Read Online Visions of Isabelle by William Bayer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William Bayer
Tags: Historical fiction
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of Europe. She was about to throw away the rest, still unopened, when her eyes fastened upon an envelope with an exotic return address. She opened it and found a beautiful letter inside, which she rushed to show to Augustin:
Dear Nadia,
Thank you for your exceedingly pleasant note. As I stated in my ad, I am a young French officer stationed in the Sahara and bored to death. There is no one here I can talk to. The other officers despise the local people, have no sympathy at all for them or any wish to improve the terrible conditions under which they live. I am most disturbed by the plight of the childrenâthere are no doctors, disease is rampant, and most people seem stricken by sores and worms. Yet the doctors in my garrison are unwilling to share their knowledge, and all the men hold these poor people in the highest contempt.
I feel cut off in a way I never dreamed. When my assignment first came through I was looking forward to a life of action and contemplation in the great emptiness of the North African desert. I am from a literate family where music is a way of life. Our home has always been filled with books, but here, besides manuals of gunnery and a few volumes of military history, there is no literature at allânot even a volume of Montaigne. I don't wish to sound bitter about my lot. I know that bitterness is a contemptible state of mind. But I need a companion, even if she is a thousand miles away, who will exchange letters on a fairly regular basis, and will be sympathetic to my plight. I long for a correspondent with whom I can share my doubts about the path I have chosen in life, a young lady who can also keep me informed of the latest music and books.
Please, if you are interested, write me as soon as you can. Tell me about yourself, your family, your studies, your dreams. I promise I shall answer by return post.
Yours sincerely,
Eugène Letord
Augustin agreed that Letord's letter was magnificent and she should answer it at once. Together they burned the other letters, and then, over the signature of "Nadia," she wrote him ten pages about her life.
She also asked him for details about the Sahara, the hardships of the desert people and the process of "pacification" in which she knew, from the newspapers, the French expeditionary force in North Africa was then engaged. Six weeks later she received back a long reply in which he answered all her questions and ended with a paragraph of personal revelation.
I am fascinated, Nadia, by your family. I can tell that you love them, all of them, but to an outsider, your description would seem apt for a chamber of horrors. There seems to be something ghoulish about your brother V., and I feel pity for your mother and all the hardships she must endure. I understand your longing to get away. I volunteered for desert service to escape from a personal unhappiness. It's a long saga but suffice to say it involved my relations with a young lady to whom I was once engaged. I wanted to go as far away as possible. I could not bear to be in a place where the seasons changed. They reminded me of joys I had and would never have again. I wanted dryness, simplicity, an uninhabited land.
Perhaps I thought that the terrible desert heat would finally dry my tears. But, alas, things are not so easily resolved. For the lonelier I become (and it is very lonely here) the more I brood about my unhappy past. Remember this, Nadiaâthe desert is a place where all one's ghosts reappear in a mirage. In the silent desert nights they come back to haunt one's tent.
Surrounded by Frenchmen deprived of women (a situation that brings out the worst facets of my race) I feel the same sorrow I used to feel at dusk by the banks of the Seine. People crossed the bridges hurrying home from work, people together while I stood alone. And even when I walked with them pretending to have some motive in my stride, I felt a loneliness that here, the place where I've escaped, is doubled and redoubled each
Dear Nadia,
Thank you for your exceedingly pleasant note. As I stated in my ad, I am a young French officer stationed in the Sahara and bored to death. There is no one here I can talk to. The other officers despise the local people, have no sympathy at all for them or any wish to improve the terrible conditions under which they live. I am most disturbed by the plight of the childrenâthere are no doctors, disease is rampant, and most people seem stricken by sores and worms. Yet the doctors in my garrison are unwilling to share their knowledge, and all the men hold these poor people in the highest contempt.
I feel cut off in a way I never dreamed. When my assignment first came through I was looking forward to a life of action and contemplation in the great emptiness of the North African desert. I am from a literate family where music is a way of life. Our home has always been filled with books, but here, besides manuals of gunnery and a few volumes of military history, there is no literature at allânot even a volume of Montaigne. I don't wish to sound bitter about my lot. I know that bitterness is a contemptible state of mind. But I need a companion, even if she is a thousand miles away, who will exchange letters on a fairly regular basis, and will be sympathetic to my plight. I long for a correspondent with whom I can share my doubts about the path I have chosen in life, a young lady who can also keep me informed of the latest music and books.
Please, if you are interested, write me as soon as you can. Tell me about yourself, your family, your studies, your dreams. I promise I shall answer by return post.
Yours sincerely,
Eugène Letord
Augustin agreed that Letord's letter was magnificent and she should answer it at once. Together they burned the other letters, and then, over the signature of "Nadia," she wrote him ten pages about her life.
She also asked him for details about the Sahara, the hardships of the desert people and the process of "pacification" in which she knew, from the newspapers, the French expeditionary force in North Africa was then engaged. Six weeks later she received back a long reply in which he answered all her questions and ended with a paragraph of personal revelation.
I am fascinated, Nadia, by your family. I can tell that you love them, all of them, but to an outsider, your description would seem apt for a chamber of horrors. There seems to be something ghoulish about your brother V., and I feel pity for your mother and all the hardships she must endure. I understand your longing to get away. I volunteered for desert service to escape from a personal unhappiness. It's a long saga but suffice to say it involved my relations with a young lady to whom I was once engaged. I wanted to go as far away as possible. I could not bear to be in a place where the seasons changed. They reminded me of joys I had and would never have again. I wanted dryness, simplicity, an uninhabited land.
Perhaps I thought that the terrible desert heat would finally dry my tears. But, alas, things are not so easily resolved. For the lonelier I become (and it is very lonely here) the more I brood about my unhappy past. Remember this, Nadiaâthe desert is a place where all one's ghosts reappear in a mirage. In the silent desert nights they come back to haunt one's tent.
Surrounded by Frenchmen deprived of women (a situation that brings out the worst facets of my race) I feel the same sorrow I used to feel at dusk by the banks of the Seine. People crossed the bridges hurrying home from work, people together while I stood alone. And even when I walked with them pretending to have some motive in my stride, I felt a loneliness that here, the place where I've escaped, is doubled and redoubled each
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