Yvette to Henri.

15 July, Vienna

My darling,

This afternoon I wrote you a quick little note to catch the mail and despite of everything I missed it. So I can write you a long letter this evening. It is odd to use that word, tranquil. For mine is not a true tranquility. How can you or I be tranquil and impatient, peaceful and tormented, happy and sad art the same time? Yes, we surely can. You must have the power to do it since I can. I received your note sent to my military address. You mention a long letter sent a little before which I have not yet received. […] But even these few words quite overwhelmed me with joy and with great thrills. It is the first letter in which you know that I love you. The first after the telegrams you so generously spoiled me with this week. And I feel a great ball of mixed joy and anguish which fills the throat and prevents me from speaking. I feel it with my heart with my hands, as if they stroked your chest and your neck, gently, gently to melt them in my tenderness. […] I have leapt up to the high renaissance of my life, which leaves each day as if from a land of ice and snow. It wears your shape and your body; it has your face.  In it I hear your voice. […] It has called me for so long, with groans that profoundly moved my heart. It has conquered. Your tender loving voice.  Also your madly loving voice which rose in the evening into my large white walled room, from the mountains and valleys below. It hurt me to hear it. And then your face appeared slowly in front of me. With your blue gaze and your air of sad generosity. Darling. Then, after having looked at it for a long time, astonished, you face began to smile. How could that be, tell me darling, that your face could have been before my eyes for so very long a time? [….] Henri darling, come quickly and soothe our two hearts. […]