the words “Ecce homo,” which I had scribbled across Schubert’s name and said, “There you are.” Madame smiled incredulously and we said, “Goodbye.”
It was a beautifully clement almost springlike day, and at the street corner, in a burst of joyousness, we each bought a bunch of violets of an old woman, stuck them on the ends of our walking-sticks, and marched off with them in triumphant protest to the B.M. Carried over our shoulders, our flowers amused the police and ⸻, who scarcely realised the significance of the ritual. “This is my protest,” said R⸺, “against the war. It’s like Oscar Wilde’s Sunflower.”
On the way, we were both bitterly disappointed at a dramatic meeting between a man and woman of the artisan class which instead of beginning with a stormy, “Robert, where’s the rent, may I ask?” fizzled out into, “Hullo, Charlie, why you are a stranger.”
At tea in the A.B.C. shop, we had a violent discussion on Socialism, and on the station platform, going home, I said that before marriage I intended saving up against the possibility of divorce—a domestic divorce fund.
“Very dreadful,” said R⸺ with mock gravity, “to hear a recently affianced young man talk like that.”
… What should I do then? Marry? I suppose so. Shadows of the prison-house. At first I said I ought not to marry for two years. Then when I am wildly excited with her I say “next week.” We could. There are no arrangements to be made. All her furniture—flat, etc. But I feel we ought to wait until the War is over.
At dinnertime tonight I was feverish to do three things at once: write out my day’s Journal, eat my food, and read the Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. Did all three—but unfortunately not at once, so that when I was occupied with one I would surreptitiously cast a glance sideways at the other—and repined.
After dinner, paid a visit to the ⸻ and found Mrs. ⸻ playing Patience. I told her that 12,000 lives had been lost in the great Italian earthquake. Still going on dealing out the cards, she said in her gentle voice that that was dreadful and still absorbed in her cards inquired if earthquakes had aught to do with the weather.
“An earthquake must be a dreadful thing,” she gently piped, as she abstractedly dealt out the cards for a new game in a pretty Morris-papered room in Kensington.
At a Public Dinner
… The timorous man presently took out his cigarette-case and was going to take out a cigarette, when he recollected that he ought first to offer one to the millionaire on his right. Fortunately the cigarette case was silver and the cigarettes appeared—from my side of the dinner-table—to be fat Egyptians. Yet the timorous and unassuming bug-hunter hesitated palpably. Ought he to offer his cigarettes? He thought of his own balance at the bank and then of the millionaire’s and trembled. The case after all was only silver and the cigarettes were not much more than a halfpenny each. Was it not impertinent? He sat a moment studying the open case which he held in both hands like a hymn book, while the millionaire ordered not wines—but a bass! At last courage came, and he inoffensively pushed the cigarettes towards his friend.
“No, thanks!” smiled the millionaire, “I don’t smoke.” And so, ’twas a unicorn dilemma after all.
Spent Xmas week at work in her studio, transcribing my Journals while she made drawings. All unbeknown to her I was copying out entries of days gone by—how scandalised she would be if … !
What an amazing Masque is Rotten Row on a Sunday morning! I sat on a seat there this morning and watched awhile.
It was most exasperating to be in this kaleidoscope of human life without the slightest idea as to who they all were. One man in particular, I noticed—a first-class “swell”—whom I wanted to touch gently on the arm, slip a half-a-crown into his hand and whisper, “There, tell me all about yourself.”
Such “swells” there were that out in the fairway, my little cockleshell boat was well-nigh swamped. To be in the wake of a really magnificent Duchess simply rocks a small boat in an alarming fashion. I leaned over my paddles and gazed up. They steamed past unheeding, but I kept my nerve all right and pulled in and out quizzing and observing.
It is nothing less than scandalous that here I am aged twenty-five with no means of acquainting myself with contemporary men and women even of my own rank and station. The worst of it is, too, that I have no time to lose—in my state of health. This accursed ill-health cuts me off from everything. I make pitiful attempts to see the world around me by an occasional visit (wind, weather, and health permitting) to Petticoat Lane, the Docks, Rotten Row, Leicester Square, or the Ethical Church. Tomorrow I purpose going to the Christian Scientists’. Meanwhile, the others participate in Armageddon.
Looking for Lice at the Zoo
The other day went to the Zoological Gardens, and, by permission of the Secretary, went round with the keepers and searched the animals for ectoparasites.
Some time this year I have to make a scientific Report to the Zoological Society upon all the Lice which from time to time have been collected on animals dying in the gardens and sent me for study and determination.
We entered the cages, caught and examined several Tinamous, Rhinochetus, Eurypygia, and many more, to the tune of “The Policeman’s Holiday” whistled by a Mynah! It was great fun.
Then we went into the Ostrich House and thoroughly searched two Kiwis. These, being nocturnal birds, were roosting underneath a heap of straw. When we had finished investigating their feathers, they ran back to their straw at once, the keeper giving them a friendly tap on the rear to hurry them
