1873: TO V. SACKVILLE-WEST
52 Tavistock Square, W.C.1

Typewritten
[20? March 1928]

Dearest, Mrs Nicolson,

O what a curse these translators are! Tell your Bosom friend Mrs Voigt Something or other that all I 
can say is that I have received a cheque from, and signed a contract with, the Insel Verlag which is I understand 
the Fischer Verlag by which they are to produce Mrs Dalloway this autumn and The Lighthouse later. But all 
communications must be through Curtis Brown.

Our address will be from the 2nd and till the 9th
La Bruyère [error for La Bergère], Cassis, Bouche du Rhone, France.

[in Virginia's handwriting:]
There! Thats business like aint it? The worst of business is it dries the finer faculties, and I now find it 
very hard to continue. Potto has gone out for a walk with Pinker so I cant get him to help.

[typewritten]
ORLANDO IS FINISHED!!!

[in Virginia's handwriting:]
Did you feel a sort of tug, as if your neck was being broken on Saturday last [17 March] at 5 minutes 
to one? That was when he died—or rather stopped talking, with three little dots... Now every word will have to 
be re-written, and I see no chance of finishing it by September—It is all over the place, incoherent, intolerable, 
impossible—And I am sick of it. The question now is, will my feelings for you be changed? I've lived in you all 
these months—coming out, what are you really like? Do you exist? Have I made you up?

But I dont want to write another word for months—not a letter even—Do you ever feel words have gone 
dry and dull in your mind? Your mind like a sponge in the dust? You squeeze it and nothing comes? In October 
my mind was dripping: That is the only life.

Last night at 12 Clive rang me up. He was quarrelsome drunk. Dotty rang me up. She was merry 
drunk—They were in the same room. Also there were Christa, Raymond and an unknown man. Here in my room 
at 12 o'clock were Roger and his mistress: the Arnold Forsters.

But we were sober.

That sort of instant communication of two rooms fascinates me—you put down the telephone, and the 
whole Atlantic; very dark is between you: having been so near you could see into the lights of the billiard room.

I have been reading Hazlitt. For 5 minutes my mind runs on the same rails that the book runs on. I can 
only think in the same curves. Could you tell me where I began to read Hazlitt and where I left off? Are you a 
critic? Now Vita, sit down and think about yourself.

Sibyl says,

"Yes, I just saw Vita for a moment before she left"

She didnt. did she?

Is it because she tells these lies that one is never intimate with her?

I have just listened in—in Nelly's bedroom—to the Prince of Wales speaking about merchant seamen. 
In the middle Leonard came in, with Pinker. Again, this was very odd: the dinner, the cheering, the Prince 
stumbling along like an old stiff cart horse: and Pinker scratching my legs at the same time.

Bottome! Bottome! If she don't come quick I shall miss her.

My French teacher is of your persuasion. She is now irritated with me, for some obscure reason—Still, 
my accent is admirable—(this I shall repeat and repeat, because it is one of my secret shames—like not being 
able to do my hair, or powder—

God Vita what a dull letter! The truth is, I'm talking to Leonard about Sir Thomas Browne; and about 
buying a rug; and am incredibly sick of my own words.

Darling Creature, send me a long lovely letter to Cassis.
I am rather depressed.
Orlando so bad.
Cant write.
Can Love but then Vita's away.
Shant see her for ever so long.
But continue please to think me charming and write to me.

Virginia