This is the fourth of 87 letters exchanged during World War II between Nicholas Salvatore and Elizabeth Galloway.
For more see Nicholas and Elizabeth.
New York City, New York, 1932
Dear Jake,
Do you remember Pamplona? Of course you do. You were never really in love with me. Tell me you were never really in love with me. It was all a silly game with you, wasn’t it? Anyway, that’s long past. You’re on to a new adventure and I’m here with Mike. Sweet Mike. We are happy you know, truly happy. I know you never loved me but I think there was a time when you were the only one who meant anything to me. If only you had had money, or something else. Or if I had had more self-respect, or something else.
You always make the bullfights sound romantic. I never thought I’d ever hear silence again after that fiesta. I’m not sure I ever did. Not sure I ever slept well since, either.
As you used to say, “It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.” And so it is that I must close this quickly before the sun sets.
To summarize: Darling. Very quiet and healthy. Love to all the chaps,
Lady Brett Ashley
PS – Enjoy the fiesta, I hope it is the kind that makes you feel there can’t be any consequences.
PPS – Nicholas, I know the nights you speak of well. But for me, it was my mother crying. Those are terrible nights that seem as if they would never end. The darkness is thicker, heavier. There are still times when I wake up in the middle of the night and, in that state that isn’t sleep, but isn’t quite awake, I hear her crying and am ten years old again, afraid to act and afraid not to act.
But eventually the morning comes, it always does.
Elizabeth
P.S. – Nicholas is a lovely name. There is something inherently missing in a nickname, something incomplete.
Next letter – September 7, 1943
Words will keep us together 