1st December 1825. Accession of Nicolas.1
Have you shown your "two walks" to anybody? I found it truly wonderful, including two or three things of virtuoso development in the first which I would like to talk to you about if you want. The part about music really is delightfully mysterious. And as for the continuation of the image "they no longer knew each other", I don't know of another as unexpected as that in all French.
Astrologers drowned in the eyes of a woman,
Some tyrannical Circe of dangerous perfumes.
Not to be changed into wild beasts, they intoxicate themselves etc.
(Baudelaire, Le Voyage)
From the moment night falls during the second walk the music of the phrase becomes truly enchanting. I am taking this in the most precise sense I can say. All external feelings were "given over", merely glided over me. And the slightest images out of your prose were held up by contrast with an extraordinary intensity, allayed only by the intensity of the next ones, which meld the whole thing into a delightful harmony.
From Catalogue Charavay 1982, accompanied by a note in
unidentified handwriting: "A piece of paper that Marcel Proust passed to
me during a lesson with Albert Sorel at the [École des] Sciences
politiques.". A previous Catalogue Charavay, April 1975, provides a
slightly longer text, and gives the accompanying note as being written
by A. [Auguste?] Bréal. Further details are supplied in Librairie
Jean-Claude Vrain, Catalogue Marcel Proust, deuxième partie, 2022. Where
it suggests that the recipient was probably Gabriel Trarieux (1870-1940)
who attended the École de Sciences politiques at the same time as
Proust, 1890-1892.
1. This note was probably written during a Russian history lesson.
Created 18.09.18
Updated 29.10.22