" Mais ce qu'il faut que vous sachiez par dessus tout, c'est que vous êtes ma plus grande affection"

Very long autograph letter signed by Claude Farrère, approximately 260 lines in blue ink (16 pages on four double sheets), to his friend Pierre Louÿs.
Fold marks inherent to postal dispatch, envelope included.
Claude Farrère mentions the letter he received from his friend and the one he has just sent him: "I was writing to you, on that same Friday, a blood-colored letter...[...] a glowing letter devoid of all composure."
He returns, with humor, to the quarrel between Pierre Louÿs and a certain Augusto (probably Auguste Babut de Rosan) for which he thought himself responsible: "Note well, dear friend, that I was persuaded deep down, despite your mutual denials, of my personal influence in your quarrel. Human vanity never misses such opportunities. And it is with some shame that I confess to having believed myself, for two good days, to be the pivot of the world."
Claude Farrère castigates his own candor and lack of discernment: "Although I am as prudent as you know me to be, I am constantly caught red-handed... [...] the young divorced woman I once showed you at the cinema had the imprudence to arrange to meet me in deserted streets... the child's father, a senior officer, as befits, encountered us there...", sensing that this naivety will eventually play tricks on him: "... it will end badly. I practice fencing every time I think about it."
Since he has just received his friend Pierre Louÿs's missive, he continues writing his letter to respond to him and is astonished by what he has just read: "So when four or five days later, I find your first telegram 'am quarreling' with - for a reason you can guess...", I remain stupefied, and rack my brain in vain. Having not guessed, I suppose. I suppose wrongly... Bewilderment. I received, last week, seventy-five letters of which about twenty concerned you closely or distantly."
In this tangle of bruised and torn friendships, Claude Farrère also describes the great dismay of another of their mutual friends, a certain V who finally enlightens the writer about the misunderstanding opposing Louÿs and Babut de Rosan: "Thereupon, sudden change in V. He was more than struck. I saw him on the verge of suicide. He immediately pulls himself together, regains his composure, jumps on a train. And while waiting for departure time, he resumes his account. and I understand."
Here Claude Farrère is almost relieved and reassured: "Now, I believe I have understood. Not quite everything... That I meddled in what did not concern me. I ask your pardon for it, my friend, and beg you to forget it. Your affection is so dear to me that I would be abominably unhappy to feel it cooled, even by a single degree! Tell me if I must fear this, and tell me so in earnest." but still as sad for Augusto: "Augusto is at this moment almost mad with grief, because he believes your friendship lost to him. I deeply pity this poor child."
A very fine letter symbolizing the torments of the tumultuous friendships in Pierre Louÿs and Claude Farrère's circle.