Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 1113
Auf Wiedersehen, be happy.
D. H. L.
(Translated from the German)
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Florence Monday
My dear Mother-in-Law:
I am glad you had such a beautiful trip to Herrenalp. Are you glad to come home or would you have liked to stay longer?
We arrive about the thirteenth. We leave next Monday the twelfth for Milan, and on Tuesday the thirteenth from Milan to Baden-Baden. We arrive at 6:45 in the evening. Can you find us one or two rooms in a villa or a hotel, that we can eat where we want to? And then, after a few days, we can go again to Herrenalp with you, or stay in Baden or somewhere in the neighbourhood. We promised to be in England all the month of August. But that leaves us about twenty days in Germany. It will be lovely.
I am always fond of Baden and the Black Forest, and always feel well there. It will be splendid summer, and the strawberries and cherries won't be over yet.
We can eat at the Wald Kaffee, drink tea there, and visit Excellenz Stotzer in her wooden house and make excursions. Yes, it will be lovely. Frieda also is happy to come, really. Don't be sad.
It is wonderful here, so warm and still. The fruit is already ripe: figs, peaches, apricots, plums, all big and fine, because it rained so much - the apricots are marvellous, really as big as peaches, and the first little pears are so sweet and pale yellow. Yes, it is full summer.
My sisters write sadly because of the strike: there is no end to it and both are losing much money. One must not make one's life out of money, if money disappears the life is broken. With or without money I have had my life for myself and am not swindled.
Friedel wrote nicely from Berlin but I think he has had enough of a big town and wants to go home.
Else tells me how she likes the play.
They are already translating 'The Plumed Serpent' into Swedish but I only get six hundred marks.
I send you a little money for your birthday, that you may buy what you like.
We won't bring you any presents, they are such a nuisance. Then, mother-in-law, soon we'll meet.
D. H. L. (Translated from the German)
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Florence Sunday
My dear Mother-in-Law:
This is already another Sunday, and the third that we are here. The weather is always like summer, so warm and clear, the windows are open all day and we don't dream of having a fire: the evenings also are quite warm. The roses are in bloom, but there are few flowers, all is still too dry, little water even in the wells. Also Baden will be lovely just now. On Sundays I must always think of the music in the 'Kurpark' and of the 'Malzbier' in your room. Here there is no music, the stupid hunters shoot the sparrows and nightingales in the woods behind, you always hear it go 'pop' - Malzbier there isn't either, and your room is not just five minutes from here. But you will be going for a walk at this moment and you will be meeting all the ladies from the Stift in their Sunday clothes returning from Mass.! Nusch has written - says she sees many people, and goes out a lot. She wants to come here in March. Alfred also has written from Ascona - quite charmed by the paradisial days there: a charming letter. Frieda has a piano again, now she wants to play Handel, the 'Messiah', but she hasn't arrived at the Alleluia! I am painting a picture, not very big, of a tiger who springs on a man: such a grinning tiger. Tomorrow we are going to Florence with friends. I haven't been to town yet. We play cards with the neighbours, solo-whist and Pope John and also 'patience.' You know, your little 'patience'- the one-two-three - the one that is called the demon, may well be called so, with me it never comes right.
Greet Frau Kugler, also the Halms. I hope that Frau Oberin is better. You keep jolly; you must ask the cards if in January we are going to Cortina. '0 dear cards, tell me truly...'
Les Diablerets Thursday morning [To Frieda]
No letter from you this morning - only one letter from Curtis Brown, asking for the 'Lady C.' MS. - But I am still waiting for the final two chapters from that woman.
A warm morning, with warm dimmish sun. Our maid got the grippe, so her sister is here.
I'm just going down to the station with Aldous. Diablerets coming to an end for us. I do hope we shan't get gripped going down to the valley. - How do you feel it?
Love to die Alte.
D. H. L.
Chalet Beau Site Les Diablerets Vaud Tuesday Dear Else:
We'll just go ahead with 'Rex' without bothering about Curtis Brown. I'll just mention it to him when I write, and tell him I fixed things up myself. I think M. 180 is quite a good price for 'Jugend' to pay: and the usual arrangement is one third to the translator, two thirds to the author - so you get M. 60. Business, caramia, business!
1 wrote Seeker direct and asked him to send you and to Frau Katherina both, copies of the 'Princess' (in 'St Mawr') and proofs of the volume of short stories 'The Woman Who Rode Away. ' I hope you will get these directly. In the stories, the end of 'The Border Line' is missing -printer lost two or three pages: so I'm having to write it in. But you'll understand the story is unfinished. It's 'None of That' I want you to consider.
i; We had hot sunshine, and the snow was melting: but now today it is snowing again, a fine and crumbling snow. I must say, I don't like it. I am no snow-bird, I hate the stark and shroudy whiteness, white and black. It offends the painter in one - it is so uniform - only sometimes lovely contours, and pale blue gleams. But against life.
I've been busy doing my poems - have at last got all the early ! poems together and complete. What a sweat! But I shall publish the others, 'Look!' and 'Birds and Beasts' as they stand. Then I'll have to go through the novel, which I'm having typed in London. How glad I'll be when all this work is behind me, and I needn't give a damn any more. I'm sick to death of literature.
I think this place is a good tonic, but snow isn't good for bronchials: it just isn't: it scrapes inside.
I dreamt of Frau v. Kahler last night. Are they all right? That was such a good p.c. of Irschenhausen. F. waiting to take the letter - so Wiedersehen!
D. H. L.
Firenze 16 April 28 Saturday [To Else]
Had your note from Alassio - glad you like it there. I wonder if you are setting off today for Germany. I stayed the night in Florence at Orioli's, but came back to Mirenda this afternoon. There is an atmosphere of departure and departure, which is a bit écœurant. I wish we were safely away, with no good-byes to say. - We shall meet some time during the summer somewhere nice and free and forgetful. Italy has too many memories, not enough spunk.
I shall send your Fullfeder, which I just discovered.
D. H. L.
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Florence 4 May 1928
Dear Else:
I simply can't write biographical facts about myself Will you answer this Bulow man, if you feel like it: and if you think it is worth while. I have never heard of him. I must ask Curtis Brown if they have arranged with him about 'Islands. '
You have heard by now that we are keeping on the Mirenda. I took down the pictures and we began to pack: but Frieda became so gloomy that I hung the pictures up again and paid six months' rent. Not worth while getting into a state about. So here we are, just the same. And probably we shall stay till the end of the month, as the proofs of the novel are still only half done. I wish the printer would hurry up.
I am asking people if they know of a nice Gasthaus in Switzerland, for me. I hate hotel-pensions, after a few days. I always want to kill the old women - usually English - that come into meals like cats. We just had a very handsome Louis XV sort of a one to tea - but American this time - and of course I'm bristling in every hair.
It's more or less summer too - the Kastanien in full flower - is yours too? The Bandelli peasants just brought us the first baccelli - Saubohnen - which are tiny, and they eat them raw, and think them wonderful. I like them because il baccello is one of the improper words. We also eat green almonds boiled in sugar and water, like plums - and they taste like gooseberries. We went to see an old Englishwoman - not so very old - who has a very elegant flat on the Lungarno and was a cocotte - the expensive sort - but a real one. I must say, I find her very restful and smooth, after some of the others.
Au revoir - tante cosa!
Villa Mirenda Scandicci Firenze Friday Dear Else:
I will send this to Baden – perhaps you will still be there. You will have had a lovely sunny week: here the sun is too hot, makes one tired, and feels like earthquakes. Still, it is beautiful.
We got home safely with all the spoil - there are roses in the Wolfratshauser glass you gave me, here on the table - and we drank the Kirsch from the little yellow glasses when the Wilkinsons were here yesterday. I am much better, I eat more joyfully, and take the Brustthee. Imagine, one must let it boil slowly for hours. I do believe it is good, better than all the medicines. I am already doing a story, and dabbing at my picture of five Negresses - called 'The Finding of Moses, ' or, if the Schwiegermutter had to name it, 'ein fùrchterliches Schauerstùck. ' A la bonne heure.
I had a letter from Curtis Brown, saying that next year, in November, our contract with Kippenberg comes to an end, and then we can leave him and go to a different publisher. Also that he, Kip, said in a letter of 1923 that he would gladly agree that you should do the translations. Curtis Brown's have the letter. Now I have aritten Kippenberg to ask him what exactly he intends to do next year, with regard to my work. We'll see if we can't have our own way in this matter, and you shall translate 'The Plumed Serpent, ' if you wish, trotz Anton, trotz Katherina. Vogue la galère!
Dark falling. We haven't made any fire in the stove yet - it is so Warm. Hope you are feeling well and easy. Love to the Schwiegermutter - the Schlips came today - but I shan't wear it yet. Say thanks for me.
Love, Villa Mirenda Scandicci Firenze Montag Liebe Else:
You wrote me so nicely from Constance. - I'm glad you had a good time with the Schwiegermutter. I can so well understand she didn't want to see her old home. It's too upsetting: the past is so far off I am better - getting up again, and going about the house - but feeling feeble. I went downstairs and out of doors a few yards yesterday - but it's too hot to go out till sundown. However, this day week - or tomorrow week - I hope we can leave for Villach. I shall feel better a little higher. It's lovely weather here, sunny, and not too hot at all if one keeps quiet. But it's much too hot to walk in the sun. If I was well, I should enjoy it. Frieda for the first time really likes the heat. But now I feel I should like to see the world green, and hear the waters running: and to taste good northern food.
I almost wish we'd arranged to rent Irschenhausen for August too, and gone straight there. But it will be nice to see Nusch too - and as you say, if one can really be amused, that is the chief thing. My illnesses I know come from chagrin - chagrin that goes deep in and comes afterwards in haemorrhage or what not. When one learns, also, not to be chagrined, then one can become like your Burger-meister? -fat and lustig, to the age of eighty. Anyhow I'd be glad to be fat and lustig once before I die: even a bit versoffen, if that's a way of not having a sore chest.
I wonder if the 'revolution' in Vienna, which the papers report, amounts to anything? Probably not. I think if we didn't go to Austria we'd go to Bavaria, or somewhere high in Baden.
We shall see you then in September. It is good of you to let us have the Irschenhausen house - but I must pay you a rent.
Wiedersehen!
D. H. L.
I sent you a 'Dial' with a story in it - don't know if you'll like it.
Kesselmatte Gsteig b Gstaad Schweiz 11 September 1928
My dear Mother-in-Law:
I have your letter and the tie, a nice one. Yes, we're coming soon. Else comes here Saturday the fifteenth and stays till Sunday.
It's wonderfully still here since my sister and niece went. They left Friday. They were jolly here but my sister is a little sad - the husband is nothing.
We have had summer days but today is autumn. The clouds turn round and round the tops of the mountains, still and grey and low, so still it is frightening. In these mountains one needs the sun. It will be nice in Baden, when the Brewsters are also there and we can go to concerts and theatres together.
We eat pounds of grapes. Frieda makes a diet of grapes, juniper berries, and God knows what. Do you hear nothing from Nusch? Farewell and soon, Auf Wiedersehen, D. H. L. (Translated from the German)
La Vigie Ile de Port-Cros Var Saturday Dear Else:
Your letter today, saying the Schwiegermutter is in bed. I'm awfully sorry and do hope it's not much. I thought in Lichtental she wasn't well. Of course, she is a heavy woman, and her legs are sure to suffer. Let us know how she goes on - and I hope she'll soon be up and about.
We are here settled in. But Frieda arrived in Lavandou with that fatal Italian grippe, and of course I took it. I felt ill all last week, and have been in bed all this, with a very raked chest. Sickening! - The others are very nice and very kind. The Vigie isn't a castle at all - just a low thick defence-wall with loop-holes, enclosing the top of the hill - about as big as the Leopoldplatz - and the inside all I wild, grown with lavender and arbutus and little pine trees, and with a few rooms built against the inside of the wall. It's quite pleasant, and comfortable, and we have big fires of pine logs in the open fires. Giuseppe is a strong fellow of twenty-eight, Sicilian. He fetches and carries and washes all dishes and makes fires. The women only cook, and they do it in turns. Joseph brings the food from the boat on a small donkey, Jasper - and we get abundance. The ship comes nearly every day - but the post only three times a week. The climate is very warm - warm and moist. I am afraid that doesn 't suit me very well. I don't know how long we shall stay. I have promised, till December 15 or 20. But if the warm-moist is bad for my cough, we shall leave soon. The others are really very nice and kind, it will be a pity if we have to leave them. And where shall we go?
The Brewsters are back in Capri. Inevitable.
I ordered the poems to Heidelberg. They look very nice.
We are on top of the island, and look down on green pine-tops, down to the blue sea, and the other islands and the mainland. Since I came I have not been down to the sea again - and Frieda has bathed only once. But it is very pretty. And at night the lights flash at Toulon and Hyeres and Lavandou. - But I really don't like islands, I would never stay long on one. Frieda wants to go back to Lago di Garda. Vediamo! I am in abeyance.
Write and tell us how the Schwiegermutter is. Frieda says she feels worried - but it seems to me there is no danger, only it is painful and depressing. No peace on this earth.
Love from both.
D. H. L.
I hope this letter will leave the island before next Tuesday - the next mail.
Port-Cros Friday Such storms, such winds, such torrents of rain! And the Vigie, although quite hygienic, is not very comfortable. So we are all leaving next week - Tuesday or Thursday, as the sea permits. I think Frieda and I will stay in Bandol, on the big railway.
Am so glad the Schwiegermutter is better.
Will write next week.
D. H. L.
Ile de Port-Cros Var Wednesday
My dear Mother-in-Law:
I am glad you are better. You have been too brave. You know, you are heavy on your feet now, you are no longer a young, light thing. You must not walk so far. I remember with grief the 'Fisch Kultur, ' a mad excursion and you insisted doing it. No, no, you must go gently and wisely. To force things is not for you.
Tomorrow we leave here. Thank the Lord, the weather is good, blue sky, blue quiet sea, and so warm. But I have enough. I would never like to stay more than a month on a little island. But as an experience it was nice. I think we will only go as far as Bandol, a little place on the coast, half an hour from Toulon. But there we are on the main line, and only an hour from Marseille. And we can think where we really want a house - neither of us knows what we want.
They write from Florence it rains and rains; awful. Thank God, we aren't there. My book of stories came with the Inselalmanach and Moricke. You know I have not broken with Insel? They pay me fifty pounds instead of thirty-five and Else can translate when she wants to. That's good.
I send you five pounds, if you want more tell me. It is my money and I give it with pleasure, but please pay the ten marks for Frieda's dress.
The Brewsters are in Capri again. They say it is the best place in the world. Good, when you know it!
Keep still and quiet inside yourself, then your legs will go without pain.
D. H. L.
(Translated from the German)
Hôtel Beau Rivage Bandol, Var 19 December, 1928
My dear Mother-in-Law:
This evening the ties and the calendar came. The friendly calendar, we know it so well, it makes me homesick. We must really find a house, if it is only to hang it on the wall. But we still don't know where we want to live. It is very nice here, so sunny and friendly. Now we wait till Xmas is past.
Perhaps Else and Barby are coming. Tomorrow we shall know. But Else is working till the end of February, so she can only stay a week. She says she wants to come before she gets married; because really she wants to get married at last. Barby is not very well. Perhaps she will stay some weeks with us.
! We have a friend here, a young writer, quite nice and faithful. First Frieda did not like him because he's not beautiful - but now she inks him quite good-looking and she likes him. We also had a young Australian here for two days, this afternoon he left for Nice. He makes those expensive books that people collect nowadays - he says he will make a book next year of my paintings - of all my paintings, with a foreword by me, to be sold at ten guineas each. It seems madness to me, but it's his money and he will pay me well if he does it. But how mad people are - there is quite a large vogue in éditions de luxe that cost two or five or even twenty-five pounds. I hate it. Rhys Davies, the friend who is here, is Welsh and his grandfather was also a miner.
