severed head or death mask as if
outlined on a grey curtain or veronica. Decollation they call it in the
gold. Puzzled for the moment by saint John at the Latin gate. What do I
see? A decollated percursor trying to pick the lock.

MARCH 21, NIGHT. Free. Soul free and fancy free. Let the dead bury the
dead. Ay. And let the dead marry the dead.

MARCH 22. In company with Lynch followed a sizeable hospital nurse.
Lynch's idea. Dislike it. Two lean hungry greyhounds walking after a
heifer.

MARCH 23. Have not seen her since that night. Unwell? Sits at the fire
perhaps with mamma's shawl on her shoulders. But not peevish. A nice
bowl of gruel? Won't you now?

MARCH 24. Began with a discussion with my mother. Subject: B.V.M.
Handicapped by my sex and youth. To escape held up relations between
Jesus and Papa against those between Mary and her son. Said religion
was not a lying-in hospital. Mother indulgent. Said I have a queer mind
and have read too much. Not true. Have read little and understood less.
Then she said I would come back to faith because I had a restless mind.
This means to leave church by back door of sin and re-enter through the
skylight of repentance. Cannot repent. Told her so and asked for
sixpence. Got threepence.

Then went to college. Other wrangle with little round head rogue's eye
Ghezzi. This time about Bruno the Nolan. Began in Italian and ended in
pidgin English. He said Bruno was a terrible heretic. I said he was
terribly burned. He agreed to this with some sorrow. Then gave me
recipe for what he calls RISOTTO ALLA BERGAMASCA. When he pronounces a
soft O he protrudes his full carnal lips as if he kissed the vowel. Has
he? And could he repent? Yes, he could: and cry two round rogue's
tears, one from each eye.

Crossing Stephen's, that is, my green, remembered that his countrymen
and not mine had invented what Cranly the other night called our
religion. A quartet of them, soldiers of the ninety-seventh infantry
regiment, sat at the foot of the cross and tossed up dice for the
overcoat of the crucified.

Went to library. Tried to read three reviews. Useless. She is not out
yet. Am I alarmed? About what? That she will never be out again.

Blake wrote:

I wonder if William Bond will die
For assuredly he is very ill.

Alas, poor William!

I was once at a diorama in Rotunda. At the end were pictures of big
nobs. Among them William Ewart Gladstone, just then dead. Orchestra
played O W