The Assassin's Cloak Page 4
Sylvia Plath
5 January
1821 [Ravenna]
Rose late – dull and drooping – the weather dripping and dense. Snow on the ground, and sirocco above in the sky, like yesterday. Roads up to the horse’s belly, so that riding (at least for pleasure) is not very feasible. Read the conclusion, for the fiftieth time (I have read all W. Scott’s novels at least fifty times) of the third series of ‘Tales of my Landlord’, – grand work – Scotch Fielding, as well as great English poet – wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.
Dined versus six o’the clock. Forgot that there was a plum-pudding, (I have added, lately, eating to my ‘family of vices,’) and had dined before I knew it. Drank half a bottle of some sort of spirits – probably spirits of wine; for what they call brandy, rum, &c. &c., here is nothing but spirits of wine, coloured accordingly. Did not eat two apples which were placed by way of dessert. Fed the two cats, the hawk, and the tame, (but not tamed) crow. Read Mitford’s History of Greece – Xenophon’s Retreat of the Ten Thousand. Up to this present moment writing, 6 minutes before eight o’ the clock – French hours, not Italian.
Hear the carriage – order pistols and great coat, as usual – necessary articles. Weather cold – carriage open, and inhabitants somewhat savage – rather treacherous and highly inflamed by politics. Fine fellows, though, – good materials for a nation. Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.
Clock strikes – going out to make love. Somewhat perilous, but not disagreeable. Memorandum – a new screen put up to-day. It is rather antique, but will do with a little repair.
Lord Byron
1918
We went to Hampton Court. We walked across Bushby park, and along a raised bank beneath trees to the river. It was cold, but still. Then we took a tram to Kingston and had tea at Atkinsons, where one may have no more than a single bun. Everything is skimped now. Most of the butcher’s shops are shut; the only open shop was besieged. You can’t buy chocolates, or toffee; flowers cost so much I have to pick leaves instead. We have cards for most foods. The only abundant shop windows are the drapers. Other shops parade tins, or cardboard boxes, doubtless empty. (This is an attempt at the concise, historic style.) I suppose there must be some undisturbed pockets of luxury somewhere still; but the general table is pretty bare. Papers, however, flourish, and by spending sixpence we are supplied with enough to light a week’s fires.
Virginia Woolf
1940
So far as politics and the war are concerned, everything is quiet as the grave. But Roosevelt has spoken to the House of Representatives. Covert but very malicious jibes against our regime and the Reich. He says he still hopes to keep America out of the war. That sounds anything but hopeful.
. . . The Russians are making absolutely no progress in Finland. The Red Army really does seem to be of very little military worth.
In London there is great outrage about our radio broadcasts in English. Our announcer has been given the nickname ‘Lord Haw-Haw’. He is causing talk, and that is already half the battle. The aim in London is to create an equivalent figure for the German service. This would be the best thing that could happen. We should make mincemeat of him.
Josef Goebbels
1941
Lunch with the Chisholms. Bridget looked beautiful, pale and slim again, and somehow mysterious, like Mother Earth. We went in to see the baby. It was screaming desperately, in spasms, and plucking frantically at its mouth, as if fighting to express something – and it couldn’t, it couldn’t. The effort was almost as painful to watch as a death agony. Such a bitter struggle at the beginning of life. Such a superhuman effort: one can’t believe that this little wrinkled crimson creature will survive it. But it forces its way, on and on, grimly, into time-consciousness – fighting and resting and fighting again. We stood awed and silent at the foot of the bed, unable to help – till the lady nurse bustled in, exclaiming, ‘Isn’t he cute? Isn’t he? And doesn’t he want his milk? I’ll say he does!’
Then Hugh entered, fresh and dapper from his bath. He looked so ridiculous – the absurd little rooster who had graciously donated his valuable semen for this creative act. Bridget said she’d been told that male sperm and female ovaries can now be introduced into the body of another woman, who will then be able to bear the child. Under these circumstances, the child still inherits everything from its parents, not the foster mother. We imagined a society lady introducing ‘Miss Jones – our carrier.’ And Miss Jones would refer casually to her clientele: ‘Last spring, when I was carrying for the Duchess of Devonshire . . .’
Christopher Isherwood
1978
When I got to Halston’s the phone was ringing and it was [Ilie] Nastase, and Bianca [Jagger] told him to come over. He arrived with a boyfriend, just one of his friends, and he was intimidated by the place – Halston was dressing the Disco Queen in a coat he’d made for her that day, and she came down the stairs and Halston was saying, ‘Come on Disco Queen.’ He talks like baby talk. He didn’t put any feathers in her hair this time. I told him he couldn’t, that the newspapers wouldn’t take her picture if she put one more feather in her hair.
And then Nastase’s boyfriend decided not to come to Studio 54 with us, and when we got in the limo Halston was yelling at the driver because he couldn’t find the black radio station, he said, ‘What do you mean you don’t know where the black station is – you’re black, aren’t you?’ And then the driver said he couldn’t see, meaning the radio dial, and Halston said, ‘What do you mean you can’t see, you’re driving, aren’t you?’ and then he told me that you have to yell at the help or they don’t respect you. He has over a hundred people working for him and they’re all so terrified of him, they’re always asking each other what kind of a mood he’s in.
And I notice something – Bianca had two blemishes on her face! She’s never had a blemish! I guess she’s depressed about Mick, discoing the night away. She stays out until 6:00 then gets up for her 8:00 exercise class.
Andy Warhol
6 January
1662
This evening (according to costome) his Majestie opned the Revells of that night, by throwing the Dice himselfe, in the Privy Chamber, where was a table set on purpose, and lost his 100 pounds: the yeare before he won 150 pounds: The Ladys also plaied very deepe: I came away when the Duke of Ormond had won about 1000 pounds and left them still at passage, Cards etc: at other Tables, both there and at the Groome-porters, observing the wicked folly vanity and monstrous excesse of Passion amongst some loosers, and sorry I am that such a wretched Custome as play to that excesse should be countenanc’d in a Court, which ought to be an example of Virtue to the rest of the kingdome.
John Evelyn
1836
A brig called the Agenoria arrived from St. John’s bringing 11 men, from the crew of a timber vessel, whom they had picked up in the most forlorn condition. They were capsized on the night of the 3rd [December] in a tremendous storm. Having cut the lanyards with much difficulty the vessel righted & the crew with the exception of 3 who were drowned, congregated on the quarterdeck. All their provisions were washed overboard & they continued till the 18th enduring the extremity of starvation and misery. On that day they came to the decision of drawing lots for who should die for his comrades & a young man of 19 was the victim. After prayers they cut his throat & drank the blood & devoured a considerable part of the body before it was cold. On the 20th another man being on the point of death, they cut his throat to save the blood & on the 24th another for the same reason. Having finished their horrible meal on that day a sail was discovered by the crew with tears of joy. This was the Agenoria which took them on board. They are now settled in the two Poor-Houses & where they are all likely to recover.
Barclay Fox
1915
I went to Adenkirke two days ago to establish a soup-kitchen there, as they say that Furnes station is too dangerous. We heard today that the stationmaster at Furnes has been signalling to the enemy, so that is why we have been shelled so punctually. His daughter is engaged to a German. Two of our hospital people noticed that before each bombardment a blue light appeared to flash on the sky. They reported the matter, with the result that the signals were discovered.
There has been a lot of shelling again today, and several houses are destroyed. A child of two years is in our hospital with one leg blown off and the other broken. One only hears people spoken of as, ‘the man with the abdominal trouble’, or ‘the one shot through the lungs’.
Children know the different aeroplanes by sight, and one little girl, when I ask her for news, gives me a list of the ‘obus’ (shells) that have arrived, and which have ‘s’eclate’ (burst), and which have not. One says ‘Bon soir, pas de obus (Good evening, no shells),’ as in English one says, ‘Goodnight, sleep well.’
Sarah Macnaughtan
1917
I had one of my little dinners and went straight to bed. I am in best looks. Marie Bashkirtseff is always apologetic when she makes a similar entry in her diary, but why should one be? Today I could really pass a great deal of time very happily just looking at myself in the glass. It’s extraordinary how one’s whole outline seems to alter, as well as complexion and eyes.
Lady Cynthia Asquith
1932 [Rome]
Spend most of the day reading fascisti pamphlets. They certainly have turned the whole country into an army. From cradle to grave one is cast in the mould of fascismo and there can be no escape. I am much impressed by the efficiency of all this on paper. Yet I wonder how it works in individual lives and shall not feel certain about it until I have lived some time in Italy. It is certainly a socialist experiment in that it destroys individuality. It also destroys liberty. Once a perso
n insists on how you are to think he immediately begins to insist on how you are to behave. I admit that under this system you can attain to a degree of energy and efficiency not reached in our own island. And yet, and yet . . . The whole thing is an inverted pyramid.
We meet Signora Sarfatti, a friend of Mussolini whom we met at the Embassy yesterday. A blonde questing woman, daughter of a Venetian Jew who married a Jew in Milan. She helped Mussolini on the Popolo d’Italia, right back in 1914. She is at present his confidante and must be used by him to bring the gossip of Rome to the Villa Torlonia. She says that Mussolini is the greatest worker ever known: he rides in the morning, then a little fencing, then work, and then after dinner he plays the violin to himself. Tom [Oswald Mosley] asks how much sleep he gets. She answers, ‘Always nine hours.’ I can see Tom doing sums in his head and concluding that on such a time-table Musso cannot be hard-worked at all. Especially as he spends hours on needless interviews.
Harold Nicolson
1942 [Jersey]
RAF dropped leaflets early this morning. Laurence found one and Joyce found one in our garden near the bee-hive! They were all written in French. They were not addressed specially to Channel Islanders. German officers were searching the countryside for them but our eyes are sharper than theirs! It is nice to think that our British friends were close to us today. We are not forgotten after all!
Nan Le Ruez
1944
My longing for someone to talk to has become so unbearable that I somehow took it into my head to select Peter for this role. On the few occasions when I have gone to Peter’s room during the day, I’ve always thought it was nice and cosy. But Peter’s too polite to show someone the door when they’re bothering him, so I’ve never dared to stay long. I’ve always been afraid he’d think I was a pest. I’ve been looking for an excuse to linger in his room and get him talking without his noticing, and yesterday I got my chance. Peter, you see, is currently going through a crossword-puzzle craze, and he doesn’t do anything else all day. I was helping him, and we soon ended up sitting across from each other at his table, Peter on the chair and me on the divan.
It gave me a wonderful feeling when I looked into his dark blue eyes and saw how bashful my unexpected visit made him. I could read his innermost thoughts, and in his face I saw a look of helplessness and uncertainty as to how to behave, and at the same time a flicker of awareness of his masculinity. I saw his shyness, and I melted. I wanted to say, ‘Tell me about yourself. Look beneath my chatty exterior.’ But I found that it was easier to think up questions than to ask them.
. . . That night I lay in bed and cried my eyes out, all the while making sure no one could hear me. The idea that I had to beg Peter for favours was simply revolting. But people will do almost anything to satisfy their longings; take me, for example, I’ve made up my mind to visit Peter more often, and, somehow, get him to talk to me.
You mustn’t think I’m in love with Peter, because I’m not. If the van Daans had a daughter instead of a son, I’d have tried to make friends with her.
Anne Frank
1953
How impossible it is for me to make regular entries in the diary. I suddenly remember how I used to puzzle over the word at school. Always wondering why diary was so like Dairy and what the connection was. Never found out. Like that label on the bottle of Daddies Sauce – it never stopped. The man on the label was holding a bottle of Daddies Sauce and on the bottle was a label with a man holding a bottle of Daddies Sauce . . . ad infinitum ad nauseam for me at any rate.
Kenneth Williams
1973
A gathering at the Savoy after the National Theatre’s Twelfth Night at the Old Vic. I had a giggle with Norman St John Stevas, an old acquaintance from television and radio panel games, and now Under-Secretary and spokesman for the Arts in the Commons. He is an extraordinary man: irreverent, very funny, very Catholic, and he can sometimes be delightfully indiscreet. I have always felt that his heart is in the right place. We were speaking of the energy of the Prime Minister [Edward Heath] in a very crowded week, which included Fanfare for Europe, Boat Shows, and battling with the TUC and CBI over a wage policy. Norman said that celibacy was a great aid to energy, didn’t I find. I said I didn’t. He remarked that since he had become a minister, all sexual desire had faded. Celibacy, he said, was the secret of Heath.
Peter Hall
7 January
1833
At half-past five, took coffee, and off to the theatre. The play was Romeo and Juliet; the house was extremely full: they are a delightful audience. My Romeo had gotten on a pair of trunk breeches, that looked as if he had borrowed them from some worthy Dutchman of a hundred years ago. Had he worn them in New York, I could have understood it as a compliment to the ancestry of that good city; but here, to adopt such a costume in Romeo, was really perfectly unaccountable. They were of a most unhappy choice of colours, too – dull, heavy-looking blue cloth, and offensive crimson satin, all be-puckered, and be-plaited, and be-puffed, till the young man looked like a magical figure growing out of a monstrous, strange-coloured melon, beneath which descended his unfortunate legs, thrust into a pair of red slippers, for all the world like Grimaldi’s legs en costume for clown.
The play went off pretty smoothly, except that they broke one man’s collarbone, and nearly dislocated a woman’s shoulder by flinging the scenery about. My bed was not made in time, and when the scene drew, half a dozen carpenters in patched trowsers and tattered shirt sleeves were discovered smoothing down my pillows and adjusting my draperies!
Fanny Kemble
1857
There has never been an age so full of humbug. Humbug everywhere, even in science. For years now the scientists have been promising us every morning a new miracle, a new element, a new metal, guaranteeing to warm us with copper discs immersed in water, to feed us with nothing, to kill us at no expense whatever and on a grand scale, to keep us alive indefinitely, to make iron out of heaven knows what. And all this fantastic scientific humbugging leads to membership of the Institut, to decorations, to influence, to stipends, to the respect of serious people. In the meantime the cost of living rises, doubles, trebles; there is a shortage of raw materials; even death makes no progress – as we saw at Sebastopol, where men cut each other to ribbons – and the cheapest goods are still the worst goods in the world.
The Brothers Goncourt
1936
Brian Lunn took me to lunch in the Inner Temple. It was like being back at Cambridge. I found him in a little wooden room, reading old divorce briefs. They were pencilled over with comment. The language was not at all bowdlerized. One contained a verbatim report of a telephone conversation a husband had overheard between his wife and her lover. He claimed that it proved adultery because, in this conversation, she used the same pet name for penis as with him.
Malcolm Muggeridge
1969
Dashed home to change hurriedly for the Buckingham Palace reception for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers. It was an awful nuisance having to dress but the only way I could see of meeting my old friends during my frantic week.
It was nice to see Indira Gandhi again: I warm to her. She is a pleasant, rather shy and unassuming woman and we exchanged notes about the fun of being at the top in politics. When I asked her whether it was hell being Prime Minister she smiled and said, ‘It is a challenge.’ Oddly enough, I always feel protective towards her.
Every group I spoke to greeted me as the first woman Prime Minister to be. I hate this talk. First I’m never going to be PM and, secondly, I don’t think I’m clever enough. Only I know the depth of my limitations: it takes all I’ve got to survive my present job.