Dvr H Adler
No 30765
173 Hen.Tnpt Coy
R.A.S.C(P)
M.E.F.

21 August 1942

Yvette, my little one,

When I parted from you, I was perched on the top of the lorry which was carrying me at high speed towards my camp – I was king.

A sweet musical transformation, a divine music accompanied me on my triumphal journey. A beloved voice whispered ceaselessly in my ears the most beautiful music I have ever heard. “Henri, don’t forget that I love you To hell with all the other music! I have discovered the Pastorale of all Pastorales and I belong to her and she belongs to me, But yes, Yvette, dear little Yvette, there on top of the lorry I was better than a king. For I have touched heaven. I have touched it with my face, with my fingers. I was more happy than a king, because even the trees saw in me the man who the most beautiful, most sweet of women had overwhelmed with immense good fortune. The two rows of trees were joyous because of my joy.  Men who passed applauded me and gave me understanding signs.  I smiled at everyone and everything. Everything and everyone smiled at me. My good happiness and my joy overflowed on all sides and infected

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the road that I had dominated with all my love. My heart recorded and keeps very preciously the memory of those marvelous few hours I spent with you. I held you closely in my arms, but I had you inside me. I took your beautiful head between my hands and I looked at you. I saw you. I saw my other half. You are it. You complete me. Without you, I am only an invalid. Oh Yvette, I swear to you that you have never been loved as I love you.  I loved you before I knew you. I loved you before I perceived the sparkle of your glance. But now I am yours body and soul, when I at last plunged my eyes into yours I saw your lips tremble and I touched them with mine, and I will touch them forever.

At last I was able to bury my face in your red hair and its perfume made me drink for life.  I love you, I love you. Let me tell you that forever, and, oh Yvette – never become weary of hearing it. Say it to me, I beg you. Repeat it a thousand times, millions of times- it will be for me, always, the first time.  You know little one, there are men who possess the genius of words. Not me.

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I would need magic words to express all that my heart feels for you.  But the German poet Heine, a very long time ago, divined my love for you and he wrote a poem for me to offer to you. Here it is, in free translation, listen to it cherie and know that my love for you is simple like these words:

“Le muguet et la rose
La colombe et le soleil
Je les aimes tous d’un amour
Je ne les aime plus.
J’aime cette petite, cette bonne, cette mienne
Elle est pour moi la source de tout amour,
Le muguet et la rose
Le colombe et le soleil”

You are for me the source of all bliss.  Understand that, Yvette.

But yes, Cherie, I will love the countryside. I love it already. But yes, I will learn to milk the cows. That must be fine. But you will be beside me when I’m doing it and you will fold me in your warm glance and I with my grateful glance, I will enfold you.  And you will teach me to love and hate, as

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I know it. And you will learn not only to understand the misery of men but also to feel it with all your body. And you will struggle eagerly, without respite and without second thoughts. For those who suffer. Side by side with me. You near me, I redouble my vows. I told you: you are my other half. But I know also that our love purifies us, isn’t it so Yvette? Above all, it purifies me. If the sense of these words escapes you- but I don’t believe that- I will explain them to you one day. I will need several days to make you my confidences and then, Yvette, you will see- oh yes, you will see that I am right to say that. But I also believe that after that you will love me even more…. And not only because I am “charming”. Yvette! Your name comes to me ceaselessly. I murmur it tenderly. At night, in a field, I leave my comrades abruptly, I wander away because that name rises from my heart where you are installed absolute mistress, pushes away everything deep in my throat and forces my lips to murmur it, to sing it.

I move away, and I pronounce it softly, warmly, “Yvette, Yvette, Yvette- I love you, I am yours, come into my arms and be sad no more.” I roll on the ground and embrace it because it carries you. I send kisses and caresses into the night and pray that it will send them to you.

My dear be sad no longer. Rest in me, in my love. I will understand you for ever- because I will feel for you always with all my heart.

When I had you in my arms, there between the death hole and the barbed wire entanglements, when I looked deep into your eyes, I saw- only for an instant but enough to cause me intense suffering- the sadness in your eyes. Cherie, you told me that you know how to lie. No. Your sole lie is that you hide, you try to hide a profound sadness, a wound, which gives me pain as it, gives pain to you.  Yvette, be no longer sad.  Can’t you feel?

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my kind thoughts, the infinite tenderness surrounding you at every hour, every minute of the day and night? Don’t you feel my warm heart, alive, human, that beats so strongly for you, only for you? Cannot this heart cure your old wounds? Yes it can! I will make it. The day will come, little one, where enfolded in my two loving arms, you will look deeply inside me, then for an instant you will forget all that encircles us and, oblivious, you will see only me, the day when our souls will become only one- you will perceive that immense love, love without limit of time and space, complete love, frank and sublime that my heart possesses for you – you will forget the past, you will be entirely born again for me, as I am for you.

A swift goodbye, my dear. I cover you with kisses,

Your,

Truly your,

Henri

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