shops and clubs and restaurants of Piccadilly and St James’s and Knightsbridge closed or converted into factories or worker’s guilds, no subtlety or graciousness or dignity left anywhere, a bland, naive young people, enormously enthusiastic, mind you. And they know where they’re going and what they’re trying to do, whereas we muddle along.38 Their government is centralised, and so long as every member of the ruling party remains uncorrupt and lives up to their ideals I think they have every chance of success.
I think I see wisdom in their suppression of individualism. It tends to do away with all selfishness, individual gain, ambition and greed. I envy them their singleness of purpose, each one of them as part of their new state has a reason for living. Russia is undoubtedly one country with a future in a world where all other systems of civilisation and administration are rocky and cracking and decaying. I am not convinced that for us there are no means of discovering new ideals and new methods without going through the same ghastliness of war and revolution and suffering that Russia suffered. Revolution perhaps, but God let us hope it will be bloodless. The test of their experiment is not now, but in 10 or 20 years’ time.
I will phone you on September 1st.
Monday, 12 September
There is a strange streak of hardness in me somewhere – cruelty, and a desire to mar the perfection of things, such as trampling in new-fallen snow.
Now supposing Chris were suddenly to go away without saying goodbye or seeing me again: what should I feel? My vanity would be hurt. I am terrifically proud of possessing so popular a male as a friend. He is a divine lover. But I am yet to know him as a companion. We have extraordinarily little in common. I never know what to talk to him about when we are alone, so he fills in the silences by making love to me.39
I feel I am making myself cheap, I feel as though we have both somehow reached a dead end. I should be terribly hurt if he were thinking the same thing. I should like to make more of it than this, invest it with some permanence. Kisses alone are not enough to cement a friendship.
Friday, 14 October
When Mausie goes down to the Strand for tea
She’s no thought for David and none for me
She’s lost in joyous, abstracted bliss
With her charming and lovable diplomat Chris40
Strange how life goes on. I decided I must do the Decoration Course and refused to consider the idea of 2nd Year Architecture again. But here I am, doing it and rather enjoying myself. I think I am happier than I have ever been. My days are filled with many people and interesting work, I am independent of home influences, my room is delightful.
Friday, 25 November
As I walked down Tottenham Court Road tonight I again realised what a marvellous time I had had at college, how dear and familiar London had grown, and what memories each part brought back. Teas at the Criterion, Swan & Edgar, the Arts Club where I lunched with Gus and his mother for the first time, the delicious sensation of being well-groomed just after a visit to that hairdressers in Dover Street, Harrods where I once lunched alone off Welsh rarebit, all the theatres in Shaftesbury Ave, the nights we have queued for pit or gallery, the strange snack bar somewhere off it where Gus and I once had the most marvellous waffles, the Coventry Street Corner House at 3 o’clock in the morning, teas at Boots, Regent St by bus and on foot and in a Daimler, the gramophone shops where Gus and I have listened to many records, Charing X Rd, its books and News Theatre and Doctor’s Pills.
Mid-December
[Fragment of a copy of a letter to Chris]
At last this term is over. Quite triumphantly too, for I’ve got a 1st Mention for my Classical Ballroom. It’s been such a long time since I managed to get one of these. It’s not the mark I care about, it’s the knowledge of my power to turn out good work.
But you know if you never lift your nose from the drawing board what marvellous things one would miss. I want so to live!
… God bless you and may another letter arrive from you soon! (So far I’ve had one from Toronto which I answered).
Jean.
Monday, 2 January 1933
I have been trying to restrain myself from writing about this thing, but … how immeasurably it helps. It seems to release this terrible unending torment, and I find for a little while a great relief and a little rest.
That Chris should have lied to me I think hurts most. And yet for all my tears and pain I cannot believe it of him even yet. There seem to be two parts of me: one sits serenely and patiently on high, still full of faith and hope, while the other rages at its feet despairingly. There was something in him that was good and beautiful and strong that appealed to all that was good and beautiful and strong in me. Something lovely began to blossom between us, and in our selfishness we would not heed it but trampled it to death at our feet. Oh that I understood – that he would write to explain. I know I must wait a long time yet before that letter comes, as I think it will do, and in the meantime endure this sickness and heaviness of heart. But I shall not be cowed by this event.
All his honeyed deceit – I still believe he would not have hurt me so deliberately had he realised how much I really cared. He would never believe me when I said I loved him. And all he wanted was to make love to me. ‘It would be so marvellous,’ he whispered. ‘But you won’t let me …’ I wish I had given in to him, accepted the affair as he wanted me to, as the passion of a moment, and then let me be. If only we could have understood one another I could have kept the incident as a sacred and lovely memory. What is my virginity to me? I don’t want to keep it. It would have been so sweet to satisfy that desire. And yet of course for a woman it is different – just because he kissed me a little. Those natural desires for a home and children were roused in me until they possessed all my waking moments and he was woven into the centre of my dreams.
Thank God I have written this. It is the first time since that dreadful letter came for Mr and Mrs Pratt announcing Chris’s marriage to some poor lucky fool of a woman that I have been able to get at the core of the matter and see things as they are. I have been waiting to hurl the bitterest of accusations at him. I understood why women are driven to the streets or suicide or murder, yet I knew were he to come back to me with or without any explanation I should love him still.
When he told me marriage could never come into his life he meant perhaps marriage with me, but was afraid to say so because he knew it would bewilder me. So he lied. I want to get all those letters he wrote and trace this idea through them. Oh it is a tangled and twisted misery that must be endured – he can never be mine. I know he is capable of ineffable depths of tenderness and affection for the woman he chose to marry. I am so jealous of him and Josephine, but I hope they’ll be happy.
It is no good, the pain goes in. I love him, love him, love him and he doesn’t want me. Enough of this self-torture. Life must go on.
[Undated letter – possibly never sent]
My dear dear Chris,
What agony I’m going through this weekend! Do you know what happened? I’m at home you see for this last fortnight of the vacc, and though I left my address at Belsize Park for them to forward all letters to me, they didn’t, damn them! So you see we suddenly got the announcement of your marriage addressed to Daddy and E. without
