Modern Nature: February 22
Wednesday 22
Returned here after nearly a week in Berlin, where War Requiem was performed in the Zoo Palast. A shadow of my own expectations. The silence at the end was a total…30 seconds that seemed two minutes; then the audience crept out in silence, passed quietly by me as if I was a ghost come to haunt them, chill their blood.
Flew home high above sun-bright clouds. Read Pliny’s description of his house in the country:
At the far end of the garden is a suite of rooms which are quite truly my favorites, for I had them built for myself. On one side there is a sun parlour facing on to a terrace and the sea; there is also a room with folding doors opening on to the arcade with a window looking out to sea. Opposite in the partition wall is a beautifully designed alcove which can be thrown into the room by folding back its glass doors and curtains, or cut off from it if they are closed; it is large enough to hold a couch and two armchairs and has the sea at its foot and the neighbouring villas behind the woods beyond them. All these views can be seen separately or blended together from its many windows; next to it is a bedroom for use at night, which neither the voices of my household, or the sea’s murmur, nor the noise of a storm can penetrate, any more than the lightning’s flash, and the light of day unless the shutters are open.
~
I’ve grown tired of the cinema, the preserve of ambition and folly in pursuit of illusion, or should I say delusion?
Yesterday I was subjected to a barrage of questions for nearly seven hours without a break, my head spinning like a child’s top. I fled. Back home at the flat in Charing Cross Road another enormous pile of letters blocked the door: Would I write? Judge? Give advice? Attend? Approve? Help? - The phone rang till I find myself running. What happiness has this cacophony brought? And what have I achieved when Pliny’s miraculous villa can varnish with barely a ripple?
~
Paul was ill during our stay in Berlin. HB had to carry him up the stairs. HB bought a battery of pills which we checked through the pharmacopeoeia: aconite, belladonna, etc. Paul spent most of his time in bed and returned home with a lung infection. My dearest Howard remains smiling and coherent after nearly a year of illness although unable to walk, read, or write. David was snuffed out in less than a week. I never saw him as we were in the first week shooting the War Requiem.
~
Back here this evening I walked along the sea shore. The tide was far out on the horizon and the water on the sand reflected the faded rose of the sunset like a mirror; for a brief moment the sun lit up the boats and houses around the bay before suddenly disappearing.
If you are new here, or just simply wish to re-read previous entries, you can find older dates in this newsletter by clicking here.