BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 19 JUNE 1960
BRACERS 19900. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

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Plas Penrhyn,
Penrhyndeudraeth,
Merioneth.1^, 2
19 June 1960

Dearest Colette

Your sad letter3 made me sad too. I never met your half-sister,4 whom you write about; she sounds worthy of the love you gave her.

It is dreadful about your deafness.5 Edith is almost stone deaf, but by means of a hearing aid she is able to take part even in general conversation, and no one would guess she was deaf. Her hearing aid is tiny and no one would notice it. Are you sure you could not get one that would help you? I enclose the address6 of her place, in case it might help you.

What is wrong with your eyes?7 Is it a chronic trouble, or are they now better?

I see letters from you in the paper8 sometimes, about Finns and reindeer for example. What “hack work”9 do you do, and where does it appear?

Love as always,
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200904.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | Sundborn | Sweden. Pmk: PORTMADOC | CAERNARVONSHIRE | 3 – PM | 20 JNE | 1960

• 3

  sad letter Her letter of 10 June 1960 from Sundborn, Sweden (BRACERS 98459). In her reply to this letter written on “Midsummer Eve” (BRACERS 98460), she wrote that she “was shocked that you found my last letter “sad (except for sister Maley). One gets used to things.”

• 4

  your half-sister Lady Mabel Marguerite (“Maley”) Annesley (1881–1959), wood-engraver. She had been living near Colette in Suffolk and was buried at Long Melford. Colette completed her autobiography, As The Sight Is Bent (London: Museum Press, 1964).

• 5

  dreadful about your deafness Colette had written: “I can neither hear other people’s voices nor my own. I therefore go absolutely nowhere, and see absolutely nobody at all. It is best so.” This was the reason she gave for not visiting him and Edith in Wales (BRACERS 98459).

• 6

  enclose the address A note in Edith’s hand is taped to the letter: Multitone Electric Co., 25 Dover Street, W.1.

• 7

  your eyes Colette had written that on the day BR’s marriage announcement to Edith appeared in the Times in 1952, she had been at “Moorfields Eye Hospital expecting to go completely blind” (BRACERS 98459). In her reply she responded that her eyes were now fine although she needed to wear glasses (BRACERS 98460).

• 8

  letters from you in the paper In her reply Colette indicates that her letter about reindeer was published in the Guardian (BRACERS 98460). An article, “The Slaughter of the Reindeer” appeared in the Guardian on 12 April 1960, p. 7. It was written by someone identified only as the paper’s Stockholm correspondent. Colette’s letter, one of many in response, appeared as “Reindeer in Lapland”, 18 April 1960, p. 4. In it she defended the Lapps’ traditional way of life, which included killing reindeer. Her letter drew a response, “Killing Reindeer” from K.S. Lysons, which was published on 21 April 1960, p. 10. The Stockholm correspondent was revealed to be Sven Oste in a letter he wrote in his own defence on 20 May 1960, p. 3. It did not end the controversy.

• 9

  “hack work” In her reply (BRACERS 98640) she describes her work as follows: it “appears in stupid magazines, unsigned by me; and I do translations; and also vet stuff for young persons who are able to place and sell but are unable to knock together and polish.” On a typescript in her archive titled “On Flat Decoration”, Colette wrote across the top “trash journalism”.