Marcel Proust
16
[March 1915]
Madame,
Yesterday I was grieving most profoundly. After so many family and friends killed in the war, the dearest perhaps after M. Hahn (who is in Argonne but doing well) a person rare and delightful Bertrand de Fénelon has been killed.27 I did not believe that God could add to my pain, when I was informed of yours. And I have so much fallen into the habit, without knowing you, of sympathizing with your sorrows and your joys, through the wall where I sense you invisible and present, that this news of the death of Monsieur your brother has acutely saddened me.28 I always think of you a great deal, I will think of you even more since you are grieving. Alas I know that this sympathy is a small thing. When we are suffering, the only words that touch us are the words of those who have known the person we loved and who can recall him to us. I myself have only an experience of sadness that is already very old and almost uninterrupted. Please be so good as to remember me to the Doctor, would you also thank your son (whom I have never seen either!) and who it appears asks so kindly for news of me from my servant. If I knew of some plaything or some book that might please him, how happy I would be to send it to him. But you would have to direct me. I hope that his tenderness and that of the Doctor will help you bear your hard affliction and I ask you Madame to accept my sincerest regards.
Marcel Proust
Lucien Daudet who came to see me this evening gave me better news of J. Clary.
17
[July or August 1915]
Madame,
I hope that you will not find me too indiscreet. I have had a great deal of noise these past few days and as I am not well, I am more sensitive to it. I have learned that the Doctor is leaving Paris the day after tomorrow and can imagine all that this implies for tomorrow concerning the “nailing” of crates. Would it be possible either to nail the crates this evening, or else not to nail them tomorrow until starting at 4 or 5 o’clock in the afternoon (if my attack ends earlier I would hasten to let you know).
Or else if it is indispensable to nail them in the morning, to nail them in the part of your apartment that is above my kitchen, and not that which is above my bedroom. I call above my bedroom that which is also above the adjoining rooms, and even on the 4th since a noise so discontinuous, so “noticeable” as blows being struck, is heard even in the areas where it is slightly diminished.29 I confess that it bothers me very much to speak to you of such things and I am more embarrassed by it than I can say. My excuse for doing so today is perhaps first that I haven’t done it at all this year; then that the circulars of the Minister of War follow one another so rapidly and so contradictorily that my military situation, already settled three times it seemed is once again called into question. I await my visit from the Major announced ten days ago and which has not yet occurred, something that gives me only too many reasons to live “keeping an ear out,” interferes with my fumigations which might bother him (since I don’t know the day or the hour of his coming) and thus leaving me more defenseless in the face of my ailments.30 Following upon your trip, this situation has prevented me from repeating a visit that had left upon me such a charming impression. And your son is no longer here which saddens me also, for he at least could perhaps have “come down” if I cannot “go up” and I have with respect to him numerous debts which cry out to me about promises not kept. I don’t know if you have seen Clary at the Hôtel d’Albe.31 I have not been able to visit him yet and dread at the same time as I desire the emotion of such a moment.
Please accept Madame my very respectful greetings.
Marcel Proust
Don’t tire yourself out answering me!
18
[summer 1915?]
Madame,
I had ordered these flowers for you and I am in despair that they are coming on a day when against all expectation I feel so ill that I would like to ask you for silence tomorrow Saturday. Yet as this request is in no way conjoined with the flowers, causing them to lose all their fragrance as disinterested mark of respect and to bristle with nasty thorns, I would like even more not to ask you for this silence. If you are remaining as I am in Paris and if one evening I were not suffering too much, I would like since the Doctor and your son I believe have left and perhaps you are feeling a little lonely to come up sometime in the next few weeks to keep you company. But actually doing this encounters so many obstacles. I have three times in the evening and with what difficulty hired rather leisurely cars to go see Clary, who Madame Rehbinder said was asking to see me.32 The 1st time I went with Madame de la Béraudière to the rue du Colisée where we were told he no longer lived and was at 32 rue Gali Colisée lée.33 At 32 rue Galilée the concierge got out of bed to tell us that he . . . did not know Clary. Madame Rehbinder corrected the mistake and told me that he lived at 33. I went off again another evening when I rang at number 33 a fantastic house with no Clary. Finally on the 3rd attempt I got it right with number 37. But then, I mistook the floor the elevator went up to the top causing me to do the opposite of what the Doctor’s clients do each day ringing at my door. And when I went back down I felt [word missing: that] the concierge would not let me go up again, swearing to me that Clary had gone to bed.34
Your very respectful and devoted
Marcel Proust
19
[9 or 10 August 1915]
Madame,
Since you have been so good as to ask me, you permit me to tell you very frankly. Yesterday at about 7:30 am, today at about 8, 8:15 I was a little bothered and you will understand why. Having had yesterday (at last) the visit from the Major who deferred me for a few months,35 I had promised myself to change my hours in order to be able to experience a little daylight. And to start with, not having slept for several days, I had granted myself four hours of sleep to quiet an attack. And at 10 o’clock in the morning I was supposed to get up. But at 8 o’clock, the light little knocks on the floorboards above me were so precise, that the veronal was useless and I woke, only too early for my attack to have been quieted.
[Insertion of this little phrase below “woke”] This could have started before, I was asleep, I’m not saying that the loudest was at 8:15.
I had to give up my fine plans to change my hours, (which I will perhaps resume, but that does not depend on my will but on my health), take once again (since my attack is raging) medications upon medications, too much, which has made everything worse. — . I tell you this since you ask me because I know that you understand this, the regret for a reform of myself will wait for such a long time, prevented by such little noises (to which in a few days the reform had it been successful would no doubt have made me indifferent). What bothers me is never continuous noise, even loud noise, if it is not struck, on the floorboards, (it is less often no doubt in the bedroom itself, than at the bend of the hallway). And everything that is dragged over the floor, that falls on it, runs across it. — . It has been four days now that I have wanted to send you the vegetal reply to your Roses.36 The wait for the Major prevented me from sending it. At last I will be able to. — . But I am disappointed: you had promised me you would ask me for some books, some illustrated ones, some Ruskin? It is perhaps heavy on your bed . . . How I would like to know Madame how you are. I think of you all the time. Please be so kind as to accept my respectful gratitude
Marcel Proust
[Above the word “Madame,” on the first page] What I do not express to you because I am suffering so today that I can’t write, is my emotion, my gratitude for those letters you have written me, truly admirable and touching in mind and heart.
20
[November 1915?]
Madame,
I have been wanting for a long time to express to you my regret that the sudden arrival of my brother prevented me from writing to you during the last days of your stay in Paris, then my sadness at your leaving. But you have bequeathed to me so many workers and one Lady Terr
e37 — whom I do not dare call, rather, “Terrible” (since, when I get the workers to extend the afternoon a little in order to move things ahead without waking me too much, she commands them violently and perhaps sadistically to start banging at 7 o’clock in the morning above my head, in the room immediately above my bedroom, an order which they are forced to obey), that I have no strength to write and have had to give up going away. How right I was to be discreet when you wanted me to investigate whether the morning noise was coming from a sink. What was that compared to those hammers? “A shiver of water on moss” as Verlaine says of a song “that weeps only to please you.”38 In truth, I cannot be sure that the latter was hummed in order to please me. As they are redoing a shop next door I had with great difficulty got them not to begin work each day until after two o’clock. But this success has been destroyed since upstairs, much closer, they are beginning at 7 o’clock. I will add in order to be fair that your workers whom I do not have the honor of knowing (any more than the terrible lady) must be charming. Thus your painters (or your painter), unique within their kind and their guild, do not practice the Union of the Arts, do not sing! Generally a painter, a house painter especially, believes he must cultivate at the same time as the art of Giotto that of Reszke.39 This one is quiet while the electrician bangs. I hope that when you return you will not find yourself surrounded by anything less than the Sistine frescoes . . . I would so much like your voyage to do you good, I was so sad, so continually sad over your illness. If your charming son, innocent of the noise that is tormenting me, is with you, will you please convey all my best wishes to him and be so kind as to accept Madame my most respectful regards.
Marcel Proust
21
[November 1915?]
Madame,
I am extremely embarrassed that I have not yet thanked you. The real Truth is that I always defer letters (which could seem to ask you for something) to a moment when it is too late and when consequently, they are no longer indiscreet. Considering how little time it took to do the work on Ste Chapelle (this comparison can only I think be seen as flattering), one may presume that when this letter reaches Annecy, the beautifications of Boulevard Haussmann will be nearly done.
The real truth, I said, the “Truth” as Pelléas says, is not to be found in the letter that was addressed to you, a fragment of which you wanted to communicate to me (I do not have it at hand, but will reproduce it for you). It is rather a dispatch from the Wollff Agency.40 In any case I am not very well placed to judge on my own. I feel no resentment toward Madame Terre [earth] (one does say the Sun King and Madame Mère [mother]).41 I have adapted for her, in honor of that Cybele who perhaps announces silence to the dead but not to the living, more than one piece of verse, beginning with the famous sonnet.
Alas I bear an evil whose name — well known — is Earth
This evil has no cure, and thus my lips are sealed
And she whom I lament knows nothing of my woe
Hereunder where I lie, I no doubt pass unseen,
Reposing at her feet and yet still quite alone,
And till the end I will have done my time on earth
Ne’er asking aught but stillness and receiving none.
She whom God has fashioned neither sweet nor kind,
Determined in her mind that I will have to hear
This ceaseless noise of hamm’ring now raiséd at her steps,
To holy Pity faithless every livelong day,
Will say when she shall read these lines so filled with her,
“Who can this woman be?” and will not comprehend.42
Besides, who knows? — I have always thought that noise would be bearable if it were continuous. As they are repairing the Boulevard Haussmann at night, redoing your apartment during the day and demolishing the shop at 98 bis in the intermissions, it is probable that when this harmonious team disperses, the silence will resound in my ears so abnormally that, mourning the vanished electricians and the departed carpet-layer, I will miss my Lullaby. Deign to accept Madame my respectful greetings.
Marcel Proust
22
[November 1915?]
Madame,
As Annecy was for me voiceless (if the Boulevard Haussmann was not noiseless), I do not know if you received my latest letters and especially those in which I passed on to you the respects of poor Clary.43 — . This one is just a quick note from a neighbor. I am forced to go out very ill and do not know in what state I will return! Yet tomorrow is Sunday, a day which usually offers me the opposite of the weekly repose because in the little courtyard adjoining my room they beat the carpets from your apartment, with an extreme violence. May I ask for grace tomorrow? Or when I do my fumigation let them know so that they can take advantage of that time. I hope that you will not find me too indiscreet and I lay at your feet my respectful regards.
Marcel Proust
Mme Williams and her harp
23
[November 1915]
Madame,
Your letter fills me with gratitude (and sadness since you seem to believe there could be doubts on my part). The epistolary “silence” for which it is too good of you to apologize had been accompanied by another silence which I perceived very distinctly for the past six days and which it was sweet for me to owe to you. The sweetness of your presence and your intention was incarnate in it, and I savored it with thankfulness. I fear that the unexpected arrival this evening at midnight of my friend Reynaldo Hahn who for the 1st time in 15 months was returning from the front and who entered in disarray may have occasioned some noise which would so ill have recompensed that which you are sparing me.44 I was very moved to see him again. I do not know to what extent my health will allow me to see him during the 6 days that he will be spending in Paris but I will ask him not to be so noisy again. He comes up like a whirlwind and goes down in the same way, I can’t understand that. Alas he will not be coming back again until the end of the war . . . — . I also wonder if the voice of my housekeeper, very sharp, does not rise to you. She stays with me very late and does not make any noise when she moves about. But if her voice could be heard, I implore you to tell me. In prescribing for me certain modifications in my ways of doing things, I cannot express to you the intimate pleasure that you would give me. Their daily repetition would mingle your image with my obedience. “Nothing is so sweet as her authority.”45 I am a little sorry that you have not received my last letters (though they were addressed I believe quite correctly). The pastiche of Thérésa’s Song: “This is the earth [terre]!” would have made you smile, I believe and was less bad than that of the sonnet of Arvers which you did receive, I think.46 Clary told me what a great musician you were. Will I never be able to come up and hear you? The Franck quartet, the Béatitudes, the Beethoven Quartets (all music that I have in fact here) are the objects of my most nostalgic desire.47 I have never once been well enough to go hear them (last Sunday the Béatitudes was performed, but I was wheezing in my bed) and when by chance a musician comes to see me in the evening, I stop him from making music for me so that the noise may not bother you. What compensation if on one of the very rare evenings when I can get up, you should permit me to hear you. Thank you again Madame and please accept my lively and grateful respects.
Marcel Proust
24
[19 December 1916]
Tuesday 10 o’clock — evening
Madame,
Alas upon returning home in the grip of the most violent attack I find your charming letter. The letter offers me the most delicious pleasure, the attack pitilessly denies me it. When it has subsided a little tomorrow, if it subsides, I will go to bed and will not be able to get up again for several days, what a stupid idea I had to go out for a moment today. If I had stayed in bed, I could have got up tomorrow, spent the afternoon with you, gone to shake the hand of my old and dear Maître France who in the past first introduced me to the public.48 H
e remembers me and forgives me I am told by Lucien Daudet who sees him often. I was determined not to go out tomorrow, I had told Montesquiou I would not go hear Madame Rubinstein pronounce some wounded offerings, and it was because I was so determined not to go out tomorrow that I made this stupid outing today, with no interest, with none of the pleasure that I would have had tomorrow.49 So I am disappointed and disheartened. — . Ever since the day on which you brought me the bright interval of your visit I have been ill the whole time. What is more the Strauses, whom I left that day, may have told you that I have not been able to see them since, for I know that you are close to them. And I have not been able to see Clary either. On the other hand I have had the joy of often having by my bedside my brother who after having been very unwell is in Paris for a little while. I wanted to mention to him the name of your mutual friend of whom you had spoken to me and have not been [word missing: able] to recall it. Happily your letters are too remarkable for one not to keep them. And I will thus find the name again. What will happen, at the theater, to those admirable phrases of S. Bonnard which I know by heart and which my memory though so enfeebled will retain until the end like a piece of music one has loved as a child. What a joy it would have been to bring together the susceptibilities of our memories and the exigencies of our predilection to listen to that.50 Perhaps it’s just as well. At the theater Crainquebille made me weep.51 I envy you Madame that tomorrow among the “acta Sanctorum” of the Learned Bollandistes you will see old Sylvestre Bonnard, and I thank you for having had the thought of inducing me to see it, as Bonnard, (the very old Bonnard that I am) would have thanked the Countess Trépof for the precious legend.
Letters to His Neighbor Page 3