The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume II
December 26, 1920
To Anne Estelle Rice
December 26, 1920
The parcel arrived on Xmas morning but it was a separate fête by itself, just your letter and the two enchanting sketches. I love them, Anne. They remind me of our spring together and the laburnum seems hung with little laughs. If you knew how often I think of that time at Looe, our picnic, the white-eyed kaffir, the midget infant hurling large pieces of Cornwall into the sea on the beach that afternoon! It's all as clear as to-day.
But you know, don't you? that all the times we have ever spent together are clear like that. And here—I am always sending you greetings, always sharing things with you. I salute you in tangerines and the curved petals of roses-thé and the crocus colour of the sea and in the moonlight on the poire sauvage. Many, many other things. It will always be so with me, however seldom I see you. I shall just go on rejoicing in the fact of you. And loving you and feeling in that family where Monsieur Le Beau Soleil est notre père nous sommes des sœurs.
I am still hard at the story-writing and still feeling that only now do I begin to see what I want to do. I am page 87 sending you my book. It is not a good one. I promise the next will be better but I just wanted you to have a copy. Living solitary these last months with a servant who is a born artist and says, “Un ou deux bananes font plus intrigant le compotier,” and who returns from market with a basket, which just to see on the kitchen table is food for the day, makes work a great deal easier to get at. The strain is removed. At last one doesn't worry any more. And fancy one's domestique having an idea of what work is! She won't even let a person talk at the front door if I am working. She whispers to them to go to la porte de la cuisine …“parceque c'est très énervant pour Madame d'entendre causer quelqu'un pendant qu'elle travaille!” It's like being in heaven with an ange gardienne.