Marcel PROUST moved by the death which affects his friend Lauris.

Marcel Proust (1871.1922)

Autograph letter signed to Georges de Lauris.

Two pages in-12° on mourning paper.

Slnd [Monday evening, February 18, 1907]

Kolb, volume VII, pages 83-84

“It seems to me that I am losing Mom a second time. »

Proust learns of the death of the mother of his friend Georges de Lauris.

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“My little Georges, It seems to me that I am losing Mom a second time. And that it is more dreadful for you than it was for me after so much hope for so long and having still seen him suffer like this. But all this disappears in the face of no longer having her, your mother whom I loved so much and whom I never knew, whose face of heroic courage, of gentleness, of detachment from everything that is not you and your father has remained unknown to me and has been so constantly present to me for a year. And your father of whom I constantly think, his pain haunts me, and having never seen him I cannot imagine it. And it's less cruel, because you Georges, I see you, I feel you, I live you, and for me it is the most dreadful torture. If at least I could be useful to you, be close to you, act in the direction of your pain and mine. But my helplessness chains me even more cruelly. Jean Blanc will ask you if I can do nothing for you other than thinking and crying constantly with you. Kindly to you. Marcel. »