BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [2 AUG. 1919]
BRACERS 19516. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<West Lulworth>
Saturday1^, 2^, 3

My Darling Love

It is useless writing today but I can’t resist the impulse. Thank you for your dear letter4 this morning.  If I were you I should write again about your watch,5 or telephone to the Times to find out the proper address. The advertisement must have been for you.6 Your story is gone to the English Review;7 I do hope they will print it. You can’t conceive how beautiful it has been here these days — I have longed for you — but I like to feel you are writing, because you really have a gift for it.

I had a nightmare about you in the middle of the night, that you were unhappy about me — it oppressed me for a long time after I woke. I feel I hurt you by not explaining enough why it is so difficult to meet in August. All my invitations to people to come here were before or during our crisis, when I gathered you wished not to see me from the middle of August till I return to London: I kept the time from July 11 to Aug. 9 for you, as you had said, but I dreaded being alone, and Littlewood8 had said he would be a good deal away. Now he says he won’t be, and the house will be full. Bob Trevy9 comes near the end of August, and from that time on it will be very difficult, as it seems rude to ask people and then go away. Just before that I could come to town for two nights if I can find a reason to give Miss Black,10 but it seems unkind to tell her I am coming simply to see you, the more so as she wanted to stay longer before, and I had to tell her she must go because you were coming. All these difficulties are the aftermath of our crisis. I won’t let them happen again. I see that I shan’t be able to endure being so long away from you, so I will manage to find some business to take me to town just before Bob Trevy comes, probably about Aug 18 or 20. Let us have 2 nights at my flat,11 can we? I will fix the date as soon as Bob Trevy fixes his.

Dear Heart, there is something new and greater than ever before in my love for you — a new depth and nearness, a new sense of resting in your heart. I know more than I ever did that you are what is supreme in my whole life, past present and future. Your love is so wonderful. I am ready to give you just as much as you are willing to have, but I so absolutely believe in your love that I no longer want to make demands: they only come when I doubt your love. The times we had here together are amazingly vivid to me; every time I hear a sea-gull cry I feel you beside me. Beloved, let yourself rest in my love — it is solid as it never was before — I know lack of work must make you unhappy, but let me be all that is possible to sustain you and help you through the bad times. I do love you so unutterably my Heart’s Comrade12 —

• 1

  [document] Document 200503.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | London W.C.1. Pmk: WEST LULWORTH | 3 AU | 19

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote“Sat. 3 Aug. 1919” on the envelope. Since Saturday fell on 2 August that is the date assigned to this letter.

• 4

  your dear letter Not extant.

• 5

  your watch BR had purchased Colette a wristwatch in 1917.

• 6

  The advertisement must have been for you. The advertisement is probably: “Colette can have article lost by sending description to Box H857, The Times”, which appeared on 25 July 1919, p. 1.

• 7

  story is gone to the English Review A short story, “The End”, written by Colette  using the pseudonym Christine Harte was published in The English Review, 29 (Sept. 1919): 235–8. The character, called only “the girl”, has been reading Jean Jacques-Rousseau, whom BR had recommended to Colette earlier in the summer. The girl lives in a flat near the British Museum and comes to realize that she has been abandoned by her lover.

• 8

  Littlewood John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977), mathematician, was renting Newland Farm with BR.

• 9

  Bob Trevy Robert Calverley Trevelyan (1872–1951), poet and translator, a friend of BR’s from Trinity College.

• 10

  Miss Black Dora Black (1894–1986). She and BR were married from 1921 until 1935. For information on her, see BRACERS 19506, n.3.

• 11

  my flat 34 Russell Chambers, Bury Street (later renamed Bury Place), London WC1.

• 12

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