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February 1918
The Woolfs’ publishing business – now named The Hogarth Press – was making steady progress. There was a great deal to learn, but Leonard enjoyed learning. He was already persuaded that the decision to make a career in publishing was the right one.
There was certainly no shortage of work for him to consider. He was currently working his way through the most remarkable manuscript, not yet finished, but quite unlike anything he or Virginia had ever read. It was too long a novel to be able to print themselves, so if they were going to publish it, they’d have to find another printer, and this is where Leonard suspected they might struggle. The work would doubtless fall foul of the appallingly conservative censorship laws and a court case could easily bankrupt any printer who agreed to take it on. They were both determined, however, to find a way to get Mr Joyce’s book published.
A better prospect was the possibility of publishing in translation a number of Russian novels, which Leonard’s new friend, S.S. Koteliansky, was keen to bring to a wider audience.
Kot, as he was known, had many contacts in Moscow and knew several writers who were keen for their works to be published in English. Leonard thought him a fascinating man and was sure their friendship would be a rewarding and enduring one.
Kot was an old friend of Katherine Mansfield’s, whom they had seen on several occasions since Maynard had put her together with Virginia. Leonard liked Katherine, but had the impression that she was wary of him. Their friendship was bound to be coloured by the peculiar relationship that had developed between her and Virginia.
His wife’s friendships with women were never less than interesting, Virginia’s behaviour generally adding a level of difficulty where usually there would be none. But with Katherine, she seemed to have met her match. For both women, the friendship was approached as a high-stakes game, a series of encounters at which it was always necessary to test the authenticity of the other.
Leonard couldn’t understand why things had to be so complicated. He enjoyed the company of a small circle of close friends, but if he ever suspected a potential friendship might prove too much trouble, he would withdraw immediately. Virginia not only seemed to lack the ability to tell whether a new friendship would be good for her, she appeared positively to revel in the angst and grief that ensued when things didn’t turn out precisely as she wanted. All of which made life difficult for Leonard who had to listen to endless complaints about people she couldn’t bring herself to stop seeing.
He had no such doubts about his friendship with Kot, especially after he had summoned up the courage to challenge the Russian on the one issue he suspected might make for difficulty.
It had been clear from the moment Katherine had introduced them that Kot was in love with her. It had been equally obvious that his feelings were not reciprocated, and Leonard didn’t want this good-natured and otherwise worldly man to be hurt. When Leonard invited him to Hogarth House, deliberately choosing an evening when Virginia was out. Kot, forewarned that Leonard wanted to talk to him on a serious matter, had turned up with a bottle of his favourite vodka. His reaction to Leonard’s warning to be careful with Katherine only made him more fond of the Russian.
“Well, I suppose you are right,” he began. “I probably am in love with her. But then she is a quite remarkable woman.”
“She is indeed a remarkable woman, “ Leonard replied, “and an exceptionally good writer.”
“Do you think she realises that I am in love with her?” Kot asked.
“I think women like Katherine and Virginia are seldom aware of the feelings of those around them.”
“You think I have behaved incorrectly with Katherine?” The thought had clearly only just occurred to Kot.
“My dear man, not at all. My only interest in raising the subject is that I should feel dreadful were you to be hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“Yes. If you were to make your feelings known and Katherine were to rebuff you in an insensitive manner.”
“You really needn’t worry my friend. For one thing, it’s only as a result of your intervention this evening that I’ve become properly aware of my feelings for Katherine. And for another, as long as she remains married to that incredibly dull man, I wouldn’t feel able to act. So you must not worry.”
It fascinated Leonard that two men born in the same year, 1880, to such different backgrounds could today have so much in common. It was remarkable that Kot had managed to escape the Ukrainian shtetl where he was born, let alone graduate from university in Moscow and become friends with some of his country’s greatest writers, only then to settle in Britain where he had embedded himself in the literary firmament with similar ease.
Kot’s greatest friend was D.H. Lawrence, whom he had met by chance on a walking holiday in the Lake District before the war. It amused Leonard that this man, with whom he had struck up an instant rapport, should speak so highly of Lawrence while Keynes, a man he respected but would struggle to call a close friend, couldn’t abide him. He looked forward to renewing his acquaintance with Lawrence in Kot’s company and seeing the other side of the man.
“So how good a writer do you think Katherine is?” Kot asked.
“Very good. She has something I’ve come across in very few writers. Something that only women can to bring to language.”
“Would you compare her to Virginia?”
“Only in as much as I believe both could become great writers.”
“Good, in that case I have something for you.” Kot retrieved his canvas shoulder bag and pulled out a sheath of papers which he handed to Leonard. It was the manuscript for a short novel called Prelude. Leonard looked up at Kot and saw him smile, before reading the first page. He looked back at Kot whose smile had grown larger. “What do you think?” he asked.
“It confirms what I thought about Katherine’s potential as a writer.”
“And do you think it will find a publisher?”
“It just has.”
Kot said nothing. Instead he got up from his chair, retrieved the bottle of Vodka from the mantelpiece and refilled both their glasses. “Perhaps we might drink to the first of many fruitful collaborations?” Leonard stood and raised his glass.
That conversation, just before Christmas, had led to a flurry of activity at Hogarth House. Prelude, though nothing like as long as Ulysses, was still too much for the Woolf’s modest printing machine. It would take too long to print and collate an edition of three hundred at sixty eight pages a copy.
So Leonard did a deal with a nearby printer to use his machine, but that still left the problem of setting the type. Virginia was happy to help out, but didn’t have the time for a task of such magnitude, so Leonard asked Barbara Hiles to do the work, which she was happy to do for lunch, travel expenses and a share of any profits.
The winter had turned out to be one of the coldest anyone could remember. Things would be no better in France, and Leonard was relieved that Philip had not yet returned to the front. He couldn’t bear to think what life must be like for those stuck in the freezing trenches. Not that it can have been much warmer inside Hogarth House. Money was tight and coal in short supply, which meant nothing more than a single fire in the kitchen. Barbara, whose was using one of the rooms at the top of the house for the typesetting, had caught a dreadful cold in the middle of January and was unable to come to work for several days.
It was during this absence, when Leonard was doing some typesetting himself to ensure the project didn’t fall behind, that he was disturbed by the doorbell. He opened the door to find Lytton Strachey peering at him through a virtual blizzard.
“Lytton,” he said, what on earth are you doing here? You’ll catch your death.”
“I may well catch my death,” he replied, “but it will be in the service of saving the life of one far more deserving than I.”
“For God’s sake come in out of the cold,” Leonard implored.
“Not until you open the coal shute.”
“The coal shute? What are you taking about?”
“A man appeared behind Lytton with a sack of coal over his shoulder. “Where do you want it then?” the man asked.
“Leonard. The shute, please.” He went down to the basement and opened the coal shute from inside. He had no idea what was going on, he certainly hadn’t ordered any coal. But as the contents of a fifth sack rumbled down into the hole, he allowed himself a smile. He locked the shute and went back upstairs where he found Lytton waiting to be undressed. “You’ll have to help me. My hands are so cold I can’t undo my buttons.”
“Let me take your hat first, there’s six inches of snow in the rim,” Leonard said, laughing.
“I’m glad you find it funny. When I woke this morning and saw the weather I resolved to remain in bed the entire day. But then I was forced to make the journey here. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my life has been shortened by at least a year. And it’s all your fault, Leonard.”
“My fault? Really Lytton, you might explain yourself.”
“There I was, enjoying my tea and toast in bed, cosy and warm, watching the snowflakes edge their way up the window, when a note arrived from Carrington.”
“I’m still none the wiser,” Leonard said as he removed Lytton’s overcoat.
“Well you should be. Barbara has a severe case of bronchitis. The doctor is worried about pneumonia. And all because you’ve had her locked in that unheated room.”
“She has certainly not been locked anywhere,” Leonard protested.
“Modern day slavery, that’s what I call it. Could you not have put a small fire in her room? Are you really that poor?”
“Oh dear,” Leonard said. “I am sorry. I had no idea Barbara was becoming so ill. The whole house is cold. We can only afford a fire in the kitchen.”
“So you really are that poor.”
“Well,” Leonard said uncomfortably, “while we’re getting the business established, we have to keep to a budget.”
“A budget is all very well, but you’re not going to have much of a business if you freeze your employees to death. Really Leonard. Talk about satanic mills. I had thought better of you.”
“Would you think better of me if I were to pour you an extremely large glass of sherry?”
“That might bring about a thaw in relations.”
They went into the study and Leonard poured two glasses. “I’ll pay you back for the coal,” he said.
“No need, just make sure Barbara has a fire in her room until the weather improves.”
“I promise I shall. It is good to see you, by the way.”
“I could have just had the coal delivered, but in a mad moment between slices of toast, it occurred to me that we have rather been strangers.”
“We have. Things are not good when my principal source of news about my oldest friend is Maynard Keynes. I still don’t entirely trust him to report honestly.”
“That’s what makes Maynard so much fun, his not quite trustworthiness.”
“Is there anybody you don’t like, Lytton?”
“I try not to like Clive, but that’s mainly to keep you happy.”
“I’ve told you before, you don’t have to do anything to keep me happy. I shall always have the most sublime memories of our time together at Cambridge, and your wonderful letters when I was in Ceylon. They were the only thing that kept me going.”
“Nonsense. You kept yourself going perfectly well. And you did the people of that poor country a tremendous service in the process.”
“I do miss it sometimes. It’s the kind of experience you know can’t last forever, but somehow you wish you could be back there.”
“You make it sound like a love affair.”
“I suppose it was. Now, how is the book?”
“Final draft gone. It’ll be published in the spring.”
“I do wish we’d been in a position to do it.”
“You can have the next one, assuming people want another.”
“They will. Your Eminent Victorians is going to blow the roof off the literary establishment.”
“I do hope not. I’m not sure I could cope with all the attention.”
A week later Barbara returned to work, fully recovered. In the weeks that followed, with the weather even colder and London in the grip of nightly Zeppelin raids, it became too dangerous for her to return home to Hampstead after work. For several nights the entire household was forced to sleep in front of the fire in the basement kitchen, servants and all.
As he watched the four women asleep around him, for the first time since Cecil’s death, Leonard began to feel a sense of hope.
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