The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I
December 29, 1915
If you should come I have found a tiny villa for us—which seems to me almost perfect in its way. It stands alone in a small garden with terraces. It faces the ‘midi’ and gets the sun all day long. It has a stone verandah and a little round table where we can sit and eat or work. A charming tiny kitchen with pots and pans and big coffee pot, you know. Electric light, water downstairs and upstairs too in the cabinet de toilette. A most refined ‘water closet’ with water in the house…. The salle à manger is small and square with the light low over the table. It leads on to the verandah and overlooks the sea. So does the chambre a coucher. It is very private and stands high on the top of a hill. It is called the Villa Pauline. The woman (wife of the mobilier) who showed it me would also find me a servant for three hours every day. Yesterday I ran ran all day long to find something and saw such funny places. Every little street I came to there seemed to be an old woman in woollen slippers with keys in her hands waiting to show me “votre affaire.” Oh, such funny experiences! But I have been very careful to go to each woman I left in a state of uncertainty and to say I regret that I cannot take their particular treasure so that I shall not have to spend the rest of my days in dodging streets, houses and people as I usually do on these occasions. And they are neither heart-broken nor do they call me a ‘sausage’—to my great surprise. It is a sunny windy morning with a high sea and dancing light on all the trees. The vent de l'est is blowing as a matter of fact, but it has no terrors for me now that I have my legs again.
Mdlle. Marthe has just been although I am still in my peignoire. She is not a girl; she is a sparrow. It is so awfully nice to have your jacket mended by a charming little sparrow instead of a monster with icy hands and pins in her mouth and all over her non-existent bosom. But Marthe hops about, smiling, with her head a little on one side. She is a sweet little thing; I wish to goodness I could somehow adopt her for us.
My roses—my roses are too lovely. They melt in the air (I thought that in French where it sounds sense but in English it's nonsense). I have 23. I just counted them for you and if you turn these blue glass vases back to front so that you don't see the handpainted horrors on them they are very lovely, the dark red stems and a leaf or two showing through the water.
… Make me wash and dress. I've lighted another cigarette now and in spite of my absolutely cold, calculating mind, my heart keeps on perpetually like this. One large vase of white and yellow jonquils in the middle of the table. Roses in the bedroom, some little red anemones on the mantelpiece. “This is the place, Bogey.” A ring at the door. The man with your boxes from the station—Now we are sitting down, hardly daring to look at each other, but smiling. Now you have unpacked and put on your corduroys and your boots. I am downstairs and you are upstairs. I hear you walking. I call out “Bogey, do you want coffee or tea?” We arrange to work every morning—have lunch—go out until it is dark, come home have tea and talk and read and get our supper—and then work. On our walks we will take that satchel you bought—for pine cones and wood and oranges—Oh God, this place is as fair as New Zealand to me—as apart, as secret, as much a place where you and I are alone and untroubled—But so I dream.
Now I am going to get up. I've got some awful toothpaste. It is called Isis and it has funny woodeny birds on the tube. It has all come out the wrong end, too. And it's much too pink.