Jan. 14th, 1950

I dream a great deal. The dream: I am in a concert hall. A doll-like audience in evening dress. A grand piano. Myself, dressed absurdly in Edwardian satin, and a choker of pearls, like Queen Mary, seated at the piano. I am unable to play a note. The audience waits. The dream is stylized, like a scene in a play or an old illustration. I tell Mrs Marks this dream, and she asks: ‘What is it about?’ I reply: ‘About lack of feeling.’ And she gives her small wise smile which conducts our sessions like a conductor’s baton. Dream: Wartime in Central Africa. A cheap dance hall. Everyone drunk, and dancing close for sex. I wait at the side of the dance floor. A smooth doll-like man approaches me. I recognize Max. (But he has a literary quality from what I wrote in the notebook about Willi.) I walk into his arms, doll-like, freeze, can’t move. Once again the dream has a grotesque quality. It’s like a caricature. Mrs Marks asks: ‘What is that dream about?’ ‘The same thing, lack of feeling. I was frigid with Max.’ ‘So you are frightened about being frigid?’ ‘No, because he was the only man I have been frigid with.’ She nods. Suddenly I start to worry: Shall I be frigid again?

Jan. 19th, 1950

This morning I was in my room under the roof. Through the wall a baby was crying. I was reminded of that hotel room in Africa, where the baby would wake us crying in the morning, then he would be fed and start gurgling and making happy noises while his parents made love. Janet was playing on the floor with her bricks. Last night Michael asked me to drive with him and I said I couldn’t because Molly was going out, so I couldn’t leave Janet. He said, ironically: ‘Well, the cares of motherhood must ever come before lovers.’ Because of the cold irony, I reacted against him. And this morning I felt enclosed by the repetitive quality — the baby crying next door, and my hostility to Michael. (Remembering my hostility towards Max.) Then a feeling of unreality — couldn’t remember where 1 was — here, in London, or there, in Africa, in that other building, where the baby cried through the wall. Janet looked up from the floor and said: ‘Come and play, mummy.’ I couldn’t move. I forced myself up out of the chair after a while and sat on the floor beside the little girl. I looked at her, and thought: That’s my child, my flesh and blood. But I couldn’t feel it. She said again: ‘Play, mummy.’ I moved wooden bricks for a house, but like a machine. Making myself perform every movement. I could see myself sitting on the floor, the picture of a ‘young mother playing with her little girl’. Like a film shot, or a photograph. I told Mrs Marks about this and she said: ‘So?’ I said: ‘It’s the same as the dreams, only suddenly in real life.’ She waited, and I said: ‘It was because I felt hostility towards Michael — and that froze everything.’ ‘You are sleeping with him?’ ‘Yes.’ She waited and I said, smiling: ‘No, I’m not frigid.’ She nodded. A waiting nod.