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.
Letter 1943.36 – 10 October. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
And there were those who owned a lot and those who owned little. And those who owned a lot wanted to have more. And those who owned little wanted to live. Then they gave all power to a man who promised them everything: to bring down those who did not have enough, and to give an Empire to those who wanted more.
Letter 1943.35 – 4 October. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
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.
Letter 1943.34 – 29 September. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
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.
Letter 1943.32 – Between 20-30 September. Henri (650 Gen Tpt Coy) to Yvette
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.
tom rigby - melbourne 