BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 2 APR. [1917]
BRACERS 19141. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
April 2 Late1^, 2

My Darling

It is most terribly disappointing about your tour.3

I wonder how you will find the time at Chesham4 and how it will work out — You are very right to go.

Mrs Eliot5 yesterday assured me that she is perfectly happy, and finds her life quite satisfactory — She lied quite bravely and convincingly —

I am suffering for our day-dreaming yesterday, with the feeling that we tempted Providence —

Behüt dich Gott, es wär zu schön gewesen.6 I find myself expecting to hear you have been run over by a taxi, or something. If anything happened to you, I should give up the pursuit of happiness finally, and acknowledge that Fate had won.

You were divine yesterday —

The world is very full of sorrow and I am a poor weak mortal. How I could prostrate myself before God if I believed in him. I long for the repose of some great strength outside me that I could throw myself upon —

O my dear one, I want you — But it is dreadful to be taking your love away from Miles,7 especially now when trouble is ahead of him.8 Give your love to him, my dearest, if you can. Life is a little moment between silences, a brief cry in the night — happiness is nothing — love is all — At least that is what I sometimes try to think.

• 1

  [document] Document 200117.

• 2

  [date] Colette added the year 1917 to the letter.

• 3

  terribly disappointing about your tour Presumably a job with a touring acting company that had fallen through.  Her letter which would have contained the relevant information is not extant.

• 4

  Chesham The small country cottage named “Nimmy Not” that Colette and Miles rented was in Bellingdon near Chesham, Bucks. It was previously rented by D.H. and Frieda Lawrence.

• 5

  Mrs Eliot Vivienne Eliot (1888–1947), wife of the poet T.S. Eliot. For further information on the Eliots, see BRACERS 19062, n.5.

• 6

  Behüt dich Gott, es wär zu schön gewesen. The first line of the refrain from the most famous aria from the opera by Victor Nessler (1841–1890) Der Trompeter von Säkkingen (1884), based on  the epic poem by Joseph Viktor von Scheffel (1826–1886) epic poem of the same title (“The Trumpeter of Säckingen”) (1853). The passage translates as “May God protect you, it would have been so nice”. The second line of the refrain is “Behüt dich Gott, es hat nicht sollen sein!”, which translates as “May God protect you, it was not to be!” BR read the book when he was seventeen (Papers 1: 42ff.).

• 7

  Miles Miles Malleson, Colette’s husband. For further information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.4.

• 8

  when trouble lies ahead of him Miles Malleson anticipated difficulties with his military status.