Yvette to Henry.

7 Mai   (I think this was not sent. Read it)

Today has been painful, unhappy. I am still in a storm…. This has been boiling in me for months… It’s about you, Henry. It’s about a common life with you. Every day that grows, every day I feel a little more that I want it, that I desire it. And to put to the test this new life that grows in me, I plunge back into past years, I have just today re-read almost all your letters. And that hurt and comforted me at the same time. I recover you. I slowly recover our past years’ poor years of peace and of tormented interiors, in the middle of the war…We have not changed. And you, darling, during all those years, you are the same, until now. Tender and passionate, brushing genius, brushing also sometimes madness. Since 1942. Not only in 1946. And I find again the power of your love. I feel it here, near me. My heart beats sweetly. No. Slowly I feel my blood gushing as a result and…That’s why I will not return these letters. Because I begin to know myself. I want the proof of it a few months more. But I would like so much that you have the courage to love me again during the time it will be necessary for my certitude to be certain. And alas I cant write to you what you would ask. I would like to write “Henry darling, do you want to see me again? Henry I need you and I know well that you need me. Do you want us to come together again? Have you the courage to say Yes, I believe in you as I have always believed in you. Have you still confidence in me. I would like to hold you tightly in my arms.”

You see what I would like to write to you but I haven’t the right. So I write another letter that I will not send, but that I will show you perhaps one day.

The tune passes. It has gone now and I don’t want it to re-awaken. I want to live with you. I want to wait for you in the evening; I want to recover the sweet peace of living with you. You wrote to me that the cold rock is not made for me. That’s true. You said to me and wrote that I must live in joy. That’s true. You asked me to promise to call you if I need you. So, I call you for now I need you. To love you each day, to be loved by you each day. I call you with all my heart and I don’t know how to let you know it. I think of you at great length. Tenderly. And I know that I will find you again.  I have complete confidence in our reunion. Don’t you feel it, there, that I am calling you? Now I want only to be good and tender for you…… Then you will pardon me… We have no need of pardon…  I have hurt you a great deal; but I know in my soul that I have never been wicked. …. Smile darling, I plead my case. But you don’t think that do you? Soon I will write to you – Come!  Now I have already written it. But I will keep it for myself. we will have a house, with a children’s room. We will have children. Ouri and others. The little ones that you have so often dreamed about. What you regret never having had. I asked you in my last letter not to destroy in regrets, the happiness you have not lost. Did you understand that? There is a terrible battle going on in me. Between the heart and reason. And the heart succeeds despite everything…. For I well know that I will not have the courage to wait months to say to you “Come, darling, come”, But I will try because I know (contrary to what I feel) that it will be wiser to do that.

But I am very calm. And very peaceful. I feel that we will come together again. Because I love you. Tenderly, always. I hold you to my heart. I kiss you.

Your Yvette.