Say Bruri, what’s your opinion about getting married in the course of Hanuka! There is a whole week, when the University is closed and outside study I can have a spell of time to be with you more than five minutes a day. We can have a couple of days in Tel Aviv or Haifa too. If not in Hanuka I can’t see when next there will be such an occasion. Don’t forget to convey my greetings to Naama, and don’t forget that I love you more than ever. If your eyes are getting tired, go to an eye specialist at once, the glasses won’t spoil your beauty. I shall be in Tel Aviv on the 6th in the afternoon.

Marcell[30]

Как, должно быть, лестно было внимать этим обжигающим словам, ощущать наплыв любви, переживать неимоверную пылкость слепого обожания, но – увы, в конце концов слишком горькой оказалась эта легкая победа. Три месяца спустя Марцелу приходится признать, что «чувство, сметающее все на своем пути» привело его в «смятение». Молодой муж, душа поэтическая, но на первый взгляд такая рациональная, вынужден осознать: хоть он и вооружился не опровержимой логикой, которой овладел благодаря чтению Маркса, Энгельса, Ленина и Сталина, этих гигантов мысли, факты сильнее любой логики. Но он не страшится горькой правды: «Потому что ни у тебя, ни у меня нет твердой почвы под ногами и потому что я уже потерял всякую связь со своей прошлой жизнью». Не сдаваться в данном случае не значит ничего иного, как со всего размаху биться головой о непроницаемую стену молчания. «…Я любил тебя, даже когда еще был отрезан от всякой надежды, что когда-нибудь мы снова встретимся». И как замечательно формулирует он в конце своего письма задачу на будущее: ему хочется добраться до «таящихся в глубине нежных чувств» Брурии, хочется взломать наглухо замкнутую «ракушку», в которой они запрятаны.

19th of March, 1947

Bruria Darling!

There are three months since we married. It is time to make some observations although I do not dare to pretend to know more about the future of our relation than my own hopes for its perpetuity. To begin with, it is something we both know: all marriages are, or better, have got their difficulties at the start, still our case being a special one, we made the mistake of underestimating the dangers. I have taken too lightly the fact that you were not in love with me; you have been too daring in expecting from yourself to be able to cope with all the demands and possible complications of marriage in case of marrying anybody (anybody from the point of view of the sentimental attachment).

We both were mistaken and we both did not give up. This is the «deus ex machine», the surprise for me and for the sceptics as well. We did not give up because this would have been a mechanistic attitude.

We did not give up because there is not guarantee that something better or at least as good as that and not worse, waits around the corner.

We did not give up because we BOTH need love, and both of us genuinely hope that there is a possibility for changes, for a development to put it better.

The trouble was and partly goes on to be, that we had such a different attitude towards love, owing to our diametrically opposed background and practical differences, that we were unable to compromiseon the sentimental ground although logical decisions have been taken in this respect.

The question remains if only the form is divergent or the content of love is so altered in each case that no development, say no compromise will be able to patch it up?

I think this view is mistaken: love is a natural necessity common to all normal and healthy people, those then, whose soul has not been crippled under the existing social conditions. That much for what I think is common ground. Now for me alone: I must confess to-night that I became too strongly involved in this affair. Too strongly because there is no solid ground under our feet and I already lost the touch with my previous life. It is true I loved you even in my being isolated from all hope of meeting you, but this love never obliged my thinking, planning and carrying out – my full self; it only affected my sentimental half or quarter. To-day it is overwhelming and therefore confusing. Please don’t take this for blackmailing you with my sentiments. It hurt me terribly when you asked in Ben Shemen last Thursday if I shall commit suicide in case you will leave me. The amount of love is not weighed by desperate deeds. I am sure that I am strong enough to stand any blow may this bring the greatest pain and the longest suffering.

In the past I experienced this in a very concentrated form, you know the fate of my beloved ones, this has shaken me out of my track for some time, but I got back and carried on.