The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I

Sunday — November 23, 1919

Sunday
November 23, 1919

I have just read your letter about the scarf. I wish I'd seen that girl asking you if terra cotta suited me and you wondering if I was fair or dark or a hazel-nut. I'm sure I shall love it.

The Acid is here: a bottle has been made up and it has a most superb effect. Très potent—the best I have come across. You did not see the bottle it was sent in, did you? A round glass-stoppered exquisite one, which the chemist is not to be allowed to keep.

I didn't go to San Remo yesterday after all. Got all ready and walked half-way down the steps, and the bells rang Turn again Whittington. I had no puff, my back ached. I felt it would only be going on my nerves. So I sent L. M. and lay down with the window open to rest a little. The bell rang. (The bell here when pressed rings and goes on ringing till you open the door, unscrew the top and stop it. This is a common habit. I never think of a bell that stops by itself now. It makes all visitors sound extremely urgent). That visitor was Catherina with her minute Gus Bofa dog—Flock. She had just given him a bath and was attired for the occasion in a kind of white robe de chambre, très decolletée, with bare arms, her hair just pinned up, her feet thrust into wooden pattens. In her hand she had a large brush. Flock, sitting in the garden, covered with what looked like prickles of black and white fur all on end, shivered violently and kept his eyes pinned on the brush! He is an adorable little animal—for sale—for 150 lire!!! But he's worth it really, he's such a personality.

Catherina had come to say three men were following her bearing in their arms a porcelain stove. When she and Madame Littardi had been discussing the coldness of the Casetta, Mme Littardi had suddenly remembered she had this put away dans la cave and they decided it would chauffe toute la petite maison if it were installée in the salle à manger. Would I like it? It was un peu cassée, so Catherina had brought three admirers to mend it for me. Wasn't this very amiable? There must be a rat somewhere, but I can neither see nor smell it up till now. 1

After she had gone I lay down again, and between my book I heard the workmen whistling and talking, and then there was a new voice, a child's voice, very happy. It went on for about an hour. Vaguely curious, I got up to see who it was. C'était le petit de la poste qui porte les télégrammes, and he was beating up cement very firmly with a little flat trowel—in his element, a workman, in fact. When he saw me he paid no attention, and I just chanced to ask if he had anything for me? Si, Madame. And off came his little cap with a telegram from F. inside it! I went in to sign the slip and he followed, leaned against my table and suddenly, picking up the pig, pointed to the old letters underneath and asked for the stamps for his collection. Then he strolled over to the mantelpiece and looked at your photograph while I humbly tore them off for him.

I lay down again. The bell rang. A Lady to call…. Elderly, typical, good family, dowdy gentlewoman with exquisite greenish ermine scarf, diamond ear-rings and white suède gloves. The combination suggested arum lilies to me somehow. I liked her very much. She knows a great deal about Italy: she was gay, sociable, full of life and pleasant talk, and she was ‘a perfect lady.’ (I do like fine delicate manners.) I made her tea as L. M. was out. But you know, this form of social entertainment is quite new to me. It is like playing ladies. Are they playing, too? They can't be serious surely, and yet…. I see myself and hear myself and all the while I am laughing inside. I managed to inform her (I) we were not related to the John Murrays. We spell our name without the A. Yes, from Scotland…. The A was dropped generations ago. (Do you hear the A dropping? Hullo! There's the A dropped. We can't get it back. It's broken to bits.) My private idea is that the ship's carpenter dropped it over the side. 1 But never mind. Also—that F. motored from Mentone to see me: that my relatives there had managed to find four excellent maids: that my cook in London finds shopping so much easier: that (this is the invariable final and always comes in as natural as you please) Elizabeth in her German Garden is my cousin!! It is Butler's Montreal brother-in-law.

She was rather horrified at this Casetta: the coldness and the loneliness … the pity I was not at San Remo where ‘we’ could have looked after you if you had let us and at least introduced you to our friends. What do you do when it rains, especially as you are not strong, etc., etc., etc.? I am afraid I was a little brave-and-lonely at this. It's so nice to be cared for…. She is asking a few people to meet me at lunch on Wednesday, and I'm going. Do you wonder why? I will tell you.

People steady and calm me. When I am not working, when I'm in pain, and conscious every moment of my body, and when my heart indulges in what S. calls disorderly action and my joints ache, I've no one to turn to. I can't forget my body for a moment. I think of death: the melancholy fit seizes me. Nature helps me when I'm well, but if the weather is cold and I am ill Nature mocks and terrifies me. Then healthy people help beyond words. I've noticed this many times. L. M. doesn't help: she always makes me feel she is waiting for me to be worse, but if I see people, the strain of her even goes. I feel I've cut away a few hundred octopus feelers and I feel refreshed. Do you understand? Does it sound to you unworthy?

1 My great-grandfather and my grandfather were both ships' carpenters in the Royal Navy.

I swear when Catherina has been here sometimes, just to be with her, to feel her health and gaiety, has been bread and wine to me….

I am looking at the little ring you gave me—the blue stone with the pearls round it. I love it so. I feel you made it of a flower for me when we were children, and it has turned into pearls.

Glancing again at your letter I re-read the part where you say you'd drive anywhere for a good table. Oh! how nice you are. Too nice. Terribly. I thought you meant food first … ‘to keep a good table’ … then it dawned on me. It's the spit of you to say such a thing. But be careful, if somebody asks you to ‘take the chair,’ they won't mean what you mean. I now see you answering an invitation that you'll be very pleased indeed to take the chair on Friday 20th, thanks awfully. How did they know we were short of chairs? And you will arrive at 8.30 as they suggest, with a small handbarrow….

It has been the most perfect exquisite morning. I went into the village. There were no letters. The whole village is adorned with roses, trees of roses, fields, hedges, they tumble over the steps in a shower, children wear them, hideous middle-class women in chocolate-brown ‘costumes’ with black button boots and hard velvet toques pull and twist them from the stems. I walk about wishing I knew the name of that white beauty with petals stained as though with wine and long slender buds—those pink ones, round and curled—those red ones with silver shadows. Ospedaletti is an enchanting little village, and the village people seem very nice. The visitors are simply Appalling. All the men are forked radishes, but their strut, twirl, stare, ogle, grin is so bewildering, and the women are all either chocolate brown or a colour I always think of as Belgian grey—a second-class-on-the boat grey. They have cold selfish faces, hard eyes, bad manners, mean attitudes and ways. Serpents come out of their eyes at sight of me—I don't know why—and they draw the radishes' attention to me and then ( really) burst out into a loud affected laughing. I, of course, don't notice, but I feel myself getting very English—but in truth, one's heart is wrung. How can they be like that with all these roses, with the air humming with bees, with the great white bunches of sweet flowers on the promenade—how can they? Divine weather—a crocus-coloured sea—the sun embracing one's body, holding one like a lover…. You know, people are impossible to understand….