[June 1919]
Dear Sir,
A thousand thanks for your kind letter and the two hundred francs that you sent me on behalf of the Nouvelle Revue Française. Until I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance please accept my most honoured affection.
Marcel Proust.
Please could you tell Gaston Gallimard that I will write to him in the next day or two, and that my silence is simply the result of the illness caused by my moving house, that I have tried to live in total isolation since, and I have not even been able to get my window closed. Also (but I'm starting to think that this letter I started for you has turned into a letter to Gallimard) tell him that if I don't give out my address so as to avoid fatigue, I do not wish to keep it from him and count on his discretion in not revealing it to any of my friends. While waiting to find an apartment that would suit me I have rented from Madame Réjane, and am "in her furnished accommodation" (while my belongings are in a furniture store), 8bis Laurent Pichat. But it is in the avenue Bois, so it is too far away to dare hope for an evening visit from Gaston. I am particularly anxious that he does not give out my address because my suffering over the last 8 days in my new lodgings have been such that I have not even had the strength to write to my brother where I was living! He would have every right to be hurt if he found out by indirect means.
P.S. This letter written four days ago had not been sent due to a misunderstanding. Please excuse my lateness. In the interval the first week of June has been and gone without my books appearing. I beg you to tell Gaston Gallimard and Jacques Rivière the offence that that causes me. After so much delay I despair of anybody making yet another pilgrimage to rue Madame to get them. At the very least I had begged not to have them advertised at all other than for the date when they are certain of having them. Well that date has passed and they haven't appeared, otherwise I would have received them. It is one of the [illegible] for me.
1. Jean Gustave Tronche was administrative director of La Nouvelle Revue Française from 1912 to 1922.
[24 - 28 June 1919]
[...] you ask me who the critics are to whom I want to send dedications so as to avoid any doubling up [...] [He has already sent the three volumes] on the one hand to Robert de Flers, the editor of Le Figaro, and to Léon Bailby, editor of L'Intransigeant. [...] I don't know the name of the "Young Review" where M. Jean Giraudeaux is a critic but I know he intends to talk about my book. [...] I don't know which paper M. Jules-Elie Bois writes for but he wrote a long article in Le Temps when Swann first came out. [He proposes to buy the books from a book-shop to send signed copies to critics] As for the N.R.F. it goes without saying that you are going to receive copies of my book, one for you, one for Gaston Gallimard, one for André Gide, one for Mme Lemarié, one for M. Fargue, one for M. Ghéon. I'll send the one for M. Jacques Rivière to his home address. [...]
Marcel Proust.
[8 July 1919]
Dear Sir,
Before replying to all the questions you put to me, I
would like to thank you for that last sentence in which you wish only to be a
reader of my book, but a stranger to its diffusion. Being so fond of you I have
often wished for the same thing myself. And that our relationship, which has
been nothing other than epistolatory up until now, were purified of all
extra-literary considerations that we can neglect. But I will
scrupulously and jealously preserve my friendship.
You are completely in error as regards the first three thousand and the price
increase.
In fact when Gaston Gallimard drew up the two contracts at the
same time , he
knew very well that I was keeping back À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs,
which was quite ready, until the day Pastiches et Mélanges would be
ready in its turn. I found the first too dull (I was mistaken as the admirers of
Swann prefer À l'ombre) and the second too slight not to hold
out for their simultaneous appearance. Gaston knew this, wrote the contract
himself (he remembered from when we spoke about it) with a proportionality of
increasing payments.
But where you are correct, is that he could not know, and certainly did not
know, that I was holding out for the simultaneous appearance of the reprint of
Swann.
This is why he did not know.
The N.R.F. had hidden it from me that they had run out of Swann. So
I hadn't requested a reprint till the day I learned that a single copy was being
passed from hand to hand (between up to fifteen different persons), as this kind
of lending library was causing considerable material damage to me as much as it
was to the N.R.F., I asked for a reprint of Swann which was promised in
three weeks and wasn't ready in July.
So putting all this in the terms most favourable to our theory, there are at
least two volumes from which I should receive from the outset the first three
thousand. But I understand only too well that a complex and busy
"institution" such as yours may not want at any given time the sort of
difficulties that were predicted in a contract and I am not insisting on another one. It is only the first thousand that I should receive to start with.
So if I return your cheque to you it is simply on account of the
price increase.
Not only is it not a question of the pre-war, in
the words of Valette and in those of Gaston, editions, but the very fact of the
price increase (as well as the words from which we make all our authors profit) makes
any discussion about that impossible. It is only too apparent that to allow authors
to make any profits from price increases the price must be negotiated, and so it
was, precisely because of the increase in the net cost. A cost that in any case
had to be lesser for my books because by foreseeing my notion of having them all
published together Gaston had purchased formidable stocks of paper in
anticipation. In terms of the Mercure I hasten to add that having read
in their last issue that they are increasing the price of their books by 100%, I
don't know if they are extending to their authors participation in such a
considerable negotiation. I haven't seen Valette since then and in any case we
are not talking about the Mercure.
I share your opinion completely where you fear that the increase in price
could deal a heavy blow to the sales of my books, but this blow is already dealt
because of the fact that the booksellers (I have a letter from Bibesco... on
this very subject) are charging twenty francs for first editions. It must be
added that such a high price is not demanded by all of them. When I had some
bought for myself (for the critics), they were charging me 12.50 and 14.50,
under the pretext that you don't sell them to the book-shops for less than ten
to twelve francs. I am convinced that that is not true, because in a word,
clearly, being myself a member of the N.R.F. brotherhood, I believe in it and in
its most absolute loyalty. The very fact that I am due a part of the increase is
proof. Because if your word to you all were not for me the
the gospel truth, what good would it serve me by sharing in the
increase.
It would be very easy for you to do what one of my editors did who at the
sixteenth edition announced the sixth. Besides it acts against his interest as
much as mine, depriving himself of the flight that the very number of editions
give to the work whose wings he has clipped, and me of business.
But what affinity is there between a pure phalanx of artists such as yours
and this in any case dishonest tradesman.
Have you read in Monday yesterday's Figaro (first
page "A Literary Reappearance") an article about my books. I am pointing it out to you (even though
it displeases me on certain points, my health is my own business, at most I can
plead it as an all too valuable excuse for a late reply to friends like Gaston,
or "unknown friends" such as yourself.
But I don't like people advertising weaknesses (on the first page of the
Figaro) because it concerns the fine typography that you have used for
these books. So since there is an article by M. Montfort(?) in the same issue
against the seven franc book, it may be useful to you if such be the case, to
take note of the article when it comes to your books, which are treated as luxury books. In any case if Bailly returns to Paris in the next few days as I
believe, I will point out to him the stupidity of the Intansigeant's
campaign.
I am returning your list of critics. I've crossed out all the ones I have
sent to or am going to send to. Besides I do it for the critics none of whom
mention me but who seem most important to me for the book.
So it was that Du côté de chez Swann was mentioned, before it ever
was in France, in a long article by Madame Duclaux, in The Times. I am
going to send her the three volumes. I sent three to Robert Dreyfus and I was
not wrong because it was certainly he who did the article in Le Figaro.
As for Vandérem I have been telling him for months and months that I will let
him know when I can see him. But when my book came out I tore up the letter I
had started so that he wouldn't think that my friendliness was an appeal to the
critic. For the same reason (since you tell me that he is due to write an
article) I shan't send him any signed copies until afterwards.
Tomorrow I hope to have somebody to bring copies to the N.R.F. for you, for
Gaston, for Gide, for M. Ghéon. I don't know M. Thibaudet (who I admire
enormously as a critic). So it will be better if you do him the service with no
dedication. It seems to me that I have a thousand more things to tell you but I
am too tired and too tiring. Don't think your letters are dry. You put very
little of youself into them but enough for one to wish for more.
Your most devoted,
Marcel Proust
[c. 15 July 1919]
Dear Sir,
Not having had any reply from you (which is far from a reproach! I fully understand that you have other things to do than write to me and I myself am physically incapable of correspondence) I am returning the cheque that I would have cashed if even only representing the first thousand, it had included the proportionality of the markup but it is not there. I could have a thousand things (that I don't know much about) to say to you on the question of the 1st editions. It turned out that on the first day of going on sale Walter Berry requested another 1st edition from Flourey's, they didn't have one to give him and since then he's had countless requests that he hasn't been able to satisfy, the same thing for Emile Paul who had an order for one from Jacques Blanche. - What do you say about "the Vandérem" that you were kind enough to give me notice of, and supposing it to be a bouquet of flowers, it changed its character so completely that the Revue de Paris has poured a cartload of excrement over me. The funny thing is that this same Vandérem was writing to me a few months ago in precisely the same terms that he is now happy to add a negative to. Vandérem's letter was in no way unpleasant and I must say was one of the warmest letters I received. But it was the other way round in the article: "Swann is everything that I like, you knew how to put Everything in it" etc. Cf. Revue de Paris "Swann is the opposite of everything I like" etc. I hope that this avalanche of dejections only momentarily retards what Goncourt called "the forward march of my books". In any case I have taken it all philosophically and await what can't be the only one. As your letters are virtually the only ones I reply to, I am offending a lot of people. Besides we must take account of those who, without the excuse of bruised pride, share my opinion of Swann, that is to say who don't like it. I can't make them want to any more than I want to myself. Believe, dear sir, in my feelings of grateful friendship and devotion.
Marcel Proust.
[16 - 17 December 1919]
Dear Sir,
Please excuse me, suffering as I am today, for writing to you, not on writing paper, but on the paper I use to light my powders. It is four o'clock in the morning, I haven't any writing paper by me, and I don't want to make anybody get up. I can't tell you how very touched I am by what you said to me and I can't thank you strongly enough. As regards the current edition, I see that I have forgotten several errata (the most important ones because if we had to note them all down it would fill a whole volume) but I don't think it is too late. As I haven't put in the ones that I have already drawn to your attention in the order they need to go (I need to say that for example I was able to draw your attention to an errata on p. 198) it should be quite simple to insert the following:
p. 168 thirteenth line read su instead of pu
fourteenth line read pourrions instead of saurions
p. 171 fifteenth line read images instead of usages
page 253 line 5 des chambres instead of chambres
line 10 after the word souvenir add the word comme (to give comme caractéristiques)
p. 298 line 36 éblouie instead of ébloui
p. 443 line 4 comma before me disait, line 5 comma after Albertine.
Thank you once again from the bottom of my heart Monsieur and accept my most cordial affection.
Marcel Proust.
[c. 1919]
My dear friend,
A thousand thanks for your little note (I think you are not receiving mine because you never reply to them). I fear that you will think me very boastful if I am not of the same opinion as you about the article in The Times. [...] this is my opinion [...] but need I tell you that it is quite by chance, and that I have done nothing to elicit these articles. I don't even know who they are by. I only know that they are not by Madame Duclaux who had written so well about Swann itself five years ago. But on this occasion I haven't sent her the books in time and when she asked me if she could write about À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, the editor told her that an article was appearing on the same day, by someone else, and that he was sorry about that. But if the article gave you some pleasure, I am a thousand times happier for that than any pleasure it gave me. I really hope that these publications give you a little bit of pleasure, as compensation for so many vexations. [...] what is happening about our "De luxes"? When would you like to come to dine [...] to chat [...]
Marcel Proust.
[c. 1919-1921]
Dear friend,
A boring little note and that will be everything. You told me the other evening (on the subject of the 500F) that you did not understand me. But really (at least on certain points) I understand you very well. And you are the most "generous" man I know. I know perfectly well that my little honorary titles (had they been as they should be that is to say more heroic) gave you no pleasure. But (don't be angry about this) I'm not trying to give you pleasure but to do what I must. It was also through the consciousness that I was being disagreeable to you that I retreated on this point. Do not force me, still ill as I am, into a Socratic proof and take the 500F and above all don't mention it to me again.
I will be at home (in bed) this Friday evening, if you want to come and finish things off. Odilon will collect you up and bring you back. I will not offer you any other honorary titles, but the acceptance of my self-imposed exile is the condition sine qua non that I let you come.
Your grateful friend
Marcel Proust.
Herewith enclosed 500F.
12 January 1920
Dear friend,
Please excuse my dictating1 this post-scriptum to my long letter of this morning due to the state of my health. For some months I have wanted to tell you that I am in urgent need of ten copies (at least) of first editions of Guermantes, Bergson etc. (my aphonia prevents me from explaining) they are not the original Editions. I am in a great hurry.
For the record the number of ordinary editions to which our agreement gives me the rights (but this is of no importance), I have puchased as and when I needed them. Have you read the unbelievable preface by Jaques Blanche in his book "Dates". I have lost my voice so badly that my friend who is writing under my dictation can no longer hear me. So I eave you with an affectionate shake of the hand.
Marcel Proust.
1. Letter written by Henri Rochat.
9 April 1920
[...] [He deplores it] that they have had the proofs of Guermantes typewritten. First reason: every time I've sent a printed manuscript to your printer which he only has to copy, he has amused himself by changing the words, or else he has allowed himself to do so through negligence. I don't know if I already knew you at the time of the last proofs for Jeunes filles en fleurs, where on pages without a single correction by me, he replaced the word slimy with viscous etc. [...] The same thing with the first Guermantes. - In revenge, every time he had an excessively corrected text, probably being in a fit of zeal he put in, for an illegible word, the correct word, whereas for a printed word, which he had only to read as one would read the newspaper, he put in a different word, skipped lines etc. I discover that this time it is diabolical. [...] Second reason: the typescript (which I'm still waiting for the next one by the way) of Sodome et Gomorrhe, is very bad. Third reason: if it is the case that I have to reread, while it has been very easy and quick for me to reread the proofs, to reread the typescript with the state of my eyes will be very difficult. Then again if it is not the case that I have to reread, or if I have to reread from the proofs (which I prefer), those proofs will be so much more delayed than they are now if they are printed rather than typed. So I have resigned myself to this sole truncated volume so that you will be able, profiting from the petty fashion for disputed prices, to put it on sale before the summer. Otherwise what would be the use of splitting it up? [...] [He understands that two passages missed out from the typescript] about the telephone and about a hail of punches [could easily be reinstated. He then broaches the question of income tax] Would it be in my interest to include my profits from Jeunes filles in my income for 1919 (which I would already have had to declare), or my income for 1920. I am not misrepresenting myself in any way to the State to my knowledge, but perhaps the latter will involve me with more substantial taxation. Do I also need to include the Prix Goncourt? (5000) My dear friend I hope that all your authors don't come to see you at midnight and don't demand your advice about the Treasury (if that is what it's called). [...]
Marcel Proust.
[November 1920]
Dear friend,
If it is not too much trouble for you, you would be doing me a great kindness if you could give me details of the most recent subscriptions for the "de luxe" Jeunes Filles. Quite recently Princesse Soutzo sent me a de luxe to sign. Assuming that she had been given it, I asked the Revue if by any chance she had subscribed. The answer was negative. Well then she wrote to me (about 8 days ago) that she had handed over 300 francs to a friend to purchase it. In any case I can provide you with the No. I would like to know something of where I stand with this. Give my respects to Madame Tronche and believe me to be your ardent friend,
Marcel Proust.
44 rue Hamelin [1920]
Dear friend,
I learn with profound emotion that Madame Tronche is about to undergo an operation. I don't want to tire you with vain words at such a time. But I beg you to send me news, I'll be awaiting it anxiously. What sadness that there should be such a shadow over this so recent marriage. With all my heart I wish for her not to suffer.
Your devoted
Marcel Proust.
[Feb - March 1921]
Dear friend,
In haste in the middle of a crisis of health (if that's the right word!) that I shall tell you all about, here's proof sheet 31. - There will not be any dedication in the book, that's agreed. A thousand best wishes.
Your Marcel.
[20 June 1921]
My dear friend,
Would you be so kind as to send me a "pneu" (no doubt I won't get it till very late, as I doubt very much I will be able to get undressed before one in the afternoon, and the time it takes for my fumigations and rest will make me late).
1. I have reread the two almost illegible telegrams from Léon Daudet more carefully and I am asking myself if he isn't saying that his paper has proposed a new extract from the N.R.F. (when I had understood that his paper would propose a new extract from the N.R.F.). In a word I had understood it to be an amendment to come, when perhaps it's an amendment that's already happened, it's just that your messenger has rejected it without consulting you, in which he was quite wrong. In which case I do not advise either you, him or anybody else to take the initiative on a new piece for the A.F.1 I think that would lack dignity. (Which doesn't stop Daudet's two telegrams being charming and certainly if he were on his own nothing would come of it). In which case we will stick to your system for Le Temps etc. (I am against Les Débats. Bonsoir is a possibility.) - But perhaps I have read the first one correctly and you are about to receive fresh suggestions from the A.F. In which case you will see that it will be better to avoid what would be hurtful to Vandérem.
2. The "Belles Lettres" directed by a M. Landeau (?) aren't they of a somewhat hollow importance? I have the feeling that I haven't replied to a lot of letters from them. In any case I have just written to M.M. Gallien who asked me for an appointment to draw my hideout for their paper that I was too ill. I might just send them my photo.
Very affectionately yours,
Marcel Proust.
1. L'Action française, directed by Léon Daudet.
Saturday [25 June 1921]
Dear friend,
Please excuse this letter written in the middle of a terrible migraine given me by my outing yesterday evening. But amongst the letters I have received (and not read) was one from you. So I have, as they say, perused it. And one phrase, this one: "As we will no doubt not be going to Noisy next year, you can imagine why",1 has upset me so much that I am writing to you immediately so as to unburden myself from it, which is ridiculous because when you get this tomorrow you will no doubt be back in Noisy.
Dear friend, friendship is a word empty of meaning without frankness. So please excuse me. I do not urge the need for frankness to the extent of interrogating you about your "quarrels" with Gaston and understand only that I have been discreet and not interrogative. But the first time we spoke on the matter, anxious more than anything about your future I said to you: "You will find a business equivalent to the N.R.F." you replied to me in substance: "easily better. What I miss is the moral environment etc." So your phrase "I am not going to Noisy, you can guess why" seems meaningless to me (at the very least because I am certainly no "mind-reader"): "because my situation will be materially less advantageous". In a word the opposite of what you told me before that had set my mind at rest. So my dear friend I do not wish to "commiserate" with you over something that could be painful, I know very well that you can change your surroundings just as comfortably, or even better, without moving to the country. I haven't left Paris for a single day since 1914 "you can guess why" and I don't consider myself a victim. But that said, if I had supposed that your departure from the N.R.F. would change anything regarding Noisy (or anything else) I assure you that I would have been, if not more questioning, at least less discreet. Rather than keeping my silence around you I would have petitioned for no diminution of your material life and that of Mme Tronche over incidents that I do not know but that Rivière seems to take quite lightly: I would have begged you to let me speak to Gaston. And after your awful expression "we will not be returning to Noisy" I am now begging you to let me speak with Gaston. (I will only do so with your authorization. But do give me authorization.) Don't be foolish enough to damage your future over a moment of ill humour when you are certain, if new incidents arose, that a consortium made up of Jacques and myself will prevent what they call in military parlance all "friction" between you and Gaston. Dear friend, excuse the tone of this letter (which is simply proof of a friendship taking alarm) and its brevity. But my headache is too bad. I haven't even opened the newspapers you sent me, because they mention me I assume, and even your letter I only read with "half an eye". But as they say vulgarly my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I fell straight upon the shocking phrase about Noisy. I repeat that I was not pitying you, that I do not pity myself for not being able to go to the country. But to place yourself in the position of having to renounce it, when you are among friends at the N.R.F., when I offer myself up as an ambassador, and when we are in perfect agreement, this is a folly that my friendship begs you to renounce.
Your friend,
Marcel Proust.
I haven't seen Gaston before you, nor anyone else.
1. As far as I can establish Gaston Gallimard had a house in Noisy-le-Grand, East of Paris and Tronche would not be visiting because of his rift with Gallimard and the N.R.F.
[shortly before 23 August 1922]
[He has just read an article by Maurice Boissard in the N.R.F. of 1st August] As for me who finds this drama critic so tedious, so hollow, so infatuated, I found the piece about cats delightful. During the course of an hour I have been weighing up the delights of keeping such charming animals, against the horror of killing them in a room where Legras anti-asthmatic powders are burned incessantly: pity has prevailed. Céleste shuddered at the very idea that I had even thought of having animals that pee everywhere etc. in a room that could never be cleaned, since I never get up. She was right, it was a moment of folly. [...] In order to console myself for living cats I am going to get hold of Colette's Dialogues which I'm not familiar with. To finish since it is very difficult for me to write today, I didn't find M. Boissard's article faultless, there are some rather vulgar passages in it, an unpleasant desire to appear witty. But all that is of little importance whereas so many charming and tender things about cats enchanted me. [After writing to Jules Romains he received a cutting from Le Divan] in which it is said that after a book like Lucienne the incomparable analytical talents of M. Proust and the intelligence of M. Benda count for little (it didn't say count for little but still I think that was the idea). Apart from that it is very kind. The other cuttings are more caustic, I will always be angry with the Leblond bothers. [...]
Marcel Proust.
From http://www.jeangustavetronche.fr/ http://www.museedeslettres.fr/public/ and auction catalogues.