Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles). Katherine Mansfield
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all my soul — and here is the kernel of the whole matter — the Oscar-like thread — I want to practically celebrate this day by beginning to write a book. In my brain, as I walk each day, as I speak, or even before playing my ‘cello, a thousand delicate images float and are gone. I want to write a book that is unreal, yet wholly possible — because out of the question — that raises in the hearts of the readers emotions, sensations too vivid not to have effect, which causes a thousand delicate tears, a thousand sweet chimes of laughter. I shall never attempt anything approaching the histrionic; and it must be ultra-modern. I am sitting right over the fire as I write, dreaming, my face hot with coals. Far away a steamer is calling, calling, and — God, God — my restless soul!!!”
During that year she had worked intermittently on the “novel” Juliet, completing the first chapters, writing snatches of chapters to follow, but she abandoned it now. As she looked back to survey the year just passed, she didn’t consider it even worth including in her year’s achievement:
“June 25, 1907.
“I hate everybody, loathe myself, loathe my life and love Cæsar (A.T.) Each week, sometimes every day — tout dépend — when I think of that fascinating cult which I wish to absorb me, I come to the conclusion that all this shall truly end. Liberty — no matter what the cost, no matter what the trial. I begin, hideously unhappy, make, God knows, how many resolves, and then break them! One day I shall not do so.
“I shall ‘strike while the iron is white-hot,’ and praise myself and my unconquerable soul. From the amethyst outlook, the situation is devilishly fascinating, but it cannot be permanent. The charm consists mainly in its instability. I must wander; I cannot — will not — build a house on any damned rock. But money, money, money is what I need and do not possess. I find a resemblance in myself to John Addington Symonds.
“The day is white with frost; a low blue mist lingers daintily among the pine avenue. It is very cold and there is a sharp sound of carts passing — quite early, too. A tram-whistle sounds; a tram passes at the end of the street. The maids are putting away crockery. Downstairs in the music-room the ‘cello is dreaming. I wonder if it shall be beneath the hands of its Master — I think not.
“Well, a year has passed. What has happened? London behind me — Him behind me — Cæsar gone. My music has gained, become a thing of 10,000 times more beauty and strength. I myself have changed rather curiously. I am colossally interesting to myself. One fascinating Day has been mine. My friend sent me Sonia.
“And I have written a book of child verse. How absurd. But I am very glad; it is too exquisitely novel. And while my thoughts are redolent of purple daisies and white sweetness of gardenias, I present the world ‘with this elegant thimble.’ I have been engaged to a young Englishman for three weeks because his figure was so beautiful. I have been terribly foolish many times, especially with Oscar Fox and Siegfried Eichelbaum — but that is past. This year coming will be memorable. It will celebrate the Cultivation of the inert, the full flowering of the Gardenia. This time next year I shall have been born again.”
Into this adolescent exoticism she reacted from the disappointment of her hopes for her book of verse. Meanwhile, as she waited for the realisation of her plans and dreams of returning to London, she filled the time, when she was not writing, with trio practices. Her friends, as they look back, remember her as “the ‘cellist.” Milly Parker, one of the musicians who played with her, describes her own impression so different from Matty’s impression, or E.K.B.’s:
“Windy days and a ‘cello is my first impression of her, for it was in Wellington and for trio practices that we met. A neighbour whose sons were at that time studying in Brussels, had received a composition from one of the boys (I remember the now noted’ cellist Mr. Arnold Trowell), a trio for violin, ‘cello and piano. I was asked to help with the piano part, and with the proud parent of the young composer playing the violin, some tremendous practising was done. And so a delightful acquaintance began. Our neighbour removed his household to London shortly afterward, but from that time until seas came between us, Miss Beauchamp brought her’ cello to our home for practice every Thursday morning without fail.
“It is easy to remember her standing at the door, with rather an air of a wandering minstrel, strands of wind blown hair clinging to a little round hat, her ‘cello slung by a strap over her shoulder….
“I think of her dressed in brown, for she had a fancy to play in a frock that ‘toned’ with the ‘cello, as though with a desire to merge herself with the instrument and that indeed was an understanding characteristic of her clever playing. Player and instrument were as one, and quaintly Bohemian, seeming almost a little foreign by way of strange temperament.
“At the time I knew her Kass Beauchamp was a remarkable ‘cellist for the short period which she had then been studying the instrument, and she was a person of unexpected replies, too, I recall. To a party of friends one afternoon she played the Boellmann Variation Symphonique very beautifully. At the conclusion of the piece someone exclaimed, ‘I do wish I could play the ‘cello.’ ‘So do I!’ was the quick response.”
She alternated, in her work with Mr. Trowell, between the depths of discouragement and depression, and the heights of happiness and transport. She reflected in her playing, as in her writing, her state of mind, her mood of the moment, her ideal of herself or of Arnold. When she felt she was becoming a musician, and Mr. Trowell was pleased with her progress and talent, she soared on wings: when she felt she was not growing at the swift pace she had set herself, she was desperate. In all this she was not unlike Marie Bashkirtseff — in those days at the studio when the Russian girl could be lifted to dizzy heights, or dashed to despair by the Master’s word or look. Kathleen’s was a different and more varied record; but the desperate struggle against being “nailed to the same place,” the divination of the imperative need for a rapid, an early flowering of a life which was to be cut short, was paramount in both.
“Evening. June 25, 1907.
“All the morning I played very difficult music and was happy. In the afternoon came Cæsar’s father and I played. I was unhappy. I did not play well; my hand and wrist hurt me horribly, and I did not feel that glorious hidden well of music deep in me. I was too sad. Cæsar’s father depressed me. I felt that something was making him suffer, and I knew what it was; so I suffered, too… I gave them a great bouquet of camellias to take home. I played a whole Bach concerto by sight, and Mr. T. had copied for me something beautiful. I am glad that it came into my life to-day. Then in the Abendämmerung I went out into the streets… It was so beautiful; the full moon was like a strain of music heard through a closed door. Mist over everything. The hills mere shadows to-night. I became terribly unhappy; I almost wept in the street; and yet music enveloped me again, caught me, held me, thank Heaven! I would have died, I should be dead but for that. I sent Mr. T. a beautiful book, something that I truly treasure.”
“Aug. 27.
“A happy day. I have spent a perfect day” (she wrote in a leaping, happy hand).”Never have I loved Mr. Trowell so much, or felt so in accord with him, and my ‘cello expressing everything. This morning we played Weber’s Trio — tragic, fiercely dramatic, full of rhythm and accent. And then this afternoon, I became frightened. I felt that I had nothing to play — that I could not touch the concerto, that I had not improved. How horrible it was — yet the sunlight lay on the Music-room floor — and my ‘cello was warm to touch. He came — and in the instant we understood each other and I think he was happy. O joyous time, it was almost inhuman — and to hear that, ‘Bravely done — You’ve a real good grip of it all. Very good.’ I would not have changed those words for all the laurel wreaths in existence. And to end with a Weber Fugue passage for first violin and then ‘cello. It bit into my blood. Aprés we had tea and currant buns in the Smoking Room and ate to the accompaniment of the Fugue. And discussed Marriage and Music — the mistake that a woman makes ever to think she is first in a musician’s estimation; it must inevitably be first his Art. I know; I understand; and also lack of sympathy. If I marry Cæsar — and I thought of him all the time — I think I could prove a great many things. Mr. Trowell said— ‘She must share his glories and always