BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 26 JUNE 1921
BRACERS 19737. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #349
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<Beijing>
26 June 19211

My Darling

Two letters from Cox Green2 reached me this morning. I am sorry you were worried by the rumour of my death. It was gratuitously invented by a Japanese news agency, in the expectation that it might become true. Thank you for your telegrams3 — especially one of them — I am by no means well yet — I have numbers of abscesses on my leg, which have to be cut; also for the moment my heart is weak, so that I mustn’t exert myself much. Dora4 of course is also not up to much, so packing and travelling are a difficulty. Fortunately Miss Power,5 a Girton don, has turned up and undertaken to look after us as far as Vancouver. We shall leave here about July 10, and be about 10 days or more in Japan. The heat here now is very oppressive.

Of all the people I have got to know here, I think the kindest and the most interesting were the Bolsheviks of the mission from the Far Eastern Republic.6 They were quite unlike the Moscow people. They read my book, and yet they were wonderfully considerate and friendly. All through the bad part of my illness they sent me every imaginable kind of food and drink that could be useful, including endless bottles of champagne. (I had to have a great deal of champagne when I was bad.) What was more, they took care of Dora in the evenings after she had nursed me all day — they distracted and soothed her when she was wild with anxiety and misery. Yourine,7 the head of the mission, has a vast beard, and mild kind blue eyes — I think him one of the kindest men I ever met. Now he is gone back to be foreign minister of the Far Eastern Republic. Oddly enough, the next in kindness have been some of the American women missionaries, who ought to have been shocked.

When we get home, Dora will be within 3 months of her confinement, so I shall have to look after her and avoid giving her any cause for worry. So when I am first home I may not be very free — but you will understand, won’t you? My illness and her pregnancy have strengthened and deepened the tie between her and me. But I do not want one love to drive out another —

Give my love to C.A.8 Goodbye my Dearest.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200743. Colette wrote a note about this letter: “He will not be very free upon his immediate return.”

• 2

  Two letters from Cox Green There are no extant letters from Colette at Cox Green. The first extant letter was written on 5 June 1921 from Paris (BRACERS 98386), the second on 10 June 1921 (BRACERS 116450), both expressing great concern about his health. The second letter and subsequent letters were not posted to China because Colette knew they would not reach him in time; instead they would await him in Battersea. Three days earlier, on 26 June 1921 (BRACERS 19738), he telegraphed her to send his mail to the Post Office at Montreal.

• 3

  your telegrams The only extant telegram was the one sent for his birthday (BRACERS 107503).

• 4

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

• 5

  Miss Power Eileen Power (1889–1940), economic historian. She was director of studies in history at Girton from 1913 until 1921. In 1920, she was on a Kahn travelling fellowship; her travels took her China among other places. In 1921 she was returning to England to take up a post as lecturer at the London School of Economics.

• 6

  Far Eastern Republic It was still an independent communist state stretching from Lake Baikal to Vladiovostok. It joined the Soviet Union in 1922.

• 7

  Yourine Ignatius Yourin (1881–?), a former Imperial Guard officer turned revolutionary, had led an important trade mission to Beijing. When BR wrote, he had returned for consultations with his government over a draft trade treaty. He returned to Beijing on 25 July before finally leaving on 1 August to become foreign minister. H.K. Norton described him as “a polished gentleman of ‘the old school’ ”, despite his “unimpeachable” revolution record (The Far Eastern Republic of Siberia [London: Allen and Unwin, 1923], p. 182).

• 8

  C.A. (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939). For information on him, see BRACERS 19406, n.7.