I
February, 1918.
I am sick of my life--The war has robbed it of all that a young man can
find of joy.
I look at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the
left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone
from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me
again in this world.
So be it--I must be a philosopher.
Mercifully I have no near relations--Mercifully I am still very rich,
mercifully I can buy love when I require it, which under the
circumstances, is not often.
Why do people write journals? Because human nature is filled with
egotism. There is nothing so interesting to oneself as oneself; and
journals cannot yawn in one's face, no matter how lengthy the expression
of one's feelings may be!
A clean white page is a sympathetic thing, waiting there to receive
one's impressions!
Suzette supped with me, here in my _appartement_ last night--When she
had gone I felt a beast. I had found her attractive on Wednesday, and
after an excellent lunch, and two Benedictines, I was able to persuade
myself that her tenderness and passion were real, and not the result of
some thousands of francs,--And then when she left I saw my face in the
glass without the patch over the socket, and a profound depression fell
upon me.
Is it because I am such a mixture that I am this rotten creature?--An
American grandmother, a French mother, and an English father.
Paris--Eton--Cannes--Continuous traveling. Some years of living and
enjoying a rich orphan's life.--The war--fighting--a zest hitherto
undreamed of--unconsciousness--agony--and then?--well now Paris again
for special treatment.
Why do I write this down? For posterity to take up the threads
correctly?--Why?
From some architectural sense in me which must make a beginning, even of
a journal, for my eyes alone, start upon a solid basis?