BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 15 AUG. 1919
BRACERS 19529. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Lulworth
<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1^, 2
15 Aug. 1919

My Darling Love

A thousand thousand thanks for your dear present3 for my watch-chain — I do love it, and the love that comes with it makes my heart sing with joy — I love the inscription4 — you told me those lines long ago, and they have been in my thoughts ever since.

I am sorry, Dearest, that you had such a fearful fit of depression. I was afraid you had had another misfortune, and were not going to appear in Young Heaven5 and The Trojan Women.6 I am quite sure you can do wonderfully in Helen — I don’t remember the Young Heaven part properly.  Darling, will you let me hear you in both when I come?

Nothing further happens with the English Review till your story7 appears, which may be next month or at any later time. A short thing like that is often held over till they happen to need a few pages filled up.

C.A.8 has been suffering from the heat, like you — I hope you and he will both be better now. I have loved it. Yesterday I swam half a mile which is much further than I ever swam before. Mrs Streatfeild9 is a good swimmer and is nice in the water.  We are getting to like her better.

Enclosed from Allen & Unwin is satisfactory — so is the cheque, £94.11.9. I have written back asking if they have approached Koltchak re Siberian rights.10

I must get to work. Goodbye my Beloved, my heart’s Life — I love you, love you, love you — with all my soul and all my strength —

B.

Tell me if you will be busy Sat. afternoon, because if so I will come by a later train. But I hope not—

• 1

  [document] Document 200516.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | London W.C.1. Pmk: W LULWORTH | 15 AU | 19

• 3

  dear present It was a small gold coin for his watch-chain with an engraved quotation to commemorate their reconciliation at Lulworth at the end of June 1919. See Sheila Turcon, “Tokens of Love”; Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin, no. 162 (Fall 2020): 14–20.

• 4

  inscription “Car, chaque jour je t’aime d’avantage, aujourd’hui plus que hier, et bien moins que demain.” The quotation is from a poem, “L’Eternelle Chanson”, by Rosemonde Gérard (1866–1953), written in 1889. Colette left out “vois-tu” following “car”. Translation: “Because each day I love you more, today more than yesterday, and much less than tomorrow.” Colette first used the second part of the sentence in her letter of 2 January 1917 as she cared for BR in a black mood (BRACERS 112990).

• 5

  Young Heaven A play by her husband, Miles Malleson, published by Allen & Unwin in 1918; Colette played Daphne when the play was staged on 8 September 1919 in Oxford.

• 6

  The Trojan Women A powerful anti-war play translated by Gilbert Murray. For more information, see BRACERS 19517, n.5.

• 7

  your story “The End” published in The English Review, 29 (Sept. 1919): 235–8, using the pseudonym “Christine Harte”.

• 8

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

• 9

  Mrs. Streatfeild was the wife of Dr. Raymond Streatfeild. She had two children with John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977), a mathematician who was sharing Newlands Farm near Lulworth with BR in the summer of 1919.

• 10

  Enclosed from Allen & Unwin ... Koltchak re Siberian rights. The enclosed letter, 13 August 1919 (BRACERS 51998), from Unwin informed BR that Ukranian rights to the Principles of Social Reconstruction had been sold with the caveat: “Whether the book will ever appear in Ukranian is of course quite another story”. BR reacted to the news with amusement and asked about the Siberian rights (BR to Unwin, 14 Aug. 1919; BRACERS 47483). Admiral Aleksandr Vasilyevich Kolchak (1873–1920) established himself as military dictator in Siberia and Manchuria. Late in 1918 he assumed the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia. When Bolshevik strength, combined with the brutality and the incompetence of his own Government, led to the collapse of his power, he was arrested by the Red Army and executed early in 1920.