Pepys: the Covid Diaries (2020- )

20 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

Slept poorly, though there was less to keep me awake. In the morning to the premices of my parents’ Lawyer, a Mr. Garland, as I thought, which I found at the corner of Church Road and Alerton Road, opposite the Ottoman BBQ, in the old merchant quarter of Wool Town, now encroached all around by the City. Through the door to the jangle of a bell hung from a great coil and, within, all dimly lit, the only shaft of daylight weak and from a high, frosted window, and with a very few candles casting shadows but little warmth, and the light insufficient to penetrate the musty corners of the chamber. And everywhere around, desks, shelves, stools, ladders, papers, scrolls, leather-bound volumes innumerable and the smell of dust and cob webbs, and the only sound that of a quill scratching upon vellum, occasionally pausing as a pale clerk, barely out of school, replenishes his ink. I poduced a small cough, whereupon the clerk jumped visibly and gazed through thick eyeglasses into the gloom, astonished to see at his counter, of all people, an actual client.
  ‘Samuel Pepys,’ say I, by way of warey pleasantry. ‘Here by an arrangement to see a Mr. — ’ at which I struggle in the dim light to confirm the name upon the note from the Messenger ‘ — James Garland.’
  ‘I am he,’ says the young man, guardedly.
  ‘You are Mr. Garland?’ cry I in disbelief, for he seems cut from the same cloth as Mr. Erchin of Physician fame, and then add in what I deem to be a suitably legalistick tone: ‘There must be some mistake. I am expecting to introduce myselfe to the Attorny who represents my father and mother, to wit Mr. Pepys, Senior, and his wife, and if this not be heretofore made manifest by any arrangement, whether written or otherwise, and notwithstanding yourselfe and your position within the said Chambers, please kindly advise forthwith my arrival to whomsoever I must avail myselfe this twentieth day of the month…inst.’
  At this the young man stares open-mouthed. ‘Introduce yourselfe?’ gasps he, as if at the temeritie of the suggestion. ‘That is so irregular as to be — ’
  ‘There is no need to appear so astounded,’ say I, crossly. ‘Firstly, my father’s Attorny hath documents to furnish me that relate to my Lasting Power of Attorny for my mother, and I have brought with me all the proofs of identitie that he may wish to see, so we may persue the transaction, I hope without delay. Secondly, since I have made time for this, which is valuable to me, I anticipate that the Attorny will extend the courtesy of an introduction, however brief.’
  ‘I am very sorry, Mr. Pepys,’ huffs he, by rejoinder. ‘The documents I shall endeavore to find — ’ (casting aimlessly around) ‘ — but an introduction to Miss Mason is quite out of the question.’
  ‘Miss Mason?’ say I in bewilderment, for I never before heard a woman be an Attorny, and restate my case. ‘My father no doubt hath met these years past with his Attorny to confirm the nature of the manifest Power of Attorny now invested in me, so in pursuance of that — ’
  ‘Met with Miss Mason?’ interrupts the clerk. ‘I very much doubt that! An audience would be deemed most…unusual, Mr. Pepys.’
  ‘Well,’ say I, sticking my ground, ‘having made the opportunitie to visit this morning, how about I pay you for the documents necessary to me, and in return you request Miss Mason to pay me the kindness of an introduction, for I find this appoyntment to be at a certayne inconvenience and am somewhat pushed for time?’
  With a degree of effort, and an eye all the while askance to me, he opens (with, it appears, a certain contrived theatrickle labour) a huge volume at the furthest distance on the desk before him, and runs his finger down what may, or may not, be the relevant page and, this done, turns it, affecting to peruse several days of engagements.
  ‘I fear Miss Mason is in Chancery all week,’ says he, making to close the book with a degree of finality.
  ‘Very well,’ say I, at which he pauses mid-closure. ‘Today is Tuesday. How about next week upon this day? I expect her busyness will by then be concluded?’
  At which young Mr. Garland throws me a look of annoyance, but reopens what is evidently a Diary of Committments and runs his finger down the next few pages.
  ‘I am afraid meetings with the Lord Chancellor… ’
  ‘And the week thereafter?’ suggest I, tenaciosely.
  ‘…Inns of Court…’
  ‘And she is there twenty-four seven, is she?’
  ‘…she is working for the King,’ huffs he.
  ‘And which King would that be?’ say I, spreading my palms along the filthy counter and leaning across it in what I hope to be a menacing manner.
  ‘Why, His Majestie King Charles, the Second of that Name!’ cries he, taken aback by the seeming absurditie of the question.
  ‘Well, Mr. James Garland,’ say I, smuggerly, ‘I have news. In the years since last a duster was applied to your desks and shelfs, and in all the time since last a visitor made call upon your lacklustre establishment, there is a new King Charles. The Third of that name.’
  He regards me, aghast.
  ‘This cannot be!’ He scrabbles about his desk, forlornly seeking some kind of confirmacion. ‘The Old King dead?’
  ‘And buried. And one or two in between. I suspect that as a result of your cloistered existence you are experiencing some kind of monarchical dissonance. What about the week after?’
  ‘In the Star Chamber — ’ says he, shaking his head, and then, observing my gimlett stare, ‘ — but we could do the thirteenth day of February.’
  ‘Very well,’ say I, though my sense of authority yields to my insecure command of syntax, ‘though I pray to God that the conversation to be had will differ in no degree of significance from that which we might have had were we able to persue it this day — but no matter.’
  ‘I shall write it in the Diary,’ says he in agreeable relief, dipping his quill in fresh ink. ‘And now, subject to the proofs demanded of you by the Law of the land, it shall be my pleasure to furnish you with the documents of Attorney you require in relacion to Mrs. Pepys, your mother. Which will be, in all, 6s. per copy. Is there any other way I might appear to help you?’
  All proved and payed, after dinner I by my coach to my father in Hospitall who, being compos mentis though still, poor man, lamentably short of breath, was able to tell me the special code for his Depositte Box, wherein lie all his copys of the Lasting Powers of Attornys he wrote with Miss Mason these five years since, that I might avail myselfe of them without the inconvenience of troubling his Attorny.

17 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

At a half past twelve a-clock comes Mr. M. Jones, across the City in his coach, bringing hither my new cloake and cerecloth coate, and with them also my Indian gown that was altered, my linning stockings, embroidered gloves (very costly) and jerbil-skin breeches (fur-side to the skin, against the cold), and many other clothes besides, my state now being that I do not know how long I must stay here, only that it may be for a great time; and with him also my documents, that grant me safe passage for travel abroad in the states of Evrope, that I may use them against any obligation to act as my father’s Attorny, as well as for my mother, and thereby prove my right to deploy the Powers theretofore, all of which gives my mind another great unease, for the process is obscure to me. At dinner my mother joyned us in a meagre plate of old scratchings from the recesses of her store cupboard. ‘Which flavour would you like?’ ask I, proffering two packets, each presenting in a different colour the faded cartoon of a cute animal clutching an acorn. ‘That one,’ says she, choosing the red; so Mr. Jones and I have the contents pertaining to the grey, and, after, did essay to mend the door to the Applyance for washing clothes, it being now removed, and in sundry parts, one of them a new catch, together with a spring to secure it. But, Lord! how it did thwart our every attempt to place the mechanism this way or that, and confound every conjecture that it must work that way or this, even with a man from Ye Tube who come to help. After some hours, Mr. Jones taking leave, for he hath an extra poudle to walk (for reasons beyond the scope of this Journall to disclose, save that Mr. Rominick and his wife have entrusted their poudle to him, they to the Antipodes for Christmas — which is, in short, the disclosure), give up on it. Thus parted, I to visit my father, now upon a ward for Miasmatic Diseases and Disorders of the Phlegm, in a fine and peacefull new room with a change of sawdust and a bed of his own, where I did find him in a more measured condition, his breathing ameliorated a very little and able to say to me that the one thing he craved was golden Scottish strong water in a large glass — only a Mrs. Salt hath decreed him Nill By Mouth. Suppered and my mother abed, a brief splurge on papers and accounts, of which I now glean there to be a dispiriting quantitie. This done, settled before the magick screen with a pint of wine to watch Strickly Come Galliard where a man danced very lively, only a miserable judge found fault with his grève droite.

 

18 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

Lords Day. Slept poorly, for my mind would not settle, though my father, praise be to God, not worse today than these last. In a fit of determinacion, took into my hands the old door from the washing applyance and enferred how must fit the new catch, for it must fit the grooves worn by the old, and so mended it! (and all without Mr. Jones aid, which, God forgive me, joyed me more than it ought). After, though my heart heavy for the doing of it, summoned the Messenger, first, to the Conservatoire to make a request — viz. that my Cycumstance being now of some extraordinary nature, I must crave extentions to all my work that remayns, and my mind begun to turn to that which I feared, which is that I may be fain to defer my course in Musick — and second, to my fathers Lawyer, that I might meet with him to discuss the terms of my acting as Attorny for my parents. After supper, my mother to bed early, all a-fret that they must send my father home and that she did not remember how he had come to be where he is, I did find among a great pile of volumes set upon the floor (pertaining mostly to the subjeckt of Horology, which was my father’s great pastime) a Journall, not, like this one, in my own hand, but in that of my mother, with a little writ by my father, and the date of it 1636, when I was three years into this world. And I read by a candle’s light the year’s story of how my parents were making this house their home, this very house where I grew up, still with the same rug upon those boards there, and the same portrait upon this wall here; and how they were planting their new garden, the very garden that hides now in the winter’s dark beyond window glass and velvet curtayn, but still with the same roses in this bed here, and the same apple tree in that corner there; the account recorded in my mother’s assured hand, all full of the Certainety of youth, and of hope for a future that I pray to God be not quite yet behind them.

14 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

Lay long in bed, my sleep the best for many nights, the pain in my back still being great, though not as great as it was. This morning comes the Messenger with a note from a Physician at the New St. Thos. Hospitalle, who cares for the aged, wherein that my father remayns upon a bench in a corridor in the Emergencie Department, which troubled me greatly that a man of his age should still be there, and not admitted upon a ward. Breakfast done and the mayde for the morning gone, I by my coach to visit my father. But Lord! what a teeming place is the New Hospitall, where even the most casual glance shews the gallery where wait the poor souls still to be seen to be too small, all cramped together with their infirmities and deformities, ideally to spread the plague: those here with the catarrh, ague and disentery, the stench of bodily fluxions obliging me to clamp my kerchief over my nose; those there bleeding through a filthy bandage, or slumped with a limb angled as it should not [be], the noise of wailing compelling me to step back; above all, a boy with ringwormed scalp and in his hand a fumigator, stepping indifferent over one dead of the dropsy. I cannot fathom how an antechamber in such a New Hospitall come to be built, which is no bigger than the old. By and by, I did find my father, thanks be to God, in a quiet corrider, warm and with abundant candles, away from any squalour, lying upon a bench in no discomfort and his breathing this morning less laboured, which comforted me; and they are about the business of finding him a bed in the Frailtie Ward. Thence to my coach, a course precarious for the ice still upon the roads, and the coach park, not being moved, further from the New Hospitall than the old, which was not some small distance; and I all the while reliant upon my armcrutch lest I fall, for the last I wish is to end up in that anteroom with a limb angled not as it should be. Thence home, where a message that the morning mayde hath broken the door on the Applyance wherein my father washes their clothes, so that clothes and sheets are in there, soaked, and the door locked. After dinner, I to the Turkish barber, who shaved my head for my periwig, and my beard also, and a lighted flame passed about my ears, and the tight muscles of my neck eased, this being the single event of the day that soothed me. And so home, where supped with my mother, who stayed late before sleeping, and after she to bed my mind turned towards finding a physio.

13 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

This morning at a half-past 10 a-clock, against expectacion, comes Mrs. Icras, all a-bustle and with two acolytes trailing her voluminous skirts. After brief introductions to Irene and Mandy, we upstairs to my father, she brisk about her busyness.
  ‘Hath he made use of his chamber pot?’ says she.
  ‘Not in the time I have been here,’ say I.
  ‘In that case, his humours will become unbalanced beyond amelioracion,’ says she, confirming my concern. ‘There is no alternative. Much as he might wish it, and though it is our purpose to facilitate it, he cannot remayne at home. He must go to Hospitalle.’
  Whereupon commenced some frantique communication by means of a pocket magick screen, and a Messenger summoned to hie post-haste to the Office of Emergencie Carriages — though seemingly not first without the impediment of an abundance of questions, the answers to which I was privy.
  ‘Pepys…P-E-E-P-S…ninety-two…white…Anglo-Saxon…Protestant, no history of dissention…Royalist…with his wife, and his son is here…’ (Mandy checks with me) ‘…Samuel. No, he cannot make a cup of tea, he cannot even stand…he likes to be called — ’ (she checks with me again) ‘ — Bill…’
  At which point frustracion obliged Mrs. Icras herself to seize the pocket screen.
  ‘Listen, you addle-pated cumberworld,’ she snaps into it, ‘I am Mrs. Icras and this is a request for admission to Hospitall, Categorie Three!’
  A suitably deferencial response clearly received, she paused to take stock, and I perceived that she [appeared] drawn and was stooped for her age, her eyes tired and with dark rings below them.
  ‘They should be here within two hours,’ says she. ‘If they are not, you must call for a ninety-nine nine Messenger. There is no alternative. And now I am afraid we must away to our next invalid.’
  ‘May I offer you coffee before you go?’ hazard I. ‘This job must be hard on body and soul.’
  ‘Coffee? Pernicious stuff! But you have reminded me of the hour. If you will grant me a minute — ’
  Whereupon she reached within her ample skirts and extracted, first, a small flaggon from which she took a large swig, this followed by an item of light glass from which she inhaled a mist that lingered a little around her lips, then a snuff box from which she took a pinch of powder to enhale up each nostril, and finally a pippete containing some viscose, oily substance, a drop of which she placed under her tongue. Eyes closed, she then gave a vigorous shake of her head, shuddered back on her heels and emitted a deep and satisfied out-breath. Drawing herselfe up, she now appeared straight and six inches taller, and as she opened her eyes once more they seemed to have taken on a preternatural brightness.
  ‘That is the combination needed for a job such as mine,’ says she, wagging a finger at me. ‘Red Bull for Energy, vaiping for Peace of Mind, cockaigne for Euphoria and CBD to assuage Concern about the side effects of the other three. Come, ladies!’
  I did think as the team flew out that their leader will not see fifty.
  That done, after comes first the nurse for the District where my parents live, to replace a poultice where my mother has a leaking wound, and hard upon her another Messenger, now from the Specialised Nurse who looks after my father’s Tumour, this time with very good and excellent news — viz., that his most recent sketches from the magick ray Contryvance shew no change, so whatever he hath now, it is not that.
  Then I did sit quietly for a while beside my poor father upon his bed, and explayned gently to him how we must go against his wishes, for his own good, and that an Emergencie Carriage will come for him, God willing; and to my surprise he did aquiesce, all spirit from his argument of these two days gone. And as I looked at him afresh I saw not the determined man of former times, but one diminished by illness, with frailty revealed and weary with the effort of taking breath, and so gaunt that I wondered they needed the magick rays to look inside his chest at all, when they could stand him before a lighted candle and see what they wished to see.
  By and by comes the Emergencie Carriage, therein two burly fellows, Irishmen from their accents, who did manhandle my father on to a chair with some wheels, and thence down stairs and into the street, where it still very cold, with snow and ice upon the cobbles where the weak sun could not reach, and so away.
  They gone, after a late dinner I to the Exchange for victuals and Ibuproffen and, that done, set to ordering the great heap of letters that I had moved from the table, dividing them thus — Finance, Health and Miscillaneous. For supper cooked lasange, which come as a readied meal, but my mother told me she did not like paster, so she only had the mince and we shared a little wine between us. After, the mayde come, my mother fretting that they should not have taken her husband away. Then comes a Messenger from the Hospitalle with some questions from the Emergencie Department, to which I made answers to be returned: that my father was previosely in good health, that he walked to the shoppes, that he needed no frame and rarely used a stick and, most vital of all, that he was caregiver-in-chief for his wife. By return, that in the light of this they will treat him with all the Physick at their disposal, believing him to have a fever of the lungs and some poor working of the Kidneys, though they hope that his humours have not, in the end, been unbalanced beyond amelioracion. My mind eased that I think the correct arrangement reached by the day, at the side of my old bed I kneeled upon the hard boards, and for the first time in many a year (though, God forgive me, it pains me to commit the admission to paper) I clasped my hands together, and sayed a real prayer.

12 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

Up, after a poor sleep, my mind still much troubled for the health of my father and my mother crying out during the night that she did not know who was beside her, so that I was fain to comfort her in the dark and she slept again. At eight a’clock, it being a necessetie to send a Messenger at such an hour to receive any attencion, did ask that my fathers own Physician call upon the house. Then set to clear a little space upon the table for breakfast, which for my mother was a wheatabicks with milk, weevils and a little sugar, and for myselfe a cooked English, and the mayde come at the same time. At a half past eleven a’clock comes Dr. Pulford, who examined my father in bed, and did find him gravely ill; and it transpyres that another Physician did come from his Practice on Friday last but the Physick he prescribed not yet dispensed by the apothecary. Now my father placed me in a great quanderie, again adamant in his refusal to go into Hospitall. Dr. P— in extremis summoned a Messenger, a lad no more than fourteen years, but he can run with the best, whom he did send forthwith to request that a nurse who is called Mrs. Icras,* a name I never heared in my entire life, should attend to make an assessment of my fathers fitnesse to remayn at home; but, the lad gone, he vouchsafed to me that he had had no success in the matter these five years past. Then I made to shew him out, but he beckoned me for some private discourse between us two — to wit, the Procedure to be followed should the worst happen, and that my father die. All afternoon with a dread that a great fear was to be realis’d, which was that my father might not outlive my mother. My mind thus divided between despair for the future and the practicalitie of victuals, as an activitie of Displacement I set about the pile of letters, opened and unopened, that lay upon the table and so made space that two of us might supper in comfort, my mother the while asking why my father does not get up from his bed. At night with some effort he rose, though with much trouble, and with my help went in great slowness to his privy; but there nothing passed, which did give me great unease that his humours become unbalanced beyond amelioracion. After the mayde come, by the Messenger back and forth to Mr. M. Jones for some discourse, which done, to bed, though all the while my mind unable to dispence with the question whether the best be done by the day’s decisions, or whether my father must be in Hospitall.

* Cecelia Persephone Icras (1658-1707) was a highly innovative nurse whose contribution to healthcare is only now coming to light. Indeed, ‘Icras’ has since become an acronym derived in her honour from her family name and now used to describe the fully developed role of the ‘Intermediate Community Reablement and Assessment Service’, which exists ‘to support people in the community requiring support of an urgent nature and who are at risk of imminent hospital admission’. It is clear from this diary entry that in seeking Icras’s services Pepys’ father’s physician was leaving no stone unturned in his attempts to respect Pepys’ father’s wishes to remain at home, whilst acknowledging the potential consequences. But as Dr. Pulford must have known, gaining access to these services was very difficult. In fact, so successful was Cecelia Icras in her pioneering role, and so dedicated to it night and day, that to manage the growing demand she became increasingly reliant on a bizarre selection of stimulants, finally succumbing to a surfeit of phlogiston in the precincts of the Royal Society.

11 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

Lords day. Awake betimes, returned into the world by my back pain, it difficult to find a position of comfort. Rose, and before I could summon him, early comes the Messenger again to me, this morning from one of the maydes who cares for my mother, with a concern that she is unable to move my father from his bed.
After breakfast, to my parents’ house, where I did find my father very weak, unable to take breath with ease, and being so poorly he could not stand. So I did send a message with some urgencie by the magick screen to the Malady Service 111, and shortly comes a reply, viz.: that a Physician will call, who comes in a little over two hours. My fathers mind set against the Hospitall, as much as he could speak, we did discuss the nature of his illness, which was not clear but seemed not the Covey, and contrived to keep him at home, for fear he might spend the day on some dank corridor at St. Thomas’s, with Physick for his chest and an injunction that his own physician see him tomorrow. I was dismay’d to see him so frayle a man, always thin but thinner now, so that there is nothing surplus on his bones, neither muscle nor fat, and I wondered when he last eat.
  At supper comes the mayde who came last night, to visit my mother, who did tell me that yesterday my father saw her off at the door, being well enough and having some concern for her, it being a snow and hard frost, with ice upon the streets. After, with one arm wielding my crutch, and my free hand hauling my bag behind me, I up the stairs to the spare room to lay out my clothing, which I have brought enough for three days, and that done, waking my father to give him a caudle and his Physick, and praying that God see him through the night and that the morning find him improved. And so to bed.

8 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

This morning to the funeral of Mr. Melvin Jones, bone setter of renown and an old friend, only a little younger than I, dead of a stroke these few days. Here were all physicians and chirurgeons from St. Thomas Hospitalle, and so many more that they must stand outside the church, in thick coats and gloved and hatted against the cold; and all feeling for his stricken wife, and his daughter who spoke a fine Eulogy. Only a month since, or there abouts, did he hail me from the road side, stopped with his cycle, all in Licra and with a helmet for safety upon his head, his wife on her cycle beside him, and we three in lively discourse, it being some time since we met. I am glad that we had that conversation, for it was to be our last.

 

9 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

Up, it being bitter cold weather again, and in the morning to the Conservatoire, still with an armcrutch to walk secure and it painfulle to drive my coach; thence home, where packed for the night. At five a’clock, it dark and very cold, met with Mr. Rees, a Lecturer in Musique, and his wife, and with them in their coach beyond the Marches to Abertitswithy for the funeral tomorrow of Mr. P. Donovan, a very old and dear friend of mine, and mutually of theirs, dead of a malignant Tumor too lately manifest, they shewing me a great kindness in travelling with them for the trouble I still have with my back. All three of us in merry discourse the while, so that the journey seemed lessened, though it begun to snow and it lay upon the roads and the hills we passed through. Our inne at night was the Starling Cloud, 6l 2s., all very fine, though after resting we must cross the icy courtyard to supper, and I feared to slip on the cobbles, so walked with great care with my crutch, like an old man.

 

10 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

After breakfast, paid the reckoning, 2s. 6d. to servants and 1s. to the poor. The horses readied, found the coach windows iced so that we could not see through them till Mr. Rees scraped them, vexed that he had not covered them with sacking, or some other precaution, whereupon I related to him that in the gazette this very morning it was counselled that the rubbing of the cut side of half a potato across the glass to prevent frost was a notion not to be trusted, which he admitted an approach he had never considered. Thence by a half-past nine a’clock to the Church of Welsh Martyrs for the Mass for the Dead in the Roman rite. There met with my oldest friend, Mr. Bowen, who at the eleventh hour had entered in a Civil Union with Mr. Donovan, which was performed, thanks be to God, in a ward in the Hospitall, no more than two days before he died, though I think it a thing to break the heart that a celebration that should be of joy should be so hard by the end of life, so that all happiness be stolen from it; only for the saving grace it were managed before the hourglass finally emptied, which I hoped might assuage, however little, the anguish of loss. By and by there comes as great a crowd as I ever saw at a somber occasion, all gathered outside where some little flecks of snow did fall the while; and inside, with the punctuation of bells and all the flummery of smoke and scent of incence, a gallant sermon from the priest, and a forthright eulogy, well received, from Mr. Bowen. After, to the crematory, and thence to dinner at an inne by the sea, where much lively discourse and remeniscince by all. And though it is a great Paradox that a sad circumstance should nourish merriment, grief merely postponed, it bespoke a life well lived. In the afternoon, home with Mr. and Mrs. Rees in their coach, and thence parted. After supper comes the Messenger from my aunt, who asks if I have received any letter from my father these few days, for she hath no word since he told her a Physician might call; but being very tired, my back aching from the journey and my house and my soul cold, I dismissed him and will leave reply till the morrow. And so to bed.

6 December, in the year of our Lord 2022

Up, but with some little nerves for my Solo Performance Workshop at the Conservatoire, where I am to perform, upon the keyboard, in front of the whole class of 20 students, a Nocturne by Mr. Alex. Scryabine, the famous Moscovite — which to look at on the page appears not an undue challenge, only that it was written for the left hand alone, so the conceit is to make what was written for five fingers seem played by ten. After I introduced myself, Mrs. Sturt, an exponent of the bass vialle, asked if I was really going to attempt the feat with one hand for surely two would make it easyer, to which I made reply that I was confounded by the question and was resolved to play it as wrote, for to do otherwise would defeat the morning’s purpose and was an exercise in which, I scoffed, I saw no point whatsoever. Despite some sudden apprehension, the piece rendered decently, if not indeed admirably, and to not a little applause, which greatly contented me (and did bolster, God forgive me, a vanitie that I had chose to play a work of such ambition that also did give pleasure to all assembled). Then Mr. Lewelyn, our tutor, come with some ideas, which with some irritation I granted him, on how I might improve it still — one such being, to my annoyance, to essay the piece with both hands so as to hear how the melody might sound with a greater legato, at which I stole a glance at Mrs. Sturt, who had a wry grin upon her face. Then asked he of me what I was to do with the piece now, to which I made answer that I was going to place it forever in a locked drawer, if not actually burn it, for I did practise it so much these few weeks that I wished never again to set eyes upon it, which I think vexed him. Also in our Session Miss Millar did sing and Miss O’Brian play the horn, and another very well upon the sackbutt, and all greatly joyed by the making of such fine musick together. After, took stock that we have left only eight days of term, and I can scarce believe half the academick year almost finished, and I think this decision to study the best I ever made in all the years since I left the Naval Board, for musique is still the thing of the world that I love most.

[It is difficult from his account of that feverish dream in August 2022 to know whether Pepys truly intended to finish his diary. Possibly he felt its purpose accomplished with his finally succumbing to the Covey Plague. Perhaps he anticipated less opportunity to write, given the exigencies of his forthcoming course at the Conservatoire in Banger; or perhaps the pages are simply lost. We are able to piece together some of his activities from what records there are, which suggest that he recovered speedily enough from the plague to resume by mid-month his customary habits of dining out at the expense of friends, grumbling about overlong operas and falling asleep at sundry theatrical events. Unreliable memoir as it is, according to My Years as a Stifled Sidekick: Living in the Shadow of Samuel Pepys by Martin Jones, Sam was well enough to make the journey to Durham that September, whilst other sources indicate that he started his musical education the same month, as predicted. Whatever the cause of the hiatus, Pepys had taken up his Journal again by the end of November 2022. Ed.] 

 

30 November, in the year of our Lord 2022

Awake betimes, my back less painful than heretofore and Banjo demanding breakfast, which I did give him. Proceeded to ablutions, but in the act of towelling off in the shower carelessly reached beyond sensible limit of movement and felt once more an acute pain in my lower back, worse by far than than the last, and on the contrary side. Unable to straiten, I had little recourse but to lie upon the cold tiled floor, positioning one naked foot within sight through the open door, in the hope that a passing deliveryman might see it from the threshold and presume to make enquirie of my fate. None come, presently I pulled myself up on the basin, my spine all twisted for my lower back being in so a great a Spasm that I was unable to stand strait, nor able to walk more than two halting steps at a time. All day thus, sitting, lying or hobbling, till in the evening comes Mr. M. Jones with two armcrutches that he had from Mr. Jones and Mrs. Hunt’s Hospitalle in Salop when they rehipped him. Obliged to take two days off my study at the Conservatoire, which vexed me.

4 August, in the year of our Lord 2022

Up, but a very poor sleep and feeling a great ague come upon me, and when I rose, a chill that caused a little shiver when I went from a warm room to a cooler; so, though yet without cough, precautioned a Laterall Flough upon myself.
  Thus after these two and a half years in which I escaped it, though Lord knows how, did I confirm — finally! — that I have been brought low by the Covey plague. All day with neither energy nor motive, save to consult the magick screen for what is expected of a victim, which is to keep to my house for five days, as much as I am able, and report my result to the Gouvernement, if there is one these days. After a meagre dinner, lacking appetite, tried to write a little in my Journall, but found few words come, and they poor, so set it aside, which I have done more these past weeks, and all the rest of the day listless with a fever that come and went.
  And so to bed betimes, but the air hot and very stuffey, and restless with a fever and akeing in my arms and legs, and a horrible feeling in my head that I can not distinguish my true self from the storys my mind makes, so that it seems that though I have an awareness of my bed, and my arms, and my legs, I am somehow dreaming at the same time, with my identitie, my imagination and my memorys dissolving in the solvent of night.
  At one point in the darkness a feverish illusion takes me, that I am on the deck of a structure like the prow of a ship. I cannot see behind me, but before me is a meadow, and what seems to be a lake, and mountains, all in a fine sunshine. And in my hands I hold a strange object the size and shape of a letterbox, of a metal alloy, I think, set in a thick frame of wood, and along its length a sliding device that should move along a metal wyre from end to end, only it is all corroded so it must be forced if it moves at all; and in the rust at one end can be made out the embossed word Fiction, and at the other, Fact. But now the scenes switch at such a pace that in my Delirium I can barely keep up with my own mind. I seem to pass with the object in my hands through my kitchen, where rests by the sink my new novelty pie whistle, and out on to my lawn, and see beyond the little garden wall the same meadow where should be a flat, cropped field, and beyond that the same stretch of water I dreamed before, and beyond that the same mountains, and the sun hanging low in the sky as if it is late afternoon in a land I do not quite recognise, but which draws me toward it. And I turn to a companion who is waiting there, and feel with him the deepest bond I ever felt with any, though we say nothing to one another, and side by side we walk a while, till we find ourselfs at the waters edge, and we sit at the shoreline, where in the stillness and warmth we watch the sun lower itself into early evening. He takes the ancient object from me and examines it, and tries it to see if it will move for him, but finds it still jammed.
  ‘We have had a good couple of years, have we not, you and I?’ says he.
  ‘We have,’ say I. ‘You and I, and the Physician — ’
  ‘ — and Gerard Small — ’
  ‘ — and my mother and father — ’
  ‘ — and Banjo — ’
  ‘ — and Mr. M. Jones — ’
  ‘ — he most of all, I think, for he hath been a good sport — ’
  ‘ — and all the others, too many to list.’
  And we sit awhile in the stillness until he realises he hath something he should do, and says, ‘I have a gift for you, for your Journall hath given me new life and for that my gratitude is boundless. You will find it a model of its type, I think. I have read it voraciosely from cover to cover.’
  ‘Oh!’ say I, surprized and touched. ‘How kind you are. The Life of Thos. Cromwell by the Rev. D. MacCulloch.’
  There ensues a little more time for thought, and then —
  ‘Do you think we have said all there is to be said?’ says he.
  ‘There is always more to be said in the world, and no shortage of folk to say it. But I think I have wrote all I have to write.’
  ‘I know that feeling,’ says he, putting a hand gently upon my shoulder. ‘But do not worry. You have joyed my life.’
  ‘And you mine,’ say I.
  And then he hands back to me the rusted device. ‘Do you think each of us hath one of these?’
  I squint into the lowering sun. ‘I think we each have something akin to it, which we alter according to our needs, to make sense of the story of our lifes.’
  ‘If you have accomplished that, it is work well done.’
  ‘So speaks a master of the craft,’ say I.
  And there we pause until he breaks the silence with the one question that remayns.
  ‘What are you to do with it now?’
  And I think I know, and I think he knows what I think. I take my forefinger and idly circle a little hole in the sandy earth. ‘I am not sure what I shall do without you, Sam.’
  ‘You will do well,’ says he, smiling and squeezing my shoulder. ‘You have always done well. But this is yours, not mine, to do with as you wish.’
  ‘Well, it will either float by virtue of its wood or it will sink by dint of its metal,’ say I, as I weigh the ancient instrument in my hands, passing it back and forth from one to the other.
  So I stand, and I help him to his feet, and hold his hand in mine. And using my free hand as if preparing a flat stone to skim upon the water, I tense my muscles and release them like the string of a longbow, and send the little device spinning across the lake.
  But we cannot see if it hits the water for we are blinded by the reflection of the sun, and we cannot hear a splash for it flies too far.