Delightful, likely unpublished, handwritten letter signed by an enigmatic Marijo, a chambermaid by trade, who in a Rabelaisian tone and a long string of puns writes from a hotel in Réalmont (Tarn) to the hussar Roger Nimier at his Paris office at La N.R.F.
20 lines on a squared sheet.
Though the letter is unmistakably by Antoine Blondin, it is unlikely to be in his hand, and one of his companions probably lent his own to this farcical piece. The writer, disguised as Marijo, a distinctly illiterate maid, recounts her sexual exploits with "Monsieur Antouane".
A fine example of the anarchic and mischievous spirit that guided the not always steady, but always inebriated, steps of Antoine Blondin, and of the boisterous and fraternal friendship that bound him to Roger Nimier.
In a humorous and delightfully offbeat tone, Blondin composes in a wildly phonetic and approximate spelling a pornographic tale told from the point of view of a hotel maid in whose establishment he is staying. Here follows the text, faithfully transcribed with all its errors: the maid recounts to her "Monsieur Rogeais [Nimier]" an inebriated evening with "Monsieur Antouane [Blondin]" at a hotel: "ce grand pendard [...] me fout sondard en cul. Je vous et cris à quat patte passqui pas raie quessa dit Latte les Saints Quetaires ou les cinq terres de mon peti cul. Je messe culse mai genêt pas beau cou d'ortograf si j'ai du temps pet rarement". Roger Nimier, his drinking and feasting companion, is kept informed of his friend’s adventures through the witty turns of phrase Blondin puts in the mouth of this illiterate maid: "Hyères souar ou Pluto Sète nuids, Monsieur Antouane m'affet absorbet une bouteille de Pépère aide sic ! Onna bien riz parce queue cetté dans ma titte chatte qu'il mella mise".
Playing the bohemian and the carefree spirit, Blondin ultimately embraced his image as a jovial rascal, a poet fond of drink and merriment: "Sannan pêche pas con panse à vous. Un petit têtre qui vous susse en rêve", he—or she—signs at the end of the letter.
Speaking of the deep friendship he bore Roger Nimier and of the so-called myth of the Hussards, Blondin told Emmanuel Legeard: “It’s the ‘Hussards’ who are an invention. A ‘Sartrian’ invention. In reality, the story is this: my friend Frémanger, who went into publishing, had only one author, Jacques Laurent, and only one employee—me. Laurent wrote, and I tied up the parcels of books. So we knew each other, we were friends, and moreover... moreover, Roger Nimier was my best friend. I saw Nimier every day. I saw him every day for thirteen years. But Laurent and Nimier never saw each other. They had very different outlooks. We were brought together only once. We met on rue Marbeuf, at the Quirinal, for lunch. We talked about Italian wines and how to cook pasta. For two hours.”
Blondin encloses a newspaper clipping of one of his L’Équipe articles on a car race, along with a card from the Hôtel-Restaurant Noël Galinier in Réalmont, on which is written the menu of his meal: “Ecrevisses / Saumon / Côtelettes d’agneau / Cèpes / Conneries”. “Vins: Pas identifiés.”
Envelope included.
The writer of France’s carnal spirit reveals through this letter to his closest friend a facet of his singular and complex inner world.