John Everett Millais, born 1829 – died 1896 (artist)
A. & F. Pears Ltd. (publisher), circa 1888/89.
My bubble is very comfy. Robert and I have not lost our jobs because we didn’t have any and our income has not been reduced. Most people are not so fortunate.
I’m finding the virus tedious but I’m aware that it is catastrophic for many families and individuals. As the days get shorter and the opportunities for meeting outdoors, to comply with the rules, are fewer it’s a pretty bleak mid-winter ahead. Friends shielding are prisoners in their homes – they might as well have revealed top secret stuff and gone to live in the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge, getting deliveries from Harvey Nicks to cheer themselves up.
Largely I am confined to barracks and my day release is a walk with Bertie. I now enjoy chatting to other dog walkers. On Sunday morning I met an attractive Romanian woman who was interested in politics. She explained that Romania was very corrupt and the two parties took it in turns to govern. I expressed astonishment; usually one ruler stays on for ever. She was well educated – she gave me a geography lesson about the countries bordering Georgia – but she had not heard of Count Miklós Bánffy, author of The Transylvanian Trilogy. Transylvania is part of Romania and we spoke of its charms and the Prince of Wales’ (“very good man”) love of the region before she was a bit snippy about his wife.
She hadn’t heard of the Count and his epic trilogy because he is Hungarian. The way she pronounced Hungarian was as if she was throwing up something poisonous. I shouldn’t have been astonished by such animosity, unleashed after the collapse of the Communist Empire, but I was. I told her that I’d visited Moldova last year – “very dull, poor, little country” she opined. I have a lot of prejudices of which I am largely unaware. When I meet other people, especially foreigners, I delight in their prejudices. Romanians are a friendly Mediterranean race like Spanish and Italians. Hungarians living in Romania often speak Hungarian she muttered darkly. Incidentally, she always addressed me as “Sir” and I didn’t like to ask her why. I think it was courtesy to a grey-haired old gent in a battered trilby with a bouncy beagle.