What with Emmeline, and the research, and the general housekeeping that needs to be done, I find I am sleeping too little, and despite my reserves of energy, which I maintain by healthy diet and exercise, I can distinguish the symptoms of sleep deprivation. I irritate myself by putting things down and forgetting where I have left them. And when I pick up my book at night, my bookmark tells me that the previous night I must have turned the pages blindly, for I have no recollection at all of the events on the page or the one before. These small annoyances and my constant tiredness are the price I pay for the luxury of working alongside the doctor on ourproject.
However, that is not what I wanted to write about. I meant to write about our work. Not ourfindings, which are documented thoroughly in our papers, but the pattern of our minds, the fluency with which we understand each other, the way in which our instant understanding permits us almost to do without words. When we are both engaged in plotting the changes in sleep patterns of our separate subjects, for instance, he may want to draw my attention to something, and he does not need to speak, for I can feel his eyes on me, his mind calling to me, and I raise my head from my work, quite ready for him to point out whatever it is.
Skeptics might considerthis pure coincidence, or suspect me of magnifying a chance incidence into a habitual occurrence by imagination, but I have come to see that when two people work closely together on a joint project- two intelligent people, I mean to say-a bond of communication develops between them that can enhance their work. All the while they arejointly engaged on a task, they are aware of, acutely sensitive to, each other's tiniest movements, and can interpret them accordingly. This, even without seeing the infinitesimal movements. And it is no distraction from the work. On the contrary, it enhances it, for our speed of understanding is quickened. Let me add one simple example, small in itself but standing in for countless others. Thismorning, I was intent upon some notes, trying to see a pattern of behavior emerging from his jottings on Adeline. Reaching for a pencil to make an annotation in the margin, I felt the doctor's hand brush mine and he passed the pencil I sought into it. I looked up to thank him, but he was deeply engrossed in his own papers, quite unconscious of what had happened. In such a way we work together: minds, hands, always in conjunction, always anticipating the other's needs and thoughts. And when we are apart, which we are for most of the day, we are always thinking of small details relating to the project, or else observations about the broader aspects of life and science, and even this shows how well suited we arefor this joint undertaking.
But I am sleepy, and though I could write at length of the joys of coauthoring a research paper, it is really time to go to bed.
I have not written for nearly a week and do not offer my usual excuses. My diary disappeared.
I spoke to Emmehne about it-kindly, severely, with offers ofchocolate and threats of punishment (and yes, my methods have broken down, but frankly, losing a diary touches one most personally)-but she continues to deny everything. Her denials were consistent and showed many signs of good faith. Anyone not knowing the circumstances would have believed her. Knowing her as I do, I found the theft unexpected myselfandfind it hard to explain it within the general progress she has made. She cannot read and has no interest in other people's thoughts and inner lives, other thanso far as they affect her directly. Why should she want it? Presumably it is the shine of the lock that tempted her her passion for shiny things is undiminished, and I do not try to reduce it; it is usually harmless enough. But I am disappointed in her.
If I were to judge by her denials and her character alone, I would conclude that she was innocent of the theft. But the fact remains that it cannot have been anyone else. John? Mrs. Dunne? Even supposing that the servants should have wanted to steal my diary, which I don't believe for a minute, I remember clearly that they were busy elsewhere in the house when it went missing. In case I was wrong about this, I brought the conversation around to their activides, and John confirms that Mrs. Dunne was in the kitchen all morning ('making a right racket, too, ' he told me). She confirms thatJohn was at the coach house mending the car ('noisy oldjob '). It cannot have been either of them.
And so, having eliminated all the other suspects I am obliged to believe that it was Emmeline.
And yet I cannot shake off my misgivings. Even now I can picture her face- so innocent in appearance, so distressed at being accused-and I am forced to wonder, is there some additionalfactor atplay here thatI have failed to take into account? When I view the matterin this light it gives rise to an uneasiness in me: I am suddenly overwhelmed by the presentiment that none of my plans is destined to come to fruition. Something has been against me ever since I cameto this house! Something thatwants to thwart me and frustrate me in every project I undertake! I have checked and rechecked my thinking, retraced every step in my logic, I canfind noflaw, yet still I find myself beset by doubt… What is it that I am failing to see?
Reading over this last paragraph I am struck by the most uncharacteristic lack of confidence in my tone. It is surely only tiredness that makes me think thus. An unrested mind is prone to wander into unfruitful avenues; it is nothing that a good night's sleep cannot cure.
Besides, it is all over now. Here I am, writing in the missing diary. I locked Emmeline in her room for four hours, the next day for six, and she knew the day after, it would be eight. On the second day, shortly after I came down from unlocking her door I found the diary on my desk in the schoolroom. She must have slipped down very quietly to put it there; I did not see her go past the library door to the schoolroom even though I left the door open deliberately. But it was returned. So there is no room for doubt, is there?
I am so tired and yet I cannot sleep. I hear steps in the night, but when I go to my door and look into the corridor there is no one there.
I confess it made me uneasy-makes me uneasy still- to think that this little book was out of my possession even for two days. The thought of another person reading my words is most discomforting. I cannot help but think how another person would interpret certain things I have written, for when I write for myself only, and know perfectly well the truth of what I write, I am perhaps less careful of my expression, and writing at speed, may sometimes express myself in a way that could be misinterpreted by another who would not have my insight into what I really mean. Thinking over some of the things I have written (the doctor and the pencil-such an insignificant event- hardly worth writing about at all really), I can see that they might appear to a stranger in a light rather different from what I intended, and I wonder whether I should tear out these pages and destroy them. Only I do not want to, for these are the pages that I most want to keep, to read later, when I am old and gone from here, and think back to the happiness of my work and the challenge of our great project.
Why should a scientific friendship not be a source of joy? It is no less scientific for that, is it?
But perhaps the answer is to stop writing altogether, for when I do write, even now as I write this very sentence, this very word, I am aware of a ghost reader who leans over my shoulder watching my pen, who twists my words andperverts my meaning, and makes me uncomfortable in the privacy of my own thoughts.
It is very aggravating to be presented to oneself in a light so different from the familiar one, even when it is clearly a false light. I will not write any more.
