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The Best Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield, Enda Duffy
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The Best Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield, Enda Duffy
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About This Book
An artist who excelled at the expression of subtle details and concentrated emotion, Katherine Mansfield ranks among the twentieth century's greatest short story writers. Her elegant, ironic tales reflect her own bohemian lifestyle, which involved tempestuous relationships with Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf. This collection of a dozen of Mansfield's finest works features compelling tales of fraught relationships and shattering revelations, all recounted in an intensely visual and impressionistic style.
These stories range from throughout Mansfield's brief but prolific career. They include `Prelude,` a reminiscence of the author's New Zealand girlhood; `Bliss,` involving a young mother's disillusionment; `Je Ne Parle Pas Français,` concerning a romantic young woman's betrayal; and `The Garden Party,` a contrast of snobbery and social responsibility.
These stories range from throughout Mansfield's brief but prolific career. They include `Prelude,` a reminiscence of the author's New Zealand girlhood; `Bliss,` involving a young mother's disillusionment; `Je Ne Parle Pas Français,` concerning a romantic young woman's betrayal; and `The Garden Party,` a contrast of snobbery and social responsibility.
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Collezioni letterarie di autriciPrelude
1
THERE was not an inch of room for Lottie and Kezia in the buggy. When Pat swung them on top of the luggage they wobbled; the grandmotherās lap was full and Linda Burnell could not possibly have held a lump of a child on hers for any distance. Isabel, very superior, was perched beside the new handy-man on the driverās seat. Hold-alls, bags and boxes were piled upon the floor. āThese are absolute necessities that I will not let out of my sight for one instant,ā said Linda Burnell, her voice trembling with fatigue and excitement.
Lottie and Kezia stood on the patch of lawn just inside the gate all ready for the fray in their coats with brass anchor buttons and little round caps with battleship ribbons. Hand in hand, they stared with round solemn eyes, first at the absolute necessities and then at their mother.
āWe shall simply have to leave them. That is all. We shall simply have to cast them off,ā said Linda Burnell. A strange little laugh flew from her lips; she leaned back against the buttoned leather cushions and shut her eyes, her lips trembling with laughter. Happily at that moment Mrs. Samuel Josephs, who had been watching the scene from behind her drawing-room blind, waddled down the garden path.
āWhy nod leave the chudren with be for the afterdoon, Brs. Burnell? They could go on the dray with the storeban when he comes in the eveding. Those thigs on the path have to go, dodāt they?ā
āYes, everything outside the house is supposed to go,ā said Linda Burnell, and she waved a white hand at the tables and chairs standing on their heads on the front lawn. How absurd they looked! Either they ought to be the other way up, or Lottie and Kezia ought to stand on their heads, too. And she longed to say: āStand on your heads, children, and wait for the store-man.ā It seemed to her that would be so exquisitely funny that she could not attend to Mrs. Samuel Josephs.
The fat creaking body leaned across the gate, and the big jelly of a face smiled. āDodāt you worry, Brs. Burnell. Loddie and Kezia can have tea with my chudren in the dursery, and Iāll see theb on the dray afterwards.ā
The grandmother considered. āYes, it really is quite the best plan. We are very obliged to you, Mrs. Samuel Josephs. Children, say āthank youā to Mrs. Samuel Josephs.ā
Two subdued chirrups: āThank you, Mrs. Samuel Josephs.ā
āAnd be good little girls, andācome closerāā they advanced, ādonāt forget to tell Mrs. Samuel Josephs when you want to. . . .ā
āNo, granma.ā
āDodāt worry, Brs. Burnell.ā
At the last moment Kezia let go Lottieās hand and darted towards the buggy.
āI want to kiss my granma good-bye again.ā
But she was too late. The buggy rolled off up the road, Isabel bursting with pride, her nose turned up at all the world, Linda Burnell prostrated, and the grandmother rummaging among the very curious oddments she had had put in her black silk reticule at the last moment, for something to give her daughter. The buggy twinkled away in the sunlight and fine golden dust up the hill and over. Kezia bit her lip, but Lottie, carefully finding her handkerchief first, set up a wail.
āMother! Granma!ā
Mrs. Samuel Josephs, like a huge warm black silk tea cosy, enveloped her.
āItās all right, by dear. Be a brave child. You come and blay in the dursery!ā
She put her arm round weeping Lottie and led her away. Kezia followed, making a face at Mrs. Samuel Josephsā placket, which was undone as usual, with two long pink corset laces hanging out of it....
Lottieās weeping died down as she mounted the stairs, but the sight of her at the nursery door with swollen eyes and a blob of a nose gave great satisfaction to the S. J.ās, who sat on two benches before a long table covered with American cloth and set out with immense plates of bread and dripping and two brown jugs that faintly steamed.
āHullo! Youāve been crying!ā
āOoh! Your eyes have gone right in.ā
āDoesnāt her nose look funny.ā
āYouāre all red-and-patchy.ā
Lottie was quite a success. She felt it and swelled, smiling timidly.
āGo and sit by Zaidee, ducky,ā said Mrs. Samuel Josephs, āand Kezia, you sid ad the end by Boses.ā
Moses grinned and gave her a nip as she sat down; but she pretended not to notice. She did hate boys.
āWhich will you have?ā asked Stanley, leaning across the table very politely, and smiling at her. āWhich will you have to begin withāstrawberries and cream or bread and dripping?ā
āStrawberries and cream, please,ā said she.
āAh-h-h-h.ā How they all laughed and beat the table with their teaspoons. Wasnāt that a take-in! Wasnāt it now! Didnāt he fox her! Good old Stan!
āMa! She thought it was real.ā
Even Mrs. Samuel Josephs, pouring out the milk and water, could not help smiling. āYou bustnāt tease theb on their last day,ā she wheezed.
But Kezia bit a big piece out of her bread and dripping, and then stood the piece up on her plate. With the bite out it made a dear little sort of gate. Pooh! She didnāt care! A tear rolled down her cheek, but she wasnāt crying. She couldnāt have cried in front of those awful Samuel Josephs. She sat with her head bent, and as the tear dripped slowly down, she caught it with a neat little whisk of her tongue and ate it before any of them had seen.
2
After tea Kezia wandered back to their own house. Slowly she walked up the back steps, and through the scullery into the kitchen. Nothing was left in it but a lump of gritty yellow soap in one corner of the kitchen windowsill and a piece of flannel stained with a blue bag in another. The fireplace was choked up with rubbish. She poked among it but found nothing except a hair-tidy with a heart painted on it that had belonged to the servant girl. Even that she left lying, and she trailed through the narrow passage into the drawing-room. The Venetian blind was pulled down but not drawn close. Long pencil rays of sunlight shone through and the wavy shadow of a bush outside danced on the gold lines. Now it was still, now it began to flutter again, and now it came almost as far as her feet. Zoom! Zoom! a blue-bottle knocked against the ceiling; the carpet-tacks had little bits of red fluff sticking to them.
The dining-room window had a square of coloured glass at each corner. One was blue and one was yellow. Kezia bent down to have one more look at a blue lawn with blue arum lilies growing at the gate, and then at a yellow lawn with yellow lilies and a yellow fence. As she looked a little Chinese Lottie came out on to the lawn and began to dust the tables and chairs with a corner of her pinafore. Was that really Lottie? Kezia was not quite sure until she had looked through the ordinary window.
Upstairs in her fatherās and motherās room she found a pill box black and shiny outside and red in, holding a blob of cotton wool.
āI could keep a birdās egg in that,ā she decided.
In the servant girlās room there was a stay-button stuck in a crack of the floor, and in another crack some beads and a long needle. She knew there was nothing in her grandmotherās room; she had watched her pack. She went over to the window and leaned against it, pressing her hands to the pane.
Kezia liked to stand so before the window. She liked the feeling of the cold shining glass against her hot palms, and she liked to watch the funny white tops that came on her fingers when she pressed them hard against the pane. 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. But Lottie was at the back door, too.
āKezia!ā she called cheerfully. āThe storemanās here. Everything is on the dray and three horses, Kezia. Mrs. Samuel Josephs has given us a big shawl to wear round us, and she says to button up your coat. She wonāt come out because of asthma.ā
Lottie was very important.
āNow then, you kids,ā called the storeman. He hooked his big thumbs under their arms and up they swung. Lottie arranged the shawl āmost beautifullyā and the storeman tucked up their feet in a piece of old blanket.
āLift up. Easy does it.ā
They might have been a couple of young ponies. The storeman felt over the cords holding his load, unhooked the brakechain from the wheel, and whistling, he swung up beside them.
āKeep close to me,ā said Lottie, ābecause otherwise you pull the shawl away from my side, Kezia.ā
But Kezia edged up to the storeman. He towered beside her big as a giant and he smelled of nuts and new wooden boxes.
3
It was the first time that Lottie and Kezia had ever been out so late. Everything looked differentāthe painted wooden houses far smaller than they did by day, the gardens far bigger and wilder. Bright stars speckled the sky and the moon hung over the harbour dabbling the waves with gold. They could see the lighthouse shining on Quarantine Island, and the green lights on the old coal hulks.
āThere comes the Picton boat,ā said the storeman, pointing to a little steamer all hung with bright beads.
But when they reached the top of the hill and began to go down the other side the harbour disappeared, and although they were still in the town they were quite lost. Other carts rattled past. Everybody knew the storeman.
āNight, Fred.ā
āNight O,ā he shouted.
Kezia liked very much to hear him. Whenever a cart appeared in the distance she looked up and waited for his voice. He was an old friend; and she and her grandmother had often been to his place to buy grapes. The storeman lived alone in a cottage that had a glasshouse against one wall built by himself. All the glasshouse was spanned and arched over with one beautiful vine. He took her brown basket from her, lined it with three large leaves, and then he felt in his belt for a little horn knife, reached up and snapped off a big blue cluster and laid it on the leaves so tenderly that Kezia held her breath to watch. He was a very big man. He wore brown velvet trousers, and he had a long brown beard. But he never wore a collar, not even on Sunday. The back of his neck was burnt bright red.
āWhere are we now?ā Every few minutes one of the children asked him the question.
āWhy, this is Hawk Street, or Charlotte Crescent.ā
āOf course it is,ā Lottie pricked up her ears at the last name; she always felt that Charlotte Crescent belonged specially to her. Very few people had streets with the same name as theirs.
āLook, Kezia, there is Charlotte Crescent. Doesnāt it look different?ā Now everything familiar was left behind. Now the big dray rattled into unknown country, along new roads with high clay banks on either side, up steep, steep hills, down into bushy valleys, through wide shallow rivers. Further and further. Lottieās head wagged; she drooped, she slipped half into Keziaās lap and lay there. But Kezia could not open her eyes wide enough. The wind blew and she shivered; but her cheeks and ears burned.
āDo stars ever blow about?ā she asked.
āNot to notice,ā said the storeman.
āWeāve got a nuncle and a naunt living near our new house,ā said Kezia. āThey have got two children, Pip, the eldest is called, and the youngestās name is Rags. Heās got a ram. He has to feed it with a nenamuel teapot and a glove top over the spout. Heās going to show us. What is the difference between a ram and a sheep?ā
āWell, a ram has horns and runs for you.ā
Kezia considered. āI donāt want to see it frightfully,ā she said. āI hate rushing animals like dogs and parrots. I often dream that animals rush at meāeven camelsāand while they are rushing, their heads swell e-enormous.ā
The storeman said nothing. Kezia peered up at him, screwing up her eyes. Then she put her finger out and stroked his sleeve; it felt hairy. āAre we near?ā she asked.
āNot far off, now,ā answered the storeman. āGetting tired?ā
āWell, Iām not an atom bit sleepy,ā said Kezia. āBut my eyes keep curling up in such a funny sort of way.ā She gave a long sigh, and to stop her eyes from curling she shut them. . . . When she opened them again they were clanking through a drive that cut through the garden like a whip lash, looping suddenly an island of green, and behind the island, but out of sight until you came upon it, was the house. It was long and low built, with a pillared verandah and balcony all the way round. The soft white bulk of it lay stretched upon the green garden like a sleeping beast. And now one and now another of the windows leaped into light. Someone was walking through the empty rooms carrying a lamp. From the window downstairs the light of a fire flickered. A strange beautiful excitement seemed to stream from the house in quivering ripples.
āWhere are we?ā said Lottie, sitting up. Her reefer cap was all on one side and on her cheek there was the print of an anchor button she had pressed against while sleeping. Tenderly the storeman lifted her, set her cap straight, and pulled down her crumpled clothes. She stood blinking on the lowest verandah step watching Kezia who seemed to come flying through the air to her feet.
āOoh!ā cried Kezia, flinging up her arms. The grandmother came out of the dark hall carrying a little lamp. She was smiling.
āYou found your way in the dark?ā said she.
āPerfectly well.ā
But Lottie staggered on the lowest verandah step like a bird fallen out of the nest. If she stood still for a moment she fell asleep; if she leaned against anything her eyes closed. She could not walk another step.
āKezia,ā said the grandmother, ācan I trust you to carry the lamp?ā
āYes, my granma.ā
The old woman bent down and gave the bright breathing thing into her hands and then she caught up drunken Lottie. āThis way.ā
Through a square hall filled with bales and hundreds of parrots (but the parrots were only on the wall-paper) down a narrow passage where the parrots persisted in flying past Kezia with her lamp.
āBe very quiet,ā warned the grandmother, putting down Lottie and opening the dining-room door. āPoor little mother has got such a headache.ā
Linda Burnell, in a long cane chair, with her feet on a hassock and a plaid over her knees, lay before a crackling fire. Burnell and Beryl sat at the table in the middle of the room eating a dish of fried chops and drinking tea out of a brown china teapot. Over the back of her motherās chair leaned Isabel. She had a comb in her fingers and in a gentle absorbed fashion she was combing the curls from her motherās forehead. Outside the pool of lamp and firelight the room stretche...