The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I
Sunday night — February 3, 1918
February 3, 1918
I don't dare to work any more to-night. I suffer so frightfully from insomnia here and from night terrors.
page 121That is why I asked for another Dickens; if I read him in bed he diverts my mind. My work excites me so tremendously that I almost feel insane at night, and I have been at it with hardly a break all day. A great deal is copied and carefully addressed to you, in case any misfortune should happen to me. Cheerful! But there is a great black bird flying over me, and I am so frightened it will settle—so terrified. I don't know exactly what kind he is.
If I were not working here, with war and anxiety I should go mad, I think. My night terrors here are rather complicated by packs and packs of growling, roaring, ravening, prowl-and-prowl-around dogs.
God! How tired I am!