Book Read Free

The Love-Charm of Bombs

Page 53

by Lara Feigel


  ‘The vision of home’: HS, ‘Psychologie des Exils’, Kleine Schritte: Berichte und Geschichten (München: Heinrich Ellermann, 1976).

  ‘The memories of home’: see HS, DaB, p. 132.

  ‘I was so pleased’: HS, diary, 27 March 1943 (HS NLV).

  ‘the community of readers’: see HS, DaB, p. 128.

  ‘Then why did you hit me?’: HS, Die Früchte des Wohlstands (München: Nymphenburger, 1981), p. 243.

  ‘the older woman took it’: HS, DaB, p. 98.

  ‘I should have thought’: HS to PdeM, 30 April 1943 (HS PdeM).

  ‘The vision of my beloved’: HS to PdeM, 3 May 1943 (HS PdeM).

  ‘war’s being global’: EB, HoD, ch. 17.

  ‘refreshed (not quite as’: HY to Matthew Smith, 25 February 1943 (private collection).

  ‘the most beautiful English girl’: Ruthven Todd, in Jon Stallworthy, Louis MacNeice (London: Faber, 1995), p. 238.

  ‘Too large in’: Louis MacNeice, ‘The Kingdom’, c.1943, Collected Poems (London: Faber, 2003).

  ‘in the centre’: Louis MacNeice to Mary Keene, undated (private collection).

  ‘Lying in bed’: Terry Southern interview with HY, ‘The Art of Fiction’, 1958, Surviving: The Uncollected Writings of Henry Green (London: Harvill, 1993).

  ‘above her lovely head’: HG, Loving (London: Vintage, 2000), pp. 2, 8, 17, 64.

  ‘her great eyes’: ibid., pp. 123, 52, 95, 141.

  ‘I’d sell it’: ibid., pp. 110, 63, 126, 142, 145.

  ‘Mary Keene’: for biographical details about Mary Keene and Matthew Smith see Alice Keene, The Two Mr Smiths: The Life and Work of Matthew Smith (London: Lund Humphries, 1995).

  ‘You know of course’: Matthew Smith to Ida Hughes Stanton, in ibid., p. 68.

  ‘I have been guessing’: Mary Keene to HY, undated (private collection).

  ‘I have a great hangover’: Mary Keene to Matthew Smith, undated (private collection).

  ‘Believe it or not’: HY to Rosamond Lehmann, 21 June 1943 (RL KC).

  12: ‘Alas, what hate everywhere’

  ‘As far as I can see’: GG to Raymond Greene, 4 January 1943, in Richard Greene, Graham Greene, A Life in Letters (London: Little, Brown, 2007).

  ‘Kim Philby’: see Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene (London: Pimlico, 2004–5), vol. 2, p. 130.

  ‘I feel it was’: GG to Marion Greene, 30 November 1942 (A Life in Letters).

  ‘He arranged for Mass’: see GG, A Sort of Life: An Autobiography (Bath: Chivers, 1981), ch. 1ii.

  ‘I felt sick’: GG to Marion Greene, 19 January 1943, in Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, vol. 2, p. 154.

  ‘not yet touched’: GG to Raymond Greene, 4 January 1943 (A Life in Letters).

  ‘after the North’: Kim Philby, in Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, vol. 2, p. 154.

  ‘Doll wrote to me’: GG to Hugh Greene, 1 August 1942 (A Life in Letters).

  ‘French letters’: see Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, vol. 2, p. 138.

  ‘things can be’: GG to Elisabeth Greene, 15 October 1942 (A Life in Letters).

  ‘Won’t it be nice’: VG to GG, 9 March 1942 (VG Bod).

  ‘I don’t altogether’: VG to GG, 14 April 1942 (VG Bod).

  ‘so VERY tired’: VG to GG, 21 April 1942 (VG Bod).

  ‘You are the best’: GG to VG, 8 April 1943 (VG Bod).

  ‘pity and responsibility’: GG, HoM, book 1, part 1, chs 1iii, 2iv.

  ‘One forgets the dead’: ibid., book 3, part 2, ch. 1i.

  ‘been torpedoed’: GG to VG, undated (VG Bod).

  ‘Lisbon, with all’: Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time, vol. 2: The Infernal Grove (London: Collins, 1973), p. 136.

  ‘a very thin’: James Lees-Milne, diary, 20 January 1943, Diaries, 1942–1954, abridged and introduced by Michael Bloch (London: Hachette, 2011).

  ‘entailed a good’: RM to Hamilton Johnson, 16 April 1951, Letters to a Friend 1950–1952, ed. Constance Babington Smith (London: Collins, 1961).

  ‘Open your eyes’: RM, ‘Lisbon day: London day’ (RM TC).

  ‘Pleasure in this’: RM, ‘A Happy Neutral’, Spectator, 9 July 1943.

  ‘We cannot doubt’: Winston Churchill, speech, 8 June 1943, War Speeches, 1939–45, compiled by Charles Eade, 3 vols (London: Cassell & Co, 1951–2).

  ‘best spirits’: HS, diary, 9 September 1943 (HS NLV).

  ‘If they shorten’: HS, diary, 24 May 1943 (HS NLV).

  ‘the Germans should’: Churchill, speech, 14 July 1941 (War Speeches).

  ‘The result was the bombing’: see Gordon Corrigan, The Second World War: A Military History (London: Atlantic Books, 2010), pp. 444–52 and Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won (London: Pimlico, 2006), pp. 143–9.

  ‘unqualified approval’: see Juliet Gardiner, Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Headline, 2005), p. 612.

  ‘this horrible smashing’: RM to Jean Smith, 4 July 1943, Dearest Jean: Rose Macaulay’s Letters to a Cousin, ed. Martin Ferguson Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011).

  ‘At present I feel’: RM to Jean Smith, 4 August 1943 (Dearest Jean).

  ‘Heart not’: RM to Jean Smith, 12 August 1943 (Dearest Jean).

  ‘lunch with Graham Greene’: see RM to Jean Smith, 17 September 1943 (Dearest Jean).

  ‘both books received’: see Jeremy Treglown, Romancing: The Life and Work of Henry Green (London: Faber, 2000), p. 163.

  ‘too sour and bitter’: Stephen Spender, in ibid., p. 148.

  ‘Caught mirrored’: John Lehmann, I Am My Brother (London: Longmans, 1960), p. 219.

  ‘two proper novelists’: Philip Toynbee, ‘New Novels’, New Statesman and Nation, 26 June 1943.

  ‘Poor Rome’: RM to Jean Smith, 17 September 1943 (Dearest Jean).

  ‘Germany is standing’: Stalin quoted by Churchill, speech, 24 August 1941 (War Speeches).

  ‘Very confused’: HY to Mary Keene, 11 October 1943 (private collection).

  ‘miserable’: Mary Keene to Matthew Smith, undated (private collection).

  ‘quite dazzled’: Mary Keene to Matthew Smith, undated (private collection).

  ‘his great world’: Mary Keene, Mrs Donald (London: Chatto & Windus, 1983), pp. 11–13.

  ‘they stood eternally’: ibid., pp. 16, 17.

  ‘to love what’: ibid., pp. 41, 53–5.

  ‘Us at your age’: ibid., pp. 56, 59.

  ‘turning from her’: ibid., pp. 85, 81.

  ‘I know there is’: HY to John Lehmann, 18 December 1943 (John Lehmann archive, HRC).

  ‘would not make’: Jack Marlowe, ‘A Reader’s Notebook’, Penguin New Writing, April–May 1943 (issue actually published in December).

  ‘My dear John’: HY to John Lehmann, 29 December 1943 (John Lehmann archive, HRC).

  ‘full of stories’: HS, diary, 21 December 1943 (HS NLV).

  ‘one of the loveliest’: HS, diary, 8 January 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘I can’t stand’: HS, diary, 15 January 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘noisy night’: RM to Jean Smith, 24 January 1944 (Dearest Jean).

  ‘All this Rome’: ibid.

  ‘These contained a device’: see William Sansom, The Blitz: Westminster at War (London: Faber, 2010), p. 176.

  ‘the perverse vivacities’: ibid., p. 178.

  ‘still hear today’: HS, DaB, p. 136.

  ‘We had not expected’: HS, diary, 26 February 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘in contrast to’: Evelyn Waugh, diary, 2 March 1944, The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie (London: Phoenix, 2009).

  ‘He reported to’: see Evelyn Waugh to Laura Wade, 29 February 1944, The Letters of Evelyn Waugh (London: Phoenix, 2010).

  ‘It felt difficult’: HS, diary, 6 March 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘under the blankets’: HG, Pack My Bag (London: Vintage, 2000), p. 33.

  ‘women had men’: HY to Mary Keene, 4 April 1944 (private collection).

  ‘Darling. I’m so very’: HY to Mary Keene, 15
May 1944 (private collection).

  ‘sexual intercourse’: Legal letter about the Keene divorce case, 14 February 1946 (private collection).

  ‘the most compassionate’: Rosamond Lehmann, ‘An Absolute Gift’, Times Literary Supplement, 6 August 1954.

  13: ‘Droning things, mindlessly making for you’

  ‘D-Day has come’: CR, diary, 6 June 1944, The Siren Years: Undiplomatic Diaries 1937–1945 (London: Macmillan, 1974).

  ‘D-Day!’: HS, diary, 6 June 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘John Lehmann held’: see Selina Hastings, Rosamond Lehmann (London: Vintage, 2003), p. 240.

  ‘a memorable and glorious’: Winston Churchill, speech, 6 and 8 June 1944, War Speeches, 1939–45, compiled by Charles Eade (London: Cassell & Co, 1951–2).

  ‘stolid, cheerful’: CR, diary, 16 June 1944 (The Siren Years).

  ‘mysterious rocket-planes’: Harold Nicolson, diary, 14 June 1944, Diaries and Letters 1939–45, ed. Nigel Nicolson (London: Collins, 1967).

  ‘They fly slowly’: Harold Nicolson, diary, 16 June 1944 (Diaries and Letters).

  ‘droning things’: EB, HoD, ch. 17.

  ‘As we came out of’: HS, DaB, p. 136.

  ‘A clever, educated’: HS, diary, 20 June 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘At the time O’Hea’: see HS, diary, 10 February 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘Life is really absurd’: HS, diary, 23 June 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘I was incredibly’: HS, diary, 24 June 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘Peter and I’: HS, diary, 23 July 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘he was confronted’: see GG interview in Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene (London: Pimlico, 2004–5), vol. 2, p. 184.

  ‘one had thought’: GG, diary, 22 June 1944 (GG HRC).

  ‘I had to put on’: ibid.

  ‘they could hear a bomb’: GG, diary, 23 June 1944 (GG HRC).

  ‘We had only’: GG, EoA, book 2, ch. 5.

  ‘must surely have been’: GG, diary, 23 June 1944 (GG HRC).

  ‘Six down during’: GG, diary, 27 June 1944 (GG HRC).

  ‘An odd thing’: ibid.

  ‘Hugh is all right’: GG, diary, 30 June 1944 (GG HRC).

  ‘This was one of the worst’: see Juliet Gardiner, Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 (London: Headline, 2005), p. 643.

  ‘the moment always’: GG, diary, 22 June 1944 (GG HRC).

  ‘A bad night’: GG, diary, 3 July 1944 (GG HRC).

  ‘a wonderful figure’: Churchill, speech , 6 and 25 July 1944 (War Speeches).

  ‘we are getting used’: CR, diary, 13 July 1944 (The Siren Years).

  ‘usually to be found’: see Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, vol. 2, p. 197.

  ‘Nobody who has not’: EB, autobiographical note, 1948 (EB HRC).

  ‘tied up, sealed up’: EB, ‘Calico Windows’, People, Places, Things: Essays by Elizabeth Bowen, ed. Allan Hepburn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008).

  ‘When we just’: EB, ‘Oh, Madam’, Collected Stories (London: Vintage, 1999).

  ‘I read his letter’: EB, B’s C, p. 440.

  ‘Her nerves have’: CR, diary, 20 July 1944 (LCW).

  ‘a new novel’: see CR, diary, 19 September 1942 (LCW).

  ‘I like to think’: CR, diary, 18 February 1944 (LCW).

  ‘fairness, not quite’: EB, HoD, ch. 5.

  ‘How proud Charles’: Rosamond Lehmann to EB, 14 February 1949 (EB HRC).

  ‘a flash of promise’: EB, HoD, ch. 5.

  ‘high up in a monstrous’: CR, diary, 12 August 1944 (LCW).

  ‘calico stretched and tacked’: EB, ‘The Happy Autumn Fields’ (Collected Stories).

  ‘All my life’: EB to Virginia Woolf, 5 January 1941, in The Mulberry Tree: Writings of Elizabeth Bowen, ed. Hermione Lee (London: Vintage, 1999).

  ‘Churchill himself’: see Churchill, speech, 6 and 25 July 1944 (War Speeches).

  ‘The anxiety it causes’: Harold Nicolson to Ben and Nigel Nicolson, 13 August 1944 (Diaries and Letters).

  ‘Stephen Spender assured’: see Stephen Spender to Christopher Isherwood, 17 August 1944 (Stephen Spender archive, Bod).

  ‘Tonight the doodlers’: PdeM to HS, undated (HS PdeM).

  ‘absolutely brilliant’: PdeM to HS, 22 August 1944 (HS PdeM).

  ‘the news of Paris had really’: see PdeM to HS, 23 August 1944 (HS PdeM).

  ‘Isn’t the war’: PdeM to HS, 24 August 1944 (HS PdeM).

  ‘I’ll see you in the stove’: ‘The Horrors of Lublin’, The Times, 12 August 1944.

  ‘What an execrable’: PdeM to HS, undated (HS PdeM).

  ‘Harold Nicolson heard’: see Harold Nicolson, diary, 4 September 1944 (Diaries and Letters).

  ‘the ear-splitting’: HS, DaB, p. 137.

  ‘conceived among bombs’: ibid.

  ‘the heroic stand’: Churchill, speech, 5 October 1944 (War Speeches).

  ‘Boring and dangerous’: HS, diary, 1 December 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘You should comfort’: PdeM to HS, 8 December 1944 (PdeM Mon).

  ‘the backdrop for’: CR, 3 January 1945 (The Siren Years).

  ‘The baby doesn’t’: HS, diary, 15 December 1944 (HS NLV).

  ‘We were all’: HS, DaB, p. 137.

  ‘so glad to be’: EB to Susan Tweedsmuir, in Victoria Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen (London: Phoenix paperbacks, 1993), p. 147.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to give’: CR, diary, 19 December 1944 (LCW).

  ‘I suppose I could have’: CR, diary, 3 February 1945 (The Siren Years).

  ‘We are so close’: EB to CR, 17 January 1945 (LCW).

  ‘E says she would’: CR, 3 December 1944 (LCW).

  ‘We rush, we storm’: EB, ‘The Art of Reserve’ (People, Places, Things).

  ‘She said she thought’: CR, diary, 12 November 1942 (LCW).

  ‘E has become’: CR, diary, 6 February 1943 (LCW).

  ‘it was impossible for him’: see CR, diary, 27 February 1944 (LCW).

  ‘Outside us neither’: EB, HoD, ch. 10.

  14: ‘A collective intoxication of happiness’

  ‘Let us be of good’: Winston Churchill, speech, 18 January 1945, War Speeches, 1939–45, compiled by Charles Eade (London: Cassell & Co, 1951–2).

  ‘I feel the war’: RM to David Ley, 14 February 1945 (RM TC).

  ‘People were anxious’: see William Sansom, The Blitz: Westminster at War (London: Faber, 2010), p. 199.

  ‘a huge crash’: GG, diary, 20 March 1945 (GG HRC).

  ‘It really looks’: GG to Marion Greene, in Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene (London: Pimlico, 2004–5), vol. 2, p. 205.

  ‘His captivating smile’: Churchill, speech, 17 April 1945 (War Speeches).

  ‘Early this morning’: HS, diary, 13 April 1945 (HS NLV).

  ‘Darling, darling, I’m’: HY to Mary Keene, 15 February 1945 (private collection).

  ‘I think about you’: Mary Keene to Matthew Smith, undated (private collection).

  ‘I don’t take’: Mary Keene to HY, undated (private collection).

  ‘I fear they are’: HY to Mary Keene, 26 February 1945 (private collection).

  ‘Dearest dearest’: Mary Keene to HY, undated (private collection).

  ‘My dearest darling’: Dig Yorke to Mary Keene, undated (private collection).

  ‘My darling darling’: HY to Mary Keene, 9 March 1945 (private collection).

  ‘prepare a “scheme”’: HY to Mary Keene, 10 March 1945 (private collection).

  ‘slip in a bit’: Mary Keene to HY, undated (private collection).

  ‘There was a hole’: Mary Keene to Alice Keene, undated (private collection).

  ‘Loving had been’: see HY to Mary Keene, 21 March 1945 (private collection).

  ‘Your letters’: HY to Rosamond Lehmann, 14 March 1945 (RL KC).

  ‘Armies monotonously’: Evelyn Waugh, diary, 13 April 1945, The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Michael Davie (London: Phoenix, 2009).

  ‘The war hurries’: HS, diary, 28 April 1945 (HS NLV).


  ‘Hitler reported dead!’: HS, diary, 1 May 1945 (HS NLV).

  ‘Now she told Charles’: see EB to CR, March 1945, in Victoria Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen (London: Phoenix paperbacks, 1993), p. 155.

  ‘There was a breathless’: EB to CR, March 1945, in ibid., p. 156.

  ‘everyone wondering’: EB to CR, 7–8 May 1945 (LCW and in ibid., p. 157).

  ‘God bless you’: Churchill, speech, 8 May 1945 (War Speeches).

  ‘On a monster’: EB to CR, 7–8 May 1945 (LCW and in Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen, p. 157).

  ‘Having watched the blitz’: GG to Marion Greene, undated, in Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, vol. 2, p. 207.

  ‘LOVE AND HAPPY’: GG to VG, in ibid., vol. 2, p. 206.

  ‘huge leaping pyres’: VG to GG, May 1945 (VG Bod).

  ‘There was precious little’: GG to Marion Greene, undated, in Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, vol. 2, p. 207.

  ‘It was very quiet’: GG, EoA, book 3, ch. 5.

  ‘just as completely’: GG to VG, 3 June 1948 (VG Bod).

  ‘it is a mistake’: see GG, HoM, book 3, part 1, ch. 1i.

  ‘I felt a sort’: VG, interview in Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, vol. 2, p. 208.

  ‘Never before or’: HS, DaB, p. 138.

  ‘each one staggered’: EB to CR, 7–8 May 1945 (LCW and in Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen, p. 157).

  ‘I would not have’: EB, autobiographical note, 1948 (EB HRC).

  ‘deteriorating dead’: EB to Cyril Connolly, in Glendinning, Elizabeth Bowen, p. 158.

  ‘completely incarcerated’: EB to William Plomer, 24 September 1945 (LCW).

  15: ‘The days were listless and a flop’

  ‘slow motion’: EB to CR, June 1945 (LCW).

  ‘first entering the house’: see ibid.

  ‘really, focuses internally’: EB to CR, 17 June 1945 (LCW).

  ‘I look round and see’: ibid.

  ‘No more danger’: HS, DaB, p. 138.

  ‘He does it all’: HS, diary, 19 April 1941 (HS NLV).

  ‘I would have treated’: HS, DaB, p. 140.

  ‘Everything now is’: HS, diary, 10 July 1945 (HS NLV).

  ‘At odd moments’: PdeM to HS, 22 June 1945 (PdeM Mon).

  ‘This is the crowning’: PdeM to HS, 8 July 1945 (HS PdeM).

  ‘boiling in sweltering’: PdeM to HS, 15 July 1945 (HS PdeM).

  ‘My darling’: HS to PdeM, 23 July 1945 (HS PdeM).

 

‹ Prev