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Francesca dear,
There does not seem the least chance that I shall be able to write a letter any more than I can do anything else but I want to send something by post before it goes. I cannot correct my draft or do anything sensible …
I took Parthenope for a walk this morning in a slight drizzle of rain. Despite the fact that this is nothing but a country slum, the worst kind of slum of all I think, it was very pleasant as it was warm and the birds were singing. But the hedgerows are surprisingly backward. I usually reckon on a green blush in the hedges by Lady Day1 but although it has not been cold there is nothing. It looks almost as if they did not like the rain.
I stop every now and then to think about tomorrow and indeed there is nothing else whatever in my head and I can't just go on writing to you saying, I wonder if you will have a blue bow in your hair, or the yellow one, or the mauve one (if ‘bow’ is the right term) and whether you will have one at all and – this you will think strange – what you really look like. I almost have to try to remember by the photographs you showed me! And I am frightened I shall just be struck dumb like a blithering idiot; even now it makes me catch my breath when I see you in my mind's eye.
I have taken so long over this worthless epistle that I must now seal it up and take it to the post. Be patient with me dear Francesca.