by Sylvia Plath
The place looks like a railroad station now. Tiles will be put around the bathroom wall up to 4 feet & panels around the good-sized tub on Thursday. The livingroom is the catchall---floors unpainted, walls with liner-paper on ready for painting, full of all our cases, timber, etc. Ted will make bookcases for our two alcoves, get our books up (after painting the walls white) & then we’ll paint the floor two coats of lino paint, pale grey, as in the bedroom, which makes the rooms look much bigger & very bright. I’m typing on a sample of our kitchen paper,* which is waterproof & very cheerful. The bathroom paper (I’m enclosing a dirty sample)* is the same design, only in neutral colors---it looks posh). We’ll paint the bits of wall around the sink, window, ascot & stove in the kitchen white, & the opposite wall a rose matching the paper & continue the rose into the little hall (It’s the same wall), & a little rose entry, plain. So no two patterned papers will adjoin---the livingroom plain white (brightened by our books, curtains & pictures) being the same backing as our kitchen & bedroom walls. We are having a marvelous time fixing the place up & don’t mind investing energy in it, as we’ll be here a good deal into our 3 year lease. I think $18 a week reasonable for such a lovely place, don’t you? What I like best is the spanking newness of everything. All new fixtures, nobody’s old stove to clean or toilet to scrub!
Here’s more of our kitchen paper---as you can see, the pattern is a large one. Don’t think of a washer. There’s not a mite of space for it. By the time I have my second baby I expect we’ll be in a place large enough for one. I will have diaper service, take the laundry twice a week (Ted can do this till I’m all rested up) to the laundromat around the corner & dry it on racks in the kitchen or bathtub overnight by having our electric fan-heater on, which only costs pennies a day. So don’t worry about that. I do appreciate your offer, though! Oddly enough, in a country where washmachines are a luxury for most people, it’s easier to get laundry done cheaply & conveniently because there is a demand for laundromats.
Our friends the Merwins are going to their farm in France* at the end of April & for the summer & are going to let Ted use Bill’s study---the quietest place in London---and me use their garden while they’re gone! Isn’t that lovely. Dido said all we have to do in return (she always makes some little task, she says, so that people won’t feel they’re imposing) is keep their marvelous Siamese cat company (the girl who sublets the rest of the place from them feeds it) & mow the little lawn. They live five minutes away from us, so it will be heavenly. The widowed older woman who lives in the Russian-novel antique attic upstairs (she is an aged Bohemian, came here 20 years ago & is a French interpreter for the telephone company, surrounded by hyacinths & all sorts of flowering plants, grease & dirt, & dusty oil paintings & gin, very warm-hearted) says you can hear the lions & seals & foreign birds roaring & cawing in the distance from the Regent’s Park Zoo when the windows are open in the summer! I just wish we could buy a house around here someday.
My prize is very simple & small: about $20 for a poem tied for first place* in a British critical magazine---poems were sent in from all over, but it made me cheered those dreary first weeks in London.
What we are happiest about is the wonderful news of Warren’s exam results! I read your long letter aloud to Ted & shouted “Oh oh oh” out when I came to that section. He deserves it! A good reward for all that work. Ironically, a hard, grim time---as I think we all have felt in this last year---seems to make pleasant changes afterwards that much more appreciated. Do let him read this letter---I mean him to read them all & always imagine I am writing to both of you.
We are going to keep one big trunk here (I shall cover it & use it as a windowseat) to store our summer & winter clothes in. The others the ubiquitous Dido has offered to store in her big attic. She is a vibrant, fine woman in her late thirties (or older---she keeps herself very well) married for the third time to this young American poet (he is about 32 or so). A fine thing for him: she has this wonderful London house---they live on the top two floors & the income from the lower two keep them. He has all his time for writing & is on his 5th book of poems, 2nd book of verse translations & does reviews. They bought an old farm in France for about $1,000 & live, as you may imagine, very pleasantly. He doesn’t want children (is actually, I think, at heart quite cold & calculating) & lives for himself & his work, &, & guess, Dido too. I like them both very much, though. On second thought, Bill is very good too: he just came over in his old car bringing an enamel-top table for the kitchen & took us back for some good expresso coffee. I wouldn’t have my doctor or this apartment, really, if it weren’t for them: Dido told us about it---she actually went hunting for us.
The rest of the house is in chaos & will be for a week or more---the flat below us isn’t finished, nor is the basement. And they are doing over the attic above us. By the time we are ready for peace & quiet, though, they will be done.
Did I tell you our kitchen, bathroom & little hall---all continuous, really, have been covered in marbled black linoleum? We bought it & the landlord’s men fitted it & it looks beautiful & will clean marvelously. As soon as the traffic is over, I shall wax it.
We love hearing about Sappho’s life & habits. Do forward all mail here now & write once a week. Things will have calmed down, I imagine, when I next write you & relative order been restored.
lots of love from us both,
Sivvy
Do say Rebecca & not Becky – not that I don’t like Becky, but I much prefer the full names & will call the children the whole thing!
TO Aurelia Schober Plath & Warren Plath
Sun.–Mon. 7–8 February 1960
TL (aerogramme), Indiana University
Sunday evening
February 7, 1959 (60!)
Dearest mother & Warren,
Well, here I am, sitting at my little enamel table in the warm, cheerful kitchen, my Olivetti open before me, the timer (yours) ticking away, an apful kuchen in the oven & a chicken stew gently simmering on top of the stove. My stove is a delight---we’ve used the grill (I welcome the height of it, no kneeling), the oven (I made that tunafish loaf & some Scottish fancies last night---how do you keep the latter from sticking as they cool like barnacles to the cookie sheet, no matter how fast you scrape them off?) Today has been a much-needed day of rest, as both of us have been working enormously hard all week. We knew this would be the immediate difficulty of any unfurnished apartment---the large lump investment of money and energy, but this place responds so beautifully & we are so happy here we are glad, enormously so, that it is ours for three years (we can always sublease or assign it if we want, or need, to move out earlier). My constant joy is that you will be seeing the place when you come in 1961, mother.
The landlord was right in saying the opening date of the house should have probably been a week after February 1st, but we are so grateful to have a base, a home, that we don’t mind the carry-on of repairs---workmen cheerfully whistling outside our windows at 7 am painting the plaster a lovely grey-white. Our bathroom will be tiled & the tub paneled tomorrow, & that should be the last they do in our apartment. They have still to do the stairs & main hall of the house & the basement flat is yet raw cement. We won’t use the bathroom, except the toilet, till they’ve finished tomorrow, & I haven’t cleaned the linoleum there or in the hall (big enough for a bureau or chest of drawers, very convenient) & won’t till they’re done. The kitchen is our center now---so new & gay with the bright paper on two walls. The outer wall we’ll paint white & the inner opposite rose-vermillion to match the color in the paper I sent. Ted has made a marvelous open cupboard of 7 shelves in the kitchen alcove next the livingroom where I can store much of my gear & will make me the kind of long, narrow counter table I need between cupboard & stove, big enough for guests, later. My icebox came & is wonderful, very handsome & capacious, with its little trays of plastic pop-out icecubes, shelved door, etc. The British are still afraid of Big things---large e
conomy sizes, and all the stoves & refrigerators we looked at, even the most expensive, had little mincey grilles & freezers: the one big enough for two pieces of toast, the other for a tray of icecubes & a box of frozen peas! Our freezer is marvelous, big enough to hold a roast, a brace of frozen boxes, a chicken etc, & our broiler is also fine & large. I am so pleased with our bed, stove & frige---I keep rubbing the latter over with a damp cloth just to see them sparkle.
Ted has made one fine set of bookshelves in the 7 foot alcove in the livingroom next to the windows & our books are up---the case is painted white, & he has just finished painting the livingroom walls white over the nice rough-textured liner paper, which looks wonderful---the room has a north-light overlooking the little green square of trees & pigeons & needs to be light. We are going to have a lovely engraving of Isis from one of Ted’s astrology books blown up to cover one of the sidewall panels, a bright floorlength curtain that will pull at night over the whole two-windowed wall, & of course Ted’s “Pike” & our Baskins. We’ll do that floor last---a grey-white lino paint---the boards are so bad they’ll need 3 coats, & then our Indian rug & my braided rug &, for the time being, some of the Merwins old furniture, until we can get some bargains at the multitudinous antique shops in London.
The bedrooms is like a bright arbor of roses We have ordered a five-drawer unpainted wood bureau (abt. 2½ ft. wide) at abt.$21, which we shall paint white. The little closet holds a surprising lot, & if it is necessary, we’ll get a second bureau for the hall. We are beginning to get the 1st good sleeps we’ve had in 6 months---both of us don’t sleep well when changing about all the time.
One great favor: could you possibly get & send me the biggest quilted bed pad going? Our bed is 5 feet wide by 6½ feet long, & noone here has heard of bedpads---they use blankets when they use anything! I’d love to get hold of one before the baby is born, as you may imagine, & would gladly pay you whatever it costs. Our ticking cover is so beautiful---pale blue with white figures, I don’t want to risk spoiling it. Would that be too much to be of a bother? I’d rather have that than anything. (I’ll continue this on another form.)
Monday: february 8: Just got the Harper’s today, forwarded from Yorkshire: so they took over a month. A manila envelope with my ms. of poems, rejected 5 poems & Ted’s story SUNDAY also came: please say what magazine the latter is from so we can keep our records straight!
TO Aurelia Schober Plath & Warren Plath
Sun.–Mon. 7–8 February 1960
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
(continued)
As I say, the bedpad would be a wonderful convenience. I hate to waste a blanket where a launderable pad would do.
I do think I have Warren’s skipants, but they are up in Yorkshire. I didn’t really give a second look when I unpacked them, but I remember thinking they seemed peculiarly new! Shall I have them sent back? I’m awfully sorry to have walked off with them.
Today we slept till nine after going to bed well before ten, got up leisurely for a breakfast of oatmeal & raisins, applesauce & coffee. We make the oatmeal quite thin, not porridgey, & love it every morning with fruit. Fruit & vegetables here seem very cheap & good---a head of lettuce for 12 cents, a pound of chicken livers for 30 cents, two magnificent lamb chops for 30 cents---chicken is the one thing that seems expensive a dollar or two each, & they are just beginning to catch on to fattening them---most are scrawny, but ours seems quite tender. You see broiled-chicken shops everywhere. For lunch, Ted having painted on the livingroom wall & me having sat & rested in the kitchen, which gets the sun all day, I had a lamb chop, crispy potatoes with an onion chopped fine & cooked with them (my favorite way), an enormous salad of lettuce & chicory, cookies & milk. So you see I eat well. Pints of milk here are 2½ cups (aren’t ours 2 cups?) and cost 8 cents a pint (we get ours delivered) and eggs, large, are about 50 cents a dozen. Do remind me of our American prices & compare them. Beds, it seems, are much more expensive here. But we got the best in the large shop & ordered one made to our specific size requirements, which added $30 to the price of the 4-foot wide one & the mattress is 8 inches thick & the most comfortable I’ve ever slept on. You’ll have to take a nap on it when you come.
The Merwins offer of Bill’s study for Ted from the end of April through the summer takes off all the strain of our being one room short when the baby comes, & they may (we hope) go to America next winter. Their house is only 5 minutes away.
This afternoon it was so pleasant---sunny all day, though fearfully cold (no snow at all here)---we went out for a two hour walk, across the street up Primrose Hill, which overlooks all London & is full of benches, groves of trees, across to Regents Park where I first lived (at Bedford College) when I came to London 5 years ago on my Fulbright. We skirted the wonderful zoo & peered at camels, llamas, Oriental deer & monkeys, all the children of London seemed out with their parents, then walked & walked over green grass to the islands of the bird sanctuary to see children throwing bread to the gorgeous ducks---all wierd colors, black swans, red-buff headed black & white striped, tufted greens & blues (Carolina ducks) & the common Bostonian mallard. There are boats here to take out under the little bridges in the summer, formal garden, fountains---all literally nextdoor to us. How I look forward to walking the baby out there---all the AA Milne* rhymes come to life! And “Ducks are a-dabbling”.* What fun we shall have when you come.
Saw my young doctor for another checkup last Thursday. He seems immensely kind & capable. The baby had swum around headup since I saw him, so he moved him back into position again, head down (I didn’t know this could be done) & said this was a common thing to happen in late pregnancy. I have to bring a urine sample for testing each time I come, & my blood-test showed I was type-O (Rh positive) & had a normal red-cell count for this time. I’ll see him again in two weeks. My midwife, Sister Hannaway, should come to the house to see me sometime this week, & I will go to her relaxation classes in Bloomsbury Square as soon as I make arrangements with her. Now that the strain of looking for a place is over & the apartment responding so rapidly to our work, I feel happy as I’ve ever been in my life, both of us eagerly anticipating Nicholas-Rebecca, who has a book already waiting to be dedicated to him/her.
Your plans for work in remedial reading sound very rewarding & sensible, if also strenuous. Do go easy on loading yourself with extra work. Could you fit in at BU in that new capacity? I should think colleges or private schools would be better than public schools---at Smith, I know, a woman came a couple of times a week to give a sight & content-reading improvement course & her extra-curricular classes were eagerly attended. Do keep up the German & your eyes open for any foot or even toe-hold there. Both of us have our fingers crossed for you. Let us know all that develops.
Love to Warren & more congratulations on his wonderful midterm marks.
xxx
Sivvy
TO Marcia B. Stern
Monday 8 February 1960
TL (aerogramme), Smith College
Monday afternoon
February 8, 1960
Dearest Marty . . .
Your good letter arrived in the midst of a very bleak month & cheered me no end. I decided to wait in answering until we had a London address, which I despaired of for many weeks, & now we have & I am in a much more optimistic frame of mind. Ted & I stayed up at his place in Yorkshire (pleasant enough, with its wild moortop views & great coal fires, but much too overcrowded to read a book in with Ted’s sister at home from Paris & all manner of relatives dropping in, & the minute kitchen & generally messiness of Ted’s mother who has a habit of leaving greasy frying pans unwashed in the oven, in cupboards etc. etc.) for 3 weeks & came to London just after New Year’s to start what we were sure would be a pleasant, brief search for a furnished apartment near one of the big London parks---Regent’s
or Hyde---& to locate me a doctor & hospital. Well, we started out staying in a ghastly unheated $5 a night bed & breakfast rooming house, the cheapest available, & went to a few housing agencies who promptly told us there were no furnished flats near a Park in London for anything under $25 or more a week. London, as you know, is geographically enormous. We started on what was to be a dreary 2-week trek from one end to the other by tube, bus, foot, & every so desperate often, taxi, through rain & cold winds, eating bad minestrones in Soho when we could remember it, & seeing the most unbelievable places for even more unbelievable prices---an American poet over here, W. S. Merwin (he and his aging British wife have been very wonderful & helpful) agreed with me that the English are the most secretly dirty race on earth. And they are. Even the “new” furniture in the large department stores looks dirty & grim. Well, anyhow, we felt more & more weary, cold (very) & lugubrious. The one place we liked, prettily furnished, at the corner of Kensington gardens was signed up fifteen minutes before we saw it. The other---over-looking Primrose Hill & a garden with big windows & clean kitchen, had a decorator-owner on vacation in Nassau who wouldn’t have any children. The unfurnished places demanded fantastic prices for “Fixtures & fittings” (nothing, really; perhaps a few light bulbs), hundreds of dollars---or “key money”, a large bribe to landlord or agent to get in at all---and were usually cold, noisy, barnlike.
Our second pair of friends in London, barely acquaintances before this, the Merwins, took us in with wonderful encouragement. They fed us, warmed us, called up places, people & saw flats for us. Dido (Bill is her 3rd husband) is an amazingly vital fortyish woman full of verve, who bought a huge bombedout house after the blitz for under 3 thousand, slowly converted it, & now owns a place worth 60 thousand at the end of a dead-end terrace overlooking the green acres of Primrose Hill. She & Bill live on the rent from the artist who occupies the 2 basement floors. Anyhow, Dido dug up this place in Chalcot Square---a mere wet hole of plaster when we first saw it in mid-January, being done-over into flats from a tenement of Irish laborers in a rapidly up & coming section just one street behind Regents Park road, overlooking a little green square of trees & grass.
