• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Dvr H.Adler
PAL/30775
650, G.T.Coy R.A.S.C
“B”Platoon       

31 March 1943

Darling, when the rails suddenly and spitefully curved and made you disappear from my sight – oh well, that was the end of my artificial smile […] and then, it was the same thing for you. You smiled – yes, you too – oh little adored one! – so as not to cry. But you were heartbroken. Like me. Both of us played the hero, va. But I saw deep into your soul. As you did mine. And even the world, which for stupid conformity, we wanted to deceive, was not taken in. […] Our love is too beautiful and our hearts too simple for camouflage.

Happier then sad (Tant bien que mal) I got back into my compartment and sat heavily down on the hard seat.

“Sad parting was it, old chap?” is what the charming boy sitting opposite me said. “Oh no” I replied, shaking my head and smiling stupidly in his face. “Oh yes!”(Eng). “Oh no. Really-no! “(Eng) So I had the last word. And he was right.

And then after? After I leant my head, empty of all thought, against the dirty wood of the carriage, and through the window I saw, at a very acute angle the whole world go but in reverse. […] You were there. Oh darling, how beautiful you were and sweet!  You smiled so gently at me. You kissed me. I felt your lips on my forehead and I heard your voice murmuring “ I love you Henri my little one.” And soon I knew that there would not be any emptiness. That for me there will no longer be blackness. There will only be light, clarity, and beauty […] And just as on the train, here also I see you, my darling, you my sweet and best beloved. I cease you always. I feel you always. I see us in our room; these images don’t want to disappear for a single minute. They are there, concrete, all-powerful and dominate me entirely. Entirely: body and soul. And that makes me feel happy and makes me feel sad. […] Work?  I am still not working and I don’t know how long that will last. But even when it happens, I wont have suffering flesh to touch. Me, I have nothing but a cold machine. To touch the steering wheel, the piston, the wheel, what then? Can you see how unjust it is?

I am writing you this letter in the same little café where I wrote you that day the sleeping letter.  Now I am not sleeping. I am completely lucid. It is now evening. All day I have turned, turned, turned. Everything seemed to me bizarre, and I seemed bizarre to everyone. I am living with you. Then that stands out again the street. I say “Yvette, darling” and imagine that it’s easy to take me for a madman.  I am thinking so intensively of our week and that shows itself on my face.  And that also stands out against the street.  But I am not in the street. […]

I see the whole week again, in its entirety.  It’s a unity. My arrival. Happiness mixed with a vague fear, a vague indecision I saw on your face.  The two of us carried away by the events. The bedroom. The complete love, the beautiful love, that we dominated, that dominated us, that transformed us into on single living being.  We loved each other in looking. We loved each other in talking. We loved each other in eating. We loved each other in sleeping. In dancing our bear dance.  The whole of life, darling, the whole of life will be like that. Won’t it? It should be like that. And it will be.  I can’t do anything else. You can’t do anything else.  We are identified with each other (Nous nous identifions) now if we are separated a little, we die a little. Isn’t that so, darling, do you agree little one? In the bedroom, have you ever felt on your body arms as tender and as loving as you felt there, that night, when my head reposed on your breast?  The sweet wakenings – oh God, God!

When, Yvette, when will the day come that I no longer leave!

It’s not yesterday that I left. It is the day before yesterday. In the evening. With Beethoven’s music. No, no, a thousand times no, it’s not because of him that I cried in your arms. It’s because I love you so much, that I understood the most human of hearts, the heart of Beethoven. It is he who helped me to cry without embarrassment, because I had to leave you, my darling.

Henri.

After an hour of dreaming

I have just asked myself if I should re-read this letter and not send it to you. Tear it up. Wouldn’t it have been better to write? “I came back, darling. I am writing to you”?

However I decided to send it. Because in the end, what difference does it make? One word or two, my God, what difference does it make?  I love you and you know how much. With or without a letter.

Besides, I notice that a large part is written in pencil…

I embrace you tenderly.  H

I have already counted the days until our coming holidays!  An occupation, at least.