Lettre autographe signée adressée à Emile Mignard : "Nouméa a cecy de morne : que c'est une stupide ville."

Autograph letter signed by Victor Segalen addressed to Emile Mignard. Three and a half pages written in black ink on a folded sheet. Transverse fold inherent to the 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 friend 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 has been in Nouméa, a city he loathes, since early April 1904: "Nouméa a cecy de morne : que c'est une stupide ville." ["Nouméa has this dullness: that it is a stupid city."] He attended the health council that annually brings together the doctors from the ships of the French Pacific division to decide on convalescences, leave and transfers. For a month, a mechanical problem has prevented the Durance from leaving Nouméa: "Nous préparons imperturbablement notre départ, mon cher Emile, depuis un mois, et toujours « pour la semaine prochaine ». La ville se tord. On retape. On essaie. On retape - finalement peut-être serons-nous en mer Dimanche et à Tahiti pour le 1er Juillet." ["We have been imperturbably preparing our departure, my dear Emile, for a month, and always 'for next week'. The city twists. We patch. We try. We patch - finally perhaps we will be at sea Sunday and in Tahiti for July 1st."] Segalen relieves boredom as he can: "[...] j'y ai découvert une troublante jeune fille triste, aux pâles yeux pers, désabusée et frêle. Nous nous écrivons des choses désolées et préparons notre adieu." ["[...] I discovered there a disturbing sad young girl, with pale greenish eyes, disillusioned and frail. We write desolate things to each other and prepare our farewell."] In addition to these amorous letters, he continues writing his Immémoriaux, still lamenting the lack of time to devote to it: "Ponctuellement je « couvre » cinq pages en 24 heures. Je vais plus vite depuis l'entraînement sérieux du mois dernier. Dire que cet élément métier, chronométrique et mesquin, est nécessaire, pour que la rêverie se réalise, et que l'idée se revête de Forme." ["Punctually I 'cover' five pages in 24 hours. I go faster since the serious training of last month. To think that this craft element, chronometric and petty, is necessary, for the reverie to be realized, and for the idea to be clothed in Form."] The work would finally appear in 1907 at Mercure de France under the pseudonym Max-Anély (Max in homage to Max Prat and Anély, one of his wife's first names), Segalen not being authorized, in his capacity as military doctor, to sign a fictional work with his patronymic name.