"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 however it becomes number 3 as the letters that Colette wrote are not published there.

The "strange world" he is referring to is Petrograd, Soviet Russia, although the actual letter was not written there or on the date written on the letter. It was written after BR's return from Russia on 30 June 1920.

The number 6 does not appear on this transcription; it has been taken from other versions. This transcription is paginated 3-4. The original letter ended up in the possession of Lady Ottoline Morrell. It is number 1564 in the numbered sequence of letters to Ottoline (document .001564, record 18771.)

There are three other transcriptions of this letter:

Document .200650, record 19655 (carbon of this transcription);
Document .052459, record 99935 (different typing);
Autobiography chapter "Russia", document .007050F2, pp. 149-50, record 116402.