"[...] ma sexualité est infiniment occupée par ma vorace Israélite."

Double autograph letter signed by Victor Segalen addressed to Emile Mignard, six pages written in black ink on three sheets of white paper. Transverse folds inherent to posting. Traces of white paper tabs.
Emile Mignard (1878-1966), also a doctor from Brest, was one of Segalen's closest childhood friends whom he met at the Jesuit college Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, in Brest. The writer maintained with this comrade an abundant and very regular correspondence in which he described with humor and intimacy his daily life in the four corners of the globe. It was at Mignard's wedding, on February 15, 1905, that Segalen met his wife, Yvonne Hébert.
Segalen, who departed from Le Havre on October 11, 1902 bound for Tahiti, saw his journey interrupted by contracting typhoid fever which would ultimately immobilize him for two months in San Francisco. This convalescence, which lasted until early January 1903, was an opportunity for Segalen to discover China Town. In this letter, the last that the doctor would address to his friend from California, it is time for assessment: « Je laisse ici à défaut d'Amis, nom que je ne prodigue plus, de très bons camarades et de très bienveillants patrons. [...] Je ne quitte pas sans une pointe de tristesse une ville amusante et trouble et quelques braves gens. Je promets des retours auxquels je ne crois pas et des souvenirs dont plusieurs s'effaceront. » ["I leave here, lacking Friends, a name I no longer lavish, very good comrades and very benevolent bosses. [...] I do not leave without a hint of sadness an amusing and troubled city and some good people. I promise returns in which I do not believe and memories of which several will fade."] Segalen nevertheless returns to his American conquest, already mentioned in his letter from late December: « Je n'omets pas dans le protocole des adieux une séance opératoire soignée sur mon sujet Miss Rachel qui m'est restée bien amusante pendant mon mois supplémentaire. Quel joli petit animal ! Je me suis donné le malin plaisir de réunir en un même dîner plusieurs compétiteurs de ce très succulent morceau. » ["I do not omit from the farewell protocol a careful operative session on my subject Miss Rachel who remained quite amusing to me during my additional month. What a pretty little animal! I gave myself the mischievous pleasure of bringing together at the same dinner several competitors for this very succulent morsel."] We discover here that he did not limit himself to this single sensual relationship: « Ayant satisfait aux lois de l'esthétique en la personne de ma petite Juive, vraiment tentante, j'ai trouvé intéressant et bon de m'occuper de son extrême parmi la cohorte des nurses ; une petite béarnaise échouée ici, laide sans trop, d'une laideur suffisante pour l'isoler, la priver de sortie à deux. Je lui donne volontiers de longues heures de causeries et l'illusion brève d'épanchements nouveaux ; sans plus d'ailleurs car ma sexualité est infiniment occupée par ma vorace Israélite. » ["Having satisfied the laws of aesthetics in the person of my little Jewess, truly tempting, I found it interesting and good to occupy myself with her extreme among the cohort of nurses; a little Béarnaise stranded here, ugly but not too much, with an ugliness sufficient to isolate her, deprive her of going out as a pair. I willingly give her long hours of conversation and the brief illusion of new confidences; nothing more moreover because my sexuality is infinitely occupied by my voracious Israelite."]
This is here for Segalen the opportunity to engage in an anthropological account of the American woman: « La « girl » est ici cet être américain qui peut être millionnaire ou employée de téléphone, noceuse ou rigide. Pas de catégories tranchées comme en France. Elle est souvent de bonne humeur, mange bien, boit plus encore et s'enivre carrément. » ["The 'girl' is here this American being who can be a millionaire or telephone operator, party-goer or rigid. No clear-cut categories like in France. She is often in good humor, eats well, drinks even more and gets frankly drunk."]
Autograph letters by Victor Segalen are extremely rare.