February 6, 1943
I am cooking dinner. I
have a half a shoulder of lamb for a change. Mostly our war-joint is a piece of
brisket, which we are sick to death of, but there is nothing else. Today’s half
shoulder weighs two pounds, and is our entire meat ration for the week.
War
news is speeding up this week. The Russians have taken Stalingrad; we have
taken Tripoli, and this morning came the news that Mussolini has dismissed his
entire cabinet, including his son-in-law Ciano. We bombed Turin very heavily
last Tuesday so perhaps that has something to do with it; maybe the Italians
are panicking. The meeting of Churchill and Roosevelt in Casablanca must have
alarmed the Axis pretty considerably. Report of a letter from Stalin to
Roosevelt, made public today, says that Stalin states the speedy end of the war
is in view. Well, don’t we hope so!
February 7, 1943
In the week I received a
letter from Eddie in which he wrote: I
saw the Berry’s yesterday and Mrs. Berry said Grandma had died, a shock after
your letter saying she was in good shape. Well, maybe it’s the best way to go,
no hanging around through a long lingering malady. She certainly left her mark
on the world, in a goodly streak of stubbornness in her descendants. I think we
need toughness and stubbornness nowadays more than anything else. If we had
more of it before we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in now.
Then
he writes pages about Puritanism, saying it is the great distinguishing factor
of the English speaking peoples. It’s our
greatest strength in one form or another… you can’t find it an any other people
anywhere. It may be cruel sometimes, but it does make for strong character.
Puritanism, like the old Spartan, assumes that people are strong, and thought
it may be hard on the sensitive souls it keeps the majority strong.
Just
as Eddy is active in mind and body, he can’t help it, so also is he extremely
ardent in his likes and dislikes, because he’s not a German, or a Frenchman, or
a Hindu, or anything else. He’s got a good bit of Grandma in him.
I
must have been pondering this for days, for last night I woke up to the fact
that I’ve got a “good bit of Grandma” in me too. In short, I am my mother’s
daughter. Mother was a positive and an ardent and passionate woman, and she
lived her life with zest right up to the very end. I am like mother, though my
zest has been overlaid all these married years. Mother wanted to be happy, and
she went out after happiness, wherever and however she could find it. I want to
be happy, but I have had to spend my adult life with a man who only wants to be
safe and to be good. I’m sick of goodness, sick of piety. I am sick of
asceticism and sick of discipline. I want to enjoy. I want to be free. Free.
Ted oppresses me, and I allow him to do so. What a fool I am, and have been.
How many years have I got left to me? Perhaps twenty, if I live to be as old as
mother, perhaps twenty-five or more if I live to be as old as Grandma Side and
the Aunties. Of course perhaps I have many fewer years. I am resolved that I will
put zest back into my living, Ted or no Ted. I will enjoy myself, and if I
can’t enjoy myself with Ted, I will enjoy myself alone.
Yesterday
the English feminists celebrated their Silver Jubilee with a grand luncheon. In
spirit I belonged to that group it was only due to the fact of being in America
that kept me from joining them. Yesterday, Lady Astor said, it took the First
World War to give women the vote, and it has taken the Second World War to give
them full citizenship; it will take a tornado to get them on the bench of
Bishop and the end of the world to get them in the House of Lords. This is
funny, but it is also true. This is still a man’s world, with men regarding
women as very secondary creatures to themselves. As to the Bench of Bishops well
I feel as the war goes on and on, that the Churches are done for, all of them.
Men’s religion doesn’t work any better than men’s politics. As for myself, I
still feel and think Mrs. Eddy to be more real and more helpful, to me, and
perhaps to women generally, than the Pope.
Yes,
the Pope. What has the Pope done in this war, except play safe? He is just
another Italian. Whatever prestige Catholicism had managed to achieve for
itself in the non-catholic world has vanished now completely.
Yes
and I feel I am no Catholic. Catholicism is simply not in me, no more than it
was in Mother. I have soaked and soaked my self in it, in fervent efforts to
please Ted, but it has been no good. Yes, and blow Ted and be damned to him,
for one great silly fool. What an ass he is, what an ass!
February 8, 1943
The weather has turned
sharply cold today, and there was an extraordinarily heavy frost this morning.
There is a wind blowing now, and the stars out. This morning Ted did hand me
his clothes coupon book. I have used twenty-four of his coupons, and will pay
him back with mine directly they become available. I went to Stone’s and bought
the wool I need. So now I shall have enough supplies on hand to work out my
accumulated designs.
February 9, 1943
At eight thirty this
morning we had an alert, and then guns firing for about twenty minutes. Very
nasty. Ted has been under the weather and it is the food or diet we have to
eat. Diarrhea, nausea, vomiting. We shan’t get any real food until the war is
over. When will it be over? God knows.
I
have one thing to note. Mussolini has appointed Ciano Ambassador to the Holy
See. This is absolutely farcical. How much religion has Ciano got? As things
are, one is tempted to ask, how much religion has the Pope got? This present
Pope, Pacelli, is a Roman Aristocrat, an intriguer of the first order.
February 11, 1943
I have just finished
writing my weekly letters to the twins. I did go to Hammersmith yesterday. The
morning was fine, but rain began again in the afternoon, and I got very wet
walking home form the station. No taxis to be had of course. An alert sounded
whilst I was on the Underground, about a quarter to five, and the all clear
came after I was in the Romford train. It is all very alarming. As usual in my
journeying I found myself viewing the human race with disgust. When I see
people en-masse I dislike them all, and I ask myself, how can God be interested
in these ants? The insignificance of human beings. No wonder tyrants wage war;
the value of single personal lives is nothing. So I resolve yet again to
wringing all the pleasure and joy out of my life that I can, whilst I know I
have got it. If men must fight, they must fight but I’m not going to bother
myself about their causes. Men! Fool men!
As
I sat in the railway carriage yesterday morning going to town, and looked at
the company of women filling it, I thought we were just like a pen of cows,
waiting for the bull. I thought the stupidity of women, who wish to please men.
Women should remember, and should never forget, that the basic fact of a man’s
life is his sex, and his basic need is the satisfaction of his sexual appetite.
Let men talk their silly talk, let them prate of politics and ethics, religion
and war, science and superstition, right and wrong, morals, their eternal
morals, let them, it is for women to laugh, for in the end the body gets them,
women’s bodies and their own. Women can live full and happy lives without men,
but men cannot live without women.
February 16, 1943
Mother’s anniversary,
had she lived until today she would have been eighty. I miss her tremendously.
If anyone had told me I would miss her so much I wouldn’t have believed him or
her. My love for her must have been much deeper than I knew. I let her annoying
ways irritate me too much. That is because I am a nasty irritable person. Yet
underneath, unrecognized all the time there was the inescapable bond of human
affection, the human tie. My mother.
February 18, 1943
I received a letter from
Joan today. Joan, I think is the family problem child. Joan has a quarrelsome
disposition. We used to watch her with George, behaving arbitrarily and
domineeringly with him, like Mother used to behave with Dad. George left her,
and that’s the fact. He didn’t have to go to France. He volunteered to go
because he could no longer live with Joan, and he told her so. When she lived
with mother she quarreled with mother, then in Yorkshire with Cecily. Then she quarreled again in Penzance with Gladys. Now she is ready to quarrel with
Gladys again. Joan takes umbrage at every trifle. It appears Gladys has written
to say she will come to town in April, assuming, of course, that she will come
to Angel Road as usual. At this Joan takes offence. Gladys, she says, should wait
for an invitation. The house is hers now, and not mother’s, so Gladys has no
right to come to whenever it suits her. Quite right technically. What a point
to make an issue about. After all, we’re sisters, aren’t we? Joan is peeved at
Malvin too. Malvin has been to see her, and that doesn’t suit Joan either. She
needn’t think she can go oncoming to the house now Mother has gone, says Joan.
So I expect, Joan will quarrel with me too if I don’t watch out. Why quarrel so
much? Joan is too touchy, always on her high horse, always criticizing other
people’s behavior towards herself, always resenting other people’s real and
fancied demands upon herself. So silly. I’ve noticed before Joan’s attitude
towards living is “Why should I?” She makes no concessions and she gives
nothing. Poor old Joan.
