—. The continuation of Swann (if I have properly understood)? or Swann itself? If it is the continuation, there exist only the excerpts, very long, true, of the 2nd volume, which appeared in the Nlle Revue Fçaise.17 The War came, the 2nd and 3rd volumes could not be published, naturally. I have friends who continue to write books, and publish them, since they send them to me. No doubt their publisher is not mobilized like mine, their thoughts are not mobilized like mine which, as regards ‘proofs’ [épreuves, which also means ‘trials, difficulties’], are at this time turned towards others than those I would have to be correcting. So if it is the continuation of Swann I have only the excerpts from the Nlle R. F. This took up two Issues of the Revue. I should have them. But where? I will look for them. If I don’t find them today, I will write to Gide, the only director of the N.R.F. who has been mobilized in Paris itself (as far as I know). I am too happy about having such a reader as you to miss this opportunity. But will these detached pages give you an idea of the 2nd volume? And the 2nd volume itself doesn’t mean much; it’s the 3rd that casts the light and illuminates the plans of the rest. But when one writes a work in 3 volumes in an age when publishers want only to publish one at a time, one must resign oneself to not being understood, since the ring of keys is not in the same part of the building as the locked doors. —. It is true that one must resign oneself to something worse which is to not being read. At least I would have the joy of knowing that those lovely lucid eyes had rested on these pages.

I don’t know if you read, at the time, some intelligent and too-indulgent articles on this book which will perhaps amuse you because they say something about your neighbour and even his bedroom (Lucien Daudet, M. Rostand, J. Blanche etc.).18 Thank you for telling me that I am read by one of your friends at the ‘Front’. Nothing can make me prouder. Please accept Madame my respectful and grateful regards.

MARCEL PROUST

12

[autumn 1914]

‘The flowers will follow …’

Madame,

The Nouvelle Revue Française has published my excerpts in 2 Issues [of] June and July. If I send you 3 (2 issues of July) it is because alas I can only have copies which have been torn apart in order to glue pieces of them on proofs of the 2nd volume which was supposed to appear then, and which the ‘aspera fata’ prevented.19 But the pieces cut out should not be the same in the two Issues. With the two, you will have a single complete one. And alas I will no doubt be obliged to ask you for them back later. But, naturally you will have the whole work in one volume! I will send it to you complete!20 – What I said to you about the real meaning of each part being conferred on them only by the following part, you can find an example of in the June Issue.—In Swann, one might be surprised that Swann should always be entrusting his wife to M. de Charlus, presumed to be her lover, or rather one might be surprised that the author should go to the trouble of publishing yet again after so many vaudevillians of the lowest sort that blindness of husbands (or of lovers). Yet in the June Issue you will see, since the 1st indication of M. de Charlus’s vice appears there, that the reason why Swann knew he could entrust his wife to M. de Charlus was quite different! But I had not wanted to announce it in the 1st volume, preferring to resign myself to being very banal, so that one might come to know the character as in life where people reveal themselves only little by little. Starting with the 3rd volume moreover one will see that Swann has nevertheless been mistaken; M.