No news of war

Sunday, February 14th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Casino de Paris

I was influenza-ish on Saturday evening and most of today but it seems to have passed now. Probably just a reaction from the anxiety of travelling back from Mentone.We dined at Sylvain's last evening and again tonight, and we went into the Casino de Paris for an hour. I don't know why. I am finding it difficult to get reliable information about the war that has broken out between Russia and Japan. It is when one wants authentic news that the defects of a country's press begin plainly to appear - especially news which is difficult to obtain and easy to imitate.


I have been gathering notes about women for possible use in my latest book, provisionally called "The History of Two Old Women". That won't do as a title of course. Something better will turn up. 

There is the story of the life, death and burial of the mysterious pretty Englishwoman from Liverpool who gave lessons in English to a constant stream of Messieurs chic, and expired alone at 7 Rue Breda after being robbed by a Spanish male friend. Much scope for speculation about why she was in Paris at all.

And recently I had some conversation with a spinster aged perhaps 41. She told me how she hardly spoke to men, didn't feel at ease with them, didn't know how they think. She seemed to have the idea that there are many more women than men, and was disinclined to believe me when I said the difference in numbers isn't great. She was keen to tell me about the importance of having an object in life. She said: "When you have no object in life, when you feel you are useless, not wanted, no good in the world, then I see no good in living." It was not clear to me what her object in life might be, unless to be a warning to others. On the whole a strange mixture of pride (vanity) and self-depreciation, the former instinctive, the latter due to intellectual processes. A haughty, arrogant mien, the sort of mien that, in English people, naturally maddens foreigners.