Yvette to Henri.

Paris 2 October 1947

This evening, I am a little too sad, my love. I have had no news of you for a week. I’ve just sent you a telegram.  Yesterday I had an idea: I said to myself, Henri will arrive my aeroplane on Thursday 2^nd October so he can get to Paris by 3^rd. And for 24 hours I lived with that certainty. I went to meet you at the Air France terminal, a very sweet and gentle wait. The passengers arrived at half past 2 instead of midday and I waited all that time very tranquilly. And I didn’t see you in the little file that crossed the hall. Then I felt something beating strongly in my chest and I had to sit down for a moment.  Then I left slowly walking along the quais towards the Tuileries. The Seine seemed terribly grey and immobile, and despite the sun and the fresh wind I felt a terrible thick fog all around me. Then I arrived at rue de Rivoli and I looked at the ties and the dressing gowns, the scarves and the handkerchiefs in the shop windows. There are some lovely things. Henri, my love, don’t leave me without your letters. I can’t endure it It’s too harmful. After the station at the Invalides there will be the Gare de l’ Est, if you leave me without letters. And anxiety tears my heart. […] The apartment question is still not settled. I can’t do more than I’ve done.  But what will it matter if we have to go to a hotel room, I must be with you. That is the main thing.  Essential. The rest is nothing but details to be sorted out. However there is also the matter of Ouri.  It irks me to be away from him for so long. I know he needs me. He can’t start school normally. All of that depends on your arrival. Poor darling, I can very well sense how this must be trouble you. That’s why I haven’t written for some days. But now I can no longer keep quiet.

Aline continues to put me up with much kindness. She feels that I am not happy. She spoils me. She is truly a faithful friend. Imagine, this friendship is now eleven years old. A friendship of high school girls that turned into a friendship of mothers! It’s something pretty rare; especially when there were five years of war in the middle. I get much pleasure from that, which you would have sympathy with.

Jacqueline is as ever with me, kind and comforting, calm and optimistic. […] But all these good girls don’t lift from my heart its impatience to be in your arms, its pining for you.[more sensuous love- all I want is you, you, you,]

I am incapable of thinking about what is happening in France and in the world. My glance seeks yours; I try to hear your voice. And I can see and hear nothing else, not even music because I hear your voice. Perhaps you will be fed up with the wife that I am…

I have two tickets for a Rubinstein concert that will take place on 15^th October. He will play a Beethoven concerto, some Chopin and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody No.1 (I don’t know it). I think with great emotion of the first concert we will hear together. Lots of good music has been announced for this autumn and winter. I hope we will enjoy it together. Will you be in Paris by the 15^th October? I now begin to see this date as the one when you will be here with me. As, until this afternoon, it was the 3^rd. Now it is the 15^th.  Is that far enough away, darling, for me not to be deceived? Oh my little man, I try not to be anxious and to smile, but I can’t My love oversteps my will to be strong.  I love you and I want you near me, to feel our happy love.  More than anything else. I love you darling, I love you. I want to embrace you, to caress you; I want us to be happy; I want to have you snuggled up against my chest.

Your Yvette.