The Assassin's Cloak. Группа авторов
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 person 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