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.

Dreaming in Paris

Tuesday, November 3rd., Rue de Calais, Paris.

I came across this aphorism whilst browsing recently: "Poetry is a shotgun aimed at our shared experience". It has been at the back of my mind since and I think there may be something in it. I admit that poetry generally fails to inspire me, and my own poetic efforts are simply awful. Still, I sense that poetry could be a means to 'shake up' receptive persons, with the response varying according to their personal state of mind. If so, a pretty effective weapon! I don't know where I read it. Would like to find it again.

A cocotte de Paris

I was told today that, as I thought, the most distimnguished of the music-hall cocottes went to the Casino de Paris; and also that they did business comparatively infrequently, but what they did was very remunerative. This latter statement I regarded with suspicion, as also the following: that a particular woman, tall, very distinguished, and well-dressed and well-jewelled, whom I had often admired in various resorts, had an absolute minimum of 250 francs. It seems she goes about in a pair-horse carriage in the evening, by some sort of arrangement with the coachman. I was told that many cocottes pay their coachmen either partly or wholly in sexual favours. This woman by the way sometimes brings to the Casino her young child, of 7 or 8 years old perhaps. I have seen them together there, and the effect was certainly effective. It is only a lack of nerve that prevents me availing myself of the services of one of these superior cocottes; whilst the expense would be a strain, the experience would be worthwhile. But I am too constrained!

A particularly vivid dream last night. I was a boy again, perhaps 12 or 13, and was being taken by my parents to some sort of family gathering. It seemed to me in the dream that it was at Tunstall indoor market but without the customary stalls! Anyway, a lot of my relatives were there and I was being treated with notable deference by the adults, which wasn't going down well with my various cousins. After a while I got my cousins together (boys and girls) and suggested we go out into the town as a group to seek out some interesting experiences. This was well-received and I became accepted. That is all I remember except that I felt marvellously 'physical' - strong, fit and lithe. I was sorry to wake up!