Monday, January 05, 2009

Sunday 25th April 1943

I finished “Nightingale Wood”. It might have been entitled, “It all came true,” for the ending was pleasantly, impossibly happy.

My office career is finished and I have gone to greater glory. I am i/c the recreation room at the canteen. That means I have two keys, tidy the place up and keep the books in order. The library is the main job, actually. I have to catalogue and issue the books. Most of the books are pretty ghastly, un-read throw-outs. Victorian romances – if literature from that dull era can be dignified by such a word – with titles such as “The Schoolmistress of Haven End” published in 1880. Among publishing houses the Religious Tract Society is well represented...

Am I so mad?

Lobel, the Roumanian, who is as sane as anyone here, says he is not living in his native land any more either. He's going to South America. He worked there, in Bueno Aires, once before, and says it is better than Roumania. Why not? Everyone doesn't stay in their land!

One of the Sisters, a quaint, talkative individual, got me cornered in the garden yesterday and gave me the benefit of a Serious Talk. She could understand many of my reasons for being bitter and resentful but, she said, it was best to keep such dark thoughts to myself. Don't say a word to anyone, said the Sister mysteriously, especially about hating England... WHY? I demanded, What's the REASON - ? She then explained at such length, that I couldn't follow the subtleties of her involved argument.

Maybe if I say England is no good, they'll have me destroyed, like a troublesome old dog! Anyway, I now recite a song of praise (aloud) about England, War, Officers and other things three times a day. Yes, the Cone system! It does not do any harm, and it amuses Lobel and he rest.

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