BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [27 APR. 1917]
BRACERS 19155. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Friday1^, 2

My Heart’s Love

Your letter has come — I do not mind any length of separation as long as I can feel you love me — I thought you were getting tired of me — I did not “joke”3 — I feel the sort of person any one would get tired of when they got to know me — My dearest, my loved one, I didn’t mean to be cruel, but I felt you slipping away and I couldn’t bear it.

I am very very worried to hear you have been having fainting fits — Pleasea have yourself properly looked at by a good Doctor and your heart examined and everything. You haven’t been “grasping and selfish”4 in the least — it is I who have been. My dear one, I love you always with all my soul —  I will be quite content however long you stay away,5 as long as I can feel you still care for me — Forgive me my Beloved — My heart is yours — Don’t be in despair — there is no need — Goodbye — my loving thoughts will be with you always.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200131.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “27 April 1917” on the letter.

• 3

  I did not “joke”.  In his letter of c.27 April 1917 (BRACERS 19154), BR had written that he was “still not Roy”. Roy was Sir Coleridge Arthur Fitzroy Kennard (1885–1948), diplomat and author, known as “Roy” to his friends. Colette already knew Kennard when she met BR in 1916 and was very briefly in love with Kennard (“evanescent, fragile, a moment only”, After Ten Years [London: J. Cape, 1931, p. 94]).  In her reply to BR, c.27 April 1971, Colette wrote: “Why did you joke about Roy? You are more to me than any living creature on this earth” and called his letter “cruel, cruel” (BRACERS 113010).

• 4

  “grasping and selfish” Colette had written: “It makes me sad when you feel I’m grasping and selfish and only love you in order to prey upon you” (BRACERS 113010).

• 5

  however long you stay away Because of the slight fainting fits she had been experiencing, Colette’s  mother had suggested that she go to her country cottage, Cox Green, Maidenhead, Berks., to rest in the garden.

Textual Notes

• a

  Please “Please” is underlined three times.