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Dear Sir
Dear Sir


J'aimerais bien avoir de vos nouvelles. La dernière fois Madame Foucart à qui j'avais écrit n'a pu m'en donner. Madame d'Alton ne m'a pas répondu. Et comme cette année je n'irai sans doute pas à Cabourg (je vais d'ailleurs être sans doute mobilisé<ref name="n2" />) je resterai, si vous ne m'écrivez pas, sans rien savoir de vous, à qui je pense à peu près tous les jours. Je sais la belle résolution que vous avez prise, avec quelle vaillance vous l'avez soutenue. Que j'aurais aimé, comme l'a pu Bertrand, vous voir dans votre uniforme où vous devez être si charmant et qui doit s'assortir si bien à la couleur de vos yeux. Les Bretonnes doivent murmurer en vous voyant (si vous êtes toujours en Bretagne : « Il est un bleu dont je meurs Parce qu'il est dans les prunelles »<ref name="n3" />.) Hélas il y a quelque chose d'autre dont je meurs c'est de la guerre ! Deux amis tendrement aimés dont le premier était pour moi un véritable frère, Bertrand de Fénelon et Robert d'Humières, sont morts de la façon la plus affreuse<ref name="n4" />. Je les nomme seuls parce qu'ils étaient les préférés, mais combien j'ai perdu de parents, d'amis. Et puis maintenant on aime même ceux qu'on ne connaît pas, on aime tout ce qui se bat, on pleure tout ce qui tombe ! Quand j'ai vu Madame d'Alton à Cabourg<ref name="n5" />, je me plaignais parce que je venais d'être ruiné. Que je voudrais l'avoir toujours été et qu'un être comme Bertrand de Fénelon fût vivant. Et vous avez peut-être su qu'avant, mon pauvre Agostinelli que j'aimais tant et dont je resterai toujours inconsolable s'était tué en aéroplane, noyé dans la Méditerranée<ref name="n6" />. Mon ami Reynaldo est en Argonne<ref name="n7" />, mon frère à Arras ; mon frère a été cité à l'ordre du jour de l'armée et décoré<ref name="n8" /> et en effet depuis le premier jour il n'a cessé de montrer un grand courage mais je suis souvent très inquiet. J'ai passé un mois à Cabourg<ref name="n9" /> et au milieu des angoisses de la guerre, on a trouvé le moyen, sans pourtant qu'on puisse imaginer où s'en trouvait la matière, de faire d'invraisemblables potins. Cela m'a fait prendre cette plage en horreur d'autant plus que des personnes pour qui je n'ai que respect et qu'affection les ont largement propagés. (Ceci entre nous deux n'est-ce pas, car vous risqueriez de commettre une complète erreur, tandis que quand nous causerons ensemble je pourrai peut-être vous être bien utile.) J'en reste ulcéré. Mais cette tristesse est bien peu de chose auprès de toutes les autres. Nuit et jour on pense à la guerre, peut-être plus douloureusement encore quand comme moi on ne la fait pas. Même si l'on pense à autre chose, même si l'on dort, cette souffrance ne cesse pas, comme ces névralgies qu'on perçoit dans le sommeil. Je tâche de comprendre les opérations du mieux que je peux, c'est-à-dire guère. Je m'ingurgite chaque jour tout ce que les critiques militaires français ou genevois pensent de la guerre. Ai-je besoin de vous dire que ce n'est jamais sans adresser une pensée pleine de tendre respect à l'homme de grand cœur et de charmant esprit qui voulait bien causer avec moi armée et stratégie dans le Casino de Cabourg. Depuis cet homme-là a réalisé son rêve en redevenant officier. Je l'admire, je l'envie ; mais je voudrais bien savoir comment il va !
I should very much like to hear the news from you. The last time I wrote to Madame Foucart she was unable to give me any. Madame d’Alton has not replied to me. And as I will almost certainly not be going to Cabourg this year (I shall probably be called up anyway<ref name="n2" />) I will be left, if you don’t write to me, having no news of you at all, you who I think about a little more every day. I know the fine resolution you have taken and how bravely you have borne it. How I would have liked, as Bertrand was able to do, to see you in your uniform in which you must look so charming and which must match so well with the colour of your eyes. The Breton ladies must murmur when they catch sight of you (if you are still in Brittany: “It is a blue to die for Because it is the blue of his eyes”<ref name="n3" />) Alas there is something else that is killing me, the war! Two dearly loved friends, the first of whom was like a brother to me, Bertrand de Fénelon and Robert d’Humières, have been killed in the most awful circumstances<ref name="n4" />. I name them only because they were particularly close, but how many loved ones, friends have I lost. And now we even love those we don’t know, we love all those who are fighting, we weep for those who fall! When I saw Madame d’Alton in Cabourg<ref name="n5" />, I was complaining because I had just been ruined. How I wish it could stay like that and that a creature like Bertrand de Fénelon was alive. And perhaps you know already, my poor Agostinelli who I loved so much and for whom I will forever remain inconsolable, was killed in an aeroplane, drowned in the Mediterranean<ref name="n6" />. My friend Reynaldo is in Argonne<ref name="n7" />, my brother at Arras; my brother was mentioned in despatches and decorated<ref name="n8" /> and indeed from the very first day he has never ceased to display great courage, but I am often very worried. I spent a month in Cabourg<ref name="n9" /> and in the midst of the anguish of war some people managed, though without anybody being able to imagine where the information came from, to come up with the most improbable gossip. Which made a horror of this beach resort for me, even more so because it was largely propagated by people for whom I have nothing but respect and affection. (This is just between us of course, because if you aren’t careful you could risk committing a terrible blunder, whereas when we talk just between the two of us I could perhaps be very useful to you). It still galls me. But this unhappiness is a very small thing next to all the others. Night and day we think about the war, perhaps more grievously still when like me we play no part in it. But if we think about something else, even if we are sleeping, the suffering never stops, like those neuralgias that we experience in our sleep. I try to understand the military operations as best I can, which is hardly at all. I gorge myself every day on anything that the French or Genevan military critics think about the war. I have no need to tell you that it is never without addressing a thought filled with tender respect for the man with the large heart and charming wit who was happy to chat with me about the army and strategy in the casino at Cabourg. Since then that man has realized his dream by becoming an officer once more. I admire him, I envy him; but most of all I want to know how he is!


Et je le prie d'agréer l'hommage de mon affectueux respect.
Et je le prie d'agréer l'hommage de mon affectueux respect.

Revision as of 09:06, 28 May 2021


Other languages:

Marcel Proust to Charles d’Alton [after 12 Mayi 1915]

(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)

[1]

102 boulevard Haussmann

Dear Sir

I should very much like to hear the news from you. The last time I wrote to Madame Foucart she was unable to give me any. Madame d’Alton has not replied to me. And as I will almost certainly not be going to Cabourg this year (I shall probably be called up anyway[2]) I will be left, if you don’t write to me, having no news of you at all, you who I think about a little more every day. I know the fine resolution you have taken and how bravely you have borne it. How I would have liked, as Bertrand was able to do, to see you in your uniform in which you must look so charming and which must match so well with the colour of your eyes. The Breton ladies must murmur when they catch sight of you (if you are still in Brittany: “It is a blue to die for Because it is the blue of his eyes”[3]) Alas there is something else that is killing me, the war! Two dearly loved friends, the first of whom was like a brother to me, Bertrand de Fénelon and Robert d’Humières, have been killed in the most awful circumstances[4]. I name them only because they were particularly close, but how many loved ones, friends have I lost. And now we even love those we don’t know, we love all those who are fighting, we weep for those who fall! When I saw Madame d’Alton in Cabourg[5], I was complaining because I had just been ruined. How I wish it could stay like that and that a creature like Bertrand de Fénelon was alive. And perhaps you know already, my poor Agostinelli who I loved so much and for whom I will forever remain inconsolable, was killed in an aeroplane, drowned in the Mediterranean[6]. My friend Reynaldo is in Argonne[7], my brother at Arras; my brother was mentioned in despatches and decorated[8] and indeed from the very first day he has never ceased to display great courage, but I am often very worried. I spent a month in Cabourg[9] and in the midst of the anguish of war some people managed, though without anybody being able to imagine where the information came from, to come up with the most improbable gossip. Which made a horror of this beach resort for me, even more so because it was largely propagated by people for whom I have nothing but respect and affection. (This is just between us of course, because if you aren’t careful you could risk committing a terrible blunder, whereas when we talk just between the two of us I could perhaps be very useful to you). It still galls me. But this unhappiness is a very small thing next to all the others. Night and day we think about the war, perhaps more grievously still when like me we play no part in it. But if we think about something else, even if we are sleeping, the suffering never stops, like those neuralgias that we experience in our sleep. I try to understand the military operations as best I can, which is hardly at all. I gorge myself every day on anything that the French or Genevan military critics think about the war. I have no need to tell you that it is never without addressing a thought filled with tender respect for the man with the large heart and charming wit who was happy to chat with me about the army and strategy in the casino at Cabourg. Since then that man has realized his dream by becoming an officer once more. I admire him, I envy him; but most of all I want to know how he is!

Et je le prie d'agréer l'hommage de mon affectueux respect.

Marcel Proust

[10] [11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Note 1
  2. ↑ Note 2
  3. ↑ Note 3
  4. ↑ Note 4
  5. ↑ Note 5
  6. ↑ Note 6
  7. ↑ Note 7
  8. ↑ Note 8
  9. ↑ Note 9
  10. ↑ Translation notes:
  11. ↑ Contributors:
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