The Little Governess

'The Little Governess' is a 1915 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in Signature on 18 October 1915 under the pen name of Matilda Berry, and later reprinted in Bliss and Other Stories. The text is written in the modernist mode, without a set structure, and with many shifts in the narrative. After receiving advice from the lady at the Governess Bureau, a young and naive English governess (referred to throughout as 'the little governess') is off on the train from France to Munich, from where she will go to a new house for work. The governess has never been abroad before, and is duly forewarned of the dangers by the lady at the Governess Bureau, who tells her to 'mistrust people at first'. She is harassed by a porter on the way to her train, and once aboard, by a group of rowdy French men.