The Voyage of “The Bugle.”

No, no, said Miss P., that really isn't fair. I love serious books. Why, I don't know when I've enjoyed a book as much as—as—Dear me! How silly! It's on the tip of my tongue—Darwin's … page 171 one moment—it's coming—Darwin's Decline and Fall…. No, no, that wasn't the one. That's not right now. Tchuh! Tchuh! you know how it is—I can see it quite plainly and yet … I've got it! Darwin's Descent of Man! … Was that the one—though? Do you know now I'm not certain? I feel it was, and yet it's unfamiliar. This is most extraordinary. And yet I enjoyed it so much. There was a ship. Ah! that's brought it back. Of course, of course! That was the one. Darwin's Voyage of the Bugle!

“La mère de Lao-Tse a conçu son fils rien qu'en regardant filer une étoile.”

December 27. When I stuck the small drawing to the side of the mirror frame I realised that the seal—the mark—the cachet rouge—had been set on the room. It had then become the room of those two, and not her room any more. It is not that the room was dead before, but how it has gained in life! Whence has come the tiny bouquet of tangerine fruits, the paste-pot on the writing-table, the fowl's feather stuck in Ribni's hair,¹ the horn spectacles on the Chinese embroidery. The ‘order’ in which I live is not changed, but enriched; in some strange way it is enlarged.

This is en effet just the effect of his mind upon mine. Mysterious fitness of our relationship! page 172 And all those things which he does impose on my mind please me so deeply that they seem to be natural to me. It is all part of this feeling that he and I, different beyond the dream of difference, are yet an organic whole. We are, as I said yesterday, the two sides of the medal, separate, distinct and yet making one. I do not feel that I need another to fulfil my being, and yet having him, I possess something that without him I would lack. In fact we are—apart from everything else—each other's critic in that he ‘sees’ me, I see myself reflected as more than I appear and yet not more than I am, and so I believe it is with him. So, to be together is apart from all else an act of faith in ourselves.

I went out into the garden just now. It is starry and mild. The leaves of the palm are like down-drooping feathers; the grass looks soft, unreal, like moss. The sea sounded, and a little bell was ringing, and one fancied—was it real, was it imaginary?—one heard a body of sound, one heard all the preparations for night within the houses. Some one brings in food from the dark, lamp-stained yard. The evening meal is prepared. The charcoal is broken, the dishes are clattered; there is a soft movement on the stairs and in the passages and doorways. In dusky rooms where the shutters are closed the women, grave and quiet, turn down the beds and see that there is water in the water-jugs. Little children are sleeping….

Does it always happen that while you look at the star you feel the other stars are dancing, page 173 flickering, changing places, almost playing a game on purpose to bewilder you? It is strange that there are times when I feel the stars are not at all solemn: they are secretly gay. I felt this to-night. I sat on the cane chair and leaned against the wall. I thought of him contained in the little house against which I leaned—within reach—within call. I remembered there was a time when this thought was a distraction. Oh, it might have been a sweet distraction—but there it was! It took away from my power to work…. I, as it were, made him my short story. But that belongs to the Past…. One has passed beyond it.