Selected Stories (2 page)

Mansfield was described, both during her life and after, as having a mask. But who hasn't? We can't fully know the inner selves of others except in the deep illusion of fiction, and writing like Mansfield's is one of the best ways we have of entering what her compatriot Janet Frame called ‘that room behind the eyes'. Her funny, satirical, transcendent stories show us other people. They take us into those rooms where we can forget ourselves. We feel what the characters feel, even as we smile, raise an eyebrow or share a sense of grief with the narrator behind their backs.

She can give objects, too, the sense that they are coming into light. Light is significant in Mansfield's stories, whether the dusky, obscuring glow of poor Bertha's living room, or the sunbeam that comes and goes from the daughters of the late Colonel, or the famous doll house's ‘little lamp'. The lights of modernism are being made, illuminating the world, as Joyce described: ‘Its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant. The object achieves its epiphany.'

Things stand in for feelings—they hold feelings, are feelings. Mansfield is brilliant at the objective correlative, hats or leaves or chairs that exist as props not because we're on a stage but because we're in a dream when we're reading. Hers is an intense realism that knows reality and fantasy are inseparable:

Big drops hung on the bushes and just did not fall; the silvery, fluffy toi-toi was limp on its long stalks, and all the marigolds and the pinks in the bungalow gardens were bowed to the earth with wetness. Drenched were the cold fuchsias, round pearls of dew lay on the flat nasturtium leaves. It looked as though the sea had beaten up softly in the darkness, as though one immense wave had come rippling, rippling—how far? Perhaps if you had waked up in the middle of the night you might have seen a big fish flicking in at the window and gone again...

Even without the compelling biographical details, in the act of disappearing inside her characters Mansfield hides in plain sight. It's her sensibility that creates and attends to these many different lives, her innovative, astonishing manipulation of free indirect discourse and point of view that lets us in on those transitions in her characters. From tired Rosabel's impoverished youth to the precarious middle age of Ada Moss, Mansfield portrays with translucent accuracy the hopes of those on the verge of despair. She knows how precious hope is, and how brave and foolish you have to be to hang on to it.

Through the quality of her attention and even her use of things like ellipses and exclamation marks, Mansfield captures perfectly the way we drift from a thought, nudge up against it, only to have it elude our focus. Some things are easier not examined. The stories often turn on that moment when recognition is unavoidable, or is evaded one last, possibly fatal time. Part of her gift to the reader is that all of this is achieved in the subtext, that we're allowed to intuit the real story without it being spelled out.

The stories in this selection appeared over a period of fourteen years, so we witness the development of an extraordinary talent at different stages. The final story, ‘The Tiredness of Rosabel', was the first to be published, in 1908. The mechanics are obvious, and result in more explicit youthful assertions than Mansfield would allow in the later work, where the authority is so lightly controlled it seems to disappear. She died when she was just thirty-four. What would she have done next? It's a ridiculous question, impossible to answer, impossible not to be plagued by. Yes, she had worked on the beginnings of novels and had plans for ‘a kind of serial novel' (how twenty-first century!)—but it is hooey to think that a novel must be an advance on stories as remarkable as these.

If you're interested in her life, read one of the many good biographies or imaginary works that draw on it, or find her in the letters and journals. If you want to know more about
life,
read these stories. As Mansfield wrote of
Aaron's Rod
by D. H. Lawrence: ‘All the time I read this book I felt it was feeding me.'

Sources

The Diary of Virginia Woolf,
ed. Anne Oliver Bell (five volumes, 1915–1941)

The Journal of Katherine Mansfield,
ed. J. Middleton Murry (1927)

Damien Wilkins,
The Fainter
(2006)

Janet Frame,
Towards Another Summer
(2007)

James Joyce,
Stephen Hero
(1944)

Gillian Boddy, ‘Mansfield, Katherine—Biography',
Te Ara—The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
(teara.govt.nz)

Katherine Mansfield,
Novels and Novelists,
ed.

J. Middleton Murry (1930), quoted in Claire Tomalin,
Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life
(1987)

AT THE BAY

Very early morning. The sun was not yet risen, and the whole of Crescent Bay was hidden under a white sea-mist. The big bush-covered hills at the back were smothered. You could not see where they ended and the paddocks and bungalows began. The sandy road was gone and the paddocks and bungalows the other side of it; there were no white dunes covered with reddish grass beyond them; there was nothing to mark which was beach and where was the sea. A heavy dew had fallen. The grass was blue. Big drops hung on the bushes and just did not fall; the silvery, fluffy toi-toi was limp on its long stalks, and all the marigolds and the pinks in the bungalow gardens were bowed to the earth with wetness. Drenched were the cold fuchsias, round pearls of dew lay on the flat nasturtium leaves. It looked as though the sea had beaten up softly in the darkness, as though one immense wave had come rippling, rippling—how far? Perhaps if you had waked up in the middle of the night you might have seen a big fish flicking in at the window and gone again. . . .

Ah-Aah! sounded the sleepy sea. And from the bush there came the sound of little streams flowing, quickly, lightly, slipping between the smooth stones, gushing into ferny basins and out again; and there was the splashing of big drops on large leaves, and something else—what was it?—a faint stirring and shaking, the snapping of a twig and then such silence that it seemed someone was listening.

Round the corner of Crescent Bay, between the piled-up masses of broken rock, a flock of sheep came pattering. They were huddled together, a small, tossing, woolly mass, and their thin, stick-like legs trotted along quickly as if the cold and the quiet had frightened them. Behind them an old sheep-dog, his soaking paws covered with sand, ran along with his nose to the ground, but carelessly, as if thinking of something else. And then in the rocky gateway the shepherd himself appeared. He was a lean, upright old man, in a frieze coat that was covered with a web of tiny drops, velvet trousers tied under the knee, and a wideawake with a folded blue handkerchief round the brim. One hand was crammed into his belt, the other grasped a beautifully smooth yellow stick. And as he walked, taking his time, he kept up a very soft light whistling, an airy, far-away fluting that sounded mournful and tender. The old dog cut an ancient caper or two and then drew up sharp, ashamed of his levity, and walked a few dignified paces by his master's side. The sheep ran forward in little pattering rushes; they began to bleat, and ghostly flocks and herds answered them from under the sea. “Baa! Baaa!” For a time they seemed to be always on the same piece of ground. There ahead was stretched the sandy road with shallow puddles; the same soaking bushes showed on either side the same shadowy palings. Then something immense came into view; an enormous shock-haired giant with his arms stretched out. It was the big gum tree outside Mrs. Stubbs's shop, and as they passed by there was a strong whiff of eucalyptus. And now big spots of light gleamed in the mist. The shepherd stopped whistling; he rubbed his red nose and wet beard on his wet sleeve and, screwing up his eyes, glanced in the direction of the sea. The sun was rising. It was marvellous how quickly the mist thinned, sped away, dissolved from the shallow plain, rolled up from the bush and was gone as if in a hurry to escape; big twists and curls jostled and shouldered each other as the silvery beams broadened. The far-away sky—a bright, pure blue—was reflected in the puddles, and the drops, swimming along the telegraph poles, flashed into points of light. Now the leaping, glittering sea was so bright it made one's eyes ache to look at it. The shepherd drew a pipe, the bowl as small as an acorn, out of his breast-pocket, fumbled for a chunk of speckled tobacco, pared off a few shavings and stuffed the bowl. He was a grave, fine-looking old man. As he lit up and the blue smoke wreathed his head, the dog, watching, looked proud of him.

“Baa! Baaa!” The sheep spread out into a fan. They were just clear of the summer colony before the first sleeper turned over and lifted a drowsy head; their cry sounded in the dreams of little children . . . who lifted their arms to drag down, to cuddle the darling little woolly lambs of sleep. Then the first inhabitant appeared; it was the Burnells' cat Florrie, sitting on the gatepost, far too early as usual, looking for their milk-girl. When she saw the old sheep-dog she sprang up quickly, arched her back, drew in her tabby head, and seemed to give a little fastidious shiver. “Ugh! What a coarse, revolting creature!” said Florrie. But the old sheep-dog, not looking up, waggled past, flinging out his legs from side to side. Only one of his ears twitched to prove that he saw, and thought her a silly young female.

The breeze of morning lifted in the bush and the smell of leaves and wet black earth mingled with the sharp smell of the sea. Myriads of birds were singing. A goldfinch flew over the shepherd's head and, perching on the tiptop of a spray, it turned to the sun, ruffling its small breast feathers. And now they had passed the fisherman's hut, passed the charred-looking little
whare
where Leila the milk-girl lived with her old Gran. The sheep strayed over a yellow swamp and Wag, the sheepdog, padded after, rounded them up and headed them for the steeper, narrower rocky pass that led out of Crescent Bay and towards Daylight Cove. “Baa! Baaa!” Faint the cry came as they rocked along the fast-drying road. The shepherd put away his pipe, dropping it into his breast-pocket so that the little bowl hung over. And straightway the soft airy whistling began again. Wag ran out along a ledge of rock after something that smelled, and ran back again disgusted. Then pushing, nudging, hurrying, the sheep rounded the bend and the shepherd followed after out of sight.

A few moments later the back door of one of the bungalows opened, and a figure in a broad-striped bathing-suit flung down the paddock, cleared the stile, rushed through the tussock grass into the hollow, staggered up the sandy hillock, and raced for dear life over the big porous stones, over the cold, wet pebbles, on to the hard sand that gleamed like oil. Splish-Splosh! Splish-Splosh! The water bubbled round his legs as Stanley Burnell waded out exulting. First man in as usual! He'd beaten them all again. And he swooped down to souse his head and neck.

“Hail, brother! All hail, Thou Mighty One!” A velvety bass voice came booming over the water.

Great Scott! Damnation take it! Stanley lifted up to see a dark head bobbing far out and an arm lifted. It was Jonathan Trout—there before him! “Glorious morning!” sang the voice.

“Yes, very fine!” said Stanley briefly. Why the dickens didn't the fellow stick to his part of the sea? Why should he come barging over to this exact spot? Stanley gave a kick, a lunge and struck out, swimming overarm. But Jonathan was a match for him. Up he came, his black hair sleek on his forehead, his short beard sleek.

“I had an extraordinary dream last night!” he shouted.

What was the matter with the man? This mania for conversation irritated Stanley beyond words. And it was always the same—always some piffle about a dream he'd had, or some cranky idea he'd got hold of, or some rot he'd been reading. Stanley turned over on his back and kicked with his legs till he was a living water-spout. But even then . . . “I dreamed I was hanging over a terrifically high cliff, shouting to someone below.” You would be! thought Stanley. He could stick no more of it. He stopped splashing. “Look here, Trout,” he said, “I'm in rather a hurry this morning.”

“You're
WHAT
?” Jonathan was so surprised—or pretended to be—that he sank under the water, then reappeared again blowing.

“All I mean is,” said Stanley, “I've no time to—to—to fool about. I want to get this over. I'm in a hurry. I've work to do this morning—see?”

Jonathan was gone before Stanley had finished. “Pass, friend!” said the bass voice gently, and he slid away through the water with scarcely a ripple . . . But curse the fellow! He'd ruined Stanley's bathe. What an unpractical idiot the man was! Stanley struck out to sea again, and then as quickly swam in again, and away he rushed up the beach. He felt cheated.

Jonathan stayed a little longer in the water. He floated, gently moving his hands like fins, and letting the sea rock his long, skinny body. It was curious, but in spite of everything he was fond of Stanley Burnell. True, he had a fiendish desire to tease him sometimes, to poke fun at him, but at bottom he was sorry for the fellow. There was something pathetic in his determination to make a job of everything. You couldn't help feeling he'd be caught out one day, and then what an almighty cropper he'd come! At that moment an immense wave lifted Jonathan, rode past him, and broke along the beach with a joyful sound. What a beauty! And now there came another. That was the way to live—carelessly, recklessly, spending oneself. He got on to his feet and began to wade towards the shore, pressing his toes into the firm, wrinkled sand. To take things easy, not to fight against the ebb and flow of life, but to give way to it—that was what was needed. It was this tension that was all wrong. To live—to live! And the perfect morning, so fresh and fair, basking in the light, as though laughing at its own beauty, seemed to whisper, “Why not?”