Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

February 4, 1922

page 182

To Anne Estelle Rice

Just a mot to say how grateful I am for the address of this hotel. It's just what I wanted, and it simply flows with hot baths. I have a heaven-kissing room au 6me with a piece of sky outside and a view into the windows opposite—which I love. It's so nice to watch la belle dame opposite bring her canary in when it rains and put the hyacinth out. I have decided to stay in Paris and not go back to that Switzerland. There is a man here—did I tell you about him? (It sounds rather an ambiguous beginning, by the way). But enfin, there is a man here who treats my maladie with the X-rays and I am going to him for this treatment. I had the first yesterday and feel at this moment full of the rayons bleus—rather like a deep sea fish. But he promises to cure me by the summer. It's hard to believe it. But if it is true, I shall take a Puffi to your very door an' come an' have tea with David out of a very little small teapot. The only fly in the ointment is the terrific expense. It's 300 francs a time. However, I have been fortunate with my work lately and I'll just have to do a double dose of it until this is paid off. Money is a bore, but I never take it dead seriously, and I don't care if I haven't a sou as long as I can leap and fly alone.

You know I really do expect you in the Spring. I feel the winter is over already and I read in the Daily Mail yesterday that the Dog's Mercury is out. But what is the Dog's Mercury? And does the Dog know? I hope he's very pleased but I expect he just looks at it and bolts it and goes on with a kind of “So that's that” air. Sad for the Dog's Mercury, don't you think?

Well, dearest, I feel a bit weak in the pen this morning, and inclined to laugh at rien—you know the feeling. It's a fool of a day here, sunny and wintry. Fat old men lose their hats and cry houp-là as they stagger after them.

page 183