Katherine Mansfield Quotes

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

The mind I love must have wild places.

Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who are all happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.

The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.

What I feel for you can’t be conveyed in phrasal combinations; It either screams out loud or stays painfully silent but I promise — it beats words. It beats worlds.

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship, was that one had to explain nothing

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.

You have never been curious about me; you never wanted to explore my soul.

I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses.

Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood. 'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.

This is not a letter but my arms about you for a brief moment.

I adore Life. What do all the fools matter and all the stupidity. They do matter but somehow for me they cannot touch the body of Life. Life is marvellous. I want to be deeply rooted in it - to live - to expand - to breathe in it - to rejoice - to share it. To give and to be asked for Love.

I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy... you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.

The mind I love most must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.

When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

I have such a horror of telegrams that ask me how I am!! I always want to reply dead.

Love hasn't got anything to do with the heart, the heart's a disgusting organ, a sort of pump full of blood. Love is primarily concerned with the lungs. People shouldn't say "she's broken my heart" but "she's stifled my lungs." Lungs are the most romantic organs: lovers and artists always contract tuberculosis. It's not a coincidence that Chekhov, Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Chopin, George Orwell and St Thérèse of Lisieux all died of it; as for Camus, Moravia, Boudard and Katherine Mansfield, would they have written the same books if it werent for TB?

I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write

I think of you often. Especially in the evenings, when I am on the balcony and it’s too dark to write or to do anything but wait for the stars. A time I love. One feels half disembodied, sitting like a shadow at the door of one’s being while the dark tide rises. Then comes the moon, marvellously serene, and small stars, very merry for some reason of their own. It is so easy to forget, in a worldly life, to attend to these miracles.

It's a terrible thing to be alone -- yes it is -- it is -- but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath -- as terrible as you like -- but a mask.

To be alive and to be a ‘writer’ is enough.

What is it with me? Am I absolutely nobody, but merely inordinately vain? I do not know…. But I am most fearfully unhappy. That is all. I am so unhappy that I wish I was dead—yet I should be mad to die when I have not yet lived at all.

I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.

The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone - reading between the lines - has become the secret friend of their author.

Ach, Tchekov! Why are you dead? Why can’t I talk to you in a big darkish room at late evening—where the light is green from the waving trees outside? I’d like to write a series of Heavens: that would be one.

What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss - absolute bliss - as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle into every finger and toe?...

How beautiful she loked, but there was nobody to see, nobody.

To acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure.

Outside the sky is light with stars

The heavens opened for the sunset to-night. When I had thought the day folded and sealed, came a burst of heavenly bright petals.

Light as feathers the witches fly, The horn of the moon is plain to see; By a firefly under a jonquil flower A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.

It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.

She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.

For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn't as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter--nor did she enter his like a queen walking on soft petals. No, they were eager, serious travellers, absorbed in understanding what was to be seen and discovering what was hidden--making the most of this extraordinary absolute chance which made it possible for him to be utterly truthful to her and for her to be utterly sincere with him.

What I feel for you can’t be conveyed in phrasal combinations; It either screams out loud or stays painfully silent but I promise — it beats words. It beats worlds. I promise.

You are a Queen. Let mine be the joy of giving you your kingdom.

Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Il piacere di leggere è doppio quando si vive con qualcuno che divide con te gli stessi libri.

The whole world shall be ours because of our love.

... always with that magical child air about her, that delightful sense of perpetually attending a party.

Oh, how quickly things changed! Why didn't happiness last for ever? For ever wasn't a bit too long.

I am poor - obscure - just eighteen years of age - with a rapacious appetite for everything and principles as light as my purse.

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.

Saw the sun rise. A lovely apricot sky with flames in it and then solemn pink. Heavens, how beautiful...I feel so full of love to-day after having seen the sun rise.

Sleeping was her latest discovery. 'It's so wonderful. One simply shuts one's eyes, that's all. It's so delicious.

I'm a writer first and a woman after.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change. So suffering must become Love. That is the mystery.

Everything about her was sweet, pale like honey. You would not have been surprised to see a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair.

... I find in all the works of the greatest writers, especially in their unedited letters, some touch, some sign of myself - some resemblance, some part of myself, like a thousand reflections of my own hands in a dark mirror.

I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing (Though I may write about cabmen. That’s no matter.) But warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

But, my darling, if you love me,' thought Miss Meadows, 'I don't mind how much it is. Love me as little as you like.

Oh, with you, I could conquer the world - oh, with you I could catch hold of the moon like a little silver sixpence.

When we reached home your cheeks were like roses, and your eyes were shining like stars, and you tried to tell Mummy so much in one breath that I thought you would burst.

When she looked through the dark windows at the stars, they had long beams like wings...

EM Forster never gets any further than warming the tea pot... Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there ain't going to be no tea.

And it seemed to her that kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, the smell of crushed grass were somehow inside her.

Don’t you think the stairs are a good place for reading letters? I do. One is somehow suspended. One is on neutral ground - not in one’s own world nor in a strange one. They are an almost perfect meeting place. Oh Heavens! How stairs do fascinate me when I think of it. Waiting for people - sitting on strange stairs - hearing steps far above, watching the light playing by itself - hearing - far below a door, looking down into a kind of dim brightness, watching someone come up. But I could go on forever. Must put them in a story though! People come out of themselves on stairs - they issue forth, unprotected.

This [Ulysses] is obviously the wave of the future, I'm glad I'm dying of tuberculosis.

We are solitary creatures au fond. It hapens so rarely that one feels another understands. But when one does feel it, it's not only a joy, it's a help and comfort in dark moments.

Do you feel in this letter my love for you today - It is as warm as a bird's nest.

Love! Love! Your tenderness, Your beautiful, watchful ways

Don't forget that dragons are only guardians of treasures and one fights them for what they keep - not for themselves...

I love this place; I love mountains and big skies and forests. And the weather is still supremely beautiful even though the lower peaks are powdered with fresh snow. But Heavens! What sun. It never has an ending. I am basking at this minute - half past four - too hot without a hat, & the sky is that transparent blue only to be seen in autumn - the forest trees steeped in light.

The ostrich burying its head in the sand does at any rate wish to convey the impression that its head is the most important part of it.

I am always conscious of this secret disruption in me

It seemed to her that she had never known what the night was like before. Up till now it had been dark, silent, beautiful very often - oh yes - but mournful somehow. Solemn. And now it would never be like that again - it had opened dazzling bright.

Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everybody else is asleep? Late—it is very late! And yet every moment you feel more and more wakeful, as though you were slowly, almost with every breath, waking up into a new, wonderful, far more thrilling and exciting world than the daylight one. And what is this queer sensation that you’re a conspirator? Lightly, stealthily you move about your room. You take something off the dressing-table and put it down again without a sound. And everything, even the bedpost, knows you, responds, shares your secret… You're not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You're in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–it's suddenly dear to you. It's a darling little funny room. It's yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things! Mine–my own!

The Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway.

Oh,' said the little girl, 'my head's on your heart; I can hear it going. What a big heart you've got, father dear.

... but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

Oh, impossible. Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with that absorbed inward look that only comes from whipped cream.

In the forest, in the forest, silence had cast a spell over all things. She plucked a great bouquet of daffodils and snowdrops, and tenderly held them to her, and tenderly kissed their fresh spring faces. She did not sing at all, but sat silent, expectant, and wondering, till her flowers faded and withered in her hands.

I believe that people are like portmanteaux - packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle...

I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

The English language is damned difficult, but it's also damned rich, and so clear and bright that you can search out the darkest places with it.

The lights, the azaleas, the dresses, the pink faces, the velvet chairs, all became one beautiful flying wheel.

I long to do wild, passionate things.

I sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the greatest of all - the highest. It is one of the [most] difficult of all... You see it's so immensely complicated. It needs real humility and at the same time, an absolute belief in one's own essential freedom. It is an act of faith. At the last moments, like all great acts, it is pure risk. This is true for me as a human being and as a writer. Dear Heaven, how hard it is to let go - to step into the blue. And yet one's creative life depends on it and one desires to do nothing else.

Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at - nothing - at nothing, simply. What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly by a feeling of bliss - absolute bliss! - as though you'd suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe?

Last night I spent in her arms - and tonight I hate her - which being interpreted, means that I adore her; that I cannot lie in my bed and not feel the magic of her body. I feel more powerfully all those so-termed sexual impulses with her than I have with any man. She enthrals, enslaves me - and her personal self - her body absolute - is my worship.

Short stories can be like photographs, catching people at some moment in their lives and trapping the memory for ever . There they are, smiling or frowning, looking sad, happy, serious, surprised ... And behind those smiles and those frowns lie all the experience of life, the fears and delights, the hopes and the dreams

I’d love to tearfully absorb you in every way and I’d love to play with your hair, read your eyes, feel disarmed in your presence. I’d love to experience a seizure of full-silenced tenderness with you and at the same time dwell on your Dionysian idiosyncrasy of red, slightly heated wine, constant passion and chaos; How can I even imprison this desire into mere letters structured together in order to form a coherent meaning? There is no meaning. Darling! Darling! You can flash “meaning” down the toilet if you wish. Still, I’d love to share a life full of richness with you: Richness not in terms of events, incidents, facts or experiences; but richness in terms of a colourful, adventurous, enthusiastically unraveling life. I’d love to lose all privileges of existence as long as I might have a small chance of walking on water with you.

I used to believe I was merely words and I do not know whether I shall start hoping for something more. You planted that sense of hope in a secret deeply hidden place; it had walls made of bricks and huge abandoned gardens full of despair. It was covered in dusty waves and it was kept underground where no soul would ever walk. And you walked there - you planted hope. And now I cannot imagine myself without it.

I love to close my eyes a moment and think of the land outside, white under the mingled snow and moonlight--the heaps of stones by the roadside white--snow in the furrows. Mon Dieu! How quiet and how patient!

It is true when you are by yourself and you think about life, it is always sad. All that excitement and so on has a way of suddenly leaving you, and it’s as though, in the silence, somebody called your name, and you heard your name for the first time.

He would sit very still on the doorstep And dream--O, that he had a friend! Somebody to come when he called them, Somebody to catch by the hand, Somebody to sleep with at night time, Somebody who'd quite understand.

We might be fifty, we might be five, So snug, so compact, so wise are we! Under the kitchen-table leg My knee is pressing against his knee.

What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful.

I can never be perfectly certain whether Helen was got with child by Leonard Bast or by his fatal forgotten umbrella. All things considered, I think it must have been the umbrella.

Well, since you're not going to do anything with me—can you at least read me a story? I'd settle for that. I wanted him to read me a story. Something by Chekhov or Gogol or Katherine Mansfield. Take your clothes off, Oliver, and come into my bed, let me feel your skin, your hair against my flesh, your foot on mine, even if we won't do a thing, lets cuddle up, you and I, when the night is spread out against the sky, and read stories of restless people who always end up alone and hate being alone because it's always themselves they can't stand being alone with . . .

Lorsque, discutant avec un écrivain qui a trois enfants et qui voyage beaucoup, [Natacha Appanah] lui demande comment il fait, il lui réponde qu'il a « beaucoup de chance ». Elle commente : « "Beaucoup de chance", c'est, je crois, une façon moderne de dire "J'ai une épouse formidable". » Et elle fait les comptes : « Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Simone de Beauvoir : pas d'enfants. Toni Morrison : deux enfants, a publié son premier roman à trente-neuf ans. Penelope Fitzgerald : trois enfants, a publié son premier roman à soixante ans. Saul Bellow : plusieurs enfants, plusieurs romans. John Updike : plusieurs enfants, plusieurs romans. » (p. 83-84)

It was her peculiar curse to never really be unknown.

You know the feeling that a great writer gives you: my spirit has been fed and refreshed; it has partaken of something new.

I feel as though I were living in a world of strange beings — do you? It’s people that make things so — silly. As long as you can keep away from them you’re safe and you’re happy.

E. M. Forster never gets any further than warming the teapot. He's a rare fine hand at that. Feel this teapot. Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there ain't going to be no tea.

Shadow children, thin and small, Now the day is left behind, You are dancing on the wall, On the curtains, on the blind.

It's not your fault. Don't think that. It's just fate.

... A wet night. They are going home together under an umbrella. They stop on the door to press their wet cheeks together.

Oh, waters - do not cover me! I would look long and long at those beautiful stars! Oh my wings - lift me - lift me I am not so dreadfully hurt...

It is, after all, that old process which Katherine Mansfield once described as ‘going out and looking at a tree and coming back plus the tree.

As for the roses, you could not help feeling they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden-parties; the only flowers that everybody is certain of knowing.

Dark girls, fair girls were patting their hair, tying ribbons again, tucking handkerchiefs down the fronts of their bodices, smoothing marble-white gloves. And because they were all laughing it seemed to Leila that they were all lovely.

I should like to have friends, I confess. I do not suppose I ever shall. But there have been moments when I have realized what friendship might be. Rare moments - but never forgotten. Friendship is a binding, as solemn as marriage. We take each other for life, through everything - forever. But it’s not enough to say we will do it. 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 and one remain a substance. Yet, it is terribly solemn - frightening, even.

I could need you in many ways yet I don’t; I love you in many ways. It is peculiar. I need you only in the sense that you need yourself. I don’t expect anything to be mutually intense among us. I somehow like the thought of being the one who is feeling already more than one should. But I need you to believe that you are distinctively refreshing. And uncommon. And intriguing. It is an extreme oddity of mine but I need you to believe that. Call it a form of paranoia; I know that I am feeding your ego right now. Call it self-defense; I am putting in words your uniqueness in an attempt to explain to my own self why is it that I adore you. The truth is: You shine out like the sun shines out and you melt away all my intentions of a fatal, whatsoever, description regarding what is it exactly that you do. There is no exactness. See, it takes suns and miraculous imagery to slightly sketch you in words whereas you probably are as complex as an impressionist painting of impeccable quality. You continually provoke my blatantly awful poetical instincts; that is for sure.

Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at - nothing - at nothing, simply.

Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.

The smell of leaves and wet black earth mingled with the sharp smell of the sea.

And the two women stood side by side looking at the slender, flowering tree. Although it was so still it seemed, like the flame of a candle, to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air, to grow taller and taller as they gazed - almost to touch the rim of the round, silver moon. How long did they stand there? Both, as it were, caught in that circle of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly, creatures of another world, and wondering what they were to do in this one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms and dropped, in silver flowers, from their hair and hands?

The late evening is the time of times. Then with that unearthly beauty before one it is not hard to realise how far one has to go. To write something that will be worthy of that rising moon, that pale light.

Is it not possible that the rage for confession, autobiography, especially for memories of earliest childhood, is explained by our persistent yet mysterious belief in a self which is continuous and permanent; which, untouched by all we acquire and all we shed, pushes a green spear through the dead leaves and through the mould, thrusts a scaled bud through the year of darkness until, one day, the light discovers it and shakes the flower free and - we are alive - we are flowering for our moment upon the earth?

By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living, breathing life in close contact with what I love — the earth and the wonders thereof — the sea — the sun. All that we mean when we speak of the external world. A want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming so that I may be (and here I have stopped and waited and waited and it’s no good — there’s only one phrase that will do) a child of the sun. About helping others, about carrying a light and so on, it seems false to say a single word. Let it be at that. A child of the sun.

Why does one feel so different at night? Why is it so exciting to be awake when everybody else is asleep? Late—it is very late! And yet every moment you feel more and more wakeful, as though you were slowly, almost with every breath, waking up into a new, wonderful, far more thrilling and exciting world than the daylight one.

But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still.

I have faded into the habit of secretly existing under your skin. It is unbelievably dark under there; I am happy.

You put me in touch with my own soul.

Bir şeyleri beklemek çok tehlikeli... Bir şeyleri beklersen, yalnızca senden daha daha uzaklaşır beklediklerin.

And I feel as I always do that Autumn is loveliest of all. There is such a sharpness with the sweetness—

Regret is an appalling waste of energy. You can’t build on it. It is only for wallowing in. —KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Then something immense came into view; an enormous shock-haired giant with his arms stretched out. It was the big gum-tree outside Mrs. Stubbs' shop, and as they passed by there was a strong whiff of eucalyptus. And now big spots of light gleamed in the mist. The shepherd

You're not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You're in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–at night time- it's suddenly dear to you. It's a darling little funny room. It's yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things!

I could not share Daphne’s passion for Bacon, while she was equally reticent about my love for Dr Johnson and Madame de Sévigné, but we had both fallen, at different times, under the spell of Katherine Mansfield.

There were all her feelings for him, sharp and defined, one as true as the other. And there was the other, this hatred, just as real as the rest. She could have done her feelings up in little packets and given them to Stanley. She longed to hand him that last one, for a surprise. She could see his eyes as he opened that...

But my anxious heart is eating up my body, eating up my nerves, eating up my brain. I feel this poison slowly filling my veins - every particle becoming slowly tainted.... I am never, never calm, never for an instant.

Ne için buradasın?" "Sinirden." "Ah, mümkün değil, gerçekten inanamam buna." "Tam anlamıyla doğru," dedim coşkum sönerken. Çelik gibi sinirleri olduğundan kuşku duyulmamasından daha tedirgin edici şey yoktur bir kadın için.

Miss Brill had often noticed there was something funny about nearly all of them. They were odd, silent, nearly all old,and from the way stared they looked as though they'd just come from dark little rooms of even, even cupboards!

The late afternoon sun shone on women in cotton frocks and little sunburnt, barefoot children. It blazed on a silky yellow flower with coarse leaves which sprawled over a bank of rock. The air ruffling through the window smelled of the sea.

All the same, without being morbid, and giving way to—to memories and so on, I must confess that there does seem to me something sad in life. It is hard to say what it is. I don’t mean the sorrow that we all know, like illness and poverty and death. No, it is something different. It is there, deep down, deep down, part of one, like one’s breathing. However hard I work and tire myself I have only to stop to know it is there, waiting. I often wonder if everybody feels the same. One can never know. But isn’t it extraordinary that under his sweet, joyful little singing it was just this—sadness?—Ah, what is it?—that I heard.

…Oh dear, I sometimes think…whatever would I do if anything happened…But thinking's no good, is it, madam? Thinking won't help. When I find myself doing that, I say to myself, "come along, Ellen! Stop it this moment, my girl! Stop that silly thinking…!

My love, my sweet love, I live in another world. A kinder and simpler world. A world of moons and stars and forests, a world filled with danger and magical beauty. It’s the old world but to me it’s new. You must not be fearful, dear, I quite like it there.

Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp

İnsan ruhuna inanmam. Hiç inanmadım. İnsanların elbise sandığına benzediğine inanırım - içine belli şeyler tıkılmış, yola çıkartılmış, ortalığa savrulup atılmış, fırlatılmış, saçılmış, yitirilmiş, bulunmuş, ansızın yarısı boşaltılmış, ya da şimdiye kadar olmadığınca tepeleme doldurulup şişirilmiş, taa en sonunda En Son Görevli onları kollarından tuttuğu gibi En Son Trene savuruncaya ve onlar takır takır uzaklaşıncaya kadar...

…I call it a November-loneliness because there is a sort of demanding stillness in my heart and it, more than ever, inflames both my mental and psychological system. November never pauses, it listlessly seems to show off, don’t you think so? Or, rather, it does pause but it is always a hellish pause…

The most thrilling day of the year, the first real day of Spring had enclosed its warm delicious beauty even to London eyes. It had put a spangle in every colour and a new tone in every voice, and city folks walked as though they carried real bodies under their clothes with real live hearts pumping the still blood through.

If you’re stuck, reading helps: “The Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway.

you’re stuck, reading helps: “The Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway. We should

Do you think there will be Mondays in heaven?' (...) 'Heaven will be one long Monday'.

And the perfect afternoon slowly ripened, slowly faded, slowly its petals closed.

¡Perdida! Una hora de oro Con sus sesenta minutos de diamante No se ofrece recompensa Pues ¡Perdida está para siempre!

Do you ever want to hide, to be completely hidden so that nobody knows where you are. Sometimes one has a dreadful feeling of exposure–it’s intolerable. I mustn’t say these things.

Bence," dedi belli belirsiz, "insan alışır. İnsan her şeye alışır." "Öyle mi?" diye sordu Jonathan. "Hmm. Nasıl yaptıklarını merak ediyorum, ben hiç beceremedim.

Nasıl da gerizekalı bu uygarlık! Sanki pek ender bulunur bir keman gibi kılıfına kapatıp saklaman gerekiyorsa niçin verilsin sana bu beden?

Laura's upbringing made her wonder for a moment whether it was quite respectful of a workman to talk to her of bangs slap in the eye. But she did quite follow him.

Delighted of course. It will only be a very scratch meal—just the sandwich crusts and broken meringue-shells and what's left over. Yes, isn't it a perfect morning?

I am tired, blissfully tired. Do you suppose that daisies feel blissfully tired when they shut for the night and the dews descend upon them?

- Szereti a munkáját? - Nem, dehogy. Én egyáltalán nem szeretek dolgozni, hát maga? - Utálok! Az anyám magyar - tette hozzá -, és azt hiszem, ezért utálom annyira a munkát.

I felt that you were more lonely than anybody else in the world,...and yet, perhaps, that you were the only person in the world who was really, truly alive. Born out of your time

Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty

Mi tragedia es mi madre. Viviendo con ella, vivo en el ataúd de mis aspiraciones nonatas

When Harry came I had his letters all ready, and the ring and a ducky little brooch he'd given me—a silver bird it was, with a chain in its beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger.

The account of the face treatment that Catherine had undergone at the hands of a quack was taken from a description given to Elizabeth by Katherine Mansfield, her New Zealand cousin, of her own experience in Paris when she was searching for a cure for consumption. This may have been too tragic a source. If Elizabeth needed copy she had, if Frere is to be believed, her own experience to draw on.

You have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices. I don't know what it is - I've often wondered - that makes your voice such a - haunting memory. . . . Do you remember that first afternoon we spent together at Kew Gardens? You were so surprised because I did not know the names of any flowers. I am still just as ignorant for all your telling me. But whenever it is very fine and warm, and I see some bright colours - it's awfully strange - I hear your voice saying : "Geranium, marigold and verbena." And I feel those three words are all I recall of some forgotten, heavenly language. . . .

Maya, If you’re stuck, reading helps: “The Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway. We should have them all downstairs. Just ask if you can’t find anything, though you know where everything is better than I. Love, Dad

¿Es que no puede haber una forma de manifestarlo sin parecer “beodo o trastornado”? La civilización es una estupidez. ¿Para qué se nos ha dado un cuerpo, si hemos de mantenerlo encerrado en un estuche como si fuera algún valioso Stradivarius?

It seems to me just as imbecile, just as infernal, to have to go to the office on Monday," said Jonathan, "as it always has done and always will do. To spend all the best years of one's life sitting on a stool from nine to five, scratching in somebody's ledger! It's a queer use to make of one's . . . one and only life, isn't it? Or do I fondly dream?" He rolled over on the grass and looked up at Linda. "Tell me, what is the difference between my life and that of an ordinary prisoner?

Well, I always tell my girls that it's better to mistrust people at first rather than trust them, and it's safer to suspect people of evil intentions rather than good  ones...It sounds rather hard but we've got to be women of the world, haven't we?

There! it had come ― the moment ― the geste! And although I was so ready, it caught me; it tumbled me over; I was simply overwhelmed. And the physical feeling was so curious, so particular. It was as if all of me, except my head and arms, all of me that was under the table, had simply dissolved, melted, turned into water. Just my head remained and two stick of arms pressing on to the table. But, ah! the agony of that moment! How can I describe it? I didn’t think of anything. I didn’t even cry out to myself. Just for one moment I was not. I was Agony, Agony, Agony. Then it passed, and the very second after I was thinking: "Good God! Am I capable of feeling as strongly as that? But I was absolutely unconscious! I hadn’t a phrase to meet it with! I was overcome! I was swept off my feet! I didn’t even try, in the dimmest way, to put it down!" And up I puffed and puffed, blowing off finally with: "After all I must be first-rate. No second-rate mind could have experienced such an intensity of feeling so.. purely.

Leila was sure ifhe partner didn't come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark windows that showed the stars.

Merak ediyorum, niçin acaba belli bir noktadan sonra insanları sanki iğrendiriyorum. Tuhaf, değil mi! Başlarda hoşlanıyorlar benden; beni alışılmadık ya da özgün buluyorlar; ama sonra onlardan hoşlandığımı göstermek - hatta ipucu vermek - istediğim anda sanki korkup yok olmaya başlıyorlar. Galiba daha sonra canımdan bezdirecek bu durum beni. Belki de onlara verecek çok fazla şeyim olduğunu anlıyorlar bir yolla. Belki onları korkutan da bu. Ah, birisine verilecek öyle sınırsız, sınırsız sevgim olduğunu hissediyorum ki - birisini öylesine sonsuzca, öylesine bütünüyle sevebilirim ki - onu kollayabilirim - korkunç olan her şeyi ondan uzak tutabilirim - bir şeylerin yapılmasını istedikleri her kez bunu yapmak için yaşadığımı hissettirebilirim. Ah bir hissedebilsem birisinin beni istediğini, birisine yararım dokunabileceğini, tümden başka bir kişiye dönüşürdüm.

I thought how true it was that the world was a delightful place if it were not for the people, and how more than true it was that people were not worth troubling about, and that wise men should set their affections upon nothing smaller than cities, heavenly or otherwise, and countrysides which are always heavenly.

Well, Mr. Arnold, here's Mrs. Hammond at last!" The manager led them through the hall himself and pressed the elevator-bell. Hammond knew there were business pals of his sitting at the little hall tables having a drink before dinner. But he wasn't going to risk interruption; he looked neither to the right nor the left.

How long did they stand there? Both, as it were, caught in that circle of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly, creatures of another world, and wondering what they were to do in this one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms and dropped, in silver flowers, from their hair and hands?

You have only to say one word and I would know your voice among all other voices. I don't know what is it- I've often wondered - that makes your voice such a - haunting memory... Do you remember that first afternoon we spent together at Kew Gardens? You were so surprised because I did not know the names of any flowers. I am still just as ignorant for all your telling me. But whenever it is very fine and warm, and I see some bright colours - it's awfully strange - I hear you voice saying: "Geranium, marigold, and verbena." And I feel those three words are all I recall of some forgotten, heavenly language... You remember that afternoon?

Not at all; I don’t believe in the human soul. I never have. I believe that people are like portmanteaux—packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle.…

The breeze of morning lifted in the bush and the smell of leaves and wet black earth mingled with the sharp smell of the sea. Myriads of birds were singing. A goldfinch flew over the shepherd's head and, perching on the tiptop of a spray, it turned to the sun, ruffling its small breast feathers. And now they had passed the fisherman's hut, passed the charred-looking lit

Even the photographs were on the mantelpiece and the medicine bottles on the shelf above the wash-stand. Her clothes lay across a chair—her outdoor things, a purple cape and a round hat with a plume in it. Looking at them she wished that she was going away from this house, too. And she saw herself driving away from them all in a little buggy, driving away from everybody and not even waving.

The next morning, very early, you and I went to the old pine-tree. Your little legs were going along so fast that it made me quite dizzy to look at them. Long before we came to the place I had to carry you - you had such a terrible stitch! At last we caught sight of him. His branches were all waving and his head was high in the air. When he saw us he bowed most graciously, but very proudly. I stole along ever so quietly with you in my arms, and, sure enough, there were the sparrows sitting in the branches. They did not seem at all shy, and how glad we both were. The old pine-tree looked just like you do when you have had a cold bath and Mummy has put you in a clean starched frock, and a petticoat that sticks out all round. You look as though you never made mud pies in your life and would rather die than tread in the puddles.

Katherine Anne [Porter] treated them like favored nephews; she even cooked meals for them. Unfortunately, however, beneath Christopher’s deference and flattery, there was a steadily growing aggression. By her implicit claim to be the equal of Katherine Mansfield and even Virginia Woolf, Katherine Anne had stirred up Christopher’s basic literary snobbery. How dare she, he began to mutter to himself, this vain old frump, this dressed-up cook in her arty finery, how dare she presume like this! And he imagined a grotesque scene in which he had to introduce her and somehow explain her to Virginia, Morgan [Forster] and the others . . . [t]hus Katherine Anne became the first of an oddly assorted collection of people who, for various reasons, made up their minds that they would never see Christopher again. The others: Charlie Chaplin, Benjamin Britten, Cole Porter, Lincoln Kirstein.

It seems to me just as imbecile, just as infernal, to have to go to the office on Monday,' said Jonathan, 'as it always has done and always will do. To spend all the best years of one's life sitting on a stool from nine to five, scratching in somebody's ledger! It's a queer use to make of one's...one and only life, isn't it? Or do I fondly dream?' He rolled over on the grass and looked up at Linda. 'Tell me, what is the difference between my life and that of an ordinary prisoner? The only difference I can see is that I put myself in jail and nobody's ever going to let me out. That's a more intolerable situation than the other. For if I'd been--pushed in, against my will--kicking, even--once the door was locked, or at any rate in five years or so, I might have accepted the fact and begun to take an interest in the flight of flies or counting the warder's steps along the passage with particular attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I'm like an insect that's flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do everything on God's earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the while I'm thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it is, "The shortness of life! The shortness of life!" I've only one night or one day, and there's this vast dangerous garden, waiting out there, undiscovered, unexplored. [...] I'm exactly like that insect again. For some reason, it's not allowed, it's forbidden, it's against the insect law, to stop banging and flopping and crawling up the pane even for an instant.

Oh, Alice was wild. She wasn’t one to mind being told, but there was something in the way Miss Beryl had of speaking to her that she couldn’t stand. Oh, that she couldn’t. It made her curl up inside, as you might say, and she fair trembled. But what Alice really hated Miss Beryl for was that she made her feel low. She talked to Alice in a special voice as though she wasn’t quite all there; and she never lost her temper with her—never. Even when Alice dropped anything or forgot anything important Miss Beryl seemed to have expected it to happen.

As she stood there, the day flickered out and dark came. With the dark crept the wind snuffling and howling. The windows of the empty house shook, a creaking came from the walls and floors, a piece of loose iron on the roof banged forlornly. Kezia was suddenly quite, quite still, with wide open eyes and knees pressed together. She was frightened. She wanted to call Lottie and to go on calling all the while she ran downstairs and out of the house. But it was just behind her, waiting at the door, at the head of the stairs, at the bottom of the stairs, hiding in the passage, ready to dart out at the back door.

Privately, in the depths of my heart, I would have given my soul to have stood beside her in a large, yes, a large, fashionable church, crammed with people, with old reverend clergymen, with The Voice that breathed o’er Eden, with palms and the smell of scent, knowing there was a red carpet and confetti outside, and somewhere, a wedding-cake and champagne and a satin shoe to throw after the carriage—if I could have slipped our wedding-ring on to her finger. Not because I cared for such horrible shows, but because I felt it might possibly perhaps lessen this ghastly feeling of absolute freedom, her absolute freedom, of course.

The Sea-Child Into the world you sent her, mother, Fashioned her body of coral and foam, Combed a wave in her hair's warm smother, And drove her away from home In the dark of the night she crept to the town And under a doorway she laid her down, The little blue child in the foam-fringed gown. And never a sister and never a brother To hear her call, to answer her cry. Her face shone out from her hair's warm smother Like a moonkin up in the sky. She sold her corals; she sold her foam; Her rainbow heart like a singing shell Broke in her body: she crept back home. Peace, go back to the world, my daughter, Daughter, go back to the darkling land; There is nothing here but sad sea water, And a handful of sifting sand.

And then there is the waiter. Not pathetic-decidedly not comic. Never making one of those perfectly insignificant remarks which amaze you so coming from a waiter (as though the poor wretch were a sort of coffee-pot and a wine bottle and not expected to hold so much as a drop of anything else). He is grey, flat-footed, and withered, with long, brittle nails that set your nerves on edge while he scrapes up your two sous. When he is not smearing over the table or flicking at a dead fly or two, he stands with one hand on the back of a chair, in his far too long apron, and over his other arm the three-cornered dip of dirty napkin, waiting to be photographed in connexion with some wretched murder. “Interior of Café where Body was Found.” You’ve seen him hundreds of times.

Foi assim que, de uma hora para outra, habituei-me a uma vida sem leitura. Pensando bem, isso era muito estranho, pois, desde criança, minha vida gravitava em torno dos livros. No primário, eu lia os livros da biblioteca e gastava praticamente toda a minha mesada em livros. Economizava até o dinheiro do lanche para comprá-los. No fundamental e no ensino médio, não havia ninguém que lesse mais do que eu. Eu era a filha do meio dentre cinco irmãos e meus pa1s estavam sempre ocupados com o trabalho. Ninguém da família se importava comigo. Por isso, eu podia ler à vontade, do jeito que eu bem entendesse. Eu sempre participava de concursos de ensaios literários. O que me interessava era o prêmio em cupons de livros, e não foram poucas as vezes em que ganhei. Na faculdade, cursei letras, inglês, e sempre tirei boas notas. A monografia de conclusão de curso foi sobre Katherine Mansfield, e fui aprovada com nota máxima. Os professores me perguntaram se eu não queria continuar na faculdade e seguir carreira na pós-graduação. Mas, naquela época, eu queria conhecer o mundo. Sinceramente, eu não fazia o tipo intelectual, e estava ciente disso. Eu simplesmente gostava de ler livros. E, mesmo que eu optasse por continuar os estudos, minha família não teria condições financeiras para arcar com as despesas de uma pós-graduação. Não que fôssemos pobres, mas eu tinha ainda duas irmãs mais novas. Por isso, assim que me formei, tratei logo de sair de casa e conquistar minha independência. Literalmente, eu precisava sobreviver com as próprias mãos

Last night, there was a moment before you got into bed. You stood, quite naked, bending forward a little - talking. It was only for an instant. I saw you - I loved you so - loved your body with such tenderness - Ah my dear - And I am not thinking now of ‘passion.’ No, of that other thing that makes me feel that every inch of you is so precious to me. Your soft shoulders - your creamy warm skin, your ears, cold like shells are cold - your long legs and your feet that I love to clasp with my feet - the feeling of your belly - & your thin young back - Just below that bone that sticks out at the back of your neck you have a little mole. It is partly because we are young that I feel this tenderness - I love your youth - I could not bear that it should be touched even by a cold wind if I were the Lord.

In a steamer chair, under a manuka tree that grew in the middle of the front grass patch, Linda Burnell dreamed the morning away. She did nothing. She looked up at the dark, close, dry leaves of the manuka, at the chinks of blue between, and now and again a tiny yellowish flower dropped on her. Pretty—yes, if you held one of those flowers on the palm of your hand and looked at it closely, it was an exquisite small thing. Each pale yellow petal shone as if each was the careful work of a loving hand. The tiny tongue in the centre gave it the shape of a bell. And when you turned it over the outside was a deep bronze colour. But as soon as they flowered, they fell and were scattered. You brushed them off your frock as you talked; the horrid little things got caught in one's hair. Why, then, flower at all? Who takes the trouble—or the joy—to make all these things that are wasted, wasted... It was uncanny. On the grass beside her, lying between two pillows, was

Well, at any rate, all that part of it was over, though neither of them could possibly believe that father was never coming back. Josephine had had a moment of absolute terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without asking his permission. What would father say when he found out? For he was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did. “Buried. You two girls had me buried!” She heard his stick thumping. Oh, what would they say? What possible excuse could they make? It sounded such an appallingly heartless thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a person because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were strangers; they couldn’t be expected to understand that father was the very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him the bills. What would he say then?

İnsanın hayatının en güzel günlerini, saat dokuzdan beşe kadar tabureye oturup başkasının hesap defterine bir şeyler karalayarak harcaması! Çok tuhaf bir yol, yararlanması için insanın biricik hayatından, değil mi? Yoksa safça hayal mi görüyorum? Söyle bana, benim hayatımla, bir tutuklunun hayatı arasındaki fark nedir? Benim görebildiğim tek fark, ben kendimi zindana kapatıyorum ve asla hiçkimse beni dışarı çıkarmayacak. Bu ötekinden daha dayanılmaz bir durum. Çünkü kapatılsaydım - içeri tıkılsaydım, istemim dışında - hatta tekmeler atarak - bir kez kapı kilitlendi mi, her neyse beş yıllığına filan, bu gerçeği kabullenirdim, sineklerin uçuşuyla, geçitteki gardiyanın adımlarını saymakla, adımların çeşitlemelerine dikkat etmekle falan ilgilenirdim. Oysa göründüğü gibi ben kendi özgür istenciyle odadan içeri uçmuş böcek gibiyim. Duvarlara çarpıyorum, tavana kanatlarımı vuruyorum, şu tanrının dünyasında her şeyi yapıyorum, gerçekten, yeniden dışarı uçmak dışında. Ve tüm bu süre boyunca tıpkı o pervane gibi ya da kelebek gibi ya da her neyse o gibi düşünüyorum : "Hayatın kısalığı! Hayatın kısalığı!

Suggested Reading Nuha al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin Jane Austen, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Pride and Prejudice Saul Bellow, The Dean’s December and More Die of Heartbreak Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes Henry Fielding, Shamela and Tom Jones Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank Henry James, The Ambassadors, Daisy Miller, and Washington Square Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony and The Trial Katherine Kressman Taylor, Address Unknown Herman Melville, The Confidence Man Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, Invitation to a Beheading, and Pnin Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs Iraj Pezeshkzad, My Uncle Napoleon Diane Ravitch, The Language Police Julie Salamon, The Net of Dreams Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis Scheherazade, A Thousand and One Nights F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby W. G. Sebald, The Emigrants Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries Joseph Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Italo Svevo, Confessions of Zeno Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups and St. Maybe Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter Reading

They had met at the club and Bertha had fallen in love with her, as she always did fall in love with beautiful women who had something strange about them.

I am so glad you like them', said he, staring at his feet. 'They seem to have got so much whiter since the moon rose.' And he turned his lean sorrowful long face to Bertha. 'There is a moon, you know.' She wanted to cry: I am sure there is--often--often.

and

En cuanto a las rosas, daba la sensación de que sabían muy bien que eran las únicas flores capaces de impresionar a los invitados; son las únicas flores que todos conocen. Cientos, sí, literalmente cientos se habían abierto durante la noche; los verdes rosales se doblegaban bajo su peso como si los hubiesen visitado unos arcángeles.

Y ¡Aquel aire! ¿Era el aire siempre así? Unas brisas tenues jugaban a perseguirse: entraban por lo alto de las ventanas y salían por las puertas. Había dos manchas de sol chiquitinas, una sobre el tintero y otra en el marco de plata de una fotografía. Unas manchitas preciosas, sobre todo la de la tapa del tintero. Era muy cálida, una cálida estrellita de plata. Sintió el impulso de besarla.

Se había convertido en toda una experta, pensó, en escuchar como si no escuchara, en penetrar fugazmente en las vidas de las personas que hablaban a su alrededor.

... No, madam,

Sentía, de alguna manera, que había comprado el sol exuberante y conseguido que lo incluyeran, muy barato, con la casa y los jardines. Se fue corriendo a su baño y Linda se dio la vuelta y se irguió sobre un codo para ver la habitación de día. Parecía ya maravillosamente vivida y que todos los muebles habían encontrado su lugar; toda la antigua 'parafernalia', como ella la llamaba, incluso en las fotografías en la repisa de la chimenea y los frascos de medicamentos en un estante sobre el lavabo.

There is nothing to be done but to go ahead with life moment by moment...try to create order and peace around me even if I cannot achieve it inside of me.

Katherine Mansfield, clearly speaking personally, had remarked wryly in 1924 that “the true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone—reading between the lines—has become the secret friend of their author,”54

Nos sentamos en la balaustrada, bajo la marquesina. Beatrice estaba inclinada, mirando a lo lejos..., hacia la carretera blanca con su defensa de cactus espinosos. La belleza de su oreja, tan sólo su oreja, tan maravillosa que habría podido dejar de mirarla y gritar hacia toda aquella extensión de mar centelleante que teníamos debajo: «Saben... su oreja... Tiene unas orejas que son simplemente lo más...»

Is it not possible that the rage for confession, autobiography … especially for memories of earliest childhood, is explained by our persistent yet mysterious belief in a self which is continuous and permanent. - Katherine Mansfield

they mentioned Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Dostoevsky, Proust, Gide, and Charles Morgan.

Che luce c’era nella stanza! In nessun momento del giorno poteva soffrire le persiane arrotolate fino in cima, ma di mattina erano intollerabili. Si rivoltò verso il muro e pigramente, con un dito, segui il contorno di un papavero sulla tappezzeria, foglia, gambo e bocciolino turgido. Nel silenzio, sotto la pressione delicata del suo dito, il papavero sembrò animarsi di vita. Le pareva di sentirne i serici petali appiccicosi, il gambo coperto di peluria come la buccia dell’uvaspina, la foglia ruvida e il boccio pregno. Non era la prima volta che le cose prendevano vita. E non solo le cose grandi, essenziali, come i mobili in genere, ma le tende, e i disegni delle stoffe, e le frange dei trapuntini, dei guanciali. Quante volte non le era accaduto di vedere la frangia a nappine della sua imbottita trasformarsi in una buffa processione danzante con un seguito di preti! ...Perché alcune nappine non danzavano affatto, ma incedevano solenni, curve in avanti, come in preghiera o in atto di cantare le lodi di Dio… Quante volte le boccette dei medicinali si erano trasformate in una fila di omini con un cilindro marrone in testa: e la brocca sul lavabo aveva un modo di stare accovacciata nel catino che faceva pensare a un grosso uccello in un nido rotondo. [...] “C’è un gran silenzio ora”, pensò. E, tenendo gli occhi aperti, sbarrati, udì il silenzio tessere la sua morbida tela di ragno senza fine. Com’era leggero il suo respiro: quasi non respirava neppure.

9 de febrero. Un día miserable. Por la noche he pasado horas pensando en los males del desarraigo. Cada vez que se deja un lugar, se deja morir algo precioso que no debería acabar.

When Laura saw that gesture she forgot all about the karakas in her wonder at him caring for things like that- caring for the smell of lavender. How many men that she knew would have de such a thing?

When Laura saw that gesture she forgot all about the karakas in her wonder at him caring for things like that- caring for the smell of lavender. How many men that she knew would have done such a thing?

Oh, the relief, the difference it made to have the man out of the house. Their very voices were changed as they called to one another; they sounded warm and loving and as if they shared a secret.