A Writer's Diary (11 page)

I am waiting to see what form of itself Cassis will finally cast up in my mind. There are the rocks. We used to go out after breakfast and sit on the rocks, with the sun on us. L. used to sit without a hat, writing on his knee. One morning he found a sea urchin—they are red with spikes which quiver slightly. Then we would go and walk in the afternoon, right up over the hill, into the woods, where one day we heard the motor cars and discovered the road to La Ciotat just beneath. It was stony, steep and very hot. We heard a great chattering birdlike noise once and I bethought me of the frogs. The ragged red tulips were out in the fields; all the fields were little angular shelves cut out of the hill and ruled and ribbed with vines; and all ted, and rosy and purple here and there with the spray of some fruit tree in bud. Here and there was an angular white or yellow or blue washed house, with all its shutters tightly closed, and flat paths round it, and once rows of stocks; an incomparable cleanness and definiteness everywhere. At La Ciotat great orange ships rose up out of the blue water of the little bay. All these bays are very circular and fringed with the pale coloured plaster houses, very tall, shuttered, patched and peeled, now with a pot and tufts of green on them, now with clothes, drying; now an old old woman looking. On the hill, which is stony as a desert, the nets were drying; and then in the streets children and girls gossiped and meandered all in pale bright shawls and cotton frocks, while the men picked up the earth of the main square to make a paved court of it. The Hotel Cendrillon is a white house with red tiled floors, capable of housing perhaps 8 people. And then the whole hotel atmosphere provided me with many ideas: oh so cold, indifferent, superficially polite, and exhibiting such odd relationships; as if human nature were now reduced to a kind of code, which it has devised to meet these emergencies, where people who do not know each other meet and claim their rights as members of the same tribe. As a matter of fact, we got into touch all round; but our depths were not invaded. But L. and I were too too happy, as they say; if it were now to die etc. Nobody shall say of me that I have not known perfect happiness, but few could put their finger on the moment, or say what made it. Even I myself, stirring occasionally in the pool of content, could only say But this is all I want; could not think of anything better; and had only my half superstitious feeling at the Gods who must when they have created happiness, grudge it. Not if you get it in unexpected ways, though.

Sunday, April 19th

It is now after dinner, our first summertime night, and the mood for writing has left me, only just brushed me and left me. I have not achieved my sacred half hour yet. But think—in time to come I would rather read something here than reflect that I did polish off Mr. Ring Lardner successfully. I'm out to make £300 this summer by writing and build a bath and hot water range at Rodmell. But hush, hush—my books tremble on the verge of coming out and my future is uncertain. As for forecasts—it's just on the cards
Mrs. Dalloway
is a success (Harcourt thinks it "wonderful") and sells 2,000. I don't expect it. I expect a slow silent increase of fame, such as has come about, rather miraculously, since
J.'s R.
was published. My value mounting steadily as a journalist, though scarcely a copy sold. And I am not very nervous—rather; and I want as usual to dig deep down into my new stories without having a looking glass flashed in my eyes—Todd, to wit; Colefax to wit et cetera.

Monday, April 20th

One thing, in considering my state of mind now, seems to me beyond dispute; that I have, at last, bored down into my oil well, and can't scribble fast enough to bring it all to the surface. I have now at least 6 stories welling up in me, and feel, at last, that I can coin all my thoughts into words. Not but what an infinite number of problems remain; but I have never felt this rush and urgency before. I believe I can write much more quickly; if writing it is—this dash at the paper of a phrase, and then the typing and retyping—trying it over; the actual writing being now like the sweep of a brush; I fill it up afterwards. Now suppose I might become one of the interesting—I will not say great—but interesting novelists? Oddly, for all my vanity, I have not until now had much faith in my novels, or thought them my own expression.

Monday, April 27th

The Common Reader
was out on Thursday: this is Monday and so far I have not heard a word about it, private or public; it is as if one tossed a stone into a pond and the waters closed without a ripple. And I am perfectly content, and care less than I have ever cared, and make this note just to remind me next time of the sublime progress of my books. I have been sitting to Vogue, the Becks that is, in their mews, which Mr. Woolner built as his studio, and perhaps it was there he thought of my mother, whom he wished to marry, I think. But my present reflection is that people have any number of states of consciousness: and I should like to investigate the party consciousness, the frock consciousness etc. The fashion world at the Becks—Mrs. Garland was there superintending a display—is certainly one; where people secrete an envelope which connects them and protects them from others, like myself, who am outside the envelope, foreign bodies. These states are very difficult (obviously I grope for words) but I'm always coming back to it. The party consciousness, for example: Sybil's consciousness. You must not break it. It is something real. You must keep it up—conspire together. Still I cannot get at what I mean. Then I meant to dash off Graves before I forget him.

Second selves is what I mean.

Friday, May 1st

This is a note for future reference, as they say.
The Common Reader
came out 8 days ago and so far not a single review has appeared, and nobody has written to me or spoken to me about it, or in any way acknowledged the fact of its existence; save Maynard, Lydia, and Duncan. Clive is conspicuously dumb; Mortimer has flu and can't review it; Nancy saw him reading it, but reported no opinion; all signs which point to a dull chill depressing reception; and complete failure. I have just come through the hoping fearing stage and now see my disappointment floating like an old bottle in my wake and am off on fresh adventures. Only if the same thing happens to
Dalloway
one need not be surprised. But I must write to Gwen.

Monday, May 4th

This is the temperature chart of a book. We went to Cambridge, and Goldie said he thought me the finest living critic: said, in his jerky angular way: "Who wrote that extraordinarily good article on the Elizabethans two or three months ago in the
Lit. Sup.?
" I pointed to my breast. Now there's one sneering review in
Country Life,
almost inarticulate with feebleness, trying to say what a Common reader is, and another, says Angus, in the
Star,
laughing at Nessa's cover. So from this I prognosticate a good deal of criticism on the ground that I'm obscure and odd; and some enthusiasm; and a slow sale, and an increased reputation. Oh yes, my reputation increases.

Saturday, May 9th

As for
The Common Reader,
the
Lit. Sup.
had close on two columns sober and sensible praise—neither one thing nor the other—my fate in
The Times.
And Goldie writes that he thinks "this is the best criticism in English—humorous, witty and profound." My fate is to be treated to all extremes and all mediocrities. But I never get an enthusiastic review in the
Lit. Sup.
And it will be the same for
Dalloway,
which now approaches.

Thursday, May 14th

I meant to register more of my books' temperatures.
C.R.
does not sell; but is praised. I was really pleased to open the
Manchester Guardian
this morning and read Mr. Fausset on the Art of V. W.; brilliance combined with integrity; profound as well as eccentric. Now if only
The Times
would speak out thus, but
The Times
mumbles and murmurs like a man sucking pebbles. Did I say that I had nearly two mumbling columns on me there? But the odd thing is this: honestly I am scarcely a shade nervous about
Mrs. D.
Why is this? Really I am a little bored, for the first time, at thinking how much I shall have to talk about it this summer. The truth is that writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial. I'm now all on the strain with desire to stop journalism and get on to
To the Lighthouse.
This is going to be fairly short; to have father's character done complete in it; and mother's; and St. Ives; and childhood; and all the usual things I try to put in—life, death, etc. But the centre is father's character, sitting in a boat, reciting We perished, each alone, while he crushes a dying mackerel. However, I must refrain. I must write a few little stories first and let the
Lighthouse
simmer, adding to it between tea and dinner till it is complete for writing out.

Friday, May 15th

Two unfavourable reviews of
Mrs. D. (Western Mail
and
Scotsman
); unintelligible, not art etc. and a letter from a young man in Earls Court. "This time you have done it—you have caught life and put it in a book..." Please forgive this outburst, but further quotation is unnecessary; and I don't think I should bother to write this if I weren't jangled. What by? The sudden heat, I think, and the racket of life. It is bad for me to see my own photograph.

Wednesday, May 19th

Well, Morgan admires. This is a weight off my mind. Better than
Jacob
he says: was sparing of words; kissed my hand, and on going said he was awfully pleased, very happy (or words to that effect) about it. He thinks—but I won't go into detailed criticism; I shall hear more; and this is only about the style being simpler, more like other people's this time.

Monday, June 1st

Bank holiday, and we are in London. To record my books' fates slightly bores me; but now both are floated, and
Mrs. D.
doing surprisingly well. 1070 already sold. I recorded Morgan's opinion; then Vita was a little doubtful; then Desmond, whom I see frequently about his book, dashed all my praise by saying that Logan thought the
C.R.
well enough, but nothing more. Desmond has an abnormal power for depressing me. He takes the edge off life in some extraordinary way. I love him; but his balance and goodness and humour, all heavenly in themselves, somehow diminish lustre. I think I feel this not only about my work but about life. However, now comes Mrs. Hardy to say that Thomas reads, and hears the
C.R.
read, with "great pleasure." Indeed, save for Logan, and he's a salt-veined American, I have had high praise. Also Tauchnitz asks about them.

Sunday, June 14th

A disgraceful confession—this is Sunday morning and just after ten, and here I am sitting down to write diary and not fiction or reviews, without any excuse, except the state of my mind. After finishing those two books, though, one can't concentrate directly on a new one; and then the letters, the talk, the reviews, all serve to enlarge the pupil of my mind more and more. I can't settle in, contract, and shut myself off. I've written 6 little stories, scrambled them down untidily and have thought out, perhaps too clearly,
To the Lighthouse.
And both books so far are successful. More of
Dalloway
has been sold this month than of
Jacob
in a year. I think it possible we may sell 2,000. The
Common
one is making money this week. And I get treated at great length and solemnity by old gentlemen.

Thursday, June 18th

No, Lytton does not like
Mrs. Dalloway,
and, what is odd, I like him all the better for saying so, and don't much mind. What he says is that there is a discordancy between the ornament (extremely beautiful) and what happens (rather ordinary—or unimportant). This is caused, he thinks, by some discrepancy in Clarissa herself: he thinks she is disagreeable and limited, but that I alternately laugh at her and cover her, very remarkably, with myself. So that I think as a whole, the book does not ring solid; yet, he says, it is a whole; and he says sometimes the writing is of extreme beauty. What can one call it but genius? he said! Coming when, one never can tell. Fuller of genius, he said, than anything I had done. Perhaps, he said, you have not yet mastered your method. You should take something wilder and more fantastic, a framework that admits of anything, like
Tristram Shandy.
But then I should lose touch with emotions, I said. Yes, he agreed, there must be reality for you to start from. Heaven knows how you're to do it. But he thought me at the beginning, not at the end. And he said the
C.R.
was divine, a classic,
Mrs. D
being, I fear, a flawed stone. This is very personal, he said, and old fashioned perhaps; yet I think there is some truth in it, for I remember the night at Rodmell when I decided to give it up, because I found Clarissa in some way tinselly. Then I invented her memories. But I think some distaste for her persisted. Yet, again, that was true to my feeling for Kitty and one must dislike people in art without its mattering, unless indeed it is true that certain characters detract from the importance of what happens to them. None of this hurts me, or depresses me. It's odd that when Clive and others (several of them) say it is a masterpiece, I am not much exalted; when Lytton picks holes, I get back into my working fighting mood, which is natural to me. I don't see myself a success. I like the sense of effort better. The sales collapsed completely for three days; now a little dribble begins again. I shall be more than pleased if we sell 1500. It's now 1250.

July 20th. Have sold about 1530.

Saturday, June 27th

A bitter cold day, succeeding a chilly windy night, in which were lit all the Chinese lanterns of Roger's garden party. And I do not love my kind. I detest them. I pass them by. I let them break on me like dirty rain drops. No longer can I summon up that energy which, when it sees one of these dry little shapes floating past, or rather stuck on the rock, sweeps round them, steeps them, infuses them, nerves them, and so finally fills them and creates them. Once I had a gift for doing this, and a passion, and it made parties arduous and exciting. So when I wake early now I luxuriate most in a whole day alone; a day of easy natural poses, a little printing; slipping tranquilly off into the deep water of my own thoughts navigating the underworld; and then replenishing my cistern at night with Swift. I am going to write about Stella and Swift for Richmond, as a sign of grace, after sweeping guineas off the
Vogue
counter. The first fruit of the
C.R.
(a book too highly praised now) is a request to write for the
Atlantic Monthly.
So I am getting pushed into criticism. It is a great standby—this power to make large sums by formulating views on Stendhal and Swift. (But while I try to write, I am making up
To the Lighthouse—the
sea is to be heard all through it. I have an idea that I will invent a new name for my books to supplant "novel." A new—by Virginia Woolf. But what? Elegy?)