CP 02823/en
Marcel Proust to Madame Catusse [Monday 7 September 1914]
(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)
GRAND HÔTEL CABOURG
To Madame Catusse in Malause Tarn-et-Garonne [1]
Dear Madame,
I am writing to you briefly to ask after Charles. I gave up going to Nice because a young man from there (M. Gautier-Vignal (does the name sound familiar to you?) has assured me that the trip would take thirty hours. So I left for my usual Cabourg[2] which is four hours away from Paris. But the train took twenty-two hours and was so packed that there was no place to sit. I arrived feeling quite unwell. But it is a shame to complain about such trifles and for that matter I don’t think about it. On the way I thought only about Charles, about you, about my brother, about my poor friend who drowned. If you could, in one line, let me know how Charles is doing I will be really delighted.
Your reverent friend
Notes
- ↑ J.B. Janin’s edition indicates for this letter "Cabourg, 8 August 1914. Grand Hôtel". This date is mistaken as Proust got to Cabourg only on Friday, 4 September 1914. The postmark, being blurred, incomplete and quite faded away, was badly deciphered and was read as 8 instead of 9 (for the month). The letter must have been written on [Monday 7 September 1914]. [PK]
- ↑ Proust must have left for Cabourg on Thursday 3 September 1914 in the evening and arrived there on the 4th: see the post-script to his letter to Reynaldo Hahn from Sunday [30 August 1914] (CP 02820), no doubt written in the morning of the 3rd. Le Figaro from 5 September 1914, p. 4, in its column “Trips and vacations of ‘Figaro’ subscribers”, indicates: “M. Marcel Proust, in Cabourg”. [PK, FL]
- ↑ Translation notes:
- ↑ Contributors: Ktulyakova