A Dill Pickle

by Katherine Mansfield

She drew a long, soft breath, as though the paper daffodils between them were almost too sweet to bear

Katherine Mansfield was a magician of the short story, whose work was described by Virginia Woolf as ‘the only writing I have ever been jealous of’. These eight tales show her gift for transforming fleeting moments – a chance meeting, a letter received, a careless remark – into small miracles of language and feeling.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, British Literature, Classic Literature

128 pages, Paperback

Published April 17, 2025

About the author

Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp) was a prominent New Zealand modernist writer of short fiction who wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield.

Katherine Mansfield is widely considered one of the best short story writers of her period. A number of her works, including "Miss Brill", "Prelude", "The Garden Party", "The Doll's House", and later works such as "The Fly", are frequently collected in short story anthologies. Mansfield also proved ahead of her time in her adoration of Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov, and incorporated some of his themes and techniques into her writing.

Katherine Mansfield was part of a "new dawn" in English literature with T.S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. She was associated with the brilliant group of writers who made the London of the period the centre of the literary world.

Nevertheless, Mansfield was a New Zealand writer - she could not have written as she did had she not gone to live in England and France, but she could not have done her best work if she had not had firm roots in her native land. She used her memories in her writing from the beginning, people, the places, even the colloquial speech of the country form the fabric of much of her best work.

Mansfield's stories were the first of significance in English to be written without a conventional plot. Supplanting the strictly structured plots of her predecessors in the genre (Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells), Mansfield concentrated on one moment, a crisis or a turning point, rather than on a sequence of events. The plot is secondary to mood and characters. The stories are innovative in many other ways. They feature simple things - a doll's house or a charwoman. Her imagery, frequently from nature, flowers, wind and colours, set the scene with which readers can identify easily.

Themes too are universal: human isolation, the questioning of traditional roles of men and women in society, the conflict between love and disillusionment, idealism and reality, beauty and ugliness, joy and suffering, and the inevitability of these paradoxes. Oblique narration (influenced by Chekhov but certainly developed by Mansfield) includes the use of symbolism - the doll's house lamp, the fly, the pear tree - hinting at the hidden layers of meaning. Suggestion and implication replace direct detail.

Reviews

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

# short stories in the shortest month #23

A Dill Pickle, de Katherine Mansfield

"I've often thought how I must have bored you. And now I understand so perfectly why you wrote to me as you did—although at the time that letter nearly finished my life. I found it again the other day, and I couldn't help laughing as I read it. It was so clever—such a true picture of me." He glanced up. "You're not going?" She had buttoned her collar again and drawn down her veil. "Yes, I am afraid I must," she said, and managed a smile. Now she knew that he had been mocking.

Vera reencontra num restaurante um ex-namorado com quem rompera seis anos antes, e o despeito do homem é visível assim que põe os olhos nela. Ao contrário dela, que até teve de vender o piano, o homem parece ter subido na vida, vestido com elegância e desejoso de se gabar de todas as viagens que fez desde que se separaram e que tinham planeado juntos.

As he spoke, so lightly, tapping the end of his cigarette against the ash-tray, she felt the strange beast that had slumbered so long within her bosom stir, stretch itself, yawn, prick up its ears, and suddenly bound to its feet, and fix its longing, hungry stare upon those far away places. But all she said was, smiling gently: "How I envy you."

De um lado a altivez do homem, do outro o orgulho da mulher; tudo uma fachada.

[Cleo · Rating 5 out of 5]

a superbly acerbic short story about when you bump into your ex and it's nice for 10 seconds but then you want to die

[Phyllis · Rating 4 out of 5]

As he spoke, so lightly, tapping the end of his cigarette against the ashtray, she felt the strange beast that had slumbered so long within her bosom stir, stretch itself, yawn, prick up its ears, and suddenly bound to its feet, and fix its longing, hungry stare upon those far away places. But all she said was, smiling gently:"How I envy you."

[Buster · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short story collection was so sentimental and beautiful. Mansfield brings her characters to life effortlessly and captures those nuanced feelings that are often provoked by seemingly insignificant, fleeting moments. Very inspiring!

My favourite short story: Something Childish but very Natural.

Feuille d’Album - 4 stars
A Dill Pickle - 4 stars
Marriage à la mode - 5 stars
Miss Brill - 4 stars
Her First Ball - 4 stars
The Doll’s House - 5 stars
The Tiredness of Rosabel - 4 stars
Something Childish but very Natural - 5 stars

[Kateryna Kryvoviaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can honestly say that this is my favourite Mansfield's story so far. It describes an unexpected meeting between two ex-lovers. Mansfield perfectly transmits their feeling and emotions through her narrative. But what I like the most is that there is always difference between what the characters are saying and what they actually mean or what they want other person to think.

[Julian Worker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eight short stories by the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield that have a sense of completeness about them, although the endings of each story are more like the finish of a chapter than the finish of a book.

I liked all the stories and was sorry they all had to end, especially the first story called Feuille d'Album where I sensed the ending was really the beginning of something special for both of the characters, but we'll never know. Each reader completes the story, if they feel it necessary, in their own manner, and my choice is different from everyone else's choice.

[Arndis · Rating 4 out of 5]

margar fallegar sögur, mis góðar en samt allar góðar.

[saml · Rating 4 out of 5]

given to me by my mum, and read to my boyfriend recorded. a good set of stories to be both of those things. really loved mansfield's circling, open, mostly quite undemonstrative style, occasionally breaking into lived silence. seemed apt to short stories: one couldn't inhabit these people too long. i think i liked the sense of the time, and liked reading aloud, and was invited to linger in the time by reading aloud. so i adored it

[Liam Liddane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I never would usually go for writing like this only that I’m a sucker for a collection of short stories and a bigger sucker for a strange title.

Most of the books I read are evil as a given and those that aren’t I typically don’t enjoy. However, as a non evil book this was superb. I have never read such a tender and joyous book that takes vulnerable human moments that one could and would cringe over and makes them beautiful, moments worth experiencing and overwhelmingly positive. Where most authors would paint a scene like one presented in this collection and say ‘laugh at these characters and the folly of being human’ it felt very much like Mansfield said ‘laugh at these characters and know you are one and the same and that we are all flawed but perfect’.

‘Her train arrived at seven. Two more hours to wait… No, No, dearest because the waiting is a sort of Heaven, too, darling. If you can understand that. Did you ever know a cottage could stand on tiptoe. This one is doing it now.’

The title story and ‘Something very childish but perfectly natural’ were my two favourite reads from this. The latter especially was a gorgeous description of puppy love that provided a very nice nostalgia session for me.

[Erofili · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aww this was so girlhood to me somehow. Such lovely and gentle storytelling whilst at times quite poignant and melancholic. Also anything that focuses on the little mundane things in life is right up my street so I thoroughly enjoyed this one tee hee!

Honestly I loved them all and rate each little story highly but the 2 that just about stood out the most to me were 'The Tiredness of Rosabel' and 'The Doll's House'. (Although I have to give a special mention to 'Something Childish but very Natural').

[Cassie Sylvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delightful collection of stories!! And such an excellent name for them!!!

[Immy Stannard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shout out to the girls for getting me this book it was soooo good u guys know me too well (I love katherine Mansfield and pickles)

[Felix Haas · Rating 5 out of 5]

katherine katherine where have you been all my life?

[__mickayla__ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Katherine Mansfield has done it again 🌸🩷
She is truly amazing at crafting some of the most heartfelt, magical, enticing stories! ✨

In this book, there were 5 new stories to me, my favourites are:
— Feuille d’Album
— A Dill Pickle
— The tiredness of Rosabel (this girl is literally me, such a daydreamer 💭)
— Something childish but very natural
(So, like, most of them)

I am defs gonna get the “The Collected stories” to complete my collection & to discover more.
This is the perfect book to introduce you to Mansfields stories 🌹

[RyanG37 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 8 short stories from Katherine Mansfield, the only person whose writing Virginia Woolf ever said she was jealous of. Thematically the stories mostly deal with the significance of small moments, chance meetings, and careless words, and there is something wistful about much of the book. As expected, I enjoyed some more than others, but a nice range of stories, ranging from the amusing to the poignant. And lovely writing.

[sauravi✿❁ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What I really wanted then," he said softly, "was to be a sort of carpet–to make myself into a sort of carpet for you to walk on so that you need not be hurt by the sharp stones and mud that you hated so. It was nothing more positive than that–nothing more selfish. Only I did desire, eventually, to turn into a magic carpet and carry you away to all those lands you longed to see."

Sour bumping-into-an-ex story who’s also very shallow and kind of a loser

An interesting read about failure of genuine connection and interpersonal relationships, depth and shallow actions.
Considering it is a short story, the flow is prioritised over the plot. Excellent symbolism though.

[Didi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really beautifully written and I’m so glad to finally have read some Katherine Mansfield. BUT I’m not sure I’m a short stories gal. Mainly chose this at the barbican bookshop because of the title and it didn’t disappoint. I think short stories require time and I wanted to read this quickly …

[Rachel Neugart · Rating 4 out of 5]

“That’s all life is - something childish and very natural. Isn’t it?”

8 short stories that bite at your heart. Youthful, tender, captivating. Particularly loved ‘Something Childish but very Natural’ and ‘The Tiredness of Rosabel’.

[Raegan Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candy

[Frida · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[gracie wacie]

can't agree more with virginia woolf. a writer who inspires envy.

[Lilly.Whr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read these here and there during term. Might be because of the long time it took for me to get through all of them, but I found them quite unmemorable. There probably just weren't enough pickles involved for my taste.

[Shawn Cremer · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are exquisite, each sparking up in a single deft line somewhere an essential true experience of being a human. Many underlines.

[Ella Barrett-McGuinness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cannot get enough of Katherine Mansfield, was so incredibly happy to have stumbled upon this penguin archive in the bookshop! 🤩

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

my introduction to katherine mansfield i love!!! my favourite stories were: “The Doll’s House”, “A Dill Pickle” and “Something Childish But Very Natural” also so many violet mentions my favourite 🪻

[ala’a]

idk how to feel

inconsistency is the trouble with short stories

some outperform others

the doll house one is the only one that properly stuck with me

[hazza bazza · Rating 3 out of 5]

A surprising little collection. I didn’t know what to expect of Katherine Mansfield but a good few of these were magical. Such well realised characters, wonderful language, and some memorable turns and twists. Edit: nvm I forgot everything about this

[Sofie · Rating 4 out of 5]

«As he spoke, so lightly, tapping the end of his cigarette against the ash-tray, she felt the strange beast that had slumbered so long within her bosom stir, stretch itself, yawn, pick up its ears, and suddenly bound to its feet, and fix its longing, hungry stare upon those far-away places. But all she said was, smiling gently: ‘how I envy you.’»

This reminded me of the sensational episode of Girls HBO, «The Panic in Central Park» (the sixth episode of the fifth season) in which Marnie, caught up in the everyday troubles of her failed marriage, unexpectedly runs into her ex on the street. He is very changed, yet as they spontaneously embark on a series of frivolous adventures, the old connection is re-found. That is, at least for a few hours, before the impending warning signs gather to a final wake-up call.

Both that episode and this short story show how reuniting with someone can be like collectively going to sleep to resume an old dream together. As if the closest we get to time travel is the rekindled fire of what once was - or the short-lasted illusion of it, with an impermanence radiant like fireworks.

Even though the past circumstances and the lost time is irretrievable, the presences and the interpersonal chemistry is retrievable - or at least it seems so within reach, so close and far away at the same time.

Collective reminiscing is antiquarian, it’s the act of loving memories back to life. A personal love necromancy, conjuring up what’s buried, reassessing it perhaps only to be reminded why it was buried in the first place. It’s a Frankenstein restitching of old moments, eventually you must let the sun set in it’s natural course, a letting go is overdue.

In video editing we learn to kill your darlings. A clip you love but ought to sacrifice for the sake of the total product. In this case a darling would be a dream you had to give up to choose another life. This is about resurrecting an old darling.

«Make a person out of memories they won’t live up to it» - Lizzy McAlpine, Drunk, Running

There’s this one scene specifically which captures it well. Sitting in a stolen boat, they fall into the water. As if time stops for a few moments, we see Marnie in slow motion looking around under the water. It reminds me of the black-and-white scene in Fallen Angels (1995) where they’re sitting in the restaurant, as it also plays with time in a dreamlike and intimate way. And the scene in The Worst Person in the World (2021) when she literally stops the world to run over to the guy who isn’t her boyfriend. Because it generates an alternative space aside from real life, it’s a tangible and touchable dreamscape.

«We did not touch each other. We were both leaning over the abyss.» - Anaïs Nin, Henry & June

«You moved like honey in my dream last night / Yeah, some old fires were burning» - Fiona Apple, Slow Like Honey

«And when I find you / You touch my leg and I insist / But I wake up before we do it» - Phoebe Bridgers, Garden Song

It feels so easy and magical because it exists outside of time. Both like waking up and like dreaming. An alternate timeline that is neither past, present nor future. The wonder of physically revisiting a memory, picking up the old thread you loved to twiddle. With the one person you’d like to be trapped in an elevator with - to be put in a place where time is of no concern, where other people and circumstances don’t intrude, where there’s nothing to do but talk out all that’s been unsaid.

«Now your eyes are like tortures, you presence is bliss / I never knew time could speed and zip like this» - The Waterboys, We Will not be Lovers

«Baby it’s halloween / There’s a last time for everything / Oh, come on, man / We can be anything / Whatever you want / I’ll be whatever you want» - Phoebe Bridgers, Halloween

«We could go back to New York / Loving you was really hard / We could go back to Woodstock / Where they don’t know who we are / Heaven is on earth» - Lana Del Rey, Ultraviolence

«I can still taste the memory of you on my tounge / When we stood so close I could hear your mind running / With the speed of someone being in love / So, why can’t I stay here?» - Sarah Kinsley, Ascension

Such a reunion is like a portal to the figs on the Plathean fig tree that you didn’t get to choose. And you get an unexpected yet long awaited bite: a taste you never thought you’d get. You savour it and eventually feel a stomachache, when reality catches up with you.

Both Marnie and Vera are briefly situated in a limbo, in twilight. Twilight as a liminal space, a duality, an in-between; transitional and ambiguous. It’s a terminal paradise, to quote the Adrianne Lenker song title.

«Because your candle burns too bright / Well, I almost forgot it was twilight» - Elliot Smith, Twilight

They are charmed by the intoxication of forgetting that it’s twilight. Giddily neglecting the fact that when the clock strikes midnight, the enchantment will wear off, the carriage a pumpkin again. When the spell wears off and the trip down memory lane has ended, it’s the same sobering state of walking out of the movie theatre after being immersed in a film.

«Haven’t laughed this hard in a long time / I better stop now before I start crying / Go off to sleep in the sunshine / I don’t want to see the day when it’s dying» - Elliot Smith, Twilight

It’s like the scene in Before Midnight (2013) when they watch the sun go down and he says: «Still there… still there… still there… gone», just as they realise that the way they used to see each other is gone too. What remains is the thought that: there was a time.

It’s back to reality, but with the sweetened aftertaste of a forgotten dream lingering on the lips. With Marnie, it’s the catalyst to her realisation to divorce. It stirs up her life, shakes the monotonous rythm, and cracks up the facade. It grants them with a unique new perspective on their current life.

[Vivienne Tan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange short story — another one for my analysing prose fiction class. I didn't really know what to think of it. The whole story is a conversation between two ex-lovers (?) I assume, who haven't met in a very long time. While there is the veneer of an amiable environment, the whole setting seems curated, forced, and almost clinical. I see the bamboo table, decorated with a Japanese vase of paper daffodils, a full plate of fruit and possibly, by a wide window overlooking the bustling city. It is spring time, I think, but indoors, the room gives the feel of a hospital common room, where patients meet their loved ones over a coffee. Long, slow conversations ensue, nostalgia flows all around — warm, but not in this case.

It seems that both the boy and girl — I'm not exactly sure why they do not give me the impression that they are old and grown adults — cannot meet each other on the same page. So many gorgeous, yet eerily uncomfortable memories, described in perfect detail, but never truly shared by both parties. Their focus is on a different spot of memory within the same frame. It is sad in a beautiful sort of way.

The girl, it seems, does not share the same needy, desperate love as the boy for her. He remembers the sweet moments — the weather and the scenery, while his unnerving actions (that surely give her the ick) remain the clearest to her. She is lonely though, but she would not stoop as low and commit herself to this boy. Her sitting across from him and having this conversation is a final chance given to herself — perhaps he had changed? Maybe he wouldn't talk so much and assume she liked to listen to his endless descriptions. Yet, she leaves in the end, despite him grasping at her mitten, puppy-eyed and yearning. He is the same. Why did she expect him to change? It was a foolish hope. She remains alone, but it is a choice she is unlikely to look back on. The boy is evermore the heartbroken patient, confined in the strange room with nothing but his sweet, one-sided memories.

[Liza M. Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recensione completa su www.pennaecalamaro.com
Un uomo e una donna che si rivedono casualmente dopo anni. Non sappiamo quanti anni abbiano, ma il fatto che accennino al passare degli anni e a un corpo “che ha sempre più freddo” fanno pensare che non siano giovanissimi. Di lei Katherine Mansfield ci dice il nome, Vera. Quello dell’uomo, non viene mai nominato. Non sappiamo neanche dove siano, probabilmente a Londra, considerando il bricco di crema e la frutta che vengono serviti. Il luogo è un non luogo, potrebbero essere ovunque, e l’uomo è un non uomo, potrebbe essere chiunque.
Quello che conta è l’atmosfera che Katherine Mansfield riesce a creare in una manciata di pagine. Vera sembra avvolta in un limbo romantico, ma tutto ciò che ricorda del passato sembra spiacevole, particolari che contrastano con l’immagine che l’uomo vuole dare di sé. Un’immagine che s’infrange anch'essa sui particolari: l’uomo non ricorda un cane, eppure dovrebbe, parla della Russia come se non avesse compreso le complesse vicende politiche in cui era immersa all'epoca, siamo nel 1917 quando viene pubblicato il racconto. Interrompe Vera regolarmente, non l’ascolta. Ha un rapporto meschino col denaro, nonostante sia evidentemente benestante. Il cetriolo sottaceto, il “dill pickle” del titolo, è il sapore acido che Vera deve ingoiare. Che le donne devono ingoiare. Non mi spingo oltre nella metafora, ognuno si crei un suo libero pensiero su quello che Katherine Mansfield volesse sottintendere.
E in tutto questo, Vera come agirà? Vera è una donna che si semplificherebbe la vita se in lui trovasse più lati positivi che negativi. Per questo per un attimo alza il velo. Lo lascerà alzato?