Vita Sackville-West: Selected Writings
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January 23. Knole. I see B.M. for a moment this morning before leaving Hill St. but she is frigid to me and writes H. a letter refusing to see him at all—though what he has done as he wasn’t even in the room during her conversation with me Heaven only knows!
January 26. Knole. H. and I take Ben to the pantomime—his first. He is less impressed than I expected, but at his best all day. See L. for a brief moment just before lunch.
February 1. Still at Knole. Harold goes back to Paris. I go up to London with him. To the station, then straight back to Knole.
Walk over to Long Barn with Dada in the afternoon. The suspense is almost unbearable. The whole fortnight has been sufficiently odd, esp. as H. has never mentioned the subject [her predicted elopement with Violet] until I simply forced it on him in the train today.
When shall I see him again? What is going to happen?
February 2. Come up to London early with my things & go to the dentist. See L. at 11:30 and lunch with her. It is, at any rate not for today.… Spend the afternoon with her, and come back to Knole in the evening, leaving my things at Charing Cross. At the last moment she wants to come with me, but, having promised D.T. not to give him the slip, she goes back to Grosvenor St. Also she was rather insufficiently equipped with her wax Bacchante & and box of brandy cherries!
February 3. Saracen’s Head, Lincoln. Come here with L.
February 4. Lincoln. Walk up to the cathedral; Lincoln is rather jolly, but o Lord! the cold!
February 5. Lincoln. Meant to go to the Fens today, but spend the day in bed instead.
February 6. Lincoln. Spend the day in bed.
February 7. Go to the Fens today. Meant to spend the night here, but having forgotten the Bacchante at Lincoln we come back to fetch it.
February 8. Liverpool Street Hotel. We come back from Lincoln this afternoon, arriving at dinnertime. L. telephoned for D.T. who comes at once & remains a comparatively short time. L. very silent & unhappy.
February 9. King’s Head Hotel, Dover. D.T. comes for a second to our hotel early this morning, and L. & I leave for Dover by the boat train. She goes alone, very frightened, leaving me at Dover. After lunch Denys appears, having followed us by motor. Spend a grim afternoon with him in my hotel, send telegrams, write letters, etc. A fierce storm gets up & rages all night.
February 10. Hotel Meurice, Calais. Cross to Calais with Denys, the roughest crossing I have ever known. L. comes unexpectedly to meet me, and we meet in the buffet; she looks terribly ill & collapsed. D. and I take her to a hotel, & put her to bed & get a doctor. Impossible to discuss anything tonight. This ludicrous situation resolves itself into our all three dining most amicably in L.’s bedroom, & even into D. suggesting that we should all live together in Jamaica growing sugar!
February 11. Hotel du Rhin, Amiens. We take a motor in Calais and motor to Boulogne in piercing cold across desolate country. In the train between Boulogne & Amiens, D. suddenly says he will go on to Paris when we get out at Amiens. This he does, after an interminable 2 hours in a train that stops at every station. L. and I here alone.
February 12. Amiens. We go out in the morning & look at the remains of the bombardment, and at the very lovely cathedral. L. spends the rest of the day in bed, but comes down to dinner, and after dinner “Papa” [Violet’s father George Keppel] suddenly arrives in L.’s room and we have a ridiculous & abusive scene with him.
Learn meanwhile by telephone that H. has left Paris for London this morning, & I wire for him.
February 13. Amiens. Papa mercifully keeps out of the way. L. spends the day in bed, only dining downstairs. She has another scene with Papa after dinner, at which I do not assist.
February 14. Hotel Alexandre III, Paris. Denys & Harold arrive together by aeroplane from London, landing at Amiens. Return to Paris with H. In the middle of dinner L. comes in & I feel restored to life to a certain extent. My god, what a day! I am broken with misery; if things were as bad as I had at first thought, I should put an end to myself. I had to go, I should have killed her if I had stayed an instant longer. I have told her I cannot even see her for two months. She calls it banishment—it is not. It is simply the impossibility of bringing myself to see her for the present.
February 15. Paris. L. leaves Paris by motor this morning. Lunch at Laurent’s with H.
February 17. Go with H. to “Le Bonheur de ma femme.”
February 18. Paris. Ash Wednesday. Bright, warm sunshine. L. telephones to me every day from various provincial towns in France, on her way south, and every day her voice is a little fainter …
February 20. Paris. Get the proofs of “Rebellion”; about the only thing which has stirred me to any interest since Amiens.
February 21. Paris. Have a chill and spend the day in bed, feeling rather wretched. Reading “Anna Karenina” again. Write a new last chapter to “Rebellion,” and decide to call it “Endeavour” since Rebellion has been already used. Sorry about this, but Endeavour seems perhaps more applicable.
February 22. Paris. Still feel rather seedy, & don’t go out, as it has turned cold. Jean de Gaigneron [one of Harold’s lovers] comes and Herman Norman.
February 23. Paris. Send off corrected proofs of “Rebellion.”
February 24. Paris. Lunch with Jim Barnes and H. at La Perouse and go to Leon Vannier to see if H. can pick up any information about Verlaine, particularly as he has taken up against idea of his biography of Verlaine. Wander around Paris, the most lovely sunny day, quite warm. Buy two little birds.
February 25. Paris. Harold is telephoned up mysteriously, and goes off to London in the afternoon.
February 26. Paris. Alone here. Lunch with Jim Barnes at Voisin & go to various shops & Musee Rodin with him; he comes back to tea. Dine with Uncle Charlie [(Baron) Charles Sackville-West] & go to “Mademoiselle ma mère”—funny. Get a wire from H. asking me to come over.
February 27. Paris. Wretched day.… Desperate telephoning between me and L. who is at Bordighera with Pat [Margaret “Pat” Dansey, one of Violet’s lovers, who later became one of Vita’s].
February 28. Come across with Dido and Miss Williams. H is going to Russia with the L. of N. [League of Nations] commission. B.M. Brighton. An awful blow meets me here: B.M. has read my proofs, and thinking that the book will give rise to gossip wants me not to publish it.
March 2. Long Barn. Change my title to “Challenge.” I can’t give it up; B.M. asks too much.
March 9. Long Barn. My birthday. Harold gives me a cocker spaniel puppy (Judy). Spend the day in London with B.M. and go with her to a matinee.
March 12. Hill St., Richmond. Mrs. Belloc Lowndes rings me up out of the blue and says she wants to know me. [Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes, to whom Victoria will write about the awfulness of Orlando.] Will I go and see her? I go. She is much au courant with my circumstances, and with the question of publishing “Challenge” or not. I am to send her the proofs.
March 15. Hill St., Richmond. Go to see Mrs. Lowndes, and have a long discussion with her about “Challenge,” which she has now read in proof. She wants me to cancel it—says if L. were dead, would I publish it, etc.? This hits me—gossip I don’t care a damn about. Mrs. Lowndes is kindness itself. So I give it up. I hope B.M. is pleased. She has beaten me.
March 19. In the train. I leave London early this morning, and catch the train to Avignon in Paris at 8. Sit up all night, but what do I care?
March 20. Hotel de l’Europe, Avignon. Arrive at 8 in the morning, and find L. at the hotel. We go out to look at the Palais des Papes, which we liked so much when we were here before. Quarreling already, because she apparently thought she could persuade me to stay with her after these allotted ten days were over, and it angers her to find she can’t.
March 21. Cap d’Antibes. We hire a motor and come thus far, about 200 kilometres—right through Provence and over the Esterel, which is lovely but alarming. Find this rather jolly hotel, & dine over the sea in a pavilion.
March 22. Bordighera. Alas, my Mon
te Carlo! I get whirled past in a motor with drawn blinds … Reach Bordighera in the evening & dine with Pat who has a villa here.
March 23. San Remo. Motor to San Remo, a beastly place. L. horrible to me all day, and makes me very miserable and exasperated. After dinner I lose my head & say I will stay with her—Paradise restored.
March 24. Nervi. We leave S. Remo in the morning, joining Pat & Joan in the train, and travel all day getting to Genoa in the evening. There is no room in the hotels at Genoa, so we have to motor out to this perfectly beastly place. L. is however so sweet, having got the promise she wanted, that it makes up for everything.
March 25. Milan. Get to Milan latish and have a job to find room. I’ve got an awful cold.
March 26. Danieli Hotel, Venice. Spend the morning in Milan (with a streaming nose!) come here by Orient Express. It is very late as usual, & we don’t reach Venice till nearly midnight. L. falls in love with the Orient Express, and it’s all I can do to make her get out at Venice, as she wants to go on.
March 27. Venice. Spent part of the day trying to find Louis Mallet’s palace & part of the day in shops & sightseeing. Had forgotten the beauty of San Marco.
Reading nothing but Shakespeare—an undiscovered country to me, which I swear I won’t leave till I’ve explored every corner. What a wealth, what afflatus, what wind-filled sails! I feel that at last I’ve found the real thing; think I must have been mad not to embark on it before.
March 28. Venice. Everything is black again. I have had to tell L. I should only be followed and brought back. It is horrible. She is in the depths. So am I. I feel the Grand Canal, in spite of the floating onions, would be preferable.
March 30. Venice. L. not at all well.
March 31. Venice. L. still very seedy, and the doctor says she has a touch of jaundice. She stays in bed all day. It pours. Anything better than Venice in the rain is hard to conceive.
April 1. Verona. L. a little better, so we leave Venice and come here, arriving late.
April 2. Verona. Verona is very attractive, or would be if it wasn’t raining. We go to see the Scaliger tombs, and in the afternoon drive round the town seeing the amphitheatre, the Scaliger Bridge & castle, the Duomo, and San Zeno.
April 3. Verona. We try to catch the Orient Express, in which we have reserved places, but miss it & have to return to the hotel. Take a carriage & drive out into the country in the middle of a thunderstorm.
April 4. Verona. Today the Orient Express is 13 hours late, so we renounce all hope of catching it. Unfortunately it continues to pour.
April 5. Albergo Sempione, Domodossola. We actually succeed in leaving Verona this afternoon, a grand regret, and think we shall really get to Paris at last, but no, the fates think otherwise; we get turned out of the train at the frontier for not having an Italian police permit. Nearly get locked up as a spy, and nearly get sent back to Venice as an alternative, but avoid both these things, and come to this hotel. Can’t help feeling this is a reprieve.
April 6. Domodossola. Still here. Spend all day in bed. Get up at one A.M. in the morning to try & catch the train, then hear it won’t arrive till 5, and give up the attempt, especially as we have heard nothing about places being available.
April 7. Orient Express. Get up and go for a delicious drive into the hills with L.; lie on a warm sunny bank and talk. Catch the blessed old train at midnight (only four hours late today!). Dreadfully sorry to leave.
April 8. Hotel Powers, Paris. Arrive in Paris about two o’clock, and much to my surprise are met by Harold who has come over on L. of N. business. B.M. is alone at Long Barn. Go out for a walk with H. in the afternoon. He comes round to our hotel after dinner, and remains talking to L. and me about the future until nearly one in the morning. Simply dead with tiredness.
April 18. Grand Hotel, Dover. Leave Paris this morning, meaning to reach London tonight, but change our minds & stay at Dover. Beastly grey country!
April 19. Long Barn. Leave Dover early & travel with L. as far as Ashford where we part. Come on here, and find B.M. rather sceptical as to the genuineness of all my delays. I don’t blame her. She’s had a lot to put up with from me, poor darling.
April 21. Hill St., Richmond. Spend the morning with L. & lunch with her & take her to a play after. A beastly unsatisfactory day. (Raquel Meller at Hippodrome, marvelous Spanish singer)
April 22. Come up to London with H.… Meet L. after lunch & come down here with her alone. Hate seeing her in her own house—hate the hypocrisy of it all.
April 27. Long Barn. Bicycle home & get drenched, but rather enjoy flying down the hill with the rain lashing my face.
April 28. See L. in morning. Tired, absentminded, and dispirited.
April 29. Long Barn. Seedy, which annoys me. I suppose I get spoilt by being always well, and feel injured when my usual health fails me—like a millionaire who can’t put his hand on £10,000 cash at a given moment!
April 30. Long Barn. Oh my good Lord! I can’t write nowadays. It drives me wild to remember my fluency of once upon a time—ten or twelve sheets a day! And as for poetry, it’s gone, gone, gone from me.
May 1. Long Barn. Lose the ring I always wear [The missing ring was one Violet had given her.] & am miserable & superstitious about it.
May 2. Long Barn. Walk to Hildeborough station after lunch to see if by any chance I have dropped my ring there, but fail to find it.
May 3. L. very unhappy & haunted. I wish I knew what to do.
May 5. Long Barn. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I think I’ve got softening of the brain. I’ve been sitting all day in front of a barely begun review of some book, reading over & over again the few sentences I had written, not taking them in in the very least—oh wind, come & blow away the clouds! I smoke endless cigarettes, which help to addle my brain. I long for vigour and clear thought, but only meet with chaos. How I envy H. his clear-cut intellect!
I must shake myself out of this inertia. I wish I was poor, dirt poor, miserably poor, and obliged to work for my daily bread or go without. I need a spur. I am a rotten creature.
… Later, made myself finish the review.
May 7. Long Barn. Spend all today in bed. Write two poems, one of them slick off so perhaps I haven’t got softening of the brain after all? Distinctly more cheerful in consequence.
May 11. Write another poem—bad, but better than nothing.
May 14. Long Barn. Pat comes down for the day. H.’s mother comes to stay in the evening. Very restless and unhappy.
May 17. Lower Grosvenor Place. Come up in the morning, lunch with L. We go to a matinee at the Hippodrome. We are both staying with Pat. Dinner all three at a little hotel opposite; happy.
May 18. Long Barn. Spend a rather miserable day with L. in London, after a row with Pat in the morning. Come down here with H. See B.M. in the morning & get slandered by her too. It blows a gale. Am I a good sailor? A burning question.
May 19. Long Barn. L. comes down for the night.
May 20. Sumurun [Lord Sackville-West’s yacht], Calshott. Sail very slowly down to Calshott. Lovely weather.
May 21. Swanage. Sail from Calshott to Swanage. I am a good sailor! Harold immersed in his life of Verlaine.
May 23. Dartmouth. It has turned warm, and we had a perfect day though very little breeze. Lay on deck in the sun. Even Harold was weaned for a little from Paul Verlaine.
May 25. At sea off Start Point. Start well, but get suddenly becalmed and befogged and hurried heave to in a swell and a thick mist, with foghorns hooting all around.
May 26. At sea off Fowey. A perfect day again, but very little breeze till dinnertime, when we get about 4 hours moonlight sailing; then the wind drops and we are left rocking about in an awful swell all the rest of the night.
May 27. Falmouth. Wake up not knowing where we are, and believing ourselves to be off Fowey (o my Polperro!) but suddenly round a headland upon Falmouth. Find a telegram from H. saying that the Bolsheviks have invaded Persia, so he can’t rejoin us yet.
Go for a walk with Dada.
May 28. Falmouth. Go with Dada by steamer to Tregothman, a place belonging to Lord Falmouth. Such marvelous wood! Run a mile & a half to catch the return boat. Perfect weather.
May 31. Meet L. Hindshead.
June 4. Long Barn An alarming “literary” party! Clemence Dane [Winifred Ashton], Hugh Walpole, Marcus Hewlett, Virgilia [Enid Bagnold] & Sir Roderick [Jones] and Rebecca West—an attractive ugly young savage.
June 6. Long Barn. Write a lot, so does H. who kills off P.V. [Paul Verlaine]
June 7. Long Barn. Spend most of the day in bed, trying to write poetry, and enviously reading Shakespeare.
June 15. Gloucester. We go over the cathedral in the morning, very fine tombs (especially of Robert of Normandy) and a fine early 14th century window. We motor out to Berkeley after lunch, quite overwhelmed by its charm, magic, & mystery. We have to break our way in over hedges & through soaking hayfields, but it’s impossible to get inside. A jolly day. Go to the local music hall in the evening.
June 26. Long Barn. L. makes me go up to London to see her; so I go up with Mrs. Lowndes.
July 2. Hill St., Richmond. A ghastly day. Get a note from L. in the morning saying she is going away, etc. Incapable of doing anything but slouching round Ebury St. after B.M. L. telephones to me in the evening; there ensures a scene between H., B.M., and me, which is interrupted only by the necessity of dining with Sybil Colefax. Pull myself together.… Go afterward to a dance at Mrs. Gordon’s where I see L. and the whole of her family, whom I’ve conscientiously met.
July 3. Long Barn. Spend a disturbed morning with L. in Pat’s house.… Lovely evening, walk up and down the terrace talking to Hugh till nearly midnight.
July 4. Long Barn. Hugh reads “Challenge,” and is very complimentary about it, he prefers it to “Heritage.” (I don’t.)
July 5. H. staying up for dinner so I come here, and argue with Clemence Dane over the abstract and the concrete in literature and their rival merits. Afterwards L. and I tell Clemence Dane all about ourselves.