CP 02915/en
Marcel Proust to Robert de Billy [between 8 and 11 April 1915]
(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)
102 boulevard Haussmann
My dear Robert
I don’t really like to compound feelings with practical questions. Also I do not want to speak to you about sorrows that have literally destroyed me since last summer. From the start of the war I have been living in a state of anxiety for all those I love (that is to say, when it all comes down to it, for those I do not know but whose suffering I imagine so vividly), but I can’t stop myself from being even more particularly tormented over my brother who has experienced terrible dangers in the Argonne, and I am particularly desperate about the disappearance of Bertrand de Fénelon[2].
Among so many thoughts that I want to share with you (and I also really want to know your impressions, your thoughts) it pains me to ask you a business question, which in any case can only be an irritation for you, a simple request for advice. My excuse for talking to you about business matters is that if you recall last summer I had a considerable “balance” come to term and a loan against securities and you can imagine what has come of it all since the war and in what difficulties I might be. You might perhaps be able to give me some good advice about a few of them. But it would take too long to explain and anyway at this moment we don’t really have the heart to talk about all that, our minds are much more on other things. The only advice I would like to get from you and that you have already obtained for me once but in a vague, non-committal way, just like Maison Mirabaud[3] would have given to a man on the street, concerns Doubowaïa Balka. I would like to know if their value, which has gone down considerably from the rate at which I bought them, shortly before the division of shares, is considered by Maison Mirabau[4] as excellent value, destined to regain the rates that it had before (I’m not saying the rate it was at before the war and which was already lower than many) or if on the other hand it would be wise to sacrifice them. In fact I bought it with a loan on securities[5], which is to say that it cost me 7% in interest, without bringing me anything. If their rates are sure to rise to any great extent it could be worth the trouble of persisting with them. I would welcome it if the Maison Mirabaud could give you precise details in this regard[6].
In the next few days I will be going before the military exemption board and there is every chance in the world that I could be “taken” when there are so many healthy people walking around[7]. I don’t want it to happen because I know how useless I would be and also that what remains of my health would founder before I am able to complete my book. I have never ceased to be terribly ill since I last saw you and that is almost a consolation; one feels less ashamed of oneself than if one were happy and well when so many people are suffering and dying. But I would still prefer to be well and useful. My brother is at least; for the last eight months he has never ceased to be so for a second and often in tragic circumstances which has led to his name being mentioned in dispatches[8]. Reynaldo is in the Argonne, probably not far away from Robert[9]. I would be very pleased to hear your thoughts on all this as far as you can. But as for the Doubowaïa it is on the contrary explicit advice that I ask of you, if you can give it, precise and sincere. Let me know how Madame Billy, your daughters, your parents, have got through these terrible months
Give them my respectful regards and believe in the tender affection of your
Marcel Proust
Please give my respectful regards to Monsieur and Madame Barrère[10]. And to Primoli if he's in Rome[11]. If I don’t get “taken” do you think I could risk a stay in Venice for my hay fever? assuming I was in a fit state to leave my bed and travel, which is doubtful.
Notes
- ↑ As Proust says that his brother has been at the front for eight months this letter must date from about April 1915. Mention of the military exemption board which he will be attending "in the next few days" fix the terminus ante quem on 11 or 12 April 1915, the date at which he requests, and is granted, permission not to appear before the review board on 13 April as had been anticipated. Approaching the same subjects (the death of Bertrand de Fénelon, the military exemption board that he has to attend) and in almost the same words as in his letter to Mme de Caillavet dated [9 or 10 April 1915] (CP 02931; Kolb, XIV, no. 42), this letter must date from the same moment: after receipt, probably on 9 April 1915, of his summons from the review board, dated 8 April 1915 (CP 02930; Kolb, XIV, no 41), and before obtaining permission not to attend. [PK, FL]
- ↑ After remaining without news about Bertrand de Fénelon for a long time and hoping that he had just been taken prisoner, around February or March 1915 his family and his friends learn that a witness had seen him fall, mortally wounded, and there were further indications in the weeks to come. In a letter to Lauris dated [Saturday 13 March 1915] (CP 02927; Kolb, XIV, no. 38), Proust, who had just seen the announcement of his death in the Figaro "understood that he would never see Bertrand again" and that to publish such an announcement "they must have been sure". [FL]
- ↑ Mirabaud and Co, a private bank founded in Geneva in 1819 and established in Paris since 1822. Robert de Billy's father-in-law, Paul Mirabaud, was a managing partner in the firm. - At this point in the original, the words "just like the Maison Mirabaud would have given to a man in the street" are placed in brackets written in pencil: in his book de Billy removed this part of the sentence. [FP, FL]
- ↑ The words "by Maison Mirabaud" are similarly placed in brackets written in pencil and are cut from de Billy's book. [FL]
- ↑ Proust explained to Lionel Hauser [around 28 July 1914] that "this credit line allowed him to purchase enormous numbers of Doubowaïa stocks [...]" (CP 02807; Kolb, XIII, no. 156). [PK, FP]
- ↑ This whole sentence ("I would welcome it" to "in this regard") has been placed in brackets like all the other references to the Banque Mirabaud and omitted from de Billy's book. [FL]
- ↑ Among the healthy people who have not been called up could be included almost the entire staff of the NRF, one of whom, Gaston Gallimard, almost ten years younger than Proust, had manoeuvred to obtain his discharge (Pierre Assouline, Gaston Gallimard : un demi-siècle d'édition française, Paris, Balland, 1984). [PK, FP]
- ↑ Robert Proust had left for the front on the very first day of mobilization (see the letter to Hauser written [during the night of 2 to 3 August 1914], CP 02812 and its note 9). Marcel Proust never missed the opportunity to inform his correspondents about his brother being mentioned in dispatches in the first month of the war and the dangers to which he was exposed (see for example note 10 of the letter to Lucien Daudet, CP 02844, or note 5 of the letter to Louis de Robert, CP 02890). In an unpublished letter Proust asks a social correspondent of a newspaper to write up this military distinction of his brother: "[...] I see that you sometimes print citations mentioned in the army's daily dispatches. Well my brother, doctor Proust, was mentioned in dispatches, and apart from Le Matin and l'Écho de Paris none of the other papers, apart from the military magazines, has mentioned it. From the very first days of the war, he has done things that have earned him the admiration of all, so I would be very pleased, if it is convenient to you, if you could say that he had been mentioned in dispatches. The citation reads: "Proust, medical officer 2nd class (he was promoted to captain for his excellent conduct), has shown proof of remarkable energy and self-sacrifice in his organization and running of the medical services by operating on the wounded even whilst under enemy fire." (You have, perhaps, read the account of operations being carried out at Étain, shrapnel falling on the operating table to the extent that in the end he had to take the wounded down into the cellars.) He is not only a medical officer during the war, but in civilian life he is an associate professor at the Faculté." (Proust. Du temps perdu au temps retrouvé, catalogue de l'exposition du Musée des lettres et manuscrits, 2010, letter no. 17, p. 40; and le Bulletin d'informations proustiennes, no. 41, 2011, p. 158.) Robert Proust's heroism at the front is detailed in his military record, p. 2. [FL, PW]
- ↑ See the letter from Hahn to Proust from [shortly before 5 March 1915?] (CP 02913) and its note 6. [PK, FP]
- ↑ Camille Barrère, French ambassador to Rome from 1897 to 1924, was actively involved during the spring of 1915 in convincing Italy to shift its alliance to the benefit of the Triple Entente. Robert de Billy would have actually encountered him on a daily basis since, from 23 December 1912, he had been first secretary to the Roman ambassador. [FL, NM]
- ↑ Comte Primoli was in the habit of returning to Rome at the beginning of autumn then coming back to Paris around May.
- ↑ Translation notes:
- ↑ Contributors: Yorktaylors