Marcel PROUST (1871–1922). - Lot 629

Lot n° 629.1
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Marcel PROUST (1871–1922). - Lot 629
Marcel PROUST (1871–1922). Autograph letter signed “Marcel” [to Maurice Levaillant (1884–1961), poet and writer], 6 pp., in-8. [Paris] “44 rue Hamelin,” undated [March or April 1921]. Unbound (small marginal holes) A moving letter from Proust, physically greatly weakened by illness, discussing the publication of *The Guermantes Way*. He mentions three of his close friends (Robert de Monterquiou, Robert de Flers, and Madeleine Lemaire). "I am writing to you with great difficulty, for my asthma attacks have returned with unprecedented severity; for the first time in my life, I am being given morphine injections, but they do not relieve the attacks and merely leave me in a dazed state. I cannot regret my suffering, for it likely stems from having gone out ‘in public’ last week to secure a grant of 12,000 francs for a writer who is deserving in every way. I’m telling you that I’m writing to you—no, I’m replying to you—because I couldn’t read a single word of your letter. You and I have replaced writing with drawing; mine is awful, yours is lovely, but no more legible. If you see Montesquiou, please be so kind as to tell him about my pitiful condition so that he may excuse me. I suppose it is to [Henri] Vonoven that I owe the note in *Le Figaro*. I would have been delighted if it had been reported that, while I was being made a knight, my brother, Professor Proust—chief surgeon of the 10th Army during the war—was promoted to the rank of officer. It is undoubtedly too late now. Perhaps the publication of *The Guermantes Way*, which I will send you in the next few days (as soon as it is published), will allow for this mention. But perhaps you have been following Flers in *Le Gaulois*. In that case, it would be much easier. Dear friend, if you recall that I “picked you up” last summer (fatigue is suddenly preventing me from finishing my letter). In short, I’m dying to have you come over for dinner—either by my bedside or at the Ritz—once this awful asthma attack has passed, and then for things to continue from there. With affection, Marcel. One has no right to be dying. Montesquiou wrote to me that it wasn’t my health that had prevented me from seeing him for the past 15 years. And Ms. Lemaire writes to me that if I don’t correspond regularly with her, it’s because I’m an established author. I am not an established author, but a man at the end of his life, who would be comforted to see you a few times.” Marcel Proust, Correspondence, edited, introduced, and annotated by Philip Kolb, Paris, Plon, vol. XX, 1921, 1992, 713 pp.
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