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

July 1943

My dear, dear, darling, mon petit, ma petite Yvette, the beloved, the most loved, my all – and hang all that on the gallows of the infinite, then and only then will you understand the minute fraction of the genuine love that I have for you.

I love you, I love you, and I love you. I want you. I don’t want; I can’t live without you. Without you, the best part of me, the most living part of me dies. I have just spent some days in Tel-Aviv. And now here I am in Lilliput, with you, little one at my side and inside me, well inside me.

I saw Ouri. I saw Polia. I saw Dov and the others. Now I write to my wife, to my wife bien a moi and I’m smoking the delicious cigarettes that she sent me.

What am I now? Happy or sad, peaceful or nervy? All of that, my God, all of that at the same time.  That seemed merely impossible, but it is very possible. Oh yes!  How can I not be peaceful when I have you?  How can I not be happy when you are my wife, darling who loves me so much? But how could you think I would not be sad, oh terribly sad, how not be nervy, to madness, when I think, when I am sure that our next leave is cut off…(a l’eau)

Oh little one, what will I do? What will become of me if I must again for so long live without you?

That does me great harm. I can’t concentrate. I write one word – and I begin straight away to think, to dream to see you, there in front of me to see you, my beautiful, my sweet. And then, I don’t know what to write what to say – I am overthrown.

So at last the leave, after all the likelihood, is not going to happen.  At least not on the date that we believed. I still know nothing certain. But I know that there are many chances that I will see you again at your place, before my departure. I will give you a surprise, you’ll see! But don’t dream too much about that surprise, I beg you.   Besides, you will soon see Polia.

So let’s leave this subject that does both of us such harm. I have other things to talk to you about. Joyous, happy and lovely things – Ouri.  I saw Ouri. It was like this.

I waited for him at  Cyns(?) house, where Polia was to bring him. She changed the time: It was today at seven o’clock at night

He recognised me straight away, the dear little man, and began to run towards me. His intelligent eyes shined and his charming mouth laughed and giving a good view of his little irregular front teeth. Soon after we shook hands, while he was sitting on my knee he talked to me about the goldfish that we saw together with Yvette, of the little boy who gave him a silk-worm, of the other little boy who was with us in the garden etc

Then, while thinking over my love for this dear little man and filled with gratitude for the joy that he gives me – I began to amuse myself with his funny little nose. I began to count the freckles on his nose and I whispered in his ear that you have many more.  Then he said to me earnestly and with conviction, that one day you came to see him and you had “hardly any more freckles”. I thought how it would have been good to be able to kiss each of the little freckles covering all his body. Then I asked him if he loved you.  At his affirmative response, a nod of the head, I asked him how much. Well, darling, this time it is no longer like la route.  His fantasy is great and he described richly his feelings.  This time, he loves you “like all the air”   While he said it he helped himself by spreading his two little hands, fingers stretched towards the atmosphere- dear, dear Ouri!

At last we set off towards the zoo. Soon, he was on my shoulders, my kepi on his head, as if he? to the son of a corporal!

On the way, he told me that when he grows up he would like to be a keeper. But a few minutes later he had changed his mind and confessed that he would prefer to be a fireman. That is indeed a more interesting job.        Then, suddenly, he remembered the field where the three of us visited the beasts called cows and goats and camels.

At last we reached the Zoo, you know how he loves it. He went everywhere. He wanted to see everything, understand everything and my embarrassment grew with his endless questions. I was ashamed to be a man of the city, I was ashamed of my ignorance and I have never regretted it so much as then.  Now don’t believe that it was as bad as it sounds. I was helped by the inscriptions on the cages and by my memory which did its best (successfully) to lead me back to my middle school classroom. I believe I satisfied his thirst for knowledge. But I envied you, with your knowledge of nature, your love of animals, of trees and flowers, the Pastorale that is in you.

Finally, since time was running out, we took a bus for the beach. But I could no longer continue this outing with him because I had to get back, so I left him with Polia. At the bus, he asked me to tell you that he loves you, that you must write to him and he will reply that you must come and see him. That you must certainly come. I promised him that you would come in a few weeks.  And we separated. He went with Polia to the beach and I returned.

I love him Yvette. Oh, dearest, darling, darling don’t see me as the stranger-who-loves-children. I beg you.   Understand that for Ouri, I am not the children’s friend, in general, Believe me, I beg you, it is something else. I saw him so well today. Even you would have verified it. It is something else for Ouri. I have a different love for him. You understand, when he is on my shoulders, when he chats and I, his little hands, oh darling little Yvette- allow me to say “our son”!

Will you, to all that huge happiness with which your love has filled me, add still more the happiness with the thought, the feeling, and the sight, that is our son, Ouri?

Has he not come into my life together with you? darling, who I love so much and so much and so much? Don’t you know that I love everything about you and your everything is you with Ouri and Ouri with you – as one?

The day you tell me that you feel nothing strange, nothing artificial in saying “our Ouri”- that will be the greatest day of my life.

I have drunk another coffee. I have smoked a whole cigarette. I have looked at the people around me. I have thought about nothing. And I did all that without taking the pen into my hand. That took time.  I have not re-read this letter and I will not. But I know that at the beginning the letter expressed the torments, the anguish in my heart.

It’s funny. I am no longer tormented. I am no longer anguished.

I am happy, peaceful, loving. Nothing else but loving.  I am full of peaceful love. I am full of the sweet music of the Pastorale after the storm. And it is so true.

With me, as in nature, there are also storms. Rather, there is passion (fury, frenzy). Everything in me revolts, everything harms me, my heart beats too quickly, the blood rises to my head, because I want you near me, very near – and you are far away. Because I love you and do not want to be without you. I think, I think, and I muse and I dream, I desire you, I love you so much that my throat tightens, my chest is constricted and I want to cry out, to break something, to call out, to bring you to me, I refuse to hear anything else, I only want you near me, suddenly, suddenly and always, Yvette, always.

That’s the storm.

But it’s funny. I have written to you. I have spoken of Ouri. I have spoken of my love for you, of my love for him- and the storm is longer in my heart.  Peace is there. And the Pastorale. Leave? (Eng)  Certainly that’s bad. Terribly bad. But I am happy despite it. And I am peaceful despite it. For my love is stronger that all our separations. For my love is powerful, for it can wait with he same power a whole lifetime. A whole lifetime.

I have so much confidence in myself, in you, in our love, in our happy future, in our loving future. As loving as now. Not stronger, because a stronger love is not possible. When one loves more, one dies. I love you to the extreme limit that I can, without causing death to the cells.

Darling, my little adored darling, smile, I beg you. Pr better, if there are tears, let them be tears of joy.

Be untroubled, as I am now, and love me and I now love you.

Little Yvette! My little wife.

Yours ,

Henri.

I will see Polia in three days. She will come here. Many of my letters have been lost, darling.  Don’t be troubled.

Another thing: greetings to Sylvia.

Hello and greetings to Dov.