You, whoever you are, who read this must realise that it is written under great difficulties. I write only at night, but, even so, it is possible that Mrs. Frazer will appear at any minute to ask if I need anything. Also I am given a sleeping-draught, but this has little effect, for I sleep as much as possible during the day. Then they keep bringing me letters, or telling me the names of people who have called to inquire—and how surprised these visitors are to discover that I have had rooms here for years. Rendell has met several of them—my publisher, my agent, Rosalie, Vera. At least, I am almost certain that one of the women was Rosalie. Mrs. Frazer watched her arrival. She happened to be looking out of the study window and saw a taxi draw up. Nearly a minute elapsed before a woman got out, glanced right and left, then seemed about to re-enter the taxi and drive away. But, finally, she approached the house slowly, hesitated again, then almost ran to the top of the steps. I am certain it was Rosalie.
All this disturbs me. It brings ghosts from my old life thronging round me. Also, something queer is happening to me in a deep interior manner. Moments of intense inner excitement flash up in me, raising me to a new level of consciousness. I feel exalted and afraid. A new surging abundant life possesses me, a life which quickens and annihilates. My body seems to become as huge as the earth. I have to touch myself to become aware of my actual shape.
Nevertheless, somehow I must go on with this manuscript. I must show how I became the Ivor Trent whom the people downstairs are clamouring to see.
It must have been the end of 1922 when I first came to this house. I only came because my artist friend suggested it. Indifference paralysed me. I had no background, no past, no roots. My father had robbed me of everything represented by the words childhood, boyhood, youth. I had no intimate personal life, no memories. Behind me was a void.
But this personal life is not the only one: there is the life of the world surrounding us. Instinctively we believe a number of things concerning it. We hear grand words about it—Justice, Freedom, Honour—and we assume they represent realities. Well, the war revealed that it is a Jungle. The grand words are a façade.
Still, 77 Potiphar Street was interesting. It was full of odd people. Captain Frazer’s experiment was a failure from its inception, but it was something to watch, and that was all I wanted—something to watch. Of course, I was tired of it in a month or two, but then I met Elsa.
I met her through going to the studio of the artist who had induced me to come to Potiphar Street. She was sitting to him and was greatly embarrassed by the fact. Later, I learned that it was the first time she had sat to anyone, but, as she was alone and penniless, necessity had made her an artist’s model.
I began to go to the studio whenever she was there. At first my presence increased her embarrassment, but soon we became friends. We dined together frequently and, after dinner, we walked up and down the Embankment for hours. Eventually she took a tiny room in No. 77.
Except her appearance, there was nothing remarkable about her, as the word is used, but she was one of those strangely complete beings. Most people come to the world with a soul like an empty suitcase, which they gradually fill—usually with rubbish or worse. She came with her suitcase packed. She was therefore the spectator of her own experience. It foamed on the circumference of her being, it did not penetrate to the centre.
There is tranquillity in joy, and it was hers. To be with her brought peace, as dawn over a silent sea brings peace. She knew little that can be taught, and much that can never be learned. Her beauty was that of a youth whom Nature had capriciously turned into a girl. And her hair was stolen from a god.
To be with her became a necessity. I soon tired of the other lodgers. The artists’ jargon, and their incessant quarrels, became very monotonous. The only person besides Elsa who interested me was a young man who believed he was a reincarnation of Nietzsche. He interested me because, after all, that is one way of getting through the world. His monomania was intermittent, however, and when it deserted him he was a highly intelligent rather amusing man. But, after Elsa came to No. 77, I saw much less of him.
Although we spent hours and hours together, I never told her anything about myself. She knew that I did nothing, but she never asked any questions. You could be silent with her, and, often, we were silent. She would lie on the bed in my study and I would stand at the window gazing at the river.
Then one night we became lovers. It just happened. And then, lying in the darkness together, I told her everything about my life. I imagine that took a long time. I know that it was dawn when I had brought my story up to my arrival at Potiphar Street.
I ended by saying something like this: