A Diary Without Dates: Outside the Glass Doors

by Enid Bagnold

A Diary Without Outside the Glass Doors (in First World War Centenary Prose Collection Vol. I )

I

OUTSIDE THE GLASS DOORS


I like discipline. I like to be part of an institution. It gives one
more liberty than is possible among three or four observant friends.


It is always cool and wonderful after the monotone of the dim hospital,
its half-lit corridors stretching as far as one can see, to come out
into the dazzling starlight and climb the hill, up into the trees and
shrubberies here.

The wind was terrible to-night. I had to battle up, and the leaves were
driven down the hill so fast that once I thought it was a motor-bicycle.

Madeleine's garden next door is all deserted they have gone up to
London. The green asphalt tennis-court is shining with rain, the blue
pond brown with slime; the little statues and bowls are lying on their
sides to keep the wind from putting them forcibly there; and all over
the house are white draperies and ghost chairs.

When I walk in the garden I feel like a ghost left over from the summer
too.


I became aware to-night of one face detaching itself from the rest. It
is not a more pleasing face than the others, but it is becoming
conspicuous to me.

Twice a week, when there is a concert in the big hall, the officers and
the V.A.D.'s are divided, by some unspoken rule--the officers sitting at
one side of the room, the V.A.D.'s in a white row on the other.

MP3 CD

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

British writer of novels and plays, best known for National Velvet and The Chalk Garden.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Bag...