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'Katherine Mansfield Today' Blog
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What was KM thinking and writing 90 years ago today? The ‘KM blog’ posts daily extracts of her letters and notebooks written almost 90 years ago...
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18 May 1922
Yes, I think your idea of a Swiss hotel is the best. But there is another thing. If the cat is ill would not the doctoress put it out of pain painlessly? Its terrible cruelty to carry about a sick cat. I am absolutely certain Jack's mother wouldn't take it. But I can't judge at this distance. This letter is scribbled in great haste. I wish to Heaven you did not so throw one into confusion. Now you must run after Susie de P! And all else is nothing to you. "Youll manage somehow" about the house & leave Ernestine to go through the inventory. That you really cant do. What a relief when the whole business is over and there are no more waving strands like this. It would kill me to live like you.
You do understand, do you? This £I0 is for your journey and your personal expenses. Its no good my writing any more. I can only repeat that I do think in this matter Susie de P. ought to consider you. Surely she knew why you were at the chalet? Extraordinary!
K.M.
Why muddle? Why rush? Why fuss? Why kill yourself? Its your own fault. I didn't ask you to go at 60 miles an hour. But I see plainly you're the milling slave of the new ‘person'. It really is humiliating. [To Ida Baker, 11 May 1922.]
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17 May 1922
My dear Ida
I hasten to reply to your letter. Jack is writing Mrs M. today and asking her to reply to you direct. Ida, I don't see how you can leave until you get that reply! You were up there, I thought, to settle up the "leaving all in order". You can't leave it half done, surely? Why this rush now with Susie de P. S0 like you! Shes the one bright star. But how maddening! I do beg you to stay there & see all is arranged. We shall tell Mrs M. about Ernestine going in once a week. I have already wired about the boxes. Of course it would be folly to have lids at that price if the others are strong. I beg you - its so utterly absurd! - now that you have been up there for nearly 3 months to see to settling up the house not to rush off before its done. I send you a cheque for £I0 for yourself If you want more, tell me. That is for your own personal expenditure. Send us the bills for the boxes. But I have faithfully believed I could leave this matter of the chalet to you. If you are going to let me down - wire at once. It is absolutely distracting. You must go through the inventory with Mrs M 's representative & get him to sign that all is in order and that the house is in order. I have no reply whatever, otherwise, to what Mrs M may say.
[To Ida Baker, 11 May 1922.]
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16 May 1922
My dear Elizabeth,
How glad I was to hear from you! I had been thinking of you - feeling how you must love this weather. It is simply so perfect that I seem to spend the day in telling myself how exquisite it is. What else can one do? And one's self never grows impatient, which is such a relief but agrees enthusiastically every time . . . And then it's so adorable of you to ask me how I am - to care about knowing. If you knew how I appreciate that! As far as I can see this treatment has been wonderfully successful. I have hardly any cough, I've gained pounds and pounds, and the only thing that remains is a tired heart. Which will of course recover now that it does not get such a never-ending shaking. I can't say that I am cured for certain until after the second series, but I feel cured, Elizabeth, quite absolutely different! Of course I can only crawl like a snail, but a [ ] snail - a rejoicing one. In fact it is so marvellous that it's still a dream. . .
Will you feel we are haunting you in your glades and groves when I say we are going to the Hotel d'Angleterre in June. We both have so much work to do that we don't dare to look for a new place or to make holiday. But I long for that air, those mountains, the shining peace of June. There is no place more beautiful! Don't mind us! We won't intrude! But it would be heavenly to come to the Chalet in August. [To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, c.10 May 1922.]
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15 May 1922
Dear Ida
Just a line to say - Jack and I both have so much work to do this summer that we have decided when we leave here (end of this month) to go to the Hotel d'Angleterre, Randogne. Does that make you open your eyes! But in the summer June and July that place was so lov ely & I know it. It would only take a day to settle and a look at the mountains before one could work. All other arrangements are too difficult - Germany & so on. We have not, literally, the time to discover a new place and take our bearings. Then we shall be near Elizabeth, too. The winter we are going to spend in Bandol at the Beau Rivage. I am going to get a maid now at once. I can't do without one. I simply have not the time to attend to everything and I can't bear as you know ‘untidiness'. I shall advertise in the Daily Mail. Jack may be going to lecture in England this autumn too, so I should like to have a really trustworthy person to post letters and so on and be with me. By the way it may interest you Jack is really very successful now. His reputation is at least double what it was. He has a new job with The Times too which is being enormously successful. Don't speak of our plans, by chance, will you?
There is a really superb professional pianist here. He plays nearly all day & one writes to his music.
Au revoir
K.M. [To Ida Baker, Draft 10 May 1922.]
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14 May 1922
But what nonsense I am writing. I must get up & go have my wool washed. The shutters are 1/2 shut & through them gleams a red azalea that Jack bought at Poitiers. It looked a poor thing then but it has turned into a superb creature in this blessed oh how blessed heat and light!
Ida - can you take a parcel for me?? If not you & I will tie up one here & nip out to the post with it. I must get rid of these old skins. Short of digging a hole in the carpet I cant with Jack about. Jack has accepted more or less a lecture tour in England this autumn. I go to Bandol when my time is up here - to the Beau Rivage. I hope to get a maid before I leave here. But I haven't done anything about it yet. Someone I must have. But really as long as the sun shines nothing is urgent. It is as hot as San Remo. I have slashed the sleeves off my blue charmeuse. Sleeves are intolerable. At 10.30 last night I paddled in the bath. But they still feed me on puree de lentilles and soissons. I had strawbug tartlets with the Schifls yesterday. Can you make them? Forgive a very silly letter. [To Ida Baker, 10 May 1922.]
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13 May 1922
Jack told you - didn't he - we are coming to the Angleterre. If you have time would you run down & SEE a couple of rooms? It would be very nice if you could as you are so near. I look forward beyond words to the early summer there for working. Any other place would take up too much time. We can settle in there in a day and start off. Both of us are behindhand. And its harder & harder to work here. The weather is really divine. I spent yesterday in the Bois at a marvellous place with the Schiffs. I think I should begin to dance if I stayed here long. You can't imagine how beautifully these women dance in the open under flowering chestnut trees to a delicious band. All the very height of luxury. I do like luxury - just for a dip in and out of. Especially in Paris because its made into such an Art. Money buys such really delightful things. And then all is managed so perfectly. One has tea out of doors but its so exquisite. One's cup & saucer gleams & the lemon is a new born lemon and nobody fusses. Thats the chief point of money. One can buy that complete freedom from fuss. [To Ida Baker, 10 May 1922.]
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12 May 1922
Confidential.
Dear Ida
As far as I can tell this treatment has been (I hesitate to use this big word) completely successful. I hardly ever cough. I have gained 8 pounds. I have no rheumatism whatever. My lungs have not been re-examined yet nor has the sputum. Ill let you know about these things. But so far - it seems I am getting quite well. My voice has changed back. I take no medecines. The only thing that remains is that my heart is tired and weak. That means I get breathless and cannot walk yet except at a snail's pace with many halts. But I have no palpitation or anything like that. And of course now that I don't cough or have fever my heart will gradually recover. Manoukhin says I ought to be able to walk for an hour in June, even. I put confidential to this letter because I don't feel its fair to tell anyone who may ask you until I have the facts like X ray & analysis. Should anyone ask - just say I am infinitely better & that Ive gained 8 lbs. I mean Hudson or Woodifield. [To Ida Baker, 10 May 1922.]
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11 May 1922
About coming over. That is for you to say. We shall be here until the end of this month, and really all times are the same, now. But do I catch just the faintest hesitation - about leaving your house and so on just as you have got in? If its there darling lets put off meeting again until later. Please tell me bang out. Oh, before I forget. If you have not bought that linen please don't buy it. It suddenly horrifies me - the idea of anyone buying me all that awful white linen. How gruesome! How terrible! If you have bought it - Ill pay gladly - and ask you to keep it. But dont buy it for me! There would be a coffin worm in its folds. This is just a note written as usual on the flat of my back. Can you read such awful writing.
Love - love - a special summer line of love.
The Mountain passes through Paris on the 10th on her way to London. I am going to ask her to take a parcel to you. It will consist of among other things 3 frocks of mine (I love exchanging things like this !) which I thought you might like to have for gardening in. So simple to throw off & on & when finished throw over the wall. They are quite good as people say. There is no snag. If you hate them or feel insulted give em away to the next lady who wants to sell you a fern. [To Dorothy Brett, 8 May 1922.]
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10 May 1922
Dearest, I wouldn't if I were you make rules about not showing your work for so and so long. Let us talk it all out when you come over. The great thing is to go on quietly, steadily, your own way. Thats the secret. I think myself you have worked too much without someone near you to discuss what you are doing as you go along - to think it out, talk it over and so on. You have not had enough attention. Some people need a tremendous great deal in order to develop their own powers. Its as though you were a kind of plant, my lamb, that needs a ‘frame' as well as the sun, for a bit. You need cherishing. You need the feeling that you are carried in the breast of another. I don't need that. There is something hard in me which even refuses it absolutely where work is concerned. But I know, quite simply I can give that to another. I can help others - for some reason (Im not ‘proud' of it you know, any more than a water diviner is proud of his queer flair). There it just is. I wish you could make use of it. [To Dorothy Brett, 8 May 1922.]
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9 May 1922
Dearest Brett
Do you mean the true original Eva? I always felt she was a wonderful creature! I feel inclined to steal her immediately. No, only in jest. But what amazing luck! I do hope she looks after you really well.
Do you regret Thurlow Road? One always regrets that skin. One always leaves something precious like a little hoard of treasure buried somewhere and back one goes to it like a ghost, seeking and tapping. How I feel that about Isola Bella! But next Winter M. and I are going to spend in the South! Oh God, what a joy! Brett, as soon as I have the money the little house will be bought in the woods above Bandol. But now I have flown off, darling and I meant to say I feel this house of yours is going to be a happy one. Don't you? I•haven't you taken it to your heart?
I am going to get up today & attack solid food again. It sounds a joke but my last five days Ive had a fearful tummy upset - like poisoning - with pains & high fever. Isn't it extraordinary! I suppose these are the final rages of the devils The weather has been perfect & Ive been in my horrid old bed, useless as ever. But I think its on the wane again.
But the warmth! The sun! The air - so soft. The bells so gentle! It is impossible not to feel happy and thankful for Life - beautiful Life. [To Dorothy Brett, 8 May 1922.]
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8 May 1922
My dear W.J.D.
I have been trying to arrive at this moment ever since your letter came about J.M.Ms book. But the cares of my dilapitated little house take up nearly all my time. Last month I really began to breathe again, as they say, but in stalked the influenza and he is a persistent fellow; he's not gone yet. This is very annoying. But please do not hate me for it. . .
I did not expect you to write to me about my Garden Party. But I wanted you to have a copy. A strange thing - the night of the day when I last wrote to you, just before I fell asleep I saw, in the air, the envelope of my letter to you about Miss M. I had addressed it 14 Annesley Road. But it seems to me impossible you should not know how much I loved Miss M. She is part of my world. I wish you were here; I wish we could talk about her for a long time - no less than walk through whole chapters. But these are bold words.
Your Fanny seems to me so much the one and only Fanny that I feel I must apologise for using her name in vain in The Nation. Florence (whom I feel understands Fanny best) I expected to challenge me to a duel. Speaking of Florence, there is a Florence Dela Mare in this hotel. We keep no end of an admiring eye on her. Sometimes she is late for lunch and we pine. Then she comes down to dinner in a frock to take the breath. We met her first in the lift - flew up in the air with her. And J.M.M. said ‘Florence De la Mare' and I said ‘of course'. [To Walter J. de la Mare, 6 May 1922.]
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7 May 1922
Dear Ida,
You will send me the bills in good time, won't you? So that all can be settled up there.
With regard to Jacks possessions. Will you please pack his breeks, his cricket shirts, all socks or stockings, his summer underclothes, and in fact anything he may need this summer - in his large suitcase & bring it with you? Is that possible? Fur rug & striped tick blanket & so on must go into another box. Blue serge suit please throw away. He'd like his white trousers please. And will you bring his camera?
[...] Yes I am terribly terribly busy. Its worse every day. And the letters. Oh - these letters. They stream in & have to be answered. I ousted my flu finally with 1/2 bottle of champagne. I felt really awful [the] first few days & then one day ordered champagne for lunch & it did the trick. Its worth knowing. Its not an extravagance. It saves hundreds of bipalatonoids & their kind. [To Ida Baker, 5 May 1922.]
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6 May 1922
My dear little Hugh,
First I must beg your pardon for not having thanked you for that lovely postcard you painted for me. But I wanted to run out and buy you a little present to pop in the letter and I have not been able to yet, for I have been ill, too. But I won't forget. The very first time I go out I will drive to a shop that sells presents.
How very nicely you painted that bee-hive. I have always wanted to live in a bee hive, so long as the bees were not there. With a little window and a chimney it would make a dear little house. I once read a story about a little girl who lived in one with her Grandma, and her Grandma's name was old Mrs. Gooseberry. What a funny name!
Mr. Murry thinks you write very well. He liked the "R" best. He said it looked as if it was going for a walk. Which letter do you like making best? "Q' is nice because of its curly tail.
I have pinned the postcard on the wall so that everybody can see it. I hope you are nearly well again.
With much love from
"Mrs. Murry" [To Hugh Jones, 5 May 1922.]
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5 May 1922
Dear Mr Pinker,
Very many thanks for your letter. About In a German Pension. I think it would be very unwise to republish it. Not only because its a most inferior book (which it is) but I have, with my last book, begun to persuade the reviewers that I don't like ugliness for ugliness sake. The intelligenzsia might be kind enough to forgive youthful extravagance of expression and youthful disgust. But I don't want to write for them. And I really cant say to every ordinary reader "Please excuse these horrid stories. I was only 20 at the time!"
But perhaps these reasons have too much sentiment in them. As a business proposition it would I am sure be bad. It would, quite rightly provoke all those critics who have been good enough to let byegones be byegones in judging the Garden Party.
[To Eric Pinker, 3 May 1922.]
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4 May 1922
My dear Lamb
If I sound cold and horrid - unloving - sometimes, forgive me. I try to help it but I don't succeed very well. What I ought to say is "I am writing about Bolshevism and so on for two reasons. (1) Because it is interesting in a superficial way but (2) because I want to tide over a difficult moment." (2) is the most important thing. Its rather like the nonsense people talk in doctors' waiting rooms. You know? Not being able to keep quiet or to show what I feel I hand you the copy of Punch or whatever it is . . . Forgive me, my little Brettushka. And do understand once and for always its not for lack of love.
[...]Its rather an important day for me. I am beginning my long serial half of which has to be finished in a month from now! And I have also signed away all the rest of my book to be ready sans faute by the end of the summer. The serial is very exciting. Its 24.000 words, a short novel in fact. I want it to end with a simply scrumptious wedding - rose pink tulle frocks for the bridesmaids, favours on the horses heads, that marvellous moment at the church when everyone is waiting - the servants in a pew to themselves. The cook's hat. But all all divinely beautiful if I can do it - gay, but with that feeling that "beauty vanishes beauty passes. Though rare, rare it be . . . "
[To Dorothy Brett, 3 May 1922.]
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3 May 1922
Im sick to death of this hotel. Ive eaten hundreds of wings of hotel chickens & God knows how many gritty little trays have whisked in and out of my room. But its a marvellous spot to know of I can never be grateful enough. Its so simple, as they say, and all the servants are pleasant. But I want to be off where I can work more - I can't work in cities. And Ive already sold every story of my new book in advance - and have 12 to deliver in July. Im afraid I am absolutely ‘booked up' for this year with work for here and America. But if we could meet next spring, Anne, & do a book then. I mean - make a small spring Tour & write a book on it. I think that would be a perfectly adorable idea.
Weve seen nobody in Paris - Joyce came one day for a talk but thats all. Im a bit too old, or I feel too old for cafes, even if I were well enough to go to them. I don't like that crowd - Nina Hamnet and Co. Can't get on with it. Life is too short. Or perhaps this is old age.
J.M. who is an excellent nose flattener has bought two lovely old apothecary jars decorated in green and pink and yellow. I wish you could see them as they are now full of anemones. [To Anne Drey, 1 May 1922.]
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2 May 1922
I was horrified to realise David is old enough to make jokes. Heavens! Do keep him a nice small little boy for a little bit longer. Does he know about the ‘Three Little Kittens who Lost their Mittens' and rhymes like that? I think there is nothing to beat those very silly but awfully funny nonsense rhymes and when you are small they have a meaning that we forget later. Oh, Anne I saw such perfect lambs of little boys in the Bois the other day. They made me wish wish wish that you and David were there too. The Bois is simply too beautiful just now. Jack Murry haunts the Luxembourg Gardens however and is to be seen creeping into the back row of the 2d guignol. No one else is there over four. But he says when the VOLEUR appears with a most terrific eye - you know the kind - he cant help letting out a yell himself. If only it would stop raining - large spots of rain as big as mushrooms fall every day - Paris would be perfect just now. I dont see much of it for I have still two weeks of my X ray ‘cure' to go. But after that I shall really begin to prowl. I can't say much about the cure till its over. I dare not. But I feel very different already. [To Anne Drey, 1 May 1922.]
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1 May 1922
Dearest Anne,
I have just been through that déchirante experience - two lovely young creatures from the Chemiserie with little frocks "pour essayer seule-ment Madame". Im sitting, fringe straight again at last writing to you in the one they forced on me - a kind of plum grey - tout droit, with buttings on the hips and no trimming at all except a large embroidered lobster bien pose sur la ventre!!! Shall I ever wear it again? Its beginning to look [more] extraordinary every moment. The little creatures twittering chic-chic-chic would have made me buy a casserole for a chapeau with two poireaux in the front. That is the worst of living as I do far from the female kind. These moments come and Im lost.
Yes, darling Ill be here first week in June for sure. Do come then. Otherwise I don't know where I shall be off to. Ive got a wandering fit on. Anywhere, anywhere but England! The idea would be to have a small permanent niche in Paris and another in the South and then a small car, and so on, ma chere. Very nice - only one thing is missing to make it complete. However, I never care much about money. I always feel sooner or later it will turn up - one will find it somewhere, in the crown of ones hat or in the jam pot. [To Anne Drey, 1 May 1922.]
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30 April 1922
Well, if Im going to get up for lunch up I must get. Another gritty, heavy tray on this bed and I shall scream. Terrible lessons in patience are needed to be ill in an hotel. But the people mean to be so very kind. They are certainly a remarkable set of servants - I shall always come back here with pleasure. They will do anything for one and one can keep canaries or cover the walls with pictures or have 13 vases of flowers as one little Chinaman has (according to my maid) and the servants like it!
Goodbye. Write again when you have a mind to. I am always astonished you write so seldom. But I think you do it with intent. It seems to you best. That first long gap including Easter amazed and worried me. I couldn't believe it of you, after I had so earnestly begged you to keep in touch. I nearly wired Hudson in my anxiety. And then along came your letter with the days fly by & painted eggs and so on. After that no silence will surprise me. So never feel bound to write. Letters aren't everything, but I have always found it a trifle difficult to understand how people keep in touch without them. But people do. I expect you'd have a "spiritual" reason.
Ever
K.M. [To Ida Baker, 30 April 1922.]
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29 April 1922
Since I wrote you that last letter Ive had flue. The weather has been really appaling, never the same for 1/2 an hour. I feel better today however and shall get up for lunch. Im rather glad to have had influenza; it has been such a dreaded thing to me.
My agent has sold every single story of my new book in advance & I have not written one. That's pleasant! But once we get away we shall be able to work without end. My book has been a complete success, really. It has made it possible for me to publish stories anywhere I like, it seems. I even get column reviews from the Tribuna - the Italian ‘Times'. I intend, next spring, to go to London, take the Bechstein Hall and give readings of my stories. Ive always wanted to do this and of course it would be a great advertisement. Dickens used to do it. He knew his people just as I know old Ma Parker's voice and the Ladies Maid. [To Ida Baker, 30 April 1922.]
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28 April 1922
I am very interested that Koteliansky thinks the German Russian treaty good. Manoukhin and all the Russians here say it means war in the near future - for certain, for certain! It is the beginning of Bolshevism all over Europe. The Bolsheviks at Genoa are complete cynics. They say anything. They are absolutely laughing in their beards at the whole affair, and treating us as fools even greater than the French. The French at least have a sniff of what may happen but we go on saying "let us all be good", and the Russians & Germans burst with malicious glee. I was staggered when I heard this. Manoukhin's partner here, a very exceptional French-man, started the subject yesterday, said why did not we English immediately join the French and take all vestige of power from Germany. This so disgusted me I turned to Manoukhin & felt sure he would agree that it simply could not be done. But he agreed absolutely. So they declare, the Russians here, we are in for another war and for Bolshevism partout. Its a nice prospect - isn't it! [To Dorothy Brett, 29 April 1922.]
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27 April 1922
Dearest Brett,
Many many thanks for your letter. Ill answer it first. About Joyce. Don't read it unless you are going to really worry about it. Its no joke. Its fearfully difficult and obscure and one needs to have a really vivid memory of The Odyssey and of English literature to make it out at all. It is wheels within wheels within wheels. Joyce certainly had not one grain of a desire that one should read it for the sake of the coarseness, though I confess I find many a "ripple of laughter" in it. But that's because (although I dont approve of what he has done) I do think Marian Bloom & Bloom are superbly seen at times. Marian is the complete complete female. There's no denying it. But one has to remember she's also Penelope, she is also the night and the day, she is also an image of the teeming earth - full of seed, rolling round and round. And so on and so on. I am very surprised to hear a Russian has written a book like this [Andrei Bely's Petersburg]. Its most queer that its never been heard of. But has Kot read Ulysses? Its not the faintest use considering the coarseness except purely critically.
[To Dorothy Brett, 29 April 1922.]
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26 April 1922
Dear Mr Pinker,
I thank you for your letter of April 22.
You are right in thinking that my next book of stories will contain about 60,000 words, of which the English serial rights of 24,000 are already sold
to "The Sphere". In addition to these there are four stories which have already appeared serially, which I intend to include in my next book. This disposes of a further 8,000 words, say 30,000 in all, leaving 30,000 words still undisposed of serially. As far as I can foresee - it is extremely diflicult to be definite about work that is still unwritten - these 30,000 words will be composed of 8 stories - 3 of about 5000 words, 3 of 3-4000 words, and 2 short ones of 2000 words.
If Messrs Constable enter into this arrangement and buy the serial rights of these unsold 30,000 words at £8 a thousand, I should be content with £100 in advance on the book rights. If, however, the arrangement falls through and they do not buy the serial rights at this price, I should not consider £100 adequate. But, as you say, £8 a thousand is a better price than I have hitherto received for serial rights, and that would compensate for the rather small advance on the book royalties.
With many thanks for your care of my interests,
I remain,
Yours sincerely,
Katherine Mansfield [To Eric Pinker, 25 April 1922.]
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25 April 1922
My dear Elizabeth,
It was a small miracle to receive your letter this morning when I had only cast mine on the waters yesterday. Oh dear, what an enchanting way you have of filling your letters so full that there are little side flower-beds as well and tufts of sweet-smelling delicious things tucked into the very corners! I revel (decently and modestly, I hope) in every word.
But it's horrible to think of you facing castor oil. And the worst of it is C.O. is such a jealous God. Every dose puts one into grimmer bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods but me.
May I as an old campaigner suggest that a large wine-glassful of Saint [ ] Water sipped slowly an hour before breakfast and followed by an apple or an orange is very ‘helpful'. Another glass of Saint [ ] sipped slowly during the day completes the cure, I find. Old [ ] who had the inside very much to heart used to swear by spinach at the evening repast, eaten very hot. The whole secret lay in that.
I wish you would see Doctor Sorapure. He is a great lamb and an extremely intelligent one. In fact he is a unique human being. His address is 47, Wimpole Street. His telephone number is 3146 Mayfair. [To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 25 April 1922.]
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24 April 1922
My dear Ida
The Flowers arrived in the most perfect condition - so fresh they might have been gathered 1/2 an hour ago. I have made a most exquisite ‘garden' of the moss, little violet roots, anemone roots & crocus blades. Its like a small world. The rest are in a jug. They are surpemely lovely flowers. But please do something for me. I beg you. Tell me (1) where they grew (2) how they grew (3) was there snow near (4) what kind of a day was it (5) were they among other flowers or are they the first? Don't bother about description. I only want fact. In fact if you can send me a kind of weather & ‘aspects' report as near as you can you would earn my deep deep gratitude. By aspects I mean the external face of nature.
If E. [Ernestine] had anything to do with the gathering mille remerciments. If W had a paw in the matter pull his tail for me.
K.M.
[To Ida Baker, 24 April 1922.]
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23 April 1922
But how are you? Are you enjoying London? I don't know why I rejoice so to hear of Bertie's happiness and his wife's dimple.? But I do. The dimple is very important. No wife ought to be without one. But she sounds so pretty. I love bright eyes. How satisfying it is to write about pretty creatures. Your Lucy was so lovely, her slender legs as she lay asleep by the fire - her long lashes.
Are you working? I won't ask you what you are reading. Do you sometimes get tired of books - but terribly tired of them. Away with them all! It being a cold night, lately, John and I slept together and there we lay chaste in one bed, each with an immense Tome of Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe perched on our several chests. And when my side of the bed began to shake up and down
J: "What in God's name are you laughing at?"
K: "Goethe is so very very funny!"
But it hadn't ‘struck' John. [To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 23 April 1922.]
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22 April 1922
We are both longing to get away to that small Bavarian village and to work. I feel I have spent years and years at this hotel. I have eaten hundreds of wings of hotel chickens and only God knows how many little gritty trays with half cold coffee pots on them have whisked into my room and out again. It doesn't matter. Really one arrives at a rather blissful state of defiance after a time when nothing matters and one almost seems to glory in everything. It rains every day. The hotel window sills have sprouted into very fat, self-satisfied daisies and pitiful pansies. Extraordinary Chinamen flit past one on the stairs followed by porters bearing their boxes which are like large corks; the lift groans for ever. But it's all wonderful - all works of the Lord - and marvellous in His sight. John and I went for a drive in the Bois the other day. Elizabeth, it was divine. That new green, that grass; and there were cherry trees in flower - masses of adorable things. . .
[To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 23 April 1922.]
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21 April 1922
Most dear Elizabeth,
I have kept on putting off writing to you until I could say that I was quite well. But that's silly. For I think of you, wonder where you are and if you have started your journey, long to know, and miss the joy of your hand-writing on the envelope. Oh dear, it would be nicest of all to see you and to hear you talk. I shall always miss you as one misses someone very near and dear. It would be too lovely if John and I might come to the Chalet in August - too thrilling. I dip into the idea and put it away again - as one does a beloved book.
About John's novel. I felt very much as you did when I read the Times review - almost as though the reviewer had been reading another book. . . "A later and a loftier Annie Lee." It has been very well reviewed on the whole. Don't you think that perhaps he lays bare the secret of many many men - the desire to walk away from their solitary job, solitary cottage loaf and marmalade and find an ideal pub with a cosy landlady. I don't know. I had much better hold my tongue. John is by no means puffed up. He looks upon it as an experiment and having written it feels he can now swim in the deep end of the bath without fear. [To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 23 April 1922.]
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20 April 1922
Dear Ida
I was v. glad to hear from you today. I had begun to wonder how things were going. When you write again tell me - will you? about money. What is the situation.
We have had awful weather lately, with the exception of Vendredi Saint. I have not been well for the past ten days as a result, I expect, and work has accumulated to such an extent that Im afraid Im no good as an advisor to you about your T House. If not Brighton, I'd try Eastbourne long before Sheringham (which is a most horrid place). But I have heard of a place called Frinton, very chic - Winston Churchills, Gladys Cooper, Sir Gerald du Maurier & Dora Morley and family. I know nothing more about it but I should imagine it would be more your affair.
About a name. I don't think the title is at all a good idea. People with ozone appetites don't care a button if its Lady Diana Marmers or plain Jane who satisfies them. In any case I doubt if it ever pays to pander to snobs. [To Ida Baker, 19 April 1922.]
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19 April 1922
By the way I have discovered something interesting about the Russian colony in Paris - I mean Manoukhin and his friends. They are intensely religious. Before the revolution they were all sceptics - as far from religion as the English intelligenzsia. But now that is changed. They go to church perpetually, kneel on the cold stones, pray, believe, really, in religion. This is very strange. Last Good Friday at the clinic Manoukhin was late and his partner, Donat, a handsome white bearded man with a stiff leg, talked to us about it. They have become mystics, said he. Mystic! That strange word one is always touching the fringes of and running away from . . .
Forgive this letter - all is scraps and pieces. I am shamefully tired and only fit for business communications. I try to whip myself up but its no good. The spirit is there all right, dearest. Please read between the lines and I promise in another week or two I shall send a better different letter.
[To Dorothy Brett, 17 April 1922.]
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18 April 1922
We nearly saw Ethel Sands last week. Murry quite saw Iris Moffet. Met her in the street. Has she been ill? He said she was so changed he hardly knew her. Something has happened to her skin. But perhaps it was only temporary. I have been seeing my Schiffs after all. They are wonderfully kind and sensitive. There are some people whom one delights in for most complicated reasons - by delights in I mean enjoy. I suppose the pleasure is nearly all literary. The Schiffs are a perfect feast to one in that way. I could watch, listen, take in for days at a time. And then I admire Violets appearance very much - do you? Everything is so definite - her lips, her eyes, nose, teeth, and that air of radiance. She has a lovely throat, too - very full, and her gaiety is very very rare.
[To Dorothy Brett, 17 April 1922.]
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