No: 30765

Dvr H.Adler

173 Hen.Tnpt Coy
R.A.S.C(P)
M.E.F.

10 Aout

My very dear Yvette,

Yesterday I had a holiday. Relative freedom. I took myself to a Café, watering place style, in a rather pretty garden and began, naturally enough, to write you a long letter.

After many days of hard work and  tension, this  rustic holiday atmosphere quickly invaded me and I felt very well.

The wanton colour of nature, the green of the trees through which I saw a touch of  blue sea and right behind it all in the background a thin strip of very bright yellow which is the sand, all this moved me profoundly and more than ever  titillated my senses.

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Everywhere around soldiers like me, were resting, reading, playing but most of them were writing. For each one has his Dulcinea and each one carried all his thought towards his well beloved.

I contemplated these tired faces ,hardened by the misery of war, now angelically transformed by  dreams of time before, of peace, the hearth, the wife, the adored children and I guessed in each one of them a  heart warm and human, beating and feeling, a heart capable of all love and all nobility.  What appearance have these men in the bloody mud of the front, in the hospital operating theatres? Here and there I have seen soldiers on holiday deep in their reading of large volumes of poetry and of prose which transported them into the worl dof Beauty and I could not prevent myself from thinking of the appearance that they must have in the degrading atmosphere of oriental brothels full of ill smelling women deformed by all sorts of illnesses. This tragic contradiction, qui fait mal mais qui pousse a faire mieux,  made me muse about  many questions of past and present and then I wrote to you.

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But – how shameful- this letter was quite something else than my head allowed it to be. Believe me, cherie, I thought to tell you of my hatred for this rotten system which  uproots every few years men from their homes and throws them armed to the teeth against others. I wanted to pour out to you  all my hatred for a state of things which has led humanity into this formidable paradox  of hunger just when there is too much bread;  for that civilization which has given us the fascist arrow, degrading everything human.  I wanted also to pour out to you my faith in a happier, gayer tomorrow that the purifying blood of the Revolution will build on the ruines of the old world.

But there you are! I wrote something quite different. My letter was full of Yvette. Of Yvette- the beautiful, Yvette the sweet, the joyous with the clear look and frank laugh. And of my love for her—-

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For you haunt my  spirit. You are always there, living, all around me and egotistically you only permit me to think of you.

Some years ago  I was at a symphony concert in Brussels. There I heard  Beethoven’s Pastorale. You know this music, the passage which comes after the storm and which is interpreted as the paean of praise to nature at peace, well that so profoundly  invaded my whole being that I was not able for a long time to free myself of it.  I was gorged. In bed that night  the sacred melody was always within me. My throat was filled with it. I t was everywhere, on the wall, the ceiling the floor; in bed  my whole body heard it. It turned over and over in my soul and possessed it.  I spent a white night. It was impossible for me to fall asleep. All my body me faisait mal. My head burst. I recall this night of struggle against the music which possessed me, made me mad

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I really believed that I had lost my reason. I wanted to free myself of it, to try and  sleep. Towards morning I found freedom: I began to sing at the top of my voice and with all my heart a common popular song. I gave it so much force and passion that this common song succeeded in killing the sweet melodies of Beethoven. At last! I was able to sleep. It was a terrible night.

You are like this music. You have already affected me so powerfully. Tu me fais deja mal. I wanted to write you a letter, one only, without my lament, but how could I? Since you have slid into each cell of my heart…..

I tore up the letter and you will never receive it and oh Yvette, my dear little Yvette, I have decided to write to you no more. But don’t believe that I will try to free myself of the haunting. You are much stronger than the sounds of the Pastorale. And when all’s said and done, the Pastroale is always there, proud and strong in all its glory. It accompanies me during all

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My life. The song has not killed it. That was only for a night. You, you, nothing likewise will tear you from my heart. It is finished, for life. You are mine. But I will write to you not more, cherie and I am sure that you will understand me.  For it is not difficult for you.

I speak often with Dov about you. I have told him of my decisions. :”But what will you say to her?” he said to me “How will you explain yourself?”

“I will tell her the truth, that is to say, how I feel. She will understand it, I feel it” was my reply. You don’t have to search. No analysis is necessary. Take me as I am.

I have often said to women, “I want you” or “I desire you” or “I like you”. But I have never been able to pronounce these two simple words , I love you. Believe me please. (it is even curious!)

These two words I would easily send from my mouth if they were pronounced for you.

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There is Dov. There is your love for Dov. There is his love for you. There are, there are so many things!….

I will disappear from your life. But Yvette, I tell you coolly, knowingly, you will never disappear from mine.  You are happy. Because I cannot not love you. You are made like that. You can always be sure that somewhere there is a man who no longer speaks to you but who loves you always more, always more. This man is sad- and who knows for how long!!- with a continuous unhealthy sadness and who longs for the tenderness which by life’s hazard has always eluded him. I begin to be boring. So it is time I finished.

Yvette, I love you.

Henri

• what a queer fish-

 

 

Signed at bottom, By censor?