I feel greatly upset this morning because I realise for at least the millionth time that my letters to you are not arriving. I have taken great pains to write the address plainly on the envelopes. Are they safe when they arrive at the house? Do they lie in the hall long?

This has been brought home to me by your letter of last Friday in which you enclose Geoffroi's. You say you never heard from me that she had been here. Well, of course I wrote. And then I really cannot imagine that a great many other letters have not been lost. Did you get one with a telegram and a flower in it? You see I have no notion which letters of mine have arrived, so I am quite in the dark as to whether you know it is warm here now. Your letters appear to turn up here quite safely, but mine obviously don't. However, I shall go on throwing them into the French dust-heap—but with I assure you, beaucoup de chagrin…. It is, I suppose, another of those innumerable mean dodges of which Life seems more or less composed.

Well, well … I wish I wasn't such a baby. The sun shines. It is almost hot. But if the sun were a reliable post-office I should much prefer it and would dispense with all its other devoirs.

I went for a walk yesterday, a little one. I can't take big ones yet. I got very much thinner those first days I page 116 was here and I haven't recovered my lost weight yet. Of course, I shall. I could not be more comfortable than I am here now, and absolutely private and remote. My room feels miles away from the rest of the hotel and I sometimes feel that Juliette and I are on an island, and I row to the mainland for my meals and row back again. I keep on with my fires.

I have a cold place, a little iceberg suddenly knocking about in my heart where all was so warm and sunny. I will get it out before to-morrow. But, looking out on to the blue sea, the blue mountains and the boats with yellow sails, I feel full of hate—hate for this awkward, hideous world, these terrifying grimacing people who can keep one's letters back. I can't help it.