Man and Maid | Page 9

could like her just for her looks.
Alice, the divorce, appeals to one.--She is gentle and feminine and
clinging--she is the cruelest and most merciless of the three, Maurice
tells me, and the most difficult to analyse: But most of one's friends
would find it hard to stand the test of denuding them of their worldly
possessions and outside allurements, it is not only the fluffies, who
would come out of not much value!
Oh! the long, long days--and the ugly nights!
One does not sleep very well now, the noise of "Bertha" from six A.M.
and the raids at night!--but I believe I grow to like the raids--and last
night we had a marvelous experience. I had been persuaded by Maurice
to have quite a large dinner party. Madame de Clert, who is really an
amusing personality, courageous and agreeable, and Daisy Ryven, and
the fluffies, and four or five men. We were sitting smoking afterwards,

listening to de Vol playing, he is a great musician. People's fears are
lulled, they have returned to Paris. Numbers of men are being
killed,--"The English in heaps--but what will you!" the fluffies said,
"they had no business to make that break with the Fifth Army! Oh! No!
and, after all, the country is too dull--and we have all our hidden store
of petrol. If we must fly at the last moment, why on earth not go to the
theatre and try to pass the time!"
de Vol was playing "Madame Butterfly"--when the sirens went for a
raid--and almost immediately the guns began--and bombs crashed. One
very seldom sees any fear on people's faces now, they are accustomed
to the noise. Without asking any of us, de Vol commenced Chopin's
Funeral March. It was a very wonderful moment, the explosions and
the guns mingling with the splendid chords. We sat breathless--a spell
seemed to be upon us all--We listened feverishly. de Vol's face was
transfigured. What did he see in the dim light?--He played and played.
And the whole tragedy of war--and the futility of earthly interests--the
glory, the splendour and the agony seemed to be brought home to us.
From this, as the noise without became less loud, he glided into
Schubert, and so at last ceased when the "all clear" commenced to rend
the air. No one had spoken a word, and then Daisy Ryven laughed--a
queer little awed laugh. She was the only Englishwoman there.
"We are keyed up," she said.
And when they had all gone I opened my window wide and breathed in
the black dark night. Oh! God--what a rotter I am.
* * *
Friday--Maurice has a new suggestion--he says I should write a
book--he knows I am becoming insupportable, and he thinks if he
flatters me enough I'll swallow the bait, and so be kept quiet and not try
him so much.--A novel?--A study of the causes of altruism? What?--I
feel--yes, I feel a spark of interest. If it could take me out of myself--I
shall consult the Duchesse--I will tell Burton to telephone and find out
if I can see her this afternoon. She sometimes takes half an hour off
between four and five to attend to her family.

Yes--Burton says she will see me and will send me one of her Red
Cross cars to fetch me, then I can keep my leg up.
I rather incline to a treatise upon altruism and the philosophical
subjects. I fear if I wrote a novel it would be saturated by my ugly spirit,
and I should hate people to read it. I must get that part of me off in my
journal, but a book about--Altruism?
I must have a stenographer of course, a short-hand typist, if I do begin
this thing. There are some English ones here no doubt. I do not wish to
write in French--Maurice must find me a suitable one.--I won't have
anything young and attractive. In my idiotic state she might get the
better of me! The idea of some steady employment quite bucks me up.
* * *
I felt rather jarred when I arrived at the Hotel Courville--the paving
across the river is bad; but I found my way to the Duchesse's own
sitting room on the first floor--the only room apparently left not a
ward--and somehow the smell of carbolic had not penetrated here. It
was too hot, and only a little window was open.
How wonderfully beautiful these eighteenth century rooms are! What
grace and charm in the panelling--what dignity in the proportions! This
one, like all rooms of women of the Duchesse's age, is too
full--crammed almost, with gems of art, and then among them, here and
there, a shocking black satin stuffed and buttoned armchair, with a bit
of woolwork down its centre, and some fringe!