Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles). Katherine Mansfield
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wheeling and flying in the air and the sky is pink. It is evening. I have not spoken to anyone since Wednesday except to say “Combien ça fait?” or to say “Oui, c'est bien terrible,” to the concierge. It is curious for one who has been much alone—this sinking back into silence.
Café Baird, Rue de Rivoli. Midi — May 24, 1915
Café Baird, Rue de Rivoli. Midi
May 24, 1915
HERE is the history of my lunch. I decided I could never go to the Brasserie again because there was a black cat that frightened me there, so to-day I sought pastures new. All were impudently full, so I fell back on Chartier. I wanted something cheap, so I ordered pied de veau. My strike! … I had that removed, but still hungry I ordered risotto milanais and got a lump of rice originally covered in tomato sauce, but the sauce had run on to some one else's crême d'Isigny in transit. Then I ordered compôte de rhubarbe. “C'est fini.” And looking down at that moment I saw on my thumb an immense BUG in all possible comfort and half full already. That was the limit. I fled here—and this coffee is just like squeezed wet flannel.
I wonder if it is the war that has made the people here so hideous, or if I am out of joint. They appear to me a nation of concierges. And the women look such drabs in their ugly mourning. I wish I had some new shoes and a straw hat. My head and my feet are always hot—but these are minor things. It is a brilliant day fine. Everything shines.
How terrible it is that waiters must have flat feet! These are shuffling about—sweaty—ugly. If they were turned out of their cafés what would they do? Plainly nothing.
My book marche bien. I feel I could write it anywhere, it goes so easily, and I know it so well. It will be a funny book.
Now I've finished my coffee. I am going.
Tuesday morning — May 25, 1915
Tuesday morning
May 25, 1915
YESTERDAY was simply hellish for me. My work went very well, but all the same, I suffered abominably. I felt so alien and so far away, and everybody cheated me, everybody was ugly and beyond words cruel. I finally got to such a state that I could go nowhere to eat because of the people and I could hardly speak. At half past ten I shut up shop and went to bed, but not to sleep. The three apaches of the cinema, l'Fantôme, Bébé and le faux curé, tried the key of the door all night and tip-toed on the landing. Finally through the shutters there came two chinks of day. Do I sound foolish and cowardly? Oh, but yesterday was simply hell. In the evening (I'd gone out to get a lamp glass. The concierge, with relish, had smashed mine) I sat in a little garden by a laburnum tree, I felt the dark dropping over me and the shadows enfolding me, and I died and came to life “time and time again” as Mrs. C. used to say. I went to buy bread at a funny shop. The woman hadn't got a nose and her mouth had been sewn up and then opened again at the side of her face. She had a wall eye. When she came into the lamp-light with the bread I nearly screamed; but she clapped her poor hand to her head and smiled at me. I cannot forget it.
This morning things are better. It is such a fine day. But I could not stand a month of yesterdays. I'd come home in a coffin.
[Note added by J. Middleton Murry:]
K. M. returned to London from Paris at the end of May. In November we left together for the South of France. I came back to England in December, leaving K. M. in Bandol. At the end of the year I returned to Bandol, and we lived for three months at the Villa Pauline.
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