Falling (Literally) in Love
Katherine Mansfield, "Something Childish, but very Natural"
Commuting by train on an early-nineteenth-century evening in London, Henry meets an elusive woman in the carriage.
Now read on:
Henry was inside with the door slammed, in a carriage that wasn't a "smoker," that had not a trace of his straw hat or the black portfolio or his Aunt B's Christmas-present gloves. Instead, in the opposite corner, close against the wall, there sat a girl. Henry did not dare to look at her, but he felt certain she was staring at him. "She must think I'm mad," he thought, "dashing into a train without even a hat, and in the evening, too." He felt so funny. He didn't know how to sit or sprawl. He put his hands in his pockets and tried to appear quite indifferent and frown at a large photograph of Bolton Abbey. But feeling her eyes on him he gave her just the tiniest glance.
Quick she looked away out of the window, and then Henry, careful of her slightest movement, went on looking. She sat pressed against the window, her cheek and shoulder half hidden by a long wave of marigold-coloured hair. One little hand in a grey cotton glove held a leather case on her lap with the initials E. M. on it. The other hand she had slipped through the window-strap, and Henry noticed a silver bangle on the wrist with a Swiss cow-bell and a silver shoe and a fish. She wore a green coat and a hat with a wreath round it. All this Henry saw while the title of the new poem persisted in his brain—Something Childish but very Natural. "I suppose she goes to some school in London," thought Henry. "She might be in an office. Oh, no, she is too young. Besides she'd have her hair up if she was. It isn't even down her back." He could not keep his eyes off that beautiful waving hair.
"My eyes are like two drunken bees...' Now, I wonder if I read that or made it up?"
That moment the girl turned round and, catching his glance, she blushed. She bent her head to hide the red colour that flew in her cheeks, and Henry, terribly embarrassed, blushed too. "I shall have to speak—have to—have to!" He started putting up his hand to raise the hat that wasn't there. He thought that funny; it gave him confidence.
"I'm—I'm most awfully sorry," he said, smiling at the girl's hat. "But I can't go on sitting in the same carriage with you and not explaining why I dashed in like that, without my hat even. I'm sure I gave you a fright, and just now I was staring at you—but that's only an awful fault of mine; I'm a terrible starer! If you'd like me to explain—how I got in here—not about the staring, of course,"—he gave a little laugh—"I will."
For a minute she said nothing, then in a low, shy voice—"It doesn't matter."
The train had flung behind the roofs and chimneys. They were swinging into the country, past little black woods and fading fields and pools of water shining under an apricot evening sky. Henry's heart began to thump and beat to the beat of the train. He couldn't leave it like that. She sat so quiet, hidden in her fallen hair. He felt that it was absolutely necessary that she should look up and understand him—understand him at least. He leant forward and clasped his hands round his knees.
"You see I'd just put all my things—a portfolio—into a third-class 'smoker' and was having a look at the book-stall," he explained.
As he told the story she raised her head. He saw her grey eyes under the shadow of her hat and her eyebrows like two gold feathers. Her lips were faintly parted. Almost unconsciously he seemed to absorb the fact that she was wearing a bunch of primroses and that her throat was white—the shape of her face wonderfully delicate against all that burning hair.
"How beautiful she is! How simply beautiful she is!" sang Henry's heart, and swelled with the words, bigger and bigger and trembling like a marvellous bubble—so that he was afraid to breathe for fear of breaking it.
"I hope there was nothing valuable in the portfolio," said she, very grave.
"Oh, only some silly drawings that I was taking back from the office," answered Henry, airily. "And—I was rather glad to lose my hat. It had been hurting me all day."
"Yes," she said, "it's left a mark," and she nearly smiled.
Why on earth should those words have made Henry feel so free suddenly and so happy and so madly excited? What was happening between them? They said nothing, but to Henry their silence was alive and warm. It covered him from his head to his feet in a trembling wave. Her marvellous words, "It's made a mark," had in some mysterious fashion established a bond between them. They could not be utter strangers to each other if she spoke so simply and so naturally. And now she was really smiling. The smile danced in her eyes, crept over her cheeks to her lips and stayed there. He leant back. The words flew from him.—"Isn't life wonderful!"
At that moment the train dashed into a tunnel. He heard her voice raised against the noise. She leant forward.
"I don't think so. But then I've been a fatalist for a long time now"—a pause—"months."
They were shattering through the dark. "Why?" called Henry.
"Oh..."
Then she shrugged, and smiled and shook her head, meaning she could not speak against the noise. He nodded and leant back. They came out of the tunnel into a sprinkle of lights and houses. He waited for her to explain. But she got up and buttoned her coat and put her hands to her hat, swaying a little. "I get out here," she said. That seemed quite impossible to Henry.
The train slowed down and the lights outside grew brighter. She moved towards his end of the carriage.
"Look here!" he stammered. "Shan't I see you again?" He got up, too, and leant against the rack with one hand. "I must see you again." The train was stopping.
She said breathlessly, "I come down from London every evening."
"You—you—you do—really?" His eagerness frightened her. He was quick to curb it. Shall we or shall we not shake hands? raced through his brain. One hand was on the door-handle, handle, the other held the little bag. The train stopped. Without another word or glance she was gone.
What we love about this passage...
"If I had but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here."
Thus begins the first stanza of the poem "Something Childish, but very Natural" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and like many of Mansfield's short stories, it is particularly interested in dreams and fantasies.
In Mansfield's short story "Something Childish, but very Natural," she invites the reader to lean into one of the most clichéd fantasies of all: love at first sight with a stranger on a train. Yet, as the story continues, it becomes increasingly clear that this fantasy isn't quite what it seems. Even if Mansfield doesn't quite give us a concrete reason to be suspicious of the encounter, she is a master of subtly changing the mood and tone of the scene she has set.
Similarly, Mansfield's flair for the ironic means that she manages to subvert the prim propriety of comfortable urban life with the suggestion of violence: "At that moment the train dashed into a tunnel" -- a terrifying line at first glance, but one that turns out to be just a surreal description of a banal, everyday event.
About the author
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) lived a fascinating, though all too short, life. Born in New Zealand, she traveled to London for school where she fell in love with the city's cosmopolitan flavor and bohemian lifestyle at the turn of the century. Devoted to its artistic world, Mansfield made the decision to permanently emigrate there, and met many of the major figures associated with modernism and published her stories in some of the most important literary magazines. Though once overshadowed in the popular imagination by figures such as Virginia Woolf--with whom she had a rivalry--she has long had a loyal group of followers. Even Woolf came around: upon hearing of Mansfield's untimely death, she privately recorded, “no point in writing … Katherine won't read it."
To read alongside...
Mansfield wrote prodigiously, mostly in the form of short stories. Each is delicately crafted, subtly incisive, and wonderfully written--and often a quick but penetrating read. She was especially perceptive in her writing about children. If you liked this excerpt from "Something Childish, but very Natural," then you might also enjoy Mansfield's stories "The Woman at the Store," "How Pearl Button was Kidnapped," and "The Doll's House." Her contemporary James Joyce was also interested in many of the same themes as Mansfield, as is clear from his collection of short stories published together as Dubliners.
Suggest a LitHit!
Tell us your own favourites from literature you've read, and we can feature you as a Guest Curator. Just email us with the following information:
Your full name
The title of the book you're suggesting
The location of the excerpt within the book (e.g., "in the middle of chapter 5"), or the excerpt itself copied into the email or attached to it (in Word)
Why you love it, in just a few sentences
**Please note that we welcome all suggestions but at the moment we can only release excerpts that are out of copyright and in the public domain. This means 75 years or more since the author's death. You can find many such out-of-copyright texts on the internet, for example at Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks.
About LitHits
Today's guest curator...
Dr Daniel Abdalla, core member of LitHits and an expert in nineteenth and twentieth-century literature.
You might also enjoy...
“Five Tips to Get Reading Again if You’ve Struggled During the Pandemic,” The Conversation (8 January 2021): https://theconversation.com/five-tips-to-get-reading-again-if-youve-struggled-during-the-pandemic-152904
Writers Make Worlds: https://writersmakeworlds.com/
The Ten Minute Book Club: https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/ten-minute-book-club
Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/
Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/
Feedback
We'd love to hear your thoughts on our newsletter:
kirsten@lit-hits.co.uk
Graphic design by Sara Azmy
All curation content © 2022 LitHits. All rights reserved.