Autograph letter signed by Louis-Ferdinand Céline addressed to his lawyer Maître Thorvald Mikkelsen. Two pages written in blue ballpoint pen on a large sheet of white paper; number "583" in Céline's hand in red pencil at top left.
Transverse folds inherent to mailing.
This letter was very partially transcribed in L'Année Céline 2005.
Céline, after complaining extensively about the difficult living conditions in Mikkelsen's hut, thanks the latter: "Merci pour le petit Noël mon cher maître on va passer ça gentiment ! Le chauffage électrique est installé." ["Thank you for the little Christmas my dear master we'll get through this nicely! The electric heating is installed."]He is still awaiting the precious passport that will allow him to return to France: "Votre frère a une magnifique tête de Héros des Glaces. Je lui vois une sacrée place à prendre : celle de Nansen à l'ONU ! Quelle autorité ! lui, m'aurait un passeport !" ["Your brother has a magnificent head of an Ice Hero. I see a hell of a place for him to take: that of Nansen at the UN! What authority! He would have gotten me a passport!"]Philosophically, he concludes: "Et c'est la rigolade qui compte en ce monde "où tout au fond des choses le Ridicule et la folie sont à l'ordre du jour et où il ne convient de prendre au sérieux que les apparences". Ces lignes sont de Telly auteur très peu connu du 19eme s. (amant prétendu de Marie Antoinette)." ["And it's the laughter that counts in this world "where deep down the Ridiculous and madness are the order of the day and where one should only take appearances seriously". These lines are by Telly, a very little-known 19th century author (alleged lover of Marie Antoinette)."]
In 1947, Céline, pursued by French justice for his collaborationist involvement, was secluded in Denmark. It was in May 1948, accompanied by Lucette and Bébert, that he arrived at his lawyer Maître Thorvald Mikkelsen's home in Klarskovgaard. The latter owned a large property by the Baltic Sea and invited the exile to stay there. On February 21, 1950, as part of the purge, the writer was definitively sentenced in absentia by the civic chamber of the Paris Court of Justice for collaboration to one year in prison (which he had already served in Denmark). The Swedish Consul General in Paris, Raoul Nordling, intervened on his behalf with Gustav Rasmussen, Danish Foreign Minister, and managed to delay his extradition. On April 20, 1951, Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, his lawyer since 1948, obtained Céline's amnesty as a "severely disabled veteran of the Great War" by presenting his case under the name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches without any magistrate making the connection. Céline would leave Denmark the following summer, after three years spent at his lawyer's home.
