The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2

by Sylvia Plath

  My diary is brimming with notes – we’ve got an old crone who hits doctors with her purse & calls for the police out her window – she broke 2 legs in a car accident & hurls her medicine jars about & seems to have colorful DTs – very theatrical. A doll from RADA* with suspected appendicitis who lives in Welling Garden City* – one of those synthetic Suburbias & after pressing confessed she was born in Yorkshire. Several magnificent Camden-Town originals with bunions – one Daisy, opposite me, a born marvel ‘I got to break wind dont I’. A suicidal Scorpio secretary who didn’t have enough bobs for the gas meter – she’s my pet. A real Country lady with paddocks in South Devon in plaster up to her neck who reads ‘Horse & Hound’ & is visited by hideous chinless nieces – just like your superb poem* about people with fancy family ancestors, Bill. Ted comes rushing in each day during visiting hours – loaded with creamy milk, fresh squeezed orange juice, V-8 & steak sandwiches – dying to hear the latest tales. I’m having my first real rest for a year & piling up a huge book of anecdotes, quotes & notes. My side hurt like hell but I am so goddam cheerful that when I say ‘God, the codeine!’ In a noble whisper, I get it without a murmur. I eat all the food & ask for the scrapings of the pot (they’re very niggardly) which has permanently alienated the Country lady. The night your letter arrived, Dido, I had just refused a monstrous Rice Pudding. The sister thought I was suffering a relapse. Ted is incredible . . . he works & manages Frieda & brings me stuff. My 4th & 5th day I wangled a full afternoon in the dear green antique Park in back of the hospital full of Jane Grundy & William Godwin* & other relicts with Ted & Frieda – he pushed her down in the pram as babies aren’t allowed in ward. She beamed & punced my nose. I think my stitches may come out today – if so, I’m home Thursday. My mother writes her dates for flight are set: June 18 to Aug 4 – so you name 10 days in July. I dream of you both & your farm like some plummy Eden we all deserve very much. Bill – get well! Dido’ll see to it.

  LOVE – SYLVIA

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Friday 17 March 1961

  TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University

  Friday: March 17

  Dear mother,

  A thousand apologies for this great gap between my letters. I have been so heartened by yours, & say with great pleasure “in three months from tomorrow” you will arrive over & over. I have been in a kind of grisly coma these last 10 days & fit for little but vegetating. As you know, I had my appendix out on Tuesday the 28th, then my stitches came out Tuesday the 7th (the worst bit of all---I hated the niggling twinges of each of the 9, plus the pulling off of a large plaster bandage much more than the actual operation experience) & I was let go home Wednesday the 8th, with strict orders not to do any lifting or heavy work for 2 weeks but to behave “like a lady” or I’d feel as if run over by a small bus etc. etc. Well, ironically, I enjoyed my hospital experience immensely, especially my springlike afternoons in the hospital park & garden every day from my 4th post-op day on as the weather was mild & sunny. The most difficult part has been this home convalescing. Poor Ted insists he likes doing all the baby-lifting & laundry-bring & so on, but he’s been at it over a month now since my miscarriage & I do think it bothers me more than him. I’m a model convalescent if I’m waited on by anonymous people whose job it is, but very bad at sitting loosehanded about our own small rooms. I also found it awfully depressing to rise on a sunny day & think: now I’ll bake some tea-bread, wash my hair, write some letters, & then feel unlike lifting a finger. And poor Frieda decided to teethe some more the minute I got back, so we’ve been sleeping in fits & starts. I must say that the last 6 months I have felt slapped down each time I lifted my head up & don’t know what I’d have done if Ted hadn’t been more than saintly & the baby adorable & charming. I write you about this now it’s over & not in the midst of it. Luckily, for all my misfortunes, I have a surprising resilience & today, 2½ weeks after my op feel very close to a self I haven’t been for sometime & full of hope. The weather is amazing: real June days. I’ve been up on the Hill each day with Frieda out on the grass on a blanket lying in the clear sun & tomorrow start going over to the Merwins study in the morning again. I hope to be able to use these 3 months, until you come writing. Well, I have sat round “like a lady” & this Tuesday go back for a checkup. After my appointment at the main hospital with the surgeon whose name was over my bed, I saw no more of him & was “done” by his deputies in the annexe hospital who checked up on me. I didn’t care: I was admirably treated & the nurses & other patients were sweethearts & my 3-inch herringbone very neat.

  One thing this experience has pressed on me is our very definite need for a house by 1962. Then Ted could work off in a study while I had temporary help do house-drudging during baby-confinements & any illness that comes up & not feel guilty at using Ted’s noble kindness. A house & a car. We have everything else & that’s all we need to make the fullest life possible for both of us. We are seriously thinking of getting a car before we go on the Maugham thing in September---a station-wagon---so we would travel easily with Frieda with none of the ghastly trouble of luggage train schedules & meals out---take it to Europe with us, you see. Then we could ferret out little fishing villages & so on & do a bit of looking around. If Ted had free scope for his writing, he’d earn much more than we could here at any job.

  Actually, the most wonderful thing you could do for us would be to live here with Frieda for 2 weeks while we had our first real vacation in France with the Merwins (who don’t allow children!) We have also a chance at staying with a philanthropist friend of theirs in South Spain afterwards & if you & Frieda got on well & it wasn’t a strain on you, we’d love to go there for a week. This would enable me to have a 2½ week worriless lie in the sun which I need above all. We have all the conveniences here: a 3-day a week diaper service to the door, shops literally around the corner---a fine butcher etc., the park across the street & cheap baby sitters I’ll introduce you to so you can shop downtown & go to what plays you like. I thought we’d plan to go off 10 days to 2 weeks after you came to give us time together & you to get used to your lovely grandchild. She’s getting amazingly pretty. Our doctor is also around the corner.

  I so appreciated your $10: Ted got me, on my orders, a stack of DH Lawrence---novels & stories & travelbooks, which I’ve been reading: the only diet I felt like. I’ll use the remains to buy a fine art-book when I take my 1st trip downtown. I was most touched by your taking up knitting, having wistfully said often that neither of F’s grandmothers knit. I’d rather have handknit sweaters than anything & welcome the Wedgewood blue one. I’ll take her measurements when she wakes up. I’d love to have it to keep admiringly till she grows to fit it. Dot sent me a sweet letter & recipe for which thank her & explain my slowness in answering. Her letters mean a great deal to me. Is there still a possibility of Warren coming over this fall???

  XXX to you both,

  Sivvy

  FRIEDA:

  Underarm-waist: 5 inches

  Underarm-wrist: 7 inches

  Shoulder: wrist: 8 inches

  The best I could do as she was very wiggly*

  Ted’s Times poems will be out Sunday March 26th – a week later than we thought.

  PS: I loved your get-well cards!

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Monday 27 March 1961

  TLS with envelope, Indiana University

  3 Chalcot Square

  London N.W.1

  Monday: March 27

  Dearest mother,

  It is a chill blue March day: our summer warmth has left us for a while, and I enjoy the long light we have since the time changed this week---it’s so gloomy to have it dark at teatime! We are coming along very well. I am resting and resting---whenever I feel overtired I take the next day off, so to speak, & sit about reading & relaxing, even though I do often feel very lazy!

  Ted’s children’s poems came out in the Time’s yesterday (3 of them) & I’m enclosing a clipping.* We are delighted at the advance publici
ty for his book which should be out within a month. He also had a letter from Lord David Cecil* saying he’d been awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Lupercal for 1960---it’s a very prestigeful fiction and/or poetry award here---gold medal and, I think, 100 pounds---Dom Moraes* the young Indian poet got it some years ago, & the young writer Alan Sillitoe* whose first novel was made into a movie. The presentation is around the end of May, so it should get into the papers about then & is a very good way to keep up his book sales. We figured he’s earned about $1,500 from the BBC alone this year, which we hope to keep up---he’s had the outline of another hour-drama accepted and they seem eager to take anything he does.

  You gorgeous sweater arrived! It is the most divine shade of blue---not that “baby-blue”, but the exact color of her eyes. I’m sure she’ll be into it in a year or so. I am more pleased about your knitting for her than anything. In England “a sweater a day keeps the doctor away”---she’s always wearing sweaters. She has a 5th bottom right tooth out & more showing. She is a little girl suddenly and amazingly wild & pretty-looking. She stands up barely leaning back on her pen with no hands, flies round the outer rail hand over hand. I dreamed she started toddling last night, but I just let her do what she wants when she feels like it. The thing that fascinates her most is paper: she doesn’t tear books, but when I give her a New Yorker after I’ve read it, she sits down in such a comical way with it on her lap, opens it, holds it up as if reading & crows with surprise & delight over each new page, pointing to the faces or emblems & hitting them. She imitates our faces now, claps her hands & is really enjoying her bear and raggedy Ann as other beings to pummel and talk to. We are very happy, looking forward to getting a small station wagon hopefully before you come. Then we can really take advantage of our life: going on country & Cornwall trips when other people have to work, avoiding traffic & holidayers & being portable with babies. We want to take the wagon when we go to Europe on the Maugham which we are seriously thinking of postponing until next spring---the latest time possible. Ted brought me a little bouquet of yellow primroses yesterday with a handsome edition of the Oxford Book of Wild Flowers*---the remains of that kind $10 you sent. He is the sweetest most thoughtful person in the world. I have had a rather glum winter & he has tirelessly stood by & cheered me up in every conceivable way.

  A sweet note & yellow pajama set came from Do Cruikshank & some picture books from Aunt Marion. I’ll write them within the week. Could you tell me: the names of the Cruickshank children, the names of the Aldrich children (from Duane down), & the names of Ruthie Freeman’s children in order from the oldest to youngest?

  I’m enclosing two checks for deposit in our account. I think there’s also April interest isn’t there? Did you get the 2nd $100 check I sent you---both the New Yorker $100 and the Atlantic Monthly $100?

  I’m delighted to hear Warren is so well. Oh I hope he can come over this fall! I hope this Easter brings a real rest for you. For heaven’s sake don’t knock yourself out & come over exhausted! I’m sure the plane flight will be restful & brief compared to the ship. You must let us know where in London to meet you. I’ll start looking around for a bed & breakfast place.

  Well, I’ll say goodbye for now. I had my checkup at the hospital last week & I am pronounced fine. They said my appendix showed “adhesions” which meant it was inflamed inside. It’s wonderful to be rid of it, to know there’s only one appendix & I’m quit of it & the worry about it for the rest of my life.

  Keep well & rested!

  Lots of love,

  Sivvy

  TO Marion Freeman

  Tuesday 28 March 1961

  TLS (aerogramme), Smith College

  3 Chalcot Square

  London N.W.1, England

  March 28, 1961

  Dear Aunt Marion,

  I have been writing you a letter in my mind for months, but what with my rather hectic life lately I’ve had to put off most of the things I wanted to do, and am just now getting round to saying how lovely the “Pat the Bunny” book* and New England calendar were at Christmas, and what fun the picture books that came this week! I’m sending mother some color photos of Frieda for her birthday (don’t tell her!) and you’ll see one there of Frieda pointing to her face in the mirror of the Bunny book which she loves. She takes after us---she’s mad for books, and turns the pages & laughs at the pictures in an adorable grownup little way. She is such fun now---she seems to have turned into a little girl overnight & looks so cute in her little dresses.

  I am feeling immensely better after having had my appendix out a few weeks ago, about a month to be exact. I looked forward to a grim time after a glimpse of a British hospital ward the last time I was here, but the hospital I was in had a new surgical wing painted pink with flowered bed curtains & cheerful washrooms & absolutely darling young nurses, and overlooked a green park where I was allowed to sit out with Frieda and Ted every afternoon from my 4th post-op day on. In addition, the 28 bed ward was full of interesting people, young and old, so I had quite a sociable time as I was one of the few people who could walk around, and I felt actually sorry to go home.

  Ted’s children’s book had a few poems printed in the London Sunday Times this week as a preview & will be coming out this month---funny jingles about odd relatives called “Meet My Folks!” Ruthy will be getting a copy for her brood about then. How I’m looking forward to seeing mummy this summer. I’m already counting the days!

  Much love to all,

  Sivvy

  TO Philip & Margaret Booth

  Wednesday 29 March 1961

  TLS (aerogramme),* Dartmouth College

  3 Chalcot Square

  London N.W.1, England

  March 29, 1961

  Dear Philip & Margaret,

  Hearty apologies for the great silences over here. We have all sorts of excuses, mainly a manic-depressive winter full of flu, miasmas, near bankruptcy, nights full of teething yowls from our changeling, topped off by my grateful departure from my very nasty tempered appendix several weeks ago. Why is it when things go bad, they always get worse? Ted has admirable explanations for all the megrims by way of planetary influences and starry malevolences. At any rate, we’ve had an early English spring & a resurge of health, hope & pound-notes, so are feeling much better. And I am again back to my American plateau of fearsome health (knock on wood, please.)

  As a kindred insomniac, Philip, I very much liked your poem.* Ted is only one-third editor of this book into which a few Americans sometimes sneak, so he’s sent the poems off on the rounds to the others & they will fight together about what’s what later this spring. I’ve appreciated immensely your helpfulness about my book & did have a letter from the North Carolina press (a very nice one) about simultaneously with a drunken note* from my charming young British publisher in New York saying that somebody there might well want the book if I changed one or two slight things. So I’m crossing my fingers that when he comes back to London to roost, he’ll have a definite contract. If so, I’ll let you know when & where it’ll come out & you can do me the kind favor of writing an enormously long review interspersed with exhortations to run out & buy the book immediately written between the lines in invisible onion juice. I am particularly sorry the Boston publishers (you know who) won’t take it, as every damn poem in it’s been published in some fine magazine by some fine upstanding responsible American editor. I am obviously not fashionable.

  We hear great burbles of success from Boston---Adrienne with a 3rd book* & Amy Lowell Grant* on top of the Guggenheim* (I hope she’ll manage to see us over here), Maxine Kumin with a baker’s dozen of children’s books,* Starb. & Sext. best-sellers. O heaven. I understand Cal’s interned again (via Dido Merwin’s news). If my book does get published by a reputable place in America, Philip, I wonder if you would be so good as to be a reference for me for a Guggenheim? I don’t suppose I have much chance for one in England, but they do odd things & I’d give anything for Nanny-money so I could get a half-a-day’s solid peace to w
ork each day. And you, as a previous winner,* I could touch for luck.

  I’ll leave an inch or two for Ted.

  Love to you 5,

  Sylvia

  TO Dorothy Schober Benotti

  Wednesday 29 March 1961

  TLS (aerogramme), Smith College

  3 Chalcot Square

  London N.W.1, England

  March 29, 1961

  Dear Dotty,

  It’s been wonderful having your good letters, and I’m just getting round to answering as I have been very lazy (doctor’s orders!) this last month & put everything off. It’s just a month now since I had my appendix out, & I’m feeling better than I have since before Frieda was born---all my old energy coming back. Hospital (on the National Health Service---for free) was actually fun. I was in a 28-bed ward, partitioned in half, in a newly painted wing, pink walls, flowered bed curtains & modern bathrooms, with sweet young nurses. I had the best of care & since I was one of the few cases allowed up immediately I had great fun walking round visiting with everyone & heard several interesting life stories. Of course having Ted standing by meant everything. He got a local babysitter & didn’t miss one day of visiting hours: each time he came he brought a glass bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice, a pint of cream & a big steak sandwich. From my 4th post-op day on I was allowed to sit out in the green park behind the hospital in the afternoons (which were luckily like spring---balmy & sunny---the whole time) with Ted & Frieda: he’d wheel her several miles in her carriage to get there as babies aren’t allowed to visit in hospital and I would have been miserable if I hadn’t seen her at all. I had my 9 stitches out 8 days after my op (the worst part, I thought!) & was home on the 9th day. I found it depressing for a week or two having to let Ted do all the lifting of the baby & laundry & so on, because I kept wanting to take charge, but he wouldn’t let me do a thing & as a result I’m very fit now. All the women in the hospital thought it was amazing he would take care of a baby so willingly & well & so do I! It makes up a bit for not having any of my own relatives around to cheer me up. Ted dotes on Frieda & is wonderful with her.