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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I

Monday — November 17, 1919

Monday
November 17, 1919

It's a Terribly cold day—really shocking. I have a big fire and a rug and bottle and am wrapped up. The air is like ice, the sea like a sheet of lacquer. Truly this is a cold spot. Yet I don't want to leave it. I love Ospedaletti. I don't want Mentone and a band. Here one works, lives simply, is retired. If I got there people would call and so on, and it's no good: I am not that kind of person. But I do wish it were not so cold. Cold frightens me: it is ominous. I breathe it, and deep down it's as though a knife softly, softly pressed in my bosom and said ‘Don't be too sure.’ That is the fearful part of page 289 having been near death. One knows how easy it is to die. The barriers that are up for everybody else are down for you, and you've only to slip through.