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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

March 19, 1922

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett

Oh, I am so longing to get over this last crisis and begin to climb the hill so that by the time you come I shall not be such a Job-in-the-ashes. Manoukhin says in eight days now the worst will be over. It's such a queer feeling. One burns with heat in one's hands and feet and bones. Then suddenly you are racked with neuritis, but such neuritis that you can't lift your arm. Then one's head begins to pound. It's the moment when if I were a proper martyr I should begin to have that awful smile that martyrs in the flames put on when they begin to sizzle!

But no matter, it will pass…

It is real spring here, really come. Little leaves are out, the air is like silk. But above all, beyond all there is a kind of fleeting beauty on the faces of everybody, a timid page 200 look, the look of some one who bends over a new baby. This is so beautiful, that it fills one with awe. The fat old taximan has it and the fisherman on the Pont d' Alma that I passed yesterday and the young lady at the office with her scent and her violet cachou and her shoes like beetles—all—all are the same. For this alone one is thankful to have lived on the earth. My canaries opposite are, of course, in a perfect fever. They sing, flutter, sing and make love. Even the old clock that strikes over the roofs says one—two no longer, but drowsily, gently says Spring—Spring…

Yes, paint the Luxembourg Gardens! Do paint a new tree, a just-come-out chestnut—wouldn't that be good to paint? When the leaves are still stiff they look as though they had sprung out of the buds. Chestnut trees are marvellous. But so are limes and acacias and umbrella pines. I can't say I like firs awfully, though. If you had lived among them as we did in Switzerland you would have found them stodgy.