Oh! Madame G. is here with her husband, and she is nearly doing for me, I can't think or write or escape. She is a dear and generous and all that, but a most Appalling bore, and I haven't the physical strength for her. I feel as though all my blood goes dead pale, and with a slight grin. When she goes on Friday I shall spend Saturday in bed with the door locked. I hate people, I loathe G.— page 144 unlimited, tearing, worrying G.—saying the same things, staring at me. If only I were bien portante, I suppose I should not feel like this at all, but as it is, wave after wave of real sickness seems to ebb through me and I dissolve with misery … I can't say her nay. “Nous sommes venus exprès pour vous voir.” And she brought me books and berlingots pour Monsieur, etc.

It's not the slightest use pretending I can stand people: I can't…. This “grande femme, forte et belle, me parlant du midi, des poèmes ravissantes d'Albert Samain … et de Keats!” and Monsieur who dogs me, saying that I ought to pick up “pour me donner les belles joues roses”! I said faintly, clinging hold of a rosemary bush finally, and aching to cry, “La santé est une question de l'esprit tranquille chez moi, Monsieur, et pas de bouillon gras,” and the darling rosemary bush squeezed my hand and left its fragrance there and said, “I know, my dear!”

Aid me, ye powers. Oh, my poets, make a ring round little me and hide me. Oh, I must find a daisy for an umbrella and sit under it, but then, down would come L. M.'s shoe just for the pleasure of raising up “cette plante, si frêle, si délicate” … Everybody is too big—too crude—too ugly.