Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I

Wednesday — January 16, 1918

Wednesday
January 16, 1918

It is a very grey misty day. After that one fine one it has relapsed into winter again. A plaintive wind howls in the corridors. I shall light my fire this afternoon and page 101 sit tight. Oh dear! a panier of wood only lasts me two days, try as I may to economise.

I still feel far from as well as I did when we went to Harvey Nichols' together. I lie in bed all the morning until 12 and go to bed again as soon as dinner is over. The interval I spend in going for a very small walk and in working: I have begun, thank God, to work a bit. But my back hurts horribly and I cough an awful lot. However, I did not compose a single farewell telegram last night in bed, so that is one up.

Our butcheress isn't there any more. The pig-faced woman is, and an old man. The pâtisserie where the girl was always eating is closed, sadly, with big official notices plastered on the windows. The shop with the funny smell where we bought our charbon de bois is now the Municipal Food Depot. I went round by the Golf Hotel yesterday, and just as I got to the place where it says you are responsible for your own dégâts and frais, the sheep with their little lambs passed by. God! what a woeful company. The sheep with just a saddle of dirty wool on their backs, their bellies shaven, many of them with swollen feet, limping pitifully, the lambs tottering past—but they were pretty, there was one ginger one that managed to give a hop or two. Between them went a shepherd who was half a dog, I think. But he whistled to them in a way I had forgotten.

There are 2 submarines in the bay and a black steamer with a big white cross on her bows. The officers take their meals here. Their talk and grouping, etc., is pure Maupassant—not Tchehov at all, not deep enough or good enough. No, Maupassant is for France.

I read Wordsworth's sonnet beginning:

“Great Men have been among us: hands that penned….”

Look it up and read it. I agree with every word. There is a change of front, if you like! Whenever I am here, I seem to turn to William Wordsworth….

page 102

This old sort of pen-woman with a croak and a sad eye is not really me. Still not a cigarette to be had in all the land. It is sad. Please try and send me a book, a Dickens would do. I have read Barnaby Rudge twice. What about Our Mutual Friend? Is that good? I've never read it.

This letter goes like one of those sheep I saw….