KM Today Archive: 1921

31 Dec 1921

Sat, 31 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Jones is waiting for this letter. I want it to catch the post. I have only begun to say what I want to say. About Paris. I cannot go just at present. Im still in bed & likely to remain there for a time. Congestion is a slow affair, especially at this height. The doctor, like all doctors, is a complete fool. I shall try & put off Paris until May. To meet there in May & to stay there (J. & I will be there four months) would be nothing short of wonderful. I hardly dare think of it. Now I know Manoukhine is there I can bear to wait. I think I shall try. Hotels & journeys are a dread prospect in any weather - in this, even more.
Forgive this haste and inadequacy. Read much more in my letter than is there, dear Sydney. With my warm love to you both
Katherine. [To Sydney Schiff, 31 December 1921.]

My cat has just leapt on to my bed and begun to clean his face and his two little chimneys. Its a queer thing. He started life in a humble way like One greater than he - he was born in a stable and was just an ordinary little black & white kitten. But since he came here he has turned into a real Persian with an enormous ruff and feathers on his legs. I suppose it is the cold. The Swiss of course, dont keep cats. They are frightened a cat might eat the old cabbage stalk they are saving up for the baby to cut its teeth on. They are a thrifty race.
  By the way I suppose you do not know the address of a first chop dentist in Paris? I have to go to Paris very soon and while I am there I want to put my head into the jaws of a really good painless modern man. Is there such an one? If you could send me a card with his name and address I would be awfully grateful. Are you wondering why I ask you? I have a feeling you know all these things . . . I am going as soon as my feet are on the earth again, for my teeth are falling like autumn leaves. They have very large wooden buns here for tea with nails in them and powdered glass on expres pour les anglais. I defy anyone to grind them to powder without an ‘accident'.
A Happy New Year to you l you do know how I ‘appreciated' your letter? Thanks again dear Drey.
  With love from
                 K.M.  [To Raymond Drey, 27 December 1921.]

30 Dec 1921

Fri, 30 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

I should like to have friends, I confess. I do not suppose I ever shall. But there have been moments when I have realised what friendship might be. Rare moments, but never forgotten. I remember once talking it over with Lawrence and he said "We must swear a solemn pact of friendship. Friendship is as binding, as solemn as marriage. We take each other for life, through everything - for ever. But it is not enough to say we will do it. We must swear." At the time I was impatient with him. I thought it extravagant - fanatic. But when one considers what this world is like I understand perfectly why L. (especially being L.) made such claims . . . I think, myself it is Pride which makes friendship most difficult. To submit, to bow down to the other is not easy, but it must be done if one is to really understand the being of the other. Friendship isn't merging. One doesn't thereupon become a shadow & one remain a substance. Yes, it is terribly solemn - frightening, even.
Please do not think I am all for Joyce. I am not. In the past I was unfair to him and to atone for my stupidity I want to be fairer now than I really feel . . . I agree that it is not all art. I would go further. Little , to me, is art at all. Its a kind of stage on the way to being art. But the act of projection has not been made. Joyce remains entangled in it, in a bad sense, except at rare moments. There is, to me, the great distinction between him and Proust. (Take Swann with Odette for instance). Or take Richard in Elinor Colhouse . . . [To Sydney Schiff, 31 December 1921.]

You know Richard I feel this next year 1922 is going to be a good one. Better than the ones that went before. There is a kind of stirring when one thinks of it, the feeling that one has on a late March night when the wind is west. Does that seem nonsense to you? I want it to be good for all of us, of course, so that this time next year here we are - rich in happiness, fat in blessings. Jack shall have a crown, you a small sceptre. Whats left for me? There is sure to be something small going. Happy Xmas, dear old Boy. A Happy New Year. With much love from
Katherine. [To Richard Murry, c. 26 December 1921.]

29 Dec 1921

Thu, 29 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

My dear Sydney
I answer your letter, as you suggest, immediately. Yes, I used the word friendship too lightly. I hang my head. It was badly done and you were right to rebuke me e I do understand. I wince, yes I confess its painful to me to read what you write at the bottom of the second page "I have not got any friends at all", and the sentences that follow. At the same time I value the remark immensely. There is a deep separateness in me which responds to it, even though I am for ever without a complete complement. But its a strange truth that the fact of you and Violet is not only a joy, its an extraordinary consolation to believe in you and in her as one does. (Violet dearest, speak to me just one moment, will you? I feel sometimes diffident of speaking to you directly. I feel there are so many others near you who claim your attention. I count on Sydney telling you whatever there is to tell. No, the truth is nearer. I write to you and to him. But you know that.) I agree absolutely with what you say when you define the forces that go to make friendship and the part played by knowledge. The more one thinks of the image of knowledge as clothing the more valuable it becomes. It is one of the images that delight the mind so much that almost apart from one's self one's mind goes on receiving it, turning it to the light, trying it, experimenting with it. Or that is what my mind has been doing . . . proving the truth of it mathematically speaking. [To Sydney Schiff, 31 December 1921.]

   Do tell me how you are - when you have time. I wish I knew that you were really better. Do you believe at all in people like Coué, the auto-suggestion man? If my Russian fails me I shall try him. It becomes really comic like something out of Rabelais - there ought to be pages & pages beginning "And then she tried . . ."
   We are still reading Jane Austen. M. falls in love with all the heroines, even with Fanny Price but I should be content to walk in the shrubbery with Mr Knightley. I remain faithful to him. Its greater fun for M. than for me, for all the engagements come as a complete surprise to him. He almost swoons with anxiety when Mr D. follows E1iza's father into the library and demands her hand, and once it is all happily settled and a fortune of ten thousand a year bestowed upon them his relief is extreme.
Poor M! If I were really a generous creature I would make him a widow so that he could have all this himself from the very beginning.
  A Happy New Year, a New Year of lovely weather, dearest Ottoline.
With warm love from
             Katherine. [To Ottoline Morell, 27 December 1921.]

28 Dec 1921

Wed, 28 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

My dear Drey,
I cant say what a pleasure it was to receive on Xmas day its very self a letter from you with the perfectly delightful enclosures. I had written to Anne just the day before; it seemed as though my letter had got there by carrier pigeon and brought the answer back. The little case is most precious for what it contained - the picture of David. My dear Drey what a shockingly proud man you must be! I should do no more work. I should just look at him, puff out my ches' and say to the passers by "il est ànous."
The butler impressed me terribly. At this height and among these mountains one scarcely dare think of butlers. My one domestic, the gentle Ernestine, who weighs about 14 stone, bounds up and down the stairs like a playful heifer and bursts into a strange terrible singing whenever she hears a pig being killed, is civilizations away from butlers. When I come to see you I expect the second footman to take my umbrella and I shall curtsy to Anne and present a bouquet. You are very grand but not as grand as Willy. His party must have been a very powerful affair, Drey. Talk about numbered cloakroom tickets. Willy will have to have them for his wives, next time. He will be a terribly busy man in Heaven. I am sure the restitution of conjugal rights is a specialite de la maison, there. [To Raymond Drey, 27 December 1921.]

Dearest Ottoline, I think of you in your little room. How well I know that rapture that comes sometimes when one is alone. I think perhaps it is the greatest joy of all. If only it would stay - if only one might live like that, always. I sometimes think that if one were well there is no reason why it should ever go. But that is nonsense. The feeling I mean is . . . its as though the barriers were down and you stepped into another world where even the silence lives and you are accepted, you are received as part of everything. Nothing is hidden. And there is that precious sense of awareness . . . But speaking of this reminds me instantly of DeLaMare, who understands it so perfectly. Have you see his new book of poems The Veil? I have just ordered it. I do hope you will see it. Do you know him? He is one of the people whom I have most enjoyed meeting in Life. There is no one like him.
The snow has fallen at last, here. It looks beautiful. It feels desperately cold. I have been in bed . . . lately . . . and only see the world from my window. As soon as I can get up I am going to Paris to see a new man there - a Russian who claims to completely cure this disease with applications of X rays. I believe him, absolutely, (as one does, you know) and I dream at night that I am climbing hills covered with little rose bushes and jumping across streams. Will it all come true, I wonder? [To Ottoline Morell, 27 December 1921.]

27 Dec 1921

Tue, 27 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Dearest Ottoline,
   Isn't it astonishing how a scent can carry one back - - - When I opened your envelope the delicious strange perfume quite overwhelmed me - and the queer thing was what it took me to was walking out into the air after having heard the Balalaika orchestra. It was a night in spring - wasn't it? I know I felt that we had shared something wonderful, and that just for that moment we were walking the earth together and it was happiness.
   How lovely the little handkerchiefs are with the swans sailing round them. They arrived on Christmas Day its very self too. You know how one watches for that Christmas post at this distance. I was in bed too which made my longing even more fearful. I had to wait until someone crept up the stairs instead of lurking at the door. I really feel I could write an entire book with each chapter beginning "The post did not come that day" or "That morning the post was late". And I at least would thrill and shiver with the horror of it. Its awful to spend such emotions on postmen! But there it is.
   We had a ‘proper' Christmas - even to a Tree, thanks to the Mountain who revels in such things and would like all the year to be December. The house whispered with tissue paper for days, a pudding appeared out of the bosom of the air and the sight of that fired even my gentle Ernestine who began, from the sounds, to gambol on the ground floor and toss the iron rings of the stove on to the floor. The crackers however would not pull which cast a little gloom over M. who relishes crackers and the mottoes which were German were very depressing: "Madchen moch ich Frau dir sehn." I am glad it is all over - but the traces, the signs remain for a long time . . . [To Ottoline Morell, 27 December 1921.]

Brett I must speak of this new photograph at once. It is extraordinary how different it is to the other. In fact it is almost frightening to know what a photograph can do. Now I do see a design that I simply did not see before. I mean I see a movement which starts at the tip of the parasol, touches the tip of Marie Loos head, goes round the doll and ends by almost touching with a light brush tip the dog & the black babby, before it "disappears" (if you know what I mean) behind that dark tree. One sees too, for the first time, the importance of the pyramidal shadow below the parasol and a kind of fluid beauty - flowing beauty in the grass. I seem to see what you are getting at - the sudden arrest, poise, moment captured of the figure in a flowing shade and sunlight world. To put it in another way, the decor was there and you have superimposed Marie Loo on it, or she has superimposed herself for you. Id give a great deal to see this picture in the fiesh. The legs do still worry me. But the other photograph didn't do it anything like justice, my dear; it is intensely interesting, and the doll an echo of the Marie Loo design - M.L. in very little - completing her like a small shadow, is excellent. Yes, its easy to see why you are not content with flowers . . . I hope all this means something. Isn't it a curse one cant speak instead of write. [To Dorothy Brett, 26 December 1921.]

Well
Darling Anne
   Words fail me. The parcil came today. It had been detained by the Customs, but it arrived ‘intacte comme un bébé' & really when I took out that exquisite garment I felt that wherever you were, you wonderful woman, you must have felt my thrill. It is all, colour, shape, design, perfume, perfect. Anne, will you please realise how I appreciate every stitch. I have looked and looked, really fed on those colours. I felt that in two minutes, so radiant was the little garment it would flap its sleeves and begin to sing. The yellow, ma chere, the blue, ma chere, the beads, the ribbon - the lining - oh dear, I could say a separate prayer to you for each separate piece.
   But nothing has escaped my eye, Anne. I feel that this little coat like everything that your hands touch has a life of its own and its precious to me.
   Please let me put my arms round you & give you the biggest hug for it, "David, isn't she a wonder! Dont we agree about her! What other human being would send such a present?"
   In fact, Ive got it on this minute and I feel transported.
                      Bless you, precious woman -
                                Katherine
I wrote to you in Paris. But Im not sure whether I put the right address - rue Odessa.
To Anne Drey, 26 December 1921.]

26 Dec 1921

Mon, 26 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

                      Boxing Day
Dearest Brett,
   Your parcils and your letters came today and my bed turned into a corner of Marshalls - such a lovely one. Little O-T-Kosey-San sat against the lilac wall and the hankies and ribbons lay on a very gay wooly quilt. Thank you over and over. I feel I want to wave each of the hankies separately in silent greeting and to send this letter by a carrier pigeon with the three ribbons dangling from its little red feet. Please feel how I appreciate ribbon, too, how they all added to the festa. There was one the green which is really such a heavenly colour that one can hardly believe in it, but all are delicious . . . But what a terrific pace our parcels seem to have come flying at. I had barely sent my petty over the net when back came the letter. O-T-Kosey-San will be in daily use. She is very decorative. _
   Yesterday I heard from Manouhkine. As soon as I am up again and can get into a train into a train I go. After that all is uncertain. Most likely I shall come back here having seen him until May and then strike camp seriously and make for Paris for the treatment. It takes at least four months. But first I must see him and also go to a dentist in Paris & get my teeth pulled out and in. The treatment is very expensive - thats another reason why I want to wait until May. I must make money to pay for it. It is 300 francs a time! And I shall need about 30 times - not to mention hotel bills and very good food which one has to eat all the time one is being treated. And I have to take the Mountain with me - so its always two to be paid for. This means work with a vengeance. I shall manage it, though, and if I emerge with nothing and health I shall be so rich, so awfully rich that I will treat everybody I meet to beaming smiles, at any rate.
   The snow is here at last and still falling. It is deathly cold. But I never have a closed window, dearest. I lived out of doors on my balcony when I was up.
   I must work. Goodbye for now. My mind is dressed like a ship at a regatta with little coloured hanky fiags. Thanks - thanks again dearest for being who you are.
                     Ever
                            Tig [To Dorothy Brett, 26 December 1921.]

Richard
   This letter is a very late lark indeed. It is meant to be for Christmas. Please read it before the New Year, and forgive your erring sister. Thanks most awfully for mine. The size of the pudding put heart into us. Heaven forbid Wingley should eat any for he is enormous already. We weighed him the other day. He was over 12 lbs. You should have seen him sitting in the scales, with a very smug cat -in-a-bastick expression . . .
   Well, Richard, how are you, I wonder? How is the world? Space? Universe? It begins to seem long since I was in England. Perhaps you are quite changed, with moustaches and a collar I have never seen before. We are the same except that our heads are always in the air - little Johnnies head in air - looking for the snow. Which won't fall and won't fall. Ice - we can "do' you as much ice as you like e thick and clear, Sir. But ice is only half the fun. However, everybody says it must fall soon so I suppose we haven't long to wait.
   It has been shockingly cold here. There are days when one is in the clouds for hours and that damp, heavy strange cold is like nothing on earth. Then just Montana clears at night and looking out of my window on to the milk white valley is like looking out of the Ark when it rested on Mount Lebanon (wasnt it?). I feel like a daughter of Noah, but not one of the Daily News ones. [To Richard Murry, 26 December 1921.]

I have chosen today to write because Manoukhine has come a great deal nearer. He has told me that if I go to Paris he will treat me by his new method and there is the word guerison shining in his letter. I believe every word of it; I believe in him implicitly. As soon as I am out of bed (the cold has been too cold) Jones will pack the boxes and I shall go to see him and arrange to return to him in May. I want to spend the winter here. But in May I shall go to Paris for the course of treatment which takes 15 weeks. (Manoukhine is not only a doctor. He is a whole new stage on the journey. I hardly know why.) His treatment consists of applications of the Rayons X.
One word I must say about Joyce. Having reread the Portrait it seems to me on the whole awfully good. We are going to buy ‘Ulysses'. But Joyce is (if only Pound didn't think so, too) immensely important. Some time ago I found something so repellant in his work that it was difficult to read it. It shocks me to come upon words, expressions and so on that Id shrink from in life. But now it seems to me the new novel, the seeking after Truth is so by far and away the most important thing that one must conquer all minor aversions. They are unworthy.
Christmas - in cold blood - is not an attractive fête. And the English papers bulging with turkeys are disgusting. Its an awful offence to our intelligence to be served with these pages and pages about Father Christmas and "Pulling a Cracker with my Kind Daddy". To Sydney Schiff, 25 December 1921.]

25 Dec 1921

Sun, 25 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Dear Michael Sadleir,
   If you think a small limited edition of the Garden Party would sell then I think the idea an excellent one. My only doubt is whether the small public who read my last book wouldn't buy the limited edition and there'd be no one left to buy the other!
   Should you decide, however, to print one I imagine the Oxford booksellers might dispose of some copies.
   I hope you are having a Happy Christmas & that you are going to have a Happy New Year.
   Yours ever
              Katherine Mansfield. [To Michael Sadleir, 25 December 1921.]

Sydney
   This is just a note - not a letter. My letters to you - the ones that remain unwritten - would fill volumes. But I feel you know that.
   I want to tell you something. It is important. It is about your letter to Murry. I don't, personally, believe in chance. God knows I dont see the plan; I dont see what the ‘authors' are driving at. But it does seem to me always more and more positive that a design there ix. And there is a moment which is the perfect moment. But so often, until it has passed by we dont see it. We only see what we have missed. All is in retrospect.
   What this all leads up to is one of those moments marvellously realised, marvellously fulfilled was when you wrote to Murry. He needed your letter and you gave it to him. You know how Murry craves friends. But the men whom he knows are too . . . frightened . . . to ever show him more than a kind of head sympathy, which is very little use to him at all. But that precious sense of security that real friendship gives he has asked for in vain until unasked, you gave it him. Ielieve that you and I think alike about Murry, deep down, deep down. He was in a mood of awful depression just then. I could not help him. He wanted someone who was not K.M. . . . And I am sure men need men in a way few women understand . . . Well, the simple truth is Sydney, that your comprehension and your generosity are beautiful. One loves you for your gifts. [To Sydney Schiff, 25 December 1921.]

24 Dec 1921

Sat, 24 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

About Paris. I have now received the doctor's address from the secretary of the Institute & have written him again today. If I hear I will let you know. It seems more hopeful now that I send direct. I am still in bed and dear knows when I shall be out. A reply from Manouhkin would be the only thing, I think. (I am a bit disheartened to be back here again with all the old paraphenalia of trays and hot bottils. Accurséd disease!)
I am so glad to know what you are doing at Christmas. I hope you will be happy. I shall see you all in my mind's eye & wish I were there. Good Heavens! Is it really warm? Why is it my fate to always find the cold corner. If I go to a hot climate it freezes, if to a cold it becomes an arctic zone. 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 tulips 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!
It is ages since I have heard of Virginia. 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 had a laugh over Sullivan's Canadian. Did he stipulate she must be a "fighting" woman - guaranteed to have fought Red Indians? I am sure she will expect Sullivan to provide her with a Red Indian or two from time to time. But perhaps it won't be too difficult. But its very funny.
Goodbye for now. I send my loves to all who are at your hearth.
Ever
Tig [To Dorothy Brett, 22 December 1921.]

Christmas Eve.
   This is serious, though. I wanted to send you a Christmas present. I cant. In the first place I am au lit with an attack of congestion and Murry swerves past all shops even if there were shops to swerve by here. So I must put it off & content myself with a cuckoo bird for David. It is only postponed. And will you give my love to Drey. It is so long since I heard from him that he may have forgotten me. Recall me - will you, Anne! "Cette petite personne avec les yeux comme les boutons de bottines . . . tu sais" - That will bring me back. Id awfully like to see Drey again. Je lui serre la main bien cordialement.
For the rest - when you have the time can I have un mot to know you are well and that all goes? Oh, Anne, do you see Horace Holley's great Tome on Bahaism is produced. I expect it is very powerful! I note that Bertha sells slips, tuniques and cossaques at a li'l shop in New York. It being the pantomine season I shall make the joke . . . I expect they are all slips.
Have you heard how brulee Lascelles was to the Queen? Pinched her little Mary. Perhaps that joke is tres vieux in London. Ones sense of humour gets very keen on mountain tops.
   Fare well, dear precious Anne. May good fortune fall ever deeper in love with thee.
   I am always your devoted
                Katherine. [To Anne Drey, 24 December 1921.]

Dear Elizabeth,
   I must catch at the flying heels of this old year and wish you a Happy New One. I do, with all my heart. May it be rich in Blessings. Do you like to know you are loved, Elizabeth. If you do, think of me as a small fire, glowing, at a distance. But a self-feeding fire that needs no attenfion, even though it does leap for joy when you stretch forth your small, supple hand.
   Your letter came this afternoon. There is something wrong with life that a man like Sydney should die and others be left to go their useless ways. If only one could believe in a kind God who moved in a mysterious way - on purpose! It does not bear writing about . . . But one thinks and feels, all the same.
   It is no longer so dreadfully cold. Snow has fallen to-day, but only a sprinkle. We are longing for it to really begin. The F .O., [Faithful One] is positive all will be white for Christmas. But she has of course, a Christmas complex. She is a living tree already and never comes into my room without another candle or coloured ball or glass bird to show me. She still believes in Santa Claus firmly and the whole house rustles with tissue paper and I suspect even the gentle Ernestine of gambolling on the ground floor. It's awfully difficult to be adequate; my sentimental part is for her. I know she will have crackers for John to pull with her at dinner. They will dine téte-a-téte for I am cast away again, prone in my cursed bed with a touch of congestion. I don't mind for myself as much as I do for John. I am no sort of a woman for a young man of 33 to be tied to. It is devilish luck for him. [To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 24 December 1921.]

23 Dec 1921

Fri, 23 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

But listen - Brett! This is very serious. You may depend on my sympathy. You may say whatever you like to me - and its safe. I mean that. But don't for Heavens sake paint something for me to show you can do it, ma chere. What earthly use would it be if you don't care to do it? Ill send you a story called ‘A Tear in the Eye of a Violet' by Katherine Florence Barclay Mansfield as a small return if you do.
Im very interested by what you say about ‘Vera'. Wasn't the end extraordinarily good. It would have been so easy to miss it; she carried it right through. I admired the end most, I think. Have you ever known a Wemyss? Oh my dear, they are very plentiful! Few men are without a touch. And I certainly believe that husbands & wives talk like that. Lord yes. You are so very superior, Miss, in saying half an hour would be sufficient. But how is one to escape? And also, though it may be "drivel" in cold blood, it IS incredible the follies and foolishness we can bear if we think we are in love. Not that I can stand the Wemyss ‘brand'. No. But I can perfectly comprehend Lucy standing it. I dont think I agree about Lucy, either. She could not understand her father's intellect but she had a sense of humour (except where her beloved was concerned). She certainly had her own opinions and the aunt was very sodden at the funeral because of the ghastly effect of funerals! They make the hardest of us melt and gush. But all the same I think your criticism is awfully good of the Aunt, of the whole book in fact. Only one thing, my hand on my heart, I would swear to. Never could Elizabeth be influenced by me. If you knew how she would scorn the notion, how impossible it would be for her. There is a kind of turn in our sentences which is alike but that is because we are worms of the same family. But that is all. [To Dorothy Brett, 22 December 1921.]

I heard from M. today. A good letter - very. As soon as I am well enough to get up I shall go to Paris. He says the treatment takes 15 weeks if one is not much advanced. But no matter. It is fearfully exciting to have heard!
[To S. S. Koteliansky, 23 December 1921.]

How did you spend the summer? Did you get much work done? But I musn't begin asking questions. Its a bother having to answer them. But chere I shall be in Paris, I hope, from May on this year. Will you by any chance be there? I am going on a preliminary visit almost at once to see a specialist there - a Russian & to have some teeth pulled out and pulled in again. Then I come back here to save pennies for my flight in May. I believe this Russian cures people with my complaint. He sounds wonderful. I
Its so long since I have heard of any of the old set. Where are they? New friends are not - never can be the same, and all mine seem to be people I know as a writer not as a common garden human being. Whether they care passionately for the smell of tangerines or not I haven't the least idea. I cant really care for people who are cut off at the head. I like them to exist as far as their hearts au mains! Dont ever come to Switzerland Anne. Its all scenery. One [can] get the same in a Mountain Railway at 6d a go and get off after the last bumping. But the Swiss!! The size of their ankles!! Their passion for pigs and for cutting down trees. They are always cutting down trees and as the tree falls the house frau rushes out of the kitchen to see waving a pig knife and shouting a joyful voilà! I believe they are full of virtue, but virtue is a bad boisson to be full of.
[To Anne Drey, 24 December 1921.]

22 Dec 1921

Thu, 22 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Brett dearest
I reply immediately. Yes I feel certain that Marie Loo had brilliancy. And don't think I am a stickler for the old laws of technique, as such. I am not. But I still cant see how you simplify a figure and leave the face out of the simplification. Its not that the face is "literary", it doesn't "tell a story" (anymore than a face justifiably in painting does) but that is the effect it gives when joined on to the stiff little body. It seems to float in the air, not to belong. And the trees in the background - of course one sees practically nothing of them in a photograph. They look weak stemmed, somehow. I don't know why I look at them. If I didn't know they had meant much to you I shouldn't see them but I cant see their part in the design.
I sympathise beyond words with your desire to discover, to explore, with your impatience at last with flower pieces. I am sure you are absolutely right and that its the only way one can ever be satisfied completely with what one is doing. I mean your whole mind, all your sensibility and intelligence must be at work and a little bit over. It seems to me the only way I can express that sympathy for you is by being as dead honest as I can be; risking your being offended or hurt. You know my opinion is only a personal opinion. But I give it to you - not quite easily - because for all we may think or believe - it is terribly hard to be honest where our hearts are involved!
[To Dorothy Brett, 22 December 1921.]

Darling precious Anne,
Suddenly, this afternoon, as I was thinking of you there flashed across my inward eye a beautiful poppy that we stood looking at in the garden of the Headland Hotel, Looe. Do you remember that marvellous black sheen at the base of the petal and the big purplish centre? Then that took me back to our improvised cafe - just the same table with a bottle on it and ourselves out of space and time . . . for the moment! And from that I began to think of your tres blue eyes that I love so and your neck, and the comb you wore in your hair the last time you dined with us and a pink pinny you had on the first time I ever saw you in the studio in Paris. These things are not the whole of my Anne, but they are signs and tokens of her and for them and for a thousand others what wouldn't I give at this moment to put my arms round her and give her a small squeeze!
Well, darling woman, even at this distance its a joy to know that you are you, and I am thankful that we are walking the earth at the same time. I never turn in your direction without giving you an invisible hail. You are one of those rare beings my dear that one praises Life for. Bless you and David this Christmas and a Merry Merry Nouvelle Annee to you both. Please give him a butterfly kiss from me and blow softly down his neck. Why cant I come and see! I am certain there is not one of your friends who would appreciate him more than I could. But I still pin my faith on to a star (I expect David thinks that quite an ordinary feat) and believe that we shall all sit down together under a flowery tree somewhere and laugh. [To Anne Drey, 24 December 1921.]

21 Dec 1921

Wed, 21 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

   It has turned me to Proust however at last. I have been pretending to have read Proust for years but this autumn M. and I both took the plunge. I certainly think he is by far the most interesting living writer. He is fascinating! Its a comfort to have someone whom one can so tremendously admire. It is horrible to feel so out of touch with one's time as I do nowadays - almost frightening.
   Have you read Aldous' nove1? I have seen it reviewed but that is all. Is it very good? And did you see "Vera" by my cousin Elizabeth. I thought it far and away her best book (though I never said so to Sidney Waterlow. What he meant by saying he had seen me I cant imagine. It is years since I set eyes on him.)
   Oh, how nice it would be to talk - really at one's ease - have a long talk with you in your little room. There are so many things I should love to hear. One begins to feel too much of an exile.
   I am so glad you liked M's poems. They were very heavily sat on. But he is bursting into new books, all the same. His novel is to be published in the spring and two other tomes as well. My infant is to lie in Constable's bosom until after the New Year. I have been longing all this last week to snatch it away and bury it. Its not half good enough! I can't bear to think about it.
   But this letter must end. Dearest Ottoline, if you would write to us, your letter would be read so ardently. Please don't punish me for not having written for so long. There are other reasons, too, for my silence but they are the ancient eternal reasons - fatigue beyond words - ill health. One hardly dares mention it again. [To Ottoline Morell, c. 20 December 1921.]

20 Dec 1921

Tue, 20 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

   But all the same I shall never get over my first hatred of the Swiss. They are the same everywhere. Ugly, dull, solid lumps, with a passion divided between pigs and foreigners. Foreigners are what they prefer to gorge themselves with but pigs will serve. As to their ankles - they fill me with a kind of anguish. I should have an ankle complex if I lived in Switzerland long. But one never lives anywhere long . . .
   I wonder if you are going to spend the winter in England? Everybody that one used to know seems to have disappeared. But I suppose they are really all there just as of yore. It is nice to know B. R. is so happy - with an infant Conrad, too! How amazing. I so looked forward to his Chinese sketches in the Nation, but I wish he told one more of the lakes and mountains. I could dispense with Mrs Dewey altogether if I knew the trees were shaped like umbrellas. I was thankful and fell greedily upon the little bonfires he did mention. But oh, when people have seen marvels, I wish they would tell of them!
   M. and I are reading Jane Austen in the evenings. With delight. ‘Emma' is really a perfect book - don't you feel? I enjoy every page. I cant have enough of Miss Bates or Mr Woodhouse's gruel or that charming Mr Knightley. Its such an exquisite comfort to escape from the modern novels I have been forcibly reading. Wretched affairs! I do ask for something that I can't hand on to my dog to be read by him with relish and much tail thumping. This fascinated pursuit of the sex adventure is beyond words boring! I am so bored by sex quâ sex, by the gay dog sniffing round the prostitutes bedroom or by the ultra modern snigger - worse still - that I could die - at least,

[To Ottoline Morell, c. 20 December 1921.]

19 Dec 1921

Mon, 19 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Dearest Ottoline,
I have just found the letter I wrote you on the first of November. I would send it you as a proof of good faith but I reread it. Grim thing to do - isn't it? There is a kind of fixed smile on old letters which reminds one of the bridling look of old photographs. So its torn up and I begin again.
I don't know what happens to Time here. It seems to become shorter and shorter; to whisk round the corners, to become all tail, all Saturday to Monday. This must sound absurd coming from so remote a spot as our mountain peaks. But there it is. We write, we read, M. goes off with his skates, I go for a walk through my field glasses and another day is over. This place makes one work. Perhaps its the result of living among mountains; one must bring forth a mouse or be overwhelmed.
If climate were everything, then Montana must be very near Heaven. The sun shines and shines. Its cold in the shade, but out of it it is hot enough for a hat and a parasol - far and away hotter than the S. of France, and windless. All the streams are solid little streams of ice, there are thin patches of snow, like linen drying, on the fields. The sky is high, transparent, with marvellous sunsets. And when the moon rises & I look out of my window down into the valley full of clouds its like looking out of the Ark while it bobbed above the flood.
[To Ottoline Morell, c. 20 December 1921.]

18 Dec 1921

Sun, 18 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

   It has been a fine day. The sun came into this room all the afternoon but at dusk an old ancient wind sprang up and it is shaking now and complaining. A terrible wind - a wind that one always mercifully forgets until it blows again. Do you know the kind I mean? It brings nothing but memories - and by memories I mean those that one cannot without pain remember. It always carries my brother to me. Ah Brett, I hope with all my heart you have not known anyone who has died young, long before their time. It is bitterness. But what am I thinking of? I wanted to write you a Christmas letter. I wanted to wish you joy.
   I can - in spite of everything in life - I can, and by that I dont mean that its any desperate difficulty. No, let us rejoice - that we are alive and know each other & walk the earth at the same time. Let us make plans, and fulfil them, and be happy when we meet, and laugh a great deal this year and never cry. Above all - lets be friends. There was that in your last letter which made you dearer to me than ever before. I dont know what it was. It was as though you came out of the letter & touched me & smiled and I understood your goodness.
   Blessings on you, dear little artist. I put my arms round you - I give you a warm embrace. Be happy! I am your loving
                        Tig [To Dorothy Brett, 19 December 1921.]

17 Dec 1921

Sat, 17 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

   I fear I am dull; I am boring you. But I wanted so much to write just for the sake of sending you our love; of saying how often you are in our thoughts and how we long to see you. The petunias, asters, nasturtiums, sweet peas - oh, how glorious they were! - flash upon my inward eye very often. But only to mention them is to remember how one loves flowers and longs for them. Even a florist's shop. I can smell one now and even the paper the roses were wrapped in has its smell.
   But here is the gentle Ernestine with the supper tray, so one's nose goes into le potage instead - or rather, hovers over.
   Farewell, dear Elizabeth,
                      Do not quite forget us,
                          Katherine. [To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 15 December 1921.]

Dearest Brett
I must write you a small Christmas letter. I do not yet know whether the furry boots I have ordered for you will arrive in time. If not I shall send you my new milanese petticoat, for there is nothing here that I can buy for you, my dear, & remembered you shall be. Dont be too hard on me. The shops that there are - I cannot get at even if they were to hold anything that I could send you. So wear my pink petty with my warm warm love & if its too big - I am sure it is far too big for you or for me puff it out with love. Since I wrote to you I have been in my familiar land of counterpane. The cold got through as I knew it would and one wing only wags. As to Doctor Manouhkin I got the Mountain to phone Paris yesterday & found he was absent & only there from time to time, tres rarement. It was impossible for the secretary to say when. So that doesnt sound very hopeful. I am disappointed. I had made him my ‘miracle'. One must have a miracle. Now Im without one & looking round for another . . . Have you any suggestions? [To Dorothy Brett, 19 December 1921.]

16 Dec 1921

Fri, 16 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

   In fact, all is very devilish and if it weren't for Jane Austen in the evenings we should be in despair . . . We are reading her through. She is one of those writers who seem to not only improve by keeping but to develop entirely new adorable qualities. ‘Emma' was our first. John sighed over Jane Fairfax - I felt that Mr. Knightley in the shrubbery would be happiness. But her management of her plot - the way, just for the exquisite fun of the thing, she adds a new complication - that one can't admire too greatly. She makes modern episodic people like me - as far as I go - look very incompetent ninnies. In fact she is altogether a chastening influence - But, ah, what a rare creature!
   Have you seen any of the reviews of John's Poems? Most of the reviewers seized the book only to whack him on the head with it. But he is the most modest soul and takes it all nobly. I should be a seething kettle of spite and venom by this time. And his calmness is not because he does not care. He has felt it more than I like to consider. But he goes on. I should like something excessively pleasant to happen to him now. It is the moment.
   Our quilt is done. We think it very handsome. Will Elizabeth admire it. John is very dubious, so am I. It is a kind of conjuror's blanket. One expects to lift it and see the pitch black little babies underneath. Which reminds me of Bertie's white one - Conrad the Small. What happiness for him. I am always half expecting a woollen boot or a powder puff to appear in the very middle of his ‘Modern China'. . .
[To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 15 December 1921.]

15 Dec 1921

Thu, 15 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

    Yes, I will go to Paris if Manoukhin answers. But I can get no reply - which is very disappointing. I like exceedingly the sound of your new friend. Do tell me more about him. And oh! how lovely the lights sound - the bottil & glass & the motor car! Greet them for me.
    If I go to Paris I will keep you to your word. I shall expect you. But today makes me feel let it be indoors, somewhere warm where there is music & coffee that bubbles in the cup. Heat! Heat!! This is just a note - the envelope broken to put it in to stop your extravagance. Dont do it, my dear little artist. I ‘note' the size of your tootsies. Now send your address for Christmas.
                            Tig   [To Dorothy Brett, 13 December 1921.]

Dear Elizabeth,
Forgive this paper but I am out of reach of handmaidens. So awful is the weather that I have retired under the edredon until it changes. There is no snow. But there is a cold sheet of icy mist, like a slate pressing against the windows and we feel like slate pencils inside. Nothing warms one. The chauffage goes night and day but one shivers night and day as well. If this is the between season people are wise to avoid it. The worst of it is our brains are frozen, too. We live for the postman and he brings us bills. We long for letters - the kind of letters exiles are supposed to receive, and a copy of The Nation comes instead. [To Elizabeth, Countess Russell, 15 December 1921.]

14 Dec 1921

Wed, 14 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

    I must end this letter. Its so dull. Forgive it. Now a pale sun like a half sucked peppermint is melting in the sky. The cat has come in. Even his poor little paws are cold - they feel like rubber. He is sitting on my feet singing his song. Wingley does not only purr; there is a light soprano note in his voice as well. He is very nearly human because of the love that is lavished on him. And now that his new coat is grown he is like a cat in a bastick tied with ribbons. He has an immense ruff and long curly new fur. Cats are far nicer than dogs. I shall write a cat story one day. But I shall give the cat to Carrington's dressmakers the Misses Read. What appaling dressmakers they were. They seemed to fit all their patterns on to cottage loaves - life size ones - or on to ham sandwiches with heads and feet. But it was worth it - to have got into their house and heard them as one did.
   Goodbye for now. Please keep a small warm place for me beside you ‘ever radiant' -. But not next to Peter . . . And give my love to Gertler - will you?
   Ever yours
                           Tig.
P.S. DEAREST Brett
   Your letter has just come.
   Stop!
   You are not to send a gramophone.
   Please stop at once.
   None of us can possibly afford such a thing. You will be bankrup after it. My dear generous Brettushka - don't do anything of the kind! Only millionaires can buy them. I know. I scan the papers! But for the really frightfully dear thought - a thousand thanks. [To Dorothy Brett, 13 December 1921.]

13 Dec 1921

Tue, 13 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

But its all the musical people who make St Johns Wood so delightful - those grunting cellos, those flying fiddles and the wakeful pianos. Its like a certain part of Brussels. And then the house at 5 Acacia Road. It has memories - but its not only precious because of them. It was a charming house.
Oh, this cold! I feel like an explorer sending you these last lines before the snow kills him. Its fearful! One cant work; ones brain is frozen hard & I cant breathe better than a fish in an empty tank. There is no air, its a kind of ice. I would leave here tomorrow but where can one go? One begins the wandering of a consumptive - fatal! Everybody does it and dies. However I have decided to leave this particular house in June for another, more remote. I passed it one day lately when I was out driving. Its in the most superb spot. The forests are on both sides but in front there are huge meadows with clumps of fir trees dotted over them - a kind of 18th century landscape. Beyond the meadows tower the gaunt snow mountains, and behind there is a big lake. It is to let in June. We shall take it for a year. My chief reason is for the hay making. One will be in the very midst of it all through August. To watch - to hear - mowing, to see the carts, to take part in the harvest is to share the summer in a way I love. You will really swoon at the view - or at least I shall expect you to!!! And we shall eat out of doors - eat the hay with trimmings, and get a little boat & float on the lake and put up hammocks & swing on the pines, and paddle in the little stream. Dont you love to paddle?
[To Dorothy Brett, 13 December 1921.]

Dear Koteliansky -
All I meant by a ‘mystery' was that one so good and so precious as you should have sorrows . . . I have written a second time to Paris. If I do not hear from this letter I will try the secretary of the institut. There is nothing else to be done.
Katherine. [To S. S. Koteliansky, 13 December 1921.]

12 Dec 1921

Mon, 12 Dec 1921 01:00:00 +0000

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Do you ever see all those people who used to go [to] Garsington? It seems like fifteen years ago - a Christmas morning when I came in & you were sitting up in bed covered with bright beads, little gay silk handkerchiefs, ribbons, cards, dividing your presents. You were so very sumptuous. I must say Garsington is my beau ideal of a house. Ottoline did bring it off amazingly. The appearance of the table was perfect always and the very scent was right. I shall always admire her for that. It was a triumph. Because she consulted nobody. It was all her own, and she took it so lightly - as a matter of course. I think of her breakfast cups now & her spoons with the tenderness of a burglar. I must say I do love civilized ways. At the same time driving out to Garsington in an open cart on a snowy night was rather a price to pay . . . and hard to forget - equally hard . . .
So you have seen little Mamselle Sullivan. Isnt S. a very proud parent? I am sure he will be absorbed in his baby. Where do they live now? What a pity it is you cant get a house in St John's Wood. I think it is the one darling part of London. And I am always seeing such houses advertised on the back pages of the Sunday Times and the Observer. They sound ideal. Don't you prefer it to Hampstead? It has a charm. But perhaps that is because I lived there in Carlton Hill for a long time when I was young and very very happy.? I used to walk about there at nights - late - walking and talking on nights in spring with two brothers. [To Dorothy Brett, 13 December 1921.]