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Journal of Katherine Mansfield

Verses Writ in a Foreign Bed

Verses Writ in a Foreign Bed.

Almighty Father of All and Most Celestial Giver
Who has granted to us thy children a heart and lungs and a liver;
page 75 If upon me should descend thy beautiful gift of tongues
Incline not thine Omnipotent ear to my remarks on lungs.

“Toujours fatiguée, Madame?”

“Oui, toujours fatiguée.”

“Je ne me lève pas, Victorine; et le courier?”

Victorine smiles meaningly, “Pas encore passé.”

February 19. I woke up early this morning and when I opened the shutters the full round sun was just risen. I began to repeat that verse of Shakespeare's: “Lo, here the gentle lark weary of rest”, and bounded back into bed. The bound made me cough—I spat—it tasted strange—it was bright red blood. Since then I've gone on spitting each time I cough a little more. Oh, yes, of course I am frightened. But for two reasons only. I don't want to be ill, I mean ‘seriously’, away from J. J. is the first thought. 2nd, I don't want to find this is real consumption, perhaps it's going to gallop—who knows?—and I shan't have my work written. That's what matters. How unbearable it would be to die—leave ‘scraps,’ ‘bits’ … nothing real finished.

But I feel the first thing to do is to get back to J. Yes, my right lung hurts me badly, but it always does more or less. But J. and my work—they are all I think of (mixed with curious visionary longings for gardens in full flower). L.M. has gone for the doctor.

I knew this would happen. Now I'll say why. On my way here, in the train from Paris to Marseilles I sat in a carriage with two women. They page 76 were both dressed in black. One was big, one little. The little spry one had a sweet smile and light eyes. She was extremely pale, had been ill—was come to repose herself. The Big One, as the night wore on, wrapped herself up in a black shawl—so did her friend. They shaded the lamp and started (trust 'em) talking about illnesses. I sat in the corner feeling damned ill myself.

Then the big one, rolling about in the shaking train, said what a fatal place this coast is for anyone who is even threatened with lung trouble. She reeled off the most hideous examples, especially one which froze me finally, of an American belle et forte avec un simple bronchite who came down here to be cured and in three weeks had had a severe hæmorrhage and died. “Adieu mon mari, adieu mes beaux enfants.”

This recital, in that dark moving train, told by that big woman swathed in black, had an effect on me that I wouldn't own and never mentioned. I knew the woman was a fool, hysterical, morbid, but I believed her; and her voice has gone on somewhere echoing in me ever since….

Juliette has come in and opened the windows; the sea is so full of ‘little laughs’ and in the window space some tiny flies are busy with their darting, intricate dance.

[Juliette was the little maid at the hotel who devoted herself to Katherine Mansfield. There are many charming pictures of her in the letters of this time.

At last, after many wearing delays, Katherine Mansfield received permission from the “authorities” to return to England. On the day, however, on which she reached page 77 Paris, the long-range bombardment of the city began, and all civilian traffic between Paris and London was instantly suspended. For nearly three weeks she was detained in Paris, exhausted by her illness, yet continually having to visit various “authorities” for permission either to stay or to depart. She managed to get to London on April 11, a shadow of herself. The ravages of four months' anxiety and illness had been terrible.]

April 2. Paris. I am not doing what I swore I would at Bandol. I must again write the word Discipline and under that Which Do You Prefer?

And from day to day after this keep a strict account of what it is that I fail in. I have failed very badly these last few days and this evening was a ‘comble.’ This to the uninitiated would appear great rubbish. They'd suspect me of God knows what. If only they knew the childish truth! But they won't know. Now, Katherine, here goes for to-morrow—Keep it up, my girl. It's such a chance, now that L.M. is not I-spy-I.