Journal of Katherine Mansfield

Wickedness

Wickedness.

I kissed her. Her cheek felt cold, white, and somehow moist. It was like kissing a church candle. I looked into her eyes: they were pale, flickering with dim, far-off lights. She smelled faintly of incense. Her skirt was rubbed and bulged at the knees.

“But how could you say that about the Blessed Virgin!” said she. “It must have hurt Our Lady so terribly.”

And I saw the B.V. throwing away her copy of Je ne parle pas Français and saying: “Really, this K.M. is all that her friends say of her to me.”