BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 14 JUNE 1921
BRACERS 19735. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

14 June 19211

My Darling

It was nice of you to telegraph about my health.2 I am quite well now, except that from being so long in bed my muscles are weak and I can’t walk without support, but that will be all right in a few days — I got out of bed about a week ago — I lie out in our courtyard which we have filled with roses and other flowering plants in pots. 4 days from today I shall get out in a motor car and be able to go to the Western Hills, which are beautiful —

We leave China in about 3 weeks, spend about 10 days in Japan, and sail from Yokohama by the “Empress” line on July 30. We are due at Vancouver August 8, and we sail from Montreal August 20, so we shall be home about August 29 or 30.

Dora is going to have a child3 (due about November) so we are anxious to get home. We are both very glad of it — you know how I have always wanted a child. While I was very ill she didn’t yet know of it — I hope the strain of that time will not have done harm.

You say I don’t write about the beauty of China.4 It was winter, and I was very hard worked, so I saw little of it. In winter the country round Peking is a parched dusty plain without a trace of green. There are very beautiful things inside Peking — the Temple of Heaven is as beautiful as anything I know in the world — but I think Southern China is more beautiful on the whole. I have been obliged to think about current Chinese politics and things of that sort, because the Chinese wanted me to talk about their present-day problems. So I have not had much leisure for enjoyment —

Goodbye my loved one — I long to be with you again —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200740.

• 2

  to telegraph about my health This telegram is not extant.

• 3

  Dora is going to have a child BR had written this news to Clifford Allen more than a week earlier on 2 June 1921 (BRACERS 56318). Colette felt that this news had been withheld from her, that they had known of the pregnancy in approximately March (her explanatory note, document 200733). This does not seem to be the case, although he could have told her earlier. BR fell ill on 5 March. John Conrad Russell was born on 16 November 1921. Possibly the birth was induced a month early, as Dora asserted (Tamarisk Tree, p. 151), which muddies the timeline. Earlier in the book she gave her due date as the end of November (p. 142). So the induction on 21 November was not a month early.

• 4

  You say I don’t write about the beauty of China In her letter of 26 January 1921 (BRACERS 116438) she wrote: “Don’t you ever have time to walk by the K’un Ming Lake of the Summer Palace? Or to sit in the Temple of Heaven? You don’t say anything about the real historical Peking.” Presumably she made another remark later than this, but it is not extant in “Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”.