BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [13 AUG. 1919]
BRACERS 19528. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<West Lulworth>
<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1^, 2
Wednesday3

My Beloved

I was relieved by your telegram and your letter4 this morning. Your tragic letter yesterday morning5 upset me dreadfully. All your letters arrived gradually, but from Cardiff6 they were very slow. — O my Darling, I have longed for you these moonlight nights. There are places I never go to now, because you and I were there together and I can’t bear it — The sea in the moonlight has been achingly beautiful — a great sheet of silver, with black black rocks and dark mysterious water in the foreground — Dearest, I will do nothing that can in the very slightest diminish or spoil what is between you and me — that is sacred, a holy thing of deep wonder — It is new since these last times — it has become all that I ever hoped it might be — It transfigures all life; never for one instant is it out of my heart. Anything that I found coming ina its way I would sacrifice without another thought.

C.A.7 would love to come to Oxford to see you. Will you let him know the date?8 Are both Young Heaven9 and The Trojan Women10 being done there? At about the same time? If by any chance Nicod doesn’t come (he may be too ill) I shall want to come — it is dreadful not to hear you and see you — Do send me The Trojan Women if you can get a spare copy — I want to re-read it before hearing you say your part.

Darling I will come Sat. week by the early train arriving Waterloo 1.10 — and we will be at 34,11 and I shall hold my love in my arms again and heaven will descend and surround us — and the whole world will stand still while I worship the love in your eyes — O my Soul, I love you, love you, most absolutely and most profoundly.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200515.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | London W.C.1. Pmk: LULWORTH | 14 AU | 19

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote on the envelope: “14 Aug 1919”. The 13th of August fell on a Wednesday.

• 4

  your telegram and your letter Not extant.

• 5

  Your tragic letter yesterday morning Not extant.

• 6

  Cardiff Colette had been staying there.

• 7

  C.A. (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939). For information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.7.

• 8

  the dateTheTrojan Women was performed in Oxford on 5 September 1919.

• 9

  Young Heaven A play by her husband, Miles Malleson, published by Allen & Unwin in 1918; Colette played Daphne. Staging of it took place on 8 September 1919 in Oxford.

• 10

  The Trojan Women The play by Euripides (translated by Gilbert Murray). Colette had the role of Helen.

• 11

  at 34 BR’s flat in Russell Chambers, Bury Street, London.

Textual Notes

• a

  in written over its