The journey down to London was most enjoyable—chiefly because of its direction, but also because I was reading Kingsley Amis’s That Uncertain Feeling. I roared with laughter all the way through.
Mortmere note: an antiquated guard’s van on a siding. On it was printed NOT IN COMMON USE—in quotes.
Don was at the station to meet me. He cried. But he hadn’t merely been lonely. I think this week was a valuable experience for him—as it was for me.
Yesterday evening we saw Henry V at the Old Vic. Most of it was dull and hateful, as always—Miss Shakespeare being the National Bard until one wants to hide one’s head. But Richard Burton was fine, and often very moving. Best were the scene before Agincourt and the wooing of the French princess. The line I most remember was when he said, of the enemy: “We are in God’s hand brother, not theirs.” Burton spoke this exactly right, curtly, almost impatiently, without the slightest pathos.
The production was pretty tacky. When the Chorus swirled his cloak, a cloud of dust flew out of it. Don loathed the play but ended by being glad we’d stayed, because of Burton. I am amazed to find him so good—almost in Gielgud’s class—his movies don’t show him to any advantage at all.
February 9. This, from yesterday’s Daily Express, is so good that I almost think it may be deliberate: “And in Germany the French run into heavy resentment because they are stationing North African troops in the Black Forest.” Presumably the Germans are saying: “It was quite black enough already without all these Niggers.”
This morning, yesterday and the day before, I’ve been out shopping and seeing people while Don has stayed in the hotel room, working. (Since my return our relations have been as harmonious as it is possible to imagine.) He says he is really making progress with his play. Now he has stopped planning and actually begun to write dialogue.
The day before yesterday, we went to Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci at Sadler’s Wells. Opera at its most ridiculous. Both the men in Cavalleria were pear bellied—and apparently very proud of it. Both were hideous, and one had a tic. The chorus all sang with their eyes fixed on the conductor.
Yesterday evening we had supper at John Gielgud’s. He described the hideous boredom of a stag dinner party at the Russian embassy. Some visiting Soviet official was doing a lightning cultural tour of Britain. He didn’t know who John was. He asked John, “What is your country?” and John, out of mischief, said, “Poland,” (his ancestors being Polish). “And what is your theater?” the Soviet official asked. “I haven’t got one,” John answered modestly—whereat the Soviet official decided that he must be a person of no importance.
Esmé Percy291 was there—rather a forlorn little figure with his glass eye. After dinner, John played records of himself and Edith Evans, in scenes from plays and also reading poems. They both read the poems poorly. Dylan Thomas would have made them sound like amateurs.
Saw John Baker of Phoenix House this morning—chiefly in order to interest him in John Yale’s book.292 He isn’t a very nice man. “These young writers who come from the red brick universities—well, I don’t mean to be snobbish, but frankly—they’re the scum of the earth!” He holds that the welfare state has spoilt working-class literature by abolishing poverty.
February 10. It came to me in a flash—while Don and I were sitting at Simpson’s yesterday, awaiting the special steak and kidney pudding advertised for Thursdays, only to find that it was all gone. “Imagine,” I told Don, “that John van Druten gets a call, long distance, from the editor of the London Times. He comes from the phone into the living room, sits down dramatically: ‘Well—! They want me to leave for hell on Thursday. I’m to do a series of ten articles—’ Shall he accept? He phones Dodie in England, Joel Goldsmith in Honolulu. He studies Dante, tries an article to see if he can do it, decides that he can. Carter and Starcke encourage him. He says yes. Then hasty reading up on Virgil, who is to come by to fetch him and will lunch at the ranch first. Virgil arrives. Johnny is terribly thrilled. Virgil reminisces about the Roman theater. Johnny is enchanted. Finally they drive away together—”
This could be truly hilarious. But isn’t it quite another sort of book—a hard-boiled modern version of the Inferno, which, incidentally, would soon get boring beyond belief? No—not necessarily. It might be a dream—a dream which gives my principal character the idea of pretending he is visiting hell, as a sort of sophisticated game. He goes to Mexico, keeping up the pretense. Then, right at the end, during the hashish experience in Mexico City, he gets a horrible scare: maybe he really is in hell?
This isn’t right, but it’s the nearest I’ve come to a workable scheme. Here’s another idea that seems significant: all the flames and horrors that Dante sees in hell are actually subjective. “He had a very unpleasant mind,” Virgil says. So what is hell? “Ah,” says Virgil, “you tell me that! I only work here.”
Peter Watson had lunch with us. He’s such a strangely charming wry-smiling creature, with an almost coquettish air of despair about him. He described how crazy his brother and his nephew are getting. “They always treated me as the abnormal one, and now I’m beginning to see that I’m far saner than they are!” We went to look at some Francis Bacon paintings at the Hanover Gallery. I remember Francis saying to me that he always tries to “get down to the nerve.” He certainly has genius of a sort. Those businessmen, apparently in cages; their blurred faces and wide-open mouths as if they were bellowing with pain. And the blurred grey dog tearing along the edge of the gutter, perhaps in flight from some ghastly monster. A Bacon costs £300. A Canaletto at Tooth’s—the Piazza San Marco, with the base of the Campanile—£20,000!
Talking of money, we find we face a financial crisis. We must economize. Don says we mustn’t spend more than six pounds a day. This is actually harder than it sounds.
February 12. Yesterday, in Moscow, Burgess and Maclean reappeared unto a privileged group of journalists. A quasi-religious event.293
Yesterday we came down here, to stay with the Beesleys—catching a later train because I had to rush early to the dentist, to get the cap stuck back on my tooth—it has held ever since Rome. The dentist held out little hope of my being able to keep it on. He recommends more elaborate bridgework.
Plenty of snow down here. It thawed today but it’s freezing and snowing again tonight.
Talk with Dodie about the novel—from now on, I’ll call it The Lost. The idea seems workable, but the question remains: who and what are Dante and Virgil? Dodie rather dismisses the idea of the play—saying that one shouldn’t rework old material. But I still feel an urge to do it.
Since we were here last, Buzz has had to be “put to sleep.” A vet came down specially from London to do it, arriving at midnight. Dodie still talks with mystical passion about dogs—as much on the defensive as ever. “What people won’t realize is that if you’re separated from your dog for more than five hours, you become absolutely miserable. Five hours is the absolute maximum.” Of course, this is neurotic, however you look at it. It’s perfectly true, for example, that I dislike being separated from Don for very long; but just for this reason, I see how necessary it is that we should be separated. Otherwise, Don would become a mere chattel, an annex of my ego. And that’s what pets are. Annexes that one imposes, in the most brutal manner, on one’s friends.
A very happy evening. Don drew sketches of Dodie and Alec. How he expands and warms, as soon as he dares to believe that he’s amongst friends!
A suggested ending for The Lost: “Am writing this on the plane, on the way back to the States. Am perfectly sane and sober, now. But what is most important is that I mustn’t, in my sobriety, forget the lesson I’ve learnt. Let me never deceive myself into thinking of it as an hallucination. I doubt if I shall ever venture across the border again.”
February 15. Just returned from Cambridge. The Beesleys drove us over there two days ago, because Dodie wanted to do some shopping. We arrived in time for lunch. We ate all our meals with Morgan Forster, either in King’s
hall or in his rooms—except for breakfast, which we had at the Garden House Hotel, where we stayed. A very nice visit, but hellishly cold. Yesterday morning, after brilliant early sunshine, the snow fell very thickly. It didn’t lie, however. Back here in London, it’s much warmer.
Morgan seemed very lively and much enjoying his partial immersion in college affairs. I say “partial” because he seems able to regard them with humor as well as heat. But the heat is certainly present. For example, there has been a fine row about where to hang a piece of the Flemish tapestry which was presented to the college—Morgan’s party wanted it behind the high table, the opposition wanted it up in the minstrels’ gallery, more or less out of sight from the floor of the hall. The opposition has won.
At a succession of wine parties (red and white wine or sherry seem the usual drinks) we met all kinds of young men—a pudgy gay indiscreet don named Norman Routledge,294 who understands mechanical brains; a skinny don named Francis Haskell295 who lectures on baroque art; an undergraduate who, with Emlyn Williams’s elder son, rescued from Red Poland an enormous athlete by stowing him away in the baggage rack behind an even more enormous English girl from Cambridge; a cute but perhaps rather sly boy of seventeen from Utah who is an exchange student from Clifton; an Indian undergraduate who is Nehru’s nephew; and an undergraduate named Nick(?) who is one of the university’s perennial types: casually handsome, with careless wavy hair, bohemian tie and corduroys, and an Irish smile, who is nevertheless quite shrewd and not at all effete. This type usually ends up on the stage and sometimes gets itself knighted.
Don was somewhat horrified, at first, by the whole place—perhaps because he saw it through my eyes. But toward the end he began to enjoy himself. He received a good deal of attention. As for me—well, I never dislike these visits, but whiffs of the past give me occasional shudders. We went into Corpus296 and I showed Don Edward [Upward]’s rooms, and Philip Gilchrist’s,297 and mine. We watched the half-frozen boys rowing on the river below the town. I failed to solve a puzzle that was being passed round at high table: “ABCDEFG—complete the alphabet in accordance with this pattern.” I helped the ex-Provost on with his overcoat, enjoyed the chatter of Dadie Rylands,298 and listened respectfully to the Vice-Provost on skating; learning therefrom that the Fenmen always skate with their hands behind their backs, but are usually beaten by townees who practice unfairly throughout the summer in rinks.299
Cambridge has its sinister side now, as always, for me. Don and I went into King’s chapel during the evening service and listened to the choirboys’ voices soaring up into the shadows of the fan tracery, high above the rumbling organ with its two seraph trumpeters. As Don said, they sounded like angels—not in the pretty sense, but spooky, disembodied.
King’s chapel also has the extra sinister distinction of a recent suicide. Not so long ago, the Dean climbed up to the roof, at 3:00 a.m., and jumped.300 His body was found a few hours later. Norman Routledge and Francis Haskell discussed the motive, and decided that it was simply because he was neglected: people omitted to ask him to parties because they thought him dull. He was a mother’s boy, unmarried. He had felt out of place at King’s and had wanted to return to Scotland, but his mother had insisted that he should stay because she preferred Cambridge life. Before jumping, he had removed his clerical collar. Une vie.301
Morgan himself hardly seems at all changed, except that he’s stiffer in the joints. He is still just as eagerly interested in everybody. He has taken to watching boxing matches. He has an undergraduate friend named Southwell302—a charming rather large-nosed boy who rows—who is planning to go to Cyprus this summer as a reserve officer of the ROTC. Morgan is much concerned as to the ethics of this and has decided to speak to Southwell about it.303 Don says that Morgan reminds him so much of Tennessee Williams.
February 16. Went last night to supper with Stephen. Don refused to come with me, feeling that Stephen doesn’t take the least interest in him. I was quite prepared for embarrassing enquiries, and was greatly surprised when Stephen didn’t mention Don or ask about him at all. But maybe this was tact. … Just the same, I can’t help blaming Stephen. I find it very thick-skinned of him not to be aware that there’s something wrong. No—I just cannot believe that he isn’t aware.
Well, it was a stag party but curiously formal and unbohemian. Everyone except Joe Ackerley and I wore suits, and really you might have taken us for a bunch of publishers. Angus Wilson,304 prissy and high voiced like a silver-haired little lady; but nevertheless sympathetic because of an obvious sincerity in his reactions. Angus’s friend Tony [Garrett], who’s a juvenile delinquent officer and doesn’t talk: maybe he’s really interesting and nice. A skinny art critic named Robin Ironside who seemed dry and sterile and bitter and a bore. Joe who is always a real person, despite his dog addiction and Chris Wood-like bachelor selfishness. And dear William Plomer—who, as I once said, and meant, makes life less odious for all who know him. William was funny as usual. He described how George Gissing used to say to his wife at parties: “Nine-thirty already! Now, Clara; time you were on the streets!”
A long discussion about Burgess and Maclean. It was generally agreed that if they were to return and a party was to be given for them, everyone would go to it. In other words, they have somehow become an institution and been forgiven, even though they haven’t repented.
Stephen played the host with a great deal of style. He has developed a very shiny surface manner. Oh God, I thought to myself, imagine being shut up on this island and having to ring the changes on this handful of personalities and talents! No wonder Stephen is as he is. A great wonder that he’s no worse. I must never cease to thank heaven for my escape.
February 18. Vows for Ramakrishna’s birthday. One round of japam at least, every day for a year. No more mugging and mooning. Touch my toes every day.
Still a bit drunk after lunch with the Tynans plus a wedding reception for Louie Ramsay and Ronan O’Casey. She’s in a musical at the Hippodrome, Meet Me on the Corner; he’s a Canadian actor of whom the best man said: “I’ve been to six of his first nights—in one week.”
The Tynans bicker a lot but are quite sympathetic. They put up the bail for Peter Wildeblood when he was arrested. Ken Tynan is impressed by the Soviet Union because it discourages drinking. I told them firmly that, as an ex-monk, I believe in people being allowed to be ascetic on their own, without dragging in the rest of the community. We had a high-class lunch at Pruniers, with the Tynans getting less and less coherent.
Seen written on a van the other day: “Diploma Bagwash.” The perfect name for a Shaw heroine.
Another explosion by Don two nights ago, after meeting Peter Watson and Francis Bacon. I’m seriously worried about this, because it was so neurotic. He is getting an obsession about being rejected, and I don’t seem to be able to help him. But more of this another time.
I forgot to mention tea at Dorothy Tutin’s, yesterday—on her little houseboat anchored off Cheyne Walk. Michael Gwynn was there and the two actresses who respectively played the landlady and Sally’s mother in Camera. The tide was just turning on the river and the water was astonishingly rough—especially when, three or four times, a biggish ship passed. Once the houseboat pitched so hard that a lamp fell down.
Dorothy was very bright and tense—so eager to make the party a success.
February 20. The misery of this cold! Snow falls almost everyday, melts, falls. You have to be very young to appreciate the winter. Even Don is tired of it.
But things are better. Yesterday we saw Patrick Woodcock. He drove us around the East End and then gave us lunch. And Don definitely likes him.
A horrible pilgrimage to Brixton to see The Great Sinner. It is far, far worse—coyer, more overwritten—than I’d remembered.
A story about the Tynans I forgot to write down. They were in the Gargoyle the other night and Ken (who fancies himself as an aficionado) got into an argument about a certain bullfighter: had he retired or not? Ken said not and b
et twenty pounds, which was accepted. So they called Spain to find out. The first person they tried was Ava Gardner; but they were told—this was around 3:00 a.m.—that she had gone out pigeon shooting! So they called elsewhere, and finally discovered that Ken was right. I find this anecdote rather distasteful. The creation of such “legendary behavior” should be left to professional hams, like John Huston.
February 25. So much to report that I scarcely know where to start. Will take the odds and ends first.
On the 21st, we went to a party at the Tynans’—actually a wedding party—for a bridal pair we never got to meet. If the Tynans paid for this do, they must have plenty of money: it was very stylish. Ken explained his theory that the theater exists only in order to produce situations of intolerable crisis; and Henry Yorke complained of the difficulties of play writing, an occupation which he regards as a typical disease of middle-aged novelists. Later, they had flamenco dancers, but we’d left before that.
On the 22nd, and again on the 23rd, I posed for Michael Ayrton, whom Methuen’s have commissioned to draw me. But he had great difficulties, and still hasn’t done anything he’ll show me. We sat in what I believe was Rosa Lewis’s305 old bedroom. It was hideously cold.
The cold has been getting Don down, and this led to another outburst. So we arranged to fly back a week earlier than originally intended—on March 11th. I’m not really at all sorry about this. The only reason I mind is that it creates new tensions and the need for all sorts of rearrangements. As for Don’s own problem, well, we’ve settled that he shall see Evelyn Hooker and maybe some other psychiatrist when he gets back home.
On the 23rd, there was an account in the Daily Telegraph of the suffocation of 180 Sudanese cotton farmers who were being held in “detention rooms” (whatever they are) at Kosti, south of Khartoum. Here is the prize sentence: “When the gates of the rooms were opened this morning, it was found with deep regret that no small numbers of them were dead, and some others in a very bad condition.”
Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1 Page 86
