Translations:CP 02844/14/en

And on this subject, my dear little one, I was utterly stupefied by something I was told: ill-informed as I am about the magnitude and the steady brightness of the new stars that have been shining for some time, I thought I owed a lot of respect towards M. [Z…] who I have never read, but who I was told possessed some genius. But I was quoted these words of his the other day, which made me sick and that I can’t quite believe are accurate. I am writing them out completely word for word where they concern people I don’t know and whose names I wouldn’t be able to invent, even less their first names: “Yes, this war! But in the end it would have this result at least, of reconciling Célimène and Alceste (Comte and Comtesse de [X.], née [***]). Oronte told me to tell you that Valère had done very well”, (these first names stand for M. [de A.] and the young Duc [de B] don’t they). “What I can’t endure is when I learn of the death of somebody of good family” (that’s to say fashionable). “Oh yes! to find out that a [***] has been killed is a terrible blow to me.” Can it really be possible! I wouldn’t have believed M. [Y.] or any other buffoon capable, I’m not saying of speaking, but of thinking like that, but a writer, a philosopher! […] I hope that none of it is true. I don’t deny anything […] and I think that the “people from good families” are sometimes very good. But their death can’t cause me greater pain than that of others. And the chance nature of friendships has meant that so far they have caused me much less.