Translations:CP 05633/23/en

I am so sorry, I have been very clumsy. My only wish had been that you forget for a while that I had written a book. So much so that, as I told Copeau a few days ago, if it could relieve you from fatigue and worry, I would take the book back to Grasset. And because I made such a bad job of making you realize all this you have tired yourself by writing to me. Dear friend, don’t think about me, and furthermore don’t think about it in terms of its publisher. Everything will be the way you want, when you want, I don’t say where you want because Copeau told me that what you want is that the book stays with the N.R.F. If that is the case I will definitely leave it with you. And of course since it was already agreed previously I would only have taken it back if that was what you wanted. It goes without saying that the requests I made the other day for my proofs had nothing to do with all this. I asked for them for several reasons of which these are the two principal ones. I thought that as long as they were doing nothing, the counting up of words not taking too long, I could correct a few little things which would speed things up a bit. On the other hand I thought that as an over scrupulous publisher you were still worrying about the care of your authors. So I told myself that while I have the proofs here with me there would be no need for you to worry about a task that, for my part, to all intents and purposes can’t be accomplished, and that might put your mind at rest and free you from worry