After its book publication by Duckworth in December 1919, she wrote to Edward Garnett: "for poor little Interim was written in a perfect gale of difficulties & disturbances; & though I felt moderately satisfied with the first part, the rest I knew was thin & badly foreshortened" (Windows on Modernism, 38). What Richardson meant when she said of a text that it was thin and foreshortened is shown, at least to some degree, by the changes she made in revising the LR text for the English First Edition (E).

Before surveying the major changes to the LR text, it will be helpful to point up some of the individual ways Richardson fine tuned her narrative. These ways are often the same as those she used in reworking the longer passages in the novel. The first and most common of these is trimming, the deleting of unnecessary elaborations, from the simple adjective to the developed illustration. In the following example, the word in square brackets is from the LR and has been deleted: "only Eve's point of view and Eve's courage and her [possible] difficulties remained" (E105.11-12; LR15.24). Since Eve has not yet come to London, the things mentioned are hypothetical possibilities; the possible is therefore irrelevant. Another example: "The moment of [keenest] realization of spring had come by surprise" (E109.13-14; LR17.22). The comparative adjective does more than weaken the statement--the commonest reason for deletion--it positively contradicts the dramatic surprise at this moment of realization. And here is a more typical case where an added noun serves to weaken the effect of a statement: "setting free unexpected [admissions and] sympathies" (E199.17-18; LR20.27).

Richardson also cancelled a number of passages where the illustration of a specific thought led away from or detracted from the larger subject or theme. Miriam, in her room on New Year's Eve as midnight approaches, experiences an ecstatic moment: "everything in the brightly lit corner glowed happily; not drawing her but standing complete and serene, like someone standing at a little distance, expressing agreement" (E54.21-25). Richardson risks the someone standing clause to reinforce the sense of the presentness and completeness of the moment. But she deletes from the LR trext a clause further elaborating on the agreement expressed because it takes the reader too far from Miriam's initial ecstatic experience (LR13.13-15). A more egregious case of giving chase to the hare of one's own thought process may be found at E92.19; LR10.34-37.

One category of trimming deserves special notice, namely the deletion of symbols. Here is the young Norwegian boarder at Mrs. Bailey's: where the forehead "was beaten in at the temples the skull had a snakelike flatness[,] the polished hair was poor and worn" (E66.23-25). In revising for E, Richardson deleted this continuation: "and the glance of the eyes was the glittering glance of a serpent" (LR18.31-32). The symbolism was too blatant. And here is Mr. Mendizabal: "mon dieu! He swayed drumming from foot to foot in time to his shouts" (E84.22-24). In the LR this reads: "mon dieu! he squealed musically, swaying from side to side, his thrust-out face pointed . . . like Mephistopheles. He was like Mephistopheles" (7.2-4). Mr. Mendizabal, with his pointed black beard, his Svengali-like character, and his devil-may-care stance, is quite Mephistophelian enough without being labelled as such. Richardson deleted the reference. She never felt comfortable with symbolism and allowed it a place in her writing only rarely, for it represented a form of generality as against individuality. Its promise to expand and universalize led to confinement and stereotype.

Apart from the major revisions, Richardson expanded her text rather infrequently. Examples range from added description to added characterization. Mrs Bailey's "mysterious basement" (LR20.6) becomes "mysterious dark-roomed vault of the basement" (E248.7-8). And Miss Dear is assigned a whole new speech at the end of Chapter IX (E276.12-13), illustrating, however briefly, her cheeky and undaunted nature. A simpler example shows Richardson making explicit what before was only implied: "educated Canadian nurses" replace "educated nurses" (E283.5; LR55.26-27). But expansions that throw light on Miriam's character are the most interesting. At the end of Chapter I, having got it into her head that the gas light is not needed before supper, Miriam wilfully projects her annoyance onto the evening: "After supper they would all sit, harshly visible, round the hot fire, enduring the stifling unneeded gaslight" (E49.15-18). In the midst of a conversation with Dr. von Heber in Chapter IV, Miriam's warm response is enhanced by adding: "She stood smiling, growing familiar with the quality of his voice, gathering the sense of a word here and there. Through his talk he smiled a quizzical pleased appreciation of this way of listening" (E131.11-15; [LR27.28])

Far more frequently Richardson revises to make her text clearer or more vivid or more precise. In the account of Noah's ark, recalled from childhood, "the offended stiffness" of the Noah family replaces "the wooden blankness" (E13.7; LR8.32). Miriam then goes on to think of her composition dolls: their "hair put on in soft brown colours" replaces their "hair, indicated in soft brown paint" (E15.15-16; LR9.34-35). At the Brooms, Miriam in her fresh quiet room "found the nearer past," not "all the past" (E36.17; LR19.23), a phrase both vague and inaccurate. On New Year's Eve Miriam plans to have no more interest in men. "They shut off the inside world" (E53.6-7). This supplants: "They belonged to all the fuss and flurry of the world" (LR12.22). The flurried world of men in the LR is replaced by the effect of that world on Miriam. A little later Miriam enters into an ecstatic moment. "There was no thought in the silence, no past or future, nothing but the strange thing for which there were no words . . .". In the LR this reads: "There was no thought in her silence, no picture of past or future" (E53.20-22; LR12.32-33). The her is changed because it personalizes the impersonal; and picture is eliminated because it contradicts the essential import of the passage, it specifies an image in a context that denies all images: "It was the thing that was nothing" (E53.25).

One way Richardson clarified her text was to emphasize the impersonal. This may take a simple form like eliminating "She felt" at E50.18; LR11.13. Or it may be more complex as when Miriam wakes to the music of the waits on Christmas Eve at the Brooms. In the LR her "love flowed into every turn" of the house and flowed into the lives of the sleepers (11.2-4). In E Miriam is "listening, following the claim of the music into the secret happy interior of the life of each sleeping form" (18.6-8). Here Miriam becomes more like an instrument of the music and her love is implied only. Another example. In the LR, Miriam reflects that "reality can be shared only with yourself" (17.33). This becomes: "reality comes to you when you are alone" (E110.2-3). The new phrasing conveys a sense of the given and avoids the possessiveness of the earlier formula. Miriam's departure from Rusino's may serve as a final example (E187.23-188.1; LR54.3-7). Richardson begins by deleting "The evening is over"; and next gets rid of words through which Miriam draws attention to herself: "felt" and "as far as she could see." Since the latter clause in LR takes the reader away from Miriam and into the scene, Richardson avoids that structure, picks up the details about "the misty smoke wreathed golden light" and moves them front and center into the main sentence as Miriam wanders blissfully out of Rusino's. The rich detail and flow of the description in this sentence in E confirms the previous statement: "The tide of café life flowed all round her." She is a part of it, caught up in an "other" world, impersonal.

Major changes to the text of Interim begin with Chapter III, gain momentum through Chapters IV, V, and VI, lessen a little in Chapter VII, then cease altogether, giving way to minor revisions only in Chapters VIII through XI.

At the beginning of Chapter III, the text of E is enhanced by a new long paragraph touching skillfully on the details of Miriam's changed situation at Mrs. Bailey's now that she is tutoring Sissie and has the status of a boarder. The next paragraph of E, which parallels the very efficient summary introducing Chapter III of the LR text, evokes more vividly the scene at Mrs. Bailey's and the sudden Hgh-HEE from the little room at the end of the hall (E80.1-81.15; LR5.1-7).

At the beginning of Chapter IV (E97.1-100.15; LR12.19-13.14), Richardson takes the first two-thirds of a very long paragraph in LR and almost doubles its length, not by inserting a block of new material but by reorganizing and by injecting a whole series of details and observations. The resulting expansion is somewhat less than effective. The LR text gives an impression of stream of consciousness. After an introductory sentence looking back to her astonishment at encountering Wagner in the Baileys' dining room, Miriam gives us her reaction to what Mr. Bowdoin is now playing. From here her mind slips back to the Wagner and to the way Mr. Bowdoin played it, then forward to the Baileys "drowning" in the occasion. She imagines Mrs. Bailey recalling what Mendizabal told them about his and Mr. Bowdoin's work place where they designed posters. Mr Mendizabal's "proud wicked smile" catches her attention. He is displaying Mr. Bowdoin as Svengali displayed Trilby. The entire passage has decided momentum.

In revising, Richardson begins chronologically with the playing of Wagner but pads out the description with details about the Queen's Hall orchestra and about piano scores of Wagner. Mr. Bowdoin "did not know the Baileys and their boarders. He could not imagine how extraordinary it was to hear Wagner in the room, suddenly offered to the Baileys" (97.16-19). That Mr. Bowdoin did not know the Baileys is obvious. That the Baileys in the earlier text are "drowning" in the occasion conveys more immediately and less condescendingly how extraordinary it was to hear Wagner in this setting.

The second paragraph of E continues the chronological presentation, adding details throughout. The best of these is Miriam's evaluation of "other foreign musicians." The third paragraph of E sets out more explicitly further details of the Baileys' reactions to Mr. Bowdoin and Mr. Mendizabal, as well as Miriam's view of Mr. Bowdoin as a "sort of foreigner with an English expression." This is an effective detail but, by and large, the episode in its elaborated form seems overdone: too detailed, too chronological, and lacking in psychological coherence. Of the major revisions to Interim, this one alone seems to me questionable.

Later when Miriam receives Mr. Bowdoin's letter (E110.11-21; LR17.40-18.12), her response to its implied message is concise and psychologically fluid in the revised text whereas in the LR her reflections, though not without excellent touches, are more fact centered, fussy, and wordy.

At the end of Chapter IV, as Miriam and Mrs. Bailey part for the night (E133.3-12; LR28.11-17), Richardson in revising for E adds a few vivid details about Mrs. Bailey, and omits the factual descriptiveness of "When the door of the little back room had closed" and "hurried off [. . .] in opposite directions." She also omits Miriam's bit of routine speech.

The first half of Chapter V is subjected to major alterations. At the beginning of the chapter, the account of Miriam's arrival in Mr. Bowdoin's bohemian basement is enlarged and enriched (E134.1-135.14; LR56.1-14). In the LR version, Miriam provides no link between the idea that it was difficult to talk in the Farringdon Road and the idea that Mr. Bowdoin has reproached her for talking so excitedly about Devonshire. The revision shows Miriam experiencing an unexpected sense of freedom and identity with Mr. Bowdoin as they enter the strange blankness of the Farringdon Road. The details of Mr. Bowdoin's flat, also expanded in revision, serve as counterpoint to her personal interactions with her host.

Improvements continue at E135.19-136.18; LR56.17.32. Miriam's animation is strained rather simply forced. It is cruel to look at the room, she thinks. She looks at her hands. But she had seen the scant furnishings. Thus the description of the room, which began as a straightforward account in LR is now in being recalled given psychological dimension. And whereas before "there was no mirror above the empty mantle-piece" (56.23-24), now "There was nothing else in the room [. . . .] there was nothing above the empty mantlepiece" (135.26-136.3). There is nothing, so the text now implies, in Bohemia. The style too achieves added polish and ease. "Miriam divested herself with swift obedience of her golf-cape with which he disappeared between high hung curtains screening the end of the room opposite the window" (LR56.27-30) becomes "Miriam slipped off her golf-cape and he disappeared between curtains at the end of the room opposite the window" (E136.5-7). This is followed by a new meditation on Bohemia into which the thought about Trilby, which had already been mentioned in the LR text, is skillfully integrated.

Richardson's revisions more than double the length of the passage which follows, beginning with the words from Du Maurier's Trilby (E136.24-138.20; LR57.1-17). Little Billy is explaining that he sketched Trilby's foot not from nature (the actual foot) but from memory. Its beauty struck forcibly into his being and later he was able to capture its reality in his sketch. (That Richardson recalled and quoted this passage suggests that she recognized a parallel with her own creative procedure. An experience struck a shaft into her being and later she was able to recall it, almost to relive it, and to recreate it in prose.) But unlike Little Billy's sketch, Mr. Bowdoin's sketches painted in Devonshire are done from nature. They are insipid but in the revised text he is granted some admiration because he wanted to do them. And Miriam wonders at his self-confidence. This inspires further speculations: "Even in Bohemia people thought it was necessary to always be doing some definite thing" (E138.9-10). When the tall lady enters and sits down briskly and unconcernedly, Miriam thinks: "She did not look in the least bohemian" (138.19-20). If Miriam also "sat enviously resenting her assurance," her response in the LR episode (57.16-17), it is left to the reader alone to deduce such a state. Generally, the revised presentation is richer in Miriam's reflections and judgments, more garrulous and livelier than that of the LR.

The guests having arrived, Mr. Bowdoin begins his performance. Here the revisions are not so drastic as in the previous passage but just as salutary (E140.3-141.4; LR58.1-15). The most effective change places Miriam's probing meditation on Paderewski's portrait between the moment when Mr. Bowdoin sits down to play a Beethoven sonata and the moment when his performance comes to an end. Miriam's fascinated exploration into Paderewski's appearance is strengthened in the later version in several ways: by the opening generalization about the weakness of the musical temperament, by Miriam's personal reaction to the weakness of Paderewski's mouth and chin ("dreadful"), and by the drama of the statement: "The eyes saw nothing" (141.1).

As Chapter VI begins, Miriam joins the boarders at Mrs. Bailey's dinner table (E149.1-150.17; LR38.1-26). Here Richardson makes no radical changes. A couple of sentences are moved to improve the flow of the narrative. "The depths of the light still held unchanged the welcome that had been there when she had come in and found Emile laying the table" (E149.4-7). By moving Miriam's reflection into this early position Richardson lends to the scene, which is largely descriptive, a layered retrospective character. As well, almost every sentence is revised in a minor way to smooth out and simplify. And the third from last sentence in the passage cited is thoroughly reshaped so that Mrs. Bailey's movements as she carves express her pride that Miriam is present at her table. "When she was not speaking every movement of her battle with the joint expressed her triumphant affectionate sense of Miriam's presence."

The rest of the big changes to Chapter VI come near the middle of the chapter. They center on Miriam's inability to integrate her sister Eve into her London life. She cannot, will not, give up one scrap of her independence. She visits the West-End flower shop where Eve is employed. In the revised text, the descriptions of the flowers as Miriam approaches and enters the shop are more precisely detailed and visually coherent (E160.1-17; LR42.41-43.10). Miriam speaks irritably to her sister. The scene that follows is drastically rewritten (E160.19-162.17; LR43.12-39). The substance of the encounter between the two sisters retains some common elements but the details are transformed and the effects achieved are quite different. In the LR, Miriam, caught up in her anger and resentment and disappointment, sees Eve as pathetic and doomed to failure. "Eve had broken up the west-end shop fronts . . ." (43.38-39)--Eve has brought Miriam to tears. In E Miriam is less resentful, moved to grudging admiration because "Eve was liking hardness [. . . .] Liking the prices of her new life" (162.3-4). "Perhaps she would succeed in staying on . . ." (162.6-7). A big perhaps, but at least Eve, in the new version, is her own person. "She stepped slenderly forward; all her old Eve manner . . ." (160.23-24). The episode in E ends not with Miriam about to cry but with the sisters distancing themselves from each other. "Oh I can't come out murmured Eve ignoringly."

At the beginning of section 3 of Chapter VI, as Miriam is absorbed in reading Ibsen, Richardson inserts a long reflection by Miriam on the kind of multi-directional back-and-forth reading invited by modern works like Brand (E162.18-164.10). These ideas join seamlessly with Miriam's further thoughts about Norway (E164.19-166.10; LR44.6-23). As revised this continuing meditation about Ibsen and his country is almost twice as long as that of the LR text. A few clauses from the LR are repeated; that is all. The earlier personal emphasis ("Everything in Ibsen's Brand is a part of me now for always" [44.11] ) is abandoned in favor of a focus on Ibsen himself and on the nature of his achievement. One part of that achievement is the power of setting or place: "a background that is more real than people or thoughts. The life in the background is in the people" (165.11-14). The new emphasis is more in keeping with Miriam's psychology. And though this expanded treatment of Ibsen's genius is somewhat rambling, it reflects the disruptiveness of Miriam's unexpectedly compelling and not fully digested engagement with that strange brilliance, an engagement so absorbing she has forgotten her appointment with Eve.

As Chapter VII opens Miriam is writing her name in the prayer book Dr. von Heber has asked to borrow. In LR this leads to a romantic fantasy: Miriam's inseparable life with Dr. von Heber in Canada (34.1-16). In revising for the first edition this fantasy is displaced by a memory of a student at Miriam's school whose name was inscribed in her Bible (189.1-20).

The two paragraphs that follow are in substance the same in the earlier and later versions. They circle round Miriam's regret that she was caught unprepared and so failed to respond to Dr. von Heber by offering to go to church with him. When Richardson came to revise Interim for the Collected Edition, she omitted these two paragraphs as well as the opening account of the fellow student and her Bible. The chapter now begins with a brief recapitulatory reflection on Dr. von Heber's interruption (CE397.1-23; E190.22-191.26; LR34.33-35.21). Between LR and E, Richardson deletes Miriam's romantic fantasy. Between E and the Collected Edition she deletes Miriam's regrets. That leaves only Miriam's retrospective interpretation of a misunderstanding, tinged with regret. Readers who see Richardson's and Miriam's relations with men as ambiguous and problematic may find this episode instructive. But they will note as well that Miriam a little later recognizes feelings of intimate affinity between herself and Dr. von Heber (E190.16-21; LR34.27-32).

The only other major revision in this chapter concerns Dr. Hurd as escort to a Sunday concert (E192.1-21; LR35.22-36.6). Richardson takes a repetitive, overly-emphatic satirical recollection and subjects it to considerable trimming and tightening up. It is shortened by a third, and the thought that Dr. Hurd must have told the others about the concert is moved to an effective place at the end of the paragraph. Since Richardson elsewhere represented Dr. Hurd as a simple but friendly and engaging person , the excessive condescension in the LR version was inappropriate.

Chapter VIII has only one revision of note. A short passage is inserted in the First Edition text about a woman called the Flat who has taken to writing articles. "Isn't it wonderful?" exclaims Miriam (241.20-242.10). Her disappointment when her friends Mag and Jan do not think it wonderful serves to underline the theme for the reader. The remaining chapters have minor revisions only. Are they thin and foreshortened? Should the fragmentary mini-scenes at the beginning of Chapter VIII have been woven into a more sustained fabric? Should some of the subjects in section 2 surveyed briefly through conversation with Mag and Jan have been developed more fully? At the beginning of Chapter IX, should Miriam's rather explicit conversation with Mrs. Bailey about how the Canadian doctors viewed her going about with Mr. Mendizabal have been represented more obliquely? However readers answer these questions, at least they now have before them as examples the many revisions Richardson did in fact make to the text of Interim, revisions that are almost all carried through into the Collected Edition.

Interim, London: Duckworth, 1919 

"Interim," The Little Review 6, No. 2 (June 1919), 3-25; No. 3 (July 1919), 11-24; No. 4 (August 1919), 5-28; No. 5 (September 1919), 56-61; No. 6 (October 1919), 38-54; No. 7 (November 1919), 34-38; No. 8 (December 1919), 20-28; No. 9 (January 1920), 37-48; No. 10 (March 1920), 17-26; No. 11 (April 1920), 26-34; 7, No. 1 (May-June 1920), 53-61.

> Substantive variants are so preponderant in this inventory that it would be unprofitable to distinguish them from the few non-substantive variants.

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