Drinking beer

Sunday, February 13th., Hotel Savoy, Cortina.

Idle in the grand manner today. The Huxley's came for lunch shortly after 1 o'clock, and we had a very good lunch, and I drank beer, and it did me no harm. This is the first time I have drunk beer without suffering for it for about 18 years. The last time I drank it was at a restaurant at or near Baia; it made me ill instantly. The time before that was about 16 or 17 or 18 years ago in a cafe in the place where are the theatres Sarah Bernhardt and Porte St. Martin, after seeing Sarah Bernhardt in some rotten play. It made me quite ill for 24 hours. So my metabolism must have changed in the interim, or else the altitude is good for me. I feel disappointed that I might have been able to drink it years ago and never knew; I was too timid to try.

But I was forgetting. I wasn't completely idle. I corrected the last three quarters of the proofs of my 20,000 word short story "The Woman Who Stole Everything". I thought this story one of the best I have ever done. I was so full of this idea that I wrote to Miss Nerney about it, and talked at some length with Dorothy about it, and wrote to Newman Flower about a special jacket for the book which is to come out this Spring.

Dorothy is planning to come here again next Winter, with a larger party. But I don't think this will happen. In fact I intend that it won't. She won't be able to get a larger party - perhaps no party at all. Interesting people aren't free. They have their own plans. However the queer thing is that I simply don't mind where I go for a holiday as long as there is a really good hotel on the spot. I can amuse myself and pass the time agreeably anywhere. I rather fancy the Canary Islands which I hear are like Spring all the time.