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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I

Saturday morning — May 25, 1918 —

page 178
Saturday morning
May 25, 1918

To J. M. Murry

Yesterday on my way to the post I met Pagello and went off with him to the surgery. Such a queer place, so absolutely ‘Russian’—I mean as Tchehov has described. It will walk into a story one day. It was warm windy weather, I made a tour of the town. I pretend to A. I like it, and I do in so far that it satisfies my literary sense. It is very compact—ugly—the side streets are concreted over. There is a sense of black railings, and out of that dear little white house with the flowers comes a female voice: “You stop thaät or I lay a rope across eë.” Which is just what I expect of Cornwall. But I'll stay, I am determined to stay here for the present, until the end of June at any rate. And then I shall only go off to some other country place, perhaps—certainly not to London.

I shan't stay at this hotel after my fortnight is up. A. and I are going to look for two rooms. For many reasons. This place is perfect when you are ill, but it's frightfully bald when you are not. It's too ladylike for me, too, and I'm not a lady. And I want a sitting room. I can't work, can't concentrate in this bedroom. It's too big and too glaring. Also that great blue gape at the windows don't mean anything to me. Perhaps it would if I looked at it from my cottage door. But A. says (she agrees with me) there are excellent rooms to be had with women who cook extremely well, etc. I shall go looking this next week. This place has been perfect for its purpose, but j'en ai assez. I want to Work and it's too hard here. Each time I light a cigarette I feel a refined shudder come over this hotel. I will find something first chop, sunny, with a view over the snug little town as well as the sea. It would be worth staring at—this little town….