BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [mid-NOV. 1930]
BRACERS 19789. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Telegraph House
Harting, Petersfield.1^, 2
Friday

Darling Colette

Alas and alas, Wednesday is impossible for me. John3 and Kate4 have to see the dentist that day and there is no one but me to take them up to London and back again. I have been hoping to hear from you, and I would have managed any earlier week. I hope you will be coming to London some other time before very long. I shall probably not be able to come up next week or the week after, but any later time would probably do. It will be wonderful if you can come.

I am glad Jonathan Cape has bought your book.5 I should have thought you would get it done in time without too much difficulty.

I didn’t see the letters John wrote you.6 I hope he thanked you for his birthday present, which he loved.

All my love, Beloved.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200795.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “mid-Nov 1930” on the letter.

• 3

  John John Conrad Russell, born 16 November 1921, to BR and his wife Dora.

• 4

  Kate Katharine Jane Russell, born 29 December 1923, to BR and his wife Dora. Her surname changed to Tait upon her marriage.

• 5

  Jonathan Cape has bought your book  After Ten Years: a Personal Record, which was published the following year. The book ends with Colette and BR in Cornwall in July 1930 with the line “The wheel had come full circle — after ten years.” The ten years refers to the time that had passed since BR left for China with Dora. This decade was spent almost entirely apart from Colette. In a letter to her just after she left Cornwall, BR notes: “At moments I was paralysed by ghosts; at times I felt that John and Kate make it impossible for me now to give you the last agony of love; sometimes I felt that I have degenerated in the last ten years, and have no longer the fire I used to have” (BRACERS 19784).

• 6

  the letters John wrote you There are eight letters written by John, 1928–32, in Colette’s papers at McMaster University.