CP 05405/en
Marcel Proust to Léon Bailby [9 Decembre 1914]
(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)
102 bd Haussmann[1]
My dear Léon[2]
If it isn’t too much of a nuisance to you I would like to ask your advice, not as Director of L’Intransigeant[3] but as a reserve officer and above all as a friend[4]. In a word, after having completed my military service in the infantry[5] (and at present having pulled more "strings" to avoid being discharged than many others have done in order to be), and being too ill I was later appointed as an administrative officer[6]. But as my health worsened I have never exercised any of those duties (even though I have been promoted in seniority!), so that four years ago[7] after a visit from a major[8], I was struck off the lists on health grounds by presidential order[9].
When I was told this summer that all discharged men would have to appear before a review board and would have to register at the Town Hall[10], I was very ill, not at all well informed, and so as not to risk disobeying the rules I had myself registered at the Town Hall[11]. I told the person who was taking care of this task[12] to provide the information that was asked of them, but as there was no mention of the question of being an "officer", I judged that it was pointless to flaunt my rank, not being familiar with the procedures. So now I’m going from one day to the next thinking that I’m about to be summoned before a review board. But a friend of mine who is a reserve officer[13] passing through Paris and coming up to see me the other day and who I informed of all this, told me (I don’t know how well informed he is) firstly that this counter discharge only applied to privates and not to officers. Secondly that when the review board saw that I was an officer they wouldn’t make me undergo an examination and that I would have tired myself unnecessarily. As for the second point I think that I should just wait to be summoned and then immediately ask at H.Q.[14] to forestall my recruitment so that instead of going to the review board I would report to H.Q. What I would like best would be to not make any visits at all, my medical certificates establishing my total incapacity[15], and in any case when I published my book Le Temps and other papers came to interview me[16], and their reporters said that they came to my bedside and that I hadn’t left it for years[17]. But at that time nobody could foresee what was to come and it couldn’t have been a preventative measure for a "cushy number"[18]! But in the end, if I have to be seen I would prefer to put myself out and report to H.Q. rather than letting a major suffer my fumigations where the chances are that he would find me in the middle of one, and which make the atmosphere in my room unbreathable. Then again maybe there won’t be any need for them to make a visit at all if the counter discharge doesn’t apply to officers. And this is where you can perhaps advise me, because I seem to recall that at Versailles when you were such a fine cavalryman, you were a reserve officer[19]. If you can’t answer this please don’t bother to ask at H.Q., because d’Albufera is going to give me a letter[20] for Commander de Sachs[21] who is there, and plus I know Reinach who is bound to be there too[22]. (Which of them would be best?) Your intervention will only be valuable to me (and very much so) if you are well enough acquainted with the officer I am depending upon, who is Director of the Department of Health (Inspector M. Février I think) to settle everything with regard to my certificates. But that’s not really likely. Although perhaps you can tell me in any case if the counter discharge would apply to officers.
Dear Léon, I am deliberately confining myself to practical advice that I need to ask you. Otherwise there would be too much to say! I wrote to you[23] last summer I think, after my terrible sorrow[24], before the thunderbolt of war. Since then I have been trembling for the lives of dear ones just like everybody else. You have no doubt heard that my brother’s hospital at Étain was bombarded while he was operating and since then he has never stopped putting himself in terrible danger - and meeting it head on. At the moment he’s in the Argonne[25] but I’ve had no news for a month. I hope that you don’t have too many anxieties and sorrows on your part. If you reply I would be very pleased to hear your news about Albert Flament[26]. As an unimportant detail I’d like to know which idiotic windbag you were alluding to yesterday, talking about the "synthesis of courage"!
To you my dear Léon with all my heart, united together in the same terrible anguish and the same great hopes
Your Marcel Proust
Notes
- ↑ The mention at the end of the letter of an article published "yesterday" (Léon Bailby, "Notes de guerre : La question du silence", L’Intransigeant, 9 December 1914) allows us to establish the date. L'Intransigeant being an evening paper, the issue dated 9 December would have actually come out on 8 December. By referring to it on the following day Proust must have written on 9 December. [FP, FL]
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- ↑ Contributors: