13 September

13 September 1920

Travelling to Menton, France

We arrived here yesterday at 4.50 after a day of terrific heat. Menton felt like home. It was really bliss to sit in the voiture[French for car.] and drive through those familiar streets & then up a queer little leafy ‘way' and then another at right angles to a gate all hidden by green where la bonne Annette stood waving her apron and the peke leapt at her heels. This villa is - so far - per¬fect. It has been prepared inside and out to such an extent that I don't think it will ever need a hand's turn again. The path from the gate to the two doors has a big silver mimosa showering across it. The garden is twice as big as I imagined. One can live in it all day. The hall is black & white marble. The salon is on your right as you enter - a real little salon with velvet covered furniture and an immense dead clock and a gilt mirror & two very handsome crimson vases which remind me of foun¬tains filled with blood. It has 2 windows: one looks over the garden gate, the others open on to the terrace & look over the sea. I mustnt forget to mention the carpet with a design of small beetles which covers the whole floor.
Annette had prepared everything possible. The copper kettle boiled. Tea was laid. In the larder were eggs in a bowl & a cut of cheese on a leaf & butter swimming & milk, & on the table coffee, a long bread, jam, and so on. On the buffet a dish heaped with grapes & figs lying in the lap of fig leaves. She had thought of everything & moreover everything had a kind of chic - and she in her blue check dress & white apron sit¬ting down telling the news was a most delightful spectacle. [Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters, 14 September 1920]