The Letters of Sylvia Plath Vol 2
Page 97
TLS (aerogramme), Smith College
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
October 9, 1962
Dear Dr. Beuscher,
I am a bore, but things are resolving. I see and see and see. Ted is home this week, packing for good. He would have left me with all the lies, but bit by bit, the truth has come out. Or what he thinks is the truth. He has been building up a secret life in London all summer---flat, separate bank account, this woman, another woman. He’s lied to the end. He is mad for this woman, afraid to tell me so I won’t go through with the divorce (I think). I guess her 2nd husband will either divorce her or commit suicide. I found he went after Ted with a knife at Waterloo Station & tried to commit suicide after.* Ted says he has been a hypocrite for at least the last 3 years of our marriage, I have been eating not real bread, but a delusion of love. He has nothing but shattering things to say of me, seems to want to kill me, as he kills all he does not want. He has “agreed” to pay £1,000 maintenance for the house-running & children a year. This is scrape pay, and I tried to show him, by accounts, there was nothing for me in it. Now he is utterly loveless for me & us, and triumphant in going, this week, to this woman, to take her off, I guess, to marry her, to tour Europe, he is turning into a terror, a miser, a Yorkshire Jew, as he says. I’m not to have sherry, to have roast beef, I’m to smoke the last quarter inch of my cigarette---“they’re expensive”. £1,000, he taunts me, seems too much. I have accounts to show it is heat, food, light, children’s clothes & repair bills. I am an unpaid nanny. But from his new mind he is leaving me the house, the car, why more? And of course the law here would be merciless, I would get nothing, 1/3 of his income when & if he chose to pay it, less if he left the house, which is in both our names. The minute he wants to show his power---and I feel this terrible hate, the desire to torture me of my last sense, as if to revenge himself for 6 years kindness & faithfulness (“sentimentality” he says) & for my having children, now a burden---he starts on the money, pretending he mightn’t want to earn much. He can sell a poem manuscript at $100 a throw, has radio plays in Germany, children’s books, he is on the brink of great wealth & this year alone earned £1,500 by hardly lifting a finger. He told me I could tell the children they were to “live like the people”. Ergo, the meanest of the mean English working class. Which he comes from. It is this working class Yorkshire mind he is trying to kill us from. How can I ever get free? My writing is my one hope, and that income is so small. And with these colossal worries & responsibilities & no-one, no friend or relative, to advise or help as things come up, I have got to have a working ethic. I can’t face suing for lack of support now, I have nothing to go on with, no reserves of cash. The humiliation of being dependent for my children’s support on a man I hate & despise is a torture. I want nothing for myself, but he switches on & off like an electrode. I face the worst (for me): he will live with this woman, marry her, they will have a wonderful life---wealthy, no children, travel, people, affairs, & every time they are bored, screw us by forgetting the money. Bloody hell. In three months I’ve got the full picture – the near worst. I long for the divorce, for my independence, like clear water. I have two months to go on here, then Ireland for Dec-Feb, which I hope will blow me clear. I am, in my good minutes, excited about my new life. I want to fight back to a London flat by next fall, keep this place for summers. Perhaps when his first kicking, killing passion is past, & he is free, & with this woman, Ted may be not such a bastard. Our marriage had to go, okay. But she makes the going foul. I am dying for new people, new places, a bloody holiday. In a year I hope to have enough guts to face them, they deliriously happy, wealthy, popular at whatever party or place I meet them at, in myself, my dignity, which is there, though Ted laughs, scoffs, kills. She is all that is desirable, ergo I am a hag, a fool. I want no more of him. I have to be nice, can’t afford the luxury of a fury even. Be good little doggy & you shall have a penny. It is the last degradation. Right now I hate men. I am stunned, bitter. I want to go back to London, read, see plays, exhibits, build back the mind this country has dulled, & the babes. Sex is easily dispensed with, I see. My dream is to fight for my writing so I can get into New Yorker stories, something, big money. Then keep him paying for the kids forever, sue if I have to, but not have to grovel for the kids as I would if I had no resource to go on with while having a court case. I have to stay here in England, to keep a grip, & to not run---Ted is everywhere in the literary world, like T. S. Eliot. He has junked me at the foulest time in the foulest way, living a lie & letting me live a happy one, till he got guts, i.e. passion, to break hotel sinks, burn curtains & go off without paying (as he did their first night) & say “ta, ta, tough about the kids, but you did want them, didn’t you.” I have the consolation of being no doubt the only woman who will know the early years of a charming genius. On my skin. Like a Belsen label. Do write.
Love,
Sylvia
TO Howard Moss
Wednesday 10 October 1962
TLS (draft), Smith College
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
October 10, 1962
Mr. Howard Moss
THE NEW YORKER
25 West 43rd Street
New York, New York
U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Moss,
I am delighted to hear that you are taking ELM for THE NEW YORKER. I am happier to have you take this than about any of the other poems you have taken---I thought it might be a bit too wild and bloody, but I’m glad it’s not.
I think “Soliloquy of the Elm” would be my alternate to “The Elm Speaks”, but I think I like your title better. Yes, I think I do.
I am sending the latest batch.* I’m sorry about the length of “Bees”, but it would go on, and I’ll send it just for the record.
Sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Howard Moss
Wednesday 10 October 1962
TLS (aerogramme), New York Public Library
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
October 10, 1962
Mr. Howard Moss
THE NEW YORKER
25 West 43rd Street
New York, New York
U.S.A.
Dear Mr. Moss,
I am delighted to hear* that you are taking ELM for The New Yorker. I’m happier about your taking this than about any of the other poems of mine you’ve taken---I was afraid it might be a bit too wild and bloody, but I’m glad it’s not.
I think SOLILOQUY OF THE ELM would be my alternate to THE ELM SPEAKS, but I think I like your title better. Yes, I think I do.
I am sending the latest batch. I’m sorry about the length of BEES, but it would go on, and I’ll send it just for the record.
I wonder if I could ask you a practical favor. Could you send the stuff back airmail? I’m sticking on as many stamps as I can, but I never know the return air rates, and as I’m a bit hard up I want to get these round as fast as possible. I’d be happy to have you dock my check for it.
With warmest good wishes,
Sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 12 October 1962
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
Friday, October 12
Dear mother,
Your fat nice letter received with many thanks. Do tear my last one up. It was written at what was probably my all-time low and I have an incredible change of spirit, I am joyous---happier than I have been for ages. Ted left yesterday, after a ghastly week, with all his stuff, clothes, books, papers. Instead of returning home to blueness & gloom, as I expected, I found myself singing, washing Frieda’s hair, rubbishing out junk, delighted. At last everything was definite, no more waiting, worrying, trying to decipher lies. It is over
. My life can begin. Ted did see some money was in the bank & in his present state of mind is willing to pledge £1,000 for our support a year. He is going off, I gather, to live with this woman. When our divorce is final I am quite sure he will marry her, and have the distinction of being her 4th (!) husband. I don’t envy either of them. He has behaved like a bastard, a boor, a crook, & what has hurt most is his cowardice---evidently for years he has wanted to leave us & deceived us about his feelings, although this is the first (and last) time he has hurt us in any way. If only he had told the truth at the start, six months ago, for this summer, the flu, my weight loss, have really set me back. But I am full of fantastic energy, now it is released from the problem of him. I have a great appetite---when I came home from driving him to the station I ate a great plate of potatoes & lamb chops, my first good meal in months.
Got a darling letter from Warren today. It means more than I can say. Part of my hardship is being stuck down here in limbo with no real old friends or relatives. Saw Winifred today, & she says she’ll write you* how fine I am now he’s gone. This week is a bit of a drag. I have ordered a nice new nanny from this agency in London, & they say she’ll arrive next week sometime. I hope. So glad you & Warren are behind me in the nanny line. If I didn’t write I’d go mad with boredom. I never wanted to live in the country full-time & don’t intend to. I’ll keep this place as a summer house & try to rent in winter & get in a London flat by next fall. I am dying for London---the plays, art shows, people with brains, & the free lance jobs. Frieda & Nich can go to good London schools & have a heavenly country house & all the beaches for summer. I must have a nanny full-time. Now the cottage is out, I am having the long room made over, new floors & will furnish as a bed-sitter with TV. Guests can stay in the pink room & up in Ted’s attic. I hope to keep this (very expensive) nanny until Ted’s aunt Hilda comes, as she hopes to, at the end of November, to accompany me to Ireland. I like Hilda, she is spry, & was left to bring up Vicky alone, & is on my side. I must keep them on my side (never say I’m happy---as soon as they think I want the divorce, not Ted, their Yorkshire-Jew quality will say not to pay me a penny as I have the house. I’ve to be very careful. Ted does want the divorce, thank goodness, so shouldn’t be difficult). Ireland in my darling cottage from Dec. 1–Feb. 28. I should recover on the milk from TTtested cows (hope to learn to milk them myself), homechurned butter & homemade bread. And sea!
Every morning, when my sleeping pill wears off I am up about 5, in my study with coffee, writing like mad---have managed a poem a day before breakfast!* All book poems. Terrific stuff, as if domesticity had choked me. As soon as the nanny comes & I know I’ve got a stretch of guaranteed time, I’ll finish the novel. I have 40 children’s picture books at my side to review, for the leftish weekly I’ve done them for before.---“Horton Hatches the Egg” among them! So send no children’s books. I’ve mountains. Nick has two teeth, stands, sits, is an angel. Ted cut F’s hair short & it looks marvellous, no mess, no straggle. She has 2 kittens from Mrs. Macnamara, Tiger-Pieker and Skunky-Bunks, the first a tiger, the second black & white. She adores them, croons “Rock a bye baby, when the bough breaks” at them. They’re very good for her now.
Did you see my poem “Blackberries” in the Sept. 15 New Yorker? Wrote that when Warren was here last year. Mrs. Prouty, bless her, came through with $300, so I am all right for nannies for a bit. Hope, when free, to write myself out of this hole. Do have Warren & Maggie let me know as soon as they know when they’re coming next spring. I would give the world if they’d take (I mean go with) me to Austria & Germany. I should have earned enough by then to deserve a holiday & leave the kids with their then (I hope) full-time nanny. I need a bloody holiday. Ireland is heaven, utterly unspoiled, emerald sea washing in fingers among green fields, white sand, wild coast, cows, friendly people, honey-tasting whisky, peat (turf) fires that smell like spiced bread---thank God I found it. Just in time. I go riding tomorrow, love it. Shall send F & N to church in London, not here! I miss brains, hate this cow life, am dying to surround myself with intelligent good people. Shall have a salon in London. I am a famous poetess here---mentioned this week in The Listener* as one of the half-dozen women who will last – including Marianne Moore & the Brontes!
xxx
Sivvy
PS: Forget about the court case – I’ll manage that fine alone. Every experience is grist for a novelist.
My solicitor is Mr. Charles Mazillius
Harris, Chetham & Co. Solicitors
23 Bentinck Street, London W.1
My bank: The National Provincial
The Square, North Tawton, Devon.
Am having a phone put in again, not listed, so I can call out & have friends call in.* Look forward to it.
TO Howard Moss
Friday 12 October 1962
TLS, New York Public Library
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire, England
October 12, 1962
Dear Mr. Moss,
I’d be grateful if you’d consider this* with the last lot I sent and send it back with them.
Yours sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Warren & Margaret Plath
Friday 12 October 1962
TLS (aerogramme, photocopy), Indiana University
Court Green
North Tawton
Devonshire England
Friday: October 12
Dearest Warren & Maggie,
Your lovely letter arrived today & cheered me immensely. How often I have thought of you both! I have been through the most incredible hell for six months, influenza, the lot, and amazingly enough, now that Ted has finally packed his bags & left for good (yesterday), I feel wonderful. As I told mother in the letter I am writing today, I am so relieved to have broken through all the endless lies and to have something definite, that the release in my energy is enormous. Ted is, I see, just reverting to type. The good, kind, domestic person he has been these six years was a terrible strain on him & I believe he has made this experience so awful & hurtful as a kind of revenge on me for having “reformed” him. I never thought I would ever in my life consider a divorce, but am now looking forward to it. I want in no way, not even legally, to be associated with the life Ted will now live. The one thing I retain is love for & admiration of his writing, I know he is a genius, and for a genius there are no bonds & no bounds. I feel I did discover him, worked to free him for writing for six years, & now suddenly on the brink of enormous riches (his manuscripts of one poem now fetch at least $100!) it is hurtful to be ditched and left to live on crumbs while he squires models & fashion plates etc. etc. But thank God I have my own work. If I did not have that I do not know what I would do. I have a considerable reputation over here, and am writing from dawn to when the babes wake, a poem a day, and they are terrific. Have just sold another fat one to the New Yorker. Did you see “Blackberrying” in the Sept. 15th NY, Warren? I wrote that about the time we went when you were here.
So glad you are behind me on the nanny, Warren. I am & have been an intelligent woman, & this year of country life has been, for me, a cultural death. No plays, films, art shows, books, people! All for Ted’s “dream”, & now I am stuck. But not for long. I plan to go to Ireland to a lovely cottage by the sea for Dec-Feb to recover my health & my heart, then return here for spring & summer, see you & Maggie I hope & pray, my good friends the Alan Sillitoes, now alas in Tangier for a year, & Marty & Mike Plumer if they come. The loneliness here now is appalling. Then I shall fight for a London flat by next fall. Frieda & Nick can go to the good free London schools & have a lovely summer place here. I shall try to rent this in winter. I shall be able to do free-lance broadcasting, reviewing, & have a circle of intellectual friends in London. I loved living there & never wanted to leave. You can imagine how ironic it is to me that Ted is now living there, after he said it was “death” to h
im, & enjoying all the social & cultural life he has deprived me of. I am making the long room over & hope to be able to support a full-time nanny on my writing. I will try to finish my novel & a second book of poems by Christmas. I think I’ll be a pretty good novelist, very funny---my stuff makes me laugh & laugh, & if I can laugh now it must be hellishly funny stuff.
I wish you would both consider going on a holiday to Germany & Austria when you come. You should know some lovely places in the Tyrol & I would love to go with you! I just dread ever going on a holiday alone. I could leave the babies with the nanny for a couple of weeks, & you could begin & end your stay here. I would be very cheerful & entertaining by then, I promise you. Just now I am a bit of a wreck, bones literally sticking out all over & great black shadows under my eyes from sleeping pills, a smoker’s hack (I actually took up smoking the past month out of desperation---my solicitor started it by offering me a cigarette & I practically burned off all my eyebrows, I was so upset & forgot it was lit! But now I’ve stopped.) I do hope Dotty isn’t going to snub me because of the divorce, although I know Catholics think it’s a sin. Her support has been marvelous for me. I hope you can tactfully convey to mother, Warren, that we should not meet for at least a year or a year & a half, when I am happy in my new London life. After this summer, I just could not bear to see her, it would be too painful & recall too much. So you & dear Maggie, whom I already love, come instead. Tell me you’ll consider taking (I mean escorting! I’ll have money!) me to Austria with you, even if you don’t, so I’ll have that to look forward to. I’ve had nothing to look forward to for so long! The half year ahead seems like a lifetime, & the half behind an endless hell. Your letters are like glühwein to me. I must really learn German. I want above all to speak it. Do write me again. So proud of your Chicago speech, Warren! I want both you & Maggie henceforth to consider yourselves godparents to both Frieda & Nick. Lord knows, they need as many as they can have, & the best!
Lots of love to you both,