Your respectful friend who injures you too much

Marcel Proust.

LXXIV

[November (?) 1912.]

Madame,

   Do you not think it extremely comical that at the very moment I am making a grandiose speculation of several hundred thousand francs, Austria declares war on Montenegro¹ and chooses to do so on the 30th of the month, the day on which the settlement must be sold! I received this letter from Corby² (he asked me which Mme Straus! there are others then!). Have you any advice you can give me between all these furs. Is there a visible difference between mole, Hudson, grey fox etc. For the white I think that it must be white fox, because "false ermine" seems deceitful to me. But for the dark I don't know if I am obliged to choose grey fox (one of the girls wants dark and the other white). If you don't have any opinion on this don't write to me. There was no need to write to thank me for the cherries, but your note gave me a great deal of pleasure.

   Your respectful friend,

Marcel Proust.

I would like to spend about 5 to 700 francs in total.

1. 30 October 1912.

2. Corby, Mme Straus's furrier from whom Proust bought fox-fur wraps for Colette and Hélène d'Alton.

LXXV

[16 December 1912.]

Madame,

   You understand what joy that would be, what "retrospection" equivalent in a different order to the one at Honfleur, because sentiment and memory poeticize even dress rehearsals. But through whatever strange reason this is why I cannot; when I was brought your note (which I didn't get until just now, I will explain why) I had just got up (feeling shattered) because something struck me which M. Straus said the other day which I suddenly thought applied to me. I wanted to come to speak to you about it and so as not to tire you later I had planned to come very early. At which point I was given your invitation for tomorrow, now to go out two days in a row especially if I've got up feeling so tired, is not possible. And so by getting up it deprived me of seeing you tomorrow without having the consolation of seeing you this evening, since you told me that you wanted to have a complete rest this evening. Now to the matter which had struck me: talking about I don't know whom, but it was an old person, M. Straus said: "He is very well brought up, he stands up every time I come in." And all at once I feared that this must have been a criticism of me, who perhaps, not because of tiredness, but by the bewilderment that tiredness brings me, caffeine, the combination of exhaustion and drugs (the proportion of exhaustion being the most powerful) didn't stand up as I should have done. I know that you do not like the way I take criticisms "upon myself". But I also know that I deserve them. And certainly if I had preserved any shadow of physical, intellectual and moral affectation I would not have visited you all those times. But the pleasure I experience is stronger than the fear of displeasing you, which has prevailed upon me for so long and which has never left me. - As for the reason why I didn't get your note until just now, it was because, when it was brought here there was nobody in the kitchen, my servants all being up ladders searching the cupboards for the little lost Henry Monnier which is destined for you! So you see that I was in the midst of thinking about you, in one way by having got up, and in another by having a search carried out (without success) for the drawing "so that to your beautiful eyes this humble gift may be sweet". It would have been better if I had not thought about this at all, since I would have slept and perhaps would have been able to come to see you tomorrow! I am quite worn out by this long letter (no doubt you are too!) and I will put off telling you about Fasquelle until later, who I telephoned the other day at ten o'clock in the morning! and he didn't want to speak to me! But I am really too tired to write, not having had any sleep yet, nor my fumigations, nor anything to eat. And I am going out later, but I will not be able to go to the rue Miromesnil as you will be asleep. Which again makes me think about the piece from which I quoted you this line "And to your beautiful eyes" and somewhat less poetically but very affectionately all the same I would like to be able to apply the last line to myself "And I sleep a little since you are resting!" In any case had I been able to anticipate Kismet I would have preferred to "sleep" on the evening when you are "resting" and go to the theatre on the evening that you would be there; so I console myself with the thought that even if I had rested tonight, there would still have been the same chance that I wouldn't even have been able to go tomorrow! So that it is better still to be sure at least that it is impossible! Please accept all my respects

Marcel Proust.

   If you ever write to me, please give me the name of the chocolate seller who sent you those X-ray pictures of the insides of chocolates.

LXXVI

[16 or 17 December 1912.]

Madame,

   I am going to go to Kismet; I have taken enough to either kill me or to allow me go; and as I am not dead I am going to come. Unless you yourself are too tired and don't go. In that case I suggest that I come to your house to see you instead. I don't want Kismet without you. But if you are going don't say anything to me and I will meet you there.

   Your grateful and respectful

Marcel Proust.

[Alternative version - Vente Internationale d' Autographs, Marbella, Spain, 25-26 march 2020]

Madame,

   I am going to go to Kismet; I have taken enough to either kill me or to allow me go and as I am not dead I am going to come. Unless you yourself are not going to go; in that case I suggest that I come to your house and keep you company, Kismet having lost its charms without you. But I hope that you are not too tired and can go to the theatre which will please you better. If you are going don't send me any warning and I will go and see you there.

   Your grateful and respectful

Marcel Proust.

LXXIX

[December 1912.]

Madame,

   I am only writing you a short note because for four or five days I have had something which took me by surprise which I thought at first was angina but which is only a bit of tiredness and cold. I never thought anything of it until the duel. But now I am doleful and grieving. Nevertheless I don't think it will last for long. Above all don't write to me or have me asked for news, there is none at all. And it would make me uneasy to have disturbed you. I am only telling you this so that you can't accuse me of coldness or terseness.

   Your respectful friend

Marcel Proust.

   I found your letter ravishing and irresistibly funny. But I am sure you are unjust about the bride who had to be thrown over. - I told Reynaldo that you would be very pleased that he appreciates the things you say and that it would give you a great deal of pleasure to see him. He replied that he doesn't come because you never invite him and that he would never "invite himself". I am not telling you this very well, but this has nothing to do with Vandérem's letter. The delicacy of his heart is matched only by that of his mind.

LXXXI

[January 1913.]

Madame,

   I have a thousand things to write to you about, but I have had such a "bad start to the year" that I could neither come nor telephone. Don't imagine that I haven't been thinking about what you told me. I have recommended Corentin (the driver) to everybody (he came here). But he has the misfortune to have a car which is unsaleable and even more difficult to hire, because it is so expensive for him as it creates more expenditure than profit. I can hardly let Albaret go whose life is no longer very easy; and even less so as it is such a long time since I used him, through economy. But mainly because the last time I went out I came to your house, that is to say by being in so much of a hurry at the last minute I took the first motor car that came. And if instead of that I telephone in advance for a motor car, and if I use Corentin, Albaret would hear about it from my valet who is a friend of his. I have prepared a letter for the little Renault (automobiles) for Corentin, but it doesn't look like that will help him at all because this is the car that he has to use. I know him well, he is a wonderful driver and a very honest fellow. I can't tell you anything about my book; I wanted to have it printed at my own expense; but Louis de Robert claims that that would be ridiculous, that it would make me look a failure in the eyes of the world (?), and that he is certain that he can easily find me a publisher. I will wait and see. As for Calmette, I didn't think the bridge sets and ashtrays were very nice. And I had a cigarette case made for him. I am telling you all of this as if it is of any interest to you! But I haven't the strength to continue. And I still want to chat with you about so many things, especially what Reynaldo told me about the new Vandérem piece.

   Your respectful friend

Marcel Proust.

LXXXIII

[Beginning of 1913 (?).]

Madame,

   Thank you infinitely (and briefly because of a thousand improbable vexations which are swamping me). I hope I shall be well enough but I am not sure, in any case don't save a place for me. I will take a seat in the orchestra stalls. And if I am well enough to go out I will join you at the intervals (and even during the acts if you don't have too many people with you). I really want to be well rested, because not having got up since the other evening it would give me so much pleasure to see you on the only two occasions when I have gone out.

   Your respectful friend

Marcel Proust.

LXXXIV

[January 1913.]

Madame,

   It was very kind of you to invite me to the hundredth performance of "le gifle" (I can't remember right now whether that should be double f). You wanted it to be "the same people as at its creation". I did not come for a number of reasons, one being that if it gives me boundless pleasure to go to the theatre with you, it is because it is with you and not because it is at the theatre. I mean that if I went to the theatre without you it would bore me; and I don't mean that being at the theatre with you is not a different pleasure from being with you at rue Miromesnil, and which has its great charm like all fashions and revivals of pleasure seeing you. But as it has been so long since I have been able to come, as I had had a telephone call made the day before about Servir (without being in any doubt that they must be performing Servir the next day, nor that you would have a box!) I would have been very distressed if you could have the slightest suspicion that it was perhaps because of that. But I think, I am sure, that you would not have had. You know that apart from going with you, and perhaps on one other occasion with somebody else who has a different charm, I never go to those things and always refuse them. I am sure that you never had any possible doubt about this and I would make myself appear stupid by saying any more about it. In any case I am too drained tonight to write you a letter. I don't know if I ever spoke to you about the cigarette case for Calmette (sticking to the price set by you, 400 (or even a bit less)). He has never thanked me for it so that now I don't know if he ever saw it! The day before the Congress¹ (the last day I went out) I brought it to him wrapped up, he made an evasive gesture and I put it on his desk. I told him that it was such a trifle that I hardly dared etc... I said that because as I thought that he would see that on the contrary it was something very valuable,  it would add to my munificence the gallantry of making light of it. He said to me: "I hope Poincaré will get in", I said: "Too bad" and looked at my parcel. His gaze followed mine, but when it met the parcel, moved by a sort of centrifugal force, turned away immediately and fixed itself on something else. There was a moment of silence. Then he said to me: "Then again perhaps it will be Deschanel". We then talked about Pams, and seeing that he mentioned neither Fasquelle or the cigarette case, I got up and left, convinced that the next day I was going to receive a note: "Dear Friend, but it is an expensive piece of jewellery." But I received no word, not the next day or ever! I am too tired to finish this letter so I respectfully kiss your hand

Marcel Proust.

   M. Straus was very friendly on the telephone.

1. Congress of Versailles, 16 January 1913.

LXXXV

[Spring 1913.]

Madame,

   As a brief post-script to my letter from yesterday (but above all don't write to me expressly) I would like to ask you, as I have been hindered until now by a veritable oppression of all kinds of difficulties in attending to Corby¹, if these are things for which we need to take the measurements of the persons; do I need to ask it of the recipients. Or would it be sufficient to give Corby their approximate ages. Finally are these the sort of things which go out of fashion from year to year, and is giving such a thing in the spring like giving a bag of candied chestnuts on the third of January, which has the appearance of making use of leftovers to save money. Because were it not for that I would prefer to give the present now, even though it is out of season, so that I don't give the impression of not keeping my promise if I wait until next winter. Don't reply. But if you ever happen to write please tell me. It has been three weeks, even a little more since I have got up. I hope to get up from one day to the next. But if it is before ten o'clock at night I will ask your permission to come.

   Your respectful friend

Marcel Proust.

1. See letter LXXIV note (2).

LXXXVI

Madame,

   I think I forgot to tell you in the letter that I have just had sent to you that I have pretty much found a publisher. Also I am adding this post-script because I know that you have the goodness to take an interest in all this and that you have taken such trouble and lavished so much kindness over it.

Your Marcel Proust.

LXXXIX

[June-July (?) 1914.]

Dear Madame Straus,

   This little note is to ask you if you wouldn't mind telling Jacques, as I don't know precisely where he lives, (and I say "telling" because I would prefer this letter not to be sent on and spin things out, because it concerns individuals who could easily be troublesome): that it was not I who sent Agostinelli's wife to him. She was not acting in bad faith however by saying she had come through my behalf. She believed it to be so, and here's why. As I am opposed to her doing anything as arduous as working in a factory, for reasons too lengthy to explain here, I did not want to recommend her to Jacques. (That is not to say that I didn't wish to find a job for her, I had something better for her, but at the present time she wants factory work or nothing and that was a responsibility I did not feel I could take, any more than I consented to her poor husband going off and flying over the sea without my knowing. He did it anyway and he was killed¹, and it doesn't make it any the less upsetting for me, but at least I can't blame myself and I did everything I could to stop him. As for his wife the circumstances are entirely different, I am not even troubling myself with the question of factory work, I have contented myself with telling Albaret's wife: "I will not give her any references. Since she says that she knows M. Bizet she only has to go and find him if she wants." Albaret's wife understood (?) that to mean to go to find him through my behalf. So Mme Agostinelli was acting in good faith by saying so and it is even better that Jacques doesn't go back on it because not having seen him since then, I have not spoken to him about it. Nevertheless if Jacques wants to take her on in the factory it will do no harm; I am convinced that after two days she will have to leave and I don't want to make myself ridiculous in Jacques' eyes by recommending her. (And she would not wish it any other way.) But as Jacques could not be expected to know about her state of health, it is quite natural that he could recommend her and I don't think that the harm which she will cause will be very great. I will explain all this much better to Jacques when I have the pleasure, always so great, of seeing him. I will also explain to him that when he thought I was talking about her I was actually talking about my bread delivery woman who has nothing to do with all this. I don't want to bore you any longer and being too tired to tell you all the other things which maybe wouldn't bore you to death, I leave you, Madame, and pray that you will accept for M. Straus and for yourself my respectful devotion.

   Your admirer of always and for ever.

Marcel Proust.

   I didn't ask the other day

To the uncivil and snowy haired master
who makes speeches about Chenu

if the ravishing and strikingly accurate portrait by Hervieu had appeared, and had remained anonymous or rather was signed with a false name.

1. Agostinelli's death, 30 May 1914.

XC

Dear Madame Straus

   I am not writing to you, as I have had bronchitis and a very high fever for eight days and I can't even write two words. I have taken a few lines out of a letter from Maupeou¹ which will show you, if you don't know already, how fond of you Bernstein is and how he speaks about you. I have crossed out the parts that I could not remove (because the passage about Bernstein goes over the page) not because of anything secret but because it is of no interest and so that you don't tire yourself needlessly by reading it. You are so well loved that this cannot tell you anything new, but it gives me pleasure to give you this little proof which is so evident and indirect.

   Your respectful friend

Marcel Proust.

1. "Bernstein is staying there and every day he goes to visit your friend Mme Straus who I have never met. He adores her, calling her unique as a friend and as an intellect. He could not live without seeing her!"

XCI

[August 1914.]

Madame,

   Do not think that I am being disinterested in you all. It was Jacques' departure which was preoccupying me the most, primarily because it must be preoccupying you the most. I asked Mme Pierrebourg what he was doing and by her reply (she wrote me that he is attached to the ambulance service) I hope that we can all be a little easier in our minds. Still I would really like to know where the ambulance service is and I daren't write back to Mme Pierrebourg and I am temporarily alone in the house, my valet having been called up and preventing me from sending you word. If the ambulance service is in Paris I think that we can be calm. My brother is a sub-lieutenant but in Verdun, which, alas, is not very reassuring. Mme Pierrebourg told me that you want to return to Paris. For myself I would like to leave it. To begin with I stayed because of my sister-in-law and her daughter, believing that Paris would not be invaded. But since the arrival of England and Belgium on the scene it seems so unlikely that the Germans could get to Paris that I wouldn't feel any great scruples about leaving. In your case I don't know how prudent it would be for you to stay at Trouville. I think it would be. The other day I read that General Vaissière had requested permission to occupy the Santos Dumont observatory at Bénerville. Perhaps that shows (but I know absolutely nothing about it) that German ships could venture around there. And then you are very close to the coast, and highly visible. I think my fears are completely fantastical, but you ought to make enquiries... Pozzi has been absolutely charming to me. It seems to me that I am twice as far away from you than usual and in reality these are the same distances as at other times. But I am calmed, in my great anxiety about everybody, that none of the three of you is in any direct danger.

   Your respectful friend

Marcel Proust.

XCII

[September 1914.]

Madame,

   I have known for a week, through your concierge, that you were at Villa Tibur in Pau, but that you are going to come back. I have had good news about you from Pozzi. As regards Jacques I heard that he has been everywhere and was offering himself up to Saint-Martin hospital. I went to Cabourg and have come back terribly ill, happy to be able to not be alone in not suffering, when all around us people are dying or seeing their people die. I don't know anything about Bernstein and would really like to have some news about him. I am pleased to know that you are well (via Pozzi, who has been kind and delightful to me). Nevertheless I hope to be in a fit state to visit you soon. Life may be short, but how many things will we have lived through, the Dreyfus affair, the war, through the duration of what I cannot permit myself, on my part, to call our friendship but as you might well call it. I have learned afterwards that a gentleman, who came to see me with Mme Greffulhe at Cabourg but didn't leave his name, was Montesquiou. And I thought that perhaps he was with you at Trouville. But no, you must have already been at Pau. Mme Greffulhe has since returned, but I was in no more of a fit state to receive her than the first time when I knew nothing about it. To an evening very soon Madame, I hope, and until then please accept and share with M. Straus my very respectful homage of deep affection.

Marcel Proust.

XCIII

[12 May 1915¹]

Madame,

   This is not a "thank you letter" for the cider, but for the memory of the photograph with the veil, so beautiful, so profound, so essential, so contemporary with your successive looks, in its "eternal moment". It is a snapshot of what is lasting in the person. I own others which I would love to look at with you, other portraits (even with "reins") of " your pure loving and suffering smile"². There is something noticeable: that it is always in very old photographs that a woman looks least young, always with the prolonged Pygmalion-like look for whom at every moment you are the changeable and docile Galathea, and who holds under her enchantment your thoughtful, obedient, melancholic and charmed armies. - We spoke with too little goodwill yesterday evening about one of my friends. I entreat you to absolute discretion, that is to say with no exceptions, the one that you might think could perhaps turn out to be the most dangerous. And make the same entreaty to M. Straus who was the only other person with you when I said all that.

   Your most respectful

Marcel Proust.

1. Date of post mark.

2. cf Chroniques p215 quotation of these lines:

In the wavering of the inclined figure
and in your pure loving and suffering smile (La Maison du Berger, Alfred de Vigny).

XCVI

[Sunday 16 December (?) 1917.]

Dear Madame Straus,

   I have been thinking about you all day, not because of the furniture but because of the snow. I am worried about it making you ill. It is true that your letter has a prettiness and a delicious drollery. But I know full well that that doesn't prove that you are well however. To give a rational sense to Mme d'Harcourt's idiotic phrase, "that simply proves that she is extremely witty". I don't know how to thank you. I found the part about the two English people (does the other one look like his mother too?) marvellous. So if they come back and pay, it is agreed that the sofa and the four armchairs go to them. I am leaving the price of the tapestries as they need to be kept at M. Sibilat's valuation (four or five thousand), and you must tell me how I can show my gratitude to him. I am not inclined to let them go for less than 4,000; that makes 14,000 for the lot, when the English people offered 15,000. But in the end let's not complicate matters over a thousand francs. It is perfect like that. And finally if you really don't want the little green sofa for yourself, which would give me a kind of pleasure akin to "we still feel a thrill when we entwine our fingers", I think that M. Sibilat, if he really wants to, can include it with the tapestries. But he mustn't let it go for less than 1,000 francs! - But how much I would prefer that you were to accept it! What rapture that would be, what gratitude I would feel towards you. I intend to come and see you either tomorrow, Monday (that is to say before the sale, but not to talk about it, my definitive reply is in this letter and there is no point in us going over it again), or maybe Wednesday (which is far more likely). But this evening for example I had absolutely decided to go and hear a marvellous sonata by Liszt by a no less marvellous pianist at the Gautier-Vignal's, and a very interesting organ recital at Mme de Polignac's. But even though the time would be very good for me and people would be coming to see me at one or other of those places, it is impossible for me to get up. So it is by no means certain that that I will come on Wednesday. But you only need to "hold on to the money" until my menacing and imminent visit, because as you see I am going out again a bit at the moment. Thank M. Straus from the bottom of my heart and please accept and share with him this testimony of my respectful gratitude.

Marcel Proust.

XCVII

[Tuesday 18 (?) December 1917.]

Dear Madame Straus

   You are marvellous. And this "epistolary relationship" about "business affairs" which you carry on with me with such stupendous correctness and so much feeling, is just as witty but gives me more pleasure than Voltaire's correspondence. With a style of equal charm, I prefer that which originates from a personality who has always agitated me. Not counting the extraordinary good news that your letters bring me, which Voltaire's do not provide me. I am not really sure about coming on Wednesday tomorrow, because yesterday, Monday, I made the effort to go out very early and it has made me very ill. It is true that having gone out at an hour that would have been convenient to you I would have been able to make the most of it by coming yesterday to dine, or after dinner. But I was worried that you would just think that I wanted to talk about armchairs again, I was worried about tiring you out. I was in a terrible perplexity. I said to myself: I won't get the chance to see Mme Straus at such a normal time again. And the reason for my visit would not be because of the armchairs. But she was going to believe that it really was (and we should have no misunderstandings between us)! Mme Chevigné may have told you that she met me yesterday, Monday, at half past six at the Ritz. And I guarantee you that between seven and nine I was on the point of coming to rue Mirosmenil a hundred times. - I won't have this pneumatique sent until tomorrow morning because of the terrible attacks which I have had just now, nobody comes in to me until very late, so that I had not had your note describing those Hoffmanesque things so hilariously and so prettily until the evening. Also I am afraid of waking you up by sending a pneumatique, or even having this note brought to you this evening. If I am well enough tomorrow, which is possible, I shall come for a very short time in the evening (not to dine in any case). Even then if I see that it is too late by the time I get up, I will postpone my visit for a few days. But if on the other hand I don't get up tomorrow, I will be able to come Thursday evening. But I imagine that I will be too worn out with so much sleeplessness to stay in bed tomorrow (I am boring you to death by talking to you like this about my health. It's something I never do, either in writing or in conversation, and I never "send you my news". But on this occasion it is because of the uncertainty of my visit). In any case whether or not I take the money on the day I come, as I will not be able to transport the little green sofa in my taxi, even if I gave the driver a 50 franc tip, I hope you will give me the enormous pleasure of keeping it for yourself. If you give it me back I will think that it is because you don't like it, and consequently that we do not like the same things, which is already very sad. What's more I don't think that it is "discretion" which is stopping you, since all the great experts have told you that it is worthless. So it combines being pretty to look at, not being worth any money, so that you can accept it without any scruples, and providing me with the great happiness feeling it is in your home, whilst it gives me none at my home. - I regret not having other articles for sale and you an iron strength. Because it would be very amusing (for me at least) to continue with these enchanted sales with you. Thank M. Straus for me once again and share with him the testimony of my deep and very respectful gratitude.

Marcel Proust.

XCVIII

[End of 1917.]

Dear Madame Straus

   I told you that I had a sick friend; she has had an operation. That had the effect of concentrating the occasions on which I went out to those by her bedside, and also of multiplying them, to such an extent that now her condition has improved it is I who am very poorly. With the result also that I have not seen you nor M. Straus, and that we haven't spoken again about the green sofa etc. I am going to write to la Place Clichy after all to ask them to send you the carpet, and I will include with this letter (the one addressed to you) the receipt for the carpet, so that your valet or your concierge can hand it to somebody employed at la Place Clichy, who would not hand over the carpet without it. As for Bon Marché, things are more complicated because I cannot find their receipt. I am going to ask them if they can provide me with a duplicate, which I will send to you. - Finally you told me that M. Straus's nephew will be good enough to have a stack of things taken to the auction house, which are mostly frightful, but which sell well, wardrobes (not silverware?), trunk, large chest of drawers, chairs, amongst which there will perhaps be some pretty things. I am going to have all that brought down into my outhouse, and if one day next week, or the week after, it is convenient to M. Sibilat, he can have them picked up, please advise me what I should do for transport etc. In any case when my sore throat has improved, I shall come and see you, and you can tell me if it is still possible. I am very afraid that these alternations between snow, rain and frost will not be good for your health. As I haven't seen anybody (none of the people who keep telling me that I should pay my respects to you! - because in order to see people it is necessary that my attacks are over before midnight, and that my illnesses are more punctual, more particular, more exact to the minute than the invalid) I have had no news of you since Céleste telephoned you. I forgot to thank you for the rash amount of money that you gave her. She was embarrassed by it, but not as much as I was. As I think about you all the time, I thought about you even more tonight while rereading La Bruyère (contemporary authors are insufferable to me). It occurred to me that there are lines in it which would appeal to you, and which you would know in any case. Do you not find that this portrait sounds like it was written today (I think it was about the husband of Mme de Lafayette who was just called Princess de Clèves in his books): "There is a type of woman who so overshadows or submerges her husband to such an extent that he is never mentioned in society. Is he still alive? Is he dead? He is not owed a dowry from her, but apart from that and that he does not bear children he is the woman and she is the man etc"... and this: "Some women have in the course of their lives a double engagement to support, equally difficult to break and to conceal: one lacks only a contract and the other lacks only love." To read with the state my eyes are in is madness, to copy out is even worse! It's just that it would be amusing to read together, and as we are separated by such distance... My printer has laid off his workers and mislaid (then found) my manuscript, of which I don't have a duplicate, my publisher has left for America. I don't promise you Swann for a long time yet. But we can reread La Bruyère's Charactères.

   Please accept, Madame, and have M. Straus accept my respectful and affectionate thanks.

Marcel Proust.

PS - The receipt to hand over is the one which is numbered 765, that is to say the one which was renewed in 1914. If I am including the one from 1906, which there is no need to give them (no 1723) it is to show the connoisseur who wanted to see them that between 1906 and 1914 they have maintained a minimum price of 1,000 francs, which even if it wasn't the minimum price (as a rule) would have undergone a huge increase in value since the war.

CI

[Beginning of 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   Why did you take the trouble to write to me. I expressly confined myself to sending one of Céleste's household every day, without a letter from me, to ensure that you didn't reply to me. The descriptions they bring back from your house make one think of the Seven Princesses. There is a servant (although in this case male) on every step, and in one bedroom there are four women who spin continuously like in the Odyssey. What can they be doing? Then in the courtyard the chauffeur, this being rather post-Homeric, is always busy cleaning his motorcar. Alas what they tell me about the state of your health is not as good as I would wish. Happily your letter has rectified that a little. Because a "M. Straus is far from better" had very much worried me, because I know how tenacious all cases of influenza are at the moment. Your "Mme Lafarge" really made me laugh. You are too good, as is M. Sibilat. But he would no longer be able to see anything in the coach-house (besides I would never want him to take any such trouble), everything has been brought back up into my house, because my aunt has rented out the coach-house to some Canadians who are hoarding sugar etc. there, all the things which we are short of and they are overflowing with. I have dared to take the trouble to write to you, as all the letters that I have written recently have met with the same response: "Your letter is the greatest offence that anyone has ever paid me in my whole life." I hope that this one won't offend! It is an attempt to express to you my not quite daily, but often daily, anxiety over your precious health, and that of M. Straus, my affection and my very respectful and very deep gratitude.

Marcel Proust.

CII

[31 May 1918.¹]

Dear Madame Straus,

   I am so much more distressed to learn that M. Straus is ill and you are the sick-nurse, since the concierge always replies that you are both well when I have you telephoned for news. I almost believed that you had returned and that you had asked to be left in peace, which is something I understand only too well. The other day I made another supposition. Having had some advice to ask of Bernstein on the subject of literature I had him telephoned. They replied that he was at Deauville. I thought that his Deauville and your supplementary Saint-Germain were perhaps les Mûriers. Alas I see now that all my imaginings were groundless, that you were nurse and not play-acting as so many insufferable people do who only make sacrifices for strangers and who don't look after those near to them who are ill; unfortunately I know that the nursing, on your part, makes you ill. Also I might well have appreciated the deep gratitude which M. Straus feels in also seeing in you an "Angel of the Hearth", and a little "sacred egoism" on your part does not offend me. I imagine that you do things which others would do less well but could still do all the same, and that in this very way you avoid the need to have a sick-nurse afterwards in your turn. Only I know very well that all of this forms an indivisible aspect of your eyes, your hands, your soul, and that we cannot prevent you from having, not the faults of your qualities but the virtues of your charms. One ought to isolate one of you when the other is ill.- ... ²

   I shan't talk to you about current events. Never before had I been conscious of the extent to which I love France. You, who love the roads near Trouville, will understand what the countryside of Amiens, of Rheims, of Laon where I went so often, mean to me. Laon was with Emmanuel Bibesco. He is dead now. And we must love men more than things, and I admire and weep more for the soldiers than for the churches which were only the recording of a heroic gesture which today is re-enacted at every moment. - ...

   I am going to write to M. Sibilat so that you won't need to and also to take the opportunity to thank him again. I haven't told you about my health. It has taken such a serious turn that I wonder how I could ever venture to see you again.
I hope with all my heart that you will soon be up and rested, and M. Straus cured. I kept your location secret. But not everybody else has done the same because the news came back to me from other distant quarters. Instead of the extracts from my book which I want to give to the Figaro, they could publish the details of your whereabouts in the bizarre manner of those "Commentaries from Polybe" which some days are signed: "Joseph Reinach". For a man who doesn't like to waste anything which falls from his pen, the story of your lease could first appear in a newspaper article, then in book form and finally be quoted copiously in his subsequent Commentaries.- ... ²

   I gave the History of the Dreyfus Affair to one of my friends who was leaving for Madrid as secretary of the Embassy there. He writes to me from time to time, 'the task you imposed on me for the holidays interests me deeply. I spend nights reading Reinach.' But because he is very young and because he made Polybe's [Reinach's] acquaintance at the houses of various Duchesses, he is very much surprised to find the names of the same ladies at the foot of the list of subscriptions for the Widow Henry where they ask to have Reinach 'gutted'. Since my friend wants to like Swann, he sees in the change of the attitude of these ladies in regard to Polybe a significant form of the elapsing of time. As for me, I preferred the Reinach they wanted to eviscerate. But I must add that I am happier that he dines comfortably at the Lévys. I am speaking of the Mirepoix. Polybe must have forgotten that they are not the only ones whose name is Lévy.
Adieu, Madame, forgive my gossip. I hope that Jacques at least is well and I send you in deep communion with all the emotions of these days when we are living through the laceration of the land that is so dear to us, my most respectful and grateful regards.

Marcel Proust.

1. Date of postmark.

2. Parts of this letter were translated by Mina Curtiss, Letters of Marcel Proust, Chatto & Windus 1950, letter no 185.

CIII

[About spring 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   What is perhaps the nicest thing in your letters (and God knows all the charm they have) is that one senses that the main reason for writing to me is to try to ensure that I don't come! And I am being totally sincere in telling you that it is nice, because it is so you, and (si licet parva componere magnis¹, as Polybe says) so me, that it appears more amicable to me than if you craved my visit. When Céleste told me "Madame Straus said that Monsieur could call at the end of this week" I rested myself so as to be able to get up at the end of this week, but then I convinced myself that you would write to me to tell me not to come before the end of the next. But I miscalculated. You said the middle. Alas I have accepted a dinner for Wednesday which I will probably only attend after the dinner is over, but which will force me to rest afterwards. So have no worries that I will come and disturb yours for some time. Every time I see M. Straus I promise myself that I will speak to him about the Warburg cheque which I haven't been able to cash since the outbreak of war, at the Comptoir d'Escomte, about which he knows the whole story. But what he doesn't know as I don't think I thought to tell him at the time, is that Raph. Georges Lévy having vainly tried to get the Comptoir d'Escomte to pay out on my cheque, advised me to refer the matter to a solicitor, from whom I have received nothing in any case. But as I quite naturally chose the solicitor at whose practice I spent 15 days when I was studying Law, it turns out that this solicitor, the possessor of my cheque which I have never reclaimed from him, thinking that he would deal with it after the Peace, is M. Brunet, that is to say the council (to say the least!) for Lenoir, Desouches, etc. As soon as I saw his name connected with this affair, some months ago, I wanted to tell M. Straus about the coincidence thinking that it would amuse him. But I always forgot. It is much less amusing for me because if Captain somebody or other found the cheque at Brunet's, he will think that I may well be an accomplice of Bolo. But as I have kept all my Warburg statements he could only believe that for five minutes. In any case it will be tiresome if he has me called. I beg you not to repeat this story as it will get twisted by repetition, and people will end up believing that I am involved in the Bolo affair, because in about 1904 Neuberger advised me to purchase American shares through Warburg. I am embarrassed that you have shown my carpets to Jansen and I beg you not to show them to anybody for a very, very long time from now, until we are both recovered and can dine together: "The cloth on Turkey carpet spread with sundry odds and ends, I think it need not here be said how happy our three friends". Until then don't give it any thought. I have no need of money. I still have almost half of the money from the armchairs, and the Rothschild bank has notified me of my creditor's accounts. It is the only bank where that ever happens, because it is the only honest one. If my carpets could be of any use to you, I will give them to you quite gladly. The money from the armchairs is amply sufficient for me. I am tired on your behalf over what you have had to say and telephone to the "Palais people". I am sure that you are a divine sick-nurse, but what misfortune - for both of you - that you have been obliged to become a sick-nurse. You suffer enough without that. And I am heartbroken to think that M. Straus was so ill. I never have them ask for you yourself on the telephone so as not to disturb you, but the first thing I ask when I get up is what news we have had of you; Céleste sent the chamber-maid from downstairs to telephone when she couldn't go herself. When we see each other you must tell me where this tracheitis came from and the whole story. I am convinced that if you purge yourself and take an enema immediately afterwards, you will have fewer sore throats. I shall try to come one evening when there are no Gothas, as you advise, although I never seem to find myself outside other than on nights when there are Zeppelins, storms etc. The night of the Gothas I had gone to hear Borodin's 2nd quartet at Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld's house. As I was leaving just at the moment when the siren sounded I would have been able to get back very quickly and avoid (that would have been the first time) being out in the street at that moment. But the old chauffeur I had hired could not set off from the rue Murillo for half an hour, and then had a breakdown for half an hour in the avenue Messine, so that not having the patience to wait in the car and standing outside of it, I heard the whole thing perfectly. But the old chauffeur must have been deaf because when we arrived home I told him that if he was worried about going back I could let him sleep in my small drawing-room, he replied: "Oh no! I'm off to Grenelle. It was only a false alarm and nothing at all came over Paris." A bomb exploded in rue d'Athènes five minutes from my house while he was saying this. Goodbye Madame, whatever you do don't reply. Your respectful and grateful,

Marcel Proust.

1. If it is possible to compare the small with the great.

CIV

[Spring 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   My letter was "from the wings". From preference I only have the one that will be yours. If it tires you to sell the carpets now, let's keep them until a more suitable time, but if on the other hand they are in your way sell them, the chances might not necessarily be any better later. I attach no importance to what might be more expensive or less expensive, later or sooner. Besides cheaper and quicker is pretty much the same as a little more expensive. The Romans said: "Qui cito dat, bis dat", those who pay quickly pay twice over. I shan't go so far as to explain this precept to M. Jansen; but in return I have no doubt that it was from him that Polybe was inspired, and just like Marivaux governed by outward appearances, to claim the rent from you in advance. Still in testing the water by paying extra he has broken the agreement after the event, like the Germans with the Russians. Many thanks for transferring the matter to Raphaël George-Lévy (transferred to him with a date of 27 October 1914, the thing itself being from 30 July, I found these details in the absurdly menacing note sent by the solicitor to the Comptoir d'Escomte on 13 November 1914, and which has come to nothing in any case). But I am distressed that you have wearied the chief advocate with all this who is going to take even more of a dislike to me. Let's wait rather until its aftermath is over. I have already waited four years without thinking about it, and right now is probably not the best time. If you still have a fire I think it would be best if you burned this letter which only has one advantage over the "Flute and Flower", that of having been "conveyed". I am, alas, a little more sure of not being able to come to Saint-Germain and I think that this assurance will give you a better night's sleep than a sachet of veronal. If you would like me to send Princesse Murat to see you I am sure she would be delighted. But I don't think you have any need of me for that! Please accept and pass on to M. Straus my very grateful respects.

Marcel Proust.

CV

[Spring 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   I am adding a post-script to my letter. Solicitors, busy people like R.G. Lévy, are always thoughtless people, who use the telephone, typewriters in which they have an absolute but misplaced trust. Don't you think that to ask this of them would be to draw attention to something which clearly cannot cause any serious inconvenience but could cause disruptions for me etc.? Clearly to "draw attention to" is not entirely accurate, because the Comptoir d'Escomte, I suppose, has had to take account of the proceedings, and the solicitor's books on the other hand must contain the details. But in the end isn't it simply renewing attention, and at a bad moment? Even if one only talks to R.G. Lévy and no-one else, he will want his name kept out of it, and could take steps without consulting me, which will make things more complicated. I am deferring you from all these objections by asking you above all not to tire yourself by replying to me. You decide for yourself, just as you did with the carpets! Alas when I tell you that "I don't want to tire you", I realize that I am tiring you and that makes me wretched. The mistake was starting to talk to you about all this in the first place, and appeal to your too great kindness. Take some rest, recover your health.

   Your respectful and grateful

Marcel Proust.

CVI

[Spring 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   You are leaving! That is "the greatest misfortune for the one who stays behind". Absence will not break "the mysterious threads which bind my heart". "Thread" leads me, from one thing to another, to ask you what is to become of the carpets in all this? To take them back would be very inconvenient for me; where could I put them? To leave the inconvenience of them to you breaks my heart. It doesn't enchant me to "let them go" for three thousand francs, as they are worth much more. But that seems to me to be the only practical solution, since you have a buyer, and once you have left you won't be able to look for another one, and I can hardly look for one myself from my bed, not even when I go out at midnight. So the best thing (even though it is against my Own Good) will be to let them go for four thousand francs, to your friend M. J. Donc if that is your opinion, go ahead, to spare me having to make a decision; it is not only your leaving (and above all to see you leaving) it is still being undecided, which is killing me little by little. I am concerned that M. Straus is still unwell. And even more so because as soon as he is unwell you get ill because you take on the role of nurse. Princesse Murat asked me whether you were going to be at home on Sunday. I told her that you were leaving; if you are still going to be here perhaps you could telephone her. I hope that the better air will help M. Straus to recover, and that his recovery is speedy. I may also go so far as to bring you both what I beg you will kindly accept, my most respectful and grateful best wishes.

Marcel Proust.

CVII

[14 or 15 June 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   The day before yesterday I had sent for news of you and M. Straus from rue Miromesnil, and then last night I heard the terrible news.¹ I hesitated to write to you, remembering the death of Hervieu and the precautions that had to be taken before giving you the news. In the end I sent somebody round to your house. Your concierge said that you knew the bad news and that it had not been possible to hide it from you. And my pain was so deep, I who had known Pozzi for ever, who used to see him when he came to dine at the house when I was fifteen years old, who dined out in town for the first time at his house in the place Vendôme (besides you will remember that it was at the house that you met him, and it was I who he had charged with asking if he could come to visit you, at the same time you must have seen him at the Duchesse de Richelieu's - or at the Duchesse de Rivoli's -). Yes, I was saying, if my pain was so deep, it was surpassed by the worry of how much pain such an awful end for such a great friend could cause you. There is no chance of me coming to Saint-Germain; I have been refused all safe conduct, and in any case you would not receive me as my visit would be even more of a fatigue to you. And yet I suffer from being far away from you at such times. In the first moment, even before the sadness, the awful singularity of the event made me think of those ruined towns like Soissons which were the pillars between which the battles unfolded; and in much the same way as after the death of Calmette, an innocent victim and as though mysteriously sacrificed, one sensed the coming of war; it made one wonder whether after the death of Pozzi there wasn't going to be Peace; if they haven't been the twin bloody pillars which bound the start and finish of the war. Alas I am not thinking about these absurd conjectures now, but about his kindness, his intelligence, his talent, his beauty, of everything the veneration of which constantly sustained in me in the old days that I was telling you about, then about my brother who adored and worshipped Pozzi, then above all about those meetings at your house. I am writing a long letter to his son. As for his wife I am hesitating, I don't know to what extent exactly they were separated, never having wanted to ask questions or to hear any gossip about such delicate questions. So I really don't know. Dear Madame Straus, I who am always in your heart in my imagination cannot tell you how much all these blows it suffers upset me. And allow me to say as well that if I find that you are too far away from me at Saint-Germain, I think on the other hand that you are a little bit too close to the Germans; and as you have Trouville, Pau, Biarritz, Monte-Carlo to choose from why don't you go there? Is M. Straus not sufficiently recovered to make the journey? In that case would you like me to install myself at Saint-Germain with him so that you could go to the Midi or Trouville? But I know perfectly well that I could not replace you in any way. How happy I would be all the same in my grief to know that you were a little further away. Please accept my very great and very deeply sorrowful respects.

Marcel Proust.

1. Professor Pozzi was murdered late at night on 13 June 1918.

CVIII

[31 July 1918.¹]

Dear Madame Straus

   I haven't written back to you since the death of poor Pozzi and yet one must talk often about these losses because we are thinking about them all the time. I was intending to go to Cabourg. Your concierge told me that you had left Saint-Germain for Trouville and that you were not considering coming back. So I thought that we would be able to talk face to face about everything that has so abruptly come to pass. The countryside around Trouville it seems to me has no need to forcibly betoken any grossly material happiness, a Maupassant-like gaiety. Nature is supple, it too yields to sadness. I have seen your current dwelling place's birth, growth and seen it become more and more lovely. I see you still in the former Manoir de la Cour Brûlée (how I would love to know the meaning of that name!) of poor Mme Aubernon for whom Pozzi was so good until the last. But all of a sudden Céleste (Albaret's wife) has had to go home and won't be coming back for ten days; I am beginning to think that under the circumstances I will not leave Paris and on the off chance I am writing to you to tell you that I think of you and M. Straus constantly. I would like to be able to give you some snippets of news from Paris, other than what you read in the papers, things which you should be told about (such as the abandonment of the marital home by Mme Arthur Meyer). But I go out so rarely, and even then when I do go out it is usually to dine alone at the restaurant at the Ritz, so that I speak to nobody and have nothing to tell you about, or even those endless observations such as we make between us and which would need a whole book. However I did dine in town three or four times and came across some of your friends from the past who have turned into different people, a Duc de Gramont, huge, venerable and white haired with a much younger woman on the other hand (it is true that she is not the same one; and perhaps it is her extreme youth which has aged him so much), the Castellanes who I persist in thinking of as young people and yet they have sons in the war; Mme de Fitz James devoted to disavowals since she must now renounce Austria, as in days gone by, during the Dreyfus affair she did with Judaism. M. de Gramont told me that he had lost three nephews in the war (one of whom was Princesse Wagram's son who drowned and who discovered, which is a great mercy, a natural son who is going to inherit from him). But nothing is comparable to the sadness of the poor Reszke's. You who know how she raised and cared for her son, you can appreciate how much of a severance it is for her. I hope that the success of our counter-offensive brings you both a little hope. But I really want to know about the state of both of your health, as I wait for the moment when I shall see you again which I have waited for so impatiently. Please accept Madame, and ask M. Straus to accept my deep affection and grateful respects.

Marcel Proust.

   If you ever write back to me you would be doing me a great kindness if you could tell me the name of the servant who looked after my carpets.- Reinach (being kinder in this than Bernstein and Hermant from whom I asked some insignificant favours and who have not even replied to me) wrote me a very affectionate letter. But as the heart has its reasons which one's reason understands, I prefer Bernstein and Hermant all the same. I have been told that Reinach keeps the corrected proofs of all his articles and gives them away as New Year presents. Despite being a less fecund journalist I regret not having had as much foresight. Because I have been asked to produce a book of a collection of my articles. But I don't possess a single one of them, and I don't think that the Figaro has kept them any more. That brings back thoughts of Calmette and through him we come back to Pozzi. Such unhappy chains of memory! The grief that my brother has felt over the death of Pozzi is of such violence that I was taken by surprise at his house. Because of this he writes to me from time to time and always to tell me of his desolation over the death of his unfortunate patron.

1. Date of postmark.

CX

[19 October 1918.¹]

Dear Madame Straus

   There is no need for me to number the pages because I am so ill that I cannot write very much. I am extremely sad to hear that you have had to take to your bed again on your return to Saint-Germain. Doctor Williams had found you well at Deauville, but he probably only concerns himself with the teeth. And M. Straus still sick as well, it is mortifying! As for the Saint-Simon, as far as being recognized, you can't not be for the very reason that you are named. But I don't think that what I say could displease you. If I can get the proofs I will send them to you. Actually I mention a lot of other people but in order to say a lot of not very nice things about them, apart from Montesquiou and Guiche. You bring up one of my scruples when you mentioned Princesse Lucien Murat to me (who always talks to me about you when I see her). This scruple (which I particularly beg you not to mention to her) arises from this. I never write ill of people I know. And of course I haven't written a disobliging word about someone who has always been kind (and more) to me. But I don't feel any obligation towards the other Murats, whose house I have only visited for dinner-parties of 2,000 people, and who I don't know. Now their pretensions are such exact transpositions in our own age of the "foreign princes" of Saint-Simon, who want to "usurp" the dukes that my pastiche has turned out on account of these things and through pure literary necessity as a full-frontal attack against the Murats (only between ourselves I beg you). But I don't feel any remorse about it (apart from on Princesse Joachim's account who has lost a son and a son-in-law in the war and who wrote me a very moving letter). But without whispering a word of my intentions (with regard to the Murats) to Princesse Lucien (Marie) I have realized that she was not totally indifferent to the Murats' situation. So I told her without mentioning the theme (she knows about my intention to write a Saint-Simon pastiche but not that I mention the Murats in it) that I would soon need to have a long talk with her. (I don't know if I told her that the pastiche was the reason). Although I now think that it would be better to avoid the interview. Here's why. You would ask me to suppress my pastiche on you so that my pastiche would survive. On the contrary the pretensions of the Murats recalled on ten occasions, make up the very plot of the pastiche, so that to suppress them would be to destroy it. An interview in which I could give her no satisfaction (satisfaction which I don't owe to her, because nothing is aimed at her) could only end in disaster. So I shall probably do this: in venting Saint-Simon's rage against the Murats I shall add a few friendly words about Princesse Marie (who I find charming anyway and it would only give me pleasure to speak well of her). I think that when she reads them in the book (in any case it will be just a single sentence) she will be pleased. If she isn't and sides with the Murats I will tell her that I thought she wouldn't mind, and if that doesn't suffice I will be the one who won't care at all. But I beg you not a word about the Saint-Simon until then. - I am only telling what I think, but I think about you twenty times a day. And with such tenderness! Please share with M. Straus this token of my most respectful and grateful affection.

Marcel Proust.

1. Date of postmark.

CXI

[11 November 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   We have thought about the war together too much for us not to share a tender word with each other on the night of Victory, happy because of it, melancholy because of those we have loved and who will not see it. What a marvellous allegro presto in this finale after all the slowness at the start and everything which followed after. What dramaturge Destiny, or man who has been its instrument! I would have written to you on the night of the Armistice even if I hadn't anything to ask you. But as it turns out I have a multitude of things to ask you. First of all I would like to disencumber you of my carpets, and also to sell them for diverse reasons of which this is one. Recently my barber told me that his brother needed some carpets, and so that he could have a look at mine, wanting to save you the trouble of writing to me, I had word sent to your concierge asking if it would be possible for them to be viewed. Well the brother of the barber (at least I think that he was the one who the barber sent a few days after Céleste went to see the concierge) said that the carpets did not fit his requirements (in any case he is an imbecile and doesn't even know the names of the different types of carpet) and that they were all moth-eaten. So now I am in even more of a hurry to sell them while they are still all in one piece. Plenty of people who I told that you were being kind enough to look after them wanted to go to see them. Princesse Soutzo wanted to send the Minister for Greece, who it turns out is a great connoisseur; Lucien Daudet wanted to send Flament. But as M. Sibilat specifically wants to have them sold at the Hôtel des Ventes and since on the other hand I have an overflowing dining-room which is a furniture store for mirrored wardrobes, nice leather chairs, chandeliers etc. buried under dust, which I never make use of, but which I could make very good use of right now if I can get a good price for them and which are entirely suitable for the Hôtel des Ventes, the best thing, if M. Sibilat agrees, would be that without delay on the one hand he makes a sale of the carpets, and on the other if he would like to send a lorry and some workmen (you can tell me how much I should give them) to remove them from my dining-room one afternoon which he should fix with me, and as late as possible in the afternoon. I am hoping that the quantity will compensate for the quality, which is mediocre, and the increase in price of certain articles such as leather and crystal would maybe help them to fetch a good price. I have absolutely no idea whether bronzes have any sale value whatsoever. If they do I will clear my room of the ones I don't like. Lastly I have a vast quantity of silverware which I never use since I either take my meals at the Ritz or else I just drink coffee in bed. You tell me whether I ought to include it with all the rest. I know that when I started I wanted to ask you something else which, however purely material, brings us back through some connection to the sublime Peace. But I don't know what momentary blank has formed in my memory while I have been writing to you, but I have completely forgotten what it was. I think that you are no longer in Saint-Germain and I was going to visit you, if I hadn't been brought down with a sort of flu which I don't think is contagious, but because of my uncertainty I preferred not to pass on to you. In any case I don't think that there was the slightest risk there. It is scarcely more than a slight tickly cough. Only I know how susceptible you are to throat infections and also how M. Straus has been ill for such a long time that I would be mortified if I passed a cold on to either of you (without positively suffering from cold and flu myself). I say that I think you are back from Saint-Germain, but I only half wish it. No doubt for you who are such a profound observer and portraitist of the Crowd, these days which evoke the Revolution which we did not know, and the 14th of July, must be fascinating. But however great our happiness over this immense and unexpected victory, we weep so much for the dead that some forms of gaiety are not the forms of celebration which we should prefer. In spite of ourselves we think of Hugo's verse:

Happiness, sweet friend, is a solemn thing.
And joy is closer to tears than laughter...

(I am not sure that it is "sweet friend", it is in the last scene of Hernani.) In any case you know very well that I would not permit myself to say such things to you yourself, I merely quote them to you. Being less timid, Reinach would be able to address them to you. No doubt you recall Mounet-Sully saying them so sweetly to Doña Sol. It is to another poet, Musset, that my haste to receive the money from my carpets, old furniture and silverware makes me turn and necessity which drives me:

My pocket is like a steep and borderless isle,
One would not be able to return to it when one is outside;
 At the merest broken thread the skein unravels,
Deadly temptation and all the more treacherous,
As I had through all times the sacred horror of emptiness
And as after the battle I dream of all my dead.
(Musset, Une Bonne Fortune.)

   To finish on the subject of great writers, you know that you figure in my Saint-Simon, I think that you will be pleased with that part, which I hope moreover to finalize in the proofs. Certain people will be less pleased such as the Princesse Murat, the Duchesse de Montmorency, M. de Fels, the Spanish Infante etc. But you must keep all this secret. It will be enough to receive all the ill feeling afterwards. Beforehand, that will prevent it all.

   Please accept, Madame, for M. Straus and for yourself my highest respects of grateful and ardent affection.

Marcel Proust.

   If the carpets have to be sold separately and not with the dining-room contents (which is not so much a dining-room as a furniture store), the soonest opportunity will be best. Besides, as for the dining-room contents, if it is acceptable to M. Sibilat, he has only to name me the day and I will leave everything ready to be taken off. I have given what was in the bedrooms and the coach-house to refugees.

CXII

[November 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   In your fairy palace of weariness and glory where you are like Sleeping Beauty, there you are, half opening your beautiful eyes and laying the noble melancholy of your beautiful hands on the writing paper which are so much a language in themselves that they seem to affirm Mme de Thèbes - you are now troubling yourself again with me, because I saw one of the people sent by M. Sibilat, M. Mortier about whose visit it will be easier for me to relate to you face to face. In practical terms the result of his visit, where he valued everything which I don't want to sell rather highly, is that he advised me to send away everything ugly, should he find a few pretty things among them but which it is impossible to discern amid the confusion of my dining-room, to the Hôtel des Ventes and to direct them to M. Lair-Dubreuil. As I was speaking about the latter's fees he told me that that did not matter as he would get a certain percentage of the sale. As I am forced to get up on Saturday perhaps they could send me the men with transport on that day, enough men so that they won't have to come until half past two and tell me what I should give them so as they will agree to do everything in one visit should they have to stay until seven o'clock in the evening. And lastly ought somebody accompany them who can account for all the things they take so that everything arrives safely at the Hôtel des Ventes and nothing gets lost on the way. If I sell the nice things next I shall do it without you, because the thought of your fatigue being compounded with mine all becomes torture. Perhaps Saturday is too imminent, in which case we should look for a day the following week or even Monday when I will doubtlessly not be getting up, having got up on the Saturday, but which would be quite suitable. M. Mortier told me that according to M. Sibilat my Smyrna carpet would not be sold for less than a certain sum per metre (I forget the figure but M. Mortier said that it would make close to 4,000 francs for the one carpet). It isn't now, but eighteen years ago the Place Clichy valued it at a minimum of 1,000 francs. In any case let's leave it to M. Lair-Dubreuil. That carpet (and also the Wiltons) is a nuisance to you, and because of that they have become an obsession with me as they are of no use to me if I take them back whereas the money they fetch would be extremely useful to me, and M. Mortier said that I should profit by what is selling well at the moment and not wait.
   You were talking to me about old Persian carpets. I have a very large one here, very beautiful, which my father brought back from Persia when he was there on a mission in 1859. But I will deal with that separately because it is still down and it would be better not to delay so I can get rid of the others.
I still don't have the proofs from the pastiche in which I mention you, and which I could only lend you for one day anyhow. In any case I scarcely mention you (relatively scarcely because I think it takes up one page) but in the appropriate manner I think and in the same manner I often use in society when I am talking about you. Less disabused of vanity where it concerns you than you are yourself, I rather like to dazzle those people of the Harcourt, Boisgelin, young Arenbergs circle etc. who you have never had the occasion to see, by showing them the kings and queens laying siege to your door which you keep closed in order to try to sleep. And I have tried to relate that in the Saint-Simon pastiche by saying that princesses of the blood go to your house without you disturbing yourself by returning their visits (as much as I can remember these lines which were already written quite a long time ago and I don't have a duplicate) that under the pretext of illness turned into privilege you do not see the Dauphine to the door (the Duchesse de Bourgogne) when she comes to see you. None of this is expanded upon of course, you appreciate how little space one has in a pastiche, so much the more as all the artistic reasons force one to give most of it over (because of the space) to names from the seventeenth century. Without that it would not be a Saint-Simon pastiche any more. But as I intend to write some longer pieces about you (and which would be about the essence of your character) it hasn't amused me any the less, by waiting, to let you see yourself in this oblique way, amid this Louis XIV crowd. How I would like you and M. Straus to finally be completely recovered! But I feel as though I myself am on the point of falling ill this evening; and I am so sad, so disheartened that perhaps it is for the best; that prevents me looking for opportunities for sadness; and perhaps I shall resign myself to ignoring the things which cause me pain, by leading a more apparently unhealthy life, in reality more healthy, a life reproached by others, regretted by me, in the past. Please accept, Madame, and pass on to M. Straus my deepest respects.

Marcel Proust.

CXIII

[November 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   I am in despair that you are ill, you have no idea how much I think about you. I assume that you have disconnected your telephone so as not to be disturbed, because Céleste has only had about one answer out of ten. And I don't come so as to leave you in peace. I don't want to bore you to death with the tale of my carpets, we will talk about the triple misunderstanding another time. But if you happen to be in touch with M. Lair-Dubreuil ask him if he would be good enough to sell the carpets and Wiltons at the "best price", as they say in the Stock Exchange, as soon as he can. I know that reading is just as tiring for you as writing. So it is not through curtness, it is out of respect for your rest that I don't tell you of my thousand infinitely tender feelings and grateful respect.

Marcel Proust.

   I have just now received word from M. Sibilat who doesn't reply to my letter but asks me on which day he can come and see me at half past two. I am going to reply that that is an hour when it is very difficult for me to receive visitors myself. I would be able to manage the days when he almost certainly couldn't. But now I am going to rest for a few days. I'll write to him again after then. Perhaps also without disturbing him I could have it done by somebody else, if less well. - What I want is for you to be finally well again. What sadness it is to feel the whole time the suffering of one who one loves like oneself, but I should say more than that as I hardly love myself. I know that it is no consolation for you in your woes when I tell you that I am suffering too on my side. My health is rather less bad, but I have embarked upon sentimental affairs without issue, without joy, and the perpetual authors of weariness, suffering and absurd expense. - I hope that M. Straus is feeling better. Perhaps even you yourself are well at the time of writing. But I end up asking myself whether "being well" is something that can never happen to the people who deserve it.

CXIV

[13 November 1918.]

Dear Madame

   What a beautiful letter! But it makes me suffer when I think about the effort it takes you to write the words and gather your thoughts. Thank you a thousand times over for the auctioneer. As regards M. Sibilat I am going to write him that they can come to see my shabby dusty mess of a dining-room on Saturday after three o'clock in the afternoon. I went out a little while ago and came home very ill, which makes me think that on Thursday or Friday it will be essential that I take my fumigations. I don't want to say that I shall be up on Saturday, but Céleste can easily show around whoever comes, and he will be doing me a great kindness if he doesn't tell her the valuations, especially if they are low. I will explain why. -

........¹

   Your evocation of Shakespeare in relation to the present tragedy is so profound and is so imbued with a great literary tradition that it immediately brings to mind Sainte-Beuve's calling your father the greatest scholar of his time and this scholar's having been permanent secretary of the Institute. Only in plays of Shakespeare does one see all the events culminating in a single scene: Wilhelm II: 'I abdicate.' The King of Bavaria: 'I am the heir of the most ancient race in the world, I abdicate.' The Crown Prince cries out, signs his abdication, his soldiers assassinate him. One must not recriminate against Destiny, particularly when the delayed action of clockwork, which had seemed motionless for four years, gives us this final shower of triumphs. Still I, who am so much the friend of peace because I experience man's suffering too deeply, I believe, just the same, that since we wanted a total victory and a hard peace, it would have been better had it been a little harder.
   I prefer, among all the different kinds of peace, those which leave no bitterness in anyone's heart. But since we are not dealing with that kind of peace, since it will perpetuate the desire for revenge, it might then have been wise to make it impossible. Perhaps it is being done. However, I find President Wilson pretty gentle, and since there is no question of a conciliatory peace, and never could have been, through Germany's own fault, I should have liked more rigorous terms; I am a little afraid of German Austria's coming to fill out Germany as a compensation for the possible loss of Alsace-Lorraine. But these are only suppositions and perhaps I am mistaken, and we already have a lot to be thankful for as things stand. General Gallifet said of General Roget: 'He talks well, but he talks too much.' President Wilson doesn't talk very well, but he talks a great deal too much; there are times in the lives of nations, as in the lives of men (I have, alas, had occasion to apply this to myself), when the right motto is de Vigny's verse: 'Only silence is great, all else is weakness.' You know that is in 'The Death of the Wolf', and you remember all those bloody and stoical verses. But I myself have now been too long unfaithful to the law of silence, which must also be your doctor's prescription, and I must have tired you. So I bid you adieu, begging you to accept and to share with M. Straus my expressions of respectful, grateful, and ardent devotion.

Marcel Proust.

1. The last part of this letter was translated by Mina Curtiss, Letters of Marcel Proust, Chatto & Windus 1950, letter no 188.

CXV

[about November 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   How good and delightful you are to have arranged everything so well! The end of the nightmare of the carpets is a deliverance for me because I know it is just as much for you. And I might add that I am far from indifferent to the three thousand francs! The sale was carried out perfectly I think (like everything you do) and fills me with gratitude and satisfaction. I don't want to tire you by writing at length, and in any case I will be prevented from doing so, because Céleste, who really is a bit foolish (she had three thousand things to ask of you on my behalf the other day - not three thousand francs! - and forgot them all!) has left me this evening with an almost dry ink-stand and I don't know where to find the ink. However I would like to say a few words about the Pastiches. I am going to soften, since you tell me that it would displease you to be portrayed as a haughty Vasthi. I am going to ask for especial proofs of my toned down version and I will submit them to you. Only then, because of the unheard of difficulties which I am having with the printers, I will not be able to do more than ask you one thing: accept the passage as it is or refuse the whole thing. I don't believe I will be able to redo the corrections. In any case you would have the proofs, if possible I will change it again, if that is impossible and you are not pleased with the toned down version, I can always cut out that passage. These are the difficulties with the printers because at the same time as they are working on the second volume of Swann I give them a volume of pastiches instead of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth volumes of Swann all ready to go. As nearly all their workers had been mobilized, the Nouvelle Revue Française (my publisher) has engaged two printers for me, and has left the series of Swanns the same. But all this is far too boring. Tell M. Straus that I have freed him from the drudgery of my cheque as that from the carpets was quite enough! You may remember perhaps that he had agreed to take it back to the Palais again for me, from the hands of my solicitor. I had it taken back by Céleste quite simply, and it was done in the wink of an eye. I dined with eighteen people this evening which will explain to you my abruptness to some extent. As soon as I have the proofs I will send them to you and until then please share with M. Straus the expression of all my gratitude and my most lively and respectful affection.

Marcel Proust.

CXVI

[November - December 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   I am writing you a couple of lines in the middle of a terrible asthma attack to ask you if this toned down version, which I've had Céleste copy out, can go ahead. Unfortunately I am obliged to return the proofs immediately, the correction of which was delayed by a bad laryngitis which I have had, and I am distressed to ask you once again to go to the trouble of replying to me. But you have only to send me back the text with these words (which you could get your valet to write) "can go ahead" (at least I hope that's the judgement you will come to). I would prefer you not to tell Montesquiou beforehand that I mention him, because even though it is (intended to be) more than kindly he will come to enquire about it etc. if he's in Paris and I am already so tired. Please accept and share with M. Straus my lively and affectionate respects and gratitude.

Marcel Proust.

CXVII

Saturday [November-December 1918.]

Dear Madame Straus

   Thank you with all my heart for your authorization. It gives me such great pleasure to put that passage in my pastiches, which from another point of view bore me so much because of the purely literary necessity which forces me to speak ill of the Murats, the Fels, the Cambacérès, the Duchesse de Montmorency etc. At least about you I only say a few things... that are quite inadequate (the exact passage which Céleste copied out word for word). The pleasure which your letter gave me was marred, a few hours later, by a vexation which you will appreciate. Without warning me my aunt has sold the house where I live; as I have no lease the new landlord might eject me, and in any case because of a verbal agreement with my aunt, which she has neglected to inform him of, whereby I haven't had to pay my rent since 1916 until I could cash my cheque for 30,000 francs, any day now I am going to have to pay all my arrears to the new landlord, at least twenty thousand francs in one go, which at the moment is readily available! I am immediately setting about proceeding with the sale of more furniture, but this time, don't worry, I won't trouble you, I have sent my tapestries, my large  armchair etc. to my friend's house, M. Walter Berry, who is the president of the American Chamber of Commerce, and who is going to take care of the sale, just as he takes care of all my troubles and everything which exhausts me and which multiply on every side, with his untiring goodness. What makes it even more kind of him is that I only got to know him through "Swann", that is to say not very long ago. The only thing which I might ask of M. Straus is this: I have had my infamous cheque recovered myself so as not to trouble him, and I have had it re-endorsed in my name by M. Raphaël Georges Lévy. M. Straus told me that the simplest means of cashing it would probably be through the Rothschild bank. Perhaps, thanks to him (or to Guiche if it is a nuisance for M. Straus, although I think that Guiche might have too little authority to do it) they would consent to discount it (I use the word even though I don't know exactly what it means, probably that they buy it at less than its value). Its value is 30,000 francs plus five year's interest (because the reason that the Comptoir d'Escompte haven't paid R. G. Lévy is that it doesn't have the stock). Consequently the delay is the fault of Warburg who sent the cheque without depositing the money (which I think makes it close to 40,000 francs). You would be doing me a great kindness if you don't speak ill of my aunt who has acted very badly, but initially towards whom I feel some remorse for having been impolite. Then as I learned that she had made reductions for the other tenants because of the war, which she had not done for me, there is still a chance (although very improbable) that she will ask the new landlord not to demand more from me than she did from the other tenants (apart from Williams who I don't think she had made any reductions for), this chance will evaporate if she discovers friends who I care for as much as you are speaking badly about her... I have just received from her in response to a letter in which I asked her if it was really true etc. a "masterpiece" of a reply in which she tells me that she prefers the "sweet name of aunt to that of landlady" and that if my health were improved and we could get to see each other again, her decision would be the better in that we would talk about nothing but literature and not mention the house! - This makes me think that I only ever talk to you about the most boring things! Whatever you do don't reply. I have only told you all this to give you some idea of my terrible worries, at a time when, delayed in my work by laryngitis, I receive entreaties from my publish to hurry up. But none of this makes work easy! Please accept, Madame, and share with M. Straus my most affectionate, grateful and fervent respects.

Marcel Proust.

CXVIII

8 bis, rue Laurent-Pichat
[11 July 1919.¹]

Dear Madame Straus

   Your delightful letter distressed me at first and especially because you tell me about the state of your health. And then what do you mean by "toned down". I haven't changed a single comma in the portrait I did of you and which was sent to you. Perhaps in the page which follows it I might have brought forward a little so that it is in the middle of yours, the one about Mme Standish, but that was to show the elegance of your circle to better advantage. One thing that you said makes me think that you are alluding to "at the end of the meal etc.²" So not only is that identical to what I sent you (or else in that case I copied the section that I had finished inexactly, but in any case the good version was the one that was printed), but do you not know that "in the end" in Saint-Simon does not have the literal sense but means: "it soon happened that". Also in the portrait of the Infante: "In the end he endured the distaste for it etc." Now I don't think that the Infante was more than twenty nine or thirty years old at the time, and it was already some years previously that he endured this "distaste". I took it upon myself to speak about your health in order to show that you make a pretext of it by letting the Duchesse de Bourgogne come without showing her out etc. There is no toning down. It was you who initially wanted it toned down, before I submitted the text to you. The text which I sent you a few months ago was therefore a toned down text, but it was identical (apart from any errors in the copying) to the text as it was printed. Please accept, Madame, and ask M. Straus to  accept, my very grateful and very ardent respects and affection.

Marcel Proust.

1. Date of postmark.

2. Pastiches et mélanges
"Montesquiou... Having spent his youth amongst the highest society, his mature years amongst poets, was as easily comfortable with both, he feared nobody and lived in a solitude which he made more and more austere by every old friend whom he banished. He was close to those such as Mme Straus, daughter and widow of the famous musicians Halévy and Bizet, wife of Emile Straus, barrister to the court of Charitable works, whose wonderful rejoinders were remembered by all. Her appearance had remained charming and would have been sufficient even without her wit to win over all those who flocked around her. Is was she who on one occasion in the chapel at Versailles, where she kept her hassock, when M. de Noyon whose language was always so exaggerated and so far removed from the everyday asked her if she did not think that the music which they could hear appeared octagonal, replied to him: "My dear Sir, that's just what I was going to say!" as if to somebody who had pronounced before everybody something that naturally came to mind.
It would take a whole book if one were to put down everything said by her and which deserves not to be forgotten. Her health had always been delicate. She had profited by this early on by excusing herself from the Marlys, the Meudons, not making her court with the king but very rarely, where she was always received alone and with great esteem. The fruits and waters which she took at all times to a surprising extent, with no liqueurs or chocolate, had flooded her stomach, which Fagon preferred not to notice since it was abating. He denounced all those who gave out remedies or who had not been received into the Faculty as charlatans and because of this he dismissed a Swiss who would have been able to cure her. In the end, as her stomach was unused to rich food, her body unused to sleep and long walks she turned this weariness into a distinction. Mme the Duchess de Bourgogne was coming to visit her and did not want to be escorted any further than the first room. She received Duchesses, sitting down, who visited her all the same as it was such a delight to listen to her. Montesquiou was not sparing with his."

CXIX

[25 December 1919.]
44, rue Hamelin

Madame,

   I haven't had the strength to write letters, I have been dictating; this has been much more agreeable for the recipients because since I have not been able to write they have been able to read me. But after dictating several letters I found yours and then another; I said to myself: it is too boorish not to reply "by hand". So if I am illegible do not reproach me, it is through scruple and predilection. But I hope my scruples abate. Because there are eight hundred letters more that I haven't replied to; I certainly have no intention of writing myself. You say that your typewriter is out of order, but even that is so prettily expressed that it proves that it is not out of order at all. I would really like to see you, to see you, to find out how one is able to express oneself so well, what treatment you are undergoing, if you are able to sleep without Veronal when I take a gramme and a half every day and don't sleep. Sadly on the rare days when I am able to get up it is not until eleven o'clock at night, and no doubt your treatment forces you to go to bed before nine. This alternation in our lives, when mine has aspired for them to coincide for so long, is frightful. I would very much like M. Straus to tell me when I should sell my Royal Dutch and Mexican Eagle. When I sold my seventy Royal Dutch in 1913 I kept about four of them, I don't know why. However it happens that those four have become eleven due to successive sets of issues and each one is worth 33,000 francs. If they are going to tumble it would be best to "take the profits", but above all don't write to me just for that. It seems to me that one can hold on to those which are going up so much without any risk. If you see Ganderax would you be good enough to tell him that his remembrance touched me deeply but as I have no idea of his address I can't write to thank him?

   I have given up every scrap of my strength to you since eight o'clock, and I am wondering if I will be able to hold out as far as the signature. Please accept my respects, share them with M. Straus and pass on to Jacques my good wishes.

Marcel Proust.

CXX

44, rue Hamelin
(address confidential) [1920.]

Dear Madame Straus

   Alas you have been so ill and I never suspected anything! Perhaps my body, so mysteriously connected with yours ("and we are once again bound together one with the other" even though we have never slept together, nor even at the same hours, and for my part I hardly ever sleep at all) knew, because a 40 degree fever which retrospectively I find quite insufficient followed without my knowing of your terrible 41. I only thought that you were going to be bled, and that afterwards you would want some peace, that my visits and my letters would deprive you of that, moreover I have had one hour of vitality in fifteen (now I understand what you mean when you say "living death"). During the recent awful months, as a consequence of the upheaval of moving house, only one single thing could add to the excessive horror and that would be to know that you are suffering. And through your letter I learn that you are suffering. What a blessing it would be if you were cured! What a blessing too when you allow me to come and sing alleluia beside you. You have no idea how much you mean to me. My closest friends know. Pierre de Polignac, a charming fellow, said to me when he became engaged to the Prince of Monaco's grand-daughter: "I may perhaps also know she who kept her hassock in Versailles and replied so prettily to M. de Noyon." At first I didn't understand that he was referring to you, having forgotten my pastiches which my friends know better than I do. They will also discover words of yours in Le Côté de Guermantes which made them laugh so much when I recounted them to them and which I have the Duchesse de Guermantes say (whose red shoes you will not see until the second volume), without mentioning your name since you asked me not to put your name into my novels and save it for pastiches and present and future articles. But everybody knows the sayings and will put a name to them. What is troubling me about Le Côté de Guermantes is that it has such an anti-Dreyfusard appearance, purely by chance, simply because of the characters who feature in it. It is true that the next volume is extremely Dreyfusard which will compensate for that, because the Prince and Princesse de Guermantes are Dreyfusards as is Swann, whereas the Duke and Duchesse are not. I'm talking about myself so naïvely to you. But I am frightened of irritating you by talking to you about yourself. Tell M. Straus who has always been so good to me in my troubles that I am still no further on with my cheque, but that I have discovered twelve Royal Dutch which I didn't know about and which has allowed Céleste some very ugly feathers in her hat. More than anything tell me when I can come and please share with M. Straus my very grateful respects.

Your Marcel.

CXXII

[before 23 October 1920.¹]

Dear Madame Straus

   A 40 degree fever (which is not contagious) doesn't make writing very easy. But I wanted to send you my book before it appears and I didn't want to send it with no explanation (don't give it away because it is a very rare edition despite the arbitrary number of the copy). Everything in it that's witty comes from you. You didn't allow me to put your name to the "sayings" because it was a novel. I shall take my revenge in the second pastiche because you are more tolerant of that "genre". Above all don't think that I have become anti-Dreyfusard. I write under the dictates of my characters and as it turns out in this volume many of them are (and were already in 1913, because some short extracts from the book were published then in La Nouvelle Revue Française). Since, to some extent in the following volume, and much more in the one that follows that, my anti-Dreyfusards have become Dreyfusards, and others who we think are anti-Dreyfusards are madly Dreyfusard the equilibrium will be re-established. All this is to show you that when I am finally re-established (?) you will find me unchanged. I recommend a delightful article by Léon Daudet which appeared about ten days ago in L'Action Française: A new novel by Marcel Proust. Apart from an unjust phrase relating to Hervieu, which upset me, it will amuse you very much. If you see Montesquiou, who I have also sent my book, please tell him that I have had a 40 degree fever for the past ten days like the King of Greece, and by it actually attacking somebody who lives like the mayor of Cork it could give the impression that I have abandoned him, while being loyalty itself. Please, my dear Madame Straus, share with M. Straus my ardent affection and grateful thanks.

Marcel Proust.

1. Madame Straus's reply was dated 23 October 1920.

CXXIII

[1921.]

Dear Madame Straus

   I am positively incapable of writing. But have you read Léon Daudet's article (which is a masterpiece) about Carmen in L'Action Française? If you have don't reply. If not I will send you it. If you want to write a note to Léon Daudet he is staying at 31, rue Saint-Guillaume. Share all my respects and gratitude with M. Straus.

Your adoring admirer.

Marcel Proust.

CXXIV

[after 15 June 1921.¹]

Dear Madame Straus

   I am very late sending you this little note from Léon Daudet to whom I passed on your letter. Read it if you can, he writes wonderfully but totally illegibly. "Gracious" shows that I sought and succeeded in giving him pleasure by sending him your charming lines. The terrible state of my health has been the only thing which has prevented me from sending you my friend's respects sooner.

   Please share my grateful respects with M. Straus and accept my tender admiration.

Marcel Proust.

1. Léon Daudet's letter which was enclosed with Marcel Proust's is dated 15 June 1921.

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Revised and updated 31.03.20