The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1

by Sylvia Plath

  Now – something else. Do you know anyone in Peoria? Some old article came out about me, and I’m dying to know how they got hold of my name. You and Eddie (whom I haven’t heard from for ages – sob, sob) are the only guilty beings I can think of. It was the Jan 23 Peoria, Ill., Star!

  As for Brownie & me – I think both of us would have preferred you as a friend, rather than each other, but as you are gone, we can only make the best of a bad reality by putting up with each other. On my part, though, I do think she is a dear.

  Merci for your picture – it occupies a prominent place on my bulletin board.

  Speaking of Spring vacation, I loved your impulsive invitation to head Chicago-ward – but lack of funds prevents. Could you head east and me-wards? Or is that impossible for the same reason?

  Love you, Davy,

  yours,

  Sylvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Monday 5 March 1951*

  ALS (postcard), Indiana University

  Monday

  Dear Mum

  When I got your letter yesterday my first, perhaps rather expensive, reaction was to jump to the phone and call you to apologize. I really was stupid not to tell you, since I have begun to realize just how talkative the Norton’s are. The fact is, as I’ve said, I am worried about going before an exam, but since I’m going, I’ll bring a book with me & study whenever I have the chance, trying to be “bright & cheerful” (la-de-dah) when I’m with people. If I sound a bit depressed, it’s only because of mountanous weeks of exertion ahead of me. I really am thrilled to extinction to go to the Junior Prom. But really, as I said, I know he’s just doing it to be nice. One question – what do you do when someone comes up to you & says “Oh, you’re the one who’s writing the book?” or “You’re the one who got all A’s in History?” It’s too bad – because once one person knows, everybody does. The only quiet woman is a dead one.

  Love,

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Tuesday 6 March 1951*

  ALS (postcard), Indiana University

  Tuesday

  Dear Mum –

  Just a note before I dash off to basketball at 4. I’ll talk with Marty about the 21-24 & let you know as soon as possible. Thanks for working on the theater problem. As for eliminating everything except what must be done – all I could conceivably give up is eating & sleeping, & I propose to do neither. One nasty thing – I got a hideous B- on my first English paper which blasts hopes of bringing that mark up. He says I did a superficial job – and although he may be partly justified, I certainly am going to have a talk with him if I don’t get a good mark on the paper I’ll pass in tomorrow. Feel fine. Weather beautiful so don’t worry. Sorry to have missed your call – was at libe

  XX

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Tuesday 6 March 1951*

  ALS (postcard), Indiana University

  Tuesday night

  Dear Mum—

  It is now 10 P.M., and although the work I have to do in the next two days is Herculean, I’m going to bed now to be more rested. Guess what? A dear junior girl said she’d loan me her old mouton coat to wear if it was cold. It’s funny, but I hesitated just a bit before I said I’d wear it – Dick will be sure to ask where I picked up such a luxury – oh, well. I’ll say Aunt Tillie willed it to me on one condition -- that I attend the Yale 1951 Prom. It’s all settled about me. I will go to Marty’s Friday March 30 till Sunday or Monday since they’ve got tickets for “darkness at Noon.”* In order not to break up the vacation, she’ll come home with me some weekend in April. Maybe we could go in for the Ballet Russe* or something later on. See you in two long long weeks.

  Love,

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Friday 9 March 1951*

  ALS, Indiana University

  Friday 10 AM

  Dear Mum –

  After the fat yellow-stamped crowd of morale boosting letters you sent me all week, I thought that the least I could do would be to send you a note before I left. Of all things, it’s snowing now – big white flakes. A lot of it is melting, but I am pocketing those plastic overshoes in case it keeps up. I just called for a taxi to take me down to the train at 2:15. One of the maids pressed my evening dress for the fee of 50¢, and I will pack it in the box after lunch, with tissue paper in the folds to prevent wrinkling. It does look dreamy. I am cutting art studio today, and French tomorrow, but I hope it won’t be too fatal. At least spring vacation is only about 13 (unlucky, hm?) days away.

  I haven’t even begun to look at my history, but will get back about 2 P.M. Sunday, in time for an afternoon and evening of work, and I plan to cut four hours of classes on Monday morning. So that’s about 10 hours of studying, theoretically! I’ve just got to manage. Our French midsemester & Botany test are both on Friday, giving me a few days to recover, and my English paper* due Monday can be slaved on over the weekend.

  I feel a bit like cinderella: a borrowed old fur coat, a borrowed black leather handbag, a borrowed crinoline, plus borrowed silver sandals, (I found mine here, but they are a speck too narrow and cut into my foot. Rather than dance in agony, I’m taking one girl’s elastic-silver ones, which are comfortable as bedroom slippers.)

  One request! Would you mind burrowing in my desk or yellow chest for a folder of old english papers & send as quickly as possible a printed one on the “Cherry Orchard”* – If you can find it. Don’t worry about me catching cold. I’ve been in bed by eleven every night this week –

  Love,

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Saturday 10 March 1951

  ALS with envelope,

  Indiana University

  New Haven, Conn.*

  March 10, 1951

  Hello Mother –

  And don’t say you never get much mail! This cooperative letter-writing affair is quite fun, but I don’t know that I can add too much to Dick’s account. I am still a speck concerned about reason two, but plan to douse myself in the subject tomorrow and Monday.

  I managed packing neatly, and the dress accompanied me down on the train, reposing in its cardboard box without a wrinkle. I rode down with two girls from my house – both of whom I saw at the dance – in fact I saw five girls I knew from Smith at the dance, which gave me a rich sense of belonging.

  Art will require a bit of extra time next week. If only you could hear the utter unassuming tone of our assignments. “This week we’ll do a full painting in analytical cubism, employing advancing, receding and transparent planes and color and equivocal line.” How’s that for a mouthful? No Picasso’s or Braque’s have been produced by 13 yet, though.

  I look quite forward to my stay at Marcia’s during vacation. Did I tell you the dates? Probably from Friday March 30 to Sunday March or April (?). Mrs. Brown will no doubt write to you about the affair. She is a dear funny woman. I do hope you can stand her.

  I’ll write after I pass through this week. Either that, or you will receive a little ink bottle full of ashes. Please scatter them on the waters of the ocean I loved so well in infancy.

  Love,

  Sivvy.

  TO Ann Davidow-Goodman

  Thurs.–Fri. 15–16 March 1951*

  ALS with envelope,

  Smith College

  Thursday night

  Dearest Davy –

  And now we shall see just how good I am at concentrating on important things. In other words, just how many sentences I can whip off during house meeting. I swear no guy would date a Smith gal if he could see the way we look – hair wet, or screwed up in pin curls, old pajamas, knitting needles clicking busily. But in spite of everything, the girls are a pretty sweet lot!

  I appreciated more than anything your quotation from Marty’s letter. You must know a little of how much it meant to me. I think one of my greatest faults is disbelief in my ability to attract anyone over a long period of time. I felt that with you;
I felt that with Marty; I felt that with Dick, this Yale boy. You see, I think it might be a carry-over from my days in junior high, and even the beginning of senior high. I probably told you that I was a gawky mess, with drab hair and a bad skin – an outcast of sorts, too, among the classmates of mine who were pretty and dateable. So, for five years of having my undesirability dinned rather forcibly into my head, you perhaps can see how I still have that basic skepticism left over. You see me as I am, without the awkward stage in the background. Maybe, too, one of the reasons I am so enthusiastic and emotional about everything is that, until these past two or three years I really never have felt that my hopes and dreams were being fulfilled at all. Then, suddenly, things began happening. A BOY liked me! I had an English teacher who encouraged my writing! I got to be editor of the school paper. Best of all, I got into Smith. And so I felt like, after years of being on the BEFORE side of the success add, I suddenly got shot over to the after half. And there you have it. My attempt at an explanation of some of my many vices.

  But after getting letters from you, each full of a peculiar power which excites and encourages me! Letters aren’t just on paper, but they can be, as I have discovered from reading yours and Eddie’s, more of an emotional impact than anything else. And that is a wonderful thing to find out.

  I am awfully proud of you, though, Ann, for telling me what you did about your feelings of leaving Smith. I’ve got to hand it to you – and I’ve always thought that your self-honesty was one of the most amazing and delightful thing about you. I can compare you and Eddie, I think, because both of you have stimulated me and been deep companions to me. Eddie has the horrible faults (I hate to admit it) of rationalizing and fooling himself that he is infallible and is living the best way he can. (At present,* he is going on the rocks with Rita . . . and he wouldn’t ever admit that his stupid way of living for sex “before marriage” is time after time proving absurd.)

  You, on the other hand, have done an act, courageous & decisive from one point of view, and yet frightening and fatal from another. But thank God you’re being constructive about it. U. of Chi. is tremendous & has a great lot to offer in the way of subjects, teachers, and new ideas. (Eddie went there for two years, remember?) I envy you, in a way, and the new friends and new life you are making for yourself. I did so want to be a part of that – your circle of friends and the rest of your life. I hope, Ann, that somehow we will always remember what we might have had. I know I’ll always think of you will something like hurt and nostalgia---and a great deal of love.

  I guess I’m getting sentimental again – but you and your letters mean an awful lot to me.

  Eddie is on your trail, gal! He actually confessed that he had you looked up in the Hyde Park area. So I’ll set him straight, and then, who knows! Maybe you can be me by proxy, or something.

  I am in one of those spells where I think I won’t live till vacation. I have two writtens tomorrow and a paper Monday. Fool that I am, I’m going out with Guy to some dance.* Each time I go out with him, I vow I’ll never do it again because he is such a naïve kid (look who’s talking!) But over the lapse of weeks I forget how dull the last time was and try over again.

  I still haven’t recovered from last week. Yale Junior prom! Honestly, that Dick practically floored me! Remember how cousinly I said he was last time? Well, I got dressed up to kill in my old white formal, and evidently things took a quick turn from the platonic to the . . . well, you know. As a result, I am still day-dreaming about dancing with him – and talking to him. The weather was divine all weekend – cold, clear and invigorating. As we walked up the hill to my “house” after the dance, we stopped for a minute and let the great windy silence come at us. It was dark, the streets were quiet and bare, and the stars were clear.

  “It’s like being in church,” he said. And it was.

  I will remember Saturday too, when we took a long bike-trip in through the countryside. God! I thought Id never live. Mile after mile we biked, up and down steep little woodland paths, and the wind got colder, and my legs got watery-er, and the sky got darker. Finally, after it seemed that I would freeze into a little mass of ice and stiff muscles, we sighted the welcome lights of New Haven. And that night we saw “Kiss the Boys Goodbye”* – and I said to myself: make the most of this kid, you may never see him again. After the show was over, we walked up onto a windy hill and watched the lights of the town below. Ann, I never have felt admiration for anyone as much as I have for him! He is going to Harvard Medical School next year, and will be a wonderful doctor, I know. And so I love him for giving part of himself to me, and will be quiet about my own inadequacies (see what a good influence you are!) All I want to do is work & work at making myself interesting & capable enough to make his time worthwhile.

  And another thing; I am going to see the dear old thing again – when we both come home for Easter.

  Friday a.m.

  It is one of those typical gray days up here, but a softening and yellowing of the light indicates that the sun is breaking through, and spring may arrive any minute now.

  I am doing what I always do before an exam – procrastinating about studying till the last minute, when I really manage to scare myself into it. French midsemester at 11 and Botany test after that. I have to learn all about ascomycetes & Napoleon, but here I am, allowing myself the luxury of writing to you. And the hands of the smug white-faced watch on my wrist are hopping quickly towards nine.

  Mary Cronin* came into the kitchen last night as I was nibbling stale bread crusts. (She’s one of the maids, remember.) She was very thrilled about something & told me with pride that she’d just won $15 dollars playing BINGO in Holyoke! What we don’t know about the private lives of our maids! If I had the courage, I’d get to know them well enough so I could write about them – a lot more interesting subjects than the Smith college girl. I bet Marie’s had quite a past!

  And now, baby, I really must go. My letter paper is fast running out, too. Remember – we all love you, but ’specially me!

  Love,

  Sylvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Monday 19 March 1951*

  ALS (postcard), Indiana University

  Monday

  Dear Mum –

  These next three days are a slow, tedious process of gritting my teeth, and dragging my rebellious flesh through hour after hideous hour of classes which suddenly become weary-stale-flat-and-unprofitable. To add to this, we have to “spring-clean” our rooms – which involves washing, spraying & dusting the whole thing from top to bottom – a process which will take about three precious hours. Also we’ve got a 50 page French assignment over vacation and a History assignment this week that would choke the Cyclops – 50 pages of small print per night. My two English marks this semester are a rip-roaring B- and B (I’m chatting with him tomorrow.) Also got my first B on a Botany quiz – but the lowest quiz mark doesn’t count – so I’ll work to get the rest all A’s. Hope to have something lovely happen soon – in N. York, maybe. Saw Dick up here for the Soph prom this weekend with Jane A.* – pres. of her class. My date with Guy was terribly dull. On that boyant note I’ll close – All I need is a shot of vitamins & a week’s sleep.

  XX

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Monday 19 March 1951*

  ALS (postcard), Indiana University

  Monday night

  Dear Mum –

  Excuse the 3" × 5 ½" piece of gloom that got sent your way earlier today! It is now midnight, and I have spent a delightful, if strenuous evening scrubbing the room from top to bottom with soap & water and moving out all furniture while Marty kept me company by typing a little sarcastic essay we wrote on boys.* That girl saves me from getting desperate at times – what human companionship won’t do! Did you get my big suitcase? Olive Milne* offered to take me – and took the case instead. “Bobby” Michelsen will again drive me home, so, as my class gets out at 3, I should be home about 8 or 9 Wednesday night. I a
m bringing lots of clothes & work. Only 9 more hours of classes! Got tennis for gym at a good time – right before my Thurs & Friday a.m. classes! Life looks brighter. The life preserver has been caught & land sighted

  XXX

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Friday 6 April 1951*

  ALS (postcard), Indiana University

  Friday

  Dear Mum . . .

  Well, this afternoon I think will cut art studio and take a nap to make up for the night before I left . . . not sleeping till 2:30 a.m. It is strange to be back . . . and I hope I can rest this weekend so I can go unscathed through the next eight weeks. I have been shopping for all needed odds and ends & withdrawn some money from the bank. My aim will be to have an even $100 left by the end of the year. At present, all I can see ahead is work. I got my name on the list first for the BOOK which some teacher TOOK out just before I came. By dint of pleading, I think I can get it today, & just hope they’ll let me keep it over the weekend. The one nice thing since I’ve been back was my semester conference with my art teacher who’s very pleased with me. I’ll see Miss Mensel sometime next week. PULEESE send my red jacket (ski) pronto! So I’ll have it in case Dick comes up next weekend. NO sign of coat. Hope Eddie didn’t sell it.

  XXX

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Sunday 8 April 1951*

  ALS (postcard), Indiana University

  Sunday

  Dear Mum . . .

  Well, only 60 pages more to go, and then the endless job of trying to think out a lucid 5 page theme.* Even though I have to turn in the book Tuesday, Marty will let me borrow hers anytime. At present, I feel rather tired and disgusted with myself because I haven’t done much of anything since I came back and I cannot look at the quiz schedule ahead of me with the proper exhilaration. It’s a good thing my story is coming out so I’ll have something to look forward to. Never have 8 weeks of work seemed SO monumental. History will sure need alot of studying before the exam. Art & English are pretty sure if I just keep going. Botany & French & History require me to run like the white queen. At least I like playing tennis in gym. Honestly, I wonder when I can relax & read what I want & lie in the sun. It will be a long pull till June 2. Could you – if you have a minute – sort over “my cottons” (skirts & blouses) & whatever else & send them up sometime soon. No hurry really.