The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 15

To-day, she was silent and melancholy but wonderfully fascinating. One day I am desperate and the next cold and apathetic. Am I in love? G.o.d knows! She came to the door to say "Good night," and I deliberately strangled my desire to say something.

_March_ 9.

In bed till 12.30 reading Bergson and the O.T.

Over to the flat to supper. E---- was cold and silent. She spurned me.

No wonder. I talked volubly and quite brilliantly with the definite purpose of showing up J----'s somnolence. I also pulled his leg. He hates me. No wonder. After supper, he went in to her studio and remained there alone with her while she worked. At 11 p.m. he was still there when I came away in a whirlwind of jealousy, regrets, and rage. G---- said he was going to stay on until he saw "the blighter off the premises." Neither of us would go in to turn him out.

I love her deeply and once my heart jumped when I thought I heard her coming into the room. But it was only P----. Did not see her again--even to say "Good-night."

_March_ 10.

Work in the evening in our bedroom--two poor miserable bachelors--H---- reading Equity Law, a rug around his legs before an empty grate, while I am sitting at the table in top-coat, with collar up, and writing my _magnum opus,_ which is to bring me fame, fortune and--E----!

H---- says that this morning I was putting on my shoes when he pointed out a large hole in the heel of my sock.

"d.a.m.n! I shall have to wear boots," I said--at least he says I said it, and I am quite ready to believe him. Such unconsciousness of self is rare with me.

_March_ 15.

[At a public dinner at the Holborn Restaurant] J----replied to the toast of the Ladies. Feeble! H---- and I stood and had a silent toast to E---- and N---- by just winking one eye at each other. He sat opposite me.

If I had been asked to reply to this toast I should have said with the greatest gusto, something as follows,--

[Here follows the imaginary speech in full, composed the same night before going to sleep.]

Yet I am taken for a soft fool! My manner is soft, self-conscious, shy.

What a lot of self-glorification I lose thereby! What a lot of self-torture I gain in its stead!

_March_ 17.

To-day went to the B.M. but did very little work. Thought over the matter carefully and decided to ask E---- to marry me. Relief to be able to decide. I was happy too.

Yesterday P---- came in to us from E----'s studio and said,--

"E---- sends her love."

"To whom?" H---- inquired.

"I don't know," P---- replied, smiling at me.

_March_ 18.

Had a long conversation with H---- last night. He says all E---- intended to convey was that the quarrel was over.... I felt relieved, because I have no money, but--a large ambition. Then I am selfish, and have not forgotten that I want to spend my holidays in the Jura, and next year three weeks at the Plymouth Laboratory.

_March_ 19.

Went over to see E----. We had an awkward half-an-hour alone together.

She was looking bewitching! I am plunging more and more into love. Had it on the tip of my tongue once. I am dreadfully fond of her.

"I have a most profound gloom over me," I said.

"Why don't you try and get rid of it?" she asked.

"I can't until Zeus has pity and rolls away the clouds."

_April_ 21.

We are sitting up in our beds which are side by side in a room on the top story of a boarding house in ---- Road.

It is 11.30 p.m. and I am leaning over one one side lighting the oil lamp so as to boil the kettle to make Ovaltine before going to sleep.

"Whom have I seduced?" I screamed. "You rotter, don't you know that a dead pa.s.sion full or regrets is as terrible as a dead body full of worms? There, I talk literature, my boy, if you were only Bos well enough to take it down.... As for K----, I shall never invite him to dinner again. He comes to me and whines that n.o.body loves him, and so I say, 'Oh! poor lad, never mind, if you're bored, why, come to my rooms of an evening and hear me talk--you'll have the time of your life.' And now he's cheeky."

H. (sipping his drink and very much preoccupied with it) replied abstractedly, "When you die you'll go to h.e.l.l." (I liked his Homeric simplicity.) "You ought to be buried in a fireproof safe."

Silence.

H. (returning to the attack), "I hope she turns you down."

"Thank you," I said.

"As for P----," he resumed, "she's double-Dutch to me."

"Go to the Berlitz School," I suggested, "and learn the language."

"You bally fool.... All you do is to sit there and smile like a sanguinary cat. Nothing I say ever rouses you. I believe if I came to you and said, 'Here, Professor, is a Beetle with 99 legs that has lived on granite in the middle of the Sahara for 40 days and 40 nights,' you'd simply answer, 'Yes, and that reminds me I've forgotten to blow my nose.'"

The two pyjamaed figures shake with laughing, the light goes out and the sanguinary conversation continues on similar lines until we fall asleep.

_April_ 26.

_Two Months' Sick Leave_

In a horrible panic--the last few days--I believe I am developing locomotor ataxy. One leg, one arm, and my speech are affected, _i.e._ the right side and my speech centre. M---- is serious.... I hope the disease, whatever it is, will be sufficiently lingering to enable me to complete my book.

R---- is a dear man. I shall not easily forget his kindness during this terrible week.... Can the Fates have the audacity?... Who can say?

_April_ 27.

I believe there can be no doubt that I have had a slight partial paralysis of my right side (like Dad). I stutter a little in my speech when excited, I cannot write properly (look at this handwriting), and my right leg is rocky at the knee. My head swims.

It is too inconceivably horrible to be buried in the Earth in such splendid spring weather. Who can tell me what is in store for me?...

Life opens to me, I catch a glimpse of a vision, and the doors clang to again noiselessly. It is dark. That will be my history. Am developing a pa.s.sionate belief in my book and a fever of haste to complete it before the _conge definitif_.

_April_ 29.

Saw M---- again, who said my symptoms were alarming certainly, but he was sure no definite diagnosis could be made.