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

10 August 1943

I have not written for a long time, darling. You have only to look at the date of this letter.  Yet I wanted to write more often. Yesterday and before yesterday- but I couldn’t. Truly, I couldn’t.  You were too close to me every day for me to be able to transform my feelings into written words.  And I must say that today is the same. Today also, you are so close to me and I love you so much, darling, so much – oh God! – so much- but today there is a storm somewhere in my heart, or rather in my entire chest. Today the iron pincers around my throat have begun to tighten more and more strongly – quite simply to suffocation – and now it has passed. Here I am again calm, peaceful and filled with a quiet, sadness – serene?

There it is.

It is only a few days since I was beside you. In the train. So close, so close. We were not two, we were one. Isn’t that right, we were one, darling?

You saw my sadness, and you were so good for me, little one.  I still see your beloved face turned towards me and suggesting that you break your journey for a day so as to stay with me. Or rather, to arrive a day early to spend it with me. Oh darling, how I love you, how I love you, darling!

Truly little one, my little Yvette, since I said goodbye to you at the station, there has not been a single minute that I have been without you. With my thoughts. With my dreams. With my body and spirit. With so much tenderness that follows you in each of your steps.  Do you feel this tenderness, now as you put Ouri to bed, my tenderness, and my love that covers both of you?

During the day I love to imagine what I dream when I am asleep.  I imagine—- I see you in that compartment, in the corner near the window, rolling and rolling through the night. You are looking out into the night and thinking tenderly of me, of the beautiful moments, filled with the most beautiful harmony and the most complete love that we have just spent and of the beautiful days to come.  And I, here, when I imagine that, I feel throughout my whole body your marvellous love which inhabits me. And you think that soon you will be with Ouri. And you already see all the joy, all the happiness that will possess both of you.  And me also, darling. Believe me, Yvette.  That makes me happy, happy enough to cry.

Then I see all the days that you pass with the little one. You speak to him, you walk with him, and you provide his little soul with all the culture and all the poetry with which you are so rich.  And you will enrich him with you riches. And that, like your blood, will remain in him forever. Dear, dear little Ouri!

In the evening, you listen to records or you look at the sea or you look for our star in the sky – if you are at the kibbutz.  At Tel Aviv, you stroll with our friends. Dov. Pejneno. Clara. Pepi – And you think of me, as I of you. And you heart reaches out to mine, as mine to yours. And your body pines for my body and your spirit seeks my spirit- it is so exactly the same thing for my body and spirit which seek you day and night- always- Oh yes, I feel your tender thoughts. They envelop me with sweet warmth; they calm all the storms. Today’s was caused – oh forgive me, my darling! – by regret at not having accepted that you shorten your stay in Palestine. Because now, I must go along without having the happiness of looking into your eyes once more, of caressing your hair once more of feeling your mouth once more. And who knows then that will be possible again!

Then a tempest possessed me and I felt horribly bad.

But Ouri’s happiness and yours, are they not also mine?  But the last images of our past life – the day in Cairo, that in Ismalia, both of us in the train, your departure, you at the window telling me with your eyes that your love is eternal, that you are so really my wife, really mine – all that is so much stronger that the strongest tempest. And here I am calm. Very calm. Peaceful. Filled with love. Filled with sweet languor. Filled with sadness but also filled with joy. Oh Yvette, Yvette, how I love you- How we love each other! Are you happy darling? As I am?  Tell the little one, tell him.

It is hard for me to finish this letter. I know that it is disjointed, so far from explaining all that is going on in me. It is so paltry when one feels all that I feel for you my darling! And besides, deep in the heart of me I believe that I will be able to see you again before my big departure. Will I come to your place? Or are you now on the road to come to mine? I don’t know. But I know that I will see you.

And yet. What is all that in comparison to our love!

“Don’t forget – I love you”, your eyes said to me. Oh no, darling, I cannot forget what I am, darling. And my being is your love. It is our love. I embrace you, Yvette, very tenderly, so tenderly.

            Your

Henri