Beschreibung:

PROUST, Marcel. Two autograph letters signed to Lucien Daudet, both n.p. [Paris] , the first n.d. ('Vendredi Soir'), [May or June 1916 ?] , explaining that he cannot have Lucien telephoned at two o'oclock when he has just gone to sleep, and doesn't know what sort of [asthma] attack awaits his awakening, but there are days when he can try not to put the light out at all; proposing arrangements and suggesting Lucien should send a pneumatique ('équivalent aux "petits bleus" de ton enfance et de ma vieillissante jeunesse simultanées'), to say where he will be on Saturday evening; joking about sending Daudet a form on which to reply by cancelling the inappropriate answer, 'Mais ce serait bien comme pour les nouvelles de soldats et trop mêler le front et l'arrière (quelle formule m.g.)', anticipating seeing him, also quoting from Racine and from Sully-Prud'homme, 4 pages, 8vo ; the second 'Nuit de Samedi à Dimanche 2 heures de matin' [29-30 July ? 1916] , provoked at Lucien's failure to call, 'Petit mot nullement de reproche, mais de tristesse montée à l'aigu de t'avoir attendu en vain'; describing his discovery while waiting of various relics of his father, 'Des décorations de Papa (une "Grand Croix" de François Joseph , ses petits carnets de visite, le liste des gens qui ont envoyé des fleurs à son enterrement ... Enfin tout ce qu'un vieux Goncourt sans talent, sans beaux objets, sans rien, peut déplorer dans ses derniers ruminements', and also referring to his work, 4 pages, 8vo (together 8 pages, 8vo) . The first letter may refer to the nights during which Proust worked without interruption on his novel, while Lucien, at Tours, was due to visit Paris for a weekend's leave. The expression 'm[auvais] g[enre]', suppressed by Daudet for publication of the letter, was used by both Proust and Daudet to mean 'bad form' and, in certain contexts, 'homosexual'. Proust notes in the second letter that it will be 15 days before Lucien comes to Paris again, 'avant le pont brûmeux, extra-temporel (mot de ma tasse de thé, dans mon dernier volume) et intelligentiel', an allusion both to his correspondent's unpublished manuscript [ Le Pont Suspendu ] and to his own use several times of the phrase 'extra-temporel' (in Temps Retrouvé, Matinée chez la Princesse de Guermantes). Kolb, XV, 153 and 241; Cahiers , V (XXVIII and XXXVIII). (2)