*Helene Laguerre to Henri

Belmont, 23 September

Dear Henry,

This letter will find you perhaps no longer in Warsaw. I have learnt in fact that Yvette has found an apartment. Not quite what she wanted but all the same it is miraculous to have found something light and comfortable. So it is decided and I personally am very happy since between Paris and Marcoussiss it will be able to establish close and tender ties.  The “Fafa” will be at last reunited with the memory of our Alain kept between us all and the hope that little granny will be able to join us again.

Dear Henry, I have never doubted your love for Yvette. But you know that love, as such, is never something admirable or sufficient. There is oppressive love, like a burden, egotistical, jealous, despotic. And there is very rarely admirable love. And I sincerely believe, at last, that yours is like that, capable of the greatest divorcement and of the subtlest comprehension.  The terrible trials that you have accepted have thrown light on the quality of your feelings and on the stability of Yvette’s. So I hope you don’t feel any bitterness when thinking of those months of exile and solitude. But I am already reassured of that because Yvette has spoken to me of your gaiety and your courageous optimism.

Don’t be filled with illusions about the current climate of France. Occupation and Black market were here- and remain- two factors of corruption from which we are having great difficulty in “disinfecting” ourselves.  It would take much more effort and courage from our leaders. But we will find again I hope in our Paris an island of friendship, of faith of generosity, as we knew it in the time of our poverty and our courage.

I believe that you will like Jacqueline, who has obvious faults, immediately obvious, but also profound inner strengths- generosity of heart, moral courage that she has never lacked. I don’t know Andre well, because I believe him rather unstable. He was raised in the worst of conditions and little by little he has got rid of all the attractions of a mediocre bourgeois education and doubtful friendships.  I believe you can help him very considerably to get rid of what remains of these attractions. For he has, basically, a good nature.  I would like that you become his friend because he worth such a quality friend (ask Yvette if she doesn’t agree with that?)

You can see that not only do we welcome you into the Fafa, but that we already have planned for you “missions” and tasks in it.

Goodbye, dear Henry, until we see you soon, according to your plans either at Belmont or in Paris.

Very affectionately,

Helene Laguerre