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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

Sunday — June 6, 1922

page 215

Summer has deserted us, too. It's cold and we are up in the clouds all day. Huge white woolly fellows lie in the valley. There is nothing to be seen from the windows but a thick, soft whiteness. It's beautiful in its way. The sound of water is beautiful flowing through it and the shake of the cows' bells.

Yes, I know Utrillo's work from reproductions; M. has seen it. It's very sensitive and delicate. I'd like to see some originals. What a horrible fate he should be mad. Tragedy treads on the heels of those young French painters. Look at young Modigliani—he had only just begun to find himself when he committed suicide. I think it's partly that café life; it's a curse as well as a blessing. I sat opposite a youthful poet in the filthy atmosphere of the L'Univers and he was hawking and spitting the whole evening. Finally after a glance at his mouchoir he said, “Encore du sang. Il me faut 24 mouchoirs par jour. C'est le désespoir de ma femme!” Another young poet, Jean Pellerin, (awfully good) died, (but not during the evening!) making much the same joke.

Talking about ‘illness,’ my dear. I feel rather grim when I read of your wish to hustle me and make me run! Did it really seem to you people were always telling me to sit down? To me that was the fiercest running and the most tremendous hustling and I couldn't keep it up for any length of time. In fact, as soon as I got here I wrote to L. M. and asked her to come back and look after things as otherwise I'd never be able to get any work done. All my energy went in ‘hustling.’ So she's coming back to me in a strictly professional capacity to look after us both. M. needs someone very badly, too, and I can't face the thought of a stranger. No, I'm afraid it's not only a question of weak muscles; I wish it were! You ask Manoukhin! Don't let's discuss my health.

I must get up and start work. There's a huge beetle creeping over my floor—so cautiously, so intently. He has page 216 thought it all out. One gets fond of insects here; they seem to be in their place and it's a pleasure to know they are there. M. was saying the other night how necessary snakes are in creation. Without snakes there would be a tremendous gap, a poverty. Snakes complete the picture. Why? I wonder. I feel it, too. I read an account of unpacking large deadly poisonous vipers at the Zoo the other day. They were lifted out of the boxes with large wooden tongs. Can't you see those tongs! like giant asparagus tongs. And think of one's feelings if they suddenly crossed like sugar tongs too—Brrrr!