15 November

15 November 1920

Villa Isola Bella, Menton, France

My darling
Your letter saying I could knock off (no need thanks) came today & you sound better. You told me too about the Part Eyes. If I were you Id never go - never. Why should you? They must be simply too awful - I don't believe I could go. Id change into something frozen. Leave them alone. Sullivan & his Sullivanchen can go. Hes queerly insensitive & proud of being invited to such affairs mais ils ne sont pas pour nous.
Tchekhov hated them just as we do. At any rate its not worth while to sit up till 1.20 for Sullivan - ever. I hate Sullivan for that. If I could see him now here Id say ‘no'. I feel I don't ever want to speak to him again. Such disgusting indifference. He is a clumsy creature. I think Im terribly intolerant of clumsiness.
Fine shades - fine shades - Im all for them. Life is made up of nuances. One must be sensitive sensitive to the very last nerve - or I must.
If I didn't live with you Id live solitary. Id go further & further away. I love to watch my people to know them but I like to keep very very free - what I suppose you accused me - aloof. In fact, I confess that except with you I DO feel aloof and remote and rather fastidious. Ill only be familiar with you. Du reste j'ai mon travail. But just shaking those par¬ties at me makes me . . . feel like Mother. Oh people are careless, clumsy the days when I could stand them are over. Dont ever ask Sullivan here - will you?
Your own
Wig. [To J. M. Murry in Collected Letters]

My dear Sydney
Will you and she forgive me if I do not write a letter just now? I am overworked. C'est un mauvais moment. Please accept my love instead. I long to see you both. I rejoice with all my heart that you are better, dearest Violet. May you both be happy!
The weather here is divine. It is almost unbearably beautiful. I have taken this villa for two years - for my lifetime, I feel.
But dear friends, my friends whom I think of with - how much - love - forgive me for just now.
Je suis tellement fatiguée.
Katherine. [To Sydney Schiff in Collected Letters]