BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [1 OCT. 1917]
BRACERS 19223. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Monday.1^, 2
[Later than the note by hand, which was Saturday]3

Your letter made me very sad4 — I had imagined you would not mind so much.

I will see you as soon as you choose,a and as often as you wish. I will do everything I possibly can to revive my love for you. The one thing I do not want to do is to sink into a trivial purely physical relation.

I cannot foretell the future. At present I have not left in me even the remotest trace of passion towards you, but this may be only fatigue. I no longer even feel unhappy. The whole region in my mind where you lived seems burnt out. So we shall have to begin again from the beginning and see what happens. I have no longer any jealousy —

I am afraid this must make you unhappy, and I will try to make things better. I wish to love you — but I don’t know whether that does much good. Instincts are wayward and do not obey one’s will. It is horrible to give you pain. I wish to God my nature were different.

• 1

  [document] Document 200205.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “1 Oct. 1917” on the letter.

• 3

  note by hand, which was Saturday Unidentified.

• 4

  Your letter made me very sad Her letter of 1 October 1917 (BRACERS 200211). In it she tells him that Maurice Elvey has decided not to comply with Miles’s request (presumably to take a Wasserman test), and that she as a result will be going to her country cottage until needed at the studios to finish the filming of Hindle Wakes.

Textual Notes

• a

  you choose above deleted  “your work for this film is over”.