Aug 15 Saturday[RG] Monday[RG] Assumption

This is the day on which Hitler is supposed to be invading Czechoslovakia and there has been a rush of gold-hoarding.
Anyhow a bad day. Cold & cross.
Anita gave us some greengages for jam, so I had to make it as they were going bad; over a wood fire in my bedroom. Dorothy helping; but then more talk with Laura & Montague – he has almost decided to go out & seek his sexual fortune – so she stopped & the jam caught and I didn't put enough sugar & boiled up again with jello and not enough jars :about 17 lbs [pounds] of it[RG] – Then Alan got cross because Laura arranged two chairs as if in consultation with his own in the staircase room he is using as a study, with a bolster upright in his, and Montague hanging about like a skeleton at a feast. Laura doing Rimbaud – called me in.[RG] –[RG] A widow from Boisgervilly called, for a job at the beginning of Sept. [September] Everyone crossly peeling mushrooms.[RG]
We sat around the fire in the dining-room talking painstakingly at night; my back aching with the low chairs. My dolly-washer1 arrived from England.

Editorial Notes

1? KG

Hands Referenced

    • Annotation: ink correction
    • Character: regular
    • Ink: black

Places Mentioned

  • Boisgervilly

    Boisgervilly, Brittany, France
    town near Montauban, France eds.

People Mentioned

  • Montague Simmonds

    Simmons, Montague
    poet, and civil servant in the children's branch of the Home Office; m. to Dorothy Simmons, the sculptress RPG

  • Alan

    Hodge, Alan
    Oxford history graduate. Became close friends with LR & RG. First husband of Beryl Graves. CP & WG

  • Laura

    Riding, Laura
    (1901-91) American poet. Laura Riding (née Reichenthal; then Laura Gottschalk).

  • Anita

    Ana, Anita
    Marroig. Gelat's daughter, married to Juan Vives the Doctor's brother. Live in Rennes, France. WG

  • Dorothy

    Simmons, Dorothy
    Sculptor associated with the Graves-Riding inner circle (1938-39). Married to Montague Simmons. eds

  • Hitler

    Hitler, Adolf
    (1889-1945)

Bibliography

    • Title: Selected Verse Poems of Arthur Rimbaud
    • Author: Rimbaud, Arthur trans. Cameron, Norman [with Laura Riding]
    • PubPlace: London
    • Publisher: [?]
    • Date: 1942