21.1.1958.

I wrote to you yesterday, so I shouldn’t be writing today. But I want to let forth. Can’t I, after such patient, servitude to fate – can’t I just let forth? If I want to write, I’m going to write. A letter? I don’t know. Yes, sort of, but also – not. I’m living into emptiness, not as a human. So perhaps – I could at least write to a human. It’s like I’m in a desert, no, I haven’t been in a desert… but such an empty, distant, barren place, where, if you call out, the whole place echoes. Maybe somewhere in the distance there is some cliff which is throwing back the words. But an echo is never just of one’s own words. It always has a strange, unheard overtone mixed in. And so I write and listen for the echo… Perhaps after all, somewhere there’s another human being with his voice, not just a cliff with an echo? One would think so, but this is a desert and I can’t tell whether there is somewhere a human or not – and all my writing is like listening to an echo.

We’ve got rainy days, and everything is turning so green. I’m often reminded of the river Aiviekste, the way it flowed after rain over the green grass…
And I don’t know why, today I’m visualising some church on the banks of the Daugava. Perhaps it was the church at Ikšķile. We used to go towards Riga along the highway that went towards a distant, sloping hill with a church. Below was the Daugava river. Rain clouds were gathering. It wasn’t anything special. But against the clouds, the church on the riverbank looked very lovely. Filled one with joy. I had the feeling that I ought to go back, to really recapture once more what was in that scene . But you can’t recapture it, can’t grasp it again. I knew that. Only before, and after that church, we stopped on the road to look. The scene had such simplicity, and yet it was sublime, such that you could feel the centuries that had unfolded over that place.
Today, I don’t know why, I’m seeing that scene with that church again. And right now, as I’m seeing it, it is centuries far from me…

I know I must go to Gosford or Sydney to look for work, somehow, something must be done. But I feel so heavy, lethargic. 
The rain is warm, and the grass grows very green. It’s more noticeable because we hadn’t had good rain for half a year.
Yours, E. Dz.

E. Ķikure
Journal Entry

Well, now that the day is over, all the good work has been done. Conquered. Vanquished. Laid to rest. Cleaned up. The correct text written. All mistakes corrected… The heart yearns for some acknowledgment for it all. Like a little dog. A little dog, humbly waiting. But no, there is nothing forthcoming. The brief moment when, as though graced by some heavenly light, by music, you would know that you had done everything right – has slipped away, gone, was it there? was it not? – evaporated, and you are sitting alone in the dark. The cold settles around you. You wait in vain. You are alone with all your done good deeds. And so that you do not entirely disappear, are not destroyed by this darkness and cold, so that you are not reduced to a shadow in the basement, childishly, you start to soothe yourself, telling yourself that you will rise up and rebel! But have you not learned that even rebellion deserts you at such moments? You have cheated rebellion – the devil, chaos has been subdued, and where once this chaos promised doors opening onto new, bright worlds, – there is placidity. The gates have shut. The gates of hell. Live on in your heaven, which did not let you in, which you did not reach – which was not there. Keep on waiting. Little dog. You will be given new good works to do. Why are you still whining and whimpering at your undone rebellion?…

11.2.1958.

Now I want to write. It’s a cold, windy morning, clear and bright. For ages it was quite tropical, muggy and warm. Now the change has come overnight and this sharp freshness does one good. Both the girls have announced their pleasure about this morning. Inese said: “This morning reminds me of something, but I don’t know what”. Dzidra just praised and looked approvingly at the tree tops, silhouetted so sharply against the blue sky.

This morning also reminds me of something, and I know what it is. Life. And I want to live. Perhaps you don’t know and can’t understand what it’s like, to have someone disturb your ability to live, as you haven’t experienced that. It seems impossible to you – because, why? Why must one lose one’s very being in someone else’s presence? Why? And if you don’t know, I can’t explain it to you. And at the moment, I don’t want to talk about it. Somewhere I have to find a way to forget myself.
Today I should have had a letter from you. To hear something, see something of the rest of the world. 

I read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. He writes quite movingly, vividly. I got to re-experience my refugee days. And I was in the cotton fields, where I’ve never been. He has a masterly knowledge of the every-man and a wonderful warmth towards their lives in all the minutiae. The recounting of the cotton picking I thought was supreme. The same in other parts. I liked this novel better than “East of Eden”. I can say that I like this author, and enjoy  reading lots of parts of his work enormously.

The Tilta publishers are tormenting me by sending me books – but I can’t buy them. I have to choose so carefully the ones I allow myself, because I don’t have the means. But Tilts sends me “The Way of the Cat” (which I read twenty years ago, read it about twenty times, when I stood on the shelf there and one picked it up if there was no other – rereading old ones…) and –  Pelēcis’  “Horizon”…

Evening.
No letter from you, even though I was hoping for one. My sister writes from Latvia about all the neighbours and acquaintances. Quite a few of the old folk are still alive. Particularly the women have survived. But I think it’s pretty grim there.

13.2.1958

No letter from you again today. Has something happened? Something bad? I’m reading Pelēcis’ book. I’ll have to keep it. I’m trying to get into it and enjoy it. I like parts of it. Only it’s strange – after Steinbeck’s wonderfully plain and simple language, I’m having to read Pelēcis’ sentences several times over, to try to understand what’s there. Besides, my command of English is only half good, whereas Pelēcis is writing in my mother tongue, which I haven’t entirely forgotten. It must be, like you said, that we are breaking our necks to be very clever.
But ok, I’ll have to keep the book. Pelēcis is from the Pededze’s region. That’s just a bit further, along the Aiviekste. He has lived in those same fields and forests. I’ll have to listen to what he says.

For the title of your book of poetry you were choosing between “Unleashing” and “Liberating”. I can’t say whether they are suitable or not. What’s behind their meaning isn’t revealed, one will find out when one reads the poems.

You can’t draw any more? I’ve sometimes lately started to long to draw. I know it’s pointless. I can’t. I’d have to get away to be able to. And I can’t get away. This morning it was beautiful, and I was in a very happy mood (I had dreamt I was at home). But the day gradually presses down, gradually drains one of strength and joy.

21.2.1958.

Today it’s your birthday. It’s still morning. I have lots of small jobs to do. But I’m thinking of you. You’re probably remembering times – “times, how the blue waters splashed over one’s head – “
And for my part, I’m remembering along with you. I don’t know why the mornings bring such joy. Everything is green and fruiting. I’m sort of a bit stronger physically than I was, and I want to believe in something more pleasant. I go along the road with the cow in the mornings, and am happy. You are among people all the time, but you say there is no-one you enjoy. The more we have around us, the less we see it or appreciate it. The more trapped we are, the more we find to value. If that is at all possible. If our own fancies and longings for closeness are so great, that we can see what we want and not see what we don’t want.

When you are among friends, do you drink vermouth? 
When alone, do you note the days, and ways?
I don’t know. I would like to be there in the crowd and drink vermouth – say cheers! – prozīt – greetings! But nothing good would come of it. Among others, I’d just be one of them. Here (not that I think I’m that much better but…) if you’ve been saying nice things to me now and again, then that which has been given and taken amounts to a bit more than what others get. Thus, somewhat more has been gained.
Just as well that I’m here and not there among others.

Gradually I’m reading Somerset Maugham’s short stories. He opens my eyes to what I haven’t dared to say, and if I did say it one day, I’d forget it the next – that people are fallible. That doesn’t actually say anything, because it’s not clear as to what the failing is. That is a small fault. Yes, that is a small fault. But these failings are eternal. With them, we live and die. And a small, small failing in one can destroy all and all for another, because that other doesn’t even realise the first one has this failing. For example, one person mightn’t be empathetic, doesn’t have courage, isn’t heroic and so on. Maugham is a surgeon – he slices open souls.

2.3.1958.

Yesterday I got your letter with the poems. My favourite was “Oh Leokonoe! Who can ever know…”
Together with this letter, which I’m just starting to write, I will send you a long one, in pencil, that I wrote last Sunday. There I was teasing out some idea that I wanted to write more about, and so didn’t send the letter. But now I’ll send it anyway, even though I’ll have to write more fully about it another time.

Your letter is long, and that’s lovely. Don’t be hesitant about receiving gifts. The giver will get the pleasure of giving. I no longer really want anyone to fuss about my birthdays. Thinking that might be true for you too, I didn’t take much notice of your big day. Still we got to talk things over a little.

I trust that the “drinking” in the evening turned out well, and if I got a mention as you drifted into dreamland, then that can only be good. And thank you for that “in dreams” gift of a house. It would be lovely to receive it, and live, if the girls were there too. Lately I’ve been thinking about a house, or at least some room, but I can’t imagine much good without the girls. If you thought of giving it to me, and not to some woman who is there where you are, then it couldn’t be right that you really wanted to give it to me. It’s just an illusion. Sometimes, and quite often, I don’t end up writing letters when, and the way, I really would like to, even though it would be the truth and easy to do. But then I think: what if somehow one day we should actually meet! Then it would be a disappointment. I can’t be like those beauties around you. If you still want to give me a house, then you have attributed to me all kinds of qualities that I don’t have. Otherwise it couldn’t be. In the same vein I’ve been thinking – is it not so, that our physical bodies are in a way an impediment for one person to be able to find another where they can understand each other? Not every time, and actually quite rarely, do bodies mirror the soul, and the bodily form quite often repulses, where the souls might well have met. So then – maybe the me that you see would have little similarity to the me that writes to you.
That’s why I ofter restrain myself so as not to build up the illusion even more. But thank you – for the dream home. 

I have 4 of Steinbeck’s books:
“Of Mice and Men”
“The Moon is Down”
“East of Eden”
“The Grapes of Wrath”
I’d be interested in more of his works – The Short Novels, with several shorter works, and then perhaps “Sweet Thursday”, “Burning Bright” or one or other of his books. But 4 books are enough to get an idea about an author. If I want more, then it’s just for enjoyment. I’ve just finished Maugham’s short stories – very interesting, but I’m quite happy to soon forget them. They are exciting and thrilling, and full of awful things. But to read, yes, I would like to read more of his work too, because people and authors are so different.

My dark days alternate with ones full of hope. I don’t know what I’m hoping here for! But I guess I couldn’t live otherwise. And, “live, we must, little sister, even if the bogeyman kills us!”
Oh how I long to go a bit crazy, laugh! I do it sometimes with my girls, but it isn’t enough. And how I would like to be lord (one could say lady) over my own time. Of course then something else would be missing and the whining about something or other unachievable wouldn’t cease, but – but I’d kiss the ground on that day, when I’d be free of what constrains me now.

When you said that one person could be taken from another, as though he were a thing, I would have to ferociously disagree with you. How can one person belong to another, as though he were a thing? A human is something that is eternally changing, growing, elusive. We have to be eternally unsure and attentive about (a human) whom we call our own. Never can we be completely sure that they belong to us, unchangingly, because as soon as we do that, we have already done them a disservice. Even though we should do everything to keep them.  To grow with them, to develop like they are, if we love them, to help them develop as we love them, and so on and so on. And only at the very end, if there’s no other way, then we can say – let them go! 

If women have made themselves beautiful, then as often as not, they a looking for someone who will take them, but they make every effort to stop those, to whom they belong, from “taking” another in their place. Though perhaps it’s true, that a made-up Latvian woman looks more like she has that intent than a made-up Australian woman. That’s probably because an Australian woman starts, from the age of 12, on her path to making herself beautiful, and she also has the sense that is all that there is, that that’s her purpose and duty. She fulfils it with a sort of naive conviction. With a Latvian woman, it’s a bit different. She is much more, or you could say – feels more equal to a man (if only in the sense that in her country her jobs were never paid less than the man’s in the same field) and if she makes herself extra beautiful, then she has some ulterior motive…
Well, that’s that.

I think that you can put my piece about blackberries in the paper, if that would be a good idea. The blackberry piece is stronger, whereas the piece about the horse is more dissatisfied with the rules of life.
It is evening again. Dzidra and I picked beans. A thunder storm was coming, and before that it was very hot. But it only gave us a few drops. Now I’m tired. Every evening is like that. It’s like being slightly drunk – you can’t do anything much, but nor do you want to go to bed, because you wish you could do something…

Lovely that you went for a walk with Mrs. Misiņš. In Germany, I studied English with Mr. Misiņš. He used to conduct “Conversation evenings”. They were very interesting. He was an interesting man, quite a deep thinker. Some of the women liked him. Me too. He was unofficially separated from his wife. He had two daughters – Inta and Sēlija. Perhaps that blond girl is Sēlija. My American friend was particularly attracted to Mr. Misiņš – I will write and tell her that he’s no longer available. She’ll probably be happy to hear that…
Yours, E. Dz.

4. March, 1958.

The sky is overcast today. An overcast day. I’m mending khaki coloured trousers with oil blotches on them, and stiff seams, and I’m thinking about a book. I wish I had it again, I already had it once: Till’s “The Owl’s Mirror”, with Mazerell’s woodcuts. A beautiful book. Since I’ve been to Belgium, that book was even more precious to me. I wish I knew if someone in the diaspora has it with them. I can’t remember who had translated it from the Flemish, but I think it was a Zelta Abele publication. Maybe not. Lately I’ve been dreaming a lot about how it would be if I had my room again, back home, and on the wall would be endless books. If you happen to go digging about in some bigger bookshop, or antique shop, have a look for books from Belgium. Perhaps you’ll find it. Have a look how beautiful it is. You’d enjoy reading it. I can’t remember the author’s name at the moment. I was also in love with Mazerell – I could look at his woodcuts for hours. I had two of his books. 

It’s an overcast day.
There were a lot of overcast days in Belgium. The ground full of green, soft spring colours, and low clouds. One morning we (Mrs. Zariņš, her friend and I) drove in a car from Antwerp (through the tunnel under the river) and drove all day from one Flanders village to another. (Mrs. Zariņš was so beautiful, that if each man we passed on the street didn’t turn around to look at her, she would be asking me whether some bit of her outfit didn’t suit her…) In Ghent there was a flower show. It was a sea of people and flowers, and music everywhere. But some of the villages were quiet, such that when you drove into the city square, it was so dead, that it felt like there had just been a war and everyone had been killed, or they’d all been taken by the plague and only the grass was left to grow along the stone posts with iron chains hanging off them around the town square, and some statue in the middle…
On a different day, a bit later in the spring, when it was sunnier, we drove through Waterloo and from a high hill (man made) we looked down on the place where Napoleon led his troops into the mire…

Years later on the way to Australia, when the ship left Napoli, and I watched the rosy town, glistening like a pearl ring, sink into the dark sea, I was left to wonder – is that goodbye to Europe, is that all of civilisation’s value that is disappearing there? Is that goodbye to my youth? Everything that I’d longed for and had just a taste of and hadn’t quite achieved? Is that goodbye forever?…
Now, when I remember the days before that moment, again I wonder – was that goodbye forever?

Do look for “The Owl’s Mirror”.
Only I don’t know what it’s called in English, or French. But it’s a Flander’s edition, like Estonian Kalevipoeks, or Finnish Kalevala, perhaps you could ask and find out. (Only don’t ask the neat little mademoiselle).

I just got your letter with the cuttings from some Latvian paper. How did you get it? Can printed matter be sent now? Correspondence with my sister isn’t happening. I don’t know why, but letters are neither coming nor going.
This time your letter arrived unexpectedly – I didn’t know Inese had stayed back in Wyong, and I didn’t know your letter had arrived, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Forgive me for writing scraps of paper, everything else has been written on and I haven’t got any other with me. Tomorrow Inese will bring some. Your letter is good. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear – what you are up to, where you’re going. That you sat in the library with Gide, while you dried out after getting thoroughly soaked lets me imagine being there and seeing it all and knowing how you are. I wrote you about Steinbeck. I was thinking, if it isn’t too much trouble to fuss with packing, perhaps you could send me some of your books to read, some that are not such fancy editions, but then again I thought – it would be a lot of bother with getting them sent. Every now and again I do manage in one way or another to get a book to read. From the school library, Inese brings books that she has to read, and when I can, I look into those. And when I can’t resist, while I still have some of the prize money, – I buy some. If you send me something from Steinbeck, I suppose I won’t have to stress about repaying you? My neighbour, a blue-blood Aussie, once made fun of me: said that was I like a Chinaman, who, as soon I was given something immediately has to give something in return. Well, I won’t be a Chinaman. 
E. Dz.

13.3.1958.

Thank you for the two little books. I got them the day before yesterday. I’ve already read both of them, and am now re-reading them. I have such a hunger for reading, I’m positively devouring everything. But this Woolf should be read leisurely, on such June days as she describes (Between the Acts) and such as I once had. She is an impressionist, or something like it. Lovely to read. It would be good to read more of her. Even though the times we are living in now are more impatient, and I feel almost like shortening some of the pages.
It was lovely to get these books, almost like they were handed to me in a real meeting, swapping reading matter and ideas.
Her face, from the front – “like a dog”. But quite pleasant.
In profile, even attractive. I feel like I know her. Seen in those days when I possessed those June days she writes about.

We had rainy days here. I was in a bad mood. It’s clearing today. Perhaps the mood will also lift. 
Last Saturday Inese was in Sydney again for a sports competition. She’s already one of the 3 best adult discus throwers in N.S.W. who will take part in the Australia wide competition on the 22nd March. They are filling the papers about Inese here, even though there’s not much happening yet. But let her battle on, the only thing in life that gives one intoxicating strength is – battle. After the competition we went to Inese’s teacher’s place for dinner. It was lovely after such a long time to dress up to “go out”. But it was very late, and we didn’t have much time for socialising. There’s a good piano there, and lots of space.

This Saturday, A. Zariņš has invited me to Sydney to a literary gathering. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to get there, though I’d like to hear what they talk about.
Perhaps there is a letter from you, but I don’t know when Inese will have time to get the mail there. I have to wait. Last night I had a beautiful dream. I’ve spent the day under its influence. A dream has a bigger effect than a whole day of real life. What a life! 
Yours, E. Dz.

16.3.1958.

Again it’s Sunday evening, and again I’m writing to you in pencil. There’s no excuse. But – even art works are done in pencil…
I was in Sydney, but I didn’t get to the literary ones. I went with Inese to her sports event. Her teacher and trainer took us both in his car. I had never been to Sydney by car, only by train. It’s a beautiful and idiotic road, full of bends, bends and more bends, over hills and cliffs, over high ground, and bridges. I also went over the Sydney (Harbour) bridge for the first time. The return trip was particularly beautiful. It was a calm evening with a colourful sunset: with huge clouds looking like wings, and the setting sun. 

That moment reminded of another evening with similar, only smaller, wing-like clouds in the sky and a strange world around me. That time I was sitting in the train, leaving Paris to go home. It was somewhere in Germany, maybe on the banks of the Elbe. The wing in the sky faded with such a feeling of loneliness, and beauty. It was the same this time… Infinite loneliness, and unbelievable, glimmering, fading beauty.

Inese was sitting behind me. She was happy and full of hope. With what she’d achieved still so fresh, she probably couldn’t feel lonely.
She took part in the N.S.W. sports trials where they were choosing competitors for next Sunday’s Australia wide competition. Further than that she doesn’t have a chance yet, as she hasn’t trained much, is very young, but her teacher was encouraging her to set her sights further afield …(Rome). Let the girl strive, she’ll get to see the world. With next week, this year’s sporting activity will be over and she will be able to read her books again.

It was lovely at the sports field. Young, beautiful bodies (only juniors) full of movement, graceful and strong. For the first time I saw how a running, human body is more like drawings of aboriginal hunters than ordinary people. 
Yes, I should paint it – become famous. But I can’t. 

In the evening, at night, when we were coming home, the towns were lit up like strings of pearls in the dark. And we weren’t driving, weren’t walking, we were flying, swinging one way and the other in the dark, throwing up our beam of light, into the oncoming lights, looking at us with their beams of light, and then whizzing past. 

Don’t say the good old times! That was just – our good old youth, which we don’t have any more. There aren’t any good old times. New times, which come are never poorer than the old. And Inese was sitting and dreaming how one day she would have an aeroplane of her own and would fly over cities.

When I was leaving in the morning, I got your letter. There were beautiful lines of poetry. Somewhere, I once read Hofmanstal’s poetry before. I’m just wondering – where? I haven’t read anything in German for such a long time. And poetry – though I did read Hein twenty years ago. I even knew it by heart.
Warum ich eigentlich erschuf die Welt?
(Das möcht ich)?
Ich will es gern erkennen
Ich fühlte in der Seele brennen
Wie Flammenwahnsinn den Beruf.
Krankheit ist wohl der letzte Grund
Des ganzen Schöpfensgangs gewesen,
Erschaffend konnte ich genesen,
Erschaffend wurde ich gesund.
Thank you for you letter, it made me happy. Yours, E. Dz.

23.3.1958.

I haven’t received the mail from Wyong this week – no letter from you. I don’t know what’s new there, or how you’re going. In your last letter you said that you wanted to leave everyone and go home and go to sleep. Perhaps this week will have put you in a better mood.

I think I wrote you in my last letter about my suddenly getting sick. It was bad for several days. I thought it was the heart. I raced off to the doctor, because it was very strange. But it turned out that it wasn’t so bad, they were apparently sudden muscle cramps. I was tired that day from the previous days burdens. The doctor said the heart was still good. Now, I’m living more confidently. Only I’m not living for myself. You tell me to write. There’s no time. And I can’t see it ever being better. The hens are starting to lay more and more and I have to clean more eggs. Yesterday Dad and Inese were in Sydney for the sports event, and in the evening I was waiting for them to come home with guests – Inese’s trainer, the high school teacher, for dinner. So yesterday I was cooking and baking and ironing my big hope-chest table cloth, bought in Piebalga… I didn’t get eggs cleaned, and today I’m sitting all day in mountains of eggs, can’t even see the light of day. If it’s not beans, it’s eggs – it’s always something…

On Wednesday we got naturalised. Awful. But, it had to be done. 
In Sydney, Inese didn’t get any better results. She had been hoping to throw a bit further, but didn’t manage it. Well, soon the competitions will be over and she’ll get some peace, just winter and study.
Yesterday I enjoyed scrubbing the pots and pans, tying the meat rolls, whipping cream. But the day was gone. But – it can’t be otherwise.

I don’t know, when will I be allowed to have a holiday? By now I’ve stopped waiting for such things. I don’t know whether I should leave off playing piano. Nearly every night I play for about an hour. But it’s hard to give it up. It clears away the day’s chaos. A bit of a cost to myself, but perhaps still I ought to refrain, because then I could devote that hour to writing. But without playing, how could I suddenly start writing when the mind was still full of chaos. I could clear the head also with writing, but then I’d have to drop the playing… I think I must be very sleepy.
E. Dz.
P.S. Perhaps after all I’ll do something more for the good of my writing – I’m still alive. And the greatest disturbances for writing are neither beans, nor eggs, but that I loathe -.

Palm Sunday, 30.3.1958.

Yesterday I got your card and letter. I’m really sorry that I expressed myself so melodramatically in the last statements that I wrote. I was a bit hesitant to do it. But still – I had once before wanted to do it, but couldn’t force myself. Then, on that morning, when something was so wrong with me health wise, I could write it. Only it was meant only if I don’t write to you for a longer time – if I don’t write for a month or more. That is – if I’m away from this sunshine, then please say something to Inese, and if there’s still something to organise with my work, maybe even a book, or exhibition, then organise it with her, not my husband. For the children, in my absence, are going to be in a dire situation. My husband’s nerves are completely out of control. He can be awful without even realising it. I’ve often wanted to enlist someone who would be able to look after the children if something were to happen to me, but I don’t know who or how to do it. And so I wrote to you that morning, and you’ve taken it to heart too much. It wasn’t meant to elicit some sort of help, but to give moral support to Inese and Dzidra, in their dealings with him. 
We won’t talk about it any more. You will have received my next letter and know that for the time being, there is no immediate threat.

On Wednesday 26.3 we got naturalised. A disgraceful act. But if possible, we’ll turn it all back again one day. It’s quite meaningless, just writing on a piece of paper.

You’re translating poetry, and will have a book published. Lācis will also get his prize-winning work published. And me? I want a book too! I’ve begun three short stories. But none of them is progressing. The fourth is an idea that could be included in the Journal, if ever such a thing could get published. It’s hard to make headway, but for once, and without too much more delay, these things have to get finished, and I too have to organise them into one sort of book or another, and then a publisher might turn up. If I don’t do it, then it’s all been pointless. Everything will slide back into nothingness. Right now would be just the moment to get a spurt on. I just don’t know where to get the strength.

Good that Inese has found in her sport’s master’s family real sincerity and care. Maybe she will be able to go ahead with more confidence now. That family even understands our personal troubles. I could really feel it last week, and now I’m more calm about everything, should I not have strength to fight on any more – the children perhaps could turn there for some support. But I haven’t got anything the matter with me now, except for spiritual exhaustion in the face of the demons faced in daily battle.
But that could quickly change, if only the circumstances were different.

Thank you for Maserel. It was lovely to see his pictures. They remind me of my young days and give me a bit of a boost. The Owl’s Mirror was by De Coster, I remember now that you mention the name.

I don’t know why I feel so scattered, I can’t even delight in the beautiful mornings, it’s as though they don’t even exist. But it will get better. Easter is coming. The children will be at home for 5 days. They are happy. Some sports club in Wyong donated a whole sports outfit to Inese – pants, blouse, tunic and jacket with the Waratah embroidered on it. At the school there was a big ceremony with speeches and much excitement, because it has rarely happened at the school that one of the students has gotten into the State team. Maybe it’s not worth much, but it means a lot to Inese, for she doesn’t get much pleasure, gets no Sundays, except what she creates for herself. And she has achieved that through sport. Of course her behaviour and results in her studies count there too, but you have to grab it where you can. And life – living? To live – is to struggle. 

Someone said that to me once in College, and he was probably right. Inese won’t devote herself entirely to sport alone, as she loves books too much to do that. But her body is hungry for something. Her ballet classes had to be abandoned, as she couldn’t learn anything here, and she only gets to dance at school evenings a couple of times a year. Let her throw the discus! You have to do some sort of movement.
“…On stage circled the inquisitor and the executioner,” you wrote in your letter, which sounds entertaining.
In case by chance I don’t manage to send you some snippet of writing before the holiday, then I’m sending you greetings and good thoughts for Easter now.
Yours, E. Dzelme.

4. April, 1958.

It’s Good Friday morning. The children are asleep. The chooks are squawking away somewhere, and there, there’s also the boss. Here at home, the sun shines through the window, the sky is clear, with white clouds. Infinite peace and serenity. A bit of morning freshness. The pines pierce the sky, the clouds have a golden whiteness.

I have to begin my usual day. With a million bits and pieces. But the children are home, and I’ll be able to creep away to myself every now and again. Occasionally give myself over to my big failing – laziness. Stick my nose in a book, or a bit of paper, or simply – like the pines – into the whiteness of the sky. Before I start milking the cow, cleaning the eggs, and so on, I can think. I don’t have to get the fire going at break-neck speed, or prepare their lunches for school. They are asleep. Inese is tired. In these 5 free days, she’ll just be studying. Dzidra is tired too. After school every day she helps cut the grass and chop it up with the machine, and distribute it. Feed for 800 chooks is like feed for 10 cows. And then Dzidra still has to work picking beans. There’s plans to plant a whole new large area. This bean patch will eat up Easter. It has to be planted. 

There’s nothing can be done. Still we will make time for a big of festivity – we will paint eggs, perhaps go up the hill or go to the beach. Next to us there is a big hill, with a road going up for miles. It’s all forest, with deep valleys around, where there are remains of aboriginal carvings in the rocks, and paddocks where cows graze, and far off on the horizon, through the trees, you can sometimes see the sea and the township where at other times we go swimming.

The morning is still just as quiet as when I started writing. The greenery is sprouting so lushly after the rain.
Last week was very bleak. Horrible. Now I feel somewhat revived. Some sort of hope fills the morning. The children sleep on – I go to milk the cow. Just now I wasn’t just writing a letter to you, I was talking to you, so – cheers, see you again, we’ll meet another time.

Lunch time. 
“While the coffee boils” I’ll be lazy. A bit of Sunday in this big Sunday. Dzidra brought home from the school library a book by some Kate Seredy about Hungary. I don’t think I’ve read anything about Hungary, nor by Hungarian authors. This is a children’s book, with the author’s own illustrations. It’s nice to see and read about a different country. How beautiful nations are in their unique traditions and cultures. And what a crazy idea to try to unify them all into some whole.

You sent me a Steinbeck. Many thanks! I was happy to receive it. A shame you didn’t send it to the Berkeley Vale address, as I don’t know if I’ll get it now before the holidays. But perhaps after all it’s better like that, for the holiday will have its own delights, and the book will be there after the break.

I’m happy that I’ll get to be with Steinbeck again. It doesn’t mean that some other authors wouldn’t be even more worth reading, but now I’m already familiar with him, and then it’s lovely to open him again, hear him, meet him, like a friend. I’d like to get to know lots of others like that. I used to do that in the past, when there was time to devote oneself to one author, then another, and I didn’t have to rely on the accidental encounter, like there is now. 

Mrs A. sends me sheet music from America. I just again received Chopin pieces I hadn’t played before. Among them there’s one that I came across In Riga concerts a couple of times and fell in love with it. The music comes with an essay, an analysis. They say this piece is very gloomy, nearly full of anger, sneering. That suits me. It’s a little bit too hard for me. But there’s no rush. Chopin himself said, speed in not important, but rather clarity in playing. Speed will come with lots of playing.

7.4.1958.

Second Easter festivities, one might say, but I guess those don’t exist – it is now Easter Monday. Well, so be it. And one can’t expect much more from this day.
I’d like to send you a letter sooner, but the usual order of things in postal matters isn’t here just now.

Saturday we went to the sea. Inese wasn’t feeling well, had a cold, but it will be over now. Every holidays the children have problems. Well, at least during the work days, they’re healthy as horses.
We haven’t had visitors, nor have we visited anyone. The only bits of festivity were the painted eggs. But it’s good, while the children are home. A joke or two, a few signs of life.

Now there’s what you did for Easter? You went from party to party even during work days, and now during the festivities doubly so. I can’t say I particularly envy you. If you’d gone walking somewhere among skylarks or anemones – then perhaps. Anyway, otherwise you’re just like me. On Saturday morning I baked pīrāgi [bacon rolls] and breads. In the afternoon, the sea. Didn’t clean eggs, but then on Easter Monday, I sat among the mountains of eggs. It’s completely crazy at the moment with them, as soon as I leave out doing them, next moment I’m swamped. Then that’s where I sit. I’m able to do a bit of thinking, but I can’t work it out properly… Waiting for death, or new love – as Skiable used to say, and as I often say. I need some sort of strength that would make me forget, would be even stronger, than the force that now carves up my day.

Of course, of course, everyone is locked up in some way, everyone is a slave and no-one has it all good. Only you can’t judge how bad it is for someone from what they themselves say. In the end, nobody really knows.

It’s morning, but there’s no more holidaying here. You have to laugh, and you can laugh: a chook somewhere is squawking out its last squawk, I have to go and clean it. Easter Monday, there’s no more festivity.  
But the children sleep on sweetly. And I’m making some more pīrāgi. It’s good, after all it’s good. I’m waiting for your letter, and Steinbeck. 
Yours, E. Dz.
At last it’s Monday – a real one after the holidays. My darling guests – the children – are off, back to school. The short, brief, visiting days are over. It’s strange to feel it, even though they will return every day. I will wait for other holidays. Perhaps there will be some more.

22.4.1958.

It’s not hard to keep chooks. Over a year ago 500 day-old chicks were delivered from Sydney. After six months, there were about 400 chooks.  About 8 months ago, that was repeated. Some have “fallen away”, with both the old ones and the new ones there are about 700 – 800 left. But I don’t own a single hen nor a single egg to sell (I can eat them). And I wouldn’t be able to save £300 here if I lived to be a hundred.
So of course I’d like a – best seller. But that I won’t get. Anšlavs also wanted that, and tried. But nothing came of it, just a book.
According to you – the worse it is, the better. I’ll have to add something more.

Do you know – in the last paper, that piece about L. Reiter was awful. 
I don’t know L. Reiter. Nor do I know his host, who counted how many glasses he had drunk, nor that SIDO, thanks be to God. But the article was ugly. And if Reiter is really a good-for-nothing mediocre character, then he wouldn’t have been able to opt for anything better than going back. If he had had to spend 10 years conducting a useless orchestra in the sticks, then it would be better to conduct anything, no matter what, back in his homeland, for a few months, at least giving them a bit of satisfaction and enthusiasm with just the fact that he had returned – and then he could go anywhere, even dig gutters or to Siberia. An artist lives from his own culture, even if he’s mediocre, and exactly then he can’t live without it. A giant can create on his own. Well, a conductor, even a giant, can’t really do it on his own. Nor can he bow so much to the party’s wishes, as might a poet. May he rest in peace. That bit of writing by Sido was nasty.
After a while, he won’t be going so well. As though that was the main thing!

I feel bad that I have taken on Australian citizenship. (It was better to do it for the sake of Inese’s education, they said. Perhaps it’s not even true.) You’ll also feel how unpleasant it feels. But it’s different for you. Perhaps one day it will be different for me too.
I liked some bits of Dagnija Cielava’s written piece. She knows how to write! And it’s lovely to read about our homeland. 

You were in a bad humour when you wrote to me. Now I’m in a bad humour. Isn’t that a funny concept – a bad humour? You probably should say a bad or a good mood. And that give so little idea of how it really is, and how it always, unchangingly is.
My pen was taken away. (continued in pencil).
We, that is the girls and I, went to the movies on Saturday. It was some play that Inese has to read in her English class, by Sir James Barrie. The film was sugary, as usual.
It’s getting late. Good night. Yours, E. Dz.

6.6.1958.

Firstly, don’t be surprised at the colour of this paper: I’m in Gosford, I just bought Huxley’s  book, Chrome Yellow and this, I don’t know exactly what yellow, paper. I didn’t like the blue, and there was no white. I’ve got a couple of free hours, after a bit of shopping and before an important meeting, and I’ll use up these hours having a rest, with a cup of coffee, and write to you on yellow paper and perhaps also reading the yellow book.

I finished the coffee. It was weak and lukewarm. Didn’t perk me up at all. Forget it. The meeting will be with a school inspector. Then I’ll see what my chances are of a position. After that – heaven knows.

I got up early this morning an hurried through all my jobs, so that I would be able to set off early with the neighbour, who leaves early for work in town. For a moment I felt sorry for myself. Not very heroic, to feel sorry for oneself. But that’s the way it was. I wanted to sit down and cry. I don’t have the strength or energy to look, again to look for work, to look for what I know, what I don’t know, to tout my abilities and talents, like in some meat market, knowing full well no-one needs them, that it’s useless, that no-one wants to pay for them, and so on. I could do with some rest, a couple of weeks peace, then I could go to market. But that’s not possible. Whether something comes of it or not, I have to try again, try something that I’ve tried many times before  – try to see if there isn’t some way out of my cage.

Somewhere Ermanis spat on the idea that in America, an immigrant girl gets done up and dyes her hair in order to get a job. Easy to spit – hard to go that road that has to be done. You have to put on the war paint, do the ironing, and squeeze out of yourself every last bit of strength, to somehow hold on to the hope for some place in this world.

What all haven’t I tried! But I’m not needed. I wanted to give piano lessons – but there were so few pupils, I couldn’t stand up to the hostile opposition to this venture from “the master”. I bought a knitting machine – and now nearly everyone has a knitting machine and you can’t earn anything if you have as little time as I do. I’ve picked beans for neighbours. I could still get that sort of work – but my health isn’t up to it, and there’s so little free time. What didn’t I start already in Germany, I don’t even want to mentions it – nothing worked out. Once I started working in a ceramic factory, painting little vases, making little figurines. When I’d been working there for a month, just starting to get into the swing of it – the boss became ill and the factory folded. I finished an art course, but there was no work, neither in Germany nor here. Maybe I could have found something here, but I’m not free. And so it goes. I’ve already got so little faith that I’ll ever be able to achieve anything, that it makes me want to cry, to have to get up early and try again to take worthless myself off to market. The past 6 years have completely changed me. Actually it has happened in the last two years. And still – I’d have strength aplenty if I were allowed to use it for myself.
Well perhaps soon I will have written out all this gloomy hopelessness, that I didn’t want to take with me to the school inspector…

Each venture, big or small, takes some sort of investment. At the beginning, you have to support it with either time or money. If you don’t do it – no-one is going to bring it to you on a plate. Once I was complimenting the singer Polikeviča on her achievements – she answered –  “but the capital that’s been invested! The work and the time and the  money!”
I am not permitted to put anything in to it and I haven’t tried to achieve much in the face of such total opposition. Only surreptitiously I try, that’s all. But that’s not – ‘capital invested’, like those who achieve something. 

Now – the book. I was wanting and hoping for – a book. But it seems that that’s a luxury, that one could allow oneself if one had the means. So again it’s…”the capital, that’s been invested”. And it can’t be invested.

Yesterday there was a stunning sunrise. I watched it for a while, and it left me in its magic spell for half the day. But it had to peter out. As always.

I wrote to you about publishing the Journal pages in the paper. Perhaps it wouldn’t be suitable for the paper. There are so few literary things in the paper, that they have to be something strong (I mean not just worthy, but also sensitive) to be publishable.
You said to write something brief for the Annual. I haven’t done anything. One story is nearly finished, but perhaps it’s too long and I don’t even know if it will be strong enough when it is finished. I would really like to be in the Annual. What about some page from the Journal? 

Today I will find out whether I couldn’t hire a typewriter. You can in Sydney. And quite cheap. Rewriting by hand takes me so much time.
I feel very down today. I think I don’t believe that I’ll be lucky enough to achieve anything. Perhaps – I’ll get lucky, but the chances are slim. Dzidra has her whole high school years ahead of her. Her studies are just starting. Without me around, she is going to wither away – she won’t be able to do well in her studies. I’ve helped Inese with both love and care, so that she can stand up to all the daily burdens and concentrate on her studies. Dzidra is so scared of her father. And he is ruthless. He leaves Inese alone now, as she is bringing in ‘fame’. But he drives Dzidra so hard that she doesn’t get any freedom. But perhaps it will be better later when she starts winning scholarships. But without me it won’t go well. And who will come in my place? Who will come and do what I do? In such primitive circumstances, and with such a hard task master. Dzidra still has 5 years of school ahead of her… So my thoughts churn and churn. I don’t want to think about it any more – but there’s no room for anything else in my brain.
Now I really won’t talk about it any more.

It’s good, if you’ve found a person to be close to. It must be very nice to find close friends from long ago. I’m thinking about the cousin you wrote about. I only started writing to you because I remembered you from Daugavpils.

Do you have Jakob Strazdiņš’ wife’s address in Latvia? Mrs Strazdiņš and I were very close. We worked together at Ilūkste school and later I lived with them in Riga. That was in my last year in Riga. I’d like to write to her. I’ve forgotten her Piebalga address, even though I visited her there.
It’s a pity I didn’t think of the Penguin publications earlier – they are so cheap, 3 or 4 in one go!
Yours, E. Dz.

13.6.1958.

After nasty autumn rains it’s sunny again. A clear, warm day, only cool in the shade. Autumn. I’m alone at home. But there’s plenty to do, no time for festivities. But I can’t resist taking some paper and writing a letter, even if it’s just a few lines – in this mood, which only happens when I am alone.

These days I have been reading Huxley, Kafka – finally also the famous Kafka. I still haven’t gotten very far with him. But Huxley was – charming. A bit similar to Woolf, only sharper, more passionate. (Maybe he seemed similar to Woolf because the themes were the same – but thereafter the result and the style – different). From Inese’s books, along with her, I’m reading old English authors. So I’ll get to know some of the English. In the evenings I’m so tired that I can’t do much else, I play piano a bit, and read.

Towards the end of the month, I might get a typewriter for a time, then I’ll rewrite all the stories I’ve begun. Perhaps I should then send you some –  of those that there are.

After a mightily long time, I got to socialise again. It was very good for me. To make some noise, drink some wine, see how everyone has gotten much older and how they’re all – unwillingly dying, still alight and blazing with hidden passions. Some are trying to pull back – the others are holding on tight. The ones that are being held, try all the harder to pull away. But there’s no way out. Everyone burns out on the spot, like fallen autumn leaves.

The young ones weren’t there. Only one bodgie. He doesn’t count. Yes – and some young Latvian who has married an Australian. They seem happy. Why not?
I also saw the school inspector. He promises some sort of relief teacher position, replacing some drawing teacher. If that worked out, then perhaps something more. The Latvians it seems, have protected their education institution’s reputations. The education department had written to the school inspector that – if she has a diploma from the Latvian academy, then she’s “probably” capable of doing the work…

But how it could all begin or end – I don’t know. Firstly – how to get away? Secondly – I’ve no strength. But that will come.
Your letters come seldom. What are you battling with?
Lines by Bredrich… 
Look for warmth, look for light in each other
Listen for hours to each other’s heartbeats…
(after spring) give good advice. Right on the dot, gives a recipe for how to live. I recite them to myself every now and again. Only I forget just in those moments when I could most do with looking for some warmth and light. I get to see people so little that – oh it’s not worth talking about.

At the school inspector’s, I was accompanied by a smart lady at whose place I once played piano. She was pleasant company. I still have to go to Sydney to some counsellor, and she said she could come with me to Sydney. This time I’d be happy with that – she’s intelligent, isn’t endlessly sprouting “very nice”, like other Australian women. 

So, I have to go to Sydney. But I can’t believe it all. Chook sheds and bean fields have become my life… How can I rise up against them?
There are three buckets of eggs I have to go and clean. In the recent rains, the chooks have made those dreadfully dirty. 
…Look for warmth, look for light in each other…

16.6.1958.

St John’s Day is near, and it’s raining dreadfully. I’d like to go out somewhere to “līgo” [have a good time]. My national costume, which is so good to dance in, is rotting in the cupboard. The girls want to dance too. But the overlord doesn’t. Somewhere within reachable distance in Newcastle, the Latvians are organising St Johns Day… How sad it is, if just because someone had his good time when he was young, he thinks that he’s done it on behalf of everyone else – all the way to the children’s children.    
Yours, E. Dz.

17.6.1958.

Today Inese forgot to look in the post box – perhaps your letter is there. But it has to stay for some other time.
St John’s Day is getting near. I want to celebrate. I’d like to hear some līgo songs…it would be a warm night, the birches would smell fragrantly, and the lovage, and the irises… As soon as I mention one, other memories crowd around – smells, voices, people, dreams. Then everything fades, and most of all I want to see my mother, which can never happen again – and probably everything else – smells, the St John’s day grasses – all gone.
Gone, and yet, not quite. What still has to happen? What can still happen? 
Who still has to come? What is still concealing the emptiness and destruction? What still hides it from sight?
There won’t be any St John’s day celebrations.

In our homeland, they will “līgo”. They will still “līgo” and perhaps manage to really do it. The land will once break free from their nightmare and happy people will “līgo”. But our – all kinds of Australian scholarship getters – won’t “līgo”. And us? Us?… We will “līgo”. We can’t not “līgo”… And also, we won’t “līgo”. I forced my self to write that last statement. I so very much didn’t want to hear it. We haven’t yet “līgo’d” to the end, how can we not “līgo”?
Yours, E. Dz.

Sunday, 29. June, 1958.

I got your letter, and the very next day, quite unexpectedly again some news of you – a book. Many thanks. It is so beautiful. I think – I haven’t earned it – because – what with? And then the pleasure is all the greater, if you’ve been rewarded undeservedly, just because nice things happen in the world of their own accord.

I had also begun writing you a letter that same evening when I got yours with your sad news, that you have something wrong with one eye. My pen was so bad, so scratchy that I couldn’t write, and I just threw the letter I’d begun writing into the fireplace. I was up alone, the rest were already asleep. On the embers, the letter turned to black with pale marks of the letters, and it looked like it could be something good and important and beautiful and precious – and I knew it wasn’t, just a few meaningless words, scribbled with great difficulty. And then I thought, often there’s such rubbish, nonsense and mischief about – you think there’s something there, and it’s nothing. 

I didn’t want to start another letter, and that’s how next day got the book. But that isn’t rubbish and mischief. It’s a whole world that is going to open up for me. And it’s so beautiful, well printed, printed on good paper. And the sort I like, not too thick. It reminds me of some other German books we had at home. So far I’ve only read the first line. Since there’s no inscription inside, it just occurs to me that the book has only been sent for me to read, and that it belongs to you. Then at the beginning of my letter I seem to have shown rather too much greediness wanting it for myself. But it’s still my gain, even if I can only read it and see it. Isn’t it strange. That’s the difference between worthless and valuable things, which you can benefit from even if you don’t literally acquire them. But I think the book has been given to me entirely. I hope that’s so, because if its contents are just as beautiful and dear to me as its look, then I’ll be sad to have to send it back, because I won’t gain from it till I’ve read it several times.

In the evenings, I play a little. The piano has become awfully old already, the ivories don’t work properly – it’s a real old rattle-box and yet – you have to use your imagination. It was Beethoven…
When I read historical novels, I sometimes compare dates – whether Chopin was alive already then? If not, then it was somehow before the world grew light and warm. 
But now – how is your eye? 
Yours, E. Dz.
P.S. Of course I don’t know how serious is the problem with your eye, but borax dissolved in warm water as an eye wash is very good.

30.6.1958.

I have a request – could you send me Mr. Breman’s address some time soon. I’m not sure, but I think he was secretary to the Education Minister in Latvia? Or perhaps I’m wrong? The Sydney Education Department is asking for document proof of my work as a teacher. I’ve lost those documents. Maybe through the Latvian Education Ministry I could get them renewed? They also want my academy Diploma translated (it has to get translated). It turns out they want to qualify me as a teacher as long as the formal paperwork is all sorted. 

I don’t think I’d really be capable of working in a high school right now. But I could do relief teaching. The best thing would be in one of those countless Art schools there are in every bigger town. At least I can get the paperwork organised. Some sort of teacher’s position would have two things going for it – a good salary, and good holidays. 
And with that I could perhaps free myself from my chook maintenance obligations. 

Are you able to read and write? Is your eye ok? My writing is dreadful, you won’t be able to read it with a bad eye.

This evening I’ve been reading the book you sent, and can see how much I’ve forgotten the German language. Now it seems to be so heavy and complicated and many-worded, like an over-furnished room. But I must get used to it, and have to go over the forgotten bits, and then I’ll be able to start enjoying it.
I read Huxley’s The Brave New World. Awful! “Terribabely” awful! We often say terribabely instead of terribly. It sounds scarier. So, the novel was terribabely, because of how people will be after a decade, if they keep going the way they are.

I will wait for your letter. How you spent your St John’s day. We did not “līgo”. We wanted to drive towards Newcastle to some Latvian family having a “līgo” evening. We already ironed our national costumes – but we weren’t handed our travel permits, weren’t supported, weren’t joined in our venture… Then, pissed off, I didn’t prepare anything for St John’s day – no crown, no ‘pīrāgi’ [bacon rolls], no “līgo” good times. A day like every other day. Festivities don’t happen by themselves. They have to be prepared. And I didn’t prepare anything, and so there was none. Passive resistance – something a bit like dying for spite.
Yours, E. Dz.

12.7.1958.

This letter has been waiting  here for ages – we stay up late in the evenings, and in the morning it’s all head over heels and the letter gets forgotten. Today, the atmosphere is a bit better, but only a bit. I’d like to write more and ask lots of questions, but – the letter bearer is already standing in front of me and there’s no more time. 
The children are so cheerful this morning that it’s also making me feel happier. Dzidra is playing a Strauss waltz – and I feel like living.
E. Dz.

14.7.1958.

Today I got your letter and it was very good. It all warmed my heart. I wish you would tell me more about Mrs. Tamuza, if you’ve been meeting her, and about the others – Neboise, Breman. I’ve heard something about them, read something, and then it’s good to see them through your eyes.
Thank you so much for the book you sent. But it’s not a case of it being “mine, of course” but rather “yours, of course”. I can’t be like Jaunsudrabins‘ boy, who doesn’t even know what things he shoved into his pockets in the game “Do you need it”?

I’m reading the book slowly. At the moment I don’t have much spare time. Besides, in the evenings, to clear my head, I want to play piano a little. In between I read Inese’s French magazines. It would be good to read Hamsun’s “Victoria” again, but I don’t know whether it’s worth your sending it, it’s too much bother.

I first read “Victoria” soon after leaving high school. I read it in Russian. But my command of the Russian language at the time was so poor that reading “Victoria” was like being lost in the woods. But the book was so beautiful, that I read it three times, and by then I could more or less work it out and understand the plot. But that then (and also elsewhere) wasn’t the most important thing.  The book was beautiful, and because of it I more or less learned to read in Russian, and also fell in love with Hamsun. After that I read everything of his I could get hold of – Famine, Pan, Mysteries, and a couple of others I’ve forgotten the names of, but I very much remember the character of the fish merchant, Mack, and others. 

But none of these other books compare with “Victoria”. Pan – almost. Some of the magic was helped along by my poor command of Russian – I wasn’t reading, I was living it, guessing word after word. Later I’ve read it again several times in Latvian. 

At that time, I similarly tried to muddle through Goethe’s “The sorrows of young Werther”, and Heine’s “The Harz Journey”. I didn’t know German very well either, but I learned it through reading (at high school all we learned was grammar).  Perhaps it was through reading foreign languages that I learned to love authors’ styles, the way they used words, expressions, and till today I think strong ideas, or how interesting the plot is, doesn’t fascinate me as much as style. Books now aren’t as wonderful as they were in my youth. Or perhaps they are?

My sister sent me her photo from Latvia. I couldn’t recognise her. But when I look, and look for a long time, I can see – everything is there the same, in her face. And there’s even more, traces of me, of our mother, of our mother’s mother. But they are sad, those faces that are sent from there.
Yours, E. Dz.

16.7.1958.

I got your last letter without it being delayed in Wyong. Inese brought it as soon as it was here, so I’ve had letters from you more often. I’m reading them both at once.
You’re walking for two hours, and yet you say – ONLY two hours. How long would you like to have walked? Good that your eye is better. It’s no fun being left without being able to read or write.

Tell me what else you talked about with Mrs. Tamuza. She seems to be a woman full of ideals, as far as I can tell from her reviews. You say not to buy a typewriter. I can’t even dream of buying one. I just wanted to rent one for a couple of months. But at the moment I can’t even allow myself that, for the finances are in a dire crisis. As soon as I deal with a few minor things (owing for books and packages) then I’ll send a parcel to my sister. I wanted to sent one through Daugavas Vanagi a year ago. I sent some money together with my sister’s address to Ķiploks  – I haven’t heard anything more about that. I’m a bit surprised, how long, in vain, they’ve been working at it, or perhaps – have not been working. But I could have done with those 70 shillings now for sending. Should I try to chase them up? I don’t want to. But it ought to be done.

I haven’t written to Mr. Breman. Suddenly I ran out of energy. The Education Department’s letter remains unanswered. There’s no-one to translate the diploma, I can’t get to Sydney. But eventually I’ll get myself together. Yesterday was a warm day, and even today it’s like spring. Even if it doesn’t make that much difference, still spring does give one strength. Somewhere there are still reserves of strength, they have to still exist.

I want to buy Dzidra some oil paints. She really does come alive in her drawing. There’s a club here that organises a competition and exhibition of paintings and drawings. There will be a prize. If not me, then Dzidra will take part. She’s could hope for a prize. She just won first place in a writing competition about Anzac day. This time she was first among the whole district’s schools (last time it was just from her own school). Dzidra is a good worker, knows how to put in long and patient effort.

Were Europe’s graphic artists really so weak? Were the French, or the Belgians? And there was an Estonian – I’ve forgotten his name – could they all be outdone by the Japanese? But of course they are pretty fancy and smart. 

If I hadn’t liked “Victoria” then you would have thought – that I’m not meant to be a writer – yes, yes – you sure don’t have much faith in me! I have to say. But then – I’m left with my big fate unrealised. Enough – now.  
Good night Yours, E. Dz.

12. Aug. 1958.

Again I’ve got a letter from you, which I’ve been answering in my head as I go about my tasks. But only in my head, as I’m very taken up with everyday stuff. I see that I won’t even be able to answer your letter in one go, so I’ll start every now and again grabbing a pen and writing down something.

There’s a spring wind outside. Near the corner of the house, there’s a shrub blooming, with huge bunches of flowers, yellow, but a very pleasant yellow, with tinges of brown. The shrub has grown enormous, up to the roof. It’s full of bees. It must be full of honey. The bees don’t visit any other shrub so much. It’s all abuzz every day. And while I’m packing my eggs, I listen to the buzzing and my thoughts go all the way back, to the garden under the apple trees, behind which flow the waters of the Aiviekste river. Flowing on and on, glistening serenely, not always visible, because one doesn’t always look at the river, but you can always feel it, because all summer it is full of the Aiviekste’s flowing waters. From early spring till late autumn, from when the grass and the dandelions come up, till just the frost-bitten yellow stalks remain. And all the summer is full of the buzzing of the bees.

It is still too early to walk back through, and go walking, and walking through times gone past. It’s still too early, because how can one go walking so long (and I mean still longer…) only there, where one can barely find any memories left? But I don’t have enough other places where I can go walking. I’m soon done with the garden here, where the two pines are lovely, where the other bushes have been pruned, the poultry manure has been piled high, but there’s still not, and won’t be for a long time, any engagement born of love and care. I’m soon done with the yellow blossoming shrub – I walk around it and then I don’t look at it any more, the buzzing of the bees carries me off to another garden.

Nearly 2 years ago, in a letter, you were trying to comfort me, saying I shouldn’t worry if I can’t get away from here for another 2 years. Now those 2 years are nearly over. How it will be going forward – I know less than ever. (Maybe still another 5 years here). But these two years have been the worst in my life. I’ve done hardly anything. You were mollifying me, saying – after two years I’d have a book. Wouldn’t it be worth enduring those 2 years for that? – The years have been endured, but there’s no book. And there’s not nearly so much been written for the book as I’d hoped. Very empty years. But nothing can be done.
The children… all right.

You now think that at Christmas there will be able to be a supplement in the paper with my short story, an etching, and even a bio and photo. I don’t know what those last two contribute, but if they are necessary – so be it.

You asked what I want to achieve.
Probably just – to sing like a bird, in God’s honour. If the human soul is a tree, and God’s world is the wind, – then I want to talk about that, how it is when they meet. And to do it as myself. A woman. I want, when someone looks at or reads what I have done, they would be justified in saying – that is the work of a woman. I know I can’t achieve that by imitation, or pretence, nor just learning, nor trying nor wishing. If I can do it, it will only be by being who I am, doing it the way I am able. When I finished Art School, many (not everyone) said – if you want to be an artist, you have to renounce being a woman, particularly having a family. Then, I thought, that I don’t want to be that sort of artist – because I’d only have something to say if I can continue the line of my mother and grandmother. Of course that’s why the going is so slow and tough. But there’s no other way for me.

In a couple of your letters you have said something that makes me think perhaps I have been able to say some of what I have to say in my work – you mention warmth and “an unusual wisdom of the soul from who knows where”. I don’t think it’s so hard to know from where. We Latvians aren’t without our ancestral legacy. And that is not so easily earned – for example by just wearing Latvian jewellery or ribbons, nor can we lose it so readily – say, by eating chips and enthusing about van Gogh or something else foreign to us. 

I’ve often heard say about my etchings and drawings, that they are strong and masculine. What was meant by that – it’s hard to say. Because about me myself the judgement is always – that I’m very feminine, or just – feminine. I think that calling something in art ‘feminine’ is very uncomplimentary – it implies something weak and feeble. But a woman’s characteristic quality is not weakness, but strength. There is nothing on earth stronger than a mother.
So, if there’s something I want to achieve – it’s not a new direction, nor new themes, but just my unfettered, woman’s voice, whether in writing or in drawing.

13. aug. 1958.

A new day begins. Very warm. Summer’s here. Again the buzzing of bees outside the window, otherwise – peace and quiet. Inese is in Sydney for school sports, away from home for a few days.

11.9.1958.

I only got your letter today, after the school holidays, because while the girls were home, no-one went to Wyong, and the letter stayed waiting in the post box. It was good to hear from you. Thank you.
My window has new curtains, (Inese put them up), white as snow, with a pattern like falling snow, so it’s nice. Outside, the tree (which will later have purple flowers) has had several branches cut back so that during storms it doesn’t bang on the roof. So now the sun pours in through the window and the curtains remind one of snow.

Inese was home for the whole month. Dzidra for two weeks – and that too was like it was in that land that reminds me of snow. The wheel turns, and each turn is the same as it once was, and also something different. And so it is, and that’s all.

You said in your letter that my folk have grown enmeshed with nature, and that’s true, because I myself am tied to nature. Modern or not modern, nothing else can be done. Everything can change, and it only changes as I myself change. But here there are a lot of people like that, that are tied to nature, and elsewhere too, so I am not alone, even though in my everyday, I am alone. Now, since Inese has grown up more, I think things are easier, and a new friendship is opening up between us.

It’s nice that in the Latvian paper they are now starting to publish all kinds of authors and all kinds of stories. One can benefit in various ways from that, can learn. And of course also to enjoy, and be in contact with others. The stories don’t even all have to be so high-quality that they carry some sort of anointment for the writers themselves or for others. Hopefully no-one will come down with an attack of vanity if their work is published more often. Though it is quite bitter reading one’s own bad works, but perhaps thus one can more quickly become more proficient.

I’ve begun several stories, perhaps even novels, but just now – it is gestation time, the harvest will come later. I could put more pressure on myself, to not just wait for “inspiration” (like the Japanese, who sits down on the floor at his piece of silk, and with brush in hand, waits for inspiration – if it comes, he starts painting, if it doesn’t – after he has sat there for a while, he wraps up his piece of silk and will wait some other time.) But here everyone is so busy pushing themselves with their essays, that I lose courage: Inese – French and English essays, Dzidra – English and History essays, Father – long, long essays full of complaint about why can’t they connect up the phone line instantly, as was ordered, and why among 500 yellow chicks that were sent is there one black one!
So it goes. But you work away serenely, and the books come one after the other.

I had a look at my piece about “Peter” and thought that the language was a bit strained, not succinct, but I don’t want to rework it and perhaps for that content, as it is, maybe it won’t do any harm.
Wishing you well, E. Dz.

19.9.1958.

I haven’t been able to write to you for ages. I don’t exactly know why? It’s not going well. My hands are being horribly wrecked. I can’t play any more, there’s no time and my hands are big and heavy, the joints are swollen. That’s all because of one cow, which in the third year suddenly produced a lot of milk. She was always hard  to milk, no-one could help me. Now in the evenings, Inese has been helping. The cow is dreadful. She’s giving over 20 litres of milk daily. When you have to start milking, it’s like trying to squeeze those thick rubber hoses that lie about here in the grass, carrying water here and there.

But I don’t want to say a bad word about the cow… It gives me a moment to be alone, and the morning is so sparkling, like it used to be at home. Down below, the neighbour’s dam is full to the brim with water, quietly glistening this morning, dark itself, like the Aiviekste used to be. I don’t think it’s ever glistened like that before. And though the weather is a bit cool, the sun feels warm, and looking down on the orchards, fields, the dam it’’s as though it’s early summer by the Aiviekste.

I just went with the children to the gate. My husband took them to the bus stop and he will go further to do some business for one hour. We have a car now. A second-hand utility. Twice a week, it gives me an hour’s peace – loneliness.

This morning Dzidra hurried off to the school’s annual sports carnival with great hopes of coming first in long jump and high jump and so on. Yes, wearing the blue sports shorts I just finished sewing. It was just in time, and such things are so important that you hurry, head over heels to get it all together and make it all happen, and sometimes there’s not enough time to think, other times not enough material – but finally it’s all ironed and spick and span and ready just 5 minutes to 12…

Dzidra flew up the road to open the gates for the car, and then while she was waiting, went prancing about, waving to me in all the possible and impossible movements imaginable to show her joy, and the sports shorts cornflower blue, under a cornflower blue tunic with gold braids, a crimson red knitted jacket on top. She was so healthy, so strong, so well grown up – that – isn’t it worth all the misery? I looked at her and waved and pranced about myself (that wasn’t worth looking at…) Inese was already sitting in the car on her way to sitting for her third exam. They’ve started already. They sit for them twice – now, and after about a month, when the Education Ministry men will be in attendance. Inese is going well. She is – a credit to the school! That’s what one of the most awful teachers said. That time after the ball I told you about, she told Inese that she was a credit to the school with her nice outfit and conduct.

Isn’t that priceless? With hands that ache, and Chopin and Mozart that can’t be played, and a parcel that can’t be sent to my sister, and an exhibition which I can’t take part in, and a short story that I can’t finish…

What else? There was an exhibition here. The Lions club (only university graduates can be members, ie respectable) organised the Gosford and district art show. Participants could be adults, school age children and children up to 10 years. Up to 5 prizes in each group. Australian themes and for the best painting some club member had donated a prize of £50.

Dzidra entered 5 works in oil and one pastel. Inese entered one self portrait in pencil and one watercolour – drawing. The judge, Newcastle Art School’s principal, awarded the big prize – half each to Inese and Dzidra. The carry-on was like for movie stars, they came to do interviews, photographed them smiling with their art works for television, it was on the radio. The local paper had articles just as much and more than for Inese’s sport.

But now that’s all over, and what will we be able to do with it? Not much. But it has made me happy. Dzidra is starting to work confidently in oils (which I bought her because I couldn’t get tempera, and pastels and watercolours don’t satisfy her). Whether she’ll be great or not – she finds satisfaction in it, and that’s the main thing, and she’ll probably find a use for her talents. Inese hardly draws at all. The self portrait was almost 3 years old, and I encouraged her to do the watercolour. I saw that she looked a bit miserable, watching how Dzidra was preparing for the show, and she herself had to stay at the grindstone of Latin vocabulary.
I didn’t take part, I had nothing prepared, and the frames I had to give to the children. I just had the role of implement provider – but I don’t know why, I felt like the winner.

My free hour will be over in a minute. Outside there’s a cool wind, I don’t know how Dzidra will go, marching. She is the flag-bearer. There will be about 16 schools, each in its own colours, each with a flag. Life, which has nothing in common with that land by the Baltic sea – and yet my girls are exactly like the ones that used to be there. And they’re marching ahead of others here. Strange.
You did a presentation at the Youth festival. What were the young ones like?

I went to the Education Department. There was a young, blond girl there. She was called in to compare the translation of my diploma to the original. She was a girl scout with a silver badge on her lapel. She was Latvian. Perhaps she had qualified as a teacher. The clerk, who was dealing with my paperwork, was delighted when she saw that my maiden name was Berzins – said she knew another Berzins at the Latvian consulate and that he’s ‘very nice’. They are going to ask  the Latvian consul about the Latvian Art academy. Perhaps they’ll also ask Bremanis about my work as a teacher. 

An energetic woman with whom I travelled to Sydney maybe will offer me a space to rent in Gosford, for a gift and ethnic art works shop, if I was able to run it and if it could make money. Perhaps it would be good. I’ve sometimes dreamt of an art and ethnic crafts shop. If I could just be free of the cow!

One thing I am happy about – Dzidra will be strong enough to withstand all kinds of absences. Whatever comes, she will hide herself in her drawing. It won’t be so easy to break her. And Inese will be soon gone from here. Maybe I’ll get a chance to change my life. I will, if I can find a way how to not leave Dzidra to face fate alone.

On the day I took off to go to Sydney, Dzidra was kept home from school. He thought I would be scared and not go. (Dzidra was preparing for her scholarship exams.) But I didn’t take fright, and I did go. Dzidra was not needed at home. But that’s the best weapon he has, to constrain me by making the children suffer. And now, if Dzidra would be strong enough against him, I would be more game to start something. So I’m calculating. But I don’t know, how it would all be  possible. The cow has to be milked, the chooks fed, the eggs cleaned, meals prepared, clothes washed, and no-one is going to so readily come to do all that in these conditions, the way I have to do it. But to take Dzidra with me? After all, she’s not just mine alone.
No, I didn’t mean to babble on like that, it just goes round and round in my head from morning till night.
I’m sending you Otomar Rikman’s poems which my sister sent me from Latvia.

No-one has been to Wyong for the mail for many weeks. Maybe there’s a letter from you. And until Inese finishes her exams, no-one will be going there. Now, the various necessities that Inese used to have to do on her way home from school, gets done by driving in the car. But I don’t drive. 

Should I send works  to the Brisbane Culture festival? I received an invitation. I haven’t replied. I don’t know where to get etchings printed. I tried again in Sydney, to no avail.
Do you have any ideas what I could sell in an art and gift shop? Does anyone in Melbourne do any ethnic art works also for the Australian market? Or do they only make expensive things for the Latvians? I mean – ceramics, woodcuts, weavings, dolls and so on.

I wrote to my sister about where we buried dishes when we fled into the woods. They found the porcelain and glassware which was well preserved. They’ve been washed and packed into boxes, and are waiting at our house. So odd to know that that forest, with the old road, with the pine trees and marshes – are still there. I somehow didn’t believe it any more. It seemed like something unreal. But everything is still there, the smell of the pine needles in the lingonberry humus, the shimmer of the birch leaves in the sun. How can it be? We are not there, and those free and luminous lives are not there. And yet there are people, and they laugh and are happy. Grow, and strive and live. And it’s all not as gloomy as we imagine. 
Do you think Jaunsudrabins will go home?
Yours, E. Dz.
P.S. I have to finish quickly. The hour is over.

6.11.1958.
Today in your letter you say – one must write often, in order to express the whole person. That is so. Often I feel the need to write a letter, a few thoughts, a few sentences, but then I think – leave it, I’ll write when I get your letter. Even today I was thinking like that. And now, when I get your letter, what I wanted to say to you is long gone. It was just a notion, a moment. You can’t get it back. You never again manage to write exactly that in those letters which you write when you’ve accumulated lots to write. That, which made me want to grab a pen and paper doesn’t “accumulate” such that you can later get it down. It’s gone.

One ought to write as soon as one wants to say something. I don’t do it because I don’t get to send these letters immediately. Later, they don’t feel complete. They get thrown away.

Right now I’m reading one book after another.
If I like some author, then usually I want to get to know them through more of their books. It’s like that again now with Steinbeck. I really liked “Of Mice and Men”. Completely fascinating. Afterwards, I looked for “The Moon is Down” and “East of Eden” – I couldn’t find that anymore. So I’m reading “The Grapes of Wrath” and it looks again (at the beginning) as though this book will be to my liking. 

When I think about how readily I was awarded first prize for “Our Neighbour” and “Magpie Song” was hardly acknowledged, then for a while I couldn’t work out, what I’m supposed to write, what do I have to say? Now, reading the Steinbeck I mentioned, it’s clear to me again, what I should write. It is – what I want to write, and the way I want to write it. And to not pause for a moment, nor leave out anything, just the way I want to write it. Only to look very carefully for exactly what, and only what, I really want to say.

You say that evil comes from hell or an unknown place. I think this place is the human himself. The heart, or the liver – I don’t exactly know. Because they say, when someone angry, that “he has a large heart”, and they also say – “he has a large liver”. Even here, in both cases deemed to be bad, anger is inside the person. For perhaps some seemingly innocent, insignificant reason, evil nevertheless starts within the person, grows like an abscess, oozing pus. Fu – how nastily I’m talking. But it is nasty, what I’m talking about. For it not to happen, the person has to have a lot of self-discipline. And even so, evil can begin to fester. Because usually if someone has been evil, they want to hide that with more evil. It is self deception, and illusion that more evil is a show of strength, which will hide the uncomfortable feeling from the original evil. Full stop.

It rained today. Rumbles of thunder. Relentlessly warm. The grass is growing. Blackberries are quite huge. Several times I’ve done battle among their bushes. I’ve found a new area with the berry bushes. I found a horse paddock in the bend of a stream that looked just like a curve in the Arona river. Only if it had been there, there would have been some seats (long planks on little posts hammered into the ground), there would have been a platform and in the middle of the area, the ground would have been trodden down by the feet of the dancers. But this wasn’t quite like that. Only the horse had eaten back the grass, and in the morning it was full of dew, green, with shadows and fragrance. Further there was a hill covered in dandelion clocks. That was a bit like on the way to some house in the Madona area. It was quite moving. But – I live from that. Or more correctly – wither away.

D. Cielava’s piece “The Forests of Dundaga” – is beautifully written. One can completely accept, or not, her second person conversation, but the description of the forest is fresh and lovely.

7.11.1958.

It’s hard to reply to your letter, because I’m scared there might have been a big misunderstanding. You come with such questions, which if the answers appeared in the literary supplement it would look like a big deal interview and navel gazing. But I don’t want that at all. No way can I imagine myself publicly talking about – how I write, how I create, what I regard as important in my work and so on.

I had thought that you would just give a few bits of information about me, for example that I finished the Art Academy (with a degree in art and graphic arts), that I studied piano in the National Conservatory, and I also write. Besides that – as long or short as you wish, you would say what you really think about my works. And that would not cause any kind of bother or trouble – because you absolutely would not have to flatter, call black white, or pretend. I think they would be statements that I would await, with some trepidation, and hope that I can weather anything unflattering.

I was wishing for that not out of some kind of shyness, or humility. Quite the opposite – from pride. If you say – it’s important to know what I think about myself, then I can say to you – I think most highly of myself, despite what one might think from my demeanour or words. I am serious about my work, and cannot imagine ever not doing it, as I have grown up in it. Reading a few recent reviews about various art forms and ventures gives me such conviction. One has to wonder – who is the sick one? The critic, the public, or the artist? Just a lot of glitz and glamour, all kinds of overblown gallantries, exaggerations, and boasting. If it continues on for a longer time, then it won’t be a surprise, if all of art goes under.

For me and everyone else, there is one big problem on the way to achieving something more important – lack of time. But you can’t use that as an excuse for everything. 
I can tell you personally what I think about what you were asking from me, but in what you write about me, I would not like to see any evidence of my having had a hand in it. Because as soon as that is evident, your hands are tied regarding saying what you really think, even if it is critical. Your summary can be very short, if you’ve nothing to say. I won’t be measuring it: Bredrich’s was so long, and mine is – shorter…

I beg of you, don’t take me seriously, and if someone finds such reading matter not to their taste – then let them not read it. The Australian Latvian is the only paper here, and can dictate the tone to its readers.

I will try to give some answers, to you personally, to what you asked.
What motivated me to start writing – I can’t say. I started drawing, playing piano, and writing (for the school magazine and in my journal) already from my first years at high school. I literally didn’t distinguish between the three activities. Moving from one to the other, I enjoyed the fascination of the individual characteristic of each one, and looked for the deeper revelation of how to express oneself in each form. Music has faded as a major endeavour, and drawing too hasn’t had enough time devoted to it of late, and I feel too isolated, too hemmed in to do just drawing. In writing, I feel closer to people. Why do I need that – I don’t know. (I tire of society very quickly).

I think that drawing and music hinder my writing time wise, but they open my eyes to much that otherwise I wouldn’t see. Drawing helps reveal subject matter, expression, and general love of the world. Music – use of words, form, composition. In these last three things I would like to achieve something.
The plot doesn’t interest me at all, but perhaps I will have to learn to love it for the sake of a strong composition. I’m not sure yet. I have much work to do to really see what I can do, or what I can’t do. Primarily – what I can or can’t do with words.

Choice of subject matter? It seems that up till now, subject matter chooses me, rather than I choose it. Big things happen – and I have nothing to say about them. A Bird falls out of a tree, it touches my heart and I have to write about it.

My aims – they’re big enough. But all I can think about is – get the children through school and then start to work. Till then – try to survive. The reason I’m always complaining is, that after all, the days don’t have enough hours, and what was clear in the morning and already forming into words, after 12 – 14 hours, putting it onto paper it has already lost all its power. It isn’t the same. It’s like that with a few sentences, and like that with whole stories. Something experienced has its time when it needs to be cradled in ones thoughts and half-formed words, and time when it has to come out on paper. If that is disturbed too much by the surrounding circumstances, then nothing much good can come out of it.

How do I work? Obviously, not systematically. The main thing I want to say, which has sometimes been ready for days and weeks, at some opportune moment has to come out on paper, spontaneously. Those are the best bits. While that’s missing – I don’t write a single story, however well I’ve thought it out in my head. But I still have to make corrections, in the weaker parts, less free, less well formed statements and ideas, have to be controlled deliberately. Most of the corrections have to be made on things that have been written down at not the right time – meaning – written head over heels in a hurry because of lack of time, or written when I’m exhausted.

The main pleasure, and also most difficult, is finding the truest words, ones that don’t obscure but rather reveal the experience. But if the experience was profound – the words come by themselves. These are not just emotional moments, but all manner of life’s experiences, if they have been powerful, the right words come more easily. That’s why it would be important to have a rich life, – aided by all kinds of love, friendships, other arts (that is, created by others). That all gets crystallised in time alone, even idleness, which is necessary between the experience and getting it down in writing. Some winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature has said “Writing should be attempted only by those helplessly caught up in life”. I understand that. If I complain, it’s only only from fear, because this being caught up in life is so hard, not because it’s not necessary.
Well, more next time. I’ve fallen behind here in my evening jobs.

8.11.1958.

You also ask – whether I am interested in other authors and their works? Writers themselves have never interested me much, I even don’t like it when the book’s fly-leaf has a photo of the author. That kind of doesn’t have anything to do with what’s in the book. Perhaps seeing the person in real life would be different. It’s better if the portrait is a painting or drawing.

My first read authors were different to yours. They were Lagerlefa, Undzete, Hamsuns, Heine. Only a bit of Goethe. About then, or a bit later (in the last years of high school and after) I was reading the Russians – Tolstoju, Dostojevski, Gogolu, Ļermontovu, but I did not grow to love them.

Of the Latvians, I think my favourite was Ezerins. I read him a hundred times. I no longer have that sort of obsession. Still, I think some books retain their fascination – from the first reading, through till one just about knows them by heart. For example “Gösta Berling’s Saga”, “Viktoria”, Gide’s “Pastoral Symphony”. Also Mikelson’s “Two People”, Blaumanis’ “In the Fire”, Ezerins, Akuraters too, and of course Skalbe. Favourites later were Adamsons’ “Fine Faults” and Sudrabkalns’ “One Swallow”. That’s the book I missed most in the first years of diaspora life. Now it would be just as precious. I read it once, borrowed from someone in Sydney, who had written it out by hand because copies are so rare. Also Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” with some objections regarding the last pages, which seem somewhat sugary and drawn-out, but I’ve read it countless times.

Do I put form in first place? To answer – yes, would be absurd. But still, form is a work of art’s main component. An idea without form is just the raw material. While an idea without artistic form can exist (of course not as an art work) but form, without content, be it better or worse, is unthinkable. Thus a work of art begins only with form, and vice versa.
The first thing I want to strive for is to find, polish, refine my means of expression, composition, form…

All those (even the big ones) who have got carried away with ideas (overly grand) just become proselytisers. Now even Aldous Huxley, whose first works were so wonderful, but his last ones “Brave New World” are just rubbish (as art works).
I have talked 5 times more than was asked for. For the rest, please, you fill it in.
Yours, E. Dz.