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ALS in French, signed “Marcel Proust,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5.25 x 7, no date. Handwritten letter to the French aesthete, Symbolist poet, art collector, and dandy Robert de Montesquiou, who served as the inspiration for Baron de Charlus in Proust’s magnum opus, In Search of Lost Time, discussing his attendance at a conference and a novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio.
In full (translated): "You ‘do not doubt’—as people of the world are wont to say—that I wish (though I scarcely hope for it) to be in a position to attend the Conference. I would be delighted to discover for myself what the Little (nay, the Great!) Mademoiselle might think of it. She has always had a soft spot for us (which, indeed, is her greatest strength!). And D’Annunzio’s marvelous novel seems to me—by virtue of its subject matter—wonderfully suited to the instruction of the children entrusted to Miss Winter. I see in it the perfect theme for those theatrical performances enacted in situ between brother and sister. You see that I do not behave like those people who pretend to be unaware of the existence of children whose birth has not been formally announced to them. I have, nonetheless, felt this omission—to the detriment of my own sentiments—in a manner both cruel and enduring; ‘for, after all, my respect and my obedience seem to my own eyes worthy of a different reward.’ Yet that does not prevent me from admiring them greatly all the same!" In fine condition, with somewhat irregular light toning.
Recorded as Letter CXCVI in Correspondance Générale de Marcel Proust: Lettres a Robert de Montesquiou, 1893–1921 (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1930).
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