And when we reached the Casino, of course Mrs. Raddick wasn’t there. There wasn’t a sign of her on the steps–not a sign.
“Will you stay in the car while I go and look?”
But no–she wouldn’t do that. Good heavens, no! Hennie could stay. She couldn’t bear sitting in a car. She’d wait on the steps.
“But I scarcely like to leave you,” I murmured. “I’d very much rather not leave you here.”
At that she threw back her coat; she turned and faced me; her lips parted. “Good heavens–why! I–I don’t mind it a bit. I–I like waiting.” And suddenly her cheeks crimsoned, her eyes grew dark–for a moment I thought she was going to cry. “L–let me, please,” she stammered, in a warm, eager voice. “I like it. I love waiting! Really–really I do! I’m always waiting–in all kinds of places…”
Her dark coat fell open, and her white throat–all her soft young body in the blue dress–was like a flower that is just emerging from its dark bud.
The nakedness of growth is captured here with an assurance both tactile and covert. We are within and without the uneasy consciousness of the young girl whose sudden awkwardness transforms her from exasperated girl to exhilarated young woman. The narratorial viewpoint circles around the girl too fascinated to be predatory.
This is a world of social ritual, exhaustion and cynicism. Yet we can identify the register of the girl as something more vital, fresher despite herself. I like the anger of the protagonist. She is irritated by the claustrophobia and repetition of her mother’s social milieu, her mother’s neglect and childish irresponsibility.
‘Waiting’ is freeing for the young girl. She can occupy space for once just for herself, without the space being colonised by responsibility and fatuous conversation. She has become a traveller, an explorer of places and minds…she opens herself to the rapture of change. Personal Metamorphosis because she feels the joy of her physical, alive self…
Mansfield’s predilection for the present participle is well illustrated here. The sense of an ongoing, alternative experience is poignantly captured by the rapturous avowal of ‘I am always waiting..’ little wonder that the narrator lingers bewitched; watching, hoping; waiting…
How do you do, Madame and Doctor?
At first, may we consider that the scenes of this story took place in Monte Carlo where there still stands ‘Le Grand Casino’ possessed and managed by the Monaco Royal Family?
Yes. Mansfield lived in the South of France to try to recover from her consumption. It does have a very particular atmosphere that is different to the New Zealand stories.
I am very glad to have your favourable answer, Madame and Doctor. Secondly, that story, whereas it was in fact published in 1920, can we approve that K. Mansfield wrote it as it had happened in the same year? Because in 2017 when my wife and I had an opportunity to visit the automobile museum belonging to H.S.H. Prince Rainier III of Monaco, we found a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with Barker coachwork fabricated just in 1920, evoking the car in “The Young Girl” in which there are auxiliary or jump seats in which Hennie sat down.
Dear Madame and Doctor,
Although you know it very well, I have to write further in order to reinforce the reason why is 1920 the year in which the scenes in ‘The Young Girl’ were seen : 1. Just in the same year K. Mansfield moved from Riviera ligure, Italy to Menton (Mentone), France which is only approximately 7 km away from Monaco. 2. The Great War actually ended in November 1918, and even if we should set the year as 1919, the Raddick family could not have travelled abroad the next year immediately after devastation of Europe and the United Kingdom. ( 3. In Far East there is a thought that the birth year of each person will make an influence on his or her character. From discussions above it is calculated that Miss Raddick was born in 1903 and Hennie in 1908, where the former is expressed as 七赤金星 suggesting a youngest self-indulgent daughter spending money lavishly, and the latter as 二黒土星 meaning a mother, wife, servant and hard worker. These seemingly correspond to the dispositions of both, being mere coincidence. Is that a mischief of God? )