to Arline Feynman

Richard P. Feynman to Arline Feynman, April 3, 1945

Tuesday Morning, 10 AM

Dearest Putzie

You will be interested in two things. First, yesterday I got everything going smoothly and so now I won’t be working late hours anymore (I worked till 12 last night), and second, I took a shower. I slept late this morning just for fun and I’m beginning to take a more relaxed view of life (I even read a book for a 1/2 hour before I went to sleep). I think the worst is over and now I can take it easy.

There is a third thing you will be interested in. I love you. You are a strong and beautiful woman. You are not always as strong as other times but it rises and falls like the flow of a mountain stream. I feel I am a reservoir for your strength—without you I would be empty and weak like I was before I knew you—but your moments of strength make me strong and thus I am able to comfort you with your own strength when your stream is low.

I find it much harder these days to write these things to you—there isn’t quite the personal intimate contact that I used to get out of letters. I will come Sunday and tell them to you—I will love you Sunday.

No news from here. Oh yes, we have a regular gestapo up here. They took a guy for over an hour in a smoke filled room with men sitting around in the dark—just like in the movies—firing questions at him to prove he was a Communist. They didn’t succeed—because he wasn’t. The poor guy couldn’t work good the next day because they got him out of bed the night before. They claim they are trying to keep spies out of this place. It is dopey, because they leave the gates open at night often by mistake. Don’t get scared tho they haven’t found out that I am a relativist yet!

I love you sweetheart,
RPF