"My dear this is a strange world into which I have come, a world of dying beauty and harsh life."

This was number 6 in a sequence of eight Russia letters. In the Autobiography it became number 3 as the letters that Colette wrote are not published there. Pages of this letter is paginated 12-14. It is initialled "L", BR's pseudonym.

The strange world he is referring to is Petrograd, Soviet Russia, although the letter was not written there or on the date written on the letter. It was written after his return from Russia at the end of June.

The original letter ended up in the possession of Ottoline Morrell. It is number 1564 in the letters to her (document .001564, record 18771).

There are three other transcriptions of the letter: document .052468, record 99954 (ribbon copy); document .200650, record 19655 (carbon copy); document .007050f2, pp. 150-1, record 116402 (Autobiography).