Sunday Feb 18. Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)]. Dearest Mother. This is the Russian pilgrim paper - there is a regular commerce apart from all others here to supply the Russian pilgims with relics souvenirs and the necessities of Russian peasant life. I bless the typewriter. It is such a joy to open an envelope of yours and find long sheets from the typewriter. He does write such nice letters. I hope he has accompanied you on your travels. I got your telegram from Grasse yesterday. It is rather terrible to think that Maurice is off; I hoped he wouldn't leave till the end of the month. I can't read the name of his ship - it came to me Quelle, which I can't think is the name of an English boat! but I will look in next week's shipping list for something resembling it. Anyhow you will telegraph to me his arrival, won't you, and all items of news you receive from him which can be conveyed by telegram. He writes in great spirits and it may be that it will be good for him, the out of door life there. Insha Allah with safety! By the way I don't know where to write to him. Will 1st North Yorks, Cape Colony, do? If so you might telegraph me Yes when you get this letter. My last letter I have sent home to be forwarded to him. Do you know the way, when something disagreeable happens, that one looks back and tries to imagine what it would have been like if it hadn't happened? That's how I feel about his going and the imaginary state of mind seems to me to be one of incredible, almost reckless, security. It is still raining and from time to time we are enveloped in a thick mist, as befits a mountain top! We are very high up here, you know. Yesterday afternoon it cleared for half an hour and a forgotten luminary surprised us by appearing in the heavens, so I flew out and went pottering down into the town. It soon began to pour again so I turned into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is a fine place in itself and always interesting because of the crowds of pilgrims in it. There were some beautiful Roumanians in long white felt clothes kissing the stone on which the dead body of Christ was laid (all the sites here are purely fictitious and it seems that the site of this church was always within the walls and therefore couldn't have been Golgotha by any possibility.) I went into the Sepulchre which is a little marble chapel built in the middle of the great rotunda over the place where the rock tomb was found which was selected as the tomb of Christ - not, you know, the one I described to you before. That is outside the walls and has some title to its claims. It is always lighted inside by quantities of silver lamps and candles and a Greek priest stands there night and day with a taper in one hand and a silver flask of rose water in the other with which he sprinkles the people. He spoke Arabic and I asked him if I might stay there for a little, so I stood squashed up in a corner - it's the tiniest place - and watched the pilgrims. It was too interesting. First there came a monk and a nun and knelt and kissed the stone and murmured prayers and were sprinkled with rose water and departed. Then a little bent old nun by herself. Then a Greek priest; then three Russian peasant women who had a tremendous time getting themselves all in and comfortably knelt down in front of the tomb. One had a paper full of rosaries and crosses and things which she had bought and which she laid upon the tomb while the priest sprinkled them too with rosewater. Then some Arabs; then two English tourists with a horrible dragoman who squashed himself through the tiny door with great difficulty and after crossing himself many time began: "Dis lady, is de tomb of our Lord. and de candles belongs to de religions, de Greek, de Casolik,... etc. Would you like to light a candles lady?" She said rather awkwardly that she thought she would and turned to the young man by her and said "You had better light one too" He was overcome with shyness and probably wasn't quite sure whether it wasn't rather dangerous to salvation. He grunted a sort of refusal, but she forced a taper into his hand and he stood with it looking terribly embarrassed till, to his great relief, the dragoman took it away and put it in the row with the others. Then they all went away and I was left considering that there are no half measures in religion; if you want to be pious with dignity you must believe everything and not allow yourself to be placed in the disagreeable position of wondering what is lawful to you and what is a form of idolatry. The fact being that reason and sentiment are just as incompatible as God and Mammon. I left my priest on the best of terms with a sprinkling of rosewater on his side and a small coin on mine. My housemaid, Kassim, has just brought me in a big bunch of violets. The garden is blue with them. The thing I miss most is a good talk with you. Let's set apart six consecutive hours when I come home and then I may have some chance of saying a few of the things that have occurred to me in the interval and hearing your views on them! Ever, Belloved Mother, your very affectionate daughter Gertrude
Do you know, these wet afternoons I have been reading the story of Aladdin to myself for pleasure, without a dictionary! It's not very difficult, I must confess, still it's ordinary good Arabic, not for beginners, and I find it too charming for words. Moreover, I see that I really have learnt a good deal since I came for I couldn't read just for fun to save my life. It is satisfactory, isn't it. I look forward to a time when I shall just read Arabic - like that! and then for my histories! I really think that these months here will permanently add to the pleasure and interest of the rest of my days! Honest Injun. Still there is a lot and a lot more to be done first - so to work!