Thursday, June 3rd., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.
Dance last night in aid of Blinded Soldiers and Sailors. About 40 people paid, and something over 30 came. Receipts about £11. Began at about 9.15 and finished at about 1.30. Curious method of sitting out. Couples went to sit out in the motor cars waiting in the stable yard. Coldish night. The earnest air of young couples, especially the girls, and the short-statured girls sitting about in my study, my bedroom and Marguerite's rooms, also on the top stairs, was just as comic to me as ever it was. It is the small girls who seem to take the dalliance so seriously. I danced with six women - a record.
For some background to this see 'Forms of blindness'
Additionally for June 3rd., see 'At the opera'
Paris yesterday, upon Calvo's invitation to see "Boris Godounoff" at the opera. Very Fine. Especially chorus and general completeness of production. Impression left of the barbaric quality of Russia; and its intense earnestness in art also. As to the composition, assuredly great. No close construction in it, its construction must certainly have been a matter of haphazard - I don't care what anyone says to the contrary; made one feel the unimportance of great skill in construction. Look at the haphazard way in which all Goethe's things were constructed. Uncanny effect of seeing suddenly a masterpiece of which one had scarcely heard and of which one knew nothing, and yet which was written in 1874 or published then. Chaliapine was great and profound. Calvo introduced us afterwards, on the stage. I hate these introductions, but I was glad to go through the tedium of this one. A very tall man with a noble bearing and a fine face. He is undoubtedly a sublime artist.
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