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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II

January 1920

To J. M. Murry

... Ever since you left you have carried the sun in your pocket. It's bitter cold, raining fast, sleeting, and an east wind. D. says he has never known the glass so low. The cold is intense. One's fingers ache. You could not believe this was the same place. And the sky seems to have great inkstains upon it....

The post office has struck — no one knows for how long. It just announces a strike. The country is in a queer state. Yesterday on his way here D. met the men from the railway below who shouted " You'd better pack up your traps and go. We don't want any more of you English here. We're going to clear you out." But 10-1 that is an exaggeration. He is an alarmist of the very first water and sat here yesterday suggesting that even at 3 o'clock in the afternoon no one could hear my screams if I were attacked, and that a revolver for a person like me was ridiculous. They'd knock it away in no time. I have come to the conclusion that he's not only a real insane lunatic but a homicidal maniac. I thought the first time he was here he was a trifle insane, but then you liked him so and I felt that you would laugh at me for always "suspecting" people... But I know I'm right. His glance, without any barriers, cruel, cruel like a man raving with delight at the sight of a torture ; his flat-sounding voice, somehow so repressed and held back; his physical great stiffness and the shape of his flat head — real criminal shape. See him in profile, his eyes glittering. He's page 3 come to the conclusion that he's not only a real insane lunatic but a homicidal maniac. I thought the first time he was here he was a trifle insane, but then you liked him so and I felt that you would laugh at me for always ‘suspecting’ people… But I know I'm right. His glance, without any barriers, cruel, cruel like a man raving with delight at the sight of a torture; his flat-sounding voice, somehow so repressed and held back; his physical great stiffness and the shape of his flat head—real criminal shape. See him in profile, his eyes glittering. He's a terrible object. He is attracted to me because he realises my sensitiveness. I'm weak for him to terrify. It relieves him to sit in that small room and suggest that navvies will break in and “slit your throat” while L. M. is in San Remo. Well… Well… .

The new maid is here. If to be a maid is to drop the stove-rings on to the tiled floor, she's an excellent one, and very cheap at 5 francs a day...

If only this black weather would lift. The wind howls. All goes well here. I work and work and work and stay in bed until the sun returns.