BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 11 SEPT. 1920
BRACERS 19701. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

In the Red Sea1
Sp. 11, 1920

Darling

We are passing beneath Mount Sinai, which was purple when it first appeared, then pink under the setting sun, and now a spectral white — very beautiful at all stages — part of a great range of utterly barren mountains without the faintest trace of life — the Red Sea was to have been hot, but so far is very pleasant. The passengers are about a third French, a third English, and the rest odds and ends: Syrians, Chinese, Dutchmen, Danes etc. None seem interesting except the Chinese. Professor Liang,2 the best of them, spends his time translating my Russian book3 into Chinese, so it may appear in China before it appears in England —

Two letters from you came to me at Port Said4 — such dear letters — bless you my loved one for all your love and goodness to me — It is a great joy to find your handwriting in these distant places, and to have you brought near — But until I get to Peking I shall not know anything later about you than the last letters I had in Paris.

I am reading a fat history of China, and growing interested in the problems of modern China through talking with the Chinese on board. From their attitude I gather that the time there will be as agreeable as the Chinese can make it. I know very little of what is happening in the world — I got a paper in Port Said but it had very little news. Port Said is a mass of beggars and street hawkers, all cheats. It is a quite modern town, without any interest. We went through the canal5 during the night.

I am tired after the emotional strain of the last few months — eating and sleeping, but rather dead in feeling. Goodbye my Beloved — My love is yours now and always —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200702.

• 2

  Professor Liang K.T.J. Liang, professor of commercial law at the Government University of Peking.

• 3

  my Russian book  The Theory and Practice of Bolshevism (B&R A34, 1920), published in the UK on 4 November 1920; the Chinese translation was also published that year.

• 4

  Two letters from you came to me at Port Said Colette wrote six letters on 14 August as instructed by the Leicester Post Office  (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–69”, p. 386). One letter was supposed to await BR at each port of call between Marseilles and Shanghai. The letters have separate BRACERS entries (BRACERS 113221 to BRACERS 113229).

• 5

  the canal The Suez canal.