candlemass day (the soul bell)

'soon after 9 o'clock the soul bell toiled suddenly. I felt it must be poor mrs. jones of pencommon... I sent hannah out and she brought confirmation of my suspicions.' 

- kilvert, diaries, candlemass day (2nd february) 1872.

'may there be peace and love and perfection throughout all creation, oh god...' (repeated three times) 

- john coltrane and pharoah sanders probably recorded this day 1966.

for kilvert the weather is unseasonably good.

'the morning was superb, warm and brilliant like a may morning, and the hundreds of yellow stars of the cape jessamine between the drawing room and dining room windows were full of bees.' 

today is typically groundhog day with all sorts of bears, badgers and groundhogs taken as prognosticators of the remaining length of winter.  

horsemouth has taken up reading marguerite duras's practicalities again.

'this book helped us pass the time. from the beginning of autumn to the end of winter...' 

it's a book of the year. a book of half the year. memories from the summer and from long ago intrude, but it's a book of winter tales. some passages are read raw and no longer hold his interest. others horsemouth discovers again afresh. 

three houses (back and fore). 

the smell of chemicals/ the ladies of the black rocks (trouville). 'where I live now.'

alcohol/ house and home (neauphle)

the round stones/ the people of the night/ the vasty deep (paris)

horsemouth finds duras' novels/ her plays/ her filmwork less interesting than her writing and journaling. the novels that pretend to be autobiographical he likes more (the lover). the wartime writings more interesting still (but he doesn't know what has happened to his copy). summer 1980 (the journal) he thinks he would find interesting but only a few entries from it are translated (and these he does not have).