Dvr H.Adler
PAL/30775 “B”Platoon
650, G.T.Coy R.A.S.C
MEF
8 March 1943
My dear, my little Yvette, I have an irresistible desire to tell you that I love you. I love you with all my heart, with all my power, with all my soul. I feel a mad need to see you and to know you are close to me. So close that one couldn’t decide where I begin and where I end. That’s all I want to say today and that’s why I am writing. Yvette, my sweet, what can I do, my God, so that I can at last be with you?
I am horribly fed up. Some days ago I wrote you a long letter. I don’t know any more very well what I said in it. Without doubt: my love and my journey into new countries. But without doubt, also, I did not say everything. I was sleeping and even without that, I was not able to write everything to you de caminte? That you would not read it.
I am in the dumps. Of course it will pass. But waiting for that, I am in its grip and you know what that means.
I must be with you as soon as possible. I have already asked for leave. I am given to believe that I will get it. The question is if I will be able to go to you. I want that. You know well that I feel better in that country than here. And it’s better for you also. But there you are, it’s not a good idea to make bad blood of that already, because now I hear nothing positive.
All that is only supposition but the great moment approaches. I am extremely tired of it. I have a bit of funk, of shame of doubt. A crowd of questions invade me and torture me. None concern our love but all concern our marriage. I ask myself this and that and I lose reason and calm and become sick. I tremble at the idea that you could one day regret this step. Be calm, darling. Don’t be carried away. I am speaking seriously to you, and we love each other strongly enough to be able to hold such a serious conversation without it altering in any way our feelings.
You know how I love you. That will be absolutely the same thing after the marriage. Besides, you know what tiny significance I attach to the solemn act. I am 32 years old, darling, of which sixteen have been lived with a greater intensity than the average man is. I know what I want. I want Yvette – and I know it as I know that tomorrow at dawn the sun will rise – that I am at the peak of my life. That never again, any other passion will find a shelter in my heart. It is quite occupied: my struggle and you. It is complete. To live without you, that would be to half live, with only part of my heart. I want to say: there can never be in my life another “you”. But you, Yvette, oh darling, sweet little wife, will you be happy? Am I the one who can make you always happy to be alive?
You write in one of your letters of your good sense.
It’s quite a long time ago that you wrote that. I never replied, as always I don’t reply to your letters. Our correspondence is not an exchange of questions and replies. But I thought about it and I think about it since. You write that you knew me for barely a year, only a few months after the painful story that overturned your life etc. And I am the proof of your so-called legendary good sense. Oh, dearest, it is so good to hear you say that. But, am I really? Is it really good sense that guides you?
You know my heart registers impeccably each word each thought that you offer me, as well as your gestures. And I recall very well how little enthusiasm you showed about an eventual marriage. Is it that the desire to have a leave together, to have one great week for the two of us, is it this desire is not strong enough for you to lose your “good sense”?
Pardon me, darling. This letter will seem hard and cruel. But basically it is not. Basically, darling, you must not be angry, you must not suffer. It is a heart that loves you that speaks to you. This heart wishes you well and is frightened of being left high and dry. My little adored one, forgive me. Forgive! Oh how I love you, how I love you. Without or with an official document, I will come to see you and spend with you a week of happiness and for the whole seven days, say to you” “I love you, I love you.
Yours truly, Henri
tom rigby - melbourne 