BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 4 MAY 1949
BRACERS 19868. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #488
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Penralltgoch
Llan Ffestiniog
Merioneth1
4 May 1949

My darling Colette

Your letters2 are a great joy — thank you for all you say. How did you get in touch with Mrs K?3 I am glad you did. What a horrid business about your septic hand. And the lady at Bristol4 sounds very worrying. I wonder whether Eva Cassirer5 is a relative of a philosopher who long ago wrote a book on Leibniz.6

I am having a peaceful time, and getting my nerves rested. Peter7 seems reasonable, and an amicable separation is being arranged. My lawyer tells me her lawyer is very frightened of her, and has come to the conclusion that there are faults on both sides!

I don’t think you need worry about my “wealth”8 — it is fast vanishing.

For the present, until the separation agreement is concluded, I must be very discreet. In the long run, I shall have a great deal of freedom, I think.

Goodbye for now, dearest Colette. How well I remember those first walks and Goring!9 All love.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200876.

• 2

  Your letters The only one extant in “Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969” is dated 3 May 1949 (BRACERS 113286), and it contains no mention of a Mrs. K., Colette’s septic hand, or her worry about BR’s wealth. The 3 May letter is clearly a combination of more than one letter as it refers to BR’s remarks about lawyers contained in this letter written a day later.

• 3

  Mrs K Nalle Keilland. Colette wrote to her using the address on an envelope BR received.

• 4

  the lady at Bristol Joan S. was a mental patient whom Colette had known years earlier. Instead of getting better she had had a relapse and was once again confined to the hospital at Barrow Gurney.

• 5

  Eva Cassirer Eva Cassirer (1885–1974) and her husband, Kurt, had fled to England to escape Hitler; Eva also knew Joan S.

• 6

  book on Leibniz Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) wrote Leibniz’  System in seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen on Leibniz in 1902, after BR’s own book on Leibniz was published. BR reviewed the book in 1903 (B&R C03.01; in Papers 3). In 1933 Cassirer left Germany to teach at All Souls College, Oxford, but he stayed there only two years before moving to the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. He eventually settled in the United States. The two Cassirers were not related.

• 7

  Peter Patricia (“Peter”) Russell, née Spence (1910–2004). She and BR were married from 1936 until 1952.

• 8

  my “wealth” BR had told Colette the previous year that he was wealthier than he had been for 40 years. She may have remarked in conversation on the disparity between their assets.

• 9

  first walks and Goring On the train going to Bristol, Colette passed Goring and remembered “that brilliant day when” they had gone on their “first country walk there together” (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”, 3 May 1949; BRACERS 113286).