Beschreibung:

PROUST, Marcel. Two autograph letters signed to Lucien Daudet, both n.p. [Paris], the first n.d. [11 March 1915] , calling him cruel for reading again his own last ridiculous letters; he is interrupting his inhalation to reply; referring [in an unpublished passage] to Guiche and a confusion over his identity at Cabourg; also saying that he has been reading the same submarine story in seven newspapers, and referring to various literary articles and a journal. As for the Murat business ('Quand au potin Murat'), he has learned that the remarks attributed to him were invented by Jean Cocteau 'persuadé qu'il synthétisait par là ma vie sous cloche et très étonné que je ne fusse pas ravi'. Proust finds him sometimes impossible to understand. What he himself and Lucien share is a conviction that literature is nourished by life and not the contrary, 'il n'y a par contre aucune communication, aucun 'retour' de la littérature à la vie', literature must not colour or falsify the bonds of social relationships, not alter their normal ethical principles. Proust also mentions his pride in a letter from Jammes, and that the veronal made him almost forget all about a passage he found in the Journal de Goncourt , and encourages Lucien to write to him about the appearance of the Princess Mathilde as a child, 4 pages, 8vo ; the second (mutilated), n.d. [shortly after 11 March 1915] , commenting on Daudet's delicious and wildly funny letter, 'Votre lettre ravissante et tordante ("comme une envie" -- J'en sais quelque chose moi qui non content à passer 6 heures par jour aux fumigations, en passe à transformer mes ongles en terres laborées)'; but then accuses Lucien of never reading his letters, ' example (entre cent ) Propos Murat que vous me dites dénaturé', repeating again [text mutilated and incomplete] that it is not that he was misunderstood but that he never said anything at all, it was an invention; then going through what Lucien wrote and how he replied, and finally complaining that he still has not told him who repeated the alleged remark to him, 6 pages, 8vo (mutilated, strips of paper cut away from 2nd and 3rd leaves with loss of approximately 3 lines and of words in 14 lines of published text, and of 4 lines of unpublished text). The letters are annotated by Daudet in pencil at the head, 'Ier episode P c e ss e Mathilde' and 'Histoire Murat III'. In the first Proust asks Daudet to describe the dress of the Princess Mathilde as he saw her as a child, 'une toilette d'elle une après-midi de printemps, presque crinoline comme elle portait, mauve, peut-être chapeau à brides avec violettes, telle enfin que vous avez dû la voir'. He responds warmly in the second to the description that Daudet had sent, proof of their mysterious 'harmonie préétablie', 'Lisez cet extrait (stupide d'ailleurs) de Swann . Vous y trouverez jusqu'à votre mot de saute-en-barque'. The passage in question refers to an encounter with the Princess Mathilde in the Jardin d'Acclimatation, in Du Côté de chez Swann . The mutilation of the second letter evidently took place after it had been used for publication. In the first letter Proust also writes that he is thinking of Lucien in his 'Dickensian' solitude ('Je vous jure que je pense bien à votre isolement à la Dickens'). Kolb suggests that this refers to a passage in Ruskin, mentioning Dickens's solitary night-time walks. Lucien Daudet was at this time alone at Tours, Madame Daudet having returned to Paris in December 1914. Kolb, XIV, 76 and 85; Cahiers V (XXIII and XXIV). (2)