COLETTE. L.A.S., Monday morning [Paris 27.XII.1943], to Marguerite Moreno; 3 1/2 pages in-4 (under glass). Beautiful end-of-year letter to his great actress friend, during the Occupation. "My Marguerite, I wish our end-of-year letters could have crossed. She has heard two young women raving about Marguerite in Douce [a Claude Autant-Lara film], which she has yet to see. She reads Paul Claudel's Soulier de Satin in her bed: "As I've always been rather ill-adapted to Claudel, I used to read, grumbling and railing against these apparentities of period and character, which go so far as to recall Jarry so vividly! And then... and then scenes that tear you away from criticism, that provoke (the butcher's wife swimming and drowning, and the final scene) almost tears". She's not feeling very well, and everything has become difficult, without deliverymen: "The cyclist, because of his worn tires, doesn't go beyond such and such a district. Bagatelles"... She saw Tonton again [Gaston Baheux aka "Tonton de Montmartre", host of the cabaret Le Liberty's]: "He was alone for a few hours, [...] he grabbed a chicken, a few slices of ham, a bottle of wine and one of fine, and came down to our place, to our great pleasure; I wish he were happy, later, on his property". Marguerite, having spoken of the "language" of her spring, reminds him that "when I fell asleep one day next to a small, tumultuous river (I loved to sleep in the open air), the language of the water was transformed, translated into human language, when I went from waking to dreaming, but it all faded away when I woke up, as it should. [...] Still, more and more I think I'll find you again, through everything, despite wind, war and space! You'll see, Marguerite, you'll see. This morning the wind shifted to the west, and I bless this humidity, this gray-blue"...