Dvr H.Adler
PAL/30775
650, G.T.Coy R.A.S.C
“B”Platoon
July 1943
I pine for you, Yvette, oh! How I pine for you darling. For you, you know… And for news of you. I have received nothing from you for ten days. And your last letter was a complaint that completely unsettled me. And I am still there in the dejection that it caused in me. My heart is now as impatient as yours was when you wrote me your last letter. And I suffer all that you suffered not having any news of me. My letters disappeared. And yours too, darling? If not, what? So I am sad, troubled, impatient to see you, impatient to read your letters…
I am very sad, with sadness so heavy and weighty that I can no longer breathe.
All my thoughts go towards you. All my being leans towards you. I am fearful because of your long silence.
So I see often in the evening the sea. I look at the sea; I look at the moon. And I look at the play of the moon and of the sea. You know – a vast dark grey expanse, without a noise, without a movement, without limit. But the moon is there and to my eyes, it is she who gives life to the sea. She illumines a part of that sombre water and she pours on it a silvery rain – one would say some millions and millions of pearls that fall
ceaselessly from the sky and begin to dance on the water. Then I notice how the sea folds back and follows the rhythm of this strange ballet. The sea moves. It lives. And I see it, I look at all of it and there is such peace emanating from this beauty and such beauty emanating from this peace, that my heart begins to sing softly, that my lips murmur the song of my heart, “Yvette, darling, I pine for you, I pine for you”.
Then I look at the sky and search fro our star. It is not there. It has been hidden for a long time. But I know that it doesn’t matter, for I know that it has entered into us. For always.
Then, I look again at the game of the moon and the sea and I am suddenly astonished to see myself so happy to be a part of this game. I owe that to you. It is to you, Yvette that I owe the good fortune of being able to enjoy the beauty in which we live. It is to you that I owe the happiness that the peace of nature glides into and invades my soul. It is to you that I owe my being more human, simpler. Without you, there would not be any play of the moon and the sea for me.
“More simple” – Yes.
Formerly, in my moments of dreaming, I wanted to transcend humanity. And I believed that to be happiness. Now, I see that happiness is having Ouri between us both and like that, a simple three-some, to enter a very large, very well stocked zoological garden. Now, I see that it is to look into your eyes, it is being able to tell you everything in my heart; everything beautiful and ugly, good and wicked, simple and complex. Now it is to rest my head on your knees, to rest myself
And, with your kisses, acquire new energy to carry on my life and, to contribute, with you, to make men’s lives more harmonious with the beauty of nature. Now happiness is loving you and sleeping with you – And it is also – oh little one! – to give a brother to Ouri.
I see all that in the sea, while looking at the reflection of the pale light of the moon. I see there also that when one has a soul so enslaved by music and when one cannot express it in music, it would be better, much better to be a peasant or a highlander. It is funny, how one can occasionally be “badly born”!
Basically, what is even funnier, is that I am talking about all this. I, so ridiculously small and powerless to express my love, beauty and my feelings-
But you know, in the play of the moon and the sea, there can be still another partner beside myself. It is the clouds. Like yesterday, for example. A great cloud came. And it was in the sea that I saw it come. Slowly it dispersed the ballet of pearls and with its massive body, it barred the way of the moon to the sea – it cut the luminous current of life. Everything became black. The moon struggled however. I saw it in the sea. At first it pierced the first avalanche of cloud with its rays. And I saw, on the left, it outlines the beginning of the contours of the cloud. The moon replied. Then little by little, these contours were completed and completed, taking a form becoming a whole. There was only a large black stain on the water. And this stain was living. It moved gently, lightly to the left.
Always more, always more, always more until just as it got to the right, its contours became more clear, always more, always more, and then at last – the millions of pearls began their ballet again. Oh! – you think that I don’t like the cloud. Not at all. It was beautiful, it also, this black stain gliding on the water… And I don’t know which is more beautiful: the luminous ballet or the mysterious, graceful moving stain –
And in any case, it is always you. You. It is because of your existence that all that, all that beauty exists. I am tenderly conscious of it, and it makes me happy.
Oh darling, darling, darling – I love you so much, you know – so much! My little beloved Yvette – if the war doesn’t finish, my heart will burst, will break. But if the war finishes and when I will at last gather in two arms all your beauty, your beauty darling, then it’s possible that my heart will also burst.
Didn’t I tell you, darling, that I feel a painful disproportion between my heart and the rest of my being? Have you not seen what tension the 9th Symphony threw me into? The 9th. And you, you are all that. You are the music, you are the game of the moon and the sea, you are the beautiful green countryside that I saw on the edge of the desert road, you are the sea at the foot of the green mountain, you are the sweetness of Ouri’’ little fingers between my teeth. Oh darling, teindra- t- il my heart?
But there it is, when I am seated like that, at night on the edge of the sea, when I look at it, when
I see there the moon, when I see there the cloud, when I see you, soaring above all that, when I feel with such divine sweetness your marvellous love invading and enveloping me entirely – I am no longer sad, I am no longer troubled – I am peaceful. That’s it, peaceful, calm, self- confidant. I don’t want to dance, or shout, or sing or jump. Peaceful – just that, peaceful.
And I see that it is so true, that I have made, yes, peace with myself. Because you are there. You are really there, within me.
Darling, my little one, write to me, will you?
Your
Henri.
tom rigby - melbourne 