Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles)
music — so swiftly, so lightly, was enough at isolated moments of rapture; but at night in her room when the windy, bracing day had passed, dark thoughts crowded upon her and she longed for something more. Then, not even writing could shut away loneliness; she might pour out all her ardent longing for London, but the words were cramped and cold on the page. Well enough to write stories and sketches, or verse, by daylight; but late at night only letters could suffice. Then it was she wrote so volubly to Ida, to Gwen, to Mimi, but most particularly to Arnold:
“Sunday Ii, Vii. 07.
“Beloved —
Though I do not see you, know that I am yours — every thought — every feeling in me belongs to you — I wake in the morning and have been dreaming of you — and all through the day, while my outer life is going on steadily — monotonously, even drearily — my inner life I live with you — in leaps and bounds. I go through with you every phase of emotion that is possible — loving you. To me you are man, lover, artist, husband, friend — giving me all — and I surrendering you all — everything — And so this loneliness is not so terrible to me — because in reality my outer life is but a phantom life — a world of intangible, meaningless grey shadow — my inner life pulsates with sunshine and music and happiness — unlimited, vast unfathomable wells of happiness and you. One day we shall be together again and then — and then, only, I shall realise myself — shall come to my own — because I feel — I have always felt — that you hold in your hands — just those closing, final bars which leave my life song incomplete — because you are to me more necessary than anything else. Nothing matters — nothing is while you usurp my life — O — let it remain as it is. Do not suddenly crush out this, the beautiful flower — I am afraid — even while I am rejoicing….
“Kath Schönfeld.”
What she wrote in her Note Book during those days of impatient waiting for release made the time endurable; they were not mere letters — were conversations, rather, as she weighed for herself the events of the day and the importance and meaning of all this in her life:
“Aug. 20, 1907.
“Rain beating upon the windows and a wind-storm violent and terrible. I came up into my room to go to bed — and suddenly — half undressed — I began thinking and looking at Cæsar’s portrait — and wondering. Now I feel that I could have written: ‘Beloved, I could bury my face in the pillow and weep and weep and weep. Here it is night and wind and the rain. You are in a flood of sunlight and daylight and the thunder of traffic — the (wave?) of life. I must possess it, too — I must suffer and conquer — I must leave here — I cannot look ahead into the unutterable grey vastness of misty future years. Do you know that you are all in all — you are my Life… I am bored and miserable to-night, so forgive me. I am sick of barrenness and I want to laugh and I want to listen — Words will not be found — but how Ifeel, and now to bed, hopefully to lie and look into the darkness and think, and weave beautiful scarlet patterns — and hope to dream — My ‘cello is better, but I fancy Mr. Trowell is annoyed with me. That must not happen. What is to become of us all — I am so eager — and yet that is all
— Buon ripose.”
Then there came a letter that for the time changed everything — about Arnold Trowell. Ida was faithfully sending Kathleen cuttings from London papers, notices of his recitals. When he played, she gleaned every morning and evening paper, carefully labelling notices even of three lines. If she heard any word of him, she sent it speedily. On August 28th, the mail brought particular news from her; Arnold said, later, that she had been misinformed, but Kathleen could not know that, then. It was one of those times when a letter seemed to shatter her world:
“Aug. 28.
“I had a letter from Adeläida to-day about Arnold Trowell — And at present I have no idea how I felt. First so sorrowful, so hurt, so pained — that I contemplated the most outrageous things; but now only old and angry and lonely, and as though everything except my ‘cello had lost its interest for me — Now what is it to be? Shall I applaud him in his manner of living — Shall I say — Do as you please — Live as you like — See Life — gain Experience, increase your outlook, or shall I condemn it. This is how I think. It’s a great pity that artists do live so. But as they do — well — But I shall not.”
CHAPTER XIII
FIRST SHORT STORIES
“Ambition is a curse if you are not … proof against everything else, unless you are willing to sacrifice yourself to your ambition.” — K.M. (Note Book, 1907.)
1
EVEN in these early years she was torn — like that other Katya (of The Tedious Story), and like Marie Bashkirtseff — by the conflict peculiar to one having the temperament and the ideals of genius. In her very ardour to achieve, she was paralysed at times by what Baudelaire called la stérilité des écrivains nerveux. It was not until, like Blake, she had passed through innocence to experience, and through experience to a new innocence again that she could write as easily and naturally as a bird sings; not because she wanted to be a writer, but because she wanted to write. During these early years, she was in the throes of a power too strong for her. She had not yet known — except at a few rare happy instants —
“… the moment when the act of creation takes place — the mysterious change — when you are no longer writing the book, it is writing, it possesses you.”
Letters were always her means of “taking the soundings.” To Ida alone during those two years she wrote a packet more than a foot square. Ten years later, looking through them hurriedly, she said:”This is such young, unformed work; there’s no time to sort it; let’s destroy it all.” And though Ida had guarded them preciously for ten years, she answered gently:”They belong to you, Katie,” and helped her burn them — too many for a fireplace — in a garden bonfire. Those letters were “just one long wail” — all the unhappy aspects of her existence. When she had put, in one of them, a laughing picture of herself with Chummie and little Jeanne, Ida wrote back:”But how can you laugh!”
Her own room was by no means the only place where she wrote; as she wrote every day, so she wrote everywhere. The Note Books that always went with her, a very part of herself, are eloquent of the tremendous efforts she was continually making “to become a writer”; of her anxiety concerning her talent and her possibilities of achievement:
“i. x. 1906.
“I am full of ideas tonight. And they must at all costs germinate. I have seen enough to make me full of fancy. I should like to write something so beautiful, and yet modern, and yet student-like and full of summer….
“Now truly I ought to be able, but I don’t feel by any means confident. Oh, do let me write something really good, let me sketch an idea and work it out. Here is silence and peace and splendour — bush and birds. Far away I hear builders at work upon a house — and the tram sends me half crazy. Let it be a poem…
“And I shall do well. Bright sunshine, now. I am glad. It will be a beautiful afternoon — but, I pray you, let me write.”
“Dec. 28.
“… I ought to make a good author. I certainly have the ambition and the ideas, but have I the power to carry me all through? Yes….”
“I have read enough for this afternoon. Now I want to write. Shall I be able I wonder? Here is the attempt.
“I can write nothing at all. I have many ideas but no grip of any subject. I want to write verses — but they won’t come…. I cannot get a charming effect anyway. It’s hatefully annoying and disheartening. But there is nothing like trying, so I shall make a further attempt. I should like to write something