1 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:11,840 Letters Home 2 00:00:12,200 --> 00:00:16,720 by Rose Leiman Goldemberg based on Sylvia Plath’s ’Letters Home’ 3 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,680 selected and edited by Aurelia Schober Plath. 4 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:46,600 My first thanks go to my son Warren J. Plath, and his wife Margaret, 5 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:54,480 whose moral support and assistance encouraged me to undertake this project. 6 00:01:55,920 --> 00:02:01,680 Deep gratitude is owed to each member of my understanding, loyal family. 7 00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:11,400 I am deeply grateful to Ted Hughes for giving me the copyright 8 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:14,520 for this selection of Sylvia Plath’s letters. 9 00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:22,360 This book is dedicated to my grandchildren. Frieda and Nicholas, Jennifer and Susan. 10 00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:30,480 It may seem extraordinary that someone who died at 30 11 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:34,960 left behind 669 letters, written to her family 12 00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:38,560 between the beginning of her college years in 1950 13 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:42,520 and her death in February 1963. 14 00:02:43,960 --> 00:02:47,160 We could not afford long-distance telephoning … 15 00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:05,640 and Sylvia loved to write. 16 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:13,560 Dearest Mummy, 17 00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:15,720 Only five minutes till midnight, 18 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:20,000 so I thought I’d spend them writing my first letter to my favourite person. 19 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:23,240 If my printing’s crooked, it’s because I drank too much apple cider tonight. 20 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:25,320 Dear Mummy, 21 00:03:25,760 --> 00:03:28,960 The most divine thing has happened to me. 22 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:30,840 Dear Mummy, 23 00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:35,400 Just got your letter this morning, so I thought I’d drop you a line. 24 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:39,720 Your letters are fascinating and they mean so much. 25 00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:42,960 Dear Mum … Love, Sivvy. 26 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:47,160 Throughout these years I had the dream 27 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,560 of one-day handing Sylvia the huge packet of letters. 28 00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:55,880 She could make use of them in stories, and through them, meet herself. 29 00:03:57,040 --> 00:03:58,880 God, today is lovely! 30 00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:03,480 My nose is still runny, but with much sleep and nose drops … 31 00:04:04,480 --> 00:04:08,840 By the way, do you suck penicillin, or swallow with water? 32 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,160 I don’t want to kill myself! Cheerio! Sivvy. 33 00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:17,960 She could taste again the moments of joy and triumph, of sorrow and fear. 34 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:26,520 Just to think I’m almost 18 … life slipping through my fingers … 35 00:04:27,040 --> 00:04:31,640 little time to stop running … have to keep on like the White Queen … 36 00:04:32,840 --> 00:04:34,600 Can you make any sense out of this? 37 00:04:34,760 --> 00:04:38,120 Maybe you can analyse your child better than she can herself. 38 00:04:38,280 --> 00:04:42,960 In her writings, Sylvia fused parts of my life with hers. 39 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:49,320 So before telling of her early years I will first describe my own. 40 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:55,640 As is often the case in a family having European roots, ours were Austrian, 41 00:04:55,920 --> 00:04:59,920 my father made the important decisions during my childhood. 42 00:05:00,280 --> 00:05:05,080 However, in the early 1920s, financial catastrophe overtook our family. 43 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:08,200 Dear … - My father, broken in spirit 44 00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:11,120 and blaming himself unjustly for his human error … 45 00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:14,320 Dear … - Handed over the management to my mother. 46 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:16,880 Mummy. - Although my father spoke four languages, 47 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:21,640 we only spoke German at home. 48 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:27,480 How isolated I felt as I stood by myself in a corner 49 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:30,480 listening to the other children shouting “Shut up!” 50 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:34,720 Homesickness hit when I walked into my room, empty and bare. 51 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:36,760 Gosh, I felt lonely! 52 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:41,480 When I went home after school and met my father, 53 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:44,840 I answered his greeting proudly with “Shut up!” 54 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,800 His face reddened. He took me across his knee and spanked me. 55 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:53,920 Weeping loudly, I asked, “Papa, was bedeutet das?” 56 00:05:54,160 --> 00:05:55,720 What does that mean? 57 00:05:56,080 --> 00:06:01,320 So much work I should have done, my schedule looked so insurmountable … 58 00:06:01,640 --> 00:06:04,320 He realized I had not understood what the words meant … 59 00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:07,000 I am now out of my great depression, 60 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:10,600 the first sad mood I’ve had since I’ve been here. 61 00:06:10,840 --> 00:06:14,440 He was sorry, hugged me, and asked me to forgive him. 62 00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:17,680 Now I come to the most thrilling part. 63 00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:22,800 From that time on we spoke English at home. Father was our teacher, 64 00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:25,200 and mother and I studied together. 65 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:32,120 Whom should my 850 dollars come from but Olive Higgins Prouty! 66 00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:36,960 Good heavens, she is responsible for all this! 67 00:06:37,760 --> 00:06:40,240 It is an Indian summer day … 68 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:45,520 blue skied, leaves golden, falling. 69 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:51,560 So I sit here, sheltered, the sun warming me inside. 70 00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:53,640 And life is good. 71 00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:57,400 Out of misery comes joy... 72 00:06:57,560 --> 00:06:59,280 I feel that I am learning. 73 00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:00,840 In my junior year in high school, 74 00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:06,280 the world of American and English prose and poetry burst upon me, 75 00:07:06,440 --> 00:07:10,320 filling me with the urgency to read! 76 00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,800 I lived in a dream world … 77 00:07:12,960 --> 00:07:19,360 I’m being stretched, pulled to heights and depths of thought I never dreamed possible. 78 00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:22,960 A book under every mattress, a book in the bathroom... 79 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,600 “What is the girl doing? Oh, she’s reading again!” 80 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:34,440 If only I can weld the now into art and writing later on … 81 00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:39,000 Like animals storing up fat and then, in hibernation, using it up. 82 00:07:39,360 --> 00:07:46,120 I completely identified with the characters in a story. 83 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:49,280 If only I’m good enough to deserve all this! 84 00:07:49,560 --> 00:08:00,040 My wish became to open to other young people this wonder, to teach. 85 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:02,800 I just can’t stand the idea of being mediocre! 86 00:08:03,320 --> 00:08:05,440 It was the beginning of my dream 87 00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:08,960 for the ideal education of the children I hoped to have some day. 88 00:08:09,080 --> 00:08:12,480 The question is, shall I plan for a career? I hate the word! 89 00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:15,480 Or should I major in English and Art? 90 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:20,120 Fortunately, my mother was most sympathetic and read my books too, saying: 91 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:25,040 “More than one person can get a college education on one tuition.” 92 00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:31,120 I remembered that when my daughter went to Smith College. 93 00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:40,400 You are listening to the most busy and happy girl in the world! 94 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:44,360 I have just been elected to Alpha Phi Kappa Psi, 95 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:48,400 which is the Phi Beta Kappa of the Arts. 96 00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:54,440 I will get at least one sonnet published in the ‘Smith Review’. 97 00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:59,800 No one other than W.H. Auden, the famous modern poet, 98 00:08:59,920 --> 00:09:02,400 is to come to Smith next year. 99 00:09:02,960 --> 00:09:06,840 Imagine saying, “Oh, yes, I studied writing under Auden!” 100 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:09,360 Your happy girl, Sivvy. 101 00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:11,760 Following my graduation, 102 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:14,400 I decided to teach English for one year 103 00:09:14,560 --> 00:09:17,520 and return to the University to earn a Master of Arts degree. 104 00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:25,040 Dr Otto Emil Plath taught the course in Middle High German. 105 00:09:25,400 --> 00:09:29,840 This is a period of sterility emotionally. 106 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:32,600 I had met Professor Plath briefly, 107 00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:40,000 a fine-looking gentleman with vivid blue eyes. 108 00:09:40,680 --> 00:09:44,120 Blue skied, leaves golden … 109 00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:49,840 I remember the last day of classes … When I went to say good-bye, 110 00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:55,160 Professor Plath played about with a pen on his desk. 111 00:09:55,720 --> 00:10:00,320 Professor Haskell and his wife had invited him to spend a weekend at their farm. 112 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:04,760 Should I care to join him, he would appreciate it. 113 00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:07,720 My date last night looked rather old. 114 00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:10,840 I learned much about Otto Plath that weekend. 115 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:12,720 I feel that I’m cut off from all mankind … 116 00:10:12,880 --> 00:10:16,200 It astounded me that he had married 14 years before. 117 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:21,240 I don’t even know how I can last one week! - He and his wife had soon separated. 118 00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:27,400 I feel like putting my head on your shoulder and weeping from homesickness. 119 00:10:27,640 --> 00:10:32,080 Were he to form a serious relationship with a young woman now, 120 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:35,040 he would obtain a divorce. - My face is a mess … 121 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:37,080 He thought my thesis proved. - Broken out … 122 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:39,440 we had much in common … - My tan is faded … 123 00:10:39,560 --> 00:10:42,880 and that he would like to know me better. - My eyes are sunken. 124 00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:46,040 If I were pretty, I wouldn’t mind so much! 125 00:10:47,720 --> 00:10:51,280 Boys are strictly secondary in my life. 126 00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:57,000 I find myself numb as far as feeling goes. 127 00:10:57,840 --> 00:11:00,720 I’m trying to keep my head above water, 128 00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:04,520 emotions are absent for the while. 129 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:09,080 One less distraction! 130 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:15,960 Our friendship deepened, we dreamed of shared projects, 131 00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:21,880 involving nature study, travel, writing. 132 00:11:22,160 --> 00:11:25,040 Life looks so bright when you’re well! 133 00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:30,680 I taught until January 1932 when Otto and I were married 134 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:32,440 in Carson City, Nevada. 135 00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:35,440 Your bewildered Sivvy. 136 00:11:35,800 --> 00:11:39,400 Then I yielded to my husband’s wish and became a full-time homemaker. 137 00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:40,600 Dear mother, 138 00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:45,240 I was up in my room talking with a lovely girl! 139 00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:50,200 She’s one of the people I can really tell things to … 140 00:11:50,520 --> 00:11:53,600 the misery of being dateless this weekend. 141 00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:59,920 Bill asked me out, but I refused. He just isn’t my sort. 142 00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:04,160 Then the phone rang, it was Louise. 143 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:07,800 Three boys had just dropped over and would I go out tonight. 144 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:13,200 I threw on my clothes, ranting on how never to commit suicide, 145 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:16,200 because something unexpected always happens! 146 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:18,680 Turned out that my date was a doll. 147 00:12:19,160 --> 00:12:21,240 I now feel terrific! 148 00:12:21,920 --> 00:12:25,480 What a man can do! Love, Sivvy. 149 00:12:26,520 --> 00:12:31,200 As soon as I was pregnant, I began reading books about the rearing of children. 150 00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:35,080 I was filled with the desire to be a good wife and mother. 151 00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:38,640 What a man can do! - I followed the “demand feeding” 152 00:12:38,760 --> 00:12:42,640 accepted as modern today, but old-fashioned in the 1930s. 153 00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:50,720 My babies were rocked, sung to and picked up when they cried. 154 00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:51,840 Dear Mom … 155 00:12:52,680 --> 00:12:58,800 Sylvia was born October 27, 1932, a heavy, healthy baby. 156 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:03,040 At a luncheon, her father told his colleagues, 157 00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:09,160 “I hope for one more thing in life: a son, two and a half years from now.” 158 00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:16,040 Warren was born April 27, 1935, only two hours off schedule, and 159 00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:21,440 Otto was called by his colleagues “the man who gets what he wants when he wants it.” 160 00:13:21,560 --> 00:13:22,560 Dear Mom … 161 00:13:23,040 --> 00:13:28,960 My dreams of “open house” for students and the faculty were not realized. 162 00:13:29,040 --> 00:13:33,120 All was given up for “the book”, a treatise on insect societies. 163 00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:34,920 My height is 5’9” … 164 00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:38,320 We worked together on this … - my weight 137 pounds. 165 00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:42,760 I did the reading and note-taking … - I took such pains … 166 00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:48,480 He rewriting and adding his notes. Then, I put it into final form. 167 00:13:51,280 --> 00:13:57,480 Otto insisted he handled all finances, even when purchasing meat, fish and vegetables. 168 00:13:58,880 --> 00:14:00,880 The age difference between us, 169 00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:04,360 Otto’s superior education, 170 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:11,680 led to a “rightful dominance” on his part. 171 00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:17,440 At the end of my first year of marriage, I realized that if I wanted a peaceful home, 172 00:14:19,080 --> 00:14:21,080 I would simply have to become more submissive, 173 00:14:21,200 --> 00:14:23,120 although it was not my nature to be so. 174 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:26,400 Physically, I want a colossus. 175 00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:32,320 Mentally, I want a man who isn’t jealous of my creativity. 176 00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:36,880 Graduate school and travel abroad are not going be disturbed 177 00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:39,120 by any squalling, breastfed brats. 178 00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:44,760 I’ve controlled my sex judiciously, you don’t have to worry about me. 179 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:50,520 Love affairs would stop me from my independence and creativity, 180 00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:54,320 and I don’t intend to be stopped. Love, Sivvy. 181 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:07,040 The year after Warren’s birth, Otto began to draw into himself. 182 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:11,200 Dear Mother, I have been worried about a friend of mine. 183 00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:17,840 He was losing weight, continually weary, and easily upset. 184 00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:20,880 Yesterday, she came up to my room. 185 00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:27,800 At first, she was very evasive, but then her face melted with tears. 186 00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:33,640 He refused to see a physician. He said he had diagnosed his case 187 00:15:34,120 --> 00:15:36,920 and that he would never submit to surgery. 188 00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:40,480 It seems that since Thanksgiving she hasn’t been able to do her work, 189 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:44,240 and now she only reiterates, “I can never do it, never.” 190 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:47,280 She doesn’t get enough sleep, but wakes up early, 191 00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:52,000 obsessed by her work, even if she can only go through the motions. 192 00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:55,360 I finally sensed Otto’s unspoken diagnosis … 193 00:15:55,640 --> 00:16:01,720 I got scared when she told me she had been saving sleeping pills and razor blades. 194 00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:03,640 Lung cancer. 195 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:08,600 Oh, mother, you don’t know how inadequate I felt. 196 00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:10,480 From this time on … 197 00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:13,280 I have been thinking of writing to her parents, 198 00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,640 telling them of how tired she is and how she needs rest. 199 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:19,160 It was heart-breaking to watch a once-handsome, 200 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:22,040 powerful man lose his vigour and deteriorate completely. 201 00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:26,240 For her mother kept telling her she was foolish and could do it all. 202 00:16:26,520 --> 00:16:31,960 Appealing to him to get medical diagnosis only brought on outbursts of anger. 203 00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:36,880 But her mother couldn’t see how incapable she is of thinking now. 204 00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:40,120 One morning in August 1940, 205 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:43,800 Otto stubbed his toe against his bureau. 206 00:16:44,880 --> 00:16:47,040 That afternoon I asked to see his foot. 207 00:16:47,480 --> 00:16:50,800 The toes were black, and red streaks ran up his ankle. 208 00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:57,880 I rushed to telephone my doctor. 209 00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:00,080 “Diabetes mellitus.” 210 00:17:00,520 --> 00:17:03,480 This declaration struck me like lightning. 211 00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:06,280 So this was his illness, not a cancer at all, 212 00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:10,120 which treated in time, could be lived with. 213 00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:13,720 From that day on life was an alternation of hope and fear. 214 00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:17,320 Maybe it’s none of my business, but I love the girl … 215 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:20,800 and feel inadequate and responsible. 216 00:17:21,720 --> 00:17:26,600 On the nurse’s first day off, Otto suggested that I get out with Sylvia. 217 00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:32,280 We ran along the beach for half an hour. 218 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:34,160 Inadequate … - On my return, 219 00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:36,280 I found Otto collapsed on the staircase. 220 00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:40,920 Responsible … - Somehow I carried him to his bed. 221 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:43,360 The doctor could not be reached. 222 00:17:43,720 --> 00:17:47,120 I gave Otto his insulin injection, he was so exhausted. 223 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:55,440 In the middle of the night he called me, feverish, shaking with chills. 224 00:17:55,760 --> 00:18:00,640 That night I kept changing sheets, sponging his face, holding his hands. 225 00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:05,640 I could only think, “All this needn’t have happened …” 226 00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:08,774 If you were her mother she would be all right. 227 00:18:08,834 --> 00:18:10,600 The next day the doctor came. 228 00:18:12,760 --> 00:18:17,880 Only an amputation of the gangrened foot and leg could save Otto’s life. 229 00:18:18,960 --> 00:18:23,480 The doctor murmured, “How could such a brilliant man be so stupid.” 230 00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:28,400 If you were her mother, if you were her mother … 231 00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:32,200 On October 12, the amputation was performed. 232 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:37,440 On November 5, his condition was serious. 233 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:41,080 My telephone was ringing when I returned home. 234 00:18:41,360 --> 00:18:46,560 An embolus had caused my husband’s death. 235 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:52,080 If you were her mother she would be all right. 236 00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:56,120 I waited until the next morning to tell the children. 237 00:18:56,840 --> 00:19:03,680 When Warren awoke, I told him quietly that Daddy’s sufferings had ended. 238 00:19:05,240 --> 00:19:08,440 Warren hugged me tightly and said, 239 00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:11,440 “Oh, Mummy, I’m so glad you are young and healthy!” 240 00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:14,520 Inadequate, responsible … 241 00:19:15,920 --> 00:19:18,600 Then I faced the more difficult task, telling Sylvia … 242 00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:20,760 She was already in bed, reading. 243 00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:25,320 She looked at me for a moment, then said woodenly, 244 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:27,560 “I’ll never speak to God again.” 245 00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:31,440 I’ll never speak to God again. 246 00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:36,160 I told her she could stay at home that day and not go to school. 247 00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:44,240 From under the blanket she said, “I want to go to school.” 248 00:19:57,240 --> 00:19:58,760 I want to go to school. 249 00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:03,840 For all my bold talk of being self-sufficient, 250 00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:07,600 I realize now how much you mean to me. 251 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:11,080 You and Warren and my dear Grampy and Grammy. 252 00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:15,760 I am glad the rain’s coming down hard. It’s the way I feel inside. 253 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:18,000 I love you so. 254 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:21,920 After school, she came to me, red-eyed. 255 00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:26,840 She was nine years old. She handed me a piece of paper. 256 00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:31,640 In shaky printing stood these words: I promise never to marry again. 257 00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:33,880 I love you so. 258 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:36,120 I signed at once. 259 00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:40,040 What a superlative mother you have been to me. 260 00:20:40,600 --> 00:20:43,760 Love, love, love. - “Love, love, love.” 261 00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:48,880 My husband had no pension. 262 00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:55,000 His 5000-dollar insurance had to be used to pay his medical and funeral expenses. 263 00:20:57,600 --> 00:21:02,280 In the summer of 1942, I was invited by the dean of Boston University 264 00:21:02,360 --> 00:21:06,040 to develop a course in Medical Secretarial Procedures. 265 00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:14,000 At the small salary of 1800 dollars a year, it was providential. 266 00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:18,840 I don’t want you to worry about things, Mummy. I am learning a lot. 267 00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:22,720 Now that the hardest 20 years of your life are over, 268 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,360 you deserve all the returns you can get. 269 00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:32,000 P.S. I will grow up in jerks, it seems, 270 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,080 so don’t feel my growing pains so vicariously, dear! 271 00:21:41,360 --> 00:21:47,920 All the girls from her year were invited to Maureen Buckley’s coming-out party. 272 00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:50,160 Dear Mother, 273 00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:57,880 How can I ever tell you what a unique, dreamlike weekend I had! 274 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:00,920 Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m., 275 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:04,680 about 15 girls from Smith started out for Sharon, Connecticut. 276 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:11,240 Marcia and I drew a convertible with three girls and a boy. 277 00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:14,080 Picture me then in my navy-blue … 278 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:15,520 bolero suit … 279 00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:22,160 and brown coat, snuggled in the back seat … 280 00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:23,640 Snuggled? 281 00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:30,360 Whizzing for two hours through the Connecticut valley! 282 00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:35,640 The foliage was out in full tilt, 283 00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:39,320 yellow maples and scarlet oak … 284 00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:41,520 The afternoon sun on them … 285 00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:44,720 It was more than I could bear. 286 00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:50,280 At about 5 p.m. we rolled up the long drive to the residence. 287 00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:53,480 God! Great lawns, 288 00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,200 huge trees on a hill, 289 00:22:56,680 --> 00:22:59,800 with a view of the valley, green cow pastures, 290 00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:01,640 orange and yellow leaves … 291 00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:04,880 A truck was unloading champagne! 292 00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:07,240 Champagne! 293 00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:09,080 We walked through the hall … 294 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:10,760 thousand living rooms … 295 00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,800 rare objects of art everywhere. 296 00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:18,160 Marcia and I and Joan Strong. - A lovely girl. 297 00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:24,920 Had the best deal. A big double bed and bath to ourselves. 298 00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:31,480 We lay down under a big quilt in the grey-purple twilight, 299 00:23:32,120 --> 00:23:34,680 talking about the exciting … 300 00:23:35,160 --> 00:23:38,080 unknown … - evening fast coming. 301 00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,680 Joan, Marcia, and I were driven in a great … - black … 302 00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:47,960 Cadillac, to the restaurant, where a lovely supper was prepared. 303 00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,840 After supper … - another hour of lying down … 304 00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:53,160 Scarlett O’Hara before the ball … 305 00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:55,200 And then the dressing! 306 00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:02,120 Under the columns of the Buckley home … 307 00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,680 girls in beautiful gowns … 308 00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:10,760 everywhere swishes of taffeta, satin … - silk! 309 00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:14,200 I looked at Marcia, and we winked at each other. 310 00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:16,520 Walking out in the patio, 311 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:22,400 with the treetops barely visible through the glassed-in roof … 312 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,160 Remember Mrs Jack’s patio? - The same! 313 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,000 Vines trailing from a balcony … - fountains playing … 314 00:24:29,120 --> 00:24:33,760 Balloons, Japanese lanterns, tables covered with white linen. 315 00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:38,800 A platform built up for dancing. I stood open-mouthed, 316 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:43,200 giddy … - Wanting so much to show you! 317 00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:47,680 If you had seen me! I looked … - beautiful! 318 00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:52,520 Even daughters of millionaires complimented my dress! 319 00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,160 I began to wish I had brought a date, 320 00:24:56,360 --> 00:25:00,280 wondering if I could compete with all the lovely girls there. 321 00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:04,720 By the end of the evening, I was so glad I hadn’t. 322 00:25:05,360 --> 00:25:09,720 The Senior Class at Yale was there, including Maureen’s brother. 323 00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:15,040 Ten children in the catholic family, all brilliant, all writers. 324 00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:21,040 A lovely tall hook-nosed freshman named Eric cut in. 325 00:25:21,360 --> 00:25:25,200 Turned out we both loved literature. 326 00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:28,480 Back to the floor with Carl … - the philosophy major … 327 00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,360 who invited me to the match Cornell against Yale. 328 00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:32,960 I refused. - Nicely. 329 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:37,200 Next I danced with the Editor of the ‘Yale News’ … 330 00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:46,200 Now, suddenly … - a lovely dark-haired boy cut in. 331 00:25:48,120 --> 00:25:49,600 “Name?” I asked. 332 00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:51,480 “Constantine”. 333 00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:56,280 He was a wonderful dancer … 334 00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:02,160 and twirled so all I could see was a cartwheel of coloured lights. 335 00:26:04,360 --> 00:26:08,920 His father was a general in the Russian Caucasus Mountains. 336 00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:14,400 I danced steps I never dreamed of and my feet … 337 00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:16,080 just … - flew … 338 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:22,240 A tall boy, who claimed his name was Plato, did the sweetest thing. 339 00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:26,640 In the midst of dancing he said, “I have a picture I want to show you.” 340 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:28,120 So we … - crossed … 341 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:29,840 Through the cool, leaf-covered … - patio … 342 00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:31,960 and entered one of the drawing rooms. 343 00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:36,640 Over the fireplace was a Botticelli. 344 00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:38,320 Madonna! 345 00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,040 “You remind me of her”, he said. - I was really touched. 346 00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:50,360 Imagine meeting such fascinating, intelligent, people! 347 00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:56,560 And saving best to last, my Constantine. He cut in and we danced … 348 00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,560 Finally, we were so hot … - and breathless … 349 00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:03,560 That we walked out on the lawn. 350 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,560 The night was lovely. - Stars, trees big and dark … 351 00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,960 So guess what we did. We … - danced Strauss waltzes. 352 00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,960 You should have seen us whirling … 353 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,400 over the grass … - with the music from inside … 354 00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:21,440 faint and distant … 355 00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,440 Imagine, on a night like that … - to have a … 356 00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:28,840 handsome and perceptive … - male kiss your hand … 357 00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:30,240 tell you … - how … 358 00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:31,480 beautiful you were! 359 00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,040 I asked him what … - happened … 360 00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,080 when a woman got old, and her physical beauty waned, 361 00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:39,920 and he said in his lovely … - liquid … 362 00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:45,400 voice, “she will always be beautiful to the man she married, we hope.” 363 00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:50,400 I asked if I could tell him my favourite poem. I did … 364 00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,960 And he loved it! Oh … 365 00:27:53,120 --> 00:27:57,520 If you could have heard him talk … - about life and the world. 366 00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:03,240 Imagine! I told him teasingly not to suffocate in my hair and he said: 367 00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:05,520 “What a divine way to die!” 368 00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,520 Probably all this sounds silly, but I … 369 00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,640 never … - expressed myself so clearly, 370 00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:15,120 never felt … - such sympathetic response. 371 00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:22,080 There is sudden glorying in womanhood, 372 00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:27,400 when someone kisses your shoulder and says “You are charming … 373 00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:28,760 beautiful … 374 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:30,640 and most important, 375 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:32,000 intelligent.” 376 00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:37,920 It was five when I fell into bed. I dreamed … 377 00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,360 exquisite dreams! 378 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,080 Lord, what luxury! 379 00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,920 Back here … - I can’t face the dead reality. 380 00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:57,440 I still lilt and twirl … - with Eric, Plato and my lovely … 381 00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,600 Constantine … - under Japanese lanterns, 382 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,720 and a hundred moons twining in … - dark leaves … 383 00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:08,000 music spilling out and … - echoing yet … 384 00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:09,240 inside my head … 385 00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:12,760 To have had you there! - In spirit. 386 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,160 To have had you see me … 387 00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,760 I’ve got to work and work! 388 00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,840 My courses are frightening. I can’t keep up with them! 389 00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:26,640 Love … - love … 390 00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:28,040 love … - Sivvy. 391 00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:35,920 Today I got a letter confirming my job. I hope I can earn a lot of money. 392 00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:40,080 The Belmont Hotel. June 11, 1952. 393 00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:43,600 Your amazing telegram … - announcing 500 dollars, 394 00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:47,800 ‘Mademoiselle’ prize for ‘Sunday at the Mintons’ … 395 00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:52,600 came just as I was scrubbing tables in the Belmont dining-room. 396 00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:59,760 I was so excited that I screamed and threw my arms around a waitress 397 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:02,040 who no doubt thinks I am insane. 398 00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,080 The moment couldn’t have been better. 399 00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:10,440 Also, I just learned since I am completely inexperienced, 400 00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:16,280 I am not going to be working in the main dining-room, but in the “side-hall” 401 00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:21,120 where the hotel management eats. 402 00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,920 So, tips will be much less. 403 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:30,760 I was beginning to worry about money when your telegram came. 404 00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,400 God! To think ‘Sunday at the Mintons’ 405 00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:39,640 is one of two prize stories to be put in a big national slick! 406 00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:44,320 The first thing I thought of was: Mother can keep her money 407 00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:49,000 and buy some pretty clothes and a trip or something. 408 00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:55,800 I will get a winter coat and special suit at Mintons’ expenses. 409 00:30:56,480 --> 00:31:02,240 Both Sylvia and I were more at ease in writing words of admiration and love 410 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,000 than in expressing emotions verbally, 411 00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,840 and thank goodness, write them to each other we did! 412 00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,480 So it’s really looking up around here, now that I don’t have to be scared about money. 413 00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,160 I held off … - Even if my feet kill me … 414 00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,680 because, - after this first week, 415 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,600 as she would be 20 … - and I drop 20 trays … 416 00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:27,160 I will have the beach, boys to bring me beer, sun, 417 00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:32,360 her response to my praise would be … - and young gay companions. 418 00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,690 “Oh, you think I’m wonderful or look lovely … 419 00:31:35,750 --> 00:31:36,800 What a life! 420 00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,760 because you’re … - Your crazy old daughter, Sivvy. 421 00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:41,960 my mother.” 422 00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:50,440 As tempted as I am to be a coward and crawl back home, 423 00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,920 I want to give it a month of trial. 424 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:59,040 Don’t worry about me, but do send some advice now and then. 425 00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:01,760 June 17, 1952. 426 00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,800 Dear mum, It’s my anniversary this week, 427 00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:10,800 and I am celebrating the beautiful day on the beach. 428 00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:15,080 I am in a more optimistic mood than when I wrote you. 429 00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:24,360 I’ve got an idea for a story for ‘Seventeen’ called ‘Side hall girl’. 430 00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,360 I even have a heroine named Marley who is, of course, 431 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:29,200 me! 432 00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:34,400 In a few days, I will send it to you to type and get notarized. 433 00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:40,120 Would I like to win a summer course for writers at Bradloaf! 434 00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:45,520 But this is really a dream, because boys usually win those things, 435 00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:48,080 and my style needs to mature a lot yet. 436 00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,400 As for side hall, I figure I deserve a break, 437 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:55,960 what with all my good fortune winning prizes and going to Smith. 438 00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:02,160 I don’t care what people think about me as long as I’m nice and friendly. 439 00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:07,040 Love to you all, Sivvy, your Side Hall philosopher. 440 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:11,960 June 25, 1952. 441 00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:15,720 Just a note to let you know I’m still alive. 442 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,000 Never has work worn me out so much. 443 00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,240 In spite of everything, I still have my good old sense of humour, 444 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:25,240 and manage to laugh a lot. 445 00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,640 I have decided to come home August 10. 446 00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:32,440 I will have stayed 2 months, slaved for 200 dollars, 447 00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:36,160 and will need a month to recuperate physically and mentally. 448 00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:42,560 With all my demanding school offices, I can’t afford to crack up. 449 00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:48,360 Now I’m always so tired that I can’t retain anything, 450 00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,680 except what kind of eggs people like for breakfast. 451 00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:55,240 Your … - maturing … 452 00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:56,440 Sivvy. 453 00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:16,200 Brace yourself and take a deep breath. 454 00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:23,760 God, will I be glad to get home for a few days of rest. 455 00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,840 I am in a rather tense emotional and mental state. 456 00:34:29,240 --> 00:34:32,640 The crux of the matter is my attitude toward life, 457 00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:34,920 hinging on my science course. 458 00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,280 I have considered committing suicide to get out of it, 459 00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,680 it’s like having my nose rubbed in my own slime. 460 00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:48,120 It seems that I am running purposeless, 461 00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,440 dreading every day of the horrible year ahead. 462 00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,400 I have become really frantic. 463 00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:03,280 Small choices seem insurmountable, the core of life has fallen apart … 464 00:35:03,720 --> 00:35:05,760 I wonder why? Why? 465 00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,280 It affects all the rest of my life. I am behind in my Chaucer unit, 466 00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,200 feeling sterile in writing … 467 00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:18,880 Everyone else is abroad or falling in love with their courses. 468 00:35:19,720 --> 00:35:23,600 I feel I have got to escape this, or go mad! 469 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,480 I don’t even want to understand it, which is the worst yet. 470 00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:28,880 It seems to have no relation to anything in my life. 471 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,720 I have wondered if I should go to the college psychiatrist, 472 00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:37,600 try to tell her how I feel about it … - how it is obsessing all my life … 473 00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,080 paralyzing my action in every other field. 474 00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,720 Life seems a mockery … - I can’t go on like this. 475 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:49,320 Luckily I haven’t gotten sinus yet. That would be another form of escapism. 476 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:54,880 When one feels like leaving college and killing oneself over one course, 477 00:35:55,720 --> 00:35:58,000 every day more and more piles up. 478 00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,320 I hate formulas, I don’t give a damn about valences, 479 00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:04,560 artificial atoms and molecules, 480 00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:06,600 I am letting it ruin my whole life! 481 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,640 I am really afraid to talk it over with a psychiatrist, 482 00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:16,120 they might make me drop my activities and spend my time with formulas 483 00:36:16,240 --> 00:36:21,800 and mathematical relationships, when I just don’t want to learn them. 484 00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:30,120 To be wasting all this year of my life … - obsessed by the course, paralyzed by it … 485 00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:31,320 Oh, Mother! 486 00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:38,360 Life is so black. Everything is empty, meaningless. 487 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:41,760 How could I ever persuade the college authorities, 488 00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:46,920 how could I convince the psychiatrist? My reason is leaving me. 489 00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,560 This has obsessed me from the day I got here. 490 00:36:50,720 --> 00:36:53,760 I am driven inward, feeling hollow. 491 00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:58,480 No rest cure in the infirmary will cure the sickness in me. 492 00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,160 Love, your hollow girl, Sivvy. 493 00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:04,040 Dear mother, 494 00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:10,680 The world has a miraculous way of working. You plunge to the bottom, 495 00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,120 and you think that every straw must be the last. 496 00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:18,920 Then you break your leg, and the world falls like a delicious apple in your lap! 497 00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:24,960 If a hideous snowy winter and a broken leg is heaven, 498 00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,400 what will the green spring be like? How can I bear the joy of it all! 499 00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,640 Much overflowing love, Your own Sivvy. 500 00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:35,840 Today I had my too long hair cut 501 00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:45,600 and got, for 12,95 dollars, a pair of silver pumps. 502 00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:51,320 With my earrings and necklace, I look like a silver princess. 503 00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:57,680 How I wish I could win the ‘Mademoiselle’ contest. 504 00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:01,320 I got two poems back from ‘The New Yorker’ today. 505 00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,680 Got back the ‘Mademoiselle’ manuscript today. 506 00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:10,560 I don’t see how I have any chance if I just write one or two stories 507 00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,800 and never revise them for a particular market. 508 00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:21,800 I want to hit ‘The New Yorker’ in poetry and ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ in stories. 509 00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:23,960 Birthday Greetings! 510 00:38:25,240 --> 00:38:27,600 My present is following news. 511 00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:35,680 ‘Harper’s Magazine’ just accepted three poems for 100 dollars in all. 512 00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:41,680 ‘Mademoiselle’ sent ten dollars, because it’s the third time I’ve been selected. 513 00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,120 Best love to you, Sivvy. 514 00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:49,040 I dedicate this ‘Harper’s’ triumph to you, my favourite person in the world. 515 00:38:49,240 --> 00:38:51,288 Can’t you just hear the critics saying, 516 00:38:51,348 --> 00:38:53,720 “Oh, yes, she’s been published in ‘Harper’s’?” 517 00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:58,640 When I am rich and famous I will hire you for my private secretary and baby tender, 518 00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:06,520 and pay you very high wages, and take you with me on my own pink yacht! 519 00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,920 Letter to Warren, written about May 2, 1953. 520 00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:13,000 Dear Warren, 521 00:39:13,720 --> 00:39:16,840 You know that mother would kill herself for us 522 00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:19,720 if we accepted all she wanted to do for us. 523 00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:22,880 She is an abnormally altruistic person, 524 00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:29,080 and I’ve realised that we have to fight her selflessness as we would fight a disease. 525 00:39:29,240 --> 00:39:33,600 My ambition is to earn enough so that she won’t have to work in the future. 526 00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,520 After extracting her life blood and care for twenty years, 527 00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,760 we should start bringing in big dividends of joy for her. 528 00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:45,000 Really, you and I have it good. Food, clothes, best schools … 529 00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,160 our first choices and all sort of prizes. 530 00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:58,480 Just hope the world doesn’t queer it all before we’ve lived our lives fully. 531 00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:02,040 Telegram to Sylvia from ‘Mademoiselle’: 532 00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:09,040 Happy to announce you have won a ‘Mademoiselle’ 1953 Guest Editorship. 533 00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:16,480 You must be available from June 1 through June 26. 534 00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:19,680 Dearest Progenitor, 535 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:24,840 I’ve already sent in the names of four writers: J.D. Salinger, 536 00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:30,360 Shirley Jackson, E.B. White, and Irwin Shaw. 537 00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:33,200 Hope one of them consents to be … 538 00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:38,200 The three days at home before her departure for New York 539 00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:41,560 were full of frantic activity, including … 540 00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:44,800 New York. June 4, 1953. 541 00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,280 So much has happened so fast! 542 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,640 Gardens, alleys, the Third Avenue, … 543 00:40:55,280 --> 00:41:00,960 the UN with a snatch of the East River, at night at my desk a network of lights, 544 00:41:01,240 --> 00:41:05,240 the sound of car horns like the sweetest music … I love it! 545 00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:08,490 Ran up to the sixth floor and spent morning 546 00:41:08,550 --> 00:41:11,760 with other Editors filling out endless forms. 547 00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:15,840 Talked with Fiction Editor, Jobs and Futures Editor, 548 00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:20,520 fabulous Editor-in-Chief. Afternoon, rewrote poetry squibs. 549 00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,440 Assignments announced. I’m Managing Editor. 550 00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,440 At first I was disappointed at not being Fiction Editor, 551 00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:32,280 but now I see how important my work is … - I love it! 552 00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:40,200 Affairs scheduled include fashion tours, UN and ‘Herald Tribune’ tours, 553 00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:45,680 movie preview, City Centre ballet, TV show, dance at St Regis Roof. 554 00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:46,560 Love, Cyrilly. 555 00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:50,520 I sometimes wonder who is me. - I have been very ecstatic, 556 00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:57,360 horribly depressed, shocked, enlightened, and enervated. 557 00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,360 I want to come home and be in peace this coming weekend, 558 00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:04,200 with the people I love around me for a change. 559 00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,080 I can’t talk about all that has happened this week … 560 00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:08,560 I am too weary. 561 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:14,400 I have, in the space of six days, toured the second largest agency in the world, 562 00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:16,720 seen television, heard speeches, 563 00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:25,720 gotten sick from the crabmeat the agency served us 564 00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,840 and wanted to die very badly for a day! 565 00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:36,160 Spent an evening in Greenwich Village with the most wonderful man in the world, 566 00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:40,200 who is tragically a couple of inches shorter than I. 567 00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,040 Spent an evening seeing … 568 00:42:43,240 --> 00:42:47,360 deformed men with short arms that curled like boneless snakes 569 00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:50,720 around a begging cup stagger, thinking to myself 570 00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:58,880 that Central Park Zoo was only different in that there were bars on the windows. 571 00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:02,840 Oh, God, it is unbelievable to think of all this at once! 572 00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:04,880 My mind will split open! 573 00:43:05,240 --> 00:43:09,320 I love you a million times more than any of these slick admen, 574 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:15,560 these wealthy beasts who get drunk in foreign accents all the time. 575 00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,360 Seriously, I am overjoyed to have been here a month. 576 00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:24,840 I just realise how young and inexperienced I am. 577 00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:29,800 Your exhausted, ecstatic New Yorker, 578 00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:33,280 Sivvy. 579 00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:47,400 My mother and I meet a tired, 580 00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:52,320 unsmiling Sylvia on her return from New York. 581 00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,440 I dreaded telling Sylvia the news that had come that morning. 582 00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:03,360 She had not been accepted as a student in Frank O’Connor’s short-story writing class. 583 00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:10,280 Sylvia would see it as a rejection of her as a competent writer, 584 00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:15,320 despite all the writing honours and publications she had to her credit. 585 00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:21,600 Success in short-story writing was her ultimate goal, 586 00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,240 and Sylvia was too demanding of herself. 587 00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,400 “By the way, Frank O’Connor’s class is filled. 588 00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,240 You’ll have to wait for next summer before registering again.” 589 00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:49,480 Sylvia’s face went white when I told her, 590 00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:55,000 and the look of despair alarmed me. 591 00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,760 Belknap House, Mc Lean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts. 592 00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:00,840 December 26, 1953. 593 00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:06,160 Dear X, 594 00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:09,777 I don’t know how widely the news of my little 595 00:45:09,837 --> 00:45:12,040 summer scandal travelled in the newspaper, 596 00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,760 but I received letters from all over the United States, 597 00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:19,640 from friends, relations, strangers and religious crackpots. 598 00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:23,360 I’m not aware of whether you read about my escapade, 599 00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:26,200 or whether you are aware of my present situation. 600 00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:30,160 At any rate, I give you a brief resume of details. 601 00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:34,760 From that point on, I was aware of a great change in her. 602 00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:39,320 All her usual joie de vivre was absent. My mother tried to reassure me 603 00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,680 that this was no doubt temporary and due to the strains of last year. 604 00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:44,920 I worked all during the month of June … 605 00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:49,080 We told her to “just let go and relax”. 606 00:45:49,240 --> 00:45:52,000 in the air-conditioned offices of ‘Mademoiselle’ magazine … 607 00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:55,240 - We packed picnics and drove to beaches … - helping set up the August issue … 608 00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,520 - in New Hampshire and Massachusetts … - I came home exhausted … 609 00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,000 - At home, she would sunbathe … - prepared to begin my courses … 610 00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,440 - always with a book in her hand … - at Harvard Summer School … 611 00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:04,960 - but never reading it … - for which I’d been offered a scholarship. 612 00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:08,440 Then things started to happen. 613 00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:13,680 - She finally talked to me … - I’d gradually come to realise … 614 00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:17,400 pouring out an endless stream of self-accusation. 615 00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:20,080 She had no goal, she said. 616 00:46:20,720 --> 00:46:26,480 As she couldn’t read or write anymore, what was she going to do with her life? 617 00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:30,080 She had injured her friends, let down her sponsors. 618 00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,560 She went on and on. - I’d completely wasted year at Smith, 619 00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,680 - Sylvia’s self-recrimination extended to … - by taking a minimum of courses … 620 00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:38,960 - reproaching herself for the stories … - by bluffing my way through papers … 621 00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:41,200 - in ‘Mademoiselle’ … - skipping by with only a few exams … 622 00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:43,760 - She felt it had been unkind … - reading nothing but jokes … 623 00:46:44,240 --> 00:46:46,600 - to one of the characters in the story … - in ‘The New Yorker’ … 624 00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:52,280 and writing nothing but glib jingles in an attempt to commune with Auden. 625 00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:57,360 I had gaily asserted that I was going to write a thesis on James Joyce, 626 00:46:57,720 --> 00:47:01,720 when I hadn’t even read ‘Ulysses’ … 627 00:47:02,240 --> 00:47:09,600 And take comprehensives, when I wasn’t even familiar with the works of Shakespeare. 628 00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:14,360 To top it off, all my friends were either writing novels in Europe, 629 00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:18,680 planning to get married, or going to medicine school. 630 00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:25,440 The one or two males I knew were either “genii”, 631 00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:30,520 or were not in the market for the legal kind of love yet, 632 00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:34,235 and were going to see the world and all the 633 00:47:34,295 --> 00:47:37,600 “femmes fatales” in it before getting married. 634 00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:42,160 Sylvia had decided not to attempt any courses at Harvard Summer School. 635 00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:49,040 To sum up my reactions to the immediate problem at hand, 636 00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,800 - In an effort to pull herself together … - I decided at the beginning of July … 637 00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,160 - she felt that a sort of activity … - to save a few 100 dollars … 638 00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:56,640 would keep her from feeling that the summer was being wasted. 639 00:47:56,760 --> 00:48:03,080 write, learn shorthand and forget the summer school. 640 00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,400 Her plan was … - sort of “live cheap and be creative” … 641 00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,680 that I should teach her shorthand 642 00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:13,880 so that she could get a job to support my writing. 643 00:48:17,720 --> 00:48:20,760 One unforgettable morning, 644 00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:24,320 I noticed gashes on her legs. 645 00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:25,480 Truth was … 646 00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,800 I’d counted on getting into Frank O’Connor’s writing course at Harvard … 647 00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,880 Upon my horrified questioning, she replied, “I just wanted to see if I had the guts.” 648 00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:36,520 Then she grasped my hands, 649 00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:39,160 - hers was burning hot to the touch … - but it seemed that several thousand … 650 00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,440 other brilliant writers did, too, and so I didn’t. 651 00:48:42,720 --> 00:48:46,000 - and cried passionately … - So I was miffed … 652 00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,880 - “The world is rotten. I want to die.” - … and if I couldn’t write on my own, 653 00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:51,680 I wasn’t any good anyhow! 654 00:48:52,280 --> 00:49:00,000 Not only was I unable to learn shorthand, but I also had not a damn thing to say … 655 00:49:00,240 --> 00:49:01,640 “Let’s die together!” 656 00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:03,280 - I took her in my arms … - in the literary world … 657 00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:04,440 - telling her that she was ill … - because I was sterile … 658 00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:05,240 exhausted … - empty … 659 00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,040 that she had everything to live for … - unlived, unwise … 660 00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:10,520 that I would see to it that she wanted to … - and unread. 661 00:49:10,720 --> 00:49:13,360 - We saw our doctor … - The more I tried to remedy the situation, 662 00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,920 - she recommended psychiatric counselling. - … the more I became unable to understand 663 00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:18,840 one word of our fair old language. 664 00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:23,320 And the long summer of seeking help began. 665 00:49:23,720 --> 00:49:25,000 The first psychiatrist. 666 00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:29,560 I began to frequent the couches of psychiatrists, 667 00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:36,200 I became immune to sleeping pills, 668 00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:42,760 I underwent a traumatic experience 669 00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:45,160 of badly given shock treatments. 670 00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,720 He insisted that shock treatments would be beneficial. 671 00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,520 I felt so inadequate, so alone. 672 00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:57,400 A kind neighbour took Sylvia and me to the hospital for the treatments. 673 00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:00,920 It was she who sat with me, holding my hand as we waited for Sylvia, 674 00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:04,560 for though I wanted to accompany her, I was not allowed to do so. 675 00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:07,920 Pretty soon, the only doubt in my mind 676 00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:10,240 was the precise time and method of committing suicide. 677 00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:16,480 I had to administer sleeping tablets, which I kept locked in a metal case. 678 00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:19,800 The only alternative I could see was an eternity of hell 679 00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:22,720 for the rest of my life in a mental hospital. 680 00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:24,840 Sylvia still talked to me constantly … 681 00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:26,760 - in the same self-deprecating vein … - and I was going to make use of my … 682 00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:28,200 - becoming very agitated at times … - last ounce of free choice … 683 00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,280 - as the fall term of college approached. - … and choose a quick clean ending. 684 00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:34,560 I figured that it would be more merciful and inexpensive to my family. 685 00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:42,840 Instead of an indefinite incarceration of a daughter in the cell of a Sanatorium, 686 00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:49,680 instead of the misery of 60 years of mental vacuum and physical squalor, 687 00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,920 I would spare them all by ending everything 688 00:50:53,720 --> 00:50:56,200 at the height of my so-called career, 689 00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:59,240 while there were still illusions left among my profs, 690 00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,520 still poems to be published in ‘Harper’s’, 691 00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,440 still a memory at least that would be worth-while. 692 00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:09,200 I tried drowning, but that didn’t work. 693 00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,000 On August 24, a blisteringly hot day, 694 00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:19,760 a friend invited us to a film showing of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. 695 00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:24,080 Sylvia said she wanted to stay home, but urged me to go. 696 00:51:24,240 --> 00:51:26,480 So I hit upon what I figured would be the easiest way out. 697 00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,200 She looked particularly well this day. 698 00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:33,040 Nevertheless, I left her with a sense of uneasiness, 699 00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:38,200 feeling that her happiness was contrived. - I waited until my mother had gone, 700 00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:41,320 I found it difficult to concentrate … - My brother was at work… 701 00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:44,280 - on the archaic ceremony … - my grand-parents were out … 702 00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:46,560 - I found myself filled with terror … - I broke the lock of my mother’s safe, 703 00:51:46,720 --> 00:51:48,880 - such as I had never experienced … - took out the bottle of sleeping pills … 704 00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:51,000 - Cold perspiration poured down me … - descended to the dark ledge … 705 00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:53,560 - I wanted to get out of my seat … - after having left a note to mother … 706 00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:57,040 - I forced myself to remain quiet … - that I had gone on a long walk … 707 00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:00,440 - I begged my friend to drive me home. - … and would not be back for a day or so. 708 00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:05,440 On the dining-room table … 709 00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:07,800 I swallowed quantities … - was a note in Sylvia’s handwriting … 710 00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:12,040 and succumbed to the blackness … - “Have gone for a long walk.” 711 00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:15,880 That I believed was eternal oblivion. - “Will be home tomorrow.” 712 00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:21,800 The nightmare had begun. - My mother believed my note … 713 00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:26,240 The report of Sylvia’s disappearance was issued over the radio. 714 00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,320 - The lock to my case … - sent out searching parties … 715 00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:31,280 - had been broken up … - notified the police … 716 00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:33,400 - the sleeping pills were missing … - On the second day or so … 717 00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:35,560 she began to give up hope 718 00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,480 when she found that the pills were missing. 719 00:52:38,640 --> 00:52:41,920 At noon on the third day … - My brother finally heard my yells … 720 00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:45,640 - “Call the ambulance!” - a nightmare of flashing lights... 721 00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:48,600 - He had found his sister … - strange voices, large needles … 722 00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:54,040 returning to consciousness … - a hatred toward the people 723 00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:58,360 who would not let me die, but insisted in dragging me back 724 00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:05,000 into the hell of meaningless existence. - She was driven to the hospital. 725 00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:10,840 When I was allowed to see her, there was an abrasion under her eye. 726 00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,760 Her first words were “Oh, no!” 727 00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:19,600 When told her how we rejoiced she was alive 728 00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:21,880 and how we loved her, 729 00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,240 she said “It was my last act of love.” 730 00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:30,480 I won’t go into the details of two weeks in the Newton-Wellesley Hospital, 731 00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:35,960 exposed to the curious eyes of all the student nurses and passers-by, 732 00:53:36,080 --> 00:53:40,160 or the two weeks in the psychiatric ward of the Massachusetts General, 733 00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,600 where the enormous open sore on my cheek gradually healed, 734 00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:47,760 leaving a miraculously intact eye … - As soon as … 735 00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:52,800 plus a large, ugly brown scar under it. - … the news of our finding Sylvia 736 00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:56,080 was made public, I received a telegram from Mrs Prouty. 737 00:53:56,320 --> 00:54:00,000 Suffice it to say that by fairy-godmother-type manoeuvrings, 738 00:54:00,240 --> 00:54:05,120 my benefactress at Smith got me into the best mental hospital in the US, 739 00:54:05,720 --> 00:54:10,040 where I had my own attractive private room and my own attractive private psychiatrist. 740 00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:14,640 I didn’t think improvement was possible. 741 00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:17,320 It seems that it is. 742 00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:20,560 One of Sylvia’s deep concerns had been 743 00:54:20,720 --> 00:54:24,280 that she had not proven herself worthy of the scholarship help given her. 744 00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:27,720 I have emerged from insulin and electric shock therapy 745 00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:34,440 with the discovery that I can laugh, if the occasion moves me 746 00:54:34,920 --> 00:54:37,040 and, surprisingly enough, it sometimes does, 747 00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,600 and get pleasures from sunsets, 748 00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:44,760 walks over the golf course, drives through the country. 749 00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:53,840 I still miss the old love and ability to enjoy solitude and reading. 750 00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:58,600 I need more than anything what is, of course, most impossible, 751 00:55:06,240 --> 00:55:09,600 someone to love me, to be with me at night 752 00:55:09,960 --> 00:55:13,920 when I wake up in fear of the cement tunnels 753 00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:16,200 leading down to the shock room, 754 00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:24,040 to comfort me with an assurance that no psychiatrist can convey. 755 00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:28,080 The worst, I hope, is over. 756 00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:31,080 My dear Mrs Plath, 757 00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:37,080 It is good to know that your general practitioner finds no trace of psychoses. 758 00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:42,960 A neurosis can be long drawn-out and requires even more wise handling. 759 00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:45,920 Of course Sylvia doesn’t want to see anyone now … 760 00:55:46,240 --> 00:55:50,800 I can now have visitors, go for supervised walks in the park … 761 00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:58,160 It will take some time, you say, for her face injury to heal. 762 00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:02,440 Poor child, I am so sorry! You have been through a terrific ordeal, 763 00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:08,480 and I know well you are still very anxious, and also by Sylvia’s suffering. 764 00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:13,920 Freedom to walk outside alone, to frequent the Coffee Shop and the library … 765 00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:20,240 I wish I could help relieve your anxiety … - as well as the Therapy rooms. 766 00:56:20,880 --> 00:56:27,080 But I am very hopeful there will be no scars left on either her body or soul. 767 00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:29,520 Sincerely, Olive Prouty. 768 00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:39,200 I long to be out in the wide open spaces of the very messy, dangerous, real world 769 00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:42,880 which I still love, in spite of everything. 770 00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:45,720 As ever, Syl. 771 00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:58,480 Second act 772 00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:13,160 Hello again! 773 00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:16,160 Where to begin! 774 00:57:17,560 --> 00:57:19,560 I feel that I am walking in a dream. 775 00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:30,840 Sylvia returned to Smith in the second semester, taking only three courses. 776 00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:33,840 It is simply wonderful to be back. 777 00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:36,840 She was not on scholarship at this time. 778 00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:39,760 I cashed in an insurance policy to meet her expenses. 779 00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:44,040 I wanted her to feel free. 780 00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:49,240 During the first few months we telephoned frequently, 781 00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:53,200 more for my piece of mind than hers. 782 00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:56,880 I am so happy about my thesis on Dostoevsky, 783 00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:01,600 and also rooming with Nancy, who is now my dearest friend. 784 00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:06,760 Am still chatting with Dr Booth, the college psychiatrist, once a week. 785 00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:09,360 Mostly friendly conversations. 786 00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:13,680 I really feel I am an extremely well-adjusted person, 787 00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:18,440 continually happy, not ricocheting from depths to heights, 788 00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,200 although I do hit heights now and then. 789 00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:23,680 Love, Sivvy. 790 00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:34,920 Sylvia was welcomed back by her classmates and faculty. 791 00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,880 Understanding and every possible kindness were given her. 792 00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:43,720 She picked up an active “date life”, which helped build up confidence, 793 00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:48,200 and she said she enjoyed herself “in a casual, hedonistic way”. 794 00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:52,720 I am so happy! Smith just voted me a scholarship of 1250 dollars. 795 00:59:20,440 --> 00:59:23,480 She made me think of deep-sea plants, 796 00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:26,720 the roots firmly grasping a rock, 797 00:59:27,760 --> 00:59:33,760 but the plant itself swaying in one direction … - You’ll be happy to hear of … 798 00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:39,920 then another with the varying currents that pass over … 799 00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:42,600 - Wonderful letter from … and around her … 800 00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:48,280 It was as though she absorbed each new personality … 801 00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:51,600 See you Saturday … - she encountered … 802 00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:57,200 and tried it on, later to discard it. - Tomorrow I have … 803 00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:00,800 I kept saying to myself … - I really feel that … 804 01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:03,200 “This is only a stage …” - I love … 805 01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:06,480 “it will pass”. - I feel … 806 01:00:10,920 --> 01:00:12,800 Her memory held to discords, 807 01:00:13,040 --> 01:00:18,600 and seemed to have lost recollections of shared childhood joys. 808 01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:25,560 Kindnesses and loving acts were now viewed cynically, analysed for underlying motives. 809 01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:30,800 Then periodically, her sunny optimism would reassert itself, 810 01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:33,280 and we would be once more showered with affection. 811 01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:37,040 The ulcer I had developed during my husband’s illness 812 01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:40,280 had been quiescent until the time of Sylvia’s breakdown. 813 01:00:40,480 --> 01:00:44,560 At this time, I was in the Newton-Wellesley Hospital. 814 01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:48,040 Sylvia telephoned, telling the nurse 815 01:00:48,480 --> 01:00:52,120 that her news would help me more than anything else. 816 01:00:52,560 --> 01:00:58,680 She had been awarded a grant to study at Cambridge University. 817 01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:02,720 I am so happy, so encouraged! 818 01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:07,200 Get well fast! 819 01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:15,880 All my love, Sivvy. 820 01:01:16,120 --> 01:01:18,760 September 25, 1955. 821 01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:20,080 Dearest Mother, 822 01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:23,480 London is simply fantastic! 823 01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:27,280 Oh, mother, every alleyway is crowded with tradition, 824 01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:34,480 and I can feel a peace, lack of hurry here which has centuries behind it. 825 01:01:34,640 --> 01:01:37,600 The days are generally Gray … 826 01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:40,720 and landscapes are green-leaved in … - silver mist … 827 01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:42,680 like Constable’s paintings. 828 01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:44,960 If you only knew how hard it is 829 01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:47,560 to have so much strength and love to give, 830 01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:51,320 and still not have met anyone I can honestly marry. 831 01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:56,640 I don’t know how I can bear to go back to the States unless I am married. 832 01:01:58,320 --> 01:01:59,720 When you think of it, 833 01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:05,920 it is so little of our lives we spend with those we love. 834 01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:23,120 Met a brilliant poet at a party last week. 835 01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:28,080 Will probably never see him again, but wrote my best poem about him … 836 01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:33,600 The only man I’ve met here who’d be strong enough to be equal with. 837 01:02:33,960 --> 01:02:34,960 Such is life! 838 01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:38,280 The man was Ted Hughes. 839 01:02:39,280 --> 01:02:43,120 Oh, mother, if only you knew how I am forging a soul! 840 01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:49,440 I have fallen terribly in love, which can only lead to great hurt. 841 01:02:49,680 --> 01:02:54,360 The strongest man in the world, ex-Cambridge, brilliant poet, 842 01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:56,920 whose work I loved before I met him, 843 01:02:57,560 --> 01:03:02,760 a large, healthy Adam, half-French, half-Irish, 844 01:03:02,920 --> 01:03:04,680 with a voice like the thunder of God! 845 01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:11,880 A singer, story-teller, a vagabond who will never stop. 846 01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:14,200 You should see him, hear him! 847 01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:16,280 He has a health and hugeness. 848 01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,120 The more he writes poems, the more he writes poems. 849 01:03:19,680 --> 01:03:24,320 I am writing poems, and they are better and stronger than before. 850 01:03:24,520 --> 01:03:29,680 I am full of poems. My joy whirls in tongues of words. 851 01:03:30,360 --> 01:03:32,160 I have never been so exultant. 852 01:03:32,320 --> 01:03:35,360 I cook trout and we eat well. 853 01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:40,280 We drink sherry in the garden and romp through words. 854 01:03:40,640 --> 01:03:44,240 He tells me fairy stories and dreams, marvellous coloured dreams … 855 01:03:46,200 --> 01:03:48,200 My God … - This is Eden here, 856 01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:51,920 and the people are all shining … - Eden … 857 01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:53,800 and I must show it to you! 858 01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:56,880 All my love. Your singing girl, Sivvy. 859 01:03:57,360 --> 01:04:02,400 Could you send over my ‘Joy of Cooking’? - You must come to England! 860 01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:08,720 You deserve to be with the loved ones. I am waiting for you. 861 01:04:09,160 --> 01:04:14,240 Your trip shall be for your own soul’s health and growing. 862 01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:19,640 To my complete surprise, three days after landing at Southampton, 863 01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:26,000 I was the only family attendant at Sylvia’s and Ted’s secret wedding. 864 01:04:26,800 --> 01:04:31,640 From Paris I saw them off for a “writing honeymoon on a shoestring”. 865 01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:35,520 For the first time in my life, mother, I am at peace. 866 01:04:36,520 --> 01:04:38,600 For the first time I feel free. 867 01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:44,040 I feel that all my life, all my pain and work has been for this. 868 01:04:45,080 --> 01:04:49,120 I see the power and voice in him that will shake the world alive. 869 01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:55,280 Even as he sees into my poems and will work with me to make me a famous woman poet, 870 01:04:56,040 --> 01:04:58,599 even as he sees into my character and will 871 01:04:58,659 --> 01:05:01,400 tolerate no fallings away from my best self. 872 01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:05,640 Mrs Ted Hughes, 873 01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:08,920 Mrs Edward James Hughes, 874 01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:11,560 Mrs E.J. Hughes… 875 01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:14,760 Mrs Otto Emil Plath. 876 01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:24,200 In spring, news that Ted’s first book of poetry had been accepted 877 01:05:24,560 --> 01:05:30,600 was followed by the announcement that Sylvia had been appointed to teach English 878 01:05:30,920 --> 01:05:32,520 here at Smith. 879 01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:34,520 Dearest Warren, 880 01:05:35,360 --> 01:05:39,040 My ideal of being a good teacher, writing a book on the side, 881 01:05:39,440 --> 01:05:46,280 and being an entertaining homemaker, cook and wife is rapidly evaporating. 882 01:05:47,040 --> 01:05:49,000 This is not the life for a writer. 883 01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:53,440 I am sacrificing my energy over 66 Hawthorne papers a week 884 01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:56,600 in front of a rough class of spoiled bitches! 885 01:05:57,720 --> 01:06:02,560 If I knew how to teach a short story, a novel, or a poem, 886 01:06:02,800 --> 01:06:04,200 I’d at least have that joy. 887 01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:09,160 But I’m making it up as I go along, through trial and error, mostly error. 888 01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:11,400 It’s easier for the men, I think … 889 01:06:13,440 --> 01:06:15,640 It’s Ted who really saves me. 890 01:06:16,400 --> 01:06:21,280 He is sorry I’m so enmeshed in this and wants me to write starting this June. 891 01:06:22,360 --> 01:06:24,760 How I long to write on my own again! 892 01:06:25,720 --> 01:06:28,200 When I’m describing Henry James’ use of metaphor, 893 01:06:28,480 --> 01:06:30,760 I’m dying to be making up my own metaphors. 894 01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:37,000 I feel like throwing up my books and writing my own bad poems and bad stories. 895 01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:40,520 I don’t like talking about D.H. Lawrence. 896 01:06:41,000 --> 01:06:43,144 I like reading him selfishly for an 897 01:06:43,204 --> 01:06:45,960 influence on my own life and my own writing. 898 01:06:47,160 --> 01:06:52,040 Ted and I are fermenting plans, hoping to rent a little apartment 899 01:06:52,200 --> 01:06:55,240 on the slummy side of Beacon Hill, which we love. 900 01:06:55,640 --> 01:07:02,600 Work at jobs for money, bread and experience and write for a solid year. 901 01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:04,640 Very few people can understand this! 902 01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:09,480 There is something suspect, especially in America, 903 01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:14,120 about people who don’t have ten-year plans, or at least a regular job. 904 01:07:15,000 --> 01:07:18,640 We found this out trying to establish credit at a local store. 905 01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:24,240 We fitted into none of the form categories of “The Young American Couple”. 906 01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:28,680 I had a job, Ted didn’t. We owned no car, 907 01:07:28,840 --> 01:07:32,280 were buying no furniture, had no charge accounts, no TV … 908 01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:35,960 When we are both wealthy and famous, our work will justify our lives. 909 01:07:36,360 --> 01:07:38,480 God also feeds the ravens. 910 01:07:39,800 --> 01:07:42,080 I hope you understand this better than mother! 911 01:07:44,360 --> 01:07:46,280 By spring 1959, 912 01:07:47,160 --> 01:07:49,175 both writers had published a number of poems 913 01:07:49,235 --> 01:07:51,080 and Ted was awarded a Guggenheim grant. 914 01:07:51,240 --> 01:07:55,560 They now planned to have a child, whom Ted wished to be English-born. 915 01:07:56,160 --> 01:07:58,120 Sylvia concurred in this decision. 916 01:07:58,240 --> 01:08:01,040 Dear Warren, Ted has … Ted and I … 917 01:08:01,240 --> 01:08:05,400 On the day they left, Sylvia was wearing her hair in a long braid 918 01:08:05,560 --> 01:08:09,640 with a red wool cap on her head, and looked like a high school student. 919 01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:15,000 As the train pulled out, Ted called, “We’ll be back in two years!” 920 01:08:15,440 --> 01:08:16,440 Dear Mother, 921 01:08:17,200 --> 01:08:20,800 I have gone through a very homesick and weary period, 922 01:08:21,440 --> 01:08:24,720 but once we get a foothold in London, life will become much better. 923 01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:27,160 Wonderful news via telegram, for Ted. 924 01:08:27,720 --> 01:08:30,600 The Somerset Maugham Award, over 2000 dollars, 925 01:08:30,720 --> 01:08:35,440 to be spent “enlarging his world-view”. We envision the Greek Islands next winter, 926 01:08:35,600 --> 01:08:38,800 and all sorts of elegant sun-saturated schemes. 927 01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:42,760 The first British publisher I sent my new collection of poems to, 928 01:08:42,920 --> 01:08:44,880 wrote back accepting them! 929 01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:47,600 Amaze of amaze! 930 01:08:48,240 --> 01:08:51,960 ‘The Colossus and Other Poems’, by Sylvia Plath. 931 01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:53,920 For Ted. 932 01:08:55,880 --> 01:09:01,360 Went to my doctor again today, he let me listen to the baby’s heartbeat. 933 01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:06,280 I was so excited! I’m going to see if London has diaper service. 934 01:09:06,400 --> 01:09:07,920 Lots of love from us both. 935 01:09:09,840 --> 01:09:14,320 On the morning of April 1, 1960, at about 3 a.m., the phone at my bedside rang. 936 01:09:14,440 --> 01:09:17,960 “Mother”, said a tremulous voice. “Sylvia!” I cried. 937 01:09:18,280 --> 01:09:20,760 “Is it Nicholas or Frieda Rebecca?” 938 01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:27,720 “Oh, Frieda Rebecca, of course! Ein Wunderkind, Mummy, ein Wunderkind!” 939 01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:36,000 From where I sit, I can see her, pink and healthy, sound asleep. 940 01:09:36,880 --> 01:09:37,960 “A wonder child …” 941 01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:40,200 Of course, of course … 942 01:09:41,240 --> 01:09:44,520 Alas, she has my nose. On her, though, it seems quite beautiful. 943 01:09:44,720 --> 01:09:48,600 I have never been so happy! - Ted was there the whole time. 944 01:09:48,920 --> 01:09:51,680 You should see him rocking her and singing to her. 945 01:09:52,120 --> 01:09:54,520 She looks so tiny against his shoulder, 946 01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:57,120 her fingers just closing around one of his knuckles. 947 01:09:57,440 --> 01:09:59,720 Already she shows a funny independence and temper. 948 01:09:59,960 --> 01:10:05,000 Things seem much calmer with the baby. Ted will have a study and peace 949 01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:08,800 by the time I am coping with baby and household. 950 01:10:09,000 --> 01:10:10,000 Dear Mother, 951 01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:14,040 I’ve been going through a rather tired spell, 952 01:10:14,560 --> 01:10:19,280 at the depressing, painful stage of trying to write after long silence. 953 01:10:19,480 --> 01:10:22,960 Something odd happened to me today. - I was walking the baby, 954 01:10:23,360 --> 01:10:25,600 the air too cold and windy to go far, 955 01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:30,560 and let my feet carry me down a road I’d never been before. 956 01:10:31,320 --> 01:10:37,000 Saw a house for sale, 41 Fitzroy Road, the street where Yeats lived. 957 01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:41,760 I was so excited that I ran home and called Ted. 958 01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:46,120 Of course I had visions of a study for Ted in the attic, a study for me, 959 01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:48,160 a room for guests, for you … 960 01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:52,480 Ted is hesitating more than I. - And I hate to compromise … 961 01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:53,880 Ted’s … - writing. 962 01:10:54,120 --> 01:10:56,440 I am thinking of getting a job, if … - Ted … 963 01:10:56,640 --> 01:10:59,600 would just feed the baby. By the way … 964 01:10:59,840 --> 01:11:02,400 Ted... - has a real desire to study zoology … 965 01:11:02,600 --> 01:11:06,720 a job he could give his heart to, not the fancy literary work 966 01:11:07,040 --> 01:11:09,400 of English teaching which would make him unhappy. 967 01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:11,480 Any ideas or suggestions? 968 01:11:14,000 --> 01:11:17,720 I am working very hard on women’s magazine stories. 969 01:11:18,720 --> 01:11:21,960 I also have a fine, lively agent. 970 01:11:22,760 --> 01:11:24,760 So after I get acceptances here, 971 01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:29,760 they’ll send any stuff good enough to the ‘Saturday Evening Post’, etc. 972 01:11:30,640 --> 01:11:35,240 I am very excited that children seem to be an impetus to my writing. 973 01:11:35,920 --> 01:11:41,280 As soon as I start selling, I could afford a half-day babysitter. 974 01:11:42,320 --> 01:11:47,160 The most wonderful thing you could do for us would be to live here with Frieda, 975 01:11:47,720 --> 01:11:52,600 while we had our first vacation in France … - with the Merwins. 976 01:11:54,480 --> 01:11:59,600 By now Ted had the use of a friend’s study where he could work in quiet, 977 01:12:00,360 --> 01:12:07,880 and Sylvia worked there on ‘The Bell Jar’, an autobiographic novel unknown to me. 978 01:12:08,520 --> 01:12:09,520 Dear Mother, 979 01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:15,440 I am working hard at the Merwin’s study, 980 01:12:17,280 --> 01:12:19,390 as they are coming home at the end of May, 981 01:12:19,450 --> 01:12:21,720 and I’ve a lot I want to finish before then. 982 01:12:22,600 --> 01:12:24,600 I have found that the clue to happiness 983 01:12:24,760 --> 01:12:29,160 is to have four or five hours free and uninterrupted to write in, 984 01:12:29,800 --> 01:12:34,600 the first thing in the morning. No phone, doorbells, or baby. 985 01:12:34,760 --> 01:12:37,680 I’m trying to get most of my writing done before you come, 986 01:12:37,960 --> 01:12:42,160 but even if I work in the mornings, we’ll have the rest of the day together. 987 01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:45,200 I think you’ll be a lot more comfortable at the Merwins’. 988 01:12:45,760 --> 01:12:48,600 In July 1961 I visited them, 989 01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:52,840 staying with Frieda while Sylvia and Ted went on a holiday to France. 990 01:12:53,120 --> 01:12:57,720 Sylvia was again pregnant, and they were longing to have a home of their own. 991 01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:00,640 Dear Warren, 992 01:13:01,400 --> 01:13:05,880 On Thursday the two of them took off for Devon, a trip of five hours by car. 993 01:13:06,040 --> 01:13:10,040 They have been sending for real estate listings since spring, 994 01:13:10,200 --> 01:13:12,000 and had selected eight places to visit. 995 01:13:12,160 --> 01:13:13,840 It is the ancient house … 996 01:13:14,280 --> 01:13:15,280 Yes! 997 01:13:15,440 --> 01:13:17,480 of Sir and Lady Arundel. 998 01:13:17,840 --> 01:13:19,560 There is a Roman mound there! 999 01:13:19,720 --> 01:13:22,840 From Sivvy’s description, the main house has … 1000 01:13:24,040 --> 01:13:28,120 nine rooms with a great lawn in front, a thatched roof … 1001 01:13:28,200 --> 01:13:29,840 Authentic! And a “cottage” … 1002 01:13:30,080 --> 01:13:32,400 that is in great need of repair. I wish I could see it, 1003 01:13:32,520 --> 01:13:35,400 but Ted and Sylvia are glad that the distance makes this impossible. 1004 01:13:35,600 --> 01:13:40,080 They don’t mind your seeing it, but said that I would find flaws … 1005 01:13:40,240 --> 01:13:42,560 I’m so happy to start fixing it up! 1006 01:13:42,840 --> 01:13:47,000 And now you will have a lovely country house to visit next summer! 1007 01:13:47,200 --> 01:13:50,040 Thanks so much. Lots of love, Sivvy. 1008 01:13:51,320 --> 01:13:55,120 Devon, England. September 1961. 1009 01:14:01,080 --> 01:14:02,080 Dear Mother, 1010 01:14:02,760 --> 01:14:04,080 We moved on Thursday 1011 01:14:04,400 --> 01:14:09,320 and had a fine, hot, sunny, blue day for it. 1012 01:14:09,720 --> 01:14:11,880 Ever since, a fog has shrouded us in. 1013 01:14:12,120 --> 01:14:16,720 Just as well, for we have been unpacking, painting and working hard. 1014 01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:19,800 The place is like a person. 1015 01:14:20,520 --> 01:14:24,000 It responds to the slightest touch a and looks wonderful immediately. 1016 01:14:24,880 --> 01:14:27,320 My whole spirit has expanded. 1017 01:14:28,240 --> 01:14:30,280 What a wonderful place to have babies! 1018 01:14:30,400 --> 01:14:35,360 Today came a Christmas parcel from you with the ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ magazines. 1019 01:14:36,480 --> 01:14:38,280 I love it! - She loves it. 1020 01:14:38,960 --> 01:14:41,920 Recipes in English magazines are for things like 1021 01:14:42,280 --> 01:14:45,280 “Lard and Stale Bread Pie, Garnished with Cold Pigs Feet”, 1022 01:14:45,440 --> 01:14:47,560 or “Left-Over Pot Roast in Aspic”. 1023 01:14:47,880 --> 01:14:51,600 I feel so disappointed not to be giving out anything but cards, 1024 01:14:51,920 --> 01:14:57,440 but we really need to pinch this year to pay bills for plumbers, electricians, 1025 01:14:57,720 --> 01:15:04,120 extra heaters, coal, land tax, solicitors, surveyors, movers … 1026 01:15:04,280 --> 01:15:06,800 Small things loom very large. 1027 01:15:07,800 --> 01:15:08,800 Dear Mother, 1028 01:15:08,960 --> 01:15:11,560 I hope you have received the telegram Ted sent. 1029 01:15:12,200 --> 01:15:15,680 Our first son, Nicholas Farrar Hughes … 1030 01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:19,200 All during the birth, I felt it would be a boy. 1031 01:15:19,800 --> 01:15:22,800 Then at five minutes to twelve, as the doctor went away, 1032 01:15:23,200 --> 01:15:27,520 this great bluish, glistening boy shot out onto the bed in a tidal wave of water 1033 01:15:27,640 --> 01:15:30,960 that drenched all of us to the skin, howling lustily! 1034 01:15:31,760 --> 01:15:33,360 It was an amazing sight. 1035 01:15:34,480 --> 01:15:38,880 I immediately sat up and felt wonderful. No tears, nothing. 1036 01:15:39,080 --> 01:15:41,080 Now everything is quiet inside the house. 1037 01:15:41,200 --> 01:15:44,960 Ted is heating the apple pie I made to tide us over. 1038 01:15:45,320 --> 01:15:47,800 Oh, how I look forward to your visit! 1039 01:15:48,160 --> 01:15:51,600 I long to have a day alone with Ted. 1040 01:15:52,560 --> 01:15:58,280 We can hardly see each other over the mountains of diapers and demands of babies. 1041 01:16:00,720 --> 01:16:05,160 Tell Warren to get a big house with a soundproof bedroom before he has a baby. 1042 01:16:05,960 --> 01:16:07,520 I am so longing for spring! 1043 01:16:07,720 --> 01:16:12,440 The ecstasy after the birth of Nicholas … - His eyes are a deep blue … 1044 01:16:13,080 --> 01:16:16,280 and the blooming of their gardens after the long harsh winter … 1045 01:16:16,680 --> 01:16:19,400 Our daffodils and jonquils are wonderful, 1046 01:16:19,720 --> 01:16:21,400 I have such spring fever, 1047 01:16:21,920 --> 01:16:25,200 don’t want to see another dish or cook another meal! 1048 01:16:25,960 --> 01:16:30,520 I am dying for you to come, to see it all through your eyes. 1049 01:16:31,480 --> 01:16:33,520 I miss you so much since the last baby. 1050 01:16:34,440 --> 01:16:38,280 All through this, I’ve not said anything about Warren’s engagement. 1051 01:16:38,720 --> 01:16:40,200 How wonderful! 1052 01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:42,420 What fun for you to have all these 1053 01:16:42,480 --> 01:16:45,000 traditional things for one of your children. 1054 01:16:45,160 --> 01:16:49,160 The diamond ring, the best photographer, a formal wedding … 1055 01:16:50,240 --> 01:16:53,600 I am now awaiting Ted’s return from a daytrip to London. 1056 01:16:54,080 --> 01:16:57,120 Having babies is really the happiest experience of my life. 1057 01:16:57,680 --> 01:16:59,720 I would just like to go on and on! 1058 01:17:00,480 --> 01:17:04,040 I have the strange feeling of having been reborn with Frieda, 1059 01:17:04,440 --> 01:17:07,400 as if my real, rich, happy life only started about then. 1060 01:17:08,120 --> 01:17:10,600 I fell I’m just beginning at writing, too. 1061 01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:13,600 Well, I must get supper for my family. 1062 01:17:13,880 --> 01:17:15,880 Lots of love from us all. Sivvy. 1063 01:17:16,040 --> 01:17:17,040 By June … 1064 01:17:17,280 --> 01:17:20,480 The reason I have been so slow in writing is that I have said to myself, 1065 01:17:20,600 --> 01:17:24,480 “I will write tomorrow, then it is sure to be a sunny day.” 1066 01:17:25,360 --> 01:17:28,040 Believe it or not, we haven’t seen the sun for three weeks. 1067 01:17:29,240 --> 01:17:30,560 I have been feeling tired … 1068 01:17:30,800 --> 01:17:32,960 been very gloomy about the bomb news … 1069 01:17:33,480 --> 01:17:36,400 got awfully depressed reading about the terrifying marriage 1070 01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:39,440 of big business and the military in America. 1071 01:17:40,600 --> 01:17:42,920 I seem to need sleep all the time … 1072 01:17:44,000 --> 01:17:47,360 the day a whirlwind of baths, laundry, meals, feedings … 1073 01:17:47,560 --> 01:17:51,080 Their marriage was … - I am the busiest and happiest. 1074 01:17:51,800 --> 01:17:53,720 My book is about to come out. 1075 01:17:54,840 --> 01:17:57,040 Our daffodils and jonquils … 1076 01:17:57,920 --> 01:17:59,520 Lots of love to you all. 1077 01:18:01,040 --> 01:18:04,440 The welcome I received when I arrived in June was heart-warming. 1078 01:18:04,560 --> 01:18:09,240 This is the fourth day of absolutely blue, clean, hot weather. 1079 01:18:09,840 --> 01:18:12,680 I have such lovely children and such a lovely home now. 1080 01:18:12,840 --> 01:18:15,400 After a few days, I sensed a tension between Sylvia and Ted. 1081 01:18:15,520 --> 01:18:18,640 Honestly, the reason … - On July 9th Sylvia said proudly, 1082 01:18:18,720 --> 01:18:20,600 “I have everything in life I ever wanted. 1083 01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:24,040 A wonderful husband, two adorable children, 1084 01:18:24,360 --> 01:18:26,480 a lovely home … - and my writing.” 1085 01:18:26,600 --> 01:18:27,880 Yet the marriage was … - No! 1086 01:18:28,040 --> 01:18:30,160 the marriage was seriously troubled. - No … 1087 01:18:30,360 --> 01:18:31,640 Ted had been seeing … - Never! 1088 01:18:31,800 --> 01:18:33,040 someone else … - Never seeing … 1089 01:18:33,160 --> 01:18:34,720 and Sylvia’s jealousy … - Never speak … 1090 01:18:34,800 --> 01:18:36,520 was very intense. - … to God again. 1091 01:18:37,520 --> 01:18:39,240 I thought it best to leave. - Leave! 1092 01:18:44,560 --> 01:18:46,720 On August 4, 1962, 1093 01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:50,600 the four of them were waiting for my train to pull out of the station. 1094 01:18:51,080 --> 01:18:55,480 The two parents were watching me stonily. Nicholas was the only one with a smile. 1095 01:18:55,960 --> 01:18:57,880 It was the last time I saw Sylvia. 1096 01:19:01,160 --> 01:19:02,880 August 27, 1962. 1097 01:19:03,760 --> 01:19:05,320 I do not believe in divorce. 1098 01:19:12,400 --> 01:19:13,400 Dear Mother, 1099 01:19:14,800 --> 01:19:17,360 I hope you will not be shocked 1100 01:19:18,040 --> 01:19:21,600 when I say I am going to get a legal separation from Ted. 1101 01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:26,520 I have too much at stake and am too rich a person to live as a martyr. 1102 01:19:27,120 --> 01:19:31,600 I want a clean break, so I can breathe, laugh and enjoy myself again. 1103 01:19:33,160 --> 01:19:38,360 Tell no one but Margaret and Warren of this, perhaps not even them. 1104 01:19:39,200 --> 01:19:41,559 It’s a private matter and I do not want 1105 01:19:41,619 --> 01:19:44,400 people who never see me anyway to know of it. 1106 01:19:45,600 --> 01:19:48,880 I am in need of nothing and desirous of nothing! 1107 01:19:51,800 --> 01:19:53,920 I meant you to have such a lovely stay! 1108 01:19:54,760 --> 01:19:56,840 September 23, 1962. 1109 01:19:57,880 --> 01:20:00,920 I will try to rent the house and live in the cottage. 1110 01:20:01,600 --> 01:20:04,080 I want to be where nothing reminds me of the past, 1111 01:20:04,520 --> 01:20:07,240 and by the sea, which is for me a great healer. 1112 01:20:08,520 --> 01:20:12,800 I must at all costs get a nanny, so I can start to write and be independent again. 1113 01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:15,240 September 24, 1962. 1114 01:20:16,320 --> 01:20:18,840 I began to see that life is not over for me. 1115 01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:21,960 It is the uncertainty that has been such a torture. 1116 01:20:22,240 --> 01:20:29,720 And the desire to hang on to the last to see if anything could be salvaged. 1117 01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:36,000 It is a beautiful day here, clear and blue. - I got the nanny for today and tomorrow, 1118 01:20:36,200 --> 01:20:40,520 and I see what heaven my life could be if I had a live-in nanny. 1119 01:20:41,520 --> 01:20:45,240 I will rent the house for the winter and go to Ireland. 1120 01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:47,920 I dream of Warren and Maggie! 1121 01:20:48,360 --> 01:20:50,960 I would love to go skiing in the Tyrol with them. 1122 01:20:51,520 --> 01:20:53,800 I just read about it in the paper. 1123 01:20:54,360 --> 01:20:56,880 And then if I do a novel or two, 1124 01:20:57,200 --> 01:21:01,080 I might apply for a Guggenheim to go to Rome with the children. 1125 01:21:02,640 --> 01:21:06,600 Right now I have no money, but if I get the cottage done this winter … 1126 01:21:09,880 --> 01:21:14,480 I might take a London flat, send the children to the fine schools 1127 01:21:14,560 --> 01:21:16,440 and enjoy the London people. 1128 01:21:16,640 --> 01:21:19,160 I went up to London to the solicitor yesterday. 1129 01:21:19,480 --> 01:21:20,760 The laws are awful. 1130 01:21:21,360 --> 01:21:23,560 A wife is allowed one third of her husband’s income, 1131 01:21:23,720 --> 01:21:26,200 and if he doesn’t pay up, the suing is long and costly. 1132 01:21:26,640 --> 01:21:30,960 Together we earned a fine salary, I earning one third. Now it is all gone. 1133 01:21:31,440 --> 01:21:35,280 I shall be penalized for earning, or, if I don’t earn, have to beg. 1134 01:21:36,400 --> 01:21:42,160 I choose to invest everything in the cottage and the nanny, and write like mad. 1135 01:21:42,640 --> 01:21:44,360 I must get control of my life! 1136 01:21:45,120 --> 01:21:49,160 It is the evenings that are the worst … - I do have to take sleeping pills, 1137 01:21:49,480 --> 01:21:53,160 but they are a necessary evil now. - I have to get a nanny in the spring. 1138 01:21:53,560 --> 01:21:56,000 I don’t break down with someone else around. 1139 01:21:56,240 --> 01:21:57,240 Dear Mother, 1140 01:21:57,960 --> 01:22:01,480 I don’t know where to begin, I just can’t take the 50 dollars! 1141 01:22:01,640 --> 01:22:04,040 I finally persuaded her to do so, monthly, 1142 01:22:04,240 --> 01:22:08,880 and opened a joint account in a London bank, so she could use it in an emergency, 1143 01:22:09,320 --> 01:22:11,840 hoping she would consider returning to the United States. 1144 01:22:12,120 --> 01:22:16,320 We, as a family, were prepared to set her up in her own apartment here. 1145 01:22:16,600 --> 01:22:18,080 America is out for me! 1146 01:22:18,960 --> 01:22:21,840 If I start running now, I will never stop. 1147 01:22:22,360 --> 01:22:26,200 I shall hear of Ted all my life, of his success, his genius. 1148 01:22:26,720 --> 01:22:29,760 I must make a life all my own as fast as I can! 1149 01:22:30,440 --> 01:22:33,720 The flesh has dropped from my bones, but I am a fighter. 1150 01:22:34,320 --> 01:22:38,640 I want a flat in London. The cultural life is what I am starved for. 1151 01:22:40,120 --> 01:22:45,480 I haven’t the strength to see you now. The horror of what you saw … 1152 01:22:45,880 --> 01:22:48,560 what I saw you see … - is between us, 1153 01:22:49,080 --> 01:22:54,560 and I cannot face you again until I have a new life. 1154 01:22:56,480 --> 01:22:58,080 I was very stupid … 1155 01:22:59,640 --> 01:23:00,640 very happy … 1156 01:23:02,280 --> 01:23:04,680 no time to make any plans of my own. 1157 01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:07,560 I have no one. 1158 01:23:08,360 --> 01:23:12,840 Stuck down here as into a sack, I fight for air and freedom. 1159 01:23:13,520 --> 01:23:15,040 I will need protection. 1160 01:23:15,480 --> 01:23:19,640 I look to Warren now that I have no man, no adviser. 1161 01:23:20,160 --> 01:23:21,680 Everything is breaking! 1162 01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:24,320 My dinner set cracking in half. 1163 01:23:25,000 --> 01:23:31,000 The health inspector says the cottage should be demolished. 1164 01:23:31,480 --> 01:23:35,960 Even my beloved bees set upon me today when I knocked aside their sugar feeder, 1165 01:23:36,320 --> 01:23:38,000 and I am all over stings! 1166 01:23:38,960 --> 01:23:44,400 If I can spend the winter in Spain … Spain is out of question! 1167 01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:49,280 I must get to London next fall! I will take the children to Ireland. 1168 01:23:50,120 --> 01:23:53,400 Please tell Warren and Maggie to come in spring! 1169 01:23:54,120 --> 01:23:58,360 In Ireland I may find my soul, in London my brain, 1170 01:23:58,560 --> 01:24:03,760 and maybe in heaven what was my heart. Love, Sivvy. 1171 01:24:04,040 --> 01:24:09,040 These letters were written under great strain. They are desperate letters, 1172 01:24:09,400 --> 01:24:13,320 and their desperation make them difficult to read with objectivity. 1173 01:24:13,440 --> 01:24:15,040 I could not, at that time. 1174 01:24:15,680 --> 01:24:16,680 Dear Mother, 1175 01:24:17,720 --> 01:24:22,760 I have had an incredible change in spirit. I am happier than I have been for ages. 1176 01:24:23,160 --> 01:24:24,360 My life can begin. 1177 01:24:25,280 --> 01:24:27,760 Every morning, when my sleeping pill wears off, 1178 01:24:28,120 --> 01:24:30,840 I am up about five, in my study with coffee, 1179 01:24:31,080 --> 01:24:34,880 writing like mad, a poem a day before breakfast. 1180 01:24:35,160 --> 01:24:39,560 Terrific stuff, as if domesticity had choked me. 1181 01:24:39,960 --> 01:24:41,560 I need a bloody holiday. 1182 01:24:42,040 --> 01:24:44,360 I miss brains, 1183 01:24:44,680 --> 01:24:49,680 hate this cow life, and dying to surround myself with intelligent people. 1184 01:24:50,600 --> 01:24:52,400 I am a famous poetess here, 1185 01:24:52,560 --> 01:24:58,680 mentioned this week in ‘The Listener’ as one of the women writers who will last. 1186 01:25:00,520 --> 01:25:01,960 Dearest Warren and Maggie, 1187 01:25:03,080 --> 01:25:07,720 I have been through hell for six months, and amazingly enough, 1188 01:25:07,840 --> 01:25:10,640 I retain admiration of Ted’s writing. 1189 01:25:10,880 --> 01:25:13,880 He is a genius, and for a genius there are no bonds and no bounds. 1190 01:25:14,080 --> 01:25:17,600 It is hurtful to be ditched, but thank God I have my own work. 1191 01:25:17,720 --> 01:25:21,640 I think I’ll be a pretty good novelist. My stuff makes me laugh, 1192 01:25:22,000 --> 01:25:24,600 and if I can laugh now it must be hellishly funny. 1193 01:25:25,400 --> 01:25:30,120 Just now, I am a bit of a wreck, bones literally sticking out all over 1194 01:25:30,800 --> 01:25:35,320 and black shadows under my eyes from sleeping pills, a smoker’s hack. 1195 01:25:35,680 --> 01:25:40,320 I took up smoking out of desperation and I burned off almost all my eyebrows. 1196 01:25:41,440 --> 01:25:48,400 Tell me you’ll consider taking me to Austria with you, even if you don’t, 1197 01:25:48,680 --> 01:25:50,400 so I’ll have that to look forward to. 1198 01:25:50,600 --> 01:25:52,600 I’ve had nothing to look forward to for so long! 1199 01:25:52,800 --> 01:25:56,960 Dear Mother, I am still writing with fever, alternating with chills. 1200 01:25:57,560 --> 01:26:01,280 I need help very much just now. Come to the States is impossible. 1201 01:26:01,720 --> 01:26:03,560 I can go nowhere with the children. 1202 01:26:03,720 --> 01:26:07,920 I am ill, and it would be psychologically the worst thing to see you now. 1203 01:26:08,280 --> 01:26:10,640 I am a writer. I am a genius of a writer. 1204 01:26:11,040 --> 01:26:14,280 I am writing the best poems of my life. They will make my name. 1205 01:26:14,440 --> 01:26:19,000 Very bad luck with nanny agency. A bitch of a woman is coming tomorrow. 1206 01:26:19,440 --> 01:26:26,840 Doesn’t want to cook, wondered if there was a butler. Ten pounds a week! 1207 01:26:27,280 --> 01:26:30,840 If I had time to get a good nanny, I could get on with my life! 1208 01:26:31,600 --> 01:26:35,520 I am all right, but could Margaret spare me six weeks? 1209 01:26:36,160 --> 01:26:38,880 I must have someone I love to protect me. 1210 01:26:39,720 --> 01:26:44,040 The babes are beautiful … though Frieda has regressed. 1211 01:26:44,640 --> 01:26:49,680 I cannot come home. I am full of plans, but do need help. 1212 01:26:50,160 --> 01:26:53,960 I am fighting now against hard odds, and alone. 1213 01:26:54,240 --> 01:26:56,400 Fighting now … and alone … 1214 01:26:56,520 --> 01:27:00,640 Mention has been made of my coming home for Christmas. Do you suppose instead there is 1215 01:27:00,800 --> 01:27:06,320 any possibility sending me Maggie? Could she come now instead of then? 1216 01:27:07,240 --> 01:27:12,360 I already love her, she would be such fun and love the babies. 1217 01:27:13,680 --> 01:27:15,000 Do I sound mad? 1218 01:27:15,680 --> 01:27:19,880 Wanting to take Warren’s new wife? Just for a few weeks! 1219 01:27:20,000 --> 01:27:23,480 Against hard odds … - I need someone from home. 1220 01:27:24,000 --> 01:27:25,240 A defender. 1221 01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:28,480 I have a fever now, so I am a bit delirious. 1222 01:27:31,840 --> 01:27:34,480 On the next months depend my future and health. 1223 01:27:34,920 --> 01:27:37,000 Fighting … - I am fine in mind … 1224 01:27:37,160 --> 01:27:39,920 Fighting … - but ill in flesh. 1225 01:27:41,000 --> 01:27:43,000 I love you all. Sivvy. 1226 01:27:43,480 --> 01:27:49,840 On receiving that letter, I cabled Mrs Winifred Davies: 1227 01:27:50,000 --> 01:27:54,400 “Please see Sylvia now and get woman for her! Salary paid here!” 1228 01:27:54,600 --> 01:27:59,600 Winifred came last night with some hopeful news. 1229 01:28:00,280 --> 01:28:03,960 A young nurse would love to live in till mid-December. 1230 01:28:05,000 --> 01:28:06,600 The weather has been heavenly. 1231 01:28:06,800 --> 01:28:10,240 Fog mornings, but sunny days after. 1232 01:28:10,920 --> 01:28:14,440 I have a bad cough and shall get my lungs and teeth seen to. 1233 01:28:15,240 --> 01:28:16,560 I am writing very good poems. 1234 01:28:17,160 --> 01:28:21,520 I need time to breathe, sun, recover my flesh. 1235 01:28:22,560 --> 01:28:26,000 I love and live for letters. 1236 01:28:26,840 --> 01:28:27,840 Dear Warren, 1237 01:28:28,280 --> 01:28:32,720 I know what I need, want, must work for. 1238 01:28:33,520 --> 01:28:38,240 Please convince mother of this. She identifies too much with me, 1239 01:28:38,720 --> 01:28:42,160 and you must help her see how starting my own life 1240 01:28:42,320 --> 01:28:46,320 in the most difficult place, here, is the only thing to do. 1241 01:28:46,480 --> 01:28:48,760 Fighting … - I wrote two worrying letters 1242 01:28:48,880 --> 01:28:52,960 when I was desperate. Do convince mother I am cured. 1243 01:28:54,000 --> 01:28:56,520 I am a writer and that is all I want to do. 1244 01:28:57,120 --> 01:29:01,560 Have had my first novel accepted … A pot-boiler and no one must read it. 1245 01:29:01,760 --> 01:29:02,960 Don’t tell mother! 1246 01:29:04,640 --> 01:29:05,640 Dear Mother, 1247 01:29:06,120 --> 01:29:10,280 Will you please stop bothering Winifred Davies! 1248 01:29:10,640 --> 01:29:14,240 She knows my situation much better than you can. 1249 01:29:14,960 --> 01:29:19,080 She came over this afternoon and said you sent her some wire. 1250 01:29:19,480 --> 01:29:26,240 Please do understand that while I am very grateful for financial help, 1251 01:29:26,560 --> 01:29:29,840 I want no monthly dole, especially not from you. 1252 01:29:30,880 --> 01:29:35,640 You can help me best by saving your money for your retirement. 1253 01:29:37,960 --> 01:29:41,600 I am doing a poem a morning, great things. 1254 01:29:42,480 --> 01:29:44,788 Don’t tell me the world needs cheerful 1255 01:29:44,848 --> 01:29:47,640 stuff! What the person out of Auschwitz wants 1256 01:29:47,760 --> 01:29:49,920 is nobody saying the birds go tweet-tweet, 1257 01:29:50,280 --> 01:29:53,960 but that somebody else has been there and knows the worst. 1258 01:29:54,520 --> 01:29:58,360 It is much more help for me to know that people are divorced and go through hell, 1259 01:29:58,520 --> 01:30:00,200 than to hear about happy marriages. 1260 01:30:00,440 --> 01:30:03,480 Let the ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ blither about those. 1261 01:30:04,080 --> 01:30:06,680 I know just what I want and what to do. 1262 01:30:08,440 --> 01:30:12,240 I am well liked here, in spite of my weirdness, I think. 1263 01:30:14,080 --> 01:30:15,280 I adore the babies 1264 01:30:16,960 --> 01:30:18,880 and am glad to have them, 1265 01:30:19,560 --> 01:30:22,800 even though they make life fantastically difficult. 1266 01:30:23,440 --> 01:30:28,560 The worst is that Ted is at the peak of his fame and all his friends … 1267 01:30:29,160 --> 01:30:30,520 But I can manage that, too. 1268 01:30:32,080 --> 01:30:33,080 Dear Mother, 1269 01:30:33,560 --> 01:30:38,480 Please forgive my grumpy, sick letters. I see now just what I need. 1270 01:30:39,360 --> 01:30:42,680 Not professional nannies, who are snotty and expensive, 1271 01:30:42,840 --> 01:30:46,320 but a young, cheerful girl to whom my life would be fun. 1272 01:30:46,440 --> 01:30:47,480 Oh, it is ideal! 1273 01:30:47,600 --> 01:30:50,800 I must be one of the most creative people in the world! 1274 01:30:51,160 --> 01:30:55,760 I must get back to the lively, learning and developing person I was. 1275 01:30:56,360 --> 01:31:00,240 I want to study, learn history, politics, languages, travel. 1276 01:31:00,360 --> 01:31:04,760 I want to be the most loving and fascinating mother in the world. 1277 01:31:05,040 --> 01:31:08,160 I shall, in spite of all obstacles, have that, 1278 01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:12,320 and Frieda and Nicholas and the Literature Salon I deserve. 1279 01:31:12,480 --> 01:31:14,600 I shall be a rich, active woman. 1280 01:31:18,000 --> 01:31:21,400 I should love to use your birthday cheque on a dress. 1281 01:31:21,600 --> 01:31:24,680 All my clothes are ten years old! 1282 01:31:25,640 --> 01:31:27,520 Just wait till I hit London! 1283 01:31:28,440 --> 01:31:30,160 Dearest Warren and Maggie, 1284 01:31:30,800 --> 01:31:32,880 The critic of the ‘Observer’ says 1285 01:31:33,000 --> 01:31:37,600 I’m the first woman poet he’s taken seriously since Emily Dickinson. 1286 01:31:38,200 --> 01:31:41,640 Now can you get mother to stop worrying so much? 1287 01:31:42,640 --> 01:31:43,640 Dear Mother, 1288 01:31:44,040 --> 01:31:48,360 Stop trying to get me to write about “decent courageous people”! 1289 01:31:48,480 --> 01:31:50,640 Read the ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ for those! 1290 01:31:51,080 --> 01:31:57,120 I believe in going facing the worst, not hiding from it! 1291 01:31:57,520 --> 01:31:59,680 That is why I am going to London, 1292 01:31:59,920 --> 01:32:05,080 to face all the people we know and tell them happily I am divorcing Ted, 1293 01:32:05,920 --> 01:32:09,320 so they won’t picture me as a poor country wife. 1294 01:32:09,680 --> 01:32:13,040 I am not going to stay away from those professional relations 1295 01:32:13,160 --> 01:32:17,080 just because they know or because I may meet Ted with someone else. 1296 01:32:17,560 --> 01:32:19,080 Dear Mother, … - Love, … 1297 01:32:19,320 --> 01:32:21,160 I am writing from London, … - Sylvia … 1298 01:32:21,320 --> 01:32:23,800 so happy I can hardly speak. - Sivvy … 1299 01:32:23,920 --> 01:32:25,600 I have a place! - Cyrilly … 1300 01:32:25,760 --> 01:32:29,760 Where I’ve always wanted to live. - Your maturing … 1301 01:32:29,960 --> 01:32:32,440 Flew to the agents. - … crazy old … 1302 01:32:32,640 --> 01:32:34,560 It seems I have a chance! - … happy … 1303 01:32:34,720 --> 01:32:38,000 And guess what, it is Yeats’s house, … - … dearest … 1304 01:32:38,200 --> 01:32:42,320 with a plaque saying he lived there. - … whom I love the most … 1305 01:32:42,920 --> 01:32:45,880 I am staying with a wonderful Portuguese couple, 1306 01:32:47,000 --> 01:32:48,880 the girl is a friend of Ted’s girl, 1307 01:32:49,520 --> 01:32:52,040 and they see how I am, full of interest in my own life, 1308 01:32:52,360 --> 01:32:56,760 and are amazed at my complete lack of jealousy or sorrow. 1309 01:32:57,600 --> 01:33:01,360 I have found a fabulous hairdresser. 1310 01:33:01,880 --> 01:33:06,600 Cut, shampoo and set only 1,50 dollars. I did it on your cheque. 1311 01:33:07,480 --> 01:33:13,320 Men stare at me in the street now, truck drivers whistle … it’s amazing. 1312 01:33:16,560 --> 01:33:19,280 Living apart from Ted is wonderful. - Love … 1313 01:33:19,440 --> 01:33:21,480 I am no longer in his shadow. - … the most … 1314 01:33:21,600 --> 01:33:24,480 It is heaven to be liked for myself alone. - … absolute … 1315 01:33:24,680 --> 01:33:28,120 I may even borrow a table from Ted’s girl. 1316 01:33:29,000 --> 01:33:32,560 I could be nice to her now. - I am so happy … 1317 01:33:32,720 --> 01:33:35,200 She has only her high-paid job, her vanity, 1318 01:33:35,560 --> 01:33:37,640 and everybody wants to be a writer. - … singing … 1319 01:33:37,840 --> 01:33:42,320 I may be poor in bank funds, but I am so much richer in every other way. 1320 01:33:43,000 --> 01:33:45,400 I envy them nothing. - O, he has everything! 1321 01:33:45,560 --> 01:33:48,920 My babies and my writing are my life. 1322 01:33:49,920 --> 01:33:51,880 Wish me luck. Sivvy. 1323 01:33:53,560 --> 01:34:01,240 In December she closed house in Devon and moved with the children to the city 1324 01:34:02,600 --> 01:34:04,280 to Yeats’s former home. 1325 01:34:05,320 --> 01:34:09,400 For a brief time, she responded excitedly to the cultural stimulation of London. 1326 01:34:09,560 --> 01:34:16,200 Then the worst cold, snow-storms of the century struck London for months. 1327 01:34:17,960 --> 01:34:21,280 Sylvia fought off flu, the children had coughs and colds. 1328 01:34:21,400 --> 01:34:22,400 Someone to love me … 1329 01:34:22,520 --> 01:34:25,440 In spite of all this, she continued the writing. 1330 01:34:26,120 --> 01:34:30,800 She began at 7 a.m. each morning to write perfectly structured poems, 1331 01:34:31,720 --> 01:34:39,160 renouncing the subservient female role, yet holding to the maternal creativity. 1332 01:34:39,360 --> 01:34:40,440 to be with me at night … 1333 01:34:40,600 --> 01:34:47,800 She had sent out ‘The Bell Jar’, her autobiographic novel, 1334 01:34:47,920 --> 01:34:52,000 under a pseudonym, in the firm belief that this would protect her anonymity. 1335 01:34:52,240 --> 01:34:54,560 the cement tunnels leading to the shock room … 1336 01:34:54,760 --> 01:34:59,560 By the time the novel appeared, she was ill, exhausted, 1337 01:34:59,760 --> 01:35:03,280 and overwhelmed by the responsibilities she had to shoulder alone. 1338 01:35:12,200 --> 01:35:13,720 Dear Mother, Well, here I am! 1339 01:35:13,840 --> 01:35:18,560 Safely in Yeats’s house. I have never been so happy in my life. 1340 01:35:18,760 --> 01:35:24,080 I just sit thinking, shall I write a poem, shall I paint a floor, shall I hug a baby? 1341 01:35:24,200 --> 01:35:28,480 Everything is such an adventure, with everything to be painted! 1342 01:35:28,560 --> 01:35:30,560 “What will the green young spring be like?” 1343 01:35:30,720 --> 01:35:32,600 Clear, blue day … - Young … 1344 01:35:32,720 --> 01:35:36,600 No gas … - … and green … 1345 01:35:36,680 --> 01:35:38,720 and no electricity yet! - … spring … 1346 01:35:38,840 --> 01:35:44,080 First letter was from my publishers … Oslo, Norway … to translate and do … 1347 01:35:44,240 --> 01:35:47,480 ‘Three Women’ and Alvarez, best poetry critic here, 1348 01:35:47,560 --> 01:35:50,280 thinks my second book should win Pulitzer Prize! 1349 01:35:50,560 --> 01:35:55,520 Everybody says you worry if I don’t write, but no news is good news! 1350 01:35:55,760 --> 01:35:58,960 Lots and lots of love to all, Your happy Sivvy. 1351 01:35:59,280 --> 01:36:00,880 I am in the best of hands. 1352 01:36:01,240 --> 01:36:06,040 I am slowly pulling out of the flu, but the weakness makes me mad. 1353 01:36:06,320 --> 01:36:10,240 The weather has been filthy … the roads are narrow ruts, 1354 01:36:10,360 --> 01:36:14,160 and the long wait for a phone, which makes me feel cut off … 1355 01:36:14,400 --> 01:36:18,040 along with the lack of an “au pair”. I did interview a nice German girl, 1356 01:36:18,200 --> 01:36:19,960 but her employer is making difficulties. 1357 01:36:20,120 --> 01:36:26,320 I have to sew the bedroom curtains … get a stair carpet … 1358 01:36:26,720 --> 01:36:29,720 It is so hard to get out to shop with the babies. 1359 01:36:30,120 --> 01:36:32,240 I have never been so happy in my life. 1360 01:36:32,560 --> 01:36:37,720 Still have the babies’ floors to paint, the au pair’s, the hall floors 1361 01:36:39,040 --> 01:36:42,520 and three wood bureaux. Blue is my new colour, 1362 01:36:43,000 --> 01:36:48,240 royal, midnight, not aqua. Ted never liked blue. 1363 01:36:48,400 --> 01:36:51,480 Oh, Mother! - My German au pair is food-fussy 1364 01:36:51,600 --> 01:36:55,560 and boy-gaga, but she gives me some peace mornings. 1365 01:36:55,880 --> 01:36:57,960 My solicitor is gathering evidence for a Divorce Petition. 1366 01:36:58,040 --> 01:37:01,720 Your package came today. - There have been electric strikes, 1367 01:37:01,840 --> 01:37:06,520 often the heaters go out for hours. Children freeze, dinners are stopped. 1368 01:37:06,760 --> 01:37:10,840 There are mad rushes for candles. - I am going to see a psychologist 1369 01:37:11,040 --> 01:37:13,320 which should help me through this difficult time. 1370 01:37:13,720 --> 01:37:17,320 Don’t worry about my paying bills. I pay them immediately. Always have. 1371 01:37:19,280 --> 01:37:21,880 My love to all. Sylvia. 1372 01:37:26,120 --> 01:37:29,880 On February 12, 1963 … 1373 01:37:30,080 --> 01:37:31,080 Mother! 1374 01:37:33,720 --> 01:37:40,080 My sister received a telegram from Ted, telling us Sylvia killed herself yesterday. 1375 01:37:40,680 --> 01:37:41,800 And life is good. 1376 01:37:43,920 --> 01:37:46,280 “I’ll never speak to God again.” - No. 1377 01:37:46,560 --> 01:37:47,960 No. - No. 1378 01:37:48,640 --> 01:37:49,640 No. 1379 01:37:57,960 --> 01:38:00,480 November 13, 1949. 1380 01:38:03,200 --> 01:38:06,760 Today I have decided to keep a diary again, 1381 01:38:07,080 --> 01:38:11,720 just a place where I can write my thoughts and opinions when I have a moment. 1382 01:38:11,920 --> 01:38:18,080 Somehow I have to keep and hold the rapture of being seventeen. 1383 01:38:19,320 --> 01:38:22,480 Every day is so precious. I feel so sad of all this time 1384 01:38:22,640 --> 01:38:26,000 melting farther and farther away from me as I grow older. 1385 01:38:26,400 --> 01:38:28,720 Now is the perfect time of my life. 1386 01:38:29,240 --> 01:38:30,240 Now. 1387 01:38:34,160 --> 01:38:37,480 I still do not know myself. Perhaps I never will. 1388 01:38:38,320 --> 01:38:44,360 But I feel free … I still can come up to my own private room, 1389 01:38:45,560 --> 01:38:48,800 with my drawings on the walls, and pictures over my bureau … 1390 01:38:48,880 --> 01:38:51,880 a room suited to me, uncluttered and peaceful. 1391 01:38:52,000 --> 01:38:53,760 I love the lines of the furniture, 1392 01:38:54,000 --> 01:38:59,120 the bookcases filled with poetry books and fairy tales saved from childhood. 1393 01:38:59,720 --> 01:39:01,840 Always I want to be an observer. 1394 01:39:02,280 --> 01:39:07,160 I want to be affected by life deeply, but never so blinded that I can’t see 1395 01:39:07,320 --> 01:39:10,640 my existence in a wry, humorous light. 1396 01:39:10,960 --> 01:39:13,400 I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. 1397 01:39:13,520 --> 01:39:19,840 Spare me from cooking three meals a day, spare me from the cage of routine. 1398 01:39:20,160 --> 01:39:25,720 I want to be free to know people … free to move to different parts of the world. 1399 01:39:26,120 --> 01:39:28,000 I want to be omniscient. 1400 01:39:28,160 --> 01:39:31,160 I would like to call myself “the girl who wanted to be God”. 1401 01:39:31,680 --> 01:39:35,120 Perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. 1402 01:39:35,360 --> 01:39:37,560 But I cry out against it. I am I. 1403 01:39:37,760 --> 01:39:40,600 I love my flesh, my face, my limbs. 1404 01:39:41,200 --> 01:39:46,080 I have created an image of myself, idealistic and beautiful. 1405 01:39:46,240 --> 01:39:50,480 Is not that image, free from blemish, 1406 01:39:50,720 --> 01:39:54,240 the true self, the true perfection? 1407 01:39:56,680 --> 01:40:01,000 I glance back on what I have written … how foolish and dramatic it sounds. 1408 01:40:01,240 --> 01:40:03,160 A certain colour in the sea … 1409 01:40:03,840 --> 01:40:07,120 Never, never, never will I reach the perfection. 1410 01:40:08,080 --> 01:40:09,080 blue … 1411 01:40:10,000 --> 01:40:12,320 I long for with all my soul. 1412 01:40:13,480 --> 01:40:18,040 There will come a time when I must face myself. 1413 01:40:20,400 --> 01:40:22,720 I dread the big choices … - love … 1414 01:40:23,120 --> 01:40:24,600 which loom up my life. 1415 01:40:26,000 --> 01:40:28,640 I am afraid. I feel uncertain. - … the young girl … 1416 01:40:28,840 --> 01:40:32,000 I am not as wise as I have thought. - … the busiest … 1417 01:40:32,640 --> 01:40:36,960 I can now see the roads lying open for me … - … the happiest … 1418 01:40:37,280 --> 01:40:39,680 but I cannot see the end, the consequences. 1419 01:40:40,800 --> 01:40:43,400 Oh, I love the present … - It is a summer day … 1420 01:40:44,000 --> 01:40:46,880 with all my fears and forebodings … - … in autumn … 1421 01:40:47,320 --> 01:40:50,760 for now, I am not completely moulded. 1422 01:40:51,080 --> 01:40:52,640 I am strong. - I feel that … 1423 01:40:52,760 --> 01:40:55,360 My life is still just beginning. - I am learning. 1424 01:43:39,480 --> 01:43:43,680 Translated: Johanna Babits, Charlotte Macconochie, A Nos Amours