BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [13 NOV. 1917]
BRACERS 19242. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Tuesday mg.1^, 2^, 3

My Beloved

I am afraid yesterday evening was very painful for you but for me it was a really big step towards getting back to what we both want. It relieved my mind of a lot of tiresome obsessions which I could not have got rid of by silence.

I had a letter4 from Mrs Eliot5 this morning. I dread seeing her this evening. Nevertheless, the relief of having done something irrevocable persists, though I feel this is shameful.

You seemed to think times we had together had gone dim in me. That is not so — they are amazingly vivid to me — but they seem to belong to a previous existence — they are the other side of a gulf. I don’t want to go back to the Cat and Fiddle6 unless we can have again a happiness comparable to what we had there before — and that is not yet. I am puzzled by your being capable of falling in love with some one else when you cared so much for me, and by your being able to find happiness in a thing which does so much damage to our relation. But I am gradually learning to understand. It is not that I want you to act differently, feeling as you do; it is your feeling as you do that is puzzling.

I am sinking into my winter despair.

I want you with a terrible hunger.  But that is useless — because it is not the way you want me. Also it is not the way I should wish to want you.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200230.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | W.C.1. Pmk: LONDON W.C. | 1.15 PM | 13 NOV 17

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote “13 Nov. 1917” on the letter.

• 4

  a letter Not extant.

• 5

  Mrs Eliot Vivienne Eliot (1888–1947), the wife of poet T.S. Eliot. Her letter is not extant. For further information on her, see BRACERS 19062, n.5.

• 6

  Cat and Fiddle An isolated pub on the moors near Buxton, Derbyshire. For further information on this pub, see BRACERS 19065, n.5.