Dear Friend of Good Friday Night,
Can this book which is now being advertised really be made of extracts
from letters that were in my black bag, and that I thrust into the
hands of a certain kind person on the night when the German bombing
planes were making our hotel a place of peril? I verily believe they
are, and shall be so happy to have them again. I will call at the
publishers.
I tried without success to find you in the cellar where I crouched
with many others that dreadful Good Friday night when the building was
struck. The next morning I took an early train for Bordeaux to embark
for America, so I never saw any of the advertisements which the book
notices say that you inserted in the Paris papers.
When the war was ended, my husband, A. D. of the letters, went to
Russia with the American Red Cross, but alas! he has been thrown into
prison--perhaps the work of the Prince. The latter was released in
Paris through some pressure brought to bear by his influential
friends. My husband saw him in Moscow where Boris is at present in
high standing with the Soviet authorities. Our government is only just
now making an effort to have its citizens released, and I am starting
in a few days for Europe, hoping to meet A. D. at the frontier.
I hesitate about asking you to withdraw the book from publication at
this late date. Ordinarily I should feel ashamed to have
correspondence so personal go before the world, even anonymously. But
under these circumstances I feel differently. I should like to see the
Prince shown up in his true light. I feel that the American people
ought to be warned against their sense of indifference and false
security, and more and more publicity given to the true condition of
affairs, namely, that their countrymen do not receive the protection
of their own government, in Russia, in Mexico, and in other countries,
where _de facto_ administrations can throw any of their fellow
citizens into prison and keep them there months and years with
impunity.
Therefore you have my permission to publish the letters, and I sign
myself again, as you have been used to seeing me,