Yvette to Henri.

5 July. Vienna

(I have written you 8 letters from Vienna. Have you received them?)

The week is over and I will have to wait now until Monday to hope for a letter from you… I am alone in the office this afternoon, waiting for a telephone call and I want to spend the afternoon with you. I have looked on the tables for a fine pen….[vivid account her imagining the journey from Warsaw to Vienna…….]  During the past months I have thought about and written the letter that I send you a week ago. I said to myself that I must explain many things to you, that I must write a wise and grave letter, asking your pardon and asking whether you wanted me for a wife. The letter I wrote was not at all like that. Perhaps I wounded you, angered you hurt you. I called to you to come to me, to take me with you, in your arms.[….] In my heart a gentle, tender wind blows towards you and a violent wind filled with passion and love, adding its voice to the tenderness, also blows towards you.[passionate calling for him; I need you, I love you, describing how they will be together] I feel your head on my stomach, listening to the kicking of the child. I await you. I see your face illuminated with joy and victory, the night we love each other saying, “ we are creating”.[….] “Come, I love you, I wait for you. my love.”[…..]

5 July.

I am a mad woman, you will say, my well beloved. Two hours ago UI wrote you a long letter and her I am starting again. Mea culpa darling. I am a mad woman, that’s for sure and have been for quite a while. I have tried to knit and to read, here in my office. I haven’t succeeded in either. Decidedly no. Neither the prospect of a new cardigan, not of boning up on the life of Michel Angelo who I am trying to get to know can fill my soul. Your face dances between the stitches and between the lines, I hear your voice. [..I want to play with you, like a kid. More love. Zou would say that Yvette is simply practising the art of writing a love letter. I wonder if he is right?]

I will take you by the hand and run along a little path in a pretty woos. And you, you will stop suddenly and look at me gravely and say: Darling, now I know why I am a revolutionary. Why Henri? So that everyone can run in the wood with the one they love!” On our first holidays I will take you to a place I chose at Easter.[….] Le Col de Luc-la-Croix-haute, that separates Dauphine from Provence. Some kilometres before the col, on the Dauphinois side, there is a little house on the edge of the road…. There’s a magnificent view right down the valley with mountains all around…. That’s where I will lead you….. And if you could see Paris now darling, you would be ravished. Paris has regained its flowery pre war face. Certainly everything is not ideal, but the face is there. There is still more to be done before there is beefsteak. But we can do many things together.  Oh my love, life has reclaimed its real face. I love you. The earth is beautiful; the fruit is ripening in the sun. Music is everywhere. Tell me darling, give me pleasure and go and listen to music. If Beethoven’s violin concerto is being performed, go along for my sake, for yours and for us both. There’s a phrase to which you sang me the words:”Yvette, I love you”. Do you remember which it was? I have it here in my throat, in my heart. If only I could write it down for you! But there are so many things that I cant write to you.

***[physical stuff about patting nose, rubbing chin, hair, nibbling ears, twining legs. Stops at fucking teasing and flirtatious. “I wonder if you still love me? Aren’t I awful?” when she has received all those letters and knows about his love. Perhaps, since her love so easily came and went, she had no idea of his real feelings, But why did she tell such shocking lies in he memoirs/]***

Evening

I was interrupted and now all I can find is a very large pen. Against all wisdom, because the mail comes in the morning, I still hoped to find a letter from you when I got back, now, there’s no hope before Monday.[…..] I have just re-read your letter my friend. It made me feel bad and sweet each time I rep-read it. You speak to me of your faithful love and your pining. You speak to me of your melancholy.  Can you feel, darling, that I thank you with all my heart, with all my being for your love? Can you feel that it is you who have given me new life, tell me my tender, sweet friend? You speak to me of “the beauty of my soul”. Are you blind, Henri? Can’t you see that yours is a thousand times more beautiful? […] Let me love you, darling. Let me be your sweet wife. There is no other gift that I can give you than the gift of myself, of my heart. Of that poor mad heart that you so much loved and, I feel, still love. […]

Your yvette.