15 June 1936 – 21 June 1936

After a week of intense suffering—indeed mornings of torture—and I’m not exaggerating—pain in my head—a feeling of complete despair and failure—a head inside like the nostrils after hay fever—here is a cool quiet morning again, a feeling of relief, respite, hope. Just done the Robson: think it good. I am living so constrainedly: so repressedly: I can’t make notes of life. Everything is planned, battened down. I do half an hour down here: go up, often in despair: lie down: walk round the Square: come back and do another ten lines. Then to Lords yesterday. Always with a feeling of having to repress, control. I see people lying on sofa between tea and dinner. Rose M., Elizabeth Bowen, Nessa. Sat in the Square last night. Saw the dripping green leaves. Thunder and lightning. Purple sky. N. and A. discussing 4/8 time. Cats stealing round. L. dining with Tom and Bella. A very strange, most remarkable summer. New emotions: humility: impersonal joy: literary despair. I am learning my craft in the most fierce conditions. Really reading Flaubert’s letters I hear my own voice cry out Oh art! Patience: find him consoling, admonishing. I must get this book quietly, strongly, daringly into shape. But it won’t be out till next year. Yet I think it has possibilities, could I seize them. I am trying to cut the characters deep in a phrase: to pare off and compact scenes: to envelop the whole in a medium.