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.
Category: Letters – 1943
Letter 1943.45 – 15 December. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
Yesterday I received a lovely photo from Australia. Of little John – our nephew- dedicated “To Yvette and Henri, with love.” He is stunning, this little fellow. A very good looking kid! I am almost jealous of him.
Letter 1943.44 – 7 December. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
Forgive this short letter. My finger doesn’t feel too good.
Letter 1943.43 – 3 December. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
Let me remind you how many people are suffering at the present time: from cruel separations, separations without tomorrows, of hells left at their departure. Think of lovers separated, mothers witness to the massacre of their children. And then again of this: think of what is and what will become.
Letter 1943.42 – 26 November. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
These narrow, winding little streets with their facades almost touching, where you can see only a tiny morsel of blue sky, where the beauty of the kids is hidden by a great layer of filth, where you smell the misery (that smell is the same everywhere, in Paris, Tokyo or Cairo. The smell of elegant women differs. But the smell of St.Ouen you find everywhere.), where promiscuity is the order of the day, where one sees the connection between architecture and sensuality – where however, everywhere, is reflected human beauty.
Letter 1943.41 – 16 November. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
Yvette one must always remember that nothing has so debased man as much as fascism. And the generation to come will have a great job to accomplish – to detoxify the hearts and the brains of men poisoned by the bloody but refined regime. This operation can only lead to a happy result with an immense mass movement, like that which enabled a sixth of the world to succeed in creating a new man, a man knowing how to distinguish moral values.
Letter 1943.40 – 6 November. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
And the war goes on. And with all these complications, all these miseries. And suffering takes root everywhere, masters everything and causes ravages that centuries will not cure. Sexual debauchery dances a happy dance around me. It’s so easy. The men are not there. Either dead for the glory of Rome or prisoner in the sand or in the cold steppes. And there is hunger, cruel, demanding.
Letter 1943.39 – 28 October. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
Excuse me, darling, for going on so about the matter of correspondence (what is it compared with the immense flame which is our hearts!) But my heart pined so terribly for you, my body is so cruelly mortified by being separated from you, my soul, my whole being is strange to me, is halved, is nothing, because without you, my sweet, my beautiful darling Yvette.
Letter 1943.38 – 22 October. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
I remember very well the plans that we made at Ameriah and at Alexandria. It was decided that you had to begin to concentrate on your civil wardrobe. And yes, darling, I hold to that absolutely. And I love to imagine to myself that you stroll through the shops when time and money permit. It is necessary, that at least on this heading, the heading of wardrobe, that my wife be, for the first time after the war, more or less well dressed. Excuse me for speaking of these little things, but I prize them.
Letter 1943.37 – 16 October. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
Have you received all my letters? Are they numerous? This is at least my 10th letter, since I have been here.
tom rigby - melbourne 