The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1

by Sylvia Plath

  My schedule is wonderful: all morning classes: I am taking early American lit with Arvin, Russian lit with Gibian, and 19th cen. intellectual history with Koffka. I am auditing Medieval Art (which I love) with Mrs. L. (who wishes to send fond regards to you) who is most intriguing and forceful---and modern American lit with my pet Mr. R. G. Davis. Both of the latter courses will offer just as much as I give them, and I do the reading as a reward for accomplishing my regular work. As I have my first writtens next week, I am rapidly running through the Idiot by Dostoevsky, having just finished Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground.* Amusingly enough, I felt conspicuous at first during the discussions of suicide in these books, and felt sure that my scar was glowing symbolically, obvious to all (the way Hester’s scarlet letter burned and shone with a physical heat to proclaim her default to all). But now I am really so adjusted to my attempt of last summer that I may even write my Russian paper on the theme of suicide, feeling that I have somewhat of a personalized understanding of the sensations and physical and mental states one experiences previous to the act. No one has questioned me about my experience, and I have voluntarily shared notes with Jane Truslow, who had shock at Baldpate,* I discovered, and Claiborne Phillips who is my closest friend in the house, and Marcia Brown who is my really best friend and whose mother is still in a mental hospital in NYC, but is rapidly improving . . . but in all these cases, we just spoke of my experiences thorougly once, and that was that, none of the daily self-examinations and analyses that I subjected myself to with friends at McLean.

  All of the difficulties which I was prepared to encounter have melted away like snow in the sun. My classmates consider me a junior now, and in Rally Day, I felt not the slightest tremor of frustration or envy as I sat clad in virginal white and saw my former friends file down the aisles in black gowns--rather I felt good, for I really am glad to have this extra year, now, even though I will of course miss my friends, many of whom are getting married this June (I’m going to be a bridesmaid in Marcia’s wedding, by the way). Also, with my new easy-going feelings, I am enjoying my reading, and although I know the writtens will test my power of retention and absorption, I am not going to don mourning if I get only average marks (Miss Mensel cheerfully told me that it didn’t matter if I failed all three of my courses!) I am enjoying myself, and maybe I’m slow, and no genius, but I am anyway having fun---buying lots of books for my courses and going to lectures---the most recent by Mary Ellen Chase and Esther Forbes (both of whom I met and chatted with). Miss Drew had me over for coffee and actually kissed me, in greeting! And Miss Page (my advisor in place of Miss Lincoln, thank God!) is another good confidante.

  I’ve been on several long hikes these past springy days---out along the railroad tracks into the country, and on a picnic with Marcia where we biked out by an old mill stream and had a good bull session while devouring apples and sandwiches.

  In summary, everybody has treated me just as if nothing had happened, and I feel most at home and causal about the whole episode, which I never thought possible.

  The most indicative part of my life has been the social aspect. I had resigned myself to being totally without male contacts, but in the short space of four weeks I have been out with about seven different boys---not that quantity is indicative, but that’s just the way it happened. All my housemates seem to have friends of their dates coming down, so I decided that since my marital future was far from being at stake, I might as well have fun and get back into the swing of social talk.

  So I’ve been to two good British movies and cocktails with a guy over at Dartmouth business school, gone over to Amherst four times, each with a different but likeable chap (over there it seemed as if my whole social past was being reviewed before me---saw all the Wellesley boys: Maury Longsworth,* Mal Brickett,* Dick Baughman,* Bob Blakeslee, et. al., plus a boy I worked with at the Belmont Hotel two summers ago, plus the first boy I dated in my freshman year, who remembered me for some obscure reason!)--also had wine from chemistry beakers in the bio. lab with Dr. Schotté and my last year’s roommate, Mary Bonneville, who is doing grad work over there. This weekend I am going over to a house-dance with a little German guy on a Fulbright whose name is Gerhardt! Mike Lotz, Perry’s friend from Yale medical school, came up one weekend for pizza and candlelight talks, and Sunday I was surprised to be visited by a charming Junior at Harvard whom I hadn’t seen since I played tennis with him five summers ago: Tony Stout, a Wellesleyite, and most delightful. So, as you can see, I feel that my escapade had in no way made a lasting scar on my future associations, but is of advantage in deeping my understanding of self and others . . .

  Dick, by the way, headed for Europe this week very depressed and unorganized, as his mother explained it. He seems to be under the impression that he has no appeal for the kind of girl he wants to marry and his brother and close friends are trying to locate such. In the light of our long talks, it will be most interesting to see what turns up!

  I just love my room here, done with maroon bedspread and chair, grey curtains and lampshades, blue pillows and armchair, and paintings all over the walls and two bookcases overflowing with gaily jacketed books---a welcome den, in contrast to my strange, almost physical aversion to my nice, but annoyingly antiseptic and un-private room at Belknap.

  Dr. Booth is just as you and I agreed---and I don’t think anyone could ever give me that psychiatric relationship so felicitously established at McLean. But anyhow, now I feel that psychiatric help is really superfluous: I have several close friends to confide in, and no problems---I’ll be back here next year, and my social, academic, and personal life is flexible and unhurried. So I see Dr. Booth for one long session a week, and even then find that we discuss on a more abstract level of ideas, rather than on an immediate temporal one, because I am living now, as I was not at McLean, and as yet my experience in the three dimensional world of action in time is smooth and consistent with my new attitude of easy-going and relaxed averageness, in contrast to my former hectic leaps for the exceptional. I feel in general, very calm, philosophical, and indeed, consistently “happy” rather than spasmodically ecstatic.

  Amusingly enough, my job in the house is preparing vegetables every morning, and I enjoy it to the hilt---after my repeated desire to go into the kitchens at McLean, this comes as a pleasant and novel task, most refreshing, and reminding me of my work on the farm. I really enjoy peeling potatoes and onions and slicing carrots! The cooks are fun, and there is always time for that inevitable third cup of coffee before my nine o’clock class.

  So . . . I did not mean to ramble on for so long, but the life is full here, like a fruit cake, instead of just plain bread without salt, and it now seems inevitable that I am back, although at the time of deciding I felt I had free will. Heaven knows when I will really feel like writing again---I just know that I am living now, and I need to do a lot more of it before I feel I can tell the world about it . . .

  Nothing spectacular goes on, except the fact of going to classes, playing bridge with the girls, having bull sessions in our Smith prototype of the Coffee Shop, and dating with agreeable males---none serious material--and writing enormous letters to Gordon who has made a Joycean pilgrimage through Dublin, and is now savoring the delights of a modern Ulysses on the Riviera . . .

  As time is of the essence and I do not have any spare to write other people but you, please send my best to Martje, Mrs. Atwood . . . and most especially Dr. B. If Dr. Beuscher* would have time to read this letter, you might give it to her, as I would like her to know how I am getting on. Hope to hear from you anon.

  Meanwhile . . .

  love,

  syl

  TO Philip E. McCurdy

  Monday 1 March 1954

  TLS with envelope, Smith College

  March (!) 1

  Dear Phil . . .

  Gray monday with clay gray sidewalks and sky pinkening faintly over mountains the color of smoke. I sit, at this matutinal hour of 9:30, having just had breakfast
, peeled 100 potatoes, and been given a free cut in my early Am. lit. lecture, which is fortunate as I have a written in it wednesday, along with one in Russian lit. (Hawthorne and Dostoevsky) and have several critical books to assimilate yet . . .

  Last monday, on George’s natal day,* Marcia Brown and I threw some apples and loaves of bread into our bike baskets and headed for the hills in hopes of finding a suitable bough to eat them under. We also visited several package stores to obtain one of those lovely wickered bottles of good wine, but it seems that George was not a toper, so they wouldn’t sell us any and we had to be satisfied with fresh orange juice.

  We biked and talked as we rode, and finally found a suitable muddy brown millstream, asked a farmer if we could borrow it for lunch, and sat out picnicking in the watery psuedo-spring sunlight, enjoying life thoroughly . . .

  Friday, in the nasty rain, Marty (Marcia afore-said) and I strode downtown and bought a bridesmaid dress for me to wear to her wedding this June---all of which you will no doubt be bored to hear about---but it is just unique for me to be going to a wedding because I am unconventional about such affairs, as I no doubt must have told you a dozen times, but I really believe in Marty and Mike, and so will take part with pleasure---we are going to wear ivy in our hair, carry daisies (la-!) and the small whitewashed chapel* will just be simply decorated with pine boughs . . . all very bucolic. My dress by the way is light blue linen, most crisp and innocent. Since this is the first wedding I’ve been in since I was a flowergirl at the age of 8, and Marty is my best friend, I am understandably elated . . .

  This Wednesday, after the gruelling saga of writtens, I am going to treat myself to a lecture by Harvard’s own I. A. Richards* on “The Dimensions of Reading Poetry” . . .

  And now, about future plans . . . this is the way things are, offering several alternatives, any or none of which you are privileged to choose . . . I have, as fate would have it, a date with an Amherst chemistry major* this Saturday night, and so I have been thinking up all kinds of schemes so I could see you . . . first of all, you could come up for Friday night (by bus if you couldn’t get a ride) and come to my two Saturday morning classes . . . as I won’t be going to Amherst till late in the afternoon. Secondly you could come up Saturday early, see me, go out with a real nice girl in our house that night and stay over Sunday. Or third, you could say the hell with me altogether and postpone getting together till spring vacation, which is three and a half weeks away. I really would like to see you this weekend anyway, if you’d care to take advantage of either of those two alternatives . . . only if you do decide to come, could you call me about suppertime right away so I could either plan to see you this Friday or get a date for you on the night of Saturday and plan to see you the rest of the time. If you aren’t coming, don’t bother to call but just write, will you huh?

  My brother is coming up the next weekend, I think, but I am probably not going to be here then, as I may take off for New York at any moment . . .

  I really would like to see you, though, if you wouldn’t be cross about it being Friday, or another lovely girl on Saturday (which really would be most ideal, I think, as you’d be seeing two people then . . . not that quantity counts, but she is sweet) . . .

  So call me at Northampton 1700, 293 exchange, if you are coming to let me know and be prepared . . .

  Meanwhile . . .

  love,

  Syl

  TO Philip E. McCurdy

  Wednesday 3 March 1954

  TLS in greeting card,* Smith College

 

  I try very hard / To be avant garde / To keep abreast / Of the very best / In contemporary art and thought / And so I feel I really ought / To find some method tres noveau / To show you that I really know / The very newest way / To say / Happy Birthday

 

  love & / all best / wishes – / syl / (inside) →

  march 3

  wednesday

  dear phil . . .

  first I will start out by being veddy cheerful because you are going to have a birthday and I am therefore in a congratulatory mood . . . so no matter what the content of the rest of this, read it silently in a cheerful, jolly, merry old mental voice, huh?

  today is a lousy day. it is pouring wet cold unsentimental rain and the gray streets are puddled with it and the trees are slippery with it and my feet are muddy with it and the windows are splotched with it and my hair is damp with it and damn it to hell anyway . . . .

  there! I feel much better now. this morning was one of those inexorable times when you have everything planned minutely to the last second and wonder if it humanly possible to plow through it physically. gulped coffee and hot cross buns for breakfast after dragging myself out of bed (having studied late last night), peeled 100 potatoes and sliced malicious orange mountains of carrots, roared up to the second floor of the libe to return an armload of overdue books on Dostoevsky, barely made it to 8:30 chapel to hear our president read the disgusting slanderous letter written by a member of the Buckley family* (related to Bill Buckley, author of God and Man at Yale) about how no alumnae should support smith financially as we were harboring all sorts of commies on the faculty, among them, my american lit prof who is the most sensitive innocent guy under the sun who is now at the infirmary recovering from shock . . . all in all an irresponsible and scandalous attack with no foundation . . . ran then full speed to said american lit course to take an hour exam in which I wrote frantically for the whole period on the theme of secret guilt and subsequent retribution in Hawthorne’s complete works . . . from there home to hastily study russian lit for an hour, then to intellectual history, then to an hour exam on Dostoevsky . . . home for lunch, bridge, eating apples . . . then to the doctors’ office for my weekly chat with the psychiatrist, who is my great friend and tells me all the psychological dirt about the college . . . to get antihistamine tablets for a wicked sore throat and incipient cold . . . and to attempt to get a diagnosis for a mysterious burn-like scar which appeared suddenly on my lift hand, discolored to an angry red, sprouted hurting water blisters, scabbed over and healed . . . since its not an allergy, and since I’m not in the habit of burning myself in my sleep, the one thing they could figure out was that I’m allergic to chemistry majors . . .

  so now I sit in my room, drinking gallons of water and eating more apples, hoping to help the effectuality of the antihistamine . . . I am going to that lecture by I. A. Richards tonight, and have been invited to the reception at the president’s house afterwards, which is about the only pleasant prospect the day contains . . .

  your letter was a welcome break in the day . . . and the party on march 27 saturday sounds like a lovely one . . . I’ll really enjoy going with you and hope I can meet some of the friends you make sound so intriguing. I probably will be in a much more carefree mood then than I would be this weekend as I have four weeks of intellectual history to assimilate for a written next week . . . by the way, in your indictment of “sweet smith jeunes filles” you implied by contrast that I am neither sweet nor a jeune fille . . . how about that?

  hoping to hear from you in the interim between now and the 27th . . .

  love as usual,

  sp

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Friday 5 March 1954

  TLS on Smith College letterhead, Indiana University

  Friday

  March 5

  Dear mother . . .

  Felt like dropping you a line this morning to tell you how things are going. I’ve stayed in these last two days pampering a slight headcold which looks as if it would clear up by tomorrow. It’s really been quite pleasant staying curled up in my sunny room, eating apples, drinking quantities of water, and reading “The Brothers Karamazov”, by Dostoevsky . . .

  Wednesday was the most hectic day yet---my written on Hawthorne was stimualting and fun, and I’m sure I did pretty well---but the one on Dostoevsky was a totally unexpected and minutely particular question: the role of money in the t
hree novels we have read! Here I had prepared myself for great philosophical issues of reason vs. emotion, nihilism vs. religion, earth vs. spirit, etc., and I had to rack my brain to remember when Raskolnikov* tossed a copeck into the river.

  Of course it rained all day too. In the afternoon I had my weekly hour talk with Dr. Booth, who is really a great friend of mine, now. I have no psychological problems actually, so our discussions are more philosophical than anything else . . .

  That night I heard I. A. Richards from Harvard give a delightful lecture on “The Dimensions of Reading Poetry” after which I went to the small cosy reception for him at Pres. Wright’s house, had cocoa and cookies and listened to the good man read poetry aloud . . . most fun!

  I do love my reading and courses, and even if I didn’t get more than a C on the Russian exam, I won’t care because I think that I am getting a lot out of the course anyway.

  As it is, I plan to come home for spring vacation in the early evening of March 24, Wednesday . . . my plans for going to New York are very indefinite as yet, but I won’t go probably till Monday, March 29, as Phil has asked me to go to a candle-light-and-wine affair at his house at Harvard on Saturday, the 27th, and I said I’d favor him with my presence---perhaps I can even see Warren in his native habitat! I was thinking rashly of going to Florida, as a girl in the house did it all last year on only $75, but since the object of my present interest is staying in Amherst all vacation, I decided not to even think of it.

  You have no idea, after going out with eight different boys in four weeks, how nice it is to find someone I can really talk to, study with, and enjoy. Ever since I met George so strangely two Saturdays ago, when I was going out with his roommate, I have felt a rapport with him, evidenced by the fact that in the half hour I spent with him then, while my real date was down at the bar, I told him all about my escapade last summer, and felt that he would somehow understand and appreciate it, which he did---he has a scar on his face too, a thin red line which dips in a semicircle over one eye where he got thrown out of an overturning truck. I like his scar partly because I have one too and partly because it makes him unique.