BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 6 MAY 1920
BRACERS 19652. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Hotel Continental
Stockholm1^, 2
6.5.20

My Beloved

Thank you for your wire.3 I did get a wire at Xtiania,4 I only meant I hadn’t had a letter — I am glad you have good prospects about Liverpool5 — I don’t know how much time I shall have for “unposted letters”6 — it looks as if I should be kept very busy — We are now held up till Saturday because the boat wants repairs — it is very annoying. But we have met some interesting and delightful people here — there is something of the spirit of the early N.C.F.,7 and I hope we shall find that when we reach our destination. C.A.8 keeps saying warm affectionate things about you — he really is quite attached to you. — He is very busy and statesmanlike. I read documents about Russia all day — This seems to be a dull place and I am not much tempted to explore it — We are troubled about the Polish offensive,9 but can’t read Swedish papers, so we know little of what is happening. I don’t know when we shall be home — probably in July — then C.A. and I will have to settle down somewhere and write a book or books. I am thinking a great deal, about rather fundamental political issues — heaven only knows what one will come to.

It is dreadful to have to be so long without news of you — I do love you, my Heart’s Life — you are in my thoughts always — Goodbye my loved one.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200645.

• 2

  [envelope] Miss Colette O’Niel | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | London W.C.1 | England. The address is lined out and replaced with c/o Frank Forbes Robertson’s “Mice and Men” Co | Scarborough. All that is left of the franking is “AVG”, and the stamp is gone.

• 3

  your wire Not extant.

• 4

  Xtiania Kristiana (Oslo), Norway.

• 5

  good prospects about Liverpool Presumably Colette had a new acting job.

• 6

  “unposted letters” This reference indicates that he does not have sufficient time to write some “unposted letters” for their own letters project, and is not a reference to the “unposted letters” that she was writing for her English Review series (see BRACERS 19580, n.3). In fact, most of his letters that appeared to be written from Russia were actually written shortly after his return. Colette was also composing a series of letters, dated April and May 1920, which are collected in her “Mummers Journal”, a reference to actors. She told BR in her letter of 10 October 1920 (BRACERS 116420) that she had started one. The first entry in the “Mummers Journal” is dated 30 April [1920] describing their parting at the train station before he left for Russia. The last entry in the Mummers Journal is 30 December 1920. Part of the material consists of various versions of her four letters that together with BR’s four created their “Russia Letters”. The Journal is extant in her papers, RA box 6.74. For information on their literary letters project, see BRACERS 19585, n.6.

• 7

  N.C.F. No-Conscription Fellowship.

• 8

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

• 9

  the Polish offensive The announcement that Polish military forces had captured Kiev from the Bolsheviks was made two days later on 8 May (“Fall of Kieff”, The Times, 10 May 1920, p. 13).