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=[http://www.corr-proust.org/letter/02992 Marcel Proust à Lionel Hauser Vendredi<nowiki>[27 août 1915]</nowiki>]=  
=[http://www.corr-proust.org/letter/02992 Marcel Proust to Lionel Hauser Friday <nowiki>[27 August 1915]</nowiki>]=
<small>(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the ''Corr-Proust'' digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)</small>


Vendredi<ref name="n1" />  
Friday<ref name="n1" />  


Mon cher Lionel
My dear Lionel


Je t'ai bien écrit tout de suite pour te dire ma profonde reconnaissance mais ma lettre n'a pas eu de chance. Portée Boulevard Flandrin<ref name="n2" /> immédiatement comme ce n'était plus l'heure de la rue de la Victoire<ref name="n3" /> on a répondu que tu n'y habitais plus. Alors le lendemain j'ai envoyé rue de la Victoire, tu n'y étais pas<ref name="n4" />. Aujourd'hui (ce qui fait quarante-huit heures sans que tu aies su que je ne suis pas ingrat, j'en suis malade) j'ai renvoyé rue de la Victoire demander ton nouveau domicile (ce qu'on aurait dû faire la première fois) et on a refusé de l'indiquer<ref name="n5" />. Je vais donc renvoyer ce mot rue de la Victoire en espérant qu'un jour ou l'autre tu sauras ma gratitude.
I actually wrote to you straight away to express my deep gratitude but my letter has been unlucky. Taken straight to Boulevard Flandrin<ref name="n2" /> because it was too late for the rue de la Victoire<ref name="n3" />, they said you no longer lived there. So the next day I sent it to the rue de la Victoire, you weren’t there<ref name="n4" />. Today (which makes it forty eight hours without you having any means of knowing that I am not ungrateful, which makes me feel ill) I sent back to the rue de la Victoire to ask for your new address (which should have been done in the first place) and they refused to give it out<ref name="n5" />. So I am going to send this note back again to rue de la Victoire in the hope that one day or another you will know of my gratitude.


Tu es bien aimable, (et, je le crains, un peu moqueur), quand tu dis que tu as lu ma lettre avec intérêt ; car rien n'est plus ennuyeux, sauf pour le questionneur, que ces demandes de conseil. Mais tu comprendras facilement que moi j'aie pu lire ta réponse avec grand intérêt, car tu y traites de questions générales, comme celle du change, et j'ai lu cela comme un article de Revue de Paris, mais mieux fait. Dans l'intervalle le directeur de l'Agence du Crédit Industriel est venu en congé de trois mois et m'a adressé un tableau détaillé des hausses et des baisses. Je pourrais dire des baisses car rien n'a monté. En examinant mieux le Compte Rothschild (je voulais te l'envoyer mais j'ai eu peur de t'assommer) j'ai vu que la Jutland et le Hollandais y tiennent une trop petite place pour pouvoir être utiles. En revanche de gros paquets de Banque Espagnole du Rio de la Plata, de Santa Fé, de Chilien 5 %, de Russe, bénéficient peut-être de cette question du change ? Ne prends pas la peine de me l'écrire. Je le demanderai au Crédit Industriel et tremble qu'il me dise que c'est à vendre. Car alors il faudra affronter Monsieur Neuburger. Quant aux valeurs qui ne donnent pas d'intérêts comme la Doubowaïa Balka naturellement j'aimerais mieux les vendre. Mais le capital a par trop baissé. Quant aux Mines d'Or j'ignore si la guerre leur profitera. Et puis elles donnent de bons revenus.
You are very kind (and I fear a little mocking), when you say you read my letter with interest; because there is nothing more boring, except on the part of the questioner, than these requests for advice. But you can easily understand that in my case I read your reply with great interest, because in it you deal with general questions, such as the exchange rate, which I read as if it were an article in the Revue de Paris, only better written. In the meantime the director of the Agence du Crédit Industriel has come back from three months’ leave and sent me a detailed table of gains and losses. I should just say losses because nothing has gone up. On taking a closer look at the Rothschild account (I wanted to send you it but I was afraid of boring you to death) I see that the Jutland and the Dutch have too little presence to be of any use. On the other hand might large groups of Bank of Spain, Rio, La Plata, Santa Fé, Chilean 5%, Russia, perhaps benefit from the point of view of exchange rates? Don’t trouble yourself writing back to me. I’ll ask the Crédit Industriel and shudder that he might tell me that I need to sell. Because then I will have to confront Monsieur Neuburger. As for the shares that are not giving any interest, such as the Doubowaïa Balka, I would naturally prefer to sell them. But the capital has fallen too low. As for the Gold Mines, I don’t know if the war will profit them. But then they provide a good income.


Je n'ai pas compris ce que tu m'as dit relativement à mon coulissier, mais puisque je ne suis pas obligé de lever les titres<ref name="n6" />, cela m'est égal. D'ailleurs ces valeurs sont plus basses qu'en juin. Néanmoins je vais lui écrire qu'il peut arrêter le jeu<ref name="n7" />, s'il veut. Tu as donc été gentil, bon, délicieux, dans tous tes conseils, et de me les donner si vite, et si détaillés. Il me semble (ceci dit très affectueusement) que tu l'as été un peu moins quand tu t'es dit heureux que je fusse versé dans le service armé car tu sais très bien que dans mon état de santé ce serait ma mort en quarante-huit heures. Sans doute la vie que je mène n'a rien d'agréable et même en sachant que je ne peux être utile en rien à l'armée, je me serais utile à moi-même en me laissant supprimer. Mais je désire beaucoup terminer l'ouvrage commencé et y déposer des vérités dont je sais que beaucoup se nourrissent et qui sans cela seront détruites avec moi. D'ailleurs (et c'est ce qui a causé le premier retard à te remercier) comme je venais de recevoir ta lettre on m'a inopinément annoncé de nouveaux médecins militaires, à ma grande surprise puisque j'étais ajourné à six mois (la loi Dalbiez<ref name="n8" /> en est sans doute cause). La conséquence a été que je suis au contraire proposé pour la Réforme. J'espère tout de même que je ne te cause pas de tristesse en te le disant.
I didn’t understand what you told me about my broker, but as I am not obliged to raise the securities<ref name="n6" />, it is all the same to me. Moreover those shares are lower than in June. Nevertheless I’m going to write to him that he can put a stop to the gamble<ref name="n7" />, if he wishes. You have been of course <u>kind</u>, <u>clever</u>, <u>delightful</u>, in all of your advice and giving it to me so quickly and in so much detail. But it seems to me (and I say this very affectionately), that you have been a little less so when you said you were happy that I had been assigned into the armed services because you know very well that in my current state of health it would be the death of me in forty eight hours. To be sure there is nothing pleasant about the life I lead and even knowing that I can be of no use whatsoever to the army, I am making myself useful by allowing myself to be excluded. But I very much want to finish the book I have started and put into it the truths that I know will give many people sustenance and which otherwise will perish along with me. But anyway (and this is my primary reason for my delay in thanking you) just after I received your letter I was unexpectedly informed of the visit of some new military doctors, to my great astonishment because I had been deferred for six months (no doubt due to the Dalbiez act<ref name="n8" />). The consequence was that on the contrary I am being put forward for Discharge. I hope I am not causing you any distress by telling you this.


Ne prends toute cette dernière partie de ma lettre que comme elle est écrite, c'est-à-dire « cum grano salis » et en revanche que ce soit dans la plénitude de son sens que tu veuilles bien croire à ma reconnaissante affection.
Please don’t take this last part of my letter other than how it was written, which is to say “cum grano salis”, and rather in the fullness of its meaning that you believe me to be your grateful and affectionate,


Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust


Ne dis à personne ce que je t'ai dit de mon frère<ref name="n9" /> car il n'en a parlé à personne, je ne l'ai su qu'indirectement, cela n'a jamais interrompu ses travaux et j'espère qu'il en triomphera.
Please don’t tell anybody what I told you about my brother<ref name="n9" /> because he hasn’t told anyone, I only found out about it indirectly, it has never interrupted his work and I hope he will get over it fully.


P. S. Maintenant que j'ai été revisité, je tâcherai de faire une ou deux tentatives de sortie. La première sera pour aller te remercier si je peux te joindre. Et je te demanderai si tu possèdes mon livre illustré par Madeleine Lemaire (les Plaisirs et les Jours). Sinon je serai heureux de te l'envoyer, il est assez joli à regarder pour que même sans prendre la peine de le lire, tu puisses trouver du plaisir à en examiner les dessins. peut-être je te l'ai donné autrefois. Je ne me souviens plus.
P.S. Now that I have been reviewed again I shall try to make one or two tentative efforts to go out. The first will be to come and thank you, if I am able to join you. And then ask you if you possess a copy of my book illustrated by Madame Lemaire (Les Plaisirs et les Jours). If not I’ll be happy to send it to you, it is pretty enough to look at so even without taking the trouble to read it you might at least take some pleasure in looking at the drawings. Perhaps I have already given you it. I no longer remember.


J'ai trouvé (je saute au premier sujet) que les Obligations d'Égypte, les Chemins fédéraux suisses, les Tunisiennes, la Rente, le Suez ont bien baissé pour les vendre. Je me suis arrêté provisoirement à l'Azote et à la Compagnie des Eaux.
I have discovered (I’m jumping back to the first matter) that the Egyptian Bonds, the Swiss Federal Rail, the Tunisian, the Revenue, the Suez have fallen too low to sell. Provisionally I have stopped at the Nitrates and the Water Company


<ref name="n10" /> <ref name="n11" />
<ref name="n10" /> <ref name="n11" />
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<references>
<references>


<ref name="n1"> Note 1 </ref>
<ref name="n1"> Written in reply to Lionel Hauser's letter dated 24 August 1915 (CP 02991; Kolb, XIV, no. 103), this letter, written "48 hours" after Hauser's (according to Proust's explanations), must date from Friday 27 August 1915. [PK] </ref>


<ref name="n2"> Note 2 </ref>
<ref name="n2"> M. and Mme Lionel Hauser lived in a private town house at 15, boulevard Flandrin (see Tout-Paris, 1912, p. 281) before their move which Proust clearly did not know about. [PK] </ref>


<ref name="n3"> Note 3 </ref>
<ref name="n3"> In July 1914, Lionel Hauser and Co had left 22, rue de l'Arcade and had moved their offices to 92, rue de la Victoire. [PK] </ref>


<ref name="n4"> Note 4 </ref>
<ref name="n4"> In his (almost immediate) reply of 28 August 1915 (CP 02993; Kolb, XIV, no. 105), Hauser responds to these insinuations that he has been absent from work by saying that he has "not missed a single day" since April and that Proust's messenger must not have gone up to his office because nobody at the bank had seen him for a long time. [FL] </ref>


<ref name="n5"> Dans sa réponse du 28 août 1915 (CP 02993 ; Kolb, XIV, n° 105), Hauser fournit sa nouvelle adresse (18, rue de l'Observatoire, 5e étage) et suppose que le messager de Proust s'est borné à poser la question à la concierge du 92, rue de la Victoire, au lieu de monter à l'agence bancaire, où on l'aurait renseigné. [FL] </ref>
<ref name="n5"> In his reply of 28 August 1915 (CP 02993; Kolb, XIV, no. 105), Hauser gives him his new address (18, rue de l'Observatoire, 5th floor) and guesses that Proust's messenger just asked the concierge at 92, rue de la Victoire, rather than going up to the office of the bank where he would have been given the information. [FL] </ref>


<ref name="n6"> Dans sa lettre du 24 août 1915 (CP 02991 ; Kolb, XIV, n° 103), Hauser avait en effet indiqué à Proust, concernant sa « position en coulisse », qu'il n'était pas « tenu » de lever ses titres, « puisque la liquidation ne se fera[it] que si on trouv[ait] la possibilité de continuer à reporter ceux qui ne voudr[aie]nt ni lever ni vendre », et que « c'[était] même pour cela que [s]on Coulissier [lui] demand[ait] des instructions, car ce n'est qu'en connaissant les intentions de leurs clients que les Coulissiers ser[aie]nt fixés sur la somme dont ils aur[aie]nt besoin pour pouvoir opérer la liquidation. » Après plus d'un an de moratorium, les milieux financiers, lors du mois d'août 1915, espéraient que les transactions boursières et financières pourraient rapidement reprendre. [FL] </ref>
<ref name="n6"> In his letter of 24 August 1915 (CP 02991; Kolb, XIV, no. 103), Hauser had indeed pointed out to Proust, with regard to his "position as broker", that he was not "bound" to take up his securities, "because liquidation will only take place if we find it possible to continue to report on those which do not need to be either taken up or sold", and that "this was the reason his broker asked for his instructions because it is only by understanding their clients' intentions that brokers can determine the sum needed to enact the liquidation". After more than a year's moratorium, most financiers, from around August 1915 onward, were hoping that stock market and other financial transactions could quickly be resumed. [FL] </ref>


<ref name="n7"> C'était précisément le conseil que Hauser donnait à Proust dans sa lettre du 24 août 1915 (CP 02991 ; Kolb, XIV, n° 103). [FL] </ref>
<ref name="n7"> This was exactly the advice that Hauser had given Proust in his letter of 24 August 1915 (CP 02991; Kolb, XIV, no. 103). [FL] </ref>


<ref name="n8"> La loi Dalbiez, votée par le Sénat le 12 août 1915 et ratifiée par la Chambre des députés le 13, visait à traquer les « embusqués ». Voir l'article « La Loi Dalbiez », Le Figaro, 4 juin 1915. [PK] </ref>
<ref name="n8"> The Dalbiez act, voted for in the Senate on 12 August 1915 and ratified by the Chamber of Deputies on 13 August, aimed to round up the "shirkers". See the article "The Dalbiez law", Le Figaro, 4 June 1915. [PK] </ref>


<ref name="n9"> Voir la lettre à Hauser du [23 août 1915] (CP 02990 ; Kolb, XIV, n° 102), où Proust disait que son frère Robert avait la dysenterie depuis huit mois mais ne voulait pas en parler pour ne pas devoir interrompre son travail. [PK] </ref>
<ref name="n9"> See the letter to Hauser of [23 August 1915] (CP 02990; Kolb, XIV, no. 102), in which Proust says that his brother Robert has been suffering from dysentery for the last eight months but that he did not want it spoken about so as not to interrupt his work. [PK] </ref>


<ref name="n10"> (Notes de traduction) </ref>  
<ref name="n10"> Translation notes: </ref>  


<ref name="n11"> (Contributeurs) </ref>
<ref name="n11"> Contributors: Yorktaylors </ref>


</references>
</references>

Latest revision as of 09:18, 15 January 2021

Other languages:

Marcel Proust to Lionel Hauser Friday [27 August 1915]

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

Friday[1]

My dear Lionel

I actually wrote to you straight away to express my deep gratitude but my letter has been unlucky. Taken straight to Boulevard Flandrin[2] because it was too late for the rue de la Victoire[3], they said you no longer lived there. So the next day I sent it to the rue de la Victoire, you weren’t there[4]. Today (which makes it forty eight hours without you having any means of knowing that I am not ungrateful, which makes me feel ill) I sent back to the rue de la Victoire to ask for your new address (which should have been done in the first place) and they refused to give it out[5]. So I am going to send this note back again to rue de la Victoire in the hope that one day or another you will know of my gratitude.

You are very kind (and I fear a little mocking), when you say you read my letter with interest; because there is nothing more boring, except on the part of the questioner, than these requests for advice. But you can easily understand that in my case I read your reply with great interest, because in it you deal with general questions, such as the exchange rate, which I read as if it were an article in the Revue de Paris, only better written. In the meantime the director of the Agence du Crédit Industriel has come back from three months’ leave and sent me a detailed table of gains and losses. I should just say losses because nothing has gone up. On taking a closer look at the Rothschild account (I wanted to send you it but I was afraid of boring you to death) I see that the Jutland and the Dutch have too little presence to be of any use. On the other hand might large groups of Bank of Spain, Rio, La Plata, Santa Fé, Chilean 5%, Russia, perhaps benefit from the point of view of exchange rates? Don’t trouble yourself writing back to me. I’ll ask the Crédit Industriel and shudder that he might tell me that I need to sell. Because then I will have to confront Monsieur Neuburger. As for the shares that are not giving any interest, such as the Doubowaïa Balka, I would naturally prefer to sell them. But the capital has fallen too low. As for the Gold Mines, I don’t know if the war will profit them. But then they provide a good income.

I didn’t understand what you told me about my broker, but as I am not obliged to raise the securities[6], it is all the same to me. Moreover those shares are lower than in June. Nevertheless I’m going to write to him that he can put a stop to the gamble[7], if he wishes. You have been of course kind, clever, delightful, in all of your advice and giving it to me so quickly and in so much detail. But it seems to me (and I say this very affectionately), that you have been a little less so when you said you were happy that I had been assigned into the armed services because you know very well that in my current state of health it would be the death of me in forty eight hours. To be sure there is nothing pleasant about the life I lead and even knowing that I can be of no use whatsoever to the army, I am making myself useful by allowing myself to be excluded. But I very much want to finish the book I have started and put into it the truths that I know will give many people sustenance and which otherwise will perish along with me. But anyway (and this is my primary reason for my delay in thanking you) just after I received your letter I was unexpectedly informed of the visit of some new military doctors, to my great astonishment because I had been deferred for six months (no doubt due to the Dalbiez act[8]). The consequence was that on the contrary I am being put forward for Discharge. I hope I am not causing you any distress by telling you this.

Please don’t take this last part of my letter other than how it was written, which is to say “cum grano salis”, and rather in the fullness of its meaning that you believe me to be your grateful and affectionate,

Marcel Proust

Please don’t tell anybody what I told you about my brother[9] because he hasn’t told anyone, I only found out about it indirectly, it has never interrupted his work and I hope he will get over it fully.

P.S. Now that I have been reviewed again I shall try to make one or two tentative efforts to go out. The first will be to come and thank you, if I am able to join you. And then ask you if you possess a copy of my book illustrated by Madame Lemaire (Les Plaisirs et les Jours). If not I’ll be happy to send it to you, it is pretty enough to look at so even without taking the trouble to read it you might at least take some pleasure in looking at the drawings. Perhaps I have already given you it. I no longer remember.

I have discovered (I’m jumping back to the first matter) that the Egyptian Bonds, the Swiss Federal Rail, the Tunisian, the Revenue, the Suez have fallen too low to sell. Provisionally I have stopped at the Nitrates and the Water Company

[10] [11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Written in reply to Lionel Hauser's letter dated 24 August 1915 (CP 02991; Kolb, XIV, no. 103), this letter, written "48 hours" after Hauser's (according to Proust's explanations), must date from Friday 27 August 1915. [PK]
  2. ↑ M. and Mme Lionel Hauser lived in a private town house at 15, boulevard Flandrin (see Tout-Paris, 1912, p. 281) before their move which Proust clearly did not know about. [PK]
  3. ↑ In July 1914, Lionel Hauser and Co had left 22, rue de l'Arcade and had moved their offices to 92, rue de la Victoire. [PK]
  4. ↑ In his (almost immediate) reply of 28 August 1915 (CP 02993; Kolb, XIV, no. 105), Hauser responds to these insinuations that he has been absent from work by saying that he has "not missed a single day" since April and that Proust's messenger must not have gone up to his office because nobody at the bank had seen him for a long time. [FL]
  5. ↑ In his reply of 28 August 1915 (CP 02993; Kolb, XIV, no. 105), Hauser gives him his new address (18, rue de l'Observatoire, 5th floor) and guesses that Proust's messenger just asked the concierge at 92, rue de la Victoire, rather than going up to the office of the bank where he would have been given the information. [FL]
  6. ↑ In his letter of 24 August 1915 (CP 02991; Kolb, XIV, no. 103), Hauser had indeed pointed out to Proust, with regard to his "position as broker", that he was not "bound" to take up his securities, "because liquidation will only take place if we find it possible to continue to report on those which do not need to be either taken up or sold", and that "this was the reason his broker asked for his instructions because it is only by understanding their clients' intentions that brokers can determine the sum needed to enact the liquidation". After more than a year's moratorium, most financiers, from around August 1915 onward, were hoping that stock market and other financial transactions could quickly be resumed. [FL]
  7. ↑ This was exactly the advice that Hauser had given Proust in his letter of 24 August 1915 (CP 02991; Kolb, XIV, no. 103). [FL]
  8. ↑ The Dalbiez act, voted for in the Senate on 12 August 1915 and ratified by the Chamber of Deputies on 13 August, aimed to round up the "shirkers". See the article "The Dalbiez law", Le Figaro, 4 June 1915. [PK]
  9. ↑ See the letter to Hauser of [23 August 1915] (CP 02990; Kolb, XIV, no. 102), in which Proust says that his brother Robert has been suffering from dysentery for the last eight months but that he did not want it spoken about so as not to interrupt his work. [PK]
  10. ↑ Translation notes:
  11. ↑ Contributors: Yorktaylors
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