BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 24 SEPT. [1920]
BRACERS 19703. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Off Ceylon1
Sp. 24

My Darling

It is a joy getting your letters everywhere2 with your dear words of love. Bless you for them — my loved one. Yesterday we reached Colombo and left there this morning — the first bit of Eastern beauty that I have seen. A marvellous sunset like one in Almayer’s Folly.3 Incredible colours on the sea and sand and in the sky — Ceylon is beautiful and I didn’t find Man particularly vile, in spite of the hymn.4 It was a relief to get away from the boat5 — the people get on one’s nerves — Most of the French people on the boat are nice but the English are almost all horrid — commercial men, who drink too much and make love grossly. There was a Miss Johnson, an American, who seemed a common prostitute, hard and harsh, sporty, always drinking, generally outrageous — she kept most of the Englishmen hanging on to her, and at last began to be cut. Then there is a young couple named Allen, who have only been married a few months — when they came on board they both seemed happy and young and fresh — but they were not able to get a cabin together, and the heat got on their nerves — he took to playing cards all day and she complained of never seeing him — they began to quarrel — two men lent them a cabin for a night, and all the men met her next day with coarse jests on the subject — she is a nice fresh young thing, not yet twenty-one — she is in the same cabin as Dora6 — Then Miss Johnson, finding she had gone too far, made friends with Mrs Allen to regain respectability — as soon as she had succeeded she started seducing Mr Allen, to the visible misery of Mrs — Miss Johnson was going to Colombo to be married — I saw her fiancé, a gentle good youth — she started quarrelling with him about money within 5 minutes of their meeting — His future is hell. Probably he will take to drink.

Then I come to the French people — They are official rather than commercial, socially superior to the English and much nicer. The best are a family named Sully — the father is an admiral — we called him Othello7 before we knew his name, because he seemed fierce and looked as if he had Moorish blood, but he is really more like Captain Antony8 — passionate, wild, gentle, and with a far-away look alternating with concentrated observation. His wife has been good-looking but is so no longer — she has heart attacks and he nurses her — There are a number of children — the 3 eldest (17, 16, 14) are perfectly delightful — full of jokes and observations — they came up to me and said Nous voulons vous adopter comme notre Papa parce que vous riez comme nous9 — So we have endless games — Their mother, after long doubts, has decided that my relations with Dora are not proper and wishes to cut us, but she doesn’t know how to keep the children from us, so she says goodnight very formally every evening and avoids us the rest of the day — The father would like to make friends but is afraid of his wife — We amuse ourselves with people’s speculations about us. I think most people have arrived at the truth.

There is an American who reads Herbert Spencer,10 a good young man, Red X, going round the world for his education. There is a rosy Dane who sleeps in the same cabin with me, almost the whole 24 hours — whenever he is awake he argues about Einstein — his job is irrigation for the Siamese Government. The third occupant of my cabin is an Anglicized Chinaman from Hong Kong, named Hingkee, who snores the whole time he is in bed — he is a fat good-natured business man, passionately anxious to learn European ways — when people dance he watches with all his eyes — he is a great flirt and European ladies accept his attentions. A great many people, including myself, sleep on deck, because the cabins are insufferably hot, though it has been much less hot since we got out of the Red Sea. After dinner people dance — some evenings the English dance the Fox Trot, other evenings the French do quadrilles — they don’t mix, but we have gradually got in with the French. The Pekin Professor Liang11 is one of the nicest people on board — he has translated chunks of my book on Russia, and is publishing an article on me as soon as we arrive — He has got me much interested in Chinese problems —

The heat makes one stupid and rather nervy — I spent the day yesterday motoring in the neighbourhood of Colombo — the forest is uncaring and reminded me of the Heart of Darkness,12 but is thickly populated —

Goodnight Beloved — It will be a divine moment when we are together again — This is a dull letter because of the heat — but soon it will be better — All my heart, my Darling.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200704.

• 2

  joy getting your letters everywhere Colette wrote six letters on the 14 August. One letter was supposed to await BR at each port of call between Marseilles and Shanghai. The letters have separate BRACERS entries from 113221 to 113229.

• 3

  Almayer’s Folly Joseph Conrad’s first novel, published in 1895, is set in Borneo.

• 4

  in spite of the hymn “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” by Reginald Herber (1783–1826). In the hymn, although the landscape is lovely, man is vile.

• 5

  the boat The S.S. Porthos, sailing from Marseilles to China.

• 6

  Dora Dora Russell, neé Black (1894–1986). She and BR were married from 1921 until 1935. For further information on her, see BRACERS 19506, n.3.

• 7

  Othello Othello, the title character in Shakespeare’s play.

• 8

  Captain Antony Spelled Anthony, he is a character in the novel Chance (London: Methuen, 1913) by Joseph Conrad.

• 9

  Nous voulons vous adopter comme notre Papa parce que vous riez comme nous “We want to adopt you as our Papa because you laugh as we do.”

• 10

  Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), philosopher and sociologist. His books had been marketed in North America by mass subscription since 1859; his most popular work was First Principles (London: Williams and Norgate, 1862), the first volume of his synthetic philosophy.

• 11

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

• 12

  Heart of Darkness A novella by Joseph Conrad set in the Congo. It was published in 1899 as a three-part serial in Blackwood’s Magazine, Feb.–March. It appeared in 1902 in the book Youth: a Narrative and Two Other Stories published by William Blackwood. Russell’s Library has the 1923 J.M. Dent edition (RL 631).