"La dernière lettre avant le départ qui me rapproche, mon bien cher Emile. Donc, nous quittons Tahiti le 1er Septembre."

Autograph letter signed by Victor Segalen addressed to Emile Mignard. Four pages written in black ink on a double sheet. Transverse fold inherent to mailing.
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 companion 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.
Last letter from Tahiti that Segalen sent to his friend: "La dernière lettre avant le départ qui me rapproche, mon bien cher Emile. Donc, nous quittons Tahiti le 1^er Septembre. Rien de changé en notre retour, que l'imprévu modifiera certainement. Serons à Nouméa vers le 13 Septembre." ["The last letter before departure that brings me closer, my dear Emile. So, we are leaving Tahiti on September 1st. Nothing changed in our return, which the unexpected will certainly modify. We will be in Nouméa around September 13th."]
This final letter is an opportunity for Segalen to take stock, quite surprisingly sober when one knows with what crudity he revealed his carnal adventures to his friend: "L'une des choses qui me laisseront ici le plus de regrets sont les « possibilités chirurgicales » quittées. Je m'étais mis, en ces temps derniers, aux yeux ; et les cataractes indigènes sont matières à cures bénévoles... Cela me fera sourire, plus tard, d'être quatrième sous-fifre, en un hôpital maritime, à une ouverture d'abcès." ["One of the things that will leave me here with the most regrets are the abandoned 'surgical possibilities.' I had recently taken up eye surgery; and indigenous cataracts provide material for charitable treatments... It will make me smile, later, to be fourth underling, in a naval hospital, at an abscess opening."]
This Nouméan exile allows Segalen to continue writing his Immémoriaux, which finally appeared in 1907 at Mercure de France under the pseudonym Max-Anély (Max in homage to Max Prat and Anély, one of his wife's given names), Segalen not being authorized, in his capacity as military doctor, to sign a fictional work with his patronymic: "Le scénario de mon livre est bâti. J'aurai à mon retour, un mois de travail très dur, puis le laisserai mûrir pour reprendre mon Esthétique des Idées-Malades. J'ai besoin de deux ans d'Europe." ["The scenario of my book is built. I will have on my return, a month of very hard work, then will let it ripen to resume my Aesthetics of Sick Ideas. I need two years of Europe."] On January 29, 1902, Segalen had defended his thesis whose title was Medical observation among naturalist writers and dealt with neuroses in contemporary literature. Under the influence of Gourmont and Fleury he planned to deepen his subject and publish the work mentioned in this letter; this publication would never see the light of day.