Marcel Proust, suffering from asthma, glimpses the gates of death.

Marcel Proust (1871.1922)

Autographed letter signed.

Six pages in-12° square format.

[Paris]. 44 rue Hamelin. [September 1920].

Unpublished letter.

« I am not a successful author, but a finished man. »

A moving and tragic letter from Marcel Proust, suffering from asthma attacks and morphine treatment. The author announces the publication of The Guermantes Way and mentions three of his close friends: Robert de Montesquiou, Robert de Flers, and Madeleine Lemaire. He closes his letter, weary and dying, like an omen of twilight.

_________________________________________________

 "My dear friend, I am writing to you with great difficulty because my asthma attacks have returned with unprecedented violence; for the first^time in my life I am being given morphine, but it does not calm them down, and only leaves me very dazed.

I cannot regret my suffering, for it was most likely brought to light in broad daylight" to secure a 12,000-franc grant for a deserving writer in any case [Jacques Rivière, who won the Blumenthal Prize]. – I tell you I am writing to you; no, I am replying, for I could not read a single word of your letter. You and I have replaced writing with drawing; mine is dreadful, yours delightful, but no more decipherable.

If you see Montesquiou, please be kind enough to tell him of my pitiful state so that he might forgive me. I suppose it is to [Henri] Vonoven that I owe the Figaro note. I would have been pleased if it had been mentioned that while I was being knighted, my brother, Professor Proust, chief surgeon of the 10th Army during the war, was promoted to officer. It is doubtless too late. Perhaps the appearance of The Guermantes Way, which I will send you in the next few days (as soon as it is published), will allow for this reminder. But perhaps you followed Flers to Le Gaulois. In that case, it would be much easier. Dear friend, if you remember that I "got up" with you last summer (fatigue suddenly prevents me from finishing my letter). In short, I desperately want you to come and have dinner by my bedside, or perhaps at the Ritz, once this awful asthma attack has passed, and then for things to continue. Yours affectionately, Marcel.

Montesquiou wrote to me that it wasn't my health that had prevented me from seeing him for 15 years. And Madame^" Lemaire writes to me that if I don't maintain regular correspondence with her, it's because I'm a successful author. I'm not a successful author, but a finished man, consoled if he sees you a few times." We don't have the right to be dying.