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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

February 1920

Yesterday—it being mid-summer—Mrs. D. drove me in a kerridge and pair to Monte Carlo. I take back my words about the Riviera not being what it is made out to be. It is and more. It was the most marvellous afternoon. We drove towards the sun up hill down dale, through mountain roads, through lemon and orange groves—little children throwing bouquets of violets and hyacinths into the carriage—past the sea, under huge mountains—and the Flowers. Of course, it is all quite artificial: there's no page 20 imagination in it anywhere. Monte is real Hell. To begin with it's the cleanest, most polished place I've ever seen. The villas are huge and they have strange malignant towers. Immense poppies sprout out of the halls and roses and geraniums hang down like carpets. All the shops are magasins de luxe, lingerie, perfumes, fat unguents and pawnbrokers and pâtisserie. The Rooms are the devil's headquarters. The blinds are down, there's a whitish glare from the electric light inside—carpet on the outside steps—up and down which pass a continual procession of whores, pimps, governesses in thread gloves—Jews—old, old hags, ancient men stiff and greyish, panting as they climb, rich great fat capitalists, little girls tricked out to look like babies—and below the Room a huge outside café—the famous Café de Paris with real devils with tails under their aprons cursing each other as they hand the drinks. There at those tables, sit the damned. The gardens—if you could see them—the gardens in Hell. Light, bright delicate grass grown in half a night, trembling little pansies, grown in tiny beds, that are nourished on the flesh of babies—little fountains that spray up into the air all diamonds—Oh, I could write about it for ever. We came back through pine forests, past Cap Martin and then at the edge of the brimming sea. I've never heard of Monte before—never' dreamed there was such a place. Now I want to go to the Rooms and see it all. It's dreadful, but it's fascinating to me. We stopped the carriage outside the café and waited for about five minutes. I thought of the Heron and Our life—and I thought how strange it was that at the Heron I should no doubt write a story about that woman over there, that ancient long-nosed whore with a bag made of ostrich feathers. … I wonder if you'd like to see such a thing, would you? I don't in the least know. Cruelty is there—and vultures hover—and the devil-waiters wear queer peaked caps to hide their horns.

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There is a book which we must positively not be another week without. It is Forster's Life of Dickens. How is it that people refer to this and have many a time and of ttalked of it to me and yet—as though it was of course a very good Life, a very good Life indeed, about as good as you could get and immensely well worth reading. But so dispassionately—so as a matter of course. Merciful Heavens! It's one of the most absolutely fascinating books I have ever set eyes on. I found to-day Vol. III. in the book shelves. Whether the other two are here or not I don't know, but I do most solemnly assure you it is so great that it were worth while building a house in the country and putting in fireplaces, chairs and a table, curtains, hot wine and you and me and Richard and whoever else we ‘fancy’ expès for reading this. It's ravishing. What will you do when you come to the description of how his little boy aged four plays the part of hero in a helmet and sword at their theatricals and having previously made the dragon drunk on sherry stabs him dead, which he does in such a manner that Thackeray falls off his chair, laughing, and rolls on the floor. No, that's nothing. Read of his landlord M. Beaufort, read of his home in Boulogne.—.

Now I am exaggerating. Since I wrote all that I finished the book. It's not Great, of course, it's not; it's fascinating and it's a bit terrible as a lesson. I never knew what killed Dickens. It was money. He couldn't, as he grew older, resist money; he became a miser and disguised it under a laughing exterior. Money and applause—he died for both. How fearful that is! But still we must have the book. We, must have his complete works…

Yesterday I had a wonderful afternoon. Mrs. D. took a carriage and we (she) shopped. I bought for the house, Oh dear! the most ravishing perfect—surprises you ever did see. You'll never recover from them. She bought page 22 some too and a dress for me, a girl's dress, blue chiffon with a pinky fringe—a summer dress. No, I can't draw it. But I really think what I bought for the house will bouleverse you. I paid 77 francs of the .10 you gave me, and mean as I say to get more. This is a frightful town for shopping—glass, china, inlaid work, bits of brocade, trays. We had champagne for dinner, and J. seeing my softened mood gave me her Missal to read. But that's no good. Who made God?