Translations:CP 05405/46/en
Dear Léon, I am deliberately confining myself to practical advice that I need to ask you. Otherwise there would be too much to say! I wrote to you[1] last summer I think, after my terrible sorrow[2], before the thunderbolt of war. Since then I have been trembling for the lives of dear ones just like everybody else. You have no doubt heard that my brother’s hospital at Étain was bombarded while he was operating and since then he has never stopped putting himself in terrible danger - and meeting it head on. At the moment he’s in the Argonne[3] but I’ve had no news for a month. I hope that you don’t have too many anxieties and sorrows on your part. If you reply I would be very pleased to hear your news about Albert Flament[4]. As an unimportant detail I’d like to know which idiotic windbag you were alluding to yesterday, talking about the "synthesis of courage"!