24 September 1917 – 30 September 1917

I could never have believed so great misery compatible with sanity. Yet I am quite sane. How long I or any man can remain sane in this condition God knows.... It is a consummate vengeance this inability to write. I cannot help but smile grimly at the astuteness of the thrust. To be sure, how cunning to deprive me of my one secret consolation! How amusing that in this agony of isolation such an aggressive egotist as I should have his last means of self-expression cut off. I am being slowly stifled. Later. (In E.'s handwriting.) Yesterday we shifted into a tiny cottage at half the rental of the other one, and situated about two miles further out from the village.... A wholly ideal and beautiful little cottage you may say. But a "camouflaged" cottage. For in spite of the happiness of its exterior it contains just now two of the most dejected mortals even in this present sorrow-laden world.

Last night, E---- sitting on the bed by me, burst into tears. It was my fault. "I can stand a good deal but there must come a breaking point." Poor, poor girl, my heart aches for you. I wept too, and it relieved us to cry. We blew our noses. "People who cry in novels," E---- observed with detachment, "never blow their noses. They just weep." ... But the thunder clouds soon come up again.