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

Well darling, I promised you a long letter about my last journey and I haven’t managed to write it. This is the third time I have begun. The other two- finished, torn up, non-existent. This time I have decided firmly to go on right to the end- (Audacious decision!)

So Yvette, darling, at first you must know that I am now in a very agreeable café (what a rotten custom! – but it is truly the only place where I can escape for a while the barracks atmosphere..) In the town that you once loved because of its picturesqueness. It is crammed full. What a crowd! But it doesn’t disturb me. I am so entirely with you, now, if you knew, good God—

I smoke many cigarettes and I drink much coffee (that also you know without any description). So, my journey. Well, nothing new. The same desert, the same road, the same sky, the same rocky ground and almost the same cold and the same travelling companion: you. […]

Well, with me it was like this: in front of me stretches the cruel desert; the car travels, slides and bumps; it rains, it hails; the wind whistles and roars and there’s no window in my cabin…. I get all the rain, the hail, the desert and all the wind fully and directly in my face. And my hands, which have to hang hard and attentively on to the steering wheel, freeze. Not at all pleasant, oh no!  Then suddenly, without warning, I say a word to the chap beside me (this time, a sympathetic corporal – they exist! I stop the vehicle majestically and softly, slowly I open my “kit-bag”(ENG) and take out of it THE GLOVES. I glove myself, I smile with mouth and eyes, triumphantly, and I start the engine up again.[…]

You don’t know what these gloves represented for me. A little protection and warmth for my hands? Naïve- get away with you! You are all funny naifs! Since it is you, my dear, who gave them to me. […]It is the not the wool of these gloves, it is the sweetness of you heart. It is your divine tenderness, It is your love – and mine.[…] It was Tuesday. I was with you. In our room where we loved each other so much. Do you dream of it as often as I do? Tell me, wasn’t that the most beautiful week you have ever spent? […]

What an immense richness of soul that these poor gloves brought me – and you do you know?

But- gloves, gloves, gloves, and a gloved letter – I fear that you might find this something to laugh about, darling. Oh well, laugh little one, for your health, don’t you see that I use my method, my classic little method – the pencil!

But all the same, since I cannot, despite all my good will, tell you everything concerning these beautiful gloves- you know that I cant express all my love for you – let us change the subject.

It is clear that that day, I didn’t do any more talking with my corporal. Nor he with me. He tried to continue but he very quickly perceived that I was far away, very far in body and spirit and soul. Where was I? With you. You Yvette, darling. My wife. My wife: it’s lovely, it’s good, and it’s everything. Really everything. But before the story of the gloves (you’re laughing, eh?)  he spoke to me and I to him.  He is likeable. Intellectual. A doctor of chemistry and a musician, a violinist. He plays beautiful music, badly. He refuses categorically to believe in the Good. As a result he doesn’t like mankind.. In general he only believes in an ancient Greek mathematical formula and he seeks a mathematical formula that will resolve all social problems. I am older than he is by five years and despite this I am younger. And I am right: life is not only a mathematical formula. So we talk, we discuss, I was more determined. Because I love mankind. Because I have a precise aim and it is beautiful, just and necessary. Because I am loved by you. We spoke and it was interesting. Then it became cold, then the gloves (again!) and it was even more interesting.

I don’t know what more to say on the possibility of “leave”(Eng). I will let you know in my next letter. I have not yet written to my sister, but I will do it […].

Your Henry

Excuse the dirty paper and this slightly mad letter..