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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

— September 1921

page 134

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett


The Cezanne book, Miss, you won't get back until you send a policeman or an urgent request for it. It is fascinating, and you can't think how we enjoy such a book on our mountain tops. It's awfully sympathetic to me. I am absolutely uneducated about painting. I can only look at it as a writer, but it seems to me the real thing. It's what one is aiming at. One of his men gave me quite a shock. He's the spit of a man I've just written about, one Jonathan Trout.1 To the life. I wish I could cut him out and put him in my book.

I've just finished my new book. Finished last night at 10.30. Laid down the pen after writing ‘Thanks be to God.’ I wish there was a God. I am longing to (1) praise him, (2) thank him. The title is At the Bay. That's the name of the very long story in it—a continuation of Prelude. It's about 60 pages. I've been at it all last night. My precious children have sat in here, playing cards. I've wandered about all sorts of places—in and out—I hope it is good. It is as good as I can do, and all my heart and soul is in it … every single bit. Oh God, I hope it gives pleasure to someone… It is so strange to bring the dead to life again. There's my Grandmother, back in her chair with her pink knitting, there stalks my uncle over the grass; I feel as I write, “You are not dead, my darlings. All is remembered. I bow down to you. I efface myself so that you may live again through me in your richness and beauty.” And one feels possessed. And then the place where it all happens. I have tried to make it as familiar to ‘you’ as it is to me. You know the marigolds? You know those pools in the rocks, you know the mouse trap on the wash-house window-sill? And too, one tries to go deep—to speak to the secret self we all have—to acknowledge that. I mustn't say any more about it.

No, we certainly shan't be back in England for years. page 135 Sometimes, in bed at night, we plan one holiday a year, but everywhere else feels nearer than England. If we can get the money we shall build here in two or three years' time. We have already chosen the way to look—the way the house shall face. And it is christened Chalêt Content. We are both most fearful dreamers, especially when it's late and we lie staring at the ceiling. It begins with me. M. declares he won't talk. It's too late. Then I hear: “Certainly not more than two floors and a large open fireplace.” A long pause. K.: “What about bees?” M.: “Most certainly bees, and I aspire to a goat.” And it ends with us getting fearfully hungry and M. going off for two small whacks of cake while I heat two small milks on the spirit stove.

You know Wingley? The Mountain brought him over. He arrived with immense eyes after having flown through all that landscape and it was several hours before the famous purr came in to action. Now he's completely settled down and reads Shakespeare with us in the evenings. I wonder what cat-Shakespeare is like. We expect him to write his reminiscenses shortly. They are to be bound in mouse skin…

Goodbye. I am taking a holiday to-day after my labours last week. I wrote for nine solid hours yesterday.

Who do you think turned up at the end of this letter? Mrs. H. G. Wells and two young H. G. Wells. Very nice boys. We are full of gaiety.

1 See At the Bay.