Marcel PROUST

Lettre autographe signée adressée à René Peter : "je leur souhaite toutes les voluptés depuis les plus hautes jusqu'aux plus grossières"

s.l. mardi (25 octobre 1904), 12,6x20,4cm, 12 pages sur 3 bifeuillets.

“Because I also want success, I am extremely material in my wishes for those I love and I wish them every pleasure from the highest to the crudest.”

“Reynaldo told me that your play was delightful and ravishing, which is not quite the same thing, that he laughed and cried in it as he never laughs or cries in the theater and that the language was exquisite. Of that I was certain. But knowing nothing about you, I couldn't know if you had dramatic genius. I am certain of it now because even if I do not know a judge as severe, as ridiculously severe as Reynaldo, I also do not know one who has more taste, giving his enthusiasm very great value in my eyes.”

“Your poor and charming mother who, like all those who love and who have lived, life bruising all our tenderness, has suffered so much, is witnessing this great happiness, these first rays of glory on your charming forehead, which Vauvenargues says softer as the rising sun. I only speak of them in quotations, having never known them myself!”

“It makes me happy to think that the charming woman who, I am assured, is hiding under the male name of your collaborator, shares half of your work. I am not talking about your success, because whether she worked with you or not, she would always have shared your success with her heart, having, I believe, a deep friendship for you.”