I have been through torture this week--The new man wrenches my shoulder
each day, it will become straight eventually, he says. They have tried
to fit the false leg also, so those two things are going on, but the
socket is not yet well enough for anything to be done to my left eye--so
that has defeated them. It will be months before any real improvement
takes place.
There are hundreds of others who are more maimed than I--in greater
pain--more disgusting--does it give them any comfort to tell the truth
to a journal?--or are they strong enough to keep it all locked up in
their hearts?--I used to care to read, all books bore me now--I cannot
take interest in any single thing, and above all, I loathe myself--My
soul is angry.
Nina came again, to luncheon this time. It was pouring with rain, an
odious day. She told me of her love affairs--as a sister might--Nina a
sister!
She can't make up her mind whether to take Jim Bruce or Rochester
Moreland, they are both Brigadiers now, Jim is a year younger than she
is.
"Rochester is really more my mate, Nicholas," she said, "but then there
are moments when I am with him when I am not sure if he would not bore
me eventually, and he has too much character for me to suppress--Jim
fascinates me, but I only hold him because he is not sure of me--If I
marry him he will be, and then I shall have to watch my looks, and
remember to play the game all the time, and it won't be restful--above
all, I want rest and security."
"You are not really in love with either, Nina?"
"Love?" and she smoothed out the fringe on her silk jersey with her
war-hardened hand--the hand I once loved to kiss--every blue vein on
it!--"I often, wonder what really is love, Nicholas--I thought I loved
you before the war--but, of course, I could not have--because I don't
feel anything now--and if I had really loved you, I suppose it would not
have made any difference."
Then she realized what she had said and got up and came closer to me.
"That was cruel of me, I did not mean to be--I love you awfully as a
sister--always."
"Sister Nina!--well, let us get back to love--perhaps the war has killed
it--or it has developed everything, perhaps it now permits a sensitive,
delicious woman like you to love two men."
"You see, we have become so complicated"--she puffed smoke rings at
me--"One man does not seem to fulfill the needs of every mood--Rochester
would not understand some things that Jim would, and vice versa--I do
not feel any glamour about either, but it is rest and certainty, as I
told you, Nicholas, I am so tired of working and going home to Queen
Street alone."