BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [27 APR. 1917]
BRACERS 19154. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Friday1^, 2

The tie is lovely — thank you a thousand times — I love it —

Do tell me what my offence is — I have tried and tried to think how I can have offended during the week-end — the only thing I could think of is that, although the spring has come, I am still not Roy.3 That is incurable.

If your love for me is dying, let me know. I would rather part at once, and not endure the slow torment of gradual estrangement. We have had very wonderful times together, and I should not wish the memory of them to get draggled by times of make-believe or failure.

I am weary, beyond anything you can conceive. I have not enough life always to give life to you — but when I have no vitality to spare, you do not like me.

I go to Garsington4 tomorrow for the week-end. Do let me have one line before then. I am very unhappy.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200130.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “27 April 1917” on the letter.

• 3

  Roy Sir Coleridge Arthur Fitzroy Kennard (1885–1948), diplomat and author, known as “Roy” to his friends. Colette already knew Kennard when she met BR in 1916 and was very briefly in love with Kennard (“evanescent, fragile, a moment only”, After Ten Years [London: J. Cape, 1931, p. 94]).

• 4

  Garsington Garsington Manor, near Oxford, the country home of Lady Ottoline and Philip Morrell.