November 28
More than once lately have been to see and admire Rodin’s recent gifts to the nation exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Prodigal Son is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony done in stone. It was only on my second visit that I noticed the small pebble in each hand—a superb touch!—what a frenzy of remorse!
The Fallen Angel I loved most. The legs of the woman droop lifelessly backwards in an intoxicating curve. The eye caresses it—down the thighs and over the calves to the tips of the toes—like the hind limbs of some beautiful dead gazelle. He has brought off exactly the same effect in the woman in the group called Eternal Spring, which I have only seen in a photograph.
This morning at 9 a.m. lay in bed on my back, warm and comfortable, and, for the first time for many weeks, with no pain or discomfort of any kind. The mattress curved up around my body and legs and held me in a soft warm embrace. … I shut my eyes and whistled the saccharine melody for solo violin in Chopin’s Funeral March. I wanted the moment prolonged for hours. Ill-health chases the soul out of a man. He becomes a body, purely physical.