Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 1111
Auf Wiedersehen.
VILLA Mirenda Scandicci Florence 12 October, 1926
Dear Else:
I have just had the enclosed letter from my agent. My agreement with him is such, that the contracts for all the things I publish must be made through him, and all payments must be made to him. He deducts ten per cent for himself, and deposits the rest to my account.
Will you please tell me what contract you made with the Insel Verlagfor 'Der Fuchs': and what were the payments, apart from the translator's fee? I know it was not much. But of course I owe Curtis Brown ten per cent on it.
And in future will you see that everything goes through the agent's hands, or I shall be in trouble, as I am legally bound to him: he is quite good to me. It's my fault, I know, for not remembering sooner.
We have been back here just a week, and I am very glad to sit still in the peace of these quiet rooms. I am getting really tired of moving about, and cast round in my mind for a place which I shall keep as a permanency. Perhaps it will be in England.
It is warm here, almost hot still. The vendemmia finished last week, and we are all festooned with grapes. But the Schwiegermutter toys that you too were in Venice. Venice is lovely in autumn, if it's not too crowded. Do you feel content now, for the winter?
They are producing the 'David' play in December. I saw the producer and the people concerned, and I promised to go to England to hip them at the end of November. I am not very sure if I shall do so, though. But if we do, we must come through Baden. I daren't say anything, because I know the Schwiegermutter was cross with us for Putting off again this time. But we had moved so much, we were both feeling stupefied.
I wonder how the translation of the 'Serpent' is going. You will find it a long job: I hope not too tedious. Myself, I am not working anything particular; don't feel inclined.
I hope you are feeling well. Are the children all busy again, Friedel in Berlin? Here it seems so sleepy - the world is all vague.
Love,
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Firenze 18 October, 1926 Dear Else:
Kippenberg behaves as if he were the great Chan of Tartary: whereas he's only a tiresome old buffer. I have told him that once personally, I don't care for Franzius's pompous and heavy translation: I'll tell him again, and to hell with him. Pity we can't change over to the people who did 'Jack in Bushland. ' They are more up to date and go-ahead.
But anyhow Kip has no right over magazine productions: so if you could get 'The Woman Who Rode Away' into a Monatsheft, you couldn 't be interfered with, by him at least. I get awfully bored, between publishers and agents, and one state and another.
So now you'll be off to Vienna! Everybody seems to have been to Vienna, or to be going. Glad I needn't go, anyhow just now.
I'll tell Curtis Brown what you say about 'Fox. '
Sunny autumn here, still and nice: but an epidemic of typhoid in the neighbourhood: must look out.
I feel I'll never write another novel: that damned old Franzius turning 'The Plumed Serpent' into a ponderous boa constrictor! 0 Germania! It really is time you bobbed your philosophic hair!
Wiedersehen, D. H. L.
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Florence 10 January,1927
Dear Else:
That was a nice letter you wrote - and a very nice little purse you sent me for Christmas. I ought to have thanked you before - but something has happened to me about letters - in fact all writing. I seem to be losing my will-to-write altogether: in spite of the fact that I am working at an English novel - but so differently from the way I have written before!
I spend much more time painting - have already done three, nearly four, fairly large pictures. I wonder what you 'll say to them when you'll see them. Painting is more fun than writing, much more of a game, and costs the soul far, far less.
I enclose a cross letter from Curtis Brown's foreign clerk. I have answered that I don't believe you have made any legal agreement whatsoever with Insel Verlag. Have you? Do let me know. It is rather a bore, the high-handed way old Kippenberg behaves, as if he were the great Chan of publishers. I should like to get a bit of a slap at him.
It's very nice that Alfred is being feasted and rejoiced over. Congratulate him for me. It is nice to have a bit of grateful recognition, whatever one may say.
I am going to make another effort to get the two downstairs rooms with the big terrace, so you could have them as a little apartment when you come. They would be so nice.
They keep deferring the production of 'David' - no doubt they are frightened of it. I believe they hated “The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd. ' Now they say 'David' will probably be April, but I don't mind, because I'd much rather stay here till the sun warms up a bit in the north... One gets sick of winter... though it is a lovely day today.
Auf Wiedersehen then,
VILLA MIRENDA FLORENCE
WEDNESDAY EVENING
Dear Mother-in-Law:
Frieda and I arrived at the same moment at the station in Milan, the two trains at the same time, and the two porters brought us together in two minutes. Wasn't that clever?
We have just entered the Villa Mirenda, all good and lovely here! friends with flowers, and the peasants all there to welcome us, very nice and friendly. Now we have eaten and sit by the fire for an hour, then to bed.
Frieda is happy to be back, goes about and looks at everything. Nice is the tie. I must look at the colour in the daytime. I'm so glad you're well. I'm coming in the spring and we'll eat strawberries and cream, shan't we?
Such lovely primulas and violets on the table under the lamp. Good night then.
D. H. L.
Friends are going to Florence tomorrow and will put this letter in the post. I want you to know that we arrived safely.
(Translated from the German)
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Florence 14 April, 1927
My dear Mother-in-Law:
I am home again - I returned Monday evening from Volterra. I had a very beautiful week with Brewster. We went to Cerveteri, Tarquinia, and Vulci, Grosseto and Volterra, not far from the sea, north of Rome. The Etruscan tombs are very interesting and so nice; and lovable. They were a living, fresh, jolly people, lived their own lives without wanting to dominate the lives of others. I am fond of my Etruscans - they had life in themselves, so they had no need to govern others. I want to write some sketches of these Etruscan places, not scientifically, but only as they are now and the impression they make.
I found Frieda with a cold and a little depressed, but she is well again and herself once more. Barby came Tuesday with Mrs Seaman - she is nice, older than last year, not so beautiful, tall as a telegraph pole, quieter, not much life in her. That is London over one. She will stay here three weeks. She works well in her school and really i wants to be free, but it will take another year and a half at least. But it is better that she works. If she had much money and were quite free, (it would be worse. Oh, liberty, liberty, what have you done for poor woman! But they must go on to spread their bread of life with that poison, poison of liberty.
The weather, thank God, is always lovely. There are still tulips in the corn and apple and peach blossoms. The peasants are faithful and nice. The house is still. It is good to be here. Frieda has gone to ndicci - Barby and Mrs Seaman to Florence - so I am alone. I am wearing the socks you knitted me, they are beautiful and exactly the colour of my trousers, very elegant. And the ties are beautiful - I tried the speckled one at once. I am glad you are so well and your Stift is always made more beautiful. The world goes forward, surely.
Later on, we will make plans for the summer, when and how to come. I don't want to think of travel, it is enough. Greet Else when you see her. Frieda has come home from Alassio with the love for her sister all new and shiny again. Good! Greet the ladies, my friends. When I come, we will eat Blaufelchen. There is no fish as good in Italy.
Then farewell, D. H. L.
(Translated from the German)
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Florence 1 June, 1927
My dear Else:
Could you get me a copy of F. Weege's 'Etruskische Malerei'- costs about twenty marks - at least, in England twenty. If the book-seller can get me a copy, and send it me here by registered post - else they'll steal it - Drucksache, I shall be very glad, and will send you the money at once, when y ou let me know how much it was. It is a nice book - very - I saw it at a friend's house - and should like to have it. I heard when I was in Tarquinia that Weege was in Florence - but not doing any more Etruscan books. F It is very hot here, too hot - to sit in the sun for breakfast, even before seven in the morning. One gets up early, then has a siesta in the afternoon. Frieda is still peacefully slumbering - I have wakened up early from mine - and not a soul is alive on all the poderi - peasants sleeping too. The Arno valley lies hot and still, in the sun, but there is a little breeze, so I shall go down and sit on the grass in a deck chair under the nespole tree. The nespole are just ripe - I shall climb up and get the first today - warm - they are good like that. The big cherries also are ripe - Giulia brings them in - very good. It seems to me always very pleasant when it is full of summer and one ceases to bother about anything, goes drowsy, like an insect.
We heard from friends that the performance of 'David' went off very well, and the play was well received. But the notices in the newspapers are very contrary. They say the play was very dull, that it was like a cinema with too much talking, that it was boring and no drama in it, and that it was a very great mistake for a clever man like me to offer such a thing for the actual stage. A clever man like me doesn't fret over what they say. If the producers made a bad film of it, that's the producers' fault. And if the dramatic critics can only listen to snappy talk about divorces and money, that's their fault too. They should pray to the Lord - 'Lend thou the listening ear' and not blame me. Anyhow, io ne mifrego! Frieda, however, was very disappointed and downcast about it and almost refused to be comforted. We shall hear more later.
Unless it gets sizzling hot, I suppose we shall stay here till towards the end of July. We may do a little giro to Cortona and Arezzo and Chiusi and Orvieto, coming back by Assisi and Perugia: if it's not too hot. Then for August we can go to Baden to the Schwiegermutter - that hot and tiresome month, when everybody in the whole world is somewhere where they shouldn't be. Did you say you were going to the Haute Savoie? That'll be very nice - I have got some friends gone there just now. If it weren't the wrong time of year, a bit too warm for you - I should suggest you bring the children here and make use of this flat while we are away, and the young ones could explore Florence and all this countryside, which is very nice. They'd like it - but you would probably rather be cooler and quite free from housekeeping.
The Brett has gone back to the ranch, and is frantic because we don't go too. Mabel also writes urgingly. She has built two or three more houses and keeps one for us. But this summer anyhow we shan't go. I should like to see Bavaria again: and September should be lovely. If we went there any earlier, we would stay at that inn in Beurberg, where we began our career, at the end of May, fifteen years ago. I liked Beurberg so much. But now in summer I suppose the inn is crammed full.
I had notice from Curtis Brown today they had received ten pounds for 'The Woman Who Rode Away. ' As soon as it appears, in the 'Dial' or the 'London Mercury, ' either in the June number or the July, I forget - I'll send you 'The Man Who Loved Islands. ' I believe you'd like that, and it might amuse you to translate.
Well, it's not often I write such a long letter, nowadays. The days go by, and we hardly see anybody - which is what I prefer. Frieda grumbles sometimes, but when people come she doesn't want them. She has an idea she is a social soul who loves her fellowmen to distraction I don't see it quite. But I suppose one idea of one's self is as good as another.
I Remember me to the children, and to Alfred-and tante belle cose.
D. H. L.
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Florence 11 July, 1927
My dear Mother-in-Law:
Your son-in-law is a poor wretch and is in bed again with bronchitis and hemorrhage. We have the best doctor in Florence, Giglioli - he gives me coagulin but I am still in the corner. It is not dangerous, but...
And you, how are you? You are not taking any sea-baths? The doctor says my hemorrhage comes from sea-bathing that I took in Forte.
And does it amuse you, your Konstanz? We were there at the Walthaus Jakob for supper, the time Mountsier was with us, do you remember? It was lovely. But aren't you a little lost and homeless there? Or are you always getting younger and are you shingling your hair and cutting your skirt short? You can never know what a woman will do in her green seventy-sixthyear.
Friends are very good. Every day somebody comes from Florence. I've been only five days in bed and in a fortnight I can go away to that Wortersee, but we don't know where it is yet - Emil should write. The doctor says I ought to go into the pines - eight hundred metres, no higher.
If only once I were well again!
I send you only two pounds for your birthday, since I am to bring the rest myself when we come for the feast. Else must write to us. Many thanks to her for her letters. I borrowed the book in London. But the Etruscan and all work can sleep with the devil, if only I get well again. I will enjoy myself andforget everything. You, be content, and take the joys of this earth peacefully.
We are coming soon and will eat the Baden sausages together.
(Translated from the German)
IRSCHENHAUSEN POST EBENHAUSEN MUNICH
12 SEPTEMBER, 1927
My dear Mother-in-Law:
We had the little parcel today. But why did you spend so much money? You ought not to do it. The handkerchiefs are really charming. I like them very much, and the pralines are for princes, we've only eaten two rows. Good there was also a little sausage - bread is the staff of life but with a little sausage it also becomes an umbrella.
You are lonely, I know it, quite forlorn, with three daughters running all over the world. But now you'll be content again, Nusch is with you.
Else went this morning to sleep in Augsburg - God knows why-but we were very happy together, what with 'patience' and embroidery and walks -what a pity she is gone!
The weather is cold and it rains - Nusch's barometer still makes a bad, grinning foreboding face in the room. But in the Isartal still hangs a gay-coloured rag of rainbow, the Lord still keeps his promise.
We haven't heard from Barby - I think she will come here direct, perhaps Saturday. Emil writes so nicely and sends me thirty bottles of malt-beer. Think what drunkards we shall become, arriving in Baden with red noses and watery eyes.
It is really a pity we can't stay together longer, with Nusch and Else and you. Always this stupid going away. But soon we shall see you, so farewell.
D. H. L.
It is evening, the clouds are gold, the mountains stand there with slow white pillows of steam.
(Translated from the German)
Saturday MORNING Dear Else:
So nice of you to send all those toilet things, and the money - but why didn't you keep the money to pay for them? Let me know how much they cost.
The 'Jugend' man came - a nice little soul after all - but they'll do him in - he'll never stand the modern mill. And the Kahlers came - both very nice - but like all people of that class nowadays, they have lost their raison d'etre, and there seems no reason whatever why they should exist-they haven't even, like the Nachbarin, the spoignancy of woes. ) A rainy morning and a cold wind.
f Barby arrives in Munchen at 10:40 tonight - so Frieda will go in by a late train, and they'll come out tomorrow morning. We've omised to go to the Kahlers' tomorrow to tea. Did you get the book I sent? - The 'Jugend' man wants only a hort-short story-four Schreibmaschineseiten: that's about two usand words. No stories are as short as that - usually jive usand. I must try and hunt something up. Hope all is well in Heidelberg. Greet everybody.
D. H. L.
This swanky paper comes from Fr Hàuselmaier - or however she is lied.
Irschenhausen Isartal Wednesday 29 September, 1927
My dear Mother-in-Law:
Else writes Nusch is still there. Na, Johanna, you Easter-lamb, don't you sacrifice yourself yet on the altar of marriage. Wait then till Tuesday, when we are coming. We take the twelve o'clock train and arrive at seven in Baden, is that right, mother-in-law? And we go to the Augustabad, where the Blaufelchen is so good. It has turned much colder tonight - we've both had colds. Sunday was a horror of darkness and rain but we went out and got wet. But we are better. Anna is here and looks after us well. Barby is already in London. I can hardly believe she has been here. I've nearly drunk all the beer Emil sent, a record for Munich, no? Yesterday we went to see Frau Leitner, so nice and small, but what chatter. She sends you all her greetings.
The beeches begin to turn yellow and today we gathered some violets under the balcony - they smell sweet like spring and the flowers are still wonderful. Kahlers come tomorrow and Max Mohr, the dramatist, is to come from Tegernsee. Then, you, mother-in-law, and I hope you too, Nusch - will meet us on Tuesday and everything can be told then.
D. H. L.
(Translated from the German)
Irschenhausen Sunday
My dear Else:
Many thanks for the pen, which I am so glad to have in my fingers again - it's an old friend: it wrote 'Boy in the Bush' and 'St Mawr' and 'Princess' and 'Woman Who Rode Away' and 'Plumed Serpent' and all the stories in between: not bad, even if it is a nasty orangy brown colour. But I've got even to like this colour. They seem to have mended it all right, it goes well.
This is the horridest day of all, after tea and still pouring with rain: and I would like to go out! If only I had strong boots and a rain-proof. I would of course if we were staying. - Yesterday was lovely and sunny till teatime.
I This weekend we are alone - Anna is coming tomorrow. Then I suppose the Meyers will come and the Kahlers - and I've promised to go to Schoenberner's, and to meet Hans Carossa there. I heard from England that a man who writes plays and thinks I am the greatest living novelist (quote) and who lives in Tegernsee, may come and see me: Max Mohr: do you know anything about him? I don't.
