by Sylvia Plath
must read hooker & cambridge platonists today. I had queer dreams last night, about than minton* (after your letter,* I’m sure) and mother publishing a book called “above the rooftops of boston university” dated 1003 (I’m sure it was meant to be 2003) in which she described a landscape like a cloudy venice all done in darks moody greens, browns and blacks; I remember being very proud of her. I can’t wait till next saturday.
now darling love ponk I took the swatch of green corduroy* down to roper tailors and they told me to drop by at the beginning of this next week & see about a convenient time for your fitting. how about, if it suits your plans, coming back to cambridge for a fitting monday october 29---you could ride back with me on the train and stay over the next day, & I could cook for you and you could go back to yorkshire or to london from there. write me right away what you’d like for a fitting day and I’ll wait till I hear from you to make it with them. they said about £9 with lining & all and may need another piece for collar, etc. is that too much? I didn’t know, but figured you could settle price when you have fitting. it will make your eyes green, this jacket. your damn lovely green eyes.
I hate sunday for no mail. I’m enclosing a contest* which appeared in granta. I’m sure no one hardly will try for it; why don’t you? the main thing is the words & layout. look around at their other ads & what their main appeal is. even £5 would be nice. this olivetti has a £ key. I never had one before £££££££££££. I £ike it; it is the £ov£iest £yric £ithe shape. £a£a£a.
I £ove you. I can’t think of much else; I wait and wait for news of manuscripts. I think I will take the early Saturday morning train getting me in to Liverpool Street at 10 am. I will bring your poetry ms. to arrange in order for the Harper’s contest. I will bring a birthday dress to wear. Will you meet me at the track? If you’re late, I’ll go into the main waiting room. Let’s get this set and never change it.
Now, Teddy, could you get a hotel reserved ahead of time so we could just go right to it? We could come back to Cambridge (if you wanted your fitting Monday) Sunday afternoon, have shish kebabs and you stay till 10 in the evening at Whitstead. you write and tell me what.
I keep saying by myself: I am married I am married. I feel so mere and fractional without you. I look about at the petty simple weak people around me; I am amazed you live, that I didn’t just make up your being warm and talking and being my husband.
The week turns now toward you, and climbs & climbs till Saturday – do fine on those readings Wednesday, tell me all about them; know I will be thinking & thinking of you & wishing you so well –
all my love –
your own
sylvia
TO Ted Hughes
Sunday 21 October 1956*
ALS, family owned
dearest darling teddy . . .
it is sunday night right after dinner and I am terribly lonely for you – I think I have been writing you off & on for the whole day. but in spite of all my spasmodic calm & resolve I feel horrid & very black & wicked. it is simply a sin not to live with you. I could cry. I stalked alone to buffet supper in hall, ate in silence among strangers until the food stuck in my throat, threw the rest of it away and walked out into the mild night. I stared in the little intimate safe lighted rooms on clare road and felt like some queer alien not right in her head. every night I should go to bed with you & every day break I should rise with you. I begin to think how even if I cooked 3 meals (for us) a day & marketed, still I would save the time I now waste brooding & stalking tense through the mud wanting to cry out for you to come. if only I cooked for you.
I feel too, – very strongly, that I could work better if I were living properly with you – contrary to what I first supposed; i.e. that I could concentrate more spartanly on intellectual study if cut off from the constant sense of your presence. well, it’s not so – I can probe & root most deeply & well when planted every minute in the rich, almost unconscious feeling of your presence. whatever time I so rightly would squander in nibbling your ear would not equal half the time I sit raging & frustrate here, wishing & imagining nibbling your ear. – I wish I was more clairvoyant – as it is, I am terribly torn: being apart from you six months, knowing I can spend vacations with you for a total of over 2½ months, our projected wedding – the present peace with authority (Newnham & Fulbright) – the stoic sense of sacrifice for a worthy end – all this opposed & troubled by the other side – the constant, deep – (so deep it is forming into vivid terrible nightmares) sense of terror, lack, superstition (symbolised by that traumatic last meeting in London which almost drove me wild, a kind of confirmation of my feeling of wrongness about our being apart – a judgment on that wrongness) – a sense that I could work better with you, which undercuts my whole former sureness about the wisdom of separation – of course, you hate cambridge & wouldn’t want to come here again; I know. it is easier not to worry about persuading authorities – (yet even now some opportunistic devil in me is arguing for our case: tell them you were going to keep your marriage secret because you thought he’d have to be in spain all year, & now he’s not). oh teddy, I need you so badly to talk to now, just to be with you. if we could live together in cambridge I could study all during the long vacations at christmas & easter, use the libraries, not worry about lugging books – we’d save fabulously in travel expenses & I wouldn’t care if it rained all winter or if we got a nasty little place to live & I gave up whitstead. I could then combine love & writing & study much better then splitting them this abnormal way – wasting time when away from you in wishing you were here & wasting time with you by cursing the swiftness of that time & dreading fresh separation and wedding, official problems – all pales before the fact that I am rightfully sylvia hughes & I feed sad, sick & disinherited. my first purpose is not just a wedding – it is you; I am married to you & I would work & write best in living with you. I waste so much strength in simply fighting my tears for you – please understand about this & help me work it out –
love & more love –
sylvia
some more, still – just bear with me through this; I’ve got to get it out. if you ever even vaguely would consider living this year out with me in cambridge, the one difficult act would be telling newnham (there are married students here, though few; & dr. Krook, I’m sure, would back me up) & the fulbright (they also have many married students, though mostly male) & getting a place to live & moving me – it would cause a stir, but so what. we could do it all at the end of this term & maybe you try for a job teaching english at one of the many american air bases around here – the aesthetic beauty of whitstead, the peace & quiet of my room – all is as nothing without you, without constantly expressing my love for you. I do not want to be away from you for 6 of the best months of our lives!
I do not think we would be “making things easy” by living together – it would be a different kind of sacrifice (the wedding presents, etc) & also work & hard. I would ask dr. Krook’s advice first, then the fulbright’s permission, then newnham’s. I am sure that the only difficulty would be the mere physical “bother” of going about it. I know you will discount all this – that you hate cambridge – but would living apart from the university with me be so awful to you? maybe we could live in granchester – you could write, teach part time & go to london for occasional BBC broadcasts – dr. Krook was right, you know – it is not good to be deprived of the rich seat of all power – the loved one – please please think about this –
I love you so –
your own
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 22 October 1956
TLS (aerogramme),
Indiana University
monday afternoon
October 22, 1956
dearest mother . . .
it is a rare blue and gold day; very rare; walked out this afternoon to sit by the delicate yellow willows in a golden haze by the cam, brooding over white swans, bobbing black water hens, and much else
. I’m sending regular mail under separate cover a copy of granta (the “new yorker” of cambridge undergraduate life) which contains a story I believe you might have read as I wrote it for mr. kazin; in any case, don’t let it get near the freeman’s; you will recognize the characters. ben nash, the nice editor, has done fine illustrations, I think.
just received word that the nation had accepted another one of ted’s poems,* a fine one about the violence of wind. I am with great difficulty saving this to tell him when I go to london on my birthday, as I can’t bear not seeing his joy and being present at it, the “new yorker” rejected his fables (yet we will try it till we’re bloody) so I hope this will cheer him up: if only the atlantic would buy one of the poems they’ve kept for 5 months now. ted makes his recordings of yeats & two of his own poems this wednesday.
which brings me to this great enormous problem I must discuss with you or explode. more and more I doubt the wisdom of being apart from ted in this tense, crucial year of our lives. at first, I thought I could study better away from him & domestic cares and that the fulbright might cancel my grant if I were married and newnham disown me. also, I wanted a wedding, a gala social ceremony. however, one by one these motives are exploding in front of my eyes: both of us work and write immeasurably better when with each other; I, for one, waste more time away from ted in dreaming about him, writing him, brooding on my absence from him, than I’d ever use up cooking us 3 meals a day; I looked up the fulbright lists, and they have three married women on grants; dr. krook, my philosophy professor, is most sympathetic about ted’s & my work together & I am sure would testify to newnham that I could do my work better while living & studying with my husband. all of which revolves around the question: to reveal my secret marriage & live with ted in cambridge for the next two terms or Not? now even he doesn’t know of my increasing desperation over this, although he certainly feels the same way about being apart from me. if we decided to reveal our marriage, we would decide it, of necessity this week. (of course ted hates much about cambridge & I don’t know if he’d consider living & trying for a teaching job here or not; it would certainly be better qualification for teaching than in spain---I mean teaching children or at an american air force base) and we would save greatly if I didn’t have to travel back & forth to spain twice. not to mention how much more time & energy I would have to work at the library here during term and the long vacations.
it would not be easy; it would be almost more difficult than not challenging the authorities & going on with wedding plans. but I feel a great guilt and sorrow at not living with ted. I waste more energy fighting tears & loneliness than I would cooking meals for him; if I could persuade him to live here, you could simply announce my wedding in england sometime in december (even if you’ve already announced my engagement, it wouldn’t matter).
then we could cross on the ship together without subterfuge; we could still invite everybody to a big welcoming reception and all the tension of planning the actual wedding ceremony & wasting money on a dress would be gone---we could just all easily enjoy ourselves; cost all round would be less. I have perfect reasons for both fulbright & newnham authorities---I can say we thought ted would be working in spain & the job fell through (which is true) and that he can’t support me but must earn ship-fare, so I should still keep grant; dr. krook can testify, I’m sure, to my keeping up & increasing the quality of my work. I feel I am not living to put on a ceremony before mrs. prouty, mary ellen chase, etc, although I love them dearly. I am living for ted, and ted before all else, and if he would think it good to reveal our marriage & go through the official red-tape, I would move out of whitstead into no-matter-what lodgings to work & write & study with him. I feel it is wrong to live apart for six of the best months of our lives; we are very miserable apart, and waste so much time and energy longing to be together; also, even when together, the need for separation subtly blights our joy.
now I would like to know how you feel about this. I will decide things with ted this weekend; he may well still want to go to spain with his uncle & not live in england, but I hope he will change his mind; I do not think this will make explanations difficult for you. in our engagement announcement this month you could put wedding “unannounced” & then in december engrave announcements of our wedding (what about dec. 16th--half a year from our actual wedding date?) and say to friends, ted got a job in cambridge or london & we felt it ridiculous not to get married here & now & will reune with all of them next june. do help me through this by advice & opinions; I feel sure I could go through the difficulty of red-tape here if you back me up –
all my love –
sivvy
TO Ted Hughes
Monday 22 October 1956
TLS, family owned
monday noon
october 22
dearest teddy . . .
it’s not sunday, but it might as well be with no mail from you and all dead quiet; if the noon post doesn’t bring any I shall be sad. I wrote you a letter last night which will no doubt arrive with this one; all is calm, now, and it is a fresh day; but the feelings I wrote about occur and recur, in spite of lulls and resolute plodding on; so I sent it.
I wrote two very very slight poems this morning and in penalty must read solidly from now till 10 tonight. one, “evergreens”* is particularly written to send to the new yorker; the other,* which I’ll write on the back of this, describes my walk yesterday morning; that’s that.
I had the queerest dreams last night; rather eerie & yet somehow pleasant. probably because I ate 6 cheese crackers before bed. I dreamt much of mrs. cantor & joan, her daughter, for whom I worked several summers ago; I thought I was working for them again, very vividly, at some beach. and strangely, this morning I got the first letter from mrs. cantor I’ve had in 6 months, about joan, etc.
the next part was weirdest---you and I were living with dr. krook, both of us being a kind of sorcerer’s apprentice; she was, we decided, a magic, dangerous witch, and we would discover her power, but hide our intention, as she kept us working mercilessly and always appearing just as we thought we were alone. now, in the cantor dream, we were all seated around a big banquet table on the street of my first home-town by the ocean, about to begin a sort of wedding feast, when it started to pour, and clouds lowered in the stormy sky. Let’s, mrs. cantor suggested, try levitation; whereupon we shut our eyes, put our hands on the table, jerked, rose, us with it, above the clouds and we felt sun warm on our bodies and ate in peace above the storm in the upper air. while at dr. krook’s, you and I wanted to experiment with this newly discovered power: we sat, over a picnic, trying to concentrate and escape her continuous forays to see if we were working (how my philosophy reading must weigh on me!) and we found a very vivid green lawn, with a dark willow, squat dark trunk, smack in the middle, and I was showing this to you, with our manuscripts laid out under the tree, as the place of peace where at last we could practice rising together to this world above dr. krook’s power and power of storm and vicissitudes. that was that. it came as close to any dream I’ve had for years in giving me the delight and breathless soaring I used to have in my flying dreams. I must eat more cheese.
I looked up the fulbright lists and found three married women on it; so singleness is not a condition of a fulbright for ladies.
I count the days till saturday: if I try my old trick of mixing my work & paper (which I don’t want to come) with you & saturday, which I do want, then malicious time will hurry the work & deadline up & inadvertently catapult me into being with you again –
I love you & love you
sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 23 October 1956
TLS (aerogramme),
Indiana University
october 23
tuesday morning
dearest mother . . .
this will be an installment letter . . . coming so soon after the last; it is chiefly to tell you another bit of good news after ted’s nation acceptan
ce (which will only mean about $10 but nonetheless very lovely). I got a beautiful check for over £9 this morning (that’s about $26) from guess who! The Christian Science Monitor!!!!
at their pay-rates, this seems like a rather glorious sum; you will be awe-struck, I think when you see what they bought: a short little article on benidorm* (that lovely little spanish town where we spent 5 weeks on our honeymoon) and 4 (four) of the best sketches in pen-and-ink I’ve ever done. I think that these drawings will also amaze you; it shows what I’ve done since going out with ted; every drawing has in my mind and heart a beautiful association of our sitting together in the hot sun, ted reading, writing poems, or just talking with me; please get lots and lots of copies of each article; the sketches are very important to me: the one of the sardine boats is the most difficult & unusual I’ve ever done; the spanish market was wonderful fun (the little man at the stand on the right wanted to get in, & so put his garlic string over to make his place extra decorative) & hot & difficult; the castle rock & houses for design is a favorite; the stairway is my least favorite, but not too bad; I hope you love them; send them to mrs. prouty please; show her how creative ted’s made me! got a lovely letter from mrs. cantor yesterday all about how happy she is about joan’s harvard date! the queerest thing---I had the most vivid dream about mrs. cantor & joan the early morning before I got the letter: I dreamt I was back working for them, and we were having a wedding feast on the streets in winthrop right off somerset terrace & it started to storm & rain: “well,” mrs. cantor suggested philosophically, “let’s try levitation.” so we all---you, warren, ted me & the cantors, put our hands on the table & shut our eyes; jerk, tilt, the table rose & soon we could feel the sun on our bodies, opened our eyes, & continued our feast in the air above the vicissitudes of the earthly storm! I must eat more cheese before bed! anyway, the letter came that morning, the 1st I’ve had from her for months, & the dream it seems, was somehow sent to me by this letter in my mailbox; when ted & I begin living together we shall become a team better than mr. & mrs. yeats*---he being a competent astrologist, reading horoscopes, & me being a tarot-pack reader and, when we have enough money, a crystal-gazer. will let you know of our decision after this weekend. I hope ted will go through all this with me; it is ridiculous for us to separate our forces when it is such a magnificently aspected year---I’m typing a book of his poems (an impressive 50 pages) for a contest at the end of november; he will spend the year writing a verse play for a contest in the spring at which alec guinness, kenneth tynan & others will judge; I know he can’t work in spain, or in london; he needs my daily love & care as much as I need his; we will fight this out; I’d love cambridge so if he were here; the fulbright has other married women---there’s no question of his supporting me, either, since all he’ll earn will have to go for ship fare to america. I can’t rest till I get this settled. I write & think & study perfectly when with him; apart, I’m split & only can work properly in brief stoic spells.