Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles)
is the river — savage, fierce, rushing, tumbling — whirling suddenly the life from the still, placid floor of water behind — like waves of the sea — like fierce wolves — the noise is thunder — And right before them the lovely mountain outlined against a vivid orange sky — The colour is so intense that it is reflected on their faces — in their hair; the very rock which they climb is hot with the colour. The sunset changes — becomes mauve — and in the waning light, all the stretch of burnt manuka is like a thin mauve mist around them. A bird — large and silent — flies from the river right into the flowering sky. There is no other sound except the voice of the passionate river.
“She climbs on a great black rock and sits huddled up there alone — fiercely — almost brutally thinking — like Wapi. Behind them the sky was faintly heliotrope — and then suddenly from behind a cloud a little silver moon shone through — the sudden exquisite note in the night — The sky changes — glowed again — and the river sounded more thundering — more deafening. They walked back slowly — lost the way — and found it — took up a handful of pine needles and smelt it greedily; and then in the distant paddock the tent shone like a golden poppy — Outside the stars and the utter spell — magic mist moving — mist over the whole world — Lying — her arm over her head — she can see faintly — like a grey thought — the moon and the mist. They are hardly distinguishable. She is not tired now — only happy. She can see the poplar tree mirrored in the water. The grass is wet. There is the faintest sound of crickets. As she touches her hair, a wave of cold air strikes her. Damp cold fingers about her heart.
“The sun comes. The poplar is green, now. Oh, it shines on everything — a little grove of forest. Across the river the mist becomes white, rises from the mountain ahead. There are the pines — and there just on the bank — the flowering bank — is a moat of white colour against the blue water. A lark sings — The water bubbles. She can just see ahead the gleam of the rapids — The mist seems rising and falling …
“Sunshine — had there ever been such sunshine — They walked over the wet road through the pine trees. The sun gleamed — golden locusts cornered in the bushes — Through her thin blouse she felt its scorching touch and was glad.”
As they turned south, on the home journey, she began two letters:
“Monday night.
“In Bed.
“Dearest Baby —
“This will, I think, be my last letter to you before I reach home — I wrote last to Chaddie from Rotorua — I must say I hated that town — I never felt so ill or depressed. It was H — .”
“Monday night.
“Dear Man
“I am a vagrant — a Wanderer — a Gypsy tonight — booming wind — it rises half a tone above each minute — but that is all — it never ceases … and where the water catches the light there is a rainbow — pink — blue — amber — white — But it is all too short—”
They were driving due south, on the road to Oraki-Korako, now. Mounting the hill, they looked down on “mile on mile of river winding in and out among the mountains” with toi-toi waving on the bank. On all sides the plain stretched, calm and still,”like a mirror for the sky.” But at a turn, the stillness was shattered:
“Then there came rapids. Great foaming, rushing torrents — They tore down the mountains, thundering, roaring — We drew rein — and there was a wide space of blue forget-me-nots.”
Following the river, they found quiet again — with mist hanging low. Kathleen watched the water through the leaves and trees until the danger and uncertainty of that passage between the hanging cliffs wrenched her attention; yet at the top, once it was gained, she was released for a fiercer beauty:
“There is the sea foaming torrents of water, leaping, snow-white, like lions fighting — thundering against the green land — and the land stretches out ineffectual arms to hold it back. — It seems there is nothing in the world but this shattering sound of water. It casts a thousand showers of silver spray — It is one gigantic battle. I watch it and am thrilled. Then through more bush — the ferns are almost too exquisite — gloomy shade — sequestered deeps — another rock — another view — here the colour is far more intense — the purple, the blue, the great green clad rock. The water thunders down, foams, rushes — then pours itself through a narrow passage and comes out on a wide blue bay…. A wide passage, more eddy. At last, far in the distance stretching shadowed steadiness — Peace. We plunge back again — there is a last view — very near — the water, the mountains far distant.”
They approached Orakei-Korako, around a bend of road and river, and she saw poplars, grouped like a study for an etching, with a mere suggestion of fence. Her quick eye followed the line, and the distant colours:”a green patch of flowering potatoes — mauve, blue and white.” The place seemed deserted, yet from the bush they heard “the death-like thudding — like a paddle wheel.” /’. Again she met the horror of smell and smoke, and the filthy festering sores upon the earth:
“We go down the dragon’s Mouth. It is a most difficult walk down a scrambling path — holding on by bushes and trees — then there is one fierce jump — and we are there. It belches filthy steam and smoke. There is green slime and yellow scale-like appearances, infinitely impressive, and always that ominous thudding engine-like sound. We walk on a broad, flat terrace, and there is so thin a crust that one would have thought it almost too dangerous to move. We see a very small geyser and view the sulphur holes.”
In the terrible heat, and the thudding noise, Kathleen groped her way dizzily back to the known world from this new Hell, hated only second to Rotorua.
Later that day they drove through Wairakei, a few miles above Taupo, which is situated on the northern arm of the great lake. After the hot day, the Taupo Falls were a grateful relief:”The water is sea-coloured; the foam dips for a long way down the water. Again that sound.” They passed more poplars — this time less impressive — as they drove through the bush to the bridge and “stood there a moment — quiet — All the thundering wonder was below us!”
“In the afternoon we climbed down the bank — first a ladder, then rough steps — another ladder — catching swaying — and a fern grotto — pale green — green fern leaf from the top all around us — dampness and beauty — and we are below the falls — the mountain of water — the sound — the essence of it.”
All this wild beauty, so known and loved by the Maoris, so little spoiled, then, by white settlers, had its effect upon her. The sound and rhythm of the Maori names were to her like sound and rhythm of flowing water:
“Wairaki — hot water.
Waotapi — sacred water.”
She wrote them in her Note Book, with a list of Maori words, and their meanings. London was distant to her now. London was the dream state. Here was reality. For a time she was living and moving and having her being in the immediate moment. Gone that shattering division. Her roots were nourished again by their own soil; and for the time (so brief) she was at peace within herself, fed by the beauty and colour and strange magic — companioned, in a curious way, by the knowledge that natives who had known all this through so many centuries, had drawn from it essential life.
Despite the arduous journey of that day, she tried one of her Vignettes:
“Vignette.
“Tuesday.
“I stand in the manuka scrub — the fairy blossom.
“Everywhere the broom tosses its golden fragrant plumes into the air. I am on a little rise: to my right, a great tree of Mimosa laden with blossom bends and foams in the breeze. Before me the lake is drowned in the sunset. The distant mountains are silver blue, and the sky first faint rose, then shaded into pale amber.
“Far away on my left the land is heavily shadowed