Suddenly this afternoon as I was thinking of you there flashed across my inward eye a beautiful poppy that we stood looking at in the garden of the Hotel at Looe. Do you remember that marvellous black sheen at the base of the petal and the big purplish centre? Then that took me back to our improvised café—just the same table with a bottle on it, and ourselves, out of space and time … for the moment! And from that I began to think of your très blue eyes that I love so andyour neck, and the comb you wore in your hair the last time you dined with us and a pink pinny you had on the first time I saw you in the studio in Paris. These things are not the whole of my Anne, but they are signs and tokens of her and for the want for a thousand others what wouldn't I give at this moment to put my arms round her and give her a small squeeze.

I shall be in Paris, I hope, from May on this year. Will you by any chance be there? I am going on a preliminary visit almost at once to see a specialist there—a Russian— and to have some teeth pulled out and pulled in again. Then I come back here to save pennies for my flight in May. I believe this Russian cures people with my complaint. He sounds wonderful.

It's so long since I have heard of any of the old set. Where are they? New friends are not—never can be— the same, and all mine seem to be people I know as a writer, not as a common garden human being. Whether they care personally for the smell of tangerines or not I haven't the least idea. I can't really care for people who are cut off at the head. I like them to exist as far as their hearts au moins. Don't ever come to Switzerland, Anne. It's all scenery. One gets the same on a Mountain Railway at 6d. a go and get off after the last bumping. But the Swiss!! They are always cutting down trees page 169 and as the tree falls the hausfrau rushes out of the kitchen to see, waving a pig-knife and shouting a joyful voilà! I believe they are full of virtue but virtue is a bad boisson to be full of.