Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 1114
Max Mohr writes a little sadly from his 'Wolfgrube, ' he says he must always fight with his editors and has little money. There in Bavaria the snow is deep.
I am glad that you are better. I also feel better, but hot sun and cold wind find my bronchi, that feel a bit raw. It is always so in weather like this.
Else will be there, with you - she will give you Jive pounds from me, from 'Jugend, ' and keeps the rest. You will have a quiet, good, happy Xmas, only keep still inside yourself.
Greet them all from me. And Nusch? She won't be there any more. I will write her and Emil. I hope we shall see them this spring, here on the Mediterranean, where the sun is so bright, and the sea so blue, and the small boats so white and dancing. Very friendly I find also the Frenchmen, they leave you alone and don't hang on so heavily. But Frieda is always longing for Italy, I think.
So farewell, mother-in-law, Merry Xmas. What flowers have you? Here are many narcissi in the fields. Merry Xmas! Merry Xmas!
D. H. L.
(Translated from the German)
Hôtel Principe Alfonso Palma de Mallorca Spain 12 June 1929 Dear Else:
We want to leave here next Tuesday - eighteenth - by the boat to Marseille. Frieda sprained her ankle, bathing, but I think it will be better by then - it's not bad. I want her to go and see after my pictures, as the show is supposed to open this week. And the book is ready today - I have a set of the coloured plates - twenty-six - rather good, although only done in three-colour process. I hear they have already orders for about three hundred copies at ten guineas, and ten vellum copies at fifty guineas are all ordered. World of crazes! But I ought to make about five hundred pounds out of the book - not bad. I shan't send you a copy - I know you don't care especially about it - and in these things you belong to the opposite direction, so of course you don't see much value in work of this sort. You say satanisch. Perhaps you are right; Lucifer is brighter now than tarnished Michael or shabby Gabriel. All things fall in their turn, now Michael goes down, and whispering Gabriel, and the Son of the Morning will laugh at them all. Yes, I am all for Lucifer, who is really the Morning Star. The real principle of Evil is not anti-Christ or anti-Jehovah, but anti-life. I agree with you in a sense, that I am with the anti-Christ. Only I am not anti-life.
If Frieda comes to England from Marseille, I shall probably go to North Italy, the Garda, where it won't be too hot. This year I don't want to come very far north; I feel I am better south of the Alps - really. Probably, Frieda will come to Baden on her way back from England.
This island is a queer place - so dry - but at last it has rained. We "light possibly come back next winter.
I expect the Schwiegermutter will have gone back to the Stift. I was glad she was well enough to come to Heidelberg. It must be summer with you, leafy and lovely. Here it is all dried up, only the bushes of wild thyme in flower on the waste places, and the bougainvillteas in the gardens.
I wonder where you will go for the summer holiday? Anyhow we will meet somewhere, if not in Baden.
Greet everybody from me.
D. H. L.
6 Lungarno Corsini Florence Sunday 7 July [To Frieda]
Maria drove me to Pisa yesterday afternoon - very sirocco and overcast, but not hot, not at all uncomfortable. Unfortunately my inside is upset - either I must have eaten something or it came from drinking ice-water very cold on Thursday when it was very hot. Anyhow my lower man hurts and it makes my chest sore - which is a pity, because I was so well. Now I'm rather limp. But I've kept still all day in Pino's flat, and he looks after me well-so I hope by tomorrow or Tuesday it will be all right. Luigino Franchetti said he'd got ptomaine poisoning, on Friday at Forte - but I think it was an upset too, nothing serious. I think mine is going off. Pino's flat gets a bit hot just at evening, but in the night and the most part of the day it is pleasant and cool - it's not really a hot year. Carletto has gone off for a day's tramp in the hills beyond Fiesole. Pino and I will have a cup of tea now, then perhaps take a carriage-drive for an hour.
I had your mother's letter this morning - she says you are all going up to Plàssig or somewhere on the thirteenth - which is next; Saturday. What is it like there? Probably I shall arrive in Baden by then - it depends a bit on the innards. I wanted to look at the Lake of; Como to see if we'd like a house there - but I am not sure if I shall want to make the effort. And I was so well before.
X... Y... is staying on in Forte, thank God - till about fifteenth. She must be in Paris by twenty-third - sails on twenty-seventh - thank heaven. She is a mixture of the worst side of A...- turns up her eyes in that awful indecent fashion - and of L... M... - humble, cringing, yet impudent, with an eternal and ceaseless self-preoccupation, tangled up in her own ego till it's shameful - thinking all and only of herself. Ugh, she's awful. At the same time, she's a poor pathetic thing. She has sent you a feather thing that she says is for a little cape - pretty - but I shall leave it behind in the trunk. I am leaving this trunk here also - the money they cost in transport and facchinaggio is awful, pure waste - and the bother.
Well, I've not had a coherent or sensible letter from you since you left Paris - so I suppose you were gone overhead - and then it's no use saying anything. However, emerge quickly - and we'll see if we can settle the problem of a house.
Had a letter from Barby - but it wasn't somehow very nice - same cattiveria as M..., underneath - or so it seemed. I suppose you didn't go and see my sisters. Hope Else is better. Aldous was very well, I've never seen him so well. Am seeing nobody here. No sound from Brett about MSS. or ranch. Think I shall come by night to Milano - but hate sharing a berth with some stranger. Hope you are nice and peaceful in Baden.
L.
I really think Italy is not good for my health - the country is much slacker, all going deflated - and lots of poverty again, so they say. But everybody is very nice, much softer once more, and sort of subdued.
FLORENCE MONDAY NIGHT
[TO Frieda]
The pains were a chill - have been in bed all day today - damn! Pino very nice, but oh the noise of traffic. I'm a lot better. I want to get up tomorrow, and leave if possible on Wednesday night for Milan. I might arrive Baden on Thursday night - otherwise Friday - all being well. Hot internal cold I've got, real Italian. I hate this country like poison, sure it would kill me.
I should rather like an apartment for six weeks or so - Ebersteinburg, Baden - anywhere - where I can lie in bed all day if I want to - and where I needn't see people. But don't at all know what you feel like, since you have not written lately.
Rained a bit today - quite cool. Pino and Carletto gone out into town.
D.H.L.
Shall wire - suppose you had all my letters addressed to the Kingsley.
Hotel Lôwen Lichtental 13 August 1929
Dear Else:
Hans says it rains in Bavaria, and Max Mohr says it rains in Bavaria, so I suppose it does. Only now I hope it has left off. Here it is quite decent, sunny mornings, cloudy afternoons, and quite pleasant. The Schwiegermutter is here, but says she will go back to the Stift on Thursday. On Friday her 'heissgeliebte Anita' is due to arrive with the not so heissgeliebter-aber dochgeliebter Hinke: they will stay a while here in the Lôwen. I have never met the Hinke, so I have a joy in store.
We had the 50n Geburtstagsfeier on Sunday evening, very noble, Bowie, trout, ducks, and nine people - three Halms, two Schweikhards, one Kugler - and they all seemed very happy and we all kept it up very bravely. But alas, next day Frieda was in one of the worst moods I have ever seen her in! - a Seelenkater, or however you spell it.
You hear the pictures are to be returned to me on condition that they are never shown again in England, but sent away to me on the Continent, that they may never pollute that island of lily-livered angels again. What hypocrisy and poltroonery, and how I detest and despise my England. I had rather be a German or anything than belong to such a nation of craven, cowardly hypocrites. My curse on them! They will burn my four picture books, will they? So it is decreed. But they shall burn through the thread of their own existence as a nation, at the same time. Delenda est Cartago! - but she will destroy herself, amply. Che nuoia!
Your mother says we are to stay here till the middle of September. I hope not. We have been here a month on Thursday, and when the heissgeliebte Annie is here we shall surely be a superfluity. I should like to move in another week or ten days. Shall we come to Bavaria, to Rottach, do you think? or best go south to Lugano?
I wonder if Hans is setting off across the mountains?
We are going to tea with some Taormina friends, Americans, who are staying in the Stephanie. Your mother says: Du wirst was Schones sehen, das Stephanie! - It is all I can do not to make a really rude remark. I am so sick of all those old lies. It is terrible to be old, one becomes a bottle of old, but never mellow lies - lies, lies, lies! everything. Weisheit der Alten! - nineteenth century lies.
Well, I hope it's pleasant in Irschenhausen. Only today I threw away the flowers I gathered when you were here - and the toadflax (wilde Lowenmàule) were still fresh.
D. H. L.
Remember me to Alfred, and Hans - and is Marianne better?
Lôwen Lichtental Baden-Baden 21 August 1929
Dear Else:
Frieda says she wants to stay till Sunday, to have her bath and her masseuse once more. She is still troubled about the foot, though it is much better. - So I suppose we shall arrive in Munchen on Sunday evening. - Max Mohr says he will meet us at Rottach station with a Wagen - and he knows of a nice little house for us. So it sounds quite good, if only it will not rain.
Your mother is going back into the Stift today - very sad - and Annie is going to her tomorrow. I am very fed up with here, and shall be glad to be gone too.
So - we shall see you one of these days in Bavaria!
D. H. L.
Hotel Lôwen Monday Dear Else:
fust a line to say we expect to leave here for Munchen next Saturday. - I have written to Max Mohr to say we shall arrive in Rottach either on Sunday or Monday. I suppose we shall stay one night in Munchen. What is the name of the hotel where we stayed last time? at the station?
Marianne sounded quite sad in her letter to Frieda. I'm so sorry, and do hope she's feeling belter.
The Hinkes arrived on Saturday, both very nice. They are staying in the Lôwen here -your mother too - she would not go back to the Stift. But Hinke returns to Volklingen today, and Annie and your mother return to the Stift on Thursday - so we want to depart on Saturday. I want to go - I get really depressed here - and you know it isn't usual for me to get depressed. But here I get spells of hopeless feeling, heavy, and I hate it. What is it? I never have them in other countries. Is it Germany? or your mother, who is now so afraid of death? Anyhow I hate it, and want to go away. So I expect we shall see you in Bavaria - perhaps even in: Munchen. I'm so glad you are having a good time. - I can just see the „ yellow Pfifferlinge in the woods.
Regards to Alfred and to Marianne. - It has begun to rain again I here!
Villa Beau Soleil Bandol, Var France 4 October 1929
Dear Else:
Here we are already in a house of our own, a nice little bungalow villa right on the sea - and with bathroom and all conveniences - and a nice woman to cook and clean. It is very easy and I like it. I still love the Mediterranean, it still seems young as Odysseus, in the morning. And Frieda is happy. The only trouble is my health, which is not very good. For some reason, which I don't understand, I lost a lot of strength in Germany. I believe Germany would kill me, if I had to stay long in it. Now it has killed Stresemann - whom will it not kill? - everybody except the Hindenburgs and the old women in the Stifts. Those ancient ones are the terrible fungi, parasites of the younger life.
It is very lovely, the wind, the clouds, the running sea that bursts up like blossom on the island opposite. If only I was well, and had my strength back!
But I am so weak. And something inside me weeps black tears. I wish it would go away.
Max Mohr is quite near in the Goélands Hotel - always very nice and willing to do everything he can to help. But also his voice says the same thing over and over again: Ailes ist nichts? Why must everybody say it? - when it is only they who are nothing, and perhaps not even they. When the morning comes, and the sea runs silvery and the distant islands are delicate and clear, then I feel again, only man is vile. But man, at the moment, is very vile.
Perhaps a woman, Francesca Ewald, whose husband is brother of the Salem Ewald woman, will write to you about translating some short story of mine. Do advise her all you can.
The Huxleys say they want to come, and take a house here. I rather hope they won't. The Brews ters also may come for the winter - their girl is in school in England.
I do hope Marianne is well from her Ischias, and that everything goes pleasantly. Frieda's foot is nearly better - still a little stiffness.
Ever D. H. L.
Beau Soleil Bandol, Var France 14 December 1929
Dear Else:
I got a copy of 'Plumed Serpent' and tried to translate a hymn - but you might as well ask me to translate into Hottentot - I can't even begin. So that's that. I think Tal of Vienna is going to do 'Lady C. ' - and the translator Herbert E. Herlitschka, Wiedner Gurtel 6, Wien IV, has written me several times. He seems a competent and experienced translator - and his criticism of the translation of 'Women in Love' made my blood feel chill. He says he would be glad to help you with 'Plumed Serpent, ' if there is any difficulty, or to go over the manuscript if you could send him a carbon copy. You must please yourself about it.
You are coming to see us in the New Year. I wish you would send an approximate date, as my sister Ada also wants to come, and Barby. There's only one little extra bedroom.
We've had lovely sunny weather all week-today is a most beautiful day, still and sunny. The narcissus are in full flower in the tiny field next to us. So yellow.
My health has been a great nuisance - not so good as last winter - and it wearies me. Then I don't want to do anything.
The Brewsters are still in the hotel - and Mr and Mrs Di Chiara from Capri (she is American) and Ida Rauh (Mrs Max Eastman - the socialist's wife) from Santa Fe-and they all come trooping along, so we are by no means alone. Frieda loves her little house - though it's very commonplace - but it is sunny and warm and easy, so one doesn't grumble. Her foot still troubles her a bit.
Have you seen Dr Osborne's translation of 'Fantasia'? - quite good, in my opinion.
D. H. L.
I shall write again directly.
Love.
Beau Soleil Bandol, Var 30 January 1930
Dear Else:
So you got back safely - at least as far as Strassburg. Here all is the same - I lay out today in the mouth of the garage, because the mistral is blowing - a sunny, brilliant day with blue sea and sharp white foam.
Barby helps Frieda to look after me, and all goes very well. Yesterday the bronchitis was much better, but today it is tiresome again - probably the wind.
The doctor sent word about the nursing home at Vence - it is not much of a place - like a little hotel or convalescent home. If I make good progress here, I shall not go to Vence - but if I don't get better, I will. But truly, I am already much stronger for this rest.
It was very kind of you to come all that long way to give us a helping hand - it did Frieda a lot of good, to share the responsibility with you, and I was glad to see you.
I have asked for a copy of 'The Escaped Cock' for you. Barby is still in an unhappy state, inside herself. Oh dear!
Remember me to Friedel.
D. H. L.
Nearing the End
Now I am nearing the end... I think of Bandol and our little villa 'Beau Soleil' on the sea, the big balcony windows looking toward the sea, another window at the side overlooking a field of yellow narcissus called 'soleil' and pine-trees beyond and again the sea. I remember sunny days when the waves came flying along with white manes, they looked as if they might come flying right up the terrace into his room. There were plants in his room and they flowered so well and I said to him: 'Why, oh why, can't you flourish like those?' I remember what a beautiful and strange time it was. One day a cat, a big handsome yellow-and-white cat came in; Lawrence chased it away. 'We don't want it. If we go away it'll be miserable. We don't want to take the responsibility for it'; but the cat stayed, it insisted on it. Its name was 'Micky' and it grew more and more beautiful and never a cat played more intelligently than Micky... he played hide-and-go-seek with me, and Lawrence played mouse with him... Lawrence was such a convincing mouse... and then he insisted: 'You must put this cat out at night or it will become a bourgeois, unbeautiful cat.' So very sadly, at nightfall, in spite of Micky's remonstrances I put him out into the garden. To Mme Martens, the cook, Lawrence said: 'Vous lui donnez à manger, il dort avec moi, et Madame l'amuse.'
But in the morning at dawn Micky and I appeared in Lawrence's room... Micky took a flying leap on to Lawrence's bed and began playing with his toes, and I looked at Lawrence to see how he was... his worst time was before dawn when he coughed so much, and I knew what he had been through... But then at dawn I believe he felt grateful that another day had been given him. 'Come when the sun rises,' he said, and when I came he was glad, so very glad, as if he would say: 'See, another day is given me.'
The sun rose magnificently opposite his bed in red and gold across the bay and the fishermen standing up in their boats looked like eternal mythological figures dark and alive against the lit-up splendour of the sea and sky, and when I asked him: 'What kind of a night did you have?' to comfort me, he would answer: 'Not so bad...' but it was bad enough to break one's heart... And his courage and unflinching spirit, doing their level best to live as long as he possibly could in this world he loved so much, gave me courage too. Never, in all illness and suffering, did he let the days sink to a dreary or dull or sordid level... those last months had the glamour of a rosy sunset... I can only think with awe of those last days of his, as of the rays of the setting sun... and the setting sun obliterates all the sordid details of a landscape. So the dreary passages in our lives were wiped out and he said to me: 'Why, oh why did we quarrel so much?' and I could see how it grieved him... our terrible quarrels... but I answered: 'Such as we were, violent creatures, how could we help it?'
