CP 05409/en: Difference between revisions
Lverstraten (talk | contribs) (Created page with "Please accept, dear Sir, the expression of my respectful and grateful attachment.") |
Lverstraten (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 21: | Line 21: | ||
<references> | <references> | ||
<ref name="n1"> | <ref name="n1">The postmark on the envelope bears the date 7 October, 1914, so Proust must have written this letter on Sunday, 4 October, 1914.[FL]</ref> | ||
<ref name="n2"> Note 2 </ref> | <ref name="n2"> Note 2 </ref> | ||
Revision as of 05:07, 3 April 2021
Marcel Proust to Samuel Pozzi Sunday[4 October 1914]
(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, Sunday[1]
Dear Sir
I would like to ask you for advice and perhaps a service (the advice will already be a very precious service), concerning the fact that I, as a discharged officer, may be called upon to appear before the medical board[2]. But I have recently had such terrible asthma attacks that I do not know yet what day I will be able to see you[3]. This letter has only one purpose: to ask you not to think me ill-mannered if, on the day I feel fit to get up, I take the liberty of telephoning you to asking if you could possibly see me. It is infinitely probable - with so much work, carried out with the ease of Hercules (who also had, according to a beautiful myth, Eternal Youth[4]), but which finally takes up all your time[5] - that you will not be able to receive me on that day. But then another day I will take the liberty of telephoning again. And as the already very old class to which I belong will only be called last, it will be no inconvenience, even if you cannot receive me several times in a row. Besides, I have just been so violently ill that a period of calm will perhaps follow and it will be possible for me to get up quite often, especially for such a short time as going to your house. Don't bother to answer me, my letter has only one purpose, to announce my phone call, to explain it, to excuse it, so that you won't find it "cavalier".
Please accept, dear Sir, the expression of my respectful and grateful attachment.
Marcel Proust