Two bibliophiles

Friday, March 24th., Hotel Majestic, Paris.

This is an excellent hotel, but not the one I would have chosen. It is all we could get. Rosenbach and I have a terrific apartment here: Drawing-room, two bedrooms and two bathrooms for £3.10/- a day. You wouldn't get it in London for twice that. But I shall leave it because the Champs Elysee is such a hades of a length.

We had an excellent journey here, no problem with the crossing. Rosenbach is one of those exhaustless persons. He would go to a music-hall last night  because of the row going on here about nude women on the stage. There is danger of them being forbidden so we had to see them before they were. Well, we saw them all right! Some with a frail girdle, some with nothing whatever. Then he wanted to go forth for 'supper', but I dissuaded him and got him back here by 12.30, and this morning he thanked me heartily for that. Who would have thought that a bibliophile would turn out to be such a lively character? We first met in the U.S.A. in 1911 and at that time he seemed to me to be a typical Jewish intellectual, or at least my stereotype of one. He is known in London as "The Terror of the Auction Rooms", and here as "The Napoleon of Books". Knowing this I suppose I should have guessed that his character would be rather larger than life.

What to make of the nude revues now that I have seen one for myself? What they are not is titillating. They aim I think to be artistic, and perhaps they are, but it is indubitably the nudity that is the attraction. They undoubtedly objectify women and that must be a bad thing. Of course that is what men have always done. Many of the great masters of painting, Titian as an example, did the same thing. Where lies the difference? I did feel uncomfortable, as a man, staring at naked women on stage. I won't be going again.

Rosenbach tells me that he is hopeful of purchasing the manuscript of "Ulysses"  from Joyce. He is confident that it will increase in value, and he certainly seems to be reliable in his judgement as far as books are concerned. For him, it seems to me, the two aspects of books are more clearly defined than for anyone else I have met. He is a man who understands and appreciates literature, but he also acknowledges books as objects, unsentimentally. I think it ironic that there is apparently more money to be made trading in books, if you know what you are doing, than in writing them.

Intense cold

 Sunday, February 7th., Hotel Matignon, Paris.

According to newspaper reports it is colder here than it is in London, but here we are so we shall have to make the best of it. I can well believe the reports. About the cold the word 'intense' can safely be used. There is a strong wind from the east, what a friend of mine used to call a 'lazy wind' because it went through you rather than round you. It was like this occasionally in Thorpe, but you don't really expect it in the middle of a big city.

Arrived here yesterday and went to a play last night. I warned Dorothy how it would be - theatre dirty, theatre packed, theatre entirely unventilated - and it was. Happily the play was good. But a play which lasts from 8.45 to midnight is thirty minutes too long for me. Dorothy doesn't seem to be able to get enough theatre. For my part I often think that if I see one more play in this lifetime, it will be one too many. 

Haven't done much today apart from a light lunch for Madame Andre Maurois and Jean Aubry. Maurois himself couldn't come as he is lecturing in Lyons. I said that anybody who went to a place like Lyons deserved all the consequences thereof. He agreed. But I bet it is warmer there. We did walk out briefly after lunch. To go forth into the streets at present is quite an adventure. Most of the girls run, or at least scuttle, and there are public braziers lighted in various places so that passers-by can warm themselves. That is a nice touch I think. There are fewer people in Paris than usual which is excellent. I don't think it was ever this cold during the time I lived here. I had considered walking down to the Rue de Calais, just to look at my old haunt, but I thought better of it. It is not usually a good idea to revisit places in my experience.

This hotel is decidedly good. And cheap! We have two bedrooms, one private bathroom and a cabinet de toilette for 22s. a day. The food could be better but I intend to eat as much as I can. More theatre tomorrow I expect but I hope to renew acquaintance with a few old friends at least.

As usual

Friday, February 2nd., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I went with the two Ullmans to "Fidelio" at the Opera Comique last night. The usual slightly hurried dinner and general excitement in order to get seats. And, the seats being got, the usual exit before the performance to have a cup of coffee in a neighbouring bar. The usual disgraceful physical conditions of the seat - bad air, talkative neighbours, and a very imperfect view of the stage. I believe that a lot of the people who go to the theatre here do so not for the performance but to 'perform' themselves.

I was inclined to change my opinion of the libretto, and to give Beethoven credit for having chosen it not so badly after all. There are situations in it that are genuinely heroic, but which less fine music might have rendered footling. The constant grand beauty of the music is what chiefly affects one in memory after the performance.

It was a wet and very muddy night. But we walked home because we had need of fresh air after the poison of the theatre. The Ullmans are very agreeable companions. Alice UIlman, formerly Alice Woods is an author and illustrator of some popularity in America and one of the few really intelligent American women I have met here. She is also rather strikingly pretty and was pleasantly attentive to me. I was decidedly envious of Eugene when we parted at their door. As usual!

Found out

Friday, January 15th., Hotel Matignon, Paris.

The weather here is a great nuisance, as it is apparently in England. It has been very cold, and last week it snowed heavily. And we were only just emerging from flu! Today though is beautiful, but it won't 'stay put' I feel sure.

Still, we go to the theatre every night, and lunch and dine with friends, or they with us. I have seen five things including the big revue at the Casino de Paris, and I haven't yet seen one piece at which I was not most markedy bored. But the acting is marvellously better than London acting; it is superb. I have had the august visits of Andre Gide, James Joyce, and Valery Larbaud almost all at once. Joyce is nearly blind, and totally self-centred; a very strong personality indeed. I should hardly like to be his wife. He looks quite boyish, but has two adult children, one married; and still a strong Irish accent.

I am thinking of writing a story. I must do something to keep the wolf out of the hotel! The hotel is very good - and cheap. We like it better than ever before. I saw the outskirts of Joffre's funeral procession last Wednesday, and could write a diverting article thereon, but I am too idle. And now the hotel has found out at last who I am. I mean the management of the hotel has found out. Which is a pity because I have always come here disguised as E.A.B. But when celebrated persons arrive and ask for A. B. the cat is sooner or later bound to leap out of the bag. It has done.

Jo Davidson is nearly finished working on my bust, and he is going on to 'do' Gide. I shall thank god when it is finished.

Flaneur

 Monday, December 19th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I sent off the last act of "An Angel Unawares" yesterday morning. In the afternoon I went to have tea with Miss Thomasson. I find that she is disturbing me, so much so that today I could not settle to anything definite. There is an element of sexual frustration in this.

So, this evening I had to go out and walk about. Perhaps I was looking for an 'adventure'? I turned down the steep Rue Blanche and at the foot of it passed by the shadow of the Trinite, the great church of illicit assignations, at whose clock scores of frightened and expectant hearts gaze anxiously every afternnoon. And through the Rue de la Chausee d'Antin, where corsets are masterpieces beyond price and flowers may be sold for a sovereign apiece. Then into the full fever of the grand boulevard with iots maddening restlessness of illuminated signs. This was the city. This was what the race had accomplished after eighteen Louis' and nearly as many revolutions, and when all was said that could be said it remained a prodigious and comforting spectacle. Every doorway shone with invitation; every satisfaction and delight was offered, on terms ridiculously reasonable. So different it seemed from the harsh and awkward timidity, the self-centred egotism and aristocratic hypocrisy of Piccadilly.It seemed strange to be lonely amid multitudes that so candidly accepted human nature as human nature is. Sex was in the air, but I could not grasp it.

So I continued southwards, down the narrow, swarming Rue Richelieu, past the National Library on the left and the Theatre Francais, where nice plain ppeople were waiting to see "L'Aventuriere", and across the arcaded Rue de Rivoli. And then I was in the dark desert of the Place du Carrousel, where the omnibuses are diminished to toy-omnibuses. The wind, heralding winter, blew coldly across the spaces. The artfully arranged vista of the Champs Elysee, rising in flame against the silhouette of Cleopatra's Needle, struck me as a meretricious device, designed to impress tourists and monarchs. Everything seemed meretricious. I could not even strike a match without being reminded that a contented and corrupt inefficiency was corroding this race like a disease. I could not light my cigarette because somebody, somewhere, had not done his job like an honest man.

I wanted to dine but all the restaurants had ceased to invite me. I was beaten down by the overwhelming sadness of one who for the time being has no definite arranged claim to any friendly attention in a huge city. I might have been George Gissing. I re-wrote all his novels for him in an instant! I persisted southwards. The tiny walled river, reflecting with industrious precision surrounding lights, had no attraction, except as a potential solution. The quays where all the bookshops were closed and all the bookstalls locked down, and where there was never a cafe, were as inhospitable and chill as Riga. Mist seemed to heave over the river, and the pavements were oozing with damp. I turned for home.

To think that in three days I shall be in Burslem!

Endless brooding

Tuesday, December 15th., Chiltern Court, London.

 

I have a tendency to nostalgia at this time of year. I suppose it is to do with the year nearing its end, and the short days, and the distant hope of Spring. And when I get nostalgic it is usually for France as I experienced it all those years ago. I never feel nostalgic about the Potteries!

 

When I lived in the Rue de Calais I never knew anything about the prodigiously genteel house of which I rented a fragment, except that a retired opera singer lived over my head, and a pianoforte professor at the Conservatoire somewhere under my feet. I never saw either of them, but I knew that the ex-opera singer received about a yard of bread every morning and about one and a half litres of milk. 

 

Every afternoon and sometimes in the evening a distant violin used to play, very badly, six bars - no more - of an air of Verdi's over and over again; never any other tune! The sound was too faint to annoy me, but it was the most melancholy thing I have ever heard. This phenomenon persisted for months, and I never discovered its origin, though I inquired again and again. Some interior, some existence of an infinite monotonous sadness was at hand, and yet hidden away from me, inviolate. Whenever I hear, or imagine I hear, that air now I am instantly in Paris, and as near being sentimental as ever I shall be.

 

My ambition had long been to inhabit the Rue d'Aumale - austere, silent, distinguished, icy and beautiful - and by hazard I did ultimately obtain a flat there, and so left the Rue de Calais. But I missed the undiscoverable and tragic violin of the Rue de Calais. To this day the souvenir of it will invariably fold me in a delicious spleen. The secret life of cities is a matter for endless brooding.

 

It is interesting to me that I deliberately 'broke' from Paris and went to live in the provinces, to see what they were like, to understand a little the fabric of the backbone of France. This coincided with my marriage. But I often desired to be back again in Paris, and of course, in the end, I went back. And then I had the delightful sensation of coming back to the city not as a starnger, but as one versed in its deviousness. I was able to take up at once the threads that I had dropped, or at least those compatible with a married state, without any of the drudgery and tedium incident to one's first social studies of a foreign capital. I was immediately at home, and I never felt more satisfaction in my citizenship of Paris than at this time. It was also at this period that I carried my Parisianism as far as I am ever likely to carry it.

Nostalgic

 Wednesday, December 9th., Cadogan Square, London.

Thinking about Paris as I often do. I was generally happy there and seemed set fair to become a Parisian, but it was not to be. For several years there had been gradually germinating in my mind the conviction that I should be compelled by some obscure instinct to return to England. I had a most disturbing suspicion that I was losing touch with England and that my literary work would soon begin to suffer accordingly. And one day I gave notice to my landlady, and then I began to get estimates for removing my furniture and books. And then I tried to sell to my landlady the fittings of the admirable bathroom which I had installed in her house, and she answered me that she had no desire for a bathroom in her house and would I take the fittings away?

And then I unhooked my pictures and packed my books. And lastly the removers came and turned what had been a home into a litter of dirty straw. And I saw the tail of the last van as it rounded the corner. And I gave up my keys so bright with use and definitely quitted the land where eating and love are understood, where art and learning are honoured, where women well-dressed and without illusions are not rare, where thrift flourishes, where politeness is practised,and where politics are shameful and grotesque.

 

I return merely as a visitor. I should probably have enjoyed myself more in France, only I prefer to live in England and regret France than to live in France and regret England. I think the permanent exile is a pathetic figure. I suppose I have a grim passion for England but I know why France is the darling of nations, and why I will always be thinking of Paris.

A bookman's day

Tuesday, January 30th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Slept well. Six and a half hours sleep undisturbed. Felt exceptionally well in consequence. I went down, partly on foot and partly by omnibus, to the Quai des Grands Augustins. It was a perfect morning. I had the itch to buy a book or two and I gave way to it. There is nothing in the world to compare with the pleasure of browsing for and buying books when one has plenty of time, a carefree soul, and a sufficiency of spare cash. Just the thought of it makes me feel better.

I bought, on the Quai, the two "Cardinal" books of Halevy, a Moliere in two volumes (Didot), Jouast's edition of "Le Mariage de Figaro", and Albert Wolff's "Memoires de Boulevard". The whole lot bound in various calfs for twelve and a half francs. I lunched frugally in a corner at Laperouse's. I read Wolff coming home in the omnibusand in my reading armchair when I got back "Madame Cardinal". The former is amusing, the latter a masterpiece. I felt I had thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I had also collected my ideas, by the way as it were, for the second instalment of the serial, and between 3.30 and 4.30 I wrote 500 words of it.

More reading this evening and the pleasure of re-arranging my bookshelves to accommodate the new purchases. Altogether something approaching a perfect bookman's day.

Startling mummery

Sunday, December 18th., Rue de Grenelle, Paris.

Full day yesterday. Perpending on "Hilda Lessways" all morning whilst walking about.  Sketch in Luxembourg Gardens after lunch. New Age article after tea. Odeon Theatre later to see "Les Trois Sultanes" and "Les Fourberies de Scapin". Nothing remarkable. To be honest there is too much theatre in Paris now and as the quantity has increased so the quality has gone down, in my opinion.

I went into St. Sulpice again this morning whilst walking to look at Delacroix, and came across a great ordination service. Dozens of young priests in parti-coloured capes etc. drinking the sacred wine with elaborate ceremonies, music etc. They were all, or nearly all tomnsured. A startling mummery right in the middle of Paris. Crowds of women. Is it the spectacle which appeals, or the thought of all these 'beautiful' young men who are lost to them? Of course all the mothers and friends will be there. Remarkable really that the R.C. church is still such a power in the land. Will religion die out as materialism grows? Wells thinks so, but I'm not so sure. He gives people too much credit for reason; in my experience people are much more likely to respond with emotion, especially, but not exclusively, women.

London weather

Thursday, December 17th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I went into a rather select little cafe last night in the Place Clichy, and was more than ever struck by the 'intimity' of this kind of cafe. The place amounted to a club. Nearly everyone who entered shook hands with the demoiselle de comptoire. An aged couple came in, aged between 60 and 70. The man was reading La Presse, and the woman, big and bony, called for Paris-Sportif and busied herself in the day's racing until they were joined by another man, also pld and very mannered..All three were intensely respectable and dignified, though not in the least chic. Watching people from the shelter of my newspaper in these places is better than going to the theatre.


I had meant to see Sudermann's "L'Honneur" at the Theatre de Peuple, but being interested in my novel, I came home at 8.30 and worked 'til 11 p.m. Good progress.

I finished Daudet's "Sapho". Chapter XII describing Jean's management of the rupture with Fanny is very great indeed. No general accusation of sentimentality can be brought against the book. As a whole it is great and terrible. I read that a play based on the novel is causing a sensation in the United States because it centres on a sexually active woman who 'preys' on men. I hope it will be brought to Paris. It should be, though it won't be so sensational here. Now I can go back to my "Casanova", having read all the absolutely first-class French novels of the nineteenth century.


This morning the weather is exactly London weather, gloomy and muggy, and not very cold. The sort of weather that makes one feel like turning back when opening the door into the street. And impossible to tell which clothes to wear to be comfortable and dry whilst walking about.

That Brieux is not a good playwright is certain; but it is also certain that he is a social force, and that his plays are very interesting as rough-and-ready presentments of social problems. Her and there he displays an extraordinary gift for the theatrical effect.

A cogitating day

Sunday, December 13th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

After buying papers and tea yesterday I lunched at the little creamery in the Place de la Trinite. Then I came home and read various papers and periodicals and "Casanova", and fell asleep, sleeping uncomfortably. Then I tried seriously to find ideas for Chapter II of my new novel; I had been more or less asking for them all morning; no success. Then I went out for a walk and felt tired even in starting.

I walked through the St. Lazare quarter to the Madeleine and turned along the Grand Boulevard to the Grand Cafe. I like the interior of this cafe. It is as much like the respectable ugliness of an English club as anything in Paris. I must be a little homesick I think. I ordered a cup of chocolate because I felt empty.

I thought steadily for an hour over this chocolate and I seemed to leave the cafe with one or two germs of ideas. I walked home cogitating. When I arrived there was a telegram from Whitten requiring my weekly article two days earlier than usual. This upset my plans somewhat. I felt so tired - I had taken a chill - that I lay down under the eiderdown on the bed and went to sleep again, reading "Casanova". 

When I awoke it was dark though only late afternoon. I made tea and felt better. A leading notion for the chapter had now formed itself. I went out to the Comedie Mondaine to book a seat for Brieux's "Berceau" and then to the Duval to dine, where I read Le Temps all the way through. Then I bought a cigar and had coffee in the Place Clichy. I cogitated at the cafe for an hour, and then I had the whole chapter clearly outlined in my head. This is a fair specimen of one of my cogitating days.

An excellent dodge

Thursday, December 8th., Rue de Grenelle, Paris.

I have been working daily at construction of "Hilda Lessways". I had thought, naively, that this would be simpler, having written "Clayhanger"; but in fact it is not because of the constant need to refer back to make the two 'fit'. Challenging but interesting to do.

As it was pouring with rain this afternoon, I went to the Gare d'Orsay and had tea on the platform-terrasse of the cafe, and walked about for two and three quarter hours, and really worked excellently at the first book, and was moreover all the time amused and diverted by the phenomena of the teminus. At the railway bookstall for example men came up, all sorts of men, threw down a sou, snatched a paper, and departed; scores of them. I remained, staring like a ploughman, vaguely ... This is a most excellent dodge for wet days.

I have been incensed by a letter of one Robert Morley in the Nation. He refers to art works hung in an exhibition at the Grafton Gallery by Roger Fry. Works by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse and others which have, evidently, enraged numerous people, especially Mr. Morley. He states: "It is impossible to take them seriously". Idiot! Does he think the artists were having a joke? Does he think that Roger Fry is engaged in a comic enterprise? What about Mr. Bernard Berenson, distinguished art critic, possibly the greatest living, who has professed a profound admiration for Matisse? I wonder if Morley has actually attended the exhibition or is merely reflecting ill-informed, second-hand sentiments. What he means is that a new and fresh approach to art has jarred with his deeply embedded ideas, and he has not the flexibility of mind to engage with it. I have written in this vein to the editor of the Nation.

Truth is a talisman

Monday, December 7th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I am reading "Casanova". This caught my eye: "I have learnt by experience that truth is a talisman of which the charm never fails, provided that one does not squander it on rascals." What a motto for my "Truth About an Author"!

I cured my depression yesterday by slaving all day at our play. I did the sketch of it complete and posted it to Eden Phillpotts last night. I only went out for quite a short walk of about 20 minutes, just to clear my brain and exercise my limbs. And to eat. Speaking of which I have obtained a photograph of the Duval where I go for my lunch, and have sent it to my mother. She is curious about my way of life here. It is an enormous place and I always sit at the same table which I marked for her with a cross. I can imagine her sitting in her chair in the house at Waterloo Road imagining me sitting down to eat in Paris. Of course there are things about my life here which I cannot tell her about!

As for the restaurant it is good of its kind; and when I say a restaurant is good, I who renew my flickering life almost solely in restaurants, the praise is well-deserved. It is large, quiet, clean, well-ventilated, well-warmed, and well-decorated; the linen is good, the glass thin, the silver bright and the service rapid; the raw material of the dishes is sound, and the dishes are well-cooked and various. I have nearly always enjoyed, and never disliked, what I ate in that restaurant. In short, it meets with my hearty approval. And there is my regular waitress. I am prepared to assert that she is over fifty years old and that her waist measurement is over forty, but she has taken to me and I to her. Her dark hair is always carefully dressed, her gowns fit and suit her admirably, her features are agreeable, and her gestures show kindness and force of character. I know not if she is a wife or a widow. She is certainly not a virgin. Were I fifty six rather than thirty six, romance would be in the air. Perhaps I have read too much "Casanova".

Fatal defects

Thursday, November 26th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I wrote over 3000 words of my last Windsor story, dined at a nice Duval in the Parc du Champs de Mars, smoked a cigar at the Globe, and then went to the Theatre Antoine and saw Ibsen's "Ghosts". This is not after all a good play. It is vitiated by the symbolism of the asylum. The defect, fatal defect, of the play is that it is too 'stagey'. It has not the air of being quite sincere. It is too clever. All this I can see quite clearly. There are moments in the first and second acts however which are poignantly dramatic.

Also "La Paix Chez-soi", a new one act piece by Georges Courteline. Very good, funny, and at the same time bitterly true, in its essence, to real life. How such an idea would have been ruined by sentimentality in an English play. But I think that I could write a play as good. I returned home after 12, and after reaching my etage dropped my box of matches, which fell right down the well of the stairs to the bottom. How I cursed! I had to go down and find them. Vile weather.

Somehow I got to thinking of Oscar Wilde whilst I was out and about today. It is only three years since he died here in Paris. I might well have met him had dissipation and the effects of imprisonment not taken their toll. How would we have got on? Well of course he was a toff so probably not very well. Not that I have anything against toffs, so long as they are only toffish in private and with other consenting adults. In fact I know little of Wilde's life but my sense is that, whilst he didn't deserve to be imprisoned, he was the author of his own destiny. No doubt attitudes to homosexuality will change in time but it is unwise to balatantly disregard public mores however much you despise them personally.

The charm of danger

Thursday, November 12th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I am still reading "Don Quixote", and was much struck with the perfect narrative style of the inserted story "The Ill-Advised Curiosity". It is simply charming. And I am with the licentiate who, after censuring the improbabilities, said: "With the manner of the telling I have no fault to find." I should like sometime to write a few stories in that simple style - pure narration, very little dialogue, and what there is arranged conventionally in long speeches. Hardy's "A Group of Noble Dames" must have been composed under some such influence I imagine.

"Bostock's Great Animal Arena" at the Hippodrome de Place Clichy. First night. Vast crowd, very badly controlled. The whole performance consisted of wild-animal tricks. The principal dompteur had some exciting moments in the vast cage with lionesses, a tiger, several bears, a hyena, a leopard, two superb dogs, and other animals. When a crisis arrived the Frenchmen around me were as impressed as children. "Ils ne sont pas commodes", "Il a du sangfroid!", and, when their nerves were getting strained, "Assez! Assez!" in a nervous tone. Some of the crises were apparently somewhat dangerous. During a long bout of opposing wills between the trainer and a tiger, the tiger chewed up a good part of a wooden seat and splintered the gate over which he had to jump. And if, at the end of that bout, the trainer was only acting when he wiped his brow, he was acting very well. At the beginning the crowd was captious and fractious, owing to delays and bad arrangements, but the applause was now tremendous. The performance was really rather out of the way and it is no good me pretending that I watched it unmoved. I did not. And I certainly appreciate more than I have done before the charm of danger in a show, real danger.

Bostock himself, remarkably to my mind, was born in Basford in Derbyshire and started his career in small circuses. But he is now celebrated worldwide as "The Animal King". I am told that only a couple of years ago in New York a tiger nearly ripped his arm off. My informant was not able to tell me if it was the same tiger I saw last last evening. Bostock is only a year older than me and I thought I had risen strongly from humble Midland origins. I shall have to review this perception in light of new information.

A new chapter

Friday, November 4th., Les Sablons.

I saw Liane de Pougy last night for the first time, in a little ballet at the Casino de Paris. She still looked young, and, though she was too thin, like Cleo de Merode, I thought her better than most Parisians will allow. I mentioned her name to Davray and Vallee today, and they both guffawed. Clearly they know things I am not aware of, and are not disposed to enlighten me; possibly my deficiencies of language are part of the problem.

Today I came down to my new lodgings at Les Sablons. The bed-sitting room is large with a bare polished floor and a portrait of Melanchthon (in a fur coat) on the wall. Antoine Lebert and his wife, the householders, have lived in Paris 31 years and have retired here. They keep a large garden and grow grapes on long walls. Bunches still remain on certain vines which are covered with a kind of coarse muslin. I realise that I know nothing at all of viniculture - it wasn't much practised in Burslem.

The rooms face south and the weather is cold and lovely. I went for a walk in the forest which was magnificent, but I felt suddenly tired and came back and fell asleep over Butler's "The Way of all Flesh" in an armchair which at first I had thought to be extremely comfortable. I am very much looking forward to making this space my own. This is a new chapter in my life which has already wandered far from original expectations. How many places have I lived in now? And how many more in the future? In a way I can envy the Leberts who are settled contentedly, in harmony with their place in life, and not in search of new experience, but I am not yet forty and have my name to make. I may one day settle into comfortable retirement, but I can't imagine it.

"The Way of all Flesh" is exceedingly good in parts. Whenever the author is satirical he is excellent. And every now and then he gets a sudden sharp effect of pathos. He is very careless in details of construction, writes without dignity, and has a tendency to moralise at length. But I read the book with real zest, which is rare. There is a vast amount of naked truth in the book.

Operatic inspiration

Sunday, November 1st., Rue de Calais, Paris.

Opera Comique. "Carmen". 2nd Act excellent. And all good and shapely. Charlotte Wyns as Carmen was very good - just the right amount of sauciness. She could have tempted me to almost anything! Hard to believe that when the opera was first performed here in 1875 its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Rather tame now in comparison to some of the things to be seen in Paris, but it has an emotional punch which has not, in my view, been bettered.

All this last week my whole existence has been upset and monopolised by that story and by people; and I seem to have lost the faculty for rigidly planning out my days into sections. I have studied no French at all; and this journal is reduced again to a mere chronicle. But perhaps I am being too hard on myself. What was it my mother used to say about "making Jack a dull boy"? Paris inevitably gets into the blood and I cannot expect, or desire, that I should live my life here as if I were in London or, God forbid, the Potteries. People and places are my material after all.

Awfully art nouveau

Tuesday, March 21st., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I went to see Docteur L. yesterday. He has a flat on the entresol in the Rue Marboeuf, en plein quartier chic.  The door was opened by a rather agreeable girl who politely picked up a pencil which I dropped. She showed me into a fairly spacious waiting-room horribly and characteristically furnished. A crimson plushy carpet all over the floor, a set of chairs and a sofa all in their housses; a modern Louis XVl table richly gilt and fairly well made, bearing old copies of L'Illustration and La Vie en Plein Air. A huge lamp standard in a corner; a piano with draped back; a column surmounted by a specimen of art nouveau statuary; to wit a withered tree, with a huge rock near it, the rock cut in the form of a face, as big as the tree - all in bronze. Two pairs of double doors heavily draped. Odd statuettes and signed photographs of men. I would have preferred to have spent the waiting time in company with the young woman but she did not re-appear. Her role in the establishment did not become clear.

The doctor surprised me by appearing through doors where I had not expected him. A man about 30, hair and beard sticking out, slightly stiff in manner but improving later. Beyond muttering the word "Vallee" he made no reference to the introduction which I had to him. He evidently sprang from the lower middle-class and was unable to rely on his manners. 

He took me into his consulting room, a room more frankly and awfully art nouveau than the waiting-room, but less distressing because it was all in one scheme and showed some sense of design. I soon found that he knew his business; but with that he proved to be somewhat vain and self-important. he wrote out his prescription at excessive length, and drew me the design of a canule. He couldn't help referring to that design twice afterwards, as it were fishing for praise of his ability to draw at all. However he was extremely practical. I should say he would be a brute in hospital and a brute with women. But in some ways I did not dislike him. He is an arriviste and quite young.

It was an odd consultation. I was somewhat embarrassed and pretty stiff myself. I must have seemed rather foolish to him, a stereotypical Englishman in Paris. I know that I can appear to be pompous and prickly; several friends have hinted as much. I find myself immediately on my guard with strangers, especially men of my own age, and engage in a pointless verbal fencing match which does me no favours at all. I am better with women. Or perhaps they are just more tolerant.

Flashes

Sunday, March 19th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

When does middle-age begin? At 40 perhaps? I am now 37 and often feel positively middle-aged. Then again, at other times my youth returns, I swell with self-belief, and feel I could do almost anything. So is middle-age a state of mind? That seems most likely. And of course context is very important. If I were married and living a quiet life in a suburb somewhere, with friends in a similar boat, then I would likely feel more middle-aged than I do now. Associating with younger people has a juvenating effect I find. On the other hand I tend to despise those people who try to appear younger than they are, and almost inevitably fail. As a stoic, I strive to accept life as it is. My ideal is to be mature in outlook and behaviour whilst retaining a capacity for playfulness and fun. I don't find it easy.

Aimee Tessandier

Last evening I went with Raphael to see "Therese Raquin", with Aimee Tessandier as the mother. She was certainly very fine. Most of the rest of the performance was ignoble. Raphael, who lives in the same house as she does, told me that she started life in Bordeaux. The play is a good play, spoilt by clumsiness. I didn't go to bed till 2 o'clock, and then had to read The Times. No wonder I am feeling old!

I finished my play "Que Faire" yesterday afternoon. I had the notion from Kelly the other day: two people married who find themselves to be brother and sister. I at once saw that I could turn it into a good, but unprintable, short story. Then when I was talking to Davray on Thursday at tea, the thing suddenly presented itself to me as a play for the Grand Guignol. I saw the whole play, in two acts, like a flash, and I described it to him. He said: "We ought to do that together." At 6.30 I began to write the first act, stopped for dinner, and then worked for another hour, and for 25 minutes on Friday. By then I had finished a full draft of the first act. I read it to Davray on Friday evening and he was much struck by it. Yesterday I wrote most of the second act in the morning, and finished the thing in the afternoon. Davray will re-write it in good French. I have written it part in French and part in English.

Forming impressions

Wednesday, March 16th., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I meant to go and see "L'Etrangere" at the Francais on Monday night but was too unwell - a mysterious lassitude. So I bought "La Petite Roque" od de Maupassant instead, and came home. yesterday I bought Taine's "Graindorge". This book brought to a head the ideas I have had for writing 'impressions' of Paris. I find I must write something. I can't lie quite fallow. Moreover I have now been in Paris exactly a year, and my ideas are becoming defined.

So this morning I started a book of impressions with an account of, and reflections upon, the opening of the Concerts-Berlioz which I went to last night. It is probable that this book, if I continue with it, will reduce my journal to a naked record. I am worried with an idea for placing the impressions serially in various newspapers. Many things seem to worry me in a general way at the moment. Not enough to lose sleep, but a sort of background 'noise' to my daily activity. I am inclined to think that I am working too little, and spending too much time alone. I will need to make a concerted effort to get on with things.