Dvr H.Adler

No 30765
179 GEN TNPT Coy
R.A.S.C
M.E.F

September 1942

My little one,

You know, Yvette darling, that a simple telegraph pole possesses a certain moving charm? No, you don’t know that. On the contrary it wounds your love of beauty, that telegraph pole; brutally intruding a strange note into the harmony of nature that you so passionately admire.

You were brought up on that beautiful country of France, a country so marvellously alive, covered with green fields, vines, majestic forests, mountains covered with eternal snow. And the telegraph pole only breaks the charm, which so divinely formed your soul that I so much love.

I, in Europe, always lived in cities. I never thought to have a penchant for the countryside. (The countryside for me meant war; I discovered it in Spain. But it was there that I understood it and began to love it.) Of course, I have from time to time walked in the fields, in the forests among the mysterious trees. But I always walked through. I never stopped.  You, without a doubt, hide your blues in the grass and the wheat. But in my moments of sadness, I have always sought my beauty and my consolation in the chimney pots of the roofs of Paris or between the columns of Notre dame. (By the way do you find something in common between the mystery that reigns in Notre Dame and that of a huge wild wood?)  You gazed at the reflection of the moon in a silent river that flowed across the peaceful fields. I at the reflections of the gas lights on the bridges of the Seine (especially the Pont des Arts) or the motor car headlights on the Parisian pavements, wet with rain, all these had always the effect of transporting me into a world of beatitude.

After that, I lived in the fields of Andalusia, the pastures of Extramadura, the mountains of Guadarrama, and it was in their beauty that I found consolation. It was marvellously powerful. When evening came and the macabre music of the instruments of death that human genius created stopped, I walked out of my trou d’obus  somewhere in the Sierra Morena and my whole being found sweet rest in the beauty of nature which surrounded me. The shape of those vast far off mountains fraternising with the unclouded Spanish sky; the vast fields covered with stalks of yellow wheat stretching out to the feet of my warrior mountain; the whole intense life of the earth gave pause to my cruelest wounds.

But what about the telegraph pole? What has it to do with all this? I have known it for a long time. I have known it all my life. I have seen one each hour of my life. I never noticed it, so well did it fit into the sight my eyes were used to. It was just there.

But now all that has changed. You understand my dear little Yvette that I find myself in a Desert. Oh, I know that when you read that word, and if you have any imagination, a light shiver passes through your body. But it’s not that. You know, in French, the word is very well known. Desert. Void. Philosophers and scholars use these words. Housewives too. They say: “a deserted room”, or “a void glass”. And then, by force of habit the true meaning of the word escapes and we move easily and quickly, to the business of the day. To understand the Desert, you have to live in it. It is terrible, my friend. Imagine that you are condemned to live locked up in an empty room where no outside sound enters, with an old man’s corpse. It is no joke to be looking always at death. And the desert? It is earth truly dead. Nothing moves, nothing grows. It is vast. Flat. Everywhere your eye falls you see the same desolation. The same monotonous colour. I often ask myself what that Jean Giono would have done here? What would he have sung?     .

To be fair, I must tell you that here where I am is not so terrible. There are worse. First of all a chain of mountains rise around me.  At other times these mountains would have been of no significance. They are naked, uniform, and sad. But here, I find them most agreeable. It is a change. And as well, depending on the height of the sun, they seem far away or near and also change colour. I have noticed that in the day they are greyish-yellow and in the evening, when the sun goes down, an immense shad transformed them into a violet mass, quite pleasant to the eye. And then again they are a good thing because they take my eyes from the desolate sight of that vast desert plain and allow me to believe that on the other side of those mountains stretches a magnificent park.

But what attracts my eyes most is the telegraph pole. A magnificent line of telegraph poles tied one to the other with steel wire cuts across my desert, as far as my eyes can see. They are beautiful. You can see them differently: lying seated or standing according to your position, they change their shape. Looking at them face on is different from looking at them from the side. They are living things in this dead region. The work.  A powerful contradiction in the desert.  Do you see something? It’s mad, that during my first days in the desert I saw and admired those telegraph poles! All sorts of reflections came into my head. I thought about relativity. About the insignificant poles in Paris and the marvellous desert ones. Of the sun, which givers life but also kills.

When my glance wandered and stopped at last on the pole, on its headdress of wires, I knew that you would appear Yvette. Do you know what I mean?  Please look at yourself in the mirror, darling. Can you see that lovely head with its fine head of golden hair, its intelligent eyes, its frank, sweet mouth, that head – yours- that I so much love? It comes always before me, smiling; caressing me and calming the waves of sadness that shake my body. But not for long. For I did not know. Or rather, I was not yet sure. Consider, darling, that I left for the Desert with the sad little word that Dov passed on to me. My heart yearned sadly for the certainty of your love. I was fearful. You could have killed my heart. But you saved it. Not only did you save it, but also you cured it of all its old maladies.

In three days, dearest darling, darling, Yvette, I have received two letters from you. OH Yvette, if only I could cry out to you all my faith, all my love! I am incapable. When I write these words to you, my heart beats and beats strongly enough to burst, to take flight. What would you like me to say to you? Well, I would say Yvette, that I feel at last your love for me. That is all! I took the letter, which saved me, and I ran into the desert. I threw myself on that burning earth and tears flowed from my eyes. I lay like that, without moving, without thinking; mingled with that sad earth. Then I returned to the camp and hugged the first comrade I met. He took me for a madman, but he was the madman.

Yvette, you love me. You are mine. You will be at my side all my life. And in that case, what else would you want to happen to me? I am happy. They can carry off my telegraph poles; the mountains can disappear and my eyes can look out on a desert even more cruel –  I couldn’t care less!  I couldn’t care less since I have known that I would be seated with you, between the pillars of Notre Dame and, pressed close together, we will silently and lovingly contemplate the multicoloured rays of light falling from the ancient stained glass windows. Since I knew that we will go, one evening along the Seine, we will look at it and think only that I am yours and you are mine.

What do you want, Yvette, to happen to me if you are my wife, my companion, my sister and my friend? Tell me, is there any happier man in the world? No. But there will be one day a happier man. That will be me, on the day when I hold you so tenderly in my arms, they day I will be able to whisper softly in your ears “I love you” and not write. Then you will feel much more how much I am yours. You know Yvette, that with you, my life begins and without you, I die. But that’s finished now; I will ever again be without you, will I? Our love is at heart, the culmination of our life. Our glory. We will never rise higher. For our love extends to that year.

Thank you, Yvette. I kiss the ends of your fingers with love and recognition and swear to do everything to make myself worthy of you. Always.

In one of you letters you write about your little one. Uproot him from you heart? Oh no darling. I don’t want that. I love children. All children. And yours more than the others. Because he is yours. Keep him always tenderly in your heart. He needs it. And I will love your even more, if it is possible to love more. I am a good friend to children. I have always loved them and watched them and learnt a great deal from them. They too, love me. I am a bit proud of that for a child’s heart reads goodness better than adult, locks it in his heart. Can love both of us. To uproot him from your heart that wants to say will hurt you. You don’t know it yet but you would know it?  And how can I, myself, do you harm? Oh no. That makes me laugh. You love your little one. That’s good. It is that Yvette who is mine. It seems to me that my love for you makes me more intelligent. I feel your heart with sweetness and I am happy to see how much you love your child. If I had torn you from him, you would have detested me. But that is impossible. Since we love each other so much, we have enough love to cover your child too – our little man.

Think of him, darling, as you think of me. Then you won’t feel badly any more. On the contrary it will make you happy. Consider that you relieve the terrible wounds of those men whoa re fighting do that your son can live. You are a good woman. He will be proud of you. You are preparing for him, as for me, a happier tomorrow.

Listen my well beloved wife; I must finish this letter. Work awaits me. I fear always that my letters won’t say enough to you of my love for you. For that is the same thing. Consider then that what you read in my letters must always be powerless to express the true strength of my feelings. I would have liked to be part of you.  Not to be a body apart. To close myself in you. TO cease to exist as a group cells defined by my person. I would have wanted to disappear under your skin and become you. Little one, I love you.

Henri

Please send me you photo. It is not for my heart, which has not need of it. It is for my fingers. I believe that in one or two months, I will not be able to come to you. And my fingers will caress your paper features while waiting for the great Holiday…

Signed by censor