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7.4.1 Fiction.
Senior Detective Brown testified at the trial that he found fourteen exercise books, a scrap book and a diary in Pauline's room. [actually two diaries. jp]
March 1953. Her fictional family intruded into the diary with bewilderingly frequent and tangled escapades; there were bedroom scenes, highway robberies and often more than one violent death a day. [M]
She was very interested in creative writing, and from March 1953 she began including synopses of her stories in the diary. [G&L]
April 4, 1953. In the diary record within a paragraph Roland slaps Carmelita's face when she turns his proposal of marriage down because she is engaged to Roderick, and in a blazing fury he shoots Roderick. The horse 'Vendetta' kills Gianina the night before her marriage to Nicholas. On the ledge of 'Satan's Hollow' 'Vendetta' crashes down on to Nicholas and with a wild scream turns into the sunset, his revenge complete. [M]
May, 1953. Sudden death, suicide and murder assumed extravagant proportions. They were preoccupied with ideas of great power, especially to murder without reprisal, and vicious characters were greatly respected. Their favourite character Diello was particularly vicious. Death and murders were treated lightly. [M]
The Empress of Volumnia, who was only thirteen, "has a violent temper and when in a tantrum has killed all the people who have incurred her wrath. Also she is very proud and refuses to interview anyone in the lower classes." Her people loved her and would not have had her otherwise. [M]
"Barton...silly bounder...tried to shoot me, and I have a terrible temper when roused and I am afraid I broke his back and put him in the mere (lake)...(stupid blighter). And Linker... poor fellow...you know I really quite liked him...indiscriminate in his choice of friends and is now...alack!...in the mere with Barton." [M]
[A female character]: "I don't kill people...I thought you might like to know since you asked me some time ago. My father hasn't killed anyone for quite a while. I would like to kill someone sometime because I think it is an experience that is necessary to life." [M]
"Sunrise makes the peaks crimson, as if some giant hand had dipped and smeared it with blood." [M]
1954. Pauline's book 'The Donkey's Serenade' was finished by the end of February and she immediately followed it with another. By the time of the murder they had completed or were in the process of writing six books between them, in addition to plays, poetry and an opera. [M]
