Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles). Katherine Mansfield
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He is roaring down England and roaring up Germany. I feel very disgusted. “And you?” (as they are always singing in Wagner's operas for a kick-off).
There goes Eve Balfour. Yes, it is. No, it isn't. Yes, it is. No, it isn't. Alas, another case of mistaken identity, like the darkey who was asked why he stole the old lady's parrot and said, “A-aw Boss, Ah took it for a lark.”
“Tig, what a fool you are to-day.”
“But it won't stop raining, and I'm stuck, and wondering if the waiter will flick me away next time he comes.”
Saturday afternoon: Café Biard — March 27, 1915
Saturday afternoon: Café Biard
March 27, 1915
A LOVELY woman sits in here with me. She's got a fool of a man with her that she hates beyond words. So would I. She wears a big rose under her chin—her eyes are lovely, but very shadowed with a purple ring. She is not only bored; she is trying not to cry. Three fat jossers at a table near by are vastly amused. Two dirty little froggies, smoking pipes ‘à l'anglaise’ and ragging each other, are next to me. They occasionally sing at me, or snap their fingers. They are the most hideous little touts.
New—I ought to have known it—my lovely woman is playing a game of cards with her cavalier. Mon dieu! she does look lovely with the fan of cards in her hand, the other hand hovering over, and her lip just pouting. I must go. This is a fool of a letter….
Pretty business this German-chasing! And a pity they have to photograph such decent honest-looking wretches as the belles proies. It's a filthy trick; there's no difference between England and Germany when the mob gets a hand in things. No difference between any nations on earth; they are all equally loathsome.
March 29, 1915 —
March 29, 1915
To S. S. Koteliansky
I AM extremely fond of you this afternoon. I wish you would walk into this café now and sit opposite me and say—“Do not look at these people; they are extremely foolish.” But no, you will not; you are dancing on the downs with the fair Barbara and Kisienka is forgotten. No, I won't come to any of your weddings. You will marry some woman who will show me the door—because I come and sing in the street you live in in my beautiful Russian dress (given me by my anonymous friend) and you dare to look out of the window. I have just finished Two Frightful Hours trying to buy a corset—not really a corset but a kind of belt—I have spent every penny that I haven't got upon an affair of violet silk which is so exquisite that I lament my lonely life…. Now Frieda would say that I was being very wicked, but you understand—don't you? All the while I write I am looking at you and laughing a little and you are saying to me, “Really, you are a deplorable creature!”
Your letter was given to me and I read it while I was half awake—when in bed—and after I had read it I lay smoking and watching the sun dance on the ceiling—and I wondered why on earth I had fled away and could not find any answer. At any rate I can tell you frankly that the illness that I had in England and longed to be cured of—is quite gone for ever—I believe it was my ‘heart’ after all, you know, but not the kind of heart that Dr. Eder punches. Shut your eyes a minute—do you feel frightfully happy—just now—just at this minute? I do—I should like to lie on the grass beside a big river and look up at the sun until the sun went down—and then go slowly home to a little house hidden in a ring of poplar trees—carrying a large bunch of daisies. Do you see this house? It is a new one—just built at this moment—it is in some place very far away and there are woods near, and this river. A tiny little balcony has a table on it with a red and white cloth and a jar of clovers—and we sit there in the evenings, smoke and drink tea. Now you can build a little of it.
To tell you the absolute truth, a friend of mine is coming to London at the end of this week. (Do not tell anybody.) Her name is Katherine Mansfield, and if she should ring up the Bureau on Friday—answer her. Will you.
Yes, Koteliansky, you are really one of my people—we can afford to be quite free with each other—I know.
… My dear, it is so hot in this café that if Mrs. E. were here she would have taken half a dozen sun baths!
Jeudi — May 13, 1915 —
Jeudi
May 13, 1915
To J. M. Murry
I CANNOT tell you how beautiful this place is by daylight. The trees on the island are in full leaf … I had quite forgotten the life that goes on within a tree—how it flutters and almost plumes itself, and how the topmost branches tremble and the lowest branches of all swing lazy.
It is very warm to-day. All the windows are wide open. From early morning people have passed along the Quai carrying lilac … little stout men, the bunch upside down, looped to a finger by a knotted string—young girls carrying it along the arm—little children with their faces quite buried—and old fat women clasping the branches, just a frill of flower showing above their bosoms.
I ran out at seven to buy some oranges. Already the shops were open. Already the sausages were looped round a lilac jar—the tailoress bent over the machine had a piece in her bodice. (I shan't tell you any more because you won't believe me. It's everywhere.) I'll tell you where I saw it first yesterday.
“Oh, Tig, don't harp so.”
Just this, and then I won't. But we drew up alongside a hospital train. From my window I could see into the saloon. There were pallet beds round the walls. The men, covered to the chin, never moved an inch. They were just white faces with a streak of hair on top. A doctor, stout and ruddy, with a fine blond beard, stood at the window drying his hands and whistling. All round the walls of the car kind female hands had placed big bunches of purple and white lilac. “What lovely lilac!” said the people in the train with me. “Look! how fine it is.” The wounded men did not matter a rap.
(Then came a cry from the étage above. “Fermez vos persiennes s'il vous plaît!” But I wasn't in time. Whether the lady sheared a sheep outside her window or merely shook her bedroom mat, I do not know. A little of both. Damn her!)
And now there comes a little handcart with three babies in it and a quantity of newspapers. It is dragged by two other infants—men of about eight or nine. They stopped outside here, let down a kind of false leg which steadied the cart and strolled over to the lavatory, talking, unbuttoning their breeches and shouting to the babies to keep tranquille. But alas! no sooner had they disappeared than the infants with screams of rage began throwing the papers into the wet gutter. Back rushed their lords, and now they are picking up the muddy papers and the culprits hang their heads over the side of the wagon like people about to be guillotined … terribly chastened.
Friday — May 14, 1915
Friday
May 14, 1915
NEXT morning. I went out to lunch yesterday at a very good little brasserie, overlooking Place du Châtelet, and cheap, quite as cheap as Chartier, and frequented only by old men and a priest or two. Afterwards, like a fool, I took the métro to the Palais Royal and went to look for Smith's to see if they had The Golden Bowl. Oh, that walk—it stretched for miles, and each moment I thought it was going to end. My leg finally trailed after me like a tired child.