BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [22 SEPT. 1918]
BRACERS 19363. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Telegraph House,1^, 2
Chichester.
Sunday3

My Darling

Your second little letter4 reached me yesterday — a very dear letter. Yes, life is difficult. Think how I will, I see no way by which you and I can avoid all-but unendurable misery. I hoped this time here would show me a way out, but it hasn’t — quite the reverse.

I shall get to Waterloo 11.40 tomorrow — I wish you could let me lunch with you too — the need to talk things out is so very great — Could you send word to Gordon Sq.?5

I have no anger against you, and no lessening of love — only great great unhappiness, too great to live with permanently.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200355.

• 2

  Telegraph House His brother Frank’s country home.

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote “22 Sept 1918” on a separate slip of paper.

• 4

  second little letter None of Colette’s letters are extant for the autumn of 1918, only a listing which is described as “indicating the day to day happenings as well as something of the flavour of his first months after Brixton” (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969", p. 293).

• 5

  Gordon Sq. His brother’s home at 57 Gordon Square where BR lived while he was in London and his own flat, 34 Russell Chambers, was sublet to others. Colette was now living there, and they would have shared it, with BR working at the Studio, if their relationship had not imploded.