The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2

by Sylvia Plath

  Love,

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Sunday 26 February 1961

  TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University

  Sunday: February 26

  Dear mother,

  By the time you get this letter, I shall probably have had my appendix out & be well on the road to recovery. I got my “invitation” to come to hospital this afternoon, so I imagine I shall be operated on sometime tomorrow. It’s the 27th, so I hope it’s a lucky day for me. I’ve had this hanging over my head for almost two months now, & shall be very glad to get rid of it!

  I’ve got all the house in order, supplies in for Ted, and yesterday baked a banana bread, tollhouse cookies, & today am making apricot tarts & griddle batter, so he shall have something to go on with. By the way, whenever you do send a packet, do you suppose you could pop in a package or so of chocolate bits? I can’t get them here, & tollhouse cookies are our very favorite. The ones I made this weekend, I made with bits brought back by a friend of Marcia Plumer’s, from her Christmas visit in America.

  I dressed Frieda in her blue tights & white top for the Huws birthday party for Madeleine & she looked wonderful. The blue sweater is especially beautiful on her, & I love the needlecord overalls with the feet in (which I also can’t get here) which come out of the washmachine daisy-fresh. Sweaters & things-with-feet are what I appreciate most in this climate! Her favorite toy now is that little world-shaped round rattle with the cat-face on it. I shall miss her immensely these next two weeks, but am somewhat consoled, because Ted is an expert at taking care of her, and full of loving attentions, songs and games. Any mail you send here, he’ll bring into hospital; my address there is Ward 1, St. Pancras Hospital, 4 St. Pancras Way, London N.W.1. It’s only about a 15 or 20 minute walk away & less by bus, so Ted will be able to visit me in the meagre evening hours.

  As if to cheer me up, I got an airmail special-delivery letter from the Atlantic, accepting a 50-line poem I did as an exercise called “Words for a Nursery”,* spoken in the person of a right hand, with 5 syllables to a line, 5 stanzas, & 10 lines to a stanza. Very fingery. I imagine that will bring in about $75. I have started writing poems again* & hope I can keep right on through my hospital period. I’m bringing a notebook in with me as you (& Ted) suggested, to occupy myself by taking down impressions.

  Ted has just heard that 4 of his 8 poems will be published, with illustrations, on the Children’s Page of the Sunday Times* in mid-March, for about $120. The book is due out at the end of March, just in time for Frieda’s first birthday, and this should help the sales a great deal, I think. The Times photographer came round to the house to take pictures of Ted last week. He will be really cloistered for the next two weeks with plenty of time to write, so we hope he’ll get through with his play, called The Calm (it’s a sort of dark opposite to Shakespeare’s Tempest.)

  I probably told you about Ted & I doing a recorded interview for a BBC radio program called Two of a Kind a couple of weeks ago. It was about 20 minutes long & ended with each of us reading a poem. Well, they broadcast part of it again on the Sunday following on the weekly-roundup program & evidently it was used as a “model” for the Talks producers, for they decided to give it a full rebroadcast after that on the weekend, & add five minutes more or so, which doubles the $75 fee. We got some funny letters, among them one* offering us a big house & garden (I’m not quite clear under just what circumstances) since I had said our dream was to have a place big enough so we could yell from one end to the other without hearing each other.*

  Dido Merwin is flying by jet tomorrow to rejoin Bill in America where he’s been getting rich by giving a tour of readings. She treated us to two plays this week---“The Devils”,* a dramatizing of Huxley’s “The Devils of Loudon”* by a modern English dramatist John Whiting, a friend of Dido’s Ted has met, and then Middleton’s “The Changeling”,* a fantastic & marvelous resurrection of the Restoration play with Goya sets & costumes. We’ve also been slipping up the subway line once a week for the series of 12 Ingmar Bergman* films in Hampstead,* so I’ve been beguiling the time. I do love London. I had a gallery-going spree & went to five in one afternoon.

  Well, I’ve just finished baking the half-moons & am off to hospital with my kit-bag.

  Lots of love,

  Sivvy

  PS: No duty to pay on the package. The vitamins are much appreciated---I cant have too many!

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Wednesday 1 March 1961

  ALS, Indiana University

  Wednesday: March 1

  Dear mother,

  I am writing this to you propped up in my hospital bed less than 24 hours after my operation – which I had Tuesday about 11 am, instead of Monday as I thought. I must have really been secretly worried about my appendix a good deal of the time, as now that it is gone I feel nothing but immense relief & pleasant prospects ahead. The worst part was coming in Sunday night & finding I had to wait a day longer than I thought – being ‘under observation’ Sunday night & Monday. The progress they’ve made (since I had my tonsils out) in anesthetics is wonderful. I had an injection in my ward bed which dried up all my saliva & so on & made me pleasantly drowsy. A very handsome young lady anesthetist introduced herself to me & said I’d see her later. She gave me an arm-shot in the anteroom which blacked me out completely. I drowsed pleasantly the rest of the day after they’d given me a shot of pain killer & was ready to see dear Ted when he came during visiting hours in the evening bearing a jar of freshly-squeezed orange juice, a pint of milk & a big bunch of hothouse grapes – none of which they’ve let me touch yet. I had a slight attack of nausea in the evening & promptly threw up a mug of ovaltine I persuaded them to give me. The food is pretty awful, but Ted brought me two huge rare steak sandwiches (we’ve discovered a marvelous tender & flavorful cut with no bone or fat which I think corresponds to the tenderloin of a T-bone steak) & a tin of tollhouse cookies – which I’ll eat later on.

  He is an absolute angel. To see him come in at visiting hours, about twice as tall as all the little stumpy people with his handsome kind smiling face is the most beautiful sight in the world to me. He is finishing his play & taking admirable care of little Frieda.

  I am enclosing a check for $100 for deposit in our Boston account – On my first night – Monday – here Ted was able to bring me an exciting air letter from The New Yorker* offering me one of their coveted ‘first reading’ contracts for the next year! This means I have to let them have the first reading of all my poems & only send poems elsewhere if they reject them. I had to laugh, as I send all my poems there first anyway. I get $100 (enclosed) for simply signing the agreement, 25% more per poem accepted plus what they call a “cost-of-living” bonus on work accepted amounting to about 35% more per year, plus a higher base rate of pay for any work they consider of exceptional value. The contracts are renewable each year at their discretion. How’s that! As you may imagine, I’ve been reading & re-reading the letter which came at the most opportunely cheering moment.

  I am in a modern wing of this hospital – all freshly painted pink walls, pink & green flowered bed curtains & brand-new lavatories – full of light & air – an immense improvement over that grim ward at Newton-Wellesley where Ted & I visited you! The nurses are all young, pretty & cheerful – no old crochety hags or anything. I am in a big ward, divided by a glass & wood partition with about 17 beds on my side. The women at my end are young & cheerful. One has a T-B knee three had bunion operations – a couple are in plaster casts. I’m really as serious a case as any of them – a great relief to me, for I dreaded a ward of really sick people lying about & groaning all the time.

  Later: now Teddy has come so I shall sign off.

  With much love to you & Warrie –

  Sylvia

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Monday 6 March 1961

  ALS with envelope, Indiana University

  Monday, March 6

  Dear mother,


  I am writing propped up in my hospital bed, 6 days now after my operation. My stitches are ‘pulling’ & itching, but the nurses say that’s a sign I’m healed & they want to come out. I’m hoping I may get rid of them today. Actually, I feel I’ve been having an amusing holiday! I haven’t been free of the baby one day for a whole year & I must say I have secretly enjoyed having meals in bed, backrubs & nothing to do but read (I’ve discovered Agatha Christie* – just the thing for hospital reading – I am a whodunit fan now), gossip & look at my table of flowers sent by Ted’s parents, Ted, Helga Huws & Charles Monteith, Ted’s Editor at Faber’s. Of course before my operation I was too tense to enjoy much & for two days after I felt pretty shaky since they starve you for about 40 hours before & after, but I was walking around the ward on my 3rd day & gossiping with everyone. The British have an amazing ‘stiff upper-lipness’ – they don’t fuss or complain or whine – except in a joking way & even women in toe to shoulder casts discuss family, newspaper topics & so on with amazing resoluteness. I’ve been filling my notebook with impressions & character studies.* Now I am mobile I make a daily journey round the 28 bed ward stopping & gossiping – this is much appreciated by the bedridden women (most of them are) who regard me as a sort of ward newspaper & I learn a great deal. They are all dying to talk about themselves & their medical involvements. The nurses are very young, fresh & sweet as can be, the Sister (head-nurse) lenient, wise & humorous & all the other women & girls wonderfully full of kindness & cheer. The ward is modern, freshly-painted pink-peach, with pink & green flowered curtains round the beds, good reading lights & overlooks, on my side a pleasant park with antique gravestones – so aesthetically I feel happy – your ward at Newton-Wellesley was the grimmest I’ve ever seen! And my stay at Cambridge hospital little better.* The food is pretty flat & dull, but each day Ted brings me a jar of fresh orange juice, a pint of creamy milk & a steak sandwich or salad so I’m coming along fine. I feel better than I have since the baby was born & immensely relieved to get rid of this troublesome appendix which has probably been poisoning me for some time.

  The ward doctor said I’m fine inside – perfectly healthy in every way, so that’s a relief. I’ve been on a strong diet of iron & vitamin pills & haven’t had a cold since that ghastly Christmas interval. Saturday & Sunday visiting hours are from 2-3:30 instead of at night, so I persuaded the Sister to let me meet Ted & Frieda out in the park both days. It was utter heaven – I hadn’t seen the baby for 5 days & missed her a lot, so I hugged her & fed her her bottle of juice. Luckily both days were balmy & sunny as summer, all the crocusses & daffodils out. I felt immensely lucky & happy to be sunning on the 4th & 5th days after my op, feeling fine except for itching stitches. Ted has been an angel. I sense he is eager for me to come home & little remarks like ‘I seem to be eating a lot of bread’ & ‘Doesn’t the Pooker make a lot of dirty pots’ tell me he is wearying of the domestic routine. Poor dear, I’d like to know how many men would take over as willingly & lovingly as he has! Plus bringing me little treats every night.

  Fortunately there seem to be only two ‘serious’ cases now – although one youngish woman did die while I was too drugged to notice much of it – a brain operation who still is in a coma after half a week with tubes in her nose & a skull-sock on her head & an old lady run over by a car with both legs broken who keeps shouting ‘Police, policeman, get me out of here’ & calling the nurses ‘devils who are trying to murder her’ & knocking the medicine out of their hands. Her moans ‘O how I suffer’ are very theatrical & as she is shrewd all day, picking up the least whisper, & as they give drugs for pain, I think most of this is an act for attention. I find all of us are more entertained than annoyed by this as our days are otherwise routine & she adds a good bit of color with her curses & swears & the sudden crashes as she flings glasses of medicine about.

  Anyhow, I shall be glad as anything to get out – the Sister just came back & said she never took stitches out till the 7th or 8th day so I’ll have to wait some more & am getting very impatient. I hope, if all goes well, to be home by Friday, March 10th.

  Lots of love,

  Sivvy

  (your appendix-less daughter)

  TO Edith Hughes

  Monday 6 March 1961

  ALS, Family owned

  Ward 1

  St. Pancras Hospital

  4 St. Pancras Way

  NW1

  Monday, March 6

  Dear Edith,

  Well, this is the 6th day after my operation & I am feeling much better than I have for the last 3 months. Your beautiful spring bouquet came last week and your nice newsy letter which cheered me up immensely. As Ted probably told you, I had to go into hospital a week ago Sunday two days before my operation & was so nervous waiting I hardly ate a thing. The nurse’s here are wonderful – very kind & efficient – and I am in a big ward of about 28 women divided in two parts by a partition. It has just been painted, with little green & pink flowered curtains up round each bed & is light & airy, so very cheerful – not old & grim like the ward I was in at Cambridge when they thought I had appendicitis before. I was drugged all Tuesday so felt no pain & Wednesday & Thursday felt a bit sore & pale – they starve you for 40 hours or so before & after appendicitis so your intestines will be empty – but after that perked right up. Ted saw me every night & I looked forward to his visit all day. Now I am waiting for my stitches to come out, which I hope will happen in the next few days as I want to get home. The other women & girls here are wonderful – full of good spirit & fun – there are only two really sick ones. One had a brain operation & is unconscious all the time with tubes up her nose & looks quite gruesome & the other is an old lady who was run over & both her legs broken. She yells a lot – it sounds like playacting but may not be – calls “Police, help, police, get me out of here!” & calls the nurses devils who are trying to murder her & knocks all the medicines out of their hands & won’t take them. I must say it is entertaining as little else happens, though I hope she isn’t really in pain – they’re so good about giving drugs I don’t think she is.

  It has been like spring here the last days & Saturday & Sunday afternoon during visiting hours I got permission to sit out in the sun with Ted & little Frieda – he pushed her down in the baby carriage – & we sat in the pretty park in back of the hospital. I hadn’t seen Frieda for five days & missed her so much I couldn’t stop hugging her. Ted is so sweet & thoughtful & brings me milk & orange juice each day which we dont get here.

  Love to all,

  Sylvia

  PS. Hope Vicky is recovered now.

  TO Dido & W. S. Merwin

  Tuesday 7 March 1961

  ALS, Pierpont Morgan Library

  Tuesday, March 7th

  Dearest Bill & Dido,

  I have your good fat blue air letter to hand here, my writing board propped on my stitches (which are still In) & so much to tell you of – bits & pieces – I hope the paper holds out. You are both Angels & your benevolent influence (in the classic astrological sense) floats around you, behind you & over even the great green Atlantic. I’ll get my ‘op’ story over first. I took the bus to Camden High Street in the rain Sunday night – hours late for my appointed arrival as I spent the day baking breads, pastries & all sorts to last Ted the week & also just plain didn’t want to go. I took out the map the St. Pancras Hospital (Branch of UCH* in NW1) sent me, hefted my cases & started in the wet Sunday blankness of C-Town in what seemed to me the right direction. Half an hour later I was ingeniously lost in the backstreets – the only people in sight rushed toward me with what I thought odd haste. They asked piteously where they were. By this time I wanted a policeman, an ambulance, any damn thing. My 2-weeks hospital-reading felt like a bricklayers kit. Finally, in some obscure dank quarter, I found a ‘sweet old lady’ & asked her ‘Where is St. Pancras Hospital’. She took one look at me, called her husband who was pottering under his car & they insisted on driving me there. I sat in the back among oil cans & promptly started baw
ling. The old lady obviously hoped I was an unwed mother, but was consoled when I told her I was to be cut open. I had managed to get several miles away from the hospital & it was a long drive. My sister coolly informed me I would not be operated on till ‘some time Tuesday – probably late afternoon’. When my jaw dropped & hung she asked wonderingly what I’d expected. I did, by dint of much self-expression, manage to be done Tuesday morning & sat like a deep-frozen rabbit all Monday while they extracted blood, nostril-germs & samples of everything I had to give . . . never saw the doctor whose name hung over my bed & two housemen – one a ‘Registrar’ – which sounded ominously like a highup office boy ‘did me’. I’m done up with Black Silk. The funny thing is, I’m having more fun here than I have in months. You were absolutely right about the anesthesia, Dido – just my thing. I went out Plonk. A handsome lady anesthetist came in & told me just what she’d do ahead of time – and after it they gave me heavenly pain-killing injections which caused me to ‘float’ over my inert body feeling immensely powerful & invulnerable. Let me tell you though that Monday night, the worst because of waiting, the blessèd New Yorker form came through. O Bill you don’t know how it sustained me & you are an angel to have nudged the Mossy stone into action. As I blacked out I thought of it with great joy & it was signed soon after, under the influence of morphia, but genuinely. I am in a sunny airy modern ward of about 28 beds – yes, there’s a diabetic with a leg off – a superb antique Jewess from Hackney – but no one complains, whines or acts ill. I thought it was a ladies tea party when I first came in. I know more about England from this visit than I’ve learned in 5 years – there’s the lot here & I am one of the few walking patients & so have become ward newspaper & the repository of superb anecdotes & life-stories.