BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [22 FEB. 1920]
BRACERS 19620. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

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70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1
Sunday2

My Beloved, my Heart’s Comrade,3

Thank you for your letter from Wellington4 which I got yesterday — I am sorry your nerves are in such a state — Dear one, you don’t yet believe the way I love you now-a-days — the more unhappy and nervy you are, the more I want to be with you, if I can be any comfort to you by tenderness and loving-kindness — I can’t bear to think of your suffering — I don’t want to be with you if you would find me a burden, but if I could bring any comfort, don’t mind having nothing at the moment to give — do believe that I really really love you, my Heart’s Life —

No time for more — dreadfully busy.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200613.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “22.2.20.” on this letter. It was written after an earlier one the same day (BRACERS 19619). It may have been placed in the same envelope.

• 3

  Heart’s Comrade For information on the use of the term, see BRACERS 19145, n.12.

• 4

  letter from Wellington Colette arrived in Wellington, Salop on Sunday evening, 15 February, from Ramsgate. En route she stopped in London to see BR. She was in Wellington until the morning of Sunday, 22 February when the touring theatre company left for Blackburn. The letter BR is referring to is not extant. Earlier in the month when she was still in Ramsgate she had written: “It’s queer that I can’t get rid of a perpetual headache, and simply can’t manage to relax.” And later, in a letter written on 24 February from Blackburn, she notes that her “old trouble” has flared up, causing her to doctor herself. Even-tempered when working, she wrote that she found herself quite irritable when she wasn’t (BRACERS 113190 and 113198).