CP 02913/en
Reynaldo Hahn to Marcel Proust [shortly before 5 March 1915?]
Nothing could be crappier than this portrait. I'm shending it for yor amusement[2].
I know that the Widow has been to see you[3]: I am just picturing to myself everything that surrounded, preceded, marked and followed this visit. There is a cold here that makes everything more difficult, more slow – and more sad; I spent the last few days with Commandant Cuny five kilometers away from here (and at ease as well[4]) and have just come back. So many things I could tell you about! But it would take Mirbeau et Courteline both[5] to give you an exact idea. – It seems that Robert is no longer around here[6]. –
Hasdouen
R[eynal]do
Notes
- ↑ In a letter to Mme de Madrazo which appears to date from 5 March 1915 (CP 02914; "Kolb", XIV, no. 25), Proust passes on to her, at Hahn's request, a photograph of his friend, which he finds "very nice". Philip Kolb presumes that this concerns another copy of this same photograph, because a portrait post card was usually printed in multiple copies. If this hypothesis is correct this current post card sent to Proust must have been written [shortly before 5 March 1915]. This date remains uncertain however, because it appears to contradict several things mentioned in the letter to Mme de Madrazo: see note 3 and note 6 below. In fact Madeleine Lemaire's visit to Proust which Hahn mentions could not have been before 6 April 1915, and in all probability took place in May (CP 02929; "Kolb", XIV, no. 40). But to put the date of this post card forward to the end of April or the beginning of May hardly fits with the mention of the "cold which makes everything more difficult, more slow", which evokes the damp and icy weather of the winter months in the North East rather than the milder days of spring. A society notice appeared in the press on 22 February 1915: "M. Reynaldo Hahn is with the general staff of the 10th Infantry Division" (L'Intransigeant, 22 February 1915, under the heading "Letter Box") which leads one to think that perhaps he had not returned to the front until around February 1915. [PK, FL, NM, PW]
- ↑ Perhaps Hahn sent it in order to reassure Proust, who complained, in a letter of [14 January 1915] to Mme de Madrazo (CP 02895; "Kolb", XIV, no. 6), about having received "no news” of him. [PK]
- ↑ "The Widow": nickname given to Madeleine Lemaire and to her daughter Suzette ("the young widow") by Proust and Hahn. See for example "Kolb", VI, no 38 (CP 01387); VIII, no. 7 (CP 01751); VIII, no. 78 (CP 01822); IX, no. 74, n. 13 (CP 01999). The visit in question by Madeleine Lemaire seems to be the one she was proposing in her letter to Proust of 6 April [1915]: "When can I see you again? I have to be back in May. I assure you it would be a great pleasure for me to see you again and have a chat." (CP 02929; "Kolb", XIV, no. 40). According to the tone and the details given in this letter, it seems that their previous meeting had been at one of the conferences that Reynaldo Hahn had given at the Université des Annales, between 27 April and 18 May 1914 (CP 02929 and note 5). [PK, NM]
- ↑ Note 4
- ↑ Note 5
- ↑ Note 6
- ↑ Translation notes:
- ↑ Contributors: