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Dvr H.Adler
PAL/30765
650, G.T.Coy R.A.S.C
“B”Platoon
C.M.F

25 December.

My sweet darling,

Some days ago I received a photo of you. With a later dated the ninth. Lovely photo! You with Ouri. Yvette, my little one, everything I felt when first looking at this photo you will never know, for there is no one who could tell you. Not a poet nor a scholar nor a painter nor a musician. And even the most simple of men, the most of pure of hearts would not know how to tell you the emotion which lay hold of me when looking at those two dear heads, so marvellously mingled. And this emotion has not left me yet.

It is that which has interrupted several letters, torn them up, begins again and then tears them up once more.

You see, I love you Yvette. And I love Ouri. Because he comes from your entrails because he is your flesh. But you two together, mother and son united- as you put it – Yvette and Ouri, that’s my most beautiful dream. It’s the dream that I want so much, my God so much, qu’il ne soit pas. Qu’il cesse etre reve qu’il devienne une chose existante, reelle vivante.

Since then, darling, I look at it, that photo, look at it again and again – each free moment- but yes, Yvette – is taken up with contemplating my Yvette, the mother. And the sweetness, which invades me almost, closes my throat. Everything in me begins to tremble, from the deepest part of my body. Oh how I love you, little one.

You are so beautiful, so sweet.

I hold that photo in my hands, my eyes are glued to it and there are so many things that crowd into my soul. I so much want to be with you and Ouri. After the war. Somewhere in a peaceful world where a man is allowed to be a man, to love his wife, to work in peace, to live.  Sometimes I feel so old and sometimes so young.

But while looking at you and Ouri together, your heads united as are your hearts, then I feel young, young exclusively young. I see the beautiful promise of my future life. With the two of you, my dears.  Loving us all tenderly. Not taking any affection from one for the other. On the contrary: increasing it without cease. It is not possible that your love for me takes anything at all away from your love for Ouri. Inst that true darling?  It is coquettish of me to ask because I know very well that it’s true. I feel it with all my being.

It is the most beautiful promise that anyone has ever had. The promise of living with you. Every day. Can you imagine that? Every day! Every minute of the day. Oh God, God when will that at last be possible? When will that at last cease to be a dream? A dream that never leaves me. Deep down, darling, all that I can see now is only a long, beautiful and sweet and tormented waiting. I wait for you ceaselessly, at each word that comes from my mouth each time I breathe, each time that I think- and even when I don’t think. And this waiting is painful at the time. But it is the basis of my life. And – oh darling! – how much happier is the life of those who don’t wait!

Your existence that is the most beautiful recompense that I could desire.

                                    Your

                                                Henri

I have not received the first photo you sent me. Many letters have been lost. So don’t worry if my letters don’t arrive regularly. Here it has really begun to get cold. The rain has finished and lately a dry cold has settled in here. Christmas is over. I always loved that festival. Will we be together for the next? A New Year approaches and I wish you – you know how. I suffer from one of those colds that break the bones- but it will go. It has already gone.

   I embrace you,

 Henry