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The Best Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield, Enda Duffy
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eBook - ePub
The Best Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield, Enda Duffy
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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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Informations
Sujet
LittératurePrelude
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 grandmotherâs 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 driverâs seat. Hold-alls, bags and boxes were piled upon the floor. âThese are absolute necessities that I will not let out of my sight for one instant,â 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.
âWe shall simply have to leave them. That is all. We shall simply have to cast them off,â 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.
âWhy 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, dodât they?â
âYes, everything outside the house is supposed to go,â 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: âStand on your heads, children, and wait for the store-man.â 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. âDodât you worry, Brs. Burnell. Loddie and Kezia can have tea with my chudren in the dursery, and Iâll see theb on the dray afterwards.â
The grandmother considered. âYes, it really is quite the best plan. We are very obliged to you, Mrs. Samuel Josephs. Children, say âthank youâ to Mrs. Samuel Josephs.â
Two subdued chirrups: âThank you, Mrs. Samuel Josephs.â
âAnd be good little girls, andâcome closerââ they advanced, âdonât forget to tell Mrs. Samuel Josephs when you want to. . . .â
âNo, granma.â
âDodât worry, Brs. Burnell.â
At the last moment Kezia let go Lottieâs hand and darted towards the buggy.
âI want to kiss my granma good-bye again.â
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.
âMother! Granma!â
Mrs. Samuel Josephs, like a huge warm black silk tea cosy, enveloped her.
âItâs all right, by dear. Be a brave child. You come and blay in the dursery!â
She put her arm round weeping Lottie and led her away. Kezia followed, making a face at Mrs. Samuel Josephsâ placket, which was undone as usual, with two long pink corset laces hanging out of it....
Lottieâs 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.âs, 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.
âHullo! Youâve been crying!â
âOoh! Your eyes have gone right in.â
âDoesnât her nose look funny.â
âYouâre all red-and-patchy.â
Lottie was quite a success. She felt it and swelled, smiling timidly.
âGo and sit by Zaidee, ducky,â said Mrs. Samuel Josephs, âand Kezia, you sid ad the end by Boses.â
Moses grinned and gave her a nip as she sat down; but she pretended not to notice. She did hate boys.
âWhich will you have?â asked Stanley, leaning across the table very politely, and smiling at her. âWhich will you have to begin withâstrawberries and cream or bread and dripping?â
âStrawberries and cream, please,â said she.
âAh-h-h-h.â How they all laughed and beat the table with their teaspoons. Wasnât that a take-in! Wasnât it now! Didnât he fox her! Good old Stan!
âMa! She thought it was real.â
Even Mrs. Samuel Josephs, pouring out the milk and water, could not help smiling. âYou bustnât tease theb on their last day,â 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 didnât care! A tear rolled down her cheek, but she wasnât crying. She couldnât 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 fatherâs and motherâs room she found a pill box black and shiny outside and red in, holding a blob of cotton wool.
âI could keep a birdâs egg in that,â she decided.
In the servant girlâs 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 grandmotherâs 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.
âKezia!â she called cheerfully. âThe storemanâs 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 wonât come out because of asthma.â
Lottie was very important.
âNow then, you kids,â called the storeman. He hooked his big thumbs under their arms and up they swung. Lottie arranged the shawl âmost beautifullyâ and the storeman tucked up their feet in a piece of old blanket.
âLift up. Easy does it.â
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.
âKeep close to me,â said Lottie, âbecause otherwise you pull the shawl away from my side, Kezia.â
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 differentâthe 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.
âThere comes the Picton boat,â 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.
âNight, Fred.â
âNight O,â 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.
âWhere are we now?â Every few minutes one of the children asked him the question.
âWhy, this is Hawk Street, or Charlotte Crescent.â
âOf course it is,â 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.
âLook, Kezia, there is Charlotte Crescent. Doesnât it look different?â 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. Lottieâs head wagged; she drooped, she slipped half into Keziaâs 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.
âDo stars ever blow about?â she asked.
âNot to notice,â said the storeman.
âWeâve got a nuncle and a naunt living near our new house,â said Kezia. âThey have got two children, Pip, the eldest is called, and the youngestâs name is Rags. Heâs got a ram. He has to feed it with a nenamuel teapot and a glove top over the spout. Heâs going to show us. What is the difference between a ram and a sheep?â
âWell, a ram has horns and runs for you.â
Kezia considered. âI donât want to see it frightfully,â she said. âI hate rushing animals like dogs and parrots. I often dream that animals rush at meâeven camelsâand while they are rushing, their heads swell e-enormous.â
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. âAre we near?â she asked.
âNot far off, now,â answered the storeman. âGetting tired?â
âWell, Iâm not an atom bit sleepy,â said Kezia. âBut my eyes keep curling up in such a funny sort of way.â 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.
âWhere are we?â 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.
âOoh!â cried Kezia, flinging up her arms. The grandmother came out of the dark hall carrying a little lamp. She was smiling.
âYou found your way in the dark?â said she.
âPerfectly well.â
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.
âKezia,â said the grandmother, âcan I trust you to carry the lamp?â
âYes, my granma.â
The old woman bent down and gave the bright breathing thing into her hands and then she caught up drunken Lottie. âThis way.â
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.
âBe very quiet,â warned the grandmother, putting down Lottie and opening the dining-room door. âPoor little mother has got such a headache.â
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 motherâs chair leaned Isabel. She had a comb in her fingers and in a gentle absorbed fashion she was combing the curls from her motherâs forehead. Outside the pool of lamp and firelight the room stretche...