‘ ‘ ‘  Dear Juliette
‘ ‘ ‘  Normally I wouldn’™t be writing but simply speaking to you in person. I did, however, decide to write in order both to clear my own mind on the matter and also to make sure that the salient points won’™t become lost in what might easily become a great deal of verbiage passing from mouth to ear.
‘ ‘ ‘  This coming autumn we will have been relating for exactly five years. I remember so well the corner caf? in the Rue des Lions, Paris, the song, Autumn Leaves’  in the air around us. My last day before returning. Something I never did tell you is that it was your travel bag label that prompted me to ask’  if we would be on the same flight ‘“ then our first coffee together.
‘ ‘ ‘  Early acquaintances are, surely, always exciting. The questions, the answers, the surprises, the excitement of things we so both enjoyed – then shared. These memories will always be with me ‘“ always sweet. I can still savour the croissant ‘“ the aroma of that special coffee. A few days later we were already together in my small apartment in Herzlia.
‘ ‘ ‘  Life is often exciting for the young and inexperienced; learning processes take their time and toll. My early lesson on relationships is that these don’™t build to a climax but rather begin as one. They then become gradually more common-place ‘“ even bland with the passage of time.’  Ours was no exception, was it?’  I think it even began with you ‘“ mentioning something about the way I sleep? I don’™t really recall – and suppose it doesn’™t really matter – now, does it?
‘ ‘ ‘  I remember well that little movement of your head to chase a strand of hair from your eyes that kept coming back. Your laugh, too – a silver bell caused me a missed heart-beat.’  I don’™t’ ‘  hear that same laugh now and that makes me a little sad. Anyway and truth to tell, so many things have changed – begun so well, then to cool. Now, surely, a time for change has come. And it is of this change that I wish particularly to mention – in this letter ‘“ rather than speak. To make a clean sweep of’  how I lived ‘˜till now – the way we lived. A complete change.
‘ ‘ ‘  Look up now from your reading, Julliette.
‘ ‘ ‘  You see me before you, eye pleading, lip trembling.
‘ ‘ ‘  I love you dearly,’  Juliette.’  Dear, dear Julliette -‘  my once friend – now to be my wife?