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Journal of Katherine Mansfield

1919

page 102

1919

January 1. J. came to bed at ten minutes to twelve. Said he: “Don't go to sleep before the New Year.” I lay holding my watch. I think I did go to sleep for a moment. The window was wide open and I looked out and over a big soft hollow, with a sprinkle of lights between. Then the hour struck: the bells rang—hooter, sirens, horns, trumpets sounded. The church organ pealed out (reminding me of Hans Andersen) and an Australian called Coo—ee. (I longed to reply.) I wanted L.M. to hear and to see. I called loudly to her ever so many times, but she had “chosen' to take a bath….

May 19. 6 p.m. I wish I had some idea of how old this note book is. The writing is very faint and far away. Now it is May 1919. Six o'clock. I am sitting in my own room thinking of Mother: I want to cry. But my thoughts are beautiful and full of gaiety. I think of our house, our garden, us children—the lawn, the gate, and Mother coming in. “Children! Children!” I really only ask for time to write it all—time to write my books. Then I don't mind dying. I live to write. The lovely world (God, how lovely the page 103 external world is!) is there and I bathe in it and am refreshed. But I feel as though I had a duty, someone has set me a task which I am bound to finish. Let me finish it: let me finish it without hurrying—leaving all as fair as I can….

My little Mother, my star, my courage, my own. I seem to dwell in her now. We live in the same world. Not quite this world, not quite another. I do not care for people: and the idea of fame, of being a success,—that's nothing, less than nothing. I love my family and a few others dearly, and I love, in the old—in the ancient way, through and through, my husband.

Not a soul knows where she is. She goes slowly, thinking it all over, wondering how she can express it as she wants to—asking for time and for peace.

Escape.

She was sure I would be cold, and as usual tried to make of my departure une petite affaire sérieuse. I always try to thieve out, steal out. I should like to let myself down from a window, or just withdraw like a ray of light.

“Are you sure you won't have your cape … etc., etc., etc.?”

Her attitude made me quite sure. I went out. At the corner the flying, gay, eager wind ran at me. It was too much to bear. I went on for a yard or two, shivering—then I came home. I slipped the Yale key into the lock like a thief, shut the door dead quiet. Up she came, up the stairs.

“So it was too cold, after all!”

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I couldn't answer or even look at her. I had to turn my back and pull off my gloves. Said she:

“I have a blouse-pattern here I want to show you.”

At that I crept upstairs, came into my room, and shut the door. It was a miracle she did not follow….

What is there in all this to make me hate her so? What do you see? She has known me try to get in and out without anyone knowing it dozens of times—that is true. I have even torn my heart out and told her how it hurts my last little defences to be questioned—how it makes me feel just for the moment an independent being, to be allowed to go and come unquestioned. But that is just “Katie's funniness. She doesn't mean it, of course….”

We hardly spoke at lunch. When it was over she asked me again if she might show me the pattern. I felt so ill, it seemed to me that even a hen could see at a side glance of its little leaden eye how ill I felt. I don't remember what I said. But in she came and put before me—something. Really, I hardly know what it was. “Let the little dressmaker help you,” I said. But there was nothing to say.

She murmured: “Purple chiffon front neck sleeves.” I don't know. Finally I asked her to take it away.

“What is it, Katie? Am I interrupting your work?”

“Yes, we'll call it that.”

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Being Alone

Saturday: This joy of being alone. What is it? I feel so gay and at peace—the whole house takes the air. Lunch is ready. I have a baked egg, apricots and cream, cheese straws and black coffee. How delicious! A baby meal! Mother shares it with me. Athenæum is asleep and then awake on the studio sofa. He has a silver spoon of cream—then hides under the sofa frill and puts out a paw for my finger. I gather the dried leaves from the plant in the big white bowl, and because I must play with something, I take an orange up to my room and throw it and catch it as I walk up and down….

[This note appears later, re-written, in the following form.]

Saturday. Peaceful and gay. The whole house takes the air. Athenæum is asleep and then awake on the studio sofa. He has a silver spoonful of my cream at lunch time—then hides under the sofa frill and plays the game of the Darting Paw. I gather the dried leaves from the plant in the big white bowl; they are powdered with silver. There is nobody in the house, and yet whose is this faint whispering? On the stairs there are tiny spots of gold—tiny footprints….

Geraniums.

The red geraniums have bought the garden over my head. They are there, established, back in the old home, every leaf and flower unpacked and in its place—and quite determined that no power page 106 on earth will ever move them again. Well, that I don't mind. But why should they make me feel a stranger? Why should they ask me every time I go near: “And what are you doing in a London garden?” They burn with arrogance and pride. And I am the little Colonial walking in the London garden patch—allowed to look, perhaps, but not to linger. If I lie on the grass they positively shout at me: “Look at her, lying on our grass, pretending she lives here, pretending this is her garden, and that tall back of the house, with the windows open and the coloured curtains lifting, is her house. She is a stranger—an alien. She is nothing but a little girl sitting on the Tinakori hills and dreaming: ‘I went to London and married an Englishman, and we lived in a tall grave house with red geraniums and white daisies in the garden at the back.’ Im-pudence!”

[This note appears later, re-written, in the following form.]

The red geraniums have bought the garden over my head and taken possession. They are settled in, every leaf and flower unpacked and in its place, and never do they mean to move again! Well—that I could bear. But why because I've let them in should they throw me out? They won't even let me lie on the grass without their shouting: “Im-pudence!”

A Dream.

Sometimes I glance up at the clock. Then I know I am expecting Chummie. The bell peals. I run out on to the landing. I hear his hat and page 107 stick thrown on to the hall-table. He runs up the stairs, three at a time. “Hullo, darling!” But I can't move—I can't move. He puts his arm round me, holding me tightly, and we kiss— a long, firm, family kiss. And the kiss means: We are of the same blood; we have absolute confidence in each other; we love; all is well; nothing can ever come between us.

We come into my room. He goes over to the glass. “By Jove, I am hot.” Yes, he is very hot. A deep childish colour shows in his cheeks, his eyes are brilliant, his lips burn, he strokes the hair back from his forehead with the palm of his hand. I pull the curtains together and the room is shadowy. He flings himself down on the sommier and lights a cigarette, and watches the smoke, rising so slowly.

“Is that better?” I ask.

“Perfect, darling—simply perfect. The light reminds me of …”

And then the dream is over and I begin working again.

England.

The two brothers were on one side of the room, I on the other. R. sat on the floor inclined towards J. J. lay on the stickle-back, very idly.

“If you could have your wish, where would you be?”

First he thought a café in some foreign town … in Spain … no, in Grenoble, perhaps … sitting listening to music and watching the people. We are just passing through… There is a lake page 108 and a river near…. But then, no. A farmhouse in Sussex—some good old furniture—knocking about in the garden—rolling the lawn, perhaps—yes, rolling the lawn. An infant—two good servants. And then, when it grew dark—to go in, have some milk, then I go to my study and you to yours and work for about an hour and a half and then trundle off to bed. I would like to earn my living, but not by writing. I feel that my talent as a writer isn't a great one—I'll have to be careful of it…. Yes, that's what I'd like. No new places—no new things. I don't want them. Would you like that?

I felt his brother was with him, the brother inclined towards him, understanding and sharing that life—the homestead on the Downs—his English country—the sober quiet….

“Would you like that?”

No, I don't want that. No, I don't want England. England is of no use to me. What do I mean by that? I mean there never has been—never will be—any rapprochement between us, never…. The lack of its appeal—that is what I chiefly hate. I would not care if I never saw the English country again. Even in its flowering I feel deeply antagonistic to it, and I will never change.

A Good Beginning.

May 30. First comes L.M. I give her orders. Ask her to supervise the maid till Monday. ‘Be gentle with her: help her to make the beds; and just tell her how everything must be.’ Then in page 109 detail I sketch out the maid's programme. ‘Send Ralph, please.’ Ralph arrives. I arrange the food. Then settle all that must be done, coercing Ralph, putting her mind in order if I can, making her see the bright side of things, sending her away (I hope) feeling important and happy.

I go upstairs to see Maud, to say good-morning, to hope ‘she will be happy.’ “Just take things gently; I'll quite understand that you can't get into our ways at once. Ask Miss B. and the cook for what you want. But if you wish to see me, don't hesitate to come in. I was so glad you were early.” She was very reassured. Her eyes shone (she's only a little girl). She said it was like the country. As she walked up from the tram the birds sang “something beautiful.” This instead of the ‘long drag up the hill’ was cheering. I left her happy. I know I did.

Downstairs just to say Good-day to Mrs. Moody and to say there were some flowers for her to take home. The good creature was on her knees polishing and saying it was such a fine day. Bless her 60 years! We had a little joke or two and I came away.

L.M. again—just for a moment to say: “As you have a machine, don't hem dusters by hand as I see you are doing. Keep your energies for something important!”

Then I sit down to work, and there comes a steady, pleasant vibration from the ship. If only I could always control these four women like this! I must learn to.

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May 31. Work. Shall I be able to express one day my love of work—my desire to be a better writer—my longing to take greater pains. And the passion I feel. It takes the place of religion—it is my religion—of people—I create my people: of ‘life’—it is Life. The temptation is to kneel before it, to adore, to prostrate myself, to stay too long in a state of ecstasy before the idea of it. I must be more busy about my master's business.

Oh, God! The sky is filled with the sun, and the sun is like music. The sky is full of music. Music comes streaming down these great beams. The wind touches the harp-like trees, shakes little jets of music—little shakes, little trills from the flowers. The shape of every flower is like a sound. My hands open like five petals. Praise Him! Praise Him! No, I am overcome; I am dazed; it is too much to bear.

A little fly has dropped by mistake into the huge sweet cup of a magnolia. Isaiah (or was it Elisha?) was caught up into Heaven in a chariot of fire once. But when the weather is divine and I am free to work, such a journey is positively nothing.

The Angel of Mercy.

May. The day the housemaid had to leave because her husband ‘didn't want her to work no more’ and, to consolidate his authority, had punched her so hard in the neck that she had a great red swelling under ear, the cook became a kind of infallible being,—an angel of mercy. Nothing was too much for her. Stairs were rays page 111 of light up which she floated. She wore her cap differently: it gave her the air of a hospital nurse. Her voice changed. She suggested puddings as though they were compresses: whiting, because they were so ‘delicate and harmless.’ Trust me! Lean on me! There is nothing I cannot do! was her attitude. Every time she left me, she left me for her mysterious reasons—to lay out the body again and again—to change the stiffened hand—to pull the paper frill over the ominous spot appearing.

The Cook.

The cook is evil. After lunch I trembled so that I had to lie down on the sommier—thinking about her. I meant—when she came up to see me—to say so much that she'd have to go. I waited, playing with the wild kitten. When she came, I said it all, and more, and she said how sorry she was and agreed and apologised and quite understood. She stayed at the door, plucking at a d'oyley. “Well, I'll see it doesn't happen in future. I quite see what you mean.”

So the serpent still slept between us. Oh! why won't she turn and speak her mind. This pretence of being fond of me! I believe she thinks she is. There is something in what L.M. says: she is not consciously evil. She is a fool, of course. I have to do all the managing and all the explaining. I have to cook everything before she cooks it. I believe she thinks she is a treasure … no, wants to think it. At bottom she knows her corruptness. There are moments when it comes to the surface, page 112 comes out, like a stain, in her face. Then her eyes are like the eyes of a woman-prisoner—a creature looking up as you enter her cell and saying: ‘If you'd known what a hard life I've had you wouldn't be surprised to see me here.’

[This appears again in the following form.]

Cook to See Me.

As I opened the door, I saw her sitting in the middle of the room, hunched, still…. She got up, obedient, like a prisoner when you enter a cell. And her eyes said, as a prisoner's eyes say, “Knowing the life I've had, I'm the last to be surprised at finding myself here.”

The Cook's Story.

Her first husband was a pawnbroker. He learned his trade from her uncle, with whom she lived, and was more like her big brother than anything else from the age of thirteen. After he had married her they prospered. He made a perfect pet of her—they used to say. His sisters put it that he made a perfect fool of himself over her. When their children were fifteen and nine he urged his employers to take a man into their firm—a great friend of his—and persuaded them; really went security for this man. When she saw the man she went all over cold. She said, Mark me, you've not done right: no good will come of this. But he laughed it off. Time passed: the man proved a villain. When they came to take stock, they found all the stock was false: he'd sold everything. page 113 This preyed on her husband's mind, went on preying, kept him up at night, made a changed man of him, he went mad as you might say over figures, worrying. One evening, sitting in his chair, very late, he died of a clot of blood on the brain.

She was left. Her big boy was old enough to go out, but the little one was still not more than a baby: he was so nervous and delicate. The doctors had never let him go to school.

One day her brother-in-law came to see her and advised her to sell up her home and get some work. All that keeps you back, he said, is little Bert. Now, I'd advise you to place a certain sum with your solicitor for him and put him out—in the country. He said he'd take him. I did as he advised. But, funny! I never heard a word from the child after he'd gone. I used to ask why he didn't write, and they said, when he can write a decent letter you shall have it—not before. That went on for a twelvemonth, and I found afterwards he'd been writing all the time, grieving to be took away, and they'd never sent his letters. Then quite sudden his uncle wrote and said he must be taken away. He'd done the most awful things—things I couldn't find you a name for—he'd turned vicious—he was a little criminal! What his uncle said was I'd spoiled the child and he was going to make a man of him, and he'd beaten him and half starved him and when he was frightened at night and screamed, he turned him out into the New Forest and made him sleep under the branches. My big boy went down to page 114 see him. Mother, he says, you wouldn't know little Bert. He can't speak. He won't come near anybody. He starts off if you touch him; he's like a little beast. And, oh dear, the things he'd done! Well, you hear of people doing those things before they're put into orphanages. But when I heard that and thought it was the same little baby his father used to carry into Regent's Park bathed and dressed of a Sunday morning—well, I felt my religion was going from me.

I had a terrible time trying to get him into an orphanage. I begged for three months before they would take him. Then he was sent to Bisley. But after I'd been to see him there, in his funny clothes and all—I could see 'is misery. I was in a nice place at the time, cook to a butcher in a large way in Kensington, but that poor child's eyes—they used to follow me—and a sort of shivering that came over him when people went near.

Well, I had a friend that kept a boarding house in Kensington. I used to visit her, and a friend of hers, a big well-set-up fellow, quite the gentleman, an engineer who worked in a garage, came there very often. She used to joke and say he wanted to walk me out. I laughed it off till one day she was very serious. She said, You're a very silly woman. He earns good money; he'd give you a home and you could have your little boy. Well, he was to speak to me next day and I made up my mind to listen. Well, he did, and he couldn't have put it nicer. I can't give you a house to start with, he said, but you shall have three good page 115 rooms and the kid, and I'm earning good money and shall be more.

A week after, he come to me. I can't give you any money this week, he says, there's things to pay for from when I was single. But I daresay you've got a bit put by. And I was a fool, you know, I didn't think it funny. Oh yes, I said, I'll manage. Well, so it went on for three weeks. We'd arranged not to have little Bert for a month because, he said, he wanted me to himself, and he was so fond of him. A big fellow, he used to cling to me like a child and call me mother.

After three weeks was up I hadn't a penny. I'd been taking my jewels and best clothes to put away to pay for him until he was straight. But one night I said, Where's my money? He just up and gave me such a smack in the face I thought my head would burst. And that began it. Every time I asked him for money he beat me. As I said, I was very religious at the time, used to wear a crucifix under my clothes and couldn't go to bed without kneeling by the side and saying my prayers—no, not even the first week of my marriage. Well, I went to a clergyman and told him everything and he said, My child, he said, I am very sorry for you, but with God's help, he said, it's your duty to make him a better man. You say your first husband was so good. Well, perhaps God has kept this trial for you until now. I went home—and that very night he tore my crucifix off and hit me on the head when I knelt down. He said he wouldn't have me say my prayers; it made him wild. I had a little page 116 dog at the time I was very fond of, and he used to pick it up and shout, I'll teach it to say its prayers, and beat it before my eyes—until—well, such was the man he was.

Then one night he came in the worse for drink and fouled the bed. I couldn't stand it. I began to cry. He gave me a hit on the ear and I fell down, striking my head on the fender. When I came to, he was gone. I ran out into the street just as I was—I ran as fast as I could, not knowing where I was going—just dazed—my nerves were gone. And a lady found me and took me to her home and I was there three weeks. And after that I never went back. I never even told my people. I found work, and not till months after I went to see my sister. Good gracious! she says, we all thought you was murdered! And I never see him since….

Those were dreadful times. I was so ill, I could scarcely hardly work and of course I couldn't get my little boy out. He had to grow up in it. And so I had to start all over again. I had nothing of his, nothing of mine. I lost it all except my marriage lines. Somehow I remembered them just as I was running out that night and put them in my boddy—sort of an instinct as you might say.

J. digs the garden as though he were exhuming a hated body or making a hole for a loved one.

The ardent creature spent more than half her time in church praying to be delivered from page 117 temptation. But God grew impatient at last and caused the door to be shut against her. “For Heaven's sake,” said he, “give the temptation a chance!”

It's raining, but the air is soft, smoky, warm. Big drops patter on the languid leaves, the tobacco flowers lean over. Now there is a rustle in the ivy. Wingley has appeared from the garden next door; he bounds from the wall. And delicately, lifting his paws, pointing his ears, very afraid that big wave will overtake him, he wades over the lake of green grass.

“Mr. Despondency's daughter, Muchafraid, went through the water singing.”

She said: “I don't feel in the least afraid. I feel like a little rock that the rising tide is going to cover. You won't be able to see me … big waves … but they'll go down again. I shall be there—winking bright.”

Oh, what sentimental toshery!

June 10. I have discovered that I cannot burn the candle at one end and write a book with the other.

Life without work—I would commit suicide. Therefore work is more important than life.

June 21. Bateson and his love of the louse for its own sake. Pedigree lice. £100 a year from the Royal Institute: a large family: desperately page 118 poor: but he never notices. The lives he saved in the Balkan war with shaving and Thymol. Cases reduced from 7000 to 700. No reward, not even an O.B.E. He dissects them, finds their glands and so on, keeps them in tiny boxes; they feed on his arm. The louse and the bedbug.

Hydatids: the Australian who got them: handfuls of immature grapes. They attack the liver. In the human body they reproduce indefinitely. When they are passed and a sheep is attacked by them, they develop hooks and become long worms.

The Egyptian disease: a parasite which attacks the veins and arteries and causes fluxion—constant bleeding. It is another egg drunk in water. After it has been in man the only thing it can affect is a water-snail. It goes through an entirely new cycle of being until it can attack man again.

Dysentery: another parasite.

Hydrophobia: the virus from the dog is taken and a rabbit is infected. That rabbit is used to infect another rabbit: the 2nd a 3rd, and so on, until you get a rabbit who is practically pure virus. The spinal cords are then taken from these rabbits and dried by a vacuum. The result is pounded up fine into an emulsion: 1st rabbit, 2nd rabbit, 3rd rabbit, etc., and the patient is injected progressively till at last he receives a dose which, if he had not been prepared to resist it, would kill him outright. The disease develops very slowly; the treatment is very expensive. Symptoms are a profuse shiny bubbling saliva, page 119 and gasping and groaning as in gas-poisoning. No barking, no going on all fours.

In lockjaw the jaw does not lock.

Pasteur was a very dreamer of dreamers. Human beings are a side-line to science.

All this I talked over with Sorapure, June 21. His point of view about medicine seems to me just completely right. I'd willingly let him take off my head, look inside, and pop it on again, if he thought it might assist future generations. Quite the right man to have at one's dying bedside. He'd get me at any rate so interested in the process—gradual loss of sensitiveness, coldness in the joints, etc.—I'd lie there thinking: this is very valuable to know; I must make a note of this.

As he stood at the door talking: “Nothing is incurable; it's all a question of time. What seems so useless to-day may be just that link which will make all plain to a future generation….” I had a sense of the larger breath, of the mysterious lives within lives, and the Egyptian parasite beginning its new cycle of being in a water-snail affected me like a great work of art. No, that's not what I mean. It made me feel how perfect the world is, with its worms and hooks and ova, how incredibly perfect. There is the sky and the sea and the shape of a lily, and there is all this other as well. The balance how perfect! (Salut, Tchehov!) I would not have the one without the other.

The clocks are striking ten. Here in my room the sky looks lilac; in the bath-room it is like the skin of a peach. Girls are laughing.

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I have consumption. There is still a great deal of moisture (and pain) in my bad lung. But I do not care. I do not want anything I could not have. Peace, solitude, time to write my books, beautiful external life to watch and ponder—no more. O, I'd like a child as well—a baby boy; mais je demande trop!

[Part of this note appears again in the following form.]

As he stood at the door he said quietly, “Nothing is incurable. What seems so useless to-day may be the link that will make all plain to-morrow.” We had been discussing hydatids, the Egyptian parasite that begins its cycle of existence being in a water-snail and the effects of hydrophobia. He smiled gently. There was nothing to be alarmed or shocked or surprised at. It was all a question of knowing these things as they should be known and not otherwise. But he said none of this and went off to his next case….

At breakfast time a mosquito and a wasp came to the edge of the honey dish to drink. The mosquito was a lovely little high stepping gazelle, but the wasp was a fierce roaring tiger. Drink, my darlings!

When the coffee is cold L.M. says: These things have to happen sometimes. And she looks mysterious and important, as if, as a matter of fact she had known all along that this was a cold coffee day.

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What I felt was, he said, that I wasn't in the whole of myself at all. I'd got locked in, somehow, in some little … top room in my mind, and strangers had got in—people I'd never seen before were making free of the rest of it. There was a dreadful feeling of confusion, chiefly that, and … vague noises—like things being moved—changed about—in my head. I lit the candle and sat up and in the mirror I saw a dark, brooding, strangely lengthened face.

“The feeling roused by the cause is more important than the cause itself….” That is the kind of thing I like to say to myself as I get into the train. And then, as one settles into the corner—“For example”—or “Take—for instance …” It's a good game for one.

She fastens on a white veil and hardly knows herself. Is it becoming or is it not becoming? Ah, who is there to say. There is a lace butterfly on her left cheek and a spray of flowers on her right. Two dark bold eyes stare through the mesh—Surely not hers. Her lips tremble; faint, she sinks on her bed. And now she doesn't want to go. Must she? She is being driven out of the flat by those bold eyes. Out you go. Ah, how cruel! (Second Violin.)

But her hand is large and cold with big knuckles and short square nails. It is not a little velvet hand that sighs, that yields—faints dead away and has to be revived again only to faint once more. (S.V.)

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What do I want? she thought. What do I really want more than anything else in the world? If I had a wishing ring or Ali Baba's lamp—no, it wasn't Ali Baba—it was—Oh, what did it matter! Just supposing some one came…. “I am here to grant your dearest wish.” And she saw, vaguely, a fluffy little creature with a silver paper star on a wand—a school fairy…. What should I say? It was cold in the kitchen, cold and dim. The tap dripped slowly, as tho' the water were half frozen…. (S.V.)

Miss Todd and Miss Hopper were second violins. Miss Bray was a viola.

Midday strikes on various bells—some velvety soft, some languid, some regretful, and one impatient—a youthful bell ringing high and quick above the rest. He thought joyfully: That's the bell for me! …

Cinderella.

Oh, my sisters—my beautiful Peacock-proud sisters—have pity on me as I sit with my little broom beside the cold ashes while you dance at the Prince's party. But why—is the Fairy Godmother, the coach, the plumes and glass slippers just—faery—and all the rest of the story deeply, deeply true? Fate I suppose—Fate. It had to be. These things happen so. La réponse: Poor old girl—of course she is awfully sorry for her, but she does become a bore—doesn't she? There's no getting away from it.

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When they got into bed together her feet rushed to greet his like little puppies that had been separated all day from their brothers. And first they chased one another and played and nudged gently. But then, they settled down, curled up, twined together under the clothes (like puppies on a warm hearth rug) and went to sleep.

Dark Bogey is a little inclined to jump into the milk jug to rescue the fly.

Fairylike, the fire rose in two branched flames like the golden antlers of some enchanted stag.

So he sat there, burning the letters, and each time he cast a fresh packet on the flame, his shadow, immense, huge, leapt out of the wall opposite him. It looked, sitting so stiff and straight, like some horrible old god, toasting his knees at the flames of the sacrifice.

Two Climates.

I'd always rather be in a place that is too hot rather than one that's too cold. But I'd always rather be with people who loved me too little rather than with people who loved me too much.

“She has made her bed,” said Belle—“she must lie on it.” I reflected thankfully that in this case that would be no hardship—on the contrary, indeed. I hoped it was what they were both longing to do….

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North Africa. The whole valley is smothered in little white lilies. You never saw such a sight! They make me feel so wretchedly homesick. They smell just like dear old Selfridge's.

Souvent j'ai dit à mon mari: Nous en prenons un? Et il me dit: Ah, non, non, ma pauvre femme. Notre petit moment pour jouer est passé. Je ne peux rien faire que de rester dans un chaise en faisant des grimaces, et ça fait trembler plus que ça ne fait rire un petit enfant.

When I read Dr. Johnson, I feel like a little girl sitting at the same table. My eyes grow round. I don't only listen; I take him in immensely.

“Don't you think it would be marvellous,” she said, “to have just one person in one's life to whom one could tell everything?” She leant forward, put down her cup, but stayed bent forward touching the spoon against the saucer. She looked up—“Or is it just childish of me—just absurd to want such a thing? … All the same,” she leaned back, smiling, “childish or not —how wonderful it would be—how wonderful! to feel—from this person, this one person—I really don't need to hide anything. It would be such heavenly happiness!” she cried, suddenly, “it would make life so …” she got up, went to the window, looked out vaguely and turned round again. She laughed. “It's a queer thing,” she said, “I've always believed in the possibility— page 125 and yet—in reality … Take R. and me, for instance.” And here she flung back in a chair and leant back, still she was laughing but her body leant to the chair as though exhausted. “I tell him everything. You know we're … rather different from most people. What I mean is—don't laugh—we love each other simply tremendously—we're everything to each other! In fact he's the one person on earth for me—and yet,” and she shut her eyes and bit her lip as though she wanted to stop laughing herself: “try, try try as I can—there's always just one secret—just one—that never can be told—that mocks me.” And then for a moment she lay still….

Indoo Weather: A Dream.

“It's what you might call indoo weather,” said the little man.

“Oh, really…. Why that?” said I, vaguely.

He did not answer. The two polished knobs of his behind shone as he leaned over feeding the black seams of the boat with a brown twist.

The day was dull, steaming; there was a blackness out at sea; the heavy waves came tolling. On the sea grasses the large bright dew fell not. The little man's hammer went tap-tap.

L.M. snorted, threw up her head, stamped her feet on the wet sand, scrambled to a boulder, tore at some sea-poppies, dug them in her hat, held the hat away, looked, scornful, wrenched them out again.

I looked and felt vague as a king.

“Spades and buckets is round the point with page 126 the lobster catch.” The hammer tapped. He explained that all the lovers would be sent away alive in sacks if they were not given a sharp stang with one of these. It was an ordinary grey and red garden trowel. L.M. went off to save their lives, but not joyfully. She walked heavy, her head down, beating the trowel against her side.

We were alone. The watcher appeared. He stood always in profile, his felt hat turned up at the side, a patch on the eye nearest us. His curved pipe fell from his jaws.

“Hi, Missy,” he shouted to me. “Why don't you give us a bit of a show out there?”

The little man remonstrated. The sea was like a mass of half-set jelly. On the horizon it seemed ages fell.

“Come on, Missy!” bawled the watcher. I took off my clothes, stepped to the edge and was drawn in. I tried to catch the stumps of an old wharf, but slime filled my nails and I was sucked out. They watched.

Suddenly there came, winnowing landward, an enormous skinny skeleton of a Hindoo, standing upright. A tattered pink and white print coat flapped about his stiff outstretched arms. He had cloth of the same with a fringe of spangles over his head. He stood upright because of the immense sweeping broom of wood growing waist-high. “Help! Help!” I called.

The noise of the hammer came, and I felt the watcher's patched profile. A huge unbreakable wave lifted him, tipped him near. His shadow lay even, on the surface of the dusty water—a page 127 squat head and two giant arms. It broadened into a smile.

Strangers.

I saw S. as a little fair man with a walrous moustache, a bowler much too small for him and an ancient frock coat that he keeps buttoning and unbuttoning. D.B. saw him as a grave gentleman with big black whiskers. Anyhow, there he was at the end of a dark tunnel, either coming towards us or walking away…. That started us on a fascinating subject. There are the people in D.B.'s life I've never seen (very few) and the immense number in mine that he has only heard of. What did they look like to us? And then, before we meet anyone while they are still far too far off to be seen we begin to build an image…. how true is it? It's queer how well one gets to know this stranger; how often you've watched him before the other comes to take his place…. I can even imagine someone keeping their “first impression”—in spite of the other.

July.

Tedious Brief Adventure of K.M.
A Doctor who came from Jamaica
Said: “This time I'll mend her or break her.
I'll plug her with serum;
And if she can't bear 'em
I'll call in the next undertaker.”

His locum tenens, Doctor Byam,
Said: “Right oh, old fellow, we'll try 'em,
For I'm an adept, O,
At pumping in strepto
Since I was a surgeon in Siam.”

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The patient, who hailed from New Zealing,
Said: “Pray don't consider my feeling,
Provided you're certain
'Twill not go on hurtin',
I'll lie here and smile at the ceiling.”

These two very bloodthirsty men
Injected five million, then ten,
But found that the strepto
Had suddenly crept to
Her feet—and the worst happened then!

Any day you may happen to meet
Her alone in the Hampstead High Street
In a box on four wheels
With a whistle that squeals;
And her hands do the job of her feet.

[In September 1919 K.M. went to San Remo, and, after a few weeks, took a little furnished cottage—the “Casetta”—at Ospedaletti near by. I was with her in San Remo, but returned to England to my work as editor of The Athenæum as soon as she was settled into the “Casetta” with L.M. For a time K.M. was very happy; but then illness and isolation and the everlasting sound of the sea began to depress her.]

Mrs. Nightingale: A Dream.

November. Walking up a dark hill with high iron fences at the sides of the road and immense trees over. I was looking for a midwife, Mrs. Nightingale. A little girl, barefoot, with a handkerchief over her head pattered up and put her chill hand in mine; she would lead me.

A light showed from a general shop. Inside a beautiful fair angry young woman directed me up the hill and to the right.

“You should have believed me!” said the child, and dug her nails into my palm.

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There reared up a huge wall with a blank notice plastered on it. That was the house. In a low room, sitting by a table, a dirty yellow and black rug on her knees, an old hag sat. She had a grey handkerchief on her head. Beside her on the table was a jar of onions and a fork. I explained. She was to come to mother. Mother was very delicate: her eldest daughter was thirty-one and she had heart disease. “So please come at once.”

“Has she any adhesions?” muttered the old hag, and she speared an onion, ate it and rubbed her nose.

“Oh, yes”—I put my hands on my breast—“many, many plural adhesions.”

“Ah, that's bad, that's very bad,” said the old crone, hunching up the rug so that through the fringe I saw her square slippers. “But I can't come. I've a case at four o'clock.”

At that moment a healthy, bonny young woman came in with a bundle. She sat down by the midwife and explained, “Jinnie has had hers already.” She unwound the bundle too quickly: a new-born baby with round eyes fell forward on her lap. I felt the pleasure of the little girl beside me—a kind of quiver. The young woman blushed and lowered her voice. “I got her to …” And she paused to find a very medical private word to describe washing…. “To navigate with a bottle of English water,” she said, “but it isn't all away yet.”

Mrs. Nightingale told me to go to the friend, Madame Léger, who lived on the terrace with a page 130 pink light before her house. I went. The terrace of houses was white and grey-blue in the moonlight with dark pines down the road. I saw the exquisite pink light. But just then there was a clanking sound behind me, and there was the little girl, bursting with breathlessness dragging in her arms a huge black bag. “Mrs. Nightingale says you forgot this.”

So I was the midwife. I walked on thinking: “I'll go and have a look at the poor little soul. But it won't be for a long time yet.”

Et in Arcadia Ego.

To sit in front of the little wood fire, your hands crossed in your lap and your eyes closed—to fancy you see again upon your eyelids all the dancing beauty of the day, to feel the flame on your throat as you used to imagine you felt the spot of yellow when Bogey held a buttercup under your chin … when breathing is such delight that you are almost afraid to breathe—as though a butterfly fanned its wings upon your breast. Still to taste the warm sunlight that melted in your mouth; still to smell the white waxy scent that lay upon the jonquil fields and the wild spicy scent of the rosemary growing in little tufts among the red rocks close to the brim of the sea….

The moon is rising but the reluctant day lingers upon the sea and sky. The sea is dabbled with a pink the colour of unripe cherries, and in the sky there is a flying yellow light like the wings of canaries. Very stubborn and solid are the trunks of the palm trees. Springing from their tops the page 131 stiff green bouquets seem to cut into the evening air and among them, the blue gum trees, tall and slender with sickle-shaped leaves and drooping branches half blue, half violet. The moon is just over the mountain behind the village. The dogs know she is there; already they begin to howl and bark. The fishermen are shouting and whistling to one another as they bring in their boats, some young boys are singing in half-broken voices down by the shore, and there is a noise of children crying, little children with burnt cheeks and sand between their toes being carried to bed….

I am tired, blissfully tired. Do you suppose that daisies feel blissfully tired when they shut for the night and the dews descend upon them?

Death.

December 17. When I had gone to bed I realised what it was that had caused me to ‘give way.’ It was the effort of being up, with a heart that won't work. Not my lungs at all. My despair simply disappeared—yes, simply. The weather was lovely. Every morning the sun came in and drew more squares of golden light on the wall, I looked round my bed on to a sky like silk. The day opened slowly, slowly like a flower, and it held the sun long, long before it slowly, slowly folded. Then my homesickness went. I not only didn't want to be in England, I began to love Italy, and the thought of it—the sun—even when it was too hot—always the sun—and a kind of wholeness which was good to bask in.

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All these two years I have been obsessed by the fear of death. This grew and grew and grew gigantic, and this it was that made me cling so, I think. Ten days ago it went, I care no more. It leaves me perfectly cold…. Life either stays or goes.

I must put down here a dream. The first night I was in bed here, i.e. after my first day in bed, I went to sleep. And suddenly I felt my whole body breaking up. It broke up with a violent shock—an earthquake—and it broke like glass. A long terrible shiver, you understand—the spinal cord and the bones and every bit and particle quaking. It sounded in my ears a low, confused din, and there was a sense of floating greenish brilliance, like broken glass. When I woke I thought that there had been a violent earthquake. But all was still. It slowly dawned upon me—the conviction that in that dream I died. I shall go on living now—it may be for months, or for weeks or days or hours. Time is not. In that dream I died. The spirit that is the enemy of death and quakes so and is so tenacious was shaken out of me. I am (December 15, 1919) a dead woman, and I don't care. It might comfort others to know that one gives up caring; but they'd not believe any more than I did until it happened. And, oh, how strong was its hold upon me! How I adored life and dreaded death!

I'd like to write my books and spend some happy time with J. (not very much faith withal) and see L. in a sunny place and pick violets—all kinds of flowers. I'd like to do heaps of things, page 133 really. But I don't mind if I do not do them…. Honesty (why?) is the only thing one seems to prize beyond life, love, death, everything. It alone remaineth. O you who come after me, will you believe it? At the end truth is the only thing worth having: it's more thrilling than love, more joyful and more passionate. It simply cannot fail. All else fails. I, at any rate, give the remainder of my life to it and it alone.

December 15. I'd like to write a long, long story on this and call it “Last Words to Life.” One ought to write it. And another on the subject of Hate.

December. It often happens to me now that when I lie down to sleep at night, instead of getting drowsy, I feel more wakeful and, lying here in bed, I begin to live over either scenes from real life or imaginary scenes. It's not too much to say they are almost hallucinations: they are marvellously vivid. I lie on my right side and put my left hand up to my forehead as though I were praying. This seems to induce the state. Then, for instance, it is 10.30 p.m. on a big liner in mid ocean. People are beginning to leave the Ladies' Cabin. Father puts his head in and asks if “one of you would care for a walk before you turn in. It's glorious up on deck.” That begins it. I am there. Details: Father rubbing his gloves, the cold air —the night air, the pattern of everything, the feel of the brass stair-rail and the rubber stairs. Then the deck—the pause while the cigar is page 134 lighted, the look of all in the moonlight, the steadying hum of the ship, the first officer on deck, so far aloft the bells, the steward going into the smoking-room with a tray, stepping over the high, brass-bound step…. All these things are far realer, more in detail, richer than life. And I believe I could go on until … There's no end to it.

I can do this about everything. Only there are no personalities. Neither am I there personally. People are only part of the silence, not of the pattern—vastly different from that—part of the scheme. I could always do this to a certain extent; but it's only since I was really ill that this—shall we call it?—“consolation prize” has been given to me. My God! it's a marvellous thing.

I can call up certain persons—Doctor S. for instance. And then I remember how I used to say to J. and R. “He was looking very beautiful to-day.” I did not know what I was saying. But when I so summon him and see him ‘in relation,’ he is marvellously beautiful. There again he comes complete, to every detail, to the shape of his thumbs, to looking over his glasses, his lips as he writes, and particularly in all connected with putting the needle into the syringe…. I relive all this at will.

“Any children?” he said, taking his stethoscope as I struggled with my nightgown.

“No, no children.”

But what would he have said if I'd told him that until a few days ago I had had a little child, page 135 aged five and three quarters, of indeterminate sex? Some days it was a boy. For two years now it had very often been a little girl….

December. Surely I do know more than other people: I have suffered more, and endured more. I know how they long to be happy, and how precious is an atmosphere that is loving, a climate that is not frightening. Why do I not try to bear this in mind, and try to cultivate my garden? Now I descend to a strange place among strangers. Can I not make myself felt as a real personal force? (why should you?) Ah, but I should. I have had experiences unknown to them. I should by now have learnt C.'s obiter dictum—how true it might be. It must be.

[Towards the end of December, worried by the depression of her letters, I went to Ospedaletti for a fortnight to see K.M.]

December 30. Calm day. In garden read early poems in Oxford Book. Discussed our future library. In the evening read Dostoevsky. In the morning discussed the importance of ‘eternal life.’ Played our famous Stone Game (Cape Sixpence and Cornwall).1

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December 31. Long talk over house. Foster said I could walk. Sea sounded like an island sea. Happy. Lovely fire in my bedroom. Succès éclatant avec demon before dinner. Listened to Wingley's fiddle. The wooden bed.

1 The Stone Game was simple. You placed a largish stone at the extreme edge of a cliff, sat down about ten yards away and shied smaller stones at it. The one who first toppled it over received sixpence from the other. Hence the name, Cape Sixpence, which we gave to the cliff near Bandol where we first played the game.