The cycle has come round. Again it is my birthday, just a year ago I
bought my ticket for Russia.
Dick managed somehow to get a bunch of gigantic mauve convolvulous
flowers that were growing up a palmtree. He brought them to me with
great sentiment, so my birthday was, after all, a birthday!
Tonight is the third night of thunder storms (I am writing by torch
light in the midst of it).
After nights of pain and sleeplessness one begins to think stupid
things: I feel as if this beautiful valley were a valley of death; I
have thought for sometime that the valley meant to keep me. Even the
way I came to it was strange and uncanny--almost called to it from the
train window. It cast a spell on me then, a spell strong enough to
enforce my return.
Ever since I came it has been suggested to me that I stay forever, why
go away?
The suggestion first came from man. Then the beauty of the place set
itself to lure me. Then the river tried to catch me. It has tried
to catch Dick too. Having slipped through that, I am now poisoned
unmercifully. I shall get over that but then there’s still the river,
and every storm makes the water rise, and the strong current grows
swifter. In the end I can only leave the island by ferry, and the river
is getting more and more impassable. After a month of Paradise weather
suddenly these storms, on purpose to stop me going. I must go in four
days. I will be well enough to go in four days. I will go in four days
whether I am well enough or not ... but, in the end there’s the river
to cross.
I might have known it was uncanny, this beauty. This enticing
stillness, this holiness of peace--it is a trap. It is a valley of
death. It is full of spirits and mysteries. I must get out--I am mad.
No, I am not mad, I am sick.