Words abandon us

2:30 a.m. I am at Lee’s now, sitting at the table in his tiny room, preparing to write an essay for Mr. Carwardine on Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, and this time I’m determined to see it through. Lee sleeps, his face expressionless, almost deathly it is so inanimate and unlike his waking, speaking self. All’s quiet save for an occasional car and the noise of late-night revelers returning home.

8:03 a.m. I’ve just now completed and copied up my essay—“Poet as Prometheus: Some Thoughts, with Reference to Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.” It took me four hours to write, two hours to copy up and is five sides in length. It isn’t very good. Words on a page. I could spend a lifetime studying the works of the Romantic writers. “We are on that verge where words abandon us, and what wonder if we grow dizzy to look down the dark abyss of how little we know” (Shelley, “On Life”).

How little I know, how little I will ever know. A lifetime of bookishness wouldn’t suffice to fill in all those blank areas in my mind, and of course such a life would never do. How much time I waste on the unnecessary routines of life. As I toiled I was lucky enough to witness the brightening of the sky, the moon a thin crescent, its darkened portion glowing faintly with the reflected light of the gibbous earth . . . a bright, unfaltering star (Venus?) a few degrees above. Lee slept and will never see those things I saw. I’m as bright and fresh as if I’d just got up. Not tired at all. A new day awaits and I never fail to feel the promise and potential of such.

Evening: When Lee woke up I set out with him to the Art College. I dumped my things there and wandered round town, slipping slowly into a weary despondency. We had a look at the second hand electrical shop near Maynard Park but the only ciné cameras for sale were two three lens types, one of which had two lenses missing. I bought a belt from New Lycroft Army Surplus shop near the train station and Lee pinched a canvas hold-all outside the door for me while I kept the assistants busy. It would’ve cost £6 to buy so I gave Lee my great-coat in exchange (he'd also pinched £6-worth of doll’s furniture for his photographic emulsion experiments from Bennington’s earlier).

After getting the bag I felt very jumpy and nervous so I made my way to the University and met everyone in the library café. A grim evening in the Cellar, watching Aguirre, Wrath of God and having a dismal drink in the Town & Gown.

I came home to bed, leaving everyone else to travel into Watermouth to the pub.