BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 30 OCT. 1917
BRACERS 19235. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #303
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Oct. 30, 1917.1^, 2
Tuesday.

Your letter3 has helped me to see the truth of my own feelings, which I have been gradually coming to understand.

You say you would wish that we should be much together, but not as lovers4 — that is impossible —

I feel still all the things you speak of — the Cat and Fiddle,5 the Clee Hills,6 the moonlight nights and the sunsets — Part of the shock was to find that apparently they meant very little to you, but I do know now that I was wrong about that. They are tremendously vital in me. I love you still. I was numb from shock — as if I had fallen off a precipice and been all-but killed — and I feared you because you had pushed me over the precipice. At first I was too stunned to know what I felt; but now I know absolutely for certain that I love you, and that there is no sort of happiness without you — I still doubt how much there might be with you.

I must now tell you what made me write such a very depressed letter7 the other day. I told you I was thinking of taking a cottage8 with the Eliots. I intended to be (except perhaps on very rare occasions) on merely friendly terms with Mrs Eliot. But she was very glad that I had come back, and very kind, and wanting much more than friendship. I thought I could manage it — I led her to expect more if we got a cottage — at last I spent a night with her. It was utter hell.9 There was a quality of loathsomeness about it which I can’t describe. I concealed from her all I was feeling — had a very happy letter from her afterwards. I tried to conceal it from myself — but it has come out since in horrible nightmares which wake me up in the middle of the night and leave me stripped bare of self-deception. So far I have said not a word to her — when I do, she will be very unhappy. I should like the cottage if we were merely friends, but not on any closer footing — indeed I cannot bring myself now to face anything closer.

I want you to understand that the one and only thing that made the night loathsome was that it was not with you. There was absolutely nothing else to make me hate it.

The man is going up and down the street calling “sweet roses — sweet lovely roses”10 — it makes my heart ache — I always associate him with that very early morning when I sent him to you —

O my Colette, my very Soul, the world is all grey and horrible without you.

I am sure you have a heart really, but you are young and ignorant, and you stab without knowing it.

I am glad you are being good to Miles.11

Dear One, learn to respect suffering even if you can’t understand it; and not to be impatient of things you can’t understand.

I have felt something new and better in your last few letters, as tho’ there were less of the insolent triumph that used to hurt so terribly. I have felt that ever since the wonderful letter you wrote12 that brought me to see you.

The plan of the cottage with the Eliots was an attempt to make myself a life more or less independent of you, but it has failed. If the plan goes through, I shall be more dependent upon you than ever. Apart from you, life has no colour and no joy. A sort of odour of corruption pervades everything, till I am maddened by nausea. I have to break Mrs. Eliot’s heart and I don’t know how to face it. It mustn’t be done all of a sudden.

O Colette, I am so tortured and miserable — Should I find rest if I could lie in your arms?  Would you let me creep into them, and lie very still? Would you show mercy to a poor wounded suffering thing?  I don’t want passion — not yet at any rate — I want to come home. You drove me out and put a stranger there,13 and I felt it was no longer home, but I think you could make me forget, at least for moments.

When are you coming back from Manchester?14 When can I see you? Don’t cut short your time with Miles. What I want most is to see you kind, no matter who it is you are kind to. That is the one thing necessary to restore happiness.

This is not a courageous letter. Pride has led me a strange dance since you went to Blackpool,15 but what I am writing now is the real truth.

When I try to think calmly, it seems to me that either you or I must go under, and that it won’t be you. That is because I need more than one should, certainly more than you have to give.  That is why I tried to escape.  I thought I had escaped, but I was wrong.  Now you will despise me.  If so, let me know at once,a and I will try again to get free.

Do please write at once — I shall see Mrs Eliot on Thursday evening and I want to have a letter from you first. Tell me all you think — even if it hurts — I am so impatient to hear from you — Goodbye my Beloved.  My heart is yours for ever and ever.

B.

• 1

  [document] 200223.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 4 Cecil Street | Manchester. Pmk: LONDON W.C. | 1.15 PM | 30 OCT

• 3

  Your letter Her letter of 27 October 1917 (BRACERS 113081).

• 4

  much together, but not as lovers In her letter of 27 October, Colette had written: “if we cannot be together as lovers — [we could be] together in other ways.” This however is not an original letter. The wording may have been changed. Her preference in the letter was obviously to be together as lovers.

• 5

  Cat and Fiddle An isolated pub on the moors high above Buxton, Derbyshire. For further information on this pub, see BRACERS 19065, n.5.

• 6

  Clee Hills Near Ashford Carbonel, where BR and Colette had spent an idyllic summer holiday in August 1917. BR would mention the Clee Hill day in several letters, the last one being on 8–9 September 1918 (BRACERS 19360). What exactly happened on that day is not clear in any of his letters. However, in a message sent to BR by Colette while he was in prison, she remembers that a red fox came and listened to them there (Rinder to BR, BRACERS 79614, message from C.O’N., 15 June 1918).

• 7

  I must now tell you what made me write such a very depressed letter In his letter of 25 October 1917 (BRACERS 19233) he had written: “I am unhappy about myself — I do hate to be such a miserable creature. I feel imprisoned in egotism — weary of effort … [in] a dreadful mood.”

• 8

  thinking of taking a cottage Despite the disastrous turn in his relationship with Vivienne Eliot described in this letter, BR would go ahead with this plan later in the year.

• 9

  I spent a night with her. It was utter hell. The night with Mrs Eliot would have been spent at Senhurst Farm, Abinger Common, Surrey. It was too far from London for her husband to commute daily — thus he was there only on the weekends. The farm belonged to a couple who had been gardeners to both Frank Russell and the Trevelyans. They normally did not take in lodgers but made an exception for the Eliots. The arrangement did not last long — from mid-month to the end. Much has been made of BR’s “hell” remark by commentators without reference to a line later in the letter where he clarifies that the only thing that made the experience “loathsome” was that it was not with Colette.

• 10

  “sweet roses — sweet lovely roses” This is the refrain from the man selling roses in Gordon Square in 1916. BR sent him to Colette with a bouquet. This is the first time that BR reminisced in a letter about the roses. The refrain became almost a talisman of their relationship and appears in their correspondence in later years (see Auto. 2: 27). At the start of their relationship BR sent Colette roses, but later on their roles were reversed. In 1952, Colette had been visiting England. Phyllis Urch drove her to Richmond where she left roses on his door along with a note. Beginning in 1955 it became an annual affair.

• 11

  Miles Miles Malleson, Colette’s husband. For further information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.4.

• 12

  the wonderful letter you wrote Her letter of 11 October 1917 (BRACERS 113075).

• 13

  put a stranger there Maurice Elvey. For information on him, see BRACERS 19056, n.5.

• 14

  coming back from Manchester Colette was with her husband, Miles, who was acting there.

• 15

  Blackpool Part of the movie Hindle Wakes was shot in and near Blackpool, Lancashire in September 1917.

Textual Notes

• a

  If so, let me know at once after deleted  It seems to me you demand