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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

Easter — April 17, 1922

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett

Brett, how ever dare you breathe the idea of scrubbing. If you ever take a scrub brush in your hand I hope it will sting you and run after you like a beetle. Don't work any more than you can possibly help! It's cheaper for you to employ slaves for those jobs. I hope your servant is a good creature and will really look after you. I wish I knew more about your house and its fixings but it's tiring to write such things. You'll tell me when you come over. I'm sure we shall be in Paris until the middle of June, for once Manoukhin is over, I must get my teeth seen to before we go off again. Then we think of making for Austria or Bavaria and perhaps our old love, Bandol for the winter. That's what we want to do. I foresee I shall have to pick up a young maid in Bavaria. I can't do without somebody, not a Mountain, but a maid. Who takes one's gloves to be cleaned. Looks after one's clothes, keeps them brushed and so on. And then there's one's hair and all that. It takes such a terrific time to keep everything going. There is an endless succession of small jobs. And then one wants little things bought, new sachets and toothpaste. All those things to keep renewed. I can't keep up with it, not if I was as strong as ever. There's too much to write and too much to read and to talk about. I can't for the life of me understand how women manage. It's easier for men because of the way they dress and so on. Also they aren't dependent on small things like we are. No, a little nice Bertha or Augusta is my ambition.

By the way, I have discovered something interesting about the Russian colony in Paris. I mean Manoukhin and his friends. They are intensely religious. Before the revolution they were all sceptics, as far from religion as the English intelligentsia. But now that is changed. They go to Church perpetually, kneel on the cold stones, believe really in religion. This is very strange. Last Good Friday at the clinic Manoukhin was late and his partner, page 206 Donat, a handsome white-bearded man with a stiff leg, talked to us about it. They have become mystics, said he. Mystic! that strange word is always touching the fringes of and running away from…

Forgive this letter. All is scraps and pieces. I am shamefully tired and only fit for business communications. I try to whip myself up but it's no good. I've a new story coming out in the Nation called Honeymoon. Read it if you have the time, will you? I'd like to feel you had seen it.