Oh, why are people swindlers? My heart bleeds when they swindle me, doesn't yours? This gardener—he promised to come and put the garden in order for 10 francs and bring me some little plants too. It was to be 10 francs a day with the plants. And now his wife has come and explained the plants are 10 francs more. And he only came for half a day yesterday, but she says he spent the other half of the day looking for the plants. So they between them charged me 30 francs. It isn't the money that matters, though I felt ashamed as I gave it them and could not look at their eyes,—it is that they are dishonest. That hurts so! Yes, put the wall round the house. Why will people do such things? I'd rather they turned and beat me.

The sun streams through the folded clouds on to the sea in long beams of light, such beams as you see in picturebooks when the Lord appears. It is a silent day except for the sound of his false pick as he digs up the little beds. L. M. is in San Remo. I have to hide from this old man now. I wish he'd go. His wife was all in grey, with big black hollow places where her teeth had been and she said firmly, “C'est moi qui viens tous les soirs arroser votre jardin pour vous.” When I said “No,” her “C'est bien” was like steel spittle.

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Well, I've cried my cry to you. But … this vileness, this snail on the underside of the leaf—always there!

Why am I not a calm, indifferent, grown-up woman?… And this great cold, indifferent world like a silent, malignant river, and these creatures rolling over one like great logs—crashing into one…. I try to keep to one side, to slip down unnoticed among the trembling rainbowcoloured bubbles of foam and the faint reeds. I try to turn and turn in a tiny quiet pool—but it's no good. Sooner or later one is pushed out into the middle of it all. Oh … I am really sadder than you, I believe. At any rate if they weighed us both in the scales, we'd both dip as deep….

Two books have come—Stanley Weyman and Stella Benson. Good. I'll do them. Stella Benson seems to me just to miss it; she reminds me of Colette in a way. But I've only dipped into her book. A very attractive creature.

Shall I send this letter? Or write another one—a gay one? No, you'll understand. There is a little boat, far out, moving along, inevitable it looks and dead silent—a little black spot, like the spot on a lung.

Don't mind me. I am very foolish and ought to be punished. Even as I wrote that the little boat is far away, there have come out of the sea great gold streamers of light such as I never before saw.