23 January 1922 – 29 January 1922

Paris? To remember the sound of wind — the peculiar wretchedness one can feel while the wind blows. Then the warm soft wind of spring searching out the heart. The wind I call the Ancient of Days which blows here at night. The wind that shakes the garden at night when one runs out into it. Dust. Turning one's back on a high, heavy wind. Walking along the Esplanade when the wind carries the sea over. The wind of summer, so playful, that rocked and swung in the trees here. And wind moving through grass so that the grass quivers. This moves me with an emotion I don't ever understand. I always see a field, a young horse — and there is a very fair Danish girl telling me something about her step- father. The girl's name is Elsa Bagge.

Wrote and finished Taking the Veil. It took me about 3 hours to write finally. But I had been thinking over the decor and so on for weeks — nay, months, I believe. I can't say how thankful I am to have been born in N.Z., to know Wellington as I do, and to have it to range about in. Writing about the convent seemed so natural. I suppose I have not been in the grounds more than twice. But it is one of the places that remains as vivid as ever. I must not forget the name of Miss Sparrow,1 nor the name Palmer.

Played cribbage with J. I delight in see- ing him win. When we play he sometimes makes faces at me — the same kind of faces that Chummie used to make. I think I am never so fond of him as when he does this. We were talking of the personality of the cat to-day and saying that we ought to write it down. It is true he has become as real as if he could talk. I feel he does talk, and that when he is silent it is only a case of making his nettle shirt and he will begin. Perhaps the most engaging glimpse of him is playing his fiddle with wool for strings or sitting up to the piano and playing Nelly Bly. But his love Isbel, his whole com- plete little life side by side with ours, ought to be told. I shall never tell it, though.

Pinker writes to say The Nation has taken " The Doll's House." I am sure that meditation is the cure for the sick- ness of my mind, i.e. its lack of control. I have a ter- ribly sensitive mind which receives every impression, and that is the reason why I am so carried away and borne under.

M. came, wearing her woolly lamb. A strange fate overtakes me with her. We seem to be always talking of physical subjects. They bore and disgust me, for I feel it is waste of time, and yet we always revert to them. She lay back on the pillows, talking. She had an absent air. She was saying how fine women were . . . and it was on the tip of my tongue to be indiscreet. But I was not. Thank Heaven ! I have been in pain, in bad pain all day. I ache all over. I can hardly stand. It seems impossible that I am going away on Monday.

These preparations for flight are almost incredible. The only way to keep calm is to play crib. J. and I sit opposite each other. I feel we are awfully united. And we play and laugh and it seems to keep us together. While the game lasts, we are there. A queer feeling. . . .

H. came. He says my right lung is prac- tically all right. Can one believe such words? The other is a great deal better. He thinks my heart will give me far less trouble at a lower level. Can this be true? He was so hopeful to-day that T.B. seemed no longer a scourge. It seemed that one recovered more often than not. Is this fantastic? Tidied all my papers. Tore up and ruthlessly de- stroyed much. This is always a great satisfaction. Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. This is what life has taught me. In the evening I wrote to O. about his book. It has taken me a week to write the letter. J. and I seem to have played cribbage off and on all day. I feel there is much love between us. Tender love. Let it not change1.