Mitz by Sigrid Nunez

Author:Sigrid Nunez
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781593765835
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Published: 2019-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

“Thats very nice of you, about giving L. a dog,” Virginia wrote to Vita. “But at the moment I think he feels too melancholy.”

She went on to tell Vita the story: How Pinka had been perfectly well until about two weeks after the Woolfs left her with Percy. Then she had a fit, followed by two more. The vet was sent for and was confounded—could it be meningitis? She grew sicker and weaker and refused to eat. She died the night before the Woolfs returned. Now she lay buried in the orchard.

They were both melancholy. It was the last thing they would have thought when they left: never to see Pinka again. They were heartbroken—oh, but they did not want to wallow in their feelings. As much as they liked animals the Woolfs disliked people who were sentimental about them or who cherished them to the point of fetishism. Though neither of them would ever have wanted to live without a dog, they frowned when Ottoline planted kiss after kiss on the snub nose of her Socrates. They did not like pugs or toy breeds in general. They knew that there was a way to care for animals without treating them like humans, and they were wary of champions of animal rights. The Woolfs knew perfectly well that dogs do not make better friends than people and would have been appalled at the suggestion that Pinka or any other pet could replace the child they had not been able to have. For many people the death of a dog might have been occasion for weeping and wailing, but the Woolfs would not allow themselves that indulgence. They wanted to be better than that.

They had arrived back at Monk’s House in the early morning. After they heard Percy’s story, they sat down to a wordless, tasteless breakfast, and by eleven Leonard was at his desk. Quack, Quack! had been published just the day before, and the Times Literary Supplement had printed a tepid review, which Leonard read over breakfast. Then straight off to work on his new book.

As for Virginia, she was feeling much too unsettled to return immediately to her novel. She brooded over the bad side of taking a holiday, how it broke one of the habit of writing—and in writing, of course, habit was all. And hard as it was to write, not to write was harder by far, and there was always the deep, deep writer’s fear that to lose the habit would be to lose the knack. And poor Pinka—oh, here were her paw prints on Virginia’s blotting paper!

Back in London a few days later, the Woolfs received more bad news. Mabel had broken the gramophone. Of course it had to be their favorite possession. Leonard was beside himself. This time, he raged, that stupid woman must go—good riddance to her and her impotable coffee!

Well, she did not go, after all; Virginia saved her; but the row was fierce. Virginia did not think she had ever seen Leonard so ugly.

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