she is on the other side. Oh God, why do you fix families so? Why make a nice family and then chuck in a misfit? Mother knew and she was the only being who ever did. She knew I was her ugly duck. When Dede would try and break my will and got mad because she couldn’t, that was what she hurled — Mother’s worry at leaving me because I was wayward and different to her other children. If we reincarnate again as children, oh I do hope I’ll belong and not be a sort of patch stuck on after the family’s made. If I’ve ever grumbled at the lonesomeness, they’ve said it’s because I’m selfish or something. Both their lives are cram full of souls. I don’t want a lot, but oh just a few right ones.
The downstairs folk had visitors today. I saw them come. Mr. and Mrs. dashed out onto the pavement and hugged and kissed them as they got out of the motor. Such genuine delightand hubbub and happy talk and arms circling and tongues wagging. They left the blinds up a little tonight and all sat around the fire in good fellowship. Even the Jew next door has his ladies-in-the-sun. He is a bachelor but never alone in his home.
This being cast alone must be to teach me something. Sometimes I wonder if it was that ungovernable love that possessed me for so many years pouring out, pouring out wasted and unwanted ’til, ill and worn with the canker of it, I wrenched it out of my being and trampled on it. Threw it from me and grew cold and hard and dead. By and by the roots sprouted again and wanted to grow but there wasn’t any good earth for them to grow in. It was all built over in brick and stone and pavement. The poor little roots tried to get a hold but couldn’t. And strong winds blew (as it were) a little dust among the roots to keep them just alive, and the dust is the love of the blessed creatures, monkey and dogs and blessed little rat offering the rootlets of my love nourishment and shelter.
OCTOBER 14TH
Life was completely beastly. I turned the Sunday
Colonist
with its noxious fumes of death and destruction pouring from every page and looked out at the high blue sky and autumning foliage. No peace on earth, no goodwill towards men. My own heart was bitter towards many.
OCTOBER 29TH
Will she go tomorrow? I told her to, gave her a month’s notice and a reminder in the month’s middle. It’s horrid living over top of a woman like that. She wants everything and to pay for nothing. She wants to impress me with her importance. Shebrags of her breeding but she has none — not even as much as an earwig. It says in the insect book earwigs are quite noble. They brood their young, not to hatch them with their warmth but to protect them against enemies. She’s beastly to her child. He’s coarse and rude because she doesn’t teach him. She resents him because she must support him. In the morning you hear her smack, smack, and he roar, roar. At half past eight the child stumps coarsely down the pavement. He is only three. His arms thrust themselves into the sleeves of his homemade jacket. No mother’s hand adjusting, pulling the cuff of his jersey down, adjusting the shoulder and tweaking the tail like real mothers do. He is fed, spanked and sent. I’d hate to be her child. “I am a widow,” she moaned, trying to jew down the prices when she came. “A widow with child.”
OCTOBER 30TH
Oh me. Oh dearie dearie me. Sore and trembling all over. Worse with the conflict and hatefulness. It was just dreadful. Her month was up yesterday but she did not get out. This morn I said (left a note under the door) that another month’s rent began today unless her things were removed, for I’d a notion she wanted her half day, Saturday, and so I could have allowed her if she’d been decent and the rent paid. The van came and I told the man her rent must be paid before her things went. She rushed out in a passion, hurling insults etc. I kept on saying, “Be still, be still,” but stayed firm. Then I phoned the police and they told
The downstairs folk had visitors today. I saw them come. Mr. and Mrs. dashed out onto the pavement and hugged and kissed them as they got out of the motor. Such genuine delightand hubbub and happy talk and arms circling and tongues wagging. They left the blinds up a little tonight and all sat around the fire in good fellowship. Even the Jew next door has his ladies-in-the-sun. He is a bachelor but never alone in his home.
This being cast alone must be to teach me something. Sometimes I wonder if it was that ungovernable love that possessed me for so many years pouring out, pouring out wasted and unwanted ’til, ill and worn with the canker of it, I wrenched it out of my being and trampled on it. Threw it from me and grew cold and hard and dead. By and by the roots sprouted again and wanted to grow but there wasn’t any good earth for them to grow in. It was all built over in brick and stone and pavement. The poor little roots tried to get a hold but couldn’t. And strong winds blew (as it were) a little dust among the roots to keep them just alive, and the dust is the love of the blessed creatures, monkey and dogs and blessed little rat offering the rootlets of my love nourishment and shelter.
OCTOBER 14TH
Life was completely beastly. I turned the Sunday
Colonist
with its noxious fumes of death and destruction pouring from every page and looked out at the high blue sky and autumning foliage. No peace on earth, no goodwill towards men. My own heart was bitter towards many.
OCTOBER 29TH
Will she go tomorrow? I told her to, gave her a month’s notice and a reminder in the month’s middle. It’s horrid living over top of a woman like that. She wants everything and to pay for nothing. She wants to impress me with her importance. Shebrags of her breeding but she has none — not even as much as an earwig. It says in the insect book earwigs are quite noble. They brood their young, not to hatch them with their warmth but to protect them against enemies. She’s beastly to her child. He’s coarse and rude because she doesn’t teach him. She resents him because she must support him. In the morning you hear her smack, smack, and he roar, roar. At half past eight the child stumps coarsely down the pavement. He is only three. His arms thrust themselves into the sleeves of his homemade jacket. No mother’s hand adjusting, pulling the cuff of his jersey down, adjusting the shoulder and tweaking the tail like real mothers do. He is fed, spanked and sent. I’d hate to be her child. “I am a widow,” she moaned, trying to jew down the prices when she came. “A widow with child.”
OCTOBER 30TH
Oh me. Oh dearie dearie me. Sore and trembling all over. Worse with the conflict and hatefulness. It was just dreadful. Her month was up yesterday but she did not get out. This morn I said (left a note under the door) that another month’s rent began today unless her things were removed, for I’d a notion she wanted her half day, Saturday, and so I could have allowed her if she’d been decent and the rent paid. The van came and I told the man her rent must be paid before her things went. She rushed out in a passion, hurling insults etc. I kept on saying, “Be still, be still,” but stayed firm. Then I phoned the police and they told
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