Marionettes and pots and pans, china and glasses and hammers and paints. We would collect our things at Orioli's and drive home with Pietro and Giulia, furnishing the great kitchen at the Mirenda so conveniently with a few pounds, Lawrence designing a large kitchen table and brackets from which the pots hung. We painted the shutters of the Mirenda, and the chairs, green; we put 'stuoie,' thick pale grass matting, on the red-tiled floor in the big sitting-room. We had a few Vallombrosa chairs, a round table, a piano, hired, a couch and an old seat. The walls were syringed white with the syringe one uses to put verderane on the vines... that was done fast, and the sun poured into the big room so still and hot. The only noises came from the peasants, calling or singing at their work, or the water being drawn at the well. Or best, and almost too fierce, were the nightingales singing away from early dawn, almost the clock round... an hour or two's rest at midday in the heat. The spring that first year was a revelation in flowers, from the first violets in the woods... carpets of them we found, and as usual in our walks we took joyful possession of the unspoiled, almost medieval country around us. By the stream in the valley were tufts of enormous primroses, where the willow trees had been blood red through the winter. On the edge of the umbrella-pine woods, in the fields, were red and purple big anemones, strange, narrow-pointed, red and yellow wild tulips, bee orchids and purple orchids, tufts of tight-scented lavender... flowers thick like velvety carpets, like the ground in a Fra Angelico picture.
Our carriage and the Stellina were so small, I felt like sitting in a doll's perambulator. One day I went shopping with Pietro in Scandicci, when he had tooth-ache; he wore a red hankie round his poor swollen cheek, and on top on the hankie perched a hat, a bit sideways, with the Italian chic in it. He was very sorry for himself, and so was I, but none of the people we passed seemed to think us a funny sight, and we must have been, in that tiny barroccino, Pietro with his tooth-ache and his hankie by my side. I The Italians are so natural, one has tooth-ache and why hide it? Pietro would tell me: 'Si, signora, questa sera vado a fare al Pamore con la mia fidanzata.' The fidanzata had only one eye, she was pretty, but in a self-conscious way she always kept the side with the eye toward one.
Christmas came and I wanted to make a Christmas tree for all the peasants. I told Pietro: 'Buy me a tree in Florence, when you go to market.'
'What,' he said, 'buy a tree, signora? Ah, no, one doesn't buy a tree, I'll get the signora one from the prete's wood.'
On Christmas Day, or rather Christmas Eve, at four in the morning I heard a whisper: 'Signora! Signora!' under my window. I looked out and there was Pietro with a large beautiful tree. He brought it in and how Lawrence and I and Giulia and Pietro enjoyed trimming that tree. There were pine cones on it and we put gold and silver paper around these cones and Pietro would yell: 'Guarda, guarda, signora, che bellezza!' while Lawrence and I went on trimming the tree with a lot of shiny things bought at the '48'; silver threads that we called 'Christ Child hair' when I was small, and also lots and lots of candies. The Christmas tree looked so beautiful in that big white empty room, not a bit Christian, and how the peasant children loved their cheap wooden toys and how carefully they handled them, so precious were they. They had never had toys before. The grown-ups loved it too. We had difficulty in making them all go home again.
| Such a sweetness and perfection of successive flowering Sanity:
Instinct
Intuition
Spirit
The English have never painted from intuition or instinct.
Man has two selves: one unknown, vital, living from roots: the other the known self, like a picture in a mirror or the objects on a tray. People live from this latter. And this latter can onlyfeel known feelings: and its only experience of liberation or freedom is in the experience of novelty, which is the clash of sensation and a katabolic process.
Florence meant to us. We walked in the afternoons, almost awed through so much unknown, unobtrusive loveliness... the white oxen so carefully ploughing, between the cypresses, and flowers in the wheat, and beans and peas and clover! At twilight we would come home and light our stove in the big sitting-room, the stove that had been there for centuries, used as it had been to keep the silkworms warm in the winter... now it warmed us. We had no pictures on the walls, but Maria Huxley had left some canvases behind and I said: 'Let's have some pictures.'
Then, mixing his paints himself, boldly and joyfully, Lawrence began to paint. I watched him for hours, absorbed, especially when he began a new one, when he would mix his paints on a piece of glass, paint with a rag and his fingers, and his palm and his brushes. 'Try your toes next,' I would say. Occasionally, when I was cooking pigeons that tasted of wine because they had fed on the dregs of grapes from the wine-press, or washing, he would call me, and I would have to hold out an arm or a leg for him to draw, or tell him what I thought of his painting.
He enjoyed his painting... with what intensity he went for it! Then he wrote 'Lady Chatterley.' After breakfast-we had it at seven or so - he would take his book and pen and cushion, followed by John the dog, and go into the woods behind the Mirenda and come back to lunch with what he had written. I read it day by day and wondered how his chapters were built up and how it all came to him. I wondered at his courage and daring to face and write these hidden things that people dare not write or say.
For two years 'Lady Chatterley' lay in an old chest that Lawrence had painted a greeny yellow with roses on it, and often when I passed that chest, I thought: 'Will that book ever come out of there?'
Lawrence asked me: 'Shall I publish it, or will it only bring me abuse and hatred again?' I said: 'You have written it, you believe in it, all right, then publish it.' So one day we talked it all over with Orioli; we went to a little old-fashioned printer, with a little old printing shop where they had only enough type to do half the book - and 'Lady Chatterley' was printed. When it was done, stacks and stacks of 'Lady C...,' or Our Lady, as we called it - were sitting on the floor of Orioli's shop. There seemed such a terrific lot of them that I said in terror: 'We shall never sell all these.' A great many were sold before there was a row; first some did not arrive at their destination in America, then there came abuse from England... but it was done... his last great effort.
He had done it... and future generations will benefit, his own race that he loved and his own class, that is less inhibited, for he spoke out of them and for them, there in Tuscany, where the different culture of another race gave the impetus to his work.
One winter we went to Diablerets and stayed in a little chalet. Aldous Huxley and Maria, Julian Huxley and Juliette, and their children shared a big villa nearby. Maria read 'Lady C.' there and Juliette was shocked at first. But then it was meant to be a shock. I can see Aldous and Lawrence talking together by the fire. I remember Aldous patiently trying to teach me to ski, but my legs tied themselves into knots with the skis and I seemed to be most of the time sitting in the snow collecting my legs.
We went for picnics in the snow, the Huxleys ski-ing, Lawrence and I in a sledge. I saw Diablerets again later on in the summer - I didn't recognize it, so completely different it looked in the snow.
I think the greatest pleasure and satisfaction for a woman is to live with a creative man, when he goes ahead and fights - I found it so. Always when he was in the middle of a novel or writing I felt happy as if something were happening, there was a new thing coming into the world. Often before he conceived a new idea he was irritable and disagreeable, but when it had come, the new vision, he could go ahead, and was eager and absorbed.
We had a very hot summer that year and we wanted to go to the mountains. One hot afternoon Lawrence had gathered peaches in the garden and came in with a basket full of wonderful fruit - he showed them to me - a very little while after he called from his room in a strange, gurgling voice; I ran and found him lying on his bed; he looked at me with shocked eyes while a slow stream of blood came from his mouth. 'Be quiet, be still,' I said. I held his head, but sl
owly and terribly the blood flowed from his mouth. I could do nothing but hold him and try to make him still and calm and send for Doctor Giglioli. He came, and anxious days and nights followed. In this great heat of July nursing was difficult - Giulia, all the peasants - helped in every possible way. The signor was so ill - Giulia got down to Scandicci at four in the morning and brought ice in sawdust in a big handkerchief, and milk, but this, even boiled straightaway, would be sour by midday. The Huxleys came to see him, Maria with a great bunch of fantastically beautiful lotus, and Giglioli every day, and Orioli came and helped. But I nursed him alone night and day for six weeks, till he was strong enough to take the night train to the Tyrol.
This was another inroad his illness made. We both fought hard and won.
People came to see us at the Mirenda. Capitano Ravagli had to come to Florence for a military case - he came to see us and showed Lawrence his military travel-pass. When Lawrence saw on it: Capitano Ravagli deve partire (must leave) at such and such a time... he shook his head and said resentfully: 'Why "must"? why "must"? there shouldn't be any must...'
One Sunday afternoon Osbert and Edith Sitwell came.
They moved us strangely. They seemed so oversensitive, as if something had hurt them too much, as if they had to keep up a brave front to the world, to pretend they didn't care and yet they only cared much too much. When they left, we went for a long walk, disturbed by them.
That autumn we gave up the Mirenda. Lawrence had been so ill there and wanted the sea. I went to pack up at the Mirenda, it was a grief to me. I had been so very happy there except for Lawrence's illness. How great the strain was at times, always the strain of his health. The last ounce of my strength seemed to be drained at times but I had my reward. He got better and I always knew however tired I might be he felt worse than ever I could. Making another effort my own strength grew. I never had time to think of my own health, so it looked after itself and it never let me dowr. The peasants at the Mirenda, the very place itself, the woods with their umbrella pines, the group of buildings, seemed sad at being left.
The peasants took all the belongings we had collected and carried them away on their backs, like gnomes they crept under their loads down the path. When I gave a last look from the two cypress trees along the road there stood the Mirenda upon its hill in the evening sun, with its shutters closed, old and solid, it seemed as if its eyes had closed for sleep, to dream of the life that had been and gone.
Lawrence had gone to Port Cros with Richard Aldington, Brigit Patmore, and Dorothy Yorke - Arabella we called her.
I joined them there. Port Cros seemed an island of mushrooms - I had never seen so many as there on the moist warm ground of the undergrowth. We had a donkey and a man who worked for us and brought up the food from the little harbour below. Lawrence was not well and I remember how we all did our best on the top of that island to help him in every way.
We drank coffee in the inner space of the small fortress we lived in. The donkey looked on and Richard jumped up to play the brave toreador, waving his blue scarf at the donkey. Jasper was its name. Jasper fled into the bushes but its long ears stuck out and he had to peep at Richard - he hadn't got the bullfight idea, but was intrigued.
Richard was an education in itself to me: he knew so much about Napoleon, for instance, and made me see Napoleon from a different angle, the emotional power he had over his men. Richard told me of his war experiences, death experience and beyond death: it seemed to melt one's brain away; Richard began writing his 'Death of a Hero' there in Port Cros. One day we went bathing in the bluest little bay, when an octopus persecuted Brigit and Richard had to beat it away.
We wanted to go to the mainland, not to be so far away with Lawrence so frail. So we left for Toulon, gay Toulon with its ships and sailors and shops, real sailors' shops, with boxes adorned with shells, ships made of shells, long knives from Corsica, on which was written: 'Che la mia ferita sia mortale.'
Near Toulon, at Bandol, in the hotel Beau Rivage we stayed all winter. A sunny hotel by the sea, friendly and easy as only Provence can be. We seemed to live completely the life of a 'petit rentier,' as Rousseau le Douanier has Painted it. Lawrence wrote 'Pansies' in his room in the Horning, then we went to have our apéritif before lunch in a café on the sea-front. There was a small war memorial, a gay young damsel that would please any poilu. We knew all the dogs of the small place, we saw the boats come in, their silvery loads of sardines glittering on the sand of the shores. Lawrence was better that winter in health. He watched the men playing 'boccia' on the shore, after lunch. We seemed to share the life of the little town, running along so easily, e went with the bus to Toulon. We saw the coloured soldiers. We went to a beautiful circus. Yes, easy and sunny was this winter in Bandol.
The Huxleys came and later on they found a house across the bay at Sanary. I see us sitting in the sunny dining-room of the Beau Rivage, and Lawrence saying to Maria: 'No, Maria, you would not be a bit nice if you were really very rich.'
In the spring we went to Spain from Marseilles - to Barcelona, from there to Mallorca. Mallorca still has a depth to it, a slight flavour of Africa, a distance in its horizon over the sea.
Our hotel was by a small bay. Deliciously hot, the days went by. We went all over the island, always wary not to tire Lawrence. I bathed in the heat of midday and climbed the rocks with the little bay entirely to myself. But one day I looked around and saw a Spanish officer on a splendid horse, looking out towards the sea; I was disturbed in my loneliness and wanted to dash to my bathing cloak and go away. I sprang on to a heap of seaweeds that had a hole underneath it and rocks. Like a gunshot my ankle snapped, I collapsed sick with pain. The officer rode up and offered me his horse that danced about. I thought: what a waste of a romantic situation; the ankle hurts so much, I can't get on to a prancing horse - if I could only be alone with this pain.
Lawrence appeared, got two young men to take me to the hotel in their car. The ankle did not hurt any more, but it was broken.
Lawrence wanted me to go to London to be there for the exhibition of his paintings. A gay flag with his name was flying outside the Warren Gallery when I went there. His pictures looked a little wild and overwhelming in the elegant, delicate rooms of the galleries. But never could I have dreamed that a few pictures could raise such a storm. I had not realized their potency in the big, bare rooms of the Mirenda, where they had been born so naturally, as if Tuscany had given its life to them. I was astonished. Then the Police came and put them in the cellar of Marlborough Street Police Station to be destroyed. I was worried lest the cellar be damp and so destroy them that way. But no, they were saved; it was a fight, though.
Meanwhile Lawrence was ill in Florence. What with the abuse of 'Lady Chatterley' and the disapproval of the pictures, he had become ill. Orioli telegraphed in distress. So off I set on my journey to Florence, my ankle still wobbly and aching and with constant worry in my mind of how I would find Lawrence. Orioli told me that after receiving my telegram saying I was coming, he had said: 'What will Frieda say when she arrives?' And Lawrence had answered: 'Do you see those peaches in the bowl? She will say, "What lovely peaches," and she will devour them.' So it was. After my first look at Lawrence, when his eyes had signalled to me their relief, 'She is here with me,' I felt my thirst from the long journey and ate the peaches.
He always got better when I was there. But Orioli told me how scared he had been when he had seen Lawrence, his head and arms hanging over the side of the bed, like one dead.
We left the heat of Florence for the Tegernsee to be near Max Mohr. We had a rough peasant house, it was autumn. Lawrence rested a great deal. My sister Else came to see him, and Alfred Weber. When he was alone with Alfred Weber, he said to him: 'Do you see those leaves falling from the apple tree? When the leaves want to fall you must let them fall.' Max Mohr had brought some doctors from Munich, but medicine did not help Lawrence. His organism was too frail and sensitive. I remember some autumn nights when the end seemed t
o have come. I listened for his breath through the open door, all night long, an owl hooting °minously from the walnut tree outside. In the dim dawn an enormous bunch of gentians I had put on the floor by his bed seemed the only living thing in the room. But he recovered and slowly Max Mohr and I travelled with him south again to Bandol.
After the Mirenda we seemed to live chiefly for his health. Switzerland and the sea one after the other seemed to do him most good. He did not want any doctors or cures. 'I know so much better about myself than any doctor,' he would say. His life became a struggle for health. And yet he would rise above it so amazingly and his spirit brought forth immortal flowers right up to the very end. One of his desires was to write a novel about each continent. Africa and Asia still he wanted to do. It was not given to him to do so. As one of my Indian friends here said: 'Why didn't Mr Lawrence write about the whole world? He knew all about it.' When he had read 'The Lost Girl' he said: 'What happened to those people afterwards? I want to know their story till they die.'
Here these Indians seem to understand him so immediately - better, I believe, than his white fellowmen.
The Nightingale
By D. H. Lawrence
Tuscany is full of nightingales, and in spring and summer they sing all the time, save in the middle of the night and the middle of the day. In the little leafy woods that hang on the steep of the hill toward the streamlet, as maidenhair hangs on a rock, you hear them piping up in the wanness of dawn, about four o'clock in the morning: Hello! Hello! Hello! It is the brightest sound, perhaps, of all sounds in the world: a nightingale piping up. Every time you hear it, you feel a wonder and, it must be confessed, a thrill, because the sound is so bright, so glittering, and it has such power behind it.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 1109