November 1938 to early 1940, part 3

She asks the boy if he knows that the boy scouts[1]have to do two good turns now instead of one everyday – The boy says always [,] he ready to do good – Lady floored [,] But boy says cubs have to do one [.]  lady recovers & adds “and the scouts two [“] – To save her face

[/P] Germany [,] travel & next war – Man says “ladies will have to fight in next war[.] Russia, etc [,] China [“] – I add and babies will have to be perfection [.] breathing gas masks exercises also that [illegible] that – He speaks of ladies again & Imagine them mucked up in their nothing flesh & shit and the stupid dead finds they wear for hats and the nauseating scent to make the [illegible] more horrible – [illegible] stick all paraphernalia –

[/P] She speaks of SA [South Africa] (I unhappy) She says it’s ideal country, Smuts [Jan Smuts[2]orator – [illegible] Table Mountain [in Cape Town] –

After dinner – Sing song – I sing Deep River – They sing foolish songs out of books – boring – Nobody says anything to me except the French man [.] he says the English are reserved but I feel strange – I go away afterwards feeling miserable [,] not one goodnight – except French man [.] It is too late [,] I look up Chayo 11 oclock [sic: o’clock] – I go to sleep & read Paris Soir – The Normandic has not sailed – the backwash of the strike –

// I get up & go the St Georges [.]  I am sick of it – I serve with the American & during the whole service I feel disgusted & I fear I might run amok and throw the foolish candle away – I meet the American afterwards [,] we go to Les Ambassadeurs & have cocktails – He is a head of Church School [illegible] there in America & speaks of objective approach to Xtianity [sic: Christianity] & I wonder what he is speaking about most of the time – Xtianity [sic: Christianity] a spent force – but he feels it can give one direction and a feeling of security in one’s character and standpoint [.] I don’t believe him but I am polite –

[note in margin:] a sermon on the three judgments others – oneself – God – neat arrangement but unconvincing

I go back to Hotel select [,]for  and find Mme Henri had phoned – I go to Xtian [Christian Poulsen] and Putzer at 4 and we had tea [.] Putzer has been at the Dome [Le Dôme] till 4am – with a Danish drinking party – We talk of Scandinavian and the North Pole [,] Amundsen [Roald Amundsen][3] etc. Pulzer thinks the Russian overpolar flight a magnificent achievement and that Russia is the power of tomorrow – Severe writers of Denmark & Sweden – Icebreakers etc- 

[note in margin:] cycling over the sea

A knock at Pulzers door and a woman and a man’s voices – Xtian [Christian Poulsen] does not care for the man [,] Pulzer goes out but man comes in & settled down (a huge Dane with turned up nose) – afterwards Xtian tells me – man at Copenhagen behaved rudely to his sister – and I see why aversion – I remember a similar case to my sister in South Africa [.] It is [illegible] to have a sister –

[note in margin:] Telephone Mme Henry from Select [,] make appointment for Wednesday 9

[/P] we go out [,] down Bd St Michel [Boulevard St Michel] – many street vendor on the “trottoir” [French: pavement] and Xtian [Christian Poulsen] gets quite excited – He looks & pts [sic: points] at Shop-windows [.] He buys some nuts which I like very much – the Shops are specially dressed for Xmas [sic: Christmas] season – the [illegible] is beautiful [.] He talks of the war which everybody believes will soon be upon us – Xtian says he is ready to commit suicide if forced to fight – He approves of the Normandie strike – He sympathises with the workman – He asks me [if] heard “the [illegible] of 1914” – 

[note in margin:] buy a copy of Candide from book vendors on Seine 4fr [sic: 4 French francs] and the river boat very beautiful with boatman like toys!  

I invite him to eat at my hotel and he looks quite voracious – He embarrass me – He talks too much and points at me too often – He looks about absentmindedly – He wants to know what the people opposite are eating from the waiters & I get uneasy – It is a turkey (dinde [French: turkey]) – we talk about Table manners and I tell him of dinner last night – How stupid I think it all is [.]  He says I shall get used to it and he likes to be a host [illegible] – He wonders if Mme Florence Henry knows I am black for she may be expecting a white man – He also thinks I should take a bouquet of flowers to her my first visit – I am puzzled – I have never been seen in the street with flowers!  I repose to take him seriously – Chago arrives and the waitress shows him in – They attack me for my shyness – Say a few unkind things perhaps it’s the wine – Xtian [sic: Christian] departs and Chago & I ascend to my room – I am unhappy & restless – I tell Chago exaggerated stories of Africa and he is afraid of the sex parts, hows & savage beasts – I say I should return to Africa & chuck away my trousers [.]  He is scared and says I must cover the body etc. He tells me of his experiences with a depraved white woman who sucked at his penis and expected him also to such at her sexual organ – He shudders but he confessed he did at last at last after much searchings of heart – He looks at it philosophically & shrugs his shoulders and says “C’est la vie” [French: that’s life] [.]  

[/P] He tells of two trips to Africa & the discomfort there which he could never stand – “bad beds”. He says & bad food – He stayed on board afterwards & never landed in Africa – I recall a young white student at Fort Hare who spoke of Native food & Natives as if wretchedness was the time living for the blacks – I am sleepy [.] We go downstairs take coffee & part –

School at 9 – I take chocolate on my way – work at something new – A head of a fat man – Paul very interesting [.] I teach him a few Zulu words and he likes it [,]  he thinks my work not bad [.]  In the afternoon I go to Rue de la Seine to see the art exhibition – all seem so cold and not much activity in the Galleries – I go in the Pierre Rooms [probable reference to Galerie Pierre] and see some modern paintings and drawings [,] there is a warmth about them but I do not understand them – based on the child conception of drawing – But I cannot dismiss them from my mind – 

[/P] It is raining hard today – As I walk down Rue St Germain I see for the first time a black workman in the characteristic overall of the Parisian workman – I am excited – It is good [,] the French seem to have counted the cost of colonialism and to make an attempt to be logical – I feel again I have nothing to apologise for in Paris for being black – 

I walk on to Notre Dame [Cathedral] – I think of the church back of Notre Dame [,] a magnificent work and the open square before Notre Dame must have been the market place from which Quasimodo saved the Gipsy Girl [reference to Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1831[WF4] )][4] – I walk in Notre