MARCH 1939

Spring weather is unpredictable: Most extraordinary sight. Snow-sleet, green grass, dark sky, evening light, pink budding tops-of-trees in the grove. We were all at different windows.

Graves continues his work on the Dictionary. He also reads Riding's Painting with great excitement. He records having difficulty with the Left Heresy proofs, and grumbles about having to do some rewording: Proofs still, my God! He is also writing a blurb for Lives of Wives. These ongoing projects do not seem to leave Graves much time to write anything new.

The whole household battles illness and discontent in March. Graves and the others are sick with the flu, and Beryl develops a bad toothache. Riding quits smoking and reduces her coffee intake - she then has headaches and becomes agitated and nervous, and everyone is affected. Dorothy bangs her head on a chair and knocks herself out.

But despite ill health, the friends are excited about the spring: their hope to travel to America becomes a plan, and Graves makes reservations on the Paris, the same boat on which Riding sailed to Europe more than a decade earlier. On a walk with Alan, Graves talks about Riding as a focus of love among us. The friends spend the rest of the month packing for the trip to the United States. David Reeves calls unexpectedly from Paris, and then stops in; by the end of his visit, and to the delight of Graves and Riding, he decides to accompany the group to America.

The political situation in Europe is charged: the Germans have seized Czechland, and when Valencia surrenders, Graves heralds the end of the Spanish War.

There are four enclosures this month:

1. French poem by Graves about Marie 2. Letter from Riding to Graves about his Hostage poem 3. Clipping from The Serpent: Wood Not Trees (a review of Graves' Collected Poems) (2 pages) 4. Clipping from The Serpent: The Poet Replies (Graves' response to the review of his Collected Poems)