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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I

Friday — November 14, 1919

Friday
November 14, 1919

It's a bitter cold day, pouring rain, wind, fog, and air like acid. I am sitting in my room before the fire wrapped up snug with a hot bottle and Jaeger dressing gown over all. I am terrified of the cold and would go to any lengths to avoid it. Ansaldi's “chill will in your case be a fatal disaster” rings in my ears when the weather turns like this. At the same time, God! what courage we have to remain apart, knowing that. It amazes me. But we could do nothing else, nothing else at all. It would be very wonderful to be rid of these melancholy thoughts, for them to withdraw into the forest and not come out again for, say, fifty years. The fog and ceaseless drip of rain makes them very impish.

page 285

How I hate furrin parts to-day! I feel numbed when the sun goes in. That's a great mistake—to think it a good idea to live facing the sea. I've discovered it's a bad one. When the sun is not out the sea is like a mirror without light. It simply asks for the sun far more than the land does. “There's nothing to say, my heart is dead,” says the sea and goes on saying it in a loud keening voice…. Another discovery is not to live alone and more or less tied to a house where the sea sounds so loud. If one broke up the noise with talk and kisses and walks it would be all right, but it has a frightfully depressing effect if one doesn't. Sometimes I lie awake literally all night, so excited that I play Demon, sing and talk out loud to try to work it off. If there were a second person I don't think one would notice it. L. M. says she never does. These things one just has to find out.