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.

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.

I want to tell you of the bestiality – yes bestiality- of the Nazis. I want to tell you of all the cruelty that is war. I want to tell you of my love for the people of all races and colours. I want to tell you of my hope, my faith in all humanity’s revenge on the dark forces, which shed its blood and kill it. I want to tell you of my unshakeable determination to continue my life, our life together, darling, in the same direction as it has gone up to now: to struggle, struggle, struggle without respite for a better tomorrow for everyone. To continue along the same road, on the road that all men of good will take.

We held each other’s hands and before our eyes was the formidable light of the lightning flashes. And we heard nothing but the sounds of nature unleashed. Those of the war were extinguished. There was only the noise of our hearts beating in unison, harmoniously accompanying the celestial music.

I write these words from a trench and the sky is full of the sound of our vanquishing engines and the world around trembles and vibrates with the earth under the powerful blows of shells and bombs.

The macabre music begins again. But I am well and happy in Europe. Hitler called it: Europafestung”. Now we have captured that fortress. And nazism will be smashed as fascism is. And worse. For the horrors of the nazis are truly indescribable.

Darling, what will happen after the war? Fascism defeated, the peoples in revolt for a more just social order and you, found again, living inseparably with me.