Part 1 (1/2)

A Diary Without Dates

by Enid Bagnold

I

OUTSIDE THE GLass DOORS

I like discipline I like to be part of an institution It gives onethree or four observant friends

It is always cool and wonderful after the monotone of the di as far as one can see, to coht and climb the hill, up into the trees and shrubberies here

The as terrible to-night I had to battle up, and the leaves were driven down the hill so fast that once I thought it was a arden next door is all deserted now: they have gone up to London The green asphalt tennis-court is shi+ning with rain, the blue pond broith sli on their sides to keep the wind fro them forcibly there; and all over the house are white draperies and ghost chairs

When I walk in the garden I feel like a ghost left over froht of one face detaching itself fro face than the others, but it is beco conspicuous tohall, the officers and the VAD's are divided, by so at one side of the room, the VAD's in a white row on the other

When owns, mackintoshes, uniforms, I inevitably see in the line one face set on a slant, one pair of eyes forsaking the stage and fixed on me in a steady, inoffensive beam

This irritates rows to look for everything

Afterwards in the dining-roo Mess he will ask politely: ”What did you think of the concert, Sister? Good show”

Hoonderful to be called Sister! Every tilow of an i which links me to the speaker

My Sister remarked: ”If it's only a matter of that, we can provide thrills for you here very easily”

The name of myadmireris, after all, Pettitt The other nurse in the Mess, who is very grand and insists on pronouncing his nain”

He seems to have no relations and no visitors

Out in the corridor Itrays soothes the activity of the body, and the mind works softly

I meditate on love I say to myself that Mr Pettitt is to be envied I am still the wonder of the unknown to him: I exist, walk, talk, every day beneath the beaain yesterday, and his foot won't heal He has time before him

But in a hospital one has never tih to learn that--to feel the insecurity, the impermanency

At any e of convalescent homes