BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 28 JUNE 1919
BRACERS 19491. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<West Lulworth>
<letterhead>1
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.2^, 3
Saturday 28 June 1919

My Beloved

It was all quite wonderful,4 from the first moment to the last. I don’t think you have ever been more loving than I felt you this time — I cannot begin to tell you the deep joy it is to find that your love is not dying. There wasn’t time to say much, but I think you knew that I was filled with happiness through and through. It has absolutely wiped out all that had happened since last September5 — I feel back at the point where we were when I went to prison. I am sorry you have suffered so much this last week, but I do not think anything less would have broken down your work-despair, and I could not go on as we were.

Now, my dear dear Love, we must begin a new life — I am sitting out in the sun, hearing the larks and the wind in the trees, with the sea sparkling far below — The world seems full of beauty and freedom and a great wonderful happiness. O my Heart, I do love you — I only need to feel that you want my love — there is no limit to what I shall give if I feel you want it — the only thing that ever makes me cold or cruel is when I feel not wanted — You must try to share your troubles as much as you can with me — not keep them too much to yourself — And I believe you will succeed much better if you keep some happiness in your soul than if you allow despair to weigh you down — Work, like everything else, has to be taken by storm, I believe, conquered by energy and life, not by the desperate craving that defeats itself. That is true in love, as I have had to learn, and probably it is true in work too —

My Beloved, I wonder if you know the unbelievable joy of the first moment when you arrived and held me in your arms in the dusk. Apart from you I can feel nothing that goes deep, except despair — in that moment when we came together, all the beauty of the world revived, and splendour came back into my life — Do not let us lose each other again my Heart’s Comrade6 — it is a very dark world without you — Heaven bless you my dearest Joy.

B.

• 1

  <letterhead> BR neglected to delete it; Colette did and inserted “Lulworth” above the letterhead.

• 2

  [document] Document 200479. In addition to the original handwritten letter, there is a condensed typescript of this letter which is titled “What B. wrote to Colette after she motored to him at Lulworth” (document 111274A, Box 6.69). It is followed by a commentary written by Colette titled “What Colette wrote after she motored to B. at Lulworth (written some good time afterwards)”. She describes the moment that they met and knew that “they had come together again, they had come back”. Their love still lived, was her view.

• 3

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 34 Russell Chambers | Bury Str. | London W.C.1 | Pmk: WEST L | 28 JU 19. “I have a spare Athenaeum so I am sending one to you.” was written on the back of the envelope by BR.

• 4

  all quite wonderful This occasion came after Colette had written him in response to his letter of 24 June that he was not to write to her again (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”, p. 327). She then changed her mind, sending him a telegram on 26 June that she would travel down to his rented summer property, Newlands Farm in Lulworth (BRACERS 113269).

• 5

  since last September When he had been released from Brixton Prison early and things went so terribly wrong between them.

• 6

  Heart’s Comrade  For information about the use of this term, see BRACERS 19145, n.12.