Translations:CP 02844/9/en

My dear little one, I found out a month afterwards that your brother-in-law had suffered an automobile accident, but I had no idea that Léon had been in it and had been seriously injured. Could you ever imagine that I wouldn’t have written to you! So were you in the motor car as well? (since you say: I had Léon beside me injured). Retrospectively I am very upset to hear this. I shall write to your brother. I was going to do so anyway to tell him of my admiration. War, alas, has confirmed, consecrated and immortalized his “Pre-war”. Ever since Balzac, we have never known a man of imagination discover so forcefully a social law (in the sense where Newton (?) discovered the law of gravity). Yes I was going to write to him about that, and I wouldn’t have mentioned the accident! I hope that even though his prophesy was not listened to, we will know how to “apply” his discovery and put it into practice, you and I, Post-war. But I do not think (and I think this is also your brother’s opinion even though I haven't read his articles) that it must consist in making us inferior, depriving, I don’t say our musicians, but our writers, of the prodigious fecundation that it is to hear Tristan, and the Ring Cycle, like Péladan who no longer wants us to learn German (which General Pau and General Joffre, fortunately speak fluently).