KATHERINE MANSFIELD

What can one do, faced with this wonderful tumble of round bright fruits; but gather them and play with them—and become them, as it were. When I pass an apple stall I cannot help stopping and staring until I feel that I, myself, am changing into an apple, too, and that at any moment I can produce an apple, miraculously, out of my own being, like the conjuror produces the egg…. When you paint apples do you feel that your breasts and your knees become apples, too? Or do you think this the greatest nonsense. I don’t. I am sure it is not. When I write about ducks I swear that I am a white duck with a round eye, floating on a pond fringed with yellow-blobs and taking an occasional dart at the other duck with the round eye, which floats upside down beneath me…In fact the whole process of becoming the duck (what Lawrence would perhaps call this consummation with the duck or the apple !) is so thrilling that I can hardly breathe, only to think about it. For although that is as far as most people can get, it is really only the’ ‘prelude.’ There follows the moment when you are more duck, more apple, or more Natasha than any of these objects could ever possibly be, and so you create them anew.

I am so down in the depths that I cannot imagine anything ever fishing me up again.

The clock ticks on tip-toe and the yellow curtains wave gently. I love such a day. It’s such a rest—not having been outside for three days. I love to be out of the streets and buses, out of the nudging crowds. Oh, I must work. The very shadows are my friends.

In fact the pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.

You know, if the truth were known I have a perfect passion for the island where I was born. Well, in the early morning there I always remember feeling that this little island has dipped back into the dark blue sea during the night only to rise again at gleam of day, all hung with bright spangles and glittering drops. (When you ran over the dewy grass you positively felt that your feet tasted salt.) I tried to catch that moment—with something of its sparkle and its flavour. And just as on those mornings white milky mists rise and uncover some beauty, then smother it again and then again disclose it, I tried to lift that mist from my people and let them be seen and then to hide them again…. It’s so difficult to describe all this and it sounds perhaps over-ambitious and vain. But I don’t feel anything but intensely a longing to serve my subject as well as I can.

It is ages since I have heard of Virginia [Woolf]. I thought she would have a new book out this winter. Perhaps it will come in the spring. I can see her in that dress. She is a lovely creature in her way.

I read of primroses in the paper. Primroses! Oh, what wouldn’t I give for some flowers. Oh Brett - this longing for flowers. I crave them. I think of them - of the feeling of tulip stems and petals, of the touch of violets and the light on marigolds & the smell of wall flowers. No, it does not bear writing about. I could kiss the earth that bears flowers. Alas, I love them far TOO much!

… I should love to come to Asheham on the 17th. Do have me. My story [Prelude] I have sent to the typist who lets me have it back on Thursday. I couldn’t cope with the copying: I’ve been so ‘ill.’ Rheumatics plus ghastly depression plus fury. I simply long to see you. I want to talk too about your Mark on the Wall. Now shall I write about it or talk about it? Tell me, may I come and see you on Sunday at the tea time or after supper time or whenever it suits you? Or when may I come? I thought you had finally despatched me to cruel callous Coventry, without a wave of your lily-white hand.

Quite suddenly, just after you had been so near,—for no reason that I can explain away—it was as if the light changed, and you vanished from me. I wandered about in the wood among the wild smelling bushes and sometimes I thought I saw the dark plume of your hat, or your lips or your hands but when I went towards you—you were not. The strange part was that my memory of the days we had just spent together was as perfect as ever—as bright, as untroubled. I still saw the blue spears of lavender—the trays of fading, scented leaves, you in your room, and your bed with the big white pillow and you coming down in the garden swinging the gay lantern. But between these lovely memories and me there opened a deep dark chasm—it trembled open as if by an earthquake—and now it is shut again and no trace of it remains.

It is the only life I care about—to write, to go out occasionally and ‘lose myself’ looking and hearing and then to come back and write again. At any rate that’s the life I’ve chosen.

Your glimpse of the garden, all flying green and gold, made me wonder again who is going to write about that flower garden. It might be so wonderful, do you know how I mean? There would be people walking in the garden—several pairs of people—their conversation—their slow pacing—their glances as they pass one another—the pauses as the flowers ‘come in’ as it were—as a bright dazzle, an exquisite haunting scent, a shape so formal and fine, so much a ‘flower of the mind’ that he who looks at it really is tempted for one bewildering moment to stoop and touch and make sure. The ‘pairs’ of people must be very different and there must be a slight touch of enchantment—some of them seeming so extraordinarily ‘odd’ and separate from the flowers, but others quite related and at ease… it’s full of possibilities. I must have a fling at it as soon as I have time

It is a beautiful night—so beautiful that you are half afraid to take it into your breast when you breathe.

Oh, my God! I am very happy. When I shut my eyes I cannot help smiling—You know what joy it is to give your heart—freely—freely. Everything that happens is an adventure. When the wind blows I go to the windiest possible place and I feel the cold come flying under my arms—When the sea is high I go down among the rocks where the spray reaches and I have games with the sea like I used to years ago. And to see the sun rise and set seems miracle enough.

I woke to a violent clap of thunder. It was raining, hailing, the shutters flashed pale yellow with the lightning. I heard the bells ringing in the hotel—the servants in felt slippers running along the corridors. Bang! went the thunder, rolling and tossing among the hills. The air was so electric that one’s hands and feet sang. Finally I got up, put on my mackintosh and opened the shutters. I felt sure that I’d be struck, especially as my room, being at the corner for the full force of the storm. It was a wonderful sight. I shall never forget the dignity of the sea. It drew back from the land a long way. There were no waves, only a fold or two where it touched the shore—and it looked as cold as a stone. Above the coast the sky was bright silver and above that a bright fantastic green. As I opened the window I smelled the sharp smell of the wet blue-gum trees. Oh, it was exciting—it was lovely and all the while the hail springing against the window pane and the low thunder and the fluttering light