/intercourse/on a pedestal & adulterous. ‘Adulterous’ – a marriage can be broken when it is unfulfilled – book not against divorce – denied story is little more than padding – clearly interest w. social questions & class relation
Griffiths-Jones
Bennett – believes in marriage not in the legal sense
Judge: what is she talking about.
Bennett ‘a sort of almost sacred book’
Jones: ‘You said book shows author’s view on marriage’
B – ‘does make clear a union bet. two persons, who love one another of greatest importance’ marriage shd be complete relation including physical, if it doesn’t include physical rels, it should be terminated’
‘clear distinction between affair & love relation with keeper’
J – when you (to jury) read book, were you ‘capable of understanding?’ what L’s views of marriage is.
Jones: ‘can you not bring book down from heights? You do not suggest that adulterous relationships show L’s views of marriage –
J: ‘lawful wedlock, madam’
‘Is that not exactly what L. had done – ran off with friend’s wife.’ The whole book is about that subject is it not?
Lady Rebecca West – author of a no. of books.
L’s rep. very high – discussed on high level throughout world – Lady C’s Lover is full of sentences badly written. A man without formal education (not in home) – defect ‘no sense of humor’ a lot of pages ludicrous – still, has lit. merit – work of art – analysis of exp – life a serious matter, things beautiful –
Bishop (of Woolwich)
Ethics – clearly L. did not have a Christian valuation of sex – not ideal. trying to portray sex rel. as ‘something essentially sacred.’ – in a real sense as an ‘act of holy communion’
Judge – is L trying to portray sex as something sacred?
effect of expurgation of 4-letter words wd suggest L was doing sth sordid – artistic integrity – not dealing with intercourse for itself –
Is book a valuable book in ethics?
Does stress real value of personal relations as such –
Bishop – not a treatise on marriage – concerned w. establishing a permanent spiritual relationship –
G-J. – a work of instruction? on the subject of ethics.
Bishop: No.
J: Does book portray life of immoral woman?
B: Not intended to serve immorality – Yes, a book Christians ought to read –
Professor Pinto – Prof at Nottingham
L. one of the greatest writers of 20th cen
Theme? a double theme – mechanization of humanity in industrial society – human happiness based on tenderness & affection. A high place in literary merit – a deeply moving story. A valuable work.
In some measure a moral tract?
Clergyman: ‘book of moral purpose’ – ethical & sociological merits.
‘a study in compassion & human tenderness’ – physical rel. dealt with respect & honesty – nothing in it out of key or keeping. Part of Christian Tradition. God creator, man in creative relationship.
As a minister highest regard for marriage – book abt. couple with no regard for marriage?
No. Her marriage bonds all broke down. Not at liberty to throw over marriage bonds in order to get sexual satisfaction? That what this book is teaching?
Marriage had failed before this happened.
Mr. Hoggart – lecturer of Leicester
Exceptional lit. merit – best 20 novels in past 30 years. Not in any sense vicious, highly virtuous, if anything, puritanical. A moral book
Overwhelming impression – enormous reverence between human beings in love & physical relationship. Highly moral & not degrading of sex –
Judge – do you find any spark of affection till quite late in book? Or merely having sex & enjoying?
For you to say – you’ve read the book, you are the judge.
Young people? – a proper book –
Proper if they came to me to ask me – or asked parents – I wouldn’t take responsibility on myself –
58[a]
Monday: February 27, 1961 In Hospital
Still whole, I interest nobody. I am not among the cheerful smilers in plaster & bandages or the bubbling moaners behind the glass & pink wood partition. The sad, mustachioed doctor & his bright white starchy students pass me by. This is a religious establishment, great cleansings take place. Everybody has a secret. I watch them from my pillows, already exhausted. The fat girl in glasses walks by, testing her new leg, the noseless old woman, with her foot strung up in traction, the lady with the sour face, chest & arm in plaster, scratches herself inside with a stick ‘My skin’s ruckled up.’ They’ll cut her out Thursday. A helpful inmate in a red wool bathrobe brings the flowers back, sweet-lipped as children. All night they’ve been breathing in the hall dropping their pollens, daffodils, pink & red tulips, the hot purple & red eyed – anemones.
Potted plants for the veterans. Nobody complains or whines. In the black earphones hung on my silver bedstead a tiny voice nags me to listen. They won’t unplug him. Immensely cheerful pink, blue & yellow birds distribute themselves among flowers, primarily pink, and simpering greenery on the white bed curtains. It is like an arbor when they close me in. Last night I got lost in the wet, black Sunday streets of Camden Town, walking resolutely in the wrong direction. I asked an old woman getting out of a car where the St. Pancras hospital was: she asked her old husband – he said: “It’s a bit complicated. I better drive you there.” I got into the back seat of the old comfortable car & burst into tears. ‘I’d rather have a baby’, I say, ’at least you’ve got something for it. ‘That’s what we all say’, said the woman. The man angled the car through obscure, black glistening streets to the hospital. I stumbled through the rain, my bang in wet hanks plastered to my forehead. The Admissions office was shut – I walk down a long brilliantly-lit hall & a boy in brown takes me to Ward 1 in the elevator. The nurse asks me question & fills out a form. I want to answer more questions, I love questions. I feel a blissful slumping into boxes on forms. The lady next to me has a bandage under her neck – They found in a chest x-ray that her thyroid had grown into her lung & cut it out. Now, curtains drawn round her bed, an occupational therapist sounds to be hitting her: a-slap-a-slap-a-slap. All kinds of equipment is ferryied by – vacuum cleaners, stepladders, instruments for tipping up one end of the bed, a large aluminum box on wheels which is plugged into the wall – I think it is a hot-box for the steamed lunches. Last night I felt too sick for supper – had only a cup of Ovaltine, got into my night dress behind flowered curtains. A young, attractively lean Doctor ‘Cabst’ came round & asked me symptom questions. Put an exclamation after the observation that I might be pregnant again. Cold air blows down from the tall window on my head. The thyroid woman coughs dryly behind her curtain. A pretty young sociable woman named Rose came to chat with me last night, introduced me to a lively blackhaired lady in diaphanous pale blue nightgown named ‘Bunny’ who had ‘been in Boston’, another bright lady whose husband studied locusts in Africa – they both had malaria; he owns some zoo in South Devon to which he sent animals in pairs. Tried vacantly to read ‘Paris Review.’ A red & a white pill slowly dragged me into a fog. ‘Lights out’ at nine. The round globed ward lights switched to red – 8 red cutout circles in the twilight – light lingered everywhere. Goodnight, goodnight, bed-mates said, & reduced themselves to humps. I considered asking that my curtains be drawn, but then shut my eyes & found with surprising pleasure I had my own curtains which I could shut at will. Woken out of a shallow sleep at 5 by a bustle, creaking, running of water & clanking of buckets. At six, in the wan wet grey, the white lights came on – tea, temperatures, pulse. I washed, swabbed my privates with a blue antiseptic & urinated obligingly in a glass jar. Later they swabbed my nose to see ‘if I was carrying any germs to infect wounds’. Breakfast about 7:30. Thin brown bread scraped penuriously with butter (or some substitute) so only a faint glaze testified to which side was the right side for the orange marmelade; tea, a shallow bowl of smoky saltless gruel, bacon & tomatoes (very good) & more tea – Bad, dreggy fusty coffee mid morning. Paperboy, chocolate & cigarette cart. Green graphs on polished aluminum clipboards hooked to the foot of each bed.
Tuesday: February 28. Today is the day. Amid the chatter & breakfasting off all the other patients I alone am quiet & without food. Yet I feel curiosly less worried about losing my appendix than being electrocuted. The gently-spoken grey lady at my right “Duchess”, or “Mrs Mac” goes home today. She goes to Harrow by ambulance, her frail form stooped now over a bowl of cornflakes in her white crocheted shawl. I feel slightly sick after all this waiting, but here where everyone is amiable with gracious smiles, it is impossible to indulge in mopes or self-pity, a very good thing. Last night a young nurse shaved me with exceedingly scratchy strokes, exposing that odd mole that grew on the left when I was pregnant. Today, after a sleeping pill, I woke when the nurse took my temperature & pulse. Had tea & buttered toast at 6:30. Then they took away my water & my milk. “Bunny”, “Daisy”, Jane, Rose. The goiter lady (her thyroid grew into her lung) on my left had a “pounding” yesterday – her bed raised at the foot & she pummelled “to loosen the phlegm” Daisy said interestedly. I too as the latest operative case, am of interest. Was I shaved? Will I have an enema? And so on. 
came last night. Precisely one minute after 7.30 a crowd of shabby, short, sweet peering people was let into the ward – they fluxed in familiar directions, bringing a dark-coated handsome shape. Twice as tall as all of them. I felt as excited & infinitely happy as in the early days of our courtship. His face which I daily live with seemed the most kind & beautiful in the world. He brought an air letter from the New Yorker for me with a $100 contract for letting them have “first reading” of all my poems for a year! The date of the letter was that of our first meeting at the Botolph party 5 years ago. He brought steak sandwiches & apricot tarts & milk & fresh-squeezed orange juice – I felt afterwards that if I said “For him – he will be on the other side” – I could go through anything with courage – or at least reasonable fortitude.
Later – 10 am – now I’m really prepared for the slaughter – robed loosely in a pink & maroon striped surgical gown, a gauze turban & a strip of adhesive shuts off the sight of my wedding ring. The little nurse was snippy when I asked how long the operation took. Oblivion approaches. Now I’m close enough, I open my arms. I asked to have my flowered curtains left drawn – the privilege of a condemned prisoner – I don’t want the curious gossipy well-meaning ladies peering for signs of fear, stupor or whatever. Evidently a lady went out on a trolley a few minutes back “Was she asleep?” “She looked asleep, she just lay there.” Now they’ve given me the first injection – which will “dry my mouth, make me feel drunk & so I don’t care what happens.” A handsome lady anesthetist came in & told me about the details of that – my arm is swollen – right upper – a bee sting, red & hard to the touch. I feel a bubbly drowsiness take my heart & so shall only write in here after it’s over – a letter from Ted reached me – my dear dear love.
Friday: March 3: Three days since my operation & I am myself again: the tough, gossipy curious enchanting entity I have not been for so long. The life here is made up of details. Petty pleasures & petty annoyances. Tuesday I was so drugged I knew nothing & nothing bothered me. Wednesday the drugs wore off & I felt sick & resentful of the lively health of the ward. Yesterday I felt tired & so-so. Today I threw of my fetters. – got up to wash & had my first laborious goat-shit, changed my hospital pink & red flapping jacket which left my bum bare to my frilly pink & white Victorian nightgown. They just wheeled one of the new women by on a stretcher – the muscular lime green porter loaded her on the trolley – the queer flat shape of a drugged body – the white turban, green blankets, eyes staring up, dumbly. The other night they say ‘Thelma died.’ I vaguely remember a lady in a yellow gown, youngish, wheeling the tea round. ‘She died after her op.” Outdoors it is sunny, smelling of wet sweet earth – A few stray airs filter in the windows. I remember luxuriating in these blowing airs on my first night when I lay wakeful after a day of sleep yet deeply drugged & invulnerable – it blew sweetly over the sleeping forms & stirred the curtains.
Annoyances & sorrows: The window above my bed was broken – cracked. First, before my op, a cold wet air laid itself on my head like a nasty poultice. Then, the day after my op, two men came to fix the window. My bed was wheeled out into mid-corridor. I felt unsettled, vulnerable. I was bumped. My side hurt. The fat girl in the wheelchair gave my dresser (locker) a great bump which jarred my bed. My side hurt. I slunk deeper into my pillows, exposed to strange peerers at the far end of the ward on all sides. I thought. ‘Everybody going by bumps me,’ I said to the nurse after an hour. ‘I’d rather have the draft. I have to use the bedpan.’ Chagrined, they had to wheel me back. When the workmen returned they were told to come back at one. They did come in visiting hours & move me out but Ted was there so I didnt care. Vacuuming They vacuum all day – little frizzy haired tarty fat lugubrious women mooching up the overnight dust – wooz – wooz. Then the bump & jingle of trolleys – bedpan trolleys, mouthwash trolleys, breakfast trolleys, tea trolleys, medicine trolleys. They thump on the floor & rattle. Then the typewriter hooknosed witch with the two crooked canes & green dressing-gown put out a huge black old-fashioned monster typewriter on the table in front of my bed. Bank-bonk-clatter-clatter. The worst curse – an unsteady typist. ‘I’m not ready to go back to the office yet,’ I said.
Snoring: the worst horror of all. I am next to the ward-snorer. The first night she came I was too drugged to hear her, but Wednesday morning a nurse laughingly remarked on it. That night I lay & tossed & ached till midnight: the stentorious roar echoed & magnified itself. The nurse with her flashlight said I couldn’t have another sleeping pill so soon – she pulled the flowered curtain, woke the snorer up & turned her over, made me some hot ovaltine. Then the night sister came round with a second big blue pill which took me away in a warm bliss through all the petty bustle & noise from 5–10 am (Now the stretcher with its two green plastic pillows comes in again for the neighbor of the first woman in Bed 9. Green blankets. She looks just like the other woman – her eyes staring at the ceiling.) Last night I went to sleep before the old woman started to snore but woke with a start before 3 a.m. to hear her roaring. Got up to bathroom in a daze & grunted. Nothing happened. They finally made me some ovaltine & gave me two codeines which cut the sharp pang of my scar & the shooting gripes of wind in my bowels. I put the pillow over my head to shut out the noise & so woke at 7. Another peeve is that there are no bells to ring for the nurses – one has to rise on one elbow, – mine are pink & raw from hauling myself up – & shout ‘Nurse’ hoarsely. How a really sick person does, I don’t know.
65[a–b], 66[b]–69[b]
Sunday: March 5: The fifth day after my op. I have been lazy about writing in here – I feel fine now: an old soldier. Still with my stitches in & something to talk about. The stitches pull & twitch (“My mendings itch”) but I demand codeine. Rose of the blue robe & white-haired “Granny” with the awful bloodshot crossed eyes, impressively black with iodine or some such when I came in – are going home today. Rose forgot her skirt so keeps her robe on – a symbol, that, of the desire to be “one of us”. A dressed person, a person dressed for the street, is a bother here – not “one of us,” a sort of masquerader. Rose wheels the trolley of flower vases about & distributes them – each glass vase or china pitcher is numbered with the Bed number of the patient on a bit of adhesive. The nurse just walked by with the square white cardboard spittoons. I shall have a story out of this, beginning “Tonight I deserve a blue light, I am one of them” – describing the shock of entering this queer highly rhythmical & ordered society as a stranger, an outsider, attuning oneself to the ward vibrations, undergoing the “initiation” – the real central common yet personal experience, & recovering in harmony. As soon as one is well, too well, one is excluded “unpopular” – the violet-gowned Miss Stapleton immediately to my left has relapsed. Her thyroid or goiter scar has healed, but she lies mouth open & eyes shut – her leg has swollen & hurts. She has phlebitis. She is going to a convalescent home after this. So is the lady with jaundice three beds down to my left next to Gran. She is bright yellow, has been ‘opened’ innumerable times & is going to Clacton-on-the Sea – to a convent convalescent home where the nuns bake their own bread & do up tasty dishes. ‘The salt air does you good’, I say. I face Helga’s12 pot of tulips & Charles’ dying iris & daffodils. ‘That yellow stuff’s lasted well,’ Daisy says of Miss Stapleton’s bouquet. ‘For-sigh-thia’ drawls Maury with the pain-set face & tart tongue. She told me she’ll never to, be able to move her arm, just her fingers. Now it is 1:40 pm Sunday afternoon. I have desperately washed, powdered my sallow bandaged body, combed my greasy hair – feel shoddily in need of a shampoo. Bunny & Joan are talking about the difference between “black Africans” & “white Afrikaans.” The nurses are ‘tidying’ beds before visiting hours. To my own surprise I am allowed to go out & sit on a park bench in the sun with Ted & the Pooker13 as I did yesterday all afternoon; I am immensely fond of all the nurses in their black & white pin striped dresses, white aprons & hats & black shoes & stockings. Their youth is the chief beauty about them – youth, absolute starched cleanliness & a comforting tidying-up & brow-smoothing air. The routine, even with the quite short nights’ sleep (about 10–6, if lucky – swimming to it through Mrs. John’s snores & clutching it through the nurse’s morning bustle & glassy clatter) I feel more fresh & rested than I have for months. I am above the ‘sick level’ of the place so I have an extra advantage – although I slightly cancel it by much bedside visiting & gossiping. I feel so fresh & peaceful now, in spite of a slight shiver at the thought of my stitches coming out – it is like a diverting holiday – my first since the baby was born almost a year ago: quite bracing. All morning talked to Jay Wynn across the way about her office & private life & nervous breakdown – cannot congratulate myself too much on this confidence because I blabbed about my own breakdown & mis-applied shock treatment. Shall outline her account after I come in tonight. Ted is actually having a rougher time than I – poor love sounded quite squashed yesterday ‘How do you do it all? … The Pooker makes an astonishing amount of pots to wash … She wets a lot’ & ‘I seem to be eating mostly bread.’ I felt needed & very happy & lucky. My life – as I compare it to those in the ward about me – is so fine – everything but money & a house – love & all.
A sunny day. Hot. The radiator at my back makes me sweat – I should have listed it among annoyances. The windows – the three bay windows on the far side of the ward are white & dazzling with sun. Dark green blinds, dulled moon-bulbs.
7:45 pm. twilight. Low voices, sleepy breathers. I was going to sleep till pill-time, but the sight of the old woman’s hands clutching the 
shaped – bow-shaped, I suppose, pull-up bar on its curiously heavy iron prison chain stopped me. Those gnarled white roots of hands. Mrs. Fry was evidently run over by a car on some Friday or other – latest news is that she insisted on being moved to this hospital – nearer her home – from another, probably UCH.14 She moans, yells, curses. ‘You devil! You’re trying to murder me’ – – – over pills, or moving down in bed or something. ‘Mother, mother – – – O how I’ve suffered’. She refuses medicine, calls the nurses constantly. I sat tonight (it’s now 5 to 9) with the giggly RADA15 girl – all short red hair, pink luminous baby-skin & even white teeth & giggles like a froth on champagne about the brain operation snorting horribly in her nose tubes & skull-sock. She told me Mrs. Fry’s legs (both broken) were almost mended. Another story said they were just broken. The man who ran her over & his wife came tiptoeing in with flowers. ‘How are you?’ ‘Very poorly, very poorly,’ She says with relish.
Often, the nurses disappear. The old noseless lady of 82 with the broken leg in traction at the left-end of the row facing me yelled for a bedpan earlier ‘Nurse’ – her sock-face grotesquely leaning forward past the fat jolly dark Italian girl’s. I gradually felt it devolve on me, bed by bed, to get a nurse. ‘Nurse’, the old lady yelled. I tried to cheer her up this morning by telling her a lady at least 10 years her senior with two broken legs was in the adjoining ward. ‘God is Good’ the old thing said. Immense cameraderie here. I am in an excellent position for “visiting round.” The nurses are absolute angels.
Monday: March 6: 4:20 pm. In bed after an hour alone in the wan sun of the park reading the late poems of Pasternak – they excited me immensely – the free, lyric line & terse (though sometimes too fey) idiom. I felt: a new start can be made through these. This is the way back to the music. I wept to lose to my new tough prosiness. Tired after a ghastly night – the woman – Mrs. Fry – with the two white-root hands put on a huge scene – started calling for the police. ‘Police, policeman, get me out of here’ ‘O how I suffer’ theatrical wooing groans ‘I’ll call my doctor in in the morning to show how you leave me all night because of your whims’ ‘I’ll tell your mummies on you.’ The sister went in to her ‘Why won’t you take your medicine?’ Evidently she had some pills to make her shit & shat all day & thinks they’re trying to kill her like this. Some more cursing & I saw the nurse & sister in the lit office-cubicle gleefully preparing a hypodermic. Often she sounds manic – ‘Ooo what are those around me? Walls walls walls …” “Those are windows,’ the sister said firmly. ‘What are those frocks on the chair?’ ‘Those are pillow-cases’. At about 3 I was woken by a crash & more wooing. She’d thrown a medicine glass down. Evidently on her first day here she hit a doctor with her pocket book.
My stitches pull & snick. I am tired.
– Notes: The pink ‘bud-vases’ of antiseptic over each bed our thermometers are kept in.
– The flower bowls on windowsills, the trolleys of valiant but dying flowers.
– The old lady’s plastic flesh-coloured neck piece on her table like an extra head – peach – pink with air holes, white straps & silver studs & a lining of yellow sponge & pink flowered nightgown silk. Her bowl of fruit, CPSnow’s ‘New Men’, stubborness – eats food out of tins her daughter brings
– Once last night the old lady Fry shouted ‘You can laugh. I can laugh. He who laughs last laughs best.’ I felt guilty as I had just smothered a snort in the pillow. But the nurse’s laughed also.
– The sock-head nose-tube lady had water on the brain – snorkles & drools dull eyed. Was a district-nurse, mannish, efficient – now ‘she may go one way or the other – mental’.
Bed 1: Joan in a plaster cast from toe to bosom for 4 months knits dark green wool. Has a house on the sea in South Devon. Obvious brave front. Reads ‘Horse & Hound’. Two sons 16 & 14. Sent to public school at 6 – ‘The only thing.’ Her entomologist husband, their life in Africa, studying locusts.
Bed 2: The ubiquitous popular Rose, born in Camden town & married at an early age to the boy round the corner, of Dutch descent & working at the same print factory for 15 years, with one son – is gone.
Bed 3: Mrs. Johns – the neckpiece lady – sits straight as a schoolmarm, reading. I guessed right about her – she thinks she’s ‘better’ – keeps an utter schoolmarmish reserve which she broke for me yesterday. She is the wife of an elementary school headmaster, daughter of two country school teachers & grandaughter of school-teachers. Her daughter is a bossy gabby school teacher who – not surprisingly – divorced her husband in Africa before the birth of their first baby & she now lectures at the University of London – teaching teachers. She informed me, almost in tears, last night, that her daughter had looked at my books while I was out & said she had ‘an intellectual next to her’. Said she felt ‘so unfriendly’ not talking, but she was always in pain, had a TB abscess in her spine. It was treated ‘wrong’ – as neuritis, with exercises – now very bad. She seems to stick to her trouble & has given her doctors & nurses a stiffneck resistance. Her night-snoring & sleeping all day is enough to make us all pitiless
I found out today who Mrs. Pfaffrath is – that elusive lady whose pool forms keep coming to our house. She is – or was – our dead landlady & a woman here knew her! I got round to talking to the prim trim North Irish Nelly in the middle bay-window as I dried my hair & found she once lived in our district. I asked if she knew Chalcot Square & she said ‘I knew the landlady of Number 3’. She was married to a French wig-maker. Evidently there was a great demand for men’s wigs after the war as lots of soldiers lost their hair & went bald for one reason or another.
Daisy is the real original. Wish I could overhear her stories. ‘I could tell she’s a Jew’ she said triumphantly of wild Mrs. Fry. ‘She said ‘already’. That’s what the Jews say.’ ‘I say already too, Jay put in gently, but that didn’t deter Daisy: ‘We’re all like little animals’ she said, ‘waiting for dinner.’
The white-haired Jewess from Hackney in the lavender bed-sweater told me of her pale hard-working teacher daughter & her marvelous grandsons who are brilliant, one entering Oxford in geology. Impression of desperate grubbing study. She went to have a badly-fitted false leg improved Friday – has come back in because her other foot has ‘gone bad’ – a diabetic – my father’s classic case – as the witchy Jewess in the green arsenic dressing-gown told me on my walk – she insisted on coming, but went right in.