I am sitting in the dining-room. The front door is open, the cold salt air blows through. I am wrapped up in my purple dressing gown and jaeger rug with a hot bottle and a hot brick. On the round table is a dirty egg-cup full of ink, my watch (an hour slow) and a wooden tray holding a manuscript called “Eternity” which is all spattered over with drops of rain and looks as though some sad mortal had cried his pretty eyes out over it. There is also a pair of scissors—abhorrèd shears they look—and two flies walking up and down are discussing the ratification of the Peace Treaty and its meaning re our civil relations with Flyland.

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I am just sending L. M. to San Remo to ask the Hoch-wohlgeboren Doctor Bobone to come and see me. I must know from somebody how I am getting on, i.e., I must be cheered up. Ten years passed this morning as I sat in my darkish little room. I am now 41 and can't lose a moment. I must know. If my depression continues, I shall try to get out of here in January, because if it does go on, we shouldn't have a May here, we'd be flinging our daisy chains round the tops of cedar trees. But on the other hand if Bobone consoles me and so on, I may feel better…