June 14.
The Restlessness of the Sea
The restlessness of the sea acts as a soporific on jangled nerves. You gaze at its incessant activities, unwillingly at first because they distract your attention from your own cherished worries and griefs, – but later you watch with complete self-abandon – it wrenches you out of yourself – and eventually with a kind of stupid hypnotic stare.
Dr Spurgeon
The day has been overcast, but to-night a soft breeze sprang up and swept the sky clear as softly as a mop. The sun coming out shone upon a white sail far out in the channel, scarcely another vessel hove in sight. The white sail glittered like a piece of silver paper whenever the mainsail swung round as the vessel tacked. Its solitariness and whiteness in a desert of marine blue attracted the attention and held it till at last I could look at nothing else. The sight of it – so clean and white and fair – set me yearning for all the rarest and most exquisite things my imagination could conjure up – a beautiful girl, with fair and sunburnt skin, brown eyes, dark eyebrows, and small pretty feet; a dewdrop in a violet’s face; an orange-tip butterfly swinging on an umbel of a flower.
The sail went on twinkling and began to exert an almost moral influence over me. It drew out all the good in me. I longed to follow it on white wings – an angel I suppose – to quit this husk of a body ‘as raiment put away’, and pursue Truth and Beauty across the sea to the horizon, and beyond the horizon up the sky itself to its last tenuous confines, no doubt with a still small voice summoning me and the rest of the elect to an Agapemone, with Dr Spurgeon at the door distributing tracts.
I can scoff like this now. But at the time my exaltation was very real. My soul strained in the leash. I was full of a desire for unattainable spiritual beauty. I wanted something. But I don’t know what I want.
June 16.
My Sense of Touch
My sense of touch has always been morbidly acute. I like to feel a cigarette locked in the extreme corner of my mouth. When I remove it from my mouth then I hold it probably up in the fork between two fingers. If I am waiting for a meal I finger the cool knives and forks. If I am in the country I plunge my hand with outspread fingers into a mass of large-topped grasses, then close my fingers, crush and decapitate the lot.
June 27.
Camping Out at S— Sands
A brilliant summer day. Up early, breakfasted, and, clad in sweater and trousers, walked up the sands to the boathouse with bare feet.
Everything was wonderful! I strode along over the level sands infatuated with the sheer ability to put one leg in front of the other and walk. I loved to feel the muscles of my thighs working, and to swing my arms in rhythm with the stride. The stiff breeze had blown the sky clear, and was rushing through my long hair, and bellowing into each ear. I strode as Alexander must have done!
Then I stretched my whole length out along a flat plank on the sands, which was as dry as a bone and warm. There was not a soul on the sands. Everything was bare, clean, windswept. My plank had been washed clean and white. The sands – 3 miles of it – were hard and purified, level. My eye raced along in every direction – there was nothing – not a bird or a man – to stop it. In that immense windswept space nothing was present save me and the wind and the sea – a flattering moment for the egotist.
At the foot of the cliffs on the return journey met an old man gathering sticks. As he ambled along dropping sticks into a long sack he called out casually, ‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ?’ in the tone of voice in which one would say, ‘I think we shall have some rain before night.’ ‘Aye, aye,’ came the answer without hesitation from a boy lying on his back in the sands a few yards distant, ‘and that He died to save me.’
Life is full of surprises like this. The only other sounds I have heard to-day were the Herring Gull’s cackle. Your own gardener will one day look over his rake and give you the correct chemical formula for carbonic acid gas. I met a postman once reading Shelley as he walked his rounds.
June 28.
I am writing this by the lamp in the cabin among the sandhills waiting for H— to arrive from town with provisions. I wear a pair of bags, a dirty sweater, and go without hat or shoes and stockings. There is a ‘Deadwood Dick’ atmosphere here. I’m a sort of bronco-breaker or rancher off duty writing home. In a minute I haven’t the slightest doubt, H— will gallop into the compound, tether his colt and come in ‘raising Cain’ for a belly-full of red meat … If I am going to live after all (touch wood) I shall go abroad and be in the open.
I eat greedily, am getting very sunburnt, am growing hairy (that means strength!), and utter portentous oaths. If I stayed here much longer I should grow a tail and climb trees.
After a supper of fried eggs and fried bread done to a nicety, turned in at ten, and both of us lay warm and comfortable in bed, smoking cigarettes and listening to Offenbach’s Barcarolle on the gramophone. We put the lamp out, and it pleased us to watch the glow of each other’s cigarettes in the dark … Neither of us spoke … Went to sleep at midnight. Awoke at sunrise to hear an Owl still hooting, a Lark singing, and several Jackdaws clattering on our tin roof with their claws as they walked.
July 1.
In London Again
Returned to London very depressed. Am not so well as I was three weeks ago. The sight of one eye is affected, and I am haunted by the possibility of blindness. Then I have a numb feeling on one side of my face, and my right arm is less mobile.
Left darling Mother in a very weak state in bed, with neuritis and a weak heart. She cried when I said ‘Goodbye’, and asked me to go to Church as often as I could, and to read a portion of Scripture every day. I promised. Then she added, ‘For Dad’s sake’; just as if I would not do it for her. Poor dear, she suffers a deal of pain. She does not know how ill I am. I have not told her.
July 3.
Back at work. A terrible day. Thoughts of suicide – a pistol.
July 8.
I get thro’ each day with the utmost difficulty. I have to wrestle with every minute. Each hour is a conquest. The three quarters of an hour at lunch comes as a Godsend. I look forward to it all the morning, I enter into it with joyful relief with no thought of the dreadful moment impending when I must return and re-enter my room. By being wise like this, I manage to husband my spirits and am relatively cheerful for one hour in the middle of each difficult day.
July 9.
Several times I have gone to bed and hoped I should never wake up. Life grows daily more impossible. To-day I put a slide underneath the microscope and looked at it. It was like looking at something thro’ the wrong end of a telescope. I sat with eye glued to the ocular, so as to keep up a pretence of work in case some one came in. My mind was occupied with quite different affairs. If one is pondering on Life and Death, it is a terrible task to have to study Mites.
July 10.
Am doing no work at all … I sit motionless in my chair and beat the devil’s tattoo with my thumbs and think, think, think in the same horrible circle hour after hour. I am unable to work. I haven’t the courage to. I’ve lost my nerve.
At five I return ‘home’ to the Boarding-house and get more desperate.
Two old maids sat down to dinner to-night, one German youth (a lascivious, ranting, brainless creature), a lady typist (who takes drugs they say), a dipsomaniac (who has monthly bouts – H— carried him upstairs and put him to bed the other night), two invertebrate violinists who play in the Covent Garden Orchestra, a colonial lady engaged in a bedroom intrigue with a man who sits at my table. What are these people to me? I hate them all. They know it and are offended.
After dinner, put on my cap and rushed out anywhere to escape. Walked to the end of the street, not knowing where I was going or what doing. Stopped and stared with fixed eyes at the traffic in Kensington Road, undetermined what to do with myself and unable to make up my mind (volitional paralysis). Turned round, walked home, and went straight to bed 9 p.m., anxiously looking forward to to-morrow evening
when I go to see her again, but at the same time wondering how on earth I am to get through to-morrow’s round before the evening comes … This is a hand-to-mouth existence. My own inner life is scorching up all outside interests. Zoology appears as a curious thing in a Bagdad bazaar. I sit in my room at the B. M. and play with it; I let it trickle thro’ my fingers and roll away like a child playing with quicksilver.
July 11.
Over to the flat. She was looking beautiful in a black dress, with a white silk blouse, and a Byron collar, negligently open in front as if a button had come out. She said I varied: sometimes I went up in her estimation, sometimes down; once I went down very low. I understood her to say I was now UP! Alleluia!
July 14.
… It would take too long and I am too tired to write out all the varying phases of this day’s life – all its impressions and petty miseries chasing one another across my consciousness or leap-frogging over my chest like gleeful fiends.fn1
July 21.
Thoroughly enjoyed the journey up to town this morning. I secretly gloated over the fact that the train was dashing along over the rails to London bearing me and all the rest of the train’s company upon their pursuits – wealth, fame, learning. I was inebriated with the speed, ferocity, and dash of living … If the train had charged into the buffers I should have hung my head out of the window and cheered. If a man had got in my way, I’d have knocked him down. The wheels of the carriage were singing a lusty song in which I joined.
July 30.
… We talked of men and women, and she said she thought men were neither angels nor devils but just men. I said I thought women were either angels or devils.
‘I am afraid to ask you which you think me.’
‘You needn’t,’ I said shortly.
August 9.
Horribly upset with news from home. Mother is really ill. The Doctor fears serious nerve trouble and says she will always be an invalid. This is awful, poor dear! It’s dreadful, and yet I have a tiny wish buried at the bottom of my heart that she may be removed early from us rather than linger in pain of body and mind. Especially do I hope she may not live to hear any grievous news of me … What irony that she should lose the use of her right arm only two years after Dad’s death from paralysis. It is cruel for it reminds her of Dad’s illness … What, too, would she think if she could have heard M—’s first words to me yesterday on one of my periodical visits to his consulting room, ‘Well, how’s the paralysis?’
In the evening went over to see her. She was wearing a black silk gown and looked handsome … She is always the same sombre, fascinating, lissom, soft-voiced She! She herself never changes … What am I to do? I cannot give her up and yet I do not altogether wish to take her to my heart. It distresses me to know how to proceed. I am a wily fish.
August 10.
Sat in the gardens with her. We sat facing the sun for a while until she was afraid of developing freckles and turned around, deliberately turning her back on good King Sol … I said it was disrespectful.
‘Oh! he doesn’t mind,’ she said. ‘He’s a dear. He kissed me and said, “Turn round my dear if you like.” ’
Isn’t she tantalising?
I wanted to say sarcastically, ‘I wonder you let him kiss you’, but there was a danger of the remark reviving the dead.
August 14.
I tried my best, I’ve sought every loophole of escape, but I am quite unable to avoid the melancholy fact that her thumbs are – lamentable. I am genuinely upset about it for I like her. No one more than I would be more delighted if they were otherwise … Poor dear! how I love her! That’s why I’m so concerned about her thumbs.
August 21.
A wire from A— came at 11.50 saying, ‘Darling Mother passed peacefully away yesterday afternoon.’ … Yesterday afternoon I was writing Zoology and all last night I slept soundly … It was quite sudden. Caught the first train home.
August 23.
The funeral.
August 31.
Staying at the Hotel du Guesclin at Cancale near St Malo with my dear A—.
This flood of new experiences has knocked my diary habit out of gear. To be candid, I’ve forgotten all about myself. I’ve been too engrossed in living to stand the strain of setting down and in cold blood writing out all the things seen and heard. If I once began I should blow thro’ these pages like a whirlwind … But what a waste of time with M. le batelier waiting outside with his bisque to take us mackerel fishing! …
September 8.
Returned to Southampton yesterday. Have spent the night at Okehampton in Devonshire en route for T— Rectory. This morning we hatched the ridiculous idea of hiring two little Dartmoor ponies and riding out from the town. A— rides fairly well tho’ he has not been astride a beast for years. As for me, I cannot ride at all! Yet I had the idea that I could easily manage a pretty little pony with brown eyes and a long tail. On going out into the Inn yard, was horrified – two horses saddled – one a large traction beast … I climbed on to the smaller one, walked him out of the yard and down the road in good style without accident. Once in the country, however, my animal, the fresher of the two, insisted on a smart trot which shook me up a good deal so that I hardly kept my seat. This eventually so annoyed the animal that it began to fidget and zigzag across the road – no doubt preparing to break away at a stretch gallop when once it had rid itself of the incomprehensible pair of legs across its back.
I got off quickly and swopped horses with A—. Walked him most of the way, while A— cantered forward and back to cheer me on. Ultimately however this beast, too, got sick of walking and began to trot. For a time I stood this well and began to rise in my saddle quite nicely. After two miles, horrible soreness supervened, and I had to get off – very carefully, with a funny feeling in my legs – even looked down at them to assure myself they were not bandy! In doing so, the horse – this traction monster – stepped on my toe and I swore.
On nearing the village, L— arrived, riding A—’s animal and holding his sides for laughing at me as I crawled along holding the carthorse by the bridle. Got on again and rode into the Rectory grounds in fine style like a dashing cavalier, every one jeering at me from the lawn.
September 28.
Having lived on this planet now for the space of 24 years, I can claim with some cogency that I am qualified to express some sort of opinion about it. I therefore hereby record that I find myself in an absorbingly interesting place where I live, move and have my being, dominated by one monstrous feature above all others – the mystery of it all! Everything is so astonishing, my own existence so incredible!
Nothing explains itself. Every one is dumb. It is like walking about at a masqued Ball … Even I myself am a mystery to me. How wonderful and frightening that is – to feel yourself – your innermost and most substantial possession to be a mystery, incomprehensible. I look at myself in the mirror and mock at myself. On some days I am to myself as strange and unfamiliar as a Pterodactyl. There is a certain grim humour in finding myself here possessed of a perfectly arbitrary arrangement of lineaments when I never asked to be here and never selected my own attributes. To the dignity of a human being it seems like a coarse practical joke … My own freakish physique is certainly a joke.
October 4.
In London Again
K— comes in from her dancing class, nods to me, hugs her sister around the neck and says, –
‘Oh! you dear thing, you’ve got a cold.’
‘I shouldn’t do that,’ I remark, green-eyed, ‘she’s in an awful wax to-night.’
She: ‘Oh! I don’t mind K—!’
(Laughter!)
October 8.
Heard a knock at the door last night, and, thinking it was R—, I unbolted it and let in a tramp who at once asked God to bless me and crown all my sorrow with joy. An amiable fellow to be sure – so I gave him some coppers and he at once repeated with wonderful fervour, ‘God bless you, sir.’
‘I wish He would,’ I
answered, ‘I have a horrible cold.’
‘Ah, I know, I gets it myself and the hinfluenza – have you had that, sir?’
In ten minutes I should have told him all my personal history. But he was thirsting for a drink and went off quickly and left me with my heart unburthened. London is a lonely place.
The Journal of a Disappointed Man Page 10